Negative Panic

The “revolution” in the Middle East seems over, and nothing happened that affected the Western world—so everything is okay, isn’t it? Now we can get back to our lives with no worries. Is that right?

Well, no, it isn’t.

A friend of mine mentioned the idea of negative panic to me recently. He was referring to a concept used in training commercial airline flight cabin crews about safety measures. In the worst accident in aviation history, 583 people lost their lives in a collision between a Dutch KLM aircraft and a Pan American World Airways plane in Tenerife, Canary Islands. The date was March 27, 1977.

The KLM crew mistakenly took the same runway that the Pan Am flight had been cleared to use and the planes collided. Psychologist Daniel Johnson interviewed the 61 survivors, and his investigation led to the conclusion that more people could have survived, had they not experienced “negative panic.” They were alive and either uninjured or mobile enough to have exited their plane (the Pan Am aircraft) before it exploded.

But they didn’t. They just sat in their seats. In spite of the obvious emergency, they were mentally paralyzed by negative panic. People experiencing this “do little or nothing to escape a life-threatening situation,” when they could have just walked away if they chose to do so.

Is the West experiencing “negative panic” over the seemingly fizzled Middle East crisis? Should we be concerned about what happened—and what might yet happen?

I believe we should. First, we need to beware of the fact that the recent crisis started over food. It began with 26-year-old Mohamed Bouazizi. He lived with his five siblings, his mother and an uncle in a three-room house in the city of Sidi Bouzid, Tunisia. He supported his family by selling fruit from a street cart.

The food revolutions

On Dec. 17, 2010, a police inspector attempted to confiscate his fruit, claiming he was operating illegally. When he struggled with the inspector, she slapped him, after which two of her colleagues beat him, taking his fruit and his market scale. Mohamed followed them to the police station, where he was beaten a second time for demanding the return of his property. Then he went to the governor’s office to appeal his desperate plight, but no one would listen to him.

So, Mohamed soaked himself with paint thinner outside the government offices and set himself on fire in protest. That fire and his resultant death ignited the riots that led to the overthrow of the Tunisian regime. And, in a few days, it triggered a military coup in Egypt.

It also touched off rioting in numerous other countries, including Jordan, Albania and Yemen. Have you heard that Libya’s Gaddafi is urging Palestinians to mass on Israel’s borders to force their will over Gaza? Who knows where that will lead?

But let’s go back to the food issue, because that is what is “about to explode.” The London Telegraph writes about the crisis: “The surge in global food prices … is not the underlying cause of Arab revolt.… Yet they are the trigger and have set off a vicious circle.”

That should shock us all! While people in the Western world spend 10 to 15 percent of their income on three meals per day, people in the underdeveloped world spend approximately 50 percent of their income for two meals per day. Plainly speaking, billions of the world’s citizens are going to be scraping even harder to have enough food to eat.

World food prices skyrocketing

What is causing the dramatic increase in the price of food? The article continues: “The immediate cause of this food spike was the worst drought in Russia and the Black Sea region for 130 years, lasting long enough to damage winter planting as well as the summer harvest. Russia imposed an export ban on grains. This was compounded by late rains in Canada, Nina disruptions in Argentina, and a series of acreage downgrades in the US. The world’s stocks-to-use ratio for corn is nearing a 30-year low.…”

What difference will it make in the cost of food for people in the West? Everything that consumes corn (chickens, sheep, cattle, etc.) and every product made with corn (sodas, syrups, snack food, cereals and ethanol) is going to cost more. “Get ready for higher food prices,” shouts a headline from a newspaper in the Corn Belt!

You may have already noticed it in your grocery and fuel bills. Be prepared to see more price hikes as the cost increases trickle their way through the food production chain. Chicken prices will go up within a few months. The price hikes for packaged foods will take a little longer. And, it will take up to two years for the full impact to be seen in the price of beef. But it will happen.

What to do about it

But what can you do about it? It’s not as though you can run from the world as you could run from a downed airplane about to explode.

Ah, but you can. Let me explain.

Matthew records this advice from Jesus Christ for the times when one is consumed with worry about just putting food on the table: “Therefore I say to you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat…. Is not life more than food…? Look at the birds of the air, for they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? Which of you by worrying can add one cubit to his stature? [An expression that means no one can add any length to his life through worry.] … Therefore do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ … For after all these things the Gentiles seek. [‘Gentiles’ is a generic term that simply implies everyone who does not know the Creator God.] For your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things” (Matthew 6:25-32).

That’s great! Our Heavenly Father knows that we have these concerns and needs. But how’s that going to put food on the table? Christ answers: “But seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you” (verse 33 ).

First, we must ensure that we know the Creator—that we have a daily, abiding personal relationship with Him. And that we are living the way He expects His children to live.

The Church of God, a Worldwide Association, is putting the finishing touches on a detailed explanation of the Kingdom of God, and, most importantly how we can “seek it.” We will announce it soon!

Don’t be paralyzed by negative panic when you could take action that would save your life.