Western Governments: E for Effort

From Frauke Heard-Bey’s ‘From the Trucial States to the United Arab Emirates:’

'Foreword:

By Sir Geoffrey Arthur, KCMG, formerly Political Resident

‘When the United Arab Emirates was established as a state at the end of 1971 it had few admirers in the West: it was incomplete, it looked loose and ramshackle, and it was born – so said the facile commentators of the day - under the ill star of British patronage. It has since acquired a host of fair-weather friends, but I do not recollect that a single special correspondent of a major Western newspaper – let alone a politician or a statesman – took the trouble to attend the ceremony of its formation.’

Well, get you, Western Governments!

That’s super-random. Who would have thought our glorious elected leaders would behave like a bunch of bitchy tweens and shoot themselves in the foot so spectacularly? I mean, hello? Oil? Thick black stuff? Oozes out of the ground here? Worth about a thousand dollars an ounce?

Was the internal combustion engine not invented until the 1980s? Because I’m pretty sure there was a massive energy crisis in the 1970s, and if so, declining to attend the ceremony establishing the UAE seems about as clever as sleeping with the window open during a forest fire. Civil Servants breed like cockroaches, I'm sure we could have spared a couple for the afternoon.

They should have just called OPEC the Organisation of Last Laughs.