A CNN Travel website wrote an article advertising Banana Island. The very first line of the article is very interesting because it explains that the article was most likely sponsored by Qatar – even though “CNN retains full editorial control over all of its reports.” The full capacity to which Banana Island would agree with everything that is said in this article is not completely known. However, this information is not important for the focus of this blog post. And indeed, considering the other primary source this blog post would like to mention, which is a photo I have taken myself of a billboard in Qatar, I can deduce that Banana Island likely does agree with the promotion presented from the outside party of CNN travel.
The word that is used many times in this article to describe Banana Island is ‘luxury’. For instance: “the luxury resort can be reached via catamaran from Dhow Harbour (located near to the Museum of Islamic Arts) or by private yacht.” But ‘luxury’ is used to describe Qatar’s artificial islands by both an outside source and Qatar itself. Below is an image I have taken of a billboard in Qatar that advertises Gewan Island. ‘Luxury’ is the first word of description on this billboard.
The repetition of ‘luxury’ as the embodiment of Qatar’s artificial island makes it seem as though Qatar’s artificial islands must be luxurious. It seems as though it is an inherent trait of them – and the fact that both the billboard and the article are advertising these places, this means that luxury is something those writing and creating the primary sources believes is a great quality. Whether or not Qatar’s artificial islands need to be ‘luxurious’ is the question I would like to explore in this blog post, and I will use Hannes Bergthaller’s “Fossil Freedoms: The politics of emancipation and the end of oil” to answer it.
Hannes Bergthaller describes how petrol “fueled not only cars, ships and airplanes, but along with them, visions of the good life,” (424, citing Buell, Musiol, Sloterdijk). However, despite how vital petrol is to people, Bergthaller criticizes the idea of calling people addicted to it because the concept does not consider the complicated reasons that explain why we have become accustomed to petrol (425) and instead “invites a view of the dependency on oil as a sort of character flaw, something that could be shaken off if only we could muster the requisite moral stamina.” (425)
However, the vitality of petrol comes from the fact that it made land no longer the only way someone could become affluent, which was the case when the globe was built under the system of farmland cultivation (Bergthaller, 428). Bergthaller explains that “it also allowed for the rapid growth of cities, and consequently for the emergence of modern mass politics” (428). What is especially relevant to these primary sources and the emphasis of the word ‘luxury’ as a quality of both of the artificial islands is that petrol, and how much of it a family would be able to use in their house became the gauge of a successful and free one (Bergthaller 428-429, citing Huber 163-164). But while petrol brings with it this feeling of being able to do what one would like, Bergthaller explains that we are shackled to petrol because we do not have anything we can use besides it (429). Bergthaller states: “from this perspective, life under petromodernity presents an oddly ambivalent, contradictory aspect” (429).
The feeling of being able to do what one would like is captured by not only the CNN travel article but also the billboard. Both of them describe Qatar’s artificial islands as luxurious, as though those islands need to be. Looking at Bergthaller’s book chapter, the reason why luxury is emphasized in both primary sources is the same reason why petrol is important to people. Luxury comes from petrol, and this is clear from the CNN article when it describes Banana Island: “the 141 guest rooms, villas and bungalows here are decorated with Arabic designs and feature deluxe mosaic-adorned bathrooms, all of which are stocked up with automatically controlled curtains, flat-screen TVs, mini-bars and coffee machines.” Technology and petrol are used to make the resort’s rooms, and even arriving at the resort needs petrol, since getting there involves aquatic transport. The luxury room and the different items in it that one can use gives the feeling of being able to do as one would like, which is what petrol allows for. Luxury seems to be inherent in both artificial islands because in order for something to be ‘good’, let alone luxurious, it needs to have items in it that need petrol, and petrol as Bergthaller has argued, is something we are shackled to. These islands would not be luxurious if they did not have different traits in them, because then the person would not feel like they could do whatever they would like.
Hence, the CNN travel article and the billboard advertising artificial islands in Qatar agree with Bergthaller’s explanations of how people are shackled to petrol. But there are openings in this subject, such as the question of what the ‘addiction’ to petrol truly means. Bergthaller opposes this word. However, the idea that one person can go from their home to a luxurious resort temporarily, and then go home, might suggest they might not completely be ‘addicted’ to petrol at all. Or, they are only addicted to what petrol has given them in their daily life and do not need ‘luxury’ petrol. I believe the extents to which someone can be ‘addicted’ to petrol, and in what cases, can be explored more, even if Bergthaller does not agree that this word should be utilized.
Works cited:
Bergthaller, Hannes. “Fossil Freedoms: The politics of emancipation and the end of oil.” The Routledge Companion to the Environmental Humanities. Edited by John Christensen, Ursula K. Heise and Michelle Neimann, London: Routledge, 2017, 424-432.
Buell, Frederick. “A Short History of Oil Cultures: Or, the Marriage of Catastrophe and Exuberance.” Journal of American Studies 46 (2012): 273–293. Print. Quoted in Bergthaller, Hannes. “Fossil Freedoms: The politics of emancipation and the end of oil.” The Routledge Companion to the Environmental Humanities. Edited by John Christensen, Ursula K. Heise and Michelle Neimann, London: Routledge, 2017, 424-432.
Huber, Matthew T. Lifeblood: Oil, Freedom, and the Forces of Capital. Minneapolis, MN: Minnesota University Press, 2013. Print. Quoted in Bergthaller, Hannes. “Fossil Freedoms: The politics of emancipation and the end of oil.” The Routledge Companion to the Environmental Humanities. Edited by John Christensen, Ursula K. Heise and Michelle Neimann, London: Routledge, 2017, 424-432.
Musiol, Hanna. “‘Liquid Modernity’: Sundown in Pawhuska, Oklahoma.” Oil Culture. Ed. Ross Barrett and Daniel Worden. Minneapolis, MN: Minnesota University Press, 2014. 129–144. Print. Quoted in Bergthaller, Hannes. “Fossil Freedoms: The politics of emancipation and the end of oil.” The Routledge Companion to the Environmental Humanities. Edited by John Christensen, Ursula K. Heise and Michelle Neimann, London: Routledge, 2017, 424-432.
Sloterdijk, Peter. “How Big is ‘Big’?” Collegium International, Feb. 2010. Web. 26 May 2015. Quoted in Bergthaller, Hannes. “Fossil Freedoms: The politics of emancipation and the end of oil.” The Routledge Companion to the Environmental Humanities. Edited by John Christensen, Ursula K. Heise and Michelle Neimann, London: Routledge, 2017, 424-432.
