Preparationists in Spain

Prepping is no longer the sole preserve of Anglo-Saxon followers in North America and the UK – it is fast taking hold among Latin populations and in Spain in particular, according to a story in Euronews on the 9^th of April 2021.

The story unravels events on one of the increasingly popular survival courses now springing up all over Spain. According to the article, in less than a year, demand for such courses has increased by more than 30%. The training is designed to assist what we would call preppers but which the Euro-centric press insists on calling – somewhat inelegantly – “preparationists”.

Preparationism

If you can get your head around the term preparationism, it’s pretty clear that it means exactly the same as the prepping that preppers do.

As we follow the objectives of the training course at the Spanish School of Survival, for example, we are told that there are basic survival techniques – using a flint as an arrowhead, a spear point, or an axe blade, is just one of the examples – but that there is a qualitative difference between learning to survive if you are lost in the mountains to preparing for survival following a breakdown of social order and the loss of basic amenities.

The importance – and immediacy – of the latter have been thrust to the fore by the various disruptions experienced by people during the pandemic and its successive lockdowns and restrictions.

Less than the fear of the disease itself has been the uncertainty, disruption and overturning of previous norms that may have worried ordinary people more. One preparationist won over to the cause, for example, told Euronews that he was attending the survival course in order to learn what he could do in any similar emergency to protect his family if the worst came to the worst.

Sharing the knowledge

There are odd pockets in what is a relatively new movement in this part of Europe where preparationists seem reluctant to reveal the stockpiles of provisions they have assembled or even to discuss the where, what, and when of their activities.

Others, though, are far more open and more than happy to welcome curious visitors in an effort to share their knowledge.

But even among these more open-minded groups, where traditional and ancient techniques for working with and alongside nature are shared, there is some sense of nervousness and an uncertainty about some of the dangers that might lie ahead.

As the Euronews reporters head off to survivalists’ stamping grounds near Toledo, to the south of Madrid, for example, one preparationist talks not only about the importance of preparing for the unexpected but also of preparing for the possibility that some people in any future emergency situation might be bent on harming you. When bad things are happening all around you, he warns, “there are always people out to kill, rob, or plunder”.

In response to threats such as these he says, it is important for preppers to hide their possessions and to bury essential items in out of the way places that only they can find again. In that way, you can use them to get yourself out of trouble. Though hoping that the crisis never comes, the preparationist ultimately believes that one day and one way or another it will come.

Perhaps the final word goes to the founder of one of Spain’s new survival schools who says that they are not getting ready for the end of the world – but that they are getting prepared in case the world ends.