Ragnar Benson - Ragnar's Urban Survival

But exactly how could residents of Kosovo have kept from becoming victim refugees? It’s like a recap of this entire book.

They could have recognized early on that government can never guarantee safety—that at some point personal responsibility would always enter in.

After looking out at bitter experiences of others in nearby regions, they should have figured out that extensive preparations would be necessary. These preparations should have included provision for alternate shelter, food, water. defense, medical supplies, and whatever else their personal Rule of Threes suggested.

They should not have lived among potentially hostile people as identifiable targets. This would have entailed adopting plain vanilla dress as well as living and personal habits that kept them from standing out. Once hostilities became obvious, these folks would have had to engage in deep hiding.

Warsaw’s Jews quickly discovered that by being forcibly collected together, they became an easy and perhaps popular target. On the other hand, the Nazis found that when Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto coalesced into fighting units, they became some pretty tough nuts! I am reliably informed that Albanians in Kosovo did nothing to help themselves. Their solution to the problem was to band together and run to another government for protection, not to band together to stand and fight.

Reliable accounts surface about the fact that Albanians in Kosovo were completely inflexible in their conduct of life. I asked Ziga whether it was true that “starving” Kosovars refused to eat U.S. Army field rations especially formulated for Islamic people. He said it was true.

These people consented to becoming refugees in spite of great world and regional evidence that refugees are frequently treated poorly.

They miserably failed to modify their religious practices when it became a life-and-death matter, and these practices were revealed to be more cultural than religious. Admittedly this is a touchy, difficult area, but I am assured by Islamic teachers that rape on the part of invading armies is not a religious death sentence for that society’s Muslim women members, unless that society arbitrarily dictates that it is. As additional evidence, I was reminded of the great rape of the Muslim population in India at partition, and of the “de-oathing” of Mau Mau in Kenya to cite another religious example from Christianity. (In the case of Mau Mau, African individuals engaged in homosexual practices as part of their initiation ceremonies. It was supposed that these practices were so heinous that participants could never leave that society. However, a quasi-religious counter ceremony, known as de-oathing, was cobbled together, allowing Mau Maus to reform.)

At any rate, all of this suggests again that there is nothing out there that will keep us from making it through tough times in big cities. True enough, we will be laughed at, scorned, and made official pariahs for our preparedness beliefs and practices. That’s the way it is and that’s the way it is going to be. We will also be the ones who build the next society. In that regard alone, we will have the last laugh.

Ragnar Benson is the product of the last of the small 80-acre Midwestern subsistence farms. Currently he lives in the mountainous West but, because of advancing age, he has decreased the number of foreign “assignments” he will take on. He has lived and worked in 63 different countries.

Benson’s current and past way of life reflects the survival philosophy he espouses. He actually lives the frugal, independent life of a survivor.

But Benson has spent a good deal of his life in the big city. Internationally he has had ample opportunity to see cause and effect of collapsed big-city economies. His father before him survived in post-World War I Germany and his mother was a survivor of the first Communist purges in Russia.

Ragnar is uncertain whether those skilled at city survival will have an easier or tougher time than their counterparts out in the country The principles involved, but not the practices, are similar.

Both groups of survivors will have to work harder than they ever have in their lives, Benson speculates. His only concerns are that Americans have become too specialized and that they may lack motivation to actually survive in tough circumstances.

Having studied survival for well over 60 years, Benson is able to reduce the concept down to several easily understood guidelines. As with all of life, the devil is in the details. For varying reasons and for various lengths of time, city survivors are currently operating in different places around the world, Benson has found.

As much as anything, “A Hard-Times Guide to Staying Alive in the City” reflects how Benson currently lives.

Acquiring New ID

Do-It-Yourself Medicine

Eating Cheap

Guerrilla Gunsmithing

Hard-Core Poaching

Live Off the Land in the City and Country

Mantrapping

Modern Survival Retreat

Modern Weapons Caching

Ragnar’s Action Encyclopedia (Volumes 1 and 2, Revised)

Ragnar’s Guide to the Underground Economy

Ragnar’s Guide to Interviews, Investigations, and Interrogations

Ragnar’s Urban Survival

Ragnar’s Ten Best Traps

Survival Nurse

Survival Poaching

Survival Retreat

Survivalist’s Medicine Chest

Switchblade

Ragnar’s Urban Survival: A Hard-Times Guide to Staying Alive in the City by Ragnar Benson

Copyright © 2000 by Ragnar Henson

ISBN 1-58160-059-3

Printed in the United States of America

Published by Paladin Press, a division of Paladin Enterprises, Inc.

Gunbarrel Tech Center

7077 Winchester Circle

Boulder, Colorado 80301 USA

+1.303.443.7250

Direct inquiries and/or orders 10 the above address.

PALADIN, PALADIN PRESS, and the “horse head” design are trademarks belonging to Paladin Enterprises and registered in United States Patent and Trademark Office.

All rights reserved. Except for use in a review, no portion of this book may be reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the publisher.

Neither the author nor the publisher assumes any responsibility for the use or misuse of information contained in this book.

Visit our Web site at www.paladju-press.com