For a nerve-jangling 72 days in mid-1981, a Blue Star Line ship with 145,000 frozen mutton carcases from Australia on board cruised in a desperate “holding pattern” around the Indian Ocean, like the Flying Dutchman of legend.
The carcases had been loaded at Australian ports under a contract between Elders (in partnership with meat processor Charles David), and the Iranian Meat Organisation (IMO), the government agency then responsible for all meat imports to Iran.
Normally the voyage from Australia to the Iranian unloading port of Bandar Abbass would take just 17 days, but the ship had been directed by its Australian clients to remain at sea until payment was forthcoming from the dilatory IMO.
It was an anxious time for all concerned, and none more than Howard Gardner, the Elders executive who, as the company’s Middle East representative since 1977, had done the groundwork leading up to this long-awaited meat deal.
Eventually payment was confirmed and the ship was allowed to dock and unload its $3.2 million ovine cargo – the first of four such shiploads totalling 13,200 tonnes in all – although the delay cost the Australian partners a hefty $482,000 in demurrage costs.
The drama surrounding this first shipment of frozen mutton by Elders is one of many incidents recounted by Howard Gardner in a book he has just published about his eventful Middle Eastern stint. Entitled ‘No Magic Carpet’, the book should be a must-read primer for any “newchum” contemplating business dealings in the Middle East – or for that matter, for governments, generals and others venturing into Middle Eastern affairs.
Howard, who worked for Elders and its predecessor Goldsbrough Mort for 33 years before leaving in 1985 to become the founding chief executive of CALM – the forerunner of AuctionsPlus – wrote the book mainly at the suggestion of his family, as a memoir of an unforgettable period of their lives. But what started out as a personal reminiscence of six years spent living as Elders’ “man on the spot” in Tehran and Bahrain grew into a more thoughtful analysis of Western interaction with the Middle East, and an examination of why so many ventures – from broken contracts to costly and futile wars – end in tears.
The book covers the Iranian revolution and fall of the Shah and the ensuing upheaval that attended the Shah’s replacement with the Islamic hardliner, Ayatollah Khomeini.
The main reason for these disappointments, he says, is an appalling ignorance on the part of Westerners of Middle Eastern cultures, in particular the pervasive influence of religion in everyday lives, and in commerce. In his summing-up, he writes of the “almost total lack of understanding of Islamic culture in the Western business, military and political communities, and more specifically, of the business cultures of Muslims in their own environment”.
He puts this ignorance down to the fact that most of our “intelligence” of Middle Eastern countries has come from diplomatic or military sources, both of which have traditionally lived and worked at arm’s length from the local populace.
“In order to properly understand Islamic culture I believe it is necessary to live as an ordinary citizen among Muslims, and communicate with the locals as they go about their daily lives,” he says. Only then would you learn, for instance, not to display the sole of your shoe during a top-level meeting, as United States President George W Bush did during a Middle East visit a few years ago. It’s “not done” in polite Muslim society.
Nor was it kosher in 1970s Iran for a man to step out in public wearing shorts and long socks – as Howard discovered soon after his arrival, when he found himself being photographed by the Shah’s palace guards during an exploratory stroll around Tehran. Apart from its messages to intending Middle Eastern players, the book will interest graziers who were around during the early years of the live sheep export trade, which took off in the mid-1970s in the wake of the oil-price boom.
Howard records his role in the development of this scene-changing trade, which began for Elders with the chartering of the vessel ‘Atlas Pioneer’ in August 1976 to deliver 52,000 sheep to Kuwait.
Later the focus shifted to the promotion of chilled lamb and mutton sales, made difficult in Iran by the inadequacy of refrigeration infrastructure and the 800 kilometres of distance separating the nation’s capital, Tehran, from its port.
The book covers the Iranian revolution and fall of the Shah, which took place in early 1979 while the Gardners were living in Tehran, and the ensuing upheaval that attended the Shah’s replacement with the Islamic hardliner, Ayatollah Khomeini.
It also covers the live sheep export crisis of 1978, when meatworkers and farmers – the latter led by then rising agripolitician Ian McLachlan – clashed on the wharves in Adelaide as unionists attempted to prevent ships waiting to load 90,000 sheep.
But also of interest to the general reader will be the author’s descriptions of life and customs in the 1970s Middle East – a world far removed from the leafy haven of St Ives on Sydney’s North Shore that is home today to Howard and his wife Margaret.
Howard Gardner’s book, ‘No Magic Carpet’, is a 124-page paperback, liberally illustrated. It is available direct from the author for $25 plus postage. Email hjmgardn@bigpond.net.au or phone 0418 118 797.
