Read the passage and answer the questions given below it.

Our civilization is more secure because it is much more widely spread. Most of the previous civilizations came to an end because uncivilized peoples broke in and destroyed them. This was the fate of Babylon, Assyria, India, China, Greece and Rome. Previous civilizations were specialized and limited like an oasis in a surrounding desert of savagery. Eventually, the desert closed in and the oasis was no more. But to-day, it is the oasis which is spreading over the desert. Practically no part of the world is untouched by it.

For the first time, the world has now a chance of becoming a single whole, a unity. To-day, the food we eat comes from all over the world. The things in a grocer’s shop are from the ends of the earth. There are oranges from Brazil, grapes from Africa, rice from India, tea from china, sugar from Columbia etc. To-day the world is beginning to look more like one enormous box. Therefore, there is little danger upon our civilization from outside. The danger comes only from within; it is a danger from among us.

To-day, the sharing-out of money – the sharing-out of food, clothing, houses and books, is still very unfair. In England alone, in sharing out of the National Income, we find that one half is divided among every sixteen people and the seventeenth person gets the other half. So while some few people live in luxury, many have not even enough to eat and drink and wear. Again, in England to-day, thousands of people live in dreadful surroundings. There are many families of five or six persons who live in a single room; in this same room they are born and in this same room they die, because, they are too poor to afford another room. Until everyone gets his proper share of necessary and delightful things, our civilization will not be perfect.

What according to the writer was the desert that surrounded the oasis?

Savagery

According to the writer, the desert that surrounded the oasis represents "savagery."

Explanation:
The passage uses the metaphor of an oasis in a desert to describe previous civilizations and their vulnerability to destruction by uncivilized peoples. The oasis symbolizes these civilizations, which were specialized and limited, while the desert represents the surrounding savagery or lack of civilization. Previous civilizations like Babylon, Assyria, India, China, Greece, and Rome eventually fell because the savagery or uncivilized peoples broke in and destroyed them. Therefore, the term "savagery" refers to the hostile forces or lack of civilization that posed a threat to these previous civilizations.