Message-ID: <Pine.SUN.3.91.970104150513.1241B-100000@dante> Date: Sat, 4 Jan 1997 15:41:08 -0700 From: JC WANDEMBERG <mailto:juwandem@NMSU.EDU> Subject: Re: pushing OUR development? To: Multiple recipients of list DEVEL-L <mailto:DEVEL-L@AMERICAN.EDU>
On Sat, 4 Jan 1997 mailto:EUNSteve@aol.com wrote:> My overriding concern is with the growing disenchantment of those in the US
> (I cannot speak for the other "developed" countries) with development, and
> their growing unwillingness to provide tax and private funds for development
> activities.
I would like to know why does this "growing disenchantment" concern you? Is your job at stake perhaps?
> And that unwillingness extends, I think, to the transfer of technology
> activities which are the primary concern of this list.
At this point I must indicate (for those who may not already know this)that the economic returns to the US far outweigh the "tax money" used for foreign aid.
> If JC is right, and the schools and universities we have helped to build and
> staff have not helped those attending them, why should we continue to fund
> and build them?
I've never said this. Nevertheless, the bottom line is that this "laudable aid" helped even more those providing the "help" and this is what I find repulsive. Perhaps you should take a closer look at all the "conditions" and provisos aid recepients must meet in order to "qualify" for "help". To top it all, one must add government corruption on the reciepients side.
> If even the professionals in the development community believe that our work
> abroad destroys indigenous cultures and foists market economies and factory
> work styles and capitalism on peoples who are better off without them--why
> spend our tax funds on such efforts?
I believe I already answered this question above! but here it goes again: because it makes perfect economic sense to the US of course, that's why!
> And that skepticism would extend to transferring technology, of course.
Of course!
> I have come to these predictable conclusions.
> The stories that are told here about heroic indigenous and villainous
> developers are, like all good fictions, fictional.
I suggest you watch the movie "The gods must be crazy" this might give you a different or better perspective.
> They are one view, at most a partial view, of "reality".
Reality is out there,is suffices to go a look at it! I suggest you do that!
> There are other stories that can be made of our development work: in these
> stories the villager who learns to read, learns that there are other ways and
> other worlds beyond his village, and begins the painful journey that begins
> with separation from the family and friends and ways of his childhood, has
> not been destroyed by literacy but freed by it, set free to search for new
> possibilities.
Yeah right!, like risking his/her life trying to cross the Mexican/US border to the "land of opportunity" and dollars$$$$!
> In still anther story, the community that chooses Burger King and Levis and
> The Grateful Dead and abandons the glorious folk culture that the outsider so
> enjoys has to be allowed to make that choice, and the outside anthropologist
> or developer or cultural purist must not be allowed to interfere with this
> choice.
Had this choice internally originated you may have a point. However, the way is goes is that this "choice" was simply a natural consequence from the external stimuli.
> I conclude this:
> All of us who see ourselves as "change agents" are in the business of
> cultural destruction, whether we like it or not.
Your conclusion is brilliant!. Unless "change agents" are willing to become "communicators" or "facilitators" they'll continue to shove their stuff down the throat of their "laggard" "underdeveloped" clientel.
> So: I'm for participatory approaches. And sustainable development. And
> respect for indigenous cultures. And all the more noble approaches to
> development.
Great!
> But I have to begin by acknowledging that no matter how much the
> participation, how little the external control, the school that I help to
> build, the seeds that I bring, the battery-powered transistor radio I
> distribute: all of these are part of a process that will undo the culture
> that has endured for so long.
Absolutely, only non-purposeful systems can stay the same forever!
> Change agents change.
Right again, but the crucial question must remain: in what direction? and who is to decide?
Best regards,
************************************************************ |J.C. Wandemberg |
|Ph.D Graduate Researcher |
| |
| |
|INTERNATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR NATURAL, ENVIRONMENTAL |
|& CULTURAL RESOURCES MANAGEMENT (IIRM) |
|College of Agriculture & Home Economics (NMSU) |
|Box 30003, Dept. 3169, Las Cruces, NM 88003-003 USA |
|URL:http://www.nmsu.edu/~iirm E-Mail:mailto:juwandem@nmsu.edu |
**********************************************************Nota:Las opiniones aqui vertidas son de exclusiva responsibilidad de su autor y no representan necesariamente la posicion del Instituto. Note: The opinions expressed here are the exclusive responsibility of its author and do not necessarily represent that of IIRM.