Message-ID: <199701060634.BAA27647@kei.com> Date: Mon, 6 Jan 1997 01:34:43 -0500 From: Yvonne Sobers <mailto:asante@COLIS.COM> Subject: Re: pushing development- To: Multiple recipients of list DEVEL-L <mailto:DEVEL-L@AMERICAN.EDU>
An African proverb goes: "The person who is not sitting on the ant hole says we are sitting nicely here".Those who are not sitting on the ant hole seem, predictably in this thread, to be speaking about, around, above the voiceless who sit on the ant hole. Perhaps some of us are too occupied on a daily basis dealing with the immediacy of survival, to quote from the latest development literature written by those who are sitting comfortably elsewhere.
The underdeveloped section of the developed countries know something about sitting on ant holes: the 100 million people of the North who live below the official poverty line, the 5 million that are homeless, black minorities that encounter the injustice out of which rage and riots emerge. So theorists of the North have opportunities to test their development solutions at home.
Any transfer of technology or development methodology needs to incorporate the compassion and sensitivity mentioned in a recent thread. This might enable assumptions - racist, reactionary, liberal or Marxist - to checked against the realities of a third of the world's population that is worse off today than in 1980. The 1996 UNDP Human Development Report points out that aid strategies have resulted in a situation in which:
"In the past 15 years the world has become more economically polarized - both between countries and within countries. If present trends continue, economic disparities between industrial and developing nations will move from inequitable to inhuman"
The Report goes on to point out that:
"In a fast-changing global economy, there are no simple answers, no easy rides."
So Northern intellectuals on this list may argue among themselves the validity of positions and determine the answer must be this or that, blaming, justifying, excusing, scoring points. Meanwhile, Northern decisions continue to be based on Northern perspectives backed up by hard currency, military might, and questionable practices of agencies such as Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA). The invisible unheard ones who feel the pain, grow mistrustful and cynical as the haves have still more, and the have-nots have still less.
The silence from those at the receiving end of traditional development strategies may indicate that the ant holes conceal impatient volcanoes.
Yvonne ============================================================================ ========