Message-ID: <v02140b00aef98f40fec0@DialupEudora> Date: Wed, 8 Jan 1997 14:29:40 -0600 From: Anselm Erighono <mailto:aerighon@BLUE.WEEG.UIOWA.EDU> Subject: Re: pushing development- To: Multiple recipients of list DEVEL-L <mailto:DEVEL-L@AMERICAN.EDU>
In developing countries, sub-saharan Africa for example, a good life would be waking up to the sunrise and going about the day's labors, and retiring home with the sunset. Retire to the family, gather around with the neighbours and contemplate the day's work and look forward to the next. A simple life.Development is good when its intention is to develop, to improve, to make life more efficient. The situation is quite different when the 'development' is intended to benefit not both parties, but one, to the detriment of the other. The developing parties were not at par on the bargaining table, and they will probably not be for years to come. Their very entity, their persona is not their own choosing, Nigeria for example is a product of the Berlin Conference and expansion of British trading activity along the River Niger. That was then. Nothing has changed.
The Niger Delta village where my father was born along with the Ijaws and the Ogonis have been devestatated by the exploration of the oil multinationals, Shell Oil particularly. The land no longer supports subsistent agriculture, the streams and the swamps slick with oil film, strangled the marine life, which for generations was a generous source of protein.
Young men are dying earlier now than ever, of non-aids related disease. A parade of funerals, one family after another. Our people live on the richest soil and swamps in Nigeria, atop the "sweet Bonny crude," yet the least developed. When the Ogonis protested, the military government, sent troops and killed an estimated 500 people, armless, defenceless. Worse than the Sharpeville massacre in South Africa, if all lives can be counted equal. Their leader, Saro Wiwa and six others were tried by a court, with ' a brief to kill' and then hanged. Business as usual, the World did not murmur. In the midst of this genocide, a British firm was signing a 360 million pounds arms deal with the military government. To provide more arms, to shoot at more people.
But it is all business as usual, the military govt does the 'security work,' the oil companies make their profit and the military boys get paid. Just like the old colonial police got paid, when they shot coal miners in Udi Hills when they dared to protest.
Why then should the north, west, support an election in Nigera. Let the guy die in prison. Why spoil a good business.
It is interesting to read all of the sophisticated arguments about develpment, I can hardly unravel the language. Bob Marley wrote, "Dem belly full, but we hungry." It is difficult to argue on an empty stomach, when life is no longer simple, when each day is a " a jungle out there." When the rules (laws) of the game, change not only from day to day, but retrospectively and the government needs not account to anyone. Development needs compassion, it needs truth, trade means a benefit to both sides, the idea of consideration, something for me and something for you. When that happens, then you can talk about 'development.' And then maybe we will not need development, but trade. Then we need not bother about 'aid'
Andrew Efe