Message-ID: <199610011146.GAA06990@anditel.andinet.lat.net> Date: Tue, 1 Oct 1996 06:20:34 -0500 From: Reinaldo Vicini <mailto:interext@ANDITEL.ANDINET.LAT.NET> Subject: Re: "Appropriate technology" still useful? To: Multiple recipients of list DEVEL-L <mailto:DEVEL-L@AMERICAN.EDU>
Dear William, Santiago and friends:A PERSONAL REMARK TO WILLIAM MADE PUBLIC I think is not a matter of who is not having 40 TV Channels or a personalized license plate -I don't have it-. I am aware of my country's poverty and I feel sorry that you can't recognize that much of the poverty and corruption does not have to do with most of private enterprise, but with government corruption and oligopolistic practices of some entrepreneurs who used high tariffs policies to charge high prices for low quality for more than thirty years.
> At root, my friend, it's an ethical question. Open your heart to your
> fellow human beings; the ones without 40 channels or even a hope of
> buying a car, much less one with personalized identification.
Anyway, even if cable is not a luxury here at all since most colombians have access to international TV in small town and villages, I am not ashamed of working honestly and paying for it. We have more to do to provide our share, sure. We, as more favored, have a social responsability with the least favored ones, and we must help in accordance to our posibilities. I agree with you.
Please take a look at this address: http://www.colomsat.net.co/rotarios.bogota I personally don't know about your contribution since I don't know you as you don't know me. This is not the place for that kind of personal controversies. I am expressing my personal opinions, and I hope you hear my perspective as I do yours and others in a civilized way and without unsustained *personal attacks*, I believe you can't fit me into a "cold-hearted rich man" stereotype without knowing me personally and just because I like free competitive enterprise. I am an entrepreneur and I work as much as you do
UNDERDEVELOPED COUNTRIES ARE RESPONSIBLE OF THEIR PAST FAILURES AND THEIR FUTURE SUCESS I have a positive point from my perspective. I can't feel *less able* if I live in an underdeveloped country. I am not going to sit down and cry blaming everyone else of my own problems. Because, none of us can deny that part of our problems is due to our own incompetence and linency towards corruption.
That is why I *respectfully* disagree with Santiago's words: > What has happened (as Schumacher correctly points out, along with one
Karl Marx and others) is that a small group of countries went on a worldwide rampage -backed by their Navies and their Gatling guns- and "free-traded" the weaker peoples' natural resources into one large pool of Capital, which they still use to determine who moves ahead and who doesn'tAccording to Santiago's opinion, we are definitely doomed!. We can't ignore the reasons for expansion of the British Empire. However, even if Britain is a financial center, it is not the "empire where the sun never sets" anymore. I personally can't keep up with the permanent cry -lamento- of such school. NO! The point is trying to be constructive. Yes we can!. Other communities have done it. Through time we have seen lots of examples. Underdeveloped countries can't live forever behind a curtain of high tariffs and resentment. Again, people decide what's best for them and no tariffs can stop it. Let us upgrade our resources -human and capital- and help building each one of us a better future. We can't ignore the environment around us, but we can't think that can't be changed through our actions.
The countries that leave all those prejudisms behind and pay attention to their own destiny heading his future with a global perspective will be meeting its time with history. Unfortunely *Globality* has been the pattern for success in the Western World and now, more than ever. Not claustrophobic idealism.
Best Regards
Reinaldo Vicini mailto:interext@anditel.andinet.lat.net http://www.colomsat.net.co/rotarios.bogota
Como todas las cosas est½n llenas de mi alma emerges de las cosas, llena de alma mía. Mariposa de sueôo, te pareces a mi alma, y te pareces a la palabra melancolía _____________________________________________
Poema 15 - Fragmento Pablo Neruda 20 Poemas de amor y una cancin desesperada