Hello everyone.
I'm glad to see there is actually life on this list. There are two reasons
why I posted my attack on the job in Mongolia:
1. Since joining this list there has been very little in the way of
discussion. There have been job adverts, there have been some requests for
information/help (and responses), but very little sign that there was any
problem with the idea of 'economic and social development' or that
different people on the list might actually not all think the same way
about it. I am glad that my posting actually provoked some people to say
something (positive or negative) and to reveal some of the assumptions that
we have about development.
2. More importantly, I meant what I said. I am fed up with the idea that
western professionals can swan around the world telling people how they
should be thinking and acting. It's not about 'top-down' or 'bottom-up' in
some abstract academic sense. It is about the very real effects of 'the
west knows best' style of development, indeed about the whole idea of
'development' as some unblemished and inevitable march towards a global
free-market utopia. The idea that because the Mongolian state thinks it is
okay means it must be, as one respondant remarked was naive, and failed to
take into account the kind of international pressures that small and weak
(in economic terms) nations are put under to conform with the emerging
dominant global norms, and open themselves up to the 'improving' actions of
FDI and international capital and product markets. The Mongolians at the
moment have a diverse range of local cultures and economies that have
served their peoples well through many years of oppression under Stalinism,
and yes, I do hope that they resist their forced integration into world
markets, because they might then get something (even it ends up being a
compromise) that they have some control over. This doesn't just apply to
Mongolia, it applies everywhere in the world. I don't want economic
globalisation to homogenise local and regional cultures and into some bland
USAID / Disney / Macdonalds / Nestle / Microsoft (etc. ) future. While TNCs
and the poverty and aid industries which support their agenda continue to
promote this future, resistance (in many forms) is and will continue to be
a major strategy for those who would prefer to see a future of
international understanding and interlocal co-operation between
decentralised, democratic and ecologically-aware communities. (See, there
isn't just one possible future...)
Nobody should take this personally unless they feel their own personal
identity is so bound up in the extension of corporate norms to the rest of
the world... in which case, there is probably nothing I can do to persuade
you, although there are those who have been directly involved in these
kinds of projects who have realised what globalisation is doing (David
Korten for example...)
Thanks to those who sent me very measured personal responses - I'm afraid I
can't and won't be neutral about these issues!
Love,
David.
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"When the storm subsides, when the rain and fire leave the earth in peace
again, the world will no longer be the world but something better."
Subcommandante Marcos, Lacandon Jungle, August 1992.
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