I am, or have been, what is called an international
development professional. What is a
development professional? In short, we
work in or provide services to international institutions. These purportedly aim
at reducing social and economic disparity, minimizing poverty if you wish,
between nations and peoples on this planet.
Some of these institutions are government agencies of wealthy nations. Many are called non-government organizations,
popularly known as NGOs, and they are funded at least in part by the private
sector. Other institutions are
multi-lateral, funded by more than one government, like the World Bank and the
United Nations. There are hundreds of
these institutions. And certainly
thousands of us. International
development is big business.
Here, in these pages, I am attempting to come to terms
with what I have experienced on a personal level. If it were a professional account, the book
would be littered with footnotes and references and language that would often
be inaccessible to the ordinary reader.
As an example:
Here we refer specifically to the matrix form
used in the Logical Framework Approach called the Logical Framework Analysis,
logical framework, logframe, or LFA.
(The LFA) is a key building block during project planning helping to
focus discussion on the expected results, beneficiaries (target groups), the
performance indicators and potential risks.[1]
One wonders just what an
LFA is, if it is an approach, an analysis, a framework, or a frame. But such wondering is not what I am at. Nor am I fixed on dates or precisely who did
what, the journalist’s approach.
Clarification of obtuse language and the provision of facts are not my
strong point, which, in part
probably make me not a very good professional.
Professionals are full of clarity, facts, and certainty. That’s what they get paid for. They get paid for truth. And I just cannot seem to get my hands
gripping so easily onto truth.
However, I once did.
Over ten years ago when parts of this blog began to appear out of
nowhere, I had a faith in liberal humanism, as though such philosophical
thought was true, in the sense of truth.
Truth, it seemed to me then, was easy to see. And only short discussion and a few pokes at
clearly fatuous thought, would turn anyone into a liberal minded humanist. Obviously, they would also then dive
gloriously into democracy. Soon enough
we would figure out whatever we had to figure out together because we would be
clearly on the same enlightened path. We
would be conscious, ethical, pleasantly disturbed with complexity and our
resulting uncertainty and doubt. Mindful
of criticism, we would always seek a way to cooperate and to adjust not only
our public lives but also our personal lives.
Well, ten years plus have passed.
I remain a liberal thinking humanist.
But my faith has evaporated and I expect very little from anyone else.
I think the kicker has been this charade in Afghanistan, the Middle East and, of course, in Washington and on Wall Street.
Out here in the wild world of international development professionals,
we are only getting more and more jobs and, of course, richer in the
process. In the meantime, while the
sales of armaments are escalating, we are aware of an increasing rate and
degree of human disparity that is mind boggling all while the planet is diving
headlong into a new and unimaginable, systemic alteration of ecology. In theory, as professionals we consider
ourselves responsible for these issues.
What gets me is that my and my professional pals’ feet never quite touch
this turf. I mean, we head into Iraq after the bombs fall and into famine after people
starve; but none of us would suggest that our jobs depend on bombs and famine
rather than averting them. It is as
though we live in a new strata of the planet’s biosphere: present, but whisking
away invisibly when scrutinized under any microscope, curving in time and space
such that we are never quite where we thought or think we are, as though our
gravitational pull is toward a society with tremendous psychological density,
yet no mass. The geographers and the
physicists will have to figure this one out.
So, I have wondered what to call this blog entry. I mean, what do you call an entry, or an entire blog if at its
root it is about something no one knows?
My father, once upon a long time ago a psychiatrist, would help me with a title. I can hear him telling me,
simply: psychosis. Delusions of reality. I am adding two key words: courtier and utopia. An Alice in Wonderland world. Many thanks to my literary friends, most of
whom I have never met, who have given me a sense of the horror that the combination of these terms
imply.
JP Melville
An Idea Conceived in Bamako, Mali
[1] Of course, I must footnote this quote. From : Overview of the Bilateral Project
Cycle. Asia Branch, Americas
Branch, Africa & Middle East Branch, Canadian International Development
Agency. February 1999.
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