We development
professionals who have focussed our activities on less or non-industrialized
nations play an integral role in the diaspora of industrial society. That role reflects two, critical
conditions. The first is that the
development industry is a primary administrative component of that
diaspora. The second condition is that
neither we nor the society are intrinsic to any nation or people. That is, we are mobile, prepared to live in
any place under the auspices of the same development industry. And industrial society has no allegiance to
place. Today, in varying proportions,
one will always find both development professionals and industrial society,
anywhere.
In only very few
cases is development set up in opposition to industrial society and its
predecessors - mercantilism, colonialism, imperialism. Even fewer development professionals would
turn down a conference somewhere just because getting to the conference
entailed a ride on a jet airplane. There
are few practising Luddites, deep ecologists, or communal idealists among us.
By and large,
this absence of radicals in our crowd is due to the fact that development, by
virtue of its historical context, shares a conjugal bed with technology. Technology, in its somewhat idolized form
today, is virtually synonymous with industrialization. In turn, industrialization depends on the
exploitation of resources and, to date, a consequent degradation of the natural
environment. And the process of
exploitation depends, essentially, on the functions of a market economy in which
wealth disparity is a standard feature.
We accept the
contradictions.
Of course,
within the development circle there are various types of apologists arguing
among themselves, sometimes politely, sometimes not, about development's nature
and role. Some say all’s well with the
world and development can only make things better. Others say that the world is being torn apart
and only development can act as a moderating influence. Irregardless of these small philosophical
differences, all development activities subsist on one universal assumption -
that human sufferance can be, if not ought to be, cared for through
non-partisan institutions. This means :
your suffering is not mine, but I will care for you.
With this
assumption, all development professionals remain attached to and dependent on
an idea of development, resting comfortably under development's wing, a development
which safely justifies studies, programmes, projects, meetings, air-conditioned
four wheel drive vehicles, God, and more.
But what of the
vast majority of people who, rather than doing development, are having the
development done to them? Why not if it means
a paycheck as a hired driver? Why not if
it means project funds are transferred to you and your friends as a partner
organization? Why not if it means a new
storage shed or grain grinding machine in the village?
In my immediate
experience, any pay cheque is good.
But few people
are such beneficiaries. The money rarely
lands in a torn and dusty pocket. And
the jobs, the partners, and the funds come and go.
Walk through the
streets of many of the world's cities and try to count the hawkers of petty
goods. Spend a rainy month walking
through the fields of any country where tillage is primarily accomplished by
hand labour and try to count the number of men, women, and children. After counting for a while, a feeling appears
that the development apologists' development has, not universal, but very
limited insurance coverage.
Drop me an AK 47,
I am just 12 years old, but I could use one… or two… for my friend.
Needless to say,
we development professionals are included in the development discourse
insurance coverage. We have our health
care. We have our plane tickets home. We have Rafale jets. We have UAV drones. Punishment for interfering with due process.
Not that this
kind of disparity between the haves and the have nots, between the
beneficiaries of ideology and its subjects, is so uncommon. To have a little military on your backside
up. Little has changed in humanity's
substance despite all our development.
So, chuck
development out the window? There is no
particular reason to do so. Disparity in
human society is present as much as is love, or war, or friendship, or the
wielding of power. The task is simply to
understand development for what it is.
We development
professionals are a diaspora, the missionaries of industrial technology and
free-market economy. We promise a bright
future. We deliver gifts - money,
buildings, gizmos - proving that what we say is true. We instill faith in the flock.
And we wield
power.
I have no doubt
in this.
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