Vimukt
Shiksha - September 2001
Learning to Challenge the Global Economy
Contents
Editors' Note
The
Continuum - Colonialism-Development-Globalization
What
Makes Globalization Different from Its Predecessors
Simple Questions
Globalization as 'McDonaldization'
' Free'
Trade in the WTO?
Global Rhetoric vs. Reality
Case Study: Capturing the Classroom
Big Business of Education
Buying
and Selling Knowledge
Behind Closed Doors: Business Plans
There's No Bang in the Buck
Why
We All Lose in the Race to Win
Exposing
the IT Revolution
Case Study: Universalizing Consumer
Culture
Myth of Microcredit
Great
Debt Dilemma
Rethinking
Swadeshi During the Great
Indian Sell-Out
Is
Socialism the Answer?
Why It's
Time to Stop 'Leaving it to the Experts'
Why
Bigger Is Not Better: Making Way for the Small
Freeing
Our Expressions
A
Turn Towards the Local
Redefining Progress
The Resistance of the Zapatistas
Voluntary Simplicity
From the Four Directions
Closer to Home... IDSP
Further Resources
Special
Insert: The Political Economy of War
The
Algebra of Infinite Justice
Saving
the
Is
It All about Oil?
The
Thoughts
in the Presence of Fear
A
Letter from Parents
A
Letter from
* * * * * *
Editors'
Note
“Even if the cargo on a boat is
distributed evenly, the boat will inevitably sink under too much weight — even though it may sink optimally.”
- Herman Daly
What
is the global economy? How does the global economy impact/reshape the purpose,
content and pedagogy of education? How does factory-schooling strengthen the
global economy? How can we (re)generate diverse spaces and learning processes
for challenging the global economy?
In education circles around the world,
educators are being told that they must overhaul their education systems to
help their citizens compete in the Global Economy. The World Education Forum’s Dakar
Framework for Action describes the benefits that are waiting to be reaped
by All: “Globalization is generating new wealth and
resulting in greater interconnectedness and interdependence of economies and
societies.” Those of us who are somehow not convinced by all this hype are told
that nothing can be done to stop the Global Economy. We just have to squeeze
out a place for ourselves in it.
Sadly, most educators know very little
about the Global Economy: how it is shaping them or how they can re-shape it,
or its many implications for education. First, the Global Economy seeks to
remake us All into ‘Global-Citizen-Consumers’ — competent in consuming what we
do not need, consuming what we cannot afford, consuming ourselves into
oblivion. Second, new education models
are busy converting diverse learning spaces into marketplaces/malls: by
bringing products directly to children in their schools and homes, and by commodifying and re-selling the common gifts of humanity —
knowledge, intelligences, creativity, spirituality, Nature, etc. Third, custodianship over people’s learning
processes is being transferred from the inefficient/insensitive Welfare State
to greedy, unaccountable Corporations.
Lastly, diverse modes of human expression, reflection and dialogue are
being colonized by new technologies. In
the sterile virtual world, people’s minds are not only being overwhelmed with decontextualized information, they are being ‘rewired’.
Educators should be concerned that the
Global Economy not only impacts education but threatens what it means to be
human. Fitting into
the Global Economy means adopting the value system of the ‘bottom line’: efficiency,
profits, foreign investment and competition. Any crime against humanity
— ecological destruction; cultural and linguistic homogenization; massive
social displacement, the illegitimate concentration of power; the manipulation
of genetic codes; brutal violence; genocide — can be morally rationalized on
the basis of this bottom line. While some may appear to benefit from this
economy in the short-term, the long-term consequences for life on this planet
will be disastrous.
The fatal attraction
of the Global Economy lies both in the unfulfilled promises of Development
(good health, democratic and peaceful relationships, greater leisure time, less
poverty) and in the achievements of Development (massive, unsustainable
infrastructure that, to maintain itself, continuously needs new resources —
which it doesn’t have and must take from others). The culture of schooling has
also brainwashed us into believing several tantalizing myths of Progress:
bigger is always better; science and technology can solve all our problems;
survival of the fittest is the natural law; economic growth trickles down to
the poor, etc. Even worse, it has
manufactured inferiority, selfish individualism, and impatience which has made
us lose faith in ourselves and in our local communities. We are forced to spend our time watching the
Left and Right publicly debate whether State vs. Market institutions should
have more power (i.e., who will be better at distributing the weight on the
sinking boat?).
Luckily,
globalization is not an irreversible or unstoppable process. As the Global Economy spreads around the
world, so do the pockets of dissent. The
vast majority of people in the world are still not part of the Global Economy;
nor, despite what the mainstream media propaganda tells us, do they want to
be. Many groups are struggling to
regenerate ‘the local’: to reclaim their whole Selves and their communities
from the myths of Progress and dependency on the State/Market; and, to
replenish their own wells of practical knowledge, wisdom, love,
interdependence, creative expression of life-affirming living. New possibilities for unlearning and
re-learning for challenging the Global Economy eagerly await
to be created. We invite you to join us
in this process.
Colonialism-Development-Globalization
Despite different
names, the cultural, psychological and economic forces that have shaped the
last 500 years of human history are closely linked to each other. From the European ‘discovery’ of the New
World(s), through years of imperialism and colonialism, from the post-War
Development decades (1950s-80s), to today’s era of globalization. Together, all
of these time periods constitute a continuum, defined by the similarity in
their goals, processes and outcomes.
For example, a
desire for gold and natural resources, upon which to build empires, motivated
the Europeans to colonize the rest of the world. Similarly, in the last several
decades, the pursuit of profits, of markets and commodities, has driven both
the Development and the Globalization agendas.
Some would add that these periods also share an ‘altruistic’ agenda: to
civilize, develop, or protect the Other (i.e., those
peoples with languages, cultures, histories, values, etc. different from the
elite Euro-American white male). That
is, pillage has been justified on ‘moral’ grounds of “making the world safe for
democracy”, “reducing poverty”, or “enduring freedom”.
Terrorism and
genocide have been the main processes used in the continuum. In the first 450 years, physical/military prowess
was a decisive factor; in the last 50 years, more subtle tools of domination
have emerged (the United Nations, free trade, universal schooling, mass media,
Human Rights, Science/Technology). But
regardless of the tool, all of the processes devalue the Other
in order to manipulate/manage Them. This
manifests not only in the language used to describe common people (from
“wild”/”primitive”, to “backward”/”undeveloped”, to “technologically
deprived”), but also through the violent elimination of knowledges,
languages, and other living traditions.
Such processes have led to similar
outcomes. Colonialism, Development, and
Globalization have all resulted in the exploitation of people and of natural
resources, brutal oppression, and widespread injustice. The psycho-cultural internalization of the
West is another common effect in the continuum.
Each period has undertaken measures to ensure that the Other consider the West to be progressive, advanced, and
living the future of their dreams. Those
who most successfully internalize this ‘truth’ (i.e., the babus) are then used to manage
the exploitation process from within.
What this leads to is a ‘mono-culture’: the destruction of diversity in
favor of homogenization, and the concentration and control of raw materials in
the hands of an elite few.
Sources: Z. Sardar, et al. The Blinded Eye: 500 years of
Christopher Columbus.
V. Shiva. Biopiracy: The Plunder of Nature and Knowledge
What Makes Globalization Different from
Its Predecessors
New
Actors (More Powerful and Unaccountable to the Public)
Transnational Corporations (TNCs) (or Multinational
Corporations, MNCs) are businesses that seek to
increase their profits by expanding their operations across country
borders. They invest their capital where
there are the least restrictions, and where they can pay the least amount
possible in taxes, for raw materials, for labor, for ‘acceptable’ working
conditions, for environmental clean-up/responsibility. By moving across borders, not only do they
reduce production costs, but they also find new markets for their
products. From both angles, they make
higher profits.
Transnational Institutions (the United
Nations, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund-IMF, and the World
Trade Organization-WTO) are international bodies that empower TNCs
by prescribing certain policies to developing countries (see below). They are able to force these policies on
countries, by either threatening economic sanctions, or by promising debt
relief to countries and/or granting them new loans. The powers/policies of
these institutions transcend those of national authorities (like the
Parliament). They also lack any ‘democratic’ input (that is, any input from
experts or citizens who do not represent corporate interests).
New Processes
and Policies (Forcing a Race towards the Bottom)
Structural Adjustment Program-SAP is a package of conditions that the IMF and World Bank dictate to
developing countries with high debts or in macro-economic crisis. These conditionalities
include raising interest rates, devaluing currency, privatizing public
investments, opening economies to unlimited foreign entry/ownership, cutting
social welfare, and rewriting labor laws to eliminate workers’ rights.
Free Trade Agreements/Liberalization are policies to open countries’ national borders to
unrestricted foreign investment and trade.
Free Trade implies a reciprocal agreement between countries (i.e.,
Canada-US-Mexico’s NAFTA), while liberalization is one-way opening to outsiders
(what
Privatization is a process by which government-owned industries and public resources
are sold to private corporations, who then manage them for their own profits.
Intellectual Property Rights (patents, copyrights) give legal ownership of knowledge, biodiversity,
creative products, methods, etc. to individuals and corporations.
New
Speed, Scale and Intensity (Everywhere, All the Time, and Fast!)
Information and Communication Technologies-ICTs (computers, the Internet, satellite TVs,
cellular telephones) have accelerated the speed and scope of the new
policies/processes/actors. ICTs enable TNCs to expand into
new markets and to move very large amounts of capital quickly across the world.
ICTs also allow commercialization to enter into all aspects of our
life, i.e., the bedroom, festivals, classrooms, religious places, clothing,
folk music, etc.
Source: J. Brecher & T. Costello. Global Village
or Global Pillage.
Simple
Questions by Non-Pompous People
This is an excerpt
from “Globalization: The Myth That Rules and Ruins Our Lives” (2000) by Dr. M.
O. Arigbede
<www.networkcultures.net/38_39/index.html>:
- If we say we
are trading and development partners with the people of Europe and America, why
are we always having to buy more and more expensively what they make with their
machines, while selling them in return, more and more cheaply, only those
products that we harvest from the land?
- Why are
our rulers pretending to rule or have power when it is becoming ever clearer
daily that the policies they enforce on us are made outside this country and
rammed down our throats?
- We do
not understand the meaning of ‘National External Debt’. There is no time when the people, that is us,
gathered and instructed our leaders to go borrow such huge amounts of monies
that we are now alleged to be owing... Should we really be repaying such
‘corrupt’ loans forever at the cost of our national livelihood?
- If two financial
organizations (the World Bank and IMF) can dictate to the rest of the world and
make decisions for us all without our participation, what is the meaning of the
democracy that these organizations recommend to us?
Globalization
as 'McDonaldization'
With 25,000 outlets in 115 countries,
the American fast food restaurant, McDonald’s, is ubiquitous. In The McDonaldization
of Society (
1. Efficiency – optimum
(fastest) method for getting from one point to another;
2.
Calculability – emphasis on quantitative aspects (time/money) of
product/service;
3.
Predictability – assurance that product/service will be same over time, in
all locations;
4. Control – over both
the consumers’ and the employees’ experience; heavy use of technology to limit
human error.
Ritzer’s argument is that McDonaldization
has infiltrated almost all aspects of modern society, from travel to healthcare
to language. In education, this process
is unfolding in many ways. Multiple
choice exams replace creative essays and projects (efficiency in grading);
quantity (of students, hours in class, in test scores, etc.) takes priority
over quality; teaching, curriculum and textbooks all conform to predicable
routines; and children are increasingly controlled through rigid structures,
rote memorization and external discipline. Such mass production is also evident
in the proliferation of ‘designer’ school franchises, like Delhi Public School
(DPS) and Egmont’s “Euro Kids” preschools.
Some see McDonaldization
as positive: “It brings ‘quality’ products/services equally to all consumers,”
they say. But they seem to have confused equality with ‘sameness’, and quality
with ‘bland-ness’. Indeed, most who experience the monotony of McDonaldization feel disconnected from their unique selves,
diverse societies, and from nature. Such alienation, dehumanization and boredom
only appear to increase over time.
'Free' Trade
in the WTO?
Since joining the World Trade
Organization (WTO)
last year,
In theory, everyone benefits from free
trade. The WTO website <www.wto.org>
explains: the best quality products become available at the lowest prices, the
cost of living drops, incomes rise, economies grow, life is more efficient,
global inequality is reduced. Why then,
in the 5 years since the policies of the WTO have taken effect worldwide, has
the opposite occurred? Why, for the
majority of peoples, are wages decreasing and the cost of living
increasing? Why has inequality between
the North and South and within countries increased sharply? And who benefits if free trade ignores public
health issues (such as food safety standards), undermines working conditions
and accelerates environmental degradation and biopiracy?
Originally conceived in 1821 by David
Ricardo, the free trade theory was based on the assumption that capital is immobile and that production stays
within a country’s borders. Today,
however, this is clearly not the case.
Employers can instantly move their operations to countries where
production and labor are cheaper, and where there are minimal restrictions on
environmentally harmful processes.
Workers around the world thus compete with each other for lower wages
and worsening working conditions.
Meanwhile the lion’s share of benefits goes to the North, to the world’s
largest corporate and financial institutions.
In addition, WTO exercises authority on
issues such as the use of pesticides or biotech materials in foods, and the
public’s access to local medicine (which corporations are rapidly claiming
ownership of through patents). WTO
policies and processes are not democratically accountable; rather decisions are
made behind closed doors and enforced with the threat of economic
sanctioning. As a member of the WTO, the
Indian government makes its population vulnerable to policies that are not
aimed at improving equality or well being, but toward increasing short-term
profits for corporations. Thus, before
supporting prescriptions to increase economic growth, it is crucial to ask the
questions that the elite and experts refuse to ask: “Growth of what? Free for whom? Who wins and who loses?”
Sources: K.
Danaher and K. Burbach (Eds),
Globalize This!,
Global
Rhetoric vs. Global Reality
“Free trade enhances standards of living through the
effects of competition on productivity.”
— Alan Greenspan, Chairman, Federal Reserve Bank
The world’s richest fifth receives 82.7% of the world’s
income and resources, the poorest fifth receives 1.4%.
The assets of the three richest people in the world between
1994-1998 were more than the combined GNP of 48 least developed countries.
The
UN Human Development Report states that per capita incomes in 80
countries are lower than they were a decade ago.
UNDP
reports that US$50 billion in “aid” flows annually from the North to the
South. The South loses US$500 billion
every year in interest payments on debts and from the loss of fair prices for
commodities due to unequal terms of trade.
“Sustainable Development is development that
meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future
generations to meet their own needs.”
— World Commission for Environment & Development
Tropical forests are disappearing at the rate of
100+ acres per minute.
Between 150 and 200 species of life become extinct every 24 hours.
President
Bush announced that the
“By expanding trade, we can advance the cause of
freedom and democracy around the world.”
— Bill Clinton, 1997
The WTO has
the right to overturn any health, safety, or environmental laws (local, state
or national) which are perceived by other nations to be unfair barriers to
trade.
Since the
implementation of SAP in 1991, the World Bank has ‘monitored’ India’s
macro-economic policies (foreign investment, balance of payments, money supply,
etc.) — all functions which were formerly held by the Government of India.
In 1997-98
A Case Study:
Capturing the Classroom
Lifetime Learning Systems (LLS) is a
marketing service that specializes in producing and distributing
corporate-sponsored ‘educational programs’ that promote companies’ products or
general views. Its materials especially
target under-funded schools, which are eager to obtain new resources. Examples of LLS’s
clients and products include:
-
Lederle Laboratories, which produces Centrum Jr.
multivitamins, hired LLS to make a teaching kit to introduce 4th,
5th, 6th grade children to the importance of using
vitamins to maintain good health.
-
For General Mills, Inc., LLS created a “Grow-Up!” teaching kit on fruit and
nutrition for preschool children. Each
kit contained certificates, growth charts, booklets
for parents, & 96 ‘candy’ product samples.
-
Northeast Utilities hired LLS to distribute films, booklets, teaching kits,
board games to local schools, with the objective of “re-educating consumers
about the energy crisis and increasing public support for nuclear power
development”. Northeast later conducted a survey, which found that public
opinion had shifted 20% in its favor.
LLS says its
materials are reviewed by educators and textbook publishers and have received
“consistently positive responses” from teachers. But those representing
environmental and consumer concerns stress that these materials offer biased mis-information.
They say that most teachers are unaware of corporate promotion
techniques and “do not recognize propaganda when they see it.”
· Would you accept corporate-sponsored
materials into your classrooms? What are the trade-offs?
·
How can we recognize and counter such
corporate manipulation in classrooms and, as importantly, in our daily lives?
The Big
Business of Education
In the
Calculations are based on the following assumptions:
20 crore children, age 6-14, will
all be enrolled in school with UEE.
Annual student costs include uniform, shoes, stationary,
textbooks, bag.
All children will take additional tuition at the rate of
Rs.200/month.
Teachers supplied at ratio of 40 students: 1 teacher.
200 children/school
in rural areas; 300 children/school in urban areas.
Schools built/year at 1980-1995 rate.
Computer/printer:
school; rural = 1; urban = 5.
The Buying and
Selling of Knowledge
The Knowledge Economy is considered to
be the most evolved phase of the global economy. Its cornerstones are the same as the
industrial-technology economies: private ownership, production and consumption,
for the highest profit. Once considered
the collective domain of humanity (shared with all for the benefit of all),
today intellectual resources are marketed as ‘products’, to be bought by and
sold to the highest bidder.
The commodification
of knowledge occurs in several ways. For
example, we ‘pay’ for knowledge when we send our children to private schools or
tuitions, or when we ourselves attend special workshops and courses. In doing so, we affirm two ideas: (1)
information can be given a price, and (2) the ‘quality’ of information you
access will vary, depending on the amount of money you have. In other words, the knowledge economy follows
the rest of global economy; it increases levels of inequality by linking
participation to a price.
Knowledge is also being bought and sold
through patents and copyrights. Laws are used to declare ideas, products, and
even living things, to be the ‘intellectual property’ of individuals or
corporations. But although one might
want credit for his/her contributions, patenting prevents the general public
from using creations without permission and payment — which again means that
only those who can afford to pay, get to use it. Ironically, many of the people who acquire
patents steal and manipulate knowledge to claim it as their own. For example, in
Buying and selling knowledge is a
growing epidemic in universities around the world as well. In the guise of donations, private companies
give equipment, buildings, facilities, professorships, research grants, etc. to
universities. In exchange, the
university provides them with exclusive rights to the research produced.
“Commercially-sponsored research” means that companies’ interests are
dominating the research agenda — which could seriously limit which questions
are asked, which are not, and how the studies are designed. For example, many universities only put their
money into commercially lucrative disciplines (science/technology) and stop
funding humanities and social sciences, which do not yield profits in the
global market. Further, many
privately-funded studies are biased; professors receive additional monies from
the companies that fund their research and so, not surprisingly, end up giving
conclusions that endorse corporate interests.
More and more it seems research is done for private gain (profit) rather
than for public good.
Members of a learning community can
reflect on the following questions:
- How can we credit
inventors/creators for their work and encourage new creations, in the absence
of patents or copyrights?
- How can we
draw upon other understandings of knowledge (as shared wisdom, for example) to
begin to de-link it from the market economy and profit motives?
Source: E.
Press and J. Washburn, “The Kept University” in The
Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 285, No. 3, March 2000.
Behind Closed
Doors: Business Plans
In April 2000, the Prime Minister’s
Advisory Council on Trade and Industry produced “A Policy Framework for Reforms
in Education”. Co-authored by M. Ambani and K. Birla, the report articulates a contradictory vision for
education in
- expand private and community-supported schools;
- allow foreign direct investment in education;
- form partnerships between industries and universities;
- use computer technology to establish education networks in
villages;
- diversify revenue sources (private financing in
school/universities);
- develop student loan and credit markets for higher
education;
- keep the economy free from controls to foster a market for
education.
For these traders and industrialists,
education means big money. For example, the report anticipates recurring
expenditures on all three tiers of the education industry to be Rs.1,80,000 crores by 2015, and
capital expenditures to be Rs.89,000 crores. Learning
communities must ask themselves: (1) do these businessmen really have the best
interests of our children and society in mind?; and
(2) will spending more money solve the deep crises facing education?
There's
No Bang in the Buck
In this excerpt from “Beyond Money: Deschooling
and a New Society” <www.life.ca/nl/44/gatto.html>, John Taylor Gatto discusses how the abstraction of money and of schooling
have devalued social relationships and real learning processes:
“At the turn of the 20th century, a profound social thinker in
I
mean [this point] to be a lesson for our schools too… Experts who are the
sellers of school services to the government have consistently misdiagnosed and
misdefined the problem of schooling… Our cultural
dilemma has nothing to do with children who don’t read very well. It lies
instead in the difficulty of finding a way to restore meaning and purpose to
modern life. There is no point in reading if it seems to lead nowhere. We have
progressively stripped children of the primary experience base they need to
grow up sound and whole by pricing abstract study higher… When we fail to take
into account how most children, rich or poor, really learn – by involvement, by
doing, by independent risk-taking, by shouldering responsibility, by
intermingling intimately into the real world of adults in all its
manifestations – when we set up a laboratory universe in which all are confined
with anonymous strangers, then we have created in advance a world of failing
families, wrecked cities, and blasted individuals...”
Why We All
Lose in the Race to Win
Competition is
glorified in today’s world. Companies
are incited to compete in the global economy, to make competitive products and
services and to have a competitive workforce.
Similarly, every aspect of schooling trains children to compete — if not
in formal contests and exams, then for grades, ranks, labels, teacher approval,
etc. But just as only a few employees
are given bonuses, so do only a few children receive prizes, certificates or
other rewards. The rest are declared
losers; their failure is explained by either a lack of hard work or a lack of
ability. Although the situation may seem
unfair, we are all told that, in the ‘survival of the fittest’, competition is
the only way to motivate us to be productive and to do our best.
In No Contest: The
Case Against Competition (1992), Alfie
Kohn refutes this myth, as well as three additional myths about competition:
that it is part of human nature; that it is the only/best way to have fun; and
that it builds character and confidence.
He explains that those who are pro-competition subscribe to a win-lose
view of the world. Both the dominant
economic structure and the school deliberately make ‘success’ scarce, by
creating unnatural situations where only a few can win and the rest must
lose. They then use these ‘successes’ as
evidence to promote more cutthroat competition.
Kohn cleverly elaborates, “Capitalism works on the same principle as a
glass company, whose employees spend their nights breaking people’s windows and
their days boasting of the public service they provide.”
And far from making us do our best,
competition actually inhibits us. Kohn
cites multiple studies that show that in competitive atmospheres, people
produce less spontaneous, less complex, less diverse, and less creative
products; while the reverse holds true in cooperative atmospheres. This ‘paradox’ happens for several
reasons. First, competition restricts
our vision; it makes us narrowly focus on ‘winning’ the reward, so that we
neither use our time or our resources well.
At the same time, it breeds hostility, anxiety, fear of failure, and
fear of risk-taking/exploring, which further constrains our creativity and
performance. Lastly, competition results
in a “loss of community and sociability and a heightening of selfishness.” It prevents us from working together or
caring about each other. These outcomes
of competition not only affect the losers, but also the winners.
Those who advocate competition fail to
see the fundamental difference between ‘learning’ and ‘competing’. With learning, we give attention to
accomplishing the task, the skill, or the goal, because we value the effort
itself. With competition, we focus on defeating others; the quality of our work
is only important insofar as it wins us the reward.
Kohn makes strong recommendations to
abandon this competitive ethic and adopt a vision of cooperative learning, so
each of us can achieve our full potential in ways that are beneficial to the
whole community. The “enormous potential
of mutual benefit (cooperative) strategies will not be tapped — or even
understood — until we broaden our perspective beyond the narrow prejudice that
we always do best by trying to beat others.”
Please discuss with your family,
friends and colleagues:
How is competition promoted in your
community?
What are
spaces/opportunities for promoting cooperation instead?
What are some strategies for challenging
competition and ensuring everyone’s success in learning and growing?
Exposing the
Information Technology Revolution
“What
I object to is the craze for machinery, not machinery as such. The craze is for
what they call labour-saving machinery. Men go on
‘saving labour’ till thousands are without work and
thrown on the open streets to die of starvation. . .Today machinery merely
helps a few to ride on the backs of millions. The impetus behind it all is not
the philanthropy to save labour, but greed.” - M.K. Gandhi
The increase in information and
communication technologies (ICTs) is seen as a major
contribution from the global economy.
Educators favor ICTs for connecting learners
of all ages and for bringing them more information. With
But serious reality checks are in order
before we swallow the ICT hype. For one, there is very little research to prove
that ICTs actually enhance human learning. In fact,
several researchers now argue that ICTs damage many
natural learning processes. They limit children’s creativity and imagination;
diminish self-motivation and attention spans; and reduce risk-taking ability.
They also distort the brain’s growth, motor skills, depth perception, and
hand-eye coordination. ICTs also take time away from
other learning opportunities and relationships. Instead of playing, pursuing
arts, strengthening different relationships, or participating in real work/home
activities, children are sitting in front of computers. An entire generation
may be growing up anti-social, impatient, withdrawn.
Advocates suggest that ICTs increase communication among people from all corners
of the world, thus bringing us together in a ‘global village’. While one may
‘connect’ with the less than 10% of the world that has real access to ICTs, the nature of such interactions is usually
superficial. The medium is inherently limiting to many
forms of human expression, dialogue and ways of knowing. Info-glut is also
becoming a huge problem as we are bombarded with more (irrelevant) information
than we can digest. In addition to this are all the cyber-village horror
stories: viruses, pornography, credit card scams, hacking,
stalking, and even serial killers.
It is also questionable whether ICTs really save us time. We are continuously faced with a
paradox: with more technologies in our lives, we have less and less time to
reflect deeply on or dialogue about who we are and where we are going; we must
spend all of our free time attending to the technologies. As Eduardo Galeano describes, “The car, the television set, the video,
the personal computer, the portable telephone and other pass-cards to happiness,
which were developed to ‘save time’ or to ‘pass the time’, have actually taken
time over.”
Nor do ICTs
really democratize society. Unjust and illegitimate institutions of authority
use ICTs to dominate with greater force and
sophistication. Public funds are being
diverted to subsidize ICT infrastructure, which is primarily utilized by
private companies, while public services like post offices and libraries
decline due to lack of funds. Plus, information is not free—it requires money to access most interesting content on the world wide web as well as to make/maintain web sites. We
also remain totally dependent on product obsolescence cycles (which force us to
buy new hardware/software every 3-4 years).
Lastly, while ICT professionals in the
‘new economy’ might sound appealing, one should note that this economy is
already over-saturated and has begun to down-size itself.
Today, ICTs
largely remain a ‘solution’ in search of a problem. Many of the so-called sucess stories, particularly those concerning rural areas,
must be more critically looked at. ICTs can play a role in society but we must be careful not
to let ourselves get swept away by the hype. Learning communities should
reflect carefully on:
- How are ICTs
reshaping/controlling our minds, our lives and our relationships?
- In what situations are ICTs
useful tools?
- What are the trade-offs that come with making ICTs
a development priority?
- Who actively pushing for more ICTs? Why?
Too many people spend money
they haven’t earned,
to buy things they don’t want,
to impress people they don’t like.
-
Will Rogers
Case
Study: Universalizing Consumer Culture
On
Hundreds of
— In D. Korten,
When Corporations Rule the World, 1995
-
Do you feel that
-
Are their any links between NGOs, development projects and building rural
markets?
-
In what specific ways can people be prepared so that they are not manipulated
by such campaigns?
The Myth of Microcredit
Microcredit is the extension of small loans to those
without access to lending institutions or too poor to qualify for traditional
bank loans (mostly women). It allows them to borrow money at bank rates and
start small businesses. Microcredit advocates say it encourages a savings habit,
gives women seed capital to generate an independent source of income and
thereby empowers them, both in their families and in the larger political
economy. Microcredit
is thus presented as a way to ‘flatten’ the economic hierarchy, to reduce
poverty and ensure that people have more choices.
However, there are
several flaws in the microcredit solution — including
the fact that it does not question the institutions/values of this system,
which manufacture greed and exploit people and resources to make profits. Rather, it subscribes to the belief that
poverty can be alleviated if people simply get money, work hard, change their
consumption patterns, and try to fit in the System. Studies also show that it undermines
culturally-specific roles and relationships.
The second problem with microcredit is who controls and benefits from it. The Consultative Group to Assist the Poorest
(CGAP), which was set up by the World Bank and is
composed of OECD countries, co-ordinates microcredit
operations worldwide. In its first 2½
years, CGAP provided about US$18 million in grants to microfinance institutions
and US$400 million for microfinance activities.
In
But what of
‘successful’ microcredit programs? Paradoxically, it seems they have created a
new breed of institutions, laws and regulations, which seem to reduce the
self-sufficiency and independence of ‘beneficiaries’. One loanee from
As the “Report to the Secretary-General
of the United Nations on the Role of Microcredit in
the Eradication of Poverty” acknowledges, most of the ‘success stories’ are
isolated cases. It further explains that
donors do not have the money to sustain poverty eradication worldwide through microcredit, and that microcredit
does not address root causes of poverty.
It also shows no conclusive evidence that microcredit
really empowers its beneficiaries, as loanees require
profit margins of 30-50% to get out of the loan-debt cycle. But the report does clarify the real goals of
microcredit schemes: to create deeper and more
widespread financial markets in developing countries, by using the small
enterprise sector to strengthen the private sector and by promoting sustained
linkages to commercial capital. In light of this, learning communities need to
think about how to reduce, not expand, peoples’ dependency on cash and the
Market economy.
Sources: The
Virtual Library on Microcredit; A Report to the
Secretary-General of the United Nations on the Role of Microcredit
in the Eradication of Poverty; Sarah Blackstone, “Bandaid
Bandwagon,” in The New Internationalist, July 1999; John Samuel, “The
Holy Cow of Microcredit,” in Butterfly Futures,
October 1999.
The Great Debt Dilemma
An
international campaign, Jubilee 2000 calls upon creditors — individual country
governments, the World Bank, IMF, and private banks — to cancel the unpayable debt owed to them by the world’s poorest
countries. (Unpayable debt is that which either
cannot be paid, or can be paid only with enormous human suffering.) Jubilee
2000 explains that developing countries’ trillion-dollar debt has had a number
of serious consequences in both the North and the South. It has invoked large-scale environmental
distress. Developing countries are
growing cash crops, using chemical fertilizers, over-fishing their waters,
engaging in the ‘garbage trade’, and selling off natural resources
(particularly forests) to obtain the foreign currency to pay back their
debt. In addition, flooding the
international market with their exports has lowered prices and led to
unemployment and lower standards of living in these countries. And the SAPs of the
World Bank and IMF have made governments reduce spending on social services
(like education and health care), cut back on food and other subsidies,
privatize public industries, and replace small farms with large-scale cash crop
farming.
UNICEF
and Oxfam add to Jubilee 2000’s efforts with the Heavily Indebted Poor
Countries (HIPC) initiative. They ask countries to prepare Debt-for-Development
plans, which revise public spending, poverty reduction, and macro-economic
strategies. If approved by donors and the IMF, HIPCs
will receive debt relief and increased aid to help them in achieving Education For All (among other goals).
Why Canceling Unpayable
Debt Alone Is Not a Viable Solution
Despite the validity
of the criticisms and the simplicity of the plan, Susan George, one of the
pre-eminent authorities on
Also, one cannot
assume that this process will help the poor.
If the loan money/projects did not trickle-down to these communities, it
is unlikely that the savings of debt cancellation will. Moreover, 100% of debts must be cancelled,
not just unpayable debt. As it is, most countries are only servicing
50% or less of their debts, which means the so-called
‘payable’ debt will still remain. In
addition, all countries must have their debt cancelled simultaneously. If only a few countries’ debts are cancelled,
they will become isolated by the global market, since no one will want to
provide them with fresh loans or import their goods out of fear of future
cancellation. This ‘all-or-nothing’
scenario makes it unlikely for Jubilee 2000 and HIPC to succeed.
Most
importantly, George explains, “The debt crisis is a symptom – one among many –
of an increasingly polarized world organized for the benefit of a minority that
will stop at nothing to maintain and strengthen its control and its
privilege.” Although debt harms the
world’s social majorities — who were not even consulted by the elite who took
and benefited from the loans — the root of the crisis is a particular model of
Development, which requires large amounts of capital and global market-related
strategies. Therefore, even if some
debts are cancelled now, so long as the elite of the South (now supported by an
‘educated’ middle class) pursue this kind of Development, debts will continue
to accumulate, and all of the problems described will continue to occur even
more violently.
Sources: Susan George, A Fate Worse Than Debt,
Rethinking Swadeshi during
the Great Indian Sell-Out
In Inviting the
“Invaders”: India, Inc. – for Sale (Jaipur,
1998), Dharmendra Bhandari
describes how the Government of India is selling off its industries, assets and
resources to private companies, in order to service its massive debt. Following the World Bank and IMF’s Structural Adjustment Program, Indian banks have been
taken over by foreign interests; TNCs have swept in
and destroyed local industries; and each Indian man, woman and child bears a
Rs.10,000 debt on their heads. Calling for swadeshi, Bhandari asks the Government to impose stricter financial
controls on corruption and to give preference to Indian companies over foreign
ones.
Swadeshi has re-emerged in the age of
globalization. For many Indian
industrialists, it means protection from TNCs, until
they are able to create their own to compete in the global marketplace. For others, it means ‘India-First’; they
encourage people to buy only those products made in
These understandings
of swadeshi greatly contrast with
those of Gandhi and Ananda Coomaraswamy. For Gandhiji, swadeshi was a spirit of selfless service, conscious self-denial and simplicity;
that is, “the Swadeshist will learn to do without
hundreds of things which today he considers necessary.” Swadeshi means living within the local
– supporting our localities by encouraging our neighbors to take up healthy
occupations, by seeking interdependent solutions to local problems, and by
creating self-supporting villages, who exchange only the necessities that
cannot be produced locally.
Ananda Coomaraswamy added another dimension to swadeshi: valuing the creative and aesthetic elements of the local. He was concerned that Swadeshi literature seemed to
emphasize India-based production of European things. In the process, local arts and crafts were
destroyed and the status of artisans degraded, in order to produce cheap
imitations of European-type luxuries and styles. Coomaraswamy called
upon Indians to stop the Indian boycott of the Indian craftsman; he explained
that “imitations, whether in [made in] Swadeshi
factories or in our lives, of things European are, and must always be, for
ourselves socially and industrially disintegrating, and for the rest of the
world wholly valueless.”
Coomaraswamy also distinguished between true and false
swadeshi. True swadeshi posits that human beings are more important than products and
profits. It respects the dignity of
labor and is therefore opposed to mass production, mechanization, dehumanizing
working conditions, and other aspects of industrialization. “True Swadeshi
should be to restore, not destroy, the organic life of the village
communities.” False swadeshi, on the other hand, “does not object to crowding craftsmen into
factories, where drunkenness, physical degeneration, [psychological impotence]
and all other natural results of the factory system follow.” Coomaraswamy felt
strongly that if
Taken together,
these visions demonstrate that swadeshi can be self-organizing, regenerative and rejuvenating. It can
challenge the brutality and exploitation occurring in Indian villages by the
hands of Indian industries and Multi-National Companies, which seek to suck the
village dry to increase their revenues. A true sense of swadeshi can also lead us to question the cheap imitations of Euro-American
culture/values that many of the so-called educated are currently engaging in.
Members of a
learning community can discuss the following questions to explore swadeshi:
- How would concepts of freedom,
diversity, and creativity manifest themselves in a swadeshi economy?
- In what ways could Big Business,
consumer culture, speed, profit, efficiency and free trade be resisted through swadeshi?
Sources: M. K. Gandhi, Village Swaraj. Ahmedabad: Navajivan Publishing, 1996 ed.;
A. Coomaraswamy, Art and Swadeshi.
Is Socialism
the Answer?
“During the
Cold War, the operating principle was that capitalism and socialism were
competing ideologies. In truth, they
were two sides of the same coin. Both
view human beings as purely economic creatures and are based on the worldview
that the world is secular and materialist, that there is nothing sacred about
anything. Both agree that men and women
pursue mainly economic prosperity and nothing else; both rule out the existence
of God except as a personal view of the believer. Both regard human beings as essentially
atomized individuals and do not recognize any natural, cultural, and social
human collectivities having common faiths, ideals, goals, or way of life. Capitalism believes in sharing the burden of
the state with the market, and trusts the market more than it believes in the
state as the delivery mechanism. But
socialism does not believe in the market and believes only in the state. This is the sole difference. Thus, capitalism and socialism are the same
content in two different containers. And
yet the world for almost the whole of the 20th century believed that they represented
conflicting ideologies.”
— S. Gurumurthy, “Swadeshi and
Nationalism”
Why It's Time
to Stop 'Leaving It to the Experts'
The global economy is inundated with
experts, ‘dispassionate, objective, rational’ technocrats who claim to be able
to solve all our problems. In Trust
Us, We’re Experts (New York: Putnam, 2001), S. Rampton
and J. Stauber unmask this misconception by showing
how the public is continuously being manipulated, how consent/disapproval is
being created, through the Public Relations (PR) industry. It uses strategies
like the “third party technique” (where ‘independent’ experts reassure
consumers about producers’ services/products) and “information glut” (where the
public is jammed with so many statistics and information that it gives up
trying to sort it all out). Indeed, the bulk of research studies published,
opinions in the newspaper, and the interviews given on TV are produced by
‘experts’ hired by companies who need to sell a product (chemical pollutants,
cigarettes, ‘wonder’ drugs, etc.) or to generate a good public image.
We
need to support learners in unlearning this ‘cult of expertism’
as it undermines our ability to make good decisions for our lives and our
communities. Our blind trust in and reliance on experts also guarantees that
corporations/institutions can get away with dangerous practices. Rampton and Stauber encourage us
to question/rethink our relationships to authority and the information they
spread. We can reclaim control over our
decision-making by: (1) exposing word games and propaganda, (2) recognizing
science’s uncertainties and limitations, (3) paying attention to nuances and
details, (4) tracing the sources of experts’ funding, (5) seeking out more
perspectives, and (6) following our feelings and recovering faith in our own
capacities to know, learn and understand.
Why Bigger Is Not
Better: Making Way for the Small
“We have to support our small heroes… Who
knows, perhaps that’s what the twenty-first century has in store for us. The dismantling of the Big. Big bombs, big dams, big
ideologies, big contradictions, big countries, big wars, big heroes, big
mistakes. Perhaps it will be the
Century of the Small. Perhaps right now,
this very minute, there’s a small god up in heaven readying herself for us…”
— Arundhati
Roy, The Greater Common Good, 1999
Several decades
ago, E.F. Schumacher declared that “small is beautiful.” Last year, Arundhati
Roy championed the small in her opposition to the Sardar
Sarovar Dam (a.k.a. the struggle in the
Schumacher
offered at least three reasons for why small is beautiful. First, he said that when things are kept
small, they become more accessible to everyone.
That is, while the Big is narrow and exclusive (one needs large amounts
of money, power, status, degrees to participate in it), the small is open, inviting,
and available for all to engage with.
Second, in contrast with the sweeping and destructive effects of Big industries that use Big machines to produce Big
products, there is less impact and strain on the earth’s ecologies when
production and consumption are carried out on a small scale. Unlike the Big, which inflicts irreversible
environmental, personal, and social damage, the small gives the earth and all
its life forms time to replenish themselves in
ecologically balanced and compassionate ways.
Thirdly, the
small ensures spaces for human creativity and meaning-making. It refuses to operate in accordance with the
assembly lines, efficiency, homogeneity, and standardization that govern the
Big. Instead, it sees diversity,
aesthetics, expression and sensitivity as crucial elements of humanity, which
deserve far greater recognition and appreciation than they are afforded in the
current global economic framework. In
this way, the small does not dismiss pilot activities or individual experimentation
for not being ‘up-to-scale’. Unlike
schools or the global market economy, the small does not present itself as
appropriate for 300 million children or for every country in the world. Rather, it understands that micro-level
innovation can inform and alter the macro-level in deep and meaningful ways,
simply because it comprehends and cherishes the uniqueness of contexts,
communities, and cultures as the sources of real transformation and serious
change.
Today, we
suffer from what Schumacher terms ‘giant-ism’ — a philosophy that assumes that
Bigger is not only better, it is the best.
However, valuing the small is not to say that there is no place for the
big. What is
needed are open opportunities to determine the appropriateness of scale. To decide when big (with a small ‘b’) is
necessary or when small makes more sense, we need to first understand what our
goals are: human dignity, social justice, interdependence, the production of
wealth, or something else altogether.
Once we acknowledge our goals, we can reconsider scale accordingly. For example, if we begin to articulate what
constitutes our ‘needs’ vs. what constitutes our ‘wants’, then we can begin to
understand what kinds of consumption and production are appropriate for meeting
these (and how much waste we can avoid).
Similarly, we can reflect on our definitions of ‘rich’ and ‘poor’,
‘prosperity’ and ‘disparity’, and ‘success’ and ‘failure’ in light of
scale. In carrying out such dialogues,
it becomes clear that bigger is not always best and that small can be very
beautiful.
Freeing Our
Expressions
Each one of us is an
intricate web/history of experiences, stories and relationships, which forms
our ‘essence’ and the basis of our learning. This web is never stagnant or
final; it changes with new experiences/stories. Expressions are integral to
these webs. They are the ways by which
we understand, nurture and share our relationships with nature, with cultures,
with our wisdom traditions and languages, and with each other. Expressions foster vital social linkages of trust,
love, and interdependence, and also utilize and enhance individuals’ diverse
learning styles, wisdoms, intelligences, and talents. Examples of expressions include paintings,
team games, music, planting and harvesting, embroidery, poetry, pottery, dance,
nature walks, weaving, festivals, drama…
Expressions are
fundamentally different from hobby classes, child-centered schooling, or
cultural program-competitions. First, there is no method of comparison in
expressions. This means no labels, no
ranks, no tests, no grades, no measures, no punishments, no rewards — in short,
no mechanism for distinguishing between ‘better’ and ‘worse’, and no incentive
for fear and dishonesty. Because no one
individual or institution controls expressions or their value, each of us can
contribute to conversations about our and others’ expressions. The bases of
such dynamic, ongoing conversations are genuine caring, diversity, respect, and
a desire to learn and grow together and to enrich each other’s expressions.
Second, expressions
have no spatial or temporal limitations.
They do not have to occur in schools, under the authority of an
expert/professional, in a fixed amount of time.
And they cannot be manipulated to teach addition, spelling, chemistry. Third, expressions are honest, they come from the
heart. They are faithful to one’s
experiences and convictions — in short, to one’s life and inner self. What
takes priority in expressions is not the technical product (the play, the poem,
the pot, etc.), but rather people and their processes of creation and
discovery—whenever, wherever or however they happen.
Regenerating our expressions challenges
the commodification of living creativity — the mindless, soulless consumption of
readymade products, ideas and actions —
in today’s global economy. Reconnecting
with our expressions, our selves, contexts and communities, can begin by:
- Working together
in small groups to explore dancing and drumming, or similar dynamic,
whole-body, multi-sensory movement-expressions, which interest us and which
connect to our specific places.
- Participating in
individual and group apprenticeships with local community members, such as
farmers, woodworkers, ironsmiths, potters, weavers, etc.
- Facilitating
unlearning workshops with teachers, parents, and administrators, particularly
in current urban settings, to overcome the fear of ‘vulnerability’ and to
uncover and rediscover one’s own expressions.
Contact Munir Fasheh
<mfasheh@fas.harvard.edu> of the Arab Education Forum (
A Turn Towards the Local
To counter some of the effects of
globalization (unemployment, pollution, waste), people worldwide are
regenerating their localities. They are
undertaking experiments to reconnect to each other, to their places and ways of
living, and at the same time, to challenge globalization, which extracts and
exploits Nature’s gifts, individual people, their knowledges
and community ties. These initiatives,
which keep wealth circulating within the locality, should not be seen as
‘models’ but as experiences to inspire further discussion/creation:
Local
Exchange Trading Systems (LETS): LETS is a system of community exchange,
in which individuals ‘trade’ their skills, creativity, productivity, services,
ideas in the absence of money. Those who
participate in LETS offer their services/products and are credited with a unit
of exchange. This unit replaces money;
it is a symbol, noted on paper or in a computer database, which can be ‘spent’
on other services/products in the locality as needed. Members of a community — businesses,
industries, individuals — utilize this unit to generate jobs and opportunities
while, at the same time, ensuring that resources and services stay local. LETS also eliminate
the wage inequality associated with paid work.
For example, in LETS, a welder, a doctor, and a gardener can all
participate together in a community of exchange, where the value of their work
is judged by each another, not by an external market. Originating in
Local
Currency: As
more and more local banks are being taken over by outside holding companies,
some businesses and communities have responded by issuing their own
currency. For example, in Great
Barrington, Massachusetts, USA, a restaurant owner decided to issue its own
currency when he was unable to secure a new loan. He sold each ‘note’ for US$ 9 and made them
redeemable later for US$ 10 worth of food at his restaurant. In this way, the owner was able to raise the
money he needed; his customers essentially had given him small, short-term
loans. The success of these
‘Deli-Dollars’ inspired other businesses to do the same. These currencies demonstrate that wealth can
be locally generated, maintained and used, and that small businesses can
function without dependency on banks.
Community
Supported Agriculture (CSA): Local food production for local
consumption is the basis of the CSA movement.
Localities in a number of countries, like
Community
Sharing: People
around the world are also challenging private ownership by collectively sharing
their commodities and resources. They
are striving to de-link social status from private ownership of products, like
cars, houses, electronics, appliances, etc., as they see that this ‘cult of
privacy’ has led to pollution, waste, personal frustration, social discontent,
and a strain on resources. In working
towards collective collaboration, individuals are experimenting with
carpooling, car-sharing, and car-free days (thus reducing the number of cars
that are purchased and/or driven daily). Others are trying co-housing (living
in housing communities with common spaces/facilities and shared
responsibilities). New kinds of
‘libraries’ are also being developed, where tools, appliances, technologies and
electronics are donated, along with books, music and videos, to be borrowed,
used and returned by different members of the community. These different sharings
enhance community interdependency and also reduce levels of private
consumption/expenditure and garbage.
Sources: S.
Meeker-Lowry, “Community Money,” and D. Imhoff, “Community
Supported Agriculture” in The Case Against
the Global Economy.
Redefining
Progress
Established in 1995, Redefining
Progress is a public policy organization that seeks to ensure a more
sustainable and socially equitable world by generating and refining innovative
policies that balance economic well-being, the environment, and social equity
issues. It uses research, the media and
other tools to transform conventional economic thinking in public dialogue,
policy discourse, and individual decision-making.
For example, to encourage debate about
the true meaning of progress, one of their main efforts is creating and sharing
a more accurate measure of progress: the Genuine Progress Indicator (GPI). Unlike the Gross Domestic
Product (GDP) — the economists’ traditional measure of ‘success’ (the amount of
money transferring hands in an economic year) — Redefining Progress uses the
GPI to offer a more meaningful accounting framework. It starts with the GDP but then adds in
unrecognized non-monetary contributions (household and volunteer work) and
subtracts crime, debts, family breakdown, unequal distribution, depletion of
natural resources, pollution, and the other negative ‘externalities’ that
accompany economic growth. It created the GPI because it feels that any model
that considers terrorist bombings, a high divorce rate, and natural disasters
to be ‘economic benefits’ — as the GDP does — is truly absurd.
Redefining Progress also uses two other tools to
reconsider the relationship between people and resources: The Ecological Footprint records consumption of food,
housing, transportation, goods, services, and waste. It determines how many
acres of productive land and water one occupies, to account for his/her
production, consumption and waste. The
average American occupies 24 acres, while the average Indian occupies 2 acres;
but the Earth can only offer 1.06 acres per person, if 80% is left to the 25
million other species that live on it. The
Satisfaction Barometer is a ‘subjective’ measure to assess peoples’ degree
of contentment with their personal, social, civic lives. It asks the questions
about progress that are often ignored by the media and
education system, such as: “Do you have
time to focus on what is important to you? Do you feel you can make a
contribution to the world? Do you live in a community that you love and that
loves you? Are you in control of your life or is your life controlling you?”
Contact: Redefining
Progress
E-mail: info@rprogress.org, Web: www.rprogress.org
The Resistance of the Zapatistas
“We
have nothing to lose, absolutely nothing, no decent roof over our heads, no
land, no work, poor health, no food, no education, no right to freely and
democratically choose our leaders, no independence from foreign interests, and
no justice for ourselves or our children. But we say enough is enough! — Zapatista
National Liberation Army (EZLN) Declaration of the Lacandon
Jungle, 1993
On
The
What sets the Zapatista Movement apart
is not the revolt per se (for there
have been many), but rather the nature of the struggle against neo-liberalism.
It grows out of profound reflections on life, values, possibilities, desires,
and human dignity. It has sustained
because the peoples involved know what they are fighting for — not just an end
to overt policies that kill them, but to nurture the processes/values they want
to live by. The Zapatistas are also
aware of the nature of co-optation — of how easy it is to become that which you
resist. So they have consciously decided
not to form a political party, nor to seek power within the Mexican
government. Instead, they demand an end
to oppressive political regimes and conventional ‘democracy’. In its place, the Zapatistas seek to catalyze
dialogues, through which the peoples of
The EZLN already uses such dialogues in
its working relations within communities.
It believes in “leading by obeying”; the leaders are not heroes to be
worshipped, but men and women who see as their duty to obey the commands of
their communities. Every proposal is
shared and discussed first within communities; the leaders serve more as
messengers than directors. When they are
not working for the Movement, the leaders live among the people they serve.
Indeed, the Zapatistas are completely rooted in the local and do not claim to
represent more than themselves — even though their concerns resonate with
social majorities, both in
Notably, the people actively committed
to the Movement come from diverse indigenous tribes; all together they speak
more than 50 languages. But EZLN does
not prescribe or impose a set way of living and organizing. For them, unity does not require eroding
individual tribes’ identities, nor their traditional meanings of life and its
links to the universe, the sacred and nature. Instead, the Movement respects
and values differences, pluralism and diversity; it sees these values as
essential for preserving and promoting human dignity.
In addition to actively opposing the
liberal economic policies of
Source: G. Estava, “Basta! Mexican Indians
Say ‘Enough’!” in The Post-Development
Reader,
Voluntary
Simplicity
Today, all over the world, there exists
a movement to reintegrate the outward and inward aspects of our lives. According to Duane Elgin in Voluntary
Simplicity (New York: William Morrow, 1993), individuals and groups are
making conscious decisions to live more voluntarily and more simply. “To live voluntarily is to live more
deliberately, intentionally, and purposefully… to be aware of ourselves as we
move through life.” To live more simply is “to establish a more decent, unpretentious, and
unencumbered relationship with all aspects of our lives: the things we consume,
the work we do, our relationships with others, and our connections with nature
and the cosmos.” Taken together,
voluntary simplicity is when “our most authentic and alive self is brought into
direct and conscious contact with living,” in which we actively seek out and
create balance, purpose, and meaning in our lives.
People who have chosen voluntary
simplicity tend to make a lot of changes in their own lives. They create spaces
to discover their full potentials; spend more time/energy with family, friends,
community; and seriously alter their consumption
habits, in terms of food, clothing, transport, waste. But they also connect their personal
experiences to larger institutions. For
example, they challenge the market economy’s push for “identity consumption” –
which is based on the advertiser’s fiction, ‘you are what you consume’ – and the role of the
mass media in promoting a “cultural hypnosis of consumerism”, particularly
through television. They also raise
questions about the brutal exploitation of Nature, the perpetuation of
injustice, and the current attitudes of the mainstream (denial, helplessness,
blame, and escape). Those who apply
voluntary simplicity believe it can help us to confront the crises before us,
both on personal and societal levels. It has the capacity to strengthen the
compassion, consciousness, and ingenuity we need to creatively envision new
possibilities for humanity’s future.
Many communities in
“What prevents school reform from happening isn’t bad people, I
think, but a strange economy that renders many lives absurd... Think of the
economic tragedy that would occur if schools taught critical thinking. If they encouraged individuals to be strong and think original
thoughts. If they taught the philosopher’s secret that nothing important
can be bought... If they nourished a love of quality.
Who would crave the mountains of junk our mass-production economy distributes?
Who would eat the processed food? Who would wear the plastic shoes? ...How
could the mass economy survive without the ‘training’ schools provide?” — John Taylor Gatto,
A Different Kind of Teacher, 2001
From the Four
Directions
From the Four Directions believes that
how we organize our communities and organizations — the values and practices we
use — will determine whether we create a world that affirms and nourishes
humans and all life. However, the dominant management model (which is being
spread into corporations, government institutions, NGOs, universities, etc.all over the world) is destructive, for it privileges
efficiency, growth and profit above everything else. From the Four Directions
seeks to organize people at the grassroots level to challenge the inherent
values of this management model by supporting life-affirming leaders of all
ages. It defines leaders as “anyone who
wants to help at this time” and seeks to weave together a worldwide network, by
making visible their common concerns and dreams, through continuous dialogue.
From the Four Directions creates local
leadership circles, based on the principles of diversity, interdependence and
human goodness, around the world. In
these circles, leaders have the opportunity to think and reflect with others,
to develop new, life-affirming practices, and to support each other’s
courageous acts to change their world.
These leaders together become a community of practice that work to
nourish and sustain the human spirit.
For more information on From the Four Directions, contact:
Margaret
Wheatley, President, The Berkana
Institute
And Closer to Home…
IDSP
The Institute for Development Studies
and Practices (IDSP) in
IDSP then works on developing local
contexts and applications to counter dominant institutions and systems. For example, IDSP learners are engaging their
communities to revive spaces for collective dialogue, cultural production and
cooperation for collective learning.
Such dialogues include the discussion on common practices, on
Development and Globalization, and their merits or demerits, purely on the
bases of morality and spiritual traditions. There are also efforts to revive
rich local literary and language traditions. Groups are engaged in bringing
young people together to understand and value their local and regional
masterpieces of articulation and expression, which combine the rhythms of
language and sound with the profound messages of human dignity and social
justice. For more information on IDSP, contact:
Dr. Qurat-ul-Ain Bakhteari, Director,
IDSP
Email:
welcome@idsp.qta.sdnpk.undp.org; Web:
www.idsp.sdnpk.org
Further
Websites
Z Magazine: <www.zmag.org>
Global
Issues: <www.globalissues.org>
CorpWatch: <www.corpwatch.org>
Center for Popular Economics: <www.PopularEconomics.org>
Articles
and Books
Please stop by 21 Fatehpura
at your convenience to check out the books, articles, newsletters, and original
research in our
Chomsky, N. Profit
Over People.
Gupta, S., et al. The
‘APPEAL’ Handbook for Field Activists.
Hoogvelt, A. Globalization and the Postcolonial World.
Mander, J., et al. The Case Against
the Global Economy.
Robins, K., et al. Times
of the Technoculture: From the Information Society to
the Virtual Life.
SPECIAL
INSERT: THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF WAR
This insert
offers a few insights around the events of
The Algebra of
Infinite Justice
...In
his September 20 address to the US Congress, President Bush called the enemies
of
- Arundhati
Roy,
Saving the
For all the claims of sorrow and
sympathy, there could not have been a more timely or fortuitous event for the
Bush administration than the attack on the
But after the September 11 terror
attack, the Bush administration, aided by a cynical, sophisticated media
campaign, has been working to whip up a patriotic war fever that will enable it
to overcome, at least temporarily, its immediate problems… In the name of
national unity, the Democratic Party has given Bush a blank check to wage war, increase
military spending and curtail civil liberties…Tens of billions of dollars will
be pumped into the economy in the form of military and security spending, and
to rebuild the devastated sections of New York City… Every restriction on US
military might and on counterrevolutionary activities of the CIA will be
lifted... Can there be any doubt that this crusade for ‘peace’ and ‘stability’
will [enable] the
Is It All
About Oil?
“A
recent study for the World Bank states that the proposed pipeline from
-
Testimonial of John Maresca, Unocal Oil Co., before
the
The
“Why Do They Hate Us?”
This list presents [selected] specific incidents of
1949: CIA backs military coup deposing elected government of
1953: CIA helps to overthrow the elected Mossadeq
government in
1958:
1960s:
1967- :
1979-88:
1980-88: Iran-Iraq war. When
1982:
1984: U.S.-backed rebels in
1988: Saddam Hussein kills many thousands of his own Kurdish
population and uses chemical weapons against them. The
1990-91:
1998:
[Note: One
could prepare a similar list for
Members of learning communities can draw
from this page to discuss: What are at the roots of the conflict?
What genuine spaces for expressing dissent exist (beyond voting, law
suits, and UN declarations) for those being oppressed in today’s society? What do you think should be done in order to
generate new and lasting possibilities for peace and social justice?
Thoughts in the Presence of Fear
I. The time
will soon come when we will not be able to remember the horrors of September 11
without remembering also the unquestioning technological and economic optimism
that ended on that day.
II. This
optimism rested on the proposition that we were living in a ‘new world order’
and a ‘new economy’ that would ‘grow’ on and on, bringing a
prosperity of which every new increment would be ‘unprecedented’.
III. The
dominant politicians, corporate officers, and investors who believed this
proposition did not acknowledge that the prosperity was limited to a tiny
percent of the world’s people, and to an ever smaller number of people even in
the United States; that it was founded upon the oppressive labor of poor people
all over the world; and that its ecological costs increasingly threatened all
life, including the lives of the supposedly prosperous.
IV. The
‘developed’ nations had given to the ‘free market’ the status of a god, and
were sacrificing to it their farmers, farmlands, and communities, their
forests, wetlands, and prairies, their ecosystems and watersheds. They had
accepted universal pollution and global warming as normal costs of doing
business.
V. There was,
as a consequence, a growing worldwide effort on behalf of economic decentralization,
economic justice, and ecological responsibility. We must recognize that the
events of September 11 make this effort more necessary than ever. We citizens
of the industrial countries must continue the labor of self-criticism and
self-correction. We must recognize our mistakes…
XIII. One of
the gravest dangers to us now, second only to further terrorist attacks against
our people, is that we will attempt to go on as before with the corporate
program of global ‘free trade’, whatever the cost in freedom and civil rights,
without self-questioning or self-criticism or public debate…
XXVI. The
complexity of our present trouble suggests as never before that we need to
change our present concept of education. Education is not properly an industry,
and its proper use in not to serve industries, neither by job-training nor by
industry-subsidized research. It’s proper use is to
enable citizens to live lives that are economically, politically, socially, and
culturally responsible. This cannot be done by gathering or ‘accessing’ what we
now call ‘information’ - which is to say facts without context and therefore
without priority. A proper education enables young people to put their lives in
order, which means knowing what things are more important than other things; it
means putting first things first.
XXVII. The first thing we must begin to
teach our children (and learn ourselves) is that we cannot spend and consume
endlessly. We have got to learn to save and conserve. We do need a ‘new
economy’, but one that is founded on thrift and care, on saving and conserving,
not on excess and waste. An economy based on waste is inherently and hopelessly
violent, and war is its inevitable by-product. We need a peaceable economy.
- Wendell Berry, 2001 Full article available on
<oriononline.org>
A Letter from Parents
Dear President
Bush:
Our son is one
of the victims of Tuesday’s attack on the
Your response
to this attack does not make us feel better about our son’s death. It makes us
feel worse. It makes us feel that our government is using our son’s memory as a
justification to cause suffering for other sons and parents in other lands.
It is not the
first time that a person in your position has been given unlimited power and
came to regret it. This is not the time for empty gestures to make us feel
better. It is not the time to act like bullies. We urge you to think about how
our government can develop peaceful, rational solutions to terrorism, solutions
that do not sink us to the inhuman level of terrorists.
Sincerely, Phyllis
and Orlando Rodriguez
A Letter From
“To: Matthew Rothschild, Editor, The Progressive Magazine
... You asked me what it’s like to be
in a Muslim nation when the bombs are falling nearby? I do not doubt your intentions, but under the
current circumstances your query struck me like a brutal threat. As if you were
trying to tell me that it is now our turn to face the music. Such is the
gravity of the situation here. Such is the level of hatred we somehow see
targeted towards us — the Muslims.
I wish I could tell you that I feel
horrified; I wish I could tell you that I feel terrified and petrified. I
wish. All I can tell you is that I only
feel convinced. I feel convinced that if we, as humans, continue to refuse to
recognize the appalling consequences of oppression, fundamentalism, and social
control, we will be faced with an irreversible destruction scenario before we
know it.
I can always try and emulate Mr. John Pilger [journalist and author of Hidden Agendas (New
Press, 1998)] and remind the
As a civilian of a ‘
- Mashhood
Rizvi <mashhood@cyber.net.pk>
Mashhood is Editor-in-Chief of EDucate!, a magazine based in
“You can’t beat cancer by killing every
cell in the body — or you could, I guess, but the point would be lost. This is
a war of who can hate the most. There is no limit to that escalation. It will
only end when we have the guts to say it really doesn’t matter who started it,
and begin to try and understand, then alter, the forces that generate
hatred.”
- Barbara Kingsolver (American
author),
Visit the
following websites for more provocative articles on the conflict:
<www.corpwatch.org/issues> and <www.zmag.org>