Dr. Steve Eskow wrote: >But consider: > >Consider a community off the electric grid, using kerosene lamps for light, >and blackening ceilings and lungs in the process. And spending hours >searching for incresingly scarce wood for cooking fires. > > >Assume further that the villagers do not know that are simple solar powered >white LED units that can provde home light for less than they are paying for >kerosene, and when the light is paid for for no regular expense. > >And there are simple solar cookers made of cardboard and aluminum foil that >can minimmize or eliminate the hunt for wood as fuel. > > Hmm. Well, consider the Amerindians of Guyana. Most of them are quite happy, don't use kerosene, and find wood easily. They can go to 'civilization', as they call it, when they wish to. There's even a solar telecenter out there somewhere, which none use. They don't wander around the forest looking for things to take pictures of so that they can upload them to Flickr, and so on.
Are we better than they are? I don't think so. If they are happy that way, then let them be happy. They like some of what comes their way - such as the road. One Amerindian commented that they don't mind the road because it's easier to walk to their hunting spot. I'd never considered that, and the politicians and good willed missionary-style 'we know what is best for them' folks never considered it either. They saw it as an intrusion upon the Amerindians. The point here is that going to 'save' people can be worse than killing them all off quickly. The need for technology - for 'education', as the Western world terms knowledge (not necessarily critical thinking) - has to come from within. Any revolution happens from within, not from without. There's a lot to be said for walking through the forest looking for something to eat, or some wood to burn. There's a noble way of life, not bending over backwards for funding so that people in forests who are happy can become 'civilized'. Solar lighting is a practicality which, on the surface, could help the Amerindian. But what about night vision? Hunting at night? And what about having to carry around a heavy battery during the change of campsites? Well, now we have another need for roads. Then we'll have vehicles tossing carbon monoxide all over, and then mechanics become necessary, and then a BMW dealership, and then... Do we believe that our quality of life is so much better that we must impose it on everyone? There has to be *discussion*. Advertising is not a discussion. Then we have the Plato's 'The Republic' to consider - the person who leaves the cave to come back and try to explain to others what is outside the cave with no frame of reference. And... for the record, if people are burning kerosene, which is refined diesel, then they probably have contact with people outside of the cave. But where firewood is scarce, and kerosene is being burned - who is working on planting trees? There's a noble cause. Each scenario is different. Care must be taken not to say that any other way of life other than our own is substandard, and group them together in one group such as the UN's disgusting use of 'North' and 'South' which trivializes the reality into something even beaurecrats think that they can solve. >The situation, then, is this: > >Since the villagers do not know of these possibilities they will not list >them when they are asked to name their needs. > > Unlikely, though, because they have kerosene, and therefore they have contact with people outside of their village - unless they have a refinery in their village that operates off of... ?!? >Is the development agency acting improperly when it looks to make the >community leaders aware of these possibilities? > > Aware and advertise are two different things. UNDP and Microsoft just 'spent' '$1.4 million' US dollars training children how to use Microsoft products in Jamaica (an island in the Caribbean that a few may have heard of, but it does not constitute the Caribbean). Is that advertising or 'making aware', Steve? >Doing so, of course, can be called an attempt by the outsider to change the >community's agenda. > > Actually, it's sometimes seen as the intrusion of the outsider's agenda on the community. Now, let's look at a real example: Bukeni Waruzi of the East border of the Democratic Republic of Congo. Using SMS messages - only one allowed per day per phone - he and others coordinate village communication. Charging the phones was a problem. Internet access So while he was in Canada for the MobileActive conference, he was given some solar panels for charging. This should be good, right? But when those panels stop functioning, has Bukeni and the people in the area the capacity to fix those panels? And a dependancy on the panels themselves can be problematic, where charging via solar energy can make them completely dependant on a technology that they have to *import* - completely, including knowledge. But it was a heartfelt and good gesture to get those panels, and I did send him information on DIY Solar. And then, too - at what point does he become a stranger to his own village? When is he the man that left Plato's cave, to return and tell people about life outside of the cave? Advertising? No, I think not. Humanity has always had wanderers - similar to the Jungian type I am often associated with. And being a wanderer allows one to see marvelous things, but to take them from place to place - to be a bridge - that's the challenge. A million marketers are not as good as one solid, well thought out idea which includes everything from the ground up. And that revolution, though the seed may be carried by the wind, must sprout within the local community and be nourished there for the roots to drop. From there, we can talk about consumer culture tropisms. Not before. -- Taran Rampersad Presently in: San Fernando, Trinidad [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.knowprose.com http://www.easylum.net http://www.digitaldivide.net/profile/Taran Coming on January 1st, 2006: http://www.OpenDepth.com "Criticize by creating." — Michelangelo _______________________________________________ DIGITALDIVIDE mailing list DIGITALDIVIDE@mailman.edc.org http://mailman.edc.org/mailman/listinfo/digitaldivide To unsubscribe, send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word UNSUBSCRIBE in the body of the message.
