(The Capuchin, Autumn 1992, pp. 15-16)
Europeans who came to Africa in the last century commonly described their role as that of bringing civilization to the native. David Livingstone, for instance, spoke of ‘Christianity, commerce and civilization’. Colonial administrators spoke similarly. Yet rarely in their writings was an attempt made to define what the term “civilization” might mean. “Civilization,” one suspects, was a flexible term which could be stretched to meet the needs of the occasion.
Wide Variety of Meanings
In this century an analogous situation exists in regard to the term “development”. The word is a compulsory part of a modern person’s vocabulary, but definitions are hard to find. Again, the assumption seems to be that none is needed; everyone already knows. But, if one pursues the point, a wide variety of meanings emerges. For some, development means more schools, hospitals, roads, bridges and factories; for others, it may mean greater per capita income, or longer life expectancy, or enhanced rates of literacy, or a hard-to-define net economic well-being. For still others, development may be measured in terms of relationships rather than functions, or people more than projects. Once again, the term has many meanings.
It is surprising, perhaps, that the term is not more sharply defined so as to avoid dispersing effort over such a wide spectrum that there is no depth in the enterprise. After all, if goals are not clearly defined, how can the means of achieving them be accurately focussed?
Fudging the Issue
I sometimes suspect that the issue is deliberately fudged in case the process of “development” might be subjected to a scrutiny from which it might not emerge with much credit. It might be found that the activities engaged in under the label of “development” not only do not achieve the stated goals but actually help to degenerate people, as, for example, by leading to a mentality of dependence and helplessness. By thus obscuring the issue, people might not notice that the agenda of “development” is, in reality, not very different from the “civilization” of the nineteenth century colonial; it means making them like us. What the colonialist called “civilizing”, and the missionary “conversion”, the aid worker calls “developing”.
Is this merely playing with words? No, it’s not. It’s a search for understanding so that human effort may be directed with meaning and purpose rather than drift without them. There’s nothing as practical as a good theory.
Perhaps it could be said, to paraphrase Abraham Lincoln on democracy, that development is ‘of the people, by the people, and for the people’. Integral human development is what is at stake. It means helping to create those conditions in society which enable people to realize their human potential. It recognizes that people are the first and fundamental resource of any society. It is people who develop themselves; they do the work of development, and, in doing so, they develop themselves. Real development can never be something that is done to people or for them, but rather with and by them. In development, people are active agents, not passive recipients, subjects not objects. Otherwise, there simply is no development, no matter how many projects are completed. As Gandhi said, ‘The end must be prefigured in the means’. If the end in view is a people whose human potential is fully activated, then that will not be achieved by spoon-feeding them as if they were helpless babies, even if that is done in the name of being kind.
There is a widespread view among Africans and aid workers alike, that development is a white man bearing gifts: what matters is to have projects, people are an afterthought. Decision-making power is not in people’s hands. “Local participation”, more often than not, is an empty phrase, a fig-leaf to cover up a lack of involvement by people in the decisions that affect their lives. In many cases, local participation is not wanted; it’s seen as too slow and tedious.
Where are the People?
Development workers, for the most part, come from cultures which value quick results, which hold in high esteem the person who “gets on with the job” and “delivers the goods.” They are under pressure to complete projects so that governments at home can assure voters that they are truly committed to the Third World. They find that it is quicker to work for people with high technology and big money, than it is to work with people, using appropriate technology and a labour-intensive system. As a direct consequence of this, Africa is studded with abandoned or neglected “development” projects, which never had a real base of local support in the needs, or commitment of the people. When the external props were withdrawn, the project folded up, and the blame was then thrown on the local people who were condemned as being lazy, stupid or irresponsible. Sadly, the lessons of such experience, while often taught, have rarely been learned. It’s what happens when people become so absorbed in the means that they lose sight of the goal, when people have know how without know why.
The poet T. S. Eliot wrote,
‘Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge?
Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?’
Could this be paraphrased in the context of the development debate?
‘Where are the people we have lost in projects?
Where is the vision we have lost in technology?’