Does the developing world need development?

[mazeno]

Admin note: Split off from original topic http://caravanistan.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=17&t=1349 because it was verging off-topic too much.


> In fact, bring everything you think you will need from home.
no shit!
(sorry, but i can't stand).
i suppose, steven didn't mean that.

most people just can't live without their gadgets (or guides).
first they comfortably live at their homes with mum, then they finish studies, next have their "gap year" (or two) and think this "escape" can solve all their life problems and teach them "how to live". they think all the problems and matters could be solved by the gadgets taken from their modern civilisation (espacially web-connect phones, gps, and so). they cannot just operate with basic things, such as fire, water and nearest bazar or a village. not only in remote alichur pamir, also in civilised and spa-styled nepal.
they think they need all from home.
e.g. "into the wild". a guidebook - a symbolic gadget (taken from home) that leaded to catastrophy.

that's nonsense.
things are simple.
but people like to complicate.
sometimes i make a test on people:
i give you a box of matches and leave you in a forest for a week.
what do you do to survive?
and people start to invent very strange scenarios - making a bow for hunting (can you make this? no! can you use it? no!), making traps (can you rub your human odour? no!) etc.
and the answer is easy and simple.
you have to go to nearest village.

so you don't have to make a fire with 50 dollars worth "gadgets" from ikea ( - you can get matches in every, even smallest, settlement. mostly you only need to ask (and usually you will get much more).

don't introduce our westrern standards into eastern yurtas. they don't need tv-sets nor web-connected cellphones - they need their landscape and freedom. they don't need our money for everything - they just need to talk to other people (maybe you can bring any news from other village).
this freedom (especially from our civilisation) is that what we are looking for there, indeed. not only beautiful landscapes. these landscapes can quickly change - in every place you will see a coca-cola stand. for money, of course.

and that's why all the savage countries become like nepal - previously really fine and rugged (in good meaning) country, today - a country ruled by money. if we don't stop it, in nearest future we could see no such savage places.
and we could find no freedom.

and i think it is too late.

[bwv812]

On the other hand, I'm often skeptical of people who think we should save "untouched" people from Western civilization, gadgetry, etc., as this desire is often self-serving. Should we preserve old Shanghai, even though the people who have to live there would really rather live somewhere nice, clean, and comfortable? Should we save the isolated Kyrgyz in the Pamir Knot from Western influence, even if it means they live poor lives with high infant mortality, virtually no access to medical care, and incredible risk to their well-being if there is a drought or a bad winter? Can I say that Mongolian nomads in the middle of nowhere are more culturally tainted than their Kyrgyz counterparts because they have flat-screen TVs and satellite dishes, or is it simply that Kyrgyz are poorer?

[mazeno]

what is "poor life"?
our life is poor - in spiritual sense.

what is "comfortable"?
200 sqm apartment on the 72nd floor in a city centre or 2000 sqkm around in the steppes or mountains?
(and why do we preffer 72nd floor, not just the 2nd? and how much money/time we have to spend on such "comfortable" suite?)
the roar of flying airbuses above our heads or the song of wings of flying birds?
the noise of cars in the streets or the wind whistling among the trees?

we have everything - but we have nothing, indeed.
we possess, we own - but we don't live, indeed.
every day we spend more and more time and energy in rush for having more "comfortable" resttime.
it's a vicious circle.
we are tired and bored with our lives - many western people commit suicide.
no nomad commits suicide.

you write abour mongolian nomads - talk to young mongolian living in ub, aks them if they are more happy than their grandpas in jurta...
are you more happy in your big city with no time to spend and in rush all the time than kyrgyz nomads with their hard but really free life?
if yes - what do you search for in kyrgyzstan, huh?
beautiful landscapes you can also find in swiss...

[steven]

I split this topic and re-organised it into the off-topic forum to keep the trekkers topic clean.

To reply to you Mazeno, I strongly disagree with you. People in the developing world do not need to be patronised by us, white people. They are intelligent enough to make their own decisions. If they want to be richer or not, to have more possibilities or not, is their choice, not yours (thank God!). They make their choice resoundingly. Young Tajik men going to Moscow know what is waiting for them there. Young families in India or Africa (or Mongolia) who are settling in slums around major cities by the millions know what it's like. Still they do it. Why? Because they want a better future for their children.

Just like our Western ancestors made that choice for us. About the noble hunter-gatherer who is so happy and free: Rousseau's myth of the noble savage was debunked in the 19th century, and continues to be debunked by new research about hunter-gatherers, so to read it in regurgitated form from a well-read man like you is a bit disappointing.

It strikes me as especially hypocritical that you are writing this on the internet! It is very easy for you to retire to the Polish countryside, away from all the nasty capitalist influences, and be self-sufficient. Why are you still on the internet, owning a car etc. if this is your opinion? I also live a pretty cheap life with few possessions. It is my choice, it gives me freedom to pursue other things, like this site, or traveling. This is not a choice Kyrgyz people in Naryn have. They have few possessions by default. And let me tell you, they are not happy.

Don't get me wrong, I am glad that people like the Nenets, the Hadza or the Ni-Van can still live their traditional lives and be happy. But the world is moving, and people react to new circumstances with new survival strategies. I agree with you that there is a lot of scope for improvement in the western world, but I fail to see how becoming poor is going to be the answer. Voluntary simplicity and experiences over objects are real and important trends right now, so things are moving, I feel.

I hope you don't take it personal, but it is a subject I feel very strongly about, first of all, because I also used to think like this, and secondly, because I encounter this we-gotta-keep-em-poor attitude quite often in travelers and I find it a bit terrifying. Do you want people to stay poor because you think it is better for them, or because you think it will make your travels more interesting?

End of rant.

[mazeno]

i wrote a long reply, but it has crashed while sending.
and sorry - i can't reconstruct it.
(i see a site informing that connetion and cloud is ok, but caravanistan server is down. i met such situations in last days several times. during last week for 2 or 3 days caravanistan was down).
:(

anyway - maybe we meet somewhere on the way we could discuss the topic ;)

[mazeno]

ok, i try to reconstruct the post.

> do not need to be patronised by us, white people. They are intelligent enough to make their own decisions.
that's exactly what i mean - but futhermore i wrote not to press them to change.
and our gagdets - that's a great pressure.
per analogiam: it's like a color-glass-beads and blankets offered to indians - and these beads were parallel with "beads" (bullets) and blankets transfered influenza.
it is a new type of conquest - economic conquest.

> Young Tajik men going to Moscow know what is waiting for them there
mostly they don't really know. at home they only see what we show them on tv - beatiful life of sitcoms and colorfull adverts. they get known the truth only in moscow. get known about krysha, grey zone, modern type slavery, working for food and poor accomodation, and beeing treaten as "chornye" ("blacks"). but it is too late.
what do you know about poland? only what can you see in media (even internet is dominated by mainstream - they say we have regime again, what is bullshit. we just wanted to change last 9 years of bureaucratic and corrupted governments. in fact, there is a lot of good change in poland since last elections - both president and parliament).
the same situation have young tajiks - they see only what mainstream shows.
(because it is a good business for media. more consumers = more ads.)

you're right, i'm a bit hypocritical (but who's not? and i can excuse myself a bit, too. i write it on the net, 'cos i use the net for work, my car is 22 y.o. and i'm not gonna change it, etc.). but i'm not going to change our life into a yurt, and i'm not going to change their life into the 72th floor appartment for 35-years-long credit.

you know, we the poles, had also been under communistic regime (personally, i really well remember that times - tanks on the streets, food reglamentation etc., i was a teenager when the state of war was established by jaruzelski's junta in 1981). we were poor, we were under regime, but we were free in our souls. we spend a lot of time with our friends from the neighborhood, not with our "friends" from facebook (or caravanistan ;). and after the '89 collapse we started to "make our life more comfortable". we took credits to spend money on many not really necessary things. we started to spend much more and more time and energy for having better and better resttime.
it's a vicious circle.
and?
and now many people miss the communistic times!
(in fact they don't miss the communism, they miss that times).
why?
'cos they has forgotten bad things (e.g. food reglamentation) and remember good things (e.g. living with our beloved grandpas).

tajiks are poor in our standards - in their, we are poor.
why?
i travel to asia since early 90's - and i see many changes.
the same changes that we had in poland since 1989.
some for good, some for bad.
now, 25 years after communism colapse we have everything - modern cars, modern appartments, modern life - and modern credits (fortunately i don't have for i don't want).
and we don't have time for our families, 'cos we spend it at work to have better and better life.
our time, our cars, our appartments, belongs to banks.
so we have nothing.
we are poor, indeed.

so, i'm travelling there (among others, but also for fine landscapes and to "escape" from the civilisation roar) to learn (rather: not to forget) how to keep respect the elders, how to care about all the family (western people, when they're mature, often forget about their parents), how to communicate with other people (not only by means of credit cards).
their life still reminds me abour these important things.
not to forget.

and the clou:
in early 90's i have read stephen bezruchka's "trekkign in nepal" - and i still remember one sentence:
"take nothing but pictures, leave nothing but footprints".
and it is not only about toilet paper.

[steven]

I mean, I agree with you Mazeno, I think we hold the same values, but I am perhaps less pessimistic about modern civilization. I am also sad when my grandfather tells me every day on their doorstep there were 25 people chatting, kids playing, that there were more than 30 bars in my village (there is now 1 left).

I wish this type of community would come back, but, unlike you, I see many positive evolutions in this sense. At the same time you cannot deny the present reality. So perhaps people respect their elders less in the West. But they respect their women more (not talking about Tajikistan here). Etc.

As Johan Cruijff famously said: Every advantage has its disadvantage.

[bwv812]

It seems a bit ridiculous to suggest that young Tajiks don't know what is waiting for them when they head to Moscow. I mean, something like over 30% of the young male workforce has left for Russia, and everyone knows someone who is in Russia. So either they never talk to each other, they all lie when they do talk, or they have a good idea of what awaits them—whatever the case, I don't think foreigners have any special insight into the conditions facing Central Asian workers in Russia that Central Asians themselves lack.

I'm also not sure that many/any Tajiks would look at a Westerner and think that we are poor according to their standards. Sure, they may not understand our choices and the different culture we live in, but I think it's also true that if given the opportunity to immigrate to one of our countries they would likely settle down for the long haul and not simply stay for a few years to make a bit of money and then return home to where they can live a supposedly richer life.

Instead, it seems the only way we can support out idea that their life is better, and that development is wrong, is by ensuring they do not have the opportunity to make their own choices about what is best for them and their kids. And who knows, maybe the best way for Westerners to regain the richness of these cultures is to drastically reduce access to medical care, increase mortality, reduce literacy, eliminate social welfare programs (nothing strengthens family bonds than the recognition that family is the only thing you can rely on when times get tough), and keep our women barefoot and pregnant. Sounds great.

[mazeno]

> drastically reduce access to medical care, increase mortality, reduce literacy, eliminate social welfare programs
bmv - that is not discussion, that is pure demagogy, nothing more.
the same i hear from the politicians.
"for my better life".
sorry, i quit.

[bwv812]

Sorry, Mazeno, I'm not interested in your better life: you have the choice to live as you see fit, and you have taken advantage of your choice to live the way you want to live (a lifestyle that, incidentally, seems to involve you in earning money via the internet... an opportunity you would deny to the people who actually live in the places you visit). Instead, I'm interested in a better life for Tajiks and other developing people... and yes, this better life includes (or may include, depending on the choices they make) access to medicine, information, technology, banking, education, social welfare programs, etc.

In the developed West, I have never heard a politician need to address an anti-development stance, or feel compelled to address someone who thinks that smartphones and the like are the bane of our existence—quite frankly anyone who believes that his/her own community would be better off without these technologies is pretty much on the lunatic fringe that politicians feel no need to pander to.

Your "discussion" seems to be that we know better than Tajiks (and other developing peoples) what is good for them, what kind of challenges their migrant workers face, what is best for their children, what kind of technology they should have access to, etc. In this sense you are certainly nothing of a demagogue—more of an autocratic paternalist—as you don't seem to believe that people should be able to make those choices for themselves, thus discounting ideas that might have popular appeal.

Interestingly, you also seem to be ignoring the abundance of data and evidence out there about the benefits that smartphones can have in the fields of remote medical care, animal husbandry, agriculture, banking, etc., let alone their fundamental communicative abilities. For hundreds of millions of people in the developing world mobile phones are the only phones they have access to, their primary means of banking and transferring money, and a hugely important tool in increasing agricultural productivity and the price they can get for their crops. Ask sub-Saharan farmers if they would be better off without their phones and I suspect you'll be disappointed with their answers.

Why don't Tajiks get to have the same choice? With so many of their population having lived and worked in Russia, they are in a perfect position to make an informed decision and reject technology and the like if it's really true that they look at the West yet feel that Tajiks currently lead richer lives.