I've been thinking a lot lately about the concept of development. Before I came here, my belief system, peppered with radical ideology and salted with a nagging pragmatism that I can't seem to get rid of, put me pretty firmly in the "skeptical of development for environmental and cultural reasons" camp. I was, and am, incredibly disturbed by the fact that if everyone in the world lived as we do in the US, we would require something ridiculous like 7 and a half Planet Earths to sustain our destructive communities.
So here I am in a little village in Tanzania. You may be thinking of some sort of "land before time" traditional situation where people have a deep ancestral connection to the earth and everyone respects the environment and communities have lived here sustainable for thousands of years. Sorry to dissappoint, but it's not quite like that. My village is a mish-mash of many tribes, all of whom get along splendidly, but very few of whom have a traditional ancestral connection to this land. Many people I've met wound up here during the "villigization" process (Tanzania's experiment in socialism) or migrated to work on sisal plantations during the colonial period. The original inhabitants, pastoralist Barbaig, have emigrated. While many of my friends do have an environmentalist outlook, many of the villagers are just like Americans--they look at trees and see lumber, they look at all their natural resources and see ways that they can use them to make money. And why shouldn't they?
But let's pretend for a moment that community development follows a similar trajectory as individual human development. I would say my village is stuck in the middle of a very awkward pre-teen stage. Most of my neighbors live in mud or brick huts with grass roofs, but many have corrogated tin roofing, a fair few have electricity, and I know of at least five with satellite TV. Satellite TV! But no one has running water and clean water can be as far as 3 kilometers away. See what I mean about the awkward pre-teen stage of development? Here's the scary thing about comparing community development to human development... once we pass our prime, we continue "developing" until our bodies can no longer support life. Then we die. And so will our global community if we continue on the road to "dirty development" at home and abroad.
Of course it's ridiculous to say that my villagers, who have a vague idea of what life is like in the "First World," shouldn't be allowed to work towards achieving it if that's what they want. Above all else, I believe that all human beings have a right to self-determination. And many people want dirty development, at least for now. But what's the point of having highly developed, technological, advanced societies if we don't have a planet to enjoy our success on? The only possible solution I see is for a serious and fundamental shift of values to take place in our already "developed" communities. If we want our friends in the global south to live in luxury and comfort the way we do, we need to find a way to make "luxury and comfort" sustainable, starting with our own lives. Or we need to consider the real possibility that our very understanding of luxury and comfort is the problem.
