"The Bible, the Coin, the Gun"

"We can imagine the fatal meeting between the native and the alien. The missionary had traversed the seas, the forests, armed with the desire for pofit that was his faith and light and the gun that was his protection.  He carried the Bible; the soldier carried the gun; the administrator and the settler carried the coin. Christianity, Commerce, Civilisation: the Bible, the Coin, the Gun: Holy Trinity" (Ngugi wa Thiong'o (1977) "Petals of Blood").


"Waweru [ a Black Prebyterian minister in pre-independence Kenya] was amongst the first Africans allowed to grow pyrethrum as a cash crop and to sell it to the white growers. This gave him a head start over his more pagan neighbours, some of whome had been pacified to eternal sleep or to slave-labour camps in towns or farms by Frederick Lugard...and other heirlings of Her Imperial Majesty, Defender of the Faith, Elect of God. God save the Queen they sang after every massacre and then went to church for blessings and cleansing: it had always fallen to the priest to ordain human sacrifice to appease every dominant God in history" (wa Thiong'o, "Petals of Blood").


These two excerpts come out of Ngugi Wa Thiong'o's post-colonial novel set in Kenya in the aftermath of independence from Britain. They represent a damning critique of colonialism's framework linking civilization, economy and chrisitianity.  This framework essentially equated Christianity with civilization and modernity and economic and social 'progress'. Everything the primative native lacked could be summed up in what the white colonizer had. Wa Thiong'o goes even further, arguing that Christianity was used to justify mass violence, which it was.


The question Kurt and I ask ourselves today is, is there a place for expressing faith in the context of development? If so, what is that place and how do we think about faith and development in the context of colonialism and Christianity's sordid legacy in the developing world?


This is a vast topic for debate and consideration.  However, I think there are at least two key entry points into this topic.


First, I think it is worth considering alternative applications of Christian ideas through development history. Two examples come to mind: Ghandi's reference to Jesus's teachings of non-violence and peace-making as an inspiration for his activism in India leading up to Partition in 1947.  Likewise, Martin Luther King Junior, a Baptist minister, explicitly looked to Jesus's teachings as model for non-violent resistance as a tool for social transformation and liberation. The liberation theology movement in South America used Jesus's teachings and other scriptures as speaking about emancipation and liberation of the poor and oppressed in a very real, physical sense and this informed their thinking and radical activism, especially in Nicaragua with the Sandinista movement (ironically, perhaps, linked to the Communist threat by the ultra-conservative Regean administration - Regean himself is almost a saint in some conservative circles of American Christianity).


Second, like Schumacher's Buddhist Economics, in Small is Beautiful, Jesus's teachings, as well as the social law and practices of the Israelite nation before Jesus, point to a much more egalitarian, people-centred vision of society and economics then that associated with Colonial Christianity and mainstream representations of Christianity today. Schumacher makes reference to Jesus's well-known series of teachings pointing towards such a society (known as the Sermon on the Mount). Quoting Schumacher at length:


"Strange to say, that Sermon on the Mount gives pretty precise instructions on how to construct an outlook that could lead to an Economics of Survival.

How blessed are those who know that they are poor;

The Kingdom of Heaven is theirs.

How blessed are the sorrowful;

They shall find consolation.

How blessed are those of a gentle spirit;

They shall have the earth for their possession.

How blessed are those who hunger and thirst to see right prevail;

They shall be satisfied;

How blessed are the peacemakers;

God shall call them his son.

It is not difficult to discern what these beatitudes may mean for us today:

We are poor, not demigods.

We have plenty to be sorrowful about, and are not emerging into a golden age.

We need a gentle approach, a non-violent spirit, and small is beautiful.

We must concern ourselves with justice and see right prevail.

And all this, only this, can enable us to become peacemakers."

These two points are relatively uncontentious, I expect.  More contentious is the notion that a particular faith or a set of spiritual teachings is normative. While proposing that any set of values is normative potentially leads to all kinds of abuse, manipulation and exploitation - the problems that Colonialist Christianity, economics and security exemplify so strongly - how does development happen in the absence of any norms?

This question comes back to the questions I posed in my last post. And I'm still working through the answers. I think a key thing for development workers of any faith is to determine what their own value framework is, have a good reason for holding to that value framework and then approach the development context in a spirit of deep humility, willing to engage with other value frameworks. 

The way to work out the relative values of different value frameworks, I believe, is through working together around a common project, as equals and to try and let that experience lead.  And then, most importantly, being willing to critically reflect on what that experience says about your own value framework and being willing to take actions based on that learning to adjust your value framework.

Beyond Aid

"The Scott Bader was established in 1921. Today we are a Euro 220 million multinational chemical company, employing 600 people worldwide."

Hmm, not a company description that would normally catch my eye. My thought process would be something like, "chemicals, millions of Euros - oh only 600 people, wow somebody's getting rich off those chemicals.

And if it weren't for Small is Beautiful I would have left it at that. (For those who are just joining, I am just finishing up a series of posts by Jordan and I on the very interesting book - Small is Beautiful by E.F. Schumacher)

When Schumacher presented this as a model company my first thought was that they probably were not around some 30 odd years later. But there it is, Scott Bader is still very much around and succeeding.

What's so interesting about it? It is entirely owned and run by the employees. Early on Ernest Bader (picture) decided to hand over ownership of his company to his employees, even taking the steps to limit his own profits. And from what I can tell its been that way ever since. I encourage you to read their history pamphlet. It's a great story of faith (pacifism even for you Mennonites in the crowd) and business. If this was the status quo company model I can tell you that our world would be a much better place except that there would be no need for this blog which would be too bad!

So that's the last thing I wanted to bring out from Small is Beautiful. In summary, Schumacher attacks the concept of constant growth and bigger is better. From an environmental and societal perspective he demonstrates that our current study of economics is flawed and harmful. (I'm hoping to go to a discussion about steady state economics in a few weeks so keep posted!)

And now for something completely different...

The topic last week for my management of technology course was on the developing world. The required readings included a number of references to papers that back up what W. Easterly maintains. That foreign aid is simply not doing what it should. We also had to watch a video by Dambisa Moyo on her opinion of aid.

The suggested alternative was the theory by C.K. Prahalad that people, and especially corporations, can do good (financially) by doing good. In other words, viewing the bottom billion or two as consumers and producers and targeting them as such in the same way that corporations currently vie for the dollars of the developed world. From my experience this is already happening. India and China are developing products for people who live around the poverty line. From bicycles to cell-phones to watches and water pumps this concept is already old news. Part of me agrees with theory, and I even have some entrepreneurial ideas with this in mind. But part of me is a bit uncomfortable with this idea. Any comments?

This ties into a concept I mentioned a couple of weeks ago which was Foreign Direct Investment as an alternative to aid. Many countries, most notably the US, maintain that direct investment in a country is much more beneficial than aid and much less patronizing as well. Investment gets the country involved in the world economy and brings up the local education, access to technology and all that other good stuff (health, women's rights, etc) follows afterwords. As well, since FDI is entirely within corporations who are out to make a buck, mishandling and corruption of funds is much less tolerated than with typical aid that has to pass through many governmental hands. Unfortunately, it seems that FDI has far too many strings attached to truly be effective. Since companies simply want to make a buck, profits do not stay in-country and much of the investment simply goes back to the host country.

Both these proposals call for an end of foreign aid. Moyo seems to say let Africa suck it up (my words! - did I mention she's from Zambia!) while Prahalad at least proposes a new way to involve the developing world in the world economy. Any comments?

Anybody read "Dead Aid" yet?

Kurtis (from Waterloo)

Values and Development

The recent lack of posts reflects the time of the year, I think, both for Kurt and me.  Things are more busy than last time this semester for both of us and we are feeling the crunch of our Master's programs/courses.  But we are committed to this blog and want to get back on track.  Thanks to those who've posted comments. I want to apologize for not responding to more of your comments. Thanks to those who continue to read what we write.
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Values and Development (I know - boring title, but it's late)

Throughout the posts on this blog is an undercurrent of values, Kurt's values (or value framework), my value's, values of particular currents in development studies and in development practice. In  this post, I want to reflect explicitly on the relationship between values frameworks and development.

By values framework, I mean a set of values within which we understand the world, or more specifically, human society, human relationships and human decisions. Within our own values framework we determine for ourselves what is right and wrong, what is better and what is worse, what is constructive and what is destructive. The question for all of us is, how does our value framework impact on the work we do?  In my last job as a design engineer working in the automotive industry, for example, how did my value framework impact the way I designed buses? There may be different levels to that question.  For example, I can say that my value framework did impact on the way I conducted myself with my colleagues.  But it did not impact as much on how I ran meetings.  And in terms of how I worked on solving design problems, it impacted very little. The value framework I operated on with regard to bus design was primarily my company's.  My company valued above all, making a profit and, linked directly to that, safety (both in bus design and in operating procedures) and then customer satisfaction, innovation, etc.

But in development, where we are always talking about people's standard of living and their well-being, then our own value frameworks come into play.  We must operate within a value framework with respect to what kind of life is good and what is bad, what practices are constructive and which are destructive, what kinds of aspirations are good and which are not. This necessarily introduces a tension between our desire to help people achieve a better quality of life and our desire not to impose our worldview on the people we are trying to help. But without someone, somewhere taking a stand on what they view as a better quality of life, development is meaningless.  That's what I'm arguing and I realize I have not fleshed out that argument very well, so ask questions for clarification or challenge what I'm saying.

My question, for myself and for you (the faithful blog reader) is this: how could development workers effectively articulate and then refine the value framework in which they operate?  And secondly, are there universal values (such as human rights, some would argue) and if so, should these form the basis for carrying out development interventions? I leave these questions open for debate.

Jordan (Manchester)