Development of people of nations what are we developing? [Archives:2006/965/Community]
Manal AbdulWahed Al-Shureify
Whoever said life is a many splendoured thing should have added that experiences in life are also like a multi-coloured rainbow where one tends to see a certain colour depending on one's perception of the world. I suppose it's the age old problem of the glass being either half empty or half full which is also determined partly by one's characteristics but also by environmental conditioning and individual experiences in life.
I often wonder why different people tend to view the same phenomenon quite differently and so their reaction to events around them. I am sure it is not necessarily the failure of Psychology to reveal all the different factors that go to make people what they are but the truth of the matter is the human being is as complex as life itself is. What is it that makes a great Scientist also a great musician or a great religious scholar and yet another perhaps who cannot see beyond the chemical reactions in the laboratory and fails to associate them with the larger questions of creation or to social phenomena around them. Research in education has long dispelled the assumption that either you are a Scientist and Mathematician or you oscillate more towards the Arts but it is not really an either or matter. The source of this unfortunate dichotomy has been the technological revolution and its corollary, the knowledge explosion which has desensitised people to social affairs in their single-minded pursuit of technological advancement and material gain.
The same syndrome seems to have attacked the world of “Development” and I mean here the work of Development Agencies in third world countries. Development is becoming a career rather than a mission in life to many. “Development” divorced from its many different meanings and contexts like to develop a certain field of knowledge, to develop systems and ones knowledge, and to effect positive transformation, begins to lose its purpose and may turn into stagnation under the guise of development. Thus the aim sets the stage for the outcome.
Being fairly new to the world of development, I have had several intense experiences which have revealed realities about the interplay between the phenomenon to be developed and the different players on the scene of this mysterious world of development. For this I have had to suffer the patronising comments of those who are older but not necessarily wiser since knowledge is not necessarily related to chronological age. To some people, development projects are just a way of making money which is up for grabs and for others it's just a job for earning their bread and butter. Yet to others it becomes a status symbol and a matter of prestige where they become the prototype of the development worker who has to talk and dress in a certain way quoting the right trendy phrases which do not go beyond cliches to a deeper analysis of the situation. To many others it becomes an empty academic exercise in sophisticated armchair philosophy while remaining emotionally untouched by the sufferings of the poor and the downtrodden that they purport to serve in their endeavours. Many others seem like efficient postmen pushing papers from one destination to another, even though knowing all the terminology and procedures yet staying at the surface of administrative and logistic considerations, never digging beneath the soil to seek the real purpose of the exercise. To many development is becoming a project and a project is an end in itself as if it lies hanging in the air unconnected to the whole array of socio-economic phenomena or has no purpose in social change. Yet there are the many unknown soldiers lying like precious gems at the bottom of the sea working quietly and effectively but unfortunately they go unnoticed because they do not make a lot of noise and they have not yet learnt the fashionable phrases to impress the world of development.
I sometimes wonder if development was meant for people who choose the less trodden path or if it was meant for those who choose to adopt the empty exercises with implications only half understood and continuing to repeat them throughout their careers never introducing anything new never going beyond the beaurocracy towards understanding the realities in the field in the world of those to be “developed”. I suppose these are the people who are afraid of ever questioning or rejecting stale ideas and had rather play it safe and hide behind the protective familiarity. These are the people who know how to fill the boxes with the right answers even if they have no relevance to realities just to please the people who pay the bill.
It makes me sad to see the world of development being turned into a self-perpetuating industry churning out mass produced human minds in an environment where those who dare to speak are penalised. Having said this I realise that we do not live in an ideal world where people are always allowed to make statements within “Establishments” Those who do end up being labeled “negative”, “critical”, miscreants who dare swim against the wave of mediocrity.. Yet these are the very people who finally make real impact on society and history has proved that it can be a handful of individuals who change society with their ideas. Napoleon once said:when small men attempt great enterprises they always end up reducing them to the level of mediocrity”.
Thus to my mind it is quite legitimate for one to pose challenging questions with the intention of examining various options in ideas and action and choosing that which will bring about positive change for that is what development is all about. Yet those who have stopped thinking and become monotonously complacent without adding any value to the organisation are applauded for their stability (or stagnation)These people join the club of those who form a subtle institution which denies legitimacy to all who are different from them thus maintaining their own statusquo. In this way thedynamic ones who venture into new territories and climb new mountains in order to create new systems are always up against one wall of resistance after another,like Shakespeare's Hamlet wondering whether it is worth “fighting against a Sea of Troubles or opting out of the system.
Without the risk of seeming presumptuous, I tend to believe that unless people start to take development seriously as a real catalyst for social change our state of affairs will remain the same. As it says in the Holy Qoran: ” (Verily never will Allah change the condition of a people until they change it themselves with their own souls) The Thunder verse 11.”
Development is not just a matter of getting a certain project off the ground or building infrastructure without content or substance but looking at things holistically. Development is not just the world of development projects but subsumes all the institutions in a state, i.e. education, health, the judiciary which is the framework within which development and change needs to take place. Development is not merely the implementation of meaningless activities that have no overall objective within a wider perspective but for the purpose of contributing towards a cumulative upward movement of society.
I think the root cause of this predicament and state of affairs is education or miseducation. Perhaps as an educationist I may be biased in placing so much value on education but I mean education in all its ramifications. Education as a system in our countries has helped to create unchallenging minds where the “good student” is the one who does not bother the teacher with questions and an unspoken and well understood law exists that says “you are only here to simply produce in the examination hall whatever you have been given in the classroom”. Perhaps I am exaggerating and exceptions abound here and there, but the cultivation of ingenuity or mediocrity begins at school. The development of nations has been influenced by the type of education they have invested in. However, at the individual level, education also means a deliberate process of understanding what lies behind the words and the connection between phenomena in the world around us. All that education is cannot be enumerated in an article but it certainly has a very integral linkage with development real development of minds, spirits and thus society. As Aristotle said, “The roots of education are bitter but the fruit is sweet” .
As a Muslim I also tend to see the individual's contribution to the development of society as part of a religious duty and so the pursuit of knowledge albeit the fact that there is a conditionality in the use of knowledge acquired i.e., using the knowledge in a way which is beneficial to society, and to make the world a better place to live in. “(Allah will exalt those of you who believe, and those who are given knowledge, in high degrees; and Allah is Aware of what you do) AlMujadila verse 11, the Holy Qoran. . I may be challenged by skeptics and the usual arguments about who decides what is of benefit to whom but I wish to avoid these stale controversies because I take my values from what to me is the Absolute truth, and whatever metaphysical position we hold will still have a source from which springs the value system we follow and thus the ethics that emanate from it.
I would like to end my article with a quotation from one of my favourite poets, Tagore:
“Where the mind is without fear
Where the head is held
Where knowledge is free and the clear stream of
Reason has not lost its way into the dreary desert sand of
Dead Habit.
Into that heaven of Freedom Father let my country awake.”
——
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