[Dialogue] Report to those who responded

[jim rippey]

Thanks to those of you who sent me your perspectives on the Naomi Klein article I found so troubling. I feel I am much better informed and surer of what I believe. As a result, I have sent the following summary letter to The Nation. It may not get published but I am making other uses of it also, as the note following it indicates.

Thanks again. Jim Rippey

=================================My letter========

After reading Naomi Klein's, The Rise of Disaster Capitalism (The Nation May 2), I made inquiries, hoping that actual conditions weren't that bad. Unfortunately, the responses tended to confirm the worst. But, beyond that, I learned there is a lot of healthy, indigenous opposition to how the World Bank and well-funded, powerful American business interests go about reconstruction efforts in areas devastated by war or natural disasters.

The responses I got came mostly from individuals who have actually carried out non-governmental rehabilitation and community development projects in various parts of the world. One woman skimmed the article and declared "it is utterly accurate and has been true for a long time. In some countries where I worked there was at least contact between those highly paid consultants and ex-pats like us. In other locations their gated communities and chauffeur driven vehicles cut them off completely from any contact with the locals except for their maids and menservants." Another said of the article: "unfortunately, it is 100% true. However, in some Western countries (unlike yours) it is very hard for politicians to champion and promote private companies."

A Middle Easterner who's held responsible positions described an offer from America to turn a two lane road into a four lane highway. The offer insisted on an expensive feasibility study and having a certain company do the job for a high price. The offer was turned down. Later, thru contacts in the Arab Fund, the country negotiated a loan to finance the project. A local company did the work, native people got jobs, a lot of money was saved and the road was well-built. However, my source added, foreign exploitation can't happen without boot licking and cooperation of the locals. One respondent was sad that in many locations, the institutional church was almost as bad as the quasi-governmental organizations. In one place they claimed they were teaching farming skills. They had locals doing the backbreaking work providing the "missionaries" with a western diet, complete with broccoli and asparagus. However, she didn't think the farm workers were learning anything useful they could take back to their village.

A man in India wrote: "My own reaction to the article is that although it has a lot of truth to it, I don't see the future being made through WB policy. It is easy to set up these giant "boogie men" and then paint a picture of hopelessness .... I feel that there are just too many other forces working on viable, sustainable development to be stopped by these kinds of people. They have been on the scene for decades and will be in the future, but the work of empowerment, interchange, movement building etc. goes on. Great things are happening, there are possibilities for change that just were not imagined 30 years ago." 

Another point of view: "One of the reasons there was virtually no (effective) opposition to Wolfowitz' becoming head of the World Bank .... is that the World Bank is simply the "aid" arm of the US neo-con controlled government. The IMF is for the rest of the world, and while far from perfect, as is the UN, it at least does some good in getting aid to populations that need it, even if sometimes motivated by a post-colonialist paternalism. The World Bank might as well be administered by the NSC for all of the humanitarian good it does." 

I, myself, was most troubled by a quote at the end of Klein's article: "A group calling itself Thailand Tsunami Survivors and Supporters says that for 'businessmen-politicians, the tsunami was the answer to their prayers, since it literally wiped these coastal areas clean of the communities which had previously stood in the way impeded their plans for resorts, hotels, casinos and shrimp farms. To them, all these coastal areas are now open land!'" 


None of the responses I got shed any light on this. So I did a Google search on "Thailand Tsunami Survivors and Supporters" and I found the exact quote Klein used. Despite Klein's disparaging characterization of it, the organization is very much on the side of the displaced. The quote exposes the exploiters and is contrasted with many examples of positive actions. Here's just one: "The voices of the fisher folk who want to go back to their land is becoming very strong. The Thai and English-language newspapers are filled with stories about fishing communities fighting to be able to go back to the land they occupied before the tsunami, and rebuild their communities. The issue has also come out in several meetings organized by different ministries in the aftermath of the tsunami. So the issue of land for these fishing communities is much more open.... it is also not so easy for government organizations or private sector interests to evict, relocate or deny these traditional communities their rights to the land they have occupied for so long (but may not have formal title to)." 


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Note to Jack in Bombay:  I appreciated your perspective re: indigenous counter actions. But I was troubled by your final sentence where you wrote: "I feel the despair expressed about WB, Religious Right, the Pope etc. etc. are finally not very helpful. Local people are on the march and it will not be stopped; impeded, yes, misunderstood, yes frustrated, yes, but what's new? We must keep our eyes on the contradictions, and these large entities are not it."

My first reaction was that sounds like something Voltaire's Dr. Pangloss would say. But then I realized you probably were facing an over full in-basket and wrote hurriedly. For my part, I was naive to be unaware that so much of what I thought were reasonably constructive relief efforts are too often displacing and victimizing local people, people considered disposable. Nevertheless, I hadn't approached my inquiry in despair. I was puzzled that you used the word.  And then I remembered that in one of the responses I got, a colleague who has worked extensively over seas had said, "I could rant on for a long time, but it is too, too depressing."

When I read that, I took it to mean that when she thinks about it, she gets upset again.  I don't believe she is reacting to a "boogie man."  I hope you aren't suggesting that outrage and protest are inappropriate and "unhelpful."  For instance, closer to home, I'm much encouraged that, wonder of wonders, outraged protests have forced DeLay and the House GOP leadership to back off and rescind their gutting of House ethics rules.  

Therefore, what I'm sending to The Nation I will also send to my senators and representative. And I'll ask them if these are the "values" the Religious Right and the administration are bragging about. I hope Congress gets many such protests. 

Again, thanks for the information you sent.   Please note that the overall tone of what I've written in my summary is that, in various countries, there is substantial opposition to exploitive policies and that good local alternatives are developing. 

Jim Rippey in Bellevue, NE jimripsr at qwest.net