Date: Wed, 3 Dec 1997 12:41:24 +0000 From: James Heartfield <James-AT-heartfield.demon.co.uk> Subject: M-TH: a problem of hypocrisy In message <3485209F.A79B10ED-AT-netcomuk.co.uk>, Mark Jones <Jones_M-AT-netcomuk.co.uk> writes >THE TRUE STORY OF THE NARMADA DAM And then proceeds to re-publish a letter from 'Narmada Action UK' signed by one Briton, on behalf of one Australian, five Austrians, one Belgian, three Canadians, no less than eleven Finns, four Frenchmen, three Germans, a whacking twnety-two Japanese, three Netherlanders, two Norwegians, six Swedes, two Swiss, five Britons and ten Americans... But not one single Indian! In fact nobody from outside the developed industrial world. What better demonstration could one have that the opposition to the Dam is primarily a Western preoccupation, taken in opposition to the elected governments of Gujerat and India. Here is an excerpt from Against Nature, based on an interview with a Gujerati MD: Dr Anil Patel is responsible for the health care of more than 200 villages in Gujarat, in north-west India. The vast majority of medical problems he encounters have been brought on by environmental causes. But the environmental problems he is concerned with come not from modern industry but rather from the lack of modern luxuries such as electricity and clean water. 'Clean water is completely out of question,' says Dr Patel. 'The water they get is untreated. Most of the time it is contaminated with human faeces and cattle faeces, and the ultimate result is that there are all sorts of water-borne diseases.' Water- borne diseases in the Third World have not been caused by modern industry. On the contrary, the only way to get rid of them is with modern water-cleaning facilities - the kind we take for granted in the West. In the Third World, 250 million people are infected each year by water-borne diseases, mostly dysentery. Patients suffer severe stomach cramps, chronic diarrhoea and various other disorders such as skin disease, and each year 10 million of them die. The World Health Organisation estimated that in 1996 3.9 million children under the age of five died from diseases communicated by impure drinking water, mostly diarrhoea. 40 per cent of the world's population still uses either wood or dung for fuel instead of electricity. But the indoor pollution from this is deadly, especially for women and children who spend most time in the home. According to the World Health Organisation, 5 million infants die every year in the Third World from respiratory diseases caused by breathing indoor smoke and rural smog. Five years ago Dr Patel welcomed environmentalists' concern about tribal people and was even persuaded by the Greens to campaign against the dam. Today, he believes the real concern of environmentalists is to block progress. He is now a fervent supporter of the dam and accuses the Greens of seeming to care more about animals than people. The idealisation by Greens of life in the Third World is resented by many people there. 'I see in this a serious problem of hypocrisy, and if not hypocrisy, a gross insensitivity,' says Dr Patel. ---------------------- -- James Heartfield --- from list marxism-thaxis-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
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