Category Archives: Development

Holistic Approach

Posted on by
Reply

Organisationen

A lot of the lectures I have attended here in Auroville frequently mentions the importance of thinking holistically. Essentially it would mean not trying to implement sanctions against a problems as soon as you see it arise but rather research to get to the root level or to see what is actually causing the problems in the first place. Many initiatives in Auroville attempts to think more about all of the aspects the intitiative or project might have an effect on. I think of it like the cyclical events that governs all  events in nature beyond man’s control. To me it makes sense to incorporate this thinking into all ventures we engage in as it would be more viable long-term as I see our current systems of long-term thinking failing all the time, they do not solve the problems they say they will, i.e development goals etc.

Today many areas of development are still too concentrated on to the short-term way of thinking of economics which limits it’s scope to taking into consideration the  long-term perspective. The lectures continually brought up the long-term economic benefits of ones actions as less money would be spent trying to fixe the new problems that aroses from not analyzing in deepth  the root problems.

I am thinking specifically about the Pondicherry Harbor which is supposed to stand for development, but actually caused a lot of environmental damage because it disturbed the natural distribution of sand along the coastline. This sand is what constantly recreates the shoreline, or the beach. The beach is needed to stop the ocean from eroding land mass higher up from   the beach. This also apparently led to more salt water leaking in to underwater aquifers which is used by people in general and in agriculture. This also meant the soil became less fertile due to increased salt levels. The solutions at first were to build sea-walls which solved the problem along one part of the beach but then added to erosion further up the beach thus adding to the problem.

A lot of money was spent trying to mitigate all of these side effects instead of actually seeing the root cause of the problem, which was the harbor itself. Problem however is that even if the root problems is identified it is still not being taken care of because the harbor is needed for “development”. However the cost to solve this problem far exceeds what it would cost to adress the root problem. As a consequence of one act carried out in the name of development thousands of people are loosing their livelihood that was dependant on the beach. To this must be added the innumerable effects it will have  on the agriculture side. My point is that it would be far more economically viable to scrap the ideas of constructing harbors in favor of finding a better solution that does not damage the natural occuring processes that we inevitably depend on.

//Joel Hellström

Linnaeus University

My challenge with saying thank you

Posted on by
Reply

The first word that I learned here in Tamil Nadu happened to be “nandri” and since then, I received various reactions from locals when I pronounced this word, which gave me the urge to look deeper into its use. A local Tamil from the village Kuilapalayam taught me how to say “thank you” in his mother tongue. I enjoyed using it until my first evening in Pondicherry, outside of Auroville. As the only tourist in a tiny, modest restaurant where I was having dinner with two local friends, it caught my eye that I was the only one who kept saying “nandri” to the waiter. Later on, as the waiter was posing a plate of dosa on our table, my friend softly tilted his head from left to right. I immediately recognized that gesture: the famous Indian head shake. During the following week, I observed locals doing the Indian head shake in different contexts and realized that it carries more than one meaning. The Indian head shake simply suggests that the person acknowledges the action or word of the other, but it can imply different responses. If someone pours you a drink, doing the Indian head shake would tell the person to stop, as “that is enough” in a certain way. If someone asks permission to go to the bathroom, on the other hand, the same gesture would mean “yes, go ahead”. The same gesture can also mean “thank you” in a given situation like between a customer and a waiter.

Hoping to seem less touristy, I started using the gesture instead of saying “nandri”, but this did not last for a long time either. On my second week here, while I was out having a drink with an Indian friend, he saw me doing the gesture and started laughing at me. I shared my confusion about the ways of thanking people but his only explanation was: “You do not have to thank the waiter; it is his job to do so. You thank God.” His thought first made me question if Indians cared about being polite with each other, but when I gave more thought to it, I remembered quite a contrasting experience that I had in France. Four years ago in Paris, I took the bus and bought a ticket from the driver. As I had to move towards the back of the bus in a hurry to let other people at the station get in too, I forgot to thank the driver. Suddenly, in a very brutal and severe tone, the driver grabbed my arm, looked me in the eyes and said: “On dit merci?” (We say thank you?). Without even thinking about it for a microsecond, I apologized and thanked him. As I was moving forward, all I could hear was my heartbeat: I felt ashamed of what I did not do. Yet, I wondered if the French driver’s behavior was justified.

Being polite requires love and compassion for the other, rather than being civilized. Thanking someone should come from the heart and not the rules of society. Most importantly, being thankful to someone cannot be fully translated by the simple pronunciation of a word. Whereas the Western culture suggests using the “thank you” word like the air that we breathe in, as if it was given, as if it was free, I wonder if the word is not losing its sense. We came from a University in Europe to spend a whole month in the South of India to study communication and sustainable development. While we observe situations with an ethnographic eye, I wonder if every idea that we perceive as “developed” should be reflected on the Eastern culture. Is the Western way always the best way?

Here the use of “thank you” as a cultural, communicational and linguistic aspect is to be seen as an example, in order to expand the same view on how we imagine sustainable development. While studying development, one should always remember to keep a certain balance in his thoughts: the “West”, recognized as the carrier of Reason, technology, and civilization, should also learn from the “East”. Sustainability is about both giving and receiving, investment and impact. Whether it is moral or material investment, social or economic impact, sustainable development is the achievement of a great balance. The idea of Development with a capital D should therefore stand at the midpoint of the “West” and the “East”, in order for both to potentially benefit from it.

-A student from Istanbul.