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Watering
our development choices
by
Renwick Rose
While
most Vincentians are concerned about the falling level of potable
water reserves and the need for rationing, brought about by the
prolonged dry spell, a particular group of people in Layou are
engaged in a water struggle of a different type. They are protesting
a proposed project to use a localized service in the Big Gut area
for bottling and export purposes. The Government has announced
that it is in discussions with foreign investors to develop an
enterprise using the Big Gut water which would bring both much
needed foreign exchange and create jobs to what is one of the
areas of highest unemployment in St. Vincent and the Grenadines.
On
the surface it sounds very much like many cases I have encountered
internationally, the typical case of the small community versus
foreign capital, the all too familiar case of meeting local needs
from local resources versus export orientation strategy. The world
is full of such cases, not like Big Gut I might add, but of blatant
disregard for the rights of local people with their governments
often acting in complicity with foreign investors. Asia, Africa
and Latin America are all replete with such examples, so persons
like myself, given a people focus, an internationalist perspective
and a strong sense of solidarity, are always inclined to have
a sympathetic ear.
Unfortunately
I find it difficult to characterise the Big Gut one as in the
category mentioned above. Certainly emotions are high; on both
sides of the fence but the battle may be over form rather than
substance. Mr. G.E.M. Saunders' article in this newspaper "The
Layou Water Project" (Searchlight, May 16, 2003, pg 12) has, in
my view, put the matter properly into perspective. It certainly
does not absolve the Government from any blame in its handling
of the situation, yet we must not fall into the trap of throwing
out the baby with the bathwater.
Indeed
the matter has to be put into a far wider context into which Big
Gut, Layou residents, Louis Straker, Ralph Gonsalves and the Government
are only a tiny part, irrespective of how people feel. The context
is that of development perspectives for small-island developing
(or at least desirous of developing) nations. With few national
resources, limited land space, restricted human resource capacity,
countries like ours already have a number of things working against
us. Then there are the international trends of globalisation,
bringing with it often unrealistic expectations as to quality
of life. As our taste buds get whetted, our pupils dilated and
our minds over-blown by all we consume or dream of doing, so too
do our desires, and, in a changing world, our needs, our rights.
Economic development for countries like ours therefore confronts
us with a number of challenges, poses a number of questions. We
need schools, houses, roads, factories, airports, hospitals etc.,
but we have fixed land area. Much of that was devoted to agriculture
in the past but as we 'develop' more and more, prime agricultural
land is being diverted to other economic and social functions.
Which should come first? Recreation is a necessity and recreational
areas take up space, governments in the past have made choices
between playing fields and schools or police stations. That is
our reality.
At
the same time the bulk of us continue unmindful of our changing
and increasingly unfavourable circumstances. We have more educational
opportunities, more access to information, but are not necessarily
more educated (in the widest scope) or informed. Our political
system, geared to short term goals and results does not help to
prepare us for the long haul. And we still remain trapped in the
half-way world between 'modern expectations' and 'traditional
Vincentian reality'.
'Self-sufficiency'
that romantic appeal of the seventies, is clearly not sufficient
to cope with the demands of a modernising society with a growing
young population. Today's generation will not put up with homes
without electricity and back-breaking work with hoe and cutlasses.
They want their CDs, mobiles, DVDs and computers. Barbados therefore
sells its top grade sugar to the EC for hard currency and if there
is a shortage of cheaper lower-grade sugar, even imports from
other countries. St. Vincent exports its premium bananas, 'rejects'
are sold on the local or regional markets. These are stark choices
facing us.
They
do not mean that our local people must be deprived of our basic
necessities. No serious person has charged that the people of
Layou are to be deprived of water, the arguments are about sources,
respecting the efforts and traditions of the people and of involving
them in a meaningful way.
That
is the level at which we must pitch our dialogue, not just over
Big Gut, but over the proposed trans-insular road, over airport
development, over a relevant Constitution, and over our politics
and politicians. We cannot afford to be 'blind, deaf, dumb and
not aware'. Not when we can do better.
Searchlight,
6 June 2003
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