On 3/27/07, James Heartfield <Heartfield at blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:
> I remember having my doubts about the Narmada Dam campaign that Roy got
> involved in - though I don't guess that many on this list would have shared
> them.
>
> There seemed to me to be some evidence that the anti-Dam campaigners were
> being sponsored by western environmental groups. Also, I was not sure why
> the World Bank (which pulled out of the project) should value their rights
> over those of the Indian state to generate electricity.
He sounds like he simply has this innate ability to smell a rat which the rest of us simply don't possess--or, as he says in his more recent comments, "struggle does not mean you should suspend judgement."
But today (in the post below) he finally lets us in on his well established opinion, with lots of twists and turns, all blaming the NBA for any problem that this dam project encountered and, basically, chalking up any of the struggle as misguided and the result of these outside agitators. Had I known he not only had a reactionary opinion about this and he was just lying in wait to drop his knowledge on us--(not-so-)fresh from his work on the documentary "Against Nature" which makes a similar claim about not just the dam movement but virtually every environmental cause in the past century (in this the documentary is basically an early version of what Michael Crichton has become)--I never would have engaged him at all. And if I knew that the only thing required for evidence in these arguments is a Google search to produce a few blogs of ire-filled rants blaming everything on one misguided activist woman or another, well I certainly would have worked for five minutes longer on the front end of the postings.
So now we have this, his more fleshed out, somewhat reactionary version of events, which is evidently backed up by all kinds of evidence he can't be bothered to share with us: we'll just have to trust him. I sympathize with much of the criticism he has given here, but he seems to trade in one broad brush for another, which is not exactly a good critical thinking strategy. So..
On 3/29/07, James Heartfield <Heartfield at blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:
> Before the NBA was involved in the campaign, local activists, like Anil
> Patel's ARCH-Vahini had already negotiated good resettlement deals from the
> authorities for those who were displaed by the dam.
>
> NBA's outright opposition to the dam was a rhetorical posture that allowed
> the activists to grandstand but did nothing for the people. The NBA
> encouraged people to refuse the resettlement packages, exposing them to much
> greater hardship.
>
> The NBA was sponsored by US-based environmental groups who used the Narmada
> Valley aboriginals as a stage army for their own fantasy struggle against
> the modern world. They persuaded the World Bank to withdraw funds, but the
> Indian government went ahead anyway....
it goes on from here. It seems "suspending judgment" means presuming that environmental NGOs are both blinkered by ideology and all powerful and anyone who sees any credibility to their claims is just another member of their cult. Strangely enough, the World Bank (in the report below) is evidently in denial about the enormous influence of this particular group, mentioning it only once and, in the following sentence giving evidence to the contrary by another NGO working on the issue. Obviously this is just a cover-your-ass tactic.
That several independent assessments also found problems with the dam project must make them even more ashamed to be part of the cult. Notably, the report on Narmada is called "Learning From Narmada."
There were, evidently, multiple problems with the construction--which probably have existed in the construction of any dam ever built, but now all these scientist and social activists are also around to consider the longer view and place that 10% economic return the dam is supposed to produce in a wider context. That and there is an active public discussion. This does make the replication of absolutist paths to development somewhat more difficult (unless you're China and then it is still possible.) It makes this kind of undertaking much more complicated. But James knows that it is necessary and that most anyone who resists is just taken in by some misguided charlatan who doesn't have a realistic understanding of the way the world (can, should, and, whatever you do, will) work(s).
His position reminds me very much of Hayek's understanding of the rise of socialism (or any kind of government intervention) in the nineteenth century, as he talks about it in "Road to Serfdom." There was evidently nothing wrong with the material circumstances in which people were living. They would have been fine if left alone. If it weren't for those villainous socialist agitators (all of them coming out of the proto-fascist Germany, a point he raises so often it's comical); if it weren't for them, the free market of the nineteenth century would still be with us today. I'm sure that the workers who fought for the limited working day, put an end to child labor and helped increase workplace safety are all rolling over in their shallow graves knowing that they were taking in by the same kind of charade. Lo if James Heartfield and Hayek were around to help us keep from "suspending judgment" anytime we see people struggling.
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