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From the rubble of modernization: Choosing our own paths to progress
Pride resulting from global dominance and spectacular scientific and technological developments led Europeans to believe that the West was the most advanced and developed of all societies
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Pride resulting from global dominance and spectacular scientific and technological developments led Europeans to believe that the West was the most advanced and developed of all societies.
Other societies were primitive and under-developed. As these other societies matured and grew, they would follow the same stages that were followed by the West and eventually become like modern Western societies.
Many European thinkers such as Comte and Hegel described the stages in growth from a primitive society to a modern one in a "logical" sequence. The enterprise of colonizing the non-European world was painted in bright terms as being part of the "white man's burden" of bringing enlightenment, good governance, science, technology and other benefits of Western civilization to the rest of the world.
Until the 1960s modernization theorists -- such as Parsons and Rostow -- echoed these sentiments and regarded Westernization as a desirable and inevitable process for the rest of the world.
In this article we discuss some of the difficulties which led to substantial reconsideration of these naive views. Current views (for example, Development as Freedom by Amartya Sen) are much more complex and diverse, and generally more respectful of other ancient civilizations in the world.
The first problem with Western theories of progress is the deeply racist worldview embedded within them. The Dred-Scott decision in the United States declared that blacks were "beings of an inferior order, and altogether unfit to associate with the white race, either in social or political relations, and so far inferior that they had no rights which the white man was bound to respect".
Australian aborigines were hunted like animals by the British. Lord Cecil Rhodes declared that "I contend that we are the finest race in the world and that the more of the world we inhabit the better it is for the human race. Just fancy those parts that are at present inhabited by the most despicable specimens of human beings; what an alteration there would be if they were brought under Anglo-Saxon influence ...."
He became the richest man in the world at the time by fully exploiting those "despicable specimens of human beings" in the British colonies. While explicit and open racism has largely been abandoned in modern times, remnants of these racist views still persist.
There is debate at the highest levels in the United States as to whether or not Muslims can self-govern. Nobel Prize winner Watson has suggested that differences in development levels may be explained by genetic endowments. Harvard professor Bell maintains that non-white races have lower IQ than whites.
A second problem with modernization theories is that it has become abundantly clear that high sounding moral ideas have served as a cover for very low and despicable purposes. In King Leopold's Ghost, Adam Hochschild documents the extremely cruel, oppressive and exploitative treatment meted out to Africans which resulted in the death of four to eight million in the Belgian Congo alone.
In the name of bringing them the benefits of European civilization, King Leopold's officials used extremely harsh methods to force the locals to collect rubber. To teach the locals Western work ethics, the Belgians took wives and children hostage and kept them in subhuman conditions until their African husbands fulfilled their quotas. Soldiers would torture, chop off hands or kill the inhabitants if they faltered in their work.
Similar policies are also currently in operation. According to testimony of high-placed officials such as Paul O'Neill, Alan Greenspan and Henry Kissinger, the Iraq War was planned for the control of the vast oil resources of Iraq. However, the White House vehemently denies this view, and alleges high motives, e.g., the desire to bring democracy to Iraq.
A third problem with modernization theories is that they have failed to deliver results. All across the world, "structural adjustment programs" (SAPs) were designed and implemented by expert economists to help improve economic performance.
Even proponents from IMF and the World Bank now widely acknowledge that these policies have been failures.
Critics, including Nobel Laureate Stiglitz, claim that these SAPs are a major cause of poverty all over the world. Under General Pinochet, the Chilean economy was turned into a laboratory experiment in free market economics by the "Chicago boys".
Greedy Western financiers eager to get high returns by investing in East Asian Tigers, forced financial liberalization on Indonesia and others, which directly led to the financial crisis.
In the aftermath, conveniently blamed on corruption and weaknesses in the Tiger economies, Indonesia was forced to take austerity measures, sell off valuable assets at fire-sale prices, and generally protect the interests of foreign investors at the cost of the domestic economy.
Trust, cooperation, harmony, tolerance and compassion are more vital to the good life than washing machines and refrigerators.
These values are learned within loving and functional families, and reinforced by teachers with character who inspire students to excellence in moral conduct.
We need to recognize, value and promote our traditional cultural strengths, and resist the temptation to trade them away for the empty glitter and glamor of the West.
The writer is a former professor of economics at John Hopkins University, U.S., and now is professor of economics at the International Islamic University, Islamabad (IIUI). He can be reached at asadzaman@alum.mit.edu
