Our common global evolution

Theo Ruyter

For some years already the call for a new paradigm concerning the process of development on the
global level is growing louder and louder. The more striking it is to see the old development
thinking alive and kicking all over the place, particularly in the aid industry. Maybe the current
Darwin memorial year offers an appropriate opportunity to identify major obstacles and to bring
about substantial headway in the search for renewal.

Etymologically the word of development is associated with an act or a process of transformation of

one appearance into another, or, exposing something that was covered and (to some extent)
unknown before. In that sense it has found its place and is still used in many different sorts of
speech and writing.

Also in the realm of science the word is commonly used, though applied in different ways. One
specific application of rather recent origin is to be found in the field of economics. There, it is
closely related to words such as growth, civilization, welfare, modernity, prosperity and affluence
as opposed to poverty, tradition, primitivity, need and misery. In that context the word is biased,
because it stands for values and connotations that are positive and beyond any doubt or
doubtfulness.

In many countries and languages this particular application has found its way to common parlance,
starting with the distinction between developed countries on the one hand and underdeveloped or
developing countries on the other, followed by derivatives such as development work, development
worker, development aid and development co-operation. The application has even become so
dominant that 'development' is often not recognized any more in the original, more general sense. In
other words: development has got - as a matter of fact - an economic stamp, which in itself
overshadows other ways of using and interpreting the word.

The commonly understood characteristic of 'development' in the present dominant meaning is its
association with people and nations that are considered poor and needy according to criteria defined
by those countries that reigned - until recently - the international economic relationships and the
global economy as such in the post world war II era. Most of the latter countries being former
colonial powers, it is no surprise 'development ' in the context of international assistance and co-
operation bears the marks of colonialism.

The distinction between ‘we’ and ‘they’, the relationship between donor and receiver, the
contradiction between rich and poor, capable and helpless, master and servant and all other varieties
of inequality between human beings that are referred to nowadays in the thinking on and the
practice of international aid and cooperation (or rather the attempts to turn aid into co-operation),
are to be reduced to the era of colonial occupation of large parts of the world by or in the name of
nations based in Europe. This does not only explain the characteristics of relations between groups
of countries in the present world, but also the growing disillusionment about the results of six
decades of 'development assistance' and the call for a new paradigm.

Which might or which should be the characteristics of a new paradigm?

1) It should do away with the word of development, as it is negatively loaded to the extent of being
a drag on any search for something really new. Without falling into the trap of denying (historic)
reality, one might look for an alternative concept that offers a new and better perspective to come to
grips with the world of the third millennium.

2) It should facilitate the ambition to define - and eventually build - a global public domain and
global general interests that outdo the particular interests of particular nations, peoples, groups or
individuals. Since the discussion on the limits of growth started, in the seventies of the past century,
the need for such an ambition had become more and more obvious, but both public and private
discourse are still dominated by the contradictions and conflicts between all sorts of particular
interests.

3) It should imply the respect of a set of human rights the international community has agreed upon
and is willing to defend by international law and the institutions needed to make both people and
authorities abide by it. As opposed to the present situation, where the present 'human rights' are
interpreted and treated in many different ways, impunity is everywhere and charity is employed as
a substitute for justice.

4) It should also take into consideration the lessons drawn from history - and not in the last place
last century's - as to the (lack of) capacity human beings have to make and change the world.
Though in recent years many people have lost confidence in drastic and persistent change by human
interference, many international interventions - development aid not in the last place - reflect the
belief change can be imposed from outside and from above.

One of the possible concepts that are suggested in this context of late is 'evolution', possibly
supplemented by global and joint or common. The probable source of inspiration being the current
revival of Darwinism, it argues the use of having a closer look at Darwin's evolution doctrine and -
in general terms - the study of certain knowledge and experience in the field of biology for the sake
of renewal in social sciences.

At first sight 'evolution' is offering at least three advantages in comparison with 'development' in
view of the new paradigm debate. In the first place as the antipode of the creationist view of the
world it entails the symbolic value of a process that takes place in its own way over a long period
of time, as opposed to the kind of change brought about by particular people in a particular time
frame.

Secondly, it has the advantage of referring to humans as being part of nature, which humans can try
to understand but can never fully control no matter how hard they try. This may impose the right
attitude to respect the nature of the earth as such and accept its flaws including the built-in
limitations of the human kind.

Thirdly, the evolutionist way of thinking has a flavor of democracy, as opposed to dictatorship. It
stands for growth from below and ramification from something basic into something more complex,
whereas development is rather representative of a forceful movement from above, no matter how
for instance economists have been trying to present particular human behavior as inevitable or
inherent in 'the 'nature' of human beings and their creation. (TR)