by Antares

Created on: January 11, 2007   Last Updated: April 19, 2007

D A M N A T I O N !

Imagine we're gathered in some holy place. An architectural wonder. Like St Paul's Cathedral in Rome or the St Sophia Mosque in Instanbul. Or perhaps the Gateway of the Sun in Peru or the Giza Pyramid Complex in Egypt. And we're here to knock this whole place down and build a megamall right here because it would make better economic sense.

Imagine the tremendous outcry against such an outrage. We're talking about demolishing a cultural and spiritual artifact a monument to a whole religious tradition. We're talking about trading in our prophets for profits. That would be absolutely unthinkable!

Now: imagine you're living in a small house you built yourself, beside a clear stream in a beautiful, forested river valley. Your ancestors have lived here for a hundred generations. According to your folklore, the landscape is the living flesh of divine progenitors whose essence condensed to form familiar features - like the mountains, the rivers, the rocks and the trees - and who are integral aspects of a Great Spirit inhabiting all forms, a unity in astonishing diversity. To you, the fact that the land is sacred endowed with meaning, significance, and intrinsic spiritual value is so obvious, no one needs to put it into words.

Imagine we're here to log this magnificent forest, blow up the hills, dig up the rocks, turn a green sanctuary into a giant construction site, seriously pollute the water basin, cause massive erosion in a water catchment area, and dam up one of the last free-flowing rivers in the country. Why? Because economic growth demands greater water consumption - and water supply is a growth industry.

And because we have been grossly insensitive in the way we use and manage our water resources. Recklessly, ruthlessly, we have gone about building national aspirations by tearing down our natural heritage.

A CLASH OF PERSPECTIVES

We are born into cultural perspectives that become imperceptible to us - until we find ourselves outside of them. Like fish that never wonder what water is, we grow up with assumptions about reality we rarely question. For instance, we rarely question the need for governments... or armies... or landlords... or caste systems (whether hereditary or monetary). When we hear the word "development" we assume we know what it means. We experience the flow of time as linear, just as the world looks flat to a lowlander. When conversing with people from a different cultural and linguistic background, we assume they aren't as clever

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