DEVELOPMENT (PART ONE)

development

such a harmless sounding word

a word with positive connotations

despite its rather dry and abstract feel

a thesaurus might bring up these synonyms

'advancement', 'progress' or 'improvement'

i once began a part-time masters degree

in something called 'global development management'

encouraged by the belief that the insights i gained might empower me

to making some kind of positive contribution to alleviating global poverty

but masters degrees don't sit very well with full-time jobs

or with fatherhood and new-born babies

on friday night in the prince of wales

i meet up with a university lecturer in international development

curiosity piqued

i ask him for his definition of 'development'

he's an intelligent, thoughtful and reflective chap

even so it takes him a surprisingly long time to come up with an answer

eventually he settles on this

'equality of opportunity'

this surprises me

it's not exactly what i was expecting

so my next question is

equality of opportunity to do what?

again a long pause

the answer is again an interesting one

'equality of opportunity to attain comfort'

i establish that 'comfort' denotes shelter, food, clothing, relationships

my next question should have been

for whom?

for humanity?

or for other species?

or for both?

this strikes me as an important point

as it can be argued that development

in cahoots with the global industrial capitalist system

has brought about an awful lot of inequality of opportunity for humanity

and as for other species

as they disappear at a rate of two hundred per day

i think the horrors speak for themselves

or perhaps i'm missing the point...