Progress is a word

Peregrine Worsthorne has let fly today in The First Post (sorry I haven't mastered links yet) at "Crimes committed in the name of progress". His logic extends to the end product of "progress" in several countries but it is Tibet's renewed travails that have aroused his attention. Clearly he is remembering the romantic setting of old Tibet, unsullied by the "progress" of Chinese domination. I have no quarrel with the exiled Dalai Lama's proper place in Tibet or of the will of Tibetans to return to their past and their special brand of sovereign rule, but I must take issue with his sweeping condemnation of "progress", particularly as he sneers at the concept of "liberal progress". I quote:

"Other countries are doing [the name of progress] a good turn by breaking and entering in the name of progress: communist progress, fascist progress and liberal progress, the last of which has done more dispatching of so-called backward societies to the knacker's yard than any other".

I understand the general drift of his argument, but his First Post piece is too short and therefore emits more heat than light.

My own focus on "progress" inevitably settles on Zimbabwe, the country where I was born. It took 88 years of imperial domination of one kind and another to bring "progress" (originally by force)to that colonized country. Eventually, Zimbabwe was handed over to its rightful owners, its indigenous inhabitants, as a well-developed little state, a "gem" of a country. Ask any `native' (as a non-African, I would be described merely as a `sojourner') if he/she would prefer to be living in the pre-colonial environment, devoid of the "progress" of modern institutions, modern technology and so on and I know the truthful answer would be "don't ask a silly question".

I was (and am) a liberal, and a student of African history. As a former Rhodesian and later, a Zimbabwean, I believed most devoutly in "progress" for my fellow citizens. To that end I once helped "break and enter" - to borrow Worsthorne's expression - a relatively undeveloped, rural region in order to work with women through the establishing of Savings Clubs. Its a long story but not only did our organization's newfangled ideas of proper land husbandry and functional literacy bring new hope for further "progress" (better diet resulting from food self-sufficiency, a cash surplus from sale of crops to be spent on better technology and so on) but also it gave the women a choice - whether to remain poor, or to prosper. Their families benefited greatly from this "progress" offered them, in this case, by "liberals". I had what is called `hands on' experience. Ask Doris Lessing about women's progress. She travelled around Zimbabwe to witness "progress" with a similar "liberal" organization and she marvelled at it.

All this was before Robert Mugabe's rule began to wreak havoc throughout the country.
He and his followers are returning the country to its undeveloped past - lack of safe water, no electricity, transport only for the rich (he will have to resort to being carried again - as he was at the start of his political career - on the shoulders of his admirers when the last drop of fuel disappears)... and so on ad infinitum.

"Progress" be it communist, facist or liberal (and Zimbabwe has experienced all of these)is being undone. I look forward to the day when the tyrant is despatched and "progress" once again means change from a grossly unsatisfactory situation (call it rotten in today's Zimbabwe) to an improved and hope-filled future.

Copyright © 2004 Diana Mitchell