with the Lords (and Ladies) of Poverty

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Some thoughts on the White Saviour Complex of development consultancies

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photo taken from  https://e11e99.wordpress.com/2012/10/06/identity-in-a-post-colonial-world/ I am sharing some thoughts that I picked  randomly from a relatively progressive Christian facebook page (Sojourners)that I follow, mainly to help me counter the rather misinformed opinions of my true believer Christian friends (brown not white).  The article is called , 6 HARMFUL CONSEQUENCES OF THE WHITE SAVIOR COMPLEX, BY RYAN KUJA  and is so relevant to the northern development consultancy space that many of my (white) friends and colleagues occupy (and that I too sometimes venture into) that I thought to use it to write a blog post that I can share with that community.   R yan Kuja confesses that he was "never a missionary in the standard sense of the word, never proselytized or attempted to save souls"  but admits that "the engine driving [him] was the white saviour complex..... The other Westerners [he] worked with believed [they] had it all pretty much figur
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Year 2014: Buddhist era 2557-2558

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There was an interesting debate among colleagues that was triggered by the simple fact that I shared the official government calendar for 2014.  The Calendar has, as it has had in the previous year, and possibly many years prior to that,  the sub title -  Buddhist Era 2557-2558. This triggered a discussion on whether it was appropriate to have that on the calendar or not.  The argument against seemed to be based on it being seen as an imposition by the State of Buddhism, into areas that are perceived as secular and non-religious. [Though of course, as was pointed out,  the Gregorian Calendar is not really secular at all, based on the fact that it counts the years from the birth of Christ!] What was interesting was that we were having this debate at all.  Obviously, the current context has made us all ultra sensitive to certain issues, and the whole question of a state religion led some of us to be uncomfortable, others to be resentful (not overtly manifest in this conversation)
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Disturbing vignettes (a series) - Sept 26: the brutalising effect of war

Check this out if you haven't already. http://tinyurl.com/kw526a It is a video of the Sri Lankan army executing Tamils early this year and was shown on Channel 4 recently and did the rounds of emails, facebook etc. Naturally it sparked a huge row. GOSL denied it of course. Experts tried to prove it was a fake. Last heard, GOSL was going to sue Channel 4. The footage is udoubtedly quite horrific and irrespective of whether this video is a fake or not, I think it is quite possible that such incidents could have taken place. What I find disturbing is that responsible journalists, and responsible citizens are happy to accept 'evidence' that has so obviously not been triangulated, that is openly admitted to being 'unverified'. Is it not also an indictment of our times that no one is seeing the video as depicting the brutalising effect of war . Armed conflict creates monsters on both sides - and this for me is the most important message that this video needs to bri
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