Dear Ki:
You wrote in a copy of your radio broadcast:
(3) It is clear that (let me repeat) the present education system
doesn't lead to create a civil society in Burma let alone a
democratic society.
Thanks for a copy of your radio talk. Synchronicity is a wonderful thing
and as I had just read your posting, I read the following posting and saw
certain similarities. Your military rulers would be the equivalent - though
with the volume turned up in terms of suppression - that we are fighting in
Canada and New Zealand and to a lesser degree in the US with the political
philosophy called neo-cons which is an acronym for New Conservative
thinking, which is basically the old liberal philosophy of laissez faire or
the market rules of the 19th century robber barons.
What is happening in Canada's largest city, Toronto is that it was composed
of 6 municipalities within the same geographic area and the neo-con
Provincial government led by Mike Harris has changed Toronto into a Mega
City with only one government. There is a lot of grass roots resistance to
this and I participate in a List that is fighting these changes. Joesph
Cooper, the author of the copy I sent you has found a city in the US that
went through similar amalgamations about 20 years ago and by corresponding
with members of that city, he brings us information about the long term
effects of mega city's run by small neo con governments who have only
consideration for the needs of business.
Joesph posted this article about one of the most famous Mayors in the US.
Mayor Daly is from Chicago he gave a largely unreported talk in Toronto
about education and how the neo-con agenda creates a "dumbing down" of the
educational standards that eventually lead to a loss of the quality of life
in cities. I agree with his assessment and thought it might help your
thinking to realize that some of the negative effects of your country have
probably occurred from the same process and to re-affirm to you that your
analysis is right and that you have chosen a seminal topic on which to
conduct your battle with the military government of your country.
The only problem I see, is that change is generational in that to get
schools started, and finally produce a crop of students who have the skills
and awareness to make good changes will take generations, just as it takes
several generations to destroy an educated populace. This is what is
happening in the US now and Bill Clinton is trying to reverse the direction
of educational policy but is being vigorously resisted by the neo-con
Republican Party. Their education system is into its second to third
generation of failure and it is getting worse. The only thing that is
saving the US is it's ability to attract the best of other countries
educational systems because they still dominate the capital markets and are
very rich. Canada is continually losing some of it's best educated talent
to the US because we still have a good education system.
The problem for a developing country is two fold. One is to develop a
decent educational system and two is to prevent richer countries from
attracting your best brains to compete against their own countrymen while
acting as an employee of a richer country. This is what has been happening
to many third world countries, who through sacrifice of peasant populations
have created some educated people.
Some new and innovative thinking is required because there is not enough
time left to take the long slow route of developing an educated populace.
To me, the answer is the Internet and the concept of "connectivity". If I
was a revolutionary in your country, I would be finding people to set up WEB
SERVERS that could be accessed, not through telephone lines which the
government can control, but through satellite dishes which can be moved and
remain outside of the governments control mechanisms. I would send agents
into villages and communities to train individuals to act like an "old
fashioned telegraph operator" in which individuals could talk to the
operator and he would do the technical typing and connections needed.
Now the question is to communicate with whom about what. I have two
suggestions. One is lateral communication between individual communities
within your country with a two-fold purpose, one, to politicize them about
the current situation and two, to set up through-out the world, the twin
communities concept in which those from countries like Canada, Europe could
interact directly with your villages. I have posted one other article on
this lengthy post to show you how this is working with an African village.
The post is important for two reasons, one it gives an example and two it
shows that help can go two ways, even if one of the parties is richer and
more secure than another. There are people of goodwill everywhere. What
governments have been able to do with communication costs, passports and
travel costs is to keep people apart. Connectivity, such as this
communication between you and I is the quantum leap that can by pass all
their controls.
Once people of your country establish relationships with people in my
country, then we become politicized to your problems and we make noise that
galvanizes our politicians to pressure your politicians or at least provide
them with some major discomfort. Marshal McLuhan, one of our more famous
academics posited the concept that the transistor radio would change the
third world and allow them to miss some of the developmental stages of the
Western world because it was an auditory medium that a camel driver in the
Sahara could listen too and learn from without having to go through a formal
educational process or have a country that could provide that
infrastructure. The transistor radio was only invented in the 1960's and
much of the effects of it's potential is now being felt by the turmoil in
the world, which is really the turmoil of people questioning governments.
The power structures of the world countered that threat to a large degree by
controlling the media outlets of the corporate ownership of the transmission
facilities or in many case direct government control of these stations. One
of the effects of Radio Free Europe, the BBC and Canada's CBC International
was that strong transmitters could send messages into other countries. The
problem was that it was not people to people as much as it was an additional
weapon in the arsenal of the Cold War countries. Now that Russia has
collapsed, we don't hear much about Radio Free Europe and in Canada
recently, there was a major effort on the part of our government to cut the
funds for CBC International under the guise of budget reduction. What it
really was, was a statement that our government is no longer interested in
destabilizing populations to cause their governments discomfort.
The Internet, twin communities, people to people communication, personal
help rather than governmental help, is now possible and it should not only
happen between the so called rich countries and poor countries, but between
people of all countries. This is our main hope for curtailing the powers of
government and big business. Well, this has been a much longer note than I
planned and I hope it gives you some thoughts.
Respectfully,
Thomas Lunde
Joseph Cooper posted on C4LDEMOC
This little item appeared in the Sun the other day and did not get much
notice from the media, but it is significant for several reasons. Taken
from the article is this quote, which says, "The best way to fix a rotten
city is to make the education system
accountable" "Chicago Mayor Richard Daly told a Toronto audience last night.
The person Mayor Mel Lastman described as "a legend," has managed to lick
a $1.8-billion city deficit while reducing the crime rate and bringing the
middle class back to the city.
And he says education reform was the key to his success. "Once the middle
class regains its faith in the education system, it regains its faith in
the city and good things begin to happen," Daley said.
"There are no other gimmicks out there for dealing with quality of life --
it's education," Daley told the annual conference of the Food and Consumer
Product Manufacturers of Canada.
Frankly I have been expecting this for several reasons. First and formost,
the connection between municipal reform and school reform in the neo-con
ideology is very very firm. As those of you who have been watching my
postings about the events that took place in Indianapolis Indiana will know
that the same year that the city was forced to amalgamate the school system
also underwent "reform". What happened was that that school system began to
deteriorate rather than improve. Student's results went down rather than
up, and this has remained a constant trend through out the past 28 years of
neo-con rule in that city. As one observer pointed out, after a generation
in this reformed school system, nobody remembers what a good education is,
so the current lack of standards is no longer an issue as nobody values an
education in that city any more.
Now the issue with Chicago is also of importance to this neo-con issue for
several key reasons. First and formost - Why have the Principals, and
vice-Principals in Ontario been removed from their positions in the school
teacher unions, and turned into "managers"?
The answer lays in the Chicago experience, where the principals of the
schools are modeled after presidents
of company, with the Mayor acting as chairman of the board. Each of the
principals is expected to use any means necessary as would be expected in
the private sector to get results. Its a hard, draconian system where you
either perform, or you get out - and that applies for both students,
teachers, and principals.
Now this leads us to the next issue, and that links Lastman with the events
taking place in the U.S. regarding his role in the system. Now, in the Sun
article he say that he will not engage in direct control of the system,
which is understandable. However, there is a real model for his role in the
system as has been developed by current Indianapolis Mayor Jerry Goldsmith.
That would be for Mel Lastman to become the promoter of various social
movements amongst the students.
Goldsmith's big push has been been on the promotion of "lifestyle choices"
amongst primary and high school students that keep them from "ending up" on
welfare. Some of the anti-drug
promotions we may be familiar with, but what they are also doing is actively
placing religious groups into the schools to promote "chastity" as a
birth control technique while at the same time attacking birth control and
abortion clinics - to name only a few of the things going on. When you
start to take a look at what is going on it is very scary because it is the
systematic removal of choice, with people such as the mayor becoming very
intrusive in people's private and economic life.
Keep an eye on this, particularly regarding the influx of these neo-con
types into Toronto who are now coming to preach the social side of the
neo-con ideology. The stage is really being set for a really ugly time to
come when intolerance and bigotry come to be draped in the cloth of
respectability. This weeks baying of Yahoos in Alberta over the recent
supreme court decision is only the beginning I am afraid.
|
From: Craig McKie <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Foreign Aid for Quebec :)
International News
Mali village sends aid to Quebec
(by) Alex Duval Smith in Bamako
MOVED by the plight of thousands of Canadians whose lives were
devastated by ice storms last month, the elders of a West African
village called on their subjects to send emergency aid.
The 40,000 West African francs ($65) dispatched from Sanankoroba,
Mali, to its twin town of Saint Elisabeth in Quebec should surprise no
one, said Moussa Konate, who was charged with sending off the money
and a fax of sympathy.
"There was no fuss when farmers in Saint Elisabeth helped farmers in
Sanankoroba after floods in 1995 and 1997," he said. "We are aware
that the [money] they have received from us is symbolic. But it shows
that giving has to do with the heart, not the sum."
Mr. Konate said most of the 4,500 people in Sanankoroba, who farm
cotton and millet, had never traveled further than the 30 km to the
capital, Bamako. Living under straw roofs on the arid Sahel plain,
they had no concept of what ice was until battery-driven televisions
in the village showed news footage last month of homes in Quebec
without heating and light.
But prayers were immediately said in the village mosques for Saint
Elisabeth, a dairy-farming community of about 1,500 people, 100 km
north of Montreal, which has been twinned with Sanankoroba for 13
years.
Mr. Konate said: "When the twinning offer came up, the 15 clan
elders of Sanankoroba were very dubious because they had bad memories
of colonization. But Saint Elisabeth sent a group of young people, who
ate with the villagers and slept in their huts. The elders decided the
youths were from a great people."Since then, under a scheme called
Hands for Tomorrow, Saint Elisabeth and Sanankoroba have set aside
land which is communally farmed to fund the twinning scheme.
Money raised from the Canadian land has bought 30 oxen and ploughs for
Sanankoroba, built six classrooms and allowed its farmers to visit
Saint Elisabeth.
The Guardian Weekly Volume Issue for week ending , Page 5
Thomas:
"Since then, under a scheme called Hands for Tomorrow, Saint Elisabeth and
Sanankoroba have set aside
land which is communally farmed to fund the twinning scheme."
This little statement is very important because it shows a way for creative
funding for a variety of purposes. Often land in Third World Country's is
tribal land or land without a formal owner. By setting aside land in which
donations from the richer partners could be invested,for the common good, on
a sustaining basis leading towards a "dividend" in sense that can
continually be reinvested in local infrastructure such as schools.
