blessed britons

President Suharto, who ruled Indonesia, had massacred over a million of his fellow citizens when he seized power in 1965. Over 30 years later, he was waging a vicious war against an independence movement in East Timor. (Foreign Secretary) Robin Cook said he supported the delivery of Hawk aircraft to Indonesia. He claimed that the Indonesian government had assured the Foreign Office that the planes were only training aircraft and would not be used against the people of East Timor. The Hawk was originally developed as a trainer but was also marketed by British Aerospace for use as a cheap ground attack plane. The Hawks were delivered to Indonesia and used to bomb villages in East Timor.

mad world

...ordinary people, simply doing their jobs, and without any particular hostility on their part, can become agents in a terrible destructive process. Moreover, even when the destructive effects of their work become patently clear, and they are asked to carry out actions incompatible with fundamental standards of morality, relatively few people have the resources needed to resist authority.

— Stanley Milgram in The Perils of Obedience

civic education

it's normal

Submitted by antarchi on June 3, 2007 - 13:05.

That was what I was told when I complained that the money I was raising for work in Russia was going into a British charity's core funding, used to support their work in the UK. It was normal to put in a budget for the funder which, in addition to 'administration costs' (not insubstantial, and far greater than the Russia part was eating) also claimed twice my daily wage, in order to pile the extra back into British projects. It was normal for the accountant to engage in creative accounting in order to hide that fact from the funders. And it was normal for the funders not to be interested when I told them that was why I was leaving the organisation. Of course the funders didn't want to hear that 5 years' project funding had been mispent. They had long ago accounted for it (creatively).

'It's normal' was also what I was told when I complained that western 'experts' living in Kiev, without a background in civic education, without the Ukrainian language, and without any understanding of the Ukrainian education system, were paid more per day than the Ukrainian experts were paid per month; more per year than the Ukrainian experts earn in 20 years. The local experts, in addition to having fluent English, Russian and Ukrainian, had 12 years' experience of civic education in Ukraine and a thorough knowledge of the Ukrainian education system. But for some reason they need less to live off than we do (even when we're living in the same place).

'It's normal' was what I was told when I complained that 85% of the €2 million EU budget, money allocated towards 'enhancing the transition process' in Ukraine, was not in fact going anywhere near Ukraine or the Ukrainians: it was going into the pockets of well-paid western 'experts' who in fact had little expertise in anything of any relevance. It was going back into the business (sic) enterprise that bid for the tender, and made a business out of bidding for international tenders.

Again, the EU didn't want to know. It's normal.

Have we (or the Ukrainians) perhaps misunderstood the double meaning of 'enhancing the transition process'? Enhancing - for whom? Transition towards what? How doubly sick that we should use the vehicle of 'civic education' to enhance our own prospects and ignore the need for Ukrainian experts (in the real sense) to manage their own processes, and to bring in international experts if they feel the need, and at the rate they think appropriate.

What a strange, diseased normality we have built ourselves. And we in the so-called civilised west believe that we can fly about the world telling others how to behave, how to educate, which values to adhere to, what is normal.

When will we look at ourselves?

The educated individual is the adapted person, because she or he is better 'fit' for the world. Translated into practice, this concept is well suited to the purposes of the oppressors, whose tranquillity rests on how well people fit the world the oppressors have created, and how little they question it.

Paolo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed.