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10 April 1997 Edition

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The Future

BY ROBERT ALLEN

Polluting industry, whether it is transnational or local, is not the future for Ireland. Our future lies in a clear understanding of our needs, the kinds of communities we will have to build if we are to create social, economic, cultural and political structures that will properly serve every single person born on this island over the coming decades.

So what are the solutions? Empowerment of communities for a start. Local communities have an intimate knowledge of their physical and social environment. Traditional societies or local communities, if you prefer, have a sense of place, a sense of belonging, a sense of self or being. This is passed on to successive generations that know their area, whether it be woodland, mountains, hills, lakes, rivers and the sea. It is also a continuous thinking process which is creative rather than destructive. Farmers who know their land are being forced to implement policies they instinctively disagree with. People who know the ways of fish are forced to reject their traditional methods in favour of policies which are fatalistically detrimental to their survival. These people know the lay of the land and the capriousness of the sea. They know each other, better than anyone else, so they should be entrusted with the protection of the natural environment and with social revival. It is now becoming clear that this local knowledge of the natural ecology will be lost within another two generations if present social trends continue - the young leaving the land while `blow-ins' from other parts of Ireland and foreign countries push up the price of houses, land and development. Those who remain find themselves in bitter struggle for survival. Instead of mutual aid and co-operation we find our communities riven with greed, selfishness, competition and envy. Only those with the competitive urge appear to make a decent living.

National and international polices must be reversed to reflect the genuine needs of indigenous communities. Centralised policy interferes with indigenous sustainable management of land and animal systems, to the extent that communities are being paid not to work the land. But it is possible to reverse the centralised agricultural and social policies which have reduced the use of land to intensive, industrial farming.

While it is true that EU policy is slowly beginning to recognise that environmentally friendly farming is the favoured progression it is not enough. We must begin to implement holistic policies that encourage and fund ecologically sound farming and fishing. We must encourage development that uses natural unlimited resources such as the wind, water and the sun to harness energy.

Indigenous, small-scale, non-exploitative, eco-industries, of which there are thousands all over the world, must be adopted in every community. They must be structured as co-operatives and be protected from free markets that are more competitive than Ireland's. For all kinds of work by everyone over 18 a fixed hourly rate of pay, determined by the cost of basic needs, must be implemented. Integrated public transport systems, using low-energy power, which serve the needs of all communities must be established.

Electronic communications should be made available to every home at rates which are not prohibitive. More importantly the Westminister and Dublin hierarchies must stop bleeding every man and woman to fund a decadent political and economic system that works only for the colonial capitalists and its servants.

If we are to change anything we must perpetually challenge the present political and economic models, for they have failed us - except in the form of political theatre.

Dharam Ghai, director of the United Nations Research Institute for Social Development (UNRID), believes that the reforms needed to bring about change ``in development and conservation policies cannot come without concomitant changes in the constellation of social and political forces at the global and national levels''.

But these arguments are meaningless if they are taken only in social, political and economic isolation, out of context from the global free-market model for development which is now pandemic, and our understanding of ourselves as a species.

Essentially humankind has no choice but to change itself, its attitudes and patterns and reject hierarchial, authoritarian, bureaucratic and exploitative systems and behaviour. It is when Smith and Okoye suggest that ``to achieve this there must be changes both at the grassroots level of public opinion, and in the minds and modes of action of policy makers and business leaders'' that the alarm bells begin to ring, because it appears we lack both the political will and the people of imagination who would make these changes happen.

Or do we?


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