M. Kholis Hamdy
UIN Syarif Hidayatullah, Jakarta, Indonesia
Email: mkholis.hamdy@uinjkt.ac.id
Abtract
To say “No” to development, by means of westernisation, in the current
context may be irrelevant, especially when the definition is not proportionally
set in place. Power dynamics and shifting between the North and the South or
the West and The East become vivid where world polarisation is a no longer
absolute measurement in socio, economic, and politics. There is no clear division
on the binary. This article serves a purpose of a historical recollection of how the
term development by means of westernisation by modernizing the entire world
through ‘development agenda setting’ with long globalized westernisation
efforts have a significant impact on the world’s inequality. By reviewing articles
narratively on the reference of development theory history, the vision of
distributing equal benefits in the current world setting may not fall into similar
past development agenda and development mainstreaming. Thus development
ought to evolve from western origins to a global faith initiative to shape the
world into non-interference, equality, and mutual benefit of sustainable
development for each individual. This article concludes that the history of
development theory has demonstrated the hidden agenda of the westernisation
of the world since the beginning of development project, namely from the
transitional period of the late nineteenth century to the beginning twentieth
century. The remark of Truman is truly considered as the formal embarkation of
the new era of the bold program so-called development project.
Keywords: Development; Westernisation; History; Sustainable Development.
Abstrak
Menolak pembangunan, dalam pengertiannya westernisasi, pada
konteks masa kini tidaklah relevan, khususnya ketika definisi pembangunan
tidak didudukkan pada tempatnya secara proporsional. Dinamika kekuasaan
dan peralihan antara Utara dan Selatan atau Barat dan Timur semakin jelas
dimana polarisasi dunia tidak lagi menjadi ukuran yang absolut dalam ranah
sosial, ekonomi dan politik. Tidak ada pembagian yang jelas antara dua bagian
tersebut. Artikel ini bertujuan sebagai suatu penghimpunan ulang historis
tentang bagaimana istilah pembangunan dalam pengertiannya westernisasi
dengan memodernisasi seluruh dunia melalui ‘pengaturan agenda
pembangunan’ dengan upaya-upaya westernisasi global yang panjang
memberi dampak signifikan terhadap ketimpangan dunia. Dengan meninjau
beberapa artikel secara naratif yang menjadi referensi sejarah teori
pembangunan, visi untuk mendistribusikan manfaat-manfaat yang sama
dalam pengaturan dunia saat ini kiranya tidak terjebak pada agenda
pembangunan masa lalu yang serupa dan pengarusutamaan pembangunan.
Dengan demikian pembangunan harus berubah perlahan dari asal muasal
Barat-nya kepada inisiatif keyakinan global untuk menajamkan dunia menuju
pembangunan yang berkelanjutan yang non-intervensi, setara, dan saling
bermanfaat bagi setiap individu. Artikel ini menyimpulkan bahwa sejarah
teori pembangunan telah memperlihatkan agenda terselubung dari
westernisasi dunia sejak awal proyek pembangunan, yaitu dari periode
transisi pada akhir abad ke-19 hingga awal abad ke-20. Kesimpulan Truman
sangat dipertimbangkan sebagai embarkasi formal era baru program yang
disebut proyek pembangunan.
Kata Kunci: Pembangunan; Westernisasi; Sejarah; Pembangunan
Berkelanjutan
INTRODUCTION
The word development, in terms of its
use, has been and will always be undeniably
common in the public sphere, especially in
the political domain; local, national, regional,
and international stages. It is not worth to
differentiate the various definitions based on
the enormous resources available. However,
for the sake of this article, there is an
urgency to base a common ground of basic
understanding of the term. Therefore, a
historical approach will serve as not only for
the definition per se but also a mean of
discussing or in a way, demonstrate how the
notion of development is merely a concept of
westernisation (modernization) that was
purposely designed to economically drive
ideas prescribed as the means to the
universal improvement of humankind.
The term has been comprehended
through various perspectives such as from
biological metaphor, historical ideas,
economy, social and even religious dogma.
Biological perspective argues, strongly
influenced by ancient Greek thinking, that
the term, which means of growth and
maturation, is the process of reaching
potential for example from seed to become a
tree; the notion of undeveloped to fully
developed stage. The assumption is that
every species has a distinct nature in
fulfilling their potentialities and if they fail to
do so, then mistakes may have taken place,
intervening the natural force to progress,
reach one certain direction and fulfilling
necessary cumulative stages (Esteva, 1992).
Therefore, in this regard, the common
message is that development is an upright
notion and it simply is a process of
movement from a worse state to a better
state.
In western thinking of history, a story
of progress (from worse to better) has
dominantly prevailed excluding other
conception such as degeneration and cyclical,
thus it embeds a linear historical
consciousness which relates to an increase in human powers in terms of rationality,
knowledge and their relation to nature. St
Augustine argued, as referred to Sach (1992),
that humanity has a universal history that
human stages of history starting from
infancy to old and human events are both
merely fulfilling human progress to develop.
This increasing of human powers, for
example, the rationality, is regarded as
humanity’s growing maturity that was
articulately defined by August Comte with
his three stages; theological, metaphysics
and science; Karl Marx with the evolving
notion of feudalism and primitive modes of
production, and Herbert Spencer with the
evolutionary approach of development in
terms of rationality and individualism.
Thus,
the west has been strongly perceived as the
culmination of highest states of human or
humanity development or even ‘peak
civilisation of mankind’ and these thoughts
have reached dominancy and status quo of
the ‘one world’ by progress stimulation
everywhere and the realization of ‘unity of
the world’ through westernisation (Sach,
1992).
METHOD
This framework reflects on
responsibility senses of civilising the natives
in line with brutal power relations existed
since the period of colonialization which
marked the start of the great adventure
1870-1940, as a transitional period on which
opened the way to development (Rist, 2014).
The question is whether the current state of
what so-called development has been
nothing more than a westernisation by
modernizing the entire world through
‘development agenda setting’ with long
globalized westernisation efforts. This essay
is an attempt to discuss the question. This
essay is qualitative by mostly referencing
two main preferences; namely a book of
Gilbert Rist (2014), The History of
Development: From Western Origins to Global
Faith, and using Wolfgang Sach’s (1992) deconstructive description on development
as “stand like a ruin in intellectual
landscape” in examining the westernisation
(modernisation) regarding the notion of
development through a historical
perspective. Historical means here is not
through an excessive use of a heuristic
approach by examining the whole grand
narrative of texts.
However, earlier great
text such as Truman’s Speech will serve as
an argumentation basis to what extent the
idea of development inherently embeds the
hidden agenda of westernisation/
modernisation.
RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS
To foster a broader understanding of
the definition of the West, Western, or
Westernisation, several prominent authors
have described them in various aspects.
Huntington (1993) categorises ‘western’
based on a religious association basis;
reasoning western Christian part of Europe
and North America as the West, while other
6 civilizations consist of Confucian, Latin
America, Islamic, Japanese, Hindu and
Slavic-Orthodox, as the East. Huntington
further claims that after the end of the cold
war, world politics would move into a new
aspect in which non- Western civilizations
were no more the exploited recipients of
Western civilization but become another
important actor joining the West to shape
and move the world history. Although Sen
(2001), as referred by Scholte (2008), has
not explicitly indicated the similarity
between globalization and westernisation,
there are several highlighted parallel
issues relating to the effect of
westernisation in a way such as
inequalities and fairer distribution of both
North and South.
While Sach (1992), using UN
Declaration as a background, describes that
by achieving one world or so-called unity
of the world which inevitably calls for
absorbing differences of the world into an
ahistorical and delocalised universalism of European origin is a simple means of
westernisation of the underdeveloped
replacing the savages terminology. Oxford
Dictionary Online
(http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/)
defines westernisation with the word
westernise (with object) which means as a
cause (a country, person, or system) to
adopt or be influenced by the cultural,
economic, or political systems of Europe
and North America. Thus, westernizing the
underdeveloped here means through
modernisation based on western
orientation.
In the book of Development
Dictionary: A Guide to Knowledge as Power,
development has been analysed with the
under-development, environment approach
as a justification for sustained (not
sustainable) development, a Christian virtue
development (philanthropic), and as a rising
political participation slogan. Progress has
been considered as a belief that ‘toothpaste’
(western science) is the answer to primitive
technology while the production concept is
portrayed by the story of Don Bartolo’s
cornfield (Kolås, 1994). The philanthropic
synthesis of the development could be traced
back to Victor Hugo Commemoration, as
quoted by Rist (2014), that the “white made
a man of black… to fashion a new Africa, to
make old Africa amenable for civilization...
take it, not for the saber but commerce! not
for battle but the industry! not for conquest
but fraternity!” Strong base for the other
version of development post-WWII was
partly influenced by that extraordinary
synthesis; holding a global premise of
civilisation for humankind and that is an
expression of solidarity growth, sense of
community, and vested interest which
entangles the metropolis to its overseas
possession (Rist, 2014).
1945 is a key year of reification in
which development as an agenda-setting
marked by the establishment of the World
Bank and Bretton Woods institutions (Kothari, 2019). In search of the hidden
agenda of development as merely a
westernisation as Sach argued, it is
necessary to discuss important events
considered crucial, especially Truman’s
speech. Post WWII, there was a need for
America to expand the international
market, in this case, is Western Europe,
due to altering the wartime industry into
peace production and dealing with
communism concern if Europe did not
rebuild in a fast manner. Thus, the
Marshal Plan was introduced; bringing
extensive US aid with the dismantling
trade barriers.
The real kick-off of the development
project was strongly considered with
Truman’s inaugural speech in 1948 by
mentioning 4 of US commitment namely: 1.
US will be a UN member, 2. Marshall Plan is
deemed for implementation, 3. the creation
of NATO, and 4. US leadership in
development projects globally (Rist, 2014).
The address contains several dichotomous
key terms that shaped the framework of
development project especially Truman’s
point four such as introducing the word
‘underdeveloped’ and explicit power relation
of ‘North-South’ stated that “Fourth, we must
embark on a bold new program for making
the benefits of our scientific advances and
industrial progress available for the
improvement and growth of underdeveloped
areas” (Truman, 1949).
The speech exclaimed one linear
development process for the rest of the
world; those that have fallen behind must
catch up under the US lead. In this sense,
there is a legitimate measure for intervening
the poor, through globalization, westernising
or modernising through economic liberation,
namely in the South. Thus, there have been
several impacts from the rise of globalised
world under neoliberalism as the prominent
practice, namely, a large scale and scope of
economic growth (market expansion);
transforming nature into commodities,
secondly, this open market, in consequence, has forced the East and the South to
accelerate natural treasure exploitation to
pay foreign debts and to achieve currency
stabilities, for example, Senegal sells fishing
rights to Japan and Spain while Brazil,
Indonesia and Mexico facilitated forest
exploitation and thirdly, pressuring
governments to deregulate public goods
protection for commercial interest (Sach, et.
2002). This economic liberation, given
colonial acquisitions of Louis-Phillippe and
Napoleon III, observed by many prominent
scholars such as Montesquieu, Rousseau and
Adam Smith, as Rist mentioned, was much
more advantageous than a commercial
monopoly. Because it created a large market
and allowed the industry to develop both in
the metropolis and overseas (Rist, 2014).
Parajuli (1996) states that, based on
the review of a well-known piece of critics
work of development, there is a rarely exist
an effort to criticise the status quo in terms
of the history of development thinking;
striking at its heart by mentioning it as an
obituary of development and pursuing
further than as archeology of development as
well as searching possible alternative
measure to development. There are at least
five premises that have been argued in this
book. The first, development is merely a
means of inventing underdevelopment as a
project and therefore claiming 2 billion
people into the category; inserting forcefully
one’s value into others; and labelling the
majority to become homogenized.
Consequently, they become a manageable
enterprise through what so-called strategy,
planning, monitoring and evaluation
discourses (knowledge as power). The
statement deliberately mentioned that half of
the world population lives in near misery
condition; inadequate of food, vulnerable to
disease, primitive and stagnant economy in
addition to the strong address on the poverty
of the underdeveloped as two-way threats;
both North and South (Truman, 1949).
Secondly, the book is a demythicisation
of development by apting other plausible terminologies such as ethno development
participatory development, sustainable
development and the innocence of the
developmental state although it is argued
that there is no possibility to ‘sweeten’ the
bitter pill of development. Thus,
development has intrinsically given no place
for dialogue, participatory, and
empowerment to the underdeveloped
nations (people) (knowledge as power). The
above argument is probably based on the
appearance of the underdevelopment term
that evoked not only to achieve a final state
of direction but also it is possible to bring
about such a state (development). The
development embeds transitive meaning
that implies an action performed by one
agent to another; corresponding to social
organization principles, while at the same
time, underdevelopment was a natural
occurrence; state of thing. This meaning can
be identified by the speech “…to help them
realize their aspirations for a better life. And,
in cooperation with other nations, we should
foster capital investment in areas needing
development,” (Truman, 1949, p.48).
Thirdly, the premise contains Marx’s
variant such as social intervention and
critically pedagogical elements inspired by
both Gramsci and Freire. This socialist
alternative measurement gives alternative
forms of development by putting
empowerment for general classes;
emphasizing development as the process of a
history that will unfold natural laws
characters’ necessity and elevate the
consciousness of intellectual or activists.
However, these socialism argumentation
values are not considered as replacement
entities of the existing regime but rather as a
metanarrative and subordinate diversities.
Interestingly, it seems that the reluctant use
of socialism is in line with strong opposition
in Truman’s address in the notion of
democracy versus communism (Truman,
1949).
The fourth argument is that
development destroys both culture and
natural ways addressing human’s
backwardness to nature management.
Therefore, there is a need for cultural
transformation in terms of skilled human
resources. Besides, this value is intended to
criticise the terminology of sustainable
development; as mentioned in Brundtland
Commission, that not focusing on the
survival of humans but still emphasising the
nature exploitation; excluding the limitation
of nature’s capacity for abuse under the flag
of development. Excessive aid, debt relief
and market opening of export from the poor
are equal to lead down the business as usual;
industrial development; craving for
exhausted Earth’s resources (Gardels, 2002).
Thus, this version of the development is
merely a mean to ensure industrial
production need for a continued supply of
raw materials’ more flow and indefinite
accumulation of capital. (Sach, 1992).
Besides, the fact prevails, in terms of
environment, that sustainability is possibly
compatible with development in the notion
of political domain, but not in the scope of
natural limits. The majority of the poor may
detest or envy the rich but replicating
lifestyle of theirs will likely be ecocide
(Gardels, 2002).
Putting Truman’s address into the
examination, there are several key points,
which may be already mentioned above,
among them are a) the term of
underdeveloped and the necessity for
improvement and growth; b) claiming a
position as the higher class by pointing half
of the Earth’s population under miserable
conditions in terms of well-being and
economy (poverty); c) the emphasise on the
science to relieve the suffering; d. the
address on the raw materials and the
assumed of need for assistances from
America; e. a call for international
cooperation of nations to foster capital
investment, a worldwide effort to achieve peace, plenty, and freedom; f. the important
cooperation among business, private capital,
agriculture and labor inside America that
will contribute industrial activity in other
nations and raise living standards
substantially; g. a devised and controlled
new economic development; h. strong
rejection of old imperialism; i. better use of
human and natural resources; j. prosperity
and peace based on greater production,
science and technical knowledge; and k.
reaffirmation of democracy position
(Truman, 1949).
According to Rist (2014), shreds of
evidence show that the use of the
development word for example in a socioeconomic context rather than
underdeveloped which was first use in a
wide circulated text and has a synonym
meaning for economically backward areas
such as prominent scholars like Marx, LeroyBeaulieu, Schumpeter, Rosenstein, Roden,
etc. Both uses of the term has radically
shaped the world view from the North-South
that was largely organised in the notion of
confrontation colonised/colonizer. Both have
a tendency of a subordinate hierarchical
position of metropolis/colony with every
state has equal de jure though it may not be
de facto. Developed and underdeveloped
terms become one entity; one family, one
might be left behind to the other but it is
possible to catch up. Thus, one is not the
opposite of the other, only that it is
incomplete.
In the fortieth IDS Conference, Sach
(2007) described that the rise and success of
the European, by giving one example of
Britain that has limited resources, was
primarily due to two factors; carbon and
colonies, and coal exploitation of industrial
determinations from the crust of the earth.
While colonialisation highly contributed to
an extensive amount of agricultural products
from the land of colonies such as from the
Caribbean and north-east of Brazil in
addition to Britain leisure access to timber,
sugar, tobacco and many other products. Thus, in other words, carbon and colonies
are two folds in one coin in shaping today’s
industrial societies that had no resources
exploited from both the expense of geological
and the abuse of geographical space.
The two were perquisites
circumstances that rose up the special case
of Euro–Atlantic civilization (Sach, 2007).
In
pursue of justice in the world, concealed
within development discourse may be
attained through contraction and
convergence; using the environmental
approach, a transitional call for a different
forms of prosperity such as a sustainable and
resource-light is needed. The retreat of
North’s excessive use of environmental
space; contraction of resource consumption
contraction must take place by reducing 80
to 90 per cent of fossil use, such as the policy
to weight a lightly approach on mother earth.
Secondly, although it is a sound mimic,
developing countries have to be given the
space to flourish their development within
an appropriate measure, bearing in mind not
to reach the same trajectory taken by the
North countries (Sach, 2007).
This approach eventually will possibly
reposition both situation into a more justice
balance (Sach, 2007). The need to move
beyond North and South orientation of
international development has been
acknowledged by Horner (2017) due to longstanding critiques of the North-South binary,
global interconnectedness, the universal
relevance of sustainability, and the
contemporary blurring of the North-South
boundary, with the discussion global
development terminologies, and proposes a
term of global development. Currie-Alder
(2016), argues that development, as a study,
should build dialogues on sovereign
challenges concerning the national wealth
use, global interdependencies and foreign
obstacles on how to respond to troubled
places across the globe. Development
discourse ought to serve as the meeting place
of contraction and convergence that connect,
critique and to shape the world into non- interference, equality, and mutual benefit of
sustainable development.
CONCLUSION
The history of development has
demonstrated the hidden agenda of the
westernisation of the world since the
beginning of the development project,
namely from the transitional period of the
late nineteenth century to the beginning
twentieth century. The remark of Truman
was truly considered as the formal
embarkation of the new era of the bold
program so-called development project.
Although, the inaugural address seemed
nothing out of ordinary good intention, it
strongly lacks of expectations and strong
commitments. The addressing was merely
talks on mobilizing nonmaterial resources
(science and technology), North American
stakeholders, namely capitalists, farmers and
workers, and of course international
community.
The process of development from the
beginning, based on historical events and
sequences of discourse in the western
sphere, had strongly influenced by the
western regime of knowledge from historical
approach, evolutionism, economy,
philanthropy, and politically. Thus, in the
simplest way of saying, any effort to put
one’s position into others attributed values is
extremely crucial in the idea of development.
The history notes the development agenda to
elevate the half underdeveloped people of
the world is by following the exact footsteps
of the civilized, unfortunately, a past bitter
pill.
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