Re: <nettime> The Sudden Stardom of the Third-World City
Via: Keith Hart
Andreas,
Thank you for bringing up again the fundamental issues raised by Rana's
essay. My own immediate response to her exchange with Ben was
intemperate; so you have given me another chance to be more reasoned.
The main demographic event of the last half-century was the rise of
Third World cities. These have been seen in fairly pathological terms as
having created a "planet of slums" (Mike Davis). Black Africa, which
began the twentieth century with only about 1% of its people living in
cities, ended it with half of them living there. It is a matter of some
interest what social and cultural forms are emerging under these
conditions, but we know at least of a religious revival, an explosion of
the modern arts and a proliferating urban commerce, usually referred to
as 'informal'.
Rana raised the question of how these seismic shifts in the size,
location and character of the human population might be manifested in
the cultural representations of the West. A century ago, as Sven
Lindqvist makes clear in Exterminate All The Brutes, the answer would
have taken the form of a genocidal impulse rooted in centuries of
colonial exploitation. Today it is more likely to take the form of a
vision of Africa as a dying continent (Stephen Smith's Negrologie:
pourquoi l'Afrique meurt, Hubert Sauper's movie, Darwin's Nightmare or
just the endless reporting of disease, war, hunger and death). In 2005
this vision was linked to a rescue mission (at least at the propaganda
level) launched by a bunch of cynical politicians and fronted by ageing
rock stars).
How long is it since the main threat to planetary ecology was an excess
of black babies? Now we are told that Africa is dying, even though its
population is still increasing at 2.5% and the continent has just
reached a share of the world's population equal to its share of the land
mass, a seventh. Meanwhile Europe cannot reproduce itself and goes into
paroxysms of nationalism and xenophobia when faced with the prospect of
having to replace its working-age population from abroad.
It is not as if the threat posed by proliferating poor masses is new to
the western imagination. In the present case, we are witnessing also the
prospect of a decisive shift of production and capital accumulation to
countries like China, India and Brazil. The West's grip on a world
economy designed to generate substantial unearned income for us is
slipping. This surely explains the Americans' resort to military
imperialsim as a last ditch attempt to hold on by force and Blair's
decision to go down with thier guns blazing rather than work for a
European alternative. And the Europeans, what is their global strategy?
Myopia and withdrawal.
Somehow all of this must be registering in people's minds. The French,
as usual, give prominent expression to their sense of a deep malaise,
even if the solutions on offer seem equally introspective. I live in
Paris which has become the middle-aged, middle-class, middle-brow
shopping capital of the world. I like it here, because it is so
unexciting. Andreas's Berlin must be more exciting, especially if it has
moved on from being the building site it was when I last visited. I
doubt if there would be many Indians ready to vote for Mumbai as the
city of the future. It would be good to have a discussion about what
cities offer promising social possibilities. But there is this unspoken
undercurrent. Has the West finally hit the slippery slope of its
long-advertised decline?
Some people would say that we are not only dying, but committing
suicide. London's Institute of the Contemporary Arts is putting on a
'discussion' next month. (Can't you imagine it? I think we have lost it.
Well, there are still signs of greatness...).
http://www.ica.org.uk/index.cfm?articleid=14824
The Suicide of the West?
The success of Western civilisation can be attributed to just six
factors, according to Chris Smith and Richard Koch: Christianity,
optimism, science, economic growth, liberalism and individualism.
These principles, however, have been increasingly eroded over the past
century so that where once citizens of the West felt a collective
confidence and pride, they instead appear to be heading for collective
suicide. Should the West try and save the concepts on which it was based
or replace them with new ones? Speakers: Rt Hon Lord Smith of Finsbury,
UK MP and Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport in Tony
Blair's cabinet; Richard Koch, author of The 80/20 Principle; Roger
Osborne, author of Civilization: A New History of the Western World and
Jeremy Stangroom, co-founder, The Philosophers' Magazine.
Wed 19 Apr 19:00 Nash Room
And on that suicide note,
Cheers,
Keith Hart
Andreas,
Thank you for bringing up again the fundamental issues raised by Rana's
essay. My own immediate response to her exchange with Ben was
intemperate; so you have given me another chance to be more reasoned.
The main demographic event of the last half-century was the rise of
Third World cities. These have been seen in fairly pathological terms as
having created a "planet of slums" (Mike Davis). Black Africa, which
began the twentieth century with only about 1% of its people living in
cities, ended it with half of them living there. It is a matter of some
interest what social and cultural forms are emerging under these
conditions, but we know at least of a religious revival, an explosion of
the modern arts and a proliferating urban commerce, usually referred to
as 'informal'.
Rana raised the question of how these seismic shifts in the size,
location and character of the human population might be manifested in
the cultural representations of the West. A century ago, as Sven
Lindqvist makes clear in Exterminate All The Brutes, the answer would
have taken the form of a genocidal impulse rooted in centuries of
colonial exploitation. Today it is more likely to take the form of a
vision of Africa as a dying continent (Stephen Smith's Negrologie:
pourquoi l'Afrique meurt, Hubert Sauper's movie, Darwin's Nightmare or
just the endless reporting of disease, war, hunger and death). In 2005
this vision was linked to a rescue mission (at least at the propaganda
level) launched by a bunch of cynical politicians and fronted by ageing
rock stars).
How long is it since the main threat to planetary ecology was an excess
of black babies? Now we are told that Africa is dying, even though its
population is still increasing at 2.5% and the continent has just
reached a share of the world's population equal to its share of the land
mass, a seventh. Meanwhile Europe cannot reproduce itself and goes into
paroxysms of nationalism and xenophobia when faced with the prospect of
having to replace its working-age population from abroad.
It is not as if the threat posed by proliferating poor masses is new to
the western imagination. In the present case, we are witnessing also the
prospect of a decisive shift of production and capital accumulation to
countries like China, India and Brazil. The West's grip on a world
economy designed to generate substantial unearned income for us is
slipping. This surely explains the Americans' resort to military
imperialsim as a last ditch attempt to hold on by force and Blair's
decision to go down with thier guns blazing rather than work for a
European alternative. And the Europeans, what is their global strategy?
Myopia and withdrawal.
Somehow all of this must be registering in people's minds. The French,
as usual, give prominent expression to their sense of a deep malaise,
even if the solutions on offer seem equally introspective. I live in
Paris which has become the middle-aged, middle-class, middle-brow
shopping capital of the world. I like it here, because it is so
unexciting. Andreas's Berlin must be more exciting, especially if it has
moved on from being the building site it was when I last visited. I
doubt if there would be many Indians ready to vote for Mumbai as the
city of the future. It would be good to have a discussion about what
cities offer promising social possibilities. But there is this unspoken
undercurrent. Has the West finally hit the slippery slope of its
long-advertised decline?
Some people would say that we are not only dying, but committing
suicide. London's Institute of the Contemporary Arts is putting on a
'discussion' next month. (Can't you imagine it? I think we have lost it.
Well, there are still signs of greatness...).
http://www.ica.org.uk/index.cfm?articleid=14824
The Suicide of the West?
The success of Western civilisation can be attributed to just six
factors, according to Chris Smith and Richard Koch: Christianity,
optimism, science, economic growth, liberalism and individualism.
These principles, however, have been increasingly eroded over the past
century so that where once citizens of the West felt a collective
confidence and pride, they instead appear to be heading for collective
suicide. Should the West try and save the concepts on which it was based
or replace them with new ones? Speakers: Rt Hon Lord Smith of Finsbury,
UK MP and Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport in Tony
Blair's cabinet; Richard Koch, author of The 80/20 Principle; Roger
Osborne, author of Civilization: A New History of the Western World and
Jeremy Stangroom, co-founder, The Philosophers' Magazine.
Wed 19 Apr 19:00 Nash Room
And on that suicide note,
Cheers,
Keith Hart
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