Countries are developing the way children develop. They just need time, the right conditions, the right guidance. What the framework erases is the question of how the "underdeveloped" countries got that way.
https://x.com/nxt888/status/2046952760348930336
The development discourse is the most durable frame of them all.
Developed. Developing. Underdeveloped.
These words appear neutral. Technical.
They describe a spectrum of economic conditions using the language of natural processes, like biological growth.
Countries are developing the way children develop.
They just need time, the right conditions, the right guidance.
What the framework erases is the question of how the "underdeveloped" countries got that way.
Walter Rodney answered it in 1972:
Europe underdeveloped Africa.
It was not a natural condition. It was a produced condition.
The resources extracted, the institutions dismantled, the trade patterns enforced, the labor systems imposed: the poverty of the Global South is not a starting point.
It is a result.
But the development discourse begins after the extraction.
It takes the conditions produced by colonialism as the baseline and measures everyone's progress from there.
It is like breaking someone's legs, releasing them, and then publishing annual reports on their insufficient progress toward walking.
With recommendations for how they might improve their physical therapy regimen.
Funded by the institution that broke the legs.
Implemented by consultants from the country that broke the legs.
Published in the language of the country that broke the legs.
And discussed in universities across the Global South as the cutting edge of development theory.
posted by Satish Sharma at
03:13
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