Tourism in Rural Areas

Strong travel movements characterize our times. The infrastructure, good connections by land, water and air make travel easy and suggest that everything is easily available everywhere. The values of the traditional culture however are increasingly forgotten in this scenario, although it is these values, which give the city dweller – the local one as well as foreigners a new outlook and possibilities to show off people and places. Which is why it is recomded tha conveniences of city life be transfered to villages.

Tourists, visitors an travelers, for example to the Punjabi village Thatta Ghulamka Dhiroka are best recommended to leave back their city ideas and thereby become more open for understanding the rural life and its rich, traditional culture. If the come with urban attitudes, the visitors will start pitying the village dwellers for the deficient possibilities. Currently the villagers there do not need gymnastic studios like the city dwellers, the dusty path from one village to another is sufficient for walking practice instead of taking rounds in an oval stadium, and so on.

The so-called conveniences of city life must be financed. The drainage water must be disposed of somewhere, cultural and other institutions must be filled with life.

While making a journey to a village, one should leave behind expectations of necessities of life, like multiple course meals, air-conditioned rooms, luxurious bathrooms, swimming pools, the list goes on because with such fixed ideas one cannot learn anything about the culture in the rural areas.

We have already reported on the tragedy of the traditional culture, -- the absence of assessment possibilities of the economic impact only when the traditional values do not exist any more. Do we give them the due value which is at that point of time is probably too late?

An eventual help here is the reference to the increasing environmental sensitivities in populations in industrialized countries. The protection of the nature, the earth, the water is a luxury, which must be financed very expensively, with the side effect that one is not able to compete with countries that overexploit their resources.

Should good sense prevail, and sensible people should ask themselves why the whole expenditure? Reference is made here to “Max Weber” and his work “Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism.”

Experiences

It is worthwhile to learn from experiences. Mistakes and weak points can be ascertained and one can improve the matters as well as find suitable way of dealing with the the other party.

In an NGO, which is dependent upon customers and engaged in producing handicrafts and which at the same time also advocates the preservation of traditional culture, many things trivial for a city culture due to industrial production methods become of primary importance:

The orders should cater primarily to the needs of the clients, Shortage of working capital can be resolved by keeping the commission goods (payment comes as the goods are sold) at the minimum, Material purchases can be made only after advance payment is received at the time of taking order.

The above three points are in any case valid for the handicrafts part. For the touristic aspect, it appears more meaningful to welcome only paying guests because otherwise the village culture is disturbed.

It should be encouraged in principle, that visitor groups pay an entrance charge in advance, which helps the NGO to maintain its activities. Personnel in the village cannot be expected to work as guides etc. Without any remuneration because they otherwise work gainfully in different projects. The loss of income through time spent for guiding groups cannot be carried by the small and poor NGO.

The above points refer more to the visit of the village museum, the health station, the pump house as well as the women and men centres. The guests are not required to pay anything extra for overnight stay as they pay for boarding and lodging according to the price list.

The visitors may be differentiated as under:

1. Whether they are curious or prying visitors from adjoining localities or
2. Miscellaneous visitors
3. Visitors, who with their contributions have already supported the NGO and the village in its activities!
   

Those under a) can of course be informed about the activities (possibly including boarding and lodging) by way of paid guided tour with advance registration. The entrance fee for the village and the NGO projects is Rs. 10,- for adults and Rs. 5,- for children. The patients of the health station are required to pay for service to them.

These payments do not absolve of the responsibility to respect the rules of the traditional culture. They also do not limit the hospitality, rather they are to be understood as respect building measures towards the village visitors. Surpluses are to be utilized for maintenance of the Infrastructure and for preservation of the cultural heritage.

The Causes of all Evil or almost all Evil

Prof Dr Norbert Pintsch

Introduction

Once again we engage ourselves with the topic of disparities in urban and rural cultures, their problems, misunderstandings and faulty developments caused by the myths. The erroneous developments in urban areas are massive and on the other hand, seemingly ignorant and largely uneducated residents in the rural areas are carriers of the traditional culture. They are also the owners of left-over knowledge of the concerned culture. Unfortunately, they are misused by the members of the city culture in many different forms for the purpose of income generation.

Philosophical Considerations

The urbanisation is proceeding forward with the main argument of progress and development, without its necessity being put in question in any way. The prospects of a solution to the enormous problems of the systems complex “City” appear to be further away, more than ever before. One is still looking to solutions used in the XX century, for example the expansion of the infra-structure. The answer to more traffic jams on roads is to widen them, and widen them again when the traffic jams increase even more, and this goes on and on. Mobility is the main catchword, technically attractive, but seen in a long-term or even lesser context, just a sham answer.

Not so that the thinkers have not put in question the oddities of the times:

Thomas Kuhn (1922-1996) The Structure of Scientific Revolution (1962)The typical Researchers-Discoverers-Scientists are not objective and independent, rather discover in order to try to prove, what they already suppose.

Juergen Habermas (1929 - ) Theory of Communicative Action (1982), Between Facts and

Norms (1992) The existing system of economy and politics colonises and dries out the traditional culture.

Hans-Georg Gadamer (1900-2002) Truth and Methods (1960) The idea, that we can step out of our cultural links in order to produce timeless truths, is a usual fiction in modern thinking.

Robin George Collingwood (1889-1943) The Idea of History (1946) Events and Happenings of the past are not to be considered independent of the current times and the happenings of current times always stand in contrast with the past.

Niklas Luhmann (1927-1998) Social Systems (1954) The one eye (known from the christian symbolism) does not see everything, the truth is not real any more, there exist only observations of observations.

Max Weber (1864-1920) Die protestantische Ethik und der Geist des Kapitalismus/The Evangelical Ethics and the Spirit of Capitalism (1907) The employed religious rationalism uncovers the „other life“ and directs attention towards materialism, professional status and income generation, which lead to a new religion in itself.

Rudolf Carnap (1891-1970) Pseudoproblems of Philosophy (1928) Conclusions, that are not supported by experience, have no value.

Topics like training the population are carried with the slogan „The Right to Education“, well meant, but not thought till the end or adjusted to the appropriate times. Really simple processes, like for example when the members of each generation try to understand their life circumstances anew in each time period are falsely understood as evolved new knowledge. The so-called knowledge is then understood as reality, so that out of a large number of misunderstandings and follies, new models are developed, which are based upon fundamental errors which are not recognized. New models are then based on these „principles“ and they lead to new material for education and awake expectations in the sense of income generating measures. The reality is ignored and it is replaced by a “false-reality” around which everything is built. The ridge between Reality and False-reality is increasing immensely and the repetition of the basic error is extreme.

Religion-Economy-Society

In the religion almost a sort of cannibalism, in the economy usage and effects of a slavery system, in the society the practice of legalized land robbery, -such are the three pillars of the system, if critically observed, which has spread successfully in the world inspite of these shortcomings, consciously or sub-consciously, knowingly or unknowingly. What is the secret of this power, its roots and foundations ?

There is no chapter in the human history, in which one could not find something good and positive, at least in short span of time. This is not an excuse for errors, but an explanation. If the outlined thoughts lead to a change of thought, even that will not necessarily lead to an improvement in the current situation but only to implementation of an already overdue change. And also this will lead at some point of time to a reversal of some sort. To decide means to start such a process. The errors originate from the theories, which have been thoughtlessly taken over by the populations and their hollow implementation into reality, -which again proves, that humans by nature think one dimensionally, which however can hardly be described as thinking. Does’nt matter.

Also belonging to the three above mentioned pillars of this false Success-system is the capability to separate problems and therefore to quickly handle them successfully. One can consider the clash between the „Believers“ and the „Knowers“ a sort of milestone in this context. As usual with the monopolists (Monotheists !!), also the papal catholics propogated a purpose and aim-oriented history, which was doubted by the believers and they started to question it. The results are evident and so seen also understandable. The uppermost power is being increasingly put in question and put in a mercantile system, in which it is gladly found by the advancing science and politics. Work and not extravagant life, saving and god fearing, the religious scripts convert the message into the laymans language; the happenings of the church wars can be reduced to this simple form: Hugenots, Calvinists, Zwinglists, Quecker and other anglo-saxon sectarians, who found unlimited freedom in their lands, etc. these are the results. As long as they immigrated into europe, in the beginning they could still not fully unfold their capacity as they had immigrated into existing communities. Compared to this, there were no boundries when they immigrated to overseas lands.

The capacity to solve problems short term by dividing them leads to a loss of overview and the solution finding becomes sort of an automated process, -the cause for tremendous erroneous development in the economy, politics, science, art , -infact, in the culture in its totality.

Economy

The industry is forced to simplify for production technical reasons, only in this way, through new machines etc., the production, the quality, the design can be improved, -and only in this way the product can stand up to competition in the market: so one reads, hears and unnderstands in general.

It is however ignored that the reality is more complex. Is the simplification the measure for all things and when this simplification is understood to be reality, the difference between the original reality and the supposed reality are bound to increase, whereas it is not intended at this place to discuss the differences between the realities but only to encourage a deeper critical appraisal. The arguments “progress” and “development” are exposed on even slightly critical examination to be a word capsules and a careless description of a highly complex destruction system of cultures.

Education: Knowledge and Training

The socalled growth in knowledge must be financed, as also its progress believing advocates and their students. The students are financed, also with the help of the parents, who –nothing new-, just want the best for their children and this if possible in shortest time.

Seen on a global scale, in the framework of this mechanism, millions of scientists, teachers, economists, engineers, sociologists, manager etc. are produced, who think only in terms of increasing demand; a fascinating growth-oriented industry, which indirectly also produces superiority over the population in the rural areas, who remain backward. They (still) do not understand these word capsules and let themselves be easily bewitched. Who would like to be considered backward in a (falsly) progressive world ? It is not without reason that the cities keep on growing due to this grand error.

Conclusion

It has been attempted to describe the problems of the current culture with short insight into individual areas, whereby it has been attempted to shed light upon the conflict situation city culture versus countryside culture.

Seen in historical context, there is hardly ever a main reason; at least one cannot be named as such: The fast developing technology, and this out of profit reasons. The technology is no more driven by the consumers, rather the technology dictates the consumers. The generalization makes simplification possible. But the simplification is not the reality, -and apparently this fact is most often forgotten.

Prof Dr Pintsch, Bamenda 022005/Lahore 032005
pdp33@hotmail.com

World first: In 2008, most people will live in cities

Tags: Urbanization, Migration Trends

By Brad Knickerbocker (The Christian Science Monitor)

For the first time in human history, the world's population is about to become mostly urban.

Citing population growth rates and migration patterns, United Nations researchers and other experts predict that some time in 2008 more people will live in cities than in rural areas.

This demographic shift is mostly taking place in Africa and Asia, largely in low-income settlements in developing countries - much of it in the 22 "megacities" whose populations will exceed 10 million and in some cases grow to more than 20 million by 2015.

The environmental, economic, and social ramifications of such trends are enormous, according to the Worldwatch Institute's annual "State of the World" report released Tuesday. Among the major challenges are the mundane features of daily living: clean water and air, sanitary waste facilities, the cost of food, and the availability of shelter and transportation.

Unplanned and chaotic urbanization is taking a huge toll on human health and the quality of the environment, contributing to social, ecological, and economic instability in many countries," warns the report, which is written by demographers, international program officials, and other experts from the United States and other countries.

But the news is not all bad. Researchers find examples of cities from Karachi, Pakistan to Freetown, Sierra Leone to Bogotá, Colombia with projects aimed at improving the lives of urban dwellers while reducing the environmental impact of concentrated populations. These include urban farming plots, solar water heaters, economic cooperatives, improved sewer facilities, and upgraded transportation systems.

"The task of saving the world's modern cities might seem hopeless - except that it is already happening," says Worldwatch president Christopher Flavin. "Necessities from food to energy are increasingly being produced by urban pioneers inside city limits."

Still, the challenges and the probable costs of addressing them remain daunting. Eight of the 10 most populous cities are on or near earthquake faults. Some two-thirds of the cities projected to exceed 8 million residents by 2015 are in coastal areas where sea levels may rise as a result of climate change.

But the human need is more immediate. Of the 3 billion people who live in cities today, about 1 billion are in slums without clean water, adequate toilet facilities, or durable housing. Some 1.6 million urban dwellers - many if not most of them children - die each year due to causes associated with the lack of clean water and sanitation.

"For a child living in a slum, disease and violence are daily threats, while education and healthcare are often a distant hope," says Molly O'Meara Sheehan, project director of Worldwatch's 2007 report, a collection of articles and graphics produced annually since 1984.

This argues for a reassessment of global development priorities, advocates say, particularly the allocation of national and international aid. According to the Commission for Africa, launched by British Prime Minister Tony Blair in 2004, problems associated with urbanization are second only to HIV/AIDS on the world's most rapidly urbanizing continent.

Yet from 1970 to 2000, aid designated for cities in developing areas was just 4 percent of total development assistance worldwide. This was the period when many countries in Africa were transitioning politically and economically from European colonialism to independence.

"Too many of us were ill prepared for our urban future," notes Anna Tibaijuka, executive director of UN-HABITAT, the United Nations agency that promotes socially and environmentally sustainable towns and cities with the goal of providing universal adequate shelter.

"The promise of independence has given way to the harsh realities of urban living," writes Dr. Tibaijuka, an agricultural economist and native of Tanzania, in the report's foreword.

By 2015, there are likely to be 59 African cities with populations between 1 million and 5 million, 65 such cities in Latin America and the Caribbean, and 253 in Asia.

"Urban centers are hubs simultaneously of breathtaking artistic innovation and some of the world's most abject and disgraceful poverty," writes Mr. Flavin. "They are the dynamos of the world economy but also the breeding grounds for alienation, religious extremism, and other sources of local and global insecurity."

Cities also exemplify the challenges and promises of sustainability. China, for example, has 16 of the world's most polluted cities. But on an island in the Yangtze River near Shanghai, China this year plans to break ground on the Dongtan ecocity project designed to be nearly self-sufficient in food, water, energy, and waste disposal for its projected 500,000 residents.