Quotes
(People)
Sue Perkins
on Hydroelectric Dams, Energy,
Capitalism and Progress
"This is what it's all about. At the flick of a switch, lives are
transformed ...but I can't help thinking that, in a way, they're
just exchanging one kind of bonded labour (in this case,
fishing) for our capitalistic version (which is just slumped in
front of stuff, you know... addicted to stuff, to material stuff...)
Now... I've got awful lot of information but I find it very hard to
plant myself firmly on either side of the debate. I think, to frame
the debate within a certain boundary of opposites of right or wrong
is heading to nowhere
really ... let's build dams everywhere because they are clean, green
and everyone is going to benefit and I maintained that completely
singular perspective... and then you stop to investigate your own
mindset... I 've been brought up on a western colonial education and
why wouldn't I want people to have electricity here? Why wouldn't I
want people to have nice new houses and a house like I've got? Is it
just because ... I would like to have a holiday here... How
appalling!
This is the thing that challenges your preconceptions so constantly
and I am really glad of that. Is life's goal always about the
pursuit of the cathode ray tube and the fridge freezer, or is it a
more natural connection with landscape and a better quality of
food that can be retrieved from it?...
And somewhere there is a middle point - I don't know where that is -
I don't think mankind as a whole has found it. But it is a sort of
intellectual frontier that Asia is going to navigate as it
develops... of course, there are no easy answers."
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