supporting The Man

this last unit was entitled "Land." as with all the units previously (urban=slums, food=organic, water=dams) what it really meant was something much more specific:mining. what made this one so interesting, however, was that the issues hadn't actually begun. we stayed in a community where a potash mine was planned but had not yet been given a mining liscence by the government.

basically here is what happened that caused one half of the group to hate the other for being cold-hearted and the other half to hate them for being irrational. guess which side i was on. we started our unit by doing an exchange (meeting) with the mining company. the man who gave the presentation was this canadian geologist who seemed to really know his stuff but was not so good with the speakin good and promoting good PR. he basically said that potash mining is already way cleaner than most other mines, and that the company is going out of its way with this mine to come up with new, extreme, measures to make sure that there are almost no environmental consequences. from a scientific perspective, from what i could tell never having studied mines, they seemed to have all the bases covered as completely as possible. he, being a scientist, had numerical proof for everything he said. then we went to see the villagers. EVERYTHING that is sort of rebellion based in thailand is run by NGOs so we met with this one NGO (one person) a few times. she just kept saying the same thing over and over. these issues that she had were legitimate in terms of the fact that, as a farmer, she should be worried about salt run-off ruining her fields. the problem, however, was that she just kept saying that there was nothing the company could do, no way they could prevent that. that there was no way to take the salt out of water once it was there, that there would be huge smokestacks everywhere.

someone was lying. no not lying, they were just not accurately portraying what would happen. and these two sides have been fighting for 13 years. they have never actually talked to each other. the NGO said there was no reason for anyone to go to listen to the company because they would just lie anyway, and the company just kept saying the villagers were under educated and just would never understand. in the end it came down to us as a group having to decide whether the gut instinct of a farmer or the proof of a scientist was more believable. i decided to listen to the facts, and spend a lot of my time judging this NGO for not getting herself educated and still thinking she could lead a few thousand villagers. i just felt that even if the company was lying, it is just basic debate skills to know your opponents argument so you can combat it.

then we talked to this "youth group conservation club" which was a complete lie in and of itself but the kids (a 19 and 23 year old) talked about how they could care less about how much potash they use in their own life, or to think about the world's dependency on mined materials. all they cared about was that it wasn't built near their homes, it could be their neighboring village for all they cared, just "not in my backyard." this is a completely legit feeling, i would probably feel that way, but it was just a little bit of a shock to hear them just be like, i don't care, why are you asking this, when they were calling themselves the youth's answer to conservation issues.

it was rough. i felt like a bad person. end of story.

but not really the end of story because now i am basically dwelling a lot on the issue of what value facts hold for me, and our society. and how easily they are manipulate. we all know this. but i still think they mean more than someone who just says that they know it because they know it, even if they can't prove it.

who would you believe?

peace yo
ps all yinz are dirty too so don't judge me.