Dictionaries do not dictate the language: they document it. Languages are there to be spoken. Literature comes at a later stage. Hence, words increase and decrease in every living language, and they are not cast in stone. The more than century-old Oxford English Dictionary, in its latest edition, added more than 45,000 new phrases and words, and for the first time its authors have even added the symbol of a heart.
On the other hand, words are also being regularly rejected. The Oxford University Press has a vault containing millions of rejected words that are considered to be unsuitable entries. The Collins Dictionary has listed words which are slowly being considered passé. It seems the concept of development and relevant paradigm has suffered the same fate.
When I wasin my early 20s, underdevelopment was one of themost hotlydebated issues
Although I have not browsed any Dictionary of Politics to see which words are falling into disuse, it is clear that politicians have become rather economical in using it.
When I was in my early 20s, underdevelopment was one of the most hotly debated issues. Political correctness changed the term ‘underdeveloped countries’ to ‘developing countries’, and those at the bottom of this category were referred to as ‘the least developed countries’.
In the 1950s and 1960s, the migration and development argument were based on the functionalist-modernisation perspective, while in the 1970s and the 1980s the neo-Marxist-structuralist view took over, while in the 1990s the move was towards the ‘livelihood’ approaches.
This paradigm was related to the economics of labour migration, and in sociology, it is related to the structure-agency approach. At the turn of the millennium the pendulum moved again in the policy debate towards a new version of the optimistic modernisation.
Migration is fundamentally a heterogeneous phenomenon involving several social and economic processes. The argument made in the 18th century by Ernst Georg Ravenstein “that migration appeared to go on without any definite law” still holds ground.
Migrants – whatever their motives – are people uprooted from their own ‘homes’ and culture who hit the road either because they are ‘pushed’ to do so by an economic, political or religious situation that has become intolerable or, and there are much fewer in number, ‘pulled’ by an urge for a better life.
Ravenstein’s legacy was reprocessed and refined in the 1950s and 1960s by Richard Lawton.
This is the fate of millions of people who are fleeing from their countries today. Pushing them back is nothing less than throwing them from the frying pan into the sea! The EU can and must help its member countries on its southern flank to cope with this humanitarian problem. However, the radical answer lies elsewhere.
Firstly by strongly helping the economic growth of these countries both financially and by the transfer of technology. In doing this, the rich former colonial countries of northern Europe would only be partially paying back for the way they exploited African colonies.
Walter Rodney’s How Europe underdeveloped Africa is a classic study of the negative effects of European capitalism on this virgin continent.
Secondly, they should fight corruption in Africa and other poor countries by stopping their support to the perpetrators, be they governments, corporations or social institutions.
In the abovementioned book, Rodney admonished that “not only are there African accomplices inside the imperial system, but every African has a responsibility to understand the system and work for its overthrow”.
If the governments of the rich countries break this unholy alliance we will have less internecine warfare in this continent.
Needless to say, one of the chief culprits in this dirty business is the global arms industry. Annual military expenditures worldwide is estimated at over $1.5 trillion (€1.1tr), amounting to 2.7 per cent of world GDP. To this we must add the black market side of this business.
In my view, this should be our country’s message in the EU institutions, especially the Council of Minister and the EU Parliament. The other solutions are only stop-gap – even if necessary – solutions.
joe.inguanez@gmail.com
Fr Joe Inguanez, a sociologist, is executive director of Discern.