There is a belief that is too prevalent that progress must occur in a linear and sequential manner. And while it suffices to say that, in fact, it’s doesn’t happen in linear nor sequential sequence, it’s more interesting to me to think about how these trajectories we collectively set out to achieve end up swaying in their torque, bowing and breaking and thinking about what it’s like to be out on that limb when that happens.
Physically exhausted from jet lag and strolling in the heat, I retreated to exploring the Internet in my hotel room. I came across two primary events of interest in the media: the recent development project funded by the World Bank and the toxic waste spill that has resulted in over 70 tonnes of dead fish washing ashore. Both pertaining to governmental responsibilities, both which Foucault would categorize as part of the biopolitical, were relevant to the project that I planned to develop after this family indie film wrapped up.
The development project consisted of converting a canal, which had previously functioned as an open sewer, into a submarine sewage system with an open body of water on top. The concrete tunnels would move waste water from the neighborhood to the connecting sewer system for treatment. The project had begun in 2002 and had finished in 2014.
These canals are not unique in HCMC and made me wonder when this part of the country, which receives so much precipitation had been canalized and made into a concrete jungle, literally. The answer: blame the French. Or give them credit.
The toxic waste scandal centered on a subsidiary of Formosa, a polymer manufacturer that also produces steel. In the coastal region of Ha Tinh, Quảng Banh, Quảng Tri and Thua Thien - Huế something got fishy. The scandal broke in late April when dead fish started washing ashore. The local fisherman were horrified. Outraged is a better word. But that was just the beginning: even more scandalous was spokesman for Formosa, who made a statement essentially saying that the Vietnamese had to choose between industrializing or being a fishing country. What avarice! He later apologized for his words, which in my mind seemed to be indirectly admitting and validating the environmental destruction in question. In the weeks since the ichthyology death event, many protests had been held to motivate the government to investigate. A diver also died near Đà Nẵn;, government officials had to wade out into the water to prove to the tourist-based economy that no one (else) would die. I had seen a protest the yesterday but I didn’t have a clue as to what it was about. When I asked a local he seemed in different.
As the media scrutiny grew, two explanations were given: first, a natural occurrence like an algae bloom suffocated the fish. Second, that it was indeed pollution. In my own research in my hotel room, I found that Formosa had been the center of a scandal in Cambodia in 1998. The New York Times article details how locals were abandoning the town after they discovered that officials had been paid to receive the toxic waste.[1] Again, a question of the citizens’ trust in their governing body.
The assumption by the polluter that, in order to modernize, a developing country such as Vietnam is required to live through the problematic mistakes that developed countries experienced 150 years ago is built into the notion of linear, sequential progression. If anything, learning from the mistakes of another country should be a strength, not a rite of passage, for these countries. Furthermore, the absence of these mistakes’ physical infrastructure should attribute to agility to these non OECD countries. Rather than mimicking the past for a future, hybrid models that draw from strengths that have sustained throughout time should be the goal of these countries.
[1] “Tons of Waste Stir Panic in a Cambodian Town,” Associated Press/New York Times, December 22, 1998
http://www.nytimes.com/1998/12/22/world/tons-of-waste-stir-panic-in-a-cambodian-town.html