 - Last login: 6 hours agoLaodan
- laodan is a guy from Milford, Pennsylvania, USA.
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- Member since Aug 08, 2005
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THE WAY THINGS ARE: The meaning of life is to be found in thinking about what is reality and the beauty of reality is to be found in our DNA's memorization of all forms that have been successfully retained along the four billion years of evolution of the principle of life on Gaia our earth. In the end what I mean to say is that beauty is something objective and what we call ugliness is then simply our unconscientious feel of something evolution did not retain.
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WorldChanging: The Chinese Far West
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May 15, 11:57am
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•http://www.worldchanging.com/archives...
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The Chinese Far West
in WorldChanging by Regine Debatty
Just spent 3 days in Rome to check out FotoGrafia, the 7th edition of international festival of photography which runs until May 25th in several venues throughout the city.
... one of the photo series was so striking (and so far away from what you and i would regard as "normality"), i spent the rest of my stay in the Italian capital obsessing about it. Chinese Wild West, a collaboration between photographer Paolo Woods and journalist Serge Michel, follows China's industrial neo-colonialism in African lands.
For the 500.000 Chinese who have emigrated to the 'dark continent' there is the promise of a 21st century Wild West. Some have struck gold and run large conglomerates that span whole regions of Africa, others are still selling their cheap goods on the burning hot roadsides of the poorest countries in the world.
For the Africans, the arrival of the Chinese is perhaps the most important event of the forty years of independence. The Chinese do not look like the former colonialists. They build roads, dams and hospitals and win over the people. They speak neither of democracy nor transparency and they win over the dictators.
Woods and Michel conclude their presentation of the work with these words: These are rare images: Beijing wants to keep a low profile for its conquest. But though it remains largely unexposed these photographs portray a phenomenon, a new dimension of globalization, that threatens to leave the West behind.
 The Chinese Far West
Complete collection of photographs
The West came centuries ago. It captured Africans and chained them into slavery. As a result African societies were totally destabilized and so Europeans later tried to impose their own political structures in African lands. But this only precipitated the destruction of African ancestral societies while Africans at best only assimilated sketchy patches of Western culture. Europeans were thus responsible for the societal collapse of Africa and the confusion that resulted among Africans.
Needing more and more resources the Chinese started to invest in Africa after the year 2000 and within the short time span since then African countries are experiencing fast economic growth...
Woods and Michel photographed the visual reality of the Chinese presence in Africa and their words say all there is to say "For the Africans, the arrival of the Chinese is perhaps the most important event of the forty years of independence. The Chinese do not look like the former colonialists. They build roads, dams and hospitals and win over the people. They speak neither of democracy nor transparency and they win over the dictators."
I suppose that Eurocentrics will shout loud against what they see as a new form of colonialism that is irrespectful of democracy. But the only thing that matters is the perception of the Africans themselves. Woods and Michel's words leave no place for doubt...
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