Role of the International Society for Ecology and Culture in Ladakh
Discussion
Text is from 1996.
By HELENA NORBERG-HODGE
"" I want to tell those of you who are interested in the work of the International Society for Ecology and Culture (ISEC), of which I am the Director, that I have just come back from Ladakh, where I found something of a sea change. Ladakhis themselves are taking on a commitment to find an alternative to the conventional development model being foisted on them. There has been tremendous growth in awareness and activism among the Ladakhis, even to the extent that the Ecology Group, one of the nongovernmental organizations in Ladakh that I helped to set up, is now in effect running the new semi-autonomous government. Three of its four leading figures are former directors of the Ecology Group.
In addition, the Women’s Alliance we started about five years ago has grown stronger. It is gaining respect all over Ladakh, and there are now a couple of thousand women in that alliance; a couple of thousand in a region with a population of about a hundred thousand is a very powerful force. All of this, of course, is not to say that the process has been completely reversed. The tide of pressure from the consumer culture continues to affect Ladakhi communities along with virtually every other community around the world. In fact, we are on the verge of losing the opportunity to distinguish ever again between “culture” and “nature.” Because virtually all children on the planet are affected by media and advertising and monocultural education, it is impossible to know whether their behavior is a consequence of human nature or commercial pressures. As violence grows, we hear more and more about “genes” that lead to such behavior, but we don’t hear enough about the global monoculture that breeds insecurity and self-rejection and violence."
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"As I state in my book Ancient Futures, it is vital for us to understand that we are up against a unified economy, centrally managed by interconnected banks, corporations, and finance markets, whose influence is felt from Massachusetts to Ladakh to an Indian or Chinese village. And the most dangerous and least acknowledged influence is psychological. This psychological dimension of the global economy is something we should all be aware of. Again using Ladakh as an example: When I first arrived there, I was struck to find people who were mentally so healthy. I’d never come across people who seemed so at ease with who they were. There was a lightness and humor and joy about them. I know it sounds romantic and unbelievable, but if you’ve ever sat next to the Dalai Lama, you know what I’m talking about. It’s as though there were a hundred thousand Dalai Lamas when I first arrived. But then I saw how it all started unraveling, especially among the young, when from the outside a new culture entered their minds. That culture seemed so superior, so powerful, so amazing—with airplanes and cars and the power and the speed they created. The young men in particular suddenly felt that their own culture was something to be ashamed of because it was backward, primitive. It’s a fairly common problem, not only in many non-Western cultures but in Eastern Europe as well.
In many Western audiences I address, people say, “Well, it’s not that simple; it’s not black and white.” And yet in the non-Western world, many do see the commercial monoculture as being rather black. This is why Ancient Futures, which is about what happened in Ladakh, and the video based on it have appeared in twenty-seven languages. We have not in any way tried to promote them, but Navahos and people from Korea and Burma and Mongolia see Ancient Futures and ask if they can translate it. The whole message really hits home for them. They keep telling us, “The story of Ladakh is our story too.”"
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" I said earlier that things are going really well in Ladakh; the reason is that in the more developed parts the leaders and even the Women’s Alliance, which is not entirely urban, are raising awareness of the destructive impact the foreign culture is having on their own culture. In many areas of the world, awareness of this impact is leading people to reject Westerners, even to the point of hatred, especially for Americans. At the same time local divisiveness is growing. As people feel their identities being rejected, as they find they are unable to get jobs when they rush to the cities, competition increases on a massive scale. And then, if there are any group differences, those differences become a cause for friction. Thus, ethnic and racial and fundamentalist violence is growing almost everywhere."