Hunger threatens village life of Third World nations
Development efforts in most Third World countries have helped large, rich
farmers get larger and richer, while small farmers and the landless find them
selves in an ever-tightening financial squeeze.
The rich farmers have been able to lake advantage o f mechanization,
cheap credit and new methods o f agriculture to increase their holdings. Small
plots o f land have been subdivided repeatedly over the centuries, leaving them
too small to teed families. These farmers, still dependent on primative farming
methods and hand-made tools, are rapidly loosing their land
Millions o f lariners have been forced to move onto land that was previously
thought unfit tor tanning. In Tanzania, for example, they have gone to the
steep mountain slopes and to the desert plains. In Central America, they have
pushed into the jungles.
Third World people who still live on farms and in rural villages are in a
period o f transition. Not only has rural lile not improved during the 1970s, but
the gap between rural and urban dwellers has increased.
Sociologists in Indonesia have designed a method to measure poverty, using
food supply as the index. Their conclusion is that while the number o f poor has
been reduced and living conditions in Indonesia improved, the number of
"very poor" rural people has increased from 34 million to almost 39 million in
the last ten years.
The style ol rural living also has changed, with the small farmer working
longer hours on marginal land to feed himself. Many have turned to small-scale
handicrafts, trading and outside employment to supplement their incomes. O f
ten children o f six to eight years are sent to work to help support the families,
so 40 per cent or more o f the village children do not attend school.
Iraditionally villages have been close-knit with strong social systems, people
assisting each other, but economists and sociologists feel ihe village structure in
the Third World is weakening.
Subsistance farming, once the way o f life for m illions o f Third W orld
people, is failing to provide enough food for rural and village people and they
are moving to the cities where they live in slum conditions, drawing o ff the
limited resources o f the underdeveloped nations.
PORTLAND OBSERVER
V olum e 9 N um ber 52
January 3. 1980
10Cper copy
USPS 969 600
Gates files for City Council seat
? •
The K wanza celebration th a t took place in Port
land (Decem ber 26th through January 1st) was en
joyed by everyone w h o attended Each day s pro
g ra m re fle c te d one of th e S even P rin c ip le s of
Blackness and ended w ith lots of
.
and dancing
(Photos: Richard J. Brown)
Modernization in developing countries topic
A two day symposium, "C ulture
and Econom ic Development in
Developing Countries: The Impact
o f Modernization” , w ill be held at
P ortland State U niversity on
January l()th and 11th.
Featured speakers include: Noel
Brown, Environm entalist with the
United N ations; M azizi Kunene,
U C LA Faculty ; Robert Houdek,
Director o f the Center o f African
A ffairs, U.S. Department o f state;
and Dr. E.S. Atieno-Odhiainbo, a
Stanford University visiting scholar
from Kenya.
The symposium is sponsored by
Portland State U niversity’ s Black
( Please turn to page 2 col. 4)
Osly " J im ” Gates has filed for
City Council Position I, now held by
Mike Lindberg. Lindberg was ap
pointed to the position by the City
Council subsequent to Connie Mc
Cready’s appointment as Mayor.
Gates is strongly in fa vor o f
realistic and meaningful citizen par
ticipation in city government. " I am
concerned about the absence o f
citizen involvem ent in the C ity
Council's decision making," he said.
" In the past five years we have seen a
change Instead o f planning from the
roots up, we are experiencing a
(rickledown phenomenon. When in
past years many o f the programs and
policies that have been most suc
cessful were planned by citizens and
public officials, both appointed and
elected, served as helpers and
enablers, not as road blocks and ad
versaries.
"W ith o u t true citizen par
ticipalion, we have seen Ihe size o f
bureaucracy explode, the cost o f ser
vices skyrocket, while effectiveness
has diminished proportionately. The
city has become steeped in
bureaucratic control and political in
difference to the extend that it is vir
tually impossible to accomplish a
routine task or solve a m inor
problem."
A prime example o f the lack o f
citizen involvem ent is the $100
m illio n C adillac Fairview Project
which will take four city blocks in
dow ntow n P ortland. “ The C ity
decided what to do, then asked
citizens lor advice on how to do it.”
Another recent example is the shut
-o ff o f street lights. " I n 1974 the
people o f Portland voted fo r
Measure 53 which mandated Ihe City
to provide more street lighting for
crim e prevention and s a fe ty ."
Recently I mdberg proposed, and the
Council adopted, a plan to shut o ff
street lights to save cledricly.
"D u s is a case where a vole by the
people is being ignored. We all are
for energy conservation, but the City
must compare the advantages o f
conservation w ith the need fo r
safety. At Ihe same lime, Ihe Council
voted to spend more money to hire
more police to pat role the darkened
streets.”
“ Once we reverse this trend then
we can go about solving some o f the
problems and meeting some o f the
challenges that face us. There are
short range and long range problems
problems ol the 60s and problems
ol the yeat 2000. We must revitalize
our city’ s core area in keeping with
com m unity wishes and make it a
more vital part o f the city. There are
other problems that deal with the
quality o f life and Ihe livability o f
our community, such as health and
safety, housing, transportation and
Osly Jim Gates, executive director of the C ity /C o u n ty Com mission
on Aging, has filed for election to Portland City Council Position One
employment. We must concern our
selves with the financial stability ol
our city in light o f in fla tio n , the
energy crisis, the retrenchment ol
public hinds and other problems."
Gates lavors the election ol pet
sons to till vacancies on the Council.
"W ith appointments we get people
in office who are not selected by the
citizens. Then it is hard to gel them
o il. It is difficult to replace an in
cumbent."
Gates would like to see more
cooperation between City and Coun
ty agencies - especially in the area of
stVial services. "O verlapping ser
vices cause confusion and are inef
fective and cosily.
A ffirm a tiv e action is another ol
Crates’ strongest concerns. "There is
a lot o f talk and not a lot o f action. I
would like to see Ihe people now in
office pul their records on the line.
How many m in o rity people have
they hired? I would like to know how
many minority people my opponent
has hired - the bureaus he has
headed are among the worst in al
lirmative action."
Since 1965 Ciales has been directot
ol Ihe City/County (ouiinission on
Aging and its predecessors.
Ciales had previously been a
caseworker and supervisor for the
Oregon Slate Public Welfare C oin
mission and A thletic D irector lot
Tort Valley State College in Georgia
and for Ihe U.S. C iv il Service in
Japan. He received a bachelors
degree from West V irg in ia Stale
College and a masters degree from
Columbia University in New York
Gales is Vice President ol the
National Council on Aging as well as
serving in a number o f volunteer
positions.
New elitism emerges in American public education systems
by Sandy Close and Rasa Guslailis
(PNS) Evidence is mounting that
the American school system is in the
process of a profound philosophical
transition that reflects the economic
face of the society as it moves into
the 1980s.
Being abandoned is the long-held
principle that the public schools’ role
is to provide an equal educational
opportunity to all, in the service o f
an open democratic society.
Several separate but related
developments reveal ihe shape o f this
new attitude:
-Programs for "m e n ta lly gifted ”
children are being expanded, while
overall student perform ance, as
measured by standarized tests,
deteriorates.
--The high school dropout rate is at
an unprecedented high in large cities
w ith large m in o rity populations,
while programs to prevent dropouts
shrink w ith funding cutbacks.
Dropout rates have reached as high
as 45 percent in New York City and
50 percent in Oakland, Ca.
-A
movement to lower the
maximum age fo r com pulsory
education is gaining ground among
many educators and critics.
Professor Robert Sipher at the Stale
University o f New York has gone
even fu rth e r, arguing that "th e
solution to the schools' problem is
simple: abolish compulsory atten
dance laws and allow only those who
are com m itted to getting an
education to attend.”
Such tendencies combine into an
emerging "tw o track” school system
that separates children at an early
age into those who will have a chance
to pursue higher education and those
consigned to a grow ing " u n d e r
econ om y" that requires little
schooling.
All employment forecasts for what
Herman Kahn has called "T h e
Slobering 80s" indicate that the
American economy w ill require a
core o f highly-skilled young people
with the ability to handle complex
systems and help the country main
tain its technological edge.
But m ost future jobs, which will
be in the service sector, w ill not
demand much education or skill.
A u to m a tio n at the supermarket
already makes it unnecessary for
checkers to know how to add and
m u ltip ly . A t some fast-food
restaurants, employes do not even
have to read: they punch cash
register button marked with pictures
o f hamburgers, shakes and fries.
According to the Bucrau o f Labor
Statistics, the fastest-growing
categories in the years ahead will not
require a college education. Clerks
and office machine operators, lower-
level health care and restaurant
workers will be able to do the work
expected o f them with little more
education than the basic 3Rs.
In that context, and in view o f the
citizens' reluctance to spend money
on schools and children, the name o f
the game in educational policy is
redistribution o f resources: who gets
what slice o f the shrinking pie.
In New York C ity the Board o f
Education, faced with a deficit o f
$35 m illion in its $3 billion budget
for this year, was told by Mayor Ed
ward Koch that it would have to "eat
its deficit.”
School Chancellor Frank J. Mac-
chiarola, reporting that 45 percent o f
the ninth-graders entering the city’s
high schools had left before
graduation, said the problems was
"s ta g g e rin g .” He blamed the
situation on lack o f funds and the
existence o f an im p lic it "tria g e
system" in which teachers tend to
concentrate on helping those who
have a reasonable chance o f
“ making,” rather than focusing on
those who do not.
In C alifornia, when Proposition
13, the property tax initiative, hit the
schools, remedical programs fo r
potential dropouts were among the
first services to be cut.
" W e are increasingly becoming a
stratified school society, with the af
fluent going to private and select
public s c h o o ls ," according to
Samuel Halperin, director o f the In
stitute o f Educational Leadership at
George W ashington U nive rsity.
"Y o u have s tra tific a tio n both hy
economics and by race,” he added
The shift in educational policy is
illustrated by a recent book by Neil
Postman, "Teaching As a Conser
ving A c tiv ity ." Hack in the 1960s,
Postman and other critics stirred an
intense debate on education by
urging reforms for the sake o f equal
rights, freedom o f expression, the
right to individual and cultural d if
ferences, and improving options for
the disadvantaged.
Now Postman claims in his new
book, that he was one o f those who
had fallen into a utopian illusion by
I Please turn to page 5 col. 3)