AGE OF INFORMATION OR IGNORANCE: LESSONS FROM THE TSUNAMI
By Vandana Shiva

IPS COLUMNIST SERVICE, JANUARY 2005

Gaia, goddess of earth, could not have picked a more appropriate time and place to send us a message of her hidden powers: we are first and foremost citizens and children of the earth sharing a common fate of a shared disaster, and a common desire to help and heal, writes Vandana Shiva, author and international campaigner for women and the environment.

The demands for public goods and services for relief and rehabilitation pull us in a totally different direction than the demands of privatisation from the World Trade Organization (WTO) and the World Bank. The Tsunami reminds us we are not mere consumers in a market place driven by profits. We are fragile interconnected beings inhabiting a fragile planet, Shiva writes in this analysis.

The Tsunami tells us we do not live in an information age based on "connectivity" but in an age of ignorance, exclusion and disconnect. The IT revolution has evolved to serve markets, but it has bypassed the needs of people. Hopefully governments will learn a lesson that the earth has tried to give: "development" that ignores ecological limits and the environmental imperative can only lead to unimaginable destruction. The vulnerability of millions calls for robust public systems to provide food and water, health care, and medicine.

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