Suchergebnisse

The conventional wisdom is that "persistent fiscal and balance
of payments deficits are a fundamental source of Pakistan's high debt
burden" [Pakistan (2001), p. xv)].1 The State Bank of Pakistan (2001, p.
117) goes further: "This…public debt is the result of structural
weaknesses in the domestic economy and the external account. Excessive
government expenditures, stagnant tax revenues, high returns on
government securities and inappropriate sequencing of financial reforms,
led to a bludgeoning (sic.) domestic debt profile. On the external
front, large current account deficits, stagnant export revenues and
declining worker (sic.) remittances, effectively forced Pakistan into an
unsustainable situation". All this is true, but hardly
exhaustive.

This is a collection of seven original and intelligent essays
which question the ethnocentricism implicit in the uncritical advocacy
of modernization and development in non-Europeanatel societies, and
argue for a greater sensitivity to their cultures. In the intellectual
footsteps of Michel Foucault (1980), the authors show a special
sensitivity to the power politics implicit in the generation of truths
and theories of development and in the process of implementation of the
project of modernization. Finally, the authors discuss the remarkable
tenacity with which the targeted societies have attempted to defend
their cultures against the onslaught of alien values, knowledge,
techniques, and lifestyles. In his overview, "Towards the Decolonization
of the Mind", Stephen Marglin sets out the hopes and fears of the
authors of this volume. Hope, that by decoupling technology from its
cultural and political entailments, indigenous cultures may be
strengthened, and the process of the dismantling of empire may be
brought to its logical conclusion, the decolonization of the mind. Fear,
that "If experience is any guide, the authors of the chapters that
follow will, singly and collectively, be accused of promoting
superstition, religious obscurantism, and even barbarity".