Ligabue Magazine 22
First semester 1993
Year XII
In 1949 a delegate of what was then Ruanda-Urundi created a great stir at the United Nations by refusing considerable aid consisting of agricultural equipment and large sums of dollars: “It’s too much”
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– he said – “our people don’t even know how to use a screwdriver, and you know what would happen if all this wealth poured down from the sky? They would sell the tractors to Kenyan landowners, and instead of working would spend their time drinking beer.” The rumpus following this declaration was eventually translated into a problem tabled by the UN Economies and Social Council: how much aid should be given to newly independent countries so that the planned benefits did not actually become damage?
At the time the sensational case of some Far Eastern islands was also coming to light. After being transformed into military bases during the war, these islands had enjoyed considerable wealth. But once the Americans left, they could not return to their former way of life. The natives fell prey to terrible helplessness since they could not do without tasty smoked ham, nor could they give up beer, Coca-Cola and free cinema.
The UN Economies and Social Council almost immediately came to the conclusion that the issue raised by the Ruanda-Urundi delegate was moral rather than economic or political in nature. Our readers we will remember that in the accounts of the Ligabue Research and Study Centre in New Guinea or Amazonia, the writers denounced the fact that primitive cultures on the verge of disappearing were also being submerged by the arrival of plastic. But in so doing, no-one ever contemplated depriving those tribes of the little aid that eased their labours or of medicines that saved them from endemic disease. These writers were and still are simply pointing out an inevitable change, as inevitable as the scientific and technical progress in industrialized countries.
The claims of those preaching against consumerism, are perfectly valid, but the problem is they fail to take into account human nature, rather like Misoneists inveighing against the advent of the tarmacadam road. That the introduction of a need creates the desire for its satisfaction is irrefutable, but just imagine the reaction if you tried to tell a housewife to give up her washing-machine and washing powder. These thoughts came to mind on reading Giancarlo Ligabue’s article on the “cargo cult” on page 72.
The myth lives on in Melanesia, where during the last war, first the Japanese and then the Allies “forced the natives to work for them, in building ports and airstrips. In exchange they received food, metal tools and a whole range of technological innovations, which ultimately upset their material and cultural universe.” Ligabue goes on to explain how the cargo cult with its manna from heaven has inspired freedom movements seeking independence from foreign invaders.
On page 146 Hendrik Hoeck, a biologist from the University of Constance and former head of the Darwin Station in the Galapagos Islands raises a very different issue, but with signs of common ills. In his article on the Galapagos Islands – described at various times as the islas encantadas, “a Noah’s ark in the Pacific”, “the laboratory and showcase of Evolution” and even “Dante’s inferno” – Hoeck looks to the future and asks: “will the endemic organisms of these islands survive the impact of man (tourism) or the arrival of newly imported species?”
This is worth reflecting on: tropical island holidays are still very fashionable. Tourism has brought wealth and the islands offer dream holidays. But not so long ago there were protests against those tourists slaughtering increasingly rare brilliantly coloured tropical fish.
We now move climates to the cold Siberian wastes, but again the evils are distressingly similar. Jacek Palkiewicz, a ltalo-Polish journalist and daring explorer who crossed the Atlantic in 1975 on a lifeboat (page 36), takes us on a kind of foray into the myriad ethnic minorities of the immense harsh world of Siberia, where many groups feel abandoned by the new regime responsible for the breakup of the Soviet Union. Paradoxicality, it’s almost the case that these peoples were “better off when they were worse off”. Now they feel neglected. They realize the little they have left is very precious, and when they find some alcohol, they drink to forget.
Davide Domenici was born to the trade. A graduate in Pre-Colombian American history and civilization, he has taken part on many research campaigns in Peru and Easter Island and, last but not least, he is the son of Viviano Domenici, a scientific correspondent for Corriere della Sera and contributor to Ligabue Magazine. On page 88 Davide gives us a passionate description of the “ball game” commonly found among Mesoamerican Indians and so important that in the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlán n the ball court was enclosed in the grounds of the temple in the city centre. It’s no easy matter reaching the Atacama Desert in Northern Chile. But Viviano Domenici has explored the desert and the town of San Pedro de Atacama, a mysterious and evocative oasis described on page 106. 96.
Do you know who Frederic Sackrider Remington was? It is well worth reading how this valiant and adventurous artist became rich and famous drawing pictures of the Wild West. The Venetian journalist and collaborator at the Ligabue Research and Study Centre, Sandra Gastaldo gives us a fascinating biographical account of the man who left us lasting images of the American frontier (page 56). Lastly, Venice. This issue ends with the disastrous phenomenon of acqua alta, or the exceptional high tides that periodically flood Venice. As the water creeps up, foreigners are fascinated, the Japanese shoot off film, but for the Venetians it is… a nightmare from which they can’t wake up. I tackle the issue on page 126 in an article illustrated with some telling photographs.

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