China's Three Gorges Dam

Watched this past weekend Discovery Channel's feature on the world's largest dam being constructed in the Yangtze River. Everything now is about China (toys and all overproduced stuff sent out to flood the world market and thus bring down less competitive or more expensive economies, Olympics, Tibet and the Dalai Lama) and the channel's presentation of the multifaceted character of the power generation project adds a more extensive look on that nation's economic growth. The Three Gorges Dam would supply a tenth of China's inceasing energy demand and would also be the answer to the need for clean energy. Being the largest producer and consumer of coal China is suffering from unhealthy air condition, acid rain falling all over the country and the threat of unbreathable air come Olympics. The whole world marvels at China's rapid capitalist expansion, with its people experiencing a profound change in their very being in and of course their outlook of this world. Bad thing is that the damming of the powerful Yangtze river has wrought destruction on its surrounding with heightening floods now burying villages and towns. Thousands of families now evacuate to higher places and millions move to farther and more developed cities as their residences are being submerged by the water held back by the dam. One city builds a wall to protect itself from the flood and many of its cultural heritage already submerged in the river waters. And one feels sadness as one villager paints his neighborhood which, they are certain, will be lost in the coming weeks and months. Others have suffered the same. One old man visit his village before it gets out his sight.

Surprisingly, ruins of ancient civilization are being discovered in the construction areas. Artifacts found are not from the same period in history and upon being unearthed, revealed more artifacts of earlier times beneath them: each new civilization built on top of the older ones! Viewing China then on a linear historical timeline graphs a forward march in terms of its economic development (veering away from its socialist undertaking that uplifted the lives of hundreds of millions) and a further reach backward to the expanses of its history as more relics of the past are being discovered and studied. Discovery shows one museum overflowing with found objects and a newer, bigger one being constructed to house more artifacts. Salvaging pieces of history struggles against the forces of their surrounding (that they themselves had caused) as the dam nears its completion. It is telling that as the government builds modern industrial projects such as the three gorges dam, it also builds museums, both testaments to the heights of the world's oldest civilization that is China. Both embody civilization and its dialectical feature of barbarism - the barbarity of neglecting historical and cultural 'treasures' and the barbarity of dislocation and uprooting that the poor Chinese have to suffer from. It is not only that things fall apart (Yeats and Achebe) and all that is solid melts into air (Marx and Berman) but that their entire cosmos is in danger of being sucked up to oblivion.

10:40 pm
Monday, 28 april 2008