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| NEW INTERNATIONALIST 241 | |||||||||||||||||||||||
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| THIS MONTH'S THEME | |||||||||||||||||||||||
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Kerala |
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| FROM THIS MONTH'S EDITOR | |||||||||||||||||||||||
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Notice something different? No? Flick through your NI again.Yes, we have moved to full colour. There are many good reasons why we have decided to take this leap. One is that it is becoming increasingly difficult to get good black-and-white photographs: most professional photographers now shoot almost entirely in colour. Many of the best black-and-white photos available to us through agencies and photo libraries are actually conversions from colour. Although the technique for doing this has improved tremendously in recent years it still can never really match the original. Another reason is that we want to keep up with the times. Modern computer technology enables us to do increasingly exciting graphs and charts - and we feel that colour can only enhance the vividness and accessibility of NI specialities such as the Facts spread. But there is an ideological reason too and it has to do with our perception of the so-called 'Third World'. Perhaps the best way to illustrate this is with an example. Take two identical photographs - one in black and white and one in colour - of a street scene in a Brazilian favela or shanty town. What you see in both photos is people living in poverty. But what you do not get to see in the black-and-white photo is that the people living in that poverty have painted the walls of their dwellings bright yellow, green and blue. They have managed to bring a bit of joy into a most unpromising environment. That dimension of resourcefulness and creativity is lost entirely in the black-and-white picture. And it is a dimension that anyone who has ever been to a Third World country and met its poorer inhabitants will know is vital if we are to get a fuller sense of what they and their lives are really like. Happily NI's move to colour coincides with our twentieth anniversary. The choice of subject for this month - the southern Indian state of Kerala - may seem a little obscure. Kerala is indeed unusual, but in ways that are highly significant to anyone who cares about justice. It's a poor state in a poor country which manages to keep its people alive longer and educate them better than any of the world's low-income countries. Kerala has been hailed a model for development, a success story whose example other states would do well to follow. What's more, it appears to have achieved this through democratic radicalism, a more equal distribution of wealth and as a commitment to social justice. These are, and have always been, core concerns of NI. They lie at the heart of our purpose - to bring to you 'the people, the ideas, and the action, in the fight for world development'. And, now, in full colour. |
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Paradox in paradise Life on the edge Simply - a tale of old and new Ferry to revolution Respect and respectability Crossed wires in
Calicut Hills of shame The mat unravels
Developmania Model or muddle? |
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Letters FRONT COVER PHOTOGRAPH: BANANA SELLER IN THE
FISHING COMMUNITY OF VIZHINJAM, KERALA BY GAELLE ROUX. |
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Vanessa Baird
for the New Internationalist Co-operative |
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