New Cartoon Book Satirises 'Development'

Survival International Press Release

25 July 2006
New Cartoon Book Satirises 'Development'

A biting critique of how tribal peoples are being destroyed in the name of 'development' is being launched by Survival. The critique is presented in a cartoon book designed to be read in two minutes.

The launch of the book, 'There you go!', marks the start of a major new campaign to highlight how the concept of development is often used to justify the dispossession of tribal peoples. It will be sent to every UK MP and peer, as well as to schools and universities.

With vivid drawings and wry humour, the book depicts two executives arriving in a remote tribal community and imposing a 'Multi-Stakeholder Cross-Disciplinary Integrated approach'. The effects are to leave the tribal people landless, squatting on the edge of a city.

Former UK Secretary for International Development Clare Short MP, on reading a pre-publication copy, said, 'I enjoyed it greatly.' Mashen Ashini of the Innu people of Canada calls it 'a book that tells the truth'.

''There you go!' is an arrow defending tribal peoples,' says Survival's director Stephen Corry. 'It delivers - in the two minutes it takes to read - a powerful, complex and revolutionary view of what often passes as 'development'. In my 33 years with Survival, I have not come across anything else that hits the bull's eye with such simplicity, accuracy and irrepressible humour. Today the subject of tribal peoples and development is saturated with words, but if you really want to understand what's going on, read this book.'

The author and illustrator of the book, Oren Ginzburg, has spent the last ten years working in international development.

ENDS

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