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Report n°5 : "Water : symbolism and culture"

Water, the environment and society

The natural heritage of water indelibly stamps the identity of peoples just as it leaves its mark on their land. For proof, look no farther than the communities that live along the Ganges, the Orinoco or the Volga; even today, can the natives of Bern deny the influence of the Aar (90). Could the city of Nantes (France) cease to admire itself in the Loire or Heidelberg (Germany) in the Neckar so beloved of the romantics?

The culture of water relates first and foremost to a multiple and global approach to the environmental, social, human, ethical, religious and economic dimensions of aquatic ecosystems (91). A study carried out by the World Bank of 64 villages in Rajasthan, in India, showed that the conservation, maintenance and management of catchment areas are far more efficient in villages with high levels of trust, informal networks and solidarity than in those where there is little social capital (92). In Malawi, on the other hand, people reject water from the mains and its pipes, believing that the authorities treat it with chlorine in order to reduce the birth rate and halt the spread of the AIDS epidemic (93). In New York, some Jews refuse to drink tap water, despite that fact that it has been "considered a byword for cleanliness for a century" because it contains copepods (94) (microscopic shellfish) and is therefore not kosher.

Since the Earth was formed some four and a half billion years ago, its water content has changed hardly at all. It is water that makes it the Blue Planet, as astronauts contemplating it from space are fond of describing it. Water has made its mark on our environment: mountain ranges and forests, moraines, gulfs, deserts, glaciers, fairy chimneys, valleys and canyons, all bear the ancient mark of the slow and constant working of an element which, with its extraordinary physical and chemical properties, dictates the very conditions of our life, since soil and water are but the two sides of the same coin. Understanding water culture is essential in order to manage the resource properly and respect the roots of those who benefit from it - roots which, as has already been said, are deeply entwined in the facts of their geography, history and religion.

François Cheng shows with exemplary clarity how these facts have worked in synergy, profoundly shaping the ideology and power of ancient China, when he writes: "For geographical reasons -the ocean to the east, the chain of the Himalaya to the south west, the desert regions to the north west- the slow gestation of ancient China was long confined within its natural boundaries. Yet within that vast territory, crossed from west to east by rivers running parallel, what conflicts of authority arose, and what ideological quarrels between kingdoms and schools of thought! In the end, there emerged two main currents, the origins of which may be positioned in relation to two great rivers: Confucianism in the central plain of the north, watered by the Yellow River, and Taoism in the central southern region, in the Yangtze basin. While Confucianism, promoting man's engagement in the universe and in society and driven by ethical principles, was adopted by the authorities as state doctrine (and hence fossilised and diminished by that very adoption), Taoism never ceased to stand in unavowed opposition to it by advocating the ideal of the freedom of the human spirit and total communion with nature (95)".

Similarly, the rules of polite society in Africa make the offering of the welcome gift of water a key element in the water culture of its peoples, a custom that has its origins in the very organisation of the society and, indeed, of its conception of private property. The historian Joseph Ki - Zerbo explains: "Water, for example, was not sold at market price. It happened on many occasions out in the brush in Burkina Faso, when I had broken down, that a young girl would come up to me offering water. No one had asked her for water, but it is an established right for strangers and there is a popular saying that "The stranger is water". In the African system, property has always been kept to a minimum. For much longer than elsewhere, production remained confined to family or clan level, in a context where there was no shortage of land. The result was that the race for ownership in production relationships has never been one of the driving forces for the process of economic development in Africa. Moreover, the system had even taken precautions to prevent certain individuals from taking control of the capital in the form of land. In the basic model for this organisation, both the community and individuals had rights to the land.There were eminent owners, i.e. the family, the village or the community of the traditional system of chiefs. And real property was in reality a life interest. It was not ownership in the Roman sense of "usus, fructus, abusus", i.e. use, enjoyment and ownership assigned to a single individual even up to the point of misuse (96)".

Serious misunderstandings may occur if cultural data of this sort are not taken into consideration in the management and development of natural resources.

Archaeology shows that around 3800 BC it was advances in irrigation that allowed for the rapid demographic growth seen in the Near East (97).

The controlled flooding of the Nile, both river and deity, dates back to the reign of the Pharaoh Menes in around 3200 BC By around 3000 BC, the distribution of the Nile floodwaters required the keeping of land registry records and the development of a nilometer to measure the height of the river at Memphis; this enabled the Pharaoh to determine the rate of taxation to be levied on the harvest since, obviously, the higher the floodwaters, the better the harvest and the yield.

For certain historians, the annual flooding of the Nile acted as a catalyst or at least paved the way for the emergence of writing, geometry and arithmetic. "Writing, like geometry in Ancient Egypt, came into being when the population settled. While people dwelt in the Sahara, no one took the trouble to note down anything; there was space enough and to spare. But when the process of desertification began, people flocked to the Nile Valley. Population density increased and organisation was required to keep track of who was living where. Demarcation introduced the idea of computation, writing and drawing in order to keep records of ownership (98)".

(90) Read the excellent article on the Aar by Adrien Bron in "La Tribune de Genève", 30 August 2004, p.9

(91) Robert Costanza et al., "The value of the world's ecosystem services and natural capital", Nature, 15 May 1997, p. 254 - 260 and Kate Selincourt, "Can you cost the Earth?", New Scientist, 15 April 1995, p.44-45

(92) "State of the world 2004", Worldwatch Institute, Washington D.C., 2004, p. 172 translated into French y by Mohamed Larbi Bouguerra, "La consommation assassine", Editions Charles - Léopold Mayer, Paris,2005, p.250.

(93) World Water Forum (Kyoto) site consulted on 15 April 2005.

(94) Michael Brick, "There's something in the water and it may not be strictly kosher", New York Times - Le Monde 13-14 June 2004.

(95) François Cheng, "Le dialogue", Desclée de Brouwer- Presses littéraires et artistiques de Shangai, Paris,2002.

(96) Joseph Ki - Zerbo, "A quand l'Afrique? Entretiens avec René Holenstein", Editions de l'Aube, Paris, 2004.

(97) Pierre Gentelle, "Traces d'eau. Un géographe chez les archéologues", Belin, Paris, 2003.

(98) Réf.15