ABSTRACT
Source: M. Taylor, Values, Values, Education: a Guide to the Issues, commissioned by the Association of University Teachers and Lecturers (London: ATL); used with permission.
The hazard school, Charles suggests, derives from a view of floods as always and implacably enemies (Namafe, 1997). His reading led him to believe that the West since the Middle Ages, and the Dutch culture in particular, have consistently regarded water as a most dangerous and threatening enemy. The Dutch, quite understandably, regard saline floodwaters from the North Sea as their enemy. However, such an ‘enemy worldview’ is one which has been diffused globally into contexts and cultures very different from their own flood-threatened land. A view which sees all water control as an imperative grew out of the Dutch predicament, he argues. Yet people have fought for their water-based activities against reclamation and drainage projects through the ages.
