Because this whole issue revolves around a different nation’s sovereignty, I hope people arguing for intervention are thinking it will be Indian government doing the intervening, and not the US.
So, let’s imagine a different situation. A small group of adults, all US citizens, pools their money and buys an island off the coast of the continental US. They decide they will move there, raise families, but live as Hunter-Gatherers. They turn their backs on civilization completely. No phone, no lights, no motor car, not a single luxury.
No books, no writing, no education for the children other than teaching them the skills they need to live as Hunter-Gatherers. No modern medicine, no chance for the children to even know about the outside world other than “it’s dangerous”.
Would /should we allow this? Would/should we allow it if instead of self-imposed castaways, they were part of an actual Hunter/Gatherer culture that had never accepted civilization and wanted to keep things that way?
It’s pretty obvious that their society is going to be polluted and destroyed by people who are absolutely convinced that THEIR concept of how they should live is way more important than their own independence and right to maintain their society the way they see fit. That’s the way it has always been throughout history, so it’s just a matter of time.
I’m arguing the morality of intervention and not the specifics or practicality. I completely recognize that there are practical considerations as well as legal frameworks and inherent dangers to both sides in the event of a cultural exchange. I’m not pleading with the Indian government to do anything in particular and really I don’t have a dog in the fight. For clarification, I’m only arguing that it is morally fitting to ‘intervene’ with the Sentinelese.
I imagine that when the first fisherman gets shot full of arrows, the corresponding law enforcement agency would show up with riot gear and arrest the suspected perpetrators, if it were US territory.
Apples/oranges. These people in your scenario are still US citizens and the US has the same responsibilities toward their children as it does toward the rest of its minor citizens.
Now if all those adults had renounced their US citizenship and were living on an island entirely outside of US jurisdiction, that would be another matter.
Yup. If the islanders ever show signs of wishing for peaceful communication or exchange, for example by leaving gifts/trade goods in an accessible spot (where they could be retrieved by drones?), then we can start what will most likely be a very long slow process (if the Sentinelese don’t die out in the meantime) of building trust and communication and eventually inviting them into the global family of nations.
But barging in there immediately to smash up their civilization because their children deserve opportunities to be doctors and lawyers is both stupid and tyrannical.
The UDHR is not some divinely ordained fiat that gives developed nations carte blanche to destroy and remake other societies however they choose in the name of universal rights. It is
Sure, if the Sentinelese ever become receptive to “teaching and education” from other cultures, we should definitely use those opportunities to “promote respect for these rights and freedoms” among them.
But that is not license to invade their territory and destroy their sovereignty under the guise of trying to enforce for their children a set of arbitrarily defined rights that the Sentinelese themselves have zero knowledge of and never acceded to in any way.
Um, yeah. That was on purpose for the reason stated.
I agree. But what about the other group, who are more like the Sentinalese? They are also are US citizens. And the Sentinalese are Indian citizens. Wouldn’t the Indian government have the right (both morally and legally) to allow the Sentinalese children to have the same basic opportunities as other Indian children? The Indian government has chosen not to do this, but would it be wrong to do otherwise? I can’t see that it would be, although I accept that it is up to the Indian government to decide. Not us.
BTW, I don’t mean to argue with you necessarily, but with those who are arguing for non-intervention as a moral imperative.
Non-intervention isn’t a moral imperative because we have an obligation to keep the Sentinelese pure and uncorrupted. It’s a moral imperative because the only way to intervene would be at literal gunpoint. And actually not even that, because you couldn’t just point a gun at them and expect them to give up. You’d point the gun, and they’d fire their arrows, and then you’d either have to shoot or not shoot.
So the moral imperative is that it’s better to leave them alone than to massacre them. Those are our two choices. All this other blather about how they should be taught about modern civilization is ridiculous. The only way to teach them about modern civilization is to round them up and send them to prison camps. And the other problem with the prison camp idea is that most of the prisoners would die from communicable disease there. Maybe a few would survive, and then once they were properly educated could proudly take their place as a member of modern civilization and get a job working in a garment factory for 12 hours a day.
Everyone outraged at the idea that there are people not able to experience the wonders of modern civilization are kind of forgetting that there are literal starving kids in the third world, yet we’re somehow not willing to lift a fucking finger to help a kid working in a Bangladeshi sweatshop, but we’re outraged that nobody is helping a Sentinelese kid get a cell phone and a job as a corporate lawyer. As we speak we’re literally tear gassing refugees on our borders asking for help.
The people talking about our moral duty to improve the lives of these poor stone age people on Sentinel Island must be living on some other planet other than Earth. It’s like these islanders are the only poor people they’ve ever heard of, and they can’t wait to start helping, because they’ve never seen another human being on their planet who needs help.
Just kidding, mostly. I don’t actually advocate using force to subdue and civilize the Sentinelese, but I do note that, if we decided to, there are a wide array of less-lethal means at our disposal.
We’re not having a discussion about tear gassing asylum seekers or Bangladeshi sweat shops, so they aren’t germane. We’re also not having a discussion about how much effort should go into suppressing sweatshop labor before one is allowed to have an opinion on other human rights issues. That’s a great discussion in itself. We’re discussing the moral duty of interference or non-interference with the Sentinelese. These other tangents are simply rhetoric.
I also object to the idea that the only way to inform the Sentinelese about the outside world and thus allowing them to make their choice about whether to join it is to round them up and send them to reeducation camps. I would like to think that we could come up with something a bit better than that. I think simply leaving them more modern conveniences on their beaches would be a good first step. If nothing more than metal knives and cookware which we know that they prize. Pictogram books and pictures of the outside world might be a good second step. Shoot, we exist in a world where communication is our forte, I’d like to think that our first impulse shouldn’t be start killing them until they go to prison camps.
Anthropologists were hanging out (for brief intervals!) on North Sentinel Island and distributing gifts as recently as the 1990s. Presumably something led them to change their policy to the current “hands off” one.
I read somewhere, probably some Jared Diamond book, that hmm, foggy on details here, but I think it was New Zealand that conquered a lot of previously uncontacted tribes in nearby islands. They showed up with guns (which the locals didn’t recognize.) They bought a pig using sign language. They shot the pig, and roasted it and shared it. Saying, without using words, “we are more powerful than you, but we come with good intentions.” The point was that they subdued a lot of isolated groups of people without a lot of (human) bloodshed.
I wonder how well they would make the connection between the loud bang + dead pig and “we are more powerful than you”. I can see lots of ways that could be misinterpreted by uneducated people. Anything from the tribal version of “he’s a witch” to “why are they eating my pet pig?”. Imagine an alternate timeline where some Koreans came to an uncivilized America, through some mediocre sign language took ownership of the family dog and then immediately killed, cooked, and started eating it, even inviting the family to join in the meal. I doubt “respect” would be the dominant emotion.
Diamond goes on to say that they completely disarmed the population by removing their bows, shields, and spears, and occasionally shot a tribesman for getting too uppity.
Gang, let’s not forget the probably extensive interaction they have with smugglers and other assorted naval mobsters. This isn’t a remote Pacific island: it’s in the freaking Indian Ocean, about 50 km from Port Blair, a village (ha!) with 100,000 people. There’s a reason it attracts nutcases like the deceased missionary.
Sample: [INDENT] Anyhow, wasn’t it merely romantic fantasy to think that the Sentinelese could maintain their isolation forever? The population of the Andaman Islands was doubling every decade, as the Indian government encouraged emigrants from the overcrowded subcontinent—Bengalis, Tamils, Sikhs, Punjabis—to settle there, joining the descendants of convicts brought by the British. As a “Tribal Reserve Area,” North Sentinel Island was off-limits to outsiders, under pain of a prison sentence; Indian Navy helicopters and ships made regular patrols to keep anyone from approaching. The longer it was kept isolated, however, the more attractive it became to local fishermen, who occasionally visited its outlying reefs with a wink from the navy. And then there was the problem that the Andaman archipelago was, and still is, a haven for outlaws. Its thousands of miles of uninhabited coastline provide hideouts for gold smugglers, gunrunners, pirates, and drug dealers plying the complicated underground trade routes of Southeast Asia. Illegal loggers come from Burma to cut valuable hardwoods; poachers come from Thailand for sharks, sea cucumbers, and rare shells. The outlaws have fast boats and heavy weaponry, and they brook no interference with their work. [/INDENT]