The link is about how there is a danger to the ‘uncontacted’ tribes of the Amazon.
Disclaimer: I am in no way advocating that these people be allowed or permitted contact with drug runners and such.
This story reminded me of the question that had occurred to me when first I saw pictures of the uncontacted Indian tribe in South America earlier this year.
Why do the governments and other authorities want to keep these tribes in isolation? What do they want to achieve? Why shouldn’t the people of these tribes be contacted and brought into the mainstream to live like the rest of the race that they belong to?
They are not like some exotic animal or bird species that is on the verge of extinction and need to be protected from hunters.
What exactly are we trying to achieve by not allowing them contact with the outside world as we know it? Okay, let us also assume that we are actually successful in achieving that. Then what? I mean what is the purpose?
Will we continue to fly planes over where they live to take and publish pictures for the rest of the world to watch?
What if when those pictures are taken, it is found that the children of the tribe are malnourished or dying of some disease other than the cold and flu which is apprarently one of the major concerns for those who want to keep them in isolation? Will we then rush in and ‘contact’ them with help, or let them be as they are, because that is the way it has been with them all these years?
Can we state with absolute certainty that bringing these tribes into the mainstream will make them happier? Have we successfully eliminated misery, starvation, and disease from all of the other groups that we’ve “civilized”? Who among us is qualified to decide that their way of life should be irrevocably changed?
It’s not the Amazon, but the Sentinelese actively fight off contact.
While there’s a hint of paternalism in keeping them isolated, there’s more than hint of smug superiority about the idea that they need to be contacted for their own good.
They might want to join the rest of human society if they knew about the advantages, but forcing it on them is not the way to do it. The best we can do is let them know we’re around and let them contact us if they want to.
This tribe may or may not have had direct contact with “civilized” outsiders before. But my guess would be that they have at least heard stories about civilized people from other tribes they’ve come in contact with. They’ve definitely seen the planes, and have probably run across other signs of civilization.
That they haven’t tried to make contact tells me all I need to know. They should be left alone unless they are the ones to initiate contact. And that’s exactly the strategy that FUNAI (government agency that protects natives) has tried to put in place. They have that outpost to try to guard the land from intruders, but also as a place that the tribe could approach, if that is what they want/need to do.
ETA: BTW, here’s the previous thread on this subject. If you haven’t seen it yet, check out the video I posted there earlier today.
It’s not like these people know nothing about outsiders. While they may never have met a westerner, they have contact with neighboring tribes who have.
What would “contacting” them accomplish? What’s the point of parachuting a white man into the jungle to say hello, and then bugger off back to civilization?
They know where to find us if they want to talk to us.
Because in the history of contact, it usually went badly for the contacted people. Even if we account for the disease problem, and only want to do it for the starving children* - once you open the door, you let in not only well-meaning helpers, but also profit-oriented scum. In the end, the tribe has lost its own culture and way of life and special knowledge to survive in the forest, with nothing else gained, except dependency on the state for food delivery, boredom while waiting for said food, drug problems arising from boredom and lack of purpose …
We have seen that happen dozens and dozens of times with other tribes. So the decision to keep the rest isolated as best possible means that they can live their lives better and happier than otherwise.
They still have the option of running away to civilization, but through contacts with other tribes, with illegal gold miners or forest cutters and other debris of civilization, they already know that the white man’s way is not good.
*remember not only that to those tribes, a cycle of low food/ lot food is what they are used to, but that “civilized” tribes have no guarantee against hunger, either - look at the current starvation in Eastern Africa, or the hundred thousands of street children and families living in slums in Latin American cities.
Even if we were certain that direct contact would be to their benefit, it’s still their call to make. They know we exist, and at least a broad overview of what we can do, via contact with intermediate tribes. If we want them to contact us, then we should spread the word, through those intermediates, of the benefits. And that’s it. If they still decide not to contact us, well, maybe the case in favor wasn’t quite as strong as we thought.
Under the rules of isolation, who is allowed to contact them? Are “intermediate tribes” allowed to actually seek them out or are they supposed to steer clear too?
Is there any cultural behaviors that impact whether they should be left alone? What if, through advanced satellite observation (or reliable stories from “intermediary tribes”) we learned that it is the cultural practice of these people that upon a female 9th year they become the communal sexual property for all men in the tribe and that any female making it to 25 years of age is viewed as a witch and summarily executed?
Who in that tribe gets to make the decision about contact?
A plane flies over and sees that there is a child who is going to die from an otherwise easily treated gangrenous wound (and we can’t be sure the parents even know that treatment is available to reject it). We just let nature take its violent course. At what point does maintaining isolation move from a form of mild paternalism to a more acute dehumanization by treating them more as exotic animals in a nature preserve?
It’s the “Prime Directive” approach, as applied to our planet, and I agree with it. Let uncontacted tribes remain so, unless and until they reach out to make contact. Our way of life is not necessarily superior to theirs. And even if it were demonstrably so, who are we to decide what is best for them?
What if we had hand held lasers that could blast holes in steel from 10 miles away? What if I could kick a football into orbit? What if Americans suddenly decided women were property, to be traded on an open exchange? What if we as unto the Gods themselves?
We don’t currently have superhuman sensing abilities, even with satellites. It’s hard enough spotting uncontacted tribes, much less monitoring them closely, even via intermediaries. So, these types of hypotheticals are worthless for the real world. Get those satellites first, get them over the area, and then we’ll talk.
As for despicable cultural practices, such practices are rare in human history. So, it’s the same as in every case, we’ll deal with it if and when it happens. I imagine if we found something extreme like that, there’d be enough public outcry to allow for an exception to the policy for that one case.
What? You think we’re automatons that blindly follow policy?
If we’re close enough to see something like that, we are already treating it like a nature preserve to observe ‘creatures’ at our pleasure. There’s no reason to be that close to them, except to act as an excuse to intervene should we find a handy excuse.
Good point. We didn’t do much initially when we heard about actual, as opposed to hypothetical, atrocities happening in Darfur, to cite a recent example.
There are currently many accessible and contacted tribes in Africa that practise female genital mutilation(as “circumcision” is now referred to; Cecil wrote a columnabout it, too). Terre de Femme and many other groups are trying to reach these people and explain why this is bad; governments have forbidden it, clerics - christian and islamic - speak out against it; yet it keeps being done.
In South Africa, many people still believe (as did Europeans just 120 years ago with Syphilis) that they can cure their AIDS by sleeping with a virgin; in order to make sure that the woman is a real virgin, they have taken to raping school girls of 8 years of age. Police and human rights groups try to stop it, but it keeps happening.
Many cultures around the world have different ages and different norms on when women are adult enough to be married off. In Western society, too, things have changed a lot (watch the fictional series “Rome” for an example of Value Dissonance).
And in Africa today, in different countries (not all), lesbians are raped by men to cure them of their wicked ways; Albinos are considered witches and hunted or killed for use in witchcraft. Groups try to stop it, but still it goes on.
There are hundreds of thousands of children dying in 3rd world slums every day from unclean water because slums don’t have drinking water from pipes, and the cities don’t build proper infrastructures for slums. There are hundreds of thousands of children and adults - even in the US, because of the bad health system - who have small diseases worsen into crippeling conditions because they can’t afford a doctor. There are hundreds of thousands of children in Africa where Vitamin A costing 5 $ worth could save their eye-light, but instead they get blind.
So why do you want to “'help” another tribe? And why do you arrogantly assume that uncontacted tribes have children with gangrenous wounds, as if they are ignorant of the vast supply of natural herbs around them in the jungle, as if they don’t know from experience that a wound must be treated properly, and that because they love their children, they will care for them?
And unless you have some magic potion, even children of contacted tribes will die. Instead of gangrene, they might catch AIDS or liver cirrhosis from alcohol or something - but people in the Advanced Western World also die of diseases.
I’d suggest you read the book about the piraha people “Don’t sleep there are snakes” about how a tribe that shuns most outsider contact actually lives, how it deals with death and illness and how happy they are, before throwing around words like “paternalistic”.
You seem to misunderstand how isolation of uncontacted tribes works. They are NOT in a nature preserve where tourists gawk at them*; they are shielded from all contact with white men to keep out the scum.
Actually, do you have any evidence that the animals in Kenia or in other nature reserves resent the tourists looking at them? The money Kenia earns from tourism is quite a big part of the budget and pays not only for the upkeep of the nature reserve itself, but also for things like restitution to the farmers when an elefant walks across the border of the reserve to eat the veggies in the field. This means that instead of hunting down the animals illegally for quick cash, the farmers and the game wardens know they earn more money by protecting the animals. The animals live in the wild instead of a zoo, as natural a life as possible (including being eaten by a lion or hyena).
I don’t see where you get “dehumanization” from “They want to be left alone; previous contacts all ended bad, so let’s leave them alone”.
Because you can find people within society who are mistreated it removes any question of whether we should try to intercede on behalf of additional people who are mistreated by the powerful within through own social structure?
And people died of gangrenous wounds all the time before we developed modern treatment, despite all the “natural” knowledge people had.
But the larger question remains, at what level does the decision to not pursue contact get made?
And I’m not saying we should contact them. I just don’t think it is a morally clear issue. It is similar to the debates we have all the time about what to allow in people who just want to be left alone. Do we force Jehovah’s Witnesses to allow their children live-saving blood transfusions. Do we let a religious cult brainwash their members into abhorrent (to us) behavior without at least making an effort to make them aware of the situation they’re in. Obviously these are not entirely parallel situations but I think they are on a continuum.
If we, as a culture, hold to certain ideals of universal human rights, to what extent are those no longer universal due to the happenstance of how difficult it is to reach a person or how much they (or more likely someone in a position of greater power) says go away?
Now, I tend to come down on the side of leaving them be and doing out to even avoid observing them. I just don’t think it is in all situations an easy decision.
I don’t get dehumanizing from “They want to be left alone; previous contacts all ended bad, so let’s leave them alone.” I get it from "There’s value in maintaining these primitive cultures without giving much thought to what that really means to the individuals and it is best to make sure as little information as possible gets to them to avoid corrupting their “decision.”
Of course that isn’t the motive/thought process of everybody involved but I think I often see aspects of that when this debate comes up.
And there are nature preserves where, for all intents and purposes, nobody is allowed to go gawk at the animals.
Personally find it hard to believe these tribes are truly “un-contacted.” Just because we are hearing about them for the first time on CNN, doesn’t mean that this is the first time they have contacted the outside world.
But regardless, I think the forces that keep them “un-contacted” are folks who have been educated in a manner that taught them that all natives everywhere were always better off before technology savvy people came into contact with them, and mostly Europeans at that. They generally tell you how the natives all got along nicely until westerners perverted them with guns and alcohol. Not saying that there is no merit to the essence of those claims–but can’t help but notice that the people who will tell you the natives had it good are also not running off to go live in the woods in their underwear.
I don’t think we should leave them completely un-contacted. They should at least be presented the opportunity to join the rest of us in the larger world. If they decide to not join up, then they should, as much as is possible, be left alone. However, to say we should not go anywhere near them is probably going to be said by people who want to feel warm inside with the knowledge that they somehow have a connection now to the past. Doing so is a little absurd, and really not fair to the natives.
Um…nobody is saying they have it better. Look at the discussion above. Rather than imagining them in a state of bucolic splendor, most people understand that forced contact is not generally a successful strategy.
Again, look above. This is pretty much the existing policy. They almost certainly have contact with other locals who have contact with the rest of the world. They’re uncontacted, not ignorant.
Um…I didn’t say anyone here is saying that. Look at my post above. I said that the policy makers in regards to the Natives, of which the OP was referring to, would probably argue along those lines.
“What exactly are we trying to achieve by not allowing them contact with the outside world as we know it? Okay, let us also assume that we are actually successful in achieving that. Then what? I mean what is the purpose?”
This was the question of the OP, of which I was answering. It wasn’t intended to be applied to your ensuing side conversation.
Look, the notion that these people are living in squalor, and so we should go and rescue them and help them is so naive it is literally hard for me to believe it.
Take a look at the “contacted” tribes living in the Amazon. How much better off are they? You think they get regular free medical care? Education? Food?
No, they get squat. They live in a poor third world country that doesn’t have the resources to help the thousands and thousands of street kids living in the favelas in Rio and Sao Paulo. There are no helicopters staffed with EMTs ready to parachute into the jungle to help some kid with an infected wound. There are no social workers or probation officers ready to live in the jungle to straighten out their backwards social system. It ain’t gonna happen.
It seems to me that you have the idea that we’re going through some incredible gyrations to avoid contact with these people. Except that’s false. Nobody except a few anthropoligists gives a shit about tribes that live in the jungle. There’s no stark difference between a contacted tribe and an uncontacted tribe. There are lots and lots of tribes that live in the jungle, and the vast majority of them have some contact with the outside world. Only a few don’t, and that’s because they’ve made some effort to keep away from outsiders. They aren’t zoo animals.
The only question is, under our legal system, do we hold that they own the land they live on, or does it belong to no one, and therefore can be handed out as the government sees fit to logging and mining companies? Obviously they don’t understand our legal system. But it seems to me that they have a better right to the land than anyone else, so who has a right to go there and “help” them?