We all need Indigenous Peoples
Two great horrors have disfigured human history -and continue to do so. They should haunt the conscience of us all, but particularly perhaps of those who believe in some sort of all-powerful deity. Both have been - and are- acts of inhumanity, a denial of all the special qualities we claim to distinguish us from the animals -and spectacularly stupid.
The worst- just -is quite simply what we have done to the only planet we have available, which has provided for us since the first group of naked apes emerged from the shadows. When we were so few, our species must have had the ability to co-exist with others of its kind, and, particularly, with the sustaining Earth. Some groups did both, added to the store of human happiness, fed the growing populations, and enriched the local biodiversity to the benefit of all. Others just kept themselves to themselves. But all these folk were ultimately side-lined, overtaken by the progressives, the developers, with the results that surround us today. All may not be lost, but it very nearly is, and only a fool would deny it. While some parts of our world remain diverse and fair, others have been simply raped in the name of progress, and everywhere, biodiversity -that wonderful, sustaining, protecting mystery- is in decline. We know that we have poured out the waste from our industrial world until we have succeeded in changing the nature of the very atmosphere, and in raising the temperature and altering the chemistry of the enfolding oceans -and yet there are some who still try to deny that we can be influencing the weather patterns that are driven precisely by the interaction between them.
And the other horror? It is the inhuman way we have, for thousands of years, treated members of our own species- worse, in many cases, than the way we " civilised " people would treat animals. The horrors of The Holocaust need no repetition by me, but they are just a part of the way in which one group of humans will treat another. And it continues today, with shameful, obscene detail- and with no excuse. Particularly prevalent still is the deliberate destruction, by Westernised men, of groups of aboriginal people, as if we were not all descended from those naked apes in Africa, as if we did not all have equal claims to humanity and human justice. Generally, in order to make land available for large-scale logging, intensive agriculture or mining, (or huge power-plants) , Governments all over the world are clearing areas of their indigenous populations by foul means- or worse. The human population of these appropriated areas may starve, may be removed by force, or simply exterminated with great brutality. It continues, in many places, across the globe; it is well-attested, well-documented and normally ignored.
I am continually surprised, dismayed, horrified by the fact that those who claim to believe are so often able to ignore both our rape of the Earth and the genocide of some of its inhabitants. Surely for a Christian, (for instance), the greatest sins of which we are capable must be the obscene and continuing despoliation of the Earth and the massacre of some of its inhabitants? It has to stop if we are to believe in our own humanity, if we are to have any value for ourselves.
These two horrors are closely connected in that much of the genocide occurs in the furtherance of projects which are both short- term and ultimately unsustainable and destructive. If we revolt against the attacks on indigenous peoples, we must encourage the preservation of the environments which sustain them; these are often the places- almost pristine, by the very skin of their teeth- which we need to preserve for the sake of the planet and our comfortable life on it. Tropical rainforests which shelter uncontacted tribes are an obvious and good example, but so too are the Arctic zones where Inuit and Sami live. We need them all. They may seem very few and remote from us in every way, but ruining their environment only helps to destroy our own.
If any of us make any claim to Faith or common humanity, we have to work unceasingly for the preservation of biodiversity on the planet and the health and happiness of ALL our fellow beings. Not to do so is simply inhuman and truly indecent. It is also very stupid.
Remember this when you hear, or read, about tribal peoples; this is One World and
YOUR SURVIVAL IS LINKED TO THEIRS.
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The charity which works to support tribal peoples throughout the world is Survival International. The image above is by courtesy of Survival.