wtf?

[ratcreature]

Okay, the phrasing in this BBC article is really awful. It talks about the Andaman islands, and an isolated indigenous tribe. And it has this sentence (paraphrasing an argument for creating some sort of buffer zone between the tribal area and the rest of the island): "[...] the Jarawas should be totally isolated from human habitation and no commercial activity be allowed near their habitat." Seriously, that article talks about these people like giant pandas, as if they weren't humans as well.

Comments

[lilacsigil.livejournal.com]

Then again, the Jarawas didn't seem to want any contact until recently, and the Sentinelese (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sentinelese) definitely don't. Contact with "civilised" people doesn't seem to have provided them with anything good or useful so far.

[ratcreature]

I don't find the measure of a buffer zone offensive in itself. I can see the position that development close might not be right and that outsiders ought to stay away. But to let people alone who want to live in isolation on their own land without building roads or tourism resorts on their land (or nearby and encroaching constantly) is not the same creating a nature preserve, even if the practical actions would be similar. So I object that the article talks about "human habitation" vs. the "Jarawa habitat". Clearly theirs has been a human habitation for millenia too.

[lilacsigil.livejournal.com]

Yes, I agree that the language is disturbing, and the too-little-too-late idea that the buffer zone should be put in place *after* the "humans" have already interfered with Jarawa society is coming from a similar attitude - that the Jarawa are somehow not human, or their society is not real.

I think I went straight to "leave them the hell alone!" because I'd just been reading about Australian Christians in PNG, who bribe Highland tribes with processed sugar and think it's great that they're saving souls (while destroying traditional diets, and bringing progress in the shape of roads, young people going to the cities, and AIDS). It's disgusting.