Tribal Peoples for Tomorrow’s World

Real culture is not a dead mask. It is alive,

prehistory,

presumed betterment that comes with ‘civilization’.

Indigenous peoples are the descendants of those who were there before others who now constitute the mainstream and dominant society. They are defined partly by descent, partly by the particular features that indicate their distinctiveness from those who arrived later, and partly by their own view of themselves.

Why does the government think they are more important than the people?

When Margaret Thatcher famously declared that there was no such thing as society, she meant that the population should be looked at only as individuals, that there was no underlying social fabric which bound them into something which extended beyond themselves.

enforced schooling is the most powerful weapon used by governments and missionaries to instil in tribal children values which are different, often contradictory, to those held by their own societies.

Critics of tribal peoples’ rights often assert that those who support them want the people to remain poor. But that is not what is at stake at all: it is rather a case of trying to prevent people being driven away from self-sufficiency and towards impoverishment by others taking their land and resources.

self-sufficient way of life,