I figured I would create this thread in discussing the removal of tribes by modern civilization.
Why do you think tribal cultures are such a threat to modern state societies?
Why do you think tribal cultures are such a threat to modern state societies?
Who recognizes tribal cultures as a threat? the destruction of tribal cultures has been occuring since civilizations expansion. the bottom line is: We need the space. we need their space in most cases like we see in the amazon, for farming. This isn’t new we’ve been assimilating and conqouring tribes for land for 10,000 years. what we do with their land is different from what they do. the tribe shares its food with millions of other organisms. what we do is deny the food to any of those organisms, we use all the resources and food the land can produce to make more humans. so what you get is the land’s biomass which would usually be shared amoung all and inturn used to create those millions of species. what we do as farmers is interrupt the food chain, and use the biomass that would’ve gone to creating those species and turning into just the human species.
this is takling more along the lines of destroying the biosphere, but that is basically the point. and its what we do everytime we invade new territory. that is the underlying goal of the taker, or this is what inveitably happens when we get more land. -we turn the biomass of the land to human biomass, by taking the food from the other organisms and putting it toward our species. we increase our population and create more human biomass, which inturn decreases the population of the organisms their. literally - we are taking the matter that used to go into making lizards, tree frogs, spiders, and birds and turning it into humans.
Considerations of hindrance to civilisation’s expansive compulsion aside (argh, too many long words), the very existence of a way of life outside civilisation undermines the carefully-crafted Hobbesian nightmare of primitive life that civilisation needs to justify its existence and avoid “defection”, so to speak.
The more resilient tribal model, if allowed equal competition with a lumbering hierarchy, would simply outcompete and destroy it after a while. So hierarchy needs to use its only big advantage of incredible brute force to suppress the tribal model and maintain its own existence.
This isn’t brought about by any sentient guidance, rather a simple evolutionary process. Only the type of civilisation that can strongarm tribalism into submission (the one we have today) prevails… all other types are dissolved by their own redundancies.
i think both NTR and Kali hit the nail right on the head. i would only add one more thing: that living uncivilized mean living a “savage” or “heathen” or “barbarian” way of life.
the Us vs. Them concept arises probably out of a combination of disdain for anyone that doesn’t farm ('cause if you don’t farm, you’re just lazy) and disdain for the indigenous culture itself (including dress, war, living conditions, etc.) that make it easy for the civies to look down on the abos. the civ then uses this Us vs. Them mentality to reason that the abos don’t deserve the land they inhabit or use because they don’t use it properly. They do as little with it as the animals do.
In a way it seems that the civilized were like domesticated farmers killing all wolves,coyotes and any other competitors in their dominion of territory.
The whole land bleeds including the few remarkable human beings who reject the notions of civilized insanity.
I think it’s more of an ideological imperative for people with an imperialist mind set.
Ever hear of “the white man’s burden.†The idea being that it’s part of the colonizing imperialist’s job to go around the world to conquer and rule over other people who live naturally in the wild.
This of course, in their eyes, is seen as a noble cause. But it seems more to me like an abuser rationalizing the abuse of their victims.
Plus, they don’t really want people to be living independently, outside of their control. They want them to adapt civilization’s laws, money, free trade, and customs (which is good for those crazy barbarians) in exchange for their landbase resources.
Quite frankly, people who are living self-sufficiently, outside the economic grid, are seen as a threat to their system.
yes, the simple existence of wild people reveals civilization for what it really is.
and ultimately, sometimes i think, that civilization masquerades not only as the pinnacle of evolution, but the only logical path for humanity and inevitable.
and, sometimes i think, without the illusion of the above characteristics, the spell would, at least, more easily be broken.
Quite frankly, people who are living self-sufficiently, outside the economic grid, are seen as a threat to their system.
And they are a “threat” to the way of life that includes the consumption and submission of every living community on the planet.
There has always been the choice of living economically independent in wildlands with a group of other people, and living out one’s days in the dependent social situation of settled agriculture, towns, cities and settlements, and there will always be a percentage who will opt for the former way of life, no matter the innumerable conveniences, refinements, diverse and pleasing array of foods, and shiny new toys of the latter.
Often, modern tribes will opt for a few modern conveniences and with those in hand, truck or pack animal, head back to the forest, desert, tundra or wherever and completely shun the rest of that “other way of life” in order to preserve “their way of life”.
Before I left for the Middle East last time I read the book Shabanu by Suzanne Fisher Staples. It talks about a young girl who lives nomadically on the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan. It’s a great book it talks about how the family lives on the edge of modern society how it mixes and the slow destruction of there way of life overlaid by the story of a young girl growing up. It’s been my experience that Tribal societies don’t need what civilization offers but the perceived appeal of what they’re missing drags them in, the young mostly, like a drug and by the time they become disillusioned, the way back is gone, at least in there mind. Fortunately when the shtf like in 1989 when Communism collapsed many of the older people in Central Asia remembered the old ways and led the people through a time when many more would have perished then actually did. It truly warms my hart to see and here how villages have burned all the power poles for fire wood and have been living comfortably for 15 years without power in a mostly self-sufficient way. Unfortunately people who don’t need there Government are very hard to govern so the powers that be have to continually create reasons for there relevance. Tribal People are always a threat to civilization because they don’t need anything they have to offer, therefore they can’t be controlled and exploited without first destroying there independence.
Puuku, where in the ME have you been?
This thread reminded me of something I noted in S. Jordan with the Bedouin. There are some differences between those recently settled Bedouin who live in villages most of the time, and those who are still nomadic or semi-nomadic and live in tents out on the desert.
Those who recently settled in villages usually have at least one immediate family member who is working in some way with the tourist industry whereas those who live out in tents often have no interaction with tourist business at all.
The villagers also tend to have more technology than those who live out in the tents. Simply put, other than cell phones, jeeps and the occasional hand-held radio, there are no other “gadgets†out in the desert whereas there are some refrigerators and televisions in the village.
The villagers live closer to shops and other agricultural and imported foods, so they tend to eat more of that food, whereas these “new” “fancy” foods are usually a luxury or are very seldomly eaten by those tent Bedouin. Most of the time they eat dates as a staple, meat from their own animals, bake their own bread, churn their own butter and make cheese and yogurt from their own animals. Villagers also make their own food in this way, but to a lesser extent and not as frequently as the tent-dwellers who rely on the traditional food day-to-day. Some of them engage in cross-border trade, that is bringing in dates or cigarettes or other goods from Saudi to Jordan, and then villagers drive out to their camps to pay for these goods at lower prices than they would pay buying them from the village shops.
For example I can buy a large box ( I think it said 30kg on the box) of Saudi dates from some of my tent-dwelling brothers for about $10 CDN, whereas the cost of 2lb of good-quality Barni dates in the village is around $8-10 CDN. So either way it’s much cheaper to live in the desert and the Bedu share what they have among each other. The last time I inquired about buying some dates these Bedouin were happy enough to give me and Suleiman a whole box for free.
The way the villagers dress is about half-traditional, half western, with considerable overlap, and you see a few western articles of clothing among the desert Bedouin but they usually always wear traditional clothing.
The behavior of the children from the villages and those from the desert can be quite different as well. The children in the villages who are allowed to watch TV or otherwise run around with not much to do other than a few daily chores or going to school tend to engage in more mischief and trouble. There is still a strong community social aspect in the villages, but there is also more interaction with alien social group value systems through such mediums as the tourist industry and television, imported foods, which work together to undermine traditional values to a certain extent.
On the other hand though, the desert kids behave like adults in their early teens. They still feed themselves in the old way of their ancestors and are kept busy engaging in the traditional economic tasks of their ancestors without complaint, whereas those village children who are used to more store-bought food tend to prefer the more modern “thingsâ€Â.
Puuku and Sandwalker, You have seen it. I think I mentioned this in another thread. Even in my experience raisng a family in the alternative back to the land scene these things happened. We had a fairly good sized neighborhood, with other kids and a lot of interaction and cooperation between the families. Unless you are somewhere where there is absolutely no alternative to what you have happening, it’s very difficult to keep your kids interested in simple backwoodsy stuff once they find video games and music and other media that are constantly sending them the messages of the mainstream. If you try to keep it from them they more than likely will seriously rebel when they first are exposed to it.
We figure the best we can hope for is that the lack of substance in mainstream values will become apparent and our children will have their upbringing to fall back on when they see it. Hopefully having something to compare it with will help them see it sooner.
Yea, that is why it was so encouraging to see the young Bedouin living out in the desert, content living the traditional life. I think they are just kept too busy with the economic and social life of the desert to be that much impacted by the village life and the outside world. They don’t go to the village that often (from what I could see), and when they do it is for an economic purpose such as buying or selling something because they need to keep their extended family fed and look after the camp and their family members, herd the camels and goats.
In the villages there is now a lot of free time that would be spent looking after herds and watering camels and so on and so forth. In a way the desert families keep their children isolated enough that they can control to a large degree how they are raised and bring them up in an environment which is conducive to the traditional way of life.
They are the most well-behaved and mature kids I have ever seen, they don’t spend their nights hanging out watching TV like some of the villagers do. Me and Suleiman one night were out hunting with another Bedouin man and we came across a fire in the middle of the desert and it was a group of young herdsboys with their goats and hunting dog, and I don’t think much has changed for these groups of people other than a few nods to modernity such as the jeep and so on. The scenes in their tents remind me of what life on the Arabian peninsula must have been like for thousands of years. The household articles are the same as the ones they had 100 years ago, such as brass coffee pots and mortars and pestles, other than that they have adopted some plastic jerry cans and bowls.
I am certainly going to isolate my children from alien social groups I feel are going to have a negative impact on them, as I have seen what an impact the surrounding social and physical environment can have on raising a child. Ultimately, though, you cannot control where they end up, like heyvictor said, but you can choose where and how you raise them and hope for the best.
Hi folks. SW I’m a little older, 42, the first time I went to the ME was to Turkey down on the SE Border with the Kurds in 1984 since then I’ve been to Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Iraq, Egypt ( Sahara, Sinai Peninsula) Israel and Jordan for about an hour. The Kurds, in turkey, were the most primitive for lots of reasons. I haven’t had the opportunity to return and compare them to today, but so far I don’t think that they’ve drilled any holes in the ground that spew out self destruction and holocaust, so they’re probably still broke enough to keep the old way for reasons other then esthetics. Saudi Arabia in 2000 was strange; you see tents hearth brick hearths, AC units and diesel generators 2 sand dunes over. Once you leave the populated zones though you get out in what I think are some of the best preserved tribal cultures in the world. On a side note Riyadh is the absolute best possible place to go shopping for stuff you would love to have if you were living wild. From there to the Sinai I have these great photos of families just off the ferry from Jordan in Nuweiba with there flocks headed out into the open desert, Awesome!!! Money from tourism has been a great appeal to many but the war in Iraq has killed a big portion of the tourist trade forcing many to become more self sufficient. I’m sure that many feel like a great weight has been lifted off there shoulders. I know that I could live in the Sinai with the Bedouins for the rest of my life know problem. I’m hoping to send my 16 year old son to Egypt this summer with my Egyptian friends who live down the street. I figure all you can do is expose them, give them the tools they need to teach themselves and answer questions until they see for themselves. They pick up a lot more then they let on but you can’t force it you just have to maximize your opportunities.
"They pick up a lot more then they let on but you can’t force it you just have to maximize your opportunities. "
Yeah that’s for sure.