The Hindu : Front Page : Progress can kill

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Jan 13, 2008
ePaper | Mobile/PDA Version

Front Page

Front Page

Progress can kill

Jo Woodman

Survival International has just released its hard-hitting report, ‘Progress can kill.’ If you think the title is challenging, the contents are even more shocking: the report clearly shows that forcing our ideas of ‘progress’ on tribal peoples destroys their mental and physical health.

Even after working on the report for three years, I’m still shocked, choked and outraged by what it lays bare: ‘progress’ forced on tribal peoples leads to desperate suffering and, all too often, to the total destruction of whole tribes.

India’s Great Andamanese are one tragic example. The British brought ‘progress’ to them in the late 19th and early 20th centuries by forcing them out of their forest and into a ‘home’ in Port Blair, where 150 babies were born and every single one of them died before their third birthday. Overall, 99% of the tribe died, leaving just 53 people alive today.

Many people don’t question development, seeing it as a ‘good thing,’ but I’ve seen how outsiders’ notions of development can destroy tribal peoples: destroy their self-sufficiency, pride, livelihoods and health. I’ve worked with tribal peoples for many years and lived with Gond adivasis in Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh. One thing is clear: only those who listen to tribal peoples and answer their needs can really help.

My colleagues at Survival have decades of experience of working with the world’s tribal peoples and helping with their fights for freedom and land rights. In writing ‘Progress can kill’ I brought together many of their stories, combined with the experience of doctors, nurses, academics and development workers around the world.

During the research process, terrible suffering would come to light. One day, we would hear from the Guarani, a Brazilian tribe that children as young as nine were committing suicide, following the loss of their land to ranchers and plantation owners. In one year alone, 56 members of the Guarani committed suicide. The next day, we would talk to an Innu elder, from northern Canada, about the high numbers of their children addicted to sniffing petrol.

‘Progress,’ or ‘development,’ has generally impacted on tribal peoples in one of two ways. Sometimes it has been ‘for the greater good’ and meant the forced removal of tribal peoples from their land in order to make way for ‘development’ projects such as large-scale mining, dams, logging, oil and gas exploration or road-building; or the imposition of these kinds of projects in areas where they live, without their consent.

Other times ‘progress’ is imposed on tribal peoples ‘for their own good.’ Take, for example, the Bushmen of the Kalahari Desert in Botswana who have been evicted from their ancestral lands and herded into resettlement camps. One ‘official’ reason for this is to enable them to access schools, clinics and lead more ‘developed’ lives, but these benefits are mere illusions. In reality, they have been exposed to more diseases, including HIV/AIDS, and to problems, including prostitution and alcoholism. All of these were unknown when they lived on their own land, in the way of their choosing.

In return for all this, tribal peoples have sometimes received ‘compensation,’ but the fact is no compensation can ever be enough for the loss of their land. All tribal peoples have a very special relationship to land: it is the source of their identity, society, culture, and religion. Remove them from it and, quite literally, you destroy the world as they know it.

Even in the richest countries, tribal people suffer disproportionately. In Australia, for example, Aborigines are six

times more likely to die as an infant, six times more likely to die from a stroke, and 22 times more likely to die from diabetes than other Australians. Yet, importantly, Aborigines, who live on their own land, live 10 years longer than those in resettled communities.

Today, the Great Andamanese may only number 53, but it’s still not too late for their neighbours the Jarawa, a vibrant and self-sufficient people. If the Indian government successfully implements its policies, protects their land, closes the road that runs through it, and keeps intervention in their lives to a minimum by accepting that it is the Jarawa themselves who know what is best for them, then they will survive far into the future. It is time for the world to wake up to all this. It is time for progress to stop killing, and for us to re-think what we really mean by ‘development.’ Time for us to listen to the world’s tribal people and meet their needs, not inflict misguided notions of ‘progress’ upon them.

To read Survival International’s report ‘Progress can Kill,’ go to http://www.survival- international.org/

progresscankill

There are many ways you can help tribal peoples defend their rights. Explore some ideas at http://www.survival-international.org/actnow

We help tribal peoples defend their lives, protect their lands and determine their own futures.

(Dr. Jo Woodman is a researcher with Survival International, London.)

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Front Page