Monday 4 July 2016

Indigenous People and 'Their' Land

This is going to be quick. I believe in evolution. This makes us great apes, hominids. Other apes and mammals are far family, we are all life and we all have DNA. I respect creationists and creation theories as well, but my argument will work with the former theory. When people speak of 'native' land it is the land in which you are born. Yes, anchor babies are native to where they were born. So, when someone says: my land, it usually means the place they were born. That place, if they are proud of it for numerous reasons, say it is a nice place, a democratic place of equality and opportunity, is their nation. The earth you stand on belongs to not only other people than you and your family but other animals as well. Animals that we are breeding, killing, farming and exterminating due to our excessive and luxurious civilizations. I want to make clear that 'indigenous' people, just because they had rituals and dances and fires in one part of the Earth, do not have a hold on the land on which other people are born. Europe expanded. They had a more formative culture--they had more tech, they took over because they could. It's only natural. As soon as they had babies, those babies were native to that land. Yes, the land was taken by force, yes there were terrible wars and tragic diseases that infected the indigenous peoples, but like anchor babies, Europeans came in and embraced their Destiny and made the land their own.

There is no substance in the 'indigenous people own the land' argument. 
 Actually, there were animals there before you. I know you lived alongside them and shared, but you're an animal too, and you profited of the land. Other hominids moved to where you were and profited of the land. Were they excessive and violent, dirty and sinful? Yes! I think it is unfortunate that there was a clash of cultures, but when it comes to 'I own this land because I was here first' argument, there were other animals that lived there before you and before them and before them. Just because you can think and rationalize doesn't make that land more yours than anyone else who was born there can claim.

We all share the West. Blacks, whites, yellows, reds. The West is for everyone. We all share the land. The land is not sacred to one tribe, but to all of us. We are harming it and it is wrong. We should respect life, respect animals, respect the land, and that's a value that has been lost due to our greed which blinds us. I would like to stress, however, that multiculturalism does not function organically, and that's for another post. Some cultures are stronger than others, some cultures are more corrupt than others, some cultures are weaker, uninteresting, lost and dead. Diversity is not strength. Strength is in unity. Unity is in kinship. Kinship is in trust. Trust is in love.

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