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Is it moral to leave tribes alone in the modern world?

251 replies

mids2019 · 22/12/2024 05:39

https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2024/dec/22/exclusive-photographs-reveal-first-glimpse-of-uncontacted-amazon-community-massaco

Never really understood the reluctance for more intervention with remote people when they are citizens of Brazil and are therefore under the same laws as the rest of the Brazilian populace, have the same right to healthcare, education etc. Also they should have the right to vote in Brazil's democrqcy.

It just feels like a human zoo and sits badly with me.....

Exclusive: photographs reveal first glimpse of uncontacted Amazon community

Automatic cameras in the Brazilian rainforest show images of the Massaco people, who are flourishing despite environmental threats

https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2024/dec/22/exclusive-photographs-reveal-first-glimpse-of-uncontacted-amazon-community-massaco

OP posts:
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7
Cooriedoon · 22/12/2024 08:20

Goody2ShoesAndTheFilthyBeast · 22/12/2024 05:59

Considering what's happened so far every time tribes have been 'contacted' I think it's best to leave them alone.

This.
I'd go join them if I could. The modern world is an absolute cesspit. Healthcare? Funny. I'm in the UK and currently finding it impossible to see a GP.

InCheesusITrust · 22/12/2024 08:21

CaptainMyCaptain · 22/12/2024 08:06

Agreed. I can see the OP's point. I know there is nowhere as isolated as that in the UK but if an isolated impoverished village were to be found and denied any access to the modern world would that be moral?

It would depend on what individuals in that community wanted rather than imposing things on them. Things don't always stay the same although some in this country claim they would prefer (an imaginary) version of the 50s.

The human zoo aspect comes from keeping a community preserved and not allowing them to develop and progress. I don't know the answer but these people have the same rights as anyone else.

But they are not denied anything nor are they being prevented from progress.
They chose not to be part of whatever it is world is doing now.

SwordToFlamethrower · 22/12/2024 08:23

Jesus leave them alone! I can't believe anyone would think its ok to force uncontacted people to connect with the world.

They have a right to exist as they are. This post has mightily pissed me off.

Interested in this thread?

Then you might like threads about this subject:

AmazingGraze · 22/12/2024 08:23

Cooriedoon · 22/12/2024 08:20

This.
I'd go join them if I could. The modern world is an absolute cesspit. Healthcare? Funny. I'm in the UK and currently finding it impossible to see a GP.

Well yes, exactly.

biscuitsandbooks · 22/12/2024 08:24

Agreed. I can see the OP's point. I know there is nowhere as isolated as that in the UK but if an isolated impoverished village were to be found and denied any access to the modern world would that be moral?

There's a massive difference between wanting to be part of our world and us refusing, and us forcing our world onto people who have shown no interest.

Huge numbers of tribes have been nearly wiped out because westerners have decided that our way is the best way. It's absolutely shameful.

EmmaMaria · 22/12/2024 08:25

mids2019 · 22/12/2024 05:43

How do we determine if children are being looked after properly or they are offered modern healtcare. Surely denial of these things to the tribe's children could be tantamount to abuse?

How arrogant. There's a lot of medicine that we have learned from "primitive people", and living a life that their people have lived for thousands of years isn't abuse. How on earth do you make out that they aren't looked after properly? Put your own house in order first - the modern world is hardly a shining example.

RubyRobin1 · 22/12/2024 08:26

These people will have their own way of life. Who are we to say that our way is right. Have you considered that maybe they don’t get as many diseases as we do? Maybe their medicine is more advanced? Maybe their justice system is better? Maybe their children are happier? Maybe they are educated more than we are? Maybe their life expectancy is longer?
There are so many possibilities. Leave them be and don’t assume that the modern world is better.

Wigtopia · 22/12/2024 08:26

mids2019 · 22/12/2024 05:43

How do we determine if children are being looked after properly or they are offered modern healtcare. Surely denial of these things to the tribe's children could be tantamount to abuse?

Interestingly, a number of modern medicines are based on mixes of herbs and knowledge from indigenous people.

TooMuchRedMaybe · 22/12/2024 08:26

It's quite an imperialistic view to think that the way we do things is the correct way and that they are missing out. They aren't missing the Western court system or lab produced medicine, they have their ways of deeling with such things. They don't need an education in AI or art, they need to know how to live safely which is exactly what they are teaching. The few tribes that are still around have survived this long because they have resisted outside intervention, let them be.

WomenInConstruction · 22/12/2024 08:29

You can't compare social domestic issues in Australian aboriginal communities with an uncontacted tribe in the Amazon.

Those in Australia had their entire social systems and families systematically torn apart in the most brutal way you can possible conceive of including the organised removal of an entire generation of children specifically to break their intergenerational bonds and handed down knowledge.

Those removed children were raised by racist religious groups or put into domestic service of their oppressors...

You betcha they have some social problems now.

There is no comparison and that you cite that in support of your pov shows just how uninformed you are.

EmmaMaria · 22/12/2024 08:31

mids2019 · 22/12/2024 06:22

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2015/mar/30/child-and-domestic-abuse-in-indigenous-communities-chronically-undisclosed

Is it pearl clutching to actually have concern or does the right to live independently to the rest of society mean that human rights are discarded?

You are aware, are you not, that the pressures to integrate into "modern society" to be like whites - leading to mass murder, punishing people for following their own culture, enforced speaking of English, taking children from their families to "look after them better", racism and all those other "benefits we have given indigenous people" are the reason that indigenous peoples are impoverished and struggling? Our ideas that our way of doing things is the right, moral and only way has caused dreadful damage to other people. Leave these tribes alone or they will follow the same pattern - if they survive at all.

HPandthelastwish · 22/12/2024 08:32

@mids2019 most medicine comes from things found naturally in the forest, the fact that the tribe hasn't died out suggest that their level of medicinal knowledge is just fine without our intervention.

And what if they have their own thoughts on child abuse - sending our DC away from us to learn squiggles on the wall isn't particularly natural and probably not good for us we wouldn't do it for ay other animals so why we do it to ourselves when actually it serves no real purpose other than childcare, children aren't actually well equipped to live independently after 13 years of schooling, opposed to being out and about, learning the ways of the rainforest and how to live successfully.

DancefloorAcrobatics · 22/12/2024 08:33

shoulde · 22/12/2024 08:19

Self hatred it's so unbecoming

No self hatred, just an awareness that not everything that has been done in the past is glorious and for the best of indigenous communities.
We can do better buy staying away!

DiamondGoldandSilver · 22/12/2024 08:33

On balance, my general view is that they should be left alone. But I am happy to admit I don’t have enough knowledge about this tribal group to know what is best of them (and that also supports leaving them alone).

I do think OP is being unfairly criticised for raising this question. It’s a very interesting one- what is their mortality rate? How will they survive if their environment is destroyed? What is the infant mortality rate? What is life like for women and girls? At what age are females matches with a male partner and do they consent to that? Considering these issues which relate to universal human rights is not pearl clutching or colonial

shoulde · 22/12/2024 08:35

What is life like for women and girls? At what age are females matches with a male partner and do they consent to that?

Can almost guarantee the answers to these questions won't be good

broccolienthusiast · 22/12/2024 08:36

Just leave them alone. Or soon they we’ll be posting on mumsnet about their useless husbands, ungrateful children and evil mothers in law

Gem359 · 22/12/2024 08:40

What outsiders would actually bring them: disease, alcohol, drugs, religion, destruction, money.

SardinesOnGingerbread · 22/12/2024 08:40

broccolienthusiast · 22/12/2024 08:36

Just leave them alone. Or soon they we’ll be posting on mumsnet about their useless husbands, ungrateful children and evil mothers in law

Best post yet

InCheesusITrust · 22/12/2024 08:42

shoulde · 22/12/2024 08:35

What is life like for women and girls? At what age are females matches with a male partner and do they consent to that?

Can almost guarantee the answers to these questions won't be good

Why. It could well be a matriarchal society in that area

itsgettingweird · 22/12/2024 08:44

mids2019 · 22/12/2024 06:19

Would you be happy with children not being offered healthcare though or an opportunity for education? Where are the police? How is justice administered?

I think there is a moral argument to not intervene but support. Yes there were atrocities committed in previous centuries but that is not an argument for monitoring people's health and allowing access to such basic things as anti biotics , immunisarion etc. Why should anyone be denied these things as civilians of a country?

Who's "denying" them?

If you live in a country with healthcare etc you can access it if you choose.

CaptainMyCaptain · 22/12/2024 08:48

DiamondGoldandSilver · 22/12/2024 08:33

On balance, my general view is that they should be left alone. But I am happy to admit I don’t have enough knowledge about this tribal group to know what is best of them (and that also supports leaving them alone).

I do think OP is being unfairly criticised for raising this question. It’s a very interesting one- what is their mortality rate? How will they survive if their environment is destroyed? What is the infant mortality rate? What is life like for women and girls? At what age are females matches with a male partner and do they consent to that? Considering these issues which relate to universal human rights is not pearl clutching or colonial

This.

nythbran2 · 22/12/2024 08:48

It's not as simple as 'just leave them alone, they have their own culture' does that apply to the Taliban too? What is the way out for people who don't fit in with their own culture?

PrettyFlyforaMaiTai · 22/12/2024 08:48

They will have their own healthcare, education and justice system, it will just be different from our own. It will be adapted for their living in the jungle. They’ve survived for millennia with their way of life.

For example, they will most likely birth squatting/sitting upright, which actually makes childbirth easier and quicker. We only lie down because doctors in the past were used to dealing with patients lying down in bed ill. They will also use plants and herbs from the jungle for their medicine, much like healers/cunning women from the medieval and early modern era. We only stopped doing this ourselves because Protestant men didn’t like women having so much power and accused them of witchcraft. They will also live communally and act in the best interest of the tribe, not individualistically like we do in the west. They would probably think we are very selfish, going to work and dumping our kids with strangers and hoarding wealth.

What good is literacy when you need to hunt and forage in the jungle? What’s the point of immunisation for diseases that don’t exist in your community? They would only need to be vaccinated if they did make contact with the outside world, and even then they would be wiped out by the common cold. I wouldn’t say that our justice system is anything to aspire to when you see that less than 2% of reported rapes end in a conviction.

CaptainMyCaptain · 22/12/2024 08:49

biscuitsandbooks · 22/12/2024 08:24

Agreed. I can see the OP's point. I know there is nowhere as isolated as that in the UK but if an isolated impoverished village were to be found and denied any access to the modern world would that be moral?

There's a massive difference between wanting to be part of our world and us refusing, and us forcing our world onto people who have shown no interest.

Huge numbers of tribes have been nearly wiped out because westerners have decided that our way is the best way. It's absolutely shameful.

Pretty much what I said. It's their choice. I'm not arguing that they should be forced to do anything.

itsgettingweird · 22/12/2024 08:50

InCheesusITrust · 22/12/2024 07:00

What if their way IS the right way to live?

Lets be frank, they have survived eons without modern stuff and western judicial system and medication and whatnot we have and of which we need more and more and more to survive.

What if we are the ones who should change?

Love this.

I'm very interested in psychology but getting more and more invested in philosophy as it seems to drive so much.