In endearing mainstream stereotypes, perpetuated by conquering powers, the invaded and colonized “other” is historically and currently defined as savage.
For the sake of spilled ink, I will not list the infinity of examples throughout history that highlight how the conquering have defined the conquered other Peoples and territories under the guise of religious concern or moral burden; from Belgium unto the Africans; from Norway, Sweden and Russia unto the Saami; or Dutch, Russian, French and English unto First Nations.
While it may be the easy way out to declare that history is a dead narrative — and therefore should remain dead and thus it would be impolite to discuss — the stereotyping of conquered people as savages continues.
And there is a disturbing smugness to the assertions of superiority over the primitive.
We need only look at mainstream media columnist Margaret Wente of the Globe and Mail who thrusts forward the savage label in 2008, while coming to the defence of Dick Pound who asserted the same.
“North American native peoples had a neolithic culture [sic] based on subsistence living and small kinship groups… They had not developed broader laws or institutions … evidence-based science … or advanced technologies… Until about 30 years ago, the anthropological term for this developmental stage was ‘savagery,'” she writes. “[A] neolithic culture cannot possibly give them a future. And it’s time for us to face that.”
Geez thanks, Maggy, for setting the record straight; that through our religious concern or moral burden, Canadians have white-knighted the troubling Indian problem away, leading to a better future of residential schools, skyrocketing diabetes rates and constant CAS intervention.
To this, Indigenous activist Ben Powless nimbly tears her argument to shreds. In a Dominion article titled “What Wente Wrote was Really Dumb — and also Racist,” Powless writes,
“Until about 30 years ago, the technical term for this would be ignorance. Today, it is just plain racism to argue cultural inferiority and pretend that all Native peoples are the same. Apparently Aboriginal problems today can be explained by the fact that we have a ‘relatively simple neolithic kinship-based culture’ trying to make it in a world too complex for us. Broken treaties, residential schools, police discrimination? Not a problem!”
And, “Wente feels it is wrong for Canadian society to feel collective guilt, since Native peoples had ‘absurd’ spiritual beliefs, weren’t ecologically sensitive, and basically were good-for-nothing. And this guilt is what’s pushing us to try and protect Aboriginal cultures — effectively dooming them,” Powless writes.
But, thanks Wente (and Pound) for your honest and truthful assessment of Indigenous cultures from the years and years of intensive study and constant engagement with First Nations communities. Dominant culture has successful solved the savage problem.
Or have we?
Speaking of colonization and dominant cultures, and the conquers’ ability to enforce their cultural superiority through overt and systemic means, has society really killed the savage?
Across the globe, are dominant cultures really the best we’ve got? I mean, obviously, through the assimilation or displacement of the primitive and savage, only the good and moral and clean must remain?
Late last year, loggers in Brazil captured an eight-year-old girl from one of the Amazon’s last un-contacted peoples, tied her to a tree and burned her alive. This act was a warning to her kin if they resisted the invasion of their territory to extract resources. It is part of a larger, ongoing campaign to force the Indigenous Amazon peoples from their historical territories within the forest.
According to a Telegraph interview, “Luis Carlos Guajajaras, a local leader from a separate tribe, told a Brazilian news website that they tied to her a tree and set her alight as a warning to other natives, who live in a protected reserve in the north-eastern state of Maranhão. ‘She was from another tribe, they live deep in the jungle, and have no contact with the outside world. It would have been the first time she had ever seen white men. We heard that they laughed as they burned her to death,'” he said.
On Wednesday of this week, a video surfaced and quickly went viral showing U.S. soldiers — Marine Scout Sniper Team 4 and the 3rd Battalion 2nd Marines — urinating on the corpses of deceased Afghan men.
The date of the video is suggested to be 2011 when the marines were dispatched to the northern Helmand Province in Afghanistan during the summer. In the video, one of the marine’s says, “Have a great day, buddy,” while he relieves himself on the body of a slain Afghan. “Golden like a shower,” snickers another.
This mirrors similar incidents that occurred at Abu Ghraib.
A CNN commentator discussing the issue later salutes the Marines for urinating on dead Afghans.
Who’s the savage now?