I will be very angry is someone throws that term around again. If there
are indigenous people there must be exogenous people. It is only a polite term
for ‘savage tribal’. The double speak is so obvious in India people categorized
as tribal’s are indigenous as if the rest of us came down from mars. The term
brings with it all the problems of old anthropology studying people in grass
skirts. It is the same today or even worse, these indigenous people are now
expected to live like stuffed animals in museum cabinets, unchanging and on
display. To be looked at spoken about as one would of an object. We are to
conform to an ideal set out by people in power, never masters of our own lives.
What is this culture? What aspects make it authentic? Language, dress,
food, music? As if those never change or evolve? What culture has ever lived an
insular life never adapting or adopting?
Liberals in the west seem to find our return to nativism charming yet a
mention this about their culture and they say that is nationalism. Why this
double standard? The language of the liberal westerner mirrors the one spoken
by the far right in postcolonial nations. I have said it before but every time
I do I get called a racist an inauthentic person, whitewashed. Tears,
screaming, shouting or silence follows what I say. This shouldn’t surprise me
all I am expected to do is cook spicy curry, talk about spirituality and be
poor.
Are we to remain frozen in time petrified on display?
