The book, ‘There you go!’ by Oren Ginzburg, designed to be read in two minutes and launched by Survival International today, is being sent to Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh, government ministers, and universities.
Survival International’s Miriam Ross wrote in Saturday’s edition of The Hindu newspaper, “The briefcase-wielding officials in Oren Ginzburg’s satirical cartoon ‘There you go!’ claim to want to ‘bring sustainable development’ to an imaginary forest dwelling tribe.”
“What they really unleash is the clearing of the tribe’s forest and the destruction of their livelihood and culture. The self-sufficient tribes people are reduced to poverty, dependent on welfare, living on rubbish dumps on the edges of a polluted city – all in the name of a ‘multi-stakeholder cross-disciplinary integrated approach’ to development.”
Tribal peoples around the world, from the Penan in Sarawak to Amazonian Indians, have told Survival International that the cartoon reflects their experiences of ‘development’.
Mary Robinson, former President of Ireland and former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, said, “This little book contains the big message that we must avoid the arrogance of presuming to know what’s best for those whose voices are not heard in global debates. It reminds us of our shared responsibility to see to it that all people are active participants in shaping the decisions that impact their lives. Only then can we hope to see real development.”
Survival International is calling on India’s new National Council for Tribal Welfare to challenge the notion that tribal people are ‘backward’.
Survival International’s Director Stephen Corry said today, “Tribal peoples are simply asking for their rights to be respected and an end to the crimes committed against them. These crimes have long masqueraded as ‘development’, but have actually left a trail of suffering and destruction in their wake. Tribal peoples in the 21st century should be allowed to make their own choices about their own futures.”
Check the following link to read ‘There you go!’:
http://www.survivalinternational.org/thereyougo
About Survival International
Survival International is a human rights’ organization formed in 1969 that campaigns for the rights of indigenous people and uncontacted tribes, seeking to help them to determine their own future. Their campaigns generally focus on tribal peoples’ fight to keep their ancestral lands, culture and their own way of living. Survival works for the people who they call “some of the most vulnerable on earth”. A part of their mission is to educate people from misconceptions that help justify violations of human rights against indigenous people, and the risks that they face from the advancement of corporations, governments and also good intentions based on an idea of “development” that is forced upon them. Survival believes that in fact their alternative way of living is not lacking, they represent a model of sustainability in the environment that they are a part of and they possess a rich culture from which we could learn. For more information, visit www.survivalinternational.org.
Source: Survival International Press Release dated February 22, 2011.
