13 October 2005

Finally, Some Good News

by Giulianna Lamanna

It’s been less than two months since Hugo Chavez suspended the issuing of missionary permits in Venezuela, largely because of Pat Robertson. And now missionaries are getting another round of bitch-slapping, socialist-style. Everyone’s favorite neo-colonialist destroyer of indigenous culture, New Tribes Mission, is being handed its hat. Chavez wants all their missionaries to leave Venezuela. Right now. For good.

I believe this calls for the doing of little dances, the making of little loves, and the getting down of tonight.

Chavez’s reasoning mainly boiled down to an accusation of “true imperialist infiltration, the CIA, they take away sensitive, strategic information.” He’s mainly concerned about the possibility that the missionaries are spies. The destruction of indigenous culture in Venezuela is barely an afterthought: “And on top of that, [they’re] exploiting the Indians.” Nevertheless, regardless of intent, something highly unusual has happened this day: a good thing for traditional cultures.

“Previously, the indigenous people of Venezuela were removed from our lands. This is historic. It is a joyful day,” said Librado Moraleda, a 52-year-old Warao from a remote village in the Orinoco River Delta.

Many - dare I say most - people view missionaries as generally good. Even non-Christians believe that primitive savages lead painful, filthy, horrible lives. Although one may not necessarily agree with the religious beliefs the missionaries spread, one may nonetheless support them - at least intellectually - because of the work they’re doing to help build houses and irrigation networks.

The reality of the situation is drastically different from what the average American has been led to believe. Missionaries are in fact the first wave of genocide. They come, they fill the natives with a sense of guilt about their traditional beliefs, they give everyone the impression that white people want to help them solve the problems they (foolishly) never knew they had. Sometimes missionaries come peacefully, allowing the natives to lower their guard just in time for the murderers and slave owners to come in. More often, it’s the missionaries themselves who murder and enslave.

I have no doubt that a number of blogs will interpret Chavez’s order as an uncalled-for paranoid freak-out, borne of a vision of legions of missionary spies working under Pat Robertson’s eye-squinted command. But the truth behind his actions should not be forgotten. Missionary work is imperialism, it is colonialism, and it is the callous destruction of cultures and people throughout the world. I don’t care what you think of Hugo Chavez. This calls for a celebration.

Here’s to the victims, and to the survivors, and to the hope that we may all someday know a world without genocide.

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  1. […] But in 2002, Hugo Chávez did one of those things he’s so fond of doing that makes you want to shake him and scream, “Goddamnit man, you’re an authoritarian dictator!! Why must you make me love you?!” He made October 12th the Día de la Resistencia Indígena, or the Day of Indigenous Resistance, in Venezuela. During the 2004 celebrations, a statue of Columbus was torn down and dragged through the streets. […]

    Pingback by The Mid-Apocalypse Review: Indigenous Edition (The Anthropik Network) — 12 October 2006 @ 10:55 AM

  2. […] Our idealism has driven some of the worst atrocities this world has ever seen. Missionaries are generally motivated by empathy, compassion, and perhaps even love, but what they bring is slavery, disease, death and destruction.17 While the Middle Kingdom was content to let the barbarians beyond its walls rot, Europe was as much motivated by the love of Christ as by the lust for gold to conquer the world. This idea is so obvious even to us that we have a proverb to express it, as in one of the earliest formulations by Bernard of Clairveaux, “Hell is full of good intentions or desires.” […]

    Pingback by Wolves & Dogs (The Anthropik Network) — 13 November 2006 @ 4:20 PM


Comments

  1. That is wonderful.

    New Tribes Mission is one of the worst gang of monsters on this planet. They’re utterly depraved. I wrote an article 2 years ago criticizing them (among other things). The flood of hatemail was unstoppable.

    My respect for Hugo Chavez just doubled again.

    Comment by Steve Thomas — 13 October 2005 @ 12:02 PM

  2. If you still have that article, you should totally post in on Anthropik.

    Comment by Giulianna Lamanna — 13 October 2005 @ 12:33 PM

  3. While I was at Pitt, Steve was consistently responsible for every good thing I ever read in the Pitt News. This was another example I clearly remember reading and saying, “Good Lord, this is being printed in a college student newspaper? This ‘Steve Thomas’ is truly the greatest of us!”

    “Missionaries present a dangerous, intolerant mentality“

    Comment by Jason Godesky — 13 October 2005 @ 1:30 PM

  4. Don’t read the comments, though. It’s bad for you, and may have adverse effects on your ability for cognitive functioning.

    Comment by Jason Godesky — 13 October 2005 @ 1:37 PM

  5. Wow….that was actually 3 years ago, not 2. How time travels.

    Comment by Steve Thomas — 13 October 2005 @ 2:05 PM

  6. I started to read the “comments”…

    I thought I had killed it, or at least learned to override it - but my gag reflex still kicked up and prevented me from ingesting any more.

    Comment by JCamasto — 13 October 2005 @ 2:41 PM

  7. I couldn’t get the comments to open…probably a good thing.

    Comment by Raku — 13 October 2005 @ 2:49 PM

  8. I read all of the comments. Can’t help it… I’m a glutton :-)

    Janene

    Comment by Janene — 13 October 2005 @ 2:49 PM

  9. Annu’s responses kick ass, though.

    Comment by Giulianna Lamanna — 13 October 2005 @ 2:50 PM

  10. Who is “annu”? A word search of this page comes up empty.

    Comment by Mad Max Jr — 13 October 2005 @ 3:04 PM

  11. Go here, then scroll all the way down until you get to the comments. Annu posted three times, twice in response to other comments.

    Comment by Giulianna Lamanna — 13 October 2005 @ 3:20 PM

  12. Proof of how long ago this was:

    I do not mean to imply that all missionaries are as damaging as those working for the New Tribes Mission, not even all missionaries working in Third World countries.

    I would never hedge like this now.

    I love this response:

    Dangerous, intolerant mentality. Hmmm. Those words seem to describe….

    wait for it….

    …Steve Thomas.

    Oh, snap!

    Comment by Steve Thomas — 13 October 2005 @ 7:30 PM

  13. I’m dancing, I’m dancing! Another victory for “good” over “evil.”

    Comment by Daedalus — 13 October 2005 @ 8:19 PM

  14. I read the Venezuelan Constitution a while back and all the “dirt” I could find on Chavez. I became a Chavez “supporter” - believing him over our own lying government.

    Today, I read that Chavez kicked these nuts out and I was sooo glad to see it.

    Comment by SurvivalAcres — 13 October 2005 @ 9:58 PM

  15. i think i was reading som earth first! issue and there was something about chavez mining on native land or something like that. i dont know if this is true or not. anyone know?

    Comment by Scott — 14 October 2005 @ 12:03 AM

  16. There’s an article about Chavez on Counterpunch today.

    Chávez and Indigenous Peoples

    In 1998 while campaigning for president, Chávez made a commitment to champion the rights of Venezuela’s half-million indigenous peoples. After he was elected, Chávez put the issue of indigenous rights front and center by addressing it on his weekly call-in program, Aló Presidente. But actions speak greater than words, and Chávez made good on his promises by working to codify the rights of indigenous people in the new 1999 constitution. Article 9 proclaims that while Spanish is the official language of Venezuela, “Indigenous languages are also for official use for Indigenous peoples and must be respected throughout the Republic’s territory for being part of the nation’s and humanity’s patrimonial culture.” In chapter eight of the constitution, the state recognizes the social, political, and economic organization within indigenous communities, in addition to their cultures, languages, rights, and lands. What is more, in a critical provision the government recognizes land rights as collective, inalienable, and non-transferable. Later articles declare the government’s pledge not to engage in extraction of natural resources without prior consultation with indigenous groups. Three long time indigenous activists have been elected to the Venezuelan National Assembly, and prominent leaders hold positions in government. In a novel move, Chávez has even had the constitution translated into all of Venezuela’s languages.

    Chávez has lived up to the constitution by awarding communal land titles to six Kariña indigenous communities. The land titles will be handed out to 4,000 people and encompass 317,000 acres in the Venezuelan states of Monagas and Anzoategui. The land transfers form part of Mission Guaicaipuro, a plan to provide land titles to all of Venezuela’s 28 indigenous peoples. Chávez awarded the communal titles to the Kariña in August during the 16th World Festival of Students and Youth. The conference, which was attended by 40,000 people, was held in Caracas. During the opening procession of nations Chávez gave a “thumbs up” to a banner which displayed the words “Leonard Peltier.” An indigenous woman speaker at the conference, one of three indigenous representatives in the Venezuela Assembly, praised recent advances for indigenous people. One conference participant reported, “Chávez hugged all the indigenous leaders in front of the world and gave deeds of territory to the tribes.” By the end of 2006, Chávez’ Mission Guaicaipuro plans to award land titles to 15 more indigenous groups. Participants at the conference were also pleased by Chávez’s moves to halt the celebration of Columbus Day, which he has replaced with “Indigenous Resistance Day.”

    Comment by Steve Thomas — 14 October 2005 @ 2:26 PM

  17. The more I hear about Chavez these days, the less I’m worried about him being an evil dictator.

    I’m still keeping my eye on him, though….

    Comment by Jason Godesky — 14 October 2005 @ 2:34 PM

  18. Chavez is also throwing around (giving away some of) Venezuela’s oil-heft in the Caribbean and beyond. For who-knows-what-end…

    Venezuela is a leading oil supplier to the US, but Mr Chavez is seeking to develop diversified energy ties with the Caribbean, Latin America and Asia.

    The Petrocaribe initiative aims to reduce the prices Caribbean nations pay for oil imports. Venezuela already gives preferential treatment to communist Cuba and other nations.

    Venezuela’s state oil firm PDVSA has created an affiliate, PDV Caribe, to implement the initiative.

    Mr Chavez has pledged highly preferential oil prices, with Caracas picking up 40% of the cost if oil is selling at more than $50 a barrel, as it is now.

    He has promised further concessions to the Petrocaribe signatories if prices hit the $100 a barrel mark.

    [url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/4219190.stm]link[/url]

    Comment by JCamasto — 14 October 2005 @ 3:33 PM

  19. I think Chavez is a little bit nuts, but mostly in a good way. He likes to trash-talk like a seventh-grader, though.

    A few weeks ago, I saw a movie called The End of the Spear. It was basically missionary/ civilization proppaganda involving a tribe of primitive peoples in the Amazon, and its supposedly based on a true story. The tail-end segment was just weird. It featured the real-life primitive character being taken to the grocery store in America by the real-life missionary and how wowed the primitive guy was by the whole thing. My response to that would be to suggest that people read Richard Manning’s “The Oil We Eat” so that they can be made to realize that big, impressive set-up at the grocery store ain’t gonna last forever.

    Comment by Thomas Rondy — 8 September 2006 @ 12:49 PM

  20. Hey! I saw that movie a few weeks ago too!

    I’m not completely sure I would call it civilization propaganda, but then I’ve gotten really good at ignoring that stuff! :)

    I actually really liked the tail-end segment. I thought it helped show up some of the superficiality of life in the States, but that may have just been me….

    Comment by jhereg — 8 September 2006 @ 1:14 PM

  21. Just saw it last weekend, there was a trailer on the DVD about a documentary that is supposed to be the actual story instead of a based-on.

    The one real propaganda thing that I noticed. In the movie it is indicated that the tribe was killing itself off because of their ritualized retribution. In the documentary trailer it is indicated that the Oil Companies were killing them off because they had resisted encroachment into their territory in the usual way (raiding and spearing).

    JimFive

    Comment by JimFive — 8 September 2006 @ 1:38 PM

  22. Oh… I didn’t see the trailer, this was an old-fashioned VHS tape :)

    Yeah, that, I would agree, is some propaganda, no doubt….

    I did think the retribution thing seemed a bit odd, but it was nothing I could specifically put my finger on, so I wrote it off. I shouldn’t have done that…

    Comment by jhereg — 8 September 2006 @ 2:42 PM

  23. I actually really liked the tail-end segment. I thought it helped show up some of the superficiality of life in the States, but that may have just been me….

    I think I actually might have appreciated it on that level, too. It was definitely an opportunity for a little smirking for those of us who know what’s really going on and how things really work.

    Comment by Thomas Rondy — 8 September 2006 @ 10:27 PM

  24. The one real propaganda thing that I noticed. In the movie it is indicated that the tribe was killing itself off because of their ritualized retribution. In the documentary trailer it is indicated that the Oil Companies were killing them off because they had resisted encroachment into their territory in the usual way (raiding and spearing).

    Yeah, that would have been the kind of thing that he civilization-addicted latte-liberals in the “LJ” Peak Oil community in whic I post would have been tripping all over themselves to throw in my face. (Let me put it this way: That bunch thinks that Native Americans were defecting from their tribes in droves to join civilization, as opposed to white people in the colonies “going native”, which actually happened.) When I saw the movie, I simply thought, “Well, every tribe is different, and tribes in rough environments may well be predisposed towards more aggression.”

    I’m not surprised to hear that just wasn’t true, though I’m sure the LJ latte-liberals would keep on thinking it was even when you tried to tell them it wasn’t.

    Comment by Thomas Rondy — 8 September 2006 @ 10:35 PM

  25. I remember The End of the Spear. Back when both that movie and The New World were out in theaters, I was planning on writing a review and comparison of them, and the divergent beliefs about native peoples they presented. Unfortunately, the nearest theater playing The End of the Spear was located four or five hours away, in Ohio. I tried downloading it (yes, MPAA, I tried to download a movie I wasn’t going to pay money to see anyway - lock me up and throw away the key), but the only results I got were… disturbing. I probably should have suspected that a search for The End of the Spear would result in a lot of porn.

    Anyway, funny side-story: the film stars Chad Allen, an openly gay actor. The conservative Christian base that was supposed to be The End of the Spear’s target audience turned against the filmmakers because of this. Just casting a gay actor in the film, even though all the other filmmakers were conservative Christians who opposed gay rights and the script contained no hint of homosexuality whatsoever, was enough for a full-fledged boycott.

    Comment by Giulianna Lamanna — 10 September 2006 @ 4:16 PM

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