Saturday, November 12, 2005
The Gods Must Be Crazy
There's an old art house movie from the eighties called THE GODS MUST BE CRAZY. It is a form of slapstick comedy about the Bushmen of the Kalahari (spelling?) desert, a coke bottle, and lot's of adventure and fun. Also I have been reading the series about the No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency by Alexander MacCall Smith. Lovely read, fun movie.
Then on BBC the other morning I hear a news story how the Botswana government is moving the Kalahari Bushmen off their lands, not letting them return to the desert, putting the nomadic tribesmen in schools. Cultural genocide. Bushmen are talking about armed men taking them out of the desert, the government denies any violence at all. There's talk of diamond mines in the desert. I don't know what to believe. Often times people are quick to blame without knowing the whole story. But just the thought of violence touching the lives of these nomadic Bushmen makes me sick.
Check this out
I probably have a highly romanticized image of a gentle people who are without war, greed, or even land ownership. But still. The very idea of forcing the Bushmen out of the desert "for their own good" is simply horrendous. If they change their way of life for internal reasons that's one thing, but if it is because of external force ... well, there's a long history of that in human culture and it's never a good thing.
The Gods aren't crazy, we are.
Then on BBC the other morning I hear a news story how the Botswana government is moving the Kalahari Bushmen off their lands, not letting them return to the desert, putting the nomadic tribesmen in schools. Cultural genocide. Bushmen are talking about armed men taking them out of the desert, the government denies any violence at all. There's talk of diamond mines in the desert. I don't know what to believe. Often times people are quick to blame without knowing the whole story. But just the thought of violence touching the lives of these nomadic Bushmen makes me sick.
Check this out
I probably have a highly romanticized image of a gentle people who are without war, greed, or even land ownership. But still. The very idea of forcing the Bushmen out of the desert "for their own good" is simply horrendous. If they change their way of life for internal reasons that's one thing, but if it is because of external force ... well, there's a long history of that in human culture and it's never a good thing.
The Gods aren't crazy, we are.
# posted by Qeltic @ 11:27 AM 
