BBC news last night ran an extremely disturbing story about the indigenous Indians of the Amazon and how their future is threatened by encroaching farmers and loggers. These people don’t see why the Indians should have the forest, even a relatively tiny portion of it, to themselves. They have a right to work the land themselves, they claim, and anyway, the Indians just waste what they have.
Underlying this, I feel, is an undercurrent of racism. All over Latin America, the paler your skin, the more you can trace your ancestry back to Europe, the higher up the social scale you are. Conversely, the darker your skin, the less evolved you are, and the fewer human rights you should enjoy. The jungle bunnies are untermensch, if I may borrow a phrase from another culture, so why should we pay them any mind? Unfortunately, this despicable attitude is being encouraged by Brazil’s new populist president Bolsonaro, who has joked (we hope) that he’d be just as happy to see the whole of the rainforest paved over if it would help his country’s economy. And the fate of the indigenous populations, who have lived there in harmony with nature for thousands of years before the Europeans arrived? Fuck them. They don’t count.
And what does count? Money, stupid, and the maintenance of power. Ask Donald Trump. He’s the fountainhead from which populists around the world got their inspiration. Which is why, even if he loses in 2020 (which I have no particular reason to believe he will) his toxic legacy will persevere for decades to come...
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