North Sentinel Island or as I prefer to
call it, Red Skull Island, is a mysterious island in the Bay of Bengal. It is a
part of a chain of islands which form a part of the Andaman Nicobar Island
group. Specifically, the island is a part of the Andaman Island group of that
chain of islands. The Andaman Nicobar Island chain of islands are a part of the
Republic of India.
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| Location of the Andaman Islands. |
The inhabitants of the Andaman Island
group are indigenous to those islands. Ethnically, the natives are a
Negrito people whose ancestors had eons ago moved throughout the
Malay Archipelago. They are a short, pygmy-like black people who resemble in
some ways the negroes of Africa, but not completely so. They are suspected to
have come out of Africa, but that is arguable, as people have been found to
appear all over the planet, some 50,000 years ago. Most of the tribes living in
the Andaman island group have contact with people from India, as the Andaman
Nicobar Island group belongs
to India. There are at least 375,00 Indian
settlers on the Andaman Nicobar Islands with the sole exception of North
Sentinel Island. Interestingly the natives of North Sentinel Island have had
little contact with outsiders leave alone their relatives on the main islands
of the Andamans. The few contacts with outsiders have never ended well for the
natives and often more than not for anyone who encroached on their privacy.
Except for a few short visits by Indian anthropologists, most people who try to
visit the island are threatened and warned off by the spear, ax, bow and arrow
wielding hostile natives. Some intruders have also been killed whether they landed
on the island intentionally or by accident. The inhabitants do not want contact
with the outside world. In the history of outside contact with them, things
never fared well for them and hence this is possibly their reason for
suspiciousness of outsiders. It is arguable that in their oral history they may
have handed down from generation to generation tales of death and turmoil from
outsiders. Who knows? We have never made long lasting contact with them. They
probably have an oral record of historical contact with the outside world. In
the 19th century a British colonial official went to North Sentinel Island and
took an elderly man and woman and four children to the main island for study.
Unfortunately, the elderly couple fell ill and died. So, he returned the four
children back to the island with a few gifts. The children would have recounted
their harrowing experience thus fortifying any disdain and distrust for
outsiders among the natives of North Sentinel Island.
Back on 17 November 2018, an idealistic
and indoctrinated 27-year-old American Christian missionary called John Allan
Chau was killed after he had set foot on that island. It appears that he had
tried to land on that island twice and was promptly warned off by the locals.
Despite the two previous warnings by the natives, fully cognizant that he was
forbidden to go there, he set foot on the island and was duly killed in a hail
of spears and arrows. This tragic event and the background of why this
American went there in the first place makes for an in-depth examination of the
attitudes of people from the west and even other parts of the world have been
thoroughly indoctrinated and enthused with religious conviction.
John Allan Chau was the son of a Chinese immigrant to America. His father, Patrick Chau converted to the Baptist Christian sect, married a white American woman and worked as a psychiatrist. John Chau was his youngest child. John Chau graduated from the Oral Roberts University which I know is very good at indoctrinating people. I had a former school mate who attended that sinister university and himself is a Christian fanatic. Another former school mate of mine told me I should never have any contact with our former school mate as he will attack your religion regardless of what religion you subscribe to. Even other Christian denominations are not spared. He was a member of the All Nations church which believed in promulgating Christianity to people by indoctrinating its members to believe in the redeeming qualities of their version of Christianity.
John Allan Chau went to that island knowing full well that the natives are hostile. He was in the opinion that they need salvation and they will open their hearts to Jesus and his teachings. He had carefully planned his ill-fated expedition over some years, collected any important information about the island and its locals, made friends with people who knew about the place and health issues about treading on island unfamiliar with germs of the outside world. John Allan Chau had friends on the Andaman Islands who helped with his preparations.
What inspired this disillusioned
evangelist was his in part his father's success story from the time he (John
Allan's father) set foot on American soil, how not learning English
sufficiently well to attend a top university, the story of Nicobarese
islander called John Richardson and his indoctrination which made him blind to
the religious views of others as typified by my former schoolmate. He had also
read about the Nicobarese population which progressed after conversion to
Christianity. Indeed, they have but they are not fanatics like John Allan Chau.
In his mind, Christianity was a good thing as it made people progress. This is
a view I heard from one Baptist Christian who claimed that his religion was the
basis of western civilisation. Little do these people understand that much of
civilisation was created by non-Christians and by mostly pagans. His church
prepared him for his ill-fated excursion. Apparently, his church elders took
him to a remote island where they dressed up a native armed with spears. So, he
got some training for his trip. He was nonetheless apprehensive about going to
that island and feared his death at the hands of the natives. Despite his fears
of death, he still wanted to go there knowing full well how dangerous such a
journey will be.
This is the trouble with evangelical Christians. They cannot see the wood from the trees and think that what they believe to be true and are often ignorant of the world, history and culture. What made him think the Sentinelese will understand English? What made him think that they will accept his religion? Mind you the locals gave him fair warning twice. Sadly, this naive ill-informed and indoctrinated man died on a remote island. His family will never be able to recover his remains for burial. This is not a full-blown attack on Christianity but the Church he belonged to. His church's representative claimed that he went there to give them the love of God. What nonsense! Those people have no immunity to outside illnesses. Did he not think about this? This shows the callous stupidity of his church which had thoroughly indoctrinated this ignorant young man. I have met such evangelical Christians. They often have very little general knowledge and only believe what they are told by their church. It is as if, what they are taught by their church is right and the rest is the work of the "devil". This idiotic and closed-minded view makes them trample on the beliefs of other people whom they perceive as backward thinking and lost to God. John Allan Chau's intentions may have been benign but they were ill thought out and naive. He broke the law set by the Indian government which had banned any visits to that island. Does not his church believe in the rule of law?
In the main Andaman Islands, there live the indigenous Jarawa, and the Onge. These people are ethnically related to the Sentinelese. Before the arrival of the British and later, when the island group came under the ownership of India, Indian settlers, there were the Jangil on one of the smaller islands but are now extinct. While the Nicobarese people have fared well. The Jarawa and Onge tribes of the main Andaman Islands have not weathered the intrusion of settlers to their lands very well. Displacement from their ancestral lands and reduced to living in protected settlements, as well as encroachment by settlers into their original tribal hunting and living areas, have been sufferings wrought on these native peoples. Their numbers have declined from the thousands in the last century to a few hundred today. There is much demand for farming land for the settlers and for the construction of holiday resorts and houses If measures are not taken to protect the Sentinelese, they may well go extinct.
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| North Sentinel Island |
In conclusion, such evangelical efforts
must be stopped. As well as that, any danger to the natives must not be allowed
from land developers and any kind of intruder. Respect the rights of indigenous
peoples and all first nations people. They should be left alone and not
converted to another religion. The survival of such people should be left in
their hands. If there is a request for help, then let them voluntarily do so.
Attempts to "civilise" them is racist, bigoted and ignorant. One must
understand the situation, health issues and cultural norms of uncontacted
people. People like the Sentinelese are fifth world nations. This is a
recognition of their place in the world. These fifth nations people are often
vulnerable. They are susceptible to economic exploitation by outsiders who want
the lands they inhabit. They are prone to diseases for which they have no
immunity to. Often, they are a minority in the lands they inhabit with numerous
outsiders living among them. Hence, they must be protected. The world will lose
a part of humanity and its identity as a diverse set of people with different
cultures and ethnicities. The world will lose any knowledge of medical
cures which these people know. Their extinction is tantamount to genocide.
They will become a loss to the science of anthropology.
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| The Late John Allan Chau. |
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