Loss of Ethnicity:
Conversion at Work
Shafkatul I Khan
Prepared for:
Dr. Stan Grove
Biology Senior Seminar
Goshen, IN-46526
Thesis Statement:
Aided by colonial mechanisms and worldviews, religious and cultural conversion to major religious beliefs impact and endanger the ways of ethnic groups, which are invaluable storehouses of human knowledge and worldview.
Outline:
I. Introduction
II. Contrasting nature of Ethnic beliefs and World Religions
III. Uniqueness of the Ethno-cultural Fabric on Earth
IV. Loss of Culture from Conversion
V. The Philosophical Reasoning for Conversion
VI. Loss of Language: the Loss of Human Knowledge
VII. Social Prejudices and White Man’s Burden
VIII. Suggestions to Stem the Loss of Culture
IX. Conclusion
Human beings have entered the 21st century facing many a challenge. Our species is facing a massive struggle to maintain and improve our current lifestyle within the resource constraints while preserving the heritage of natural history of the earth. Resource constraints and globalization together have created a powerful force that endangers ethnic cultures. Our religious faith also has aided and influenced the globalization process and in turn has had considerable impacts on ethnic lives and beliefs all around the globe. Religious conversion, combined with the forces of colonialism and Western lifestyle has accounted for the loss of languages, indigenous cultures, lifestyles and knowledge. Here lies an ethical dilemma: should religious beliefs, blended with the forces of religious and cultural globalization, replace the unique ways of ethnic cultures and beliefs? Should we try to conserve indigenous knowledge and cultures as part of the diminishing natural history? The search for these questions would entail a more fundamental question: how have the modern religions and their globalization impacted ethnic diversity and minority cultures? Aided by colonial mechanisms and worldviews, religious and cultural conversion to major religious beliefs impact and endanger the ways of ethnic groups, which represent invaluable storehouses of human knowledge and wisdom. This paper will also explore the realm of conversion and how religious and cultural conversions are intertwined.
Religions and the beliefs that they entail are an integral part of our lives. Religion is the place we turn to for our spiritual rejuvenation, material salvation and ethical consideration. This supportive force of religion is very evident in our daily and social lives. Religion is inherent in human’s socio-cultural heritage as the person grows up, he or she conforms and gathers ideas on religious values and faith. Religion is also a source of moral strength for a majority of humans. Our activities and senses of right and wrong are often derived from our respective religions. Religion is transcultural and unites people from different backgrounds. Amid all these beneficial roles performed by religion, there are aspects of religions that are not clear to us as to whether these functions of religions benefit society and individuals. How the major religions impact the indigenous beliefs and cultures is one area of concern. Before delving deeper into the arguments, for the purpose of the discussion, an elaboration on how a major religion differs from an ethnic belief is relevant.
Contrasting Nature of Ethnic beliefs and World Religions
A characterization of religions by German sociologist Max Weber is considered the standard in view of the differences between tribal beliefs and the major world religions. Max Weber terms the ethnic beliefs as traditional religions and observes that they are “overwhelmingly instrumental” and engaged “in the interest of mundane, worldly concerns: health, long life, defeat of enemies, good relations with one’s own people and the like.” The world religions are characterized by “superior rationalization” and “formulation of comprehensive responses to ethical, emotional, and intellectual challenges of human life”. Islam, Christianity, Judaism and Buddhism are world religions, to name a few. Any tribal or ethnic belief would be termed as a traditional religion. The traditional religions of the world have been under intense pressure from religious and cultural conversion by the followers of world religion since the colonial period (Hefner, 1993).
Inherent in the worldview of world religions is that they are the only true religions. This is even more evident in monotheistic religions such as Christianity and Islam. These religions require their followers, on a broader scale, to believe in their respective faiths being the only true religion. Religions also have a divine duty to show the path of truth to the people who do not follow that particular religion (Hefner, 1993). In some of the major religions, groups of preachers have resulted from these two tenets, for example, the Christian evangelists.1 Such preaching and spread of specific religions with sincerity are believed as acts of worship and piety that may result in some greater reward in the after life (Veer, 1996). In some cases, the motivation may be somewhat more implicit, as we will examine. The concept of white man’s burden is one such concept that will be reviewed critically later in this paper in order to understand the broad source of impact by world religions on the indigenous cultures for the last few hundred years. The inherent vestigial remains of white man’s burden haunt us (academia as well as general people) even today by encouraging intervention into ethnic societies. Religious encroachment may take place in some cases simply as preaching, in other cases the prospect of a better life (better safety, social and economic conditions etc.) with the glitters of a Western lifestyle lures the relatively naive people (as they have always been portrayed) of native cultures. Since most of the world religions condemn and bar them from observing their age-old traditions and cultural heritage, these people often abandon the rich source of knowledge that have evolved over millennia (Hefner, 1993).
Uniqueness of the Ethno-cultural Fabric on Earth
Human beings have been dispersing on the face of earth since their exit from
Humans adapted to the rich tapestry of their native environments and depending on the diversity of the places that humans inhabit, the fruit of their adaptations—their cultures are also very varied and diverse. In that sense, human cultures are products of natural conditions that surround them. Cultures embody an accumulation of human knowledge of how to cope with the native environments, how to strike a balance between consumption and conservation and such skills. Ethnic cultures also possess profound knowledge of local flora and fauna. These harbor ingenious use of herbs for medicinal purposes, for example. Such knowledge may hold the cure for many present and future diseases. There is also knowledge of natural resources that may hold the key to many problems that we, modern humans, have not been able to solve. Utilizing of natural fibers and shaping the landscape by building dams and sustainable forms of agriculture are all traditional knowledge that are virtually lost in modern human society. Traditional knowledge and ethnic culture serve as storehouse for human societies around the world. When world religions move in, the converts abandon their ancient ways and their ancient ways do not only consist of religious beliefs, but social norms and environmental practices as well. Often the abandonment of traditional religions leads to the ultimate loss of these unique worldview and environmental practices. Such cases have been documented among many ethnic groups around the world at different times. The results were not too unfamiliar: social stagnation, exploitation of the converted by the converters, ecological loss (Hefner, 1993; Brown, 2000).
Loss of Culture from Conversion
Conversion has played a major role in global loss of ethnic cultures and languages, as already mentioned. We are going to examine a case that, tied with colonial forces, changed the cultural realm of a whole continent. The Spanish conquest of
The Philosophical Reasoning for Conversion
In religious studies and anthropology, the theory of intellectualism has been widely influential in explaining the philosophical and sociological reasoning for conversion. Intellectualism deems conversion as “a change in religious belief by the need to develop more effective vehicles of explanation and control.” Hence, the intellectualist model deems the world religions as intellectually more satisfying. According to Robin Horton, “conversion occurs when an individual moves…… into an expanded social world” (Horton 1973, as cited in Hefner, 1993). This view infers that old, traditional religions cannot meet the intellectual demands of an individual and thus a person converts to the world religions as they provide “ready-made answers to the intellectual challenges.” Though hypothetically sound, this model of conversion (which has given support to so many evangelizing missions) is flawed and does not take into account the social, economic, political and psychological considerations (Hefner, 1993). Very similar ideologies have provided the philosophical and moral backbone for conversion of indigenous peoples to world religions. As exemplified by several cases in different parts and cultures of the world, the intellectual model of conversion did not work and world religions failed to provide the intellectual insight that they promised. Rather they brought about socio-cultural decay, embodied by loss of immaterial wealth of ethnic groups. Loss of language on a global basis is an example worthy of mention
Loss of Language: the Loss of Human Knowledge
Language, like other aspects of ethnic culture, is an accumulation of important human knowledge that only comes into being after hundreds of years of continuous development and cultural history. Even if languages appear to be just another form of expression and not too different from one another; in reality, they are unique in many aspects. Every language has unique expressions, knowledge, emotions and history in them. Linguists have often quantified languages as reservoir of human knowledge as languages shape a society’s values, beliefs, culture and religion. All of these societal forces shape how that society will interact with their environment and other societies (McIntosh & Maybury-Lewis, 2001). Since a language and respective human society evolve and progress together, knowledge of languages also provide us with a broad understanding our natural history as a species and how we interact with the environment around us. Ancient knowledge of natural systems and natural phenomena are embedded in languages as much as they are embedded in ethnic cultures. Prominent anthropologist Dr. Wade Davis comments:
“There are at present, roughly spoken, 6,000 languages. A language, of course, is not merely a body of vocabulary or a set of grammatical rules. It is a flash of the human spirit, the means by which the soul of each particular culture reaches into the material world. Every language is an old growth forest of the mind, a watershed of thought, an entire ecosystem of spiritual possibilities. Of those 6,000 extant languages, fully half are not being taught to children. Unless something changes, effectively they are already dead.
The ultimate tragedy is not that archaic societies are disappearing but rather that vibrant, dynamic, living cultures and languages are being forced out of existence. At risk is a vast archive of knowledge and expertise, a catalogue of the imagination, an oral and written literature composed of the memories of countless elders and healers, warriors, farmers, fishermen, midwives, poets and saints”
These delicate yet precious parts of human being’s history are under threat from expansion of other dominant cultures
Social Prejudices and White Man’s Burden
The cultures that are relatively urbanized, thus inferred more complex and developed (though this inference is obviously not beyond doubt) have often viewed indigenous cultures as undeveloped, uncivilized and backward. Since the heyday of colonialism, the western civilizations have expanded their civilized ways by force or by diplomatic propaganda. Empires wanted to expand their territories in the name of civilizing and modernizing the inferior cultures. There were several paradigms that worked in favor of compelling the ethnic entities into accepting the western beliefs and ways (Hefner, 1993).
The concept of “white man’s burden” is one such paradigm that ruled supreme for a major part of the colonial history. The western colonizers believed that the western societal systems were much improved and much evolved social networks that are superior to any other culture anywhere in the world (Kipling, 1899). The use of the term “high culture” in cultural studies still bears almost the same connotation and a living proof of similar mindset. The western European nations believed that their technological superiority was a proof of their being superior to other cultures. This hypothesis was extended to the fields of education, politics, economics and for our purposes, most importantly, the sphere of culture and religion. Europeans believed that every society was in a state of constant change and the climax state for any society was the colonial European society (Hansson). Even though the first part of this hypothesis, known as “the social evolution theory,” is true; the second part of the theory has long been proven a fallacy. Yet driven by such sense of superiority, the European colonizers practically tried to establish the cultural superiority of their civilization over other cultures; religious conversion was an integral part of this paradigm (Easterly, 2006).
Religious conversions involved mostly people of ethnic origin converting to western Christianity, by means of force, preaching or lure of material gain. Embedded in these efforts was the inherent malice of “white men’s burden.” As the preachers deemed Christianity as the way of being salvaged and civilized and preached accordingly, most of the converts would adopt seemingly western civilized ways at the expense of their native roots. The conversions also were important to the evangelists as they deemed it the way to spread God’s Kingdom over earth. The colonials used the earnestness of the preachers in making the base of the colony firm. Amid all these complexities the indigenous tribes lost their language, heritage, culture, ingenious technology and most of all, the respect for their age old traditions. Since most native culture are borne from generation to generations by oral and practical teaching, the abandonment of rituals, practices and beliefs imperiled the traditional ways (Hefner, 1993). With the glitters of goods from the western world, the demand for locally made goods went down and the skills were lost. The most drastic impact of conversion was on languages. The western education system took over and the knowledge and development of tribal and ethnic languages were abandoned. Within a generation or two, the lingual, literary history and culture of many of the affected ethnic groups were lost (many Native American tribes are prime examples) (Brown, 2000).
Suggestions to Stem the Loss of Ethnic Cultures
These impacts of Western civilization on ethnic entities are still in practice. The indigenous cultures are surviving in a precarious world driven by material profit, capitalism, and degradation of immaterial wealth (such wealth typifies many indigenous cultures in terms of spirituality and connectedness to our universe). Amid the seemingly invincible forces of destruction, there are little things that can make a huge difference for these ethnic and tribal groups. Ethnic rights are one major area that needs improvement. We have to guard against the same mindset that led to the alteration and ultimate destruction of so many communities in the past; a mindset that makes us believe that we know what is good for the ethnic groups. This mindset is still pervasive in our societies (even in academia) and dictates taking control of the ethnic groups to ensure their wellbeing. Such thinking is a resonance of the colonial past and views ethnic societies as stagnant systems, incapable of change (McIntosh & Maybury-Lewis, 2001). As fellow human beings and also engaged in academia, we must accept and respect the uniqueness of these societies. This will ensure that the development and change of the tribal societies are not influenced by any other unwanted force that the natural and social forces that are at work for millennia.
The cultural and religious invasions led by the followers of world religions have left the indigenous cultures diminishing in resources, spirit and knowledge base. The precarious conditions of these ethnic entities are worsened by the current process of religious, economic and cultural globalization. Indigenous people have been converted to lifestyles and beliefs new to them over last few hundred years in the name of salvation on a massive scale and the process goes on unabated. Worse still, the unreasonable reasons that have given the moral basis for conversion and eventual loss of ethnic diversity are creeping into present day academia. Present day anthropologists, ethnobiologists, historians and all the disciplines of the academia that deal with issues of cultural diversity and knowledge are susceptible to such prejudice. Due to the close relationship the academia enjoys with the policy makers, such prejudice may turn out to be critical. Combined with obligations for religious faith, such mindsets can only be detrimental to ethnic entities and their cultures. Though extensive research projects and studies are supplying the inquisitive students of ethnicity the ways to nurture these delicate social and cultural structures, even more effort is needed. Our conscious efforts as scientists will ensure the wonderful cultural fabric—the wonderful storehouse of knowledge and human expression—that envelops the earth remains intact. The tapestry of cultures will continue to develop and grow in its own way and it is our divine obligation as scientists to ensure that the rest of the world knows of and cherishes such grand marvel.
1Due to Christianity’s recent spread in the last few hundred years among the tribal groups that still continues (while other world religions have not had political authority as much as Christianity and since there is limited amount of peer reviewed papers focusing on those religions), this is the world religion under scrutiny in this paper.
2Since there have been thousands of tribes evangelized all over the world in past few hundred years and the examples are many, this paper has consciously tried to avoid presenting any particular tribe and its loss, rather has tried to concentrate on the general concepts and conflicts (partly to keep the length of the paper within required limit). For specific examples of tribes impacted and deeper discussion, please, consult the books listed in the reference section.
References:
Brown, D (2000). Bury My Heart at