Development of Indigenious People

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The question of whether or not indigenous people should be developed had never been popular in our society, not to say ignored. This is a very important subject that is not being taken seriously in a very long period of time. First, who are the indigenous people? It is estimated that there are more than 370 million indigenous people spread across 70 countries worldwide. Although the United Nation does not have a definition of indigenous people, but it has established an understanding of this on which can be briefly summarized indigenous peoples as having a set of specific rights based on their historical ties to a particular territory, and their cultural or historical distinctiveness from other populations that are often politically dominant. Consecutively, what does it mean by development? The definition of this can be hugely varies through different perspective or point of view. One simple definition from the Oxford dictionary is that it is a specified state of growth or advancement or a new and advanced product or idea. In the case of developing indigenous people, development usually includes the introduction of education, medicine, technology and new ideology, as well as changing their beliefs on the surrounding. Most governments see that development is very important to them as is beneficial to both the country and the local groups by helping them maintain their culture, as well as improving their livelihood. However, there are many activists or organization which argue that development is only an excuse to exploit the indigenous people and the available resources for the authority to gain superiority while destroying traditional and practices in the process. Removing indigenous people from their rich culture, land an... ... middle of paper ... ... with highest alcohol consumption" by Vietnam's top online newspaper, the VNExpress. (Accessed http://vnexpress.net/tin-tuc/thoi-su/toc-nguoi-uong-ruou-nhieu-nhat-nuoc-2655591.html on November 20th, 2013) This article is written by “Vietnam Agriculture”, another newspaper that is not available online without a specific author, for the Vietnamese public to raise awareness about the lack of development within ethnic tribes. It contains statistic from the Agricultural Ministry about the harsh condition of the tribes, as well as quotes and stories from local people which can be valuable. Although most data are properly cited, the stories and quotation can be made up completely since there is no specific author. Translation from Vietnamese to English might be incomplete and cause unreliability while many other sources are in foreign languages that are unfamiliar.

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