There are thousands of indigenous peoples in the world. There are more than 6000 different languages alone. A large part of them disappear every decade. For example, Grizelda Kristina, the last native speaker of Livin, died in 2013 at the age of over 100. Some languages have only a few speakers left. Only 2 people speak the Turjansámi language on the Kola peninsula. In the Bible, the king of Babylon built the mighty Tower of Babel to reach the gods of heaven. As punishment, God destroyed the tower and mixed all the people of the world into different nations and made them speak different languages. In reality, different nations were born, just like different living species, from the fact that humans spread to different parts of the world and adapted to different environments, creating a distinctive culture under the conditions of the environment. The indigenous cultures almost always lived in harmony with nature.

These world’s distinctive cultures and indigenous peoples have a large amount of special knowledge about their environment and their representatives often know how to live in a good and harmonious interaction with the environment and nature. For example, in South America, the indigenous people of the Andes and the Bedouins of the Sahara desert have peculiar ways of harvesting rainwater and saving water in farming and other use. Indigenous peoples often have knowledge about the environment that can be used for environmental protection (information about animals, plants, geography and weather, for example) and often this is also recorded in language. For example, the Sámi have 300 different words for snow. If the Sami languages were to disappear, a large amount of information about their environment would be lost. Indigenous peoples and cultures and local residents often also have a great desire to take care of their own environment and its nature. According to Nobelist Elinor Ostrom, locals have the greatest interest in a healing environment. Because of these, protecting indigenous peoples and their cultures and giving them decision-making power in political issues often contributes greatly to environmental protection. However, in the course of history, western countries have subjugated almost the entire world and its peoples with the help of their superior technology, made skull measurements of other ”races” and forced the children of the American native population and Australian aborigines into boarding schools to learn western culture by force. Colonialism was used to destroy ”wrong” cultures. At first colonialism was associated with the creation of empires, then with Western culture and religion, finally with isms and utopias, communism and fascism. Eventually, with the development and victory of humanism after World War II, colonialism began to be consciously dismantled, but even today large multinational companies and commercialism are a great destruction and threat to native cultures.

On November 8, 1852, a group of Sámi belonging to a revivalist Christian sect called Lestadiola rebelled in Guovdageaidnu (Norway’s Kautokeino) and killed a local liquor dealer and captured a priest and other Norwegians. The priest, the teacher and the liquor dealer were seen to represent Norwegian colonialism. The Sámi were forced to adopt the Christian faith, to study the western way of life, and the liquor trade caused an alcohol problem, as was the case with the indigenous peoples of America. The rebellion was put down bloody.

24.10.1865 Paul Bogle, a Jamaican Baptist preacher was hanged in Jamaica at the end of the so-called Morant Bay Rebellion by British troops; the British army executed 400 others involved in the rebellion. The rebellion had been started by the poor population of Jamaica against colonial oppression. Bogle became a Jamaican national hero. Later, the reggae group Third World performed the song ”96 Degrees in the Shade”. There are numerous similar examples around the world. The local population revolted and the colonialists retaliated brutally.

The Tower of Babel refers to the oppression of colonialism. Babylon was the world’s first empire and oppressive power. Babylon created social hierarchies, upper and lower classes, oppression of the poor and slaves, and was the first to start large-scale wars and empire building. One of Babylon’s main gods was absurdly both a god of war and a god of love. Evil idols were indeed worshiped in Babylon, as in many other ancient kingdoms and empires: gods made by man in his own image. Of course, Babylon was beautiful with its magnificent temples, hanging gardens, bazaars full of gold and music, but all this was built based on oppression and slavery. The same applies to Europe and the USA, their prosperity was largely built on colonial oppression: capitalism was also born from slave plantations and the shipping companies required for their logistics, such as the East India Trading Company. Especially in the Rastafarian movement born in Jamaica, Babylon has been used as a metaphor for colonialism, imperialism and oppression. Both Hitler’s Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union are examples of building a tower of Babel, ending in destruction as a result of delusions of grandeur.

At the Berlin Conference in 1884, European countries gathered at the Berlin Conference, invited by Portugal and organized by Germany, and divided Africa into colonial territories with a ruler. No country in Africa escaped colonialism. Liberia was founded in 1822 as a former slave state, but it was also formerly a British colony. Ethiopia was independent until the 1930s, until Italy led by Mussolini conquered the country, driving its emperor Haile Selassie I into exile. The Ethiopian clan of Haile Selassie had ruled the country since the time of King Solomon. The only country in the world that escaped the total colonialism of the Europeans is Thailand, or Siam. However, it also lost its territories to France and Britain. Of course, colonialism does not only mean colonialism carried out by Europeans, but the Indian, Chinese and Arab empires were also colonialists. For example, the Arabs traded slaves in the Indian Ocean as much as the Europeans traded in the Atlantic Ocean.

In the examples of Kautokeino and Morant Bay, it was the Christians who revolted. Christianity was often involved in instilling colonialism in the local population, but by no means always. Christianity has often been a source of strength for the local population. True Christianity proclaims the liberation of slaves and the equality of all people, men, women, poor, rich, foreigners and refugees. Christians were often defending the rights of the local population and demanding the abolition of slavery. In the United States, the Mississippi was pictured as the Jordan River, to the other side of which, to the north, ”angels”, i.e. former slaves and white Christians who helped slaves, helped the slaves of the Southern States to escape. In the 17th and 18th centuries, the Jesuits established a free state in Paraguay for former slaves and natives. They took up arms against slave traders and settlers to defend the population of the area. The story of John Newton is famous. In the 18th century, he initially worked on a slave ship and ended up as a slave ship owner, but experienced a Christian revival and rebirth in a great storm at sea, after which he dedicated the rest of his life to helping slaves and working against slavery. He has written the famous  hymn about God’s grace, Amazing Grace. Just before his death in 1807, Newton was able to see the decision of the same year to abolish the slave trade in the British colonies. However, slavery still continued even after this in Britain. However, the abolition of the slave trade was a significant event. From 1492 to the 19th century, a total of 12 million Africans were taken as slaves across the Atlantic to the plantations of the American continent. Capitalism arose from plantations and the slave trade, and based on this (the sale of cash crops and the natural resources of America) European countries created their empires.

The industrial revolution and the invention of the steam engine were significant in the reduction of slavery. Capitalism no longer needed so much labor and often the workers were local people in Europe. However, the peak of colonialism wasn’t until 1880-1945. For example, the invention of the car led to atrocities in the Congo: car tires required rubber and huge rubber tree plantations were planted in the Belgian Congo at the beginning of the 20th century. More than a million Congolese died because of the tyranny of King Leopold of Belgium. Eventually, the colonies began to revolt, leading to the large-scale dismantling of colonialism in the 1960s. However, colonialism has continued as economic neocolonialism. For example, the poor in Africa still dig minerals for large Western companies in dangerous conditions in mines. Environmental damage and other harmful externalities remain in Africa. In Western countries, fine Babylonian Hanging Gardens are being built at the expense of the rest of the poor world of the Global South.

It is important to promote the rights of the Global South in world trade and otherwise. It would be absolutely important to forgive all the debts of the countries of the Global South. They usually repay these more than they receive development aid. This is completely unsustainable. In the EU, the 2023 Corporate Responsibility Act was adopted, which obliges companies to act more ethically and ecologically and socially sustainably. If a company, for example, uses child labor or destroys rainforests, it can be held legally responsible and, for example, pay hundreds of millions of euros in compensation. This kind of corporate responsibility law would be needed globally. A law should also be enacted to ensure that Western companies are only allowed to make sustainable and ethical investments in the countries of the Global South. In the EU, the so-called the ecocide law, i.e. the law on the criminalization of large-scale natural destruction. The word of the law is the best way to secure the rights of nature and people, because in that case the violators of the rights can be sued and held accountable. Nature protection and ethics cannot depend on voluntariness. In the past, trading in the economy was seen mainly as an exchange between two parties, the seller and the customer, where money and goods move, employees do the work and get paid, and the environment is an endless supply of raw materials. Since then, we started to see the well-being of employees as important, we started to think about waste, and finally we also started to see other external effects on the environment and people. And the fact that the earth is not unlimited in its natural resources, but relatively small and limited. Today, it is understood that economic activity must be sustainable and have positive ecological and social effects. If we want a globally ecologically and socially sustainable economy, comprehensive principles of fair trade and corporate responsibility must be enacted to apply to the entire world. This can only be done within the framework of international institutions, the UN and the WTO. When the problem is global, it can also only be solved on a global level, at international tables. We need the same fair rules to apply to the whole world. In recent years, several important international agreements have been made in terms of sustainability.

The history of colonialism is not only one of oppression: Christian missionaries brought healthcare and schools to many countries and improved the welfare of the locals in many ways. Many explorers were also missionaries and opposed slavery, such as David Livingstone. The Finnish Missionary Society has already done missionary work and development aid, building hospitals and schools in Namibia in the 19th century, which is still highly valued by the local population. Many locals have given their children Finnish names, such as Martti. Martti Ahtisaari, president of Finland and founder of CMI, an organization specializing in conflict resolution, also helped the country gain independence from the white apartheid regime in South Africa.

Western countries are committed to providing development aid. The UN and the EU in particular have given a lot of development aid to Africa, Asia and other parts of the Global South. Development aid is not colonialism, although some may see it that way. In Africa and other parts of the Global South, the locals usually want help themselves. It is naive and romanticizing to claim that, for example, all Africans themselves would like to live in huts made of clay and dung and straw. According to research, they themselves want to live in better houses. Of course, if some people want to live in primitive houses, so be it. No one forces ”development” and sees such a choice of a more primitive way of life as inferior. In development cooperation, we go on the locals’ terms and approach them according to their needs: what the locals want and need and how this is implemented sustainably. However, even those living in primitive conditions want and need some other kind of help, for example, hardly anyone refuses medicines to cure deadly diseases or clean water. Development aid helps children get to school and get a job, improves literacy, helps all people get to a doctor and get health care and access to clean water. At the same time, human rights and democracy are promoted. There are big problems, such as female circumcision or the lack of contraception, that can be improved through education and awareness. The purpose is not to control the local population, but to increase their well-being and happiness. The goal of development aid is not economic growth, but simply that people feel well and get ahead in life. Every child who gets to school or a well provided with clean water in the village are victories in development cooperation. Development is not primarily economic development, but increasing well-being and reducing suffering in the world. It is also important to involve and empower local residents as much as possible. In this way, as much permanent development and progress as possible is obtained. The UN’s definition of sustainable development also includes cultural sustainability. Development must be promoted so that the culture retains its distinctive and valuable characteristics. Development aid does not aim to change the local culture, but to preserve it. A well-known professor accused me of being a colonialist when I talked about wind power and solar power in Africa. It’s not colonialism. Africans themselves want electricity and it has to be produced somehow: wind power and solar power are the cleanest and best ways to produce electricity in Africa. The savanna is not ruined if there are a couple of wind turbines somewhere or because there are a couple of solar panels on the roofs of houses or huts. On the contrary, it would be colonialism or indifference to leave the poor of Africa without the good technology and wealth that we give them in development aid and trade, if they want it. The intention cannot be to just leave the Global South as a reserve.Supporting local democracy is important: indigenous peoples, small farmers, etc. should have more power to influence their own affairs. This also serves the best for the environment. The UN also pays money to indigenous peoples for the maintenance of biodiversity. In Nobelist Ronald Coase’s philosophy, it is seen as important to give the local population ownership rights to the air they breathe, the water they use and the soil they cultivate. If an entity, for example a large multinational company, destroys these, it becomes legally responsible for it, has to repair the damage it has caused and pay compensation.

At first, in this post I talked about the importance of protecting the lifestyle and rights of individual peoples, the distinctiveness of peoples, cultural diversity. It is absolutely important in creating and maintaining a resilient world. Cultural diversity is like natural diversity and biodiversity, it makes the earth stronger against external threats. However, preserving this cultural diversity, safeguarding human rights and democracy and fair trade and other good relations requires international cooperation, joint agreements and institutions. Excessive protection of different peoples and national identity easily leads to competition between peoples, nationalism and wars. Likewise, not learning from other nations can lead to destruction. We need international peace work and fostering connection between different peoples. It is also good for everyone that we share technology and other innovations with others and do scientific cooperation. This creates great synergy and helps everyone survive and creates a better shared world. The phrase often used to describe this is: ”unity in diversity”. Unity in diversity is also realized in nature as harmony, when the various parts of the ecosystem work for the good of the whole ecosystem, each in its own place. Likewise, this should be realized in human society.

The world is shared by humanity and the rest of nature, not divided among any particular nations. Boundaries are artificial. The world is made for us. The happiness and well-being of every person and also other natural creatures should be the starting point of all politics. On the one hand, the Tower of Babel symbolizes colonialism and oppression, but there is also another kind of Tower of Babel, which depicts the unity of nations. Building such a different Tower of Babel, based on cooperation instead of slavery and sharing instead of greed, would be extremely good. We are builders and the world can be built better. Without cooperation, the world is hostile and on the way to destruction. Institutions such as the Paris Climate Agreement and the Montreal Biodiversity Agreement are the most important advances in recent years. They enable our planet to remain viable for future generations of humans, plants and animals.

Daniel Elkama