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Tragedy of the Western Civilization
- On the origin of Western "democracy"
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KATOH, Jodo
Introduction
Three tribes had been living in the Caribbean Islands before
Europian people arrived there: In the Great Antilles in the
northern part of the area lived a people so called today "Arawak"
by scholars. They usually went naked but had a rather high-level
social structure that can be called as a small kingdom, and a
pretty good agricultural technology suitable to the environment of
the area. In the Minor Antilles in the eastern part lived
"Caribe" or "Canibe", who had a fierce nature and a custom of
cannibalism. Either the English term "Carib", name of the area, or
"Cannibal" comes from the name of this people. In the mountainous
part lived a people so called "Sibonei", who are thought to be an
aboriginal people of the whole area. All these aboriginal peoples
terminated short after Europeans arrived except a small amount of
Caribbean people. Also, population of the aboriginal peoples in the
continent, who are thought to be similar to the peoples in the
islands, decreased dramatically. The encounter of the European
people and these Caribbean peoples from the end of the fifteenth
century for a few decades, was the first step of the worldwide
conquest by the European people for four centuries. It was too
severe matter to express simply as the "encounter of two
cultures", but it has been a prototype of the encounter of the
European people and other various peoples in the world. This
proto experience has formatted both the behavior of the Western
people to the world and the styles of the world lead by them until
today. So as to understand the contemporary world and to figure
out the world's direction to proceed, I think, it is necessary to
experience ourselves what the peoples around the Caribbean Sea went
through during this period of the history.
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