Last week, the New York Times published a long article1 detailing the arrival of the internet in the territory of the Marubos, an Amazonian people living on the fringes of what we will call, for lack of a better term, “modern society”.
They live in the Javari Valley, in Brazil, an immense territory that no roads cross and where one can find – or rather not find – tribes that are still completely isolated. The Marubos have had sporadic contact with modernity for over a hundred years, but have remained essentially faithful to the way of life that has been theirs for centuries.
Do you see me coming as I saw the reporter from Times, with its title evoking conquest: “The Internet’s Final Frontier”? There will be, for the Marubos, a before and after internet. As it was for us, but now three decades after having been passive witnesses to a total social and cultural revolution, we can play voyeurs by watching it happen to others. With, as a bonus, the little feeling of superiority of those who saw it snow.
The reporter, even if he takes all possible precautions not to seem like a civilized type who is moved by the naivety of a primitive people, still falls a little into the trap.
At the start of the article, he describes a group scene during which everyone is more or less on their phones, watching a soccer match, like a photo on Instagram, or even text a friend. A scene that, anywhere else, would be ordinary, he tells us. But not here. He poses as a witness to the changing world, and his editors point out that he and the photographer had to walk more than 50 miles in the Amazon rainforest to reach the Marubo villages.
As I read the article, images of the Gods have fallen on their heads, this South African comedy which had a certain success in the 1980s and in which, if I remember correctly, a San village (they were called “bushmen” in the film) is completely turned upside down when a bottle of Coca-Cola empty, thrown from an airplane, falls from the sky. The details escape me, but the bottle became an object of desire and discord in the once harmonious village, so much so that we decided to get rid of it.
I suppose the film would cause discomfort today, it is undoubtedly riddled with clumsiness and certainly shot with a perspective which, without being overtly racist, must exude condescension. How funny they are, these men of the savannah who rave over a bottle of Coke, hehe! How sad it is to see these young Marubos who once roamed the savannah in search of berries and roots now glued to their phones! How good it is to idealize hunter-gatherer societies and wish them to always preserve their beautiful innocence!
I’m exaggerating a bit. An effort is still made to nuance the point, and the floor is given to villagers, including a chief, who are all lucid about this new era into which they have entered since 2022: despite the numerous inconveniences and the tensions that the internet imposes itself on the social fabric, its arrival is good news.
We can treat the sick more quickly, have access to valuable information, teach, and feel less distant from those we love. And anyway, the connection is there for good, they know it. We can’t come back from the internet.
Starlink, Elon Musk’s company, is well aware of this fact. It was she who jovially connected the Javari valley, with the active participation of Allyson Reneau, an American first describing herself as a “mother of eleven children” on her site, where doctored images show us holding hands of children in a village reminiscent of Africa. A local activist reportedly heard her speak at a space conference and, after seeing a photo of her in front of SpaceX offices on Facebook, contacted her. I use the conditional because this whole story seems highly absurd to me, but the facts are there, the Internet has arrived at the Marubos, and they confirm that Reneau has indeed come, accompanied by porters who have carried solar panels and antennas across the jungle. And, above it all, disembodied like an almost divine presence, Elon Musk, extending his virtual and connective blessing.
Despite the efforts at objectivity made, we come away from reading this text inhabited by a certain sadness, which is not what the author should have sought to provoke. As if we came there to be moved by a people who have lost their innocence, but we found ourselves confronted with the decline of ours, trashed for so long that we almost no longer know what it looks like.
1. Read the article from New York Times (in English; subscription required)
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