Issue of First Contact Reaction

I think that the issue of first contact gives a lot to think and discuss about. First of all, I think that there are several different concepts that aren’t fully defined or taken into consideration with the idea of first contact, such as indigenous rights, customs, interests, possibility, etc., which greatly differ with the ones of those who aren’t indigenous and follow laws. The indigenous tend to see the land as something that belongs to them regardless of the laws imposed by society, as they have a different form of living. The indigenous have the ability of establishing an unconditional relationship with their land, many times seeing it as one of the biggest factors that allow their survival and every-day living. Because of this, they don’t only see the land as something they can benefit from, but they also see it as something they should take care of with great responsibility. In contrast, the ones who aren’t indigenous generally tend to concentrate on how they can exploit the land for their personal benefit and development and value the land until it can’t produce as much as they want and leave it aside when it doesn’t produce any gain. In other words, the extremely different mindset between both types of civilizations should both be considered when having first contact, but it is quite complicated. I think that indigenous people are minority and live isolated to more technological civilizations, they tend to be seen as inferior, when they aren’t. To me, it seems as if nowadays our society views development as a characteristic of a more advanced type of civilization, always looking for progress and “improvements” in forms of living, but they all revolve around one species of the millions present in the world (humans) and their economical growth. Because of this, our type of society sees first contact as a possibility for greater possibilities towards the indigenous, while the minorities see it more of as a threat. This is because the indigenous aren’t looking for the possibility of first contact, as they are fine with what they have. If we think about it, they are much more developed than us in several different aspects. For example, they have a much more developed relationship with their surroundings and are much less destructive, and I think it is quite a challenge to think about others as much as we think about ourselves. Still, first contact is something inevitable. The same way the indigenous encounter many different species which they live with and respect, the non-indigenous humans (us) should fall under the list of the many other species the indigenous have learned to co-exist with. I think it would be possible to do if we fully respected their form of living and in order to achieve full respect towards them, we have to start thinking that them being minority, less technological, and with different lifestyles, they aren’t any inferior and that everyone shares the right to live the way they want as long as no harm is done to others. Also, the issue of first contact would be much less of an issue if our society stopped seeing economical growth as the most important form of improvement/evolution, noticing that we have a lot to work on the evolution of our mindset and view of the world, and that “external” and material growth is not the most important.