SURVIVAL INTERNATIONAL PRESS RELEASE
31 March 2006
British Peer Claims Bushman Way of Life is Biologically Less Evolved
Jenny Tonge, a former MP and now member of the UK's House of Lords, has sparked outrage by claiming that the Bushmen's
way of life is biologically less evolved. In a debate in the House of Lords, and later in a BBC interview, she called
the Bushmen's lifestyle 'stone age' and 'primitive'.
Shortly afterwards, in the British newspaper The Guardian, she went further, implying that the hunter-gatherer way of
life is low down the evolutionary scale: 'A more accurate description would have been Mesolithic, middle stone age or
hunter gatherer. Why this perfectly acceptable, biological, evolutionary description should cause offence I do not
know.'
She also called for a proper debate about the 'management of indigenous people' to prevent them 'failing to adapt and
becoming dropouts'.
The Bushmen's organisation, First People of the Kalahari, called her remarks offensive. They said, 'If you call someone
stone age or primitive, it sounds like you think they are inferior to you... We just want the opportunity to be allowed
to choose our lifestyles. We want to go back to our land to be with our ancestors and we want to be allowed to live
there in peace by hunting and gathering - not as 'exhibits in a museum' but because it is a very clever way to survive
in the desert. Tonge obviously does not respect us enough to think we know how to choose what is best for ourselves.'
Baroness Tonge's statements come soon after Survival International launched 'Stamp it Out', a campaign to highlight how
the use of labels such as 'stone age' to describe tribal peoples underpin prejudices which cause them real harm.
Baroness Tonge formed her opinions of the Bushmen on the basis of half a day in a Bushman relocation camp during a visit
controlled by the Botswana government. As was widely predicted, Bushmen in the camp have recently started to die from
alcohol abuse.
ENDS
To listen to Baroness Tonge debating her views with Survival International's Fiona Watson visit
http://survival-international.org/sights.php?gallery_id=333
To read Baroness Tonge's article, and reactions to her remarks in the press, visit
http://survival-international.org/related_material.php?id=410
To read a press release about Bushmen dying from alcohol abuse, visit http://survival-international.org/news.php?id=1513
To read this press release online, visit http://survival-international.org/news.php?id=1520