July 2006Issue 391



Tribe unwanted

Because cultural expropriation is awesome!

It’s any conscientious NI reader’s worst nightmare – 5,000 mainly white overprivileged US and British eager beavers set out to occupy a Fijian island and dub themselves a unique ‘tribe’ replete with ‘chiefs’, ‘warriors’, ‘hunters’ and ‘nomads’. Their quest? Er, beside deciding where to put the tiki bar?

According to www.tribewanted.com: ‘The Island represents a dream; it represents something magical that we can all hold on to in the hope that one day that dream may come true.’ Well that clears things up, wouldn’t you say? It seems the idea is to fly thousands of people from all over the world (the US and Britain that is) to ‘Adventure Island’ in Fiji where this artificial tribe will try to build an eco-community with the help of fellow warriors online.

Naturally a coterie of ‘locals’ will be employed to do all the real work like cooking, building, etc. But luckily they will have the wisdom of their new tribal chiefs to direct them. ‘Tribal TV’ will of course allow us all to peer in on our favourite tribe’s progress. Seriously is hoping that a number of Big Brother and Celebrity Island rejects find their way there just to spice things up a bit.

If you’re one of those cynical types suggesting that flying a bunch of geographically and culturally illiterate brats to build an ecotopia in the South Pacific is somewhat problematic, then fear not. All emissions from the island activity will be made ‘carbon neutral’ thanks to our friends at Climate Care. Woo hoo!




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