How different is your modern culture from the Sawi tenants?

When I first started to read Peace Child, I was alarmed at how gruesome and inhumane these Sawi tribes were. To critically put it, I was thinking how the same human being could differ this much. However, as I kept on reading it, what surprised me more was to find out how alike we actually were. As I discussed this book with my English class, many treated the people of the Sawi as if they were poor people who needed rescuing, and that we, as a modern and "better" society, should be the rescuers. Yes, it is true that the Sawi culture's traditional methods are quite unlike ours, but deep down, their motives for the acting out of the methods are as same as ours. Outward appearance wise, the Sawi are as different from us as possible; they do not clothe themselves completely, they cut off fingers for every loss in the family and they use bones of their victims as decoration for their body. However, by examining the Sawi world and our world, I came to the conclusion that there are some things instinctive about human nature that even time cannot change.

Betrayal and selfishness are two of them. Although we don't openly state it like the Sawi, we have a tendency to fight for what we want, and this selfishness can lead to betrayal. Everyday around us, I see people willing to hurt others to go the full way and be the best. In reality shows, such as America's Next Top Model, the competitors can be friends one minute, and the next, when they're in front of judges, they are willing to criticize the very same people that they called "friends." Then, in a way, aren't we 'fattening our friends for the slaughter,' too? Also, another similarity between the Sawi and us is the desire for power and control. In the Sawi tribe, the various tribes always fought against one another because of, first; revenge, or second; power. It was important to be the dominant tribe with the most territory, most people, etc. Meanwhile, in our modern world, we live to gain power too. In the America's Next Top Model example, the girls in the show are willing to betray and be selfish in order to gain what they want; the power of being America's next top model. On a broader level, there are wars in the Middle East for gains of oil, minerals, land, etc. Although there have been no huge wars since World War II, small wars still break out. This is because of each country's want for more power and control in the world. Lastly, deceit is also common in both the modern world and the Sawi world. The Sawi feel no guilt upon lying to their victims to come to a feast or a party, and then kill them brutally. They believe that more betrayal is more honour and pride. Although we don't believe that lying against another human being is the best thing that one can do, like the Sawi, we still lie. We cannot even live a day without lying. Sometimes, we lie unconsciously. Lies jump out of our mouths, and we don't even realize it. Human nature tells us that we cannot not lie.

At first glance, the Sawi tribe and the modern world seem like nothing is similar. We do not dress like the Sawi, we do not talk like the Sawi, we do not act like the Sawi, and we do not think like the Sawi. However, the Sawi and the modern world people are both people, humans living in the same planet. Therefore, we share similarities in human nature that time cannot change. Unfortunately, these natures are not "nice." The few similarities that we share are ideas of betrayal, selfishness, the desire for power, control, and deceit. Although we, as a "better" society people, want to believe that we are superior to the Sawi, by reading the characteristics of both groups, it can be said that deep down, we are not that much different.