John Allen Chau

John Allen Chau (born December 18, 1991 in Alabama , USA - † November 17, 2018 on North Sentinel Island , India ) was an American evangelical missionary . On 17 November 2018 he had tried living on North Sentinel Iceland Sentinelese despite contact ban on the Indian government to proselytize Christianity . He was killed by residents of the island.

Life

John Allen Chau was born in Alabama to a psychiatrist who fled the People's Republic of China during the Cultural Revolution and to a US lawyer. He grew up with three siblings in Vancouver, Washington . The family belonged to the Pentecostal denomination Assemblies of God on. Chau graduated from the Christian fundamentalist Oral Roberts University in Oklahoma with a bachelor's degree in Health and Exercise Science .

death

background

The Sentinelese indigenous people live on North Sentinel Island . The island is part of the Andaman and Nicobar Union territory administered by India . The people are one of the approximately 170 ethnic groups in the world that are still largely isolated and were estimated at 15 in the 2011 census in India : 12 men and 3 women. The human rights organization Survival International assumed in 2018 that 90 to 100 Sentinelese live on the island. The Indian authorities forbid as a penalty to approach the " particularly endangered tribal group " and their island within three kilometers. Above all, the residents should be protected from pathogens to which they are unlikely to be immune and which could be fatal for them. For their part, the Sentinelese have long forcibly refused any attempt at contact by outsiders.

Preparations

According to the evangelical mission society Covenant Journey , of which he was an alumnus , Chau had already undertaken several mission trips to the USA and South Africa . In 2016 he first contacted the mission society All Nations with the wish to go on a mission to the Indian Ocean and North Sentinel Island. According to All Nations decreed Chau knowledge in anthropology , Missiology , the evangelical branch of the mission science , and linguistics . Chau spent several years preparing for his missionary action; he had trained as a paramedic, among other things, and had taken part in an All Nations training camp.

Mission attempt and death

Chau bribed five local fishermen with 25,000 rupees , the equivalent of around 306 euros, to approach the island on a wooden boat at night on November 15, 2018. According to his records, Chau was initially laughed at by residents when he tried to imitate their language. They then made clear threats and a boy shot Chau with an arrow. The following day, Chau tried to cross over to the island in his kayak. The residents shot him again and forced him to swim back to the fishing boat. According to media reports, Chau then noted in his Instagram diary that he did not want to die.

The fishermen later reported that Chau was killed by Sentinelese arrows on his third attempt to get to the island and that his body was buried on the beach on November 17, 2018. The Indian police then announced an attempt at rescue. Survival International called on the authorities to protect the Andaman peoples' territories. Chau's body was not recovered and remains on the island.

reception

Chau's death was reported around the world and his action was partly appreciated and partly criticized. While Christian evangelical mission societies and churches in the USA sometimes called Chau a martyr , there was a lack of understanding and rejection in secular media. Critical media asked whether Chau was really all about proselytizing, as he spreads his preparations and the arrival at North Sentinel Island in the form of live reporting via Instagram and himself as a “missionary” and “explorer in the tradition of David Livingstone ”. In the media processing of the case, the meaningfulness and the consequences of missionary work in the 21st century were discussed at the same time. Toby Luckhurst asked the question on the BBC : "Do missionaries help or harm?" And referred to imperialist forms of missionary work and the continuation of colonial tradition through mission.

Independently of the missionary activity, Chau's actions were classified as a form of adventure tourism that seeks the unknown and untouched. He and others have been criticized because this way of traveling jeopardizes the very properties sought.

Ulrich Delius, director of the Society for Threatened Peoples , rated Chau's action as “grossly reckless” and advocated leaving the people alone.

Chau's father meanwhile blamed Christian evangelical mission societies and churches for the death of his son and called modern missionaries "fanatics". He told a Guardian journalist that he and his family had forgiven the Sentinelese.

Chau was awarded first place in a negative prize , the Darwin Award 2018, for his fatal missionary attempt .

The US did not ask the Indian government to take legal action against the tribe or the perpetrator. Indian experts rated Chau's attempt to land as a threat to the Sentinelese, against whom they resisted.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b} Annie Gowen: 'He lost his mind': Slain missionary John Allen Chau planned for years to convert remote tribe. In: The Washington Post . November 27, 2018, accessed February 5, 2019 . John Chau Aced Missionary Boot Camp. Reality Proved a Harsher Test. , The New York Times , November 30, 2018 
   
2. ↑ ^{a b c d} J Oliver Conroy: The life and death of John Chau, the man who tried to convert his killers. The Guardian , February 3, 2019; accessed February 10, 2019 . 
3. ^ ^{A b} Christian Martyr: John Allen Chau. Covenant Journey, USA, November 28, 2018, accessed February 5, 2019 . 
4. ↑ ^{a b c} Tim Sohn: Inside the Story of John Allen Chau's Ill-Fated Trip to a Remote Island. smithsonianmag.com, December 7, 2018, accessed February 5, 2019 . 
5. ^ Ministry of Tribal Affairs, Statistics Division: Statistical Profile of Scheduled Tribes in India 2013. Government of India, New Delhi 2013, pp. 158xx and 162 (English; PDF: 18.1 MB, 448 pages at tribal.nic.in ).
6. ↑ Vinay K. Srivastava: The Sentinelese (PDF: 1.5 MB, 16 pages). National Commission for Scheduled Tribes (NCST), New Delhi June 27, 2018 (English; Powerpoint presentation at the PVTGs seminar Conservation of Particularly Vulnerable Tribes of Andaman and Nicobar Islands; Anthropology Professor, University of New Delhi, Anthropological Survey of India ).
7. ↑ ^{a b c} Le Monde , AFP: Américain tué par la tribu des Sentinelles: l'Inde appelée à laisser le corps sur l'île. In: Le Monde November 28, 2018, accessed February 5, 2019 (French).
8. ↑ Associated Press: Site where tribe buried slain American on remote island 'more or less identified' by police. In: CBS News . November 24, 2018, accessed February 5, 2019 . 
9. ↑ Adam Withnall: John Allen Chau: US missionary killed by tribe on North Sentinel Iceland 'may not have acted alone'. In: The Independent , November 29, 2018, accessed February 5, 2019.
10. ↑ Statement on the killing of the American John Allen Chau by the Sentinelese, Andaman Islands. Survival International , November 21, 2018, accessed February 5, 2019 . 
11. ^ Toby Luckhurst: Missionaries: Serving God or playing God? In: BBC . November 28, 2018, accessed February 5, 2019 . 
12. ↑ Kate Harris: Where Not to Travel in 2019, or Ever . In: The Walrus, February 15, 2019, accessed March 25, 2019. (English)
13. ↑ Kai Küstner: A tragic death and its consequences. In: Tagesschau.de. November 30, 2018, accessed February 5, 2019.
14. ↑ The Missionary Position - 2018 Darwin Award Winner . In: Darwin Awards, accessed February 21, 2019.
15. ↑ International Religious Freedom | Briefing. US Department of State | Samuel D. Brownback, Ambassador at Large for International Religious Freedom, February 7, 2019, accessed November 11, 2019 . 
16. ↑ Daniel Lingenhöhl: USA refrain from measures against indigenous people on Spektrum.de ; accessed on February 12, 2019.