As Max said, it's a question of conflicting worldviews. The industrialists can't imagine the way the natives live. Or rather, they feel that such a method is errant, and would only be practiced by beings too flawed or too stupid to know their own method. The industrialist methods we've seen on oddworld have been astonishingly heartless, but there are people (like the clakkerz) who are unwittingly complicit in the destruction wrought by their lifestyle. On the other hand, they can't exactly go back to the jungle, and it's unfair to expect all the industrialists to give up the lives they've been leading without equal compensation. So what are they to do?
Of course, as of yet none of this has really been Abe's concern. The characters he and Munch faced were pretty easy to hate, and I didn't lose much sleep when I blew up their factories and sank their laboratory. But yeah, Later in the series a workable solution will have to be brought about.
On a side note, the columbus day thing is weird. The name Indigenous People's Day smacks of revisionism and has a sense of mock-honor to it. Changing the name to Indigenous People's Day makes me feel as if we're supposed to think that the events that followed Columbus's arrival were GOOD for native americans. If the backlash people are so upset, wouldn't it be less ambiguous to get rid of columbus day and set up a separate holiday to honor the indigenous people? But that's their thing, I suppose.
Oh, and just because one's actions are in line with the moral norms of your era, that doesn't mean one's actions aren't atrocious. I'm not talking about Columbus specifically, here. I just don't think that being a man of your time negates wrong-doing. But I suppose keeping that in mind does help with context.
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