May 16, 2008 by Rudolph Ryser.

According to Reuters during 19 May and 6 June United Nations Human Rights Special Rapporteur Doudou Diène of Senegal will travel to the United States of America to investigate apparently growing evidence of racism. What seems to be stimulating this unusual action by the Commission on Human Rights is the democratic primaries for US President prominently involving Senator Barak Obama (D-Il) and Senator Hillary Clinton (D-NY). In the United States of America, as in Canada, Mexico and the other American states bigotry and violence against indigenous peoples is at an all-time high. Despite this fact, the UN Commission is focusing on visits with lawmakers, local and federal officials and judical authorities in eight major cities: New York, Washington, D.C., Chicago, Omaha, Los Angeles, New Oreleans, Miami, and San Juan, Puerto Rico.Urban populations do not generally contain substantial numbers of indigenous peoples. Indeed, the intollerance, violence and bigotry committed against native peoples takes place in the rural areas–out of view of official investigations. Thousands of native peoples have been killed with impunity by state-support militias even as discrimination, bigotry and violence in other forms have been imposed on the living. In Mexico and the United States, native peoples are violently treated at the border, discriminated against over political rights, economic rights and social rights. In Chile, native peoples are denied access to their own lands by the government to support and protect mining companies extracting copper from underneath villages.

Will these and other incidents of racism, intolerance, bigotry and physical violence be the subject of Mr. Diène’s investigations? It is unlikely. While Mr. Diène may have good intentions, he is missing the mark and he is inadvertently aiding those who would protect states’ governments and corporations as well as individuals from special exposure. It would appear that native peoples must take their own initiatives to protect themselves since it is clear the Commission on Human Rights cannot or will not.

(c) 2008 Center for World Indigenous Studies

Technorati Tags: racism, bigotry, UN, human rights

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May 16, 2008 by Jay Taber.

I was remarking the other day to a friend how odd it was that there are no tribal colleges in California, despite the fact it has the largest Native American population in the United States. Part of this, no doubt, has to do with the devastating effect of greed exemplified by the Gold Rush and other forms of forced displacement (like Yosemite National Park) that made many California Indians homeless refugees.

But the tragic undermining of California’s indigenous cultures that might have given rise to such things as colleges precedes the American settlers and governments in the form of the Spanish missions, in which a recent article revealed Catholic church records that documented atrocities rivaling Nazi forced-labor death camps. The inter-generational community trauma of this system of conquest by the Dominican and Franciscan orders must have had lasting impacts on California’s indigenous society.

Returning to the present, it would seem that the beneficiaries of the indigenous wealth usurped by the Catholic Church, the State of California, and the United States of America might want to see some degree of restitution begun in a spirit of reconciliation. Perhaps a joint effort to establish a tribally owned, designed, and managed institution of higher education would be a good initial step in that process.

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May 15, 2008 by Jay Taber.

NorthWest Indian News and Native American TV look at the reality of taxes, tribal sovereignty, and common misunderstandings about the unique political and legal status of American Indians.

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May 15, 2008 by Jay Taber.

Readers might recall a year ago the purge of US Attorneys by the Department of Justice. In today’s article, Indian Country Today notes that five of the eight fired were active members of the DOJ Native American Issues Subcommittee, and were known as strong advocates for legal justice on reservations.

John Dossett, general counsel for the National Congress of American Indians, said, ”We’ve never really been given a reason why so many people who were so strong on Indian legal issues were let go.”

In September, the United States was one of four countries in the world to oppose the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Maybe these events are in some way related.

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May 14, 2008 by Jay Taber.

In today’s article about rediscovering 13th century Puebloan agriculture, Indian Country Today speaks of the “sophisticated environmental understanding” and “acute observational skills” required in order to prosper in the harsh environment of the American Southwest. ICT’s Stephanie Woodard notes that this level of awareness gave the Pueblo tribes “a different way of looking at life.”

In 1996, Center for World Indigenous Studies Chair, Rudolph Ryser, presented at the University of Victoria on the topic of the Anti-Indian Movement in Canada. In this talk, Dr. Ryser discussed the war between indigenous nations and modern states over land and resources. He also observed that 90% of the varieties of corn, rice, and potatoes had become extinct, making world food supplies dangerously vulnerable.

Watching last week’s food riots — brought on in large part due to industrial agriculture’s mono-cropping for First World consumption habits — reminded me of the connections so clearly understood by indigenous peoples long before there were such things as scientists, free markets, or modern states. With forest destruction worldwide accelerating to satisfy biofuel consumption, aboriginal Fourth World leaders are the only ones left capable of addressing this catastrophe intelligently, effectively, and ethically. Seems like time for a little humility on the part of dominant societies, don’t you think?

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May 13, 2008 by Jay Taber.

Modern states are not benign institutions. Indeed, they were formed for the express purpose of concentrating political power. Over the last few centuries, this form of social organization has proven adept at coercion, domination, and warfare. In fact, this consolidation of power to plunder and pillage — sometimes worldwide — is precisely why indigenous nations, all along, have opposed both the form and the process of the modern state as inherently evil. Evil in the sense that power corrupts, and thus must be dispersed widely in order to prevent community harm.

With the advent of widespread economic and environmental crises brought on by policies and practices of modern states and transnational corporations working in tandem, the effectiveness (let alone morality) of the modern state is now called into question.

At the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Nations this week, indigenous delegates discussed methods for implementing the 2007 Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, at all levels of governance and society. Part of that strategy includes building a record of grievances — something long neglected by modern states, corporations, and mass media — in order to make this human rights agenda part of everyday discussions worldwide. In this way, people of conscience — indigenous or otherwise — can take a stand in solidarity with aboriginal peoples, and help them to finally disperse the power they warned us about long ago.

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May 12, 2008 by Jay Taber.

I think that things like the protection of the environment bring people together. I think that we all have an innate sort of indigenous belief that we have responsibilities to the Earth, whether we’re aboriginal or not. And I also think that many Canadians are fed up with colonialism. I think a lot of Canadians are sick to death of having enjoyed advantages because of the suffering of others. There’s a moral uncertainty that goes with that and I don’t think they want to pass that on to their children and grandchildren.

—Bob Lovelace, jailed Algonquin negotiator

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May 10, 2008 by Jay Taber.

Real News TV reports on the neo-fascist, “virulently anti-Indian,” landed elite strategy of violence against democracy and land reform in Bolivia.

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May 9, 2008 by Jay Taber.

US agencies contribute $125 million to support white oligarchy of Bolivia attempting to steal 97% of Bolivia’s natural gas reserves. Real News reports on the right-wing, landed class secession movement.

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May 9, 2008 by Jay Taber.

Nation-states have a vested interest in educating their citizens to develop loyalties and commitments to the central government. Of all of the methods used to accomplish this, formal education is the most critical. Leaders like to believe their citizens are in agreement with the cultural and political rules of the nation, and therefore most citizens will not resist education that interprets history and supports the culture of that nation. However, since indigenous peoples do not share the fundamental cultural philosophies of the history and culture of the nation-state, they are often unwilling participants in the nation-building processes of formal education.

The concept of freedom dominates Western intellectual thought and is inherent in modernization theory, as well as post-modern and post-colonial theories, that continue to focus on political marginalization of groups (like indigenous peoples) and give little attention to their own cultural interpretations, understandings or goals. The Western interpretations assume that freedom is also the goal of indigenous individuals and nations.

Freedom, however, is not a central core theme in the teachings of indigenous peoples. There are sometimes evolutionary themes, but those themes, such as among the creation teachings of the Navajo or Pueblos, focus on lessons of gaining increasing moral community and knowledge about how to sustain spiritual balance among tribal members, other peoples, and the powers or spirits of the cosmic order. Spiritual balance, the golden rule, moderation, working within ritual and life constraints, fulfilling ceremonial duties, maintaining individual and community moral commitments, and accepting individual and community responsibility for proper moral and ceremonial relations are core values for indigenous communities.

—Indian Country Today

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