April 23, 2008 by Rudolph Ryser.

Speaking at the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues at the United Nations (23 April 2008) Bolivian President Evo Morales called on indigenous peoples’ delegates to recognize the importance of ancient traditions and knowledge held by Fourth World nations as the essential ingredient for reversing the adverse effects of Climate Change.

Morales, according to Climatewire, said “Climate change offers proof that the world must undergo a fundamental realignment of its economic system.” The alternative to persistent consumption, according to President Morales is the balance between human need and natural reproduction provided by Fourth World cultures–the knowledge and practices rooted in intergenerational experience.

Economies centered on capital accumulation are the cause, not the cure for global warming, food shortages, massive refugee movements, fuel shortages and the perpetual impoverishment of most of the world’s people. The goal of capital economies, market economies, is accumulation and concentration of wealth and power into the hands of a very few; impoverishing the many and raping the natural world. Capital economies install the vast human population as consumers while limiting the number of producers in massive corporate conglomerations. The basic assumption and necessity of capital economies is that nature’s wealth is a commodity essentially free for the taking and that human labor is a commodity that must be kept at a minimum. The constant emphasis on capital growth assumes endless natural wealth and human labor. This is a fundamental error in thinking. Nature has limits and human labor cannot long sustain abuse.

Modern subsistence economics, based on the concept of life renewal and natural balance is now essential as a corrective for more than four hundred years of intensified capital growth and consumption. Economies centered on subsistence where human need is balanced against the capacity of the natural world to reproduce can reverse global warming and stabilize global climate. Subsistence affirms life as the central concern of human economic activity while ensuring that more of human societies become producers and consumers of their own produce. The goal of modern subsistence economics is the replenishment of life and respectful use of the natural world. Subsistence economics is deeply embedded in the cultures of Fourth World peoples throughout the world. (For a thorough and insightful discussion of the subsistence perspective read Maria Mies and Veronika Bennholdt-Thomsen in their excellent book “The Subsistence Perspective,” Zed Books: London. Professor Mies emphasizes that her book along with Claudia von Werlhof and Veronika Bennholdt-Thomsen discusses the “subsistence perspective” and not an economic model. Mies argues that the subsistence perspectives emphasizes the economy and society, culture, history and all other aspects of life. While I agree with this analysis, I suggest that economics is indeed about all aspects of life just as it is true that culture is about all aspects of life.)

Many Fourth World nations, like the states governments of India, China, Singapore, Saudi Arabia and others have turned their backs on their own culture, their own knowledge, to become acquisitive societies. These nations have joined in the headlong rush to consume the natural world in excessive ways. They have become contributors to global warming, food shortages, and all the rest. These indigenous peoples believe they have long been denied the “fruits of progress,” and have waited too long to become consumers like metropolitan populations. These nations are making the same mistake as the consumer, commodified populations. These Fourth World economies are showing the same signs of widening gaps between rich and poor, sharply reduced natural wealth, and wild swings between enrichment and impoverishment.

US President Bill Clinton proclaimed in the early 1990s “It’s the economy stupid” to call attention to a political point of emphasis in that electoral campaign. The phrase is now the point to understand why climate change, fuel shortages, food riots, desertification and deforestation are a product of the capital economy Mr. Clinton then lauded. Capital economics assumes perpetual growth and consequently perpetual consumption. It is argued that the capital based economy and environmental balance can go hand in hand by generating “green jobs” and “green technology.” The problem with this thinking is that it essentially no different from the constant growth and consumption emphasis of straight capital economics. Technology is supposed to save the environment and prosper the population. There is no evidence that such an approach has any legs.

On the other hand, there is powerful evidence supporting the notion that subsistence economics is the appropriate alternative that can reverse the sins of the last 400 years. Now it is up to Fourth World nations that still have confidence in their own cultures to persuade modern states like the United States, Germany, China and India that they must adopt the tried and true practices of modern subsistence economics. By so doing, President Morales’ urgent call for an alternative to the greed of capital economics that solves the problem of climate change, food shortage, fuel shortages and more will indeed be realized and Fourth World nations will resume their place in the global dialog for human life.

A fundamental shift must take place in the way human beings transact the distribution of goods and services. We must reclaim localism, and restore human productivity as well as human access to land. These are essential elements of the subsistence perspective and of these the most immediate change that must take place in the relationship between people and the land. Restore land to those who have become landless owing to state and corporate confiscations of land. People must have access to the land to produce food and life. Changing the economy in this fundamental way can restore the balance needed to reverse the calamities now confronting the world’s peoples.

(c) 2008 Center for World Indigenous Studies

Technorati Tags: climate change, Evo Morales, subsistence, capital

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February 2, 2008 by Rudolph Ryser.

Kenya is aflame with internecine tribal warfare. Sudan is split between the Arab controlled government, the Dinka, Fur, Nuba, and Nubian peoples. Rwanda, Uganda, Ethiopia, the Congo, and Chad have been equally faced with violence and warfare. Namibia battles separatist tribes in the northeast, and Zimbabwe’s government promotes division and violence against Zimbabwe’s various peoples. Nigeria violently attacks and imprisons advocates of the Republic of Biafra lead by Igbo, Ijaw, and Ogoni nations.

Violence between indigenous nations in Africa’s states boils with vengeance. At the core of all of these conflicts are three major irritants: corrupt control over the state apparatus, uneven distribution of natural resource wealth and denial of access to land.

Most African states were officially decolonized in the 1960s and afterward. European colonial domination was replaced by neocolonialism and black African recolonization where corrupt tribal leaders, corporations and other financial interests maintained a grasp on natural resources (land, diamonds, oil, minerals, precious wood), made newly empowered African state leaders into corrupt puppets and impoverished millions of indigenous African nations. State boundaries were imposed on populations by those who thought the state system was good for Europe and would be good for Africa–they weren’t and aren’t. Whole peoples have been prevented from accessing their traditional territories and lands necessary for the the production of food and natural wealth.

Europe’s state system in Africa has fundamentally failed to benefit Africa’s hundreds of different nations. Corruption, the use of state force against differing nations inside the boundaries of a state, denial of access to life supporting land and denial of shared wealth are all symptomatic of failed African states. The states have been bankrupted while individual families and dominating tribes have been enriched.  The state system has failed!

Corporations have battered African natural resources by plundering raw materials and undermine social and cultural stability of tribal peoples through de facto slave trading. Single sources of wealth have contributed to impoverishment of whole peoples and enrichment of a few. The few control access to the natural resources and businesses deal only with them to gain access.  This imbalance reflects the blind profit motive that fails to recognize the social, cultural and economic imbalances caused by outside economic demands for energy, minerals, wood and even animal parts like ivory tusks from elephants and  the hands and feet of gorillas.

European-based land tenure systems have disenfranchised whole peoples and removed them from access to life-giving lands. The wealthy and the powerful control the best lands while nations starve. Lands that produce food are used to produce exports to other countries resulting in the enrichment of those who control the land.

Kenya is inflamed by the reality of corrupt states’ governments, the failure of fair natural wealth distribution and denial of land access. Kenya is only the most visible of festering violence being done in Africa.

How to remedy the current violence?  There is no way to stop the violence now. States will be broken up, violence will be done to businesses that steal raw materials (like Shell Oil experiences in the Delta Region of Nigeria), and land will be reclaimed through violence. The original nations of Africa cannot and will not be denied as the violence, the famine, the disease and hatreds gripping unstable and bankrupt states foretells. The state system will be replaced with something more appropriate to the history and realities of the African continent.

Africa’s indigenous nations have been too long denied their place in their own countries.  They have been denied the benefits of enormous natural wealth and life giving land and water.  Africa is not a poor place. It is a corrupted place that needs cleaning out.  The corrupt and bankrupt neocolonialism and black tribal recolonization must be replaced and apparently Africa’s original nations are now, however, chaotically, moving to reclaim their destiny.

(c) 2008 Center for World Indigenous Studies

Technorati Tags: kenya, Africa, corruption, recolonization, violence in Africa, wars

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January 29, 2008 by Rudolph Ryser.

Guest Contributor: Laura Killian, CWIS Associate Scholar

Obtaining clean energy and working towards independence from fossil fuels has, up until recently, been a far off, expensive notion for small communities. That notion is changing, due in part as renewable energy technology advances while new markets open, allowing for costs to be lowered each year. Fourth World nations are in position to clear a pathway to promote energy independence in North America.

Efforts to reduce dependence while supporting the local economy and incorporating community participatory planning and collaboration can be seen in many Fourth World communities including the Yakama Nation in Washington State, members of the All Indian Pueblo Council in New Mexico, Kumia in southern California, and the Black Feet in Montana. First Nations in Canada and Indian Nations in the United States are providing innovative leadership models by collaborating with fellow Nations, academic institutions, government agencies and the private sector to work on solar, wind, small hydro and biomass projects.

Organizations such as the Center for Indigenous Environmental Resources (CIER), based in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, the First Nation Energy Alliance, based on the Wikwemikong Unceded Indian Reserve and the Intertribal Council On Utility Policy (COUP), based in Rosebud, South Dakota, are all working on feasibility reports, integrated approaches for community participation in environmental planning and education, and project support for the transfer of energy on reserves and reservations from oil and coal to the renewable energy sector, especially with wind technology.

Wind power provides the most cost effective option for the energy needs of a community, assuming the geography provides the necessary ingredient, wind. According to NRG Systems, a world leader in the manufacture of wind energy assessment equipment, wind energy in the United States could provide as much as 40% of our electricity. Today’s wind farms can generate electricity for less than 5 cents per kilowatt-hour in many parts of the U.S., a price that is competitive with new coal or gas-fired power plants. The cost is expected to decline as the technology improves and the market for this source develops.

Playing a large role in developing the wind market within the Fourth World in the United States is the Intertribal Council On Utility Policy (COUP). This Council is made up of thirteen Tribes from North Dakota, South Dakota and Kansas who provide policy analysis, workshops and wind energy development for its communities. They provide a great example of innovative problem solving through inter-tribal collaboration and investment. In addition, extra energy produced by their windmills can be sold back to the electric companies, thus, creating a strong arm in the local economy.

By keeping efforts strong and proactively engaging with their communities, state agencies and local companies for the assessment and investment of renewable energy technology and education, Fourth World Nations can reduce their dependence on outside sources for power while strengthening their local economy. With money earned from casinos, entrepreneurships and businesses, Nations in Canada and the United States are in a position to invest in an important technology that solves many problems at once. Utilizing collaborative efforts for assessment, planning and implementation of renewable energy technology in the Fourth World should be recognized as utter importance for the survival of each community and surrounding ecology.

(c) 2008 Center for World Indigenous Studies

Technorati Tags: wind power, energy, energy indepence, north america

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December 9, 2007 by Rudolph Ryser.

It is often said that progress is inevitable and that things will always get better as a result of progress. In recent years my own observation, as I am sure that of many millions of others, is that this idea of progress isn’t what it’s cracked up to be. Nothing is actually inevitable, least of all progress.  Change certainly seems constant, but even change has its limits.

I went into a large Costco/Sams Club/Target type mass sales store the other day. I tried to buy a bed with a base and found it almost impossible to achieve.  The workers were over stressed. The scheduling for shipping was too complicated. The people in charge seemed to be uncertain about who was in charge and what would happen if a mistake was made.  I tried for two hours to buy the bed.  In the end I didn’t buy the bed or the base. No one seemed willing to make the final purchase possible.

On the other hand, I had a quite old cedar chest I wanted to have repaired and refinished.  I traveled five minutes to a small nearby town where I had been told there was a “carpenter” who would take care of this project. I met with the craftsman–his name is Cayetano, made an agreement for him to pick up the older cedar chest and agreed to the date (four days later) when he would complete the project and return a newly refinished and repaired cedar chest. A day earlier than agreed my craftsman returned with a beautifully restored sixty-year old chest with a new key to replace the lost one so it would lock again.

The difference between the mass store experience and the single craftsman was so striking that I couldn’t contain my sense of pleasure to find the convenience of a small shop with a skilled craftsman who responds to a simple agreement. There is no doubt that “progress” bites back and the mass retail store is a great example of this assault on our human sensibilities. Thanks to the world that contains diverse populations with human one-to-one transactions where the owner like Cayetano is the maker and the customer service person all in one. Service with a smile and high quality too.

(c) 2007 Center for World Indigenous Studies

Technorati Tags: progress, local, accessible

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December 7, 2007 by Jay Taber.

Three recent news items caught my eye this week. One on Canadian mining corporations supporting murderous dictators around the globe, another on Yahoo selling the IDs of four dissident writers to the Chinese government, and a third on India’s plans to clear indigenous people from the landscape. While none of this is especially surprising or unusual, the fact that one of the most consistent and vociferous voices against international human rights has been the US Chamber of Commerce, reveals a systemic lesson that is often lost in the plethora of isolated incidents.

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November 29, 2007 by Rudolph Ryser.

In Canada and the United States about 5% of tribal economies are so-called “informal.” In Mexico about twenty percent of the indigenous community economy is considered by conventional economists as “informal.” In various other parts of the Americas, like Honduras, Nicaragua, Guatemala, Columbia, and Peru that portion of indigenous communities that is not specifically measured or accounted for in the state economy–the informal economy–may reach as high as sixty percent in some communities.

What is this informal economy? It is the economy of life. Members of the community produce from their own efforts the foods, clothing, shelter and other of life’s necessities themselves. This is the ancient economy which balances human need with the capacity of nature to restore itself. The so-called informal economy provides for the subsistence of all members of these small societies.

Once with I traveled with Chief George Manuel, Quinault President Joe DeLaCruz and Yakama Councilman Russel Jim to Peru we visited several communities–communities where most of the people lived some distance from the “main town.” It was the town that was used to redistribute the production of foods, building materials, clothes, etc. We were invited into a home to have a meal with one of the families living on the inskirts of town. Chief Manuel turned to no one in particular and exclaimed in English: “Look at the poverty! These people have nothing!”

We were invited to sit down on some wool blankets. Each of us was handed a substantial bowl of clear soup with what appeared to be cabbage, rice and meat floating around. Chicha, a sweet corn beer, was poured for every one and as I looked at the one light bulb hanging from the ceiling on its long cord, I said to Chief Manuel: “This is really good food and look at the weave in this blanket.” And Chief Manuel turned to me and said, “But look at the poverty! They need our help”

Chief Manuel was then the President of the World Council of Indigenous Peoples and considered this organization he founded a beacon of political and economic hope for indigenous peoples. I asked Chief Manuel: “Can your people in British Columbia make their own clothes, there own blankets, their own shelters, and produce their own food without the Canadian economy?” After a long silence he responded “No, I guess not.” “Then who is impoverished, your people or the people who just gave us a wonderful meal from their own hands?”

Self-sustained, user economies are clearly closer to life and sustaining life than the exchange economy that focuses on only one thing: money. You can’t eat money. Money won’t replace a destroyed forest. The single minded drive for money is destructive of life, and when a Fourth World nation gives up its self-sustaining ways in exchange for the chase for money gives up life in exchange for death.

(c) 2007 Center for World Indigenous Studies

Technorati Tags: capitalism, sustainable life

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November 19, 2007 by Rudolph Ryser.

As I looked out of my window flying from  Monterey, Mexico to Houston, Texas one afternoon two weeks ago I looked out on a landscape that once contained hundreds of ejidos, now vacant…emptied out under the pressure of the North American Free Trade Agreement with Canada and the United States. Ejidos were guaranteed under the Mexican Constitution to return land to indigenous Mexicans as a part of a massive land reform program fought out in a revolution led by Emilio Zapata.

Since the Mexican Revolution descendants of the original peoples of this land produced their own food, shared benefits in common and sold the excess of their produce to earn some money for things they could not make–largely a subsistence economy that ensured life and happiness. Indigenous Mexicans were once again–since the Spanish invasion of the 1520s–living as producers and consumers of their own self-sustaining goods and services.  That all came to an end when under pressure from the United States, the World Trade Organization and the North American Free Trade Agreement, the Mexican government repealed the ejido system guarantees against land alienation.  In 1997 25% of the ejidos were sold mainly to large corporations and the community members became consumers and low wage workers (about 35 cents US per hour) (mainly in American companies along the northern border of Mexico) producing products for the world market.  Self-sufficient people were once again turned into dependent consumers…unable to feed and house themselves.  Is it any wonder that mostly Mexican Indian people cross the US border to secure jobs that pay substantially more to help feed family members back home?

I am sitting in the city of Puerto Vallarta today looking out across the skyline filled with derricks with pulleys and long cables lifting cement, tiles, windows and other building materials to new hotels and office buildings.  Workers from the country-side now come into town on buses, in the back of pickups and in dump trucks to sweat and labor to build the new city growing on top of the old village that was located on the east shore of Banderas Bay.

A few people in Mexico, mostly those descendant from Spaniards, have become fabulously wealthy and others moderately wealthy while the vast majority of Mexico’s indigenous peoples (about 70% of the population) try to play catchup economics–the possibility of which remains illusive at best.  Indeed, the trickle down doesn’t and hasn’t trickled down.  Mainly those who once produced the food, clothing, housing and other life supporting goods have been alienated from their role as producers–forced now to become laborers and consumers rushing into Wal-Mart to gather up moderately priced goods manufactured in China.

While Mexico is experiencing a building boom is several cities, and a few have become fabulously rich, the vast majority, the descendants of Mexico’s Aztec, Zapotec, Mixe, Maya and other nations have rapidly lost their main food source (maize) to Monsanto Corporation, their livelihood to corporations buying up their land for massive farms to produce export soybeans and their capacity to determine their own future.  The only exception to this general rule is the choice and the risky effort on the part of many Indian people to cross the US/Mexico border to perform back breaking work in the United States for wages that help sustain their families back home.

The Americans helped create this mess in the last twenty-five years.  This is not the new economy.  This is the old economy of the 19th century writ in the 21st  century.

The irony is that as I write today, siting in a Mexican city that is booming, this is a day Mexicans celebrate their Revolution that was to bring new freedoms and self-reliance back to the majority of the people.  Today, however, there is less to celebrate in Mexico as the people, mostly the Indian people, suffer.

Technorati Tags: mexico, Indians, NAFTA, Mexican Revolution, economy

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November 16, 2007 by Mirjam Hirch.

To be healthy means to be rich. This reality is widely understood and accepted within contemporary western society. The trend is towards a healthy and sustainable lifestyle. Aspects that have been associated with traditional, alternative beliefs are turning into an exclusive “postmodern“ way of life which is uncritical of consumption and consumerism.
Not to save the world but to show that one belongs to the upper classes more and more people buy natural and organic products. These traditional goods are becoming the most expensive ones available. And, in a world where environmental pollution seems rampant everywhere, the most coveted, because safest products. 

Adherents of this fashion are called LOHAS (acronym for lifestyle of health and sustainability). And there is quite a few of them all over. The market segment related to sustainable green living and ecological initiatives is immense. In the year 2006 it was estimated at $300 billion in the USA, about  30% of the country’s consumer market.
For many years we used to think and live in terms of modern versus traditional. It was a matter of either or. But not any more. Advertisement strategies radically aim at subverting our beliefs.
With the aid of systems of collective symbols change is symbolically integrated. Discrepancies and contraditions are  bridged, plausibility is created.

One example for this strategy is Bionade a young German company which says to concoct the world’s first and still unique non-alcoholic organically produced refreshment drink, borrowing from age-old brewing techniques. The company advertises Bionade to be the official drink of a better world and sells the bottles mostly in organic food stores. The succcess in sales is incredible. Already the word is out about the Bionadization of society.
The company uses the silence of symbolic language as a powerful strategy to address its upper scale target group and to get away from the typical long-haired, unkempt image of a natural food store customer, wearing Birkenstock sandals. The secret of the company’s  story of magic success lies in the symbol printed on the crown cap. The symbol is the mods target symbol which acts like a secret code by which to recognize each other.
The symbol is circular in form. Found in all cultures the circle is the most common and universal sign. It is the symbol of completeness, eternity and infinity. The circle is associated with the perfect, ideal or the divine universe. It is a symbol of democracy and the preferred shape for an assembly of equals.

The Bionade symbol looks like the roundel (red-white-blue from center to rim) used by the British Royal Air Force (RAF) since World War I after it replaced the Union Flags to avoid confusion with the similar looking German cross. What makes the symbol so special to use for the organic drink producer Bionade is the fact that in the 1960s the mods (originally modernist- a subculture which originated in London) co-opted this roundel, making it part of the pop consciousness and their mod ethos. The term mod contrasted with the term trad at the time. The motto of the mod was appearance determines being. The typical mod therefore was very elegantly dressed, wearing a parka and driving on a scooter. This made him much more hip than his contemporaries.
Nowadays this roundel and mods’ target sign symbolizes the relatively upscale and well-educated population segment of the Bionade drinking LOHAS.

Sure, symbols surround us. They are an intricate part of our everyday lives. Cultures communicate their beliefs, dreams, and reality in symbols. Many of us who do not know the mods and like symbols do not perceive these symbols. Other symbols like the Mercedes star communicate to us a national or corporate identity. Many archetypal symbols which reflect our ideas about the nature of life and the universe we simply take for granted.
 
The reason why symbols appear ominpresent and exert great power and influence on the human being might lie in the fact that those symbolic forms in myths, music and art are logical representations of emotions and accordingly the human mind.
Moreover in a world of diffuse powers and possibilities symbols convey secret, subconsciously active messages that oftentimes cannot otherwise be articulated. Thus they are used to communicate with or to manipulate other people.
Throughout history symbols have been appropriated and used for propagandistic manipulation, like e.g. the swastika. The swastika (from Sanskrit svasti, meaning well-being) was perverted by the Nazi regime, originally representing peace, good luck and success.

As powerful as symbols might be they shoud not make us close our eyes to the stalk realites behind the beautiful structures forms and colors. Certainly we can consider ourselves very fortunate when living in urban centers of the developped world and able to afford organically produced products. At the same time we should face the fact though that the majority of the world, mostly the poorest of the poor, indigenous peoples do not have access to safe foods. In coutries of the south, such as Argentina where the highest per capita amount of foods (3500kg/inhabitant) is produced thousands of people die of hunger while life-sustaining, high quality food products are shipped away to where people are able and willing to give a lot of money for them.
Is this real health and sustainability when only a select few of the world have access to and can benefit from safe environments? Or rather the illusion of a better world?

Technorati Tags: symbols, health, food, sustainability, lifestyle,

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November 9, 2007 by Rudolph Ryser.

The Russians dump nuclear waste in the Arctic seas, the Republic of Congo sees companies with the consent of some government officials dump 20 metric tons of toxic waste into an old uranium mine and they succeed in contaminating the Mura river; and PCBs and mercury from coal fire electrical production contaminate the oceans.  China pushes industrial development in Shanghai while the Yellow River becomes the source for death from contamination. Socialist and capitalist economic systems equally pursue money and power at the expense of life-giving nature–the rivers, the land, the air and all the plants and animals.  President Bill Clinton argues that “you can have strong wages and business while protecting the environment.” He urges as do many US and European political leaders that “we can have our cake and eat it too.”

When the discussion turns to reducing carbon dioxide and other climate warming emissions the decision is to balance what is now going into the air with increased capacity to absorb–otherwise called carbon sequestration.  The result is no reduction of carbon emissions; only an eventual precarious balance of present emissions.

Business, industry and government policy on reducing or eliminating damage to the environment translates into continued destruction.  The economic systems on which business, industry and governments rely are at root the major problem.  Neither capitalism nor socialism contribute to life giving support of the world on whom we all must depend for life.  When an economic system is concerned with money and the consumption of material goods, there is an assumption that what nature has is free for the taking.  Growth of business and unlimited consumption are simply impossible, yet the assumption of those traveling the path of “development” is that “a few will get there’s while everyone else can eat smoke.”  In the end, this is not only foolish but utterly destructive of life on this planet.

While it isn’t easy shifting from a consumer economy to an economy that supports life, we are compelled by the limites of life-giving nature to make the shift.  Either we will decide to make the shift or we will be forced by the necessities.

(c) 2007 Center for World Indigenous Studies

Technorati Tags: growth, socialism, capitalism, consumerism, life, carbon emissions

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November 2, 2007 by Rudolph Ryser.

Mexico is a state where two distinct economies operate side-by-side: The corporate economy of development and capitalism, and the self-reliant economy of stable of subsistence communities. Since the formal declaration of the Mexican state by the Hispanic elite, advocates of the corporate economy have relied on slave labor and cheap labor and taking the “free” raw materials of nature to accumulate money. The economy of self-reliance of Mayan, Cora, Mexica, Mixe, Zapotec and other nations depends on a balance between human need and the direct production of life-supporting foods, medicines, goods and services to promote and sustain life. As long as Mexico’s capitalist/development advocates could make money off the exploitation of the original peoples and lands of the country, there was always a small degree of tolerance for the self-reliance economy. That tolerance, as small as it was, vanished in 1994 when the Mexican government joined Mexico with the United States of America and Canada to form the North American Free Trade Agreement. The result was the serious weakening of Mexico’s constitutional guarantee of land rights for the native population throwing open long protected Ejidos for sale . Ejidos had been guaranteed for use by formerly “landless” Indian people where half the land could be held in communal control and the remainder would be divided among members in the community as individual plots. Communities produced surpluses and individual families sustained themselves by small agricultural activity.

Since the NAFTA agreement, slightly more than 25% of the Ejidos have been sold mainly to large corporations eager to consolidate control over larger tracts of land. Instead of living in a self-reliant manner, former members of “dis-incorporated Ejidos” became “consumers” and “wage earners” dependent on the capitalist system. Unable to survive in Mexico in the “wage-consumer” economy, large numbers of former Ejido members traveled to the United States to earn higher wages to send money home for families now dependent on money to survive instead of their own labor and control over their own land and food.

Yesterday I traveled to Monterey, Mexico, just south of Laredo, Texas. On the flight back I looked out the window to see thousands of parcels of land abandoned and dwelling “scraped away” leaving only the cleared plot where people once lived. The people were no-longer living on the land. Evidence now demonstrates that the corporatization of Mexico has resulted in massive migration of formerly self-reliant people away from their land to consumer dependency on money and wages in the United States.

Americans are now distraught over the massive migration of mainly Mexican Indians, and Central American Indians to the United States. The economic policies of state governments like NAFTA have forced self-reliant people off their land into dependence on wage-earning. While that move seems to benefit the capitalist system, it has caused enormous disruption of populations long capable of taking care of themselves.

Native populations in the Americas, and elsewhere in the world for that matter, have built self-reliant communities that have sustained human populations for thousands of years. The progressivism of conservative and liberal capitalists sits at the root of human social and economic instability by forcing people off the land.

Reaffirmation of self-sustaining, cultural diverse nations living close to the land is essential to eliminate the massive dislocations of peoples we have seen in the last sixty years.

(C) 2007 Center for World Indigenous Studies

Technorati Tags: NAFTA, self reliance, susbsistence economy, land rights

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