April 14, 2008 by Mirjam Hirch.

It is a quiet war. In the face of brutality against peoples in numerous countries around the world European governments are banging their doors. People seeking asylum are made to “leave of their own free will.” Private organizations, hired to do the governments’ dirty work take care of this voluntary deportation- in many cases even through wrong legal advice. The organization bearing the euphemistic name Human Rights Austria is one such “private governmental organization.“ Officially a Non Government Organization (NGO) Human Rights Austria is completly financially dependant on the Austrian government.

Simultaneously medical doctors, so called “fit-to-fly experts,” are paid by governments to immediately provide the medical opinion needed to send the refugees back to their home countries to avoid delay and additional costs.

Traumatized and full of fear those refugees have to return to places of utter insecurity. Oftentimes life threatening circumstances are awaiting them upon their return.
These days European countries are thinking of allowing in some of the 4.5 million Iraqis seeking refuge, fearing murder, persecution and brutality. About 20 thousand of them might find temporary refuge in Germany.

The situation of the Assyro-Chaldeans, Mandaeans, Yazidi and many other minorities in Iraq are recognized to be especially precarious as they are brutally persecuted. Their security situation is worse than ever before with neighboring countries having no more capacity to accept more refugees.

During a two day conference on ethnic and religious minorities in the current Iraq this past weekend in Frankfurt am Main, Germany Iraqi minorities voiced their concerns. They reported first hand about the ongoing persecution and systematic terror which threatens whole peoples in south- central Iraq and which might mean the end of their almost two thousand year old history.

What needs to be ensured is the survival of Iraqi minorities. This is not merely about offering first aid to the people threatened by death, searching refuge in other countries, the indigenous groups maintain. This is about finding political solutions in the region- through an extensive constitutional amendment including an expansion of the federal system which grants safety and equal rights to self-determined indigenous peoples of Iraq.

Technorati Tags: Iraq, refugees, political solutions

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March 22, 2008 by Mirjam Hirch.

The fight for survival demands such an incredible amount of time and energy that fewer and fewer people have enough strength left for problem solving, let alone creative endeavours. Instability and the lack of natural or monetary resources is omnipresent in many regions of the world. To experience the peace of mind which is so necessary for being productive becomes a luxury enjoyed by only a handful of people. For the rest there is the experience of stress.
Injustice, discrimination, forced displacement, and other sorts of physical or psychological brutality take away the ability to think practically. It paralyses families, communities, whole nations.

Collective apathy seemed to be the word of the day on the occasion of the fifth anniversary of the launch of the Iraq war in the United States.
Where are we all fighting for human rights and justice? Why this apparent failure to undertake proper self-care, allowing some to manipulate millions to do exactly what a consumer society demands them to do? Is the human collective globally suffering from learned helplessness, depression and cultural demoralization?

Sure some of the greatest gains in global justice come from the political arena- establishing full democracy and universal access to health care and education. However in an era where the idea of renewed and expanded social programs seems subject of an ideological barrier every one of us needs to take action, take control, get informed and stand up to any injustice experienced.
Self-empowerment is possible on all levels and starts with becoming more aware changing little things in our surroundings so that we discover our own strenght and ability to effect change.

Technorati Tags: human rights, justice, self-empowerment

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March 3, 2008 by Mirjam Hirch.

The art of financing is a highly complex product of human creativity. Undoubtedly those of us who are masters of this art can be extremely influential. Especially so in the area of so called “development” aid. Unfortunately, where art and politics meet the potential “beauty” of possible positive results to behold in that area remains more and more invisible to the eyes of the outside observer.

In many countries the policy for disbursement of funds more and more shifts from project aid to budget aid, as has just been reported in Süddeutsche Zeitung about the German federal audit court. The German Government is going to spent 400 million euros on budget aid this year.
It is hard to control whether this aid which disappears in the total budget of the recipient country is used efficiently. No single entity can be held acccountable and responsible for the proper handling of the funds as is possible in the case of concrete and evaluable projects.
Budget aid is obviously being used strategically in select states. It allows to influence more than just one specific project, it exerts power over the overall politics of a country.

What is certain is that with budget aid indigenous groups are increasingly dependant on the goodwill of the states in whose territories they find themselves in and on the states’ relations to donor countries to access and benefit from any of the funds provided. How will indigenous groups be able to play an active role in the discussions with the states and decide for themselves what is best for them in terms of using the funds for indigenous education health and other matters of vital interest?

Technorati Tags: funding, development aid, self-determination

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December 16, 2007 by Rudolph Ryser.

The battle between the “haves” and the “havenots” has been joined as Bolivia begins to consider fundamental changes in that country’s constitution. Originally designed to disenfranchise the majority indigenous populations and confirm power in the hands of the fewer descendants of conquistadors and immigrant settlers the present Constitution leaves the majority of Bolivia’s population on the outside of Bolivia. When the United Nations adopted the Universal Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples on 13 September this year one question immediately emerged: how will the Declaration be implemented and where will the opposition come from in the world’s the states that voted favorably? We are seeing in Bolivia what will occur throughout the world as pressures begin to build in favor of implementing the Declaration.

Power and wealth are at the center of the growing confrontation between realizing the promises of the Declaration and preserving privilege among those who benefit from taking land, labor, living abundance and knowledge originally used and possessed by indigenous peoples. In Bolivia, the Aymara, Quechua and other indigenous peoples have long suffered as a result of the privileged using the government to confiscate indigenous peoples’ wealth. President Evo Morales and his supporters have advanced a new Bolivian Constitution that will redress the balance between the privileged few and the majority population.

The new constitution would recognize the right of self-government in the indigenous communities among other things.  The power elites of four Bolivian Departments reject this fundamental right and seek to expand departmental powers to control tax revenues, land titles and security forces.  The five other departments have not joined the wealthiest.  Notice that land, revenue and security forces are at the center of the power elites’ concerns.  Indian peoples want to reclaim lands taken from them, maintain revenues coming from those lands for the benefit of all of the people and security that is used to enforce the laws and not become a club of violence used against indigenous peoples.

Indigenous peoples in countries the world over are pressing more vigorously for self-government and self-determination since the adoption of the Indigenous Peoples Declaration. In Taiwan, England, Spain, United States, Canada, Mexico, Guatemala, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Belgium, and many other states, indigenous peoples seek a peaceful transformation of their lives to become fully self-determining peoples. Bolivia’s President Morales is moving to redress the balance between the “haves” and the “havenots”–to give meaning to the promise of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

(c) 2007 Center for World Indigenous Studies

Technorati Tags: Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, Bolivia, self-determination

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December 1, 2007 by Mirjam Hirch.

To many cultures Little Bear (Latin: Ursa Minor) was the Hole in which the earth’s axle found its bearing, the constellation most commonly associated with Polaris, the North Star.
Most inhabitants of the northern hemisphere connect little bear with teddy bear, a stuffed toy bear, honest and comforting companion able to turn into a living being within children’s magical and mythical mindscape protecting the children in times of solitude. 

When I think of a teddy bear these days after reading world news I see in front of my mind’s eye very disturbing pictures: Thousands of armed Sudanese, rallying and actually demanding the execution of a British teacher found guilty of insulting Islam for allowing her students to name a teddy bear ”Muhammad” and subsequently being sentenced to 15 days in prison and deportation.

How much must our globe with all its existing world views be out of whack to make for headlines like these? Certainly the conflict underlying this incident in Sudan cannot only be politically motivated to divert the attention of the world’s community from domestic troubles. It is enmeshed in much larger struggles. Evidently there are horrific, deep seated misunderstandings and bad feelings between nations and groups. The conflict undoubtedly has entered on a sickening emotional level that is far beyond rationality thus posing uncontrollable danger, ever more likely to turn deadly.

These and like radical phenomena currently appear the world over. After I arrived in Germany from the US I stumbled into the local Islamist scene when taking on the administration of a building. What I witnessed were radicals whose eyes gleamed joyfully upon hearing US soldiers in Irak being killed and beheaded. Accompanied was this reaction by the genocidal slogan: “Every dead American is a good American.“

This sounds just like genocidal imperialist General Philip Sheridan’s statement in 1869 which became US military policy for ensuing decades: “The only good Indian is a dead Indian.”
A statement which leads in a straight ideological line to Theodore “Teddy” Roosevelt  according to legend the name giver of the teddy bear- whose symbolic figure the bear became.  
At an infamous speech in January of 1886 in New York some 15 years before Roosevelt became President of the US he comments: “I suppose I should be ashamed to say that I take the Western view of the Indian. I don’t go so far as to think that the only good Indians are dead Indians, but I believe nine out of every ten are, and I shouldn’t like to inquire too closely into the case of the tenth.”

So what has humankind learned throughout all those years, decades and centuries? Back then as now it is crucial to overcome preconceived notions and ideas and open up true dialogue to enhance the understanding between nations. How can it be the fact is hushed up that the civilian death toll in Iraq is extremely high, and the value put upon Afghan civilian lives by U.S. military planners and the political elite very low?
More easily accessible is information on the Taliban who in recent years often targeted civilians for activities they think sympathetic to foreign countries and international aid groups or forces. Frequently militants have targeted teachers and students at schools. On November 14th, the newspapers reported Taliban militants have shot and killed a man for teaching English in eastern Afghanistan.

In order to not turn into beasts fighting unknown incomprehensible enemies education is most urgently and desperately needed. Unfortunately education is one of the first casualties that falls to the wayside in times of fear chaos and instability. However no matter how hard the condition when we dream about a world of peace we have to work hard and harder still. There is no time to lose especially in education. Probably it is similar to life, when a day has passed it is over, it won’t come back.

Technorati Tags: education, communication, radicalism

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November 24, 2007 by Jay Taber.

In his December 1990 report Right Woos Left, Chip Berlet of Political Research Associates examined neo-fascist overtures to antiwar activists, and the need to confront rightist ideologies and bigotry by discussing the dilemmas posed by the transfusion of right-wing theories and research into progressive circles. Based on these discussions, Mr. Berlet wrote the book Right-Wing Populism in America, which focuses on the roots of scapegoating conspiracism in the U.S. and how it is used to mobilize social and political movements. In November of 1993, he developed an analysis of the relationship between various forms of populism and fascism and the relevance of these movements to the candidacies of Buchanan, Perot & Le Pen.

A decade later, these same problems resurfaced in American antiwar circles whose academic discussions had been penetrated by poisonous ideas promulgated by LaRouchians and other anti-Jewish groups. More recently, organizations like Sierra Club went through soul-searching shakedowns as a result of White Christian Nationalist infiltration attempting to subvert their board into supporting anti-immigrant legislation. All of which points up the need for greater academic rigor and integrity in the face of the ongoing onslaught of fascist propositions promoted by nativists such as Pat Buchanan and the bastions of pseudo scholars that support him.

As author Sara Diamond observed, “After years of living as an anti-administration anti-establishment subculture, many in the progressive movement know what they are against, but have lost sight of what they stand for. This leaves persons susceptible to allying with anyone else that attacks the government. This happened against a backdrop of political illiteracy.”

By exposing irrationalist philosophies, racialist aesthetics, and anti-capitalist demagogy, writers like Berlet and Diamond assert we can have this discussion without uncritically circulating the conspiratorial scapegoating fantasies of the far right. As Monique Doryland of the Bay Area Pledge of Resistance noted, “We have to be clear as progressive people that fascists, no matter what their camouflage, are not our friends.”

“The dilemma for left activists,” says Berlet, “is to sort out the various strains of fascist ideology circulating in the United States and the world. It is a dangerous folly to ignore the threat to democracy posed by critics of the current administration who also promote fascism.”

(Jay Taber — recipient of the Defender of Democracy award — is an author, columnist, and research analyst at Public Good Project.)

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November 3, 2007 by Mirjam Hirch.

Who wants to be a dead end hero? Here the following instruction of soldiers who successfully deserted the US army: There is an early way out. Don’t hang your head. Hold your tongue and don’t attract attention. There is enough time for making your voice heard at a later point.
More and more US soldiers of diverse ethnic backgrounds desert the force. And they are telling the world about it, providing advise how to get out. The resistance against the US war in Iraq is growing all over. Members of anti-war organizations currently are touring places in Europe to get the word out. According to their estimates more than 14.000 GIs deserted the US army since the beginning of the war in Iraq.
The deserters state they got taken in by military propaganda believing promises of education, secure jobs, a sense of belonging. When they joined they were not aware of the reality of power and control, and the fact that there are a few people in the world who are desirous to impose their will on the rest of us at all costs. However, with time to kill in the midst of the black beat of the drums of war having felt the power of death over life the strained soldiers might hear a heartening voice in their heads and break into song, whispering: „And then it came to me just what I had done and all for no reason…. I set off running to wake from the dream“….

Sure, deserters are more dangerous than all democrats in congress taken together. The Bush administration is well aware of this. Desertion accordingly is not prosecuted with such a keen interest by the defense department which fears public relations trouble and tries to avoid media investigation on the matter. Everybody knows that a growing number of cases of desertion within a professional army speaks volumes about how the fighters themselves perceive the situation. Therefore, deserters explain, that when they remain silent long enough they often face nothing more than dishonourable discharge.

What the former fighters definitely face are long- term life changes. Some flee to Canada. Others settle down in countries like Germany which to the deserters seems a peaceful haven. Even though the country is a silent participator in the daily killings of the war because of supporting US bases like Ramstein (the hub for transport of arms and troops) and the important US army hospital in Landstuhl. No longer having to fear grenades and mines in the deafening noise of war the former soldiers find peace with themselves and start telling their stories. Thus fighting on the front line to free consciousness. Theirs are very strong voices against the war. As living examples they demonstrate: To get out of the army is possible when you really want it!

Technorati Tags: War in Iraq, desertion

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October 9, 2007 by Jay Taber.

The Oxford English Dictionary defines tribe as a group of families or communities linked by cultural ties and having a recognized leader.

In an article discussing tribal endurance in North America, Indian Country Today observed that, “Tribalism has generally been described as morals, beliefs, and identity with a tribe or socio-political organization, families, clans or related groups that share a common ancestry.”

Jamake Highwater, in his book The Primal Mind, wrote, “Freedom is not the right to express yourself, but the far more fundamental right to be yourself. The abiding principle of tribalism is the vision of both nature and a society which provides a place for absolutely everything and everyone.”

Here’s some modern tribal voices speaking for themselves:

In the U.S., one is inspired to reach their peak as an individual. Well, for us, it is to reach your peak as a family.

Reciprocal hospitality or generosity was such a strong cultural theme that it is to be considered a law.

There was a time when we didn’t have anywhere to retreat. We had backed off as far as we could. We were at the end of our world and yet we were still being pushed. We made no attempt to fight anymore. The only thing left for us was our imaginations and our visions and memories of the past when we were free.

There is a part in here that must remain silent. There is a huge part of it that the outside world has no business knowing.

When you sit with Indian people, they sit in a medicine circle. Within that medicine circle we’re only as strong as the weakest among us. It’s up to the rest to make that one as strong as the rest of the circle.

It’s because Seyowin’s here yet, our winter spiritual dances. It’s because the Sun Dance is there yet, and because the Hopi still dance traditionally and teach that there are reasons to continue to exist.

White people were very different from us; sometimes they did strange and perplexing things, but generally if you watched and listened and considered them very carefully, you could understand them. As a people, I distrusted them less, although I was still wary of something that drove them willfully, aggressively, powerfully, and arrogantly.

No longer will we be told what we can or cannot do. We will do what we know is right. It’s up to Canada and the World to help, or step aside and let us do our job as the rightful caretakers of our territory.

There’s a lot of confusion in our reality right now. I think we need to remember tradition is based upon respect. And they may mess with the ceremonies and the language and all of that because that’s the way this attack comes against us, but in reality tradition is based on respect.

Our deeply reasonable intention is to distribute power so it can do no harm, an idea implicit in the way we weave our clothes, mats and baskets and also in the design and dynamics of the constellations.

Circumspection is the paradigm of harmony. But as with everything modern and “civilized,” there are often casualties among the ignorant, deprived, and unknowing.

Historically, there was equality in the First-Named systems, but materialism and greed spawned novel methods by which to manipulate others. The day divine leadership was deemed unimportant was when the sacred myths began to crumble under the wheels of suzerainty.

I remember, historically speaking, a time when there was no state because I grew up in a society where literally there wasn’t a state, at least in its centralized, coercive form. The state embodies a static concept. When controlled by a class, it is an instrument for holding back society—holding back creativity, art, movement, change, renewal.

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September 28, 2007 by Jay Taber.

My friend Paul de Armond once remarked that it seemed life in America was like a giant broken record in the sky that kept playing the same segment of a song he never really liked.

At the time he made this observation, Paul and I were up to our necks in sorting out the anti-Indian vigilantes from the run-of-the-mill bigots and real estate opportunists who inhabit the waterfront Indian reservations on Puget Sound. Our immediate task was trying to prevent lethal violence over treaty rights and environmental protection. As time went on, we discovered (with the help and guidance of people like Rudolph Ryser, Daniel Junas, and Tarso Luis Ramos) the anti-Indian movement to be a multi-tiered interlocking network of politicians, trade and industry executives, and white supremacy demagogues.

Reading in the news this week about a spokeswoman for one of the national anti-Indian associations based in Washington state, I was reminded how the anti-Indian movement manages to recycle its anti-sovereignty propaganda time and time again as new issues crop up in Congress, corporate board rooms, or racist rendezvous. I was also reminded how the racist rhetoric always seems new to young journalists, activists, and social scholars. It’s as though there is no institutional memory in our country, no community voice to supplant this broken record.

Rudolph, Paul, and I wrote about this phenomenon, as did Daniel and Tarso. Anti-Indian Movement on the Tribal Frontier is the classic text on the topic.
Wise Use in Northern Puget Sound is available online as is Reign of Terror. Yet despite the documentation of how anti-Indian bigotry is systematically organized, funded, and conducted, mainstream media shows little improvement in its understanding or historical consciousness. Perhaps they just don’t care.

Whatever the reasons for this widespread neglect of our collective memory, which might act as a community safeguard were it properly exercised and maintained, two obvious remedies to this sad situation are for humanitarian philanthropies to consistently fund archival repositories and indigenous media. Research and education rely on them, and curating knowledge is no less demanding a task than preserving more tangible artifacts used to help us comprehend where we’ve been and where we’re going. Haphazard, erratic support only guarantees that the anti-Indian movement will be able to continue exploiting public ignorance and forgetfulness.

Maybe the problem is in how philanthropies conceive social conflict, organization, and evolution. If they have no sense of continuity, then short-term campaigns and intermittent events make sense. Unfortunately, history betrays that notion.

(Jay Taber — recipient of the Defender of Democracy award — is an author, columnist, and research analyst at Public Good Project.)

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September 27, 2007 by Jay Taber.

I was looking over the posts at Native America this morning, and thought about the vast amounts of time and money expended by Indian tribes in the last half-century to hold federal agencies like the Indian Health Service accountable. Almost without exception, the Bureau of Indian Affairs and Bureau of Land Management and Mineral Management Service have been proven in court to be in breach of their trust obligations, but within the U.S. bureaucracy, little seems to change.

So why, one might ask, continue to pour tribal funds into a system of justice that yields so little? The short answer is that something is better than nothing, but even that fails to take into account the matter of perspective acquired over longer time frames than isolated disputes argued in court can provide. Rather, it is as a whole that the preponderance of evidence and patterns of injustice — established through a body of law over time — that point to a need for broader, more systemic remedies. And, indeed, this has been achieved. Self-determination, environmental restoration, indigenous rights—these are happening.

But there is another facet to indigenous litigation in federal and international courts of law that is often overlooked. And that is communication. Communication changes culture, ways of thinking and acting, our customs and morality. With luck, our consciousness. Bridging the gap between indigenous and colonial cultures and consciousness is accomplished in part by making the differences clearly visible, and few venues portray them more dramatically than the courts.

So while American Indian nations may not get the attention they deserve from Congress, the White House, or the Supreme Court, their grievances made manifest as plaintiffs serve a long-term purpose. That purpose is to eclipse the culture of dominion and supplant it with a culture of mutual respect, that with good will might lead to a meaningful reconciliation. But first, we need to know the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

For some, that requires being under oath.

(Jay Taber — recipient of the Defender of Democracy award — is an author, columnist, and research analyst at Public Good Project.)

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