Indigenous People: Rights and Identities - Article Example

YM Leyson For: Unidentified Indigenous People: Rights and Identities 10 April, 2006 The struggle for identity and the fight against oppression has always lodged in the heart and mind of mankind. As we browse deeper into the annals of our history, we cannot dismiss the fact that others have taken the ultimate pride and joy in another person’s displacement in a social structure for another’s gain. Civilized society’s superiority and insatiable avarice for ownership of priceless minerals and natural resource for economic gains has driven other cultural minorities into dry and arid wastelands. Under a cloak of sovereignty and ironic preservation agenda the rights of the indigenous people are suppressed. Irreplaceable culture and heritage spins into oblivion as technological advancement is nurtured. Driven from the homeland of their forefathers they nurture the desire to regain their ancestral domain only to see its devastation. The environment has lost two of its precious resource: the natural habitat of a vast number of specie and the heritage of an endangered cultural minority in place of a changed society that clamors to eradicate the trace of natural bounty that lies beneath the verdant soil and the biological history of mankind. The strains of traditional African drums and kalimbas reverberate to make music for the traditionally nomadic Khoisan family of Southern Africa. For thousands of years clans of twenty to fifty people lived together without any political leader and move from place to place along the vast lands to hunt of food. They are the genetically the closest surviving link to the original Homo Sapien core from which the black race emerged. Known as the bushmen of Kalahari, the oldest African social structure have lived uncomplicated lives that evolved around the simple basic needs of humans throughout recorded history while utilizing the environment that was unsuitable for farming. The Botswana Government according to BBC1 “in the guise of globalization has again recently forced the eviction of these tribes for commercial gains by withholding their water supplies and arrests of the group venturing into the land”. This 17-year saga has seen the relocation of some 2,200 Sans out of the Kalahari Game Reserve due to the government’s effort to exploit the land for minerals and diamonds. Sylvain2 has complained that with globalization, “the San are encouraged to promote a stereotypical image of themselves as isolated, pristine primitives…and culture is instrumentalized in local contexts of disorder and corruption. We can see how history is re-written by the greed of civilized society that bears significant political and ethical proportions in the acceptable development of the aborigines from their cultural birthright. We can begin by a recount of European culture taking possession of the aboriginal lands and bringing with them waves of epidemic after another. Venereal diseases affecting the fertility and birthrates of the indigenous group who has not develop a tolerance for such. Driven away by the new settlers, through genocidal poisoning on different occasions, and after loosing fatally they slowly withdrew while others were forced to adapt to the new ways of the settlers. Anthropologist Ron Brunton3 “accused the anthropological profession in Australia of being largely if not totally committed to a role of advocacy that to independent scholarship of aboriginal matters”. Anthropological involvement with indigenous people has deemed it necessary to collectively inculcate the Australian aborigines into the acceptance of new settler’s own cultures despite resistance. Even with a group of Ngarrindjeri women according to Weiner4 “lodged a claim against the building of a bridge between the mainland and the Hindmarsh Island of their ancestral homes claiming that the bridge would impair the reproductive capacity of women’s bodies and the reproductivity of their cosmos in general”. A claim for their birthright was still heard and the protection of their culture was a common cry that led to the successful regaining of these lands under the “native” title. Territory replete with nature is a very important factor in the lives of indigenous people along with their basic needs. They spend more time in their villages in between hunts. Turner5 added that “the Kayapo’s of the Amazon relies on social contribution as the role of producing new social persons rather than organizing subsistence activities”. They produce their own food, shelter and utensils from natural resources and the well-being of the ecosystem and the society is interdependent. Collectively impervious to the exploitative tendencies of the modern world, the Kayapo and other indigenous Amazonian people of relatively low density strive to maintain their rudimentary technology. Despite their slash and burn way of food-hunting, killing of animals, they never put in question the renewal of the forests as important to the balance of nature. The Brazilain projects6 “for economic exploitation and development of their territory posed as a threat and became a potent basis for resistance”. When a series of hydroelectrical dams on the Xingu River culminated in the great rally of the Amazonian people near the site of the proposed dam. For 5 days the Kayapo Indians together with other contingents gathered in Altamira Brazil to denounce the Brazilian Government and the World Bank. They invited the media and the local NGO’s to observe the exchange regarding the dam project which was kept secret from them. To the Western observer, it showcased the code of cultural meaning totally neglected in the guise of developmental change. Despite the benefits of social change and the further monetary implications that development may bring, the Kayapo’s remain steadfast in their call to maintain their territories. The need to maintain their cultural significance should give everyone a cause for concern. As Roosevelt7 neatly described “that these people classified as paleoindians, hunted small game, caught fish and turtles and foraged for plants, nuts and fruits…they found time to express themselves in wall paintings that survive and give the place its name— Caverna de Pintada, Cave of the Painted Rock”. We may never be able to see such beauty that abound in nature had the Kayapo’s failed in their cries for the preservation of the forests of the amazons that maintain the balance of the ecosystem. We may never be able to see how cultures evolved to preserve the environment for the new society that struggles to destroy it and in the effort destroyed their own history. The hunting ground in the regions of the Crees and Innuits of James Bay according to Salisbury8 “believed that the Quebec government violated treaties and committed unlawful expropriation and destruction of their common lands”. They were not informed of a hydroelectric project until after the construction of the access roads began. The Cree communities had originally pushed for the building of additional roads from the main James Bay Road westward to their coastal villages. When the roads opened, the Cree homeland was no longer common to them as it provided access to hunting areas to encourage commercial and social exchange between Quebec and the Cree villages. These activities placed further strains on the traditional hunting and trapping activities of the Cree in the southern James Bay region. Other income replacement programs that created compensation for the building of the hydroelectric plant offered a modest salary for the Cree families who had lived in the bush for years. The environment suffered the over-all toll of development and natural living flora and fauna resources along the area. The potential for greenhouse gas emissions was looked into as the major variation for the project. But the loss of a gradual change and dissipation of cultural heritage of the Crees and the Innuits may never be felt as the money comes rolling in. The shameful chapters in our history recorded our vile intentions against our own specie to further our own avarice like capitalists of the economic world. Sound development of natural resource is acceptable but when the vast development is fraught with corruption, own economic gains and struggle for power at all cost the main aim is defrauded and civilization is extracted from its birthright. Conquests of lands and territories have brought in several wars that brought only shame and devastation and the victor has their profit and gains to show while the losers cowers in defeat. The cultural groups in Africa and the aborigines in Australia fought hard with their own blood only to loose under guns and firepower. With their loss comes the hope that one day, they will be able to reclaim the land of their forefathers. No amount of bloodshed can delay their listless efforts to regain what was entrusted to them. Just as the Kayapo’s fight at Altamira showed us the cultural attitudes towards their environment to expel the miners and loggers, was not merely a concern for the value of their natural habitat but the sense and continuity of their natural beings as such and the reproduction of their society which is their main concern. Unlike the Crees of Canada whose prudent vocalizations of complaints were overridden by the offer of a more comfortable way of life. Primitive ecologist with environmental values analogous to an innate spiritual binding perceived the exploits as nothing but false alternatives that prey to assault the ecosystems. The Australian aborigines have lately been recognized for their clamors and efforts to preserve their land despite significant racism and the lack of political representation. The path to reconciliation opened in the early 70’s and recently in June 2005, Frankland9 advocated that “the 18th century conflicts between colonial Australians be recognized as wars and be given the same attention as the other wars receive within the Australian War Memorial”. His advocacy created the consciousness and the appreciation on the way people regard their own history. The examples of the Australian aborigines and the Kayapos show that humans are fully capable given the opportunity of transforming their relationships to their environments through processes of internal political struggle. The Khosians may arrive as a result of these processes with the help of environmental preservation groups and human rights advocates at a common goal. The Crees may not have taken into account their rights but recently the court according to the GCC10 has ordered Canada to recognize the rights of the Crees to fight for their lands. Works Cited Corry, Stephen. “The Khoisan Home”.2005. Survival International.9 April 2006. http://www.khoisanpeoples.org/news/san-news-05-09-1.htm "Botswana." Encyclopædia Britannica. 2006. Encyclopædia Britannica Premium Service. 10 Apr. 2006 http://www.britannica.com/eb/article?tocId=43900. BBC News (2002), Bushman’s Last Stand, Creative Resistance. 10 April 2006.http://www.creativeresistance.ca/world-awareness/2002-mar18-botswana-bushemens-last-stand-bbc.htm Grand Council of Crees. The Latest News. 2006. 11, April 2006. http://www.gcc.ca/ Weiner, James. “The Hind marsh Land Bridge: and the Credibility of Australian Anthropology”. Anthropology Today. 12 4:2-7. Frankland, Richard. “Your Voice.” Age Newspaper 20 June 2005. Turner, Terrence. “The Kayapo Revolt Against Extractivism”. Journal of Latin American Anthropology1995:98-121. Sylvain, Renee. “Disorderly Development: Globalization and the Idea of Culture in the Kalahari.” American Anthropologist 104:1073-1085. Roosevelt, Anna. Amazonian Indians from Prehistory to the Present.1994. Tucson: University of Arizona. Salisbury,Richard Frank. A Homeland for the Cree: Regional Development in James Bay. Kingston: McGill-Queens University. Read More