Endurance

Children of the Sunrise

2012-01-07T16:05:00.000-08:00

In 2007, four countries in the world opposed the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples: Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and the United States. In 2008, the police and armed forces of the Government of Australia invaded Northern Territory Aboriginal communities with the intent of seizing control of their homelands.

In 2011, the story of The Intervention was exposed to the world in the dramatic award-winning documentary Our Generation. Amnesty International and the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights have since condemned the Australian government for its flagrant violation of international law.

As Australia seeks to expel indigenous peoples from Aboriginal territories in order to mine uranium and other minerals, the attention of the world is now on them. Thanks in part to the power of this http://www.ourgeneration.org.au film, the Children of the Sunrise are fighting back.

Seeds of Hope

2011-08-03T13:33:00.000-07:00

In hard times, it is community that sees us through. An essential but often neglected part of nurturing community, especially when things fall apart, is mentoring. In this inter-generational exchange lies the seeds of hope for a better tomorrow.

With the knowledge and understanding gained from experience and reflection, imparted to those freshly assuming social responsibilities, comes an obligation to see that participating elders are able to live a life of dignity and fulfillment. Tribes, institutions and markets routinely make use of mentoring in order to perpetuate themselves; now it is time for networks devoted to intellectual development and humanitarian ideals to make use of this human resource in a way that respects the generosity of and meets the needs of mentoring elders.

Some programs honor wisdom of the elders through exposure of their ideas or examination of their lives, but it is the working relationships between elders and young people that promises to bear fruit. Investing in this relationship with scholarships and stipends, so both may participate without undue hardship, is possibly one of the most efficient uses of scarce funds to achieve meaningful change.

Large grants to tribes and institutions are important, but small grants to mentoring programs can prove to be equally effective. When they work in tandem, the sky's the limit.

The world's problems may get worse before they get better, but investing in mentoring now gives us a vital chance down the road. Without it, there is no chance at all.

Wisdom Knowledge Medicine

2011-06-24T09:41:00.001-07:00

In this video, Archbishop Desmond Tutu speaks out in support of the San Bushmen and the progress of humanity.

Perspective Proportion Design

2011-06-22T18:52:00.000-07:00

In his article at Indian Country Today, Duane Champagne discusses academia's propensity to pay lip service to Native American studies without allowing it to flourish from the perspective of Native American students, scholars, and intellectuals.

A Predatory Process

2011-06-15T19:46:00.001-07:00

In Steven Newcomb's critique of a doctrine of reconciliation, he reviews the Christian domination paradigm, and the assimilation/reconciliation process. As a destructive legacy of church and state domination, says Newcomb, it is senseless to speak in terms of reconciliation with such illegitimate religious ideologies.

We Were Human Beings

2011-05-30T22:11:00.000-07:00

Her fine soul will be warped by the coarse style of life that's overtaking us; she will be destroyed unless she's given preferential treatment for her artistry.
--The Sorrow of War by Boa Ninh

The Sacred Fire

2011-05-22T12:21:00.000-07:00

As noted in Upside Down World, Zapatismo is alive and well in the caracols of Chiapas, but self-rule in these autonomous indigenous communities is anything but easy. Community cohesion, the sacred fire of their authentic democracy, is maintained by discipline and sacrifice--an achievement under constant threat and harassment by state authorities and paramilitary vigilantes.

Watching the Zapatistas as they continue to conduct themselves with determined dignity in the face of neoliberal oppression, it is not surprising that they look the world in the eye and ask, What have you done?

A Criminal Act

2011-05-21T10:44:00.000-07:00

In the war between biodiversity and privatization, the battle in the Andes over protecting the genetic diversity of indigenous potatoes from an invasion of genetically modified seeds from the United States illustrates the colonial attributes of Free Trade. As an act of theft, the GMO agenda of supplanting indigenous food and medicine with monopolized foreign commodities is tantamount to cultural genocide. The fact this US-sponsored program is already exacerbating starvation around the world makes it a criminal act.

Tearing Down the Wall

2011-05-10T17:25:00.000-07:00

As we head toward the likely recognition of a Palestinian state by the UN this fall, the imminent opening of Rafah border crossing between Gaza and Egypt signals an end to the siege by Israel. With the return of the Free Gaza flotilla this summer, and a growing sense of Israel being a pariah state, the United States will be hard pressed to continue backing Israeli aggression. Unlike his hero Ronald Reagan, Barack Obama will probably not call for tearing down the wall of oppression, but continuing to fund the Israeli military against what is likely to become the newest member state of the United Nations might be a tough act to pull off.

Time Will Tell

2011-04-25T11:35:00.000-07:00

Twenty years ago, I made the decision to commit myself to pursuing environmental sanity. That decision quickly consumed my life, and began my education in political organizing. Since then, my understanding of that mission and my perspective on how to meet this challenge has evolved through trial and error and some success.

Ten years ago, I committed to pursuing studies that would make the most of my experience, and perhaps lead to instructing and mentoring others. While I had some brief academic encounters, for the most part this has not transpired. Not because there was no interest in my work, but rather due to institutional corruption.

Today, having turned to writing commentary based on my archives established over the last two decades, I look forward to new endeavors which I can formulate but not implement. By discussing the philosophy and logic of these endeavors, as applied to the mission I chose as a younger man, I am hopeful that my involvement will again be welcomed, recognized and valued. Time will tell.

Mad Max

2011-03-02T10:46:00.001-08:00

Modern states like Canada and the US are not going to stop transnational corporations from destroying the planet or murdering indigenous peoples for their resources. As long as metropolitan populations demand luxury goods like gold and gasoline, the supply will continue flowing until all the earth is a toxic waste dump.

The US, 5% of the global population, is responsible for 75% of the toxic waste in the world. Unless Americans voluntarily abandon their consumer culture, Mad Max is the world’s future.

Small is Beautiful

2011-01-07T09:06:00.000-08:00

Over the last century, the number of states in the world has doubled, while the number of governments has remained roughly the same. Many of these new states represent administrative units of colonial empires, that unfortunately do not correspond with original political realities. As such, the enduring aboriginal nations incorporated into empires and the states that emerged in their aftermath continue to represent the only natural political entities.

These political entities, belatedly recognized by the United Nations and most of its member states, have seen empires come and go, from precolonial Inca and Mali, to Roman, British and Soviet. Throughout these powerful exchanges, original nations like Basque, Ogoni and Cherokee have learned much about scale and authenticity, which relates to political endurance, diversity and sustainability.

Perhaps the greatest lesson they learned is that small is beautiful.

Obama=Bush

2010-12-25T11:14:00.000-08:00

As Steven Newcomb observes, there is nothing new in Obama's "endorsement" of UNDRIP. His position is the same as Bush: federally recognized tribes in the US are not truly sovereign; they are free to develop as they wish as long as they don't oppose US policy. In other words, they are not self-determined, but rather, remain under the domination of the US government, which will continue to represent them in international fora, thus denying them their rightful voice in world affairs.

Genocide in Colombia

2010-12-18T17:50:00.000-08:00

Colombia's indigenous representatives call on Canada and Canada's First Nations for protection from violence that threatens their very existence. UN special rapporteur on indigenous peoples James Anaya has called on the UN special advisor on genocide to intervene.

Making a Mockery

2010-12-18T15:02:00.000-08:00

As Rudolph Ryser notes in his commentary on the US State Department report endorsing the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, indigenous nations are welcome to determine how they develop economically and socially as long as it doesn't interfere with the interests of the US government, interests we all know to be ruled by Wall Street. If this is the best the United States can do in recognizing the right of indigenous peoples to exist as self-determined political entities, then Secretary Clinton and President Obama are simply running a shell game that makes a mockery of the international human rights regime.

Mafia's Main Man

2010-12-15T15:34:00.000-08:00

The Council of Europe report on the Prime Minister of Kosovo and his involvement with smuggling arms, narcotics and human body parts challenges the international community's integrity as well. Meanwhile, Wikileaks documents related to Cablegate reveal that his criminal network was at one point on the payroll of the US, NATO, the UN, and al-Qaeda all at the same time.

An Unseemly Tradition

2010-12-11T22:52:00.001-08:00

Last month, in the runup to COP 16, the National Congress of American Indians called upon the US State Department and the UN to create a new category of Indigenous Nation Governmental Representative so US Tribal Nations will have a right to participate as governmental representatives in UN activities such as the Framework Convention on Climate Change and Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues. While it is obvious that excluding indigenous governments from international conferences is anti-democratic, anti-indigenous states like the US still absurdly demand that tribal governments be treated as non-governmental organizations.

Coming from the United States, such nonsense is at least consistent with its current position as the only country in the world to officially oppose the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. What many may not understand is that the United States, despite playing host to the original UN gathering, has from the outset opposed the establishment of human rights in international law. Fighting their extension to indigenous peoples is merely carrying on an unseemly tradition.

Oulu

2010-12-04T20:23:00.000-08:00

My colleague, Associate Scholar and CWIS Fellow for Traditional Health Geography Mirjam Hirch has been awarded Best Presentation Prize for her paper delivered at the November 2010 7th Kastelli Symposium in Oulu, Finland. The topic of her presentation was "the disruptive potential of geography in indigenous peoples' health." The theme of the symposium was "People in a changing world."

The Thule Institute and the University of Oulu, in cooperation with the University of Arctic Thematic Networks on Global Change and Arctic Medicine, organized the symposium. Ms. Hirch's presentation accompanied keynote presentations by Gert Mulvad of Greenland, Hannu Heikkinen of Finland, Joan Nymand Larsen of Iceland and Gunhild Hoogensen of Norway.

Tribal Sovereignty

2010-11-22T17:04:00.001-08:00

In light of the revelations in Cobell v Kempthorne regarding theft of tribal royalties and leasing revenues by corporations in collusion with the Department of Interior, it's clear that tribal sovereignty has little hope of surviving the economic turmoil brought on by the Wall Street heist of 2007-8. As the crisis intensifies, predation and scapegoating can be expected to escalate as well. Without an adequately funded independent communications infrastructure, tribal governments are at the mercy of the corporate media, which in turn represents those interests committed to further plundering tribal resources. As the only power remaining to tribes is that of moral sanction, making their case through mass communication is essential.

Nefarious Acts

2010-11-16T10:00:00.000-08:00

Iran-Contra icons Richard Armitage and Wayne Downing don't figure in the public imagination, but their careers exemplify the lethal undergirding of US foreign policy institutionalized in 1948 by President Truman. All the coups, assassinations and other nefarious acts targeted at preventing democracy worldwide, enabled by National Security secret agents and budgets, continue unabated. While they normally fly under the radar of most journalists, during the Bush Administration some of them became very outspoken; the hubris of this milieu was momentarily exposed by Armitage in a couple of interviews he did, in which he seemed gleefully intoxicated with his new found notoriety. I'm sure Wilkerson and Powell were horrified.

Revitalizing Hostility

2010-11-10T12:55:00.000-08:00

Adrienne Pine reports on the Pentagon's Strategic Culture Initiative, a project to develop propaganda favorable to US interests in Latin America. Targeted at recent anti-imperial agreements between a majority of states in South America -- particularly at the democratic independence of Bolivia -- the new psychological warfare partnership with Florida International University enables the U.S. military to go on the offensive against self-determination south of the border. Lauding such enterprises as Peru's plan to assimilate its indigenous peoples by annihilating their cultural land base, the renewed Pentagon partnership with academia is anticipated to revitalize the hostility toward indigenous peoples promoted by the Reagan Administration.

When Two Worlds Collide

2010-10-23T10:53:00.000-07:00

In the apocalyptic film When Two Worlds Collide, the indigenous leader-in-exile from the Peruvian Amazon asks, "How will we organize ourselves to save the planet?"

Transforming American Culture

2010-10-22T09:53:00.000-07:00

Walking away from farce, ridiculing the ridiculous, attacking fraud comprise components of rejecting an anti-democratic system. Proportional representation, like plurinationalism, is a different system, not a reform. Democracy entails a wholly different set of relationships and distribution of power than what our institutions presently promote.

To create a democratic society in the US would require transforming American culture to the degree that we would no longer recognize ourselves. In essence, we would have to experience a revolution of ideas as earth-shaking as 1968.

Media Indigena

2010-10-20T10:09:00.001-07:00

Media Indigena looks promising.

Pandering to Christian Bigotry

2010-10-19T16:17:00.000-07:00

The clear message in the Five Steps to Tyranny videos is that demonization is a political tool, used by politicians to suppress dissent and subvert solidarity. Two current examples not in the series are the US Department of Justice raids last month against peace activists by the Joint Terrorism Task Force, and the recent passage of legislation in Uganda mandating the death penalty for homosexuals. Even the calvinist Millenium Development Goals of the UN serve as pretext for ethnic cleansing of indigenous peoples. All of these examples are in synch with Christian dominionism, such as that promoted by President Obama's friend Rick Warren. Pandering to Christian bigotry is one of the fastest roads to tyranny in America, and is well documented on the Talk to Action blog. What the International Transformation Network of Christian fascists might be willing to do under a theocracy is perhaps best answered by Canadian author Margaret Atwood.

ATNI/USET

2010-10-19T09:49:00.000-07:00

Affiliated Tribes of Northwest Indians and the United South and Eastern Tribes sign covenant of friendship, cooperation, solidarity and trust.

Anarchy

2010-10-17T18:47:00.000-07:00

Stateless nations do indeed have institutions to nourish and protect their indigenous societies. They may seem to some to be anarchic in demanding the freedom to be self-determinant, but they nevertheless operate within a political framework that recognizes distinct and compelling laws to accomplish their definition of order. Working at times in tandem with others who view subverting the dominant order behind globalization as morally obligating, they are sometimes characterized as anarchist, though they are no more so than any other revolutionaries seeking a more equitable order.

Patronizing Bromides

2010-10-14T09:22:00.000-07:00

The Orang Asli, the aboriginal people of Malaysia, are engaged in a fight for survival within an Islamic state that plans to enact a law depriving them of all their territory, economic independence, and possibly religious freedom. Ironically, all the patronizing bromides about the benefits of modern development emanating from the Muslim theocracy mirror those of neoliberal states worldwide. Part of the conventional cover story for states in converting the property of nations.

Perils

2010-10-13T09:14:00.000-07:00

As the United States celebrates the mass murderer known as Columbus, Rose Aguilar interviews three Native women about the perils facing American Indians today.

Stripmining the Great Plains

2010-10-12T13:37:00.000-07:00

Earth Portal examines the new fossil fuel boom in the Great Plains and Rocky Mountains.

Tragic Gifts

2010-10-11T12:58:00.000-07:00

Michael Ondaatje, author of Anil's Ghost, and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, author of Half of a Yellow Sun, discuss the ethics and craft of creating fiction out of collective tragedies in their native homes of Sri Lanka and Nigeria. Listen in to their conversation.

Outside the Realm

2010-10-04T13:07:00.000-07:00

Coast Salish nations gathered recently at Swinomish to discuss action on their international effort to restore the resources of the Salish Sea. Part of their discussion with each other, as well as with representatives from the federal governments of Canada and the US, was what strategies held out the most promise of success.

As one of the few international indigenous initiatives on environmental restoration -- one that includes the bays, sounds, straits and estuaries surrounding Seattle and Vancouver -- Coast Salish Gathering bears watching as a pilot project for harmonizing the interests of aboriginal and settler societies. Along with the usual political, economic and cultural difficulties involved in such an undertaking, healing the damage done by two centuries of wanton destruction will require confronting both overt prejudice and covert bigotry.

Preparing for this aspect of any holistic enterprise demands the dedication of academic abilities outside the realm of conventional scholarly involvement.

Determining Dialogue

2010-09-30T10:32:00.000-07:00

The limited focus by the state of Chile on development dialogue for indigenous territories is disrespectful toward the inherent owners dispossessed by Chilean colonialism, and is an impediment to plurinationalism. As a signatory to ILO Convention 169, as well as to the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, the Chilean government displays a remarkable state of ignorance, an ignorance that, says Milka Castro, professor of legal anthropology and interculturalism at the University of Chile law school, is intentionally cultivated. As anthropology professor Jose Bengoa notes, "Mapuche people are seeking a different relationship with Chilean society...What they want is a process of decolonization".

Perilous Passage

2010-09-28T13:07:00.000-07:00

In their video From Tar Sands to Tankers, Green Planet Productions examines the perilous passage of the proposed Enbridge pipeline, a project that would turn Northern British Columbia into The Land of What Used To Be.

Culture War

2010-09-26T13:36:00.000-07:00

The purpose of putting down hippies by both conservative and liberal pundits is to undermine the values of conservation, cooperation and reciprocity. If hippies are against war, then peace is bad. If hippies are against profit, then cooperatives, community clinics and credit unions are bad. If hippies are against nuclear power, then alternative energies are bad. Hippie values existed before hippie lifestyles, and they -- not fads -- are what the culture war is all about.

Everything Must Die

2010-09-25T16:44:00.000-07:00

American civilization is dying, our culture in the process of becoming.

Gaming the System

2010-09-23T08:47:00.000-07:00

Some US presidents retire to their privileged haunts never to be heard from again, others engage in humanitarian enterprises. For William Jefferson Clinton, who like his political party's successor is the ultimate opportunist, gaming the system is an avocation that continues to be wildly profitable.

But while Clinton and Obama both enjoy the privileges bought and paid for by Goldman Sachs and other Wall Street houses of ill repute, Clinton has parleyed his connections to include some of the most brutal dictators and corrupt entrepreneurs on the planet. Living in the lap of luxury at the expense of tyrants who boil their political opponents alive may not trouble Bill, but they should be a source of concern for his U.S. Secretary of State spouse.

Leaving aside for the moment the gargantuan conflicts of interest illustrated by Hillary's position of power and how Bill is using it to profit handsomely, a quick look at the activities of the Clinton Foundation should be enough to show where his motives lie. The recent teaming up with Shell and Chevron on the REDD initiative pretty much says it all.

They Own You

2010-09-15T08:17:00.000-07:00

Akin to the workshop floor color-coded teams, the Democrats, Republicans, and Tea Partiers compete within the rules laid down by their owners; in the end, it doesn't matter how many teams the corporate aristocracy has, as long as they perpetuate the myth of competitive democracy. As in capitalist-sponsored activism, if you take their money, they own you.

The Problems with Prostitution

2010-08-16T17:26:00.000-07:00

As the property of one of the most savage criminal enterprises on the planet, the vast majority of prostitutes worldwide are little more than brutalized slaves. Proponents of prostitution as "sex work" thus immerse themselves in promoting some very dangerous fairy tales about the industry. For readers who want the plain truth about prostitution and what can be done to stop this institutionalized violence against women and children, there are fortunately some trustworthy authorities who've actually produced solid research, rather than sugarcoated suppositions.

Theory Versus Reality by Melissa Farley (inseparability of prostitution and trafficking)

Transnational Criminal Networks by Phil Williams (prostitution as organized crime portfolio)

Caucasian Monaco

2010-08-11T19:10:00.000-07:00

Balcani e Caucaso looks at Abkazhia, the Caucasian country on the coast of the Black Sea, a stateless nation with a long relationship to Mediterranean culture.

Kenya Constitution

2010-08-11T09:29:00.000-07:00

Kenya joins Bolivia in changing its constitution to promote the rights of indigenous peoples.

Irrevocably Corroded

2010-08-04T10:27:00.000-07:00

Electronic Intifada reports on ethnic cleansing in the Negev. As Israeli Defense Forces and police test new methods of breaking the will of Bedouin villagers -- whose land claims have been tied up in court for half a century -- Jewish settlers cheer on the destruction of Bedouin homes.

As Israeli citizens living outside the occupied territories of Gaza and the West Bank, the Bedouin are in some ways more vulnerable to malicious harassment. Just last week, Jewish college students at summer camp went on a day trip to vandalize Bedouin properties.

Given the recent development of atrocity tourism sponsored by the State of Israel, one has to ask if Israeli culture has become irrevocably corroded.

Indigenous Statement

2010-07-22T11:20:00.000-07:00

Global Indigenous Peoples Caucus comments on UNDRIP progress via the Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples at the UN Human Rights Commission.

Fourth World Ambience

2010-07-21T09:14:00.000-07:00

While the Fourth World is popularly perceived as pastoral and nomadic hunter-gatherers, Fourth World political entities are also comprised of modern indigenous economies, still governed by the law of generosity. Generosity being the essential attitude that generates Fourth World cultural ambience, the abiding principles of Fourth World societies are conservation, cooperation and reciprocity. As such, primitivism per se is not a prerequisite to inclusion in the Fourth World, while indigeneity is.

Mirjam Hirch

2010-07-19T13:21:00.000-07:00

At the IUHPE 2010 world conference on health promotion last week, CWIS fellow Mirjam Hirch presented a paper on traditional knowledge and self-determination in indigenous mental health. In 2009, at the Traditional Medicine conference in Peru, Ms. Hirch presented on the topic of the revitalization of culture and traditional medicine to cure mental illness in indigenous tribes of the US Pacific Northwest.

Atayal

2010-07-13T10:15:00.000-07:00

Voices in the Clouds, a short video about reconnecting with indigenous roots, rediscovers Atayal.

Learning to Communicate

2010-07-12T09:51:00.000-07:00

The primary function of a center for communication is learning to present ideas and information in the most effective format applicable to a targeted audience. Students learn by doing projects they select and design within the framework of supervised genres of presentation, including exposes, occasional papers, white papers, investigative reports, and intelligence estimates.

Using expert researchers, analysts and journalists as guest instructors, advisors, and distance-learning faculty, students are mentored on how to plan a project, conduct the research, write up the results, and disseminate their analysis in varying formats for different venues. These skills are then built on in studies, seminars, and exercises designed to examine the uses of communication devices, in which students create products based on the information acquired in their initial research project.

*from Continuity

Adversarial Journalism

2010-07-06T17:16:00.000-07:00

In IJOC 2010's Investigating Chilling Effects, Andrew T. Kenyon examines the relationships between independence, resistance, dissent, and adversarial journalism in Malaysia, Singapore, and Australia. Noting the role the Internet plays in overcoming the chilling effect of defamation law, Kenyon looks at how political criticism, governance, corruption, and crime are treated as topics by civil society and political opposition in independent media. If, as Kenyon asserts, the Internet is responsible for facilitating offline political expression and action, then Internet control measures sought by governments worldwide are a serious threat to public freedom.

Sex For Sale

2010-06-28T10:30:00.000-07:00

There is no such thing as a well-regulated, safe, sex worker industry anywhere in the world; violence and trafficking by transnational criminal networks do not go away with legalization, they just become more difficult to stop. The industry is run by some of the most ruthless, murderous elements of organized crime on earth, and they are never going to willingly relinquish control of the women and children they brutalize daily for huge financial reward. Expanding the industry through legalization will only make them and the politicians they own richer.

Inuit Initiative

2010-06-14T10:24:00.000-07:00

We are open to constructive dialogue with the governments and the companies as long as our cultural, economic, social, environmental and spiritual aspirations are respected.

--Innu Strategic Alliance

Anke Weisheit

2010-06-08T15:59:00.000-07:00

If you think food, medicine, and indigenous knowledge are serious subjects, then you might be interested in the work of CWIS Associate Scholar, Anke Weisheit. Anke is clearly someone who makes things happen.

Obstacle to Change

2010-06-07T10:37:00.000-07:00

It is no secret that the United States government has been an obstacle to indigenous peoples’ direct participation in the global Climate Change treaty negotiations. A principal reason for US obstructionism has been it’s 34-year long opposition to the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

The Center for World Indigenous Studies, National Congress of American Indians, Indian Law Resource Center and other indigenous organizations in the US and several tribal leaders have urged the Obama administration for more than a year to change it’s position and endorse UNDRIP. The Center for World Indigenous Studies position has been that the US cannot in its domestic legislation nor in its positions internationally responsibly advance policies to mitigate and adapt to the adverse affects of climate change unless and until it fully embraces the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

The US government could quickly change the dynamics and stalled mess that is now passing as climate change negotiations with an affirmative endorsement of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples this summer. Then as swiftly, the US government must begin considering implementation legislation that fulfills the promise of this important document.

--Rudolph C. Ryser, Chair, Center for World Indigenous Studies

Democracy Is A Process

2010-05-24T09:47:00.000-07:00

The common thread of these affinity groups is, of course, pro-democracy. Creating or defending democracy requires researchers, analysts, and activists; sustaining their work requires organization.

Having filled one or more of these roles over the last forty years, I've noticed the most successful organizations institute respect for each, and devote adequate time to discussing strategy as well as tactics. Unfortunately, the lack of political infrastructure to recruit, socialize, and nurture leadership development often puts us in the position of watching our best and brightest drop by the wayside through isolation and attrition.

Archived memory and informal mentoring help, but these networks of organizations and individuals would benefit immensely from a politically-oriented association that could offer ongoing support to those who want to mix it up in the streets, the courts, and the halls of power. Democracy is a process, not an event.

Unrealized Dreams

2010-05-21T11:34:00.000-07:00

As Tom Goldtooth of the Indigenous Environmental Network observes, leadership on protecting Mother Earth is emerging from indigenous communities and their movement associates in civil society. Opposed to this movement is the United Nations, its member states, and the transnational corporations engaged in corrupting them. What Tom has not discussed, are the transitional steps required to transform this movement into a working political system that has the capacity to translate the aspirations of its participants into the power necessary for sustainable social change.

Dispersing global political power into a democratic framework that respects Mother Earth, indigenous peoples, and humanity itself already has a common spiritual foundation; building the political infrastructure that can recruit, socialize and nurture leadership able to successfully challenge the entrenched corruption now destroying Mother Earth is a vital corollary to the community activism underway.

As the indigenous elders and others have said, it is holistic governance we need and seek; until we accomplish that, global conservation, reciprocity, and generosity remain unrealized dreams.

Paying Attention

2010-04-15T18:22:00.000-07:00

Erika Larsen photographs Sami.

Checking In

2010-04-06T19:18:00.000-07:00

The Urban Aboriginal Peoples Study plans to take a look at how indigenous people in Canada's cities are doing, and where they're heading. As over half the native population of Canada, that might mean something.

Battles in Seattles

2010-04-05T08:51:00.000-07:00

Last fall, on the tenth anniversary of the Battle in Seattle, many journalists explored the meaning of the event commemorating the democratic uprising against global privatization. Perhaps unmentioned during this celebration was the 1st Battle in Seattle, otherwise known as the Puget Sound Indian War, which took place between indigenous tribes like the Muckleshoot and white settlers in the 1850s. Since my mother and I were both born in Muckleshoot territory on Seattle's Lake Washington shore, the resurgence of Salish tribal culture and its enduring participation in the fight for freedom from privatization continue to intrigue me.

Man Made Disaster

2010-03-31T12:25:00.000-07:00

Violence and misery in America is not an act of god; it is an Act of Congress.

Disrupting the Status Quo

2010-03-21T12:40:00.000-07:00

Civil disobedience, sabotage, armed rebellion--these are some of the ways of disrupting the status quo. All revolutions require it. Without it, there would not have been a United States of America, a Civil Rights Movement, an end to Apartheid in South Africa, or a soon-to-be reunified Ireland.

Restitution

2010-03-20T19:38:00.000-07:00

Reviving Our Culture, Mapping Our Future, a film about a gathering of indigenous leaders from South Africa, Russia, and the Amazon, offers a road map for restitution.

Colonialism v Indigenism

2010-03-15T09:43:00.000-07:00

Ecology, economics, governance, freedom--it's all connected. We are either destructive or constructive in these relationships. Colonialism, by definition, destroys indigenism. Which side are you on?

Rights of Indigenous Peoples

2010-03-14T12:53:00.000-07:00

The extension of citizenship rights to peoples that have been dispossessed and subsumed by the very States that are granting these rights is simply a form of internal colonialism. Indeed, citizenship is often associated with nation building and state legitimacy and, in fact, makes no sense outside of the framework of the nation-state. Human rights on the other hand are extra-governmental and have been traditionally used to counteract the repressive capacity of states. It is for this reason that indigenous peoples have accepted the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples as an articulation of their rights, as opposed to the citizenship rights imposed on them by the settler state.

--Damien Short Reconciliation, Assimilation, and the Indigenous Peoples of Australia

A Socialist Republic

2010-03-09T11:04:00.000-08:00

Americans might be able to secure socialist concessions from the two capitalist political parties, but it isn't very likely. Social Security was only garnered under the threat of mass insurrection against the capitalists that caused the Great Depression. Securing universal health care, housing vouchers, and free college education is not going to happen until we elect enough socialists to Congress.

In the meantime, withdrawing support from the capitalist parties and giving our support to socialist parties and candidates will give them the voice they need to push our two-party capitalist state toward a multi-party socialist republic.

A Policy of Genocide

2010-03-02T10:38:00.000-08:00

The British settlers in the 13 North American colonies were organized into militias during the century and a half before those militias united into an army that established the independent United States. The militias had only one function: Kill Indians or drive them away in order to take their land.

Actually, the British authorities attempted to limit the settlers’ incursion on Indian lands, particularly following the Treaty of Paris that ended the “French-Indian” war (7 Years War in Europe) in 1760, when the British agreed to a line marking its colonial holdings along the coast and agreed to prevent settlement beyond the Appalachian/Allegheny mountain chain, leaving the rest of the continent as Indian Country. This was one of the primary reasons for the settlers’ decision to separate from Britain to form their own continental empire.

By the time of the War of Independence, tens of thousands of settlers illegally crossed the mountain barrier into the Ohio Valley. Those settlers, mostly Scots-Irish, formed the backbone of the army of independence led by George Washington, himself a lifelong colonial officer. This kind of colonial warfare formed the purpose and goals of the U.S. military after independence, what historian William Appleman Williams called a policy of “annihilation unto unconditional surrender,” a policy that has remained in effect. This is by definition a policy of genocide.

--Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz

Indigenous Therapeutics

2010-02-25T13:05:00.000-08:00

Randolph Bowers discusses Indigenous Therapeutics as a response to ongoing colonial practices.

Murder and Theft

2010-02-24T12:42:00.000-08:00

Murder and theft are big business on Wall Street, and if one looks at almost any sector of financial investment, murder and theft aren't hard to find. Sometimes it's as obvious as the war and energy industries, other times it's as obscure as banking and health. The invisibility of murder and theft on a global scale is aided by media that portrays this official US policy as defense and development. Nevertheless, if one examines the situations where this policy is deployed by US troops, advisors and mercenaries, murder and theft is the only conclusion an honest person can reach.

As the Obama Administration perpetuates this policy of murder and theft on behalf of the industries it represents, the lives of indigenous peoples worldwide will be on the conscience of every American citizen, even if their blood is not literally on their hands.

Theft as Social Norm

2010-02-10T11:03:00.000-08:00

Self-reliance and solidarity are good, but self-determination cannot be realized as long as theft is allowed to reign as the supreme social norm.

An Age of Treachery

2010-02-04T20:19:00.000-08:00

It wasn't merely the thuggery and thievery that signaled a sea change for the new century that already seems old and tired from abuse. The impunity that now permeates most social institutions and relationships stems from a long permutation of values once paid lip service by brokers and bagmen of multiple political persuasions. That now, in our exhaustion, defines an age of treachery that threatens to take root in our hearts and minds, as untreatable disease takes hold in a time of wanton pharmaceutical misuse. An age of treachery we are want to abandon but cannot find method to mangle.

Vast Empire Constituency

2010-02-03T10:10:00.000-08:00

When Palestinian filmmaker Elia Suleiman remarked recently that,"The powers that are trying to shrink our aspiration for democracy are greater than our imagination", I was reminded of an observation by American author Jerry Sanders: "How deeply militarism is rooted in America's political culture must rank as the most profound question of our time". Twenty-seven years after Sanders wrote Peddlers of Crisis, that question remains.

At the time, Sanders referred to the vast empire constituency of the liberal/conservative alliance that ruled the US, what some have since termed the progressive/fascist alliance. Even with the rise of the ameliorationists, responding to the Madison Avenue campaign for hope and change, the assumptions of militarism as America's favored form of diplomacy have gone largely unchallenged.

As America's politically-correct progressives wrestle with the dichotomy of another imperial presidency, marketed as both main street's Messiah and the torchbearer of Reagan's legacy, the failure of our imagination takes on apocalyptic proportions.

Credibility

2010-01-27T13:28:00.000-08:00

Given Obama's full spectrum betrayal of the American people, widespread religious hysteria, economic panic and social vengeance are probably inevitable. If progressives want to offer a credible alternative, they have to attack the neoliberal state's anti-democratic agenda that Obama has embraced wholeheartedly.

Indigenous Report

2010-01-15T10:36:00.000-08:00

State of the World's Indigenous Peoples, a new report by the UN, notes that the extreme poverty of indigenous peoples on all continents is directly related to their loss of lands, often taken illegally by private interests backed by state authorities. In places like Colombia and Peru, says the report, those authorities augment official violence against indigenous peoples with that of paramilitaries.

Integrity on the Agenda

2010-01-13T12:36:00.000-08:00

No improvements in our lives will happen until we put integrity on the agenda.

State Breakdown

2010-01-09T19:15:00.000-08:00

One of the things we'll be dealing with more as our state breaks down amid religious hysteria and economic despair, is irrational, even sociopathic behavior as an almost normal phenomenon. Persecution complexes will abound. Petty bickering, up close personal conflict and domestic disputes, indeed, are already escalating exponentially.

Holding Canada Accountable

2009-12-28T18:34:00.000-08:00

Intercontinental Cry offers an excellent briefing on human rights and environmental abuses by Canadian corporations.

Jerusalem Injustice

2009-12-22T17:37:00.000-08:00

Jamal Juma arrested in Jerusalem. Mohammad Othman and Abdullah Abu Rahmeh detained without charges.

Character

2009-12-11T09:39:00.000-08:00

The pervading premise that economic failure reflects an individual character flaw is beginning to crack.

Reawakening

2009-12-04T10:33:00.000-08:00

As government delegates from around the world gather next week in Copenhagen for UN climate change talks, they will be greeted by an Indigenous peoples film festival, comprising a collection of videos on what is happening to them as a result of carbon-consuming societies.

Four Eras of Humankind

2009-12-01T13:40:00.000-08:00

The four eras of humankind might be denoted as such: wild, natural, toxic, and extinct.

Primary Purpose

2009-11-25T10:05:00.000-08:00

While I occasionally partake of news items from the Irish Times, New York Times, or Times of London, I am aware that the primary purpose of such institutional publications is to promote the philosophy that the rich deserve their privileges, and that the poor deserve their punishment. Everything else is just entertainment to keep the ad and subscription revenue flowing.

Application to Destroy

2009-11-19T11:23:00.000-08:00

In uncharacteristically forthright language, a German mining corporation has applied to the Australian Department of Indigenous Affairs for approval to destroy aboriginal sacred sites and archeological artifacts of the Nyoongar people. Petroglyphs, ancient shelters and ceremonial grounds, pure streams, and dreaming sites are some of the cultural items slated for destruction by the cement manufacturer.

To counter the Nyoongar claims, the corporation has hired an overtly racist anthropologist to dispute the legitimacy of Nyoongar knowledge, identity and culture.

American Power Trip

2009-11-18T10:06:00.000-08:00

Black Agenda Report examines the American power trip in Somalia that threatens to ignite widespread war in East Africa.

Exercising Hereditary Governance

2009-11-09T09:40:00.000-08:00

The Gitxsan of northwest British Columbia propose an unusual solution to land claims.

They Call Me Yossarian

2009-10-26T08:55:00.000-07:00

They call me Yossarian because I'm caught in a Catch-22. Disabled but employable with accommodation is the official designation, but benefits are terminated if I fail to make three job applications a day, five days a week. Aside from the fact there are no jobs for someone who can only work two hours a day and cannot commute, I haven't the strength nor endurance to dance through this bureaucratic hoop for a day, let alone a week--week after week, year after year.

But that is what Catch-22 is designed for, to make the impossible mandatory, thereby ridding the system of those who are entitled without repealing entitlements. I am, however, entitled to a fair hearing with counsel.

They call me Yossarian.

Tool of Conquest

2009-10-20T12:06:00.000-07:00

Imperialism is capitalism in action. The corporation is a tool of conquest.

The Great Rift

2009-10-12T17:42:00.000-07:00

A Thousand Suns: food, ecology, and religions in the 21st century explores the conflict between corporate Christianity and indigenous peoples in the African Rift Valley, the place where humankind began.

Legitimacy

2009-10-02T08:41:00.001-07:00

Native American tribes and other indigenous forms of governance worldwide today have indeed struggled to overcome genocide, assimilation, and incorporation in maintaining their societies. The cosmopolitan nature of the world indigenous peoples' movement, as they band together to confront globalization and privatization through venues at the UN and elsewhere, is the result of studiously raising consciousness about the unfairness of state-centric standards of the original international human rights regime. As they prepare to challenge the UN member states over such issues as climate change, the indigenous peoples greatest strength is legitimacy, something many governing state entities lack.

Routine Mundane Function

2009-09-26T10:26:00.000-07:00

The merger of state and market, in the era of consolidated mass communication, allows for institutional control with minimal need to resort to force. Low level harassment of dissenters, made possible by fusion data centers, makes civil rights violations by police a routine, mundane law enforcement function. Already disinclined (by state-approved education and the carpet-bombing of advertising) to question authority, American consumers are unlikely to look for alternative interpretations of reality, especially if they are nearly invisible.

As fundamental forms of social organization, institutions (church and state) and markets wield considerably more control of most societies than tribes and networks. While not monolithic, the state and market do have near monopolies over finance and communications through control of key centers of power. Perspectives that contest their agendas of privatization and globalization are thus relatively easy to exclude or smother. One of the reasons the world indigenous peoples' movement (and other anti-globalization players) have had to deploy spectacular initiatives.

We won't, of course, hear anything from Secretary Clinton or President Obama about globalization, the main engine driving poverty and displacement in the developing world. Free Trade is neocolonial theft, globalization is mass murder, and the Obama/Clinton team are leading both.

Craker Care

2009-09-09T22:16:00.000-07:00

Obama has steered health care into the ditch. Listening to bamababies defend his betrayal, you'd think the global microbial and viral plagues -- looming on the horizon as a result of Free Trade and privatization -- were science fiction, rather than epidemics already underway in regions where public health has collapsed. In this, the bamababies remind me of the innocent, wide-eyed Crakers, fictional characters created by Margaret Atwood in her novel Oryx and Crake.

Presidential PR

2009-09-06T18:00:00.000-07:00

Removal of the unusual and exclusion of the non-conforming is the primary purpose of state-sponsored education. Obama’s commitment to privatizing public education is an endorsement of indoctrinating American youth with the neoliberal, imperial, militarist viewpoint. This isn’t brainwashing per se, but it is propaganda, and it is oriented toward marginalizing those who question authority, even if it isn’t forbidden. And goodness knows, Obama’s owners have invested a lot in promoting a cult-like atmosphere around his candidacy and presidency. Still, if he wants to address America’s children, fine, as long as his message isn’t the final word.

Denuding the Amazon

2009-09-05T16:58:00.000-07:00

As the Peruvian, Ecuadoran, and Colombian governments practice pro-privatization neoliberalism in pursuit of denuding the Amazon, the support of the United States is crucial in defeating the indigenous peoples defending their collective rights. Recent assurance from the Obama regime to Colombia's brutal President Uribe, has made it clear that international human rights instruments will be trampled on as US corporations rip apart the Amazon landscape for minerals, oil and timber, leaving behind nothing but an environmental wasteland and mass graves filled with natives.

With this militarization of social conflict under Free Trade of the Americas, the construction of plurinational states in the Andes and Amazon -- states where indigenous human rights are protected -- is now on hold while the indigenous organizations prepare for self-defense against invasion by US-backed militaries and mercenaries.

Meanwhile, states like Peru continue with a political process that is cumulatively degrading the rights of indigenous peoples until they are wiped out of their country's legal framework. Having murdered thousands of indigenous inhabitants of the region in recent years, the prospects for successful dialogue are as remote as the native villages now being razed by Free Trade.

Given Notice

2009-09-04T19:50:00.000-07:00

Indigenous leaders in the Peruvian Amazon have "evicted" a Canadian mining company, as well as given notice to oil and timber companies to leave their territory. With the Peruvian government handing out these concessions without the indigenous owners' consent, military and paramilitary violence is expected to escalate.

State Idolatry

2009-09-04T19:31:00.000-07:00

The official obsession with terrorism has encouraged an hysterical idolatry of state power and absurd sanctification of the forces of law and order.
--Hans Magnus Enzensberger

Black Reagan

2009-09-03T14:41:00.000-07:00

Black Reagan is no FDR. Kiss health care goodbye.

Which Side Are You On?

2009-08-28T17:54:00.000-07:00

Was sabotage against the Nazi occupation across Europe immoral? Of course not. Against the Soviet occupation of Eastern Europe and Central Asia? Don't be silly. So how about sabotage against corporations despoiling the environment while stealing indigenous peoples' resources at gunpoint? Are they not entitled to defend themselves? This is the question we will be asking more often, as armies, police, and vigilantes are mobilized to massacre aboriginal peoples on all continents for every last drop of oil, water, gas and coal.

Which side are you on?

Right to Communicate

2009-08-16T17:42:00.000-07:00

Maya community radio fights for right to communicate in Guatemala.

Undermining Sovereignty

2009-08-12T14:43:00.000-07:00

Arturo Rosales reports on the Obama regime's efforts to undermine state sovereignty in Latin America. Corollary to this rejuvenated US imperialism are programs like USAID and NED, used to fund attacks on indigenous self-determination under the guise of the War on Drugs and War on Terror. In clear violation of international humanitarian law, and in direct opposition to the EU, UN, and Organization of American States, the Obama Administration is launching military initiatives in Colombia especially to counter the continent's tide of democracy that swept away the former array of US puppet dictators.

Politics of Medicine

2009-08-03T09:46:00.000-07:00

August 2009 issue of Himal magazine looks at the politics of medicine in South Asia.

Welcome Nationalia

2009-07-30T17:06:00.000-07:00

Welcome Nationalia, online news about stateless nations.

Attacking Tribalism

2009-07-26T12:02:00.000-07:00

In the ongoing conflict between industrial and indigenous societies, it is helpful to remember who initially attacked whom. Conflict resolution requires acknowledging past wrongs by making amends in the present. Until industrial societies stop attacking tribal peoples, nothing fundamental can be achieved by international institutions.

Sold Out

2009-07-25T13:04:00.000-07:00

Sayed Dhansay examines why South Africa has sold out its Palestinian brothers during their hour of need.