File spoon-archives/marxism-international.archive/marxism-international_1998/marxism-international.9802, message 232


Subject: M-I: indigenous peoples
Date: Sat, 14 Feb 1998 10:45:40 -0500 (EST)
From: "hoov" <hoov-AT-freenet.tlh.fl.us>


below is reposting of comments I sent to m-i in January...I think they
are apropos re: current threads on "indigenismo"...Michael Hoover

> indigenous people are the descendents of the (original?) inhabitants of
> lands that today form the territories of nation-states...many of these
> lands were taken and settled by force...so indigenes are "marked" not
> only as aboriginal & culturally distinct, but as colonized...
> 
> the key claim for most indigenous people is land...are claims to any
> territory retained & to winning back areas lost legitimate?...if so,
> how/where do indigenes make them?...courts which administer alien laws
> & are usually partial to the dominant culture?...political
> representation which requires particular kinds of resources?...
> withdrawal of labor which represents a limited economic threat?...
> soliciting "sympathy" for their plight among the general populace?...
> attempting to embarrass & shame state & wealth makers?
> 
> if indigenous peoples' claims are legitimate, definitional shifts
> must occur...important conceptual questions cannot be the domain of
> state/wealth makers (colonizers) because their interests are state/
> corporate control over all that nation-state borders enclose -
> including mineral commodities and other development resources on
> indigene lands...the political language involved must change in ways
> that acknowledge/respect rights to self-definition & self-
> identification...such rights work to preserve culture, language &
> customary law - a people losing its language is condemned to death...
> but are state constraints too severe to expect indigenous peoples'
> causes to gain significance?...and if state/wealth makers cannot
> successfully obliterate them (culturally and/or physically), can they
> control them by fetishizing them and making curiousities out of them?...
> 
> rights talk - for which there is now a fairly well-developed language
> ranging from the Convention on the Protection of Indigenous & Tribal
> Peoples to the Universal Declaration on Indigenous Rights - itself
> is problematic...questions about human rights doctrine: who is it for
> and what does it say?...no external authority exists to sanction such
> rights...certain customs/traditions in indigenous cultures violate
> human rights...
> 
> contrary to conventional expectations about the assimilationist effects
> of modernization and changing modes of production, indigenous peoples
> remain...ironically, state/wealth makers have contributed to this as
> indigenes have become aware of their own collective identity in the
> face of the one (fill in name of nation-state) they are told to have...


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