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Indigenous
Rights
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"We are all indigenous people on this planet,
and we have to reorganize to get along."
-- Rebecca
Adamson
For
Indigenous people, the goal for our land is definitely
about protection, but it’s also about use. We see
ourselves as so integrated with our territory that
our protection is tied to our use and our use is tied
to our protection. We use the resources on our territory
to live.
-- Rebecca
Adamson
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In every
Indigenous community I’ve been in, they absolutely do want
community infrastructure and they do want development, but
they want it on their own terms. They want to be able to
use their national resources and their assets in a way that
protects and sustains them. Our territories are our wealth,
the major assets we have. And Indigenous people use and
steward this property so that they can achieve and maintain
a livelihood, and achieve and maintain that same livelihood
for future generations.’
-- Rebecca
Adamson
In Indian
country, we should probably insist, first off, that our
ancestors have never gotten the credit they deserve from
this country for surviving. Survival wasn't as easy then
as it seems now, and they never would have made it if they'd
spent centuries wandering in a daze until they came across
a dead buffalo beside a cold spring, with a lightning strike
for fire somewhere in the background. To the contrary, tribes
cooperated with and among each other on everything from
buffalo hunts to the fish catch and crop harvests, none
of which could have happened if our tribes had not known
all about self-governance.
-- Rebecca
Adamson
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When
European explorers 'discovered' lands on the other
continents, there were already people living there.
All too often the explorers took the land away from
the native or indigenous peoples and either killed
them or suppressed them. In many cases, the native
languages and cultures were suppressed and the natives
were forced to adopt Western ways. Unfortunately,
this isn't just a thing of the past -- many indigenous
peoples and their cultures are still threatened today.
-- Robert
Alan Silverstein
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Since the beginning, Native Peoples lived a life of
being in harmony with all that surrounds us. It is a
belief that all humankind are related to each other.
Each has a purpose, spirit and sacredness. It is an
understanding with the Great Spirit or Creator that
we will follow these ways. And in this understanding
we believe we are related to all other living species...
-- Dennis
Banks |
Although
wrongs have been done me I live in hope. I have not
got two hearts… Now we are together again to make peace.
My shame is as big as the earth, although I will do
what my friends advise me to do. I once thought that
I was the only man that persevered to be the friend
of the white man, but since they have come and cleaned
out our lodges, horses, and everything else, it is hard
for me to believe white men anymore.
-- Chief
Black Kettle |
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The
native American has been generally despised by his
white conquerors for his poverty and simplicity. They
forget, perhaps, that his religion forbade the accumulation
of wealth and the enjoyment of luxury... Furthermore,
it was the rule of his life to share the fruits of
his skill and success with his less fortunate brothers.
Thus he kept his spirit free from the clog of pride,
cupidity, or envy, and carried out, as he believed,
the divine decree—a matter profoundly important to
him.
-- Charles
Eastman (Ohiyesa)
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If
people lose their land, they have nothing. You lose
your land -- you lose your culture, you lose self.
-- Richard
Gere |
[C]ivilization
has ceased to be that delicate flower which was preserved
and painstakingly cultivated in one or two sheltered areas
of a soil rich in wild species […] Mankind has opted for
monoculture; it is in the process of creating a mass civilization,
as beetroot is grown in the mass. Henceforth, man's daily
bill of fare will consist only of this one item.
-- Claude Levi-Strauss
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*
Drawing
from the tragic lessons of nuclear atrocities experienced
by the Indigenous Peoples we recognize that the testing,
development and use of nuclear weapons is a crime
against all humanitarian law…
-- Hilda
Lini
Let
us learn from nuclear radiation victims and prevent
history from repeating itself.
-- Hilda
Lini
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The
role of globalization is to homogenize all cultures,
and to turn them into commodified markets, and therefore,
to make them easier for global corporations to control.
Global corporations are even now trying to commodify
all remaining aspects of national cultures, not to
mention indigenous cultures.
-- Jerry
Mander
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"I
want to be remembered as the person who helped us
restore faith in ourselves."
-- Wilma
Mankiller
"One
of the things my parents taught me, and I'll always
be grateful for the gift, is to not ever let anybody
else define me."
-- Wilma
Mankiller
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I think the most important issue we have as a people
is what we started, and that is to begin to trust
our own thinking again and belive in ourselves enough
to think that we can articulate our own vision of
the future and then work to make sure that that vision
becomes a reality.
-- Wilma
Mankiller
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We are not myths of the past, ruins in the jungle,
or zoos. We are people and we want to be respected,
not to be victims of intolerance and racism.
-- Rigoberta
Menchu, Guatemala Nobel Peace Prize Winner, 1992
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Any
journey of 1,000 miles begins with a single step. The
collision of short and long food chains strategies are
at the basis of our current crisis. Indigenous peoples
living on their ancestral lands can help industrialized
countries by living in a sustainable manner (not the
contrary). If we destroy their environments and communities,
we will lose the answers they have to solving our problems,
and to the protection of our common futures. The most
complex nuclear power station is less important than
a tropical tree, and the most simple and sustainable
answer more useful than any National Library.
--
Raúl
Montenegro
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"Throughout
the world today there is a gowing awareness of the failings
of the Western model of development and a corresponding
desire to look for more human-scale, ecological ways
of living. If Ladakh now succeeds in creating for itself
a future which retains the foundations of its traditional
past, it will be an inspiring example of how all the
various elements of an ecological future fit together."
-- Helena
Norberg-Hodge |
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"We
are now facing a difficult situation in Peru, where
there are attempts to cut back the territorial rights
of the indigenous peoples, including moves to divide,
fragment and privatise our communal organisations.
Now more than ever, it is a matter of urgency for
us to consolidate our own indigenous alternatives
for development."
-- Evaristo
Nugkuag Ikanan
The
forest is not a resource for us, it is life itself.
It is the only place for us to live.
--
Evaristo
Nugkuag Ikanan
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My
experience in living and working with indigenous people
has given me the hope that I have - they have taught
me concretely that humans have the capacity to be
marvelous, and not destructive.
--Juan Pablo Orrego
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All
the issues that we face are connected. Worldwide,
ecosystems are being destroyed, and indigenous peoples
are losing their homelands and their entire way of
life.
~
Ocean
Robbins
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I
guess you could say that we indigenous peoples are
on the verge of turning it all upside down."
-- Pauline
Tangiora
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Indigenous
peoples have the right to maintain and strengthen their
distinct political, economic, social and cultural characteristics,
as well as their legal systems, while retaining their rights
to participate fully, if they so choose, in the political,
economic, social and cultural life of the State.
-- Article 4, from Draft Universal Declaration on the Rights
of Indigenous Peoples (1993)
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