by DGR News Service | Oct 9, 2020 | Indigenous Autonomy, Listening to the Land
This piece comes from the Karuk Tribe, a nation located in what is today northern California and Southern Oregon, along the Klamath River. This piece shares Karuk cultural teachings around socio-ecology. We publish this with gratitide to the Karuk Tribal Department of Natural Resources Pikyav Field Institute, which is currently raising funds to support their land restoration and cultural revitalization initiatives.
Socio-Ecological first vs. Socio-Economic first
by Karuk Tribe Department of Natural Resources / Pikyav Field Institute
What are these perspectives and how are they different? Both approaches intend to enhance the health and well-being of ourselves, our communities, our ecosystems, and our economies, but they go about it in different ways – based on different priorities.
Socio-Ecological First
The core belief with socio-ecology is that we (humans) are intimately connected to and a part of our ecosystem (i.e. socio-ecosystem).
There is an emphasis on balancing and enhancing human-ecosystems, interactions and ecosystem dynamics and an understanding that resilient abundant economies rest on a
resilient socio-ecological foundation.
Resilient Abundance here means having healthy human communities, diverse and abundant economic opportunities, diverse and frequent ways people interact with the ecosystem.
In addition, we should have diverse and plentiful reproducing animal and plant populations; plentiful high quality air and water and thriving mycorrhizal networks; etc.
Socio-Ecological Management
What does it look like when priority is given to socio-ecology? There is Socio-ecological-economic integration. Many people work in natural resource-related fields because of the complexity of ecosystem management. This includes, for example ecosystem stewardship such as thinning, burning and herd management. There is frequent, regular monitoring of and interaction with the ecosystem and species. There is alignment of ecological and economic benefits.
The indigenous stewardship ethic is that resources (e.g. fruits, nuts, meat, fish, fuel, fibers) are not harvested for trade unless
1) Their habitat has been managed such that they are thriving & reproducing.
2) The local animal and human populations have had their share
What Does This Lead To?
With Socio-Ecological First this leads to interconnection between social, ecological, and economic factors. This results in strong feedback loops between humans and the ecosystems upon which they depend and are part of.
This can result in quicker identification of ecological problems including species in decline, pest/disease outbreaks and negative
impacts of management actions. Prioritising this interconnection can result in more complete ecosystem understanding and thus, more appropriate systemic solutions. There is an increased and increasing interconnection.
Socio-Economy First
The core belief with socio-ecomony is that humans are separate
from the natural world. That natural resources are here for us to use.
There is a strong emphasis on economic and financial Growth as the root of prosperity, happiness, & health.
Resilient Abundance in this context means healthy human communities, diverse and abundant economic opportunities with higher (and higher) profit margins.
The priority is focused on increased (and increasing) gross domestic product (GDP), and an increase in jobs.
Socio-Economic Management
What does it look like when priority is given to socio-economy?
Many people work in entirely socioeconomic fields such as finance, business, accounting, law, policy and/or IT and they live with minimal interaction with the outdoors. There is disconnection between economic and ecological benefits which sets up perverse incentives. This lead to using natural resources in an exploitative manner (e.g. overharvesting).
What Does This Lead To?
With socio-economic first this lead to separation between socio-economic gain and ecological impacts which in turn leads to negative externalities such as pollution, erosion, species extinctions, and an increased risk of pest/disease/high severity fires.
There are more likely to be boom and bust cycles due to the disconnection between ecosystem and human system of supply & demand. These are often addressed with technological fixes rather than systemic solutions, and thus, do not result in long-lasting resilience (the ‘whack-a-mole effect’).
This piece was first published in June 2019 at https://www.karuk.us/images/docs/dnr/Socio%20Economic%20vs%20Socio%20Ecologic_Rossier_Tripp_2019.pdf
by DGR News Service | Jul 26, 2020 | Indigenous Autonomy
The CoViD-19 pandemic is impacting Indigenous peoples across the Americas who are already living under ongoing colonization, have poor access to health care, and suffer disproportionately from pre-existing conditions that compromise the immune system.
by Laura Hobson Herlihy and Daniel Bagheri Sarvestani / Intercontinental Cry
Coronavirus now has spread throughout the Indigenous Americas. The Navajo nation reported over 1,600 cases of COVID-19 and 59 deaths on the largest US reservation, which expands through Arizona, New Mexico, and Utah. Nineteen members of the Afro-indigenous Garifuna people living in New York City have died. The Garifuna are migrants from the Caribbean coast of Central America, hailing from Belize, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua.
South of the U.S. border, iconic groups like the Kakchikel Maya in Guatemala, the Kuna in Panama, and the Yanomami of the Brazilian Amazon all have reported COVID-19 cases. Hugo Tacuri, President of CONAIP (Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Peru), said: “Deaths are not recorded in Latin American cities by ethnicity and minorities are being mixed in with the greater population.” Tacuri said about 10% of the cases in Lima, Peru’s capital, were Quechua people, and a few were from the Amazon.
Native peoples in the early colonial period were decimated by diseases such as smallpox and measles. They lacked immunity to fight disease from outside and from European populations. As if through genetic memory, native peoples began extreme measures of social distancing soon after the coronavirus pandemic was reported in the Americas.
US and Canadian reservations went into lockdown and denied entrance to outsiders. Clément Chartier, leader of the Metís nation in Canada, commented, “we created check points along the road and established curfews.” Amazonian tribes in Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru retreated deeper into the forest. A Brazilian tribe stopped missionaries aboard a helicopter, from entering their rainforest homeland.
Indigenous elders, valued for their knowledge and transmission of cultural ways, language, and traditions, are especially at risk from coronavirus. They pass on stories of past epidemics and the remedies to heal fever and respiratory illness. Indigenous peoples refuse to discard their grandparents and elders. Indeed, they are following their elders’ advice to self-isolate.
The Nicaraguan Caribbean Coast
Countries not preparing for the pandemic stand in violation of Indigenous rights. A recent New York Times article cited Nicaragua as being one of three Latin American nations, along with Mexico and Brazil, to have ignored the pandemic and minimized its seriousness. Nicaragua, however, is one of the poorest nations in the Americas, and cannot afford to shut down its economy. Most Nicaraguans work in the informal economy–if they don’t work, they can’t eat. Nicaragua also has the lowest number of infections and deaths in Latin America: the Nicaraguan Ministry of Health (MINSA) only reports three deaths due to Covid-19.
Nicaragua’s ruling Sandinista regime recently sprang into action, blocking international flights into the Managua Airport, but their borders, businesses, and schools remain open. The Sandinista government now considers mandating rest in place and social distancing, as recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO) to mitigate the spread of COVID-19. The WHO also recognized the difficulty of populations living in poverty to quarantine.
Nicaragua’s most impoverished region, the pluri-ethnic Caribbean coast, is home to the Indigenous Miskitu, Mayangna, Ulwa, and Rama peoples, along with the Afro-descendant Kriols and Afro-indigenous Garifuna. The Caribbean coast ethnic groups are organizing to protect themselves from the virus, partially self-isolating and creating resources shared on social media in their own languages. In the Indigenous capital of Bilwi (pop. 185,000), many people live crowded together in households without running water, plumbing, or electricity. Those dwelling in remote forest communities are unable to reach hospitals.
Afro-descendant populations, like the Kriol and Garifuna in Nicaragua, have the pre-existing medical conditions of diabetes, obesity, and high blood pressure. José Coleman, of the Indigenous Youth Organization of Moskitia—Mark Rivas (MOJIMM), stated that Nicaraguan Indigenous peoples “most commonly suffer from anemia, asthma, and cardiovascular illness.”
Anemia is brought on by malnutrition resulting from their poor diet, high in of carbohydrates and sugar. Amidst settler-colonization, food Insecurity also causes malnutrition within the Nicaraguan forest-dwelling populations. The Miskitu and Mayangna are afraid to leave their homes to go to their fields for subsistence activities. So far in 2020, armed colonists’ attacks have left nine Mayangna leaders and land-defenders dead in Las Minas, the mining region, and the UNESCO-designated Bosawas biosphere reserve.
Nicaragua’s health system is weak on the Caribbean coast. Despite excellent doctors, the Bilwi hospital suffers from a lack of infrastructure and investment–medical technology is antiquated and hospital rooms are hot with no fans or ventilation. The patients’ family members bring them food plates three times a day, similar to the Bilwi prisons.
Overcrowded hospitals, prisons, and markets are particularly concerning for the transmission of coronavirus on the Caribbean coast. The Miskitu and other coastal peoples in Nicaragua brace themselves for the impending epidemic.
Health Disparities and Indigenous Peoples Rights
Indigenous peoples have comparatively poor access to national health care systems, and suffer disproportionately from comorbidities, that is, pre-existing conditions or health-related complications that compromise the immune system.
In Canada, First Nations communities have a lower life expectancy and much higher mortality rates due to infant deaths and physical injuries. Indigenous youth are far more likely to experience psychological and emotional health complications, including chronic depression, all factors that are contributing to a suicide rate that is far higher among First Nation communities than the general population.
Central American Indigenous territories are subject to increasing encroachment from mestizo settlers and multinational industries causing water pollution and land degradation. In Honduras, food and water insecurity are sighted as the leading social determinants of health disparities, as illegal operations and mestizo settlers continue to invade Indigenous territories, carrying the risk of infecting them.
The Honduran Indigenous communities are also suffering disproportionately during the statewide shutdowns and COVID-19 confinement measures enforced by state authorities. The Tolupán and Maya Ch’orti’, among other Indigenous nations, have already reported severe food shortages and a chronic lack of access to basic goods. Since most Honduran Indigenous communities are made up of subsistence farmers, the unilateral restrictions imposed in public spaces mean that many families are unable to meet their daily nutrition needs. Furthermore, the widespread police brutality cases reported as part of the enforcement of those restrictive measures have created an atmosphere of increasing state-sponsored oppression of Indigenous communities, further eroding Indigenous peoples’ rights to self-determination and consultation.
It is no secret that, in many places around the world, governments have taken unfair advantage of the coronavirus pandemic to advance policies that are harmful to Indigenous peoples. In the Canadian province of British Columbia, for instance, the Coastal GasLink Pipeline is forging ahead through Wet’suwet’en “unceded territory” without First Nations consent and in spite of widespread public outcry. The oil sands industry is not only threatening to pose a major ecological threat, but it also presents a major risk for the spread of COVID-19. First Nations peoples have collectively put pressure on Ottawa to stop the construction of the pipelines immediately, but whether or not the government will heed their urgent request remains to be seen.
Human Rights, which include Indigenous Peoples Rights, must not be overlooked, particularly during current health crisis, and when Indigenous peoples are at a great economic and social disadvantage as a result of longstanding systematic discrimination by state institutions. States have a responsibility to ensure equal access to public services to all their citizens, free from discrimination.
Because Indigenous peoples are disproportionately vulnerable to the pandemic, the International Fund for the Development of Indigenous Peoples in Latin America and Caribbean (FILAC) recently stated that countries should have a plan to support ethnic groups in dealing with COVID-19. The Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations (FAO) also published a list of recommendations to defend Indigenous rights during the pandemic.
Governments must consult Indigenous leadership and community members in good faith regarding any intervention and decision liable to impact their communities. This is precisely why the right to consultation and the right to participation are the two fundamental pillars of international standards for the Rights of Indigenous Peoples as highlighted by United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and required under Articles 6 and 7 of the ILO Convention 169. Consultation is needed to achieve Free, Prior, and Informed Consent (FPIC). Governments are held to international law regarding any intervention and decision-making that may impact Indigenous territories. This necessity does not change with the current crisis.
Many Indigenous nations, for instance, have long had their own methods of preventative health care based on a variety of native plant medicines. In northwestern Honduras, the Maya Ch’orti’ peoples and other groups regularly rely on locally grown plant medicine to boost their immune systems against common diseases. Medicinal plants, in many cases, have been proven to have tremendous health benefits. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), for one, recommends an intercultural approach to working with Indigenous peoples, meaning that medical interventions in Indigenous communities should respect and incorporate traditional knowledge and medicine as a viable form of healthcare.
During a two-part conference organized by the International Indian Treaty Council (IITC), titled Human Rights and Indigenous Peoples in the Time of COVID-19, Navaho elder Chili Yazzie and other leaders called on the human family to come together and correct our destructive tendencies. Socially and morally irresponsible overexploitation of the environment makes the world population susceptible to natural disasters like pandemics. As elders like Chili Yazzie postulate, COVID-19 teaches us that we should balance our needs with the sustainability of the ecosystem and live in union with our planet.
Indigenous nations around the world provide us with examples of sustainable living. Their ways of life provide us with a vivid alternative to the current corporate-centric world order. Indigenous peoples also are custodians of some the world’s last remaining biospheres. Now is the time for international communities to act, to promote environmental sustainability worldwide in conjunction with Human Rights.
The world that we have taken for granted for too long will either be one, or not at all.
by DGR News Service | Jul 4, 2020 | Biodiversity & Habitat Destruction, Indigenous Autonomy
Chris Straquez describes plans for a 1500 km railway project in southern Mexico, the potential for environmental destruction, and how developers justify their genocide against indigenous people.
The Mayan Train Project: Destruction of Indigenous Land
By Chris Straquez
The history of modern train industry started with the appearance of first steam engines, which enabled humanity to transport goods and people in a faster, reliable and cheaper way into a new age in the life of industrial revolution, human expansion and global economy. This, in turn, caused a great expansion of railways, machine improvements and enabling goods and people to be transported safer and faster. Today diesel engines, electrical trains and maglev high-speed bullet train network the entire earth. All these trains were developed from the steam engine.
Trains allowed us to save time covering long distances with huge cargoes which of course meant huge profits for businesses. People had faster means to get to and come from work. Business profited and personal vacation trips increased considerably. The creation of the regional time zones was due to the necessity to plan for the arrival and departure of trains from station to station. For the first time, geographical zones were divided up and assigned times so the ‘powerful’ railroad companies could organize travel schedules, forever changing the dynamic of time.
An entire nation connected by railroads, the traditional conception of space and time annihilated. Pathways altered to accommodate for terrain, locomotives pathways through the terrain. Tunnels made through mountains and bridges allowed for crossing valleys and rivers. A straight line from point A to point B. This, of course, meant many natural environments had to be gutted for the whole infrastructure of trains and railroads to become a reality.
Is there something Mayan about this train?
The Mayan Train is the signature project for the administration of Andrés Manuel López Obrador, Mexico’s current President. This project will use the right of way of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec Railway all along Palenque to Valladolid. Valladolid current rights of way from different infrastructures such as roads, highways, and drivelines, among others; will be used in order to reduce the environmental impact caused by the project, and reduce the costs of new rights of way. The project includes nearly 1,460 km of railways in the Yucatan peninsula that will connect 5 estates: Tabasco, Campeche, Chiapas, Yucatán, and Quintana Roo.
During the Daily Presidential Morning Conference, it was communicated that an investigation carried out by The National Fund for Tourism Development (FONATUR in Spanish) found that rights of way of many estates were not ‘recorded’. That a register did not exist, and many claims have been lost by the federal government from people who had never been paid for the rights of way in their lands which amounts approximately $750 million dollars in total. The Mayan Train project, in case you are wondering, will cost around 6 to 8 billion dollars, and is expected to bring more than three million visitors a year to the region; to archaeological sites and the area’s vast biodiversity such as Calakmul and Sian Ka’an.
The principal tourist territories are Cancún, Tulum, Palenque, Chichén Itzá and Calakmul biosphere, which is considered as the main location for the railroad routes, since it harbors 1,729,738 acres of a high biodiversity, considering 1,569 plant, 107 mammal, 398 bird, 84 reptile, 19 amphibian and 48 freshwater fish species.
Experts have warned of environmental risks, including the survival of certain species, disturbances within underground water networks, such as the Sac Actún underwater cave system and the Dos Ojos system in Tulum, Quintana Roo. The aquifers provide nourishment to trees and wildlife as it is one of the biggest fresh water storage areas on the planet. The erosion and fissuring of landings above those aquifers would allow an unbalance on the vital source for the jungle and represent an issue for local communities.
One of the world greatest biospheres in danger.
The Mayan Train’s route covers 15 federal protected areas, 20 state protected areas, rich geological regions and hydrological resources. There is a huge risk of extinction of flora and fauna. In 2018, the National Alliance for Jaguar Conservation conducted a nationwide census, finding that population was around 4,000 across five regions in Mexico, mostly distributed around Yucatán’s peninsula, which is also one of the railway’s main routes. This will make protecting of this species even more difficult for environmental organizations.
The Mayan Train will interfere the Calakmul Biosphere, which is considered the largest forest reserve, containing 6500 well-preserved archeological structures. It is the third most important ecological area and is sparsely inhabited. Once penetrated by the train, the inevitable consequence will be development at the expense of nature.
One of the most crucial areas that would be made vulnerable by the Mayan train routes is Laguna Bacalar in Quintana Roo, already water-polluted by the proliferation of hotels and private houses on its surroundings, an increase in tourism would turn it into a cesspool.
Moreover, the megaproject will bring about the fragmentation and destruction of one of the world’s last pristine rainforests. The railway will cut through the heart of the Mayan jungle, and since the natural wealth will be endangered, the megadiverse ecosystem would be damaged, and refuge for roughly 10 percent of the world’s known species may disappear.
Yet another threat to indigenous ways of life.
The Indigenous Regional Council (a settlement of 82 indigenous communities) across the Mexican Mayan train course estates would be crucially affected. The disruption to the Calakmuk Biosphere Reserve would decrease their economic development, forest resource tracking, as well as their main cultural heritage. I understand that environmentalists and local societies are against the construction of the railway, since ecosystem issues would be highly damaging for the territory.
Indigenous groups, and their conservationist and academic allies, call the train “an act of war” and López Obrador’s bid to ingratiate himself to Indigenous communities “a mockery.” They warn that the train will not only devastate southern Mexico’s ecosystems but also trigger unsustainable development and further marginalize the communities living there. These critics—the most prominent of which are the Zapatistas, who led an armed insurrection against the federal government in 1994—say the project will repeat the mistakes of development in Cancún and Tulum and bring cartel violence, corruption, and mass development (read destruction) to the Mayan forest. The Zapatistas have said they will defend the land with their lives.
These groups also said the Mayan Train poses a risk to the cultural identity of the indigenous people who live in the communities through which the tracks will run. Indigenous culture, namely that of the Mayan people who live in the region, could be marketed as a commodity, they argued. They also renewed their criticism of the Mayan Train consultation process in 2019, which was described by critics as a sham and an empty gesture. A vote on the project found 92% in support but the United Nations said that the entire consultation process failed to meet all international human rights standards.
In their new broadside, the groups charged that the government had made a ‘unilateral’ decision about ‘the future of the communities and indigenous peoples’ through which the train will run under the pretext that they will be ‘the main beneficiaries.’ However, the “main role” of the local indigenous population will be to provide “cheap labor” for the railroad’s construction, they charged, warning that the project will perpetuate the “systematic discrimination” against indigenous people that the Mexican state has promoted for years. The thousands of jobs that will supposedly be created will most probably be precarious, poorly paid, temporary jobs without social security guarantees.
It’s not about the lives or the poor and the oppressed, but a business opportunity.
President López Obrador has said that construction of the Mayan Train will help the economy recover from the coronavirus-induced crisis, asserting that it will create 80,000 jobs this year and 150,000 in 2021. He pledged that the project will be finished in 28 months, or by October 2022, stressing that no excuses will be accepted for delays. The project will be carried out in 7 sections, each one in charge of the following companies:
1ST SECTION: Mota-Engil México, a Portuguese conglomerate that received several profitable contracts in the former Mexican administration, and China Communications Construction Company LTD that has international claims of fraud and blackmailing, most notoriously in the Philippines.
2nd SECTION: CICSA S.A. de C.V. and FCC Construcción S.A. both owned by Mexican tycoon Carlos Slim Helú. CICSA was one of the key players in the construction of the now failed Mexico City-Texcoco Airport (NAICM) and FCC was involved in the Odebrecht scandal.
3rd SECTION: Construcciones Urales (Grupo Azvi) and Gami Ingeniería e Instalaciones. Gami was also involved in NAICM.
4th SECTION: Ingenieros Civiles Asociados, better known as ICA. Involved in NAICM, too, and it has oil, gas and infrastructure in Chiapas, Tabasco, Campeche and Quintana Roo.
5th SECTION: Pending, BlackRock Incorporated would be the company that would keep this section of construction that runs from Cancun to Tulum. The area with the most significant economic relevance of the entire project since it launched an Unsolicited Proposal (PNS) two years ago to FONATUR. It is expected to be the winner of the contract that would be announced on August 23.
6th and 7th SECTION: Pending, but believed to be in charge of the Secretariat of National Defense (SEDENA).
Rogelio Jiménez Pons, director of FONATUR, who is managing the project, said that the Maya Train will help to lift more than one million people out of poverty. In reality, this mega project represents a new paradigm of economic disintegration, regional (under)development and social (in)equity.
Relationship with animals, places and plants.
We name living beings. We name things that are not alive. To draw the line between what is ‘living’ and what is ‘non-living’ can vary from micro to macro, from ideology to religion, from land to empire, but to me a living being is one whom I can establish communication. I have named not only my cats or dogs but I have given a name to each car I had, and also guitars and machines… I can only talk from my own experience, but I can’t remember the last time I had a pep-talk with my mobile screen or an argument with my car. Whereas I have communicated with animals and sometimes plants. Something or someone I can kill or exploit can’t have a name. I would get too sentimental if I actually had to do that. Naming something gives it some importance; how many of us haven’t named an animal friend or given nicknames to people, plants and places around us?
Naming something undoubtedly establishes not only a reference point but a connection. A connection to the land and its inhabitants boosted by entering into a relationship with these individuals, because that is what they are: individuals. If you spend enough time around them, you will notice that we have so much in common and they can communicate in such interesting ways… if we would only listen. Establish communication with them? That is pure non-sense! These are THINGS, objects, resources. They are not alive. I can’t use and abuse them if I perceive them as a living entity, can I? If I name living entities would I be able to carry out a project, say, a trans-isthmic train through important Mayan archeological sites and natural reserves? It would traverse (read violate) the Yucatan Peninsula, home of human communities such as the Mayan Yucatecas, Choles, Tzetzales, Mixques; land of the green iguana, tapir, mockingbird, swamp crocodile, many different species of bats, felines, primates, insects and even the soil. All these living beings are seldom mentioned in the Mexican media. We only know that “the train will be good for the people of Mexico.” In a country that contains one of the richest arrays of biodiversity, cultures and peoples, I always wonder who exactly these people of Mexico the government talks about are.
Issues with the Environment Impact Manifestation.
One of the biggest arguments against the Mayan train is that a proper environmental impact study was not carried out to assess potential damage by this mega project. After over a year of allegations, the Secretariat of Environment and Natural Resources (SEMARNAT) released a document, an Environment Impact Manifestation (MIA in Spanish) which explains the Mayan Train project and the long awaited environmental impact study. It includes a section called Social Analysis of the Indigenous Peoples in which the concept of ethnocide is explained. What raised the brow of people who have already checked the document is a concept called “ethno-development.”
Rodolfo Stavenhagen, German-Mexican sociologist and anthropologist who specialized in the study of human rights and the political relations between indigenous peoples and states, was a huge critic of the Western concept of “development”. In his book, The Ethnic Question: Conflicts, Development, and Human Rights he portrays how this “Western development” has terrible effects on indigenous peoples. He mentions that development try to promote the idea that the communities will benefit from the capital investments, technological innovations and modernization. The reality is something quite different; these developments have negative and noxious effects on the masses, especially indigenous communities. Such injuries have not been correctly documented or understood, but everyone can think in terms of economic, social and environmental damages instead of benefits.
Stavenhagen defines ethnocide as “the process in which a culturally distinct people, usually named ‘ethnic group’, loses identity due to policies designed to undermine their territory and their base-line resources; language usage and both political and social institutions; customs, art, religious practices and cultural values. When a government applies these policies then it becomes a culprit of ethnocide which can be either economic or cultural. Economic ethnocide when it is made under the guise of development and cultural when it pretends to eradicate ethnical minorities in order to give way to a Nation-State.”
Ethnocide and Ethno-development.
Once the MIA defines what ethnocide means, it states: “Ethnocide can have a positive turn: ‘ethno-development’, which can be possible if indigenous peoples affected by the development are involved in the development process and benefit administration, in this case we can understand it as a participative process for the indigenous communities to become involved not only as established in the OIT 169 Convention, but from the proper plan-ification and appropriation of the development project for their communities in which the benefits are observable.” Ethno-development is defined as the social capability of indigenous communities to build their own future, using teachings characteristic of their own historical experiences, real and potential resources of their culture, in accordance to a project that is adaptable to their own values and future aspirations.
The overall objective of the MIA, is to be a component that fosters ethno-development of the indigenous peoples that are encountered inside the Regional Environment System (SAR). Indigenous communities are being involved with a consultation process, pretending that the project respects and guarantees their rights and seeks to adapt their values and future aspirations to reach sustainable community development.
Sara López, member of the Regional and Popular Indigenous Council of Xpujil (CRIPX), one of the main organizations against the Mayan Train project, said that the mega projects will strip people away from their territory, their life, and under the excuse of development they [governments and corporations] want to eradicate the indigenous peoples. “It is not a mega project for the peoples. For us, the poor, there is no project, we resist and live from what we work and harvest, [the project] is not for us. There are 85 companies that have invested in this project: [the benefits] are for the national and international companies.”
The Power of Association and Relationships.
To be clear: most people don’t give a fuck about animals, rivers, trees, anything non-human for that matter. Even when it comes to our own species, some humans are considered more important than others. Caring about both humans and non-humans requires for us to enter into a relationship with them. Yet, in this throw-away society, it seems that the only long-standing relationship we have is over overconsumption. We name and establish a relationship with cities, tablets, video game consoles, all kinds of machines, however, they cannot really enter into a relationship with us; we use them and dispose of them; another copy, another unit, another gizmo that will become obsolete in a couple of months or weeks.
Our lack of empathy resides in the quality of our relationships. Let’s reconnect with the living and stop transforming the living into dead consumables. Have you looked at your animal companion or a wild one directly into their eyes? Have you noticed all the facial expressions? The sounds they can make? The movements they perform? Everything is so full of expression. Have you contemplated flowers, leaves, trees? How they sway with the wind, how they stretch themselves to the sun? How they sulk when they are hungry or thirsty? Have you just stared at land, sea, mountains? The astounding quantity of voices, and eyes, and hearts pulsating in a symphony so full of movement, sound, color that makes you feel alive? If you can feel the life within yourself, you can feel the life around you.
It is there for us to see… if we would only observe, we would notice it is there and that inexorably changes who you are and how you relate to the environment.
Featured image by DJ Sturm, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.
by DGR News Service | Jul 1, 2020 | Indigenous Autonomy, The Solution: Resistance
Jack D. Forbes (Powhatan-Renapé and Lenape) was the author of Columbus and Other Cannibals, one of the most important books ever written. In this excerpt, edited slightly for publication, Forbes warns how the “cannibal sickness,” or wetiko disease, the spiritual illness that he describes as driving the exploitation, domination, and “consumption” of others, can sometimes “infect” those who are part of resistance movements.
By Jack D. Forbes
This earth of ours is not ugly. Nor this sky, nor this sun, nor this moon. Nor are the animals and the plants ugly. We live in a mysterious, marvelous universe and it offers us a chance to be cured by its loving embrace.
The cannibal psychosis, and the problems it creates, have inspired many resistance movements and efforts at reform or revolution. Unfortunately, most of these efforts have failed because they have never diagnosed the cannibal as an insane person whose disease is extremely contagious. Nor have they, generally, understood that the non-cannibals, whether flunkies, pimps, or the most oppressed, are often ‘secret carriers’ of the disease. Such people become active cannibals only when conditions are favorable (such as when power is seized during a revolution).
If the cannibal psychosis is to be overcome, and if we are to be cured of the disease, the answer lies in religion, which is following the ‘good, red road’ or the ‘pollen path’ for all the days of our lives.
The basis of the efforts to achieve justice in the socio-political arena of life must rest on the spiritual regeneration of each of us who are engaged in such struggles.
Most of the great teachers of the earth have taught things, or set examples, which can help us overcome the cannibal psychosis. ‘Psychosis’ means ‘sickness of the soul or spirit.’ And so it is that we must turn to those things that have to do with the spirit or soul when we seek to find a cure. Pragmatism and opportunism offer no answers, nor do the psychiatry or psychotherapy of the usual kind. Cannibals can be very pragmatic at times and people treated by psychologists or psychiatrists can learn to adjust or ‘accept themselves.’ Adjustment and self-acceptance are not what is needed. To adjust to a cannibal society is to become insane. To accept one’s self is bad if it means accepting personal behavior which is ugly, exploitative, or which represents a surrender of the need for freedom, change, or growth.
‘Education’ of the kind we know in the modern world usually has little to do with ethics or with bringing forth the individual potential of the learner. On the contrary, it is largely technical in nature and seldom (in and of itself) serves to alter the class or ethnic ‘interests’ of the graduates.
We do not have time to live as pimps for cannibals. We do not have time to engage in petty jealousies or ugly acts. We must live a life that is worthwhile, one that is filled with precise acts, beautiful acts, meaningful acts, that help to take one along the pollen path, the path that only a wisdom-seeker can travel. A wisdom-seeker is a man or woman who fearlessly seeks to be truly authentic as he or she travels onward in beauty and humility seeking knowledge.
A ‘warrior’ is different from the average person because of the consistent choice of a ‘path with heart.’ The warrior knows that the path has heart when he or she finds a great peace and pleasure traveling on it. The path with heart leads one on a joyful journey while paths without heart will lead to curses and weakening.
Genuine liberation struggles should have an overwhelming love for all life as the very heart and soul of their movement.
We must ban terrorism from this mother earth, whether it be state terrorism or non-state terrorism. We must uproot the cannibal sickness from the earth.
Featured image by Max Wilbert.
by DGR News Service | Jun 14, 2020 | Indigenous Autonomy, Women & Radical Feminism
Is matriarchy, as some would argue, an “inverted patriarchy” in which women rule over and dominate men? No; this is an inaccurate definition. In this excerpt, taken from Heide Goettner-Abendroth ‘s book “Matriarchal Societies: Studies on Indigenous Cultures Across the Globe,” she offers an alternative description based in existing matriarchal societies.
Matriarchal Societies: Studies on Indigenous Cultures Across the Globe
by Heide Goettner-Abendroth
Matriarchies are true gender-egalitarian societies; this applies to the social contribution of both sexes-and even though women are at the center, this principle governs the social functioning and freedom of both sexes. Matriarchal societies should emphatically not be regarded as mirror images of patriarchal ones-with dominating women instead of patriarchy’s dominating men-as they have never needed patriarchy’s hierarchical structures.
Patriarchal domination, where a minority emerges from wars of conquest and takes over a whole culture, depends for is power on structures of enforcement, private ownership, colonial rule, and religious conversion. Such patriarchal power structures are a historically recent development, not appearing until about 4000-3000 B.C.E. (and many parts of the world even later) and increasing in strength throughout the further spread of patriarchy.
In light of this misunderstanding about the word “Matriarchy,” its linguistic background needs to be looked at more carefully.
We can challenge the current male-biased idea that matriarchy means “rule of women” or “domination by the mothers,” as these definitions are based on the assumption that matriarchy is parallel to patriarchy, except that a different gender is in charge. Because the words sound parallel, this fuelled the notion that the social patterns must be parallel.
In fact, the Greek word “arche” means not only “domination, “but also “beginning”-the earlier sense of the word. The two meanings are distinct and cannot be conflated. They are also clearly delineated in English: you would not translate “archetype” as “dominator-type,” nor would understand “archaeology” to be “the teaching of domination.” People who believe in the myth of universal patriarchy present this relatively recent form of society as if it had existed all over the world since the beginning of human history.
Hundreds of fictitious stories of this sort have been propagated by patriarchally-oriented theorists.
First of all, they are unable to see matriarchy through any other lens except the dominator pattern. Based on this misunderstanding, they search high and low for evidence of a matriarchy based on domination; when they find no evidence of any culture that conforms to their patriarchally-oriented hypothesis of domination by women, they proceed to assert that matriarchies do not now and never have existed. They invent a phantom culture, and then go looking for an example of it; then, because they cannot find any, they smugly proclaim that it was just a phantom.
This circular reasoning is not only illogical, it is a shameful waste of science.
Based on the older meaning of “arche’,” matriarchy means “the mothers from the beginning.” This refers both to the biological fact that through giving birth, mothers engender the beginning of life, and to the cultural fact that they also created the beginnings of culture itself. Patriarchy could either be translated as “domination by the fathers,” or ”the fathers from the beginning.”
This claim leads to domination of the fathers, because-lacking any natural right to claim a role in “beginning”-they have been obliged, since the start of patriarchy, to insist on that role, and then to enforce it through domination. Contrary to this, by virtue of giving birth to the group, to the next generation, and therefore to society, mothers clearly are the beginning; in matriarchy they have no need to enforce it by domination.
“Matriarchal Societies: Studies on Indigenous Cultures Across the Globe” by Heide Goettner-Abendroth. Translated by Karen Smith, 2013 Peter Lang Publishing, Inc.
Featured image: Hopi women’s dance, Oraibi, 1879.
by DGR News Service | Jun 2, 2020 | Indigenous Autonomy, The Problem: Civilization
Jack D. Forbes (Powhatan-Renapé and Lenape) was the author of Columbus and Other Cannibals, one of the most important books ever written. In this excerpt, edited slightly for publication, he offers the reader analysis of the nature and origins of evil in human beings. Image depicts former Minneapolis Police Officer Derek Chauvin.
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The Origins of Evil in Human Beings.
For several thousands of years human beings have suffered from a plague, a disease worse than leprosy, a sickness worse than malaria, a malady much more terrible than smallpox.
The disease that is overrunning the world is the disease of aggression against other living things and, more precisely, the disease of the consuming of other creature’s lives and possessions. It is cannibalism, a cannibal psychosis, and it is the greatest epidemic sickness known to humans.
Cannibalism is the consuming of another’s life for one’s own private purpose or profit.
A cannibal is an evil person or spirit who terrorizes other creatures by means of terrible evil acts, including cannibalism. The slaver who forces blacks or Indians to lose their lives in the slave-trade or who drains away their lives in a slave system is a cannibal.
They may ‘eat’ other people immediately or they may ‘eat’ their flesh gradually over a period of years. The wealthy exploiter ‘eats’ the flesh of oppressed workers, the wealthy matron ‘eats’ the lives of her servants, the imperialist ‘eats’ the flesh of the conquered, and so on. The wealthy and exploitative literally consume the lives of those they exploit.
The overriding character of the cannibal is that it consumes other lives, that is, it is a predator. Somehow, cannibals believe that they have a right to use another’s life (or their property) in a manner which is decidedly one-sided and disadvantageous to the victim.
Predation can lurk under many guises, such as ‘patriotism,’ profit-seeking, ‘protecting our way of life,’ and ‘investment returns.’
Lying
Lying is almost always a factor in cannibal behavior. Lying and petty thievery, hustling, ‘wheeling and dealing,’ cheating, usury, and so on are all symptoms of a cannibal. In a cannibal society, the common training of large numbers of people is that of a hustler. The individual may learn to be a hustler in business, or in school, or in scientific research, or in politics, but their basic attitude is one of fierce competition to ‘get ahead’ of other people.
There are many psychological traits that help form the cannibal personality. Greed, lust, inordinate ambition, materialism, the lack of a true ‘face,’ a schizoid (split) personality, and so on, are all terms which can be used to describe most cannibals.
Arrogance
One of the major traits characterizing the truly evil and extreme form of cannibalism is arrogance.
Arrogance is a key trait of the cannibal or of a person liable to become a cannibal. Sadism and cruelty are closely related to cannibal behavior. The option of being sadistic and cruel is available to people in the cannibal world, and what is more, being sadistic and cruel can even be made to appear as being patriotic, good, or even pious. Thus the sane become insane, and the crazed become rulers!
‘Scientific’ experimenters on animals, social workers intimidating poor people, bureaucrats being rude to ‘common’ people who dare to approach their desks, teachers treating pupils with mental cruelty, and so on, are using disguised means of expressing the sadistic derangement fostered by the cannibal world.
Imperialism
Imperialism and exploitation are forms of cannibalism and are precisely those forms of cannibalism which are most diabolical or evil.
Imperialists, rapists, and exploiters are not just people who have strayed down a wrong path. They are insane (unclean) in the true sense of that word. They are mentally ill with the cannibal psychosis. The rape of a woman, the rape of a land, and the rape of a people, they are all the same. And they are the same as the rape of the earth, the rape of the rivers, the rape of the forest, the rape of the air, the rape of the animals. Brutality knows no boundaries, greed knows no limits, perversion knows no borders, arrogance knows no frontiers, deceit knows no edges. These characteristics all tend to push towards an extreme, always moving forward once the initial infection sets in.
The cannibal psychosis is a very contagious and rapidly spreading disease. It is spread by the cannibals themselves as they recruit or corrupt others. It is spread today by history books, television, military training programs, police training programs, comic books, pornographic magazines, films, right-wing movements, fanatics of various kinds, high-pressure missionary groups, and numerous governments.
Contagion
The cannibal disease, the sickness of exploitation, has been spreading as a contagion for the past several thousand years.
And as a contagion unchecked by most vaccines it tends to become worse rather than better with time. More and more people catch it, in more and more places, and they become the true teachers of the young. Exploitation is thriving. The exploitation of children, of love, of women, of old people, of the weak, of the poor, and, of course, the intentional commercial exploitation of every conceivable thing, from the hair around women’s vaginal areas, to worry over natural body odors, to adolescent insecurity, to the fear of growing old, to thirst (for example, persuading people to drink liquid chemicals and sugar in place of water or natural beverages).
The cannibal psychosis is a sickness of the spirit that takes people down an ugly path with no heart. They may kill, but they are not warriors. They may learn skills, but they acquire no wisdom. They may be surrounded by death but they do not, or cannot, learn its message. They chase after the riches or rewards of a transient world and delude themselves into believing that big tombs and monuments can make it permanent.
A pimp is someone who follows other people’s orders, follows someone else’s path, and who refuses to take responsibility for what they do. Such a person cannot be authentic. Such a person is not merely a pimp, they are also a ghost, a mere imitation of a person. Their life is an imitation of life, lacking solidity and realness. The cannibal world is full of such pimps and ghosts. The cannibal world believes in the use of tricks, constant opportunism, ‘situational ethics,’ life adjustment, personality adjustment, wheeling and dealing, double standards, and plain fakery. Such a life of deception and rootlessness leads easily into pimpery.
Civilization
To a considerable degree, the development of the cannibal disease corresponds to the rise of civilization.
Cannibal civilizations are (usually) societies with large slave populations, rigid social class systems, unethical or ruthless rulers, and aggressive, imperialistic foreign policies. Colonialist-imperialist systems seek to create cannibals. They recruit them because colonialism is maintained by means of properly controlled cannibal behavior. More especially, they need to recruit cannibals from within the native population in order to keep that group divided, exploited, and in a hopeless frame of mind.
Colonialists spread notions of racial and cultural superiority and transform hitherto free people into super-chickens (as it were) with an especially brutal pecking order. This pecking order (ranks, social classes, castes, and so on) is what maintains the system of exploitation and degrades the masses who become its victims. Such systems are a form of physical and psychological terrorism. When conquered people are reduced to a state of impotency, poverty, and despair, certain individuals will decide that survival depends upon cooperation with the exploiters. Slowly but surely, if they are especially aggressive or ambitions, they may come to see that there are ways to make money, get favored jobs, or obtain jobs for relatives, by becoming dishonest and corrupt. One of the tragic characteristics of the cannibal psychosis is that it spreads partly by resistance to it.
Assimilation
Those who try to fight cannibals sometimes, in order to survive, adopt cannibal values.
Imperialism creates the illusion of wealth as far as the masses are concerned. It usually serves to hide the fact that the ruling classes are gobbling up the natural resources of the home territory in an improvident manner and are otherwise utilizing the national wealth largely for their own purposes. Eventually the general public is called on to pay for all of this, frequently after the military machine can no longer maintain external aggression.
The material prosperity within successfully imperialistic societies, especially for middle-class and upper-class citizens, unfortunately serves to not only hide internal decay but also to blunt people’s desires for truth, justice, and personal authenticity. Even when obvious examples of wrong-doing appear, the bulk of the citizenry will refuse to take any action, in some cases because of a fear of reprisal, but more commonly because of a desire to continue to enjoy their prosperity without being disturbed.
Crime
Organized crime, in its many forms, is the most important manner in which the cannibal disease finds concrete expression.
It is true that individual cannibals, operating on their own, may cause great misery at times, but it is much more common for the most brutal aggression to take place as a part of an organized, systematic assault. Organized crime is indeed ugly, corrupting, and brutal. The terror and suffering lurking just beyond the curtain of wealth ultimately enters into even the gardens of the affluent; and, more importantly, that material wealth and power seldom seem to bring to their possessors the spiritual and psychological nourishment which human beings truly need.
True organized crime commences with the state or with state-approved aggression. The difficult and tragic thing about many systems of inhuman exploitation is that they usually are directed by innocent-looking, suave cannibals whose offices are never contaminated by the sweat, blood, and dying flesh of the oppressed.
The cannibal disease is not limited to the brutes and goons who handle the gun, the lash, or the instruments of torture. The nice people in the offices, the typists, the lab technicians, the clerks, and, of course, the owners, directors, stockholders, senators, generals, and presidents who use, profit from, and feed on human exploitation are also cannibals to one degree or another. The most guilty of the cannibals are those who mastermind, justify, and profit most from such systems. Such persons are the ‘master predators.’
Many people in the capitalist and communist worlds are not Real. Many are puppets or pimps, whose strings are pulled by others or who follow a life-path dictated by others. Thus they are ripe for the cannibal infection. Imperialism, predation, and cannibalism, as diseases of culture, seek to militarize societies.\
Degradation
Part of the process of creating a cannibal world is the sustained effort to brutalize the sensibilities of human beings.
In part, this has been (and is) accomplished by denying the spiritual character of humans and other living creatures and by treating them in a demeaning manner. An important aspect of the cannibal sickness is the apparent drive of some, especially scholars and university people, to de-sanctify that which has been regarded as holy and sacred, or beautiful and spiritual, especially for non-cannibals. The significance of de-sanctifying the earth, the animals, the plants, the trees, and even human beings is that the world is made a potentially ugly and very exploitable place.
A cannibal society seeks to prevent people (except for a select few) from pursuing their own spiritual fulfillment since the economy and the politics or such a society requires masses of laborers who live a regulated, predictable, conformist life.
Alcohol
‘Obedience’ is the objective, not true ‘salvation.’
Alcohol is a universal weapon of the cannibal. Exploitative and imperialistic programs may become very popular in countries where an improved material standard of living is believed to be dependent upon aggression. The systematic use of terror seems to have been developed as a control and domination strategy for many ancient empires, especially during their expansionistic phases or when faced by unhappy subject peoples.
Cannibals often leave a record of murder and terror that is shocking in the extreme. And the people who usually suffer the most are honest, simple, democratic people of the world, the non-materialistic, the freedom-loving, and the truly spiritual. These people are precisely lacking in the insane desires and delusions which motivate the cannibal. (Non-cannibals may, at times, be cruel, but their cruelty is individual and sporadic, not part of a system of cruelty). Folk peoples are the targets for intensive programs of social change engineered by cooperating teams of missionaries, armies, pacification squads, so-called ‘developers,’ and others.
Class Society
One of the essential characteristics of cannibalistic-imperialistic societies is that each social class seeks to exploit those below it.
In a cannibal society, all those who lack physical-material power will be exploited or abused. The cannibal world creates an intensive propaganda system designed to perpetuate the values of such a system. A facet of organized systems of aggression is that the governments, syndicates, corporations, or groups controlling or profiting from such behavior also control the greater part of the organs of public opinion modification. Patriotism, sectarian fervor, news, and propaganda are often used to justify aggression, genocide, slavery, and torture, and also to make the masses willing (or even anxious) participants.
The subjugation of women and their use as means instead of ends is part and parcel of the cannibal psychosis. There is a close correlation between the rise of patriarchal societies and the rise of imperialism and cannibal behavior. In systems that oppress women an element of the cannibal disease is certainly present. In many societies where exploitation reigns supreme, a hierarchical class system ordinarily exists and at every level, although in somewhat different ways, women are controlled and prevented from realizing their full potential. Occasionally, a queen or empress may be the titular or even active head of a male-dominated system.
Male Domination
Terrorism is a male disease.
The madness of violence, aggression, war, assault, rape, murder, conquest, dominance, and terrorism is, overwhelmingly, an insanity that strikes males primarily. Women can, of course, be vicious and mean, and they can goad men into violent action, but the kind of anger and sheer destructiveness that typifies the aggressive male rarely finds a female counterpart. Many of the cannibals are socialized by a society which has extremely negative attitudes towards sex (and which sees sex as a form of aggression, often against women), and which cultivates various forms of cruelty and sadism.
Male dominance typifies a number of major religions, including Roman Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy, Orthodox Judaism, Islam, Southern Baptists in the U.S., Northern Ireland Presbyterians, and Sikhism, Hinduism, and Shinto. Only within indigenous religious traditions can one find major female leadership and participation accepted widely. The union of male religion with male military dominance has been an all too frequent problem among human beings. The result is the suppression of dissent and, perhaps, of the original core of the religion in question.
It is terribly dangerous when major societies and its movements are ruled by men only or primarily, because male behavior is, historically, all too predictable. From the raping of women, to the raping of countries, to the raping of the world. Acts of aggression, of hate, of conquest, of empire-building.
No discussion of terrorism, school violence, domestic abuse, war and peace, or crime should take place without confronting the world-wide phenomena of male dominance-seeking and violence.
Folk cultures have tended to be the most friendly to women, until very modern times. Perhaps this is because ‘empires’ and hegemonic systems (larger and larger organizations, states, churches, sects) are almost always the creation of men or cultures dominated by a male drive for power, expansion, dominance, and exclusivity. (And the ultimate exclusivity is the blasphemous claim of a group of males to possess the exclusive pathway to contact with the deity, for example, God, Allah, Jehovah, and so on).
Overpopulation appears to be a direct result of the creation of cannibal-dominated societies. Perhaps this results from the degradation of women in a cannibal system, or perhaps it correlates with the disintegration of traditional folk values, or perhaps it is stimulated by the need of industrialists, generals, and dictators for continual supplies of cannon-fodder and cheap labor. The cannibal disease seems to flourish in overpopulation. And in the slums, factory towns, and crowded countryside, babies, violence, hustling, prostitution, hunger, malnutrition, alcoholism, dope addiction, and fear often live side by side in a fertile culture of demoralization controlled only by prisons and monstrous armed forces. But of course the ‘big cannibals’ do not live in these slums, rural or urban. They live, as they always have, in fancy houses or apartments, guarded by the security forces whose salaries they pay.
The Cannibal’s Ten Commandments:
- Thou shalt make a profit.
- Thou shalt disown thy parents when they become old and send them away to perish alone; but thou shalt put on an expensive funeral for appearances sake.
- Thou shalt deceive with false looks and flattering words, for appearances are everything.
- Thou shalt gather to thyself alone as many material things as thou can obtain.
- Thou shalt save and hoard, sharing not with others unless for thy own self-interest.
- Thou shalt adulterate the foods which people eat, and deprive them of healthy sustenance.
- Thou shalt take whatever thou can from the forest, from the earth, from the air, or from the defenseless and weak.
- Thou shalt kill whenever it profits thee, and thou shalt exalt killing and violence since all progress results therefrom.
- Thou shalt be arrogant, aggressive, and bold since such qualities insure success.
- Thou shalt not worry about thy sins for the Almighty has arranged a means whereby thou can be forgiven, even at thy death bed.
You shall know a tree by its fruit and by its fruit the cannibal world stands condemned.
Jack D. Forbes (January 7, 1934 – February 23, 2011) was an Powhatan-Renapé and Lenape indigenous writer, scholar and political activist, who specialized in Native American issues. He is best known for his role in establishing one of the first Native American Studies programs (at University of California Davis). His book Columbus and Other Cannibals (1978) is foundational to the anti-civilization movement. Forbes analysis of civilization enabled readers, listeners and learners across decades to understand the systems that enable terrorism, genocide, and ecocide.
