The challenge ahead

The establishment of the Permanent Forum is a central objective of the International Decade of the World’s Indigenous People (1995-2004) and the May 2002 inauguration will be the first time that indigenous peoples will participate directly in an official UN body - an objective they have sought ever since the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) sought representation in the League of Nations early last century. The Forum has a mandate to discuss indigenous issues relating to economic and social development, culture, the environment, education, health and human rights, and will consist of eight members nominated by governments, and eight who will be elected through broad consultations with indigenous peoples.

Inspired by the voice this new Forum may provide them, ethnic and cultural minorities were also represented in New York. The Shinto Foundation sent ‘indigenous’ delegates but Japan’s Ainu were not in attendance; Puerto Rican New Yorkers who have rediscovered their Taino ancestry were present but there were no members of the Dominica or Trinidad Carib communities; there was only one Maasai and one Ogoni to represent Africa’s indigenous interests, but the issue of slavery reparations for members of the African Diaspora was recorded as a future agenda item for the Permanent Forum. [By email prior to the meeting, I was asked to make a plea for certain Irish farmers who are claiming indigeneity because they are poor and their stone-walled properties and pilgrimage sites are being bought out by New World returnees. This plea is reminiscent of F.W de Klerk’s public address at Harvard University in 2000 when he said that Afrikaners should be considered as First Peoples alongside the Zulu and Xhosa etc. in the new South Africa.]

While not openly discussed in the plenary sessions, one of the great challenges for the Forum will be the issue of indigenousness. While the UN Draft Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and International Labor Convention 169 take an inclusive approach and stress self-identification as a guiding principle for membership, most UN instrumentalities use the unofficial working or ‘Cobo’ definition that highlights sacred attachment to, and traditional ownership of, land appropriated by outsiders as the key identifying factor. The contemporary condition of landlessness, marginalization and non-dominance is the basis of claims for special rights. But there are other definitions in circulation at the UN and on the evening of August 9 the World Bank asked the indigenous audience for feedback on its new draft indigenous policy. While a superficial reading might suggest a significant advance on previous efforts to define indigenous peoples, in fact the Bank has effectively defined many indigenous groups out of existence. With the agreement of member states, consideration is being given to direct funding of indigenous groups as a poverty alleviation measure, but the draft eliminates from consideration the poorest of the poor - that vast and growing number of indigenous peoples alienated from their lands by colonization or involuntary resettlement schemes or forced by famine to take up residence in urban areas. Constituting perhaps 70% of all indigenous peoples - the bulk of whom wish to reclaim their lands and rebuild their lives on their traditional territories - this group will not be consulted when the Bank is considering funding for a megaproject on their homelands. Adoption of this definition will be a major step back in terms of UN recognition of indigenous rights and aspirations.

Given widespread public presumptions regarding a ‘universal’ or ‘essential’ indigenous nature - the worship of the land via traditional stewardship practices and the maintenance of a sacred knowledge base deemed essential for ‘saving the world from itself,’ indigenous peoples are at the epicenter of thinking about sustainable futures in the era of globalization. The problem is that an emerging public formula for indigeneity i.e. being children of Mother Earth - and the failure of the UN Working Group on Indigenous Peoples to clearly identify its constituents - opens membership to the indigenous category to an ever-increasing body of people who have questionable claims for membership in the Permanent Forum. While the UN continues to rely on a variety of definitions for indigeneity - some liberal and some quite restrictive - there is little scope for clarifying the extent of indigenous concerns or even making headway on problem solving.

Ian S. McIntosh
Director, Cultural Survival Inc.
http://www.cs.org