For centuries, indigenous peoples have suffered from the dispossession of their lands, their culture and their resources and, as a result, in many cases have lost control of their lives but thanks to Characteristics of the indigenous, that include perseverance, continue to fight for their rights.
Characteristics of the indigenous
The Indigenous are the descendants of the original inhabitants of a certain geographical area before the conquest, colonization or statehood, who have a close connection (emotional, economic and / or spiritual) with their vital space and who have a marked ethnic-cultural identity as a community with its own socio-political and cultural traditions. In certain contexts, the term autochthonous ("original") peoples has been used.
Regardless of the definition, it is often assumed that these population groups are often exposed to political or social marginalization. According to a 2012 study, an estimated 175 million members of indigenous and uncontacted peoples lived on earth at the time. On the Pacific island of New Guinea alone, there are 832 indigenous peoples, each with their own language.
The term indigenous primarily includes political human rights claims, because members of indigenous peoples are often discriminated against and pushed to the margins of society (marginalization).
The United Nations has three bodies for this purpose: the Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (formerly the United Nations Working Group on Indigenous Peoples), the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, and the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues.
The efforts of traditional societies to integrate modern cultural elements as "something of their own" in the characteristics of indigenous people, as well as modern societies to incorporate indigenous elements, are known as indigenization. When ethnic groups that have already been widely assimilated revive traditional elements and reintegrate them into their culture in a modified form, we speak of re-indigenization.
Definition
The most widely used definition of the term indigenous dates back to the UN Special Rapporteur José Martínez Cobo, who linked it to four criteria in his seminal study on discrimination against indigenous peoples in 1986 and that of Érica Irene Daes, long-time president of the UN working group on indigenous populations:
- Temporary priority in relation to the use or settlement of a given territory: Indigenous peoples are relatively the “first” inhabitants of an area.
- The voluntary preservation of cultural particularities in the areas of language, social organization, religion and spiritual values, modes of production and institutions: indigenous peoples are culturally different from the majority society.
- Self-identification and recognition by others as an independent community: the majority of those affected must themselves be of the opinion that they belong to an independent group and that this group should be considered as “indigenous”. At the same time, this opinion must be shared to a great extent by others, such as members of other indigenous peoples.
- An experience of oppression, marginalization, expropriation, exclusion or discrimination, regardless of whether these conditions persist or not: the degree of oppression that persists today can vary widely, from structural disadvantage in terms of advancement opportunities to forced displacement and extermination (ethnocide). In any case, the oppression experienced as a group fundamentally determines the political self-image of indigenous peoples.
Key features
There are no generally accepted clear indigenous characteristics of the concept in international law due to a number of reasons: they are representatives of different races, cultures, language groups, religions and live on virtually every inhabited continent; They are at different stages of social, economic and cultural development.
As a result, they have different needs, interests, aspirations and requirements. However, there are some characteristics of the indigenous that are relatively common:
- ancestral occupation or at least part of the current lands,
- common descent with the first occupants of these lands,
- culture in general or some of its manifestations,
- Language
- settle in certain parts of the country or in certain regions of the world;
- Self-identification as indigenous;
- For an individual, belonging to an indigenous group, claimed both by the individual and by the group to which he belongs.
Indigenous peoples live everywhere on earth: these include, for example, the Evenks in the Far East, the Eskimos and Aleuts in the Arctic Circle of North America and the Far East, the Sami in Scandinavia and the Kola Peninsula , the Maori in New Zealand, the Indians in America, etc.
There are about 300 million indigenous people in the world. The term "indigenous peoples" is included in the lexicon of international law and is used in various documents of the United Nations and other international organizations.
In the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples you can read:
In the international arena, a huge effort has been dedicated to the task of defining “indigenous peoples”. Indigenous peoples themselves have opposed the adoption of a formal definition at the international level, insisting on the need to preserve flexibility and respect the desire and right of each indigenous community to self-definition…
Consequently, no official definition has been adopted under international law. A strict definition is considered to be both unnecessary and undesirable.
common history
During the colonization of the world, which began in the fifteenth century and lasted until the twentieth century, most of the indigenous peoples, especially the indigenous minorities of the planet, were in danger of extinction. Indigenous peoples, as stated in resolution 61/295 of the UN General Assembly of September 13, 2007:
"They have been victims of historical injustices as a result, among other things, of their colonization and deprivation of their lands, territories and resources, which prevents them from exercising, among other things, their right to development in accordance with their needs and interests."
Even when it was not the physical disappearance of indigenous peoples, their indigenous languages were in the overwhelming majority exposed to the threat of significant distortion or even extinction, both in the form of spontaneous assimilation and deliberate linguicide by the indigenous languages. that are state-owned in those countries that included territories of indigenous peoples.
All indigenous cultures have been and continue to face the threat of significant distortion or extinction, both from pressure from the cultures of the titular nations, and from spontaneous globalization.
Although the indigenous peoples of different regions differ significantly from each other in terms of culture, history and socio-economic conditions of their existence, they also have much in common.
One of the characteristics of the common indigenous is the harmony of the coexistence of indigenous peoples and the natural environment in the places of residence, the presence of a rich set of moral and ethical norms on the relationship between man and nature, it is that is, the presence of a high natural ecological culture.
In addition, the experience of being in conditions of colonization and oppression by the State and the dominant social societies in the State is common to the majority of indigenous peoples, the experience of living in conditions of political, economic, social and cultural anarchy.
Rights
The beginning of the international recognition of the special rights of the indigenous population was established in 1957, when the Convention No. 107 of the International Labor Organization (ILO) was adopted "On the protection and integration of indigenous populations and other populations directing lives tribal and semi-tribal in independent countries»
In the past, the rights of indigenous peoples were mainly defended by environmental organizations. From the mid-1970s, indigenous peoples began to assert their rights independently at the national and international levels. In 1994, the UN General Assembly proclaimed the International Day of the World's Indigenous Populations. Today, representatives of indigenous peoples regularly participate in the work of the United Nations and many other international bodies.
Indigenous rights are those that specifically recognize the existence of the condition of indigenous peoples. This includes, in addition to the most basic human rights of survival and physical integrity, also the rights to their land, language, religion and other elements of cultural heritage that are part of their existence and identity as a people and the preservation of the characteristics of Indigenous.
This can be used as an expression for the defense of social organizations, or be part of national law to establish the relationship between a government and the right to self-determination among its indigenous peoples, or in international law as protection against violation of indigenous rights by actions of governments or private interest groups.
Indigenous populations are often under the cultural, economic, social and political domination of one or more peoples and therefore represent only a minority within States that do not recognize them as distinct peoples. In the case of peoples living in remote areas, they often rely heavily on nutritious ecosystems (including intact forest landscapes and old-growth forests), have their own socio-cultural systems and organizations, languages and ways of life.
Today these peoples are organizing and fighting to make themselves heard and claim the right to live their difference, respect for their social organizations and an end to the exploitation (or over-exploitation) of the natural resources located in their territories.
The Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples 33 was adopted on September 13, 2007 in New York by the United Nations General Assembly despite opposition from the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. This resolution is not legally binding but represents real progress, affirming the rights of these peoples to reparation and self-determination.
Indigenous peoples by region
Indigenous populations are distributed in different regions around the world. The number, conditions, history, and characteristics of indigenous people can vary significantly within a specific region.
Africa
The distinction between indigenous peoples and the rest of the non-indigenous population is a comparatively new categorization in Africa, since until a few decades ago almost the entire population was subject to European colonial rule (with the exception of Ethiopia and Liberia).
However, there are also ethnic groups in African countries that differ significantly from the majority population culturally, economically and socially, and are often exposed to constant discrimination. The way of life and the economy of these groups is determined by hunting and gathering, nomadism or transhumance or mobile livestock.
In southern Africa there is a particularly clear distinction between indigenous and non-indigenous populations. The San (Bushmen) and Khoikhoi inhabit here as indigenous people, whose settlement history is said to extend up to 20.000 years, while the majority of the black population belongs to the Bantu-speaking ethnic groups who later immigrated (including the Xhosa, Tsonga and Zulu) and are therefore not considered indigenous.
America
European colonization was a central and dramatic event for the various Native American peoples. Often reduced to servitude or slavery, expelled from their territories, victims of the epidemics brought by the settlers, these peoples were also tragically faced with the disappearance of their traditional social organization and way of life.
Since the XNUMXs, these peoples have been asserting their identity, intervening more and more to defend the environment of the small territories left to them at the end of the conquest. They are even gradually becoming the privileged symbol of ecological groups.
Australia
The Australian aborigines form a population, like the indigenous groups, who were victims of massacres by the colonizers and discriminated against by the so-called civilized population. English colonizers were primarily responsible for the massacres of indigenous Australian communities.
The English soldiers approached the villages and offered pleasures to the local population. However, other soldiers were poisoning the town's food and water with arsenic. Several aborigines died as a result of poisoning caused by this chemical element. Aborigines currently make up 1% of the Australian population.
Europe
Most of Europe's indigenous peoples live within the Russian Federation. In the European part of the country there are, among others, the Sami of the Kola Peninsula, the Wepsen in Karelia, the Nenets, who inhabit the Nenets Autonomous Okrug in the north of the Komi Republic. Some ethnic groups in southern Russia are also recognized as "indigenous" peoples, such as the Abasians, Shapsug, and Nagai. The characteristics of the indigenous people of this ethnic group are very particular.
Within Russia, it is disputed whether the Finns of the Komi and Mari peoples should also be considered "indigenous", since they have their own "statehood" in the form of autonomous republics. However, it is indisputable that the Sami in North Fenno Scandinavia and Russia are counted among the indigenous peoples due to their linguistic and cultural differences. In the Crimean peninsula on the Black Sea, several population groups define themselves as indigenous, such as the Crimean Tatars, the Karaites and the Chaks.
The linguistic minorities of some European countries, such as the Basques, Bretons, Sardinians, Sorbians or Frisians, do not differ much in lifestyle and culture from the respective majority population, so they are not usually called indigenous. Furthermore, the Sinti and Roma in Germany, as a national minority recognized by the European Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities, are therefore not called "indigenous peoples".
Asia
The indigenous peoples of Asia are made up of the various heterogeneous indigenous groups of Asia. The range of the indigenous population of Asia extends from the various groups in Siberia to the Jarawa in the Andamans in the Indian Ocean. Apart from South America, Asia is the continent with the largest number of isolated peoples. Most of the groups are a minority in their country, but in New Guinea the indigenous population constitutes the majority of the population.
Here are some links of interest: