Forum set up to enhance solidarity among world's indigenous peoples

Sunday 26th April, 05:59 AM JST

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12 Comments

grafton at 08:01 AM JST - 26th April

Sorry but I’m going to be Darwinian about this, if you little social group failed & is now on its way to becoming extinct then face facts & just fade away, as sad as that is, that’s life.
SiouxGirl at 08:55 AM JST - 26th April

My little social group didn't fail. How patronizing of you. There are more of us than ever and we're walking a line of keeping our old traditions and language and moving into the future as well. Our numbers grow every year. Unfortunately, we're losing some of our knowledge, too. For instance, my ancestors were great herbalists. They knew the uses for everything that grew in the forests. We used everything and created no garbage. Now we have garbage. We'll go green before everyone else does, however. We're rural and also need to work on bringing jobs out to where we are, which, with the advent of the internet, can now be done. These are some of the things we're working on -- saving the good from the past and moving successfully into the future.
grafton at 09:24 AM JST - 26th April

SiouxGirl at 08:55 AM JST - 26th April

I don’t think you need to keep a dead culture so as to keep what was good in that culture. Do I need to be a Sioux to have what is good from the Sioux culture? Barriers of any kind are what eventually leads to wars. By the way, your culture did fail, you are not Sioux you are American & that says it all.
SiouxGirl at 09:35 AM JST - 26th April

No, our culture didn't fail. It's still there. What do you know about it? What you've READ? Lol. I live it and live with the people. Our culture isn't dead. We're Native American and we're all bi-cultural. It's a balancing act. Bye now.
gaijintraveller at 09:45 AM JST - 26th April

Grafton, why do you say "American" and what do you mean? No doubt you mean a citizen of the US. You are building the barriers that eventually lead to wars. She is probably a citizen of the USA, but she is also a North American along with Canadians, but why stop there? She belongs in the same group as Mexicans, Peruvians, Brazilians as American.

Let's stop building barriers. She is human and everyone in that group has a right to exist. That is the whole point of the exercise: stop classifying some people as sub-human.
Otaru at 02:47 PM JST - 26th April

‘‘retrieve the rights’’

Great, sounds like my taxes are going to go up again to pay for that. I'm really starting to resent this money grab under the guise of "culture".
Hayabusa_64 at 04:14 PM JST - 26th April

Gaijintraveller is right, that kind of thinking got us into Iraq, do u really believe that the average Iraqi gives a damn about american culture, yet? Although, I'd have to agree with Grafton in one point, cultures do change and acquire from other cultures... those that do not are relegated to the sidelines, but that does not mean that some cultures are inherently "superior"!! There's always some sort of interaction... cultures change, they rarely become extinct!!! Those that have tried to exterminate cultires would attest to that (Judaism in Nazi Germany).

Moderator: Readers, please stay on topic.
grafton at 07:02 PM JST - 26th April

SiouxGirl at 09:35 AM JST - 26th April

“No, our culture didn't fail.”

There was no criticism of you or the Sioux culture in what I wrote & where gaijintraveller gets off ending his/her attack on me with “stop classifying some people as sub-human.” is really beyond me. What I reasoned was that the Sioux nation had been an independent entity before the arrival of the Europeans & isn’t such now, that to me signifies failure because what was has been subverted by something else. And the fact that you have a US passport & not a Sioux passport says that you are American, not Sioux. No, I don’t like it, probably as much as you don’t, but that is now it is. As for the pedantic waffle about the US, Canada, & all of Latin America being part of the same people, that was an attack for the sake of attack & had nothing to do with my reasoning. Yes, we are all human (not sub human) & as sad as it is many seem to refuse to accept that, though not I. What I was talking about was keeping alive something that has naturally come to an end. Trying to “enhance solidarity among indigenous peoples around the world” is a nonsense, these peoples have nothing in common other than they are being submerged by other cultures, & maybe that is as it should be. I have not read anything about your culture, why should I have needed to, it is just one more of those cultures that was strong & independent & no longer is, nothing does or should last forever without change, that would not be normal or human.
khemet at 08:47 AM JST - 27th April

Culture is the foundation of the present and future. I think the idea of a culture wanting to keep traditional while moving forward into the future is definitely understandable. Like Siouxgirl said her particular culture adopted a natural way of life which has the least negative effect on the earth; something like that is beneficial and needs to still exist. But people with a narrow minded perspective schoff at such ideas and seem to always think they have a better one.
bakabaka at 11:57 AM JST - 27th April

Grafton.... when the whole planet is subsumed under a global (euroamerican) culture there will be no diversity. If you want to know why diversity is important please do some reading.
Tahoochi at 02:40 PM JST - 27th April

I can understand preserving and passing the culture on to new generations, but "...securing their rights concerning land ownership"? Sorry, I don't know a lot about this matter, but I didn't know there were still issues of land ownership. I thought Indigenous people were/are financially compensated for land ownership.

Grafton: I don't understand why/how you can deem a culture "failed". There are so many aspects of "culture" that exist and to put a "pass", "fail" label on it is impossible in my opinion. America, and every other country today is what it is because of the intricate chain of events and networks of people that have existed and intertwined from the first day people walked this earth... no culture is a failure or a success.
shiuu at 03:46 PM JST - 27th April

Forum set up to enhance solidarity among world's indigenous peoples

150 years too late ... But, yeah, good luck with that ... Maybe if you're lucky they'll build a casino for you somewhere.