Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 4, Number 4, 1 April 1987 — Native Hawaiian Legal Corporation N H L C Report [ARTICLE]

Native Hawaiian Legal Corporation N H L C Report

by Maehealani Ing, Executive Director

Self-Determination

The following are excerpts from the book "Village Journey: The Report Of The Alaska Native Review Commission" (Hill & Wang, New York 1985) by Thomas R. Berger. He is one of Canada's foremost advocates of native rights, and practiced law in Vancouver until appointed to the British Columbia Supreme Court. He is currently professor oflaw at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver. Many persons are inclined to dismiss native claims of every kind as so many attempts to secure present advantages by the revival of ancient wrongs. They ask, why should anyone today feel guilty because of events that occurred long ago? The question is not one of guilt, present or past. The question is one of continuing injustice, and the distinctive feature of the injustices, past and present, done to indigenous peoples. The peoples are still with us, and the nations that committed these injustices are still with us in one form or another. The injustices eonhnue, and they are within the power of remedy. By what right did Europeans take the land and subjugate the peoples of the New World? By what right did the Russians, and after them the Americans, lay elaim to the land of the Eskimos, Indians and Aleuts of Alaska? Whether expanding westward or eastward, whether in the name of Christianity, civilization, or trade, the Europeans and Americans believed they had the right to dispossess peop!es of other cultures. The rights of indigenous peop!es, the destiny of Western man, the meaning of progress, still trouble us today. We are still asking oursetves: What measures ean be used to establish a fair and equitable relationship between dominant societies cast in the European mold and native peoples? Europeans and their descendants have sought wealth on the frontiers of the New World to enrich the metropolis. The search goes on today in Alaska for oil, gas and minerals. Profit, as a motive for a nation geared to it, is a very powerful force that is quite boundless in its search for itself. It has bui!t and destroyed nations and, in its path, it has left destruction and mueh sorrow for the people that live on the land, both the original inhabitants and those that chose to live there. What is happening now is following the path of those examples.

We of the industrialized nations regard the city as a mirror of progress. And of course, the model is one to whieh native peoples who live within our own countries ought to aspire. The industrial system that has created the great cities is not only a creator of wealth but also a shatterer of traditional societies and a powerful instrument of eontrol in the new social systems to whieh it gives rise. It promises affluence, and it offers freedom from the constraints that nature and tradition have always imposed on humankind. With the advance of industry toward the !ast frontiers at a time when the indigenous peoples' ideas of selfdetermination are emerging in contemporary forms, the question of the relationship between dominant societies cast in the European mold and indigenous peoples eomfronts us again. Most native peoples have no wish to assimilate. Their fierce desire to retain their own culture ean only intensify as industry, technology and communications forge a more deeply pervasive mass culture, excluding diversity of every kind. Native peoples the world over fear that, without political autonomy and their own land-based economy, they must be overwhelmed, facing a future that would have no plaee for the values they have always cherished. Native peoples everywhere insist that their own eulture is still the vital force in their lives; the one fixed point in a changing world is their identity as natives. Culture is the comprehensive summary of standards, values, patterns of behavior, eommon attitudes, ways of life. Culture must have a material basis. This gives land ;iaims a compelling urgency among the world's indigenous peoples.

In September, 1984, Pope John Paul II addressed Canada's native peoples, a message that carried to indigenous peoples everywhere. "You are entitled to a just and equitable measure of self-determination, with a just and equitable degree of self-government. For you a land base with adequate resources is also necessary for developing a viable eeonomy." The condition and the claims of indigenous peoples who are locked into nations they ean never hope to rule must now be considered. Attempts by the indigenous peoples of the Fourth World to achieve self-determination face greater odds than most nations. lndigenous peoples are usually minority populations within their own nations. Onee the original inhabitants of their homelands, they have been overwhelmed by settler populations. They have survived long campaigns to persuade them to assimilate and persistent demands to subscribe to mass values. Nations that have acknowledged individual rights have often opposed the recognition of indigenous peoples' rights because they imply territorial rights and a sovereignty in competition with that of the nation. Governments have often opposed the eommunal holding of land and criticized tribal institutions as neither democratic nor modern. Some nations oppose recognition of indigenous rights ostensibly out of eoneem over the possibility of secession and a need for greater industrial development. No sound theory of international law ean justify the occupation of lands still inhabited by their aboriginal peoples. Article 27 of the United Nations' International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights reaches the special situation of native or indigenous peoples; specifically, it upholds the right of a minority "to enjoy their own eulture." If an indigenous people's loss of their land inevitably leads to the extinguishment of their distinct culture, the nation that took their land has violated Article 27 of this covenant. Nations have an obligation to protect traditional forms of eeonomie activity on whieh the cultural integrity of indigenous peoples depend. . .the Article is ample demonstration that indigenous peoples, in their search for self-determination, occupy the high moral ground.