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HUMAN RIGHTS
Latin America, 500 Years After: New Forms of Extermination and
Domination
It should be noted that the consequences of repression are evident not only at the individual level, but also at the societal level. After long years of repression and violence, everything related to things collective are tinted with fear and ambivalence in people's minds. If physical violence stops, it is because either the popular organizations no longer pose a threat to those in power, or because certain foreign cultural-economic patterns now seem to be inbred, and thus the use of force is no longer necessary. This is why all collective efforts towards reconstruction must be supported and disseminated. Coming back home in an isolated, fearsome way is quite different from returning in an organized, collective way, upholding the value of social organizations. In the cult of fear there is no future, there are no projects, because tomorrow is completely uncertain and you talk about the past only in the darkness of the backyard, for fear someone might overhear.
In the years to come, the challenge for Latin America is creating new institutions, new social movements, and giving a new meaning to the concept of participation, as well as recovering the language, always used as a weapon by those in power. But above all, it is necessary to work on the processes rather than on the projects, which run the risk of being fragmented and losing their original, alternative role in our usually fragmented societies. This fragmentation that prevails in our societies is the result of mechanistic, linear logic in tackling our problems. Wars, ethnic strife, military repression and serious environmental problems cannot be dissociated, even if on the international agenda these problems are split up into two different categories: environment on the one hand, and human rights on the other. The way these problems are visualized and dealt with is important, and helps bring forward possible solutions.
On the occasion of the 500th anniversary of the conquest there have been many debates on indigenous peoples' issues in the mass media. The analyses are simplistic in most cases and far from being re-evaluations of the concept of respect for cultural diversity. Culture becomes exchange always on an unequal footing - and above all it is the accumulation of information and objects leading to homogenous thinking, in line with the times in which we have to live.
Indigenous Peoples Around the World
"There are 250 million indigenous peoples worldwide (4% of the world population) living in over 70 countries"
Country Distribution of Indigenous
Peoples in the Population
Aotearoa 10.0%
Argentina 0.1%
Australia 2.0%
Bolivia 66.0%
Brazil 0.1%
Canada 4.0%
China 7.0%
El Salvador 21.0%
Greenland 90.0%
Guatemala 50.05%
India 7.0%
Malaysia 4.0%
Mexico 11.0%
Myanmar 30.0%
Peru 40.0%
Sweden 0.1%
United States 0.5%
USSR (former) 0.5%
"There are some 5,000 distinct indigenous peoples in the world -- groups that can be distinguished by linguistic and cultural differences, and geographical separation"
Source: "The Gaia Atlas of First Peoples, A Future for the Indigenous World", Anchor Books Doubleday, 1990, p.18-19 and 181-185.
Cite as: Youth Sourcebook on Sustainable Development. Winnipeg: IISD, 1995. Online. Internet. http://iisd.ca/youth/ysbk050.htm.