« BACK TO FORUM
Morderatoren:
anuriandima84, Liamjod, mekhala, mnopq
 Autor |
 Posten
|
 |
|
Luciana Gomes Alves Arfelli
beigetreten: Jun 4, 2003
Beiträge: 2
Poster Rank:
Tongue-tied
User is
Offline
Geschlecht & Alter: Weiblich & 27
Country: Brasilien
Province/State: São Paulo
|
The indigenous question in Brazil
February 4, 2004 - 06:32 AM
|
|
Hello dear all!
I’m so happy that the indigenous question is now the Issue of the month on TIG. It must be discussed. It must be clear. And we must find together solutions for the problems Indigenous people are passing and suffering.
Well, I’m Brazilian. And as I guess you know, most of my people are a mix of cultures, races and colors. For being true, I really don’t know if my ancestors were indigenous or not! And I guess most of Brazilian people couldn’t know it as well.
I’ll try to tell you, in a few words, what’s going on with the indigenous question here…
People use to refer to indigenous people from Brazil (mainly on the colonization times) as they form a homogeneous group. As their origins, tribes, social and cultural organization were the same. But they were separated in many groups on various regions of that land today we call “Brazil”. They had many wars, were fighting for best and fertile lands and had language and culture completely different.
When the “shining-white-Gods” from Europe arrived here and the Portuguese colonization started, we had something like 2 million of indigenous people here or more. But most of them were killed, rapped, tortured, enslaved. They were also obliged to believe in the Christian God, to speak Portuguese and to forget all their ancient traditions.
Many of them made suicide for not being enslaved or for not have to leave their culture and religion. Many of them also joined battles and fought by themselves; tribe to tribe; instigated and used by the Portuguese. Many of them died from illness, achieved from the Europeans.
And year-by-year they were disappearing: poverty, misery, disease, hunger… Today we estimate that are just about 200.00 indigenous people spread on our territory.
We can find isolated tribes near big cities as Sao Paulo or in the boundaries of the Amazon forest. We can find indigenous integrated to the “civilized” culture or isolated from anything.
But the main nowadays problem on the indigenous question is the right of territory. The government and the FUNAI (National Foundation of Indigenous People) delimited some areas to the tribes and restricted its access.
But the exploration still continues.
To extract wood, gold, to create cattle, for having meadows and for building industries (also foreign industries!); people (not just people… But rich people, businessman, industry-men…) are invading indigenous areas.
And the sad thing is the power those rich people have to manipulate and take control of the media and public opinion here in Brazil. That’s the way we use to hear ordinary people saying things like: “The indigenous don’t need much land! They are lazy! We need the land to build industries and give job to the population”… It’s hard to hear things like that when you know all the suffering that our ancient landowners passed by.
I must say that Indigenous people here achieved many rights, like the bilingual education, for example (Portuguese and their own language). But just this is insufficient!
I guess we, young people around the word are on the right way: discussing, informing people about the indigenous question, also bringing most people we can find to this reality. The second step is to interfere in our government public polices to guarantee that indigenous have their rights preserved.
Well, friends, thanks for this opportunity of discussing about this important issue. I hope this message inspires you to keep fighting against all these injustice and to learn more about the indigenous question.
Love,
Luciana - Brazil
|
|
back to top |
link to this post
|
|
taiwo
beigetreten: Jan 21, 2003
Beiträge:
Poster Rank:
Tongue-tied
User is
Offline
Geschlecht: Männlich
Country: Nigeria
Province/State: Lagos
Stadt: Lagos
|
Indigenous People of Niger Delta
February 4, 2004 - 10:29 AM
|
|
I an grateful to be given this opportunity to participates in this forum. Indigenous people in my country share the same challenges in their peculiar environment as other indigenous people of the world. My attention is particular drawn to the indigenous people of Niger Delta region of Nigeria.
The people presently supply 80% of the wealth of the nation, but there are deprived in every way because what the situation have condition them to become.As enumerated below:
1. Lack of basic amenities for life sustenance in this communities because of lack of attention by all level of government
2. Rampant, violent intra and inter-ethic, tribal conflicts between communities as a result of pent-up anger and frustration against government and corrupt community leaders.
3. Dependency of the majority of Niger Delta youth on the hand-out from the community leaders and oil exploration company,detrimental to development of skills and education for self actualization.
4. Aggressive agitation of the leaders of these indigenous people for more controlling share in revenue accrue from from this area without resultant translation to the improvement in the general standard of living and environment of the indigenous people.
5. Environmental degradation and adverse ecological impact on the vegetation and fishing areas as result of gas flaring and oil-exploration
6. Invasion and extra judicial murder of the leaders of this communities against international norms and order by the past military government.
These situations are not different from what we have happen in other part of the world. The rich and powerful always rule over the poor, but with the awareness created by this environment and the assistance of all people locally,nationally and internationally, solution and changes in direction for better improvement can start to take place for these people.
|
|
back to top |
link to this post
|
|
Pétala Calestini Mendes
beigetreten: Sep 30, 2003
Beiträge:
Poster Rank:
Tongue-tied
User is
Offline
Geschlecht & Alter: Weiblich, 23
Country: Brazil
Province/State: Distrito Federal
Stadt: Brasília
|
Re: The indigenous question in Brazil
February 4, 2004 - 11:15 AM
|
|
hey lu!
i completelly agree with you: some archievements have been made but there is much more to do. the thing i love about brazil is that its such a rich country in culture and people seems to ignore it!! it drives me insane!! you know it wery well, this mix of races made us unique, and culture is the most important thing on a country... at school we learn that "delimitated area, currency and etc.." thing is what makes a country... but i think that the essential is culture...
anyway, i think that the major issue right now is that they are explored on a bad way... i think that we could take the advantage of having such an amazing culture on our own territory and protect with our heart and soul. it is such a potential source of income! i don´t know if this is influence of my college course, but tourism would give them the things they need... to show they art, believes... people (well at least i do!) find it interesting, exotic... it will provide jobs aswell!
ofcourse that the most important thing is to don´t let them walk away of their own culture and leave it as a "thing to forehiner see"...
well, better go now, or i´ll keep writing all day!
take care!
|
|
back to top |
link to this post
|
|
Eric Nicolas Schneider
beigetreten: Nov 12, 2003
Beiträge: 7
Poster Rank:
Soft-spoken
User is
Offline
Geschlecht & Alter: Männlich, 38
Country: Germany
Province/State: Berlin
Stadt: Berlin
|
When the natives are gone the forest is gone the world is gone
February 9, 2004 - 06:34 AM
|
|
I am following with interest the (maybe true) societal advancement and economical rise of Brazil developing an "independent" South America, and with frustration that the bottom line issues are not met seriously by the Lula government: stopping illegal and "legal" logging and the building of new routes, which spread useless settling (the ground is no good for more than two seasons) and bushmeat hunting, poisoning the rivers, prostitution and killing of the tribals. They should know best that they can only live for two decades off the Amazon. How short sighted is that?
If you want the tribals to be self-determined and economically independent ... if their environment is still quite o.k., leave them in peace and keep intruders out of there. The tribals' priority is keeping on living as usual. That is my consistent experience from many encounters with traditional leaders of Chile, Peru,Ecuador and Colombia. They are not exlicitly against "development" or "modernization", but this has to be done slowly and very well tuned, - that is something for NGO people sharing the indigenous worldview, and those are VERY few, yet.
TOURISM is only a weak option for tribals. In general, the side effects are too bad in 95% of the ventures. And - what if this up and down business of tourism goes down periodically? then the dependance has again left them with no jobs - and: a loss of knowhow how to do without tourism. that happens quite quickly, unfortunately. see www.survival-international.org's website for infos about implications to tribal eco-tourism.
|
|
back to top |
link to this post
|
|
|
Display posts from:
|
« BACK TO FORUM
|
Forum Sprung:
|
Alle Zeiten sind GMT-05:00
|
» Check that you are logged in!
You cannot create new threads in this forum
You cannot post replies in this forum
You cannot vote in polls in this forum
You cannot edit/delete your posts in this forum
|
|
Administratoren:
chengzhao1993, Liamjod
Morderatoren:
anuriandima84, Liamjod, mekhala, mnopq
|
|
Homepage
Gemeinschaft
