The Indigenous Women's Network
Our Future, Our Responsibility
Statement of Winona LaDuke
Co-Chair Indigenous Womens Network, Program Director of the
Environmental Program at the Seventh Generation Fund, at the
United Nations Fourth World Conference on Women, Beijing, China,
August 31 1995.
I am from the Mississippi Band of Anishinabeg of the White Earth
reservation in northern Minnesota, one of approximately 250,00
Anishinabeg people who inhabit the great lakes region of the North
American continent. Aniin indinawaymugnitok. Me gweich Chi-iwewag,
Megwetch Ogitchi taikwewag. Nindizhinikaz, Beenaysayikwe, Makwa
nin dodaem. Megwetch indinawaymugunitok.
I am greeting you in my language and thanking you, my sisters for
the honor of speaking with you today about the challenges facing
women as we approach the 21st century.
A primary and central challenge impacting women as we approach the
21st century will be the distance we collectively as women and
societies have artificially placed ourselves from our Mother the
Earth, and the inherent environmental, social, health and
psychological consequences of colonialism, and subsequently rapid
industrialization on our bodies, and our nations. As a centerpiece
of this problem is the increasing lack of control we have over
ourselves, and our long term security. This situation must be
rectified through the laws of international institutions, such as
the United Nations, but as well, the policies, laws and practices
of our nations, our communities, our states, and ourselves.
The situation of Indigenous women, as a part of Indigenous
peoples, we believe is a magnified version of the critical
juncture we find ourselves in as peoples, an the problems facing
all women and our future generations as we struggle for a better
world. Security, militarism, the globalization of the economy, the
further marginalization of women, increasing intolerance and the
forced commodification and homogenization of culture through the
media.
The Earth is our Mother. From her we get our life, and our life,
and our ability to live. It is our responsibility to care for our
mother, and in caring for our Mother, we care for ourselves.
Women, all females, are the manifestation of Mother Earth in human
form. We are her daughters and in my cultural instructions:
Minobimaatisiiwin. We are to care for her. I am taught to live in
respect for Mother Earth. In Indigenous societies, we are told
that Natural Law is the highest law, higher than the law made by
nations, states, municipalities and the World Bank. That one would
do well to live in accordance with Natural Law. With those of our
Mother. And in respect for our Mother Earth of our relations --
indinawaymuguni took.
One hundred years ago, one of our Great Leaders -- Chief Seattle
stated, "What befalls the Earth, befalls the People of the Earth."
And that is the reality of today, and the situation of the status
of women, and the status of Indigenous women and Indigenous
peoples.
While I am from one nation of Indigenous peoples, there are
millions of Indigenous people worldwide. An estimated 500 million
people are in the world today. We are in the Cordillera, the Maori
of New Zealand, we are in East Timor, we are the Wara Wara of
Australia, the Lakota, the Tibetans, the peoples of Hawai'i, New
Caledonia and many other nations of Indigenous peoples. Indigenous
peoples. We are not populations, not minority groups, we are
peoples. We are nations of peoples. Under international law we
meet the criteria of nation states, having a common economic
system, language, territory, history, culture and governing
institutions. Despite this fact, Indigenous Nations are not
allowed to participate at the United Nations.
Nations of Indigenous people are not, by and large, represented at
the United Nations. Most decisions today are made by the 180 or so
member states to the United Nations. Those states, by and large,
have been in existence for only 200 years or less, while most
Nations of Indigenous peoples, with few exceptions, have been in
existence for thousands of years. Ironically, there would likely
be little argument in this room, that most decisions made in the
world today are actually made by some of the 47 transnational
corporations and their international financiers whose annual
income is larger than the gross national product for many
countries of the world.
This is a centerpiece of the problem. Decision-making is not made
by those who are affected by those decisions, people who live on
the land, but corporations, with an interest which is entirely
different than that of the land, and the people, or the women of
the land. This brings forth a fundamental question: What gives
these corporations like CONOCO, SHELL, EXXON, DIASHAWA, ITT, RIO
TINTO ZINC,and the WORLD BANK, a right which supersedes or is
superior to my human right to live on my land, or that of my
family, my community, my nation, our nations, and to us as women?
What law gives that right to them? Not any law of the Creator, or
of Mother Earth. Is that right contained within their wealth? Is
that right contained within their wealth, that which is
historically acquired immorally, unethically, through colonialism,
imperialism, and paid for with the lives of millions of people, or
species of plants and entire ecosystems? They should have no such
right, that right of self-determination, and to determine our
destiny, and that of our future generations.
The origins of this problem lie with the predator-prey
relationship industrial society has developed with the Earth, and
subsequently, the people of the Earth. This same relationship
exists vis a vis women. We, collectively find that we are often in
the role of the prey, to a predator society, whether for sexual
discrimination, exploitation, sterilization, absence of control
over our bodies, or being the subjects of repressive laws and
legislation in which we have no voice. This occurs not only on an
individual level, but, equally, and more significantly on a
societal level. It is also critical to point out at this time that
most matrilineal societies, societies in which governance and
decision-making are largely controlled by women, have been
obliterated from the face of the Earth by colonialism, and
subsequently industrialism. The only matrilineal societies which
exist in the world today are those of Indigenous nations. We are
the remaining matriliineal societies. Yet we also face
obliteration.
On a worldwide scale and in North America, Indigenous societies
historically, and today, remain in a predator-prey relationship
with industrial society, and prior to that colonialism and
imperialism. We are the peoples with the land -- land and natural
resources required for someone else's development program and the
amassing of wealth. The wealth of the United States, that nation
which today determines much of world policy, easily expropriated
from our lands. Similarly the wealth of Indigenous peoples of
South Africa, Central, South American countries, and Asia was
taken for the industrial development of Europe, and later for
settler states which came to occupy those lands. That relationship
between development and underdevelopment adversely affected the
status of our Indigenous societies, and the status of Indigenous
women.
Eduardo Galeano, the Latin American writer and scholar has said.
In the colonial to neocolonial alchemy, gold changes to
scrap metal and food to poison, we have become painfully
aware of the mortality of wealth which nature bestows
and imperialism appropriates.
Today, on a worldwide scale, we remain in the same situation as
one hundred years ago, only with less land, and fewer people.
Today, on a worldwide scale, 50 million indigenous peoples live in
the world's rainforests, a million indigenous peoples are slated
for relocated for dam projects in the next decade (thanks to the
World Bank, from the Narmada Project in India, to the Three Gorges
Dam Project, here in China, to the Jasmes Bay Hydro Electric
Project in northern Canada).
Almost all atomic weapons which have been detonated in the world
are also detonated on the lands or waters of Indigenous people.
This situation is mimicked in the North American context. Today,
over 50% of our remaining lands are forested, and both Canada and
the United States continue aggressive clearcutting policies on our
land. Over two thirds of the uranium resources in the United
States, and similar figures for Canada are on Indigenous lands, as
is one third of all low-sulphur coal resources. We have huge oil
reserves on our reservations, and we have the dubious honor of
being the most highly bombed nation in the world, in this case,
the Western Shoshone Nation, on which over 650 atomic weapons have
been detonated. We also have two separate accelerated proposals to
dump nuclear waste in our reservation lands, and similarly over
100 separate proposals to dump toxic waste on our reservation
lands.
We understand clearly the relationship between development for
someone else, and our own underdevelopment. We also understand
clearly the relationship between the environmental impacts of
types of development on our lands, and the environmental and
subsequent health impacts of in our bodies as women. That is the
cause of the problems.
We also understand clearly, that the analysis of North versus
South is an erroneous analysis. There is, from our perspective not
a problem of the North dictating the economic policies of the
South, and subsequently consuming the South. Instead, there is a
problem of the Middle Consuming Both the North and the South. That
is our situation. Let me explain.
The rate of deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon, is one acre
every nine seconds. Incidentally, the rate of extinction of
Indigenous peoples in the Amazon is one nation of Indigenous
peoples per year. The rate of deforestation of the boreal forest
of Canada is One Acre Every Twelve Seconds. Siberia, thanks to
American corporations like Weyerhauser, is not far behind, In all
cases, indigenous peoples are endangered. There is frankly no
difference between the impact in the North and the South. Uranium
mining has devastated a number of Indigenous communities in North
America.
Uranium mining in northern Canada has left over 120 million tons
of radioactive waste. This amount represents enough material to
cover the Trans-Canada Highway two meters deep across the Country.
Present production of uranium waste from Saskatchewan alone occurs
at the rate of over one million tons annually. Since 1975,
hospitalization for cancer, birth defects and circulatory
illnesses in that area have increased dramatically -- between 123
and 600 percent in that region. In other areas impacted by uranium
mining, cancers and birth defects have increased to, in some
cases, eight times the national average. The subsequent increases
in radiation exposure to both the local and to the larger north
American population are also evidenced in broader incidences of
cancer, such as breast cancer in North American women, which is
significantly in the rise. There is no a distinction in this
problem caused by radiation, whether is is in the Dine of northern
Canada, the Laguna Pueblo people of New Mexico, or the people of
Namibia.
The rapid increase in dioxin, organichlorides, and PCBs
(polychlorinated byphenots) chemicals in the world, as a result of
industrialization, has a devastating impact on Indigenous peoples,
Indigenous women, and other women. Each year, the world's paper
industry discharges from 600 to 3200 grams of dioxin equivalents
into water, sludge and paper products according to United States
Environmental Protection agency statistics. This quantity is equal
to the amount which would cause 58,000 to 294,000 cases of cancer
every year, based on the Environmental Protection Agency's
estimate of dioxin's carcinogenicity. According to a number of
recent studies, this has significantly increased the risk of
breast cancer in women. Similarly, heavy metals and PCBs
contamination of Inuit women of the Hudson Bay region of the
Arctic indicates that they have the highest levels of breast milk
contamination in the world. In a 1988 study, Inuit women were
found to have contamination levels up to 28 times higher than the
average of women in Quebec, and ten times higher than that
considered "safe" by the government.
It is also of great concern to our women, and our peoples, that
polar bears in that region of the Arctic have such a high level of
contamination from PCBs That they may be facing total sterility,
and forced into extinction by early in the next century. As
peoples who consider the Bears to be our relatives, we are
concerned also, significantly about ability to reproduce, as a
consequence of this level of bio-accumulation of toxins. We find
that or communities, like those of our relatives, the Bears, are
in fact, in danger of extinction.
Consequently, it is clear to us that the problems also found in
the south, like the export of chemicals and bio-accumulation of
toxins, are also very much our problems, and the problems clearly
manifested in our women. These are problems which emanates from
industrial societies mis-treatment and disrespect for our Mother
Earth, and subsequently are reflected in the devastation of the
collective health and well-being of women.
In summary, I have presented these arguments for a purpose. To
illustrate that that these are very common issues for women, not
only for Indigenous women, but for all women. What befalls our
mother Earth, befalls her daughter -- the women who are the
mothers of our nations. Simply stated, if we can no longer nurse
our children, if we can no longer bear children, and if our
bodies, themselves are wracked with poisons, we will have
accomplished little in the way of determining our destiny, or
improving our conditions. And, these problems, reflected in our
health and well being, are also inherently resulting in a decline
of the status of women, and are the result of a long set of
historical processes. Processes, which we as women, will need to
challenge if we will ultimately be in charge of our own destinies,
our own self-determination, and the future of our Earth our
Mother.
The reality is that all of these conditions -- those emanating
from the military and industrial devastation of our Mother the
Earth, and subsequently, our own bodies, and the land on which we
live -- are mimicked in social and development policies which
affect women. It is our belief, at Indigenous Womens Network, the
following:
1. Women should not have to trade their ecosystem for running
water, basic housing, health care, and basic human rights.
2. Development projects, whether in the north or in the south,
whether financed by the World Bank, or by the coffers of Rio
Tinto Zinc and Exxon, often replicate patriarchy and sexism,
and by and large cause the destruction of matrilineal
governance structure, land tenure, and cause a decline in the
status of women. By denying us the basic land on which we
live, and the clean food and streams from which to eat, and
instead offering us a wage economy, in which privilege is
often dictated by class, sex and race, indigenous women are
frequently moved from a central role in their societies to
the margins and to refugee status in industrial society.
3. The intellectual knowledge systems today often negate or deny
the existence and inherent property rights of Indigenous
people to our cultural and intellectual knowledge by
supplanting our knowledge systems. Industrial knowledge
system call us "primitive" while our medical knowledge,
plants, and even genetic material are stolen (as in the Human
Genome Project) by transnational corporations and
international agencies. This situation affects Indigenous
women, as a part of our communities. But on a larger scale it
has affected most women.
4. Subsequently, our women find that the basic rights to control
our bodies are impacted by all of the above through
development policies aimed at non-consensual or forced
sterilization, medical testing, invasive genetic sampling,
and absence of basic facilities and services which would
guarantee us the right and ability to control the size of our
families safely and willingly. These same development
policies often are based on tourism which commodifies our
bodies and cultures (the Pacific and Native America are prime
examples), and causes the same with women internationally.
Collectively, we must challenge this paradigm. In this
international arena, I call on you to support the struggle of
Indigenous peoples of the world for recognition, and to recognize
that until all peoples have self-determination, no one will truly
be free. Free of the predator and free to control our destiny. I
ask you to look into the United Nations' International Covenant on
Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, PART 1, Article 1, which
provides that "All peoples have right to self-determination. By
virtue of that right they may freely determine their political
status and freely pursue their economic, social, and cultural
development."
All peoples, should be constructed to mean, Indigenous peoples
have that right to self-determination. And, by virtue of that
right, they may freely determine their political status and freely
pursue, their economic, social and political development. Accord
us the same rights as all other nations of peoples. And through
that process, allow us to protect our ecosystems, their inherent
biodiversity, human cultural diversity, and those matriarchal
governments which remain in the world.
And with the Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization
(UNPO), we reaffirm that definition of self-determination provided
in Article 1 of the International Covenant on Social Economic and
Cultural Rights, further recognizing that the right to
self-determination belongs equally to women and to men. We believe
that the right of all peoples to self-determination cannot be
realized while women continue to be marginalized and prevented
from becoming full participants in their respective societies. The
human rights of women, like the human rights of Indigenous
peoples, and our inherent rights to self-determination, are not
issues exclusively within the domestic jurisdiction of states. For
further discussion of these, please see the international
agreements and accords struck by hundreds of Indigenous nations,
such as the Karioka document and the Matatua document.
Finally, while we may, here in the commonness of this forum, speak
of the common rights of all women, and those fundamental human
rights of self-determination, it is incumbent upon me to point out
the fundamental inequalities of this situation. So long as the
predator continues, so long as the middle -- the temperate
countries of the world -- continues to drive an increasing level
of consumption, and, frankly continue to export both the
technologies and drive for this level of consumption to other
countries of the world, there will be no safety for the human
rights of women, rights of Indigenous peoples, and to basic
protection for the Earth, from which we get our life. Consumption
causes the commodification of the sacred, the natural world,
cultures, and the commodification of children, and women.
From the United States position, consider the following. The US is
the largest energy market in the world. The average American
consumes seven times as many wood products per capita as anywhere
else in the industrialized world. And overall that country
consumes one third of the world's natural resources. By comparison
Canada's per capita energy consumption is the highest in the
world. Levels of consumption in the industrial world drive
destruction of the world's rainforests and the world's boreal
forests, drive production of nuclear wastes, production of pcbs,
dioxin and other lethal chemicals, which devastate the body of our
Mother earth, and our own bodies. Unless we speak and take
meaningful action to address the levels of consumption, and
subsequently, the exports of these technologies, and levels of
consumption to other countries (like the international market for
nuclear reactors), we will never have any security for our
individual human rights as Indigenous women, and for our security
as women.
If we are to seek and struggle for common ground of all women, it
is essential to struggle on this issue. It is not that the women
of the dominant society in so-called first world countries should
have equal pay and equal status, if that pay and status continues
to be based on a consumption model which is not only
unsustainable, but causes constant violation of the human rights
of women and nations elsewhere in the world. It essential to
collectively struggle to recover our status as Daughters of the
Earth. In that is our strength and the security; not in the
predator, but in the security of our Mother, for our future
generations. In that we can ensure our security as the Mothers of
our Nations.
United Nations Fourth World Conference on Women
Beijing, China
August 31 1995
Sunday, 30 March 2014
#RRT-002: The Indigenous Women's Network, Our Future, Our Responsibility BY Winona LaDuke
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment