In 1982, the United Nations declared August 9 the International Day of Indigenous Peoples. Indigenous peoples everywhere, from Asia to Africa and Latin America, are constantly fighting to protect their cultures, their territories and, above all, their rights. The Chao Lay in Thailand, for example, are denied citizenship by authorities who fail to understand their needs as a nomadic fishing community. Meanwhile, the Amazigh people of North Africa are fighting the authorities to protect rights such as their linguistic identity. In Kenya, the Ogiek, like many indigenous peoples, face land grabbing and are often fighting against economic interests that are increasingly hungry for natural resources. Also targets of racism, indigenous peoples are proudly reclaiming their culture through one of the most universal means of communication, music, as exemplified by Quechua singer Renata Flores and Wayuu singer Lido Pimienta in Latin America.
We invite you to discover all these stories published by Equal Times:
The coronavirus pandemic has put the indigenous communities of Asia under serious pressure
By Ana Salvá
Many communities have been hit hard by the coronavirus crisis, but for some, such as Chao Lay, the global slowdown in travel and tourism has also given them some breathing room. However, the positive side effects of the pandemic for such communities are few.
The term Chao Lay is used to refer to the three indigenous groups (Moken, Moklen and Urak Lawoi) living on the popular coast of the Andaman Sea and the islands of southern Thailand. According to the report Raising our voice to save our futurepublished in autumn 2019 by the Indigenous Women’s Network of Thailand (IWNT) and Manushya Foundation, about 13,000 Chao Lay live in 44 communities in five provinces in Thailand: Phang Nga, Phuket, Krabi, Ranong and Satun.
Read the full article here->https://www.equaltimes.org/the-coronavirus-pandemic-has-put#.YvFAKXbMI2w]
Across the Maghreb, the Imazighen are pressing for cultural rights and recognition
By Ricardo González
The wave of protests that has gripped North Africa since 2010 has presented an opportunity for languishing social, cultural and political movements in a region suffocated by fossilized dictatorships. One of these is the movement that defends the rights of the Amazigh people, an ethno-linguistic minority scattered in several countries of the region. “The international media made a mistake by calling the 2011 uprisings the ‘Arab Spring,’ which erases other groups like the Amazighs who were at the forefront of these struggles,” says Younis Nanis, an activist in the Libyan city of Zuwarah. Since the uprisings, their demands for cultural recognition have multiplied, and while progress has been made in some countries, Amazigh activists have yet to see their aspirations fulfilled.
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Despite a landmark ruling, Kenya’s Ogiek community is still fighting to return to their ancestral land
By Shadrack Omuka
Photo: Jason Taylor/International Earth Coalition
It was a historic moment. On 26 May 2017, after an eight-year court battle, the African Court on Human and People’s Rights based in Arusha, Tanzania, ruled that the Kenyan government had violated the rights of the Ogiek people by repeatedly evicting them from their lands ancestral in the Mau forest. The ruling, which found that the government had breached seven of the 68 articles of the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights, ordered the government to take remedial measures. But almost four years later and Ogiek are still waiting for the judgment to be implemented. Conservation and environmental laws still deny the Ogiek access to live and hunt in the forest, and thousands of Ogiek and non-Ogiek settlers have been driven from the forest in recent years, even during the pandemic.
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The sound of indigenous resistance in Latin America
By Jose Fajardo
A new generation of musicians in Latin America is returning to their roots and using music to defend ancestral cultures that have historically been persecuted by established elites and powers. They are mixing contemporary aesthetics and sounds, such as electronica, rap and reggaeton, with the music inherited from their ancestors to connect with the youth and stop their history from fading into oblivion.
“My songs are a political act,” says Guatemalan musician Sara Curruchich in conversation with Equal Times. She released her debut album in 2019, Born into the Mayan Kaqchikel Community of San Juan Comalapa in 1993 They are (“We Are”) combines lyrics in Spanish and her native language. “Music has an incredible ability to preserve memory and raise public awareness of the racism we’ve suffered for centuries,” she says.
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This article has been translated from French.
