Models of Governance

Recent developments in the sovereignty of stateless nations in Europe point to a new organizational model for modern states stuck in colonial relationships with indigenous and ethnic minorities. Facing the alternatives of systems disruption that plague states like India, or the criminal enterprise trajectory modeled by Russia and the US, authentic democracy that respects the sovereignty of aboriginal nations offers a relatively benign choice. As indigenous nations in the Americas gain momentum in the development and consolidation of their human rights under international law, the economies and environments they inhabit will likely undergo substantial change from earlier European-imposed models of governance. Indeed, that is already underway.

Congratulations CWIS!

Public Good Project congratulates the Center for World Indigenous Studies on its 25th anniversary.

For twenty-five years, the Center for World Indigenous Studies (CWIS) has worked in collaboration with indigenous institutions like the National Congress of American Indians (NCAI) in the US, the Assembly of First Nations (AFN) in Canada, the Nordic Sami Council in Scandinavia, and the National Aboriginal Council in Australia, developing the intellectual strength and historical knowledge to move forward on human rights initiatives in traditional knowledge, governance, trade, health and medicine, and environmental restoration. Indeed, past presidents Chief George Manuel and President Joe DeLaCruz, of AFN and NCAI respectively, were instrumental in establishing CWIS.

Today, these initiatives influence events on all continents in the form of consultation on analysis and strategy for achieving accords essential to indigenous peoples' survival (like the 2007 United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples), developing strategies for restoring control over territories, formulating strategies for mitigating and adapting to climate change, as well as establishing new institutions for resolving conflicts.

In the 1950s, when Chief George Manuel began organizing First Nations in Canada, the official policy of the two federal governments above and below the forty-ninth parallel was to exterminate indigenous peoples as independent political entities. Assimilation programs designed to annihilate the indigenous cultures was actually designated “termination” by the US Congress.

As tribal leaders in the 1960s, Manuel and DeLaCruz embarked on a journey that would take them to all corners of the globe, igniting a resurgence of aboriginal peoples leading to the formation of the World Council of Indigenous Peoples in 1979, and it's successor, the Center for World Indigenous Studies (CWIS), in 1984. The foundation laid by Manuel, DeLaCruz, and CWIS chair, Rudolph C. Ryser, led to the creation of the UN Working Group on Indigenous Populations in 1982, and the establishment of the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Peoples in 2002.

In the present era of networks and netwars, think tanks like the Center for World Indigenous Studies function much like tribal protector societies, only on a global scale. Guarding against toxic ideas that can lead humanity astray, associations of scholars affiliated with these intellectual repositories and networks of activists relying on these learning centers serve to inoculate societies against panic and despair.

CWIS today is considered the premier indigenous think tank and archival repository in the world. Learn more about their programs by visiting their website.

Constructing Coherence

Constructing coherence concerns the flow of attention and continuity of apprehension of the situation.
--Therese Ornberg Berglund

Weak Minds Weaken Resistance

Frederick Clarkson addresses the Progressive Fascist Alliance.

A Thousand Cuts

Global Guerrillas looks at the vulnerability of corporations to psychological warfare.

Precarious Platforms

As Global Voices notes, the crackdown on independent media by the Peruvian government has been mirrored by hackers and swarmers attacking indigenous rights bloggers. A good lesson about backing up files, and not placing one’s trust in precarious corporate platforms like Google, Blogger or YouTube.

Greenwashing Big Oil

The Alberta Tar Sands is the largest and arguably dirtiest, carbon-generating industrial project in human history. So how do the oil companies go about defeating the First Nations and bona fide environmental networks opposed to the project? The answer according to Macdonald Stainsby and Dru Oja Jay, authors of Offsetting Resistance: the effects of foundation funding and corporate fronts, is to buy their own environmental group to negotiate with the government on their behalf.

That organization, Tar Sands Coalition (a Tides project), can then be counted on to help smother the grassroots environmental movement. As oil corporations like Tar Sands investor Sunoco look to defeat environmentalism and indigenous peoples from the Arctic to Patagonia, giant multi-billion dollar foundations like Pew Charitable Trusts are critical.

Using money-laundering operations like Tides to help them, Pew (same family that owns Sunoco), Rockefeller, Ford and Hewlett Foundations — all benefactors of the San Francisco-based Tides Foundation — can then effectively greenwash corporate fronts masquerading as environmental organizations. When organizations like The Nature Conservancy, Greenpeace, and Sierra Club can be bought off by big oil, the only thing to do is expose the colossal fraud. In their remarkable report, messrs. Stainsby and Jay have done just that.