Reckoning & Reconciliation Discussion Circle Part 1

Center for Great Plains Studies Author

06/28/2022 Added

9 Plays

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Replay of first discussion circle, June 23, 2022.

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[00:00:00.600]Yup.
[00:00:01.980]So thanks for attending this evening.
[00:00:06.000]My name is Margaret Jacobs.
[00:00:07.440]I'm the director of The Center for Great Plains Studies,
[00:00:10.560]and this event is one that we are doing as a follow up
[00:00:15.150]to our summit that we did back in April
[00:00:18.598]and many of the other events that we've done
[00:00:21.270]as part of this series
[00:00:22.440]on Reckoning and Reconciliation on the Great Plains.
[00:00:25.966]I don't know about you,
[00:00:27.210]but after the summit and after all the events,
[00:00:29.700]it's been like,
[00:00:32.340]I longed to talk to people
[00:00:34.320]about what we were hearing from our speakers
[00:00:37.410]and from the panelists that we met.
[00:00:39.780]And so we wanted to do a little summer series
[00:00:43.254]that would allow us to have more time
[00:00:45.540]to talk about some of the issues that came up
[00:00:49.290]during the earlier events.
[00:00:52.440]So that's why we're doing this,
[00:00:54.600]and we're really thrilled that you're here.
[00:00:58.110]Before we begin tonight,
[00:00:59.550]I wanna just share with you a couple ideas.
[00:01:04.200]One is, if for any reason you're having technical problems,
[00:01:08.490]the best way usually to deal with that
[00:01:10.220]is just to say it in the chat.
[00:01:13.050]And if you don't know where the chat is,
[00:01:14.670]if you go to the bottom of your screen,
[00:01:16.770]there's a little section that says chat,
[00:01:18.540]and you can send a message.
[00:01:20.580]And Katie Nieland,
[00:01:21.990]who's the associate director of our center,
[00:01:25.500]she'll help you with any technical issues
[00:01:28.530]to the best of her ability.
[00:01:29.670]Sometimes we get stuck, but we'll try.
[00:01:34.860]Also, I wanna just share with you sort of the format
[00:01:38.580]of the evening.
[00:01:41.400]We have a guest tonight, Waskar Ari,
[00:01:45.447]He's Zooming in or iPhoning in from Bolivia.
[00:01:51.720]So we're really grateful for him to be here tonight.
[00:01:55.050]And so we'll probably spend about 45 minutes to an hour
[00:01:59.250]talking with Waskar,
[00:02:02.280]including any questions you may have for him.
[00:02:05.880]And then we'll let Waskar go,
[00:02:08.550]and we'll have another 30 to 45 minutes
[00:02:11.850]where we can just discuss anything that came up
[00:02:15.660]in the discussion with Waskar
[00:02:17.640]or anything that we wanna pursue from the reading.
[00:02:22.380]Depending on how many people we have at that point,
[00:02:25.710]we may do some small groups.
[00:02:27.510]If we remain this small, we' just like stay together.
[00:02:32.700]And so I wanna begin by just acknowledging where I'm at.
[00:02:37.380]I think probably you may be calling
[00:02:40.470]from many different places,
[00:02:41.820]but some of you may also be in Lincoln, Nebraska,
[00:02:44.490]and that's where the center is based
[00:02:46.500]and where Katie and I are Zooming in from tonight.
[00:02:50.970]And I wanna share with you a land acknowledgement
[00:02:53.190]that was written by my friend and colleague, Kevin Abourezk
[00:02:56.790]who's a member of the Rosebud Lakota Nation.
[00:03:00.030]And he's an incredible writer,
[00:03:01.530]and I love his land acknowledgement.
[00:03:03.990]He wrote,
[00:03:04.823]"We want to acknowledge that we are living on the past,
[00:03:07.650]present and future homelands of the Pawnee, Otoe-Missouria,
[00:03:12.060]Omaha, and Kansa peoples.
[00:03:15.150]The Salt Basin around present day Lincoln
[00:03:18.420]attracted many indigenous nations to this region.
[00:03:22.440]The Omaha called the area Niskithe or salt water.
[00:03:27.570]Their women used eagle feathers to collect the salt,
[00:03:30.690]which they used to cure buffalo meat.
[00:03:34.320]Under pressure from federal officials and settlers,
[00:03:37.500]the Otoe-Missourian seated the land that became Lincoln
[00:03:40.650]to the federal government in 1833 and 1854,
[00:03:45.210]and this forced out the tribal peoples
[00:03:47.130]who had called the Niskithe home for many generations.
[00:03:51.810]Native people of many nations live in Lincoln today
[00:03:54.870]and contribute to our community's vitality and diversity.
[00:03:59.010]And today we thank them
[00:04:00.540]for their stewardship of these lands.
[00:04:04.560]So now I want to introduce our guest tonight,
[00:04:08.610]Dr. Waskar Ari.
[00:04:12.150]I can't...
[00:04:13.410]It's hard for me to call him Dr. Ari.
[00:04:15.750]It's not a sign of disrespect, but he's a friend of mine.
[00:04:19.050]So I'm gonna call him Waskar
[00:04:20.670]and he can correct me when he comes on
[00:04:23.040]if he wants to be called something different.
[00:04:25.230]But so Waskar is my colleague
[00:04:27.900]in the Department of History
[00:04:29.100]at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
[00:04:31.020]He's also an associate professor of ethnic studies.
[00:04:34.920]Waskar is originally from Bolivia.
[00:04:38.100]He's a member of the indigenous group, the Aymara.
[00:04:43.470]He's a historian of 19th and 20th century
[00:04:46.500]Latin-American nation-states,
[00:04:48.660]and how they intersect with indigenous peoples
[00:04:51.330]and coloniality.
[00:04:53.310]His work particularly emphasizes race,
[00:04:56.220]ethnicity, gender, and sexuality.
[00:04:59.400]He's the author of the 2014 book,
[00:05:02.467]"Earth Politics: Coloniality, Religion
[00:05:06.090]and Bolivia AMP Indigenous Intellectuals, 1921 to 1971."
[00:05:12.723]It's a wonderful book
[00:05:14.490]about the importance of land connections
[00:05:19.350]and spiritual connections to land, to intellectuals,
[00:05:23.460]indigenous intellectuals and their activism in Bolivia.
[00:05:28.590]Waskar is writing another book too called,
[00:05:30.547]"Indigenous Women's Strategies of Autonomy:
[00:05:33.540]Segregation, Sexuality, and Agrarian Reforms in Bolivia,
[00:05:37.320]1870 to 1964."
[00:05:41.037]And one thing you may notice,
[00:05:42.240]we historians, we always put dates on our titles.
[00:05:46.620]Before launching his career, his academic career,
[00:05:50.280]Waskar was also involved in the UN's work
[00:05:53.850]to recognize indigenous rights.
[00:05:56.640]And I've never heard Waskar
[00:05:58.860]talk about this aspect of his work before,
[00:06:01.080]but I've always been curious.
[00:06:03.630]And so we're incredibly thrilled and honored
[00:06:06.420]to have Waskar with us this evening.
[00:06:11.040]Waskar, is there anything you'd like to add to your intro?
[00:06:27.990]It seems now you can listen me.
[00:06:29.580]Can you listen me?
[00:06:30.960]Yes. Yeah, okay.
[00:06:33.000]Well, I'll start in my native language,
[00:06:38.610]which is Aymara.
[00:06:40.804](Waskar speaking in foreign language)
[00:07:03.360]I said that I wanna send you many warm regards,
[00:07:13.320]greetings from Bolivia.
[00:07:17.987]And indeed I admires my first language
[00:07:23.070]and I'm happy to share any experience.
[00:07:28.680]In my previous life,
[00:07:30.750]which was involved with the economic development
[00:07:34.980]and indigenous rights,
[00:07:38.040]so I'll be happy to share any aspect
[00:07:40.980]that Margaret wants to ask me, please.
[00:07:53.760]Thank you, Jean.
[00:07:55.174](Margaret laughing)
[00:07:57.450]I'm assuming that all of you
[00:07:59.190]may have very different backgrounds
[00:08:01.650]and different levels of knowledge about this topic.
[00:08:05.310]And so the first question I wanted to ask Waskar is,
[00:08:11.610]how do you define indigenous?
[00:08:17.100]Okay, it seems you cannot see me.
[00:08:20.580]I thought you can see me,
[00:08:22.170]but I see that you are not able to see me.
[00:08:25.290]Sorry about that.
[00:08:27.780]It just the system doesn't work.
[00:08:30.900]Well, in terms of your question,
[00:08:38.160]your question is, in term of what I understand
[00:08:42.637]about indigenous people, is that right?
[00:08:50.490]I wonder how you would actually define
[00:08:52.950]the term indigenous.
[00:08:55.020]Okay. Just to get started.
[00:08:58.560]Well, yes, that's a very proud question, right?
[00:09:07.170]Well, something very basic
[00:09:09.090]is that anyone with indigenous ancestry,
[00:09:15.450]and today we live in a very complex world,
[00:09:18.810]and this concept for long time
[00:09:25.470]had different traditions in Latin America for a while
[00:09:29.400]was associated, if you speak a native language,
[00:09:32.820]other times was associated,
[00:09:35.400]what type of tax do you pay, for instance,
[00:09:38.670]in colonial times?
[00:09:41.220]Not necessarily was associated with race for many centuries,
[00:09:50.214]not even with indigenous heritage for many centuries.
[00:09:54.150]It's in the 20th century when we have this new definition
[00:09:59.640]about indigenous people
[00:10:02.490]associated with indigenous heritage, right?
[00:10:09.300]And that is still is a lot of,
[00:10:13.620]it's still complex because today many native people
[00:10:23.250]are not associated anymore with land,
[00:10:27.780]and that creates even more complex situation.
[00:10:32.310]And many times people that don't have land
[00:10:35.520]are great activists, right?
[00:10:38.310]So they have another way to link
[00:10:41.010]with the indigenous heritage.
[00:10:43.500]Sometimes is through history, or at times with language,
[00:10:48.840]religion, faith, world views, or custom vision.
[00:10:55.500]So there are many, many forms
[00:11:01.470]to understand what is indigenous, right?
[00:11:06.060]And even some people don't accept that term indigenous,
[00:11:12.270]other times they accept, let's say, nationality term, right?
[00:11:19.380]First nation name.
[00:11:21.240]And there is,
[00:11:24.300]the other term even more problematic in my generation
[00:11:29.820]was the Indian term.
[00:11:31.980]And that term also today
[00:11:35.190]is a kind of problematic term, right?
[00:11:38.880]That term Indian.
[00:11:42.750]And some people like to identify with that term also,
[00:11:47.100]because that's a term that has a lot of meanings, right?
[00:11:54.210]And some people argue that we thought we were oppressed
[00:12:01.770]and we thought we were gonna be liberated.
[00:12:05.100]There is, I would say, a world of terms and complexities
[00:12:11.970]when we hear the idea of indigenous person
[00:12:16.740]or indigenous people,
[00:12:18.570]and that varies from region to region and from era to era,
[00:12:25.740]and also, in terms of how you frame things, right?
[00:12:36.270]Yeah, so, Waskar, I'm gonna share my screen a little bit,
[00:12:40.260]if I can...
[00:12:43.200]I'm gonna just share a definition
[00:12:45.240]that one of the UN agencies has created for indigenous to,
[00:12:50.790]if I can...
[00:12:52.770]There it is.
[00:12:56.071]The World Health Organization has this definition,
[00:13:00.900]and I think it is kind of complicated to say,
[00:13:04.560]you know, who is indigenous.
[00:13:08.220]And I I've come across that too, Waskar,
[00:13:10.590]that there are people who really bristle at the term.
[00:13:13.410]They don't like it.
[00:13:14.730]I think partly because if they aren't indigenous,
[00:13:18.240]they don't feel like they have the same legitimacy perhaps
[00:13:21.750]to a particular place.
[00:13:25.950]I thought I just shared that
[00:13:27.018]just to help the conversation along.
[00:13:31.680]How many indigenous people are in the world today?
[00:13:37.230]Is that a question for me?
[00:13:39.270]Yeah.
[00:13:40.470]Okay, okay.
[00:13:41.910]Well, I think,
[00:13:45.180]I'm not with the statistics,
[00:13:48.750]but there are not so many left.
[00:13:55.830]And that term,
[00:13:58.622]it's a lot of times associated with the idea
[00:14:07.213]of not only self definition,
[00:14:12.690]but linked with land, right?
[00:14:15.613]And that makes that idea, how many,
[00:14:19.980]so what criteria we're gonna use, right?
[00:14:23.220]A lot of times, they use self-definition,
[00:14:26.910]and with that, the number of indigenous persons
[00:14:32.310]is a little bit bigger, right?
[00:14:37.500]Because also, indigenous people have to deal
[00:14:43.890]with the problem of the stigma
[00:14:47.803]and the all colonial dimension.
[00:14:56.640]So it varies from country to country, right?
[00:15:01.470]For instance, in Latin America, Bolivia and Guatemala,
[00:15:07.650]and also in many ways, Mexico,
[00:15:10.440]have large numbers of indigenous people.
[00:15:14.310]Close to half, let's say,
[00:15:16.620]and that makes several millions, right?
[00:15:20.190]In other parts, the number is very tiny minority, right?
[00:15:29.880]And so they're...
[00:15:34.740]I only can say is that there are several millions probably,
[00:15:42.570]about 20 million in the world or more, right?
[00:15:48.818]And that is,
[00:15:51.459]how to construct that information
[00:15:54.270]is also very complex and varies from country to country
[00:16:00.540]and from time to time.
[00:16:03.480]Yes, you know, in the United States,
[00:16:05.520]that issue is fraught.
[00:16:06.600]It's like, who is indigenous?
[00:16:08.910]Can you just say I'm indigenous,
[00:16:10.380]or do you need to be recognized by a community?
[00:16:12.870]Or again, I pulled some stuff from the UN.
[00:16:21.810]I thought this was super interesting that indigenous people,
[00:16:28.140]as a percentage of the world population,
[00:16:31.050]are 6.2% of the world's population.
[00:16:35.580]But I don't,
[00:16:36.510]and I don't know if the statistic
[00:16:37.830]about how much land they occupy is current,
[00:16:42.480]or it must be current instead of historical.
[00:16:49.590]And it's interesting too
[00:16:53.160]that they have identified indigenous people
[00:16:55.980]in 90 different countries,
[00:16:58.650]5,000 different groups,
[00:17:00.210]4,000 specific languages.
[00:17:05.250]This is another fascinating chart I found
[00:17:09.810]where the world's indigenous people live.
[00:17:12.390]The largest percentage is Greenland,
[00:17:20.940]Pacific, and Bolivia right up there.
[00:17:24.360]And like you said, Guatemala too.
[00:17:27.960]You notice the United States, Canada, Australia,
[00:17:30.597]well, New Zealand's on there,
[00:17:31.860]but United States, Canada and Australia are not there.
[00:17:35.550]We have a very small percentage of our populations
[00:17:39.150]that are indigenous.
[00:17:40.920]It's about less than 1% in the United States.
[00:17:47.880]So next, Waskar, I was gonna ask you,
[00:17:51.750]how did the UN Declaration
[00:17:54.360]on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples come about?
[00:17:58.890]I couldn't hear you very well.
[00:18:00.930]Can you please rephrase it?
[00:18:03.210]Sure.
[00:18:04.043]How did the UN Declaration
[00:18:06.180]on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples come about?
[00:18:11.257]Well, that...
[00:18:13.920]That comes from many years of work.
[00:18:22.200]In the 1950s, there was...
[00:18:29.730]The International Labour Organization
[00:18:32.790]had a definition of indigenous people.
[00:18:35.255]The early indigenous people's declarations
[00:18:41.130]it's with the,
[00:18:43.710]comes in the area of the labor organizations.
[00:18:47.790]And they had a strong idea about integration
[00:18:55.170]about, yeah, especially about integration.
[00:18:59.580]There was a kind of continuation of colonization
[00:19:04.680]in the 1950s when they thought about the indigenous people
[00:19:09.240]very much about assimilation, right?
[00:19:12.990]Then in the 1980s,
[00:19:19.890]comes another group of indigenous activists.
[00:19:27.060]And the whole idea was to change.
[00:19:31.500]And when I said in 1950s declaration,
[00:19:35.910]that was the only indigenous
[00:19:39.690]international legislation by then.
[00:19:42.480]And there was this need in the 1980s
[00:19:46.560]to change that legislation.
[00:19:50.190]Was seen as not really helping,
[00:19:53.490]was perceived as a totally colonial framework,
[00:20:00.300]and because of that,
[00:20:03.210]there was this whole idea to change that.
[00:20:08.340]And a lot of indigenous activists,
[00:20:12.180]especially from the U.S., they were very strong on that.
[00:20:19.920]And, of course, from Latin America
[00:20:22.050]and many other parts of the world.
[00:20:24.780]By then, in the 1980s,
[00:20:27.927]was a dream that one day,
[00:20:31.290]the General Assembly of the United Nations
[00:20:36.540]one day is gonna have totally full declaration, right?
[00:20:43.560]In 1980s, there was already that dream,
[00:20:47.040]that one day that was the goal, right?
[00:20:50.130]That was the goal.
[00:20:51.360]And as you know, only that was possible
[00:20:54.270]in the 21st century, right?
[00:20:57.030]2007 comes a new declaration
[00:21:01.410]in a new different level.
[00:21:04.650]So basically generations of indigenous activists
[00:21:12.120]were involved in changing the international legislation.
[00:21:18.420]And one of the most complex issues that I remember,
[00:21:24.870]and I'm talking about 1980s,
[00:21:28.740]that's a time in which I used to go
[00:21:31.680]to all of these international meetings,
[00:21:34.320]and one of the most complex issues
[00:21:36.450]was the idea of sovereignty, right?
[00:21:41.910]That idea was, how to include it.
[00:21:47.310]Should we include it or not?
[00:21:51.240]That was a big debate.
[00:21:53.970]And also was very interesting to watch
[00:21:57.510]in all of these international meetings.
[00:21:59.970]People from very different backgrounds,
[00:22:05.790]different parts of the world,
[00:22:07.230]all indigenous people discussing about indigenous concerns.
[00:22:16.080]And the issue of frameworks was a big challenge
[00:22:23.280]from what I remember,
[00:22:25.050]because the way that, let's say, in Ecuador,
[00:22:29.100]people understand what does mean to be an indigenous person,
[00:22:39.017]and what are the main problems.
[00:22:42.287]It was very different in the way that,
[00:22:45.546]let's say, Canadians look at the issue,
[00:22:48.450]or people from Alaska, they look at the issue, right?
[00:22:51.390]So there was a lot of debates
[00:22:54.567]and very hard to reach to one common agenda,
[00:23:00.570]and we're meetings in London, in New York,
[00:23:04.067]and in other parts of the world,
[00:23:05.730]but that's generations of activists working on that.
[00:23:13.437]And always again,
[00:23:15.000]this idea that in what way serenity should be included?
[00:23:25.800]Well, I have a lot of questions now, Waskar.
[00:23:29.520]Well, what is like,
[00:23:32.040]what was the debate about sovereignty
[00:23:35.760]and why is that kind of a sticking point on the declaration?
[00:23:41.451]Yeah, that's an interesting question.
[00:23:44.010]Well, what I remember is,
[00:23:46.980]one big problem was language.
[00:23:55.560]The official language in all of these meetings
[00:23:58.230]used to be English or French, right?
[00:24:02.970]And, let's say, people from Latin America,
[00:24:10.994]from Africa and from Asia,
[00:24:15.360]they used to,
[00:24:17.310]I would say, no, they didn't,
[00:24:19.950]they didn't disagree with the topic of sovereignty,
[00:24:25.200]but they were more interested in immediate concerns, right?
[00:24:36.420]So that was when big issue,
[00:24:42.499]from what I remember.
[00:24:44.970]And people used to also appreciate very much
[00:24:48.420]the clarity of the natives people from North America,
[00:24:58.050]that they were already well trained in theory,
[00:25:06.288]in international rights.
[00:25:09.360]And people from Latin America or Asia,
[00:25:13.693]a lot of times, they had problems with...
[00:25:20.250]Well, basically there were people
[00:25:21.870]that they were, a lot of times,
[00:25:23.640]just mainly involved in farming.
[00:25:26.384]And so that was one big issue.
[00:25:32.610]A lot of people from different backgrounds,
[00:25:39.030]and a lot of frameworks, and how to understand sovereignty.
[00:25:44.490]That was a big issue.
[00:25:48.390]And the issue of strategy also,
[00:25:51.588]what's the best way to reach,
[00:25:56.460]what's the best way to arrive to sovereignty?
[00:26:01.320]That was another big problem.
[00:26:06.840]So one question I would have,
[00:26:09.120]and maybe then we'll open it up to everybody is,
[00:26:13.500]why do indigenous people need a special UN declaration?
[00:26:18.330]Are they not covered by adequately,
[00:26:21.180]by like the UN human rights charter?
[00:26:24.690]Or why did you all,
[00:26:28.410]as who were part of this movement,
[00:26:30.720]why did you feel the need for a special UN declaration?
[00:26:35.850]Well, that's a wonderful question.
[00:26:38.310]The whole idea was that,
[00:26:41.640]there were already these discussions, right?
[00:26:44.130]There were already this discussion,
[00:26:45.930]but the idea was,
[00:26:49.770]how to create an international legislation, the absence.
[00:26:55.956]That's the time also that there were discussions
[00:26:59.700]about women, right?
[00:27:04.260]So the idea that we need an special legislation, right?
[00:27:10.407]And that was not easy also to talk about
[00:27:14.670]because a lot of people used to frame by then
[00:27:19.860]in the idea that,
[00:27:20.940]well, it's about minorities,
[00:27:23.040]and a lot of people, they didn't feel comfortable
[00:27:25.530]with, we used to argue.
[00:27:27.210]Well, we are majority, right?
[00:27:30.450]So if that's a good idea
[00:27:35.160]to have an international legislation on that,
[00:27:39.390]but basically is that, the idea that,
[00:27:43.170]well, all of these laws that every country has,
[00:27:53.100]in practice, were not being reinforced,
[00:27:57.630]They were not being reinforced.
[00:27:59.550]And that if we have an international law,
[00:28:06.090]then the situation is gonna be reinforced.
[00:28:10.410]The declaration of rights is gonna be reinforced.
[00:28:14.550]And that was one of the most important
[00:28:23.610]immediate objectives with all of them.
[00:28:26.192]How can we change our immediate situation
[00:28:31.080]with all of these meetings
[00:28:33.330]and with all of these discussions,
[00:28:38.610]and in what ways an international leadership
[00:28:42.480]can help on that?
[00:28:44.190]So that indeed was one of the main concerns.
[00:28:50.280]I do have another question
[00:28:52.080]before I turn it over to other people,
[00:28:54.900]and that's that I read in Walter Echo-Hawk's book
[00:28:58.470]that our group has been reading together,
[00:29:00.847]"In the Light of Justice,"
[00:29:03.003]that Bolivia was the first nation
[00:29:06.150]to grant legal status to the UN declaration
[00:29:09.180]and to incorporate it into its legal code.
[00:29:12.510]And I wonder what that has meant
[00:29:14.310]for indigenous people like yourself in Bolivia.
[00:29:18.690]Has it helped improve your situation there?
[00:29:28.649]Well, that was this idea...
[00:29:30.720]Well, indeed, when they created
[00:29:36.777]a new labor international organization declaration
[00:29:41.850]in the late, I think it was 1989,
[00:29:48.420]yes, Bolivia was one of the first countries
[00:29:50.760]to recognize already that I think was the first one
[00:29:54.575]that was Declaration 169.
[00:29:59.130]And then, then came the big new declaration in 2007.
[00:30:07.170]Again, Bolivia was the first one to accept,
[00:30:14.100]to take the declaration, right?
[00:30:20.220]And I think all of these declarations,
[00:30:23.490]both declarations, the one in the 1989 and one in 2007,
[00:30:32.408]helped very much the expansion of the idea
[00:30:39.570]of what does it mean to be indigenous person,
[00:30:45.120]the idea of indigenous peoples
[00:30:51.090]gave it a big support to that.
[00:30:55.980]So now, a lot of people would say that,
[00:31:04.170]all of this declaration in the chase of Bolivia over time
[00:31:11.190]ended up being, let's say, a small,
[00:31:17.220]or in the Bolivian case,
[00:31:22.020]yeah, I would say just a small.
[00:31:24.180]Not enough, right?
[00:31:26.160]Because in the Bolivian case,
[00:31:29.160]people thought that the best way to achieve these goals
[00:31:32.940]is to take power in our hands.
[00:31:37.080]That was the idea.
[00:31:41.220]And the idea of that declaration
[00:31:45.420]was always in the idea of minorities, right?
[00:31:49.050]In the idea of minorities.
[00:31:51.270]And I think one of the most important dimensions
[00:31:57.540]was the idea of the consultation
[00:32:01.590]the indigenous approved,
[00:32:03.270]especially for the big development projects.
[00:32:07.620]I think that has been applied sometimes.
[00:32:13.890]But mostly in, let's say, for conservationist goals,
[00:32:25.530]especially environment goals,
[00:32:29.430]and also brings a lot of challenges, right?
[00:32:36.030]A lot of challenges.
[00:32:39.270]But in general, gave it the international,
[00:32:43.470]all of these declarations,
[00:32:45.210]gave it a much more argument for indigenous activists,
[00:32:51.480]indigenous goals, projects,
[00:32:58.650]it's still a big, big reference, right?
[00:33:04.625]A big reference.
[00:33:09.120]So, do any of you have questions for Waskar?
[00:33:12.207]And if you do, maybe raise your hand either virtually
[00:33:16.800]or just in person.
[00:33:18.270]And when you do ask a question,
[00:33:21.960]if you could introduce yourself
[00:33:23.850]and tell us where you're coming from today,
[00:33:27.420]that would be great.
[00:33:33.660]Don't be shy.
[00:33:35.070]There's one in the chat, Margaret.
[00:33:36.900]Oh, okay.
[00:33:38.250]I missed that.
[00:33:42.079]I can just ask it if you'd prefer.
[00:33:44.034]That'd be great, Sarah.
[00:33:45.657]All right, hi.
[00:33:47.280]So my name is Sarah Nelson.
[00:33:48.660]I'm an assistant professor at UNO in Omaha,
[00:33:53.310]in the Geography and Geology Department.
[00:33:56.220]I'm actually from Canada,
[00:33:58.680]and I was doing my master's in first nation studies.
[00:34:03.660]I'm not indigenous, but I was doing first nation studies
[00:34:07.470]at the time that Canada and the U.S.,
[00:34:10.096]so 2010 when Canada and the U.S. implemented
[00:34:13.860]the United Nations Declaration,
[00:34:16.170]and so it was really of a lot of interest
[00:34:20.430]when that finally happened,
[00:34:22.020]because it was a bit delayed in Canada,
[00:34:23.640]the adoption of the declaration.
[00:34:27.870]And so my question was,
[00:34:29.173]I'm really interested in the principles
[00:34:31.890]of self-determination that are outlined in the declaration
[00:34:37.020]and how this relates,
[00:34:40.230]or is different from sovereignty itself.
[00:34:44.820]So the declaration sort of tries to strike this balance,
[00:34:49.410]it seems to me,
[00:34:50.400]between recognizing the self-determination
[00:34:54.720]of indigenous nations,
[00:34:55.860]but not necessarily granting the power
[00:34:59.400]to create new sovereign nations,
[00:35:02.700]or not new, you know,
[00:35:04.800]to recognize the sovereignty of indigenous nations
[00:35:07.290]as separate from the sovereignty
[00:35:08.820]of the states that they're located in.
[00:35:11.610]So I don't have a specific question really,
[00:35:15.570]but I'm just wondering if we could talk a little bit more
[00:35:17.610]about that,
[00:35:19.530]the difference between self-determination and sovereignty,
[00:35:22.020]and what the implications of that, I guess,
[00:35:25.500]are in different parts of the world.
[00:35:30.780]Well, that's indeed a wonderful topic
[00:35:34.260]to talk about, right?
[00:35:36.810]I think that a lot of,
[00:35:39.990]all of this many, many,
[00:35:43.200]if you read that declaration,
[00:35:44.970]discussed lot of wonderful things,
[00:35:47.670]and it depends very much of social movements.
[00:35:52.620]If there's gonna be local, regional,
[00:35:56.040]national social movements, they can do great things,
[00:36:00.751]even the declaration can end up being something small.
[00:36:07.830]That's the big part that if it is a social movement,
[00:36:14.760]that is gonna take these goals of the declaration, right.
[00:36:21.360]And also depends very much in a lot of local
[00:36:25.740]and national, international conditions,
[00:36:30.989]which makes sometimes very problematic, right?
[00:36:36.607]Again, let's look at the case of Ecuador today, right?
[00:36:42.600]Indigenous peoples are, for almost two weeks in the streets,
[00:36:47.670]protesting and the country is paralyzed,
[00:36:52.350]and they're asking many goals that are in the declaration,
[00:37:02.004]and are the majority of Ecuador,
[00:37:04.770]and the indigenous movement in Ecuador is very powerful.
[00:37:12.660]That's why they are two weeks in the streets.
[00:37:14.790]It's a general strike, right?
[00:37:18.030]But also, the conservative regime in Ecuador
[00:37:26.760]makes things very difficult to achieve all of these goals
[00:37:33.160]that are part of the declaration, right?
[00:37:40.620]So, the idea of sovereignty and self-determination,
[00:37:50.070]precisely because this challenge of the national state,
[00:38:00.150]and even democracy, right?
[00:38:03.690]Because we're, like other Latin country,
[00:38:06.900]has elected government, right?
[00:38:12.540]So there's some limitations also with democracy, right?
[00:38:17.610]In Ecuador, they are trying to implement these goals
[00:38:20.940]of the 2007 United Nations declaration for many years.
[00:38:29.760]And they were involved...
[00:38:33.708]Even in the 1950s, they were already involved
[00:38:37.350]in all of this struggle, right?
[00:38:40.605]And the main goal is that,
[00:38:47.730]you can fail many times,
[00:38:50.010]but you are gonna keep working in that goal
[00:38:53.520]generation after generation.
[00:38:57.450]And I think that text like we are talking about,
[00:39:05.223]this 2007 declaration,
[00:39:07.740]that a reference that helps to articulate
[00:39:11.730]all of these indigenous demands, right?
[00:39:18.372]But they're just a reference, right?
[00:39:22.530]And in the future,
[00:39:24.953]can be the need of a new declaration
[00:39:30.810]with a new demands, right?
[00:39:33.630]Like for instance,
[00:39:36.660]today, there's this idea that the internet
[00:39:39.775]is a human right.
[00:39:44.070]Or, for instance, this idea of global yearly
[00:39:55.110]or monthly income,
[00:39:57.420]things like that,
[00:39:58.566]that in any moment are gonna be also assimilated
[00:40:04.749]by new indigenous movements.
[00:40:07.290]So in other words, they're constantly updating, right?
[00:40:11.940]There's constantly updating
[00:40:13.830]to the new time also,
[00:40:16.470]to the new circumstances.
[00:40:21.664]And I think this ideas of sovereign and self-determination
[00:40:26.070]sometimes just there is not the right moment,
[00:40:30.660]but in the next generation, suddenly,
[00:40:34.233]they find a way to do it, right?
[00:40:37.980]And these debates, there were already,
[00:40:41.250]in the 1980s, there were already this debates,
[00:40:44.490]and when I hear current debates,
[00:40:47.580]I still see these connections
[00:40:49.825]and the same problems.
[00:40:55.440]Time seems changed,
[00:40:56.640]but the problems are still the same.
[00:41:03.600]Thank you.
[00:41:04.530]So fascinating, Waskar. Thank you.
[00:41:06.575]Yeah, thanks so much for that.
[00:41:10.080]Are there other questions?
[00:41:15.150]Oh, Matthew, you have a question.
[00:41:24.840]Now am I unmuted?
[00:41:26.310]Yes.
[00:41:28.830]Hi, everybody, I'm Matt.
[00:41:31.050]I teach at Sharon State College in the literature program.
[00:41:34.710]We had a group that participated in the April summit
[00:41:37.320]and was part of a presentation on that
[00:41:40.380]because the state colleges are,
[00:41:42.960]well, our college, our little group
[00:41:46.680]is contemplating a land acknowledgement statement,
[00:41:49.560]and we've formed a committee on recognition
[00:41:53.070]and reconciliation,
[00:41:56.310]and that work continues.
[00:41:58.345]My main question was about,
[00:42:01.650]and I think I know the idea.
[00:42:03.270]I think I could speculate as to why this would be,
[00:42:06.120]but why was the United States and Canada
[00:42:09.420]not original signatories,
[00:42:11.280]and then why did we, quote, unquote, "changed our minds?"
[00:42:16.620]Great question. Well, that's...
[00:42:18.037]That's a great point.
[00:42:19.939]I'm always talking,
[00:42:23.580]especially from what I've seen here in the 1980s, '90s,
[00:42:28.410]at the beginning of 20th century,
[00:42:30.660]when I was part of the indigenous activists.
[00:42:41.400]One thing that was very interesting in my meetings
[00:42:46.583]with indigenous activists from the U.S. and Canada,
[00:42:52.200]that a lot of times, the perception
[00:42:56.190]that people from Latin America and Asia
[00:43:00.630]used to have, well, is that they're very radical.
[00:43:04.860]And others, they had this perspective
[00:43:07.230]that they have a clear picture, right?
[00:43:10.590]And so this goals of self-determination and sovereignty,
[00:43:19.395]totally clear, right?
[00:43:21.780]And over the years, I learned that in the case of America,
[00:43:28.133]North America in general,
[00:43:30.360]there's a different tradition in the relationships
[00:43:32.706]between imperial power and an indigenous people.
[00:43:39.460]There were treaties, right?
[00:43:42.880]In the experience of other people like Latin America
[00:43:45.867]and other countries in Asia,
[00:43:48.090]there was the idea of the justification of colonizations
[00:43:53.880]was in terms of religion, right?
[00:44:01.050]Well, Europeans are superior in the sense that,
[00:44:07.740]by then, that was the idea
[00:44:09.450]because they're Christians, right?
[00:44:14.175]And if indigenous people have to be colonized
[00:44:18.630]or accept colonization,
[00:44:20.070]it's because they're new in Christianity.
[00:44:22.530]So there were these other type of relationship,
[00:44:27.870]other ways to frame it, right?
[00:44:33.360]So there's already this long tradition, different tradition,
[00:44:40.650]and that's one important thing to keep in mind.
[00:44:44.640]Another thing is that,
[00:44:47.790]I don't know how much that's related with English,
[00:44:52.004]but there's this expression.
[00:44:54.750]I'm always talking in,
[00:44:56.460]what I remember from the '80s and '90s, right?
[00:44:59.400]And this idea that of, to be or not to be, right?
[00:45:05.190]Which means, are you gonna be with sovereignty or not?
[00:45:10.830]They used to frame it in that sense, right?
[00:45:14.038]Are you gonna be with sovereignty or not?
[00:45:17.490]Well, because of language,
[00:45:20.230]other cultures used to see it in the middle,
[00:45:24.780]or from the left, or from the sides,
[00:45:28.680]or have other, let's say, holistic views about sovereignty
[00:45:36.032]and self-determination and the idea
[00:45:40.860]that that's gonna come the right moment for that, right?
[00:45:46.440]Other people are gonna see it in absolute terms,
[00:45:48.930]and others in a more, let's say, globalized way also.
[00:45:57.870]But probably it's because of the way
[00:46:10.050]in which capitalists economies are so strong
[00:46:15.930]in Canada and the U.S.
[00:46:21.090]that they were totally opposed to this idea
[00:46:32.220]of sovereignty, self-determination,
[00:46:37.680]not even, you know,
[00:46:40.323]in the final results or after the declaration,
[00:46:46.350]but even before,
[00:46:48.601]even before the declaration,
[00:46:51.120]the indigenous activists from the U.S. and Canada,
[00:46:54.810]especially the U.S., used to complain that,
[00:46:56.880]how difficult it was for them
[00:46:58.950]going to Geneva, for instance, or Paris, right?
[00:47:06.450]Because they had these problems to get the visa
[00:47:11.927]and how much restrictions the U.S. used to put them
[00:47:16.620]not to leave the country.
[00:47:20.550]So they had a much hard view.
[00:47:26.520]And also the activists from the U.S. by then,
[00:47:32.400]they had also much clear picture how important to emphasize
[00:47:36.589]sovereignty and determination.
[00:47:42.030]So different traditions, I would say,
[00:47:44.400]different traditions,
[00:47:45.870]and probably this memory of the treaties
[00:47:51.690]also in North America played an important role
[00:47:55.590]why this hard position in the U.S. and other more,
[00:48:01.890]and other Anglo speaking countries, right?
[00:48:07.650]Yeah, I've always thought that's really fascinating
[00:48:10.110]that the four countries that opposed it initially
[00:48:13.350]and refused to sign on were Australia, New Zealand,
[00:48:17.393]Canada, and the U.S.
[00:48:19.890]All, as you point out, Anglophone.
[00:48:22.560]Well, of course, Canada is also Francophone,
[00:48:24.870]but all with a strong tradition
[00:48:28.890]of British settler colonialism.
[00:48:32.880]And Walter talks about them as settler states.
[00:48:37.170]I think that's such an interesting aspect of this,
[00:48:40.530]because these are states in which
[00:48:42.810]the incoming Europeans just demographically overwhelmed
[00:48:47.010]the indigenous population.
[00:48:49.650]And from a few things I've read,
[00:48:52.440]it seems like these states were really concerned
[00:48:55.200]about sharing sovereignty
[00:48:59.250]and this kind of plural sovereignty,
[00:49:02.370]and I think they still are.
[00:49:04.243]Like, if you follow these debates in Canada and the U.S,
[00:49:08.640]there's just this, you know,
[00:49:10.410]there's a huge number of people who are non-indigenous
[00:49:14.670]who just don't like the idea that indigenous peoples
[00:49:18.630]within these nations have sovereignty
[00:49:21.840]in addition to being part of these nations.
[00:49:25.230]So I think that's such a fascinating question,
[00:49:29.790]but ultimately they all eventually signed on.
[00:49:36.780]So we've almost reached our time with Waskar.
[00:49:42.300]We have more time just to be together on our own,
[00:49:46.050]but does anybody have any final question they wanna...
[00:49:49.770]Oh, I just saw one from Beth Franklin.
[00:49:53.347]"For Waskar, can you talk more about the role
[00:49:55.680]that religion has played in genocide?
[00:49:57.750]Or, Beth, do you wanna talk?
[00:50:00.480]Great.
[00:50:01.313]Well, oops, sorry.
[00:50:04.200]All of a sudden, that popped up.
[00:50:05.670]So I live in Boulder, Colorado,
[00:50:08.340]but I teach at UNL and I was an associate fellow,
[00:50:12.330]maybe I still am, at The Center for Great Plains Studies,
[00:50:15.060]and I just wanted to compliment you on your work.
[00:50:18.120]And I did listen to the lecture that Walter Echo-Hawk gave,
[00:50:23.490]which was phenomenal.
[00:50:25.680]I haven't read the book, though,
[00:50:27.150]that we're supposed to be reading.
[00:50:29.340]But the issue is, you know,
[00:50:32.250]he talks in there a lot about,
[00:50:36.450]well, the issue of genocide,
[00:50:38.880]and we've talked a lot today about land ownership,
[00:50:44.253]but what about religion?
[00:50:47.910]I mean, where does that figure in, I guess?
[00:50:52.890]Well, yes,
[00:50:56.310]especially in experience in Latin America
[00:51:02.850]and Asian, African,
[00:51:06.840]religion was a big support to consolidate colonialism,
[00:51:13.710]big justification, right?
[00:51:19.440]So that, I think, it's a very important factor, right?
[00:51:28.470]There was an important thinker in the Andes, right?
[00:51:37.435]Fausto Reinaga was his name.
[00:51:40.230]And he used to say that,
[00:51:45.731]I'm thinking about the 1970s,
[00:51:50.216]and he used to say that the most important liberation
[00:51:55.470]is in the mind.
[00:51:57.060]And he used to argue that because of religion,
[00:52:01.650]many indigenous people,
[00:52:02.880]that they were Catholics or evangelicals,
[00:52:05.280]they were white,
[00:52:07.110]they were white in the thinking.
[00:52:11.970]And to change the brain was the most important work to do,
[00:52:22.560]because, well, in countries like Africa,
[00:52:35.430]Asia and Latin America,
[00:52:37.140]the number of indigenous peoples are big,
[00:52:40.890]in some countries are the majority,
[00:52:43.920]but because of religion,
[00:52:46.350]they were silent and they were easy for colonization, right?
[00:52:54.600]So that's an important factor to keep in mind.
[00:52:59.850]I'm thinking that in,
[00:53:03.230]in all of these questions, we didn't mention Portugal.
[00:53:11.100]Portugal had a big role in the history of colonization,
[00:53:15.510]in the invention of modern slavery, for instance.
[00:53:19.950]They had a big role.
[00:53:22.307]And it was a Catholic country, right?
[00:53:29.784]And the other big element that we didn't talk
[00:53:33.060]is about this ideology of mestizaje,
[00:53:38.850]which is mixing of people.
[00:53:41.293]And all of these factors,
[00:53:43.710]in many ways, have played an important role
[00:53:50.430]and complicated the idea of sovereignty
[00:53:54.898]and self-determination, right?
[00:53:58.500]Because in countries like Latin America,
[00:54:02.010]again, African, there's a big number of mestizaje, right?
[00:54:08.250]So mestizaje and this one big topic,
[00:54:12.690]and religion also another big topic
[00:54:16.230]that complicates sovereignty and self termination.
[00:54:22.950]But also that makes,
[00:54:24.870]that provides also new tools
[00:54:30.180]to keep working in the area of sovereignty
[00:54:35.275]and self-determination.
[00:54:42.780]So, yes.
[00:54:45.780]One last question, and this is just a quick one.
[00:54:48.780]Sarah Nelson asked the name of the person you mentioned.
[00:54:52.290]Fausto, what was the last name?
[00:54:54.497]Fausto Reinaga,
[00:54:56.880]which is R-E-Y-G-E-N-A.
[00:55:09.570]Oh, I don't think I got that right.
[00:55:12.101]Okay, I'll...
[00:55:13.530]Did I get that right, Waskar?
[00:55:16.555]R-E-Y-G-E-N-A.
[00:55:19.320]Yes. Oh, okay.
[00:55:20.400]Fausto, yeah.
[00:55:25.020]Yeah, there's these generations that,
[00:55:29.314]the issue of the brain,
[00:55:33.660]they used to work very much.
[00:55:38.400]The issue of the brain.
[00:55:39.480]Yeah, it's a big issue for colonialists, right?
[00:55:46.110]The colonialism is in your brain.
[00:55:49.800]That that's the issue here.
[00:55:52.967]And so that's why millions of people are just,
[00:55:56.820]you don't see revolutions.
[00:55:59.040]They used to argue how that is a big factor, right?
[00:56:07.710]And, of course, the experience of North America
[00:56:12.960]with the history of settlers
[00:56:15.810]make a kind of different context, right?
[00:56:19.429]The situation of mestizaje,
[00:56:27.504]or metis in French,
[00:56:31.425]didn't have this bigger impact like in Latin America
[00:56:37.293]or in the Philippines, for instance, right?
[00:56:41.130]So, yeah, I would say, religion and mestizaje
[00:56:47.220]are two important issues
[00:56:49.500]that makes a kind of different situation
[00:56:53.730]of sovereignty and self-determination
[00:56:57.990]in the rest of the world, right?
[00:56:59.700]In the rest of the world.
[00:57:03.930]Well, I wanna invite you all to thank Waskar
[00:57:09.030]for being with us tonight and...
[00:57:13.563]Okay, thank you.
[00:57:14.400]We really appreciate it so much, Waskar.
[00:57:16.680]It's so interesting to hear from somebody
[00:57:18.990]who's been sort of working on this since the 1980s
[00:57:23.130]and so integral to a global indigenous movement,
[00:57:27.660]and who was there at the beginning of this effort
[00:57:31.590]to get the UN to adopt this.
[00:57:35.280]And it's just so interesting hearing your insights
[00:57:37.890]and especially not being from the United States,
[00:57:40.020]and hearing it from outside.
[00:57:42.210]So we just wanna thank you so much,
[00:57:45.000]and I hope you...
[00:57:49.380]Are you in La Paz right now?
[00:57:51.330]Oh, yeah, I'm in outside La Paz.
[00:57:53.820]I am in a small town called Coroico,
[00:57:57.210]and, yeah, it's like two hours away from the main city.
[00:58:06.300]It's not so high.
[00:58:07.701]La Paz is pretty high.
[00:58:10.050]This is lower than it's where.
[00:58:14.025]And in front of me, I can see the big mountains
[00:58:18.570]and a lot of snow in the tops of the mountains, right?
[00:58:24.300]So I'm in the other side of the mountains,
[00:58:26.970]and La Paz is in the other side of the mountains.
[00:58:31.290]Yes, it's kind of fun, yes.
[00:58:34.800]Well, good luck, Waskar.
[00:58:36.480]Can't wait to see you when you get back to Lincoln.
[00:58:38.350]Okay, take care. So, take care.
[00:58:41.220]Everyone, enjoy your program, bye.
[00:58:43.320]Bye.
[00:58:47.430]So I think we have this wonderful small group,
[00:58:52.230]so we don't...
[00:58:53.460]I think this is great for discussion.
[00:58:57.210]Katie and I were gonna break you up into groups,
[00:58:59.130]but we thought we'd have many more people.
[00:59:03.000]About 30 people signed up.
[00:59:04.680]So if you have friends who've signed up,
[00:59:06.660]please encourage them to come to the next session.
[00:59:13.590]So I had a couple questions for you all,
[00:59:17.880]and we can share our screens if we need to,
[00:59:20.910]but I was wondering, reading some of Walter's book,
[00:59:24.750]and especially reading the appendix
[00:59:26.460]where you can actually read the UN Declaration,
[00:59:30.210]I wondered what you found most surprising
[00:59:34.110]about the declaration.
[00:59:50.010]Yeah, Sarah.
[00:59:52.635]One thing that surprised me that I,
[00:59:55.620]it also surprised me
[00:59:56.580]that I hadn't fully realized this before,
[00:59:58.710]but the link between human rights and indigenous rights
[01:00:02.700]and the declaration was really striking.
[01:00:04.650]And in Echo-Hawk's book,
[01:00:08.310]there's been a couple of scholars in Canada
[01:00:11.610]who have really picked apart those two concepts
[01:00:13.800]and really sort of pointed out the differences
[01:00:16.530]between indigenous rights sort of as inherent rights
[01:00:20.610]of indigenous people's
[01:00:23.370]that sort of flow from and relate to the land
[01:00:25.770]as opposed to human rights,
[01:00:27.060]which are more individual protections.
[01:00:32.580]So it was interesting to see them come together
[01:00:34.770]in Echo-Hawk's work.
[01:00:35.670]That was a new way of sort of thinking about it
[01:00:38.460]that I hadn't tried before.
[01:00:44.430]Yeah, I agree with you.
[01:00:46.080]I noticed that as well,
[01:00:47.880]that there's an attempt to bridge those two types of rights,
[01:00:52.380]the kind of collective rights to be different,
[01:00:57.030]to be part of a different group,
[01:00:58.590]to belong to this group with long ties
[01:01:01.956]to a particular place,
[01:01:03.390]but also to respect
[01:01:04.710]these kind of revered individual human rights
[01:01:07.860]that are also part of the UN sort of spectrum of rights.
[01:01:20.895]I would just say, for myself, one of the things,
[01:01:23.490]especially after hearing Waskar talk is,
[01:01:27.810]how amazing it is that indigenous people
[01:01:31.200]from all over the globe,
[01:01:32.700]who speak all these different languages,
[01:01:34.650]who have all these different backgrounds,
[01:01:37.530]histories, experiences,
[01:01:40.620]could come together and create this common document.
[01:01:45.270]That seems to be really expressive
[01:01:48.990]of indigenous people's aspirations worldwide.
[01:01:52.800]And that really kind of blows my mind,
[01:01:55.380]and that...
[01:01:59.460]I mean, as a historian,
[01:02:01.290]I'm really interested in kind of comparative history,
[01:02:03.330]so I think about like,
[01:02:05.100]isn't it amazing that indigenous people's worldwide
[01:02:09.120]have such a common experience at the hands of colonizers,
[01:02:13.650]whether it's land appropriation or stealing children
[01:02:18.450]or digging up their graves or stealing cultural artifacts,
[01:02:27.000]or repressing religions.
[01:02:29.520]So it's just extraordinary
[01:02:31.740]that there's this common experience
[01:02:34.170]despite all these really different cultures and backgrounds.
[01:02:45.750]Yeah, Matt.
[01:02:49.380]Well, okay.
[01:02:50.213]So I never did model UN,
[01:02:52.740]I'm not that familiar with UN.
[01:02:54.630]This book has been a little bit hard for me,
[01:02:56.730]but I thought that Walter Echo-Hawk's interpretation
[01:03:01.290]going from the declaration helped a lot.
[01:03:05.760]I think that's in chapter three
[01:03:07.470]where he defines the nine or 10 overarching,
[01:03:13.230]'cause otherwise, I read it and it all looks great.
[01:03:16.710]Also, the story behind it,
[01:03:19.020]you're right with so many international cultures
[01:03:23.490]weighing in and the timeframe that they worked on this
[01:03:26.640]and the way that it's described as done in the open,
[01:03:30.617]but also at the beginning of the book
[01:03:33.240]where it's kind of gets the, you know,
[01:03:37.080]the elephant in the room out front
[01:03:38.610]that these are not legally binding,
[01:03:40.740]but that this is a way to move actions forward perhaps.
[01:03:47.130]That was my first reaction.
[01:03:48.870]I read the appendix first and it was just overwhelming.
[01:03:54.540]I love everything in it.
[01:03:56.760]It reminds me of the conversations we've had on campus,
[01:03:59.580]where my branch kids and farm kids all say,
[01:04:02.820]yes, we love this idea of a land acknowledgement statement,
[01:04:06.720]but they're not eager to talk about land back
[01:04:09.762]or the next step,
[01:04:12.810]and we haven't even gotten to the point of,
[01:04:15.180]although I've broached the subject a little bit,
[01:04:17.130]of, so how does this impact the way we think,
[01:04:20.437]the way that Walter Echo-Hawk is writing about our,
[01:04:23.910]I guess we can use in this group the word myth,
[01:04:26.301]or our pioneer myth,
[01:04:27.930]or the homestead narratives that are valorized
[01:04:32.430]versus these other things that are described so well
[01:04:34.650]in the beginning part of the book
[01:04:35.670]about how that becomes an instrument of colonialism.
[01:04:39.870]So, that was my reaction.
[01:04:44.550]Yeah.
[01:04:45.930]Beth.
[01:04:49.470]Well, for me the...
[01:04:52.320]Well, again, going back to the talk,
[01:04:56.190]it was just so well articulated,
[01:04:58.980]but he said this UN declaration has 48 articles,
[01:05:04.470]but there are five concrete things that people have to do.
[01:05:08.760]And I guess, well, you know,
[01:05:11.520]this acknowledged colonialism apologized
[01:05:15.930]and then indigenous accept the apology,
[01:05:20.141]but there have to be concrete acts of atonement.
[01:05:23.370]And then finally, there's a reconciliation.
[01:05:27.810]And I guess just to,
[01:05:31.770]I get your point, Margaret,
[01:05:34.260]that, while all these indigenous people in the world
[01:05:36.570]came together, but it seems like,
[01:05:40.710]and that is amazing,
[01:05:43.200]but I think also, we don't think like this.
[01:05:47.730]I mean, the non-indigenous people in the United States,
[01:05:50.400]we totally do not think about reconciliation, apologizing.
[01:05:56.400]We don't get how any of this is colonialism.
[01:05:59.910]And like, you know, I just,
[01:06:03.480]in one of my book groups,
[01:06:04.800]we just read the biography of Chief Left Hand
[01:06:08.220]who lived like right where I'm living right now.
[01:06:10.948]And it's like, nobody knows that.
[01:06:16.920]But I think this idea of how do we heal
[01:06:22.710]and we have to look at everything
[01:06:24.420]through a lens of historical trauma.
[01:06:28.260]And I think the UNL in particular, and UNO,
[01:06:35.010]I mean, the whole system,
[01:06:37.365]as well as every other university
[01:06:39.690]that are on the Great Plains, let's say,
[01:06:43.320]has to do a lot more in this area
[01:06:47.670]because, you know, like, how are we preparing teachers?
[01:06:52.620]How are we recruiting kids to come to college?
[01:06:57.210]How are we doing all of these things
[01:06:59.790]that would in fact, you know,
[01:07:03.960]be forms of apology and forms of acknowledging colonialism?
[01:07:11.202]I just can't believe like where he would say,
[01:07:16.410]we still have this doctrine of racial inferiority
[01:07:19.260]in our legal system.
[01:07:20.820]So how can people heal when that's still so present?
[01:07:25.410]I had no idea in all of that.
[01:07:28.350]And, so I don't know.
[01:07:31.260]I think that's why it's good to talk about it, but...
[01:07:38.550]So I'm not sure.
[01:07:40.320]But it seems like UNL should provide leadership,
[01:07:44.310]and they are doing it through The Center for Great Plains,
[01:07:46.800]but there needs to be a lot more that has to be done.
[01:07:51.600]Yeah, I'm into that.
[01:07:56.160]It's interesting you bring that up.
[01:08:00.780]Are all of you non-indigenous who are here today?
[01:08:06.330]Is anyone indigenous?
[01:08:09.600]Well, one of the questions I wanted to bring up was,
[01:08:13.740]I think reading the declaration, reading Walter's book,
[01:08:17.160]listening to Walter's talk, listening to Waskar,
[01:08:20.340]I think it's pretty obvious how this declaration,
[01:08:23.610]if it was fully implemented,
[01:08:25.500]would benefit indigenous peoples,
[01:08:28.020]would recognize them in their full humanity.
[01:08:32.970]But I think an interesting question is also,
[01:08:37.140]how would it also benefit non-indigenous people?
[01:08:41.640]So I wanted to sort of throw that out there
[01:08:43.680]and see how you would answer that.
[01:08:58.350]Yeah, go ahead, Matt.
[01:09:01.230]Afraid of dominating the discussion here.
[01:09:03.960]Well...
[01:09:05.190]I can always just mute you, don't worry.
[01:09:08.790]I think in the parts of the book I've read so far,
[01:09:11.460]that's one of the things that Walter Echo-Hawk,
[01:09:14.190]I think, is articulating.
[01:09:15.270]And I think when I was at the lead center
[01:09:17.730]and heard him give his talk,
[01:09:19.200]I was like, yes, this just seems so simple.
[01:09:21.450]It makes so much sense.
[01:09:22.710]And the apology part of that I thought was really,
[01:09:25.470]it seems so simple,
[01:09:26.490]but it really is.
[01:09:27.930]So part of it is getting past what is the impediment
[01:09:31.274]that allows us, or prevents us
[01:09:33.690]from having these conversations?
[01:09:36.090]We might say my neighbors to the north of us in South Dakota
[01:09:39.420]have passed legislation that is going to reduce discomfort,
[01:09:43.827]or however we think about that in the classroom
[01:09:46.200]or in training,
[01:09:47.670]and luckily that legislation went down in Nebraska,
[01:09:50.490]but as a college instructor,
[01:09:52.890]we wanna have these moments where we have frank discussion
[01:09:56.970]and have the recognition first
[01:10:00.090]or the truth and reconciliation element
[01:10:04.260]that I think he was talking about in the keynote,
[01:10:06.240]how that is the first step that then you get past that,
[01:10:10.680]and you can start working perhaps more on actions,
[01:10:13.350]although we've had discussions about actions first
[01:10:15.870]and that sort of thing.
[01:10:17.460]And so recognizing that there's a resistance
[01:10:21.660]to discussing these things because of internalized guilt,
[01:10:26.700]which I feel a lot.
[01:10:28.560]I live on land that was stolen.
[01:10:33.810]That that would be the benefit, it seems to me,
[01:10:36.450]that we're just gonna stalemate now
[01:10:39.450]with Pine Ridge Reservation just 20 miles from us,
[01:10:42.180]and I've had maybe over 22 years at CSC,
[01:10:46.560]a half dozen indigenous students come through our program,
[01:10:51.270]and we are now going to try and recruit Latinx
[01:10:56.280]or Hispanic students into our program,
[01:10:58.620]'cause we're all worried about enrollment.
[01:11:00.600]And we just don't seem to think about that.
[01:11:02.820]And there's reasons for that,
[01:11:04.740]of our neighbors to the north,
[01:11:06.750]and maybe this process,
[01:11:09.900]and this is how we're also presenting it to our campus,
[01:11:12.870]is that this process can lead to things
[01:11:16.260]that we'll all do better when we all do better.
[01:11:19.170]Something like that.
[01:11:20.040]I don't know.
[01:11:23.010]Well, why do you all care about this?
[01:11:26.130]Why are you here?
[01:11:27.480]Why should...
[01:11:29.130]What case would you make to your neighbors,
[01:11:32.400]to your family members,
[01:11:34.860]about why they should care about indigenous rights
[01:11:38.250]and why they should want to engage in those steps
[01:11:43.440]that Walter talked about apology and atonement?
[01:11:48.210]Yeah, Rebecca.
[01:11:52.770]Oh, well, I know this is pretty localized,
[01:11:55.350]but as far as people in the United States,
[01:12:01.860]our whole society is based on, you know,
[01:12:05.280]we're better together,
[01:12:07.770]our difference is our strengths,
[01:12:10.230]and you can't really leverage that type of diversity
[01:12:16.680]unless you have some general understandings between peoples.
[01:12:23.430]And if you have a lot of,
[01:12:26.850]if you have a populations that are not heard,
[01:12:29.820]that are not acknowledged,
[01:12:31.740]that are not respected, historically,
[01:12:34.504]there is a gap in what people are contributing to society.
[01:12:42.420]So having a more inclusive society
[01:12:46.916]and really leveraging our people power, our knowledge base,
[01:12:53.576]our unique talents and everything that goes along with that
[01:12:59.190]is one main reason of wanting to have a better relations,
[01:13:08.280]better relations between populations
[01:13:10.800]and peoples and cultures.
[01:13:13.050]For me, myself, my grandparents were big
[01:13:18.960]in the system of,
[01:13:23.430]in the school systems where they took the native kids
[01:13:29.640]and put them in the schools.
[01:13:32.310]Well, my grandparents were a part of that.
[01:13:36.120]So for me, as a progressive individual,
[01:13:40.410]I feel not only just a general interest,
[01:13:44.850]but a historical responsibility
[01:13:48.060]to kind of actively be a force for good in this arena.
[01:13:58.380]Thank you.
[01:14:01.698]Yeah, Sarah.
[01:14:03.723]Yeah, I think those are all really important points.
[01:14:07.012]And I think it sort of touches on the fact that,
[01:14:13.380]I mean, in the declaration itself,
[01:14:16.650]part of,
[01:14:17.483]like, some of the articles address indigenous survival
[01:14:21.630]and the like just plain survival
[01:14:24.540]and like the provision of basic necessities of life
[01:14:27.870]and the freedom from death.
[01:14:33.000]You know, there's the whole issue
[01:14:34.830]of missing and murdered indigenous women
[01:14:36.600]across North America and many other countries too.
[01:14:41.430]The fact that that's an issue,
[01:14:43.050]I think is a problem for everybody
[01:14:45.480]because the way that colonialism and colonization
[01:14:50.400]have dehumanized indigenous people
[01:14:53.400]has resulted in a lot of, you know, kind of,
[01:14:56.190]I mean, a lot of harm, a lot of brutality, to be honest,
[01:14:59.895]and that also dehumanizes the people who are doing it.
[01:15:05.700]And while I think a lot of us,
[01:15:08.430]as speaking as a non-indigenous person,
[01:15:12.030]maybe don't have direct involvement in that,
[01:15:15.150]we're still sort of complicit in the structures
[01:15:18.960]that uphold that brutality and cause that insecurity
[01:15:23.400]for indigenous people regarding their very lives.
[01:15:28.710]And that's not good for anybody, right?
[01:15:31.080]It's harmful to the colonizers
[01:15:34.650]as much as it is to the colonized, I think.
[01:15:40.380]One way I look at it too, is that,
[01:15:42.870]those of us who are not indigenous,
[01:15:44.540]the term I use for that is a settler,
[01:15:49.110]at least in the U.S. context.
[01:15:52.440]Those of us who are settlers,
[01:15:54.210]we've really benefited,
[01:15:56.297]maybe it happened a while ago,
[01:15:58.830]but I just think about how my own family
[01:16:02.310]due to colonization, due to conquest,
[01:16:04.620]due to the displacement of indigenous peoples,
[01:16:07.740]was free to move about this continent,
[01:16:11.400]was able to gain land,
[01:16:14.010]were able to gain so many opportunities,
[01:16:17.310]and all of this was at the expense
[01:16:19.260]of many indigenous peoples.
[01:16:21.810]And maybe I,
[01:16:22.800]again, my ancestors might not have actually done
[01:16:25.800]the direct harm, but they benefited from it.
[01:16:28.620]And that's a fascinating sort of category of people to me
[01:16:33.960]that I would say the bulk of us are,
[01:16:36.120]what I would call, beneficiaries.
[01:16:38.490]That we may not have...
[01:16:41.370]Our ancestors and we ourselves
[01:16:43.530]may not have done these at atrocities,
[01:16:46.140]carried out these atrocities,
[01:16:47.580]but we are still benefiting from it.
[01:16:49.560]And so I think it's about, like,
[01:16:53.280]I can't remember who said it
[01:16:54.930]about the sense of responsibility.
[01:16:58.830]Maybe it was you, Rebecca.
[01:17:01.440]Just this...
[01:17:03.270]I feel like that's part of being a grownup, right?
[01:17:06.290]Of being a full human being.
[01:17:09.270]And I guess in indigenous terms,
[01:17:11.220]it's about being good relationship,
[01:17:12.974]being a good relation to other people,
[01:17:16.223]that you take responsibility for your actions,
[01:17:18.850]or you take responsibility for the blessings,
[01:17:23.703]the good things you have in your life,
[01:17:25.980]and you become aware of where these came from.
[01:17:30.450]So I think that's a question
[01:17:34.710]a lot of us haven't really considered,
[01:17:36.630]is that, the UN Declaration
[01:17:39.630]isn't just for indigenous peoples,
[01:17:41.820]it's about building a really just, fair,
[01:17:46.710]thriving society,
[01:17:48.510]where, I mean, if indigenous people have these rights,
[01:17:51.870]I think it would create a system that's more democratic,
[01:17:57.270]more...
[01:18:01.135]One that thrives for everybody.
[01:18:04.680]I don't think everybody sees it that way, obviously.
[01:18:07.770]A lot of people think,
[01:18:08.760]oh, if indigenous people get their rights
[01:18:10.650]or if they get land back,
[01:18:12.300]that means everybody else is gonna have to give up something
[01:18:15.000]or sacrifice or lose something.
[01:18:19.080]But I think it's not necessarily a situation like that.
[01:18:27.990]Well, and I think it is about responsibility.
[01:18:32.098]It's also this issue of healing though.
[01:18:35.310]I think we're not aware we all have to heal
[01:18:38.310]because this is why we're in such a mess
[01:18:44.856]in our country, I think,
[01:18:46.770]because we don't know how to apologize
[01:18:50.460]and we're just all,
[01:18:51.480]we're not doing critical race theory,
[01:18:53.310]we're not doing this,
[01:18:54.600]and I don't know what,
[01:18:56.010]I'm assuming that's what Matthew was referring to
[01:18:58.680]when South Dakota, I don't even know.
[01:19:01.893]And like in my state in Colorado,
[01:19:05.670]the legislature, several of 'em,
[01:19:08.130]a subcommittee,
[01:19:09.629]or the committee that passed a law
[01:19:12.210]saying they had to mention like racism and LGBTQ issues
[01:19:19.590]in the standards.
[01:19:21.630]Then a whole subcommittee said,
[01:19:23.400]no, those kids can't have those,
[01:19:25.620]and they took them out.
[01:19:26.670]Then the legislature just wrote a letter and said,
[01:19:29.430]you are gonna put those words back in those standards.
[01:19:32.010]See, so it is about indigenous people,
[01:19:35.790]but it's about respect for all people.
[01:19:38.520]And the thing is, this horrendous genocide
[01:19:44.610]that has taken place,
[01:19:47.790]we have to acknowledge this historically.
[01:19:50.370]And yeah, it's what you're saying.
[01:19:52.560]It doesn't mean I personally did things,
[01:19:54.990]but I do benefit from it,
[01:19:56.520]but I really, for an apology to happen,
[01:19:59.940]I have to be aware,
[01:20:02.190]because this is how we're gonna have peace.
[01:20:04.380]We have to be aware how people are being hurt all the time
[01:20:07.950]by this historical trauma that's been imposed.
[01:20:12.691]And a lot of poets write about it,
[01:20:14.661]and well, that's 'cause I,
[01:20:18.195]that's what I'm doing.
[01:20:19.333]But the thing is,
[01:20:22.509]the apology has to be grounded in knowledge.
[01:20:28.740]And I don't know how we do that,
[01:20:31.830]but for sure it has to work in schools and universities
[01:20:35.820]and communities and churches and synagogues.
[01:20:39.103]And I...
[01:20:41.850]I don't know.
[01:20:43.350]But this is, at least people,
[01:20:45.097]this is a good start,
[01:20:46.590]so yay for The Center for Great Plains Studies.
[01:20:51.600]Well, we are almost out of time,
[01:20:55.710]so that's a good way to end, Beth.
[01:21:01.500]I wanna mention, we've got two more sessions this summer.
[01:21:05.100]The next one is Thursday, July 7th.
[01:21:09.000]Same time, 5:30 to seven,
[01:21:11.610]same link or same place.
[01:21:16.860]So we'll be sending you some reminders of that link
[01:21:20.250]and these upcoming meetings,
[01:21:23.310]and we hope you'll all come back,
[01:21:25.830]and we hope you'll bring your friends.
[01:21:28.380]People can still sign up if they want.
[01:21:30.000]Yeah, Sarah.
[01:21:32.700]I don't know.
[01:21:33.533]Sorry, I just wanted to mention,
[01:21:35.460]I had a fair bit of trouble finding the link
[01:21:39.270]and I know sometimes that can just be me,
[01:21:43.170]but I wonder if that's part of the reason
[01:21:45.597]that some people weren't able to join.
[01:21:48.090]It might have been technical issues.
[01:21:51.750]'Cause I click on...
[01:21:52.860]It took me to the Eventbrite and I had to sign in.
[01:21:56.880]In the email body is the link,
[01:21:59.700]but I can maybe move it around, something like that.
[01:22:02.760]Maybe.
[01:22:03.593]Yeah, I don't know.
[01:22:04.530]It might have just been me,
[01:22:06.300]but maybe it would help next time.
[01:22:07.800]No, that's good.
[01:22:09.223]I had the same issue.
[01:22:10.440]I think Eventbrite is sending out notifications
[01:22:13.230]and then you are all sending the very specific link,
[01:22:16.770]and everything is very useful
[01:22:18.240]and information about who's speaking.
[01:22:20.070]And so it took me a while too.
[01:22:22.389]Okay.
[01:22:23.667]And it took me a while too,
[01:22:25.320]'cause at first,
[01:22:26.400]I tried to join it through Eventbrite,
[01:22:28.020]and then it was like,
[01:22:28.853]oh, gosh, this isn't working.
[01:22:31.440]But then I just,
[01:22:32.273]then I just went back and found my link.
[01:22:34.800]So we'll try to find a way
[01:22:37.470]to make it a little bit easier to figure out
[01:22:40.269]for the next time.
[01:22:44.070]But, yeah, we hope more people will come.
[01:22:46.290]But even if they don't,
[01:22:47.970]I just think it's wonderful to be able to have a discussion
[01:22:51.030]among a small group of people
[01:22:52.650]who really care about this.
[01:22:53.820]I could tell you really care about this.
[01:22:55.410]You wouldn't be giving up
[01:22:56.880]your 5:30 to seven time on a Thursday evening
[01:23:00.210]if you didn't care about this.
[01:23:01.410]So I'm very grateful to you all for coming.
[01:23:05.430]Any questions or concerns you wanna raise
[01:23:07.860]before we adjourn for the evening?
[01:23:17.910]Thank you to everybody.
[01:23:20.520]Feel free to email me
[01:23:22.410]if you wanna follow up on anything like that,
[01:23:26.250]and hope to see you in July.
[01:23:31.410]Take care, everybody.
[01:23:32.280]Thank you.

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Reckoning & Reconciliation Discussion Circle Part 1

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