BEYOND TERRITORY |
Courtesy: The Imphal Free Press 27th May, 2002 |
A United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues has been constituted and their first general session at the UN headquarters in New York has just concluded. It is learnt northeast India was well represented in the session. It is also heartening that the contentious issue, often bordering the tragic, has gained international recognition at this level. But UN or no, we are now more than ever convinced that unless the indigenous peoples are also ready to make accommodations and adjust to the changing times, no lasting solution can ever be forthcoming. Before we look at our own cases in our troubled lands, a look at some physically distant cases, such as that of the American Indians and the Saami people of the Scandinavian Peninsula will be illuminating. The objectivity provided by the distance should help us see the issue more detachedly as well as clearly, and the absence of blinding emotions will also perhaps help us draw the lesson that certain historical milestones cannot just be removed. We are inclined to believe that American Indians, Saami people and for that matter all other indigenous peoples, have little choice but to look for salvation not in illusory visions of the ancestral happy hunting grounds, but in the guarantees and safeguards of modern democracies. We cannot for once think of the American Indians reverting history back to the pre-Columbus days, or the Saami people to the pre-Viking days. Such nostalgia can only result in unredeemable pain and heartbreaks.
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