Laws and Policies, Good and Bad

RIGHTS AIPP AIPP Regional Capacity Building Program - Training Manual on the UNDRIP EXAMPLE: TEXTBOOKS FOR INDIGENOUS EDUCATION In the Philippines, the IPRA allows indigenous communities to exercise control over the education of their children. Whether in the schools that the communities themselves have established, or in those that were built within their locality by a church or by the government, teachers are allowed to conduct lower grade classes in the indigenous lan- guages so that students can grasp basic ideas more readily. Also, the communities can intervene such that false information and discriminatory ideas about their people – es- pecially about their history – is corrected. But textbook production is centralized, and teachers are taught by both the Depart- ment of Education and the Civil Service Commission to be true to the texts in their teach- ing. This is a source of at least two major difficulties for the teachers: 1 how they can help their students grasp what the textbooks say in Filipino or in English; 2 how they should deal, and help their students deal, with any false information or discriminatory idea they encounter in the textbooks. Textbook correction and translation are not a priority of the Department of Educa- tion – which is among the departments that receive the lowest budgetary allocations from the Philippine government. Unless decentralized, translation would also be an ex- tremely difficult task to undertake in a country where the SIL has listed 171 distinct, living languages. A similar problem besets Malaysia, where the SIL has listed 140 distinct, living lan- guages. There is space for the use of indigenous languages in the school system, but there are no funds available from the government for the production of textbooks in these languages. For Discussion: Higher Education and Acculturation Governments in the Philippines, Malaysia, Thailand and India have attempted to facilitate the upliftment of indigenous peoples’ economic condition and social status by providing scholarships in higher education as well as imposing acceptance and employ- ment quotas that will ensure indigenous people’s access to universities and establish- ments. In the Philippines and in India, however, this has often resulted in the acculturation of indigenous scholars – indeed, in some cases, not only has the indigenous scholar been estranged from his or her culture but come to belittle it. In a few cases, the scholars have become so alienated from their respective cultures that they can no longer return to their localities and use their knowledge and skills in the service of their communities. How should we view this? Indigenous peoples’ cultural rights are especially difficult to secure in countries where the scarcity of resources and the de-prioritization of cultural concerns do not allow governments to invest in the development and operation of instruments or mechanisms for rights-protection; 109 Module-5 RIGHTS AIPP AIPP Regional Capacity Building Program - Training Manual on the UNDRIP also in countries where economic need overrides the need to protect cultural rights against vio- lation by, say, the tourism industry. Indigenous peoples’ cultural rights are most difficult to secure in environments character- ized by religious intolerance. They are similarly difficult to secure in countries where govern- ments promote a one-nation, one-people, one-culture, one-language policy. The consequence of this policy in Japan, for example, was official denial of the very existence of the Ainu and the various Ryukyuan peoples for many centuries. It was only in June 2008 when the Japanese par- liament finally conceded that the Ainu, who occupied the island of Hokkaido and the disputed borderlands between Japan and Russia, were an indigenous people with their own language, re- ligion and way of life quite distinct from those of the Japanese majority, and were entitled to the rights provided in the UNDRIP. Up to now, the Japanese parliament remains silent on the status of the Ryukyuan peoples who occupy the Okinawa archipelago or the Kingdom of Ryukyu up to annexation by Japan in 1879. Gaps Analysis UNDRIP NATIONAL OR GAPS CONSIDERATIONS OPTIONS PROVISIONS ON LOCAL LAWS IMPLICATIONS RECOMMENDATIONS CULTURAL RIGHTS OR POLICIES Paragraph or Specific laws, Specific laws, Can current laws, What needs to be Article number policies policies NOT policies be used to done? How? By conforming conforming support indigenous whom? Where? with UNDRIP with UNDRIP peoples’ positions When? For how or interests? Are long? there loopholes in the law that can be used for or against indigenous peoples? Should the matter be approached legally? Or politically? 110 Module-5 RIGHTS AIPP AIPP Regional Capacity Building Program - Training Manual on the UNDRIP

IV. EXPERIENCES AND LESSONS LEARNED

The Japanese parliament’s 2008 decla- ration recognizing the status of the Ainu as an indigenous people was the result of years of lobby by Ainu activists, mainly effected through participation in UN fora. The Japanese government had been aggressive in its efforts to assimilate the Ainu into the mainstream of national society. It was only through stubborn persistence in speaking their own language, and practicing their own religion and way of life, that the Ainu, as well as the Ryukyuans, retained their indigeneity. Along with assertion of a distinct collec- tive identity, the de facto exercise of cultural rights is what has allowed many a people to retain their indigeneity in the face of the occupation of their territory, the usurpation of their lands and resources, the destruction or marginalization of their economic system, the suppression of their religious and political freedoms, and their having suffered countless insults to their dignity. In fact, indigenous peoples have used aspects of their culture – often, apparently innocu- ous stories, chants, songs, dances and rituals – as weapons of unification and resistance. One good example is the experience of the Tingguian, Kankanaey, Bontok and Kalinga peoples of the Northern Luzon Cordillera in the Philippines. EXAMPLE: ASSERTING CULTURAL RIGHTS From 1973 to 1986, when the indigenous peoples of the Cordillera were waging a shared resistance to the Chico dam and Cellophil projects of the Marcos dictatorship see module on Development Issues, many of the cultural expressions of this resistance made their way to the cities of Baguio and Manila, and abroad. These helped to unify stu- dents, workers and professionals from different parts of the Cordillera in support of the resistance and con- tributed significantly to its eventual victory. Among the venues opened to the cultural expressions of the resistance was the Counter-Grand Cañao. This was an activity held parallel to the Grand Cañao, a yearly tourist come-on conducted in the city of Baguio by the Marcos dictatorship, showcasing colorful cultural expressions from the diverse peoples of the Cordillera. Students, teachers and the el- Ask the participants to share any experi- ences of the following: • Actual practice or exercise of cul- tural rights despite state or church ef- forts to deny or suppress these; • Lobbying governmentlegislators for the recognition of cultural rights; • Mobilization or mass action in as- sertion of these rights. Suggested Method 111 Module-5 RIGHTS AIPP AIPP Regional Capacity Building Program - Training Manual on the UNDRIP ders of migrant urban poor villages protested the Grand Cañao for its prostitution of sacred ceremonies and its false projection of peace and prosperity in the region. Their protest became a movement in its own right, lasting from 1978 to 1983, and drawing the participation of thousands. After five years of being disrupted by protest marches and being challenged with a Counter-Grand Cañao, the event was renamed by the Marcos dictatorship as the High- land Festival. This, however, did not sidetrack protestors. And so the first Highland Fes- tival, held in 1983, also became the last. The campaign against the Grand Cañao, a.k.a. Highland Festival, was the first protest movement in the Philippines to focus on the issue of respect for indigenous peoples’ cultures. For Discussion: Government-Sponsored Festivals In India, the government holds cross-district cultural exchange festivals among stu- dents, in an affirmation of diversity. But in the Philippines, the government holds cul- tural festivals primarily for tourism – for promoting the idea that the Philippines are fiesta islands. In the Philippines’ Cordillera Administrative Region, where an intense protest cam- paign against the exploitation of culture for tourism was waged during the late 1970s and early 1980s, the festivals are, ironically, now drawing massive participation from the same sector that once spearheaded the said protest – the studentry. Elders frown on the festivals. And those of the Pidlisan tribe of the Northern Kankanaey of Sagada even censure tribal youth who participate in the Mountain Province’s Lang-ayan Festival. But the young people in the Mountain Province and elsewhere say the festivals are “our chance to show our pride in what we are.” What are the implications of festivals like these? Should the students participate in them?

V. CHALLENGES

A. Three Levels of Challenges

1. The participants’ needs, capacity and proposed strategies for promoting compli- ance with UNDRIP provisions on the cultural rights of indigenous peoples; 2. The implementation of the said strate- gies; and 3. The monitoring of this implementa- tion. This final section should be a participa- tory process of envisioning and identifica- tion for the particular context of the par- ticipants. • Discuss with the participants the three main points as listed below. • Split up the participants into work- shop groups, and have them do poster presentations afterwards, in plenary. Suggested Method 112 Module-5