Plunder and exploitation of indigenous culture

RIGHTS AIPP AIPP Regional Capacity Building Program - Training Manual on the UNDRIP

2. Discrimination

In India, Adivasi, which simply means original settlers or indigenous people, has become a term equated with backwardness. In this caste society, Adivasi are regarded as even less than Untouchables. In the Philippines, indigenous peoples – often called “tribal Filipinos” even though many of them are not or no longer organized as tribes – have invariably been regarded as colorful, brave, and interesting but primitive peoples, left behind by history, belonging to different and inferior “stocks” or races. This is transmitted to the majority of Filipinos by school texts, the tourism au- thority and the mass media. Discrimination has contributed significantly to cultural erosion and acculturation because it has placed added pressure on indigenous people to give up their community’s language, manner of dress, manner of living – to deny their identity.

B. Laws and Policies, Good and Bad

Most Asian countries are signatories to the UNDRIP, the International Covenant on Social, Economic and Cultural Rights, and the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination. Most are also party to the Multilateral Convention on Biological Diversity http:www.cbd.int conventionconvention.shtml, which con- tains significant provisions on the recognition and protection of indigenous knowledge. The constitutions of India, Cambodia, Malaysia and the Philippines provide for cultural free- doms and indigenous peoples’ cultural rights. In the Philippines, for example, the Indigenous Peoples’ Rights Act IPRA spells out these rights. But the IPRA as written text and its enforce- ment or implementation are two different things. In some Asian countries, there are policies that outrightly violate or subtly deny cultural rights. For example, in Malaysia and in Thailand, the state promotes the concept of one country, one race, one culture – denying diversity or even encouraging its suppression. But in many Asian countries, this is not the main or the only problem. One problematic policy area is prioritization of cultural concerns. In the area of public edu- cation, for example, a common conflict of priorities is between the state’s centralized develop- ment of curricula and textbooks, on one hand, and its avowed promotion of indigenous language which requires a great degree of decentralization. Discuss with the participants the problem of discrimination in their own country. Group Interacion First, discuss the points raised below. Then involve participants in a Gaps Analysis of the laws in their own country, using the table also provided below. Suggested Method 108 Module-5 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