Although we can’t know exactly why humans started developing symbols or how they were first used, we can speculate on some things about this ancient history. About 100000 years ago symbols were used by the First Peoples. Symbols were used as body markings of tribe members or drawn on the walls of caves illustrating everyday …
Fear, the Other, and Internet Manipulation in Culture Genocide Read More »
After over two decades of negotiations and multiple drafts, the UN in 2007 adopted the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP)[1] for the promotion, development, and maintenance of indigenous rights, and the ability of indigenous people to apply and adhere to customary laws within their local communities. This has laid the …
The Indigenous People Shall Be Involved in National and International Politics Read More »
In 2020, when George Floyd was murdered by four officers from the Minneapolis police department in the United States, a debate concerning systemic racism in the American police made international headlines. It quickly expanded to encompass the reality systemic racism as such, spreading to Europe and confronting nations allegedly incorporating structural racism that devalues black …
While Baha’is have been oppressed in Iran during various periods since the birth of their religion in that country in the nineteenth century, the establishment of a Shi‘i theocracy after the 1979 Islamic Revolution began an era of intensified and systematic persecution for this community. Recent scholarship has convincingly suggested that the Islamic Republic regime …
Part one: The Spinning of the Propaganda Machine The year was 2016. I was in Dhaka, Bangladesh. I received a proposal from a publisher acquaintance of mine to write on a topic about the indigenous people of Bangladesh. Without even pausing to think, I said yes, only to realize my mistake minutes after hearing the …
Minority in My Own Land, Losing My Religion in My Own Temple Read More »
Brief history and the key definitions In 1944, Raphaël Lemkin, a Polish Jewish lawyer, coined the term “genocide” to describe the brutal practices in countries occupied by Nazi Germany during World War II. Having experienced different elements of genocide first hand, through the extermination of his family and being forced to flee Poland, he wrote …
Cultural Genocide in Ukraine: The Systemic Destruction of a People Read More »
“Native peoples will continue to exist and flourish whether or not we are recognized legally, and you can bet on the fact that terms and definitions will continue to evolve” – Chelsea Vowel (âpihtawikosisân), Métis writer and lawyer from Alberta, Canada in her book Indigenous Writes: A Guide to First Nations, Métis & Inuit Issues …
How should we understand indigenous peoples’ cultural and physical destruction that often occurs gradually, sometimes abruptly, within the (colonial) states in which they live? Many indigenous peoples are of the view that their lived experience as colonised peoples should be seen as a genocidal process. Such as suggestion is frequently met with derision and condemnation …
Starvation is one of the many violent tools used to consolidate power during a genocide, and it is a common form of the torture practiced by the Chinese communist regime in Chinese jails, during which guards withhold food from prisoners in order to force submission or a confession. Today, Uyghurs are being imprisoned in their …
“The United States of America pays 50 million dollars annually to support development in the Sinai Peninsula,” a diplomat at the American Embassy in Cairo told me during a small tea party that the embassy held in my honor to celebrate my release from prison in August 2010. I told him that this was the …
When we speak of cultural appropriation and cultural genocide, the predominant image that comes to our mind is that of colonization by Western Europeans appropriating or erasing Indigenous traditions or African and Black cultures, as well as colonized Asian cultures. In the postcolonial context, the erstwhile colonized countries tend to unidirectionally focus on the global …
