The Indigenous People of Australia, New Zealand and North America: Introduction

Bruce P. Corrie                      Samuel L. Myers, Jr.
Managing Editor                           Roy Wilkins Professor of Human
International Policy Review           Relations and Social Justice
Concordia University                     Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs
                                                      University of Minnesota

The impetus for this volume stemmed from a recent study tour of New Zealand and Australia by members of the Wilkins Forum of the Humphrey Institute for Public Affairs, University of Minnesota. The study tour culminated at the Second World Conference on Remedies to Racial and Ethnic Economic Inequality in Adelaide, Australia. The conference was co-presented by the Humphrey Institute’s Roy Wilkins Center for Human Relations and Social Justice and the University of South Australia’s Faculty for Aboriginal and Islander Studies.

The Second World Conference gathered academics, government officials, foundation officials, community activists and business people from different nations and states in the United States. For five days conference participants debated, discussed and proposed solutions to alleviate economic inequality in multi-ethnic societies.

The vibrant discourse of those events led to the dedication of this volume to understanding the issues and challenges facing indigenous people in Australia, New Zealand and North America.

This volume presents the main issues and challenges facing indigenous people living in relatively higher income countries: Australia, New Zealand, USA, Canada and Mexico. We present official positions, indigenous voices and concerns, and models for empowerment. Common themes run through these experiences as well as opportunities for fruitful dialogue among indigenous people of these regions.
The paper by Senator John Herron, Minister for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Affairs, Australia opens the volume. He presents the commitment and resources of Prime Minister John Howard’s Liberal Government to improve the lives of Australia’s Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islands people. He expresses a sense of urgency and frustration that the investment of resources and programs are not resulting in dramatic improvements in the lives of Australia’s indigenous people and makes the case for an outcomes-based approach in key areas of health, housing, education, employment and economic development.
Evelyn Scott, Chairperson of the Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation, presents the historical context that lead to the Council’s establishment. Australia became a nation in 1901. Only in 1967 were indigenous people of Australia counted as citizens. Since 1967 progress has been slow to correct the historical exploitation, marginalisation and the poor standard of living of the Aborigines. The Council’s role is to focus attention on the definition of reconciliation in Australia and foster and facilitate efforts to effect reconciliation. The Council stresses that true reconciliation between the indigenous people and the rest of Australia goes beyond admitting and apologizing for past wrongs: the process calls for the protection of indigenous rights, especially the right to land and culture, and for effective strategies to equalize the socio?economic status of all groups.

Terry Whitby is Commissioner of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission (ATSIC). ATSIC is funded by the Australian Parliament and is a decentralised organization combining representative, policymaking and administrative elements. ATSIC's statutory functions include monitoring the effectiveness of government programs; strengthening the indigenous communities of Australia; and protecting the cultural history and artifacts of the indigenous communities. Two?thirds of federal funding for targeted programs is channeled through ATSIC. Whitby expresses ATSIC's frustration and challenge in working with government and Australian institutions to improve the lives of indigenous people.

Paul Wand, Vice President for Aboriginal Relations, Rio Tinto mining company in Australia situates his paper on Aboriginal communities and mineral resources within the historical context of their marginalization. Through the example of Rio Tinto's collaboration with indigenous communities over mineral rights, Wand makes a forceful case that superior engineering, metallurgy, financial marketing and other practices need to be matched with social and environmental expertise to address the concerns of those they most directly affect.

Dr. Ngatata Love, Chief Executive, Ministry for Maori Development, New Zealand presents the major policy issues facing the Maori: Maori development, Crown?Maori relationships, treaty settlements, and social cohesion. He traces the evolution of the Ministry for Maori Development, the government’s principal advisor on Maori affairs, and presents a conceptual framework to view Crown?Maori relationships. The interconnectedness of policy issues for the Maori ? health, housing, education, income, employment and other social factors, calls for a holistic policy approach. Strategic responses to disparities should focus on the factors involved in wealth creation, including ownership, control and compensation for lost resources, human capital, the productivity of labour, and the accumulation and reinvestment of benefits.

Marilyn Lashley, Howard University, examines the impact of the recent New Zealand experiment with liberalisation on Maori social and economic well being. Analyzing aggregate level changes in labor force participation, income and poverty by ethnicity and gender from 1976?1998 she concludes that though near parity of several social and economic indicators just prior to reforms was observed, disparities have increased in their wake. The New Zealand Experiment illustrates that universal programs do not provide the same access for marginalized minorities as for Europeans and that government cannot abdicate from its role to provide equality and justice for all.

Roger Maaka, head of the Maori Studies at the University of Canterbury and a member of the Waitangi Tribunal and Augie Fleras, associate professor of Sociology at the University of Waterloo argue that Maori?Crown relations are undergoing profound changes at a time of complexity and turmoil. Discourse that once revolved around the themes of community development, multiculturalism, te taha Maori, and institutional accommodation, have been replaced with references to tino rangatiratanga, Maori sovereignty, indigenous rights and rights to indigenous self?determination, biculturalism, and Treaty partnerships. The authors argue that the Waitangi Tribunal is shifting its focus from contractual obligations between litigants to an emphasis on a new constitutional covenant that acknowledges Maori rights as tangata whenua (people of the land = first peoples) and tino rangatiratanga rights to Maori models of self?determination. The Waitangi Tribunal is proposing an innovative constitutional agenda to constructively re?engage Crown relations with the Maori in a manner that promotes 'dialogue between sovereigns' in a post?colonial New Zealand.

Mike DeGagne, Executive Director, The Aboriginal Healing Foundation, Canada, provides an overview of the Canadian experience with reconciliation. In an attempt to redefine the relationship between the Canadian government and Canada's first peoples, the government has suggested a new initiative to acknowledge past wrongs and to heal historical wounds. He describes the scope of the Canadian Healing Foundation and identifies four major program themes: healing (community approaches and healing centres); restoring balance; developing and enhancing Aboriginal capacities; and honour and history.

John Crump, Senior Policy Analyst, Nunavut Planning Commission shares the excitement and challenges of Canada's newest territory, Nunavut which celebrated its birth on April 1, 1999. The Nunavut Land Claims Agreement is one of the most innovative of "modern day treaties" concluded in Canada. The Inuit point to several key provisions of the agreement including: title to approximately 350,000 square kilometers (136,000 square miles), with mineral rights on 32, 257 kilometers (14,000 square miles); capital transfers of $1.4 billion payable over 14 years; the right to harvest wildlife on land and waters in the territory; and a share of federal government royalties for oil, gas, and mineral development of crown lands. Nunavut has two immediate, inter?related challenges: to function politically and administratively; and to offer economic security to its people.

David Wilkins of the University of Arizona argues that Native Americans in the United States are in a paradox: during one of the most dynamic political, social and economic periods in half a century, they are confronting a multi?pronged assault on their sovereign rights and economic resources. Native Americans face a range of issues: water rights in the Southwest; fishing rights in the Pacific Northwest and the Great Lakes; religious freedom; gaming; tribe and state tensions over sovereignty; and the extraction of mineral resources. The United States should amend its constitution to: recognize tribal sovereignty; restart the treaty process; and firm up the trust doctrine. He also identifies inter and intra tribal challenges facing Native Americans.

Guillermo Rojas, Chair of Chicano Studies at the University of Minnesota attempts to present the correlation, similarities, and current issues facing cultures of survival whose survival is threatened by a dominant culture that assimilates peoples with cultural differences or marginalises them into resistance. In every instance where indigenous people have fought for their land base, they have won autonomy and economic and political independence. Thus, they survived in dual manner -- preserving their traditional culture and participating in the dominant culture. He identifies future issues facing indigenous communities in the Southwest.

Rodolfo Stavenhagen, of El Colegio de Mexico, argues that discrimination in Latin American is 'cultural discrimination' where the prevailing idea of the nation?state is based on Western European and Mediterranean values. It ignores, denies, or rejects non?Western elements – the indigenous components of the national culture. The hegemonic nationalist ideologies of the twentieth century perceived themselves as nations without Indians. Apart from economic backwardness and cultural discrimination, indigenous people were also excluded politically from participating as Indians in their nations. Indigenous groups are promoting a global agenda for the protection of their rights which includes the right to land and the recognition of their own territories; the right to their own culture; and the right of autonomy, self determination and political representation.
Nicole Sault, of the Anthropology Department at Santa Clara University examines sustainability for the indigenous people of Mexico. She illustrates how historical forces including the Spanish conquerors, the Green Revolution and post-NAFTA land reform have led to the degradation of the land and the loss of livelihood for Mexico's indigenous people. Mexico’s indigenous people are not going hungry because they are ignorant and backward or destined to be poor. They starve because their land has been confiscated, degraded or mismanaged by outsiders. Sustainability from an indigenous perspective implies land rights, cultural integrity, autonomy and control over their resources.

Finally, Ignacio Sanchez, from ITESM, Monterrey, Mexico describes the EZLN indigenous movement. It is a resistance movement against the historical marginalisation of indigenous people that arose in Chiapas in 1994. For more than 500 years the indigenous people lived in political, social and cultural isolation and in extreme poverty. Chiapas is also a fight against globalization and the neo liberal policies of the Mexican government. Informal citizen organizations are serving as a barrier against anti-indigenous military and governmental policies and is an opportunity to change from the old authoritarian government structures to a new people?centered relationship that is capable of leading to a peaceful resolution in Chiapas.

Policy Lessons

If enforceable indigenous rights are established through treaties, indigenous people have a chance to empower themselves along the model of the Maori (Maaka and Fleras) and the Inuit of Canada (Crump). These treaties should enjoy constitutional protection (Wilkins). However, constructive engagement as co-sovereigns will go beyond legalistic and restitution claims to construct solutions that are attained through negotiation and compromise rather than litigation and confrontation (Maaka and Fleras).

If indigenous people have a land base, they have a chance at material, cultural and spiritual survival (Rojas).

To be self-reliant, indigenous people need an asset base. Without human, financial or physical capital they cannot break their yoke of historical oppression (Love).

A critical mass of indigenous people in a region can lead to empowerment as seen in the different experiences of the Aborigines of Australia and the Maori of New Zealand.

Respect and protection of indigenous peoples' rights to their culture, language and religion are important for their survival (Stavenhagen, Sault, Love, Wilkins).

Businesses can be very successful while they work with the local indigenous populations through written agreements, economic development and other initiatives (Wand).

For their own growth indigenous people have to see success in their community and hold top positions in the larger society and in their own indigenous institutions. Governments should respect (and allow) indigenous organizations to operate autonomously (Love, Crump, Whitby).

True reconciliation between indigenous and majority communities will occur only if parties are willing to acknowledge past wrongs and remedy past injustices by respecting indigenous rights to land, culture, language, and religion (Scott, DeGagne).

There also has to be political and financial commitments to the reconciliation process by national governments (Herron, DeGagne, Crump).

Among the problems facing indigenous peoples the authors point to the following:

The assumption that the historical oppression that indigenous people have experienced over hundreds of years has no impact on their present day lives (Scott, Whitby, Stavenhagen, Sault, Sanchez).

The refusal to acknowledge or recognize indigenous rights to land, culture, and religion (Whitby, Stavenhagen, Wilkins).

The assumption that the commitment of financial resources by itself will solve the problems faced by indigenous people (Scott, Whitby, Love).

The belief that 'mainstreaming' programs that target indigenous people is the solution and the refusal to acknowledge the unique needs of indigenous communities (Lashley).

The lack of national commitments to improve the lives of indigenous people and the increasing devolution of indigenous programs to the whim of local governments and institutions(Wilkins, Whitby).

Global forces of neoliberalism (free market economics) do not appear to benefit indigenous people. On the contrary, there are signs of increasing destitution (Sanchez, Sault, Lashley, Stavenhagen).