Indigenous Quotes - Page 7

• The problem is that those of us sympathetic with the plight of indigenous people view them as quaint and colorful, but somehow reduced to margins of history as the real world [(our world)] moves on We will be known as an era in which we stood by and either actively endorsed or passively accepted the massive destruction of both biological and cultural diversity on the planet.

  Wade Davis

  Real, Moving, Our World

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• The Mapuche are our indigenous people from the south, the Patagonia. They are a vey wise and luminous ancient cavitation, which is completely opposite to where Nazism was headed. In the novel [Wakolda], the theme of racial purity and the Nazi obsession with it was much more developed.

  Lucia Puenzo

  Wise, Opposites, People

  Source: blogs.indiewire.com

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• The term Hispanic, coined by technomarketing experts and by the designers of political campaigns, homogenizes our cultural diversity (Chicanos, Cubans, and Puerto Ricans become indistinguishable), avoids our indigenous cultural heritage and links us directly with Spain. Worse yet, it possesses connotations of upward mobility and political obedience.

  Guillermo Gomez-Pena

  Diversity, Political, Spain

  Guillermo Gomez-Pena (1993). “Warrior for Gringostroika: Essays, Performance Texts, and Poetry”

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• As ever, the original inhabitants of Turtle Island are entirely overlooked. Mysteriously, the only time indigenous people are guaranteed a mainstream Amerikkan mention is on Thanksgiving. Again, to contextualize, this would be be kinda like someone busting into your house and robbing you blind, then sending you postcards once a year to remind you how much they are enjoying all of your stuff, and getting annoyed with you if you don't respond with appreciation for their thoughtfulness.

  Inga Muscio

  Appreciation, Islands, Turtles

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• No event for the Koyukon - or for most other indigenous peoples - is ever entirely meaningless or accidental, but neither is any event entirely predetermined or fated. Rather like the trickster, Raven, who first gave it its current form, the sensuous world is a spontaneous, playful and dangerous mystery in which we participate, an articulate and improvisational field of powers ever responsive to human actions and spoken words.

  David Abram

  Ravens, Events, World

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• So, in "Melting Pot" the children (about a third of whom were kids of color) sang the line, "America was the new world and Europe was the old," in one stroke eradicating the narratives of indigenous persons for whom America was hardly new, and any nonwhite kids whose old worlds had been in Africa or Asia, not Europe.

  Tim Wise

  Children, Kids, Color

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• We're addicted to this concept of civilization - we can't imagine living outside of it because we've had it for 10,000 years, all of what we call history. But according to archaeologists, humanity has been on this planet for millions of years in indigenous form.

  Serj Tankian

  Years, Civilization, Humanity

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• Indigenous people have discovered that Christianity is not inherently Western but universal - 'translatable' into any cultural idiom.

  Nancy Pearcey

  People, Christianity, Idiom

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• We are dealing with a multidimensional paraphysical phenomenon which is largely indigenous to planet earth.

  Brad Steiger

  Earth, Planets, Ufo

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• When Europeans arrived on this continent, they blew it with the Native Americans. They plowed over them, taking as much as they could of their land and valuables, and respecting almost nothing about the native cultures. They lost the wisdom of the indigenous peoples-wisdom about the land and connectedness to the great web of life...We have another chance with all these refugees. People come here penniless but not cultureless. They bring us gifts. We can synthesize the best of our traditions with the best of theirs. We can teach and learn from each other to produce a better America.

  Mary Pipher

  Native American, Land, Web Of Life

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• Pride and resentment are not indigenous to the human heart; and perhaps it is due to the gardener's innate love of the exotic that we take such pains to make them thrive".

  Hope Mirrlees

  Pain, Heart, Pride

  Hope Mirrlees (2012). “Lud-in-the-Mist”, p.125, F+W Media, Inc.

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• What I can say is that it was clear to many of us that an indigenous African literary renaissance was overdue. A major objective was to challenge stereotypes, myths, and the image of ourselves and our continent, and to recast them through stories- prose, poetry, essays, and books for our children. That was my overall goal.

  Chinua Achebe

  Children, Book, Prose Poetry

  Chinua Achebe (2012). “There Was a Country: A Memoir”, p.44, Penguin

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• The provision of basic material needs is not sufficient to make minority groups and indigenous peoples feel they are truly part of the greater national entity. For that they have to be confident that they too have an active role to play in shaping the destiny of the state that demands their allegiance.

  Aung San Suu Kyi

  Destiny, Play, Groups

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• In every Indigenous community I've been in, they absolutely do want community infrastructure and they do want development, but they want it on their own terms. They want to be able to use their national resources and their assets in a way that protects and sustains them. Our territories are our wealth, the major assets we have. And Indigenous people use and steward this property so that they can achieve and maintain a livelihood, and achieve and maintain that same livelihood for future generations.

  Rebecca Adamson

  People, Community, Generations

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• Turkey is taking advantage of the war in order to thoroughly liquidate its internal foes, i.e., the indigenous Christians, without being thereby disturbed by foreign intervention.

  Talaat Pasha

  Christian, War, Order

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• The safe places could only be visited; they could only grant a momentary intuition of sanctuary. The moment always came when we had to return to our real life to face the wounds and grief indigenous to our homr by the river.

  Pat Conroy

  Real, Grief, Rivers

  Pat Conroy (1986). “The Prince of Tides”, p.380, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• For Indigenous peoples , the impact of separating us from our heritage goes directly to the heart that pumps life through our peoples. To expect a people to be able to enjoy their culture without their cultural heritage and their sacred belongings is equivalent to amputating their legs and digging up the ground and asking them to run a marathon.

  Mick Dodson

  Leadership, Running, Heart

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• We cannot allow some people to be left at the back of the human rights bus... We must ensure the rights of individual groups or people -be they indigenous peoples, or peoples of Asian or African or American descent, or Jews or Muslims- are not sacrificed on an altar of progress for some while there are setbacks to others.

  Matthew Coon Come

  Rights, People, Progress

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• The idea of regularly acknowledging our indebtedness to the natural world and giving thanks for the many gifts we receive from it, or considering other species to be our close "relations" which many indigenous peoples still do, couldn't be more alien to most of us.

  Charlie Cook

  Nature, Ideas, Giving

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• The role of globalization is to homogenize all cultures, and to turn them into commodified markets, and therefore, to make them easier for global corporations to control. Global corporations are even now trying to commodify all remaining aspects of national cultures, not to mention indigenous cultures.

  Jerry Mander

  Trying, Culture, Roles

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• The indigenous peoples understand that they have to recover their cultural identity, or to live it if they have already recovered it. They also understand that this is not a favor or a concession, but simply their natural right to be recognized as belonging to a culture that is distinct from the Western culture, a culture in which they have to live their own faith.

  Samuel Ruiz

  Understanding, Identity, Western Culture

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• You know what animals exist in the desert. He's going to his indigenous natural habitat. What better place for night crawlers?

  Don King

  Animal, Night, Boxing

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• For the Amahuaca, the Koyukon, the Apache, and the diverse Aboriginal peoples of Australia - as for numerous other indigenous peoples - the coherence of human language is inseparable from the coherence of the surrounding ecology, from the expressive vitality of the more-than-human terrain. It is the animate earth that speaks; human speech is but a part of that vaster discourse.

  David Abram

  Expression, Australia, Vitality

  David Abram (2012). “The Spell of the Sensuous: Perception and Language in a More-Than-Human World”, p.179, Vintage

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• As nations we should also commit afresh to righting past wrongs. In Australia we began this recently with the first Australians - the oldest continuing culture in human history. On behalf of the Australian Parliament, this year I offered an apology to indigenous Australians for the wrongs they had suffered in the past.

  Kevin Rudd

  Apology, Past, Years

  "Biography/Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

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• Power... Military success is not sufficient to win: economic development, institution-building and the rule of law, promoting internal reconciliation, good governance, providing basic services to the people, training and equipping indigenous military and police forces, strategic communications, and more of these, along with security, are essential ingredients for long-term success.

  Robert M. Gates

  Peace, Military, Communication

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