A moment ago I read some commentary by Noel Pearson, published on December 30, 2006 in the Australian. (link).

I think it was a sincere attempt to provide some solutions to a pretty serious problem - that being the disproportionately high number of Aboriginal People in jail — but he also said a few things that troubled me greatly.

I would I’d like to talk about these things, in addition to the broader issue of problem solving in Colonial Societies.

Coming to Terms with Problems and Solutions

First, it’s important to understand that in Colonial society, alot of very big assumptions …

The following is a discussion started by a member here, which originally took place within our old forum. Eventually an essay will be put together based on it.

May 17, RevolutionReversal: hey folks,

this is a discussion I’ve been wanting to start for sometime, its quite hypothetical and idealists, nonetheless an important question for myself. So do to treaties, the various Native Nations have legal/ethical/spiritual claim the land. So if you get all the land back; how and on what terms do the non-natives that were born here integrate with your new sovereignty over the majority of the land? Will it …

This is a new opportunity we are offering the Chilean state: the opportunity to correct the historical relationship that it has maintained with the Mapuche people, characterised by subjection, colonialism, assimilation and ethnocidal integration

By Daniela Estrada

SANTIAGO, Jan 8 (IPS) - The Mapuches, Chile’s largest indigenous group, are tired of the promises of social justice and greater participation in decision-making voiced by the last three centre-left governments. Their leaders thus met with President Michelle Bachelet to propose a new working relationship.

“The president acknowledged the Chilean state’s ‘historical debt’ to the Mapuche people, agreed to appoint a special interlocutor to engage in …

by: Steven Newcomb / Indigenous Law Institute

Once in a while, a book comes along that holds your attention so well that you cannot put it down. ”Unlearning the Language of Conquest: Scholars Expose Anti-Indianism in America,” edited by Four Arrows (Don Trent Jacobs), is such a book. A tertiary subtitle reads: ”Deceptions that influence war and peace, civil liberties, public education, religion and spirituality, democratic ideals, the environment, law, literature, film, and happiness.” The book, published by the University of Texas Press, exposes in a mere 280 pages such deceptions while delivering much-needed illumination on many issues dealing with indigenous …

Today Pacific Island nations at the Pacific Island Forums have welcomed and endorsed the Pacific Plan, a blueprint for neo-colonialism in the south Pacific.

The Governments of Australia, the Cook Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, Fiji, Kiribati, Nauru, New Zealand, Niue, Papua New Guinea, Republic of the Marshall Islands, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tuvalu and Vanuatu, and representatives of Palau and Tonga. New Caledonia, French Polynesia Timor-Leste and Tokelau endorsed the Pacific Plan which is mainly based around implementing a number of trade liberalisation agreements notably Pacific Island Countries Trade Agreement (PICTA), the Economic Partnership Agreements (EPA) and the Pacific Agreement on …

By the Khmer-Krom Federation:

For many outsiders, Vietnam appears to be doing all the right things. In fact, earlier this year the United Nations has praised Vietnam for its efforts in changing its ways and making rapid progress. In its attempt to successful join the World Trading Organization, Vietnam has certainly polished their images at the international arena.

Stories from inside, however displays a different picture. Sadly, only those living in Kampuchea-Krom could fully appreciate desperate situation that they are subjected to. Unlike the rapid ethnic cleansing that their Diem government tried to implement against the Khmer-Krom people in …

(note: This article reads like it’s a sales pitch, and I want to state before-hand that I’m not putting this on here because I think this is a — wonderful business opportunity. This has everything to do with modern forms of assimilation, and is a very routine example of a business-oriented mindset - eg, sovereignty is seen as a barrier that must be removed to exercise maximum profitability.)

Posted: July 25, 2006 - by: Mark Fogarty / Indian Country Today correspondent

WASHINGTON - There is ”a growing appetite for business and commercial lending on tribal trust lands,” according to the federal …

Protest Rally Against AFN Sell-Outs and Commemoration of 16th Anniversary of Oka Crisis

Tuesday, July 11, 2006,
4 PM at Canada Place

On Tuesday July 11, 2006, at 4 PM, the Indigenous Resistance Organizing Committee (IROC) will rally at Canada Place to denounce the Assembly of First Nations (AFN) as a state-funded agent of colonialism, comprised of collaborator chiefs from the Indian Act band council system. The AFN is holding its annual general assembly there July 11-13. It began July 10 with a golf tournament in Surrey.

The AFN claims to be …

The Indian Council of South America to the new UN Human Rights Council hopes that the change serves to better defend those rights as well as social and historic justice for all peoples.

That is what CISA hopes, because attempts are being made to invalidate the process launched by the representatives of the invaded peoples of the Americas and Oceania who did not benefit from the decolonisation that took place on other continents. In 1977, those representatives sought to have the United Nations recognize them as peoples and original nations with a right to self-determination, to land, territory, natural resources and …

NEW YORK - There is no ambiguity in the language of the 15th-century papal bulls issued by the popes of the Roman Catholic Church as they encouraged the kings of Portugal and Spain to conquer ”undiscovered” lands, enslave their non-Christian populations and expropriate their possession and resources.

Now, more than 500 years later, the U.N. Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues has called on Pope Benedict XVI to revoke and renounce those documents.

The bulls, according to the forum, formed the ”doctrine of discovery” - a philosophy that sanctified the massacre of millions of indigenous people and continues to influence U.S. Supreme Court …