What Color is God’s Skin?

Sr. Joan Pytlik, D.C., of the Elizabeth Seton Federation, answers the question in the context of the UN

How is this for variety? It is estimated that there are 370 million indigenous people in over 70 countries, with 5,000 languages and cultures (560 are U.S. tribal governments). Indigenous peoples had been denied access to the United Nations for eighty years, and therefore had no recourse when legal agreements with them were broken or disregarded. They finally were accepted in 2002. In May, I attended the third annual UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues (PFII). The theme was “Indigenous Women.” The purpose of PFII is to raise awareness about indigenous issues, to provide expert advice and recommendations to the UN; and to discuss indigenous issues including economic and social development, culture, environment, education, health and human rights.

I wasn’t sure who the indigenous were. UN Special Rapporteur J. Martinez Cobo provided this description: “Indigenous communities… are those which, having a historical continuity with pre-invasion and pre-colonial societies that developed on their territories, consider themselves distinct from other sectors of societies now prevailing in those territories…. They form at present non-dominant sectors of society and are determined to preserve, develop and transmit to future generations their ancestral territories, and their ethnic identity, as the basis of their continued existence as peoples, in accordance with their own cultural patterns, social institutions and legal systems.”

I became aware that indigenous peoples around the world share a common experience of suffering from violence and oppression, land dispossession, forced assimilation, discrimination, poverty and denial of their rights as a people. Their environment is being destroyed, and they are often excluded from decisions about their own communities. They lack geographical and financial access to a good education that respects their culture and language. Their health care often is poor, and it overlooks their cultural mores or treatments. Added to the above hardships, indigenous women suffer from gender-based violence, both within and outside their communities (e.g. rape, forced pregnancy, servitude, trafficking).

In the statement of the U.S. Mission an acknowledgement was made that the U.S. did not always get it right. They stated that the adoption of the UN Declaration on Indigenous Rights would be most important, but it “should recognize that local authorities should be free to make their own decisions on a range of issues from taxation to education to land resources management to membership.” To date there has been agreement on only two articles of the Declaration, and critics state that the U.S. joins in blocking passage. A spokeswoman for the Teton Sioux Nation stated that the U.S. has not kept its treaties, and therefore the people are suffering from open pit uranium mines that have never been cleaned up; building up to 60,000 coal bed methane wells whose run-off will pollute major rivers, etc.

Indigenous peoples can teach us much about water and the environment. The 2003 “Indigenous Peoples’ Kyoto Water Declaration” begins: “We, the Indigenous Peoples… reaffirm our relationship to Mother Earth and responsibility to future generations to raise our voices in solidarity to speak for the protection of water. We were placed in a sacred manner on this earth, each in our own sacred and traditional lands and territories to care for all of creation and to care for water.… Our traditional knowledge, laws and ways of life teach us to be responsible in caring for this sacred gift that connects all life.”

The PFII approved numerous resolutions to enhance advances made since 2002 regarding programs by UN Agencies, funding, and increased input to the UN. They began to explore protection of intellectual property, traditional knowledge and folklore rights. Also the UN was urged to take action where alleged atrocities and human rights violations were committed against indigenous peoples in Colombia, Sudan, Ethiopia, and Indonesia.

UN General Assembly President Julian Hunte said, “You have a unique mission — to create a setting in which we can all work together on a path to a better world and to enjoy better standards of life in larger freedoms….” With raised awareness, we, too, can heed his words for God’s various children who have suffered for centuries.