GLOBAL KNOWLEDGE RE SE A RC H A C RO SS B O U N DA RIE S
No.P4 2 no. 2005 2007
Concepts and Conicts Indigenous peoples and the fight for resources
Oily Words T E R E S A G R Ø TA N EDITOR, GLOBAL KNOWLEDGE
I L L US T R AT ION / I NG A S Æ T R E AC C OR DI NG T O T H E U N I T E D N A T ION S , between 300 and 370 million people defi ne themselves as indigenous. At least 5 000 distinct indigenous societies in more than 70 countries worldwide account for about six per cent of the total world population. There is no fi xed defi nition of the term indigenous. Indigenous people are usually defi ned as an ethnic group who lived in a certain location before anybody else. They distinguish themselves through specific linguistic, cultural and other social characteristics, and are often politically underprivileged. It is a politically constructed defi nition, used today to emphasise certain groups’ rights. But the term indigenous is contested. Some academics claim it is an essentialist concept and even racist, when used in the presence of other marginalised groups in a society. Some communities defi ned as indigenous see the term as a Eurocentric creation which does not describe who they are. And many governments are against it, claiming it contributes to an unwanted division of the nation. One fact remains, whether one approves of the term or not: these six per cent of the world are less educated, have poorer health and lower material living standards compared to the non-indigenous populations. They do comparatively worse regardless of whether they live in a wealthy country, like the Sami in Norway, or in a poor country, like the Shangana in Mozambique; whether they are in the majority, like the Amerindians of Bolivia, or
whether they account for a small minority, like the U’wa in Colombia. The U’wa consist today of about 6000 people living in the cloudforest. They live in an area rich in one of the world’s most important resources: oil. In 1995 the community performed a media stunt: they threatened to commit suicide if the American company Occidental Petroleum was allowed to drill for oil in their traditional territories. This is but one of many examples of the confl ict in the debate on who the indigenous are and which rights should result from this defi nition. For those indigenous peoples who live traditionally, the land, and the natural resources, are an intrinsic part of life. But these natural surroundings are often very valuable to other individuals, companies or authorities, as they often are rich in resources such as oil and gas, timber, minerals or water. The recently ratified UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples – which was approved after 22 years of debate – put forward the right for indigenous people to land and resources in a way unprecedented in international human rights law. The UN has declared 2005–2014 to be the Second International Decade of the World’s Indigenous Peoples. One of the main goals is to strengthen international cooperation over environmental problems. The control of natural resources is indeed an important key to understand one of the main reasons for the fi ght over terminology.
CL OCK W ISE F ROM L E F T : The Sami and the San, p. 16 | The Timbuktu Manuscripts, p. 48| Kanako Uzawa and the Ainu of Japan, p. 44 Oil and the Tundra in Russia , p. 36| Modern Dance in Zimbabwe, p. 54
contents Global Knowledge 2/2007 BRIEF REPORTS / 4
Ω WELCOMES THE OIL / 39
RESEARCH TOO CLOSELY LINKED TO OFFICIAL NORWEGIAN POLICY / 7
A new research report state that as long as indigenous people in Alaska, Russia, Norway and Canada are included in decision making, they are not against oil extraction in the Artic.
FROM PROFESSOR TO PRISONER / 8
Ω STRONG BACKING TO INDIGENOUS RIGHTS / 40
An academic imprisoned and tortured in the Congo now teaches at university in the USA.
THE ISLAMIC SHADOW / 12 An Iranian academic seeks freedom from an oppressive regime.
“HOW SINCERE ARE WE IN ALLOWING PLURALITY?” / 14 The organisation Scholars at Risk promotes academic freedom and helps persecuted scholars.
Ω WORLDS APART / 16 Even though the Sami and the San have a lot in common, their worlds are totally different.
Ω WHERE THE FIRST ARE THE LAST / 21 Researchers in Botswana and Norway try to combine academically-sound research with advocacy for the San people.
The recently ratified UN Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples provides for collective rights unprecedented in human rights law, according to researcher.
Ω THE POLITICS OF DEFINITION / 41 A professor argues the term “indigenous” is racist, while an IWGIA chairperson says it serves its political purpose.
Ω MINORITY REPORT / 44 The Ainu are not recognised as indigenous and experience discrimination in Japanese society.
Ω THE SECRETS OF THE CENOTES / 46 Researches unravel the mysteries of the Mexican sinkholes called cenotes.
SAVING THE TREASURES OF TIMBUKTU / 48 The rich manuscripts of Mali alter the image of an illiterate African continent.
Ω BACK TO THE BOOKS / 26
FIRST BOOK ON POLITICS IN MALAWI / 53
Ole Henrik Magga has spent the last 40 years advocating the rights of indigenous people. Now the professor of linguistics returns to his books.
Research cooperation resulted in first book on the nation’s government and politics.
Ω FROM POLLUTION TO PROTECTION / 30
DANCING ZIMBABWE ONTO THE MAP / 54
Ecuador suggests protecting parts of Yasuní in the Amazon Basin from oil extraction, and wants the rest of the world to shoulder some of the cost.
Learning to dance in a country falling apart.
Ω THE TENDER TUNDRA / 36 The Russian tundra is being destroyed by oil companies. Norwegian researchers cooperate with the indigenous Nenets people to document the destruction.
Ω RESOURCE CONTROL IN NIGERIA’S NIGER DELTA / 58 Academic essay on the reasons why oil has not brought wealth to Nigeria’s people.
Research Across Boundaries
Medical Peace
Global Knowledge is an interdisciplinary magazine that offers stories on political questions with global implications in research and higher education. The magazine provides an international arena for debate, and focuses on cooperation where partners have a wide range of political, economic, cultural and/or religious backgrounds. Global Knowledge is aimed at academics, administrators, policy-makers and others interested. The interviews, feature articles and news items are produced by journalists and photographers from all over the world. One academic essay will appear in each issue. Global Knowledge is published by the Norwegian Centre for International Cooperation in Higher Education (SIU), but the content is not limited to the programmes administered by SIU. The magazine does not necessarily represent SIU’s official view. Global Knowledge is financed by Norad, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Education and Research.
A N I N T E R NAT IONA L COOPE R AT I V E PROJ E C T called Medical Peace Work (MPW) is meant to give health workers the tools to promote peace, human rights and security. MPW deals with the role and professional responsibility of health workers in the prevention of violence and in sustainable peace-building. The aim of MPW is to increase health workers’ awareness of their peace potential and to strengthen their conflict competence. The project involves both collecting available material and producing new teaching material online, since there is very little relevant material and training available today. The result of the project will include a multi-media distance learning course and a textbook on medical peace work. The cooperating partners are drawn from medical peace practitioners, peace and health researchers, teaching institutions, and the end-users from various countries of the teaching and training material. MPW is part of the EU-funded Leonardo da Vinci programme, and is administered by the Centre for International Health at the University of Tromsø, Norway, and the University Hospital North Norway. K T E / T G
Global Knowledge 2/2007 PU BL I SH E D November 2007 E DI T OR- I N - CH I E F Head of Information, Hanne Alver Krum E DI T OR Teresa Grøtan teresa.grotan@siu.no A DV IS ORY BOA R D Associate Professor Harald Hornmoen, Norway, Researcher René Smith, South Africa, Associate Professor Tom Skauge, Norway, Researcher Džemal Sokolović, Norway/BosniaHercegovina, Professor James Tumwine, Uganda, Vice-Rector Galina Komarova, Russia COV E R PHO T O Fred Ivar Klemetsen (Sami women in northern Norway) L AY- OU T Øystein Vidnes PRO OF - R E A DE R Steve Hands PR I N T E D BY Bryne Offset CI RCU L AT ION 2100 I S S N 1504-7563 SI U, P.O. Box 7800, NO–50 20 BERGE N, NORWAY
www.medicalpeacework.org
Material from Global Knowledge may be freely cited provided that due acknowledgement of the source is made and the editor informed. Would you like to receive a free subscription to Global Knowledge? Please log on to www.siu.no/globalknowledge
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Perceivable, Durable, Predictable T H E NORW E GI A N Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ appointed work group has finished its work on developing a platform for bilateral grants to higher education and research in countries in the South. The group, drawing representatives from ministries, the SIU and the Norwegian Research Council (NCR) among others, studied Norwegian bilateral support for higher education and research, and also analysed future challenges for this type of funding. Concluding that more effort must be put into higher education and research in development assistance, the work group presented a number of suggestions for improvement. The group stressed the importance that Norwegian support should be perceived as long-term and dependable, in the sense that eventual changes in priorities would come through growth, and not through the reorganisation of limited funds. Higher education and research should to a larger extent than today be used as a tool to support the thematic priorities in Norway’s development assistance. There should be an increased focus on joint programmes between Norwegian institutions and institutions in the South, increased direct support to institutions in the South, as well as more funds for researchers from the South in general calls for applications to the NCR. J H
T H E DRUG S| Many patients do not follow their course of treatment for tuberculosis. Here from the Tuberculosis Dispensary in Arkhangelsk, Russia. Photo/Paul Sigve Amundsen
Why They Don’t Take the Drugs A S R E P ORT E D I N T H E L A S T IS SU E of Global Knowledge, many patients with tuberculosis (TB) find it difficult to complete their assigned course of drug treatment. Researchers in South Africa, Britain and Norway have conducted a study to find out why. The hope is that the results could help design better medication regimes and patient support systems. Up to half of all people with TB do not finish treatment, for a wide range of reasons – financial, personal and environmental. Failure to complete the drug course may not only lead to patients being infected longer, but also makes them more likely to die or to become infected with drug-resistant TB, as reported in the last issue of Global Knowledge.
The researchers found that some patients have difficulty in getting to health centres to take the drugs, some could not afford them, others were afraid of being scolded by medical staff for missing a dose, and many could not endure the perceived prejudice of having TB or bear the drugs’ side effects, reports Sci.Dev.net. There is a need to pay more attention to obstacles to effective treatment such as poverty and discrimination. The report recommends that future interventions should boost patient participation in the decisions made about their treatment. The study, “Patient Adherence to Tuberculosis Treatment: A Systematic Review of Qualitative Research” was published in PLoS Medicine, 24 July 2007. T G
NOK 65 Million to University Cooperation Between Sudan and Norway A N E W PRO GR A M M E for cooperation between Sudan and Norway, named the Norwegian University Cooperation Programme for Capacity Development in Sudan (NUCCOP), was launched in the autumn of 2007. The first financial allocation is due on 10 December this year, with NOK 65 million allocated over a period of five years. The Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs wishes to make use of Norwegian institutions’ knowledge and experience in order to support the peace agreement in Sudan and to contribute towards poverty reduction. Geographical priority
is given to southern Sudan, and cooperating institutions have to commit themselves to long-term partnership. NUCCOP aims to contribute to institutional and organisational capacity development. Funding will be given to Bachelor and Master’s degree studies, and to the development of competence for research and research-based education in Sudanese institutions. The Norwegian Centre for International Cooperation in Higher education (SIU) administers the programme on behalf of Norad. BG / T G
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P O SI T I V E R E SP ONSE| On average, the readers of Global Knowledge give a score of 5 on a scale from 1 to 6 on how interesting they find the articles.
Results from the Readers’ Survey T H E F I R S T IS SU E of Global Knowledge was published in November 2004. Since then, two yearly issues with special topics such as democracy, the environment, human rights and HIV and tuberculosis have been published. Subscribers in 85 countries have read articles from around 45 countries on all continents. In June and July this year, we asked our readers what they thought about the magazine. We received 125 responses. Out of these, 60 per cent were male, and close to 50 per cent were academics. Over 60 per cent lived in Norway. On average, the respondents gave a score of 5 on a scale from 1 to 6 on how interesting they found the articles in the magazine. Articles on policy issues related to higher education and research, and feature articles got the highest score. Close to 60 per cent read some or almost all articles. The same percentage would like the geographical scope of the magazine to include the whole world. More than 60 per cent shared their copy with one or more persons. Comments included: “A wonderful magazine that provides a fresh platform on a variety of timely and relevant issues facing the world today.” “Nice design, high quality articles, many important and different issues, Global Knowledge helps me keep updated.” “Good articles in fields nobody else covers.” However, readers also wrote “I dislike the ‘West is best’ attitude of the publication” and “It is a secular missionising magazine”. We hope Global Knowledge will continue to engage our readers! T G
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USD Five Million to Iraqi Scientists Rescue Project A N E S T I M AT E D 3 0 0 I R AQI AC A DE M IC S and clinicians have been killed since the US invasion in 2003 , according to SciDev.Net, with many more under constant threat. USD five million has been donated by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to fund a project to support and protect Iraqi scientists at risk. This amount matches a contribution which has already been approved by the United States Congress. The Iraqi Scholar Rescue Project will help evacuate threatened scientists and set up and fund teaching and research positions at institutions in the Middle East and North Africa. The project is set to begin in the autumn of 2007, with Jordan to receive the first scientists. J H
Editor’s Note In the last issue of Global Knowledge, the African Languages Lexical Project (ALLEX), a cooperative project between the University of Oslo and the University of Zimbabwe, was reported on. However, in the article from Zimbabwe, researchers other than those involved in this specific project were interviewed. Even though their views were relevant to the article, it should have been explicitly stated that they were not part of the A L L E X project. We apologise for the inaccuracy. T G
Research Too Closely Linked to Official Norwegian Policy In a recent evaluation Norwegian development research was found to be too closely linked with its sources of funding as well as to Norwegian official policy. te resa gr øtan/ tex t a n d photo
T H E E VA LUAT ION , published in August 2007, was performed by an international committee and initiated by the Research Council of Norway (RCN). The total volume of Norwegian development research is large. The publications reviewed in the evaluation score quite high on originality, solidity and scholarly relevance. Norwegian development researchers excel in research on human rights, armed conflict, the displacement of people and natural resource issues. The committee also notes that individual researchers in anthropology, economics and political science have brought the country international recognition. Development research in Norway has relevance for Norwegian policy, as well as for civil society and developing countries. However, the evaluation found that researchers are too dependent on their funding sources: “Direct funding (commissions) entails a high degree of dependence, formally and informally.” So for research that is touted as “independent”, the report states that “conclusions that are at cross with the official policy preferences, or that are too bold and revealing as to political processes, might be subdued or delivered with an uneasy eye to future funding.” The committee recommends that the role of government officials on the programme boards of RCN should be reconsidered: “RCN procedures and structures also seem to lack transparency and legitimacy.” The commission expressed
T O O P OL I T IC A L| Norwegian development research is too closely linked with its sources of funding. Here from the laboratory at the University of Malawi.
reservations regarding “the ability to ensure that quality is the prime criterion in RCN grant selection procedures”. Norwegian development research is well-funded and adequately staffed. However, the evaluation committee recommends that more independent research, and more long-term funding, be initiated. A larger share of resources should be allocated solely on the basis of academic quality. “Norwegian development research needs to loosen its close association with Norwegian development policy and to be free to redefine development research to be more in tune with the larger issues of globalisation and sustainable development,” the committee states. The data for the evaluation included a review of selected publications, citation analysis, interviews with selected users and researchers, and self-assessment reports from 28 research units. The full report is available at www.forskningsradet.no DE V E L O P M E N T R E S E A RC H | 7
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From Professor to Prisoner Two years ago, Professor Felix Ulombe Kaputu’s only company was the rats in his cell, fat from feasting on rotting corpses. marianne ons rud j awa n da / te x t em man uel l e f r ancoy / photos new york, usa
the backlash from colonialism. I M PR I SON E D I N K I NSH A SA , The general insisted Kaputu was acting as More than ten million people are the capitol of the Democratic the mastermind of a 20 000-man rebel army estimated to have died during the Republic of the Congo, his skin that intended to declare independence for the brutally exploitative reign of King had taken on a green hue from province of Katanga. Leopold II of Belgium, part of a censtarvation and his blood prestury of Belgian rule. The Congo was never able to establish sure was dangerously low. Blisters that had formed in the back a stable government after the Belgians abruptly withdrew in of his throat from dehydration made it difficult to swallow. 1960. The elected Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba was overDistraught, hungry and panic-stricken, but most importantly thrown that same year with US and European support for a innocent, this accomplished and admired professor was accold war ally, Mobutu Sese Seko. Since then there have been cused of endangering national security and consequently immany bloody internal conflicts in the Congo, which eventually prisoned under abysmal conditions. culminated in a civil war that lasted four years and took more Today, Professor Kaputu is a visiting assistant professor than four million lives. of literature at Purchase, State University of New York, afChild soldiers make up ten percent of the army. Violence ter spending last year as a resident research scholar at the Du against women, including rape and forced sexual slavery, conBois Institute for African and African American Studies at tinues to soar and more than one thousand people die every Harvard. day from starvation and lawlessness. As Kaputu learned first His lips are curled up in a careful, almost shy smile, but his hand, members of the security forces are often poorly trained eyes speak of suffering and loss. While he is safe in the US and paid, and commit serious human rights abuses. thanks to academic and financial assistance from the New While at Lubumbashi University, Kaputu was working York Institute of International Education and the guidance as an associate professor of literature when the Director of of the Scholars at Risk (SAR), he is still working on coming Provincial Security requested a meeting one April morning in to terms with what happened in Lubumbashi on a beautiful 2005. spring day in April 2005. “This was not unusual and I suspected no danger,” Kaputu said. He was often called in to cooperate and assist in matA TREACHEROUS MEETING ters of state in conjunction with his research. “I was actually Born in the south of the Congo, Kaputu was raised in a counexcited that the director was interested in my work,” Kaputu try that, not unlike many countries in Africa, still suffers from added. But the meeting was anything but cordial. Kaputu was inL A S T I NG L OV E| Even though there is a looming death senterrogated by a general and accused of having bought and tence for Professor Felix Ulombe Kaputu’s life, he still longs for smuggled weapons while attending a conference on religion the green hills of his homeland. “I can think of nothing else but and gender differences in Japan. The general further insisted going back to the Congo,” he said. AC A DE M IC I N T H E C O NG O | 9
ment. Human right groups and colleagues around the world lobbied tirelessly for Kaputu’s release. But it was one journalist in particular, Ghislaine Dupont, reporting for Radio France Internationale, who ensured that the pressure on the government was constant. She was relentless in her quest for answers. Where were the weapons? The soldiers? The training camps? Dupont’s reporting, coupled with pressure from Amnesty and other human rights advocates pressured the Congolese government into releasing Kaputu. After more than four months in prison, Kaputu was freed and he returned to work the following day. However, his exciteABYSMAL CONDITIONS ment at the prospect of teaching again waned quickly when he The morning of his capture, Kaputu had woken up at home noticed there were soldiers outside the lecture hall guarding as a distinguished professor – by day’s end, he was a prisoner the door. It became clear that he would never again be free to in a small, dark, flea-infested holding teach and continue his research cell. It would be months before his under this administration. The The Congolese authorities seem intent on wife and three daughters would know northern province of the Congo silencing scholars, intellectuals and political of his whereabouts and suddenly was intent on getting rid of inopponents. panic set in. tellectuals from the south and “I was convinced that this was it. But the next day I was at replacing academics with their own appointments. Kaputu peace and ready for whatever would happen.” suspected that the reason he was incarcerated in the first place Kaputu suffers from high blood pressure and was not only was because of his close affiliation with the former president deprived of food, water and communication with the outside of Lubumbashi University who was an opposition member world, he was also denied medical care. “We were given a plasof the rebel organization, Rally for Congolese Democracy. tic bottle to urinate in, but after days without water that need Kaputu later assisted with his escape to Belgium; an act that vanished,” he said. resulted in Kaputu’s death warrant in the Congo. The day he was imprisoned more than 60 men, doctors, News of professors, activists and journalists who just “hapleaders of opposition parties, military leaders and the son of a pened to disappear” were all too common. Now, more than previous prime minister joined him in jail. They were illegally ever, his life was in danger. He made sure to always be accomdetained incommunicado for two weeks in Lubumbashi. Two panied by students when in public and took to never sleeping weeks later, on 17 May 2005, 15 of the most high profile prisonin the same place two nights in row. “Once you are accused, ers were transferred to the Makala central prison in Kinshasa. it’s forever,” Kaputu said. “Here you are no longer a professor,” warned the prison He needed to leave. Through contacts at the American warden when Kaputu arrived. “I am putting you in a cell reEmbassy in Kinshasa, Kaputu managed to get a visa before he served only for the most dangerous criminals,” he spat and escaped to the US via South Africa. Later he was informed that slammed the heavy metal door shut behind Kaputu. the official who gave him the exit stamp from the Congo was The conditions in the prison were abysmal. The stench imprisoned for letting him leave the country. Once in the US, a from rotting corpses lingered in the small room with no light colleague at the university referred Kaputu to Scholars at Risk. and no ceiling. During a storm the roof had blown off, allowing rainwater to collect in putrid puddles on the floor. When SILENCING SCHOLARS family members came to visit the prisoners, the guards would “I am not a politician, I am a university professor, that is advise them not to waste their money. enough in a human life,” Kaputu said. His hope is that intellec“Once he is in here he is already dead,” they told them. tuals and scholars can one day cooperate with the government Prisoners had been detained, forgotten about and left to die in on improving the situation in the Congo. But currently, the these cells before. authorities seem intent on silencing scholars, intellectuals and political opponents. Kaputu, rather than succumbing to selfcensorship like so many of his colleagues, insisted on teaching ANYTHING BUT FORGOTTEN his students how to think critically, strive for truth and achieve On the outside, however, Kaputu was anything but forgotten. gender equality. On 26 May, Amnesty International issued a “Torture and ill“I grew up in a poor family and I have worked very hard to treatment/medical concern” based on the illegal imprisonKaputu was acting as the mastermind of a 20 000-man rebel army that intended to declare independence for the province of Katanga. Kaputu had bought nothing more than a karate suit and a couple of books in Japan and was baffled by what he was hearing. “The claim was so absurd, I did not know how to react,” he recalled. Kaputu then overheard the general telling some of the guards, “You have to really make him suffer – and don’t worry if he dies. He’s of no use to the president.”
10 | AC A DE M IC I N T H E C ONG O
F R E E AT L A S T| Professor Felix Kaputu was wrongly imprisoned by the Congolese government and spent months in a flea-infested prison cell. Thanks to tireless efforts from Amnesty International, a relentless reporter and other human rights activists, Kaputu was freed and is today working as an assistant professor of literature at Purchase, State University of New York.
PROFESSOR FELIX ULOMBE K APUTU
• He received his Master’s of Arts degree in Ugaritic and Middle Eastern Mythology from the University of Lubumbashi where he was awarded his PhD. in 2000, specializing in gender issues, religion, and university pedagogy. • His research has concentrated on gender issues and the impact of religion, particularly in Central Africa. • Kaputu is the recipient of international grants and awards from the Belgian CIUF-CUD (2001, 2005), the International Association of Oral History (2002), Fulbright (2003), the Japanese Foundation (2005), and the International Association for the Study of Religion (2005).
get this far,” Kaputu continued, stressing the word “very” and pausing for a second. He turned around and glanced at the bookshelf on the wall in his office, bursting with books on mythology and the history and people of the Congo. “I could have left but I decided not to,” Kaputu said, almost inaudibly and added, “In fact, my interest in the Congo can not just be extinguished, it is a part of my life.” Kaputu is not only grieving the loss of his motherland, he is also filled with worry about the safety of his wife and three daughters who are still in the Congo. Because of him, they are under surveillance at all times. Kaputu has not seen them since the morning of his arrest and he never got to say goodbye to his deceased mother who suffered a stroke on the day he was arrested. It looks like Kaputu is in the US to stay, at least for a while. Purchase College is prepared to assist in any way it can. For now Kaputu has to live in the moment and take every day as it comes. While he takes great joy in teaching, his wounds from the time spent in prison have not yet healed. With a death
warrant looming in the Congo, it would not be safe for him to return. He still feels threatened, even in the US. “I very much panicked,” Kaputu said after attending a conference in Manhattan recently. The Congolese government delegation was in the same city. “I did my best to avoid members from the delegation; I am not ready to face them,” Kaputu explained. He knows he has no choice but to stay in the US, even though all he can think about is going back to the Congo. “It was not easy to accept this,” Kaputu said, and added softly, “But, you know I am lucky to have learned so much from this suffering.” GK Marianne Onsrud Jawanda is the Norwegian editor-in-chief for the Norway Times, based in Pelham, New York. Emmanuelle Françoy is a French photographer and artist, based in Pelham, New York. AC A DE M IC I N T H E C O NG O | 1 1
The Islamic Shadow As an academic in Iran, one has to choose: either teach and publish the way the clergy see fit – or leave the country. te resa gr øtan/ tex t a n d photo malmö, sweden
want an Islamisation of the universities. They spread a dark S O CIOL O GI S T A N D A S Y LU M - SE E K E R Ali Tayefi chose shadow over the academic institutions and try to restrict the latter. “I left my identity. I lost my life and my family.” academic freedom. “The academics have to assimilate to He has been in Sweden for the past four years. He hopes he survive. Many try to teach secularism and democracy to their can stay on, or go somewhere else that’s safe. He does not want students in secret. In class they teach the way the clergy see to go back to Iran, because he is afraid he will be put in jail. fit, but in their free time they find other ways to meet and talk Swedish authorities are not of the same opinion, and Tayefi is to the students.” presently an illegal immigrant in Sweden. “The Swedish judge As a student, Tayefi was an active leader in demonstrations asked me: ‘Why did you write something critical when you against the regime. Tayefi is a sociologist, but was never able knew it was forbidden?’” Ali laughs dryly. to finish his PhD. His articles have been censored. Of the five “I must follow my conscience and my heart. I have an oblibooks he has written, four are banned. Newspapers and magagation to my society.” zines he contributed to have been closed down. He has never Recently he got in touch with Scholars at Risk, which is trybeen able to get a permanent job. “I have encountered so many ing to help him to the USA. So is the American president of restrictions,” he says. For Tayefi it is clear this is because of his the organisation Sociologists Without Borders. But there are engagement in socio-cultural and political issues in Iran. some serious obstacles, not least of which is that his passport In 2003 the climate in Iran became increasingly hostile has been confiscated. and oppressive and he left, after having been in Sweden and Ali Tayefi seems disillusioned. He has not seen his two Germany to speak about the situation back children, now aged ten and 12, for four “History proves that science will home. Three months after his departure, years. He does not speak much Swedish. the two people he travelled with, a profesInstead he is absorbed in Iranian acawin in the confrontation between sor at the University of Tehran and a jourdemic life: Tayefi is the president of the science and religion.” nalist, were arrested. One of them now lives Iranian branch of Sociologists Without in exile in the USA and the other has “adapted” to the system. Borders and runs two blogs about the situation in Iran. Ali Tayefi is tired of being suspected of coming to Sweden for the money. “I do not have an economic problem. I have an LIVE TWO LIVES ideological problem with the Islamic regime.” The most recent protest against the Iranian regime ocIt is freedom that he seeks. Freedom to express what he becurred in October this year, as the Iranian leader Mahmoud lieves is right. Freedom to publish results from his research on Ahmadinejad presided over the ceremony opening the new acthe social situation in Iran. Tayefi has done studies on prostiademic year at the University of Tehran. Students called him a tution, on street children, on violence against women and on “dictator” and chanted “Death to the dictator!” They also prothe brain drain; there are 5000 Iranian professors in the USA tested against the imprisonment of student leaders. Only last and Canada, yet only 1800 in the whole of Iran. year two students died in Iranian prisons. He characterises the oppression of academics, journalists According to Ali Tayefi, the fundamentalists in Iran 1 2 | AC A DE M IC I N I R A N
U N - I SL A M IC S TAT I S T IC S| Sociologist Ali Tayefi could not live in the oppressive academic environment in Iran. “I could not publish a book on the brain drain. I asked my publisher why. He asked the Ministry of Culture. They just said that it was un-Islamic. Everything must be drawn from the Koran.”
and writers as a form of torture. “When you cannot speak publicly about your field of study or publish you ideas, you are being tortured,” Tayefi says. POLITICAL FILTER
After the revolution in Iran in 1979, the universities were closed for three years, during which time all academics that did not agree with the revolution were dismissed. Many went to the USA or to Europe. According to Tayefi, there is a political filter for all people who seek a job in academia in Iran. “You are questioned about everything: your political ideas, your family, your opinion on Islam, your ethics, morals, your background in education and work and so on.” If your answers are not in accordance with Islamic ideology, you will not get the job. Scholars continue to be pensioned off if they are found to have un-Islamic views. The Islamic theocracy is trying to impose its worldview on academia. According to Tayefi, the cler-
gy, who also are in charge at the universities, believe all new science is Westernized. The intelligence apparatus, which is large and powerful in society at large, is particularly active in the universities: “The clergy do not trust the academics. They are prejudiced,” Tayefi says. Ali Tayefi is sure the political climate will change in Iran. Eventually. “History proves that science will win in the confrontation between science and religion. The religious way of thinking cannot survive in academia.” And he believes in the new generation: “Many young people have a new vision and are in conflict with the old men who are in control of society. The young people today live with so many restrictions. Many do not understand the revolution; they do not want Islamic thought,” Tayefi says. “They have new ideas about equality and social justice. The system cannot control all ideas and record all activities. This is my hope.” GK
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“How sincere are we in allowing plurality?” Ideas still have the power to change society, according to Robert Quinn, the executive director of Scholars at Risk (sar). sar promotes academic freedom and defends threatened scholars and academic communities worldwide. runo isaksen/ text a n d photo trondheim, norway
“I N A SE NSE the threatened scholars “These are very brave scholars: They The idea is that the academics contribute to their host campuses through teaching, make up a micro-cosmos. They are pieces speak up, unlike most of us.” research, lectures and other activities. And in a larger game where organised forces that they return to their home countries when it is safe to do so. are trying to monopolise knowledge and where the forces of “I think ten years is the correct measure of return, although pluralism will organise a reply. The latter is more difficult, bewe do see people going back after five years. Iraq is a special cause you have to cooperate even with people you disagree with. case, of course. By and large the scholars fresh from their home The underlying questions are: How sincere are we in allowing countries are not ready to jump into full-time teaching. But plurality? And to what lengths are the oppressors willing to go they can start offering guest lectures, gradually offering more in order to suppress ideas?” classes.” In general, salary is offered by the host institution. The legal MAGICAL OPPORTUNITY status of the scholars concerned may differ. Some are refugees, SAR, established in 2000, brings together about 150 universiothers are temporary visitors. ties worldwide, most of them in the USA. More than 1500 schol“As host institution you don’t have to do everything for the ars from 110 countries have asked for help, and to date SAR has scholar. Just tell us what you can do and then we will figure been able to assist 200 of them, offering them temporary acaout something. That is the way this network has survived and demic positions at Western institutions. expanded,” Quinn explains, emphasising that the benefits for “We do matchmaking. First and foremost it is about identiboth parties are clear. Scholars are free to live and work without fying scholars suffering physical threats or extreme harassment. fear, and SAR members get talented and inspiring educators in Next step is to bring them to a safe country. Then we try to offer return. them relevant work. These are very brave scholars: they speak “It’s a benefit just standing with other institutions saying: up, unlike most of us. Most of the scholars we approach have ‘Scholars and universities should not be attacked for merely dobeen nominated by NGOs, human rights organisations or feling their job.’ Hosting a scholar is a magical opportunity to exlow scholars,” Quinn says. 1 4 | S C HOL A R S AT R I S K
SCHOLARS AT RISK
• The Scholars at Risk Network (sar) is an international network of universities and university colleges working to promote academic freedom and to defend threatened scholars and scholarly communities worldwide. • Membership is open to accredited higher education institutions in any country committed to the principle that scholars should be free to work without fear or intimidation. • sar organises lectures, conferences and public education events and undertakes research and advocacy. • Financially, sar is sponsored by a variety of trusts and foundations, including the Sigrid Rausing Trust, the Arcadia Trust and the Open Society Institute. • Currently the sar secretariat consists of three full-time employees in offices at New York University.
M AGIC A L OPP ORT U N I T Y| Hosting a scholar is a magical opportunity to expose one’s community to the essence of academic life, according to Robert Quinn, executive director of SAR.
pose one’s community to the essence of academic life, reminding us what it is all about,” says Quinn, who recently visited Norway to enlist more Norwegian scholars and institutions. So far, the University of Oslo is the only Norwegian member of SAR. FREEDOM AND DIALOGUE
Hosting threatened scholars is but one of the activities carried out by SAR. “There are three tracks, of which hosting threatened scholars is one. But hosting a scholar does not help much if we are not able to strengthen the universities, too, and their place in society. This, then, is the second track: engaging faculties in setting up training workshops, notably in developing countries, to make them defenders of academic freedom and dialogue. We hope to see a snowball effect,” Quinn says. A third track is research. SAR is currently conducting a survey asking questions such as: What are the core elements of a university? What is academic freedom? What means are available for responding to threats to universities? “The problem is that this territory is so poorly mapped. In a sense we contribute to setting up a new subfield of study: academic freedom studies. For let us face it: there might very well
be gaps even between the two of us as to the exact meaning of, say, academic freedom,” Quinn says, admitting that it is crucial to feel the way carefully and to build a dialogue aimed at developing shared understanding. “There are many landmines: for example religious universities versus secular, private versus public, and so on. I think the network, by virtue of our experience with scholars in over 100 countries, can offer some framework for approaching these difficult questions. Of course advocating academic freedom will be a never-ending process.” To Robert Quinn personally, interaction with the scholars who are willing to speak up in the face of oppression and the staff going out of their way to help these scholars have been the most interesting aspects of this work. “In essence it is a wonderful look at humanity. So if you ask me, why bother? I will say: because not to bother will have devastating consequences in the long run. The tension is there not only in Iraq or Afghanistan, but also in Europe and the US. Again: how sincere are we in allowing plurality?” GK Runo Isaksen is an information adviser at SIU. read more: www.scholarsatrisk.nyu.edu
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A SH Y SM I L E | Two San children in Namibia pull a blanket around them to keep out the early morning cold. 16 |
Worlds Apart Sami and San: a common history of eviction, discrimination and forced assimilation. Similarsized populations, spread over the same number of countries – one a people of the far north and one a people of the far south. te r esa g r øta n/te xt fr e d iva r kleme tse n/sami photos pau l we inbe rg , pa nos pictu r es/ sa n photos botswa na /no rway
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A BOV E : COU PL E 1| A Sami couple by their kitchen table. R IGH T : COU PL E 1 1| A San couple near their home close to the Kalahari Gemsbok Park in South Africa.
T ODAY T H E I R SI T UAT IONS are totally different. Whilst the Sami have their own parliament, own the area they have traditionally inhabited and the Norwegian state is obliged to follow international conventions concerning indigenous peoples, the San are not recognised as an indigenous people and have no special rights to the land they have traditionally lived on. They have no laws protecting their language, traditions or culture. The San, also known as Bushmen, Basarwa and Khoesan, are spread across South Africa, Botswana, Namibia and Angola in southern Africa. The Sami inhabit four countries in Northern Europe: Norway, Sweden, Finland and Russia. Out of approximately 85 000 San, half live in Botswana. Out of the same number of Sami, half live in Norway. There are several
different San languages, as there are many variants of the Sami language. Whilst the Sami have lived in Northern Europe for 2500 years, the San have inhabited Southern Africa as far back as archaeological records go, making the San today the most direct descendants of the oldest known population of modern humans. This is why they also are known as the First People. There is a long history of contact between the Sami and the San. The Sami Council first expressed their concern for the situation of the San people in the 1960s, and development assistance to the San from Norway has been channelled though the Sami Council. The two peoples have made many visits to each other, the most recent in 2006 when a San delegation attended the Sami Council’s 50th anniversary celebrations.
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E V E RY DAY L I F E I | Inga takes an afternoon nap in her home. Historically, Norway tried to assimilate Sami culture and language into Norwegian traditions and way of life, and children where not allowed to speak their mother tongue in schools. During the Second World War, literally all of the county of Finnmark was burnt down, and left hardly any traces of Sami culture. After the war, the Norwegian authorities relaxed the assimilation process of the Sami, but it was not until 1979, with the so-called Alta case, that the Sami insisted on their rights as an indigenous people. In 1986 a national flag and anthem were created and in 1989 the first Sami parliament was elected. In 2005 the Finnmark Act was passed, declaring that the area of Finnmark belongs to the people who live there, both Sami and Norwegian, and not to the state.
E V E RY DAY L I F E I I | Toma holds a mirror to check his hair. His wife pours out the water from the morning wash. San peoples have lived in the Kalahari desert for thousands of years. In 1961 a large part of the desert located in Botswana became a national park named the Central Kalahari Game Reserve. After Independence in 1966 the Botswana government decided that the San had to be relocated, so that they could be assimilated into modern Botswana life. The relocation process started in 1997. Settlements were established just outside the game reserve and in 2002 water and other basic services were withdrawn inside the reserve. In December 2006, after a court case that lasted for years, the San eventually won the right to stay in their traditional lands. But only a few have returned, as the government does not provide transport, and has closed all the previous wells.
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Where the First are the Last Is it possible to combine academically sound research with advocacy?
T H E A NS W E R I S Y E S , according to Norwegian and Botswana researchers cooperating on a programme to promote research on and by the indigenous San people in Botswana. But they face great challenges. The very justification of the programme is continually questioned – by the authorities, the general public and even within the academic community in Botswana.
“The Botswana government is insistent that all Batswana are indigenous. There is no need to specifically address the situation of the San,” says Dr. Maitseo Bolaane, Botswana coordinator of the programme funded by the Norwegian Programme for Development, Research and Education (NUFU). The programme, colloquially called UBTromso, is the only unit in the country that publicly recognises the San as an indigenous people.
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L E F T : VA N I SH I NG T R A DI T ION I| There are hardly any San left who live as traditional hunter-gatherers. R IGH T : VA N I SH I NG T R A DI T ION I I| Only Sami are permitted to practice reindeer husbandry in Norway, and today there are only 2800 reindeer herders. The general consensus is that there are too many reindeer on the plains of Finnmark.
can benefit indigenous people: “The more visible and involved LEVELS OF POLITICS you are in advocacy, the greater responsibility you have to also “You have to be engaged,” says Norwegian coordinator and consider how your research can contribute to San developprofessor at the University of Tromsø, Sidsel Saugestad. “But ment. This is a position that is far more political in Botswana you can talk politics on many levels. You have to keep your role than it is in Norway.” as an academic separate from that of the activist. “We have all tried to find the right level of advocacy in the programme. Sometimes we speak on behalf of the programme ACCUSED OF RACISM and at other times as private individuals. The challenge lies in The research group has been accused of racism because it being convincing also according to academic criteria,” says offers scholarships to San who wish to pursue Master’s and Professor Saugestad. PhD-degrees. The situation for the Norwegian academic is somewhat dif“Reconciliation and restitution are not concepts used in ferent than that of her Botswana partner: Botswana. The authorities insist that the The research group has been ac“It is a very difficult position for me to be system is non-discriminatory, and claim cused of racism because it offers both a citizen and an academic speaking that everybody in Botswana has equal opwithin the Botswana environment,” Dr. portunities,” says Saugestad. The governscholarships to San who wish to Bolaane says. “If you push your opinion, pursue Master’s and PhD-degrees. ment’s reasoning is that in a country of you are likely to alienate yourself from only 1.7 million people it is important to other academics who will question your credibility. At the avoid dividing the nation. The great fear is creating a situation same time, to do research on the San you have to be conscious like Rwanda. of what is going on – and then you just see the advocacy coming The Botswana government does acknowledge the San as out.” a marginalised group, along with other marginalised comThe San are among the most researched peoples of the munities in the country. The Remote Area Development world. Saugestad believes it should be the responsibility of the Programme is designed to address the social welfare of people researchers to consider the utility of their research and how it living in remote areas. Dr. Maitseo Bolaane says that the gov2 2 | I N DIG E NOUS P E OP L E S Ω A DVO C AC Y V E R S U S AC A DE M I A
L E F T : AT PL AY I | Young Sami play football outside their homes, the traditional Sami tents called lavvo. The lavvo are only used during the seasonal migration of the reindeer herds, to their winter and summer feeding areas. R IGH T : AT PL AY I I| Young San children in Botswana dance. The San of southern Africa have the lowest socio-economic indicators of any southern African population. Children have the highest rate of school dropouts, and very few complete higher education compared with the rest of the population.
case between the San and the state of ernment has done its best to promote local “Inherent in the academic ideal Botswana, known as the Central Kalahari development strategies through this prois that nobody has a monopoly Game Reserve (CKGR) case, the research gramme. Still, the majority of the San are on the truth.” group did not take a public stand in the left out. While the government insists on media, but chose to rather document the case and publish this treating everybody “equally”, Bolaane argues that this stratdocumentation. egy contributes instead to inequality. “Why is it that when you go to remote areas that are predominantly San, many people still live in poverty and their LACK OF CRITICAL MASS quality of life continues to deteriorate? Why are so many The NUFU-programme is in its last two years of financial supyoung San school dropouts when Botswana has otherwise port. The plan is that the University of Botswana will take over done so well in the field of education? Why is it that at the the running of the programme. university you still cannot identify many young San? We Both Saugestad and Bolaane characterise the project as should find out why.” fairly successful – young San from Botswana, Namibia and In the beginning of the programme in 1996, the focus was South Africa have gone on to further education. The researchresearch on the San. This has slowly changed to research with ers have participated in many conferences and published wideand by the San, as well as support for San students to access ly. Still, Saugestad is somewhat cautious about the immediate higher education. The programme has addressed issues of future for the programme, wondering if a sufficient ‘critical San language, ecotourism, archaeology and settlement hismass’ has yet developed. While the recruitment of researchers in fields like language and literature has been good, it has been tory, ethnicity, gender, democracy, education and identity. almost impossible in other crucial fields, like law. One reason One of the most important ways of promoting advocacy is the low prestige of this field of study. “At any American unihas been through actively documenting the situation of the versity it would automatically be considered prestigious for a San both in scientific journals and in the general media. The social anthropologist to study the San. It is seen as a classical researchers are also in dialogue with government bodies to field of study,” Saugestad says. But in Botswana San studies advocate better development policies. During a recent court I N DIG E NOUS P E OP L E S Ω A DVO C AC Y V E R S U S AC A DE M I A | 2 3
CE R E MON Y I| San in Namibia perform a trance dance. The rhythmical beating of the drums, clapping and dancing enables them to enter into a trance.
– and advocacy – is a controversial, ‘no-go’ area. “I see politiA CENTRE FOR SAN STUDIES cal scientists advocating in many areas, but I have noticed that The Norwegian authorities have taken quite the opposite they are very reluctant to take on San issues. Why do they feel approach to that of Botswana. One of the reasons for estabfree on almost any other aspect of social development, but not lishing the University of Tromsø in 1968 was the need to pay this one?” Bolaane asks. special attention to Sami issues. The Centre for Sami Studies She illustrates how sensitive the San issue is by telling was established in 1990. Saugestad took part in promoting the about a conference she recently attended in Norway. She concept at the University of Tromsø, and has seen the developspoke about the collaborative research project and was verment from research on the Sami to research by the Sami. In bally attacked by a Batswana medical Botswana, Bolaane and her colleagues work In Botswana San studies – student in the audience. He felt that on establishing a research centre for the San, and advocacy – is a controversial, Bolaane was damaging the image of partly inspired by the Centre for Sami Studies. ‘no-go’ area. Botswana. “I want to feel free to exerThe road is long and winding, but Dr. Bolaane cise my views as an academic,” Bolaane says. Saugestad adds: hopes that during 2008 “the process will advance”. “Inherent in the academic ideal is that nobody has a monopoly The Norwegian Sami enjoy a status that is superior to on the truth. Any form of monopoly is detrimental to intellecmaybe any other indigenous people in the world. “Education tual freedom.” is one reason,” says Saugestad. “Many of the first Sami leaders went to teacher training colleges and managed to make their 2 4 | I N DIG E NOUS P E OP L E S Ω A DVO C AC Y V E R S U S AC A DE M I A
CE R E MON Y I I| Anna and Per received 35 reindeer as wedding gifts on their marriage in 2003. One thousand two hundred people attended their wedding reception.
way through the educational system without losing their cultural identity. There were enough educated Sami to establish a critical mass. Secondly, they have had good leaders. And thirdly, their economy has been strong enough to participate in international networking. The Sami are seen as a role model by many indigenous peoples in Africa.” The prospects in Botswana for the San are not necessarily only bleak. In the last couple of years much attention has been drawn to the San case, both in national and international media, because of the CKGR court case, where the San won against the Botswana state on some counts. “People are beginning to understand that there are San in the country who want to have their voices heard,” Bolaane says. “The young San are starting to feel free to express themselves. This has never happened before.” GK
read more: S. Willet, et al. (2002 and 2003): The Khoe and San Annotated Bibliography, volumes 1 and 2, Gaborone: Lightbooks 2001 and 2006: Two special issues of Pula: Botswana Journal of African Studies, published by the University of Botswana Dictionaries in three Khoesan languages: Naro, Khoekhoegowab and !Xoo
Fred Ivar Utsi Klemetsen, himself Sami, has photographed traditional Sami life for the past 17 years. He has now expanded his project to include documentaries about other indigenous peoples, notably the Inuit of Alaska and the Ainu of Japan. He has also photographed the Sami of Russia. Paul Weinberg is a freelance documentary photographer based in Durban, South Africa. He has for more than 20 years documented San traditional and modern life in Botswana, South Africa and Namibia and has published two books about the San.
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Back to the Books After 40 intense years of work both nationally and internationally for the rights of indigenous peoples, Ole Henrik Magga prefers to stay in Guovdageaidnu (Kautokeino) in northern Norway, where he is a professor of linguistics and language at the Sami University College. But his international engagement continues. john gustavesen/ te x t arvid s veen / photos tromsø, norway
A UN CONFERENCE on the enPOLITICAL AWAKENING “The Sami would never have been where we vironment was held in Tromsø in As a child Magga was sent to a boardare today without the right to education and northern Norway on 6 June. The ing school where all the teachers the chance to build our own institutions.” focus of the conference was clispoke Norwegian. Only the chairmate change, and many critical reports were presented dealing woman spoke Sami, so for the first two or three years he unwith the threat to seals and polar bears. But for participant Ole derstood nothing. Ingenting (nothing) was the first Norwegian Henrik Magga what the conference lacked was a discussion of word he learnt. the conditions for humans in the far north. The Inuit in Alaska After elementary school he got the chance to continue his and Greenland, reindeer herders in Sápmi (Samiland) and the studies at a secondary school near Oslo. His political engageNenets in Russia have already been hit by rising temperatures. ment started at that time. For two centuries the Sami had been “I could not be silent,” said Magga, after the Tromsø enrepressed by harsh Norwegian policies. For bishops and fercounter. Since childhood, when Professor Magga worked vent nationalists, “civilising” the Sami was an integral part together with his grandparents, fishing in the lakes and takof their agenda. An interview with Per Fokstad, at that time a ing care of a reindeer herd out on the duoddar (tundra), he has well-known teacher and pioneer of Sami education, impressed been a keen student of nature and observed the changes in lohim, and gave impetus to his own study of the history of his cal flora and fauna. people. The fight for Sami rights to their language and culture As a young man at the University of Oslo Magga studied brought about Magga’s political awakening. natural science. At the same time, he took great pride in the How important is education and science for indigenous peoples? Sami language. From his family he learnt much about their “Personally, I would never have gone to university without descriptions of the landscape and how these can function as receiving a helping hand. My maternal grandfather advised me a map, integrating topology, geography and information as to to continue down that road. The Sami would never have been which routes are best to take. Sami nomenclature for snow and where we are today without the right to education and the reindeer herding has long been recognised internationally. chance to build our own institutions, like the Sámi Instituhtta in 1973 (Nordic Sami Institute) and the Sámi Allaskuvla in 1989 (Sami University College),” Magga said over a cup of coffee at the University of Tromsø. Magga has been a professor, grade II, in Sami language at the northernmost university in the world for eight years. F ROM P OL I T IC S T O L I NGU I S T IC S| After more Do you see a conflict in being both an academic and a politician? than 40 years as a politician in the international arena, “Within my profession, language, there is not much poliOle Henrik Magga has returned to his hometown of tics – nobody fights over verbs. But of course, as with science Guovdageaidnu in northern Norway, where he is a in general, there are questions that have political implications. professor at the Sami University College. I N DIG E NOUS P E OP L E S Ω OL E H E N R I K M AG G A | 2 7
were able to see the conflict in terms of the international struggle for self-determination and rights for indigenous peoples. Magga was chair of the Norwegian Sami Association when the Alta affair became a focus of media attention in the years around 1980. He has often told of the difficulties during negoREVOLUTION tiations between the Sami organisations and the Norwegian Historically, Norway pursued a highly paternalistic policy togovernment. Some Sami activists considered him to be insufwards the Sami, who were considered to be a people that would ficiently radical. eventually succumb in the struggle to survive in the modern “As a politician I learnt to compromise,” said Magga. He world. Nevertheless, it was considered Norway’s duty to proplayed a key role during the crisis. The Sami lost the campaign vide them with “enlightenment” for as long as they held on. against the dam construction, but the Alta affair proved to be “What has happened in the last three decades I would call a a turning point, both in relations between Norwegian authori‘Revolution’,” Magga said. ties and Sami politicians, as well as in Sami ethno-political hisThe establishment of Sami institutions of learning was protory. For the Sami, the Alta affair established their reputation moted early on as something that would help the Sami secure in the global arena. self-awareness and identity. “It was important that we were inLater, the Sami got their own assembly (the Sami parliament) volved, so our resources could be utilised in areas of academic and a paragraph in the Norwegian constitution. Are there persons research.” who should be honoured for these concessions? The need for Sami studies became extremely important as “Yes!” Magga said without hesitation. “First, the person a political consideration, both as a disciplinary concern and as who led the Sami Rights Committee, Professor Carsten a matter of cultural policy. The building up of a Sami elite and Smith, but also Norwegian academics and some Norwegian the emphasis on new themes in ethno-political discourse beparliamentarians. And of course, our own people in academia, came a part of Sami selfhood. arts and culture, and local organisations, who saw hope for a As a minority the Sami has to live within a state created new and promising future.” by and governed by Norwegians. The asymmetrical relation How did the Norwegian politicians react when you met them between the Sami and Norwegians gave young and educated during the Alta affair? Sami the stimulus to challenge the inequitable status quo. “Many of them had old-fashioned beliefs, and thought we Since the 1970s Magga has been one of the activists working knew nothing. Later, as they got to know more about our situfor self-understanding and, just as importantly, he has entered ation, we developed a degree of mutual respect.” into dialogue with Norwegian politicians and authorities. You became the first president of the Sami parliament. How The Sami movement had already gained a foothold in the was the opening ceremony on 9 October 1989? 1950s. The Nordic Sami Council, established in 1956, was im“The greatest moment in my life! Years of struggle were not portant for the mobilization of ethno-politically active Sami, in vain. King Olav’s words will never be forgotten.” and channelled Sami demands and views to authorities in the And afterwards? Nordic countries. “In many ways conditions have changed for the better. Yet When the Sami movement, under the auspices of the Nordic one of the things that worries me is that so few men go on to Sami Council, participated in the establishment of the World higher education, compared with Council of Indigenous Peoples in “It is a good thing that women get educated, women. Most of my students are Port Alberni in 1975, Magga was women. Of course it is a good thing one of the delegates. The Shuswap but if the men are left out, this creates an that women get educated, but if the Indian George Manuel was imbalance in our communities.” men are left out, this creates an imelected president, and the World balance in our communities. This is an alarming situation that Council has since been instrumental in bringing about the we have to change,” answered Professor Magga. “If not, Sami UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, which communities may lose their women.” was recently adopted by the UN General Assembly. But most researchers with a good training in the use of scientific methods are able to see what is based on scientific fact and what is not. I am not worried about that.”
CHANGE
INTERNATIONAL DISAPPOINTMENT
The watershed in the Sami struggle within the context of Norwegian politics came with the construction of a dam on the Alta-Guovdageadnu river. The dramatic conflict that the dam engendered resulted in a political awakening for the Sami, who
After active years in Sami politics, including eight years as the president of the Sami parliament, Magga could have been expected to devote his energy to his scientific work in linguistics. Instead, he got involved at the international level as the UN
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OLE HENRIK MAGGA
1947: Born in Guovdageaidnu (Kautokeino), northern Norway 1976: Delegate at the first meeting at the World Council of Indigenous Peoples 1980-1985: Chairman of the Norwegian Sami Association 1986: D.Phil. in linguistics (The first to write a doctoral thesis in Sami) 1987–1988: Professor at the University of Oslo 1989–1997: First President of the Sami Assembly, Norway 1992–1995: Member of the World Commission on Culture and Development 1997: Professor at the Sami University College 2002–2005: First chairman of the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues 2006: Awarded the Royal St. Olav’s Order for his political and scientific work
DIS SA P OI N T E D| Ole Henrik Magga is very disappointed with the situation for indigenous people around the world. “I hoped that civilised states like the USA, Australia and New Zealand would have been more progressive,” he said. started work on the draft of the declaration on indigenous rights, under the leadership of Professor Erica-Irene Daes in Athens. During this period ILO convention No. 169 on Indigenous and Tribal Peoples was presented. Norway was the first country to ratify the convention, but only 19 countries have since followed. Later, the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues was established. Magga was elected the first chairman of the forum in 2002, and re-elected in 2003 and 2004. How were these years? Are you satisfied with global developments? “I’m not satisfied because I hoped that civilised states like the USA, Australia and New Zealand would have been more progressive. “We saw hope in Australia in the beginning of the 1990s, but after John Howard’s ten years as prime minister the situation for the Aborigines has worsened. In the United States, many of the indigenous peoples live under unworthy conditions. At the Rio conference in 1992, many nice words were put onto the paper in the final document, but most of them are not legally binding. The most concrete result was the article on traditional indigenous knowledge in the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD).” What about Norway’s neighbours?
Sweden is a great disappointment, and even Finland, which has a promising president in Tarja Halonen, has hesitated, even though they know our position. We don’t know what will happen in Russia where many of the arctic peoples’ living conditions are dreadful and the state is drilling for oil and gas. And Norway? “As one of the richest countries in the world, Norway should take the lead. Norway likes to play the role of the prettiest girl in the class – but that’s not enough,” said Magga. “Norwegians should push their friends – among these, the Americans.” What about your own future? You have recently passed 60, do you still have much strength? “I will go back to my books and my teaching and study of the Sami language at the Sami University College. I am also in charge of a project which aims to find out about the impact of climate change on reindeer herding. There will always be enough to do,” concluded Professor Ole Henrik Magga with a smile. GK John Gustavsen is a freelance journalist and author, based in Tromsø, Norway. Arvid Sveen is a photographer and visual artist based in Tromsø, Norway. I N DIG E NOUS P E OP L E S Ω OL E H E N R I K M AG G A | 29
M IS T Y R I V E R| The Amazonian provinces of Ecuador, in the east of the country, are those that produce the oil, but are also the areas with the greatest numbers of poor people, and with land which has been contaminated by waste from oil production.
From Pollution to Protection Ecuador wants the world to pay USD 350 million a year for it not to extract oil in the Amazon Basin. Is this a new way of protecting the world’s indigenous regions? kint to lucas / text dolor es o choa/ photos yasuní, ecuador
T H E F I R S T T H I NG that hits the visitor to Yasuní National Park, aside from the sheer lushness of the mass of vegetation, is the incredible range of animal calls. In the distance, the sound of macaws and a howling monkey can be heard; nearby a large bird, perhaps a harpy eagle, is flapping its wings; a few metres away a toad or a frog is croaking, and there is a hummingbird right in front. The variety of tree and plant species is incredible. There are cedar and mahogany trees with trunks over a metre in diameter and hundreds of years old. The canopy trees, standing at over 30 metres tall, have trunks that are extremely straight, but the chuncho is even taller, rising to 50 metres. It is the chuncho’s trunk that is used to make most of the canoes used on the rivers in the Yasuní. Interspersed among the trees is an even wider range of species of mosses and ferns, orchids and bromelia, fungus and lichen, and vines and other climbing plants. Below the canopy are found the chambira palm, the pambil and the ungurahua I N DIG E NOUS P E OP L E S Ω OI L I N T H E A M A Z ON | 3 1
BIOSPHERE| The Yasuní National Park is one of the world’s most biologically diverse regions. More than 500 species of birds, 173 mammals, 100 palm. The indigenous people use the latter as a food source, and to provide medicine and construction material. Around the Napo, Curaray and Yasuní rivers, the guarumo and guava tree dominate. The whole area is pervaded by the characteristic damp odour of the rainforest.
munity work as employees of the oil companies which are located nearby. OIL BRINGS DEATH
Yasuní National Park, located in the northeast of Ecuador and part of the Amazon Basin, was created in 1979 with the aim of protecting one of world’s most biologically diverse CONTAMINATED WATERS regions. It extends over 982 000 hectares, and in 1989 it was However, a number of breaks can be seen in the forest canopy. given UNESCO Biosphere Reserve status. According to scienSuddenly there are no more cedar trees: they have disappeared, tific studies, there are as many species of plants and shrubs in altering the landscape in this area of the Amazon rainforest one hectare of this forest as there are in the United States and where the Huaorani people have lived for thousands of years. Canada combined. In the past decade, oil drilling on the edges of the park and More than 500 species of bird, 173 mammals, 100 amphiwithin its boundaries has polluted some of the rivers. bians, 43 tree frogs and around a hundred reptiles, including “We now know what oil is; it hasn’t helped us in the slight62 snakes, have been identified in the Yasuní. Two of the bestest, only bringing pollution. Now we say that no more oil known species are the pink dolphin and the river turtle, with a companies should come to our region and we ask the governcarapace that can measure one metre in length, making it the ment to act because it belongs to everybody,” says one of the biggest freshwater turtle in the world. Huaorani leaders, sitting in Yasuní Park. As well as being home to the Huaorani people, the Yasuní For the Huaorani, and for most of the Ecuadorian popuis also occupied by the Taromenane and Tagaeri peoples. On lation, oil drilling has not improved living conditions. “They 10 May 2006 the Inter-American Commission on Human say that they make improvements in return for the oil. In exRights established precautionary measures in favour of the change they offer a communal building, engines for the caTaromenane and Tagaeri, includnoes, a light generator and, from “Oil has brought death. We will have to say ing action to protect the rights of to time, a few hundred kilos of these groups and guarantee their rice. This they give in order to degoodbye forever to the forest, to the rivers, to way of life. stroy the forest and contaminate the Yasuní.” The Taromenane and Tagaeri the rivers,” says Huamoni, leader form part of the Huaorani people. In the 1960s, when white of the Ñoneno community, before adding: “No more destrucpeople and people of mixed race began to arrive in the area, tion of our land, no more rice in exchange for contamination, the leader of the two tribes decided to retreat with his people for death…” into the forest and to live in isolation, so as to maintain their Ñoneno is a Huaoroni community made up of 13 families ancestral way of life away from “civilisation”. It is unclear exmake a living from hunting, fishing, gathering and family actly how many of these people have survived; some recent esfarming. The animals they pursue include deer, monkeys, wild timates put numbers at fewer than 300. peccaries and boar, and the paca. Their main agricultural crop In the medical centre in the city of Coca, the capital of the is yucca and banana, but they also grow sweet potatoes, guava, Amazonian province of Orellana, medical practitioners tell papaya, pineapple and peanuts. Some members of the com3 2 | I N DIG E NOUS P E OP L E S Ω OI L I N T H E A M A Z ON
amphibians and around a hundred reptiles have been identified in the Yasuní. The area was given UNESCO Biosphere Reserve status in 1989. to save it through a collective effort. that after oil drilling began in the “No more destruction of our land, no more rice We will buy the oil individually or area, the Huaorani people began in exchange for contamination, for death…” collectively, with the agreement not to suffer from gastrointestinal, to drill for it and the undertaking by the State, as guarantor, to respiratory and skin disorders. Many of the illnesses, espedeclare the area off-limits to the commercial extraction of recially among children, are related to the contamination of sources,” says the environmentalist Esperanza Martínez, one the River Tiputini. “Oil has brought death. If this is happenof the forces behind the proposal. ing with drilling as it is now, imagine if there is more drilling: The process would entail the State issuing bonds for the we will have to say goodbye forever to the forest, to the rivoil, with a twin agreement never to extract it and to protect ers, to the Yasuní,” says Juan Enomenga, another indigenous the Yasuní National Park. The four main arguments for pushHuaorani. ing ahead with this proposal are the need to combat climate change, to reduce the destruction of biodiversity, to protect the AN OIL MORATORIUM Huaorani, Tagaeri and Taromenane peoples and to transform The Amazonian provinces of Ecuador, in the east of the counthe country’s economy based on a new development model. try, are those that produce the oil, the country’s main export “It is important to remember that while the State would product, but are also the areas with the greatest numbers of receive USD 350 million for ten years, it would look into an poor people and with land which has been contaminated by alternative which would give the State another 50 per cent of waste from oil production. This state of affairs has led the this revenue, and which could provide an indefinite source of indigenous communities, NGOs, various social and political income. These sums would be spent on activities which free groups, and the government itself to begin to question dethe country from its dependence on imports and exports and pendence on oil production as a development tool. make it self-sufficient agriculturally,” explains Martínez. In the Ishipingo-Tambococha-Tiputini (ITT) oil field, a major deposit located in the Yasuní Park near to the border with Peru, the Ecuadorian government is pushing ahead with an SUPPORT FROM THE STARS unprecedented proposal: not drilling for oil in return for inAccording to Martínez, more than 100 governments, internaternational compensation for the preservation of the natural tional organisations and individuals have so far expressed an environment. interest. The support of former US Vice President Al Gore has The proposal was put forward by a number of environmenalso been sought, as has that of the singer Sting, whose wife tal organisations like Acción Ecológica (Environmental Action), supports those affected by oil contamination caused by Texaco before being promoted by Alberto Acosta, the former Energy in other areas of the Ecuadorian Amazon. Indeed, the contamiMinister, and taken up by President Rafael Correa. In May nation in the areas drilled by Texaco over the years has led many 2007 the Ecuadorian government suspended drilling in the indigenous peoples to oppose oil exploration on their land. I T T for one year, and suggested to a number of foreign governThe Norwegian government was one of the first to anments, international bodies and NGOs that compensation be nounce its intention to join the Great Green Crusade, as some paid in return for suspending plans to exploit the oil reserve. environmentalists are calling it. Deputy Minister of Foreign “Instead of drilling for the crude oil with the inevitable deAffairs Raymond Johansen pledged his government’s support struction of the Yasuní National Park as a result, we propose during a visit to Ecuador in June. I N DIG E NOUS P E OP L E S Ω OI L I N T H E A M A Z ON | 3 3
A M A Z I NG DI V E R SI T Y| The variety of trees and plant species in Yasuní is incredible. Bromelia, fungus, lichen, moss, vine, and climbing plants are interspersed among the trees.
The Clinton Initiative for Environmental Defence, promoted by former US President Bill Clinton, also pledged to support the Ecuadorian proposal, following which on 26 September President Rafael Correa presented the proposal at a discussion on climate change at the UN General Assembly. Former Energy Minister Alberto Acosta suggests, in addition to the direct support of institutions, countries and individuals, an exchange of external debt with the “Paris Club” and other creditors. Ecuador’s foreign creditors could thus reduce debt collections or cancel the Ecuadorian debt in return for an agreement not to drill for oil. This would be good not just for Ecuador, but for humanity as a whole. “Think before irresponsibly exploiting oil reserves! To maintain the present oil extraction policy in the Amazon would be highly irresponsible,” concludes Acosta. THE WALLS OF QUITO
The proposal includes banning the commercial extraction of resources in the ITT block in perpetuity and explicitly recognising the rights of the indigenous peoples, particularly those living in voluntary isolation. According to studies carried out by the state-owned oil company Petroecuador, the ITT block contains reserves of around a billion barrels of heavy crude, with a ratio of 80 barrels of toxic water to every 20 barrels of oil. Dozens of environmental organisations from various parts 3 4 | I N DIG E NOUS P E OP L E S Ω OI L I N T H E A M A Z ON
of the world immediately pledged support for the Ecuadorian environmental group’s initiative. “E-mail messages have been arriving from institutions and individuals in dozens of countries, supporting the initiative and promising to lead a campaign to defend the Yasuní Park,” says Esperanza Martínez. The Spanish environmentalist Joan Martínez Alier supported the proposal, adding that we must sell less oil, and at a higher price which would include taxes for the depletion of natural resources and for compensation for damage caused to Amazonian ecosystems. “The revenue from these taxes must be used to implement social policies and to develop alternative, renewable energy sources. Every oil well that closes contributes to the fight against the greenhouse effect and climate change,” he said in one message. Every day more volunteers sign up to the ITT campaign; every day Ecuadorians gain a better understanding of what the campaign means. The slogans “The Yasuní belongs to everyone” and “Yes to life, no to the ITT” painted on the walls of Quito are clear evidence that a new movement is afoot in Ecuador. GK Translated from Spanish Kintto Lucas is a Uruguayan journalist and author based in Quito, Ecuador. Dolores Ochoa is an Ecuadorian photographer based in Quito, Ecuador.
Power Play Ecuador’s proposition is interesting because it addresses a question of international concern, according to María Guzman-Gallegos. teresa gr øtan/ tex t oslo, norway
M A R I A GU Z M A N - GA L L E G OS is researching the interrelations between indigenous communities, NGOs and oil companies in the Ecuadorian Amazon as part of her PhD at the University of Oslo. She is also the programme adviser for the Amazon Programme at the Rainforest Foundation Norway. Is Ecuador’s proposition, that the world pays (either by debt relief or through other channels) USD 350 million a year for ten years for the country not to extract oil in Yasuní a new way of saving indigenous territories? “Ecuador’s economy is highly dependent on oil production. Much of the money obtained through oil production goes to pay the country’s foreign debt. This is the main context of Ecuador’s proposition. In my view, the proposition in itself is interesting because saving the Yasuní addresses a more general unresolved question that is of international concern. This question is how to create financial mechanisms that value, first, the rainforest and the many ecosystem services that it provides, and, second, the indigenous practices and knowledge that contribute to the maintenance of the rainforests around the world. A central issue in the forthcoming UN Climate Change Conference in Bali in December is precisely to find compensation mechanisms for developing countries so they do not destroy their rainforests. A system of financial mechanisms would certainly be the best way of saving indigenous territories.” How do you think one should find the balance between the needs and demands of indigenous people and the governments or companies interested in the revenue? “Oil production in indigenous territories always implies a confrontation between powerful actors, such as trans-national oil companies, and communities that have usually been ignored by their own governments. Thus establishing acceptable relations between oil companies and communities does not depend on better information or knowledge of each other. The establishment and regulation of those relations is first and foremost a political question, a question of power. If oil exploitation is considered inevitable by a state, the best way to pro-
tect the indigenous territories is to have strict indigenous and environmental legislation, and compensation, monitoring and control systems that function properly. Indigenous organizations and communities must be taken into account in the elaboration of such legislation and must participate in the control and monitoring of oil activities. Researchers may contribute to a better understanding of the political systems within the different indigenous populations so as to avoid systems that create or exacerbate differences between communities.” Indigenous peoples fighting oil interests is a universal problem. Could different countries and companies learn through cooperation? “Part of the problem between indigenous peoples and oil interests is that the states where there are indigenous populations historically have not recognised these populations’ right to exist. Cooperation between countries or companies that does just not produce inequalities must build upon recognition of the indigenous population’s right to decide over its future. This implies also their right to decide that they do not want oil exploitation in their territory.” GK
Minister of Development Discusses Yasuní plans with Ecuador The Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs advises Global Knowledge that Ecuador has on several occasions informed Norway of its plan to not extract oil in the Yasuní. During the recent visit in November to Ecuador by Minister of Development Erik Solheim the Yasuní plan was one of the topics of discussion. Norway is very interested in further elaboration and discussion of this complicated question in international fora. Norway has not made any promises of financial support for the Yasuní project, and believes these types of questions should be solved within an international framework.
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The Tender Tundra Concealed under the tundra of northwest Russia, enormous oil and gas reserves are a potential source of great wealth. But for the indigenous people of the Nenets autonomous region, the reserves are a threat to their existence. eivin d senneset / te x t photo / n enets assoc i ati on yasave y norway/russia
GR A Z I NG L A N DS DE S T ROY E D| Vast areas in Nenets Autonomous Okrug have been taken over by drilling rigs, oil pipelines, bulldozer tracks and massive production facilities. The tundra and grazing land are being degraded and polluted on a large scale.
T H E N E N E T S AU T ONOMOUS OK RUG (NAO) is a Russian region in the north-eastern corner of the Barents Sea area. The region, roughly four times the size of the Netherlands, consists mostly of tundra. Here, the Nenets and Izhma Komi, the peoples indigenous to the region, have tended their reindeer and lived a subsistence lifestyle for as long as anyone can remember. The world is now turning its eyes on this stark landscape, not for the sake of the reindeer or the people, but for the enormous reserves of oil and gas concealed several kilometres below the tundra. Vast areas, until recently only used by nomads and their reindeer herds for an annual migration from the forest-tundra zone in the winter up to the coasts of the Barents and Kara seas in summer, have now been taken over by drilling rigs, oil pipelines, bulldozer tracks and massive production facilities. The tundra and grazing land are being degraded and polluted on a large scale. For the indigenous people, the maintenance of traditional practices has become a fight to save their cultural heritage. To make matters worse, the population of the district has not had the ability to track the effects of this development. This may soon change, however, as international scientists and the indigenous people of Russia are joining forces to document the changes.
ementary legal aid as many people do not know their rights. “By utilising the knowledge of the indigenous people, we hope to create a tool to document traditional land use and associated issues. This can be useful, among other things, for settling claims of land ownership and similar problems,” Peskov says. “The project is essentially a monitoring project,” Dallmann adds. “While the local government may have broad knowledge of the oil activities, they have paid less attention to understanding the needs and practises of the indigenous peoples. Yasavey on the other hand represents the interests of the indigenous population, but they have a hard time gathering information about the degradation of their pasture lands as a result of development.” PEOPLE’S DATA
In order to overcome this problem, the project aims to publish a so-called Geographic Information System on the Internet. The GIS database is intended to contain data on geography, land use by the indigenous population and industrial activity, as well as reported ecological problems and changes in the indigenous population’s traditional means of subsistence. The data is compiled from both published sources and new satellite images. A third and perhaps most important source of information will be the reindeer nomads themselves. Travelling throughout the partially devastated tundra, they can contribA NEED FOR KNOWLEDGE ute exact knowledge on how industrial development has influ“The indigenous people find themselves unable to substantiate enced traditional livelihoods. their concerns towards the government authorities and the A central part of the project is to instruct a number of repoil companies. They lack tools that can be used to document resentatives from villages in the NAO the situation,” says Winfried “People simply do not know what is in how to conduct a questionnaire Dallmann, a geologist of the campaign in their villages. Such a Norwegian Polar Institute (NPI). going on in the country and in the region course was recently held in NaryanHe is the leader of a project aimed where they live.” Mar, the administrative centre of at gathering information on the the NAO. This seminar, led by Olga Murashko, the project’s situation in the Nenets Autonomous Okrug and publishing expert in anthropology, saw the training of four indigenous a database that can be used as the basis for constructive diarepresentatives who will each conduct 20-25 interviews. logue between oil companies, the administration and the tra“Having detailed data on the impact of the oil drilling will ditional land users. give the Nenets a completely different basis for action. This “The most important problem is the lack of information – database can potentially be used to provide the authorities people simply do not know what is going on in the country and with documentation of the impact, and maybe even of illegal in the region where they live,” says Vladislav Peskov. Peskov activities, and for negotiation of compensation claims with oil is the president of Yasavey – the Association of the Nenets companies,” says Winfried Dallmann. People. Yasayey is cooperating with the NPI on the project enConcerning the data, there is also the aspect of legality. titled “Monitoring of development of traditional indigenous “We have a duty to document the oil and gas industry in the land use areas in the Nenets Autonomous Okrug, NW Russia”, area as long as it is creating problems. However, maps and GIS as part of the International Polar Year (see Global Knowledge data of such infrastructure are often considered confidential no.1 2007). in Russia,” says Dallmann. Although all data will be acquired Yasavey helps people who live and work in the tundra to legally, their publication in an aggregated form may cause legal adapt to modern life. It provides information on the situproblems, the project team fears. In order to avoid legal probation in the region and about new laws; it even provides elI N DIG E NOUS P E OP L E S Ω OI L I N RU S S I A | 3 7
L ACK I NG DOCU M E N TAT ION| The indigenous people of Nenets Autonomous Okrug lack the tools to document the destruction.
lems for the Russian project partners, experts will go through all material before it is published. Come the final phase of the project, all relevant data will be scrutinised by an international panel of scientists.
local government are conscious of the implications of the oil and gas industry for the indigenous people in the NAO. “However, everyone has different interests and goals. This project will hopefully help to improve communication and understanding between the indigenous people, the oil companies and the government,” Peskov says. A MAJOR MINORITY
In 1929 NAO was granted the status of national okrug (in 1977 changed to autonomous okrug) because of the large number of Nenets living in the area. Some eighty years later, ethnic From the 1960s to the 1980s large parts of the Nenets’ reindeer Russians constitute the majority, and the indigenous populapastures, especially in the neighbouring Khanty-Mansi and tion of 7750 Nenets and 4500 Izhma Yamal districts, were devastated Komi do not participate in public adby a reckless oil industry. Large“Speaking to reindeer herders I have not heard ministration. The local government scale prospective drilling in the one positive word on the presence of the oil has also proven to be a difficult partNAO started in the 1990s. Once industry in the region.” ner to deal with. Last summer, a new again, it was the reindeer herders governor was installed on direct orders from Moscow. that suffered the most. So far a significant amount of pasture “The last governor was positive about our project. The new has been destroyed by the 25 oil companies operating in the regovernor has now accepted its existence, but has also made it gion. “The loss is greater than simply that of the pastures that clear that his government will not contribute with information have been occupied by the different oil and gas installations,” about oil and gas installations in any way,” Dallmann says. In Dallmann says, “Because such infrastructure has cut off migraadding to the problems of gathering information, the new govtion paths.” ernment has also made changes that more directly affect the The oil companies are also suspected of grave violations of lives of indigenous people. “The oil industry generates money Russian environmental laws. “It has long been an uncontrolled that could potentially be used for the benefit of the indigenous situation. Numerous oil spillages and other forms of degradapeople, and during the last administration there actually extion inflict irreparable damage to the natural environment of isted such a fund. The new administration, however, has put an the Arctic,” Dallmann says. end to this,” Dallmann says. ILO’s convention No. 169 recognises rights to land and Still, the project is hoping to have the best possible relations natural resources as central for the material and cultural surwith the local authorities. “We depend on good relations to envival of indigenous people. This is a convention that Russia sure that our advice will lead to administrative measures that has signed, though not yet ratified. In the Nenets Automous can improve the situation.” GK Okrug, land can still be assigned for industrial usage, while users receive miserly financial compensation. “Speaking to reindeer herders I have not heard one positive word on the read more: presence of the oil industry in the region. As far as the indigwww.npolar.no/ansipra enous people are concerned, the impressions are exclusively negative,” Dallmann says. Eivind Senneset is a Norwegian freelance journalist, Vladislav Peskov believes that both the oil companies and the photographer and author. NUMEROUS VIOLATIONS
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Welcomes the Oil Indigenous people in the Arctic are in general positive to oil and gas development, a new study shows. eivind sen n eset / te x t fre d ivar kl em etse n / photo stavanger, norway
A F I E L D S T U DY conducted in the US, Canada, Norway and Russia on the social and environmental impact of expanding oil and gas activities in the Arctic reveals that indigenous people in general are positive to the presence of the oil and gas industry in the Arctic, provided that their traditional territories are not adversely affected and that they are included in any decision process. “However, it is a widespread misconception that indigenous people speak with one voice. There is a wide variation of attitudes, both among individuals of the same group and between different groups. For example, the Sami in general are positive about off-shore activities, while the Inuit generally have the opposite attitude as their livelihood is more connected to the sea,” says Ketil Fred Hansen, a post-doctoral fellow at the University of Stavanger and a researcher on the study. The study, entitled “Social issues and sustainable development in expanding oil and gas activity in the Arctic”, started as a small report for the oil company Shell. It was then expanded, and extended for a further year, without further involvement from oil companies. The study, recently completed, has been a cooperative project between researchers from all the countries involved. The study reveals great differences in indigenous peoples’ rights between the countries. The indigenous groups of Russia enjoy the fewest rights in practice. “The indigenous peoples of Russia have strong constitutional rights. The regulating laws, however, are seldom observed,” says Hansen. One
L AWS A N D R IGH T S | More international laws are observed than actually legally binding concerning the indigenous communities in Alaska. of the main reasons is that very few ethnic groups in Russia are actually recognised as indigenous. “Even those that are recognised have a hard time advancing their case in the legal system because of a lack of funds and corruption,” Hansen says. Indigenous peoples in Alaska enjoy the opposite situation, as more international laws and rights are observed than actually legally regulate their issues. Notions of corporate responsibility also vary between the different oil and gas companies. Western companies are in general more concerned about public opinion than their Russian counterparts, who rarely pay indigenous issues any more attention than they are obliged to by national law, the study shows. The study also emphasises the importance of consulting the affected groups. “The study reveals differences between oil companies and the indigenous peoples in the attitude towards consultation. While some companies seem to have confused the concepts of consultation and information dissemination, indigenous groups claim such “consultation” is mere grandstanding on the company’s part when they lack the right to veto a project,” Hansen says. He adds that indigenous peoples and the energy firms make their judgments from totally different time perspectives: “While oil companies usually think 15 to 20 years ahead, indigenous peoples have generations as their time span.” GK read more: Mikkelsen, A., Langhelle, O. (eds.) Arctic Oil and Gas: Sustainability at risk? Routledge (forthcoming 2008)
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Strong Backing for Indigenous Rights The recently adopted UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples could eventually pave the way for a legally-binding treaty, according to Associate Professor Maria Lundberg. kje rsti n gj engeda l / te x t oslo, norway
The Canadian government said it could not support the I N M I D - SE P T E M BE R , the UN General Assembly adopted document because the broad wording of the final text apthe Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, after a peared to give native communities powers that could be inprocess that lasted more than 20 years. The declaration reccompatible with existing law. Phil Fontaine, head of Canada’s ognises the right of indigenous peoples to self-determination Assembly of First Nations, called it “a stain on the country’s and to “freely pursue their economic, social and cultural deinternational reputation”. velopment”. The declaration provides for collective rights to a Associate Professor Lundberg points out that the declaration degree unprecedented in international human rights law. in particular gives indigenous peoples the rights to the lands The declaration specifies indigenous peoples’ right to and resources that they have traditionally occupied and used. maintain and strengthen their own political, legal, economic, This is important because indigenous peoples’ traditional way social and cultural institutions, to establish their own media of life often demands access to nature and natural resources. and educational systems, and to participate in decision-mak“Sometimes territorial claims made by the state, for ining in matters concerning their interests. They also have the stance claims made in order to establish a mine or otherwise right to the lands they have traditionally occupied, or, if this is exploit natural resources, can completely destroy the native not possible, to be compensated accordingly. economy and culture. This declaration “The declaration is not legally bind“Indigenous peoples represent demands that states establish procedures ing, and most of the rights stated in it have to recognise these territorial rights. In already been articulated elsewhere, like in a cultural richness that belongs .theory, it will be possible to ban territorial the 1992 UN Declaration on the Rights of to all of us.” disturbances, even when society at large Minorities, and the Indigenous and Tribal could benefit from those disturbances.” Peoples Convention adopted by the ILO in 1989. But the new She says that in situations where everybody wants economUN declaration specifies those rights and places them at a high ic development, it’s important to make sure that indigenous level of consciousness in the UN system. This will make it easier culture isn’t the loser in the process. “Indigenous peoples repto decide how those rights are to be carried out in practice,” says resent a cultural richness that belongs to all of us. This isn’t Maria Lundberg at the Norwegian Centre for Human Rights. just about basic human rights, but about actively promoting However, four countries, each with substantial indigenous a cultural variety that will benefit everyone. It’s about making populations, opposed the declaration: Australia, Canada, room for activities that are different from Western urban culNew Zealand and USA. The international reaction has been ture. Indigenous peoples are the first to notice the effects from strongest against Canada, because the country has a historical the modern way of life. That makes them special.” GK reputation for promoting the rights of minorities and natives. This is said to be the first time Canada has voted against an international human rights instrument. Kjerstin Gjengedal is a Norwegian freelance journalist. 4 0 | I N DIG E NOUS P E OP L E S Ω U N DE C L A R A T ION
The Politics of Definitions How should we understand the concept “indigenous peoples”? Is it a benevolent political term for oppressed groups or a dangerous Eurocentric notion fuelling ethnic conflicts? anne hege s imonse n / te x t
T H E U N SPE N T 22 years debating before it finally adopted its non-binding Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples this September. Still, the concept continues to be contested, as it has been ever since the ILO convention on Indigenous and Tribal populations (ILO No. 107) was adopted in 1957 (which later developed into the better-known ILO No. 169 in 1989). The debate has centred on formalising and legalising indigenous peoples’ demand for their rights, but it has also been heavily related to definitions: What is an indigenous people? Who can claim such a status? What does the claim imply? RACIST AND ESSENTIALIST
Lisbet Holtedahl, professor in social anthropology at the University of Tromsø, has been a sceptic for three decades. The new UN declaration does not ease her mind. Her professional life has been divided between Northern Norway and West Africa (in particular Cameroon). She has watched how the Sami struggle for acceptance has caused friction between the Sami and other minorities in the area, as well as between the Sami themselves. It is, however, the African context that worries her the most. “In Cameroon I see how the question of belonging to a particular geographical area plays a stronger role every day. Africa is a continent where people have always moved, and where the states are weak. In such an environment, the discussion about who is indigenous and who is not is basically a racist debate that can trigger ethnic antagonism,” she says. Holtedahl says she understands the political value of the concept, but that she finds it hard to live with from a professional point of view. “Anthropologists should not use or promote concepts that are essentialist. Professionally, anthropologists need to look
for concepts that serve comparison on a non-ideological level. Politically, there must be a way to fight for marginalised peoples’ rights without essentialising them,” she says. STATE FAILURE
Historians also experience problems when they try to apply the concept “indigenous peoples”. Linking collective rights to historical claims over a geographical territory, like the ILO 169 convention does, has some obvious limitations. Does history begin with European dominance? Who is indigenous when several groups established themselves on different parts of a territory more or less simultaneously? “ ‘Indigenous peoples’ is first and foremost a political concept. For historians it becomes an uneasy situation when
SCE P T IC | Professor Lisbet Holtedahl at the University of Tromsø has been sceptical of the term indigenous people for the last three decades. I N DIG E NOUS P E OP L E S Ω A P OL I T IC A L T E R M | 4 1
A BOR IGI NA L SIS T E R S | Australia has a reputation for discrimination against its aboriginal population. In October this year Prime Minister John Howard surprisingly announced a referendum to recognise the Indigenous Australian in the constitution (contingent on his re-election). This happened just two weeks after Australia refused to ratify the new UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Photo / Penny Tweedie, Panos Pictures
on top, national minorities underneath groups want history to legitimise their present “The discussion about who is political claims,” says Teemu Sakari Ryymin, a indigenous and who is not is basi- and at the bottom you find immigrants historian at the University of Bergen. Ryymin cally a racist debate that can trigger with no collective rights whatsoever. This hierarchy risks becoming the has studied ethnic minorities in Norway that ethnic antagonism.” driving force behind strategic choices do not qualify as indigenous – in particular the people and groups make. I am not a Kven, migrants of Finnish origin who arrived politician, and I don’t want to take away people’s possibility to in northern Norway from the 1600s onwards. Ryymin says he create a better future, but I believe that if the state had respecthas seen how the definition struggle creates tension between ed their obligations to national minorities such as the Kven in groups. Norway was the first country to ratify ILO 169, but the first place, the struggle for indigenousness would not have when the discussion about land rights legislation peaked in been necessary,” he says. the 1990s, the Kven were not included. “However, we should not forget that the world is not static. “You get a situation where the indigenous group is placed 4 2 | I N DIG E NOUS P E OP L E S Ω A P OL I T IC A L T E R M
In the 1990s there was a lot of tension between the Sami and the Kven population in Norway. Today these groups are coming together in new ways. People have also learned that legalising a political notion limits the political space of action in ways they did not necessarily want,” he says.
“The rights of indigenous peoples in Mexico continue to be systematically ignored and violated by its government as part of its broader illegitimacy. Its support for the adoption of the Indigenous Rights Declaration at the UN is simply hypocrisy and demagoguery.”
SELF-AFFIRMATION AND DEMAGOGY
STILL USEFUL
In the Latin American context, the concept of indigenous When the International Work Group for Indigenous Affairs peoples is basically used to describe “Indians”, a category (IWGIA) was created in 1968, many of its founders were enthat lumps together all the different ethnic raged by a court case in Colombia where “Despite all of its Eurocentric groups present on the continent before some individuals were acquitted for murEuropean conquest. According to Camilo origins and baggage, the concept der because they “did not know it was illePerez Bustillo, lawyer and research progal to kill Indians”. The IWGIA has a base has become a symbol of selffessor at the Autonomous University of in social anthropology, and according to affirmation and of struggle.” Mexico City (UACM), “Indian” or “indigEspen Wæhle, chairman of the group’s enous” identity should be seen as a racial, social and cultural board, the Columbia case marked the beginning of “indigconstruct which arose during the 300 year long colonial peenous peoples” changing from an essentialist concept and into riod. To him, the concept reflects a contradictory combination an overtly political one. of a strict system of racial classification with a complex reality As its work spread to new regions, the IWGIA has had to dominated by racial mixture. Issues of identity were rendered revise the definition of “indigenous peoples” several times. even more complex by large influxes of African slaves. Recognising the Eurocentric roots of the concept, the organiThe independence movements from Spanish rule were sation has worked to overcome the problems by increasingly heavily influenced by the European concept of the nation-state stressing the political side of the concept. Today, the IWGIA and indigenous identities were excluded from their political uses a different set of criteria, which Wæhle says could be discourse and practices to promote a new common republican summed up as peoples in a “non-hegemonic position”. nationhood. Today, Bustillo believes that “indigenous peoples” “Decolonisation processes all over the world revealed sevhas taken on a new meaning, which should be seen in a more eral pockets of people with unresolved claims to basic rights global context. and justice. These are the groups that have fought for the new “Despite all of its Eurocentric origins and baggage, the UN declaration. However we can still see problems: What concept has become a symbol of self-affirmation and of strugabout the day when Greenland gets it independence from gle,” he says and compares it to the way African-Americans Denmark, will Greenlanders still be indigenous? Will some use “blacks”, how “nègres” and “beurs” is used in the recent inmaintain the status and others not?” surrections in the French slums and expressed in part in Hip To Wæhle the concept should not be seen as a strict definiHop music, and how the struggles of undocumented (or “iltion, but a way to highlight and solve rights-related problems legal”) immigrants is expressed in terms such as “sans papiers” and he believes the UN declaration will generate more interest or “sin papeles”. in the matter, as well as problems: “The essence of all this is the struggle of marginalised “The question of ratification is the first problem. peoples for equal rights and self-determination, from the reImplementation of the declaration will most certainly be concently rekindled civil rights movement in the US to Western tested, as well as the legislation that will follow. The big quesEurope, and from Latin America to Africa and Asia. Mexico’s tion at every step is whether or not the conflict-generating poZapatista movement is one of the most compelling examples tential is bigger than the political and moral gains embedded of this broader global pattern,” says Bustillo. in the concept,” he says. GK He says we should not get too hung up about the difficulties of definition nor over-theorise the issue, as most groups who Anne Hege Simonsen is an associate professor at the Oslo have issues that fall within the scope of the recent UN declaUniversity College, Department of Journalism, as well as an auration or ILO 169 have their own sense of identity, and have thor and a freelance journalist. concerns that fall within this emerging framework of international human rights law. He is not convinced, however, that the UN declaration will have an immediate impact on the lives of marginalised groups. I N DIG E NOUS P E OP L E S Ω A P OL I T IC A L T E R M | 4 3
T R A DI T IONS | Much of the Ainu culture has survived into modern times, even though both the people and their lands were exploited for centuries. Japan is yet to recognise the Ainu as indigenous.
Minority Report The Ainu population of Japan is not recognised as an indigenous people and faces oppression. Ainu descendant Kanako Uzawa investigated the reasons and found them rooted deep in both history and modern politics. eivin d senneset / te x t fre d ivar kl em etse n / photo tromsø, norway
”TO BE AINU is still to be discriminated against,” says Kanako Uzawa. Herself of Ainu descent, Kanako Uzawa is a graduate student of the Master’s Programme in Indigenous Studies at the University of Tromsø in Norway. Working with Senior Lecturer Ande Somby at the Faculty of Law, she raises several questions to clarify similarities and differences between the Norwegian and Japanese governments in terms of acceptance, implementation and application of Convention No. 169 of the 4 4 | I N DIG E NOUS P E OP L E S Ω A I N U I N J A PA N
International Labour Organization (ILO). Convention No. 169 states that rights for the indigenous peoples to land and natural resources are recognised as central to their material and cultural survival. Norway was the first country to ratify this convention, in 1990, but Japan has yet do to so. STILL OPPRESSED
Born in Tomakomai, Hokkaido, Kanako Uzawa was raised as Japanese. Her Ainu background was something that she felt
On 1 July 1997, the Law for the Promotion of the Ainu Culture and for the Dissemination and Advocacy for the Traditions of the Ainu and the Ainu Culture was enacted. As this legislation was limited to the promotion of Ainu culture and language, many Ainu were dissatisfied with it. “It failed to make a binding resolution to recognise the Ainu as an indigenous people of Japan,” Kanako Uzawa says. “ONE NATION” AND INTERNATIONAL EXPECTATIONS
rather than knew. “I had a feeling that there was something unspoken, something unrecognised,” she says. “When I recognised myself as Ainu, it was a completely new experience, an exciting new beginning to my life,” Uzawa says. Attending schools in Tokyo and its environs, Kanako Uzawa learned nothing of the Ainu people from her textbooks. When she turned 15, she started taking interest in the cultural traditions of the Ainu, song and dance in particular. Then, ten years ago, she participated in a cultural exchange programme that brought her to the Sami communities in northern Norway. She was impressed with the focus on cultural identity and the pride the Sami people took in their heritage. An indigenous people of Hokkaido and the north of Honshu in northern Japan, the Kuril Islands, Sakhalin and the southern parts of the Kamchatkan peninsula in today’s Russia, the Ainu traditionally subsisted on hunting, gathering and some minor agriculture. Much of the Ainu culture has survived into modern times, even though both the people and their lands have been exploited for centuries. When the modern nation of Japan was established, so was an aggressive policy of assimilation, imposing the Japanese culture and educational system on the Ainu. They were forced to farm poor land allotted to them by the Japanese government and only allowed to attend boarding schools to learn the technical skills necessary for physical labour. The use of their own Ainu language was strictly prohibited.
The indigenous movement did not reach Japan until the 1980s. “As Japan is a much older country than Norway, it holds to a stronger form of the ‘one nation’ concept. Norway on the other hand seems keener to pay attention to human rights, adhering to the expectations of international society,” says Kanako Uzawa. She lists three other reasons behind the Norwegian Sami’s better position compared to that of the Ainu. For one thing, the Norwegian government never completely succeeded in assimilating the Sami population. Secondly, the legal system in Norway made it easier to ratify the ILO convention as changes in domestic legislation were unnecessary. The third issue is the strength of the indigenous groups’ own movement. “While we do have a formal body for the Ainu, namely the Association of Hokkaido, this only covers the Hokkaido area. The Ainu who have moved to cities and other areas are systematically ignored. This makes it challenging for the Ainu to unify as an indigenous group in Japan,” Uzawa says. In 2005 and 2006, Japan saw two visits of Doudou Diene, a UN special rapporteur on contemporary forms of racism and related intolerances. The report concluded that there is racial discrimination and xenophobia in Japan, affecting, among others, the Ainu people. The report pointed out disparate levels of education, social welfare, health, employment, legal services and discrimination affecting the Ainu compared to the wider Japanese population. It also introduced two strategies suggested by the Ainu community itself: to educate the general Japanese population about the Ainu, and to recognise them as an indigenous people. In reply, the Japanese government submitted its concern to the UN that Doudou Diene’s report included many statements beyond his mandate. Answering the accusations of former violations of human rights, the Japanese government upheld that the past had no bearing on contemporary forms of discrimination. In this, believes Kanako Uzawa, the Ainu people disagree. “I believe that discrimination and prejudice never exist in isolation, but have much wider social implications.” GK I N DIG E NOUS P E OP L E S Ω A I N U A I N U I N J A PA N | 45
The Secrets of the Cenotes The mystic water-filled caves in Mexico called cenotes may reveal new secrets of ancient Mayan culture. ve nkatesh govi n da r a / te x t mexico/norway
I N T O T H E M YS T IC| Cenotes are freshwater sinkholes or caves that developed thousands of years ago. Norwegian researchers have teamed up with Mexican partners to expand archaeological research into their depths. Photo/Guillermo Pruneda Block, Fundación Haciendas Mundo Maya
contains mysteries: such as the effect of consumption of the T H E C E NOT E S A R E C AV E S or sinkholes that the Mayans calcium- and magnesium-rich cenotes water on the health of used for a variety of purposes. They provided sources of the Mayans, or whether they knew of any methods for sofdrinking water, as well as altars for offerings and human sacritening the hard water. Skulls have been found in the cenotes, fice to appease the gods in times of drought. The cenotes were which Guillermo de Anda Alanis believes might date back to also looked upon as gateways to the afterlife. the Pleistocene era (1.8 million -11 000 years B.C.) Pottery datThe cenotes are found wherever there is porous rock, such as ed at between 500 and 2000 years old has already been recovlimestone. Rainwater percolating through the rock dissolved ered and preserved. The oldest ceramic pot found in the north the stone over the millennia to create voids: some cenotes are of Yucatán was recently found in a cenote, open freshwater pools, while others form The cenotes were looked upon as and is now on exhibit at the Anthropology huge caves and canals deep inside the rock. gateways to the afterlife. Museum in Mérida. The researchers hope Archaeologists Guillermo de Anda the project will throw light on the organiAlanis at the Autonomous University of sation of the Maya City States, and their economic and agriYucatan (UADY) in Mexico and Professors Marek E. Jasinski cultural systems. and Kalle Sognnes of the Norwegian University of Science The cooperation agreement between the two universities and Technology (NTNU) in Norway are cooperating to demyshas provided the Mexican partners access to NTNU’s state-oftify a few of the endless secrets associated with these ancient the-art methodology and technology applicable to the study sinkholes. of cenotes and Mayan maritime sites. Divers usually locate The cenotes can be found throughout the former Mayan emnew findings in the cenotes, but some of the sites are today inpire, which covered a vast area of what is today Guatemala, El accessible to humans. Professor Jasinski says he is working on Salvador, Belize, Honduras and parts of Mexico. Their civilisation existed for 1200 years, reached a peak between 250 and 900 adapting remote-sensing technology to the cenote environA.C, and left a rich legacy of art, architecture and astronomy. ment. Remotely operated vehicles (ROVs) have in recent years revolutionized deep sea work, whether for archaeology or for oil and gas development, and Jasinski is keen to use them to DEEP WATER MYSTERIES explore the cenotes. The cenotes contain a rich trove of mysteries. The water itself 4 6 | I N DIG E NOUS P E OP L E S Ω C E NO T E S I N M E X IC O
SACR I F ICE | The Mayans sacrificed humans in the cenotes to appease the gods in times of drought. Photo/ Guilermo de Anda Alanis
The success of the research project is also likely to boost tourism in the local communities in Yucatán, and the researchers are cooperating with the Fundación Haciendas Mundo Maya on possible ways to create new. “Local authorities in the communities we work in are very interested in getting information from us regarding the conditions in the cenotes, like depth, visibility, bottom composition and fauna. They are especially interested in knowing which sites might be available for tourism in the future,” Professor Jasinski says.
mentation of the sites, both on land and underwater. They work on cenotes and maritime sites such as Mayan harbours, historical shipwrecks along the coast, as well as archive studies,” Professor Jasinski says. He hopes for a formal exchange of students between the NTNU and the UADY. “We hope to receive one or two students from UADY in August 2008 to join the International Master’s Degree Programme in Maritime Archaeology at the NTNU. We also hope that at some time in the future Norwegian students will join courses at UADY,” Professor Jasinski says.
CENOTES DOWN UNDER
The Mayan cenotes appear to be of unique cultural importance despite the presence of similar sinkholes elsewhere in the world. “There are reports of some cenotes with archaeological material in other parts of the world, but it cannot be established that they were used as altars for offerings or for other ceremonial purposes. Sinkholes exist in Australia for instance. Cave art is found in some of them, as far as we know. These sinkholes were dry unlike the water-bearing cenotes in Central America, and the only common feature is the rock art,” Professor Kalle Sognnes says. The project has also proven the experience of a lifetime for the students engaged in field work. “Both Norwegian and Mexican students take an active part in the field work on the project in Yucatán. They are involved in the survey and docu-
Venkatesh Govindara is an Indian journalist and PhD researcher at the NTNU in Trondheim, Norway. read more: Anda, A.de G. G. (In press): Sacrifice and Ritual Body Mutilation in Post-classic Maya Society. The Taxonomy of the Human Remains from Chichén Itza`s Cenote Sagrado. In New Perspectives on Human Sacrifice and Ritual Body Treatments in Ancient Maya Society, Springer, New York. Anda, A. de G. G., V. Tiesler y P. Zabala. (2004): Cenotes espacios sagrados y la práctica del sacrificio humano en Yucatán. En Los Investigadores de la Cultura Maya 12, tomo II, 376-386.Universidad Autónoma de Campeche, Campeche, México. Sognnes, K., Jasinski, M. E., Anda A. G.G. (2006):. Hulen med de små hender. SPOR; 2(48):50-51.
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Saving the Treasures of Timbuktu Ancient documents in Timbuktu alter the image of an illiterate Africa. anne hege s imonse n / te x t timbuktu, mali
isolation. In Timbuktu West African gold met Saharan salt, “A R E YOU I N T E R E S T E D in the manuscripts?” and this is the place where the Arabic language and Islamic We have come to the Ahmed Baba Institute for Higher thought and philosophy blended with the local Songhay and Education and Islamic Research (IHERIAB) in Timbuktu to Tuareg cultures, and also influenced peoples like the Fulani, look at their collection of ancient manuscripts, and we are gothe Mandé and the Bambara. Contrary to popular belief, these ing to spend the night. It is an early Sunday afternoon and the African cultures were not oral. In the Sahel region most ethnic centre is closed and quiet. But Ibrahim Abba, aged 13, is not groups were literate in Arabic or used the only the son of the guardian at IHERIAB, Arabic alphabet to write their local languaghe is also an enterprising young man “Salt comes from the North, gold es. Literacy was, however, usually restricted who knows his ancient city of sand and from the South, money from the to certain social strata or professions, like clay inside out. He can point out any of white man’s country. But the word clerics and marabouts (mystical leaders) or the tombs of the 333 saints buried in and around Timbuktu, he knows that tourists of God and the treasures of wisdom merchants. come only from Timbuktu.” Wealthy Timbuktu thus became not only like to see the ancient mosques with their an important crossroads between the North characteristic pointed profiles, dating and the South, the East and the West, it was also a literary back to 1325, and maybe the Buktus as well – supposedly the hotspot where creation of a great library was important for dwellings of the Tuareg woman who founded the city in the 11th prestige. People ordered their books from Mecca or North century. But most importantly – Ibrahim knows where to look Africa, and there was a whole industry centred on scribes copfor ancient manuscripts, Timbuktu’s unique cultural heritage, ying important manuscripts. In addition people stored comeven when everything is closed. mercial contracts, legal rulings, notes on disputes and grievances as well as an abundance of poetry. This tradition gave THE “INK ROAD” Timbuktu its central position on what is called the “African Few present-day cities have such a mythic aura as Timbuktu. Ink Road”. Situated on the frontier of the inhospitable Sahara desert, virtually inaccessible (or at least hard to reach) by modern communications standards, it is hard to imagine how with its 30 000 MANUSCRIPTS bleak yellow-grey clay features it was once cast as Africa’s El Ibrahim lives with this treasure on a daily basis. Behind its Dorado. sandy white stone walls, IHERIAB is one of the major Islamic But Timbuktu’s reputation is linked to travel and trade, not research and teaching institutions in the region, following a line of scholarly tradition dating back to the heyday of this dusty town in the Middle Ages. Today IHERIAB houses some PRO T E C T ION| Many Timbuktu families have guarded their 30 000 ancient manuscripts covering themes as diverse as ancient manuscripts in metal boxes, to protect them from floods. shopping lists, religion, traditional medicine, poetry and poDirector of the Mohamed Taher Library Abdoul Wahid Haidara litical history. shows a metal box full of books. Photo/Alida Boye T I M BU K T U M A N U S C R I P T S | 4 9
In 2000 the Timbuktu Manuscripts Project was set up to simultaneously conserve the old and often brittle documents, digitalise them and make them accessible to researchers all over the world. This is not the first, nor the only project working on preserving the manuscripts, but it was the first long-term and systematic attempt to safeguard them for future study. The Timbuktu Manuscripts Project is a result of a longstanding relation between the Centre for Environment and Development (SUM) at the University of Oslo and the National Centre for Scientific and Technological Research (CNRST) in the Malian capital Bamako. Since 1989 these two institutions have promoted research in different fields, for example to further knowledge of traditional medicine in the Timbuktu region. In 1996 they wanted to present some of the research results in Timbuktu and organised a conference at the IHERIAB. Here they discovered a wide range of books on traditional medicine that they didn’t know existed and which they felt should have been included from the start. The idea for the project was born, and today it has expanded to encompass cooperation between CNRST, IHERIAB, SUM, the Institute for the Study of Islamic Thought in Africa at Northwestern University in the USA, and the University of Bergen. SUM’s Alida Jay Boye is the overall coordinator. AFRICAN RENAISSANCE
The unique blend of Arabic and African cultures makes the manuscripts the new treasure of Timbuktu. Any richly decorated manuscript from the 13th, 14th or even 18th century has a commercial value, but the Timbuktu manuscripts have a symbolic 5 0 | T I M BU K T U M A N U S C R I P T S
value as well. They tell the story of another Africa, beyond the image of a purely oral continent. This fits well into the imagery many modern African leaders want to convey – like when the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD) embraced the manuscripts as their first official cultural project, or when South Africa Tabo Mbeki made the “Mali Manuscripts” a presidential project in 2001. South Africa is presently constructing a new building for the IHERIAB. To Mbeki, supporting the Timbuktu manuscripts is more than a symbolic gesture. It is an antidote to a pivotal part of the racist apartheid system, namely the suppression of any evidence of African civilisation – in South Africa and elsewhere. Our guide Ibrahim has never met Mbeki, but he knows Alida Boye. “She is my friend. Everybody here knows her,” he states matter-of-factly. He takes us on a guided tour that proves him right. We pass by the beautifully decorated doors of the Mamma Haidara Library, the first private library to open its doors to the public. At the next private collection, the Fondo Kati, Alida Boye’s name works magic as a door opener. The Kati family’s library builds on the writings and collections left behind by Ali B. Ziyad al-Quti, a converted muslim from Andalucia who established himself in the Timbuktu region in the 15th century. Today the Fondo Kati collection consists of 3 000 documents, in Arabic, Spanish, Hebrew and French. They deal with Islamic law, medicine, history, mysticism, grammar, astronomy and astrology, poetry and mathematics. But the room housing the manuscripts is being renovated and is closed to us. All we are allowed to see are the enlarged pictures of decorative Arabic writings.
L E F T : DE SE RT| Timbuktu is situated on the edge of the Sahara. Photo/Alida Boye
R IGH T : CE N T R E OF T H E WOR L D | Timbuktu was a religious and commercial centre as far back as the 12th century. The Djingareyber was built in 1327 and is a living memory of the city’s cultural heritage. Photo / Helge G. Simonsen
“Alida took the pictures and I helped her,” Ibrahim exclaims proudly as he guides us back to the IHERIAB. HISTORY OF HUMANIT Y
The next morning Ibrahim brings us instant coffee in plastic mugs and watches us with a concerned and slightly paternal manner. Will we be able to conduct an interview with the research director of the IHERIAB in a proper fashion when we obviously didn’t sleep well? A few moments later he puts on his French football t-shirt to go to school and leaves us in the hands of Sidi Mohammed Ould Youbba. Ould Youbba is also assistant director of the IHERIAB and the man with the keys to the manuscripts. Finally we are going to see some of them with our own eyes. Ould Youbba is dressed in a fluttering damask boubou, the colour is a warm brown like the wooden bookshelves covering the walls. The curtains are drawn, and in the middle of the room is a glass case, displaying around a dozen ancient documents. Ould Youbba caresses the display case lightly with his fingers. “This is the history of Africa, and of humanity,” he says. A colourful mixture of intricate Arabic handwriting and abstract images decorates the documents, in yellow, brown, red, ochre and a touch of indigo. The oldest dates back to 1204. SHARING KNOWLEDGE
IHERIAB is a state institution, but most of the manuscripts come from private homes. Ould Youbba explains that every Timbuktu family is related to a scholar and every family has a library. But not all are able to preserve the documents as well
as the Mamma Haidara or Fondo Kati. IHERIAB is thus trying to convince as many as possible to leave their manuscripts in the Institute’s care. This task is by no means as easy as it should be. “Some don’t want to give away their manuscripts. They are afraid they will disappear, that someone will overwrite the originals, destroy them or sell them. This has happened before. But this is Africa’s memory and we want to share it with everybody,” he says. Ould Youbba points out that the colonisers have been to a large extent the ones writing Africa’s history. Some of the documents in his collection challenge colonial notions of the past. Right now scholars are working on some notes from the legendary El Hadj Omar Tall, who fought a bitter battle against Ahmadou Ahmadou in the mid-1800s, and who also tried to invade Timbuktu. The reasons for his campaigns have been highly debated among historians in and of the region, and the newly-found documents are contributing new insights. “We need to know more about what happened yesterday. The final version of history has not yet been written,” Ould Youbba says. His personal favourite among the documents is however a manuscript explaining traditional medical practices. “This shows how advanced traditional medicine was. I am sure there is something for modern doctors to learn from this.” PROVIDING ACCESS
Ould Youbba has worked at the institute for 28 years, and for most of that period the documents were stacked on the shelves, one above the other. With the Timbuktu Manuscript Project, giving Malian researchers access to their own treasures is a key issue. Even in Bamako, people often do not know that the manuscripts exist, and even if they do, they don’t know what they contain. An important part of the project is therefore to digitalise and catalogue the manuscripts for research purposes. The manuscripts are dusted and put in specially designed boxes, tailor-made to suit each document. The boxes are handmade in the adjacent building, the workplace of 13 people, both women and men. Today they are not working at full speed. A load of book cloth has been delayed, slowing down the restoration work. But covers can still be made. They are tailored in hard leather, a specialty of the Tuareg blacksmiths as they are a social group already involved in leatherwork. All the ethnic groups in Timbuktu are socially stratified, which also regulates who can do what in relation to the manuscripts, particularly as many are of religious importance. HEAT AND FLOOD
Conservation specialist Samaké Souleymane explains how T I M BU K T U M A N U S C R I P T S | 5 1
BOOK SCI E NCE | Restoring the manuscripts is a science in itself. Salla Ag Mohaya, Mohamed Alher Ag Almady and Samaké Souleymane and their conservation team have constructed nearly 2000 handcrafted boxes to store the ancient documents. Photo/Anne Hege Simonsen
U N K NOW N T R E A SU R E| Many people even in Mali do not know about the thousands of old manuscripts in the country. One part of the Timbuktu Manuscript Project is to digitalise them and make them known and available both to researchers and to the general public. Photo/Alida Boye
takes over the premises. On the table he spreads his small boteach manuscript needs to be treated individually. Some of tles with coloured ink, his gold, his virgin paper and his leather the documents are books, others merely fragments of a page. frames, made for him by local women. He has been studying Each has to be protected as well as possible, and the idea is that the ancient art of copying and is trying to make a living from a researcher should be able to find the document on the shelf, it. He even has seven students. Sadek says but instead of contributing to its decay, by it is about time that the tradition of calligletting his finger run along the written text “This is the history of Africa, raphy returned to Timbuktu. Alongside the on the fragile paper, he or she will now and of humanity.” religious scholars and the merchants, the get a digital copy. 10 000 documents have copyists played an important role in sustaining Timbuktu as been treated so far, but there are 20 000 more to go and the a cultural centre. numbers are increasing. “But photocopying machines and modern technology made “Luckily Timbuktu is a hot and dry place,” says Samaké. them redundant. Today this is changing. Now everything is He is convinced the climate is the reason why so many manugetting digitalised and people start to long for something they scripts are still available. But he is not impressed by traditional can see and touch,” Sadek says. It can take him as long as 45 preservation methods. “In the private families you can often days to copy a large document. find documents in wooden coffers – a Mauritanian system that When he has no customers he copies old proverbs. This is protects against termites and other insects, but others also one of his favourites: “Salt comes from the North, gold from use cardboard, leather or bury the manuscripts in the sand. the South, money from the white man’s country. But the Sometimes we find documents in metal boxes, damaged by word of God and the treasures of wisdom come only from fungus, stains or water,” he says, referring to the great flood in Timbuktu.” GK Timbuktu some years back. People started using metal boxes after the city burned read more: down several times. But the 1990s were unexpectedly damp Harrak, F. and Boye, A. (eds.) (2006) “Chemins du Savoir: Les manuand humid. Finding the best way to preserve the documents is scrits Arabes et A’jami dans la region Soudano-Sahelienne Colloque an ongoing debate among local and international experts. International 13–17 juin 2005–Rabat” Université Mohammed V - Souissi, Institut des Etudes Africaines, Rabat
RETURN OF THE CALLIGRAPHERS
The new-found interest in the old documents has also generated some new commercial activity. We discover this as the sun discreetly turns the sand into a shade of pre-nocturnal honey. Ibrahim is back from school and leads us to a kindergarten. When the children leave for home, Boubacar Sadek 5 2 | T I M BU K T U M A N U S C R I P T S
Hunwick, J.O. (ed.) (2003) Arabic Literature of Africa The Writings of Western Sudanic Africa Brill Academic Publishers Benjaminsen T.A. and Berge G. (2000) Timbuktu: Myter, Mennesker og Miljø Spartacus
sum.uio.no/timbuktu
First Book on Politics in Malawi A research project aimed at studying Malawi’s steady transition to a modern democracy has resulted in the country’s first textbook on government and politics. kje rsti n gj engeda l / te x t a n d photo bergen, norway
The research project was designed to study and analyse democratic accountability in the context of the 2004 general elections in Malawi. This election marked the first transition between democratically elected presidents, after the Malawian people in a 1993 referendum voted in favour of multi-party democracy, putting an end to the previous single-party state system. “Our aim was to study the election and the way it was administered. More generally we wanted to analyse how the party system had developed since the multi-party system had been installed, the role of the parliament in relation to the executive system, and the role of the judiciary. We wanted to see all of these elements in relation to each other, and look at how they interacted,” says Lars Svåsand, professor in Comparative Politics at the University of Bergen. The project, funded by the Norwegian Programme for Development, Research and Education (NUFU) and initiated in 2003, is a collaborative project between the University of Malawi, the University of Bergen and the Christian Michelsen Institute (CMI). During the project, the need for a book on Malawian politics was mentioned several times, and with a little extra financial help from the NUFU system, the idea could be realised. The book, Government and Politics in Malawi, provides a comprehensive coverage of Malawian politics, from the 1995 constitution to public sector reform and international relations. Many people contributed to the book – notably from the Centre for Social Research in Malawi – which covers a broad range of political institutions and their functions. Professor Svåsand has
P OL I T IC A L BOOK| For the first time in Malawian history, a book on political science is published. Professor Lars Svåsand at the University of Bergen is the co-editor together with Dr. Nandini Patel at the University of Malawi.
co-edited the book together with Dr. Nandini Patel from the University of Malawi. “The book isn’t about the 2004 elections in particular. It deals more generally with the relations between the different political institutions, trade unions, civil society and the media,” Svåsand explains. During the single-party era, politics as an academic discipline was not formally allowed in Malawi. The book will be used by political science students, as the University of Malawi has offered a bachelor’s degree in political science for several years. Through Norad’s Programme for Master Studies (NOMA), the University of Malawi and the University of Bergen have now developed a Master’s degree programme in the same field. The NUFU project that spurred the book has received funds for a second period, which will be spent studying the consolidation of this young democracy. GK read more: Government and Politics in Malawi is published by the Centre for Social Research at the University of Malawi and the Christian Michelsen Institute and printed by Kachere Books, 2007.
M A L AW I A N B O OK ON P OL I T IC S | 5 3
NO T A N OBV IOUS CHOICE | Women do not normally dance professionally in Zimbabwe, and Caroline Tedi is the first woman to receive a scholarship to study dance in Norway, through the Norad Programme in Arts and Cultural Education.
Dancing Zimbabwe Onto the Map “A country without art is dead. Let’s keep Zimbabwe alive.” busa ni bafan a/ tex t ts vangi r ayi mukhwa zi / photos harare, zimbabwe
F OR PE OPL E USE D to queuing for everyday essentials, the absence of a queue seems incongruous: an anxious group of school leavers mills around a huge hall waiting for the action to start. As if on cue, a throng of casually dressed and expectant youths leaps onto the parquet stage for today’s dance session. 5 4 | MODE R N DA NC E I N Z I M B A B W E
Even those with two left feet are welcome, as long as they have patience, passion and panache. A young woman with braided hair tied at the back welcomes everyone to the session and explains that relaxation and concentration are essential tools in any dancer’s kit.
F R E E YOU R SE L F | “When you dance you must express yourself and not restrict your body; free your limbs,” Simbarashe Fulukia says to the workshop participants. Simbarashe has formed the Fulukia Performing Arts Academy in Harare to teach traditional and contemporary dance to Zimbabweans. Oslo, Norway. The cooperation between “Do not be tense, relax,” says Caroline Even those with two left feet are Rufaro Tedi, an upcoming Zimbabwean welcome, as long as they have pa- the Oslo Academy and the Dance Trust of Zimbabwe (DTZ), part of the Norad dance student, who is the centre of attractience, passion and panache. Programme in Arts and Cultural Education, tion for many reasons; her looks, her conhas brought the two young dancers back to Zimbabwe during fident movements and dance rhythm. She eases the students their Norwegian holidays to run free workshops in traditional into warm-up exercises to the beat from a radio in the far corand modern dance for curious Zimbabweans. ner of the stage. The setting is the auditorium of the Zimbabwe College of Music in downtown Harare, Zimbabwe. Despite a rich heritage in the arts, Zimbabwe’s dance A NEW GOSPEL prospects are bleak, due to the harsh economic and political “We start with the drop bar. 1-2-3 drop, 4-5-6 and up. Now let environment. “Like all forms of art, dance is important for a us do the chest movements, 1-2-3 centre, back centre, 4 right country no matter what the circumstances. A country without centre, 5 left centre,” Caroline continues as the pace of the art is dead. Let’s keep Zimbabwe alive,” Marie-Laure Edom, warm-up exercise increases with the tempo of the music. or Soukaina as she calls herself, says. The faces of the students at this workshop – one of several Soukaina is the Zimbabwean coordinator in a cooperative that Caroline and Simbarashe, have held in Harare – brim dance project between Zimbabwe and Norway. Caroline Tedi with mixed expressions. Some are already on top of the game, and Simbarashe Norman Fulukia are studying for their bachwhile others grimace when they put their left foot forward elor’s degrees in dance at the National Academy of the Arts in only to realise it’s time to turn around or clap. MODE R N DA NC E I N Z I M B A B W E | 5 5
MODE R N A N D T R A DI T IONA L| The workshops Caroline Tedi and Simbarashe Fulukia run in the Harare area consist of both modern and traditional dance. “I explain ballet as being what white people do. If you tell them it is contemporary dance, they will not understand,” Caroline says.
Caroline Tedi, the opportunity to dance Contemporary dance is a new gospel “My dream is to represent is a dream come true. “People laugh when to many. Most of them are here more Africa and show that girls I tell them I am a dancer, because they say out of curiosity than anything else. Then can dance.” everyone is a dancer. A lot of people do not Caroline’s easy-shaking hips and unduknow anything about ballet. Through contemporary dance, I lating waist draw attention and amusement. show and explain ballet as being what white people do. If you The workshop soon explodes into more energetic dance tell them it is contemporary dance they will not understand,” routines. Initial shyness at failing to imitate simple steps turns Caroline says. into confident manoeuvres of people who have been dancing all their lives. “We learnt about contemporary dance,” says a workshop GIRLS CAN DANCE participant, Tapiwa Makombore. “The Africa fusion was From the streets of Mbare to the dance classrooms in Oslo has pretty good. I liked the way Simba was using examples to ilbeen a near-legendary journey for Caroline, who has made lustrate how we can internalise dance. You easily grasped the artistic history by being the first Zimbabwean girl to benefit techniques.” from the highly competitive scholarship. “I was happy to have been chosen and to learn that I was the first girl,” says Caroline with a grin. “I have challenged myself A SACRIFICE to prove I can do it. My dream is to represent Africa and show But outside the college fence, it is not simple dancing for oththat girls can dance.” er Zimbabweans. The dance workshops were held against a The gender issue has poignant significance to dance in backdrop of an escalation in prices of basic commodities like Zimbabwe. Soukaina, the coordinator of the eight-year-old milk, bread, cooking oil, meat, sugar and salt. Add to that the cooperation with Norway and artistic director of the Dance cost of public transport to get to work, or better still to a workFoundation Course, says the number of girls studying modern shop on dance. There are heavier matters to ponder than frodance in Zimbabwe is minimal. “In black communities you licking on the floor. have more boys than girls in dance. Caroline is the first girl to Zimbabwe’s economic fortunes are at their worst since inbenefit from this scholarship, and there is no way she can quit dependence. Hyperinflation of more than 7500 per cent, the now because she has a duty to black Zimbabwean girls who highest in the world, makes shopping for everyday essentials a want to dance.” nightmare – if you can find them. “My parents did not like my choice of career, they rather Many of the students at the workshop dance as if they have wanted me to go to college and do a course,” says Caroline addno worries in the world, but it has been a personal, if not a ing that, “I told them to see what I can do before they judged me. family, sacrifice for the opportunity to study arts in a country Once they came to watch my performance. It was modern and where unemployment has been pegged at 80 per cent. traditional jazz. My father did not like it. He hated the costumes.” For the two young Zimbabweans Simbarashe Fulukia and 5 6 | MODE R N DA NC E I N Z I M B A B W E
Family opposition aside, Caroline concedes that some of her relatives are happy with her choice of career. Soukaina interjects and says: “No, they are happy, not because of the fact that she is dancing, but that she is overseas and can now send back some dollars.” MEMORY LANE
Holding workshops in Mbare, one of Harare’s oldest high density areas, was a trip down memory lane for Simbarashe. He grew up in the dusty, seemingly forgotten Mbare, where participants, all beginners, marveled at the parallels between the traditional dances they are used to and the movements in contemporary dance. “I started to dance when I was in my mother’s womb. I love dancing because it is all about movement,” Simbarashe quips, “To me dance is my life. I am ready to do anything it takes to be a good dancer. After two years I see myself danc-
ing in a famous worldwide company like Alvin Ailey, a US dance company.” Simbarashe intones to the participants at one of the workshops: “Dance is about creativity. What we are doing is Afrofusion to preserve our African traditional dances which tell a story when we dance. Is there anyone who has not caught up on this rhythm?” Simbarashe asks. Silence. “Now you are lying that there is no one!” Unlike in other African or European countries where dance plays a major role in the culture, dance is not yet an obvious choice of career path in Zimbabwe. For now, there are no queues for dance classes. GK Busani Bafana is a freelance journalist based in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe. Tsvangirayi Mukhwazi is a freelance photographer based in Harare, Zimbabwe.
Keep On Movin’ “Our Zimbabwean partners do everything they can to keep it going and we have decided to follow them on this journey.” te r esa g r ø ta n/ tex t oslo, norway
“ ON T H E ON E H A N D, Zimbabwe is a country where the people are deprived of their civil rights. On the other hand, it is a country with enormous talent and in this perspective it is very important to sustain this cooperation,” says the Norwegian coordinator of the dance programme with Zimbabwe, Associate Professor Inger Lise Eid. The cooperation was initiated after a visit by a Zimbabwean arts delegation in 1998. The first two students came to Oslo in 1999, and since then, four students from Zimbabwe have followed the three-year bachelor’s programme in modern and contemporary dance at the Oslo National College of Arts, Faculty of Performing Arts, as well as one student who has taken a one-year diploma in choreography. “We believe it is important to get input from a variety of cultural sources. We learn about other ways to live and think,” Eid says about what the Zimbabweans bring to Norway. Added-value is learning about traditional ways of dancing, which the Zimbabweans have shared with Norwegian students. “Traditional Zimbabwean dance is explosive and expressive. Contemporary Zimbabwean dance has a strong storytelling tradition, while Norwegian contemporary dance
is more conceptual in character,” Eid says. But more importantly, she stresses, is that the art of dance is an international form of expression. It is the role of dance and performing arts as a universal language that is emphasised at the university college. Caroline Tedi and Simbarashe Fulukia are among several nationalities represented in the 59 students in the three different bachelor’s programmes in dance. The two Zimbabweans are due to graduate in June 2009. By participating in the programme, they are obliged to share the knowledge they obtain through their studies with the general public in Zimbabwe, for example through workshops. The fifth semester of study will be spent as dancers in the Zimbabwean Tumbuka Dance Company. Caroline and Simbarashe were recruited from the only curriculum in modern dance in Zimbabwe, the Dance Foundation Course, offered by the Dance Trust of Zimbabwe. The greatest challenge at present for Norwegian-Zimbabwean cooperation is to keep the Dance Trust running, with the financial capability to sponsor a new batch of students. “We need to keep it going, that is the perspective we have for now,” Eid says. GK MODE R N DA NC E I N Z I M B A B W E | 5 7
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AC A DE M IC E S SAY:
Resource Control in Nigeria’s Niger Delta cyril o b i , researcher at the nordic africa institute, uppsala
SUMMARY
This essay explores the nature of the struggle by ethnic minorities in Nigeria’s oil-rich Niger Delta for the right to control their natural resources – particularly the petroleum mined from under their lands and waters. Five decades of oil exploitation has left the people severely marginalised and impoverished, facing a life of alienation and dispossession as their lands are taken up and their fragile ecosystem is polluted by the operations of the oil industry. In response, they have since the 1990s waged a local and international struggle to reclaim their right to the land and the resources under it. Predictably, the oil companies have allied with the state in its attempt to crush local resistance through violence. In response, the resistance has evolved into more complex, though still violent, forms.
I N T H E DE LTA | Members of the militant group Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND). The militants campaign to secure a greater share of the region’s oil wealth for local Ijaw people. The white flag signifies the Ijaw god of War, Egbesu. Photo/Tim A. Hetherington, Panos Pictures
SI NCE T H E 19 9 0S , the indigenous peoples or ethnic minorities of the oil-rich Niger Delta have protested against the exploitation and pollution of their lands and waters by international oil companies operating in partnership with the Nigerian state oil company – the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC). Notable among the social movements and ethnic minority organisations that embarked upon a national and international campaign against the state-oil partnership in the 1990s was the Movement for the Survival of Ogoni People (MOSOP), led by the charismatic writer and Ogoni rights activist, Ken Saro-Wiwa. He was hanged on 10 November 1995 along with eight other Ogoni activists on the orders of a military-constituted tribunal that found them guilty of inciting a mob to kill four of the “pro-government” Ogoni elite, after a trial that was described internationally as unfair (CLO 1996). Nigeria’s return to democracy in 1999 both opened up political space in the campaign for resource control by the ethnic minorities of the Niger Delta, and unfortunately contributed to increased militarisation of the Niger Delta. This has also led to the emergence of many armed groups and militias that tapped into existing grievances and politics that has provoked an escalation in the violence in the region from 2003 onwards. Given the high stakes built into the state-oil linkage in Nigeria, where oil exports account for 95 per cent of exports earnings and over 85 per cent of national revenues, politics continues to be influenced by oil. For those in power, access to oil is the ultimate prize in the political contest – for which they are ready to fight at any cost and by any means. For the out-of-power elite, it gives them everything to fight for, but I N DIG E NOUS P E OP L E S Ω AC A DE M IC E S S AY | 59
most importantly, it has contributed to the marginalisation of most Nigerian citizens (particularly those from the Niger Delta) from power and from the benefits of the oil economy, in spite of the unprecedented earnings from oil exports since 2000. The result has been the continuation of the militarisation of the conflict between the indigenous population and the Nigerian federal state – which lays claim under the constitution to be the sole owner of all oil in Nigeria – for control of the oil.
tegy of the new democratic regime to win legitimacy by attending to the grievances of the oil-producing communities. THE OGONI CAMPAIGN FOR SELF-DETERMINATION
The Ogoni are a small ethnic minority group with an estimated population of 500 000 people occupying an area of 404 square miles. They have a long history of resistance to the central government. The pressure on their land was further exacerbated by “the concentration of six oil fields, two oil refineries, a huge fertilizer plant, petrochemical plants and an ocean port” (Naanen 1995). This contributed to the dispossession of ETHNIC MINORITIES AND THE STRUGGLE FOR LOCAL AUTONOMY many Ogoni of their land and livelihood (farming, fishing and hunting), without any form of redress in terms of social secuThe history of the struggle for self-determination and local rity, compensation or alternative employment. autonomy by the ethnic minorities of the Niger Delta is wellMOSOP’s campaign for Ogoni rights was encapsulated in known. What is important to note is that it had its roots in the 1990 Ogoni Bill of Rights (OBR) which demanded among the creation of Nigeria as a colonial state in 1914, an act that other things, “the control of Ogoni resources for Ogoni derelegated the people of the region to minority status in relavelopment, political autonomy, compensation for decades of tion to the numerically superior neighbouring ethnic groups, exploitation of Ogoni oil and oil pollution, and the right to which dominated political life in the old Western and Eastern protect the Ogoni environment and ecology from further degregions of Nigeria. The successive institutionalisation of radation”. MOSOP deliberately targeted Shell in its globalised revenue-sharing and power distribution along regional lines campaign against the depredations of the big oil concerns tended to reinforce the politicisation of ethnic identity, and its (Obi 2001; Robinson 1996). Shell was chosen because it was mobilisation in the struggle for power. Smaller groups defined the largest onshore oil operator, the biggest oil partner of the as “ethnic minorities” tended to lose out, while the dominant Nigerian state and the first oil multinationethnic groups asserted power at both real to start operations in the Niger Delta, gional and national levels. For those in power, access to oil is with a history dating back to 1938. One of The ethnic minorities did not sucthe ultimate prize in the political MOSOP’s first ports of call in its internaceed in their quest to establish separate states before Nigeria’s independence in contest – for which they are ready to tional campaign was the Unrepresented 1960, and opportunities to resolve fester- fight at any cost and by any means. Nations and Peoples Organisation (UNPO) in The Hague, Netherlands. ing disputes in the following years were MOSOP adopted a strategy of welding its local grievances squandered. Even before the 1967-1970 civil war there was onto local and global discourse on the rights of indigenous an abortive attempt by a group of Ijaw ethnic minority youth peoples and minority rights, environmental and human – the Niger Delta Volunteer Force (NDVF), led by Isaac Boro, rights, and self-determination. MOSOP activists expected that to secede from Nigeria, by declaring the Niger Delta Republic once Shell’s involvement in human rights and environmental in February 1966 in a bid to protect “Ijaw oil” (Obi 2004: 23). abuses in the Niger Delta was exposed in Europe, the United Shortly before the eruption of war in 1967 between secessionStates and the rest of the world, the movement would gain the ist Biafra in the Eastern region, the four regions of Nigeria international leverage to force Shell and the Nigerian govern(North, East, West and Midwest) had been abolished and ment to respect Ogoni rights, and that other oil multinationreplaced with twelve states, three of which were in the ethnic als would then follow suit. Subsequent events however did not minority regions of the Niger Delta. From 12 states in 1967, match such expectations, as the state-oil partnership, alarmed Nigeria currently has 36. at the effectiveness of MOSOP’s campaign abroad, hit back. Apart from the state-creation exercise, and the centralisaMOSOP was forced to retreat after the 1995 hangings and the tion of the control of oil, the method of oil revenue allocation military siege of Ogoniland (Obi 2005). also changed over time. The share of oil revenues allocated to the ethnic minority oil-producing states of the Niger Delta fell from 50 per cent in 1966 to 1.5 per cent in the mid-1990s. It THE IJAW CAMPAIGN FOR RESOURCE CONTROL then rose to 13 per cent in 1999, in response to international Following MOSOP’s retreat, the space for protest and resistcampaigns and local protests by the minorities and the straance was taken up by other ethnic minority groups in the Niger Delta. In 1997, the Ijaw adopted a twin-pronged strategy 6 0 | I N DIG E NOUS P E OP L E S Ω AC A DE M IC E S S AY
ing support from genuinely popular groups and social move– both based on their right as an “oil-producing” ethnic minorments. They also co-opted armed groups into their personal ity, and as an indigenous people in an oil-rich, but impoverpolitical ambitions by using such militia to rig elections and ished region. The first prong hinged on the generational factor, intimidate voters and the opposition. The region witnessed with youths taking up the mantle of the struggle and demandunprecedented violence from both the military and the armed ing for the right of Ijaws to control the oil resources under their youth militia – all of it linked to oil (International Crisis Group land and waters, just as the Ogoni had demanded. The second 2006; Kemedi 2006; Obi 2007). was led by the Ijaw elite, which felt that they had been unfairly Of note is the metamorphosis of the rights struggle of excluded from the benefits from the oil produced by their rethe indigenous Ijaw into a markedly violent phase since late gion. While the former led to the emergence of an organisa2005. Extreme armed elements such as the Movement for the tion called the Ijaw Youth Congress (IYC) in 1998, the latter Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND), which shocked the remained within the Ijaw National Congress (INC). In some world with its globally publicised kidnappings of expatriate sense, the IYC was a generational critique levelled against the oil workers and its bombing of the offshore EA oil field on 11 perceived ineffectiveness of the mainstream INC. January 2006, have emerged both as a response to and an offThe IYC was formed following the meeting of the All-Ijaw shoot of the zero-sum approach to inequiYouth Conference of representatives from table power and social relations. MEND folover 40 Ijaw clans located across the Niger Since 2006 over one hundred lowed this action with further spectacular Delta in Kaiama, Bayelsa state. On the foreign oil workers have been kidbomb attacks on oil installations and has basis of the Kaiama Declaration, the IYC napped (and later released) in the kidnapped expatriate oil workers as a way demanded that all international oil comNiger Delta. of attracting international attention to its panies should leave the Niger Delta by 30 cause. Since 2006 over one hundred forDecember 1998. It mobilised the Ijaw peoeign oil workers have been kidnapped (and later released) in ple under the slogan of “Operation Climate Change” using the Niger Delta. rallies and cultural processions known locally as Ogele, while MEND’s militant insurgency draws upon ethnic minority also appealing to the local deity and Ijaw god of war and jusIjaw identity, a deep sense of grievance, and is buoyed by suptice, Egbesu, to bless their cause. port from various sources and the “righteousness of the cause”. Rather than respond to their demands or invite them for According to its spokesperson, Jomo Gbomo, “We are asking dialogue, the military state governor declared a state of emerfor justice. We want our land, and the Nigerian government to gency and federal soldiers, navy personnel and riot police were transfer all its involvement in the oil industry to host commubrought in. Lives were lost, many were injured and property nities” (Saharareporters 2007). Some recent sources estimate destroyed. The IYC-led protest was crushed by the state, but that there are thousands of well-armed militants in the Niger it could not extinguish the quest by the Ijaw and many other Delta. These militants have been able to force a 27 per cent indigenous minority groups for the control of their land and cut in Nigeria’s oil exports, sending shockwaves through the the oil under it – through a campaign which, after Nigeria reglobal oil market that is already under immense pressure from turned to democratic rule in May 1999, became known as the the crisis in the Middle East and the Gulf, growing demand, “struggle for resource control”. and concerns about “peak oil” and energy security. DEEPENED TENSIONS IN THE NIGER DELTA
Growing youth unemployment, extreme poverty, perceived discriminatory employment practices against indigenes by oil companies and socio-economic grievances have deepened the existing tensions in the Niger Delta. The agitation of ethnic minorities was partly because the economic crises and reforms had deepened the exploitation and impoverishment of the Niger Delta, while the democratic institutions had failed to address the roots of the widespread grievances in the region. Even worse was the ambivalence and greed of the local elite and political class, that sought to harness the anger at the grassroots level to put pressure on the Federal State for increased oil revenue allocations, but at the same time remov-
NIGERIA’S RETURN TO DEMOCRACY
It is not possible to understand the dynamics of the struggles of the popular movements of the indigenous ethnic minorities of the Niger Delta outside of the struggle for the democratisation of the Nigerian state. A quest for democracy underlines the desire for local autonomy and the control of oil in the Niger Delta. It also reflects in the social character of the struggle, in which movements organised around ethnic identities and solidarities, using a history of struggle, traditional indigenous metaphors and symbols, protest against and resist transnational oil exploitation. The key issues are the demands for local autonomy, and the control of oil for the benefit of the people of the Niger Delta. I N DIG E NOUS P E OP L E S Ω AC A DE M IC E S S AY | 61
risation of Niger Delta society at all levels. The discussion above provides a frameIt is not possible to understand An important aspect of sustainable peace is work for understanding the centrality of the struggles of the indigenous the need for international oil companies to oil politics to the spiralling violence and ethnic minorities of the Niger change their ethos of placing profits before its far-reaching international ramificaDelta outside of the struggle people, to abide by international standards tions. But more fundamentally, oil is the for the democratisation of the for environmental sustainability and finanwhetstone of Nigerian politics – the object Nigerian state. cial transparency, and to refrain from the and target of the zero-sum struggles beuse of the military in their oil operations tween the various factions of the Nigerian in the Niger Delta. Ultimately, it is only when the democratic elite, that seek to capture and retain power at any cost, as a and citizenship rights of the indigenes of the Niger Delta are guarantee for monopoly control of vast oil resources, personunderpinned by a socially just and participatory social conal wealth, patronage and access to the global political economy. tract between them and a popular democratic Nigerian nation Any challenge to federal monopoly control of oil has been restate that sustainable peace will return to the region. buffed, often with force, and since the return to civilian rule in 1999, initially peaceful calls for a re-negotiation of federal control of oil and resistance against the continued exercise of references that control has assumed more militant forms, particularly afCivil Liberties Organisation (CLO) (1996) Ogoni: Trials and Travails, ter the failure of the 2005 constitutional conference to address Lagos: CLO. the demands of representatives of the Niger Delta region for a International Crisis Group (ICG) (2006) The Swamps of Insurgency: 25 per cent share of the proceeds from the oil. Nigeria’s Delta Unrest, Africa Report No. 115-3, August. CONCLUSION: INDIGNIT Y, DEMOCRACY AND CITIZENSHIP
The foregoing shows the complex linkages between oil and the politics of the indigenous ethnic minorities of the people of the Niger Delta. The root of the conflict is the alienation of the people from the proceeds and full benefits of the oil produced from under their land and waters by the Nigerian federal state – to which they belong. The bone of contention therefore is the inequality of access to oil, the denial of full citizenship rights (equality of access, social justice, opportunity and political representation) and the alienation of the oil-producing region from its oil, which is controlled by a distant federal government (based in Abuja), dominated by elites from the (non-oil producing) ethnic majority groups. Yet there are contradictions within the Niger Delta elite and the ranks of the indigenous people of the region. However, the crux of the matter lies in the dangerous conjuncture of the highly centralised control of oil by a transnational and trans-local partnership and its wanton subversion of democracy since 1999, that has eviscerated all efforts towards the expression and imposition of the democratic will of the people, including the representation of the interests of their communities and the democratisation of the inequitable social relations of oil production. The way ahead for Nigeria lies in a return to the principles of true democracy and a more decentralised form of Nigerian federalism. There is also a need to address the high levels of youth unemployment and the poor state of social infrastructure, education and access to basic services, particularly in relation to clean water, health, and transportation. There also has to be a thorough process of building trust and a de-milita6 2 | I N DIG E NOUS P E OP L E S Ω AC A DE M IC E S S AY
Kemedi, von Dimieari (2006) “Fuelling the Violence: Non-State Armed Actors (Militia, Cults, and Gangs) in the Niger Delta”, Institute of International Studies, University of California, Berkeley, The United States Institute for Peace, Washington DC, or Niger Delta, Port Harcourt: Niger Delta Economies of Violence Working Paper no. 10. Naanen, B. (1995) “Oil producing Minorities and the Restructuring of Nigerian Federalism: The Case of Ogoni People”, Journal of Commonwealth and Comparative Politics, Issue 33.1. Obi, C. (2001) The Changing Forms of Identity Politics in Nigeria Under Economic Adjustment: The Case of the Oil Minorities Movement of the Niger Delta, research report no. 119, Uppsala: Nordic Africa Institute. Obi, C. (2004) The Oil Paradox: Reflections on the Violent Dynamics of Petro-Politics and (Mis) Governance in Nigeria’s Niger Delta, Pretoria: African Institute Occasional Paper no. 73. Obi, C. (2005) Environmental Movements in Sub-Saharan Africa: A Political Ecology of Power and Conflict, Civil Society and Social Movements Paper no. 15, Geneva: United Nations Research Institute for Social Development (UNRISD). Obi, C. (2007) “The Struggle for Resource Control in a Petro-state: A Perspective from Nigeria”, in P. Bowles, et al; National Perspectives on Globalisation, Hampshire and New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Robinson, D. (1996) Ogoni: The Struggle Continues, Geneva and Nairobi: World Council of Churches and All-Africa Conference of Churches. Saharareporters (2007) “Interview with Jomo Gbomo: We will Soon Stop Nigerian Oil Exports”, August 1, http://saharareporters.com/www/ interview Saro-Wiwa, K. (1995) A Month and a Day, London: Penguin Books.