Indigenous People Quotes - Page 3

• Baldness that appears to be normal is a disease in Europe, almost all of them are bald, and that is because of the things they eat; while among the indigenous peoples there are no bald people, because we eat other things.

  Evo Morales

  Europe, People, Disease

  Evo Morales' speech at the inauguration of conference on climate change in Cochabamba, Bolivia, April 20, 2010.

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• Education will lead to understanding; understanding will lead to action. Education and understanding are going to be key to moving us forward. That's why I take every opportunity I can to try to educate Canadian people on the impact of intergenerational trauma. To tell them how, until 1951, indigenous people weren't allowed to leave the reserve without a permit. That it was illegal for a lawyer to give us advice. It was illegal for us to sell our wood, our cattle, without a permit. I want the next generation to understand we have endured, we have persevered and we are getting stronger.

  Perry Bellegarde

  Moving, Opportunity, People

  Source: www.macleans.ca

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• I would like to quote a very prejudicial doctrine that was handed down by the Supreme Court in 1823. It said that the Indian Nations do not have title to their lands because they weren't Christians. That the first Christian Nations to discover an area of heathen lands has the absolute title. This doctrine should be withdrawn and renounced to establish a new basis for relationship between indigenous peoples and other peoples of the world.

  Floyd Red Crow Westerman

  Christian, Land, World

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

  Nancy Pearcey

  People, Christianity, Idiom

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• One of the movements we have developed is to say that, just as intellectual property rights protect the inventions of individuals, common rights are needed to protect the common intellectual heritage of indigenous peoples. These are rights that are recognized through the Convention on Biological Diversity. We are working to make sure that they become foundations of our jurisprudence.

  Vandana Shiva

  Rights, Diversity, Intellectual

  Source: scottlondon.com

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• The importance of the term "genocide" for many Indigenous Peoples is that it is more than a term or an accusation; it is a word created in the wake of the Shoah in Europe to describe what happens when a people are targeted by a government for extermination, as were the Jews of Europe, and which is the term used in the most important international law related to concerned Indigenous Peoples, as the only international human rights law that pertains specifically to collectivities of people rather than individuals.

  Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz

  Rights, Government, Europe

  Source: www.truth-out.org

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• Haiti was founderd by a righteous revolution in 1804 and became the first black republic. It was the first country to break the chains of slavery, the first to force Emperor Napoleon to retreat, and the only to aid Simón Bolívar in his struggle to liberate the indigenous people and slaves of Latin America from their colonial oppressors.

  Paul Farmer

  Country, Latin, Struggle

  Paul Farmer (2012). “Haiti After the Earthquake”, p.11, PublicAffairs

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• If one looks into the genealogies of many 'old families,' one discovers episodes of slave trafficking, bootlegging, gun running, opium trading, falsified land claims, violent acquisition of water and mineral rights, the extermination of indigenous peoples, sales of shoddy and unsafe goods, public funds used for private speculations, crooked deals in government bonds and vouchers, and payoffs for political favors.

  Michael Parenti

  Running, Gun, Government

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• Let us not be tempted by those who try to find the unique qualities in a particular group. In this case, among South Africa indigenous people, it reflected what has been evidenced throughout the world.

  Nelson Mandela

  Unique, People, Trying

  Source: www.mott.org

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• There are certain regions in the country where the indigenous people eat dogs.

  Jessica Hagedorn

  Country, Dog, People

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• Most governments in Latin America have failed to recognize the rights of indigenous people and their right to their own traditional territories.

  Bianca Jagger

  Latin, America, Rights

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• All definitions of wilderness that exclude people seem to me to be false. African 'wilderness' areas are racist because indigenous people are being cleared out of them so white people can go on holiday there.

  Jay Griffiths

  Holiday, White, People

  "Call of the wild" by Stephen Moss, www.theguardian.com. June 6, 2007.

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• Now is the time to take stock of a painful part of our history. Only then can we move past it. Anything less would render generations of courageous struggle and soul-searching a truly lost cause. A lot of Canadians don't seem to want to hear it. All I can say to them is: try to listen. Open your heart, your mind. The Indian Act and residential schools did a number on us, breaking down Indigenous people, then families, communities, nations. We can learn so much from each other. There is so much to be hopeful for.

  Perry Bellegarde

  Struggle, Moving, Heart

  Source: www.macleans.ca

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• So many indigenous people have said to me that the fundamental difference between Western and indigenous ways of being is that even the most open-minded westerners generally view listening to the natural world as a metaphor, as opposed to the way the world really is. Trees and rocks and rivers really do have things to say to us.

  Derrick Jensen

  Rocks, Views, Rivers

  Derrick Jensen, Aric McBay (2011). “What We Leave Behind”, p.274, Seven Stories Press

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• I am deeply gladdened that 1993 has been delcared the International Year of Indigenous Peoples by the United Nations. It is the first year we have had in five hundred years. This is thanks to the struggle of many untitled, unnamed indigenous brothers who, without understanding international law, patiently walked the corridors asking for some time. Thanks to them this international year has been declared.

  Rigoberta Menchu

  Brother, Struggle, Years

  Source: www.indians.org

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• Look, you are interested in trying to make sure that governments keep a clean environment, have regard for the lifestyles of indigenous peoples, and work for fair trade rules. Well, it's exactly the same for human rights - from non-discrimination to the basic rights to food, safe water, education and health care. We are talking rights not needs. There are standards that governments have signed up to - but nobody is holding them to account.

  Mary Robinson

  Talking, Rights, Government

  Source: www.opendemocracy.net

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• Intellectual traditions emerging from populations that have always been the constitutive other in the development of the properly free citizen - indigenous people, populations labeled physically or mentally unfit, black people, migrants, women, prisoners - have always produced robust critiques of the what Dylan Rodriguez calls "white bourgeois freedom."

  Dean Spade

  White, People, Black

  "On Normal Life". Interview with Natalie Oswin, societyandspace.org. January 15, 2014.

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• And what they believe in real life is complicated. Theodor Koch-Grunberg wrote in his diary that indigenous peoples in the Amazon see these outsiders following in each other's footsteps as the same person, a single soul traversing across several lives. They also see time as something that doesn't proceed inexorably into the future.

  Tom Cole

  Real, Believe, Soul

  "'Serpent' Film Explores, Revives Lost Cultural Knowledge For Colombians". "Weekend Edition Sunday" with Tom Cole, www.npr.org. February 21, 2016.

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• Many years ago, I started a foundation [Wayuu Taya Foundation] to help improve the life of Latin American indigenous people, providing them with food, medical attention, education, and also focusing on sustainability.

  Patricia Velasquez

  Latin, Years, People

  "Patricia Velasquez - Supermodel, Actor and Author". Interview with Maranda Pleasant, nicheandnook.com. October 3, 2015.

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• US law and international human rights law have radically diverged in the past years in terms of the recognition of indigenous people's rights. International human rights law now looks at not whether or not the tribes have formal ownership or legal title in a Western legal conception might have it, but rather they look at the tribe's historical connection to that land.

  Robert A. Williams, Jr.

  Past, Historical, Recognition

  Source: www.truth-out.org

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• If you're an Indian, you could be very anxious about some of the Supreme Court's decisions, some of the decisions of policy makers, so maybe a little bit of irony there. But I think our "Savage Anxieties," when I titled the book, I really wanted to focus people on the challenge that tribes in this country, as well as indigenous peoples around the world, are confronting Western civilization with.

  Robert A. Williams, Jr.

  Country, Book, Thinking

  "Bill Moyers: It's a Non-Stop Land Grab From the American Indians". Interview with Bill Moyers, www.alternet.org. December 26, 2014.

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• The third season of the Leftovers came along and Damon Lindelof sent me the script to Episode 3, and I called him up and thanked him for one of the greatest gifts I've been given. I had that script for almost two months, in the mountains in Idaho, before I even got on a plane and flew to Australia and went to the outback. He also told me to learn about the indigenous people in Australia and learn how to play a didgeridoo. It was just great. It was probably, in many ways, the best acting experience I've ever had.

  Scott Glenn

  People, Acting, Mountain

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• We are at last being recognised as the indigenous people of this country whom must share in its future. This is not a day of national mourning for us. We must leave history behind us and look forward.

  Galarrwuy Yunupingu

  Leadership, Country, People

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• This is a coca leaf. This is not cocaine. This represents the culture of indigenous people of the Andean region.

  Evo Morales

  People, Culture, Cocaine

  "Bolivian President Chews Coca During Speech At UN" by Ryan Grim, www.huffingtonpost.com. April 11, 2009.

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

  Charlie Cook

  Nature, Ideas, Giving

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