The Indigenous Worldview Is Our Only Hope for Survival

[Judi Lynn]

Supporters of Bolivian ex-President Evo Morales shout slogans during a demonstration in Cochabamba, on November 18, 2019.
RONALDO SCHEMIDT / AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES

BY
Four Arrows, Truthout
PUBLISHED
November 28, 2019

“Want a different ethic? Tell a different story.” – Thomas King

The recent U.S.-supported overthrow of Bolivia’s Indigenous president, Evo Morales, is but one example of how endemic anti-Indigenous sentiment is within neoliberal movements. This includes many of us who are influenced by their hegemonic strategies and media, including the Organization of American States, which accepted the legitimacy of right-wing Morales replacement Sen. Jeanine Áñez. In 2013, Áñez tweeted: “I dream of a Bolivia free of satanic indigenous rites” and recently disregarded the comments of Christian right-wing minister Luis Fernando Camacho, who stood next to her when she announced her acceptance of the presidency and said, “Pachamama will never return. Today Christ is returning to the Government Palace. Bolivia is for Christ.”

Morales is a final survivor among the left-leaning Latin American leaders who came to power at the beginning of the 21st century, although his accomplishments as the first Indigenous president of Bolivia represent what is arguably the most remarkable socialist success story of all. However, U.S. corporate-controlled administrations, whether Democrat or Republican, had a hand in the ouster, demise or attempted overthrow of other leaders who supported Indigenous resistance to colonial invasion, such as Hugo Chávez (Venezuela) and his successor Nicolás Maduro, Daniel Ortega (Nicaragua), and Rafael Correa (Ecuador), Jacobo Árbenz (Guatemala), Salvador Allende (Chile), Alan García and Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (Brazil).

Just as the invasion of Indigenous North America and the resultant slaughter of Indigenous peoples may have changed Earth’s climate into a little ice age by 1600, today’s land theft, illegal mining and attacks on Indigenous sovereignty is a significant cause of global warming. According to the 2019 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report, “Indigenous and local knowledge can contribute to overcoming the combined challenges of climate change, food security, biodiversity conservation, and combating desertification and land degradation.” But instead of allowing Indigenous peoples to continue preserving the last of Earth’s biodiversity, they are being labeled as “terrorists” the world over for defending their trees, water and ways of living. In 2018, an average of three Indigenous people per week were reported killed, with the highest numbers in the Philippines, Colombia, India and Brazil. Keeping in mind that although Indigenous peoples represent only 5 percent of the Earth’s population, they control the land on which 80 percent of the Earth’s biodiversity exists.

We know that the attacks on movements that defend land are all about greed and profit from its exploitation. I argue that this battle over worldview is ultimately why Morales had to leave Bolivia. The Indigenous peoples have a chance of saving the forests and preventing the mining, logging and oil operations.

More:
https://truthout.org/articles/the-indigenous-worldview-is-our-only-hope-for-survival/

[2naSalit]

1. It's the only one that makes sense. ...nt

[caraher]

2. That sounds right

Not sure how one goes about changing people in this way though. I have plenty to unlearn myself.

[hunter]

3. We ought to be paying people to experiment with lifestyles having a small environmental footprint.

What we now call "economic productivity" isn't productivity at all, rather it's a measure of the damage we are doing to our planet's natural environment and our own human spirit.

Traditional work ethics and consumer economies are not sustainable. They are destroying us.

Happy, satisfying, sustainable lifestyles having very small environmental footprints will be urban, not rural. We need to stop romanticizing rural lifestyles. Mother Earth News style homesteading has a huge environmental footprint. There's simply too many humans for that.

Drawing people into clean healthy cities is a good thing.

[The_jackalope]

4. Happy, satisfying, sustainable lifestyles

Were the name of the game for hundreds of thousands of years. And every last one of them was rural, tribal and indigenous.

But about 6,000 years ago humanity seems to have passed through a one-way door. On the other side was the culture of urbanized civilization, that put the halcyon past out of reach.

Unless, of course, urbanized civilization collapses to such an extent that we are forced out of this Garden of Techno-Industrial Eden, and back onto the land with our only tools being fingernails and pointy sticks. Then happy days will be here again.

Or not.