Who are the Indigenous People today?

Picture: Thousands of people in Gaza protest their right towards attaining passports. The predicament of self-identity and it's co-relation with citizenship and attaining a passport continues ... (See: Passport for all in Gaza? http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/opinion/2011/06/2011615112156348594.html )

Today on Twitter, people were flipping their profile pictures upside down to support those without citizenship. We live in a world today more intrinsic and complex than ever before. Our borders are tighter as border-security focuses on keeping those (without citizenship / or unwanted refugees, stateless, "other" persons) out of their lands. It was less than a century ago that borders, countries and citizenship to a bounded land was in existence. More than ever, those whom were lost in the idenity/citizenship scuffle were the indigenous peoples, comprising over 350 million individuals and 5000 ehno-linguistic groups in the world today.

Who exactly are indigenous peoples?

According to Jose A. Martinez Cobo, the Special Rapporteur appointed in 1971 by UNHCR to conduct a study of indigenous peoples, recognized their "land-rootedness" as the primary marker of indigenous identity:

Indigenous communities, peoples and nations are those which, having a historical continuity with pre-invasion and pre-colonial societies that developed on their territories, consider themselves distinct from other sectors of the societies now prevailing in those territories, or parts of them. They form at present non-dominant sectors of society and are determined to preserve, develop and transmit to future generations their ancestral territories, and their ethnic identity, as the basis of their continued existence as peoples, in accordance with their own cultural patterns, social institutions and legal systems.

Essentially, their fundamental survival as a community and as a distinctive people is inextricably tied to their right to occupy their traditional and original communities.

Furthermore, according to the UN on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples to the Sub-Commission on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities ...

Article 3:  Indigenous peoples have the right of self-determination. By virtue of that right they freely determine their political status and freely pursue their economic, social and cultural development. 

 But as noted by Benedict Anderson's Imagined Communities and as discussed in, "Indigenous Peoples' Rights to Self-Determination and Territoriality" by Maivan Clech Lam:

A complex issue concerns the relationship between culture and citizenship. Since the French Revolution, modern states have tried to solidify their hold over citizens by merging the two affiliations -- one thick (culture), the other thin (citizenship). The attempt is misdirected in general, and especially unsuccessful in the case of indigenous peoples.

Millions of people today are those that have been uprooted, forcefully displaced and even ethnically cleansed. Our recognition and the awareness of such a problematic sheds light unto those that deserve their ultimate human right and human dignity through simple recognition. It may be insufficient to simply "flip" our photos on Twitter ... but when international law can't bring it back ... a collective movement and will to stand with a just act will bring through an effect ...

As a twitter follower noted:

@ThurayaDajaniСУРЭЯ

@noora888 that puzzles me, y do foreigners get to hv citizenships in our countries and some of us don't. that's so #unfair

....

She's right ... it's not fair..

Stand in solidarity and flip your picture. 

Falesteen

This poem was written on March 7th, 2009. Recently, after watching 'Miral', I pulled out this poem, reminding me of the time when I was denied entry into the West Bank. Miral, was more than just a movie that spoke to us of the continued protracted struggle Palestinians are hanging on to for over 63 years of occupation. It's about the struggle that lives on, of the Palestinians living inside in the midst of occupation, curfews, detentions, and mistreatment. This poem represents a tiny element of what Palestine, Falesteen means to me.

___________________________________________________________

In you I am
existing in the soils
growing in the very sands that witnessed the sacrifices of its roots

In you I am
preserved in the ashes -- allowing it to raise higher and stronger beyond the face of death
for the innocent beloved laughs -- that once hovered over the skies of Falesteen

In you I am
in the eyes that glistened dreams that spoke beyond bombs and bullets
rising beyond the trenches that is suffocating her

In you I am
eyes that only see straight to the walls
that testify the pain in the bullet holes that peaks through these frail curtains,
giving light to the darkness

In you I am
breathing a light that only sheds through in the falls of curfews


at the position of limited mobility --- a checkpoint questions my right to my nativeness
Identity number 56789039 -- sorry, A-rabs not allowed
invalid entry --- denied entrance -- stolen right to my al3awda
sorry ma’am -- security measures -- decision is not in our hands -- move along now
but where to? frozen in the inbounds of undesignated territories
inhaling the airs that cross border controls, checkpoints, interrogations and check ups
crossing over to calm my patience -- rest assure I will return, we will return
bewildered in the animosity of my existence -- I move along now, next window please
Citizenship ? ancestral origin? Religion? relations? reasons? denials of self-determined rights?
colonial imprints fill its memories of an indigenous right that yearns to return
digging through the layers that form the misconceptions of what forms that which make me
unaware that my search will retrieve the hidden destruction --
concealing slaughters that sting the aromatic surfaces of erased he-stories and her-stories

....

Falesteen exists in you...
zaytoon -- dripping in the tears that feed its undeniably salient growth
pillars -- that read erased territories: Qatamon, Yafa - bride of Palestine, Haifa, Bir Il Sabi3, Barbara, - standing backbones -- Majdal, Khan Yunis, Gaza, Tulkarem, Ramllah, Nablus, Qalqilya..
on and on and on -- miles and miles your gracious body held me -- years before i was birthed
bounded by the umbilical cords of your soil, I am alive, re-defined, in existence
exiled -- a Diaspora -- protracted -- prolonged -- and still waiting,
never forgiving and never forgetting

.....

Today and everyday,
the Mediterranean captures a portrait of your stillness --
reflected off the hot sun that rays hope past the destitute of its struggle
hiding away with the departure of another exiled sunset...

and in the fading images of what was, what is, and what will be...
I am in you...