-Preface- Johar After 25 years of struggle, we succeeded in securing the place for ourselves in UN in the form of The Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples which is a non-legally-binding resolution passed by the United Nations, General Assembly in 2007. It delineates and sets minimum standards to denes collective rights of Indigenous peoples, including their ownership rights to cultural and ceremonial expression, identity, language, employment, health, education and other issues. It "emphasizes the rights of Indigenous peoples to maintain and strengthen their own institutions, cultures and traditions, and to pursue their development in keeping with their own needs and aspirations". It "prohibits discrimination against indigenous peoples", and it "promotes their full and effective participation in all matters that concern them and their right to remain distinct and to pursue their own visions of economic and social development". According to Article 31, there is a major emphasis that the indigenous peoples will be able to protect their cultural heritage and other aspects of their culture and tradition in order to preserve their heritage from over- controlling nation-states. .UNDRIP codies "Indigenous historical grievances, contemporary challenges and socio-economic, political and cultural aspirations" and is the "culmination of generations-long efforts by Indigenous organizations to get international attention, to secure recognition for their aspirations, and to generate support for their political agendas. Due to the past and ongoing violence and abuse of Indigenous individuals and peoples, the UN created this non-legally binding declaration as an aspiration for how Indigenous individuals and peoples should be treated. References from UNDRIP:- Rights of indigenous individuals and people to protect their culture through practices, languages, education, media, and religion (Articles 9 - 15, 16, 25, and 31) Asserts the indigenous peoples’ right to own type of governance and to economic development (Articles 17 - 21, 35 -37) Health rights (Article 23 -24) Protection of subgroups ex. elderly, women, and children (Article 22) Land rights from ownership (including reparation, or return of land i.e. Article 10) to environmental issues (Articles 26 -30, and 32) Dictates how this document should be understood in future reference (Articles 38 - 46). Therefore , this indigenous day 2020 we stand as one voice demanding for the rights given to us through UNDRIP to which nations agreed mutually. We are not asking for any new rights but we want the proper grant and implementation of rights to restore our culture and identity. We will ght together for our rights, for our future. Jai Adiwasi -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Special Greetings From - Fr. S. Emmanuel SJ. National Adviser of AICUF Happy Indigenous Day to all the AYCM members. Special greetings to activists of tribal movements. --------------------------------------------- - - Jenny Toppo Full-timer, Jharkhand AICUF Our forefathers cleared the forest and settled agricultural lands so their children don’t die out of hunger. They created a society of togetherness with healthy environment and handed over it to us. Because of that heritage we have our identity. Yes the present generation is suffering and the struggle is hard but it is the calling for youths to face every challenge with strong intent. We have to protect our ancestral legacy for coming generations to inherit. Aim and willingness will give new energy to stand our voices out. Cultural values with non-violence are our shield while education is our axe. We have to keep going until the justice is done! Jai Adiwasi! 1 Fr. Jojo M Fung International Chaplain of IMCS World Indigenous Peoples’ Day August 9, 2020. INDIGENOUS PEOPLES: SPIRIT OF RESILIENCE & REGENERATION The pandemic is a portal for our world to pass through. This is the portal that our world journey through with the 476 million Indigenous Peoples worldwide, located in over 90 countries, who make up over 6 percent of the global population with the spirit of regeneration and resilience. The spirit of resilience is integral to the religiocultural wisdom of indigenous peoples. This perennial wisdom is embedded in the subversive spiritualities and cosmovision of indigenous peoples. This is the wisdom that propounds that all life on earth is spirited and therefore sacred. All matters that constitute the earth, while material, are embodiment of and enlivened by the Spirit. Matters are therefore spiritual. Hence Mother Earth is enspirited and sacred. This sacred wisdom on the spirit of resilience and regeneration has made possible the sacred sustainability of our common home. The spirit of resilience and regeneration come from the living and enchanted worlds of indigenous Peoples. More speci ically, indigenous resilience and regeneration comes from the accompaniment of the other-than-human beings which Querida Amazon refers to as "various beings" (QA 42). These beings are known as the Creator or Grandfather, the spirits, deities, demons, and the gods/goddesses. Every aspect of the world is alive with spirits and communicates to each other. Unfortunately, modernity has intentionally relinquished these spiritualities to the realm of culture and systemically erased these beliefs as superstitious world of spirits and shamans. But the pandemic has alerted the world to re-value the subversive beliefs in indigenous spiritualities. Our Christian faith needs to revalue the spirit world too. Scripture informs us that God is Spirit (John 4:24), God’s Spirit is everywhere as God is everywhere in creation, in the universe and our planet earth. That is why John Gospel 3:8 states, “The Spirit blows where God is”, in other words, everywhere. So God’s Spirit is with the ancestors, is present in the animals, the forests, the humans, the insects, the land, the plant and the water. The spirit of 2 the tiger, of the tree, of the river is the localized presence of God’s Spirit and these localized spirits participate in the power of God’s Spirit. The presence of God’s Spirit in the local spirits in the natural world makes everyone and everything around us sacred and divine. So the world of indigenous people, according the Pope Francis in Querida Amazonia, is “charged with spiritual meaning” and “can be used to advantage and not always considered a pagan error.” 1 More speci ically, resilience comes from the bio-religiocultural regeneration of the pacha in the Andean indigenous communities. In this cosmos, humans are mere members of an earthly space called pacha Pacha is but one particular location in the cosmos. All human beings, non-human entities - the rocks, the waters, the sun, the moon, and the stars, as well as the plants, the animals and the humans and other-than-human beings - deities and spirits, are members of a single interconnected community. Communication among these inhabitants of the pacha takes place through a multiplicity of signs. Caring and nurturing, being nurtured and cared for by each other is crucial for Buen vivir/ living well, a life in harmony in the cosmos. 2 1 Pope Francis, „Post-Synodal Exhortation Querida Amazonia to the People of God and All Persons of Goodwill,‟ http://www.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/apost_ex hortations/documents/papa-francesco_esortazione- ap_20200202_querida-amazonia.html, accessed February 6, 2020. 2 Pramod Parajuli, “Subversive Spiritualities: How Rituals Enact the World, by Frederique Apffel-Marglin (Oxford University Press, 2011)— A Review Essay,” accessed May 20, 2020, http://www.susted.com/wordpress/content/subversive -spiritualities-how-rituals-enact-the-world-by- Resilience and regeneration is borne of the interconnected relation between indigenous women and pachamama /Mother Earth, the soil, fertility, waters, and life. In the Andean world, the chacra /cultivated ield is revered as a sacred place, with an intimate connection to women. This bond is ritualized during the festive ritual of Ispallas Only fertile women enter the chacra without endangering the chacra ’s generative power. Akin to the root crops, all women are acknowledged as Ispalla during the festivity. Women during pregnancy is likened to T’alla which is pachamama who is pregnant from around January to March. Women can enter the storage place, the phina , where the harvest is kept. Women plant the seeds. Men are the grains/ mucho , on the stalks of the plants, above the soil/the earth They are forbidden to touch the phina. The luidity between the pacha and humans ensures the resilience that also makes possible the bio-religiocultural regeneration of the indigenous Andean world, the women and pachamama In ritual performances, the potentials in a person, who is a part of the pacha , with the animals, plants and humans, become actualized. A person becomes a plant, a seed, an animal, a mountain, constellations, and a woman, a man and vice versa. The ritual enactment affects everything and everyone in the pacha , the sachamama (mother forest) and the pachamama and the cosmos and vice versa. Indeed, ritual celebrations are primal sources of indigenous resilience and frederique-apffel-marglin-oxford-university-press- 2011-a-review-essay_2012_03/ 3 regeneration. The power of rituals becomes ef icacious at the intersection of nature, spirit world and the humans. Rituals make the earth, all lives and all matters sacred. In fact, rituals enable the divine to enact the world, nature to enact all humans and all lives and vice versa. In this interdependent interconnected relations, the humans approach the spirit world with creaturely humility. In humility, the humans seek permission and forgiveness from the spirit world through ritual performance. After that, they yoke the buffaloes for ploughing, prepare the dye, the seeds, and the soil, and they sow, harvest, store and engage in the different seasonal agro-activities. The Karen ritual, “Kroh Yee” (village closure), performed to ward off Covid-19, demonstrates this reciprocal enactment by which the Creator, ancestors, and the nature spirits protects the humans as humans protect the natural world in which the Karen village communities are located. 3 Ritual celebrations, with chanting and drumming, with communication with the Creator, the ancestors and nature spirits, have been generating energy for the indigenous communities. The generative power sustains the spirit of resilience. The spirit of resilience emboldens indigenous communities around the world to resist the extractive industries, 3 “ Kroh Yee” is a ritual that was used seventy years ago among the highland Karen communities during the cholera outbreak. Local knowledge holders believe that there would be enough food for annual consumption during the pandemic lockdown after the ritual blockage of the villages, but the town‟s people may run away to the forest for their survival. See “Karen people revived their ancient ritual, “Kroh Yee” (village closure) to fight against Covid -19,” accessed May 20, 2020, https://imnvoices.com/karen- people-revived-their-ancient-ritual-kroh-yee-village- closure-to-fight-against-covid-19/ countervail the goons and militia they deployed. Plural indigenous communities have mass-protested when the sacredness of ancestral homeland has been violated, their leaders arrested and detained, their voices muted, their lives wasted, their dignity and rights as the generation today and tomorrow, trampled. Ritual celebrations, with the offerings, sacred chants, dances and songs, express communal gratitude to pachamama , the Creator, the ancestral and nature spirits. Gratitude for the cosmic harmony, the buen vivir/ living well, made possible by an intimate balance in the sacred web of life. It is an equilibrium between human world, plant world, animal world, spirit world and cosmic world. There is cosmic balance because the needs of the deities, the non-human worlds, and the livelihood needs, dignity and rights one of the most economically impoverished and politically violated people are duly met. Ultimately, this ritualized cosmic harmony generates the spirit of resilience from the subversive indigenous spiritualities. The ritual celebration of cosmic harmony generates the life-giving power. This spirit power makes possible the bio-religiocultural regeneration and sacred sustainability of our indigenous communities in the post pandemic world. This world across the portal offers those with eyes to see, a glimpse of a New Earth with a New Heaven that signi ies the inbreaking of the New Creation in our space and time, today and tomorrow. 4 5 6 - Edouard Karoue Former President, IMCS Dear friends, on the occasion of the International days of World’s Indigenous Peoples, I join with joy in this commemoration which reminds us all, of a form of existence which reects the intrinsic nature of human who is called to be in close connection with his environment and more broadly his living environment. Therefore, the day of 9th August not only reminds us of a community. It also reminds us of identity and a lifestyle that transcends territorial and political units while inviting us to elevate ourselves, as much as possible, to serve as a tool for what Pope Francis has called integral ecology At this time when we face various challenges related to climate change and environmental degradation as well as the conicts sown by the individualism that is reected in current economic and political models, indigenous communities are, in themselves, a place of learning solidarity, respect for nature, the protection of what denes natural life on earth and self-determination which is a universally enshrined right. The status and the lifestyle dening the indigenous community, universally recognized as specic, are also imposed as a collective right. In this sense, I encourage all initiatives that support the ght for justice and dignity as well as the rights of all human beings without distinction of their culture and their beliefs, etc. I join my hands with those of AICUF Jharkhand members in claiming the rights of their community and celebrate with them the efforts, productive or not, that express the determination for the survival and resilience of Indigenous communities. Happy celebration to all ---------------------------------------------- - Tomson Sabungan Silalahi PMKRI, Indonesia The world should be grateful for indigenous peoples around the world; they are people who consistently protect the environment. Be thankful that we still have oxygen that we breathe, before one day (hopefully not) we will carry each oxygen cylinder to survive. ---------------------------------------------- - Sangla Don Bosco Unit (AICUF) MANIPUR. Happy indigenous peoples day. The international day of the world’s indigenous people is observed on 9 August each year to raise awareness and protect the rights of the world’s indigenous population. This event also recognizes the achievements and contributions that indigenous people make to improve world issues such as environmental protection. As we celebrate this day we remember the people who rst called this land as their home. We remember the struggles and traditions heritage and culture of the indigenous people. On this day, and throughout National Indigenous History, we recognize the important contributions indigenous people have made and continue to make our country. Thank you for each family and each community. Thank you for our leaders in each community who guide us and support us especially during these challenging days. Happy Indigenous Peoples Day! ---------------------------------------------- - Collins Lungu President of NMCS, Zambia "A home has many members, most of which are gone way before us. They live on in the memory we hold within, the story we share about the world they left for us. To keep this journey going we protect a home we have known for generations. Our home, our community will always be our heritage. 7 Let us protect our indigenous communities; they have a story to tell." ---------------------------------------------- - Zione Luhanga, Pan-African Veterinary Vaccine Centre of the African Union, Malawi Armoured with especial values of Sustainable life styles, respect, Humility and tolerance, the indigenous peoples helped shape mother earth, "Our common home", into what we know today, with practices that are part of the cultural Identity and helps forge a sense of connection with their world. It is therefore, not enough to only show up in solidarity and speak out against the injustices the indigenous peoples face, we have to do what is within us to break such injustices and differentiate ourselves from the opponents of the indigene. ---------------------------------------------- - Patrick Drishya President of BCSM (Bangladesh Catholic Student movement) For JHARKHAND AICUF It is estimated that there are more than 370 million indigenous people spread across 70 countries worldwide. Practicing unique traditions, they retain social, cultural, economic, and political characteristics that are distinct from those of the dominant societies in which they live. Spread across the world from the Arctic to the South Pacic, they are the descendants of those who inhabited a country or a geographical region at the time when people of different cultures or ethnic origins. Indigenous peoples are the holders of unique languages, knowledge systems, and beliefs and possess invaluable 8 knowledge of practices for the sustainable management of natural resources. Indigenous peoples hold their diverse concepts of development, based on their traditional values, visions, needs, and priorities. Even though the indigenous people are the ones who are the rightful owners of the lands, they were displaced and driven away from their ancestral homelands. Today, these indigenous populations throughout the globe are facing similar problems and are ghting for their land and way of life. At present they are facing hardships in education, employment, and even basic human rights. It is rightly said that it is the indigenous community who are the best protectors of nature. Torture towards them is the torture towards the ecology. In this ‘International Day of the World's Indigenous Peoples 2020,’ we urge all the people to come forward to raise their voice against the suppression towards the indigenous community. We ask them to stand beside them and give to them what is rightfully theirs. May the International Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples 2020 be the milestone for the development in the lifestyle of the suffering people. ---------------------------------------------- 9 - Adrian Pereira Executive Director North-South Initiative North-South Initiative (NSI) would like to share solidarity greetings to the AICUF Jharkhand on behalf of Indigenous Day. The role of Indigenous people is so vital today that they hold indigenous knowledge and wisdom on how to manage and even repair the damage towards Mother Earth. We truly are running out of time to ensure we do not do irreversible damage to the planet and the Indigenous people hold the key to this. We also call on all governments to respect Indigenous lands and ensure they are kept free from so-called development which only brings destruction due to human greed. Last but not least, we wish AICUF Jharkhand all the best in inspiring a new generation of Indigenous leaders who have the leadership, skills and heart to ensure our planet gets the justice she deserves. As more and more political leaders fail us, all the more the student movements should rise to the occasion and ll those gaps. The student movements should also be ready to face the repercussions of challenging unjust structures and hence, must be resilient for the long ght ahead. Long Live International Solidarity!!! ---------------------------------------------- 10 11 12 13 अबुआ िदशुम अबुआ राज