Confederation of Indigenous nations of the Middle East and North Africa (CINMENA) “For every problem, there is an acceptable solution,” — every optimist repeats while looking to the abyss of a crisis. Fourth World peoples are eternally optimistic, acting to devise new and creative solutions to intractable problems. Some of the most conservative societies among the more than five thousand nations demonstrate confidence in their ability to adapt—to meet environmental, social, economic, and cultural change. Yes, these nations are, by their nature and success over hundreds of generations, “conservative.” They are cautious, studied, traditional, and able to make changes incrementally.
I have noted in these pages the various crisis of nature and troubles experienced by Fourth World nations resulting from human actions or inactions over the years. Indeed, most disruptions, forced dislocations, and violence committed against Fourth World nations are perpetrated by human actions or indolence. Some examples of crises perpetrated against Fourth World nations by human actions usually involve a state, corporation, or other Fourth World nations aggressively entering ancestral territories to use land or resources without a nation’s consent. While aggressions against these nations have dominated for the last 530 years in the last four years, these examples call for our attention:
At the end of 2021, more than 89 million people have been forcibly displaced because of persecution, conflict, violence, and human rights violations, including genocide in Syria, Venezuela, Afghanistan, South Sudan, and Burma. Children make up 41% of the displaced peoples. Perhaps the most telling measure of threats and dangers nations must endure in the 21st century are states’ governments that combine their corruption and instability with the profit motives of transnational corporations engaged in resource extraction, deforestation, and environmental destruction. States such as the Democratic Republic of Congo, Yemen, Syria, Chad, South Sudan, Somalia, and Iraq hold within their boundaries the ancestral territories of more than 450 Fourth World nations. As with virtually all countries, corporate resource exploitation is primarily carried out inside the nations’ territories for the financial benefit of political leaders and profit-making businesses.
Fourth World nations have themselves on which to depend on defending against the crises—natural and human-made. Each nation must develop its defenses, organize alliances, and create new international mechanisms to establish new rules for the conduct of relations between nations, states, and corporations. The Fourth World Journal has served nations by offering analysis and information applying traditional knowledge systems to advance traditional healing arts and sciences and formulate strategies and practices to effect constructive results for the present and future of nations.
We continue this tradition in this issue with practical and concrete essays by CWIS Associate Scholars and some of the finest minds of and in support of the Fourth World. We publish several articles in this issue in English and Spanish to benefit of our global audience.
Public Information Bureau Chief for the government of Ezidikhan Patrick Harrigan contributes the hopeful and information-packed article Ezidikhan Rises from Genocide: 66 Indigenous Nations Establish Middle East/North Africa Confederation describing the proactive work of Prime Minister Barjis Soso Khalaf, Justice Minister Nallein Sowilo, and the Governing Council to restore the Yezidi after the vicious Islamic State (ISIS) and genocidal attack in 2014. Harrigan reveals subsequent attacks and occupations by the Kurdish Regional government and bombings of Yezidi villages by the government of Turkey as well. This remarkable account demonstrates the resilience of this ancient nation as it formed a central government over forty-two villages and began working to establish a legal mechanism to establish accountability for crimes committed it.
Moroccan Anti-Atlas Amazigh Children’s Play and toy Heritage in a Developmental and Intercultural Perspective is a further elaboration of the work of Belgian scholar Jean-Pierre Rossie. He expands on his 2019 FWJ published article “Amazigh Children’s toys and Play Cultures.” In this article, Rossie further advances his goal as a researcher and author of children’s toy and play heritage in Northern Africa, reflecting how he seeks to encourage the union of the toys and play onto “humanity’s tangible and intangible heritage.” This article is a beautiful account of play and invention.
Associate Scholar Dr. Amy Eisenberg begins her article with a physical injury in Tuhke Koaros mie Koasoaiepe de Poadope – Every Tree has a Story and tells a story of a traditional healer’s sharing and the bountiful knowledge of foods and medicines in Pohnpei, Micronesia. Dr. Eisenberg’s beautifully written and illustrated tale of recovery and of plants and treatment with the help of traditional healer Sounwini Lepen Lison Leon Aldis urges one to realize how valuable and profound ancient knowledge is to the health and well-being of people. Relatively small communities of Fourth World peoples remain a bountiful store of wisdom that continues to benefit human societies.
Sidestepping the Climate Change Juggernaut: The Potential for Staple Crop Polycultures and Passive Solar Greenhouse Systems to Safeguard Food Security is the title of Cora Moran’s most recent article explaining the benefits and practical ideas behind permaculture methods that offer an alternative to mechanical agriculture for the efficient production of staple food crops. Like the practice of the Fourth World system of kalhaculture, Moran’s discussion of permaculture examines how the method may aid in “sidestepping” the adverse effects of climate change—that she considers unstoppable now. Her discussion explores approaches to adaptation that are essential to needed to secure human survival.
In the last issue of the Fourth World Journal (Vol. 21 N.2), the FWJ published five experts’ analyses effects of resource extraction in ancestral territories by the CWIS-sponsored Extractive Industries Initiative Panel (EII Panel). They explored six possible strategies for Fourth World nations to employ to control, regulate or prevent transnational resource extraction corporations from entering or seeking to enter ancestral territories. CWIS Chair and Executive Director Rudolph C. Rÿser amplifies the Panel’s analysis in this peer-reviewed article. He asks how high-tech economies seeking to replace oil and gas with electrical energy contribute to climate change and human rights violations if they want to mine minerals from Fourth World territories. In Green Energy Mining and Indigenous Peoples’ Troubles: Negotiating the Shift from the Carbon Economy to Green Energy with FPIC, Rÿser discusses how unregulated mining and resource exploitation in Fourth World ancestral territories is often more damaging to the environment, the climate, and Fourth World peoples. Obtaining the Fourth World nations’ consent to enter and access land and resources under rules defined by the nations is essential to curb unrestrained extraction and consumption of metals, minerals, and lands that make electronic energy possible.
The library is dedicated to the memory of Secwepemc Chief George Manuel (1921-1989), to the nations of the Fourth World and to the elders and generations to come.
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