Monday, August 18, 2008
Developing Independent Models
The UN Human Rights Council stands as one of the significant obstacles to dynamic political development in the Fourth World. Many individuals and the peoples they represent in the Fourth World have come to believe that the UN Human Rights Council will relieve their pain from the violence of colonialism. It cannot, and it will not.
Fourth World nations have in many parts of the world where colonization has been most intensive suffered from static political development. Political institutions that could have been developed to ensure the emergence of nations have remained non-existent or in infant stages for centuries. The new human rights council does not alleviate this fundamental problem.
Where a people lacks the ability to develop politically, they remain unable to advance their own social, economic and human rights. The age of colonialism has prevented the emergence of politically strong Fourth World nations…the Human Rights Council promises to permanently lock these nations into a cage of political subjugation.
Fourth World nations must look to developing independent models for political and human development such as those represented by Catalunya and Kurdistan. Each has its unique cultural framework, but the notion of nations emerging politically to define systems of law and social relations is obviously potentially universal.
—Rudolph Ryser, Center for World Indigenous Studies
