The UNESCO Courier - Volume 2019, Issue 1, 2019

For indigenous peoples, languages not only identify their origin or membership in a community, they also carry the ethical values of their ancestors – the indigenous knowledge systems that make them one with the land and are crucial to their survival and to the hopes and aspirations of their youth.

Manon Barbeau, it has been said, holds the camera in her heart the way others hold it in their hands. For the last fifteen years, she has invested all her enthusiasm and know-how in Wapikoni, a project that provides young people in indigenous communities with mobile audiovisual production tools. More than a thousand documentaries have been produced as a result, giving visibility to these stigmatized communities. But the achievements of Wapikoni go far beyond the cinema – and beyond Canada.

Isolated in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, midway between the coasts of Chile and Tahiti, the young people of Rapa Nui (Easter Island) use Spanish to connect to the world. They have almost lost the use of their mother tongue, Rapa Nui, which is of Polynesian origin. Only ten per cent of youth master the language today, compared to seventy-six per cent forty years ago. María Virginia Haoa of the Rapa Nui Language Academy sounds the alarm.

As the preferred media for defending the rights of indigenous peoples, community radio stations are not necessarily easily accessible, in spite of commitments made by the state. Many indigenous radio stations have no option but to operate illegally.

Recognized internationally, the indigenous peoples of Africa cannot always count on being granted the same recognition in their own countries. The Fulani Mbororo community, for example, is a long way from fully enjoying its rights, according to one of its strongest advocates, Hindu Oumarou Ibrahim. She is coordinator of the Association des Femmes Peules Autochtones du Chad (AFPAT, the association of indigenous Fulani women of Chad).

An Inuktitut word for sea ice, SIKU today refers to a web platform that is revolutionizing access to the ancient knowledge and current research of communities living in Canada's Arctic zone. A story that began modestly with a few snap-shots of eider ducks struggling for survival on the ice floe has evolved into an extraordinary project over fifteen years, combining the oldest knowledge with the most modern technologies.

The Dong people, a Chinese ethnic minority who have lived for thousands of years in Congjiang county, in the heart of Guizhou province, were ecologists before their time. Centuries ago, they invented an agricultural system that we would term “green” today – producing organic food while preserving the stability and diversity of local ecosystems. The “Rice-Fish-Duck” Symbiotic System is the direct result of their ancestral wisdom.

The territory in Swedish Lapland, where the indigenous Sámi raise their reindeer, is threatened by logging, the railway, dams and urban growth. To survive, the herders have adopted a variety of strategies that range from the partial adaptation of an urban lifestyle, to using their traditional knowledge to accurately understand the state of their pastures.

“For thousands of years our parents have taught us to respect and care for the ocean. But the forces that attack and damage our ocean today are beyond our control to manage,” declares Fuluna Tikoidelaimakotu Tuimoce, a young sailor from Fiji. This is his testimony.

“Poets are not the unacknowledged legislators of the world, and never were and it is a good thing that they should be made to realize this,” writes W.H. Auden, dismissing the famous claim by English poet Percy Bysshe Shelley. Here, in this text written in 1947, the English-American writer questions the limits of freedom and art, their potential and their interactions. Far from the Romantic vision of art that gives it more importance than it actually has, Auden advocates the Shakespearean vision: art holding a mirror to nature.

An expert on human rights in cross-cultural perspectives, An‑Na'im has sought to reconcile his identity as a Sudanese Muslim with his staunch commitment to universal human rights. He argues that human rights should be people-centred, not state-centric. Explaining his controversial views, An-Naim says that he expects opposition to his ideas. “If I'm not resisted, I'm not relevant,” he insists.

It has been nearly a century since Hovhannes Tumanyan lived, but his poems have lost none of their originality, their emotional charge, or their ability to stimulate reflection. Using the form of narrative poems in rhyming verse almost exclusively, the writer forged his own style in the early 1900s, drawing inspiration from the Armenian oral tradition. His work inspired two operas – Anoush by Armen Tigranyan and Almast by Alexander Spendiaryan.

From the cult of the vegetation god Osiris in ancient Egypt to the summer solstice celebrations in Sardinia, Italy, to the Maronite feast of Eid el Burbara in Lebanon and the ceremonies of the Piramalai Kallar in Tamil Nadu, India, the symbol of the sprouted seed plays a central role in many rituals. Wheat, barley, or lentil sprouts are also at the heart of Nowruz – the New Year of the peoples who were once part of the Persian Empire – celebrated each spring by around 300 million people worldwide. But why are the shoots thrown into the water?

Eighty per cent of the world's population is exposed to high levels of threats to water security and a severe water crisis is looming by 2070. Faced with these alarming estimates, the author argues that a business-as-usual attitude will not work. Water management is a scientific issue, but it is also a matter of politics, governance and societal values. A new transdisciplinary science is urgently needed.