Africa the mother land
Even after the end of the Cold War, most African
countries remain tied and stuck with and in the colonial definations, plagued by poor governance, corruption and poverty.
For the most part wealth from such resources as oil, timber and
diamonds has enriched only elites, and struggle for its control has
fed many conflicts – including those in Angola, Sudan,kenya, sudan, Nigeria, the
Democratic Republic of Congo and most of the well resourced countries – where elites have appealed to tribal
and religious loyalty to gain popular support for their battles. The
continent has been plagued by the HIV/AIDS pandemic, malaria and
other health crises, even as many populations still lack access to
medical facilities, clean water, and opportunities for education and
employment. As Africans have faced new challenges, from increased
global economic competition to worsening drought bought on by global
warming, their governments have often failed them. Some governments
have comprehensively failed to assert state authority, as in Somalia
and large swathes of the Democratic Republic of Congo.
The marginalization of Islamic groups in parts of
Northern, Eastern and Western Africa has provided fertile ground for
extremist movements, and prompted a trend in the international
approach to Africa that stresses the ‘global war on terror’. To
the extent that this effort contributes to the further
marginalization of Muslim communities, it is likely to be
counter-productive.
Across the continent, neglect and hostility
disproportionately targets minority peoples. The most marginalized
peoples are often indigenous groups such as the Berber of North
Africa,Maasai and the Ogiek of east africa and the Batwa of Central Africa. In Botswana, a country where
natural resource management has led to the development of a middle
class, indigenous San peoples face government policies of
dispossession and discrimination.
The notion of ‘minorities’ in Africa can be
difficult, as often entire country populations consist of numerical
minorities; Zambia, for instance, has around 70 ethno-linguistic
groups, none of which constitutes a majority. In Burundi, Hutu feel
marginalized because they have often lived under Tutsi-dominated
regimes that carried out massacres of Hutu. Conversely, in Rwanda,
Tutsi simultaneously perceive themselves as vulnerable to Hutu
domination through mass violence—a threat to which the 1994 Rwandan
genocide attests. Some African minorities are reluctant to be seen as
such, as the label is so clearly associated with marginalization. The
minority rights approach, however, aims to overcome this
marginalization through its stress on equality, participation, and
empowerment of non-dominant groups. The Minority Rights Group is
working with marginalized pastoralist minorities in Eastern Africa
and indigenous peoples in the Great Lakes region. One key issue for
many minorities is land rights. Non-dominant minorities in Africa to
make way often find themselves pushed off their ancestral land to
make way for tourism or business developments which exploit natural
resources, such as forests or gem-mining. MRG has been seeking to
support minorities, through its legal cases programme, and its
Trouble in Paradise campaign, to bring these issues to a wider
audience.
America
Most indigenous Americans continue to face a stark choice between total assimilation
and extreme marginalization. In recent decades, particularly in North
America, Native Americans have become increasingly integrated and
urbanized away from their ancestral lands. Many who have not
assimilated confront pressure from exploitation of natural
resources—through commercial interests and land settlement—that
has continued to encroach on their land rights. Some communities and
their leaders still suffer from violence, including through the
targeting by large landowners as in Honduras, Mexico and Bolivia, and
through proximity to ongoing war, as is the case for the Wayuú along
Venezuela’s border with Colombia. Latin American governments have
largely failed to prosecute the perpetrators of violence against
indigenous peoples, including such large-scale killings as the
Guatemalan genocide of nearly 200,000 indigenous people during the
1980s. Growing indigenous consciousness and organization have offered
some recent hope for improvements. And although such countries as
Chile have been slow to seek equal representation of indigenous
people, Bolivia’s new president is of indigenous origin, and Canada
has made impressive strides in granting increased autonomy,
self-government, land rights and resource control to indigenous
groups even though the still continue to explre and support the
displacement and exploitation of natives in other countries.
Middle east.
Overlaying the religious diversity of the Middle East is a patchwork of ethnic
minorities among an Arab majority in most countries, the European and
Oriental Jewish majority in Israel, and the Persian majority in Iran.
In Iraq, Kurds, Turkmen, Armenians, Circassians, and other ethnic
minorities have been targeted by violence, sometimes by Arab
authorities, but also at the hands of regional authorities—for
example attacks on Turkmen in Kurdish-dominated northern Iraq.
Suspicion of Kurdish separatism also has led to state discrimination
against them in Syria and Iran.
From Climate change, tourism, foreign designed development,resource industry, litter and many other modern man´s inventions based on fear, the existance of the Maasai and many other minority communities is at risk and a recipe for most violence in our world.
The Maasai are nomadic and rely entirely on their cattle´s well being to preserve their way of life. That is to say, they move with their cattle as grazing conditions change. For thousands of years they have been part of the natural circle of life, moving as the wildebeest do over thousands of kilometres among the lion, the rhino, the giraffe and all the other members of the natural community.
Their cattle and nature provide for all their needs. They protect their herds from predators and lead them to green pastures as the seasons change. Since the arrival of civilization, however, the Western influenced lifestyle of settlement has steadily been encroaching on their land, giving the Maasai less and less freedom to roam.
A ninety-nine year lease on their remaining grazing land expired last year, and unfortunately the government in Kenya thought it best to give this natural wilderness up for development.
If development (negative) goes ahead the Maasai and all the native cultures will die for a fact... We are laying down our egos and asking, is peace not a life long intention for human kind´s existance and civilization?
"FREEDOM OF MOVEMENT IN SEARCH OF SPIRITUAL GROWTH AND ENHANCEMENT HAS TO BE ALLOWED AND ANY OTHER FOREIGN REASON DENIED THE CHANCE TO DEFINE LIFE, FOR THE NATIVES."
