Share

1.2

The Courage to Resist:A Tibetan Nun's Prison Struggle

During the 1998 uprisings at Drapchi Prison, 10 Tibetans were tortured to death. A nun who witnessed the protests finally tells her story.----------

Many Tibetans in prison are suffering beyond limit and are in desperate need of support in fighting for their human rights.

I just got out of prison and I know how harsh the conditions there are. When we first arrived, we were given only two timo (small pieces of steamed dough) and a cup of black tea each day. The older prisoners tried to help us.

Cultural Survival Interns

I learned about Cultural Survival while living in Flagstaff, Arizona. I just happened to pick up an edition of the Cultural Survival Quarterly at a used bookstore, and was surprised to find that it was based in Cambridge, Massachusetts—20 miles from the town I grew up in. As an anthropology major interested in indigenous issues, I was attracted to Cultural Survival's mission and goals and couldn't wait to find out how I could contribute. I decided on the spot that I would apply to intern with Cultural Survival when I moved home after graduation.

Cultural Survival's Education Department Update

Cultural Survival chose to focus on the issues and stakeholders surrounding Plan Colombia, a controversial $1.6 billion aid package to fight the war on drugs in Colombia, for its 2001 fall student conference. Plan Peoples: Coca, Plan Colombia, and Indigenous Peoples, took place on December 4th at Harvard University. In attendance were students and teachers from high schools in Massachusetts and Rhode Island along with indigenous representatives from Panama, Bolivia, and Colombia.

Travel Channel's Worst

One of the Travel Channel's most popular shows is World's Best, where the top ten hotels, water parks, islands, and various other places are featured. The first week in the New Year, an episode entitled World's Best Ancient Cultures aired on primetime. "Countdown the most awesome ancient cultures still in existence today. Look history in the eye and discover cultures that have had little or no contact with the modern world."

Included were peoples from every continent, but they often did not distinguish distinct cultural groups, peoples, or regions.

Spending Your Money:Mau Forest Campaign Update

In the fall of 2000 we asked our readers for donations to cover legal fees that will enable the Maasai of Kenya to go to court and protect the Mau Forest. I recently spoke with Meitamei Olol Dapash, director of the Maasai Environmental Re-source Coalition (MERC), to find out how the money has been put to work.

Meitamei: Readers donated about $5000. We've used it to retain two lawyers who filed an injunction temporarily stopping the destruction of the Mau Forest. The first hearing of our case will take place in a few weeks.

Mark: Why is the case necessary?

Appropriate Technology?

Mexico's Western Sierra Madre is a rugged habitat. Pre-Hispanic communal tribes developed there unhindered by outside influences. These tribes—the Huichol of San Sebastián Teponohuaztlán, Santa Catarina Cuexcomatitlán, and San Andrés Cohamiata, as well as the Cora of La Mesa del Nayar—now stand apart from other native Mexican groups because they have remained self-sufficient and impervious to outside pressures to modify their internal patterns of behavior.

Wayward Daughters of the Motherland:Nuns in the Uprisings at Drapchi Prison

After the 1959 Lhasa uprisings, nearly all of Tibet's monasteries and nunneries were destroyed. More than 500,000 monks and nuns were driven from their homes; many were killed, imprisoned, tortured, and forced to disrobe. China's Cultural Revolution barred any religious expression and provided an outlet for further destruction. Religious icons were destroyed and those who disobeyed official decrees were beaten and imprisoned.

Religious restrictions were relaxed during the 1980s, and the Tibetan people began to rebuild their temples and monasteries.

Kenya's Ogiek Face Displacement from Mau Forest

"Settlement of other people in our midst would mean that the Ogiek culture would cease. We will be wiped out."

Jospeh Towett, Chairman, Ogiek Welfare Council

The Ogiek are an indigenous people who have lived in Kenya's Mau forest for hundreds of years. The Kenyan government seems determined to develop this forest despite Ogiek resistance. It intends to claim areas inhabited by the Ogiek and Maasai, displacing 20,000 people to make room for tea plantations, logging, and other commercial concerns.

Pencho's Dream:School Building & Cultural Survival in Tibet

Tucked behind the mountains in the southeastern corner of the Tibetan plateau, Chungba (in Tibetan, Gyong-pa, pinyan Junba) sits in a long valley of green alpine meadows at an altitude of about 3,400 meters. Nearly all of its 3,000 inhabitants still practice their ancestors' way of life—a mixture of terraced farming and pastoralism. Water must still be collected by hand and carried up the mountain every morning. Tele-phones and electricity are amenities still unheard of for residents.

The Fight for Tasmania

Despite popular belief in the extinction of Tasmania's Aborigines (Palawa) after Truganini's death in 1876, the genocidal policies of the British were unsuccessful in completely clearing the land of its indigenous presence.

Syndicate content