Vol. 2 No. 2 (1989)

As this issue of the Fourth World Journal, was going to press, we received a call from Chief George Manuel’s wife, Martene — Chief Manuel died from long-term health complications in a hospital near his Niskonlith home in Shuswap Territory on November 15, 1989. Though saddened by the loss of a dear friend and colleague, we are heartened by the legacy of this great man who changed the world. We dedicate this issue of the Fourth World Journal to Chief George Manuel.

Morillege Partipuny, a member of the Tanzanian parliament and a Maasai, contributed his statement on the human rights situation of some African nations. Partipuny’s statement before the U.N. Working Group on Indigenous Populations in Geneva, Switzerland, is both a strong testimony to Chief Manuel’s vision and proof of Tanzania’s importance to the global dialogue on the rights of Indigenous peoples in Africa.

In False Promises, Ward Churchill of the Creek Nation examines Marxism and its relevance — or irrelevance — to the interests of Fourth World nations. A serious scholar of Marxist ideology, Churchill writes clearly and persuasively about this often thorny subject.

Education is a persistent topic of discussion and debate in the Fourth World. But there is frequently a tension between educational systems imposed on Fourth World peoples versus the educational approaches inherent in distinct cultural systems. Rimell Fm and C.W.I.S. Founding Board Member Carol Minugh present a compelling proposal for community-determined liberal arts education.

The Ainu of Japan suffer from the kind of invisibility promoted by state governments that often afflicts Fourth World nations. In their submission before the U.N. Working Group on Indigenous Peoples, the Ainu Association of Hokkaido presents a troubling picture of a people long submerged. In Japan’s Suppression of Ainu Moshiri, the Ainu Association outlines the historical positions taken by the Japanese government toward the Ainu and presents their views on a new approach for relations between the Japanese and the Ainu. The Ainu Association also outlines, in their submission, Ainu views about proposed revisions to International Labor Organization Convention 107 concerning the treatment of “tribal and semi-tribal peoples.”

Finally, we publish for our readers a contribution by Lummi Indian Nation Chairman Larry Kinley — formerly published in the C.W.I.S. book Indian Self-Government: The Political Status of Tribal Nations in the United States of America. Chairman Kinley presents a thoughtful discussion of what he calls “Potlatch Economics” — how this system once provided for a healthy Lummi economy before contact with Europeans, and how, with modification, Potlatch Economics may once again prove the salvation of the Lummi people.