Voice Of Indigenous Peoples: Native People Address the United Nations

"It seems that we are living in a time of prophesies, a time of definitions and decisions. We are the generations with the responsibility and option to choose the path of life with a future for our children or the life and the path that defies the laws of regeneration". (Oren Lyons)

"These eloquent speeches by 20 native leaders from throughout the world define the precipice upon which the world's indigenous people are teetering. Each speaker addresses survival issues confronting his/her country. In the words of Anderson Muutang Urud from Southeast Asia: 'The world is rushing towards a single culture. We should pause and reflect on the beauty of diversity.'... Recommended". (Library Journal)

Inaugurating the International Decade of the World's Indigenous Peoples, leaders from 20 cultures of North, Central, and South America, the Pacific Rim, Eurasia, and the polar regions brought their message to the United Nations for the first time, speaking eloquently on issues affecting their own cultures and populations as well as the global disaster facing humanity. This book makes us keenly aware of the global nature of the disaster facing indigenous people and the human race as a whole: the disappearance of diversity and traditional ways of life, as well as the loss of the vital knowledge of how to sustain equilibrium with our planetary environment.

The opening day ceremonies for the International Year of the World's Indigenous People took place December 10, 1992 at the United Nations General Assembly; this work is its record. With a foreword by Secretary General Boutros Boutrous-Ghali and a preface by Rigoberta Mench'u, winner of the 1992 Nobel Peace Prize, these eloquent speeches by 20 native leaders from throughout the world define the precipice upon which the world's indigenous people are teetering. Each speaker addresses survival issues confronting his/her country. In the words of Anderson Muutang Urud from Southeast Asia: "The world is rushing towards a single culture. We should pause and reflect on the beauty of diversity." Many of the representatives to the United Nations were not in attendance at this ceremony; perhaps this book will be a reminder to the world. Recommended for appropriate collections.
Vicki L. Toy Smith, Univ. of Nevada, Reno
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.