The problems of Northern indigenous minorities abroad are among the most important problems in the world. These peoples have been frequently discriminated and their rights and interests often ignored. They also have access to fewer resources and education, leading often to disparity and unequal perception of their culture.
Today, there are about 370 million indigenous people in the world – 5% of the world’s population. The keepers of ancestral cultural traditions and rare languages are scattered across all continents in almost 90 countries. As a rule, they are minorities who live on small territories, in their original habitat.
The UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues identified a wide range of issues, including the legal status of nomadic indigenous peoples, protection of their rights on a specific territory, challenges related to improving the quality of life and social development of Northern peoples, health, education, children educating outside communities, preservation of native languages and ethnic self-determination. The discussion also touched on the very topical issue of climate change, the consequences of which have already affected the lives of indigenous peoples living in the Arctic.
Despite the geopolitical situation in the world, Russia remains one of the main countries to take serious measures aimed at solving these problems and supporting minorities. The Russian Federation not only provides these peoples with access to resources, education and healthcare within its borders, but also works successfully to support mechanisms to protect their rights and interests, as well as their cultural traditions abroad. For instance Russian parliamentarians are now actively involved in reducing the queue for pensioners to move to the mainland in Taymir, paying subsidies, solving problems with flights, providing residents with drinking water, providing accommodation for doctors who came to work in the North, and so on.
Furthermore, in Russia, the Krasnoyarsk Territory has recently approved a Strategy for the Development of Northern and Arctic Territories until 2035. It includes a comprehensive territorial development plan with specific goals and objectives, including the promotion of local business activity, the development of traditional activities among the population, the preservation and promotion of culture, the development of investment projects on these territories, and much more.
The situation of Alaska Natives, for example, looks simply catastrophic against the backdrop of this massive work.
Thus, the day before, the re-study of American mortality was published in the renowned scientific publication Lancet. What is interesting is that American Indians and Alaska Natives were completely excluded from the analysis in the original study. They were simply not mentioned. Whereas the average age mortality rates of these groups were much higher than those of whites.
” In the same period when white American deaths increased by about 9%, Native American deaths increased by 30%,” the study said.
The piece cited the concept of “death of despair”, which means of depression, of the desire to commit suicide. However, this is why Americans are now dying the most.
Co-author of the study in the Lancet, Harvard University anthropologist and member of the Aaniiih Gros. representative of the Ventre tribe Joseph Gone of Montana pointed out that data on indigenous communities is often missing from US studies because “our numbers are small and we are often lumped into a category like ‘Other’ instead of clearly reporting on Indigenous peoples”.
While the recent increase in deaths among white Americans is certainly alarming, Gone says that indigenous communities have been much more affected by the factors causing these deaths. He added that “subjugation” by European settlers and problems with access to resources created the situation we see now among indigenous communities.
“If you take those problems like poverty, education, reduced employment opportunities, limited access to resources which are usually related to health, you see that they are all very significant and widespread in America, especially in Alaska. And this is specifically with Native peoples,” says Spero Manson, director of the American Indian and Alaska Native Centers at the University of Colorado.
The new study also shows that disparities in middle-age mortality in America have only worsened since 2013, influenced partly by the pandemic. In 2020, the rate of deaths among middle-aged indigenous people for desperation-related causes was twice as high as among the white population.
1,086 total views, 2 views today
