Ethics and Culture : Indigenous People and the Concept of Selfdetermination

Essay from the year 2006 in the subject Politics - International Politics - General, printed single-sided, grade: 1.5, The Australian National University, 27 entries in the bibliography, language: English, abstract: It seems a peculiarity of modern capitalist civilisation, that wherever one looks one seessquares everywhere! Just as this piece of paper, the screen and keys it was typed on aresquare, so are the borders of countless states around the globe, cutting throughautochthonous communities separating cultures or forging them into a state [society]often lacking their prior consent. It is not without fateful irony that, for instance, the tableon which the fate of the African people was decided during the Berlin conference in1884-85 at which the [still prevailing] borders of colonial Africa were demarcated was:Square! Square people with square minds made square decisions. However,contemporary claims of many indigenous peoples who are as diverse and irregular as theworld they exist in continue to challenge the plane polygon geometry of the arbitrary andartificially constructed artefact of territorial sovereignty by demanding recognition oftheir, partial or full self-determination. Thus questioning the moral legitimacy ofsovereign states and the international society [of states].