Indigenous Peoples, Ethnic Minority And Multi Cultural Society

Jacob Levy’s article works to explore different areas of cultural rights and the ways in which we may change the way we do things depending on the minority culture of the community. He breaks down cultural rights into different categories: exemptions, assistance, self-government, external and internal rules, recognition/enforcement, representation, and symbolic claims. He gives certain examples about each category, with instances such as having multilingual ballots to ease the voting process for minorities (assistance) or having proper representation in the legislature process.

During the Frontier period, Indigenous peoples resisted the non-Indigenous settlement of Australia, throughout 1770-1890. During approximately throughout the 1890’s to 1970’s, the non-Indigenous retaliations occurred, resulting in protection, segregation and the stolen generations. Which initiated an ongoing impact on Indigenous communities.

The rights of many people versus the rights of an individual is certainly a vexing concept. Like a delicate balancing act; if one side is favoured over the other it causes a rift in the already strained relationship between the minority and majority. Evidently, the justification of taking any side must be valid, according to the theories of H.L.A. Hart. In the past, Canadian law has violated the rights of minorities; however, these violations have decreased in their severity as time has passed on. Some cases where the balance between minority and majority rights is questioned is in The Canadian Indian Residential School System, Bill 101, Equality in the Workplace and The Public Service Act.

Indigenous people as defined by the Cobo report (1987) are “a group having a historical

The rights and freedoms of Aboriginal people have changed significantly during the 20th century after facing many years of neglect and inequalities. In that time, change in indigenous rights and freedoms was brought about as a result of government policies, political activism and legal changes.

Human rights are the rights one has simply by virtue of being human. They are the “highest moral rights, they regulate the fundamental structures and practices of political life, and in ordinary circumstances they take priority over other moral, legal, and political claims” (Universal Human Rights in Theory & Practice, 2003). A right must be recognized by other people to exist, and must be secured through human action. It is an entitlement premised on a widely held set of beliefs about the nature of the entitlement; even if it is not recognized in law, a right emerges from a moral or ideological belief (Berger, 1981). One of the most sophisticated human rights legal law in the world has been established by Canadians. Canadians largely defined rights as civil liberties during the 1940s and 1950s, which meant fundamental freedoms such as speech, association, assembly, religion, press, due process and voting were recognized. Rhetoric surrounding discrimination was largely confined to racial, religious and ethnic discrimination at this time. Today however, the language of rights has now been broadened and appropriated to include an extraordinary range of issues. Discrimination is now banned in Canadian human rights law on the basis of race, religion, color, creed, sex (sexual harassment, pregnancy), age, place of origin, nationality, physical and mental disability, marital status, pardoned conviction, sexual orientation, family status and others. The rights of Aboriginal

The challenges faced By Indigenous Peoples in achieving justice, are both complex and extensive. These issues stem from successive centuries of asserted colonial power, which consequently has resulted in the undermining of rights for many Indigenous communities, including the Australian Aboriginal Peoples and Maori Peoples of New Zealand. Systemic abuse of power has resulted in the gradual erosion of Indigenous culture, and as thus, rights of Indigenous communities, including Intellectual Property and Cultural Rights, have been neglected. As a result, a growing body of declarations, statements, and other developments both within governmental systems, as well as in the wider international justice arena have been received. However, many

The Sami are an indigenous group of people that are spread over the Russian Kola Peninsula and the northern parts of Finland, Norway and Sweden, where their territory is called “Lapland” . In the past, they were typically nomads, living off hunting and fishing, or

The Indigenous communities have operated in an organic family structure where there is a sense of community and everyone is contributing, however with the new family. Andrea Smith`s article is a good illustration on what social structures affect individuals to migrate. In some cases, individuals leave their country in the pursuit the ‘American Dream’, while others are forced to. My family circumstances of leaving their country to migrate are a good example of what Smith would describe the process of Orientalism. Orientalism is when individuals are displaced from their homeland and migrate somewhere else. When such individuals come to a new country they are viewed as the ‘other’ by dominant groups. They are often perceived as evil and a threat which justifies wars and capitalism. Similarly, my parents had to migrate because of a civil war that took place in their homeland. They are often judged because of the colour of their skin and religious beliefs and not viewed as equal to the rest of society. Although we have the right to practice our religion freely and have the right to have freedom of speech, we are still oppressed and discriminated against

In the peer-reviewed journal, “Indigenous Peoples and Multicultural Citizenship: Bridging Collective and Individual Rights,” Cindy L. Holder and Jeff J. Corntassel discuss the revaluation, problems, and restrictions of existing human rights instruments while examining the liberal-individualist and corporatist perspectives. This journal was written in response to the fiftieth anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which was “ …. a milestone for universal legal protection of individuals” (Holder and Corntassel 126). When the existing human right means were reexamined due to the anniversary, there were several problems that arose. First, there is the absence of promoting universal acceptance of group rights when compared to

In this class, I was presented with an opportunity to reflect upon my personal knowledge of Indigenous

Each individual makes up the society as it is, and various characteristics and beliefs makes up an individual. Although, individual lives together with a variety of personal ideologies, emotions, cultures, and rituals, they all differentiate one person from the other making up one’s own identity. This identity makes up who one is inside and out, their behaviour, actions, and words comes from their own practices and values. However, the profound history of Indigenous people raises question in the present about their identities. Who are they really? Do we as the non-native people judge them from the outside or the inside? Regardless of whether the society or the government were involved in their lives, they faced discrimination in every

The doctrine of human rights were created to protect every single human regardless of race, gender, sex, nationality, sexual orientation and other differences. It is based on human dignity and the belief that no one has the right to take this away from another human being. The doctrine states that every ‘man’ has inalienable rights of equality, but is this true? Are human rights universal? Whether human rights are universal has been debated for decades. There have been individuals and even countries that oppose the idea that human rights are for everybody. This argument shall be investigated in this essay, by: exploring definitions and history on human rights, debating on whether it is universal while providing examples and background

Indigenous people are those that are native to an area. Throughout the world, there are many groups or tribes of people that have been taken over by the Europeans in their early conquests throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, by immigrating groups of individuals, and by greedy corporate businesses trying to take their land. The people indigenous to Australia, Brazil and South America, and Hawaii are currently fighting for their rights as people: the rights to own land, to be free from prejudice, and to have their lands protected from society.

Swedish state policies between 1850 and 2000 towards the Sami was similar in many respects to the Norwegian state policies towards the Sami. I will compare the Swedish polices using the same criteria used to analyse the Norwegianization policies towards the Sami people between 1850 and 1900. Sweden entered into a personal agreement with Norway after 1814, that union lasted until 1905 when it was divorced and Norway became an independent country.