17th October 2021
Sello Motseta
University of Botswana(UB) Doctoral candidate in Natural Resource Management, Gakemotho Satau says the question of aboriginality or of ‘who came first’ is not a significant characteristic by which to identify indigenous peoples in itself.
Rather than aboriginality, in Africa the principle of self-identification is a key criterion for identifying indigenous peoples is the underlying denominator. This principle requires that peoples identify themselves as indigenous, and as distinctly different from other groups within the state.
“The African Commission recognizes that the issue of indigenous peoples’ rights appears to be a very sensitive one for many African governments,” said Satau.
He said, “Key characteristics which identify indigenous peoples and communities in Africa does not aim to give a clear cut definition of indigenous peoples as there is no global consensus on a single universal definition, and nor would such a definition be desirable or necessary.”
The term ‘indigenous’ allegedly does not apply to the SADC region like many other African regions as ‘all Africans are indigenous.’ There is no question that all Africans are indigenous to Africa in the sense that they were there before the European colonialists arrived and that they were subject to subordination during colonialism says Satau.
According to most conventional definitions the meaning of indigenous people is ‘native or belonging naturally to a place with a historical continuity before pre-invasion and precolonial societies and have developed on their territories and consider themselves distinct from other sectors of the prevailing society (ILO C 169-1989).
In this school of thought indigenous peoples have retained social, cultural, economic and political characteristics that are distinct from those of the dominant societies in which they live.
This is the basis upon which some scholars like Satau contend the Himba of Namibia, Pygmies of the Great Lakes Region and Hadzabe of Tanzania can be considered indigenous people. Their cultures are under threat, in some cases to the point of extinction due to forced assimilation into the mainstream cultures and development paradigms.
They were evicted from their land or been denied access to the natural resources upon which their survival as peoples depends. The survival of their way of life depended on access and rights to their traditional lands and the natural resources which they were subsequently denied.
South Africa recognizes five indigenous groupings; San, Nama, Griqua, Korana and Khoi. Botswana says all its people are indigenous, so the Khoisan must assimilate to monolingual Tswana cultural symphony (learn, think, cry, marry Setswana) says Satau.
He contends that this is a serious violation of Article 5 of the African Charter, Universal declaration of human rights and fundamental freedoms, ILO 169, UNDRIP etc.
Moreover, in Africa, the term indigenous populations does not mean “first inhabitants” in reference to aboriginality as opposed to non-African communities or those having come from elsewhere.
“The right to self-determination is also provided for by both the ICCPR and the ICESCR of 1966, which in their common Article 1 also state, ‘all peoples have the right to self-determination. By virtue of that right they freely determine their political status and freely pursue their economic, social and cultural development’ (ICCPR 1966, ICESCR 1966).”
According to Wikipedia – the free encyclopedia – the term ‘indigenous peoples’ originally refers to culturally distinct groups affected by colonization.
As a reference to a group of people, the term indigenous first came into use by Europeans who used it to differentiate the Indigenous peoples of the Americas from enslaved Africans.
It was used in this context by Sir Thomas Browne, in Chapter 10 of Pseudodoxia Epidemica (1646) entitled “Of the Blackness of Negroes.” Browne wrote “and although in many parts thereof there be at present swarms of Negroes serving under the Spaniard, yet were they all transported from Africa, since the discovery of Columbus; and are not indigenous or proper natives of America.”
In the 1970’s, the term was used as a way of linking the experiences, issues, and struggles of groups of colonized people across international borders. At this time ‘indigenous people(s)’ also began to be used to describe a legal category in Indigenous law created in international and national legislation.
The use of the ‘s’ in ‘peoples’ recognizes that there are real differences between different Indigenous peoples. James Anaya, former Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, defined Indigenous peoples as “living descendants of pre-invasion inhabitants of lands now dominated by others. They are culturally distinct groups that find themselves engulfed by other settler societies born of forces of empire and conquest.”
