ELL: upcoming federal land turnover to South Dakota involves land belonging to the Lakota nation References: <000d01be829f$a04c2bb0$511df5c7 at yak.las> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-endangered-languages-l at carmen.murdoch.edu.au Precedence: bulk Reply-To: endangered-languages-l at carmen.murdoch.edu.au

[Jeffrey Harlig]

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 Date: Sat, 10 Apr 1999 09:52:45 -0400
 From: Jeffrey Harlig <harligj at Indiana.Edu>
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 Subject: Re: ELL: upcoming federal land turnover to South Dakota involves
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  belonging to the Lakota nation
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  Dear David,

Thanks for sharing your letter with us. The paragraphs from it that I include
here are just two that make excellent points. Regarding the first paragraph:
Yes, we absolutely must make politicians and the public recognize that what
our
"forefathers" did to native peoples cannot in any way be a model or excuse for
what we do now. Whatever ignorance, fear, or greed motivated our ancestors
must
be overcome today. We DO know better.

Regarding the second: I have had the same thought many times. Although no one
in
the U.S. would take seriously the claim that our intolerance of immigrants,
Native Americans, other domestic minority groups, and bilingual education
(among
other things) is parallel to the anti-autonomy policies of Milosevic and the
actions of Serb forces in Kosovo, it's definitely worth it to suggest that we
are walking a fine line. A much more parallel case is the Slovak Republic,
which, in large measure, was kept out of both NATO and the EU for legislative
treatment of their Hungarian minority which is not markedly different from
California's anti-immigrant and anti-bilingual education policies, and the
increasing number of "English Only" and anti-bilingual ed laws and proposals
throughout the U.S. For me a key point is that every country "deals" with its
minorities in a well-rationalized and historically grounded manner. It makes
perfect sense to them. We and the Serbs are no different in this respect. If
we
expect countries like Serbia to "clean up their act," and moreover are willing
to kill their citizens to make it happen, we had better indicate a willingness
to see how our treatment of minorities looks from outside our borders, and DO
something about it!

Jeff Harlig

David Harris wrote:

> We more fully understand the value of these unique cultures today, so the
> sin that is upon our heads for not protecting these nations is many times
> greater than it was for the largely ignorant masses who settled the Mid-West
> and the West in the 18th and 19th centuries. If, in the future, all of these
> cultures die out completely (as many already have and as a great many plant
> and animal species do each day), our children will be bitter that we let
> greed and indifference get in the way of preserving the world in all its
> beauty and diversity for them to experience in their own time.
>
> In light of recent events in the Balkans, another point becomes increasingly
> important, as well: How can we, as a country, be taken seriously when we
> appeal to the conscience of countries like Israel, Iraq, and Serbia, asking
> them to protect the rights of their ethnic minorities, when we won't take
> steps to protect our own ethnic minorities?
>

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