Lost Oral Traditions

http://www.ling.hawaii.edu/faculty/stampe/Oral-Lit/Hawaiian/Kumulipo/kumulipo-comb.html

The link above is to the translation of the Kumulipo (literally meaning 'teacher of the night') is the oral tradition the Native Hawaiian people used to recite and pass down from generation to generation. It is over 2,000 lines long and is the story of creation. Kumulipo is usually sung by a priest to royalty of dignitaries. The last time it was formally performed was for Captain James Cook, who inevitably brought the downfall of the traditional Native Hawaiian culture.

Hawaii (Part 2)

http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.archives.gov/education/lessons/hawaii-petition/images/hawaii-petition-01.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.archives.gov/education/lessons/hawaii-petition/&usg=__MdfCd7cmETsDQDTX5VYVRoTYUJ4=&h=998&w=600&sz=481&hl=en&start=1&um=1&tbnid=Ok6hTtu1G_RaQM:&tbnh=149&tbnw=90&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dcolonialism%2B%252B%2Bhawaii%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26rlz%3D1T4ADBF_enUS237US240%26sa%3DN

After the last reigning monarch, Queen Lili'uokalani, was over thrown and Hawaii was in the process oftrying to be annexed the Hawaiian people created a group in order to stop the annexation of their homeland. The group of Hawaiians called themselves the Hawaiian Patriotic League. This League tried to oppose the invading nations attempt to take their lands by using their laws against them, they created a petition in which many Native Hawaiian people signed. The interests of the hauole businessmen took precedence over the needs of the indigenous community and to this day atonement for the Native Hawaiian people and their losses has not occurred.

Culture Ablaze

Swidden agriculture is more often called slash-and-burn farming. Although this farming practice has been a part of rich cultures and livelihoods for thousands of years, mainstream environmental organizations criticize and question the knowledge of indigenous peoples, attributing environmental degradation to their poverty and "lack of scientific understanding." Environmental anthropology proves, however, that this is simply an untrue stereotype, used to exploit native peoples.

I found an article in the ScienceDirect database that attempts to investigate to what extent "slash-and-burn" agriculture in Madagascar is used as a tool of protest and resistance. It is very interesting that swidden agriculture, which has been keeping Madagascar natives alive for almost 2000 years, is now being used by farmers to "rebel" against the government, since the Malagasi government has ruled swidden practices illegal. Some other scholars contest that how can the continuation of cultural practices be considered a violent rebellion. Most environmental NGOs deem the last of traditional swidden farmers to be criminals.

Whether or whether not farmers are intentionally rebelling against the government with fire-driven agriculture or simply continuing to keep their culture alive, seems small in the face of the greater problem: most environmental degradation in Madagascar has derived from imperialistic exploitations such as monoculture and mass logging, which has left the natives with very little land for swidden practices.

I would consider Madagascar natives practicing swidden agriculture (and hence ignoring the government, often driven by corruption and post-colonial greed) to be a peaceful form of resistance.

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6VG2-46WWB9D-2&_user=582538&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_sort=d&view=c&_acct=C000029718&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=582538&md5=cd63c5a44c048206f21bbc57bcbbd6cc

Coffee and an Doughnut, please.

Twelve million black Africans were shipped to the Americas from the 16th to the 19th centuries. Of these, an estimated 645,000 were brought to what is now the United States. The slave population in the United States had grown to four million by the 1860 Census.

Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation in January 1, 1863, freeing all slaves.

In a bid to stop black Americans from being equal, the southern states passed a series of laws known as Jim Crow laws which discriminated against blacks and made sure that they were segregated from whites.

David Richmond, Franklin McCain, Ezell Blair, and Joseph McNeil inspired student sit-ins and protests that spread across the South. Within days, sit-ins were occurring at Woolworth and Kress stores from New York to San Francisco.

February 1st, 1960, these four students from North Carolina sit down at a "whites-only" Woolworth's lunch counter and ask to be served. They are refused. They are ready to be arrested, but are not. They stay until the store closes. The next day they return, now joined by others. They sit from 11am to 3pm but again are not served. Instead they sit and study. The local media cover this second sit-in. The students form the Student Executive Committee for Justice and they receive NAACP endorsement.

The sit-ins, picket lines, and boycotts continue off and on as negotiations get under way, the lunch counters are closed and reopened. Woolworth and Kress stores in the North and West are boycotted and picketed in support of the sit-in movements that are now spreading across the upper and mid South. Dudley High students carry on the movement as the college students leave for the summer. In July, the national drugstore chains agree to serve all "properly dressed and well behaved people," regardless of race.

http://www.crmvet.org/tim/timhis60.htm#1960greensboro

Nobel Peace Prize for Nasa People

The 110,000 Nasa people of Colombia, live in the north of Cauca. It is estimated that over 50 percent of children from Nasa families in northern Cauca suffer from malnutrition, and 24 percent of the population does not have land with which to sustain their families.

Landowners of the region have been involved in planning massacres of indigenous farmers, displacing the residents and opening up territory for resource extraction. The Nasa resistance to hold land to sustain their communities is as old as the Spanish conquest. European settlers have pushed the Nasa peoples from the fertile lowlands into the highlands. It’s estimated that two million people were displaced throughout the country, abandoning 350,000 small farms. The massive displacements in the mid-twentieth century served the large landowners in the area around Cauca with large sugar cane plantations taking up huge tracts of land. FARC is an ever present para-military group that continues to surround Cauca.

Despite the massive killings and terrorization of the communities, San José de Apartadó declared itself a peace community in 1997. The 1,300 Residents of the rural community pledged not to engage in war, either directly or indirectly, and to negotiate peaceful solutions to end the conflict. This declaration caused the armed groups to declare San José de Apartadó as aiding the “enemy.” Many sectors within Colombia have joined together in support of the Nasa people, contributing what they can to their peaceful struggle for justice, land and autonomy.

 AFSC, a Quaker humanitarian organization, nominated two Colombian groups for the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize for their commitment to nonviolence during conflict. The Nasa have won Colombia's national peace prize twice for their commitment to non-violent social organizing and struggle.

http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1452/61/

http://www.ww4report.com/node/3203

http://www.democracynow.org/2008/10/23/indigenous_colombians_begin_10_000_strong