Embedded Files
Ideology
The Indigenous Peoples Council (IPC) is a non-state actor with the purpose of advocating for the rights of all the Indigenous peoples in Zemia. Its ideology is unique as compared to the nations of Zemia because it is a non-profit working for the interest of people that are spread throughout the 8 states, Disputed Territory, and Birshin Isles. The reason for the creation of IPC is a history of colonization that continues to haunt Indigenous peoples to the present day. With that noted, the IPC aims to officially unite the Indigenous tribes and work for comprehensive progress of Indigenous peoples around Zemia.
Indigenous Peoples Council ideology- and the organization itself- exists in the manner it does because of colonialism. Colonization of Zemia has left a lasting legacy on Indigenous peoples, cultures, and lands. Indigenous homes, architectures, languages, ecosystems, foods, spirituality, religions, music, mental and physical health, history, and many other aspects of Indigenous lives and cultures have suffered and continue to do so (Turner 308). Since time cannot be reversed and brutal colonization cannot be undone, a new approach has to be invented to help Indigenous peoples across Zemia to thrive in a postcolonial world and heal from their collective past.
The significance of creation of a council is that it allows for all the tribes to collaborate in an official capacity that can also be recognized by the nations in Zemia. A transborder organization paves “the way for i[I]ndigenous peoples to acquire international personality, which is otherwise still State centric,” (Shrinkhal 74). Secondly, collaboration between different Indigenous peoples is important because it helps the people realize that their suffering is rooted in the same oppression. This is not to say that all Indigenous peoples across Zemia have the same struggle. IPC recognizes the difference in intensity and, as well as, political embodiment of marginalizations due to the variety of nations which different Indigenous tribes inhabit and unique courses of colonial history for each of the tribes. Although the manifestations are different, the oppression is the same because the various types of manifestation are a result of settler colonialism. Realization of this helps Indigenous peoples fight together against historic effects and current forces of colonization. And a united resistance is important because historically colonizers have succeeded in their goals through pitting Indigenous peoples against each other. An example from history is the Partition in which the Indian Subcontinent was divided into two modern-day countries of India and Pakistan. The British colonized the Indian Subcontinent and “used a “divide-and-rule” policy to drive apart religious communities, thereby promoting violence between them,” (Verghese para. 2). The most profound result of this recurring communal violence between Hindus and Muslims under British India is the creation of two different nations rather than independence from the British. To prevent any potential violence between Indigenous tribes and division of Birshin Isles, instigated by colonizing structures, it becomes necessary to work together.
IPC’s ideology is not purely a separatist one. Although the existence of Birshin Isles and tribal lands symbolize territorial separatism the IPC does not reject inclusion nor “seek the creation of a new homeland,” (Brown and Shaw 27). Majority Indigenous peoples do not wish to be physically, politically, economically, and socially isolated from their respective hegemonic society and government of the host nation (Shrinkhal 77). Indigenous peoples realize the reach and longevity of contemporary post-colonial nations and structures in Zemia. Although Zemia’s nations have territories which function as separate physical spaces for that particular nation’s Inidgenous peoples, the Indienous peoples do not desire to be only confined to the geography and affairs of their territories. Thus, they strive for complete, active, and autonomous participation in the political, economic, and social arenas of their respective nations and their territories. The IPC labors to realize that vision because it has seen the consequences of exclusion. Although many nations in the world treated, and continue to do so, their Indigenous people in an inhumane and marginalizing manner, the example which scares IPC the most is that of the United States. Over the course of two hundred years, the US government has “forcibly relocated tribes, forced them to live on reservations… and encouraged reservation residence,” (Gitter and Reagan 1161). The reservation system is exclusionary not because Indigenous people live separately but rather because they are forced to and because reservations are a product of colonial and white-supremacist policies such as the Indian Removal Act. Currently, the American reservations face a housing, health, and employment crisis (Native Partnership). The IPC aims to prevent this type of oppression from taking place on Zemia’s tribal lands.
The Indigenous Peoples Council is aware of history and pledges that the fate of Indigenous peoples of Zemia will not be the same as other Inidgenous populations. Settler colonialism is an awful beast as seen in the events that unfolded in the Indian Subcontinent and North America. But with the right values that shape IPC’s policies such as securing Indigenous peoples rights in the constitution, the negativity of colonialism can be combated.
Works Cited
Brown, Robert A., and Todd C. Shaw. “Separate Nations: Two Attitudinal Dimensions of Black Nationalism.” The Journal of Politics, vol. 64, no. 1, 2002, pp. 22–44, http://www.jstor.org/stable/2691663. Accessed 12 Apr. 2022.
Gitter, Robert J., and Patricia B. Reagan. “Reservation Wages: An Analysis of the Effects of Reservations on Employment of American Indian Men.” The American Economic Review, vol. 92, no. 4, 2002, pp. 1160–68, http://www.jstor.org/stable/3083304. Accessed 12 Apr. 2022.
“Native American Living Conditions on Reservations.” Native Partnership, Native American Aid, http://www.nativepartnership.org/site/PageServer?pagename=naa_livingconditions.
Shrinkhal, Rashwet. “‘Indigenous Sovereignty’ and Right to Self-Determination in International Law: A Critical Appraisal.” AlterNative: An International Journal of Indigenous Peoples, vol. 17, no. 1, Mar. 2021, pp. 71–82, doi:10.1177/1177180121994681.
Turner, Frederick J. “The Colonization of the West, 1820-1830.” The American Historical Review, vol. 11, no. 2, 1906, pp. 303–27, https://doi.org/10.2307/1834646. Accessed 12 Apr. 2022.
Verghese, Ajay. “British Rule and Hindu-Muslim Riots in India: A Reassessment.” Berkley Center for Religion, Peace and World Affairs, Georgetown University, 23 Aug. 2018, https://berkleycenter.georgetown.edu/responses/british-rule-and-hindu-muslim-riots-in-india-a-reassessment.
Created by: Mastaani, Chief Leader
Leadership
Chief Leader Mastaani Qureshi
Chief Diplomat Thomas Engle
UN Ambassador Caden Waterstradt
Chief Economist Araceli Lopez
Science Officer
Press Secretary
Security Chief
Regime Structure
The Indigenous Peoples Council of Zemia first and foremost derives its legitimacy and power from the great council consisting of all indigenous peoples spread throughout the land of Zemia. We will use this people’s council as a distilled voice of those indigenous peoples in Zemia to affirm and enforce the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples especially when affirming that all indigenous peoples are equal to all other peoples and the recognition of the right of all indigenous peoples in Zemia to consider themselves as different and to be represented in that way.[1] This council of peoples does not derive its authority or legitimacy from any nation on Zemia and is wholly separate from the recognized and unrecognized nations of Zemia. This council agrees that authority is derived from the will of the people to obey a given commands and provide voluntary compliance.[2] A key to this authorities’ ability to be legitimate is the people’s ability to have agency within the power structure.[3] The majority of Zemias indigenous population does not have agency on the lands that they live, within the economic structures that they serve, or the political apparatus that controls them. Thus, this council sees those Indigenous peoples living without agency as oppressed peoples living under legitimate rule and will use the power available to the council to allow those indigenous peoples to live in a structure that grants them agency. Until all indigenous peoples have agency, equality, and self-determination within their own lands this council will provide the indigenous that ability to have agency through direct democracy providing all indigenous peoples a seat at the great council and a voice in its direction.
The direct democracy structure of this council does not derive its origin from the West but from the numerous examples of Pre-Columbian societies within Mesoamerica and beyond.[4]The singular idea of direct democracy in the West is born of Plato’s Republic and his idea that the democracy is birthed from the will of the poor and down trodden to rise up against their oppressor and then fall into a trap of atrophy and pleasures selecting only those who would provide the populace complete pleasure and an absence of pain.[5] The council sees this kernel of western democracy as flawed and provides authority to those who would strip free peoples of their agency and self-determination. Wisdom can come from all voices as those within the Council of Tlaxcala gleaned when standing against the great triple alliance of the Aztec people.[6] The creation of the Haudenosaunee federal structures provides the council guidance of the past representation of separate and free nation joined together to defend against the invasion of a new United States.[7]
The western model of sovereignty based off of the treaty Instrumentum Pacis Osnabrugensis and the separate treaty Instrumentum Pacis Monsteriensis together known as the treaty of Westphalia provided sovereignty guarantees to the principalities within the Holy Roman Empire.[8] The unintended consequence of these treaties has created a worldwide system of sovereignty that has oppressed many peoples especially those of indigenous nations. The council will be addressing sovereignty that expands beyond the current interpretation of sovereignty based of the Peace of Westphalia a definition of sovereignty that was expanded from the very specific definition concerning the end of hostilities for the Thirty Years War. The idea of sovereignty as it is now interpreted through the lens of Westphalia undermines the ideals of independence self-sufficiency, a core facet of the council’s structure being the ability to allow those indigenous peoples their natural rights. The council rejects the Westphalia idea of sovereignty and will strive for a definition closer in line to what Sherly Lightfoot has distilled, being that sovereignty must be decoupled from the idea of self-determination and for this to be decolonized from the state-centric model.[9] The decoupling of sovereignty from Westphalia and self-determination from the state will closer align indigenous peoples to become decoupled from the colonial yoke.
The Indigenous Peoples Council will ensure all states within Zemia take a broader look at their sources of authority and legitimacy, while providing a means for all Indigenous peoples to self-determine through political action within the council. A rejection of Westphalia, the idea of democracy as the seed of western power, and the push for new understandings of how sovereignty works taken from the examples laid out by Mesoamerica, the Haudenosaunee, and Xanthakis assertion for a maximalist understanding of Indigenous determination[10] will be core to the Regimes direct democracy structure.
[1] The United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP), UN General assembly 13 September 2007.
[2] Weber, Max, 7, 248; on authority and legitimacy
[3] Sarah Kurnick and Joanne Baron, Political Strategies in Pre-Columbian Mesoamerica. Boulder, University Press of Colorado, 2016. Pg. 7
[4] Graeber David and Wengrow David, “Hiding in Plain Sight: Democracy’s indigenous origins in the Americas.” Lapham’s Quarterly, Fall 2020.
[5] Plato, Republic. Pg 557.
[6] Graeber David and Wengrow David, “Hiding in Plain Sight: Democracy’s indigenous origins in the Americas.” Lapham’s Quarterly, Fall 2020.
[7] Lightfoot Sheryl R. “Decolonizing Self Determination: Haudenosaunee Passports and Negotiated Sovereignty” European Journal of International Relations. Vol 27, 2021 Pg 971-994.
[8] Helfferich Tryntje The Thirty Years War: A Documentary History, Indianapolis, Hackett Publishing, 2009. Pg. 252-273
[9] Lightfoot Sheryl R. “Decolonizing Self Determination: Haudenosaunee Passports and Negotiated Sovereignty” European Journal of International Relations. Vol 27, 2021 Pg 974-975.
[10] [10] Lightfoot Sheryl R. “Decolonizing Self Determination: Haudenosaunee Passports and Negotiated Sovereignty” European Journal of International Relations. Vol 27, 2021 Pg 975.
Created by:[Thomas Engle Chief Diplomat]
People and Culture
Our nation is inclusive of a variety of tribes and their cultures. We acknowledge their traditions, language, and overall culture that has been influenced by ancestral relationships for years. Indigenous people are enhanced with the post-colonial culture of our nation that has been passed down through generations. Our people have strong biodiversity that amplifies and strengthens the sense of community. Overall, we affirm that all indigenous peoples are equal and we value the equal representation of their independence. The importance of their practices, knowledge, and skills is essential to expand our nation culturally through Zemia. Our people focus on community-based resilience that contains resilience against climatic conditions, quality education, and environmental sustainability.
Created by: [Araceli Lopez Chief Economist]
Flag and Motto:
Motto: "The Right of Self-Determination"
Created by: Caden Waterstradt, UN Ambassador
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