Deusdedit Ruhangariyo
Special to ICT
Around the world: Myanmar repatriation raises concerns, Sami protesters removed by police in Norway, reindeer racing heats up in Finland, and Japan’s Indigenous people fight to reclaim their identities.
MYANMAR: Activists wary about refugee project
Activists are questioning a pilot project aimed at repatriating about 1,000 Rohingya refugees from Bangladesh to Myanmar, saying they fear Myanmar’s ruling junta has agreed to the plan only under diplomatic pressure from China, Radio Free Asia reported on March 14.
The project could affect about 1 million Rohingya refugees who are sheltered in camps located in Cox’s Bazar, a district in southeastern Bangladesh that shares a border with Myanmar. Among those are 740,000 refugees who escaped a military crackdown in Rakhine state since August 2017.
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Myanmar has refused to grant the Rohingya community freedom of movement, citizenship, and access to healthcare, education, and employment, Radio Free Asia reported.
The lack of political stability in Myanmar since the military coup in February 2021 is also a concern. A source told Radio Free Asia that Rohingyas will only return if they can go back to their original locations and are guaranteed the right to citizenship, freedom of travel and equal rights with other ethnicities.
The repatriation project, negotiated with Myanmar’s military junta, Bangladesh and China, would allow the refugees to go through two reentry centers in Rakhine state. Some activists fear, however, that they may get trapped at the centers for years, Radio Free Asia reported.
“We are not sure if the military junta is implementing the repatriation program out of its true good will,” Khin Maung, director of the Rohingya Youth Association who lives in Cox’s Bazar, told Radio Free Asia. “A lot of things depend on that answer.”
NORWAY: Protesters for Sami rights removed by police
Activists protesting against a wind farm that they say obstructs the rights of the Sami people to raise reindeer in central and Arctic Norway were removed from the entrances to two government offices by Norwegian police, The Independent.co.uk reported on March 2.
The activists — mostly teenagers, including Indigenous people in traditional, bright-colored dress — claim that the wind farm is still in operation despite a Supreme Court ruling in 2021 that found the wind turbines’ construction violated the Sami people’s rights.
The Sami people, who are believed to have migrated from Central Asia and settled in Arctic Europe with their reindeer about 9,000 years ago, traditionally reside in Lapland, spanning northern parts of Norway through Sweden and Finland into Russia.
They have a population of between 40,000 and 60,000 in central and northern Norway.
In the past, they faced cultural oppression, including prohibitions on using their Native language, but now they have their own schools, parliaments, newspapers and broadcasts in their language, The Independent reported.
Police said that the activists would be fined, but no information was provided about the amount of the fines.
FINLAND: Reindeer racing season heats up
The Reindeer Cup, or Porocup in Finnish, began in February in Rovaniemi, the capital of Finnish Lapland, and will run through the spring season, Radio Finland (YLE News) reported on March 11.
Competitors participate in a series of races, hoping to earn enough points to qualify for the Reindeer King Race in early April. Only the top 24 reindeer with the most points can participate in the final race, which takes place in Inari, the capital of Finland’s Indigenous Sami culture.
Reindeer racing is a popular sport that takes place in different parts of the reindeer herding area, which covers not only Finnish Lapland but also the northern regions of Northern Ostrobothnia and Kainuu. Reindeer, which are typically rounded up only once a year, are semi-domesticated animals, and only male reindeer are used in races.
Some drivers train seriously for the competition, while others see it as a hobby. Tuula Määttä, a resident of Oulu, actively participates in the competition series’ general category using reindeer that belong to her father and his friends.
The reindeer are specially chosen for the competition, but some are inexperienced and could cause accidents. “You have to be careful to avoid crashes,” she said, according to Radio Finland.
Northern Finland is home to about 200,000 semi-domesticated reindeer and a wild relative species known as forest reindeer. Formal reindeer competitions have been held in Finland since 1932; the 2021 season was canceled because of COVID-19 restrictions.
JAPAN: Indigenous people fight to reclaim identities
Indigenous people in Japan – including the Ainu people of Hokkaido and the Ryukyu in Okinawa – are fighting to reclaim their identities as part of a growing trend among younger generations, Japan Times reported on Feb. 28.
During more than 100 years of annexation and forced assimilation, Indigenous people in Japan were forced to stop using their language and traditions such as hunting or art, or even from identifying themselves as Indigenous, Japan Times reported.
As a child, artist Tomoya Okamoto kept his Ainu heritage hidden because he was afraid of being ridiculed. After being inspired by the manga series “Golden Kamuy,” which showcased Ainu culture, he came to see the environmentally conscious Ainu traditions as relevant to modern-day concerns.
He now works as a traditional sculptor and speaks with particular reverence about Shitaehori, a 19th century Ainu artist.
“I can make it my work to protect Ainu culture,” he said.
The Ainu are the Native people of Hokkaido, Japan’s largest island, and the Russian islands of Sakhalin and Kurils. In 1869, Japan’s imperial government annexed Ainu lands and forced the people to speak Japanese and adopt Japanese names.
The Japanese government officially recognized the Ainu people in 2019. A 2017 survey found about 13,000 Ainu people living in Hokkaido, though the number is believed to be much higher because of intermarriage and the reluctance by some people to disclose their heritage.
The Ryukyu Kingdom, which spanned a chain of islands from Japan’s Amami region to the Yaeyama islands near Taiwan, was annexed by Japan in 1879.
A count of the Ryukyu people is more difficult to tally, however, because the government does not officially recognize them. The majority of the 1.5 million residents of Okinawa are believed to have Ryukyu ancestry, according to Japan Times.
In contrast to Hokkaido, where authorities sent settlers after annexation, assimilation was more proactive in Okinawa, according to Eiji Oguma, a professor at Keio University.
“Japan had policies to teach them Japanese, demand loyalty to the nation and eventually (to) draft them for war to become full members of Japan,” he said, according to Japan Times.
The Ainu language is now rarely spoken fluently, but some elderly Ryukyu individuals still speak the Indigenous languages and are passing them on to the next generation. The languages are not taught in schools, however, and some people, such as hip-hop artist Ritto Maehara from Okinawa, struggle to speak them fluently.
My final thoughts
My final thoughts are in Japan where the Ainu people were forced to abandon the traditional practices and where they were not recognized as Indigenous people until 2019. I always say, you may delay justice but it will always win. I join the Ainu Indigenous people in their fight for their rights as a people, and however long it takes, justice will prevail.
Global Indigenous is a weekly news roundup published every Wednesday by ICT (formerly Indian Country Today) with some of the key stories about Indigenous peoples around the world.
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