Last Updated on August 3, 2018
Like any other global public relations spectacle, the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues Twelfth Session in New York this week is mostly a combination of feel good photo ops and brotherly love bromides designed to deceive. While some of the indigenous participants will bring legitimate grievances and constructive proposals from the Fourth World to the state-approved play pen for corporate sycophants like First Peoples Worldwide and elite NGOs like Tebtebba and Conservation International, many others — particularly corporate-funded NGOs and indigenous lobbyists with credibility issues — bring manifestos and screeds for their own self-promotion. As pious poseurs, they offer up meaningless campaigns like Proud to be Indigenous, while at the same time promoting indigenous assimilation into the corporate state system that denies indigenous governing authorities a seat at the table. Such is the nature of opportunism.
While I have written previously about charlatans, opportunists and pious poseurs (COPPs) like Rebecca Adamson of First Peoples Worldwide, and the role they play in distracting the indigenous peoples movement and corrupting tribal leaders, it is perhaps their promotion of false hope that is most harmful to the pursuit of indigenous self-determination. Suggesting indigenous nations’ salvation is through getting in bed with notorious corporations like Shell Oil might seem laughable to intelligent indigenous activists, yet that is precisely what phony NGOs like FPW do. Which forces us to question the relevance of the forthcoming UN World Conference on Indigenous Peoples.
Of course, once the group hug is over, the grassroots indigenous activists and courageous indigenous leaders will have to return to the life and death struggle against cancerous malignancies like Shell Oil’s Tar Sands project, while the pious poseurs busy themselves generating press releases about themselves as champions of the Fourth World. Such is the nature of poverty pimping. After all, what can you expect from the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, when it is chaired by corporate brokers like Grand Chief Edward John?
Across the world right now, Indigenous peoples are facing a renewed assault on their lands, rights, and ways of life.
From extractive industries pushing deeper into ancestral territories, to governments rolling back hard-won protections,
the threat is global—and it is growing.
What makes this moment especially dangerous is how little attention it receives.
Stories like this are disappearing in real time. Mainstream media
barely covers it and the coverage is fragmented. The public is left without the context
needed to understand what is truly at stake.
That is exactly why IC Magazine exists..
For more than 20 years, IC has reported on Indigenous struggles worldwide — consistently, independently, and without compromise.
We don’t follow news cycles; we trace patterns. We don’t sensationalize; we provide context.
And when the world looks away, we stay focused.
But this work is increasingly difficult to sustain.
We refuse to lock our reporting behind a paywall. We don’t sell access through subscriptions.
And we don’t answer to advertisers. IC Magazine survives solely because readers like you choose to
support independent Indigenous journalism.
Please donate today if you can. Every contribution helps us to continue this crucial work.
Thank you,
John Ahni Schertow
Founder and Editor in Chief
