Steven Newcomb: Confusion over the right to self-determination

The UN is an odd world in which even one letter of the alphabet can mean a vast difference in political reality. I have in mind, of course, the difference between the word “people” with no ‘s,’ which means a bunch of individuals, and the world “peoples” with an ‘s,’ which means many entire Peoples (e.g., the entire People known as the Cree, the entire People known as the Lakota, the entire People known as the Kumeyaay, the entire People known as the Lummi, etc). When taken together in one broad category, they are correctly called “Peoples,” meaning more than one entire People.

From a naïve viewpoint it’s just one letter of the alphabet. Yet from a politically informed viewpoint, “Peoples” with an ‘s’ acknowledges that we are entire Peoples, and thus many entire Nations, with an existence originally free and independent of presumptions of domination over us by colonizing powers.

This mention of semantic subtlety is directed at a key point of the NCAI “White Paper.” Page one of the paper sensibly addresses the right of self-determination as expressed in Article 3 of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Specifically, it reads: “Indigenous peoples have the right to self-determination. By virtue of that right they freely determine their political status and freely pursue their economic, social, and cultural development.” However, the NCAI paper then takes a bizarre turn into the domesticating and dominating labyrinth of federal Indian law and policy.