The Malaysian state of Sarawak was until recently home to some of the last nomadic peoples of Borneo, who roamed its wild and rich rainforests as they had done since time immemorial. Starting in the early 1980s, industrial logging companies moved deep into Sarawak’s hinterland, tearing down forests, forcing forest peoples from their traditional lands, and laying the groundwork for large-scale conversion of biodiverse ecosystems into monoculture plantations.
Sarawak’s Indigenous peoples put up resistance against these state-backed incursions into their traditional territories. One of the most dramatic outcomes of these efforts came in 2016, when the Chief Minister of Sarawak cancelled the Baram mega-dam project.
A former Catford Lib Dem council candidate is now an organiser for a “secretive far-right racist group” living locally in a whites-only base, according to reports. Nicholas Hill, 50, a computer engineer who unsuccessfully contested the Catford South ward in 2006, is currently regional organiser for Patriotic Alternative, founded by British neo-Nazi and anti-semitic conspiracy theorist Mark Collett, Vice reports. An investigation by anti-fascist research group Red Flare revealed a number of “White Lives Matter” banners pictured on beauty spots around the country were printed by Hill. He reportedly lives in a self-sufficient white’s only “ethno village” in Catford and grows food and makes wine under the label “Ethno Villages”.
Credit: Heike Kuhn
BONN, Jan 11 2021 (IPS) - Once a year, on 9 August, the International Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples is commemorated, celebrating their unique culture and knowledge. This is done mostly from a distance, from our homes in (nominally) developed countries. But are we as developed as we pretend to be? On this question, I reflected for a while, still remembering a special and personal experience of having spent several days with an indigenous Berber family in Morocco.
What was the reason for this special visit to Morocco ? I had the fortune and incredible opportunity to participate in a developmental training course, known as an exposure programme. At the heart of this program was a three day stay with a family belonging to a Berber tribe in Morocco, 40 km from Essaouira, the famous city located on the Atlantic Ocean.
December 15 - 2020 DELLING
Farmers in Delling celebrate the end of the harvest (social media)
The town of Delling in South Kordofan witnessed the closure of the harvest festival on Saturday. Events included folk exhibitions, dances and wrestling, drawing crowds from both urban and rural areas.
Suleiman Jabraldar, chief of the Delling tribe, told Radio Dabanga that such harvest festivals are important economic and social events for the people of the region. He explained that, in the past, social solidarity in the community was achieved by helping poor families with their crop and food provision.
Jabraldar also explained that the folk traditions in the region have undergone great changes due to urbanisation and exchange with other cultures. He indicated that many values and popular legacies have disappeared among communities in the region.