 We are the hosts of Cooper Union and welcome to our show. Today we'll be looking at Indigenous Peoples Day, USA. We are still here. We have human rights. 2020 marks 520 years since Columbus first arrived on the American continent and sparked half a millennium of genocide, denial of human rights, theft and desecration of sacred land and destruction of the natural environment. This day has been reclaimed as Indigenous Peoples Day in the United States, raising awareness of the continued oppression of Native and Indigenous nations on the continent and celebrating their contributions to society around the world. To celebrate U.S. Indigenous Peoples Day, we have representatives of the Navajo Nation to talk about foreign human rights issues that demand attention and the major rights violations they're planning to bring forward to the Universal Periodic Review in a month in Geneva. I'd like to welcome our guest, Leonard Gorman, the Executive Director of the Navajo Nation Human Rights Commission. Leonard, thank you so much for joining us today. Good afternoon, Josh, from the Navajo Nation and the rest of the world across not only the United States but various parts of the world in Europe, Africa. Yes, I'm very thankful to have an opportunity to be on this broadcast. Thank you for folks that are listening to this broadcast. The Navajo Nation as an Indigenous Nation participated for several years in the discussion about the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. It was a very important process and discussion with member states for over 10 years, about 15 years of discussion and debate in regards to what are the Indigenous human rights. I just want to state at the onset that what is incorporated in the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples are actual laws, actual policies, regulations that Indigenous Peoples practice on a day-to-day basis. Part of the discussion is always that these United Nations Declaration are aspirational. These are not aspirational standards for Indigenous Peoples. We practice these laws, we live by these laws on a day-to-day basis. In light of the concerns and discussions with regards to nation states declaring, for example, the United States Indigenous State, I think it's a very good start. It's a start in which we begin to discuss with the civil societies how we Indigenous Peoples are a part and participate in various aspects of their governments. Indigenous Nations are sovereign nations. We make our own laws. The Navajo Nation has its three branch government and the study that has been concluded about 10 years ago indicate that a three form of government is in essence a form of Navajo cultural standards. We have the law-making body, which is the aspects of the Navajo system. We have the executive branch and the judicial branch in Navajo theory and Navajo perspectives of how we exist. There is also a fourth branch of activities and governance, which is an entity that interacts with foreign entities. It's in essence in the Western thinking, it's the military form of, like the State Department form of interaction with other entities. So Navajo Nation is a sovereign entity. As I mentioned, we've participated in the forums on the development of the Declaration of Indigenous Rights in the UN system. We also participated in the OAS site or the Organization of American States. While there are good parts, advances that were made on the OAS site of the Declaration, I think what's very, very important is the need to educate societies across the world. That education really includes talking about who we are as Indigenous peoples. Why we have a set of laws, standards that often by Western members of society refer to as Indigenous peoples believe that everything is sacred for them. Even a little ant is sacred versus a big mountain that is 12,000 feet high at the peak is sacred. That is absolutely true in our surroundings and our teachings as a Navajo culture that we have a place in society. We have a place on this world, we have a place among all living entities, and we have a responsibility to how to interact with them on a day-to-day basis. We have a role in that set out as a Navajo person, as an Indigenous person. But what I really want to talk about here as a part of this dynamics of Indigenous rights is language aspect. The Navajo language like all Indigenous peoples and all peoples have their own languages across the world. We have a way of understanding one another as peoples, within our own people. Navajo language is the foundation of who we are. Many of our elders make the point that when at some point in time in the future, when we no longer speak our language, that is the time in which we will no longer be the next, which means the people. And our language is the basis of who we are. It clearly states how we interact with our surroundings, who we are as a person, as a people, what our role is. So part of the foundation of recognizing our language as defining who we are, it's also very, very important that we also recognize how other entities, such as governments, the United States government, the state governments, and other nations, states see Indigenous language and how there is a tendency to foster policies in these governments to terminate, to extinguish that language. And it's a very interesting and important facet of who we are and defines us as a people. And one of the work that we do a lot as from the Navajo Nation Human Rights Office is voting rights. Voting rights in the United States is a very important paramount and fundamental issue to every people across the United States. Yes, the Navajo people from a cultural point of view did not vote a long, long time ago. Our ancestors did not select leaders based on casting a ballot. Those were times in which leaders were selected based on their characteristics by their own way of demonstrating to their own people that they're born to be a leader. But since then, with the incorporation of Western thinking, Western policies, voting became a very important facet in our lives. Back in the 60s and 70s in the United States for Navajo people, we've made the effort to become a participant in voting activities. And as a society, we had a tendency to vote as a block, a block set of people voting for one measure. And it became a very interesting facet of our daily lives. We've made decisions in which we elect our own Navajo person to represent us in state legislatures. And yet we were challenged on the flip side that, for example, there would be literacy tests for individuals that vote. You know, you have to read the English language. If you can't read the English language, you cannot vote, you're ineligible to vote. And those were some of the stumbling blocks that were put in our way to ensure that we don't participate in voting. Today, it's about casting that ballot in a way that our ballot will be counted. One of the aspects of voting is really understanding what we're voting about. Many of the ballots are only published in the English language when it comes on to the Navajo nation. Yes, the Spanish language is one of the paramount standardized languages that is a part of being recognized as a language in which the ballot should be written. Navajo language in our office as a project, our thought is that the Navajo language has to be measured as equal to the English and Spanish language. Okay, so our effort has been surrounding the issues of Section 203 of the Voting Rights Act. Section 203 talks about how a language minority, a group of people that do not speak, read the English language, should be assisted. And election authorities such as counties in our area that administer elections have the responsibility to assist voters that have a difficult time understanding the English language. So in the Section 203 principally it says that election authorities have the responsibility to, as I always say, find the highest hill in our communities and holler from the top of that hill, saying, here's the election activities that's going on here. For how far their voices travel, and where how many Navajo voters are put attention to those voices that are coming off of the highest hill, it's possible that 30% of the Navajo voters can understand and receive that message. How about the rest of the 70% they don't get that message. So here's the standard that we've been trying to embark upon, and that is the Navajo language has been a written language for at least several decades. Okay. Yes, traditionally the Navajo language is not a written language by the basis of however other societies write their own languages. However, since the introduction of the San Friscan, San Friscans, the Catholic Church, those individuals have come to writing out the Navajo language using the English alphabet. Today's Navajo world, our kids, our young kids are learning how to read and write the Navajo language. Much of our media, like the Navajo Times, they've incorporated the Navajo words in the English text and the written text and their section headings in the Navajo language and they sometimes publish the news and parts of it in the Navajo language written language. So in essence, what is the word historic you go back in time, that language has been written in the past timeframe at 10 years, 20 years, 30 years. That's a history. So Navajo language has been written. So our effort, as far as the language is concerned, is to begin the ballot processing to write the ballot in the Navajo language. It's a part of the Indigenous human rights effort to ensure that there is a level of preservation activity that's going on as far as the election authorities are concerned. So in today's world, I think the Navajo society, yes, we're changing. We're changing with the flow of change in the world community. We have internet. Internet has become a very important facet of Navajo societies. Yes, not all Navajo households across the Navajo nation have access to internet. But to a certain point, the Navajo people have come to understand what is a computer? What does a computer do? And in a sense, we refer to a computer as an element, a metal that speaks, a metal that animates, okay? That's how we interpret computers in the Navajo language. So we understand the aspects of, like I'm talking to Josh here, he's in Hawaii. I'm in Arizona, which is about about 10 hours away, something like that. But we're seeing each other. We're communicating. We're seeing our facial expressions. That's the kind of involvement that the Navajo culture has now, at least in bounds, begun to assess these new ways of ensuring that these vehicles, these mediums, become the modalities in preserving our culture. So that's one important facet. As a part of the Indigenous human rights activities, as I mentioned earlier, we just simply demonstrate to the world community nation states that this is who we are. We've lived for a long time and we always reference it as, since time immemorial how we live as a society, what laws we have to comply with. These are binding laws for us, as a Navajo society, as Indigenous peoples. We have to respect these laws. And in trying to assess our laws as aspirational in the international community, it really does not give credence as to who we are, what our laws are about. So one of those aspects in our culture, as we continue to talk about the United States fulfilling its commitments to Indigenous peoples, is our San Francisco Peaks Mountain. Our cultural belief says that our exterior boundary is defined by four sacred mountains, to the east, to the south, to the west, and to the north. The San Francisco Peaks is on the west side of our boundary. Yes, the peak is outside the modern demarcated Navajo lands, but that is considered, the mountain is considered a sacred mountain. It's a female mountain. And in essence, when we did some studies from our office, we talked about the role of Navajo women. And femininity is a fundamental part of Navajo culture. And even the chance, the cultural chance that we practice, they're oriented in a female setup. The mountains are all female. They procreate in the fashion of ensuring that we practice and recognize our culture. In talking to a number of experts about our Navajo culture, one came to our office and explained to us what is San Francisco Peaks, and what is it all about, and what are the mountains. And in reality, as we look around, see everything around us, everything's perfect. The tree, the juniper tree, the pine tree that's growing outside our house, they're perfect. They're growing in a fashion that are directed by natural law that they're supposed to be like that. Okay. There's nothing wrong with that. Now, as we define our settings around us, there's also our responsibility as human beings to things that are around us. And part of the discussion here, as a Navajo human rights issue, is that San Francisco Peaks, the mountain, is alive. It's a being. It has a method and a way of being a mountain that's alive. Now, you question how in the world is it alive? Perhaps the better way to try and understand the belief that the mountain is alive is more or less from a scientific point of view. We have geological events. In that sense, from a Navajo's perspective, everything is alive. We have earthquakes. We have volcanoes erupting. We have trees out there. They're waving in the wind. They're growing. They started off as a seed and they grew. That's life. So in that sense, this expert came to our office and said that the mountain has an inner being. In Navajo, it's called the steam. And it makes you wonder in the Navajo words, what is that inner being in the mountain? And it's really the aspects of the activities among a variety of resources. It could be methane. It could be nitrogen. And in those senses, yes, the mountain inside it, there is an activity going on. It might be a seismic activity. It could be measured. There is an activity inside the mountain. For us, we interpreted that kind of activity as a very important facet of who we are. We don't protect the mountain as a human being. The mountain protects us. The mountain is far more. It's bigger than us as human beings. That is exactly the same way Hawaii sees the land as well. So thank you so much for sharing about how the Navajo Nation is exercising the right of self-determination through language and living culture and definitely the aspect of the sacredness of the mountain. It's similar struggle here in Hawaii for Mauna Kea, so we definitely know exactly what you're sharing. And that's why it's so important to have the indigenous philosophy, cosmology, and worldview to be able to be expressed through that UN declaration on the rights of indigenous people, but also the nation to nation treaty that the Navajo Nation shares. And so we definitely agree with you. And we know that's why you maybe bring this issue to the United Nations, and we know next month on November 9th will be the Universal Periodic Review. What are the recommendations you want to bring forward regarding the sacred peaks of San Francisco and what that means to the Navajo Nation and how we can remedy the situation with what's currently happening? The Navajo Nation has participated in the first round of the UPR review for the United States. And we continue to bring the same issue during this set of reviews because those issues have not changed. For the past couple of years now, those matters have not changed yet. And the lack of, I guess, the recognition of those needed change continue to be our position. And those are, as an example, the CCPR, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights under Article 27, a group of people that are considered minority that have a different language have the right to exercise their belief in such a community they find themselves in. That is exactly the situation from a Western point of view. Our Navajo people that find residents in the city of Flagstaff, they have the right to exercise their religion and consider continuously considered the San Francisco peaks as a sacred mountain. We've also engaged then the Special Rapporteur on Indigenous Rights to study the international standards in which the United States has committed to. The United States has to recognize the aspects of free, prior, and informed consent of Indigenous peoples. And in our study that was concluded by Special Rapporteur, stated that the Navajo nation has continuously opposed the construction of the ski resort. And the rest of Indigenous peoples that consider San Francisco peaks as a sacred mountain also never provided their consent at all. Yet the ski resort is for the purpose of relaxation. For people in the state of Arizona, perhaps across the country that where they find themselves frustrated, they need to release their attention that they can come to San Francisco peaks to recreate. Absent is the Indigenous peoples human right to consider the San Francisco peaks as a sacred mountain, as a being, a living being. And that has always been the continuous position of the Navajo nation as we go to again going back to the UPR next month in the reviews. We've suggested to the Forestry Department to begin to retool their definitions of what is sacredness and the idea of sacred sight. A sight could be small, it could be multiple. But we want that word sight to be replaced by the word place, a sacred place. And even just changing out the simple words is a huge challenge to the federal government in the United States. Well, and you also are bringing up how other Indigenous peoples around the world, I know the Maori have also worked on that for the river to be a sacred space, as well as a mountain there as well. So it's trying to challenge those current colonial laws to understand that sacredness of the relationship with land. And so I know we only have a minute or so left, so I want to thank you so much for coming today and sharing and discussing that aspect of self-determination, but also free pre-informed consent, which is mentioned at least six times in the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People. And also I think it's important to note that when the world's looking at how to implement human rights, the Navajo nation is actually a model around the world, because many countries around the world recognize the Paris principles and have created national human rights institutions. And the United States has not created one yet, or one of the few countries that doesn't have one. But it is amazing that the Navajo nation has that human rights commission. And we want to thank you for taking time at your busy advocacy schedule. And if there's anything like that about the human rights commission and the role that it plays, we'd like to conclude with that and look forward to continue our conversation into the future as we struggle for the right of self-determination. Article 1 of the ICCPR and Article 3 of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. And I think it is very important in the world community to begin really assessing the roles of human rights and the definition of how do we protect human rights, respect human rights, and where necessary appropriate remedy be administered to recognize human rights. That's an important and fundamental aspects of governments in dealing with Indigenous peoples and all sets of peoples. And I think the model that has been fostered by the UN system since 2011, that businesses also have the responsibility to protect. And those are some of the issues and conditions that my office also faces on a day-to-day basis. These big box retail stores have become a real interesting aspects of recognizing human rights. And so long as we can educate each other and understand and respect each other, I think there is a time in which we probably can be able to come to terms and come to grips with human rights. That's a great point and a wonderful way to conclude. There is also the UN guiding principles on business and human rights, which you're referring to. And we're actually having a training this week in Fiji because they're also looking at the issue with deep seabed mining and the different corporations coming in that you share, but also the obligations that those corporations have. And that's something that didn't always exist. We know when Columbus came over, it was always God, greed, and gold. And the three worked together with missionaries, merchants, and mercenaries. And the Indigenous peoples' right to land was never recognized. So that really is an important extra tool on top of the declaration, those guiding principles on business and human rights in the emerging treaty that will be created. So thank you for bringing that up. Thank you. All right. Well, we will thank you so much for making time, and we'll look forward to see the results of the Universal Periodic Review on November 9th. And we hope that the sacredness of Mauna Kea and the sacredness of the San Francisco Peaks will be respected and protected, and that the world will listen and listen to the wisdom of the Indigenous voice to understand a more genuine relationship with the globe and the intimacy that we have with our Earth. Thank you so much.