User:Runelagune

Typing in Oslo, Norway. Main interests are Human and Indigenous Peoples' Rights, linguistics and languages, animal rights, ecology and sustainability. I hold an MSc in Nationalism and Ethnicity from LSE (of University of London), and work in an NGO supporting indigenous peoples' rights.

I've been inspired to register here after reading about "The Summer Institute of Linguistics" (SIL) and following the discussion about the negative impact of their "missionary" activities on Indigenous Peoples.

My impression at this moment (March 2008) is that parts of the activities of SIL actually have been camouflaged as being missionary activity, while they actually have been making way for commercial interests in remote areas. This impression is based on conversations with people who have many years of experience from working with Indigenous Peoples' rights in South America, as well as reading documentation and statements form Indigenous Organisations, such as AIDESEP in PERU.

Also, looking at the Wikipedia page on SIL, the small chapter called "Missionary Activities" (which is where most of the controvery that interests me lies), one sees that a number of Indigenous Organisations have critizised the work of ILS, and even worked to have ILS expelled from their areas and countries. It is my basic belief that Indigenous Peoples themselves know best what is in their interest, and if their experience is that ILS' activities have a negative effect on their livelihoods, this must be respected.

Unfortunately, many of the supporters of active missionary activity seem to be unable to accept that anyone using the lable "missionary" may have other motivation than "helping people" (questionable in itself - do isolated peoples need our help??).

The following is quoted from the Wikipedia page on SIL as of today, March 16 2008. It is supposed to illustrate my point about Indigenous Peoples' Organisations being critical to SIL activiy:

In the early 1990s, the newly-formed organisation of indigenous people of Ecuador CONAIE once more demanded the expulsion of SIL from the country[15].

At a conference of the Inter-American Indian Institute in Mérida, Yucatán, in November 1980, delegates denounced the Summer Institute of Linguistics for using a scientific name to conceal its religious agenda and capitalist worldview that was alien to indigenous traditions[16].

Opponents have alleged[attribution needed] that SIL was financed initially by expatriate coffee processors in Guatemala, and later by the Rockefellers, Standard Oil, the timber company Weyerhauser, and USAID. By the 1980s, [SIL] was expelled from Brazil, Ecuador, Mexico, and Panama, and restricted in Colombia and Peru[17].