Global Paradigm Change | Rights of Nature: Now A Global Movement

By Thomas Ivan Dahlheimer

Tom Goldtooth (Bdewakantonwan Dakota/Dine'), Executive Director of the Indigenous Environmental Network and internationally renowned Indigenous environmentalist, stated that “we cannot have the recognition of our rights as indigenous people if we do not recognize the rights of nature.”

Mr. Goldtooth's traditional Bdewakantonwan Dakota homeland ancestral-headquarters is Mille Lacs Lake (Bde Wakan) in Minnesota. The "Rum" (Wakan/Wahkon) River watershed, which includes Mille Lacs Lake, is also part of Goldtooth's Bdewakantonwan Dakota traditional homeland, which is a large area in central Minnesota that the Bdewakantonwan Dakota were unjustly and violently forced from. Following the evil principles of the Doctrine of Christian Discovery and Domination of Indigenous Peoples a group of invading European colonists tricked and used a displaced East Coast band of Ojibwe to violently force the Bdewakantonwan Dakota from this sacred (wahkon) watershed homeland of theirs.

Now-days, there are Bdewakantonwan Dakota rights activists and advocates working to rectify unresolved past injustices and current injustices being committed against the Bdewakantonwan Dakota in this sacred traditional Minnesota homeland of theirs. I am a Bdewakantonwan Dakota rights advocate who is promoting Dakota environmentalism throughout the "Rum" (Wahkon) River Watershed, and as a part of this advocacy work-I am seeking to gain legal personhood rights for the badly named "Rum" (Wahkon) River.

"The idea that a feature of nature, like a river, is a living being might seem like a strange concept to some, but it is nothing new to Indigenous and other traditional peoples around the world. While the Western philosophical system is underpinned by the idea that man is separate from nature and in dominion over it, Indigenous philosophical systems tend to conceive of humans as a part of nature, often in a stewardship role to help maintain its balance." - Alexis Bunten

The Western philosophical system is based on the Bible passages: Genesis 1:28, ...be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea" and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth,... and Psalms 2:8-9: "Ask of me, and I shall give thee [the pope and European Christian nations] the heathen [Indigenous Peoples] for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth [which includes all of the Indigenous Peoples' land] for thy possession. Thou shalt break them [commit genocide and "ethnic cleansing" against them] with a rod of iron; thou shalt dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel."

"The 'Rights of Nature,' which codifies this Indigenous philosophy, has been in the news lately. On March 15, [2017] the New Zealand parliament passed the Te Awa Tupua Bill, which granted the Whanganui River the rights of legal personhood. Less than a week later, on March 20, the Ganges, and Yamuna Rivers in India were also granted legal personhood status. Should these rights be threatened by human activity, legal cases on behalf of these rivers can be brought before a court to uphold their rights. [It is a Hindu and Indigenous Peoples' traditional belief that rivers are living beings with personhood rights.]" Alexis Bunten

"Recognition of personhood rights are an important step forward toward the recognition of the full rights of the rivers to be healthy, natural ecosystems. Such rights would include the rights of the rivers to pure water, to flow, to provide habitat for river species, and other rights essential to the health and well-being of these ecosystems." Alexis Bunten

"In Highland Township, Pennsylvania, CELDF, [''International Center for the Rights of Nature"], is serving as legal counsel for a local watershed to defend its rights not to have frack waste injected in the ecosystem." - Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund.

"Once numbering 13,500 indigenous nations around the world, there are now 5,000 different cultures - approximately 370 million people. Those that remain face ever increasing threats to their natural environments. At the forefront of the threats are extractive industries: timber and logging, gas and oil, and mineral mining. These industries not only threaten the land, water and air, but indigenous peoples’ livelihoods and cultures." - Earth Law Center

"An increasing number of court rulings and legislation worldwide are recognizing rights of nature to be protected and preserved. Recognizing these rights also entails the recognition that nature has the right to stand in court and to be represented for its defense. Within this doctrine, rivers seem to be on the spotlight and court rulings on the rights of rivers are the ones setting precedent." - Earth Law Center

"Recognizing that nature has legal rights and accepting these rights as part of our legal systems require not only the introduction of new laws observing these rights, but also a shift in paradigm for them to be fit in a contemporaneous legal puzzle. Referring to a 'shift' in paradigm and not the 'introduction' of a newly created one is intentional, as the recognition of rights to nature has been already part of customary law for many indigenous populations around the world for centuries. These principles, however, have not been embedded in the development of modern environmental laws, grounded on an anthropocentric paradigm. This paradigm, has proven to be erroneous, as humans are irreversibly damaging the natural structures they depend on for survival despite the existence of environmental laws. The Paris Agreement and the planetary efforts that have been recently undertaken to move away from this approach and to develop in a sustainable manner point towards the possibility of a shift towards an earth-centered paradigm, where humans are part of the planetary system and aim at living in harmony with it." - Lidia Cano Pecharroman

A Mille Lacs Messenger newspaper letter to the editor of mine is about my global decolonization environmental mission. An article of mine on this topic is posted on the Mille Lacs Messenger's newspaper website/blog. It is titled New Age Globalization And The Coming New World Order. In this article I promote a decolonization global paradigm change based primarily on a radical transformation of Christianity, a transformation that is already beginning to occur by way of both, the massive infiltration of New Age/Hindu or Eastern mystical meditation and yoga into Christian churches and the renunciation of the Doctrine of Christian Discovery and Domination of Indigenous Peoples by the World Council Of Churches and several mainline denominational Christian Churches.

Because of modern-day scientific discoveries that expose an essential Christian dogma as false and the unjust Doctrine of Christian Discovery and Domination of Indigenous Peoples as well as other reasons, I do not believe in historic and traditional Christianity and I seek to put an end to it. However, I am a devote New Age "Christian" follower of Jesus Christ, who I believe is a New Age/Hindu guru. I believe that there is a Bible passage that prophecies the coming of the global paradigm change that I am promoting.

The author of the best-selling book "Gods of the New Age, the late Caryl Matrisciana (1947-2016), also produced a popular documentary video on today's massive infiltration of New Age/Hindu or Eastern mystical meditation and yoga into Christian churches. It is titled "Yoga Uncoiled - Christ Centered Yoga False Christianity - Documentary." Another Caryl Productions video on this topic is titled: WIDE IS THE GATE - The Emerging New Christianity VOLUME 1 and VOLUME 2. Warning: There is a lot of Christian propaganda in these videos that distorts the truth about what the New Age is about.

The popular Caryl Productions video titled "Yoga Uncoiled - Christ Centered Yoga False Christianity - Documentary" includes an introductory documentary about how the New Age spiritual philosophy entered the mainstream by way of the Beatles' promotion of the yogic Hindu, 1960s hippie spiritual revolution. In this video a narrator states that the 1960s spiritual revolution that the Beatles began to promote-continued to spread throughout the '70s and succeeding decades-and that "it is still rapidly gaining global acceptance today."

I, like the world renowned Indigenous activist Steven Newcomb, believe that we need a decolonization global paradigm change to solve the global climate change crisis. I am promoting this global paradigm change by (1.) advocating for the liberation of indigenous peoples from Christendom's domination so that they can become free Independent Indigenous Sovereign Nations once again, and by (2.) promoting the current revival of the 1960s hippie New Age/Hindu spiritual philosophy and counterculture eco-village communism or tribalism. I believe that an important goal of this global decolonization paradigm change movement is the retribalization of the world.

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This article with reference links is located on my website. Google this article's title to located it on my website.