The Return of the Native1
The Return of the Native1
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故人归来1
作者：
A. Kuper
1992年人权日，联合国宣布世界土著人民国际年。随后发起了从1995年至2004年的土著人民十年，并设立了土著人民论坛。不幸的是，1996年在日内瓦举行的论坛首次会议因不速之客而中断。一个自称是南非布尔人的代表团出现了，并要求允许他们参加，理由是他们也是土著人民。此外，他们声称他们的传统文化受到新的非洲人国民大会政府的威胁。他们被毫不客气地驱逐了，毫无疑问，他们的动机远非纯粹，但这出戏可能有益地引起人们对定义和识别“土著人”的困难的注意。“原住民”和“土著人”这两个含义丰富的术语在活动家圈子里引起了广泛的争论。“本土”在世界许多地方仍然有殖民地的光环，尽管它在北美已经成为一个可以接受的标签。它现在总是大写（Native），也许是为了暗示它指的是某种民族，事实上，“第一民族”一词在加拿大和美国经常被用作替代名称。这对英国人来说有点陌生
On Human Rights Day 1992, the United Nations proclaimed an International Year of the World’s Indigenous People. A Decade for Indigenous Peoples was subsequently launched, to run from 1995 to 2004, and a Forum of Indigenous Peoples established. The inaugural meeting of the Forum, held in Geneva in 1996, was unfortunately disrupted by gate-crashers. A self-styled delegation of South African Boers turned up and demanded to be allowed to participate on the grounds that they too were indigenous people. Moreover, they claimed that their traditional culture was under threat from the new African National Congress government. They were unceremoniously ejected, and no doubt their motives were far from pure, but the drama might usefully have drawn attention to the difficulty of defining and identifying “indigenous people.” The loaded terms “native” and “indigenous” are the subject of much debate in activist circles. “Native” still has a colonial ring in many parts of the world, though it has become an acceptable label in North America. It is now always capitalized (Native), perhaps in order to suggest that it refers to a nation of some sort, and in fact the term “First Nations” is often used as an alternative designation in Canada and the U.S.A. In international discourse, however, the term “indigenous” is usually preferred. This has a slightly foreign ring to English ears,