Introduction-The Fourth Way-An Indigenous Strategy to Build Sustainable, Peaceful, and Harmonious Prosperity in the Americas and Beyond
The Fourth Way is an Indigenous-led movement of our Human Family to address the unfolding crisis of the 21st century, a problem of multiple dimensions that has slowly revealed itself over the last 25 years since publishing the first draft of the Fourth Way. This crisis's size and scope are unprecedented in that it is global and multifaceted, involving the prospect of economic, political, social, and ecological chaos and collapse. The result of this crisis is the birthing of a fundamental organic change on a level few members of our Human Family now contemplate.
We, the inhabitants of Mother Earth, now face a moment of choice. Will we emerge from this deepening crisis into a new golden age of human understanding, or will we continue to witness more significant and greater social conflict, increasing human suffering, and the loss of ecological health and democratic society? Until we unify and build a New World Civilization based on the Oneness of our Human Family and all Life and act together in unprecedented, unified action, our suffering will continue to deepen!
This Global Transformation of consciousness will prove to be the most significant global challenge experienced by the Human Family since the dawn of recorded Human History. This transformation will change the foundations of modern economics, the nation-state, our social structures, current agricultural and eating practices, religious cooperation and respect, and contemporary politics.
Among other equally crucial dimensions, like the environment, we have reached the end of a long cycle of credit and debt expansion increasingly characterized by destructive asset bubbles, income stagnation, and the enormous concentration of wealth and political power in the hands of the corporate-led global financial elite. The debt is now due! Current income will not pay!
In addition to unpayable debt, we face a massive volume of derivatives on that debt that would come due if and when the debt defaults. Since the debt is unpayable, we face the prospect of a global crisis that will unravel the traditional financial and political order worldwide.
If you add the impact of the global Covid-19 epidemic and the deepening conflict between Russia, Ukraine, and their supporters, severe global economic challenges are now happening. The struggle of a large part of our Human Family for economic survival, political participation and power, and even the right to personal privacy and autonomy will characterize the following years.
Modern communications, computing power, and crowd suppression techniques have radically increased the capacity to track and record all human interactions, whether via telephone, cell phone, e-mail, car, train, bus, or plane, and brutally suppress all dissent. Of course, these changes have all happened in the last nine years. But, equally, if utilized in a collaborative, principle-centered, purposeful manner, these digital communications technologies can be invaluable tools for forging a whole new social, political, economic, spiritual, and cultural relationship between all members of our Human Family!
In this regard, Mother Earth's first Digital Nation is now being born. The Union of the Condor, Quetzal, and Eagle directly connects all the digital networks connecting more than 78 million Indigenous Peoples across the Americas. This does not include the growing number of Allies and relatives spiritually awakening to their Indigenous roots.
This growing Digital Union will constitute the 4th largest Nation-State in the Americas, with the youngest and the fastest-growing population, not only in the Americas but on Mother Earth. Moreover, the Union's natural resources surpass every compatible Nation-State on Mother Earth, including an untold wealth of plant-based medicines, which exceeds every compatible Nation-State on Mother Earth.
The Union of the Condor, the Quetzal, and the Eagle is connected through a shared history, Sacred Teachings and Prophecies of the Four Directions, and the shared vision and dedication to manifesting Peace on Earth.
The spiritual foundation of the Union of the Condor, the Quetzal, and the Eagle, is the ancient understanding of the fundamental oneness and prior unity of all life. Therefore, all members of our Human Family are a part of the Sacred Circle of Life. Since all members of the Human Family are a part of the Sacred Circle of Life, we are all Indigenous Peoples of Mother Earth.
Therefore, every Human Being is responsible for the well-being of one another and all living things on Mother Earth.
Through the Everywhere Spirit-Digital Technology and the Internet- Indigenous Peoples and Relatives of our Human Family are moving forward in rebuilding and reunifying the Americas and beyond. Our actions and vision, guided by the Natural Laws and Guiding Principles inherent in our Indigenous Worldview and Legal Order, are based on an eternal and spiritually enduring foundation that respects and honors all Life.
Stopping Run-A-Way Climate Change is a primary goal of the Union.
It is clear to see that our environment is increasingly unstable as our climate changes. For example, the last several years have been some of the hottest on record, and we are witnessing unprecedented drought conditions in many parts of the world. In addition, the severity of storms is increasing, and we have seen several category-five tornadoes wreak havoc in many parts of the world.
As the ongoing tragedy of the Fukushima nuclear disaster demonstrates, current designs in 2022 still expose us to the risk of atomic meltdowns if power and water are cut off to any nuclear plant—and there are thousands globally. We also have global environmental, transportation, competition, and economic uncertainty with the Petroleum Industry that seems intent on sucking out every drop of Mother Earth's blood, whatever the consequences. As a result, we have entered a new age of energy insecurity.
Modern corporate chemical agriculture mines the soil for maximum short-term gain while destroying the long-term viability of the earth, compromising water quality and creating massive dead zones in our gulfs and bays. In addition, confined animal feeding operations add to the environmental havoc. Moreover, traditional farmers are at an enormous disadvantage as corporate agriculture is subsidized in the global North to destroy rural economies in the global South and small farmers everywhere.
In 2009, an initiative was launched at the International Indigenous Leadership Gathering to develop an International Treaty to Protect and Restore Mother Earth. After consultation with Indigenous peoples across the Americas, on Mother Earth Day, April 22, 2016, this Treaty was signed by Indigenous peoples across the Americas and Indonesia and other members of our Human Family. The International Treaty to Protect and Restore Mother Earth is the only comprehensive Treaty in the world today, with steps and strategies to stop runaway climate change.
Meanwhile, human health is deteriorating at a rapid pace as an epidemic of diabetes, obesity, and heart disease devastates the developed world. Food prices are rising while the nutritional quality of food deteriorates. With the war in Ukraine, food and energy prices are escalating more and more. We must return to a diet of fresh, whole, natural foods. The closer to home, the better. Whenever possible, we need to grow our food, especially as communities.
The Fourth Way describes and points the way for Indigenous Peoples to return to their roots and, in the process, contribute to the survival of our Human Family and the protection, health, and restoration of our Mother Earth. We must relearn the contributions of Indigenous Peoples to human health and prosperity, cooperative human social institutions, democratic governance, and human dignity and equality to apply those lessons to the crisis at hand. We must re-learn human survival tools through cooperative effort, partnership, trust, and reciprocity. So let us review some of this history.
After a long wintertime of loss and grieving, it is time for the Indigenous Peoples of Mother Earth to awaken and help us through the struggles ahead. The winter for the Indigenous Peoples of the Americas and beyond has lasted over 500 years. This spiritual winter began with a "great die-off" of at least 80% of all Indigenous Peoples in the Americas, about 80-100 million, primarily due to European diseases that killed them before they saw a European.
In his book 1491: New Revelations of the Americas before Columbus, Charles Mann quotes scholars who believe that 80-100 million Indigenous Peoples perished from disease by the mid- 1600s, a catastrophe on an even grander scale than the "black deaths" in Europe. Many more died afterward as the direct result of hostile colonial policies. Thus, Indigenous peoples have been subjected to profound challenges resulting from intergenerational trauma and the loss of identity and culture and have experienced great poverty and abuse. Indigenous people need to reclaim their customs, values, and traditions and take advantage of common material resources to play a critical role in humanity's advancement, thus fulfilling their highest potential.
History shows that Indigenous Peoples made essential contributions to the Human Family before the devastation of the long-foretold, great spiritual wintertime. If we start with food, we find that 80% of the foods we eat daily throughout Mother Earth were developed and cultivated by Indigenous agronomists in the Americas before the European conquest. The development of many of these foods represented remarkable scientific accomplishments.
Europeans used these new foods to improve health and nutrition, leading to a population explosion throughout Europe, especially in Ireland and Scotland, ultimately increasing the number of colonists in the New World. These foods include potatoes, corn, peanuts, squash, tomatoes, peppers, pumpkins, chocolate, and many types of beans, berries, and fruits.
Further, tobacco, sugar cane, and rubber were developed in the Americas and profoundly impacted global economic growth as the North American fur trade. Indigenous agronomists developed a form of cotton that had longer fibers and made weaving cloth much more manageable.
Europeans had previously worn chiefly linen and wool. Indigenous weavers wove some of the most beautiful cotton cloth available anywhere and wore these colorful clothes daily. Many of the vast fortunes of Europe and their colonies and the comfortable, cultured lives of the economic elite based on these Indigenous products and black slavery see Jack Weatherford, Native Roots, Indian Givers.
The gold and silver of the Americas increased the supply of money and led to great fortunes throughout Europe. The discovery of an island off the coast of Ecuador with hundreds of feet of compacted bird droppings fertilized the crops of Europe until the development of petroleum-based fertilizers. The bounty of foods, timber, minerals, fertile land and the oil and gas found throughout the Americas truly made the developed world we see today.
Indigenous Peoples gave the world its first view of human freedom. While most assume that Indigenous Peoples of North America adapted to the colonists, the facts show that at least in the beginning in North America, the adaptation went the other way and fused into a unique "Americanism." As Ian Fraizer notes in his book On the Rez, "when Columbus landed, there were about eleven people in Europe who could do whatever they felt like doing."
In many parts of the Americas, tens of millions of Indigenous Peoples customarily lived as they pleased via the Indigenous Legal Order. The colonists saw this and concluded that if Indigenous Peoples lived in freedom, "no tyranny can hold us."
Everyday examples of individual freedom among the Indigenous Peoples of the Americas inspired writers throughout Europe and helped spur the Enlightenment and the American and French Revolutions. These writers included Rousseau, John Locke, Thomas Moore, Voltaire, Jefferson, and even Shakespeare. See Jose Barreiro, Indian Roots of American Democracy. In addition, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, and George Washington spoke Mohawk and had an ongoing dialogue with the Iroquois Confederacy.
Members of the Iroquois Confederacy attended extensive meetings with the colonists in the years before the American Revolution. They advised unity based on a system of self-government similar to the Confederacy that ruled the Iroquois Confederacy. As a result, the Iroquois Confederacy lasted for centuries, keeping the peace across a broad swath of North America, and was a fundamental influence in the manifestation of the Federal system adopted by the United States and the ideals embodied in the Declaration of Independence.
In many nations, women were well respected and exercised real power. In some cases, tribal societies were matriarchal. Most tribes were egalitarian and accepted each tribal member for the contributions they could each make to the welfare of the tribe. Even highly technological civilizations like the Aztecs, Incas, and Mayans offered better nutrition, hygiene, and a better standard of living than any European society — the largest and most prosperous cities in the world, lasting in the Americas during much of early history.
Europeans were amazed at the bounty of available foods and that many Indigenous Peoples were taller and healthier than most Europeans. Many Indigenous Peoples learned to use their resources in an equal and sustainable way. The Iquitos area of the Northern Peruvian Amazon is still considered one of the world's most bio-diverse regions.
In 1542, one explorer Francisco de Orellana remarked that there was enough food in one village to feed an army of a thousand for one year. This abundance of food was found throughout the Americas but has since been lost and replaced by the non-sustainable agricultural practices and mono-cropping techniques that characterize modern farming.
These non-sustainable agricultural practices and mono-cropping techniques have led to the loss of knowledge of the methods of permaculture that served Indigenous Peoples for centuries. Now, most Indigenous Peoples suffer from malnutrition and chronic disease levels that were unknown before colonization. All were reversed by a revival of the farming and permaculture techniques pioneered by Indigenous Peoples.
One example of sustainable farming technology was the development of "terra preta" or "Indian dark earth" by Indigenous Peoples in the Amazon. This ingenious combination of partially combusted organic material (a form of charcoal) with pottery shards stimulated microfauna and created high levels of microbial biomass, dramatically increasing soil fertility and allowing soil fertility for years with minimal fertilization.
The Kayapo in central Amazonia continues to create terra preta today. Instead of destroying soil fertility, Indigenous people learned how to improve the soil sustainably, something modern humans still need to know. As a result, much of the Amazon basin was one huge permaculture providing a variety of healthy, sustainable food—allowing the genius of the Indigenous population that had learned to work with and not against Mother Earth. See Charles C. Mann, 1491.
The Fourth Way will renew this tradition of working with Mother Nature in a way that benefits all members of our Human Family.
The Fourth Way reflects the view that the Human Family is at a crossroads facing diverging paths; on one side lays the path of conflict, militarism, economic insecurity, and war. Conversely, a sacred path leads to mutual understanding, cooperation, and sustainable, harmonious prosperity.
"We," the like-minded Indigenous Peoples of Mother Earth, offer the Fourth Way based on the conviction that Indigenous Peoples, in the fullest sense of our understanding, have the vision, the guiding principles, the values, the growing capacity, and the collective resources to co-create a peaceful and harmonious future for our children and grandchildren. We submit that our Indigenous Peoples who care for Mother Earth and all living beings hold an essential key to peace, security, and sustainable well-being for all members of the Human Family. In the Fourth Way, we discuss the issues and outline a strategy for the constructive engagement of all concerned. Our collective future is at stake.
Implementing the Fourth Way requires us to look at the world differently. We are accustomed to seeing the world through a prism uniquely anchored in our background, experience, and to the narrative or founding "myth" of our Indigenous land or group. Centered on spiritual belief and tradition, we must learn to respect both spiritual faith and religious differences. The Fourth Way honors and appreciates all forms of spiritual understanding but also respects freedom of conscience. We must learn to widen our prism to see and understand more than we did before, to see ourselves as others see us, and to see the issues we face from differing points of view. In the end, we must come to understand the true meaning of Black Elk's vision, that despite our differences, we are, in fact, all related.
BLACK ELK'S VISION
Then I was standing on the highest mountain of them all, and round about beneath me was the whole hoop of the world. And while I stood there, I saw more than I can tell, and I understood more than I saw; for I saw in a sacred manner the shapes of all things in the spirit, and the shape of all forms as they must live together like one being. And I saw that the sacred hoop of my people was one of many hoops that made one circle, wide as daylight and as starlight, and in the center grew one mighty flowering tree to shelter all the children of one mother and one father. And I saw that it was holy.
Then as I stood there, two men were coming from the east, headfirst like arrows flying, and between them rose the Daybreak Star. They gave me a herb and said: "With this on earth, you shall undertake anything and do it." It was the Daybreak-Star herb, the herb of understanding, and they told me to drop it on the earth. So I saw it falling far, and when it struck the earth, it rooted and grew and flowered, four blossoms on one stem, a blue, a white, a scarlet, and a yellow; and the rays from these streamed upward to the heavens so that all creatures saw it and in no place was there darkness."
An Indigenous Reality
The Indigenous Peoples of Mother Earth, who still have a connection to their land, language, culture, history, and spiritual traditions, are the poorest and most socially and politically marginalized populations in every country where they reside. They have the poorest health, the worst infant and child mortality levels, the most exposed and vulnerable to environmental pollutants, the lowest levels of education, and the highest levels of perceived powerlessness, political oppression, and frustration.
Indeed, many Indigenous peoples have been, and are still being, pushed into extremes of poverty and misery, or even to the brink of extinction in some regions, all in the name of "progress" or "development." Many have been forced to leave their traditional lands, sometimes at gunpoint, after having been falsely accused of being "rebels" (or, more recently, "terrorists") by those who intended to profit from the seizure of Indigenous land. Indigenous land holds much of the world's remaining natural resources, including oil and gas, as well as a host of other minerals, forest products, and, of course, water which, as the foundation of all life, is increasingly being commodified.
Millions of Indigenous Peoples have watched helplessly as their traditional means of livelihood were wiped out by unsustainable environmental practices used by sizeable transnational fishing, timber, oil, and mining corporations, plantation-style agricultural operations, and sizeable government-subsidized agribusiness corporations usurping agricultural markets in their countries. Hundreds of thousands of Indigenous small farmers can no longer earn a basic income because of the intentional destruction of local agricultural markets through predatory global trade practices dictated by the agribusiness industry. These farmers have joined the millions of illegal immigrants flooding into the United States. When viewed through the eyes of Indigenous people, these conditions are not exaggerations; they are the unembellished facts of life.
An Indigenous Response
Over the years, there have been various responses among Indigenous Peoples to this cruel set of conditions, ranging from assimilation and passive resignation to resistance. At the same time, there has always been a powerful core of Indigenous elders and spiritual leaders who advocated holding on to the ancient spiritual vision of the oneness of the Human Family. And the teaching is that the way out of this period of oppression and suffering Indigenous peoples have endured is not through violence but rather through healing the broken trust and through building constructive partnerships with all nations and peoples. These elders and spiritual leaders have continued to believe in the ancient prophecies.
These prophecies include the Reunion of the Condor and the Eagle, the Eighth Council Fire, the Return of Quetzalcoatl, and the Return of the White Buffalo. As well as the Hopi and Mayan Prophecies and the fulfillment of Black Elk's Daybreak Star Prophesy. Those who advocated resistance and violence in the past overcame their wise voices and vision. We believe that the time has now come to witness the fulfillment of their vision.
Indigenous Peoples have traditions rooted in community, sharing, reciprocity, and mutual responsibility somewhat akin to the political philosophies at the foundation of the Canadian confederation: namely, that every person is a "trust of the whole," and as such, holds rights and privileges as well as responsibilities. For example, it is likely that many Indigenous movements will oppose private ownership of natural resources but would support the development of these resources if the community benefits.
Policymakers must understand that attempting to make policy without understanding culture is a dead-end and that one cannot equate culture with values. Culture is what people share, not just what they believe. Indigenous people share BOTH culture AND a system of values often different from that of the developed world. There is an Indigenous Legal Order.
A critical factor in diffusing violence and advancing economic prosperity is understanding what it is like to see the world (past, present, and future) through the eyes of those who believe they have nothing left to lose. With the rise of Indigenous leadership across the Americas, new hope is created with the prospect of political power due to recent successes in elections reviving the hope of changing unresponsive governments. The old passive resignation is being replaced by social and political activism, but chronic poverty and lack of power endure. This rise of Indigenous leadership is a potent recipe for one of two outcomes: conflict or renewal and advancement. Those who hope for peaceful and harmonious results should support renewal and progress.
An Indigenous Analysis
Conversations with Indigenous leaders across the Americas have provided the following analysis:
Indigenous Peoples are facing grinding poverty and have endured the ongoing suppression of self-development efforts by our governments (i.e., the governments of the nation-states in which they reside, including many Indigenous communities within Canada and the U.S.). Yet, in some regions around Mother Earth, there is hope for change. But what will the reaction of the world community be? Will self-development and new leadership be supported or crushed by violence, assassination, or lack of support?
Many Indigenous Peoples see only three options:
1)Assimilation - to give up our Indigenous identities, history, culture, spiritual beliefs, and way of life and become part of the blended homogenous mass. Unfortunately, some of our people have tried to do this, and most of them have lost their land and remain marginalized, poor, and increasingly desperate.
Resignation -to accept powerlessness, poverty, victimization, sickness, and despair as our destiny; in other words, to give up.
Resistance – to enter into organized struggles to defend our lands, families, and lives and win concessions from our governments. Resistance can range from non-violent protests to armed conflict and can even include participation in the black market for drugs and weapons.
We believe that there is the Fourth Way: Empowerment and Constructive Development – to create organized Indigenous and related social movements focused on promoting the well-being and prosperity of people and electing and supporting leaders who are genuinely responsive to the majority of the people. Leaders who will not only improve education, health care, infrastructure, and economic development but will also work to create social and political "spaces" within the countries where Indigenous people reside for genuine participation in an inclusive and equitable project of rebuilding nations.
This approach is not merely political. It also implies a systematic reclamation and recovery of Indigenous cultural foundations, identity, and language and the re-anchoring of social, economic, and political change in the spiritual and cultural values and traditional knowledge at the heart of Indigenous cultures. This approach in no way implies a retreat into the historical past. Still, it is an active engagement in the challenge of shaping the future of nations within the framework of life-preserving, life-enhancing, and sustainable values and patterns of action in harmony with all members of the Human Family.
Indigenous leaders have noted that those Indigenous groups that take up arms get a great deal of attention. If those who participate politically and win elections achieve nothing. If not, violence and armed struggle will be all that is left from some perspectives.
This active participation has implications for Indigenous communities and the rest of the Hemisphere's marginalized poor, many of whom have Indigenous roots and are increasingly identifying with their Indigenous backgrounds. These relatives have significant cultural, spiritual, economic, and political contributions to make in implementing and developing the Fourth Way strategy across the Americas.
Towards Implementing the Fourth Way Strategy
We talked about four options earlier. Indigenous people see for themselves in all of this: Assimilation, Resignation, Resistance, or Constructive Development. Empowerment and Constructive Development is the "Fourth Way" that will lead to sustainable peace, social justice, and shared economic prosperity should it be vigorously and wholeheartedly pursued. As shared earlier, Indigenous spiritual leaders have always known and advocated this pathway. It is a way of healing, peace, and partnership building.
What is relatively new is that many leaders of Indigenous movements across the Americas are now more open than ever to "The Fourth Way" because they are beginning to see that the other three pathways (and especially the pathway of violence and conflict) are creating even more profound misery and suffering for their people. Many Indigenous people have tried the other three pathways and understand that another path is necessary. The challenge is that "The Fourth Way" is not a path. Indigenous people can walk solely on their own. They will need the collaboration, support, and true partnership of their governments, the business community, NGOs, and international funding agencies.
In the work of Four Worlds across the Americas over the years, we have had the opportunity to sit in community-level meetings with thousands of Indigenous people and their leadership from many different tribes and nations. In these meetings, we have seen and heard the same consistent message:
The vast majority of Indigenous peoples want what most people everywhere on Mother Earth want. They want peace, freedom from poverty and disease, and to end oppression. As well as a respect for their cultures, languages, and Mother Earth, a reasonable level of sustainable prosperity and well-being for their families and communities, access to education (including higher education), opportunities to sustainably and harmoniously participate in the global economy, and a meaningful voice in shaping the policies, programs, and conditions that impact their lives.
Governments who hold the reins of political and economic power in their countries often present a stone wall of ignorance, prejudice, and greed, with no significant will to understand Indigenous peoples' appalling realities and conditions. They have no real awareness that their wealth production activities (in oil, gas, agriculture, forestry, mining, etc.) are, at best, cutting Indigenous people out of any opportunity for economic advancement and, at worst, setting into motion environmental, economic, political and social forces that are directly destroying the lives of Indigenous communities. With new leadership coming to power across the hemisphere, political change must be carefully channeled to achieve positive outcomes. The removal of President Morales in Bolivia demonstrates political leaders' challenges in reconciling national and international competing interests.
As viewed through the eyes of many Indigenous people, the forces of globalization, centered in institutions and programs like the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, giant transnational corporations, and many so-called aid and development programs, also seem to be driven by the policies of the wealthy and powerful. These policies (it is perceived) are creating and perpetuating the intolerable conditions with which Indigenous people are now living. This perception continues despite the supposed efforts of the World Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank to increase their focus on the role of spirituality and culture in development.
Indigenous people are increasingly becoming organized and politicized in their efforts to pressure governments and international institutions for change. Their organizations and movements are powerful enough to directly challenge and destroy the legitimacy and power of some governments. Indigenous people have been successful recently in electing leaders who have pledged their support for changing this pattern.
Will these new government leaders be successful? As governments elected with Indigenous participation and leadership take power, it is critical that they succeed and that the movement of harmonious, constructive development through spiritual empowerment spread across the Americas. Indigenous people across the Americas are asking: what will be the developed world's response to these new political movements?
Will they be supported or undermined and opposed? Will we see constructive engagement and development or a new cycle of militarization, assassinations, and military coups?
An Indigenous Cultural and Spiritual Awakening and Growing Unity
Despite the challenges, a spiritual awakening occurs throughout the Indigenous world. This awakening is coming from within Indigenous Peoples in response to years of suffering and potential destruction, as well as from their cultural and spiritual treasures of Sacred prophecies, gifts, teachings, songs, ceremonies, and the spiritual guidance of wise teachers and elders both past and present.
Throughout the Indigenous world, there is a mosaic of prophecies that share, in essence, that after a very long wintertime of spiritual and physical suffering, a new spiritual springtime will emerge for Indigenous Nations, Tribes, and Peoples, which will lead to a spiritual awakening among other members of the human family throughout the Americas and around the world.
As this global awakening progresses, a powerful new spirit and energy are released within the Indigenous world. This empowering spirit has its roots in the Indigenous peoples' strong belief in the promises of ultimate justice and renewal found within Indigenous prophecies. This growing, animating, dynamic, and empowering spirit can be directed towards rapidly and systematically building a new global civilization, beginning in the Americas or co-opted and translated into further insurgencies, violence, and terror. This choice is the decision we face.
The ancient prophecies of an Indigenous awakening and renewal are steadily moving toward fulfillment. This development should be welcomed, as the prophecies also speak of how this Indigenous awakening and revival will benefit the entire human family by helping to usher in an era of global peace, prosperity, and well-being.
So what is the "Fourth Way"?
The Fourth Way consists of a multi-pronged strategy for empowering Indigenous peoples to move toward sustainable peace, prosperity, and well-being, taking into account Indigenous communities' history, culture, and values. The Fourth Way entails the following lines of action:
I. Constructive diplomatic work, top-down and bottom-up, to empower Indigenous people and assist governments and national and international institutions in making critical policy and program shifts to create an environment for viable partnerships between Indigenous peoples across the hemisphere and between Indigenous people and the governments of the countries in which they reside. This diplomatic work would also assist Indigenous leaders in moving past feelings of mistrust and suspicion into a consultation process, leading to effective partnerships.
What is needed are new strategic initiatives that will allow Indigenous people to contribute to and receive a just share of the wealth of the nation-states in which they reside but also do not require those now in positions of wealth and power to feel that they will lose everything. The guiding principle of these strategic initiatives should be harmonizing the extremes of wealth and poverty. We see each government's diplomatic corps playing a critical role in this aspect of the work, in partnership with specialists in Indigenous peoples' development.
II. Partnership Building-Extensive and sustained partnership-building work is needed.
a) Inter-Indigenous partnerships. These will entail partnerships between Indigenous people and nations across the Americas for mutual assistance in development, economic cooperation, and educational activities. These partnerships and related activities should include exchange programs in English, French, Portuguese, and Spanish through the creation of language institutes (especially for young people), as well as scholarships and internships focused on building Indigenous capacity and developing Indigenous leadership necessary to implement the Fourth Way;
b) Indigenous to Government Partnerships. Constructive partnerships established between Indigenous people and the government of the countries in which they reside aim to give Indigenous people a real voice in shaping the policies and programs that impact them. These partnerships must ultimately result in significant improvements in the social and economic life of the Indigenous communities;
c) Indigenous Institutions and international development agencies. Collaborative working partnerships are also required between appropriate Indigenous institutions and selected NGOs and global development and funding agencies, focused on various aspects of development assistance and capacity building;
d) Expand partnerships between newly elected Indigenous leadership and the Governments they now control. The governments of Canada and the U.S. need to include direct support and assistance in advancing development objectives, diffusing conflict and violence, and stopping militarization, assassinations, and military coups.
e)North-south Indigenous Peoples' partnerships. Finally, collaborative working partnerships need to be developed between Indigenous Peoples in the North (Canada and the United States) and their counterparts in the south to share knowledge, capacity, and resources for mutual aid, trade, and development.
This connection existed for centuries before it was broken apart by European colonization and the subsequent decimation of Indigenous nations across the Americas. For example, an ancient prophecy predicts the "Reunion of the people of the Condor (i.e., Indigenous people of the South), and the people of the Eagle (i.e., the Indigenous people of the North)." It predicts that a great era of peace, well-being, and prosperity will follow when realized.
So strong is the belief in this prophecy among Indigenous people that the Otomi people in the state of Mexico have built a vast ceremonial amphitheater dedicated to the "Reunion of the Condor and the Eagle." The focal point of this fantastic construction (which rivals the ancient Mayan, Aztec, and Zapateca pyramids in its size, grace, and beauty, and which was primarily built by the volunteer labor of thousands of poor Indigenous people out of love and faith in the prophecy) is a gigantic stone carving of a Condor, and an Eagle joined in a loving embrace.
At this location, the first Reunion of the Condor and Eagle, International Indigenous Trade and Social Development Agreement and Unity Pact was signed on May 5, 1999, between Indigenous Leaders of more than 100,000 peoples from Mexico and representatives of First Nations from Canada and the U.S.
Following the first Reunion of the Condor and Eagle Agreement and Unity Pact in Mexico, other Sacred Agreements and Unity Pacts based on the Sixteen Principles were signed at the Indigenous Summit of the Americas in Ottawa, Ontario, in March 2001 and at the Reunion of the Condor and The Eagle Indigenous Action Summit in the Commonwealth of Dominica in March 2003.
These Sacred Unity Pacts now unite Indigenous representatives and their allies from Greenland, Canada, the United States, Mexico, Guyana, Guatemala, Venezuela, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, and the Commonwealth of Dominica, with populations of more than 57 million Indigenous peoples. In April 2002, a fourth Sacred Agreement and Unity Pact was signed in Bern, Switzerland, with Canadian and European supporters and NGOs.
III. The creation of effective participatory governance institutions and mechanisms through which Indigenous people can negotiate constructively with governments and the business community to address their ongoing needs and concerns and through which they can manage and direct their development programs and processes.
IV. Targeted and sustained development assistance to support comprehensive social and economic development programs in the heart of Indigenous nations focusing on such critical issues as education, social and economic development, leadership, governance and institution building, and civil society. The focus should also be on strengthening food production and food security, business and enterprise development, sustainable environment and resource management, primary health care, cultural revitalization, and building and preserving a culturally appropriate social safety net. This targeted aid must be sustained for at least a decade as capacity is building and a self-sustaining development process is fostered.
The Fourth Way (a pathway that moves beyond assimilation, resignation, and resistance to actual empowerment) works towards Indigenous nation-building and development. It occurs within a context of cooperation and partnership with government, business, and civil society in general, as well as within the legal framework of each nation-state where Indigenous peoples reside.
Is This Realistic?
Thirty years ago, such a proposal might have seemed fanciful outside the context of Indigenous communities. Still, events in New York, Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, Egypt, Libya, Syria, Russia, Ukraine, Georgia., Palestine, Bolivia, Ecuador, Peru, Chile, Uruguay, Brazil, Argentina, Colombia, the European Union, and many other places have overtaken us.
These events made it crystal clear that the disempowered and impoverished masses can no longer be considered a "neutral" environmental factor, ignored in the process of doing business and running countries.
At this stage in history, no country in the Americas can afford to continue doing "business as usual." The risks are too significant.
While it is true that to make the shifts required in a "fourth-way" approach will not be without costs, the costs of failing to invest in Indigenous Peoples' development and that of those who have become the "marginalized poor" will be very great indeed and holds the potential to destabilize entire societies.
The Fourth Way strategy and analysis respects human dignity, calls for the empowerment of people, and comprises a framework for action that can be implemented anywhere in the world where sustainable development and nation-building constitute critical lines of work in diffusing terror, violence, and poverty, and creating conditions that lead to constructive growth, spiritual empowerment, social justice, and economic prosperity.
Conclusion
Ending terror and violence cannot be accomplished by military means alone. We must also assist in empowering people to achieve a socially just and reasonable measure of well-being and prosperity. Recent experience in Iraq and Afghanistan shows that a heavy-handed military "solution" may make situations much more challenging. Indeed much of what is needed to eliminate the scourge of terror and violence from the face of our Mother Earth is related to empowering the Human Family to become engaged in constructive processes of change and in bringing processes of harmonious development and social and economic justice to the dispossessed and the poorest in every region of Mother Earth.
The Fourth Way is not merely a strategic option or an alternative path for Indigenous Peoples of the Americas (as well as Human Beings like them elsewhere in the world). However, it is the only option leading to sustainable peace and prosperity and is essential in ending violence and poverty.
This strategy, selectively employed in other areas of the world, will be successful where the pressure of prolonged social and economic injustice and poverty has significantly increased the susceptibility of those populations to desperate and extreme measures, including terror and violence.
At this uncertain crossroads in human history, Indigenous Peoples and their Allies have a unique and powerful role to play as champions of peacemaking and sustainable development, which are critical lines of action in defusing violence and poverty across the Americas and around the world. We know that the Governments of Canada and the U.S., as well as other Governments, face difficult and expensive decisions and that national security must have a very high priority.
The Fourth Way is a Strategic Security Initiative
We submit that the Fourth Way is a strategic security initiative. From an Indigenous perspective, the Fourth Way offers a strategic option for Indigenous Peoples to provide the spiritual leadership to support the transformation of frustration, violence, hopelessness, and poverty into sustainable and harmonious processes of active development, initially in the Americas and then around the world.
