Governments should fund arts and cultural activities that actively promote indigenous languages and cultures
This debate is whether the government should invest part of its federal and/or local budget to cultural activities that help preserve indigenous culture and languages. Some examples of this could include funding the publication of a book in indigenous language, live performances of indigenous arts or expositions of indigenous art, among many other possible forms. The proposition needs to prove in this debate that the government has that obligation of preserving indigenous culture (including languages) and that its role is necessary in order to protect it. Having done that, the proposition would have won the debate.
- Multiculturalism is important to build a strong nationOnly way to understand indigenous cultures is preserving themProtecting national culture so the future generations can enjoy and learn from themGovernment intervention is needed to preserve these valuable pieces of cultureYes, cultural activities actively promote and make indigenous culture public, make people more aware of indigenous culture.What so far has been probedAll the No points
- Promotion of indigenous marriages is harmful to future generationsSacrificial Depiction in art can not be actively promoted
Governments should fund arts and cultural activities that actively promote indigenous languages and cultures
Yes because... No because...Multiculturalism is important to build a strong nation
Jean Jacques Rousseau talks about the origins of the state in his Social Contract. As the title suggests it is all about societies. If we have a strong union between the members of a group the effectiveness of their actions will be greater and their organization smoother, meaning stronger and more efficient nations in all of its levels from families to governments.
Think about Germany in the 1930’s, without defending Hitler’s megalomaniac policies that lead to WWII, but in the previous years a sense of unification among the Germans that included shared goals and feeling proud for their culture turned what was a country into one of the most prominent countries of the time. That's hardly the case of states home to indigenous people since they haven't been included, but the role of their cultures remains as vital as ever. The citizens need to acknowledge historical conscience of past imperial oppression and extermination against them in order to feel empathy and have them included.
Truth is, most governments have failed to do this. One of many examples is Colombia, where about 28 indigenous groups are facing physical extinction because of the lack of attention received combined with the aggressive territorial expansion of multinational companies hunting natural resources [[http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=43343]]. While this element of countries’ culture is being threatened, it is in the best interests of the governments not only to preserve it but to share it with its population in order to produce a sense of identity that strengthens the nation. When citizens start learning about their traditions they’ll immediately become aware of their roots, and this is when they’ll learn that not mattering form which city or province do they come from, all nationals are brothers bounded to one same country. This is why because of the responsibility that the government has in protecting the indigenous cultures and for the importance that they have we propose.
Yes, we do agree that a state would function better if it were that everyone had equal chances towards decision making in their home country. And that’s what democracy is. Indigenous or not, religious or not, we all have equal chances on how our country runs. Multiculturalism doesn’t matter. We don’t look at culture or backgrounds, but rather how he or she is an individual, with her own interest and rights. Just like that, in order for a group to be more successful we need to look at how well they work together, are their goals the same, how they are motivated rather than how diverse the group is.
Looking at the example Team Proposition gave, the reason that Germany was strong is because they had the same interests and goals. Even if I were a Greek person and I met a Japanese person this doesn’t mean we could work together. But on the other side regardless of what culture I have, if I met a person who wanted to help the children living on the streets just I like I want to, we could form a strong organization.
Also it is very ironic that Team Proposition took Germany and Colombia as an example. Firstly, the reason the Germans was a strong country is not because of multiculturalism but rather the opposite. They had the same views and goals, of nationalism, that their country is better than all others. They didn’t respect other countries or culture. Secondly the reason the indigenous people in Colombia are disappearing is that the government is treating them unfairly mainly because the laws and right don’t have proper protection for them. This causes genocide and etc. But promoting the culture and funding activities is not going to help. We need to sort this out from the base. We need to change laws and give rights and protect them.
For these reasons and flaws the propositions arguments do not stand. They have not even told us their mechanism, or how they are to achieve this task and why does the government need to fund? What their role is?
Governments should fund arts and cultural activities that actively promote indigenous languages and cultures
Yes because... No because...Only way to understand indigenous cultures is preserving them
As of now, we know just a little about the indigenous culture and are far away from their traditions, methods and systems of law which we just fail to understand.
It is more than obvious that in order to be able to learn from them and understand them we need to know their languages and see/live their culture. If anyone says the contrary then he is out of his/her mind because it is even complicated to anthropologists or archaeologists that dedicate their lives to understand their languages and traditions and many times need to be immerse into their communities in order for their investigations to function, and even then it takes them years to learn from their systems.
If we were to eliminate their languages and art then great part of that cultural heritage will be either lost or impossible to understand. Many indigenous groups base their whole customary law in native language and according to UNESCO, "if the language is lost the community may not fully understand its laws and system of governance that foster its future survival"[[http://www.un.org/esa/socdev/unpfii/documents/Factsheet_languages_FINAL.pdf]].
Not only that but also a great part of knowledge base is used in those languages and it was only when the Rosetta stone was interpreted that milleniums of human knowledge were able to be recovered (Greek philosophy, Egyptian agriculture, etc.) and in the same way, the indigenous groups preserve their natural methods for healthcare, agriculture, cooking and documentation that are valuable pieces of knowledge to the rest of humanity and not only that information is useful in practical terms but also to preserve history (only understanding the Mayan language it was discovered that they were the first to do an accurate calendar in history) and only through preserving Homer's books it was possible to discover the city of Troy, and great part of Greece's history, when it was thought it was fictional and centuries of history have been preserved thanks to literature.
We already do preserve important pieces of culture, indigenous or not. We have scientist and specialist trying to understand them. The main problem in this debate is whether we should ACTIVELY PROMOTE indigenous culture. We are not eliminating them because we need to promote it. As proposition states themselves we have specialist already working to understand their cultures better.
It seems the Team Proposition has misunderstood the motion. It clearly states that government would fund activities that actively promote indigenous culture. Not whether we should preserve them or not. We already preserve vital pieces of culture with the people agreement. And we are trying are best to understand and know indigenous history. To team opposition, the term actively promote is to make public and make people more aware of indigenous culture. And to promote is to contribute to the growth of indigenous culture. But Team Proposition is not doing that. They want to preserve it, but if you look at the examples team Propositions states, Rosetta Stone, Mayan Calendar, Homer's books, its obvious that we do preserve it and that we are providing to the cultures.
Again the source they used states that the problem consists with the laws and rights of some countries. And no matter how much we promote or even preserve we will lose the culture unless we go to the root of the problem, and give them the proper rights. We don't need the governments funding to solve this problem, but that the government straighten out their priorities and give equal chances.
Governments should fund arts and cultural activities that actively promote indigenous languages and cultures
Yes because... No because...Protecting national culture so the future generations can enjoy and learn from them
There's a reason why we build enormous museums equipped with sophisticated technologies all around the world, a reason why we are now so worried about global warming and try to save as much resources as possible. The reason is that we think of the future, and even if we won’t live for an eternity we care for those new generations who will share our world. We want them to have the commodities that we had, to experience a little of how we lived and to understand why we lived that way. If we are making all of these efforts with music, buildings and paintings why not doing it with culture? Let’s ensure that our grandsons witness these beautiful diversities, it is what I would have liked my great grandfather from the stone age had done, but now that we can let’s just do it.
And actually the most efficient way for transmitting culture is by promoting it with people, we can preserve them by organizing festivals and public presentations in which people learn about them and in the case of languages by teaching them from person to person or in schools. Over time this won’t only satisfy their cultural necessities of the ones to come, but it may also become useful. That is the case of Hoodia gordonii, a plant that is part of the medicinal folklore of the Namibian bushmen and that proved to be useful for designing dieting medicines after it caught the attention of a pharmaceutical laboratories, now both of the entities are being benefited by the utilities of a discovery born out of tradition. The situation is described in the “Experiences in Collaboration” by the “Indigenous Peoples and Conservations Organizations” [[wwf.panda.org/what_we_do/how_we_work/partnerships/indigenous_people2222/]] (PDF at the bottom). Doesn’t it make the motion desirable?
And the most important thing is that future generations will be able to enjoy their national cultures and arts, not in pictures and stories, but rather life, and that is a priceless experience we need to preserve
Everyone would agree that we do need to save our future; however team opposition thinks that everyone would also agree that there is no future without present. We already have the museums and the scientists and specialists working on preserving them, we don’t need the extra burden.
Governments have enough problems to deal with and mostly are cause by money. Countries are in billions of dollars in debt. There are people in poverty, who are famine stricken with no money, no house. Countless people without a job. Natural disasters causing gigantic problems. USA, Japan, Lebanon, Jamaica, and lots more are in too much debt, they can afford to waste a penny, let alone promote activities. We need to save our present first, secure their financial stability first and foremost.
Governments should fund arts and cultural activities that actively promote indigenous languages and cultures
Yes because... No because...Government intervention is needed to preserve these valuable pieces of culture
Unfortunately the numbers of indigenous people that preserve traditional cultural and linguistic forms of expression has been decaying and an example of this is the fact that 96% of the World's languages are spoken by 3% of the population and that 90% of them may be replaced in the 21st century[[unesco.org/culture/ich/doc/src/00120-EN.pdf]] so the situation is grave, and a greater effort is needed to be undertaken by the government since those languages have been avoided from usage in national texts and the urbanization has made the cultural traditions be lost little by little giving the government that responsibility to protect the native cultures.
Funding cultural activities is the best solution since the lack of motivation from the indigenous population to continue their traditional arts has been the fact that their work has not been recognized and correctly valued so if the authorities give the statement of caring, there will be an extra motivation to the indigenous groups to continue doing their art and at the same time be rewarded for that.
Indigenous art has been valued by those groups for centuries and they are in their right to preserve those forms of expression not only to their delight but also for the rest of humanity to be able to enjoy them, however it is impossible to do it only with will and it takes the implementation of policies such as investment in rescuing and preserving them by presenting them to the rest of the population.
An example can be having public festivals so the tourists can enjoy traditional music, food, pottery, plays, dances and books and that has been applied in México (the country with most native languages per capita) with the state-run Guelaguetza festival in Oaxaca, drawing tenths of thousands of tourists to appreciate and feel empathy with our Mexican roots, and that translates not only to joy but also to respect, tolerance and pride of what is ours, seeing our indigenous communities show their art and being part of it.
The opposition believes government funding to actively promote arts is unnecessary and invaluable. The proposition side failed to distribute how cultural events such as the Guelaguetza festival contribute to the rise of the number of people who speak an indigenous language (as shown in their first paragraph) and distinctively promote the culture.
Funding once in a year events such as festivals that promote art is short lived. People wouldn't learn the language nor the long-lived customs through a few events and increase the statistics about language the proposition side stated. During these events people will awe for only a few hours and the value of the culture will not be rooted in the people. Thus in order to practically make people understand indigenous culture the government shouldn't fund art events but rather education system. Education is not a form of art or cultural activity but a stable school system that will have a much long lived effect. By doing so not only the visual things on the cover but also the core of the culture will be understood and appreciated by the people.Governments should fund arts and cultural activities that actively promote indigenous languages and cultures
Yes because... No because...Yes, cultural activities actively promote and make indigenous culture public, make people more aware of indigenous culture.
Citing Opp: "the term actively promote is to make public and make people more aware of indigenous culture." True, that is why promoting cultural activities does exactly what Opp says and actively promotes it, it even sounds redundant.
Moreover, one of the main reasons why indigenous culture needs to be actively promoted is exactly to preserve it! Opp says it's not the case but that's false, the truth is that the main problem is tat the indigenous culture is being exterminated little by little (with more than 10 languages with less than 15 total speakers for example) so ladies and gentlemen, don't let the Opp deceive you because preservation IS a key part of the debate.
Opp also couldn't get the role of cultural activities (such a Guelaguetza) to preserve indigenous culture, but it is clear that it does as we have already mentioned giving an incentive for indigenous groups to do it and to increase awareness, key points we presented that the Opp didn't even address, so on that sense we have already won a burden of proof (how it is a necessary action) but anyhow, what we tried to prove was not that a festival like Guelaguetza helped preserve indigenous languages because that is not the point of that festival, the point of it is to increase awareness and show their culture to stop the same ignorant prejudices that Opp has shown in this debate. For preserving languages there are other measures such a translating the national Constitution, the national anthem, the Bible and many other books as well as having radio programs and live performances (music, theater, etc.) in those languages: There are many options to deal with the many problems of indigenous cultural extermination and we need to fund them all.
Watching the festivals that exist in Oaxaca and Cuzco (Perú) do leave a mark and increase awareness of thousands and that has to be added to many other measures, we never intended to understand all of the indigenous culture, we may never do, but we must preserve it.
Yes, and the reason we said that part was because Team Proposition was not trying to promote anything, rather trying to preserve. They still have not told us how they will do all this. Who will do this. No mechanism. The only sign of how Team Proposition was going to do their proposal, is their public festival, but those kind of festivals already happen. And there is no need to fund those festivals.
The key part of this debate is whether the government should give money to people and organizations so they can advocate indigenous cultures. We do not need the government to fund these less important things Team Prop is proposing to do for the indigenous people. The problems arose to be because of the laws and rights these people don't have that are causing this problem. And also because healthcare is a more important approach. Many may even be fighting for survival, for jobs, for better treatment. And we as a government should tackle these problems to the root. Promoting will not help. Look, if we change laws or rights, we make a direct impact. If we give them homes, medical care, we make change. If we use the money the Proposition wants to use for, on scientist and specialist to observe and communicate, we choose the most effective route. And that is what Team opposition wants.
We need to save our present, in order to see our future. We need to do whats more important first. These festivals happen, so let them be. Because we can use the money for better jobs like actually saving the community in which these cultures exist in. Help their people, with protection, education, medication, equal rights, and most importantly don't let them die out, so all we don't have is just preserved languages and memories of festivals. Prop say we have prejudices, and that we haven't been to a festival. But we know that promotion of a culture will be the best we can do.
Governments should fund arts and cultural activities that actively promote indigenous languages and cultures
Yes because... No because...What so far has been probed
Opposition is missing to understand that democracy and national identity are not rivals. Also they think that cultural promotion will lead into a sort of strike or revolution but we hardly think that this may happen, in fact it is a sign of a healthy democracy which cares for social inclusion.
So the real thesis of our first argument is that culture unifies people and thus it makes stronger and more efficient governments. The opposition has not been able to disproof this. They tried to do so by using individual examples on how through socialization we can get along with people, which is true, but it doesn’t serves to the purposes of our statement. We are talking about collective identification, not small organizations, not friend groups, but countries, the case of our Germany example. By the way, they had nothing to say about the relation between the German pride for their country and the reconsolidation of the state. What the opposition saw as a unique and universal face of Germans was the result of a cultural integration in which anyone, from Westphalia to Saxony, found a reason for being German. Our point prevails.
Also it is curious that the Opposition defends democracy but doesn’t stops to mention how marginalized indigenous groups really are, to the point that some of them are facing extinction! They stand for the equality of treatment, but then they contradict themselves by marking priorities in their 3rd reply: “We need to save our present first, secure their financial stability first and foremost”. What is worse is they said that we should take care of the poor and the homeless but they forget to mention that almost all of the Indigenous people are extremely poor and without a home. We will say it again: It is about social inclusion, taking care of those who until now have been marginalized and forgotten.
It seems that the proposition is having a burden to defend their argument by deviating from the motion brutally and still trying to defend their arguments when it was the time to write some arguments.
We must honestly say that we couldn't find any newish argument, so we decided to reply to their defending statements. Every rational people can see, we are not compromising a very value of democracy, as they claimed "Opposition defends democracy but doesn’t stops to mention how marginalized indigenous groups really are" because we already stated that those cultures of indigenous people were belonged to that of their time, so some of their cultural depictions or rituals would be incompatible with those of ours in this present.
As we stated about their ironically curious example about Germany by claiming "They had the same views and goals, of nationalism, that their country is better than all others", we just rebutted the proposition easily because knowing your origin and knowing that we have the same culture, doesn't mean we will become powerful together.
As they ridiculously stated and annoyingly deviated from the motion by claiming "What is worse is they said that we should take care of the poor and the homeless but they forget to mention that almost all of the Indigenous people are extremely poor and without a home.", we couldn't help but laughed because of their irrationality to think funding cultural activities would make indigenous people' life great or make them rich: the motion was to support the indigenous culture itself but not the indigenous people themselves. But they've just failed to see that and talked all about it, not to mention that they accused us of our being against democracy.
At the end of the day, they failed to make new argument and desperately tried their former arguments.Governments should fund arts and cultural activities that actively promote indigenous languages and cultures
Yes because... No because...México Summary
Key questions:
Is it a state obligation?
We defended that multiculturalism and tolerance are important values for building a strong nation and part of the state obligation is to foster them. Also that the state has an obligation coming from their lack of attention towards indigenous peoples, creating cultural extermination that must be redeemed. Opp said that diversity isn't important whatsoever but it's just important that people share goals, without noticing that building a nation is a common goal and building a nation requires to preserve your cultures, have identity and tolerance, to reduce discrimination and isolation that these groups face.Opp never showed a mutual exclusivity between supporting culture and public policies on poverty/healthcare, while funding arts would create jobs, tourism and create infrastructure and is a priority (and we showed that is a reason why the state also funds museums for example) of a different scope.
Is government intervention needed to preserve indigenous cultures?
We have proven that is the case, since we showed statistics on for example, how many languages are near extinction on the fact that the indigenous people have been discouraged to get into artistic and cultural activities since they haven't been paid for their valuable jobs, which is not only fair but also a strong statement by the government saying that it cares for indigenous culture and it needs to be preserved, as translating and publishing texts was an example we used on how not only there is a bond but also a crucial step to preserve languages.We mentioned México and Peru as the only two countries with large multicultural indigenous festivals and how those events are run by the state and are now yearly, giving those groups the possibility to showcase their music, food, attire, dances and many other cultural values to thousands of people and giving them more motivation to go on with them. Against that Opp mentioned that since people wouldn't learn the languages or the culture from just one vent then it is useless, but we replied saying that the objective of those events was important in the motivation and preserving within the groups plus creating pride and respect from the outsiders, who would also learn something else but the opposition didn't reply to the fact that it promotes the culture, which they then later acknowledged was something good to do.
Is indigenous culture valuable enough?
We pointed it's very important to those groups to preserve their laws and traditions and for the rest of humanity it was needed to preserve a great chunk of human knowledge (medicine,a agriculture, cooking...) that is in those languages and cultures plus we mentioned many examples where it was key to understand old languages to preserve history. Future generations need to be able to enjoy that live, but opp said they would preserve but in museums or just ignorantly depicted indigenous as uncivilized daughter sellers.Culture is priceless, all Prop
Governments should fund arts and cultural activities that actively promote indigenous languages and cultures
Yes because... No because...Promotion of indigenous marriages is harmful to future generations
Really? Those are the two arguments of the Opp? How morally repugnant can a title as "Promotion of indigenous marriages is harmful to future generations" sound? A lot. More, if the opposition is bang it on generalizations that only show ignorance on indigenous groups and that argument that Opp as just made is EXACTLY why the people need to get to know more about indigenous groups and our motion needs to pass.
First off, the opposition generalizes as if the more than 5000 (amounting for more than 360 million people worldwide) had the same systems for marriage, which is a blatant lie; they didn't even give an example of where did it happen and even if it did in one or many of the thousands of indigenous groups, in this motion we don't have anything to do with indigenous marriages whatsoever! What's the link between saving languages and paintings...With marriage?
We won't start arguing in favor or against indigenous marriage however we are in favor of indigenous groups having their own systems to rule themselves. They agree with their practices and want to do it, any other argument against it is just another depiction of the imperialist attitude that is totally against the indigenous and that exactly has lead to xenophoobia, racism and extermination. The exact same basis were used to exterminate almost the whole of the indigenous peoples of the Caribbean, and we have to oppose it.
The only thing that Opp has shown is that they have prejudices against indigenous groups and they are the perfect reflection of what we need to stop, because the indigenous groups ave many things we can learn from (we gave examples, such a natural medicines, etc.) and not only that, but we have to understand that they just happen to rule themselves with other norms and we have to respect their sovereignty, not show our repugnance and impose our own different values, thinking as if they were perfect, since morals vary and are not perfect.
Opp clearly never went to an indigenous performance
Family and marriage are the fundamental base of human growth that is an inseparable part of culture. Thus promoting certain types and aspects of these critical social growth basis, families, do build a strong psychological burden and social pattern for children. The indigenous peoples had their own rules of marriages that suited them for their own time but not our time, present.
Selling off their daughters and forcefully taking women as their wives were normal practices for marriage in the indigenous people. When the daughter reached adulthood, mostly 14 or 16, the father had the full right to give her daughter into a family by trading for property such as goats or sheep. When the daughter is traded into a family, under no obligation was she able to deny or escape from that marriage. A girl at a very young age was forced to marry someone, in most cases someone she had never met before. Thus by “actively promoting” (and we put emphasis on this) these aspect of indigenous culture the government send off a message to the children that forcing women into marriage and men buying their wives is alright. The democracy we have been trying to build for decades will be undermined such promotions. Because family is the sole basis of social growth for children such critical issue can not be promoted.
Promotion of such aspects of indigenous marriages and families, undermines freedom and rights, that we have been trying to educate our future generations with. As the proposition side stated "the future generations learn from the cultures". Thus in order to secure our future we shouldn't actively promote indigenous culture.
Governments should fund arts and cultural activities that actively promote indigenous languages and cultures
Yes because... No because...Sacrificial Depiction in art can not be actively promoted
This argument shows that the opposition has severe negative prejudices against culture. Up to know they have only despised it, failing to recognize the most minimum importance that it represents within human development, including its value in history, science and in all of the human branches of knowledge. For us that importance is something that, regardless of the position, should not be questioned in this debate.
Now, opposition speaks as if culture was on its own a criminal activity. Their entire argument is funded upon the premise that governments will publicly commit sacrifices as a matter of promotion. Well it seems that the opp. forgets that killing people is illegal anywhere in the world. So in the first place government couldn’t promote something that goes against its own laws.
In second place. If there are sacrifice stones in museums and if history textbooks of the different education systems worldwide talk about these rituals, it is because the governments definitely think that preserving this portion of culture is far from promoting murders. Actually for most ancient cultures it required heroic characteristics for being sacrificed, it was an honor. And what we seek with preserving culture is precisely sharing a part of how our history, spirit and thinking have evolved until becoming what it is today. From our point of view, leaving sacrifices aside would constitute an act of primitive censorship, akin to destroying cave paintings because they depict a cruel treat towards animals.
And last. There is a big deal of a difference between promoting culture & arts and pressing people to adopt ancient religioun. The opposition failed to address in their argument that sacrifices were merely a religious activity, an offering to the gods, and that giving the evolution in human development this practices have practically ended and go against the religious views of the actuality. Opp. is obviously missing a lot of information here.
A crucial part of the indigenous culture and art is their traditional ways of life. Sacrifice was a traditionally important and necessary part of their religion and agriculture. The indigenous people, who were already present before the new settlers came, believed human and animal sacrifices were a way of soothing the Gods for a better year of agriculture. This is a practice that must not be actively promoted.
In many of the arts, starting from clothes to paintings, excessive hunting and both animal and human sacrifices are shown extensively. A whole human life, our most important value, is given up forcefully for the sake of unproven tradition. Murdering one of their peers was a traditional act in which most indigenous people believed was valuable is proven horrible by the present.
Even though these beliefs have gradually been made extinct, its depiction in art is inevitably one of the main parts. Because religion and agriculture are one of the most important parts of a culture such depictions ought to be included. Promoting human sacrifice undermines our core value of democracy, the right to life. The fact that such things were the actual history that people lived through has a very powerful effect on people and especially children.These forms of art are already kept approachable in libraries and that should be the solid limit. If one is interested in the art and its content one can look it up in the internet or in libraries and view it for oneself. However actively promoting it has a far more effect than being available and approachable. As the proposition said the in their third argument "public presentations in which people learn about them". Thus promoting murder, and extinct and detested tradition can not be publicly presented.
Governments should fund arts and cultural activities that actively promote indigenous languages and cultures
Yes because... No because...Funding study and education of indigenous culture is obviously more important than funding activities:
As we understand it, the main worry of this argument is that the audience will be tricked by mischievous people who want to make profit out of this policy. Well we think that could be easily solved by just for the fact that as it is a public policy through state institutions, then any act that does not meet with governmental standards in terms of location (museums and plazas for example), and infrastructure won’t be part of the policy and people will know that there is nothing official on it.
These two new Opp. arguments have turned up to “what sector is the most important?” While the government has priorities, culture is not something to which we can forgo in order to obtain an economic (in the terms of opportunity cost that Opp. is applying) incentive. If so we should then close museums and stop funding science in order to address poverty. But we must also take into consideration the compromise that the government has with the recovery of this communities because of the damage that they suffered under its inaction against all of the threats that marginalized them. It is a moral debt that makes thinking of not supporting indigenous people even more despicable. We will talk more about it later on our rebuttal.
Now we would also like to mention that by performing public presentations of, let’s say indigenous poetry, indigenous people would have to be hired, thus receiving salaries and increasing their living standards. This may contribute to a solution for the education and health issues that concerned the opposition.
Apart from that, we are surprised because for the first time the opposition is agreeing with our view of the relevance of culture and the necessity to share it; but we are a bit bothered by the fact that they say they want to maintain the integrity of culture when they are arguing against some of indigenous values “… giving the stable and true information to people and making distinction between bad and good for them”. Good for closing.
In their second point, proposition claimed “we know just a little about the indigenous culture and are far away from their traditions, methods and systems of law which we just fail to understand.”, but they failed to explain how those ignorant people of society would be studying from so short-timed an “activity” like their Guelaguetza festival. And also there will be a high possibility of those people of society would be duped by some frauds and charlatans behind the name of businessmen, who will be trying to make some money by running some trivial activities that shower false information on people that participate. If this motion passes, those people will become run that kind of business on the ground that government would give them money (funding) , and they themselves would also make a considerable amount of money.
As we can see, the government is actually making problems by funding those activities, when its role is to solve them. And if that false information of culture prevails, it would even make the situation worse by corrupting a culture itself.
But we found the solution that funding the education of those culture means giving the stable and true information to people and making distinction between bad and good for them, which means we would not encourage those indigenous marriage and sacrificial depictions as light activities more often than not do. And if opposition really wants to study their history and culture and to maintain their wholesomeness, why should not we fund the “study and education” of it and not the mere “activity” like Guelaguetsa festival?
At the end of the day, we believe in the fact that government's role is to solve the problems but not to make it and relied on the assumption that having stable information of the culture by education is way important than just seeing and hearing it on mere social activities.Governments should fund arts and cultural activities that actively promote indigenous languages and cultures
Yes because... No because...Government fund should be spent on health care for indigenous people
The problem with the opposition’s perspective is that this isn’t a debate of what goes over what. It would be nonsense to continue in that line of the discussion because governments do not exclusively look after a single issue at a time, they must face all of a nation’s concerns no mattering how popular or unpopular these ones are. Yes, they might have priorities but it doesn’t mean that they will cease to attend security or education just for focusing in the economy or whatever the priority is.
Another issue is that Opp. is making a lot of generalizations: In the first instance, there are cultures that because of their beliefs do not allow doctors or laboratory medicines to heal them because they consider them to be alien to their traditions, reason why they just recur to their traditional medicines; it is the case of the cultures all along the Amazon River for example.
The other generalization relies in that the situation is not as critical as Opp. tried to make us believe. Actually because governments attend the many issues of a nation, they have been capable of developing effective health programmes that help indigenous people. In Australia, the same example used by the contrary team, the infant mortality rate has actually fallen and although the authorities say there are still great challenges ahead, the progress is undeniable [[abc.net.au/news/2011-08-04/20110804indigenous-health-report/2824756]]. Campaigns against AIDS in Chile and South America have also proven to be successful and to help Indigenous people develop a conscience of healthy habits. [[unaids.org/en/resources/presscentre/featurestories/2011/august/20110809indigenouspop/]].
We are not denying the important of healthcare, but the opposition talks of culture as if it was dispensable. Again, we believe that value shouldn’t be discussed within this debate. We are in favor of continuing with the current successful health programmes while also preserving culture with its additional benefit
The team opposition believes that in order to preserve indigenous cultures, the government should put protecting the lives of the indigenous people as a priority. Though promoting the arts and cultural activities of the indigenous people may have its benefits, it’s nowhere near important as saving and protecting the lives of the indigenous people who are in constant danger of deadly diseases is.
Currently, many indigenous communities have little to no access to health care. For example, in Venezuela “the child mortality rate is high. Poor nutrition and hygiene and inadequate health care means simple preventable problems, like diarrhea and respiratory infections, claim the lives of many infants.” [[http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/from_our_own_correspondent/7633164.stm]] While infants and children are dying from simple causes in Venezuela, Aborigines in Australia and Native Indians in Canada are hit harder by epidemics than other people are mainly because of their “geographic isolation and the lack of medical workers”. [["http://www.voanews.com/english/news/a-13-2009-07-04-voa16-68828797.html]] This problem is not only limited to Venezuela, Canada, and Australia. Millions of indigenous people all around the world have limited access to health services, pure water, or nutritional food.
Thus, it’s clear that as of now indigenous people themselves are living in danger of death. Logic alone can tell us that it’s impossible to preserve indigenous cultures and languages if the people who share those cultures are not in good health. It makes sense for the government to consider funding arts and cultural activities once it makes health services accessible for all.
Debates > Governments should fund arts and cultural activities that actively promote indigenous languages and culturesCategory: Arts & Entertainment