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Edinburgh Reporter
01-07-2025
- Politics
- Edinburgh Reporter
Whitfield meets with indigenous Wampís leaders
Martin Whitfield, MSP in Lothian East, met with Indigenous Wampís leaders from the Autonomous Territorial Government of the Wampís Nation (GTANW) on Monday. The leaders have spent a week in Scotland seeking the support of The Scottish Government and solidarity with the Scottish people to ensure their human rights are protected and respected by the Peruvian state, international governments and business enterprises, including financial institutions. In the meeting, the Pamuk (president) Teófilo Kukush Pati and the Director of Justice, Tsanim Evaristo Wajai Asamat, GTANW, explained that their politics and philosophy is based on that of their ancestors' traditional knowledge, which is centred on the notion of living well with nature and protecting their forests, rivers, biodiversity and culture. Ensuring that future generations can continue to live in abundance in their territory is their highest priority. The leaders discussed the human rights and environmental harms their community faces daily in their territory, due to illegal gold mining, illegal logging and oil extraction. The leaders detailed how the contamination of their rivers has resulted in polluted drinking water, as well as the contamination of vital food sources such as fish, as well as environmental harms these also constitute violations to their human rights. During the meeting, Martin Whitfield, MSP accepted an exclusive preview copy of a position paper on business and human rights, on behalf of Douglas Alexander, MP. The position paper co-authored by the leaders calls for the introduction of an outcomes-focused corporate accountability law in the UK, and details key principles that such a law should be modelled on to ensure UK businesses and finance respect individual and collective human rights, as well as the environment. Such a law would, for example, ensure that financial institutions stop financing activities that violate the human rights of Indigenous peoples and stop damaging the environments they steward. The Wampís Nation has direct experience of this: the State-run company PetroPeru, who owns the oil concession on their territory operates without their consent has received funding from UK financial institutions. Mr Whitfield said: 'It was a wonderful privilege to meet representatives from the Wampis Indigenous people of North Peru. The opportunity to learn about the environmental impact of illegal gold mining, logging and the risk of oil extraction was enlightening. The world has a responsibility to Indigenous peoples, who are often best placed to preserve and take care of environments they have coexisted with for millennia. As Pamuk Teofilo Kukush said, 'Our ancestors knew how to govern and how to respect nature.' As J P Macintosh former East Lothian MP said 'People…want a degree of government for themselves. It is not beyond the wit of man to devise the institutions to meet these demands.'' Pamuk Teofilo Kukush Pati, the Pamuk or elected president of the Autonomous Territorial Government of the Wampís Nation said: 'Our politics is wellbeing, tarimat pujut, or good living in harmony with nature, so we demand that funds support us in protecting our territory, our forest – which is 82% intact – and we will continue reforesting for the good of our generation, our people and for all. This is why we need funds to be designated directly to us, to support our activities, including reforestation, bioeconomy and productive initiatives. With access to larger funds, we would be able to better protect our territory across the two river basins, through the Charip socio-environmental monitoring group.' Tsanim Evaristo Wajai Asamat, Director de Justicia del Gobierno Territorial Autónomo de la Nación Wampís said: 'We've always looked after the territory, it is our culture to look after it, but this is coming back now even more strongly in part because non-Wampis people are attacking us, they want us to leave the territory. We are facing even more threats today than ever – before we didn't face as many threats as today, so our people could look after their farms, needs and livelihoods, but now the threat level is so high that our work has doubled, even tripled. Our daily needs still need to be met. So who is going to help us gain back this time? If we're needed to look after the territory and dedicating our time to this, who is going to work on the farms? Who is going to look after the fish? Educate the children? This is why we need direct funding.' The Wampís Nation's strong self-governance and self-determined strategies are proven to work, their territory – 1.3 million hectares of forests and waters in the northern Peruvian Amazon – comprises of 82% intact tropical forest. However, the lack of recognition of their human rights by the Peruvian state, as well as the lack of direct funding from both climate funds the Peruvian state receives and international climate funding hinders their efforts. The COP26 held in Glasgow in 2021 was a pivotal moment for direct funding of Indigenous peoples: the UK government committed to increasing its direct support for Indigenous peoples, including to secure their right to land and territories, and the upcoming COP30 in Brazil provides an opportunity for the UK to renew its commitments. Indigenous leaders from the Autonomous Territorial Government of the Wampís Nation (GTANW), situated in Peru, visit Martin Whitfield MSP to deliver a Position Paper they have co-written. Pamuk Teófilo Kukush Pati is the elected leader and Tsanim Evaristo Wajai Asamat is the Director of Justice. Pic Greg Macvean 30/06/2025 Indigenous leaders from the Autonomous Territorial Government of the Wampís Nation (GTANW), situated in Peru, met with Martin Whitfield MSP to deliver a Position Paper they have co-written. Pamuk Teófilo Kukush Pati is the elected leader and Tsanim Evaristo Wajai Asamat is the Director of Justice. Pic Greg Macvean 30/06/2025 Martin Whitfield MSP met with Pamuk Teófilo Kukush Pati is the elected leader and Tsanim Evaristo Wajai Asamat is the Director of Justice. Pic Greg Macvean Pic Greg Macvean 30/06/2025 Indigenous leaders from the Autonomous Territorial Government of the Wampís Nation (GTANW), situated in Peru, visit Martin Whitfield MSP to deliver a Position Paper they have co-written. Pamuk Teófilo Kukush Pati is the elected leader and Tsanim Evaristo Wajai Asamat is the Director of Justice. Pic Greg Macvean 30/06/2025 Indigenous leaders from the Autonomous Territorial Government of the Wampís Nation (GTANW), situated in Peru, visit Martin Whitfield MSP to deliver a Position Paper they have co-written. Pamuk Teófilo Kukush Pati is the elected leader and Tsanim Evaristo Wajai Asamat is the Director of Justice. Like this: Like Related
The Hindu
09-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Hindu
Inside Orhan Pamuk's dreamscape
Turkish Nobel Laureate Orhan Pamuk has always dreamed of becoming a painter. In Memories of Distant Mountains, his recently launched memoir, he says, 'At 22, I killed the painter inside of me and began writing novels.' This book features a selection from the illustrated notebooks he maintained from 2009 to 2022. Alongside journal entries, translations and commentary are colourful paintings of landscapes, ships, roads and monuments. He talks about his country, the city of Istanbul, his travels to Jaipur and Goa and New York and many European cities, his relationships and his growing impatience with The Museum of Innocence, a museum he set up in Istanbul in 2012. Here, installations referenced the daily objects described in his eponymous novel. This was a productive period for Pamuk, when major novels A Strangeness in My Mind (2015) and Nights of Plague (2022) were published. The back story 'Between the ages of 7 and 22, I thought I was going to be a painter. At 22, I killed the painter inside of me and began writing novels. In 2008, I walked into a stationery shop, bought two big bags of pencils, paints, and brushes, and began joyfully and timidly filling little sketchbooks with drawings and colours. The painter inside of me hadn't died after all. But he was full of fears and terribly shy. I made all my drawings inside notebooks so that nobody would see them. I even felt a little guilty: surely this must mean I secretly deemed words insufficient. So why did I bother to write? None of these inhibitions slowed me down. I was eager to keep drawing, and drew wherever I could.' The house and daily life in Goa 'This is the room I've been steadily working in for the past three years, where I sometimes take naps in the afternoon, and where I occasionally go to sleep after midnight.' Pamuk spent several months in Goa from 2009 to 2011. He swam in the sea and continued to work on A Strangeness in My Mind in the mornings. In the evening he followed the events of the Arab Spring on TV and the uprisings led him to think about Nights of Plague. Beyoğlu and Hacımemi Street 'It was Hacımemi Street. Small, two- or three-story houses with bay windows. These types of houses have always felt smothering to me. Then again, to have come for the first time to a place that feels so familiar, so recognizable. To have stumbled upon a street like this for the first time after having lived in this city for sixty-eight years... I have noticed on this walk that Beyoğlu is actually very lively; even on this coldest of winter days, there is plenty in the shop displays and behind restaurant windows to keep the passerby occupied. I drew the bricks on this wall here one by one, and I'd like to think about that a little more. As I placed, drew, and coloured each brick, I was as happy as a child. But it also felt like filling in a colouring book. Istiklal Street, Yüksek Kaldırım Street, and the Galata Tower are just ahead.' It's a wrap 'As I've been too busy these past few days to write in here... I've drawn this picture instead. I finished Nights of Plague in this room in Cihangir, writing for 12 hours every day. At night I would sleep for three hours, then write for an hour, then go back to sleep for another hour.' William Blake and I Reasons I identify with the romantic painter poet WILLIAM BLAKE: * he likes flames and fires * he writes, and he paints * words and images mingle on the page * he sees the page as a whole * he uses the branches of a tree to split up the page * he envisions everything on the page * he sees words and images together Edited excerpts from Memories of Distant Mountains with permission from Penguin Random House India.
