Hi, SS,
I understand what you're saying and generally agree (especially on valuing the past). The one thing, and with Joshua's comment too, is on the concept of what exactly is considered "indigenous", and when a body can qualify for that status, and whether the concept should be applied relatively.
I disagree with you, Joshua, on the idea of "relative to them". Applied, I could use that to equally snub the grandchildren of immigrants and insist on my being native relative to them. Either there is a benchmark of what makes one native, a period of time, or there is not. The simple fact of being born and raised in one place would be the criterium. The former is clearly unreasonable, and anyone could make out any period of time that they felt good.
Finally, the idea that we can "make it up to them" is useless and wrong. There is nothing 'we' can do to make it up to 'them'. The most I can do is to treat everyone in a Christian manner. I am not responsible for the sins of my ancestors, but my own sins. Every move to treat groups differently lead to resentment by others. Witness the quota concept applied in Affirmative Action. Stopping discriminatory treatment of people is a good goal. Giving preferential treatment to anyone will only extend a sense of enmity, generation after generation. I'll repeat, because it bears repeating:
Lands where people become one people and unite will always be stronger than ones that try to maintain ethnic separation. A melting pot produces far stronger material than a salad bowl.
The only way to get unity is to treat everyone the same.
Anyway, 'nuff said. I only wanted to challenge assumptions behind the current popular term NA
PS - look at the identity problem of other people whose names keep getting changed - black people, handicapped people. It's intersting how when they change a name, within one generation (some) people decide the current term is pejorative and change it. Help me supply missing links in these evolutionary chains:
crippled - handicapped - disabled - living with disabilities
Negro - colored - people of color - black - Afr. Am
Attempts to be overly sensitive and avoid calling spades spades lead to this confusion. This constant chameleon-like change of names tells me something is wrong with the changing itself. Interesting also that 'white' people haven't gone this path. I'm actually pinkish, but don't mind a color misnomer. Chesterton said something about this in
Heretics (under the chapter on George Bernard Shaw, ch 4).
http://www.cse.dmu.ac.uk/%7Emward/gkc/b ... s/ch4.html
Start from the 5th paragraph if you are pressed for time.
"Eh? Two views? There are a dozen views about everything until you know the answer. Then there's never more than one."
Bill "The Blizzard" Hingest - That Hideous Strength