Sovereignty refers
to supreme political authority, independent and unlimited by any
other power. However, discussion of the term "sovereignty" in
relation to the impact of the quest for human resources gathering
must be taken up within a framework of internal colonisation.
Internal colonisation is the historical process, and also the
political reality, defined in the structures and techniques of
government, that consolidate the domination of indigenous peoples
by a foreign yet sovereign settler state.
Sovereignty is a
social creation. It is the result of choices made by people
in a particular mindset of a social or political order bent on
invading the lands of an indigenous people. Historically, it is
rooted in the notion that sovereignty mandates a redistribution of
natural resources, and the indigenous control of them, enforced by
the superior posture of a new political hierarchy.
The practice of
history cannot help but be implicated in colonisation. War, peace,
cooperation, antogonism and shifting dominance and subservience,
are all to be found in the shared history of settlers and
indigenous populations. Also, most discussions of indigenous
sovereignty are founded on a particular and instrumental reading of
history that serves to stress its imposition through freely adopted
treaty arrangements. These invariably recognised separate
political existence and territorial independence of indigenous
peoples. However, none of this historical diversity of coexistence
is reflected in the official history and doctrinal bases of settler
state soveriegnty today.
The imposition of
sovereignty, being a social phenomenon, is a biological process
related to the evolution of behaviours associated with the biology
of conflict.
