From: Ali Abunimah
To: morning@npr.org
Subject: The Western Hemisphere is bigger than you think

April 10, 2001

Dear NPR News,

In a report on congressional redistricting on Morning Edition for April 9, reporter Peter Kenyon boldly declared that "The Virginia General Assembly is the oldest political institution in the Western Hemisphere."

This is obviously not true even if we interpret this sweeping statement narrowly to refer only to legislative bodies. I can think of at least two that are much older.

The Icealandic parliament, the Althing, has existed in some form continuously since 930. A parliament has also sat at Westminster in London for more than one thousand years, a good six miles west of the Greenwich Meridian as the crow flies.

Speaking more broadly than western-style legislatures, it would not surprise me if there were indigenous political institutions in the Western Hemisphere that survive in some form or another despite the genocidal effects of European settlement on indigenous culture.

Sincerely,

Ali Abunimah
http://www.abunimah.org