Indigenous radicalism today

THE ARTICLES AND INTERVIEWS ASSEMBLED FOR THIS SPECIAL These aspects of empire impede our freedom, sabotage our edition on the struggles of indigenous peoples in North health and destroy the well-being of our communities. America demonstrate the myriad and multifaceted ways in Today’s indigenous warriors understand and practice resist- which the original people of this continent are fighting ance as a means of transcending these forces. In this sense, against contemporary colonialism in all of its forms. The “resistance” is no longer a sufficient term to describe what is indigenous peoples of North America, in their cultural, polit- happening among our people; personalities are being recon- ical and intellectual struggles, are redefining what it means to structed, lives re-made and communities re-formed in a be radical. process more akin to “regeneration.” The catalyst for this publication was the 2006 Indigenous Our aim is twofold: to illustrate the elements and dynam- Leadership Forum that took place on June 5-16 at the ics of this movement among indigenous peoples; and to University of Victoria. During that gathering, 31 participants enliven the struggle of all peoples who are confronting capi- committed to building Wasáse, a new radical indigenous talism and imperialism by showing the connections that exist movement. As we go to press, the Wasáse network has swelled between our movements. To this end we have also sought out to 79 people from 26 indigenous nations in North America. contributions from non-indigenous allies. Nineteen settlers within the Canadian state have registered Indigenous peoples are cognizant that we cannot defeat solidarity with the movement. All of the authors in this issue colonial aggression alone. A winning strategy requires that we are either formal supporters or fellow travelers of the move- actively promote solidarity and cooperative action with those ment. who share similar ethical and political commitments. But We have joined forces with New Socialist in collecting solidarity is hard work. It requires a great deal of critical self- these voices of the Wasáse movement because we share in reflection and commitment to action on the part of the settler common the belief that an essential challenge of indigenous population. Coming to grips with colonial privilege by self-determination is the question of how to stop, roll back acknowledging the role that settlers play in the maintenance and dismantle capitalism. Being land-based societies, indige- of empire must be seen as a necessary aspect of the struggle to nous peoples have always been the prime targets of capitalist decolonize. expansion and imperialist objectives. Today they remain at Indigenous peoples today are articulating a new vision of a the forefront of contemporary radicalism and the struggle to human existence for the 21st century. We are critically live with dignity and in harmony with others and the natural rethinking and refashioning the basis of our social and polit- environment. ical lives toward the realization of our freedom as the original Indigenous peoples are also redefining what it means to peoples of this land. We invite readers of this magazine to resist empire. Contemporary colonialism rarely maintains help build the movement. itself solely through the blunt forces of capitalist exploitation Guest Editors: Taiaiake Alfred (Kanien’kehaka) and and dispossession. Indeed, in order to achieve so much polit- Glen Coulthard (Dene); www.wasáse.org; contact@wasáse.org ical control and physical destruction, colonialism has had to solidify its gains by normalizing the injustices it has perpe- THE ONGOING CONFRONTATION AND OVERT RACISM AT SIX trated against indigenous people. Nations is an ugly reminder that the theft of indigenous lands and oppression of indigenous peoples is a cornerstone of the This means that resistance must confront not only the ille- Canadian state and economy. Solidarity with indigenous gitimate exercise of state and corporate power, but also the movements for self-determination is a critical aspect of social- colonial ideas, values and beliefs that have seeped into our ist organising in Canada. This collaboration with members cultures and psyches. Our freedom is not only constrained by and supporters of Wasáse sheds light on what solidarity and the overtly structural relations of power that we face on a self-determination mean in theory and practice. Many thanks daily basis – such as capitalism, white supremacy, hetero- to Taiaiake Alfred, Glen Coulthard, and our other contribu- patriarchy, state domination and environmental destruction; tors for initiating this important dialogue. it is also subverted by the reproduction of these forms of power by and within our communities. Deborah Simmons (Settler), Guest Editor

new 2 SOCIALIST Box 167, 253 College St. new Toronto, ON M5T 1R5 (416) 955-1581 [email protected] SOCIALIST www.newsocialist.org Issue #58: September-October 2006

NEW SOCIALIST offers radical THEORY AND PRACTICE analysis of politics, social movements and culture in the Canadian state and What are warrior societies? ...... Taiaiake Alfred and Lana Lowe 4 internationally. Our magazine is a forum for people who want to Final communique of the West Coast Warrior Society ...... 8 strengthen today’s activism and for Indigenous peoples and the politics of recognition ...... Glen Coulthard 9 those who wish to replace global capitalism with a genuinely democratic Socialism from below and Indigenous peoples ...... Deborah Simmons 13 socialism. We believe that the Indigenous feminism without apology ...... Andrea Smith 16 liberation of the working class and oppressed peoples can be won only Canadian capitalism and dispossession of Indigenous peoples Todd Gordon 18 through their own struggles. For more information about the publisher of this magazine, the New Socialist Group, THE WASÁSE MOVEMENT: RETHINKING STRUGGLE please see the inside back cover. Wasase statement of principles ...... 20 GUEST EDITORS Voices From the Indigenous leadership forum ...... 21 Taiaiake Alfred Glen Coulthard Deborah Simmons HOMEFRONT

EDITORIAL ASSOCIATES A young warrior’s perspective on the conflict at Six Nations .Taiaiake Alfred 23 Shannon Badcock Richard Banner Anarchist-Indigenous solidarity at Six Nations .Richard Day & Sean Haberle 26 Neil Braganza Labour-Indigenous solidarity at Six Nations ...... Rolf Gerstenberger 28 Jackie Esmonde Susan Ferguson Nuu-chah-nulth struggles Todd Gordon against sexual violence...... Interview with Na’cha’uaht & Chiinuuks 29 Denise Hammond Clarice Kuhling Indigenous labour organizing in Saskatchewan ...... Brock Pitawanakwat 32 Sebastian Lamb Harold Lavender Nunavut: the party’s over ...... Jackie Price 34 Alex Levant Morgan MacLeod David McNally INTERNATIONAL Keith O’Regan Sandra Sarner To be ungovernable ...... Jeff Corntassel 35 Hamid Sodeifi Why are Indigenous soldiers serving in Iraq? ...... Michael Yellow Bird 38 Nathaniel Thomas Tony Tracy Barred From the “socialist” paradise ...... Teiowí:sonte Thomas Deer 39 Jeff Webber DESIGN & COVERS CULTURE AND REVIEWS Teiowí:sonte Thomas Deer (front cover images) Gord Hill (back cover images) Howard Adam’s OTAPAWY ...... Deborah Simmons 40 Greg Sharzer (front cover layout) Sandra Sarner (design/layout). Alan Cairn’s First Nations and Signed articles do not necessarily the Canadian state...... Adam Barker & Taiaiake Alfred 41 represent the views of the Editors or members of the New Socialist Group. Basics of Wasase Essentials List...... 42 New Socialist is a member of the CMPA. Printed at JT Printing, a union shop TIME TO ORGANIZE ...... 43

new SOCIALIST 3 What are warrior societies? BY TAIAIAKE ALFRED AND LANA LOWE

The history of indigenous peoples in the modern era is, fundamentally, a story of struggle to overcome the effects of colonization. And it is a story of the Canadian government’s manipulation of vulnerabilities that have been created through the process of dispossession. The indigenous strug- gle has expressed itself in efforts to gain intellectual and cultural self-determination, economic self-sufficiency, spiri- tual freedom, health and healing, and recognition of political autonomy and rights to use and occupy un-surrendered lands. The re-emergence of warrior societies in the modern era is one element of a larger struggle of indigenous peoples to survive. Contemporary warrior societies emerged in the late 1960s, with the rise of the Mohawk Warrior Society at Akwesasne and Kahnawake. The Mohawk Warrior Society was estab- lished by a group of young people committed to reviving traditional Kanien’kehaka teachings, language and structures in Kanien’kehaka territories. Accordingly, the strategy and tactics employed by the Mohawk Warrior Society are commu- nity and/or land based. The overall strategy was to repossess and protect Kanien’kehaka territories according to the Kaienerekoawa, the Great Law of Peace. The tactics employed

by the Mohawk Warrior Society included barricades and BYDRAWING GORD HILL, KWA KWAKA WAKW roadblocks (to prevent Canadian and U.S. authorities from advocate for what at the time were called “Indian rights.” entering Kanien’kehaka territories), evictions (of unwanted This political awareness was grounded in the philosophy and people living in Kanien’kehaka reserve lands) and occupations tactics of the American civil rights movement: sit-ins, rallies (repossession of lands within Kanien’kehaka territory). and marches to pressure the US and Canadian governments 1970S: RED POWER ALLIANCES to treat indigenous people fairly and to honour treaties. It is The emergence of the Mohawk Warrior Society coincided worth noting that contrary to the Mohawk Warrior Society’s with the emergence of what was termed the Red Power strong roots in Kanien’kehaka cultural and spiritual tradi- movement, an urban-based movement established in the tions, the Red Power movement reflected the diverse racial United States to resist oppression and discrimination against and national backgrounds of its urban membership. It was indigenous people in all of North America. The overall strat- grounded in a pan-indigenous culture and spirituality that egy of the Red Power movement was to raise political, spiri- was not reflective of a single nation exclusively. tual and cultural awareness among indigenous people and to There were other fundamental differences between warrior societies and the Red Power movement. Warrior soci- Taiaiake Alfred is Kanien’kehaka and a professor in the Indigenous eties emerged from within (and remain a part of) indigenous Governance Programs at the University of Victoria. Lana Lowe is a communities. Like the Mohawk Warrior Society, they are member of the Fort Nelson Dene First Nation and works with grounded in the indigenous traditions of their own commu- indigenous peoples in Central America. This article is a nities, and are accountable to traditional leadership bodies. condensed version of a background paper by the authors entitled “Warrior Societies in Indigenous Communities,” prepared for the Red Power organizations emerged from within urban centres, Ipperwash Inquiry and available on the commission’s website and were highly mobile and often formed a loose network of in its archive. “chapters.” They focused their activities in urban centres new 4 SOCIALIST unless called upon by people in indigenous communities during times of crisis. Once in a community, a Red Power organization was held accountable to its hosts and adjusted its approach accordingly. Whatever the differences between them though, warrior societies and Red Power organizations did draw on the same spirit of discontent among young indigenous people and focused on the same fundamental problems; thus warrior societies and Red Power organizations naturally formed alliances in conflict situations. Warrior societies and the Red Power movement expanded throughout the 1970s, often working together during episodes of crisis and mobilization. In 1973, the Mohawk Warrior Society stood in armed resistance against the Quebec Provincial Police at Kahnawake. The prominent Red Power organization, the American Indian Movement (AIM), formed an alliance with the Mohawk Warrior Society during this time. Later that year, AIM adopted the term “warrior A warrior stares down a soldier at Oka. society” for its promotional poster, A Red Man’s International Warrior Society, and attributed its imagery and The Ojibway Warrior Society gained prominence in 1974 words to the Kahnawake Mohawk Warrior Society leader, when they occupied Anicinabe Park in Ontario. This Society Louis Hall (Karoniaktajeh). The text of the AIM poster is was similar in ideological orientation to the other movements illustrative of the spirit of the times and of that movement: that emerged during that era. The Ojibway Warrior Society appears to have been a unique combination of the urban and Pledged to fight White Man’s injustice to Indians, his “revolutionary” (in outlook and strategic objective) Red oppression, persecution, discrimination and malfea- Power movement with the culturally and community rooted sance in the handling of Indian Affairs. No area in Mohawk Warrior Society. Tellingly, Louis Cameron, the North America is too remote when trouble impends Society’s leader, commented that the name “warrior society” for Indians. AIM shall be there to help the Native was only chosen because of its growing currency at the time People regain human rights and achieve restitutions and in response to pressure from outside of the movement to and restorations. label itself – it is quite evident that the Ojibway Warrior The promotional poster produced by AIM in 1973 Society did not stem from an ideological struggle. Rather, depicts a Mohawk man (indicated by the three upright feath- ideology and the label of a warrior society was grafted onto a ers of the Rotinoshonni style Gustoweh, or headdress) stand- movement that developed within the Ojibway community ing atop inverted United States and Canadian flags. This and in North western Ontario in response to systemic and imagery gained prominence in 1974, when the Mohawk immediate injustices against indigenous peoples. In this basic Warrior Society re-established the territory of Ganienkeh way, the Ojibway Warrior Society joined AIM and the after repossessing Kanien’kehaka lands that had been occu- Mohawk Warrior Society on the list of organic movements pied privately in New York State. expressing long-standing grievances in a vocabulary that Karoniaktajeh himself was instrumental in the reposses- reflected both traditional culture and contemporary political sion of Ganienkeh territory, and it was there that he unfurled discourse. the “Indian Flag,” sometimes called the “Ganienkeh Flag.” Later that same year, in the fall of 1974, the Bonaparte The flag symbolized a mighty Union of Indian Nations, Indian Band in the interior region of British Columbia set up depicting a generic indigenous man’s head with long hair and an armed roadblock on the highway that passed through their one feather (symbolizing, according to Karoniaktajeh, reserve to demand better housing. Louis Cameron and indigenous peoples being “all of one mind”). Since members of AIM led a Native People’s Caravan to Parliament Ganienkeh was envisioned as the staging ground for such a Hill in Ottawa, where they were met with barricades and riot union, it was adopted there. police. Later, Karoniaktajeh designed a flag for the Mohawk Through the 1970s and 1980s, the Kahnawake-based Warrior Society that depicted a Mohawk man’s head on the Mohawk Warrior Society expanded to the neighbouring same background of the “Indian Flag”— a sun on a red back- community of Akwesasne and was instrumental in establish- ground. However the printer made a mistake and printed one ing a lucrative cigarette trade that generated revenue for both feather instead of three! This flag has since been mass- the Warrior Society and the traditional governments in the produced and can be found everywhere in the world (most Kanien’kehaka communities. Meanwhile, AIM intensified its recently it has been seen flying at the UN Conference on the activities in British Columbia and Alberta, establishing chap- Environment in South Africa) and has been adopted by many ters in major cities and attending the roadblocks, sit-ins and indigenous people in their defence of land and nationhood. “fish-ins” that were springing up throughout western Canada new SOCIALIST 5 and the United States. Young indigenous people in communities across the land saw that it was indeed possible to defend oneself and one’s OKA AND AFTERMATH community against state violence deployed by governments By the end of the 1980s, the Mohawk Warrior Society had in support of a corporate agenda and racist local govern- been embroiled in several armed conflicts with Canadian and ments. Perhaps more importantly, young indigenous people United States authorities as a result of police invasion and recognized the honour in what the Mohawks had done in raiding of reserve cigarette stores, casinos and bingo halls. standing up to what eventually were proven to be unjust and And in 1988, the Mi’kmaq Warrior Society emerged out of illegal actions on the part of the local non-indigenous the community of Big Cove, New Brunswick. government. The Oka crisis led to an awakening and radical- Meanwhile, AIM’s influence had all but disintegrated. ization of indigenous consciousness, as well as a broadening The nature of the organization as a transient, urban-cultured of the spectrum of possible responses to injustice. movement had prevented any lasting connection to indige- The Mi’kmaq Warrior Society had developed and main- nous communities, and it failed to gain widespread support tained a presence in several Atlantic communities, including from indigenous people. AIM members were subsequently Big Cove, Listiguj and Esgenoopetitj. In 1994, the Mi’kmaq harassed, arrested and incarcerated by United States and Warrior Society made headlines when they seized land once Canadian authorities. First Nation politicians and leaders of occupied by a residential school and demanded the land be established political organizations publicly denounced the returned to the Mi’kmaq people. A year later, the Mi’kmaq confrontational approach taken by the organization, hoping Warrior Society was called in to protect the community of Eel to curry favour with Canadian governments in order to gain Ground as they conducted their traditional salmon fishery in access to negotiating processes. AIM was nowhere to be the Miramichi River in defiance of Canadian regulations. found during the mid-1980s, when several indigenous In 1995 in Vancouver, second-generation AIM activists established the Native Youth Movement (NYM), an urban- based youth organization grounded in Red Power traditions, philosophies and tactics. They too, wore camouflage and Images of armed, masked men masks and carried the Mohawk warrior flag. For three years, [at Oka] shook mainstream NYM engaged in sit-ins, rallies and marches throughout British Columbia to protest the province’s so-called Treaty Canada and galvanized Process. In 1997, the Okiijida Warrior Society formed in Manitoba Indigenous people as an alternative to urban youth gangs. The Okiijida Warrior Society soon affiliated with AIM and worked to raise aware- from coast to coast. ness about indigenous peoples’ relationship with the Canadian government and encourage people to pressure Canada and the United States to treat indigenous people communities in the interior and northern part of British fairly. Since 2002, the Okiijida Warrior Society has helped Columbia took direct action to defend their territories from the Grassy Narrows community in Ontario maintain a block- ongoing unsanctioned and rapacious resource extraction. ade preventing logging trucks from entering their territory. In 1990, the Mohawk Warrior Society faced off with the The Grassy Narrows blockade continues to this day, and is Quebec Provincial Police and the Canadian Army to prevent actively supported by the people in the community. It is a the expansion of a municipal golf course in Kanesatake, highly visible and accessible site, both physically and psycho- another Kanien’kehaka territory. Images of armed, masked logically, and indications from people involved are that the men dressed in army fatigues, defending their land and the blockade has served a galvanizing purpose. It is enabling people from the full force of the Canadian state, shook main- indigenous youth to learn from elders about the importance stream Canada and galvanized indigenous people from coast of land, spirituality, and the sustained connections to their to coast. By the mid 1990s, warrior societies had emerged heritage. Though situated within a conflict between the throughout Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Quebec and community and outside interests, the blockade has estab- Manitoba. lished a fundamentally positive and motivating environment Many of the people who became involved in the warrior for those involved at the community level. society movements on the east and west coasts have cited the 1990 Oka crisis as a turning point in their lives, and the DEFENDING INDIGENOUS TERRITORIES watershed event of this generation’s political life. Indeed, the In 1999, the Cheam First Nation recruited members of Mohawk Warrior Society’s actions in 1990 around the NYM to assist them as they engaged in their Fraser Kanesatake, Kahnawake and Akwesasne have provided River salmon fishery in defiance of Canadian regulations. In crucial inspiration and motivation for the militant assertion 2000, these same members formed the West Coast Warrior of indigenous nationhood. Society. Soon, they donned their fatigues and set up a three-

new 6 SOCIALIST the commercial fishery were to be given access to fish for maximum commercial harvest while the indigenous communities would receive token access and benefit from the resource. This was a direct threat to the salmon fishery, the basis for their cultures and survival, and the federal government again failed to intervene in a principled manner. On the invitation of the five Saanich communities and supported by the communities’ band councils, the West Coast Warrior Society remained in the community for five weeks preparing to block the commercial fishery. In the end, the fishery was cancelled without physical confrontation and the West Coast Warrior Society left the communities. DEFENDING INDIGENOUS COMMUNITIES

DRAWING BYDRAWING GORD HILL, KWA KWAKA WAKW What has become clear through the history of the warrior society movement is the continuing month roadblock to protect Cheam fishing camps. Later and impressive patience of indigenous people in resolving that year, the West Coast Warrior Society travelled to political matters in principled, fair, and legal (via interna- Esgenoopetitj to assist local indigenous communities in that tional and national conventions) ways. In every instance region in their on-going conflict with local fishers and where conflict has arisen between warrior societies and Canadian authorities over the conduct of traditional fish- Canadian authorities, violent interactions have been insti- eries by the Mi’kmaq. gated by police or other government authorities, or by local Since 1999, the Mi’kmaq people of Esgenoopetitj had non-indigenous interests opposed to indigenous people. been asserting their treaty rights and conducting their own Indigenous communities are comprised of normally coopera- lobster fishery in defiance of Canadian regulations that were tive and peaceful people. In all cases, it is only when an over- prejudiced against them. After the government refused to whelming injustice is perpetrated against them in the face of recognize the extreme disparity of access, the once uniformly possible mutually beneficial alternatives that these people, cooperative indigenous community mobilized to demand fair who are yet struggling to survive, rise up to demand just treatment and the Canadian government’s conformity with treatment and fairer relations with the settler society. international and domestic law. This resulted in several The warrior society strategy gains credence among indige- clashes with Canadian authorities and citizenry. nous people during a crisis situation because there is a deep- By the fall of 2000, Esgenoopetitj was under siege and the rooted fear among all indigenous people that the Canadian waters of Miramichi Bay became the frontline. Warrior soci- government is seeking to annihilate their existence. Most eties, activists, politicians and media descended on the indigenous people favour peaceful and non-confrontational community. Members of the Mi’kmaq, Mohawk, Okiijida methods of advancing their political agenda and of advancing and West Coast Warrior Societies all joined the Esgenoopetitj the cause of justice. But at the same time, all indigenous and Listiguj Rangers in defence of Mi’kmaq communities people have direct experience with or second-generation and fisheries. When the fishing season was over, the warrior memory of the genocidal intent and capacity of the Canadian societies dispersed back to their home territories, with the state. All have direct experience with the virulent forms of commander of the East Coast Warrior Society (which had racism that still exist in most rural parts of Canada. emerged in Esgenoopetitj during the fall of 2000) travelling Indigenous people understand well how ordinary Canadians to British Columbia to form an alliance with the West Coast turn hostile and violent when indigenous peoples’ demands Warrior Society. for recognition of their land rights or political rights threat- In 2003, the West Coast Warrior Society was summoned to ens white society’s economic privilege on the land. help five Saanich communities in protecting the viability of the So, in a crisis situation, facing armed paramilitary force Goldstream salmon run in Saanich Inlet from a commercial and the hostility of white society as a whole, in the context of fishery opening proposed by the Department of Fisheries and impending violence capable of eliminating the very existence Oceans (DFO). Large commercial fishery interests were of their communities, the raw realities of the colonial rela- demanding access to salmon runs that had been restored tionship between indigenous peoples and the state are laid through the indigenous community’s own habitat rehabilita- bare. In these situations, the warrior societies’ analysis of tion projects. The same inequity faced by the east coast Canadian society is proven correct. The legitimacy of the communities and fishers was now facing these west coast warrior society agenda and approach flows from this indigenous communities: large fleets and corporate interests in dynamic. People do recognize in very pragmatic terms the

new SOCIALIST 7 necessity of defending the community in physical terms from outside aggression. The warrior societies provide a measure of national defence. There is broad support among indigenous people every- where for action, even militant action, against the continuing unjust process by which they are being dispossessed of their territories. The disagreement among indigenous peoples is about their capacity to effectively confront state authorities and to sustain a politic of contention, and whether or not the costs (violence, further deprivation, hostility of society, etc.) are worth the gains to be made in confronting the injustices facing indigenous communities. Thus, there is no need for a WAKW KWAKA GORD HILL, KWA DRAWING BY screening or filtering process whereby warrior societies would judge the merit of various conflicts and decide which ones are suitable engagements. Engagement does not need to be rationalized. The operat- ing assumption is that all indigenous communities are facing an injustice that needs to be confronted; the main factor influencing whether a warrior society is involved in a conflict is simply the existence of a conflict in a community where there is a warrior society with the capacity to respond. Simply put, warrior societies will become involved in conflicts between their nation and outside forces if the people call for their help, and if they possess the capacity to respond. In this sense, indigenous people, through warrior soci- eties, are acting on their basic right and responsibility to For a chronology of the Warrior Society Movement since 1968, protect and defend their lands, their communities and their see www.newsocialist.org persons from unprovoked outside aggression.

Final Communique of the West Coast Warrier Society

COAST SALISH TERRITORY communities. This commitment is determination. However, the police AUGUST 2, 2005 stronger than our adherence to an killings of Dudley George, J.J. Harper, The West Coast Warrior Society has ideology or allegiance to an Neil Stonechild, Anthany Dawson and disbanded. organization. We have talked with and thousands more of our people As a result of the unlawful and listened to our elders, our women, confirm the need for us to maintain unethical activities of Canadian police and our children, and it is out of love the right to defend ourselves and agencies in targeting our members and respect for them and concern for protect our families from physical and our organization, and the unfair their well-being and security that we harm. branding of Indigenous activists as have decided to end our association We restate our dedication to fight terrorists, we have concluded that it is and operations. for the survival of our people and to no longer possible for us to be We have never advocated the use protect our way of life. Our effective in carrying out our of violence to advance our cause. We communities, cultures, and lands responsibility to defend Indigenous reiterate that our actions in Burnt must be defended. We are lands, communities, and rights as we Church, Cheam, Esowista and disbanding as an organization have been doing. The police have Saanich, and in all of our other dedicated to the physical defense of used lies, misinformation, threats and involvements, were acts of self- Indigenous communities and we are intimidation by law and force to defense. They were legitimate and embarking on the path of strictly create a climate of fear surrounding justified responses to the direct threat nonviolent political and social our organization and have posed to Indigenous peoples by racist struggle. We are rededicating undermined our support. policies and overzealous law ourselves today as warriors and we It must be understood that we are enforcement agencies. We restate our are committing to advance first and foremost men who are disavowal of the use of violent means Indigenous people’s cultural and committed to our families and to achieve the goal of Indigenous self- political and social resurgence.

new 8 SOCIALIST Indigenous peoples and the ‘politics of recognition’

BY GLEN COULTHARD

ver the last 30 years, the self-determination efforts “I subjected myself to an objective and objectives of indigenous peoples in Canada Ohave increasingly been cast in the language of examination, I discovered my “recognition.” Consider, for example, the latest policy posi- tion on self-determination published by the Assembly of blackness, my ethnic First Nations (AFN) in the spring of 2005. According to the AFN document, “a consensus has emerged […] around a characteristics; and I was battered vision of the relationship between First Nations and Canada which would lead to strengthening recognition and imple- down by tom-toms, cannibalism, mentation of First Nations’ governments.” This “vision,” the AFN goes on to explain, expands on the intellectual deficiency, fetishism, core principles outlined in the 1996 Report of Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples: recognition of the nation- [and] racial defects.” to-nation relationship between First Nations and the Crown; recognition of the equal right of First Nations to self-deter- Frantz Fanon mination; recognition of the Crown’s fiduciary obligation to protect Aboriginal treaty rights; recognition of First Nation’s RECOGNITION AND FREEDOM inherent right to self-government; and recognition of the The increase in recognition demands made by indigenous right of First Nations to benefit from the development of and other marginalized minorities over the last three decades their lands and resources. has prompted an explosion of intellectual work which has In this article I employ the work of anti-colonial revolu- sought to unpack the ethical and political significance of tionary and psychiatrist Frantz Fanon to challenge the idea these types of claims. To date this literature has tended to that the colonial relationship between indigenous peoples focus on the contested relationship between the recognition and the Canadian state can be transformed via a politics of of cultural distinctiveness on the one hand, and the freedom recognition. I take “politics of recognition” to refer to the and well-being of marginalized individuals and groups living now expansive range of recognition-based models of liberal in ethnically diverse states on the other. pluralism that seek to “reconcile” indigenous claims to At the centre of this debate has been the influential work nationhood with Crown sovereignty by accommodating of Canadian political philosopher, Charles Taylor. In his indigenous identities in some form of renewed relationship 1992 essay “The Politics of Recognition,” Taylor argues that with (and within) the Canadian state. political communities such as Canada ought to provide Although these models vary in both theory and practice, recognition and protection for certain sub-state cultural and most tend to involve the delegation of land, capital and polit- national communities because it is within and against the ical power from the state to indigenous communities “horizon” of these communities that humans come to through land claims, economic development and self- develop their identities, and thus the capacity to make sense government processes. Against this vision, I argue that of their lives and life choices. instead of ushering in an era of peaceful coexistence Taylor’s reasoning goes something like this: as culturally grounded on the ideal of mutuality, the politics of recogni- situated beings we do not develop our identities in “isola- tion in its contemporary form promises to reproduce the very tion” – rather we form them through complex “relations of configurations of colonial power that indigenous peoples recognition” with others. However, given that our identities have historically sought to transcend. are formed in this manner, it also follows that they can be significantly deformed when these processes run awry. In this Glen Coulthard is a Dene activist and PhD student in political sense, our identities are not only shaped by recognition, but theory at the University of Victoria. He teaches in the Indigenous also its absence, “often by the misrecognition of others.” Governance Programs. new SOCIALIST 9 Thus Taylor writes: “A person or a group of people can suffer real damage, real distortion, if the people or society around them mirror back to them a confining or demeaning or contemptible picture of themselves. Nonrecognition or misrecognition can inflict harm, can be a form of oppression, imprisoning one in a false, distorted, and reduced mode of being.” It is this idea that unequal relations of recognition can impede human freedom and flourishing that continues to serve as one of the main theoretical justifications for state policies geared toward the protection of indigenous cultural difference. RECOGNITION IN COLONIAL CONTEXTS Interestingly, in the second half of “The Politics of Recognition” Taylor identifies Frantz Fanon as one of the first people to clearly outline the role that misrecognition plays in propping up relations of colonial domination. I don’t dispute Taylor’s affirmation of Fanon’s work in theorizing the subjec- tivity of the oppressed. However, he is mistaken in invoking Fanon to suggest that by institutionalizing a liberal regime of mutual recognition we can somehow transcend the breadth of power at play in colonial systems of domination. Fanon’s concern with the relationship between human freedom and equality in relations of recognition represents a central and reoccurring theme in much of his work. But his Frantz Fanon most concentrated examination of this relationship occurs in his 1952 text, Black Skin, White Masks (BSWM). There This last point is made agonizingly clear in one of the Fanon shows that a colonial system of governance that does most famous passages from BSWM, where Fanon shares an not rely entirely on the execution of force must entice indige- alienating encounter on the streets of Paris with a little white nous peoples to identify with the profoundly asymmetrical girl. “Look, a Negro!” Fanon recalls the girl saying, “Moma, forms of recognition either imposed on or granted to them see the Negro! I’m frightened! frightened!” At that moment by the colonial-state and society. the imposition of the child’s gaze “sealed” Fanon into a In essence, Fanon argues that in contexts of domination “crushing objecthood.” In his own words: “I subjected myself (such as colonialism), the terms of recognition are usually to an objective examination, I discovered my blackness, my determined by and in the interests of the oppressor. ethnic characteristics; and I was battered down by tom-toms, Moreover, over time oppressed populations tend to develop cannibalism, intellectual deficiency, fetishism, [and] racial what he called “psycho-affective” attachments to these defects.” Instead of being acknowledged as a “man among master-sanctioned forms of recognition, and that this attach- men,” the child’s recognition reduced Fanon to “an object ment is essential in maintaining the economic and political among other objects.” structure of colonial relations themselves. For Fanon, then, Left as is, Fanon’s insights into the ultimately objectifying colonialism can be said to operate on two levels: it includes nature of colonial recognition appear to square nicely with “not only the interrelations of objective historical conditions the politics of recognition as it is conceived of and practiced but also human attitudes to these conditions.” Fanon argues in Canada today. For example, although Fanon never uses the that it is this interplay between the objective and subjective word himself, he does seem to be describing the debilitating realms of colonialism that ensures its stability over time. effects associated with misrecognition in the sense that Taylor With respect to the subjective dimension, BSWM and others use the term. In fact, BSWM is littered with painstakingly outlines the multiple ways in which those “atti- passages that illustrate the innumerable ways in which the tudes” conducive to colonial rule are cultivated amongst the imposition of the settler’s gaze can inflict damage on indige- colonized through the unequal exchange of institutionalized nous society at both the individual and collective levels. and interpersonal patterns of recognition between the colo- However, a close reading of Fanon’s work renders problem- nial society and the indigenous population. Fanon’s work atic the liberal-recognition approach in several interrelated reveals how, over time, colonized populations tend to inter- and crucial respects. nalize the derogatory images imposed on them by their colo- nial “masters.” As a result of this process, these images, along THE FANONIAN CRITIQUE with the structural relations with which they are entwined, The first problem has to do with the liberal-recognition come to be recognized or endured as more or less natural. approach’s failure to adequately confront the dual structure of

new 10 SOCIALIST colonialism itself. Fanon insists, for example, that in order to individual. Simply stated, for Fanon it is through struggle transform a colonial configuration of power one has to attack and conflict (and for the later Fanon, violent struggle and it at both levels of operation: the objective and the subjective. conflict) that the colonized come to be rid of the “arsenal of This point is made at the outset of BSWM and reverberates complexes” driven into the core of their being through the throughout all of Fanon’s work. colonial process. A significant portion of BSWM is committed to diagnos- Struggle, in other words, serves as a mediating force ing the “psychological” dimension of colonialism. But Fanon through which the colonized come to shed their colonial also emphasizes in his introduction that strategically, any identities, thus restoring them to their “proper place.” In “effective disalienation” of the colonized subject can only contexts where recognition is conferred without struggle, happen if one also addresses the “social and economic reali- this fundamental self-transformation cannot occur, and as a ties” of colonial rule. Fanon correctly situates “colonial-capi- result authentic freedom is denied. Although the formal talist” exploitation alongside misrecognition and alienation as political structure of domination may change in this process one of the foundational sources of imperial domination. (the colonized are afforded “rights,” for example), the subjec- Of course, Fanon was enough of a Marxist to understand tivity of the Native remains the same – they remain colo- that capitalist economic relations play a foundational role in nized at the level of their being. exacerbating asymmetrical relations of recognition. However, However, when Fanon speaks of a lack of struggle in the he was also much more perceptive than many Marxists in his decolonization movements of his day he doesn’t mean to insistence that the subjective realm of colonialism had to be suggest that the colonized in these contexts simply remained the target of strategic transformation along with the socio- passive recipients of colonial practices. He readily admits, for economic structure. The colonized person “must wage war on example, that the colonized may indeed fight “for Liberty both levels,” in Fanon’s view. “Since historically they influ- and Justice.” However, when this fight is carried out in a ence each other, any unilateral liberation is incomplete, and manner that does not pose a foundational challenge to colo- the gravest mistake would be to believe in their automatic interdependence.” Attacking colonial power on one front, in other words, does not guarantee the subversion of its effects on the other. “Those of us struggling against Fanon’s insights here immediately expose the limits of the politics of recognition for restructuring indigenous-state rela- colonialism must ‘turn away’ from tions in Canada. This project has largely been conceived of in terms of reformist state redistribution schemes like granting the assimilative lure of certain “cultural rights” and concessions to indigenous communities through self-government and land claims the politics of recognition and processes. Although this approach may alter some of the effects of colonial-capitalist exploitation and domination, it begin to direct our struggles does little to address their generative structures — in this case the racist capitalist economy and the colonial state. Seen toward our own on-the-ground from this angle, the contemporary politics of recognition strategies of freedom.” simply leaves one of the two operative levels of colonial power identified by Fanon untouched. The second key problem with the politics of recognition’s proposed remedy for colonial injustice has to do with the nial power as such – which, for Fanon, will always involve subjective realm of colonial power. Here it is important to struggle and conflict – then the best the colonized can hope note that most recognition-based proposals – whether we’re for is “white liberty and white justice; that is, values secreted talking about the recommendations of Charles Taylor or the by [their] masters.” Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples – rests on the assump- This brings us to the second major problem identified by tion that the flourishing of indigenous peoples as distinct and Fanon: without conflict and struggle constituting a central self-determining agents is dependent on their being granted feature of the decolonization movement (a) the terms of recognition and institutional accommodation by and within recognition tend to remain the property of those in power to the settler-state apparatus. As sociologist Richard Day has put grant to their inferiors in ways that they deem appropriate, it, under these models, recognition is conceived of as a “gift” and (b) under these conditions, the indigenous population bestowed from a superior identity to an inferior one. often comes to see the limited and constrained terms of For Fanon, there are at least two problems underlying the recognition conferred to them by their colonial masters as idea that freedom and independence can be achieved via a their own. In effect, the colonized come to identify with gift of recognition. The first involves the relationship that he “white liberty and white justice.” Either way, for Fanon, the draws between struggle and the disalienation of the colonized colonized will have failed to re-establish themselves as truly

new SOCIALIST 11 self-determining, that is, as creators of the terms of their own recognition have saddled indigenous people with low self- recognition and in accordance with their own values. esteem, depression, alcohol and drug abuse, and violent behaviours directed both inward against the self and outwards FANON’S INSIGHTS TODAY toward others. Anyone familiar with the power dynamics that structure Similarly convincing arguments have also been made the Aboriginal rights movement in Canada should immedi- about the types of recognition offered to indigenous commu- ately see the applicability of Fanon’s insights here. We needn’t nities through the law, self-government packages, land claims expend much effort to elicit the countless ways in which the and economic development programs. The recent work of liberal discourse of recognition has been limited and Taiaiake Alfred, for example, has shown how the power rela- constrained by the state, politicians, corporations and the tions within and against which indigenous demands for courts in ways that pose no fundamental challenge to the recognition are made can subtly shape the subjectivities and colonial relationship. worldviews of the indigenous claimants involved. Indeed, over the last 30 years the Supreme Court of The core problem, of course, is that the structural and Canada has consistently refused to recognize indigenous discursive settings within which recognition claims are artic- peoples’ equal and self-determining status. This is based on ulated and assessed are by no means neutral: they are the court’s adherence to legal precedent founded on the white profoundly power-laden, and almost always to the detriment supremacist myth that indigenous societies were too primi- of indigenous claimants. As such they have the ability to tive to bear fundamental political rights when they first mould how indigenous people think and act, not only in rela- encountered European powers. Even though the Court has tion to the topic at hand (the recognition claim) but also in secured an unprecedented degree of recognition for certain relation to themselves and others. “cultural” practices within the state, it has nonetheless failed This is what Alfred means when he suggests that, over to challenge the racist origin of Canada’s assumed authority time, legal approaches tend to produce Aboriginal “citizens” over indigenous peoples and their territories. whose rights and identities become defined by the colonial The political and economic ramifications of this legal state. Similarly, economic development approaches produce move are clear-cut. In Delgamuukw v. British Columbia, for Aboriginal capitalists whose thirst for profit come to example, it was declared that any residual Aboriginal rights outweigh their ancestral obligations to the land and to others. that may have survived the unilateral assertion of Crown And land claims processes produce Aboriginal property sovereignty could be infringed upon by the federal and owners whose territories, and thus whose very identities, provincial governments so long as this action could be shown become subject to expropriation and alienation. These to further a “compelling and substantial legislative objective” processes signify the erosion of the most traditionally egali- consistent with the “fiduciary relationship” between the state tarian aspects of indigenous ethical systems, ways of life and and Aboriginal peoples. forms of social organization. What “substantial objectives” might justify infringement? According to the Court, virtually any profitable economic TOWARD A POLITICS OF DOING venture, including the “development of agriculture, forestry, I have argued here that Fanon’s insights into the subjecti- mining, and hydroelectric power, the general economic fying nature of colonial recognition are as applicable today to development of the interior of British Columbia, protection the liberal “politics of recognition” as they were fifty years of the environment or endangered species and the building of ago, when he first formulated his ideas on the matter. Fanon’s infrastructure and the settlement of foreign populations to dual-structured conception of colonial power still captures support those aims.” So today it appears, as much as it did in the subtle (and not so subtle) ways in which a system of impe- Fanon’s day, that colonial powers will only recognize the rial domination that does not sustain itself exclusively by collective rights and identities of indigenous peoples insofar force is reproduced over time. as this recognition does not obstruct the imperatives of state But if colonial power is dispersed much more diffusly and capital. today, how do we go about resisting it? Fanon suggests that But the above examples confirm only one aspect of those of us struggling against colonialism must “turn away” Fanon’s insight into the problem of recognition when applied from the assimilative lure of the politics of recognition and to the colonial setting: namely, the limitations that it runs up begin to direct our struggles toward our own on-the-ground against when pitted against these overtly structural expres- strategies of freedom. Today this process will (and must) sions of colonial power. Can the same be said for the subjec- continue to involve some form of critical individual and tive dimension of colonial power relations? collective self-recognition on the part of indigenous peoples. With respect to the forms of racist recognition pounded In my mind, this self-affirmative process must be carried out into the psyches of indigenous peoples through the institu- for everyone’s sake, because indigenous societies have truths tions of the state, church, schools, media, and by racists to teach the Western world about the establishment and within the dominant society, the answer is surely yes. preservation of relationships between peoples and the natural Countless studies, novels and autobiographical narratives world that are profoundly non-imperialist. have outlined, in painful detail, how these expressions of

new 12 SOCIALIST Socialism from below and indigenous resurgence R ECLAIMING T RADITIONS

BY DEBORAH SIMMONS can only be achieved by the self-organized agenda seems to be undefeatable, indige- mass struggles of workers and oppressed nous actions such as the reclamation of uring the peak of the Red Power peoples. In our work with indigenous Six Nations territory at Caledonia are movement in the late 1960s and peoples, we bear responsibility for demol- crucial evidence for socialists that move- early 1970s, many newly radi- ishing in theory and practice the corrup- ments from below are the central force D tion of socialist ideas that followed the for social change. Capitalism cannot be calizing indigenous people became inter- ested in exploring various theories of defeat of the Russian revolution by defeated by any minority claiming to act revolution and socialist organisation. By Stalinism. on behalf of the exploited and oppressed. the mid 1970s, many of these same This is no easy task. We must take on RADICALISATION AND activists had become hostile to socialism, nearly a century of cumulative theoreti- DISILLUSIONMENT advocating a separate path to liberation cal justifications of Stalinist, social demo- rooted in indigenous traditions. This cratic and Third World nationalist strate- The bitter disillusionment of indige- mirrored trends in other movements gies. We must engage in a rigorous nous activists in socialist politics by the against oppression – the Left quite simply critique of so-called “models” of “social- mid-1970s is documented in several lost credibility. books published about the period by Much has been written in the pages of writers including Lee Maracle (Sto:loh), this magazine and elsewhere to expose the Building solidarity with Jeannette Armstrong (Okanagan), and Vern Harper (Cree). In each text, the critical weaknesses of the Left during that indigenous movements period in addressing the experiences and same cycle of radicalization and disillu- aspirations of people who are oppressed requires that we critically sionment is repeated. Indigenous hostil- ity to socialism in general and Marxism because of their gender, sexuality, or race. reconstruct our own But we have not adequately accounted the in particular is distilled in the collection specific intersection of indigenous strug- traditions of edited by Ward Churchill, Marxism and Native Americans (1983). gles with socialist theories of revolution- socialism from below. ary change. The new Wasáse movement The experience of betrayal cannot be has begun to address the contradictions of dismissed as irrelevant or misguided by a traditionalism that is linked to official ism” from the past and present – from socialists who want to learn from the past aboriginal organisations sanctioned and the former USSR, to the tradition of the in order to build solidarity with indige- funded by the Canadian state. Wasáse NDP, to the "Communist" dictatorship nous peoples in the present. The socialist activists are critically reconstructing the of Fidel Castro and the reformist govern- left that Red Power activists encountered radical anti-capitalist ethics underlying ments of Hugo Chavez and Evo Morales. was overwhelmingly dominated by many indigenous traditions. The chal- Equally as important, we must socialism from above politics, in the form lenge now for socialists is to build strong confront the legacies of Stalinist and of English-Canadian left-nationalism, bonds of solidarity with this movement social democratic strategies in Canada and pro-Russia and pro-China versions of which is now at the cutting edge of radical that have destroyed the credibility of Stalinist “Communism.” An honest organising in Canada. This requires that socialism among radical indigenous reading of indigenous texts from that we critically reconstruct our own tradi- activists. In reclaiming our own tradi- period can provide socialists with both an tions of socialism from below, whose heart tions, we must recognize that we have a understanding of the enormous possibili- and soul is the belief that a revolutionary lot to learn from those indigenous ties presented by moments of indigenous and democratic transformation of society activists who have been forging alterna- radicalisation, and the pitfalls of a politics tives to the anti-democratic travesties that fails to account for the specific conditions of indigenous resurgence. Deborah Simmons has recently returned to that have for so long been the publicly In his book Prison of Grass and the live and work in the Northwest Territories. recognized face of socialism. She is a member of the New Socialist In fact, during this grim quiescent posthumous publication Otapawy!, the Group. period in which the neo-conservative late Métis leader Howard Adams new SOCIALIST 13 recounts the story of his own radicaliza- as a tool for social change remain remark- crystallization of class structures in tion through the campus Free Speech ably resilient, despite numerous betrayals indigenous communities, effectively movement in Berkeley, California, and when social democratic governments buying the unquestioning acquiescence of listening to a speech by Black Power have come to power – both internation- indigenous leaders in federal and territo- leader Malcolm X. He concludes in ally and within Canada. rial development policies. Prison of Grass (1975) that although Currently, it is an NDP government More recently, Frances Widdowson and objectively from a socialist perspective that is promoting the massive expansion Albert Howard have used their brief experi- indigenous peoples may have a common of hydroelectric development on Cree ence working as bureaucrats for the govern- interest with the white working class in territory in Manitoba, despite the disas- ment of the Northwest Territories to take defeating capitalism, the rampant racism trous social impacts of hydro dams histor- aim at what they refer to as the aboriginal in Canadian society makes joint organis- ically in that province. And the newly “problem.” Those of us who have been ing impossible for the foreseeable future. elected NDP Member of Parliament for writing on indigenous oppression and self- This reflects the indigenous experience of the Northwest Territories, Dennis determination cringe to see our works cited working class movements and the Left Bevington, has gone on record as support- in the series of at least eleven articles and during the 1960s and 1970s. ing the Mackenzie Gas Project, despite conference papers that Widdowson and Lee Maracle describes her own nega- huge cumulative consequences for the Howard have produced since 1996, since tive experience with socialism during that indigenous inhabitants that have not been invariably our ideas have been distorted, period in her testimonial Bobbi Lee, addressed by governments or industry. taken out of context, and at times used to Indian Rebel (1975). She had arrived in Notwithstanding the long history of support conclusions that are diametrically Vancouver, where indigenous activists colonization and systematic oppression opposed to our own perspectives. were organising campaigns against of indigenous peoples by every ruling It is quite horrifying for self-respecting poverty and police brutality, inspired by party of the Canadian state, a small socialists to find themselves quoted in the the Black Power movement in the United number of “socialists” persist in advocat- company of right wing ideologues such as States. But she recalls political discussions ing the dogma that indigenous peoples Mel Smith and Tom Flanagan, the latter among her comrades of the time as being can only be liberated through the inter- being the policy advisor for the former highly abstract and formulaic, quite vention of that same state. This perspec- Reform Party and the current detached from the everyday struggles of tive was distilled during the first round of Conservative government. And Karl the majority of indigenous people. She conflict over the Mackenzie Valley Marx would once again be turning in his clearly came to resent the arrogance of Pipeline in the 1970s. Left-nationalist grave with Widdowson and Howard those who were drawing on Maoist or academic Mel Watkins was the leading twisting his critique of political economy Communist principles to bring revolu- voice of a group of consultants for the to suit their purposes. tion to the people. Dene Nation that argued for a land claim Despite the numerous glaring prob- WHO’S LEFT? agreement and government intervention lems in the so-called “scholarship” of this to subsidize traditional harvesting. Land pair, it is instructive for socialists to take Unfortunately, the theories that rights, funding and political recognition note of their work as a negative example informed the mistakes of socialist organi- were seen as solutions for the marginal- of the logical consequences of socialism sations in the past did not go the way of ization of Dene people in the North. from above. Intent upon defending the the dodo bird with the collapse of the We are now seeing the consequences in orthodoxies of secular rationalism and Soviet Union. While it is no longer legit- the North of reductive notions of what is science-based policy as the basis for state imate to openly celebrate Stalinism, the required for indigenous self-determina- reform, Widdowson and Howard have crude variants of orthodox Marxism that tion. The establishment of “certainty” launched a vicious attack on “tribalism” were promoted by Stalinist regimes and through land claims has facilitated an and “religion-based” policy that they organisations remain perniciously present unprecedented rush for industrial devel- claim dominates territorial and aboriginal on the socialist Left. And social demo- opment in the north. Government governments alike. cratic strategies for using electoral politics funding programs have supported the Their first target was the use of tradi-

new 14 SOCIALIST tional indigenous knowledge in scientific organisations and continue what they gulf between institutionalized religion inquiry and government policy. This describe in positive terms as the “ware- and beliefs that allow for precisely the engendered a national debate that reached housing” of indigenous peoples on the unalienated way of being in the world the pages of the Globe and Mail in 1997. margins of Canadian society. that Marx dreamed of when he looked to Widdowson and Howard subsequently SOCIALISM FROM ABOVE “primitive communism” as a prefigura- took aim at “tribalism” in the Nunavut tion of a post-revolutionary socialist and Territorial governments (1999); Though this perspective seems too society. In insisting that indigenous social “dysfunction” and “dependency” in similar to racist and genocidal colonial peoples must assimilate into the capitalist indigenous communities (2003); indige- policies to be even remotely identified labour market, they fail to account for nous nationalism as an “opportunistic” with socialist politics, in fact the methods the competitive structures, including obstruction of legitimate Quebec claims harnessed by Widdowson and Howard systematic discrimination on the basis of to nationhood (2004); the inclusion of are quite consistent with the orthodoxies race, gender and sexuality, that have for aboriginal perspectives in Canadian histo- of socialism from above – the same brand so long divided and conquered the labour riography (2005); and just this summer, a of socialism that was the basis for Stalin’s movement. full circle return to the traditional knowl- pact with Hitler in 1939. The theory is Karl Marx was his own best critic. In edge debate. that history goes through a fixed series of the final decade of his life he studied pre- The platforms for their perspective Darwinian evolutionary stages; that capi- capitalist peasant communes in Russia to have been principally the pages of Policy talism is a progressive force leading understand what role they could play in a Options, the supposedly “non-partisan” inevitably to socialist revolution; and that future revolution that might take place publication of the Institute for Research scientific state planning is the principle before capitalism had fully developed in on Public Policy, and the conferences of tool for achieving human liberation. The that country – a possibility denied by the Canadian Political Science method is to develop an abstract theoret- many of his followers. Today, socialists Association. The increasing proliferation ical formula to be imposed on all social should take this as inspiration to confront of footnotes in their writing has had no realities regardless of people’s specific forms of politics that have pushed indige- noticeable affect on the logic of their historical experiences or subjective nous peoples to the side as agents of their argumentation over the past decade, understandings of their conditions. own liberation. which is indicative of the self-serving The flaws in this brand of socialism are The consequence of this critical nature of their “research.” fatal. In their unwavering defence of perspective is not a rejection of socialism. In short, Widdowson and Howard have scientific rationalism, Widdowson and On the contrary, it can lead to a renewal of the temerity to argue that indigenous Howard fail to account for the systematic socialist ideas and practice. Socialism from societies are a throwback to an anachro- complicities between global capitalism below politics can provide tools for learn- nistic Neolithic stage of social history. In and the state, and between capitalist ing from the specific experiences of indige- the face of rational modernisation, indige- interests and scientific knowledge. They nous movements, and for demonstrating nous people are inherently inferior and seem to be completely unaware of the the intersecting interests of indigenous constituted by lack: they are illiterate, countless social and environmental disas- peoples and non-indigenous workers. dysfunctional, dependent and corrupt. ters that have been engendered with the In learning about indigenous move- The population explosion in their aid of “scientific” planning. ments and recognizing their autonomy, communities is causing serious problems. In negating traditional indigenous ways socialists can help build the strong and Notwithstanding their expanding of life and nationhood, Widdowson and lasting bonds of solidarity necessary to population, according to Widdowson and Howard fail to recognize the ways in fight the capitalist system and win Howard they do not qualify for nation- which radical indigenous hood, dispersed as they are in small resurgence can pose signifi- communities across the continent. Thus cant obstacles to capitalist self-determination is not an option. The expansion in renewing tradi- solution for all their “problems” is for tional modes of taking care of indigenous people to submit to the evolu- the land. In quoting trans- tionary nature of history; to recognize the lated fragments of indigenous inherent superiority of scientific methods; elders drawn from the tran- to relocate from their traditional territo- scripts of bureaucratic meet- ries to urban centres; and to become ings as proof of the “vague- “socialized” (ie. assimilated) into ness” and “contradictory” Canadian capitalism. Widdowson and nature of their knowledge, Howard don’t hold out much hope for they fail to comprehend the this solution to be workable in the near specific context of indigenous term, given “tribal” superstitions and land-based knowledge. resistance to progressive innovations. In deriding indigenous Clearly the only logical solution for the spirituality as a “religion,” present is to cut funding for indigenous they ignore the qualitative

new SOCIALIST 15 Indigenous feminism without apology

BY ANDREA SMITH

e often hear the mantra in indigenous communities that WNative women aren’t femi- nists. Supposedly, feminism is not needed because Native women were treated with respect prior to coloniza- tion. Thus, any Native woman who calls herself a feminist is often condemned as being “white.” However, when I started interviewing Native women organizers as part of a DECENTERING WHITE FEMINISM others. This would not negate the contri- research project, I was surprised by how butions made by white feminists, but many community-based activists were The feminist movement is generally would de-center them from our histori- describing themselves as “feminists periodized into the so-called first, second cizing and analysis. without apology.” They were arguing and third waves of feminism. In the Indigenous feminism thus centers that feminism is actually an indigenous United States, the first wave is character- anti-colonial practice within its organiz- concept that has been co-opted by white ized by the suffragette movement; the ing. This is critical today when you have women. second wave is characterized by the mainstream feminist groups supporting, The fact that Native societies were formation of the National Organization for example, the US bombing of egalitarian 500 years ago is not stopping for Women, abortion rights politics, and Afghanistan with the claim that this women from being hit or abused now. the fight for the Equal Rights bombing will free women from the For instance, in my years of anti-violence Amendments. Suddenly, during the third Taliban (apparently bombing women organizing, I would hear, “We can’t wave of feminism, women of colour somehow liberates them). worry about domestic violence; we must make an appearance to transform femi- worry about survival issues first.” But nism into a multicultural movement. CHALLENGING THE STATE since Native women are the women most This periodization situates white middle-class women as the central histor- Indigenous feminists are also challeng- likely to be killed by domestic violence, ing how we conceptualize indigenous they are clearly not surviving. So when ical agents to which women of colour attach themselves. However, if we were to sovereignty — it is not an add-on to the we talk about survival of our nations, heteronormative and patriarchal nation- who are we including? recognize the agency of indigenous women in an account of feminist history, state. Rather it challenges the nation- These Native feminists are challenging state system itself. not only patriarchy within Native we might begin with 1492 when Native women collectively resisted colonization. Charles Colson, prominent Christian communities, but also white supremacy Right activist and founder of Prison and colonialism within mainstream This would allow us to see that there are multiple feminist histories emerging Fellowship, explains quite clearly the white feminism. That is, they’re challeng- relationship between heteronormativity ing why it is that white women get to from multiple communities of colour which intersect at points and diverge in and the nation-state. In his view, same- define what feminism is. sex marriage leads directly to terrorism; the attack on the “natural moral order” of Andrea Smith is Cherokee and a professor of Native American Studies at the University of the heterosexual family “is like handing Michigan, Ann Arbor, and co-founder of Incite! Women of Color Against Violence and the moral weapons of mass destruction to Boarding School Healing Project. those who use America’s decadence to

new 16 SOCIALIST recruit more snipers and hijackers and rather than challenge colonialism and responsibility. suicide bombers.” white supremacy because they are As Sharon Venne explains, “Our spiri- Similarly, the Christian Right World premised on a politics of secondary tuality and our responsibilities define our magazine opined that feminism marginalization. The most elite class will duties. We understand the concept of contributed to the Abu Ghraib scandal by further their aspirations on the backs of sovereignty as woven through a fabric that promoting women in the military. When those most marginalized within the encompasses our spirituality and responsi- women do not know their assigned role community. bility. This is a cyclical view of sover- in the gender hierarchy, they become Through this process of secondary eignty, incorporating it into our tradi- disoriented and abuse prisoners. marginalization, the national or racial tional philosophy and view of our respon- Implicit in this is analysis the under- justice struggle either implicitly or explic- sibilities. It differs greatly from the standing that heteropatriarchy is essential itly takes on a nation-state model as the concept of Western sovereignty which is for the building of US empire. Patriarchy end point of its struggle – a model in based upon absolute power. For us is the logic that naturalizes social hierar- which the elites govern the rest through absolute power is in the Creator and the chy. Just as men are supposed to naturally violence and domination, and exclude natural order of all living things; not only dominate women on the basis of biology, those who are not members of “the in human beings... Our sovereignty is so too should the social elites of a society nation.” related to our connections to the earth naturally rule everyone else through a and is inherent.” NATIONAL LIBERATION nation-state form of governance that is REVOLUTION constructed through domination, Grassroots Native women, along with A Native feminist politics seeks to do violence, and control. Native scholars such as Taiaiake Alfred more than simply elevate Native women’s As Ann Burlein argues in Lift High the and Craig Womack, are developing other status — it seeks to transform the world Cross, it may be a mistake to argue that models of nationhood. These articula- through indigenous forms of governance the goal of Christian Right politics is to tions counter the frequent accusations that can be beneficial to everyone. create a theocracy in the US. Rather, that nation-building projects necessarily At the 2005 World Liberation Christian Right politics work through the lead to a narrow identity politics based Theology Forum held in Porto Alegre, private family (which is coded as white, on ethnic cleansing and intolerance. This Brazil, indigenous peoples from Bolivia patriarchal, and middle-class) to create a requires that a clear distinction be drawn stated that they know another world is “Christian America.” She notes that the between the project of national libera- possible because they see that world investment in the private family makes it tion, and that of nation-state building. whenever they do their ceremonies. difficult for people to invest in more Progressive activists and scholars, while Native ceremonies can be a place where public forms of social connection. prepared to make critiques of the US and the present, past and future become co- For example, more investment in the Canadian governments, are often not present. This is what Native Hawaiian suburban private family means less prepared to question their legitimacy. A scholar Manu Meyer calls a racial remem- funding for urban areas and Native reser- case in point is the strategy of many bering of the future. vations. The resulting social decay is then racial justice organizations in the US or Prior to colonization, Native communi- construed to be caused by deviance from Canada, who have rallied against the ties were not structured on the basis of the Christian family ideal rather than increase in hate crimes since 9/11 under hierarchy, oppression or patriarchy. We political and economic forces. As former the banner, “We’re American [or will not recreate these communities as head of the Christian Coalition Ralph Canadian] too.” they existed prior to colonization. Our Reed states: “The only true solution to This allegiance to “America” or understanding that a society without crime is to restore the family,” and “Canada” legitimizes the genocide and structures of oppression was possible in “Family break-up causes poverty.” colonization of Native peoples upon the past tells us that our current political Unfortunately, as Navajo feminist which these nation-states are founded. and economic system is anything but scholar Jennifer Denetdale points out, the By making anti-colonial struggle central natural and inevitable. If we lived differ- Native response to a heteronormative to feminist politics, Native women place ently before, we can live differently in the white, Christian America has often been in question the appropriate form of future. an equally heteronormative Native nation- governance for the world in general. Native feminism is not simply an alism. In her critique of the Navajo tribal In questioning the nation-state, we can insular or exclusivist “identity politics” as council’s passage of a ban on same-sex begin to imagine a world that we would it is often accused of being. Rather, it is marriage, Denetdale argues that Native actually want to live in. Such a political framework that understands indigenous nations are furthering a Christian Right project is particularly important for colo- women’s struggle as part of a global move- agenda in the name of “Indian tradition.” nized peoples seeking national liberation ment for liberation. As one activist stated: This trend is equally apparent within outside the nation-state. “You can’t win a revolution on your own. racial justice struggles in other communi- Whereas nation-states are governed And we are about nothing short of a revo- ties of colour. As Cathy Cohen contends, through domination and coercion, lution. Anything else is simply not worth heteronormative sovereignty or racial indigenous sovereignty and nationhood our time.” justice struggles will effectively maintain is predicated on interrelatedness and

new SOCIALIST 17 Canadian capitalism and the dispossession of indigenous peoples

BY TODD GORDON To the chagrin of the state and business, many indigenous people and communities eoliberal globalization has brought with it the intensification of what continue to resist full absorption into NMarxist geographer David Harvey capitalist relations. refers to as accumulation by dispossession. Harvey is referring to the often violent and predatory process by which multinational in order to engage in the more “civilized” Resources. corporations, backed by capitalist states, labour market. Sociologists Vic Satzewich and Ron expand their role and influence by dispos- Laliberte note that reservations were NEOLIBERALISM sessing people of their land and liveli- originally organized as a pool of cheap hoods. This agenda has intensified in the labour to be drawn upon when needed, Dispossessed indigenous peoples, small neoliberal period. Neoliberalism is the and are still viewed by government as farmers and peasants are forced to turn to ruling class’s response to the economic such. As one recent Indian Affairs and the labour market in order to survive, profitability crisis of the 1970s; it involves Northern Development study stresses, creating a cheap pool of labour for corpo- restructuring labour relations in favour of “The Aboriginal workforce will grow at rate enterprises to exploit. At the same business, gutting the welfare state and twice the rate of the total Canadian time, corporations can gain unhindered privatizing public services. labour force in the next ten years.” access to the resources on the now unoc- The success of neoliberalism is in large But to the chagrin of the state and cupied land – agricultural land, minerals, measure contingent on the increased business, many indigenous people and lumber, real estate, oil, even commodified commodification of indigenous land and communities continue to resist full nature (parks, tourism). This is a central labour, turning it into something to be absorption into capitalist relations. process by which capitalist imperialism bought and sold on the market. Government documents salaciously note operates. Nevertheless, large segments of the the potential indigenous labour supply The Canadian state’s predatory histori- indigenous population have successfully and the wealth of resources on indige- cal relationship with indigenous peoples resisted full integration into market rela- nous land, but they also often reflect on provides a sharp example of the dynamics tions in their territories. The frontier of the difficulties of getting indigenous of accumulation by dispossession. This capitalist expansion, in the eyes of the people to sell their labour for a wage or involved a variety of brutal processes, state and business leaders, still has signif- willingly permit the penetration of their including the military defeat of the icantly further to go in Canada. communities by resource companies. Métis-led national liberation struggle in In a context in which, on the one hand, the then-Northwest Territories, the corporations are aggressively pursuing a MINING AND “DEVELOPMENT” apartheid Indian Act and its Pass Laws, cheaper and more flexible labour force as The mining industry provides a stark the attempted cultural genocide of the part of its agenda of neoliberal restructur- example of the intensifying pressures on residential schools and the ongoing abro- ing, and, on the other, the non- indigenous lands and communities. Over gation of First Nation treaty rights. Indigenous Canadian-born population’s the last decade, mining companies have Land was taken for the development of fertility rates remain low, indigenous been expanding their activities into capitalist industries, while indigenous labour has become highly valued. This is regions of the country where capitalist people were “encouraged” by the Indian clearly expressed in policy documents development has hitherto been limited. Act and residential schools to stop tradi- produced by the Ministries of Indian and Exploration has been increasing in tional subsistence and cultural practices Northern Affairs, Industry and Natural northern and interior British Columbia, the northern prairies, Ontario and Todd Gordon is an editor of New Socialist magazine and the author of Cops, Crime and Quebec, the Yukon, Nunavut, and espe- Capitalism: The Law-and-Order Agenda in Canada. A longer version of this article appeared in cially the Northwest Territories since Socialist Studies. diamond deposits were discovered there

new 18 SOCIALIST in the early 1990s. territories. It’s extremely slow The Mining Association of Canada and bureaucratic, taking up to notes that, “[m]ost mining activity occurs fifteen years after a claim is in northern and remote areas of the initially made before the country, the principal areas of Aboriginal process is commenced.

populations.” Natural Resources Canada That’s at least fifteen years WILLARD, SECWEPEMC NATION. TANIA DRAWING BY reports, meanwhile, that approximately more time for indigenous lands 1200 indigenous communities are to be whittled away and/or located within 200 kilometers of an poisoned. Or fifteen years for active mine, and this will only increase as poverty and frustration in exploration intensifies. communities to grow, leading The location of the majority of mining to out-migration and making operations is significant, because it brings the communities more vulnera- the industry squarely into conflict with ble to one-sided deals with indigenous land rights. First Nations may corporations. claim title to much of the land mining Furthermore, the federal companies seek to exploit, or oppose government has made the extin- mining developments that will cause guishment of Aboriginal title a ecological damage to traditional territo- prerequisite of any land claims ries and subsistence patterns. settlement they’ll agree to. This But the location of mines is also very involves relinquishing collective significant in a context in which, as ownership over land and industry and government studies indi- subsurface resources of large parts of ally defends the government’s right to cate, mining is facing a labour shortage. traditional territories – as is the case with appropriate indigenous land for Indigenous labour, in turn, is explicitly the James Bay and Nisga’a comprehensive economic reasons. identified as central to the expansion of agreements. Of course, never too far removed from the industry. “Workforce diversity,” as Extinguishment – a legal form of these strategies of dispossession is military one industry-wide study expresses it, with dispossession supported by Supreme force, which we have seen mobilized in a healthy dose of liberal veneer, is a neces- Court decision and pursued zealously by recent years at Oka, Gustafsen Lake, sity for the future success of mining. the government – is a major barrier to the Burnt Church and Ipperwash. It also This is driving the growing conflicts fair settlement of land disputes and rein- remains a threat at the Six Nations stand- between mining companies and First forces the colonial status quo between the off in Caledonia. While the state may Nations like the Kitchenuhmaykoosib Canadian state and indigenous nations. wish to pursue its colonial strategy in the Inninuwug (Northern Ontario), Even where treaties exist, they are tidier bourgeois legal realm, it will make Kwadacha (B.C.), Tlatzen (B.C) and repeatedly ignored and their terms are recourse to military violence to enforce its Kanien’kehaka (Quebec) among many systematically broken by governments agenda where necessary. others. Indeed these are the tip of the in the interest of economic develop- The lesson for the Suretée du Quebec iceberg, and battles like these will ment or national security. This is the after Oka and the RCMP after Gustafsen continue as mining companies intensify reality underlying the events at Oka Lake was to invest more resources in mili- the expansion of their ecologically violent (where the local municipal government tary weaponry in preparation for future practices into indigenous territories, tried to appropriate land for a golf confrontations. threatening ecosystems and the commu- course), Ipperwash (where the military Canadian colonialism – like colonial- nities living in them. stole land and physically removed ism around the world – has always had its members of the Stony Point commu- bloody side. If indigenous nations won’t STRATEGIES OF DISPOSSESSION nity in order to build an army base be compliant, capitalist expansion will be In response to indigenous peoples’ during the second World War), and defended by violence. general unwillingness to prostrate them- today in Caledonia (where housing The agenda of dispossession is not selves to capitalism, the Canadian state is developers are trying to build on Six simply the misguided policy of short- engaged in a sustained effort to dispossess Nations’ treaty land). sighted or self-interested business or polit- them of their land. This ranges from legal These are but three of the countless ical leaders. It is central to state and corpo- manipulations to outright violence, as the examples of state-sanctioned theft of rate relations with indigenous communi- pressures of capitalist expansion over the treaty lands that have gained national ties, driven by the demands of the capital- last two decades have intensified, indeed attention because of indigenous resistance ist economy and shaped by a deep-seated militarized, the colonial conflict between in the face of serious political and military racist view of First Nations as uncivilized Canada and indigenous nations. pressure. In fact, in the Delgamuukw and unwilling or unable to economically The formal land claims process, for decision (derided by the Right and the develop their territories. This considera- example, facilitates the expansion of business community as unambiguously tion must not be forgotten in the struggle capitalist development onto indigenous pro-Indigenous) the Supreme Court actu- against Canadian colonialism.

new SOCIALIST 19 WASÁSE MOVEMENT Statement of principles

ABOUT THE MOVEMENT traditions, ceremonies and movement includes women and knowledges; reconnecting to and men regardless of gender, age, Wasáse is an intellectual and loving the land; and, revitalizing color, or nationality. political movement whose ideology indigenous languages. is rooted in sacred wisdom. It is SUPPORT motivated and guided by Wasáse challenges indigenous Wasáse does not accept funding indigenous spiritual and ethical people to reject the authority and from colonial governments or teachings, and dedicated to the legitimacy of the colonial system corporations. The movement is transformation of indigenous and to rebel against its institutions. funded by contributions from its people in the midst of the severe Wasáse is not a political party or members, and it seeks material decline of our nations and the governmental organization, and its support and alliances with crises threatening our existence. It members do not seek or hold individuals and organizations who exists to enable indigenous people political office. The movement does share its principles and to live authentic, free and healthy not use violence to advance its commitments. lives in our homelands. aims. Its political struggle is conducted through intellectual AIM Wasáse promotes the learning and respecting of every aspect of our indigenous heritage, working together to govern ourselves using indigenous knowledge, and unifying to fight for our freedom and the return of our lands. It seeks to liberate indigenous people from CONTACT euroamerican thoughts, laws and confrontation and mass systems. communication; revealing the Wasáse does not have an office, corruptions, frauds and abuses of central location or staff. It is a APPROACH colonizers and collaborators; and, network of mutual support and supporting direct action in defense coordinated action that extends in Wasáse is a resurgence of diverse of indigenous communities, their all four directions across Turtle actions. It works by awakening and rights, and the land. Island. We welcome and encourage reculturing individuals so that contact for the purposes of indigenous thoughts are restored to AFFILIATION information, affiliation or support. their proper place in the people’s Wasáse is a movement of Real minds and their attachment to false The Wasáse Movement People who have adopted its identities is broken. Members of P.O. Box 1431, Kahnawake principles and are committed to the movement are committed to Mohawk Territory J0L 1B0 applying indigenous teachings and the restoration of indigenous www.wasase.org values as our way of life. The [email protected]

new 20 SOCIALIST Voices from the Indigenous Leadership Forum

THE 2006 INDIGENOUS leaership forum brought together young indigenous and settler community leaders and activists from across occupied Canada and beyond at the University of Victoria from June 5 to 16. The aim was to begin developing an authentic vision and workable alternatives for political organizing. Current state- sponsored institutions and approaches were rejected in favour of embracing true indigenous principles. The ILF is a small group of people who are committed to their Participants at the Indigenous homelands and local struggles, while at the same time working regionally Leadership Forum. and nationally in a coordinated effort to end colonialism in all its forms. On these pages, we include images from the 2006 event, and highlights from the discussions that took place.

DEMOCRATIC GOVERNMENT? CONTINUITY, UNITY The Assembly of First Nations is just a lobby group for the There is continuity to this movement. We are part of a band council chiefs, who are basically federal employees. These history of resistance and defence of our people. The struggle is days, it’s a rubber stamp for the feds. In fact, people don’t realize even more difficult and thus more honourable in urban spaces it, but there is no democratic and legitimate Native government where there’s no clearly defined boundary. Rural or urban, we in all of this land. have the potential to build a unified movement by coordinat- ing spiritually and strategically. FEASTING TRADITIONS We wanted to develop ways of educating about healthy CONFRONTING THE SYSTEM indigenous practices without shaming people. We decided to It seems like a good idea to try to go “off the grid” of the engage with the “West Coast Night” at the Vancouver capitalist economy. But the Haida Gwaii live on bountiful Friendship Centre. We worked with people to learn about the islands that supported them for many generations, but now the traditions of feasting, and gathered all the traditional foods we small population of only 3000 can’t harvest enough food for could. We were able to come up with enough traditional food subsistence because of sport fishing. At Akwesasne, people can’t to feed 500 people. eat their traditional foods because of PCB contamination.

new SOCIALIST 21 People are forced to buy their food. So we can’t just withdraw from the system, we need to build a movement that confronts it. RESURGENCE We have the elders, the olders and the youth in our communities. It is the olders that are the problem. The elders and the youth are the real force for building the indigenous resurgence. RESPONSIBILITY In our language, the word wit-waak, warrior, means ‘no fear.’ This means that we are responsible for creating a safe space for our people. DIFFERENCE We’re all at different places in our development, and we need to accept that. Each community has different protocols and traditions. It’s like bringing up babies! RESPECT Taiaiake Alfred We need to learn to respect each other, and build on those things that we have in common. NO ALTERNATIVE We’re organising because we believe there’s absolutely no alternative. We have to raise up our people and build unity. RED POWER I remember after the Trudeau government introduced the White Paper on Indian Policy, about sixteen angry university students gathered in a room. That gathering gave rise to the Red Paper, and the Red Power movement in Canada. This Indigenous Leadership Forum reminds me of that moment. CREATING SPACE Most people think of warriors as armed men wearing camouflage. But the indigenous warrior is not the same as a soldier. Soldiers serve the state; warriors serve their people. We have a social responsibility. Like the Zapatistas in Mexico, our job is to create the geographical and political space for our people to practice their way of life. CONFLICT Participants at Indigenous Leadership Forum The government is quite happy to support indigenous cultural activities such as the powwow industry. But when we exercise our traditional harvesting rights, or defend our traditional territory from commercial development, we end up in conflict situations. ORGANISING LOCALLY We can’t go running off to other communities until we’ve addressed issues in our own community. This can be difficult. I’ve been confronted with phys- ical violence just for speaking out in disagreement with the treaty process. Sexual assault is a reality for women. We need to be prepared for this. HEALING Our warriors protect the land and the people, especially the dancers. The warriors have been stifled, and they have to regain strength. We have to heal each other, and we have to protect our lands because they’re part of that healing process. CONFRONTING MACHISMO There’s been a lot of machismo and drinking in the warrior movement. We Participants in Indigenous Leadership Forum need to confront and deal with these kinds of issues in order to be able to work together.

new 22 SOCIALIST A NEW WAY OF THINKING AND ACTING A young warrior’s perspective on the conflict at Six Nations

In this interview, TAIAIAKE ALFRED speaks with a young man who me. I was walking around, looking at them, going “I’m gonna’ get you back.” I participated in the Six Nations protest and occupation of the pointed right at this one guy who development on their lands at Douglas Creek. He was also at the happened to be one of the guys I hit with centre of the physical confrontation between Six Nations people and the log later on! When they let me go, the men had the Ontario Provincial Police on April 20th, 2006. The young warrior already pushed the cops back and we were reflects on his experiences confronting police violence, the meaning following them along the road walking of indigenous leadership today, and on the long-term implication of towards the highway. But then we looked across a field and we could see a whole the conflict for the Haudenosaunee peoples. bunch of cops in the distance, probably about a hundred of them. There weren’t too many of our people over, so I started TA: What was your involvement in the them. And then they brought in another leading everybody towards that area. I got April 20th confrontation with the old guy too, they had him all handcuffed about forty men to follow me and we police at Six Nations? up. And then they took the handcuffs off started running across the field over to and put slip ties on, they tightened them where the cops were. We got over there BY THE TIME I SHOWED UP, AROUND 7 IN real tight. I couldn’t even feel my hands. and we pushed all those cops back again the morning, the police had pushed So I was sitting there, and I kept trying towards Highway 6. everybody off the land completely and to hint to this guy, “Hey, that whole side’s were formed in a line on the road. Some open…” I was gonna book it, book CONFRONTING POLICE VIOLENCE of us started walking up and down that through the field with my hands tied. I TA: When you say you “pushed them line, just staring them down, getting mad. was just about to get up, I just started to back” do you mean you had to physi- I just got sick of it, and I went and get up on one knee, I was about to take cally fight them? grabbed this log, and when I picked it up, off, when the women came over. There these two cops jumped on me right away. were about three or four women, and YEAH, WE HAD TO PUSH THEM AND SHOVE So I started slamming and wrestling they said to the cops, “Let him go, right them. It was then that we saw Hazel Hill around with them. now!” And when the cops said they over in the distance get slammed by the Then a cop – some big black guy – couldn’t do that, the women said, cops, so we all went running to help her. came and took me right down, just like “Fucking let them go, right now!” and We didn’t notice right away, but there that! (laughs) He grabbed my head and those cops just got scared, and they said were about fifty or sixty more cops over just threw me right down. Nobody really “alright, alright..” They cut those ties off there. There was like six cops on her, but helped me; I got mad ‘cause nobody helped me at all. When somebody did try to jump in after a while, he got taken down too, and then that’s when every- I’ve had it in my mind since I was body started jumping in. That’s when all the men finally stepped up. six years old … that we were going to show the They got me handcuffed and carried me away. The whole time I was just white people who we are yelling and getting everybody all riled up. [and] what we can be, They took me over the hill, behind where everybody was and they started slamming no matter how many times they me around and stomping me on my back, kicking me. There was about eight of push us or try to put us down.

new SOCIALIST 23 we got her away. They backed off after I saw clan mothers [at the TA: Why do you think the chiefs would that. And then I kept walking at one of take that position? the cops, the loud one, and he kept barricade] every night. I YOU HEAR A LOT OF PEOPLE TALKING telling me to “step back.” I didn’t hear about deals they may have made over nothing, I was right in the zone, zeroed in never saw other conflicts in the past as a reason for on that cop. I didn’t really notice the gun one Chief there, the mistrust. Some people had heard that pointed at me. the MPs in the Hamilton area had He kept yelling at me. Finally, he hit not once in drafted up an order in support of what me. I looked at him, and then I looked was going on, but that Dave General told back ‘cause I could hear something click the entire blockade, them, “Don’t listen to the Confederacy and then all of a sudden I saw him shoot council.” They were going to get a bunch it. It was like in slow-motion; I could I never saw a Chief. of people together to go right down to actually see it, it looked like a red ball bust up Dave General and take over the coming at me right up that line. There’s a band council – they were so pumped up, little line up right into the taser. I could it was funny! see that it looked red, full of energy or and it was awesome. After we pushed I was confused myself when it came to something. And then I had a reaction; I them all out I was just dazed, and I the Confederacy chiefs though. The just saw my arm go up and knock it right looked out in the field, there was just Confederacy had a meeting, and they said off of me… it was cool. It just pissed me people, swarms, everywhere. It just that the secretary and the lawyer that the right off though! Talk about “in the straightened my back right up. I held my Confederacy always calls upon were the zone”! I’d never experienced that before. head up. two telling the chiefs to put a stop to I flipped right out and started scream- CONFUSION everything. The secretary, Tom, came ing at those cops. “Is that all you fucking down there and was telling everybody got!?” stuff like that, being real loud. I hit TA: That’s awesome. But thinking that the chiefs aren’t supporting what’s a couple of them. Somebody had to pull back, was there anybody who would going on here now because, “we thought me back because they probably would talk differently from you about it? Is it would be peaceful but it’s kind of gone have shot me again! (laughs) I scared there anybody in the community who beyond what we agreed to support in the them after that, though. When they saw opposed what you were doing? beginning, so we’re not supporting it.” I didn’t go down after being hit, it really I REMEMBER, IN THE FIRST WEEK OF THE It was confusing to me. The whole scared them. About three or four of them protest, the Confederacy chiefs actually point of doing all of this is to reclaim ran and jumped in their trucks – they came there and said, “Take the blockades what is rightfully ours. So why would really ran, too! They were scared. So that down. We don’t want them there at all.” anybody not support it, especially our was pretty much it; we had pushed them The chiefs came there and the people traditional council? People involved were back into Caledonia. said, “No, we’re not taking them down.” all pretty much thinking, “Screw the Even [Chief] Dave General and the band Confederacy council if they don’t want to TA: How did you feel after all that was council chiefs came there too. He actually support us.” The clan mothers there were over and the barricade went back to got smacked right in the face by one of still supporting us though. For a couple normal? the guys! (laughs) and he had to leave of days, I was really confused. We don’t EVERYBODY WAS JUST IN SHOCK. I because everybody just got mad after a want to follow the elected system, but remember going home later that day and while. He came there calm, and he came then our Confederacy system is telling us just sitting there with everything starting there in a respectful manner, but the to walk away. to set in, everything slowly started to things he was saying were… ah, his plan TA: What about the clan mothers? It come back to me. I was thinking, “Holy was that he wanted to hand out seems like they are more involved and shit, what the hell just happened?” Over pamphlets. I mean, by the time he did supportive of the land reclamation that whole time that I just talked about, I that, the land would’ve been developed. blockade. didn’t even remember when it actually happened. It took a couple of days for it TA: I really don’t think people give a I SAW CLAN MOTHERS THERE EVERY to actually set in. damn about pamphlets anyway. night. I never saw one Chief there, not once in the entire blockade, I never saw a It was a weird feeling. I’ve never felt WE SAID, “NO, WE NEED ACTION NOW.” that way before. It felt good, though. Me, And he said “No, we can’t do that. Chief. But there were clan mothers there I’ve had it in my mind since I was six They’re going to send in the army.” All sitting with the people, talking with us and years old, and I knew one day, and always our guys at the blockades said “bring it supporting us any way they could. Giving waited for the time, that we were going to on.” They’re ready to stand for this, us coffee, staying up with us all night, not show the white people who we are, who they’re not going to take it anymore. It until three or four in the morning would we really are, what we can be, no matter really hurt me, though, to see our own they go home. It’s the old women, seventy- how many times they push us or try to band chiefs in there, actually coming year-olds, doing that for us. Not one chief put us down. It really showed that day, there and saying that. there. And these chiefs are young.

new 24 SOCIALIST Indigenous women leading the struggle. Art by Tania Willard, Secwepemc Nation

LEADERSHIP TA: What are your thoughts on leader- ers. They were there, they supported us TA: So what do you think has been the ship in our communities now? strongly. My view on the band council impact of all this? THAT BAND COUNCIL BROUGHT WAY has shifted lately… I’d get called down at I SAW SOMETHING FOR THE FIRST TIME more support than our traditional home by some of the old people if I said that I thought I would never see. I saw system! Yeah, there was that one guy, the that. I’d probably get slapped in the head our people rise. But then we saw our main chief Dave General, and a group in (laughs). traditional government fall. That’s how I there that totally denounced us, but there We just need a strong leader, and that’s see it. The power of the people is strong. were some councilors, they were with us all it’s going to take. That’s the role of a But we just need strong leaders; that’s the every day. I don’t know how many times leader: to start a vision in the people and thing. the councilors were there, eating with us give them hope. That’s all it is, just show and sharing food on an individual basis. them a new way of hope, a new way of They just came as community support- thinking.

new SOCIALIST 25 Anarchist-Indigenous solidarity at the Six BY RICHARD DAY Nations’ barricade AND SEAN HABERLE . ART BYART TANIA WILLARD, SECWEPEMC NATION

ndigenous peoples and settler soci- direct action and local, consensus-based are interested in these bourgeoning eties have a long and complex history decision-making processes, and the use of efforts to create solid and lasting political Iof interaction in the Americas. While non-statist federations to link communi- alliances between anarchists and indige- unequal colonial relationships have ties and nations. nous peoples, and in the questions that always been — and continue to be — the In recent years these commonalities arise when these disparate identities find norm, there have also been situations in have begun to be explored more deeply, themselves working together in solidarity which settlers and indigenous people self-consciously and critically from both and support. We feel that there is some- have worked together to resist state domi- directions. They are apparent in the thing new going on, something perhaps nation, corporate exploitation, racism, anarcho-indigenist politics of certain historic, but of course also very tenuous patriarchy and wanton destruction of the Haudenoshonee, Dene and Nuu-chah- and fragile. land. Anarchists in particular, since at nulth writers and activists, in the strug- To keep the discussion grounded, we least the time of Kropotkin, have noted gles of the Magonist Popular will base it on the ongoing efforts of anar- commonalities between their values and Coordinating Committee (COMPA) in chist activists to work in solidarity with practices and those of some indigenous Oaxaca, and in formations such as No the Six Nations people, who are fighting communities and nations. They have One is Illegal and Indigenous Peoples to defend their territory against capitalist found common ground in the rejection Solidarity Movement. In this article, we development. One of the authors spent a of arbitrary authority, a preference for few days behind the lines; the other worked on raising local awareness in Richard Day is an anarchist activist and scholar based in Kingston, Ontario. He teaches at Kingston; and we include a third voice, Queen’s University and is associated with the Marble Rock Cooperative Centre for Rural that of an anarchist activist named “Wil,” Living and Education. Sean Haberle is an anarchist activist and graduate student at Queen’s a non-indigenous supporter who was on University in Kingston, Ontario. new 26 SOCIALIST the reserve for about three weeks. difficult, too risky, to put oneself on the that are all too common: supporters We have very few answers to the ques- line as a person, that is, as one individual working only with other supporters, tions we raise, since at this point – or coming out to be met by another. tending to “take over” decision-making perhaps at any point – the process of processes and feeling “left out” when they ON THE BARRICADES AT SIX NATIONS questioning seems more important. We are unable to do so. As Wil points out: are also aware that this is an evolving Both of these dangers were lurking “There was no venue for non-natives to situation, which we discuss primarily in behind the Six Nations barricade. This participate or to add anything to what terms of events that occurred up to was evident to Wil, a self-identified anar- was going on — there was no, ‘what do around April of 2006. chist, when he answered a call-out for our non-native supporters think about support from one of the clan mothers this?’ But that would be a very touchy WHAT IS SOLIDARITY? and went to Caledonia in early March. thing, because what you have to do is The pathways that exist between anar- His reflections on his experience show build relationships with people and chist and indigenous nations and that while there was an earnest attempt at maybe they’ll take your suggestions to the communities are by no means easy to support and a will to learn on both sides table, or maybe they won’t.” find or to follow. They are strewn with at Caledonia, there were are also many Building personal relationships is obstacles, some which are remnants of disconnects. crucial to building trust; and trust is colonial relations of power, and some As the only non-indigenous person crucial to solidarity. Apart from attempt- that are being created even as we work present for much of the time he was ing to make a concrete difference in a towards a truly postcolonial way of coex- there, Wil encountered both curiosity short-term situation, this is probably the isting. For example, the wording we are and mistrust about why he had come. most important thing one can do in an using here shows signs of tension: anar- “Trust is something that really it takes a action of this sort. For, after the barri- chists tend not to identify with nations, little while to gain with anyone... It must cades come down, it is only the social while many indigenous peoples do. Also, have taken about a week before they relationships that will remain, intangible as a predominantly western tradition really started opening up to me, and that but effective, productive and lasting. (though that is changing), anarchist was after I was arrested with them. That conceptions of relations between showed that I wasn’t going to just piss off LIVING THE POSTCOLONIAL communities/nations and individuals are at the first sign of danger, because that is None of us are located in exactly the quite different from those that are preva- always a question, it is fine to sit around same way, no matter how much we might lent among indigenous peoples. and eat the hamburgers and shoot the have in common. Therefore, in order to It is easy to say that dealing with these shit, but what happens when you really have a productive dialogue around diffi- obstacles, of which we have named only put yourself in danger, because talk is cult issues, we must have the courage to two among many, presents a complex set cheap.” speak and listen respectfully and care- of problems of solidarity. But what is soli- Many of the other settlers who came to fully. If we orient only, or primarily, to darity, exactly? We find the definition act as support were not able to build this avoiding offense, we cannot really know used by anti-racist feminist Chandra kind of relationship. “Usually when the ourselves or each other, and we cannot Mohanty to be compelling: solidarity other supporters were coming it was a change. This, we would argue, is precisely means that I stand with you, against couple at a time and it is not the kind of the promise of solidarity: one person or another. On this definition, it is very culture where people greet you with open group or nation, working with other important to note, relations of solidarity arms... for a lot of non-natives they didn’t people or groups or nations, to help each can only exist between disparate identi- know how to start these conversations, other achieve common goals, and ties — if I am you, I cannot be in soli- they ended up just going into these jobs perhaps to learn something along the darity with you. This point is important and working and building and cooking way. because it helps us to highlight one of the and then they’d sleep and then they get Unfortunately, the Canadian state and dangers of this kind of work — that of up and then they’d start building and the capitalist corporations it nurtures are excessively identifying with the other, of cooking all day because I guess they unlikely to change their ways in the near thinking that one somehow is the other, wanted to earn their keep and they felt future. Thus there will be many oppor- which, especially in colonial contexts, can like they weren’t doing anything.” tunities to further explore the possibili- lead to the perpetuation of unequal rela- There was also a difference between the ties we have only begun to discuss here. tions of power. European and non-European supporters. It is an excellent sign of things to come On the other hand, there are also “It was actually white/European descent that so many non-indigenous people dangers associated with taking too much people who were more like into the have chosen to stand with the Six distance. Again, especially in a context of working all the time and got caught up in Nations, in so many different ways. We hundreds of years of colonialism and a that and were more awkward. I think that know that we are very far from realizing racist, apartheid state, it is all too easy to it was because there was a lot more the promise of the Two-Row Wampum let oneself off the hook by refusing to tension between the indigenous people agreement; yet we are compelled to strive make any effort at all to know the and those white people as well.” for the nearest approximation to it that “other,” on the pretense that this is not These racialized tensions led to the we can imagine, and that we can realize what he or she desires. It just seems too reproduction of certain ways of relating here and now.

new SOCIALIST 27 Indigenous-labour solidarity and the Six Nations land dispute

AN INTERVIEW WITH ROLF GERSTENBERGER Caledonia was be-cause you weren’t really sure if you owned the land or not! So it turns out everyone in Caledonia Rolf Gerstenberger is President of the United Steelworkers Union Local knows that; they may not have liked it, 1005 in Hamilton, Ontario. Members of his union local were some of but they know that this is… you know, the six miles on each side of the Grand the first non-natives to answer the call for support from Six Nations River, is Native land. They knew that. after the Ontario Provincial Police invaded the territory and attacked And then they would say, “Well why the peaceful occupation at Douglas Creek. He was interviewed on didn’t the Native people raise this issue before?” And then we would tell them video at the barricade in May 2006. that the Natives did, but unfortunately the courts won’t listen to them and it isn’t until they take a stand that the ur local first came out here to prevent that from happening again. government is forced to deal with it. And after a week of local media They asked for people to come out to just then of course when they do take a propaganda about how “some- be witnesses in case the police attack. So stand, like they did at Oka, and O Ipperwash, and Gustafsen Lake, they’re thing has to be done” about the stand our members have been coming either as taken by the Native people here at a group or just on their own just to be attacked. So it’s not an easy thing for the Douglas Creek. The local media were around and support the Native people in Native people to take this step, but at the trying to whip up support for the police their just demands. end of the day they have no choice. or the army to move in and clean them It always comes down to whether you out. So we came the first day with our NO CHOICE know the history or not. Hopefully this flags and about twenty of our members I got lots of calls from union members will be settled through negotiations. The to lend support. who live in this area. Basically, my argu- problem is there are about 600 unre- For us, supporting Native peoples’ ment to them was, first of all, they all have solved land claims in Canada right now, hereditary rights and their land claims is to agree that we don’t want to settle this and that may open a can of worms. So a motherhood issue. It’s been 500 years of through law and order, by beating this is what the government has to think injustice done to the Native people; it’s someone, by beating the Native people about when they’re settling this never been resolved. They had been up, or by shooting them, or arresting problem. But it’s about time that these promised certain things and the Crown them. There was a general view that that things are settled. Five hundred years is never upheld their promise. They had shouldn’t happen. a long time to not settle a question as almost a million acres of land, and no It was interesting basic as this. sooner did the Crown promise it in because every one of 1784, they started taking it away. Today the callers said, they have less than five percent of the “What the Native land still available to them. people are doing is R YTNAWILLARD, SECWEPEMC NATION. TANIA ART BY Our position was that you can’t solve illegal, this is an this question with police attacks, or the illegal occupation.” army coming in, or shooting someone, or The more I discussed arresting someone, or making it a law- with them, as far as and-order issue. It’s a political question the history of it, it that has to be settled politically, through turns out that all the negotiations. So when the OPP riot residents of Cale- police moved in and arrested 16 of the donia know that Native people, attacked them, beat them there’s a land dis- up, tazered them, had assault rifles out, pute. Twenty or 30 and thought they could just clean up this years ago, the reason small group of “trouble makers,” then, of you could buy course, the Native people took measures houses cheaply in

new 28 SOCIALIST Nuu-chah-nulth struggles against sexual violence On May 5th a small delegation INTERVIEW WITH CHIINUUKS (RUTH OGILVIE) of young Nuu-chah-nulth AND NA’CHA’UAHT (CLIFF ATLEO JR) activists visited the community of Pacheedaht, marking the start Glen Coulthard (GC): Let’s start with a nulth society. Traditionally women were of a 10-day journey through all little background information about the to be held up and respected, since they 15 Nuu-chah-nulth communities Stop the Violence March that you both have the ability to give life. He told us the helped organize. What served as your moti- ayts-tuu-thlaa served to publicly acknowl- on Vancouver Island. The Stop vation? edge our young women by lifting them the Violence March was up and placing a beautiful shawl on their Chiinuuks: The march began with the shoulders, displaying their family history conceived to focus attention on women of Tla-o-qui-aht, many of whom or teachings. She would also be instructed the issue of domestic violence are my aunts and cousins. About a year by aunts, grandmothers and other family and to clearly state that it would ago, Tla-o-qui-aht held an ayts-tuu-thlaa members on what it meant to be a young [a coming of age ceremony] for a young woman, how we need to carry ourselves no longer be tolerated. The woman and two weeks later she was and live respectfully rooted in our Nuu- intent of the march was to create brutally attacked by someone from our chah-nulth ways. space for Nuu-chah-nulth community. The Tla-o-qui-aht women were outraged and held a march to Na’cha’uaht: To get things started, we set women and men to speak the demand that the violence be stopped a date two months out and challenged truth about their experiences, within Tla-o-qui-aht. David Dennis ourselves to get all the organizing done attended the march and was asked to quickly. We were all feeling a profound space to begin a process of carry the message to all the Nuu-chah- need to do something, anything, to start restoring dignity and balance to nulth territories. somewhere. For me it was almost a phys- their communities by taking A year later, Dave, Cliff and myself ical ache, an ongoing sense of urgency were having lunch together in Victoria and feeling of illness that only some sort responsibility and action. In and I expressed pain and anger over the of action could alleviate. I couldn’t help addition to creating space and fact that not one woman in my family has but ask myself how, as an indigenous awareness, the travelling been unaffected by the violence that man, I could stand by and not do some- occurs regularly within our homes and thing to stop this violence against our delegation felt it was important communities. It disturbed all of us to own people. realize the effect that internalized violence to leave something positive in LOCAL COMMITMENT had within indigenous communities each community. Shawls were when compared to the rest of Canada. GC: How do you see the work you accom- presented to a select number of I was also motivated by the gestures of plished with the march relating to the previous tactics of decolonization taken on female community members in our people once we started organizing the march itself. My older cousin stopped by by the West Coast Warrior Society the spirit of the ayts-tuu-thlaa, a my house for a visit and expressed his [WCWS]? Was the march meant to address coming of age ceremony meant good feelings about us taking on this issues that weren’t being addressed within the Warrior movement? to honour and hold up young issue. He reminded us of our haa-huu- pah [teachings and stories] about the Nuu-chah-nulth women. traditional role of women in Nuu-chah- Chiinuuks: I think that one of the funda- mental differences between the march and other WCWS tactics was that we Na’cha’uaht is from Ahousaht of the Nuu-chah-nulth nation on his father’s side, and Kitselas realized, through the help of many good of the Tsimshian nation on his mother’s side. He is a former West Coast Warrior, aspiring Wii- uk, and political science student at the University of Victoria. Chiinuuks is from Tla-o-qui-aht women and elders, that we couldn’t and Checlesaht of the Nuu-chah-nulth nation. She is also a former member of the West simply “drop-in” to communities, expect Coast Warrior Society, an aspiring Wii-uk and currently in the Indigenous Governance to adequately address a problem, and Program at the University of Victoria. then immediately move on to the next

new SOCIALIST 29 Nuu-chah- nulth march against violence.

“issue” or community. Our intent was to STEPPING BACK n’t legitimately call ourselves warriors if both politicize and provide support in Na’cha’uaht: After the disbandment of our homes are in such a deplorable state. terms of broadening, and in some cases the WCWS, I began to reflect a lot on So essentially the men in the warrior building from scratch, the ability for the relative effectiveness of our actions. It movement backed up and the women communities to defend themselves didn’t take a lot to realize that our stepped forward, and we began to against all forms of violence and oppres- approaches were deeply flawed, albeit dialogue. It’s important to note, however, sion. well intentioned for the most part. that we didn’t “allow” the women to step We knew that in order to be effective Although many of us understood that forward, but for the most part just shut we needed to ask ourselves what were the disbanding was the right thing to do, we up and vacated some space. It’s a constant most pressing threats to our people. In also knew that our communities still struggle not to revert back to paternalis- doing so we realized that the internaliza- needed people committed to taking tic or chauvinistic positions, but instead tion of violence within our homes and action. So we spent a lot of time sitting be quiet and listen and engage equally. communities had reached staggering with family members and community The previous incarnation of the warrior proportions. Although fully aware and elders in order to better understand the movement mostly excluded or down- equipped to defend ourselves against roles and responsibilities of our Wit-waak played the roles of women. In retrospect, state violence, the WCWS had not [warriors]. it’s not hard to see why previous initia- addressed the issue of sexual violence Among other teachings, we learned tives ultimately failed to leave any kind of occurring at this level. that the primary responsibility of a Wii- lasting legacy. So basically, I took up my responsibil- uk [warrior] was to ensure the safety of OUTSIDE THE SYSTEM ity as an indigenous woman to call a stop the home and to protect the most vulner- to the violence, and challenged the men able in our communities from any threat, GC: Could you speak to the importance of to do something about it as well. We real- wherever it may come from. organizing outside the colonial-state ized that in many communities and fami- Unfortunately, issues such as suicide and system? lies, the subject of violence is so normal- domestic violence top the list of actual ized that no one speaks about it. It then threats in our communities. This tends to Chiinuuks: I think it goes without became clear that carrying the initial contrast with the more “sexy” or “glori- saying that if I want to remain an authen- message of the Tla-o-qui-aht women ous” issues of resource access or land tic Kousa [human being, real person], ought to be one of our biggest initiatives. protection, but we realized that we could- organizing must always fall outside of the

new 30 SOCIALIST colonial system. Everyone knows that the daunting task to sort through the debris indigenous principles. I find it important state has always sought to destroy indige- of colonialism and separate it from the to acknowledge that we are struggling at nous ways of being in the world. The spirit or ethics of our traditions. I guess a time when many of our traditional kind of organizing we began with in this that’s what decolonizing from an indige- practices and teachings have been march is rooted in our responsibility as nous perspective is all about. corrupted by colonial schools, churches indigenous peoples to our land, home One particularly tragic example has and the whole imperial experience. and community. We organize on the basis been the silencing of women in the name Fortunately, however, in Nuu-chah-nulth of the threat of the day. Today this means of tradition. For example, there are territory, I believe we still have access to neo-colonialism and its effects, which hereditary chiefs today who have violated many of the important values and princi- includes the systemic rage that has turned and molested women and children. ples that can guide us in developing inward on ourselves. Since the colonial- Often they don’t face any consequences revised practices to meet our modern state can’t address these issues, we must for their behaviour within the communi- challenges. find solutions that derive from our own ties. This, as I understand it, is not our NEXT STEPS communities. way. Any violation of women and chil- dren was met with severe consequences in GC: What’s your next move? How do you Na’cha’uaht: For me, the colonial-state previous times, and at the very least these hope to sustain the effect that you’ve had in system was never meant to liberate us or men would be removed from their seat as your communities over the long haul? allow us to be ourselves and craft our futures as we see fit. Well intentioned Na’cha’uaht: In each of the communities people and efforts get swallowed up by We organize on the basis we visited we established solid connec- the band councils and government tions with people who are equally programs to a point where they, at best, of the threat of the day. committed to bringing about the changes simply prop up a corrupt social-safety we all desire. The mostly urban organiz- net, or worse, fundamentally change who Today this means ers will be gathering again, this time with we are as indigenous people. our community contacts. We’ll begin The benefit of organizing outside this neo-colonialism and its developing plans that can support locally system has been the opportunity to show driven initiatives. Additionally, many of people that we can achieve tangible effects, which includes us feel that we must address the same results without relying on government issues in cities, where more than 65% of funding or direction. It has been an the systemic rage that Nuu-chah-nulth people actually live. awesome experience to see people realize has turned inward Some preliminary discussions have taken that our ways, Nuu-chah-nulth ways and place on the organizing of a similar tour teachings, are still valid and can guide us on ourselves. through the urban areas. in a way that could never be achieved within the colonial-state system. Chiinuuks: We’ve also been asked to Of course, this is not to say that there leaders. My grandfather Cha-chin-sun- make the march an annual event, and we aren’t challenges, which often relate to up met with some elders in Campbell intend to do that. We hope to gather the our own impatience and desire for imme- River who are beginning to sort out some core people that we contacted in each diate change. In rejecting government of this business. These elders are gravely community in order to help each other funding we have needed to be more concerned about what chiefs are getting find solutions that suit the needs of each creative in terms of organizing and fund- away with and want to reinstate the community. We don’t want to prescribe a raising. In the long-run, however, this ability to remove them from their posi- “one-size-fits-all” solution. Each commu- will help us develop greater independ- tions if need be. nity experiences different forms of ence, which adds to our desire to do I’ve also experienced silencing in the violence and has their own feelings about things right. name of tradition. Some so-called “tradi- what their specific needs are. tionalists” continue to claim that women ABUSING TRADITION are not supposed to speak, because we’re Na’cha’uaht: Hopefully, in addressing GC: What relationship do you see between apparently too vulnerable to the power of these immediate issues by employing traditionalism and the struggle against politics [laughter]. However, even if this time-tested Nuu-chah-nulth principles sexual violence in your communities? Do “tradition” were so, today our sheer lack and teachings, we will be able to craft a you ever see tradition being misused to of numbers requires that I take up my future where our children will grow-up justify gender violence? responsibility and pull my weight in knowing their language and history and terms of this struggle for our people. be able to lead us out of these dark neo- Chiinuuks: The relationship between colonial times. I believe that we can all do traditionalism and sexual violence is Na’cha’auht: I agree; tradition gets something of significance, even if our particularly difficult to confront because misused all the time. This is a constant ultimate goals are to be realized genera- of the effect that colonialism has had in challenge for any young indigenous tions from now. the minds and hearts of our people. It’s a person seeking change by using authentic new SOCIALIST 31 INDIGENOUS LABOUR ORGANIZING IN SASKATCHEWAN Red baiting and red herrings

BY BROCK PITAWANAKWAT

n indigenous woman and Saskatchewan Labour Relations Board. tions as a constitutionally protected former employee with the The external opposition was led by the Aboriginal right under Section 35. When Federation of Saskatchewan FSIN. The FSIN is a provincial organiza- this strategy was unsuccessful, the FSIN IndianA Nations (FSIN) recently confided tion that represents the elected band lawyers also argued that provincial laws her frustration with the apathetic council chiefs of member First Nations should not apply to Indian institutions approach to collective organizing in Saskatchewan. The FSIN’s chiefs because of the federal/provincial division amongst her co-workers. When asking passed a motion in legislative assembly of responsibilities under Section 91 and her colleagues why they did not want a stating its concern that labour unions Section 92 of the Canadian constitution. union to represent them, a frequent reply were foreign and would harm the Ultimately, the court challenges failed was that it was “not our way.” In other “conciliatory manner of dealing with and the union was successfully certified. words, organizing to protect workers’ issues of concern.” FSIN Grand Chief Yet the most harmful opposition was rights is “un-indigenous.” Perry Bellegarde expressed their concerns not external but internal. This opposition That these views have taken root as being a matter of self-determination, culminated in a bitter fight that led to the among employees is indicative of the arguing that band councils should have union’s decertification in January 2003. A seductive sway that fixed notions of tradi- the right to manage their own labour former casino employee and union tion hold on indigenous people. Many of relations without provincial interference. supporter blamed the union’s decertifica- us fear being accused of what the Plains When the struggle to establish the tion in part on vague notions that the Cree refer to as moniyakaso; that is, union moved into the courtroom, the union would in some way negatively “acting or behaving as a white person.” FSIN strategy shifted from self-determi- “affect First Nations culture.” This leads us This article explores these themes in the nation to the recognition of labour rela- back to the FSIN employee’s assertion that context of the highly publicized establish- labour unions “are not our way.” What is ment and eventual elimination of a the source of these notions that labour labour union at the Northern Lights unions are harmful to indigenous ways? Casino in Prince Albert, Saskatchewan. The FSIN chiefs propagated these notions and have used this false front NOT OUR WAY? of nationalism as a red herring to Is participating in a union or develop- maintain their power over ing class awareness incompatible with labour relations in being an indigenous person? This ques- tion underlies the rise and fall of the Canadian Auto Workers (CAW) Local 37, the only attempt to establish a labour

union at a First Nations casino in WAKW. KWAKA GORD HILL, KWA DRAWING BY Saskatchewan. Although the union at the Northern Lights Casino was certified in 1999, it faced almost immediate external and internal opposition despite securing a 30% raise in wages through the

Brock Pitawanakwat is Anishinaabe (Whitefish River First Nation) and a PhD student in the Indigenous Governance Programs at the University of Victoria and a faculty member at the First Nations University of Canada in Regina.

new 32 SOCIALIST indigenous institutions. This form of Such an incomplete understanding is self- created colonizing agents among indige- red-baiting is a classic divide-and- serving for the settlers who seek to ignore nous people. These colonizing agents conquer technique to prevent marginal- their own culpability in the ongoing theft were entrenched and legitimated as the ized people from organizing to confront of indigenous territories, and their own chief and council members of the Indian their oppressors. Indian reserves in continued benefits from the exploitation Act. Canada are rife with oppression that of indigenous peoples. These social engineering attempts, replicates the colonial order, and band Indigenous peoples negotiated treaties although unsuccessful, have completely councils are a classic example of indirect with colonial authorities to allow arriving altered the indigenous world. Indigenous colonial rule. settlers to share their lands. Although communities are no longer voluntary Indian band councils are a foreign indigenous peoples were cognizant that the associations of free and independent imposition that replaced our traditional massive influx of foreigners was irre- people who control their own means of forms of governance. The FSIN chiefs’ versible, they were determined to maintain production. The Indian Act regulates public opposition to labour unions as their autonomy and expressed this condi- rules of membership with a reified “foreign” is thus laughable when juxta- tion repeatedly in Treaty negotiations. concept of community determined by posed with its use of non-native lawyers However, colonial authorities repeatedly one’s association with an Indian Band and to argue in non-native courts based on violated this promise of autonomy. a reserve. non-native law that the colonizer’s In utter disregard for the spirit of the There is obvious hypocrisy in harkening constitution should reinforce the band Treaties, an Anglo-European economic back to tradition when adopting non- councils’ ability to deny their own and spiritual model was forcibly applied indigenous institutions such as gaming workers the right to organize. through the destruction of the traditional casinos and universities. However, these A second highly publicized labour economy. In its place, colonial agents accusations have ramifications for indige- dispute has emerged between the FSIN offered a semi-feudal vision of a nous employees seeking better wages and and another one of its institutions: First Christian-Indian peasant class to be working conditions, as well as those who Nations University of Canada (FNUNIV created with reserves and residential believe in the potential of indigenous- – commonly referred to in the media as schools. The reserve policy disrupted the labour alliances to challenge neo-liberalism. FNUC). The faculty of FNUNIV traditional economy as indigenous TOWARD A CRITICAL TRADITIONALISM successfully fought FSIN opposition to peoples lost access to most of their lands joining the union representing faculty and resources. The residential school Indigenous labour relations are compli- members at the University of Regina, the policy was designed to take in indigenous cated by clashing notions of citizenship University of Regina Faculty Association children and produce compliant labour- and class. Indeed, many indigenous (URFA). ers for Canadian farms and factories. people continue to maintain an ambiva- Widespread fears persist among With the foundations of indigenous soci- lent view of organized labour because FNUNIV faculty and staff that the FSIN eties shaken so deeply, all forms of social unions have not always served the imme- seeks to break this union. When the organization were vulnerable to external diate interests of their communities. This FSIN management conducted a recent influence. has especially been the case in the shake-up at the FNUNIV, the resultant The emerging capitalist class in indige- resource extraction industry, which often series of firings and resignations led to nous communities has exploited ongoing pits the rights of non-native workers the filing of 31 grievances with their and deep-seated fears of assimilation against indigenous nations whose lands union. Although this dispute is ongoing, amongst our peoples. Indigenous organi- continue to be stolen for capitalist devel- faculty have voiced their concerns and zations have used a nationalist and xeno- opment. Furthermore, class-based ideolo- challenged management through URFA. phobic propaganda campaign to oppose gies generally view any ethnic or national labour unions. Such “sell-out” slander has identity as a threat to class unity. CULTURE OF RESISTANCE many forms that range from accusations Although labour unions are no The unique aspects of indigenous of being an “apple” (red on the outside panacea for colonization, we need to ask labour relations require some historical and white on the inside) to being called a ourselves whether their increased profile explanation. Centuries of forced assimi- “hang-around-the-fort Indian” (one who in native communities would empower lation policies by Canada, the United prefers non-native society to indigenous indigenous employees and curb the States and Britain have fostered a retalia- ways). exploitative practices occurring in our tory culture of resistance among indige- Increasing capitalist economic integra- workplaces. In certain contexts this nous peoples. When the old ways were tion of indigenous communities produces would undoubtedly be the case. under external attack, it became crucial growing economic disparity. A similar Informing our perspectives on these to hold on to them to prevent cultural political process created a power disparity issues with a critical traditionalism, markers from being swept away. with the establishment of a comprador rather than a naïve cultural nationalism, The long history of colonization has native elite by the British and later the would go a long way towards ensuring solidified the myth that indigenous lands Canadian governments. Traditional lead- that our self-determination efforts do not and resources were surrendered to the ership was attacked and undermined to end up replicating the structures of Crown following an invented conquest. put in place a system of indirect rule that domination that we seek to transform.

new SOCIALIST 33 The party’s over NUNAVUT BY JACKIE PRICE

language legislation. Or in discussions about preserving Inuit culture, a culture that is based on respect for diversity in practice and experience, the government debates where Nunavut’s ten million dollar cultural centre will be located. In our seven-year experience, we in Nunavut have not recognized that power and control function in a mindset that is not rooted in Inuit principles. Power and control involve management — manage- ment of money, buildings and people.

PHOTO COURTESYPHOTO OF JACKIE PRICE Inuit culture, particularly Inuit gover- Iqaluit landscape nance, was never a tool for managing people; rather, it supports people who I AM GOING TO LET YOU IN ON A based in Nunavut and supported by Inuit have the freedom and strength of mind to little secret: the party is over. would ensure that Inuit were in control. do what is best for them and their fami- lies. The party I am talking about is the We in Nunavut believed this logic Inuit governance also ensured that celebration phase that came with the because right away, Nunavut and its everyone’s physical needs, particularly signing of the Nunavut Land Claims government addressed the two big ques- food and shelter, were collectively met. Agreement. Inuit and Canadians alike tions: who had the power? and where We have forgotten both these responsibil- have kept this party going for as long as would the power rest? Although Inuit ities because we have been too busy cele- politically feasible, and after seven years understood that they had other needs brating the Nunavut Land Claims it’s time to call it quits. that would have to be supported in Agreement. We have been too busy cele- The “creation” of Nunavut was an different ways, these needs were put aside brating power and control. internationally recognized event. Not in order to focus on the two questions of Inuit in Nunavut must move beyond only were people celebrating the new power. this mindset. This will not be an easy task boundary on the Canadian map; oddly TWO QUESTIONS because Nunavut’s political environment enough, people were celebrating the Politically, our wildest dreams came is racist and paternalistic, and the rela- establishment of more government. true with the creation of Nunavut. tionship Inuit have with the land and People figured that a newly established Wouldn’t that mean Inuit could focus on with each other has weakened. These government would increase Inuit access addressing Inuit needs in the Inuit way? realities are the result of colonialism. But to government, which would increase the Unfortunately the manner and means of they are also being exacerbated by the likelihood that government would learn public debate in Nunavut have not priorities set by the Government of from Inuit culture. People thought changed. The two questions of power still Nunavut, like the focus on government government would be different in provide the framework for addressing our housing over public housing; or the Nunavut, and this got people excited. issues. emphasis on a cultural centre and All the hoopla is really over power and For example, language and culture are language legislation over support systems control. The popular hypothesis is that important foundations for Inuit. Inuit for communities in securing healthy, the Government of Nunavut empowers have ideas on how to support these foun- quality food in an affordable manner. Inuit because it provides the necessary dations, yet Nunavut politics determines To move beyond this reality, Inuit will tools for Inuit to control their future. the debate. For example, to support have to think strategically. Strength Government is understood as the site of Inuktitut, the language of Inuit, the comes from strong minds, disciplined power and control, so having a power site government focuses on the need for emotions and an internal logic based on intellect, personal experience and collec- Jackie Price is Inuk from Nunavut, and considers both Rankin Inlet and Iqaluit her home. tive teachings. Inuit focus must be Jackie is finishing up her Master’s degree with the Indigenous Governance Programs at the directed to supporting strong Inuit fami- University of Victoria. She currently lives in Ottawa where she works with young Inuit lies and communities, not power and interested in learning about their political and cultural history. control. new 34 SOCIALIST WWW.UN.ORG

To be ungovernable BY JEFF CORNTASSEL

n 1998, Ecuador’s president, Abdalá While CONAIE had withdrawn their governmental institutions offers indige- Bucaram, was overthrown by a move- support from the Gutiérrez government nous peoples the illusion of inclusion. Iment led by the Confederación de by July 2003, the damage to their politi- What is needed today is a de-occupation Nacionalidades Indígenas del Ecuador cal movement had already been done. By of settler institutions and values from (CONAIE), which represents 80 percent entrenching themselves in Ecuador’s indigenous homelands. According to of the indigenous peoples in Ecuador. To political system, CONAIE’s power as a Kanien’kehaka (Mohawk) scholar his detriment, Ecuador’s subsequent pres- movement had been substantially weak- Taiaiake Alfred, “Delegitimizing the ident, Jamil Mahuad, ignored CONAIE’s ened. They were now governable. One regime is the most fundamentally radical demands for political reform and the CONAIE leader responded to their co- act one can perform.” return of indigenous homelands. Within optation with a question: “Why bite into As Ani-yun-wiya, our values and two years, CONAIE mobilized again to a rotten apple?” responsibilities, not settler institutions, topple Mahuad’s government, which was govern us. Gadugi is one of these core INDIGENOUS-SETTLER widely viewed as corrupt. INCOMPATIBILITIES principles, and serves as a process for After the second CONAIE presidential indigenous resurgence. At the heart of ouster, policy experts and government Invoking our indigenous languages this principle is a built-in spirit of officials proclaimed Ecuador to be exposes some of the incompatibilities community comradery. This means that ungovernable. After all, Ecuador had had between settler and indigenous cultures whatever issues/concerns arising in collec- seven presidents in ten years. This rapid and values. Most indigenous peoples tive living have to be addressed in a leadership turnover signals instability to around the world have words in their unitary way and that no one is left alone some. But in fact, this form of languages that refer to themselves as the to climb out of a life endeavour; it reflects “ungovernability” is what indigenous a collective community base. peoples should be striving to achieve. Adherence to the principles and actions Instability and ungovernability on this Co-optation via of Gadugi makes indigenous peoples level is a result of indigenous responses to ungovernable in the eyes of Settlers. Ani- the illegitimate occupation and encroach- participation in yun-wiya are governed by a continuous ment of the state on indigenous home- state governmental renewal of our shared responsibilities and lands. relationships. After demonstrating their incompati- institutions offers Indigenous values clash with those of bility with the state system in 1998 and settlers in terms of the way authority is again in 2000, CONAIE changed tactics, indigenous peoples the exercised. What are the specific values but soon learned a harsh lesson. In 2002, that settlers hold? The answers are in our they formed a political party named illusion of inclusion. indigenous languages and the stories Pachakutik, in alliance with the Sociedad indigenous peoples tell of first contact Patriótica (SP) party, and helped elect with settlers. For example, the word former army colonel Lucio Gutiérrez as real, original or principal people of their Canada is derived from a Mohawk term, president. Once elected, President homelands, such as Kanaka Maoli Kanatiens, which means “they sit in our Gutiérrez made it his mission to disman- (Native Hawai’ian) or Onkwehonwe village.” A contemporary translation of tle and co-opt CONAIE. (Mohawk). Cherokees use the term Ani- this term would be “squatter.” Other yun-wiya, which means real or principal examples below provide further insights people. Ungovernability means embrac- Jeff Corntassel is a member of the into settler values as seen through the eyes ing the principles of Ani-yun-wiya and Cherokee Nation (Wolf Clan) and a of our ancestors: professor in the Indigenous Governance discarding state offerings of rotten apples. Yonega is a Tsalagi (Cherokee) term for Programs at the University of Victoria. Co-optation via participation in state white settlers, which connotes “foam of

new SOCIALIST 35 the water; moved by wind and without its own direction; clings to everything that’s Women of solid.” the EZLN. Moniyawak is a Cree term for settlers, which literally means “worship of money,” soniyas or soniyaw. Wasicu is a Dakota term for settlers, which means “taker of fat.” The first from Free Tibet Syn- Wasicus encountered were French trap- drome is simple and pers who came into a Dakota camp predictable: not in my during winter and helped themselves to backyard. the fatty parts of a soup boiling on the fire — hence, “fat takers.” CONFRONTING COLONIAL SHAPE- Ve’ho’e is a Cheyenne term for settlers, SHIFTERS and it means “spider,” which is a trickster figure. Settlers are viewed this way Through indigenous because they have hair like a spider, eyes, globalization re- divide the land like the web of a spider, flects a deepening, communicate through power lines like hastening and stretching strands of a spider, and wrap their prey to of an already-existing devour it, such as the indigenous peoples empire; it is merely the who were wrapped in blankets during the latest permutation of small pox and cholera epidemics. imperialism. Shape-shift- Based on over 500 years of experience ing colonial powers with settlers, our ancestors provide us continue to invent new with valuable insights into a different methods of domination value system: directionless, money- in order to erase indige- worshipping, fat-taking squatters that nous histories and senses divide the land, devour their prey and of place. cling to everything that’s solid. Perhaps as Amidst an era of inter- Don’t Indians have to work hard much as skin pigment, terms like white connected imperialisms, indigenous Q: during the fishing season to get food for or settler describe a mindset or belief peoples exhibit their ungovernability by winter? system. Clearly these are not principles withdrawing their support and involve- for Ani-yun-wiya to emulate or mimic. ment from the global political economy. S: This work lasts only for a few weeks. How would our ancestors recognize us A conversation held in 1887 between Besides it is natural work and does them today? As Ani-yun-wiya or Yonega? U.S. Cavalry Captain E. L. Huggins, and no harm. But the work of the white man Indigenous governance is an ongoing Smohalla or Yu’yunipi’t-qana, The hardens soul and body. Nor is it right to process of honouring and renewing our Shouting Mountain (Wanapum Nation) tear up and mutilate the earth as white individual and collective relationships demonstrates that we are not the first men do. generation of indigenous peoples to and responsibilities. And settlers are not Q: But Indians also dig into the earth for off the hook either – they will have to confront the dilemmas of participating in the political economy: kamas roots – isn’t that harmful to the decide how they can relate to indigenous earth? struggles. Will they make the necessary Q: Why don’t you follow the example of S: We simply take the gifts that are freely sacrifices to decolonize and make amends other Indians who have practiced the offered. We no more harm the earth than now? white man’s ways? would an infant’s fingers harm its Additionally, some of our would-be S: No one has any respect for these book mother’s breast. But the white man tears settler allies suffer from a debilitating Indians. Even the white men like me up large tracts of land, runs deep ditches, “Free Tibet Syndrome,” which causes better and treat me better than they do cuts down forests, and changes the whole them to cast their decolonizing gaze to the book Indians. My young men shall face of the earth. You know very well this faraway places while ignoring local never work. Men who work cannot is not right. Every honest man knows in indigenous struggles. The further away dream, and wisdom comes to us in his heart that this is all wrong. But the the exotic overseas “Other” is from their dreams. white men are so greedy they do not present geographic location, the greater consider these things. the intensity of their fundraising and self- Q: But white people work and know determination proselytizing activities. Yet more than Indians… Fortunately, the spirit of Smohalla is when it comes to promoting freedom and S: Each one must learn for himself the alive in other indigenous movements justice for indigenous peoples closer to highest wisdom. It cannot be taught. You today. A brief survey of active indigenous “home,” the response of those suffering have the wisdom of your race. Be content. movements around the world illustrates

new 36 SOCIALIST that indigenous communities remain people and will live to see our homelands illustrates the wide spectrum of indige- ungovernable: de-occupied by settler values. Until that nous powers of Gadugi. Between 1997-2002, U’wa peoples time comes, settlers are illegally occupying Future indigenous mobilization efforts blockaded highways in Colombia to indigenous homelands. should be directed towards engagement protest the building of an oil pipeline on Our pipe carriers and clan mothers and activism in indigenous forums – not their homelands. They ultimately forced represent us. UN or regional settler institutional struc- Occidental Petroleum to vacate their Ani-yun-wiya are spiritual beings, as tures. The World Council of Indigenous territory but their struggle for homeland embodied by our clan systems, languages, Peoples (WCIP) formed in 1975 in Port security is ongoing as the Colombian ceremonies, sacred histories and relation- Alberni, British Columbia (Canada), corporation, ECOPETROL, seeks to ships to the land. Our powers reside in our provides a possible model for the creation continue development of the oil pipeline languages, cultures and communities – of a new indigenous organization that project. not in political/legal authority structures. functions according to indigenous values. Newly elected President Evo Morales An indigenous spiritual regeneration is The WCIP requires states and NGOs to (Aymara-Quechua) of Bolivia launched necessary to facilitate the de-occupation of apply for observer status. Under the lead- an “Agrarian Revolution” in 2006 by settler values from our homelands. In ership of Shushwap Chief George outlining a process to return approxi- these times of spiritual and physical Manuel, a declaration of WCIP princi- mately 9,600 square miles of state-owned warfare, our pipe carriers and clan ples was adopted at the first meeting – the territory to indigenous peoples. mothers (not band councillors or lawyers) selected passages outline some of the orig- The indigenous-run Forum for are the true voices of our struggles. inal goals of the WCIP for unity and Cultural and Biological Diversity contin- Traveling to other indigenous and mobilization and express the need to ues to host annual seed exchanges in settler communities to seek out allies can represent ourselves on our own terms: Honduras where indigenous and non- be a useful antidote to colonialism. Along …Rising up after centuries of oppres- indigenous farmers trade for non-geneti- these lines, global forums can be useful sion, evoking the greatness of our ances- cally modified corn and other seeds. for exposing the contradictions of neo- tors, in the memory of our indigenous Since rising up against NAFTA and liberalism and artificiality of state sover- martyrs, and in homage to the counsel of Mexico’s ejido reforms in 1994, the eignty. However, there are serious limits our wise elders: We vow to control again indigenous people who comprise Ejercito to what state-centric forums, such as the our own destiny and recover our Zapatista de Liberación Nacional United Nations Permanent Forum on complete humanity and pride in being (EZLN) have established five Indigenous Issues, can do to promote Indigenous People. autonomous zones in Chiapas and indigenous resurgences. With a cadre of When recovering “our complete recently initiated “La otra campaña,” a professionalized indigenous delegates in humanity,” Ani-yun-wiya warriors must large-scale movement challenging neolib- place who demonstrate more allegiance to ready themselves for physical and spiri- eral policies. the UN system than to their own tual warfare. Let us remember that a In 2006, Six Nations clan mothers and communities, the Permanent Forum process of regeneration takes time. The warriors reclaimed 40 hectares of their today more closely resembles an interna- Zapatistas trained for over ten years in the traditional territory in Ontario, Canada. tionalized band council system. Lacandon Jungle prior to their 1994 Indigenous peoples took back their terri- It is time to again represent ourselves uprising in Chiapas. Also, we should not tory along the Grand River in order to on our own terms. One way to promote forget that indigenous women won the prevent housing developer, Henco indigenous unity and strength is to first Zapatista uprising in 1993 with the Industries Ltd, from constructing a new encourage renewed treaty making EZLN’s adoption of the Revolutionary sub-division on their homelands. between indigenous communities. Such a Law for Women. Kanaka Maoli (native Hawai’ian) revitalized treaty process would follow the Fortunately, there are cures for Free activists continue to challenge the patent- protocols of pipe ceremonies, not the Tibet Syndrome – settler populations can ing of three varieties of taro, Palehua, paper diplomacy of settlers. Since host begin by decolonizing their thinking, Paakala and Pauakea, by the University of states have not honoured indigenous engaging in insurgent education, making Hawai’i. Kalo (taro) is a sacred plant for treaties for the most part, it is time for amends to local indigenous peoples and Kanaka Maoli people and is integral to indigenous peoples to lead by example seeking out indigenous-led alliances. In their oral histories and ceremonial cycles. and demonstrate once again their the words of George Manuel, “We will The above-mentioned examples illus- communities’ approaches to principles of steer our own canoe, but we will invite trate indigenous alternatives to neoliberal- respect and diplomacy. others to help with the paddling.” ism. The approximately 5,000 indigenous Treaties of peace and friendship entail As ancient nations, we have proven to nations trapped in 70 settler states around making sacred compacts that should be be persistent and “ungovernable” – we are the world offer us 5,000 different versions renewed ceremonially on an annual basis nations that predate the state and will of ungovernability. In the words of Ani- with all participating indigenous peoples. outlast it. Ani-yun-wiya power arises yun-wiya War Chief Tsi’yu-gunsini or New inter-indigenous treaties might from Gadugi, and responsibilities to our Dragging Canoe, “You have bought a fair include those that affirm alliances, and territories and families. Ultimately, only land, but you will find its settlement dark promote trade arrangements and protec- indigenous laws can flourish on indige- and bloody.” Ani-yun-wiya are patient tion for crossing borders. This further nous homelands.

new SOCIALIST 37 Why are indigenous soldiers serving in Iraq?

BY MICHAEL YELLOW BIRD

The United States has abused our trust and has coerced us to fight its illegal, immoral wars long enough.

and we are doing to the Iraqi people what the US did to our ancestors. All of the killing, maiming, poisoning, and torturing will have drastic effects upon our people, especially on the psychic and cosmological levels. The US has mistreated us in the past and the present, and it has conscripted ur history tells us that because sions, whether we must commit our our minds and hearts so that we are war was so destructive on many people and resources to the wars of the participating in their oppressive behav- Odifferent levels, our nations — United States. iour towards another race of humans. before committing to war — consulted As with the US invasion of the lands of It is time for us to demand that our our elders, peacemakers, women, youth, our own nations, the last two major indigenous governments engage in criti- philosophers, intellectuals, spiritual conflicts of the United States, Vietnam cal and independent discussions about leaders, children, warriors and veterans to and now Iraq, were based on lies created these issues. We need to tell the United weigh the costs of war. This is something by the US government. This track record States to immediately call for withdrawal that many of our nations have not done makes it even more imperative that we of its military forces from Iraq. Most for some time. Many of us have rely upon our own thinking, experiences importantly – and independently of their “outsourced” our thinking to the United and morality when we enter into discus- decision or indecision – we must imme- States with respect to when and why we sions about why our tribal nations should diately pull our people out of this quag- should or should not go to war. compel our people to go to war. mire. Countries such as Japan, We are sovereign nations of intelligent Discussions about this war must certainly Honduras, Tonga, Nicaragua, Spain, and moral people who do not need to address the following: Dominican Republic, Philippines, rely on the US to interpret for us the All people and beings are related to us, Thailand, New Zealand, Portugal and meaning and the costs that war will bring so we are being asked to make war on our Moldova already have pulled out their to our communities. Most of us already relatives. troops, and many other nations are plan- know the answer to this. And we know We value all life, so war truly must be ning to reduce their troop commitment that we should decide for ourselves, after a last resort. in the near future. So why are we still in careful, deliberate and intelligent discus- Iraq fighting the US’s illegal war? We value Mother Earth as a living It is also time for our leaders and being, and the United States military is communities to impose a moratorium Michael Yellow Bird is a citizen of the contaminating the lands, waters, trees, upon any further enlistments of our Sahnish (Arikara) and Hidatsa First Nations. plants and people in Iraq through the use He is Director of the Center for Indigenous young men and women into the US mili- of biowarfare, landmines and depleted tary. The United States has abused our Nations Studies and Associate Professor of uranium. American Studies at the University of trust and has coerced us to fight its illegal, Kansas. We believe in the great circle of life, immoral wars long enough. new 38 SOCIALIST CUBAN EMBARGO AGAINST THE HAUDENOSAUNEE Barred from socialist paradise

BY TEIOWÍ:SONTE economic structure. ports and were permitted to leave Canada After Marx, Engels wrote Origin of the without hindrance. We arrived at the THOMAS DEER Family, Private Property, and the State airport in Holguin later on the same (1884), which directly examined the morning and were immediately met by or many years, I had desired to visit political organization of the Cuban immigration, who asked to see our what many people refer to as Haudenosaunee. In this sense, it can be passports. FCastro’s Socialist Paradise, Cuba. suggested that the Haudenosaunee As suggested by the Embassy of Cuba Long had I poured over books on Che pioneered modern socialism, and that our in Ottawa, we showed the immigration Guevara and the Cuban Revolutionary society was in fact the original Socialist officers the e-mail confirming Cuba’s War, fascinated with the romantic strug- Paradise. recognition of our passports, as well as a gle between the poor band of freedom photocopy of a friend’s Haudenosaunee THE HAUDENOSAUNEE PASSPORT fighters and Batista’s imperialist regime, passport endorsed for entry to Cuba by hoping that someday I could visit the The Haudenosaunee have never aban- immigration officials two years earlier. Sierra Maestra and follow the footsteps of doned their identity or citizenship as Finally, after hours of waiting and Cuba’s revolutionary heroes. sovereign peoples. As a means to exercise insulting treatment, we were simply After years of intrigue, my girlfriend and express our sovereignty we ordered to board a plane and leave Cuba. and I found some common vacation time Haudenosaunee developed our passports We were expelled. We were denied admis- and scraped up some funds to finally do in 1977 when sending a delegation on a sion and considered illegal in the Socialist it. But on the morning of March 7, 2005, diplomatic mission to the United Nations Paradise. We were left disillusioned and my girlfriend and I tried to enter Cuba in Geneva, Switzerland. The robbed of our hard earned money. using Haudenosaunee Passports and after Haudenosaunee passport came to be hours of confusion and rude treatment, accepted by over 120 countries, despite DENIED we were denied entry and deported back Understandably, we were still quite to Canada. It seems now that Cuba has angry and refused to relent on the issue. I THE ORIGINAL SOCIALIST PARADISE wrote letters to the Cuban Ministry of given up its position as a Foreign Affairs, Tourism, and the Cuban In our language, we call ourselves Communist Party outlining the chronol- Haudenosaunee, which means People of strong defender of the rights ogy of our experience, a history of the Long House; symbolizing the politi- of indigenous peoples. Cuba/Haudenosaunee relations, and a cal union of five (later six) primordial demand for justice. nations. The Haudenosaunee are a partic- I was contacted by the Cuban Consulate ipatory constitutional democracy based efforts by the governments of Canada and in Montreal and later had a very positive upon socialist principles. the United States to discourage its usage meeting with the Consular General – we Both Karl Marx and Frederic Engels internationally. However, since 9/11 only seemingly made progress towards resolu- were fascinated by the political and a handful of countries continue to allow tion of the problem. Unfortunately, in economic organization of the its usage, Cuba being one of them – until October 2005 I was informed by letter Haudenosaunee. In fact, Marx wrote last year. that the Government of Cuba could not extensive notes on his study of Lewis H. As citizens of the Haudenosaunee, my admit anyone using the Haudenosaunee Morgan’s treatment of the girlfriend and I chose to use our own Passport, since the United Nations offi- Haudenosaunee in Ancient Society (1877) passports to travel to Cuba. I had cially recognizes only one passport for all and League of the Iroquois (1852), inter- contacted the Embassy of Cuba in the territory known as Canada. ested particularly in the Haudenosaunee’s Ottawa to confirm Cuba’s recognition of This final communiqué from the democratic organization in relation to its the Haudenosaunee Passport. On government of Cuba was a terrible disap- December 7th an official at the embassy pointment to me as a Haudenosaunee emailed me stating that Haudenosaunee and a socialist. It seems now that Cuba Teiowí:sonte Thomas Deer is the artistic passports are “respected and accepted by has given up its position as a strong talent behind Revolutionary Creations Cuban authorities so you can go to defender of the rights of indigenous www.revolutionarycreations.com, based in Cuba.” Kahnawake Mohawk Territory. He aims to peoples in the international arena, and in break into the realm of comic books, the DISILLUSIONED a sense, it has followed the imperialists in graphic art that has always tantalized and We departed by air from Montreal initiating its own embargo, against the inspired him. brandishing our Haudenosaunee pass- Haudenosaunee. new SOCIALIST 39 BOOK REVIEW

OTAPAWY! THE LIFE AND TIMES OF A MÉTIS LEADER IN HIS OWN WORDS AND IN THOSE OF HIS CONTEMPORARIES BY HOWARD ADAMS HARTMUT LUTZ, MURRAY HAMILTON AND DONNA HEIMBECKER, EDITORS; SASKATOON: GABRIEL DUMONT INSTITUTE, 2005 REVIEWED BY DEBORAH SIMMONS

Otapawy! (acronym for the phrase from a Saskatchewan Métis story, “Our “Revolutionary nationalism Thoughts and Prayers Are With You”) is a plays a very important role in gathering of these writings, what editor our liberation….Once we are Hartmut Lutz describes as a “Métis sash” free, free from the imperialism interweaving the story of Howard Adams of Canada and America, then with tales of the fictional characters our Indian-Métis nationalism “Tony” and “Almighty.” This sash maps a may disappear. This, we don’t PHOTO COURTESYPHOTO ADAMS MARGE journey from home in a Halfbreed know. It sets our culture in Howard Adams. 1991. community in Saskatchewan, to escape in motion once again because it a shortlived career as an RCMP officer; has been static or fossilized for struggle toward a career in education in so many centuries thanks to eptember 8 of this year will mark half Vancouver; radicalisation in the Berkeley S Whitey’s imperialism. It will a decade since Dr. Howard Adams passed student movement; and return to away. Adams was a truly radical Métis Saskatchewan to lead the Red Power help to decolonize our minds, leader who understood that liberation movement. our mentality, and our whole would require a battle against capitalism The archetypal character that takes psychological make-up. It and its agents, including both settler and shape through this composite text reveals fosters a new humanism and indigenous capitalists and politicians. the inevitable pain and ambivalence in a opens the doors to a new Adams’s books Prison of Grass (1975), life that oscillates between indigenous creation.” and A Tortured People constituted a major and settler worlds. And it reveals how the Excerpt from Otapawy! breakthrough in analysing the specific complex and uneven process of political social and psychological impacts of awakening is imbedded in a combination colonisation on indigenous individuals of lived experience and dialogue with This book is an important contribu- and communities. His was not a simplis- others in order to gain a larger under- tion. However, much more discussion tic perspective. He showed that the very standing of the colonial system. will be required to account for the politi- forces of colonization give rise to nation- The book also includes a substantial cal lessons of Adams’s life and writings. alist movements, which themselves are collection of writings in memory of Hartmut Lutz is an academic based in contradictory in nature. Howard Adams. This adds more details to Germany and specialising in indigenous Perhaps because of his eventual isola- the story of the man, his strengths as well as literature. His editorial framing of tion from radical indigenous movements, his personal struggles and contradictions. Adams’s writings thus focuses on their Adams became increasingly preoccupied Adams emerges as very much a product of biographical and narrative aspects. In his with the devastating impacts of colonial his time. The Red Power movement afterward, Lutz suggests that Adams’s consciousness, and the challenge of allowed him to flower as an orator, an revolutionary optimism forged in the breaking through to political awakening incorruptible political leader, and a teacher. 1960s and 1970s “now looks almost and radical action. He renewed his explo- The decline of the movement was devastat- naïve, since many of those grassroots ration of these questions in a mixture of ing for his morale, and he may well have movements soon lost their power for fictional and autobiographical writings. exiled himself to California because of a action.” By the time of his death in 2001, this had combination of depression and victimiza- Lutz fails to account for Adams’s grown to about six hundred disarranged tion by official indigenous leaders. Decades renewed political engagement in the last pages. of political isolation meant that he lost years of his life – Adams developed a rela- touch with developments such as the tionship with the New Socialist Group, Deborah Simmons has recently returned to lessons of the feminist movement, as his and was involved in local political activi- live and work in the Northwest Territories. friends Maria Campbell and Donna ties in Vancouver. It is our responsibility She is a member of the New Socialist Heimbecker point out in describing his to take up the challenge of his unwaver- Group. behaviour toward women. ing commitment to revolution. new 40 SOCIALIST BOOK REVIEW

FIRST NATIONS AND THE CANADIAN STATE: IN SEARCH OF COEXISTENCE BY ALAN CAIRNS PUBLISHED BY QUEENS UNIVERSITY, INSTITUTE FOR INTERGOVERNMENTAL RELATIONS, 2005.

REVIEWED BY TAIAIAKE ALFRED AND ADAM BARKER

tence” – a compromise between two lands and resources negates the assump- “extremes.” tion that nationhood leads to the exclu- But it soon becomes clear that his sion and displacement of others. Perhaps proposed option is little more than trans- Cairns fears that indigenous nations will parent trickery. Who would disagree with start treating Canadians the way that the concept of “coexistence” after all? His Canadians have always treated them. so-called alternative belies a series of Cairns boldly states that it is “beyond logical fallacies and intentional obfusca- the capacity of First Nations” to maintain ONE THING IS CERTAIN ABOUT THE tions that are effectively assimilationist – their own societies, cultures and treaties conservative Canadian academic Alan aiming to eliminate indigenous peoples in close proximity to the cultural and Cairns: he is bound and determined to as political entities and ultimately as social behemoth of Canada without the cram his “citizens plus” concept down cultures. protection of the federal state. our throats, even though Canadians and Cairns sets himself up as a brave In Cairns’ words, “Aboriginal nations indigenous people have repeatedly crusader, the lone voice of reason who are part of the Canadian nation.” Cairns rejected his agenda. will discuss three “taboo” subjects under- suggests that any movement to recognise He was undeterred when his book pinning what he views to be the implaca- the distinction between indigenous Citizens Plus, arguing for the integration ble dissolution of indigenous nations: the peoples and Canadians will only lead to of indigenous people into Canada as growing urban indigenous population further neglect of their situation. The “enhanced” citizens, was widely panned and shrinking reserve populations; inter- logical extension of this argument is that (especially by fellow academics who saw marriage between indigenous and assimilation is the only solution for the through his friendly-sounding jargon). Canadian peoples; and the large “Indian problem.” Sound familiar? Cairns now returns with First Nations Canadian population that self-identifies At the same time, Cairns views indige- and the Canadian State. as having “aboriginal ancestry” but not nous inclusion under the umbrella of the In this sparse 59-page policy puff “aboriginal identity”. Canadian state to be essential to piece, Cairns argues passionately for the All of this is meant to attack the legiti- “common civic community” and thus the status quo. The Cairnsian view is that the macy of indigenous nationhood. Cairns very survival of the state. But if the “integrity” of the Canadian state is para- equates all forms of indigenous national- common bond that unites our state is the mount. Innovative solutions to the ism with separatism, noting disingenu- oppression of other nations within, oppression of indigenous peoples must be ously that “sadly” decolonization cannot shouldn’t we be seeking to hasten its rejected because they are simply too diffi- occur in Canada as it occurred in Africa. demise? cult. This does not address the broad spectrum Cairns concludes that indigenous Cairns argues that until the present, of possibilities encompassed by indige- nationalism is to be “accommodated” only two polarized options have been nous struggles for self-determination. only because it cannot be eliminated. available regarding the future of relations Traditional indigenous conceptions of Conversely, the Canadian state requires between indigenous peoples and the state nationhood are quite distinct from obedience; the state is not going in Canada: Native nationalism and Euroamerican nationalisms. Recognizing anywhere, so indigenous people need to assimilation. Cairns seeks to convince us these differences would go a long way in shut up and live with it. of his moderation in putting forth a third addressing the “problems” perceived by Cairns’ essay is in essence a parting option based on the concept of “coexis- Cairns. For example, traditional forms of shot from another era. The decline of the governance are far from the dysfunctional cadre of political theorists that he repre- state-imposed “band councils” that Cairns Taiaiake Alfred is a professor and Adam sents is much anticipated by those Barker is a graduate student in the situates at the centre of his arguments working to create truly respectful coexis- Indigenous Governance Programs at the against indigenous nationhood. The tence and a just relationship out of the University of Victoria. history of indigenous nations in sharing legacy of their empire.

new SOCIALIST 41 The basics of Wasáse The basics of Wasáse The basics of Wasáse

Our Editors pick the essentials for Wretched of the Earth, Frantz Kanehsatake: 270 Years of indigenizing and radicalizing your Fanon. Colonialism diagnosed; a Resistance, by Alanis Obomsawin. mind and body. founding document in We can’t watch this doc on the revolutionary struggles worldwide. Oka Crisis without wanting BOOKS revenge. Akwesasne Notes. For over 30 FILMS Once Were Warriors, by Lee years, the voice of Natural and Atanarjuat: The Fast Runner, by Tamahori. A Maori family trapped, Native peoples. Zacharias Kunuk. An arctic warrior like the rest of us, in cycles of battling mean spirits and bad men Almanac of the Dead, Leslie Silko. colonial confusion. in this new classic. Poetic imaginings of the coming of Whale Rider, Niki Caro. In the past the Native Reconquest. Battle of Algiers, by Gillo and now, Paikea is a great leader Pontecorvo. The bloodiest From a Native Daughter, Haunani- born to save the people. revolution in the history of the Kay Trask. A classic of indigenism V for Vendetta, James McTeigue. A world. and Polynesian national struggles. warrior for freedom takes on the Dead Man, by Jim Jarmusch. God is Red, Vine Deloria, Jr.. The police and blows up Parliament. It’s Nobody prepares Johnny Depp for Native view of religion as an anarchy. Seriously. his journey into the spirit world. antidote to Christianity. I am Woman, Lee Maracle. Deep explorations into contemporary colonialism, sexism and racism. Journey of Crazy Horse, Joseph Marshall, III. Wise and respectful telling of the oral tradition of a true warrior. Gandhi, by Richard Attenborough. MUSIC Our Word is Our Weapon, How India’s political saint made the Aztlan Undergroud, El Vuh, Dead Subcommandante Marcos. Brits “Quit India” through non- Prez, Manik, War Party, Resistant Zapatismo! Political analysis, violent struggle. Culture. propaganda and poetry from the Geronimo, Walter Hill. The Original Lacondan Jungle. Athapaskan ass-kicker definitely FOOD Anything wild and natural… Prison of Grass, Howard Adams. did not hang around the fort, or especially the good stuff like The first true history published in the rez. muktuk, deer tongue, oolichan Canada. Ghost Dog: The Way of the grease, fiddleheads, fish head soup, Samurai, by Jim Jarmusch. Wasáse, Taiaiake Alfred. Anarcho- moose nose, berry soups, pickerel Detached, somber, stoic… is he a indigenism: something real for the cheeks, corn soup, beaver and warrior? Soundtrack by Wu Tang. people to believe in. muskrat tails, bear grease, and of course, caribou babies. new 42 SOCIALIST TIME TO ORGANIZE Branches and members of the New Socialist Group are active in a number of cities. Call for Teiowí:sonte Thomas Deer displays his information about our activities. passport. See his article on Cuba’s refusal to recognize the Vancouver Box 4955, Vancouver, V6B 4A6 Haudenosaunee [email protected] passport at page 39.

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FOR All other areas [email protected] (416) 955-1581 Box 167 253 College St Toronto Ontario M5T 1R5 www.newsocialist.org THE NEW SOCIALIST GROUP is an organization of activists working to renew socialism from below as The NSG works with the Québec part of today’s struggles. Our socialism is revolutionary organization GAUCHE SOCIALISTE and democratic, committed to working-class self- emancipation, internationalism and opposition to all MONTRÉAL [email protected] forms of oppression. We reject bureaucratic and QUÉBEC CITY [email protected] authoritarian notions of socialism and look instead to and the OUTAOUAIS [email protected] the radical tradition of socialism from below, which believes that liberation can only be achieved through GAUCHE SOCIALISTE the activity and mobilization of the oppressed CP 52131, Succ, St-Fidele, Québec, G1L 5A4 themselves. Ideas need to be put into action. So if you www.lagauche.com like what you read, get in touch with us.

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