Resisting Canadian Colonialism
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
$1.50¢00 RESISTING CANADIAN COLONIALISM: Winnipeg The Vancouver Indigenous Struggle for Self-Determination Essays on Indigenous & International Struggles by Aaron Mercredi Six Nations FIRE THIS TIME MOVEMENT FOR SOCIAL JUSTICE 7th Edition [email protected] | www.firethistime.net | (604) 322-1764 PO Box 21607 Vancouver BC V5L 5G3 www.firethistime.net Table of Contents AVAILABLE NOW FROM Indigenous People Vs. Canadian History: 1 What I Learned In High School FIRE THIS TIME! By Aaron Mercredi Gordon Campbell’s Liberal Government Steps 4 Up Old Colonial Practice: Stop Making Profit From Stolen Indigenous Land By Aaron Mercredi Skwelkwek’welt vs. Sun Peaks! 5 By Aaron Mercredi “We’ll Just Keep Challenging It Over And Over Again” 7 Two Interviews with Skwelkwek’welt Defenders, Janice Billy and Ska7cis By Aaron Mercredi The Same Old Colonial Rule: BC Liberals Increase 9 Attacks on Indigenous Rights By Aaron Mercredi Iraqi Youth Under US-UK Military Occupation: 11 Is there a Future? BOOKLETS By Aaron Mercredi & Tamara Hansen Colonization, Indigenous People and Poverty in 14 Canada By Aaron Mercredi Indigenous Youth: A Failed Tragedy by the Canadian Colonial State 17 By Aaron Mercredi Western Shoshone Struggle Against American Colonialism 19 By Aaron Mercredi Intensified War in Afghanistan by Canada 21 By Aaron Mercredi Korea: A Country Divided How the US Divided Korea 24 By Aaron Mercredi, Jungmi Yoon, Byungjin Na Fishing Rights are Inherent Rights... 26 FIRE THIS TIME By Aaron Mercredi 4 Issue 9-10 Volume Interview with June Quipp of the Cheam Nation By Aaron Mercredi 28 Fighting the Theft of Indigenous Resources in 29 Distribute Northern Canada By Aaron Mercredi Fire This Time! Distribute Fire This Time in your area, across BC, and A Fire This Time Booklet internationally! Printed November 2007 - 7th Edition Please contact: Fire This Time Booklet Production Team: Mike Chimenti Aaron Mercredi, Nita Palmer, Ali Yerevani Publicity and Distribution Coordinator Phone: (604) 518-5009 About the Email: [email protected] Author: Aaron Mercredi is a Metis activist, born in 1982 on Subscribe to Fire This Time! Vancouver Island, BC, Canada. He has been NAME active in Indigenous struggle and the antiwar For a one year subscription, ADDRESS make cheques payable to movement. In the last “Shannon Bundock” five years he has also fought against poverty Canada $15 USA $20 and homelessness. Aaron International $30 is a founding member and organizer with the Indigenosu Rights & Action Project (IRAP) and is collaborating with Kla How Ya on Co-op Radio Cut form and mail to: 102.7 FM. Living in Vancouver, BC Aaron is one of the main organizers EMAIL Fire This Time involed with Mobilization Against War & Occupation (MAWO) an antiwar PO Box 21607 coalition fighting for self-determination of all oppressed nations. Aaron also PHONE Vancouver, BC sits on the editorial board of the Fire This Time Newspaper a Vancouver- V5L 5G3 based newspaper distributed widely in Canada. Canada Table of Contents Interview with Deh Cho Grand Chief Herb 31 Norwiegan By Aaron Mercredi Interview with AIYA activist Michael Francis By Aaron Mercredi 32 Trinkets & Beads, Smoke & Mirrors 34 By Aaron Mercredi Interview with Arthur Manuel 37 By Aaron Mercredi Solidarity Message of Native American and Political 42 Prisoner Leonard Peltier to Fidel, the People and the Revolution By Leonard Peltier A Message about Peace By Leonard Peltier 43 Hands Off Six Nations Land! 44 By Aaron Mercredi Six Nations Does Not Stand Alone Statement of the Clan Mothers of the Iroquois 47 Confederacy As Long as the Grass Shall Grow, We Will Defend 48 Ourselves by Any Means Necessary: Six Nations and the Rights of Indigenous People By Aaron Mercredi “Rotino’shon:ni Six Nations People Have Never 50 Surrendered Our Sovereignty” Statement from the Women Title Holders of the Rotino’shon:ni Harper’s Conservative Government Shows its 55 True Face: Canada’s Anti-Native Policies Meet the United Nations By Aaron Mercredi Indigenous Action Movement: Vancouver Rally 58 Exposes Unfairness of the Residential School Process By Aaron Mercredi We’re Still Fighting for Our Rights: Interview with 59 Kat Norris of the Indigenous Action Movement By Aaron Mercredi BC’s “New Relationship” with Indigenous People: 65 Maintaining the Old Colonial Traditions By Aaron Mercredi Frank Paul-Victim of Police Brutality 67 Indigenous Action Group memorial march and rally By Aaron Mercredi Free Leonard Peltier! Statement for the 14th 69 Annual International Day in Solidarity With Leonard Peltier Leonard Peltier Defence Committee Free the Political Prisoner Leonard Peltier 70 Thirty Years of FBI Harassment and Misconduct When the Truth Doesn’t Matter Leonard Peltier Over 300 People Rally for Leonard Peltier’s 76 Freedom By Aaron Mercredi Why There is No Reason to Celebrate Canada Day 78 By Aaron Mercredi RCMP Pepper Spray Native Children 81 By Aaron Mercredi Indigenous People and the Question of Privatizing 83 Water in BC By Aaron Mercredi Indigenous People vs. Canadian History: What I Learned in High School By Aaron Mercredi Originally appeared in Fire This Time # 15-16 May 2004 In high school, I remember learning about Canadian history in a Social Sciences class. I remember starting with Jacques Cartier’s first encounter with Indigenous people. According to my textbook, what happened to Indigenous people throughout the history of Canada was ‘unfortunate’ and ‘tragic’. This description not only fails to acknowledge the magnitude of the crimes that were committed against Indigenous people, but it also fails to acknowledge that the genocide and colonization that was committed was done systematically. Early Stages of Canada’s War on Indigenous People Attacks began on Indigenous people well before the Canadian state was even established. When Britain and France were fighting each other for the different territories of North America, both countries knew that they needed to steal Indigenous territory, so that they could be free to plunder and exploit it. As a result of the 7-year war, which began in 1756, countless Indigenous people were displaced or killed, many from smallpox-infected blankets that were traded to them by British forces. Once Canada was established, the Canadian government began its series of legislated attacks against Indigenous peoples’ right to exist. Whether it is the Indian Act of 1876, the long list of treaties that were negotiated almost entirely in English with ‘unofficial’ promises of friendships, which robbed Native people’s lands, or the establishment of apartheid through the forced displacement of Indigenous people on to reserves, these were necessary steps of Canada’s expansion as a colonial country. Mohawk warriors face Canadian soldiers during the Oka stand off. When the Canadian government stole young Indigenous children from their families and put them in residential schools, forbidding them to speak their own language, this was a step they took to further the destruction of Indigenous people by stripping them of their identity and dignity. The Colonial War Continues Abroad When we look at our history of being colonized, of being denied a right to determine our own destiny, and control our own resources, and we compare it with what is going on in Iraq, Afghanistan, and - 1 - The Indigenous Struggle for Self - Determination Haiti, we can see that this is not isolated to us living in Canada, but is a struggle that people are engaged in all over the world. This new era of war and occupation that imperialist countries like Canada have dragged the world into is the extension of the war that has been waged against Indigenous people in North America for over 500 years. And it is the extension of the destruction and colonization that we must fight against. Since its inception, the Canadian government has been suppressing our right to govern ourselves. We are no strangers to the racist myths that we are incapable of managing our own affairs, and that we need the Canadian government to intervene in our lives. Whether it was the white Indian agents who were responsible for entire Indigenous nations, who had no respect for our traditional governance, or the First Nations Governance Act, which just surfaced in 2002. We are no strangers to the failures of the Canadian government in trying to govern us. Why then, should we believe that this same government is serious about bringing good governance to the people of Afghanistan and Haiti? Why should we believe that the US is bringing ‘democracy’ to Iraq, since it was founded on the same colonization and genocide as Canada? Colonialism and the Re-writing of History Recently, as part of an overall strategy to crush the will of the Iraqi people, to crush the resistance and stabilize the occupation, the US introduced new history textbooks for Iraqis, written by and produced in the US. With this the US is re-writing the history of Iraq, leaving out anything that would suggest that Iraqis have a history of being able to take things into their own hands. Now, comparing this to the cultural genocide that has been committed against Indigenous people here by the Canadian government, we can see the similarities. This is the same tactic of trying to destroy cultures that the Canadian government used with the forced removal of Indigenous children from their traditional ways of life into residential schools, where they were taught Colonialist values. With the re-education that is instituted in Canada, Indigenous youth grow up learning history from the colonizer’s perspective. ‘Canadian Interests’ vs. the Right of Indigenous Peoples to Self- determination When the Canadian government attempts to teach us our history, it uses the excuse that it is acting in our own interest. Before the January handover when the Canadian military took the leadership of the NATO forces in Afghanistan, I remember watching a news broadcast where Paul Martin spoke about the interest of Canadians being in putting Canada on the international stage.