Montréal Contre-information
Montréal Contre-information
Montréal Contre-information

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4:20 – Against Legalization and Criminalization Alike

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Apr 232017
 

The text that follows is part of a zine that was handed out at 4:20 this year in Montreal, along with two other texts that were posted to anarchistnews.org recently (A Lament for Criminality and Psychonauts Can Also Be Pirates: How to Do Drugs and Get Free). A report-back from the event will soon follow with a pdf of the zine for others to hand out elsewhere at similar events.

I approach the “issue” of weed legalization, and the spaces it inhabits with two main things in mind:

Perhaps in our desire to show the seriousness of our positions (or because we think we’re too cool?), it seems we have abandoned non punk, queer, or hipster alternative spaces to the right wing and liberals. These spaces are dominated by people we have no affinity with as anarchists, but are participated in by all sorts of (at least mildly) rebellious youth who are hostile to certain aspects of law and order, and don’t take “cannabis culture ” on as the stupid identity it usually is. As an iconoclastic weirdo who tends to get along with lots of people, but never really fits in anywhere in particular, I hate the tendency of anarchists to voluntarily pigeonhole ourselves.

I’ve always been disgusted by the racist and anti-working class prejudiced elements of the right-wing of the weed legalization movement which is largely dominant where I come from: Vancouver. I want to intervene in these spaces to show other potential rebels that there are non-reformist paths to take, and that we should not be striving for legitimacy in the systems which feed our misery and alienation.

In honour of all the old friends and acquaintances who are dying at a horribly tragic rate in the fentanyl epidemic in the Lower Mainland in BC, that neither the right-wing of the weed legalization movement, nor the left-wing of those focused on harm reduction can adequately address. What is needed is an all-out assault on both the state and the bosses who have left us all totally disempowered and isolated, towards a free and creative individuality based in rebellious communities that the neoliberal world intends to destroy and erase.

– Llud (Wreck/ Black Banner Distro)

The “Drug War” Didn’t Start, and Wont End,
With Weed Prohibition

A war has been raging for over a millennium. A lot can be said about this war, but generally we can sum this up as the consolidation of force, resources and legitimacy through the dispossession and commodification of humanity and the earth. We can call this war the state. This war initially only affected small parts of the world, around the territories controlled by various empires such as the Incas or Egyptians. But by now, after over five hundred years of capitalist globalization, this war effects nearly the entire earth, with only small pockets such as in Papua and the Amazon rainforest remaining out of reach. Consistent waves of domination and exploitation have brought greater levels of wealth and control to the powerful and greater tragedy to the dispossessed. Through these processes, people have been enslaved or otherwise exploited, genocides have been carried out, and whole ecosystems have been reduced to their chemical components.

But what does this all have to do with the “drug war”?

Since this war has always been about dominating people, cultures, animals and the environments they inhabit, it has also been about controlling peoples thoughts, what they can do with themselves, and what they can put in their bodies.

For example, during the middle ages, elements within european society, primarily peasants, had retained certain aspects of their pagan, pre-christian cultures. These cultures emphasized a strong connection to nature and sexuality, less rigid gender roles, queer sexuality, women’s control over their own pregnancies, and the taking of medicinal herbs and psychoactive drugs for spiritual purposes. In order to gain more control over their rebellious populations, European states carried out military campaigns, branded as Crusades, and Inquisitions that went on for hundreds of years. People who engaged, or were rumored to have engaged in these kinds of behaviors, were tried as “witches” and “heretics” with many people, especially women, being tortured into confession and burned at the stake. In many cases the cost of running the inquisitions was paid for by the accused, who’s property was seized and divided between the judges and accusers.

At the time, there was also free land that belonged to no one, and was shared by all the peasants of the local areas, referred to as “the commons”. This land was used for harvesting herbs and cultural practices separated from the church (of which there was only one you were allowed to belong to at the time). The commons were gradually swallowed up by the privatization of land during the Crusades and Inquisitions.
We can see parallels to this history in the legacy of colonization here in the place we call “Canada”. Native people’s languages and cultures, which also had strong connections to the land and the wild plant-life upon it, were made illegal, with native children being forced into religious schools, and taught to hate themselves and their cultures. This all coincided with a massive dispossession of land from native peoples, by state and private landowners, as well as through the creation of Parks – that is, places where people could visit and observe a wilderness from which they had been alienated, but where they would be forbidden to live as a part of the land.

Looking specifically at the “issue” of marijuana, we can see that along with opium and cocaine, the laws that first criminalized its use were part of a racist narrative targeting Chinese, Mexican and Black people in the United States, with the same logic being applied throughout much of the British colonial empire. A key element of this racist narrative, was a paranoia that white youth were being coaxed into interracial relationships through use of these drugs, which was seen as an attack on white-supremacy.

The “drug war” has never been a purely local issue and has until today played an important role in capitalist globalization. The “drug war” is an important fixture of modern capitalism, and fills prisons locally, disproportionally with people of colour. In the United States, the flooding of crack and heroin into poor neighborhoods is part of a well documented government strategy to repress rebellious social movements.
In places like Mexico, where the government is often referred to as the “narco-state”, the “drug war” plays an important role in terrorizing workers and peasants. Paramilitary organizations play a role in a process started by the North American Free Trade Agreement that dispossesses indigenous people of their collectively worked lands to open them up for the growing of Coca to produce cocaine, as well as legal crops like Avocados for the global capitalist market. This has a triple effect of producing profits for capitalists, keeping workers and peasants obedient though fear, and repressing, delegitimizing and denying resources of rebellious social movements.

This is a dire situation, and it is sad to see the response it gets from the weed legalization movement here in Canada. While it is true that we are up against a vast enemy, and this enemy can only be attacked in parts, the reformist tunnel-vision being pushed by the likes of Marc and Jodie Emery will only strengthen the system we need to oppose. We can’t effectively address only one minuscule aspect of this war, because the monster we are fighting will continue on its path of misery and destruction from other angles.

If the weed legalization movement is successful in its meager goals, this will only mean greater profits for liquor and pharmaceutical corporations, and a few small business owners (like Marc Emery). The rest of us will lose the opportunity for tax free income, our weed can be regulated and filled with more chemicals that it already might be, harvesting the infinite variety of other wild medicinal herbs will become more precarious as the land continues to be plundered and poisoned by industry, and the carceral system will always find more reasons to kill and imprison people of colour, as well as poor or working class people, in the same ways it always has. In fighting prohibition it is important the we question the notion of legality itself.

It’s important to point out that along with preventing a broader analysis of the problem itself, the weed legalization movement distracts us by emphasizing pacifism and ineffective lesser-evilism in favour of various political parties during election time, to attain its goals. Sadly, it also emphasizes solidarity towards only “non-violent” drug offenders (meaning white middle class business owners), and we are unable to practice an expansive solidarity through action – one that considers those who are not perfect innocent angels, those who might have trouble surviving in this world for a million reasons – that could actually address the problem.

The drug war was never about some mysterious hatred for one silly plant, but as I’ve explained, it is a fundamental way that the powerful have ruled over us for centuries. With this in mind we can understand that the very idea of a respectable legitimate politics reinforces prohibition. Borders reinforce prohibition. Racism reinforces prohibition. Sexism reinforces prohibition. Prison reinforces prohibition. Property reinforces prohibition, and the very notion of Nation-States reinforces prohibition.

Yes, it is important to fight against the absurdity that is the possibility of being kidnapped by armed police for lighting a plant on fire. But it is also important to break and help others break all the other absurd laws too.

This war that is the state has never been a complete victory and defeat. Historical resistance to domination has included communities of escaped slaves (known as maroons) that organized and attacked their former masters, Native communities engaging in long-term struggles against colonizers; women, queer and trans people self-organizing to defend themselves against attacks and living joyful lives on the margins of a society that wants to destroy them; youth and counter-cultures taking their freedom into their own hands, women taking control of their own bodies and refusing the logic of patriarchy, workers sabotaging machinery that deepened their subjugation under the economy, and a multitude of other forms.

This resistance continues in many forms today. It is important to help people crossing borders illegally. It is important to fight against the prison system. And it is important to break and spread a disrespect for property laws that keep us from housing ourselves, and keep us grinding away at our jobs. It is important because the lives and self-respect of ourselves and all others are at stake.

Total war against the market and hierarchy!

Free weed, free lives and free lands for all!

Montreal Solidarity with Stabbed Antifa from Marseille

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Apr 092017
 

From subMedia

Red and Anarchist Skinheads (RASH) and Montreal Sisterhood, made a graffiti in solidarity with a comrade in Marseille, France, who was stabbed by two fascists in late March.

What the fuck is anarchism?

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Apr 062017
 

We’ve made an ‘introduction to anarchism’ flyer, merging several texts by comrades from elsewhere. The flyer includes a list of local spaces and resources for anyone interested in anarchism in Montreal. For distribution at schools, workplaces, barricades, events, and demonstrations!

[Print, bilingual, 8.5″x11″]

Anarchists oppose all forms of oppressive power. we strive for a world based on self-determination and mutual aid. As the world veers towards tyranny, only grassroots direct action can keep our communities safe. If you’re ready to take action without waiting for orders, you’re one of us.

Anarchists look reality in the face and desire its complete transformation: the elimination of exploitation and domination. Anarchists are among the only ones offering a clear vision of another way of living. In organizing networks and community spaces around the world, we come together to assist each other in meeting basic needs and building the collective capacity for self-defense. In neighborhoods, workplaces, and schools, anarchists are fighting gentrification, the violence of the police, and exploitation while creating inclusive alternative infrastructures for survival. Across bioregions, we are organizing to protect our drinking water and the earth we all depend on for life.

Anarchists see the imposition of racism, class society, nationality, gender and patriarchy all playing parts in creating a world where a few own everything and the rest are forced to work for them in order to survive. A world that is also held in place by institutions of direct control in the form of police and prisons.

Anarchists recognize the one-two punch of the right and left wings of the state. The right-handed uppercut of market capitalism and the strong left hook that more government offers have taken turns pummeling people and the earth for hundreds of years. Anarchists are those who have had enough of it all.

Naturally anarchists are decried as dangerous by cops, politicians, and the rich, and rightly so, because if anarchists had their way those roles would no longer exist. While we’re told to grow up, to quiet our rage, to check another ballot, wait another decade for change, our limbs and minds grow weary. Our dreams and desires yearn to overflow, for something different.

Anarchism means destroying the forces that seek to keep us on our knees, as much as it means finding your friends, lovers, families and communities to have each others’ backs, with unbounded rage and joy. The riot that spills into the streets with dancing and laughter, the potluck that leaves everyone fed, the social center filled with books and ideas, the friendships based in affinity and unconditional solidarity, the window smashed to let in the light from outside.

In a world full of alienation and apathy, anarchists are willing to act in accordance with their ideas. Anarchists are those who would set fire to a bulldozer or a new luxury home rather than let a forest be cut down, who would rather hear the sound of shattering glass than a politician’s speech. Deserting and disobeying all the rules written against us, by squatting and stealing for our survival, and rejecting the roles we’re assigned, as good worker, good student, good citizen, good woman or man. Rewriting the usual endings; by supporting prisoners rather than letting them disappear in isolation, by beating up rapists and homophobes rather than suffering their violence, by creating forms of love that only strengthen us rather than containing and limiting us. Taking control over our surroundings by painting graffiti on the walls or occupying space and planting gardens. By arming ourselves with the ability to create a new world and destroy the one that has been imposed on us.

Anarchism in Montreal:

Montreal Counter-information is a local website that publishes news and analysis about anarchist struggles in Montreal.

Visit resistancemontreal.org for a calendar of radical events in the city, and a larger list of anarchist groups, spaces, and news.

If you want to learn more about anarchism across North America, you can visit these (anglophone) websites:

crimethinc.com — anarchist analyses and introductory resources

itsgoingdown.org — coverage of anarchist activity across North America

sub.media — video coverage of anarchism (sometimes with French subtitles)

Out with red fascists!

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Apr 062017
 

Anonymous submission to MTL Counter-info

Acronyms :
MRO = Mouvement Révolutionnaire Ouvrier (Revolutionary worker movement)
FFPR = Front Féministe Prolétarien Révolutionnaire (Revolutionary proletarian feminist front)
MER = Mouvement étudiant révolutionnaire (Revolutionary student movement)
MNB = Maison Normand Béthune – Bookstore and headquarters of the RCP Montréal
CLAC = Convergence des Luttes Anticapitalistes (Convergence of anti-capitalist struggles)

The “status-quo” is a very common expression in Québec. Yet it’s an expression well-suited to describe the presence and the place of the RCP in the Montreal left. We think that the status-quo has lasted long enough.

The RCP is a Marxist-Leninist-Maoist political organization, present across Canada, in the form of local branches. In this text we’re only addressing the Montreal branch, which is currently in the process of disassociating from the rest of the Canadian organization.

The Montreal branch is composed of a nebula of groups (MER, MRO, FFPR,… ) that allows it to mobilize and recruit in different milieus. The RCP has a headquarters, the MNB, a bookstore situated a few steps from métro Frontenac. The RCP is a hierarchical organization with a project and political agenda well-defined by their political line: an “updated” Maoism. The “Party” consists of around 80 members and sympathizers.

The activities of the RCP are obscure and sometimes colored by semi-clandestinity. The big moment of visibility for the RCP is its activity around May Day. For several years, the CLAC has co-organized the anti-capitalist May Day demonstration with the RCP. The RCP tends to take more and more space in the organization, in mobilization and in the demonstration itself.

This year, the RCP has organized a “month of the working class” throughout April, culminating in the May Day demonstration.

If the folklore stopped there, we could be legitimately tempted to not preoccupy ourselves with the situation. Unfortunately, it doesn’t stop there…

A series of problematic events were recently brought to our attention, and merit that we give them some thought. We don’t claim to have all of the information, but we suggest that you inform yourself and make up your mind yourself.

On March 4, there was the presence of a red contingent at the demonstration against racism and islamophobia. In the morning, while the fascist group La Meute met at Parc Émilie Gamelin, the maoists confronted them. There were very few police present. Why didn’t they share the information of the presence of La Meute, in order to regroup and actually prevent them from demonstrating? To be able to take nice photos of red flags in the wind?

On March 8, the group “Women of diverse origins” organized a demonstration to celebrate feminist struggles, for the occasion of International Women’s Day. The RCP split the demonstration in two, forming the largest section of the demo, with their banner at the front held by men, who were the majority in the contingent.

On March 11, a communique was published on the site of the RCP. The events it described were opaque and the communique seemed to respond to another publication. Since, we have been able to understand the thread of events by discussing with people concerned. Here’s a summary. For several months, members of the RCP were no longer welcome at the Montreal branch. We don’t know if this was an official decision of the Montreal branch or an unofficial situation. These people were considered dissidents, holding an anti-party and counter-revolutionary political line. For simplicity, we’ll call these people the “dissidents”. In fact, these people critiqued the transphobic discourses and the invisibilization of feminist and queer struggles by members of the RCP. These dissidents also critiqued a certain authoritarian direction, in particular within a clique which seemed to hold power in the RCP-Montreal.

Three dissidents came to the MNB for a public event. Four members of the RCP evicted them manu militari in a way that was “quite violent”. Following this, the four aggressors of the RCP were suspended by the central committee of the RCP (national), then reintegrated by the Montreal branch. Yet again, we don’t know the procedures or the technical terms of this organization (nor do we really give a fuck about them), but this is what happened factually.

On March 28, a member of the RCP-Montreal assaulted an employee of Café Aquin at his workplace after being told that RCP posters and flyers weren’t welcome there.

As anti-authoritarians and anarchists, we can no longer tolerate an organization with authoritarian practices and a reactionary ideology.

We denounce the practices AND the profoundly authoritarian political project of the RCP.

We denounce the transphobic discourses and the invisibilization of feminist and queer struggles.

We critique the fact that an organized political group deals with ideological conflicts with violence towards its dissidents. When we asked them the question, members of the RCP responded “what happens internally, stays internal”. This reminds us of terrible historical moments, from maoism in China and other concentration-camp ideologies.

We no longer accept that the RCP be considered an allied group, whether it’s in anti-racist and anti-fascist struggles in the streets, or during the annual demonstration on May Day co-organized with CLAC.

We ask that groups and individuals who share our analysis:

  • dissociate from the RCP by no longer organizing events with this organization
  • refuse their presence as a group (not as individuals) in non-authoritarian spaces and events.

Anarchist, anti-authoritarian, feminist, and antifascist comrades, the RCP instrumentalizes our struggles in order to recruit militants and to create favourable public opinion. The RCP wishes us the gulag.

The status-quo has lasted long enough! Out with red fascists!

A member of the RCP-Montreal assaults an employee of Café Aquin at his workplace

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Mar 312017
 

The team of Café Aquin (UQAM) wants to collectively respond to the assault that two employees were victims of, one of whom who was more specifically targeted by a member of the Parti Communiste Révolutionnaire de Montréal (RCP). The assault took place this Tuesday, March 28, at 5:45 at Café Aquin.

Like many other people who care about solidarity and social justice, we’re compelled to act by the authoritarian direction of the RCP of Montreal, which has already been a problem for a while, and has been more present in the last months and weeks. On their site, you’ll find an example of an article that reports how four dissidents of the RCP were beaten and violently expelled from the Normand Béthune bookstore, the headquarters of the group. These dissidents were calling out the RCP Montreal for transphobia, anti-feminism, and authoritarianism.

It’s in this context that the events of Tuesday took place. Here’s a summary by two employees and three clients:

Around 5:30, this Tuesday March 28, two members of the RCP came to put their posters and distribute their fliers around and inside Café Aquin. Several minutes later, an employee who was on break told the two members that their posters and fliers aren’t welcome. Several moments later, the two members of the RCP reentered the café. One passed BEHIND the counter, into the area reserved for employees. He went towards the employee, who only critiqued them, in order to intimidate and threaten him, accompanied by shoving him. The employee told the aggressor to leave the space, telling him that it is his workplace and he’s not welcome. He was forced to add gestures to his words, for his own safety. After several moments, the employee, helped by another employee and several clients, managed to make them leave by bringing them to the exit. That is how the two members of the RCP left the café and Aquin pavilion.

The team at Café Aquin wants to unequivocally oppose the actions of these two members of the RCP (one active in the aggression, the other supporting it). The aggression of a worker AT his workplace is scandalous. All the more so given that these actions were committed by partisans of the Party that claims to defend the proletariat.

We’re sorry to all the clients who didn’t feel safe during the events. The Café Aquin is a space that wants to be safe, feminist, and solidaritous. For this reason, from today we are telling the two members of the RCP Montreal to no longer come to Café Aquin, and anyone who supports them to do the same.

Lastly, as the student café of UQAM, we equally hope that student associations who might support the RCP Montreal in whatever way (offering spaces, the printing of posters, etc.) reflect on their support for a Party whose practices and words are clearly contrary to their most basic mandates.

Sincerely and in solidarity,
The team at Café Aquin

Montreal antifa prevails: would you like a beating with your happy meal?

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Mar 272017
 

Anonymous submission to MTL Counter-info

On March 25, 2017, approximately 200 people responded to a call to confront far-right groups planning to disrupt a day of anti-racist/anti-fascist workshops in Montreal. The call was made after a Facebook event calling to shut down the “terrorist workshop” surfaced. The event was made by the Canadian Coalition of Concerned Citizens (CCCC), the same group that called for the anti-immigrant March 4th demonstrations which occurred all across Canada. On that day, fascist group La Meute was able to take the streets of Montreal for the first time.

At around 9am, folks began to gather in front of the Hall Building of Concordia University’s downtown campus, where the workshop was to be held. The crowd was a mixture of students, anti-fascists, and anarchists, close to half of which had faces covered. It was a cold morning and drinking coffee without taking off our masks was proving more difficult than usual, but the very real threat of another far-right mobilization similar to that of March 4th kept us vigilant.

After about 45 minutes, a grey mini-van pulled up next to the crowd. From it emerged Georges Hallak, leader and seemingly the only member of CCCC. With a shit-eating grin and a Canadian flag affixed to a hockey stick (fucking Canadians…), he began to walk towards the crowd, making it just a few steps before his face met a barrage of fists. Police quickly made their way over, put Hallak in handcuffs, and stuffed him inside a cruiser.

The crowd cackled and cheered, equally excited and in disbelief of the scene that had transpired (seriously, a Canadian flag glued to a hockey stick…what the fuck?). To make matters even more ridiculous, it turned out that Hallak had actually been livestreaming on Facebook while all of this happened. The video of his swift demise lives on in our hearts and our hard-drives. The mood was thus set: it appeared that the crowd was feeling confrontational.

Ten minutes later, a lone skinhead materialized across the street. Clad in camo pants, some seriously tacky sunglasses, and “red braces”[1. Within a few racist skinhead circles, red braces have to be “earned” by some violent act such as attacking a perceived enemy of the white race. However, some skinheads wear red not because they have committed an act of violence but simply because it is part of their subculture.] (suspenders), the man waddled around, talked to cops, and hid behind a police cruiser, seemingly confused as to where the rest of his friends were. A few projectiles were thrown in his direction but the crowd did not engage with him further. Eventually a small group of masked individuals approached and pushed him to the ground (note: Doc Marten’s have terrible grip and don’t fare very well in the snow). After having gotten a few punches in, the scuffle was broken up by police, who pushed the masked individuals back into the crowd.

Amidst the excitement, we failed to notice that the driver of the mini-van had actually parked half a block from the demonstration. After confirming that this was in fact the same vehicle, the crowd approached it just a few seconds before it drove off. A volley of rocks pelted the speeding vehicle, though we were not able to catch up to it.

In Hallak’s livestream, he mentions having coordinated with Soldiers of Odin (SOO), an anti-immigrant vigilante group. SOO was formed in Finland in 2015 but has since established chapters in dozens of cities across Canada. Shortly after Hallak’s arrest, about twenty members of SOO were spotted in front of a McDonald’s a block away from the demonstration. A couple dozen people clad in masks broke off from the main crowd in an effort to confront them but police were everywhere.

Having regrouped, SOO marched towards the demonstration, making it just half-a-block before being met by an angry group of militants. Police at first prevented the two sides from clashing, but a small group used an alleyway to their advantage and was able to pelt the SOO group with eggs and chunks of ice. SOO pitifully made their way back to the McDonald’s and dispersed.

At some point during these initial confrontations, police were able to isolate one anti-fascist and beat and arrest him; he was later released with a ticket. The next couple hours saw many demonstrators head into the Hall Building to attend the morning’s workshop undisrupted, while a couple of hilarious events transpired outside.

Two SOO members were spotted eating cheeseburgers inside the McDonald’s. A small group of masked individuals entered the Golden Arches and attempted to confront them, but an incredibly awkward conversation broke out between the two groups instead. We stood around awkwardly while some people, presumably interested in the new all-day breakfast options, wondered if we were in line. The two men became increasingly cantankerous, and we decided reinforcements would be helpful. Soon, a crowd of twenty arrived from a block over and pummeled one of the SOO members with eggs and fists. When a pickup truck for them to flee in arrived on the corner, another member was beaten to the ground and the vehicle had a window broken with a well-placed rock.

Hallak’s mini-van, parked outside of the police station by his driver who was seemingly wanting to check up on him, was given a thorough redecoration (just in time for spring!). Police attempted to usher Hallak into the vehicle but were forced to stuff him back into a police cruiser when a small confrontational crowd emerged. The mini-van and cruiser drove off, not to be seen again.

After another hour and no sight of racists, demonstrators dispersed. The morning was eventful and filled with fun activities, a welcome morale boost after our failures on March 4th. However, we find it important to point out some areas that could use improvement.

Although the racists were definitely outnumbered and outmaneuvered, they were still able to assemble, even if only on the sidewalk. This itself can be seen as a victory for them. Their ability to take the streets will only serve to galvanize their ranks and provide opportunities for them to conduct outreach and recruit potential members. A no-platform approach works best if we make it absolutely impossible for them to show up in numbers.

The groups that show up to these events (CCCC, Soldiers of Odin, La Meute) have very public web presences. Online surveillance can help us glean crucial info in terms of their tactics and logistical capacity. These people’s faces and full names are all over Facebook.

These demonstrations can consist of a lot downtime. We sometimes wait for hours before any sign of the enemy arises. Let’s use this time to form informal assemblies or spokes-councils in which we can share ideas and discuss strategies in order to be more cohesive in the streets.

Enbridge Line 3: The Feeblest Head of the Hydra

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Mar 232017
 

From It’s Going Down

I started researching this article while at Standing Rock, after learning that Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau had approved a $7.5 billion pipeline project to replace Line 3. At the time, I didn’t even know such a proposal was on the table. In so-called Canada, the Kinder Morgan and Energy East pipelines have gotten the lion’s share of media attention.

My first thought when I saw the map of the pipeline route was that it seemed calculated to run through areas where the environmental movement is weakest and where anti-oil activism would be most unpopular. My second thought was to ask myself what I could do to help stop it. I think that in more hostile political climates it’s even more important that local organizers know that they have the support of a broader movement.

By the time I’d read a few articles I was excited about the possibilities of this campaign. Basically, Line 3 is an aging pipeline that has reached the end of its life-span. You could also call it a ticking time bomb. My point here is that if the Line 3 replacement project is stopped, and if Line 3 is taken off-line, then for the first time in the history of the anti-pipeline movement, we won’t simply be stopping them from expanding their capacity, we’ll actually be reducing it. We’ll be turning the tide.

What is Line 3?

Enbridge’s Line 3 Replacement Project is a $7.5-billion-dollar project, slated to run southeast from Hardisty, Alberta (near Edmonton), through Saskatchewan, Manitoba, North Dakota, and Minnesota to Superior, Wisconsin, on the western tip of Lake Superior. The original 34-inch pipeline was built in 1968. The new pipeline would be 36 inches and could carry 760,000 barrels per day (bpd).

This project would be the most expensive in Enbridge’s history. The line is currently transporting about 390,000 bpd, far below its maximum throughput of 760,000 bpd. Its flow has been restricted for safety reasons.

Bizarrely, in this case Enbridge wants to convince regulators how unsafe Line 3 is. According to expert testimony the company provided to Minnesota’s Public Utilities Commission, the corrosion and cracking is so extensive that further use could cause calamitous leaks.

How bad is it? Enbridge says that half of the joints are corroding, and that it has five times more stress cracks per mile than other pipelines in the same corridor. It was originally made with defective steel and the welding was done with outdated technology. One worker called keeping it safe “a game of whack-a-mole.”

According to Enbridge, “Approximately 4,000 integrity digs [invasive pipeline inspections] in the US alone are currently forecasted for Line 3 over the next 15 years to maintain its current level of operation. This would result in year-after-year impacts to landowners and the environment. On average, 10-15 digs are forecasted per mile on Line 3 if it is not replaced…”

Enbridge is staring down the clock right now, as the US Justice Department ordered the company back in July to replace the entire pipeline by December 2017 or commit to substantial safety upgrades to the existing line. That decree is part of a settlement the company reached after a massive 2010 spill of 3.8 million litres (around 80,000 gallons) of oil into Michigan’s Kalamazoo River.

Although Enbridge is replacing Line 3 because they have to, they’re also looking to slip something past the public. Not only does the proposed “replacement” up the capacity of the pipeline, it also would allow it to transport tar sands. Currently, Line 3 carries “light” crude oil—which is largely drawn from Western Canada’s conventional oilfields—but a completed Line 3 replacement would allow Enbridge to carry diluted bitumen across the border. This project hasn’t had to jump the political hurdles of other border-crossing tar sands pipelines, like the Keystone XL, and already has a presidential permit.

The new line would run parallel to the existing Line 3 for most of its route, but would take a different route for the final 300 kilometres (around 185 miles) between Clearbrook, Minnesota, and Superior, Wisconsin. And, oh yeah, the original pipeline would be decommissioned and left in the ground.

So, let’s recap. This “replacement” doubles the capacity for Line 3, changes the product to be shipped, follows a different route, and the pipeline that it will “replace” will remain in the ground. Don’t you love living in the age of persuasion?

Honor the Earth, an indigenous-led NGO based in Minnesota, ain’t having it. From their website: “Enbridge wants to simply abandon its existing Line 3 pipeline and walk away from it, because it has over 900 “structural anomalies,” and build a brand new line in this new corridor. If this new corridor is established, we expect Enbridge to propose building even more pipelines in it. We cannot allow that.”

Resistance in Minnesota

Thanks to the amazing work of Honor the Earth and other activists in Minnesota, things are looking good for the campaign against Line 3. Here’s a breakdown:

The conservationist group Friends of the Headwaters was formed to divert Line 3 from northern Minnesota’s wild rice lakes. They proposed a longer pipeline that would carve further south through agricultural lands. State law requires pipeline companies to submit a simple environmental review of proposed projects. Three years ago, when Enbridge first brought up the Line 3 replacement, they intended to study their chosen site only. Friends of the Headwaters insisted that they also study feasible routes outside the Mississippi River Headwaters area.

A lengthy lawsuit ensued, and in December of 2015 the Minnesota Supreme Court sided with environmentalists. Enbridge was ordered to complete a more comprehensive assessment, including alternate routes.

Minnesota is currently writing its Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) for Line 3, after months of battle over what the study would include and who would perform the analyses. The draft EIS is scheduled for April 2017 and the public will be able to comment at public hearings. A final permit decision is expected in spring of 2018.

As soon as Minnesota’s Environmental Impact Statement is released in April, the Minnesota Center for Environmental Advocacy plans to continuing fighting Line 3 in court. So, given all of these factors, for sure Enbridge will fail to meet the project’s December 2017 deadline. It will be interesting to see what happens.

Let’s be real, though. There’s a shit-ton of money at stake here. I find it hard to imagine regulators taking a 390,000 bpd pipeline off-line. I’m not aware of a major pipeline ever having been taken off-line because it is old and unsafe. One example of such a pipeline is the TransNorthern pipeline in Eastern Canada. Back in November, a trio of Quebecois women shut down this pipeline through a lockdown action. They did so to bring attention to the fact that even members of the National Energy Board (NEB) have recommended that this pipeline, which was built in the 1950s, be decommissioned. TransNorthern continues to operate despite its inability to comply with the improvements the NEB ordered the company to make.

It would be great if Line 3 were shut down by the state of Minnesota, but equally possible is that Line 3 will spill, and that when it does an army of pundits will pin the blame on environmentalists for delaying Line 3’s replacement. Remember Lac Megantic? An oil train blew up a town in Quebec, killing 47 people, and the next day media spin doctors were using the disaster to argue for pipelines, since oil-by-rail obviously isn’t safe. These bastards have no shame.

Which brings us to a reality that we will probably have to deal with in the near future. As pipeline infrastructure ages, the public will be presented with a new choice—shiny new pipelines or old, rusted-out, leaky ones. This is a classic double bind, a false choice designed to force acceptance of something undesired. You know, like democracy. Perversely, environmentalists may stand accused of causing oil spills. Activists will reject this logic, but it may be seductive to centrists and pre-fabricated-thought-thinkers. It might be wise to think of a counter-narrative to this.

The reality remains that Line 3 might spill before it gets shut down. My guess would be that Enbridge will get an extension beyond December 2017 and continue operating. And it’s certain that other pipelines will rupture.

A New Approach

What if, instead of occupying to stop a pipeline from being built, land defenders used the event of an oil spill to shut down a pipeline? Though it’s probably undesirable to occupy the site of a spill, this could be accomplished by occupying a site of critical importance for the functioning of the line, such as a pumping station or valve, and preventing workers from accessing it. There would be several advantages to this strategy.

First, when there is an oil spill, a pipeline is already shut down. Though a slew of recent direct actions targeting valves have shown that it is certainly possible to autonomously shut down pipelines safely, it would be easier and less psychologically taxing to keep a pipeline off-line than to shut one down.

Second, an oil spill packs an emotional punch. I maintain that it is emotion, not rational thought, that inspires action. To most people, the petroleum economy is so normal that it takes a change in consciousness to interrupt their acceptance of it. It provides a moment where anti-pipeline direct action will be broadly understood, drawing sympathizers and supporters out of the woodwork. Artful anarchist propaganda makes radical ideas seem like common sense, and this argument sort of makes itself: If a pipeline is disaster-prone, it should be shut down.

Third, if we’re shutting down active pipelines, we’re not merely stopping the expansion of the oil and gas industry, we’re forcing its shrinkage. We’re seizing the initiative away from the capitalists. We are busting the operative myth of statecraft—that we do not have a choice.

Fourth, this switches the focus away from the sort of thinking that presents one issue as the be-all and end-all of ecological activism. There are over 200,000 miles of pipelines criss-crossing Turtle Island. There is a potential front-line just about everywhere. This shifts focus closer to home, and also ideally would lead to situations where there the tactic becomes normalized, because it is happening all over the place.

Lastly, everything that we can do to increase the political and economic risk of pipeline ruptures to corporations is good. If spills come with higher consequences for companies, they will have more incentive to prevent them. Some famous squatting graffiti in Spain read EVICTIONS = RIOTS. In two years, could we say OIL SPILLS = OCCUPATIONS?

From Temporary Autonomous Zones to Permanent Autonomous Zones

I am hoping that the Line 3 campaign leads to something akin to the resistance at Standing Rock, but which draws on some of the lessons of that fight. It’s long been my belief that resistance to industrial capitalism should go hand-in-hand with the creation of autonomous communities able to survive and thrive independent of the fossil fuel economy, and that blockades provide a moment where the impossible suddenly becomes possible, where we can strike at the heart of capitalism by collectively defying the illusion of property that holds the whole system in place.

My political goal is the creation of a federation of autonomous communes able to meet their own needs independent of the fossil fuel economy.

For that reason, I went to Standing Rock in hopes that others felt similarly, and there was a will amongst many people to reclaim treaty land and to create a permanent autonomous community on the site. Alas, the site wasn’t ideal, both because the Oceti Sakowin/Oceti Oyate camp was on a floodplain, and because it was on a sacred burial ground.

Some settlers will feel uncomfortable with the whole notion of approaching moments of opportunity created by indigenous-led resistance campaigns with any agenda at all. Aren’t non-native allies supposed to take direction from native people? To this, I’ll reply with a story.

Unbeknownst to most people, after the anti-fracking movement in Mik’mak’i (in so-called New Brunswick) was successful and most people went home, the occupation continued. There was a small group of extremely committed people who tried to do exactly what I am advocating here—to turn a resistance camp into a permanent eco-community. Some of those people were native, some Acadian (descendants of French colonists who settled in the area in the 17th and 18th centuries), and some settler. They made it through the winter and the spring. My partner and I were there in the spring and we started a garden with the help of a Mi’kmaq elder. It was a beautiful moment, in a beautiful place. A beautiful dream.

The local support was overwhelmingly evident, if passive. When the camp needed money, they’d simply do a road block fundraiser, allowing cars to pass one at a time and asking for a toll. Most people, native and settler, would donate. One day, in the weirdest busking experience of my life, my partner and I added a fire show to the whole bizarre spectacle. I remember thinking, Goddamn I love this corner of the Maritimes—where else in the world would this even make sense?

In the end, the dream was given up because of interpersonal conflicts, but by that time it had already stopped advancing because the occupiers didn’t have the know-how or the resources to build permanent structures. They didn’t feel that other people, who had been so active in the camp when it was the place to be, cared enough to help them build their dreamed-of community. To them it was the natural next step, and it hurt them that others couldn’t see that. It still saddens me that that dream remains unrealized, and in my memory it will go down as a missed opportunity that strengthens my resolve to be prepared for the next moment of unforeseeable potential.

As a side note, some of the Acadians who were involved in that did go on to start a land project in the woods of Mi’kmak’i, which they started in large part to acquire the skills that would have allowed them to succeed in the first place. That place, located within the legendary Cocagne vortex, is, to me, one enduring legacy of the resistance at Elsipogtog.

Also, realistically, most people who come to a front line aren’t going to decide to live there long-term. For the revolutionary movement that I envision to emerge, folks would have to be willing to actually continue to live in a liberated zone after all the action has died down. This part of the theory’s untested. Do enough people actually want to live in off-grid communities throughout the four seasons?

Well, surely when the crisis deepens and matters of survival become much more pronounced, we’ll do what we need to do. That’s the best hope I’ve got; that we will succeed where so many previous generations of radicals haven’t, not because we’re smarter or braver, but because we have to. The survival instinct is a powerful thing.

As the ideologies of liberal democracy and infinite growth show themselves to be the shams that they are, more and more people are going to be looking for answers. I don’t have many answers, but I see the creation of autonomous zones as a realistic goal. We can start now. Standing Rock is an autonomous zone. The ZADs in France are autonomous zones. Such liberated territories give us opportunities to learn, to experiment, to put ideas into practice, to make connections based on shared values, and to inspire ourselves and others through direct experience. It’s only though experimentation, through trial and error, through blood, sweat, and tears that we’ll learn how to be free. Standing Rock provided thousands of people with hands-on experience in a laboratory of freedom. Such experiences are transformational, and are preparing us for what is to come.

Rapid Response

My goal is to connect the current political moment with the vision that many eco-anarchists hold—that is, the creation of interdependent autonomous communes able to survive and thrive independent of the fossil fuel economy.

So, let’s start thinking about how we might get to that point. What would it take?

At Standing Rock I put a ton of energy building and winterizing shelters, as did many other people. Many shelters were later abandoned and had to be cleaned up. I think that it would make a lot of sense for front-liners to think about acquiring and building mobile homes and various structures that are relatively easy to set up, tear down, and transport. The Standing Rock model is a game-changer, but there’s a lot of room for improvement, too.

When I was at Standing Rock, there was a lack of strategic action undertaken. Many people would probably see this as being due to a lack of leadership, but I see it as a lack of coherent affinity groups. An action plan requires a group to carry it out, and the more elaborate the plan, the better coordinated the group needs to be. A sophistication exercise involving diversion and multiple flanks, such as what would be required to take a heavily guarded site, such as the drill site at Standing Rock, would require multiple teams sharing a certain level of training and confidence.

So when I think about the future, I imagine affinity groups comprised of full-time activists for whom the activities of the group are their primary focus in life. How can we make it more realistic for more people to be able to do this?

We need bases. I think that we need a combination of urban collective houses and rural land projects that eco-anarchists can use to launch actions from. We need a culture of people who see revolution as their calling in life, their vocation. That’s what I think it will take for this movement to become revolutionary.

Where Are We Going as a Movement?

Back to Line 3. Look, it’s a pipeline. You’re against it, I’m against it, and we can stop it. To me, the more interesting question is: What will be achieved by victory? Of course the land and the water will be defended, and that is enough reason to fight—but all of these pipelines, mines, prisons, and schools are but the visible, manifest symptoms of a disease called capitalism. So long as we are dependent on capitalism for our means, we’ll still be biting the hand that feeds us.

The environmental movement is not inherently revolutionary. What can we as anarchists do to nurture the revolutionary tendencies it contains? I’m not interested in making capitalism more sustainable; in helping the machine perfect our enslavement. The fact that it is unsustainable may be humanity’s last chance for liberty. I don’t want to spend the rest of my life fighting different heads of the Hydra unless at the end of the day we’ve fundamentally transformed the way that we live.

So I ask: Where are we going as a movement? I ask, because if we want to make it somewhere, we’d better have a clear idea of where we’re headed. What vision do we have to offer? What can we invite others to believe in along with us? What spirit can we summon forth into the collective consciousness? What songs can we sing with our whole hearts when we’re on the front lines?

Nothing’s more powerful than an idea whose time has come. Look at Standing Rock. Who could have imagined such a thing just a short time ago? Who would have taken this article seriously if I wrote it a year ago? Our movement is growing, it is expanding, it is stronger and stronger by the day. We are winning the hearts and minds of more and more people, and bigger and bigger goals are becoming more and more attainable. It’s time to articulate a program of revolutionary social change that sees resistance to pipelines as a starting point.

Call for Week of Solidarity Against Repression April 1st-7th

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Mar 222017
 

From Standing Rock, to Sacramento, to DC

From It’s Going Down

In cooperation with CrimethInc., Submedia.tv, and others, we are calling for a week of solidarity to support everyone targeted for standing up to the Trump regime and rising fascism. The past four months have seen unprecedented waves of action—from the post-election rebellions and the defense of Standing Rock to the J20 demonstrations, the airport blockades, and the shutting down of advocates of nationalist violence like Milo Yiannopoulos. These efforts have emboldened dissidents from Slovenia to the White House itself, catalyzing global resistance and destabilizing the Trump administration from within. In response, the authorities are bringing felony charges against hundreds of people and seeking to criminalize protest altogether. How effectively we support arrestees will determine how effectively we can continue resisting.

April 1 to 7: Call for a Week of Solidarity

Over two hundred people mass-arrested during the demonstrations against Trump’s Inauguration are facing felony rioting charges punishable by up to ten years in prison apiece. Though these people were arrested simply for happening to be on the same city block, the prosecutor has not dropped or diminished the charges, instead using the court process as a kind of judicial harassment.

Since April 2016, when the Sacred Stone camp was founded, there have been nearly 800 arrests in the struggle against the Dakota Access Pipeline. These include state charges ranging from misdemeanor criminal trespass to felony terrorizing and rioting, federal charges against six Indigenous Water Protectors, and an active grand jury convened to investigate the activities of everyone resisting the pipeline. While the camps have been evicted and the people forcibly removed in a militarized operation, resistance continues.

California Highway Patrol is recommending that felony charges be brought against 106 alleged participants in the clashes in Sacramento last summer that prevented a fascist rally from taking place. Berkeley police are seeking to bring charges against those who clashed with nationalists on March 4.

Meanwhile, Trump and his cronies have been spreading conspiracy theories about protesters, alleging without a shred of evidence that they are being paid to protest. The idea is to delegitimize dissidents by accusing them of the same profit motive that Trump and his cronies are flagrantly pursuing in the full light of day. These outright lies send a message to far-right vigilantes that they will have a free hand to attack demonstrators and dissidents without consequences from the state.

At the same time, the legislatures in many states are seeking to pass anti-protest laws to further criminalize anyone who take to the streets in protest.

In short, the state is opening a new phase of repression. Having done nothing to protect the black people, Muslims, and Jews targeted in an explosion of racist and anti-Semitic attacks, the state is openly carrying out its own attacks on Middle Eastern refugees and immigrants from Mexico and Central America, and now aims to crush everyone who opposes this. The one-two punch of state repression and vigilante attacks is calculated to destroy social movements, softening up America so Trump can force through his totalitarian agenda.

What We Can Do

  • Make sure that everyone who has been arrested has all the resources they need to see them through the court process so they can get back out on the street and active again. Below, you can find a list of fundraisers to support arrestees. Donate right now while you’re thinking about it! What do you want people to do when you are facing charges?
  • Set up benefit events to raise funds for the defendants. You could set up a punk show, a dance party, a cake auction, or a bake sale; you could do the rounds with a donation jar at a bookstore or farmer’s market.
  • Organize an event for the upcoming grand jury resistance tour that the Water Protector Anti-Repression Crew from Standing Rock is setting up.
  • Help people understand Trump’s disinformation campaign as propaganda intended to set the stage for a totalitarian crackdown. This isn’t an issue for protesters alone—everyone’s freedom is at stake here. Any precedents that are set in repression against protesters will be used against everyone else.
  • Identify key figures responsible for this wave of repression and put direct pressure on them, connecting them with the crackdown on freedom. Make it clear that there will be personal consequences for taking the side of oppression.
  • Drop banners, post fliers, set up educational events, and distribute information about the charges and how to support arrestees. Make sure the subject is on everyone’s minds at all times.
  • Refuse to cooperate with state investigations and grand juries. Teach people to know their rights, to remain silent when police and federal agents interrogate and threaten them, to support grand jury resisters.
  • Keep fighting. The best defense is a good offense! If there is a powerful movement against Trump and the forces he represents, defendants from the previous clashes will be more likely to receive the support they deserve. Keep organizing new efforts against Trump, police, nationalists, and the pipelines and profiteering from which they draw their power.

Contribute Events and Report Backs to IGD

  • Have your own poster or sticker design? Send it to us, we’ll add it to this page!
  • If you are organizing an event, let us know by submitting the event to the site here or at info [at] itsgoingdown [dot] org. 
  • Do the same for action report backs. Send us reports of both events organized (demonstrations, educational events, benefits), as well as wheatpasting campaigns, banner drops, and written graffiti slogans. While some of these actions may seem small in scale, when put together they show that we are an active movement with material force to protect ourselves, support our comrades facing repression, and a desire to communicate and interact with those on the outside we have yet to meet.

Fundraising

Publishing the following links to these support campaigns in no way indicates that the defendants in question endorse this call for solidarity, nor that they have ever been exposed to anarchist politics or this site in particular. The point is simply that everyone swept up in these charges deserves support.

Donate to Support J20 Arrestees in DC!

Donate to Support J20 Arrestees Elsewhere around the US!

Donate to Support Standing Rock Arrestees!

Support Shirts!

Revolt in the youth center of Val-Du-Lac

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Mar 222017
 

Last night, at around 10:30, six teenagers at the youth center in Val-Du-Lac, near Sherbrooke, decided to revolt against the authorities of the establishment. They threatened to smash everything inside and refused to collaborate with the intervention team at the center. Unsurprisingly, the institution called the cops. The six teenagers resisted their arrest, and will be charged with illegal assembly, assault on an agent, harassment, making threats, and obstruction of police work.

It’s heartwarming to see acts of resistance faced with these institutions which are put in place to break these youth, both physically and mentally, and which try to reinsert them into society.

Solidarity
-anarchists

The other sovereignty – the Innu

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Mar 202017
 

From The Sling: Montreal Anarchist Journal
Selected excerpts www.littor.al

Praised on both sides of the white world as a turning point in the way of dealing with indigenous communities, a crucial “modern treaty” is getting ready to be signed, should all go poorly. The Petapan Treaty with the Innu communities of Mashteuiatsh, Essipit, and Nutashkuan is the result of 30 years of negotiations, during which six other Innu and Atikamekw communities have ended up withdrawing from the process, leaving a handful of Band Council chiefs to rule on the future of a territory 16 times larger than the Island of Montréal.

Expected to be signed around the end of next March in the National Assembly, the Petapan Treaty claims to recognize “autonomy of governance” of the territory of Innu Assi, supposedly putting an end to the long history of encroachments upon indigenous peoples, and their cultural assimilation and extermination. If this brutal history was certainly conducted by means of treaties, the last on the list would be, they say, of a different kind. Unlike the James Bay Agreement, which allowed for the constitutional integration of not less than 20% of the “Québécois” territory – around 300,000 km² – from the hands of the Cree, the Petapan Treaty does not intend to “extinguish” ancestral rights, but only to “harmonize” them with those of Québec…

Encompassing the watersheds of Lac Saint-Jean, a large part of Labrador, and all of the Côte-Nord, Nitassinan – traditional territory of the Innu and the Atikamekw – extends over close to 100,000 km². This is where animals and fish have found refuge from the reach of civilization – two thirds of Nitassinan are zoned as beaver reserves – and where minerals and powerful rivers have not yet been harnessed. This is what makes this treaty crucially important for a government that never ceases to want to finish off the natural resources.

Beyond these altruistic outward appearances, the Petapan Treaty hides a considerable problem behind this facade. To be sure, the Innu will become the “managers” of their territory – not all Innu, obviously all of this only concerns the duly authorized Band Council chiefs. Managers… This is the term that the government used to designate families who have a certain territory for hunting, up until it was replaced by “area wardens” to avoid any confusion. But if the development projects will have to receive the approval of the Innu people, and if they will not doubt be granted the traditional “vacation pay” of 3% of income, this transfer of territorial management towards the ancestral “owners” does nothing except to force their hand to open it up to infrastructural development. See the trick: at the end of a period of 12 years, the federal government will cease to pay insurance benefits that today it owes to reserves, leaving to the semi-autonomous government, not to say Innu protectorate, the job of raising its own taxes.

Without more assistance from the federal government – compensations for the atrocities it committed – the Innu will have to resolve to open their resources to exploitation, or otherwise simply starve. Especially since the costs already undertaken for the negotiations, what with the huge number of field studies and legal opinions, are up to more than 40 millions dollars… Not counting that the government of Québec had already reserved total and exclusive ownership of water and underground resources, as well as 75% of surface minerals. If it had to change its mind faced with protests, finally leaving the Innu to reign alone over their resources, the territory of Innu Assi that would have been realized by the agreement was then cut by more than half, going from 2,538 km2 to 1,250 km2. In Nutushkuan, a 50-megawatt hydroelectric dam project is already feverishly waiting for the conclusion of the agreement – the 2004 agreement, which is to be the basis for the treaty, takes it for granted, maintaining that “Québec will commit to giving priority to the First Nation of Nutashkuan on the development of hydro power of 50 MW or less in Innu Assi.” Given the dislocation and scattering of Innu Assi’s project territory, one can understand well why it took 30 years to identify and remove all zones of strong geological potential from the agreement.

The resistance

But there is absolutely never anything so easy. Sometimes it is enough for a small rumbling of opposition to ruin a rip-off that’s been years in the making. A number of Innu “area wardens” are currently rising up against the Petapan Treaty, and starting to make waves. In presenting themselves at random selection hearings for the “managers of trapping territories” before forming the “Tshitassinu committee” in order to benevolently advise on the application of the treaty, these opponents are starting discussions that quickly put the entirety of the process back into question. Multiple blockades of roads and forest trails, to which have been added members of Atikamekw communities, simply ignored by the agreement, is putting a non-negligible pressure on a process whose validation relies upon an appearance of ethical purity.

If the opposition to the Petapan Treaty clearly sees right through the game of government, it’s because they have their own established way of life. As far as the eons-old practice of hunting, trapping, and fishing is concerned, the treaty does nothing less than to render this form of life extinct, through the Québécois and Canadian systems of permits, certificates, catch recording, hunting seasons, and game quotas (point 5.7 of the agreement). It is therefore the mode of life the most suitable to indigenous people before colonization – hunting and fishing as the principal means of survival – which finds itself attacked in one of its last holdouts on the continent. There, where one can find the last wild animals able to provide for the needs of a limited population of hunter-gatherers, the covetousness of mine and hydro intends to destroy that which the settler colonies have devastated everywhere else. However, the relationship of treaty-opposing Innu traditionalists to the ancestral practice of the hunt is considered “sacred”. In other words, it cannot be harmonized with white norms without it losing its soul. The hunt, as intended in its full sense, as an inalienable spiritual activity, contains an immemorial relation to the Innu territory, and a knowledge of how to live there more sustainably than with any development. As a occupier-hunter of the Innu territory recounted: Our ancestors have lived on this territory since long before the creation of the Band Councils by the Europeans. They have given us the necessary knowledge to live and do things for millenia in Nitassinan. We don’t need a treaty or a government to control or restrict our traditional practices. The long walk of the Innu has never needed European laws on Nitassinan!

It is thus apparent that this re-emergent indigenous sovereigntism in so-called Québec isn’t the one that speaks in Band Councils and reads agreements. The groups of Innu and Atikamekw hunters contrast real, de facto independence to the legal, de jure independence of the Petapan Treaty, denounced as an incursion of the European concept of the State. So do not hesitate to respond to their call for solidarity if they act to support this indigenous affirmation of an ancestral independence. In recognizing, first of all, how the structures put into action by treaty negotiation are entirely attributable to whites – let’s remember that more 50% of the Essipit Band Council employees are whites coming from Escoumins and other contiguous municipalities; the resistance to their insidious maneuvers is thus as much the responsibility of non-indigenous solidarity as of the concerned communities. Next, in taking seriously the conceptions of the world and of the specific territories of these communities, as the incarnation of a real face of a continued resistance to the civilization of development, at the same time as their privileged target. Which brings us to ask ourselves, concretely, how to recognize their de facto independence, and how to assist their rejection of resource extraction projects. Because this Turtle Island where we are staying contains a number of ferociously sovereign ways of living, which demand to be considered as such. Even if that means dissolving what they have customarily considered as Québec and Canada.

Let’s support the struggle against the Petapan Treaty!

For more information, visit the Facebook page of Regroupement des familles traditionnelles de chasseurs-cueilleurs Ilnuatsh.

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