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

Extinguishing Rebellion

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Oct 242019
 

Anonymous submission to MTL Counter-info

Extinction Rebellion (XR) is an international environmental movement that calls itself non-violent and as extreme as the situation. It appeared on the Montreal scene around a year ago. On October 8, 2019, a handful of their activists realized a coup d’éclat, forcing the closure of the Jacques-Cartier Bridge for more than an hour in the middle of morning rush hour. Their actions show a willingness to put themselves physically in play that has become an unavoidable necessity in ecological struggle. In this sense, their courage and determination can only be reassuring. However, criticisms have also converged from somewhat all over in regards to their ideology and practices, raising issues that are important to address.

In Paris, where XR activists, among other things, erased anti-police tags during the ocucpation of a shopping mall, an open letter notes a dismissiveness toward police violence, a dogmatic non-violence that is insidiously violent, and the exclusion of the popular classes from the action framework. They are critiqued also for lacking a strategic reading of the situation and of power relationships.

A critique of the British branch of XR observes their profound misunderstanding of the functioning and impacts of judicial repression of activists.

Almost everyone makes fun of their desire to be arrested by the police, though it is not a joke, but the result of a bizarre and dangerous interpretation of social movement history. Not to mention it favors the construction of a white, middle-class movement, regardless of efforts to give the organization an intersectional facade.

Even faced with these partisans of a particularly intransigent pacifism, it’s stunning to realize how difficult it can be to distinguish between a real XR initiative and a hoax:

Others have engaged with the justifications that XR provides for non-violence. Let’s take a closer look at this. The group cites an academic study by Erica Chenoweth titled Why Civil Resistance Works to affirm that non-violent movements have succeeded twice as often as movements that used violence, between 1900 and 2006, in the context of conflicts between state and non-state forces. In such a complex world, we’d like if such neat statistics could guide us in choosing means of action. There are just a couple minor problems.

Number one: the study defines a “violent movement” as one in which more than 1000 armed combatants die on the battlefield. Thus excluding urban riots, as well as armed groups from the Red Army Faction to the Zapatistas. And indeed, struggles that lead to over 1000 battle deaths tend to be characterized by the substantial militarization of an intractable conflict, making it difficult for the non-state side to attain the goals that motivated it to mobilize at the start. The force of an insurrection is social, not military.

Secondly, for the purposes of the study, “non-violent movements” include those that are primarily, though not entirely non-violent. Note that no one is proposing a climate movement that would be primarily violent: instead it’s a question of making space for a diversity of tactics, where various modes of action are valued and ideally reinforce one another. That is to say a movement that a statistician could indeed classify as primarily non-violent, but where people in black bloc are on the front lines confronting the police, while nocturnal crews sabotage infrastructure without getting caught, allowing them to attack again and again. Nowhere in the study does non-violence translate to an obligation to turn oneself into police after breaking the law.

We might also ask questions about:

  • the tendency for power to name as “violent” all resistance that actually disrupts the normal course of affairs, regardless of the concrete acts involved;
  • the fact that it’s often violence from police forces that provokes a “violent” response from a social movement, in other words violence is often imposed on a movement when it poses a real threat to the powers in place;
  • the definition of victory vis-à-vis our multiple medium- and long-term goals, as well as the capacity for power to offer concessions at the price of pacification and recuperation: when the future of life on earth is at stake, is compromise possible?

In any case, using Why Civil Resistance Works to ground the claim that we need to sit down in the street making peace signs at the cops is an insult to activists’ intelligence. XR’s leaders should not try to make us believe they are guided by social science if they are in fact merely enacting a morality aligned with the police state or a desire to serve as legitimate intermediaries vis-à-vis power. XR tells governments to “tell the truth”, but when it’s a question of resistance strategies, they are not interested in an honest reflection on the choices before us.

Yet, we only need to look at any of the many places where rebels have succeeded in making power back down in recent months, whether in Hong Kong, Ecuador, Chili, or the gilets jaunes in France, or to understand the history of Indigenous land defense struggles in “Canada”, to come to a simple realization: a capacity for self-defense is essential if we are going to force capital and the state to really cede ground.

We don’t wish to overly repeat critiques of XR that have already been expressed well elsewhere. And XR presents its local instances as autonomous, so we would like to give their structures in Quebec the benefit of the doubt and not judge them too much based on the group’s actions in other countries, even if these often seem like the logical outcomes of the group’s founding ideology, to which chapters subscribe.

We’re also aware that any mass political organization contains lines of tension, so this intervention certainly does not target the entire group as individuals. On the contrary, we have no doubt that many of these activists will be amazing comrades and accomplices, from whom we will learn a lot, over coming years of the development of a diversified and determined struggle against the world that is destroying the planet.

In watching XR’s beginnings in Montreal, however, we have a couple concerns regarding the local organization.

In an interview on TVA Nouvelles after the shutdown of the Jacques-Cartier Bridge, a spokesperson of XR Montreal defends the activists who climbed on the bridge against the accusation of extremism by specifying that “they’re people like you and I, who were 100% non-violent, they didn’t resist the police, they discussed reasonably.” We have questions about what is meant by “like you and I” and which people or classes of people would fall outside this designation. We must also think about the effects of this type of discourse on those who are not 100% non-violent, who resist the police, who don’t see an advantage to discussing reasonably. Logically, these people would be the “extremists”, and they would deserve the harsher treatment in the media and in the courts that this term entails.

This discourse feeds the creation of a division between good and bad protesters, which tends to increase repression experienced by those who are already taking the biggest risks, who seek a total rupture with the devastating order of capital and the state. In addition, it sabotages the creation of links between groups and individuals that would strengthen the struggle.

We’ve also seen awareness-raising efforts and a handful of sit-in style actions, the last one occurring the afternoon of October 8th after the bridge blockade in the morning. The gathering of 250 people was unable to attain the action’s target after the SPVM’s riot police lines didn’t budge faced with shouts of “we’re non-violent, please let us through!”, followed by the chant “Police, go softly, we’re doing this for your children”. The deadening scene spoke for itself as to the limits of a “civil” disobedience that is in fact fully captured within a servility extinguishing any real perspective of rebellion.

We would be delighted if events to come contradicted us, but we believe we’re seeing the same dynamics that have elicited legitimate criticisms of XR elsewhere in the world emerging in their discourse and means of action in Montreal. It’s not about rejecting any pathway that diverges from our own, but about naming strategic and tactical failures for what they are, refusing an absence of solidarity with rebels that don’t adopt total pacifism, and creating the conditions for a real collective intelligence in struggle. In the hour of climate emergency, we don’t have time for illusions.

Climate Strike: The Time Is Ours!

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Oct 202019
 

From Les temps fous

The morning of September 27th, the streets of Montreal and Quebec City were taken by storm by a historic human tide. Hundreds of thousands, young and old, hit the street in response to the international call for a Global Climate Strike. This call for a planetary strike arrived in Quebec in the spring, when student associations and teachers’ unions began voting to walk out on September 27. In the summer, cégep administrations, threatened by the prospect of illegal strikes by teachers, decided to make the day of September 27 an “institutional day” and arrange the calendar accordingly. Institutional days, as a mechanism for capturing and absorbing strikes, gradually spread throughout the entire Quebec education system, from elementary schools to universities. If, at first, one could be satisfied that more than 600,000 people would be “freed” by the authorities to participate in the demonstration of September 27, doubts arise with respect to the future of the movement and its autonomy. The strike as a voluntary and collective interruption of daily routine has been diverted by school administrations, which used institutional days to ensure that they would maintain control of the agenda and temporality of the struggle.

On September 17, the administration of the CSDM (francophone secondary school board) sent a letter to parents informing them that a pedagogical day would be moved to allow students to participate in the demonstration of the 27th. Beyond the calendar change, the letter was an opportunity for the CSDM to openly threaten students who would seek to strike beyond September 27:

2. Advise your child that in no case may he prevent other students from attending class, since the scolarisation of students is a fundamental right that must be respected;

3. Remind your child that he must show evidence of civility and not participate in blocking access to school in any way whatsoever, with respect to anyone, because this may constitute mischief under the meaning of the law.

All while arranging the calendar to permit protesting on September 27, the CSDM in this way seeks to ensure that the Friday strikes affecting many schools last spring don’t reproduce themselves. It reminds us that institutional days decided from above enable the intermediary powers that are school boards, cegeps, and universities to delegitimize strike days decided from below.

At the university level, the situation at Polytechnique lucidly revealed the fears of power regarding the movement’s development. Despite an electronic vote by students more than 78% in favor of class cancellations, the Polytechnique administration refused to accept the “request” for a levée de cours. Polytechnique director-general Philippe A. Tanguy – former engineer with the French oil company Total – justified this refusal by saying:

“Polytechnique supports this cause, but we are also aware that, unfortunately, this global day of action will not be sufficient to resolve the climate issue; there will be others, and we will not be able to cancel classes for all of these days”.

His justification effectively shows the limits of asking authorities to cancel classes. Despite the adoption of institutional days in many institutions, we cannot forget that a strike never awaited approval by bosses and other authorities to be carried out, and that it’s perfectly normal that it disrupts the institution’s calendar and daily routine, and more largely, society.

The major union federations also played a key role in the disappearance of the strike from public discourse. While various unions began adopting strike mandates for the climate outside of the Labour Code’s legal framework, the union federations explicitly intervened in the movement by demanding that protest organizers stop calling for workers to strike. In place of the collective “Planet on Strike”, formed by workers at the grassroots level, the collective “The Planet Comes to Work” substituted itself, coordinated by union federation leaders. Whereas Planet on Strike aimed to shake up the legality of strikes in Quebec by assuming at the same time the necessity and illegality of the strike, The Planet Comes to Work sought to mobilize workplaces while eliminating all mention of striking from posters, flyers and communications. During the press conference on September 27, Serge Cadieux, spokesperson of The Planet Comes to Work and secretary-general of the FTQ, reminded us of the federations’ lack of political courage by refusing to mention the ten or so unions that had chosen to strike and reaffirming the federations’ submission to the Labour Code. Beyond their lack of political courage to reappropriate the strike outside its legal framework, Serge Cadieux reminded us of the depoliticization of contemporary syndicalism: he affirmed that “there is no opposition between the economy and ecology” and that unions were working with “the world of management” and “the world of finance” in order to confront the climate crisis.

The proximity between the union federations and political and economic power is not new, although one might have thought that in the current context of climate crisis the federations would see the necessity of a rupture with the capitalist system. Far from it! In any case we have no illusions about the union federations’ role in the climate strike movement which has been and will be one of pacification and recuperation.

Through their support of the movement, administrators, politicians and bosses strive to drain environmental questions of all their political character. A flattened “struggle” emerges, without conflict, in which there are no guilty or responsible parties. We all agree on the importance of the environment and we march together to underline it, as if fossil fuel development, the appropriation and destruction of land, or the destruction of rivers and oceans were natural processes escaping our control. Desjardins, National Bank, and CIBC take measures allowing their employees to miss work to protest, MEC closes its stores, alongside a long list of companies ranging from a legal firm to an advertising agency. Joining protesters in the streets, heads of state, ministers and CEOs appear as citizens like the others, who’ll promise to stop buying plastic straws, for their children’s future. They deny the political character of the environmental movement, as if the future of the planet depended more on the good will of each individual than on the decisions they make. By flattening and pacifying what should be a struggle, they try to contain environmental issues within the straitjacket of individual consumption, wherein everyone must do their part, and the 500,000 demonstrators do not realize the collective force that could be produced by their encounter.

Green capitalism’s recuperation of environmental struggles has refined itself now over several decades. It’s probably because these struggles have the capacity to put a colonial and capitalist world into question that they’ve been neutralized so effectively. But for once, the discourse of recuperation sounds oddly false. The generation that grew up surrounded by the same lies, that tell it to study, recycle, work, eat local, and impoverish itself for an increasingly uncertain future, refuses to continue playing the game. Throughout recent months, we’ve seen strike votes passing with huge majorities in unexpected cégeps, illegal strike mandates in local unions, and high school students organizing strikes and weekly demonstrations over many months.

Behind the “strike for the planet” lie questions that largely exceed the stakes within which labor strikes are legally contained. The strike for the planet is not a “pressure tactic” in hopes of getting better working conditions or blocking a tuition hike. Politicians are asked to “do more”, but the rare efforts to define what that could mean fall flat. No demand appears able to contain the extent of the stakes raised by the movement. It’s the very condition of the worker or student subject that could be thrown into question by this strike: why continue studying, working, and investing in your RRSP while the world crumbles beneath our feet? The strike for the planet has the capacity to see itself for what it is, a political strike capable of interrupting the temporality of this death-machine world, a temporality where the growth of capital and colonization is interwoven with the acceleration of ecological catastrophe. In the hour of climate emergency, it is no longer a question of pleading with authority for liberation, but rather of Striking in the most political sense, that is to say destituting our everyday life by collectively retaking each moment of our existences. We can no longer follow the rhythm of a protest movement fenced in by the state. We must strike, interrupt, and radically transform our relation to the world and to time.

Maxime Bernier’s PPC and the Far Right

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Oct 182019
 

From Montréal Antifasciste

Voting is not really our thing, but we do recognize that this is a time when more people are speaking about politics and policies, including many that will have a real impact on many people’s lives. This time around (not for the first time) the Conservatives are contending with a national party to their right, as Maxime Bernier’s People’s Party of Canada fields candidates across the country on a populist platform with climate denial and anti-immigrant sentiment as its key planks.

Maxime Bernier was a federal cabinet minister from 2006-7 and 2011-15 in Stephen Harper’s Conservative Party government. He ran for the Conservative Party leadership in the 2017 leadership election, and came in a close second with over 49% of the vote in the 13th round, after leading the eventual winner, Andrew Scheer, in the first 12 rounds. In August 2018, Bernier resigned from the Conservative Party to create the People’s Party of Canada. The PPC quickly latched onto fears about immigration and immigrants as key issues, alongside support for pipelines and various climate denial conspiracy theories. Indeed, while climate denial is perhaps the most prominent right-wing theme we found on Quebec PPC candidates’ social media accounts, race and racism are what have repeatedly made headlines for Bernier’s populists.

The PPC is part of a (tried and true, worldwide) phenomenon of right-wing splinter parties emerging from the main right-wing party, opening up space on that party’s right. This was done most successfully in Canada by Preston Manning’s Reform Party in the 1990s. The Reform Party emerged to the right of Brian Mulroney’s “mainstream” Progressive Conservatives in 1987 and was so successful that it displaced the PCs before re-joining them in 2000. Like the PPC today, Reform attracted widespread support from right-wing Canadians, most of whom were disaffected Tories, but also a smattering of neo-Nazis and far rightists who jumped on the bandwagon before being eventually expelled. Reform ended up absorbing the rump PC party, and rebranded itself as the “new” more right-wing Conservative Party under Stephen Harper. This in turn provided Bernier with a home for his own political career, from which the PPC has now emerged. In other words, the PPC is part of a dynamic of a section of Canadian voters pushing to the right that has been going on for decades. In a certain sense: nothing new; however, we must keep in mind that both the global and national contexts today are far more favourable to the far right, and it is not for nothing than many Bernier supporters compare his “outsider” campaign to that of Donald Trump.

While the PPC is not even close to being a Nazi or fascist party, even as he ran for Conservative leadership in 2017, Bernier was being singled out by some Canadian neo-Nazis as a potential “maverick” who could help to shake things up in their favour, much as Trump had done in the United States. They weren’t wrong – since founding the PPC, Bernier had adopted a strategy of using racist dogwhistles to try to consolidate support from the most reactionary white Canadian voters. As such, the party has become a pole of attraction for numerous far rightists hoping to either build political power or (for the more far-sighted) to move the frame of debate further to the right. Collecting selfies alongside Bernier had become a pastime for a slice of Canadian reactionaries even before media reports about neo-nazis like Alex Brisson from Huntingdon, Paul Fromm of Ontario, and members of the Northern Guard in Alberta, as well as with members of the Proud Boys, all posing with “Mad Max”.

There have been suggestions (for instance made by B’nai B’rith Canada) that Martin Masse, PPC spokesperson and architect of its public relations strategy, has been key to its embrace of the far right. Masse was owner and publisher of Québécois Libre, an online libertarian news outlet that shut down in 2016. That the PPC’s cozy relationship with racists is primarily due to the influence of one person is highly doubtful, however – rather, the PPC is positioning itself as the option-of-choice for those who find the Conservatives insufficiently right-wing.

Racism is clearly one of the most effective tools for such a strategy, witness PPC billboards and tweets against “mass immigration” and also “against antifa,” or Bernier’s diatribe about “radical Islam” being “the biggest threat to freedom, peace and security in the world today.” “The other parties are complacent and pander to Islamists,” Bernier accused, promising that “The PPC will make no compromise with this totalitarian ideology.” Bernier’s platform calls for a massive reduction in immigration to Canada, down to between 100,000 and 150,000 new immigrants per year, and almost doubling the number of “economic migrants”. He also wants the government to cut off all funding for official multiculturalism, to leave the United Nations Global Compact for Migration and to prioritize refugees who, among other things, “reject political Islam.”(About all this, one might want to check out this article in Politico magazine, that has observed that attitudes towards immigrants have become a key factor in determining which political party Canadians support.)

Such a strategy involves a balancing act. To succeed, Bernier and the PPC have to play to the crowd with lines that the far right will recognize and embrace, all the while not making themselves appear beyond the pale. Perhaps that is why Bernier was a no-show at last year’s December protest in Ottawa against the United Nations Compact on Migration. Organized by the anti-Muslim group ACT for Canada, Bernier was scheduled to speak alongside members of La Meute, Rasmus Paludan of the Danish far-right Stram Kurs political party, and Travis Patron of the (actually white nationalist) Canadian Nationalist Party, before he backed out at the last minute.

A number of media articles have revealed the far-right connections of people active in the PPC as organizers and members whose signatures were used for the PPC to attain official party status. For instance:

  • Darik Horn, a PPC volunteer and also security agent who has accompanied Bernier at a variety of events and media interviews, has been revealed to be a founding member of the neo-fascist Canadian Nationalist Party.
  • Shaun Walker, an American immigrant and organizer with the PPC in St Catharines, as well as one of those who signed for the PPC to become an official party, was revealed to have been the president of the National Alliance (a U.S.-based neo-Nazi organization) in 2007, and also to have been convicted of hate crimes at the time for violence against people of colour. Following these revelations Walker was expelled from the PPC, and Bernier claimed he had slipped through the party’s vetting process. However, it was also revealed that Bernier himself followed Walker on twitter.
  • Others who signed for the PPC to become an official party include Janice Bultje, a founding member of PEGIDA Canada (under the name “Jenny Hill”), and Justin L. Smith, leader of the Sudbury chapter of the Soldiers of Odin.

Unsurprisingly, a number of PPC candidates have made headlines as their social media posts past and present have come to light:

  • Brian Everaert, the PPC candidate for Sarnia-Lambton posted tweets that called Islam a “wart on the ass of the world,” as well as posts about Hilary Clinton and arming teachers. Bernier refused to condemn Everaert.
  • A variety of racist and transphobic posts on social media are revealed to have been made by Bill Capes, the PPC candidate for Essex.
  • Kamloops PPC candidate Ken Finlayson posted on social media comparing climate activist Greta Thunberg to a girl featured in Nazi propaganda from the 1940s.
  • Sybil Hogg, the PPC candidate for Sackville-Preston-Chezzetcook, made a series of posts on Twitter and Facebook with anti-Islam statements within the last year, including one where she characterized Islam as being “pure evil”.

These stories are misleading, though, in that they suggest that the PPC has a few bad apples in it, whereas really the whole party is rife with such sentiments. One gauge of this, and a sign that it is intentional, is those candidates who have left (or been kicked out) when it became clear that there would be no condemnation of the far right from the upper ranks:

  • On September 12, Brian Misera was removed as PPC candidate for Coquitlam–Port Coquitlam after he publicly called upon the party leadership to publicly repudiate racism.
  • On September 30, Chad Hudson, who had been the People’s Party candidate for the Nova Scotia riding of West Nova, quit the party due to its racism, explaining that “I firmly believe now that I’m doing more of a service to this community by calling out this hate and this garbage than actually remaining in the race.”
  • On October 8, Victor Ong, PPC candidate for Winnipeg North, resigned, bemoaning the fact that the PPC “has attracted all manner of fringe, scores of conspiracy theorists and a host of ugliness from coast to coast. That’s not to mention Bernier’s embittered base, replete with ‘white is right’ ideology and (Make America Great Again) hat-wearing members.”

Indeed, a cursory examination of the Facebook pages of PPC candidates reveals that what is really noteworthy is how selective news stories about racist tweets or FB posts have been. Almost every single PPC candidate in Quebec has recently (and repeatedly) shared articles from climate denialist sources, including many with a clearly conspiratorial bent. Mark Sibthorpe, candidate for Papineau, even produced his own YouTube “exposé” revealing how George Soros is behind an international globalist conspiracy to crash economies and make money by spreading panic about climate change. Secondary to climate denial, fears about threats to “free speech” and about “mass immigration” are both recurring themes for Quebec’s PPC candidates, and roughly one in five have recently shared articles from what we would term “national populist” or far-right sources, including LesManchettes.com, the website of André Boies (the French-language translator of the Christchurch killer’s “Great Replacement” manifesto, associated with Montreal’s Yellow Vests), André Pitre’s far-right “Stu Dio” YouTube channel, and a more eclectic and sporadic mix, including Faith Goldy, Alexis Cossette Trudel, Black Pigeon Speaks, the Yellow Vests, and the highly racist “Voice of Europe”.

Still, PPC candidates are not all cut from the same cloth – for some, this is their first foray into politics, whereas others have been around for a while. For instance, Ken Pereira, the whistleblower from the 2013 Charbonneau Commission, was slated to run for the PPC as one of its Quebec candidates, until he had to withdraw his candidacy in early September following his son’s arrest for murder. Pereira produces videos on André Pitre’s YouTube channel, alleging all manner of far-fetched conspiracies, including those relating to QAnon, described by Vice as “a wild theory that an individual who goes by ‘Q’ is leaking information detailing a massive secret war Trump is waging against the ‘deep state’ and an international cabal of pedophiles—and calling the 9/11 terror attacks a ‘false flag.’”

Similarly, Raymond Ayas, who writes for the Postmillenial and is active in the Catholic far right in Quebec, is running as PPC candidate for Ahuntsic-Cartierville. As spokesperson for the Association des parents catholiques du Québec, in 2017 Ayas was reported in the media defending a talk by Jean-Claude Dupuis of the Société-St Pie X and a former leader of the Cercle Jeune Nation and Marion Sigaut (close to Alain Soral in France). It might be noted that members of Atalante were reported to have been on hand at the talk to provide security.

The PPC will be lucky to win more than a couple of ridings in Canada, and may simply fizzle and die. Or it may consolidate a bloc of voters to the right of the Conservatives, making the framework of political debate in Canada even more hostile to racialised people, Indigenous people, Muslims, and immigrants. Either way, the racists and reactionaries who have gravitated around the PPC are unlikely to just go away, and some may be around for years to come; if for nothing else, that makes them worth taking a look at, and keeping an eye on.

 

Call to Action: Solidarity with Rojava—Against the Turkish Invasion!

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Oct 102019
 

From CrimethInc.

Demonstration today (Thursday) at 6pm in front of the Turkish Consulate (1250 René-Lévesque ouest) – Facebook event

On October 6, the Trump administration announced it was pulling US troops out of northern Syria, essentially giving Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan a green light to invade Rojava, carry out ethnic cleansing, and forcibly resettle the area. We are calling for people around the world to engage in protest and/or disruption at Turkish consulates, US government offices, arms manufacturers, and businesses connected with the Turkish government, such as Turkish Airlines.

Since 2012, the autonomous region of Rojava has hosted an inspiring multi-ethnic experiment in self-determination and women’s autonomy, all while fighting the Islamic State (ISIS). After years of struggle, despite sustaining massive casualties, fighters from Rojava participated in liberating all of the territory that ISIS had occupied and freeing those who had been held captive in ISIS strongholds.

In an attempt to justify permitting Turkey to invade Syria, Trump has tweeted that US taxpayers should not have to pay to keep ISIS fighters detained. In fact, the US has not paid a cent to detain captured ISIS fighters; that has been completely organized by the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). The reality is that the Turkish invasion of Kurdish territory will create the conditions for ISIS to reemerge and resume operations in Syria and around the world. For years, Turkey has permitted weapons, recruits, and resources to reach ISIS through its borders.

Both ISIS and the Turkish invasion pose an existential threat to all the ethnic and religious groups indigenous to the region, including Arabs, Christians (Armenians, Assyrians, Chaldeans, and Syriacs), Turkmens, Chechens, Alevites, and Yazidis. Many of these groups have gained a voice in their own lives for the first time, yet now face massacre at the hands of the Turkish military and the jihadists.

Turkey’s invasion of Rojava sets a new precedent for military aggression, ethnic cleansing, and the destruction of egalitarian and feminist experiments like the one in Rojava. It sets the stage for more bloodshed and oppression everywhere around the world, paving the way for ethno-nationalist autocrats like Trump, Erdoğan, Bashar al-Assad, Jair Bolsonaro, and Vladimir Putin to dominate world politics for generations to come.

For months, people in Rojava have called for international solidarity in the event of an invasion. We must bring attention to the plight of the people in Rojava and make it known that there will be consequences for this.

To keep silent is to be complicit.

We call on all people of good conscience to engage in protest and disruption at Turkish consulates, US government offices, arms manufacturers, and businesses connected with the Turkish government, such as Turkish Airlines. The Rojava Solidarity Committee Europe has joined organizers in Rojava in calling for a day of action on October 12 against the Turkish invasion; we endorse this call, and call for further actions before and after October 12.

We need to build a context for broad-based direct action as a step towards building a global movement that can make such atrocities impossible. Together, we can stop the invasion.

See you in the streets.


Tools


Endorsements

If your organization endorses this call, please circulate this text and contact us at coordination.for.rojava@protonmail.com to sign on. This list will be updated regularly at crimethinc.com and itsgoingdown.org.

  • Coordination for the Defense of Rojava
  • 1312 Press
  • Acid Communist League of Atlanta
  • Agency (www.anarchistagency.com/)
  • Horacio Almanza Alcalde
  • Angry Socialist Community – ASC (@AngrySocialists)
  • Anon Anarchist Action
  • Antifascists of the Seven Hills
  • Antifascistas Belo Horizonte – Brazil
  • Atlanta Antifascists
  • The Autonomous University of Political Education
  • The Base
  • Bay Area Mesopotamia Solidarity Committee
  • Black Rose Anarchist Federation – Los Angeles Local
  • Black Socialists of America
  • Bloomington Anarchist Black Cross
  • The Boiling Point Collective (http://facebook.com/pg/boilingpointkzoo/about/)
  • The Rev. Dr. Colin Bossen, Unitarian Universalist Minister, First Unitarian Universalist Church of Greater Houston
  • Breakaway Social Center
  • Colorado Springs Anti-Fascists
  • Cooperation Jackson
  • CrimethInc. Workers’ Collective
  • The Dandelion Network
  • Decolonize This Place (decolonizethisplace.org)
  • Demand Utopia Seattle
  • Democratic Socialists of America – Communist Caucus
  • Denver Anarchist Black Cross
  • Direct Action Front for Palestine
  • DC Antifascist Coalition
  • Ricardo Dominguez, Associate Professor, UCSD
  • Economics for Everyone – Olympia (facebook.com/EconomicsforEveryoneOly/)
  • Extinction Rebellion Seattle
  • The Fayer Collective
  • The Final Straw
  • Frontline Organization Working to End Racism (FLOWER)
  • Flyover Social Center
  • David Graeber
  • Hispagatos
  • The Holler Network
  • Industrial Workers of the World – Atlanta
  • Inhabit
  • It’s Going Down
  • Kali Akuno
  • Kasa Invisível Belo Horizonte – Brazil
  • Knoxville Anti-Fascist Action
  • The Lucy Parsons Center
  • Midwest Unrest (@MW_Unrest)
  • No Space for Hate Bloomington (https://nospace4hate.btown-in.org/)
  • Noumenon Distro
  • Olympia Solidarity Network (olyassembly.org/olysol/)
  • One People’s Project (idavox.com)
  • Pacific NorthWest Antifascist Workers Collective
  • Dr. Ian Alan Paul, Assistant Professor of Emerging Media at Stony Brook University
  • People’s Defense League – South Louisiana
  • PM Press (www.pmpress.org/)
  • Progressive Global Commons (@ProGloCommons)
  • rek2 (as individual)
  • Revolutionary Abolitionist Movement- Elm City
  • Revolutionary Abolitionist Movement – NYC
  • Revolutionary Organizing Against Racism (ROAR Collective)
  • The Right to the City – Timisoara, Romania
  • Rojava Montréal
  • Rojava Solidarity Colorado (@RojavaSoliCO)
  • Rojava Solidarity Portland (facebook.com/rojavasolidarityportland/)
  • Rojava Solidarity Seattle
  • Scuffletown Anti-Repression Committee
  • Seattle Rising Tide
  • Micol Seigel, author of Violence Work
  • Soflaexit (Soflaexit.com)
  • Solidarity Against Fascism East Bay (SAFEBay)
  • Sprout Distro
  • Tar Sands Blockade – Texas
  • The Teardown Community
  • The Torch Antifascist Network
  • Voices in Movement
  • A World Without Police
  • Youth Liberation Front (Portland, Seattle, Wisconsin, Carolina, Bay Area, Illinois)

 

A Timeline of Canadian Colonialism and Indigenous Resistance

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Oct 092019
 

From North Shore Counter-Info

Based on a two-part article by Tim Kitz that appeared in The Leveller 5.4 and 5.5 in 2013 to put Idle No More in context. Developed into a game by Indigenous Solidarity Ottawa, for use in their Introduction to Anti-Colonialism & Indigenous Solidarity workshop.

“Canada doesn’t give a fuck about Indigenous rights,” as Romeo Saganash, a Cree MP for the NDP, famously put it. Those who have been paying attention to the current Liberal regime shouldn’t be surprised by this declaration.

In the 2015 federal election, Justin Trudeau’s Liberals attempted to woo Indigenous voters – and sympathetic settlers galvanized by Idle No More – by promising a renewed nation-to-nation relationship. His friendly attitude towards Indigenous grievances was a refreshing change from years of cantankerous Conservative antagonism, contributing significantly to the ‘sunny ways’ said to have won the hearts of Canadian voters.

Political commentators also attributed Trudeau’s surprise majority government in part to Indigenous voting support. There is a long tradition of Indigenous people refusing to vote out of skepticism towards Canada’s parliamentary democracy.  And for good reason – it being an imposed system of colonial governance, which up until 1960 denied Indigenous people the right to vote unless they relinquished their Indian status.

Yet anyone who put their faith in Liberal promises has to be disappointed – enough to cut loose with a choice cussword or three, perhaps. Trudeau can change the name of a colonial department or  building and make Indigenous women members of his cabinet, but he can’t respect these women or Indigenous consent and he can’t apply UNDRIP into Canadian law.

“Canada doesn’t give a fuck about Indigenous rights.” Those who have been paying attention for the past four years won’t be surprised by this statement. But then, those who have been paying attention to the past 400 years wouldn’t be surprised either. Canada’s imperial parents never cared for Indigenous rights and they birthed the nation out of that active indifference.

After all, Canada’s parliamentary democracy and capitalist economy are systems imposed on the land and its original peoples, just like the 1867 Constitution Act was unilaterally imposed as Canada’s founding document, giving European settlers exclusive control over Indigenous lives, lands, and resources.

What is remarkable about this colonial project is how often it speaks in a benevolent voice – with words that sound good, but actions that undermine Indigenous nationhood and rights. The vocabulary may evolve, but the impulse to ‘improve’ the lot of First Nations by assimilating them into the Canadian economic and political order is tenacious.

Since Contact, then, Euro-Canadian governments have found it difficult to recognize Indigenous peoples as equal partners so long as they retain their cultural identity and Indigenous status. Assimilation would also conveniently eliminate the government’s ‘Indian problem’ – and this is as true today as it was for early colonial governments.

But, as this timeline will show, Indigenous resistance to assimilatory efforts is also nothing new.


■ 1600s

Indigenous Welcome

Indigenous nations are generally welcoming when Europeans arrive on their territory. They trade with the strange newcomers from a position of strength and prosperity, having developed cultural, political, and ecological systems that have grown and flourished over the course of millennia.

Europeans view Indigenous lands with amazement and envy, having degraded and destroyed most of their natural resources and ecological systems.

Terra Nullius & the Doctrine of Discovery

To justify the appropriation and exploitation of the riches of Indigenous Nations’ land in Africa and the ‘New World,’ European governments develop the Doctrine of Discovery and the legal concept of terra nullius.

These legal doctrines say that Turtle Island is ‘empty land’ that belongs to no one. According to this reasoning, Indigenous nations – and the ownership or title that they exercise – can be ignored because they do not have permanent settlements, farms, Christianity, state governments, or ‘real’ culture, economy or civilization.

Colonial governments grant themselves absolute title to the land by virtue of ‘discovery.’ They say that Indigenous peoples only have subservient usage rights, not having used the land to its ‘full potential,’ but cannot genuinely own land or exercise sovereignty any more than the ‘beasts in the forest.’

■ 1700s

Resistance to Settlement

European governments have defined the land as legally ‘empty,’ but when waves of settlers begin arriving, Indigenous communities resist the theft and destruction of their land through diplomatic and military means.

Royal Proclamation of 1763

Settlers and colonial governments have to contend with the presence and resistance of First Nations on territories that they want to exploit. So the British Crown releases a Proclamation acknowledging ‘Indian title,’ but also creating a process by which this title can be extinguished – treaties.

Earlier treaties wereare largely concerned with establishing a peaceful relationship between the Crown and First Nations, one where they will share the land. The Proclamation of 1763 envisionsed treaties, going forward, as a way to settle land ownership. It outlaws individual land transfers, putting a check on American expansionism in particular. (This antagonizes the American colonies and contributes to their revolt in 1776). The right to acquire Indigenous land is reserved for the Crown – affirming nation-to-nation diplomacy, but mostly so the Crown can acquire First Nations’ land.

■ 1800s

Treaties

Indigenous nations continue to make treaties – some willingly, some under pressure or outright coercion – with colonial governments in order to safeguard their land and way of life. They still see the treaties as agreements to share the land that initiate mutual relationships that must be maintained and renewed; colonial governments see them as one-time transactions by which they acquire land.

The written, English version of the treaties often include language where First Nations recognize Crown sovereignty and cede Indigenous territory. Such concepts are often difficult if not impossible to express in a First Nation’s language and culture, but then Crown negotiators are also rarely open and honest.

In return for accepting existing white settlements, First Nations are generally promised an inalienable ‘reserve’ of their traditional territory to live on and are told that they can continue their traditional use of the rest of their territory. Allen G. Harper, an Indian Affairs official, later describes reserves as “the cradle of the Indian civilizing effort – and the means of securing the white man’s freedom to exploit the vast riches of a young dominion.”

Indian Act

With Indigenous nations asserting their treaty rights and still trying to use their territories and reserves in traditional ways, colonial governments turn to assimilation as a way of eliminating their ‘Indian problem.’ In Canada, efforts to assimilate natives center on the Indian Act.
The Act defines who is ‘Indian’ without any consultation, excluding many individuals that Indigenous communities consider members. The Act states that Indigenous women who marry settlers lose their status, as well as their children.. Nations are broken up into smaller ‘bands’ and existing leaders are not recognized. A Western electoral system is imposed on most bands, ignoring traditional selection processes and excluding Indigenous women.

The overall goal is to ‘civilize’ Indigenous people by Christianizing them and forcing them into permanent agricultural settlements. ‘Civilizing’ programs are to be funded by the sale of reserve land. Processes are created for individuals to be enfranchised as Canadian citizens and individual property owners, and for Indigenous nations to be assimilated into the bottom of the governmental order as municipalities. Enfranchised individuals would lose their legal status as ‘Indians,’ while municipalized communities would cease to exist as distinct nations.

Canadian politicians like John A. Macdonald assume this assimilation is inevitable and will be seen as desirable by Indigenous peoples, remarking that “the great aim of our legislation has been to do away with the tribal system and assimilate the Indian people in all respects.”

■ Late 1800s – Early 1900s

Indigenous Resistance to ‘Civilizing’ Efforts

Many elected band councils refuse to use the limited authority granted to them by the Indian Act. Almost no individuals choose to become enfranchised and most nations refuse to recognize individual deeds granted to those who do. Nations also resist attempts to alienate more of their land, often successfully. Farming programs, meant to replace Indigenous subsistence practices, are deemed a failure. Missionaries struggle to make progress and they become frustrated by their inability to halt traditional ceremonies. On the prairies, the Métis and Cree launch an armed ‘rebellion.’

Cultural Repression and Residential Schools

Since Indigenous Peoples will not voluntarily ‘civilize’ themselves (i.e. assimilate), the Canadian government decides to force them. It bans spiritual and cultural practices. Indian Affairs and its on-reserve agents exercise totalitarian control over the lives of Indigenous people, forcing them to adopt European norms. Agents control band finances, direct band council meetings, and cast the deciding vote in the event of a tie. Without agents’ permission, individuals cannot, for example, legally write a will, sell crops, slaughter livestock, or leave the reserve.

Indian Affairs is granted the power to override councils and chiefs – and depose them at will. Bands lose control of the disposal of reserve land, their land is leased without permission, and ‘surplus’ reserve land is sold to waves of new settlers.

Most importantly, Indigenous children are taken away from their families, homes, and cultures for schooling in settler culture. Attendance in residential schools is mandatory, and children are punished for speaking their language, or engaging in spiritual and cultural practices. Conditions are deplorable: thousands die from malnutrition and disease. Death rates reach as high as 69% in some institutions. Thousands of students are physically and sexually abused; traumatized survivors return home years later to family they barely know.

With land loss and ecological destruction making most Indigenous communities destitute, they have little means to resist the colonial clampdown. Bands are also isolated by the fragmentation and trauma they have suffered, and the restrictions placed on travelling off-reserve. They tend to initially hope that residential schools will help their children adjust to new realities and flourish – and in turn, help their communities do the same.

■ Late ’40s – Early ’70s

Indigenous Activism

Ironically, residential schools help foster a consciousness of being ‘Indian’ rather than simply members of particular bands and nations. ‘Pan-Indian’ organizing and resistance begins in earnest with the formation of groups like the National Indian Brotherhood, the forerunner of today’s Assembly of First Nations. Campaigns to improve the lot of Indigenous peoples find support among settler civil society. This pressure forces the Canadian legislature to consult Indigenous people on the Indian Act for the first time. The Act is reformed and some of its more draconian aspects are softened.

White Paper & Colonial Megaprojects

Trudeau’s Liberal government introduce the ‘White Paper on Indian Policy’ in 1969. It uses a rhetoric of individual rights reminiscent of that used by the civil rights movement in order to justify assimilation. It envisions eliminating reserves, the Indian Act, and any recognition of individual ‘Indian status’ or collective aboriginal rights. The existence of aboriginal title is denied, and treaties are dismissed as irrelevant in the context of modern Canada.

Meanwhile, the Canadian state and corporations plan huge development projects – the James Bay Hydro Project and Mackenzie Valley pipeline – on Indigenous territory in Northern Canada. There is no consultation with the Denée, Inuit, Cree, and Métis who would be dramatically affected by these projects.

■ 1970s-80s

Red Power, Public Opinion, and Court Battles

Fuelled by outrage at Liberal arrogance, the Red Power movement asserts Indigenous sovereignty and calls for treaties to be honoured. Its emphasis on pride in Indigenous identity also births a cultural and spiritual renaissance.

Meanwhile, Indigenous resistance to Northern megaprojects gains significant press coverage and public support, forcing the government to stop ignoring and start negotiating with the Cree, Inuit, Dené, and Métis. The Native Peoples’ Caravan and the Constitution Express – both grassroots-organized cross-country treks from B.C. to Ottawa – raises awareness about broken treaties, Indigenous grievances, and the need to recognize Indigenous rights.

Having regained access to the courts and control of band finances, Indigenous groups challenge government control of hunting, fishing, and land in the courts. Eventually the Supreme Court acknowledges the continued existence of aboriginal title, to the chagrin of Trudeau’s Liberals.

Modern-Day Treaties and the Canadian Constitution

Trudeau’s Liberals abandon the White Paper and its most egregious principles. While they refuse to call it a treaty, they sign the James Bay Agreement with the Cree and Inuit of Québec, who win a say in resource development and significant territorial and financial settlements – but only in return for the surrender of aboriginal title over other portions of their territories.

Later, bowing to the pressure from the courts, First Nations leadership, and grassroots Indigenous activists, Section 35 of the newly-created Canadian Constitution does recognize the “aboriginal and treaty rights of the aboriginal peoples of Canada.” It leaves these rights undefined.

■ Mid-80s

Indian Act Amendment

After a century of pushing back against the feds, Indigenous advocates win an amendment to the Indian Act, Bill C-31, which eliminates sexist provisions thatwhich meant that women lost their Indian status and band membership if they married non-status men. Affected women (and their children) could apply to restore their status, but only if they lost it after 1951. This “Act to Amend the Indian Act” also finally eliminates enfranchisement and grants bands greater powers – but only to make bylaws, a kind of municipal and subservient self-government.

Buffalo Jump Report

This leaked cabinet memo from Mulroney’s Conservative government reveals their desire to return to many of the White Paper’s goals. It calls for the extinguishment of aboriginal title, the establishment of Indigenous governments as municipalities, and the devolution of Indian Affairs’ responsibilities and spending to provinces and municipalities. This policy provides the model for the government’s land claims negotiations with First Nations and the one agreement Canada signs during Conservative rule, with the Sechelt First Nation. Mulroney also reopens constitutional negotiations with Québec and the other provinces – leading to the Meech Lake Accord – but do not bother to include First Nations.

■ Early 1990s

More Constitutional Reform and the Oka Crisis

The Meech Lake Accord fails when Elijah Harper, a Cree member of the Manitoba legislature, refuses to grant the unanimous vote needed for approval. He criticizes the accord for not consulting with First Nations. In response, Indigenous groups are consulted in the next round of constitutional talks. This leads to the Charlottetown Accord’s recognition of aboriginal self-government; while the accord is vague, it promises aboriginal governments would be constitutionally autonomous of federal and provincial governments. Yet the accord is rejected in a nation-wide referendum.

Meanwhile, Mohawks at Kanesatake erect a barricade to prevent the town of Oka, QC, from clearing a piece of landpines to expand a golf course and build 60 condos. Since Louis XV granted the land to Sulpician missionaries in 1717 on behalf of First Nations, every colonial government has agreed the land in question can’t possibly belong to the Mohawks themselves. With solidarity blockades springing up around the country, the Mohawks repel a raid by the Sûreté du Québec and stare down the Canadian military. The crisis shocks Canadian society and leads to some significant soul-searching.

The Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples (RCAP)

In the wake of Oka and Meech Lake, the Conservatives’ Buffalo Jump policy is in tatters and they desperately need to respond to Indigenous grievances and assertions of power. They set up a Royal Commission. Five years later, its report calls for sweeping changes to Canadian-Indigenous relations and recommends self-government for First Nations.
Chrétien’s Liberals dismiss the report and its recommendations as too costly, having swept to power promising “a new partnership with aboriginal peoples that is based on trust, mutual respect and participation in the decision making process.”

Eight years later, Paul Martin’s new Liberal government trumpets the signing of the Kelowna Accord with Indigenous leaders and provincial premiers. The accord ignores self-government and any challenging RCAP recommendations, but designates $5 billion for Indigenous education, housing, health services, and economic development. When the Liberals are defeated, the incoming Conservatives jettison the deal.

■ Late 90s – 2000s

The Birth of Nunavut

Ever since opposition to the James Bay Hydro Project coalesced among the Inuit, Inuit Tapirisat (‘Inuit United’) pushed the concept of an Inuit territorial government. Almost forty years later, the largest land-claim and self-governance agreement in Canadian history creates the territory of Nunavut (‘Our Land’) for the Inuit people. The territory’s justice and political system incorporate traditional Inuit governance principles; its legislative assembly, for example, does not have political parties and works by consensus. The territory has four official languages: English, French, Inuktitut, and Inuinnaqtu. The self-government and territorial and financial concessions of the Nunavut Land Claims Agreement also come at a price – the surrender of aboriginal title and acknowledgement of underlying Crown title by the Inuit.

Comprehensive Land Claims Process

Successive Liberal and Conservative governments entrench a comprehensive land claims process along the lines of the James Bay Agreement and the Nunavut Land Claims Agreement. The Canadian government continue to insist that the extinguishment of aboriginal title and rights is a prerequisite to the negotiation of land claims and self-determination. Many First Nations feel forced to come to the table, in order to halt or moderate devastating resource development on their land. In order to take part in the negotiation process, Indigenous groups must also borrow large sums of money from the government. These debts give the government significant leverage and will be subtracted from future settlements.

On-reserve living standards can be desperate, and government services will only be brought up to settler standards (or something like it) through the signing of these ‘self-termination’ deals, as Mohawk policy analyst Russell Diabo has called them. These final agreements would convert First Nations into municipalities and their reserves into fee simple (i.e. individually-owned) lands. No compensation for past crimes, injustices, or mismanagement is allowed, and First Nations must release the Crown from any future compensation claims.

As it continues, the Land Claims Process basically ignores a growing body of Supreme Court decisions affirming aboriginal title – and then provisions in the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP), as it is developed then passed.

■ 2000s

Adoption of United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP)

In the works for more than 25 years and created by Indigenous representatives in negotiation with UN state actors, the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) is finally passed by the UN’s General Assembly. UNDRIP affirms Indigenous Peoples right to self-determination and self-government; to their traditional lands and means of subsistence; to redress for land theft, forced assimilation, and economic deprivation; and to FPIC – free, prior, and informed consent for development projects affecting their lands and resources.

Foot-Dragging on UNDRIP and Legislating for First Nations

Canada is one of only four nations to oppose the UNDRIP, the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, which includes recognition of Indigenous territorial rights and their right to self-government. After other holdout nations indicate they will adopt the declaration, Harper’s Conservative government finally endorses it. But it calls the UNDRIP ‘aspirational’ and refuses to examine or change Canadian laws and practices that might contradict it, such as the comprehensive land claims process.

Meanwhile, the Conservatives introduce several omnibus bills changing environmental protections (to clear the way for resource development generally and pipelines specifically) and the administration of First Nations, without consulting Indigenous communities.

■ 2010s

Idle No More

Three Indigenous women activists in Saskatoon lead a teach-in on the omnibus Conservative bills affecting First Nations, which births the largest Indigenous mass movement in Canadian history. Idle No More sparks teach-ins, protests, blockades, and round dances in public places across Turtle Island and beyond. It is often organized and propagated through social media. Idle No More calls for a renewal of the relationship between Canada and Indigenous Peoples on a nation to nation basis, environmental protection, honouring the treaties, and cultural revitalization. The diffuse movement tends to be led by grassroots, urban-based Indigenous women and sometimes criticizes official Assembly of First Nations leadership, which is often reserve-based men. Idle No More generates significant settler sympathy and participation, along with a backlash in some quarters.

Cheap Liberal Talk

Trudeau Liberals sweep to power, echoing Idle No More rhetoric and promising a new nation-to-nation relationship based on the recognition of Indigenous rights, respect, cooperation, and partnership. However, his government continues making unilateral decisions regarding pipelines and other resource-extracting and development projects on Indigenous territories, without proper consultation or consent, stating that Indigenous communities do not have veto power.

The government also puts together the Indigenous Rights, Recognition and Implementation Framework, which expresses a clear and coherent set of goals revolving around domesticating Indigenous self-determination within Canadian Confederation. These goals have been ordered into legislation and policy in a manner that guides First Nations towards a narrow model of “self-government” outside of the Indian Act. Indigenous critics call it the new White Paper.

With the next election approaching, the Liberals back away from Indigenous rights. Trudeau launches the election campaign without even mentioning Indigenous Peoples, a far cry from four years ago. Maybe the Liberals realize his glib Indigenous-friendly rhetoric was no longer credible; maybe they think the recent rightward political current and continuing popularity of pipelines make talk of respect for Indigenous rights a political liability.

■ Now

Indigenous Peoples’ Strategic Position

Indigenous communities have been damaged by centuries of colonialism, but continue to exist on their traditional territories – often in more remote and relatively untouched areas, but also as a significant and growing population in urban centres. A cultural revival continues, and some form of aboriginal title can no longer be denied.

Meanwhile, hundreds of land claims negotiations, many going back decades, drag on. Colonial governments and corporations still dream of new and never-ending cycles of resource exploitation on Indigenous land, often with catastrophic ecological implications. Indigenous Nations are generally the biggest challenge to these plans for economic ‘development,’ from Secwepemc Tiny House Warriors and Wet’suwet’en camps blocking pipelines, to Grassy Narrows Anishnaabeg and Barriere Lake Algonquin logging opposition, Innu and Inuit resistance the Muskrat Falls dam, and much more.

Toward a Revolutionary Environmental Movement

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Oct 052019
 

From CLAC

The following text was written by the CLAC,  the IWW and Montréal Antifasciste and was distributed at the Montreal climate demonstration on September 27, 2019. It can also be downloaded to print here.

 

1. GOVERNMENTS WON’T SAVE US

Those who benefit from poisoning the land and exploiting people you care about won’t be reformed. They’ll make it seem like they hear your voices and occasionally put on grand spectacles to temporarily appease your anger. They’ll encourage you to channel your anxiety into pointless practices that only reinforce individualism. So while some of us compete to take shorter showers or to reduce our trash output, government officials, universities, and corporations shamelessly invest in more pipelines, host uncritical academic conferences, or fly jets to fancy meetings where empty promises are made.

The impact of human emissions of greenhouse gases on climate has been known since the late 19th century. The view that carbon dioxide affects global warming has been widespread since the 70s. Since the 80s and 90s, observations and computer models have overwhelmingly pointed to human-made activities as important factors in climate change. It’s been more than 30 years since the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was created to compile information and advise world governments on how to minimize the anthropogenic (human-induced) climate change that has already claimed innumerable human lives and caused the extinction of many other animal species. This same panel now says we only have 10 years left before we reach a point of no return towards the death of this planet. Our countries are consuming the bulk of the planet’s resources. Yet here we are, asking for the same colonial governments and political class that put us in this mess to ban plastic straws and increase carbon taxes. We have been begging them for decades now. It’s time we start taking power ourselves.

 

2. CAPITALISM AND THE CLIMATE CRISIS

Capitalism is a socioeconomic and political system under which a privileged few own what the rest of us need to survive. That means the worth of sentient beings and plants is based on their ability to generate wealth. It’s the idea that land, workplaces, trees, animals, housing, and water, are to be owned privately by individuals or corporations, which gives them power to exploit these things however they want, regardless of our concerns, needs, and well-being. This economic system is why corporations are free to build fossil fuel infrastructures on unceded Indigenous land as governments use militarized police to suppress any form of resistance.

To exist, capitalism must uphold hierarchy, power, and obedience. That’s why your acts of rebellion are framed differently than their acts of systemic violence (e.g. stealing food from Walmart vs stealing land from Indigenous peoples). Our efforts towards a better future are meaningless without a radical departure from the system that made violence and destruction the normal (and legal) state of affairs.

 

3. COLONIALISM, RACISM, AND DESTRUCTION

To be green is to also to oppose colonialism and racism. Both of these things have everything to do with the climate crisis.

Atmospheric pollution can’t be calculated without taking into account past and present colonial realities. Our understanding of how different countries contribute to climate change must take into account historical greenhouse gas emissions, and most importantly, who profits from the destruction. Industries and empires have been built on the labor of Black and Indigenous people and other people of color. Canadian and American companies murder land defenders for minerals in Latin America and Africa, poison air and waterways in Asia, and put our trash on boats to be dumped far from our eyes.

Repeatedly in Canadian history, ecological devastation has been used as an intentional weapon against Indigenous peoples. Overhunting of bison by settlers led to famine in the Prairies in the 19th century, which was consciously encouraged by the Canadian government under John A. Macdonald as a tool of genocide to “clear the West.” Such practices continue to this day. Grassy Narrows is an Indigenous community near Ontario’s border with Manitoba; its water was contaminated by tons of mercury dumped into its water system by an upstream paper mill. One study estimated that 90 per cent of the population suffers from some degree of mercury poisoning, which can cause everything from cognitive impairments to hearing loss and emotional changes. The heavy metal can be passed from mothers to babies they carry, making it a problem that lasts generations. This is the legacy of Canadian colonialism and genocide; for many people the ecological catastrophe is already centuries old.

In so many ways, the most oppressed always pay the price for Western lifestyles and the out-of-control growth that accompanies them. Droughts, floods, and famines, are increasingly common and displaced people need new places to call home. Thus, as we fight climate change, we must also fight the system of borders that values some lives above others. We must fight the police entering migrants’ homes in the middle of the night to take parents away. We must fight the construction of a migrant prison in Laval that has kids growing up behind bars. We must fight against oil wars that leave entire countries destroyed. We must fight white-supremacy whether it takes the form of neo-fascist militias, conservative columnists, or colonial states claiming sovereignty over Indigenous land. Ultimately, we must also confront anyone who accepts any of this is without feeling profound anger. We can’t allow the most privileged people on this planet to use terms like « overpopulation » or « migrant crisis » because they are too scared and selfish to stand up to real perpetrators of the destruction of our world.

 

4. RESIST SCAPEGOATING AND THE FAR RIGHT

Certain groups are taking advantage of the catastrophes taking place to put their own hateful and nightmarish ideas into practice.

Following hurricane Katrina that devastated New Orleans in 2005, white supremacist militias took advantage of the disaster to murder random Black people they found trying to survive the floods. More recently, in 2019 in both Christchurch, New Zealand, and El Paso, Texas, neo-nazi gunmen committed massacres, killing dozens of people of color, in attacks which they explicitly framed as being to “save the environment.” All over the world, many people in the rich nations which are creating the most ecological damage are demanding tighter border controls and restrictions on immigration, often citing the need to protect natural resources. At the same time, some racists suggest that there are too many people in the world and target racialized people and people in the Global South with coercive “population control” measures. Here in Quebec, members of far right anti-immigrant groups have sometimes found themselves welcomed in environmentalist spaces and mobilizations, while the concerns of people of color and anti-racists have been simply brushed aside.

This legacy of eco-fascism must be confronted, otherwise the movement to save the planet could very easily find itself manipulated and turned into an instrument to oppress and do violence to those already most directly harmed by the catastrophes capitalism has unleashed.

 

5. WHAT WE CAN DO!

  • Reject legality, especially when laws are made by colonial states (e.g. Canada, Quebec) unrecognized by the first inhabitants of the land.
  • Listen to and make space for Indigenous voices in the struggle against the colonial and capitalist destruction of ecosystems.
  • Recognize when our struggles are being co-opted by political parties or companies to amass sympathy and capital.
  • Avoid political parties, non-profits, or anyone pretending to fight domination while reproducing power hierarchies.
  • Learn about alternative (anarchist, communist, feminist, anticolonial) ways of organizing social life.
  • Attack the symbols of capitalist power: banks, mining companies and multinational corporations.
  • Make the fight against all forms of oppression an active part of your militancy and do your part to ensure the burden of dealing with uncomfortable realities linked to climate change don’t fall on the shoulders of those patriarchy deems responsible for the role of care.
  • Practice consensual decision-making and cultivate consensual relationships.
  • Get informed, end isolation by finding accomplices within your communities, and build networks of resistance with others who are willing to stand up to power.
  • Only take calculated risks and practice security culture.
  • Oh and obviously if we’re going to get arrested, let’s make it worth it.

This flyer was written and is distributed on unceded Indigenous land and a gathering place known to he Kanien’kehá:ka (Mohawk) Nation as Tiohtiá:ke (Montreal).

 

OTHER GROUPS AND RESOURCES OF INTEREST

Chasing Atalante: Where do the Fascists Work?

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Oct 022019
 

From Montréal Antifasciste

In December 2018, Montréal Antifasciste published a dossier on the neofascist organization Atalante, tracing the group’s history as well as the trajectory of some of the individuals at the heart of the project, specifically, members of the Québec Stomper Crew gang and the band Légitime Violence. A series of follow-up articles have focused on the activities of a number of people within Atalante’s sphere of influence.

It’s September 2019, and although Atalante’s activities have slowed down a bit in recent months, the core militants show no sign of calling it a day, so we need to remind them and their entourage that we have no intention of letting up.

In order to make the social cost of being a fascist or a Nazi in our neighbourhoods and communities intolerable, the most effective tactic remains exposing the fascists to their communities, to their colleagues, employers, families, and neighbours, from whom they generally hide the real nature of their activities or use euphemisms like “nationalist,” rather than saying they are fascists. Given that they have decided to be Nazis and to persist in heading down that road, we are completely committed to seeing that they pay the consequences. History has shown us that sooner or later fascist principles always lead to violence —sometimes even genocide— targeting people from different social sectors who are already suffering more than their share of misery and oppression in so-called democratic capitalist society, and we have no intention of standing by while this history repeats itself.

By making public where various fascists from Atalante work, it is most definitely our intention to cost these fascists their jobs, because the projects they are involved in in their personal lives endanger both their immediate colleagues and the general public, most particularly racialized people, Muslims, Jews, queers, and leftists.

We think that campaigns to isolate and ostracize them and to target companies that provide them with shelter and support are necessary, both as a matter of public safety and as an act of working-class solidarity.

This is a reminder that fascists will never be welcome in the places where we live or where we work.


Roxanne Baron

Roxanne Baron

Roxanne Baron, practical nurse

Hôpital de l’Enfant-Jésus (Centre Hospitalier Universitaire de Québec)
1-418-525-4444
info@chudequebec.ca
https://www.facebook.com/HEJQc

Roxanne Baron, the only woman in the Québec Stomper Crew, is not just some unimportant member. She is also a key figure in Atalante, having participated in almost all of its actions since the organization’s inception.

Her exact function in Atalante isn’t clear, but we know that until recently she played an important role on Instagram, sharing numerous photos of herself and her comrades carrying out actions in Québec City and Montréal, as well as, for example, at the CasaPound “mother ship” in Italy. (In fact, her carelessness on Instagram cost some of her comrades their anonymity … oops.)

A fact that is particularly staggering on a variety of levels, Baron hasn’t been shy over the months and years about repeatedly bragging about her dubious reading habits while at her place of work: the Hôpital de l’Enfant-Jésus. She claims that without her colleagues or the hospital’s patients noticing, she read works from the neofascist organization CasaPound, the Belgian Nazi Léon Degrelle, the fascist historian Robert Brasillach, the ultranationalist intellectual Charles Maurras, and the French antisemite Jacques Ploncard. She even crows about surreptitiously reading Nazi texts at work:

“Journée tranquille… Quand on croit que tu lis de petits romans comme tout le monde au travail”
[A quiet day… When they think you’re reading some innocuous novel like everyone else (LOL emoticon).]

We also know from her Instagram account that she has tattoos with an array of fascist images: a fasces, the symbol at the origin of the word“fascism”; a Celtic cross, a universally recognized “White Power” emblem; the inscription “le diable rit avec nous” [the devil laughs with us], a reference to the lyrics of the Nazi hymn SS marschiert in Feindesland; another inscription reading “presente per tutti camerati caduti,” a traditional Italian fascist greeting; and a mjölnir, the hammer of Thor, an image that is not explicitly racist, but which is now systematically sported by white supremacist Odinists. To put the star on top of the Christmas tree, something that is not without interest for opponents of “religious symbols” in the workplace, around her neck Baron wears a sonnenrad, a black sun, an occult symbol popular with contemporary neo-Nazis.

At the very least, it’s alarming to think of this person, who in her private life openly participates in a clearly racist, antisemitic, Islamophobic, and homophobic political project, working in a health services institution, where she is in daily contact with the general public, including a large number of people from different social sectors designated for elimination by Nazi ideology.


Antoine Mailhot-Bruneau

Antoine Mailhot-Bruneau

Antoine Mailhot-Bruneau, paramedic

Dessercom
1-418-835-7154
https://www.dessercom.com/nous-joindre/
https://www.facebook.com/dessercom/

Alias “Tony Stomper.”After growing up in Mont-Laurier with his younger brother Étienne (also an Atalante member), Antoine Mailhot-Bruneau began his CEGEP studies at Lionel-Groulx, participating in the student movement during the 2007 strike. After that, he moved to Québec City, where he joined the Québec Stompers, at the time a street gang gravitating toward far-right ultranationalism. Around that time, he went to Rimouski to study to become a sailor, moving on to the Université Laval, entering a program to become a history teacher, which he soon abandoned.

On a trip to Italy, he discovered Blocco Studentesco, a neofascist student organization that is for all intents and purposes the youth wing of CasaPound. Little by little, he became Atalante’s main theorist and seems to be the author of Saisir la foudre [Ride the Lightning] under the pseudonym Alexandre Peugeot, who is also the author of several articles in Le Harfang, the magazine of the Fédération des québécois de souche.

Antoine has shown a lot more discretion than his friend Raphaël Lévesque, always taking the necessary steps to keep his role in Atalante a secret, rarely appearing at the group’s public actions and blurring his face and using different pseudonyms in his rare furtive video appearances. Unfortunately for him, a 2017 interview he gave to Zentropa Serbia (a CasaPound satellite), where he used the pseudonym “Alexandre,” made it relatively easy for us to determine his central role in Atalante.

Despite all his precautions, we were also able to confirm that he is a paramedic on the South Shore of Québec City, in the Chaudière-Appalaches region, working for the Lévis-based company Dessercom.

As in the case of Roxanne Baron, as part of his professional responsibilities, Antoine Mailhot-Bruneau, a fascist militant and a member of a violent gang, inevitably comes into contact with members of the public who belong to communities targeted and victimized by fascists.

Imagine, if you will, how it would feel to be a first-generation immigrant, a Muslim woman, or a Jew having a heart attack or some other serious health problem, and to have the first responder be a fascist theorist, an inveterate racist, Islamophobe, and antisemite. Imagine that your life depended on the care you received from an individual who unreservedly believes, for example, in the need for the “remigration” of all migrants who are not Catholic French Canadians “de souche.”

We believe that this is an unacceptable situation that violates the ethical principles and professional norms upon which the paramedic profession is itself based.


Yan Barras

Yan Barras

Yan Barras, social worker (not a member of the professional Order of social workers)

Habitations Meta Transfert inc.
1-418-649-9402
metatransfert@hotmail.com

On the night of December 31, 2006—January 1, 2007, a small group of Stompers and associates, including Raphaël Lévesque and Yan Barras, burst into the café-bar L’Agitée in Québec City, a cooperative they knew to be run and frequented by antiracist activists. In less time than it took you to read this account, the boneheads trashed the bar, and Yan Barras stabbed at least six people with an X-Acto knife, before fleeing.

In spite of the sordid nature of the incident, the Stompers drew a certain pride from this brutal attack, going as far as to reference it in the lyrics of the eponymous song “Légitime Violence”:

Ces petits gauchistes efféminés,
qui se permettent de nous critiquer,
ils n’oseront jamais nous affronter,
on va tous les poignarder! »

[These little leftist sissies,
who dare to criticize us,
wouldn’t have the nerve to face us,
we will stab them all!]

After pleading guilty to assault with a weapon, Yan Barras was sentenced to two years in prison. The judge even recommended that he receive therapy while in prison to address his proclivity for senseless brutality. When he got out of prison, Barras registered in the social work program at the CEGEP de Sept-Îles, and some might have thought that it looked like he intended to change course.

But far from changing his ways, Barras had “No Remorse” tattooed on his forehead under a death’s head devouring the three arrows that represent antifascism, and he promptly rejoined the crew of racists who would later create Atalante. Not only did Barras not distance himself from Raphaël Lévesque, the Mailhot-Bruneau brothers, and company, he has often participated in Atalante activities in recent years, as well as continuing to provoke and intimidate the Quebec City left, notably by marching with other members of the Stompers into the middle of a small abortion rights demonstration in August 2015, and more recently by joining his brothers in trolling the 2019 May Day demonstration, with one of them even giving the Hitler salute.

Today, Barras works as a “liaison coordinator” for the social reintegration company Habitations Méta Transfert Inc., in Québec City. Obviously, this places him in position of authority over a vulnerable clientele, a position he can use to attempt to recruit anyone fitting his fantasy of “a master race” or to deny services to those he judges “inferior.” You can’t blame us for wondering how many other Nazis this company might employ …


Shawn Beauvais-MacDonald. The quote is form Adolph Hitler.

Shawn Beauvais-MacDonald. The quote is form Adolph Hitler.

Shawn Beauvais-MacDonald, security guard; student at the Centre intégré de mécanique, de métallurgie et d’électricité (CIMME)

Securitas (CIBC bank in Chinatown, Montréal)
**It is very possible that he has not worked there for several months or that he only works part-time shifts.**

1-888-935-2533
info@securitas.ca
https://www.facebook.com/Securitasjobs.ca
https://twitter.com/Securitas_Group

Centre intégré de mécanique, de métallurgie et d’électricité (CIMME)
1-514-364-5300
https://www.facebook.com/cimmelasalle/
https://twitter.com/csmbcimme
Commissaire : Joanne Bonnici

Shawn Beauvais-MacDonald has often been mentioned on this site. He gained notoriety in August 2017, when he was sighted among the group from Québec that went down to Charlottesville to attend the Unite the Right rally.[1] Shortly thereafter, it was discovered that at that point he had held a key strategic position in the La Meute hierarchy for several months; specifically, he managed the “anglophone” section of the Islamophobic organization’s Facebook page.

But Beauvais-MacDonald wasn’t done with the surprises! It later became clear that under the pseudonym FriendlyFash he was a very active member of the“Montreal Stormer Book Club” chat room, a small neo-Nazi social club that was attempting to organize in Montréal at the time. Beauvais-MacDonald has never bothered trying to hide his penchant for Nazism on Facebook or his other social media accounts.

Following a far-right demonstration in Québec City in the autumn of 2017, he began to appear with increasing frequency around Atalante, participating in several of the fascist groupuscule’s actions, including postering campaigns, food distribution runs, and other activities meant to increase Atalante’s visibility in Québec City, Montréal, and Ottawa. It quickly became clear that Beauvais-MacDonald had become an active Atalante militant, and he remains so today.

As a guest on the podcast This Hour has 88 Minutes, on January 4, 2018, Beauvais-MacDonald talked about the consequences of doxxing on his daily life. He talked about how he lost one of his two jobs (as a bouncer at a bar), but that his colleagues at his other job thought it was “hilarious”:

« The other job, I work with Chinese people and they find it hilarious, so whatever. »

Despite Beauvais-MacDonald having been widely exposed and denounced in 2017, it seems that until fairly recently the company Securitas employed him as a security guard at the CIBC branch in Montréal’s Chinatown. The obvious question is whether Securitas was simply unaware of their employee’s extracurricular activities all this time (in spite of the numerous mentions in the mainstream media and on antifascist websites) or simply chose to turn a blind eye.

It is also worth asking whether his job at Securitas (a publicly listed company, we might add in passing) as a security guard has given Beauvais-MacDonald access to material or privileged information that might be useful to his neo-Nazi network.[2] What computer databases or other resources has he had access to thanks to his job with Securitas?

We’re not sure at this point if Beauvais-MacDonald still works for Securitas, however, he is currently a student at the Centre intégré de mécanique, de métallurgie et d’électricité, in LaSalle.

It remains to be seen how the school’s administration and student community feel about spending their days around this notorious Nazi.


Étrienne Mailhot-Bruneau

Étrienne Mailhot-Bruneau

Étienne Mailhot-Bruneau, graphic designer

Sunny Side Up Creative
1-418-522-8541
info@sunnysup.com
https://www.facebook.com/SunnySideUpCreative/
https://twitter.com/sunnysideupcrea
https://www.instagram.com/sunnysideupcreative/

Antoine’s little brother is another important player in Atalante and a patched-in member of the Québec Stomper Crew. Having completed a BA in animation, in 2017, at Université Laval, Étienne is Atalante’s de facto graphic artist, producing designs, logos, and posters under the pseudonym “Sam Ox.” Shortly after we released the “UnmaskingAtalante” dossier, establishing the link between him and his avatar, Étienne fell silent and deactivated all of his accounts on major professional platforms.

In spite of the “brown” stain on his CV, he seems to have found employment with Sunny Side Up Creative in Québec City.


Vincent Cyr, butcher

Vincent Cyr, butcher

Vincent Cyr, butcher

Fruiterie Milano
1-514-273-8558
info@fruiteriemilano.com
https://www.facebook.com/FruiterieMilano/

One of the most active Atalante members in the Montréal region, Vincent has participated in numerous group activities, including most of the nighttime postering runs. Originally from Montréal’s South Shore, he kicked around the Longueuil hardcore and punk scene for quite a while before coming into contact with the bonehead milieu and radicalizing, finally embracing full-on fascism. He found himself very isolated in his milieu (he’s the son of a trade unionist!), but he seems to have found a family in Atalante.

Cyr is a butcher at Fruiterie Milano, a neighbourhood grocery store in Montreal’s Little Italy neighbourhood, where his brother also works.


Jean Mecteau

Jean Mecteau

Jean Mecteau, tattoo artist

1-418-265-5222
https://www.facebook.com/jhanmecteau/
1709 rue Bergemont, Québec

The bassist for Légitime Violence, Atalante’s flagship band, Mecteau originally came out of the hardcore scene. A “first-rate” second stringer, he spends his time at cosplay, as the second fiddle in a crappy neo-Nazi band, and as a tattoo artist at his business Jhan Art.

Mecteau is one of Atalante and the Stompers’ go-to tattoo artists, which perhaps explains why, upon his return from a recent visit to Bicolline (the most important LARPing site in Québec), he found his tattoo parlour “a bit the worse for wear.”


Sven Côté

Sven Côté

Sven Côté, cuisinier

Restaurant Le Fin gourmet
1-418-682-5849
https://www.facebook.com/LeFinGourmet/
https://www.instagram.com/lefingourmet_qc/

“Svein Krampus” on Facebook. Sven Côté is a longtime bonehead from the national socialist black metal (NSBM) scene. He’s been active in Atalante since the winter of 2016, after an online radicalization that began in 2013, culminating in his embrace of fascism. A protégé of Raphael Lévesque (aka Raf Stomper), with whom he has exchanged openly antisemitic posts on social media, he has remained a loyal member of the group and has recently stopped blurring his face in Atalante’s documentation of its activities. He grew up and lives in the Basse Ville neighbourhood of Québec City. It is generally believed that Côté was among those who attacked La Page Noire bookstore in Québec City on the night of December 8–9, 2018. We have reason to believe that this attack served as a rite of passage into the Québec Stomper Crew for Côté, as he received his colours that same evening.

He is a cook at Le Fin Gourmet, a restaurant in the Saint-Sauveur neighbourhood of Québec City.

More revelations will follow…

 

Shutting Down the Fascists: A Task That Falls to Our Communities

Fascist militants are not just random doofuses we have some niggling differences with; they are hateful individuals who seek a new social order that involves the oppression, persecution, and elimination of millions of people. Their ideology presents a direct threat and constitutes a form of violence targeting many of us: queers, racialized people, Muslims, Jews, leftists, and numerous others.

At the same time, capitalism itself constitutes a form of violence against many of the people targeted by the far right. As anti-capitalists, we don’t recognize the authority of bosses, the state, or professional orders, and we don’t intend to leave it to them to remove the fascists from our communities and workplaces. We recognize that very often workers have to unite and take the measures necessary to force their employers to ensure their safety.

Excluding fascists and other far-right militants is a task that above all falls to the working class and to members of the public who are endangered by their presence and activities. It is in that spirit that we share this information.

Friends, it’s time we got to work.

 

 

 

 


[1]               This mobilization was meant to be a show of force bringing together white supremacists, “ethnic” nationalists, identitarians, neo-Nazis, and other neofasicsts that make up the American “alt-right” current. The August 11–12, 2017, events in Charlottesville made history as a complete fiasco for the alt-right, most notably because the white supremacist James Alex Fields chose this occasion to use his car as weapon in an attack that killed the antiracist activist Heather Heyer.

[2]              Just a few years ago, it was revealed that Hensel European Security Services (HESS), a security company in Germany, was providing Amazon with far-right guards to police, intimidate and abuse foreign workers in the company’s warehouses. Closer to home, in the 1980s, in Canada, William Lau Richardson, the leader of the KKK’s “Klan Intelligence Agency” was employed by the Centurion security company, a position he used to carry out operations against the left. In the 1990s, it was alleged that neo-Nazi private detective Al Overfield similarly used his access to police computer databases to provide information on antifascists to his friends in the Heritage Front, and Bryan Taylor, head of the Ku Klux Klan in British Columbia, used his position at ADT Security Systems to disseminate racist propaganda.

Sovereign Likhts’amisyu Action Camp October 1-11th

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Sep 302019
 

Anonymous submission to MTL Counter-info

(see video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=odLUEQsqJqI)

Do you want to do your part to defend Mother Earth from the ravages of the oil and gas industry? Do you want to support the indigenous people who have been on the front lines of the fight against pipelines for the past decade? Do you want to learn about decolonization, the sovereignty movement, and the campaign to prevent the Coastal GasLink (CG)L) pipeline from being built?

If so, you are invited to the first ever Sovereign Likhts’amisyu Action Camp. From October 1-11th, 2019, the Likhts’amisyu Clan of the Wet’suwet’en Nation will be hosting its first-ever action camp on traditional territory recently reclaimed from the Canadian state.

Following the RCMP invasion of Wet’suwet’en territory this past January, the Likhts’amisyu Clan of the Wet’suwet’en Nation re-occupied one of their traditional territories in so-called Northern B.C. Since May, we have been hard at work building a new village.  We are now requesting that volunteers come to make a major push to get everything done before the snow flies.

If this is the first you are hearing about the Sovereign Likhts’amisyu, please visit our website at www.likhtsamisyu.com.

Who are the Likhts’amisyu? What is this all about?

The Likhts’amisyu is one of the five clans of the Wet’suwet’en Nation. For the last ten years, the Wet’suwet’en have been resisting an  array of pipelines through which industry intends to ship diluted bitumen and fracked gas to the Northwest Coast for export. The focal point of these efforts have been the Unist’ot’en Camp, a long-standing territorial re-occupation which was built directly in the path of the proposed pipeline corridor. Years of resistance have caused multiple multi-billion-dollar projects to be delayed and/or cancelled. Things
came to a head this winter, when the Coastal GasLink pipeline corporation obtained a court injunction against the camp. In response, a
blockade was established on a neighbouring territory by members of another Wet’suwet’en clan, the Gidimt’en.

For three weeks, the Gidimt’en blocked pipeline workers and police from entering the territory. Then, on January 7th, 2019, militarized federal police raided the Gidimt’en camp, arresting 14 people and setting off a Canada-wide wave of protests. Two days later, the RCMP breached the gate of the Unist’ot’en Camp, and pipeline workers entered the territory, where they began destroying a vast swath of forest to make way for the pipeline right-of-way, as well as a large man camp to house pipeline workers.

It is important that people realize that this fight is far from over. Although preliminary work has begun on the pipeline, as well as on an LNG export terminal in the coastal city of Kitimat, no pipe has yet been laid. The events of December and January should be regarded as one phase in a struggle that has been going on for a decade.

Seen in this light, the Likhts’amisyu village represents a continuation and an expansion of the Wet’suwet’en people’s efforts to assert their
rights as a sovreign nation. Whereas at the beginning of December, there was one camp resisting ongoing colonialism on Wet’suwet’en territory, there are now three – the Unist’ot’en, the Gidimt’en, and the Likhts’amisyu. The three clans stand in solidarity with one another, as shown ceremonially in a recent Unification Rally (link). We encourage people who come to our action camp to also visit the other camps.

In the wake of the events of the winter, the Likhts’amisyu decided that the time was right to assert their sovereignty, and in May of this year, they began the process of building a new village on an ancient Wet’suwet’en village site. They received a donation of a significant
number of logs to use for building. As things currently stand, two log cabins have been built (both of which await the addition of a roof) and a third is well underway. The plan is to have all three cabins fully built, furnished, and move-in ready before the snow comes this Fall. In addition to this, a Summer kitchen has been built.

It will also be necessary to build several wood sheds and cut enough firewood to last the winter, so several days will be spent meeting this
need.

We encourage all people who are inspired by this project to come participate. Don’t be shy to come if you don’t have experience working construction. We will find a way for you to contribute. This is a great place to pick up some new skills.

Although we are requesting that volunteers come ready to work, this isn’t just a work camp. We are hoping that activists who are serious
about land defence and indigenous solidarity will see this as an opportunity to build and strengthen relationships, to share information, and to strategize about how best to wage a multi-faceted, multi-year campaign combining different approaches and sites of struggle. With
ecological struggle set to intensify in the near future, it is important that the people on the front lines are connected to the support of a
wider movement. Working together, as well as spending time around the fire, is a great way to build relationships rooted in mutual respect and trust. We believe that such strong-bond relationships are the stuff that resilient movements are made of.

There will also be other activities, such as tracking, hunting, fishing, foraging, berry-picking, paddle-boarding, kayaking, hiking, music,
workshops, story-telling, strategy discussions, and various kinds of skill-sharing. We will be inviting land defenders and knowledge-keepers from neighbouring nations to speak about the issues affecting their territories as well, as well share stories. If you would like to lead an activity, please email us with your idea.

We are also specifically reaching out to academics, researchers, scientists, and university faculty, inviting them to visit the camp during this time of heightened activity. We are doing this because we have plans to build a climate change research centre here. We want to connect with people working in the fields of biological, environmental science, anthropology, and archaeology.

Likhts’amisyu chief Dtsa’Hayl (a.k.a. Adam Gagnon), who is a professional contractor, has been leading the construction efforts at the village site. . We also welcome donations of goods such as building supplies, non-perishable food, and firewood. We are also currently fund-raising for building supplies, and encourage folks to check out the links below for ways to donate.

We understand that many people who might like to come do not own their own vehicles. If you are interested in coming, please email us telling us where you are located and we will do our best to find you a ride. Alternatively, you could post on the Facebook page and request a ride there. . Lastly, for people who do want to come, but who can’t come for the action camp, we encourage you to visit when you can. This is a multi-year project in an early phase. In the long run, we want to build up a strong network of people willing to support us on an ongoing basis.

So to all you beautiful freedom fighters (and future freedom fighters) out there in the world, come! The experience may well change your life…

Please share this invitation throughout your networks, and please do not hesitate to write us at likhtsamisyu@gmail.com (for the chiefs directly) or likhtsamisyu@riseup.net if you have any questions. If you leave a number, we will a call to answer any questions you have, as we realize that the dates of the camp are rapidly approaching and time is of the essence.

Thank you!

Likhts’amisyu Solidarity

******************************************************************************

Here are some useful links:

1. The Go Fund Me page is at: https://www.gofundme.com/manage/likhtsamisyu2019

2. The promotional video is at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=odLUEQsqJqI

3. The Likhtsamisyu website is at: www.likhtsamisyu.com

4. The Facebook page is at https://www.facebook.com/likhtsamisyu

Please write us at likhtsamisyu@gmail.com (for the chiefs directly) or likhtsamisyu@riseup.net (for the supporter collective) if you have any questions.

*******************************************************************************

***FIRST IMPORTANT ADDENDUM***

We encourage folks who are traveling long distances to come to Wet’suwet’en territory to also visit and support the other camps. The Unist’ot’en Camp has also recently put out a call for volunteers for an upcoming construction camp. Details can be found here:

https://itsgoingdown.org/strengthening-the-front-lines-on-wetsuweten-territory/

From their call for volunteers:

“During the last week of October and early November there will be a concerted push to complete the Healing Lodge. This beautiful and functional building has become the key embodiment of the Wet’suwt’en fight for sovereignty and against industrial destruction. The Healing Lodge is about 95% complete – it would be a great achievement to be able to declare this project finished this fall. Over the last several months good progress has also been made on other Village structures including a root cellar, tool shed and green house. These projects also require some additional work.”

***SECOND IMPORTANT ADDENDUM ***

We have just learned that the Gidimt’en Camp has also just announced dates for an Fall Work Camp. For details, see:

https://itsgoingdown.org/call-for-gidimten-work-camp-october-10th-21st/

“The cold is quickly approaching at the Gidimt’en Checkpoint and Costal Gaslink is preparing for construction activities in Gidimt’en territories this fall and winter – including the construction of another man camp and clearing the right of way on Gidimt’en yintah. We are preparing for the cold, hard battle ahead – and we invite you to join us.

In an era of attempted pipeline development across co-called “North America” the capitalist and colonial processes which displace Indigenous peoples from their land destroy the planet must be stopped! Working alongside the Gidimt’en checkpoint is concrete way to support resistance to the state along with colonial and capitalist projects which are destroying our territories and the planet more broadly.

Folks with carpentry, framing, logging, cooking and camping skills are encouraged to come to camp and work, ideally folks commit to ten days of work beginning October 10th, 2019. However supporters are needed before and after camp.”

 

How to find and take action against border infrastructure anywhere in Canada

 Comments Off on How to find and take action against border infrastructure anywhere in Canada
Sep 282019
 

Anonymous submission to MTL Counter-info

Construction has begun on a new prison for migrants and refugees in Laval, QC, a suburb just outside of Montreal. As the project has advanced, the struggle to stop it has ramped up as well, with a wide variety of actions being taken to stop its construction. The prison is part of a $138 million plan called the National Immigration Detention Framework (NIDF), announced in 2016 by the governnment of Canada following a period of resistance against the imprisonment of migrants. The NIDF expands and strengthens the government’s capacity to surveil, imprison, and deport migrants, creating two new migrant prisons as well as new forms of surveillance & control such as mandatory ankle bracelets, voice biometric scans, and halfway houses for migrants.

In the midst of this it can be hard to figure out how to intervene in what’s happening, either as an individual or group. In the spirit of spreading all forms of resistance to Canada’s border and prison regimes we’ve brainstormed a list of (just some of) the ways people might contribute to this fight.

Border and detention infrastructure can be found in most cities in Canada. Read on for some ways to identify it in your context (and a few ideas for what to do with that info).

IDENTIFYING BORDER INFRASTRUCTURE IN YOUR AREA

In the US, an extended and fierce struggle againt ICE has been ongoing, with most major cities in the country showing up to shut down ICE offices, hold noise demos outside of detention centers, and take other creative measures to counter the US detention and deportation regime. The government has been feeling the heat, and, while there’s still quite a ways to go, we think it’s both possible and necessary to bring resistance to the border in so-called Canada to this level!

Check if any of the following organizations have locations in your area:

Government:

  • Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) – The main enforcement for the detention, surveillance and deportation of migrants in Canada. Offices, staff, and infrastructure located all over Canada.

Did you know that in 2017, an access to information request resulted in the release of the names and positions of hundreds of CBSA employees? You can read those documents at this link and figure out if there’s anyone in your area whose responsibility for the deportation and detention of migrants should be revealed. https://mtlcounterinfo.org/doxxing-the-canadian-border-services-agency/

  • CBSA migrant detention centres – there are currently three federal migrant prisons – one in Toronto, one in Laval, and one inside the Vancouver airport. Construction on a new one in Surrey, BC, was recently completed, and a new one is being built in Laval, QC.
  • Provincial jails – The CBSA pays millions of dollars to provincial governments each year, as part of deals that allow the agency to imprison migrants in provincial jails. In Ontario, most migrants detained by the CBSA are held in provincial jails.

NGOs profiting from and enforcing the “Alternatives to detention” portion of the NIDF: https://communemag.com/the-same-prison-with-a-nicer-facade/

  • John Howard Society – a non-profit which was awarded almost $5 million to implement the new “Community Case Management and Supervision” program, essentially a regime of programming and halfway houses for migrants that mirrors the existing parole system in Canada. Locations in all provinces across Canada, no location in Yukon or Nunavut. http://johnhoward.ca/services-across-canada/
  • Toronto Bail Program – A recipient of approximtely $7 million to implement the “Community Case Management and Supervision” program, located in Toronto.
  • The Salvation Army – A recipient of over $1 million to implement the “Community Case Management and Supervision” program, locations in most Canadian cities.

Profiteers from the construction of the new migrant prison in Laval

Miscellaneous:

  • GardaWorld – This private security company, contracted as prison guards at the current migrant prison in Laval, and as security at the construction site for the new one, has locations all over Canada. There is no shortage of heinous projects they’re connected to. Check their website to see if they have a location in your area.
  • G4S – Contracted as prison guards at the migrant prison in Toronto.

Once you know the organizations and companies in your area that are profiting from border enforcement, consider trying to find out the names and locations of individuals involved. Try finding out where the executives of the company live, and put up posters in their neighbourhood, or hold a surprise demo outside of their home. You can also send them emails, faxes, and letters from an anonymous computer.

With a trusted friend or friends, take action against the companies or implicated agencies directly!

You can find a collection of communiques from actions that have taken place against the construction of the new migrant prison at this link: https://www.stopponslaprison.info/en/news-and-analysis/

If you’re considering taking direct action against border infrastructure in your area, take a look at this “Recipe for nocturnal direct actions”, which covers a lot of useful information for planning and executing effective direct actions while keeping eachother as safe as possible in the process! https://mtlcounterinfo.org/a-recipe-for-nocturnal-direct-actions/

Still not sure whether there is border infrastructure in your area? Reach out to a nearby No-One Is Illegal chapter or other migrant justice organization and see if they can point you in the right direction. Or, get together with friends for a research night!

There are of course still things you can do even if you live in a small community without any border infrastructure:

1. Share materials and information

Check out the materials page of stopponslaprison.info. You can share and print zines, posters, flyers and stickers with those in your network.

Get a group of friends together, and put up some posters in your neighbourhood, or near a bus stop. You can find instructions on how to make wheatpaste, which makes posters hard to remove, at this link. https://mtlcounterinfo.org/how-to-wheatpaste/

Spend a couple hours putting up stickers in the transit system, in your school, workplace, or in your neighbourhood.

Do a banner drop in a visible location in your area that shares a message against borders and prisons! Here is some information on how to do a banner drop: http://destructables.org/node/56

Plan an information picket or flyering day. Print out some flyers, or make your own! Get a few friends together and hang out at the subway/metro/skytrain or bus station for a few hours, giving people information about the project.

2. Spam the companies

Send spam faxes or flood the phone lines, email accounts, and social media accounts of the companies and their employees.

It’s easy to make temporary email accounts with protonmail or guerrilamail.

You can send faxes for free online at https://www.gotfreefax.com/ or https://faxzero.com/. Sending faxes with a lot of black ink can waste all of the ink on their machine or jam up the machine, making it less possible for them to recieve real faxes.

If you’re thinking of spamming the companies online, keep in mind that you may not want to do so from your own social media account, or IP address. Take a look at the EFF guide to safer online communications, and check out tools such as Tor and TAILS to use to create your temporary anonymous email account and for sending faxes.
https://ssd.eff.org/
https://www.torproject.org/
https://tails.boum.org/

3. Share this call with friends and family, and meet with them to talk about how you might organize something in your area!

Why Stantec and the Guy-Favreau Complex got targeted at the climate march and why the climate movement should fight the border regime

 Comments Off on Why Stantec and the Guy-Favreau Complex got targeted at the climate march and why the climate movement should fight the border regime
Sep 282019
 

Anonymous submission to MTL Counter-info

Canada is a major contributor to the climate crisis, playing an active role in displacing people from their homes around the world. Canada hosts over 70% of the world’s mining companies, which sow environmental and economic devastation on a global scale. Canada creates more greenhouse gas emissions than any other G20 country, contributing to the creation of climate refugees. And within its borders, the federal government continues to push through pipeline project after pipeline project, despite sustained resistance by Indigenous communities.

As the climate crisis continues to escalate, pushed along by the extractive forces of capitalism and colonialism, this has led to an acceleration of the global migration crisis. In response, we see Canada further fortifying its borders in an attempt to prevent those it has displaced from seeking refuge.

This buildup of border infrastructure is not limited to the border itself. Over the past two decades, migrant detention has been one of the fastest growing forms of incarceration in Canada. The Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) has three prisons just for migrants and rents space to detain migrants in jails across the country. In 2016, the government invested an additional $138 million to strengthen and expand this system, leading to the construction of two new migrant prisons (one in Laval, QC) as well as new systems of surveilance and control such as mandatory ankle bracelets and voice biometric scans for migrants.

As Canada responds to climate change by fortressing its borders, those championing the white supremacist politics behind this decision will continue to become more mainstream. In Quebec, we’ve already seen the mainstreaming of anti-islam groups like La Meute, the success of the CAQ’s anti-immigrant election campaign, as well as the violent consequences of its Law 21. As the charade that is the federal election begins, we have already seen a further mainstreaming of white nationalism, as politicians sow fear and hatred of migrants crossing into Quebec at Roxham Road.

Borders and prisons are colonial impositions on these territories, systems fundamentally about domination and control. As Canada continues to invest billions into extraction, those feeling the brunt of the crisis here continue to be Indigenous peoples. Whether its pipelines forcibly installed across Indigenous territories, mining or logging companies operating in Indigenous territories without consent, or the envrionmental devastation caused by refineries built right next to reserves, Indigenous communities are consitently on the frontlines, experiencing the harmful effects of extractivism, as well as leading the resistance to it.

It is for these reasons and more that Stantec and the Guy-Favreau Complex were targeted by people participating in the climate march. The buildings were hit with green paintbombs and spraypainted with “Bienvenue aux migrants” (Welcome migrants). In the Guy-Favreau Complex, the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada holds detention review hearings daily, often resulting in the prolongation of a migrant’s imprisonment. Stantec is an engineering consulting firm involved in the construction of the new migrant prison in Laval.

This new prison is part of Canada’s false solution to the threat posed by climate change, an attempt to further intensify its border infrastructure, to keep out those it continues to displace. The real threats to the earth and the people who live on it are capitalism, the destruction of the environment, and the politicians who, without fail, will continue to defend these systems while scapegoating those displaced by them.

We believe it is necessary to push far beyond making requests of politicians, and toward directly challenging the role Canada is playing in the global crisis. We hope that the climate struggle can broaden its tactics, deepen its analysis, and continue to build links with ongoing struggles against white supremacy, settler colonialism, and border imperialism.