Comments Off on The Association of Nehirowisiw Aski Land Defenders Wants Saboteurs Handed Over to Police
May262025
Anonymous submission to MTL Counter-info
We’re writing what follows to enable anarchist comrades and anticolonial militants to make informed decisions about where and how to engage in struggle.
In a press release published May 17, 2025, and available on their Facebook page, the Association of Nehirowisiw Aski Land Defenders (MAMO First Nations) condemns acts of vandalism recently committed on forestry machinery apparently belonging to a contractor involved in cuts on their territory.
The press release goes further, claiming that “these acts cannot and must not go unpunished.” It continues: “If you witness an act of vandalism or if you have any information that may assist the investigation, we strongly encourage you to share it without delay with the police authorities.”
We believe that relationships of struggle are strongest when they are nourished by practices of honesty and transparent communication on the motivations and limits of each of us. We hope that these events can be the basis for nuanced and open conversations about solidarity.
À l’heure actuelle, des blocus s’érigent sur le territoire Atikamekw (Nehirowisiw Aski) afin de résister au nouveau régime forestier de la CAQ. En solidarité, des militant.e.s anti-colonialistes ont saisi contrôle de l’intersection de Papineau et Ontario durant l’heure de pointe.
Paralysant toute circulation en direction du pont Jacques-Cartier pour près de 20 minutes avant que la police arrive, les manifestants ont utilisé des fusées éclairantes pour se protéger des motoristes effronté.e.s. La police a été prise par surprise et s’est retrouvée incapable d’intervenir. Les manifestant.e.s ont pris la rue après avoir quitté l’intersection et ont pu se disperser sans arrestation ni intervention policière. Le succès de cette action nous inspire durant un moment critique qui demande plus de solidarité avec les gardien.ne.s du territoire qui refusent activement le land grab de la CAQ.
Les blocus érigés sur les routes de grumier ont besoin de support urgent pendant que la saison d’exploitation forestière recommence. Les Gardien.ne.s du territoire Nehirowisiw Aski résistent actuellement les actes coloniaux d’exploitation et de destruction sur leur territoire. Ici se trouve la première ligne de résistance au nouveau régime forestier de la CAQ – un régime qui vise à céder une immense portion des forêts du soi-disant Québec à l’industrie forestière sans consentement ni égard. Les Gardien.ne.s du territoire appellent pour du support immédiat et des actions de solidarité. Que ce soit en forme de présence au blocus, d’action ici à Tiohtià:ke, ou de dons de matériel ou d’argent, cette lutte doit être assumée par les gens de la ville. Nous devons perturber tout confort et toute complicité paisible.
Les gardien.ne.s du territoire ne sont pas les seul.e.s responsables pour la protection de leurs terres et pour la résistance à la marche de la mort colonale de l’industrie extractive – Il existe des premières lignes de résistance partout. N’attendez pas la permission. Ne demandez pas la justice. Les Gardiens du territoire nécessitent du support matériel et immédiat et de courageux.ses complices anticolonialistes.
After a five year hiatus, Warrior Up is back. The intention of this project remains the same: to compile guides and practical information relevant to struggles against industrial devastation.
The ‘Arson’ page compiles guides on setting fires. The ‘Sabotage Techniques’ page compiles sabotage techniques for different types of infrastructure. The ‘Studying Vulnerabilities‘ page compiles analyses of how the megamachine functions and where it is vulnerable. The ‘Maps‘ page compiles mapping projects focused on infrastructure and extractive industries.
This project relies on submissions, so please send us content, including anything published years ago that we may have missed! We now use an Autistici email:
warriorupthrowdown ( at ) autistici ( dot ) org
Our PGP key, however, remains unchanged (Fingerprint 4283 5D10 4ABA 6B2D 0C60 A4F1 F7A9 73A3 8FD8 16E0). It can be found on the contact page, which now also includes a contact form.
Donald Trump is not only completely unhinged, he is completely obsessed with Canada. It will be remembered that throughout the last election campaign, he talked about tariffs but said nothing about the US absorbing Canada. Only after becoming president did Donald don his imperialist hat, threatening Greenland. Panama, Gaza and Canada.
Trudeau, Carney and the Liberals meanwhile have abandoned postnationalism to become flag waving nationalists. Pierre Poilievre of the Conservatives has adopted the slogan Canada First, having abandoned Canada is Broken, which now echoes Trump’s claim that Canada is not viable if it is not part of the States.
Trump has adopted a spheres of influence approach in which North America is destined to be dominated by the US, and Canada and Greenland are to be annexed to access their natural resources. His approach to Mexico is different. Trump does not want more Latinos, he wants fewer Latinos, so annexing Mexico is out of the question. However, he is putting pressure on Mexico in various ways, including attacking Mexico’s sovereignty by threatening military action against the cartels, a move rejected by Mexico’s new president.
Canadians have reacted to the trumpian assault with shock, fear, anger and a sense of betrayal, An upsurge in Canadian nationalism has taken place as well as a questioning of Canadian identity.
On the issue of identity of interest are statements by Canada’s new prime minister, Mark Carney, an Irish-Canadian Catholic. After attending the Saint Patrick’s parade in Montreal, Carney flew to Europe, where he visited Notre Dame Cathedral and met Emmanuel Macron. He then met King Charles and the British prime minister. On the trip Carney emphasized Canada’s European roots and described Canada as being founded by three groups, the British, the French and indigenous peoples, giving the impression of an equality of influence. In reality, the British and French, along with the Spanish and Portuguese, arrived in the Americas as conquerors, subjugating indigenous peoples and warring against each other here in the Americas as they had in Europe. The founding of Canada signified a continuation of an assimilationist approach towards indigenous peoples embodied in the residential school system, designed specifically to
eradicate native cultures. This sad legacy weighs heavily when it is a question of Canadian identity.
Today’s Canadian cities are multicultural and complex. How Canadian identity fits in with other cultural and identity aspects is complicated, but a reaction to Trump is evident in cancelled trips to the States and boycotts of American products. However, information is largely anecdotal, making it difficult to know what is happening. There are still lots of New York Yankees baseball caps, I’ve noticed, although I have never been able to figure out what they are supposed to mean.
I personally have not experienced an upsurge in Canadian nationalism. I am not Canadian or Québécois or part of any state. But like most Canadians I detest Trump, a dangerous predator and would-be dictator. The U.S. is presently in turmoil as Trump attempts to radically reshape the country.
Carney, Ford, Smith
As I write a Canadian election has just begun and as one would expect, the Trump factor is playing a big role. The Liberal Party has seen a remarkable rebound, going from more than twenty points behind to even with or leading the Conservatives. Support for Quebec sovereignty has fallen from 35% to 29%.
Trump presents himself as a strongman, although it seems he never stops whining. Unfortunately but understandably, the tendency is to search for a counter-strongman. a savior.
Trump is not the only strongman model out there. Carney represents another model, a financial strongman as it were. It is claimed that he has the chops to go mano a mano with Trump. Brain versus brawn.
All this is a reminder of the centralization of power inherent in electoralism. Trump cranks out dozens of executive orders and fancies himself a king. As prime minister, Carney formally incarnates the nation.
Premier Doug Ford of Ontario represents a strongman model closer to Trump. In effect Ford was a Trump supporter until the tariff threat intervened, which Ford has characterized as “like a family member stabbing you in the heart.” He apparently doesn’t get that America First means America First. Ford subsequently became Captain Canada, appearing on American cable news networks, and calling a snap election to take advantage of the situation. He attempted to impose a 25% surcharge on electricity Ontario exports to several American states, but quickly backed down when Trump threatened to raise tariffs on Canada from 25 to 50 percent. Trump “needed to break some guy in Ontario“ was how American commerce secretary Howard Lutnick disparagingly and crudely put it.
Danielle Smith of Alberta, clearly the Canadian premier ideologically closest to trumpism, has travelled to Mar-a-Lago to cozy up to Trump and has appeared on far right American podcasts. She has ruled out curtailing oil shipments to the U.S., the potential trade war weapon that would have the most damaging effect. She has argued on a far right American podcast that Trump should put off his tariffs until after the elections in order to assist Poilievre’s electoral chances.
Techno-industrial Nightmare
“Drill, baby, drill,” his mantra on the campaign trail, sums up trumpism: oil barons and billionaires. Claiming that climate change is a “hoax,” Trump has declared a no holds barred war on the environment. Located next to the U.S., Canada will be severely affected.
Trump says Canada has nothing the U.S. needs and at the same time that Canada must become a “cherished” U.S. state. He may not need Canada but it seems there are lots of things he wants. His goal is to destroy Canadian manufacturing in order to to bolster American manufacturing, making Canada purely a provider of natural resources.
But wherever it is produced, a car remains an earth destroying monster. We are already too industrialized and digitalized.
Canada is lakes and rivers and forests and mountains. Natural resources are better off left in the ground.
For distribution at protests, festivals, sporting events, waiting rooms, cookouts, libraries, dining halls, courtrooms, traffic jams, emergency rooms, corner stores, public transportation, sideshows, recreation yards, or anywhere else you may encounter others who’ve had enough.
\\\\\\\\\\\\ FRONT & BACK TEXT BELOW \\\\\\\\\\\\
REMEMBER 2020, 1968, 1878, 1791 — WE CAN WIN
Thousands of years of kings, queens, emperors, presidents, & ministers demanding obedience. 500 years of crackers enslaving & colonizing this planet. 250 years of anglo/yankee domination.
Trump this, Musk that. Democrats, Republicans, Zionists, Confederates, Fascists, Conservatives, Liberals, Progressives. So many flavors of the same expired bullshit.
2020: Cops executed George Floyd. A police station was burnt down. For a brief moment, the world opened up.
1968: White power executed MLK. Black communities erupted into rebellion. For a brief moment, the world opened up.
1878: Indigenous peoples in the South Pacific rose up in arms against european colonizers attempting to exterminate their communities & hijack their homelands. For a moment, the world opened up.
1791: Enslaved Africans & their descendants began an uprising in the Caribbean, destroying property, profit, & slavery. For a long moment, the world opened up.
Whether a handful of friends or a massive crowd, we know that the footsoldiers of every regime can be defeated. The secret is to begin.
« In Memory Of Our Fallen; Let us turn their cities into funeral pyres. In Memory Of Our Fighters; Let us honor your names with fire and gunpowder. Peace By Piece (A) »
NO JUSTICE, NO PEACE! ¡QUEREMOS UN MUNDO DONDE QUEPAN MUCHOS MUNDOS!
Comments Off on Reportback on the Night Demo at mcgill on February 5th
Feb072025
Anonymous submission to MTL Counter-info
Yesterday in Tiohtia:ke, forty anarchists (and our friends 🙂 ) attacked the buildings of mcgill university. Armed with rudimentary tools, we succeeded in destroying all windows that stood in our way. With the help of hammers, rocks, and glass bottles, we vandalized this symbol of the colonial capitalist system. Within 15 minutes, we smashed over 30 windows on multiple pavillions of the institution, as well as the electronic locks of the administration building. An exam in progress during the protest was cancelled for 350 students. According to a mcgill spokesperson, the damages are estimated to be in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. Two comrades who were momentarily detained by the failed pigs of a private security agency, subcontracted by mcgill, were gloriously de-arrested. The police response was slow and ineffective, the protest led to no arrests or injuries. We dispersed completely before the arrival of the spvm.
Graffitis were left behind denouncing the acquisition of the royal vic hospital (site of unmarked graves) by mcgill for $700 million, and its complicity in the genocide in Palestine. We also denounce the desecration of the tree of peace, planted on the lower field by decolonial activists this summer, as well as the historical complicity of mcgill in psychiatric experimentation on Indigenous children, and the transphobia and racism of mcgill’s administration. For us, mcgill is nothing but a symbol of a colonial and capitalist system, of which we call for the complete destruction.
We encourage our comrades to extend the struggle towards the destruction of all oppressions, and to continue escalating towards revolution.
We’d also like to underscore the categoric refusal of mcgill – and their disdain in the face of student activists’ demands on this subject – to divest from genocide and the military-industrial complex. In a board of governors meeting at the end of the fall 2024 semester, the zionist cronies who sit on said board openly stated that they’d waited until the end of the semester to present the findings from their ‘investigation’ of divestment, when nobody would notice (wishful thinking, deep). In the face of their condecension and their attachment to continuing the genocide, we say: Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable! Our actions last night are in keeping with this line of thought.
Viva Palestina, long live the tree of peace, death to capital and empire, down with colonialism and transphobia, fuck McKill!
Franklin Lopez looks back on grassroots movement media and the creation of the documentary film, Yintah.
In the summer of 2011, I was exhausted—physically, mentally, creatively. I’d just finished hauling my feature film, END:CIV, across North America, and when I got back to Vancouver, I didn’t even have a place to sleep. So, I did what many DIY filmmakers do: I moved into my van.
That’s when I got an invitation that would change everything: the Unist’ot’en Clan asked me to bring my film to their territory. I piled a crew of anarchist friends into my old camper van, and we headed north to the Wet’suwet’en yintah (land). At the time, I had no clue I was stepping onto ground zero for a legendary fight against pipelines.
Turns out, the Wet’suwet’en were gearing up to resist thirteen proposed oil and gas pipelines crossing their unceded lands—projects like the Pacific Trails fracked-gas pipeline and Enbridge’s Northern Gateway tar sands line. “The Wet’suwet’en” in those days basically meant three people: Freda Huson, Toghestiy (now known as Chief Dini Ze Smogelgem), and Mel Bazil, all determined to protect the Wedzin Kwa River from potential pipeline ruptures. Once I tasted that ice-cold water straight from the river, I understood exactly why they were putting everything on the line.
We started off screening END:CIV in Witset (then Moricetown) and Smithers, the nearby settler town. At the time, a major focus of my film work was decolonization and climate change—so the timing couldn’t have been better. Like many informed people, I believed that if we didn’t halt oil and gas production, our planet would face catastrophic climate chaos. Coming from a family of Boricua anti-colonial fighters, I also found it easy to connect with my new friends on the territory. Then my crew and I headed deeper into the bush to attend an action camp at Unist’ot’en Camp. Back then, it was just one cabin built squarely on the proposed Pacific Trails pipeline route—a bold statement that no pipeline would pass without resistance. Little did we know the strategy sessions in that tiny cabin would spark a movement that would eventually shake Canada to its core.
Documenting Resistance: Oil Gateway and the Early Days
During that first visit, I started filming. I talked with Freda, Toghestiy, and Mel, capturing some of the earliest footage from Unist’ot’en Camp. Those interviews would form part of my short doc, Oil Gateway, which laid out the bigger picture: the tangle of pipelines threatening so-called British Columbia. At the time, subMedia, my anarchist media project, was basically just me, operating on the principle of “rapid release and share.” In other words, frontline struggles need their story told right now, not stashed away for some festival circuit months or years down the road.
After another grueling year of grassroots touring (read: sleeping on couches and eating from dumpsters) END:CIV around Australia, Aotearoa (New Zealand), and Europe, I promised to return to the yintah. By 2012, the Unist’ot’en Camp had grown from that one cabin into a bustling center for resistance. I was humbled to see around 150 people attend the action camp, with many mentioning they first learned about Unist’ot’en through Oil Gateway. It was clear that pipelines were choke points in the fossil fuel machine, and documenting the fight to stop them became my obsession. So I released a second short doc, The Action Camp, showing how Unist’ot’en was evolving into a force to be reckoned with.
Planting the Seeds of Yintah the Film
In 2012, I met filmmaker Sam Vinal of Mutual Aid Media, who was already passionate about the Unist’ot’en struggle. He wanted to make a full-length doc, but my style—rapid release and share —didn’t mesh with the slower festival and grant world. Sam, along with his then-partner, Alexandra Kotcheff, decided to immerse themselves in the yintah, filming extensively at Unist’ot’en. That laid the groundwork for what would become Yintah the film —and kicked off a decade-long collaboration between me and Sam.
Meanwhile, I moved to Montreal and started documenting the movement against oil and gas pipelines in eastern Canada. I teamed up with Amanda Lickers of Reclaim Turtle Island to produce a film exposing the pipeline threats in the region. While covering a Mi’kmaq anti-fracking blockade in Elsipigtog, New Brunswick, I witnessed the lengths the Canadian state would go to shield private extractive projects and trample Indigenous sovereignty. The violent RCMP raid gave me a glimpse of things to come on the yintah but also gave me hope, as hundreds of supporters descended on Elsipigtog to support the anti-fracking fight, and eventually the fracking company pulled out. During that time, I crossed paths with producer Andrea Schmidt from Al Jazeera—a coincidence that turned out to be huge later on.
In 2014, I was back at Unist’ot’en with Amanda Lickers, interviewing Freda and Toghestiy. During that trip, I also met Michael Toledano, a Vice News stringer reporting on the unfolding resistance. In the footage we captured, Freda made a statement that turned out to be prophetic: if the Canadian government attacked, allies would rise up to shut down Canada.
AJ+ and Going Viral
Soon afterward, Andrea Schmidt, now at AJ+, asked me to produce a short documentary on the Wet’suwet’en fight. I got approval from the camp and went back to film. That short documentary reached over a million viewers on Facebook, further helping thrust the Unist’ot’en Camp into the international spotlight. It included a powerful moment where Freda confronted an Enbridge executive, telling her they did not have consent to build their pipeline. Soon after, Enbridge’s Northern Gateway pipeline quietly died.
In 2015, I got a frantic message from Michael Toledano, The RCMP had rolled up on the Unist’ot’en bridge. One of my best friends was getting married that weekend, but he understood when I told him, “Dude, I have to go.” I scrambled to get a plane ticket and headed north. After seeing Michael’s footage, I urged the Unist’ot’en women to post it immediately. Rapid release and share! They agreed, and I edited the video on the spot—it blew up online. Overnight, the RCMP faced widespread backlash and backed off—for a while.
Later that year, I produced Holding Their Ground, a follow-up AJ+ documentary that netted nine million views on Facebook alone. This documentary featured a previously published viral clip of Chevron execs being turned away at the Unist’ot’en bridge, proving that front-line footage can be released in real time and still have a major impact later. This footage is also featured in our film INVASION as well as in Yintah.
Naval resistance in the west, shutting down pipelines in the east.
While on that trip out west, I got a call from an anarchist comrade, telling me that Tsimshians on the coast needed some visibility for their fight to stop a liquefied natural gas (LNG) port from being built on their waters. I jumped at the opportunity, and while visiting their camp, I captured powerful images of Tsimshian fishermen blocking Petronas workers from conducting survey work. The Tsimshians continued their fight, and by 2017 the LNG project was dead.
This was a very special time, and it felt like we were riding a wave. My partner was several months pregnant, and she and I organized a series of events in Montreal featuring Freda, Toghestiy, and Felipe Uncacia, an Indigenous leader from Colombia. We also took advantage of this trip to connect them to Kanienkeha’ka (Mohawk) communities in the region, including stops in Kanehsatà:ke, Kahnawake, and Akwesasne.
The following year, my child was born. Watching this tiny, noisy being taking his first breaths made me reflect on the kind of world I was bringing him into. Stepping away from the struggle wasn’t an option—I had to stay in the ring and keep fighting against colonialism and capitalism for his future and ours.
2019: The RCMP Raids and a Movement Under Siege
By late 2018, the Gidim’ten Clan asserted their right to control access to their territory, meaning no Coastal GasLink (CGL) workers could pass. I teamed up with Sam Vinal and Michael Toledano to find more filmmakers to document this pivotal moment. At subMedia, now a collective of four, we churned out videos and agitation clips and video updates in solidarity with the Wet’suwet’en.
Led by Molly Wickham, Gidim’ten land defenders and anarchists set up a checkpoint to stop CGL vehicles. The RCMP responded with paramilitary-style force, armed with semi-automatic rifles, arresting Molly and several others. Fearing a similar outcome, the Unist’ot’en leadership took down their blockade. It was heartbreaking to watch, and Sam and Michael filmed every moment.
That spring, after 25 years of subMedia, I needed a break. I was burned out, broke, and bummed out. I took my family west, and we visited Gidimt’en and Unist’ot’en, where the sight of cops and pipeline workers on once-autonomous land really sank my spirits. That’s when I got the idea to launch Amplifier Films, a new project dedicated to uplifting anti-colonial and anti-capitalist movements across Turtle Island. Around then, Sam and Michael decided to merge their footage to finish the film that had been percolating for years. Freda asked me to edit, and the timing was perfect. That fall, we produced INVASION, a short doc about the daily reality at Unist’ot’en under growing RCMP and CGL pressure. I edited INVASION at Amplifier Films in Montreal, reusing some of the best bits from my AJ+ docs and subMedia clips, including a tense confrontation between Tilly (a St’át’imc woman) and Prime Minister Trudeau.
We released INVASION online right as Freda declared that CGL workers had to vacate the territory or risk being blocked. The doc became a key tool for organizers prepping for another big clash with the police. It also premiered in Hot Docs and other prestigious festivals, despite being freely available online for months. Which just goes to show: rapid release and sharing is what movements need most.
Sure enough, raids began once again, culminating in a full-on assault on Unist’ot’en in early 2020. The footage of the RCMP tearing down the gate and arresting Freda and other defenders was intense. But it sparked a massive wave of solidarity actions across Canada. Soon after, Mohawks in Tyendinaga blocked CN Rail lines, kicking off “Shutdown Canada” as railways, highways, and ports were barricaded by anarchists and allies in solidarity with Wet’suwet’en. It was a watershed moment for Indigenous-led resistance.
Making Yintah and Reaching the Breaking Point
Riding that wave of momentum, Sam and I took Yintah to the Big Sky Film Festival in Missoula, Montana. We pitched it to a live audience and secured our first round of funding—enough to produce materials for bigger grants. Then COVID hit, but we pressed on, cutting a trailer and rough scenes for potential funders. Despite having a decade’s worth of incredible footage, we struggled to find backing.
That’s when Montreal’s Eyesteelfilm came on board. Known for their award-winning docs, they loved our trailer and partnered with us to help secure funding and a CBC broadcast deal. We also asked two Wet’suwet’en women—Jen Wickham and Brenda Michel—to join the team, following the principle of “Narrative Sovereignty,” so that Wet’suwet’en voices could help shape every stage of the film.
By fall 2021, we’d raised over our budget goals for Yintah, and I was in the thick of editing. We had more than 1,000 hours of footage spanning a decade. Meanwhile, new images kept rolling in—Coyote Camp rose up with the help of anarchists. CGL equipment was commandeered and roads were destroyed and blocked. Haudenauseane allies from out east travelled to the yintah to join the fight. Then the RCMP launched another brutal raid, and Molly Wickham, Michael Toledano, and others were arrested. I spent a weekend trying to bail Michael out and make sure the footage didn’t vanish into the RCMP’s hands.
Around this time, following hit pieces in far-right media outlets, the Alberta government launched a petition asking Canadians to complain to the CBC about my involvement in Yintah because I identify as an anarchist. Despite it all, we hit our production milestones. In spring 2022, we returned to Wet’suwet’en territory for a consultation where members of Gidimt’en and Unist’ot’en reviewed the scenes. By June, I had a four-hour assembly edit and a story document. A ten-minute sequence I edited even won an award at Cannes, and we got invited to True/False’s rough-cut weekend to get feedback from industry pros.
But the unrelenting pressure eventually took its toll and our dedicated team was submerged in conflictual tensions. Panic attacks, brutal insomnia, and not being there for my family forced me to make one of the toughest calls of my career: after three years on Yintah, I quit.
Reflections, Redemption, and Moving Forward
I spent the next couple of years in a dark place, hit by slanderous rumors about my departure and uncertain about ever picking up a camera again. Then, in spring 2024 right as Yintah was premiering at True/False—I found myself freezing my 52 years old ass off at another blockade, camera rolling, helping an Indigenous community in so-called Quebec document their fight against destructive logging. And once again, the rapid share & release footage proved useful in defending the land.
That fall, I finally got to watch Yintah. I was thrilled to see so much of the editing I’d done remain in place, including the Shutdown Canada sequence (what my friends call “Yintah’s subMedia moment”) set to The Halluci Nation’s “Landback.” A lot of the overall structure still followed the story outline I’d left behind. Its reach blew my mind: Netflix picked it up for North America, Canadians can watch it free on YouTube (VPNs work too), and it even got pirated on YTS! For a movement doc, that’s about as mainstream as it gets.
The scope of this whole saga is still jaw-dropping. A small cabin at Unist’ot’en grew into a global symbol of Indigenous sovereignty, standing against a massive corporate onslaught. But the fight isn’t over—with Coastal GasLink completed, Land defenders continue to face state repression and Canada has approved more pipelines to cross Wet’suwet’en yintah, and other neighboring Indigenous territories.
As for me, I’m pouring my energy into Amplifier Films. One of our first projects is “A Red Road to the West Bank,” which tells the story of Oka Crisis vet Clifton Ariwakehte Nicholas during his trip to Palestine. Our goal is to explore the similarities between the plight of the Palestinians and that of Indigenous people in Turtle Island. Stay tuned for that.
Ultimately, this story is bigger than pipelines. It’s about land, future generations, and what it means to be free. The Wet’suwet’en have shown the world what unwavering resistance looks like—anarchists have demonstrated the power of solidarity, and it’s on all of us to keep that flame alive.
Postscript: Yintah Missing Credits
There are a number of people who helped with Yintah who were not listed in the credits, but whose free labor, particularly at the beginning when we had no cash, was priceless.
Cybergeek Antoine Beaupré for his creation of the custom software video-proxy-magic, which allowed me to crunch 80TB of video into a 5TB drive while keeping the folder structure intact. This helped us share all the footage with the other producers and assistant editors without having to spend thousands on large hard drive arrays.
Many thanks to the post-production interns from the University of the West of England Bristol who helped us organize footage during the early days: Charlotte Butler Blondel, Robert Henman, and George Willmott. Also, much gratitude to Stephen Presence of the Radical Film Network for connecting them with me. A shout-out as well to Marius Fernandes, who did a short stint as an assistant editor.
Ryan Hurst was the first editor for Yintah a few years before this incarnation. A few of his sequences made it in the final film and I rebuilt a lot of his edit projects when doing the footage review.
Big ups to Macdonald Stainsby—he is thanked in the credits, but it should be known that his work in connecting Freda, Toghestiy, and Mel to other troublemakers like me was invaluable. His anti–tar sands organizing and his critiques of environmental NGOs had a huge influence on my work.
Finally, I want to extend my deepest thanks to all the anarchists and anti-authoritarians who poured so much of themselves into this struggle. Your tireless solidarity—often at great personal risk—helped propel the fight farther than anyone imagined. We couldn’t have come this far without you.
Thank you for reading and for standing with the Wet’suwet’en and Indigenous communities everywhere defending their homelands.
Earlier this year, Amplifier Films was invited by Shanipiap, a courageous Innu land defender, to help share her story and amplify the call for action from the heart of her ancestral territory near Lac St-Jean, Quebec.
This video captures the poignant moment Shanipiap stopped a massive logging truck to make a powerful statement: her people are still here, still protecting the land that has always been theirs. With a sacred fire burning in the background, a symbol of hope and resistance, Shanipiap and her community are standing firm against relentless industrial encroachment by forestry, mining, and oil companies, which have devastated vast parts of their homeland.
For generations, the Innu have honored their duty as protectors of the forest, water, and wildlife, fostering a deep connection to Mother Earth. But with the exploitation of Quebec’s natural resources accelerating since the James Bay Agreement, the stakes have never been higher. The sacred fire in Dolbeau/Mistassini is not just a call for help—it’s a declaration of survival and resilience.
Through this film, we hope to amplify the voices of those on the frontlines of this struggle and inspire action. Learn more about the Petapan Treaty, the Innu’s ongoing fight, and how you can stand in solidarity to protect the future of these lands and their people.
Comments Off on Yintah Film Review: Anarchists in the Blind Spot, or the Necessity to Write Our Own Histories
Jan072025
Anonymous submission to MTL Counter-info
Yintah is the latest installment of a long tradition of indigenous documentaries speaking truth to power against colonial violence in so-called Canada. The story told is of an anti-pipeline struggle to protect the richness of life that the Wedzin kwa river offers, a decade long fight that involved not only the Wet’suwet’en peoples of northern British-Columbia, but also hundreds of dedicated non-indigenous comrades who fought valiantly alongside them. Except the film chose to cast them aside.
The documentary portrays land reoccupation through the personal projects of Freda Huson and Molly Wickham over the course of ten years, but also makes a point to frame those individual stories in a more expansive and continual relationship of the Wet’suwet’en people to the land. The conflict over industrial and otherwise settler-colonial exploitation of the land is part of the present, past, and future of the territory, and the film does a good job situating the latest struggle against Coastal Gaslink on a longer timeline. The film ends with a strong position of indigenous resilience in the face of lost battles, and should inspire many that the fight is never over as long as we are alive.
A central argument Yintah makes is one most indigenous social movements have been pushing forward in North America, which is that the land should be under local and traditional jurisdiction of its original peoples. This framework opens the door to a legalistic approach to anticolonial discourse (« Who is the rightful decider? »), which Yintah gives legitimacy to for example by recounting the Delgamuukw case as a historical win for the Wet’suwet’en and Gitxan nations. Referring to or using the western legal system is neither revolutionary nor anarchist, and comrades involved in indigenous solidarity work have highlighted this point of tension before. Yintah‘s non-critical approach to legalistic tactics distances its narrative from an uncompromising and feral position against the colonial state. But I guess it also paints a truthful depiction of how unfortunately many activists end up wasting their time and energy in lawsuits and legal cases. If we can briefly hear Freda say Delgamuukw hasn’t changed anything, then why waste precious screening minutes showcasing the legal fight in a positive light beforehand? It only reinforces reformist aspirations to pursue court battles. Relying on the judicial system to recognize indigenous governance also contributes to creating a new class of indigenous elite deciders (sellouts) that move on to exploit the land at the expense of ecosystems. This is happening right now as the Nisga’a Nation, an indigenous political entity legitimized by a treaty signed in 1998, has welcomed and invested in the construction of the PRGT pipeline, northwest of the CGL line.
The question of jurisdiction is not where anarchists and indigenous land defenders share the most affinity. Indigenous jurisdiction, even put through the lens of a pre-colonial political system, opens the door to legitimizing forms of authority that, in a decolonized future, would pit anarchists against indigenous figures of power, and is also today encouraging power imbalance on current shared sites of struggle. Thankfully Yintah does not shy away from including one scene that recounts one of the most discordant moments of the struggle when chief Namoks decided on his own, in fear of police use of force, to open the Unist’ot’en gates to pipeline workers, against the will of companions on site and Freda herself. This was not the only moment when power was yielded in the name of Wets’uwet’en traditional governance and at the expense of the fight against police and CGL. But it was maybe the most impactful one, and I am thankful this movie scene offers a brief moment of nuance in an otherwise sugarcoated version of the power dynamics on the frontline.
Land is of course absolutely central to anti-colonialism. During the struggle against the Northern Gateway project, the Coastal Gaslink construction and the RCMP’s heightened presence (roughly the 2012-2022 decade), the backroads territory has been the site of an impressive game of snakes and ladders to control the access to isolated valleys. Yintah chose to dedicate a lot of its screening time to traditional uses of the land. We are shown many scenes of harvesting game and berries, the importance of transferring wet’suwet’en knowledges and values to younger generations and the relationship between traditional ways of life and health. Crucial to the #LandBack movement and Indigenous resurgence, I understand why these themes are explored as an exclusively wet’suwet’en story. But the story of confrontation with pipeline projects was not exclusively wet’suwet’en, and Yintah turned a blind eye to the central role anarchists playedin defending the land against industrial invasion. This is what every comrade has been whispering about since the film came out. Over the decade, there has been hundreds of anarchists who, from far away and traveling onsite, dedicated their hearts and their time and sometimes took immense risk to defend wet’suwet’en land. Anarchists organized solidarity actions in both affinity based models and in larger scale social contexts across the country, expanding all the way to Europe and the Pacific Northwest of the US for years, and insurgent tactics have flourished during #ShutDownCanada. According to many first hand accounts, the frontline camps could not have survived without anarchists’ contributions. The struggle was huge and has changed many non-wet’suwet’en people’s lives, many anarchists, and many others as well. Including the solidarity from non-Indigenous peoples would only have strengthened the Wet’suwet’en story of resistance, not diluted it. Do we have the audacity to bring this up as a grievance to our Indigenous friends? Is it totally misplaced to critique an indigenous film that makes no place for non-indigenous peoples? Not PC for sure.
The narrative choice of Yintah to focus on Molly and Freda also sometimes feels almost claustrophobic, and we lose a sense of the scale of the movement that involved thousands. There is a risk that countless people will watch Yintah and think that such a large scale moment of rupture rests on the shoulders of a few key figures, or that indigenous resistance can make do without the solidarity of allies and accomplices across all social identities. Leadership is a natural human dynamic that can organically move people to act, and can shift depending on the relationships in a said group. But there is a fine line between recognizing leadership qualities as natural and beneficial, and the development of a cult of personality that can be created by certain media deformations. The image of Gidimt’en Checkpoint portrayed through its media channels (instagram and youtube) has misled many folks who have unfortunately showed up to camp with unrealistic expectations such as finding a space that is constantly active in preparing confrontation or occupied and maintained mainly by Indigenous peoples. The mediatic focus of the struggle might also have put too much weight on our heroines, and health and the need for a sustainable involvement has been deprioritized. One of my concerns for upcoming struggles is that the film could embolden identity politicians to recreate a social hierarchy that enables abuse of power on future frontlines.
What I find unfortunate is that there is the propensity in activist discourse to constantly portray oneself as a victim. Yintah is unfortunately no exception. The 1h45 minutes of the documentary painfully recounts all the possible events and situations under which the state, the police or extractive industries have oppressed the Wet’suwet’en peoples. Not that we must shy away from truth speaking, or that the string of events of the struggle should be manipulated or distorted (blockades were dismantled, cabins destroyed, people arrested, and so on), but every publication whether it be book, artwork or film, makes choices in the words used, the scenes that are shown and the potential scenes that are left out. The History we remember is the one some chose to write how they saw fit. There are ways to speak of and against domination that are unapologetically defiant, with our sight set on the target. CGL might have completed its construction, but it took them extra billions and a couple years more than anticipated, because a handful of strong hearts were barricading roads, scaring away pipeline workers and sabotaging their equipment. There were countless confrontational moments on the territory that were (maybe, maybe not filmed) left out of the editing. With its narrative constructed around resilience instead of resistance, Yintah might not be able to inspire others to draw their daggers.
It might not be our Wet’suwet’en companions’ responsibility to tell our side of the story, but our complete invisibilisation from the struggle is basically dishonest. If we take a step back, we can see this situation is not new in the historiography of anarchism. Unpleasant to the general opinion and defiant to the leftist movements, anarchist action and involvement in historical events has always been undermined, evacuated, or falsified when it was time to write down a page of History. In some ways the film continues the legacy of writing off anarchists as outside agitators. Instead of recounting how anarchists have been invited to come to the frontlines and have engaged with land defense in a sustained way for years, Yintah litteraly places anarchists outside of the frame of legitimate participants in the struggle, and leaves room for the liberal media narrative of violent hijackers to step forward. This is hard to digest, when we know in reality that there were moments when only masked white anarchists were present and they were asked to pose with warrior flags for a good photo op. As I write this, land defense in northern BC has already kicked off a new chapter of resistance, this time against the PRGT pipeline. When non-Indigenous anarchists show up, they might be once again be met with confusion from Indigenous peoples, just as they were at times during the wet’suwet’en struggle, faced with questions like “why are you here ?” rather than being understood as part of a larger fabric of anti-industiral actors in the region.
Yintah has only received positive public feedback. What is the point of yet another text doing the devil’s work at pointing at the problems? While I wanted to share what I think is valuable criticism that was discussed amongst friends and companions around me, I still think Yintah tells a beautiful story of two exceptional women that is worth sharing, and a story that hopefully inspires other Indigenous peoples to reoccupy their land and defend it against industrial destruction. What I take away from watching the film is the motivation to support and contribute to anarchists telling their own histories. In a world of overlapping truths, different layers of experiences and their takeaways can compliment and contradict each other. We do not need one official History of the past decade of struggle on the yintah.
“If anarchists don’t make their own History, their enemies will. […] Should we not wish that our stories end up in the hands of those who could only write them to suit their own needs” (Plain Words, Roofdruk/Compass editions, 2024).
In an anarchist history of the struggle on the yintah, the question of jurisdiction and other legal approaches would be presented as hindrances to the liberation of land and life. In an anarchist history of the struggle on the yintah, internal conflict would not be shoved under the rug but taken as an opportunity to try to draw lessons from, so we can continue to deconstruct how we relate to each other outside of civilization’s dogmas. In an anarchist history of the struggle on the yintah, we would recount the dozens of barricades on fire, cop attacks and destroyed machinery to remind us we are truly alive and free in the blissful moment of action. And there would probably be many more anarchist histories of the struggle on the yintah, I am after all just one amongst many anarchists.
Comments Off on How We Stormed Concordia University: De-arresting, Painting, Shutting Down Classes and Exams
Jan062025
Anonymous submission to MTL Counter-info
Strategic takeaways TLDR:
1) It does not take many people to change the course of a protest.
2) When the police are busy defending a fixed point it opens possibilities for exciting action in other places.
3) Our comrades can be de-arrested, and doing this against security officers is good, lower-stakes practice for doing it against the police
The takeover of Concordia’s Hall building was yet another instance of the slow building militancy in the Tiohtià:ke (Montréal) solidarity movement for Palestine.
On November 21st, over 85,000 students across Quebec were on strike demanding their academic institutions align with the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement, drop the political suspensions of student activists, and against police on campus — making it possibly one of the biggest strikes for Palestine, outside of the occupied territories, in world history.
Committed to swinging the protest into a more combative stance, the rough idea was to make the Concordia rally on the first day of the province-wide student strike for Palestine militant enough to force the university to shut down for the day, thereby enforcing the strike mandate and causing maximum disruption. The primary proposal for doing so was to take over a building.
On the day of the rally organized and publicized by Students for Palestine’s Honour and Resistance (SPHR) Concordia, a few anarchists from all over the city (collaborating across Francophone and Anglophone milieus) found each other and shared ideas for ways to make the rally more interesting and disruptive. To avoid another ritualistic demonstration of the same chants and speeches, they decided they would try to enter Concordia’s Hall Building: the center of the University’s student activity, and known target to the broader Tiohtià:ke anarchist community that was hit several times in the fall 2024 semester, causing hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of damage.
The building was being guarded by a line of private security mercenaries — not exaggeration, everyone would soon find out that these goons were hired by the university from “Perceptage,” a security firm whose CEO advertises his IDF training. After some comrades grabbed hold of the door and held them open, a first group of brave protestors pushed through the security line yelling “move” and beckoning for the crowd outside to join them in storming the Hall lobby. The crowd reacted quickly and did just that. Security also reacted quickly and violenty grabbed the first few comrades pushing through, putting them in head locks and ripping their clothes, but other protesters fought back, grabbing onto their comrades’ bodies and tearing them out of security’s grasp. These were the first sucessful de-arrests since Concordia security began their practice of “citizen’s arrests” at protests, and it showed that our comrades can be snatched back if we move fast. Doing so aginast unarmed security can be good, lower-stakes practice for doing so against the police
Security soon realized they were totally overpowered and outnumbered and stepped aside, defeated. They could only watch as hundreds of students and “outside agitators” stormed the Hall building lobby.
Meanwhile, the riot police – who are often a significant factor at protests in Tiohtia:ke due to being highly equipped (tear gas, pepper spray, etc.) and trained more specifically for “crowd control” than riot cops in other cities, were busy forming a barrier around a small group of zionist counter-protestors. As was seen a number of times over the summer, when the SPVM have a fixed point they must defend, it can open up possibilties for protesters.
Having flooded the Hall building lobby, pacifying speeches on a megaphone began once again, and anarchists were seen continuously beckoning the crowd to remain dynamic and to begin going upstairs by chanting “Who’s school? Our school!” Some protesters spoke to the people giving speeches, who then announced to the crowd that people were moving upstairs. A critical mass began to move and a snake-demo through every floor of the Hall building ensued. Protesters were seen spray painting, disabling security cameras, tossing garbage cans onto the floor, creating chair barricades outside classrooms, even expropriating expensive university equipment, all as security just sat back and watched helplessly.
The dynamic movement created a real feeling of empowerment, and hopefully will encourage more serious attempts to liberate space and resources from the university. What felt powerful to see on this day was that it only took a handful of protesters to secure the doors, and with 15-20 militants on hand the protest shifted from a standard rally on the street, to a disruptive snake demo through a 12 story building. This taking of the school by force was something the secuirty was clearly desperate to avoid, and they responded by sending out an emergency alert encouraging people to avoid the area, as well as a message to professors that resulted in some classes and exams being cancelled into the evening. The day’s success was made possible partly due to activists at Concordia continuously organizing and trying to increase militancy and build relationships; there had been many previous unsuccessful attempts to escalate.
Surely thanks to a large portion of the crowd being in full kuffiyeh, black or student bloc, and totally concealed, as of this day, no one has faced legal or academic consequences for Thursday, November 21st actions.
There were also reports that an hour earlier, at McGill university, fire alarms were simultaneously triggered in every building on campus, forcing students out into the lawn where they could join the walkout happening at the same time.
The strikes served their function very well in this case, freeing up student time and energy and creating the conditions for an action that otherwise hasn’t been pulled off.
The 21st was unequivocally a success, yet there were a few things which could have made it even better and more impactful:
It became very clear that, once the snake-demo up the Hall building had begun, very few people had made plans for such a successful scenario, perhaps this comes from anarchists’ unfamiliarity with success in attempted manoeuvres, or the amount of work militants put into planning to enforce the strike instead of the possibility of other actions. Regardless of reasons, strategic or symbolic targets could have been plotted out beforehand, and further plans beyond just “getting into the building” could have been executed.
While people were beginning to flood into the Hall Building, one protestor who remained outside put up a nazi salute towards the zionist counter-protestors and shouted “The final solution is coming for you”. Regrettably, no one in the demonstration intervened when they saw this happening. While student associations, the Concordia Student Union, and community groups across the city denounced it after the fact, there needs to be a strong, shared understanding that nazis be immediately and physically confronted, and are in no way welcome in the movement for a liberated Palestine.
There is very little shared analysis that “If we desire an end to this world of genocide the university, too, must be destroyed.” Few students, or even non-students, understand the university as a location of social reproduction that enables capitalism and genocide and that must be attacked. This was seen in the general lack of antagonistic behavior on the 21st, in a scenario of possibility and freedom.
Despite having full access to the building, the intense repression students have faced from the university in recent months likely led them to police their own actions on that day, despite not having anyone physically stopping them. This self-policing could be counteracted by encouraging more non-students to join university actions, and encouraging students to be disruptive at each other’s schools. In addition, hopefully actions on the 21st can spread confidence and the skills to de-arrest and protect each other at our own schools.
Despite there being room for improvement, we can still celebrate and try to reproduce the palbable feeling of liberation, freedom and empowerment that filled the hallways of the university that day.