Solidarity

We have assembled this publication in solidarity with the ongoing Wet’suwet’en resistance to industrial expansion. This struggle for Indigenous self determination and land defence has become a landmark moment of rupture across the colonial nation of Canada and beyond. We felt the need to compile this zine in an effort to take a step back and witness the breadth and fierceness of these last few years – with a particular focus on the year that has just passed since the start of ‘Coyote Camp’ and the specific battle against the attempt to drill under Wedzin Kwa. Not to produce some stale collection for the history shelves, but to inspire and learn from these events as they continue to unfold. As we go to print, CGL has just begun the drilling under the river that many have fought so hard to prevent. It’s a sad day and this part of their destruction will have devastating effects. But this doesn’t mean that this fight has been in vain, the project is not complete and opportunities for intervention abound. ...

On Monday the 23rd of May the anarchist Giannis Mihailidis, held at the Malandrinos prison in Greece, started a hunger strike to obtain his conditional release. In a letter he wrote announcing the hunger strike, he emphasizes – among other aspects – that this battle for his freedom is also an attempt to participate in the larger struggle against State and capital from which his long imprisonment has cut him off. In order to support this initiative out on the streets, many different types of actions are being organized across the Greek territory. To do everything possible to keep this umpteenth episode of struggle of our comrade from being caged in silence, we call for international solidarity. Although we thoroughly believe the best solidarity will always be to continue and deepen our fights, we think it is valuable to look at Giannis’ history of struggle, the hostility with which he looks at the existent, and the ideas of freedom he always carried inside of him on both sides of the prison walls - to recognize ourselves in the reflections of his turbulent journey of revolt. This is an opportunity to accompany our comrade in a fragment of his fight in a more outspoken way, using the means each of us sees fit. ...

As time moves on and the seasons change, we approach once again the June 11th International Day of Solidarity with Marius Mason & All Long-Term Anarchist Prisoners . Another year has passed, and many of our dear comrades remain captives of the state, subject to its daily subjugation, isolation, and brutality. June 11th is a time to stop the ever-quickening rush of our lives and remember. ...

(March 27, 2022) A small group of Montreal-area anarchists gathered downtown earlier today, and marched to the Russian consulate in solidarity with anti-fascists and the anti-war movement in Ukraine, Russia and Belarus. Protesters held up banners reading (in a mix of English, French and Russian): “No to war!”, “Putin: Fuck Off!”, “No more Tsars! Up the anti-fascist resistance everywhere!”, and “Solidarity with Ukrainian and Russian war resisters”. At the consulate, whose gates were already vandalized with red paint, protesters attached the banners, and read a communiqué from an anti-war action in Moscow. Before leaving, a few protesters egged the front of the consulate. ...

Greetings, comrades! We are the Ukrainian anti-authoritarian volunteer network, “Operation Solidarity”. Since the first days of escalation by Russia, we have taken part in the resistance against the invasion, as have the majority of Ukrainian anarchists and anti-authoritarian left activists because we believe that this war is imperialist and usurping. This is not a war of “de-nazification”, as the Kremlin claims. The problems of the far-right in Ukraine exist as they do in many European countries, but their scale is highly exaggerated by Russian propaganda which exploits antifascism. Life in Ukraine is incomparably more free than it is in Russia, which has only become increasingly fascistic during the course of this escalation. ...

Shortly after the first bombs started falling on Ukrainian cities in the invasion by Russian forces, anti-authoritarian musicians around the world began collaborating with members of Anarchist Black Cross collectives to respond. Now, two compilation albums have been released to raise money for anarchists fighting the invasion on the front lines in Ukraine, and behind the lines in Russia. https://abcmusicalsolidarity.bandcamp.com/ The invasion of Ukraine by the Russian military requires Putin to direct violence on both sides of the battle lines. As his bombers and artillery shell Ukrainian cities, and his tanks roll over Ukrainian fields and wallow in the springtime mud, the Russian state maintains the discipline of war at home. The OMON and FSB target anti-war protestors. The media shut down under threat of prison for speaking the truth about the war. When conscripts refuse to participate in this imperialist war, they face threats and punishments from their officers. ...

On the night of February 6th, 2022 in Montreal (Tio’Tia:Ke), non-Indigenous allies demonstrated their solidarity with the Gidimt’en clan of the Wet’suwet’en Nation. The instigators of this action are responding to a call by Wet’suwet’en hereditary chiefs to #ShutdownCanada in response to the invasion of their territory, the Yintah, by the RCMP for the third consecutive year. We used many different tactics : smashed windows, glued locks and card readers, and spray-painting #FuckRBC on the interior, so all RBC clients were aware of why their bank has been consistently targeted for the past 5 months. ...

The RBC on Commercial drive and 1st ave was molotoved on the night of Nov 15, the other location on Nanaimo and Hastings had 12 windows smashed in solidarity with the Wet’suwet’en people and all indigenous people resisting colonialism and white supremacy. They ignore peaceful protest, take a stand.

Fire extinguisher full of white paint was used on the facade of a RBC branch located in Ottawa during the holiday week. The action was meant as an answer to the calls to action from the Gidimt’en clan who retook possession of “Coyote Camp” with their allies. We stand in solidarity with the Wetʼsuwetʼen nation and against KKKanada’s genocidal project. Fuck CGL, Fuck the RCMP, fuck RBC, Shut down KKKanada and get the fuck out of the Yintah!

This November 27th, 2021, the Convergence des luttes anticapitalistes (CLAC) called for a demonstration in front of the RCMP offices near the Atwater metro in solidarity with the Wet’suwet’en people. This call was supported by over twenty Montreal organizations . Thus, despite the cold and the huge police presence, there were more than 750 demonstrators who responded to the call with breathtaking energy, allowing to defend the right to protest in the face of an out of proportion police force. ...

There is nothing left unsaid. RCMP Out. CGL off the Yintah. Defend the Wedzin Kwa. This is an act of genocide. An active genocide. An armed invasion by the colonial state. There is nothing left to say: they do not listen to words. So just do; that is what we have done. One recent evening, allies/accomplices went out into the night to pick up where others may have left off in the spring of 2020: targeting rail infrastructure. ...

Skip to the practical section. It’s important to know that settlers have written this. We don’t have the lived experience of any Indigenous person, including the Wet’suwet’en. We do write from a place of heart and affinity within this struggle – personal, political, and/or relational. In that we feel responsibility to act against the systems and corporations that harm the people and land within it. We acknowledge our settler responsibility and complicity in this, and look for opportunities and strategies that align politically as a way to enact solidarity. This does not mean we speak for them, or should be closed to critiques. ...