Category Archives: Indigenous

Colectivo Subversión on Protest in Colombia and Global Battles for Dignity

Colectivo Subversión on Protest in Colombia and Global Battles for Dignity

Photo of a street mural with nature themes reading, in Spanish, "This is the Time of the voice of the Communities"
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This week on the show we are pleased to present an interview with María Kamila, who is a teacher and a popular journalist who works with the anarchist Colombian journalism and counter-information collective in Bogotá called Subversión. We originally reached out to talk about the current wave of protests and riots in Colombia, and this interview covers many topics, ranging from a historical contextualization of the current moment, who are on the front lines of the protests, Indigenous solidarity with anarchist accomplices via the Minga – which is a pre-colonial term for collaboration, meeting or communal action – , and many more topics.

Much thanks to our comrades at Radio Kurruf, doing anarchist media in the Biobío bio-region of so-called Chile in occupied Wallmapu, for putting us into touch with Subversión.

Paypal donations for supporting frontline protestors: surterraneomusic@gmail.com

Social media:

Further reading and research topics:

  • [00:20:00] min Mention of Carlos Pizarro Leongómez of 19th April Movement, assassinated Guerrillero
  • [00:24:00] minutes Minister of Finance Alberto Carrasquilla Barrera who was forced to resign
  • [00:28:00] minutes Guarda de Cauca , an ongoing struggle of Indigenous people fighting for land sovereignty
  • [00:40:00] minutes: Minga (or Minka), Indigenous, pre-colonial term for collaboration, meeting or communal action

Good articles in English:

Continue reading Colectivo Subversión on Protest in Colombia and Global Battles for Dignity

Palestine and Challenging Settler Colonial Imaginaries

Palestine and Challenging Settler Colonial Imaginaries

Photo by Yousef Natsha
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This week on the show, we’re airing a portion of our 2018 interview with filmmaker and activist Yousef Natsha about his film about his hometown, Hebron, and the Israeli occupation of Palestine. We invite you to check out our full interview with him from March 25, 2018, linked in our show notes and we’re choosing to air this right now because of the flare up in violent evictions, home destruction and the assassination of around 100 Palestinian residents of Gaza by the “Israeli Defense Forces”. [00:10:24]

Then, we’ll be sharing a panel from the 2021 UNC Queer Studies Conference called “No Blank Slates: A Discussion of Utopia, Queer Identity, and Settler Colonialism” featuring occasional Final Straw host, Scott Bransen alongside E. Ornelas and Kai Rajala. This audio first aired on Queercorps, on CKUT radio in Montreal. If you’d like to engage in this project, reach out to noblankslates@riseup.net [00:24:05]

Also, Sean Swain on aparthied [00:01:48]

No Blank Slates: A Discussion of Utopia, Queer Identity, and Settler Colonialism

Presenter(s)

Scott Branson, E Ornelas, Kai Rajala

Abstract

Under the neoliberal regime of multiculturalism, the settler colonial project has relied on the assimilation of certain subaltern communities into its project for the effective dispossession and control of indigenous lands. This discussion will present ideas from a book project we are collaborating on in order to invite conversation around the intersection and tension around ideas of liberation and forms of appropriation and oppression. Our main challenge for radical queers is to rethink the kinds of futures we try to include ourselves in, and how our liberatory work can subtly replay exclusion and erasure. How do neoliberal utopian gay politics perpetuate settler colonial erasure and genocide? How do politics that seek inclusion and representation–in other words assimilation–disavow the work by indigenous self-determination movements, which are also poised on the frontlines of planetary self-defense? The workshop will be divided up into short presentations by each writer, followed by a structured discussion facilitated by the presenters.

Description:

The utopian project that underwrote the Canadian/American settler colonial states that still exist today was eventually transmuted into a neoliberal utopian sense of identity. The entire concept of space and self that we inherit is imbued with utopian longing for a time and place that we can fully be ourselves. This kind of rhetoric is largely at play in mainstream identity-based movements, like gay rights. But this longing often works in favor of the regime of violence and dominance perpetrated by the modern nation state. We can see how the attempt at inclusive representation of queer cultures leads to assimilation and appropriation. What gets included in regimes of representation ends up mimicking the norms of straight/cisgender heteronormativity, in terms of class aspirations, behaviors, and family structures. This therefore contributes to systematic erasure of Black and Brown queer folks, who are still the most targeted “identities” for state violence and its civilian deputies. With images of diversity that appeal to bourgeois urban gays, businesses and governments can pinkwash their violence.

A radical queer politics that relies on unquestioned utopian and dystopian visions risks aligning itself with a settler colonial imaginary of terra nullius or “blank slate” space. On the one hand, dystopian and apocalyptic visions perpetuate the unquestioned assumption that a societal collapse is impending, as if the continual degradation of human and more-than-human communities has not already arrived. Particularly dangerous in this assumption is the kind of crisis rhetoric that fosters opportunities for settler colonial sentiments of insecurity and, in the face of this insecurity, assertions of belonging and sovereignty in land and lifeways. Furthermore, visions of radical utopias as-yet-to-be-realized (or, as-yet-to-be-colonized) discount the ongoing presence of Indigenous alternatives to the current settler colonial dystopian reality, and instead preserves a view of geographic and social space as blank and ready to be “improved” with a “new” model.

Here we have a problem of erasure of the oppressions and resistances that have been ongoing in different iterations, in favor of the blank space of the utopian frontier. We argue against these linear progression narratives of societal and environmental collapse which promise to bring about a future idealized world of rainbow-diverse identities. Instead, we propose ways for radical politics, particularly those espoused by non-Indigenous people, to disavow such settler colonial mindsets. There are a few ways to offer a glimpse into the lived realities—what we might still call utopian moments—that make up the non-alienated, revolutionary life: queer and indigenous histories of resistance, rituals and moment of community care and mutual aid, and science fiction revisions of the world. We argue that this other world does in fact exist—has existed and has not stopped existing—if only in the interstices or true moments of communing and inhabiting the land alongside friends and family.

This is not an argument in favor of utopia, but one that seeks to bypass the utopian/dystopian divide. The world we inhabit is clearly dystopian for most, and utopian for some, and in many estimations, constantly on the verge of ending. The disaster scenarios, repeating the puritanical eschatology that helped settle the colonies in America, perpetuates the history of erasure of ways of life that aren’t in fact gunning for that disaster. We still argue that the purpose of dreaming, of envisioning alternatives, is to make action possible today, through recognition of the power we do already hold. Our discussion will interrogate the settler-utopian impulses that get hidden within apparently liberatory movements, such as radical queers and strands of environmentalism, as well as the way these identities and politics are represented in narratives of liberation that rely on the same logic they claim to oppose.

Bios

E Ornelas (no pronouns or they/them) is a Feminist Studies PhD candidate in the Department of Gender, Women, & Sexuality Studies. As the descendant of a survivor of the Sherman Institute, a Native boarding school in Riverside, California—and therefore robbed of cultural, linguistic, and tribal identity—E’s research interests focus on the continued survivance and futurity of BIPOC communities, particularly through the use of literature. E’s dissertation illuminates community-based, abolitionist-informed, alternative models of redress for gendered, racialized, and colonial violence by analyzing Black and Indigenous speculative fiction. When not on campus, E can be found reading feminist sci-fi, making music, baking vegan sweets, and walking their dog. [00:45:06]

Kai Rajala (pronounced RYE-ah-la) is a queer, nonbinary, white-settler of Finnish and mixed European descent. They are a writer, and an anarchist anti-academic working and living on the unceded territories of the Kanien’kehá:ka peoples on the island colonially referred to as Montréal, and known otherwise as Tiohtià:ke. They are currently pursuing studies as an independent researcher and are interested in sites outside of the university where knowledge production occurs. You can find Kai on twitter at @anarcho_thembo or on instagram at @they4pay. [00:57:28]

Scott Branson is queer trans Jewish anarchist who teaches, writes, translates, and does other things in Western so-called North Carolina. Their translation of Jacques Lesage De la Haye’s The Abolition of Prison is coming out with AK Press this summer. Their translation of Guy Hocquenghem’s second book, Gay Liberation After May 68, is due out next year with Duke University Press. They edited a volume of abolitionist queer writings based on two iterations of the UNC Asheville queer studies conference, due out with PM Press next year. They are currently working on a book on daily anarchism for Pluto Press and researching a book on the institutionalization of queerness in the academy. They also make books of poems and artwork. You can find Scott on Instagram @scottbransonblurredwords or check out sjbranson.com for more of their work or on twitter at @sjbranson1. [00:30:41]

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Steve Martinez Still Resists Grand Jury Related To Dakota Access Pipeline Struggle

Steve Martinez Still Resists Grand Jury Related To Dakota Access Pipeline Struggle

Steve Martinez giving a fist up salute in front of Federal Courthouse in Bismark, ND
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It’s been nearly half a decade since thousands of indigenous water and land defenders and their accomplices and allies weathered a difficult winter and attacks by law enforcement and private security attempting to push through the Dakota Access Pipeline through so-called North Dakota. The DAPL was eventually built and has already, unsurprisingly damaged the lands, waters and sacred sites of the Standing Rock Sioux and other people native to the area. Resistance has also continued to this and other extractions and pipeline projects across Turtle Island and the defense against DAPL surely inspired and fed many other points of opposition in defense of the earth and native sovereignty.

On one night in November, 2016, as government goons leveled fire hoses and “less-lethal” armaments at water defenders in freezing temperatures, Sophia Wilansky suffered an injury from an explosion that nearly took her arm. An Indigenous and Chicano former employee of another pipeline project named Steve Martinez volunteered to drive Sophia to the hospital in Bismark. For this, he was subpoenaed to a Federal Grand Jury, which he refused to participate in. Now, almost 4 and a half years later, Steve is being imprisoned for resisting another FGJ in Bismark. For the hour, we hear from Chava Shapiro with the Tucson Anti-Repression Committee and James Clark, a lawyer who works with the National Lawyers Guild, talk about Steve’s case, the dangers of Grand Juries, and why it’s imperative for movements to support their incarcerated comrades.

More info on the case and ways you can support Steve, plus more info on Grand Juries can be found at SupportSteveMartinez.com and you can also follow the campaign on Twitter via @SupportSteveNow, Instagram via @SupportSteveMartinez and donate at his GoFundMe.

Continue reading Steve Martinez Still Resists Grand Jury Related To Dakota Access Pipeline Struggle

The Struggle for Likhtsamisyu Liberation Continues, Updates from Delee Nikal

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This week we had the opportunity to connect with Delee Nikal, who is a Wet’su’weten community member, about updates from the Gidimt’en Camp that was created to block the TransCanada Coastal GasLink pipeline (or CGL) that Canada is trying to push through their un-ceded territory. In this interview Bursts and Delee speak about ways folks can get involved, both in so called BC and elsewhere, how the covid pandemic is affecting their work, and many other topics.

The Struggle for Likhtsamisyu Liberation Continues, Updates from Delee Nikal

Click here to hear a past interview with Delee!

Follow @gidimten_checkpoint on Instagram and Gidimt’en Yintah Access on the internet for further ways to send solidarity, including a fundraising and wishlist link.

Links and projects mentioned by our guest:

defund.ca

defundthepolice.org

BIPOC Liberation Collective

Defenders Against the Wall

Help Get a New Lawyer for Sean Swain!

Before the segment from Sean Swain, we would like to draw attention to a fundraiser in order to get Sean proper legal representation. As we all may know by now, there is nothing restorative about the prison system, its only reason for being is punitive and capitalist. Sean Swain has been in prison for the past 25 years, for a so called “crime” of self defense and radicalized to being an anarchist behind bars. He has been targeted by numerous prison officials for his political beliefs, so much so that years were added to his sentence. If you would like to support this fundraiser, you can either visit our show notes or go to gofundme.com and search Restorative Justice for Sean Swain.

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You can write to Sean Swain at his latest address:

Sean Swain #2015638

Buckingham Correctional

PO Box 430

Dillwyn, VA 23936

You can find his writings, past recordings of his audio segments, and updates on his case at seanswain.org, and follow him on Twitter @swainrocks.

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In Solidarity with Italian Anarchists Facing Repression 

We send you our solidarity call with anarchist in Italy and some introductory words, asking you to spread it in the way you prefer. Thanks!From 2019 to today the Italian State has carried out many repressive operations and inflicted a series of restrictive measures on anarchist comrades, limiting their freedom of movement and forcing them to remain within the limits of their city or to move away from the city or region where they reside.

As recipients of these kind of minor measures, together we want to relaunch our solidarity with the more than 200 comrades involved in the various trials in Italy that are starting this September and that shall continue throughout the autumn.
In particular, the appeal trial of the Scripta Manent Operation will resume at the beginning of September: this trial involves 5 comrades who have been in prison for 4 years (two of them for 8 years) and which has resulted in 20+ years of sentence in the first grade.
During this trial the prosecutor Sparagna gibbered of an “acceptable” anarchism and of a “criminal” one, statements that contain the punitive strategy that the State wants to carry out, based on dividing the “good” from the “bad” within the anarchist movement and the ruling of exemplary sentences.”

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WHO ASPIRES TO FREEDOM CANNOT BE “MEASURED”

We are anarchists subject to restrictive measures following a series of investigations that have crossed the Italian peninsula in the last year and a half.

They would like to isolate us, but they cannot. They would like to prevent us from supporting our comrades in prison, but their repression can only strengthen our solidarity.
With these various investigations, measures and prison detentions they want to wear us out and divide us, but we remain firm in our ideas and our relations, also thanks to the strong and sincere solidarity that has never failed us and that is increasingly under attack in the courtrooms.

They want to divide us between “good” and “bad”, between an anarchism they call "acceptable" and one they call "criminal". We are aware that it is our ideas that have been put on the stand in the latest inquiries, all the more so when these ideas find the way of being translated into action, because as we’ve always believed, thought and action find their meaning only when tied together. And it’s not surprising that a hierarchical system of power such as the State is trying to knock out its enemies by playing dirty and reviewing history, precisely when social anger is growing everywhere.

We don’t intend to bow down to their repressive strategies and we reaffirm our full solidarity and complicity with all the anarchists who will be on trial from September: we stand side by side with the comrades under investigation for the Scripta Manent, Panico, Prometeo, Bialystok and Lince Operations, with the anarchist comrades Juan and Davide and with those who will be tried for the Brennero demonstration; we assert our solidarity with Carla, an anarchist comrade arrested in August after living more than a year as a fugitive, following the Scintilla Operation.

We know very well who are the enemies that imprison our comrades and against whom we are fighting and every anarchist knows in his/her heart how and where to act to demonstrate what solidarity is.
Even if not all of us can be present in the courtrooms alongside our comrades on trial or where solidarity will be manifested, we want to express all our affinity, our love and our anger to them and to all anarchists in prison.

Let’s continue to attack this world of cages. Solidarity is a weapon, and an opportunity.

-Anarchists “with measures”, exiled and confined

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Public Domain music for this episode:
Hustler – Retro Beatz  (loop by William)
BOSS – Hip Hop Rap Instrumental 2016  (loop by William)

Aric McBay on Ecology and Strategies for Resistance

Aric McBay on Ecology and Strategies for Resistance

Aric McBay speaking and cover of Vol 1 of "Full Spectrum Resistance"
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This week we are airing a conversation that we had a few weeks ago with Aric McBay, who is an anarchist, organizer, farmer, and author about his most recent book called Full Spectrum Resistance published by Seven Stories Press in May 2019.

This book is divided into 2 volumes, and from the books website [fullspectrumresistance.org]:

Volume 1: Building movements and fighting to win, explores how movements approach political struggle, recruit members, and structure themselves to get things done and be safe.

Volume 2: Actions and strategies for change, lays out how movements develop critical capacities (from intelligence to logistics), and how they plan and carry out successful actions and campaigns.”

This interview covers a lot of ground, with topics that could be of use to folks newer to movement and ones who have been struggling and building for a while. McBay also talks at length about the somewhat infamous formation Deep Green Resistance, some of its history, and tendencies within that group that led him to break with them.

Links to Indigenous and Migrant led projects for sovereignty and climate justice, and some for further research:

Links for more reading from Aric McBay:

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Featured Tracks:

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You can write to Sean Swain at his latest address:

Sean Swain #2015638

Buckingham Correctional

PO Box 430

Dillwyn, VA 23936

You can find his writings, past recordings of his audio segments, and updates on his case at seanswain.org, and follow him on Twitter @swainrocks.

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Continue reading Aric McBay on Ecology and Strategies for Resistance

Maxida Märak and Gabriel Khun on Liberating Sápmi

Liberating Sápmi with Maxida Märak and Gabriel Khun

Book cover of "Liberating Sapmi", PM Press
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This week we are pleased to present an interview William conducted with Gabriel Khun and Maxida Märak on the 2019 PM Press release Liberating Sápmi: Indigenous Resistance in Europe’s Far North. This book, of which Khun is the author and editor and Märak is an contributor, details a political history of the Sámi people whose traditional lands extend along the north most regions of so called Sweden, Norway, Finland, and parts of Russia, as well as interviews conducted with over a dozen Sámi artists and activists.

Maxida Märak is a Sámi activist, actor, and hip hop artist who has done extensive work for Indigenous people’s justice. All of the music in this episode is by Märak and used with her permission, one of which comes off of her 2019 full length release Utopi.

In this episode we speak about the particular struggles of Sámi folks, ties between Indigenous people all around the world, and many more topics!

Links for further solidarity and support from our guests:

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Featured Tracks:

Continue reading Maxida Märak and Gabriel Khun on Liberating Sápmi

Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz (Burning Books Lecture Series)

Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz (Burning Books Lecture Series)

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As corona virus spreads, the failures of capitalist states becomes even clearer and many people are forced to take some breaks from participating in the economy in the way they did before, we’d like to offer some audio we’ve been sitting on.  The good folks at the radical bookstore and community space, Burning Books in Buffalo, New York, has given us a small trove of audios from presentations by authors, activists, visionaries and revolutionaries they’ve hosted over the last 7 years or so.  We hope that you’ll take away some good perspectives from these luminaries, on struggle, on change, on shifting terrain and on the revolutionary solidarity impulse that they communicate. These are scary times we are living in, but we want to remind you that sometimes in scary times people bring out their best to the fore because we are stronger together.

Get involved in local efforts to organize in your area by visiting this IGD post and searching down the page for the regional mutual aid groups you can plug into.

In this podcast special series, we’re sharing a presentation by the author, historian and activist, Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz on September 17th, 2015, speaking about her book ‘An Indigenous Peoples History of the United States’. From the website, reddirtsite.com:
Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz grew up in rural Oklahoma, the daughter of a tenant farmers. She has been active in the international indigenous movement for more than four decades, and she is known for her lifelong commitment to national and international social justice issues. After receiving her Ph.D. in history at the University of California at Los Angeles, she taught in the newly established Native American Studies Program at California State University, Hayward, and helped found the Departments of Ethnic Studies and Women’s Studies.
The audio cuts off rather suddenly after just about an hour due to recording device, sadly, so we lose Dr. Dunbar-Ortiz part way through a sentence.  We’ll have more information at the end of this about where you can find more of her writings.
If you are thinking of purchasing any of her titles, we suggest that you check out getting them from a local bookstore rather than Amazon. And while quarantine is ongoing, if you prefer to order online from Burning Books, they are offering free shipping in the US on orders more than $25 (as of this recording on March 18th, 2020) from their website, burningbooks.com. Feel free, also, to support our local venue and regular supporter of our site, as well, Firestorm.Coop, which sells titles online as well. 

Josh Harper of SHAC7 and Voices from Gidimt’en Access Point

Josh Harper of SHAC7 and Voices from Gidimt’en Access Point

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This week, we feature two portions of the show: An interview with Josh Harper on the recent documentary about the activism of and repression against the SHAC7; and the experiences of 3 people at the Gidim’ten Access Point about the violent RCMP raid to impose a gas pipeline across unceded Wet’suwet’en territory.

Josh Harper on ‘Animal People’ film

First up, we’ll hear Josh Harper, a co-defendant from the SHAC7 case and former political prisoner talking the struggle to shut down the company, Huntington Life Sciences, a contract animal testing laboratory, in the early 2000’s in the so-called US. Josh talks about the case, his post-release experience, archiving the history of earth and animal liberation with The Talon Conspiracy (currently on hiatus) and some views of moving forward. Josh and the other co-defendants are the focus of a recent documentary film called ‘The Animal People’, which is available on all of the paid streaming sources, which speaks with participants in the case and their prosecutors, plus journalists like Will Potter who documented the Green Scare. Gut wrenching is a great descriptor for the film.

Check out our early interview with Will Potter on ‘Green Is The New Red’ and consider listening to the recent episode of the IGD podcast with Josh Harper and Andy Stepanian for a larger assessment of the Animal Liberation movement and more.

Voices from the Gidimt’en Access Point Barricade

Then, you’ll hear the voices of three warriors who were on the barricade on the road to Unist’ot’en Camp at the Gidimt’en Access Point. Eve Saint (Wet’suwet’en land defender), Anne Spice (Tlinket land defender) and Shilo Hill (from Onandaga nation, Haudenosaunee, Six Nations) were there to defend unceded Wet’suwet’en land from the Canadian state’s violent imposition of the Coastal Gas Link pipeline. They talk about what brought them to the Gitdumden Access near so-called Houston, BC, the buildup to the impending raid by RCMP troops, indigenous sovereignty, land and water defense, the long road to decolonization and the importance of outside support and solidarity from indigenous and First Nations peoples and their allies and accomplices.

On Thursday morning, the day after this recording, at about 5am Pacific, the RCMP began their raids and arrests in an attempt to impose the injunction and clear the land and water defenders from the Wet’suwet’en lands. Media have been detained and released and at the time of this publication, 6 land defenders have been arrested and refuse to sign and conditions imposed by the Canadian state and so are still in state detention.

Members of the Wet’suwet’en First Nation are asking for people to take solidarity action in support of their autonomy. Solidarity actions have looked a lot of different ways in the last few months across Turtle Island, so-called USA and Canada. Take a moment and listen to your heart, find your friends and do what you think needs to be done to get the ball rolling.

You can keep up with news at the Unis’tot’en Camp website (Unistoten.Camp) or on fedbook, YouTube and twitter, Wetsuweten Access Point at Gitdimten fedbook and instagram or at the sites Yintahaccess.com and Likhtsamisyu.com, all of which will be present in our show notes. You can also keep up on solidarity actions posted on the Montreal Counter-Info site (MTLCounterInfo.org), North Shore Counter-Info site (North-Shore.Info) and ItsGoingDown.org

To hear a few audios we’ve released, including with Delee Nikal and Mel Bazil of the Wet’suwet’en community, Chief Smogelgem and two other members of the Likhts’amisyu clan you can visit our site.

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playlist

Special: Gitdimten Access Point Before The Raid

Voices from the Gitdimten Access Point

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This is a podcast special featuring the voices of three warriors who were on the barricade on the road to Unist’ot’en Camp at the Gitdimten Access Point. Eve Saint (Wet’suwet’en land defender), Anne Spice (Tlinket land defender) & Shilo Hill (from Onandaga nation, Haudenosaunee, Six Nations) were there to defend unceded Wet’suwet’en land from the Canadian state’s violent imposition of the Coastal Gas Link pipeline. They talk about what brought them to the Gitdumden Access near so-called Houston, BC, the buildup to the impending raid by RCMP troops, indigenous sovereignty, land and water defense, the long road to decolonization and the importance of outside support and solidarity from indigenous and First Nations peoples and their allies and accomplices.

This morning (Feb 6, 2020) at about 5am Pacific, the RCMP began their raids and arrests in an attempt to impose the injunction and clear the land and water defenders from the Wet’suwet’en lands. Media have been detained and released and at the time of this publication, 6 land defenders have been arrested and refuse to sign and conditions imposed by the Canadian state and so are still in state detention.

Members of the Wet’suwet’en First Nation are asking for people to take solidarity action in support of their autonomy. Solidarity actions have looked a lot of different ways in the last few months across Turtle Island, so-called USA & Canada. Take a moment and listen to your heart, find your friends and do what you think needs to be done to get the ball rolling.

You can keep up with news at the Unistoten Camp website (Unistoten.Camp) or on fedbook, YouTube and twitter, Wetsuweten Access Point at Gitdimten fedbook and Instagram or at the sites Yintahaccess.com and Likhtsamisyu.com, all of which will be present in our show notes. You can also keep up on solidarity actions posted on the Montreal Counter-Info site (MTLCounterInfo.org), North Shore Counter-Info site (North-Shore.Info) and ItsGoingDown.org

To hear a few audios we’ve released, including with Delee Nikal and Chief Smogelgem of the Likhts’amisyu clan in the last year or so, or other words on land defense in so-called Canada, visit our website, TheFinalStrawRadio.noblogs.org.

Anarchy and Indigenous Resistance to AMLO in Mexico

Anarchy and Indigenous Resistance to AMLO in Mexico

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This week on The Final Straw, an anarchist living in Mexico talks about the reign of the MORENA gimpparty of Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (aka AMLO), the new face of capitalism it presents, it’s relation to social movements and indigenous sovereignty and the anarchist and indigenous resistance to the regime. We cover mega-projects being pushed through around the country, the repression of activists and more in this whopper of an episode.

Here’s a great English-language blog based mostly out of Oaxaca that covers struggle in Mexico and across the northern border: https://elenemigocomun.net/

 

To learn more about the Anarchist Days that our guest spoke on, you can email janarquistas2020@protonmail.com!

Channel Zero Fundraiser

The gofundme can be found at https://gofundme.com/Channel-zero-network-2020-fundraiser/ .To check out the video to match the audio you just heard so you can enjoy and spread it around, check out our show notes or at https://sub.media !

Final Straw Notes from the guest:

If you want to understand the politics of Mexico, listen to the voices of Indigenous peoples and communities, women in struggle, campesinos

Indigenous populations and megaprojects:

Airport Lake Texcoco

New International Airport of Mexico City proposed in 2001 by Vicente Fox, but cancelled shortly after due to organized resistance

AMLO cancelled project after carrying out a “popular consultation”

Cancel one mega-project to impose three more

  • Expansion of Santa Lucia and Toluca airports
  • Naucalpan- Toluca highway
  • Interurban train

– Tren Maya (Mayan Train)

  • 950-mile train connecting principal tourist destinations in the states of Chiapas, Campeche, Tabasco, Yucatan and Quintana Roo
  • 17 stations including Playa del carmen, Tulum, Palenque, Merida, Cancun
  • Infrastructure projects to be built around train stations
  • For tourists and cargo

– “Corredor Transistmico” Interoceanic corridor

  • Industrial corridor connecting the ports of Salina Cruz, Oaxaca, on the pacific coast, and Coatzacoalcos, Veracruz, in the gulf of Mexico.
  • The project is meant to compete with the Panama Canal, as a route of land transportation connecting the Pacific with the gulf of Mexico.
  • United States has been trying to get this project going since the 19th century
  • Train routes and a super highway, modernization of ports, and various older train routes

– Proyeto integral de morelos (PIM) (Integral Project of Morelos)

Project that began in 2012 and has faced stiff resistance from the Frente de pueblos en defensa de tierra y agua Morelos-puebla-tlaxcala (People’s Front in Defense of Land and Water Morelos-Puebla-Tlaxcala)

The PIM roject includes:
  • Thermoelectric plant in Huexca, Morelos
  • A natural gas pipeline to supply gas to the plant which passes through 60 Indigenous and campesino communities in Tlaxcala, Puebla and Morelos
  • An aqueduct that seeks to move 50 million liters of water daily to the thermoelectric plant from the Rio Cuautla
  • Italian and Spanish transnationals

Zapatismo:

Armed Indigenous rebellion in Chiapas in 1994. After failed talks with the government, they took the path of autonomy
2003-formation of five caracoles (zones of autonomous self-government) The caracoles are regional administrative units where autonomous authorities come together and from which clinics, cooperatives, schools, transportation and other services are administered.
The Zapatista communities are managed by the Juntos de buen gobierno (Good Government Councils), which are made up of representatives of the autonomous councils of the rebel municipalities.
Expansion of autonomous territory: In august of 2019 the Zapatistas announced 7 new New Centers of Autonomous Zapatista Rebellion and Resistance (CRAREZ) and 4 new rebel Zapatista autonomous municipalities. Added to the 5 original Caracoles for a total of 16. In addition to the 27 original autonomous municipalities, giving us a total of 43 (CRAREZ). Made up of different assemblies, autonomous municipalities, etc.
Zapatista communities made up of Insignous tzotziles, tzeltales, mames, choles, tojolabales y zoques
 
Zapatista activities in December of 2019: Celebration of Life: A December of Resistance and Rebellion
Film Festival 7-14 of December 2019
Dance Festival December 15-20
Forum in Defense of Territory and Mother Earth December 21-22
 
3,259 women
95 little girls
26 men
From 49 countries
Celebration of the 26 Anniversary of the Beginning of the War Against Oblivion December 31 and January 1
EZLN declaration to continue struggle.

CODEDI assasinations:

  • On February 12, 2018- Ignacio Ventura, Luis Angel Martínez and Alejandro Diaz Cruz.
  • On July 17, 2018- Abraham Hernandez Gonzales
  • On October 25, 2018- Noel Castillo Aguilar

COPIG-EZ assasinations:

  • Concejo Indígena y Popular de Guerrero – Emiliano Zapata CIPOG-EZ (Indigenous and popular council of Guerrero-Emiliano Zapata)
  • May 2019- José Lucio Bartolo Faustino, Modesto Verales Sebastián, Bartolo Hilario Morales, and Isaías Xanteco Ahuejote of the Nahua people organized as the Indigenous and Popular Council of Guerrero – Emiliano Zapata (CIPOG – EZ).

Other assasinations

  • Samir Flores Soberanes of the Nahua people of Amilcingo, Morelos.
  • Julián Cortés Flores, of the Mephaa people of the Casa de Justicia in San Luis Acatlán, Guerrero.
  • Ignacio Pérez Girón, of the Tzotzil people of the municipality of Aldama, Chiapas.
  • Juan Monroy and José Luis Rosales, of the Nahua people Ayotitlán, Jalisco.
  • Feliciano Corona Cirino, of the Nahua people of Santa María Ostula, Michoacán.
  • Josué Bernardo Marcial Campo, also known as TíoBad, of the Populuca people of Veracruz.

Political prisoners

Building international networks of solidarity, both anarchist and otherwise, with Mexico

Anarchist Days- July 13-19, 2020 in DF Email: janarquistas2020@protonmail.com

Las jornadas en defensa del territorio y la madre tierra “Samir Somos Todas y Todos” February 20-22, 2020

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