Archives

Tagged ‘Idle No More‘

Sep 12

2013

0

350.org / 1Sky, Foundations, Non-Profit Industrial Complex

350.org Divestment Campaign First Peoples Worldwide Ford Foundation Idle No More Naomi Klein Rockefeller Foundations Seventh Generation Fund Spectacle Celebrities

Degrees of Evil: Savoring the Nuances of Co-optation

McKibbenKlein2012

Photo: Bill McKibben and Naomi Klein of 350.org

Intercontinental Cry

Sept 6, 2013

By Jay Taber 

 

Mind games of the non-profit industrial complex aren’t hard to decipher; the gullible simply have to decide they no longer want to be coddled by bromides, no longer treated as infantile consumers of spectacle. Once they reach the point of being skeptical, the charades of capitalist activism come clearly into view.

Spectacle celebrities like Naomi Klein, while raising valid (albeit hypocritical) criticism of the complex, count on infantile consumers to maintain their activist credentials. Serving as proxies for consumer rage, yet asking nothing serious of them as citizens, makes these capitalist activists popular and profitable PR puppets. (I especially love Ms. No Logo‘s logos.) →

Jul 17

2013

2

Non-Profit Industrial Complex, Pacifism as Pathology, Whiteness & Aversive Racism

Idle No More Neocolonialism

A Critical Assessment of Idle No More

A Critical Assessment of Idle No More

Above: Mangu putra, Kartini, 2010, oil on canvas

Warrior Publications

July 17, 2013

By Wendy Lynn Lerat

 Lerat Wendy Lynn

Wendy Lynn Lerat

 

Good evening good people

With all due respect to the opinions expressed here I am in agreement with much of the posts I have read of Ian’s over the past few days. I am encouraged to see that finally there is a growing awareness of the need to challenge the INM ‘movement’ and I would like to state that not only must the position be challenged the significant risk its position places on the true grassroots’ movement be exposed.

Neocolonialism is the growing middle class movement that is spreading across the world. It self-identifies wherever it is as a grassroots activist movement yet it is dominated by individuals who are not grassroot activists. The black grassroots activism in the US is experiencing what is currently overtaking indigenous grassroots activism here – both ‘movements’ propagate the idea that the crisis can be ‘fixed’ within the current system and social order. As a result, both maintain the status quo and the current class system. →

Mar 19

2013

0

Non-Profit Industrial Complex, Whiteness & Aversive Racism

AFN Assembly of First Nations Canada Idle No More Mohawk Warriors Oka Pacifism Resistance

Never Idle: Gord Hill on Indigenous Resistance in Canada

Never Idle: Gord Hill on Indigenous Resistance in Canada

March 18, 2013

[A condensed version of this article appeared in the March 2013 issue of The Portland Radicle.]

Radicle: Could you explain how indigenous power is apportioned in Canada and the Assembly of First Nations?

Gord Hill: The AFN is comprised of all the band council chiefs. We refer to them as the “Indian Act chiefs” because the Indian Act is federal legislation that was introduced in 1876 and it was through this act that the Canadian government imposed the reservation system and the band council system and status, like who is a Native. That’s the main thing about the Indian Act, so since then they imposed these band councils and chiefs onto all the reserves. The Assembly of First Nations was established in the early 1980s and it’s a national organization of these Indian Act chiefs. They’re basically a lobby group with the government. They’re a political organization of the Indian Act chiefs. →

Mar 19

2013

0

Non-Profit Industrial Complex, Whiteness & Aversive Racism

Great Plains Tar Sands Resistance Idle No More KXL Oklahoma White Savior Complex Whiteness & Aversive Racism

Native Activists Withdraw Support from KXL Truthforce Concert Oklahoma

COALITION OF NATIVE ACTIVISTS WITHDRAW SUPPORT FROM KXL TRUTHFORCE CONCERT IN NORMAN

Casey Camp, Ponca

“Before long, we began to see a pattern that has played out repeatedly: Non-Indians armed with a savior complex, condescending tones and a penchant to show us a better way to do things, begin to plan strategy and events for us.” →

Feb 12

2013

0

Non-Profit Industrial Complex

Capitalism Idle No More INM

Chiefs Using Idle No More to Advance their Political and Economic Agenda

Oil and Gas Reserves Never Idle

froglake

Above: Joe Dion, hereditary Kehewin Cree chief

February 13, 2013

The Dominion

Zig Zag, aka Gord Hill

COAST SALISH TERRITORIES—To fully understand the phenomenon of Idle No More, you must imagine two parallel universes. In one, INM is comprised of good-hearted grassroots Native people responding to a call to oppose Bill C-45 and to protect the land and water of their traditional territories. In the other, however, are chiefs using the mobilization to achieve their political and economic agenda—an agenda that includes partnering with corporations seeking to exploit oil and gas resources on reserve lands. →

Jan 17

2013

0

Non-Profit Industrial Complex, Whiteness & Aversive Racism

Capitalism Colonialism Idle No More Imperialism Omali Yeshitela Onkwehón:we Rising Uhuru Movement

Idle No More | Onkwehon:we Rising’s Statement to the African People’s Solidarity Committee

January 6, 2013
“Whatever criticisms can be made about this movement due to the involvement of neocolonial agents attempting to direct it towards pacifist and reformist ends, this movement has profoundly awoken  Onkwehón:we in a way that has not happened since the rebellion of the Kanien’kehá:ka people at Kahnawà:ke in so-called Quebec in 1990.”
Onkwehón:we Rising greets the International Conference of the African People’s Solidarity Committee with much warmth and excitement in this period of exploding indigenous resurgence and the growth of anti-colonial movements throughout the world.

The following is OR‘s statement of solidarity that was sent into the International Conference of the African People’s Solidarity Committee under the leadership of the African People’s Socialist Party. A member of the APSC and a friend of OR, comrade Jesse Nevel, did OR the honour of reading the statement out. →

Jan 16

2013

0

Foundations, Non-Profit Industrial Complex, Whiteness & Aversive Racism

Disobedience Idle No More NAACP Resistance SCLC SNCC Urban League

Editorial: A People’s Movement | Idle No More

Intercontinental Cry

By Jay Taber

Jan 15, 2013

In my recent editorial Anticipating Reaction, I listed some books that Idle No More activists and their supporters might find useful. One of those seemed particularly relevant to Canada’s current First Nations rebellion.

In James Forman’s 1997 book The Making of Black Revolutionaries, the former organizer of the Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) — that led the sit-ins against American apartheid, and risked their lives in support of Black communities in Mississippi Freedom Summer — recalled the challenges of working with the established Black elites of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) who wanted to control the activists. →

Jan 14

2013

0

Non-Profit Industrial Complex, Pacifism as Pathology, Whiteness & Aversive Racism

First Nations Idle No More Pacifism as Pathology Resistance

Peaceful Protests Profit from History of Militant Resistance | Idle No More

 

Another excellent analysis of the Idle No More movement by Zig Zag …

 

January 12, 2013

by Zig Zag

Warrior Publications

Warrior at Oka, 1990, standing on top of abandoned & over turned police car.Warrior at Oka, 1990, standing on top of abandoned & over turned police car.

“Unbelievable how chicken the police are to remove these people from blocking the railway. If it was anybody but natives they would have been arrested a week ago.”

Letter posted by Gerry, Jan 2, 2013, “First Nation blockade in Sarnia coming down,” Canadian Press, Jan 2, 2013

Any time there is a significant Native blockade or occupation, there are demands for its immediate removal by angry citizens. During Oka, 1990, and Six Nations 2006, for example, mobs of non-Natives rallied and sometimes rioted demanding that the military intervene to end the disputes. →

Jan 10

2013

0

Non-Profit Industrial Complex

First Nations Grassroots Idle No More Resistance

Indigenous Grassroots & the Indian Act Band Council

by Zig Zag

Warrior Publications

January 7, 2013

“Consequently, the leadership of grassroots movements should not be vested in elites or individuals, but rather arise from the the community itself. It is the community members who should meet, discuss, and decide on their course of action. This decision-making power should never be delegated to others, for then the very purpose of grassroots mobilizing would be lost.”

Grassroots fist logo

Debates arising from the recent Idle No More movement have revealed two main interpretations of what comprises the grassroots.  One seeks to exclude band councils, while the other views chiefs & councillors as an integral part of the grassroots, simply by virtue of them being members of the community.  Clearly, we need some basic understanding of what constitutes the grassroots in order to advance our movement. →

Jan 10

2013

0

Whiteness & Aversive Racism

Colonialism First Nations Idle No More Pacifism as Pathology Resistance

Idle No More Movement Urged to Remain Grassroots Ahead of Jan 11 Protests

Cross-posted from Warrior Publications
Originally posted on Straight.com
by Stephen Hui, Georgia Straight
Jan 9, 2013

For his part, Hill sees the Idle No More flash mobs, round dances, and blockades that have occurred as “really positive steps” because they’ve mobilized many previously “idle” indigenous people. But the activist argues that if the movement is to gain substantial concessions from the government, it needs to learn from social movements in Latin America that are capable of “paralyzing the economy” of their countries. … “This is disarming the people,” Hill said. “It’s imposing pacifism on them, and it’s dampening their warrior spirit—their fighting spirit—which we need in a resistance movement.”

 

Stephen Harper meeting not the end of Idle No More, local organizer says

Gord Hill (holding the Mohawk warrior flag during a 2010 Olympic protest) says the Idle No More movement needs to stay grassroots to succeed.
Stephen Hui

Although Prime Minister Stephen Harper is preparing to meet with a delegation of First Nations chiefs on Friday (January 11), a long-time indigenous activist says this should not be viewed as a success for the Idle No More movement.

Indeed, Gord Hill told the Georgia Straight the high-level meeting actually represents the co-optation of the grassroots indigenous-sovereignty movement by band chiefs and councils that owe their power to the paternalistic Indian Act. According to the 44-year-old Kwakwaka’wakw author of The 500 Years of Resistance Comic Book, the Canadian government has historically used these “elites” to suppress efforts by First Nations people to fight colonialism and oppression.

“I wouldn’t even focus on January 11,” Hill said by phone from his East Vancouver home. “That’s something that the colonial regime and its collaborators are doing, so I wouldn’t even focus on that. People need to focus on the long-term strategy and methods of organizing.”

Hill calls himself a “critical supporter” of the Idle No More movement, which was started in October by four women in Saskatchewan, has rallied around hunger-striking Attawapiskat chief Theresa Spence, and has seen thousands take to the streets inside and outside the country. Although he hasn’t yet joined the ranks of Idle No More protesters, Hill is considering participating in the “global day of action” set to coincide with Harper’s meeting on Friday. →