Indigenous Resistance

Indigenous-led Resistance To Enbridge’s Line 3 Pipeline Threatens Big Oil

December 16, 2020 Nick Engelfried, Waging Nonviolence. Resist! Enbridge, Indigenous Resistance, Line 3 Pipeline, Oil and Gas

When Dawn Goodwin went down to the bank of the upper Mississippi River on Dec. 4, she just wanted to spend some time honoring the traditions of her people. Goodwin was part of a small group of Mississippi Band Anishinaabe women visiting a traditional teaching lodge, or waaginoogan, near where Enbridge’s proposed Line 3 oil pipeline would cross under the river. Upon reaching the waaginoogan, she was distressed to see the stumps of clear-cut trees and other damage where Enbridge had cut a path for the pipeline. Gazing at the destruction, Goodwin felt moved to act. “I thought, I needed to pray here,” Goodwin said. “I wandered off toward one of the trees they had cut. I sat down to pray and visit with it.”

The Origins Of Anti-Extractivism

December 10, 2020 Nick Serpe, Dissent Magazine. Educate! Book Review, Extraction, Indigenous Resistance, Latin America

In the social science literature, there’s this sense that countries or states that rely on mining or oil for their revenues are doomed to some kind of pathology: they’re going to be authoritarian, or stuck in underdevelopment. There’s a related notion that resource politics are an elite affair: that what governs the global oil economy is corporations, or the members of OPEC, or oil ministers—and likewise for mining. What I learned doing ethnographic research in Ecuador is that resource politics is much more contested and interesting. Focusing on resource politics as this vibrant field of contention gives a different view of the stakes of...

Why I’m Thankful For 500 Years Of Indigenous Resistance

November 29, 2020 Matt Remle, Last Real Indians. Educate! Indigenous Resistance, Settler colonialism, White Supremacy

Starting in 1452, under the guise of the Papal Bull Romanus Pontifex and later the 1493 Papal Bull Inter Cetera, the Christian Doctrine of Discovery, European Christians began their efforts to expand colonial rule, and the Christian Empire, throughout the world. These Papal Bulls sanctioned European Christian Nations to “capture, vanquish, and subdue the saracens, pagans, and other enemies of Christ, to put them into perpetual slavery, and to take all their possessions and property” and were authorized “to take possession of any lands discovered that were not under the dominion of any Christian rulers.”

Indigenous Land Defenders Shut Down Port Access

November 29, 2020 Ben Miljure, BC CTV News. Resist! Canada, Indigenous Resistance, Land defenders

Vancouver, BC - A group of Indigenous land defenders have taken over the intersection of East Hastings Street and Clark Drive in Vancouver, blocking one of the access routes to the Port of Vancouver. About 75 people first gathered at Grandview Park as part of a national week of action promoted by Indigenous leaders hoping to call attention to a number of issues including climate change and systemic racism. “This is what we have to do. We can’t sit back anymore and watch our Indigenous people being treated the way they’re being treated from coast to coast,” said Will George, of the Tsleil-Waututh Nation.

Indigenous Peoples’ Victory: Largest Dam Removal In The World

November 23, 2020 Margaret Flowers, Clearing the FOG. Podcast Dams, Indigenous Resistance, Sovereignty, Water Protectors

After nearly two decades, Indigenous Peoples win an agreement for the largest dam removal in the world. Four of the six dams on the Klamath River in California and Oregon will be taken down, allowing the water to flow freely again and the salmon to spawn. This is a powerful story of how four tribes put aside their past conflicts to work together and environmental groups participated in an indigenous-led campaign that took on two of the wealthiest men in the world, Bill Gates and Warren Buffett. And this is an example of why, if we want to succeed in restoring our relationship with the earth, Indigenous Peoples must be at the forefront.

Secwepemc Land Defenders Kanahus Manuel And Isha Jules On Trial

November 20, 2020 Brent Patterson, Peace Brigades International. Resist! Canada, Indigenous Resistance, Legal System, Trans Mountain Pipeline

On October 19, 2019, Manuel and Tiny House Warrior land defender Isha Jules were charged by the RCMP with mischief when they told construction workers that they did not have consent from the Secwepemc peoples to flag on Highway 5 near Moonbeam Creek, about 60 kilometres north of Blue River, British Columbia. Manuel’s wrist was fractured during the arrest. The Tiny House Warriors have set up camps around Blue River (about 230 kilometres north of Kamloops) and Valemount (about 90 kilometres north of Blue River). Moonbeam is situated in between these two communities on Highway 5.

Colombia: National Strike Joins The Minga As Mobilization Grows

October 22, 2020 Telesur English. Resist! Colombia, Indigenous Resistance, National Strike, State Violence

Colombia woke up on Wednesday with a new national strike in the country's main cities, amidst the coronavirus crisis and the increase in the numbers of massacres and murders of social leaders and former members of the then Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia - People's Army (FARC-EP). The president of the Central Workers Union (CUT), Diógenes Orjuela, explained that the strike would clarify the position of absolute rejection of the massacres and murders that have occurred in the country in recent months, as well as the repression exercised by the police.

Solidarity With Colombia’s Indigenous Minga And National Strike!

October 21, 2020 the Alliance for Global Justice. Resist! Colombia, Indigenous Resistance, Peace, State Violence

Minga is an indigenous concept that means working to build together, doing things in community for the wellbeing of all. The leaders of the Minga are also calling on President Iván Duque to meet with them face to face to discuss these demands. On Wednesday, October 21st, labor organizations and Colombian popular movements will engage in a national strike that will link together with the Minga. The Alliance for Global Justice will continue monitoring the situation. We are especially concerned for the safety of those participating in this movement.

Indigenous Defenders Are Front-Line Essential Workers

October 17, 2020 Amy Ede, The Star. Educate! Canada, Indigenous Resistance, Land defenders, Water Protectors

Canada - Expect to work 24/7 on-site. There are no benefits, no days off, and shelter is not provided. You will likely face threats, violence, criminalization, and arrest. So, why are some of the most passionate, informed, brilliant, and resourceful people in Canada dedicating themselves to work that is insecure, dangerous, and unpaid? Indigenous cultures are distinct but we share values of community, holistic understandings of all life, and a deep connection to the land and water. We know that colonial definitions of livelihood are incomplete and that our role is to live in harmony with the land that sustains us.

Members Of Secwépemc Unity Camp Shut Down Trans Mountain Pipeline

October 17, 2020 Michael Potestio, Kamloops This Week. Resist! Canada, Indigenous Resistance, Oil and Gas, Trans Mountain Pipeline

Canada - Several people were arrested on Thursday (Oct. 15) at the Trans Mountain construction site on Mission Flats in Kamloops. Members of the We, the Secwépemc Unity Camp to Stop the Trans Mountain Pipeline walked across Canadian Pacific Railway tracks and onto the Trans Mountain site. There, at least two protesters sat on an excavator and called for others opposed to the pipeline expansion project to help stop the work being done. When Trans Mountain employees told protesters they were violating a B.C. Supreme Court injunction prohibiting the obstruction of access to Trans Mountain's worksites and that they must leave, a protester responded by saying they would stay.

When Is An obelisk Not Just An Obelisk?

October 14, 2020 Elena Ortiz, The Red Nation. Resist! American genocide, Indigenous Resistance, Monuments, New Mexico

New Mexico - When I was a child, my dad and I would sometimes walk down to Santa Fe Plaza, especially on cool autumn afternoons. We would get Cokes from Woolworth’s. My father would visit with friends and family, selling under the portal of the Palace of the Governor’s, and we would sit in the center of the Plaza, on the stone banco around the obelisk. My dad would point out the word savage which was etched into the marble plaque, and he would laugh. “Those are your ancestors,” he would say, with no little bit of irony.

Ceremony To Stop A Pipeline

September 29, 2020 By Amandalina Letterio, Castanet. Resist! Indigenous Resistance, Pipelines, Salmon, Trans Mountain Pipeline

A group of Secwepemc people held a canoe and kayak ceremony Saturday morning in Kamloops in opposition to the Trans Mountain Pipeline expansion project drilling under the Thompson River. The journey began at Adams Lake and the group kayaked and canoed their way to the Mission Flats area for a potluck dinner and games. “Families from our Secwepemc Nation came together for the No TMX Canoe and Kayak Journey today to be in ceremony and offer prayers and protection for our clean water and our wild salmon," says Anushka Nagji, a Secwepemc activist.

New Fossil Fuel Projects Meet Indigenous Resistance

September 19, 2020 Randall Hyman, Truthout. Resist! Fossil Fuels, Indigenous Resistance, New Mexico

New Mexico - The spicy pungency of sagebrush filled the air in Greater Chaco, New Mexico, in late July this summer as I watched towering, rain-laden clouds gather across the endless horizon — a reminder that the midsummer monsoon season would soon turn the dirt roads that snake across the Navajo Nation reservation into quagmires. Locals are accustomed to these storms, but this region is now also being pummeled by two other tempests — the COVID-19 pandemic, which has hit the Navajo Nation hard, especially due to many residents’ difficulty in accessing clean water, and also the tumult of fracking, which has now been lashing the region for 10 years.

‘People Are Still Putting Their Bodies On The Line To Stop This Pipeline’

August 31, 2020 By Joseph Bullington, In These Times. Resist! Dakota Access Pipeline, Indigenous Resistance, No DAPL, Prisoners

Bias lived in the anti-pipeline camps for five months and got seven state misdemeanor charges of their own. Bias has been dealing with the general legal aftermath of Standing Rock ever since, fighting their own charges and supporting the federal felony defendants. As people celebrate the court ruling against the pipeline, Bias wants to remind them that the physical part of the struggle is not over. “We’re still fighting this pipeline, because we still have people incarcerated for the work we did in camp,” Bias says. “People have got to recognize that people are still putting their bodies on the line in prison to stop this pipeline.”

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