4th Truth and Reconciliation Day - trying to be a good settler ally

 repost from my blog - at least I'm wearing my orange "every child matters"  tee shirt today

Friday 21 February 2020

"went down to the demonstration" - Mohawk Territory Tyendinaga                    

Yesterday afternoon I drove to the Timmy's in the east end of Belleville on Highway #2 and picked up a 50 pack of Timbits (for non Canadians, these are mini donuts - donut holes I guess, sweet and very surgary).

I then drove another 15 minutes to the site of the Mohawk "blockade" at the CN railroad crossing to deliver my tasty support to the protesters who've been camped there for over two weeks in icy sub zero weather in support of the Wet'suwet'en First Nations pipeline opposition in British Columbia.

I turned onto a narrow one lane dirt concession road when I spotted the line-up of rental cars parked against the ditch. A white settler couple parked ahead of me, and they were carrying a pizza box to the demonstrators. We ambled past the line-up of compact cars which seemed full of media types, sitting in their little cars with the engines running and their heaters overworking. 

As I'm not a journalist, I didn't stop at the sign reading Media Checkpoint. My pizza friends must have been stopped there, but I continued to the railcrossing, where a Tyendinaga policeman (I assume from the uniform) took my fancy lunchbox stuffed with Timbits.

I wandered over the tracks and looked around. A young and handsome black kerchief masked Mohawk Warrior intercepted me, as I must have inadvertently missed earlier security checks. He demanded my name, where I lived, was I "community" (Mohawk) and what was I doing there? I said I'm a settler ally, and he instantly saw I was OK, altho a bit foolish and disoriented. He shook my hand, gave me a big hug, thanked me for my support, but suggested I leave as it was a very tense situation at present. He invited me to return to the camp when things were calmer so we could have a conversation.

Back in my little subaru I shed some tears on the trip back to Belleville at our country's history of the brutal and inhumane treatment of our First Nations people which has led to confrontations like this blockade.  

Today the Prime Minister of Kanada tried to speak out of both sides of his mouth to end the blockade. Hearing his weasel words I kept thinking of the threatening but cowardly lines from the poem "My Last Duchess" - orders were given!   


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The following is an excerpt from a recent email from "Dogwood"
 
Land, money and markets: three things every pipeline needs 

Indigenous solidarity is part of a powerful three-pronged strategy to stop fossil fuel expansion 

Long after the last pipeline has been dug up and recycled, Wet’suwet’en people will decide what happens on their lands through their own chosen system of governance. Chiefs’ names like Na’moks, Lho'imggin and Gisday'wa will be handed down in the feast hall to future leaders. 

Indigenous peoples’ inherent right to self-determination, their collective ownership of land and their right to live in peace and safety: these are all things we must recognize and support as British Columbians, regardless of what projects are proposed on a given territory. 

But in this moment, it’s obvious why youth and others terrified by the climate crisis have chosen to stand in solidarity with the Wet’suwet’en hereditary chiefs. Indigenous law and land defence are powerful components of the overall strategy to stop deadly fossil fuel expansion. 

Indigenous land, public money and decades of continued oil and gas consumption: these are the three things pipeline projects need to be viable in 2020. Like a stool with three legs, if any one of those things is removed, the project topples. 

The land question 
It’s less and less of a question. Land belongs to Indigenous peoples until that collective title is extinguished. In most of B.C., that never happened. So governments and industry negotiate ad-hoc access to land through money, coercion or force. 

Most extractive industries in Canada rely on access to Indigenous land and resources, but pipelines are particularly vulnerable. That’s because they are long and linear. They cannot function unless they connect across hundreds of kilometres of land. 


Until recently, governments could provide certainty to oil and gas companies of that access. But as Indigenous peoples rebuild their systems of governance and assert control of their land, it’s harder to guarantee consent from every nation affected by these megaprojects. That wouldn’t matter if our energy systems were more localized, but we’ll get to that.