Chapter Eleven

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Indigenous Ideas

The Power of No

Submitted by Judy Rebick on Wed, 08/26/2009 - 7:45am
“We have a choice. We still have fresh water, clean air, and forests. We can still hunt and fish and trap and we will never give up the right to protect our traditional lands and our traditional way of life.” Sam McKay,  KI spokesperson
 
Yesterday, we heard the tremendous news that the First Nations led protest of Dump Site 41 to stop the spoiling of a pristine watershed by a dump site had succeeded.  The Tiny Township City Council voted for a one year moratorium.  Initiated by a peaceful sit-in of women from the Beausoleil First Nation, the protest grew to include many local townspeople, support of the Council of Canadians and a growing chorus of environmentalists.  
 
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In Honour of the 64th Anniversary of Hiroshima

Submitted by Judy Rebick on Thu, 08/06/2009 - 2:12pm

Please take a moment on this 64th Anniversary of Hiroshima to watch this movie video by Velcrow Ripper entitled "Lanterns of Memory"  It includes an interview with a survivor
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Take action in solidarity with the Indigenous people of Peru

Submitted by Judy Rebick on Thu, 06/11/2009 - 8:07am

Today June 11 is an international day of action to stand in solidarity with the courageous people of the Amazon in Peru who are standing up against government and military forces to defend their land against oil exploration and environmental and cultural destruction.  To support them you can

Video from Democracy Now

Demonstrate at Peru Consulate today 1 pm 10 St. Mary's in Toronto or in Ottawa at the Peru Embassy at 11:30 am

Donate to the Amazonian Indigenous people through Rights Action who have promised that all donations marked Peru Indigenous will go directly to the struggle there http://rightsaction.org/contributions.htm

Sign the Avaaz global petition and pass it along to your friends

Write or call  your MP to say we don't want to do business with Peru, a country that we have recently signed a free trade agreement with until they respect the rights of the Indigenous people there

Inform yourself.  A good place to start is with the reports from Ben Powless, an Indigenous activist from Canada, who is there on the ground and you can listen to Ben tomorrow morning on the Current CBC RadioOne

Bob Lovelace, who himself was in jail last year for defending his people's land against destructive development, has written a moving appeal which I reproduce below.  Please act to defend Indigenous Rights, stop the destruction of the Amazon and the economic, environmental and cultural  terror created by so-called free trade

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Critique of Judy's blog on Tamil solidarity

Submitted by Judy Rebick on Thu, 05/21/2009 - 1:17pm

The War in Sri Lanka and the Left

Noaman Ali and Fathima Cader

This is quite a good article on the issues of Sri Lanka that you can read in full on the Socialist Project web site.  Within the article, they have criticized my writing here.  With the exception of their critique about me using "Tamil Community" to refer to the people who occupied the Gardiner Expressway, which I agree was an sloppy formulation (a problem with blogs) that I later corrected, I think they have a fundamentally different approach to solidarity.  I will leave it up to you to read the two points of view and comment.  Below is their critique.

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How do we act in solidarity?

Submitted by corvin on Mon, 04/06/2009 - 7:22pm

Acting in solidarity means supporting people in their struggle: being there for them. Sometimes, though, it feels like we're not really present when we're being there: we could have been there, or we could as easily have been somewhere else. Or, we think we're present, but others perceive us, actually, as being quite distant. There's a cookie-cutter quality to a lot of solidarity - today it's Palestine, tomorrow it's Six Nations - that often bothers me. Can you begin to build a full and equal relationship without learning what makes each of us, as individuals or collectives, what we are?

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