[Indigsol] Indigenous Solidarity Statement -- Israeli Apartheid Week (Montreal)

[Ben Powless]

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Jaggi Singh <jaggisingh at gmail.com>
Date: 2009/2/26

[Hello friends -- The statement below will be read at every event of Israeli
Apartheid Week in Montreal. The week starts this Sunday with the "Apartheid
in Canada" event featuring Judy Da Silva and Elizabeth Penashue. I've sent
the callout on this list before; the full schedule of Israeli Apartheid Week
activities is linked here: www.iawmontreal.org (including links to events in
other cities). In solidarity, -- Jaggi (Montreal)]
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Israeli Apartheid Week (Montreal) Indigenous Solidarity Statement

We gather this week to assert our opposition to colonialism and apartheid,
and our solidarity with Indigenous struggles for dignity and
self-determination.

As the organizers of Israeli Apartheid Week in Montreal, we believe that we
cannot speak meaningfully about Israeli Apartheid without speaking first
about the realities of apartheid here in Canada.

Canada’s reservation system and treatment of Indigenous peoples was closely
studied by the planners of apartheid in South Africa, although this is a
hidden chapter of our history.

Recently, many defenders of Israel have argued that “Canada’s values are
Israel’s values”, and they’re right: the dispossession and theft of
Palestinian lands, and the creation of Palestinian open-air prisons and
bantustans, mimic Canada’s own historical policies.

>From its very foundations, Canada has been based on the theft of Indigenous
lands, and the genocide and displacement of Indigenous peoples. In crucial
ways, the Canadian state’s treatment of Indigenous peoples, historically and
currently, can be described as an apartheid system -- from the imposition of
the Indian Act, band councils and reservation system, to stolen children and
residential schools; from the continued theft of lands and resources by
governments and corporations, to the cultural appropriation of native
traditions and culture.

We live, here in Montreal and all over Canada, in colonies, as
non-Indigenous, non-native settlers; we are just older and more established
versions of the settlements built illegally in Palestine. Canada’s colonial
past is celebrated in the names of our streets, towns and cities, while
erasing the genuine identity of the original peoples of this land. This
colonial project continues to this day, encroaching on native land with golf
courses, subdivisions and highways.

There are countless other examples of this colonialism in practice today.
For instance, the environmental devastation inflicted on Indigenous
communities, such as those downstream from the Alberta tarsands, whose
traditional livelihoods are in the process of being destroyed in order to
ensure a cheap supply of oil.

This colonialism is also reflected in the obliviousness, and lack of
response, by the Canadian authorities and population, to the horrifying
reality of hundreds of disappeared and missing native women in the past
three decades alone.

In the face of more than five hundred years of colonialism, Indigenous
communities continue to resist and survive. Their multifold and diverse
struggles demand our active support, especially in the face of state
repression and criminalization. As non-natives, we have a role within our
own communities, to further the process of decolonizing Canada.

If you are with us in opposition to Israeli Apartheid, we encourage your
consistent opposition to apartheid right here in Canada. Let us support both
the resistance of indigenous Palestinians, and the survival and struggles of
Canada’s Indigenous nations. From Palestine to Turtle Island: There is no
justice on stolen land.

-- The organizers of Israeli Apartheid Week in Montreal.
iaw-mtl at riseup.net -- www.iawmontreal.org
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