[Indigsol] IPSMO Newsletter, Nov. 9 to 15

[Indigenous Peoples' Solidarity Movement -Ottawa]

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IPSMO Newsletter

Meetings, Events, Articles
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1)  Meetings

1a) Next IPSMO Meeting, Wednesday, Nov. 11 at 6pm
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2)  Events

2a) *Decolonial Study Group* Sunday, Nov. 15 at 1pm
2b) From Paper to Practice: Promoting Inclusivity in our Workplace,
    Home, School, and Community, Friday, Nov, 13, 9:00 am to 4:00 pm
2c) Ojibwe Indigenous Grandmothers Sharing their Wisdom and Teachings,
    Nov. 22 – 28
2d) Two-Spirit and Queer Liberation Movements: From Radical Revolt to
    Freedom Fighting Justice, Nov. 25 at 7pm
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3)  Articles

3a) International Native Youth Movement (NYM) Statement: Send Olympic
    Torch back to Europe!
3b) Bolivia the standard-bearer as Latin American natives fight to
    protect lands, culture
3c) Reclaiming Choice for Native Women
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4) Support the Indigenous Community of Attawapiskat
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5) The Tar Sands
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6) Political Prisoners

6a) Get Ready for the Emergency Protests! They Want to Kill Mumia Abu-Jamal
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IPSMO Newsletter
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1)  Meetings

1a) Next IPSMO Meeting, Wednesday, Nov. 11 at 6pm

Indigenous Peoples' Solidarity Movement of Ottawa

Next Meeting
Wednesday, Nov. 11 at 6pm
Exile Infoshop
256 Bank St.
Sorry the location is not wheelchair accessible
Everyone Welcome!
http://www.ipsmo.org
ipsmo at riseup.net

This is an organizing meeting where we discuss our current and future
plans.  These meetings are open to everyone.  Our current organizing
focuses are: support for the Ardoch Omàmìwinini, the Barriere Lake
Algonquin, Native Women and Two-Spirited People, opposition to police
brutality, the prison system and support for political prisoners.
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2a) *Decolonial Study Group*

Decolonial Study Group
Sunday, Nov. 15 at 1pm
Exile Infoshop
Sorry this location is not wheelchair accessible
Everyone Welcome!
ipsmo at riseup.net
http://www.ipsmo.org

The Decolonial Study Group is a new project of the IPSM Ottawa.  We will
be deepening and broadening our understanding and analysis of indigenous
struggles for decolonization, social justice and revolution.  We will be
doing this through readings, workshops, oral presentations, movies and so
on.

The reading for this first Decolonial Study Group will be “Decolonizing
Anti-Racism” by Bonita Lawrence and Enakshi Dua.

http://racismandnationalconsciousnessresources.files.wordpress.com/2008/11/bonita-lawrence-decolonizing-anti-racism.pdf
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2b) From Paper to Practice: Promoting Inclusivity in our Workplace,
    Home, School, and Community, Friday, Nov, 13, 9:00 am to 4:00 pm

*From Paper to Practice*

*Promoting Inclusivity in our Workplace, Home, School, and Community*

*A free one day community forum focusing on anti-oppression, from an
Aboriginal perspective.*

Minwaashin Lodge - Aboriginal Women’s Support Centre

*Featuring:*

A variety of guest speakers who will address topics on culture, gender,
sexuality, poverty and more. Informative panel presentations and
workshops. Aboriginal medicine wheel teachings on inclusivity.
Complimentary catered lunch with entertainment by the World Voices Choir
and Aboriginal performers.

Who should attend:

This workshop is free and open to everyone. We hope to see a diverse mix
of service providers, students, parents, activists, elders, community
members, policy makers, and public or private sector representatives with
a desire to strengthen inclusivity in their community.

Date: Friday, November 13, 2009

Time: 9:00 am to 4:00 pm

Please note: This event has moved to a NEW Venue:

Queen Elizabeth School 689 St. Laurent Blvd., Ottawa, Ontario

Registration: For more information or to register, please contact Emily
Troy at Phone: 613 741 5590 ext.258 or email etroy at minlodge.com

Inclusivity Strengthens our Community

This forum is funded by:

*MINISTRY OF CITIZENSHIP AND IMMIGRATION*

Poster: http://www.minlodge.com/From_Paper_to_Practice.pdf
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2c) Ojibwe Indigenous Grandmothers Sharing their Wisdom and Teachings

Greetings,

This is a gentle reminder of the upcoming ceremonies and events led by
Indigenous Grandmothers, Isabelle Meawasige and Caroline Recollet (
www.grandmotherslodge.com) in Ottawa and area. They will be joining us
from November 22 to November 28, 2009.

They are offering a combination of choices: a two-day drum-making
ceremony; a one-day retreat at Nordik Spa Lodge (http://www.lenordik.com)
– a relaxing setting in Chelsea, Quebec, just a few steps from the Nordik
Spa baths; a 3-hour class on the Healing Art of Cedar Baths and one-on-one
Traditional Cedar Bath Healing Ceremonies.  Those of you who have already
registered, I will contact you directly a week prior to the ceremony with
some additional information.

We welcome you to join us for this week of Indigenous Women’s Medicine,
Teachings, Wisdom and sacred time for Self-Care and Nurturing.  Contact
Cindy Gaudet as soon as possible to reserve your space.  If you need
transportation, please let me know.

In addition, the film screening “For the Next 7 Generations: 13 Indigenous
Grandmothers Weaving a World that Works”  www.forthenext7generations.com
will be held at Carleton University, Kailash Mital Theatre at 6:30 p.m. 
This event is hosted by the Carleton Womyn's Center and Aboriginal Student
Services. Welcome all.  No pre-registration required.

Please circulate this announcement and attached posters to your family,
friends and community.

Meegwetch,

Cindy Gaudet 1.613.601.1647 (Ottawa)

Global HeartBeat - Bridging Feminine Wisdom

http://www.global-heartbeat.com/
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2d) OPIRG Carleton presents

Two Spirit and Queer Liberation Movements:
>From Radical Revolt to Freedom Fighting Justice

With presentations by:
Jessica Yee, Executive Director of Native Youth Sexual Health Network
Gary Kinsman, co-author of The Canadian War on Queers: National
Security as Sexual Regulation
Ashley Fortier, qteam

Wednesday Nov 25th
7-9 pm
Montgomery Legion Hall,
330 Kent Street near Somerset Ave
Wheelchair accessible
$5-10 sliding scale, no one turned away
Advance tickets will be available at OPIRG Carleton and other locations TBA

Talk descriptions:

>> Two Spirited Indigenous Feminist Freedom Fighting >>

Jessica Yee is a self-described Two Spirited Indigenous Feminist
Freedom Fighter - and as such will outline how frameworks like
reproductive justice and movements like Indigenous feminism come into
play with her work with Two-Spirited youth specifically as the founder
and Executive Director of the Native Youth Sexual Health Network -
currently the only Aboriginal organization in North America to work
within the full spectrum of reproductive and sexual health.

Bio: Jessica Yee is a 23 year old Two Spirited young woman from the
Mohawk Nation. She is the founder and Executive Director of the Native
Youth Sexual Health Network, a North America wide organization working
on issues of healthy sexuality, reproductive justice, cultural
competency, and youth empowerment.  Her health research centres around
empowering youth as researchers in the areas of sexual health
promotion, decolonization, and reclaiming traditional knowledge.
Jessica is a strong believer in the power of the youth voice, and you
can see her activisting it up on sites like Indian Country Today, the
CNN-syndicated Racialicious, or pick up her recently released book
"Sex Ed and Youth: Colonization, Communities of Colour, and Sexuality"
She is the 2009 recipient of the YWCA Young Woman of Distinction, a
2009 Role Model for the National Aboriginal Health Organization, and
was named one of 20 International Women's Health Heroes by Our
Bodies/Our Blog.

>> Remembering Revolt and Resistance: Queer Struggles Against the Canadian
National Security State >>

Queer liberation started as a radical revolt against heterosexual
hegemony in alliance with other groups fighting against oppression and
for social liberation. In the face of the social organization of
forgetting of the radical roots of queer liberation this presentation
actively remembers queer organizing against the Canadian national
security state from the late 1950s to the 1990s. This resistance
undermined and dismantled the Canadian War on Queers which had led to
the purging, surveillance, and harassment of thousands of queer
identified people. This includes the successful resistance to the
anti-queer social cleansing before the 1976 Summer Olympics in
Montreal. In the historical present of the national security "War on
Terror" which is a campaign against Muslim and Arab identified people
and other people of colour there is a need to reignite queer
resistance to national security in our historical present. This
presentation draws on research for the just released book
co-authoried with Patrizia Gentile called The Canadian War on Queers:
National Security as Sexual Regulation (UBC Press) which will be
available for sale at the event.

Bio: Gary Kinsman is a longtime queer liberation and anti-capitalist
activist. He is the author of The Regulation of Desire: Homo and
Hetero Sexualities (1996), co-editor of Whose National Security?
(2000), and Sociology for Changing the World (2006) and co-author with
Patrizia Gentile of The Canadian War on Queers: National Security as
Sexual Regulation (2009). He is a professor of Sociology at Laurentian
University in Sudbury.

qteam is a radical queer collective that aims to address the
intersections of oppressions and consciously unsubscribe from the
corporate versions of queerness that devalue queer realities. qteam
puts on queer, anti-racist, anti-oppressive programming as well as
doing solidarity work with many organizations and individuals in the
city that are also committed to social justice. qteam has been a
working group of qpirg mcgill and qpirg concordia for the past four
years. the project was originally an initiative of members of the
anti-capitalist ass pirates.  qteam is committed to anti-imperialism,
anti-racism, short shorts, queering activist spaces and politicizing
queer spaces, the downfall of single-issue politics, raging pervy
queer dance parties, destroying all prisons, opening all borders,
burning pink dollar$, and keeping on keeping on.

Endorsed by the Womyn's Centre and the GLBTQ Centre for Sexual and
Gender Identity.

Brought to you by OPIRG Carleton . . . research, education and action
on social and environmental justice issues, since 1980.

For more info, contact opirg at carleton.ca or 613 520 2757.
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3) Articles

3a) International Native Youth Movement (NYM) Statement: Send Olympic
    Torch back to Europe!

International Native Youth Movement (NYM) Statement

A call to Indigenous People and Supporters

Send Olympic Torch back to Europe!

Confront Invasion: Protest 2010 Olympic Torch Relay

106 Days of Action!

"We have this in common. We have a common oppressor, a common exploiter
and a common discriminator. But once we realize that we have a common
enemy, then we can unite--on the basis of what we have in common... "-
Malcolm X, 1954

Indigenous Sisters band Brothers of the North, what the invaders call
KKKanada, for 106 days the Olympic Torch will run our Great Lands. The
Olympic torch, a flamed staff that represents white supremacy, is running
through Indigenous Nations and Territories, symbolizing their theft and
dominance of our Lands and Ways. For 106 days every Indigenous Nation in
these Lands has the opportunity to talk to the world about your issues and
show Unity between all Nations here who have a common oppressor, and
common Invader, KKKlanada (“Canada”). Let us Unite voices and show the
World we are a Proud and Independent People who will never Surrender our
Lands.

Not only is the Torch running our Lands, they are also going to get Native
people to participate in their evil ceremonies, KKKanada wants the world
to think Native people are compliant and even eager to be assimilated into
the white way of life.

We call on all Native Nations of the North to show the World we are Strong
and Dignified People, the Survivors of a 500-year old Holocaust that has
taken 250 million Indigenous lives, whose Lands are illegally occupied and
destroyed, who are a People who will never accept defeat.

Ever since their Invasion we have resisted, as this is written Indigenous
People are Blockading roads to prevent destruction, Original People are
still living on the Land not dependent on the Invading governments for
survival, only needing clean Land, Air and Water for Sustenance. The goal
of the Invaders is to make us fully dependent on them to survive, giving
us no choice but to live white, when we refuse we are arrested or
murdered.

This is a unification call to the Proud and Strong Nations of the North,
the Songhees, Kwakwaka'wakw, Nuu-chah-nulth, Halkomelem, Cowichen, Tuchone
Tlinget, Inuit, Innu, Mohawk, Six Nation Conferderacy, Annishinabe, Cree,
Algonquin, MikM’aq, Maliseet, Wabanaki, Siskita, Dakota, Nakota, Stoney,
Dene, Gwich’in, Tahltan, Gitsan, Wetsuitan, Haisla, Nisga, Sekani, Dakelh,
Tsimshian, Nuxalk, Heiltsuk,Tsilcotin, Secwepemc, Nlaka’pamux, Okanagan,
Ktnuxa, St’at’imc, Stolo and all unmentioned Nations.

When the Torch passes through your Lands and communities, this is your
opportunity to let the world know what is happening in your Land, tell
them the true story and the real relationship between the Invaders known
as KKKanada and your Indigenous Nation. Let the world know the Land and
Water can never be sold, Natural Law is more powerful than man-made law,
they fear our Unity. Plan some form of action when the torch passes your
area, stop it or chase them to the edge of your Lands and let the next
Nation pick up where you left off. No evil Invader Torch on Native Land!

(Photos: Native Youth Movement set up anti-torch message on the
Trans-Canada highway, Secwepemc Territory.)

Native Youth Movement Warrior Society

NO OLYMPIC ON NATIVE LAND
SEE YOU IN 2010
NOS VEMOS EN 2010
RIOT 2010
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3b) Bolivia the standard-bearer as Latin American natives fight to protect
lands, culture

Bolivia the standard-bearer as Latin American natives fight to protect
lands, culture

FRANK BAJAK Associated Press Writer
12:03 AM CST, November 2, 2009
http://www.kfor.com/news/nationworld/sns-ap-lt-indians-arise,0,6816150.story?page=1

ESUS DE MACHACA, Bolivia (AP) — In Ecuador, the Shuar are blocking
highways to defend their hunting grounds. In Chile, the Mapuche are
occupying ranches to pressure for land, schools and clinics. In
Bolivia, a new constitution gives the country's 36 indigenous peoples
the right to self-rule.

All over Latin America, and especially in the Andes, a political
awakening is emboldening Indians who have lived mostly as second-class
citizens since the Spanish conquest.

Much of it is the result of better education and communication,
especially as the Internet allows native leaders in far-flung villages
to share ideas and strategies across international boundaries.

But much is born of necessity: Latin American nations are embarking on
an unprecedented resource hunt, moving in on land that Indians
consider their own — and whose pristine character is key to their
survival.

"The Indian movement has arisen because the government doesn't respect
our territories, our resources, our Amazon," says Romulo Acachu,
president of the Shuar people, flanked by warriors carrying wooden
spears and with black warpaint smeared on their faces.

A month ago, the Shuar put up barbed-wire roadblocks on highway
bridges in Ecuador's southeastern jungles to protest legislation that
would allow mines on Indian lands without their prior consent, and put
water under state control. On Sept. 30, an Indian schoolteacher was
killed in a battle with riot police.

"If there are 1,000 dead they will be good deaths," says another Shuar
leader, Rafael Pandam.

The Shuar won, at least this round.

A week after the killing, President Rafael Correa received about 100
Indian leaders at the presidential palace and agreed to reconsider the
laws. Correa had earlier called the Indians "infantile" for their
insistence on being consulted over mining concessions. But he didn't
need to be reminded that natives — a third of the population — helped
topple Ecuadorean governments in 2000 and 2005.

___

Indians make up one in 10 of Latin America's half-billion inhabitants.
In some parts of the Andes and Guatemala, they are far more numerous.

Yet they remain much poorer and less educated than the general
population. About 80 percent live on less than $2 a day — a poverty
rate double that of the general population, according to the World
Bank — while some 40 percent lack access to health care.

The threats to Indian land have grown in recent years. With shrinking
global oil reserves and growing demands for minerals and timber, oil
and mining concerns are joining loggers in encroaching on traditional
Indian lands.

"Indians have been progressively losing control and ownership of
natural resources on their lands," says Rodolfo Stavenhagen, a
prominent Mexican sociologist who spent most of the past decade as the
U.N.'s chief advocate for Indians. "The situation isn't very
encouraging."

Hence the revolt rippling up and down the Andes.

In Peru, south of the Shuar's lands, the government has divided more
than 70 percent of the Amazon into oil exploration blocks and has
begun selling concessions. Fearing contamination of their hunting and
fishing grounds, Indians last year began mounting sporadic road and
river blockades.

On June 5, riot police opened fire on Indians at a road blockade
outside the town of Bagua, where jungle meets Andean foothills. At
least 33 people were killed, most of them police. The Indians were
unapologetic for resisting.

"Almost everything we have comes from the jungle," says one of the
protesters, a wiry elementary school teacher from the Awajun tribe
named Gabriel Apikai. "The leaves, and wood and vines with which we
build our homes. The water from the streams. The animals we eat. That
is why we are so worried."

Farther south along the world's longest mountain chain, Chilean police
are protecting 34 ranches and logging compounds that Mapuche Indians
have targeted for occupations or sabotage.

The Mapuche, who dominated Chile before the Spanish conquest, now
account for less than 10 percent of its people and hold some 5 percent
of its land — among the least fertile.

Mapuche activists agitating for title to more lands and greater access
to education and health care stepped up civil disobedience this year.
In August, riot police mounting an eviction killed one Mapuche, and
eight were injured.

"If the government and the political class doesn't listen to our
demands the situation will get a lot more difficult," Mapuche leader
Jose Santos Millao tells the AP in Santiago. He rejects as a "smoke
screen" President Michelle Bachelet's creation of an Indian Affairs
Ministry in September.

Nowhere is Indian power so evident as Bolivia, which elected its first
indigenous president, Evo Morales, in December 2005. Morales dissolved
the Ministry of Indigenous Affairs and Original Peoples, calling it
racist in a country where more than three in five people are
aboriginals.

In February, voters approved a constitution that creates a
"plurinational" state and accords Bolivia's natives sovereign status.
Time-worn models of aboriginal government, community justice and even
traditional healing are now legally on equal footing with modern law
and science.

In the capital of La Paz, "cholitas" — Indian women in traditional
bowler hats and embroidered shawls — now regularly anchor TV
newscasts. "Miss Cholita" beauty pageants are in vogue and native hip-
hop stars headline at nightclubs.

At the presidential palace, Morales — a former Aymara coca farmer who
knew hunger as a child — makes a point of lunching periodically with
the lowliest of palace guards. Morales is ensuring that profits from
natural gas and mineral extraction are distributed equitably and that
water — whose privatization in the city of Cochabamba spurred an
uprising in 2000 — is never again privatized. He's also pushing to
make electrical utilities public.

Morales has founded three indigenous universities, formalized quotas
for Indians in the military and created a special school for aspiring
diplomats with native backgrounds. And he is promoting a campaign to
demand that all public servants be fluent in at least one native tongue.

"There is no way to return to the past," says Waskar Ari, an Aymara
who changed his name to Juan in the 1970s so he would be accepted to a
private high school in La Paz. Now a University of Nebraska professor,
Ari likens his country's "rebirth" to the casting off of apartheid on
another continent two decades ago.

"Finally," he says proudly, "Bolivia is no longer the South Africa of
Latin America."

___

The legal groundwork for the empowerment drive by Latin America's
Indians was crowned by a September 2007 U.N. Declaration on the Rights
of Indigenous Peoples. Though nonbinding, it endorses native peoples'
right to their own institutions and traditional lands. It has been
almost universally embraced by Latin American governments.

It has also helped Indians win some major legal victories.

—In 2007, the Supreme Court of Belize ruled in favor of Mayan
communities that challenged the government's right to lease their
lands to logging interests.

—A similar ruling by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights on
behalf of the forest-dwelling Saramaka maroons in Suriname reinforced
that indigenous groups must give consent to major development projects.

—Last December, Nicaragua's government finally granted collective land
titles to the Mayagna people, complying with a landmark 2001 ruling by
the Inter-American Court of Human Rights that it had no right to sell
logging concessions on Indian land.

—The following month, Colombia's Constitutional Court deemed more than
1 million indigenous people "in danger of cultural and physical
extermination" and told the government to protect them.

—And in May, Brazil's Supreme Court ordered rice farmers to leave the
long-disputed Raposa Serra do Sol reservation — 4.2 million acres (1.7
million hectares) inhabited by 18,000 Indians in the Amazon's
northernmost reaches.

Despite the legal rulings, Indians remain second-class citizens.

Only one indigenous representative has ever been elected to the
national congress in Brazil, according to the government office that
oversees issues related to Indians, who occupy vast areas of the
Amazon though they account for less than 5 percent of the population.

In Guatemala, where nearly half the population is of Mayan descent,
not a single Indian has ever made it to national office.

Educational disadvantages perpetuate the inequity.

In Guatemala, three in four indigenous people are illiterate, the U.N.
says. In Mexico, where 6 percent of the population is illiterate, 22
percent of adult Indians are. Even in Bolivia, only 55 percent of
indigenous children finish primary school, compared to 81 percent of
other kids.


Efforts to "decolonize" remain fragile.

In eastern Bolivia — where the United Nations says several thousand
Guarani Indians, including children, work as virtual slaves on large
estates — Morales has promised autonomy. But the area's elite,
Morales' fiercest opponents, won't let that happen without a fight.

Obtaining autonomy should be less contentious for Indians in western
highlands towns like Jesus de Machaca, in part because the land in
question yields so little.

Jesus de Machaca is a hardscrabble farming town near Lake Titicaca
that is more than 96 percent Aymara Indian. It is among 12 Bolivian
municipalities, mostly Aymara and Quechua, whose inhabitants will vote
Dec. 6 on becoming autonomous. Under self-rule, they would legalize
governing practices that precede the Inca empire.

Local leaders called mallkus are democratically elected by their
communities in public votes, then choose senior town officials. Terms
in office are restricted to a year. The system is closer to socialism
than capitalism.

Deputy mayor Braulio Cusi says autonomy will hugely benefit a
community where nearly all the 13,700 residents live in adobe brick
homes and use cow manure as cooking fuel, where most homes lack
running water and babies are born at home because there's no hospital
or clinic.

"Dairy cooperatives, cheese processing. There will be jobs," says
Cusi, who slings a white leather whip over his poncho as a symbol of
authority. He envisions a slaughterhouse, and hopes to attract a
veterinarian.

The town's more than 900 square kilometers (350 square miles) are
devoted mostly to cattle, llamas and sheep grazing, potatoes and
quinoa. Purchased in the 16th and 17th century by natives who refused
to become tenant farmers, they are communally owned but parceled out.
Selling to outsiders is prohibited.

Jesus de Machaca took its first step toward autonomy when it became an
independent municipality in 2002. It later elected its first mayor,
also a mallku.

The national government more than doubled the town's budget. More than
70 percent of homes now have electricity — up from one in ten in 2001
— and construction just ended on a three-story municipal building with
parquet floors and oak doors.

The town is even building a soccer stadium — with astroturf, one
councilman proudly notes.

"Before, we were forgotten," Cusi says after watching the Wiphala
banner of the Andes' indigenous peoples raised up a flagpole in the
shadow of an imposing Spanish colonial church.

"Now we're going to define, in our way, how we live — according to our
own customs and practices."
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3c) Reclaiming Choice for Native Women

Reclaiming Choice for Native Women
by Jessica Yee

I am Native. And I'm pro-choice. Many people seem to think this is an
oxymoron - but to me, it makes perfect sense. I have unraveled much of the
oppression I was forced to swallow and internalize over the years, which
obstructed my ability to wholly see that concepts of "choice" and having
"options" in our sexual and reproductive lives are really not new things
at all. Moreover, I am entitled to advocate for choice from within my
culture, which has always valued women's choices and decision-making.
First and second wave feminism did not "give" my people reproductive
rights; in fact those of us in Native communities had them a long time
ago. And how "pro-choice" identities play out in our communities now
probably looks a lot different than what most people think.

    Historically, in the Shuswap Nation we were and still are matriarchal.
 Within our Shuswap band, women were trained as midwives by
grandmothers and elderly women.  They were also trained in female
ceremonies around the menstrual cycle, as well as the many powers of
women and our development (from childhood to adulthood).  Shuswap
women used Native medicines to keep from becoming pregnant or to end a
pregnancy.  Pregnancy was ended if hardships occurred within family
and community, such as shortage of food, long winters, etc.  These
hardships were things that could cause numerous deaths within the
family and community and could not be prevented.

    Shuswap Women had total control over their bodies.  They were taught
by women at an early age about roles and responsibilities as a child,
youth, adult and elder.

    - Wilma K. Boyce (Shuswap Nation) Canim Lake Band, Canim Lake, BC

Throughout history, many Indigenous women around the world have interacted
with other Indigenous women through various women's societies, which held
respected positions of significant political power. Looking closer at
traditional teachings and practices within First Nations, Inuit, and Métis
nations throughout North America, it is evident that methods of family
planning and birth control, including abortion, were performed as
necessary procedures to ensure the health and welfare of communities which
have women at its core. Although we are vastly diverse in terms of
societal structure, whether matriarchal (e.g. Mohawk) or egalitarian (e.g.
Inuit), it is clear that the right to govern one's own body and take care
of it they way we choose, is a foundational principle shared amongst us
all.

    My identity as an Inuk often comes into play when fighting for the
right of choice. My identity as a woman is first and foremost when
fighting for the right of my own body. If I intersect the two I will
look at many factors to my decision. Inuit do not condemn abortion nor
do they promote it. This is a choice we have as women. Our people are
supportive because that has always been a part of our society, to be
supportive in every decision there is.
    I am woman and I own my choices, not the men in black robes who by the
way are creepy to begin with...with their anti-slogans on Parliament
Hill.
    -Inuk woman, name withheld upon request

Choice is a critically important teaching which is sacred in principal.
Yet this structure - in which the community is supportive of decisions
made for the best interest of women and the community - is in many
instances a far cry from where we are now. Although the debate between
those who are "pro-life" and "pro-choice" won't end as long as we live in
patriarchal societies, this fight is a clear effect of generations of
colonization and genocidal oppression - through which we are still
suffering. Many of the values, practices, and traditions once held strong
in our Aboriginal communities are now lost, and this most definitely
includes the rightful place of our women to govern their own bodies.

For many nations, reproductive health issues were decisions made by the
individual, and were not thrust into the political arena for any kind of
public scrutiny. The core decision-making for Indigenous women takes place
between her and the Great Spirit or Creator, whoever that may be for her.
With the imposition of colonization and Christianity, which brought in
cultural genocide and systemic assimilation, conflicting belief systems
were forced upon our people to an extreme extent. Land was one of the
major goal acquisitions of the colonizers, so women, who had ancestrally
been head of families and land titleholders, therefore became the target
to depose. Among other horrific atrocities that occurred throughout the
centuries, this colonization erased traditional ways in which we exercised
our innate rights over our own bodies to choose the number of children we
wanted within our families, and shamed us into believing that talking
about things like sexuality were wrong.

    As a Cree woman in Canada, a healthy sexual identity was not part of
my personal teachings growing into womanhood.

    The one biology which distinguishes me from all others - my brown skin
- haunts my ability to have true autonomy and agency when it came to a
healthy sexual identity. It was much later; that I learned how
colonization interfered with what information was transferred between
my mother and myself regarding sexual health.

    Today, I am clear, open and honest with my children regarding their
body, their autonomy over it, and maintenance of it.

    -Gloria Larocque, (Sturgeol Lake Cree Nation, Alberta) President of
the KETA Society. Board Member of Options for Sexual Health

Very little is known in the present day regarding our historical
understanding of women's reproductive health, and with the widespread
resistance policy makers display to making sexual and reproductive health
a priority in First Nations, Inuit, and Métis communities, young people in
particular are paying the price. While we know that access to abortion
services are severely lacking in rural, remote, and Northern geographical
areas where Aboriginal people are highly concentrated, we have yet to
bring to the forefront the stories behind the lack of physical access, and
the realities Aboriginal women face in seeking an abortion in places where
she may face slander for doing what she as an Indigenous woman inherently
has every right to decide for herself. It is not enough to say "services
are bad" in these areas. Who are services lacking for and why?

    As a person of Lakota and European descent, I have been raised in both
worlds, but my strong tie is to my Native roots, being raised by
grandparents for the first seven years of my life. I truly believe
that "my body is my decision - as a woman!" Only I know what I can
handle and it's ironic that the medical profession has only recently
started believing in that perspective.

    Speaking with people that knew our traditions and ways of life, women
had to make the sacrifice for the good of the tribe. Our people had
only so much to live on during hard times, so some families had to
make the decision not to bring a child into this world to suffer. We,
as women, were not scorned for our decisions. The entire tribe knew
the impact of those decisions and we did not fight about them. It's
ironic that "Western ideologies and religious concerns" have taken
some of those very beliefs and turned them around on us.

    -Diane Long Fox-Kastner, Lower Brule (Kul Wicasa Oyate) & Minneconjou
(Cheyenne River)

This negligence has enabled coercive legislation and false mass
assumptions about what Native communities believe. The Hyde Amendment,
which in essence blocks low-income women and, often, women of color from
having abortions, inspired similar actions to prohibit Medicaid funding of
abortion to U.S. military personnel and their families, Peace Corps
volunteers, federal prisoners, and Indian Health Service clients. Many of
us raised the alarm and rallied together to take a stand against this
total human rights violation, but who is listening? And more importantly,
do we even have the total support of our own communities to continue
fighting?

    I think it's important to open this debate to a wide audience of
Aboriginal women. For me, personally, I know that there are seriously
closed gatekeepers who threaten the very spirit of women who support
abortion and women's right to chose what goes on with their bodies.

    Aboriginal women get pregnant under complex circumstances and their
right to decide about their future must be supported with the best
knowledge and options available. Teachings around their roles as mothers
and life givers must be given in the contemporary context that
we all live in, current and reflective of our past, present and
future. The silence around abortion in our communities has made it
taboo topic full shame and eternal damnation, and we have the
opportunity to reclaim that space for our women to create safe spaces
for dialogue and action based on women's needs and women's realities.

    I want to be anonymous - isn't that revealing of the circumstance?
    -Name withheld upon request

Cecelia Fire Thunder, first female chief of the Oglala Sioux, was rumored
to be ousted in 2006 when she publicly declared she would open up a
Planned Parenthood Clinic on her reservation if abortion were made illegal
in the state of South Dakota. Earlier this year, Run Bruinooge, new chair
of the Parliamentary Pro-Life Caucus in Canada, said that his "Aboriginal
views" gave him a unique perspective conducive for his job to "protect the
unborn." And the tribal council of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa
passed a law in October 2008 that would ban abortions on their land, even
though many members say it was unconstitutionally passed during an illegal
"closed-door" meeting.

I'd like to say that this is all a bad case of internalized oppression,
and how quickly people forget or in most cases, had no opportunity to
learn about.  But as mainstream feminism simultaneously still does not
acknowledge the origins of sex positive existence and matriarchy, this
remains an unpopular uphill battle to wage, on all fronts.

They say that if we had our land; we wouldn't have to depend on the
system. I'd like to think of the day where we'll not only get back Mother
Earth to take care of her, but we'll know how to work with our land once
more to reclaim "choice" for Native women.
============================================================================

4) Support the Indigenous Community of Attawapiskat

Vote for funding for decent housing in
Attawapiskathttp://www.avivacommunityfund.org/ideas/acf2897

The community of Attawapiskat is living in an impoverished conditions,
with many homeless. These people are living in tent frames because their
homes were destroyed by sewage, at first leaving 90 people homeless.
Attawapiskat is a Cree Community that sits on the shores of James Bay, in
an isolated rural area of northern Ontario. The only access to the
settlement is by plane in the summer and in the winter by ice road. As
winter approaches the seriousness of not having a real home is beginning
to dawn on the people living in tents. There are elders and families with
members who have disabilities, and poor health living in tents. Others are
living in an old healing lodge abandoned many years ago because of
substance abuse. Children as young as a 1 year old are impacted in this
situation. We need your help to combat these conditions. The winter can be
very harsh in this region reaching temperatures of -50 degrees celsius and
the tents won't be able to keep these people warm.

There are others living with 30 people in one house, a one floor dwelling
with 3 bedrooms. We have a family of 15 who lost their home living at a
Catholic parish hall til housing can be accomodated. As of now, social
services reports over 1,000 people over the age of 18 are consider
homeless over. This has created a lot of problems for the families. The
community has a population of close to 2,000 individuals. Tragedy has
devastated this community over and over again, such as contaminated
drinking water, and high rates of youth suicides. While Christmas for most
Canadians, in Attawapiskat many have lost hope and have resigned to living
in these impoverished conditions. This is a community that deserves
something positive, having faced one obstacle after another, for the sake
of their children. We can make this a reality and at least help some
families by voting for this idea.

If one has a heart to reach out, please support our cause. This is about
having a basic human right. The right to shelter which is intensely
important in this one of the harshest environments in Canada. This
community still follows there traditional way of life, living off the land
as hunters and gathers but times have changed and these changes have been
hard on this community. The community is growing rapidly but the houses
allocated are not enough to keep up with the growing population. There is
great stress among the people living under one roof. Think of your vote as
a Christmas gift that you can give to everyone of these people, that will
help them by relieving them of these conditions. They are warm people who
will open their door for you, feed you as their traditional values teach
them to.

Our goal is to buy building materials or possibly trailers to have more
buildings to house these people. The materials would include low cost
lumber, windows/doors, insulation, roof tiles, panels, floor tiles,
kitchen cabinets, bathroom fixtures, chimney, electrical things, nails,
etc. So please support this cause as it is a genuine outreach to help this
community. Thank you so much and may the Creator continue to bless you as
the Christmas holiday approaches.

I will be attaching pictures and video to see for yourselves the
conditions endured by these families who live in Attawapiskat, Ontario,
Canada. Have compassion and help them as they are in need.

I ask in kindness for our children, parents and our elders!

Vote for funding for decent housing in
Attawapiskathttp://www.avivacommunityfund.org/ideas/acf2897
============================================================================

5) The Tar Sands

(From our friends at the Winnipeg Indigenous Peoples’ Solidarity Movement,
http://winnipeg.ipsm.ca/)

The Tar Sands of Oilberta, the globe's most destructive ecological
project, destroying the health of people downstream in Fort Chipewyan Fort
McKay, are moving forward in a state of denial, are driving Canada's
pathetic negotiating position heading into climate talks in Copenhagen in
December, and need to be challenged. Where does one begin to tackle such a
bohemoth, and how in Winnipeg do we express solidarity and generate
actions that localize the issue - in case people cannot still relate to
the atmosphere?

1) The Dominion's special issue on the tar sands from 2007 - issue 48
http://www.dominionpaper.ca/tarsands

2) the short film (33mins) Downstream about health impacts in Fort
Chipewyan and the plight of Dr. John O'Connor to expose them.Â
http://www.babelgum.com/downstream

3) Kevin Timoney, who did an ecological study for the community of Fort
Chip. Here's a link to an article about how Alberta Health continues to
deny the legitimacy of the science:
http://www.ffwdweekly.com/article/news-views/news/great-disrespect-people-fort-chip/

4)
http://oilsandstruth.org/greenpeace-ends-shutdown-occupation-albian-sands-muskeg-river-mineÂ
Oil Sands Truth is a clearing house of research and information on the
Alberta Tar Sands, and helps organize the Everyone's Downstream conference
in Edmonton on Indigenous and environmental-based resistance to the Tar
Sands.  The third one will be held this coming January I believe.

6) Mike Mercredi speaking in Edmonton last year at:Â
http://www.dominionpaper.ca/audio/mike_mercredi

7) Warren Cariou of U of M made a documentary called "Land of Oil and
Water," 44 minutes.
http://www.doxafestival.ca/doxa-09/festival/films/land_of_oil_and_water.html

8) The Gary Doer defense of the Tar Sands. So everyone can see what a
sellout the long serving NDP premier of Manitoba has become, and at the
same time check out one more website Tar Sands Watch:
http://www.tarsandswatch.org/alberta-oilsands-get-disproportionate-bad-reputation-doer
============================================================================

6) Political Prisoners

6a) Get Ready for the Emergency Protests! They Want to Kill Mumia Abu-Jamal

But Joint Action by Us All Can Prevent This!

GERMANY | 02 – 11 – 2009 | It is now for almost 27 years that the African
American journalist Mumia Abu-Jamal has been on death row in Pennsylvania,
U.S.A., as a political prisoner. His trial and his conviction for murder
were a typical example for racist bias and class justice.

The presiding judge denied Mumia the funds necessary for a defense and
called him a "n
.r", the prosecutor first picked a jury which consisted
almost exclusively of conservative White males, and then proceeded to
paint a picture of the defendant as an ice-cold, ultra-leftist killer. In
this trial, tainted as it was by racism and political repression, the
former Black Panther Party spokesman Mumia never had a chance and was
sentenced to death.

All the same, the unbearable conditions of incarceration on death row
Mumia has had to suffer for so long have neither broken him nor snuffed
his voice. Even there, he doesn’t give up and continues to write and
broadcast against the injustices of capitalist society. Why we support
Mumia Abu-Jamal: The death penalty is racist: Close to a half of all
inmates of death row in the Unites States are African Americans. The death
penalty is directed against the poor: More than 90 % of those on death row
are poor.

With regard to this, Mumia Abu-Jamal is just one case of many: He was
Black, he was poor, and he couldn’t afford to pay for a real defense. His
case thus stands for thousands of others. In addition, he is a political
activist who is a thorn in the side of the authorities and the powerful.

In all these past years in prison, Mumia hasn’t just fought for his own
freedom, but has also tirelessly struggled for all those sentenced to
death everywhere in the world. As a "voice of the voiceless," as he had
come to be called even before his imprisonment on account of his work as a
radio journalist, he gives a voice and a face to millions of prisoners and
all those in society who get no representation in the "respectable" media.

In April 2009, the Supreme Court of the United States once more
demonstrated what many people in the U.S. already know as the "Mumia
exception": Any existing law or procedure is reinterpreted or simply
ignored whenever they represent an obstacle to the design of the judiciary
and their political masters to punish Mumia for refusing to give in.

After the April 2009 U.S. Supreme Court decision made definitely clear
that Mumia will not be given a new trial, there is now only one additional
Supreme Court decision pending, which is scheduled for autumn 2009:
namely, whether the death 1982 sentence is simply reconfirmed, or whether
it is not confirmed, in which case the prosecution will be entitled to get
a new jury which will then decide on whether Mumia is re-sentenced to
death or "only" gets life in prison without the possibility of parole.

In this fateful decision, the Supreme Court of the U.S. found no more than
two words to comment on this judicial scandal concerning the political
prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal, which has now been publicly known for almost
three decades: "Petition denied." They want to execute Mumia, or to bury
him in prison for the rest of his life.

The prosecution in Philadelphia (aka the District Attorney’s Office) is
striving for Mumia’s execution at any price and exerts great pressure to
achieve that goal. According to his lawyer, Robert R. Bryan, since his
arrest in December 1981 Mumia’s life has never been in greater danger than
right now.

So far, worldwide protests were able twice – in 1995 and 1999 – to prevent
an execution that had already been ordered. It’s no different today: Only
a broad international protestand solidarity can bring about a situation
that makes it impossible for the authorities to carry out the planned
murder of Mumia at the hands of the state.

Of course, Mumia’s defense team will continue to exhaust all possible
legal steps to save him from execution. But regardless of what happens on
the legal front, Mumia himself, his defense, and his supporters all around
the world have always stressed the fact that political trials can’t be won
merely in the courtroom, but are actually primarily won in the streets.
One of the present strategies of the solidarity movement in the U.S. is to
exert political pressure on the Obama administration. Of course, everybody
knows that to expect a fair treatment of political prisoners from the U.S.
government is just as unrealistic as to expect such from the racist U.S.
criminal justice system. All the same, the solidarity movement in the
United States strives to hold the administration responsible in the broad
daylight of the public sphere and to force it to take a stance, motivated
not least by its (so far hollow) electoral promises of a "change" of the
government’s position with regard to racism in the courts.

One of several expressions of this drive is the demand by the nation’s
largest civil rights organization, the NAACP, for a "Civil Rights
Investigation" by the government concerning the documented racism in the
course of the various courts’ handling of the case of Mumia Abu-Jamal.

Solidarity is a Weapon!
Organize the Emergency Protests! Build Up the Movement!
What can the worldwide solidarity movement for Mumia contribute to
vigorously support the demands of the U.S. activists? How can we, from our
geographical location, increase the political pressure on the Obama
administration?

Write Mumia to His Prison Address!
It is important that Mumia gets as much mail from different countries as
possible. Since the authorities check every single piece of mail addressed
to him, every mail bag filled with letters to Mumia represents a kind of
silent protest demonstration that the judiciary and the government will
undoubtedly notice. By doing this, we can clearly show them that Mumia
Abu-Jamal isn’t forgotten even after 27 years of solitary confinement on
death row – and that we are very well informed about the plans of the
courts and will continue to watch them with diligence.

There are numerous additional good suggestions how to help Mumia on an
individual basis. But we must also be clearly aware that we will need
powerful collective protests should the racist U.S. criminal justice dare
to reinstate the death penalty against Mumia.

Together with the numerous Mumia support groups and coalitions, the Rote
Hilfe (Red Aid) is calling for a nationwide demonstration in Berlin for
the life and freedom of Mumia Abu-Jamal, as well as for the abolition of
the death penalty. This demonstration will take place on the last Saturday
before a possible future execution date for Mumia; the exact day will be
announced immediately after the latter becomes known.

Compared to the situation in 1995 and 1999 when the first two execution
dates against Mumia had to be canceled due to a successful interplay of
legal appeals on the part of the defense and massive protests by the
worldwide solidarity movement, right now mass protests in front of U.S.
embassies and other U.S. institutions all around the world will be even
more decisive, since differently from the 1990s this time around we won’t
be able to stop the execution by legal means, as Mumia has already
exhausted his ordinary legal appeals.

"Mumia 3 + 12"
In case that the U.S. judiciary and the political forces behind it should
really try to put their death threats against Mumia into practice, the
FREE MUMIA movement additionally calls for a decentralized day of action:
At 12 AM (or, if necessary, at a later hour) on the 3rd day after the
reinstatement of Mumia’s death sentence, institutions of the U.S.
government as well as dependencies of U.S. corporations should then be
targets of protests and acts of civil disobedience.

Nobody knows the exact date of the decision of the U.S. Supreme Court that
will either give the green light for Mumia’s execution, or force the
prosecution to apply for another sentencing trial if they want to see
Mumia dead. But that decision could come any time after October 5. Should
it confirm Mumia’s death sentence, there will possibly be only very little
time left until the governor of Pennsylvania signs an execution order and
schedules a new execution date. If we start to think about forms of
resistance against this state-sponsored judicial murder only then, it will
already be too late.

But if the preparations for this worst case scenario begin right away, the
necessary political pressure will also develop from right now on! – So
what are we waiting for?

Without You, It Can’t Be Done:
Organize the emergency protests – Get loud, become active!
As soon as an execution date is set, everything must be done very quickly;
mass protests must be organized and realized, and everything has to be
already in place for them. And most of all, everyone should be aware that
the necessary mobilization can be effected only with the support and
participation of thousands upon thousand of people.

Solidarity Is a Weapon!
For the Life and Freedom of Mumia Abu-Jamal!
No State has the Right to Murder Prisoners – Abolition of the Death
Penalty Everywhere!
Free Leonard Peltier! Free All Other Political Prisoners!
"Mumia 3 + 12" Decentralized Day of Action on the 3rd Day after the
Confirmation of Mumia’s Death Sentence – 12 AM (or, if necessary,
later that day)
National Demonstration to the U.S. Embassy on the last Saturday
before the Planned Execution! 2 PM / Oranienplatz, Berlin

YES WE CAN – Free Mumia!

ABOLISH THE DEATH PENALTY!

For the Life and Freedom of Mumia Abu-Jamal!
AHM-ATÝK News Center






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