[Indigsol] IPSMO's new Basis of Unity

[Indigenous Peoples' Solidarity Movement Ottawa]

The IPSMO organizing committee has been busy updating our basis of unity,
to better reflect our current organization.

We have adopted the following basis of unity, to be reviewed in the next 3
months. At this time, we are actively looking for feedback on it.

IPSMO Basis of Unity

Who we are:

IPSMO is an Ottawa-based, grassroots collective that supports Indigenous
struggles for justice and decolonization.

We acknowledge that Ottawa, and the entire Kitchissippi (Ottawa River)
watershed, is Algonquin territory. We are committed to helping decolonize
this territory, and to supporting national and transnational indigenous
struggles.

Our collective is for anyone who wants to be in solidarity with Indigenous
people, but we want to be clear that most of us are settlers.  Our group
strives to listen to and take direction from Indigenous voices. Learning
from indigenous knowledge and indigenous knowledge holders is crucial to
decolonizing ourselves, and to challenging the colonial ideas and
practices that dominate Canadian society and undermine indigeneity.

What we want:

We affirm the sacredness of Mother Earth, the interdependence of all
beings, and the right to live as part of healthy ecosytems.

We are dedicated to creating a decolonized world and understand all
struggles for justice as interconnected.  We strive to build loving,
respectful and accountable relationships and dialogues between all people
and communities who are working for social, economic, and land justice.

We support the principles outlined in the United Nations Declaration on
the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) and its full implementation on
Turtle Island. We believe in the principle of free, prior and informed
consent, and oppose unilateral settler, state and corporate interventions
in the lives of Indigenous peoples, including in the lives of those
involved in sex work.

What we believe:

We believe that Canadian society owes its prosperity to colonization.  We
understand colonization as a system that is founded on land theft,
ecological destruction, racism, apartheid and genocide. We understand
colonialism as an ongoing process that continues to benefit settler
society; justice demands decolonization. When fully realized,
decolonization would liberate the land, its people, and its settlers. We
hold to a vision of Turtle Island (North America) where First Nations and
settlers share the land in a just and peaceful relationship, and where
indigenous sovereignty is fully recognized, including First Nations’ right
to political, economic, and territorial self-determination.

We believe that decolonization requires questioning and changing the
state, citizenship, capitalism, gender and sexual roles, the nuclear
family, and the exploitation of the natural world.  We work in solidarity
with indigenous movements to further this broad understanding of
decolonization.

What we do:

We provide support to actions and campaigns for Indigenous sovereignty,
defence of the land, cultural revitalization, ending violence against
Indigenous women, girls and two-spirits, and the honouring of treaties and
agreements.

Our group supports and uses a diversity of tactics ranging from popular
education, to fundraising, to direct action as a means of nurturing
decolonization.



-- 
Love and Solidarity,
IPSMO
On stolen Algonquin land
--

IPSMO's Facebook page, Website and Twitter:

http://www.facebook.com/ipsmo
http://ipsmo.wordpress.com
twitter: @IPSMO1