[IPSM] Not All Blockades Are Bad: A Palestinian on Canadian Indigenous Resistance

[Macho Philipovich]

http://www.lefthook.org/Ground/Tabar042505.html

Not All Blockades Are Bad: A Palestinian on Canadian Indigenous Resistance

- by Tania Tabar

Through the resistance of the first Palestinian initfada (uprising) in 1987,
a symbol emerged that represented the asymmetrical balance of power and the
grassroots movement against the ongoing Israeli occupation. Just as the
young Palestinian in front of a tank with a rock in his hand became a symbol
of resistance and self-determination among indigenous communities, the
people of Grassy Narrows have inspired a similar momentum.

Thousands of kilometres away, in Kenora in Northern Ontario, the people of
Asubpeeschoseewagong (Grassy Narrows First Nation), youth, adults and
elders, stood up against the colonization of their lands. Young children,
who did not know if the logging trucks were going to even stop, laid down as
part of a blockade to prevent a commercial giant from cutting down their
forests.

Eight hundred people live in Grassy Narrows. The Anishnabek (Ojibway) of the
land have been through expulsion over interests in gold from the Canadian
government. Mercury contamination continues to affect the community since
1960s-early 70's when a pulp mill dumped 50 tonnes of inorganic mercury in a
nearby river. As a result, the fish became extinct and the level of mercury
remains over 80% in the people of the community. The elders are dying off as
Grassy Narrows currently has a cancer rate of one on eight people. In the
1990s, Hydro Quebec built a dam that flooded and ended up destroying 90% of
their wild rice harvest. Ten years later, the clear-cutting of the Whiskey
Jack Forest in Grassy Narrows began.

The Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources (OMNR), in violation on Treaty 3
(a treaty between the Anishnabek and the Canadian state in 1873 outlining
that the Anishnabek would share their land with the state as long as their
rights, such as, hunting and fishing, would not be hampered), granted
permission for the multinational pulp and paper corporation, Abitibi
Consolidated, to begin logging in Grassy Narrows. The "Whiskey Jack Forest
Management Plan," a 20-year plan guaranteed Abitibi's the right to harvest
the Whiskey Jack Forest from April 2004 to April 2024.

On December 3rd 2002 the community members set up the blockade in response
to the clear-cutting taking place. Three years later the blockade remains. A
'Grassy Narrows Caravan' recently finished off a speaking tour in Montreal
reflecting on their participation in the blockade. Among the speakers was
one of the youth from Grassy Narrows, Warren Ashopenace.

"There are so many spirits in the forest," says Ashopenace. For a people who
rely on the land and value every plant, tree and forest, bulldozing swaths
of ancient Boreal forest is destructive but also painful. "We believe
everything is alive and they have a spirit. When you cut down a tree you
notice its bleeding sap that is actually its blood. You may not hear them
crying but they are."

Carl Chaboyer is from the bear clan. His father is Anishnabek from a group
of people that was moved to facilitate the flooding when Hydro Quebec built
the dam; a community that does not exist anymore. He grew up in Ottawa and
eventually found his way to Grassy Narrows where he has been a supporter and
a participant in the blockade.

"When people ask, what do you want?" he says, "I think it's a racist
question. Because (the Anishnanek of Grassy Narrows) only want the same
things as every other person on the planet. They want to exist. They don't
want to be sniffed out of existence. It's so simple that most people can't
understand it."

When Ashlee Loon met with John Weaver, the CEO of Abitibi, she told him to
stop trying to buy them off. "We didn't want money; we just want the clear
cutting to stop." The clear-cutting and the destruction of land in Grassy
Narrows threaten the traditional culture of the Anishnabek. The elders
continue to hunt, trap and fish, as they always have, but the contaminants
in the soil and the exposure of the soil from the clear cutting, threatens a
part of the culture the youth are supposed to be taught; survival off the
land.

The exposure of the soil to the sun causes bacteria living in the soil to
multiply and eventually metabolize naturally occurring mercury into highly
toxic methyl mercury.

Thus, poisoning the fruit of the land, and preventing the Anishnabek from
participating in survival skills such as harvesting from blueberries and
collecting traditional medicines. Chaboyer says this is only one of the many
possible effects of clear-cutting. "We don't know with any kind of certainty
that there aren't a hundred other effects that are going to haunt us for
generations as a result of clear cutting. We have to stop now just on the
bases of prudence," he says.

Ashopenace recalls the first day of the blockade when Joe Fobister, a Grassy
Narrows resident, went to their school and asked the students if they wanted
to create a blockade. When the blockade started it was only supposed to be a
one day action. They turned around two logging trucks that day. After
spending over 15 hours on the road in the freezing temperature of minus
thirty-five, the youth turned to the elders and suggested that the blockade
remain permanent. "You don't accomplish anything with a teaser blockade,"
says Ashopenace. It has been three years and the resistance to the logging
continues. The blockade remains, not as unturned cars or sandbags, as
another panelist, Kahehti:io Diabo from Kanawake expected it to be. Rather,
the longest blockade to this date, when Diabo visited "was just a stick
across the road with a sign hanging down."

The blockade was a last action resort for the community as everything that
the people had done prior had failed. Residents filed lawsuits against the
OMNR stating that Abitibi's actions infringed on their rights to hunt and
trap, they wrote letters to OMNR, the provincial and federal government,
Indian affairs and Abitibi. Ashlee Loon, one of the youth from Grassy
Narrows who has been involved in the blockade since day one, was part of the
delegation that sent and also personally delivered these letters. "It seems
like our letters get lost in the mail," she says.

Abitibi, OMNR, and the Canadian government do not seem to understand that
they are asking the Anishnabek to negotiate not only their land, but their
existence. Meetings were held between Abitibi and community members,
negotiations discussed, and jobs from Abitibi were offered. Although
Abitibi, OMNR, and Indian and Northern Affairs, perceive these offers as
generous, it is a wonder that they are 'offering' what is, in actuality,
supposed to be Indian lands.

Three years has passed since the community set up the blockade. Ashopenace
is part of the delegation planning a trip to the United Nations. With a
group of youth, elders and people in the community, they will take a bus to
New York and give a presentation of how the clear-cutting is not only
affecting the Anishnabek, but also the people of Kenora. The determination
continues as he states, "We are prepared for the next battles, turning more
logging trucks back, and setting up more blockades in other road routes."

Abitibi's Whiskey Jack plan has not been reversed but the people of Grassy
Narrows have created a situation for Abitibi and for the Canadian government
that no longer allows them to walk into native lands and anticipate silence.
The blockade has forced Abitibi to step into negotiations and more
importantly has inspired other native communities to wake up. There is no
logging happening at the moment in Grassy Narrows. Neecha Dupurb is a
blockade supporter from the Ojibway Nation of Saugeen and one of the four
women from the Sleeping Giant, whose role, she explains, is to inspire other
communities to stand up for their self-determination. One can say that
struggles such as Grassy Narrows and the intifada in Palestine also
symbolize a Sleeping Giant, as Dupurb says, "sent to awake the nations."

Tania Tabar, 20, is a student and writer who works with Solidarity for
Palestinian Human Rights (SPHR) at Concordia University. A Palestinian born
in exile and currently living in Montreal, she will be in Toronto, Montreal
or Nazareth this summer. She can be reached at tania at resist.ca.