[IPSM] Organizing Meeting for Montreal's 1st Decolonization Conference

[la CLAC!]

is this in french, or will it be in french? that way, i can send to the
clac list ... j

On Thu, 3 Feb 2005, shelly wrote:

> Indigenous People's Solidarity Movement invites all interested groups and individuals the participate in the planning and organizing of Montreal's first Canadian Decolonization Conference. Tentively proposed for next spring, the goals of this conference will be to demystify the processes of Canadian colonialism past and present, expose Canadian's deeply entrenched colonial values, and bring together those at the forefront of the stuggle with non-native allies in order to build a mutually self-determining movement for decolonization.
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> Decolonization Conference - Organizing Meeting
> Thursday February 10th, 2005
> 6pm @ DIRA, 2035 St-Laurent, 3rd floor
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> Please email: ipsm at resist.ca to indicate your interest, or for minutes of the first two strategizing sessions.
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> BACKGROUNDER
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> The Canadian government, through its propaganda and legislation has perpetuated the idea that decolonization in Canada means taking Indigenous Peoples out from under the yolk of the Indian Act through a process of the municipalization of Nations, delegated "Self-Governance", and various "economic development" and "fiscal responsibility" schemes.
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> These efforts clearly aim at dissolving Indigenous Peoples' internationally recognized status as Nations and their very real Rights to vast tracts of Land and the "resources" contained them.
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> This conference will expose the Canadian governments' current legislative drive as nothing more than an attempt to complete the colonial project and finally  acquire the legal "certainty" needed for investors and developers in the corporate global economy. Participants will learn what decolonization means from Indigenous perspectives. We will learn of the many strategies employed past and present - legal, political, social & cultural - by Indigenous Peoples in their fight against Canadian colonialism. The goal is to form a Canada-wide decolonization movement capable of compelling our government to abide by international laws using strategies and tactics complementary to those used by Indigenous communities.
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> Because Canadian colonialism has always been a bureaucratic affair, with rare displays of overt use of force such as police tactical units and/or the military, colonialism, for the average Canadian is largely an invisible process. And the corporate controlled media does not aid Canadians in understanding Indigenous issues; rather, it serves to obscure government and corporate lawlessness and lead the public into victim-blaming. Like the current situation in Kanehsatake.
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> Kanehsatake residents opposed to Grand Chief James Gabriel's secret deals and politically aligned police force are painted in the media as common criminals and thugs. These people trace the roots of their community's current crisis to Canada's 284-year-old attempt to attain underlying title to their Mohawk territories. In June 2000, Gabriel signed a deal with the federal government which added 177 properties to the Mohawk managed territory, but required the Mohawks agree underlying title was vested in the Crown first, and would remain so forever. By International law, this deal, the Kanesatake Land Based Governance Act, is deemed a legal surrender of Aboriginal Original title to the land and therefore, a surrender of all Rights flowing from the land. In exchange for 177 properties, and a few management rights, Gabriel sold out the Mohawks' fishing, hunting, and resource rights, their religious rights protected under section 2(a) of the Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms.
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> Canada and Quebec have supported Gabriel in every possible way because they need this legal surrender. In April 2004, Gabriel admitted to reporter Alain Picard he wanted his police force in Kanehsatake to "cut the head off the opposition". This political targeting by Gabriel is ok by Canada because Gabriel supports their colonial agenda. In April 2004, Quebec and Canada signed a new Policing Agreement with Gabriel which voluntarily ceded Mohawk jurisdiction over policing matters to the jurisdiction of Quebec. They did without the legally required consultation and authorization by the community, without even half of the duly elected Band Council's participation. The issue in Kanehsatake is not as the media says law-and-order vs. organized crime. It is Canadian assimilation vs. Mohawk self-determination. Canadians need to know what the government is doing in our name.
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> Justice for Indigenous Peoples is also often misrepresented as a loss, or threat, to individual Canadians. Like in the lobster fishery disputes in Burnt Church, New Brunswick. There, non-native fishers were whipped into a frenzy by the presentation of Mi'gmaq fishing rights as infringing on their livelihoods. Meanwhile, the federal government had passed legislation increasing the operating costs of fisheries to such an extent that all but large corporations were put out of business. The Mi'gmaq of Burnt Church were operating an ecologically sustainable fishery, taking a mere 1% of the annual harvest to ensure the resource was available for generations to come. The truth not told in the media is that Indigenous Title and Rights are mostly a threat to the very same transnational corporations who are displacing non-native fishers; whose government subsidies come from the pockets of Canadian tax-payers, and whose large profits benefit no one but themselves - neither Indigenous nor Canadian. This is a typical divide and conquer strategy.
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> If Canada is to truly decolonize, not continue on the path of forced assimilation, Canadians must have an understanding of the bureaucratic mechanisms used by the government to perpetuate past and continuing colonial injustice against Indigenous Nations. We must develop a mass movement to hold our government accountable. Last December 2004, as Andy Mitchell took over the Indian Affairs Minister portfolio, he was handed briefing notes from the federal government urging less press on Native issues. "Aboriginal issues are traditionally a low priority for the Canadian public" the notes say, "unless the media forces public attention on them". The heavily censored documents obtained through the Access to Information Act blame the news media's focus on "flash points.conflict, accountability and the persistence of poor socio-economic conditions among aboriginal people" for derailing the objectives of the Department and tarnishing its image. The briefing notes stated that in 2002 the public's awareness of aboriginal issues decreased "thanks to dwindling media attention".
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> This conference, "Building a Canadian Decolonization Movement" will focus the public's attention on Canadian colonial legislation and the real "objectives" of the Department of Indian Affairs; it will show the devastating effects the Department has had on Indigenous Peoples' day-to-day lives; and it focus on "flash points" which are typically points of Indigenous resistance against colonial and corporate incursion or state repression against the exercise of Indigenous Rights. This conference will emphasize the links between colonization and what Canadians commonly know as "corporate globalization" - a term that has gained popular currency due to its direct deleterious effects on the nation's non-native people. The loss of jobs, job security, control of health, safety and environmental regulations, cuts to social services, education, and the privatization of public resources have all shifted Canadian's perceptions regarding unfettered capitalist expansion.
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> What most anti-globalization movements do not understand, however, is that this structural adjustment to the nation's economy is nothing new to Indigenous Peoples. It is not a break from traditional prosperity and democracy; its roots are not to be found in Canada's entry into the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). This settler-centric version of history begins only when non-natives feel the negative impacts of corporate globalization. A struggle Indigenous Peoples have been engaged in for over 500 years. As anti-colonial activist and writer Aziz Choudry points out: "The doomsday scenario of corporate rule, transnational plunder, environmental and social disaster which many opponents of the global free market economy warn of has long been everyday reality for Indigenous Peoples. Modern transnational corporations are, after all, the heirs to the Hudson Bay Company, the New Zealand Company, the East India Company - major players in earlier waves of colonialism and the commodification of peoples, lands and nature."
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> Our anti-globalization movements cannot be successful unless they go to the roots of this globalized economy. Sharon Venne, Cree lawyer and scholar states in Same Beast, New Name: "Colonizers believe that they can use our lands and resources without acknowledging those resources and lands belong to others. Now, the colonizers are being used and consumed by their own corporations and companies. Their governments cannot protect them. There is an assumption that this is a new process. Rather, it is colonization continued. It is a beast who knows no limits.it has turned on its own people. In an attempt to understand, the colonizers have called it "globalization." For Indigenous Peoples, it is not a new concept. It is just the continuation of the colonization that began in 1492."
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> This centuries-old culture of colonization holds the key to understanding and defeating corporate globalization. Building a Canadian decolonization movement in support of justice for Indigenous Peoples will benefit all Canadians interested in the good of people before corporate profit. The objective of "Building a Canadian Decolonization Movement" is to take its participants a step towards this goal.
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> Please email: ipsm at resist.ca to indicate your interest, or for minutes of the first two strategizing sessions.
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