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What’s Anti-Imperialism? by Macdonald Stainsby
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Anti-imperialist work is seen from many vantage points by anti-capitalists here in what we call Canada: it is, of course, anti-militarist. It is also seen as anti-racist: The same powers that bomb and maim populations in Iraq and Palestine (as only two contemporary examples) are able to do so because of the pervasive internalized racial superiority of the primarily white dominant culture in North American society. It is seen as pro-environmental, as the poisoning of entire societies and waterways from the fallout of military conquest is, in a phrase, self-evidently destructive. It is also seen as inherently based on notions of democracy and self-determination: Even in the case of countries governed by leaders such as Saddam Hussein, anti-imperialists point to the impossibility of building democracy from the point of a gun. For all of these reasons, however, to build a movement that fights for these rights “over there” while not doing the same in Canada--or might I say “Canada”--is at the best, a massive oversight. There are many reasons why indigenous sovereignty continues to be not only overlooked, but consciously excluded from a movement which claims to be working towards building a world worthy of human beings. The reason behind this is not hard to fathom; most people want a revolution for their own personal reasons, and a world that is fit for humanity is only a part of it. People tend to pick and choose the non-obviously “class” issues they solidarize with based on the political power they wield. The fact that the native genocide has reduced their collective percentage of Canada’s population to slightly less than 5 percent [including Inuit and Métis], even with the highest birthrate in the country, perhaps makes it easy for people to decide (consciously or not) to ignore them. That is, the probably-not-even-aware-of-it opportunist left-- the same left that supports gay marriage, black reparations in the United States, proper compensation for victims of Japanese internment camps and transgendered rights-this very left, aside from platitudes about feeling bad, often ignores the struggles of Indians et al. Those on the left, for example, who see the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge as a cause that needs to be organized around will do so on the basis of saving foxes, caribou and polar bears, tend to forget the Gwitch’in people who will be virtually wiped out, culturally if not physically, on both sides of the Alaska-Yukon border, should drilling begin in what the Gwitch’in have called “the sacred place where life begins” for thousands of years. One of the main reasons for this reluctance to take up issues of indigenous self-determination in “Canada” is fear. So many times I’ve begun to engage a discussion with someone about these issues and the point comes back: “What do you want to do? Send everyone back to [....]?” “Put us (a strange “us” that gets inserted into the discussion) under the government of a minority of such small numbers?” These are not real questions when posed in this hostile manner; rather they are put forward as an excuse not to think about answers to these very same questions. Perhaps a better example is this one: “So what do we do about it?” This question, perhaps the most important single question for people living in a settler state, engaging in politics around refugee rights (and thank goodness for this) needs to be asked in a way that shows good faith. People instead ask the question to end the investigation into any possible answer, rather than to begin a genuine attempt to resolve a still ongoing colonization, decimation and land theft process, on both sides of the 49th parallel of Turtle Island. Yet, the answer is really right in front of our faces, at least for those of us who have proudly identified with a global movement against some aspects of imperialism, in particular around the so-called anti-globalization movement. People confuse self-determination for nations with the need to construct nation-states. But really, self-determination of all in the face of capital is what we have slowly groped our collective movement consciousness towards. What will this look like here? I wouldn’t dare hazard an exact blue print. But perhaps a map in the right direction can be drawn. When the needs of capital are to strip mine the earth, but the needs of a nation are to have the earth (the land, the air, the animals, the water--everything that sustains life) remain intact, we must defy capital. Our new society, built on the ashes of the old but hopefully not the ashes of the planet itself, needs also to be constructed, as many say already, with respect to different forms of economies in our midst. If a nation does not wish to have concepts of private property, indoor schooling, road construction and the like “benefit” them, then simply so be it. Other things that can be done must now also be done. Every society in the world under colonization has its sell-outs, opportunists and Quislings. Unfortunately, but predictably, in Canada, these people have been constructed into the Assembly of “First Nations”-the AFN. Today, the AFN is busy trying to start a process where every single Rez in Canada would have its land privatized, and Indians would buy out other Indians, preying on the poor, and further exacerbating social dysfunction and alienating entire populations from their own traditions of collective ownership. This must be stopped. This, too, is defense of the rights of self-determination. No, history cannot be undone, but the struggle of indigenous populations on Turtle Island is not about history, it is about today’s land theft. More importantly, where possible to do so, the nations that still, to any extent, live “with the land” in any way have a respect for the earth and a desire to see it survive that comes from understanding the place in this world for the environment. The concepts of not owning but being owned by the land are seen by so many as a throw back to a “pre-feudal” society, but in reality, if we are to get out of the global vice of capitalism, it will only be possible if we learn to respect the earth from which we all came. And to do that means seeing it as the number one giver of life. We need to see that in the future, and that form of consciousness is as great an advance as humanity can make. For those reasons and a lot more, I continue to oppose the war and remain an anti-imperialist. The war not that started on 9-11, but the one that started with the invasion of the Vikings in the north and Columbus in the South, and continues with every stolen grave, every desecrated forest and with every bit of nation land thieves make off with. It was on her first album in the 1960s that Buffy Sainte-Marie wrote: Oh it’s all in the past you can say but it’s still going on here today The governments now want the Navaho land that of the Inuit and the Cheyenne It’s here and it’s now you must help us dear man Now that the buffalo’s gone. What’s so stark to me is that most protest songs from the ‘60s are somehow dated. In contrast, there is absolutely no way to tell when she wrote this, seeing as it is no less true today. And that’s because Indians have remained on their own, even while others have become “but of course” to social justice. Social justice is not merely about equality, it’s about self-determination. And that scares too many people, who are afraid that what was done to the Indians is what they would do to “us”. The buffalo are indeed gone, but the porcupine caribou herds are not. The people of the caribou--the Gwitch’in--rely on them for over 75% of their diet and lie strategically along the route of the caribous’ migration. The Mackenzie Valley has many different nations of Dene Indians living throughout it as well, along with Inuvialuit (Inuit) at the basin where the big river meets the Arctic Ocean. All told, the populations of the Mackenzie Valley are over 85% indigenous peoples. Oil and gas threaten to destroy the Mackenzie Valley now, too--as a giant pipeline (the largest industrial project in Canada’s history) that has been resisted valiantly for over thirty years is being crammed down the throats of the nations of the north, with not unforeseen and socially catastrophic consequences. Will we watch the war for oil in Iraq and organize to stop it, while ignoring another ecocidal, genocidal war for oil and gas being carried out in our names, right here in Canada? Or will we help stop this war on the earth and self-determination, learn the lessons of history-- and perhaps, truly show what an anti-colonial movement is really all about? I do ask those questions in good faith, for the yet uncharted pages of history are how we will find the answers. _____________________________________ Macdonald Stainsby is a student and activist living in Montreal. He is currently hitchhiking across the continent visiting an array of Indigenous nations currently facing external threats as part of his project Surviving Canada. You can learn more about the project and read his updates at http://independentmedia.ca/survivingcanada
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