For over 6 years now, environmental defenders representing the Unist’ot’en, an official faction of the Wet’suwet’en Nation, have been standing guard over their traditional territory from invasion by Transcanada’s Coastal Gaslink pipeline.
On December 14, 2018, a British Columbia Supreme Court Justice levied a temporary injunction, ordering an end to the blockade — bypassing the required consent of tribal leaders.
Prior to this, a gated blockade had prevented pipeline workers from trespassing onto First Nation lands through the Morice River bridge — located on a forest road.
The injunction, which demands environmental defenders vacate their stronghold of resistance to the planned 670 kilometer pipeline, is set to start on Monday, December 17th, allowing pipeline workers free passage until May 2019.
In a show of quasi-generosity, Coastal Gaslink has stated that the camp connected to the blockade may remain in place… as long as they discontinue any obstruction of pre-construction traffic through the gated area.
“Right now, our focus is on respectfully and safely moving forward with project activities, including gaining safe access across the Morice River bridge … We simply ask that their activities do not disrupt or jeopardize the safety of our employees and contractors, surrounding communities or even themselves,” Coastal GasLink said in a statement.
Representatives of Coastal Gaslink have also cited an inability of First Nation communities to provide restitution for any ‘losses’ the company could incur through delays or obstructions to construction plans as support for the injunction and enforcement order.
Yet, enforcement of the project remains dubious given that the territory has never changed hands via treaty, nor have land rights ever been conceded in any manner. In effect, the right of the Unist’ot’en People to determine the fate of their ancestral land remains intact.
This also makes the injunction a clear violation of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) which requires ‘free, prior and informed consent’ (FPIC) when it comes to development, investment or extraction initiatives on Indigenous territories.
The area in question has been occupied by the Unist’ot’en for generations; their current leader, Chief Knedebeas, describes occupying and carrying out tribal traditions there since his childhood.
Now, the territory under threat is being used as a crucial healing center where Wet’suwet’en people are receiving treatment for addiction. Freda Hudson, Unist’ot’en clan, explained:
“The Unist’ot’en Healing Centre was constructed to fulfill their vision of a culturally-safe healing program, centred on the healing properties of the land. It is the embodiment of self-determined wellness and decolonization, with potential to build up culture-based resiliency of Indigenous people who need support, through re-establishing relationships with land, ancestors and the underlying universal teachings that connect distinct Indigenous communities across the world.”
The Unist’ot’en have until January 31, 2019 to respond to Coastal Gaslink’s application.
Each night Unist’ot’en Clan spokeswoman, Freda Huson, and her husband Wet’suwet’en hereditary chief Toghestiy fall asleep on their traditional land not knowing whether the Royal Canadian Mounted Police are going to storm their bridge in the depths of night.
Each winter, when Freda and Toghestiy ride their snowmobiles down forestry roads to bring in supplies, to hunt, or to check their traplines, they don’t know whether they will find piles of felled trees maliciously dragged across their paths.
Each time Freda and Toghestiy leave their territory for a few days they don’t know if they will return to find another attack in an old tradition of cowardly arson perpetrated by hostile settlers on Wet’suwet’en territories leaving smoking embers where their cabin once stood.
I ponder this as I sit in a workshop with other settlers during the 6-day Unist’ot’en Action Camp – a series of workshops hosted on the traditional territories of the Unist’ot’en Clan of the Wet’suwet’en Nation to promote strategic planning and co-ordination in the struggle against the spread of fossil fuel pipelines. This particular workshop is designed as a discussion to promote understanding about how settlers can work in better solidarity with indigenous peoples struggling to protect their homes and carrying out their responsibilities to the land.
Most of the ideas discussed revolve around decolonizing our hearts and minds to learn to see the role non-indigenous peoples are playing in the genocidal processes threatening the survival of indigenous peoples. Some of the ideas involve material support for indigenous peoples engaged in front line resistance like the Unist’ot’en. A few even suggest that settlers become physically present next to indigenous peoples on the front lines.
But, I am troubled. We have skipped something. What exactly do we mean by “solidarity?”
***
A common scene from my life as a public defender shows me – a white man in a suit and tie – sitting next to a shackled African, Chicana, or indigenous mother in a courtroom. In front of us sits a judge – an older white man in black robes. Across from us sits the prosecutor – another white man in a suit. Directly behind us, where he is felt more than seen, stands a big white man in the brown uniform of a sheriff’s deputy. He has a gun on one hip, a taser on the other, and the keys to my client’s shackles on a loop on his belt.
My client stares at the judge in a mix of horror and hatred as she is sentenced to prison for stealing from a supermarket to support her children or for lying to a police officer about her name because she had outstanding parking tickets and had to get the kids to school or for punching a cop when the latest in a long list of arbitrary stops by police officers finally caused something inside of her to snap.
As the judge announces how many days in jail my client will be spending, she reaches for my arm with tears in her eyes and asks, “Mr. Falk, won’t you do something?”
I cannot meet her gaze. I tell myself there’s nothing I can do. There’s no argument I can make to sway the judge. There’s no way to stop the sheriff’s deputy behind us from leading my client back down the long concrete tunnel connecting the courthouse and the city jail.
I try to comfort myself. What does she want me to do? Yell at the judge? Tackle the deputy? Spit on the prosecutor for his role in sending this mother to jail?
***
We gathered to sit on wooden benches arranged in a half-circle on a hot and sunny morning during the Unist’ot’en Action Camp to listen to two indigenous men speak about their experiences on the front lines of resistance. Each man had been shot at by police and soldiers, each man had served time in jail, and each man received utter respect from each individual listening.
The first man faced 7,7000 rounds fired by the RCMP at the Gustafsen Lake Stand-off in 1995 when a group of Original Peoples occupied a sacred site on a cattle ranch on unceded Canoe Creek First Nation land because the rancher tried to prevent their ceremonies. For his part at Gustafsen Lake, he was sentenced to five years in prison. During the Oka Crisis in 1990 when the town of Oka, Quebec sought to build a golf course over a Mohawk burial ground, the second man and his comrades blockaded several small British Columbian towns shutting down their local economies. He, too, was convicted and spent time in jail for his actions.
The second man said the blockades were carried out “in solidarity” with the resisters at Oka. This was the only time either of the men mentioned the word “solidarity.” They spoke of supporting resistance, praying for resistance, and helping with ceremonies. But, it was only when engaged in actions where co-resisters placed themselves in similarly dangerous situations that the term “solidarity” was used.
***
I got back from Unist’ot’en Camp earlier this afternoon and checked my email for the first time in days. My inbox was inundated by emails from various list serves proclaiming “Solidarity with Palestine!”
Meanwhile, in Gaza, occupying Israeli bulldozers are demolishing the homes of Palestinian families with suspected ties to Hamas while colonial Israeli bombs are indiscriminately falling on men, women, and children adding to the pile of dead numbered at well over 500 corpses and counting.
“That’s terrible, Will,” you may be thinking. “But what do you want me to do about it?”
Put yourself in Gaza right now. Dig a pit in your back yard, turn your ear anxiously to the sky, and keep the path to your back door clear, so that when you hear the hum of jets overhead you can sprint to your makeshift bomb shelter.
Look down the street for bull-dozers. When you spot one, grab the nearest bag in a panic, shove as much food into it as possible, scramble for some clean underwear, find your toothbrush, and sprint out the door without a look back for the nearest safe space.
Stand over the broken corpses of your children in the pile of dust and ashes that used to be their bedroom. Moan. Weep. Wail. When you wake up for the first time without crying, feel the anger burn through your chest and down your arms into your clinched fists. Ask yourself what you should do next.
Ask yourself: What does solidarity look like?
***
Maybe there really was nothing I could do to stop my clients from being hauled to jail in those courtrooms of my past. Unfortunately, I tried not to think about it too much. Placing myself in that vulnerable of a situation was too scary for me. If I argued too strongly, too fervently the judge could fine me. If I yelled at the prosecutor I could be held in contempt of court. If I spit on him, I certainly would be held in contempt of court. If I tried to stop the deputy, I would be tasered and taken to jail. I might even be shot during the scuffle and killed.
The truth is indigenous and other resisters are being dragged to jail, tasered, and even shot and killed every day on the front lines. And, they’ve been on the front lines for a very long time. I’ve realized that freedom from the vulnerabilities frontline resisters experience is a privilege and the maintenance of this privilege is leaving resisters isolated on front lines around the world.
It is time we understand exactly what solidarity looks like. Solidarity looks like the possibility of prison time. Solidarity looks like facing bullets and bombs. Solidarity looks like risking mental, spiritual, and physical health. Solidarity looks like placing our bodies on the front lines – strong shoulder to strong shoulder – next to our brothers and sisters who are already working so courageously to stop the destruction of the world.
I thought this as I sat listening to Mel, a Wet’suwet’en man, explain the ideas behind the establishment of the Unist’ot’en Camp. It was lunch on my first day of the camp. The sun was strong and the few dozen visitors to the camp gathered in a clearing surrounded by tall pines. The quick-flowing clear-voiced Morice River flowed next to our gathering place, ice cold from its glacial source not far away.
My first encounter with Mel was on the bridge into Unist’ot’en Camp. Before visitors are admitted, they must satisfactorily complete the Free, Prior and Informed Consent Protocol – a series of questions that camp elders ask. Mel was quick with a smile, quicker with a hug or handshake, and quickest with a joke. He was the first to clap me on my nervous back after I satisfactorily answered my hosts’ questions in the Protocol. So it was natural I made my way to the small gathering of people listening to Mel at lunch.
“This is about responsibility, not rights,” Mel said looking around the sky and gesturing towards the river. He explained the way the land taught his people that they had a responsibility to protect the health of the land. Displaying a mastery of political theory coupled with the traditional wisdom of his people, he weaved a powerful analysis to show how important it is that the pipelines be stopped at the Unist’ot’en Camp.
One of the fundamental rules his people have long adhered to is: take what you need and leave the rest. This rule governed the Wet’suwet’en for centuries and worked very well as evidenced by the health of northern British Columbia’s environment when the Europeans first arrived.
This rule, however, stands in direct opposition to the lifeblood of capitalism – unlimited growth. Capitalism depends on readily consumable natural resources. Capitalism would collapse very quickly without these resources. Mel went on to explain that is why he felt we have to resist the spread of fossil fuel consumption. In a world gone mad with the burning of fossil fuels, in a world being destroyed because of this madness, we have a responsibility to protect the world.
From there, Mel’s analysis took a turn I wasn’t expecting. He explained the way the land we were sitting on – traditional Wet’suwet’en land – was unceded territory. His people never signed a treaty with the British or Canadian government giving them access to Wet’suwet’en land. So, many people might argue the corporations and the Canadian government have no right to build pipelines through the Unist’ot’en Camp and they would be correct.
But, and this is what I found most beautiful about Mel’s words, the founders of the Unist’ot’en Camp view themselves as members of a mutually supportive natural community where members share a responsibility to each other. The river provides life-giving water, the salmon give their nourishing flesh to animals and the forests surrounding the riverbeds, and humans, benefiting from all this, in turn bear a responsibility to protect these relationships.
To go even further, Mel showed that rights are nothing more than privileges given by a government. The Canadian government is illegitimate because it exists through genocide and is only on Wet’suwet’en land by sheer force. So, for the Wet’suwet’en to assert their rights in Canadian courts, they would be acknowledging the power of the Canadian government to decide the fate of lands they should have no power over.
Any government that fails to honor the basic rule to take only what you need and to leave the rest is illegitimate. It really is as simple as that.
As I’ve thought about Mel’s words the last few days, I’ve realized the strength in viewing our role in a burning world as one of responsibility. We simply do not have time to wait for governments to enforce our rights to clean air, clean water and healthy soil.
This gets to the heart of something I’ve been trying to articulate for a long time. Before I left for the Unist’ot’en Camp, I wrote a couple of pieces about why I felt it was important to come here to offer my help to the Wet’suwet’en. I wrote about giving up on home, I wrote about wanting to do more than just write, and I wrote about those of us benefiting from the dominant culture working to stop its destructive cycle.
Some of my closest friends told me that I was resorting to guilt and expressing a need for atonement to motivate people to work for the land. They seem to think that by truly acknowledging the atrocities of the past, I must be living in perpetual guilt. It was never my intention to use guilt as the reason we must act. But I need to be firm. I think that people who mistake the never-ending process of trying to see clearly into the past as guilt reveal nothing more than their own sense that the horrors of the past are worthy of guilt.
Putting aside the questionable notion that all guilt is bad, for a moment, I think it is vastly important that we understand the historical forces producing reality in the present and the future. History – the story of the past – is another narrative that can be used to prop up the current system of power, or used to undermine the current system’s strangle-hold on life on the planet. History, in this way, is just like religion, poetry, mass advertising and science.
You can see the power history holds when you observe someone’s everyday assumptions. If, for example, our historical narrative tells you the United States of America was founded by enlightened European men who came to this mostly empty land fleeing religious and economic persecution, you will view your role as a citizen one way. If, for a different example, your historical narrative tells you that George Washington’s famous wooden teeth were not wooden at all, but were actually real teeth forcibly removed from his African slaves, you may view your role in Washington’s legacy as a citizen in a radically different way. Or, to take this idea even further, if you believe that history is too complex to understand, then give up in the constant struggle to analyze its power over your thinking, denying that the past is real, you will view your role as a citizen even more differently.
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A simple way to say all this is: You are what you eat. Just as the health conscious person is concerned about the ingredients in her food, the world conscious person continuously challenges the history presented to her.
This is why I incorporate North America’s bloody history into my perspective. It is not about guilt or the need for penance, it’s about understanding the historical ingredients that comprise present reality.
Which brings us back to guilt. Not all guilt is bad. It is important and healthy that humans feel guilt. When you snap at your mother, for instance, you should feel guilty about that. When you are wiping insects off your windshield, counting the number of beings with lives (now ended) that were as important to them as yours is to you, you should feel some guilt. Guilt tells us when our actions are wrong and provides us with the emotional incentive to stop acting in that manner.
– – – – – – – –
Though guilt is helpful for changing behavior, it is through responsibility that society gains its imperative to overturn the current system based on the domination of humans, natural communities and the land. If guilt is rooted in the past, responsibility is rooted in the present and future. To respond implies that there is someone to respond to and in Mel’s words about the Wet’suwet’en’s beliefs about responsibility to future generations, we find those we must respond to: our children, our grandchildren, their children.
Even if it is true that all guilt is bad, the reality is the same atrocities we abhor in the past – genocide, a war on women, the devastation of land and water – are continuing at a dizzying pace.
The question becomes: once aware of these atrocities, once feeling them in our hearts, once we absorb the immensity of the threats to everything we love, how do we fail to stop what would destroy our beloved.
– – – – – – –
Not all world views are created equal.
Some tell us that this world is not real. Some tell us we will find peace in another world in the sky. Some world views tell us that the natural world is here for us to use. Some tell us that humans are naturally destructive and everything we touch doomed to ashes.
Of course, these are all just narratives we tell ourselves. In the philosophic sense, they can not be proven. Meanwhile, the world burns. The ability of the beautiful planet to support life is under attack.
I knew this was true sitting with my lunch listening to Mel crouch on the ground with his lunch. Both his feet were planted in the soil. Behind his bright face, the pines were swaying. And underneath the noise of the Unist’ot’en Camp, the Morice River sang on as it has for thousands of years. Many thousands of those years the Wet’suwet’en have sat on her banks listening to her wisdom.
She sings of responsibility – the responsibility to protect this land for future generations.
Post Script May 30, 2014: I have decided to stay in British Columbia to offer all my support to the Camp. I am helping with fundraising, public awareness, and general organizing. I’ve already been in Victoria, BC for three days and I’ve been really busy running around town organizing for a big fundraiser we’re putting on Sunday, June 1. I have written 2 essays from the Camp that will appear on the San Diego Free Press. I’ve also been working on a collection of poetry.
In order to live and work up here, I do need some financial resources. Absolutely every little bit helps, but if you paypal me $15 I will see that you get a physical copy of a chap book of poetry from the Unist’ot’en Camp I am working on. (Of course, I will probably share the poetry anyway, so if you can’t help out, don’t worry! I’ll still be sharing…)
My paypal account is falkwilt@gmail.com. If this sounds like something someone you know may be interested in, feel free to share.
Members of a First Nation in northern B.C. have evicted surveyors working on a natural gas pipeline project from their territory and set up a roadblock against all pipeline activity.
A group identifying itself as the Unis’tot’en clan of the Wet’suwet’en Nation said surveyors for Apache Canada’s Pacific Trails Pipeline were trespassing.
“The Unis’tot’en clan has been dead-set against all pipelines slated to cross through their territories, which include PTP [Pacific Trails Pipeline], Enbridge’s Northern Gateway and many others,” Freda Huson, a spokesperson for the group, said in a statement.
“As a result of the unsanctioned PTP work in the Unis’tot’en yintah, the road leading into the territory has been closed to all industry activities until further notice.”
Huson was not available for comment.
It’s unclear what road is blocked, or where. The group said its territory is along the Clore River, located west of the Williams Creek Ecological Reserve about 30 kilometres southeast of Terrace.
Company spokesman Paul Wyke confirmed Wednesday that surveyors were asked to leave the area.
“We had some surveyors in the area last evening and they were asked to leave traditional territory by a small group of members from the Unis’tot’en, and they complied,” Wyke said.
“We understand that there are some members of the Unis’tot’en that have expressed some concerns with the proposed PTP project, and we continue to consult with First Nations along the entire proposed pipeline right-of-way.”
Wyke said the company will continue ongoing consultations with aboriginal groups. The project has the support of 15 of 16 aboriginal groups along the route, he said.
The blockading group said the province does not have the right to approve development on their traditional lands, which lie northwest of Kitimat, the future home of an Apache Canada liquefied natural gas plant and the tanker port for the proposed Northern Gateway pipeline.
Deep Green Resistance will be participating in, and working to raise awareness and support for, the 3rd Annual Unis’tot’en Action Camp in Unis’tot’en territory in the north of Unceded Occupied so-called British Columbia. We seek to stand in solidarity with the Wet’suwet’en and other First Nations in their fight against the exploitation and degradation brought on by the tar sands, including the Enbridge Northern Gateway and other pipelines, fuel terminals, and refineries. Members of Deep Green Resistance will participate in the Action Camp, as well as organize a series of events to raise support and collect donations for the Unis’tot’en Action Camp and the struggle.
Now in its third year of resistance in the ongoing struggle, the Action Camp, which takes place August 6 – 10, will see a lot of activities focused on building solidarity, as well as campaign and action planning for those communities who will stop the pipelines and mining projects that are unwelcome in the First Nations territories. The Lhe Lin Liyin, will stand with strong and uncompromising allies to stop this destruction to protect future generations and biodiversity. In taking this action, we will act in solidarity with those living amidst the horrific damage of the tar sands in northern Alberta, as well as those affected by natural gas & shale oil fracking. The Action Camp is located on the shore of the Wedzin Kwah and the mouth of the Gosnell Creek (km 66 on the Morice River West FSR), tributaries to the Skeena, Bulkley, and Babine Rivers, at the exact location where the Northern Gateway Pipeline, the Pembina Pipeline, the Kinder Morgan Pipeline and the Kitimat Summit Lake Looping Project seek to cross the rivers.
In addition to participating in the Action Camp, we seek to raise support for our allies fighting the pipeline projects. Deep Green Resistance will be planning several events in the Pacific Northwest to raise awareness about the ongoing struggle by the Wet’suwet’en and other First Nations against the colonization and destruction by the fossil fuel industry.
We hope our allies, and allies of the Wet’suwet’en, will join the resistance camp and the fight against industrial extraction.
