In a second major win for Indigenous-led environmental movements—and other mobilizations in defense of nature—an appellate court in Guatemala has upheld the unprecedented charge of ecocide against Spanish African palm oil corporation, Empresa Reforestadora de Palma de Petén SA—otherwise known as REPSA—denying a recent appeal that sought to overturn it.
The company has been accused of criminally negligent activity resulting in massive die-offs of fish and other wildlife in and around the La Pasión River, disrupting the lives of tens of thousands of Guatemalans living in the region.
Judge Carla Hernandez, of the Peten Environmental Crimes Court, ordered RESPA to suspend production activity for six months in September 2015 while the charges were fully investigated; though recent reports suggest that RESPA has yet to fully, if remotely, comply.
IC reported on the burgeoning trend of ecocide via pollution linked to palm oil production in Guatemala’s waterways in 2014. In June of 2015, the situation grew inescapably dire as mounting counts of fish die-offs spiraled from counts in the hundreds in 2014, to the millions in 2015. In response to the exploding ecological crisis, activists mobilized all over the world; and as with the case in 2014, at least one life was taken in a counter-attack orchestrated—allegedly—by the corporate industrial complex of ‘big palma’.
On September 18, 2015, Indigenous professor, human rights defender and vocal RESPA critic, Rigoberto Lima Choc, was killed outside of the courthouse following Judge Hernandez’s ruling for a six month suspension of RESPA operations in the region. Choc was the first activist to document the extensive socio-environmental damage occurring at the hands of REPSA, and took the charge of ecocide directly to the authorities. His murder followed the abduction and release of three other human rights defenders, fellow members of the Comisión por la Defensa de la Vida y la Naturaleza (Commission for the Defense of Live and Nature). During a brief period of contact with their families in the midst of the kidnapping, the Comisión activists relayed that they were being held in conjunction with the ceasing of RESPA’s operations.
With momentum accumulating from official complaints filed against palm oil activity in 2013, and 2014, the RESPA case was spearheaded by this collaboration of local groups operating as the Comisión por la Defensa de la Vida y la Naturaleza. Together, they filed a lawsuit against RESPA on June 11, 2015. Maya Q’eqchi community leader, Saul Paau – who has also been vocal about the larger schema of such catastrophes being related to, and unintended consequences of, the Central American Free Trade (CAFTA) – gave a statement to the Guatemala Indymedia Center, saying:
We can call the case a crime against humanity, because not only were various species of the river dying, but the river is also part of our historical culture, or our territory. We get our food from it, and the contamination and the fish deaths today have violated the food security of all of us.
The United Nations has expressed its own concern over the environmental impact of RESPA operations in Guatemala, and confirmed how their criminal negligence has impacted over 20 different species of fish, and over 20 more different species of reptiles, birds, and mammals. Guatemalan U.N. coordinator, Valerie Julliand, explained how water pollution impacts myriad facets of community and individual life, including such core foundational activities as eating, drinking, and basic hygiene. She further described the “psychological impact” such destruction had on local families and how this compounded the situation for those that were “mourning the loss of the river”—the brutal and sudden loss of their personal and community lifeline. Julliand cited U.N. statistics regarding how every ton of palm oil produced around 2.5 to 3.74 tons of industrial waste.
Photo: Rolanda García H. via Santiago Boton, 2014
Rosalito Barrios, of the San Carlos de Guatemala Chemical Sciences Department, documented that pollution from RESPA’s industrial activity formed a 70-centimeter layer of toxins covering the entire surface of the river, effectively suffocating any life therein. This unfathomable mass killing is foundational to, and demonstrative of, the willful or negligent crime against humanity—and crime against peace—conceived of as ‘ecocide’.
ECOCIDE, THE 5TH CRIME AGAINST PEACE
The following TED talk is from environmental lawyer, Polly Higgins, who has been especially instrumental in gaining traction for ecocide and earth rights in the ongoing trajectory of international law.
“The coercive sterilization of Indigenous women in Canada is genocide proper,” Dr. Karen Stote, professor at Wilfrid Laurier University and author of An Act of Genocide: Colonialism and Sterilization of Aboriginal Women, asserted in a statement to Intercontinental Cry (IC) . Her distinction alludes to the alternative phrasing of ‘cultural genocide’, a semantic preferred by judges, policy makers and other Canadian officials when referencing the plight of Canada’s First Nations.
Stote elaborated that, “…imposing measures to prevent births within a group, when done to undermine the ability of a group to continue to exist, is an act of genocide”. The crime is fully realized “…when [this] coercive sterilization is understood within the larger context of colonialism, as one of many policies/practices imposed on Indigenous peoples that allows the increasing encroachment of Indigenous lands and the reduction of the number of those to whom the federal government has obligations.”
Dr. Kim Anderson, Cree/Métis writer and fellow Wilfrid Laurier professor who specializes in community engaged research in Indigenous communities, supported Dr. Stote’s statement in a phone conversation with IC. “Genocide is the term for [these] systematic strategies. The ultimate end of sterilization is that people are unable to have children and that’s genocide.”
Anderson spoke of the many stories emerging from inside her own personal network of First Nations women today, stories detailing events that took place in Canada as recently as the 1960’s and 1970’s. She went on to contextualize them in reference to a larger, more compounded strategy of genocide on Canada’s First Nations’ families. Rather systematic in approach, attacks against Indigenous family structure and even more specifically, “Indigenous mothering,” have been methodically inflicted going back to first contact. Anderson painted a picture of deep sociocultural wounds from strategic attacks that pierced the most sacred parts of Indigenous life; she described how this frightening history of oppression and abuse made the sterilization era all the more traumatic, in the context of Canada’s greater colonial grand strategy.
A universal legal definition of genocide was outlined in Articles II and III of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide in 1948. According to Article II, the two main elements of genocide are the “mental” and the “physical.” The mental element considers the “intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such.”
The physical element is itemized into five parts: killing members of the aforementioned group, causing serious bodily or mental harm to group members of the aforementioned group; causing serious bodily or mental harm to group members; “deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;” “imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;” and, “forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.”
These criteria are what Stote refers to when she describes Canada’s handling of its First Nations residents as “genocide proper.” Perhaps a more palatable term to some, cultural genocide has made its way into the larger conversation; its presence there nuanced in a manner that is alternately valuable and distracting.
The terminology of “cultural genocide” is currently used by Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission as a description of Canada’s policies of forced removal and residential schools. In relation to this – and to how much work really does still need to be done to address Canada’s colonial legacy – Anderson was quick to point out a disturbing statistic: there are more First Nations children in the Canadian welfare system now, than were removed to residential schools in the previous era.
Though care must be taken to prevent a battle of semantics from overshadowing these very real and very current issues, there are times when these nuances do matter; even more if they play host to evasion strategies of the hegemonic variety. One of the themes Stote explores in her book is Canada’s role and responsibility – in collusion with other hegemonic, western interests operating at the “UN level” – for the deletion of the article on ‘cultural genocide’ from the 1948 Genocide Convention.
To be clear, Canada actually went as far as threatening to opt out of the entire Genocide Convention if it was included, and was a direct force in the collective opposition that culminated in its removal. Interestingly enough, the measure was supported by the entire Soviet Bloc, while its critics – other than Canada – included the U.S. and most of Western Europe. There were two notable environmental factors contextualizing this sequence of events.
First of all, these circumstances were unfolding in the wake of Hitler’s genocide in Germany; and protections geared specifically at “culture” were presented as superficial in comparison. Secondly, it was all taking place on the cusp of the McCarthy era. It is conceivable that western interests were preemptively protecting other systematic strategies that were being developed – and executed – to target communist, or otherwise political groups, from appearing on the radar of Convention upholders. In any event, the terminology was omitted and with it, the legitimacy of ‘cultural genocide’ under international law. The terminology was revived in 2007 as part of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, but was again ultimately excluded in favor of the more succinct expression of “genocide.”
The practices of coerced and forced sterilizations of Indigenous women – and men – must also be understood in the context of both what appears to be this large scale appeal for genocidal impunity, and as well within the violations of basic consent. The American Bar Association outlines a complex set of standards regarding a ward of the system’s ability to give consent in terms of biomedical practices and research. Indigenous peoples in some contexts – trapped in the cyclical patterns of settler violence and imperialistic intrusion upon their lives and culture – especially historically, were definitively unable to give legal consent, even when consent was sought – be it under the most pretentious of terms considering Indigenous peoples were veritable prisoners of war at this point in Canada’s history. Accordingly, an examination of historical documents by Stote revealed “problems: such as a lack of interpreters, … a lack of informed consent, [or] consent forms not being translated into the languages spoken by Indigenous peoples.”
The extent to which Canada was coloring outside the ethical lines with their practices of forced sterilization is further realized in terms of another case in point. Stote related that,
The first high dose birth control pill was being prescribed in Indigenous communities, 1964-1965 at least, before contraceptives were legalized for these purposes – in 1969 – with the intent to reduce the birth rate, and to “reduce the size of the homes the federal government would need to provide.
Considering the Catholic Church’s position on birth control, it might be assumed that their own activity in relation to Canada’s First Nations during this period would steer far and wide from the government’s unholy interventionism. It is therefore especially confusing that they actually worked in collusion with the Canadian government in terms of these methodical strategies to wipe Canada’s First Nations off the face of the planet. This unholy alliance is perhaps most evident in Canada’s long-running policy of forcibly removing Indigenous children from their homes and families, and imprisoning them in residential Christian schools funded by the state. As detailed above, this practice stands on its own as a violation of the Geneva Convention, even after the phrasing “cultural genocide” had been struck from the official document.
The Canadian government pursued this policy of cultural genocide because it wished to divest itself of its legal and financial obligations to Aboriginal people and gain control over their lands and resources. If every Aboriginal person had been ‘absorbed into the body politic’, there would be no reserves, no treaties and no Aboriginal rights.
During a recent trip to Bolivia, Pope Francis issued an apology for the “sins” the Catholic Church committed against the Indigenous of Latin America. Members of Canada’s First Nations would undoubtedly be well served by a similar statement from the (if ambivalently) human rights-oriented Pope. Canadian First Nations organizers were disappointed that former Canadian Prime Minister, Stephen Harper, did not issue a more direct appeal for an apology for the Church’s role in the residential schools when he met with the Pope recently. Assembly of First Nations Chief Perry Bellegarde strongly lamented that move (or lack of one) citing at the time:
Today would have been a powerful and appropriate day to issue that invitation and it would help survivors in their healing journey.
Enter in Justin Trudeau, Canada’s newly elected Prime Minister and Leader of the Liberal Party, who quickly responded to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s release of its final report detailing Canada’s history of residential schools on December 15, 2015. The report documents a horrific legacy of physical and sexual abuse that culminated in an official death toll of 3,200 — though Commission chairman, Justice Murray Sinclair, estimates the actual number to be much higher.Trudeau’s comments — themselves a potential harbinger of a long awaited policy pivot — came after he met with leaders from 5 First Nations communities in Ottawa on December 16th.
To bring the discussion back to coerced and forced sterilization, it is important to note that these atrocities were certainly not limited to Canada. These ethical anomalies are well documented to have occurred in many other nation states as well, including the United States of America.
In 2000, the American Indian Quarterly journal published an article entitled, “The Indian Health Service and the Sterilization of Native American Women.” Researchers concluded their assessment with encouraging news regarding more recent trends concerning Native autonomy in health care practices, but laced any implied optimism with a warning:
While the sterilizations that occurred in the 1960’s and 1970’s harmed Native Americans, Indian participation in their own health care since 1976 has strengthened their tribal communities. Sterilization abuse has not been reported recently on the scale that occurred during the 1970’s, but the possibility still exists for it to occur.
To punctuate that ultimately prophetic statement is a much more recent case from Peru, in which around 350,000 women – the majority of whom were Indigenous Quechua, Aymara, Shipiba, or Ashaninkas – were coercively sterilized by a government health program under the administration of former President Alberto Fujimori. (Fujimori was later sentenced to 25 years in prison for grave human rights violations not directly related to sterilizations.)
The issue of consent loomed large in Peru as well. Sometimes the procedures were done completely in secret after childbirth, and sometimes the only form of consent was a waiver signed by a relative (disturbing, from a few angles, given the language barriers.) There were a number of factors that disabled proper consent protocol, and likewise a number of negative impacts women experienced in the aftermath.
Alejandra Ballón, who has written a book about the procedures in Peru under Fujimoto, noted that, “The women lost their strength and could no longer work as farmers, but also many were abandoned by their male partners, and forced to immigrate to the cities.” In November of 2015, a mobilization of about 80 Peruvian women – victims of these practices of forced sterilizations between 1996 and 2000 – took to the streets demanding justice.
It’s impossible to know if there are similar accounts of impact on the victims of forced sterilizations in Canada, because the necessary research has not been carried out. According to Anderson, this is what makes Stote’s ongoing work so important. She also points to the need to collect the stories of Canada’s First Nation eugenics-era survivors, while they are still alive. She may even take on the latter task herself, having had a dream about it.
Anderson further contextualized Canada’s history of sterilizing its First Nations women as being spawned from this broader eugenics movement that was born out of the writings of Francis Galton, cousin of Charles Darwin, who coined the term “eugenics” in 1883 . It was a movement, she points out, that Indigenous peoples were constantly targeted by.
Seven years before Nazi Germany passed the Nuremburg Race Laws that outlawed German Jews from having sexual or marital relations with anyone of German or mixed ancestry, Alberta passed “The Sexual Sterilization Act” in 1928. The legislation outlined the conditions and procedures for sterilizing individuals who were deemed to have “undesirable traits.” Five years later, in 1933, British Columbia passed a law of its own, “An Act Respecting Sexual Sterilization.” Like its eastern counterpart, British Columbia’s legislation outlined the who, the where, and the how in regards to sterilization of those who were considered wards of the state and possessed some sort of “undesirable trait.”
One has to wonder, as professor and Lakota-American, Dr. Lehman Brightman did during his historic speech at the end of “The Long Walk” in 1978 (which followed the famous occupation of Alcatraz in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s) if this “trait” was in fact resource-rich land and unconquered territory. Brightman proclaimed, regarding Natives in the United States at that time:
We won’t have any need for reservations if we don’t stop the sterilization of our youth, and of our women, and of our men.
Even amidst the height of these draconian practices, most of the time the need for actual consent was at least legally recognized. In other words, it is possible that B.C. was breaking its own laws in regards to methods used to forcibly sterilize Canadian First Nations women.
The United States filters monies through agencies such as the U.S. Agency for International Development [USAID], the Rockefeller Foundation, and the Ford Foundation for population control programs. These agencies were responsible for the sterilization of men and women in regions such as Puerto Rico, Brazil, Guatemala, Africa, and Panama.
Exact figures are unattainable in terms of just how many Native Americans were sterilized in the U.S. during the 1970’s. Brightman, who devoted much of his life’s work to the issue, put his educated guess at about 40% of all Native American women alive at that time, and 10% of Native men. Brightman figured that the total number of Native women sterilized during that decade was between 60,000 and 70,000, and has labeled it “criminal negligence and criminal genocide.” Citing the language issues, among other issues related to consent, Brightman asserted: “They’ve sterilized all of our women by trickery, by fraud and by crook. They’ve asked them to sign consent forms that they couldn’t read, in English; they’ve sterilized them without telling them about it; and they’ve sterilized them by lying to them and telling them the operation was reversible.”
Documented survivor counts are accumulating among Canada’s First Nations community as well. According to Stote: “We know (according to other researchers, i.e., Christian, 1974 and Grekul, 2004) Indigenous peoples were targeted under Alberta’s eugenic legislation (1928-1972), making up 6-8% of those sterilized overall, despite only being about 3% of the population; although in later years (1969-1972), they made up over 25% of those sterilized.”
Stote’s own research – reviewing the first of three federal files she searched in all – uncovered sterilizations performed on Indigenous women at 14 different federally operated Indian Hospitals across Canada. Another set documented sterilizations on First Nations women from 32 different northern settlements; and, a third set detailed the experiences of women from the Baffin, Keewatin, Mackenzie, and Inuvik zones.
Unfortunately for Canada’s First Nations, neither sterilizations nor history are easily reversed; and as such, neither are the sustained impacts of the genocide of eugenics. One of the surest ways to make sure these tragedies of recent history are not repeated in the present or future, is to heed the call to aggregate and document the collective and individual stories and memories of Canada’s First Nations women who are still living with the effects.
In terms of relevance in modernity for Canada’s First Nations, Stote explained to IC that:
I think the discourse of blaming individuals for social problems, for the poverty conditions in which they live, and for having children they “can’t afford” is still very much with us. It is more cost effective to blame individuals, and to view them (or their reproduction) as the cause of their situation rather than examine the larger political, economic and social system in place that creates poverty, social problems, etc. And for Indigenous women in Canada, but many other places as well, it is conditions of colonialism and the failure of the federal government (settler population in general) to uphold obligations to Indigenous peoples that is creating the marginalized status and poverty conditions in which Indigenous peoples are forced to live. These conditions of colonialism are ongoing.
These very issues have come to a head recently as yet another First Nations woman has come forward with an account of a recent sterilization that occurred outside of the boundaries of proper consent. Melika Popp, a Saskatoon woman who was sterilized after the delivery of her first child, was assured the process was reversible and shared, “I felt very targeted. It was under duress. I was definitely hormonal at that time.”
For more recent survivors like Popp, the struggle to come to terms with ongoing impacts has just begun. Others have been carrying these burdens for decades without a platform on which to speak out. In terms of what it will take to jumpstart the healing process for all, thus allowing Canada’s victims, their families, and their communities to move forward, Anderson had some words:
Story-telling and testimonial can be a healing process for people, to [realize] that their voice and their story is heard. In general, North Americans are really uninformed about Indigenous history on the continent and the brutality that was involved, and maybe are resistant to learning about that because it triggers all sorts of other feelings, like white guilt, but the only way to go forward is to work with the truth. It is also important to talk about it within the framework of assessing the family breakdown. Family is so important to Indigenous cultures…the attack therefore has been so devastating…recognizing and naming this is a significant form of healing.
According to recent reports, a surprising leader in the race to make amends on issues of forced and coerced sterilizations is the southeastern state of North Carolina. North Carolina announced their intentions to be the first state to financially compensate victims of its particularly aggressive sterilization programs, in early 2012. Estimates cite that North Carolina alone sterilized 7,600 people between 1929 and 1974. Out of 768 claims made, 220 living victims were designated to receive checks of $20,000 each. Under the compensation policy, the sterilizations had to have taken place under the state’s Eugenics Board; unfortunately, various judges and social service workers were apparently “greenlighting” them off the books as well.
Stote also weighed in with some insight about how Canadians can move forward as a whole on the trajectory towards justice and healing.
On an individual basis, I think those on whom these injustices were perpetrated should be asked about what needs to be done. Gathering the details of what happened, when, on whom, and under what conditions, would be made much easier if there was an honest and forthcoming attempt to, at the very least, acknowledge [that] this type of thing happened to Indigenous peoples in Canada. More broadly, I have consistently heard and seen Indigenous peoples struggling for the right to self-determination as peoples, to have their ways of life respected, their bodies respected, and to have settlers uphold their end of the original responsibilities and relationships that were laid out between them and Indigenous peoples. So, I see that as a great place to start. I think this will require Canadians to really take the initiative in learning our history, and to challenge those we have been allowing to make decisions on our behalf. This will ultimately need to include a restructuring of our social, political and economic life in Canada.
Keri Cheechoo, a Cree woman from the community of Long Lake #58 First Nation, and a PhD. Candidate at the Faculty of Education at the University of Ottawa, offered some final thoughts in a statement to IC:
As peculiar as it sounds, I awoke at about three in the morning with two words swirling in my mind: forced sterilizations. I scribbled them down on the back of a receipt and went back to sleep. The next day I began reading and engaging in dialogue with those both close to me, and in the Academy, and I began to realize that the scope of forced or coerced sterilizations in Indigenous women is both appallingly enormous and disturbingly concealed.
It is my opinion that forced or coerced sterilization is an act of violence on Indigenous women. The colonial agenda of genocide that was endorsed in the form of forced or coerced sterilization of Indigenous women contributed directly to the colonization of the land. Indigenous women are conduits, we are connected to the land in an esoteric way, and a permanent loss of reproduction and reproduction rights directly impacts our capacity to inhabit or to disrupt attempts at land theft.
I think it is important that the Canadian federal government endorse the 41st Call to Action in the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada Report, which indicates: “We call upon the federal government, in consultation with Aboriginal organizations, to appoint a public inquiry into the causes of, and remedies for, the disproportionate victimization of Aboriginal women and girls. The inquiry’s mandate would include: i. Investigation into missing and murdered Aboriginal women and girls; [and] ii. Links to the intergenerational legacy of residential schools.” (Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada: Calls to Action, 2015, p. 4)
It is my growing belief that it is vital that this piece of hidden Canadian history be exposed, and that mainstream Canada become educated on the historical trauma of forced or coerced sterilizations on Indigenous women.
Author’s note: Special thanks to Dr. Karen Stote, Dr. Kim Anderson, Quanah Parker Brightman, and Keri Cheechoo for their vital input and support.
Artwork by Summer-Rain Bentham, Vancouver Rape Relief and Women’s Shelter
PART ONE: First steps for an effective fight-back
In the face of a worldwide crisis of male violence against women, radical feminists are preparing for a grassroots resurgence. This is the first in a series looking at effective strategies to take back women’s space and challenge male violence. Part Two is here.
Western patriarchy arrived on the Pacific Coast of North America less than two hundred years ago. In some places, it hasn’t completely eradicated traditional cultures. These notes come from unceded indigenous land on the frontlines of the white male supremacist invasion.
Here, as elsewhere, our enemies publicly intimidate women activists with impunity. We face death threats, violence, stalking, and censorship from both the right and the left. This war of words is part of the escalating global war on women.
Brutality is everywhere we look. In Canada, men have murdered or “disappeared” over twelve hundred indigenous women in the past decade. Currently, the rate of male-on-female homicide is rising sharply – in some communities, it has doubled in a few years. Rape, assault, and sex trafficking have reached an all-time high and they are still growing. The victims are women and girls of all ages, races, nationalities, and social classes; however, males inflict much greater violence on indigenous women and women of color.
At the same time, women-centered spaces are disappearing and our feminist networks are divided by infighting. Male supremacists of all stripes aim their rage at targets of opportunity. The backlash is here and it’s worse than expected.
It’s time for emergency measures. That means strategic decisions about which battles to fight, against whom, and on whose turf. When the goal is to stop men from killing women, we must teach and learn how to fight back to protect ourselves and each other. In order to do that, we must join together for mutual aid and avoid becoming casualties ourselves.
Most of us are traumatized. Part of healing involves getting to the point of responding to threats effectively and learning to deal with fear, anger, and helplessness in a healthy way – by taking back our power.
Strategic Action: an introduction
Our position is one of asymmetric struggle against entrenched systems of patriarchal violence and domination that go back thousands of years in the West. Our strategy is like a guerrilla resistance movement against an occupying force that seems unbeatable – at least at first.
Success in asymmetric conflicts lies in making sure we are prepared for effective, sustainable action that moves toward the goals we’ve chosen. Campaigns that lead nowhere drain our energy and expose us to our enemies. Successful symbolic actions are excellent for boosting morale and recruiting but they are not ends in themselves. The outcome of each action doesn’t have to be large, but the goal should be.
shaping actions bring about the conditions where resistance is possible
sustaining actions allow resistance to begin and continue
decisive actions are capable of bringing down patriarchal institutions.
Creating Conditions and Capacity
Like any other human endeavor, whether building a house or planting a field, sustained grassroots action requires certain pre-conditions. For this movement, we must develop the capacity to reach out, organize, and defend ourselves and each other. There are dozens of ways that women around the world are creating the conditions to successfully challenge male domination and hold space for our sisters. For example:
Women-only groups, gatherings, and discussions about liberation
Naming the problem and naming the agent (male violence) in our speech and writing
Anti-violence campaigns as part of healing and trauma recovery (and vice versa)
Creating affinity groups and mutual aid networks
Hosting women’s self-defense trainings
Speaking out in public against male violence when it’s safe to do so
Speaking privately with our sisters when it’s not
Strategic feminist actions are campaigns with achievable outcomes that lead toward a larger goal.
Networks of resistance are essential for our survival. Many of our networks are secret out of necessity. In the past year, we’ve seen radical women take back space by organizing our own conferences, like Radfem Riseup and Radfems Respond. Others are pushing back against censorship by mobilizing en masse, as fans of Meghan Murphy did when her publisher was threatened with boycotts.
When the goal is empowering a generation of women to fight male violence and rape, a crucial tactic is developing those skills — for example, by training women to teach others self-defense and protective strategies as the Warrior Sisters do. We might also consider public demonstrations that women are ready and able to physically fight men and win.
Creating a loud, visible culture of resistance is a longer-term goal that can lead to larger group mobilizations and decisive victories, like local uprisings to expel violent males from our communities. (It wouldn’t be the first time – see the Gulabi gang in India.)
The first task of a strategic activist is to find others who share the same values, in order to sustain our morale and bring ideas to action. When there’s no group nearby, we can travel to the nearest get-together, find or create radical feminist spaces online, and start our own groups.
Most groups start with just a few people. Talk to strong female friends and acquaintances to find those who share the same goals and values.
Launch a petition – either online or on paper. It can be a demand letter (“Fund women’s shelters!”) or a general call for support (“Yes I support organizing against male violence in my community”). The email addresses you collect become your outreach list.
Start or join an online discussion forum or a private Facebook group for radical feminists in your region. Reach out, ask for advice, find out what other women are doing or would like to do.
Call a meeting. The ones who show up are the organizing committee for future events and gatherings. (Make sure to set a time and place for the next meeting.)
Host an event: a film screening, a book discussion, a street demo, or a radical feminist speaker from out of town. Keep that signup sheet handy.
Prepare and discuss a basis of unity. Set out goals, guidelines, and responsibilities early on. Make sure there’s agreement on the group’s direction, how to screen new members, and how to end relationships with those who disrupt the group or don’t share its goals.
Often it’s not safe to organize. But we do it anyway – outside of the public eye, anonymously, or under a nom de guerre. Every woman who is publicly feminist has to deal with more than her share of hate. That’s why it’s so important to get together and watch each others’ backs. The goal of our enemies is to isolate and terrorize women in order to neutralize us. Don’t let them win.
Take safety precautions, like keeping home and work addresses private.
Let other organizers know about any threats immediately.
Post security people at public events.
Accompany activists who are targeted.
Inspect incoming packages, email messages, friend requests, and other invitations before opening or responding.
Block hostile individuals on social media so they can’t see personal details, friends, and family.
Use security measures (like data backups and two-step verification) on computers, websites, and email.
Have an emergency plan and a bugout bag for leaving home in a hurry.
Report credible threats to your group’s security coordinator. Police are often indifferent or abusive, but it may be useful to report the threat in case the target is forced to defend herself.
Keep event locations secret until hours before, or disclose them only to registered participants.
Male violence has taken the lives of thousands of women while terrorizing millions more. We have choices: We can keep our heads down and hope the violence passes us by. We can spend time and energy on ineffective or counter-productive tactics. Or we can connect our networks and grow a coalition with the power to confront the killers and win.
Remember: Solidarity between women has survived repression for more than a millennium in some parts of the world. Male supremacists have done their worst and we are still here fighting back. Our reality and our wisdom will outlive the dominant culture’s delusions.
Parts Two (published here) and Three of this series will look at strategies for sustaining and decisive actions
We hope other radical feminists find this introduction useful, and we welcome your feedback as we draft the next chapters in this series.
Early in the interview, Hedges brings up the issue of violence, calling it an “endemic part of prostitution,” something he notes that Moran argues is a part of every single act of prostitution, even when that violence happens in a way that isn’t overt.
What’s important about this point is that, when those who advocate to fully decriminalize “sex work” because they claim legalization will make women “safer,” they are either unaware or unwilling to admit that the violence women experience in prostitution goes far beyond just being beat up, for example. There are more subtle forms of violence that johns inflict on the women they pay for sex, including emotional and psychological violence, as well as physical and sexual. Surely anyone who understands rape and domestic abuse, for example, understands that rape and abuse are not only traumatic because of literal physical pain, but because of degradation, the refusal to respect boundaries, the experience of feeling threatened, of having no control over a situation, and the experience of being violated, disrespected, humiliated, and dehumanized. It’s not uncommon for things like molestation and abuse to not be physically painful at all, yet we understand the extent to which these experiences are traumatic for victims. Why people refuse to understand prostitution in a similar way, I don’t know.
“People miss the biggest part of the picture, which is that prostitution is violence, in and of itself,” Moran says. “To put your hands on another person, when you know they don’t want your hands there… And to put your penis into the orifices of somebody’s body when you know that they don’t want your penis inside them or near them… That is pathological behaviour and money doesn’t erase that. Money doesn’t have a magical quality that can take away the essence of a person’s behaviour or an exchange between two people.”
It’s an odd conclusion to come to, for self-identified feminists and progressives, in particular — to pretend as though one can simply buy their way out of being exploiters or erase rape with money. If we know that unwanted sex is a source of trauma for women and that a man who imposes sex on a woman who doesn’t want it is a rapist — why would any person who isn’t sociopathic themselves argue that money changes that reality?
Based on her experience, Moran says there are three different types of johns:
1) The ones who actively get off on hurting women in prostitution
2) The men who are “aware that what’s going on is not right or humane but they choose willfully to ignore that.”
3) The men who “have no understanding at all that what’s happening is not something that should be going on.”
But what they all have in common — a fact that should not even need stating, but does — is “sexual selfishness,” as Moran calls it.
So this, in a nutshell, is what all of those advocates for decriminalization/legalization who claim to be “feminist” or “progressive” are fighting for: men’s right to be sexually selfish. This is the most “sex-negative,” if you will, regressive approach to “sexual liberation” and the most anti-woman position one could possibly imagine, coming from those who would otherwise like to be known as “sex-positive feminists” or advocates for women’s rights.
If the point of prostitution were “consent,” as so many would like us to believe, then men who pay for sex would not get off more quickly at the notion of violating a 15-year-old girl, as Moran points out johns did when she was prostituted on the street at that age. There would, in fact, be no reason at all to seek out a prostitute at all if a man were looking to have a consensual, mutually satisfying sexual encounter. Of course, if you are a man who wants to have sex with someone who doesn’t want you back, a man who simply wants a body to use, a man who wants to impose their desires onto another human being, without having to consider their desires, feelings, or humanity, it makes sense that you would seek out a prostitute.
The truth about prostitution may be difficult to hear, but to deny the basic reality of the situation only demonstrates a foolish commitment to the absurd.
This interview was conducted by Derrick Jensen for his Resistance Radio series. Find options to listen to this interview, or any in the series, at the Resistance Radio archive.
Dahr Jamail is an award winning journalist and author who is a full-time staff reporter for Truthout.org. His work is currently focusing on Anthropogenic Climate Disruption. We discuss the harm caused by massive military maneuvers off of Alaska.
Derrick Jensen: Something terrible is happening off the coast of Alaska. Can you tell me about that?
Dahr Jamail: The Navy is poised to begin what they call Northern Edge, a huge, joint exercise they’re doing in conjunction with the Air Force, Marines and Army. The Navy’s aspect is going to focus in a huge area – over 8,000 square nautical miles, off the coast of Alaska, between Cordova and Kodiak. In this giant rectangle they’re permitted to conduct active and passive sonar, weapons testing, and live-fire exercises, including bombs, missiles, bullets and torpedoes. It starts June 15th and continues for at least two weeks. They’re permitted to continue doing this year after year. Plans are in the works for them to request permits up to 2030.
What’s really troubling about this, aside from the obvious, is that the area in question is critical habitat for all five Alaska salmon species, as well as almost a dozen whale species, including the highly endangered North Pacific Right Whale, of which there are only about 30 left. It also includes dolphins and sea lions and hundreds of other marine species in the area. There are a dozen native tribes living along coastal Alaska who are going to be directly impacted by their subsistence living being damaged and poisoned: destroyed. Some of those tribes include the Eskimo, the Eyak, the Athabaskans, Tlingit, and the Shungnak and Aleut tribes,
There have been and continue to be uprisings in the communities in coastal Alaska against this. For example, the cities of both Kodiak and Cordova have passed resolutions opposing the Navy’s plans, but the Navy has basically thumbed their noses at these voices of protest and are loading up their bombs.
D.J.: How is this going to harm the creatures who live there?
Dahr J.: The Navy is permitted to release as much as 352,000 pounds of what they call ‘expended material’ every year. That includes the live munitions that I mentioned ― missiles, bombs, torpedoes, etc. ― but also other types of things that will be released into the marine environment. Just by way of example, one of the propellants in one of the missiles and torpedoes they want to use contains cyanide. The EPA’s ‘allowable’ limit of cyanide is one part per billion, and the type of cyanide in the Navy torpedo is going to be introducing cyanide into the waters of Alaska in the range of 140 to 150 parts per billion.
Other impacts include ‘takes’, which are basically a military bureaucratic way of covering over a death. The Navy’s own Environmental Impact Statement estimates that over the five-year period that their war games are going to be conducted, there will be over 182,000 takes.
There are two ways they’ll be killing marine mammals. First is direct impact of them literally being exploded by bombs or shot by bullets or internally hemorrhaged by massive sonar. Secondarily, essential behaviors will be disrupted like surfacing or having babies or nursing.
Over a dozen large ships will be roaming the area, preventing fisherfolks from using it. Natives relying on that area for subsistence fishing and living will not be able to carry that out.
D.J.: You mentioned sonar. Can you talk more about that?
Dahr J.: It’s not your average sonar that a transport vessel or a fisherperson might use to navigate or to track the depth of the water. We’re talking about weapons grade sonar. The Navy regularly conducts underwater sonar weapons testing. They’re developing different types of sonar that they’ve weaponized to use to knock out communications and electronics, and I think they’re aiming towards killing humans in Navy vessels from other countries.
The NRDC won a lawsuit against the Navy down off Southern California for using this type of sonar. They showed the Navy was knowingly, deleteriously impacting over nine million different marine biota ― fish, whales, etc. ― by the use of this sonar. There are well-documented cases around the globe of pods of whales, dolphins, etc., that get hit by this sonar, and then these mammals wash up on the shore. A lot of times you’ll see their ear drums are exploded and it causes internal hemorrhaging. There have been cases of dolphins washing up, literally with blood coming out of their heads because they happened to have been where the Navy is using this type of weapons grade sonar.
To be clear, this sonar is powerful enough to literally explode the eardrums of whales and dolphins. That is how these mammals communicate; that is how they navigate; having that ability destroyed or compromised in any way basically means these mammals are going to die. And when the Navy is using it in a way that literally explodes their internal organs to the point where blood is coming out of their head that gives you an idea of how powerful it is.
D.J.: Here is something I wrote in Endgame about a National Science Foundation ship that was using air guns to fire sonic blasts of up to 260 dB, to use for mapping the ocean floor: “Damage to human hearing begins at 85 dB, a police siren at 30 meters is 100 dB. And decibels are logarithmic, meaning that every 10 dB increase translates to ten times more intensity. And sounds ― because human perception is also logarithmic ― twice as loud.
So what that means is that the blast from those research vessels was ten quadrillion times more intense than a siren at 30 meters, and would sound to humans 16,384 times as loud. The sound of a jet taking off at 600 meters is 110 dB, a rock concert is 120 dB, and whales and other creatures are subjected to sounds 100 trillion times more intense than that. The threshold at which humans die from sound is 160dB.”
Dahr J.: That gives people an idea of what we’re talking about: the military developing sound to use it as a weapon. As though the oceans aren’t already suffering enough, from the extreme amount of plastic pollution you’ve written and talked about for decades that’s now insidious around all the oceans on the planet, to acidification from rising temperatures.
And now on top of that, the military decides to go and use bombs and use sound weapons up in some of the most pristine waters on the planet outside of Antarctica. Bear in mind, these waters are at the end of an undersea current that is an upwelling, and this water is a thousand years old. This is why Alaska salmon are so prized, because they are a clean fish, they’re pure, and the Alaska salmon brand relies on it. Not to commercialize this, but it’s important to think about in regards to the people in Alaska relying so heavily on the salmon for both subsistence and to earn a living up there. All of that is being compromised.
The Navy’s action is creating some interesting collaborations between people across the political spectrum that normally wouldn’t mix.
D.J.: Leaving aside this culture’s death urge, why is the military doing this? What is their rationale?
Dahr J.: I mentioned in my article, Destroying What Remains: How the US Navy Plans to War Game the Arctic, that the Navy is increasingly focused on possible climate change wars up in the melting waters of the Arctic. In that context, it has no intentions of caretaking the environment when conducting its military exercises.
This connection was made amazingly clear to me in the course of writing this piece. I was in Alaska getting the ground data for this story, doing interviews. I went to Cordova, went over to Kodiak, passed through Anchorage, talking to people all along the way, and then I came back home to Washington State to write.
I live on Puget Sound, right on the Strait of Juan de Fuca. I’m writing this story about the impending Naval exercise up in the Gulf of Alaska, the largest of its kind in the more than 30 years the Navy has been doing them in that area. Meanwhile, about two miles from my house, out on the Strait of Juan de Fuca, Shell is bringing their giant drilling rig over to the port of Seattle where it’s going to tie up. So we have the military exercises at the same time they’re positioning these rigs in Seattle, getting them ready to take up to Alaska to start drilling.
It doesn’t take a genius to see the writing on the wall as to the timings of these. It’s not a coincidence. The Navy is getting ready to protect so-called US interests to go up into the Arctic. They’re racing Russia; they’re racing Scandinavian countries. Basically anyone who has any kind of border with the Arctic is in full preparation to go up there, in a race for what’s left, to try to tap into the oil that’s been inaccessible under the ice.
Over a year ago I wrote about the Navy conducting their own study and estimating we would see ice-free periods in the summer in the Arctic starting by 2016. A couple of weeks ago, the current satellite data mapping Arctic ice, both in extent and volume, showed Arctic ice at its lowest volume on record. So it’s certainly possible that by late summer of 2016, meaning late August, early September, we’ll see ice-free periods.
So that’s the context in which all of this is happening. The military is getting ready. That’s why there’s this massive uptick in war-gaming across the entire country ― not just the Navy, but on land, the Air Force is doing things, the Marines are doing things ― because the military is positioning itself for potential war against Russia and China, but also, the race for the Arctic resources is clearly very high on their agenda.
D.J.: This is a great example of something I’ve long thought: that this culture will not have a voluntary transformation to a sane and sustainable way of living. Instead of being horrified that the Arctic will soon be ice-free, they are looking at it with what can only be deemed ‘lust’ for the resources that will be made available. I find it impossible to express through words the disgust, contempt, and hatred that that makes me feel.
Dahr J.: One reason I wanted to do this article was that I lived up in Anchorage for ten years. That’s where I was living when the Iraq war broke out, and my work as a journalist is ultimately what brought me to move out of Alaska. But I love the state, meaning I love the nature there, and I loved going into the mountains and camping and climbing, and going out on boats with people into the waters. I reveled in the powerful natural beauty of the state. And of course, that includes the oceans and the marine mammals. When I learned of the Navy’s plans, I wanted to go up there and report on it, kind of out of a protective urge for this place that is so close to my heart. And when I was up there working on this story and talking to all these people who were going to be impacted by these Navy exercises, I felt that same kind of anger.
Or maybe first I just felt mystified: not only are we going off the cliff as a species, because of the industrial growth society and what it’s done to the planet and what it’s doing and continues to do, but we’re accelerating! The planet is showing us every distress signal it possibly can; we’re watching huge parts of the ecosystem die, increasingly vast numbers of species go extinct, even more and more public awareness of the possibility of our own species rendering itself extinct; but instead of taking a precautionary approach, slowing down, pausing a minute to think that maybe what we’re doing isn’t the best thing, it’s ‘let’s accelerate as fast as possible’ into this dark, death-giving future of ‘we’re going to war game, we’re going to drop more ordinance, we’re going to get ready to go into one of the most pristine areas left on the planet, pollute it like it’s never been polluted before, all for the sake of drilling it, sucking out more oil that shouldn’t even be burned in the first place, because it’s only going to further accelerate what we’re already doing to the planet!’ It really is stupefying; it’s almost beyond imagination. It’s something out of a really bad sci-fi novel, but, unfortunately, it’s the reality.
D.J.: Can we talk now about some of those surprising alliances you mentioned?
Dahr J.: There have been many. For example, the commercial fishing community in Alaska aren’t known for being ‘lefty/greeny’ environmentalists. They’re there to catch the maximum amount of fish allowed by law every season, and make as much money as they can. But when this news of the Navy’s plans started to spread around coastal Alaska, people from these very, very politically conservative fisherfolk across two different unions in the state started to band together, and literally everyone I spoke with about the Navy exercise ― every fisherperson, every person in the fishermen’s union across the state ― was opposed to the Navy’s plans.
And when the Navy played the national security card, saying they’re doing this to protect the state and the waters, the people in Alaska called B.S. Not just environmentalists, but people from all these other groups from the Alaska Marine Conservation Council to the Alaskans First! Coalition to fishermen’s unions to everyone banding together and saying look, we’re absolutely opposed to this.
It’s hard to find a silver lining to this story, but if there is one, that might be it: we’re starting to witness a coalescing of groups across the political spectrum who are seeing the madness perpetrated by the industrial growth society and who are starting to stand up against it together.
D.J.: Are people making that connection between these destructive activities and the industrial growth society? And were they making the connections that you were making, about how we’re going over a cliff and just accelerating?
Dahr J.: Not so much, unfortunately.. One of the most important voices in the story, however, does. Emily Stolarcyk works for the Eyak Preservation Council out of Cordova. It’s an environmental and social justice non-profit with a primary aim to protect wild salmon habitat, period.
Emily sees the bigger picture. She’s gone out of her way to sound the alarm bell on this and has therefore, of course, been targeted by the government of Alaska and the Navy itself. People are really coming after her now.
Unfortunately, the average person I spoke with tended not to see beyond the immediate economic impact. For a lot of folks, their prime motivation was not losing the Alaska salmon brand, in that they can’t have news come out that the salmon are contaminated in any way, because if that market tanks, they’re in big trouble.
D.J.: How is she being targeted?
Dahr J.: For example, the Navy has tried to discredit her, even though she has gone out of her way to quote directly from the Navy’s own Environmental Impact Statement. It’s online, people can look it up themselves, and she literally is using quotes. The Navy tells people she is not giving accurate information, that she’s inflating figures, and so on. The military is deified by mainstream America and by the corporate media as a benevolent force that is only there to protect us. Of course that’s absolute nonsense, but because of that misperception, most people still tend to believe the military.
Emily has also been targeted by Senator Lisa Murkowski, a hardcore right-wing, anti-environment, pro-corporate profit, pro-fossil fuel industry, pro-military senator up there in Alaska. She sent the state fisheries person down to meet with Emily. The fisheries person called Emily on her personal cell phone at night to cuss her out and threaten her. It was bad enough he later emailed her an apology for it. So there have been bellicose threats, bellicose language used against her from this person, and from the Navy itself.
The Navy has found anyone in these communities who could potentially be on their side and actively worked to turn them against Emily Stolarcyk and the Eyak Preservation Council. They’ve demonized them, putting out false statements, trying to make it seem the Eyak Preservation Council isn’t actually working for their stated purpose of preserving critical salmon habitat. Basically negative propaganda campaigns run against her and the organization she works for.
D.J.: How can people support her?
Dahr J: Other people need to take up the fight against the Navy. They need to get up on the facts of the story, understand what the Navy is planning on doing, and join in the fight. They don’t necessarily need to come work alongside Emily Stolarcyk, but to understand the relevance of her work and the importance of it. These types of Navy war games are happening off the coast of Alaska, Washington, Oregon and California, and have been for a long time. So, anyone in proximity to those coasts, this is our fight, too. And all of us need to be talking about this, all of us need to be getting this into the media and getting as many activists involved as possible, people who might have other ideas about how they can help.
D.J.: You mentioned Lisa Murkowski. Is the problem there individual politicians, that if she were replaced these atrocities might not occur? Or is the problem more institutional, and widespread?
Dahr J.: Lisa Murkowski is of course terrible, as is Congressman Don Young. No matter what, those two are always full steam ahead with anything the military and the fossil fuel industry want. They are villains in this story: they are actively working against the interest of nature and the planet in every possible, conceivable way. But the problem really is institutional.
Let’s use Washington state as a case study. Governor Jay Inslee paints himself as the ‘green’ governor, and when I first moved here I thought, ‘yeah, this guy is doing a lot of good stuff. He’s taking the climate change issue head on, he’s saying a lot of the right things and sometimes doing some of the right things.’
But because of how deeply embedded the military is in this state and how much money the state gets from their presence, this is a governor who knowingly accepts what the Navy is doing here. He refuses to take a stance directly against the wargaming that’s already going on here or against future wargame plans for the state of Washington, and is basically in their back pocket. The same for Derek Kilmer, one of the representatives here. And the same is true for numerous other political so-called representatives.
I’m sure the same can be said for California. I think many people hear about these military exercises, and think, “The Democrats are in charge, and they wouldn’t do this.” But political party is irrelevant in this story with the military. The military is so embedded in these states and there’s so much money being brought into the states by their presence that you’d be hard-pressed to find a political so-called representative who is not on the take. That gives you an idea why there isn’t any real political pushback against these exercises.
D.J.: We all know that the military is a form for massive corporate welfare. It’s a giant Keynesian stimulus. And we all know capitalism relies on subsidies. But that always leads to the question: why can’t they just subsidize nice things instead of bad things?
During the 1970s, liberal George McGovern asked somebody at one of the military contractors, “Since all you care about is making money, could we just subsidize your corporation to make school buses instead of bombers? Would you do that?”
The military contractor said, “Sure!” and then they both burst out laughing because they knew that Congress would never allow that in the budget.
Dahr J.: At this point the US military is in the final stage of empire. When we look through history, empires use numerous ways to maintain control and power. There’s the economy, there’s propaganda, there are appeals to people’s morality, etc. The final stage – and the weakest and the shortest – is using military might, pushing the military frontiers out as far as possible and putting all their resources into maintaining and growing the military. Then they collapse relatively shortly thereafter. That’s exactly what the US is doing.
Today, while we do this interview, we have news of them setting up yet another new US base in Iraq and sending more troops over there. Domestic military exercises are pushing new bounds of what’s ever been done before, looking at expanding up into the Arctic, and preparing for war gaming against Russia and China in the future.
Over 50% of all US taxpayer money is going directly to the Pentagon in one way or another. I think that underscores what you just said, Derrick, about the preposterous idea that something could be done differently. I don’t think anyone in the government could really take seriously any attempts to significantly defund the military. At this stage of the game everyone understands the military is the final weapon the US government is using geopolitically at this point. I think anyone who challenges that and thinks they’re going to change how the government and economy function at this stage of the game is not living in reality.
D.J.: Apart from the environmental degradation, do we know the numbers on how much this military exercise is going to cost?
Dahr J.: No. The military is very careful not to release total figures of these types of exercises. You always have to try to puzzle figures out from hints. For example, the Navy is trying to push through electromagnetic warfare training out on the Olympic Peninsula, planning on starting early next year. They want to use these jet aircraft called Growlers, maybe because they’re the loudest aircraft ever built. Extremely loud – ear-splittingly loud.
To fly one of those costs over $12,000 an hour. That’s just one jet. That’s not a war ship. It’s difficult to get the numbers, but I think it’s safe to say that a two-week joint military exercise involving a dozen ships, however many aircraft are going to be on those ships, all the personnel, all the weapons that are going to be used, all the fuel burned, will very easily cost hundreds of millions of dollars.
D.J.: What can people do if they are in Alaska or elsewhere, to prevent this from happening again?
Dahr J.: People need to recognize this is happening not just in and around Alaska, but all over. There’s a massive domestic military expansion happening everywhere. People need to become aware of this and make others aware of it. They need to get this information out there. And then they need to start raising hell. They need to start fighting it.
We’re starting to see people standing up, and we’re starting to see them work together.
This whole struggle dovetails with what’s happening in the battles against the pipelines and against fracking that we’re seeing down in Texas now, and across the Midwest, where really interesting alliances are being formed between some pretty right-wing political groups as well as some pretty hard-core left-leaning groups of environmentalists and other activists.
Just like those movements draw these alliances, people who are opposed to this military expansion—and that should be all of us—need to work together to stop this. People need to get involved. The sooner the better.
