Rev Left Radio - Settler Colonialism and Decolonization: An Anarchist Perspective

Episode Date: November 22, 2018

Members of the Indigenous Anarchist Federation (Federación Anarquista Indígena) join Breht to discuss Settler Colonialism and Decolonization. Follow and support the IAF on twitter @IAF__FAI   Music in the show, in order of appearance:  La Migra by War of Icaza: https://waroficaza.bandcamp.com Black Snakes by Prolific the Rapper: https://prolifictherapper.com An Act of Liberation by Klee Benally: http://kleebenally.com Punch a Nazi by War of Icaza: https://waroficaza.bandcamp.com Indigenous Lyricist by dio ganhdih: https://soundcloud.com/dio Dance by Ruby Ibarra ft. Bambu: https://www.rubyibarra.com Please check out and support all of these amazing artists!   For the show notes:  Books: Surviving Canada – Kiera Ladner & Myra Tait Seven Fallen Feathers – Tanya Talaga  1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus – Charles C Mann Indigenous Writes - Chelsea Vowel The Inconvenient Indian Thomas King An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States -  Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz The Other Slavery: The Uncovered Story of Indian Enslavement in America - Andrés Reséndez  Colonial Genocide in Indigenous North America - Andrew Woolford, Jeff Benvenuto, Alexander Laban Hinton, Theodore Fontaine Compañeras: Zapatista Women's Stories - Hilary Klein Our Word is Our Weapon: Selected Writings - Subcomandante Marcos   Indigenous Anarchist Federation on Twitter @IAF__FAI   Other Indigenous Anarchists:  @cricketcrocker @The_Green_City @BadSalishGirl @e_insurgent @eelk @zig_zag48 (warriorpublications.wordpress.com) @media_action (www.indigenousaction.org) ----------- NEW LOGO from BARB, a communist graphic design collective! You can find them on twitter or insta @Barbaradical. Please reach out to them if you are in need of any graphic design work for your leftist projects!  Intro music by Captain Planet. You can find and support his wonderful music here:  https://djcaptainplanet.bandcamp.com Please Rate and Review our show on iTunes or whatever podcast app you use. This dramatically helps increase our reach. Support the Show and get access to bonus content on Patreon here: https://www.patreon.com/RevLeftRadio Follow us on Twitter @RevLeftRadio This podcast is officially affiliated with The Nebraska Left Coalition, the Nebraska IWW, Socialist Rifle Association (SRA), Feed The People - Omaha, and the Marxist Center. Join the SRA here: https://www.socialistra.org/

Shit, shit, kill a pilgrim, saving native today. Never trust the white foe whose hair turns gray. Lynch any man who rep in triple K. America was made from my family's graves. I'm talking about the slaves of the exploration age. You're a greed, rape, I land in rage. See my destiny in the shades of the stage. Jump out the cage, run flip off the stage.

I'm changing history, bitch, page by page. My divo Latino, I'm speaking all about Creos. You know me, Nica, Mexicanas. For all my tainos, I'm saying brown and the white is mixed like that good guy, your pinto, got all the shoddy, say, say, say, Aikilino. host and dedicated comrade Brett O'Shea, and we have something very special for you today on quote unquote Thanksgiving Day. We are dropping two episodes on the same day. They're both covering the topics of settler colonialism and decolonization. We have one episode from a communist

slash Marxist perspective and one episode from an anarchist perspective. The reason we wanted to do this is to get a broad array of indigenous voices and perspectives coming at the topic from two different left-wing positions. So we really hope people enjoy. this pretty unique episode release that we're doing today. If you're listening to one of the episodes, you can definitely go check out the other one and vice versa. We've littered both episodes with indigenous music created by indigenous artists to have a more full-fledged aesthetic feel to both episodes. So we really hope you enjoy it. This is something very new, and we work really hard on it. So any and all feedback, as always is welcome. And before we get into the episodes,

I just wanted to make it known that I want to dedicate both of these episodes to Zachary Bearheels. Zachary was a man from South Dakota, an indigenous man. He had mental illness and he traveled in a crisis moment to Omaha. His mother had called the Omaha Police Department telling them that she thought her son was coming to Omaha and that he was going through a mental health breakdown and just he just needed help. And instead, when the Omaha Police Department came across Zachary outside of a gas station, they brutally beat him, punching him over 13 times in the head. and tasering him over 12 times resulting in his death.

So in memory of him and in solidarity with his family, we're humbly dedicating this episode to them. So rest in power, Zachary, we will not forget you. And having said that, this is one of the two episodes we're releasing today with the Indigenous Anarchist Federation on Settler Colonialism and Decolonization and Anarchist Perspective. I'm Green City. I'm a gender fluid Mitzie, originally from out in Saskatchewan, but my family comes from the Simco area of Ontario.

I'm an ununionized worker, and I have, obviously, because I'm on a show like this, I have an interest in sort of political philosophy and sort of intersectionality and sort of, you know, just general nerd shit on top of that. I'm a giant nerd. Yeah, that's about it. Right, my name is Insurgent E. I'm Cucapah from Bah, California, living in Southern California. I got interested in anarchism because I've always been one of those people that was against big government or the government in general. And as I slowly decolonized, I started to see all of the things that, you know, you've been taught to worship power and things throughout your life. And so I got into leftism, started out really with fighting fascism. and as I started to get more into the theory and the philosophy

and trying to figure out how to build the world of tomorrow, that's what brought me to anarchism. And, of course, incorporating my indigenousaneity was a big part of that. Yeah, absolutely. So I'm really excited to have the Indigenous Anarchist Federation on. I think we started interacting, obviously, over Twitter as these things go. But I really like the development of that sort of political formation, and I've really been interested,

and I've been wanting to have, you know, spokesmen on from that organization for a while. So let's maybe start off talking about the Indigenous Anarchist Federation. What is the IAF? How did it start? And what are some of its goals? Yeah, so the Indigenous Anarchist Federation started off basically because you're kind of alone in the dark, you know, within your own travel community. Sometimes you can feel politically isolated, sometimes even amongst just your friends within a bigger city or something, you feel kind of isolated. and very inspired by people like Gord Hill and Kli Benali, you know, these OG anarchists that were really bringing indigenous 80 to the table.

And IAF basically came about because a bunch of us started talking to each other and really were thinking, you know, like how can we build an indigenous movement where we can discuss things together, we can build up an anarchism that's more reflective of our very distinct and separate cultures, but that reflects kind of the struggles that indigenous people face across North America. And the IAF has kind of brought that together with people from far east coast, the west coast,

up in northern Canada, up in the Arctic, all the way down to Central America. We've got comrades that have been contributing fantastic knowledge, and this has been a great format for cooperation and discussion. and that's kind of what we want to build off of that. I think for me, a big part of the draw to, like, the IAF is creating new theory. A lot of anarchist theory is based off labor theory, which is, okay, fair enough.

But concept of labor, as we understand it, in a colonized society, are very Eurocentric. so they have this notion of like a relationship to commodity and relationship to your to land that are based on a lot on hierarchical structures that I don't think necessarily fit into sort of a decolonized or indigenous world view so the idea is to just sort of take these theories and apply them in new ways that work copacetically with a indigenous perspective. Yeah, that's wonderful. And I think we're going to get

into that a little bit more. And I think this next question sort of builds on that. So the question is, how does your anarchism influence or mix with your indigenity? And how does your indigenity influence and inform your anarchist politics?

For me, a lot of it comes down to a inherent distrust of the system that I think I know when I talk talk to a lot of like white Eurocentric leftists there's a trust of not the system but of the culture at least and I find that like a lot of it comes down to

and even just a distrust of the narratives of how culture is structured a good example is how even like anarchists still view or white anarchists still view their relationship to the land as one of dominance and one of like resource extraction. So they're not, they're not part of land. They still view themselves as separate from the world around them. And I find that being indigenous just comes with an inherent distrust of these colonial systems that sort of permeate everything around us. so like it's not just the government it's not just capitalism it's how all of colonial power structures from personal relations dynamics to your relationship to the land to the relationship with your community are all inherently eurocentric and they're all very like so with being indigenous comes sort of an outsider perspective of those power dynamics and with that comes a slight distrust of them.

Yeah, so I would say, I would completely agree. I think that your indigenity basically is a very informational part of our, of anarchism for indigenous people. My experience with my tribe is that pre-invasion, our peoples were very anarchistic, you know. We didn't have these systems of domination in our daily lives that you see today within our own tribes, let alone within society. And I think that the indigentity also informs a lot of things that, like the Green City was saying, it's difficult to overcome because so much of anarchist theory has come from this idea of, you know, factory relations, land relations with peasant farmers, returning the land to the commons as it was in Europe.

And so that's where things start to get a little bit more different. Also, spirituality, that's something else that's a little bit. little bit different. We have these complex spiritualities that are very important to us and for some indigenous people that's that's something that the whole no gods no masters thing can kind of be at odds with. So anarchism is a big influence and I think there's a lot to learn from anarchists but I think there's also a reason why probably one of the greatest anarchist groups in

North America, the EZLN, the Zapatistas, why they don't call themselves anarchists, and it's because anarchism informs indigenousity a little bit and vice versa. So it's one of those things where you have to basically build a bridge between these two things and apply them correctly. Yeah, and I know the Zapatistas always talk about, I mean, their whole project is really rooted in, in Mayan culture, and the indigenous people of that area, and so I totally understand that sort of dynamic, and they talk about it themselves.

and you know something that green city said about seeing the world as something outside yourself and i think a lot of us who grown up in this culture and sort of come down from a from a european line of philosophy or whatever they do have this problem whereas once you start seeing the natural world as something that's not you that is fundamentally disconnected from you then it becomes a project of dominating and beating the natural world into a shape that fits your human desires. And the logical conclusion of that in part is what we're seeing now. You know, the mass extinction events, climate change, this complete alienation from the natural world. And leftist circles, although we're far more aware of it than, you know, reactionary or

even neoliberal circles, still, I think, suffer from that on a psychological and core level. And if we're not able to overcome that, I believe that we're going to replicate the same sort of logic that created this problem in the first place. And so, you know, that sort of understanding being woven into radical left politics is more essential now than maybe ever because now the entire planet is on the line. One family.

If we don't stand who will On earth The wind comes in four corners Four directions, four colors And death rides on four horsemen A black snake with some black tanks How much money do these companies need to make They can drive their product

But they want to save a buck Already extracted billions, win is enough enough I used to be in the oil fields getting paid, but I quit because oil water I can't drink. Look down and see Kamimi Mila die in the mud. I looked up and told myself that enough's enough. Money does not own my soul living comfortable. It's not in my plans. My hands in the sand.

Some things worth more than gold. Some things they can't be sold. Some things can't be replaced. She is your mother. The fresh water is her veins. What is going on hot Black snakes The fresh water is your base

Uh What is going on Have we all lost our minds Every human needs clean water To survive We're sorry Your call cannot be called Martin County Sheriff's Department

Hi I need to report An assault Where did it occur at? Standing Rock They're innocent, unarmed people being attacked with water in militia-style police firing at point-blank range with high-powered mace on unarmed people. Who protects the people?

Yeah, if there's police there, then it has... The police are the ones attacking innocent, unarmed people. So what do we do to stop the police, literally hitting people at point-blank range of the face? People can lose eyes, people are going to get hypothermia, people could die. We have elders here. We have children here. We have all ages here. Nobody is armed except for the police.

Who protects the people from the police? Well, I guess if you want to put it up the chain of command, the next person to talk to would be the governor's office. Love is the strongest. This path is the hardest. But if we weren't strong enough to. We wouldn't see it. Our prayers would not be needed.

This movement's very needed. Indigenous wisdom unheeded and sacred things depleted. I'm Mexican, Malacotta, and I'm white too. I'm mixed with everyone, so part of me's just like you. Every group of human being shares the same stars. And if the Earth is not your mother, are you from Mars? The side of the planet's been in decline since 1492 500 years in counting

Surviving the genocide they call colonizing my turtle island What is a fossil fuel continued destruction nothing new Living a system taking our children shipping their feelings till nothing's true I had that money in front of me but I left it Because oil money's dirty If my mother gets disrespected We're disconnected These times are hectic and feeling heavy

But still we love all living beings And suffer for the many We are peaceful people That's why we walk with prayer And if that wasn't true We wouldn't be standing here We're peaceful people Who walk with prayer

Turtle Island Have no fear Despite what they show In the media Where kind people hold your ground change is coming now So there are many indigenous people that I've met in my life who

when they get involved in far left politics they do tend toward anarchism and they may be skeptical of Marxism I think in part because of the history of nation states their connection of colonialism and the havoc and brutality they've brought down on indigenous people historically in addition to everything you've sort of talked about

just a second ago so what are your thoughts on these dynamics and what implications does an embrace of anarchism have with regards to indigenous movements for liberation. I think there are several things that really attract indigenous people to anarchism. Primarily, a lot of us are very free-spirited people. We believe in living life on our own terms, and that's been a part of our resistance for

centuries. But I think that there is both a history of repression. If you look at the people, the indigenous peoples of Siberia, under both the Tsarist and Bolshevik rule, had suffered. under them. And I think that we also look at the history of Marxism and its exploitation of the land, essentially, as being kind of at odds with a lot of indigenousity. You know, oil extraction in Venezuela is, of course, something that's very helpful for providing money to fund social programs, but it's also a big part of helping spur on the climate change that we're seeing. and the industrialization that we saw in Soviet Russia where massive projects really created a lot of environmental harm.

It's kind of at odds with it, so that's where a lot of people break ties with Marxism. But also, I think that indigenous people have traditionally had leaders that they don't necessarily have rulers, and so there's this idea that people only have a leadership role because they're respected and because people trust them, to basically be a partner. And so any type of electoral process,

any time you talk about a state or anything that's going to manage things on the behalf of indigenous people automatically becomes suspicious, especially considering that in any society like that, we're not going to have the large population base to become the dictatorship of the indigenous or something like that.

So whose boot are we going to be under next is kind of one of the questions. But also in waging resistance, looking at black resistance across the country, indigenous resistance, across the world, movements that are led by strong leaders, sometimes these leaders are legitimately good. Thomas Sankara is an example of somebody who was really doing a lot of good work. But like a lot of these Marxist projects, as soon as that leader gets killed, you're cutting the head off of the snake and a hierarchical system is not very good at rebounding. horizontal structures are much more resilient to state attacks. Insurgent groups, cell structures tend to be much more resilient and long-lasting in fighting occupation. Now, also, I think that it's one of those things where many indigenous cultures have a different understanding of hierarchy and domination.

So just because we have no domination or our daily lives do not have domination doesn't mean that we don't have a sense of hierarchy. elders take a special place in our roles certain communities certain tribes i know i can only speak for mine had people like orators and captains these were people that were trusted and respected but they had no real power because the second they did something that the community didn't want they no longer had their respect and that that's the measure of the the person's uh hierarchical position so that's that's kind of where i come from with uh indigenous anarchism yeah so the the question for me actually sort of answered itself

it sums up my position very well I'm not like so I come to my dogma within anarchists I'm a mutualist so I don't come to it from a Marxist perspective mutualism and Marxism obviously

have a lot in common but they're not exactly the same thing whereas in their mutualism there is no state right there's no transitional government it is just it's just based

on like the notion that like you can't own what you don't use so like if you can't if you get rid of property ownership a lot of the power of the government just ceases to exist so it's a very different nature with relation to transition

and basically there's just no it's an alternate anarchism to Marxism so that's where I come in but yeah my concern with Marxism and any sort of lateral state based is that we know what happens as indigenous people

when we do stuff that state doesn't want. We've seen that countless times. My people, the METC people, Canada bought huge swaths of our traditional lands off the Hudson Bay Company. That wasn't theirs to buy, or wasn't there to sell or buy, but they just did it.

And our response was to go war with Canada. And that was the METI Rebellions. And so we've seen what happens when we disagree with governments. So I think the logical step from a native perspective just comes down to we can't trust a colonial governmental power. So the answer then, and we don't, we have a tradition of governments. We don't have a traditional of states as. the West would define them. So I think the logical conclusion from a native perspective becomes,

especially if you're looking at anarchism, comes into a stateless society. Right. Yeah. And, you know, a lot of, like, the Marxist idea about states as compared to, like, governing structures is that they arise in the context of a class society. They're almost like these organic structures that a class society vomits up. And so, I mean, I don't want to get into all of that right now,

but I totally am sympathetic and understand those critiques 100%. And they echo the critiques that a lot of indigenous comrades have talked to me about over the years. I had an anarchist indigenous comrade who was a huge mentor to me, like in my early political years, like really helped radicalize me and taught me a lot. And a lot of these same arguments are things that, you know, that he cared a lot about. So I'm completely understanding that. And going back to the concept of cell structures, especially, I think in the U.S., given the trajectory, that we seem to be on in Canada as well, cell structure, we should absolutely, regardless

of your tendency, there's a power in cell structures that all radicals should take seriously. And as things get worse, we're going to need to pull from that tradition immensely, I believe. But going into the bulk of the conversation, I want to talk about the left. I want to talk settler colonialism and decolonization. The first question I want to talk about is regarding the left. Now, the vast majority of the left, especially in settlement, states like the U.S. don't really understand how settler colonialism affects the everyday lives of colonized people. So can you talk about how settler colonialism affects the daily lives of

colonized people and what you would like to see from the rest of the revolutionary left when it comes to this topic? So this is a tough one because it sort of asks me to set up a model for all colonized people. Sure. And that's hard because my experiences in urban Mitzie are going to be very different from those of rural hornetone. But I think one thing that all native peoples or all colonized peoples

have in common desire for control of our own destinies. Like the biggest thing that colonialism ever that did to us is remove our ability to determine our own futures from ourselves. It did this by erasing our past.

What was the indigenous equivalent of Aristotle? We'll never know because that got taken away from us. Our language were taken away. Our religions were outlawed until the 70s and both Ken in the U.S. So much of what we had is just gone and we we haven't had time to replace it and we live under a Eurocentric colonial power. So we also live under a state that actively tries to prevent us from replacing it they want us to conform to

their understanding of how the world should work and they won't let us create our own new understandings to replace what they have taken from us and that's a continuation of genocide right absolutely it's a continuation of genocide you can still see it in the fact that

like I think there was there was a report that in Saskatchewan at least sterilization of Native women is still going on and that's like as recently as last year, the last residential school was closed in 96, I think. I was still in high school when that happened. It's all still here.

A lot of people think this is in the far past, but it isn't. Defining ourselves as peoples is very difficult because we have these foreign powers that are occupying our lands and actively determining our futures by, building pipelines across our land, despite what we have to say, or bribing, bribing officials to confirm said pipelines. So our destinies just really aren't our own right now, and that I think is the biggest thing that all native people, regardless of what nation you belong to, have in common. Yeah, so I would say that I completely agree. There's a big difference between the various different groups of native people.

you're going to have. We've got a lot of people that are relocated to cities. And so urban indigenous people have a completely different experience than rural indigenous people and indigenous people that are forced to live within the reservation system. All three of those experiences are different. Talking about like material conditions and reclaiming culture, reclaiming and recreating culture, there's a couple of different things that settler colonialism continues to do that really limits that. And part, one of the big parts is capitalism. So if you have to work all day, you know, every day of the week, you only have short weekends with your family, how much time do you really have to learn your language

or to practice the crafts or trades or traditions of your people? If you can't afford to put gas in the tank of your car, how can you afford to go and visit the sacred mountains? If you can't take time off from work to spend for certain ceremony that requires good portions of your time. So work in and of itself is an oppressive institution that's not natural for indigenous people. And it's one of the things that it has slowed, has slowed a lot of our work. A lot of people putting food on the table

and making sure their kids have clothes and making sure that there's hope for tomorrow or next week overrides a lot of this decolonization work even within our own people. And so these type of settler colonial systems that are in place, they're kind of self-perpetuating. They don't even necessarily require the state to be actively oppressing us. And when you add active state oppression on top of that, it's absolutely unacceptable.

I think that there's also something that I've heard a lot of people speak to within the indigenous community about settler colonialism in particular is that it's a unique style of colonialism. It is about replacement. And when you replace people and you force them from their lands, the land itself is a big part of indigenous identity. And I know this is going to be a reoccurring theme, but the idea of relocating somebody is it's hard for me to fathom. My people were very lucky that we were extremely remote and we didn't have any resources that people wanted to steal from us. so we kind of got left alone up until the most recent century so when I go outside in the morning I can see the sacred mountains I can see you know these things that are in our stories and it hurt it really really really hurts my heart to think about the people who were forcibly relocated by the BIA to cities or were forcibly relocated from places like the deep south and mississippi and Alabama and Georgia to places like Oklahoma, because the land is such a big part of the identity and connection of the people,

and it hurts me to think that people are separated like that. And that's another part of that colonial experiment and the ongoing separation of us from our culture and identity. Speaking of land, one thing I like to say is, so settler colonialism, they like to say like natives didn't own land so we could just take it because they didn't believe in it. And that's not entirely true. Like, we didn't own the land, but the land owned us. I think that's the best way to put it, is our people are from the land, and we're physically connected to it.

Like, the place where my people are from, the land is a part of us, and the land basically supersedes even us. Yeah, I've never really thought about just how traumatic the removal of indigenous people from one area and putting them to another area, all other variables aside, just that displacement in and of itself is a brutal act of violent genocidal cracking down on a people because, as you say, that land and that those people are so intimately intertwined into the European colonialist mind who has these notions of what property and ownership means and this complete psychological detachment from the natural world around it

and viewing of the natural world is just something to beat into submission. You know, it doesn't even cross their fucking minds that that in and of itself is an absolutely brutal act. That's incredibly important to remember. Everybody's draglines across the landscape like militarized borders that call this police state 1974

November Pindro will be located to ride and conquer 14,000 and today will love this nightmare because it repeats to something breaks an act of liberation Yes, we all know it's rich against the poor Class race and gender and mother earth resource Global decisions colonization it's always one We know this nightmare because it repeats till something breaks An act of liberation

Industrial capitalist, heteropatriarchy We know the story of so many manifested destinies From the broken bones and broken homes Violated born-in-school dreams we know this nightmare Because in rapids just something based An act of liberation From big mountain to Palestine The relocation is genocide

We stand against our wars and occupations Against nationalism, state, Sponsored terrorism from Big Mountain to Palestine Relocation is genocide We stand against our wars and occupations Against nationalism State sponsored terrorism From Big Mountain to Palestine

It repeats The free market, non-profit industry, accountable to foundations, no, not community. There's checks for activism, for just us or just them. This ain't no evolutionary commodity. It's an act of liberation. Something breaks, an act of liberation. and act of liberation

and act of liberation and act of liberation to something breaks an act of liberation moving on to the next question and especially given the, you know, the anarchist position that you comrades come out of, you know,

we do live in a world where the United States, States and Canada are seen as legitimate states by virtually everyone on the planet, even hostile nations and many leftists living inside the confines of those states. We just had the midterm elections in the U.S., for example, in every position that asserts to any degree that electoralism is a viable path to liberation assumes the premise that the United States or Canada is legitimate in the first place, and that as institutions and electoral apparatuses are not only valid in and of themselves, but can actually act as pathways towards a more just and equitable society.

So why is the United States and Canada illegitimate states? And what does that mean for leftists who actually care about overcoming settler colonialism and want to help our indigenous comrades in their struggle for true sovereignty and liberation? Starting off, you know, I'm being somebody who lives here in what we call

the United States, it's illegitimate simply because this country was founded by people seizing land and justifying these land seizures with ink on paper. The only reason the land that we exist on and the government that we exist is because people invest faith in those pieces of paper. It is not because there is

actually any type of legitimacy or reason why these nations have existed, except for this type of domination and self-justification. Electoral systems, I think it's important for people to remember, are not legitimate, in my view, for either the colonial governments, or even our own governments. Electoral systems have been forced on many tribes, and this has really resulted in a lot of corruption and further theft of resources from our land. Electoral politics were introduced to our tribes

to concentrate power in a select few group of people who could more easily sign off on land sales, resource sales, things like that. So that's the one big issue. Of course, the United States government will never serve us. it was never intended to, and the Constitution itself is something that is just, it's, it is meant to serve a very select group of people, and it continues to this day. Tribal governments and their constitutions, which are often based on the United States

Constitution, do the exact same thing. They concentrate wealth and enrich few within the tribe, whereas most of the people never see that wealth, and all they get to see is poor jobs and resource extraction on the lands that they never would agree to if they knew the depth of the pillaging and damage that would happen over the course of decades. So basically, like, supporting this type of struggle for sovereignty and liberation involves basically educating yourself, and it also involves raising both indigenous and black voices. Indigenous people and black people are what this country was built on.

the stolen land and labor of indigenous people, the stolen labor of black people. And so when you're in a leftist space and you have people that want to basically be a part of the discussion and have cultural knowledge that is actually really, really relevant to the leftist struggles that we are involved in, basically listen. That's a big important part of supporting these types of struggle. Most of the time you see a lot of these types of conversations that's an afterthought. Or people's ideas are categorizes, oh, well, this is a black idea for what anarchism is like, or, oh, this is what an indigenous idea for anarchism is. Instead of saying, hey, you know, if an indigenous person wants to talk about the future of, like, automation, sure, there's going to be indigenous 80 that's going to be part of their thought process, but it's not defined necessarily by that. and the ideas need to be considered on the broader anarchist context and not just within the

indigenous paradigm. I think that that's an important thing to keep in mind. For sure. One thing I want to bring up just about your answer before I get into mine is you mentioned how a lot of the electoral politics were based off the American Constitution, but interestingly enough, the American Constitution is based off the Articles of Confederation. The Articles of Confederation were based off like Hoda Ashona-Shanetradict. So I just think it's really interesting that, like, American democracy spend a lot of time, like, taking, pillaging, and then subverting indigenous notions of democracy. I didn't really have any point beyond that before I just wanted to share that little tidbit of knowledge.

Yeah, sure. For my actual answer, it's not the most helpful of answers, I don't think, but no state is legitimate because they're all based off, like, systems of violence and oppression. which isn't like I know it's not the answer you're looking for and I'll do a deeper dive but that's basically it right there so I can obviously can't speak for the American election recently

because I live on land that are occupied by the occupying nation of Canada but so to not touch all the same stuff that he just mentioned so Canada especially although I believe this is the same case in the States was built on a

network of treaties with the indigenous nations that they inhabit, save the Métis nation, they just bought our land and then kicked us off. Although a lot of Métis still live on their traditional land, I did for quite a while. Over the time, so we made these agreements with the crown, so the queen.

But then Canada never kept those agreements. They kept breaking them, breaking them, and they continue to break them to this day. So if you have a nation state founded on agreements, and the nation state then, breaks every one of those agreements, how under any justification can you consider that a legitimate government? That is a crime state. Right. They just broke, they made the laws and then they broke their own laws. And would they ever let the indigenous people break their side of

the agreement without huge repercussions? Of course not. Yeah, well, exactly. Once again, to go back to the METI people, we did rebel. We, and they just killed all our leaders for it. We got Louis rail day coming up and celebrating like when they hanged lue real coming up in like less than a week or doesn't say celebrating because he was our leader commemorating sure is the correct word yeah and you know i do want to talk about this connection because it's it's it's underlying a lot of this conversation this this this concept of white supremacy this this brutal you know domination of white supremacy and white supremacy is as we know rooted in settler colonialism i mean the concept of of whiteness itself was sort of forged in colonial, you know, Euro-colonial projects.

And that settler colonial white supremacy manifests in a myriad of different ways from, you know, genocide and slavery to colonialism and imperialism to domestic fascist movements themselves. So with that in mind, can you talk about your thoughts on fascism in settler colonial states, what they represent and how best to fight them? Well, white supremacy is fundamentally based on being scared, right? As much as the fascists like to make fun of leftists for safe spaces, ultimately white supremacy is about building the ultimate safe space for white fuck nuts. They're scared, is what it is. They're scared of people who aren't like them. They're scared that they're going to lose all of the power that they have spent hundreds of years.

suppressing other people for and they're scared they're going to finally get their comeuppance for it so like you want to deal with fascists make them fucking scared de-platform them fight them I come in to anarchism

literally from just picking fights with Nazis up in Simco because Simco has a huge white supremacy problem that was before I lived in Toronto where I live now but just fucking fight them They're cowards.

Yes. Beautifully said. Speaking right to my heart. God bless America if you rich and white. Yeah. God hate America if you brought them black. Never did just a white folk in a rid of fuck back. Why half of me never turn my white back.

Put you not see for the culture. Put you not see for the culture. Put you not see for the culture. Black's like a for the culture. Un-ante-fascista. Antigua capitalista chingala Toaddaas meigras To have all the sihas

Ain't left ain't right Motherfucker white nights Deep port outright Good night white prime Revolution coming tight Natives come to ride a die Ome Trey obey the fight Lucha for your fucking rights

Putcha for the culture Put you not see for the culture Put you not see for the culture Black's like a for the culture Stocking race is in they break See they face upon a fucking track Smacks up with the strap Cause they know we casa on the map

But keep that mad's calm Cause they dachin while we fighting back Brutovinaos bouncing out the whip attack Attack attack attack attack attack attack attack attack you Nazi fuck they swinging back In fact you Nazi fuck they swinging back in fact we grabbing bats Brack away a black pants are sat together with the sack Attack attack attack attack attack attack attack attack attack attack attack we bouncing out the whip attack Punching Nazi for the culture

Put you not see for the culture Black's like a for the culture All right, so I'll kind of want to break this down a little bit. I think that settler colonialism in kind of a quick and dirty way, because it's a pretty complex topic, is really defined by displacement, erasure, and extermination. So, settler colonialism differentiates itself from colonialism experienced in other parts of the world because of displacement. It's all about basically putting as many colonizers into lands that were formally occupied by, indigenous people. And this is very different from other types of colonialism that seek just to extract resources. This one is actually taking the land and the resources and basically

changing ownership and occupation of those lands. Erasure is a big part of it because when you can't kill every native, you start to erase them. We start to try to make sure that, you know, the myth of the dying Indian is very, very much alive. This is something that I can tell you almost any indigenous person in the United States will tell you they've experienced people that think, oh, wow, there's still Indians out there and, you know, all this stuff. And it's just, it's really sad. Extermination, of course, is the ultimate goal of settler colonialism. It's to saturate the lands with colonizers and to make it so that there are no more indigenous peoples to resist the final and complete looting of the lands.

extermination takes a lot of different forms within settler colonialism some of it is actual killing of people it's sterilization of people which is again both of these things are still happening today we have indigenous people dying in prisons and jails and at the hands of police all across north america on a very regular basis all across the americans in general we have extermination in the form of culture removal so blood quantum is an example where if you are a member of a tribe and you have been a part of that tribe your whole life, but if your parents marry outside of the tribe, you no longer meet the state's qualifications for being indigenous. Even if you know the language, you know the traditions, you live and breathe an indigenous life, you're no longer indigenous and that is a way that they can say, you know what, you have to assimilate to the white society now. And that's one less, one less indigenous person that they have to worry about. So fighting against the settler colonialism and the fascism that is a part of the modern implementation over the last 200 years of settler colonialism, first off, I mean, it goes without saying that existence is resistance. Just the fact that we're still alive, we're still kicking, we're still fighting, we're still talking to each other, we're still cooperating is a revolutionary act in the of itself.

But I think that it's really important that we start to move on now. We start to make bonds. We start to build networks, connect, and we start to make the state and their civilian agents very aware that they're not welcome on our lands. If you're going to be an agent of colonization, you are not welcome on our lands. And I think it's also important that we stand against all forms of domination, both through solidarity and through direct action. I mean, if we're going to fight settler colonialism, we're going to fight fascism, it's going to require sabotage, it's going to require graffiti, it's going to require the appropriation of property that we need for our struggle. and it's going to require nation building. And now I know that that's probably going to sound weird coming from an anarchist,

but the indigenous concept of nationhood is different than statehood. Indigenous nations are basically, in the United States, are known more commonly as tribes, but the nation is the culture, it's the people. And nation building means that we need to be self-reliant, and we need to be capable of providing on our own without having to participate within capitalistic systems. And if we can't do that, then that's going to be the thing that holds us back as long as we're tied to it.

For sure. Yeah, incredibly well said. So when we talk about solutions to these issues, the word decolonization gets thrown around a lot. And there's a lot of talk on the left these days about decolonization. Sometimes, though, especially when it's uttered by settler leftists, it can feel kind of like an empty slogan, something that they just know they have to say but don't really have a lot of meaning behind that. Beyond that, there's just a lot of confusion about what exactly decolonization. is and what it means for our movements. So can you both talk about what people get wrong about decolonization, what it actually is,

and why it's essential for any movement that aims toward liberation? Yeah, I think that decolonization is one of those things that people, they talk a lot about, but they've probably never really sat down and talked to an indigenous person or a black person about what decolonization really mean. And that's, I think, one of the fundamental basics of it is sit down and talk and find out what decolonization actually means to the people who want to be decolonized and who demand decolonization for the lands we live on. For me, decolonization means removing the domination of Euro-focused culture, systems, and psychology from our lands. So all three of those are important, you know, there's so much cultural loss that is just, we buy into these Eurocentric, or you might call Americanized systems.

and you know American culture has infiltrated the world it's something that you see everywhere and it's one of those things where indigenous culture is not what people think of when they think of American culture and that's a big problem that's part of the decolonization one of the big myths that come up along with this is a lot of people think decolonization is like primitivism that we have to go back to living in you know an arrowweed hut or something like that and that's just not going to be the case decolonization means that we will learn from our old technologies and we will build off

of them and we can utilize them as much as possible. But I think probably the best example that people who just want a very, very quick and like very general idea of what I'm talking about, I mean, just look at the Black Panther movie. Afro-futurism, indigenous futurism is out there. You just have to look for it. And there are people who are dreaming big about

what indigenousity means for the future and that's decolonization is dreaming of a bright beautiful future that is indigenous and defining our future based off of our indigenity is something that is truly beautiful and i think that decolonization is really essential to any movement because no matter what leftist tendency you are but especially i demand like personally i demand of anarchists if you do not include true decolonization in your anarchism, then you are imparting a form of domination on the people that are going to be on these lands. When you talk about people who are like, oh, we'll just go into the wilderness and start a commune, a lot of those conversations never happen with them saying, hey, we should reach out to the people whose lands these are and talk to them about it. You know, that's something that is a fundamental misunderstanding a lot of white anarchists have. and I think that decolonization

honestly begins in a lot of places with communication. Decolonization sort of can mean alternately two things. There's a very material sense of decolonization and then there's sort of a more ideological sense decolonization. Decolonization, at least from material decolonization, at least in Canadian context,

often means like returning Canada to honoring the treaties, returning to like all of the the land, the unseated land that Canada claims is theirs that they have no treaty right to, returning all that back to the indigenous people that they took it from. When you talk about decolonization in a material sense, that's what they mean.

Often it could go more extreme than that. I can talk about the actual dismantlement of Canada, but in a more moderate sense, it just means returning to the standard of the treaties, returning all of the land that was not covered in the that Canada's claimed on their own honoring the original deal with the indigenous inhabitants and with the indigenous nations of this very large nation that now has taken up. The more theoretical sort of internalized aspect, the more personal aspect of decolonization comes into a lot of things we've talked about today, like an understanding of land and labor and understanding that we are part of the land

and that we do not have dominance over the land understandings of like relationships to our communities which are very different from from how like a Eurocentric view would have it and just like an understanding on how like European white patriarchy infects so much of how we see and look at the world like so a big part is just like our relationship to the land and returning to a understanding to a understanding

St. Land. And as I said earlier, sort of allowing Native people to have the tools to replace and replenish our culture and to replace what has been taken from us by colonialism. Yeah, I had, you know, the first part of this interview was with

a comrade Andrea, who was part of the Lakota Nation. And what they were saying is, and this is coming from a Marxist indigenous person, they were saying that you know, sometimes leftists have this idea of creating a USS right and they were arguing that that would just sort of replicate the settler colonialism that's already

inherent in the USA so what they argued is like we don't want you know communists to take over the US government and give us back our land it's not yours to give back and and she's like I'm not even even as a Marxist I'm not even interested in taking state power at the at the US level I'm down to dismantle the so-called you know nation states of North America and and have the land be, you know, in the hands of who it already is. And that's not only for indigenous folks, but for, for black folks as well, like the entire sort of nations in the, in the sense that you were using it earlier, for these communities that were sort of, you know, displaced and destroyed by settler colonialism, by slavery, by genocide. And so I thought that was a really

interesting, interesting take. And especially from a Marxist perspective, it really puts pressure on this absurd idea which I think some Marxist white leftist have of creating a USSR and why that is just not, not only is, we can talk about its possibility, but even its desirability is completely

unwanted and undesirable because it'll just replicate that same bullshit. Let me tell you a little bit but where I come from, I'm talking back home that I recoin nations land claims placed us on reservations tried to erase us confining our spaces too much hating self-medicating and sedating yeah I'm mad at the white man y'all are walking on stolen land your forefathers are known that me is slaughterers and fathers and fathers

brothers sisters and daughters your heroes are known to me as villains responsible for genocide and mass killing that's why I put up a middle finger on my hand but throw up the peace for the wolf and dear clan I ain't a Navajo, Blackfoot a crow, I'll rep the Iroquois nations for the next seven generations. Ha! Ha! Ha! Ain't a Navajo or a Seminole, I'll rep the Irope nations on that Indian rap sensation.

Indigenous, indigenous, indigenous lyricists Indigines, indigenous, indigenous, lyricists. Indigenous, indigenous, lyricists. Indigenous, indigenous, lyricist. Indigenous, Indigenous, Indigenous, they resist. I'm a filtered and hairy your new favorite strain. Not waiting on salvation, I don't fear any pain.

Elevated, not sedated, no flight to my plane. Constantly contemplated, I fight the Indigenous game. It ain't a comeback, I ain't no pioneer. My native loops go back thousands of years, but I've been on Brooklyn's loops for over 20 years, and I still want to clap back. For the Triliteas, don't mistake my life to instigate is proof of fear. I'm here to loot the narrative, abolish tricking, barren.

I'm here not new to prove to you. We're looking back and staring. My ancestors, I made it through a genocide and famine. So please respect my needs to grieving, chill with all the clearing. Indigenous, indigenous. We are releasing this episode on what is called Thanksgiving, Thanksgiving's Day here in the U.S. So is there anything before we end that either of you would like to say about this so-called holiday? Yeah, to hell with Thanksgiving.

Well said. In Canada, it's already, we have our Thanksgiving on a different day. So we've already had ours. But, you know, it may be a different day, but it's the same genocidal colonial bullshit. So to hell with it. Yeah, so I hope that all the ruling class and their boardrooms, government chambers, and luxury properties, choke on some turkey and die. Beautiful. But I will say, for all of my indigenous and leftist comrades out there,

especially my indigenous comrades, it would be that if you want to make change either on the reservation or out in diaspora, you've got to get active with building a network, start a cell, and get to work in. We've got a lot of indigenous anarchist theory to develop. You know, this is something that is not very well developed and we're still figuring out what indigenous anarchism means for us. And with the hundreds of cultures that we have out here in North America, it's going to be a very unique process. we're all going to learn from each other. So most of all, like on Thanksgiving, I think for all of us, be thankful for your comrades and your accomplices.

Show them love every day of the year, but on Thanksgiving, just give them an extra hug and, you know, button down and strap up. Hell yes. And I love that idea that the Indigenous Anarchist Federation puts forth of this idea of crafting and synthesizing indigenous anarchist theory. I really, really am interested in that idea and would love to see the development of it.

So I'm really happy to be able to have had this conversation with you, comrades. It's really educational. It's informative and it's fucking essential that the left gets their shit together on this front because it is a major, major piece of the puzzle towards liberation. And if we don't take this shit seriously, if we don't learn from our indigenous comrades, and we just replicate the same settler colonial bullshit that, you know, y'all have been putting up with for centuries, then it's really a doomed project. and it's not something that I want to be a part of.

That's for damn sure. So before we let you go, can you let listeners know where they can learn more about anything we've discussed today and where they can find the IAF online? So you can find us on Twitter at IAF, 2 underscores and then FAI. We're working on getting a website together, so anybody that's out there that has some web developing skills or some graphic design skills,

we're completely down for getting help on that. I want everyone to do be aware there is a false IAF page out there called F.A.I. Mujer. Just so you all know, there's some other great resources out there. Of course, looking at some of the OGs that were out there, you can go to warriorpublications. Wordpress.com or on Twitter at Zigg underscore Zag 48, and that's going to be one of our great indigenous anarchists like OG's Gord Hill, who does a lot of really good writing. informative pieces. Indigenous Action Media, which you can go www.indigenousaction.org. That's run by Clevelandali up on the Navajo lands. They do some fantastic zines, really good pieces, and they're actively facing state repression right now, so you can stay tuned on that. Of course, on Twitter,

we've got a bunch of different people that we, that are part of IAF, that we share their pieces. So one of the big things that we're big about on IAF is we try to share everyone's perspectives from their own perspective so that way each nation, each person has their own individual identity and their own ideas. So that way it's not just an IAF theory. It's actually a complete anarchist theory for indigenous peoples. My own little personal shout out here would be something that my family is working with, Mexicali Resiste, or Mexicaliresiste.org. That's one of the struggles that I'm personally really affected by, and if you want to add anything else. This is all far more accessible than anything I brought. I brought an actual, honest God, reading list.

And not even like, the reason why I brought this reading list is none of these books are, with one exception, are actually anarchists or written by anarchists. But I really think that people need to understand the indigenous experience, at least in some level, before we can even talk about. indigenous anarchism. So what I would recommend reading, if you can find it surviving Canada, which is a series of essays written by indigenous people on the 150th anniversary of Canada being a thing that exists,

that occupies our land. And it is edited by Kira Ladner and Mira Tate. Also, Seven Fallen Feathers by Tanya Talaga, which is a book detailing the deaths of native youth in Thunder Bay there is also a podcast by the same name Thunder Bay

put out by Canada Land that I do recommend listen to as well is hosted by Brian McMahon it's nothing anarchistic just like this is just the reality of indigenous life right now there's also indigenous rights by Chelsea Vowal who is a fellow matesy comrade and then there is

for more of a historically informed perspective, there is 1491, New Revelations of America before Columbus. It's a bit out of date. It was written before the Clovis hypothesis was finally settled as being untrue, but I still

think there's a lot of value in reading it. It's by far the thickest book on this list. And finally, I'd recommend the Inconvenient Indian by Thomas King, which is just literally a book about what happened post-colonial in exhausting detail wonderful basically one of the things I think is really important

is for all of my indigenous comrades out there is just read read read there's so much good reading out there don't be afraid to reach out of your comfort zone I know that one of the things that really held me up for a long time was I didn't know what the word bourgeoisie I didn't know how to pronounce it I didn't know what it meant proletariat praxis all these things were just so freaking foreign to me and reaching out to some comrades and having them sit down and explain things it you know don't be embarrassed to do that because it's going to open up a whole new world of thinking and uh and revolutionary thought for you and it's going to help your struggle so definitely and that's that's part of what we're trying to do it with this show and

to be honest i still can't spell bourgeoisie so i'm with you on that um thank you both for coming on it's it's been awesome i really appreciate it um we'll put every single one of those recommendations in the in the show notes so people that want to go and find those will have easy accessible ways to do that in the show notes. Thanks again. Keep up the great work with the IAF and hopefully we can talk again in the future. All right, have a good one. Take care. Thanks for having us.

From the tippy, tippy top. I got to write a song that can cause a revolution. I got to write a song that can cause a revolution. but they don't want to stand. They lack clothes. They defeated lactose. I scream the virus pet. It's never reaching past those I'm scheming far like plattoe. This is the cave of a path closed. We're free to fight.

We ain't reaching for the light. My sister's screaming to be right. We complex in the complexion. They be stressing on correction and they skin this an extension of a colonized accession. Buckle-Liding cream that hide behind the screams of ideologies manifest destiny philosophies. But not every revolution can foster evolution.

One truth in its fruition, I'm confusing the pollution. Important for a pollution. president because frankly it's a benjamin systems of oppression and we never change the sentiment like the social status now we mastered all the apps not to schools and solely social classes graduated at social network is your total network you better photo that first before this scoop or thought is called the next first the power the money the lies the greed the fight the struggle the cries we bleed the skies the light that shines in me the cycle the just repeats because it's the power the money the lies the greed the fight the struggle

The cries, we bleed, the skies, the light, the shines in me, the cycle that just repeats. See a lot of ass is grooving to really bad music. Mass movement from back home with dad shooting. Just the dark cover further away from family so they can get away from military raids capturing teens calling them terrorists. I don't get it. I understand why missionaries getting beheaded. Roading me and my homies out in Hollywood, bulldozed over sweated for being in a wrong neighborhood pigs. Rather treat a man like he a criminal.

and worry about the consequences later. Paper, puppets, protecting the banks is what they here for. I told Ruby watched them pigs in San Lorenzo. This is the dance between us all, the full, the working class, the filthy rich, the money, the military, the bullies who keep rich by robbing the country blind no matter who it affects so. The power, the money, the lies, the greed, the fight, the struggle, the cries, we bleed, the skies, the light, the shines, and me, the cycle that just repeats.

Because it's the power, the money, the fight, the fight, the struggle, the cries, we bleed, the skies, the light, the light, the light, the cycle that just repeats. The power, the money, the lies, the greed, the fight, the struggle, the cries, we bleed, the skies, the light, and shines in need, the cycle that just repeats. Age 3 in front of TV's house, Mesbrides, my puppet, baby,'s 20 and some change, and nothing changed, because it's so published lately. But who's the puppet when we walk and talk and advertise? It's blinded by the giant corporations try to have it spying. And what they say, you're batch of character, you swagging, bro.

You can speak less than 140 characters. Peace to Martyrs and much peace to Oscar. Peace to all. who bothered your doctors. They yell and freeze in the globe be getting warm and my people getting afraid but they ain't hang in a diploma. So who do we pay and who do we praise?

Pray on each other but never pray for the people we played. Cancer increase y'all so I release from the cure for when chemo is more expensive than the people get poor short. Working with no benefits of government don't tell us shit they relish in the fact that they embellish it the changes can't fit. Come and dance alone, yeah it's the same song You could either sing a different tune or join alone

Hands up, empty out your pockets and smile Because we're gonna be here for a while So we're gonna be here for a while, yeah, it's the same song You could either sing the different to the going along The guys are going to fight Hand up empty out your pocket and smile The cycle that just repeat We're going to be here for a while here

You know, I'm going to Thank you.