System Fail 4: Landback

We are truly and deeply sorry

and we commit to today’s apology

and next week’s apology

and, quite frankly, all apologies.

We will continue to apologize.

There are many more apologies to come.

Right.

And indeed, I’m going to apologize again.

I’m really sorry.

We were wrong. We apologize. 
I am sorry. We are sorry.

Sorry about not having done that.

Whenever anyone makes an apology, 
as the person apologizing—

Shut the fuck up!

Umm...

Do some damage boys!

Oh hello.

Welcome to System Fail,

the show where we agree with 
flat-earthers about exactly one thing.

Fuck Christopher Columbus.

Christopher Columbus, the original ISIS.

Christopher my boy, the earth 
is as flat as this orange.

But this orange is round!

So is the earth, son.

People don’t think so, but we who know the sea
are sure the earth is round.

Here’s the thing, globehugger!

Your plane can’t go upside down!

Yeah, fuck Columbus.

I am your host, DeeDos,

and as millions of North Americans

observe a religious ritual from feudal Europe,

by dressing up in silly costumes

and gorging themselves
on high-fructose corn syrup

Woo! That’s really stretchy!

members of multiple Indigenous nations
are engaged in an anti-colonial struggle

with many front-lines.

On October 11th, a coalition
of radical Indigenous organizers

called for a Day of Rage Against Colonialism.

The appeal for autonomous,
anti-colonial, anti-capitalist,

and anti-fascist actions was a clear
rebuke to what organizers called

“the uninspired assimilationist politics of

Indigenous Peoples Day”,

a tame, progressive alternative
to the official state holiday of Columbus Day.

Indigenous people are done with colonizers!

In several cities across 
the so-called United States, 

people answered the call

by toppling colonial statues
and monuments.

In so-called Arizona, members of
the O’odham Anti-Border Collective

blocked a highway immigration checkpoint
to protest the construction

of a border wall through
Tohono O’odham territory.

Does our freedom offend you that much?

The protest was soon set upon
by Customs and Border Protection agents,

who fired tear gas and rubber bullets
and arrested twelve people.

I’m down, I’m down.

Yeah, you’re gonna stay down! Got it?!

Leave my mom alone.
Y’all better not hurt my fucking mom!

Recent weeks have also seen
a sharp increase in colonial tensions

in the territories ruled
by the Canadian State.

I thought I was gonna make it
through this....but I’m not.

On September 28th,

a 37 year old Atikamekw woman
named Joyce Echaquan

died in a hospital in Joliette,
so-called Quebec.

After complaining of
mistreatment by racist staff,

she livestreamed the taunts of
her nurses as she lay dying.

This footage soon went viral,
provoking widespread outrage

and a series of vigils,
rallies and demonstrations

carried out under the banner
‘Justice For Joyce’.

Anti-Indigenous racism has
also been on display in Miꞌkmaꞌki,

specifically in the area
known as Nova Scotia

Fuck’s sake boys!

where a dispute over fishing rights
has boiled over into

ugly scenes of mob violence.

An estimated 200 commercial fishers
preventing employees of a lobster

holding pound from leaving,
and removing crates of lobster

caught by Indigenous harvesters.

Canada’s colonial police force, the RCMP,

has stood by and watched
as non-Indigenous fishers

have barricaded Mi’kmaq boats,
attacked lobster storage facilities,

sabotaged traps, torched vehicles,
and otherwise sought to terrorize

members of the Sipekneꞌkatik First Nation
out of exercising their inherent fishing rights.

This lobster pound in southern Nova Scotia
was being used by Mi’kmaq fishers

to store their catch.

The fire so intense that it burned
the building completely to the ground.

Lookie there, shootin flares at us.
Good try motherfucker!

Back in 2013, the Mi’kmaq Warriors Society
intervened in Rexton, so-called New Brunswick,

during a conflict between members of
the Elsipogtog First Nation

and Texas-based
fracking company SWN.

The warriors ended up clashing
with an RCMP tactical squad,

before the community eventually pushed
them out of the area,

torching a number of
cruisers in the process.

Recently, calls have been growing
for the warriors to regroup

Ah, c’mon! Really?!

to back up their fellow Mi'kmaq,
who are facing the brunt of colonial violence.

In the meantime, support is growing,
with a number of solidarity actions

taking place around the country.

We stand with them, and we stand proud.

Keep on fighting.
We’re here. We got your back.

On the other side of the continent,
the Secwepemc have delivered

a cease and desist order
to the TMX Pipeline corporation,

which is now owned by
the federal government.

Shoulda known better, but I didn’t.

The order demanded an immediate halt
to plans to drill under the Secwepemcetkwe,

or Thompson River,
in so-called British Columbia.

If completed, the Trans Mountain Pipeline
would massively ramp up the transport

of bitumen from Alberta,

allowing for an expansion
of the Tar Sands,

and threatening the survival of salmon
that surrounding Indigenous nations

and much of the region’s wildlife
depend upon.

On Thursday October 15,
five people were arrested

while blocking workers from
drilling under the river.

This is unceded Secwepemc territory.
Our land is not a sacrifice zone.

We are going to stand and defend
this water by any means.

Things have also been heating back up
on the Wet’suwet’en yintah,

as workers with the Coastal GasLink
pipeline are preparing to drill

under the Wedzin Kwa,
otherwise known as the Morice River.

The Coastal GasLink pipeline
is a proposed 670 kilometre,

fracked gas pipeline
owned by TC Energy

and private equity firm KKR.

Its construction through
unceded Wet’suwet’en territories

has faced sustained and determined
resistance for over a decade.

As construction continues
to push on towards the Wedzin Kwa,

Coastal GasLink workers are
increasingly enlisting the RCMP

as private security, harassing
Wet’suwet’en and their allies,

and attempting to block them
from upholding Wet’suwet’en law.

Don’t threaten me with an injunction
if you don’t know that you don’t have permission

of the authority of this territory.

This past February, Wet’suwet’en
supporters launched

a coordinated series of decentralized
rail, port and highway blockades

under the banner #ShutDownCanada.

These blockades lasted for weeks,
causing widespread logistical

and economic disruption.

Calls for a resumption of these solidarity
actions have recently begun to circulate.

We all knew it was coming.

But we hoped it wasn’t.

And in so-called Ontario,
members of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy

from the Six Nations
of the Grand River

occupied a proposed development site
on their territories back in July.

The encampment,
dubbed 1492 Land Back Lane,

is located near the town of Caledonia,

which lies within an area
known as the Haldimand Tract.

This land, which spans six miles

on either side of the
length of the Grand River,

was granted to the Haudenosaunee
by treaty in 1784 as compensation

for territories that their confederacy
had lost in the American Revolution.

The official reservation of the Six Nations
of the Grand River currently accounts

for only 5% of the historical Haldimand Tract.

Ownership of much of the
remaining lands is disputed.

European settlers on the Grand River:

helping to create a close relationship
between the people of Haldimand

and their Six Nations neighbours
for many years.

Back in 2006,
community members from Six Nations

occupied a proposed development site,
known as the Douglas Creek Estates,

leading to what became
known as the Caledonia crisis,

a tense stand-off that was only resolved
when the Ontario government stepped in

to buy off the developers.

This time around,
the proposed McKenzie Meadows

development site,
home to 1492 Land Back Lane,

is located directly across the street
from the former Douglas Creeks Estate site.

Patterns of repression and resistance
have taken a similar direction as well.

OK, we have some people
chasing a police officer out of the way.

Get the fuck out of here!

Keep going!

A militarized raid on August 5th
by the Ontario Provincial Police, or OPP,

immediately provoked widespread
community mobilization,

and led to burning highway blockades.

It’s on boys!

On Thursday October 22nd,
an Ontario Superior Court approved

a permanent injunction
against the encampment.

Since then, resistance has only intensified.

The Ontario government has since
sought to isolate the encampment,

heavily criminalizing supporters,

arresting dozens of people for breach
of injunction for simply visiting the site,

and playing on colonial fears
of Indigenous resistance.

Well you just can’t go in and
take over people’s future homes.

It’s wrong.

And then when the police come,
they get an outhouse,

toss it over from a bridge,
onto a police car.

Fair play.

To find out what they’re so scared of,
I recently caught up with Skyler Williams,

a Haudenosaunee resident of Six Nations
and the official spokesperson

of 1492 Land Back Lane.

Hey Skyler, how’s it going?

Holding space... and y’know, preparing
for what lengthy legal battles await us.

I see. Well at least the weather there
looks pretty nice.

How did the 1492 Land Back Lane
occupation start?

Myself, and some friends and family kinda knew 
about this development that was about to start.  

And then at the very beginning of us wanting to go 
in there to occupy, or reclaim our lands – it was  

right at the start of all the COVID stuff. 
Barricades went up around the reserve, and  

there was lots of concern about 
whether us as a community could  

withstand the outbreak that was coming.
And so people were really worried about that.

After a couple of months of letting that kind of 
settle and get to where it is now, we had seen  

that hadn’t stopped any of the development that 
was going on there. They cleared the land of every  

blade of grass. Every tree. Every shrub. Every 
hill. So now it’s just some barren clay there.

So we moved in there on July 19th. And it was 
a Sunday evening. We were very deliberate about  

going there Sunday evening, because y’know, 
we wanted it to remain a peaceful occupation  

of our land. And so going in there during 
the day during the week meant that we were  

going to have lots of, y’know, workers there, 
and there was gonna be confrontation and that  

kind of thing. So we went in on a Sunday to 
try and mitigate any of that risk of having  

a big stand off with the developers, 
and the workers of those developers.

We went and we were there for about an hour. 
We set a fire and erected a couple of flags.  

After about an hour the police pulled in and 
they asked how long we were gonna be there. And  

we said that day that our people had 
been here for the last 10,000 years, and  

our people are gonna be here for the next 
10,000. And so we kind of all laughed.  

And the police officer said “so I take it you’re 
gonna be here for a while, then.” And they left.

And so two weeks of just holding space 
began. Community support started to happen.  

Y’know, we started getting hot 
meals delivered every day, and  

people started coming out to stay with us 
to help hold that space. And so we started  

everybody kind of chipping in and helping out. 
And more and more tents started getting erected.

What has the response been 
from the Canadian government?

On August 5th there was an injunction that was 
granted to the developer. “Without notice”,  it's called.

And the police moved in. In the morning.
They said they had to come and read the injunction.

And when they did, they blocked off both accesses
to the camp to prevent anybody from  coming in.

They came, they read the injunction, 
and then this massive line of vans— it was like  

15 passenger vans —just started rolling down the 
highway toward us. And the police barricade line  

moved back and all of the cops rolled in. 100 
OPP tactical unit folks got out of those cars

with big guns. And they came out and said 
that they’re gonna start making arrests.

And so the group of us there, we backed up 
onto the site, and asked anybody that wasn’t  

planning on staying through any of that, they 
were told that they had the option to leave  

if they want. And myself and a few others said 
“no, we’re not going anywhere.” And we stayed.

In the process of those arrests that 
were being made, nine of them that day,  

there was one young man that was tasered in the 
neck and head. One young woman, who happened to  

be standing there videotaping, got in the way 
of the line of cops that was coming. And she  

was picked up and slammed into the mud. We all got 
rubber bullets fired at us. It was a hectic day.

I was released about five hours later. And when 
I got out, this woman came up to me and asked  

me if I knew what was going on. On the land 
and on the roads down there. And I said no.  

And she showed me some video of stuff that 
was going online right now. And at that moment  

there was highway blockades, rail 
blockades, and roads were blocked.

And I got back down to Caledonia, just off the 
reserve. And folks asked myself and some of the  

other people that were, y’know, at Land Back — 
at 1492 Land Back Lane. And they asked us what  

we wanted to do. And I think we all, almost 
at the same time, said we wanted land back.  

We wanted to go back to our camp. And so, just like 
we did on day one, there was about a dozen cars,  

and about 30 people jumped in those cars 
and drove right back in the front door.

How does this dispute fit within the broader 
context of Haudenosaunee land claims?

Those blockades that went up was like 
– was that reaction to, y’know,  

an ongoing criminalization of land defence. 
Canada and Ontario settling land claims through  

court action. Through arrests. Through putting 
these heavy weighty bail conditions, and release  

conditions on people that they can’t defend 
the land. To drag people from their families,  

from their homes. From arrests that are being 
made in front of kids. It doesn’t matter for us.  

Our obligation to the land is far greater 
than anything they could do to us.  

And to take that kind of inherent right away from 
my grandchildren, great grandchildren... this is  

their land. Who would I be to deny them that by 
me not making the stand that I’m making today?

Is there anything else that you want to add?

When we stand together as communities, whether 
that’s Indigenous folks across the country,  

or with our allies in all the big cities across 
the country, we’re able to make our voices heard.  

There’s no limits to the accomplishments.

Thanks Skyler.

We’ve now reached the end of 
this episode of System Fail.

If you’d like to support any of the Indigenous-led 
struggles we’ve discussed in this episode,  

check the show description 
for links on how to do so.

To support subMedia, consider making 
a one-time donation or signing up to  

be a monthly sustainer at sub.Media/Donate.

You can also support us by buying some 
of our merchandise at sub.media/gear.

Be sure and follow us on 
your corporate data-mining  

platform of choice. Just search for subMedia.

Or better yet, sign up to our 
mailing list and get every new  

episode delivered directly to your inbox.

Godspeed, humans.