Harsha Walia on Anti-Oppression, Decolonization, and Responsible Allyship

Interview recorded at PowerShift Canada 2012, Oct 28 in Ottawa on unceded Algonquin territory.

Further reading: "Decolonizing Together" by Harsha Walia, Briarpatch Magazine, January 2012: http://briarpatchmagazine.com/articles/view/decolonizing-together

Video interview by Greg Macdougall http://EquitableEducation.ca
for IPSMO Indigenous Peoples Solidarity Movement Ottawa http://ipsmo.org

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Captions by the Radical Access Mapping Project.
See http://radicalaccessiblecommunities.wordpress.com/subtitled-videos/ for more captioned videos

My name is Harsha Walia,
and I'm an activist that is based in Vancouver,

which is un-ceded Coast Salish Territories.

[ interviewer ] And you just gave a workshop here at Powershift on anti-oppression, decolonization and allyship.

Can you talk, introduce anti-oppression for us?

[ Harsha ] Yeah, so the workshop was around as you mentioned anti-oppression, decolonization and responsible allyship,

and um with a focus on looking at the ways in which
we're all complicit within forms of oppression,

and really being responsible, um,
to those forms of oppression that we're complicit in.

So, systemic oppression is of course,

has a tradition within social movements,

and is basically the principle and the idea,

that in order to meaningfully build an inclusive movement,
and one that's truly egalitarian, truly anti-oppressive,

we actually need to name, explicitly name and be proactive about the forms of oppression that exist in our society.

So, yknow, there are many of them, but in particular race and class, and sexuality, gender and ability,

and to be able to name those systems in order to confront them,

And particularly when we talk about colonialism and decolonization, we can't talk about decolonization

without of course talking about the systemic oppression
of Indigenous people across Turtle Island.

We see that in a variety of ways, right?

So within the climate movement of course we see that Indigenous people are the most impacted

in terms of the impact of environmental degredation,

the most impacted communities along the tar sands for example are Indigenous communities,

but it's not just an issue of impact,

it's also looking at what are the structures that support those forms of colonialism, right?

So, um, to me it's also a form of environmental racism that Indigenous communities are downstream from the tar sands,

because if the communities that were downstream from the tar sands were white communities or major urban centres,

then the tar sands, I would argue, would not be proceeding at the rate that it is proceeding.

The ability for people to make the argument even,

that we need the economy of the tar sands, or that we need jobs from the tar sands, while people are dying,

is a function of environmental racism,

and it's a form of colonialism.

Where the deaths of people matter less than money.

And so, for me, it's important to name systemic oppression

and to understand systemic oppression as linked to colonialism.

We have to have an understanding of power and privilege
in order to have an understand colonialism

And colonialism, again, impacts Indigenous communities in a variety of ways,

it's not just the issue of land, although that is central, definitely central.

It's also looking at the ways in which that's connected to sexual violence for example.

Indigenous women are disproportionately impacted by sexual colonial gendered violence in Canada.

We know that there's over 3,000
--the official estimates are far too low--

there's over 3,000 missing and murdered Indigenous women across Canada.

We know that Indigenous people are disproportionately impacted by rates of poverty,

are over-incarcerated and are over surveillanced,

so the prison system is full of Indigenous inmates,

even though Indigenous people are a much lower percentage of the population.

So there's been a whole legacy of colonialism
that marks this land,

and as non-native people, I'm a non-native person,

it's really critical for non-natives to understand
that the impact of colonialism...

what the impact of colonialism has been on Indigenous people,

as well as the ways in which we have benefitted.

And that's where systemic oppression is also a really useful framework for understanding colonialism,

because systemic oppression, an analysis of systemic oppression teaches us

that in order for someone to be marginalized,
someone else has to be benefiting.

So it's not enough to talk about the ways in which Indigenous people are impacted,

without also looking at the ways in which
non-natives are benefiting.

And that, to me, is really critical.

And so, decolonization in terms of anti-colonial work

I'd say first and foremost, um, it comes with a deep responsibility

that we have an obligation to struggle alongside Indigenous communities, and support Indigenous self-determination.

To me, it's not an optional thing,

it's not something we can choose to engage in,

um, it's not something that we can say, like, "oh, I don't really work on that issue, I work on something else".

To me it is critical that whatever issue we're working on,

that Indigenous solidarity is part of that work.

Um, and I really want to stress that,

that decolonization and anti-colonial struggle is an absolute obligation of non-native people across Turtle Island.

You know, and I draw particularly on the work of people like Andrea Smith, who's an Indigenous feminist,

who's talked a lot about the ways in which -particularly for people who come from other marginalized communities--

sometimes because y'know, for me as a person of colour and someone who's a migrant,

um, for me it's been really important to look at the ways in which

--yknow of course other communities of colour are impacted and face racism--

but we also have to understand the ways in which we are complicit in settler colonialism and benefit from colonialism.

So for me, that's the starting point for decolonization,
is an obligation to anti-colonial struggle.

And also, it comes with an understanding that, um,

we have to fundamentally re-orient the ways in which
we understand social movements.

And that means re-centering an Indigenous world view, or Indigenous world views, I should say, because there are many.

And that requires a total transformation
of the ways in which we organize,

a total transformation of the ways in which we think,

and again it requires a deep sense of humility and responsibility

to really bring ourselves out of a capitalist colonial and oppressive system,

and to centre another way of being.

And so, that means challenging tokenism, right?

It means that it's not enough to just say

"hey, I'm organizing a demo, I'm gonna make sure that one Indigenous person's a speaker".

It means, no, you fundamentally organize your movement and your group and our work,

in accordance with the principles of Indigenous
self-determination and Indigenous leadership;

and to me that leadership is a critical piece,

it's not simply enough to include, we have to centre
and take leadership from Indigenous communities.

[ interviewer ] OK, and you had said that um, when you go to Indigenous communities

and you want to work with them, involve them in your work,

um, you were talking about how you don't just want to come and you don't know, you want to ask what's important to them,

and you kind of touched on just a range of issues,

so say for example you take the environment, and you go in, and you're not just gonna say

"well I'm working on the environment so I wanna work with environment issues on you",

you're talking about finding out the priorities of the communities?

[ Harsha ] Yeah, I think that a basic principle of allyship and decolonization

is based on the principle of humility
and solidarity and responsibility,

is to approach communities with an understanding
that people are going to articulate

their own issues and their own analysis and their own needs
on their own terms.

Um, I think one of the failures of all forms of non-native work,
of non-native solidarity work,

has been to approach communities with a specific goal in mind,

um, which has been to approach communities and say, y'know "hey, this is what I wanna do, are you on board?"

"or hey, this is what I wanna do, does this jive with what, with where you're at?"

Um, and I think, y'know, again,
this idea of really flipping the script,

it means very humbly and very responsibly approaching communities and say

"hey, I'm here in the spirit of solidarity, and y'know, if this is an invitation you want to accept, then what is it that you would like for me to do?"

And that's not to put the burden on Indigenous communities only, right?

There's a lot that non-natives can do:

know the history of the land, know the protocols of the land,

respect the protocols in the communities
and the territories that we live on,

educate ourselves and educate other people
about the history of colonialism,

hold our own governments accountable,

a lot of Indigenous communities are very clear and saying
"this is not my government system,

this is your government system, you're responsible for holding these governments to account";

um, the principle , y'know, I'm in B.C., which is un-ceded land, there's no treaties,

for people who do come from treaty territories to know the treaties, and honour the treaties,

and respect the settler side of the treaties;

um, those are really key.

And so, y'know, it's not an issue of, I would also caution people

of not putting the burden on other people to do the work and tell us what to do,

to do our own work in terms of education and awareness raising,

but to also be very clear in terms of offering support and solidarity that's based on long term relationships,

and not ones that are based on trying to meet campaign goals,

and are really based, again, on decolonization,

which is to ensure that Indigenous people
are centred in our work,

and that we're committed to the well-being of Indigenous communities as a whole,

not just based on one single issue,

because Indigenous communities really live the intersectionality of a lot of forms of oppression,

particularly within settler colonial contexts.

And so I think those are some of the basic principles of allyship,

and again, just committing to people's well-being and allying with people's own articulation of their needs,

and I think that's a huge one,

because I think a lot of people have a pre-determined understanding and an idea of what they want Indigenous communities to work on.

And y'know, also ensuring that there's multiple lines of accountability

which is ensuring that people aren't tokenized,

that people are in touch with and meeting with and allying with and speaking with and in relationship with multiple people in a community,

and y'know, honouring that diversity, because one of the forms of tokenism that plays out a lot,

not just in Indigenous solidarity work but y'know within marginalized communities at large,

is this idea of like "oh, so and so said one thing,

and this other person in the community said another thing,
and I don't know how to reconcile that",

and to me that's a really racist idea,
because of course people have different opinions.

And to really honour diversity within communities and to not homogenize communities,

and to definitely not assume that there's like a pan-native, um, kind of answer, right?

Like, each community, again, has their own protocols, has their own needs, um, and that specificity is really important to honour.

[ interviewer ] Alright, thank you.

[ Harsha ] Cool, thank you.