Idle No More is the latest and, perhaps, the most dramatic example of the multitude taking on the Empire. It began in Canada but it spread almost instantly to EVERYWHERE. There is no outside when all is inside. Idle No More means every single day is a day for action. Idle No More has leadership and no leadership. It is young and it is old. It has demands and it has no demands. It is local and it is international. It is traditional and it is virtual.
Jacob Devaney writes,
"At its very core, all of these movements have very common threads and are born from common issues facing people everywhere. Those who represent financial interests that value money over life itself, that are devoid of basic respect for human decency, and for nature have dictated the future for too long and people everywhere are standing up to say, "No more." This non-violent social uprising is viral in the minds and hearts of everyone across the planet determined to bring healing to our troubled communities, our planet, and the corruption that is eroding the highest places of governments around the world."
He is right and he is wrong. Idle No more is a movement of the indigenous people. It can't be stolen from them. However, Idle No More touches so many beyond the indigenous community as well simply because the Empire is molding us all into one big mass of singularities, the same, yet different.
And yet, Idle No More is not Chief Spence at all. After all it began before Chief Spence began her hunger strike as a grass roots movement while Chief Spence represents more traditional indigenous leadership.
Founding organizers of Idle No More in Saskatchewan posted a statement online saying that elected First Nations chiefs do not speak for the social movement.
"But that's different from us as Idle No More working with the chiefs on the ground," she added. "This whole movement started out with that partnership and we've maintained that partnership all the way through."
"After generations of genocide, political slight-of-hand, segregation and degradation, after being tossed empty words and shoved with broken promises, broken homes, broken lives, suicides, dead food and contaminated water – thousands upon thousands of indigenous people are gathering in cities, towns, villages, malls, plazas, galleries, roads and railways across Canada, the US – all around the planet – to dance, sing and stand up for human rights and human decency..."
Again, Idle No More is an uprising, a fight back, a struggle for the future led by and for the indigenous people of Canada and the indigenous people of the world.
Kirstin Scansen is a Nehithaw woman, from the Lac La Ronge Indian Band in Treaty 6 territory, Saskatchewan says,
" Idle No More presents a challenge to the old colonial order that forms the basis of Canadian society. This movement has been about challenging oppression in very real and very meaningful ways. It has meant questioning the legitimacy and authority of colonial laws by pushing the limits of these laws. Idle No More means not only speaking of Indigenous sovereignty, but living out our inherent sovereignty as nations. This is especially important in the case of Omnibus Bill C-45, where our fundamental human rights to clean water, lands and foods are at risk. Essentially, Harper and the Conservative government of Canada are legislating the extinguishment of our Indigenous nationhood. Our response has been two-fold: to re-situate ourselves as nations, and to rejuvenate the commitment of our people and Settler society to the Treaty relationship."
And Idle No More is Much More...which brings us back to Jacob Devaney who writes further,
" Society and nature work in similar ways to our own body’s immune system. We are given a symptom that causes us to be aware that there is an illness that needs to be addressed. We can try to suppress the symptom, but that does not heal the illness. Popular uprisings with very core commonalities are spreading all over the planet. Exploitation of our environment, as well as the exploitation of people and cultures for the sake of financial gain is immoral and must be stopped at the highest levels of our governments."
Devaney, who by the way is is Founder and Director of Culture Collective, adds we, you and I, face a rather simple choice. He writes that we can either:
"...continue to be part of the cancer that slowly destroys our water, our air and the resources that are the fabric of life by staying unconscious, or become the conscious antidote that slowly kills the cancerous disease which threatens the existence of life on the planet..."
or, we can be the equivalent of,
"A factory producing monkey wrenches for the gears of the machine which is at the center of our collective demise."
The following is from Indian Country Today.
As Attawapiskat Chief Theresa Spence enters her fourth week on a hunger strike outside the Canadian parliament, thousands of protesters in Los Angeles, London, Minneapolis and New York City, voice their support. Spence and the protesters of the Idle No More Movement, are drawing attention to some deplorable conditions in Native communities, and recently passed legislation C-45, which sidesteps most Canadian environmental laws. "Flash mob" protests with traditional dancing and drumming have erupted in dozens of shopping malls across North America, marches and highway blockades by aboriginal groups across Canada and supporters have emerged from as far away as New Zealand and the Middle East. This weekend, hundreds of Native people and their supporters held a flash mob round dance with hand drum singing, at the Mall of America, again as a part of the Idle No More protest movement. This quickly emerging wave of Native activism on environmental and human rights issues has spread like a wildfire across the continent.
“Idle No More” is Canadian for “that’s enough BS, we’re coming out to stop you,” or something like that. Spence is the leader of Attawapiskat First Nation, a very remote Cree community from James Bay, Ontario. The community’s on reserve 1,549 residents ( a third of whom are under l9) have weathered quite a bit, the fur trade, residential schools, a status as non-treaty Indians, and limited access to modern conveniences- like a toilet, or maybe electricity. This is a bit common place in the north, but it has become exacerbated in the past five years, with the advent of a huge diamond mine.