June 24 has been declared a day of action for Indigenous resistance, for Indigenous sovereignty and to defend the land. we at SOAR echo the calls against policies of assimilation, against the criminalization of land protectors, against policies of dispossession, against the exploitative resource extraction industry which destroys Indigenous communities. we echo the call to confront the invasion, to end the occupations, and to resist.
We call on all settlers to recognize that the colonization of Indigenous lands—of Indigenous nations—continues today. Colonialism is an ongoing process and so are the genocides on which the so-called americas were founded.
We call on all settlers to recognize the myriad ways in which they are complicit in the destruction of Indigenous lands and communities. complicity comes from state collaboration with mining and forestry corporations, through over-policing and over-incarceration, through the Children’s Aid Services, through Indian Act bureaucracy, through the imposition of borders, of neoliberalism, christianity and capitalism. complicity comes from empty apologies for a century of kidnap, torture, and indoctrination—for the unforgiveable residential school system.
We call on all settlers to confront the governments and police forces whose legitimacy is allegedly rooted in our consent, thus making us complicit in their crimes. we take responsibility. police forces and government bureaucracies are part of our system, they come out of our communities—and that is where we must confront them.
We call on all settlers to dismantle the systems of colonialism and the state that enforces them.
We call on all settlers to support the struggles of Indigenous communities to protect the land, to support struggles for sovereignty. in solidarity on the land and in Indigenous communities we must take direction from the frontline communities most affected by the exploitative destruction of colonialism. when we are in our own communities, confronting our own systems, solidarity means attack.
This is all native land.
On June 24, the Indigenous day of action, we respect the calls to limit our tactics to so-called non-violent actions. we respect the tone set by frontline communities for this day, and we hope that these communities also see the value in settlers confronting the colonial system with more militant tactics on other days—we know that many individuals do.
Defend the land!
Sovereignty for Indigenous nations!
Smash the state!
We are anti-colonial.
--SOAR
sovereignty is a very real, very legal term. it is not necessarily inherent in most indigenous People's societies.
sovereignty means absolute power invested in a single person.
this has been forced on many indigenous Poeples over the era of conquest. it's much easier to control one person than it is to try to influence an entire population.
what i think most people - including indigenous Peoples - want in their lives is autonomy. the ability to direct one's own life. along with the unrestrained interaction of fellow autonomous people.
this may seem like nit-picking, but here in the u.s., indigenous Peoples have been forced to form tribal governments, which were not the way their societies were previously organized. some of these tribal governments have done horrible things to their People, at the behest of some corporate or government entity.
soveriegnty is a very real, legal term. courts decide what it means. do you trust courts?
see this article, by a Native American law professor:
Native American Sovereignty: Now You See It, Now You Don't.
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