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The Editors
Derek Seidman and M. Junaid Alam

Not All Blockades Are Bad: A Palestinian on Canadian Indigenous Resistance

- by Tania Tabar

Through the resistance of the first Palestinian initfada (uprising) in 1987, a symbol emerged that represented the asymmetrical balance of power and the grassroots movement against the ongoing Israeli occupation. Just as the young Palestinian in front of a tank with a rock in his hand became a symbol of resistance and self-determination among indigenous communities, the people of Grassy Narrows have inspired a similar momentum.

Thousands of kilometres away, in Kenora in Northern Ontario, the people of Asubpeeschoseewagong (Grassy Narrows First Nation), youth, adults and elders, stood up against the colonization of their lands. Young children, who did not know if the logging trucks were going to even stop, laid down as part of a blockade to prevent a commercial giant from cutting down their forests.

Eight hundred people live in Grassy Narrows. The Anishnabek (Ojibway) of the land have been through expulsion over interests in gold from the Canadian government. Mercury contamination continues to affect the community since 1960s-early 70's when a pulp mill dumped 50 tonnes of inorganic mercury in a nearby river. As a result, the fish became extinct and the level of mercury remains over 80% in the people of the community. The elders are dying off as Grassy Narrows currently has a cancer rate of one on eight people. In the 1990s, Hydro Quebec built a dam that flooded and ended up destroying 90% of their wild rice harvest. Ten years later, the clear-cutting of the Whiskey Jack Forest in Grassy Narrows began.

The Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources (OMNR), in violation on Treaty 3 (a treaty between the Anishnabek and the Canadian state in 1873 outlining that the Anishnabek would share their land with the state as long as their rights, such as, hunting and fishing, would not be hampered), granted permission for the multinational pulp and paper corporation, Abitibi Consolidated, to begin logging in Grassy Narrows. The "Whiskey Jack Forest Management Plan," a 20-year plan guaranteed Abitibi's the right to harvest the Whiskey Jack Forest from April 2004 to April 2024.

On December 3rd 2002 the community members set up the blockade in response to the clear-cutting taking place. Three years later the blockade remains. A 'Grassy Narrows Caravan' recently finished off a speaking tour in Montreal reflecting on their participation in the blockade. Among the speakers was one of the youth from Grassy Narrows, Warren Ashopenace.

"There are so many spirits in the forest," says Ashopenace. For a people who rely on the land and value every plant, tree and forest, bulldozing swaths of ancient Boreal forest is destructive but also painful. "We believe everything is alive and they have a spirit. When you cut down a tree you notice its bleeding sap that is actually its blood. You may not hear them crying but they are."

Carl Chaboyer is from the bear clan. His father is Anishnabek from a group of people that was moved to facilitate the flooding when Hydro Quebec built the dam; a community that does not exist anymore. He grew up in Ottawa and eventually found his way to Grassy Narrows where he has been a supporter and a participant in the blockade.

"When people ask, what do you want?" he says, "I think it's a racist question. Because (the Anishnanek of Grassy Narrows) only want the same things as every other person on the planet. They want to exist. They don't want to be sniffed out of existence. It's so simple that most people can't understand it."

When Ashlee Loon met with John Weaver, the CEO of Abitibi, she told him to stop trying to buy them off. "We didn't want money; we just want the clear cutting to stop." The clear-cutting and the destruction of land in Grassy Narrows threaten the traditional culture of the Anishnabek. The elders continue to hunt, trap and fish, as they always have, but the contaminants in the soil and the exposure of the soil from the clear cutting, threatens a part of the culture the youth are supposed to be taught; survival off the land.

The exposure of the soil to the sun causes bacteria living in the soil to multiply and eventually metabolize naturally occurring mercury into highly toxic methyl mercury.

Thus, poisoning the fruit of the land, and preventing the Anishnabek from participating in survival skills such as harvesting from blueberries and collecting traditional medicines. Chaboyer says this is only one of the many possible effects of clear-cutting. "We don't know with any kind of certainty that there aren't a hundred other effects that are going to haunt us for generations as a result of clear cutting. We have to stop now just on the bases of prudence," he says.

Ashopenace recalls the first day of the blockade when Joe Fobister, a Grassy Narrows resident, went to their school and asked the students if they wanted to create a blockade. When the blockade started it was only supposed to be a one day action. They turned around two logging trucks that day. After spending over 15 hours on the road in the freezing temperature of minus thirty-five, the youth turned to the elders and suggested that the blockade remain permanent. "You don't accomplish anything with a teaser blockade," says Ashopenace. It has been three years and the resistance to the logging continues. The blockade remains, not as unturned cars or sandbags, as another panelist, Kahehti:io Diabo from Kanawake expected it to be. Rather, the longest blockade to this date, when Diabo visited "was just a stick across the road with a sign hanging down."

The blockade was a last action resort for the community as everything that the people had done prior had failed. Residents filed lawsuits against the OMNR stating that Abitibi's actions infringed on their rights to hunt and trap, they wrote letters to OMNR, the provincial and federal government, Indian affairs and Abitibi. Ashlee Loon, one of the youth from Grassy Narrows who has been involved in the blockade since day one, was part of the delegation that sent and also personally delivered these letters. "It seems like our letters get lost in the mail," she says.

Abitibi, OMNR, and the Canadian government do not seem to understand that they are asking the Anishnabek to negotiate not only their land, but their existence. Meetings were held between Abitibi and community members, negotiations discussed, and jobs from Abitibi were offered. Although Abitibi, OMNR, and Indian and Northern Affairs, perceive these offers as generous, it is a wonder that they are 'offering' what is, in actuality, supposed to be Indian lands.

Three years has passed since the community set up the blockade. Ashopenace is part of the delegation planning a trip to the United Nations. With a group of youth, elders and people in the community, they will take a bus to New York and give a presentation of how the clear-cutting is not only affecting the Anishnabek, but also the people of Kenora. The determination continues as he states, "We are prepared for the next battles, turning more logging trucks back, and setting up more blockades in other road routes."

Abitibi's Whiskey Jack plan has not been reversed but the people of Grassy Narrows have created a situation for Abitibi and for the Canadian government that no longer allows them to walk into native lands and anticipate silence. The blockade has forced Abitibi to step into negotiations and more importantly has inspired other native communities to wake up. There is no logging happening at the moment in Grassy Narrows. Neecha Dupurb is a blockade supporter from the Ojibway Nation of Saugeen and one of the four women from the Sleeping Giant, whose role, she explains, is to inspire other communities to stand up for their self-determination. One can say that struggles such as Grassy Narrows and the intifada in Palestine also symbolize a Sleeping Giant, as Dupurb says, "sent to awake the nations."

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Tania Tabar, 20, is a student and writer who works with Solidarity for Palestinian Human Rights (SPHR) at Concordia University. A Palestinian born in exile and currently living in Montreal, she will be in Toronto, Montreal or Nazareth this summer. She can be reached at tania@resist.ca. -30-