By Gene McGuckin
This is the slightly edited text of a presentation to CEP BC Provincial Council in Vancouver on April 27, 2013.
The editors of New Socialist Webzine recently sent the following short description of the situation in which the Left finds itself today to a number of people we respect and asked them for their thoughts. We are glad to publish four responses, from Cindy McCallum Miller, David McNally, Leanne Simpson and Cloé Zawadzki-Turcotte. We welcome additional constructive responses from readers.
By Murray Cooke
Like the federal Liberal Party leadership race, the NDP policy convention this past weekend proved to be rather anti-climactic.
By Andrea Smith
“…Allegiance to ‘America’ or ‘Canada’ legitimizes the genocide and colonization of Native peoples upon which these nation-states are founded. By making anti-colonial struggle central to feminist politics, Native women place in question the appropriate form of governance for the world in general.” Andrea Smith, New Socialist, 2006
In the fall of 2012, four women – Sylvia McAdam, Sheelah McLean, Jessica Gordon, and Nina Wilson, began discussing the implications of the Harper government’s omnibus Bill C-45 for Indigenous rights and the environment. That discussion gave rise to an “Idle No More” Facebook page, followed by teach-ins and rallies in Saskatoon and Regina in November. A national solidarity day on December 10 was the catalyst for a movement that spread across the continent and provoked international expressions of solidarity. Chief Theresa Spence of Attawapiskat First Nation declared a hunger strike the following day, further raising the profile of the movement.
By Glen Coulthard
“…Indigenous societies have truths to teach the Western world about the establishment and preservation of relationships between peoples and the natural world that are profoundly non-imperialist.” Glen Coulthard, New Socialist, 2006.
These words, written more than half a decade ago, ring truer than ever as the Journey of Nishiyuu is nearing its Ottawa destination as part of the Idle No More movement. Since their departure from the isolated Cree community of Whapmagoostui on Hudson Bay in northern Quebec on January 16, the ranks of walkers have swelled to nearly 200.
Meanwhile, Defenders of the Land and Idle No More have issued a joint call for intensified action against the Harper government and the corporate agenda: a “Solidarity Spring” to precede a “Sovereignty Summer,” with actions on the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination on March 21, Earth Day on April 22, and through the summer. New Socialist celebrates this mobilization and the solidarity that can defeat the Harper agenda.
By Özlem Onaran
Europe is now the centre of the global crisis. It is a crisis of the capitalist system, sweeping across Europe and not limited to just one country. The crisis erupted five years ago under governments of both the traditional Left and Right as they all pursued similar neoliberal policies.
By David Finkel
“Reader, suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself,” wrote Mark Twain. That 19th century epigraph can serve to express today’s attitude of a large and growing proportion of the US public, especially over the federal budget “sequester” — across-the-board cuts that began taking effect on March 1.
Contracting-out and other forms of privatization are happening in educational institutions all over the world. Solidarity between students and workers is a crucial part of fighting such moves. In Britain, an impressive student occupation at the University of Sussex against the privatization of services on campus is still in full-swing after three weeks, even expanding, with flash occupations and disruptions of different buildings and events on campus on March 1. Students at Sussex have been inspired by Quebec’s student movement, adopting a yellow square as a symbol of their campaign. On February 28, Jeffery R. Webber sat down with Maia Pal, a leading organizer of the campaign, to discuss its origins and dynamics to date.
By Gal Kirn
At the moment that I am writing this text, the massive social uprising in Slovenia continues and enters, with even fiercer political determination, into a new stage of political maturity. What began as an isolated sparkle in late November 2012 in Maribor, the second biggest city of Slovenia, spread to other cities and weeks later culminated in an all-Slovenian uprising composed of unprecedented masses across the country.
By Xavier Lafrance and Alan Sears
The 2012 Quebec student strikes delivered one of the few victories we have seen in anti-austerity struggles in the Canadian state. The mobilization, which at its high point saw over 300 000 students on limited or unlimited strike, and demonstrations of hundreds of thousands, was a crucial highpoint that has a great deal to teach radicals. The attempted clampdown by the Charest government through Bill 78 that attempted to outlaw the movement, unleashed a new and innovative round of resistance including the casseroles night marches.
By Monique Woroniak and David Camfield
Canada has “no history of colonialism.” So said Stephen Harper in 2009. Today the Idle No More movement is shouting down this lie through actions both creative and courageous. In its place, it is telling Canadians at large what some of us have always known: that the country we live in was founded as — and continues to be — a colonial-settler state.
Can you explain what’s happening in Canada with the tar sands pipelines, what they are, and what they’re going to do?
It really starts with Canada’s rulers. They have a dream that Canada is going to become the new world oil superpower. The oil that is locked up in Canada’s tar sands is greater in quantity than all the conventional oil reserves in the world put together. The tar sands could make Canada a rival to Saudi Arabia on the world oil market.