As their land was stolen, native peoples were repressed and marginalized by the Canadian state. Their treaties, where they existed, were violated, undermining their economic and cultural life. They were forced onto reserves, ostracized, and subjected to the draconian regulations of the Indian Act. A culture of anti-native racism sunk deep roots.

The racist oppression of First Nations remains firmly embedded in government policies, for example in the proposed First Nations Governance Act. It is also expressed in the shocking overrepresentation of First Nations people in prisons. The theft of land and resources has continued unabated, led by corporations such as Abitibi, which seeks to reap great profits from the forests on First Nations land.

Despite the centrality of native oppression to Canadian capitalism, the left has largely failed to make support for aboriginal self-determination a foundation-stone of progressive politics. Too often, unions and progressive movements and parties have not risen to the occasion by allying themselves with First Nation struggles and by providing real and substantial solidarity.

The political situation in recent years gives us an historic opportunity to redress this failing, however. On the one hand, the global justice movement has championed a number of indigenous struggles, particularly those associated with the Zapatista uprisings in Chiapas in southern Mexico. This has helped to educate many newer activists, and some older ones too, in aspects of aboriginal politics. On the other hand, First Nation rebellions at home, from Oka to Grassy Narrows, have demonstrated that indigenous struggles remain absolutely central to political life here too. And as First Nations people confront state repression in one part of the Canadian state after another, it becomes increasingly clear that there cannot be any meaningful progressive politics without active support for the struggles of aboriginal peoples to determine the political arrangements in which they choose to live.

Solidarity with First Nations struggles comes in many forms. It involves support for occupations and blockades that try to prevent clear-cutting and drilling on aboriginal lands, or that seek to recover stolen lands. It entails solidarity with struggles to assert land claims – both those that rely on treaties or those, as in British Columbia, that occur in a province where the vast majority of native lands were simply stolen without any treaty process at all. It requires standing up for aboriginal campaigns to control resources – forests, fisheries, ski hills, and so on. And it involves solidarity against all forms of state repression of native militancy.

All of this means opposing colonialism at home, something the left in the Canadian state has never been terribly good at. It also requires naming the colonialism that is at the heart of state and society in Canada. And this means abandoning Canadian nationalism and its myths of Canada as a caring place by acknowledging that violence against First Nations is at the core of Canadian history. But none of this will be possible without a principled and enduring commitment to a long term process of building links and doing solidarity work with First Nation struggles and organizations.

In this issue of New Socialist, we address a variety of indigenous issues and struggles. We look at the murder of Dudley George and the prospect, after years of pressure, of a public inquiry into his death. We offer an analysis of the complex issues involved in the growth of urban reserves, and of the important struggle at Grassy Narrows. And we offer a provocative perspective on the duties of socialists with respect to aboriginal self-determination by Peter Kulchyski who teaches Native Studies at the University of Manitoba.