Sharmeen Khan

Inga Muscio. Autobiography of a Blue-Eyed Devil: My Life and Times in a Racist, Imperialist Society. Seal Press, 2005.

I read Inga Muscio’s first book Cunt: A Declaration of Independence a few years ago when I wasn’t really in the mood for a “love the cunt” diatribe. I was never one to look lovingly at my own cunt while making vagina cookies for the annual showing of the Vagina Monologues. But the reason I loved Cunt was because Muscio forced readers to closely examine the relationship between our bodies and sexuality in the context of social relations, history, patriarchy and violence. She was able to root her experiences in the relationship of capitalism to patriarchy by showing how women’s health, body image, and violence against women were based in economic and ideological forms of control and consent. Following Muscio’s research-based personal writing, I learned how to bridge lived experience to the histories of capitalism and patriarchy in my own writing and activism. I read the book while tenting with my British commie lover and, for the first time, was able to articulate the fucked up dynamics of sexism and sexuality.

Yutaka Dirks

Dan Berger. Outlaws of America: The Weather Underground and the Politics of Solidarity. AK Press, 2006

Sam Green’s 2005 Academy Award nominated documentary The Weather Underground brought the armed struggle organization of the same name to film festivals and theatres across North America. With Outlaws of America: The Weather Underground and the Politics of Solidarity, Dan Berger provides us with the first outsider history of the group since Ron Jacobs’ The Way the Wind Blew. Outlaws of America delves deeper than Fugitive Days – a disappointing personal account by Weather member Bill Ayers – and the short history released recently by David Gilbert. The Weather Underground is often romanticized by some in the radical left, but Berger does not fall into this trap. Instead, he has written an informative, critical look at the organization’s history and politics that provides the inheritors of their legacy with both inspiration and important lessons.

Berger has drawn upon over 20 interviews with leaders and rank-and-file members of the Weather Underground, as well as their contemporaries in the black radical left and other liberation organizations, to paint a picture of both the organization itself and the context in which it existed. Meticulously researched, the book is divided into three sections: “The Students for a Democratic Society and Global Revolution,” “The Weather Underground Organization and White Anti-Racism” and a final section entitled “Lessons and Legacies.”

Berger relies on political prisoner and former Weather Underground member David Gilbert to provide a narrative thread throughout the book. Gilbert and Berger have been corresponding since Berger was in high school, and in the introduction Berger recounts meeting Gilbert for the first time in Attica Correctional Facility. Berger’s prose manages to project a tone of human warmth and humility that is sadly not often present in writings about or for the radical left. Quotations from Gilbert open each chapter and highlight Berger’s engaging account of the Weather Underground’s development.

Scott Neigh

Caelie Frampton et al. Sociology for Changing the World: Social Movements/Social Research. Fernwood Press 2006

It is perhaps Marx’s most oft-quoted piece of wisdom – that while the philosophers had interpreted the world, the point was to change it. Marx’s words were never intended to give the impression, however, that we must choose between understanding the world and changing it; both are absolutely necessary. Still, one could be forgiven for looking at the passivity and servility of most of today’s “philosophers” on the one hand, and the poorly equipped, often very ad hoc, and at times quite ineffective efforts of many social movements to interpret the world on the other, and coming to the conclusion that such a division was inevitable.

Sociology for Changing the World, a collection of essays edited by Caelie Frampton, Gary Kinsman, AK Thompson, and Kate Tilleczek, is a stirring call for us to pay heed to Marx’s original intent: to develop the analytical tools that social movements need in order to understand, and thereby overcome, the challenges we face. The book begins by outlining the basics of an alternative sociology known as institutional ethnography and goes on to describe and further develop a subset thereof called political activist ethnography, an approach that applies the insights of institutional ethnography to moments of confrontation between social movements and the institutions that rule us.

This roundtable was conducted in September 2006 with AJ Withers, Josh Zucker and Stefanie Gude of the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty

What led you to get involved in supporting indigenous struggles in general, and the Six Nations struggle in particular?

AJ: The Ontario Coalition Against Poverty (OCAP) is a social justice organization and, as such, we support indigenous struggles. I hadn’t heard of what was going on outside of Caledonia until some friends of mine in Tyendinaga told us about it and suggested we go. We went to check it out and see if there was anything we could do to support it. We didn’t know anyone and were quite shy so we sat silently by the fire a lot and hoped people would speak to us. Finally, we learned about things we could supply, and asked if there were things in Toronto we could do to show our support.

Josh: I got involved with indigenous struggles through working with OCAP. When I joined OCAP in 2001 there were 5 paid organizers, one of whom was Shawn Brant, a Mohawk from Tyendinaga Mohawk Territory which is near Belleville on the Bay of Quinte in southern Ontario. Most members of OCAP, I would say, started learning more about native issues and sovereignty through the links Shawn brought to OCAP, which went back to before 2001.

There were a number of actions over the years that built this connection, the most notable of which was the attempt to open up the bridge that runs from the U.S. through the Mohawk territory of Akwasasne into Canada. This action was planned when demonstrators came from the U.S. to attend the anti-FTAA demonstrations in Quebec, and it was done in conjunction with Mohawk people. The Mohawks of the Bay of Quinte have also been providing OCAP with deer meat, fish, and other kill from their hunts for a number of years which we serve at demonstrations in Toronto. They always reminded us that “every hunting issue is a sovereignty issue.” These connections increased our consciousness about the issues grew greatly.

As a non-native Caledonia resident, how did you get involved in supporting Six Nations? Have you ever been involved before as a political activist?

No, I have never been an activist, it’s just the way I was raised. I feel that as human beings this is something that we should be doing. We shouldn’t be looking at the people from Six Nations any differently because of their race. It’s no different than helping a neighbour, helping somebody that has a flat tire; you stop on the road as a neighbourly person. It reminds me of the time when a person’s house in Caledonia blew up in a gas explosion, and we all got together to organize different events to raise money for them. We didn’t ask if they had insurance, or whose fault it was, we just immediately dropped everything to help them in any way we could. That’s the same spirit that got me started with Six Nations. I knew that they needed assistance and I just assisted as much as I could.

What did you start doing when you first got involved with the site?

Well, in March I drove by and I saw them on the land, and so I started searching on the Internet to find a phone number to call somebody at Six Nations and ask how I could help. That was really one of the biggest challenges, just trying to find a key contact person. I started emailing anyone I could find saying that I was a Caledonia resident and wanted to help the supporters that are on the site. After I was directed to contact Janie Jamison, I called her and she told me what was needed. I would go out and get some of the things and drop them off, then we would touch base again after another few days. It got to the point where sometimes I’d be heading home, and I’d just pick up a few large pizzas for them when I knew there was a large crowd, and then I would go on my way.

Can you tell us who you are and what your connection to Six Nations and the reclamation is?

My name is Degunohdohgae. I am of the Cayuga Nation, Wolf Clan, Six Nations. My colonial name is Brian Skye. My original name, Degunohdohgae, translates into English as “between villages” and that’s who I am as recognized by the Confederacy. I’m at the reclamation site because of the history that is there. As a writer of historical plays, the reasons why we are at the reclamation site as a Confederacy aren’t lost on me.

Our symbol in relation to the colonial countries was the Two Row Wampum, the two rows symbolizing the respective paths of our Confederacy and the non-native country or peoples that we were making the agreements with. The idea behind the symbolism was that we would continue on our path without interrupting their government and religion, assuming that they would show us the same respect and wouldn’t try to force their laws, religion and governments on our people. So that history is something that I’m well aware of. That is part of the history of how we came to be in this part of the country along the Grand River and it’s that history that we are affirming by exercising our rights with the reclamation on the outskirts of Caledonia.

How would you situate the reclamation in terms of the last 50-100 years of resistance to Canadian colonialism in this area? Do you have any thoughts as to why it came about when it did or why people decided to carry it out at this time?

Upping the Anti is pleased to bring you a roundtable discussing the important land reclamation being carried out by the Six Nations people of the Grand River Territory and the role of non-native solidarity work in that struggle. To begin with, Tom K. provides a brief overview of recent events surrounding the reclamation to provide some context for the discussion. Brian Skye of Six Nations, who has been heavily involved in the activities of the site, then provides his perspective on the significance of the reclamation and the place for external support. Jan Watson, a local Caledonia resident and founding member of Community Friends For Peace and Understanding with Six Nations, then talks about the work she has been involved to build support in her community for the Six Nations reclamation. Finally, we interview three longtime members of the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty – AJ Withers, Josh Zucker and Stefanie Gude – to ask for their thoughts about organizing support as non-native activists.

by Jen Plyler

In the context of everyday injustices like poverty, racism, heterosexism, colonialism and ableism, community organizing is often carried out with a strong sense of urgency. While this urgency is understandable given the intense struggle for basic survival on the part of those living on the streets, struggling with HIV/AIDS, coping with gender-based violence, facing police brutality, and/or facing deportation, it is often accompanied by a marked disregard for the question of long-term sustainability. Social justice work often takes a detrimental toll on activists; I have witnessed – within the political and community groups I’m a member of in Toronto – organizers paying for their activism with their emotional, mental, and physical health. Instead of figuring out ways to take care of ourselves and each other, social justice groups lose brilliant and committed activists to burnout, disillusionment and poor health. As a result, movements are plagued by fragmentation, lack of reflection and discussion, and ‘wheel reinventing’ that keeps them from moving their agendas forward.

by RJ Maccani

The Zapatistas, an army of indigenous Mayans and their support communities in Mexico’s southernmost state of Chiapas, have had a profound influence on people’s movements around the world. From their armed uprising on New Year’s Day in 1994 to their hasty transition less than two weeks later to an armed, but militantly non-violent, political movement, to the release of their Sixth Declaration of the Lacandon Jungle last July and the subsequent launch of the national movement known as the “Other Campaign,” the Zapatistas have continuously analyzed their experience and transformed their struggle for freedom, justice, and democracy accordingly. Recognizing that the systems that oppress them transcend Mexico’s borders, the Zapatistas have also consistently reached out in the process to join with like-minded people around the world to build a global network “for humanity and against neoliberalism.” This global network, which they sometimes refer to as the “Intergalactic,” and our relation to it in the North, is our focus here.