BBC Radio 4 interview with one of the founders of the Canadian "Idle No More" movement, Jessica Gordon (above right on photo):
“In a gentle way you can shake the world”-- Mahatma Gandhi
Below is an excerpt from an article by Febna Caven on the Cultural Survival website:
"On
December 11, 2012, northern Ontario Attawapiskat Chief Theresa Spence
began a hunger strike, calling the Prime Minister of Canada Stephen
Harper and the Governor General David Johnston to “initiate immediate discussions and the development of action plans to address treaty issues with First Nations across Canada.”
Her peaceful resistance emphasizing the pertinence of dialogue
catapulted the IdleNoMore (INM) movement to a new level of urgency.
The movement that began as a resistance against the impending Bill C-45
in Saskatchewan, Canada soon spilled over the boundaries to United
States and spread as far as Ukraine and New Zealand as a movement that
empowers Indigenous communities to stand up for their lands, rights,
cultures, and sovereignty. With vision of a people united for nature, a
focus on dialogue and a strong feminine leadership, the movement is a
potent counter narrative to the metanarrative of hyper-masculinity of
our times.
Ours is a world of hierarchized dualisms. Where spaces
for man-woman, culture-nature, the mainstream and the subaltern are all
marked out and dominance is ascribed to one over other. Seen as
structures that range from patriarchy to capitalism; as “isms” that
range from Fordism to ageism; as exhortation for reason, competition and
efficiency, the masculine paradigm reigns predominant in our society
today. It weaves an interdependent web of oppression involving class,
gender, race and nature. A dissent to that web of oppression, to be
effective, should also be an interdependent web that weaves strands of
values, histories and communities together. The Idle No More Movement,
which today is spreading across the world, is a potent example of the
feminine appropriating its rightful place. Not only because of the fact
that it was a group of women who birthed the movement. But also because
of how the movement has evolved and what values have been upheld
throughout its course."
