by Caretaker, Aug 4, 2015

So here’s the thing – we humans are different throughout the world. Our point of view in life, our culture, our political ideology, our religion, our governance structure, our interaction with other human beings, our understanding of life, our treatment of the planet & people, our way of living is all based on personal experiences of being alive. Everyone’s life is based on context. There’s no denying that. But here’s the tough shit that some people do deny; staying alive.

Just because you may not experience first hand the atrocities that resource extraction brings to a region where the earth and the people suffer, it does not mean that you are not suffering. You are but to a certain extent – but definitely not the same way as those that do. What you have in common with those people, even though you do not understand their suffering fully, is the need to live a healthy and happy life. So when “they” have had enough of abuse, murder, blackmail, the effects that camp life bring, abductions, rapes, and poisoned water, especially when they are facing multi-million or billion dollar foreign companies, who hire ex-military personal as security, a corrupt government, or are occupied illegally by a foreign government, then they have very limited options to succeed in achieving their goal of living a good life.

Now let us say that you are someone living in the suburbs of a metropolitan city, are fairly well off in terms of wealth, health,

freedom, food, and security. Your way of life benefits off of someone’s suffering in order to live that way. But you do not know that – at least not yet. But once you do realize it, and you decide to do something about it because it’s the right thing to do, then suddenly you are slowly becoming exposed to what “they” are experiencing – to an extent. And suddenly the resource extraction, which ultimately is about wealth and power, is affecting your life – poisoned water, famine, drought, social issues, and intimidation from companies, “security companies”, and the government through police & military upholding laws that protect companies.

So when the options which may have worked before such as petitions, marches, and writing a letter start to slow down their success rate, do you still continue doing them? Even after the success rate is 0% or extremely low? Or do you look at other options?

That is the diversity of tactics.

You do what you can in a peaceful manner to make life easier for everyone. But once the peaceful way of doing things suddenly don’t work, you have to assess your context of living and do something to help your situation and others’.

An indigenous land defender from the Gitimt’en Clan has described the life of a Warrior; “you expend all peaceful avenues first, and when all those fail it’s war”.

So think a little bit more. Do marches, rallies, petitions, and writing letters stop workers from completing a project especially when they are working before the official approval from governments, boards, and traditional indigenous governance?

And do not be fooled by the mainstream media when they say that “first nations” approve resource extraction projects because they are only referring to band councils (an entity created by the Canadian government) and not the traditional indigenous governance structures.