Recently, the Hereditary Chiefs of the Gitanyow village on Gitxsan territory burned a copy of a Mutual Benefits Agreement they’d signed with the Prince Rupert Gas Transmission (PRGT) Pipeline 10 years ago. They also set up a blockade at one of the access points on Gitanyow territory to not allow any PRGT construction crews in.
Simogyet Watakhayetsxw of the Lax Ganeda, or the Raven Frog clan, said: “The BC government, the federal government, defending PRGT. I am putting you on alert. There will be no trucks on my territory. And I will defend the territory as best I can.” She further notes: “For those people that are defending the Gitanyow, the Gitxsan and the Wet’suwet’en, I invite you to stand on the lines with the Gitanyow. Come and stand with my Wilp [house groups of the clans].”
The “Victoria” Anarchist Reading Circle stands in full solidarity with the Gitxsan people and their defense of their land.
The Gitxsan people have stood with their Wet’suwet’en siblings in joint struggle against a similar oil project — the Coastal Gaslink Pipeline. To sharpen our anarchist understandings of what being a̶l̶l̶i̶e̶s accomplices to Indigenous sovereignty looks like, we have decided to read Jeff Corntassel’s Life Beyond the State: Regenerating Indigenous International Relations and Everyday Challenges to Settler Colonialism (2021), a publication out of the local University of “Victoria’s” Anarchist Developments in Cultural Studies (ADCS) journal.
Corntassel, going back to 2005, has been part of articulating a theory of decolonization called Indigenous Resurgence, whose resonance with anarchism lies in turning away from the state as a site to conquer or to emulate. Rather, Corntassel, in this piece and others, has argued for an understanding of decolonization that begins from place-based land oriented relationships, where, one warrior at a time, the values, practices and ways of relating are generated that renew Indigenous ways of making decisions, honouring relationships and enacting self-determination. Life Beyond the State in particular also emphasizes Indigenous understandings of internationalism as a critical aspect of decolonization.
“We’ve seen this relationship between Indigenous warriors and anarchists that has been developing over the years, and I think that combining those two groups particularly is a really powerful move against the State, it’s a real threat when we act together, and so I just want to encourage people to act on that, because we’re on the right track, we’re winning this fight, and we just have to push harder and keep going, and push the envelope even further than we already have.” – Molly Wickham
The reading Life Beyond the State is available on the ADCS website, the Anarchist Library, or as an imposed zine.
As always, we meet at Camas Books and Infoshop, 2620 Quadra Street, on unceded Lekwungen Territory at 6:30pm on Sunday September 15th.
For August 4th, our reading group will be focusing on two pieces about fascism and authoritarianism.
Join us on June 23rd to again discuss two readings, another fiction and another nonfiction.
Next circle, we are reading Chapter Six, titled, “Homeland: Anarchy and Joint Struggle in Palestine/Israel” by Uri Gordon. This is the final chapter in Anarchy Alive! (2008) and it offers insights on the issues, challenges, and movements involved in solidarity and direct action struggles within occupied and contested State forms. This will be a good reading to do in preparation for the talk on the 28th.
For our next gathering, we will be discussing Come Hell or High Water: A Handbook on Collective Process Gone Awry (2009) by Richard Singer and Delfina Vannucci, published by AK Press. The authors share their insight about collective organizing experiences in this handbook. The handbook is useful for anarchist organizations, horizontal social or political groups, worker co-ops, or just for trying to incorporate egalitarian processes where they don’t already exist.
We were so inspired by reading Andrew Cornell’s history of the Movement for a New Society that we decided to explore the conversations associated with the movement. Please read the following reflective sections regarding MNS theory and praxis for the next gathering. You can find the reading here: