Attawapiskat: What is to be done?
Dec. 9th, 2011 07:11 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sabotabbyLots of comments to my last entry to the effect of, "Okay, so what do we do?"
There's some obvious ones, like donating to the Red Cross, and some fun ones, like sending Harper to Mars. (Which might not help the people of Attawapiskat, but it certainly can't hurt.)
I feel that we are creative people, though. If Kalle Lasn can make an offhand suggestion in Adbusters and have it blossom into OWS, you'd think the great minds of the intertubes can help out here.
(Actually, one of my critiques of OWS is that it mostly dropped the ball on indigenous rights issues. The situation in Attawapiskat was well known before the Canadian Occupy camps were raided; here is this big group of people that could have been occupying government offices demanding that they do something. Instead they had drum circles. Anyway.)
Whenever there's a disaster in another part of the world, I see the internet doing stuff. Fandom raises money for earthquake and tsunami relief. Anonymous hacks the bad guys. The word gets spread around FB and LJ and Twitter with those little repost buttons.
This isn't any different. This is a humanitarian catastrophe and our government is making it worse. Let's put our heads together and come up with a way to do something.
Open thread: List your ideas, no matter how ridiculous. Maybe one will catch on.
There's some obvious ones, like donating to the Red Cross, and some fun ones, like sending Harper to Mars. (Which might not help the people of Attawapiskat, but it certainly can't hurt.)
I feel that we are creative people, though. If Kalle Lasn can make an offhand suggestion in Adbusters and have it blossom into OWS, you'd think the great minds of the intertubes can help out here.
(Actually, one of my critiques of OWS is that it mostly dropped the ball on indigenous rights issues. The situation in Attawapiskat was well known before the Canadian Occupy camps were raided; here is this big group of people that could have been occupying government offices demanding that they do something. Instead they had drum circles. Anyway.)
Whenever there's a disaster in another part of the world, I see the internet doing stuff. Fandom raises money for earthquake and tsunami relief. Anonymous hacks the bad guys. The word gets spread around FB and LJ and Twitter with those little repost buttons.
This isn't any different. This is a humanitarian catastrophe and our government is making it worse. Let's put our heads together and come up with a way to do something.
Open thread: List your ideas, no matter how ridiculous. Maybe one will catch on.
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no subject
Date: 2011-12-09 12:44 pm (UTC)I see that the Canandian Red Cross is taking donations. I hope people are able to direct them to the Attawapiskat.
no subject
Date: 2011-12-09 02:58 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-12-09 03:24 pm (UTC)Yet again - Natives get the shaft, and they don't count in our modern mediascape.
no subject
Date: 2011-12-11 06:14 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-12-09 08:34 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-12-11 06:19 am (UTC)Nathan Cullen's huge riding includes a lot of First Nations (notably the Gitxsan which is currently wrangling over the pipeline). He seems to know his constituent nations very well. I don't know that he'd win the leadership but he's very charismatic and he knows his issues - a strong combination that actually allows him to be very convincing. If Cullen and Saganash are prominent members of an NDP cabinet, the whole country's relationship with FN would be considerably different.
no subject
Date: 2011-12-12 03:52 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-12-12 04:08 pm (UTC)Cullen can of course only speak from the people he represents and interacts with, and not personal lived experience. But what he knows at this point is impressive. Considering his massive riding appears to contain more distinct FN language groups than any other in Canada, it comes with the territory.
no subject
Date: 2011-12-10 03:36 am (UTC)So it is neat to think about what individuals can do. But does it really boil down to treating our fellow citizens as charity cases? The problem is not just in Attawapiskat, they are just the example tugging at our heartstrings this year. I wish there were something that could be done about the governance structures for reserves and First Nations.
no subject
Date: 2011-12-10 07:31 am (UTC)Think of Jabbar Gibson. Just one 18-year-old petty thief with a school bus managed to mount a more efficient rescue mission during Hurricane Katrina than FEMA. He was both an inspiring hero who saved a bunch of lives, and an embarrassment for the government that mismanaged the situation so egregiously.
Charity handouts in and of themselves are useless because they give the feds an excuse to shirk their duty. But an organized campaign to help, with a clear political bent, might actually do something.
no subject
Date: 2011-12-13 09:33 am (UTC)I don't have any really gloriously original ideas. I feel like "talk to Charlie Angus, and to the people of Attawapiskat if possible" is the way to go, for sure at first.
no subject
Date: 2011-12-15 01:36 pm (UTC)