February 26, 2020
I don’t know how to resolve the Wet’suwet’en crisis, and neither do you
I keep thinking of something Christi_Belcourt tweeted about how impossible big corporations and government make it to resist plans they have every intention of rolling through, which we ought to keep in mind when considering the other First Nations who’ve signed on to the pipeline plan that Hereditary Chiefs of Wet’suwet’en are currently fighting in northern BC. It’s interesting to be reading Karen McBride’s novel Crow Winter as all this is unfolding, the story of a young woman who returms home to Spirit Bear First Nation in Northern Quebec and, with the help of her ancestors and the trickster Nanabush, must stop the development of a mining project on her family’s land. History is not just in the past, but it’s still happening all around us. I vote that every settler with an opinion on what’s happening in Wet’suwet’en just shut up and sit down, and read a novel instead.
I’m a descendant of generations of settlers and well aware that my good fortune springs in part from the misfortune and mistreatment of First Nations cultures and populations.
I support whatever First Nations do to protect the environment. Whether or not that’s the real purpose of what they’re doing — some would argue that it isn’t, and I don’t really know what’s true and what’s pure prejudice and racism and self-interest, and god knows there’s too much of THAT shit in “settler” society — the more people who fight for a healthy environment, the better. I’m with THEM.
-Kate
For sure. Thank you, Kate.