KANAKA MAOLI AND MĀORI SOLIDARITY IN PROTECTING SACRED LAND

Posted on August 31, 2019 by Norwich Radical in Inter|national and tagged activism, colonialism, demonstration, environmentalism, Hawai'i, indigenous rights, indigenous solidarity, land defenders, land rights, Maori, Maunakea, New Zealand, protest, sacred land, sacred sites.

by Lotty Clare

Towering out of the ocean at 13,796ft, Maunakea is the tallest point in Hawai’i, and one of the most culturally and spiritually important sites in the archipelago. It is considered to be the piko (umbilical cord) of Hawai’i. It is also seen as kūpuna (ancestors/elders), and is the home of deities as well as the site of various shrines and burial grounds. Furthermore, the mountain is also an important habitat for several endemic species of animals. If you were to have driven down the road to the summit on the 15th July, you would have been stopped by a line of kūpuna blocking the road with their bodies. They were protecting this sacred site from the construction of a 30 meter telescope (TMT) which was given the OK by Hawai’i governor David Ige. Since then, this group has gained traction, and crowds have grown from a few hundred, to thousands. If you were to go there today, you would find a large camp on the site, with tents, cultural ceremonies taking place, traditional food being prepared, and a community run day care and school.

AN EVENING WITH HUGO BLANCO: SOLIDARITY AT A TIME OF CLIMATE EMERGENCY

Posted on March 12, 2019 by Norwich Radical in Inter|national and tagged climate change, climate justice, collective action, environment, Extinction Rebellion, featured, Hugo Blanco, indigenous rights, land rights, non-violent action, peasant movements, Perù, rebellion, revolution, social movements, solidarity, South America, struggle, Zapatistas.

by Cristina Flores

Hugo Blanco – famously described by Latin American literary giant Eduardo Galeano as a man who was born twice. His first birth was in 1934, and he spent his early years living as a white boy in Cusco, a city where indigenous people were not allowed to walk on the pavement. Unphased by his skin colour, Hugo would play in the streets with his friends, speaking the local language of Quechua. Hugo Blanco’s second birth was at the age of ten. Upon hearing of a local landowner branding the skin of one of the peasants with his initials, Hugo Blanco, the ardent revolutionary was born. Such early consciousness of social injustice still fuels the man today, as I found out on the 27th February when I was lucky enough to attend an evening with Hugo, as part of the promotion of Derek Wall’s latest book, “Hugo Blanco – a revolutionary for life.” As a social activist myself, I was intrigued by what lessons could be learnt from a 20th century revolutionary legend.

GENOCIDE AND INTERNATIONAL INTERVENTION: TOO LITTLE, TOO LATE

Posted on January 20, 2019 by Norwich Radical in Inter|national, Perspectives and tagged Aung San Suu Kyi, Bolsonaro, Brazil, deportaiton, EU, featured, genocide, human rights, ICC, indigenous rights, international intervenion, Inter|national, mass atrocities, Myanmar, refugees, Rohingya, trade sanctions, U.S..

by Yali Banton-Heath

The Rohingya crisis has saturated global media over the past two years, but since it was placed under the spotlight in 2016 I can’t help but think the international response it has initiated has been too little, and too late. All over the world we see grave injustices occurring and human rights abuses on mass scales. It only seems as though an international response is warranted, however, when these injustices reach some sort of pinnacle; often manifesting as the deaths of many thousands. We should be able to see the warning signs by now, and 2019 should be a year of working towards prevention, rather than mastering the art of tidying up the mess.

VENEZUELA: FROM INSPIRATION TO DESPOTISM

Posted on July 17, 2017 by Norwich Radical in Inter|national and tagged Amnesty International, anticapitalism, bolivia, Brazil, capitalism, Castro, Chávez, colonialism, corruption, cuba, Daniel Ortega, democracy, despotism, Ecuador, environment, Evo Morales, fraud, growth, Hugo Chavez, Human Rights Watch, IMF, indigenous rights, Jose Mujica, Latin America, legacy, literacy, Luiz Inacio Lula Da Silva, Maduro, Monica Spear, neoliberalism, Nicaragua, Nicolas Maduro, Ollanta Humala, Perù, Pink Tide, protest, Rafael Correa, Regime, revolution, Simon Bolivar, socialism, The Mother of All Protests, tyranny, Uruguay, Venezuela, violence, World Bank.

by Chris Jarvis

CW: torture, rape, political violence

Less than a decade ago, left-wingers across the globe turned towards Latin America as something of a road map towards a more progressive and socialist politics. Many a left tradition could be identified in the range of regimes, leaders and parties that had come to power throughout the region. Evo Morales in Bolivia, Luiz Inacio Lula Da Silva in Brazil, Rafael Correa in Ecuador, Ollanta Humala in Perù, Jose Mujica in Uruguay, Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua, the ever present Castros in Cuba, and Hugo Chávez in Venezuela. The “Pink Tide”, as this phenomena became loosely known, was high, and international awe developed among the left.

Breaking out of the 1990s, in which the global institutions of neoliberalism, from the IMF and the World Bank to the US state and multinational corporations drove an agenda of austerity, privatisation of services and market liberalisation, Governments of the “Pink Tide” brought promise of a better deal for the various Latin American nations which elected them. To greater or lesser degrees, these Governments sought to recentre economies away from international capital and towards the needs of people, increase spending on and provision of welfare and public services – whether through anti-hunger initiatives, healthcare programmes or education projects, and deepen democracy. Across the region, the Pink Tide brought with it decreasing levels of economic inequality, higher literacy rates, reduced poverty and greater levels of health.

In 2017, the legacy of these leftist Governments lies tarnished – and perhaps the most emblematic of this turn is Venezuela.Continue Reading

THE AMAZON

Posted on June 29, 2017 by Norwich Radical in Inter|national and tagged biodiversity, BNDES, Brazil, carbon, carbon sink, climate change, co2, deforestation, drought, environment, indigenous rights, nature, planet, rainforest, sustainability, The Amazon, World Bank.

by Gunnar Eigener

The Amazon contains just over half of the world’s remaining rainforest. Home to some 390 billion trees, one in ten living plant and animal species and annually absorbing approximately 1.5 gigaton of carbon dioxide, this rainforest is one of the last few significant land carbon sinks. The effects of climate change were demonstrated when the Amazon briefly lost its ability to absorb carbon dioxide during severe droughts in 2005 and 2010.

The Amazon has long been a poster-child for the environmental movement and its importance has never ceased, although other causes have taken some of the coverage and media interest away. The time has come to refocus on the Amazon before the damage becomes irreparable. The consequences of losing it would be globally catastrophic.Continue Reading

FIGHTING THE IRON SERPENT

Posted on October 9, 2016 by Norwich Radical in Inter|national, Perspectives and tagged #noDAPL, consent, DAPL, defend, environment, first nation, folklore, food, Illinois, indigenous people, indigenous rights, international, legend, mohawk, myth, National Guard, nature, North Dakota Access Pipeline, oil, oil industry, prophecy, protest, racism, rights, school, Sioux, solidarity, Standing Rock, tale, US, USA, water, Water Protectors.

by Teiowí:sonte Thomas Deer
Kahnawà:ke Mohawk Territory

When I was in Grade 2, I recall my teacher telling us a legend in class that I would hear many times later in my life. It was about this boy who lived long ago in a Kanien’kehá:ka village. While exploring around the river’s edge, he noticed two shiny things in the water. When he picked them up he discovered they were serpents – one gold and one silver. The serpents were barely alive and the boy returned home with them and nursed them back to health.

In time these serpents became healthy again and began to grow larger and larger. And as they grew, so did their appetites. The boy could no longer feed them enough so they began to consume the village’s food. The people of the village attempted to cast out the beasts, but by this point they had become too large to control and the serpents began to attack and consume the people of the village. Soon, the two serpents began to attack and plunder other villages. The people fled and made their way to the mountains. Pursuing the people, the two serpents smashed into mountains, poisoned the rivers, and ravished the earth.Continue Reading

indigenous rights

KANAKA MAOLI AND MĀORI SOLIDARITY IN PROTECTING SACRED LAND

GENOCIDE AND INTERNATIONAL INTERVENTION: TOO LITTLE, TOO LATE

VENEZUELA: FROM INSPIRATION TO DESPOTISM

THE AMAZON

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