It stops here: Canada to Skye

Zipped to Skye on Saturday for this event. We gathered in a sunny windblown Talla Bhreacais to hear Rueben George of the Tsleil-Waututh Nation speak of their collective fight to oppose the Trans Mountain Pipeline extension - indigenous communities against massive corporations who continue to colonise and extract (in many cases without the proper permissions, ecological assessments etc) from land unceded to Canada.

The links to Scotland? Communities here continue to fight for the right to own, use and have a meaningful say in the face of the most concentrated private land ownership in Europe too (which in itself was a product of colonisation).

And, let's not forget that many of the so-called 'founding fathers' of what became Canada came from the Highlands and Islands - and the chain of events leads us to today, to indigenous communities continuing to fight for their right to exist.

(Also, the hereditary chief surname of George was put on Rueben's grandad in residential 'school', the boarding system which forcibly removed indigenous children from their families for generations, found to be cultural genocide in 2015. The Indian Residential School system was established under Glasgow-born John A Macdonald, first prime minister of so-called Canada, whose mother and whose wife both came from Dalnavert, just south of Aviemore.)

"Sing your songs and the rest will come."

A huge thank you to Atlas Arts, Sabhal Mòr Ostaig & University of St Andrews for organising, and of course to Michael Simpson and Reuben George. I look forward to reading the book!

And I highly recommend watching Yintah (on Netflix at the moment), about the Wet'suwet'en lands of Unist'ot'en - also unceded to Canada - on which several new pipelines are meant to be built, despite the Wet'suwet'en Nation not giving permission. And the Canadian government arrests them and sends in the pipeline companies anyway. It gives a very good observational picture of the daily struggles against colonial violence.
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#landback #tsleilwaututh #tsleilwaututhnation #squamish #salish #yintah #wetsuweten #wetsuwetenstrong #unistoten #canada #indigenous #firstnations #isleofskye #scotland #johnamacdonald #colonialism #empire