Saturday Morning BDS Conference Sessions

Several general educational session were offered the Saturday morning of the conference; Apartheid 101, Lessons from South Africa, Popular Resistance to Israeli Apartheid, Israeli Apartheid as a Feminist Issue, Exploring Canada's Ties to Israeli Apartheid, Jewish Support for BDS, Indigenous Solidarity, Access to Healthcare Under Israeli Apartheid, and Land and Environment under Israeli Apartheid.

Indigenous Solidarity

“The burden of decolonization should not rest on indigenous people.” Harsha Walia

I was drawn to the Indigenous Solidarity session because I can see similarities between the Israeli colonization of the Palestinian people, and the European colonization of the indigenous people of Turtle Island – and because Judy Da Silva was one of the speakers. Judy is an elder from the Anishnabe nation and lives in Grassy Narrows, Ontario – a community that invited CPT to accompany them when they began their blockade of logging roads in 2002 to prevent Abitibi from clear-cutting their traditional lands.

Clifton Arihwakehte Nicholas is a Kanienkahak (Mohawk) and was the first speaker in this session. He reminded attendees that they didn't need to go to other countries to see apartheid – it exists in our own backyard in Canada. The cultural, social and linguistic depravation of the First Nations, a deliberate strategy of European colonization, has resulted in the 3^rd world conditions on reserves. There are different levels of effects of colonization across Canada because of different points of contact with European colonizers (i.e. it is more recent in western and northern Canada). Clifton shared how comfortable he feels around his Palestinian friends because they understand his struggle and he understands theirs. Clifton encouraged organizations interested in indigenous solidarity to work on getting Canada to ratify the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

Harsha Walia is a South Asian activist, writer and researcher based in Vancouver who has been involved in the migrant justice movement. She warned us to avoid simplifications when working on both indigenous solidarity and the BDS campaign as 500 years of colonization is very different than the relatively recent Israeli occupation of Palestine. According to Harsha, all organizing should have indigenous solidarity at it's core because all the issues, to a higher percentage of the population, affect indigenous people. However the indigenous struggle cannot be absorbed into any other kind of struggle. Racism of indigenous people is nothing like racism of other people of colour. Our solidarity with the indigenous struggle must not come from a place of guilt but a place of responsibility.

Judy Da Silva said that only about 50 of 700 people from Grassy Narrows are active in organizing against the colonization of their lands. Her people carry a lot of fear and this affects what some of them are willing to do – especially when they experience discrimination on a daily basis from the Canadian government, companies wanting access to their land, and neighbouring white communities. The indigenous population across Canada is increasing at a rate 3% higher than the rest of Canada – and she feels that's why First Nations women are being targeted for attacks, rapes and murders – as they are the life-givers and mothers of the nations. She encouraged people and organizations standing in solidarity with Grassy Narrows to think about where the paper that they use come from and where the paper for books that they read/promote come from.

Jewish Support for BDS

“The red line in the discourse around Israel has changed from 10-15 years ago for Jews – now we can criticize Israel – the new line is BDS.” Sydney Levy

Sydney Levy has been with Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) since 2000, currently working on a campaign to encourage TIAA-CREF (retirement investment planning company) to divest from companies that profit from the Israeli occupation. Sydney spoke about the importance of Jewish organizations joining the BDS campaign to help address the backlash against the campaign. The arguments are that BDS is anti-Semitic and divisive. The JVP provides Jewish answers to these arguments - to backlashes that the JVP receives and to backlashes against other non-Jewish organizations working on the BDS campaign. Israeli authorities have said that the BDS campaign is a threat to the state and there are efforts to have a Jewish counter response for any BDS campaign event within 12 hours. This article in the Tuesday edition of the Montreal Gazette is perhaps an example of such a response to the recent conference, and is full of the standard counter arguments against the BDS campaign.

These two sessions for me emphasized the strong purpose of the conference – to build solidarity both between different groups which are working on the BDS campaign – and also between other organizations who are mainly working on other issues, but who support the BDS call.