KW Indigenous Solidarity Action Group
MISSION AND GOALS
The mission of KWISAG is to foster on campus and in the Kitchener-Waterloo Community, a deeper understanding of colonialism, historically and as a contemporary reality structuring the relations between settlers and indigenous peoples of Turtle Island. The group focuses on education, including reading and discussion meetings for action group members to develop an analysis of colonialism in Canada, as well facilitating public workshops aimed at introducing participants to ideas such as treaty rights, colonialism, histories of genocide, and being a settler. Some themes for exploration in internal discussions and analysis-building include:
- What does a meaningful settler solidarity look like?
- What does the concept of decolonization mean in the context of Canada/Turtle Island? Land? Relationships?
- What are the strengths and weaknesses of a politics of ‘taking leadership’ compared to a politics of ‘affinity-based’ organizing?
- What would taking responsibility look like, specifically within the framework of the Two-Row Wampum?
- What are the different challenges and dynamics between doing solidarity work with rural First Nations communities (land struggles) and urban Indigenous communities (no distinct landbase)?
Underlying these education efforts is a commitment to encouraging and developing an anti-oppressive and anti-racist framework for taking action on issues of Indigenous rights, Indigenous-led land defense struggles, and decolonizing relationships.
LONG TERM GOALS
-To help settler activists develop skills and analysis with which to conduct effective, anti-oppressive, and meaningful anti-colonial and solidarity activism.
-To intervene in public discourse on campus and in KW more broadly to promote an anti-colonial and ant-racist messaging and position.
- To build relationships between KWISAG and other community organizations, and to plug KWISAG members into a network of Indigenous solidarity organizing on campus, in KW and regionally.
-To take action on and support Indigenous struggles for self-determination, land defense and decolonization.