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"Decolonizing work begins inside of us. It is an embodied experience of asking the questions to deconstruct colonial ideologies"
--Kaitlin B. Curtice, Indigenous author and activist

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Decolonization and Solidarity with Robin Wall Kimmerer

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Decolonization and Solidarity with Robin Wall Kimmerer

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Indeed, Braiding Sweetrgrass has engaged readers from many backgrounds. “I think when indigenous people either read or listen to this book, what resonates with them is the life experience of an indigenous person. It is part of the story of American colonisation,” said Rosalyn LaPier, an ethnobotanist and enrolled member of the Blackfeet Tribe of Montana and Métis, who co-authored with Kimmerer a declaration of support from indigenous scientists for 2017’s March for Science. “Part of it is, how do you revitalise your life? How do you relearn your language? How do you recreate a new relationship with the natural world when it’s not the same as the natural world your tribal community has a longstanding relationship with? It’s a common, shared story.”

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"This is a time to take a lesson from mosses," says Robin Wall Kimmerer, celebrated writer and botanist. Her first book, published in 2003, was the natural and cultural history book Gathering Moss. She grins as if thinking of a dogged old friend or mentor. "What is it that has enabled them to persist for 350m years, through every kind of catastrophe, every climate change that's ever happened on this planet, and what might we learn from that?" She lists the lessons "of being small, of giving more than you take, of working with natural law, sticking together. All the ways that they live I just feel are really poignant teachings for us right now."

It's the end of March and, observing the new social distancing protocol, we're speaking over Zoom - Kimmerer, from her home office outside Syracuse, New York; me from shuttered South Williamsburg in Brooklyn, where the constant wail of sirens are a sobering reminder of the pandemic. The occasion is the UK publication of her second book, the remarkable, wise and potentially paradigm-shifting Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants, which has become a surprise word-of-mouth sensation, selling nearly 400,000 copies across North America (and nearly 500,000 worldwide). In January, the book landed on the New York Times bestseller list, seven years after its original release from the independent press Milkweed Editions - no small feat.

A mother of two daughters, and a grandmother, Kimmerer's voice is mellifluous over the video call, animated with warmth and wonderment. Her delivery is measured, lyrical, and, when necessary (and perhaps it's always necessary), impassioned and forceful. She laughs frequently and easily. Today she has her long greyish-brown hair pulled loosely back and spilling out on to her shoulders, and she wears circular, woven, patterned earrings. Behind her, on the wooden bookshelves, are birch bark baskets and sewn boxes, mukluks, and books by the environmentalist Winona LaDuke and Leslie Marmon Silko, a writer of the Native American Renaissance.

"Sitting at a computer is not my favourite thing," admits the 66-year-old native of upstate New York. Our original, pre-pandemic plan had been meeting at the Clark Reservation State Park, a spectacular mossy woodland near her home, but here we are, staying 250 miles apart. A distinguished professor in environmental biology at the State University of New York, she has shifted her courses online. It's going well, all things considered; still, not every lesson translates to the digital classroom. For one such class, on the ecology of moss, she sent her students out to locate the ancient, interconnected plants, even if it was in an urban park or a cemetery. To collect the samples, one student used the glass from a picture frame; like the mosses, we too are adapting.

Moss in the forest around the Bennachie hills, near Inverurie. Photograph: Bloomberg/Getty Images

"Most people don't really see plants or understand plants or what they give us," Kimmerer explains, "so my act of reciprocity is, having been shown plants as gifts, as intelligences other than our own, as these amazing, creative beings - good lord, they can photosynthesise, that still blows my mind! - I want to help them become visible to people.People can't understand the world as a gift unless someone shows them how it's a gift."

In her debut collection of essays, Gathering Moss, she blended, with deep attentiveness and musicality, science and personal insights to tell the overlooked story of the planet's oldest plants. For Braiding Sweetgrass, she broadened her scope with an array of object lessons braced by indigenous wisdom and culture. From cedars we can learn generosity (because of all they provide, from canoes to capes). From the creation story, which tells of Sky woman falling from the sky, we can learn about mutual aid. Sweetgrass teaches the value of sustainable harvesting, reciprocal care and ceremony. The Windigo mindset, on the other hand, is a warning against being "consumed by consumption" (a windigo is a legendary monster from Anishinaabe lore, an "Ojibwe boogeyman"). Ideas of recovery and restoration are consistent themes, from the global to the personal.

I think about grief as a measure of our love, that grief compels us to do something, to love more

In one standout section Kimmerer, an enrolled member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation, tells the story of recovering for herself the enduring Potawatomi language of her people, one internet class at a time. (It's meaningful, too, because her grandfather, Asa Wall, had been sent to the Carlisle Indian Industrial School, notorious for literally washing the non-English out of its young pupils' mouths.) The resulting book is a coherent and compelling call for what she describes as "restorative reciprocity", an appreciation of gifts and the responsibilities that come with them, and how gratitude can be medicine for our sick, capitalistic world.

In the years leading up to Gathering Moss, Kimmerer taught at universities, raised her two daughters, Larkin and Linden, and published articles in peer-reviewed journals. (A sample title from this period: "Environmental Determinants of Spatial Pattern in the Vegetation of Abandoned Lead-Zinc Mines.") Writing of the type that she publishes now was something she "was doing quietly", away from academia. But she chafed at having to produce these "boring" papers written in the "most objective" scientific language that, despite its precision, misses the point. What she really wanted was to tell stories old and new, to practice "writing as an act of reciprocity with the living land". Through soulful, accessible books, informed by both western science and indigenous teachings alike, she seeks, most essentially, to "encourage people to pay attention to plants". And she has now found those people, to a remarkable extent.

"I've never seen anything remotely like it," says Daniel Slager, publisher and CEO of the non-profit Milkweed Editions. He describes the sales of Braiding Sweetgrass as "singular", "staggering" and "profoundly gratifying". Since the book first arrived as an unsolicited manuscript in 2010, it has undergone 18 printings and appears, or will soon, in nine languages across Europe, Asia and the Middle East. Pulitzer prize-winning author Richard Powers is a fan, declaring to the New York Times: "I think of her every time I go out into the world for a walk." Robert Macfarlane told me he finds her work "grounding, calming, and quietly revolutionary".

Indeed, Braiding Sweetrgrass has engaged readers from many backgrounds. "I think when indigenous people either read or listen to this book, what resonates with them is the life experience of an indigenous person. It is part of the story of American colonisation," said Rosalyn LaPier, an ethnobotanist and enrolled member of the Blackfeet Tribe of Montana and Métis, who co-authored with Kimmerer a declaration of support from indigenous scientists for 2017's March for Science. "Part of it is, how do you revitalise your life? How do you relearn your language? How do you recreate a new relationship with the natural world when it's not the same as the natural world your tribal community has a longstanding relationship with? It's a common, shared story."

Other lessons from the book have resonated, too. Jessica Goldschmidt, a 31-year-old writer living in Los Angeles, describes how it helped her during her first week of quarantine. "I was feeling very lonely and I was repotting some plants" and realised how important it was because "the book was helping me to think of them as people. It's something I do everyday, because I'm just like: 'I don't know when I'm going to touch a person again.'"

"What's being revealed to me from readers is a really deep longing for connection with nature," Kimmerer says, referencing Edward O Wilson's notion of biophilia, our innate love for living things. "It's as if people remember in some kind of early, ancestral place within them. They're remembering what it might be like to live somewhere you felt companionship with the living world, not estrangement. Though the flip side to loving the world so much," she points out, citing the influential conservationist Aldo Leopold, is that to have an ecological education is to "live alone in a world of wounds".

"We tend to shy away from that grief," she explains. "But I think that that's the role of art: to help us into grief, and through grief, for each other, for our values, for the living world. You know, I think about grief as a measure of our love, that grief compels us to do something, to love more." Compelling us to love nature more is central to her long-term project, and it's also the subject of her next book, though "it's definitely a work in progress". "The way I'm framing it to myself is, when somebody closes that book, the rights of nature make perfect sense to them," she says. "I'm really trying to convey plants as persons."

The vulnerability we're experiencing in the pandemic is the vulnerability that songbirds feel every day of their lives

Key to this is restoring what Kimmerer calls the "grammar of animacy". This means viewing nature not as a resource but like an elder "relative" - to recognise kinship with plants, mountains and lakes. The idea, rooted in indigenous language and philosophy (where a natural being isn't regarded as "it" but as kin) holds affinities with the emerging rights-of-nature movement, which seeks legal personhood as a means of conservation. Kimmerer understands her work to be the "long game" of creating the "cultural underpinnings".

"Laws are a reflection of social movements," she says. "Laws are a reflection of our values. So our work has to be to not necessarily use the existing laws, but to promote a growth in values of justice. That's where I really see storytelling and art playing that role, to help move consciousness in a way that these legal structures of rights of nature makes perfect sense. I dream of a day where people say: 'Well, duh, of course! Of course those trees have standing.'"

Our conversation turns once more to topics pandemic-related.Kimmerer says that the coronavirus has reminded us that we're "biological beings, subject to the laws of nature. That alone can be a shaking," she says, motioning with her fist. "But I wonder, can we at some point turn our attention away to say the vulnerability we are experiencing right now is the vulnerability that songbirds feel every single day of their lives? Could this extend our sense of ecological compassion, to the rest of our more-than-human relatives?"

Kimmerer often thinks about how best to use her time and energy during this troubled era. Though she views demands for unlimited economic growth and resource exploitation as "all this foolishness", she recognises that "I don't have the power to dismantle Monsanto. But what I do have is the capacity to change how I live on a daily basis and how I think about the world. I just have to have faith that when we change how we think, we suddenly change how we act and how those around us act, and that's how the world changes. It's by changing hearts and changing minds. And it's contagious. I became an environmental scientist and a writer because of what I witnessed growing up within a world of gratitude and gifts."

"A contagion of gratitude," she marvels, speaking the words slowly. "I'm just trying to think about what that would be like. Acting out of gratitude, as a pandemic. I can see it."

Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer is published by Penguin https://guardianbookshop.com/braiding-sweetgrass-9780141991955.html

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Robin Wall Kimmerer: 'People can't understand the world as a gift unless someone shows them how'

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Her book Braiding Sweetgrass has been a surprise bestseller. The nature writer talks about her fight for plant rights, and why she hopes the pandemic will increase human compassion for the natural world

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Decolonization is defined as the process of freeing an institution, sphere of activity from the cultural or social effects of colonization

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Decolonization is defined as the process of freeing an institution, sphere of activity from the cultural or social effects of colonization

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In Dr. Robin Wall Kimmerer's transformational book, Braiding Sweetgrass, she gives her readers insight into sacred Indigenous wisdom. She teaches about plants and food that offer perspectives of reciprocity rather than colonizing food production ideologies of competition, ultra-consumerism, and forceful-occupation. 

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In Dr. Robin Wall Kimmerer's transformational book, Braiding Sweetgrass, she gives her readers insight into sacred Indigenous wisdom. She teaches about plants and food that offer perspectives of reciprocity rather than colonizing food production ideologies of competition, ultra-consumerism, and forceful-occupation. 

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Kimmerer begs us to ask questions of how we think about what we take from the earth by means of food production, and how we can start to decolonize our thinking and behaviors into being more about reciprocity and regeneration. In Kimmerer’s giving of this wisdom we start to learn about a restorative counter narrative being reclaimed about plants and food of being one of a bountiful gift giving harvest, rather than the over-consuming genetically-modified factory-food neoliberalism mindset.

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We accept that decolonization means the revitalization of indigenous sovereignty, and an end to settler domination of life, lands, and peoples in all territories of the so-called “Americas.” All decisions regarding human interaction with this land base, including who lives on it, are rightfully those of the indigenous nations.

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Solidarity is the principle of non-natives doing the work of decolonization side by side with Indigenous peoples. According to this principle, non-natives must be accountable and responsive to the experiences, voices, needs and political perspectives of Indigenous people themselves.

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Solidarity is the principle of non-natives doing the work of decolonization side by side with Indigenous peoples. According to this principle, non-natives must be accountable and responsive to the experiences, voices, needs and political perspectives of Indigenous people themselves.

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Moving beyond a politics of solidarity toward a practice of decolonization

Illustrations by Afuwa

Canada's state and corporate wealth is largely based on subsidies gained from the theft of Indigenous lands and resources. Conquest in Canada was designed to ensure forced displacement of Indigenous peoples from their territories, the destruction of autonomy and self-determination in Indigenous self-governance and the assimilation of Indigenous peoples' cultures and traditions. Given the devastating cultural, spiritual, economic, linguistic and political impacts of colonialism on Indigenous people in Canada, any serious attempt by non-natives at allying with Indigenous struggles must entail solidarity in the fight against colonization.

Non-natives must be able to position ourselves as active and integral participants in a decolonization movement for political liberation, social transformation, renewed cultural kinships and the development of an economic system that serves rather than threatens our collective life on this planet. Decolonization is as much a process as a goal. It requires a profound recentring on Indigenous worldviews. Syed Hussan, a Toronto-based activist, states: "Decolonization is a dramatic reimagining of relationships with land, people and the state. Much of this requires study. It requires conversation. It is a practice; it is an unlearning."

Indigenous solidarity on its own terms

A growing number of social movements are recognizing that Indigenous self-determination must become the foundation for all our broader social justice mobilizing. Indigenous peoples in Canada are the most impacted by the pillage of lands, experience disproportionate poverty and homelessness, are overrepresented in statistics of missing and murdered women and are the primary targets of repressive policing and prosecutions in the criminal injustice system. Rather than being treated as a single issue within a laundry list of demands, Indigenous self-determination is increasingly understood as intertwined with struggles against racism, poverty, police violence, war and occupation, violence against women and environmental justice.

Incorporating Indigenous self-determination into these movements can, however, subordinate and compartmentalize Indigenous struggle within the machinery of existing Leftist narratives. Anarchists point to the antiauthoritarian tendencies within Indigenous communities, environmentalists highlight the connection to land that Indigenous communities have, anti-racists subsume Indigenous people into the broader discourse about systemic oppression in Canada, and women's organizations point to the relentless violence inflicted on Indigenous women in discussions about patriarchy.

We have to be cautious not to replicate the Canadian state's assimilationist model of liberal pluralism, forcing Indigenous identities to fit within our existing groups and narratives. The inherent right to traditional lands and to self-determination is expressed collectively and should not be subsumed within the discourse of individual or human rights. Furthermore, it is imperative to understand that being Indigenous is not just an identity but a way of life, which is intricately connected to Indigenous peoples' relationship to the land and all its inhabitants. Indigenous struggle cannot simply be accommodated within other struggles; it demands solidarity on its own terms.

The practice of solidarity

One of the basic principles of Indigenous solidarity organizing is the notion of taking leadership. According to this principle, non-natives must be accountable and responsive to the experiences, voices, needs and political perspectives of Indigenous people themselves. From an anti-oppression perspective, meaningful support for Indigenous struggles cannot be directed by non-natives. Taking leadership means being humble and honouring front-line voices of resistance as well as offering tangible solidarity as needed and requested. Specifically, this translates to taking initiative for self-education about the specific histories of the lands we reside upon, organizing support with the clear consent and guidance of an Indigenous community or group, building long-term relationships of accountability and never assuming or taking for granted the personal and political trust that non-natives may earn from Indigenous peoples over time.

In offering support to a specific community in the defence of their land, non-natives should organize with a mandate from the community and an understanding of the parameters of the support being sought. Once these guidelines are established, non-natives should be proactive in offering logistical, fundraising and campaign support. Clear lines of communication must always be maintained, and a commitment should be made for long-term support. This means not just being present for blockades or in moments of crisis, but developing an ongoing commitment to the well-being of Indigenous peoples and communities.

Organizing in accordance with these principles is not always straightforward. Respecting Indigenous leadership is not the same as doing nothing while waiting around to be told what to do. "I am waiting to be told exactly what to do" should not be an excuse for inaction, and seeking guidance must be weighed against the possibility of further burdening Indigenous people with questions. A willingness to decentre oneself and to learn and act from a place of responsibility rather than guilt are helpful in determining the line between being too interventionist and being paralyzed.

Cultivating an ethic of responsibility within the Indigenous solidarity movement begins with non-natives understanding ourselves as beneficiaries of the illegal settlement of Indigenous peoples' land and unjust appropriation of Indigenous peoples' resources and jurisdiction. When faced with this truth, it is common for activists to get stuck in their feelings of guilt, which I would argue is a state of self-absorption that actually upholds privilege. While guilt is often a sign of a much-needed shift in consciousness, in itself it does nothing to motivate the responsibility necessary to actively dismantle entrenched systems of oppression. In a movement-building round table, long-time Montreal activist Jaggi Singh said: "The only way to escape complicity with settlement is active opposition to it. That only happens in the context of on-the-ground, day-to-day organizing, and creating and cultivating the spaces where we can begin dialogues and discussions as natives and non-natives."

Sustained alliance building

Sustaining a multiplicity of meaningful and diverse relationships with Indigenous peoples is critical in building a non-native movement for Indigenous self-determination. "Solidarity is not the same as support," says feminist writer bell hooks. "To experience solidarity, we must have a community of interests, shared beliefs and goals around which to unite, to build Sisterhood. Support can be occasional. It can be given and just as easily withdrawn. Solidarity requires sustained, ongoing commitment."

Who exactly one takes direction from while building networks of ongoing solidarity can be complicated. As in any community, a diversity of political opinions often exists within Indigenous communities. How do we determine whose leadership to follow and which alliances to build? I take leadership from and offer tangible support to grassroots Indigenous peoples who are exercising traditional governance and customs in the face of state control and bureaucratization, who are seeking redress and reparations for acts of genocide and assimilation, such as residential schools, who are opposing corporate development on their lands. I support those who are pushing back against the oppressions of hetero-patriarchy imposed by settler society, who are struggling against poverty and systemic marginalization in urban areas, who are criticizing unjust land claims and treaty processes and who are affirming their own languages, customs, traditions, creative expression and spiritual practices.

Alliances with Indigenous communities should be based on shared values, principles and analysis. For example, during the anti-Olympics campaign in 2010, activists chose not to align with the Four Host First Nations, a pro-corporate body created in conjunction with the Vancouver Olympics organizing committee. Instead, we took leadership from and strengthened alliances with land defenders in the Secwepemc and St'át'imc nations and Indigenous people being directly impacted by homelessness and poverty in the Downtown Eastside. In general, however, differences surrounding strategy within a community should be for community members to discuss and resolve. We should be cautious of a persistent dynamic where solidarity activists start to fixate on the internal politics of an oppressed community. Allies should avoid trying to intrude and interfere in struggles within and between communities, which perpetuates the civilizing ideology of the white man's burden and violates the basic principles of self-determination.

Building intentional alliances should also avoid devolution into tokenization. Non-natives often choose which Indigenous voices to privilege by defaulting to Indigenous activists they determine to be better known, easier-to-contact or "less hostile." This selectivity distorts the diversity present in Indigenous communities and can exacerbate tensions and colonially imposed divisions between Indigenous peoples. In opposing the colonialism of the state and settler society, non-natives must recognize our own role in perpetuating colonialism within our solidarity efforts. We can actively counter this by theorizing about and discussing the nuanced issues of solidarity, leadership, strategy and analysis - not in abstraction, but within our real and informed and sustained relationships with Indigenous peoples.

Decolonizing relationships

While centring and honouring Indigenous voices and leadership, the obligation for decolonization rests on all of us. In "Building a 'Canadian' Decolonization Movement: Fighting the Occupation at 'Home,'" Nora Burke says: "A decolonisation movement cannot be comprised solely of solidarity and support for Indigenous peoples' sovereignty and self-determination. If we are in support of self-determination, we too need to be self-determining. It is time to cut the state out of this relationship, and to replace it with a new relationship, one which is mutually negotiated, and premised on a core respect for autonomy and freedom."

Being responsible for decolonization can require us to locate ourselves within the context of colonization in complicated ways, often as simultaneously oppressed and complicit. This is true, for example, for racialized migrants in Canada. Within the anticolonial migrant justice movement of No One Is Illegal, we go beyond demanding citizenship rights for racialized migrants as that would lend false legitimacy to a settler state. We challenge the official state discourse of multiculturalism that undermines the autonomy of Indigenous communities by granting and mediating rights through the imposed structures of the state and that seeks to assimilate diversities into a singular Canadian identity. Andrea Smith, Indigenous feminist intellectual, says: "All non-Native peoples are promised the ability to join in the colonial project of settling indigenous lands. In all of these cases, we would check our aspirations against the aspirations of other communities to ensure that our model of liberation does not become the model of oppression for others." In B.C., immigrants and refugees have participated in several delegations to Indigenous blockades, while Indigenous communities have offered protection and refuge for migrants facing deportation.

Decolonization is the process whereby we create the conditions in which we want to live and the social relations we wish to have. We have to commit ourselves to supplanting the colonial logic of the state itself. Almost a hundred years ago, German anarchist Gustav Landauer wrote: "The State is a condition, a certain relationship between human beings, a mode of behaviour; we destroy it by contracting other relationships." Decolonization requires us to exercise our sovereignties differently and to reconfigure our communities based on shared experiences, ideals and visions. Almost all Indigenous formulations of sovereignty - such as the Two Row Wampum agreement of peace, friendship and respect between the Haudenosaunee nations and settlers - are premised on revolutionary notions of respectful coexistence and stewardship of the land, which goes far beyond any Western liberal democratic ideal.

I have been encouraged to think of human interconnectedness and kinship in building alliances with Indigenous communities. Black-Cherokee writer Zainab Amadahy uses the term "relationship framework" to describe how our activism should be grounded. "Understanding the world through a Relationship Framework ... we don't see ourselves, our communities, or our species as inherently superior to any other, but rather see our roles and responsibilities to each other as inherent to enjoying our life experiences," says Amadahy. From Turtle Island to Palestine, striving toward decolonization and walking together toward transformation requires us to challenge a dehumanizing social organization that perpetuates our isolation from each other and normalizes a lack of responsibility to one another and the Earth.

This is an altered and condensed version of a chapter from the 2012 forthcoming book Organize! Building From the Local for Global Justice, edited by Aziz Choudry, Jill Hanley and Eric Shragge.

Harsha Walia is a Punjabi organizer and writer.

Tags: activism colonization imperialism indigenous politics

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Moving beyond a politics of solidarity toward a practice of decolonization - Given the devastating cultural, spiritual, economic, linguistic and political impacts of colonialism on Indigenous people in Canada, any serious attempt by non-natives at allying with Indigenous struggles must entail solidarity in the fight against colonization.

# data[].attributes.headline
Decolonization: a political liberation, social transformation, renewed cultural kinships and the development of an economic system that serves rather than threatens collective life on this planet. Decolonization is as much a process as a goal. It requires a profound recentring on Indigenous worldviews.

# data[].attributes.subject
Decolonization: a political liberation, social transformation, renewed cultural kinships and the development of an economic system that serves rather than threatens collective life on this planet. Decolonization is as much a process as a goal. It requires a profound recentring on Indigenous worldviews.

# data[].attributes.body
Syed Hussan, a Toronto-based activist, states: “Decolonization is a dramatic reimagining of relationships with land, people and the state. Much of this requires study. It requires conversation. It is a practice; it is an unlearning.”

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Moving beyond a politics of solidarity toward a practice of decolonization

Illustrations by Afuwa

Canada's state and corporate wealth is largely based on subsidies gained from the theft of Indigenous lands and resources. Conquest in Canada was designed to ensure forced displacement of Indigenous peoples from their territories, the destruction of autonomy and self-determination in Indigenous self-governance and the assimilation of Indigenous peoples' cultures and traditions. Given the devastating cultural, spiritual, economic, linguistic and political impacts of colonialism on Indigenous people in Canada, any serious attempt by non-natives at allying with Indigenous struggles must entail solidarity in the fight against colonization.

Non-natives must be able to position ourselves as active and integral participants in a decolonization movement for political liberation, social transformation, renewed cultural kinships and the development of an economic system that serves rather than threatens our collective life on this planet. Decolonization is as much a process as a goal. It requires a profound recentring on Indigenous worldviews. Syed Hussan, a Toronto-based activist, states: "Decolonization is a dramatic reimagining of relationships with land, people and the state. Much of this requires study. It requires conversation. It is a practice; it is an unlearning."

Indigenous solidarity on its own terms

A growing number of social movements are recognizing that Indigenous self-determination must become the foundation for all our broader social justice mobilizing. Indigenous peoples in Canada are the most impacted by the pillage of lands, experience disproportionate poverty and homelessness, are overrepresented in statistics of missing and murdered women and are the primary targets of repressive policing and prosecutions in the criminal injustice system. Rather than being treated as a single issue within a laundry list of demands, Indigenous self-determination is increasingly understood as intertwined with struggles against racism, poverty, police violence, war and occupation, violence against women and environmental justice.

Incorporating Indigenous self-determination into these movements can, however, subordinate and compartmentalize Indigenous struggle within the machinery of existing Leftist narratives. Anarchists point to the antiauthoritarian tendencies within Indigenous communities, environmentalists highlight the connection to land that Indigenous communities have, anti-racists subsume Indigenous people into the broader discourse about systemic oppression in Canada, and women's organizations point to the relentless violence inflicted on Indigenous women in discussions about patriarchy.

We have to be cautious not to replicate the Canadian state's assimilationist model of liberal pluralism, forcing Indigenous identities to fit within our existing groups and narratives. The inherent right to traditional lands and to self-determination is expressed collectively and should not be subsumed within the discourse of individual or human rights. Furthermore, it is imperative to understand that being Indigenous is not just an identity but a way of life, which is intricately connected to Indigenous peoples' relationship to the land and all its inhabitants. Indigenous struggle cannot simply be accommodated within other struggles; it demands solidarity on its own terms.

The practice of solidarity

One of the basic principles of Indigenous solidarity organizing is the notion of taking leadership. According to this principle, non-natives must be accountable and responsive to the experiences, voices, needs and political perspectives of Indigenous people themselves. From an anti-oppression perspective, meaningful support for Indigenous struggles cannot be directed by non-natives. Taking leadership means being humble and honouring front-line voices of resistance as well as offering tangible solidarity as needed and requested. Specifically, this translates to taking initiative for self-education about the specific histories of the lands we reside upon, organizing support with the clear consent and guidance of an Indigenous community or group, building long-term relationships of accountability and never assuming or taking for granted the personal and political trust that non-natives may earn from Indigenous peoples over time.

In offering support to a specific community in the defence of their land, non-natives should organize with a mandate from the community and an understanding of the parameters of the support being sought. Once these guidelines are established, non-natives should be proactive in offering logistical, fundraising and campaign support. Clear lines of communication must always be maintained, and a commitment should be made for long-term support. This means not just being present for blockades or in moments of crisis, but developing an ongoing commitment to the well-being of Indigenous peoples and communities.

Organizing in accordance with these principles is not always straightforward. Respecting Indigenous leadership is not the same as doing nothing while waiting around to be told what to do. "I am waiting to be told exactly what to do" should not be an excuse for inaction, and seeking guidance must be weighed against the possibility of further burdening Indigenous people with questions. A willingness to decentre oneself and to learn and act from a place of responsibility rather than guilt are helpful in determining the line between being too interventionist and being paralyzed.

Cultivating an ethic of responsibility within the Indigenous solidarity movement begins with non-natives understanding ourselves as beneficiaries of the illegal settlement of Indigenous peoples' land and unjust appropriation of Indigenous peoples' resources and jurisdiction. When faced with this truth, it is common for activists to get stuck in their feelings of guilt, which I would argue is a state of self-absorption that actually upholds privilege. While guilt is often a sign of a much-needed shift in consciousness, in itself it does nothing to motivate the responsibility necessary to actively dismantle entrenched systems of oppression. In a movement-building round table, long-time Montreal activist Jaggi Singh said: "The only way to escape complicity with settlement is active opposition to it. That only happens in the context of on-the-ground, day-to-day organizing, and creating and cultivating the spaces where we can begin dialogues and discussions as natives and non-natives."

Sustained alliance building

Sustaining a multiplicity of meaningful and diverse relationships with Indigenous peoples is critical in building a non-native movement for Indigenous self-determination. "Solidarity is not the same as support," says feminist writer bell hooks. "To experience solidarity, we must have a community of interests, shared beliefs and goals around which to unite, to build Sisterhood. Support can be occasional. It can be given and just as easily withdrawn. Solidarity requires sustained, ongoing commitment."

Who exactly one takes direction from while building networks of ongoing solidarity can be complicated. As in any community, a diversity of political opinions often exists within Indigenous communities. How do we determine whose leadership to follow and which alliances to build? I take leadership from and offer tangible support to grassroots Indigenous peoples who are exercising traditional governance and customs in the face of state control and bureaucratization, who are seeking redress and reparations for acts of genocide and assimilation, such as residential schools, who are opposing corporate development on their lands. I support those who are pushing back against the oppressions of hetero-patriarchy imposed by settler society, who are struggling against poverty and systemic marginalization in urban areas, who are criticizing unjust land claims and treaty processes and who are affirming their own languages, customs, traditions, creative expression and spiritual practices.

Alliances with Indigenous communities should be based on shared values, principles and analysis. For example, during the anti-Olympics campaign in 2010, activists chose not to align with the Four Host First Nations, a pro-corporate body created in conjunction with the Vancouver Olympics organizing committee. Instead, we took leadership from and strengthened alliances with land defenders in the Secwepemc and St'át'imc nations and Indigenous people being directly impacted by homelessness and poverty in the Downtown Eastside. In general, however, differences surrounding strategy within a community should be for community members to discuss and resolve. We should be cautious of a persistent dynamic where solidarity activists start to fixate on the internal politics of an oppressed community. Allies should avoid trying to intrude and interfere in struggles within and between communities, which perpetuates the civilizing ideology of the white man's burden and violates the basic principles of self-determination.

Building intentional alliances should also avoid devolution into tokenization. Non-natives often choose which Indigenous voices to privilege by defaulting to Indigenous activists they determine to be better known, easier-to-contact or "less hostile." This selectivity distorts the diversity present in Indigenous communities and can exacerbate tensions and colonially imposed divisions between Indigenous peoples. In opposing the colonialism of the state and settler society, non-natives must recognize our own role in perpetuating colonialism within our solidarity efforts. We can actively counter this by theorizing about and discussing the nuanced issues of solidarity, leadership, strategy and analysis - not in abstraction, but within our real and informed and sustained relationships with Indigenous peoples.

Decolonizing relationships

While centring and honouring Indigenous voices and leadership, the obligation for decolonization rests on all of us. In "Building a 'Canadian' Decolonization Movement: Fighting the Occupation at 'Home,'" Nora Burke says: "A decolonisation movement cannot be comprised solely of solidarity and support for Indigenous peoples' sovereignty and self-determination. If we are in support of self-determination, we too need to be self-determining. It is time to cut the state out of this relationship, and to replace it with a new relationship, one which is mutually negotiated, and premised on a core respect for autonomy and freedom."

Being responsible for decolonization can require us to locate ourselves within the context of colonization in complicated ways, often as simultaneously oppressed and complicit. This is true, for example, for racialized migrants in Canada. Within the anticolonial migrant justice movement of No One Is Illegal, we go beyond demanding citizenship rights for racialized migrants as that would lend false legitimacy to a settler state. We challenge the official state discourse of multiculturalism that undermines the autonomy of Indigenous communities by granting and mediating rights through the imposed structures of the state and that seeks to assimilate diversities into a singular Canadian identity. Andrea Smith, Indigenous feminist intellectual, says: "All non-Native peoples are promised the ability to join in the colonial project of settling indigenous lands. In all of these cases, we would check our aspirations against the aspirations of other communities to ensure that our model of liberation does not become the model of oppression for others." In B.C., immigrants and refugees have participated in several delegations to Indigenous blockades, while Indigenous communities have offered protection and refuge for migrants facing deportation.

Decolonization is the process whereby we create the conditions in which we want to live and the social relations we wish to have. We have to commit ourselves to supplanting the colonial logic of the state itself. Almost a hundred years ago, German anarchist Gustav Landauer wrote: "The State is a condition, a certain relationship between human beings, a mode of behaviour; we destroy it by contracting other relationships." Decolonization requires us to exercise our sovereignties differently and to reconfigure our communities based on shared experiences, ideals and visions. Almost all Indigenous formulations of sovereignty - such as the Two Row Wampum agreement of peace, friendship and respect between the Haudenosaunee nations and settlers - are premised on revolutionary notions of respectful coexistence and stewardship of the land, which goes far beyond any Western liberal democratic ideal.

I have been encouraged to think of human interconnectedness and kinship in building alliances with Indigenous communities. Black-Cherokee writer Zainab Amadahy uses the term "relationship framework" to describe how our activism should be grounded. "Understanding the world through a Relationship Framework ... we don't see ourselves, our communities, or our species as inherently superior to any other, but rather see our roles and responsibilities to each other as inherent to enjoying our life experiences," says Amadahy. From Turtle Island to Palestine, striving toward decolonization and walking together toward transformation requires us to challenge a dehumanizing social organization that perpetuates our isolation from each other and normalizes a lack of responsibility to one another and the Earth.

This is an altered and condensed version of a chapter from the 2012 forthcoming book Organize! Building From the Local for Global Justice, edited by Aziz Choudry, Jill Hanley and Eric Shragge.

Harsha Walia is a Punjabi organizer and writer.

Tags: activism colonization imperialism indigenous politics

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Moving beyond a politics of solidarity toward a practice of decolonization - Given the devastating cultural, spiritual, economic, linguistic and political impacts of colonialism on Indigenous people in Canada, any serious attempt by non-natives at allying with Indigenous struggles must entail solidarity in the fight against colonization.

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Decolonization Is for Everyone | Nikki Sanchez | TEDxSFU

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What is decolonization? - Community-Based Global Learning Collaborative

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According to Tuck and Yang, a common move of settler innocence occurs when people rely too heavily on the notion to 'decolonize your mind,' thinking, or knowledge. This can include efforts to read more Black, Brown, and Indigenous writers, for example. Decolonial curriculum and thinking can, indeed, be a substantial part of the movement.

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White Supremacy, Racism, and Colonialism seek to sustain dehumanizing tactics that polarize humans against each other. 

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White Supremacy, Racism, and Colonialism seek to sustain dehumanizing tactics that polarize humans against each other. 

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Humanization is the process of recognizing, valuing, and promoting the full worth and dignity and humanity of individuals and groups. Acknowledging the humanity and the experiences of all people. Language matters... descriptions of people and their lives and their experiences, matter. Indigenous peoples are human beings with a right to exist.

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Seeing each human life as valuable, full of dignity is working in a decolonizing mindset

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Seeing each human life as valuable, full of dignity is working in a decolonizing mindset

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“Each person, human or no, is bound to every other in a reciprocal relationship. Just as all beings have a duty to me, I have a duty to them. If an animal gives its life to feed me, I am in turn bound to support its life. If I receive a stream’s gift of pure water, then I am responsible for returning a gift in kind. An integral part of a human’s education is to know those duties and how to perform them.”
― Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants

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“Restoring land without restoring relationship is an empty exercise. It is relationship that will endure and relationship that will sustain the restored land.”
― Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass

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Rest is a living resistance against a colonizing and capitalistic mindset that says we must sell ourselves and our bodies and our time to be "productive and useful" in our society. When an Indigenous person rests and doesn't conform to the colonizing mindset this is resistance.

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“How, in our modern world, can we find our way to understand the earth as a gift again, to make our relations with the world sacred again?” - Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass

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“How, in our modern world, can we find our way to understand the earth as a gift again, to make our relations with the world sacred again?” - Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass

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'We the People' - the three most misunderstood words in US history | Mark Charles | TEDxTysons

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One way to acknowledge solidarity with Indigenous people is by giving a statement of Land Acknowledgment

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One way to acknowledge solidarity with Indigenous people is by giving a statement of Land Acknowledgment

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Here is a guide to Indigenous Land Acknowledgement. A step by step understanding.

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Here is a guide to Indigenous Land Acknowledgement. A step by step understanding.

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Native Governance Center co-hosted an Indigenous land acknowledgment event with the Lower Phalen Creek Project on Indigenous Peoples' Day 2019 (October 14). The event featured the following talented panelists: Dr. Kate Beane (Flandreau Santee Dakota and Muskogee Creek), Mary Lyons (Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe), Rose Whipple (Isanti Dakota and Ho-Chunk), Rhiana Yazzie (Diné), and Cantemaza (Neil) McKay (Spirit Lake Dakota). We've created this handy guide to Indigenous land acknowledgment based on our panelists' responses.

Why is Indigenous Land Acknowledgment Important?

"It is important to understand the longstanding history that has brought you to reside on the land, and to seek to understand your place within that history. Land acknowledgements do not exist in a past tense, or historical context: colonialism is a current ongoing process, and we need to build our mindfulness of our present participation."
- Northwestern University

"When we talk about land, land is part of who we are. It's a mixture of our blood, our past, our current, and our future. We carry our ancestors in us, and they're around us. As you all do."
- Mary Lyons (Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe)

Tips for Creating an Indigenous Land Acknowledgment Statement

Key components:

Start with self-reflection. Before starting work on your land acknowledgment statement, reflect on the process:

Why am I doing this land acknowledgment? (If you're hoping to inspire others to take action to support Indigenous communities, you're on the right track. If you're delivering a land acknowledgment out of guilt or because everyone else is doing it, more self-reflection is in order.)

What is my end goal? (What do you hope listeners will do after hearing the acknowledgment?)

When will I have the largest impact? (Think about your timing and audience, specifically.)

Do your homework. Put in the time necessary to research the following topics:

The Indigenous people to whom the land belongs.

The history of the land and any related treaties.

Names of living Indigenous people from these communities. If you're presenting on behalf of your work in a certain field, highlight Indigenous people who currently work in that field.
Indigenous place names and language.

Correct pronunciation for the names of the Tribes, places, and individuals that you're including.

Use appropriate language. Don't sugarcoat the past. Use terms like genocide, ethnic cleansing, stolen land, and forced removal to reflect actions taken by colonizers.

Use past, present, and future tenses. Indigenous people are still here, and they're thriving. Don't treat them as a relic of the past.

Land acknowledgments shouldn't be grim. They should function as living celebrations of Indigenous communities. Ask yourself, "How am I leaving Indigenous people in a stronger, more empowered place because of this land acknowledgment?" Focus on the positivity of who Indigenous people are today.

Additional factors to consider:

Don't ask an Indigenous person to deliver a "welcome" statement for your organization. Cantemaza McKay (Spirit Lake Nation) explains this very clearly. Check out our land acknowledgment event livestream, and hear his comments at the 27-minute mark.

Build real, authentic relationships with Indigenous people. In addition to normal employment and family obligations, Indigenous people are working to heal their traumas, learn their languages, and support their nations. If you reach out for help, lead the conversation by asking an Indigenous person what you can do for them. Chances are, they're likely overworked and could use your help.

Compensate Indigenous people for their emotional labor. If you do plan to reach out to an Indigenous person or community for help, compensate them fairly. Too often, Indigenous people are asked to perform emotional labor for free.

Understand displacement and how that plays into land acknowledgment. Land acknowledgment is complicated. Remember that the United States government displaced many Tribes from land before treaties were signed.

There are many types of land acknowledgments. Don't expect to find a specific formula or template. Land acknowledgments that come from Indigenous people vs. non-Indigenous people look different, too.

Take action:

Land acknowledgment alone is not enough. It's merely a starting point. Ask yourself: how do I plan to take action to support Indigenous communities? Some examples of ways to take action:

Support Indigenous organizations by donating your time and/or money.

Support Indigenous-led grassroots change movements and campaigns. Encourage others to do so.

Commit to returning land. Local, state, and federal governments around the world are currently returning land to Indigenous people. Individuals are returning their land, too. Research your options to return your land.

At the end of the day, remember:

Starting somewhere is better than not trying at all. We need to share in Indigenous peoples' discomfort. They've been uncomfortable for a long time. Dr. Kate Beane (Flandreau Santee Dakota and Muskogee Creek) says, "We have to try. Starting out with good intentions and a good heart is what matters most."

Visit our resources page for more helpful land acknowledgment tools! And read our own land acknowledgment statement: The Land We're On.

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A guide to Indigenous land acknowledgment

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After hosting an Indigenous land acknowledgment event, we put together this written guide to based on our panelists' responses.

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Land acknowledgment is a traditional custom that dates back centuries in many Native nations and communities. Today, land acknowledgments are used by Native Peoples and non-Natives to recognize Indigenous Peoples who are the original stewards of the lands on which we now live. Before public events and other important gatherings hosted by the National Museum of the American Indian, a speaker offers this acknowledgment displayed in the quote container on behalf of everyone present.

After millennia of Native history, and centuries of displacement and dispossession, acknowledging original Indigenous inhabitants is complex. Many places in the Americas have been home to different Native Nations over time, and many Indigenous people no longer live on lands to which they have ancestral ties. Even so, Native Nations, communities, families, and individuals today sustain their sense of belonging to ancestral homelands and protect these connections through Indigenous languages, oral traditions, ceremonies, and other forms of cultural expression. The museum's acknowledgment is intended to recognize the Indigenous peoples who have lived where we now work over the long span of human history and the large contemporary Native population that lives in the Washington area and New York City today.

When people ask for guidance in making land acknowledgments, we suggest reaching out directly to local Indigenous communities and to Native Nations forcibly removed from the area in the past to ask how they want to be recognized. Land acknowledgments can be spoken at the beginning of public and private gatherings, from school programs and sporting events to town halls.

Making a land acknowledgment should be motivated by genuine respect and support for Native Peoples. Speaking and hearing words of recognition is an important step in creating collaborative, accountable, continuous, and respectful relationships with Indigenous nations and communities.

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Native Knowledge 360°-Honoring Original Indigenous Inhabitants: Land Acknowledgment

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NK360° Helpful Handouts: Guidance on Common Questions provide a brief introduction to teachers about important topics regarding Native American life, cultures, and communities. Honoring Indigenous Inhabitants: Land Acknowledgment discusses land acknowledgment as a dynamic cultural practice rooted in Indigenous traditions. #NK360

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The GVSU Native American Advisory Council (NAAC) has the following draft statement for land acknowledgement:

We would like to recognize the People of the Three Fires: the Ojibwe, Odawa, and Potawatomi peoples on whose land we are gathered. The Three Fires People are indigenous to this land which means that this is their ancestral territory. Every university is built on stolen, native land. We are guests on their land and one way to practice right relations is to develop genuine ways to acknowledge the histories and traditions of the people who originated here first, who are still here, and who tend to the land always. As we make this land acknowledgment we know it is but an important first step, and that there are many more that we need to take when we decide to engage in the important work of social justice.

For more information on the purpose and intent of land acknowledgments, see Northwestern University's site.

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Indigenous Peoples Day is celebrated every year to remind us of the struggle that the indigenous people went through as well as to celebrate their sovereignty. The White House describes one of the reasons it is celebrated as "Our country was conceived on a promise of equality and opportunity for all people — a promise that, despite the extraordinary progress we have made through the years, we have never fully lived up to. That is especially true when it comes to upholding the rights and dignity of the Indigenous people who were here long before colonization of the Americas began."

During this day, we honor the first inhabitants of what we now call the United States of America, where we built foundations of freedom and equality even though it was not always free or equal for all. Celebrating this holiday is not only special for indigenous people but for others as well so we can reflect on how our nation was built. I think it is important to remember early United States history as if we do not remember, we are bound to repeat it.

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Since time immemorial, American Indians, Alaska Natives, and Native Hawaiians have built vibrant and diverse cultures - safeguarding land, language, spirit, knowledge, and tradition across the generations. On Indigenous Peoples' Day, our Nation celebrates the invaluable contributions and resilience of Indigenous peoples, recognizes their inherent sovereignty, and commits to honoring the Federal Government's trust and treaty obligations to Tribal Nations.

Our country was conceived on a promise of equality and opportunity for all people - a promise that, despite the extraordinary progress we have made through the years, we have never fully lived up to. That is especially true when it comes to upholding the rights and dignity of the Indigenous people who were here long before colonization of the Americas began. For generations, Federal policies systematically sought to assimilate and displace Native people and eradicate Native cultures. Today, we recognize Indigenous peoples' resilience and strength as well as the immeasurable positive impact that they have made on every aspect of American society. We also recommit to supporting a new, brighter future of promise and equity for Tribal Nations - a future grounded in Tribal sovereignty and respect for the human rights of Indigenous people in the Americas and around the world.

In the first week of my Administration, I issued a memorandum reaffirming our Nation's solemn trust and treaty obligations to American Indian and Alaska Native Tribal Nations and directed the heads of executive departments and agencies to engage in regular, meaningful, and robust consultation with Tribal officials. It is a priority of my Administration to make respect for Tribal sovereignty and self-governance the cornerstone of Federal Indian policy. History demonstrates that Native American people - and our Nation as a whole - are best served when Tribal governments are empowered to lead their communities and when Federal officials listen to and work together with Tribal leaders when formulating Federal policy that affects Tribal Nations.

The contributions that Indigenous peoples have made throughout history - in public service, entrepreneurship, scholarship, the arts, and countless other fields - are integral to our Nation, our culture, and our society. Indigenous peoples have served, and continue to serve, in the United States Armed Forces with distinction and honor - at one of the highest rates of any group - defending our security every day. And Native Americans have been on the front lines of the COVID-19 pandemic, working essential jobs and carrying us through our gravest moments. Further, in recognition that the pandemic has harmed Indigenous peoples at an alarming and disproportionate rate, Native communities have led the way in connecting people with vaccination, boasting some of the highest rates of any racial or ethnic group.

The Federal Government has a solemn obligation to lift up and invest in the future of Indigenous people and empower Tribal Nations to govern their own communities and make their own decisions. We must never forget the centuries-long campaign of violence, displacement, assimilation, and terror wrought upon Native communities and Tribal Nations throughout our country. Today, we acknowledge the significant sacrifices made by Native peoples to this country - and recognize their many ongoing contributions to our Nation.

On Indigenous Peoples' Day, we honor America's first inhabitants and the Tribal Nations that continue to thrive today. I encourage everyone to celebrate and recognize the many Indigenous communities and cultures that make up our great country.

NOW, THEREFORE, I, JOSEPH R. BIDEN JR., President of the United States of America, do hereby proclaim October 11, 2021, as Indigenous Peoples' Day. I call upon the people of the United States to observe this day with appropriate ceremonies and activities. I also direct that the flag of the United States be displayed on all public buildings on the appointed day in honor of our diverse history and the Indigenous peoples who contribute to shaping this Nation.

IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this eighth day of October, in the year of our Lord two thousand twenty-one, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and forty-sixth.

JOSEPH R. BIDEN JR.

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A Proclamation on Indigenous Peoples' Day, 2021 | The White House

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Since time immemorial, American Indians, Alaska Natives, and Native Hawaiians have built vibrant and diverse cultures - safeguarding land, language, spirit, knowledge, and tradition across the generations. On Indigenous Peoples' Day, our Nation celebrates the invaluable contributions and resilience of Indigenous peoples, recognizes their inherent sovereignty, and commits to honoring the Federal Government's trust and...

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Recall that people indigenous to the United States have been on this land longer than people of European heritage. They never surrendered or sold their land. Understanding that indigenous people had their land taken by force in the past is a large part of acknowledging their history.

Some indigenous communities still reside on reservations throughout the United States and are governed by themselves, making them sovereign and separate from the United States. These reservations are their land and should be respected.

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Know the truth and be honest about the history

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Know the truth and be honest about the history

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You must stick to the facts of history when supporting indigenous people. These people have suffered greatly in the past but have endured and survived the difficult past.

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Abstract Indigenous peoples and minorities in settler colonial states constitute the majority of incarcerated people in Canada. In recent years, there has been a deep awakening as to why this over-representation of Indigenous peoples and minorities takes place in settler colonial criminal justice systems. Contemporary colonialism has been a recurring topic of interest in the quest to understand the incarceration rate of minorities and Indigenous peoples in colonial states. Monchalin (2016) defines contemporary colonialism as "a method of postmodern colonization in which domination is still based on settler rules and priorities but settlers calculate and perform more indirect or crafty ways of achieving their goals" (p. 74). Such indirect or devious methods have flooded restorative justice, polluting it. Restorative justice no longer aids in reducing the over-representation of minorities and Indigenous peoples in the criminal justice system of settler-colonial states, since the start of the copy and paste method of restorative justice. In fact, restorative justice may now contribute more harm because of its lack of cultural competence and top-down approach. This paper begins with an overview of decolonization then goes on to illustrate the impacts of colonization, and end the section in a discussion on three decolonial case studies of restorative justice practices: Maori Justice Practices in New Zealand, Pashtun Jirga in Pakistan, and Conflict Resolution and Visions of Haida in Canada. The paper concludes with a brief section on limitations of decolonization. Introduction
Keywords: Impacts of Colonization, Decolonization, Restorative Justice, Decolonizing Restorative Justice.

Indigenous peoples and minorities do not have faith in the legitimacy of the systems, organizations, and actors in charge of and facilitating dispute resolution in colonial settler nations. This is why restorative justice was created. However, restorative justice has morphed into a process and practice that deviates from its origins and purpose, which was to give voice to the voiceless. Decolonization of restorative justice is important because it fixes the colonial power imbalances and acknowledges the monstrous biases and racism deeply embedded within restorative justice.

At the height of its murderous imperial scheming, the Europeans brutalized millions of Indigenous people (Burkhart, 2020, p. 62). The European colonization was characterized by such monstrous acts as cultural genocide and the simultaneous spread of white supremacist ideologies. According to Gahman (2016), European settlers and the system that arose from the colonization was a dehumanizing "monster": "colonialism's aggressive policy of land seizure and ethnic cleansing amplified, whilst also becoming highly gendered. This can be seen in images of Indigenous women who were represented as exotic Indian princesses or eroticized primitives living in the rural wild" (p. 328). The monster in restorative justice is why "settler colonial violence and territorial dispossession mark present worlds as an earlier, invasive species" (Carter & Carter, 2019, p. 5). In Canada, contemporary restorative justice emerged as a conflation of practices related to traditional Indigenous, and also Mennonite, conflict resolution practices but was transformed to fit our colonial-based criminal justice system. In other words, restorative justice has been consumed by the criminal justice system and spit out as a settler colonial tool that perpetuates further genocide and repression of Indigenous peoples and cultures.
The Impact of Colonization
Restorative justice was created to provide alternative measures to aid the failing age-old punitive approach. Restorative justice is a response to crime that takes the needs of victims, offenders and their communities into account. This approach eliminates most of the drawbacks of the punitive approach and is increasingly considered feasible for a diversity of types of crimes of various degrees of seriousness. While traditional approaches such as restorative justice aim specifically to create a system that works for Indigenous peoples, the programs are always delivered within the ideological confines of European institutions (Monchalin, 2016, p. 272). In other words, restorative justice has been colonized.

Colonization could be seen as a disease that now manifests more subtly as bias and cultural supremacy in Canada. The consequences of colonialism and the realities of genocide are clearly reflected in the atrocities carried out in residential schools and considered root causes of the social injustices that Indigenous peoples continue to face, and which constitute cultural genocide. Colonialism has embedded issues such as poverty and intolerance in the Canadian landscape. Unlike other Canadians, Aboriginal peoples, and other minority groups here, are prone to live in poverty. This poverty references not only unemployment or low income, but a general lack of accessible socio-economic opportunities. As Knutilla (2017) has pointed out, the theory of rational choice suggests that individuals are independent and capable of making appropriate decisions regarding their own self-interest. This rationale assumes everyone should be able to make good choices but completely ignores the impact of unjust socio-economic forces and exclusion on certain groups' abilities to do so. At an ideological level, by blaming the victim, this rationale wrongly absolves the State from addressing issues of social inequalities and economic burdens that afflict Aboriginals (p. 33). Aboriginal youth are greatly impacted by conditions of poverty, and it makes them more likely to follow ways of crime. The oppression that leads to social inequality contributes to the growth of Aboriginal and Black youth incarceration under colonial systems.

As Palmater (2017) illustrates, the Community Well-Being Index (CWB) published by Indigenous and Northern Affairs Canada (INAC) reveals a considerable disparity - over a third - between First Nations and Canadians, with little to-no improvement since the turn of the century. The INAC discovered that these scores for First Nations and Inuit communities dropped even further between 2001 and 2006 (INAC as cited in Palmater, 2017). The United Nations, by way of comparison, maintains data on states of well-being known as the Human Development Index (HDI), with Canada ranking fourth best in the world in 2010. If the statistics took the circumstances of First Nations and Inuit communities into account, however, Canada would rank 78th, behind nations like Cuba and Paraguay (p. 65). This shows that the suffering of Indigenous Peoples of Canada is hidden in statistics and is ongoing. Canada is a wealthy country having 7% of the world's renewable freshwater, yet its Indigenous communities have no clean drinking water and thus contract diseases eradicated from the general population.

Moreover, the colonization of Indigenous peoples is marked by discriminatory systems upheld by the Indian Act (1876) and by the Residential Schools, the last of which only closed its doors in 1996. These schools were created to eliminate Indigenous cultures. According to Aguiar and Halseth (2015), "By removing child-rearing from the community and placing it into the hands of the church and government, the residential schools contributed to the fracturing of family relationships and community cohesion" (p. 18). Colonialism has forced Indigenous peoples out of their way of life, deeming it as 'inferior' to the European settler ways. They did not only eradicate their way of living, but the Canadian government continues to create further harm by practicing tubal ligation surgeries on Indigenous women.

At the same time, the Indian Act (1876) established the goals of the European settlers to assimilate Indigenous peoples (Monchalin, 2016, p. 110). As McGuire (2019) has shown, the Haida people of the Pacific Northwest Coast had their own intricate governmental structures, including hereditary chiefs and matriarchs, as well as the potlatch, the predominant economic structure, prior to the imposition of Canadian legal and governmental systems (RCAP, 1996a, 1996b, 1996c). Acts of cultural genocide, such as the prohibitions under the Potlatch Law provisions of the Indian Act (1884), shattered traditional customs and ceremonies and transformed legal and social institutions (TRC, 2015, p. 2). That said, this disparagement of Indigenous cultures led to the oft-discussed intergenerational trauma and inequality.

The detrimental effects of colonialism did not vanish with the abolishment of residential schools and other overtly racist practices; rather, the disproportionate power the Canadian government yields over Indigenous peoples is still reflected in contemporary times. As described by Monchalin (2016), contemporary colonialism has manifested because "the legacies of earlier forms of colonialism become entrenched and embedded within society's dominant discourses and institutions" (p. 74). The colonialism that exists within Canadian institutions has led to numerous injustices among Indigenous peoples and other minority groups, such as higher rates of incarceration, suicide, poverty, illness, and infant mortality (Palmater, 2017, p. 75). The issues that persist with the current state of colonialism are aggravated by a lack of recognition and accountability from the government. While Indigenous peoples and other marginalized groups face systemic discrimination and social injustice, the government continues to engage in what Palmater (2017) has described as "deny, deflect, and defer" (p. 76). The government either denies that the issues are severe enough to be addressed or deflects the issues back onto those who experience them by blaming them for their plight.
Defining Decolonization
The health of the land has also been dramatically impacted by colonialism. As illustrated in "The Uranium Leaking from Port Radium and Rayrock Mines is Killing us" written by Richard Van Camp of the Dogrib Tłı̨chǫ writer of the Dene nation from Fort Smith, Northwest Territories, reiterates what Uranium has done to the Indigenous communities surrounding the mining area of Port Radium in the Northwest Territories. Van Camp speaks of razor-sharp grass, plants bearing no fruit, people starving due to the land's inability to make food under all the pollution and radiation. Van Camp uses imagery to convey that animals and fish they once hunted are now dead or toxic: "It is a dead caribou running on dead legs. I meet its eyes but there are only antlers... The fish are rolling sideways" (2018, p. 619). In other words, colonialism is not a thing of the past; it persists and continues to be destructive to Indigenous peoples and other groups marginalized under the colonial ethos.

To date, decolonization attempts, such as restorative justice, have acted as a veil, allowing the mainstream populations of colonial-settler countries to avoid facing the challenges that Indigenous sovereignty and socio-economic inclusion of minority groups would pose to classic conceptions of Canadian values and history, at least temporarily. As Shepard (2006) has shown, the Algerian journalist Henri Fonfrède coined "decolonization" in his 1836 text, Decolonization of Algiers, and social scientists have been using the term since the 1920s. For example, in the 1950s, it was used to criticize the French colonial regime, which initially colonized most of the world (as cited in Asadullah, 2021, p. 3). Moreover, decolonization takes two forms: macro and micro. Macro forms of decolonization aim to decolonize social institutions (political, educational, and family) while micro forms target people's minds and behavior (Asadullah, 2021). Monture Angus (1999) defines decolonization as "a state of being free from responding to colonial forces, through the reclamation of Indigenous ways of being" (as cited in McGuire & Palys, 2020, p. 73). According to Palmater (2017), decolonization is a process involving resistance, resilience, and reclamation (as cited in McGuire & Palys, 2020, p. 72).

Also, Blagg (2017) indicates that the dual notion of reclamation and resistance derives from the erosion of the neoliberal pillars of the northern welfare state and its hegemonic consensus, culminating in accelerated casualization of the labor market, and the large inequalities between rich and poor. This creates the kinds of absolute destitution, unemployment, and chaos of existence once typical of early industrialism in mid-20th century Europe. Unsurprisingly, this erosion has caused the northern welfare state to see an increase in beggars and vagrants, homeless and unemployed, and the sick and mentally ill (p. 63). Therefore, macro decolonization is clearly needed and is the only solution left to save our social institutions and societies from collapse.

Furthermore, decolonization can help give self-determination back to Indigenous people and allow them to reconnect with their culture and ways of life. When Indigenous peoples were colonized, their culture and traditions were deemed as inferior by the colonizers. Western ideologies and sought to be imposed on Indigenous. The case with restorative justice and the criminal justice system is not any different - restorative justice is not representative of Indigenous traditions or peoples and therefore needs to be decolonized.

Both decolonization and resurgence facilitate a renewal of our roles and responsibilities as Indigenous peoples to the sustainable praxis of Indigenous livelihoods, food security, community governance, and relationships to the natural world and ceremonial life that enables the transmission of these cultural practices to future generations (Corntassel 2012, p. 97).

That said, Indigenous peoples need to be more involved in decisions that affect them. By restorative justice being decolonized, Indigenous peoples will have the opportunity to not only be involved on the ground-level of decision making but also at the top.

Corntassel (2012) highlights an important aspect of micro decolonization: "The decolonization process operates at multiple levels and necessitates moving from an awareness of being in struggle, to actively engaging in everyday practices of resurgence" (p. 89). This points out the importance of active participation in making changes. According to Monchalin (2016), the process of decolonization needs to take place among all citizens, not just among Indigenous peoples. While it is generally noted that Indigenous peoples need to be 'decolonized', non-Indigenous peoples need to 'decolonize' themselves by stopping to view their practices as superior to Indigenous' practices and costumes (Monchalin, 2016, p. 297).
Decolonizing Restorative Justice
Decolonization can take place in various forms, even through art. One exhibition, entitled the Indian Art Revisited, displays art pieces that "challenge colonialism and its impacts and realities" (Monchalin, 2016, p. 301). Music has also been serving as a way of raising awareness about colonialism. Music artists, such as A Tribe Called Red, have been creating platforms for conversations about decolonization (Monchalin, 2016, p. 300). After all, decolonization is about challenging colonial systems and the way they affect Indigenous peoples and other marginalized groups. Despite colonialism's suppression of Indigenous people, traditional knowledge has been passed on through generations by elders' teachings. The elders will form an integral part of the decolonization process in putting forward the solutions to the harm done by colonialism (Monchalin, 2016, p. 303). Furthermore, decolonization is about raising awareness, resisting, and acting towards righting the injustices that colonialism ingrains.

Asadullah (2021), notes that four must be admitted before restorative justice can be decolonized: "1) the colonial context of the criminal justice system, 2) the institutional power imbalance between justice stakeholders and Indigenous or other marginalized communities, 3) that government-led RJ may contribute more harm, and 4) the need for a trauma-informed approach". In addition, also according to Asadullah (2021), the framework of decolonizing restorative justice is best expressed by a Decolonizing Tree consisting of four parts:1) roots, 2) trunk, 3) branches, 4) fruit (p. 18).

First, the root stands for a trauma-informed method and an anti-oppressive structure. Secondly, the trunk represents local communities. Thirdly, the branches stand for cultural competency and local teachings. Fourthly, the fruits stand for cognitively, politically, historically, and religiously appropriate (Asadullah, 2021, p. 19). For restorative justice to be decolonized, these steps must first be taken. It is not okay for restorative justice to encompass State views and a top-down approach. Communities must be brought together in the creation of a restorative justice practice that is culturally competent and shaped to the needs of their societies rather than by state-forced practices that are not culturally competent.

Decolonization aims to deconstruct the colonial ideology and value systems ingrained in social institutions and societies but also to thwart the colonial mentality that rears its ugly head within restorative justice. According to McGuire & Palys (2020), "Imposed systems of 'self-governance' that leave every change still requiring ministerial permission and fiscal control in the hands of the state further impede the potential for fundamental change" (p. 61). In other words, restorative justice is practiced under colonial systems, and therefore cannot be implemented to its full capacity. Moreover, Blagg (2017) claims that restorative justice cannot be implemented into the criminal justice system because the criminal justice system is still a colonial-based institute (p. 63).

Ever since Indigenous peoples were colonized, their cultures, beliefs, and way of life were perceived as inferior by the settlers. As a result of colonialism, the Western criminal justice system became widespread and the main scheme of punishment in different parts of the world, including Canada (McGuire & Palys, 2020, p. 67). As an alternative to the punitive approach, the Western criminal justice system incorporated restorative justice, classifying it as "an 'Indigenous' way of responding to justice issues" (McGuire & Palys, 2020, p. 67). However, restorative justice as presented by the Western criminal justice system, "ignores the diversity amongst Indigenous legal traditions and laws" (Friedland as cited in McGuire & Palys, 2020, p. 68). In addition, restorative justice has itself been colonized, operating within colonial institutions where hierarchy and lack of self-determination persist (McGuire & Palys, 2020).

A monster has come to reside in restorative justice, which means it has been infiltrated by colonial processes and is not sufficiently representative of Indigenous beliefs and values (Blagg, 2017). In fact, LaRocque describes restorative justice as a "reinvented Indigenous" tradition established from a colonial perspective (as cited in Monchalin, 2016, p. 284). Yet as Blagg (2017) suggests, "critical restorative justice, relevant to the needs of Indigenous and other colonised subjects, should be informed by the interconnected processes of what Walter Mignolo (2007; 2011) calls decoloniality and inter-culturality" (p. 62). Due to the indigenization of restorative justice, the State often assumes certain approaches that worked for one group will work for the other groups because they are 'similar'. This homogenizing effect defeats the need of cultural relevance and appropriateness.

For example, the family group conference of the Maori in New Zealand was forced on the First Nations of Canada (Lee as cited in Tauri, 2005, p. 19). As Tauri (2005) pointed out, the State generalizes Indigenous cultures: "Family group conferencing is based on Maori culture, and the Maori are an indigenous people; Australian Aboriginal and Canadian First Nations are indigenous, therefore the forum must be appropriate for all Indigenes" (p. 20). Such an assumption leads to generalization of groups and creates further stereotypes. According to Tauri (2005), "It does so by enabling colonising societies to homogenise a range of disparate cultures by emphasising or overemphasizing similarities in cultural practice" (p. 19). Homogenization of cultures is harmful; it prevents the colonized from being self-determined and participating in processes that are culturally appropriate for them.

Consultation is another significant aspect of the decolonization of the colonial monster that resides within Canadian restorative justice. Apart from government agencies and policy workers, there must be consultation with the community. According to Tauri (2019), this can include "independent researchers, inmates, ex-inmates, inmates and ex-inmates' families, victims and service providers" (p. 115). Consulting with elders is also pivotal in the process of decolonization, as elders "remain a great resource to their communities and are seen as a source of traditional cultural knowledge, wisdom, resilience, connectedness, and leadership" (Busija et al., 2020, p. 523). Formal participation by Elders in design and implementation of government programmes would ensure strategies that are culturally relevant and beneficial to Indigenous peoples (Busija et al., 2020, p. 523). That said, the consultation with Elders and other community members can enhance direct participation in important decision making.

Restorative justice is treated as a franchise being sold on people, rather than a practice that considers the needs of Indigenous peoples (p. 72). The notion that restorative justice is being marketed is clarified by Alfred (2009), who noted that "the culture of being colonized takes away a peoples' ability to resist the racist aggression and political, economic and cultural pressures of the colonial state and settler society" (as cited in McGuire & Palys, p. 61). Therefore, the process of decolonizing restorative justice must start by challenging the colonial system. As stated by Blagg (2017), restorative justice is a modernist, Euro-American philosophy aimed at changing what is now largely a Western approach to justice reform (p. 63).
Promising Decolonizing Practices Maori Justice Practice in New Zealand
Povenelli (2002) highlights that the acknowledgement of cultural difference in restorative justice strategies is okay with the white justice system, as long as it does not 'impose' a progressive alterity that undermines white supremacy, particularly where land disputes are concerned (as cited in Blagg, 2017, p. 61). The only way to get the monster out and decolonize restorative justice is to acknowledge its roots and original purpose and methodology and eliminate the colonial biases related to Indigenous peoples and other marginalized groups. That said, a decolonized restorative justice would be based on inclusivity, rather than being a monstrous shadow lurking within the powerful institutions of colonialism.

Prior to colonization, Maori justice processes in New Zealand were focused on collectivism not individualism. If a person committed an offence, they would need to compensate the victim and their families too (Tauri & Morris, 1997). "For example, the agreed outcome might have been the transfer of the offender's goods to the victim or work by the offender for the victim" (Tauri & Morris, 1997, p. 150). Additionally, "The marae was the preferred setting, kaumatua were the primary decision makers (though working through tribal or Maori committees), and the restoration of communal harmony was the primary although not the only aim" (Tauri & Morris, 1997, p. 153).

The impact of colonization in New Zealand can be seen in the disproportionate incarceration rates of Maori. According to Tauri (2005), "Maori males comprised 10.9 percent of prisoners in 1930, increasing to 23.3 percent in 1958. Maori female prisoners increased from 4.7 percent to 47 percent of female prisoners over the same period (p. 3). Furthermore, Tauri (2019) notes the failures of crime control policies, with the example of Integrated Offender Management. One of the issues with IMO was its 'orientalization' of crime control policy (p. 108). Orientalization is a process that generalizes outcomes and fails to consider that different cases might require different approaches. Instead, the one-size-fits-all approach of the IMO assumed that what worked for Black Canadians, would also work for the Māori (p. 108).

In addition, the effectiveness of crime control policies is exaggerated and, rather than focusing on the actual solution, the justice system is focused on control rather than rehabilitation (p. 112). The criminal justice system clearly does not engage communities and continues to "rely ... on non-indigenous theorising and research on criminality to develop policies and programmes targeted at Maori/Indigenous offending" (Tauri, 2005, p. 9). Despite the ineffectiveness of crime control policies, they remain in existence. The notion of being 'tough on crime' gives the illusion of safety, but according to Tauri (2019), reduction in crime begins with addressing communities' needs.

The benefits of decolonizing restorative justice are extolled by Tauri (2019), who claims that New Zealand's criminal justice system has been unable to address the overrepresentation of Māori people in prisons. Analyzing existing policies and "develop[ing] a policy process based on the needs of [the] community, and one less concerned with the ballot box needs of politicians" (p. 113), would arguably help decrease incarceration rates. Tauri (2019) also highlights the need to focus on treatment and social support rather than relying on punitive measures.

Family group conferences are an example of how Maori practices can be integrated into mainstream processes. In 1989, family conferences were introduced in New Zealand, with families participating in a process of restoration and decision making (Tauri & Morris, 1997). The families reportedly found more opportunity for participation and effective communication with the conferences than in the courts (Tauri & Morris, 1997). Some claim that family conferencing "empowers Maori to deal with their youth offenders in culturally appropriate ways" (Maxwell & Morris as cited in Tauri & Morris, 1997, p. 14). Although the State still forms part of these conferences and the decision-making process, family conferences exemplify how Maori needs can be satisfied within New Zealand's justice system (Tauri & Morris, 1997, p. 159).

Indigenous and local conflict resolution approaches were in practice long before colonialist approaches were introduced (Yousaf & FurrukhZad, 2020, p. 1203). The Pashtun Jirga has been historically embedded in the Pashtun culture in Pakistan and Afghanistan (Yousaf & FurrukhZad, 2020, p. 1201). The Jirga consists of tribal elders who "sit in a circle to decide matters ranging from inter- and intra-tribal disputes to matters of regional and national importance" (Gohar as cited in Yousaf & FurrukhZad, 2020, p. 1201). However, as stated by Yousaf and FurrukhZad (2020), "the major approach towards peace and conflict resolution employed by state elites remained the use of brute force to subjugate and control peripheral communities, while indigenous systems were either neglected or marginalised because of their perceived 'backwardness' and 'incompatibility' with the modern world" (p. 1202).

In other words, colonialist systems exert power over others; they cast non-Western practices as inferior or underdeveloped. In a sense, this may also be owing to the settlers' lack of awareness of different cultures, as they seem to insist that there is only one right way of resolving conflict (Yousaf & FurrukhZad, 2020, p. 1203). This lack of knowledge and understanding has also contributed to regional conflicts in Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA); Western approaches to conflict are not culturally appropriate as they are not specific and comprehensive in local contexts. The Jirgas (tribal councils) in the Pashtun culture evidence the importance of decolonizing restorative justice.

The role of Jirga in the Pashtun culture has been effective in countering military violence. During a conflict in Kurram, which "peaked with local and Afghan Sunni militants entering the region to join hands with local Sunni elders against the Shia population", Jirga measures were practiced (Yousaf & FurrukhZad, 2020, p. 1209). Jirga cultural practices led to the Murree Accord, and despite violations from part of "the local Sunni Taliban militants" (Yousaf & FurrukhZad, 2020, p. 1210), conflicts in the region have decreased. As noted by Yousaf and FurrukhZad (2020), "when major efforts failed to establish peace in Kurram, a grand tribal Jirga was convened, involving all stakeholders, to reach a negotiated settlement on the issue" (p. 1210). Even though Jirga does not yield a final solution, the Kurram case demonstrates that Jirga can assist in mitigating conflict and violence by applying authentic cultural-based conflict resolution processes (Yousaf & FurrukhZad, 2020, p. 1211).
Haida Justice Practice in Canada
To achieve long-term peace, therefore, traditional structures and systems must be incorporated into dispute resolution and peace-building processes along with active participation at the local, culturally specific level (Yousaf & FurrukhZad, 2020, p. 1212). The Pashtun Jirga has great potential to address conflicts that Western approaches are not successfully able to counter. It is a colonial myth that European approaches are the only ways to address conflict and violence; as the case of the Pashtun Jirga demonstrates, cultural-informed practices have long offered optimal solutions for regional and national conflicts.

Another important case study that underlines a decolonized restorative justice practice looks at the vision of the Haida justice system (HJS). The Haida justice system (HJS) is an extension of the Haida people located in the archipelago of Haida Gwaii, which are islands 100 kilometres west of the northern coast of British Columbia. Furthermore, the HJS is a justice system that stems from Haida law, language, and Haida way of living. As stated by McGuire (2019), the Haida rule and justice has acted as a buffer against colonialism's destructive effects (2019, p. 5). The destructive effects of colonialism on Indigenous ways of living cannot be underestimated; however, the Haida people have kept their cultural roots and teachings alive by passing them down in stories.

As McGuire (2019) explains, in some of the Haida stories and laws passed down, for example: yahguudang, ad kyanang kunGasda (to inquire first), the universe is as sharp as the edge of a knife (balance), everything depends on everything else, duty, and tll yahda (make right) (p. 7). Haida laws also have a different relation to crime and accountability than those of the Canadian criminal justice system. To illustrate, consider that the term tll yahda (make right) does not reference punishment by means of incarceration or even justice. Tll yahda only seeks to recognize and restore or make right the harm caused. It is flexible and fluid -restorative - unlike the criminal justice system. Furthermore, the Haida laws see crime as detrimental to their societies rather than an expected outcome.

For example, according to McGuire (2019), violations of Haida law were taken very seriously, and the consequences were far-reaching socially. "'If you were a nephew and you misbehaved your uncle would have to die, and you would have to carry that with you' (Sam). Maternal uncles and aunties played a key role in children's lives and acted as second parents and mentors for children" (p. 7). The story illustrates the relationship that family and law share within the HJS and also the serious and far-reaching repercussions of crime. It underlines the importance of family and how harm not only affects the 'victim' of crime but the entire family. The HJS differs from the existing criminal justice system because family and community play an integrated role, it is culturally relevant, and it aims for restoration.

This restoration can be understood in numerous ways. As McGuire (2019) notes, payment, apology and reciprocity were all ways in which restoration could occur (p. 10). Also, in severe cases such as sexual assault, men would be hoisted away from the community and women would take spruce branches and strike the men in the penis as their punishment (p. 8). This kind of punishment may be seen as inappropriate in the eyes of the criminal justice system but it is Haida law. This form of punishment is deemed culturally appropriate and allows Haida women to seek restoration in the form of teaching their aggressor a lesson. This has been considered effective because it gives Indigenous women the power to address their aggressors, seeking meaningful resolutions that allow for cultural self-determination which in return empowers the Haida community.
Limitations to Decolonization of Restorative Justice
To sum up Haida law, or culture and justice within the framework of a decolonized restorative justice practice, one could say that using their own practices accords the Haida people the respect and dignity of self-determined governance. This decolonized restorative practice upholds the inherent rights and dignity of the Haida people since it recognizes their unique culture and laws as being neither above or below Canadian laws and customs. Furthermore, as argued by McGuire (2019), the Haida Justice System would replace the colonial mechanism of the criminal justice system responsible for centuries of harm (p. 3).
Conclusion
Colonialism is still ingrained in the social institutions of settler-colonial States. In other words, restorative justice is created within and practiced under colonial systems, and therefore cannot be implemented to its full capacity. When Indigenous cultural approaches to crime operate within colonial structures, it could be argued that decolonization is not being fully achieved. As in the case of restorative justice, decolonization is under the control of the very Western institutions that were forged through its processes. For example, in family group conferences, the Maori may have enjoyed more opportunities for participation, but the conferences were formed and operated by the State. The Haida Justice practices illustrate a system that is separate from the Western justice system and advocates for self-determination. It is also noteworthy that other limitations can be found within traditional conflict resolution processes such as the Pashtun Jirga, which is critiqued as patriarchal and lacking female representation (Yousaf & FarrukhZad, 2020). Recognizing such limitations can assist in identifying possible ways of improving decolonization processes and succeed in getting the monster out of restorative justice.

Since the European 'discovery' of the new World, Indigenous peoples have been oppressed by colonial structures that aimed to eliminate the Indigenous way of life by forcing assimilation and implementing processes of genocide including cultural annihilation. Colonialism is known to be destructive and its negative impacts on Indigenous peoples have perpetuated the multiple social injustices of the colonial system, such as poverty, over incarceration, and destruction of land. Colonialist structures have characterized Indigenous practices as less effective or simply not important enough to fully implement. On the other hand, European approaches are the only ones considered worthy of inclusion (Yousaf & FurrukhZad, 2020). Restorative justice is often fathomed as a holistic Indigenous approach offering a much-needed alternative to the punitive Western criminal justice system. However, restorative justice has not been sufficiently representative of Indigenous peoples and their practices; rather, it has been romanticized and modified to fit colonial frameworks.

This homogenization of restorative justice fails to consider the cultural differences that exist between different Indigenous cultures (Tauri, 2005). Colonialists have created a generalized Westernized restorative justice paradigm by omitting the significant aspects of cultural relevancy and appropriateness. Also, celebration of 'traditional Indigenous' practices of conflict resolution through restorative justice within the criminal justice system creates a popular idea that Indigenous peoples' needs are being considered when they clearly are not.
Discussion Questions
The process of decolonization highlights the importance of raising awareness around the impacts of colonialism (Monchalin, 2016). The cultural differences among Indigenous peoples must be recognized. Meaningful consultation with elders and other community members is vital and ensures that cultural appropriate methods are practiced (Busija et al., 2020). As demonstrated in the cases of the Maori of New Zealand, the Pashtun Jirga of Pakistan, and the Haida of Canada, the potential exists for including cultural practices within mainstream Western justice systems. To get the monster out of restorative justice, decolonization would also foster the full integration of Indigenous practices. This will afford self-determination to Indigenous peoples, while addressing other harms produced first by colonization and maintained through contemporary colonialism.

1) Describe ways in which Asadullah's decolonization tree framework that illustrates (trauma-informed method and an anti-oppressive structure, local communities, and cultural competency and local teachings) can be used to decolonize oneself since one must first decolonize themself?
Recommended Activities
2) In your own view, which best enhances the decolonization of restorative justice, micro form, or macro forms decolonization?

1) Watch Wilkinson's, "How economic inequality harms societies" https://www.ted.com/talks/richard_wilkinson.

2) Watch "Decolonization: Crash Course European History #43" and understand the rejection of European rule in colonies.
Recommended Readings
3) Take Kathy Obear "But I am not racist quiz" and learn to identify different racist behaviours and attitudes. https://drkathyobear.com/racequiz/

Awoonor, Kofi. (1964). Rediscovery. All Poetry, https://allpoetry.com/poem/12180349-Rediscovery-by-Kofi-Awoonor

Boyer, Y., & Bartlett, J. (2017). External Review: Tubal Ligation in the Saskatoon Health Region: The Lived Experience of Aboriginal Women. Saskatoon Health Region. https://www.saskatoonhealthregion.ca/DocumentsInternal/Tubal_Ligation_intheSaskatoonHealthRegion_the_Lived_Experience_of_Aboriginal_Women_BoyerandBartlett_July_22_2017.pdf

Shore, Herbert L. (1965). Sombre Green Challenge: Notes on Art and Education in Modern Africa. Phylon, 26(4), 380-390.
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Blagg, H. (2017). Doing Restorative Justice 'Otherwise': Decolonizing Practices in the Global South. Retrieved from https://urcourses.uregina.ca/pluginfile.php/2438479/mod_resource/content/1/Blagg

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Busija, L., Cinelli, R., Toombs, M. R., Easton, C., Hampton, R., Holdsworth, K., Macleod, A., Nicholson, G. C., Nasir, B. F., Sanders, K. M., & McCabe, M. P. (2020). The Role of Elders in the Wellbeing of a Contemporary Australian Indigenous Community. The Gerontologist, 60(3), 513-524.

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CrashCourse. (2020, May 20). Decolonization: Crash Course European History #43 [Video]. Youtube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FlMKqRCNX9c

Gahman, L. (2016). White Settler Society as Monster: Rural Southeast Kansas, Ancestral Osage (Wah-Zha-Zhi) Territories, and the Violence of Forgetting. Antipode, 48(2), 314-335.

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McGuire, M. (2019). Tll Yahda: Visions of a Haida justice system. International Journal of Critical Indigenous Studies, 12(1), 18-33.

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Monchalin, L. (2016). The Colonial Problem: An Indigenous Perspective on Crime and Injustice in Canada. Toronto: UFT Press.

Obear, K. Quiz: But I'm Not Racist... The centre for transformation and change. Retrieved from https://drkathyobear.com/racequiz/

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Povinelli, E. (2002). The Cunning of Recognition: Indigenous Alterities and the Making of Australian Multiculturalism. Durham, NC, Duke University Press.

Shepard, T. (2006). The invention of decolonization: The Algerian war and the remaking of France. Cornell University Press.

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Wilkinson, R. (2011, July). How economic inequality harms societies [Video]. TED. https://www.ted.com/talks/richard_wilkinson

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Yousaf, F., & FurrukhZad, S. (2020). Pashtun Jirga and prospects of peace and conflict resolution in Pakistan's 'tribal' frontier. Third World Quarterly, 41(7), 1200-1217.

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Decolonization and Justice: An Introductory Overview

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Abstract Indigenous peoples and minorities in settler colonial states constitute the majority of incarcerated people in Canada. In recent years, there has been a deep awakening as to why this over-representation of Indigenous peoples and minorities takes place in settler colonial criminal justice systems. Contemporary colonialism has been a recurring topic of interest in the quest to understand the incarceration rate of minorities and Indigenous peoples in colonial states.

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Ȟesápa: A LandBack Film
In the video above, activists speak out against the carceral system's oppressive presence in Indigenous communities, including the disproportionate incarceration rates of Indigenous people in South Dakota's Pennington County Jail. We also see Land Defenders working against the occupation of Ȟesápa and the Black Hills -- sacred occupied lands of the Lakota. While settlers often recognize this land as Mt. Rushmore, Land Defenders push back against this history, pointing out that the carved faces of former U.S. presidents -- all colonizers -- symbolize white supremacy and racism. The movement to reclaim Lakota and other Indigenous lands is ongoing. Until settlers have handed over the decision-making power for unceded, occupied land to Indigenous caretakers, we will not have achieved land decolonization.
Personal Reflection:
How can you contribute to the Land Back movement? Now that you have completed this page, take some time to research the Indigenous community whose land you reside on and think about ways you can support them. You may be able to support Indigenous organizations by volunteering your time, contributing financially to Indigenous mutual aid projects or land rent funds, or spreading the word about Indigenous rights by talking to a friend about what you've learned. A first step in learning more may even be visiting and patronizing the local or regional Indigenous cultural center. In the region where the authors' home institutions are located, Eastern Pennsylvania, one prominent example is the Cultural Center of the Lenape Nation.
Page completion - outcomes
Now that you have completed this page and the readings, videos, and activities within it, you should have strengthened your understanding of:

What it means to decolonize in practice, including the meaning of land restitution.

Why land restitution is important and various ways in which it can take place.

What other issues intersect with Land Back, including but not limited to police violence, the prison and military industrial complexes, and other structures of white supremacy.

Citations:

Agoyo, Acee. "'On the far end of the Trail of Tears': Nation's highest court holds U.S. to promise in tribal treaty." Indianz, 9 July 2020,https://www.indianz.com/News/2020/07/09/on-the-far-end-of-the-trail-of-tears-nat.asp

Hefflinger, Mark. "In Historic First, Nebraska Farmer Returns Land to Ponca Tribe Along 'Trail of Tears'." Bold Nebraska, 11 June 2018, https://boldnebraska.org/in-historic-first-nebraska-farmer-returns-land-to-ponca-tribe-along-trail-of-tears/

"Land Reparations & Indigenous Solidarity Toolkit." Resource Generation, n.d., https://resourcegeneration.org/land-reparations-indigenous-solidarity-action-guide/

Little, Jane Braxton. "Sierra stewards listen to the trees, and a California tribe regains an ancestral land." The Sacramento Bee, 20 June 2018, https://www.sacbee.com/opinion/california-forum/article213494354.html

Marimow, Ann E. "Supreme Court says much of eastern Oklahoma remains Indian land." The Washington Post, 9 July 2020, https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/courts_law/supreme-court-says-much-of-eastern-oklahoma-remains-indian-land/2020/07/09/7bdc42d4-c1e2-11ea-9fdd-b7ac6b051dc8_Tory.html

NDN Collective. "LANDBACK Manifesto." LandBack, n.d., https://landback.org/manifesto/

"Shuumi Land Tax." Sogorea Te' Land Trust, n.d., http://sogoreate-landtrust.com/shuumi-land-tax/#

Author Co-Authors:

Belfi, E. & Sandiford, N. (2021). Decolonization Part 3: Land Back. In S. Brandauer and E. Hartman (Eds.). Interdependence: Global Solidarity and Local Actions. The Community-based Global Learning Collaborative. Retrieved from: https://www.cbglcollab.org/what-does-land-restitution-mean

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Land Back Movement - Community-Based Global Learning Collaborative

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Ȟesápa: A LandBack Film In the video above, activists speak out against the carceral system's oppressive presence in Indigenous communities, including the disproportionate incarceration rates of Indigenous people in South Dakota's Pennington County Jail. We also see Land Defenders working against the occupation of Ȟesápa and the Black Hills -- sacred occupied lands of the Lakota.

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What is decolonization and how can it help address a state of cultural emergency? "Decolonization is the concept and practice that Indigenous peoples and colonized peoples all over the world are using to break free from the cycles of violence, discrimination and despair that have been created by hundreds of years of colonization.

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No one should have to beg to be seen for their humanity. 

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No one should have to beg to be seen for their humanity. 

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"You shouldn't have to convince someone of your humanity by letting them dig through your deepest wounds, and waiting to see if they believe the blood..." @BlackLiturgies -Cole Arthur Riley

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Acknowledge and Protect Indigenous Culture

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Acknowledge and Protect Indigenous Culture

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As previously stated, some indigenous people reside on reservations and act sovereignly. Their culture should be acknowledged and protected. Their reservations are the only remaining sovereign land and should be protected as the early colonists took almost all of their land from them.

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The GVSU Native American Advisory Council (NAAC) has the following draft statement for land acknowledgement:

We would like to recognize the People of the Three Fires: the Ojibwe, Odawa, and Potawatomi peoples on whose land we are gathered. The Three Fires People are indigenous to this land which means that this is their ancestral territory. Every university is built on stolen, native land. We are guests on their land and one way to practice right relations is to develop genuine ways to acknowledge the histories and traditions of the people who originated here first, who are still here, and who tend to the land always. As we make this land acknowledgment we know it is but an important first step, and that there are many more that we need to take when we decide to engage in the important work of social justice.

For more information on the purpose and intent of land acknowledgments, see Northwestern University's site.

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Ways to pay reparations can be expressed in different ways. As a single individual, simply providing resources and/or time for indigenous people is a huge step in paying reparations.

When we band together, we are more powerful than anything. A great way to pay reparations is to provide economic opportunities and education opportunities for indigenous people. Providing them with adequate education and employment opportunities are a great way to pay reparations for what has happened in the past. They also deserve the respect that they never got in the past. It is truly amazing how hard they fought for their land while all odds were against them.

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"So, what DO Indigenous people want?" and "What can I Do?"

These are two questions that non-Aboriginal people commonly ask, and they are not straight-forward to answer. Sometimes I want to start questioning where the questions come from, who is asking them, who is the right person to answer them, what is the nature of the problem, and who's responsibility is it to address the problem when you really unpack it all.

It is striking how often the first question asked of non-Aboriginal people; and the second question asked of Aboriginal people.

So, here is an outline of an answer the first question. It reflects what Aboriginal people have said over and over again about what needs to happen. (NB: For more information about local struggles please see The Koori History Website which documents Black Power and movements for Land Rights, Self-Determination and Economic Independence in Australia).

What DO Indigenous people want?

1. Acknowledge Sovereignty:

Aboriginal people have been on this land for ever, have never surrendered their claims to sovereignty and have never sold their country.

2. Be Honest about our History:

The truth must be told in regard to the facts of history. That is, that Aboriginal people have suffered greatly, but have endured and survived in spite of the conscientious efforts by the dominant culture, including our attempted genocide: massacres, taking children away, preventing births through sterilization and splitting up of families, forbidding the practice of law and culture and creating fourth world living conditions.

3. Safeguard Aboriginal Cultural Heritage:

Cultural Heritage can be defined in at least two ways - as physical and as social. Aboriginal people must be given the means and authority to protect these. The dominant culture still seems to be pursuing policies that equate to a sort of relentless 'genocide by stealth'.

4. Recognise and Respect Aboriginal Culture:

Aboriginal cultures are the oldest surviving cultures on this planet. It will take years, perhaps even generations, for Aboriginal people to rebuild their society - providing we STOP sabotaging their every effort! Rebuilding will take time, money, mistakes, confusion, conflict, leadership and our support.

5. Seek Aboriginal Representation in all Areas and at all Levels of Civic Society:

Aboriginal people must be allowed to the time and means of developing and be resourced to operate their own systems of representation by which to interface with the dominant culture. These representative mechanisms could be the foundation of future relationships between the governments and other institutions of the dominant culture and Aboriginal peoples.

6. Pay reparations:

The past cannot be forgotten or ever entirely forgiven. What has been taken is nothing less than almost 'everything'. Money will not compensate for the losses, but it may enable a fresh start - built from a secure economic base. Besides, in the dominant culture, money is the means of compensation and should not be denied to those whose losses, at our hands, are the greatest.

"So, What Can I do?"

If the above is to come alive YOU will need to act. So as a response to the next most frequently asked question - "what can I do about it?" - I propose a matrix of options, from which people can chose the most relevant and/or do-able activity. It looks something like this, but remember there is a lot more that can and should be done. Please make contact if you are having difficulties.

CATEGORY

ACTIVITY LEVEL 1

ACTIVITY LEVEL 2

ACTIVITY LEVEL 3

ACTIVITY LEVEL 4

ACTIVITY LEVEL 5

ACTIVITY LEVEL 6

1
Acknowledgement
Wear a tie-pin or lapel badge, use car stickers Use building plaques
Fly the Flags, verbal acknowledgment at meetings

Amend your organisation's constitution

Public signage & building names

Use/Change street & other names

4
Recognition & Respect

Build into family, work, faith, friends culture

Get political: inform, educate, agitate & advocate

Mark/celebrate important days/events

Understand cultural obligations (eg. HR policies)

Ask for info & pay for expertise

Land: Pay-the-rent

What do you think of all this? Questions for further discussion

What are some of the common barriers (mental, material, other...) people might face in being active?

What are some things non-Indigenous people can do without asking Aboriginal people (if any)?

What are the things that worked for you in making you interested in and/or committed to 'doing something'? How can we work to give others experiences like that?

What are your 'spheres of influence' - who are you connected to and how? (eg, family, sport, faith, school/uni, union, ...?) Brainstorm or map out on paper. Is there a way of generating conversations and/or working together with people in your network?

Background

This matrix, originally entitled "So, what do Aboriginal people want? And what can I do?" was created by Frank Hytten when he was Coordinator of ANTaR Victoria (2003-2006). I was Community Development worker at ANTaR from 2004-2006 along with artist Megan Evans and office manager Brigid Anderson (now Trennery) and we had a couple of chats with Frank about it. Frank and the current-day ANTaR Committee of Management kindly let me use this material for this website. I have revised and reworked it a bit.

New resources

I am adding more practical ideas, and explanations to guide you in more detail. I will add to these explanations bit by bit, so please follow me on tumblr and/or visit this site regularly to see fresh content on the Resources page. Please send me your ideas and feedback, especially if you have any concerns about whether these are constructive ideas. Feel free to contact me if you are having trouble working out how to do them or encounter difficulties.

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Decolonizing Solidarity, Clare Land. What can you do to support aboriginal people and communities. This matrix, originally entitled "So, what do Aboriginal people want? And what can I do?" was created by Frank Hytten when he was Coordinator of ANTaR Victoria (2003-2006).

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“We need acts of restoration, not only for polluted waters and degraded lands, but also for our relationship to the world. We need to restore honor to the way we live, so that when we walk through the world we don’t have to avert our eyes with shame, so that we can hold our heads up high and receive the respectful acknowledgment of the rest of the earth’s beings.” ― Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass

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“We need acts of restoration, not only for polluted waters and degraded lands, but also for our relationship to the world. We need to restore honor to the way we live, so that when we walk through the world we don’t have to avert our eyes with shame, so that we can hold our heads up high and receive the respectful acknowledgment of the rest of the earth’s beings.” ― Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass

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"The cedars taught us to share the wealth, and the people learned." Braiding Sweetgrass pg. 280

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"The cedars taught us to share the wealth, and the people learned." Braiding Sweetgrass pg. 280

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From the chapter, Old Growth Children, we learn wisdom about how cedars grow free from competition... free from colonizing mindsets... and how the cedar survives the patches of death by ways of old growth sprouts that survive. The name implies faith, and hope, and solidarity for a future where there is healing, and a way of life that comes out of and after the death of such destruction caused by colonization.

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Decolonize your mindsets in how you act daily and think about the world. 

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Decolonize your mindsets in how you act daily and think about the world. 

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"I don’t have the power to dismantle Monsanto. But what I do have is the capacity to change how I live on a daily basis and how I think about the world. I just have to have faith that when we change how we think, we suddenly change how we act and how those around us act, and that’s how the world changes. It's by changing hearts and changing minds. And it’s contagious." -Robin Wall Kimmerer