For many years, the Cultures of Resistance Network has been committed to the movement for a free Palestine. We have been proud to work with leading activists, lawyers, musicians, and filmmakers who are taking courageous stands to end the Israeli occupation, combat genocide, uphold international law, protect human rights, promote Palestinians’ right to self-determination, and secure a just peace in the region.

On May 30, 2020, CoR Network founder iara lee hosted a virtual discussion to commemorate the tenth anniversary of the Israeli attack on the Mavi Marmara, part of the Gaza Freedom Flotilla. The flotilla was an effort to bring humanitarian aid to the illegally blockaded Gaza Strip, and the largest boat in the flotilla was the Mavi Marmara. In the early morning hours of May 31, 2010, Israeli commandos boarded the Mavi Marmara and opened fire on civilians, killing nine passengers (a tenth passenger died later from his injuries) and wounding dozens more. You can watch the discussion below or on YouTube.

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The post Join the Struggle for Justice in Palestine first appeared on Cultures of Resistance.

For many years, the Cultures of Resistance Network has been committed to the movement for a free Palestine. We have been proud to work with leading activists, lawyers, musicians, and filmmakers who are taking courageous stands to end the Israeli occupation, combat genocide, uphold international law, protect human rights, promote Palestinians’ right to self-determination, and secure a just peace in the region.

At the bottom of this page, you will find a list of organizations that we support which are working on this crucial issue. Many of these groups provide regular updates on the situation in Gaza and the West Bank, as well as suggestions for actions that you can take to show solidarity with the people of Palestine. By following the links below, you can visit the organizations’ web pages to learn more.

On May 30, 2020, CoR Network founder iara lee hosted a virtual discussion to commemorate the tenth anniversary of the Israeli attack on the Mavi Marmara, part of the Gaza Freedom Flotilla. The flotilla was an effort to bring humanitarian aid to the illegally blockaded Gaza Strip, and the largest boat in the flotilla was the Mavi Marmara. In the early morning hours of May 31, 2010, Israeli commandos boarded the Mavi Marmara and opened fire on civilians, killing nine passengers (a tenth passenger died later from his injuries) and wounding dozens more. You can watch the discussion below or on YouTube.

The following are groups that we have supported that are focused on Palestine:

[groups_we_support_project_area categories=”gws-palestine”]

[Featured image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.]

The post Join the Struggle for Justice in Palestine first appeared on Cultures of Resistance.

One of our key areas of focus at the Cultures of Resistance Network is confronting injustices against indigenous peoples and promoting cultural survival. Whether in the villages of Nigeria, the Brazilian rainforest, or the mountains of Pakistan, our network has long worked with partners who are standing with indigenous communities as they face threats from industrial infrastructure, mining, and other major corporate and government projects.

Often, indigenous communities are the victims of mainstream visions of “development.” The construction of mines, mega-dams, and plantations often means that the long-time stewards of the land are displaced. Human and environmental exploitation often go hand in hand—for example, when rainforests are cleared to make way for monoculture crops or rivers are polluted by oil drilling. The resulting loss of cultural and linguistic diversity is equally dramatic, as indigenous peoples abandon their languages and customs to assimilate in cities: the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues estimates that 90 percent of the world’s languages are at risk of disappearing in the next 100 years, the majority of them spoken by indigenous peoples.

The CoR Network is proud to partner with allies Survival International, Amazon Watch, International Rivers, Cultural Survival, and EarthRights International to advance a number of campaigns for indigenous rights around the world.

Brazil: Protecting Earth’s Most Threatened Tribes

With several major industrial and infrastructure projects underway, Brazil is also a focal point for battles over indigenous rights to land and water. The country has more rainforest cover than any other country on earth, and the Brazilian rainforest is home to the world’s greatest number of uncontacted tribes. However, with industry and agriculture expanding at a dramatic pace, deforestation is having a profound impact on the country’s indigenous communities, to the point where several tribes are on the verge of extinction.

Among these tribes is the Awá. Few indigenous lands have seen as much pressure from illegal logging as the Awá forests in Brazil’s eastern Amazon region, where forced displacement and violence, including documented murders, have caused the Awá population to dwindle to an estimated 350 people, approximately one-third of whom remain uncontacted. As a result, Survival International has labeled the Awá “earth’s most threatened tribe.”

Since 2012, the Cultures of Resistance Network has supported Survival International’s creative campaign in defense of the Awá. In 2014, Survival International and the Awá celebrated an unprecedented victory when the Brazilian government sent troops to expel the illegal loggers from Awá land. As part of the campaign, 57,558 people from thirty-eight different countries sent letters to Brazil’s Minister of Justice. However, the campaign hasn’t stopped. Our allies are keeping up the pressure on the Brazilian government to ensure that the loggers don’t return and that the Awá can live in peace on their land.

On Survival International’s campaign website, you can take action by downloading a stencil to create posters, t-shirts, and street art in support of the Awá; ordering stickers to further spread the word; and donating to this important campaign. The participation of students, artists, filmmakers, and celebrities has already brought crucial attention to the Awá struggle. But only continued pressure and solidarity will allow the Awá people to sustain their traditional way of life.

Fighting Mega-Dams: Belo Monte

Since 2008, we have stood in solidarity with indigenous opposition to the proposed Belo Monte Dam on the Xingu River in Brazil’s Amazon. The dam, currently under construction, would be the world’s third-largest hydroelectric dam if completed and have a disastrous impact on the thousands of indigenous people who rely on the Xingu River for survival, destroying the biodiversity of the river basin and depriving its people of their rights to a sustainable future. Indigenous peoples in the region have been continuously protesting against the dam and other destructive projects in the Amazon region, including a toxic gold mine that a Canadian firm has proposed to open in the vicinity of the dam.

In 2017, filmmaker Todd Southgate released a new documentary, “Belo Monte: After the Flood,” that chronicles the indigenous resistance to Belo Monte and was produced by our allies Survival International and International Rivers. Learn more about the film here and watch the trailer below.

For more background on the dam and the struggle against it, check out our archived Belo Monte action page. You can also check Amazon Watch’s blog for breaking news and action alerts around the Belo Monte dam and other indigenous rights issues in Brazil.

Ecuador: Standing Up to Big Oil

For decades, the people of Ecuador’s Amazon region have fought a landmark case against oil giant Chevron, demanding reparations for one of the biggest oil-related environmental catastrophes in history. Despite a 2012 appeals court ruling that requires the giant to pay $19 billion for polluting environmental and human health, Chevron has continued, through diverse legal tactics and covert operations, to challenge the ruling and avoid paying for the enormous clean-up and remediation efforts needed in the Ecuadorian Amazon.

This landmark case has brought together several indigenous groups seeking to hold the multinational oil company accountable for its decades of environmental degradation and disregard for human rights. Still, Chevron refuses to accept responsibility and has continued appeal in various courts. In 2014, it won a case alleging that Steven Doniger, the lawyer who won the $19 billion settlement against the company on behalf of Ecuadorian plaintiffs, had engaged in fraud during the trial. Though the judge maintained that pollution had indeed occurred, he barred Doniger from profiting from the case.

Currently, the Ecuadorians have filed lawsuits in Canada and Brazil to seek seizure of Chevron’s assets in order to force the company to pay for the clean-up and remediation of the Ecuadorian Amazon jungle. Lawsuits in other nations are expected to follow.

Follow recent developments in the case on Amazon Watch’s blog, and learn how you can take action on the Chevron Toxico website.

Enduring Voices: Preserving Indigenous Languages

Fortunately, not all indigenous groups are as urgently threatened in their day-to-day existence as those living in the Amazon region. But when it comes to indigenous languages and culture, the threat of extinction is widespread. A global history of colonialism, racism, and discrimination has led to the extinction of approximately 600 languages in the last century, and an estimated 90 percent of the 6,000-plus languages spoken around the world today are projected to disappear in the next hundred years. The vast majority of these languages are spoken by indigenous peoples and are in danger of disappearing without a trace.

Recognizing the urgent need to protect traditional knowledge and culture, the CoR Network supports Cultural Survival’s Endangered Languages Program, in which the group partners with tribal language programs in the United States to strengthen fundraising efforts for linguistic education projects.

In addition to the Endangered Languages Program, the CoR Network celebrates the indigenous language revitalization projects of many other organizations. To learn more about these efforts, check out our page on preserving indigenous languages.

Pakistan: Protecting Kalash Culture

Rumored to be the descendants of Alexander the Great, the Kalash people have in fact inhabited northern Pakistan’s Chitral valley since long before the legendary conqueror came to the region. They uphold a rich cultural heritage, with polytheistic beliefs, seasonal festivals, and a variety of other traditions that are at odds with Pakistan’s dominant Islam. Today, even as the the majestic peaks of the Hindu Kush mountains shield the Kalasha from the region’s worst violence, their culture faces a variety of pressures: poverty, tourism, and Islamism are all contributing to the erosion of Kalash identity.

Still, a dedicated group of Kalash advocates are fighting to keep their culture alive. The Kalash People’s Development Network is leading education, health, and women’s empowerment programs in the area, as well as promoting Kalash crafts. Link up with them through their Facebook page to show your support!

Past Victories

Through our experience with past campaigns for indigenous rights, we know that international solidarity can be effective in winning landmark victories. One such victory came out of a legal campaign to hold oil companies accountable for crimes perpetrated against indigenous peoples, workers, human rights leaders, and the environment in the Niger Delta region of Nigeria. These abuses peaked in the mid-1990s, when Shell backed repression against environmental justice and human rights activists that culminated in the executions of nine Ogoni leaders, including internationally acclaimed writer and activist Ken Saro-Wiwa. Seeking justice for the victims, CoR Network allies EarthRights International and the Center for Constitutional Rights pursued a series of human rights cases known collectively as Wiwa v. Shell, which led to a landmark $15.5 million settlement in 2009.

To learn more about Wiwa v. Shell and the Ogoni struggle, check out our archived CoR Network page. For continued advocacy on behalf of the Ogoni people, link up with the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People on Facebook.

[Featured image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.]

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Four decades after its people were promised freedom by departing Spanish rulers, the Western Sahara remains Africa’s last colony. While a UN-brokered ceasefire put an end to armed hostilities in the territory in 1991, the Sahrawi people have continued to live under the oppressive occupation of the Moroccan armed forces, and what peace exists in the area is fragile at best. Tens of thousands of Sahrawis have fled to neighboring Algeria, where over 125,000 refugees still live in camps that were intended to be temporary.

In spite of these difficulties, a new generation of activists is rising to challenge human rights abuses and to demand the long-promised referendum on freedom. Even while risking torture and disappearance, today’s Sahrawi resistance is deploying creative nonviolent action for the cause of self-determination. Filmmakers, poets, painters, and musicians have become the voice of the movement, alongside the activists in the streets and jails.

What can you do to help end the occupation in one of the world’s last colonies? On this page, we present a selection of inspiring campaigns led by artists and activists fighting for a free Western Sahara. Join them, and lend your voice to a movement that the world can no longer ignore!

Keeping Nonviolent Resistance Alive: Women Take Center Stage

One of the defining aspects of the Sahrawi resistance movement is the strong role of women. One of the most dedicated activists in the struggle is Aminatou Haidar, known as the “Sahrawi Gandhi,” whose hunger strike in 2009 helped raise global awareness of the injustices taking place under Moroccan occupation. The resistance led by Haidar and her fellow activists has become a beacon of creative nonviolent action in the region, and helped to catalyze the Arab Spring— yet it has been widely neglected in media coverage of the uprisings in the region. The Sahrawi uprisings have not yet resulted in the kind of cataclysmic changes that have rocked the rest of the region, but they have sparked a resilient movement that remains committed to nonviolence.

The leadership of groups like the Unión Nacional de Mujeres Saharauis, or National Union of Sahrawi Women, has been central to keeping nonviolent Sahrawi resistance alive. Founded in 1974 and guided by the work of Aminatou Haidar, UNMS is a coalition of female activists of all ages who are standing up to extreme human rights abuses to demand freedom. UNMS activists have been jailed, beaten, and tortured, and yet they continue to expand their struggle both locally and internationally. Connect with UNMS through their blog (Spanish), as well as on Facebook and Twitter, to learn how you can take part!

For more photos and testimonies from women in the Sahrawi movement, check out photographer Dani Lagartofernandez’s brilliant black-and-white photo essay.

FiSahara Film Festival

The largest gathering of Western Sahara artists and activists is the annual FiSahara International Film Festival, which takes place every spring in the Dakhla refugee camp in Tindouf, Algeria. The annual festival brings regional and international cinema, as well as international media attention, to the Sahrawi refugee community living in the camps. (For example, it helped inspire Spanish actor Javier Bardem’s documentary Sons of the Clouds and his ongoing campaign for justice in Western Sahara.) Moreover, the festival is a site of education and organizing for Sahrawi artistis and activists, both from the refugee community and the diaspora. In addition to film workshops that take place during the festival, FiSahara acts as the basis for a year-round film school that provides hands-on training to young refugees so that they can tell their own stories and create films for their communities.

For a taste of FiSahara, check out this short trailer for the 2013 festival:

Want to be a part of this incredible political and cultural experience? The FiSahara team coordinates travel to the festival from Madrid and housing with families in Dakhla camp. Head to their website to contact them about booking your trip!

Can’t make it all the way to Tindouf? Chip in to keep the festival alive until you can. FiSahara counts on international donations to maintain its excellent programs and resources, including workshops, DVD libraries, and more, and even a small donation will go a long way towards promoting Sahrawi creative resistance.

Toppling the Wall of Shame

When Moroccan forces realized in 1981 that they could not defeat Sahrawi guerrillas in the desert, they began building a 2,500 km wall to isolate the guerrillas in the east of the territory. The result, now known among Sahrawis as the Wall of Shame, is the world’s largest defensive structure: half the size of the Great Wall of China and four times the length of the separation wall in the West Bank, the Wall of Shame is guarded by some 100,000 Moroccan soldiers and surrounded by over 5,000,000 landmines.

Toppling the wall has become a priority for the resistance movement in Western Sahara, which aims at full self-determination and an end to Moroccan occupation throughout the territory. One of the groups leading this struggle is Plataforma Gritos Contra el Muro Marroquí, which aims both to mobilize activists on the ground and to encourage resistance to the wall through the arts. Link up with them on Facebook or through their blog (Spanish) to show your support!

(Photo via Plataforma Gritos Contra el Muro Marroquí)

What You Can Do

The groups on this page provide a sense of the landscape of activism taking place in Western Sahara. To start getting more involved yourself, both with these groups and others, there are a number of steps that you can take.

• Inform yourself: One of the biggest problems in building international solidarity with the Sahrawi struggle is awareness. Very few people around the world are aware of the struggle, and the conflict receives far less media attention than comparable struggles in Palestine and Kashmir. This is partly because of the powerful influence of secretive Moroccan lobbies in the international community, as highlighted in the the documentary Sons of the Clouds (2012). We highly recommend watching this film, directed by Javier Bardem, as an introduction to the Sahrawi struggle.One of the best sources of news on the conflict is Jadaliyya, which also hosted an excellent roundtable on the conflict in June 2013, featuring seven articles by scholars and activists. For further analysis, we recommend the writings of Dr. Stephen Zunes, a leading scholar of US Middle East policy and strategic nonviolent action. To dig into the resource side of the conflict and learn about how foreign powers and corporations are profiting off of the occupation, check out Western Sahara Resource Watch.As you get more informed, share your knowledge. Have some friends over to discuss one of the articles or the film listed above. Organize a panel on your campus or in your community center. Post about the conflict on social media. Do what you can to make more people aware!
• Make connections: Get in touch with the groups listed on this page, and let them know that you’re interested in their work. Facebook is a great way to contact Union Nacional de Mujeres Saharawi or Plataforma Gritos Contra el Muro—follow the links to like, follow, and message them. For activists who are on the ground struggling daily against repression and violence, just knowing that people around the world are supporting and in solidarity is important.If you’re interested in learning about a broader range of Sahrawi resistance groups, check out CEAS-Sáhara (Coordinadora Estatal de Asociaciones Solidarias con el Sáhara), a network of over 200 groups, including several of the groups listed above. The CEAS website (in Spanish) is a great place to learn more about individual groups and campaigns you can support, whether it’s freedom for political prisoners, defending universal jurisdiction, or the Sahara Marathon. Another good source for information, analysis, and campaigns—available in English, French, and Spanish—is the Western Sahara Action Forum.To support the groups leading the resistance on the ground, more and more international activists are forming solidarity campaigns in their countries. Consider joining up with others in your area to figure out how you can collectively take action; ultimately, this means bringing together like-minded people to discuss in person. A number of countries already have online hubs that can help you get in touch with people who might be in your area. Among them are the Amis du Peuple du Sahara Occidental (France) and the Western Sahara Campaign (UK). In addition to providing another way to make contacts, these groups can provide you with lots of resources. Connect with a group that speaks your language and find out how you can join!
• Make art against occupation: Whether through film, poetry, photography, or painting, artists and journalists have long fostered a culture of resistance in occupied Western Sahara. Women, inspired by the legendary Mariam Hassan, sing songs of freedom in the refugee camps. Poets in Western Sahara and in the Sahrawi diaspora have launched collaborative projects like Generacíon de la Amistad Saharaui (Sahrawi Friendship Generation), which is both an anthology of poetry and a hub for activism. ARTifariti has created a space for artists and activists to meet, collaborate, and create: check out some of the great work it has already inspired, from the Congo to Colombia to the Sahrawi camps. If you like what these artists are doing, reach out to them!Groups like Sandblast help promote the voices of the indigenous Sahrawi through the arts. Sandblast is the only arts and human rights charity based in the UK that works with the people of Western Sahara. It is primarily concerned with raising awareness about the conflict in Africa’s last colony, highlighting the self-determination struggle of the Sahrawi people, and empowering their voices through the arts. The organization was founded in 2005 by Danielle Smith, who became involved with the Sahrawi refugee community, in southwest Algeria, in 1991. Her initial mission was to bring the Sahrawi story to wider audiences through the organization of a UK-first festival and tour of Sahrawi arts and culture.Are you a writer? An artist? A filmmaker? Whatever your talent, channel the Sahrawi spirit of resistance in your own work and help spread the word about this issue. If you’re not an artist but you’re inspired by the work on this page, use your reading groups, community spaces, and social media to share it and amplify the voices of the Sahrawi movement.
• Donate: Groups like FiSahara count on financial donations from abroad to sustain their efforts. But there are many ways to contribute to the cause besides giving money. You can host a small fundraiser—perhaps a film screening, poetry reading, or house party. You can donate equipment, ranging from DVDs to cameras to memory cards to projectors. And you can donate your services: for example, translation from Spanish or Arabic into English and other languages. Reach out to the groups above to find out how you can volunteer.
• Consider traveling to Western Sahara: There are several ways you can travel to the region and work with Sahrawi artists and activists. FiSahara coordinates travel to the festival from Madrid and housing with families in the refugee camps outside Tindouf, Algeria. Artifariti offers an art residency program, also in Tindouf. Get in touch with them to learn how you can take part!

[Featured image courtesy of Iara Lee.]

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There’s a quiet revolution taking place in farms and kitchens across the small West African country of Burkina Faso. As food has moved towards the pre-processed and microwavable, people have become more and more detached from their meals’ origins and ingredients. However, an international movement pushing back against these trends is developing. In place of fast food, people now demand “slow food.” Slow food recovers the traditions of food preparation and celebrates diversity, rather than standardization. With an emphasis on culture, the movement focuses on growing, making, and eating food as a community.

When some people think of slow food, they think of a movement that’s about people in wealthy countries who are enjoying elaborate meals in expensive restaurants. But despite this common perception of slow food as a craze reserved for upscale urban centers, slow food is actually a grassroots movement coming from below, rooted in indigenous communities and building ties with food producers in the global south. In West Africa, where the movement is growing, slow food means defending food security, breaking from large-scale industrial agriculture, and preserving traditional, sustainable agriculture practices. At the Cultures of Resistance Network, we’re proud to be involved with international organizations like Slow Food and Via Campesina, which are both creating rich networks of people and groups working in West Africa and beyond to promote sustainable and ethical food practices.

In Burkina Faso, a small, landlocked country in West Africa, the slow food movement is taking root, spreading from the capital of Ouagadougou to small villages. In spring 2016, a caravan organized by Via Campesina allies traveled from Burkina Faso to Senegal, linking together the struggles for the human rights to food, land, water, and seeds. A year later, in February 2017, Slow Food organized Terra Madre Burkina Faso, West Africa’s first gathering of food communities. For years, the organization has been working to map the country’s local food products and create school and community food gardens, but this campaign is just one of the many slow food initiatives underway in Burkina Faso. Below are a selection of other grassroots efforts in the country that offer lessons for the rest of the globe. For a complete list of Slow Food‘s efforts in Burkina Faso, click here.

La Saisonnière Educational Garden

Ouagadougou lies in the center of Burkina Faso’s over-105,000 square feet of land. With a population of about 2.7 million, the city is growing rapidly. From 2007 to 2014, the population increased by over 50 percent, according to the New York Times.

On the outskirts of this burgeoning metropolis lies a chemical-free community garden run entirely by women. La Saisonnière, an organization in Ouagadougou, works to guarantee the economic and social rights of Burkinabé women. One of its major projects is the Nongr-Maasom community garden, tended to by about fifty women. Chemical fertilizers were once used in the garden, but the women now use natural products, including fertilizer, compost, and manure. This switch from chemical to natural is helping to restore the soil’s health and produce better harvests. The women each choose the vegetables that they wish to plant. After they’ve produced enough to feed their families, the women sell their surplus harvest at a nearby market. About 300 children also use a portion of the garden as an open-air classroom, where they are taught the basics of sustainable agriculture.

Génération Revenu

In the northeastern town of Yako, a new restaurant is celebrating local food and preserving indigenous traditions. Run by the Génération Revenu association, which works on agricultural projects, the restaurant’s proceeds support small farms in the town. In this part of Burkina Faso, the best-selling product is the desert date, which is harvested by about a dozen women in the community. At the restaurant, the typical dish is guelbom, which is made with the condiment soumbala, fermented sorrel seeds (a type of herb), dried fish, and millet flour. Next door, Génération Revenu also runs a shop selling local foods. If you were to visit, you would find cookies made with baobab and jujube fruit, soaps made from desert dates, and seasonings like soumbala and liikalga.

Watinoma

On any given day at Watinoma‘s community center in Koubri, about fifteen miles southeast of the capital, you might find kids engaged in educational projects, adults learning traditional textile methods, or artists giving musical or story-telling performances. A member of Slow Food‘s network and based in Italy, Watinoma is working to impact food and agriculture practices in Burkina Faso through community involvement. In addition to the many activities at its community center, the organization also created and runs numerous local gardens. It even started a school of its own for local children from ages six to twelve. 160 students now attend the school at no cost.

Get Involved

From eating locally and examining your own food consumption to standing in solidarity with food activists in other parts of the world, there are many different ways that you can get involved with this international movement. To get started, you can:

• Join one of Watinoma‘s volunteer projects in Burkina Faso! You might help out at the organization’s primary school or tend to one of the community gardens.
• Head to Slow Food’s Get Involved page to learn more about the movement, become a Slow Food member, and join campaigns to save endangered food products.
• Find a Via Campesina organization in your town and connect with food justice and slow food activists around the world.

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