Mohawks amongst the Quebec population. But it is essentially limited to left groups, as well as some ecological, artistic, or left Christian currents. The big organizations of the workers movement, in anglophone Canada as well as Quebec, have been conspicuous by their silence.
There is a lot of work to do.
Solidarity has been much more massive and active amongst the other native peoples of Quebec and Canada. They have built barricades of solidarity (and in defence of their own demands on the roads and railways in Ontario, Manitoba and British Columbia. There has even been an attempt to divert a river in Alberta, by the Lonefighters, a Warrior-style group amongst the Peigane nation 8
In anglophone Canada, there have also been movements of solidarity amongst whites but these were fundamentally of the same nature as in Quebec. All the bourgeois parties and provincial governments have proclaimed their solidarity with the federal and Quebecois governments, with the exception of the government of the North West Territories, where native peoples are in a majority.
The New Democratic Party, the social democratic party of anglophone Canada, has denounced the use of the police and army (whilst deploring the fact that the concerned with winning the next elections, have not followed this lead. And in Quebec, the NDP has no real presence — its sole deputy in Quebec comes from the south bank of Montreal and has been remarkably absent
The bourgeois parties and the Canadian-English media are using the crisis and the racist reaction of a fringe of Quebec's francophone population to portray the Quebecois nation and the whole of Quebecois society as xenophobic and narrow minded. Premier Bourassa, PQ leader right nationalist groups and the racist mobs have all given to the enemies of national liberation in Quebec their best weapon - the comfort of their own moral superiority.
The Canadian government's decision to use solely francophone troops against the Mohawks is not accidental. It placates the francophone racists and the anglophone anti-Quebecois forces whilst at the same time reinforcing the tensions between the Mohawks and the francophone majority of Quebecois society.
At the moment of writing all is not over. The repression will surely continue. The effects inside the Six Nations are not yet clear. Reactions of despair cannot be ruled out amongst young Native Americans who can no longer bear the continued genocide against their people and who have nothing in particular to lose. Ambivalent role of Warriors'
Society
The prestige of the Warriors Society has grown thanks to the police and military intervention, but its dubious practices inside the communities (violence against opponents, defence of the casinos and trade in cigarettes, and so on) continue to undermine its prestige and its long term
The Confederacy Council is participating for the first time since the mid-1920s in negotiations with white governments, which constitutes an indirect form of recognition. But these governments have accepted it as a moderating force, a counter weight to the Warriors. This can only undermine its credibility amongst the youth and the most active and angry forces in the Six Nations. If the Council cannot regain its influence amongst these forces, it is foreseeable that the government will once again exclude it from all consideration in favour of a return to the chiefs of the Band Council.
The Mohawks and the other members of the Six Nations will surely experience government. some painful and sad discussions and debates in the months to come. But 400 years of genocidal interventions have not yet vanquished them and they know well how to handle such debates.
The tasks of Quebecois progressives are clear. It is necessary to demand the immediate withdrawal of the armed forces and police from the reserves, as well as the unconditional withdrawal of all accusaaround the events of Kahnawake and of Kanesatake. The land sought by the Oka golf club should be recognized as belonging to the Mohawks of Kanesatake. On a wider level, it is necessary that all levels of government recognize the right of the native nations to sovereignty and self-determination.
Those who desire the independence of Quebec have every interest in renewing the old alliance between Quebecois and native peoples against the common enemy, the Canadian state. White militants must prove themselves in the defence of the rights of the native peoples of North America. "We are all natives in somebody else's eyes"9. *
5. One of the first rights colonists arrogate to themselves is the right to name the colonized. Thus the names "Mohawk" and "Seneca" correspond in no way to the actual names of the nations in question, Ganienkehaka and Tsonnantouan respectively. moment, the peoples themselves still use the names given them by the whites. This can be expected to 6. In the 18th century, another nation of Iroquois origin, the Tuscaroras, refugees from Virginia, entered into the confederacy which became the Six Nations 7. The native peoples do not pay customs duties or sales tax and can thus sell cigarettes much more cheaply than white traders outside the reservations. 8. The Peiganes are fighting against the construction of a dam which will destroy a complete region of the south of the province, submerging lands that are 2. gr, Sylvin Lelieve a song by the Quebecois 23