~~ posted for dmorista with introduction by dmorista ~~
Introduction by dmorista:
These two articles were both written by a woman, Eileen Flanagan, who works with the an organization named Waging NonViolence (WNV). WNV focuses on struggles waged by people generally ignored by the Corporate Controlled Media, as their website reports “... we have put a special focus on overlooked movements in the Global South, facilitating cross-cultural knowledge and skill-sharing in the process.” The author notes that she personally is inspired by the Quaker tradition.
The indigenous peoples who live in the path of this latest Enbridge Pipeline project have been protesting and demonstrating against the Line 3 project for several years. Of course they have been attacked violently by the police and various groups of vigilantes. They continue to protest and petition the U.S. government for a redress of their grievances concerning the endless lies and outrageous actions of Enbridge Pipeline Corporation.
The more recent article, from Oct 19, 2021, describes Flanagan's experiences getting arrested at a sit in at the Department of the Interior's Headquarters building. She mentions that when she asked a Washington D.C. police officer why the process was so slow he speculated that in the wake of the extremely violent Right-Wing assault on the Capitol Building that the D.C. Police were skittish. Of course, in general the actions of the D.C. Police, and police forces in general are much harsher in the way they deal with leftist and environmental protesters than they are with the sorts of right-wingers and paramilitaries that have become very active around the U.S. The Water Protectors and their allies have remained committed to non-violent tactics, despite the harsh and violent way they have frequently been treated.
The older article, from August 2, 2021 discusses the Line 3 protests in more general terms and suggests roles that people who are not members of the affected Indian Tribes or who do not live in the Lake area of Minnesota can play. It points out that Anishanabe Tribal members have worked to oppose this pipeline project since it was first announced in 2014. They have used every legal and regulatory avenue over the last 7 years, but to no avail. The demonstrations and protests were not some Johnny-come-lately project. The Enbridge Pipeline Corporation is immensely wealthy and has bought local govenments and used it high-priced legal talent to force its way through our thoroughly corrupted “Cash Register” legal system.
I sincerely hope that the non-violent tactics that the Water Protectors have used will triumph in the end and succeed in having Line 3 Closed permanently, even though I have my doubts. It is the main conduit to move Athabascan Tar Sands Bitumen out of the mine area in Central Alberta, Canada, to the rest of the world. Among a large number of dubious and irresponsible fossil fuel extraction projects areound the world it stands out as the worst Petroleum extraction operation on the planet. The replacement of fossil fuels by other energy sources is an urgent undertaking. The mix of energy sources humanity needs to change over to to reduce our impact on this planet to a tolerable and survivable level is varied. But one thing is surely true, a major changeover of our energy system would provide a large amount of well-paid work for the Blue Collar people who are largely confined to low-paid service work now. Wealthy interests want to continue charging energy rents for the fossil fuel assets they control. They apparently don't think they will pay the price that a continuation of current practices will inevitably cause. But as part of a general reduction of human impacts on the Earth, that are a global concern, the extraction of “extreme” fossil fuels, such as the Athabascan Tar Sands, should be one of the first activities that is stopped in short order.
Water protectors show that ‘another world is possible’ — through resistance and care
A medic walked around the circle of 50 people occupying the lobby of the Department of the Interior, squirting water into our eager mouths before the police hauled us away. At the time, I had no idea that I wouldn’t be released until midnight, 12.5 hours after the action began. I just knew it was smart to stay hydrated, so I accepted every squirt of water offered, grateful for the care our Indigenous-led group was showing each other in circumstances designed to dehumanize us.
The Oct. 14 action occurred during the People vs. Fossil Fuels mobilization in Washington, D.C., a historic week of civil disobedience to pressure President Joe Biden to stop fossil fuel projects and declare a climate emergency. For Indigenous people, the protection of Mother Earth is deeply intertwined with the long struggle for Indigenous sovereignty, as destructive fossil fuel projects — like Line 3 in northern Minnesota — continue to be built through their territories without their consent.
Asserting that “Another world is possible,” they went to the Department of the Interior, home to the regressive Bureau of Indian Affairs, which was last occupied by Indigenous people about 50 years ago. While the media emphasized the conflict that ensued, one aspect went overlooked: how we water protectors treated each other during the tense hours of the action and arrest, illustrating the more caring world that Indigenous leaders say is possible.
Eleven Indigenous leaders from diverse territories entered first and sat in a row in the lobby, their hands linked together with plastic ties and duct tape. When a wave of approximately 45 more people joined them, we formed a large circle, holding hands, as someone swiftly linked each of our wrists to our neighbors’ with thin plastic ties. We quickly learned to adjust our hands to keep each other comfortable, moving in sync when someone needed to change position or scratch a nose.
In the middle of the circle was a bowl of burning sage, an herb used for purification. At the Line 3 resistance camp — where I spent three weeks this summer — sage was brought to each person, who then put out their hands to invite the smoke toward them, especially before actions and ceremonies. It was one of many expressions of care stemming from Indigenous understandings of interconnection. In the cavernous Department of Interior lobby, someone carried the sage clockwise around the circle, and we took turns breathing in the sweet, calming smell.
I was especially grateful for this centering practice as uniformed men congregated at the edge of the lobby, the yellow DHS on their dark uniforms indicating they were from the Department of Homeland Security. Indigenous leaders took turns leading chants like “Stop Line 3!” which reverberated between the hard marble floor and the high ornate ceiling. “Red Rover, Red Rover, send Deb Haaland over!” they called, referring to the current head of the Department of the Interior — and the first Indigenous person to hold the position. We later heard she was out of town.
When a much older woman joined us in the lobby, a young Indigenous woman yelled for those in uniform to get the elder a chair, which they eventually did after others picked up the chant. Our ages spanned at least five decades, probably more. We also had other physical differences. The friend next to me had slid out of her wheelchair to join everyone on the floor and was nervous about whether she would be separated from her chair and medicine. As arrest grew closer, two diabetics on my side of the circle assessed whether it was safe for them to stay, not knowing when they might be able to access food or medicine. After the medic helped her test her blood sugar, the diabetic with the more severe case chose to be cut loose and leave, while the other stayed. The pain in my hip from sitting cross legged on the checkerboard marble floor was increasingly uncomfortable, but not life threatening, and not nearly as bad as what others suffered during the arrests.
DHS went first for the row of Indigenous leaders, tasing two women in long ceremonial skirts who were simply holding onto each other. One later told me that she had a finger broken in the ordeal. A baton was used on someone else. Most people, including a media photographer, were dragged away roughly, sometimes by the shoulder or by the backpack. Later, I read reports that police had also been injured in the action. If that’s true — and from experience I can attest that not everything police report is true — I suspect they threw out their own backs by not carrying people properly, which would have required helping each other. In contrast, we continued to support one another, chanting, “We see you. We love you. We will get justice for you!” each time someone was dragged away.
At one point during the arrests, an older white woman who was completely new to this kind of action leaned toward me (also a white woman) and said nervously, “I want to remain nonviolent,” expressing a common confusion about what does or doesn’t constitute violence. I explained that all of the water protectors being arrested were being nonviolent. Not one was hitting or trying to hurt the people arresting them, even in the face of police brutality. What they were doing was refusing to assist in their own arrests.
In contrast, during the actions that took place at the White House all week, the majority of the more than 600 people arrested had followed the Park Police willingly, without even being put in handcuffs. Even there, it was mostly Indigenous people who had been dragged out, illustrating both how they are routinely treated by police on the frontlines, and the fact that those experiencing the desecration of the Earth up close are also those willing to risk the most to stop it.
While there was an undeniable racial dynamic in who was dragged away — and how roughly — there was also an age dynamic. I told the older white woman, who was in her 70s, that I planned to stand up myself when the police came for me, since I had injured my back only a few weeks earlier and, at age 59, had a history of painful and expensive shoulder problems. I felt supported in making this choice, along with most of the older folks in the group.
When I was put in plastic zip-tie handcuffs, one side was tighter than I would have liked, but nothing compared to the younger people near me who screamed that their fingers were going numb as we waited in the basement garage. Some had their zip ties replaced, only to have them tightened again just before we were loaded into vans, which took us to different precincts across the city. The medic stayed with my friend in the wheelchair until she was released on site because no accessible police van was available.
After more than an hour in handcuffs, nine of us arrived at the 5th precinct, where (uncuffed) we waited another seven and a half hours with no food, phone calls or information on when we would be released. The four women in my small cell shared two narrow metal beds, stacked on top of each other with no ladder, except the metal rails of the cell door. By serendipity, my bunkmate was a young Indigenous woman new to this type of action, whom I had been told to look out for by a mutual friend arrested earlier in the leadership group.
While we were kind to each other, and experienced moments of kindness from the police who held us, we glimpsed the cruelty of the system they worked for — from the hard, cold beds with no blanket or pillow to the slow inefficiency that dragged on through the night. No one offered us water, although we were brought small cups twice when we asked (which we promptly shared with those most thirsty).
When I inquired why our processing was taking so long, one policeman confessed his surprise that we hadn’t been cited and released already. He speculated that, in addition to our large numbers — 55 arrested, according to the Indigenous Environmental Network — we had occupied a federal building, which made D.C. police especially nervous in the wake of the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol. I asked him to explain — if he heard people make this comparison — that we were nonviolent, unarmed, and had sat in a circle in the lobby, not run around private offices, threatening to kill elected officials.
Two hours later, when we finally walked out of the precinct garage door, each with a sheet of paper announcing our January court date, there was a group waiting for us with hugs, snacks and rides back to the different places where we were staying. My hotel roommates were asleep by the time I got in at 2 a.m., but one had left a bottle of juice on my pillow, a small gesture of care that symbolized much of what I experienced during the action and among the water protectors opposing Line 3 more broadly.
While creating an activist culture of care is not enough to force Joe Biden to use his power to stop fossil fuel infrastructure for the common good, it can help build a broad and diverse movement with that kind of power. Several non-Indigenous friends who’d been part of the Line 3 camps acknowledged that missing that community was part of what motivated them to travel, in some cases across the country, to join the mobilization in D.C. These were the same people who stayed when other actions during the week got scary, looking for ways to keep everyone safe, while many white people without deep connections left. We were reminded by Indigenous leaders that having their backs was crucial in such situations, where police violence was likely to fall disproportionately on BIPOC frontline leaders. As a movement, we still have much to learn about this.
Amid police violence and a lukewarm “we’re listening to advocates” response from the Biden administration, it can be hard to believe that “another world is possible.” But Indigenous people are pointing to their traditions, based on cooperation and care, and reminding the rest of us that it is. To move toward that world based on care, we need to continue building pressure on Biden, especially as he prepares to tell other countries to do more at the upcoming global climate discussions. We also need to carry support for frontline leaders from the sidewalk in front of the White House, back to the frontlines, where resistance continues, no matter what Washington does. And we need to notice that how we do that work is itself part of creating the world we want to bring forth.
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https://wagingnonviolence.org/2021/08/line-3-pipeline-four-roles-social-change/
Everyone has a role to play in stopping the Line 3 pipeline
On Monday, July 19, in a red shirt and long black skirt, Sasha Beaulieu strode toward the Middle River in northwestern Minnesota to fulfill her official role as the Red Lake Nation Tribal Monitor. The water was incredibly low from the drought, and in parts the river bed was completely dry — all of which she would report to the Army Corps of Engineers with the hope of stopping the Canadian corporation Enbridge from drilling under Middle River to install the controversial Line 3 pipeline. Enbridge had already polluted the Willow River while trying to install the pipeline, an accident discovered by water protectors and reported to regulators. Beaulieu explained on Facebook Live that the company is supposed to stop pumping water when the river level is below a foot and a half, but Enbridge was not complying.
As Beaulieu recorded her findings, 40 people from the Red Lake Treaty Camp took up positions on the bridge, chanting and holding signs, the largest of which said, “Honor the Old Crossing Treaty of 1863,” which gives people of the Red Lake Nation the right to sustain themselves through fishing on the region’s rivers, as well as hunting and performing ceremony there. Meanwhile, at the Shell River, two hours to the southeast, a different tactic was being deployed, as famed Indigenous rights activist Winona LaDuke and six other elder women sat in lawn chairs, blocking Enbridge construction in defiant civil disobedience.
When sociologist Bill Moyer studied successful social change movements, he found that four roles showed up over and over again: helpers, advocates, organizers and rebels — labels coined with Moyer’s permission by veteran activist trainer and Waging Nonviolence columnist George Lakey. One of the things that struck me during 10 days in northern Minnesota was how the campaign to stop Enbridge’s Line 3 pipeline has effectively engaged all four roles, often simultaneously.
When Enbridge filed a notice plan with the Minnesota Public Utility Commission, or MPUC, in late 2014, Anishinaabe leaders took on the advocate role, using the tools of the system to try to stop the pipeline intended to transport tar sands oil across Minnesota and Wisconsin. They showed up to hearings and recruited others to testify, as well. Testifiers talked about the environmental impact the pipeline would have on a region with so much fresh water, especially the 22 rivers the pipeline would cross. They talked about the climate impact of burning tar sands oil. They talked about treaty rights. They talked about Enbridge’s abysmal safety record. Sixty-eight thousand people submitted testimony — 94 percent were against the pipeline, while Enbridge bused in workers to speak in support. When the MPUC approved the pipeline anyway in June 2018, Anishinaabe leaders vowed to keep fighting, still using advocacy tactics — appealing to courts, politicians and regulators, like the Army Corps, as Sasha Beaulieu did — while also ramping up their rebel action.
Unlike advocates, rebels shake up business as usual, interrupting injustice directly and challenging corrupt systems by refusing to play by their rules. Civil disobedience is a classic tactic, one that has been used effectively in the Line 3 fight to both bring attention to the situation and to actually delay pipeline construction by hours or days, especially at river crossings. Of the 600 arrests so far, some were for simply trespassing on Enbridge construction sites, while other people locked down to Enbridge equipment or even climbed inside pipes. Many actions have involved prayer, which plays an important role in this Indigenous-led campaign. Six hundred arrests is impressive. The 2016-2017 height of the struggle at Standing Rock to stop the Dakota Access pipeline involved only 800 total arrests, out of the 10,000 people who camped there, a significantly higher number than have joined the camps opposing Line 3. That suggests that a higher percentage of Line 3 water protectors are engaging in rebel action.
Rebel action is particularly effective at revealing what is wrong with the system. In counties across northern Minnesota, the police show up to defend a Canadian corporation that is breaking the law instead of defending treaty rights, which are protected in the U.S. Constitution. As direct action has increased this summer, so too has police repression. On June 28, Hubbard County police blocked one camp from exiting their own driveway, which they were eventually ordered to stop. A few hours away, in Pennington County a member of the Red Lake Treaty Camp was arrested and held for a few days. According to his account, he was simply scouting Enbridge construction sites with a drone, but Enbridge workers falsely claimed that he tried to hit them with his car. After the Enbridge drill arrived at the Red Lake River, site of the Red Lake Treaty Camp, police allegedly pushed people to the ground, arrested 22 during a spiritual ceremony and kept a heavy presence around the camp. After the water protectors were released two days later, the police grabbed and detained a young member of the Red Lake Nation as he was coming out of the gas station bathroom. Two other water protectors were arrested while demanding to know on what grounds their friend was being detained.
Such incidents vividly illustrate the unjust treatment of Indigenous people and the fact that institutions meant to protect the public are deployed to protect a foreign multinational. At Standing Rock, and in many other justice campaigns, such repression actually helps to build sympathy for the movement and inspire others to come, especially once the media start covering it.
While rebels bring heat and pressure to a campaign, organizers also bring in more people, which is essential. Throughout the Stop Line 3 fight, some events have been geared for mass appeal with celebrities, like Jane Fonda, as well as food and music. At the Treaty People’s Gathering in early July — which emphasized that all citizens of the United States were bound by the treaties signed by their government — well over 2,000 people gathered along the upper Mississippi River. While most participated in a simple march, a smaller group willing to do direct action filed off to occupy the river bank where the pipeline would be submerged. They held the space in a round-the-clock vigil for eight days. Meanwhile, many of the marchers went home and shared how moved they were by the experience on social media and in blog posts.
Less than two weeks later on July 15, 300 people gathered for the Women for the Rivers event at the Shell City Campground on the banks of the Shell River. Actress Marisa Tomei, playwright V (formerly known as Eve Ensler), and Sierra Club head Mike Brune were featured speakers, though the Indigenous youth and women upstaged them with passionate accounts of the struggle so far. A charter bus from Minneapolis enabled people to participate who weren’t ready or able to spend days or weeks at a camp. Many others, including myself, traveled from different camps, giving us the feeling of being part of a large campaign, which is sometimes difficult with camps spanning over 200 miles, a situation very different from Standing Rock.
The Women for the Rivers action component was low risk. Amid drumming and prayers, many people danced in the shallow Shell River, as a smaller number of rebels staked out space on the Enbridge easements, a temporary wooden road installed on each bank, where the pipeline was slated to be installed. With Enbridge workers absent that day, the police did not arrest them, and everyone returned to camp for a large meal, including grilled corn, fresh fish and salad. A few days later, on July 19 on the same easement, LaDuke — a member of the local White Earth Nation — led the civil disobedience action in lawn chairs with six other elder women, flanked by water protectors on horseback. In hindsight, the large gathering a few days earlier had both been a movement expander and a trial run for the rebels.
Helpers are integral to all of this. Feeding thousands is obviously a lot of work, but so is the day-to-day chore of feeding the ongoing camps. While everyone participates in chores, from washing dishes to cleaning the pit latrines, there are some people who have made these types of services their primary contribution to the campaign. While they get less attention on social media than the rebels, their work is invaluable, like the women who cooked for all those church meetings during the civil rights movement, and those who drove bus boycotters to work every day for over a year in Montgomery. In the Line 3 campaign, helpers are also raising money for bail — which has sky-rocketed in the last month — as well as making banners and other tasks that support the movement without directly challenging or appealing to decision-makers.
After 10 days camping at Red Lake Treaty Camp, I was hugging people goodbye as the drill arrived at the Enbridge site next door. That meant that the Red Lake River — itself low and lined with the shells of clams killed from the heat — would be next for drilling. I stayed long enough to offer a nonviolent direct action training, but decided to keep my plans of returning home to Philadelphia, knowing there was much I could do from there to support the camp.
I started calling friends from the security line of the Minneapolis airport to see if anyone would do civil disobedience with me two days later in Philadelphia. By the time I boarded the plane, I had a skeletal crew, predominantly members of Earth Quaker Action Team, or EQAT, who jumped in to organize jail support, create a Facebook event and do outreach to other groups concerned with Line 3.
In less than 48 hours, we pulled off an action at a center city TD Bank, chosen for its role in financing Line 3. Out of 28 participants, seven risked arrest, sharing their concerns about climate change and treaty rights over social media when the Philadelphia police chose not to arrest us, even after we blocked traffic. Our solidarity action turned out to be the same morning that seven water protectors at Red Lake Treaty Camp were arrested.
Every Facebook post from the camp encouraged my commitment to do more. I donated money for my friends’ bail, organized others to do the same and encouraged people to call President Biden. I pitched local media and invited my newsletter list to hear about my trip during a Zoom session, which attracted 50 people. Although I’m not accustomed to playing all of the Four Roles of Social Change at once, I realized that each was available to me as an ally, giving me more opportunities to help from afar.
In most movements, both organizations and individuals tend to specialize where they feel they will be most effective, often with competition between those playing the different roles. Although the Stop Line 3 campaign is unlikely to be immune from such tensions, what I witnessed was far more harmony than competition, something not every campaign is wise enough to achieve. I suspect the leadership of Indigenous women plays a key role here with their emphasis on community over individualism. Over and over I heard them encourage allies to come “in a good way,” bringing the gifts they have to offer while recognizing that they are a small part of a greater whole. This is exactly the attitude needed to build a movement strong enough to beat a company as powerful as Enbridge.
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