This year has witnessed mass movements of indigenous eco-protests the world over, silhouetting a diverse stand against the land-and-resource-monopoly of big multinational corporations. Sadder than the nil coverage of mainstream media, as well as the sell-out agenda of participating governments, is the police brutality that continues to protect corporate greed. For the events that unfolded on 17th October would solidify not only the rife ignorance of eco-indigenous worldviews of the Earth but also the capitalist monopoly between multinationals, colonial governments and law enforcement agencies.
Supported by other First Nations groups, members of the Elsipogtog Mi’kmaq First Nation have been protesting the shale gas project by SWN Resources Canada (Southwestern Energy Co.), in which the protestors created a blockade near Rexton. In a scene that ended up looking like a SAS mission to kill terrorists, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) moved into the area on Thursday 17th to get rid of the blockade. The presence of snipers, swat dogs and armed to the till police seemed ridiculously over the top, as was the use of tear gas and fire hoses. For the protestors weren’t terrorists strapped with assault rifles, they were families, elders, women and children playing drums and holding feathers. In the aftermath 40 protestors were arrested and a number of women and children were tasered and shot at with rubber bullets. I’m sickly surprised that this wasn’t plastered all over global news networks?
It seems that the politics of mainstream media continue to dupe the world into a lull of ignorance over the socio-economic wellbeing of indigenous people groups as well as police brutality used to support corporate and governmental whims. Indeed Southwestern Energy has a RCMP supported sanction that pretty much means their interests are protected by the Canadian State and all its toys and whistles. Evidently, colonial injustices are far from a distant memory, and if sanctioned police brutality by SWN is anything to go by, just imagine what events will transpire once international legislation like the Trans-Pacific-Partnership-Agreement (TPPA) is implemented. We are heading towards a not-to-distant future in which multinational corporations will rule the world, utilizing the strong arm of the law to turn the Earth into a capital wasteland as well as oppressing anyone that stands for the rights of Papatūānuku (Earth Mother) and indigenous people groups. Ecological devastation, global warming, mass economic inequality and geopolitical war are set to shape the coming decades of the 21st century.
The Postcolonial 