UTR - 133

dråsa - keep treading

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In solidarity with Unist’ot’en Camp, all proceeds from this music will be donated to support those defending land in the Wet’suwet’en territory. Donate directly at: unistoten.camp/support-us/donate/

“Let’s get back to listening………What are the names of your rivers? / Can you hear them inside you? / Let’s resurrect those words together / ALL our words, all at once / I want to feel all those hard and soft sounds / hitting me at the same time / just let me absorb the words of our ancestors” - excerpt from poem by Jennifer Wickham, Gitdumten of the Wet’suwet’en

“We stand as witnesses to this historic moment when the federal and provincial governments, RCMP, and Coastal GasLink/TC Energy (formerly TransCanada) are openly violating Wet’suwet’en, Canadian, and international law to build a 670-kilometer fracked gas pipeline...All five clans of the Wet’suwet’en have unanimously opposed all pipeline proposals and have not provided free, prior, and informed consent to Coastal Gaslink/ TransCanada to do work on Wet’suwet’en lands.“ (Wet’suwet’en Supporter Toolkit)

I invite you to take a moment to consider the implications of oil and gas corporations on climate change. Consider the systemic entanglements of racial capitalism, police violence, and nation-to-nation disrespect of Indigenous sovereignty. Consider your relationship with the land you are on, you may like to use native-land.ca as a reference to learn the names of the traditional territories you are on, histories and colonial impacts. What is your felt experience in relation to this?

In the words of Murri artist and activist, Lilla Watson’s words: “If you have come here to help me you are wasting your time, but if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together.”

To learn more about the Wet’suwet’en struggle, the actual raid and the solidarity actions:
www.facebook.com/IdleNoMoreCommunity/posts/1568849696611529

For more information:
unistoten.camp/media/invasion/
@gidimten_checkpoint on Instagram

To see how to help:
unistoten.camp/supportertoolkit2020/

Thanks so much!
Alex
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keep treading...

You are alone in a sea of ephemera.
You've been fighting the waves for a long time. [small ripples, they couldn't tire anyone out..plus, you're resilient a/f] So long that you forgot what you were trying to keep at bay and where you were pushing toward. You realize that your direction is merely 'against.' You're tired. The memory of who|what|where-you-are has faded. The air feels more viscous than it did before. You look up and see the disjointed light ebbing through the amorphous gray-green syntectonic woven fluid. Sink deeper.

relax
propel
forward—backward
discontented and disconnected
,, circle counterclockwise until your fluidity pours out and youre drowning in your own ocean of fragmented integrity , , ,

Rising to the surface, you struggle to reorient yourself. The battle for direction is too much for you and you begin the descent again. At your [arguably] weakest, a current passes through and sweeps you into uncharted territory. Everything is unfamiliar and there...

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More info:

To Unist’ot’en Camp,
Land defenders in Wet’suwet’en territory,

On January 7th, 2019 we watched, infuriated as a militarized RCMP forced the removal of 14 land protectors from Wet’suwet’en territory at gunpoint. The continued invasion of unceded Wet’suwet’en land by Coastal GasLink pipeline workers without your consent violates Section 35 of the Canadian Constitution, the United Nations Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous People and ‘Anuc niwh’it’en (Wet’suwet’en Law). We have heard your hereditary chiefs say “No” to the Coastal Gaslink development and we intend to amplify it.

We call the Canadian government to account. As musicians, we know a PR campaign when we see one: since 2015 Justin Trudeau has promoted a message of Truth and Reconciliation and professed the goal of building meaningful nation-to-nation relationships, but his government’s actions don’t align. Meaningful nation-to-nation relationships are not made at gunpoint. In response to questions regarding the violence in Wet’suwet’en last week, Trudeau said that it wasn’t “ideal” but that Canada is “a country of the rule of law” inferring that his hands were tied. In fact, he was sidestepping the inconvenient truth that the Supreme Court of Canada found in the 1997 Delgamuukw decision that Indigenous land rights and title were not extinguished at the time of colonization. As such, the Canadian rule of law states that Wet’suwet’en nation’s hereditary leaders have decision making power on their unceded territory.

Many of us grew up in Canada as uninvited guests, misinformed about Canadian history and the settler-colonial project of expansion. It’s 2019, and we refuse a willful ignorance, and take seriously the responsibility dealt to all Canadians by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission to learn about Canada’s legacy of colonial violence. We recognize the pattern of the RCMP’s role in expanding Canadian influence over Indigenous peoples’ lands for the purpose of resource extraction. We are horrified by the violence of last week and the RCMP’s continued harassment of your people, and troubled by the exclusion zones erected to keep the press from reporting and Wet’suwet’en citizens from returning to their homes.

This statement is being written 3 months after the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warned us that there are only 12 years left for us to take decisive action in order to keep global warming to a maximum of 1.5C. This will require the halt of fossil fuel development and a quick transition to clean energy. Those in power who care for the future of life on this planet have no business building more pipelines. We realize that by protecting your yintah, by living on your land, you are not only fulfilling your inherent rights and sacred duties, but you are protecting the plants, animals, and the watershed for all of us. Your hereditary government is showing more leadership in climate action than Canadian elected officials. For that strength and commitment we are grateful.

(musiciansinsolidarity.blogspot.com/p/statement.html)

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Donate direct to the artist here: drasa.bandcamp.com