Feature photo of Michelle Nahanee by Jamie-Leigh Gonzales

By Andrea Loewen
@ms.andreajoy

How upside-down, exactly, did your life turn in the last two-to-four weeks? Has it flipped once? Twice? Did it sort of topple over to the side and then lie there, staring at you, wondering what you were going to do next?

For some of us, everything that made life normal has ceased: no more work, no more friends, nothing but our little homes and a careful trip to the grocery store once a week. For others, work and life continue almost as normal, except that the entire world around them has transformed.

In light of these wild times, we touched base with some of the powerhouse women that have been featured in this column over the past year to see how they are doing, if their work has continued, and how they have (or haven’t) adapted to COVID.

I was able to catch up with Indigenous teens and climate activists Haana Edenshaw and Sophia Sidarous, Ta7talíya Michelle Nahanee, who created a board game to fight colonialism, and climate activist Nayeli Jiminez.

Are you still able to carry out your resistance work during this time?

Haana Edenshaw:  “I have found that as the world changes, so must my style of resistance. But as an Indigenous activist, that’s always been the case. I find that I am still in the process of navigating the shifting terrain of both land defence and environmental activism at the moment. Due to the virus, I am back on Haida Gwaii, my home which gives me the opportunity to engage in activism in a bigger sense with my people than I could remotely (in the future of course), and I have found getting back to the land I love, the land that grew me up enormously healing for me. I have been trying to continue with activism remotely, however scaling things down a bit as at the moment, the safety of my community is my utmost priority.”

Nayeli Jiminez: “Yes! Like everyone else, the groups I organize with had to adjust and change their focus slightly… For example, a few core members from Our Time Vancouver, with other incredible organizers, created the Facebook group and website COVID-19 Coming Together (Vancouver), which now has over 30,000 members.

As a climate justice organizer, this moment in time is yet another reminder that everything we fight for is connected, and that crises highlight the injustice of our broken systems more than ever. Many governments who are responding with bold economic plans in the face of COVID-19 are the same ones who say ‘but how will we pay for it?’ when we demand ambitious climate action, even after they declare a climate emergency. They are the same ones who say that plans like the Green New Deal are impossible to implement, yet they are currently giving billions to bail out banks and the fossil fuel industry, instead of implementing rent and mortgage moratoriums. Just like climate change, this pandemic is highlighting the problematic nature of capitalism and the way it is designed to benefit the one per cent and leave the most vulnerable behind.”

Michelle Nahanee: “It’s so interesting because our main teaching of chenchenstway and lifting each other up is what has supported us to carry on with our work. At the beginning of the month, we were so worried because we had many cancellations for workshops which have been our main business income. At the same time, we were very worried about the Elders we work with who really depend on the honorariums they get for opening events and doing traditional welcomes. We decided to use our e-commerce abilities to raise some funds for them. Through social media, we received and transferred around $600 into the hands of Elders quickly.

Shortly after that, Laura Cuthbert reached out and offered to help us translate the game into an online iteration and by the end of the week, we were hosting Digital Sínulkhay and Ladders through ZOOM and Google Slides. Because of the good support we received, we have now been able to book online sessions for new clients and have a sponsorship offer to deliver online sector-specific workshops nationally. So as much as we lifted others up, we’ve really been lifted as well.”

Sophia Sidarous: “I am still able to carry out some resistance work like conversations, digital strikes, webinars, and online campaigns. Almost all actions and informing the public are done by social media and webinars, and many of us in the indigenous and climate movements are conducting calls to make sure we have similar ideas and plans for the next few months in these unprecedented times. However, in the past few months with the Wet’suwet’en conflict that is indeed still ongoing, many actions in solidarity have formed a very tight-knit community which we used to be able to gather and conduct ceremony. Now that we must ensure the safety of ourselves and our elders, we had to transfer most of our actions onto an online platform.”

What is helping you resist hopelessness these days?

HE: “I feel the biggest struggle with hopelessness at the moment is not simply that I feel it, but that so many loved ones around me feel it. As an environmental activist, I am no stranger to hopelessness, and don’t mind it too much, or have found ways of dealing with it through books, productivity or a good support system, however this scale and intensity of hopelessness on such a huge level is unprecedented in my life, and it’s difficult to try and be there for everyone, when you don’t know necessarily what to offer. I found that checking up on people regularly when social distancing is super important, it’s been a huge adjustment personally.”

NJ: “Witnessing communities coming together to support each other, especially the most vulnerable. Hearing people make noise every day at 7pm to thank our healthcare and service workers. Speaking to family, especially those of us who live in different parts of the world. But mostly, seeing how people from all walks of life, are making the connection between injustice and capitalism, and are acknowledging that after this pandemic is over, we cannot go back to the way things were before.”

SS: “Knowing that I have a community full of Indigenous and non-indigenous supporters has really given me hope to imagine a new world built out of respect and Indigenous laws. This movement and the changes and traction we’ve been gaining is so inspiring and empowers various different communities, even on an international scale. The fight for justice is not over, and nor is my hope, even in the midst of this global pandemic!”

MN: “I wouldn’t say that I’m resisting hopelessness, actually I am trying to take care of myself, and those around me, in relationship with hopelessness. I recently posted on our Instagram, @chenchenstway, that sadness and hopelessness are the fourth stage of grieving complicity in settler colonialism and these teachings are for me as well. I mean I certainly have some sadness and fear and hopelessness right now and am trying to find the medicine from that feeling. I have been staying in random tears and slowing right down when I need to. I’m listening to my heart and spirit and body and mind in those times for messages and medicine. It is like a ceremony when you can connect on such a deep true level within yourself. I find strength in not resisting what I need to feel. Gratitude is also big medicine for me.”

What do you hope we take away from these days, once this is all over?

HE: “I feel there is such power in people and this could potentially be a really uniting experience.”

NJ: “I hope we recognize that while our current economic systems are broken and oppressive, that they can be dismantled and reimagined. That no person is more valuable than the other, and that compassion and empathy must be at the core of everything we fight for. That universal healthcare is a basic human right. That building community is possible in different and new spaces. That workers in healthcare, service, agriculture, science, and education, must be valued fairly and prioritized in a just transition. And that in the face of crisis and chaos, absolutely no one should be left behind.”

MN: “What I hope we take away from these days is continuing to value community-care and collective-care over individual-gain. That really is an Indigenous way that can decolonize our way of approaching life now. It is something that we’ve been promoting through our workshops that I truly believe will take us to a better place. We have clear, recent evidence now with the rise of online support forums and collective action like staying home to care for everyone. Also, I’m elated to see our killer whale relative in the inlet this weekend. I can’t help but connect their presence to the slowdown of industry in our waters. To me, seeing the killer whales is a sign of the ways of these lands coming back to us because we’re going back to them.”

SS: “I hope that the vast majority of people will take the time to do some reflection about this life we’re living and how it should be lived. The fact that a new Keystone XL pipeline is to be built in the midst of a pandemic like the Alberta Premier has just declared yesterday, shows me, along with the rest of youth concerned about their futures, what Canada truly values. This is a time for people to heal and to deeply critique the society around them. Indigenous lands are being desecrated for pipelines and extractive economic agendas, in a time where the influx of workers on Indigenous territories pose a serious health risk. Moving forward from COVID-19, I hope the situation at hand gives people a fresh perspective (all too familiar for Indigenous peoples), and that we can work collaboratively to end these ongoing injustices.”