Class Enemy: Chuck Magro - Free Western Sahara!

Adrien Welsh

We reproduce here an article that figured in the issue 22 of Rebel Youth - Jeunesse Militante published in October, 2017. It is being reproduced while on Monday, April 30th, the Security Council of the United Nations adopted with a majority vote and 3 abstentions (Ethiopia, Russia and China) the extension of the mandate of the MINURSO (UN Mission in Western Sahara) for six months (as opposed to one year, as it was previously the case). According to M'Hamed Kheddad, Sahrawi coordinator with the Mission, this is a positive development as it shows a real committment from the Security Council to put an end to the status quo and the ongoing occupation of Western Sahara by the Kingdom of Morocco, with the complicity of France. The Security Council also called both Morocco and the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic to go back to the negociation table after the process was put on ice in 2012.

The vote in the UN was held under pressure by Morocco which accused in April the Polisario Front of violating the cease-fire agreement of 1991 as part of a desinformation campaign. This campaign is continuing as Morocco just cut ties with Iran because of a supposed arms deal between this country and the Polisario Front, which was immediately denied by the Sahrawi Government. 

Motherland amidst Imperialism: A Story of Indigenous Resistance and Settler Mutiny

Occupation site in August - J-l Fournier

By Siegfried Barazov

"In our opinion, the foundation for national liberation rests in the inalienable right of every people to have their own history…. It may be seen that if imperialist domination has the vital need to practice cultural oppression, national liberation is necessarily an act of culture." —Amilcar Cabral, Syracuse University speech, 1970

There are times when the power of a culture can make time stand still.  The elder of the Cree nation spoke to me of the sanctity of fire, and I, a settler on stolen land, had to struggle to find an adequate response to stories and traditions that seemed in that moment to be as old as the Ottawa river itself: born countless thousands of years before European imperialism’s chosen killers came bearing their guns, germs, and steel.  However, in meeting with this old man at the site of the occupation where the Ottawa and Gatineau rivers combine, I am happy to say that I had the knowledge and the memory to reply with the example of Beltane, the ancient Celtic fire festival from the days long before this monstrous colonial enforcement agency, referring to itself as the ‘white race’, was ever invented to stain the moral fabric of the European peoples and set them against the rest of the world.

The elder was one member of small group consisting of people from several Indigenous American nations, coming from as far away as the Yukon and the southern United States to stand in solidarity with the local Anishnabe, and Mohawk peoples who were struggling to protect a sliver of their ancient heritage from destruction.

Part 4 of 4: Canada -- a country of many nations

Taken from Canada's Future is Socialism, The programme of the CPC.

In this excerpt:

• National minorities;
• Immigrant and migrant communities, immigration;
• Problems with the Charter of Rights and Freedoms;
• For a new constitution;
• The struggle for socialism and the national question

National Minorities

Within each nation, there are national minorities whose national homeland is within the borders of another nation within Canada.

Francophone minorities living in English-speaking Canada, Anglophone minorities living in Quebec, and Aboriginal peoples and Acadians living away from their national homes are all national minorities with the right to educate their children and receive state supported services in their own languages, wherever numbers warrant.

Immigrant and migrant communities, immigration

With the exception of the Aboriginal peoples, Canada is a country of immigrants, old and new. Comprised of hundreds of diverse ethnic groups, who will eventually merge with French-speaking Quebec or English-speaking Canada, these ethnic groups have the right to preserve their language and heritage and to pass it on to succeeding generations through state-supported language and cultural programs, and through state-supported cultural and community activities.

The Communist Party recognizes that this two-sided process of merging and preserving language, culture and heritage, is of long duration, influencing and enriching Canadian culture as a whole.

Part 3 of 4: Canada -- a country of many nations

Taken from Canada's Future is Socialism, The programme of the CPC.

In this excerpt:

• The Metis nation;
• Aboriginal peoples;
• The policy of genocide;
• Acute poverty and oppression;
• For immediate achievement of national rights

The Metis nation

The Metis nation emerged in the period of merchant capitalism in the 18th century based on the fur trade and was mainly situated along the rivers flowing into Hudson Bay. The assertion of national rights by the Metis in the rebellions of 1869-70 and 1885 was brutally crushed by the dominant English-speaking ruling class, who were backed by the expansionary industrial capitalism of Ontario and Quebec.

Nevertheless, the resistance of the Metis led to the establishment of the province of Manitoba and helped keep alive the spirit of resistance against all national privileges in Canada today.

Aboriginal peoples

The Aboriginal peoples had been in Canada for thousands of years when the first white settlers arrived. Prior to European settlement, the social organization of many Aboriginal communities was progressing – depending on the development of the productive capacities of each community – from smaller, dispersed and relatively isolated tribes into more complex, organized and technologically advanced societies.

Part 2 of 4: Canada -- a country of many nations

Taken from Canada's Future is Socialism, The programme of the CPC.

The 2012 Quebec Student Strike

In this excerpt:

• Quebec's status as a nation;
• The way forward;
• Flaws of the BNA act continued;
• The Acadian people

Quebec's status as a nation

The sharpest expression of the constitutional crisis relates to Quebec’s national status and the failure of the Canadian state to recognize Quebec’s right to national self-determination, up to and including secession.

This non-recognition of Quebec’s rights is itself an expression of the historic national oppression of Quebec – its political, economic and social oppression – since the British conquest of New France in 1763.

This national oppression has in turn aroused national indignation among the Quebec people, and spawned bourgeois and petty-bourgeois-led nationalist and separatist movements there.

Part 1 of 4: Canada -- a country of many nations

Taken from Canada's Future is Socialism, The programme of the CPC.

The Big Daddy's of confederation

In this excerpt:

• A definition of a nation;
• A proposal for a new constitution 

A definition of a nation

Canada includes small and large nations, each of which is an historically-constituted community of people, formed on the basis of a common language, territory, economic life, and national consciousness manifested in a common culture.

Nations come into existence and pass out of existence, by forcible and peaceful historical processes, or a combination of both. It is a dynamic process in which, in each case, the path of development into nationhood is specific and different.

As a result, the struggle for a democratic solution to the national question requires an understanding and respect for these objective differences.

Amongst the smaller nations in Canada are groups of Aboriginal peoples who are exercising their right to sovereignty with the demand for autonomy and self-government. Amongst these are the Northern Cree in Quebec, and the newly created territory of Nunavut, the Nisga’a on the west coast, and others. The Acadians in the Maritimes also constitute a smaller nation in Canada. The two largest nations are English-speaking Canada and Quebec.