What We Understand

The Current World Situation

1. Onkwehón:we Rising Understands the World from an Unapologetically Anti-Imperialist Perspective!

Onkwehón:we Rising understands that the current capitalist world-system is one in which the overwhelming majority of humynity located primarily in the Third World – with a minority in the First World centred within the Internal Colonies, Third World migrant and prison populations – is ground down, oppressed and exploited under the weight of a minority of imperialist-led classes. These imperialist-led classes are in the current era the numerically dominant bloc in the core First World countries of north amerika, western europe, japan, israel and australasia.

The contradiction between the masses exploited and oppressed by imperialism and the minority of classes which benefit from imperialism is primary today on the world stage. Today on Occupied Anówarakowa Kawennote this struggle manifests in the inherently antagonistic contradiction between the kanadian and amerikan colonial states and the aspirations to liberation of the various Internal Colonies which remain submerged and oppressed: Onkwehón:we, Métis, Xican@s, Boricua and Afrikans.

It is the struggle to free the oppressed and exploited masses of the Third World and Internal Colonies that will bring about the demise of the current parasitic capitalist world-system, industrial ecocide and all forms of oppression.

2. Onkwehón:we Rising Understands as Essential the Question of Parasitism

Onkwehón:we Rising understands that because of the ‘wages of imperialism’ the majority of the peoples in the First World countries are net-exploiters. In other words they receive an income greater than the value that they create. This is the result of the heightened exploitation of the majority of the Earth’s peoples who are located principally in the Third World and Internal Colonies. This combined with other benefits – such as social democracy and the status of Whiteness – has embourgisified the working classes of the oppressor nations.

The principal effect of this embourgeoisification is that it has largely deadened class struggle between the working classes and bourgeoisies of the imperialist nations, creating social peace. Though it has reached its most mature state in the era of capitalist-imperialism, it is not a new process, instead having developed through several stages reaching all the way back to the parasitic origins of capitalism, during the process which economist and political theorist Karl Marx called the “primitive accumulation of capital”.

Because of this the workers of the imperialist nations are not “those who have nothing left to loose but their chains”; rather they are what some have labelled a labour aristocracy and which others refer to as a worker elite. This strata is petty bourgeois in its outlook and goals. Because of this, in the final analysis, these workers, historically and currently, have often formed the most important bulwarks of modern capitalism and colonialism. They have organized against the most exploited and oppressed sectors not only within their own countries, but have generally acted as agents of fascism and imperialism globally.

As the capitalist world-system descends ever further into crisis it is to be expected that struggle may again emerge between these privileged worker elites and the bourgeoisie, sometimes even spectacularly so. However, these struggles generally take the form of attempting to re-assert imperialist social democracy. In order to genuinely join the global revolutionary movement they must forgo this and and give up their class and national interests and throw their lot in with the oppressed and exploited people’s of the world as they struggle for freedom, justice and equality.

In the final analysis we must be clear that overall the overturning of capitalism and imperialism globally will mean a revolution not just against the class interests of the bourgeoisie, but against this privileged social strata as well.

3. Onkwehón:we Rising Understands that Correct Class & National Analysis is Essential to the Modern Revolutionary Project

Onkwehón:we Rising contends that the failure to understand the class composition within the imperialist nations as well as the general alignment of forces globally is the key reason for the failure of ostensibly revolutionary forces to organize serious opposition to capitalism and imperialism within the imperialist countries, currently and over the course of the last century. A correct understanding of the internal class composition of the imperialist nations and an understanding of class formations globally is essential for the success of the modern revolutionary project.

The Current Situation Facing Onkwehón:we

4. Onkwehón:we Rising Understands that the Struggle Around Treaties Cannot be an End Unto Itself

Onkwehón:we Rising understands that while at times it is necessary for Onkwehón:we to make struggle around our so-called “treaty rights” in order to resist the final stages of genocide and the assimilation of the remnants of our peoples into imperialist society we also understand that at the same time struggle around treaties and for our treaty rights cannot be the primary essence of our struggles. The treaties, whether the Numbered or the Two-Row, amerikan or kanadian, were only ever the formalized legal method to make official the dispossession of the land and resources of this continent from us, the original occupants and owners.

There is not a single one that was ever entered into into by the settler nation in what the Kanien’kehá:ka call “kanikonriio” (good mind, reasonableness), so the sidestepping or complete bulldozing of supposed “treaty rights” by the settler nation-state to access the natural resources there and otherwise continue the genocidal assault on our peoples, as well as the ecocidal assault on our sacred Earth mother, is neither an unfortunate occurrence nor an illegal occurrence, but one that is to be fully expected in the scope of our 500 years of relations with western “civilization”. This is why if We as a people are to become truly free we must move beyond the paradigm that focuses on the treaties..

5. Onkwehón:we Rising Understands that the United Nations and Other Imperialist Global Bodies Cannot Act as Vehicles for Our Liberation

Often times combined with the treaty paradigm is one that sees the United Nations, its various constituent bodies and other like-minded world organizations as vehicles through which we can “liberate” ourselves, often through the idea that we can use them to force the settler-colonial states to obey international law and uphold their treaties with our various nations. This has become particularly apparent since the adoption by the UN of the Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous People, but it in fact goes back as far as the 1977 UN Conference on Indigenous Affairs. Onkwehón:we Rising however understands that the UN and other such bodies are bodies created and run by the imperialists and their neocolonial allies. While there are various bourgeois nationalist and other progressive anti-imperialist governments represented within them they are a tiny minority. No body primarily run for and by the imperialists and their allies can ever be a vehicle for our liberation.

6. Onkwehón:we Rising Understands and Rejects Cultural Nationalism

Our cultures and traditions have long played a powerful role in our resistance to genocide and conquest. This is because our traditional cultural values are generally communistic values and hence are fundamentally at odds with the western capitalist civilization that has attempted to encircle and destroy us since first contact. Because our traditions represented powerful living counter-examples to the expanding capitalist settler states it was not an uncommon occurrance for settlers to flee their own societies and become citizens of our nations. Even settlers who were captured in battle attempted to return to Onkwehón:we society after, often at the point of a settler rifle, repatriating to settler society. Hence our cultures and traditions had to be annihilated. This was the basis for the genocidal residential schools run by the u.s. and kanadian states, which sought to “kill the Indian to save the man”.

Even today our traditional cultures play a powerful role in inspiring and driving our resistance movements. However, We must beware the trap of cultural nationalism. Cultural nationalism teaches that our traditional cultures on their own can liberate us, that if we drum enough, dance enough, sing enough, smudge enough that we can make ourselves free. This is a reactionary path that takes us away from revolutionary struggle and turns the battle for the overturning of our oppressive conditions into one that is purely and solely about individualistic and spiritual self-change. Only when paired with a revolutionary analysis and perspective do our traditional cultures have the ability to free us.

What We Want

7. Onkwehón:we Rising Wants National Liberation

Onkwehón:we Rising is revolutionary Indigenist in orientation. This means that as our central demand we seek national liberation, not only for our own Onkwehón:we nations but also for our brother and sister indigenous nations on this continent born of the admixture of Onkwehón:we and europeans: the Métis, Aztlán & Borikén. We also extend this demand to the Afrikan nation who were kidnapped from their homeland and enslaved on this continent, and with whom we have a long and proud tradition of standing with arm-in-arm against our common oppressor.

Onkwehón:we Rising seeks the complete political, economic and social dismemberment of the oppressor settler states on this continent, namely the so-called united states, kanada and quebec. Onkwehón:we Rising  further rejects models and programmes that attempt to assimilate us and the other internal colonies of the settler empire into some kind of socialized settler dominated state. As an extension of that we also reject those programmes which lend verbal and paper support for our liberation solely as a scheme for building supposed “class unity” with the working class of the oppressor nation, who are in fact not our natural ally, but historically and presently allies of imperialism and colonialism.

Further, we hold that the total liberation of oppressed nations here on Occupied Anówarakowa Kawennote is related to the liberation of the rest of Abya Yala. Our liberation is also dialecticaly related to the dismantling of the oppressor nation, though by this we do not mean some kind of genocide against the oppressor nation, but rather the elimination of the oppressor nation as a distinct and separate entity. In other words the end of so-called “White” people as White people. We hold that this entire process – the liberation of oppressed nations, the elimination of the settler states and the dismantling of the White nation -is not only central to the development of a genuinely revolutionary society on Occupied Anówarakowa Kawennote, but is in fact the fundamental pre-requisite.

Finally. internationally Onkwehón:we Rising understands that any genuine revolutionary project must be deeply internationalist in practice, and to this end we are uncompromising in our support for the struggles for revolutionary social and national liberation movements around the world, from Occupied Palestine to the Philippines, from India to Kurdistan to Afrika. With this revolutionary internationalist orientation, we believe that national liberation struggles of the Internal Colonies of the imperialist countries must be understood as a detachment of the wider global struggle against the current parasitic capitalist world system, industrial ecocide and all forms of oppression.

8. Onkwehón:we Rising Wants a Pan-Indigenous Movement – No to Micro-Nationalisms!

While Onkwehón:we Rising appreciates, respects and holds dear the diversity found within our indigenous nations – our cultures, our languages, our spiritual traditions etc – here on Occupied Anówarakowa Kawennote, we do not believe that the movement for our liberation is best served by splitting along lines of various competing micro-nationalisms, or single-nation nationalisms. Thus we reject individual Anishinabek or Kanien’kehá:ka or Kwakwaka’wakw or Lenni-Lenape nationalism etc as too narrow for the purposes of our struggle.

This is not to say that we do believe that we cannot still be Anishinabek or Kanien’kehá:ka or Kwakwaka’wakw or Lenni-Lenape, or that the diversity of our nations should not be preserved. Rather we hold that only together, united as Onkwehón:we (indigenous people), can we really begin to struggle for our collective liberation. This is not a simplistic belief that there is a single, overarching Onkwehón:we “nation” but rather that the concept of Onkwehón:we represents our common history of resistance to 500 years of genocide, ecocide and colonization at the hands of the settler occupation regimes in Ottawa and Washington DC. It also represents our common aspirations for liberation.

We believe that the concept of Onkwehón:we best covers the historical, geographic, and cultural range of our movement, and we see our individual indigenous national identities as a foundation of a unified continental identity covering all of Anówarakowa Kawennote.

We also believe that there is fertile ground to build a common pan-indigenous movement that stretches beyond Onkwehón:we and also includes other indigenous peoples on this continent who, by force of colonial policy and practice, are no longer part of our individual Onkwehón:we nations:  the Métis, Xicanos and Boricua. We are all the descendants of indigenous people and heirs of an indigenous struggle against colonial domination.

Together we can drive off the beast who has occupied us and oppressed us for centuries!

9. Onkwehón:we Rising Wants the Total and Complete Liberation of Women, Same Gender Loving & Two-Spirit People

Prior to the European assault on Anówarakowa Kawennote many Onkwehón:we societies included, and indeed deeply honoured, people whose gender and sexual expression fell outside the traditional euro-christian sex-gender binary and accepted sexual norms. In modern times these are often labelled gay, lesbian or trans, but none of these european terms truly capture the total complexity of what we practiced, nor do they have a meaningful reference point within our cultures. Additionally settler society has heaped insulting terms onto these members of our societies such queer and berdache. Our collective nations have had many words for these peoples, but today We use the modern but culturally relevant terms two-spirit and same gender loving to describe those within our nations who fall outside the euro-christian sex-gender binary and accepted sexual norms.

Additionally, many Onkwehón:we societies were far more empowering for wimmen than any period of european history. In many nations and confederacies while men held superficial official power, it was the wimmen, the mothers, the clan mothers, the grandmothers, who held true power. Wimmen placed the men into their positions, and could recall them at will if they did not live up to expectation. Wimmen were also those who often decided when it was necessary to go to war. Wimmen, like two-spirit and same gender loving people, were also deeply honoured spiritual leaders. As such, a central aspect of the european assault on our continent was the violent imposition of hetero-patriarchy and the consequent attempt to completely exterminate same gender loving and two-spirit people and destroy the traditions of wimmen’s power.

As such Onkwehón:we Rising demands a world without hetero-patriarchy, a world without rape, without the sexual exploitation of wimmin and children, a world without gender oppression and imposition, a world where wimmin, same gender loving and two-spirit people have total and complete control over their bodies, their identities and their personal lives. Onkwehón:we Rising uncompromisingly supports the participation and leadership of wimmin, same gender loving and Two-Spirit people in struggles for anti-imperialist revolutions towards the end of the complete eradication of hetero-patriarchy.

10. Onkwehón:we Rising Wants an Ecological Revolution

As a world – across national, class and gender lines – we are facing a wave of ecological devastation and mass extinction caused by the development of industrial capitalism society. Burning fossil fuels, overfishing, mining, factory farming, global warming, commodity production, the imperialist war machine, exorbitant First World lifestyles, exploitative international trade and the global division of labour, exportation of waste to the Third World, the transformation of internal colonies into geographies of national sacrifice, and deforestation are destroying the Earth and threaten all life upon it.

We now stand on the verge of total ecological collapse. Today we are faced with two options: revolution or barbarism. Revolutionary forces must not only be warriors of the people, but also of all of our relations: the animals, the plants, the lands, the seas and the skies that surround us. The struggle to liberate the oppressed and exploited nations of the world must also a struggle for the future of our planet.

Onkwehón:we Rising demands a paradigmatic shift in how revolutionary forces view the natural world and our relationship to it. In this we draw on the traditions our people, as well as the best of radical ecology. While believing that sane and non-exploitative development of formerly oppressed nations should begin after revolution, we believe this “development” cannot follow the tried failed course of capitalist or past socialist development. We call rather for the new society to be based around ideas of deurbanization, industrial decentralization, alternative and soft-path technologies, organic agriculture and permaculture and limits to growth.

While we are not anti-technology, we question the uncritical factory worship of past revolutionary movements, as well as the unquestioned reliance on industrialism over the power of the people to make change.

We call for the development of a nonanthropocentric, humanist ecological outlook that rejects a vision of a domesticated or pacified world. One that utterly rejects the current oppressive and exploitative industrial capitalist society. One that seeks to not just defend, but actively expand wilderness. One that restores or revitalizes our deep relations with the soil, plants, animals, sun and the wind.

11. Onkwehón:we Rising Wants Genuine Allies, Class & Nation Traitors

Onkwehón:we Rising wants genuine allies from among the ranks the oppressor nations. Onkwehón:we Rising wants those who are class and traitors – individual members of exploiter classes who choose to side with the world’s oppressed and exploited masses. Onkwehón:we Rising wants them to commit class and national suicide, to abandon the creature comforts of the parasitic path laid before them over the last 500 years and to instead enthusiastically join hands with the oppressed and exploited and walk down the road of struggle and revolution. Onkwehón:we Rising  wants those who are willing to eschew norms to organize and work for revolution; who forsake their own class for a better future for humanity at large.

12. Onkwehón:we Rising Wants a Revolutionary Party for Onkwehón:we Liberation – Towards an Indigenous People’s Liberation Party!

As Onkwehón:we revolutionaries we believe that to free our people from terror and oppression we must involve every progressive element of our communities in the struggle for self-determination. Only with a well organized, mobilized, and politicized people, will we develop the power necessary to achieve liberation. A critical aspect of this point is the need to channel our people’s energy and resources into a disciplined revolutionary party.

In political struggle, individualism is a bourgeois egotistical trait. We must raise the shortcomings and contradictions to those who profess being active in political work without accountability to an organization. Central to this point is the combating of liberalism, which in our movement represents itself as unprincipled and opportunistic struggle. Liberalism stems from selfishness, and places personal interests above the interests of the collective movement. Onkwehón:we Rising upholds the importance of engaging in constructive criticism and self-criticism, as a way of identifying our weaknesses and shortcomings. We must adhere to the principle of collective decision-making in our daily work.

To this end we support the creation of an organized, indigenous liberation-orientated revolutionary party organized under principles of democratic centralism as the only way to build an organization accountable to our peoples and capable of leading our struggle for national liberation. Achieving organizational, practical, and ideological unity is of paramount importance.