Recently we were visited by representatives from resistance ecology, bunny alliance, and earth first! Journal. They brought much-needed supplies for our SacredWater protection work and the many requirements that come with grassroots organizing in any marginalized community, but most particularly on the occupied territories of the Lakota homeland. We want to express Wopila for their alliance and their hard work. Here's what they posted about us on their website:
When we first collectively sat down to organize this tour, we all desired to create a network of grassroots animal liberation and earth defense activists. So much of the movement has become funneled into the corporate model of so-called advocacy. These organizations host lavish events, entertain celebrity sponsors, flirt with media exhibitionism, and leverage donations at every turn. We want to send out a big Wopila to our new allies and express our gratitude for your hard work. Yet where are the measurable gains for animals?
This is not our movement. We entered into this tour trying to create a grassroots alternative that located the animals’ struggle as the nucleus of the movement. It is their movement. We are not the “voice of the voiceless.” They kick and bite and scream and cry and fight for themselves with much more passion, urgency and authenticity than any animal activist can imagine. Our work is solidarity. The role of the grassroots animal liberation movement is to call attention to their stories and their struggle for freedom. We’ve been touring from city to city attempting to drive this message home. As radical activists, we also must understand that animal exploitation does not exist in a vacuum. The suffering of animals can be traced to social institutions and structures that are propped up by the oppression of countless peoples and communities—capitalism, colonialism, patriarchy, the prison industry, and structural racism, to name a few. We believe it is therefore the work of animal liberation activists to strengthen our relationships with the communities affected by these systems, and to create a mass movement through coalitions. To do this, we advocate for solidarity. Just as our work for animals is solidarity with their struggle, our work for other struggles must be solidarity as well.
From the beginning of the Fight or Flight Tour, we have been collecting financial and supply donations for Owe Aku, which in Lakota means “Bring Back the Way,” and their efforts to defend the land and sacred water. Through Owe Aku, the Lakota have been preparing indigenous resistance to the Keystone XL Pipeline by organizing direct action trainings all over the occupied territories of the Great Plains. These trainings, collectively called Moccasins on the Ground, have made alliances such as Idle No More, Indigenous Environmental Network, Tar Sands Blockade, Great Plains Tar Sands Resistance, National Lawyers Guild, and more. The Lakota have made a call of resistance:
“Lakota People, and many other Red Nations people, we have painted our faces. Our allies up north have painted their faces. For sacred water, for Unci Maka [Mother Earth], for our generations. As people of the earth, our coming generations have a right to sacred water, no policy, no corporation, no politics should be more important than that… We are in a time of prophecy, our collective action will be significant, with all the love in our hearts, we must all resist this destruction, and stand for sacred water and Unci Maka.”
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