2010 Freedom for Political Prisoners Calendar

WITH ART BY

• Leonard Peltier
• Gord Hill
• Simone Schmidt
• Nidal El Khairy
• Theah Gahr
• Favianna Rodriguez

• Oscar Lopez Rivera
• Jesse Purcell
• Martin Matxco
• Ange Sterritt
• Jesus Barraza
• Jacobo Silva Nogales

WITH WORDS ABOUT

• Statement for Oglala Commemoration (by Leonard Peltier)
• Why Protest Vancouver’s 2010 Olympics? (by Gord Hill)
• The Frontline is First Within Our Hearts and Minds (by Robert Lovelace)
• Addameer’s Campaign to Stop Administrative Detention (by Addameer)
• Defending a Common Home: Native/non-Native Alliances Against Mining Corporations in Wisconsin (by Al Gedicks and Zoltan Grossman)
• Resistance 2010! Resisting the G8 and the SPP (by Jaggi Singh)
• Puerto Rican Political Prisoners and Decolonization (by Oscar Lopez Rivera)
• On White Solidarity with Native American Struggles (by David Gilbert)
• Basque Political Prisoners (by Ivan Apaolaza Sancho)
• No ‘Justice’ for Canada’s Indigenous Women (by Maya Rolbin-Ghanie)
• Side Effects (by Jacobo Silva Nogales)
• The Chicano Nation: An Internal Colony Forges Its Indigenous Identity and Resists the Legacy of Euro-Amerikkkan Colonialism and Imperialism (by Alvaro Luna Hernandez)

Indigenous resistance to colonialism is a fundamental aspect of any struggle for liberation taking place on stolen native land. Prisons are an integral part of the colonial web of domination – evidenced in the over-representation of indigenous people in both the Canadian and U.S. prison systems – and political imprisonment continues to be a key tool of repression against anti-colonial movements.

While this theme is a fitting one for a political prisoner calendar at any time, we chose to highlight it this year when the call went out from Coast Salish territory for Resistance 2010. In February, the Winter Olympics will be held on the unceded indigenous territory which Canada claims as the province of British Columbia, with dire implications for the people and the land. An impressive indigenous-led effort is underway that also includes opposition to the G8 Leader’s Summit, and a meeting of NAFTA leaders as part of the so-called “Security and Prosperity Partnership.” Resistance 2010 organizing seeks to bring together analysis and resistance against colonialism, imperialism, and global capital.

We have expanded the focus of Certain Days beyond the U.S. and Canada to feature art and articles representing some of the many indigenous liberation movements around the world. Although we can only begin to hint at the breadth and depth of this resistance on a global scale, including these stories is also a rejection of borders – imaginary lines across stolen land – as Alvaro Luna Hernandez’s article on Chicano/Mexicano struggle so aptly describes.

Our contributors give an overview of indigenous resistance in the Basque territories, Palestine, Puerto Rico and Turtle Island (North America). We continue to be inspired by ongoing resistance around us: land reclamations by the Mohawks of Six Nations and Tyendinaga, the refusal of the Akwesasne Mohawk community to allow armed border guards on their territory, a peaceful protest by women from three First Nations at Dump Site 41 in northern Ontario, the rejection of a government-supported coup by the Algonquins of Barriere Lake, and the ongoing logging blockade at Grassy Narrows, now in its seventh year – all of which have been met with intense criminalization and repression by the Canadian state.

We offer this year’s Certain Days calendar as our contribution to Resistance 2010, as a reminder that no liberation movement of any kind can lead to true freedom without dismantling colonialism.

The Certain Days collective
Amy Schwartz, Helen Hudson, karen emily, and Sara Falconer

See on site profile pages devoted to
David Gilbert and Robert Seth Hayes
and Herman Bell’s Jericho page