richard-day-gramsci-is-dead

28 Gramsci is Deadlimit and reverse the flow of European colonialism, but certain eventsand the places associated with them evoke particularly powerfulmemories: Alcatraz, Oka, Wounded Knee, Gustafsen Lake. All of thesewere times when indigenous people made a stand on land that hadlong been part of their traditional territories, either to reclaim itor prevent its further degradation. All were times when indigenouspeople suffered and died in their quest, which as in other regions hasseen both successes and failures. The so-called ‘Oka Crisis’ came topublic attention in Canada on March 11, 1990, when men, womenand children of the Kahnesatake Mohawk nation set up a barricadeto block the expansion of a golf course onto their ancestral lands.These lands, which included a cemetery, had been in dispute forhundreds of years, but the Canadian state was showing no signsof living up to its reputation for multicultural benevolence. TheMohawk at nearby Kahnawake set up a solidarity roadblock on abridge, which inspired the Canadian and Quebec governments tocall in 2,500 troops. After an aborted attempt to break the barricadeat Oka, a seven-day siege ensued, which was vividly documented inthe national and international mainstream media. The golf coursewas not expanded, but the Oka land claim remains unresolved andtensions in both communities continue to run high.CONAIE, the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities ofEcuador, has had similar mixed results with regard to mainstreamEcuadorian public opinion and state policy. Over the past eight yearstwo presidents have been brought down by indigenous opposition,which has included widespread use of direct action blockadingtactics. The current president, Lucio Gutiérrez, came to power viaan alliance with Pachakutik, a party representing indigenous peoplesin Ecuador. Despite this alliance, the Gutiérrez administration hasadopted familiar neoliberal economic and social policies, taking theside of multinational oil interests and threatening to use militaryforce to assure the smooth flow of oil and capital through indigenouslands and lives (Pachamama Alliance 2003).In the global North—where the oil ends up—there is also a wellestablishedtradition of direct action outside of indigenous groups,from IWW (Industrial Workers of the World, or Wobblies) tacticsof workplace sabotage in the early part of the twentieth century,to Quaker anti-nuclear protests in 1958 and of course the antiglobalizationprotests of the late 1990s (Kubrin 2001). This activity hascontinued into the 2000s with the US dockworkers’ blockade of majorwest coast ports in solidarity with the Seattle protest, and various