“In The Know With The Hoser” is back by popular demand, explaining a term some settlers are seeing for the first time online: What is #LandBack? (In Canada and abroad!)
"LANDBACK is a movement that has existed for generations with a long legacy of organizing and sacrifice to get Indigenous Lands back into Indigenous hands. Currently, there are LANDBACK battles being fought all across Turtle Island, to the North and the South," reads the LANDBACK Manifesto from the NDN Collective.
Land Back is:
-The return of all public land to Indigenous hands
-An ongoing struggle for liberation and self-governance
-A call to defund white supremacist orgs i.e. police
-A symbiotic, just relationship with Mother Earth
It is not:
-Skipping reparations and moving straight to unity or reconciliation
-A new, trending topic/hashtag
-Private Ownership
-Continuing colonization
Source: landback.org
In Canada, you’ll often see the hashtag is used in times of online protest against colonial state violence and to call out lies and injustices in settler history. Outside Canada, #LandBack is being evoked in June 2021 as the Israeli government comes under international scrutiny for its continued illegal occupation of Palestinian territories and people.
"For the past 54 years, Israeli authorities have facilitated the transfer of Jewish Israelis to Occupied Palestinian Territories and granted them a superior status under the law as compared to Palestinians living in the same territory when it comes to civil rights, access to land, and freedom to move, build, and confer residency rights to close relatives." -Source: Human Rights Watch
"The project of land back is about reclaiming Indigenous jurisdiction: breathing life into rights and responsibilities,” writes the Yellowhead Institute, a First Nation-led think tank based in Toronto, Ont.
Support land and water defenders directly by donating to Indigenous-led land back efforts in Canada including @porcupinewarriors, tinyhousewarriors.com, and protectthetract.com.
The Algonquins of Ontario website has a detailed account of their current land claim, which "includes an area of 9 million acres within the watersheds of the Kichisippi (Ottawa River) and the Mattawa River in Ontario, an unceded territory that covers most of eastern Ontario. More than 1.2 million people live and work within the Settlement Area. There are 84 municipal jurisdictions fully and partially located within the Settlement Area, including 75 lower and single tier municipalities and 9 upper tier counties. The Algonquins of Ontario (AOO) and the Governments of Canada and Ontario are working together to resolve this land claim through a negotiated settlement. If successful, the agreement we reach will take the form of a modern-day treaty with aboriginal and treaty rights protected under Section 35 of the Constitution Act, 1982." Check out their website to learn more about the Algonquin Treaty negotiation process.
