Facing Down White Supremacy at Ada’itsx

Report from far-Right attack Fairy Creek anti-logging blockade.

In a disturbing development, at least one of the vehicles that has been harassing the Fairy Creek front gate (July 4th) has been confirmed to be the same vehicle that participated in an attack on a solidarity picket for Wet’suwet’en on February 10th, 2020 near Cumberland, BC. In this attack 30 masked men emerged from the forest and ransacked people’s belongings while the aforementioned truck smashed through barriers. This truck provides a missing puzzle piece demonstrating the continuity of organized efforts to disrupt Wet’suwet’en solidarity and Ada’itsx/Fairy Creek protection. This link underlines not only the overlap of Indigenous struggle, anti-colonialism, and ecological protection, but also the grim techniques of repression characterized by militarized police and auxiliary vigilantes.

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— Fairy Creek Blockade (@SaveFairyCreek) July 6, 2021

The corporate press and the state pr machine have done their absolute best to isolate these issues and downplay their significance if not their existence. What is erased from the narrative is the insidious role of white supremacy and ongoing colonialism resting on top of raw capitalist exploitation.

A familiar argument is that it is workers/loggers who are opposed to protecting the Ada’itsx/Fairy Creek watershed. What isn’t captured in this reasoning is the fact that workers/loggers have their labour exploited and their bodies ravaged the same as ecological devastation is turned into profits by the state and its corporations. We should drive this point home in our arguments and focus on the workers/loggers who already know this on one level or another. That being said, the men who are posing as workers/loggers but prove through actions their loyal service to corporate interests (e.g. the May 4th attack and the July 12th assaults) more accurately fall under the definition of company men. It is curious how quickly they have forgotten the 8 month long strike against Western Forest Products and now join hands with their corporate bosses through such disingenuous slogans as, “I love Canadian Forestry,” and, “Forestry feeds my family.” To be blunt: scabs, racists, and company men betray the idea of labour struggle and forfeit their right to call themselves workers or loggers.

On the heels of the worst heat wave in BC history, on the edge of tinder-dry cutblocks, in the middle of the driest July ever, RCMP are running angle-drill grinders, generating so many sparks that it sets cotton clothing on fire when not protected by leather. pic.twitter.com/tx0RJS93gn

— Fairy Creek Blockade (@SaveFairyCreek) July 6, 2021

If this reasoning is confusing, the raw violence of the mob attack on the Wet’suwet’en solidarity picket is not. It was only through the disciplined de-escalation protocol of the land defenders that no one was seriously harmed. To be set upon by 30 racists sporting the Maple Leaf and the Confederate flag side by side is a terror that is written in blood. Let us not forget the mob violence unleashed on Native families at Whiskey Trench in 1990.

In these ominous times of Story Poles being burnt and threats of violence and arson being directed at Indigenous communities, we must ground ourselves in our purpose and solidarity. We cannot let the issues be shifted away from their history and redirected into dead ends. The fact that both Fairy Creek defenders and Indigenous activists are facing the full force of colonialism toe to toe is daunting but also empowering. It is through the joining of struggles and the breaking down of artificial barriers between us that we can genuinely challenge white supremacy and Canadian colonialism. Every action creates a new reality; a more beautiful world is possible!