Invasion: A Story of Anti-Colonial Resistance

Medway Baker reviews and contextualizes a short documentary on struggles of the Wet’suwet’en against the modern Canadian state. 

On February 6, the Canadian state’s police force, the RCMP, invaded Wet’suwet’en territories. On February 10, it arrested their Unist’ot’en matriarchs. It is a brutal reminder of the ongoing invasion by settler-colonial forces of the nation’s lands. This comes shortly after the Wet’suwet’en nation invoked their own laws alongside Canadian law to mandate that Coastal GasLink, which is building a pipeline on Wet’suwet’en territory against the wishes of the Wet’suwet’en people, leave their lands. Coastal GasLink has refused to comply and has called on the capitalist state to uphold its interests. 

The RCMP was founded under the name North-West Mounted Police in 1873, as an explicitly colonising force, shortly after the Métis Red River Rebellion led by Louis Riel. Its duty was to protect British-Canadian interests in the vast uncolonised expanses, and extend the colonial boot as settlers flocked to occupy indigenous lands. It subjected indigenous nations to colonial law, a task that it continues to fulfill to this day. Later, the RCMP would be used to crush labour revolts and repress communists. It is fundamentally an instrument of the capitalist, settler-colonial Canadian state. The present use of the RCMP to dispossess and repress the Wet’suwet’en people is one incident among countless assaults carried out by this force. 

To learn more about this struggle, I watched a short documentary produced by the Wet’suwet’en to spread the message of their fight for peace and survival. I was deeply moved by the plight of this oppressed people, and it hardened my resolve to fight against capitalism and settler-colonialism. 

Invasion begins, aptly, with police harassing a Wet’suwet’en woman. It’s a stark image, this meeting at the bridge marking the entrance to the Unist’ot’en territory. Agents of the settler-colonial Canadian state stand threateningly at the border. Behind the woman there are signs declaring “No to colonial violence” and “Defend the yintah!” There is an undeclared war here. On one side, a people who have lived in this area for countless generations, trying to go about their lives in peace. On the other side, an occupying force which seeks to dispossess the Unist’ot’en in the name of capitalist accumulation. Because the Unist’ot’en find themselves in the way of the capitalists’ exploitative ventures, they are no longer citizens with equal rights; they are the enemy of capital, and they must be destroyed. 

The woman in question is Freda Huson, a spokesperson of the Unist’ot’en. She and others have been fighting against a proposed pipeline through their unceded lands for years. At a protest in front of a colonial courthouse, she declares, “Everyone needs to stand up, not just indigenous people. Everyone needs to stand up to the political powers that be.” This is fundamentally an internationalist message, a message that all people, all of the dispossessed, must stand up to defend their rights and their lives from the capitalists and their state. 

It’s reminiscent of another indigenous freedom fighter’s message, all the way back in 1885. Louis Riel, at the trial where he was sentenced to death for rebelling against British-Canadian colonialism, said, 

“When I came into the North West in July, the first of July 1884, I found the Indians suffering. I found the half-breeds [Métis] eating the rotten pork of the Hudson Bay Company and getting sick and weak every day. Although a half-breed, and having no pretension to help the whites, I also paid attention to them. I saw they were deprived of responsible government, I saw that they were deprived of their public liberties. I remembered that half-breed meant white and Indian, and while I paid attention to the suffering Indians and the half-breeds I remembered that the greatest part of my heart and blood was white and I have directed my attention to help the Indians, to help the half-breeds and to help the whites to the best of my ability…. No one can say that the North-West was not suffering last year, particularly the Saskatchewan, for the other parts of the North-West I cannot say so much; but what I have done, and risked, and to which I have exposed myself, rested certainly on the conviction, I had to do, was called upon to do something for my country.

“It is true, gentlemen, I believed for years I had a mission, and when I speak of a mission you will understand me not as trying to play the role of insane before the grand jury so as to have a verdict of acquittal upon that ground. I believe that I have a mission, I believe I had a mission at this very time.”¹

Echoing Louis Riel, Huson announces, “I know I’m doing the right thing.”

And just as the Canadian state invaded the territories controlled by Louis Riel and his comrades, we see armed agents of the state wrestling with Wet’suwet’en freedom fighters. The freedom fighters’ songs of resistance move the heart, as we watch their lands being invaded and their people being attacked. A freedom fighter tells the settler-colonial agents that their courts have no jurisdiction on Wet’suwet’en territory. To no avail. A St’at’imc woman asks the chief agent of the Canadian colonial bourgeoisie, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, “When are you going to give us our rights back?” To no avail. A white woman tells Trudeau that the state’s behaviour is “appalling.” 

Huson says that it’s “inspiring” to know that people all over the world of all backgrounds are standing up for the rights of the Wet’suwet’en people. Although the national oppression of the Wet’suwet’en and other indigenous nations is at the core of this conflict, it has taken on an internationalist character: people of all nations against capitalist accumulation by dispossession of the Wet’suwet’en nation, people of all nations against the rapacious destruction of the planet which we rely on to survive. This is not a narrow conflict. It is a battle in the greatest conflict humanity has ever faced: the dispossessed peoples of the world against the ruling classes, creation against destruction, life against death. 

The mission of the Wet’suwet’en is in line with the communist mission: building a new world, without oppression or exploitation. It is the duty of communists to fight alongside the Wet’suwet’en and other nations oppressed by settler-colonialism against our shared oppressors, the capitalist class. It is the duty of communists to defend the right of national self-determination of these oppressed nations, and that is all they ask. “They are trying to erase us from our own land,” says Huson. She demands only that Wet’suwet’en laws be respected, that her people be allowed to live independently of the settler-colonial society and rebuild their communities on their traditional lands. It would be a crime for us not to defend these rights. 

The documentary ends with Huson pronouncing, “I don’t fear anything.” Her message should inspire us all to take action to defend the dispossessed of all backgrounds, and to fight against settler-colonialism and exploitation. Solidarity with the Wet’suwet’en freedom fighters! Solidarity with the people of all nations who are fighting for their liberation! 

The assault on the Wet’suwet’en peoples and territories is ongoing. Presently, protests and railway blockades are taking place across the Canadian state. To learn more about the Wet’suwet’en struggle and how we can support them, visit https://unistoten.camp/. A full-length documentary is planned to be released later this year. 

1. The full speech is available here.