Weaken the Women, Destabilize their Nation

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...Smith’s critique of mainstream feminist and environmentalist organizations comes from her experience organizing with Native women at the grassroots level. Working within the logic of capitalism, the mainstream organisations tend to further the colonization and marginalization of those women and land-based peoples whose interests they are mandated to represent. Smith maintains accountability to people of colour first and foremost, constantly questioning mainstream ideas of ‘inclusion’ that are supposed to assist and protect people of colour but fail to address their specific communities’ experiences of colonial violence and injustice.

Smith calls for an anti-colonial strategy that centrally addresses issues of gender violence. She consistently positions women of colour, and specifically Native women, at the centre of analysis and resistance. This contrasts with the mainstream model that positions the most empowered women in society at the centre — middle-class white women —and secondarily attempts to create a model of “inclusion” for everyone else. Neither can an anti-colonial strategy rely upon institutions of the state, since these institutions are themselves instruments of racist and gender violence. In particular, Smith describes numerous examples of racism in the criminal justice system, including three of the most high profile cases of police violence in Canada since 1998.

In her concluding chapter, Smith explores the implications of the new imperialism after 9/11 for struggles against oppression. She shows how the external war against terror has translated into increased racism, sexism and heterosexism at home. In her words, “It is important to understand that this war against ‘terror’ is really an attack against Native sovereignty, and that consolidating U.S. empire abroad is predicated on consolidating US empire within US borders.” Empire is founded on a nationalism that promotes domestic resource extraction on Aboriginal lands, such as the petroleum drilling planned for Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge on Gwich’in territory; a militarism that supports military testing on Aboriginal lands, such as the 18,000 low-level NATO flights per year that have disrupted Innu lands in Labrador; an anti-immigrant ideology that reinforces the power of the state with respect to Aboriginal lands.

...Conquest is important as a gathering of evidence about the state-sanctioned violation of Aboriginal rights in the United States and Canada, including violence against Aboriginal women and the theft and destruction of Aboriginal lands. Although Smith does not fully explain how this is rooted in capitalism and the drive for profit, her analysis does lead toward a revolutionary strategy. Smith concludes that the struggle for self-determination must involve “the project of creating a new world governed by an alternative system not based on domination, coercion and control.” This global vision is not utopian, but rather is grounded in the experience of resistance.

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