Aljazeera Studio B: Unscripted: Indigenous and anti-apartheid lessons for climate justice with Kumi Naidoo and Winona LaDuke
Activists Kumi Naidoo and Winona LaDuke on how to sustain resistance movements and secure a just economic transition.
From the front lines of the anti-apartheid and environmental justice movements, this episode of Studio B: Unscripted features two lifelong activists.
Indigenous and anti-apartheid lessons for climate justice
Activists Kumi Naidoo and Winona LaDuke on how to sustain resistance movements and secure a just economic transition.
From the front lines of the anti-apartheid and environmental justice movements, this episode of Studio B: Unscripted features two lifelong activists.
Author, economist and two-time vice presidential candidate of the US Green Party, Winona LaDuke, is co-founder of Honor the Earth, a non-profit organization dedicated to environmental and Indigenous rights.
In Part 1, they discuss how the COVID-19 pandemic is a wake-up call for major system redesign.
From the front lines of the anti-apartheid and environmental justice movements, this episode of Studio B: Unscripted features two lifelong activists. Author, economist and two-time vice presidential candidate of the US Green Party, Winona LaDuke, is co-founder of Honor the Earth, a non-profit organisation dedicated to environmental and Indigenous rights. An anti-apartheid activist from age 15, Kumi Naidoo later helped with South Africa’s inaugural democratic election. He went on to head Greenpeace and Amnesty International, and is currently Global Ambassador for Africans Rising.
In Part 2, they discuss lessons from Indigenous knowledge and the anti-apartheid struggle for the climate movement.
Winona LaDuke: Return to Rice Lake
Wild rice, or manoomin in Ojibway, is the way of life for this village, and for most of the White Earth Reservation. It feeds the body and it feeds the soul, with hundreds of thousands of pounds produced for not only our community but for sale. Today the manoomin is feeding the souls, as tribal members and friends come and gather to honor the rice, and to challenge not only Enbridge, but the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources, which has just allocated 5 billion gallons of water to Enbridge for Line 3, in the middle of the deepest drought we can remember.
“You can feel the wind talk to the rice.”
Lew Murray, Rice Lake Village
It’s Rice Lake Village on the White Earth Reservation – at the site of the mother lode of wild rice, Lower Rice Lake. Lew Murray stands in front of the gathering — about 200 or so people. They have come together to greet the runners who’ve just covered 26 miles to honor the wild rice — and protect it. This is a joyful crowd. Local residents are just starting to get together out-of-doors after pandemic restrictions ease, and we are all happy to see each other.
Ralph Nader Radio Hour: Winona LaDuke, Kai Newkirk
Ralph Nader Radio Podcast: Winona LaDuke, Kai Newkirk Released Apr 23, 2016 "In two very high energy and passionate interviews, Ralph talks to Winona LaDuke, about her fight to stop a tar sands pipeline from running through tribal lands in Minnesota ..."
Winona LaDuke, Kai Newkirk
In two very high energy and passionate interviews, Ralph talks to former Green Party running mate, Winona LaDuke, about her fight to stop a tar sands pipeline from running through tribal lands in Minnesota and Kai Newkirk, one of the organizers of Democracy Spring, a protest to highlight the corruption of money in politics.
Q&A: Winona LaDuke - The Nation
Q&A: Winona LaDuke
A conversation with the two-time Green Party vice presidential candidate.
LF: So you decided to ride horseback along the route of the pipeline?
WL: On our reservation, the Enbridge Corporation is applying to nearly double the capacity of its Clipper line to 880,000 barrels per day—that is bigger than Keystone—and they want to build a third pipeline called Sandpiper next to our largest wild rice bed, to carry hydro-fracked oil from the Bakken oil field [in North Dakota] to Superior, Wisconsin. That amount of oil going across northern Minnesota—land of 10,000 lakes—would make this an oil superhighway. I had this dream that we should ride our horses against the current of the oil.
After that, we were invited to ride horse [into Washington]. It was an amazing spiritual experience. Nine teepees on the Mall, saying no to dirty oil and no to climate change, urging President Obama to do the right thing.
Read more: http://www.thenation.com/article/qa-winona-laduke/
WOMAN ... WINONA LADUKE ABOUT: FOOD + WATER | EARTH
Winona LaDuke, WOMAN, In life, one may not always be sure of their path but for "the signs from above, Honor the Earth repeated, 'trust the process and you'll find what you're looking for.' - We can transition elegantly into a new era, living a good life with the Earth, and water. Let’s be someone that our future generations can depend on, and thank us for.
Photo credit: Keri Pickett | Twitter @KeriPickett
WOMAN
WOMAN is a collection of short films that profile extraordinary women as they push forward the front-lines, around the world. This collection is in development at the moment and will be available to the public in the coming future on a digital platform that allows women and men to explore the feminine experience on earth. We investigate the underlying issues confronting humanity to deepen our understanding of the challenges that bind us all. And through these stories, we aim to shift the prevailing gender paradigm and re-write the inaccurate notions of a woman’s role. This action is a vital avenue toward a more empowering and integrated future.
FOOD + WATER | EARTH
"How do you restore a wild bed?" "Can you tell me how you can do that?" Winona LaDuke during the Enbridge PUC Meeting in McGregor
WINONA LADUKE TAKES ON FOREIGN OIL
"Anshinaabekwe teachings, of course we embody the Earth, but also we’re responsible for the water. The first water that baby is in a woman from the rain to the snow to the rivers (underground aquifers) to that water inside a woman. Those are all the different sacred waters." Winona LaDuke
ENBRIDGE IS CATASTROPHIC:: We have a public policy crisis in the State of Minnesota. We are like the rest of you, we have lived our entire life in the petroleum era. We all use oil. We get that. But we are demanding and expecting a plan, a good plan, is a graceful and elegant transition out of it. Because the fact is what remains in the petroleum era is going to kill us.
Enbridge has not worked on a plan when there is oil leaks and when it would leak in a wild rice lake, even though scientific reports show they have a 57% chance at a catastrophic leak. So Enbridge messaging is that they, “strive for prevention ...,” interesting Enbridge fantasy because prior to a leak the fact is that even though these are areas are delicate aquatic eco system, Enbridge has no training or thought process in their planning to, “restore a wild rice bed,” in the watersheds. Our manoomin, the food that grows on the water, wild rice watershed, and beds are “not,” replaceable. Once they are destroyed, there is no going back to fix this destruction.
We profiled Winona LaDuke as part of our WOMAN collection. She's leading Honor The Earth and her wider community in a battle to stop Canadian oil corporation Enbridge Energy Partners and the Koch Brothers. Saying 'no' to business as usual isn't easy, but clean water and a safe environment are at stake.