he

I

Commentary

Cre

Women find new ways despite Botha

On the day the apartheid regime
extended the state of emergency for another
year, the Tribune spoke by telephone with
an activist in the South African women’s
movement: :

In our conditions, the whole question of
women’s liberation is linked with the issue
of national liberation. We know that
women will not be truly liberated while our
people are in chains.

We also know that women will not be
automatically liberated after our country’s
iberation is achieved, and that if we want to
ensure the equal participation of women in
a future South Africa, we must organize
women now, and we must ensure that
women are equal partners in the liberation
Struggle,

With this understanding of women’s lib-
fration, this is the stand our women’s organ-
'Zalions affiliated to the United Democratic
Front are taking,

_ With the re-emergence of mass organiza-
Hons following their banning in the 1960s,
Pockets of women’s organizations also
began emerging. This has led to the forma-
- Won of regional women’s organizations
throughout South Africa.

Initially, the state of emergency caused
Serious problems. Many women were
detained, many were forced into hiding,
which set us back in the short term.

But, as with most organizations, it taught
US to adapt and to be creative about the way
we work.

We learn to work in a semi-legal way, to
build networks. Ina embryonic sense, these
Organizations became a sort of people’s
government — in the form of street com-
mittees, people’s courts — and women
Participated fully in all these structures in
the townships and the community level.

While the state of emergency robbed us
of much of our leadership, it forced us to
train new people and into always ensuring
that we have other leaders ready to step in. I
believe the whole movement has learned
this lesson from the state of emergency and
the pressure.

With the state of emergency came
extreme brutality and repression in the
townships. Detained women had to face

being raped or sexually harassed. They
faced the fact that their children were being
shot or arrested. They faced the whole edu-
cation crisis because it was their children
who were boycotting the schools which
were being occupied by the army.

At the workplace, conditions for women
are quite bad. Not only are they paid the
starvation wages for workers in our coun-
try, they face further disparity because they
are women. They face sexual harassment,
forced contraception.

Domestic workers are the most exploited
of all. They have been robbed of their fami-
lies, their children. They live at their work-
place in slave conditions. They earn slave
wages. And because they work in different
homes, they are one of the most difficult
sectors to organize. However, the South
African Domestic Workers’ Union has
made tremendous strides.

Domestic workers must actually send
their own children back to the rural areas to
be raised. They are unable to raise their own
children, yet they have to mother other
women’s children. And those very children
they mother grow up eventually and shoot
our children.

But, despite all the repression and brutal-
ity during the state of emergency, this year
has shown to be the most promising in
terms of organization.

The various regional organizations are
now discussing the formation of a national
women’s organization. This fits in with the
overall strategy of the mass democratic
organizations which is to form broad, anti-
apartheid alliances. We want to include
working women, church women — women
from every walk of life in this new alliance.

A very important event for us this year
was the Congress of South African Trade
Unions (COSATU) Women’s Conference,
which was the first time that working
women from every corner of the country
came together to discuss their problems in
conjunction with women from community
groups who were invited to attend as well.

There are presently many women sitting
in detention as well as on death row. We see
a growing emergence of women’s leader-
ship within the democratic movement,

Domestic worker cares for white children on Port Elizabeth's coast ... “‘the very
childen they mother grow up eventually and shoot our children.”

which is a major forward step.

And because women’s organizations
were not among the latest 17 organizations
banned, there is a greater need for women
to make their voices heard. Recently, for
example, the Federation of Transvaal
Women organized a march to the Chamber
of Mines on the issue of the Labour Rela-
tions Act.

We targeted the Chamber of Mines not
only because it is symbolic of the severe
exploitation practised in our country, but
also because we want to pressure the busi-
ness community to back up its talk about
the need for change with action. We want
them to pressure Botha to lift the bans

against democratic organizations and ensure
the retrogressive Labour Relations Act is
not passed.

When the police forced the march to dis-
perse, the people gathered once more and
marched to the British Consulate to high-
light Thatcher’s role in blocking sanctions
within the Commonwealth.

Such actions generate a lot of excitement
and interest for women’s organizing.
Strength is created.

So we can say that, despite some initial
setbacks caused by the state of emergency,
in the long term it is strengthening our
organizations and the resolve to continue
the fight.

_ Native groups set ‘Struggle for Justice’ rally

On June 21, Native people from across
Ontario will gather in Toronto to bring
attention to the first nations’ still unans-
wered call for justice. The rally comes on the
heels of recent events which have included
an RCMP raid on the Kahnawake reserve
in Quebec, Indian protests and blockades in
the Stein Valley in B.C. and in Temegami,
Ontario to protect land claims and the leak
of secret federal plans for massive cutbacks
in Native funding. Gord Peters, Ontario
leader of the First Nations, spoke with the

ribune’s Paul Ogresko about the recent
events and about the Assembly of First
Nations held three weeks ago in Edmonton.

Q: What was the most important thing
coming out of the Assembly of First Nations?

A: The most important thing was that
Indian leaders from across the country
Started to realize that we weren’t going to
have much impact on the federal and pro-
vincial governments unless we ourselves did
what we wanted to do. With the Maritime
and Alberta Indian organizations coming
back into this Assembly, we are showing the
recognition that we need our own strength
and our own solidarity before we can move
ahead. The only group still outside the
Assembly is the Federation of Saskatche-
wan Indian Nations.

Q: What is the mood coming out of the
Assembly?

A: The mood was that it can’t work with-
out the people going home and doing some-

An interview with Ontario First Nations leader Gord Peters

thing about it. You can’t move and pass
resolutions and expect everything to
happen. The feeling was what do we have to
do to strengthen the Assembly so we have
more clout. People left with the attitude that
now we have to do our work at home.

Q: With situations like the roadblock at
Temegami, do you see civil disobedience
becoming more frequent as other options run
out?

A: At Temegami we have been trying to
negotiate a treaty for over a hundred
years — the options have run out. We can’t
go on allowing our lands to be utilized, our
resources stripped and not fight back. If we
believe we have inherent rights then we also
have a natural right to defend them. It’s
obvious the federal and provincial govern-
ments aren’t going to defend our rights.
We're acknowledging the laws don’t work
for aboriginal people across the country and
we’re going to have to do something about
It.

Q: Are you surprised by the leak of infor-
mation that the federal government is plan-
ning massive Native cutbacks?

A: It really didn’t surprise us because it’s
been happening to us for two years already.
The cutbacks are already there. What the
federal government calls negotiations are in

fact ultimatums. The push to have more
provincial responsibility, cutbacks in Native
education — it’s a massive undertaking on
their part. It’s the 1969 White Paper and the
Nielsen report all over again. This is simply
the implementation of those documents.

Q: How do you feel as the non-amended
Meech Lake Accord comes closer to passing?

A: It means we’re going to have a tough
time. What the feds are unable to accomp-
lish in the meetings with us, now they’re
going though the back door, making dis-
tinct societies only applicable to two groups.
Maybe in a sense it’s a good thing for us.
The feds could meet with us and amend the
Accord to guarantee aboriginal rights but
they chose not to.

There are premiers in this country, such
as B.C., Saskatchewan and Alberta, who
don’t want to share resource dollars with
anybody. If Meech Lake goes through
unamended and Canada starts putting the
pressure on us in saying we’re part of Can-
ada and not distinct nations in ourselves —
I think that will be the catalyst that pushes
our people to the limit.

Q: What are you hoping to accomplish at
the “Support Our Struggle for Justice” rally?

A: We want to make it clear to people
that number one: there are a lot of interna-

tional people and media coming to Toronto
and they should know that Canada deals in
the international forum ona very conscious
basis of undermining our struggle here.
Canada says the treaties we have signed are
not international documents, they say that
aboriginal people in Canada are not recog-
nizable as “peoples” by UN standards.
They say “this is a domestic problem, we'll
resolve it and no one tells Canada how to
operate on an international forum.” Can-
ada is trying to push us off the international
stage.

Secondly, what we want to get across to
the province of Ontario is that Gary Potts
(Chief of the Teme-Augama Anishnabai
nation which is currently blockading a road
to prevent logging on disputed land in
Temegami) is not alone. That Indian people
across the country support him and that we
face the same problems.

The final thing is that we ourselves can’t
fight these things alone. There has to be a
co-ordinated effort to do something about
what’s going on in this country.

Q: Do you feel optimistic about what lies
ahead for the first nations?

A: I feel very optimistic. Coming out of
this Assembly, people understand there is a
way to win this struggle. If we work together
more we have a good chance; maybe it
won’t be tomorrow, or next month, or next
year, but definitely there is a way to win.

Pacific Tribune, June 22, 1988 e §