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 §