Nonviolence News: Maori March, #HateEraser, 200K Chinese Bike Ride & Indigenous Wins
Maori March, #HateEraser, 200K Chinese Bike Ride & Indigenous Wins
Editor's Note From Rivera Sun
Thanks for your patience last week as I tended to a combination of personal and political crises, and couldn't put together the regular edition of Nonviolence News. From consoling activists to strategizing with organizers, it was already an intense time when a family situation called me away from my desk. With things in a more stable place, I'm back to collecting and commenting on the latest stories about nonviolence in action. And there's so much to talk about!
It's Native American Heritage Month in the United States, and this coming week is the increasingly controversial, though widely celebrated, Thanksgiving holiday. (No Nonviolence News next week, btw. I may not eat turkey, but I will savor some restful time off.) In this week's Nonviolence News, pay special attention to the stories about Indigenous Peoples successes and struggles. In Alaska, an Indigenous-led loan fund made a #landback purchase possible. In Maine, a conservation group helped finance the Penobscot Nation's purchase of a 31,000-acre parcel. Wabanaki Nations, including the Penobscot, are getting burial items returned from a Yale University museum in Connecticut. In Oregon, the Indigenous-led efforts to remove dams on the Klamath River have achieved a heartening milestone: one month after the last dam came out, salmon are already spawning in the river.
Meanwhile, in New Zealand, 55,000 people - Maori and allies - held a 9-day march to the capital to oppose revisions that would undermine land rights acknowledged in the 184-year-old treaty. In South Dakota, 1,000 people gathered for an Indigenous Peoples Day march. US President Joe Biden also made a historic first in an official apology to Indigenous Peoples for residential school policies that stole and abused Native children.
In other Nonviolence News, US immigrant groups are mobilizing in the face of threats of mass deportations, a 200,000-person nighttime bicycle ride to a Chinese city famous for dumplings is causing consternation among Chinese authorities, mutual aid groups are rescuing Spain's flood-battered villages, and 40,000 university workers held a 2-day strike in California. That's just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the fascinating stories. Scroll down, click through, and find out what's happening with nonviolence in our world.
Find all these stories and more in Nonviolence News>>
My favorite story? The HateEraser. Thanks to Life After Hate, if you're caught spray-painting hate speech, you might have to use it to cover over swastikas and slurs as part of your community service hours. It's poetic justice ... and hopefully leads to some inner transformation.
In solidarity,
Rivera Sun