Accomplices: Special Episode with Alex Zahara
Episode highlight
In this episode, Alex Zahara talks about how a non-Indigenous person can be a good ally and accomplice to Indigenous peoples in Canada.
Resources
Alex Zahara
UR Pride Center Case
Accomplices Not Allies: Abolishing the Ally Industrial Complex
Pollution is Colonialism
Mohawk Interruptus
We Are Fire
Natasha Caverley
Breathing Fire into Landscapes that Burn: Wildfire Management in a Time of Alterlife
Otherwise Worlds: Against Settler Colonialism and Anti-Blackness by Tiffany Lethabo King
Treaty Land Sharing Network
Centering Indigenous voices: The role of fire in the Boreal Forest of North America
Sponsors
The Canadian Partnership for Wildland Fire Science
Indigenous Leadership Initiative
Quotes
17.44 – 17.52: “This is actually the first time in Canadian history when the Notwithstanding Clause was used to suppress the charter rights of children.”
22.42 - 22.48: “These attacks… on trans rights are also an attack on Indigenous rights.”
1.14.54 - 1.15.10: “When I’m thinking about how do I be a settler and how do I… settle, I do think that there are ways of… living together in a way that doesn’t emphasize conquest and that just emphasizes… sharing.”
Takeaways
The gathering place (06.06)
Alex Zahara is a non-Indigenous researcher in Kistahpinanihk, which means the Great Meeting Place, also known as Prince Albert in Treaty 6 territory, the Metis Homeland and the Homeland of the Dakota. He works out of the Northern Forestry Centre as a fire research scientist for the Canadian Forest Service and believes his location informs his research approach. Prince Albert, located along the northern Saskatchewan River is where prairies and agricultural land in the south roll into boreal forests in the north, giving summer thunderstorms and fire, and has been home to many First Nations.
A place of community (10.30)
As a settler, Alex often thinks about what his role is in Indigenous fire stewardship. “I have a lot of obligations to people who have been here before and currently, and… [I am] also folded into different agreements that were already in place”, he notes. As a gay man, he also thinks about others in the queer community, so being a settler for him means centering two-spirit and trans people, especially in the light of recent anti-trans legislation. As a researcher, he wrestles with accusations on teachings in the light of parent rights, with only some gender ideologies being aligned with inherent human and treaty rights.
Misgendering and outing (13.09)
Alex explains how the legislation came to be, when Planned Parenthood pamphlets were left in a Saskatchewan classroom containing inappropriate information. The following week, the government pot forth new legislation banning third parties from teaching sex education and restricting gender pronoun use, making it mandatory for people under 16 to get parental consent to go by a different gender or pronoun in the classroom. Without parental consent, teachers and classmates are then forced to misgender, which leads to negative health outcomes, while an outing could be dangerous for some.
Taking away children’s rights (15.34)
The University of Regina Pride Center requested an injunction on the legislation that required gender-diverse youth to either remain misgendered or be outed, since it is likely to cause irreparable harm. While it was first accepted, Saskatchewan used the Notwithstanding Clause, allowing them to overwrite certain aspects of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. This clause was added when the constitution was created since some provinces wouldn’t sign up for it without one. Alberta followed and has proposed medical restrictions too. Prince Albert, where Alex is from, is 50% Indigenous, including 2-Spirit people.
Violation of 2-Spirit Rights (19.25)
Alex highlights that being 2-Spirit is an Indigenous right, so the usage of the Notwithstanding Clause is being disputed because it cannot be used to suppress Indigenous rights. Treaty agreements, especially in Treaty 6, include the right to healthcare, which includes having access to medical support. The provincial government is also obligated to upload the inherent rights to cultural expression. However, the gender ideology being professed by the government is a binary nuclear family, which doesn’t align with Indigenous cultural worldviews.
Reclaiming Indigenous culture (21.37)
Alex finds it heartening going to Pride celebrations and observing Indigenous youth exercise their right to be 2-Spirit peoples, “which is particularly important after residential schools, where… rigid gender ideologies were enforced on people”. He acknowledges that folks from Prince Albert Pride have been working hard to put statements out and organize activities for advocacy, emphasizing how this is an Indigenous rights issue along with being a queer rights issue. He laments that the cis-white men understanding of queer rights is limited to marriage, whereas there are more issues underneath.
Cultural safety (25.26)
Alex mentions the work done by Amy on cultural safety in Indigenous fire management, particularly trans people. Many trans people have stopped being firefighters because the firefighting culture lacks acceptance. So, he emphasizes inclusivity and creating safe spaces for queer and trans folk in all the work he does. However, in a province where nobody’s identity is affirmed till they are over 16, trans adults in fire management “have to end up starting a few steps back, because they didn’t get to be who they were, and come into themselves until much later”.
Accomplices vs. Allies (30.35)
Alex was introduced to an article, Accomplices Not Allies, by his PhD advisors, which influenced how he thought about research. He read it often to understand the differences between allies and accomplices. For him, an accomplice is willing to lose privilege and access to power. He compares that to how straight people are expected to walk in front of a Pride Parade, protecting the crowds behind them. He talks about Audrea Simpson’s politics of refusal, where Indigenous Nations insist on the Integrity of self-governance and refuse citizenship of the colonial state.
Truth and reconciliation (36.43)
Alex encourages settlers to not only learn the truth about Canada’s history but also do the work on reconciling. He mentions how the Muskrats to Moose Project, which both Amy and Alex are involved with, is working towards this cause. They try to bring different groups of people together to learn about the importance of fire on the land in supporting the ecosystem, cultural landscape and economies. A large invasive king grass species grows very tall and does not provide a good home for muskrats, so burning helps maintain the habitat to sustain this species.
Accomplice as an identity (39.52)
Alex narrates some incidents at a youth camp in Saskatchewan, where they had to do a burn in March since they aren’t allowed to do so after April 1. Some of the discussions that took place were about reconciliation fires and how they should exist in a particular way within the government legislation. He emphasizes how being an accomplice means helping ensure that the settler state is not the one that makes decisions on Indigenous ways of being. Taking on ‘accomplice’ as an identity means you are always thinking about what you can do. He also discusses how the let-burn policy is critiqued by Indigenous leadership.
The Indigenous Invitation (45.52)
Alex began his research by wanting to research Nunavut but returned to Prince Albert when he felt a calling to work for his community. He believes being a settler means planning to be here a long time, which opens up different possibilities. He wanted to study the settler state government and learned to only step in when invited by Indigenous communities. He lists the values that are managed for in fire response – human life, community infrastructure, industrial infrastructure and timber. Unfortunately, Indigenous peoples are not consulted when deciding which fires to put out.
Indigenous fire management (51.13)
Alex points out that saying ‘fire is caused through natural factors’ is another way in which Indigenous erasure takes place, since there has been a history of Indigenous people being involved in stewarding the fire. He believes it is important to have open lines of communication with Indigenous Nations to decide the values in fire management, and to respect traditional Indigenous knowledge and its role in helping fight climate change. Cultural sites should also be included in the list of values to manage for in a fire, whereas environmental values are instructed by the Ministry of Environment to the fire protection agency.
Building a Tribal Council (59.02)
Alex talks about how he authored his paper, Breathing Fire into Landscapes, inspired by the Prince Albert Grand Council (PAGC) task force report. He began working in an official capacity with PAGC in 2020 with a project to create a Tribal Council to document traditional ecological knowledge perspectives related to fire. There has been a lot of youth involvement for community development as a part of this project. The PAGC had to edit their job descriptions to appeal to youth who wanted to improve fire for their community. They received 65 applications from people with varying skills.
Reciprocity, Ecology and Diversity in Fire (1.04.38)
Alex has recently transitioned into a position of Research Scientist with the Canadian Forest Service. He is grateful to Amy and David Young for helping him formulate his position on Indigenous fire stewardship. REDFire Lab, which stands for Reciprocity, Ecology and Diversity in Fire, is a joint venture of the three to champion community-based projects. The plan is to collaborate with different First Nations and help them collaborate with the federal government if they are interested in providing direct recommendations on how to improve fire response so that projects can develop in ways that serve the community.
Indigenous Consultation (1.09.31)
One of the first projects Alex wants to work on is evaluating the Alberta and Saskatchewan federal-to-provincial government natural resource transfer agreement of 1930. Indigenous Nations were not consulted in making this agreement, despite treaty and non-treaty agreements being in place. That is why many Indigenous Nations don’t recognize the provinces as “having the proper authority to assert their jurisdiction”. This impacted present-day fire management and the relationships between fire response agencies and First Nations, with some First Nations taking legal action against the agreement.
“You can’t move forward without the truth” (1.13.03)
Alex emphasizes that evaluating the truth of the past is important to address the issues of the present. He laments that settler colonialism involved settler entitlement to Indigenous lands for settler goals. “That entitlement to go on and do your thing despite whatever other people want… is kind of the history of Canada in some ways”, he notes. He talks about the role of conquest and racism in colonization, which manifested itself in the creation of Indian Residential Schools and the denial of legal aid to Indigenous people when the natural resource transfer agreement was made.
Ceding authority and power (1.15.11)
Alex explains how due to systemic bias, people need to think about how they can cede authority over decision-making in order to be a good accomplice. He shares the example of a community in southern Saskatchewan whose farmers sent a petition to the government demanding more land and agricultural support for the First Nation next to them, even if they had to give up some of their land. The Treaty Land Sharing Network is a group of farmers who put up Treaty Land Sharing signs on their farms to do away with the requirement of permission before Indigenous farmers engage in traditional harvesting practices.
Indigenous information from Indigenous sources (1.17.36)
Alex credits Amy with helping him become a better ally and accomplice, especially with how she cites only Indigenous sources in her papers. He encourages listeners to think about their research techniques and the diversity of the sources they cite in their papers. There is a lot of information available by Indigenous sources and those are the ones that should be sought, read and cited. Sometimes, the information may not have been made public due to important reasons, he adds, but it is important not to assume that the information does not exist.
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