Those of you from Canada who receive these notes will be aware of the #Idlenomore (Idle No More) grassroots social movement started by four Indigenous women from Saskatchewan which has spread like wildfire across Canada through social networks and word of mouth organizing by Indigenous women and youth.  Others of you from other parts of the world will not have heard about this I expect. #Idlenomore supports a hunger strike by Chief Teresa Spence of the Attiwapiskat First Nations on the shores of the Hudson Bay in Northern Ontario.  Chief Spence is asking for a meeting with the Prime Minister of Canada, Stephen Harper, to create conditions for political discussions which can break the centuries of oppression and genocidal policies between the Government of Canada and the First Peoples. Today is the 22'nd day of her fast and there is no indication that Prime Minister Harper will meet with her.  She is willing to die for her people, for all Canadians, in the hope that a new relationship may come to pass. Why now? Is there something that has sparked what in some Indigenous traditions call the "lighting of the 7'th Fire"?

The current government of Prime Minister Stephen Harper is arguably the most ideological government in Canada's history.  With a majority government, they have been shifting the Canadian political culture further and further to the right. You will be aware of Canada's deplorable record on international climate change issues.  Economic development through natural resource exploitation is the single lens through which this government views the world.  The Oil Sands petroleum developments in Northern Alberta in Western Canada are the dirtiest such oil production in the world. 

The Indigenous People's of Canada, in spite of the efforts to extinguish them, to render them invisible, to deny their hopes and aspirations are not only still here in the millions, but have maintained a sacred trust in relation to the land and a commitment to the children, as is said, seven generations to come. Because of their special relationship with the Crown and the patterns of reserves in once isolated communities, Indigenous Peoples (including First Nations, Innuit and Metis peoples) find themselves on the very land that global capitalism, the resource industries and their political supports in Ottawa are seeking to exploit.

Bill C-45, a law before Parliament, will be sent to the Governor General and become law once he signs it  Many First Nations claim the bill undermines sovereignty and treaty rights, with some even going so far as to say that Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s government is trying to terminate all their rights.  

How does the #idlenomore organize?  Like the Arab Spring and the #Occupywallstreet movement, youth and social media are central to getting the word out, but the forms of the action taken are uniquely Indigenous.  Flash mob strategies have been bringing Indigenous Peoples and their allies to shopping malls in all major cities in Canada, Chair lifts at skiing resorts in the mountains, city intersections and places as well as symbolic places such as legislatures.  The gatherings offer round dances, drumming, singing, Indigenous games  and other celebratory forms calling for support for Chief Spence, opposition to Bill C-45 and for a new relationship between all the peoples of Canada.  What is so encouraging about this movement is that the most grass roots community based Indigenous call for action that we have seen for decades in Canada.  It feels like a political turning point, not an immediate victory, but at a time when formal political parties and non-Indigenous research groups have not been unable to slow down the juggernaught of destruction and greed, #idlenomore shows signs of breaking through to Canadian public attention. 

What does this have to do with knowledge democracy?  For so many of us who have been calling for recognition of not only the existence of wider and more inclusive epistemologies but for the use of excluded knowledge as central tools for organizing for change, the #idlenomore movement is a powerful example of how this works.  Indigenous land-based, cultural, spiritual and collective knowledge not only has not been extinguished, it is being re-vitalized and re articulated by new generations of Indigenous academics, young people and their allies. Success of the #idlenomore movement will be a success for all Canadians and indeed if one extends the analysis to the relationship and potential of Indigenous knowledge around the world, to all people in the world.

A final work from Paulo Wangoola, the founder and Nabyama of the Mpambo Afrikan Multiversity, a movement of Afrikan Indigenous thinkers based in Uganda.  In a recent note about the times we are living in, he said, "The end of one epoch is not doom; it is a time of joy as the universe is re-set, to configure the spiritually necessary levels of optimum harmonious living and existence.  This is our understanding".