Waste colonialism is a prime example of how racism is a root cause of the climate crisis
By: Emma Shemko, Opinion Contributor
Waste colonialism is the practice of hegemonic nations dumping their excess waste into the hands of economically subjugated developing states predominantly made up of BIPOC communities.
When discussing the climate crisis, it is crucial to frame it as more than just an oil or plastic crisis because doing so erases the voices of BIPOC people who are bearing the brunt of climate changes. Understanding who generates waste, where it ends up and the connections between environment and racism are key to achieving mitigation.
Looking closely, the countries receiving these never-ending imports of waste are typically already overwhelmed with chronic symptoms left over from 19th and 20th-century colonialism, including civil conflict, severe economic debt and political instability.
Several countries, such as Liberia, Kenya and Tunisia, have attempted to create laws banning illicit imports of toxic waste. The dumping of garbage on foreign soil compromises the living conditions of people of colour and reproduces the conditions that characterized the colonial era. But because economically powerful countries are dependent on plastic and oil production these laws are disrespected time and time again.
After waste is dumped, little regard is given to the lives of those who work in unsanitary and hazardous conditions as informal waste pickers. An estimated 20 million people worldwide make up the informal recycling sector earning only a daily average of $2 to $3 US dollars. In addition, waste pickers are predominantly women and children. In Pune, India 73 per cent of workers are women and half of these women work up to 12 hours daily.
To combat overflows of waste, a trend has emerged among developing countries who are now threatening to return waste to its original exporters. In 2019, the Philippines threatened to send 60 containers of rotting household waste back to Canada.
To put this into perspective, between 2013 and 2014, Canada shipped 103 containers of garbage to the Philippines. In 2018 Canada generated 35.6 million tons of garbage. Waste is not piling up in streets is because much of it is shipped away.
Not only has Canada has continuously been a big offender in foreign waste dumping. It also negligently dumps waste into Indigenous communities within its own borders. For example, arsenic pollution from the oilsands tailing ponds in Alberta continue to destroy the health of the environment and of the Indigenous communities living along the Athabasca River.
Not only has Canada has continuously been a big offender in foreign waste dumping. It also negligently dumps waste into Indigenous communities within its own borders. For example, arsenic pollution from the oilsands tailing ponds in Alberta continue to destroy the health of the environment and of the Indigenous communities living along the Athabasca River.
Toxic chemicals from the ponds have been seeping into groundwater and affecting the Fort Chipewyan Métis community since 2009. Governments continue to neglect complaints despite knowing that the tailings ponds contain 1.4 trillion litres of toxic waste.
Once I began to realize how commonplace waste dumping is and how this practice is deeply connected to racism, neo-colonialism and the climate crisis, I could no longer unsee it. It infiltrates all aspects of life and is inescapable for BIPOC communities worldwide.
Wanjiku “Wawa” Gatheru, founder of @blackgirlenviromentalist on Instagram, is a youth climate activist passionate about protecting BIPOC people who lack access to the resources or clout needed for combating exposure to toxic waste. Wanjiku highlights these notions as a reflection of society as the truth is, the same throwaway culture that disposes our planet disposes of people, especially people of color.
The disproportionate levels of waste in BIPOC communities alongside the lack of governmental action to outcries about climate change and human well-being are clear indications of environmental racism. I believe that without racism and the mindset that one’s race makes them superior to another, there would be no incentive to dump waste in BIPOC communities and nations. Therefore, there would be no climate crisis without racism. The climate crisis is not rooted in a plastic or oil crisis but in ongoing racial injustices.
Environmentalism begins with antiracism because the two social justice movements are inextricably linked. Environmentalism without intersectionality is like exterminating a weed without pulling up the root, allowing the weed to continue expanding.
Environmentalism begins with antiracism because the two social justice movements are inextricably linked. Environmentalism without intersectionality is like exterminating a weed without pulling up the root, allowing the weed to continue expanding.
Racism is the root of the climate crisis weed, and it is high time that it is uprooted if we are to mitigate environmental emergencies.
C/O Yoohyun Park
Intersections between Blackness, culture and self-acceptance essential in constructing individuals unique experiences
By: Ahlam Yassien, contributor
As an Ethiopian woman in Canada, I haven’t had the opportunity to think concretely thought about my identity and what my identity means to me.
Instead, my identity has been constructed through experience and at least, for myself, experiences of self-hatred and acceptance were intrinsically intertwined.
For example, as a child I begged my parents to allow me to cut my hair and perm it, not because I hated my hair but because I felt it would be easier to manage and would make it stick out less in public. Nonetheless, my hair remained long and curly, in part because I did genuinely like my hair long even if I felt my frizzy hair made me stand out, but also because hair is a prized possession in my culture.
So, on one end my culture encouraged me to value my natural hair while on the other it also taught me my worth was directly connected to my hair. However, the desire to have straighter hair has been promoted in many Black communities and myself alongside other Black women have been simultaneously fighting for different kinds of acceptance which were all rooted in confronting anti-Blackness, whether that be acceptance from our White peers, from within our culture or from within our own communities.
When I found myself styling it to appear more similar to the hair of those around me, I fell into a hamster wheel of self-hatred as my hair lost its volume and curl, making me feel as if my worth had also decreased. The desire to remain valuable in my culture was clashed with my desire to fit into Western culture.
These experiences of trying to reconcile cultures as well as ideas of self-hatred and self-acceptance are common for many Black folks.
“Since I was a kid my parents have always reminded me to love and embrace my country, my history and my culture. Ethiopian culture is very religious and is all about celebration — celebration of life, culture, family and God. However, my [culture] also categorizes their own people . . . an example is like skin color. They're always uplifting and loving lighter skin tones more than darker skin tones. Body shaming and sexism are also common,” explained Beemnet Feleke.
Though it’s also worth noting that while many Black folks have these shared experiences of self-hatred and discomfort, the experience of being Black is still felt differently across groups. For myself, the desire to remain beautiful both within and outside of my culture had been at the forefront of my struggle with self-hatred and self-acceptance but my experiences as an Ethiopian Black woman are certainly different from the experiences of many others not only within the Black community but within my own culture as well.
For example, in certain Caribbean communities, anti-Blackness rhetoric is so heavily ingrained in the culture and history it often goes unnoticed. Consequently, children grow up maintaining and enforcing it in their communities.
“Throughout her childhood, [my mother] was taught that if you were of lighter skin and had looser curls, that you were “prettier” or superior than others who didn’t have these characteristics. She was also taught that one with Eurocentric facial features had “nice” facial features. Unfortunately, as a child these notions were passed on to me as well. I used to project my feelings and perceptions onto other classmates and friends, which, unbeknownst to me, was [perpetuation of] anti-Blackness. Now, as a young adult, my perceptions of Blackness have changed drastically. I hope that with the knowledge I have today, I can educate others in hopes of eradicating texturism, featurism and colourism,” explained Donelle Peltier.
It’s also important to note it is not the fault of these cultures themselves but rather the result of the White supremacy and colonialism that run rampant in many histories. Interrogating anti-Blackness remains an important goal within and outside of the Black community.
While sharing these experiences can help with this and highlight diversity within the Black experience, they still only paint a fraction of the full picture, a picture which may never be entirely clear. However, that doesn’t mean sharing these experiences is any less important, particularly because of the essential part culture plays in upholding and denouncing anti-Blackness.
C/O nichola feldman-kiss | Artist, Bob McNair | Photographer
Artist nichola feldman-kiss presents Scapegoat, a critique of the colonial paradigm
CW: Death, implied violence
The latest exhibition at the McMaster Museum of Art, Scapegoat, critiques the colonial paradigm—the violent story of domination and submission—through displays of biological metaphors for the geopolitics and conflict. The exhibition will be available until Mar. 18 with advanced admission booking.
Artist nichola feldman-kiss began Scapegoat in 2015 following a series of works after the their deployment on a United Nations Mission to Sudan in 2011 as part of the Canadian Forces Artists Program.
The exhibition features hybrid-media installations, including photography, audio, video, digital and performative pieces. The aim is to bring to attention the injustices perpetuated by settler-colonialism structures. In the current era of heightened social awareness and responsibility, feldman-kiss’ work creates space for conversation around peace, reconciliation, recognition, decolonization and repatriation.
Since returning from Sudan in 2011, feldman-kiss has been attempting to make sense of what they saw and experienced through projects such as Between here and there.
Scapegoat attempts to uncover what is missing or left unspoken in the narrative about wars and world conflicts which are often told and fragmented by those who dominate the conversation, particularly those in power.
“I’m very suspicious about what is written down because when I approach what is written down, I know there is something missing. Sudan revealed to me a lot about what is missing, what is all contained in the narrative, what kinds of narratives are crafted for the Western press audience and how those of us who have not seen [the conflict first-hand] have very little capacity to imagine.
nichola feldman-kiss
Part of what is missing in these narratives are the identities and lives behind the death toll statistics. When human bodies are reduced to mere numbers, questions remain about their story, including who they were, where they lived, who is missing them, who is grieving them and why they went to war. An initial aversion to the plight of the sufferer (Pietà), was built upon these questions to reconnect the disembodied souls.
Between here and there / Human Toll is a sound piece in which a speech synthesizer reads the worldwide death statistic database from the Uppsala Conflict Data Program.
feldman-kiss’ worked with human skeletal sets to personify the death statistics further. . An initial aversion to the plight of the sufferer (Pietà is a series of photographic portraits of young men cradling the skeletal set by those who approximate the age of the specimen. It may be discomforting to see — but that is the point. The demographic in the pieces reflect the victims of state violence in the global statistical records.
The human skeletal sets used in the piece, originally intended for use in the medical field, were obtained from a Canadian osteological specimen supplier.
“I made that purchase [of human osteological specimens], that gesture, as another demonstration of the sort of between-here-and-there that I was experiencing from the original trip to Sudan. . .I, as a regular Canadian person, that world was so far away from my capacity to perceive it through this constant [thought] of, ‘Yes, this really happened,’” said feldman-kiss.
An important experience part of the previous project, Between here and there, and the current exhibition, Scapegoat, was feldman-kiss’ trip to India to learn about the human bone trade. A human bone specimen supplier gave feldman-kiss access to his full inventory for the video piece Scales of Justice and was a valuable resource for this project.
Caption: Still from The King’s two Bodies Scales of Justice 2016. Video projection (performance mediation).
“[Scales of Justice] came out of that experience. . .So that was an important experience for me to be able to bring empathy to the body of work which is in the exhibition Scapegoat,” explained feldman-kiss.
Altogether, Scapegoat allows its audience to reflect on the colonial paradigm by demanding confrontation with the reality of the current geopolitical landscape—a world in which marginalized folks, including people of low socioeconomic status and Black, Indigenous and People of Colour are disproportionately targeted and represented in armed casualties.
Through the culmination of works since 2015, Scapegoat facilitates grief, reflection and reimagination of a different, decolonized world.
*This article has been updated for clarity. We thank our friends at McMaster Museum of Art for clarifying key aspects of Scapegoat. For more information, visit museum.mcmaster.ca/exhibition/nichola-feldman-kiss-scapegoat/.
Please note that this event has been postponed until further notice due to the COVID-19 Virus. For more information please visit: https://accahamilton.com
Since 1979, the Afro Canadian Caribbean Association has been creating a sense of community and empowerment in the African-Canadian Caribbean community in Hamilton. Evelyn Myrie, the president of ACCA, says that even though African-Canadians have been here for hundreds of years, they are still treated as though they don’t belong in this country. On March 13-14, ACCA will be holding an event called “We Are Planted Here: Narratives in Belonging”. The event will combine art and advocacy to dismantle this assumption, establishing the right that African Canadians have to feel at home in Canada, because it is their home.
“[T]he objective of this initiative, symposium, celebration is to assert our existence and long-standing presence on these lands, on this land of Canada . . . there is still a perception [when] you're walking on the streets, there's an assumption that you are from another place. So it's really to situate our position as Canadians in various locations, to have conversations about our rich and diverse contributions to this land and to reassert our presence here . . . We're located here socially, politically and economically,” said Myrie.
Not only is the physical presence of the Black community ignored, but so too are their contributions to Canada. Myrie says that she hopes the event will help to educate people both inside and outside of the Black community about Black history in Canada. She says that many of the social and human rights that we currently have were fought for by the Black community.
“[P]eople don't know that human rights laws, housing laws, we were the ones who were the canary in the mine, because we were the ones who suffered those experiences [and fought] to change laws, immigration laws, especially; Black people were not allowed to come to Canada and it was Black people who fought against [that]. And now we have a whole slew of different people coming to Canada—and wonderfully so—racialized people, who sometimes forget or don't know that they are benefiting from the struggles of the Black community,” said Myrie.
“[P]eople don't know that human rights laws, housing laws, we were the ones who were the canary in the mine, because we were the ones who suffered those experiences [and fought] to change laws, immigration laws, especially; Black people were not allowed to come to Canada and it was Black people who fought against [that]. And now we have a whole slew of different people coming to Canada—and wonderfully so—racialized people, who sometimes forget or don't know that they are benefiting from the struggles of the Black community,”
In the early days of mining, miners are said to have brought canaries with them into mines they worked in. Canaries are more vulnerable to carbon monoxide and other poisonous gases than humans, so a dead or sick canary would alert the miners to danger. In this metaphor, Myrie is suggesting that because Black people are far more likely to experience human rights violations, it frequently and unequally falls on their shoulders to fight for social change. Because they are so unequally adversely affected, they are the first to know when laws need to be changed. They were and are the canary in the coal mine.
Myrie hopes that this event will educate attendees on the pervasiveness of anti-Black racism and the othering of Black people, and the ways that this continues to be perpetuated in Canada, and that it will also encourage allies to examine their own actions and biases, and how they can seek to call out this behaviour in their day-to-day lives. Othering is a part of colonial discourse that creates an “Us versus Them” narrative, where the dominant group becomes accepted and the marginalized group is dehumanized and made into the “Other”. This manifests itself as increased violence towards marginalized groups, and removing them from mainstream media and discourse.
“So to us, anti-Black racism is a key part of this, because it's really just like white supremacy in that it keeps knowledge away . . . So we're telling our stories, because we know that anti-Black racism has kept those stories away from curriculums,” said Myrie.
“So to us, anti-Black racism is a key part of this, because it's really just like white supremacy in that it keeps knowledge away . . . So we're telling our stories, because we know that anti-Black racism has kept those stories away from curriculums,”
“We Are Planted Here: Narratives in Belonging” is a two day symposium. On Friday, March 13, there will be an evening of art and spoken word at the ACCA Banquet Hall (754 Barton St. E), and on Saturday March 14 there will be academic and community discussions at the Hamilton Central Library (55 York Blvd.). Both events are free.
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By: Elisa Do, Contributor
Cw: Indigenous genocide
For 140 years and counting, July 1, also known as Canada Day, has been a day where Canadians celebrate their homeland. This is a day where every Instagram story and Facebook newsfeed is flooded with people in red and white, tattoos of the maple leaf flag on their faces and booming fireworks lighting up the sky. But how many of us truly know what we are celebrating? What would we say to someone who asks the question, “What do you love about Canada?” or “What does it mean to be Canadian?”.
For decades, this nation has been plastered with a reputation of being welcoming, loving and even more so polite and righteous. Personally, I have my doubts about what is underneath this mask.
When the topic of Indigenous communities arise in conversations of history, do you picture communities of vibrant colours and peace or do you picture mass genocides and the robbery of land, many of which still continue today? Canada Day is a day to celebrate Canadian identity. But there would be no “Canada” if Sir John A. Macdonald, Canada's first prime minister, had not approved residential schools and implemented policies to use starvation as a method of clearing way for Western expansion. We, quite literally, live on the brutality of the past.
A quick search for Canada Day history on the web will give you a refined version of the holiday from Canadian government websites.
One such website is the Canadian Encyclopedia, which proudly states: “Locally organized events sometimes provided opportunities for members of marginalized communities to demonstrate their belonging to Canada … and [on Canada Day] members of Indigenous communities participated in sporting events and musical performances.”
This quote makes me question whether such communities should have to find a sense of “belonging” to a colonized Canada at all.
The same article further proclaims, “Indian agents in some regions allowed members of First Nations communities to be part of local Dominion Day pageants wearing traditional costumes, while others sought to emphasize messages of assimilation and conversion.”
In this one sentence alone, the Canadian Encyclopedia has shown the dominance of the Canadian government, their lack of understanding on Indigenous communities, and the obvious acknowledgment of assimilation. When something as simple as clothing requires permission, when outfits of culture and heritage are deemed as “costumes” and ideas of assimilation are so blatantly stated, how can we continue to glorify our disfigurement of history?
In Daniel Heath Justice’s Why Indigenous Literatures Matter, Justice expands on the significance that colonialism has had on the reduction of Indigenous presence in history: “Colonialism is as much about the symbolic diminishment of Indigenous peoples as the displacement of our physical presence. If there are no more people there can be no more stories; without our stories, we’re reduced as peoples and as individuals.”
In diminishing Indigenous stories, Canada is robbing future generations of a true understanding of Canadian identity. I believe that ignorance of Indigenous stories due to diminishing Indigenous presence is far more terrifying than ignorance of Indigenous stories due to lack of effort put into educating yourself.
Colonialism is a deadly thing. It sits in our roots and lies deep below in the grounds we walk on. We can’t see it. And sometimes, you might not even feel it.
But just because you don’t see or feel it, doesn’t mean it’s not there; and it certainly doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do something about it. In choosing to write this piece I had many doubts, including doubts about myself. I do not identify as a member of any Indigenous communities and so I was worried for my lack of understanding and my ignorance about a community that is not my own.
But I am Canadian. And I do live on land that is not mine to claim. So, with all that I appreciate in Canada, I truly believe it is possible to become prouder Canadians if we first learn to accept and take appropriate actions to mend relationships we cannot afford to lose. So Canada, on July 1 of every year, don’t just celebrate for the sake of celebrating. Identify, recall, and challenge the assumptions laid out in history today.
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Edward Lovoquintanilla
The Silhouette
Following Haiti’s 2010 earthquake, many outside observers - whose purview extends only as far and wide as their television screens - waited expectantly for social breakdown and looting. Instead, most communities had rapidly mobilized to deliver mutual aid before the arrival of foreigners. Throughout Haiti, foreign aid did not arrive for days, weeks in other places, yet Haitians reached for whatever was in grasp and dug themselves out of the rubble, often with their bare hands. With a barely functional government, the people of Haiti themselves tended to the injured, set up camps, fed one another, sang, prayed, and mourned together.
This self-mobilization has a long history that stretches back into the postrevolutionary period when Haitians transformed traditions of farming inherited from Africa into innovative ways of the management of the land, despite an almost indifferent leadership. Century upon century of foreign intervention and manipulation layers the history of Haiti, never quite able to extinguish the fires of self-determination beneath its sands.
Nation after nation, corporation after corporation have sought to suckle the milk from Haiti’s soil by the sweat of its people. In the presence of French warships, the Baron de Mackau coerced the President of Haiti, without further consultation, into buying the freedom of Haiti for 150 million francs; which is no freedom at all, but the bonds of economic dependence.
The bonds forged by economic dependence have become Haiti’s garment industry, owned by the white and lighter-skinned elite, some of whose production belongs to Wal-Mart and Gildan Active Wear. The workers are paid nearly a third less than the minimum wage, coerced into working more than the legally allowed work-week, rendering food unaffordable; eating, a practical question the worker faces every mealtime.
Not only is Haitian law broken in the treatment of workers, but it also violates the code of conduct of the corporations whose production is in Haiti’s garment industry. In fact, it also violates the ethical purchasing policy of the McMaster Students Union, who purchases clothing from Gildan Active Wear.
Can we conscionably stand idly by while our student government contributes to the current chapter of this centuries-long story of dependence, extortion and exploitation? Ethical purchasing is a question that is being raised by McMaster students, and we are waiting for the answer.
By Edward Lovo
History attests to the suffering of indigenous peoples under colonial rule. India, Algeria, and South Africa are all nations that were formerly under colonial rule. There are two principal forms of colonization. One form of colonization is motivated by the desire for settlement and the other is motivated by the extraction of riches. Correspondingly, empires had two kinds of colonies—the settled and the exploited—which would be treated very differently. Although settlement colonies developed self-government, the establishment of trading ports and posts eventually transformed these colonies from settler to exploitive.
French Algeria was an instance of the settler colony.
Settlement in Algeria by the French, however, was slow in coming and only accelerated when France lost Alsace-Lorraine in 1871 to the Germans, forcing the French population to immigrate to Algeria. The indigenous population of Algeria was subjected to the régime du sabre (rule of the sword), whereas French citizenship was extended to non-French settlers that were of European descent and was also further extended to a specific group of indigenous peoples, the Jewish population.
Algeria became a world divided in two.
There was the sector of the colonists on one side of the sword and the sector of the colonized subdued by sword point. Frantz Fanon describes the colonists’ sector as, “...a sector of lights and paved roads, where the trash cans constantly overflow with strange and wonderful garbage, undreamed-of leftovers. The colonist’s feet can never be glimpsed, except perhaps in the sea, but then you can never get close enough. They are protected by solid shoes in a sector where the streets are clean and smooth, without a pothole, without a stone.
The colonist’s sector is a sated, sluggish sector, its belly is permanently full of good things. The colonist’s sector is...a sector of foreigners.”
While the colonists lived well off, the colonized subjects were famished, “hungry for bread, meat, shoes, coal, and light.” Living in these conditions under régime du sabre as second-class citizenships and with shortages of resources—essentially dehumanization—it is no surprise that “[The] muscles of the colonized are always tensed...The colonized subject is a persecuted man who is forever dreaming of becoming the persecutor.” The colonized subject is constantly faced with a beast of violence, for “...colonialism is not a machine capable of thinking, a body endowed with reason. It is naked violence...”
Modern oppression is typically characterized not by colonialism, but by neocolonialism, a perverse evolution of directly violent structures into an indirect, economic kind. Nevertheless, colonialism persists in some parts of the world.
In Palestine, millions of people live under the subjugation of the Israeli state, a regime that unlawfully occupies vast tracts of land historically inhabited by the Palestinians. These colonial subjects are literally parched by the Israeli settlement colony. Although there is enough water to meet the basic needs of all Israelis and Palestinians, the distribution of water between the two societies is highly unequal.
How is Israel’s settlement of the West Bank any different? How is Israel’s blockade on the Gaza Strip any different? Palestinians are dehumanized, oppressed, exploited, subdued by gunpoint, persecuted—“the colonized subject is always presumed guilty.” Let’s count the ways.
In 2006, following the election victory of Hamas, Israel placed restrictions on Gaza, restrictions on access to borders, the free movement of Gazans, and on importations and exportations. Three out of the four goods crossings have remained out of operation since 2006.
Israel is also in sole control of water resources, the Jordan River being the main surface water resource for the Palestinians, and control of the water supply Palestinians have is merely nominal.
In 1993, Israelis and Palestinians signed the Oslo interim agreement, which was intended to begin negotiations on water resources - negotiations that were intended to be concluded by 2000 but have yet to take place. The agreement also established a Joint Water committee with an even number of Israelis and Palestinians possessing membership to manage the West Bank’s shared water resources.
However, Oslo also assigns exclusive veto power to Israelis over decision-making in the committee, effectively reducing the Palestinians to nominal power.
An Israeli water company, Mekorot, controls the allocation of water for both Israelis and Palestinians. It reduces the quantity of water they provide for the Palestinians while water consumption by the Israelis doubles. In addition, in the West Bank district of Tubas, the average consumption of water for Palestinians is thirty litres per person, whereas for the illegal settlement of Beka’ot - only twelve kilometres south of Tubas - the average consumption of water by Israelis is 401 litres per person.
Israel has colonized the Palestinians beyond their borders.
Similar actions have occurred in other colonies such as Algeria - the indigenous population is treated as inferior, but as Fanon notes, they will never be convinced of their inferiority. Determining what constitutes justice is a difficult affair, but one thing is certain that though, as Alain Badiou says, “...injustice is clear, justice is obscure.
Those who have undergone injustice provide irrefutable testimony concerning the former.
But who can testify for justice? Injustice has its affect: suffering, revolt. Nothing, however, signals justice: it presents itself neither as spectacle nor as sentiment.”
