A

Steadily Beating Heart: Persistence,

Resistance and Resurgence
Wilson, Alexandria. Forthcoming 2015. "A Steadily Beating Heart: Resistance,
Persistence and Resurgence". Final chapter in " 'And More Will Sing Their Way to
Freedom': Indigenous Resistance and Resurgence, edited by Elaine Coburn. Fernwood
Press.
In First Nations communities, women provide leadership in the political continuum of
persistence, resistance and resurgence. The steady leadership of women draws on values and
practices of respect, relational responsibility, and spiritual presence, and an accompanying
commitment to love in action. They have maintained their leadership in spite of centuries-long
colonial attacks on these values and practices. The attacks on First Nations women (and all
women) are particularly vicious in the present-day neoliberal climate, in large part because they
directly challenge the ideological framework (mind over body) and oppressive practices (self over
others) that enable and animate neoliberalism. The leadership of women like Chief Spence, the
originators and organizers of Idle No More, and the many women who take responsibility every
day for the well-being of their families and communities shows us another path, where we
nurture our own personal and political capacity to bring about justice.

Relational Responsibility and Action that Effects Love

The democratic intellectual Cornel West (2008: 208) has observed, You cant lead the people if you
dont love the people. His statement offers some explanation of the astonishingly rapid growth of
Idle No More. Idle No More is many things an affirmation of Indigenous sovereignty and
protection of land and water, a reaction to old and new colonial forms of oppression, a series of
nationally and locally organized teach-ins, rallies, protests, and round dances, and a call for peaceful
revolution but always, at its core, it is a very contemporary political expression of old knowledge:
that we, the land, the water, and all living creatures are related and, as relatives, we are meant to
love and care for each other. This commitment to relational responsibility and to action that effects
love is the starting place of Idle No More. The movement gained momentum from Prime Minister
Harpers introduction of new legislation (now passed) that unilaterally rewrote the relationships
between First Nations and the Canadian state by modifying the Indian Act and that threatened
water systems in unprecedented ways by removing their environmentally protected status. Idle No
More should not, however, be understood as simply a reaction to this legislation. It began (before
the legislation was proposed) as and has remained throughout a positive affirmation of our
responsibility to each other, the land, and other living beings.

P a g e | 1

I am from the Opaskwayak Cree Nation, and my family clan name is Wassenas, which translates as
reflecting light from within.1 Our name and the knowledge it contains came to me through my
grandmother, passed to her through generations of women. My grandmother also passed on
important lessons about leadership, most through her actions, but also with words. When, as a
young woman, I asked what leadership meant to her, she replied, Oh, I dont know much about
that, then, after a long pause, added, My friend Martha was a leader. She was a spiritual woman.
She lived the life of respect. She loved people. My grandmother identified three critical aspects of
leadership in our communities: spirituality, respect and love. Collectively, these terms refer to
principles and practices that focus on sustaining the continuity of life by caring for our relationships
through the past, present and future.
As is true for many of my First Nation peers, I have always been surrounded by women who lead,
most of them leading steadily, some quietly, a few raucously, but always with love in their actions.
These women typically lead from outside the Chief and Council system imposed by the Indian Act or
any of the other formal systems rooted in colonial governance. Rather, these women lead because
they have maintained the principles and practices of spirituality, respect and love within the
context of the ongoing challenges presented by the centuries-old, shape-shifting and steadfastly
patriarchal colonial project. They possess what the Cree educator and activist Priscilla Settee
(2011: iv) rightly identifies as hkamyimowak - persistence. hkamyimowak provides the
strength for women to carry on in the face of extreme adversity. [It] embodies the strength that
drives women to survive, flourish and work for change within [our] communities. Women are the
unsung heroes of [our] communities, often using minimal resources to challenge oppressive
structures. I sing these women here.
Idle No More comes from this history. It was started by and continues to be led by women. Women
have set the beat and reached out to bring people into the circle. We invite people to step up into
leadership by becoming political actors, raising their voices and joining the movement. As a
revolutionary round dance, Idle No More reclaims the sovereignty of Indigenous peoples bodies
and nations. The Idle No More round dances bring Indigenous people and our allies together in
malls, intersections, the grounds of government buildings, and other public spaces. Our visible
presence (not shopping, driving or legislating, but doing what we are not supposed to do
drumming, dancing, and protesting) transforms these spaces into political spaces. They become
sites of persistence (we are here today because we love and care for our people and our nations and
we will still be standing here tomorrow), resistance (we are here to put an end to the harm
colonization inflicts on our people and our nations), and resurgence (we are here to repair that
harm and reclaim the sovereignty of our bodies and our peoples).

1 My family and community use the Swampy Cree or n-dialect. Currently, many people are suggesting that
spelling of Cree dialects should use standardized roman orthography (SRO). However, Mabel Bignell, Moses
Bignell, Cornelius Constant, and Stan Wilson, who are Elders and Cree language teachers in my home
community of Opaskwayak Cree Nation, have requested that, in our written work, we use phonetic spellings
that preserve the nuances of our local dialect.

P a g e | 2

Undoing the Present Absence of Indigenous Peoples

The visible presence of Idle No More exposes and undoes the present absence (Kate Shanley, cited
in Smith 2006:66) of Indigenous peoples in the Canadian colonial imagination that is, willfully not
seeing Indigenous peoples or, as is our concern here, the contributions of Indigenous women. These
acts of rendering Indigenous people invisible take place at multiple levels. They include but are not
limited to the day-to-day failure, on the part of many Canadians, to recognize as Indigenous any
individual who does not conform to their stereotypes about Indigenous people (Urban Aboriginal
Peoples Study: Main Report, 2010); Prime Minister Harpers statement at the 2009 G20 summit that
Canada has no history of colonialism (Junggren, 2009); the frequent failure, on the part of
governments and corporations, to consider the impacts of their policies and practices on
Indigenous people and nations (Owen, 2013); the steady bureaucratic erosion of First Nations
identity effected by The Indian Act (Cornet, 2007); and the ongoing gendered genocide and violence
that has left 1,181 Aboriginal women missing or murdered in Canada (Royal Canadian Mounted
Police, 2014).
No longer seeing Indigenous peoples enables a self-justifying and entitling ideology and actions
that dispossess us as Indigenous peoples from our traditional territories, abuse and destroy the
lands and waters we have stewarded for millennia, and assault the well-being and integrity of our
families, communities and nations. This has been especially true for Indigenous women.
Anishinaabe activist and writer Leanne Simpson (Simpson et al, 2012: 1-2) reminds us that
Indigenous women have been actively involved in resistance, dissent, mobilization and resurgence
since the very beginnings of colonial occupation and observes that:
The logics of colonialism, however, have consistently denied and obfuscated these
interventions, attacking the power of Indigenous women and Two-Spirit LGBTQI people by
framing these issues outside of the political sphere and placing them firmly in the place of
perpetual victimhood. Too often, the activism of Indigenous women has been reduced in
the academic literature to issues regarding identity, violence, and discrimination in a
context that removes these issues from their colonial roots and that undermines and erases
Indigenous nationhood.
The marginalization of Indigenous women (including our gender and sexually diverse community
members) can be understood as an attempt to depoliticize and deny our agency. The issues that
Indigenous women raise often relate to their identities or to their individual and collective
experiences of discrimination and violence but in speaking out they are not proclaiming themselves
victims. When the concerns of Indigenous women are collapsed into generic womens issues, the
real issues they are talking about, that is, the ongoing violence of colonization and the denial of
Indigenous nationhood, are potentially silenced.

Speaking Truth About Colonial Violence

The marginalization of women and Indigenous women in particular is an essential component of
Western cultures and one that serves the current neoliberal political climate in Canada and the
United States. The concerted effort to discredit and ridicule Chief Spence and the fast she undertook

P a g e | 3

to persuade Prime Minister Harper to meet with First Nations leaders (which mobilized thousands
of Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples to join Idle No More actions) was a painful example of
this. Simpson (2014:155) refers to Chief Spence as Not Chief Spence, but Ogichidaakwe Spence a
holy woman, a woman that would do anything for her family and community, the one that goes over
and makes things happen, a warrior, a leader because Ogichidaakwe Spence isnt just on a hunger
strike. She is fasting and this also has cultural meaning for Anishinaabeg. She is in ceremony.
Simpson describes the abusive response she received to a message of support for Chief Spence that
she posted on Twitter:
Within minutes, trolls were commented on my feed with commentary on Chief Spences
body image, diet jokes, calls for no more special treatment for Natives and calls to end her
hunger strike. One person called her a cunt.
I understand we need to be positive, I do. We also need to continue telling the truth. The
racism, sexism and disrespect that have been heaped on Ogitchidaa Spence in the past
weeks have been done so in part because it is acceptable to treat Indigenous women this
way. These comments take place in a context where we have nearly 1000 missing and
murdered Indigenous women. Where we have still have places named squaw. Where
Indigenous women have been the deliberate target of gendered colonial violence for 400
years. Where the people who have been seriously hurt and injured by the back lash against
Idle No More have been women. Where Ogichidaakwe Spences voice has not been heard
(156).
As Simpsons story points out, the bodies of Indigenous women are ridiculed, reduced, targeted and
under attack. Our women who lead, our Ogichidaakwe are still subject to a deep-rooted colonial
culture of hate and violence, their bodies pushed to the foreground to block our view of their strong
spirits and yet these women persist. Their hearts beat steadily, and our political resistance and
resurgence continues.

Persisting as an Ethical Human Being

The relational psychologist and ethicist Carol Gilligan (2009) lays out the process through which
the voices and actions of women are marginalized in Western cultures, throwing light on the
mechanics of marginalization that strives to undermine Indigenous womens value-driven
leadership. Gilligan notes that, in their earliest years, both boys and girls typically are guided by an
ethical sensibility that is rooted in relationality, a starting place that she describes as very hopeful
in terms of ethics and transformational values. In Western cultures, boys are soon pressured to
surrender this sensibility, and, in its place, elevate and embrace reason and the autonomous self as
their masculine identity. This process requires them to simultaneously devalue and idealize
emotions, relationship and the body as feminine. As Gilligan reminds us:
[The culturally constructed process of gender-based initiation] undermines or puts at risk
the very capacities that are fundamental to our ability to function as ethical human beings in
the world. If you separate reason from emotion, if you separate voice from relationship, self
from relationship, and mind from body, we lose our grounding in the human world and then
P a g e | 4

its possible to act without knowing or even without registering the consequence or the
impact of our actionsThe very aspects of our nature, our capacity to have a voice, to live in
relationship, to resolve conflict within a relationship are the grounds and the requisites
both of love and of democratic citizenship If youre going to set up patriarchal structures,
you are going to have to break those capacities. You are going to have to traumatize them
What patriarchy precludes is love between equals. And therefore it precludes democracy
founded on love and the freedom of voice that encourages.
This is a complex argument that begins with the recognition that our voice and our sense of self
develop within relationship, and that knowing and being are both intellectual and embodied states.
It reminds us that emotions matter to reason, and that our best decisions (whether as simple
human beings or as political leaders) are driven by consideration of and care for the well-being of
others. Put more simply, they are actions informed by love. But to live comfortably in the
patriarchal colonial culture of mainstream Canada, it is easier to forget this to place self above
others, unhitch reason from emotions, mute the voices of those who speak with both heart and
mind, and enable the violence of colonization to continue.
Ultimately, Gilligan points to political resistance as a way to return to our capacity as ethical beings
and societies. Her understanding of why and how we must resist echoes what I hear in the amplified
voices of Indigenous women who call for change. The Toronto-based curator and Idle No More
organizer Wanda Nanibush states that, I come to the ideas of resistance and resurgence from the
place where intellectual engagement is not severed from the bodies memories or the hearts
commitments or my cultures knowledges and practices. Resistance is a daily practice and a
community process with ever-changing meanings (Simpson et al 2012:3). In the same essay,
Leanne Simpson reminds us that Indigenous women have always known that growing strong,
resilient nations is based on diversity, generated consensus, authentic power rather than
authoritarian power and the maintenance of good relationships rather than coercive ones
(Simpson et al 2012:2). Simpson is describing women who embody Gilligans vision of democratic
equality.
In Cree, the language of my family and community, the term Sakihiwawin declares our commitment
to love in action. This is what has brought me to Idle No More. Sakihiwawin calls us to move from
apathy or passivity to passionate activism, to act in ways that express love and that consider the
lasting implications of what we might choose to do or not do. It is based on Cree natural law, which
recognizes that the nature of the cosmos is to be in balance, and when balance is disturbed, it must
and will return. To disturb the balance has spiritual or energetic consequences (pastah howin) and
physical or material consequences (otcinawin). I also learned at an early age the concepts of
kakinow ni wagomakanak (that we are all related), akha ta neekanenni miso-an (not to think of
myself being ahead of or more important than others), and akha ta aspahk kenimiso-an (not to think
that I am above anyone else). The development of my own sense of self and voice have been guided
by these principles principles that, again, reify Gilligans vision of how we can become ethical
beings and societies.

P a g e | 5

The Language of Leadership

These words and my grandmothers words on spirituality, respect, and love are the language of
leadership. These words become our embodied knowledge. Before we gather sweetgrass from the
land, we give something in return, laying down tobacco (otcinawin) and offering prayers (pastah
howin), and we share the medicine we harvest with whomever needs it (kakinow ni wagomakanak).
Idle No More recognizes that all people may be leaders (akha ta neekanenni miso-an and akha ta
aspahk kenimiso-an). Chief Spence fasts for our people, communities, and Nations, and thousands of
Indigenous people stand with her because we recognize and respond to her reminder that our
commitment to love in action (Sakihiwawin) demands resistance.
Our family home is on a site called pumuskatapan, a term that refers to the place in a journey where
you must get out and pull your canoe a spot where, to reach your destination, you must find
another way to move forward. Pumaskatapan also has another meaning: the place that is off to the
side, away from the centre that is, just the right location from which to take on patriarchy and
hegemony. Gilligan suggests that the process of resisting patriarchy and hegemony must be
traumatic but the possibility of change can also be unearthed in traditional knowledge that reminds
us that there is always more than one way to get to the place we want to be. We can sidestep
violence, and instead take a journey guided by spirituality, respect, and love.
Gilligan (2009) offers a definition of feminism as the movement to liberate democracy from
patriarchy. The effects of patriarchy on men and women are fueling violence and blunting our
capacity to know what we know. In my family and community, we were raised knowing that we
have a deep relationship with and responsibility to each other, to the spirits, and to the land and the
living things that sustain us. But, as Andrea Smith (2006: 72) points out, the process of colonization
works to undermine that sensibility: [I]n order to colonize peoples whose societies are not based
on social hierarchy, colonizers must first naturalize hierarchy through instituting patriarchy. I
have witnessed how insidious and invasive this process can be. For example, many First Nation
schools in the region where I work have recognized that the revitalization of Indigenous languages
can help strengthen the cultural identity and well-being of the students and communities they
serve. One way in which this is articulated is to start the day with prayers in Cree but too often the
prayers are simply a Cree translation of The Lords Prayer, in which our concept and term the great
mystery (kiche muntoo) is replaced by the patriarchal Christian concept and term our father
(Notawinan). As both Smith and Gilligan (2009) might warn us, patriarchy can blunt our capacity to
know.
Andrea Smith (2006:72) further observes that if our challenge to colonialism does not also
substantially challenge patriarchy and heteronormativity, [our] struggles will maintain colonialism
based on a politics of secondary marginalization where the most elite class of [our] groups will
further their aspirations on the backs of those most marginalized within the community. We know
this struggle. An analysis of the first six months of Idle No Mores presence on-line revealed that the
vast majority of posts on social media were made by women and that those posts were
overwhelmingly positive (Blevis, 2013). The vast majority of negative posts had been made by men,
providing small and sometimes mean-spirited examples of the extent to which patriarchy has

P a g e | 6

misshapen our political culture. The Anishinaabe/Chicana scholar Dora Nayson (2014:187) places
us in the bigger picture:
I would humbly ask all of us to think about what it means for men, on the one hand, to
publicly profess an obligation to protect our women and, on the other, take leadership
positions that uphold patriarchal forms of governance or otherwise ignore the
contributions and sovereignty of the women, Indigenous and not.
Idle No Mores commitment to leadership based on relational responsibility and to love in action is
a direct challenge to the heteropatriarchal governance imposed on our communities by The Indian
Act. As Andrea Smith (2006:73) reminds us:
[N]ational liberation politics become less vulnerable to being coopted by the Right when we
base them on a model of liberation that fundamentally challenges right-wing conceptions of
the nation. We need a model based on community relationships and on mutual respect I
see this as a starting point for women of color organizers that will allow us to re-envision a
politics of solidarity that goes beyond multiculturalism, and develop more complicated
strategies that can really transform the political and economic status quo.
Over its relatively short history, Idle No More has maintained focus on the affirmation of Indigenous
sovereignty, a concept that extends far beyond nationhood. We recognize that, individually and
collectively, our well-being relies on our ability to be responsible and respectful in our interactions
with, to care for, and to protect from the violence of colonization the lands, water, and people,
communities and nations to which we are connected.

Awuskahwinuk: Shaking It Up! Waking It Up!

In Canadas current political context, Idle No Mores commitment to relational responsibility and an
expanded understanding of sovereignty is a critical piece of Indigenous struggle. The Harper
administration has steadily attacked First Nations sovereignty, moving rapidly away from a nation-
to-nation relationship, failing to consult formal leadership on government Acts that affect our
traditional lands, waterways and people, supporting the introduction of private property on
reserve and gutting environmental laws to support resource development, rejecting United Nations
resolutions calling for a national review to end violence against Aboriginal women, and strategically
dividing First Nations leadership (Blanchfield: 2013, Mas: 2013). This is both a new attack and a
familiar series of colonizers moves against First Nations sovereignty.
Like a round dance, we are brought back to the notion of leadership. Leanne Simpson (2014:155)
recognizes Chief Spence as Ogichidaakwe Spence the one that goes over and makes things
happen. A friend who was given a spirit name that includes Ogichidaakwe tells me that it came
with a careful translation: Leading. Not leader, but leading. I asked my father if we had a Cree
word that expressed the same idea. Awuskahwinak, he said, Someone making something move
that cant move without somebody moving it. Shaking it up or waking it up. An action. Someone
activating something.

P a g e | 7

Provoking motion, shaking up, waking up, activating Idle No More continues to work to generate
change through love in action. The movements ongoing work still includes nonviolent direct action
and, increasingly, outreach and education, undertaken with the recognition that strengthening the
self-determination and sovereignty of Indigenous peoples is not just about governance and
nationhood, but about nurturing the capacity of all people to become people who lead. Our
commitment is to love in personal and political action and leadership: we offer radical education,
we honour all our relations, and, with them, we work for the persistence, resistance, and
resurgence of the individual and collective sovereignty of our individual bodies, our peoples, our
nations, and our lands.

References
Blanchfield, Mike. 2013. Canada Rejects UN Call for Review of Violence Against Aboriginal
Women. Globe and Mail, September 19.
Blevis, Mark. 2013. Idle No More at Six Months: Analysis of the first six months of the Idle No More
movement, Ottawa: Full Duplex.
Cornet, Wendy. 2007. Indian Status, Band Membership, First Nation Citizenship, Kinship, Gender,
and Race: Reconsidering the Role of Federal Law. In Jerry Patrick White, Erika Anderson, Daniel
J.K. Beavon & Wendy Cornet (eds.), Aboriginal Policy Research: Moving Forward, Making a
Difference, Volume 5. Toronto: Thompson Educational Publishing.
Gilligan, Carol. 2009. Learning to See in the Dark: The Roots of Ethical Resistance. The Dalai Lama
Center for Ethics and Transformative Values. MIT Simmons Hall. Cambridge. 24 April 2009. Lecture.
Junggren, David L. 2009. Every G20 Nation Wants to Be Canada. Reuters, September 25.
MacCharles, Tonda. 2013. Conservative MP and Senator Belittle Chief Theresa Spence, Idle No
More Movement. The Star, January 30.
Mas, Susana. 2013. Harper Government on Collision Course with First Nations? CBC, September
21.
Nayson, Dora. 2014. In The Kino-nda-nimi Collective (ed.), The Winter We Danced. Winnipeg:
Arbeiter Ring Publishing.
Owen, Bruce. 2013. Delay Keeyask Hearings for Full Review: First Nations. Winnipeg Free Press,
September 12.
Royal Canadian Mounted Police. 2014. Missing and Murdered Aboriginal Women: A National
Operational Overview. Ottawa: Royal Canadian Mounted Police. Winnipeg Free Press, September 12.
Settee, Priscilla. 2011. The Strength of Women: hkamyimowak. Regina: Coteau Books.
Simpson, Leanne. 2014. Fish Broth & Fasting. In The Kino-nda-nimi Collective (ed.), The Winter
We Danced. Winnipeg: Arbeiter Ring Publishing.

P a g e | 8

Simpson, Leanne, Wanda Nanibush, and Carol Williams. 2012. Introduction: The Resurgence of
Indigenous Womens Knowledge and Resistance in Relation to Land and Territoriality:
Transnational and Interdisciplinary Perspectives. InTensions Journal 6 (Fall/Winter).
Smith, Andrea. 2006. Heteropatriarchy and the Three Pillars of White Supremacy: Rethinking
Women of Color Organizing. In INCITE! Women of Color Against Violence (ed.), Color of Violence:
The INCITE! Anthology. Cambridge: South End Press.
Urban Aboriginal Peoples Study: Main Report. 2010. Toronto: Environics Institute.
West, Cornel. 2008. Hope on a Tightrope: Words and Wisdom. New York: Hay House.

P a g e | 9