Letter from D. S., Vancouver, to CBC's Rosanna Deerchild, stating objections to an episode of Unreserved titled, Global Indigenous Solidarity with Palestine, October 13, 2025

Dear Rosanna Deerchild,

I would like to offer a serious objection to the biased and unbalanced points of view that you presented in your recent Unreserved episode, titled Global Indigenous Solidarity with Palestine.

You have presented a very one-sided view of the conflict, and make it seem like Indigenous voices are in solidarity with Palestinians.

I would argue that the reverse is true. Jews are the true Indigenous people of Israel, whose history and presence on the land go back thousands of years. If you had done any historical research, you would have found that even the term

“Palestinians” is something that was created in the 1960s. There is no Palestinian language, or culture, or money, and there has never even existed any Palestinian country that was led by Arabs. In fact, prior to 1948, all Jews, Christians, and Muslims who lived in that area were called “Palestinian”. The indigeneity of the Jews to the land of Israel creates a strong connection with the Indigenous peoples of Canada and the rest of the world.

This is a complicated conflict with competing views, and as a journalist, your job is to fairly present reality, not create a filtered and biased view. Your show was completely absent of any alternative framing, and positioned Indigenous voices not only as commentators for as moral interpreters. You referred to “our ancestors” and “our homelands” - but the ancestors of Jews are from Israel, and the homeland of Jews is Israel. Most Palestinians can trace their roots to the countries surrounding Israel, and not Israel itself.

You included no voices sympathetic to Israel, no Israeli civilians, no Israeli human rights critics, no academic or diplomatic voices offering complexity or counterpoints.

All of your questions were invitational, empathic, and affirming - with no push back, not questioning for alternative viewpoints.

Your show relied heavily on personal narratives (family stories, poems, dreams)—all of which have emotional power but do not substitute for balanced empirical or historical analysis. As well, it completely assumed a settler colonialism paradigm as the correct interpretive lens for Palestinian struggles. That interpretive framework is taken as settled rather than contested. If anything, it was the Ottoman Empire that was the settler/colonialist empire, seeking to displace the Indigenous Jewish people.

Because CBC is a public broadcaster with a large audience, broadcasting a show with such an unbalanced perspective reinforces polarization, echo chambers, and confirmation bias among listeners predisposed to the narrative. It also undermines credibility: listeners who expect nuance or balance will see the CBC as ideologically slanted. In debates as volatile and consequential as Israeli–Palestinian affairs, there is a higher duty to present multiple perspectives, let claims be contested, and acknowledge uncertainty. This show falls short.

There are many examples of Indigenous leaders and groups publicly supporting Israel. It’s important to show the counter-evidence: Indigenous people and groups who publicly support Israel exist and are visible in media and organized forms. Here are just a few examples:

• Indigenous Coalition for Israel (New Zealand) — an organised group that explicitly promotes “a collective Indigenous voice in support of Israel” and conducts education/cultural engagement. This is an institutional example of an Indigenous pro-Israel grouping. https://www.indigenouscoalition.org/

• Native Americans visiting / backing Israel — reporting has documented Native American activists and chiefs meeting Israeli officials and publicly expressing support; Israeli media and the Jerusalem Post have profiled Native American supporters who argue cultural and spiritual connections or who reject the settler-colonial framing of Israel. (See: The Jerusalem Post profile of Native Americans who back Israel.) https://www.jpost.com/israel-hamas-war/article-783497

• Individual Indigenous voices and opinion pieces — there are published first-person pieces by Indigenous people who dissent from the pro-Palestine framing. Examples include opinion pieces in Tablet and Times of Israel showcasing Indigenous individuals (e.g., an Anishinaabe perspective and a Native woman from Peru) who argue against seeing Israel as settler colonialism or who urge balance after October 7. These are explicit, personal-voice refutations of the solidarity narrative. https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/israel-middle-east/articles/an-indigenous-zionist-speaks-out

• Organisations and advocacy portals — multiple small organisations and websites (e.g., Indigenous Friends of Israel; Indigenous Friends / Indigenous Coalition) present Indigenous support for Israel and provide lists of Indigenous voices who are sympathetic to Israel. These groups often emphasize shared heritage narratives or align with Christian/Zionist networks. https://indigenousfriendsofisrael.org/

• The Indigenous Embassy of Jerusalem - Serves as a platform for Indigenous peoples worldwide to express solidarity with Israel and counter anti-Israel narratives. Launched in February 2024, it aims to promote the view that Jewish people are Indigenous to Israel and to foster diplomatic connections between Indigenous groups and the Israeli government. https://www.indigenousembassy.org/

I would highly recommend that you create a second, new show that spotlights the various voices in the Indigenous community that support Israel and that recognize that the Jewish people and Indigenous peoples around the world actually share much in common, more so than the few isolated voices that you showcased on your recent show. Don’t you think that would be the correct path for a journalist like yourself who wants to truly represent her people?

Regards,

D. S. Vancouver.

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Transcript of Oct. 10 CBC show – Global Indigenous Solidarity with Palestine | Unreserved | On Demand | CBC Listen

My mother, who is Coast Salish, reminded me that my ancestors are seafaring people, and she told me directly, you have nothing to fear. You will be protected. You will be guided. She said, the ocean knows you and you will know what to do. And there's nothing that you should be afraid of.

Doctor Suzanne Shoush took what her mother told her to heart. What she did next she called an act of global indigenous solidarity.

In September, the indigenous and black physician and other medical professionals and journalists set sail on the Mediterranean Sea. Their destination Gaza. Their goal to deliver aid to Palestinians.

There's three different flotillas. So the the, the the global flotilla is the flotilla getting a lot of attention right now that it is a flotilla. It's a collection of different ships from 44 to 46 different countries. Every single ship has now been intercepted.

The Global Samudra flotilla was intercepted by Israel in early October as they tried to break Israel's naval blockade. The Thousand Madeleines and the Freedom Flotilla coalition soon followed.

Doctor Shoush spent a week aboard one of those boats in mid-September. You can see the warrior flag flying here on the hand. That boat was named after Hind Rajab.

The six year old Palestinian girl was fleeing Gaza City with her family, her aunt, her uncle and four cousins. Israeli forces opened fire on their vehicle. Hind was the sole survivor.

Her call to first responders was shared on social media, capturing the attention of millions. Hind describes the approaching tank as she waits for Gaza rescuers. The call lasted hours as she waited among the bodies of her family. Kin can be heard pleading for help with the first responder, but the grade schooler was killed by Israeli forces before rescue crews could reach her.

The boat that bore her name sailed from Corsica to Italy carrying medical and humanitarian aid, while Suzanne Shoush boarded in Italy a new boat. The Conscience was prepared and some of the team continued toward Gaza.

There is a deep, deep longing to be there. When we spoke with her last week, she was closely following the next leg of the journey. It is so heartwarming to know that people are on the way. 100 health care workers and journalists, and that they are aiming to deliver some desperately needed medical aid towards Gaza.

Every single hospital in Gaza has been bombed, besieged, burnt, attacked, disabled. You know, I have a very good friend of mine in Gaza right now who also told me that not only does Israel bomb and destroy the hospitals, they refuse to allow the doctors who are there to even salvage equipment from the hospitals that are defunct. So the equipment shortage is tremendous.

And I think about how much of that is on that boat. And I think about how, by any means necessary, this has to get to Gaza.

Since we spoke, the Conscience was also intercepted and everyone detained, among them Musk Watson Agnew, a Cree Indian activist who will hear from later in the show.

Doctor Shoush says it's heartbreaking to witness the flotillas being intercepted and to watch humanitarian aid sink to the bottom of the sea, literally 60 nautical miles from Gaza. But she says there is always hope, as long as just one boat makes it so, they're still on their way for the third time. A fourth time, people are determined to get to the aid of the Palestinian people.

Hey hey hey. Dance. Anin Buju. Hello and welcome. This is unreserved. I'm Rosanna, dear child.

Will Christy Peters built bridges between Palestinians and Anishinaabe. She organizes gatherings to provide companionship and healing. My hopes and dreams for that work is that it becomes even more intersectional, brings even more communities into deeper relationships of joint struggle together.

Also, before the horrors of October 7th, Smokey Sumac didn't know much about Palestine. The escalation of violence that followed set him on a path to learn more about the conflict in Gaza. That path led to poetry. What I learned was so devastating and painful that what I say as a poet, when the feeling gets too big, I go to the page.

And earlier this month, a team of medical professionals and journalists set sail for Gaza aboard the Conscience. We spoke with Meskwaki and Agni just hours before she boarded the boat, packed with humanitarian aid. The genocide in Gaza really hits home for me as an indigenous health care worker, and it means so much to me to bring medical aid supplies.

Today, indigenous artists, doctors and activists reach across the ocean in acts of global indigenous solidarity with Palestine. Smoky Sumac is on a journey to fix his road. A central focus of that journey is to stand in solidarity with Palestine.

The connection between the experiences of Palestinians and his own. The tsunami was not obvious at first, but the more he learned about the history between Palestine and Israel and the current violence in Gaza, he felt drawn to engage.

Born Sacred Poems for Palestine is a collection of 100 poems written over the course of a year of learning, connecting and speaking up. Smoky is a queer two. Spirit two. Naja. Poet. Welcome back to unreserved. Smoky. It's great to be back. Thank you for having me.

Now, when did you realize that you needed to learn more about Palestine?

There was a moment in 2020, I believe, where I had bought a SodaStream, which is an Israeli product, and online, I had sort of shared about it, and my one of a friend had sort of said, I wouldn't do that. And it was like, oh, okay. And I so I went to try and learn more. And at that time I found sort of the I hit the wall of, oh, it seems complex, it seems too complicated, and I don't really understand it. Um, and I need to read more. But of course, I didn't quite do that. And so it took took quite a long time. And I would say this year really opened my eyes. Yeah.

And so what is it? What that. Did you have a moment that ultimately pushed you into okay, I really need to engage and I need to learn more about this.

Well, I think that the obviously, October 7th is the day where we talk about the escalation. Um, I first wrote a poem on, I believe, October 14th, 2023. So it took about a week, or maybe, maybe it was even ten days after that date. But I am perpetually online, as many of us indigenous people are. And, um, Instagram is one of the mediums that I use most frequently. And and I really witnessed. Things that I never thought I would see being live streamed. So whether it was children being blown apart. Missing limbs, different things happening, people even watching the, uh, people being removed from where they were supposed to be to go to safe zones. Um, there was many different things that I was witnessing. And these calls from Palestinians to speak up, it really was the thing that shifted me.

Um, and once you reached that moment and realized that you had to pay attention, how did you go about learning more about what you you've said is a very complex and complicated situation happening in Palestine?

Um, yeah. So I often have talked about how to learn more about indigenous people because we always talk about reconciliation. And so I've talked to a lot of different people. And I always say start with what you already do because there are indigenous people making all kinds of media. So if you like podcasts, listen to podcasts, if you like the radio, you know, listen to Rosanna. Um, if you watch TV, like what? All of these different things.

And so for myself, uh, I definitely am a podcast listener. And I started to listen to some mood the Sam Mood podcast, which had many different Palestinian voices on it. I started to read, I started to follow Palestinian, so I just continuously looked at who is talking and how do I find more about this, and also looking back into indigenous people who have already been talking about this. So people like Wanda, Nana Bush, people like Lee miracle, the Lately miracle. And so I really looked as broadly as I could, and I feel like my whole life has changed in what I consume as media, because now I am looking for Palestinian writers all the time, because the I will say, Arabic is such a beautiful language, and if you get a really great translator, like the work is phenomenal, the writing is phenomenal. So I've been really excited to engage in that way.

And then what I learned was so devastating and painful that what I say as a poet, when the feeling gets too big, I go to the page. And so I had heard, well, I will say that I watched, uh, Rifat Alaa, a professor and poet, was martyred, was killed. Um. And when I realized they were targeting poets. Um, you know, we've we've heard about these times when I was a child and growing up and learning, you know, McCarthyism or learning about all these things. And then there we were. I was witnessing it, and I thought, as a poet, I have to do something, and this is my practice. Um, so I was writing, you know, near daily just witnessing what was happening and then writing a piece. Mhm, mhm.

I understand also that you, you went on Facebook, I remember when you did this and you invited people to have conversations with you go out for coffee, you wanted to you know, know what that experience was. What kind of conversations did you find yourself in.

Um, I think that I was really amazed to hear from these, from mostly indigenous people, because that tends to be my, uh, space that I'm in academically. I was in and then also as a writer, but making these connections for myself. So really looking at settler colonialism as. An entity that happens globally.

And I think that while I can't know what it is like to live in this current technology and this current genocide we're witnessing. I think I started to make connections. So for one of the examples is witnessing, um, people being marched from one zone to another in Palestine, and we know we have the Cherokee Trail of Tears. We have these stories of people being marched from, you know, one space to another that was supposed to be Indian Territory. And then when they get there, it's no longer going to be Indian Territory. So there's these histories, I think, where I can draw the connection. And I was really amazed to have folks just helping me make those connections. Mhm.

Uh, we've mentioned this and in your book, Born Sacred, you talk about fixing your road. What does does that mean for you.

Right. So uh, for Tanaka and I do share this, that when we asked our elders if there was a word for reconciliation, there was just silence. And usually that means we're asking the wrong question. Um, but when we came down to what? What does it mean? So for every Tanaka, they say we're on each on our own road. Um. And why I fight for liberation so loudly is that I have always been taught that we have no right to tell someone out of walk their road. We are each on our own path, and we can walk beside someone. We can share what we know. But it's it's your path to walk.

And so for me, recognizing that I had been blinded by some of the propaganda, that I had not looked far enough, that even though I was learning so much about my own personal indigenous context, I had sort of, you know. Just bought into the like it's far away or it's over there or I can't do anything. Um, and so for me, they say, you know, if you've gone off your road, then you have to fix it. And there's even a sign language that's just sort of like, you know, moving, moving off the road and coming back. And sometimes I think we go really far down that road, and it takes a long time to come back and fix something. Um, and other times it might be just an easy conversation, but it really is about about us knowing that we're walking that road of how we ethically want to live in the world.

For myself. Like, I just look at all I mean. Born Sacred is the title of the book. I will read. The title poem, um, that's my teaching is that we're all we all come here sacred. And so every child matters. Palestinian children are included in that when we say that. And so I just look at for me, for Tanaka, fixing our road is how do I make those actions that show my solidarity and show what my heart feels?

For our Tanaka nation, went to the Supreme Court to fight for our sacred places. All places are sacred. The court said our name wrong. Told us our religion has no space here. The developer of the proposed ski resort said he wouldn't call that place sacred. All places are sacred. Yesterday they bombed a church in Palestine, a church that was older than the state of Israel. And I think of how when Notre Dame burned financially, wealthy white people sent millions. What of that which is sacred to us? All places, all people, all children born sacred.

That is the fourth poem in Smokey Sumac latest book, Born Sacred Poems for Palestine. You're listening to unreserved. On CBC Radio One, Sirius XM, US Public Radio and Native Voice one. I'm Rosanna, dear child. My guest today is to Naja poet Smokey Sumac.

There's a line in one of those earlier poems, number three, that says, let the truth break me open. What was that truth for you and how did it break you open?

Um, it makes me emotional because I think I can say that I grew up, I grew up a sensitive kid. Obviously, I'm a poet. Um, and so I can remember, like, Remembrance Day ceremonies. I can remember learning about World wars. I remember reading The Diary of Anne Frank, and I think I've always had this compass being like, this is wrong in so many ways. Genocide is wrong. Um, and children, you know, deserve to live these lives.

And so for me, that truth of this is what is happening. And it was easy, I think, for many years for me to not want to look. And we talk about Palestine, but it's also like the Sudan Congo. It's like, you know, I'm here on this technology and we have to acknowledge that the child labor and the genocides that are happening across the world due to these, these technologies. And so the truth for me was that I had to look at what had happened.

And I think about, again, all the work I've done in reconciliation, asking settlers to open their eyes that the Canadian narrative isn't maybe the narrative they want it to be. And I think for myself, it's that in this world there are injustices that I could never have imagined, and I had to let that truth come in, that it was happening, that it was real, and that unfortunately, no matter how loud we have been, our governments have still not stepped in to stop it. Hmm.

Why is it important, you know, for you to be affected this deeply?

I think, um, there's another poem that that talks of a post I had seen of a man during the Vietnam War. Lighting a candle, uh, every day at the white House. And people would criticize him and they would say, you know, why are you doing this? They're never going to change. And the quote and I, you know, I don't know if this is I don't have this this is not my journalistic piece. It's just a story I heard. But the quote was, I'm not doing this to change them. I'm, I'm doing it so they don't change me.

And I think that that is the importance for me of doing this practice of what doing this practice gave me. Um, because it terrifies me that we can lose our humanity in the way of seeing a child suffer and, you know, scrolling past it, moving past it, going on with our day. Um, because I believe that that's what people do. We see it with, you know, our women, we see it with the search, the landfill. Right. We see it with these moments, like, I know what it feels. To have people look away or not pay attention. And so that's I really feel this responsibility to to hold my humanity at its core and recognize that if I'm witnessing these things, we should be pained by them. Mhm.

Um, in your book, you make reference to people who were, quote, showing up late to this fight but engaging in a conflict of this magnitude, you know, with its deep history and deep divisions can be very daunting and scary, right. What advice would you you give to someone who is just starting to pay attention to what's happening?

Yeah. I mean, I think I have the privilege of saying like, welcome to the movement. I was also late. You are welcome to reach out and chat with me. Um, there are many of us who who you can chat with and also be aware that Palestinians may have resentment towards you. Um, I know as an indigenous person, sometimes people who are late to the reconciliation movement, it feels like I'm like, you know what? We've been talking about this for decades. Um, and yet there are allies that are willing to sort of embrace.

And so just recognizing we're all on our own roads. But also I always share that, like, find the thing that speaks to you. Um, there is Palestinian music, Palestinian food. Uh, there's a Toronto restaurant that just got a michelin star. Really finding that space to look and then also giving yourself. Grace, finding sustainability and letting the truth break you open. So even if you can only handle looking for a little bit of day, we still need to look at it. I still need to ensure that I'm aware of what's happening. Yeah, well, thank you so much for your your time today, Smokey. And your poetry. Thank you. It's so good to see you and I hope that I make more connections from this.

So thanks for listening. Smokey Sumac is a queer, two spirit Tunica poet born. Sacred poems for Palestine is a collection of 100 poems written over the course of a year. This is unreserved on CBC Radio One, Sirius XM, US Public Radio and Native Voice one I'm Rosanna. Dear child, today we speak with artists and activists about global indigenous solidarity with Palestine.

The Hands Up Project is a charity that supports education and teacher development in Palestine. One of its projects is the Palestine Writer's Workshop, which encourages Palestinian youth to express themselves through poetry while also learning English. We're going to share two poems now, starting with Hallam Abdul, who recorded and sent us this poem from northern Gaza. And yes, that is the sound of bombs you hear in the background.

Hi, I'm Hallam, do I have 17 years old? I'm from Gaza and I have been displaced several times, about 22 times or something like that. And I'm happy to be with you in the podcast and I will read my bomb for you. Okay. Sun statue. Freedom. Allies. What? I'm here. Written in bold letters. A man holding a son. Who is this? Why the son? I took a deep breath. I closed my eyes. I imagined a sky. Raining stars. Mountains. Crying their eyes. Mysterious features. Flowers with strong streams. And many exciting things. I looked at the wall again. I smiled. He dreamed of bees. That's why he drove a son.

Hi, my name is Saleh. I'm 17 years old and I live in southern Gaza. I've been displaced more than five times. After every displacement, I returned to the sea. Not to escape, but to remember that something in me is still blue. This is my poem. Glue that never ends. I stand where the sky stitches itself to the sea. I seem so perfect. It hides the needle. Everything before me is blue. A thousand shades. Arguing in silence. Gliding, dissolving like secrets. Too heavy for words. The wave rise not merely of water, but of memory. Each crest bending the light. Each fall. Carrying pieces of cities that once believed in. Down. Behind me the ruins smolder. Stones fractured into alphabets of the grief. Walls collapsing into half remembered prayers. The air tastes of ash. Yet the horizon keeps singing in blue. Pulling my gaze away from the wound. I'm 17 yet my shadow feels centuries old. I walk the edge where color become destiny. Where silence expands like lungs. Where the ocean's breath shakes the dust from my bones. This blue does not end. It moves. It resists. It writes me into its fabric. Not as a victim, not as a ghost, but as a living word burning between water and sky.

Saleh is a student with the Palestine Writers Workshop. He recorded and sent us that poem from southern Gaza.

In October 2023. Israel began its airstrikes on Gaza in retaliation for Hamas's October 7th attacks. As the world watched in real time. Quil, Kristie Peters was among those who could not look away, and she began to dream.

On a night in October 2023. I had a dream that did not come from me. I was hiding from an unknown army and there were people around me trembling in fear. Babies, children, men and women. And then I heard it. The low rumbling above us of what I knew was a bomb. I looked up at the ceiling, and in the most visceral sense, I felt my body fill with a dread unknown to me in this life. I thought to myself that I'm not scared to die, but I am scared to die under the rubble in this way. I thought about the large pieces of heavy concrete that would bury my body. When I woke up, I wept. I knew I had traveled somewhere that night.

The body is always the technology of our sacred empathy. That is quil Kristie Peters reading from her book On Wholeness. She says that each time she woke up from these embodied dreams, she felt activated in a new way. She called the dreams, nudges or gifts from her ancestors, driving home a sense of responsibility to care for Palestinians.

And so she invited Palestinian organizers in Toronto to visit her homelands in treaty three territory. These delegations offer an opportunity for Anishinaabe and Palestinians to share in ceremony, grief and joy. As quil writes in her new book on wholeness, this work for Palestinian liberation is her awakening.

I feel like I was waking up from. Kind of like a dormant slumber of my own experience of settler colonialism, witnessing the escalation of genocide in Palestine. Like shook me and shook me in the sense of illuminating just how much I tolerate in my own day to day life of colonial oppression here. How much I don't like about the parts of life here in terms of like, societally. And so that's really how it shook me. And that's, that's for me, like the power of witnessing is to be so disruptive that it gives us the courage and the strength to sacrifice within our lives to change and build the world that we actually want to live in.

So then what did you do beyond, as you say, bear witness to this?

So at first. You know, I really just showed up for different organizing and community events, but then I started connecting it to my own kind of life's work and gifts. Um, and so that's kind of where the delegation work emerged from. It's about responding and building the world in the way that you want to in relation to your specific gifts and who you are as a person. And so that's what I did.

Um, and that was last year that you organized the first, delegation to bring Palestinians to your homeland in treaty three. Can you tell me about that first gathering?

So we wanted to tap into like, you know, what can we offer in this moment as Anishinaabe people? And for me, that was so clear that, you know, what we can offer is holding the grief. Creating the spiritual dimensions that could hold our Palestinian kin, um, letting our homelands hold them, letting our ceremonies hold them. We started in Winnipeg and, um, made our way basically across the whole swath of treaty three. So, like, all the way over to, like, Thunder Bay region, we were lucky enough to be invited into multiple ceremonial spaces. Um, so those were kind of the anchors of the trip. Um, so it was a mixture of like ceremony, um, relationship building, eating, cooking, uh, camping, really, really transformational time. And we were so lucky to have so many loving people in treaty three, uh, willing to welcome Palestinians to our homelands and not just welcome them, but also welcome them in a way that's like, we understand your pain, we understand your grief, and we want to hold you, and we want to show you what has held us and allowed us to survive.

What are your strongest memories of that of that first gathering? If I could ask for one really strong memory, I think probably building the lodge for our elder. It was a lot of hard work. A lot of mosquitoes and sweat. But then we, you know, we got to go and sweat in the lodge with everyone. And just to have that full circle of, like, building something together. That lodge will serve so many Anishinaabe people. That story is now that these Palestinian folks built that in our community. And so feeling like the echoes of that into the future was very powerful. Mhm.

You had said that as Anishinaabe you understand Palestinians pain. Can you share more about what you mean by that?

One kind of powerful moment for me in witnessing the escalation of genocide, uh, was how I related to the story of Hind Rajab. I know a lot of people around the world followed her story, but for those who didn't. Basically, she was a young girl and was in a car with her family, and their car was opened fire on and she was trapped in the car with her dead family members. And, you know, it was this whole, like, multi-day Day ordeal. The world was listening to her. Her pleas on the phone to get her out of there.

And as I was like, engaging with this story, I was so distraught and so moved. And then I realized that it was like a very similar story to one of my ancestors. So my great great grandma was from the States, and she survived a massacre of her entire family by hiding under their dead bodies. And this is a story that I've heard for a long time in my family. You know, it's horrific. It's unimaginable. But she was able to survive. And so she eventually made her way all the way up to northwestern Ontario.

It just really hit me in a different way because I thought to myself, you know, what kind of descendant of my ancestor would I be if the story of Hind didn't rock me to my absolute core? And I think that's a really good way to illustrate the connections that indigenous peoples here have with Palestinians are experiences of colonialism and imperialism are different, but the heart of it is the same. And in some cases we can even see our experiences literally reflected to us.

That is a really powerful story. Thank you so much for sharing that with me. Is there an end goal of the partnership or do you just want to keep it going?

I think it will just continue to evolve and change. Um, I think this whole idea of a delegation was really, again, this like wanting to hold the grief, wanting to offer our ceremonies and our homelands. But I think that will shift and change as time goes on. Um, and definitely thinking more about joint struggle across various communities. And there's so much work that we need to do as indigenous people to understand that phrase, like all our relations, like, what does that really mean? And how are we really caring for all our relations? We're all, you know, especially in urban centers. We're all in proximity to one another. And so I think my hopes and dreams for that work is that it becomes even more intersectional, brings even more communities into deeper relationships of joint struggle together. It might not look like a delegation in the future. It might look like gatherings or, you know, different things. Just homies hanging out. Yeah, yeah.

Um, now, as we mentioned, you wrote a chapter about Palestine in your new book, but let's talk a little bit more about the book on wholeness. What does wholeness mean to you?

Wholeness, to me, is our ability to have access to our expansive relationality as indigenous peoples. So feeling and having access to our relationships with our ancestors, our homelands, our communities. It's really about that kind of deeper sense of embodiment and presence within the body. Mhm.

What other issues do you talk about when it comes to wholeness in your book?

Um, so many. I mean, I kind of like I talk a little bit about the opposite, which is my own dis embodiment as an Anishinaabe person and kind of tracing that to my mother and father. So specifically looking at my father's experience in residential school and how that, of course, was a project of genocide itself, but also attempts to like disembodied us and remove our spirits from our bodies. So I talk about kind of like the generational impacts of that and my own experiences of violence that have. Invited me to disembodied myself. And then I talk about how I find wholeness within that, within that spectrum of dis embodiment, through things like parenting, through creative practice, and also through this sense of like, deeper responsibility to Palestine. Mhm. Mhm.

And so that that's how you do the coming together with the Palestinians relating to your wholeness.

Yeah. Yeah. I talk about specifically how witnessing what happened in Palestine put me into probably the deepest sense of presence within my body I've ever experienced in my life, and how that was a big learning experience for me, because I think prior to that, I would have maybe written about wholeness as more idyllic and more like an enjoyable, joyful state of being. Um, but with Palestine, I realized that, you know, our wholeness and our embodiment sometimes comes from pain as well. But it's again, this like rootedness in the body. This like our ancestors are, like viscerally with us. Um, we are like, able to feel our homelands. We're connected expansively and relationally. And that's kind of definitely what Palestine has taught me.

Do you feel now that you kind of come back into your wholeness, you know, through the work you've done with Palestine and through, you know, that exploration of of how your past traumas and your parents and your grandparents past trauma has affected you?

No, no. My wholeness, I think, is always fleeting. It's like a dance. And I think until we live in a less violent world, it will always be a dance because we're constantly experiencing harm, you know, still witnessing everything coming out of Palestine. And so the book is more about like, wholeness is not an end goal. It's more like, how can we dance more with our wholeness? How can we think strategically about our embodiment to contribute to collective liberation? But I think to be permanently whole will have to occur in a future liberated world.

Quil, thank you so much for your time today. Thank you so much. Quil. Kristi Peters is an Anishinaabe artist, activist and educator based in Toronto. Her debut book on wholeness, Anishinaabe Pathways to Embodiment and Collective Liberation, comes out on October 28th.

This is unreserved on CBC Radio One, Sirius XM, U.S. Public Radio, and Native Voice one. I'm Rosanna, dear child. Today we're creating space for Palestinian voices.

Hello everyone! I am Bassem Hijazi, 20 years old. I had just finished high school a few months before the war and scored 93.1% in the scientific stream. I wanted to study engineering, but the war prevented that. I am now displaced in the Morsi area of canyons. This is the 10th time I have been displaced and it is the hardest one. I present this poem to you and hope that I am reciting it at the right time. I will read it in English and Arabic.

Dark, dusk, silent. Running, a crippling escape with no firewall. In a night with no tears nor cries, a shock the brain cannot comprehend. A departure with no permission. No room for time. In a night with no sound ringing nor echo. Just a sharp creak. We did not sleep. We did not doze. The farewell night. That night we. That night we lost the star. In a barren desert. We left behind. Miles of hope waiting. Forced on a bath with no moon nor a star. So how can we sleep? In Arabic. Rock. Don't be something. De la la la la la. La la la la la la la. La la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la. La Habana. Name. Visa. Na na na na na. Na na na. Lennon. Normal.

That is 20 year old Bassem Hijazi in Gaza.

At the end of September, the Freedom Flotilla set across the Mediterranean to deliver aid to Gaza, where, according to the United Nations, a genocide is occurring. Among the boats was the Conscience, a vessel carrying around 100 people, including medical professionals and journalists, along with humanitarian aid.

We're at sea. See. Finally, Miss Glasson Agnew was on that boat. She is a Cree Indian harm reduction practitioner from salt River First Nation. Our conversation took place before she sailed and before her boat was intercepted by Israeli forces.

You'll also hear from Eka Hansen and Enoch, filmmaker, writer and activist from Carlisle, Nunavut, also known as Greenland, for personal reasons. Eka did not end up sailing with Michelson and the others, but she joins me in conversation as the boat was about to set sail.

Here's what Muskogean had to say about the mood among the crew. Oh, it's a roller coaster of emotions. Like at one moment you feel hopeful and then another moment you feel helpless. It's so liberating to, as an indigenous woman, to join this effort at, you know, our Canada has been occupied and we're going to another occupied territory. And it's just so heart wrenching to watch every day the footage that comes out of Gaza. And this feels like I can actively do something and be a part of the liberation. Absolutely.

And, echo, what are you feeling right now in this moment? Yeah, it's the same. I also have all the emotions, possibly. Possibly human. I think it's, uh, both, um, a big honor to be here and be sailing to Gaza, but also at the same time, I miss my kids back home. And our people are also going through a lot of things right now. Just a few days ago, the Danish prime Minister came to apologise for the IUDs they forced into women's bodies, women and children back home. So a lot of things are happening back home that I miss out on, but at the same time, it's very special to be here.

Um, can you describe, you know, the boat that you'll be taking across the Mediterranean? So we were originally supposed to sail the Hinde, and unfortunately we could not sail the Hinde. So we are going to embark on another vessel which is larger. There's two coalitions that have joined together the thousand Mod lanes, as well as the Freedom Flotilla coalition to break the siege on Gaza. So our group, I guess, is the vessels that will be sailing, uh, has grown in size. There's a thousand of us sailing, so we're a big crew. Mhm.

And can you tell us what kind of supplies and you know, donations that you're bringing to Gaza. Um, medical supplies, food uh baby formula, those kind of things. And the medicine in Gaza is really hits home for me as an indigenous healthcare worker and the lack of access to healthcare that our people face every single day and the epigenetic, um, aftermath of surviving a genocide that we see in our community is absolutely going to happen in Gaza, and the intentional attack on healthcare workers is so, so heartbreaking. And it means so much to me to being to bring medical aid supplies. Um, of course, with the help of Doctor Suzanne Zouche, uh, who's an indigenous physician in Toronto.

Why did you want to be part of this effort? You know, as an Enoch, as a Korean DNA woman. Why did you want to to be part of this effort to take supplies and donations to Gaza?

I think all indigenous people have been watching this genocide, uh, for the past two years, thinking about our ancestors and also the current systems we grew up in and try to survive in. And I think this solidarity with the Palestinian people. I just. Ever present. Yeah, I think I think it's important. Even though it's far away from Greenland, for instance,

I miss Glasson. What about for you? For myself, that actually comes back to the teachings that I've received and that we don't leave anyone behind. And the past two years, I've just been watching every single day. And my heart breaks and it's up to us to do something. And when we reflect on this time and years to come and I think about Rwanda, I, you know, I and and other apartheid's that we've seen happen and people always say never again. And it's time that we do something now because people are going to look back and say, you know, what did I do to make a difference? How did I respond? And I want to be able to stand in my morals and principles and teachings and say, I did everything that I could. Mhm.

Was there a moment or a situation or a story that really made you make that connection between what you've learned from your original teachings and this action that made you think, yes, I, I have to do this.

Oh, man. Um, so I, my grandfather is a residential school survivor, and there's just so many commonalities that we have with the Palestinian people and learning about the history and who their oppressors are. And I think about, you know, just the how many wars that our people have lived through, and it's just so similar. Mhm.

And echo what about for you is an Enoch from Greenland. What was the moment you, you made that connection and said I need to take action.

So I grew up in a, in Denmark in the projects where I grew up amongst so many different cultures. And my best friend then was a Palestinian. And their family history is that they had to escape Palestine because his mother was an activist. But of course, I think there's something about the Danish government. We are currently occupied by Denmark, and we're also fighting for our freedom and independence from Denmark. And seeing that the Danish politician don't care about people in that, that part of the world just I think. Make me want to do something even more, because I think our leaders in the whole world are failing the people.

If I could also add, um, none of us are free until we're all free and, you know. Other community members have asked me, like, why do you talk about Gaza so much? Why do you talk about Palestine so much? And it's like, how could I not? It is absolutely linked to our struggle.

I understand that you've also had a lot of people reach out with, you know, some concerns, uh, for your safety. And you felt some frustration, particularly towards those who are not have not spoken out about Palestine. What have you said to those folks?

Yeah. Um, I made a post earlier this week and I was like, if you haven't said anything about Palestine, then don't reach out to me for concern for my safety. You know, it it just goes to show how people value human life. If it's somebody you know, is somebody close to you, you can't bear the thought to think that they could somehow be hurt or injured. Yet we've seen hundreds of thousands of people in Caza and Palestine being murdered and a whole entire population being starved.

You know, just the other day, I was watching two physicians delivering, um, an infant who survived from a beheaded mother and I. And I came to myself like. What what makes their life have more value than mine. And it's actually very, very frustrating because the government that we live under is just as much as a threat to our safety.

People have a very colonial idea of what safety is. It's the same system that we are fighting. It's colonial settler, settler imperialistic strategies. And the way they're taking land is exactly the same as all of Turtle Island, including Greenland. Just grabbing land has to stop. And it has the land has to return to the people who actually care for the land and who are from the land. And just as much as indigenous people are, um, dreaming about having the land back, the land is also dreaming of having us back because it's being destroyed. How the world is today is just unfair for both the people and the land.

Um, as indigenous people, as Inuit, uh, you know, Metis, wherever we are in Turtle Island, our medicines are very important to us. Uh, they help ground us and, you know, remind us of of home. Um, what reminders and medicines are you bringing with you in your bundle to help you on this journey.

So I brought lots and lots of sage and sweetgrass and my summer and, you know, uh, you know, it's, um, waking up and smudging every day, waking up and offering my tobacco, waking up and just remembering to acknowledge my ancestors and the teachings that I have because they're all standing behind me, watching me and keeping me safe. And also my relatives back home doing ceremony for me and just trying to be here in ceremony every day, and also offering that medicine to other people is also really important. And I have been doing this together and I can also bring my songs here. Sadly, I couldn't bring my drum, but I've been singing for people. Just yesterday we said farewell to two Italian vessels and I was asked to sing for them. And you know, I could see the emotional response that people had, and they know that's kind of a gift that I've been given, is to be able to sing those songs and carry them in my heart. And. It's keeping me strong and so that I don't go crazy.

Well, so speaking of finally, what message do you hope that taking this action particularly is to indigenous people? Um, you know, gives to the world, sends to the world, particularly other indigenous people.

I think the message is we're in this together. We here, we see you and we want to keep talk about what's happening in the in Gaza. So I keep talking about Gaza also demand actions for our from our politicians. Um, I remember Doctor Suzanne. She's talking about Henry Job, the vessel that we were originally supposed to sail. And Henry Job was a young Palestinian child, and she pleaded for help with her murdered family surrounding her. And the people that went to save her were also martyred. And the emergency response person on the phone said, don't worry, we're coming for you. And, um, I'd like to tell the people of Gaza, we're doing everything we can to come for you. We're coming.

The squadron's boat didn't make it to Gaza on October 8th. It was intercepted by Israeli forces 220km off the coast of Gaza. News of her deportation from Israel to Turkey came on Friday.

Misquoted Agnew is ACRI in den, a harm reduction practitioner from salt River First Nation, and Aysha Hanson is a filmmaker, writer and activist. She is Inuk from Kalita, Nunavut, also known as Greenland.

Before we Go, one more poem by a youth from the Palestine Writers Workshop. This is 14 year old Sarah Alberici waiting under the old moon held by the soft wind. She stood saying nothing. The moon watched tenderly as if it had known her for a thousand years. She did not shout. She did not break. She swayed, but did not fall. Inside the voice was a bird. I won't run from my land. Winter came and the moon disappeared. The cold sank into her bark and bones. Yet still she stayed. He wrote the bird below. I am not weak. I belong to this land. And I will wait until spring returns. Through thunder's roar. Through the bite of a frost. Sometimes staying strong says more than a thousand screams. Clouds passed by and rain fell on her shoulders. As if the sky cries just for her alone. The sun hides among her branches. Singing to the birds in the morning. She fears no wind and bend. Only when she breathes in her silence. Stars grow. And in the end I know she was not just any tree. She was the olive tree.

That is 14 year old Azara Abu who lives in Gaza. That's all her time on radio indigenous. This episode was produced by Kim Kasher, Alaina Hudgins, Lyle, Amanda Geer and Rhiannon Johnson. I'm your favorite cousin, Rosanna, dear child, coming at you from Winnipeg in Treaty one territory. Gina. Now, Vegas. Is. Where are we? Are. We are. We are.