Seb Bonet

Articles by Seb Bonet

Our veins run with water, not oil – fighting for our lives against capitalism and colonialism across Turtle Island

In 1971, Eduardo Galeano published The Open Veins of Latin America. His iconic title refers to the colonial extraction of resources from Pachamama. And the book’s subtitle, ‘Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent’, pointed to their transport to another continent, Europe, where gold, tin, rubber, coffee and so many more of Pachamama’s gifts were transformed into commodities that interlocked colonialism and capitalism into a unified system of pillage and profit. (…)

What do resource pipelines and building cranes have in common?

In colonial British Columbia, there is a lot riding on the answer to this question. The elites want us to think they represent the latest and most visible symbols of prosperity for all. But to many people who are Indigenous or living with low incomes, pipelines and cranes represent the the latest in a long series of displacements. Here in Victoria, one place to start tracing the relationship between building cranes and displacement is the view from the mayor’s window at city hall. Earlier this year, a bench was removed across the street from Mayor Fortin’s office. Months prior to that, he had complained about having to look at elder members of the street-involved community who liked to gather at the bench and share a drink. (…)