2013-05-25T11:21:57-04:00 Reilly Yeo http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/author/index.php?author=reilly-yeo Copyright 2008, HuffingtonPost.com, Inc. HuffingtonPost Blogger Feed for Reilly Yeo Good old fashioned elbow grease. tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/theblog//3.2446283 2013-01-10T12:42:59-05:00 2013-03-12T05:12:02-04:00

Reilly Yeo http://www.huffingtonpost.com/reilly-yeo/ how much Canadians still have to learn about the relationship between First Nations and our government.

What's so scary about this backlash and division is that it's exactly what powerful interests want. This is how promises get broken with no accountability: those in power are able to confuse the issue of who actually broke promises, and hide the fact that they bear ultimate responsibility for the bad situation. By selling you a story about problems with accountability within First Nations communities, those who are truly in power in this country are misleading you about whose accountability really matters. It's the accountability of our elected leaders in parliament and powerful corporate interests that matters now, as we're making crucial decisions about how to use land. Understanding and focusing on their actions is what will impact our well-being. Will we use our land to benefit all of us in a lasting way -- or will we simply drive more resources to the select few who are in power?

Broken promises about the way we'll use our resources are at the root of Idle No More. Canadians should be particularly sensitive to further broken promises. Though you've likely been paying into employment insurance and pension plans, the promise that these things would be reliable and available is being broken. Over one-fifth of workers in need in this country who pay into employment insurance haven't been able to claim benefits from the current government. And if you were born after 1958, you'll no longer have access to full retirement benefits when you're 65 -- now you'll wait, in most cases 'til you're 67, despite the fact that government has the money to pay for your pension. Waiting two extra years for benefits will be very difficult for some, like low-wage people doing manual labour...now imagine waiting 200 years for the benefits your people were promised.

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Treaties were another kind of promise: a contract to be honoured. Just as you weren't promised a pension and employment insurance only if you have a particular kind of mayor -- one who uses the right accounting system, and pays herself a certain salary -- aboriginal people were promised proper means to support themselves from the settler government, regardless. In cases where treaties were signed, First Nations gave up control over their land (under extreme conditions of starvation) in exchange for certain rights. These promises were almost immediately broken; instead, First Nations lands subsidized the system that allowed for things like pensions and employment benefits, and First Nations never received a fair share.

Why are promises to share resources being broken with increasingly reckless disregard for all of our wellbeing? A few people have more money than they know what to do with, while the vast majority worry about how they'll find and keep work, how they'll send their children to school or care for their aging parents, how they'll be able to retire. Why is this happening? Powerful CEOs and bankers want two things: cheap and easy access to land (especially on First Nations territory); and workers with few other options. Divisions between people are allowing this to happen. Instead of standing together and demanding that promises be kept, that contracts be honoured, and that our economy be fair and provide the security that our natural resource wealth is more than capable of providing, we're being cleverly divided -- and stupidly falling for it.

Fortunately, we've started reclaiming the story of Idle No More, and our country. First Nations all across Canada, and visible leaders like Wab Kinew and Pamela Palmater are showing that Christie Blatchford is dead wrong when she questions whether enough of Aboriginal culture has survived for First Nations to constitute "nations" at all. Indigenous people have preserved the truth about broken promises for centuries, and used new technologies like social media to create a special moment. Even critics of First Nations protest like Thomas Flanagan have acknowledged that Indigenous people are using Facebook and twitter remarkably effectively to create a unique national uprising. When national cultures have been so remarkably resilient and dynamic, we should be impressed by their resolve, not skeptical of their existence.

We must offer support by sharing their perspectives, and remembering that some truths are simple: we have to share this land together in a fair way that reflects a real understanding of its history. Threatening the health of that land in a rush to make wealthy corporations wealthier -- as the Conservatives' new omnibus legislation does -- is the wrong approach. The real way forward is to learn how to use land so that it benefits our grandchildren, and their grandchildren in turn. Doing this in a "modern economy" is not easy -- we need help, and First Nations leadership, to figure it out.

This is the true story, the one that we should share. You help create a new system where promises are kept and truth is told every time you share this story -- you use social media to take back power. But that isn't enough. This Friday, a global day of action provides an opportunity for us all to stand together. Actions on the ground help demonstrate the truth of the story that we're telling online and in-person, and give us a special chance to learn more about these complex issues. If you're still uncertain and hesitant about the real story of Idle No More, that's all the more reason for you to come out -- your curiosity could be the first step to a better life for everyone.]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.1667569 2012-07-12T11:17:17-04:00 2012-09-11T05:12:10-04:00

Reilly Yeo http://www.huffingtonpost.com/reilly-yeo/ 13th round of negotiations closed for the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP), a trade deal for Pacific Rim countries. At the same time, unbeknownst to them, citizens entered a new world of threats to their digital rights.

These negotiations focused on the Intellectual Property (IP) chapter of the deal -- a trap being set by industry lobbyists. By following the promise of trade and prosperity, we are being lured into a future where our digital rights are used as a bargaining chip by unelected lobbyists and trade representatives, and negotiated away to anti-democratic tribunals. And we won't just lose rights -- many of our commonplace online activities will likely be criminalized.

Imagine a world where you could receive a fine, and possibly be dragged before a judge, just for clicking on the wrong link, or where big media companies could demand your private online information. Leaked TPP drafts we've obtained suggest this is the world industry lobbyists are creating, through a closed-door process that excludes not just citizen input, but also the input of our elected representatives. During this round, over 130 Democratic members of Congress called for greater transparency, including access to the IP proposals, highlighting the frightening truth that even congressmen and members of Parliament don't have access to the negotiations or the drafts.

In addition to its lack of transparency -- which sidelines civil society and disregards core values of democratic rule-making -- the TPP would fundamentally change the Internet. The leaked draft agreement would give big media new powers to lock users out of their own content and services, and to shut down websites and remove content, thereby blocking users and entrepreneurs from enjoying the benefits of the open Internet.

Here in Canada, our government looked at giving this kind of control to big media as an option, yet the public opposition (including over 65,000 signatures on the C-11-focused InternetLockdown.ca petition) led them to decide against it. Now, we know from leaked documents that lobbyists intend to circumvent domestic judicial systems by reintroducing these new restrictions and laws through international agreements, without an open, public process where citizens could help decide. And once this Internet trap is set, there's no going back.

What's more, negotiators are talking about creating a dispute resolution process that would grant big media and other corporations special authority to challenge state law, regulations and court decisions in international tribunals. The implementation of this closed dispute resolution process could cement new Internet restrictions into place, and lead to a steady race to the bottom for entrepreneurship, free expression and our digital rights.

Groups like OpenMedia and people from around the world are coming together to dismantle this trap before we're caught in it forever. Our demands for the TPP process are simple and modest: it should be open and transparent with active participation from all affected stakeholders; it should not expand the power of Big Media and other corporations, including their ability to criminalize or otherwise restrict the use of the Internet; and it should not create an online environment that lets big media invade our privacy, remove online content on demand, saddle us with heavy fines, or terminate our access to the Internet.

The best way to avoid a trap is to ensure it is never set. Negotiators are seeking to finalize the TPP in the coming months, but we know from experience that we can stop threats to the Internet in their tracks through vocal public support for our digital rights. People around the world simply want access to the open Internet. Join the global pro-Internet movement by speaking out against the TPP's secretive anti-Internet agenda at StopTheTrap.net.

OpenMedia is a grassroots organization that safeguards the possibilities of the open and affordable Internet worldwide. Reilly Yeo is the Managing Director of OpenMedia. Steve Anderson is the Founder and Executive Director of OpenMedia.]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.1347499 2012-03-15T11:16:48-04:00 2012-05-15T05:12:01-04:00

Reilly Yeo http://www.huffingtonpost.com/reilly-yeo/
This great quote from twitter by Zoe Flood (@zoeflood) says a lot:
My driver in Uganda (from a major military town) on the #Kony2012 vid: "They haven't arrested him because he makes the army too much money."

So -- the answer is Kony2012 is good and bad. And now what can we learn...

First of all, that the power of social media isn't so much in the reach (i.e. any idiot on T.V. can reach millions, as Glenn Beck has shown us) but in the interactivity and conversation. It was one of the more encouraging experiences of my life to watch as the conversation on Twitter shifted from about 1 in 50 tweets critical of the campaign on the night the video started to go viral, to about 50 per cent critical, 50 per cent blind support 24 hours later.

And the reason for the shift was partly the voices of Ugandans themselves being included in the conversation. Watch Rosebell Kagumire and follow her tweets -- she's amazing. She and others like Amber Ha are the people who should have been consulted before Invisible Children came up with its flawed strategy. Including local voices who are critical, along with those who are supportive of IC's approach, is necessary both to developing smart solutions, and not treating Ugandans as a monolith.

What's so (potentially) beautiful about social media is the way it allows this inclusion to happen.
I'm convinced we can make inclusion and conversation a foundation of social change work and still come up with theories of change that are simple enough for Kony2012-style tactics.

Tactically, the Kony2012 campaign represents several strokes of genius -- harnessing clicktivism to drive policy on an issue most Americans knew absolutely nothing about, and in which they have no clear vested interest (though let's not kid ourselves -- the West always has an interest in being involved in any country as resource-rich as Uganda.)

The tactic of selecting 20 celebrities and 12 policy makers for a social media pressure campaign to make Uganda, the LRA, and Joseph Kony such hot issues for Obama was brilliant. By doing so, Invisible Children is creating not only a constituency of people in the U.S. who know and care but also a mainstream media frenzy. Targeting young people in particular with a sexy action kit that mimics the motifs of street art was another ingenious move. That will get people beyond clicktivism and into the street.

Fortunately, the strategic lunacy doesn't mean we can't learn from this tactical brilliance.

More fortunately still, you'd have to be living under a rock not to know about the huge problems with Kony2012. Invisible Children temporarily won the media war with a ruthlessly inaccurate, highly sentimental mediation of a war. As Teju Cole suggests in his devastating Twitter essay, that kind of sentimentality is banal and deadly.

Mercifully, though, in this environment, it takes less than a day to pierce that sentimentality with some perspective -- and as Cole demonstrates, you can even use twitter to do it. Social media might contribute to the simplistic strategy used by Kony2012, but it also makes possible the conversation that spread an important, thoughtful, critical backlash.

So -- next time around, let's make the inclusion of marginalized people on both sides of the conversation happen right from the beginning, not after the fact. That's really how we'll use social media for social change, especially when combined with Invisible Children's game-changing tactics.
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