A couple of University of Saskatchewan students say Idle No More would have likely happened without Facebook but the social media tool certainly helped in getting large numbers of young people to join the movement.
Max Fineday and Omeasoo Butt were speaking yesterday at a discussion at the U of S on Idle No More and the role of universities.
Fineday is a political studies student who is also the newly elected president of the U of S students’ union.
Butt is a doctoral student in Aboriginal history, architecture and governance.
Fineday says there is no doubt social media was a major catalyst in getting young people involved with Idle No More.
“I think there was a build up of energy and frustration and a build up of hope in Aboriginal communities and I think social media played a key role in how we expressed it and how it came out in Idle No More,” he says. “If it would have happened without social media? I think it would have but it just would have taken more time.”
Butt adds social media tools like Facebook and Twitter have been used to quickly spread the news about Idle No More events with the effect of being able to draw in large numbers of people over a short period of time.
“I also think the nice thing about the social media aspect is it brought all of us Aboriginal people from different backgrounds together,” she says. “So we have urban and rural Aboriginal people, First Nations and Métis — everybody participating together and social media made that possible I think. Because it may have happened in a different way, a moccasin telegraph kind of way, that wouldn’t have been accessible to all of us.”
Wednesday was the last in a series of Idle No More discussions that have been taking place at the university over the past six weeks.