Pic credit: https://www.instagram.com/kedzhifotowala/
Before I begin, I would like to acknowledge the traditional owners of the lands on which we meet today – the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin nation – and pay my respects to their Elders, past and present. As a visitor on these lands, I introduce myself as an Arrernte woman and Mparntwenye, whose traditional lands include Alice Springs, and east and south east of there, and who has familial ties to other parts of the greater Arrernte nation in Central Australia. Finally, as an Arrernte woman, I wish to acknowledge that we are on stolen lands, that the Wurundjeri people have never ceded their sovereignty, and that a treaty or agreement is yet to be negotiated for use of these lands, and therefore, as a traditional owner of elsewhere who has made her home here, I pledge to walking in solidarity with the Wurundjeri people in their ongoing struggle for justice. Always was, always will be.
I am not going to speak for long
today. There are far more important people to listen to than me, and therefore
I am choosing to use the time the organising team have generously given me to
speak to you today as smartly and pointedly as possible. As an ally to
Palestinian people - thirty thousand of whom have now been brutally murdered by
this genocidal, and disgraceful Israeli regime. I also stand in solidarity with
the many conscientious objectors and long-term peace protesters, such as the
Women in Black, and those currently being thrown into prisons for refusing to
answer their call-up from the IDF. When first we began gathering to call for a
ceasefire, and for the liberation of Palestinian people living under what can
only be described as a murderous apartheid regime, I think I speak for all of
us when I say that nobody here hoped that five months later there would still
be a need to gather on a weekly basis and call for justice.
Yet here we are. Still gathering.
Still mourning. Still calling on our political leaders to take action. And
still building solidarity between the movements. As an Indigenous activist, and
a union organiser and member, the notion of solidarity is one close to my
heart, for it is in the connecting of the minorities that we become a majority
they can no longer afford to ignore. And they can no longer afford to ignore
us, because not only are their jobs at stake, but their humanity is at stake.
The longer they fuel this, the longer they remain complicit and irredeemable.
Do they truly wish for their legacies to be the rivers of blood they currently
have on their hands?
We know this genocide, this
apartheid, this deprivation of human rights did not begin on the 7th
of October last year. It also did not being in 1967, with the breaching of UN
resolution 242, nor did it begin in 1948 with the Nakbar, though the oppression
has obviously been going on for this long. No, it began well before this, with
colonising powers such as Great Britain, France and the US dividing up lands
which never belonged to them, in order to maintain power in a resource-rich
region. It began with centuries of pogroms on Jewish people in Europe where,
following World War 2, the allied powers whilst patting themselves on the back
for a job well done, also treated the Jewish people they had just liberated
from the genocidal Nazis like hot potatoes. Australia has been there every step
of the way, through its undying loyalty this colonial forebears, to the
institution of the White Australia Policy, to Australia – via its own
anti-semitism, disregard of Indigenous rights, and xenophobia – twice refused
to establish a Jewish homeland in Western Australia. When there are global
allies to maintain, and resources to exploit, Arab lives have long meant
nothing to the west, and this country has been a constant offender.
I look out here, and I see
thousands of incredible people, gathered to say “no more”. So many different
people, so many different colours, creeds, genders, sexualities, socioeconomic
backgrounds, and so forth. With this, I would like to address various groups of
people, one-by-one.
As an ally, I wish to say to all
my Palestinian sisters and brothers, and, by extension, to other Arabs here: I
am so sorry. I am sorry that thanks to resource snatching and colonial
ambition, so few of your families have had the privilege of knowing peace for
countless generations. I stand with you in your time of pain, and torment. I mourn
your families and your communities back in Palestine, and I join you in your
call for a ceasefire, for the end of forced settlements and land grabs, the
freedom of all those incarcerated in Israeli prisons, and for a free Palestine.
I call for the preservation of your lives and your liberty, and for true
self-determination as the strong, proud people that you are. In his will, Aaron
Bushnell expressed a wish, if a free Palestine was achieved and if it were
amenable to the people, that his ashes be scattered there. I hope his wishes
are able to be carried out, but even more than that, I wish that Palestinian
people are able to bury their own people on the lands they have never given up,
with honour and dignity, and then rebuild a society where they are safe and
happy. I hope there are many more alive who have the ability to enjoy it, or
the right to return and see it.
To my Jewish sisters and
brothers, I wish to say that I see you. I acknowledge you. I know that as long
as there has been a recognised “Israel” there has been opposition to any
Israeli regime that seeks to displace, imprison, incarcerate and murder
Palestinian people. I see you come out every Invasion Day, every anti-fascist
rally, and now every week for Palestine. To you I say, I am proud to know you,
I am sorry that through your commitment to life and justice, you end up
ostracised in your communities and in an Australia which, via its own
commitment to its allies, consistently fails to confront its own legacy of anti-semitism.
I am in awe of your strength and will always walk beside you.
To my Aboriginal and Torres
Strait Islander brothers and sisters, I say this: right now, we have the media
and members of our own community distorting our history, and twisting our
activism in a bid to discredit Indigenous solidarity with Palestine. This is a
true shame job. As far as I am concerned, if those people who the media is so
keen to exploit as spokespeople who claim we are threatening longstanding
solidarity from Jewish community members by standing with Palestinians are not
showing their funding interests right now, they are certainly baring their
arses for all to see. Stand strong, stand proud. As fellow victims of genocide
and colonisation, walk tall in the fact that we have survived and we know our
Palestinian brothers and sisters will too. Know that they can twist the legacy
of people such as William Cooper in order to try and unsettle us, but we know,
REALLY KNOW, that Cooper, if he were alive today, would be out here with us,
taking a stand against persecution against a people like he did back in 1938.
To my fellow Arrernte people and
to Mparntwe for Falastin, I say this: I am so proud of you. Keep going. The
fact that the Pine Gap facility sits there still on Arrernte lands is a
disgrace and as an Arrernte person, I say SHUT IT DOWN. No more genocide being
fed remotely by the US on Arrernte country.
As a trade unionist, I say this:
workers, we need to shut down the war machine. Join your unions, speak to your
fellow members, organise hard, work out how your industry contributes to the
war machine and collectively SHUT IT DOWN. We have all been inspired by the
Webb Dock actions, but there needs to be so much more. As a media practitioner,
for example, I believe that the biggest war machine this country has is the
media, as it’s through our reporting that propaganda is forged and ignorance
flourishes. As such, we need to collectively push back on the media companies
and refuse to write or report any untruths designed to promote this propaganda.
As the union movement says – “touch one, touch all”. Every single worker has a
role to play in shutting down the war machine and ensuring a peaceful future
for Palestine, so let’s do this.
Finally, as a past political
candidate, I say this to individual Labor MPs: GROW A SPINE. I know there are
many of you there who don’t support this war, and I know that you keep your
mouths shut and don’t cross the floor for fear of party expulsion. I have also
done the maths and know that all it takes is 20 of you to band together, speak
up in opposition to your party stance, and put the fear into them that they
will lose their right to govern. So do it. How many more deaths do you need on
your hands before human rights wins out? How many more?
From the river, to the sea. Always
was, and always will be.
Thank you.
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