Transcript

AYISHA SIDDIQA

It’s called, ‘So much about your sustainability, my people are dying’. Colonisers go to war with nature and call it a business opportunity. I tell you that even our dead have drowned in their graves. And you ask me to be polite. You ask me not to blame or shame and remember the colour of my skin, the sound of my tongue, and my place in your world.

You tell me to give you a little bit more benefit of the doubt, to angle my face in front of the camera and give you the perfect soundbite of hope and forgiveness. You take and take until we’ve birthed our babies into the same water as our dead. And even then, you gather like vultures and feed on our helplessness. In your charity, you make profit. I tell you that there has been a massacre and the land will never be the same. The soil will never grow the same. The hum of mosquitoes has changed the colour of the sky. And the sickness of your greed will haunt you in every single lifetime.

And you tell me about a new UN proposition, some politician’s lie that you keep cradling between your mouth and your ear. The bridges you will make after the bombs. Ayisha, you’ve got to be a little more practical. Ayisha, smile so they know you are not dangerous. And still 100 dead, 200 dead, 1,500 dead. And no negotiation, no negotiation, no negotiation will bring them back to life.

I want the world leaders to know that the Earth has a memory. And all of her beloveds that she keeps tucked in her landscapes have birthed guardians . They are sitting among me. You will have to answer to her children, and their children, and your children. And one day, it will be your home, your family, your land. I pray and I hope you make the right choice.

If there is one thing for those of you in the room that I want you to deliver to the rest of the world, it is that you cannot negotiate with nature. There will come a time where no amount of dollars will be able to make up for what is lost and what is broken. We are in a critical time in history. And we don’t have much left. Thank you.