28/07/2024
People have asked for the text of Marilyn Scott's speech at Papatūānuku Rising - March 4 Nature in Napier this afternoon. Here it is in its entirety. Feel free to share. Marilyn was the instigator and main driver of the event which, judging by the hundreds who came out, obviously struck a chord with people. I'll include with the photos images of the list of regressive policies Marilyn refers to.
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Tēnā koutou e te iwi o Te Matau a Māui
Ko Marilyn Scott tōku ingoa,
Nō Kōtirana ōku tīpuna
Kei Heretaunga ahau e noho ana
Ko Tangata Tiriti ahau
First of all I want to acknowledge the Mana Whenua of this rohe on whose land we stand today, as well as Te Tangata whenua katoa whose generosity and good faith in signing Te Tiriti o Waitangi 184 years ago granted many of us our right to live and thrive here in Aotearoa. Shamefully that same good faith was not reciprocated by the Crown & successive settler governments and as a result, we must also acknowledge that Tangata Whenua have been deprived of many of their rights and freedoms promised under TToW, which continues to be dishonoured to this day.
And last but not least - Thank you to everyone of you who has come out today to make a stand and show you care about climate justice and social justice for Aotearoa and our planet as a whole. (We all heard Nick read out the list of regressive policies and actions that this coalition government is not only promoting but ramming through with reckless disregard for democracy and due process). We are on a Fast Track alright - a fast track to destruction and oblivion for even more of our endangered species & sacred spaces and this government is taking us backwards as a nation (by decades), leaving a train wreck for future generations to have to deal with.
However, I am not here just to March and speak out AGAINST what this govt is doing to people and planet -
I am here to March FOR Nature,
• For Te Tiriti to be honoured,
• For an end to capitalist greed,
• For freedom from ongoing colonial oppression,
• For recognition of the rights of indigenous people everywhere,
• For a fairer distribution of wealth and resources in this country and beyond, and most of all….
• For a RADICAL change in how we live in harmony with Te Taiao (our environment) and one another.
There is a sobering Māori whakatauki or proverb that says:
“Whatungarongaro te tangata, Toitu te whenua” - People may disappear but the land will remain.
In case we have forgotten, our planet is 4.6 billion years old, and we humans have only been here for about 300,000 years.) If we scale that 4.6 billion years to 46 years - human beings have only been here for 4 hours. Our industrial revolution and the birth of modern capitalism began only 1 minute ago and yet in that time we have managed to destroy more than 50% of the world’s forests - not to mention our ongoing pollution and exploitation of the rivers and oceans, our plunder and extraction of so much of the world’s natural resources and our arrogant disregard for other species.
How we are living now is not sustainable!
Sadly we humans have become so disconnected from the natural world that we are effectively consuming and destroying our own life blood. We have developed an attitude of superiority, arrogance and domination over other species and life forms that leads us to believe we have the right to exploit and plunder the worlds resources for our own apparent gain.
To quote Thomas Berry, an ecological anthropologist and historian:
“If there were a parliament of creatures, their first decision might well be to vote humans out of the community as too deadly a presence to tolerate any further.”
If we want to survive as a species, to restore our relationship with Papatūanauku and begin to heal and restore our fractured and polluted world for future generations, I believe the best way forward is to become truly RADICAL. And what does radical mean? it does not mean extreme or off-the-wall - in the modern day sense - I learnt Latin at school, (not te reo Māori sadly), and the latin word radix or radicalis means to reconnect with one’s roots, and our roots here in Aotearoa are indigenous and grounded in the wisdom of Mātauranga Māori with its deep connection and respect for the whenua and the natural world.
Prior to colonisation Papatūānuku was cloaked in native vegetation (not toxic pine plantations), her rivers ran clean and teamed with many species of ika, tuna and inanga; the ngahere was full of bird song and Tangaroa was not polluted with human and animal waste or choked with plastic and other human detritus. But sadly with colonisation came the scourge of western capitalism, imposing values of white superiority that promoted the individual above the common good, that in turn enabled power and wealth to be accumulated by the few at the expense of the many and which resulted in the oppression of indigenous people everywhere and this continues today. Colonialism is not a thing of the past it is enshrined in our racist laws practices and institutions to this very day.
And so for me, returning to our roots calls on us to reconnect with the traditional wisdom and RADICAL values at the heart of Te Āo Māori - kaitaiakitanga, manaakitanga, whanaungatanga, kōtahitanga, aroha atu aroha mai - these are the radical values that I want to see shape the social and political landscape and future of this country. This is part of what decolonisation is all about.
So today we stand up against a govt
• hell bent on promoting the “fairytale of unlimited economic growth,”
• hell bent on promoting the values of self-interest and consumerism
• and hell bent on fuelling racism and division under the guise that “we are all one people” while at the same time attempting to crush the rights of Tangata Whenua to tino rangatiratanga and mana motuhake.
Not only have we become disconnected from the natural world but we have also become increasingly disconnected from one another. No where is this more blatant than in the dehumanising way that Israel has been treating the people of Gaza and the genocide that the Palestinian people are being subjected to after years of oppression and illegal occupation of their rightful homeland. This injustice is compounded even more by the complicity and hypocrisy of many western governments whose failure to act decisively is an added injustice outrage. We see similar ongoing colonisation and injustice being perpetrated in Kanaky, in Myanmar, Sudan, Ukraine, West Papua and Bangaldesh.
And so let us go back to Papatūānuku. We all need to find our rightful and respectful place in Te Taiao - the environment that nourishes us but which we are systematically destroying through our thoughtless choices and our insatiable desire for more for bigger for ‘better’. - what was once a luxury in my lifetime has now become a necessity in the eyes of many. When is enough enough?
Now more than ever we need to conserve and protect - not simply consume and deplete our natural resources. As that great political leader of his time - Mahatma Gandhi said “the world has enough for everyone’s need but not for everyone’s greed.”
Unlike this inspirational leader, it is abundantly clear that we cannot rely on our current political leaders to protect our environment and the natural resources of our country or to promote the transformational change and radical values that are the way forward for future generations.
Across the world (including in our own country) we are seeing the rise of far-right Governments hell-bent on protecting the power and privilege of the few at the expense of the many. Hell-bent on crushing any efforts by victims of injustice to stand up for their rights and protect themselves.
So let’s all become more RADICAL ourselves and rethink our choices. Let’s reconnect ourselves our children and our mokopuna with the natural world. Let’s take them to the ngahere for an experience of its simple beauty rather than buying them more plastic crap at the ‘Warewhare’. Let’s return to growing our own food and supporting local growers instead of relying on multinational corporations and big business who smother our products in plastic wrappers, spray them to disguise their age or pump them with artificial additives. Let’s work towards an economy where people and planet matter
Let’s become more frugal with the world’s resources but generous with our care, our compassion and our time for one another - for TIME is running out - Papatūānuku is rising and so must we.
Whakarongohia ki a Papatūānuku (Listen to Papatūānuku)
Oho mai, e te iwi, (wake up)
Maranga mai, Matike mai (Let’s rise up!)
Nō reira, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou tena rā tātou katoa.
