Vigil - In solidarity with the martyred palestinian and lebanese journalists - Simcoe Park (CBC Toronto)
The speakers which were rented, turned out to be blown (damaged).
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00:00As of today, 178 journalists have been murdered by Israeli occupation forces, 35 journalists
00:14have been reported injured, 2 journalists have been reported missing, and 54 journalists
00:20have been reported arrested, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists.
00:25The Israeli occupation has set a bloody record for the most journalists killed in a single
00:28year.
00:29Shame.
00:30My name is Daniel Opasinas, and I'm a first-year journalism student at Toronto Metropolitan
00:37University.
00:38Journalists have always taken my breath away.
00:42They have a unique ability to put their own wants and needs on hold to make sure the needs
00:47of others are heard.
00:50Journalists put themselves in the most extraordinary circumstances to bring you the stories of
00:53places...
00:54Really?
00:55Journalists put themselves in the most extraordinary circumstances to bring you the stories of
01:02people you can never meet, the places you can never be, and people you can never otherwise
01:08hear.
01:09Under international law, journalists are to be treated as civilians.
01:13They are uninvolved parties with no more rights than your average mother, father, or child.
01:18Their civilian status is meant to keep us safe.
01:21The work you do when you're faced with an occupation that doesn't distinguish between
01:25civilian and combatant.
01:27Since October 7th, the Israeli occupation has murdered over 40,000 Gazabi civilians.
01:32Shame.
01:33Shame.
01:34My professor, Sonia Fatar, spoke to CMU students in a faculty meet-and-greet last week.
01:40She shared an important quote.
01:42The job of a journalist is to write down what someone doesn't want written down.
01:46Anything else is public relations.
01:49It's clear that the Israeli occupation has something they don't want written down.
01:54Two weeks ago, Israeli occupation forces raided and shut down Al Jazeera's office in Ramallah,
01:59the West Bank.
02:00In my classes, we talk a lot about ethical reporting.
02:06A journalist's job is to state facts, no matter their personal feelings about the topic.
02:10As a journalist, you do not exist.
02:12You have no feelings and no thoughts.
02:14You exist merely to amplify the voices of those who cannot for themselves.
02:18This selflessness is what brought me to journalism.
02:21It's what drives me every day to uncover and contextualize the world around me.
02:25So I want to share some facts with you today.
02:29Hamza El-Dedow was a 27-year-old journalist working for Al Jazeera.
02:33On January 7th, 2024, El-Dedow and his colleague Mustafa Thuraya were on their way home after
02:38covering an airstrike on the Abu Al-Najjar family home.
02:42Thuraya deployed a drone on the scene of the strike, grabbing aerial footage of the home.
02:46Shortly after, an Israeli drone struck the group, injuring two Palestine Today TV journalists.
02:51The group took the set aside to leave, and on their drive away from the scene, El-Dedow
02:56and Thuraya's car was struck by a second missile.
02:59When asked to comment on the attack, an Israeli Defense Forces spokesperson said that El-Dedow
03:04and Thuraya were traveling in the car with, quote, a terrorist who operated an aircraft
03:09in a way that put IDF forces at risk.
03:12They were not caught in the crossfire.
03:14They were murdered.
03:17On July 31st, 2024, Ismail Al-Ghul, an Al-Jazeera Arabic reporter, and cameraman Remy Al-Refi
03:25were reporting on the Israeli Defense Forces killing of Hamas leader Ismail Hanaya in Iran.
03:31The two were outside the leader's former home in the Al-Shati refugee camp near Gaza City
03:36when an Israeli drone strike interrupted their broadcast and was taken as a warning to leave promptly.
03:41The journalists in press jackets climbed into their van labeled TV and began down the road
03:46where they were struck by a second missile, killing Al-Ghul and Al-Refi.
03:50In a public statement, Israeli Defense Forces claimed Al-Ghul was a Hamas militant and that,
03:54quote, as part of his role in the military wing, Al-Ghul instructed other operatives
04:00on how to record operations and was legally involved in recording and publicizing attacks
04:05against IDF troops.
04:08His activities in the field were a vital part of Hamas' military activity, end quote.
04:13Al-Jazeera Arabic denies Al-Ghul's involvement with the militant group.
04:18There was no conflict in their area of reporting.
04:21They were not caught in the crossfire.
04:22They were murdered.
04:24The pendulum is swinging in a direction towards a world where telling the truth is a crime worthy of death.
04:30The right to free press is a cornerstone to a thriving society.
04:33Journalism holds up a mirror to democracy, mirroring its ugly head to what it's become.
04:38I want to be a journalist because I believe in a world of accountability.
04:42I want to tell stories.
04:45Finally, I want to share a poem that many of us have heard but frames our time together
04:50today so well.
04:52This is If I Must Die by Rifat Al-Aroub.
04:58If I must die, ye must live to tell my story, to sell my things, to buy a piece of cloth
05:04and some strings, make it white with a long tail, so that a child somewhere in Gaza or
05:09looking heaven in the eye, awaiting his dad, left in a blaze, and bid no one farewell,
05:14not even to his flesh, not even to himself.
05:17Seize the kite, my kite you made, flying above, and thinks for a moment an angel is there.
05:23If I must die, let it bring hope, let it be a tale.
05:28Thank you so much.
05:36So next we have Adham.
05:39From having been born in Tuklam refugee camp in Palestine and being raised between its
05:44tight alleys, witnessing the second Intifada, and surviving through its hardships, to growing
05:49into the role of an organizer with PYM Toronto for the past three years, Adham's commitment
05:54to the Palestinian liberation will never waver.
05:57So Adham, please come join us.
06:04Assalamu alaikum and hello everyone.
06:07First of all, thank you to the organizers for organizing this and giving me the time
06:12to speak.
06:15To be honest with you all, I had wrote a speech coming here today, and it's been a very tough
06:24week.
06:25It just feels like there hasn't been anything to say that hasn't been already said.
06:31With that being said, I think it's important that this moment of demoralization and this
06:41week of remembrance, this week of the one year mark really dawning on us and reminding
06:54us that the Western world really doesn't care about Palestinians.
06:59The CBC really doesn't care about Palestinians.
07:02Shame.
07:04The Palestinian lives, unfortunately, have been proven by the West to not equate too
07:15much.
07:16And this is the narrative we're combating.
07:19This is why we keep going.
07:21This is why we must keep going.
07:23Because no matter what they try to tell us, our cause is just, our cause is right.
07:31And our cause is a cause for all free people of this world.
07:37And with that, I guess I'll start the speech that I wrote, which I was kind of second-guessing
07:46about saying because words kind of feel dull at this moment.
07:51As we arrive at one full year since the genocide in Gaza started, as we stand here to read
08:01out the latest stats of the human loss, damage, and oppression that the Zionist entity has
08:10inflicted on our people, and as we stand here today to honor our martyrs, to keep their
08:20memories alive, we must really understand what a martyr really means in the Palestinian
08:26context.
08:29We Palestinians have been prosecuted and discriminated against in so many ways for over a century.
08:39Our people have been experiencing extreme injustice and subjugation for as long as this
08:47generation remembers.
08:50We have been screaming, crawling, and fighting for our right to live and our right of sovereignty
08:59for far too long.
09:01For Palestinians, martyrdom has been the only way to find the final salvation in this cruel
09:11and unjust reality.
09:13Even in death, Palestinians often don't find peace.
09:18The West and its allies have never had much of a taste for martyrdom.
09:25Perhaps it's because they have never had to fight off a foreign occupation for so long,
09:32or perhaps because in their colonial and imperial pasts, they have been in the business of making
09:40martyrs rather than becoming martyrs themselves.
09:44The West could never understand the resilience and steadfastness of Palestinians.
09:52Martyrdom has been directly linked to the Palestinian concepts of honor, manliness,
10:00and moral superiority.
10:02Since earlier this week, we have all been seeing the statements made by our politicians
10:09like Jasmeet Singh, Cleo Pallaver, and our Prime Minister Justin Trudeau condemning what
10:15happened a year ago.
10:17But there is absolutely no mention of any of the Palestinians killed since then.
10:22Shame!
10:25The hypocrisy of the Western world is as clear as ever.
10:30Fidel Castro once said, the imperialists see extremists everywhere, it's the black
10:36men of the world powers.
10:39We all know the accusations, we all know how they like to flip the script, we all know
10:46the smearing of truth and profiliation of lies.
10:50Those who colonize the whole world are trying to convince us that resistance to the West
10:57that resistance to their colonialism is terrorism.
11:02Shame!
11:04That resistance is the opposite of that.
11:08Resistance is rooted in the ideological conviction of one's quest and journey to obtain freedom
11:19and justice.
11:21Resistance is an idea that transcends any individual or faction, and it cannot be killed,
11:30it cannot be silenced, and it will never cease to exist.
11:35The people of Palestine and the people of Gaza are not just numbers.
11:42Every single one of them had a story, a dream, and aspirations to live up to.
11:50Every single one of them had a future, a family and friends that loved them and are devastated
11:57they no longer exist in this world.
12:00I want to ask all of you to think of Palestinians as not only victims, I want you to think of
12:08Palestinians as proud people who love life.
12:13Think of Palestinians as people who, against all odds, will prevail no matter the conditions.
12:20Think of Palestinians like an olive tree that is so robust
12:28that it's capable of regenerating itself over and over, even when the above ground structure
12:35of the tree is destroyed.
12:37Just like the olive tree, we still manage to survive through the hardship of the occupation
12:45and live on by existing, but most importantly, by resisting.
12:51We Palestinians have the right to resist until we obtain our liberation by any means necessary.
13:02Peace be upon the souls of our martyrs.
13:06Peace be upon our innocent children and our oppressed people.
13:11Peace be upon our great people as they expose the hypocritical Western capitalist world
13:19and its flawed laws.
13:21As they expose the one-eyed organizations.
13:26Peace be upon our great people as they expose the world government and its double standards.
13:34It doesn't matter how much they try to silence us.
13:37It doesn't matter how much they try to label us as terrorists.
13:42We will continue to fight for liberation.
13:45We will continue to fight for justice, even if the whole world stands against us.
13:52We will continue to fight for our oppressed people, for our people who have been sacrificing.
14:00Our people who have sacrificed entire bloodlines in this quest for liberation.
14:06Even if this fight continues for another three, four years, we have fought for a hundred years.
14:15We will continue to fight for another hundred because our cause is just and because our
14:21fight for liberation is an honorable one.
14:24And it is one that we will stand with no matter what they try to say about us in the media.
14:34And even if CBC doesn't want to cover it, we will continue to show the world.
14:39We will continue to be on the streets.
14:41We will continue to advocate for our cause because the fight for liberation will never
14:51because the fight for liberation will not stop at any of us.
14:57Regardless of who's martyred, the fight for liberation will continue
15:03even if it lasts another hundred years.
15:06We must, as much as we feel guilt, rage and anger to what's been happening,
15:13we must ground ourselves in the ideological conviction of our quest,
15:19of the Palestinian quest and journey to freedom.
15:22We cannot operate only under a framework of guilt, rage and anger.
15:29We must understand that this cause and this fight for liberation will continue.
15:34And I can't stress this enough, and I will keep saying it,
15:38that the fight for the liberation of Palestine will continue.
15:43And we at the Diaspora, and we in the West, have to continue to shorten the contradictions,
15:49have to continue to show the Western world that our people are worthy,
15:56that our people are honorable, that our people deserve to live,
16:03our people deserve a homeland, and our people deserve to be free.
16:16Thank you, Adam.
16:19Before we get to our next speaker, I just want to remind everyone there is a petition.
16:23There has been a QR code that was being handed out.
16:26There's also QR codes on the table over there, so you don't have to go right now,
16:31but at some point it would be great if everyone could scan that QR code, sign the petition.
16:37If you don't want to get up and walk over there,
16:39you can also go to the Mississauga Streets Bill for Palestine Instagram,
16:44and it's in our link in bio.
16:46All right, so next we have Lulwama, who is a PhD candidate from Botswana.
16:53She's a self-described poet and a lover of words and how words build worlds.
16:58Lulwama's current academic research is focused on how the colonial history behind the climate crisis
17:04informs narratives, visions, vocabularies of climate justice
17:09in relation to the African continent.
17:12Lulwama, please join us.
17:19In Setswana we say,
17:22which is hello.
17:23So, I want to preface my speech by using the censorship of African Stream,
17:29which is a pan-Africanist news organization,
17:35as an example of why our struggles for liberation are inherently interconnected.
17:41African Stream, a pan-Africanist, anti-imperial, and anti-colonial youth-led media house,
17:48was recently banned by Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube.
17:54They were censored after U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken made false,
17:58unsubstantiated claims against it
18:01because African Stream offers alternative media perspectives.
18:07African Stream's ban highlights how unity of any kind is a threat to empire
18:12and to the entire imperial core.
18:16What we are witnessing today is a violent ideological warfare,
18:21both through banning African Stream
18:23and the killing of journalists in Palestine and Lebanon.
18:27What the global elites are trying very hard to do
18:30is to suppress a revolution from taking place.
18:35It is wildly disrespectful, incredibly racist,
18:38and unbelievably condescending that the West continues to uphold the notion
18:43that the oppressed cannot speak or cannot be reliable narrators of their own suffering.
18:53Today, we stand here because the world has failed and continues to fail
18:57the people of Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, Sudan, Congo,
19:03and in general, those who are the subjects of an ongoing, ruthless,
19:08unending, and particularly sadistic colonial violence worldwide.
19:14Today, we stand here as a collector filled with an inexplicably heavy grief
19:20and an incandescent rage,
19:22not just because we are mourning the hundreds of incredibly brave Palestinian and Lebanese
19:29journalists who have been intentionally targeted and murdered by Israel and its imperial masters,
19:35but because we are also mourning the fiercely honest stories
19:40they committed themselves to sharing with us until the very end.
19:45Despite some of the most arduous and inhumane circumstances,
19:49they are forced into navigating.
19:52We are here because we carry the weight of the searing truth in their words in our hearts,
19:58and because the brokenness of our hearts
20:01recognizes the necessity of unwavering truth
20:05in a time of colonial powers' attempts at silencing stories that threaten an empire
20:11and threaten to untangle the lies on which the bloodthirsty imperial core
20:16of the West has been built upon.
20:18We are here because we will not bend to the lies that continue to bury the innocent children of
20:24Gaza underneath the rubble,
20:27and if they do not die from non-stop bombing and weaponized starvation,
20:31then they become young witnesses to a genocide that is trying to be erased from public memory.
20:38As James Baldwin aptly writes,
20:40the children are always ours,
20:43every single one of them,
20:45all over the globe,
20:47and I am beginning to suspect that whoever is incapable of recognizing this is maybe incapable
20:53of morality.
20:54The children will always be ours,
20:57and if none of the children of Gaza,
21:00of Congo,
21:01of Sudan,
21:03of Lebanon,
21:03if none of the world's children do not belong to any of us,
21:07then let us burn down the whole system
21:09so we can start afresh and build new worlds
21:12with new words from the ashes of empire,
21:15because the children of the world are beloved
21:17and they belong to each of us,
21:19regardless of where they come from or what they look like.
21:22They are ours.
21:27This is why stories matter,
21:29and why it matters even more who tells them,
21:32because language is powerful and therefore language is a place of struggle,
21:37liberation,
21:38a space of recovery and freedom for the oppressed.
21:43Over the last year we have seen western corporate media become not only complicit in war crimes
21:49and disregarding international law,
21:51but bend over backwards to protect the diseased white supremacist status quo
21:56that is eroding all morality from our world.
22:00The corporate media uses passive voices,
22:02where they invert victimhood,
22:05where there are no aggressors,
22:07and call resistance to colonial domination terrorism
22:10all to hide Israel's crimes against humanity.
22:14They write stories where bombs fall miraculously from the sky,
22:18as if bombs appear out of nowhere
22:22and no one is ever to blame for setting refugee camps on fire
22:26or leaving children limbless.
22:28They are willing to abandon their values and discard their integrity,
22:32all to tell the wrong stories on purpose
22:35and to change the narrative in order to destroy the violent reality
22:39of a decades-long brutal occupation
22:41and a system of apartheid that must be uprooted
22:44if we are, as a global society, to recover what's left of our humanity.
22:51The framing, sourcing, selection of facts
22:55and language choices used to report on Palestine in the western media
22:59is rife with systemic biases which whitewash Israel's crimes against humanity,
23:05which distorts the Palestinian struggle.
23:08This is why it matters who tells the story of resistance
23:12because language is power.
23:15And because language is powerful and it is a site of struggle,
23:19Israel is systematically killing storytellers,
23:23orators and truth-tellers to sanitize the stories we hear coming out of Gaza.
23:29But truth, much like light, will always find its way out.
23:35No matter how small the crack may be,
23:37it will always find an opening to spill into.
23:41Israel's genocide on Gaza has been the deadliest modern conflict for journalists.
23:46More than 180 media workers have been killed,
23:49178 orators for the crime of daring to sound the alarm on a racist, settler, colonial state,
24:00committing a televised genocide against an indigenous population
24:04who resists giving up their right to life
24:08and who dare to refuse to give up the right to live on their land.
24:12Since the war in Gaza started,
24:15journalists have been paying the highest price for their reporting the truth
24:19and for refusing to bend to the will and the wills of empire.
24:23They go there without protection, without equipment,
24:26without the presence of the international community,
24:30without food and without water to do the hard work of holding up a miller
24:34to the rest of the world and condemn them from abandoning them to the wolves
24:39in a time of much-needed solidarity.
24:42The Commission to Protect Journalists Program Director Carlos Martinez de la Serna in New York
24:48said every time a journalist is killed, injured, arrested,
24:52or forced to go into exile, we lose fragments of the truth.
24:58Those responsible for these casualties face dual trials,
25:01one under international law and another before history's unforgiving gaze.
25:09History will never forget, and neither will we.
25:13A quote from an Al Jazeera article states that more than 1,500 journalists
25:17from dozens of U.S. news organizations have signed an open letter
25:22protesting the Western media's coverage of Israel's atrocities
25:25against Palestinians since the October 7th attack,
25:30condemning Israel's targeted killing of reporters in Gaza,
25:34and criticizing Western media bias.
25:37They write that newsrooms are, quote,
25:39accountable for dehumanizing rhetoric that has served to justify
25:44the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians, end quote.
25:47And they undermine Palestinian, Arab, and Muslim perspectives
25:51and have invoked inflammatory language that reinforces Islamophobic and racist, quote, tropes.
25:59Val Hooks writes that like desire, language is inherently meant to disrupt.
26:05Language refuses to be contained within boundaries,
26:08and the stories being told by Lebanese and Palestinian journalists
26:12did and continue to do exactly that.
26:15They punctured and puncture reality.
26:18They jolted the world awake and showed all of us all the ways in which the stories,
26:24in which stories can be medicine if they're told correctly.
26:29They gifted the whole world new perspectives
26:32on unaddressed and septic colonial wounds we refuse to nurse.
26:37They worked to reshape consciousness in ways that challenged power.
26:41By puncturing the comforts of the status quo,
26:44they challenged us to rethink how we are complicit in helping
26:47the institutions that we belong to and serve crush
26:51the unending struggle for liberation and helped us to connect
26:54all the ways in which our struggle for liberation and for freedom
26:58will always be interconnected because the children of the world will always belong to us.
27:04Importantly, their stories showed us how we need to constantly resist
27:09the normalization of violence, racism, subjugation, oppression, and domination
27:15because it is no measure of good health to be well-adjusted to a profoundly sick society.
27:21It matters who tells the story.
27:23And the level of censorship happening now shows
27:26us all the ways in which language is a tool of power.
27:30And we are here to show that we will never capitulate to the gaslighting lies of empire
27:35and its colonial gaze that tries to convince us that we,
27:39the oppressed, can never be trustworthy orators of our own oppressions.
27:44Words can build worlds or they can burn entire worlds down.
27:49So this is why we must continue to tell all the stories that we own
27:53and those still yet to be birthed from our perspectives,
27:56because we are the most present witnesses of a white supremacist history that,
28:02as much as it tries, will never erase our presence from the world
28:06because we refuse to be defined or define ourselves using the words of the imperial core.
28:13Chinua Achebe writes that until the lions have their own historians,
28:18the history of the hunt will always glorify the hunter.
28:21And this highlights that history is often written by
28:25those in power or those who have the ability to tell their stories.
28:30In this metaphor, the hunter represents those who dominate or control the narrative,
28:35while the lion symbolizes the oppressed or marginalized groups
28:39whose perspectives and experiences are overlooked, misrepresented,
28:44silenced, and censored by the imperial colonial project.
28:49Chinua Achebe teaches us three things. Perspective in history is critical.
28:54Representation is necessary in world building.
28:58Power dynamics are pivotal to recognize in our intersecting identities.
29:04In the midst of all this unbearable chaos, the moment we find ourselves in is a portal.
29:10It is an invitation.
29:12As Aram Dutiroy says, we can choose to walk through it,
29:15dragging the carcasses of our prejudice and hatred,
29:18our avarice, our databanks and dead ideas, our dead rivers and smoky skies behind us,
29:25or we can walk through lightly with little baggage,
29:29ready to imagine another world and ready to fight for it.
29:34As we gather here to mourn the journalists killed by Israel,
29:37we must also remember the hope of the decolonial world
29:41their words continue to invite us into with truth,
29:44how their words continue to invite us into a space of being more conscious,
29:49present, and more awake witnesses of the world we all deserve,
29:53when free from racism, imperialism, colonialism, domination,
29:58and a hate that is eroding our morality.
30:01It is in the honor of the martyrs that we continue to fight.
30:05Long live the Intifada.
30:06Long live the revolution.
30:13To end, I'll just recite this brief poem called
30:17Meditations in an Emergency by Cameron Awkward Rich.
30:21I wake up and it breaks my heart.
30:25I draw the blinds and the thrill of rain breaks my heart.
30:29I go outside.
30:31I ride the train, walk among the buildings,
30:34men in Monday suits, the flight of doves,
30:37the city of tents beneath the underpass,
30:40the huddled mass, old women hawking roses,
30:43and children, all of them break my heart.
30:46There's a dream I have in which I love the world.
30:49I run from end to end like fingers through her hair.
30:53There are no borders, only wind.
30:56Like you, I was born.
30:58Like you, I was raised in the institution of dreaming.
31:02Hand on my heart.
31:04Hand on my stupid heart.
31:13All right, so we have just a couple more people
31:16who are going to be joining us today,
31:19and then we will close off for the evening.
31:21I am going to be inviting up shortly
31:24some folks who volunteered to do a spiritual song for us,
31:27Joey Twins and Vinci.
31:29I believe Vinci said,
31:30maybe you'd like to say a few words to start,
31:33and then we will get the song started.
31:39Hi.
31:43My name is Beneci.
31:48Which means the Thunderbird warrior woman
31:51who walked all the way.
31:54And I have some fellow
31:56Nishquiz, Nishnabes, and Nichis here
32:00that are going to be gifting an honor song.
32:04And it's the tearful honor song.
32:06And it's for when our loved ones
32:10make that journey to the sky world.
32:13So it's just honoring them and helping them
32:16move towards that sky world in a good way.
32:20We're just waiting for somebody to bring us a drum.
32:23They should be here soon.
32:25Oh, is that it?
32:28I think the other woman is there.
32:30She's going to bring a hand drum.
32:34And I have my fellow sister here, my Nishquiz.
32:38I look at her as a warrior and to me a knowledge keeper.
32:44So I take her as that.
32:45And my sister, Joey, she carries a lot of songs.
32:50She knows songs.
32:52And she came here to gift that honor song,
32:56which is the tearful honor song.
32:59And I also have the other little young youth here,
33:03which I'm always honored to walk by.
33:06And I was just thinking of something yesterday.
33:10I can't say the word.
33:14Aurora Borealis.
33:17I can't say it, sorry.
33:20I can't say it.
33:20I'm just going to say the Northern Lights.
33:25So in our, in different ways and tribes,
33:29I'm Anishinaabe Nakawewin, a very old tribe.
33:34I had a settlement here.
33:35Well, not me, my ancestors before Confederacy.
33:39And we migrated because our people were getting genocided.
33:45And we were being murdered and tortured and so on.
33:50And we believe in those Northern Lights
33:55when they show themselves to us in a powerful way.
33:59That means that people that have brought truth
34:02to our world, to this realm,
34:05and ones that we've lost, martyrs, you know, warriors,
34:13they're dancing for them.
34:15They're dancing for us.
34:17Those are those spirits from the sky world.
34:20And they come here to honor us and to dance for us.
34:23And also to take those ones that we've lost to the sky world,
34:29to help them, you know, guide them to that sky world
34:32in a good way, what we call paradise or heaven and so on.
34:38So it's kind of sad.
34:41I've been really, really sad with everything.
34:44I think the past whole year,
34:46I had to take some time off from coming to rallies for a while.
34:50And I'm happy to be back and to be here
34:53with my fellow little nishkwees.
34:56You know, me too, I lost somebody.
34:59And I was telling my sons last night, I said, look,
35:02I said, the Northern Lights are out.
35:04I said, they come to take somebody very powerful,
35:08somebody that shows the way, that walks that righteous path,
35:12that walks that red road and that journey.
35:16My auntie called me as soon as I sat down here.
35:19She messaged me.
35:22And she just told me that I lost my uncle, my dad's brother.
35:29And he was like a dad to me.
35:32He was a sun dance and a rain dance lodge carrier, sweat lodge.
35:38He did a lot of work.
35:40He went overseas to the Middle East in his time.
35:44He was a really old man.
35:46And it seems like he's making his way with those journalists
35:51because he went there and he did work.
35:53He put in his work.
35:55His time was finished here.
35:58You know, and with these journalists, everybody that we lose,
36:03we got to honor them too, you know, and he'll cry, he'll be angry.
36:09But at the same time, we always have to laugh.
36:14To remember the humorous parts too.
36:18You know, we have to honor them in every single way that we can.
36:23And that's what I have to say.
36:29You know, I just say free Palestine and free Lebanon.
36:37So I'm just waiting for the drum.
36:39Maybe, is the girl, is the lady?
36:44Oh, okay.
36:46There's drums there?
36:49Oh, okay.
36:49It's been here all this time.
36:51I was just trying to buy time.
36:54Anishinabeg and Cree and Plains Cree Treaty Six Territory.
37:00Muscogee, Alberta.
37:02Burmesekin Band.
37:04Four Band Reservation in Alberta.
37:07From the Bear Clan.
37:09And my Indian name is Redstone Woman That Walks the Fire.
37:14Um, I just want to acknowledge our higher power, the creator, God,
37:19or whoever your higher power is, that's on you.
37:23That's our connection.
37:24I want to give thanks for that beautiful blessing today that we wake up today.
37:30You know, and be blessed with that and take it to the limit.
37:35Don't cheat yourself, you know, because in our Indian way, we don't,
37:41we don't, we don't be sad for lost loved ones.
37:46We celebrate their life while they were here.
37:50So that's how we, we do our celebration of life after a four-day fire.
37:57And so with that said, you know, I have to learn with that.
38:00I have to walk with that.
38:01It's hard.
38:02Trust me when I tell you, it is hard to lose a loved one.
38:05And every day we lose loved ones, you know.
38:08And I was telling Vanessa when I was sitting over there that,
38:14you know, even if there was only a few people here,
38:18there's a thousand ancestors standing here with you.
38:23So it's not about physical, it's about spiritual, you know, you're never alone.
38:31You're never alone.
38:33And I just want you to hear them words, you know.
38:39And I want to sing this song, a tearful honor song.
38:43And it's, it was sung by Red Bull singers from Saskatchewan.
38:48It's an old song.
38:50And we sing this song when, when we, when we're mourning and grieving
38:54and we're sending off our loved one to that western doorway,
38:58when we live, when we leave this physical world.
39:02And so anyways, that's what I have to say for now.
39:07And I encourage you, if you can, close your eyes and feel this song,
39:14Hai Hai Miigwetch.
39:44Hugs, hugs are free.
39:50Have a good night.
39:51And Hai Hai, thank you for allowing us to sing for you.
39:56And I felt that.
39:58I still feel it.
40:00And the love that we have for each other.
40:04And that's unconditional love.
40:10Thank you so much.
40:11We greatly appreciate it.
40:14Yeah, it's, we're really, we're really grateful for, for all of you for joining us.
40:20We have one more speech.
40:23Iman is going to join us again, just to read, read a speech.
40:27And then we will have some more singing.
40:30And then we will close out this event.
40:32Thank you all so much for joining us.
40:34Iman, please come back up.
40:37Standing in solidarity, defiant in the face of injustice, and refusing to be silenced.
40:48We gather outside the CBC building, not just to honor the 178 Palestinian and Lebanese
40:55martyrs, murdered by the Israeli occupation forces in Gaza, the West Bank, and Lebanon.
41:02But to call out the outrageous complicity of our own media in covering up a genocide.
41:11These journalists were not just victims of genocide.
41:15They were targeted assassinations.
41:19They risked everything to expose the brutality, to bear witness to the atrocities unfolding
41:26every day under Israeli occupation.
41:29They showed us the charred remains of homes, the bodies buried under the rubble, the blood
41:42running in the streets of Gaza.
41:46They told us the truth.
41:49And for that, they were silenced, shot, bombed, erased from this world.
42:00And their deaths are not accidents.
42:05This is not collateral damage.
42:08This is a deliberate campaign to silence the truth, to make sure that the horrors inflicted
42:16on the Palestinian and Lebanese people never reach the world's conscience.
42:22And what do we see here, in so-called Canada, from our so-called free press?
42:30Silence.
42:32Silence that makes the CBC and much of our media an accomplice to these crimes, an accomplice
42:38to genocide.
42:41Shame.
42:44Let's be very clear.
42:46The blood of these journalists is not just on the hands of the Israeli government.
42:51It is on the hands of every media outlet that twists, distorts, and suppresses the truth.
42:59CBC, by refusing to tell the real story of Palestine and Lebanon, you are complicit in
43:06the slaughter of innocents.
43:10By framing this as a conflict between equals, you whitewash the reality of genocide, apartheid,
43:17and ethnic cleansing.
43:20You distort the power dynamics, reducing the occupation of an entire people to a vague
43:26and misleading conflict.
43:30This is not journalism.
43:33This is propaganda.
43:36The Canadian media has played a pivotal role in sanitizing the crimes of the Israeli government.
43:42When airstrikes obliterate families in Gaza, they call it self-defense.
43:52Shame.
43:52Shame.
43:54When Israeli snipers murder children, it's called maintaining order.
44:01Shame.
44:03And when journalists are shot dead, the media looks the other way,
44:07refusing to hold the killers accountable.
44:11Shame.
44:13We stand here today to say, CBC, CTV, Global News, Toronto Star, Toronto Sun, National Post,
44:23Globe and Mail, the entire Canadian and Western media establishment, you have blood on your hands.
44:33You have failed in your duty to inform the public.
44:36You have abandoned the journalistic ethics to toe the line of corporate interests and
44:41political convenience.
44:46Shame on you.
44:48As you remain silent, Palestinians and Lebanese people continue to die.
44:53Journalists continue to be murdered, slaughtered.
44:58We will not stand for this.
45:00We will not let the truth be buried with the bodies of those who sought to tell it.
45:06To every Canadian media outlet, your silence is betrayal.
45:11Your failure to call this what it is, genocide, is an act of complicity.
45:18Your refusal to name the crimes of the Israeli state is a stain on every broadcast, every article,
45:25every single word you print and you speak.
45:29And to the memory of the brave journalists who gave their lives to expose the holes of
45:35the occupation, we say this.
45:40We will not forget you.
45:43We will not let your stories die.
45:47We will be the voice that carries your truth.
45:51We will demand that this genocide be named for what it is and we will hold accountable
45:59every institution that seeks to bury your memory in silence.
46:05This is not just a vigil of mourning.
46:10It is a call to action.
46:13A call for every one of us to stand up, to raise our voices,
46:19to break the silence that is complicity in this ongoing massacre.
46:26To our brave martyred journalists, to their families, to all the martyrs
46:31of Palestine and Lebanon and all around the world, let us fight in your name.
46:38Let us make sure your deaths were not in vain.
46:42Let us ensure that your truth pierces through the lies and the silence and the indifference.
46:49Because silence is complicity.
46:53And complicity kills.
47:02All right.
47:02Thank you so much, Ma'an.
47:04That is our last official speech of the evening.
47:07But I would now like to invite Muna Ayesh up to sing us a song.
47:13Muna is a Palestinian activist and Da'fqei coach for adults, youth, and children.
47:20She was born and raised in Kuwait.
47:22Her parents were Nakba survivors who were forced to leave their homes in Al-Majdal,
47:28Ashkelon, to Gaza.
47:30So Muna, welcome.
47:34Oh, my ears.
47:40Yeah, I'm gonna sing two songs tonight.
47:42The first song is talking about us Palestinians, that we are staying in our land.
47:49And until that pain is relieved, the pain is gone, and we will never forget.
47:55The pain is gone, and we will never leave our land.
47:58So I'll start with the same song.
48:00It's in Arabic.
48:01Okay.
48:02And if you know Arabic, please, you can sing with me the first part.
48:05Who knows Arabic?
48:06Who knows the song?
48:08So,
48:11Okay.
48:14Okay.
48:14Whatever you know.
48:15Okay.
48:16The letter or the sound L.
48:18And this repeating, they use it.
48:21The only people who understand the sound L, when they repeat the sound L,
48:26is the people of the village and the relatives of the prison.
48:29So when they are going there to visit the relatives at the top of the hill,
48:33they are going there and they're singing the song.
48:36Our last speaker closed us off for the evening.
48:39Once you have a candle, we are inviting people to come get it lit by someone who has a lighter,
48:45which should be walking around somewhere.
48:48Or another lit candle.
48:49Amazing.
48:50And come place it.
48:52Where are we placing it?
48:56Along here, where the process are just to close us off for the evening.
49:00But first, we're going to have Amit close us off and then we can do the candles.
49:07Thanks, Jenna.
49:09Out of all the events we've organized over the last year,
49:12this one has been the most difficult.
49:15The most heart-wrenching.
49:16As we prepared for tonight, we grew closer to the martyred journalists whose names we honor,
49:22and we were reminded of the extraordinary courage they showed through their work.
49:27Reporting the truth in the face of overwhelming violence and oppression,
49:30these journalists made the ultimate sacrifice for their people and for the world.
49:35The journey to gather the stories of these martyrs was an uphill battle.
49:39Pages upon pages of data about these brave souls were scrubbed from the internet,
49:44wiped away in an effort to erase their legacy and bury their sacrifice.
49:49But let me be clear.
49:51We will not forget.
49:53Though they are no longer here to tell the stories of Palestine and Lebanon,
49:57we have been given the sacred responsibility to tell the stories of the storytellers.
50:02We stand here tonight to ensure their voices live on,
50:06and we make this vow.
50:08The memory of these brave journalists will endure,
50:11and it will echo in a free Palestine.
50:14Woo!
50:17Before we close, I want to acknowledge something important.
50:21Tonight marks the beginning of Yom Kippur, a holy night in the Jewish tradition,
50:25believed to be the day when God seals the fate of those who will live or die in the coming year.
50:30And tonight, I pray that all of our oppressed sisters and brothers
50:34in Palestine, Lebanon, and around the world,
50:38and all of you here, will be sealed in the book of life, inshallah.
50:44Thank you all for being here.
50:46Please don't leave alone.
50:47When you get home, let someone know you're safe.
50:50Thank you, and good night.
50:58And also, please grab a candle and get someone to light it.