1/. “For two weeks, Scotland has become the centre of the world. Not just a place where we can meet one another, but a place where we can truly recognise one another.” Mindahi Bastida, Mexico
A delegation of 140 indigenous people have come to #Cop26 with a message. #COP26Glasgow
2/. “We came here to #COP26 because we knew world leaders would be here. But these world leaders are not listening to our leaders; to the indigenous leaders”
3/. “We are physically kicking out loggers, mining companies & land grabbers every day. We need your support. We need you to help to bring attention to what’s happening”
6/. “I have brought with me the hearts and souls of my community. I have also brought a message: that indigenous people are the solution to the problem”
9/. “We are not ‘tribes’. We’re indigenous peoples...In Argentina policies are designed to to invisiblize indigenous communities”
Sadly, rather than being treated as they should be - the most important people at #COP26 - indigenous leaders have been marginalised at #COP26Glasgow
10/. ''It's time to reforest our thoughts. It’s time to reforest our hearts. It’s time to reforest our actions'' @GuajajaraSonia
I don’t speak a word of Portuguese, Spanish or any indigenous languages & yet I understand everything that is said #Cop26#COP
11/. “Last month, my village was taken by a mine”
Here Helene Lindmark, a Sápmi elder from northern Sweden, is comforted after sharing her story about the recent destruction of her village by mining company, Boliden, digging for copper & gold. #COP26#COP26Glasgow#ClimateAction
12/. “Obama is in there. We are out here”
“Our leaders need to listen to the ancestral wisdom”
“We indigenous leaders need to be at the table for the decision-making process”
@BarackObama, why not come & meet Mindahi Bastida & some of the
140 indigenous people at #Cop26 ?
“We have a big problem with deforestation in my community
Factories are being built. Our rivers are being polluted. That is why I have travelled to #COP26
To ask the leaders of the world to really act in the face of this climate crisis.”
Chief Ninawa Huni Kui from the Amazon.
14/. On 1 Nov, Māori activist @IndiMiro put out an invitation:
“This #COP26, learn our histories, listen to our stories, honour our knowledge & get in line or get out of the way”
It’s not too late for #COP26Glasgow & the world to take up this invitation
15/. “My community has been fighting off the oil companies since before I was born. Our communities have been devastated. We’re here at #COP26 to try & ensure our voices are heard”
16/. “The battle to save Mother Earth will be the mother of all battles...We need to support, encourage, believe in women, because women are the Earth.”
17/. Ystdy, I spoke with Mindahi Bastida of the Otomi Toltec peoples
He holds two doctorates
His challenge is not only to be heard but also to be understood
Yet how can one to communicate something for which there are no words?
Something that has to be felt to be understood.
18/. “Inside #COP26 they’re trying to find absurd solutions to the #ClimateCrisis. Outside COP we have been able to build networks & find strength in our shared experience of genocide & ecocide inflicted on our people & our territories”
Having explained what he wanted to do & been granted permission by these Indigenous leaders, a Scottish man apologises to them for what our nations have done to their nations: for what our ancestors have done to their ancestors #COP26
22/. At the opening session of #COP26, @IndiMiro invited delegates to “learn our histories, listen to our stories, honour our knowledge…or get out of the way.”
As the summit wraps up, @MingaIndigena will bring Indigenous leaders to discuss whether that invitation was taken up.
23/. “We can’t continue to participate in conferences & pretend we’re driving effective change”
Members of the ‘Familia Indigena’ - formed at #COP26 - at a final press conference
The bonds forged between these groups has been one of the truly positive things to come out of COP.
24/. “Don’t close your eyes
Don’t bite your tongue
Look at what is happening
And raise your voice
Because each one of us is responsible for looking after our planet”
25/. Writing about her journey to #COP26 , Maka Monture Päki from Alaska, says:
“I think about the journey my ancestors made when they migrated down the Copper River. So many of us are descended from ancestors that journeyed in the service of their people. We are their echo.”
26/. “Water has memory. The land recognises us. When we are apart, the land misses us as much as we miss the land,” Tamara Archie of the Secwempec Nation, Canada
“The journey to return to my spirit has been long” she says
This is true for everyone
But we must make that journey
27/. Speaking to Indigenous activists like Nashieeli Valencia (Zapoteca), I’m reminded of the words of Lilla Watson
“If you have come here to help me you are wasting your time. But if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together” #COP26
28/. “Learn our histories
Listen to our stories
Honour our knowledge
Or get out of the way”
The politicians at #COP26 ignored this invitation but you don’t have to
It is an open invitation & one that rewards those that take it up with beauty beyond words
29/. “Beyond words”
Ay, there’s the rub
The barriers to truly understanding the message offered by Indigenous people aren’t linguistic or cultural
The lessons they bring can’t be set out in a briefing or PowerPoint
They have to be felt or experienced to be understood. #COP26
30/. As I leave Glasgow & my train follows the Clyde, past it’s source at Lowther Hill & carves it’s way down the spine of Britain on a pristine day, why don’t I feel the pessimism most are voicing about #COP26?
The task ahead looms like a mountain, but I feel resolutely hopeful
31/. Mine isn’t a naive hope that our politicians will do the right thing
Instead, it’s a hope grounded in knowledge of what humanity is capable of: something I’ve been reminded of by the Indigenous people at #COP26 - a little of which I’ve tried to capture in this thread above
32/. “If you have come here to help me you are wasting your time. But if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine then let us work together”
Julian Assange is scheduled to appear in a federal court in Saipan, a US commonwealth in the Pacific, where he’s expected to plead guilty to one charge under the Espionage Act & be sentenced to 5yrs
Given he’s already served this time, he should walk free
The public have a right to know what their govts do in their name
Julian #Assange’s prosecution represented a grave threat to press freedom, undermining the key role of journalists & publishers in scrutinizing govts misdeeds & creating a chilling effect
2/. From the start of the pandemic the govt had given #Palantir, a US spyware company with reported links to #CambridgeAnalytica, access to NHS health data
3/. Palantir worked on the NHS data store with #FacultyAI - a company with ties to Cummings
In 2020, @amnesty warned that Big Tech firms might use the COVID crisis to hoover up genomic data, obliterating the last frontier of privacy: our biological selves
1/. “It is the greatest mass-killing in recorded history; & it goes on daily, hourly, as regularly as the ticking of your watch”
Arthur Koestler’s 1944 essay expressing frustration at the failure of the world to acknowledge Nazi atrocities resonates today wethescreamers.com
2/ “There are a few of us…yelling at you in newspapers…Now & then we reach your ear…But it only lasts a minute. You shake yourself like puppies who’ve got their fur wet; then the screen again descends & you walk on, protected by the dream-barrier which stifles all sound”
#Gaza
3/ Koestler notes maniacs lose contact with reality so “perhaps it’s we, the screamers, who react in a sound & healthy way to the reality which surrounds us, whereas you are the neurotics who totter about in a screened fantasy world because you lack the faculty to face the facts”
“They got me!” Liz Truss tells far-right kingpin, Steve Bannon, before going on to explain that, to have effectively tackled “the deep state” that runs Britain & its institutions, she would have “needed a bigger bazooka”! #LizTruss #BritanniaUnchained
"I was just saying it like it is & that’s what people respect me for"(!)
Liz Truss’ compares her premiership to a one night stand & says she was just “fattening the pig” for slaughter & that she should have gaslit the public like Rishi Sunak is doing (!)
"I faced the most almighty backlash...from the usual suspects in the media” Liz Truss
“Truss's decline is simultaneously tragic & horrifying but the claim that the media conspired against her can't go unchallenged. There are front pages praising her to the rafters” @mrjamesob
2/. It’s clear that the bomb blasts in Kerman on the 4th anniversary of #Soleimani's assassination by the US, could lead to a quick ratcheting up of dangerous tensions
After Oct 7, the US sent two aircraft carrier groups to the region
3/. Three US soldiers were killed & two dozen injured in an unmanned aerial drone attack on US forces stationed in northeastern #Jordan near the Syrian border, President @JoeBiden said