- 4 months ago
Most of the audio had to be corrected (the other speaker on the left was also turned off and not used, nor was the amplifier, due to said musicians who didn't show), finally somebody turned up the volume on the last two clips, however the second last speaker didn't hold the microphone close enough, I could barely hear him even during the recording. I did what I could to balance the EQ.
Out of respect, I did not record the music from the violinist. This is to avoid content ID strikes (in which I figured, the music being played was a cover of a known song).
Out of respect, I did not record the music from the violinist. This is to avoid content ID strikes (in which I figured, the music being played was a cover of a known song).
Category
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LearningTranscript
00:00First off, I want to thank everybody for coming out today. I know it's hot. We also have medics and water over here, just in case anybody needs. And feel free to sit down. Nobody needs to be standing, really.
00:15Um, okay. We are almost two years into this Holocaust, and we are all angry, frustrated, and brokenhearted for the people in Gaza, as they are being put through some of the most vile forms of torture. But also that our governments are not only complicit, but they are active participants in aiding this genocide. Shame.
00:36Amen. From Ireland to Palestine to Sudan, Congo, and right here in so-called Canada, the imperial powers have shown us that it's not never again, and that they will continue to aid and excuse these same horrors over and over again, and that these memorials and monuments and these condemnations really mean nothing when the abuses continue and the material accountability is constantly being deflected.
01:02We are here today not only to honor the murdered in Gaza, but to show these evils once again that we will not sit idly by. We all hold a moral responsibility, and now more than ever, it is imperative that we continue to mobilize.
01:17Uh, just some housekeeping. If there are any, like, agitators, please do not interact with them. They only want to get us riled up. We don't need them to get us, you know.
01:28Okay. Um, there's a poster over here, right over here with a QR code. Uh, you can scan it at any time during the vigil. It'll take you to a petition, uh, sign your name and fill that out.
01:45But make sure that you go into your email and verify your signature because your, uh, uh, signature won't count if you don't verify it through your email.
01:54And I'm going to pass it over to Alice, and she's going to continue on.
02:00Um, so, my name is Alice O'Carroll. I emigrated here from Ireland to Canada 13 years ago.
02:13Um, we come here today, oops, very windy, we come here today as Irish people in support of Palestinians as Palestine faces the most horrendous chapter of its history to date.
02:25What we see on our screens happening in Gaza and also the West Bank is terrifying.
02:31It's evil. It's beyond words.
02:33And yet Israel is able to act with impunity.
02:37Many people ask, why are the Irish so pro-Palestinian?
02:41Um, I'm not a history buff, I'm going to be honest with you, but it was important for our community, uh, for us to share today some of the reasons why Irish people support Palestine.
02:53I have a special message for Irish people and people of Irish descent who have not yet spoken up about Palestine.
02:59We see many people come out of the fort on St. Patrick's Day to drink the green beer and have the green beer.
03:05This is not what it is to be Irish.
03:08What it is to be Irish is leaning into your Irish roots, standing with the oppressed, standing with those who have not yet gotten their freedom,
03:18respecting our own history and legacy and supporting justice for others.
03:23Those of us gathered here today are doing just that.
03:26And we have been doing that for a long time.
03:28And we have not yet taken action to end the genocide and the occupation.
03:41This message is for you.
03:43You should raise your voice to end the genocide, end the occupation and demand justice for Palestinians.
03:49This is not a comprehensive list. This is really a highlight of some of the elements of our history.
03:56That means we are here to support Palestinians.
03:59Our history is one of struggle against colonisation.
04:02From the Norman and Finishing of 1169, Ireland struggled for independence for 753 years until 1921 when the Irish Free State was formed.
04:13And then the Republic was established in 1949.
04:16This small island of ours is still divided today.
04:20We have an international border going across our island.
04:23This continues to be incredibly painful for many people.
04:27And thanks to the peace process, the bombs have stopped.
04:31People have stopped being killed.
04:33And there is a tenuous peace now.
04:36This was a hard one.
04:38We know in our DNA what occupation is.
04:41Our ancestors and our people and people alive today fought for our freedom.
04:47Our history is entirely, entirely about the struggle for independence and self-rule.
04:54When we gather at the end of our parties, at the end of our weddings, at the end of our funerals, our songs are about the struggle.
05:01Our music and our literature are about the struggle.
05:04Our music and our literature are about the struggle.
05:05This is who we are after all these years.
05:10Number 2. Our rights were taken. Our culture was suppressed.
05:19The Irish language was banned under penal laws in 1691.
05:25And this was not a one-stop.
05:27As was Irish music.
05:29As was Irish dancing.
05:31The odds also prohibited Catholics from voting or serving in Parliament.
05:35The 1922 census found between 6% and 14% of Irish people said they could speak Irish very well.
05:43This cultural erasure is the legacy of our history.
05:47And this is such a shame.
05:49But this is what has happened to us.
05:52And this is the result of it.
05:54We are native English speakers today.
05:56Number 3.
05:58We lost 2 to 3 million of our population due to famine.
06:02An Accra smore, or the Great Accra, is regarded as the single most devastating part of Irish history.
06:09Interestingly, when we learned about this at school, we were told that it was because the Irish ate potatoes, for some bizarre reason.
06:17And the potato crop failed.
06:20And then as a result, we all went into famine.
06:23This, of course, is really a sanitized version of the whole thing.
06:27And there's many, many controversies still about the Irish famine.
06:32But there are some things we do know.
06:34And I've tried to clear it down to some back stories here today.
06:37The population of Ireland is 8 million, prior to 1845.
06:41And it has never reached its level since.
06:44One million people starved to death during this time.
06:47One million people.
06:49Accounts vary, but between one to two million people immigrated.
06:54Mostly to the US, some to Canada, Britain, Australia.
06:58But by the end of the 19th century, two million people had left our shores.
07:03The ships that carried them away were called coffin ships.
07:07Because 20 to 30% of the people on the ships died because of hunger, because of disease, overcrowding, lack of sanitization, and on and on.
07:18So many of the people getting on the ships did not reach the other shores.
07:24Half a million people became homeless.
07:27Half a million.
07:28About 100,000 people offered their lands up to landlords so they could enter a workhouse.
07:34The conditions in the workhouses were horrendous.
07:37You got food and you worked hard for it.
07:40And these were just horrendous.
07:43That's a whole other mystery.
07:45Food prices soared.
07:47Desperate people resorted to eating robes.
07:51Some limited help did come.
07:54Interesting.
07:55Sultan Amul Masid from the Ottoman Empire offered 10,000 households.
08:02Which of course was an enormous sum of money.
08:04But he was asked to reduce this to 2,000.
08:07So it's not too far as Queen Victoria, who was only coming up with 2,000 or so.
08:14And I love this piece.
08:15The Choctaw people donated $170.
08:18Isn't that amazing?
08:20That was a lot of people.
08:22People have loved the people.
08:24And despite that, our community probably because of that, they reached out and they helped us in our community.
08:33In 1847, which was the worst year of the great number, the public works programs were suspended, leaving the population to perish.
08:46This was at the worst of it.
08:48Later soup ditchens were put in place, but they were also suspended.
08:52Irish people had to pay rent for their own lands to British landlords.
08:57And they grew corn.
08:58They had livestock very, very little.
09:01And it was because of this, they had to sell all of this to generate the money for the rent.
09:07Which believed that all of this food was going out of the country at the time of our starvation.
09:15Things like livestock, water, fish, peas, beans, honey, being exported at the time when our people were starving.
09:22When a million people perished.
09:24Indeed, shockingly, the food exports actually increased during this time.
09:30In one year alone, again in 1847, it is estimated that 4,000 vessels carrying food were exported from Ireland by England during the worst year of the great number.
09:43So as people starve, ships laden with food, lift our shores up for an event.
09:49Our people have been victimised and oppressed.
09:52Our people have been called terrorists.
09:55Our people have been blamed for standing against their suppression.
09:59Our island is divided by an international border.
10:02Our land was taken.
10:04Our people have been starved.
10:06What was done to us is being done to them now.
10:10But on an industrial scale.
10:13And with the full, full support of the most powerful nations in the world.
10:18It is an absolute travesty.
10:20Not to speak up for justice for Palestine is to betray our own people who fought for our freedom.
10:31And I'd like to remind us that this is not about us today.
10:34This is about Palestine.
10:36Saoirse and Palestine.
10:38I'd like to thank Sean Walmore for giving us his full support and speaking his words today.
10:46This is his home.
10:48They called it a famine in Ireland too.
10:49Back when about a million Irish people died of starvation and another couple million were displaced from this nation but it wasn't a famine.
10:54Not just a failure of crops.
10:55It was our food being shipped out and into the colonizer's shops.
10:56So you see we know this game.
10:57We've seen it before and you don't need to have been there to feel the collective consciousness of those who now command war.
11:01When they see others starved.
11:02Starved to fucking death.
11:03Because while our food was being shipped out and in the colonizer's shops.
11:04They called it a famine in Ireland too.
11:05Back when about a million Irish people died of starvation and another couple million were displaced from this nation but it wasn't a famine.
11:10Not just a failure of crops.
11:12It was our food being shipped out and into the colonizer's shops.
11:16So you see we know this game.
11:18We've seen it before and you don't need to have been there to feel the collective consciousness of those who now command war.
11:24When they see others starved.
11:26Starved to fucking death.
11:29Because while our food was being shipped out.
11:32They can't get food shipped in.
11:34Because the colonizers know for starvation you win.
11:37And while we were stealing Trevelyan's porn so our children could make it to see another mourn.
11:42There are Palestinian parents who have to watch in despair.
11:46As their children try to exist on just fucking hope and care.
11:51But they won't.
11:53They will die.
11:55Like a million Irish did before.
11:58They call it a famine in Ireland too.
12:00And that's why we must demand so much more.
12:04We have Maria next.
12:05She's just going to say a few things.
12:07Just a reminder we do have some water and granola bars.
12:09And some food if anyone wants any more fresh food.
12:11Thank you for being here.
12:12My name is Maria.
12:13I'm a second generation displaced Palestinian born and raised here on Turtle Island.
12:19My family comes from the occupied cities of Yaffa and Haifa in Palestine.
12:26As you've heard so far there's a long and deep connection between Irish people and Palestinians.
12:31Before I even knew the significance of my Palestinian heritage, I felt a strong affinity to Irish people I would meet and also to the indigenous people here on Turtle Island.
12:38And I felt it was subliminal.
12:39I think the spirit of resistance, tenacity and the will to live full lives is common amongst our people.
12:45And we can recognize one each other.
12:46Thank you to Irish from Palestine for organizing this vigil and to everyone here.
12:48Thank you to Irish from Palestine for organizing this vigil and to everyone here.
12:51Your presence is a powerful act in the name of continuing to bear witness to the irreparable
12:58harm to the people that we would meet and also to the indigenous people here on Turtle Island.
13:00And I felt it was like subliminal.
13:01I think the spirit of resistance, tenacity and the will to live full lives is common amongst
13:06our people and we can recognize one each other or another.
13:11Thank you to Irish from Palestine for organizing this vigil and to everyone here.
13:15Your presence is a powerful act in the name of continuing to bear witness to the irreparable harm
13:21being inflicted on Palestinians and Gaza and the rest of occupied Palestine and around the world.
13:27Spaces and gatherings like this allow us to share some of the weight of each other's grief
13:32that we often feel that we're carrying alone.
13:35Here in Ireland Park, we're reminded of the Great Famine or the Great Hunger which began in Ireland in 1845.
13:41In the case of the Great Famine and as well in the ongoing situation in Gaza,
13:46many consider the word famine to be too passive and reminiscent of a natural disaster.
13:51The British occupiers certainly facilitated the starvation of the local Irish population
13:56even though there was enough food being grown to feed everyone.
14:00Today's famine in Gaza is 100% human-made.
14:05Inflicted intentionally upon the indigenous population by the Israeli occupying forces
14:11and has always been 100% preventable.
14:14The haunting and beautiful sculptures around us today remind us of those who perish while trying to flee starvation in Ireland.
14:22Unlike the Irish of the 1840s and 50s, chasms have nowhere to go and are being subject to constant bombing, targeting and displacement.
14:31Whether by hunger, bullet, bomb or disease, all deaths caused by Israel are gruesome beyond belief
14:40and with the absolute genocidal intent that they're not even trying to hide or mask.
14:46Our governments and our tax dollars support these crimes. Shame!
14:53Since October 2023, an estimated 300,000 to 500,000 gazes have been killed by Israel.
14:59Some estimates are as high as 1.2 million deaths or 1.2 million murders more accurately.
15:05Alayir Hamon, as they say in Ireland.
15:09There's a lot of attention in the media and online put on the number of women and children killed, which is over half,
15:16in an attempt to humanize the Palestinians that are, again, routinely being hunted by Israel.
15:22I want to be clear, though.
15:24Every Gazan, every Palestinian, including our boys and men, deserve to grow old, live long healthy lives,
15:31tend to their gardens, study, travel, build their families, and live their lives on their own terms.
15:37Each life taken from us is a universe lost, and every single Palestinian on earth today is a miracle
15:50when you consider how much money and effort is being used in an attempt to erase us altogether.
15:56Additionally, it is shocking to me as a Palestinian to see our very culture of warmth, family, generosity, education, and land stewardship
16:13be reduced to some kind of caricature of angry militants.
16:17Palestinians do not fight back and resist because we are inherently violent.
16:21That is what the occupier wants you to believe.
16:23We resist and fight for our right to live because we have no other option.
16:28In times like these, hope is sometimes hard to hold onto.
16:41I urge all of us to come together and use whatever privileges we have to continue to affect change
16:47through political and or grassroots means.
16:50Liberation is not a fantasy.
16:52We must not let decades of occupation and up to millions of deaths be in vain.
16:57Free free, my Palestine, our Palestine, from the river to the sea.
17:01We have Eliza with a poem.
17:10I will be reading Quarantine by the Irish poet, Egon Boulders.
17:11In the worst hour, the worst season, the worst year, the man sat out in the workhouse.
17:20He was walking. He was walking. He was walking. He was walking. He was walking.
17:24He was walking together. He was walking. He was happy.
17:39She was sick with me on the theater, and he could not keep up.
17:40He was found near and could not keep up.
17:43He lifted her and put her on his back.
17:47He walked, like that, west and west and north.
17:54Until at nightfall, under freezing stars, they arrived.
18:00In the morning they were both found dead.
18:04Of cold, of hunger, of the toxins of a whole history.
18:10But her feet were held against his breastbone.
18:14The last heat of his flesh was his last gift to her.
18:20Let no love poem ever come to this threshold.
18:24There is no place here for the inexact praise, the easy graces, and sensuality of the body.
18:30There is only time for this merciless of Victoria.
18:36Their death together in the winter of 1847.
18:40Also what they suffered, how they lived, and what there is between a man and woman.
18:48And in which darkness it can best be perfect.
18:52So we have Elaine with some music.
19:00But I have a lot of friends in the international music world.
19:04And I've gone to record nightmares in Alcatraz West Bank.
19:10I've learned to exchange tunes.
19:12There's an exchange program with the University College Corp in Palestine.
19:20A lot of people in the world. I like it.
19:22And myself just starting to get started learning about how singing music is focused.
19:30And seeing similar, feeling the similarities, hearing the similarities as I learn them.
19:36It's beautiful, and there's a lot of grief there too, obviously.
19:42And it's a huge privilege for me to be here.
19:46My ancestors arrived here on Turtle Island in the 1850s.
19:52My mom is here with me.
19:54She, you know, we've been here on Turtle Island for 70 years.
19:58And she always ensured that I stayed connected to my culture.
20:04I stayed connected to a sense of justice.
20:06And, yeah, anyways.
20:12The first piece I want to play for you is great and cool to, you know,
20:17and it's kind of trans-mediated for hundreds of years.
20:21And it's called, I'm sorry for my Irish,
20:25a book you went along,
20:27which translates,
20:29roughly, as you know,
20:31and you know,
20:32and you know,
20:33how it sounds like it is.
20:34And the second piece I'm going to play,
20:36I apologize, I learned it this morning.
20:39It's from, thank you,
20:41one of those music exchanges in,
20:44I can't remember the name of the refugee camp in the Occupy West Bank,
20:48but it's called, I'm so sorry,
20:50Yama Wael El Hawa.
20:53And it's been Irishified a little bit,
20:57so bear with me.
20:59And like I said, I'm just getting started learning Palestinian music.
21:02So, yeah, thank you.
21:05Another poem, Alice is going to perform it right now.
21:16Thanks very much.
21:17I'm doing this on behalf of a comrade and friend of ours, Dalia El Farah.
21:23Dalia is from Han Yunus,
21:25and 300 members of her family have been murdered.
21:29So, Dalia can't be here with us today,
21:32but this, I think, will touch all of us.
21:35So, this is Dalia's message.
21:38My friends and family and comrades,
21:41there are days when the wait feels unbearable,
21:44when despair presses in
21:46and the road ahead seems swallowed by darkness,
21:49when our voices feel too hoarse to rise
21:52and the world feels too loud to listen,
21:55when we wonder if anything we do matters,
21:58if the cracks we make will ever reach the surface.
22:02But still we move.
22:04We speak.
22:05We gather the pieces of ourselves
22:07and we place them at the feet of something larger,
22:10because giving up is not an option.
22:14And silence is a wound we refuse to carry.
22:19Hold this close.
22:21Every act, even the smallest, is a cut.
22:25A slice in the fabric of the machine.
22:28A quiet rupture in a system built on our silence.
22:33A sticker on a lamppost.
22:35A chant in the cold.
22:37An email sent.
22:38A poster taped.
22:40A truth spoken when it would have been easier to stay silent.
22:44Each one is a whisper that grows into a tremor.
22:48A reminder that we are not powerless.
22:54That resistance doesn't need to roar to be real.
22:58The machine counts on our exhaustion.
23:02It feeds on our despair.
23:04But every refusal, every act of care,
23:08every time we say free Palestine
23:11is a stone thrown into the gears.
23:14This is how the cracks spread.
23:16This is how empires fall.
23:18This is...
23:19And it's working.
23:21Slowly.
23:22Quietly.
23:23Stubbornly.
23:24It's working.
23:25We may not see the shift with our eyes,
23:35but something stirs beneath the surface
23:37and we must keep pressing.
23:43Even if we try the same thing over and over.
23:46Even if it breaks and fails a thousand times.
23:49One day, something will give.
23:52Because the opposite of despair is not hope.
23:55It is action.
23:58And action, even when it feels futile,
24:01is a form of faith.
24:03What we're doing may not always reach them,
24:06but it keeps us from sinking.
24:09It keeps our hearts from hardening.
24:12It keeps us alive in a world that wants us numb.
24:18We are not lost.
24:20We are fighting to be found.
24:22We are not voiceless.
24:24We are the echo that won't die.
24:26We are not still.
24:29We are shaking the ground of empire.
24:33We are not silent.
24:35We are a storm gathering breath.
24:38We are not scattered.
24:40We are a constellation in formation.
24:42So keep cutting.
24:44Keep moving.
24:45Keep trying.
24:46In love.
24:47In rage.
24:48In steadfastness.
24:49In solidarity.
24:51From Dahlia.
24:53At Black.
24:54afford to win-free
24:55framework.
24:56Mercy,ydar.
24:57Ar富.
24:58Ref الش da.
24:59Free free Palestine.
25:01Going to be closing up soon,
25:03But I think we have
25:05another poem,
25:06prayer of peace.
25:08If whoever was performing that
25:10and he was like a last-minute thing.
25:11Dammit!
25:14I knew what he thought!
25:15Dammit!
25:16You find them.
25:17Thanks, precisei,
25:20and fear andCrue.
25:21That's the reason we're here today, in solidarity, everyone else together, as they read prayer.
25:29They read something like that.
25:37I'm not only here to say a wee prayer, I have my clue, I'm going to read it.
25:41But before I do, I just want to ask anyone else that wants to say a wee prayer,
25:45anyone else that wants to say a wee prayer,
25:47I'm not only here to say a wee prayer, I have my new medals,
25:51we're just here together now,
25:53for the next season.
25:55It's great for them.
25:57Let's put them down here.
25:59Let's put them together.
26:01Let's put them together.
26:03Oh my shit.
26:05What am I going to say?
26:07It's a hard time.
26:09What are you doing now?
26:11And look at them recreators.
26:13That's good.
26:15That's good.
26:17Please stop that stuff.
26:19Stop that stuff.
26:21That's all we do here.
26:23It's better now.
26:25Alright Father.
26:32But if you're gonna walk by the beach,
26:33please save us again.
26:35You're in yourنت,
26:37up,
26:39you need million years now,
26:40you're doing假 pass,
26:41whom you're shining again.
26:43You'll get galgeted now.
26:44That's pretty sad,
26:45you're losing me,
26:46and drifted now.
26:48You're losing my knowledge,
26:49you're losing me a little,
26:50you're losing me.
26:52You're losing me a little.
26:53You're losing me many years now.
26:55I'm losing you,
26:57I'm losing my hustle.
26:57I'm losing you because I'm losing you.
26:59yeah if anybody has anything that they would like to share or say the mic is open but if not I would
27:21like to talk a little bit about our calls to action so we need a material arms embargo we
27:27need accountability from our governments we've been hearing a lot of talk and a lot of posturing
27:33obviously but none of it is actually implementing any change we've been lied to by our governments
27:40and PYM just came out with a report I'm sure most of you have read it and it pretty much detailed
27:49in depth about all the aid not aid all the weapons that Canada has been sending over to Israel
27:57to aid this genocide so we have a phone number here and over here it's called the foreign affairs
28:04minister to demand implementation of a full arms embargo and again we have the QR code over here
28:12so if you haven't signed it please do and yeah we're going to be closing out but we also have
28:18pins here and yeah thank you again to everybody for showing up and sticking with us today it was
28:26wonderful to have you all and yeah free Palestine
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