but yeah we can stop this alright so um
I hope the lunch was good but I really
hope that the coffee was better and
stronger because I’m awake then and so
are you all and that makes my work
[Music]
so I want to begin by talking about the
power of one woman just one woman it
could be one of you sitting here in the
audience it could be one of you later
watching this on a YouTube video or each
one of you or maybe even me and someone
we all know that just one step by a
determined woman can actually change
destinies exactly 70 years ago in 1947
during the india-pakistan partition when
there was bloodshed killings and carnage
everywhere my grandmother who must have
been just about 1617 years old had to
flee her homeland with her father and
her brothers leaving everything behind I
don’t think at that point she realized
that that one move of hers was actually
shaping the destiny of a future
daughters and granddaughters and the
very fact perhaps that I stand here
today talking about feminism and women’s
rights is because of her I don’t think
that most of us realize that how the
acts of our ancestors or how the acts of
our previous generations impact our
lives today in the best way as possible
about two years ago when I was in an
extremely physically and emotionally
abusive relationship and I was trying
for a very long time to actually get out
of it but every time I’ve tried I failed
I did not have the courage to get out of
it
I tried to think about all the
sacrifices that my grandmother and my
mother had made to ensure that I get to
where I am that I can get what they did
not get in life and their sacrifices and
thinking about every sacrifice that they
made along their lives actually made me
stronger and made that move easier for
me and you to have felt the power of the
women in you in your lives and in fact
the woman in you when all of you marched
a few weeks ago in the women’s March you
all marched in Washington DC in Paris in
New York and Geneva in every city around
the world and you rallied and dissent
and watch to claim what is rightfully
yours and perhaps with every step that
you took you realize that you were
changing something you were demanding
something for not just to your country
but you were also demanding something
for the women of the world but I’m not
here to talk about my story or about the
story of my grandmother or even your
story I’m here to talk about a new breed
of feminist women who are on the move
every day every night thousands and
millions of refugee women who are
navigating through life-threatening
conditions only to claim what they
rightly deserves basic human dignity
over the last two years I spent a lot of
time filming and reporting with these
women at refugee camps in Greece in
Athens in Eastern Europe and what struck
me the most about them was the tenacity
their resilience and their optimism
these are not weak women these are
it takes a special kind of strength it
takes a special kind of feminism to
actually leave your country behind
knowing that you’re never going to
return it takes a special kind of
strength to leave your men behind with
your babies clinging to your chest to
cross the high seas to sleep outside
close borders at freezing temperatures
and mind you doing all of this proudly
wearing their identity the hijab that
the world feels today and the spiral
piece that it takes a special kind of
strength to be those kind of feminists
and their optimism does not really come
from ignorance these are not ignorant
women they know about every political
move every rule every order that is
actually directing they move ahead or in
fact even halting their migration their
optimism comes from a relentless self
belief I wanted to talk here about a
night in September 2015 this was outside
the hungarian serbia border this was the
very day that the prime minister of
Hungary Viktor Orban had
chillie shut all the borders of his
country to stop the refugees from
entering so a few journalists and a few
activists we wanted to get across to the
Serbian side because all the refugees
were halted at the Serbian border
because they were not being allowed to
come inside so when we got there in the
middle of the night nobody was prepared
for it so obviously there were no turns
there was no camp there were no toilet
facility people were just actually
sleeping outside at freezing
temperatures and I found this 1617 year
old girl who you can see in this picture
she must have been she must have been
brought up in an extremely sheltered
environment so she wanted to go to the
toilet and she couldn’t get herself to
go to the woods there were also hundreds
of men actually lined up right there in
the woods the picture clearly does not
show a great deal but there’s a man
there so I could feel the physical
stress the emotional trauma that she was
going through and as a woman I
understood it I didn’t even have the
heart to ask her how was she planning
you know like what was she planning to
do I just couldn’t even ask her that so
after some time she just turned around
to and looked at me and said that maybe
in a few years I’m going to look back
and laugh at all of this and at that
time I shook my head and disbelief in
respect and admiration for the courage
of the 17 year old girl who could
actually laugh about such a distressful
situation
the courage does not always mean
fighting wars and battles courage comes
in everyday acts from ordinary people
like her and like others there’s a
report which says that about 70% of the
Syrian refugees are women and children
women mostly move in groups or they find
each other along the way supporting each
other and thriving on the bond of
sisterhood another person I want to talk
about is this woman I met her last
summer August 2016 at a refugee camp in
Athens it’s called the scar mangas
refugee camp
she’s the funkiest 33 year old at
meant she had a little daughter was
bouncing all around her she was there in
the refugee camp for three months before
I could get there and she told me that
she used to be a schoolteacher back in
Syria she was a single mother and her
parents and she had put in all her life
savings just to ensure that she and her
daughters could get to a safer country
there was only enough money for her and
her daughters to travel so her parents
had to stay back and she did realize
that she if she actually does get to
another safer country she might never
see her parents again and that’s
somewhere the fact that her parents had
put in so much for the safety of her and
her daughters made her more determined
despite the eu-turkey deal in place
which was actually making it difficult
for her to move ahead from Greece you
might probably go back to Turkey she was
all the more determined that she should
get her and her daughters to a better
place so after that what if she actually
manages to get to the US or she manages
to get to Germany what would she do and
she told me my parents had given me the
best gift of an education she said I can
teach I am sure I’ll be able to do
something for myself and my daughters
but I want to ensure that my daughter’s
also learn and live in a free country
when they found out that I was Indian
they got very excited about Bollywood
songs in Bollywood movies somehow
Bollywood always connects so I want to
show you a video and I want to play that
video so she can be plain it so she her
daughters and I actually danced a
Bollywood music that afternoon all I
remember is songs playing out of an
almost broken mobile phone in a small
little car
in a very dusty refugee camp totally
unaware upon the future health there but
I think I will always remember them
smiling shiny resilient faces and I
think that’s how we should always
remember these people I know you might
feel that these stories are of other
people that these stories come from a
distant land and you do not connect to
them but look a little bit deeper and
these are our stories as well we know
what it means to fight harder to get to
where we want to be and as women we know
that we need to put in a little bit in
fact sometimes even more than a little
bit extra effort to even get to an equal
at form and I strongly believe that
these women their feminism goes a step
further than us the last woman I want to
talk about is her the day I was at the
camp at the refugee camp in Athens she
actually just reached that very day so
she was very harassed she’d just come in
she didn’t know what to do she had been
separated from a husband and her baby
for almost a year her husband and a baby
were already in Germany and she but she
was trying to get there she didn’t speak
anything but Arabic and unfortunately I
struggle maybe know a few words of
Arabic so she was enterprising enough
and she said we could use the Google
Voice translator so she would talk into
the phone and it would throw up English
words for me and I would do the same and
that’s how we communicated so I asked
her that most likely she would be back
in Turkey and that she would never get
to see her husband and a little baby and
she looked into the phone and she said
that I would walk mountains I would
cross borders about boundaries and I
would crawl on my knees if I had to but
nobody can keep me away ever from
meeting my baby and at that point I felt
that not this woman not the 33 year old
spunky mother needed at 17 18 year old
girl are always refugee woman none of
them realized their acts of resistance
to
day that there steps of determination
today is actually building a future not
just for them and their children but for
all of us so the next time we march I
think we should March that these new
breed of feminists we should march for
their right to life we should march
against every rule and order the
dehumanizes on the basis of religion and
gender I want to play a video to end
with I started with Maya Angela I want
to end with a favorite poem of like of
Maya Angela’s that I like it’s called
still I rise and I want to play it over
photographs images of these refugee
women of how I saw them through the lens
of my camera can we play the video yeah
okay you may write me down in history
with your bitter twisted lies
you may trod me in the very dirt but
still like dust I rise did you want to
see me broken bowed head and lowered
eyes shoulders falling down like
teardrops weakened by my soulful cry
as my haughtiness offend you don’t you
take it awful hard because I laugh like
I’ve got gold mines digging in my own
backyard
Yuma should be with your words you may
cut me with your eyes you may kill me
with your hatefulness but still like air
I’ll rise leaving behind nights of
terror and fear I rise into a daybreak
that’s wondrously clear I rise I am the
dream and the hope
I rise I rise I rise
[Music]
[Applause]
[Music]
[Applause] [Music]