The Sustainable Future Lies in Indigenous Tradition | Yasmeen Mjalli | TEDxAlManaraSquare
URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G5CcL3CyJwA Video ID: G5CcL3CyJwA ============================================================ [Music] thank you [Applause] there is a mid-1970s photograph of an old man on the beach in gaza around him a halo of vibrant bundles of yarn in blues yellows reds stretching all the way back to the point at which water meets sand the photo is a tantalizing glimpse of a palestine which has been crystallized in history and almost forgotten when i first saw this photograph i had absolutely no idea what this man was doing but i was captivated after a few weeks of research i learned that each individual bundle of yarn had been washed in the sea water behind this man in order to preserve the colors and that before they ended up on the beach here the yarns which were probably wool or linen or cotton had been naturally dyed with plants and spices that were native to palestine eventually all these yarns would make their way to weavers all over palestine to be woven into clothing rugs and ultimately into the fabric of our heritage this man was just one link in a long chain an intimate creative network between palestinians and their land as a creative who works at the intersection of fashion culture and politics i found this photograph both beautiful because it's a part of my culture that i didn't know existed and heartbreaking because it's a part of my culture which no longer is common practice learning all of this falling in love with this way of being and creating i couldn't help but ask why have these practices and indigenous practices in general been pushed to the edge of extinction trying to answer this question led me to the palestinian town of al-majdal located on the mediterranean sea some 20 kilometers north of ghazia is the town of almajdan arguably the heart of palestine's textile industry famous for its hand looms it was said that collectively wove enough fabric to cover the whole of palestine i was fascinated by this town because it's a window onto a world a world in which we used and made natural linen cotton wool which was naturally dyed and hand woven with care a world in which all of that was the status quo now if you haven't heard of al-majdal that's because it no longer exists when palestinians were forcibly expelled from their homes and their land in 1948 the palestinians of al-majdal became refugees their town was raised to the ground and their textile traditions were threatened with extinction we saw this happen in india indonesia mali guatemala with the chuchua peoples of the andes with the first nations we see this happening now with indigenous peoples all over the world now i know you might be asking what's the big deal it's just yarn and fabric right well it's a lot more than that and is a microcosm of something a lot bigger at play something that's continuing to unfold today and it's inherently connected to the climate crisis for generations the west has invalidated and erased indigenous knowledge and ways of being knowledge which is deeply rooted in communication and active collaboration with mother nature this type of relationship fostered a balance between us and the earth but the refusal to listen to and center the indigenous perspective has pushed us way out of balance and it turns out that the world depends on this indigenous knowledge to protect a planet on the brink of disaster for example traditional palestinian embroidery is typically done in what we call tatriz circles in which embroiderers work together in a circle often storytelling and singing and each individual stitch is done by hand this means that some garments can take up to six months to complete and the garments often stay in our closets for decades if not generations passing from mother to daughter now with a world that now experiences 52 seasons a year this can be pretty hard to wrap your head around and when i say 52 seasons i'm referring to the micro collections that brands release every single week that's a pretty radical departure from the world that our grandparents or even our parents knew in which we had clothes for hot weather and clothes for cold weather now with brands turning out collections every week in combination with the throwaway culture that we've developed it's estimated that we throw away 92 million tons of clothing every year and that's a number that's expected to keep rising in the coming years now most of that clothing waste contains polyester the most commonly used fabric in the fashion industry today so polyester is made from oil which means that it's essentially plastic in the form of fabric and it takes hundreds of years for it to decompose now if any of these facts are hard for you to wrap your head around or to process it could be because we have the privilege to not have to process these facts the global north ships and dumps most of this waste into countries throughout africa and asia leaving the global south to deal with the problems created by the global north now the green movement has started taking up practices to challenge and change this reality practices which by the way have been native to black indigenous and people of colors for centuries the irony is that as these countries countries throughout europe and america replicate these exact practices it is black indigenous and people of color who are affected by and devastated by the impacts of climate change the most the fight for our survival as a species has been declared and endeavors to save the planet are finally getting more and more attention but in order for us to make real progress we need to first acknowledge the colonial power structures which shaped and continue to shape the world that we're in today and we need to center black indigenous and people of color in the conversation now reimagining the future doesn't stop at our relationship with the environment but we need to extend it to our relationship with people specifically the people who make our clothes so last year i designed the dress which included a belt featuring traditional palestinian tatris or embroidery the belts were embroidered here in a women's cooperative in palestine and there were five different designs one embroider assigned to each design and because each embroider had her own work pace based on her specific work-life balance then each design was ready and shipped out to customers at different times so if you ordered the dress in red then you were amongst the last people to receive your dress and that's because while working on the belt the embroiderer suddenly and unexpectedly lost her daughter who was hit and killed by a truck do you see this woman differently now she is no longer an artisan or a producer but she is a mother a wife and a daughter who has now lost her own daughter so where was the space for that reality in the conversation between the customer and the brand where was the space for that reality in the conversation when i started getting emails from customers asking and sometimes demanding to know why it was taking so long to receive their dresses in these moments i realized how much we've dehumanized clothing how much we've de-centered people in the production process of the clothes that we wear this was a pivotal moment for me and it established my goal of challenging and restructuring the standard consumer producer relationship which has been set by corporations who would rather have you know next to nothing about the people who make our clothes so now i want to ask you do you know who cut and sewed the clothes that you're wearing right now do you know who harvested the plants to make the fabric that you're wearing right now do you know whether you're wearing natural or synthetic fabrics none of those questions are meant to make you feel bad i also don't know the answers to a lot of these questions and frankly the responsibility to answer these questions shouldn't fall on the shoulders of the people when shopping ethically is in and of itself a privilege it is the system the brands the legislation and the policies which should take the responsibility of providing these answers for us but we need to put pressure on them by asking the questions so we can start by asking why are the lives of textile artists hidden and unknown by us the wearers of the clothes that they make why aren't we involved in the production process of the clothes which we wear on our bodies as physical extensions of our beings as means of expressing who we are and where we come from and who we want to be that day because if we knew too much about those people then we might want to do something about the ways that they're being treated and then companies would have a really hard time unevenly distributing their revenue i recently had a talk with a women-run ethical fashion enterprise in rural india they explained that they have an issue when people address them as garment workers or textile laborers according to them it's much more than a labor job we have to involve all of our senses it is a creative process of the heart and the soul the personal stories of these textile artisans are woven sewn and dyed into the essence of the very garments which then cocoon our bodies made by the same hands which pour juice and brush hair and pick fruit and tuck loved ones into bed this is so intimate and this type of intimacy and connection is the backbone of a truly sustainable future now i know you might be asking what is this talk about i've talked about the environment human rights indigenous peoples fashion and the answer is all of the above true sustainability is inherently intersectional none of those issues are isolated in order for us to make real progress we need to approach the idea of change from an intersectional perspective indigenous people create slowly and meticulously not because they aren't educated or technologically advanced but because they understand that the nature of creation is an inherently slow and human process they understand that what we take from the earth must return to the earth as food and not poison in the fight to better the future we not only need to learn from black indigenous and people of color but we need to center them in the conversation indigenous creativity storytelling and knowledge are our means of survival so i want to leave you with this fashion is personal is political fashion is a window onto entire communities which often aren't seen or heard but are exploited if we pull the curtain back and just look through those windows then we'll know that fashion is never just fashion so this all brings us back to the photo of the old man on the beach in ghazni he is smiling and i can't help but think that he knew the gravity and the grace of his work he was one of the last remaining artisans with knowledge of this labor and i can't help but overanalyze this photo just a bit further a cigarette dangles delicately from the old man's smiling mouth and he looks up and into the camera and thus into the future thank you