Thanks for coming to my TED talk.

  • Gorn [they/them,he/him]
    ·
    4 years ago

    There was this really powerful case like last year, where the local Indigenous community was giving its two cents in a consultation for a site to bury nuclear waste.

    The local band council Chief said, publically, something along the lines of ‘you have to imagine how having this toxic radioactive waste under our feet will effect the mythology of people in the future, how people will relate to the land and the stories we’ll tell.’

    They said it a lot better than that, but it was such a based, long-term-thinking perspective that was entirely different from the other voices in the room

    Anyway, this story is utterly unique because, for whatever reason, the nuclear organization decided ‘we will not do this project without the consent of the Indigenous peoples of this place’.

    I suspect it’s because they knew the long-term nature of a nuclear waste burial site, and they weren’t willing to deal with backlash in 100, or 1000 years when the power dynamics here are less colonized. So they wanted consent. My theory

    Regardless, the Indigenous community voted and said no, obviously, so now I guess they’re going to go ask another First Nation somewhere else hahaha it was a really positive moment in terms of Indigenous people asserting their voice, though, and actually being heard. Felt like a turning point, to me anyway