The Sustainable Future Lies in Indigenous Tradition | Yasmeen Mjalli | TEDxAlManaraSquare

thanks, there is a photograph from the mid-1970s of an old man on the beach in Gaza around him, a halo of vibrant bundles of thread in blues, yellows and reds extending to the point where the water meets with the sand. The photo is a tantalizing sight. of a Palestine that 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 discovered that each bundle of thread had been washed in the seawater behind this man to preserve the colors and that before they ended up on the beach here the threads that were probably wool or linen or cotton had been dyed naturally with plants and spices native to Palestine eventually all of these threads Reaching out to weavers across Palestine to be woven into rugs and ultimately into the weaving 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 beautiful because it is a part of my culture that I didn't know existed and heartbreaking because it is a part of my culture that it is no longer common practice to learn all this about falling in love with this way of Being and creating I couldn't help but wonder why these practices and

indigenous

practices in general have been pushed to the brink of extinction.

Trying to answer this question took me to the Palestinian city of Al-Majdal, located on the Mediterranean Sea, about 20 kilometers to the north. From Ghazia is the city of Almajdan, possibly the heart of the Palestinian textile industry, famous for its handlooms. It was said that together they wove enough cloth to cover all of Palestine. This city fascinated me because it is a window to a world, a world in which we use and manufacture natural linen, cotton, naturally dyed and carefully hand-woven, a world in which all of that was the status quo now, if you haven't heard of al-majdal is because it no longer exists when the Palestinians were forcibly expelled. of their homes and lands in 1948 the Palestinians of al-majdal became refugees their city was demolished and their textile

tradition

s were in danger of extinction.

We saw this happen in India Indonesia Mali Guatemala with the Chuchua people of the Andes with the First Nations, we see this happening now with

indigenous

peoples around the world. Now I know you may be wondering what the big deal is, it's just thread and fabric, well it's so much more than that and it's a microcosm of something much bigger at play. continues to develop today and is inherently connected to the climate crisis for generations, the West has invalidated and erased indigenous knowledge and ways of being, knowledge that is deeply rooted in communication and active collaboration with Mother Nature, this type of relationship fostered a balance between us and the land, but the refusal to listen to and center the indigenous perspective has unbalanced us and it turns out that the world depends on this indigenous knowledge to protect a planet on the brink of disaster, for example,

tradition

al Palestinian embroidery is typically done in what we call tatric circles in which embroiderers work together in a circle, often telling stories and singing, and each individual stitch is done by hand.

This means that some garments can take up to six months to complete and garments often remain in our closets for decades, if not generations. going from mother to daughter now in a world that now experiences 52 seasons a year, this can be quite difficult to understand and when I say 52 seasons I mean the micro collections that brands release every week, that's quite radical. departure from the world that our grandparents or even our parents knew in which we had clothes for the heat and clothes for the cold now with brands launching collections every week in combination with the throwaway culture that we have developed it is estimated that we throw away 92 million tons of clothes every year and that is a number that is expected to continue to increase in the coming years.

Most of that clothing waste contains polyester, the most commonly used fabric in the fashion industry today, so polyester is made from petroleum, meaning it is essentially plastic. in cloth form and it takes hundreds of years to decompose now. If any of these facts are difficult for you to understand or process, it could be because we are privileged to not have to process these facts on a global level. The North ships and dumps most of this waste in countries in Africa and Asia, leaving the global South to deal with the problems created by the global North. Now the green movement has begun to adopt practices to challenge and change this reality, practices that have incidentally been indigenous to black indigenous people and people of color for centuries, the irony is that as these countries in Europe and America replicate these Exact practices, it is Black Indigenous people and people of color who are affected and devastated by the impacts of climate change the most in the fight.

The need for our survival as a species has been declared and efforts to save the planet are finally receiving more and more attention, but in order for us to make real progress, we must first recognize the colonial power structures that shaped and continue to shape the world. world we know. We are today and we need to center Black Indigenous people and people of color in the conversation. Now, reinventing the

future

is not limited to our relationship with the environment, but we must extend it to our relationship with people, specifically the people who make our clothes. So last year I designed the dress that included a belt with tatris or traditional Palestinian embroidery.

The belts were embroidered here in a women's cooperative in Palestine and there were five different designs, one embroidery assigned to each design and because each embroidery had its own work rhythm. Depending on their specific work-life balance, each design was ready and sent to customers at different times, so if you ordered the dress in red then you were among the last people to receive it and that's because, while working at the belt, the embroiderer suddenly and unexpectedly lost her daughter who was run over and killed by a truck. Do you see this woman differently? Now she is no longer an artisan or producer, but a mother, wife and daughter, who now lost her own daughter.

So where was the space for that reality in the conversation between customer and brand? Where was the space for that reality in the conversation when I started receiving emails from customers asking and sometimes demanding to know why it was taking so long for them to receive their orders? dressed right now? I realized how much we have dehumanized clothing, how much we have decentered people in the process of producing the clothes we wear. This was a pivotal moment for me and established my goal to challenge and restructure the standard relationship between consumer and producer that has been established by corporations that would prefer you knew next to nothing about the people who make our clothes, so now I want ask him: do you know who cut and sewed the clothes you are wearing now?

Do you know who harvested the plants? To make the fabric you are using now, do you know if you are using natural or synthetic fabrics? None of those questions are meant to make you feel bad. I also don't know the answers to many of these questions and, frankly, the responsibility to answer these questions shouldn't fall on people's shoulders when shopping ethically is in itself a privilege; It is the system, the brands, the legislation and the policies that should take the responsibility of giving us these answers, but we need to put pressure on them by asking them questions so that we can start by asking why the lives of textile artists are hidden and unknown to us, the users of the clothes they make, why are we not involved in the production process of the clothes we wear on our bodies as physical extensions of our being as a means of expressing who we are, where we come from and who we want to be that day, because If we knew too much about those people, then maybe we would want to do something about their ways. that are being treated and then it would be very difficult for companies to distribute their income unequally.

I recently had a conversation with a women-led ethical fashion company in rural India and they explained to me that they have a problem when people address them as garment workers or textile workers according to them it is much more than a labor job we have to Engaging all of our senses is a creative process of the heart and soul. The personal stories of these textile artisans are woven, sewn and dyed into the essence of the garments themselves. which then envelop our bodies made by the same hands that pour juice and brush hair, 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 could be. asking what this talk is about, I have talked about the environment, human rights, indigenous fashion and the answer is all of the above, true sustainability is inherently intersectional, none of those topics are isolated so that we can achieve For real progress, we need to address the idea of ​​change from an intersectional perspective. Indigenous peoples create slowly and meticulously not because they are not educated or technologically advanced but because they understand that the nature of creation is an inherently slow and human process.

What we take from the earth must return to the earth as food and not poison in the fight to improve the future we not only need to learn from indigenous black people and people of color, but we must also center them in conversation, indigenous creativity, Storytelling and knowledge are our means of survival so I want to leave you with this Fashion is personal it is political Fashion is a window into entire communities that are often unseen and unheard but are exploited if we pull back the curtain and we just look through those windows then we will know that fashion is never just fashion, this all brings us back to the photo of the old man on ghazni beach, he is smiling and I can't help but think that he knew the gravity and grace of his work, he was one of the last remaining craftsmen with knowledge of this work and I can't help but overanalyze this photo a little further, a cigarette dangles delicately from the old man's smiling mouth and he looks up and towards the camera and by So, into the future, thank you.