A must-watch fiery speech by DiEM25 spokesperson in the Netherlands, Lucille Cornelis, at the Stop the Genocide! protest at the Dam square, in Amsterdam on August 17, 2024. The protest was organised by the Palestinian Community of the Netherlands.

Thank you for giving me the opportunity to raise my voice together with your voice for revolution and change across Europe. Revolution is the solution! Before every great revolution, there is a change of heart. And we are choosing to shift and change the language. We speak revolution. We love revolution.

My name is Lucille Cornelius. I am the national spokesperson for DiEM25 in the Netherlands. A pan-European movement that is committed to ending the genocide and the 76-year occupation of Palestine. I was born in South Africa, a nation that has broken free from apartheid and still bears the deep emotional and economic scars of its oppressors.

Greetings from South Africa and its revolutionaries and activists. We South Africans all know, all too well, the image of the boy with a stone in his hand facing a tank. I am here to stir up hope in the face of adversity. In the year I was born, South African police murdered 200 children in cold blood, because those children refuse to be educated in the language of the oppressor.

The image of Hector Pieterson being carried by his friend after being shot dead by the police still rings in the minds of millions around the world. This morning, I read a post by an Afrikaans South African who condemned the genocide and spoke about where our priorities should lie in this time.

It is with the children, the mothers, the innocent, and the starving, the dying. We must not stop speaking for them. We must not stop our resistance. I am proud of my nation, South Africa. It was the small dog in the fight, but it entered the fight anyways, and I want to now stir up those who are silent in the face of genocide.

A small dog entered a fight knowing that it would have to face the colonialist powers, but it did it anyway for the sake of humanity. Why are we here? For the sake of humanity. We keep on fighting for the sake of humanity. We will not stop for the sake of humanity. I’m proud that a small nation on the tip of Africa was willing to come to the Hague to hold those complicit in genocide and murder of children accountable for what they did.

And I must say, we have been extremely successful. Because although Israel has closed its ears off, the ICJ has ruled in favour of a ceasefire. I stand here today to challenge those that remain on the periphery and don’t involve themselves. There is a cause: silence is violence.

If after tens of thousands of innocents have been murdered, you remain silent, you are complicit in a genocide. Shame on you! On April 12 this year, one of our founders of DiEM25, Yanis Varoufakis, attended the Palestine conference in Germany.

Two hours after the conference began, the German police broke the Congress up and prevented them from continuing. Subsequent to that, Yanis has been banned from Germany and even from joining any German events online. They even did the same to Dr Gassan Abusita and at the same time deported Dr Abusita, preventing him from even setting foot here in the Netherlands.

What are they afraid off? They are afraid of our voices. All they wanted to do was get together and speak. I want to tell you today that it is the same common enemy that we face. It was the same enemy that took the ships to the shores of Palestine. It’s the same enemy that sells bombs. It’s the same enemy that bludgeons our students when they hit the streets in protest.

It’s the same enemy that went to native lands and murdered and annihilated untold millions. It’s the same enemy that robs us of good health care and charges us that it uses to bomb children to say they did not, and that is the power of the people. They did not expect Muslims, Jews, and Christians to join hands. They did not expect young and old to march in streets. and protest together. They did not expect people from all nations and creeds to unite. It is true unity and solidarity that will topple the monster. We have a message for the Dutch government, for the European Union for the USA and all its cohorts: the rise is coming, the people united will never be defeated.

The people united will never be defeated. That’s right. We’ve got to keep on coming and coming and coming. And the more you push us, the more we will resist. Today there may be a thousand people in the square, but a day is coming when millions and millions will join the protest. Because they are people just like us, and ordinary people all over the world are being affected.

We need to draw all efforts, our time, our resources into one place and give them the biggest shock that they ever did get, so that they fall down and never rise again. The European Union, the state of Israel, and the United States of America have marked themselves as the sworn enemies of humanity. Therefore, we people must remain in a position of power, and never stop until Palestine is freed.

We will never be free until Palestine is free. It’s the last bastion and we will conquer that colonised and change history forever. When I step down today, I want to teach you a South African resistance chant, which I’ve heard some of you already know.

It is a mantra aware to when I say a mantra, you say aware to and what it means a mantra because our word for power and aware to is us or ours. So the power belongs to the people. I’m on law. I’m on law. I’m on law. Free Palestine! Free, free Palestine! From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free! From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free!

From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free! Oh, Palestine will live forever. Palestine will live forever.

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