#iskatoni college au

[sandalwoodandjasmine]

#StillHuman

Iskandar’s speech at the biotic rally, shortly before he was shot.

Fellow biotics, allies,

friends!

We have gathered here today to stand against a grave injustice. An injustice that our government is planning to inflict on a certain group of its population. Of its citizens.

On us. On people like you and me. On people like your brother or your sister, your child, your friend. On biotics.

We have gathered here today to show our opposition to a bill which was recently introduced in parliament. The name of this bill is straightforward enough: the “Biotics Registration and Supervision Act.” As we speak, this bill is being discussed in parliament and might soon become law. If it is, it would require all human biotics residing in the Sol System to register with the Ministry of Public Security.

For those of you who are not directly affected by this piece of legislation, you might not be aware what this really means. Let me tell you what it means. It would mean that people like me, who have never committed a crime in their life, would have to report to the Ministry of Public Security. All of our personal data, a comprehensive profile of our past and current activities, would then be filed and passed down to all of the ministry’s subsidiary authorities. In case you didn’t know this, this is the ministry which is charged with law enforcement. It controls all of Sol’s police forces, including all its specialised branches. Border control. Riot control. Counterterrorism.

I probably don’t need to spell it out to you which kind of citizen usually has such detailed records compiled with the Ministry of Public Security. I will do it anyway. Terror suspects.

I will spell the next step out for you as well, because I feel that I must. The “Biotics Registration and Supervision Act” therefore turns every biotic, every last one of us, into a terror suspect. By our very nature, we are considered suspicious. Who we are, our abilities, are considered dangerous. We are a public security threat that needs to be controlled and contained.

This legislation is of course just the culmination of a very intense moral panic that has held our society in its clutches for some years now. Biotics are distrusted. Biotics are feared. The nature of a biotics’ abilities are the topic of many a discussion, and the subject of many more wild rumours. What is the extent of the possible threat we pose? Or is the “dangerous biotics” discourse entirely wrong-headed? Aren’t we rather the victims of a new kind of environmental pollution? In need of intensive state care and rehabilitation? Is the “Biotics Registration and Supervision Act” a show of mercy and compassion?

In this manner, people would seek to talk for us. They seek to define us. But one thing inevitably gets lost in all those discussions.

We are still human.

Before we are public security threats, before we are pollution victims, before we are terror suspects, we are still human.

And as such we are endowed with the same rights as any other human being.

The “Biotics Registration and Supervision” Act would strip us of these very basic rights. We wouldn’t be full humans before the law. We would be less than human. Moral panic would have caused this insufferable injustice. Fear of who we potentially could be, of what we potentially could do. Who we choose to be, how we choose to act, would cease to matter.

Many of us have long since adjusted to this fear. We live in the shadows. We hide who we are even from those closest to us, even from those we love the most. We do so because we are afraid that if we told them, they might turn away from us. It would break our spirits to see the fear grow in their eyes. We harbour in our hearts the hope that if they knew, they would accept us. They would support us. And yet the doubt remains. It is not a risk we might be willing to take. So we continue to hide.

I know this because until very recently, I, too, chose a life in the shadows. I stand here before you, I speak to you, because I realised that there are things greater than my fear. That there are causes more important than personal rejection. But this was not always so. Despite the fact that my personal capabilities would have served our cause best in public, despite my peers’ pressure, I hid. I was afraid.

No longer.

This latest development won’t let me hide any longer.

I used to wonder if I had been cursed at my birth. You see, I am an Indian by descent. In my culture we know the concept of ‘karma’. It is the long held belief that a person’s misfortune in this life must be the result of the bad deeds of our previous lives. I couldn’t help but wonder if this punishment of mine was the result of something I had done in a previous life?

But no. I refuse to belief this. It must be against the sensibilities of any modern man or woman to hold such a belief. A person’s birth can never be a crime.

And yet we are to be treated the way only criminals are treated. But what is our crime, I ask? What is our crime? Must not a criminal have committed a crime? But what is mine? What is that of my peers? Our only crime is our birth. Should we be condemned for that? Should be stripped of our rights for that? For our birth?

Yes, there have been incidents of extreme violence. Biotics have committed crimes. We as students of this university know this better than anyone. No one of us will ever forget that the vice-dean of our university was assassinated because he publicly spoke in favour of a political party that fans the flames of anti-biotic hatred.

No one of us will ever forget!

People rallied. There was a public outcry, people cried for justice. Find the murderers! Punish them!

Their anger was justified. No murder should ever go unpunished. The murder of our vice-dean was a crime, regardless of the political opinions he might have held. I condemn this crime! Everyone who stands with me and supports me condemns this crime! Otherwise they wouldn’t support what I stand for. Those responsible for the assassination must be found out. Justice must be served.

No one of us will ever forget!

And yet, would we condemn an entire group of humans on the basis of crimes committed by a small number of extremists? This is not my understanding of justice. Is it your understanding of justice?

Let us also not forget that atrocities have not only been committed by biotics. Far more often, biotics have been the targets of atrocities. Every last one of us knows about Nirbhaya. Let us not forget her. Where was the public outcry when she was killed? Where was the high-level political intervention, where were the special investigation teams when a young woman had to die for no other reason than being a biotic?

We are being killed. Where is the outrage? Where is the cry for justice? Most of those crimes against biotics go unpunished. Nirbhaya’s murder continues to go unpunished. Don’t our lives count? She was my friend. She had to die because she was a biotic. Because she was like me. Does my life not count? Does the life of my peers not count? Are we not human, like everyone else?

How can we not be scared? How can we not hide? This moral panic has to end. Children who show biotic abilities need proper training. The general population needs education.

But more than anything, we need the understanding, we need the acceptance of the society we live in. What we don’t need is for them to treat us like criminals.

We might be biotics. But we are still human.

Fellow biotics, allies,

friends!

Thank you for standing here with me today to send this message to our politicians: that before everything else, we biotics are #StillHuman.

This vid goes with the speech:

(translation of the lyrics)

#iskatoni college au #iska's speech #iskandar shepard