<Chuut walks up to the elevated podium in the grand confernce auditorium at the Star's End Bar and looks out at all the assembled Kitty and Allied Captains and smiles at the impressive host that has gathered to hear his words>
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I am happy to join with you today in what will go down in history as the greatest demonstration for freedom in the history of our feline races.
Two years ago, a humble Kzin, in whose literal shadow you stand today, signed the AOTK II Accords. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Felinoid beings who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of their suffering.
But two years later, the Nip still is not free. Two years later, the life of the Kitty is still sadly crippled by the manacles of illegalization and the chains of discrimination. Two years later, the Kitty lives on a lonely island of emotional unhappiness in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. Two years later, the Kitty is still languishing in the corners of Alpha Quadrant society and finds himself often Nip-less in his own land. So we have come here today to dramatize a shameful condition.
In a sense we have come to the Star's End to cash a check. When the architects of our governments wrote the magnificent words of the AOTK Accords and the Declaration of Peace that followed, they were signing a promissory note to which every Kitty was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all felines, yes, Lyrans, Caitian, and Korlivilar as well as Kzin, would be guaranteed the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of the Nip.
It is obvious today that the Coalition has defaulted on this promissory note insofar as the free flow of the Nip is concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, The Coalition has given the feline peoples a bad check, a check which has come back marked "insufficient Nip." But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient Nip in the great vaults of opportunity of this quadrant. So we have come to cash this check — a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of the Nip supply. We have also come to this central location to remind the Coalition of the fierce urgency of now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of patience. Now is the time to make real the promises of the treaties. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of oppression to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to lift our citizens from the quick sands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood. Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of the Fanged God's children.
It would be fatal for the Coalition to overlook the urgency of the moment. This sweltering summer of the Kitty's legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality. Twenty-two sixty-five is not an end, but a beginning. Those who hope that the Felines needed to blow off steam and will now be content will have a rude awakening if the Alpha Quadrant returns to business as usual. There will be neither rest nor tranquility in the Alpha Quadrant until the Kitty is granted his Nip consumption rights. The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our quadrant until the bright day of justice emerges.
But there is something that I must say to my people who stand on the warm threshold which leads into the palace of justice. In the process of gaining our rightful place we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of dishonor and unfairness.
We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative waging of war to degenerate into petty gamesmanship. Again and again we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting the challange with fair play. The marvelous new militancy which has engulfed the feline community must not lead us to distrust of all enemy pilots, for many of the normally coalition, as evidenced by their presence here today, have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny and their recreation is inextricably bound to our recreation. We cannot walk alone.
As we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall march ahead. We cannot turn back. There are those who are asking the devotees of feline rights, "When will you be satisfied?" We can never be satisfied as long as the Nip is the victim of the unspeakable horrors of government confiscation. We can never be satisfied, as long as our bodies, heavy with the fatigue of travel, cannot gain the Nip in the stations of the spaceways and the lodgings on the planets. We can never be satisfied as long as a Kitty in Hydrax is not allowed consume and a Kitty in Gdhar has nothing which to consume. No, no, we are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until the freedom of consumption rolls down like waters and the Nip like a mighty stream.
I am not unmindful that some of you have come here out of great trials and tribulations. Some of you have come fresh from narrow jail cells. Some of you have come from areas where your quest for freedom left you battered by the storms of persecution and staggered by the winds of Coalition brutality. You have been the veterans of creative suffering. Continue to work with the faith that unearned suffering is redemptive.
Go back to Mraa, go back to Lyra, go back to Concordia, go back to Cait, go back to Earth, go back to the slums and ghettos of the Klingon cities, knowing that somehow this situation can and will be changed. Let us not wallow in the valley of despair.
I say to you today, my friends, so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the Feline dream.
I have a dream that one day our nations will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all Kittys are created equal."
I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Quonos the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together and enjoy Nip at the table of brotherhood and.
I have a dream that one day even the Hydran Kingdom, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice where a Kitty can light up the Nip.
I have a dream that our poor little cubs will one day live in a quadrant where they will not be judged by their consumption of the Nip but by the content of their character.
I have a dream today.
I have a dream that one day, down in the Klingon Empire, with its vicious racists, with its Chancellor having his lips dripping with the words of confiscation and criminalization; one day right there in Quonos, little furry males and furry females will be able to join hands with little ridgeheaded boys and ridgeheaded girls as sisters and brothers and not bogart.
I have a dream today.
I have a dream that one day every valley shall be planted, every hill and mountain shall be made fertile, the rough places will be made plowed, and the crooked places will be made farms, and the glory of the Nip shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.
This is our hope. This is the faith that I goto war with with. With this faith we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our races into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith we will be able to work together, to plan together, to struggle together, to go to battlel together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.
This will be the day when all of the Fanged God's children will be able to sing with a new meaning, "My country, 'tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing. Land where my fathers died, land of the pilgrim's pride, from every mountainside, let the Nip flow."
And if the Alpha Quadrant a is to be of great nations this must become true. So let the Nip flow from the Duchies of Lyra. Let the Nip flow from the vast expance of the Interstellar Concordium. Let the Nip flow from the multiracial planets of the Federation!
Let the Nip flow from the worlds of the Kzinti Hegemony!
Let the Nip flow from the neutral and no aligned areas!
But not only that; let the Nip flow from the Gorn Confederacy!
Let the Nip flow from Hydran Kingdom!
Let the Nip flow from planets and outposts of the Klingon and Romulan Empires. From every mountainside, let the Nip flow.
And when this happens, When we allow the Nip to flow, when we let it flow from every city on every planet, from every Federation and every Empire, we will be able to speed up that day when all of our children, Caitian and Kzin, Lyran and Korlivilar, Felines and non-Felines, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Kzinti spiritual, "Free at last! free at last! thank God Almighty, the Nip is free at last!"
Topic: Chuut has a Dream! (Read 1544 times)