*"It is the hour of the peoples. If governments have failed—as is evident here—and have chosen instead to play with bombs and senseless wars, to kill boys and girls, then it is time for humanity’s great problems to be solved by the people themselves—by the humble people of humanity."*
> *"I can only say to the peoples of the world, speaking from the faint voice of a country without weapons of mass destruction, without dollars—but beautiful in its natural and cultural diversity—that this is no longer the time of governments, but the time of the peoples."*
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My daughter, Antonella Petro, has just sent me a paragraph that she wishes me to begin my speech with. With your permission, I will read it. It is the paragraph of a 15- or 16-year-old girl, and it reads as follows:
> *"Today, I am proud to stand before you as the president of the Heart of the Earth. That is how our Indigenous peoples of the Sierra Nevada refer to our beautiful country. From a geographic standpoint, it makes sense that we are the heart of the world.*
>
> *Yet if we are the heart, we must lead by example—an example of unity, of total peace, and of nature’s preservation. If the heart functions well, it is a great step forward; but every other part of the body also matters. If one fails, all fail.*
>
> *That is why, from the Heart of the Earth, we invite all countries to undertake an act of conscience—to set aside the greed that is destroying humanity and Mother Earth, and to take a step towards total peace."*
That was my daughter’s message. I have obeyed her wishes, and now I continue.
**Presidents of the world,**
In this chamber, a president’s ability to communicate depends on how many dollars are in their budget, on how many warplanes they possess, and ultimately, on their nation’s capacity to destroy humanity.
Today, a country’s power is no longer measured by its political or economic system, or by the ideas it radiates, but by its power to extinguish human life.
**We must now speak not to governments, but to the peoples of the world.**
Those of us who lack the power to destroy life—in contrast, those of us who have the power to sustain life on the planet—speak with little attention paid to our words. Often, perhaps, we speak only to our own people.
That is why we go unheard when we vote to halt the genocide in Gaza—even though we are the majority of the world’s presidents, representing the majority of humanity. We are not heard by the minority of presidents who could stop the bombing. We are not heard by the presidents of the countries capable of destroying humanity.
If we ask that debt be exchanged for climate action, the powerful few do not listen. If we call for an end to war so we can focus urgently on transforming the global economy and saving human life, still they do not listen.
In this United Nations chamber, it is the power to destroy life that amplifies one’s voice. That is what draws the attention of most representatives and delegates.
**The bells now toll for the planet.**
The voices of nations are not heard, even when we call for a united human effort for survival. We speak here, but we are not heard.
Yet perhaps we no longer speak in order to be heard by the world’s powerful presidents. Perhaps we now speak so the peoples of the world may listen.
Today, things are worse than a year ago. Eleven million hectares of the Amazon rainforest burned in a single month—due to global warming and the climate crisis. Scientists warned us that if the Amazon burns, we reach the point of no return—where human decisions can no longer prevent collapse.
Well, the Amazon is burning. The bells toll, as Hemingway wrote, not just for you—but for all life. The end has begun.
**The logic of genocide and inequality**
A year ago, I stood here and called for a peace conference on Palestine—before the first bomb was dropped. Today, 20,000 children have been killed by bombs. And the presidents of those countries responsible for human destruction laugh in these halls—backed by global media owned by vast capital, reorganising the world without democracy, without liberty.
The democratic project of humanity is dying, just as life itself is dying—while racists and supremacists, those who foolishly believe the Aryan race superior, prepare to dominate the world through terror written in bombs.
The rule of barbarism is under construction. Its proof is Gaza, and Lebanon. When Gaza dies, all of humanity dies.
**The people of God is all of humanity**
It turns out that the people of God were not Israel. Nor are they the people of the United States. The people of God is all of humanity. The children of Gaza—they were humanity. They were God’s chosen people.
God’s chosen people are being killed—the children of humanity. There is a reason for this contemporary Armageddon.
Behind the madness of governments that applaud genocide, that delay action to decarbonise economies, lies a certain logic. But that logic is not found in politics or at this podium. It lies elsewhere, and it is called **social inequality**.
Oxfam tells us that the richest 1% of humanity owns more wealth than the remaining 95% combined. In this unprecedented inequality lies the true logic behind climate catastrophe and the bombings unleashed by criminals like Israel’s Prime Minister Netanyahu on Gaza.
Netanyahu is a hero to the richest 1%—for proving that people can be annihilated beneath bombs.
**The 1% and the path to extinction**
If wealth were measured in carbon dioxide emissions rather than dollars, the richest 1% would be responsible for the advancing climate crisis. They oppose ending the oil and coal economy—because it is the very source of their wealth.
Presidents of the world’s most powerful nations obey them. They fund political campaigns. They own the media. They suppress scientific truth—like in the film *Don’t Look Up*. They dictate what can be said, thought, or silenced.
And even as they wield the power of censorship, they cry out: *"Long live freedom!"* But it is only **the freedom of the richest 1%**—a freedom that, under the guise of the market, leads us to atmospheric destruction and the death of life.
The free market was never about freedom—it was about maximising death.
This 1%—this powerful global oligarchy—is the reason bombs are dropped on women, the elderly, and children in Gaza, Lebanon, and Sudan. It is why rebellious nations like Cuba and Venezuela are blockaded—because the oligarchy must demonstrate its destructive power to the other 99% of humanity, so it can go on ruling and enriching itself.
**The global oligarchy is leading humanity to extinction**—while politics genuflects, abandoning any notion of liberty, of popular power, of democracy.
The question from this platform must be: **Will the peoples allow this to continue?**
Time is up. Governments are incapable of halting life’s extinction. Today, we must choose: life or greed, humanity or capital.
And so, I say again—from the faint voice of a country without weapons of mass destruction, without dollars, but rich in beauty and butterflies of every colour—that this is no longer the time of governments. It is the time of the peoples.
Time is up. We either raise the flag of life, or our lands will become cemeteries—as the pandemic showed us. This is the people’s hour. We must act locally, and agree globally.
**Stop fossil capital**
Fossil capital must be stopped. The people must stop it. The poison expelled into the atmosphere is fatal. The smokestacks that spew it must be shut down. Every corner of the world can be a battlefield against those chimneys.
A century ago, a red flag was raised by mass workers’ movements calling for a revolution against capital. That world has ended.
The red flag, lost in the enormity of states and the absence of liberty, did not find its place in history.
But today, even more urgently—not to defend a class or ideology, but to defend **collective life**—a new flag must be raised. Perhaps no longer red, but of all colours—a **flag of all humanity**, to defend its existence on this planet.
**Collective intelligence**
Perhaps socialism now carries a new meaning. Brains—the true foundation of labour—are more connected today than ever. Human knowledge is more collective than ever. Mutual aid has always been our species’ magic—the key to surviving a million years on this Earth.
Alone, individuals are weak—falling to fentanyl, the drug of death and human defeat.
But united, we are strong. Help at a planetary scale, mutual aid, the collective construction of knowledge, and humanity as a new political subject—this is the basis of a new socialism.
We are the most advanced expression of life: **intelligent life.** And we must defend it—against a global oligarchy that seeks to destroy it.
We must build a new kind of wealth—not based on oil, but on intensity, on free and creative labour enabled by the extraordinary productivity now achieved, including artificial intelligence—which must be regulated by global public power.
Productivity should mean free, creative time—the neural network of human minds, the greatest force ever achieved. This human neural web can lead us to victory, with the banner of life raised high.
I no longer speak to [President Joe] Biden, or [President Emmanuel] Macron, or [Chancellor Olaf] Scholz, or [President Xi] Jinping, or [President Vladimir] Putin.
From China, I take the idea of dialogue among civilisations; from Europe, its vision of a social pact; from the United States, the founding fathers’ love of democracy; from South America, our wild diversity, our standard-bearer, our Simón Bolívar; from Africa, the drums that call us to commune with nature’s spirits; from Jesus, the idea of universal love—his uniting of light and life.
From these civilisational sources—and others found in all the world’s peoples—we must draw strength for the greatest battle for life in human history.
That battle is, undeniably, a **global revolution**.
**An army for life**
We must build the greatest army of all time—composed of warriors for life.
The army of life will have no nuclear weapons, no arsenal of destruction, no bottomless bank accounts, no means of slaughtering children in genocides. It will not be backed by the global oligarchy.
But it will wield the greatest power of all: **the power of a united humanity**, unwilling to surrender its place on this planet.
There is only one point of life in millions of light years around the universe. It is called Earth. And upon it lives intelligent life—humanity.
We cannot allow this pearl of the universe to be extinguished.
Without life, only inert darkness will remain. And it is that lifeless darkness which fills the hearts and souls of the global oligarchy and its idols of clay.
It is humanity’s duty to fight back.
**The hour of the peoples**
It is the hour of the peoples. If governments have failed—as is clearly shown here—and have chosen to play with senseless wars, to kill children in their games of power, then it is time for the people themselves—the simple people of the Earth—to take the solution to humanity’s greatest problems into their own hands.
Instead of addressing unfeeling rulers, let us speak to each other—to the people. Let us coordinate shared action. Let us demonstrate a different kind of power: **democratic power**.
From within that living, acting human consciousness, new governments will emerge, new leaderships.
And if life triumphs over extinction, the global oligarchy will no longer rule the world. It will be overthrown—to make way for a **global democracy**.
A new history is about to begin.
**Thank you very much.**