not mine
...
The following is an impromptu speech given by War Chief Hakoda of the Southern Water Tribe at a feast in the Northern Water Tribe celebrating the end of the 100 Year War. The feast had been an escalating series of insults against Hakoda. He was served last, as tradition dictated that guests be served in the order of the number of warriors he could raise. As Hakoda was in his position by general acclimation of the warriors of the Southern Water Tribe instead of inherited power, they were not counted. He was denied the status of foreign dignitary, instead being relegated to a mere tributary. He was placed low in the "Ladder of Honor", due to his lack of participation in the Battle of the North Pole. Northern tradition has each rung insult the next one on the ladder. The next rung would then extol their own record and insult the next rung and so on and so forth. Chief Nootaikok was the "rung" before Hakoda. Nootaikok gave an exceptionally rude speech, even by the standards of the ceremony, attacking not just Hakoda but the entire Southern Water Tribe. Hakoda, fed up with the feast and dismissive of the "Ladder of Honor" concept in the first place, dismissed proper protocol and instead began this classic defense of his Tribe that had become an integral founding document of Southern Independence activists.
"Brothers, Sisters. Good evening to you all. I ask of you nothing but your ears and minds.
It is now that I am supposed to defend my honor, which has been wounded by Nootaikok. This is difficult for me, as I have no honor that is not the property of the Southern Water Tribe. It is fortunate then that Nootaikok also slighted the honor of my Tribe. He has spoken at great length about our craveness and our weakness in battle. He evidently is not well read in his history, for it is more often than not the North that runs from a fight.
Who was it, in the time before time, that battled the sharkwasps of the sea? Was it the men of the north? No, it was men of the south? When the Mad King Goh of Omashu stood ready to gouge the eyes of every man who had tasted salt, who bore down upon him and threw him into the sea? Southerners. Both north and south stood against the efforts of Guru Nehru to force all airbenders to join his army. Here I am told you boast of the 27 diamonds received in payment, but in the south we tell tales of how we needed no pay to fight for the side of good.
And when the war came, the long, terrible war we are here to celebrate the end of, the South stood. We stood at the Straits of Ma, at the Ten Thousand Reefs Campaign, and upon foreign shores. We fought in the jungles, at sea, and in the deserts where no man of water would ever think to go. When we were forced back onto our own shores we fought. We fought on the icebergs, we fought on the rocks, and we fought on the ice plains. We fought beneath the midnight suns and midday moons.
And we did not yield.
We did not yield when our men were burned out of Gaolang. We did not yield when our fleet was smashed against the rocks. We did not yield when the enemy came into our homes and took our benders. We did not yield when our families were...when our wives and mothers were...murdered before our eyes.
We fought. And we struck out north yet again, there we defended our brothers in the Earth Kingdom, and there we fought on the Day of the Black Sun.
We have displayed our valour.
I defend not my own honor, which means nothing to me, but the honor of our dead. Of Amaqjuaq the Swift, of Oki the Wise, of Taqqiq the Fearless, just to name a few. Thousands of brave men and women, omitted from your esteemed ladder of honor. To say nothing of the living.
Now, I suppose, is the time when I am to hurl insults upon young Taluq, as he is lower then I upon the ladder of honor, but I must confess that this ladder is askew.
I could denounce Taluq for many things. He did not fight to defend the south as we were pillaged by my enemy. He did not bring forth his men to defend our families. He did not honor the ancient pact of the Water Tribes when he heard that the men of the south had gone to war. He did not defend Chameleon Bay. When the allied of the Avatar attacked the Fire Nation, he stood by and did nothing, despite the Avatar saving his home from that same enemy. And he has not aided the other victims of Fire Nation aggression, when even the Fire Nation has sent help.
I could heap these insults and more upon Taluq. I could damn him for all time for his inaction. But I shall not.
For could I not heap that same shame upon Nootaikok? Could I not say the same of High Chief Arnook? With the same words I would use to push young Taluq down, I could use against every man here except my own men, and Master Pakku, whose service at Ba Sing Se should place him higher than the fourth rung.
So I stay my tongue. Taluq is no craven, no horrid monster. He deserves no wrath from me.
I stand, as my ancestors did before me, a loyal vassal to the High Chief, Protector of the Ocean and Moon. I will not ask you to not think of me as impetuous, for I am indeed quite impetuous. But do not think me disloyal, I am as loyal as any son born to the water tribes.
I shall end with a bit of wisdom I have acquired in my travels. It is from an Earth Bender, but a wise man once told me learning forms other nations can make a man stronger. It is the story of the Farmer and the Turtleducks.
There once was a farmer who could not swim, and had no boat. Yet still he claimed lordship over the lake near his farm and all of the bounties it held. He was able to do so, because he had the good fortune of being friends with the turtleducks that lived in the lake. They brought him all sorts of fish, catfish, wormfish, yakfish. They did so out of the kindness of friendship. They also knew that, since they were turtleducks, a walk to the market would be long and dangerous, while the man found it short and easy. The farmer, for his part, let the turtleducks live in peace, doing as they so pleased on the lake. When he profited from their fish, he bought the turtleducks bread at the market, and he scared the leopardhawks away from their lake. And so they lived in harmony.
Eventually however, the farmer died, and his son now owned the farm. When the turtleducks brought him fish, he sold it and kept the gold it earned him. He gave them no bread. Soon he began to demand that they do things for him, to pull plows and sort grain. He forbade them from sleeping in certain places, because he felt that seeing the turtleducks ruined the view. When the leopardhawks came he did nothing.
One day the son came into market, and saw a new stand selling fish. It was the turtleducks. They had dragged their fish all the way to the market, and now sold it for themselves and themselves alone. When the son returned home he flew into a rage, and resolved to kill the turtleducks, and assert control over his lake. But he could do no such things, for like his father he had no boat, and he could not swim.
So ends the fable.
I will not patronize you all and tell your the moral this tale teaches. But it is lesson worth hearing.
I realize, by your faces, that my speech has not been conventional. But it was needed. Still, I shall end it in the traditional manner, so as not to interrupt the feast.
Rise Taluq. Defend Your Honor. If You Have It."
The speech did not receive the raucous cheers other speeches at the banquet received. Even Hakoda's own men only nodded silently. No one was rude enough to jeer, but the northerners were appalled by Hakoda's attacks on their tribe, and not at all veiled threat of independent action.
Taluq, to his credit, handled the incident with good humor. He thanked Hakoda for holding his tongue, as "it makes my job much easier". Taluq then reestablished the Ladder of Honor by insulting the man below him.
Naturally the speech caused an incident, although Arnook was wise enough not to push Hakoda at the moment. Still, tensions between Southerners and Northerners rose quickly, and in the end Hakoda took his leave of the North far earlier than anticipated. When Northerners arrived belatedly in the South to help rebuild the country, they found a sullen and not overly thankful nation. Distaste increased when Fire Lord Zuko and Earth King Kuei announced that a conference on the fate of the colonies would be held in the South, not the North as Arnook had expected.
It would be several more decades until any more moves towards a break occurred, but Hakoda's speech symbolized what the Southern Water Tribe felt: that 100 Years of Struggle with the Fire Nation had led to them becoming a distinct people, different from the Northerners.