The X-Project

My fellow Genoshans,

I address you tonight to appeal for calm and for peace. A great deception has left our nation wounded and reeling, our cities on fire, our reputation destroyed and all of us betrayed. For those of you who recognize my face, it must seem a ghost is speaking to you. I am Okim Etufunwa, former President of Genosha, and the last prior to David Moreau. Ten years ago, I was reported killed in a helicopter accident.

That, like many other things, was a lie told to you by leaders in a plot to enrich themselves and accue more power at the expense of the Genoshan people.

I was secretly arrested and jailed by President Moreau and his brother, Thomas Moreau, because I sought to decouple Genosha from a policy that once saved us, but threatens to corrupt the very soul of our nation; the Genoshan Mutant arrangement.

Through a combination of illegal genetic conditioning and the manipulation of the government by a few key people, the mutant population of Genosha has had their sacrifice taken from them, and have been delivered into slavery to enrich several captains of industry and politicians. Worse, they arranged to secretly kidnap foreign mutants and enslave them here. If it wasn't for the brave attempt by Phillip Moreau and Jennifer Ransome, these crimes would still be happening, under out very gaze.

We owe those two more than you may know. Jennifer Ransome saved hundreds of lives by rescuing mutants who had been sent into the great geothermal plant to be worked to death. She risked everything to challenge the corrupt regime of President Moreau and bring him to justice.

And when David Moreau threatened genocide, it was his son who faced his father, and stopped hundreds more from being murdered to protect a political legacy. Phillip Moreau paid the ultimate sacrifice, and Genosha has gained another fallen hero.

Jobeth Razafimanjaka and Joseph Nku Reneau died trying to stop what was a perversion of their sacrifice. The rest of the Commission followed, trapped and killed when the top of the Citadel was destroyed. More fallen heroes.

We need more than fallen heroes now. Genosha owes a debt to the world. In our name, there have been kidnappings, violence, and most shamefully, murder. We owe a debt that cannot be repaid with money or oil or wealth. It can only be repaid by remembrance; by a solemn pledge made by every Genoshan that we will not forget, we will never tread the same path, and we will from here on represent a force for good. This is the battle for the soul of Genosha, my dear friends. Where we decide on what side we stand on in the course of history.

The road ahead is long. We have suffered and lost in this conflict. Let the fires that rage be purifiers and not destroyers. Let us emerge purged of the corruption and the rot that has dwelt in the heart of our nation for years, and take the first steps together as a better people and a better nation.

At the heart of Genosha was a dream. That together, we could build a place that wasn't dependent on superpowers or trade routes or the scraps of others to survive. A place where together we sacrificed to build a better future as one people, unmarred by racism, sexism or intolerance. A place where mutant and human worked in concert, because in our hearts, we weren't mutants and humans, blacks or whites, men or women; we were all Genoshans.

I believe that dream is still within our reach. I have seen the betrayed and the abused let go of righteous anger in order to preserve hope. I have seen sacrifice that binds us to the duty to make our nation worth the price. The days ahead will be hard and unstable, but we will persevere. We will fulfill the promise of a place that others died to protect, and we will honour our fallen heroes by building a nation worthy of their sacrifice. We will retake our words by making them true again; human and mutant together.

In unity, strength.