H.E Dame Nina Saleh Ahmed – Duchess of Neuquen – Speech on the 50th Anniversary of Mrs Josephine Baker – Chevalier of the Legion of Honour
Monte Carlo – November 22nd 2025
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Mari mari,
Good evening,
Your Royal Highness,
Your Eminences,
Your Excellencies,
Distinguished Ladies and gentlemen,
On this auspicious occasion we have the great honour, of the presence, of Mr Louis Bouillon Baker, the son of Mrs Josephine Baker, on this, the year of her 50th anniversary.
Thank you Mr Baker for joining us this evening.
Your mother, Josephine, remains, an inspiration, in the lives, of so many, across the Globe. A woman, of rare stature, courage, and compassion, standing in defence of equality, human rights, and fundamental freedoms for all. The progress which she achieved in advancing these rights, in particular for African Americans and for other minority ethnic groups, laid the foundation, upon which today, they depend.
Giving a voice to the voiceless, empowerment to the disenfranchised, and regenerating pride, in diverse national identities, after 2 centuries of crippling colonisation, subjugation under slavery and later Jim Crow law.
Emerging from the Harlem renaissance, supporting the NAACP, Josephine rose as a guiding light and a hope for her people alongside those who were to become the leading figures of the U.S Civil Rights Movement, providing a template/roadmap for future generations.
Between 1920 and 1938 the NAACP raised a chilling banner with the slogan, “A Man Was Lynched Today” to bring the practice of this barbaric injustice to the public consciousness; 78 years later, in 2015, Dread Scott raised the same banner in support of “the Black Lives Matter” movement. George Floyd was murdered 5 years later.
Demonstrating that the battle has yet to be won, that there is still much work to be done in ending racism in all its forms and manifestations.
In her address before 250,000 Americans present to witness Dr Martin Luther King’s “I have a Dream” Speech, during the 1963 Washington Civil Rights March, Josephine maintained the importance of using one’s voice “loudly!” and with “intention!” to highlight injustice, and to demand, unapologetically, freedom and equality, not just for her own people, but for all minorities, including those of indigenous peoples…. in fact for all peoples!
Today, her legacy and her message is perhaps more important than ever, as we witness the rise of far right nationalism, indeed fascism, raising its head once again in the contemporary world, threatening to extinguish, all of those rights which were so hard won, by so many, over centuries, and which Josephine herself, fought, to obtain for us all.
In fact, the spectre of the imminent election of a far right wing candidate for the Presidency of Chile today, gravely threatens the future security and rights of the Mapuche people.
In this context, in President Donald Trump’s second inauguration speech of 2025, he expressed his intention, to eradicate long standing, birth right citizenship laws, enshrined in the U.S Constitution, which exist to protect the human, civil and political rights of Americans, in a bid to exclude Indigenous and other American minorities, a so called ‘social engineering experiment of race and gender’, to create a so called ‘colour-blind’ and ‘merit based’ society, in reality intended to erase these rights by Executive Order.
Policies which states of the world would mimick, threatening the rights of today’s global minorities.
Today ladies and gentlemen, we must raise once again our voices, our energies, against such tyrannies, just as Josephine Baker, Martin Luther King, and others have, to protect, and to maintain these inherent rights, enshrined under both national and international law, to protect human dignity, to end suffering and to bring peace to the rainbow tribe.
Chaltumay
H.E Dame Nina Saleh Ahmed
Duchess of Neuquen
Chancellor – Garde des Sceaux
President of the High Court of Justice
of the Kingdom of Araucania and Patagonia
