{ "article": { "title" : "Hope Without Illusion: Astrology of Liberation, June 2025", "author" : "Jonathan Dent", "category" : "essays", "url" : "https://everythingispolitical.com/readings/astrology-of-liberation-june-2025-horoscope", "date" : "2025-06-14 12:01:00 -0400", "img" : "https://everythingispolitical.com/uploads/Dinner-for-One_Sarah-Saroufim.jpg", "excerpt" : "The astrology of June 2025 unfolds with a sacred tension between care and grief. As the month begins, the two most positive planets in Astrology, Venus and Jupiter, move into their home signs of vitality, nourishment, and abundance. Venus enters Taurus on June 6, and Jupiter enters Cancer on June 9. These transits would typically suggest relief, abundance, and restoration. But in our current world, where Gaza has been starved of aid since March 2 and genocide has ravaged not only Gaza but also the Sudan and Congo, the question becomes: how do we hold hope in the face of so much devastation? Astrology teaches us that we must attempt to hold both truths: the potential for growth, and the reality of grief.", "content" : "The astrology of June 2025 unfolds with a sacred tension between care and grief. As the month begins, the two most positive planets in Astrology, Venus and Jupiter, move into their home signs of vitality, nourishment, and abundance. Venus enters Taurus on June 6, and Jupiter enters Cancer on June 9. These transits would typically suggest relief, abundance, and restoration. But in our current world, where Gaza has been starved of aid since March 2 and genocide has ravaged not only Gaza but also the Sudan and Congo, the question becomes: how do we hold hope in the face of so much devastation? Astrology teaches us that we must attempt to hold both truths: the potential for growth, and the reality of grief.Venus in Taurus and Jupiter in Cancer will bring our attention to the themes of resources, security, and the emotional sanctuaries we are still trying to build amidst collapse. These are soft transits, but softness does not mean weakness. In a time of global brutality, tenderness and community care are revolutionary. This month’s astrology asks us to reclaim communal care as a form of resistance.VENUS ENTERS TAURUS – JUNE 6, 2025Venus will remain in Taurus until July 5.Venus in Taurus is sensual, earthy, and life-affirming. Venus rules Taurus, and when in this sign, Venus wants to feed us. Literally. Taurus governs food, land, pleasure, and resources. How poignant that this ingress happens while the people of Gaza are being starved. While we cannot promise that astrology will provide material aid, Venus in Taurus reminds us of what must be prioritized: dignity, sustenance, and beauty in a world that has forgotten how to care.This is a time to ask: What are we hoarding? What are we willing to share? And what beauty are we still allowed to create in defiance of erasure?JUPITER ENTERS CANCER – JUNE 9, 2025Jupiter will remain in Cancer until June 30, 2026.Jupiter is exalted in Cancer, which means it is able to function with great dignity here. The planet of expansion, wisdom, and spiritual truth moves into the sign of ancestral memory, home, and emotional protection. In its highest expression, Jupiter in Cancer helps us expand our capacity to care, for ourselves, our families (chosen and blood), and our communities.But exaltation does not guarantee ease. Jupiter in Cancer will amplify whatever it touches, including grief. Cancer is a sign of both fierce protection and deep sensitivity. We are likely to see increased emphasis on borders, nationhood, and homeland throughout this transit. This is particularly poignant given the ongoing genocide in Gaza. Jupiter’s presence in Cancer will continue to raise global attention to humanitarian crises, but it will not undo them.We began 2025 with Mars retrograde in Cancer, a transit that brought the god of war into the most intimate of places, the home. We witnessed devastation, dislocation, and a spiritual exhaustion that only comes when the sanctuary is no longer safe. Then came the eclipses. We had the Virgo Lunar Eclipse on March 14 and then the Aries Solar Eclipse on March 29, which only intensified the genocide in Gaza. But now, finally, Jupiter enters the same terrain Mars ravaged. There is potential here for restoration—not in the sense of naive optimism—but as a spiritual reckoning. What have we lost? What are we still capable of rebuilding?FULL MOON IN SAGITTARIUS – JUNE 11, 2025The Full Moon in Sagittarius peaks at 3:44 AM ESTThis lunation is one of the more promising moments of the month. Sagittarius is ruled by Jupiter, and with Jupiter now in Cancer, this full moon is ruled by an exalted Jupiter, a powerful indication that a restoration of some type may be underway. Full Moons are revelations. And Sagittarius governs global affairs, justice, and the pursuit of higher wisdom.We may see moral awakenings, whistleblower revelations, or large-scale protests take center stage under this lunation. Already, more people in the U.S. and around the world are breaking their silence around Gaza. The atrocities are no longer deniable, and as the veil lifts, we are watching people risk jobs, reputations, and even safety to speak for Palestine and for the dream of collective liberation.This Full Moon echoes a truth that many have long held close: the path to healing requires unflinching honesty. We must understand the architecture of harm so intimately that we can begin to dismantle it from the inside out. The walls of silence are cracking. And from those cracks, truth pours in.Ask yourself: What truth am I now ready to live by? What story must be told? What risk am I willing to take for the world I want to help create?SUMMER SOLSTICE + CANCER SEASON BEGINS – JUNE 20, 2025The Summer Solstice marks the longest day of the year and the beginning of Cancer season. It’s a spiritual turning point that reminds us of the ongoing cosmic dance between light and darkness. Solstice energy is sacred across cultures because it affirms that cycles are real, and I hope that this Summer Solstice will indicate a departure from a cycle of devastation and the emergence of a new cycle of restoration.NEW MOON IN CANCER – JUNE 25, 2025The New Moon in Cancer occurs at 6:31 AM EST.The Cancer New Moon is an invitation inward. It brings us back to the emotional center of all this astrology. This is the first New Moon with Jupiter in Cancer, and it opens a new cycle of nurturing, remembering, and rooting.New Moons are planting moments. Let this one be a prayer. What needs to be protected? Where is the emotional ground you want to grow from? Set intentions around home, healing, lineage, and community care.CANCER IN YOUR CHART: WHAT TO WATCH FORSince the sign of Cancer will prove to be one of the main characters during June 2025, it’s important for you to track where you have Cancer within your own birth chart. We all have Cancer in 1 of our 12 Whole Sign houses. Below, you’ll find where you have Cancer in your chart based on your RISING sign, and also a few of the significations of that house. It’ll be helpful this month to reflect on the significations of your Cancer house, and to plant seeds of action on the Cancer New Moon that you can take within these life areas. ARIES RISING: Cancer in your 4th house — Home, ancestry, family, roots TAURUS RISING: Cancer in your 3rd house — Writing, communication, siblings, neighbors GEMINI RISING: Cancer in your 2nd house — Money, values, survival, self-worth CANCER RISING: Cancer in your 1st house — Self, body, personal rebirth, appearance LEO RISING: Cancer in your 12th house — Grief, solitude, spiritual renewal, hidden enemies VIRGO RISING: Cancer in your 11th house — Community, social impact, future dreaming LIBRA RISING: Cancer in your 10th house — Career, public roles, long-term goals SCOPRIO RISING: Cancer in your 9th house — Wisdom, publishing, teaching, travel SAGITTARIUS RISING: Cancer in your 8th house — Shared resources, debt, death, rebirth CAPRICORN RISING: Cancer in your 7th house — Partnerships, love, clients AQUARIUS RISING: Cancer in your 6th house — Work, physical health, daily routines, coworkers, pets PISCES RISING: Cancer in your 5th house — Creativity, children, erotic power, child-like joyThe Astrology of June 2025 is infused with transits that speak to the possibility of restoration and community care amidst the heaviness of grief. Let this month be a return to the soul of what matters. To hope, not as illusion, but as a decision we make to keep showing up for each other.May Palestine be free. May Sudan be free. May Congo be free. May all of the places currently struggling against the cruelties of imperialism become freer. May nourishment return. May community care guide us.And so it is." } , "relatedposts": [ { "title" : "Skims, Shapewear, and the Shape of Power: When a Brand Expands Into Occupied Territory", "author" : "Louis Pisano", "category" : "", "url" : "https://everythingispolitical.com/readings/skims-shapewear-and-the-shape-of-power", "date" : "2025-11-17 07:13:00 -0500", "img" : "https://everythingispolitical.com/uploads/Cover_EIP_Skims_Israel.jpg", "excerpt" : "On the evening of November 11, Kris Jenner celebrated her 70th birthday inside the fortified sprawl of Jeff Bezos’s $175 million Beverly Hills compound, hidden behind hedges so tall they violate city regulations, a rule he bypasses with a monthly $1,000 fine that functions more like a subscription fee than a penalty. The theme was James Bond, black tie and martini glasses, a winking acknowledgment of Amazon’s new ownership of the 007 franchise. Guests surrendered their phones upon arrival, a formality as unremarkable as valet check-in. Whatever managed to slip beyond the gates came in stray fragments: a long-lens photograph of Oprah Winfrey stepping out of a black SUV, Mariah Carey caught mid-laugh on the curb, Kylie Jenner offering a middle finger through the window of a chauffeured car. The rest appeared hours later in the form of carefully curated photos released by an official photographer, images softened and perfected until they resembled an ad campaign more than documentation. Nothing inside was witnessed on anyone’s own terms.", "content" : "On the evening of November 11, Kris Jenner celebrated her 70th birthday inside the fortified sprawl of Jeff Bezos’s $175 million Beverly Hills compound, hidden behind hedges so tall they violate city regulations, a rule he bypasses with a monthly $1,000 fine that functions more like a subscription fee than a penalty. The theme was James Bond, black tie and martini glasses, a winking acknowledgment of Amazon’s new ownership of the 007 franchise. Guests surrendered their phones upon arrival, a formality as unremarkable as valet check-in. Whatever managed to slip beyond the gates came in stray fragments: a long-lens photograph of Oprah Winfrey stepping out of a black SUV, Mariah Carey caught mid-laugh on the curb, Kylie Jenner offering a middle finger through the window of a chauffeured car. The rest appeared hours later in the form of carefully curated photos released by an official photographer, images softened and perfected until they resembled an ad campaign more than documentation. Nothing inside was witnessed on anyone’s own terms.The guest list felt less like a party roster and more like an index of contemporary American power. Tyler Perry arrived early, Snoop Dogg later in the evening, Paris Hilton shimmering in a silver column that clung like liquid metal. Hailey Bieber drifted past in a slinky black dress, while Prince Harry and Meghan Sussex appeared in images that were quietly scrubbed from the family grid a day later. Nine billionaires circulated among the luminaries, their combined wealth brushing toward $600 billion. Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan joined Bill Gates at the poker table, while Bezos himself wandered through the party with Lauren Sánchez, doing the kind of effortless hosting that comes with having $245B in the bank.Jenner, dressed in red vintage Givenchy by Alexander McQueen, floated from conversation to conversation. She paused for a warm embrace with Perry, raised a glass with Hilton, and eventually made her way to the dance floor with Justin Bieber. At 70, she remains the family’s central command center, equal parts mother, manager, strategist, and brand steward. The celebration functioned as a kind of coronation, a reaffirmation that the Kardashian-Jenner empire is not stagnating but expanding, stretching itself into new sectors and new narratives with the same relentless ease that has defined its last decade.Just two weeks earlier, on a bright Monday in late October, a very different scene unfolded at the SKIMS flagship on the Sunset Strip. That morning, the boutique had been cleared to host Hagiborim, the Israeli nonprofit that supports children of fallen IDF soldiers and orphans of the October 7 attacks. Around a dozen girls wandered the store, laughing among themselves, perusing tank tops, and snapping selfies before assembling outside with those unmistakable beige SKIMS shopping bags. The images of the visit were sparse and easily missed unless one went searching; they appeared only on Hagiborim’s Instagram highlights. The event took place on October 28, less than a week before news began to circulate about SKIMS’s upcoming entry into the Israeli market.The launch itself unfolded with clinical precision. On November 10th in partnership with Irani Corp, SKIMS went live on Factory 54’s Israeli website, with in-store boutiques planned for December and ten to fifteen standalone stores projected to open across Israel by 2026. The company’s official language remained on brand, warm and relentlessly forward-looking. It spoke of “inclusivity,” of “community presence,” of broadening the global market. Nowhere did it acknowledge the war in Gaza, though the border sits just over an hour away and the headlines that week were filled with rising casualty counts and allegations of cease-fire violations, an entirely different reality unfolding parallel to the brand’s expansion.Hours after the SKIMS launch, Kardashian’s Instagram shifted into overdrive. She posted a carousel of herself in a gray bikini, captioned with a single emoji racking up millions of likes. The images came just two days after news of her fourth unsuccessful attempt at the California Bar had broken, a reminder that in the Kardashian ecosystem, social media momentum often outweighs any setback.Beneath the SKIMS machine which just raised $225M in funding is a quieter network of capital. Joshua Kushner, Jared’s younger brother, the polished, soft-spoken investor whose firm helped seed Instagram, owns a 10 percent stake and a board seat in SKIMS, a detail that surfaces only in required filings and the occasional business-page profile. The Kushner family’s ties to Israel run far deeper than the brand’s marketing conveys: long-standing real-estate ventures in Tel Aviv, and a family foundation that has funneled at least $342,000 to Friends of the IDF and another $58,500 to West Bank settlement groups and yeshivas in places like Beit El and Efrat. Jared Kushner’s diplomatic work on the Abraham Accords carved geopolitical corridors that SKIMS now moves through. The brand may position itself as apolitical, but the infrastructure of its Israel expansion is built on deeply political ground.Fashion media, however, showed little interest in any of this. A wide sweep through the archives of Business of Fashion, WWD, and Vogue Business yields nothing, not a single headline, not even a line buried in a retail digest. The launch through Factory 54, the long-term plan for as many as fifteen stores, the philanthropic event with Hagiborim, all of it passed in silence in the sector that usually treats Kardashian business moves as reliable traffic drivers.Instead, their coverage was devoted wholly to Kris Jenner’s birthday. Harper’s Bazaar published three separate pieces. W Magazine dubbed it “the Kardashians’ own Met Gala.” Vogue broke down the night with a dutifully detailed recap that leaned heavily on Harry and Meghan’s brief presence, clearly recognizing their value as SEO gold.The Kardashians operate with a level of intentionality that has outpaced many political campaigns. They understand the choreography of public-facing narratives better than any other family in American media. The Hagiborim visit, girls only, modest branding, no Kim in sight, served as a small preemptive gesture, a way to soften potential critique before the Israel launch rolled out. While the party dominated the feed, the expansion passed unnoticed and the charity event remained strictly confined to the margins, a calculated sequence, not chaos, the kind of PR mastery we’ve come to expect from Kris Jenner.The same instinct shapes their political signaling. On Inauguration Day 2025, as Donald Trump took the oath of office for a second term, Kim posted a silent Instagram Story of Melania Trump stepping out in a navy ensemble and wide-brimmed hat. She offered no caption, no endorsement, no framing. The image disappeared within 24 hours, but not before sparking a brief firestorm. It is the same familiar pattern, presence without explanation, the kind of ambiguity that allows the public to fill in the blanks while the family remains insulated.Beyond their insulated world, the conflict continues. Inside the bubble, the champagne is crisp, the Hulu cameras are rolling and the narrative is intact. What remains for the public is the split-screen: Kris Jenner blowing out seventy candles beneath a ceiling of crystals, surrounded by some of the wealthiest people alive; and Kim Kardashian posing in a studded bikini, eyes locked on the lens, hinting at the next product drop. Between the two lies a series of transactions, commercial, political, and moral, that the audience is never invited to examine.As for Kris Jenner’s birthday, it will be remembered. The launch will fade. The girls who posed with their new SKIMS pajamas will grow older; the war will either end or shift into some new phase. And the Kardashian-Jenner machine will keep moving, calculating every image, every post, every angle, ensuring the story that matters most is always the one they control." } , { "title" : "Unpublished, Erased, Unarchived: Why Arab-Led Publishing Matters More Than Ever", "author" : "Céline Semaan", "category" : "", "url" : "https://everythingispolitical.com/readings/unpublished-erased-unarchived", "date" : "2025-11-13 10:25:00 -0500", "img" : "https://everythingispolitical.com/uploads/Cover_EIP_Unpublished.jpg", "excerpt" : "At a moment when news of Gaza, West Bank, South Lebanon, and Beirut are slowly disappearing from the headlines—and from public consciousness—Arab writers face a singular burden: We must write the stories that no one else will print. We live in a media landscape that refuses to see us as fully human. A recent analysis from Giving Compass suggests that traditional media skews Palestinian news: seven major U.S. news outlets found that Palestinian stories were 13.6% to 38.9% less likely to be individualized than Israeli ones. Meaning, Palestinians appear as abstractions—statistics, masses, “civilians”—not as people with names, losses, or lives. Meanwhile, reports from the Centre for Media Monitoring (CfMM) show that UK outlets had a fourfold increase in coverage only when Gaza was framed through the lens of “criticism of Israel,” not Palestinian experience itself.", "content" : "At a moment when news of Gaza, West Bank, South Lebanon, and Beirut are slowly disappearing from the headlines—and from public consciousness—Arab writers face a singular burden: We must write the stories that no one else will print. We live in a media landscape that refuses to see us as fully human. A recent analysis from Giving Compass suggests that traditional media skews Palestinian news: seven major U.S. news outlets found that Palestinian stories were 13.6% to 38.9% less likely to be individualized than Israeli ones. Meaning, Palestinians appear as abstractions—statistics, masses, “civilians”—not as people with names, losses, or lives. Meanwhile, reports from the Centre for Media Monitoring (CfMM) show that UK outlets had a fourfold increase in coverage only when Gaza was framed through the lens of “criticism of Israel,” not Palestinian experience itself.Against this backdrop of erasure, the scarcity of Arab women’s voices in publishing is even more alarming. A bibliometric study spanning 1.7 million publications across the Middle East and North Africa shows that men publish 11% to 51% more than women. What’s more, women’s authorship is less persistent, and men reach senior authorship far faster. Arab women are not only under-published but also systematically written out of the global record.This is why Slow Factory has founded Books for Collective Liberation, an Arab-led, independent imprint committed to telling Arab stories the way they should be told: authentically, empathetically, and wholly. We publish work that would never survive the filters of legacy publishing: the political hesitation, the “market concerns,” the fear of touching Arab grief, joy, or its future. Independence is not an aesthetic choice; it is the only way to protect our stories from being softened, sanitized, or structurally erased.Our forthcoming title, On the Zero Line, created in partnership with Isolarii, is a testament to that mission. It stands on the knife’s edge where memory is threatened with extinction—a book that documents what official archives will not. It is a testimony that refuses to disappear.But books alone are not enough. Stories need a home that is alive, responsive, and politically unafraid. That is the work of Everything is Political (EIP), our independent media platform and growing archive of essays, investigations, and first-person journalism. In an era where Big Tech throttles dissenting voices and newsrooms avoid political risk, EIP protects the creative freedom of Arab writers and journalists. We publish what mainstream outlets won’t—because our lives, our histories, and our communities, dead or alive, should not depend on editorial courage elsewhere.Together, Books for Collective Liberation and Everything is Political form an ecosystem of resistance: literature and journalism that feed each other, strengthening each other, building memory as infrastructure—a new archive. We refuse the fragmentation imposed on us: that books are separate from news, that culture is separate from politics, that our narratives exist only within Western frameworks. This archive is not static; it is a living, breathing record of a people determined to write themselves into the future.When stories from Gaza, Beirut, and the broader Levant fail to make the news—or make it only as geopolitical abstractions—the result breeds distortion and public consent to eliminate us. It is a wound to historical truth. It erases whole worlds. We will not let that happen.Independent, Arab-led publishing is how we repair that wound. It is how we record what happened, in our own voice. It is how we ensure that no empire, no newsroom, and no algorithm gets to decide which of our stories survive.Tonight, we gather at Palestine House to celebrate the launch of On the Zero Line, a collection of stories, essays, and poems from Gaza, translated in English for the first time. This evening, we are centering the lived experiences of Palestinians from Gaza who have been displaced in London. I have the honor of interviewing journalist Yara Eid and Ahmed Alnaouq, project manager of the platform “We are not Just Numbers.” Here, we will discuss how mainstream literature and journalism have censored us—and how we can keep our stories alive in response." } , { "title" : "The British Museum Gala and the Deep Echoes of Colonialism", "author" : "Ana Beatriz Reitz do Valle Gameiro", "category" : "essays", "url" : "https://everythingispolitical.com/readings/the-british-museum-gala-and-the-deep-echoes-of-colonialism", "date" : "2025-11-11 11:59:00 -0500", "img" : "https://everythingispolitical.com/uploads/the-younger-memnon-statue-british-museum%20copy.jpg", "excerpt" : "When it comes to fashion, few things are as overblown, overanalyzed, and utterly irresistible as a gala. For instance: hear the name “Met Gala”, and any fashionista’s spine will tingle while every publicist in New York breaks into a cold sweat. While New York has been hosting the original event at the Metropolitan Museum since 1948 and Paris had its Louvre moment in 2024, London finally decided to answer with an event at the British Museum on 18 October this year.", "content" : "When it comes to fashion, few things are as overblown, overanalyzed, and utterly irresistible as a gala. For instance: hear the name “Met Gala”, and any fashionista’s spine will tingle while every publicist in New York breaks into a cold sweat. While New York has been hosting the original event at the Metropolitan Museum since 1948 and Paris had its Louvre moment in 2024, London finally decided to answer with an event at the British Museum on 18 October this year.The invitation-only event drew high-profile guests such as Naomi Campbell, Mick Jagger, Edward Enninful, Janet Jackson, Alexa Chung, and James Norton. With a theme of ‘Pink Ball,’ the night drew inspiration from the vibrant colors of India and walked hand-in-hand with the museum’s ‘Ancient India: Living Traditions’ exhibition, adding a touch of colonial irony à la British tradition.Unlike its always-talked-about New York counterpart, or Paris’s star-studded affair last year that reunited figures like Doechii, Tyra Banks, Gigi Hadid, and Victoria Beckham, London’s event felt less memorable fashion-wise. With little buzz surrounding it - whether due to a less star-studded guest list, unremarkable fashion, or its clash with the Academy Museum Gala - it ultimately felt more like an ordinary night than a headline-making affair.But the event was not entirely irrelevant. In fact, it prompted reflections rarely discussed in mainstream media. Notably, because in spite of the museum’s sprawling collection of objects from other marginalized countries, the event ‘‘celebrated’’ Indian artifacts looted during colonial rule. Equally noteworthy is the institution’s partnership with BP - the British oil giant whose exports reach Israel, a state that, in the twenty-first century, stands as a symbol of colonialism and the ongoing genocide of Palestinians. And, of course, every penny raised went to the museum’s international initiatives, including an excavation project in Benin City, Nigeria, and other archaeological digs in Iraq.Although excavation is often portrayed as a means of preserving the past, archaeologists acknowledge that it is inherently destructive - albeit justifiable if it provides people with a deeper understanding of the human past. As Geoffrey Scarre discusses in Ethics of Digging, a chapter in Cultural Heritage Ethics: Between Theory and Practice, it matters who has the authority to decide what is removed from the ground, how it is treated, whether it should be retained or reburied, and who ultimately controls it. Something that feels especially relevant when discussing the objects of marginalized communities and the legacies of countries shaped by European colonialism, now just laid bare as trophies to embellish the gilded halls of Euro-American institutions.That the British Museum’s collections were built on the wealth of its nation imperialism is hardly news. Yet the institution, like so many others, from the Louvre to the Met, continues to thrive on those very foundations. As Robert J. C. Young observes in Postcolonial Remains, “the desire to pronounce postcolonial theory dead on both sides of the Atlantic suggests that its presence continues to disturb and provoke anxiety: the real problem lies in the fact that the postcolonial remains.”Although postcolonialism is often mistakenly associated with the period after a country gained independence from colonial rule, academics like Young, Edward Said, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, and Frantz Fanon acknowledge that our world is still a postcolonial one, with cultural, political, and economic issues reflecting the lasting effects of colonization. Its aftermath extends beyond labels like “Third World” or the lingering sense of superiority that still marks the Global North; it also fuels a persistent entitlement to our art, culture, and legacy.This entitlement can be seen in the halls of many museums worldwide. And though looting may not always be illegal - as in how these institutions acquire those objects - it is certainly unethical. For decades, scholars and activists have debated that these institutions should restitute the legacies taken from other lands, objects stolen through wars of aggression and exploitation. Still, these museums deliberately choose to hold them, artifacts that bear little cultural resonance for their current keepers, but profound meaning for the people from whom they were taken.But these debates are no longer confined to academic circles. Take Egypt, for instance. Its long-awaited Grand Museum finally opened its doors three decades after its initial proposal in 1992 and nearly twenty years since construction began in 2005. Now fully operational, breathing fresh life into Egypt’s storied past through showcasing Tutankhamun’s tomb among other relics of the country, it is demanding the return of its legacy. Egypt’s former and famously outspoken Minister of Tourism and Antiquities, Dr. Zahi Hawass, for instance, recently told the BBC: “Now I want two things, number one, museums to stop buying stolen artefacts, and number two, I need three objects to come back: the Rosetta Stone from the British Museum, the Zodiac from the Louvre, and the Bust of Nefertiti from Berlin.” Beyond the direct call-out, Dr. Hawass has initiated online petitions demanding the return of the artifacts, amassing hundreds of thousands of signatures. Nevertheless, the world’s great museums remain silent, and the precious Egyptian treasures are still very much on display.With African, Asian, and Latin American legacies still held captive within Euro-American institutions, the echoes of colonialism linger well into the 21st century, keeping the postcolonial order intact. Even fashion, an industry that loves to believe it exists beyond politics, proves such. Whether through events that claim to celebrate certain things but end up being meaningless, the current Eurocentrism that still dominates the industry, or how many labels still profit from the aesthetics of marginalized nations without acknowledgment, fashion, much like museums, reproduces the very hierarchies postcolonial theory seeks to expose.Ultimately, the British Museum’s latest event does not celebrate Indian culture or Nigerian history through its excavation in Benin City. Like so many Euro-American institutions, it reinforces imperial power - masquerading cultural theft as preservation.In fashion as in museums, spectacle too often conceals empire - and beauty, unexamined, can become complicity." } ] }