{ "article": { "title" : "Im-Mortal Magenta: The Colour that Doesn’t Exist", "author" : "Ayham Hassan", "category" : "", "url" : "https://everythingispolitical.com/readings/ayham-hassan", "date" : "2025-09-08 10:05:00 -0400", "img" : "https://everythingispolitical.com/uploads/AYHAM-HASSAN-LOOK8.jpg", "excerpt" : "", "content" : "My name is Ayham Hassan. I’m a Palestinian fashion design student based in London and Ramallah. My work is deeply rooted in my personal experiences growing up in the West Bank and is approached through a critical and analytical lens. I am dedicated to challenging and reshaping my reality through the expressive medium of fashion, drawing inspiration from the social customs and evolving culture in my city. Focusing on exploring the rich craftsmanship in Palestine, with a particular emphasis on tailoring, textiles, and draping. I actively collaborate with local artisans to incorporate their traditional techniques and expertise into my design and production process. By doing so, I aim to contribute to the preservation of Palestinian crafts and enhance the overall production cycle in my country, ensuring that these invaluable skills and traditions do not disappear, especially in the fast- evolving world we live in.The unique aesthetic of my work is deeply influenced by the environment in which I was raised, characterized by a raw, primal, visceral, and earthy quality. This aesthetic is a reflection of the challenges I faced growing up under Israeli military occupation. To me, fashion is not simply a form of self-expression; it is a means of protection, at times from societal pressures, and always from the harsh realities of military occupation.I firmly believe in the transformative power of design as a force for positive change and progress. Through my work, I seek to disrupt the fabric of constructed life in my community, prompting individuals to confront the pressing issues within Arab and Palestinian societies. By building upon traditional techniques and infusing them with innovative and sustainable production methods, I am committed to elevating design and industrial independence in Palestine and the Levant area. Additionally, I aspire to integrate the often-overlooked Palestinian identity into the global fashion industry. إنهاليستثوبًاأخلعهاليوم،بلجلًداأمزقهبيد ّي.ولاهي فكرة أتركها ورائي، بل قلبًا حلو بالجوع والعطش “It is not a garment I cast off this day, but a skin that I tear with my own hands. Nor is it a thought I leave behind me, but a heart made sweet with hunger and thirst.”— Khalil Gibran, The Prophet (1923).I have developed a collection that powerfully showcases my conceptual process for each look, utilizing primarily deadstock materials and end-of-stock leather skins. My selection includes an array of soft silk chiffon, woven silks, and vibrant shades of magenta. I have incorporated silk organza, rubber bands, faux leather cords, and knitted wool from Palestine. Additionally, my materials feature tulles, paper silks, metal embellishments, pleated paper, and hand-stitched woven cotton from Palestine, all contributing to a distinctive and impactful aesthetic.Firstly, I confront the issue of cultural sustainability against the backdrop of the horrific genocide occurring in Gaza and the West Bank. My work is deeply inspired by the Magenta weaving technique and cross-stitch embroidery, which have cultural roots in the city of Majdal in Gaza. Regrettably, the last family practicing these traditional crafts faces severe intimidation from Israeli forces, with some members displaced to Egypt. Through the use of symbolic color and powerful motifs, I assertively document and celebrate the uniqueness of this heritage in every look of my graduate collection.Secondly, I take a firm stance on environmental sustainability in the construction of my pieces. I have developed innovative zero-waste cutting techniques for each look, focusing intently on utilizing deadstock materials and leftover leather skins. My project has garnered sponsorship from Last Yarn Fabrics and support during my placement at Maison Givenchy. Together with my mother, I have crafted a wool knit scarf using wool sourced from local Palestinian shops, all while operating within a reparative production cycle. Furthermore, I proudly collaborated with eight exceptionally skilled female artisans specializing in cross-stitch embroidery; for them, this craft is a vital source of income for their households. In essence, my graduate collection is a powerful celebration of creativity and craft preservation from my hometown. It unapologetically addresses the devastating effects of genocide and war on the survival of a vibrant culture.Incorporating my identity into my work is not just important; it is essential. I am committed to confronting socio-political issues within the fashion landscape and raising critical awareness of the industry’s environmental impacts. Through my designs, I will deliver bold statements that inspire change, foster meaningful dialogue, and promote a more thoughtful and responsible approach to fashion. My aim is to craft pieces that not only enhance personal expression but also challenge the status quo and elevate our collective voice.CÉLINE: You moved to London four years ago to follow your dream. What was your dream?AYHAM: My dream was always fashion. I’m fascinated by the incredible designers in London, like McQueen and Galliano. In Ramallah, there was not much of a scene. I started studying design at Birzeit University in Ramallah, and met the most incredible artists, like Amer Shomali and Omar Joseph Nasser Khoury (?). I was so privileged and honored to be taught by them. I ultimately realized that I wanted to have a career in fashion, and the goal became CSM (Central Saint Martins in London).CÉLINE: How was the process to apply?AYHAM: It was insane. It was literally like doing the impossible. But I applied, and got in. Then I had to face the complications of going and getting funded. At that time, I had incredible mentorship from Nol Collective (an intersectional feminist & political fashion collective out of Palestine) who were incredibly supportive. However, unfortunately, the government in Palestine does not acknowledge fashion as a serious topic, like art… There is an amazing art scene in Palestine. Just not much fashion. So, I started doing crowdfunding. The crowdfunding got picked up by people at Dazed (digital magazine - dazeddigital.com), Bella Hadid, and a lot of people in the industry, who shared it on Instagram. It was so humbling… The al-Quds al-taw’am (?) made Palestine kind of mainstream on Instagram. There is an interesting evolution in terms of what resistance is and how to communicate what we are fighting for and how to communicate our ideas on social media. Emma Davidson (Fashion Features Director at Dazed Media) wrote an article in Dazed that literally changed my life in one night. I got all my funding sorted out, and I got my sponsorship. Emma called me and said, “Prepare yourself… make sure you have an umbrella. London is rainy.”CÉLINE: Your recent collection went viral, and it was in every single news outlet. I was so proud to see it… from GQ to Vogue to literally, everywhere. How was it for you to put out a collection? It’s so personal. Tell us a little bit about the process behind it, and the work in Palestine, the embroidery, the work with the oversized fabrics. Tell me about how you built this collection, and what it means to you.AYHAM: At that time, with the genocide in Gaza and the effect of that in the West Bank and in the occupied Palestinian territories in the north, it was so insanely tough and difficult… We grew up with our families, our grandparents telling us horrific stories. And there’s so little documentation of what happened during the Nakba, and the Naksa, the Intifadas, and everything connected to Palestinian resistance. The late Ottoman Empire also fucked up the situation and made it possible for Israel to come about. I was studying and watching documentaries, listening to stories. What happened in Gaza happened before, and it’s happening again. And even worse. I was in shock. I was in mourning, and huge suffering, and I didn’t understand how to actually support the resistance other than posting and sharing and going to protests with my friends…I’m in fashion, I’m a creator. I have a vision, and I have an identity that I want to share with the world. And I was aware that I needed to do something. I needed to reflect on my emotions and process everything. It was so tough to do this at UAL (University of the Arts London). Unfortunately, the show was sponsored by L’Oreal, which is complicit in the genocide. UAL is sponsored by a lot of companies that are complicit. It was really tough. But thank God the staff members and my tutors, all of them, reached out and reminded me that I was entitled to speak out. This collection, I’m not going to lie, was created in the context of being at CSM in London, but it was unapologetically about Palestine.I’m afraid for my family, my friends, my loved ones, in Lebanon, Syria, and Palestine. It was a terrifying time, and it still is a terrifying time. It’s insane. I needed to address this reality. I could not just look through the archives of incredible designers from the ‘50s and ‘60s. I had to address what was (and is) happening to my country. I did months of research in Palestine. I was able to go to Palestine in the summer before I started my collection. I spent months looking at archives, at imagery. I learned how people were forced to leave their countries and sent to refugee camps in Jordan and Lebanon. I was looking at all of this, and I was really overwhelmed. I thought, how am I going to approach this? It was the quest for liberation and the reality of genocide. I wanted to look at the history of Gaza. I wanted to understand the power and resilience behind it. And it clicked for me, the magenta color. It looked like a symbol of resilience, a symbol of joy in the face of suffering and the horrific things that people were going through. It’s a color of beauty, it’s a color that demands, “Look at me. I’m here!” This is what Gaza is for me, and this is how I experienced it from the West Bank.CÉLINE: Where did you start? Was the tatreez (Arabic word for Palestinian embroidery) on your work done in Palestine?AYHAM: Yes. Because I grew up in Ramallah, I was able to connect with a network of embroiderers who are in the villages near Ramallah and Jerusalem. I’d worked with them before on one of my samples. And I was like, let me go back to that. It was a very complicated technique to develop in a short period of time. I used the embroidery, but I applied it maximally. I changed the sizing, the scale, the colors, and the placement of it. The embroidery was done by hand by eight women who, incredibly, used images I sent them to work from. They picked up my changes immediately. And of course, my mom and my aunties, my friends, and my neighbors were also checking with them and working with them. So that was beautiful, and it was really important for me, because I wanted my textiles to come from Palestine, I wanted them to have the feel of Palestinian hands. Their resilience. This is how we fight back.The day of the show was so special. I had Sharon Rose, an incredible friend of mine, who came from Haifa to be part of it. My first model was Palestinian as well, from Ramallah. Sadly, my family could not come, but it was really interesting to meet the people who were able to be there. However, unfortunately, the school invited a designer who had served in the Israeli military to judge… And, we didn’t (and don’t) even know whether there will be a Palestine in two years, and that’s scary. That is very scary. This collection came from my reflection on that situation. Every look in the collection was specifically referenced with keywords. It told a very strong story, and the magenta was really striking. One of the pieces was a net that my mom knitted and embroidered by hand. I wanted her to be a part of it, and I wanted her to see it… we are in 2025, it’s not that complicated to travel from continent to continent, but this is how difficult it is in Palestine. You cannot actually travel easily. You have to go to Jordan. You have to cross all these checkpoints.The Ottoman Empire made sure to kill the industries and starve the people who worked with silk in Lebanon. There’s a huge story about mulberry trees, silk, and the famine that the Ottoman Empire caused, which severely impacted the Lebanese people. And similarly, in Syria… so, we became the ones to provide the silks. There is a connection through the fabrics and the colors and the threads between our countries and our nations… People say I’m Palestinian, but I’m probably more Lebanese, more Syrian. We are all of the same ethnic makeup. When we look at the collection, we see this cry, this loud scream, this creative explosion of, look at me, look at me, I’m here… and it’s extremely moving. I think that’s why it’s touching a lot of people, and it’s going viral, because people need to see this in a way that is creative. It’s a counterbalance in such a powerful way to all the horror we are seeing.Fashion is art to me. This virality has shown me that my work resonates on so many levels. It’s fashion, it’s design, it’s an explosion of creativity, and passion, and gender and sexuality expression. My collection is addressing the reality of genocide, the quest for liberation, and the inevitability of liberation. This is a collective liberation movement. It’s our right to scream and say, this is not okay! It is a genocide. It’s ethnic cleansing. During the show, they closed every door, they locked everything, they had police officers. My models were like, we have to do something. We have to carry signs. We have to show that this is not okay. My models, all of them, carried signs that said, “Boycott L’Oreal,” and “Free Palestine.” It was not even my suggestion. It was the models who decided to do this.CÉLINE: Do you think your brand is punk? Do you fall in the punk lineage?AYHAM: Maybe in the spirit of punk… it’s rebellious. We are living in very uncertain times in all industries. It’s very scary. I said everything I wanted. But unfortunately, they always tone it down. Change it a little bit. Of course, the staff are incredible and very pro-Palestinian, all of them, the tutors, students, everyone is… but the whole UAL multinational company… you just realize you don’t matter to anyone. They had a course fees reduction for Ukrainian students because they are going through the war, and I, as a Palestinian, didn’t receive any reduction. That was a huge what’s the deal? And why the hell do we have to have funding from L’Oreal to do a show to exhibit the most incredibly talented students, but we are living in a time if you’re not in that show, you’re not going to be shared. If you’re not posted, you’re not going to get a job. If you’re not shared, people are not seeing your work, and we deserve to show our work. You know, we worked super hard on it…CÉLINE: What’s next for you? Where are you headed?AYHAM: The ultimate goal is to open my own collective and work with students, work with designers and freelancers and artists in Palestine, in Lebanon and Syria, and Jordan, and hopefully make my statement in the industry. I have so much to say. I’m experiencing a genocide. My family is in Palestine. I am from Ramallah. I’m seeing all these stories, and at the same time, I have to be inspired. I have to be creative. I have to be on my best behavior, to be every day doing my best work. And I have to use different words to speak to people, and I have to approach it differently and humbly tone down. So which one? If it’s about being Palestinian, yes, it is about being Palestinian, about having to discuss really harsh topics in a fashion context. And this is what I’m providing to the industry. This is what I’m going to do every single season, every single year. This is what I’m going to speak about. This is what I’m going to approach.CÉLINE: If you were to work at a big house, at a traditional fashion house, is there one you would want to be a part of?AYHAM: Unfortunately, everything is complicit with everything horrible that I don’t stand for. And that’s why I have to do my own thing. Of course, I would love to work with Givenchy and Dior… You’re talking about years and years and years of craft, beautiful work, talented people, and the money to do the absolute best work. Unfortunately, I realized that I don’t have a space in that place because they are complicit. That’s why it is really important for me to do my own thing. I have so much to say on every topic, not just Palestine." } , "relatedposts": [ { "title" : "How to Resist “Organized Loneliness”: resisting isolation in the age of digital authoritarianism ", "author" : "Emma Cieslik", "category" : "essays", "url" : "https://everythingispolitical.com/readings/how-to-resist-organized-loneliness", "date" : "2026-02-13 15:11:00 -0500", "img" : "https://everythingispolitical.com/uploads/American_protesters_in_front_of_White_House-11.jpg", "excerpt" : "Over the past year, many of us have encountered, navigated, and processed violence alone on our phones. We watched videos of Renee Nicole Good and Alex Pretti being fatally shot and Liam Conejo Ramos being detained by ICE agents. These photos and videos triggered anger, sadness, and desperation for many (along with frustration that these deaths were the inciting blow against ICE agents that have killed many more people of color this year and last).", "content" : "Over the past year, many of us have encountered, navigated, and processed violence alone on our phones. We watched videos of Renee Nicole Good and Alex Pretti being fatally shot and Liam Conejo Ramos being detained by ICE agents. These photos and videos triggered anger, sadness, and desperation for many (along with frustration that these deaths were the inciting blow against ICE agents that have killed many more people of color this year and last).While the institutions and people committing these crimes do not want them recorded, the Department of Homeland Security and the wider Trump administration is using “organized loneliness,” a totalitarian tool that seeks to distort peoples’ perception of reality. Although seemingly a symptom of COVID-19 pandemic isolation and living in a more social media focused world, “organized loneliness” is being weaponized to change the way people not only engage with violence but respond to it online, simultaneously desensitizing us to bodily trauma and escalating radicalization and recruitment online.Back in 2022, philosopher Samantha Rose Hill argued that the loneliness epidemic sparked by the COVID-19 pandemic could and would have dangerous consequences. She specifically cites Hannah Arendt’s 1951 book The Origins of Totalitarianism, which argued that authoritarian leaders like Hitler and Stalin weaponized people’s loneliness to exert control over them. Arendt was a Jewish woman who barely escaped Nazi Germany.As Hill told Steve Paulson for “To The Best Of Our Knowledge,” “the organized loneliness that underlies totalitarian movements destroys people’s relationship to reality. Their political propaganda makes it difficult for people to trust their own opinions and perceptions of reality.” Because as Arendt wrote, “the ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the convinced Communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction and the distinction between true and false no longer exist.”But there are ways in which we can resist the threat that “organized loneliness” represents, especially in the age of social media. They include acknowledging this campaign of loneliness, taking proactive steps when engaging with others online, and fostering relationships with friends and our communities to stand in solidarity amidst the rise of fascism.1. The first step is accepting that loneliness affects everyone and can be exploited by authoritarian movements.Many of us know this intimately. Back in 2023, the U.S. Surgeon General flagged an already dire loneliness epidemic, that in combination with a transition of most interaction onto social media, changes the way in which we engage with violence and tragedy online. But it can be hard to admit that loneliness affects us, especially when we are constantly connected through social media. It’s important to admit that even for the most digitally literate and active among us, “organized loneliness” not only can occur but especially occurs on social media.Being susceptible to or affected by “organized loneliness” is not a moral shortcoming or a personal failure but acknowledging it and taking steps to connect with one another is the one way we resist totalitarian regimes.2. Next, take social media breaks–and avoid doomscrooling.Even before the advent of social media or online news outlets, Arendt was warning about how loneliness can become a breeding ground for downward spirals. She explains that the constant consumption of tragic, violent, and deeply upsetting news–and watching it unfold in front of us can not only be overstimulating but can desensitize us and disconnect us from reality.While it can be difficult when most of our social lives exist on social media (this will be unpacked later), experts recommend that people limit using social media to less than two hours per day and avoid using it during the first hour after waking up and the last hour before going to sleep. People can use apps that limit overall screen time or restrict access to social media at set times–the best being Opal, One Sec, Forest, and StayFree. People can also use these apps to limit access to specific websites that might include triggering news.But it’s important to recognize that avoiding doomscrooling does not give people license not to stay informed or to look away from atrocities that are not affecting their communities.3. Resist social media echo-chambers by diversifying your algorithm.When you are on social media, however, it’s important to recognize that AI-based algorithms track what we engage with and show us similar content. People can use a VPN to search without creating a record that AI can track and thus offer us like offerings, but while the most pronounced (and reported on) examples focus on White, cis straight men and the Manoverse, echochambers can affect all of us and shift our perception of publicly shared beliefs.People can resist echo-chambers by seeking out new sources and accounts that offer different, fact-based perspectives but also acknowledge their commitment to resisting fascism, such as Ground News, ProPublica, and Truthout. Another idea is to follow anti-fascist online educators like Saffana Monajed who promote and share lessons for media literacy. People can also do this by cultivating their intellectual humility, or the recognition that your awareness has limits based largely on your own experiences and privileges and your beliefs could be wrong. Fearless Culture Design has some great tips.While encountering and engaging different perspectives is vital to resisting echochambers and social algorithms, this is not an invitation to follow or platform any news outlet, content creator, or commentator that denies your or other people’s personhood.4. Cultivate your friendships and make new ones.In a time when many of us only stay in contact with friends through social media, friendships are more important than ever. Try, if you can, to engage friends outside of social media–whether it’s through in-person meet ups (dinners, parties, game nights) or on digital platforms that are not social media-based, for example coordinating meet-ups over Zoom or Skype. This can be a virtual D&D campaign, craft circle, or a virtual book club. While these may seem like silly events throughout the week, they help build real connection.It’s important to connect with people outside of a space that uses an algorithm to design content and to reinforce that people are three-dimensional (not just a two-dimensional representation of a social media profile). There are even some apps that assist with this goal, such as Connect, a web app designed by MIT graduate students Mohammad Ghassemi and Tuka Al Hanai to bring students from diverse backgrounds together for lunch conversations.Arendt writes that totalitarian domination destroys not only political life but also private life as well. Cultivating friendships–and relationships of solidarity with your neighbors and fellow community members–are the ways in which we not only resist the destruction of private relationships but also reinforce that we and others belong in our communities–and that we can achieve great things when we stand together!5. With this in mind, practice intentional solidarity with one another.While it’s likely no surprise, fascism functions to both establish a nationalist identity that breeds extremism and destroy unification and rebellion against authority. The best way to resist the isolation that totalitarian governments breed is to practice intentional acts of solidarity with marginalized communities, especially communities facing systemic violence at the hands of an authoritarian power.Writer and advocate Deepa Iyer discusses the importance of action-based solidarity in her program Solidarity Is, part of the Building Movement Project, and Solidarity Is This Podcast (co-hosted with Adaku Utah) discusses and models a solidarity journey that foregrounds marginalized communities. I highly recommend reading her Solidarity Is Practice Guide and the Solidarity Syllabus, a blog series that Iyer just started this month to highlight lessons, resources, and ideas of how to cultivate solidarity within your own communities.6. Consume locally and ethically, and reject capitalist productivity.And one way that people can stand in solidarity with their communities is to support local small businesses that invest back into the communities. When totalitarianism strips people of many platforms to voice concern, one of the last remaining power people have is how and where they spend their money. Often, this is what draws the most attention and impact, so it’s important to buy (and sell) based on Iyer’s Solidarity Stances and to also resist the ways in which productivity culture not only disempowers community but devalues human labor.At the heart of Arendt’s criticism of totalitarian domination is the ways in which capitalism, a “tyranny over ‘laborers,’” contributes to loneliness itself (pg. 476). Whether intentional or not, this connects to modern campaigns not only of malicious compliance but also purposeful obstinance in which people refuse to labor for a fascist regime but to mobilize their ability to labor as a form of resistance–thinking about the recent walkouts and boycotts that resist by weaponizing our labor and our spending power.Not only should people resist the conflation of a person’s value to their productivity, but they should use their labor–and the economic products of it–as tools of resistance in capitalism.Thankfully as Arendy writes, “totalitarian domination, like tyranny, bears the germs of its own destruction,” so totalitarianism by definition cannot succeed just as humans cannot thrive under the pressure of “organized loneliness.” For this reason, it’s a challenge to hold on and resist the administration using disconnection to garner support for the dehumanization of and violence against human beings. But as long as we do, we have the most powerful tools of resistance–awareness, friendship, community, and solidarity–at our disposal to undo totalitarianism just as it was undone back in the 1940s." } , { "title" : "A Trail of Soap", "author" : "susan abulhawa, Diana Islayih", "category" : "excerpts", "url" : "https://everythingispolitical.com/readings/a-trail-of-soap", "date" : "2026-02-13 08:40:00 -0500", "img" : "https://everythingispolitical.com/uploads/Trail_of_Soap.png", "excerpt" : "From EVERY MOMENT IS A LIFE compiled by susan abulhawa. Copyright © 2026 by Palestine Writes. Reprinted by permission of One Signal Publishers/Atria Books, an Imprint of Simon Schuster, LLC.", "content" : "From EVERY MOMENT IS A LIFE compiled by susan abulhawa. Copyright © 2026 by Palestine Writes. Reprinted by permission of One Signal Publishers/Atria Books, an Imprint of Simon Schuster, LLC.Illustration by Rama DuwajiI met Diana Islayih at a series of writing workshops I conducted in Gaza between February and May 2024. She was one of a couple dozen young people who traveled for hours on foot, by donkey cart, or in cars forced to crawl through the crush of displacement. They were all trying to survive an ongoing genocide. Still, they risked Israeli drones and bombs to be there, just to feel human for a few hours, like they belong in this world, to touch the lives they believed they might still have.Soft-spoken and slight, Diana was the only one who recognized me, asking quietly if I was “the real susan abulhawa.” Each writer progressed their piece at their own pace, and would read their work aloud in the workshops to receive group feedback. Diana’s was the only story that emerged almost fully formed, as if it had been waiting for language. She teared up the first time she read it aloud, and again, the second.By the third reading, the tears were gone. “I got used to the indignities,” she told me. “Now I’m used to reading them out loud.” She confessed that she struggled living “a life that doesn’t resemble me.” On our last day together, I reminded her of what she’d said. She smiled ironically. “Now I don’t know if I resemble life,” she said.What follows is Diana’s story, written from inside that unrecognizable life, bearing witness not through spectacle, but through one intimate moment in the unbearable weight of the everyday. — susan abulhawa, editor of Every Moment Is a Life, of which this essay is part.Courtesy of Simon & SchusterI poured yellow liquid dish soap into my left palm, which instinctively cupped into a deep hollow, like a well yearning to be a well once more. I would need to wash my hands after using the toilet near our tent, though the faucet was usually empty. Water had been annihilated alongside people in this genocide, becoming a ghost that graciously deigns to appear to us when it wishes to—one we chase after rather than flee.The miserable toilet was made of four wooden posts, wrapped in a makeshift curtain made from an old scrap of fabric—so sheer you could see silhouettes behind it. A blanket full of holes and splinters served as a “door.”Inside, a concrete slab with a hole in the middle. You need time to convince yourself to enter such a place. The stench alone seizes your eyelids and turns your stomach the moment it creeps into your nose.I thought about going to the damned, distant women’s public toilet. I hated it during the first weeks of our displacement, but it was the only one in the area where you could both relieve yourself and scrub off the dust of misery that clung to every air molecule.It infuriated me that it was wretched and run-down, and the crowding only made it worse—full of sand, soiled toilet paper, and sanitary pads scattered in every corner.“Should I go?” I asked myself, aloud.I decided to go, taking one step forward and two steps back. I’d ask anyone returning from the toilet, “Is there water in the tap today?” and await the answer with the eagerness of a child hoping for candy.“You have to hurry before it runs out!”Or, more often, “There isn’t any.”So we’d all—men, women, and children—arm ourselves with a plastic water bottle, which was a kind of public declaration: “We’re off to the toilet.” We’d also carry a bar of soap in a box, although most people didn’t bother using it since it didn’t lather and was like washing your hands with a rock.I looked up and exhaled, staring into the vast gray nothingness that stared right back at me. Then I stepped out onto the sand across from our ramshackle displacement camp—Karama, “Camp Dignity”—though dignity itself cries out in this filthy, exhausted place, choked with chaos and a desperate scramble to moisten our veins with a drop of life.The road was empty, as it was early morning, and even the clamor of camp life lay dormant at that hour. Still, I couldn’t relax my shoulders—to signal my senses that we were alone, that we were safe. My fingers remained clenched over the yellow dish soap, my hand hanging at my side to keep it from spilling.I crossed the distance to the toilet—step by step, meter by meter, tent by tent. The souls who dwelled in them, just as they were, unchanged, their curious eyes fixed on me. I passed a garbage heap, shaped like a crescent moon, overflowing with all kinds of empty food cans—food that had ruined the linings of our intestines and united us in the agonies of digestion and bowel movements.Something trickled from my palm—a thread of liquid that felt like blood dripping between my fingers, down my wrist in thickening droplets. My hand trembled, and my eyes blurred. I convinced myself—without looking—that it was all in my head, not in my hand, quickened my pace, my heartbeat thudding in my ears.At last, I reached the only two public toilets in the area, one for men and the other for women, both encased in white plastic printed with the blue UNICEF logo.Inside, I was met with the “toilet chronicles”—no less squalid than the toilet itself—unparalleled chatter among women who’d waited long hours in the line together.The old women bemoaned the soft nature of our generation, insisting our condition was a “moral consequence” of our being spoiled.Other women pleaded to be let into the toilet quickly because they were diabetic. They banged on the door with urgency and physical pain, like they would break in and grab the person behind it by the throat, shouting, “When will you come out?!”The woman inside yelled back, “I’m squeezing my guts out! Should I vomit them up too? Have patience! Damn whoever called this a ‘rest room’!”I looked around. A pale-faced woman smiled at me. I returned her smile, but my face quickly stiffened again, as if the muscles scolded me for stretching them into a smile. A voice inside me whispered meanly, What are you both even smiling about?A furious cry rang from the other stall, “Oh my God! Someone is plucking her body hair! What are you doing, you bitch? It’s a toilet! A toilet!”Another voice shot back, “Lower your voice, woman, and hurry up! The child’s crying!”Two little girls stood nearby, with tousled hair, drool marking their cheeks, their eyes half shut. They were crying to use the toilet, clutching their crotches, shifting restlessly in the sandy corridor where we stood.I was trying to push through to the water tap at the end of the hall, attempting to escape this tiresome, tragic theater. As my luck would have it, there was no water. I opened my palm. It too was empty. The yellow dish soap my mother bought yesterday was gone. All that remained was a sticky smear across my left hand and a long thread trailing behind me in the sand. Had it been dripping from my hand all along the way?I twisted the faucet handle back and forth—a futile hope for even a thin thread of water. Not a single drop came.My body sagged under the weight of rage, disappointment, fury, and a storm of unanswerable questions. I rushed through the crowded corridor of angry women, out into the street. I couldn’t hold back tears.I wept, cursing myself and the occupation and Gaza and her sea— the sea I love with a weary, lonely love, just as I’ve always loved everything in this patch of earth.I sobbed the entire way back. Without shame. I didn’t care who saw—not the passersby, not the homes or tents, not the ground I walked on. My grief rained tears on this land on my way there and back.But the land’s thirst is never quenched—neither with our tears, nor with our blood.My eyes were wrung dry from crying by the time I reached our tent. I collapsed on the ground, questions clamoring in my head.Can a homeland also be exile?Can another exile exist within exile?What is home?Is home the homeland itself, the soil of a nation?Or is it the other way around—the homeland is only so if it’s truly home?If the homeland is the home, why do I feel like a stranger in Rafah—a place just ten minutes from my city, Khan Younis?And why did I fear the feeling I had when I imagined myself in our kitchen, where my mother cooked mulukhiya and maqluba for the first time in six months, even though I wasn’t at home—in our house?That day, I said aloud, “Is this what the occupation wants? For me to feel ‘at home’ merely in the memory of home?”How can I feel at home without being there?How can I be outside of my homeland when I’m in it?I looked down at my hand—dry and cracked with January’s chill. The yellow soap liquid had turned into frozen white powder between my fingers." } , { "title" : "Venezuela should be neither dictatorship nor colony: An interview with union leader Eduardo Sánchez", "author" : "Simón Rodriguez", "category" : "essays", "url" : "https://everythingispolitical.com/readings/venezuela-should-be-neither-dictatorship-nor-colony", "date" : "2026-02-12 10:51:00 -0500", "img" : "https://everythingispolitical.com/uploads/Eduardo-Sanchez-rueda-de-prensa-diciembre-2024.jpg", "excerpt" : "", "content" : "Eduardo Sánchez is an important Venezuelan labor leader with decades of political and union work. He is the president of the National Union of Workers of the Central University of Venezuela (SINATRAUCV) and the Federation of Higher Education Workers of Venezuela (FETRAESUV). He is also a member of Comunes, an organization founded in 2024 that, in its founding documents, aims for the recovery of the legacy of the Bolivarian Revolution, which they believe the Maduro government has broken with, to the point of considering it a neoliberal and “anti-Chavista government.”Sánchez describes Comunes as “a grouping of left-wing sectors that propose an alternative to the polarization between the so-called reactionary left that rules the country, led by President Nicolás Maduro, and the fascist and right-wing sectors represented by the current headed by María Corina Machado. In other words, we are a third option, seeking to establish a political and social solution for the popular and workers’ movement, with the concept of the homeland as a fundamental element.” The following interview took place January 13.How would you characterize the events of the last few days in Venezuela, starting with the US attack?Since the early hours of January 3, the US aggression against Bolívar’s homeland, against Venezuelan soil, materialized. According to statements by US spokespeople themselves, more than 150 aircraft invaded Venezuelan territory to bomb specific areas of Caracas, Miranda, Aragua, and La Guaira. This is an unprecedented event in Venezuelan politics, which has caused outrage because Venezuelan soil has been sullied by the insolence of an imperialist power that, abusing its military might, has taken it upon itself to intervene in our country and remove the president. Not that we defend the president as such, but we do not believe that anyone has given the US president carte blanche to be the world’s policeman and come and control our country. This is a problem for Venezuelans that we Venezuelans must resolve ourselves. Therefore, we condemn this aggression as a disgraceful act that we hope will not happen again in any of our countries on the continent.President Maduro has led an authoritarian government that arose from an unfortunate event, which leaves doubts about its legitimacy, given that he lost the July 28 elections and arrogated them to himself, generating a process of repression, imprisoning anyone who protested, and acquiring a dictatorial character, which today bears responsibility for what is happening with the current crisis. The gringos have intervened, taking advantage of the crisis and with the support of an anti-national sector of the country that called for intervention and is now very poorly regarded by Venezuelan society.What is the current situation on the streets?The situation on the streets of Venezuela is one of astonishing calm, as a result of the fact that more than 70% of Venezuelans did not sympathize with Maduro’s regime, in addition to its repression, imprisonments, and deaths, as well as the economic and social deterioration that has engulfed the Venezuelan working class, which has paid a high price for a crisis it did not create, which has impoverished its wages and plunged it into a state of critical poverty. Today, when the government sought the support of the working class and the people, the response was negligible, with only a small percentage mobilizing due to the general discontent that existed.This does not mean support for the intervention; everyone laments that more than 100 Venezuelans have died as a result of treacherous bombings against Bolívar’s homeland, and that the concept of homeland has been sidelined and the country’s sovereignty violated.How do you interpret Trump’s announcements that he will allegedly run the country and take over Venezuelan oil?For us, there is now a dilemma: republic or colony. Facing it, we are putting forward our proposals to unify the country, to unify the working people around the concept of the Republic. We cannot be a colony of anyone, much less of the gringos, who have been the most reactionary and recalcitrant imperialist power on the continent, responsible for interventions that have taken place since the beginning of the last century, and who now seek to arrogate to themselves rights they do not have in order to turn us into a protectorate.The call we are making to Venezuelan society and the workers’ movement is for unity and action, and to the interim government, which also lacks legitimacy, despite being the element with which they intend to make a transition, is that any solution that is proposed must be framed within the Constitution and the democratic process. Relations with the US from a commercial point of view must be within the framework of respect for the Venezuelan Constitution and laws, and not under the guise of a kind of protectorate where they are giving orders on the premise that if they are not obeyed, they will bomb again.We believe that the country has sufficient political reserves to achieve an independent, autonomous, democratic, and patriotic state that can lead this country and put an end to the attempt to impose a dictatorship by a government that claimed to be revolutionary but ended up being neoliberal and capitalist, and prevent us from becoming a protectorate of a foreign power. We consider it important for the country to move towards democracy, allowing us to elect our president in accordance with the Constitution and laws of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela.What message would you give to workers in other countries who are closely following the situation in Venezuela?This situation is very unfortunate for the entire continent. It represents a wake-up call to the different peoples of the world, in the understanding that the gringos now consider that they are once again managing the region as their backyard, and from that point of view they simply intend to take our oil, our gold, our rare earths, turn Venezuela into a kind of protectorate or colony, and take over the wealth of our country.It is important that the peoples of the world see themselves in the mirror of the Venezuelan situation, which today stands at a crossroads between becoming a US colony or continuing on the path of the Republic. We call on the working classes of Latin America and the world to unite to avoid ending up in a situation like the one we are now experiencing. We call on them to fight the authoritarian regimes that have brought so much pain to the different countries of the American continent. The call is for unity as a class, with a perspective of struggle, not only for labor rights but also for the homeland, a fundamental and unifying concept of each of the countries that make up the Latin American homeland, which continue in the struggle for self-determination, to expand and develop democracy to place it at the service of the majority." } ] }