{ "article": { "title" : "Reclaiming Language: Marwan Kaabour’s Queer Arab Glossary & the Power of Words", "author" : "Marwan Kaabour, Afeef Nessouli", "category" : "interviews", "tags" : "Arabic, queer", "url" : "https://everythingispolitical.com/readings/marwan-kaabour-queer-arab-glossary", "date" : "2024-12-11 14:33:00 -0500", "img" : "https://everythingispolitical.com/uploads/marwan-kaabour-4.jpg", "excerpt" : "", "content" : "AFEEF: Using your own glossary, which phrase describes you best? Aka how do you identify?MARWAN: It would be unfair of me to choose only one, so I’m going to go with a couple. I identify as a ṭubjī, which is used in Lebanese dialect in the same way as faggot. Ṭubjī comes from Turkish Ottoman and refers to the person whose job is to operate a cannon. I also identify as Shawwaya, which is Arab for grill rack, and is used in Moroccan and Tunisian to refer to a gay man who is versatile, because just like meat on a grill rack, you’d need to flip him over every now and then!AFEEF: Other than the phrase you identify with, what were other favorites that you learned in the process?MARWAN: I love all the words that refer to water, like sāyiţ (Palestinian; watered down); qāyiso-l-mā’ (Morrocan; has been touched by water); māyi‘ (Kuwaiti; liquid); markhūf (Tunisian; loose or swaying); amongst a few others. These words are itended to belittle men who are effiminate or gay, by highlighting the way they sway while walking, or the fact that they have “limp wrists”. Despite the derogotary connotation, I find the use of water as a metaphor to refer to queer people as deeply poetic and beautiful. Just like water, queerness is a limitless, boundless, ever-changing and morphing thing.AFEEF: Why is documenting queerness in the Arabic speaking world important to you?MARWAN: Understanding one’s own history, whether on a micro personal scale or a macro national/international scale, allows one to learn and grow. Otherwise we end up getting stuck in versions of the truths that lack much needed context and nuance. As a queer Arab person, I found it difficult to find accessible records and literature that I saw myself in. As someone with experience and skill in storytelling and visual communication, I decided to take matters into my own hands. So I started Takweer [Kaabour’s online platform], and that allows me to better understand myself and how queer Arabs are situated across our own history. It also allows the queer Arab community to engage with the project, which contributes to community-building and re-enforcing the bonds that exist between our sense of queerness and Arabness. I also hope it adds much needed complexity to the dominant eurocentric notion of queerness.AFEEF: What gave you the idea for this book?MARWAN: Takweer is an Instagram page I created that serves as an ever-expanding archive of queer narratives in Arab history and pop culture. The knowledge that I accumulate in my research and the exchanges I have with the page’s followers also serve as a space for new ideas to develop and be fully realized. I would often come across queer Arabic slang during my research, or would spot it in the comments or in the DMs by Arabic-speakers who spoke different dialects from my own. Generally speaking, I have always been interested in language and the multifaceted nature of language and meaning, so I started to develop a curiosity exploring the entire linguistic landscape surrounding queerness in the Arabic-speaking region. In the spring of 2020 I put a call-out on Takweer, asking the page’s followers to submit words and terms used to identify someone who is queer (or perceived as queer). I expected a few dozen responses, but I ended up compiling a few hundred entries insead. That’s when I knew I needed to dedicate more time to develop this project properly.AFEEF: What was the methodology? How did you make this thing come together?MARWAN: The project was collaborative and participatory at every stage. The research process was in three phases: The submissions phase, whereby Takweer followers (and others who were made aware of the call-out) would submit words and terms they are familiar with in their own dialect. I then collated and categorized the submissions across an extensive spread sheet. This was followed by the interview phase, where I would have one-on-one interviews via Zoom or in-person with a group of people from of the Arabic-speaking countries. The interviewees varied in age, socioeconomic class, locality and in the way they identified across the queer spectrum. I would go through the list of the collated entries with each person and discuss its use, familiarity, meaning, etc. Each interview would inform the descriptions as it would either confirm, negate or add to the existing text, and by doing so adding additional context and nuance. Finally, in the editing phase, I invited Suneela Mubayi to come on board as the glossary’s editor. Suneela’s incredible knowledge of the Arabic language and queer histories allowed her to add much-needed historical, linguistic and cultural context to each entry.It was important for the methodology to be organic and participatory to best reflect the fluid nature of the subject matter: dialect and queerness. There are several examples of existing slang glossaries and queer slang glossaries, but to my knowledge this is the first project to use such a methodology.AFEEF: Tell me about the illustrations and what role they serve?MARWAN: As soon as I decided on creating a printed glossary, I knew I wanted it to be illustrated, just like the old glossaries I used to come across as a child. It’s one thing to illustrate a bird species or a chair, but it’s another to visualize abstract concepts like a Dudaki (Iraqi dialect; wormy one; derogatory term to refer to gay people) or a Nagafa (Egyptian dialect; chandelier; refers to a flamboyant and/or effeminate man). That gave us the chance to imagine these queer characters, who are joyful and at ease with their sense of queerness. I immediately thought of Haitham Haddad’s brilliant skill in creating beautifully complex and relatable characters in his art. The brilliant illustrations Haitham produced allowed us to populate the queer Arab imaginary with these wonderfully eclectic characters that can open up the space for us to dream.AFEEF: What compelled you to include essays?MARWAN: An earlier iteration of the project was just an illustrated glossary. When I started exploring the idea of publishing it as a book, I wanted the findings of the glossary to be expanded on and given more dimensionality. I also wanted to open up the space for additional voices from across the Arabic- speaking region, and whose perspectives and experiences are different to mine. The glossary is a record of the lexicon surrounding our queerness, and the essays provide us tools to think through the themes that the glossary explores: queerness, dialect, Arab identity, language, etc. and each essay does that in a uniquely thought-provoking way.AFEEF: What do you hope people take away from this work?MARWAN: I hope queer Arabs are able to take pride and learn from a project that centers their experience and humanity at its core. I hope queers in general get to widen their perspectives on a non-eurocentric experience. I hope the general Arab public gets to see queer people as an inseparable part of the fabric of Arab communities, and not some kind of foreign import. I hope Westerners who claim to care about Arabs are able to see how queer and Arab identities have co-existed since the dawn of time, and despite our challenges, we are proud of being Arab. I hope linguists learn from the creativity and wit of queer Arab slang. And I hope for the world to see our humanity, with all of its facets and contradictions, in the face of the zionist death machine that wants to annihilate us.AFEEF: What have you taken away from this work?MARWAN: I learnt that nothing is singular. Whether its queerness, language, gender, slang, Arab, etc. these are all notions that encapsulate a multitude of meanings, interpretations, contradictions and experiences. Attempting to overly define or limit any of them would ultimately lead to their demise. Accepting these multiplicities, and allowing for things to change and constantly morph is what keeps life exciting and rewarding." } , "relatedposts": [ { "title" : "Culture Must Be the Moral Compass That Geopolitics and Economics Will Never Be", "author" : "EIP Editors", "category" : "essays", "tags" : "", "url" : "https://everythingispolitical.com/readings/culture-must-be-the-moral-compass-that-geopolitics-and-economics-will-never-be", "date" : "2025-07-15 16:14:00 -0400", "img" : "https://everythingispolitical.com/uploads/2025_7_Opposing_Nazism_1.png", "excerpt" : "The widespread cultural rejection of Nazism in the West did not emerge spontaneously from humanity’s innate sense of right and wrong. It was not simply that people around the world, and especially in the West, were naturally alert and to the moral horror of fascism.", "content" : "The widespread cultural rejection of Nazism in the West did not emerge spontaneously from humanity’s innate sense of right and wrong. It was not simply that people around the world, and especially in the West, were naturally alert and to the moral horror of fascism.Rather, the transformation of Nazism from a nationalist ideology admired by many Western elites into the universal symbol of evil was a story of narrative engineering and the deliberate construction of collective memory. It is a story that reveals a larger truth: culture has always been the moral compass that geopolitics and economics cannot, and will not, provide on their own.And at this moment, it is crucial to understand and use the power of culture to shift geopolitics, and not the other way around.Understanding this history matters today more than ever. Because if it was possible to turn Nazism into the ultimate taboo, it is equally possible to reposition other violent ideologies and state projects—such as Israel’s ongoing system of apartheid and settler colonialism—as morally indefensible. But to do so requires acknowledging that cultural reckonings don’t simply arrive; they are made.Pre-War Ambivalence: When Fascism Was FashionableContrary to the comforting myth that the world naturally recoiled from Nazism, in the 1920s and 1930s many influential Americans and Europeans viewed Hitler’s Germany with admiration. American industrialists like Henry Ford openly praised Hitler’s economic management and fierce opposition to communism. Ford even funded antisemitic propaganda through his publication, The Dearborn Independent. British aristocrats, including the Duke of Windsor, flirted with Nazi sympathies, seeing Germany as a model of discipline and order.It was only when Hitler’s ambitions clashed with the strategic interests of other nations that fascism became intolerable. And even then, many major US and UK companies maintained their business interests with the Nazis, including Ford, IBM, GM (Opel), Standard Oil (now ExxonMobil), Chase Bank, and of course Coca-Cola, who famously created the brand Fanta so that it could break the boycott and do business with Nazi Germany.This distinction is critical: condemnation of Nazism began not as a moral imperative, but as a political necessity. Germany’s aggression threatened the European balance of power, British imperial security, and eventually, American economic and military interests. The moral narrative would only come later, after the fighting was over.It is important to learn from the past and see that only culture can shift perception, and to use culture to shift the economic realities that would otherwise wait to be shaped by politics.Wartime Shifts: From Enemy State to Symbol of EvilWorld War II did not instantly transform public opinion. For many Americans, the war in Europe remained remote until the bombing of Pearl Harbor in December 1941. Even then, the decision to fight Nazi Germany was entangled with power politics: Hitler declared war on the United States first, effectively forcing Roosevelt’s hand.Nevertheless, the war provided fertile ground for a reframing of Nazism. Wartime propaganda efforts by the Allies recast the Nazi regime as a brutal, alien threat to civilization itself. Hollywood joined in: The Great Dictator (1940) ridiculed Hitler’s delusions of grandeur, while Casablanca (1942) romanticized resistance. Images of goose-stepping soldiers, swastika flags, and shattered cities circulated widely.As the Allies advanced, they encountered the first concrete evidence of the Holocaust: ghettos, mass graves, and emaciated survivors. Yet even then, much of this evidence remained unknown to the general public. It was only after liberation that the full horror became impossible to ignore.Post-War Revelation: The Holocaust and the Cultural BreakThe turning point came in 1945, with the liberation of the camps and the Nuremberg Trials. The images and testimonies from Auschwitz, Dachau, and Bergen-Belsen revealed the industrial scale of genocide. Millions murdered with chilling efficiency. A systematic attempt to erase an entire people. For the first time, the abstract notion of “Nazi evil” was grounded in visceral, visual evidence.Sociologist Jeffrey Alexander describes this phenomenon as the cultural construction of trauma. Atrocities do not automatically generate collective memory; they must be narrated, documented, and ritualized until they become an inescapable moral reference point. The Nuremberg Trials played this role by broadcasting confessions and evidence to a global audience. Schools, museums, and the press reinforced the narrative: Nazism was not simply defeated; it was unmasked as pure, irredeemable evil.Cold War Myth-Making: The Free World Versus FascismThe Cold War further cemented this narrative. To build legitimacy against the Soviet Union, the United States and its allies positioned themselves as the moral victors of World War II, the saviors of Europe from fascism. In reality, many of the same powers—Britain, France, and the United States—continued their own brutal colonial projects and enforced systems of racial hierarchy at home.But the cultural story was powerful: the West stood for freedom; the Nazis had embodied totalitarian darkness. School textbooks, popular films, and Holocaust memorialization institutionalized this story, forging a shared moral identity that could be contrasted against communist “evil.”This process was neither accidental nor purely altruistic. It was a strategic use of culture to consolidate power, project moral authority, and deflect scrutiny of the West’s own violence. The lesson is clear: collective memory is not a neutral mirror of reality. It is built, contested, and leveraged.The Sociological Core: Why Public Opinion ShiftsTo understand how an ideology once admired by many became the universal emblem of inhumanity, we must look beyond military defeat. Several mechanisms combined:Symbolic Association: Nazism transformed from a nationalist experiment into a symbol of mechanized genocide and racial supremacy.Cultural Trauma: The Holocaust became a shared wound that redefined moral frameworks across the West.Visual Storytelling: Images and films, rather than mere text, anchored the horror in the public imagination.State Rebranding: The Allies used anti-Nazism to build a postwar myth of moral superiority, even as they pursued imperial ambitions elsewhere.These insights are not simply historical trivia. They are a roadmap for how cultural shifts happen—and how they can be deliberately engineered.Israel, Palestine, and the Next Cultural ReckoningToday, Israel’s treatment of Palestinians—systematic dispossession, apartheid laws, and repeated military assaults—remains largely protected in Western discourse. Politicians insist on Israel’s right to defend itself. Media narratives default to framing the violence as a “conflict” rather than an occupation. Solidarity with Palestinians is often smeared as antisemitism.Yet history shows that moral consensus is not fixed. With enough sustained exposure, narrative work, and cultural pressure, the global imagination can be reshaped. Just as Nazism’s legitimacy eroded, so too can the idea of Israel as an unassailable “victim-state.”This is not a call to equate the Holocaust with the Nakba—each is historically distinct. It is, however, an argument that the techniques which made Nazism morally intolerable—trauma visualization, reframing language, relentless storytelling—are tools available to any liberation movement.Here is how such a transformation could unfold:1. Narrative InversionIsrael’s founding story must be contextualized: a state born from the trauma of European antisemitism that, in turn, created the dispossession of another people. Exposing this contradiction—survivors becoming occupiers—breaks the simplistic binary of oppressor and victim.2. Visual Culture and TestimonyJust as photographs of emaciated bodies in camps forced an awakening, so too can images of bombed Gazan neighborhoods, amputee children, and anguished families. Digital archives and survivor testimonies can anchor these experiences in collective memory.3. Linguistic ReframingTerms like “apartheid,” “settler colonialism,” and “ethnic cleansing” shift perception from tragic conflict to structural violence. Legal frameworks—UN reports, ICC filings—can fortify these terms with institutional legitimacy.4. Media SaturationBypassing corporate media gatekeepers requires a multi-platform strategy: TikTok clips, Substack essays, livestreamed trials of Israeli policy, viral documentaries. Saturation is what makes denial unsustainable.5. Global RealignmentPositioning Palestine within global struggles—Black liberation, Indigenous sovereignty, anti-colonial movements—expands solidarity. When the Global South embraces Palestinian liberation as part of its own decolonization, moral isolation will deepen.6. Cultural Institutions and EducationJust as Holocaust education became standard in Western curricula, Nakba education can be mainstreamed. Museums, memorials, and fellowships can institutionalize remembrance and scholarship.7. Policy Pressure and Legal ActionPublic consensus is the soil in which policy change grows. Boycotts, divestment, and sanctions, coupled with legal prosecutions of war crimes, transform moral clarity into material consequences.8. Making Occupation a LiabilityWhen supporting Israel becomes politically and financially risky—akin to defending apartheid South Africa—corporate and governmental alliances will fracture. Reputational risk can be a powerful motivator.Conclusion: Cultural Reckonings Are EngineeredIt was not “natural” for the West to reject Nazism. It took defeat, trauma exposure, and decades of cultural labor to enshrine anti-Nazism as a foundational moral principle. Similarly, it is not inevitable that the world will recognize Israel’s oppression of Palestinians as an urgent moral crisis. It will require strategic, sustained, and courageous cultural work.Culture—more than geopolitics or economics—sets the terms of what is morally acceptable. It is the compass that can point humanity toward justice. But only if we are willing to pick it up and use it." } , { "title" : "Neptune Frost", "author" : "Saul Williams, Anisia Uzeyman", "category" : "screenings", "tags" : "", "url" : "https://everythingispolitical.com/readings/eip-screening-neptune-frost", "date" : "2025-07-12 16:00:00 -0400", "img" : "https://everythingispolitical.com/uploads/netune-frost-movie-poster.jpg", "excerpt" : "Thank you for all who joined the special screening of Neptune Frost, with exclusive introduction from writer/director Saul Williams. Stay tuned and become a member for our next edition of our EIP monthly screening series.", "content" : "Thank you for all who joined the special screening of Neptune Frost, with exclusive introduction from writer/director Saul Williams. Stay tuned and become a member for our next edition of our EIP monthly screening series.Multi-hyphenate, multidisciplinary artist Saul Williams brings his unique dynamism to this Afrofuturist vision, a sci-fi punk musical that’s a visually wondrous amalgamation of themes, ideas, and songs that Williams has explored in his work, notably his 2016 album MartyrLoserKing. Co-directed with the Rwandan-born artist and cinematographer Anisia Uzeyman, the film takes place in the hilltops of Burundi, where a group of escaped coltan miners form an anti-colonialist computer hacker collective. From their camp in an otherworldly e-waste dump, they attempt a takeover of the authoritarian regime exploiting the region’s natural resources – and its people. When an intersex runaway and an escaped coltan miner find each other through cosmic forces, their connection sparks glitches within the greater divine circuitry. Set between states of being – past and present, dream and waking life, colonized and free, male and female, memory and prescience – Neptune Frost is an invigorating and empowering direct download to the cerebral cortex and a call to reclaim technology for progressive political ends." } , { "title" : "Uranus & The Cycle of Liberation", "author" : "Céline Semaan", "category" : "", "tags" : "", "url" : "https://everythingispolitical.com/readings/uranus-and-the-cycle-of-liberation", "date" : "2025-07-11 16:25:00 -0400", "img" : "https://everythingispolitical.com/uploads/EIP_Uranus.jpg", "excerpt" : "I’m definitely not an astrologer. I don’t even know where Uranus is in my chart. But I do know how to read systems and translate them to the public. What I’ve learned, through years of designing for social and environmental justice, is that history doesn’t just unfold. It cycles upwards. And if we learn to pay attention to those cycles, we can prepare—not just to resist collapse, but to shape what comes after.", "content" : "I’m definitely not an astrologer. I don’t even know where Uranus is in my chart. But I do know how to read systems and translate them to the public. What I’ve learned, through years of designing for social and environmental justice, is that history doesn’t just unfold. It cycles upwards. And if we learn to pay attention to those cycles, we can prepare—not just to resist collapse, but to shape what comes after.Even if you don’t care about astrology, the timing of these celestial movements provides us a way to examine macro trends that we can learn from. History may not exactly repeat itself, but it does echo.Uranus—the planet astrologers associated with upheaval, rebellion, and technological transformation—entered Aries in May 2010 and stayed there until 2018. That cycle coincided with a surge in political uprisings, many of which redefined our understanding of mass resistance in the 21st century.The Arab Spring began in late 2010, starting in Tunisia and erupting across the Middle East. It wasn’t just about corrupt regimes—it was about reclaiming voice, land, and dignity after decades of foreign interference, neoliberal decay, and post-colonial repression. From Tahrir Square to Pearl Roundabout, these movements were leaderless, fast, and media-savvy.Occupy Wall Street followed in 2011, challenging the violent inequality embedded in late capitalism. In 2013, Black Lives Matter emerged after the murder of Trayvon Martin, later exploding into a global uprising in 2014 and again in 2020. Standing Rock (2016) reminded the world that Indigenous resistance was not only alive but visionary. #MeToo (2017) became an international reckoning with patriarchy and sexual violence, a reminder that personal testimony is political terrain.Across these years, protests were decentralized, digitized, and visual. Social media moved from a personal tool to a frontline of collective witnessing. Livestreams replaced press conferences. Memes became political language. Design itself became a protest, and Slow Factory built the visual language for it.This was not coincidental but archetypal, because Uranus in Aries, even symbolically, tells the story of radical ignition, collective fire, visionary unrest.And yet, none of it was sustained. What followed was a backlash: fascist resurgence, climate denial, propaganda wars, and intensified state surveillance. We saw mass demobilization, media fatigue, and widespread disinformation. Many of the movements that sparked global hope were either crushed, co-opted, or burned out.So now, as Uranus moves through Taurus (2018–2026), the terrain has shifted. Taurus is about materiality, land, value, and stability. It demands we not only rise up, which is crucial, but to build. We are asked to not only critique systems, but replace them. Not just “burn it all down”, but radically imagine what’s next.This is the political and spiritual context I hold as I continue my work.At Slow Factory, we spent the past decade offering free education, cultural strategy, and ecological design rooted in climate justice and human rights. And with Everything is Political, we’re building an independent media platform not beholden to corporate donors or foundation filters—a place where movement memory, critical analysis, and cultural clarity live. If we don’t design the next phase of liberation, someone else will design it for us.This work isn’t about virality. It’s about continuity. We are here to hold political memory. To protect the intellectual commons. To ensure that the next generation doesn’t forget who stood for truth—and who profited from silence.The ask is to build the very systems we are all looking for, and for that we deserve the time, energy and support to imagine, design and co-create as a community. We can’t delegate our liberation to politicians, and we certainly won’t see startups capitalizing on the changes our society needs. Perhaps we will witness the hyper privatization of every single service our communities need, but we must strategize for during and after collapse. Funding structures will have to be challenged, as they are designed to sustain themselves and uphold status quo. However, we are witnessing the collapse of every industry: media, education, banking, all industries we rely on, will be challenged. We are going to need to rely on our creative skills and our ability to build true solidarity across our communities towards a common goal outside of dogma and division. It’s a cultural moment, and we are here for it.Resistance isn’t just about protest. It’s about imagination. And imagination requires discipline, community, and space.We are creating that space right here. And together we can co-create together if everybody puts in effort and care. For now, we are imagining what systems of mitigation amidst systems collapse will look like. Will we outsource our infrastructure to highly funded Silicon Valley funded platforms feeding off of public data feeding ads markets and Ai learning in real time from our work? Or are we truly invested in building sovereign media? I personally invest in the latter, and hope you all join us. Because we are the majority, and truly if we align we are unstoppable." } ] }