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Reclaiming a Lost Imagination
For the longest time, I believed liberation was not possible. They seemed too powerful, armed with technology, infrastructure, and institutional control. As a child, I used to daydream about the day Palestine would be free. I pictured people returning to their homes and villages, and borders removed. But as I grew older, these images began to fade. Reality hit me with the endless oppression, and the idea of a free Palestine started to feel distant and unrealistic. I began to view the phrase “Free Palestine” as a romantic dream, unable to see beyond the boundaries the occupation had imposed on my world. My imagination had become limited and occupied.
As Palestinian photographer Steve Sabella wrote in his book, The Parachute Paradox: “Palestinians reached a point where they could no longer imagine they could live in freedom. The colonization of Palestinian land was clear, but what was hidden was the colonization of the imagination.”
The Psychology of Occupation
A cornerstone of this mental colonization is narrative control. Oppressive systems weaponize stories to convince us we are powerless, that our efforts are meaningless, and that nothing will ever change. Constant exposure to such narratives can paralyze us psychologically, emotionally, and spiritually.
In Palestine, occupation isn’t just territorial, it’s psychological. While checkpoints, walls, and territorial control are tangible realities, they evolve into mental barriers that shape how Palestinians perceive themselves and their world. This manufactured sense of powerlessness creates profound stress and erodes our capacity to create, dream, and imagine alternatives.
Oppressive systems, such as colonization and occupation, are deliberately designed to feel unbeatable, conditioning us to stop envisioning different possibilities. Joycelyn Longdon writes in her book Natural Connection: “Colonialism and capitalism are holding our imagination captive. Our loss of imagination, though it may feel like a subconscious act, has in many ways been intentional, resulting from the influence of colonization, industrialization, and capitalism.”
She invites us to reflect on the ways we speak the language of limitation. How might we be unconsciously reinforcing the very systems we hope to transform?
Parallels in the Climate Crisis
The same patterns are also evident in the environmental movement. The narratives are constructed by “doom and gloom.” We’re constantly told the world is heading “in the wrong direction” and that “we only have X years left.” While the urgency is real, it frequently breeds eco-anxiety and paralysis, a sense that nothing we do will be sufficient. It becomes difficult to envision alternative paths or believe our actions can meaningfully shape outcomes. The discourse overwhelms us with statistics and worst-case scenarios.
In his book The Nightingale, Sam Lee writes about how the environmental crisis is fundamentally a crisis of imagination, a failure to visualize what a flourishing world could look like. He contends that to transform behavior, we must first reach the hearts of people.
Imagination as Resistance
What role does imagination play in liberation? Without imagination, there would be no innovation, no dreams, no creation, no evolution. Imagination serves as a gateway, enabling us to envision realities beyond the systems that confine us. To be clear, I’m not referring to naive optimism that overlooks the depth of our struggles. I’m speaking of the imagination that empowers us to reject internalized inferiority, the kind that helps us unlearn what systems of oppression have implanted within us.
We must ask ourselves: Which beliefs are authentically mine, and which were imposed? Which limits my ability to imagine different realities?
This questioning becomes the first step toward mental liberation, a way to reclaim our inner landscape. It represents a refusal to let the occupier colonize our souls and a rejection of the belief that our efforts are ultimately futile. This form of imagination is not effortless, it demands confronting aspects of ourselves shaped by inherited beliefs. It means shedding limiting parts of our identity and undertaking the difficult work of re-rooting in truth. It requires radical honesty.
To paraphrase Longdon, imagination represents one of our most vital capacities as sensing, feeling, and purposeful beings. Imagination is an act of resistance. Colonialism has systematically suppressed indigenous knowledge and way of life. And, yet, enslaved peoples, indigenous communities, and colonized societies have turned to imagination as a survival strategy throughout history. Enslavement ended not only through physical revolt but also through internal narrative transformation, a decolonization of the imagination. What once represented limitation gave way to visions of liberation.
Palestine Today
I write this as we witness genocide in Gaza. In the West Bank, settler violence, settlement expansion, and forced displacement intensify daily. Hope seems impossible. Speaking of imagination here might seem like a luxury. I don’t dismiss the pressing nature of our current moment.
I’ve come to realize that a mindset of limitation, the belief that we’re doomed no matter what, is what oppressive systems count on.
As Sabella suggests, liberating Palestine requires not only ending land occupation but also freeing it from ideological confinement. In other words, imagination forms a crucial component of our collective resistance.
A Closing Invitation
Physically, the system may appear stronger. But spiritually, we possess immense power. While we may feel disempowered, the collective spiritual journey of decolonization can inspire us and reawaken our strength. When, from a place of empowerment, we reimagine a free Palestine or a thriving, just planet, we gather strength to build the reality we dream of.
When we choose to rise above internal despair, when we actively cultivate beauty, hope, and imagination, we resist the system’s grip because occupiers control not only land but also colonize our very being. Liberation is a long and challenging path, but the first step is daring to see it. Imagination can guide us away from systems that exploit and seek power over others. This becomes a radical act of rebuilding and remaking our world, creating space for new ways of living to emerge, starting with our minds.
{
"article":
{
"title" : "Reclaiming a Lost Imagination",
"author" : "Najla Abdellatif Vallander",
"category" : "essays",
"url" : "https://everythingispolitical.com/readings/reclaiming-a-lost-imagination",
"date" : "2025-07-20 17:35:46 -0400",
"img" : "https://everythingispolitical.com/uploads/imagination8.jpg",
"excerpt" : "For the longest time, I believed liberation was not possible. They seemed too powerful, armed with technology, infrastructure, and institutional control. As a child, I used to daydream about the day Palestine would be free. I pictured people returning to their homes and villages, and borders removed. But as I grew older, these images began to fade. Reality hit me with the endless oppression, and the idea of a free Palestine started to feel distant and unrealistic. I began to view the phrase “Free Palestine” as a romantic dream, unable to see beyond the boundaries the occupation had imposed on my world. My imagination had become limited and occupied.",
"content" : "For the longest time, I believed liberation was not possible. They seemed too powerful, armed with technology, infrastructure, and institutional control. As a child, I used to daydream about the day Palestine would be free. I pictured people returning to their homes and villages, and borders removed. But as I grew older, these images began to fade. Reality hit me with the endless oppression, and the idea of a free Palestine started to feel distant and unrealistic. I began to view the phrase “Free Palestine” as a romantic dream, unable to see beyond the boundaries the occupation had imposed on my world. My imagination had become limited and occupied.As Palestinian photographer Steve Sabella wrote in his book, The Parachute Paradox: “Palestinians reached a point where they could no longer imagine they could live in freedom. The colonization of Palestinian land was clear, but what was hidden was the colonization of the imagination.”The Psychology of OccupationA cornerstone of this mental colonization is narrative control. Oppressive systems weaponize stories to convince us we are powerless, that our efforts are meaningless, and that nothing will ever change. Constant exposure to such narratives can paralyze us psychologically, emotionally, and spiritually.In Palestine, occupation isn’t just territorial, it’s psychological. While checkpoints, walls, and territorial control are tangible realities, they evolve into mental barriers that shape how Palestinians perceive themselves and their world. This manufactured sense of powerlessness creates profound stress and erodes our capacity to create, dream, and imagine alternatives.Oppressive systems, such as colonization and occupation, are deliberately designed to feel unbeatable, conditioning us to stop envisioning different possibilities. Joycelyn Longdon writes in her book Natural Connection: “Colonialism and capitalism are holding our imagination captive. Our loss of imagination, though it may feel like a subconscious act, has in many ways been intentional, resulting from the influence of colonization, industrialization, and capitalism.”She invites us to reflect on the ways we speak the language of limitation. How might we be unconsciously reinforcing the very systems we hope to transform?Parallels in the Climate CrisisThe same patterns are also evident in the environmental movement. The narratives are constructed by “doom and gloom.” We’re constantly told the world is heading “in the wrong direction” and that “we only have X years left.” While the urgency is real, it frequently breeds eco-anxiety and paralysis, a sense that nothing we do will be sufficient. It becomes difficult to envision alternative paths or believe our actions can meaningfully shape outcomes. The discourse overwhelms us with statistics and worst-case scenarios.In his book The Nightingale, Sam Lee writes about how the environmental crisis is fundamentally a crisis of imagination, a failure to visualize what a flourishing world could look like. He contends that to transform behavior, we must first reach the hearts of people.Imagination as ResistanceWhat role does imagination play in liberation? Without imagination, there would be no innovation, no dreams, no creation, no evolution. Imagination serves as a gateway, enabling us to envision realities beyond the systems that confine us. To be clear, I’m not referring to naive optimism that overlooks the depth of our struggles. I’m speaking of the imagination that empowers us to reject internalized inferiority, the kind that helps us unlearn what systems of oppression have implanted within us.We must ask ourselves: Which beliefs are authentically mine, and which were imposed? Which limits my ability to imagine different realities?This questioning becomes the first step toward mental liberation, a way to reclaim our inner landscape. It represents a refusal to let the occupier colonize our souls and a rejection of the belief that our efforts are ultimately futile. This form of imagination is not effortless, it demands confronting aspects of ourselves shaped by inherited beliefs. It means shedding limiting parts of our identity and undertaking the difficult work of re-rooting in truth. It requires radical honesty.To paraphrase Longdon, imagination represents one of our most vital capacities as sensing, feeling, and purposeful beings. Imagination is an act of resistance. Colonialism has systematically suppressed indigenous knowledge and way of life. And, yet, enslaved peoples, indigenous communities, and colonized societies have turned to imagination as a survival strategy throughout history. Enslavement ended not only through physical revolt but also through internal narrative transformation, a decolonization of the imagination. What once represented limitation gave way to visions of liberation.Palestine TodayI write this as we witness genocide in Gaza. In the West Bank, settler violence, settlement expansion, and forced displacement intensify daily. Hope seems impossible. Speaking of imagination here might seem like a luxury. I don’t dismiss the pressing nature of our current moment.I’ve come to realize that a mindset of limitation, the belief that we’re doomed no matter what, is what oppressive systems count on.As Sabella suggests, liberating Palestine requires not only ending land occupation but also freeing it from ideological confinement. In other words, imagination forms a crucial component of our collective resistance.A Closing InvitationPhysically, the system may appear stronger. But spiritually, we possess immense power. While we may feel disempowered, the collective spiritual journey of decolonization can inspire us and reawaken our strength. When, from a place of empowerment, we reimagine a free Palestine or a thriving, just planet, we gather strength to build the reality we dream of.When we choose to rise above internal despair, when we actively cultivate beauty, hope, and imagination, we resist the system’s grip because occupiers control not only land but also colonize our very being. Liberation is a long and challenging path, but the first step is daring to see it. Imagination can guide us away from systems that exploit and seek power over others. This becomes a radical act of rebuilding and remaking our world, creating space for new ways of living to emerge, starting with our minds."
}
,
"relatedposts": [
{
"title" : "Dignity Before Stadiums:: Morocco’s Digital Uprising",
"author" : "Cheb Gado",
"category" : "",
"url" : "https://everythingispolitical.com/readings/dignity-before-stadiums",
"date" : "2025-10-02 09:08:00 -0400",
"img" : "https://everythingispolitical.com/uploads/EIP_Cover_Morocco_GenZ.jpg",
"excerpt" : "No one expected a generation raised on smartphones and TikTok clips to ignite a spark of protest shaking Morocco’s streets. But Gen Z, the children of the internet and speed, have stepped forward to write a new chapter in the history of uprisings, in their own style.The wave of anger began with everyday struggles that cut deep into young people’s lives: soaring prices, lack of social justice, and the silencing of their voices in politics. They didn’t need traditional leaders or party manifestos; the movement was born out of a single hashtag that spread like wildfire, transforming individual frustration into collective momentum.",
"content" : "No one expected a generation raised on smartphones and TikTok clips to ignite a spark of protest shaking Morocco’s streets. But Gen Z, the children of the internet and speed, have stepped forward to write a new chapter in the history of uprisings, in their own style.The wave of anger began with everyday struggles that cut deep into young people’s lives: soaring prices, lack of social justice, and the silencing of their voices in politics. They didn’t need traditional leaders or party manifestos; the movement was born out of a single hashtag that spread like wildfire, transforming individual frustration into collective momentum.One of the sharpest contradictions fueling the protests was the billions poured into World Cup-related preparations, while ordinary citizens remained marginalized when it came to healthcare and education.This awareness quickly turned into chants and slogans echoing through the streets: “Dignity begins with schools and hospitals, not with putting on a show for the world.”What set this movement apart was not only its presence on the streets, but also the way it reinvented protest itself:Live filming: Phone cameras revealed events moment by moment, exposing abuses instantly.Memes and satire: A powerful weapon to dismantle authority’s aura, turning complex political discourse into viral, shareable content.Decentralized networks: No leader, no party, just small, fast-moving groups connected online, able to appear and disappear with agility.This generation doesn’t believe in grand speeches or delayed promises. They demand change here and now. Moving seamlessly between the physical and digital realms, they turn the street into a stage of revolt, and Instagram Live into an alternative media outlet.What’s happening in Morocco strongly recalls the Arab Spring of 2011, when young people flooded the streets with the same passion and spontaneity, armed only with belief in their power to spark change. But Gen Z added their own twist, digital tools, meme culture, and the pace of a hyper-connected world.Morocco’s Gen Z uprising is not just another protest, but a living experiment in how a digital generation can redefine politics itself. The spark may fade, but the mark it leaves on young people’s collective consciousness cannot be erased.Photo credits: Mosa’ab Elshamy, Zacaria Garcia, Abdel Majid Bizouat, Marouane Beslem"
}
,
{
"title" : "A Shutdown Exposes How Fragile U.S. Governance Really Is",
"author" : "EIP Editors",
"category" : "",
"url" : "https://everythingispolitical.com/readings/a-shutdown-exposes-how-fragile-us-governance-really-is",
"date" : "2025-10-01 22:13:00 -0400",
"img" : "https://everythingispolitical.com/uploads/EIP_Cover_Gov_ShutDown.jpg",
"excerpt" : "Each time the federal government shutters its doors, we hear the same reassurances: essential services will continue, Social Security checks will still arrive, planes won’t fall from the sky. This isn’t the first Governmental shutdown, they’ve happened 22 times since 1976, and their toll is real.",
"content" : "Each time the federal government shutters its doors, we hear the same reassurances: essential services will continue, Social Security checks will still arrive, planes won’t fall from the sky. This isn’t the first Governmental shutdown, they’ve happened 22 times since 1976, and their toll is real.Shutdowns don’t mean the government stops functioning. They mean millions of federal workers are asked to keep the system running without pay. Air traffic controllers, border patrol agents, food inspectors — people whose jobs underpin both public safety and economic life — are told their labor matters, but their livelihoods don’t. People have to pay the price of bad bureaucracy in the world’s most powerful country, if governance is stalled, workers must pay with their salaries and their groceries.In 1995 and 1996, clashes between President Bill Clinton and House Speaker Newt Gingrich triggered two shutdowns totaling 27 days. In 2013, a 16-day standoff over the Affordable Care Act furloughed 850,000 workers. And in 2018–2019, the longest shutdown in U.S. history stretched 35 days, as President Trump refused to reopen the government without funding for a border wall. That impasse left 800,000 federal employees without paychecks and cost the U.S. economy an estimated $11 billion — $3 billion of it permanently lost.More troubling is what happens when crises strike during shutdowns. The United States is living in an age of accelerating climate disasters: historic floods in Vermont, wildfire smoke choking New York, hurricanes pounding Florida. These emergencies do not pause while Congress fights over budgets. Yet a shutdown means furloughed NOAA meteorologists, suspended EPA enforcement, and delayed FEMA programs. In the most climate-vulnerable decade of our lifetimes, we are choosing paralysis over preparedness.This vulnerability didn’t emerge overnight. For decades, the American state has been hollowed out under the logic of austerity and privatization, while military spending has remained sacrosanct. That imbalance is why budgets collapse under the weight of endless resources for war abroad, too few for resilience at home.Shutdowns send a dangerous message. They normalize instability. They tell workers they are disposable. They make clear that in our system, climate resilience and public health aren’t pillars of our democracy but rather insignificant in the face of power and greed. And each time the government closes, it becomes easier to imagine a future where this isn’t the exception but the rule.The United States cannot afford to keep running on shutdown politics. The climate crisis, economic inequality, and the challenges of sustaining democracy itself demand continuity, not collapse. We need a politics that treats stability and resilience not as partisan victories, but as basic commitments to one another. Otherwise, the real shutdown isn’t just of the government — it’s of democracy itself."
}
,
{
"title" : "There Was, There Was Not: Cinema as Collective Memory",
"author" : "Emily Mkrtichian",
"category" : "",
"url" : "https://everythingispolitical.com/readings/this-essay-was-written-on-the-eve-of-the-five-year-anniversary-of-the-first-day-of-the-2020-artsakh-war",
"date" : "2025-10-01 16:06:00 -0400",
"img" : "https://everythingispolitical.com/uploads/EIP_Cover_10_1_There_Was_Film.jpg",
"excerpt" : "",
"content" : "Join us for the New York Screening:7:00pm: Screening Begins8:30-9:00pm: Q&A with Celine and Emily9:15-11:30: Party at DCTV with small bites and DJEIP members 20% OFF CODE: Get your tickets hereCinema holds a singular place in our imagination, opening a shared space of possibility in both our individual and collective consciousness. At first, this might seem less true for nonfiction cinema, yet over nearly a decade of making my first feature, I’ve come to believe it has the power to cast a spell on how we experience reality and remember the past.In making There Was, There Was Not, I lived through a historical moment that became a fundamental rupture and trauma for my people - and now I can’t help but think about the archive obsessively. Its multitude of shortcomings but also its infinite potential and pivotal importance. My grandmothers and aunts were my personal archive - they taught me about the history of my family, which was also the history of our people. When your past is defined by movement and displacement, your lineage becomes a cultural encyclopedia, an embodied record of larger geopolitical events. The personal is political in every way.When I began making the film in 2016 it was originally meant to be a celebration of women like my grandmothers and aunts. These women are the stubborn, tender keepers of history and makers of a better future that I met and became close with during my time in the Republic of Artsakh - an ethnically Armenian autonomous region that fell into dispute after the fall of the Soviet Union. Artsakh was functioning as a de facto state for nearly three decades, and for Armenians, it is a symbol of self-determination, resistance, and the need to hold onto lands that have been systematically taken from us through violent means for more than a century. The formation of the republic of Artsakh was full of tales of freedom fighters, heroes and martyrs (mostly men), who gave their life so that our connection to our lands would remain unbroken. I envied this tenuous yet determined connection to place. My grandparents fled their village in Turkey during the 1915 genocide, and relocated several times before settling in Iran. So as someone who had been disconnected from land and history for two generations, I wanted to document women’s connection to it and fight for it. For all these reasons, I started filming with four women who were all fighting in their own way - fighting for Artsakh to be the place they dreamed and believed it could be.I have so many vivid memories of my time in Artsakh. It’s hard to describe the beauty of that place, but let me try. I know that remembering the joy I experienced there is some kind of conjuring.In Artsakh, it felt as if you were always surrounded by mountains. Everywhere you turned, there were thousand-year-old stone churches, ice-cold rushing rivers, lush wet forests, and sharp cliff lines threatening to drop out a thousand feet onto a green valley floor. The people were completely unhinged in their love for their homeland and their absolute existence in the present. I’ve never made so many toasts, ate so much fresh tonir bread, sat in cars with unknown destinations awaiting me, and cracked as many walnut shells in my hands as when I was in Artsakh.As I describe this ethereal, joyous existence, I can feel myself becoming wary and anxious about the next part of my story. I felt this way for years while I was making the film. One of the of women, Sose, expressed it perfectly in 2021 when I asked her, “Do you remember the first day the war started?” and she responded, “Yeah, but let me stay in this life.” She meant the life before. The life that exists in her memory and in mine. The life that overflowed with joy, abundance and freedom – however precarious.On the morning of September 27th in 2020, in the middle of COVID and 4 years into making my film, Artsakh was attacked along its borders and in its civilian cities.This is the day I became aware that my body is an archive.Over the next 45 days, I lived mostly in a bomb shelter and held desperately onto a camera like it was a lifeline that could convince the world - out there, looming, ignoring us - that this injustice must end. As it turns out, a camera is not capable of this. Or, the world is not capable of being truly moved to collective action by way of images alone. What the camera did do, though, was tether my life to the lives of the four women in wildly intimate and unexpected ways. Together, we learned the names of all major long and short-range missiles, drones, and rockets - and the specific sounds they made. We did everything in our power to help the thousands of people around us who were suffering. We fled in fear and returned in desperate need of proximity to each other and this place. We were not safe but felt that together somehow we could summon the strength to remain on that land and stay alive for as long as possible.As I watched and filmed, I felt something in my own body wake up. It guided me via intuition and care, and forms of knowledge I have never been able to put into words. It was everything my great grandmothers and grandmothers witnessed in their lifetimes, imprinted in my DNA, becoming available to me as an archive in my own body. I drew on that knowledge and strength and intuitive force constantly, and I know that it kept me alive.And I captured every moment I could, holding it in frames to keep it from disappearing, to grant it power and authority.And we watched as a place we loved deeply began to disappear in front of our eyes.In 2023, after nine months of being blockaded and deprived of food, fuel, and freedom of movement, Artsakh was ethnically cleansed of its remaining 120,000 Armenian residents, marking the end of thousands of years of our presence on that land.That is where my film ends.But for me, and for the women I filmed, and for the people of Artsakh, the story did not.Our witnessing and our memories became an archive for future resistance. As women, we pass on this knowledge in intimate ways—by creating lives imprinted with our experiences and by caring for, teaching and being in service to those around us.Ultimately, this work became a collaborative archive of relationships between women and our connection to a place that we no longer have access to. The act of watching the film together allows us to summon this land and the life lived on it through our collective imagination and psyche. In this way, cinema becomes an extension of the archive our bodies hold as witnesses—transforming into a tool to conjure Artsakh, bringing it back into existence and, as Sose said, allowing us to stay in that life and let it live into the future.There Was, There Was Not, titled after the Armenian version of “Once Upon a Time,” – the phrase that opened the stories I was raised on—is my way of honoring this evolving understanding of the archive and of cinema’s power to open new imaginative possibilities on the present, past and future. It is also a beginning, a foundation for future projects like Cartographies of Memories, a somatic, multimedia archive of Artsakh that continues this work of remembrance.Every image I captured became a finite archive, and now my work is to add to it.Cinematic work can be a subversion of erasure, transforming the archival act into something living, relational, and generative. It does not only preserve but imagines, offering a way to resist forgetting and to dream into a future where what was lost can still be carried forward.Let cinema be an act of creative resistance."
}
]
}
