{ "article": { "title" : "Samira Mohyeddin on Iran", "author" : "Samira Mohyeddin, Céline Semaan", "category" : "interviews", "url" : "https://everythingispolitical.com/readings/samira-mohyeddin-on-iran", "date" : "2026-01-18 16:53:00 -0500", "img" : "https://everythingispolitical.com/uploads/2026_01_12_Samira_Celine_EIP_Cover-0aba50.jpg", "excerpt" : "This interview took place on Jan 12, 2025, and responds to the evolving situation in Iran at that moment.", "content" : "This interview took place on Jan 12, 2025, and responds to the evolving situation in Iran at that moment.CÉLINE:Thank you so much, Samira, for taking the time to speak to us about what’s going on in Iran right now. Not that it just started yesterday, but it has escalated to a place where international communities can no longer ignore what’s going on in Iran. Can you tell me what has changed in the past couple of weeks? What has accelerated? How it accelerated so quickly, and the dangers that the protesters are facing?SAMIRA MOHYEDDIN:First of all you hit the nail on the head when you said this didn’t start yesterday, and it’s not new. Iranians have been protesting for decades. But what happened was that on December 28 in Tehran’s Grand Bazaar dozens of merchants came out to protest because Iran’s currency had fallen to like 147,000 to one US dollar, which is wild, right? And from there, it just escalated to other towns, people came out into the streets. And it went from calling for some sort of economic reprieve, anti corruption, and these types of things became calls for the entire regime to come down. And again, that’s not new either.What is new, though, is the level of violence that is being used by not only the protesters, but also the government. They clamped down hard. The internet has been shut off for 96 hours now. It’s very hard to verify the numbers, but we do know there have been hundreds of protesters killed, and at the same time, you have people like Mike Pompeo on New Year’s day coming out on X.com and writing “Happy New Year to the Iranian in the streets and the Mossad agents walking beside them.”CÉLINE:That’s great that you mentioned that. What’s happening right now with the coverage on on Iran, it’s being hijacked, and it’s being also manipulated in international media, which is fueling the left or progressives against one another. I don’t know what to use which word, but it’s fueling a sort of a schism in what we call the progressives or the Left, because ultimately, the way we are covering what’s going on in Iran is being hijacked by the right and also fueled by the left that is sort of attacking one another. Can you tell me what is actually happening — are the Mossad on the street? Is this fake?SAMIRA MOHYEDDIN:I don’t think it’s fake news that Israel has a hand in what is happening in Iran. You have the heritage minister of Israel coming out in one of the most read newspapers in Israel. This is Israel Hayom, saying our agents are on the ground. He actually says we have a hand in this. Okay, so it’s not that we’re making this up. It’s that officials, Israeli officials, are attesting to this. And so how does that impact people in Iran? Well, it impacts people in Iran, because then you have the Chief Justice of Iran, Gholam-Hossein Mohseni-Eje’i saying, “We know Israel has a hand in this. And unlike last time,” this is a direct quote from him, “unlike last time, we will not show any clemency, we will strike hard.”And so when you have these bellicose statements being made by American and Israeli officials that directly impacts people on the streets of Iran who are risking their lives to come out now, in terms of this schism that you’re seeing, well, it’s a very difficult time to be a progressive Iranian. It’s a very difficult time. Now to be someone who cares about what is happening in Gaza and cares about what is happening in Iran, they want to split us apart. That’s the plan. If you go and watch right now, like I do, if you go and look at Israeli influencers, they will say things like, “where are all the encampments for the Iranians? The left doesn’t care about Iranians being killed.” These are very deliberate talking points. Don’t forget that Israel is conducting a genocide. There is nothing that Israel wants more than to avert attention away from Gaza and onto Iran, and Israeli influencers are doing that work for Israel now. You’ll also see Iranians. I’m not going to let Iranians off the hook here. You’ll also see Iranians saying, “Why don’t the Palestinians care about us? They never say anything about us.” And this churlish comparison between people who are going through a genocide and people who are rising up against their government, there is no comparison here. This is not the oppression Olympics. Let’s not do this. It’s so dangerous. We can hold two thoughts at once. And guess what? I have enough hate in my heart for Israel and the Islamic Republic. I can do both.CÉLINE:When groups like Slow Factory, for example, or other progressives are supporting the Iranian protesters, they are faced with accusations of being Zionist. They’re faced with accusations of not being pro-Palestinian anymore. And what’s happening right now is the agenda to separate the movement has already happened and is in process. There is a position of the western “Left” that is denying the protesters in Iran legitimacy and agency to demand their rights. Because if you listen to Iranians that are living in Iran they have been enduring 45 years of oppression under a government that not only is pressuring them financially, but also from a religious point of view, from an ideological point of view.SAMIRA MOHYEDDIN:Living under a totalitarian theocracy, which is exactly what Iran is, is a very different than looking at Iran as just an anti-Imperial entity, which is what a lot of people on the Left want to do. You see, Iran acts as a bulwark against American hegemony in the region, and it positions itself this way, very decidedly, and has done so from inception — the call Death to America was happening from the inception of the Islamic Republic. It didn’t just, you know, evolve. It’s become the hallmark of this government. The Islamic Republic uses the Palestinian cause to promulgate itself as some sort of anti-Imperial, altruistic state.And you know, one of the things I always say to people who tout this line of, why don’t the Palestinians care? Or some people say, if we get rid of the Iranian government, there will be no resistance to the occupation of Palestine. But why don’t you ever say, hey, if we got rid of the occupation, the Iranian government wouldn’t have a leg to stand on. Why isn’t it ever the inverse? Get rid of the occupation and get rid of the Islamic Republic’s excuse. That’s the route we should take.CÉLINE:Some may look at the end of the occupation as something that is a long term project, and that perhaps the Islamic Republic may fall before the end of the occupation of Palestine. Right? Because the American right is pushing for it, and mainstream media is also supporting it. At the same time, because the population in Iran is rising up, the masses that are on the streets that are relentless to topple their government, there is a fear that a power vacuum may occur, because this may happen before the end of the occupation. Therefore, there is fear that the occupation expands to Iran, or at least the United States takes over Iran, or some kind of other occupier that will be entering into Iran, occupying Iran. How do you see this?SAMIRA MOHYEDDIN:That’s exactly the fear. I mean, I asked people on Instagram to tell me what their biggest fear is. And three things came up. I had over 400 responses, but the three responses that came up the most were:They don’t want Iran to become an Iraq or Syria or Libya. They’re worried about separatist movements, and they don’t want a civil war. As much as we see people on the streets of Iran protesting against their government, there’s 90 million people in Iran. Iran is a massive country. It’s the size of Western Europe, you can’t just come and take over Iran. Okay, it’s not Venezuela. That’s not going to happen. So they have about 20% of the population support right now. 20% of 90 million is a lot of people, and they also have all of the arms, and they have everything. So if people think that this government’s going to fall overnight, that’s not going to happen. Governments don’t go away because Elon Musk changes the emoji of the flag, okay, it doesn’t work this way. You have to see people inside the government break away from the government. You have to see that happening. You have to see a lot more numbers of people on the streets, it’s just not happening right now. And there is a vacuum inside the country, in civil society, there are no people who have built any sort of structures or groups like unions, that doesn’t exist. It’s not happening. The Islamic Republic has been very effective at doing away with these structures.The Iranian people have tried many different ways to change the government. They’ve gone to the ballot box in 2009, when they thought voting them out would work. It didn’t. They went on the streets. In 1999 the students went on the streets. Again in 2009 during the Green Movement, 2017, 2018, 2019, every year, successively, there have been protests in Iran. The difference is that you now have a situation where Israel and America have come out and said, we have a hand in this. And the world is watching America behave in a way that shows their attitude is “We can bomb anywhere. We can steal any leader. We can do anything.”So there is a real fear among Iranians that they could become another Syria. One of the things I really want to point out here is that when Syria fell, finally, after 14 years and Assad went off to Moscow, what happened? Israel bombed Syria for two days straight, making sure that it effectively has no military. It has no weapons. It has no way of guarding itself, and now Israel has come in. It has stolen Syria’s water. It has completely taken over the Golan Heights and other parts of Syria. So yeah, Iranians have very good reason to be afraid.CÉLINE:And the United States have put in charge someone who was in the ISIS as a ISIS commander that was on the most wanted list of the FBI as the leader of Syria, which is the irony,SAMIRA MOHYEDDIN:and who was Iran fighting Iran was on the front lines with fighting Daesh, of course. And there is a real fear. I just brought up the separatist movements, those areas along like Baluchestan, East Azerbaijan, all of those areas there have separatist movements. They want to separate from Iran. They’ve said this numerous times. They want to make an East Kurdistan, you know. So there is also this fear of splitting Iran up. And you had Israeli officials. Don’t forget, in June, when Israel conducted its 12 day war and killed over 1000 Iranians, they said Iran is too big to control, so they will separate it.CÉLINE:Absolutely. And again, this is good that you bring up the Kurds in Iran, who are a massive movement in this uprising, right? And also the Women Life Freedom movement there was also led by the Kurds.SAMIRA MOHYEDDIN:No, what is happening in Iran right now has nothing to do with that movement, unfortunately. What is happening is that we are seeing very fascistic right wing elements trying to take control of this movement, particularly in the diaspora, and people who yell out Woman Life Freedom are being drowned out. I’m very worried about what is to come if this government goes because we do not have the right systems in place. And as you said, there will be a vacuum. What I fear is Iran becoming a secular but very authoritarian, nationalistic, fascistic place. That is my fear. Like Assad on crack, is what I fear.CÉLINE:And my last question would be, Iran and Lebanon are deeply connected. What happens in Iran is going to impact what’s going to happen in Lebanon, and as Lebanese people, we are watching what’s going on very, very closely, and we are very worried as well. Because, you know, Iran funds a lot of militia, mainly Hezbollah for now. But what do you see as this relationship between Iran and Lebanon, is it going to turn into this big war with all of you know, Israel invading Lebanon. Israel invading Iran taking over?SAMIRA MOHYEDDIN:Israel has been bombing southern Lebanon, non stop. It has not stopped bombing and you can see right now they’ve started to build a wall for themselves, the Israelis. It’s massive, and they’ve encroached on Lebanese land. I don’t know what will happen to Hezbollah, though. I mean, Iran funds Hezbollah directly. Many people see Hezbollah as the resistance, the only resistance that really remains and that is the other thing is that people, anti-imperialists, see Iran as the only resistance that remains in the region. Don’t forget, the only country that bombed Israel is Iran. They’re the only ones that have bombed Israel. They bombed Tel Aviv. I mean, we never thought that we would see such a thing. And Iran really takes pride in that. The Iranian government takes pride in that. They take pride in the fact that, when it comes to the Palestinian cause, they are the only ones that have really pushed back on Israel, whereas other Arab neighbors, you know, Morocco, Dubai, I mean, they’ve just been laughing it up, right? Wanting to do deals with Israel. So there’s a lot going on. It’s very difficult to say what’s going to happen, or that’s going to happen.CÉLINE:Anything else you want to say regarding the international community’s reaction to Iran. What would you advise?SAMIRA MOHYEDDIN:Really, I want to tell people who give a shit about liberation to care about what is happening in Iran. I know that it’s difficult when you see the most right wing, disgusting extreme people like Lindsey Graham and Mike Pompeo being all of a sudden your bedfellow. But don’t negate the people of Iran. Just because these people are trying to hijack their voices, we can’t allow this to happen. And it shouldn’t mean that we uplift the Iranian government." } , "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." } ] }