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The Myth of an Apolitical Eden

This text is an adapted excerpt from “Babylon, Albion”, by Dalia Al-Dujaili, 2025. saqibooks.com
Whether earthly or heavenly, our understanding of paradise—an eternal state of peace and rest— remains a garden. This idea found its way into Abrahamic texts: Eden shares its narrative with the Sumerian “garden of the gods,” which was later adopted by the Babylonians who conquered Sumer (ancient Iraq). So that today, Judeo-Christian and Islamic origin stories share strikingly similar, and in some cases, even directly mirror ancient Sumerian myths.
A garden is seen as a divine space, a place almost between heaven and earth. Perhaps it is because we can create our own paradise in a garden. We can create our own sense of belonging by interacting with the natural world in a way which seems understandable to us. We water the same plant over years or see the same tree changing its facade over multiple seasons.
In a garden, we find nature “at peace.” We don’t find floods and forest fires, we don’t find great storms and the rotting corpses of animals, we don’t find diseases that wipe out whole populations of insects. We curate and manufacture nature to fit our image of a natural world which is inherently beautiful, virtuous, and harmless.
But a garden is not the neutral place we think it is. Our gardens are both reflections of our identities and spaces where politics are practiced.
In 1936, three years after Adolf Hitler came to power, a German landscape architect argued for the need “to design blood-and-soil-rooted gardens.” The idea spread throughout Germany, influenced by the landscape architect and Nazi, Willy Lange. “Our feelings for our homeland should be rooted in the character of domestic landscapes,” he argued. He was key in issuing a law forbidding the use of any plants deemed non-native.
These ideas didn’t take root in the UK. The pioneering Irish gardener, William Robinson, known for popularizing the design of English “cottage gardens,” argued for the integration of foreign plants into British gardens and advocated for the naturalization of “hardy exotic plants” in his pioneering work, The Wild Garden. He promoted the idea of incorporating non-native species that could thrive in the British climate, as well as “mixed borders” made up of a mix of herbaceous plants, thereby enriching the diversity and beauty of local gardens as spaces which celebrated the fluidity of nature.
The gardens of stately homes are aesthetic feats of engineering—where landscape design meets ecology and artistic finesse. But the garden has so often been the site of practicing and performing a certain idea, or ideal, of Britishness. It is often a site that contains Englishness, where cosmopolitanism and a mixing of non-native plants is carried out under the supervision of the gardener.
The term “English rose” is usually associated with English girls of fair skin and delicate features, likening the lady to the national flower of England. The term was adopted from the Tudor rose which became the symbol of the nation state of England.
However, most of our beloved English garden roses as we know them today are not native to the UK. The cultivation of garden roses began with the Romans, who brought them from areas in Southwest Asia where roses had long been cultivated, first from the ancient Egyptians, who the Romans later traded with and took heavy influence from, while also sourcing roses from Iran, Turkey and Syria. The rose is the national flower of Iraq, where it is a true native. The English rose, then, is really a symbol of cosmopolitanism, not the province of a nation state and its identity. British gardens are, really, very multicultural.
“Something so synonymous with English identity is in fact international,” writes one British blogger of the flower, which reminds me that British identity is as much about foreignness as it is about nativeness.
Gardens, with their walls, boundaries and guidelines, ask us to consider why we value dominance, control, and maintenance of nature, and how we categorize belonging in a patch of soil.
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"article":
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"title" : "The Myth of an Apolitical Eden",
"author" : "Dalia Al-Dujaili",
"category" : "excerpts",
"url" : "https://everythingispolitical.com/readings/the-myth-of-an-apolitical-eden",
"date" : "2025-05-06 14:15:00 -0400",
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"content" : "This text is an adapted excerpt from “Babylon, Albion”, by Dalia Al-Dujaili, 2025. saqibooks.comWhether earthly or heavenly, our understanding of paradise—an eternal state of peace and rest— remains a garden. This idea found its way into Abrahamic texts: Eden shares its narrative with the Sumerian “garden of the gods,” which was later adopted by the Babylonians who conquered Sumer (ancient Iraq). So that today, Judeo-Christian and Islamic origin stories share strikingly similar, and in some cases, even directly mirror ancient Sumerian myths.A garden is seen as a divine space, a place almost between heaven and earth. Perhaps it is because we can create our own paradise in a garden. We can create our own sense of belonging by interacting with the natural world in a way which seems understandable to us. We water the same plant over years or see the same tree changing its facade over multiple seasons.In a garden, we find nature “at peace.” We don’t find floods and forest fires, we don’t find great storms and the rotting corpses of animals, we don’t find diseases that wipe out whole populations of insects. We curate and manufacture nature to fit our image of a natural world which is inherently beautiful, virtuous, and harmless. But a garden is not the neutral place we think it is. Our gardens are both reflections of our identities and spaces where politics are practiced.In 1936, three years after Adolf Hitler came to power, a German landscape architect argued for the need “to design blood-and-soil-rooted gardens.” The idea spread throughout Germany, influenced by the landscape architect and Nazi, Willy Lange. “Our feelings for our homeland should be rooted in the character of domestic landscapes,” he argued. He was key in issuing a law forbidding the use of any plants deemed non-native.These ideas didn’t take root in the UK. The pioneering Irish gardener, William Robinson, known for popularizing the design of English “cottage gardens,” argued for the integration of foreign plants into British gardens and advocated for the naturalization of “hardy exotic plants” in his pioneering work, The Wild Garden. He promoted the idea of incorporating non-native species that could thrive in the British climate, as well as “mixed borders” made up of a mix of herbaceous plants, thereby enriching the diversity and beauty of local gardens as spaces which celebrated the fluidity of nature.The gardens of stately homes are aesthetic feats of engineering—where landscape design meets ecology and artistic finesse. But the garden has so often been the site of practicing and performing a certain idea, or ideal, of Britishness. It is often a site that contains Englishness, where cosmopolitanism and a mixing of non-native plants is carried out under the supervision of the gardener.The term “English rose” is usually associated with English girls of fair skin and delicate features, likening the lady to the national flower of England. The term was adopted from the Tudor rose which became the symbol of the nation state of England.However, most of our beloved English garden roses as we know them today are not native to the UK. The cultivation of garden roses began with the Romans, who brought them from areas in Southwest Asia where roses had long been cultivated, first from the ancient Egyptians, who the Romans later traded with and took heavy influence from, while also sourcing roses from Iran, Turkey and Syria. The rose is the national flower of Iraq, where it is a true native. The English rose, then, is really a symbol of cosmopolitanism, not the province of a nation state and its identity. British gardens are, really, very multicultural.“Something so synonymous with English identity is in fact international,” writes one British blogger of the flower, which reminds me that British identity is as much about foreignness as it is about nativeness.Gardens, with their walls, boundaries and guidelines, ask us to consider why we value dominance, control, and maintenance of nature, and how we categorize belonging in a patch of soil."
}
,
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{
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"author" : "EIP Editors",
"category" : "essays",
"url" : "https://everythingispolitical.com/readings/black-liberation-on-palestine",
"date" : "2025-10-17 09:01:00 -0400",
"img" : "https://everythingispolitical.com/uploads/mandela-keffiyeh.jpg",
"excerpt" : "",
"content" : "In understanding global politics, it is important to look at Black liberation struggles as one important source of moral perspective. So, when looking at Palestine, we look to Black leaders to see how they perceived the Palestinian struggle in relation to theirs, from the 1960’s to today.Why must we understand where the injustice lies? Because, as Desmond Tutu famously said, “If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor.”{% for person in site.data.quotes-black-liberation-palestine %}{{ person.name }}{% for quote in person.quotes %}“{{ quote.text }}”{% if quote.source %}— {{ quote.source }}{% endif %}{% endfor %}{% endfor %}"
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{
"title" : "First Anniversary Celebration of EIP",
"author" : "EIP Editors",
"category" : "events",
"url" : "https://everythingispolitical.com/readings/1st-anniversary-of-eip",
"date" : "2025-10-14 18:01:00 -0400",
"img" : "https://everythingispolitical.com/uploads/WSA_EIP_Launch_Cover.jpg",
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{
"title" : "Miu Miu Transforms the Apron From Trad Wife to Boss Lady: The sexiest thing in Paris was a work garment",
"author" : "Khaoula Ghanem",
"category" : "",
"url" : "https://everythingispolitical.com/readings/miu-miu-transforms-the-apron-from-trad-wife-to-boss-lady",
"date" : "2025-10-14 13:05:00 -0400",
"img" : "https://everythingispolitical.com/uploads/Cover_EIP_MiuMiu_Apron.jpg",
"excerpt" : "Miuccia Prada has a habit of taking the least “fashion” thing in the room and making it the argument. For Spring 2026 at Miu Miu, the argument is the apron; staged not as a coy retro flourish but as a total system. The show’s mise-en-scène read like a canteen or factory floor with melamine-like tables, rationalist severity, a whiff of cleaning fluid. In other words, a runway designed to force a conversation about labor before any sparkle could distract us.",
"content" : "Miuccia Prada has a habit of taking the least “fashion” thing in the room and making it the argument. For Spring 2026 at Miu Miu, the argument is the apron; staged not as a coy retro flourish but as a total system. The show’s mise-en-scène read like a canteen or factory floor with melamine-like tables, rationalist severity, a whiff of cleaning fluid. In other words, a runway designed to force a conversation about labor before any sparkle could distract us.From the opening look—German actress Sandra Hüller in a utilitarian deep-blue apron layered over a barn jacket and neat blue shirting—the thesis was loud: the “cover” becomes the thing itself. As silhouettes marched on, aprons multiplied and mutated—industrial drill cotton with front pockets, raw canvas, taffeta and cloqué silk, lace-edged versions that flirted with lingerie, even black leather and crystal-studded incarnations that reframed function as ornament. What the apron traditionally shields (clothes, bodies, “the good dress”) was inverted; the protection became the prized surface. Prada herself spelled it out: “The apron is my favorite piece of clothing… it symbolizes women, from factories through to serving to the home.”Miu Miu Spring 2026 Ready-to-Wear. SuppliedThis inversion matters historically. The apron’s earliest fashion-adjacent life was industrial. It served as a barrier against grease, heat, stain. It was a token of paid and unpaid care. Miu Miu tapped that lineage directly (canvas, work belts, D-ring hardware), then sliced it against domestic codes (florals, ruffles, crochet), and finally pushed into nightlife with bejeweled and leather bibs. The garment’s migration across materials made its social migrations visible. It is a kitchen apron, yes, but also one for labs, hospitals, and factories; the set and styling insisted on that plurality.What makes the apron such a loaded emblem is not just what it covers, but what it reveals about who has always been working. Before industrialization formalized labor into factory shifts and wages, women were already performing invisible labour, the kind that doesn’t exist on payrolls but sits at the foundation of every functioning society. They were cooking, cleaning, raising children, nursing the ill. These tasks were foundational to every economy and yet absent from every ledger. Even when women entered the industrial workforce, from textile plants to wartime assembly lines, their domestic responsibilities did not disappear, they doubled. In that context, the apron here is a quiet manifesto for the strength that goes unrecorded, unthanked, and yet keeps civilization running.The algorithmic rise of the “tradwife,” the influencer economy that packages domesticity as soft power, is the contemporary cultural shadow here. Miu Miu’s apron refuses that rehearsal. In fact, it’s intentionally awkward—oversized, undone, worn over bikinis or with sturdy shoes—so the viewer can’t flatten it into Pinterest-ready nostalgia. Critics noted the collection as a reclamation, a rebuttal to the flattening forces of the feed: the apron as a uniform for endurance rather than submission. The show notes framed it simply as “a consideration of the work of women,” a reminder that the invisible economies of effort—paid, unpaid, emotional—still structure daily life.If that sounds unusually explicit for a luxury runway, consider the designer. Prada trained as a mime at Milan’s Piccolo Teatro, earned a PhD in political science, joined the Italian Communist Party, and was active in the women’s rights movement in 1970s Milan. Those facts are not trivia; they are the grammar of her clothes. Decades of “ugly chic” were, essentially, a slow campaign against easy consumption and default beauty. In 2026, the apron becomes the newest dialect. An emblem drawn from leftist feminist history, recoded into a product that still has to sell. That tension—belief versus business—is the Miuccia paradox, and it’s precisely why these aprons read as statements, not trends.The runway narrative traced a journey from function to fetish. Early looks were squarely utilitarian—thick cottons, pocketed bibs—before migrating toward fragility and sparkle. Lace aprons laid transparently over swimmers; crystal-studded aprons slipped across cocktail territory; leather apron-dresses stiffened posture into armor. The sequencing proposed the same silhouette can encode labor, intimacy, and spectacle depending on fabrication. If most brands smuggle “workwear” in as set dressing, Miu Miu forced it onto the body as the central garment and an unmissable reminder that the feminine is often asked to be both shield and display at once.It’s instructive to read this collection against the house’s last mega-viral object: the micro-mini of Spring 2022, a pleated, raw-hem wafer that colonized timelines and magazine covers. That skirt’s thesis was exposure—hip bones and hemlines as post-lockdown spectacle, Y2K nostalgia framed as liberation-lite. The apron, ironically, covers. Where the micro-mini trafficked in the optics of freedom (and the speed of virality), the apron asks about the conditions that make freedom possible: who launders, who cooks, who cares? To move from “look at me” to “who is working here?” is a pivot from optics to ethics, without abandoning desire. (The aprons are, after all, deeply covetable.) In a platform economy that still rewards the shortest hemline with the biggest click-through, this is a sophisticated counter-program.Yet the designer is not romanticizing toil. There’s wit in the ruffles and perversity in the crystals; neither negate labor, they metabolize it. The most striking image is the apron treated as couture-adjacent. Traditionally, an apron protects the precious thing beneath; here, the apron is the precious thing. You could call that hypocrisy—luxurizing the uniform of workers. Or, strategy, insisting that the symbols of care and effort deserve visibility and investment.Of course, none of this exists in a vacuum. The “tradwife” script thrives because it is aesthetically legible and commercially scalable. It packages gender ideology as moodboard. Miu Miu counters with garments whose legibility flickers. The collection’s best looks ask viewers to reconcile tenderness with toughness, convenience with care, which is exactly the mental choreography demanded of women in every context from office to home to online.If you wanted a season-defining “It” item, you’ll still find it. The apron is poised to proliferate across fast-fashion and luxury alike. But the deeper success is structural: Miu Miu re-centered labor as an aesthetic category. That’s rarer than a viral skirt. It’s a reminder that clothes don’t merely decorate life, they describe and negotiate it. In making the apron the subject rather than the prop, Prada turned a garment of service into a platform for agency. It’s precisely the kind of cultural recursion you’d expect from a designer shaped by feminist politics, who never stopped treating fashion as an instrument of thought as much as style.The last image to hold onto is deceptively simple: a woman in an apron, neither fetishized nor infantilized, striding, hands free. Not a costume for nostalgia, not a meme for the feed, but a working uniform reframed, respected, and suddenly, undeniably beautiful. That is Miu Miu’s provocation for Spring 2026: the work behind the work, made visible at last."
}
]
}