{ "article": { "title" : "This is What You Can Do To Support the Freedom Flotilla: Where is our collective Conscience?", "author" : "Céline Semaan", "category" : "", "url" : "https://everythingispolitical.com/readings/this-is-what-you-can-do-to-support-the-freedom-flotilla", "date" : "2025-05-02 10:59:00 -0400", "img" : "https://everythingispolitical.com/uploads/2025_5_Flotilla_Oped_1.jpg", "excerpt" : "", "content" : "I am a war survivor. And that is why I refuse to sit quietly while genocide unfolds — in Gaza, on our screens, in broad daylight. I know what war sounds like. I know the pitch of missiles slicing the sky. I know the hunger, the displacement, the unanswered questions. I know the look in a mother’s eyes when she has nothing left to offer but her arms.Last week, I was supposed to be on the Gaza Flotilla called “Conscience” — a civilian aid mission attempting to bring food, water, and medical supplies to Palestinians by sea. I lost contact with the organizer just days before departure. I was still trying to reconnect when the news broke: the flotilla had been struck by Israeli drones in the middle of the night, in international waters near Malta. Thirty humanitarian workers. No weapons. No military. Just water, food, medication, and diapers, were struck by an Israeli missile that generated a fire on the boat endangering the lives of the humanitarian crew. Not one country intervened or sent help.Many of my peers are putting their bodies on the line. They are physically blockading ports to stop arms shipments. They are occupying government buildings, getting dragged away by riot police, and facing jail or immigration detention. Mahmoud Khalil remains in bureaucratic hell; Mohsen Mahdawi was only recently freed.But it’s not enough. Not nearly enough.Because while we organize, march, and mourn, over 52,000 Palestinians — mostly women and children — have been killed. Entire families wiped off civil registries. Food and water are weaponized, leaving more than 1.2 million people starving in Gaza. The World Health Organization (WHO) has documented 464 attacks on healthcare facilities in the region, resulting in significant casualties among medical personnel and the destruction of essential medical equipment, including ambulances. At least 232 journalists have been killed in Gaza since October 7, 2023, making it the deadliest conflict for journalists ever recorded. A recent report by the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics indicates that over 39,000 children in Gaza have lost one or both parents. This figure reflects the devastating impact of recent events and highlights the urgent need for support for orphaned children in the region. And still, so many ask: But what can I do?Let me be clear: we are not powerless. But our greatest threat is the illusion that we are.What Can You Do?People keep asking: What can I do? It’s not enough to feel bad. Or to repost a story. Or to wait for elections.Here are concrete, immediate actions you can take to disrupt the machinery of genocide:1. Divest Your LaborIf you work for a university, museum, nonprofit, or tech company with ties to weapons manufacturers, fossil fuel giants, or Israeli institutions, you can — and should — push for divestment. Form coalitions. Walk out. Shut it down.2. Support the Supply Chain BlockadesThe global arms trade is not abstract. It relies on real infrastructure — ships, ports, and trucks. In Oakland, Sydney, New York, and London, people are physically blocking shipments of weapons to Israel. They need backup, funds for legal defense, and boots on the ground. Not everyone can risk arrest — but some of you can.3. Flood the Streets — and the DocketsMass mobilizations still matter. So do lawsuits. Join or support legal actions challenging your country’s arms exports or your institution’s complicity. Push your local governments to declare ceasefire zones, sanctuary cities, or initiate symbolic boycotts. These gestures may seem small, but when multiplied, they shift public narrative — and policy.4. Disrupt CultureIf you’re an artist, writer, curator, or musician, don’t underestimate your power. Withdraw from complicit institutions. Use your platform to pressure, not to posture. Refuse normalcy. Art should not beautify atrocity. Art is the ability to understand the times. It should confront it. When art becomes “shocking” because it is challenging the status quo, that means the artwork is doing what it should be doing: raising the collective consciousness.5. Protect and Amplify Palestinian VoicesThis isn’t about centering yourself — it’s about expanding the reach of those on the ground. Translate, transcribe, repost, publish, fund, and follow Palestinian journalists, medics, and resistance leaders. They are risking everything to document the truth.The boat that was struck in international waters was named Conscience—a name that now echoes like a plea across the silence of global inaction. It is conscience that compels journalists to report until their final breath, that drives aid workers to risk their lives delivering food to starving children, that keeps prisoners of conscience like Mahmoud Khalil holding on through bureaucratic cruelty. It is conscience that asks us not just to witness genocide, but to act. To demand the immediate opening of the Rafah crossing. To flood our streets, our governments, and our institutions with the unrelenting insistence that this man-made famine, this massacre of orphans, this targeting of hospitals and the press, must end. If the world had a conscience, Gaza would be free.—————–————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————Recent reports note that a tugboat was dispatched to the flotilla, though none of the activists on board agreed to board it. There still remains a discrepancy between the first responders on the tugboat and NGO organizations about how many people were on board.As of 12 hours ago, the Freedom Flotilla Coalition issued the following demands in a press release:Israeli ambassadors must be summoned and answer to their violation of international law, including the ongoing blockade and the bombing of a civilian vessel in international waters.We demand that: Malta immediately respond to its obligation and ensure the safety of all on board the vessel. The international community condemns this aggression against an unarmed humanitarian aid vessel and demand the Maltese authorities immediately act. All states end political, financial and military support for Israel’s illegal siege, blockade, occupation, and apartheid. Civil society contact Maltese embassies and high commissions globally to ensure the safety of our humanitarians.For the latest updates, follow @gazafreedomflotilla on Instagram, Bluesky, and other social media platforms, as well as their website: https://freedomflotilla.org/" } , "relatedposts": [ { "title" : "Black Liberation Views on Palestine", "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 %}" } , { "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", "excerpt" : "Celebrating One Year of Independent Publishing", "content" : "Celebrating One Year of Independent PublishingJoin Everything is Political on November 21st for the launch of our End-of-Year Special Edition Magazine.This members-only evening will feature a benefit dinner, cocktails, and live performances in celebration of a year of independent media, critical voices, and collective resistance.The EventNovember 21, 2025, 7-11pmLower Manhattan, New YorkLaunching our End-of-Year Special Edition MagazineSpecial appearances and performancesFood & Drink includedTickets are extremely limited, reserve yours now!Become an annual print member: get x back issues of EIP, receive the End-of-Year Special Edition Magazine, and come to the Anniversary Celebration.$470Already a member? Sign in to get your special offer. Buy Ticket $150 Just $50 ! and get the End-of-Year Special Edition Magazine Buy ticket $150 and get the End-of-Year Special Edition Magazine " } , { "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." } ] }