Hi, hello,
I was once told that if we only imagine dystopias, it’s much easier to accept them as inevitable. This kind of dreaming helps usher in apathy and complacency when we watch our already ingrained fears play out. For this reason (among many others), it’s necessary to dream up utopias, to imagine possible futures, life beyond the violences that created this world and beyond the limits of living as it has been prescribed.
I think about this a lot, especially when I feel most tuned into the onslaught of atrocities happening globally. The genocide of the Palestinian people, the Congolese people, the Sudanese people and honestly probably many more people that I’m not yet aware of. In these moments, it becomes harder to dream up worlds that aren’t coated in the sludge of the imperialist war machine, the brutal subjugation of the colonial project and the isolation end stage capitalism manufactures.
I invite you to take a few minutes to imagine what collective liberation means to you. What world could a people united build? What would it feel like to be in communities founded in care for the collective wellbeing? What labour would you dream of if it wasn't serving capitalism’s extractivist practices? Sometimes asking myself these questions helps me remember there are worlds beyond this one, and that if we work together we could make them.
Call and email your reps (this Canada4Palestine document continues to be an amazing resource). Their voicemail boxes can be cathartic places to direct your anger. Keep protesting, keep organizing, keep convening. Being united in rage is a pretty good balm for despair.
If you have some cash to spare, you can find numerous mutual aid fundraisers for families in Gaza at Operation Olive Branch. You could also direct some money to the Wet'suwet'en Yintah Defence Legal Fund to support land defenders in upcoming criminal and civil court trials. Or Astteq who care for the health and well-being of trans people and communities in Montreal and are currently at risk of closing.
Okay, that’s all. Here are your upcoming deadlines.
- naakita f.k.