I think us here to wonder, myself. To wonder. To ask. And that in wondering bout the big things and asking bout the big things, you learn about the little ones, almost by accident. But you never know nothing more about the big things than you start out with. The more I wonder, the more I love.
– Alice Walker, The Color Purple
Read More »It is wrong to expect a reward for your struggles. The reward is the act of struggle itself, not what you win. Even though you can’t expect to defeat the absurdity of the world, you must make the attempt. That’s morality, that’s religion, that’s art, that’s life.
– Phil Ochs, as quoted in The Complete Phil Ochs: Chords of Fame (1978) by Almo publications
Read More »To accompany your writing or just get the juices going, now that our submissions are (finally) open, we created the ultimate bittersweet playlist (… or almost) ! We could probably keep adding songs till infinity, but here are some more or less obvious ones that immediately came to our minds when we were contemplating the mood of this project.
Give it a listen below and comment / message us suggestions of your own!
Read More »we could see the sadness as a gift and still feel too heavy to hold
— adrianne lenker – sadness as a gift
Yes, we finally started creating our 2024 Highlights playlist ! 🙂
… songs for the current grief.
— Lowkey feat. Mai Khalil – Palestine Will Never Die
— Cairokee – Telk Qadeya, كايروكي – تلك قضية
We have added many songs to our 2023 Highlights playlist since our last #songoftheweek post! Check them all out here.
What’s your song of the week/month/year?
I was going to die, if not sooner then later, whether or not I had even spoken myself. My silences had not protected me. Your silences will not protect you. …
What are the words you do not yet have? What do you need to say? What are the tyrannies you swallow day by day and attempt to make your own, until you will sicken and die of them, still in silence? …
And of course I am afraid, because the transformation of silence into language and action is an act of self-revelation, and that always seems fraught with danger. …
We can learn to work and speak when we are afraid in the same way we have learned to work and speak when we are tired. For we have been socialized to respect fear more than our own needs for language and definition, and while we wait in silence for that final luxury of fearlessness, the weight of that silence will choke us.
– Audre Lorde, The Transformation of Silence into Language and Action (as found in the book Sister Outsider)
On the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People, we are sharing more useful resources, magazines and initiatives that uplift Palestinian voices below!
We are also happy to feature another amazing fellow zine: Wild Greens Magazine, a monthly online mixed-media magazine (founded in Philadelphia in 2020) that publishes art, handcrafts, poetry, essays, short fiction, music, and more.
Their editor-in-chief Rebecca gladly answered a few questions for us.
Read More »Every single empire in its official discourse has said that it is not like all the others, that its circumstances are special, that it has a mission to enlighten, civilise, bring order and democracy, and that it uses force only as a last resort. And, sadder still, there always is a chorus of willing intellectuals to say calming words about benign or altruistic empires.
[…]
Rather than the manufactured clash of civilisations, we need to concentrate on the slow working together of cultures that overlap, borrow from each other, and live together. But for that kind of wider perception we need time, patient and sceptical inquiry, supported by faith in communities of interpretation that are difficult to sustain in a world demanding instant action and reaction.
Humanism is centred upon the agency of human individuality and subjective intuition, rather than on received ideas and authority. […] humanism is the only, and I would go as far as to say the final resistance we have against the inhuman practices and injustices that disfigure human history.
– Edward W. Said (1935 – 2003), Palestinian American academic, literary critic and political activist, author of Orientalism (1978), The Question of Palestine (1979), Culture and Imperialism (1993), Out of Place: A memoir (1999), Reflections on exile and other essays (2000) and many others.
[Source: A window on the world, 2003, on guardian.org – text adapted from the introduction to a new edition of Orientalism, published by Penguin]
We’re continuing our monthly recommendations differently. With a very heavy heart but a new determination. We realized in the past weeks the values we stand for would be empty if we remained silent, so we made clear we stand with the Palestinian people. We join calls not only for an immediate ceasefire, but an end to the occupation and apartheid system in place.
Always but especially in times like these, we need to educate ourselves and use our voices. So, we share some of the resources below, and invite you to find and add more. Finally, we wish for all of us to keep some glimmer of hope in our humanity by speaking up and coming together. Let this be a reminder to inform ourselves of the peoples’ struggles all over the world and stand in solidarity for freedom and dignity for all.
Read More »And I say to myself: a moon will rise from my darkness.
– Mahmoud Darwish
The Amazine Community 