#1 — We Are All Poets

[German Version coming soon]

I do not know my way 
but I’ll go burstin’ through the flames
till I get (get it, get it, get it, get it)
—ABRA, Feel & 
—ABRA, Human (2015)
[Rose]

Dive into your trauma

To start… to create this blog has been on my mind for a while now.

Today, I know, I am a writer since I learned writing. 

As soon as my Dad carried this massive 1990s computer with the huge monitor into our family ‘office’, I started to hit this keyboard — this is why I today type 300+ characters per minute. Amazing what you can learn as a child, and never really unlearn — like, trauma. 

But no, this comparison of course is not valid. Trauma is not a skill. 

But to overcome it might be. 

I am aware now that it is due to a traumatic experience* that I have never really pursued writing further. First, I thought it was because I did not win a blurry primary school story writing competition (I made the second prize). Then I heard from my Mum, that I had written a book on this computer — my 13-year-old self was writing a book — that my younger brother accidentally had deleted. After that, I never spared a second thought on continuing writing — though before, I always imagined myself becoming an author. 

*This kind of trauma, of course, is nothing compared to severe, life-altering traumata due to (sexual) abuse, forced migration, war, torture, humxn trafficking or other terrible life experiences. However, this does not equal to belittle other traumatic experiences. This is not a competition. Whatever protected childhood some of us were allowed to enjoy — being socialised in the white-supremacist-capitalist system, we all carry trauma in us.

Having passed my mid-thirties (still not feeling adulting at all), learnt and reflected a lot on myself, finally worked through some of that trauma (more on this to come), I realised how all of this is connected: the unhealthy perfectionism that held me back many years of my life; this unspeakable comparison culture we are all subject to, rooted in the doctrine of performance society, the capitalist-neoliberal myth of meritocracy; my anxiety of long years to speak my mind publicly and the fear of a sort of criticism (from my own ‘bubble’, not the haters) I cannot deal with because I lack knowledge. All of this, of course, spiced with a good portion of imposter syndrome — which every genuine and humble spirit suffers from to an extent.

My mate Adam recently said to me ‘I think all creative minds are their own worst critics, if you care then you kinda should be’. This for me major insight that I am not alone with those feelings (admittedly now not so major anymore) was the ultimate kick to finally get started.

What he also said: ‘Better to try and fail than not to try at all’. THIS. 

Just do it!

If you don’t even start, you’ve already lost. 

The thing is — you do not have to become an author. You are an author, if you want to. 

I am a writer (maybe even a poet?) — and I FINALLY get my shit together and my little self and my thoughts out there. 

Everything changes around me 
and I wanna change too
It’s one thing I know
it ain’t cool bein’ no fool
I feel different today
I don’t know what else to say
But I’ma get my shit together
it’s now or never (now or never)
—The Roots feat. Phonte & Dice Raw (2019), Now or Never
[How I Got Over]

The semantic and etymological roots of the word poet trace back to the Ancient Greek ποιητής, poietés, deriving from the verb ποιέω, poiéo, meaning ‘to create’. 

A poet is a creator. In that sense, all creative people are poets. We all are poets.

Everyone is an artist in any way. We just have to (be allowed to) unleash that creativity. 

Everyone can be a poet. If you just go this place and explore this space within yourself (and if society lets you do it), you can be everything. 

We are all born into the world of community
—bell hooks, all about love (2001), p. 129

What I wish to create with this, on the long term, is a community. 

A forum. An echo chamber. To exchange good and constructive ideas. Imagine a fair and sustainable future, as hard as it seems right now. Dreaming utopias. 

Because neither despair nor desperation are options.

Because we need more people doing the right thing(s) — calling out all the bullshit going on out there and standing up for each other. We owe it to those who suffer, today and every day — in Congo and Sudan, in Palestine and Syria, in Yemen and Lebanon, and in all the other places and spaces Western colonisers intruded and devastated, exploiting and harming innocent people. We must amplify their voices and call out the atrocities happening every day on this earth, as they have always happened.

We need more good things happening to counter all this horror. More kindness. More consciousness. More love. More unity. More empathy. More awareness. More knowledge and education. More community. More grassroots organising. 

We need more places to speak truth to power, in these times where meanwhile, the ‘tech bro’ billionaires are spiralling us into dystopia. This blog could be one of the places to go after we will all have left Instagram behind. (I mentioned I’d be dreaming utopias.)*

*Promise and reminder to myself: Leave Instagram. At some point.

We need more people to care. We need everyone to care — because we do not live in a vacuum. We must set and see ourselves always in a variety of contexts — because context matters. This is one of the key points of intersectionality.* We must see not only ourselves, but more crucially others in their specific contexts within this mad world we all navigate …because we never know what someone is going or has been through. 

*A framework to look at discrimination and how different forms of discrimination are intertwined and intersect, created by legal scholar and civil rights activist Kimberlé Crenshaw in 1991. An introduction into the origin and idea of intersectionality can be found here.

There is no logic in white-supremacy — only ideo-logy

This is, to me, the beginning of how I overcome my (personal) trauma(ta) — by connecting the dots. Re-connecting with my self, (re-)connecting with other humxns. Going into a dialogue with (you) people. Finally, fully believing in myself — also thanks to the support of my amazing friends’ therapy (you know who you are) — and just do it.*

*NOT a reference to the successful marketing of this multi-billion dollar corporation heavily participating in exploitative labour within the white-supremacist-hypercapitalist system. 

Against all the self-doubt. (This sounds incredibly pathetic, and still, it is true.) I know some of you can relate, and I know some of you want to join me in there. 

Collectively fighting and overcoming the trauma(ta) brought upon us by the white-supremacist-capitalist system pervading every aspect of our lives… yes, sounds like a utopian scenario. Going into debates about how we can build a better future for all of us — while the world is burning — sounds insane. 

And yet — or rather, that’s precisely why —, it is needed more than ever. 

Exactly because it feels pointless. So often, it feels so ridiculous. This whole existence. 

The irony. The paradox. The indifference. The cognitive dissonance.

The cognitive dissonance of wondering what to gift my nieces to their upcoming birthdays, who already have more than they’ll ever need — being allowed to grow up, carefree —, while babies in Gaza are being starved this very moment. The irony in the question of why we (collectively, as humxnity) are allowing this for over one and a half years now — after allowing for decades that children in the so-called Democratic Republic of Congo are being forced to labour, mining rare earths without which no modern electronic device can function, all while big corporations are making huge profits off this practise. The paradox that those same large corporations can transfer their profits made from exploitation to tax havens with impunity and then take their dirty money to influence politics aiming to regulate their ‘products’. 

The(ir) indifference towards colonialism still being alive and well. 

The indifference which way too many carry towards all those unjust and inhumxn atrocities we are doing to one another. How are we supposed to stay sane and go on with our lives?

Because what we are doing to one of us, we are doing to every single one of us. 

It starts with us resisting against it. With you and me. With us educating ourselves, with us speaking about it, again and again, bringing up the injustice of the system, to make people care. Even if it feels like you annoy people — if it is the least thing you can do, do it.

Just do it, do what you can, because every single little act counts. Every single one counts.

For me, it started by learning about racism (as a white person), which led me to learn about patriarchy (as a womxn). I saw parallels between sexism and racism (which today I would not argue for anymore). It sounds hilarious and it is also due to privilege, but only through learning about racism, I understood my ascribed position as a ‘white woman’ in this whole matrix of domination.* Which then finally made me consider classism and capitalism, where, to me, it all and always goes back to. 

*A framework coined by feminist visionary Patricia Hill Collins in Black Feminist Thought (1990), basically a precursor to Kimberlé Crenshaw’s concept of intersectionality.

The neoliberal hyper-capitalist economic order — the myth of so-called free, magically self-regulating markets — has shown its ugly lethal face(t)s all too clearly. This order is built upon, and thus in many ways inextricably connected with, those systems of oppression all of us navigate — in most diverse ways (always along our unique identity, our thrown-ness into this world). It has brought us, collectively, as humxnity, to this state of the world right now, where the climate crisis is eating up the planet and we are eating up ourselves alive. 

And still, they try to feed us the capitalist lies of meritocracy and endless economic growth (that more and more of us aren’t buying anymore). Your ‘American Dream’ has always been flawed. It was never meant for everyone. Like democracy was never truly meant for the people. It started with rich, ‘white’ males, and those are still pretty much the ones ruling us, with some (apparent) outliers among them — only apparent, because they still share ideologies, the invisible glue connecting like-minded people beyond superficial markers such as gender (identity), ‘race’ or religion. There is no logic in oppressive ideologies. 

As confusing as it is — women can be misogynist, everyone can be a racist, queer people can be queerphobic. (Not to mention the ableism we are all being socialised with.) And some of them are more or less wilfully and/ or knowingly playing their ascribed token roles in this whole theatre of different ‘modern’ societies we live in. We are all socialised in the same capitalist system whose only purpose is to make a majority of us become good workers and consumers. 

Superficial introductions of DEI or EDI —standing for Diversity, Equ(al)ity, Inclusion, in any order— policies simulating progress are often mere virtue-signalling. The tokenisation and thus even further exploitation of targeted individuals from (so-called) ‘ethnic minority’ groups (because globally, those meant are NOT a minority) or ‘under­privileged’ backgrounds. Don’t fall for the bullshit.

Capitalism even managed to first appropriate and then commodify our own liberationist and feminist movements. Now that feminism and being queer are considered ‘cool’, they’re literally selling us our own merch. In a world where we’ll incorporate fast fashion as microplastic into our bodies, while ‘poor chic’ is only the latest classist lifestyle trend of the (super-)rich, absurdity is beyond words. Your consumerist dream is our nightmare. 

***

The term ‘ideology’, also deriving from Ancient Greek (ἰδέα, ‘idea’, and λόγος, ‘word’, ‘doctrine’,), originally meant ‘doctrine, theory of ideas, beliefs’. Today, it rather means ‘set, system of ideas, beliefs’, in the sense of a comprehensive world view — which I don’t think anyone would dispute to have. However, it is often (sorry, unavoidable pun) ideologically loaded, as it has been inflationary misunderstood and weaponised. In fact, the accusation of adhering to a certain ‘ideology’ (often with an undertone as if one were following a cult and mostly without further elaborating what is meant specifically) is all too popular and familiar — across the so-called ‘political spectrum’ (‘so-called’, because to me, the framing as ‘spectrum’ is misleading, as one of its sides represents nothing but hate). 

There is no logic in ideo-logies, nor in the accusation of being subject to one. It primarily is a lazy reproach. Everyone is subject to certain convictions, and this is only natural and okay in most cases — though, if those convictions include being better, more worth than, superior to others, they are founded on misanthropy. If you want to call it humxn rights, they must be applicable to anyone. 

In order to achieve this, we must acknowledge that capitalism was built on the hateful ideology of white-supremacy as a foundation. White-supremacy is woven into the DNA of capitalism — as capitalism has been grounded on settler-colonialism and imperialism, on the occupation of foreign lands and the exploitation of enslaved and oppressed peoples. All stemming out of the worst of humans. Arrogance. Greed. Ambition. Craving for power. Hate. Narcissism. Megalomania. All of which we are seeing throughout history, to this day. Perhaps never more clearly and distinctly than today. People fighting and slaughtering each other, about ideologies, about power, about profit. Humxns doing the worst, most unspeakable things to each other. 

To justify all of this delusion, ideologies are needed — those systems of ideas and beliefs to ground the subjugation of whole peoples upon. And those colonialities prevail. The coloniality of our being is ongoing. All of this is connected. (To acknowledge this also means to see and to set ourselves in our unique specific contexts — thus, to look at oppression and systems of power through the lens of intersectionality.)

Capitalism, today, is nothing but another ideology. An ideology consisting of individualism as a sort of identity (politics) and the ‘right to consumption’ — the idea that everything has to be available at all times. The conviction that consumers profit off competition between companies and the myth that markets, banks and big corporations can be left allowed to regulate themselves. And ultimately, the tale of eternal economic growth and the belief that ‘if you only work hard enough, you can make it’. 

***

The current economic world order also has brought us to a state of the world in which every day, scenes of utmost horror reach us from a televised genocide — and yet, the ‘mainstream’ media outlets will not report on it.* 

*With the blockade of goods going into its third month and the acute threat of a famine in Gaza, some political and public figures suddenly have started to criticise Israel’s ‘strategy’. Do not fall for this bullshit either.

I cannot but go back to it again and again. Every day, as so, so many others, I am heart­broken to see and to know what is going on, and how (many of) our governments are complicit by even funding the systematic slaughtering of a whole people. Again. Not even a century has passed after the industrial killing of six million of Jewish —and many other, according to Nazi ideology outcast— people.

And again. Because we are still funding settler-colonialism and apartheid, globally. Because we — the ‘modern’, Western colonisers and the so-called ‘Global North’ nation-states who are all grounded on settler-colonialism themselves — are still merely concerned with their own position(ing) in the geopolitical chess game. Not a surprise. All of this we know for longtime — but what are we doing about it?

Palestine will be the touchstone of our collective humxnity

‘But what can we do about it?’ is a question I hear too often when bringing up those topics. Implying that there is not much that we can do about it, and the little we can do has no influence in the end anyway. The narrative of helplessness and resignation, enabling and perpetuating the status quo. I refuse to accept it has to be like that. If all people at all times would have accepted their circumstances and what was being thrown at them — humxnity would not have evolved.

I myself feel sometimes helpless about this question. No offense intended, but is it not that you folks are online all day? Are you not asking the internet every day the most silly questions? Why might you not as well ask the internet what you can do for the people in Gaza? And in the DRC? In Sudan? Or against fascism? The internet is overflowing with articles about what you can do, how you can take action. 

It starts with the most obvious (and most important) thing — educate yourself, via one of the trillion possibilities.* Resources to educate yourself have never been more accessible and diverse than today. Subscribe to Gazan journalists on youtube and other channels, subscribe to Amnesty International, Jewish Voices for Peace, the 972mag, and so many others. One of the first projects for this blog will be to start a collection of links and other resources that can be used for personal education purposes.

*This suggestion is certainly often enough made with a reproachful undertone, which I have often heard others criticise, implying that such an attitude may not be the most conducive in order to get others on your side. Although I certainly do understand the argument — I must say, I am tired of this kind of white (and male) fragility, and I know, many of my sxsters and br*thers are too. It is as if we are being told we should tone-police ourselves when calling out discrimination and unjust systems of oppression. This is not how this can work. The fact that some of you are trying to make people who speak up uncomfortable is part of the problem. 

Then — speak out, show up. From asking everyone you meet if they care about social issues, to writing to the politicians you voted for and/ or who are supposed to represent you, to sharing fundraisers and other awareness campaigns, to going to protests, rallies and vigils. Those two suggestions are the most basic, most accessible things everyone can do. 

Those two suggestions are the most basic, most accessible things everyone can do. 

If you then still can, you might as well go to a fundraiser or a workshop, or to other solidarity events. There are so many ways of getting involved. ‘Resistance is NOT a one lane highway’.

If you then at one point might ask yourself: Why do not more people know? Why are not more people outraged by all of this? — They are. We are. A lot of us are not only outraged. We are heartbroken. And angry, again. Probably, a lot more people would be, were it not that so many public broadcasters had manufactured public consent for the so-called Israeli ‘right to self-defence’. Certain media are complicit in the genocide, too. It is exactly the way it is supposed to be, by design of the system. It is epistemic violence (another blogpost to follow on this soon). 

Indeed, for a long time, numerous people have been calling out the multiple crises going on in the world. But who listens? Certainly not our politicians and governments. Who amplifies their voices? Certainly not the most influential media outlets. It is mostly we, the people, who are doing the work that journalists and governments should be doing (covering and condemning the atrocities happening) — without, of course, failing to mention the many Palestinian journalists who have documented and live-streamed the genocide over the last 570 days while trying to survive. 

They say Palestine will be the touchstone of our collective humxnity. Because there is no inherent logic in any system of oppression. Dehumanising one group or certain groups of people (along whatever artificial markers) eventually strips us off our humxnity altogether. 

With ‘They’, I refer to so many people. Some of them are renowned intellectuals of our time. Gabor Maté, trauma and addiction expert, born to Jewish parents in 1944 war-torn Hungary. Francesca Albanese, human rights lawyer, since May 2022 assigned UN Special Rapporteur for the Occupied Palestinian Territories. Angela Davis, feminist visionary, civil rights activist and campaigner. But there is so many other humxns who feel this way. You do not have to be an expert to know that the annihilation of Gaza is deeply and absolutely wrong.

They say Palestine is the issue of our times. A litmus test for humanity. I believe they are right. Palestine really is the centre of the world. 

If you do not care about Palestine, if you do not care about Yemen, Congo and Sudan, you do not have a soul, and your heart must be out of stone. If you do not care about them, you don’t care about yourself, you cannot be humxn. We all are witnessing the collective failure of humxnkind — if ‘human’ has ever meant anything. 

So please speak out. Do not stop talking about Palestine. Do not stop following what’s going on, do not stop educating yourself. About Congo. About Sudan. About Yemen. Iran. Ukraine. Afghanistan. Lebanon. Libya. Syria. Kashmir. Kurdistan. Haiti. Tigray. Hawaii. Taiwan. And all of the other occupied and colonised parts of the world. We demand land back and liberation for all oppressed peoples all over the world. There will never be peace on stolen land. There will never be peace without justice.

Let us build together. Let. Us. Be. Poets. Creators. Humxns

What I wish to create here is a community space. A space for reasoning, resources, education and connection. All of which are needed more than ever. 

The so-called ‘Social’ Media we grew up with are not to be trusted. We need to get away from the daily doom-scrolling and refocus on what actually matters. I see this blog project also as a bridge for those who are just starting to get into these subjects and/or who are interested to get into activism. So, in case you have questions or suggestions for me, which topics to explore next, or you even might want to contribute yourself, please do not hesitate to get in touch! 

I want to build something bigger than myself — bigger than all of us. Because 

No man is an island
And no man stands alone
[…]
You can’t live in this world all by yourself
No, no, no, you can’t make it alone
And just as sure as you try to make it by yourself
You gonna wake up and find you gonna need somebody else
—Dennis Brown, No Man Is An Island (1972) [No Man Is An Island]

Because we do not live in a vacuum. All of us are connected. 

We need everyone to care about what is happening, we need everyone to know. 

Because what they do to one of us, they do to every single one, to all of us. 

Let us make a difference. 

All of us are inextricably connected. By means of our humxnity. If the white-supremacists want to believe it or not. Let us re-connect with each other — and with our humxnity. 

***

I started this post with my own trauma — which is pathetic, compared to what some of my s*sters and brxthers have gone through and are going through still, every single day, again and again. 

But we are also connected through our traumata. Because what they do to one of us, they do to all of us. This is our shared collective humxnity. What they do to you, they do to me.

I feel you, my br*thers and sxsters. You should not and do not have to bear all of this on your own. I stand with you. We, your allies and siblings in spirit, stand with you. 

Let me be your ally. Let me have your back.

Let me try to take some of this burden off you. By doing the very least I can.

Using my voice and speaking out. Trusting myself and my judgment (against all doubt).

I am overcoming my trauma by turning it into something powerful. 

Taking strength out of embracing it, by creating something out of it. 

But I can’t (and I won’t) do it alone. We won’t do it alone. I need you. We need you. To care. 

We need you to help us make more people care. We must get out of our apathy, organize ourselves and actually DO something — speaking of those of us who have not yet been heavily involved in protesting and resisting — and join one of the (many different) protest movements that are alive and thriving already.

Still, we need more people to care. If you do not speak out, you have chosen the side of the oppressor. 

Let us connect. Let us re-connect with our humxnity. 

Let us share. Let us build something together. 

Let us amplify the movement. Be a voice. Do not stay silent. 

References… …to come