the fish on my shirt are upside down

The simple act of holding a camera in my homeland of Western Sahara can be a crime. When Sahrawi film-makers and journalists attempt to document everyday life under Moroccan occupation, they can often end up in prison cells. For the Moroccan regime, a camera in the hands of a Sahrawi threatens its official narrative that Western Sahara is part of Morocco. In contrast, when celebrated international names in the film industry wish to capture an ideal picture for an epic journey, and decide that our land is exotic enough to shoot the desired scenes, they are welcomed, escorted and granted access by the same authorities that usually deny us that right. [...] Nolan’s choice to film in an occupied territory highlights the extractivist practices embedded in the western film industry. Western cinema has often been complicit in mining stories and immaterial culture from the global south at a scale no smaller than the material resources mined by the western colonial industrial complex. International film crews parachute in, shoot our faces, clothing, dunes and material culture, then fly off. For them, it seems we are simply decorative elements for their sets and back in New York, London or Paris, they gain prestige, box-office returns and awards. For Nolan’s Dakhla shoot, he appears to have neither sought our consent nor considered the ethics of in effect helping to prop up and legitimise Morocco’s occupation, thus making the space even more unsafe for Sahrawis living under it. He is actively participating in a state-sponsored PR campaign designed to legitimise an illegal occupation.

Think about it. An Eva Stratt raised Jewish but erased all public records connected to her people to protect them. So they wouldn’t be blamed for her mistakes. An Eva Stratt who wrapped her mission in Christian symbolism to make it more palatable to the public. An Eva Stratt who wholeheartedly believes in G-d.

An Eva Stratt who sits in the back during Yom Kippur services knowing the one person whose forgiveness she wants most can never grant it to her. An Eva Stratt who lit yahrzeit candles and says the Mourner’s Kaddish every year on the anniversary of the Hail Mary launch..just in case.

An Eva Stratt who chose to study history because of the stories her parents and grandparents told her of how their people were cast out and mistreated and killed over and over again - and she wanted to understand the why but could never find one. So she switched tracks to do everything in her power to make sure “Never again” wasn’t just a hollow slogan.

An Eva Stratt who knows how horrible humanity can be and still did everything in her power to ensure that they survived the impossible.

An Eva Stratt, who upon receiving the cure for the astrophage said the shehecheyanu for the first time in years.

I might translate this article later today. This one was the most complete one, even in Italian news it's not talked about that much.

exactly the horrible

noises you expect

Sees a hot giraffe