not afraid of ruins

I edit anarchist literature for www.rebelpress.org.nz and organise for the liberation of Palestine with www.aotearoabds.org and write about anarchism and feminism and Jewish identity and stuff at notafraidofruins.wordpress.com. This is mostly for Doctor Who gifs and pithy quotes from books I'm reading.

[everythingisnothingbyitself]

Time to think outside the ballot box. 

[beachdeath]

i am so tired of radical vulnerability discourse that locates empowerment in divulging personal pain and i really worry about the implications of a young creative culture where your influence and your popularity and your follower count is implicitly tied to your willingness to talk about your personal trauma, your willingness to let thousands and thousands of strangers know what happened to you, your willingness to make your most private pain public. 

like i really worry that our culture is commodifying trauma? a band i really like, led by a young woman about my age, they released a song in early 2015 that was quite clearly about sexual assault. and it was a great song, and it earned a very deserved warm reception, but interviewers would persistently ask the lead singer if it was “a personal account,” and she would always say that it was an observation on rape culture and leave it at that. and then about a year later she released a personal essay saying that, yes, it was about her own experience of sexual assault, and then there was another wave of secondary clickbait-y thinkpieces congratulating her for being so brave and so open.

so we have a great song addressing sexual assault, which can more than stand on its own as a piece of art. and we have a young woman who, after a year of getting the same question from reporters, says, “i was raped; the song is about me.” and then we have another wave of reporters coming in to write identical stories repeating her words, calling her brave, and collecting ad revenue.

and that’s what i mean: for every act of personal disclosure of trauma, there is this weird media apparatus that feeds on publicizing that trauma and collecting fat stacks of ad money. publications are taking what might be an empowering process for some people and they’re incentivizing and monetizing public trauma disclosure. it’s deeply fucked up.

so like. you don’t owe the world the story of your trauma. you don’t need to make your grieving and healing a public process. you are not less courageous or less creative or less empowered because you choose to go through something privately. and you should be very wary of publications that traffic in underpaying marginalized young people to describe their trauma in detail. imo.

[brujacore]

I absolutely refuse to do this anymore. No you can’t have my trauma.

[ntafraidofruins]

Dear Tumblr,

Can anyone find me a gif of young Mr Universe saying “women are people” from Story for Steven?

[evilscum-deactivated20160223]

[Image description: an American flag is flying above a slightly smaller gay pride flag, with the following words transposed over the image: “THERE CAN BE NO PRIDE ON STOLEN LAND”]

[ntafraidofruins]

Submissions open for imminent rebellion 14

Rebel Press is looking for submissions for issue 14 of imminent rebellion. We’re after quality writing on topics relevant to anarchist revolutionary organisation: decolonisation, feminism, socialist economics, direct democracy, ecological justice, queer liberation, and challenges to state power. We’re interested in a variety of  content including radical analysis, histories, personal experiences, poetry, fiction, reviews, photo essays, comics, and illustrations.

As usual, this issue is open to any topic relevant to the anarchist project, but we’re also devoting special focus to World War One and nationalism, militarism & imperialism. To counter the hegemonic accounts of the War, we want to provide a space for alternate histories and analysis of both World War One itself and of New Zealand and Australian nationalism, militarism and imperialism more broadly.

We prefer submissions to be kept under 5000 words. Artwork needs to look good reproduced in black and white on a small scale.

The deadline for submissions is 31 March 2016. We would appreciate expressions of interest before then. Contact us at [email protected]. about imminent rebellion:

imminent rebellion is an anarchist journal that seeks to illuminate struggles and projects that bring us closer to an anarchist society. Previous issues are available for free download from www.rebelpress.org.nz

[skelanimals]

OBSESSING over this beauty spread “GLITTER GOTH” of @nylonmag in the February issue. Glitter goth is a bit more perky than the normal goth wearing glitter and bright makeup. This is a fun look to revamp the wardrobe. Can’t wait for the February issue to come out so we can see the spread IRL 💖

[ntafraidofruins]

This is basically me circa 1998.

[deactivatedblognumber1]

So a teacher in my friends’ class told them he had grounded his daughter for wearing make up at school, and turns out that the next day every single girl in class had slapped the brightest blood red lipstick they had and there was a line in the bathroom to apply knife sharp, enormous curves of winged eyeliner on everyone and they looked like a legion of warrior goddesses on their way to avenge their sister, so when the teacher came in the room his face just FELL and he kept avoiding the girls staring at him during class, so they started raising their hands and asking questions about the subject to force him to look at them, and if you don’t think girls are amazing when they get down to battle you are missing out on something glorious

[everythingisnothingbyitself]

CW: Street harassment, violence

[bloglikeanegyptian]

#teamhermione it is

[ntafraidofruins]

Relapse, recovery, and other bits and pieces written in Aotearoa, Australia, Palestine, England and in-between.

Finally got around to uploading this to the Rebel Press site. The pdf is imposed for printing so might be a bit tricky to read online. I recommend you print it (double-sided A4 short-edge binding), fold in half and staple in the middle.

You can also order a hard copy but if you’re outside Aotearoa it’s probably not worth the price of postage.

[angryangryowl]

I had a lot of fun drawing this, finished a while ago but realised I never posted it to tumblr.  The Whale and the Bowl of Petunias from Hitchikers Guide to the Galaxy :) Coloured pencil, biro, gold gel pen, rotring markers

[ntafraidofruins]

It’s been a bowl of petunias kinda day.

[everythingisnothingbyitself]

In response to Phil Twyford’s comments.

[ntafraidofruins]

On point as always.

[everythingisnothingbyitself]

The neoliberal promises of gay marriage

Inspired by National Party MP Maurice Williamson’s speech assuring conservatives that their lives won’t change, hence why the Marriage Equality Bill passed in New Zealand Parliament under a neoliberal right-wing government.

I promise you today

Gay marriage will not change business as usual

The sun will still rise tomorrow

The prisons industrial complex will still exist

Transwomen are still being held in men’s prisons and offered solitary confinement as protection from rape and violence

Intersex children will still be forced to have surgery

It will still be expensive and hard for most trans people to access life saving medical care

Homeless queer and trans youth will still be homeless

High rates of queer and trans youth will still struggle with mental health

Queer and trans people of colour will still be targets of state and interpersonal violence

Unemployed queers and trans people will still face humiliation from WINZ (Work and Income NZ)

State housing will still be sold off and queer tenants will still get evicted

This land will still be stolen

Palestine will still be under settler colonial occupation

Poor people will still be poor

Rich white people will still accumulate wealth from exploitation of workers, genocide and war

White supremacists and the police will still murder black people in the US

The immigration system will still violently entrench settler colonialism, detain and deport refugees and immigrants of colour

The Abbott government will still force closures of Aboriginal communities

Climate change will still be happening

University fees will still rise every year

America will still be an imperialist country

The world will still just carry on

#NeoliberalismWins

#GayMarriedToCapitalism

[ntafraidofruins]

not afraid of ruins #4 is finally finished... and it only took me 4 years to get this issue together. Quite possibly the most depressing issue to date.

[mutant-101]

WOO HOO!!!! Fox has closed a deal with The Fault In Our Stars director Josh Boone to co-write and direct…THE NEW MUTANTS!!! 

It’s a standalone spinoff that will expand upon the X-Men movie universe. Check out all the details here…[X]

[ntafraidofruins]

I’ve been holding out for a New Mutants TV series but I guess I’ll settle for a movie. Please don’t make it suck.

[ntafraidofruins]

I was eavesdropping on two women talking about Game of Thrones and one of them was predicting that Jon Snow is actually Robert Baratheon’s bastard, not Ned Stark’s, and it took so much self-restraint not to interrupt and explain why she’s wrong.

[fyeah-history]

Portrait of Frieda Belinfante, reportedly dressed in men’s clothing to disguise herself from Nazi informers, 1943 Frieda Belinfante was a half-Jewish lesbian member of a gay resistance group called the CKC. She participated in the planning of the destruction of the Amsterdam Population Registry in March 1943, and was also active in falsifying identity cards and arranging hiding places for Jews and others sought by the Nazis. In December 1943, Belinfante escaped to Switzerland via Belgium and France. After the war, she returned briefly to Amsterdam and then emigrated to the United States.