OPENING
AFFIRMATION
Jan.7
Welcome to “TOUCHED,” an in-progress transmedia anti-oppression diary and healing kit for preparing our bodies for the 59th Inaugrigation of the President of the United States. "Touched" is the 4th edition of "How to Make a Bouquet in a Voting Box?" (2012-Present), an ongoing series of somatic, sonic, and scenic floral meditations on Delicacy that has been traditionally taking place on the US and Iran Presidential Election Days.
To begin, please fill out this brief welcome form. You are welcome to bring into the session flowers, herbs, and other healing devices to enhance your sense of belonging and exchange intuitions.
This inauguration is very emotional for me. My body has been aching from the prospect of a Coup d'état since Biden won, a potential of war with Iran since Trump killed Qasem Soleimani, and the definite unknown of possibilities for meeting my family since the Muslim Ban in 2017. My family lives under economic sanctions that limit the access to COVID-19 treatments to them as well as other 90+ million Iranians inside the borders of Iran.
Although my heart has become a patient stone and no longer feels overwhelmed, the infinite capacity of melancholia, fear, violence over my body as an immigrant from Iran and a citizen of Iran in the US and layers of power and imprisoning policies that define the board of my borders, is of a doll on ropes in the hands of enemies. They just pull whatever helps them to bring in more rage, uncertainty, suffocation, discomfort, and dementia into space. And, this body lives in that space, breathes, walks, and plans its future most of the time from that space. And, hopes that it can create awareness about the decisions of other bodies who might live in mildly more expansive spaces with a broader range of movements, which is not important actually because they don’t know how to use them.
Yes, I am speaking about the US citizens. I wish they knew the value of their passports. I wish I could explain to them what it means to wait ten years to get a US passport and now deal with this. I wish I could make them feel what it means to be from a black-listed country and observe this domestic terrorism. I wish they would travel more, to be less scared of us. I wish they knew that the flame of the same dragon they live in its mouth is burning my region. I wish we would better share our survival tactics against the ways they shut off the water, soil, seed, electricity, internet, and medicine on us. I wish they would learn that Hummus was never from Israel and will never be. I wish we could start an off-net exchange of privilege on a global scale that could help us to establish a guerilla economy that could put us and the earth, as breathing bodies, into ease.
To me, it was very possible for Trump to join efforts with Israel to conduct a Coup because I know what it means when tanks pass over living bodies in the streets. I know what it means when the shit hits the fan and the facade that some of us were happy with is no longer there. It has always been this way. It takes less than 24 hours for it to happen and there is nothing we can do. It's like a moment in the game with the dolls that they change the outfit of the doll because they are just bored of that story and they add some stuff to the life of the doll-like some equipment, oil, depending on how much they enjoy a higher aesthetic or culture. So, they can say who they are. It’s like in the games of dogs and roosters, the father has so much love for the animal. It’s like a definition of their identity. This happens normally when people who move the doll, share something deep with the doll. A sense of existential and material memory that makes them relate body wise. It could be a gesture of the doll in their body or vice versa. In that case, they just polish the doll better sometimes or put it in more pain, special attention.
But, sometimes the doll just stops functioning. It just gets so rigid on its wooden screwed joints that it just is not fun anymore. So, now they just put more oil on the doll. Convince the doll that there is a better story. Convenience the doll that the actors in the story are not inherently corrupted and they were performing an act of corruption, and that today is a new day, and here is a new story. The only thing that sounds realistic for the doll to focus on is its body and its connection to the other dolls so they could share information because they are on the same side of the curtain, the rope. It doesn't matter how polished they are. The doll's body is our realm. The doll's body is what we are going to be proud of and re-move in new ways and remove stains.
Some of us define the body as a very external thing, we say my body, and we say we don't have ownership over our bodies. Well, yes and no. If we look at the biometrics technologies and the way our bodies have been used for scrutiny against us, and how powers sabotage information, and how easy it is to hack, and how there are no policies or technologies to monitor these technologies, then you think with yourself that my body has been policed and violated by citizens and non-citizens and other rankings of power all the way up to the governments. This is deeply felt in black bodies, indigenous bodies, immigrant bodies, refugees, people in war, and many other bodies living everyday conflict and sabotage because of the zombies walking around them who before they think their neurons are racist. But at the same time, there is this still dynamic happening inside. The realm of inside that we don’t talk about much. This is the area I am interested in. This is the area that I hope I journal for this time. And, it is this only space that I can decolonize because decolonization of any grammar or land is a constantly shifting matter. So, it is in the level of self-presence that the phenomena can take place, and transform levels of consciousness before it becomes staled as an observed experience.
This inauguration is very emotional for me. My body has been aching from the prospect of a Coup d'état since Biden won, a potential of war with Iran since Trump killed Qasem Soleimani, and the definite unknown of possibilities for meeting my family since the Muslim Ban in 2017. My family lives under economic sanctions that limit the access to COVID-19 treatments to them as well as other 90+ million Iranians inside the borders of Iran.
Although my heart has become a patient stone and no longer feels overwhelmed, the infinite capacity of melancholia, fear, violence over my body as an immigrant from Iran and a citizen of Iran in the US and layers of power and imprisoning policies that define the board of my borders, is of a doll on ropes in the hands of enemies. They just pull whatever helps them to bring in more rage, uncertainty, suffocation, discomfort, and dementia into space. And, this body lives in that space, breathes, walks, and plans its future most of the time from that space. And, hopes that it can create awareness about the decisions of other bodies who might live in mildly more expansive spaces with a broader range of movements, which is not important actually because they don’t know how to use them.
Yes, I am speaking about the US citizens. I wish they knew the value of their passports. I wish I could explain to them what it means to wait ten years to get a US passport and now deal with this. I wish I could make them feel what it means to be from a black-listed country and observe this domestic terrorism. I wish they would travel more, to be less scared of us. I wish they knew that the flame of the same dragon they live in its mouth is burning my region. I wish we would better share our survival tactics against the ways they shut off the water, soil, seed, electricity, internet, and medicine on us. I wish they would learn that Hummus was never from Israel and will never be. I wish we could start an off-net exchange of privilege on a global scale that could help us to establish a guerilla economy that could put us and the earth, as breathing bodies, into ease.
To me, it was very possible for Trump to join efforts with Israel to conduct a Coup because I know what it means when tanks pass over living bodies in the streets. I know what it means when the shit hits the fan and the facade that some of us were happy with is no longer there. It has always been this way. It takes less than 24 hours for it to happen and there is nothing we can do. It's like a moment in the game with the dolls that they change the outfit of the doll because they are just bored of that story and they add some stuff to the life of the doll-like some equipment, oil, depending on how much they enjoy a higher aesthetic or culture. So, they can say who they are. It’s like in the games of dogs and roosters, the father has so much love for the animal. It’s like a definition of their identity. This happens normally when people who move the doll, share something deep with the doll. A sense of existential and material memory that makes them relate body wise. It could be a gesture of the doll in their body or vice versa. In that case, they just polish the doll better sometimes or put it in more pain, special attention.
But, sometimes the doll just stops functioning. It just gets so rigid on its wooden screwed joints that it just is not fun anymore. So, now they just put more oil on the doll. Convince the doll that there is a better story. Convenience the doll that the actors in the story are not inherently corrupted and they were performing an act of corruption, and that today is a new day, and here is a new story. The only thing that sounds realistic for the doll to focus on is its body and its connection to the other dolls so they could share information because they are on the same side of the curtain, the rope. It doesn't matter how polished they are. The doll's body is our realm. The doll's body is what we are going to be proud of and re-move in new ways and remove stains.
Some of us define the body as a very external thing, we say my body, and we say we don't have ownership over our bodies. Well, yes and no. If we look at the biometrics technologies and the way our bodies have been used for scrutiny against us, and how powers sabotage information, and how easy it is to hack, and how there are no policies or technologies to monitor these technologies, then you think with yourself that my body has been policed and violated by citizens and non-citizens and other rankings of power all the way up to the governments. This is deeply felt in black bodies, indigenous bodies, immigrant bodies, refugees, people in war, and many other bodies living everyday conflict and sabotage because of the zombies walking around them who before they think their neurons are racist. But at the same time, there is this still dynamic happening inside. The realm of inside that we don’t talk about much. This is the area I am interested in. This is the area that I hope I journal for this time. And, it is this only space that I can decolonize because decolonization of any grammar or land is a constantly shifting matter. So, it is in the level of self-presence that the phenomena can take place, and transform levels of consciousness before it becomes staled as an observed experience.