The loss of things feels like my breath is stuck on the edge of a sewing machine; a seam of fabric left unfinished and cut through abruptly. We are in a stage where we are perennially grieving and the sound of grief is quiescent in all its glory. During the 2020 bushfires, I had a dream where burning embers stuck fervently to my body and I was an emblazoned creature walking through the woods. All I could emanate through this pain was a muffled shriek and that sound was my only form of communication.
In a burning world, we all find our own sounds. Some cacophonous, others eerily silent. My fellow editors and I find ourselves expressing this grief through the ever-impactful sound of journalism. Anthony James-Kanaan shares (p.14) our anger about the corpse-like current age of art by illustrating how we are implicit in environmental decay. Simone Maddison leaves tear marks on the paper (p.16) by discussing the many facets of motherhood and William Winter brings us back to the joy wrapped in the dynamicity of queer laughter (p.16).
I come from a community of weavers who were subjugated to casteist hate through the fascist propaganda that overwhelms my country. For that, I promise to destroy every form of structural colonialism I hold and the religious doctrines that perpetuate this violence. Long Huỳnh helps me weave this dream with his cover art showcasing Opparis, a community of professional criers paid to mourn the death of the rich.
The system wants to commodify our grief and silence our sounds of dissent, so I have made a playlist with songs of revolution to remind us what we are here to achieve. This rag can be a place for the immense sadness that consumes us but as a community, we chase the truth to find ourselves in the raucous happiness of student media.
In love, anger and grief,
Misbah Ansari
