PANEL // RADICAL IMAGINING: AFRO, INDIGENOUS, & PALESTINIAN FUTURISMS

M. Asli Dukan (moderator) is a producer, director and editor with over 20 years of professional experience in independent film and video production in the U.S. and around the world. She has screened her films at numerous festivals, including the BlackStar Film Festival in Philadelphia and T.O. Webfest in Toronto, Canada. She has been the recipient of various grants, awards and fellowships, including a 2020 Independence Public Media grant and a 2020 Sundance Institute Knight Alumni grant. In 2018, she completed season one of Resistance: the battle of philadelphia, a near-future web series about a community’s struggle against state surveillance and state violence. She is in post-production on Invisible Universe, a documentary about Black creators in speculative fiction. She is in development on the anthology horror film, Skin Folk, based on the book by Nalo Hopkinson. She holds an MFA from CUNY and currently resides and teaches in Philadelphia.

Dr. Grace L. Dillon is an academic and author. She is an Anishinaabe professor in the Indigenous Nations Studies Program, in the School of Gender, Race, and Nations, at Portland State University. Similar to the concept of Afrofuturism, Dr. Dillon is best known for coining the term Indigenous Futurism, which is a movement consisting of art, literature and other forms of media which express Indigenous perspectives of the past, present and future in the context of science fiction and related sub-genres. Dr. Dillon is the editor of Walking the Clouds: An Anthology of Indigenous Science Fiction, which is the first anthology of Indigenous science fiction short stories, published by the University of Arizona Press in 2012.

Basma Ghalayini (born 1983) has previously translated short fiction from the Arabic for the KFW Stifflung series, Beirut Short Stories, published on addastories.org, and Comma projects, such as Banthology and The Book of Cairo (edited by Raph Cormack). She was born in Khan Younis, and spent her early childhood in the UK until the age of five, before returning to the Gaza Strip. Most recently Basma has edited the short story collection Palestine +100: Stories From A Century After the Nakba.

Saleem Haddad was born in Kuwait City to an Iraqi-German mother and a Palestinian-Lebanese father. His first novel, Guapa, was published in 2016, a political and personal coming-of-age story of a young gay man living through the 2011 Arab revolutions, was awarded a Stonewall Honour and won the 2017 Polari First Book Prize. Haddad was also selected as one of the top 100 Global Thinkers of 2016 by Foreign Policy Magazine. His directorial debut, Marco, premiered in March 2019 and was nominated for the 2019 Iris Prize for ‘Best British Short Film’.

TRANSCRIPT

[Captioner standing by]

M. ASLI DUKAN: … Part of the 2020 DC Palestinian Film and Arts Festival. In 2016, I spoke about my work ‘Invisible Universe’ after a film segment. I am a filmmaker and photographer. I mostly work in speculative fiction. I have produced narrative films and web series on people who are often found surviving against the oppressive forces. In my documentary, I have had the honor to interview a Who’s Who in Black science fiction. 

Here is my trailer for my documentary work in progress, ‘Invisible Universe.’ 

[Video]

>>: When I was young, I was fascinated by the many genres that made up speculative fiction. My love for it was bittersweet. I never saw myself in these worlds. I decided to start a journey to tell the history of images in the genres. 

He was going to the conventions. He may have been embarrassed. 

>>: I can remember sitting next to an editor at a science fiction convention. He said he didn't feel that race should be used in science fiction. That black people should appear in science fiction unless there was a racial point to be made. 

>>: I thought, no one has put it together in one book?  It bothered me. I woke up at 3 a.m. and decided to do it myself. 

>>: Our society is changing. The fact that formerly disenfranchised and ignored groups are having that critical mass of a voice that is necessary to overcome the gatekeepers is what we are seeing. 

>>: All this work was in contrast to what was going on in the real world. As I did more research, I realized this was not the first time this happened in the genres. Travel with me into the ‘Invisible Universe.’ 

>>: Before I introduce our panelists, I want to say something about the early people that helped to popularize it. Speculative fiction that treats African American themes and concerns in the context of 20th century culture. In the interviews, the first known black science fiction writer states it is the kind of genre that you need the readings before the writers. 

Whether there were other black science fiction writers before, it is almost impossible to determine. Most mailed their submissions in. The readers were already there. We can speak of Sunra and what can be considered an ethos of reading and writing. 

In a British filmmaker's book, ‘More Brilliant Than the Sun, he writes how since 1985... British writer Mark Sinker went to the States, came back, and wrote an article on it in 1992. In the late 1990s, more readers appeared. They created the Afrofuturism list serve. In 2000, the first anthology was published called ‘Dark Matter.’ She compiled the work of nearly 30 black writers in or near the genres. In this book, she writes about the power of the word as a refuge. Before the second book was published, I had started documenting the black writers and readings whose interest birthed the popular movement we have today. 

Over the next 15 years, many books, magazines, conventions, conferences and festivals appeared. Even the name continues. They are becoming part of the lexicon. We are all moving towards a time where black futures are the norm, and there is not a question of if. we have that type of imagination. I am excited to moderate the panel. We have three great panelists today. 

The first half, they will present their work. Then I will ask some questions. Please use the chat boxes where you are viewing this to post your questions. Forgive us for any technical issues that show up. We will try our best to accommodate. I want to briefly say that we will go in order. Dr. Grace Dillon is the editor of ‘Walking the Clouds,’ an anthology of Indigenous science fiction stories. The floor is yours. 

DR. GRACE DILLON: Thank you very much. [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] That is our word that means not just hello, but I see the light in you. I see the light in you. [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] the sun comes out of the clouds. This is how we felt when Indigenous futurisms started coming together quietly here and there. There was a first collection of ‘Walking the Clouds’ in 2012. I want to quickly mention that Indigenous futurisms has been around a long time. I think there is that sense for the other forms as well. 

In ‘Walking the Clouds,’ at the time, what I did is because the thinking was so new, and by the way, very carefully indebted to Afrofuturism. I had conversations with her when she put out her compilation in 2002. I had become a new science fiction person. She said, we need a native scholar in the field of science fiction. 

Sadly, that is how many there were at the time. [Laughing] back in 2003. Thank goodness I did not remain the token person or the token native person for very long. This has become a booming field. For us, when we think of Indigenous peoples, they are striving for self-determination. Those that are not interested in being given an ethnic labeling. There are tribal nations throughout Africa that have pushed for this form of self-determination. ‘Walking the Clouds,’ I emphasized the Americas. Canada, within Canada, the States, Mexico, and then Latin American countries. Oceanic peoples on the islands. So many other areas. 

Black Australians have become important writers and have been bringing out a lot of exciting work along with others. That is while I am very appreciative of this film and festival. The kind of peoples, as the United Nations came up with it, that allows us to extend what are nations. 

For my own family, I am from Michigan. Right across the border I am also in Garden River nation. We are one in the same. We just got cut off by the 49th line there. 

I have many aunts and uncles in the Saultaux nation. As border crossers that have been separated only because of a Canadian or US government, we are aware of the self determination of tribal indignations that may appear to cross borders or not. In ‘Walking the Clouds,’ I had the great fortune to simply get in touch with a lot of us that were starting to think, we do Indigenous science fiction stories. We thought we would start off with science fiction at first, even though Indigenous futurism is not stuck in a future. It is bringing in our own pasts and our presents. 

That has become a bit of a challenge to get over the thinking that we don't exist now, or we don't live in tribal nations in a happy and wonderful kind of way. At Garden River, our source of energy there is actually through the sun. We have solar systems that we put in throughout collectively in our nations. That is the energy we use rather than oil. There are many, many forms of science that we work with. I just want to mention because the four sections in walking the clouds was the native slip stream. They refer to the ability to slip in and out of space time and recognizing the many variabilities of that. 

Contact. We had a lot of history with contact with settler colonialism. And then Indigenous science and sustainability. I want to continue to emphasize the science. We are working with Indigenous science. I wanted to get a really quick definition that I love now. It has come up since that book. 

He is a well-known promoter of native and Indigenous science. He suggests that Indigenous science is a body of cultural knowledge to a group of people that has served to sustain that people through generations of living within a sustained bioregion. We are experiencing that right now with the wildfires in the west coast. We have had many tribal nations come in. There have been many portions of the land where they have been working the forestry to keep controlled fires going so that certain areas don't burn down. 

We are noticing all the areas they have been working with at the moment are not burning down. There are a lot of people turning to that thinking now. Another is Indigenous sciences is founded on a body of practical environmental learning that has been transferred over generations of people through cultural education that is unique to the people. The difference that he points out that I think is helpful to know, this is in his Indigenous community, is that we indignations, along with other peoples around the world, and differing from modern Western science, live in what is a high context relational worldview that reflects a multiverse of possibilities. It represents a high context body of knowledge built up over generations by culturally distinct people who live in close contact with a place. 

We have many urban natives. Even if you don't grow up with those generations, there is a queering of resurgence. We are having a regenerative form of justice going on that is getting back into what I was lucky to grow up with. My language. And to hear all the stories. Whether it was [FOREIGN LANGUAGE], traditional knowledge, or [FOREIGN LANGUAGE], sacred knowledge. I could hear them as scientific stories. 

That is why Indigenous futurisms is so important. It is not just a form, wow, what an exciting new form of storytelling. It brings in science in such a way that as I have with my students, I have had students that are all bipoc, leap up after I tell them a story in my own language and translate it and say, if I had had this kind of science, I would have loved it. 

M. ASLI DUKAN: That was great. I want to talk more in detail on the categorizations you listed in your book. I want to move onto our second panelist. Basma Ghalayini. A freelance translator and interpreter. The first anthology of Palestinian science fiction stories. The floor is yours. 

BASMA GHALAYINI: Thank you for having me. I grew up in Palestine, Gaza. I moved to the UK at 27. We didn't have access to much international literature growing up or genres in general. We had limited access in the Gaza Strip to any resources or stories. 

You had to seek them out and ask people traveling to get you a story or video of a film that you want to watch. I grew up and moved to the UK. I did have, when I lived in Palestine, I had some access to some Egyptian writers who would write speculative fantasy science fiction stories. That was my own exposure growing up until recently. 

Then I started working for a publishing house as a translator and interpreter. Comma press published a book called Iraq plus 100. Stories set 100 years after the American invasion of Iraq. That was by an Iraqi writer. I spoke to the editor. I spoke to him. I suggested maybe we can apply the same idea to a Palestine anthology. All the stories can take place 100 years from Nakba. A turning point in Palestinian history. It took place in 1948. Over 700,000 were displaced by the Israelis. It was groups of militias. Those 700,000 were displaced and into the Arab countries. This event took place in 1948. That is the turning point for any regardless of where they are living. 

Whether they are in Europe, will have some connection to Nakba. They will have family ties with someone who is affected. Everyone has a story. I suggest that we can set the events of this book to the series editor. We can set it to take place 100 years after 1948. So began the process of finding writers. The writer needed to be Palestinian. We had three, the writers came from three places. Some came from Gaza in Palestine. Some came from if Arab world. Some came from Europe. In terms of displacement, and some came from Israel and still live there. 

There was initial hesitation in terms of all the writers had never written science fiction before. One writer said he had decided to tell us he can't write for us. He was going to give it a week, so it didn't seem rude. The story happened that week in his head. A good story. Another writer said he will take the approach. He will pretend he is writing fiction in the future about a ghost. 

They all had their ways of coming around. I am sure he can mention his own experience writing it. It was a new genre. We are not used to writing about anything within an imaginative context. It always feels too much of a luxury to write about the future and rockets and spaceships. If you think about it, the Palestinian cause has all the elements for a dystopian future. Seize, surveillance, lack of water, pollution. They are all good grounds, for lack of a better term, to write about a dystopian feature. The writer sends the stories back. 

We came up with the anthology. That is how Palestine plus 100 came to be. Before this book, I had amateur experience with science fiction. I learned a lot about futurism in general after this. 

M. ASLI DUKAN: Thank you so much. I look forward to talking to you about what themes tie together. Our third panelist is an author, film maker. His short story appears in plus 100. The floor is yours. 

>>: Thank you so much. It is an honor to be on the panel and to listen to everyone else talk about a subject that I stumbled into through Palestine Plus 100. It has been illuminating to hear. I think our struggles are so interconnected. I recall when Iraq Plus 100 came out. What I found most exciting was the stories that used ancient culture and trans planted those into the future. 

I think as a region, we hark back to a time of glory. That can lead us looking towards the past. What I found interesting about some of those stories was they utilize this rich culture and the myths of Iraq. They were still looking at this past but also forward. They started imagining a future. 

I had never written any science fiction before, but I remember thinking if they do, I need to find a way to get a story in there. My story came a few months before I was able to contribute. One of the groups I am a part of are some friends of mine who all happen to have Palestinian roots in the city of Nazareth. We were chatting about what would have happened if the Nakba had never taken place. Would our ideas seem simpler and more manageable? The idea of imagining the alternative timeline opened a portal in my mind. 

I had been chatting to another Palestinian friend about how much our idea of Palestine is constructed by memories of our relatives. We came up with a virtual reality game that was constructed by our grandparents’ memories. We wanted to do some comic strips around it. I was asked to contribute to Palestine plus 100. It seemed like the perfect avenue to develop these concepts. Palestine is a really rich canvas for science fiction. 

Very powerful themes in our relevant history of reckoning with the past. Alternative realities. Questions of solidarity. A rich tapestry for writing. Not as a form of escape but as a new way to reclaim or narrative and thinking through our contemporary struggles. When it came to writing this story, it appealed to me. I always had a complicated relationship to nostalgia. They are a form of resistance and power. Thaw can also be constrictive. 

The idea of these being used to create utopian simulation. Something that I wanted to play around with in my story. I thought of this girl who is haunted by these visions of her dead brother and a grotesque presence. I wanted the dystopic future to be up for debate. I wanted readers to debate which was a better reality to live in. That is what she grapples with throughout the story. I will read a small bit. It is set in 2048. 

The unravelling began on the beach. She had felt haunted. The violence of his death reinforced how real everything seemed. As she stood on the shores, the haunting had felt much closer. Like it had crawling under her skin to make a home there. Behind her on the sand, her father was dozing under an umbrella. He slept a lot. Her mother slept more. She is barely awake these days. When life got complicated, all these grownups could do was sleep. 

Taking one final look back she walked into the water, leaving behind all the business of the beech. The screaming children and bodies on the sand. Just another day in Gaza. She made her way deeper into the calm blue water, her feet occasionally on coral when the water reached her ... time passed more slowly by the sea. The hands of a clock run a fraction slower there compared today a mountain top. Sometimes she thought about living on mountains. Time would pass faster. Show would be a real grown up. Do all the things she wanted to do. She felt a prisoner of history and time. 

The good thing is that if she stayed by the sea, she would remain closer to the last time she saw her brother. If she descended deep enough, maybe she could push time back. Maybe then she could find a way to stop her brother from dying. She closed her eyes. She could hear the songs of the birds in the sky. She dipped her ears below the surface. The sea seemed to be full that day. Beneath it she felt something more sinister. She imagined the water dragging her to join the thousands of bodies that had drowned in history. A smell overcame her. 

She said something cold and slimily was around her next. She opened her eyes to gasp. The stench went down her throat. It was a piece of toilet paper. She stood up in the water. Her feet found the seabed that felt soggy. The water was a brownish green sludge. A rotting fish carcass floated by her right arm. To her left, white foam gathered. And bubbled to the surface. 

A crackle of gunfire erupted. She turned to the noise. 5 gun boats were out in the sea. She turned back to the beach. The beach front was unrecognizable. The string of hotels were replaced by buildings next to each other. Smoke hung in place. The music and chatter drowned out by gunfire. The sky was violent gray. She shouted for her father and waded through the dirty water. 

Her body jerked with what was something between a gag and a throb. A pain tore through her body like someone twisting a knife. Stumbling onto the shore, she looked like a deep-sea monster. The sand was littered with plastic bottles. Jet planes roared above. A thundering explosion through her to the ground. The pain in her belly intensified. Three people were lying ton sand. The bodies were small. She realized they were of three children. 

They looked asleep but there were pools of blood. A punctured football lay beside the lifeless bodies. She realized the screaming was coming from her. She looked at her feet. Blood ran down her left leg. Thank you. 

M. ASLI DUKAN: That was beautiful. It reminds me of utopian fiction. You have a character who meets another character from a better world. They tell them a story of the better world. Then this character is interested in being in this other world. Your story has a similar structure. There is a twist in there. It is also how I think about utopias. They are not necessarily the good place you think they are. Thank you so much. Thank you, everyone for your introductions of your work. I will move into Q and A. Use the chat mechanisms to send your questions to us. We will try to get a few in at the end of our time here. Please put them in early. 

My interest in science fiction started when I was young, films like alien and mad max. I was a fan of the genre but a disgruntled fan. The representations were problematic. The stories were always worse versions of the world I lived in. I could see myself as someone who had a stake in how the future could be. Octavia changed by way of what the genre could do. Maybe you could talk about it. What is your origin story with the genres?  Do any works stand out for you and why?  What were your feelings and thoughts related to your identity and social position on society? 

DR. GRACE DILLON: I was waiting for others. I did not grow up with any television or film. I really lived in the woods. We had actual wigwams. [Laughing] we made our own ice skates. We were living in Indigenous life. The closest thing I came to was books. The books we read, this was passed around in our tribal nations, strangely enough, Ray Bradbury, his books, which I am now hesitant about, in our circle, it was known his wife was full Cherokee. We loved to read his stories to look for the ideas in there. Later on, I had some fun with writing a book chapter where any time I wanted to reference truly Indigenous things, I just put it into my own language. You know how they have so many scholarly pieces. You are expected to look it up and understand it. 

The editors were really concentrated. They were like, you need to provide a translation of this. I said, why don't we ask for translations of all these other languages. We have Google. We can look it up. There were some native teases and tricks going on in the one chapter I wrote about him. 

They are known as the pacifist anarchists of the tribe. We have no chiefs or administration. The people that are listened to over and over again are those who give away the most. They do it with humbleness and humility. Those are who we consider to be our leaders. 

M. ASLI DUKAN: Thank you. Do you want to add on?  

BASMA GHALAYINI: My experience with science fiction, when I was a teenager, the only Arabic representation, the only writer I read was an Egyptian writer. He wrote a lot of science fiction stories for teens. I read them and felt good about having someone close to me write those stories. That was my earliest memory of any representation in science fiction. 

M. ASLI DUKAN: What about, Saleem Haddad?  

SALEEM HADDAD: No. I don't think so. 

M. ASLI DUKA: What about Afrofuturism?  

SALEEM HADDAD: Storm from X men. 

M. ASLI DUKAN: I love storm. 

SALEEM HADDAD: Growing up, I was trying to think about your initial question. There was the one character. It was Storm. She spoke to me as someone who was Arab and queer. There was something in her character I related to and found powerful. 

M. ASLI DUKAN: You were going to say something. 

DR. GRACE DILLON: I love so many Afrofuturisms. I have bookshelves of them. I thought it would be fun to show something like her wonderful artwork that has been done and collected. I say a lavender is a close friend and has done so many scholarly books. Literary Afrofuturism in the 20th century. 

There has been Renaldo Anderson and others with the black speculative arts movement. I don't know if you can see these. 

M. ASLI DUKAN: It is a little dark. That is okay. We have the names and titles. I am sure people are taking down notes. Let us jump ahead. What were some responses to the works you put out?  What did the audiences say about your work?  Anyone can go. 

SALEEM HADDAD: I think from what I have heard, people are excited about the anthology. I think it was received really well. 

BASMA GHALAYINI: It was a great response. Especially within the UK. You can think of it as a Venn diagram. Arab literature. Interested in the politics of the region. That was our aim to use science fiction as a way to get the audience to ask and listen and know about Palestine. There was a huge interest in the UK. There was interest in other countries. America, there was a lot of interest. Not so much in Palestine because the book isn't out in Arabic yet. We are working on a translation. That was halted because of the pandemic. The responses were positive. Everyone liked different stories. They all got attention. 

M. ASLI DUKAN: Grace. 

DR. GRACE DILLON: I am excited about it. We have many international students at PSU. A lot of them are from Kuwait, Lebanon, Palestine, so many different areas. When I got them into futurisms and used films and got them into the queer Muslim Ms. Marvel, that is so wonderful. 

What I have them do is they help us explain some of the ideas that are coming out. I can hardly wait to give them the Palestine 100 plus. They have done the Iraq 100 Plus. ‘Walking in the Clouds’ has been just amazing. I feel so fortunate because in that case, what you do as professor, you are supposed to write a monograph and do a book about scholarship. I didn't seem right to me. Didn't care about my tenure. I decided I can't write scholarly about an area that people may not even know about. It is not the Indigenous way to do it. You share your collective power to go up against tyrannical power. 

I contacted all the elders who had written. We will do other anthologies that are new. That was already written and science fiction. I appealed to each author. I said, what to you see is science fiction in this?  They wrote tons of stuff. I could only sneak in some of their ideas. I made sure to let their voices be heard. Not just their stories. It was so inciteful to have it that way. 

There are many collections out now like this one. [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] Indigenous science fiction and speculative storytelling. When it is through a native press. That is the other thing. With all these collections of stories or novels, we are interested in promoting lock first nation Australia presses. A very strong strand of queerness and two spirit going on as writers in Indigenous futurisms. The Canadian area, the States, lower down Australia. That has been an excited area. They feel they can talk about not just existence but about futures. 

M. ASLI DUKAN: It is great to hear. Question for everyone. Indigenous and Palestinian futurisms are newer genres. Where do you see the future going?  

SALEEM HADDAD: I would love to adapt it in the future. These things are expensive. That is the problem. I think for me, just the process of writing this story for Palestine was quite revolutionary. In terms of rethinking how I do my own writer. It tends to be written in the contemporary world. I tend to be bogged down by the struggles we are facing currently. 

Giving myself the chance to look into the future. Writing about the future is about writing about our present and illuminating it. That realization has been powerful for me. If people read it, they may be inspired to do it themselves. 

BASMA GHALAYINI: There has been a workshop called Remala. 12 writers writing Palestinian science fiction stories and submit them during this workshop. I am not sure when we will see the outcome. I was reading about it. Strange horizons magazine. They have something in it. They have writers submitted so there can be another anthology. 

M. ASLI DUKAN: Grace. What do you think for the feature?  

DR. GRACE DILLON: There are so many ways to go. What distinguishes us from white Western science thinking is that we are lie context rather than low. We work with the complexities of not the old cyber punk. We work with body, spirit, soul, ancestors, I see it as phosphorescence. People are eager for and eager to listen to and take in. The trends I am seeing going on besides super cool zombie Indigenous futurisms called blood quantum. Many, many books out. 

M. ASLI DUKAN: I love that film. I saw it recently. 

DR. GRACE DILLON: He has done other science fiction films. My own daughter is an Indigenous video game maker with Indigenous futurisms. Her thunderbird strikes, going after the black snake of oil, ended up, talk about radical discourse, ended up in the republican senators bringing forth her game as domestic terrorism. They left out the part of the medicine and healing of the plants. And animals. All the things after you strike down the black snake. 

She does rivers and trails. Another Indigenous futurism video game. There are tons of compilations of graphic novels. This is ‘Moon Shots, Volume 3.’ This is strictly Indigenous. The others had a few throughout. There have been tons of graphic novels. I was interred in bringing this one up. 2040 ad. What is cool about it is it is not just American Indian Indigenous people like Tommy Orange. There are writers here from Turkey and many other kinds of places. This is connected to the natural resources defense council. We are into climate and environmental justice. We question the whiteness. Not denying it. Saying that there is a much better way to engage with that. There have been tons of novels all over put out. They are being turned into television shows, films. All kinds of exciting things. 

M. ASLI DUKAN: Basma Ghalayini, can you talk briefly about some of the things that tie the anthology together?  I understand a lot take place in Gaza. 

BASMA GHALAYINI: Some take place there. Not all of them. There were 12 writers. They are all from different parts of... different backgrounds. You end up with writers who live in Europe. In terms of... I noticed that maybe a common theme throughout the stories was illusion. I don't know if I am going to ruin the ending. There is a sort of illusion. You think you are living in a certain reality, but it is a different reality. Another story called the key. The Israelis think they are safe and living in a safe reality. They are being haunted by Palestinian ghosts. There is another story that takes place in two parallel worlds. Identical worlds. They inhibit different people. Each story had a different, brought something different in that sense. 

I would say, yes, there is an absence of, they don't talk about a specific enemy. It is an implied presence. There are a few stories talking about being haunted by the bad things in your past or by your presence. I would say stories that have some implied hope in them. They are all quiet, even the comedic ones were quite dark. Dark humor and sarcasm. 

M. ASLI DUKAN: I will tie together some questions. Can you take to where you think hope plays... where is the balance that make our futurisms blossom more?  

Your story is dystopian. I sense a certain sense of hope in it because of what the main character does. The decision of where she wants to go. I am going to struggle against all the isms. 

SALEEM HADDAD: It is tough to answer this question. My writing that is rooting in the present, I do lean towards the dark. An exploration of the dark. Maybe that is my style as a writer. Within that dark space, trying to find clouds of hope. I think there is an angle for futurism. Maybe a future that is also aspirational. A mainstream example, the way Black Panther was so empowering. Seeing that world being created. Something like that can be affirming to those of us who come from places that are under occupation and our identities are being erased and challenged. 

M. ASLI DUKAN: One more thing. I am also a fiction film maker. I work in the speculative genre. I have within calling my work abolitionist. I am trying to figure out ways to tell stories about abolishing the systems that are integral to the nature of science fiction. They are all built in. I am trying to tell stories. I thought of a quote. She talked about abolition. Abolition has to be green. Take the problem of environmental harm. To be green, it has to be read. It has to generalize the resources needed for the most vulnerable people. To do that, it has to be international. 

It has to stretch across borders. It makes me think that it is about all cultures that have been assaulted by these narratives and how we can have intention behind the stories we tell. What do you think about those connections and your futurisms in general?  Where do you want them to go?  

DR. GRACE DILLON: Your conversation reminded me of Andrea Harrison. Calling Octavia a possibilities specialist. You can be going through a dark time and have a legacy of intergenerational trauma is very real and a part of your communities. In our case with missing and murdered aboriginal women. How do you write stories that encompass what could be deep despair and for us? It is a balancing. We think of it as a balancing. We think of telling stories like Clara Coleman's, which would be empty land. I don't want to give away her story. 

At the end of it, that is why I love that impossibility specialist aspect, in the end of it, there is hope. It was a general one. There is a balance to it. I was thinking of a writer who spent ten years working on a science fiction novel. She is a huge native American writer. Future home of the living god. In this case, children, along with animals and plants are becoming mutated at very rapid paces. It is a story of a young woman who is pregnant. She knows the child will be quite different from the way babies were when she was born. There is a very niche attitude of change is tradition. Change is everything. The ability to have the facility to be able to adapt and change is one of the most traditional, ancestral, yet into the future exciting kind of things that can happen. That is the balance. 

M. ASLI DUKAN: We are out of time. If you want to end with anything about hope or your futurisms, I would love to hear it. 

BASMA GHALAYINI: Most of the stories in the anthology may not be hopeful, most of them, what I found was the writers wrote these stories and ventured out of their comfort zones to display the Palestinian cause. That was the home element of those stories. 

M. ASLI DUKAN: We are out of time. Thank you so much. Maybe one day we can do it again and longer. I enjoyed all your work. The parts I have been able to read. I wish you all the best. Thank you.