Killing our capitalist fantasies makes way for dreams of liberation

Unlearning internalized colonialism one fantasy at a time

thezaynalarbii

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I’m not sure if you did this, I’d like to think that many of us did to cope with distress and isolation.

When I was young, I daydreamed. Not every now & then. All the time. It helped me survive in my toughest, bleakest, darkest moments when I didn’t know if I would live to see another day. Colonial psychiatry pathologizes this coping mechanism and has labeled it a condition called “Maladaptive Daydreaming”— a term coined by the very problematic Zionist psychologist Eli Somer (yes I find that very fitting). He also wrote the book “Mental Health in Terrors Shadow” which focused on the “trauma”, stress & anxiety that Zionist settlers face when the people whose land they’re occupying/ colonizing happen to resist.

Anyways… back to daydreaming. I did it all the time.

Whenever I had a moment to myself, when I needed to tolerate pain, soothe anxiety or fear, when my mind was idle & I wasn’t forced to focus on anything, I would escape to elaborate, complex, vivid fantasies in my mind. It started as early as I can remember. The fantasies always involved an imaginary “alternate” version of me living my so-called “best life” which was in stark contrast with my much more distressing, painful reality. I deliberately constructed intricate, detailed, rich storylines for myself. Imaginary me was doing all the things that the empire brainwashed me into believing I needed to do to be happy.

Imaginary Ayesha (let’s call her AK) was the same age as real Ayesha but had access to all the things that I did not have at the time. My fantasies initially involved me having the right to live with access to basic survival essentials like consistent nourishing delicious food, safety, a thriving big community I was submerged in, an abundance of joy & love in relationships, kind & unconditionally supportive caregivers and unrestricted time & space to explore the land we called home. As I grew up under these systems, my fantasies turned into concepts that were glorified in the shows, cartoons, movies or books I was consuming— romance, social popularity, privilege, unlimited resources & wealth, a big house, opulence in some capacity, colonial beauty standards, success, power etc. They increasingly reflected dominant societal norms & expectations.

Young imaginary AK was popular, admired, loved, a genius who also had superpowers to fight “bad guys”, save the world & rid it of all evils, one winning battle at a time. She was the savior her people needed. Teen imaginary AK was exceptional at school, top of her class, got into every ivy league on a scholarship, a globally ranked competitive pro multi-sport athlete (tennis + track & field) AND a political revolutionary. And she had a devoted, stereotypical, white, cis-hetero boyfriend with shaggy blonde side-swept hair as depicted on Disney Channel Arabia. In contrast to the incessant racist & islamophobic bullying that shaped my childhood, imaginary AK was adored for all the things that real Ayesha was despised & taunted for.

Unlike her crushing reality where oppression was inescapable & unavoidable, imaginary AK prevailed against all odds & defeated these systems— not by erasing systemic inequity but by overcoming *individual* adversity in ways that most people could never. She was the exception to every rule. A liberal’s dream— a brown pioneer that had successfully navigated violent systems that otherwise slaughtered, enslaved & oppressed the vast majority of her people.

In my fantasies, I was perfect, better than everyone else, always winning & never losing, succeeding & never failing, rich & never poor, whole, certain, stable, loved, appreciated, sought after, respected, admired, and ultimately… exceptional— something I aspired to be for the longest time because that is what capitalist/ colonial dreams are made of. We are socialized with a deep desire to be unique, different, superior to our kin- in our material “success” or even in our oppression. We’re told that life is a game, a battlefield that we need to dominate & conquer to be considered “worthy”— much like the insidious logic of conquest, accumulation, individualism & greed that drives colonialism. And supposedly if we play by the systems rules & “work hard”, we will succeed/ win/ ascend to the mountain’s summit. That is the carrot dangled in front of us— the eventual promise of happiness, validation, purpose & deep contentment.

In my fantasy worlds, I had reached the mountain top by securing whatever colonialism/ capitalism told me to secure. Reality, however, was predictably a stark contrast. Even if in reality I eventually possessed some of the small things that I fantasized about, the pain didn’t disappear. The endless distress-free bliss never came.

Safia Latif

My fantasies evolved as I evolved. When I moved from the so-called Middle East & North Africa region to Russia, imaginary AK did the same. Except, she navigated it with finesse & ease. When I moved to Saudi for high school, as did imaginary AK. But in the fantasy, she had access to just as much wealth, freedom & resources as her classmates that lived in the city-sized, exclusive, luxurious gated community made for Aramco employees (the largest oil-producing corporation in the world). She could travel the world whenever she wanted. Reality was much more grim as my parents often struggled to make ends meet, particularly in the aftermath of the 2008 recession. We were struggling without a clear silver lining in sight. My dad, unemployed at the time, was doing everything he could to keep me in high school (it wasn’t free) and figuring out how to send me to college.

I’m not diving too deep into all the other childhood pain I was navigating growing up in an abusive household. I had a mother who used emotional & physical abuse to cope with her own colonial trauma and a father who was just trying to get by but absent in his own way. There’s lots more but bottomline, I need an escape when there was none. So I quiet literally created one in my mind & over time, my imagination took over as the “escape” world got increasingly intricate. It soothed me to know that I could always leave my body in some way.

For my entire youth & even a bulk of my young adult life, I was split between these two worlds- the messy, often excruciating, unpredictable, inequitable, brutal “real” world and the perfect parallel fantasy world where things just worked out in my favor. I escaped to my fantasy world whenever I needed to soothe or reassure myself. I clung to imaginary AK for hope of a better, safer, more privileged, blissful future. For most of my childhood, these fantasies were the only thing that put me to sleep & were the first thing I thought of when I awoke.

The death of the fantasy and rebirth

The fantasy world did not last forever. It all started to crumble when I truly started to build political consciousness.

haydarisms_

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I came to the US at 17 & my political understanding of the world grew exponentially as I started organizing. I started to connect my pain to that of others & dug into the roots of our collective distress. I built deeper friendships, forged real community & felt real, not imaginary, happiness in the smallest, most mundane moments we shared. I slowly began to see that capitalism was a modern iteration of colonialism & these systems had shaped me, my desires/ wants/ needs/ ambitions and… fantasies. I was violently force fed the values of the empire & naively regurgitated them as my own. My fantasies were the empire’s.

Eventually, imaginary AK died. I guess I killed her. She was the empire’s finest creation— the most narcissistic, vulnerable, fragile iteration of my ego and this was a necessary death.