Do you need to be an alien to become alienated?
The world’s countries may be becoming more diverse and inclusive, but the degrees by which each individual is separated from the larger whole are growing, too. In the best-case scenario, this results in people fighting for their rights, and maybe even winning, making the world better for everyone. In the worst-case scenario, alienation becomes the fuel of hatred.
Have you ever felt like you didn’t belong?
In this edition, we’ll talk about the stories of people feeling estranged from their homes.
A person of color in a white Imperial context. Students having to demand access to education from a government always cutting budgets. A husband and father trying to find a place for his family where they can live safely. The stories are manifold, but the outcome is always the same: the journey of belonging is a taxing, excruciating, and absolutely unnecessary one.
Here are the countries in the world where our protagonists didn’t feel like they belonged:
The first days of Brexit are an excellent time to read Zia Haider Rahman’s searing account of a man’s disintegration: experiencing brilliant Bangladeshi-British man Zafar’s othering in the heart of the Empire is made even more harrowing post-leave.
FROM BANGLADESH and UNITED KINGDOM:
A debut novel about a man trying to find acceptance despite the class and race separations is dense with thoughts and revelations, steeped in ice-cold loneliness—an outsider’s usual bedfellow
One way to avoid alienation is to flee. Hassan Fazili had to escape Taliban threats in Afghanistan along with his wife and two daughters, only to languish in immigration limbo in Europe. The hard truth of alienation: the place that will accept you might not even exist.
FROM AFGHANISTAN, BULGARIA, HUNGARY, SERBIA, TAJIKISTAN and TURKEY:
An urgent documentary about a family seeking asylum provides an intimate perspective of the way that countless people plea for state powers to recognize their humanity
Brazilian students Marcela. Koka and Nayara may be young, but they refuse to be alienated by their government. This documentary account of their fight for educational equality is a battling cry which instills hope in a better, more inclusive tomorrow.
FROM BRAZIL:
Three Brazilian student activists present a multidimensional, inclusive account of their fight for the right to education over the past decade in an electrifying, award-winning documentary
Our team knows a thing or two about alienation, and this is why Supamodu exists: to help share stories that are too often left out of the context. Perhaps together we can end alienation this way.
After all, isn’t it less likely for someone to be alienated when the whole world has heard their story with all its pain, beauty and nuance?
— The Supamodu team
