“Dunyazad” is coined from “Dunya Azad” meaning “Free World”.
The Dunyazad Project is a space for all of us to come together and learn and unlearn together as we move towards a liberated future.
This initiative was started after seeing how inaccessible even niche journals and online magazines are. We saw this gap as being a hinderence and decided to move beyond complaining and take our power back in this miniscule way.
In the words of James Baldwin, “You write in order to change the world, knowing perfectly well that you probably can’t, but also knowing that literature is indispensable to the world”.
Here’s to archiving and practicing collective remembrance together.
Points of Unity
- We stand against all forms of oppression and recognize that all systems of violence are interconnected–no one is free until all of us are free.
- We refuse to compromise on our principles and will not be normalizers in the face of deep rooted violence despite forces from all sides working to manufacture our consent.
- We will not tone and peace police ourselves and allow for the colonizers to hold our tongues. Decolonizing includes language.
- We will not sell out for monetary gain or profit. This project will not recieve external funding or support. This means all all work submitted and edited will be a labor of love.
- This project operates on a global scale but many of us are based in the West. We will all take our positionality into account when it comes to what we are centering.
- Taking these points into account, we have decided that we will not accept works that:
- use AI in any capacity–you will go on our point & laugh list.
- have already been peer reviewed and/or posted somewhere else *exception:substack/self-published*.
- center identity reductionism.
- center assimiliation rather than liberation.
- reinforce colonial notions.
- treat issues that are interconnected as being single/one-off events.
- discuss celebrities–critique or not, save it for a tiktok rant or something.
- condemn resistances or further stigmatize people who are already being vilified.
- utilize watered-down language that discounts the true reality of a dynamic—those submitting their writing have the option to use a pen name or to be listed under “Dunyazad Project” rather than a singled-out entity if safety is a concern.