Published in Overland Issue 226 Autumn 2017 · Uncategorized Editorial #226 Jacinda Woodhead When does a life bend toward freedom? grasp its direction? How do you know you’re not circling in pale dreams, nostalgia, stagnation So asked Adrienne Rich, documenter of exiles, revolutionaries and the twentieth century. Too often, our response to uncertainty and impending apocalypse is that we must save this world – a world of yearning for counterfeit yesterdays and rehabilitated tomorrows. Or worse, for things to continue as they are, as we have come to believe they have always been; a world we are told is ‘already great’, ad nauseam. But in a world where we no longer have to list the horrors because their shadows are constant – is this really a present we should save? This is the question the writers in Overland’s first edition of 2017 ask. All worlds end, we are reminded here. Indeed many have ended before this one, and theorists both conservative and radical have long recognised that ‘commercial society’ was a system with limits and contradictions, and, therefore, an expiration date. But whether it’s in the Philippines or in Australia, the attempt to stifle and silence populations, literally and deliberately, is current. The histories documented between these covers – in fiction, poetry and essay – can tell us a great deal about how we reached these present-day barbarities, but it can’t, unfortunately, tell us what the future will look like if we dare to conceive of the end of capitalism. The onus is on us to be bold, coherent and hopeful as we realise the present was only ever a pale dream of one of many possible futures. I wear my triple eye as I walk along the road past, present, future all are at my side Read the rest of Overland 226 If you enjoyed this piece, buy the issue Or subscribe and receive four outstanding issues for a year Jacinda Woodhead Jacinda Woodhead is a former editor of Overland and current law student. More by Jacinda Woodhead › Overland is a not-for-profit magazine with a proud history of supporting writers, and publishing ideas and voices often excluded from other places. If you like this piece, or support Overland’s work in general, please subscribe or donate. Related articles & Essays 5 November 20245 November 2024 · Reviews True dreams: Martin Edmond’s Conrad Dougal McNeill Witnessing, reading through this absorbing, elegant, careful example of the art, is always a kind of mourning, and Conrad, an author for whom writing was “the conversion of nervous force into phrases,” is the perfect figure to focus Edmond’s ongoing work of mourning. 4 November 20244 November 2024 · Palestine The incarceration of Indigenous and Palestinian children: a shared legacy of settler colonialism Sarah Abdo In Palestine, children are detained as a means of maintaining the occupation and suppressing resistance. In Australia, youth incarceration extends the legacy of forced removals and perpetuates intergenerational trauma among Indigenous communities. Children are targeted precisely because they represent the continuity and survival of their communities. This intentional disruption is not simply a matter of misguided policy but part of a broader effort to undermine Indigenous and Palestinian resilience.