This issue of Reckoning is devoted to works about war and conflict viewed through the lens of environmental justice. What is seen through that lens is, by turns, grim and hopeful.
It is through writing that we remember freedom, as Le Guin puts it. Writers are capable of probing into the heart of the crises of our time: extinction, genocide, climate catastrophe. Diagnosing the rot at the source: violence, imperialism, and fascism. In a sense, these works may lean a little more into the mode of detailing the war that is ravaging our planet and communities, rather than than offering a restorative view of how the world could be healed. There is much value in this, especially in societies where we are kept so distracted and tired, over-worked and always busy, that we hardly have the resources to stop and say “this isn’t right.”
The title for this volume, ‘It Was Paradise,’ comes from a collection of poetry by Palestinian icon Mahmoud Darwish. The full quote is ‘Unfortunately, it was paradise.’ The reference is to Palestine and its decades-long colonization and occupation. Today, Zionist forces have left the land desolate, a truly bleak example of how genocide and ecocide are intertwined.
I believe that the power of the writer is in imagining what the world could be, that it doesn’t need to be this way. We can live in harmony with our communities and with nature, valuing all life on this world that we share in common. Without the role of imagination in remembering freedom, and prefiguring a future where there is truly justice, there can be no coherent and lasting change. I do not hope for a revolution to spring up spontaneously, but rather that we can all take actions, right now, toward a just future, together, cooperatively. I hope that this belief has informed my decisions as guest editor, and that you find this volume to be sincere and salutary.
I could not have done this without the unwavering support of the staff and editors at Reckoning. They have my thanks for their support, belief, and patience through this long process. I hope that the reader will find their experience of these dreadful times represented, but not in a pessimistic mirror. I hope you find courage and motivation to act in whatever way possible to create a better world for us all.