On Decolonial Futures, Chocolate and Bubbles.

By Paraskevi Siamitrou

Yesterday, I went to see Yorgos Lanthimos' new movie, Bugonia. Lanthimos seems to be taking upon contemporary issues, and making them absurd, grotesque with a crippling violence. And I understand that this artistic point of view contemplates capitalism, the ruthlessness of it. Citizen and consumer lines are fuzzy. A subjectivity composed of a gruesome Big Other, capital accumulation, signifiers and language attuned to the very big desire: produce, relentlessly. In a way, Lanthimos' movie tries to unveil the rotten system of capitalism or perhaps technofeudalism, in a recreational way. And that should suffice. But I need more. 

As I was biking home, I felt sad and that things were in vain, and I needed a hopeful trajectory. So I changed the way home. I biked further, and noticed the lights decorating the city. Then other connotations came to my mind—Christmas consumerism, energy waste and other sad stories. But you know what? I do not want to be sad, and for sure I don't want to feel helpless. I should recognise my privilege of living in a city where urban planning allows me to bike. And I am chasing this hopeful subjectivity, like I am chasing my shadow. I believe there are more people like me, who sometimes get existential and even more so, the sources in which they seek pleasure are baffling them.

One Sunday at the end of November, the Copenhagen Decolonization Collective organised a workshop about colonial continuities and decolonial futures. I was a bit late, as I was talking with my mother, she sent me an Italian song about some young people that want to change the world—“That’s what your collective reminds me of,” she said. The workshop was an invitation to make a zine about an everyday object, imagining that you are a time traveler from the year 2040. 

Our object was a Nestlé chocolate bar. Historically, European colonisation has shaped the cocoa industry with its brutal, unequal forces. These colonial legacies perpetuate the present, manifesting in neo-liberal ways and establishing a European presence that lacks transparency and economic equity. This colonial continuity is portrayed in Nestlé’s origins, history and present function.

From the traveler’s viewpoint, we had to create a glimpse of how a decolonial future is possible for that object, at least in our timespace. How will sweetness be perceived in 2040 and what connotations it has. We laughed a lot. We talked about utopias, Ursula le Guin, about the remuneration to farmers and roasting in the local regions. We did not have a clear idea, but we let loose and imagined together. We crafted something: in the first page there was a complete dystopian present, then in the second we collaged a lot of flowers to depict how earth healed and in the end there were abstract images of people, chocolate, and colours. When Mads presented our zine, he gave everyone a little piece of chocolate, which we all ate simultaneously. The ritualistic presentation encompassed our idea: being present, conscious, feeling connected. Sweetness was envisioned as something collective. It did feel almost cult-like.

Image 1. The zine of our team.

There is substantial evidence that neo-capitalist regimes sustain environmental degradation and drive social inequalities. While our little community workshop can be characterised as naive or utopic, I urge you to think otherwise. According to the interesting paper of Scurr and Bowden (2021), radical imagination can shift narratives, incorporate hope, and pave the way to alternatives. Some might claim that this workshop was merely us rejoicing in our chocolate bubble- a valid reaction, because it was fun. However, “bubbles” can also be seen as prefigurative politics. A consistent mirror, where the methods used to accomplish change reflect the goals of that change. Embodying our values for a desired future now, through practices, organizational structures and actions. 

Indisputably, I do acknowledge that the present is already dystopic for people around the globe. And yet, our best option is to open the dialogue for novel ways of thinking and participate in forms of activism. This can be the glue for solidarity and community resilience. Let’s move away from the discourse that frames activism as a futile bubble. It is rather lonely. We need more bubbles. Bubbles that are hopeful, fresh, inventive, equitable, inclusive.

Malherbe (2024) takes a psychoanalytic lens and breaks down what an anti-capitalist subjectivity entails. As opposed to the Social Order imposed by post-capitalist, post-colonial times, anti-capitalist subjectivity is built in motion with the desire to go against. Against what? Inequality, injustice, environmental degradation, colonial legacies, heteronormativity, patriarchy and so on. At the same time, it offers signs and signifiers that capitalism fails to accommodate us with. These are for example mutuality, connectedness, community, and the freedom of desire. Funnily enough and in a lacanian way, capitalism has in its heart the lack, which drives us to want more and produce more. But at the same time, the anti-capitalist and decolonial subjectivity is “hungry” for and has ellipses of community, invention, freedom, justice, etc. Seemingly, our little workshop is a micrography of this desire: better futures, for others and for us, whilst opposing the present. 

Rather than seeing this as fantasmagoria, I feel this workshop was a way to connect through imagination and dialogue. Our conversation shifted from the utopic to practicalities, revealing the extractivism of the chocolate industries. Almost like magical realism. Arguably, at this point we are in need of more than a workshop to save the world (as my mom thinks). Drastic and radical institutional change are urgent to mitigate the issues of today, because the utility and helpfulness of social change is rather gradual (Boland, 2024). Luckily, we do have the seeds of frameworks to think of possible futures, like ideas such as degrowth and conviviality. Transformative change in our ontologies is a good step, because forming communities and imagining together can be vehicles for metamorphosis. 

This workshop was amongst our group members, but now it will be conducted on February 9th, open to the public. Perhaps, during Copenhagen's gloomy winter you feel like chasing a different subjectivity with your bike, you feel cult-like, bubble-like. You can register through this registration link. The Copenhagen Decolonisation Collective views the capacity to combine socioeconomic and environmental topics with a lens of resistance, as a way to move towards sustainability, solidarity and decoloniality.