Exploring Activism, Futurist Fiction, and Indigenous Wisdom
Zainab Amadahy discusses her activism, futurist fiction, and Indigenous knowledge, emphasising storytelling’s role in healing, decolonisation, and fostering unity amidst societal polarisation.
Zainab Amadahy is a writer whose work transcends genres, blending the visionary with the deeply rooted. Known for her 1998 cult classic Moons of Palmares, a futurist novel that continues to resonate, and her co-authorship of the seminal essay Indigenous and Black Peoples in Canada: Settlers or Allies, Zainab’s writing is a powerful exploration of healing, decolonisation, and social justice. Her unique voice is shaped by a rich tapestry of experiences, from activism and community work to literary mentorship and Indigenous knowledge reclamation.
Of mixed African American, Cherokee, Seminole, Portuguese, and Amish heritage, Zainab’s life has been guided by teachings from Elders and Knowledge Keepers across diverse Indigenous cultures. This profound connection to community and tradition infuses her work with authenticity and urgency. Now based in Nogojiwanong (Peterborough, Ontario), she continues to weave stories that challenge, inspire, and transform.
In this interview, Zainab reflects on the intersections of activism, storytelling, and spirituality. She discusses how her community work informs her writing, the evolving dynamics between Black and Indigenous peoples, and the transformative power of storytelling in healing and decolonisation. She also shares insights into her personal practices of transmuting negative energy and offers guidance for aspiring writers and those seeking to reconnect with Indigenous knowledge systems.
Zainab’s words are a call to rise above polarisation, to embrace unity, and to find meaning in adversity. Her perspective is both a balm and a beacon, reminding us of the resilience and wisdom inherent in storytelling. This conversation is an invitation to explore the depths of her work and the profound lessons it holds for our collective future.
How does your background in activism and community work influence your writing, particularly in futurist fiction like Moons of Palmares?
Activism and community work are seared into my identity and inform everything I do. My mom used to say I was an activist before I was born because she was pregnant with me when active in the Civil Rights Movement. My work intentionally explores social issues and community dynamics. My characters are composites of people I have lived with, worked alongside, and loved.
In your essay Indigenous and Black Peoples in Canada: Settlers or Allies, you explore complex relationships—how do you see these dynamics evolving today?
Black and Indigenous communities are much better informed about each other’s cultures, histories, and challenges these days. I’m excited for our futures and confident we will improve our abilities to address our common issues and meet each other’s need for friendship, cooperation, and collaboration in forming healthy and resilient communities.
Your work emphasises healing and decolonisation—what role do storytelling and fiction play in this process?
Most writers understand how stories offer folks an opportunity to better understand and empathize with experiences they haven’t personally undergone. Though we assume choices are made and opinions are formed in the rational brain, research says emotions are crucial to these processes. So, stories that take us on emotional journeys are important for developing a sense of connection. We are also more likely to remember information contained in stories as opposed to lectures, statistics and data.
Unfortunately, stories can also rile people up in favour of division and hate. It helps to be intentional about the stories we choose to receive and share.
You speak about transmuting negative energy into compassion and love—how do you personally practise this in your daily life?
Polarized ideas give meaning to each other. How can something be right if there is no wrong? Ideas of good or strong have no meaning without the opposite concepts of bad and weak. How can I experience myself as a woman in a world without men?
Polarization is the inhale of existence. Hold your breath long enough and what happens? Expansion and contraction characterize all of life. When you stretch a rubber band, each polarized end is pulled farther and farther apart. Then what? You can’t stretch an elastic forever. Something snaps. The two polarities cease to exist and become one unified elastic strand.
Polarization is unsustainable and leads to collapse. We are living through that now. In polarization we are given the opportunity to consider unification. Not necessarily through some middle way but by rising above. By expanding our awareness and seeing another way of relating to each other. Understanding that the tension of seemingly opposing forces leads to a more evolved way of living helps with “transmutation”.
Unfortunately, as humans we tend to wait till after the “snap” to rise. By then we’re all trying to dig our way out of the avalanche. We come together not out of rising above but out of need for each other. But unity of purpose is still the outcome.
I trust there is a gift in every challenge. The worst experiences of my life also contained benefits. Perhaps they made me wiser or more resilient. Inspired me to heal, learn or create stories. Maybe it expanded my compassion. Of course, transmutation takes time and we have to allow it but making meaning of our adverse experience is always available should we choose it. I choose it.
In Writing As Ceremony, you discuss writing as a spiritual practice—how can aspiring writers integrate this approach into their creative process?
The concept of ceremony for me is about calling on spiritual forces to help me make change in myself and my relationships. A deep change in oneself inherently transforms one’s relationships, with people and with life itself. I accidently discovered that writing could do that for me when I allowed myself to explore my traumas through fictional characters or autobiographical stories. I’m sure many authors feel along with our characters or stories and then recognize we are activating and healing our own wounds. There is plenty of literature and lots of courses that testify to the power of journaling and storytelling to heal, and that’s part of WAC, but creating one’s own prompts, re-storying wounds, and even reframing your personal history are also part of the process.
You don’t have to be an aspiring writer to benefit from WAC. You just need to be willing to write in a way that scratches open your festering wounds so you can clean them out and allow them to heal. It takes courage but it’s worth it.
What advice would you give to those seeking to reconnect with Indigenous knowledge systems in a world dominated by Western scientific paradigms?
The first step is to be open to shifting how you view the world and your place in it. What defines Indigeneity in one sense is about how you understand your humanity. Are you superior to other life forms or are you related to them? Do you live on Mother Earth or are you an expression and helpful but unnecessary aspect of her consciousness? As your thinking shifts, a paradigm of relationality informs your behavior. Then your behaviors inform your mindset and so turns the wheel.
I was born and raised in the USA, a settler colonial state that has been savagely trying to erase Indigenous peoples from existence, here and around the world. The more I understand about the values and cultures of my ancestors, the more I understand the threat our very existence poses to colonialism and capitalism.
For Europeans living in a nation-state that made (and still makes) a point of destroying Indigenous peoples, lands and lifeways, I would ask myself: What makes those people and their knowledge so threatening to Western civilization? Europeans will benefit from learning about the worldviews and lifeways of the Indigenous peoples their countries colonized. You might also find it valuable to explore the culture and values of your Indigenous ancestors. In a time of ecological and civilizational collapse you can’t learn fast enough.
