r/LateStageImperialism

I never imagined I would be living a life like this.

My name is Nada. I’m 18 years old from Gaza. This should have been my first year at university, focusing on my education and building my future. Instead, I have watched my home, my city, and the life we loved disappear before my eyes.

My family and I lost our home and were forced to flee. Since then, we’ve been living through displacement, fear, and uncertainty every single day.

I try to live a normal life, but the harsh conditions and the immense destruction around me overwhelm me, and I often find myself breaking down and crying.

Many people believe the war and the suffering are over. Unfortunately, they are not. We still live in fear every day, surrounded by destruction and the constant threat of bombardment.

Life has become a daily struggle just to survive. My siblings and I collect firewood so we can cook, wait in long lines for water, and go to community kitchens hoping to receive a small meal.

The hunger has taken a serious toll on us. My mother and I have lost a lot of weight because there simply isn’t enough food. We have become weak, and every day is a battle to find something to eat or drink. Even something as simple as a glass of cold water feels like a luxury.

While many people my age are enjoying life and building their futures, my days are spent searching for food and trying to help my family survive. This is not the life I ever imagined.

I’m sharing only a small part of what we are going through in Gaza.

I am not asking for luxury or comfort. I am simply asking for help to afford basic necessities like food, clean water, and other essential needs during these incredibly difficult times.

If you’re able to support me, I would be deeply grateful. If you can’t donate, sharing my story would mean a lot.

I’ve included my family’s donation link in the comments.

Thank you for taking the time to read my story.

I filmed this video of my little brother today.

He was running around smiling and playing, and for a second it looked like such a normal childhood moment. But when I looked at what he was actually playing with, it broke me.

He had taken a cola can and turned it into something like a little fan, then stuck it onto an empty water bottle. He runs while holding the bottle, and because of the air, the fan spins. That became his toy. That became his game.

And the worst part is that he genuinely loves it.

I keep watching him and thinking: how did it come to this? How did children in Gaza get reduced to making toys out of trash and ruins just to have one small moment of fun? Why does my little brother have to search for happiness in an empty bottle and a cola can instead of having real toys, a safe playground, and a normal life like any child anywhere else?

He doesn’t have parks to run in. He doesn’t have safe streets. The streets around us are destroyed. Childhood here has been stripped down to survival, and even play has become something children have to invent from whatever they can find around them.

It hurts me in a way I can’t fully explain. Because he is still just a child. He should be worrying about cartoons, toys, and games. Not growing up surrounded by destruction. Not learning how to make a toy out of scraps because there is nothing else.

People always talk about the numbers coming out of Gaza, but behind every number is a child like my brother. A child trying to create joy with almost nothing. A child who still deserves softness, safety, laughter, and a real childhood.

I’m sharing this because I want people to see what this war has done, even to the smallest details of life. Not only the deaths, not only the hunger, not only the destruction. But also what it steals from children day by day is their normal lives, their innocence, and the simple things that should never have been taken from them in the first place.

My little brother deserved better than this. Every child here does.

I never imagined I would have to write something like this and ask strangers for help.

My name is Osama, and I’m from Gaza. Before the war, my family and I lived a normal, peaceful life. We had a home, stability, and everything we needed. Then the war took it all away.

Our home was destroyed, we were displaced many times, and now our daily lives revolve around finding clean water, food, and other basic necessities.

Today, my parents, my siblings, my disabled grandmother, and I are all living together in a single small metal room at a relative’s house. There is no privacy and barely enough space for all of us. My sisters have no privacy at all, and none of us has a space we can call our own. The room is simply too small for our family, and the intense summer heat makes living in it even more difficult.

Every day, I look around and see all of us crowded into this one room, and I can’t help but wonder how much longer we will have to live like this.

I’m asking for help to buy a tent for my family. It may seem like a simple thing, but to us it would mean having a small place of our own, a little privacy, and the chance to live with some dignity again. We’re not asking for luxury—just a safe place where our family can have a little privacy and live with dignity.

If you’re able to help, or even just share our story, my family and I would be deeply grateful. The donation link is in the comments.

Thank you for taking the time to read our story.

June 25th is here. Young Kenyans rise against a system that robs, exploits, and kills. As Marx warned, when the bourgeoisie exploit the working class, revolt is inevitable.

Colonialists built this order—first the British, later joined by American imperialists. They created hierarchies to brutalize and segregate. The Mau Mau fought back, and independence was won.

Yet capitalism, through neo-colonialism, survives by manufacturing classes. The elite recruit others to exploit those below—whether the “house negro,” rural trailer trash, racist Americans, or the poor xenophobic South African.

Racism is one weapon. It dehumanizes Black people, justifying invasion and exploitation. Western media continues the cycle, portraying Africans as helpless so exploitation looks like charity.

In South Africa, xenophobia fuels division. Class wars are stoked to distract while land and minerals are seized. Across Africa, wars and coups justify puppet regimes—just as in South America. As Captain Traoré warned: prepare for “winter.”

The irony is striking. Africans eat fresh food from their farms—Egusi soup in Nigeria, Injera in Ethiopia, ground nut soup / Jollof in Ghana, Pilau and Ugali in Kenya, that takes may forms in it's Southern neighbors eaten with roast meat—are very rich, nutritious, and satisfying.

Meanwhile, those claiming to “feed” Africans consume hormone-injected chicken and bland GMO meals that need spices to give them a semblance of taste, later they pay for costly healthcare created by the same capitalist thinking as Elon Musk. Low skilled, xenophobic South Africans trapped in structural racism are pushed into menial, low-paid labor for the same capitalist elite.

My name is Osama, and I am a Pharmacy student at the University of Palestine from Gaza. By now, I should have been in my fifth and final year of university, preparing for graduation and looking forward to the future I worked so hard to build.

For years, I believed that education was my path to a better life. I studied hard, dedicated myself to my degree, and eventually reached my fourth year of pharmacy school. After everything I had overcome, graduation finally felt within reach.

Then the war changed everything.

My family lost our home. My father lost his job, and our daily struggle became simply surviving. Instead of focusing on lectures and exams, I found myself helping my family secure food, water, and other basic necessities.

As the financial burden grew heavier, I could no longer afford my university fees.

I was forced to stop my studies.

Not because I wanted to.

Not because I gave up on my dream.

But because I simply had no other choice.

I told myself it would only be temporary. I believed I would find a way back soon.

But months turned into years.

While my classmates continued toward graduation, I watched my own education come to a halt.

Today, after nearly two years away from university, I still carry the same dream I had before the war.

The painful part is that I am so close.

I have only one year left before graduation.

Just one year.

One year separates me from becoming a pharmacist.

One year separates me from the future I have spent years working toward.

Yet after everything my family and I have endured, I am still unable to return and complete my final year.

What hurts me is not hard work. I have never been afraid of hard work.

What hurts is watching a dream that I dedicated years of my life to slowly slip away because of circumstances beyond my control.

I still dream of graduating.

I still dream of becoming a pharmacist.

I still dream of supporting my family and rebuilding the life that war took from us.

I have not given up.

I am only asking for the chance to finish what I started.

If you are able to help, support my story, or even share it with others, it would mean more to me than words can express.

Thank you from the bottom of my heart to everyone who takes the time to read my story.