I approached Expo 2020 with skepticism. I knew that it was inherently difficult to engage with it since Expos create spaces that classify the world and its peoples through Western concepts of modernity. The concept of nation-states, from a postcolonial perspective, is violent to more people than we think; it inherits colonial classifications which exclude, fixate and invisibilize communities. Moreover, as Walter Benjamin wrote in one of his essays in 1935, fascism renders politics aesthetic. The aestheticization of politics is the act of performing political discourses as absolute truths. If such rhetorics are considered irrefutable, then they become apolitical. But it feels violent to think that there can be places where one is expected to suspend one’s disbelief towards government rhetoric, especially because governments embody those systems of exclusion.

Platforms such as Expo 2020 are not utopias of encounters between societies and nations. In reality, supposedly global events are a performance and a political decision in themselves. They are a battleground of egos, political motives and geographical claims. Most of these spaces depict a linear timeline of progress that is simply false. “Modern” nations, such as the United States, have historically imposed their understanding of “[progress] on other countries.” One can observe this in the striking similarity among countries with otherwise prominent differences in economic, cultural and political structures, such as Russia and Saudi Arabia, that used the same visual technologies to depict their understanding of the future. Many pavilions invested millions in aesthetically pleasing but, in the end, superficial, monolithic and linear expositions of “the past, the present, and the future.” How can we even assume that there is a universal understanding of temporality?

As I was walking I felt uncomfortable knowing that so many people, histories and ideas are excluded through ambiguity. For example, the Mobility Pavilion made strong statements about migration without explaining the historical causes of these geographical mobilities: “Global migration has risen by 57% since the year 2000. There are now over 272 million migrants living in new homes around the world.” The semantics of this phrase signify that these migrations occurred naturally and happily, by choice. It assumes that every migrant indeed has a home. Are the forcibly displaced counted among these too?

It is not only futile to curate discourses about mobility in such simplistic terms without including frameworks that address the issue of transnationalism, and hence dislocation. But it is also irresponsible and violent to leave the relationship between mobility and the statistics presented up to interpretation. Is their argument that migration has increased merely because of the advancement in mobility technologies?

The way we choose to interact with this space reflects our implicit — and sometimes racialized — assumptions about countries. I spent two days at Expo observing how people would thoughtlessly pass by pavilions that were not glamorous. It felt violent because visual aestheticism reproduces the inequality between the Global South and the Global North. Countries with more resources end up having greater visibility, and hence, more opportunities to assert their commitment to “progress” while others remain minorities within a globalized perspective as their voices remain in the margins.

This marginalization is compounded by the way spaces such as this are curated. The process of representation goes through a series of approvals by each country’s “official” representatives and, ultimately, by the administration that curates these events as a whole. These choices, determined by implicit rules, promote a monolithic “national” identity that excludes outliers of those official discourses.

The aestheticism of the politics embodied within the concept of Expos allows the people in positions of power to extol a nation-state that reproduces discursive violence with real-life consequences. For example, India’s pavilion perpetuates Hindu nationalism as an ideology, while violence against Indian Muslims increases. In aestheticizing politics and allowing the state control to form and promote a narrative, the concept of global platforms inherently privileges dictatorial regimes as they validate their official narrative.

For example, the Venezuelan pavilion is not only inaccurate but also mocks the daily hardships of those who live in Venezuela. It again portrays a sexist, patriarchal and banal state that refuses to recognize its flaws. It makes a mediocre pavilion ambiguous enough for foreigners not to understand its nefarious intentions, but political enough to advance the international perception of Venezuela’s — nonexistent — plural democracy. It capitalizes on indigenous peoples’ identity while, in reality, the state massacres them; it celebrates Petróleos de Venezuela, S.A, the state-owned — and only — oil company that fails to provide Venezuelans with gasoline. Venezuelans have now normalized a lifestyle in which they spend a quarter of their month queuing to fill up the gas. Because the exhibit chooses to portray the Guardia Nacional Bolivariana (the National Bolivarian military) as the safe-keepers of our country while, in reality, they have the blood of activists, political prisoners and protesters on their hands. The Venezuelan pavilion is incoherent, cheap propaganda.

Maybe it is utopian to think that “global” fairs, for which billions of dollars are regularly allocated, would create spaces where discourses of the grandiose are pushed aside to prioritize more human and less institutionalized interactions. Minorities would be self-represented, rather than exoticized to perpetuate a false narrative of inclusion. Ideally, we would use these spaces to pressure governments to engage in an ethical, truly sustainable future: one that is sensitive to human and even post-human understandings of care. And if that were the case, I would also expect accountability from whomever participates. What hurts me the most about seeing the Venezuelan pavilion is the lack of accountability towards the public. These fairs become the platform of fake news and no one seems to be able to recognize the distortions of reality. If they do, they seem to not care.

Expos are not open spaces where you are allowed or invited to ask questions. Instead, you are invited to absorb information — if there is any — and accept it as the absolute truth. If you disagree, you must suspend your disbelief of official state rhetoric. What frustrates me the most is the act of self-censoring. It is violent because it is overly simplistic, to the point of erasure, when attempting to represent the plurality of communities and lived experiences within a nation. Thus, who are the pavilions for?

If we consider that most, if not all, pavilions are approved, if not fully funded, by their respective states, how can I happily engage with Belarus’ pavilion knowing a close friend was arbitrarily detained during the recent protests in 2020? How can I engage happily with China’s pavilion knowing the accusations of ethnic genocide they are currently facing? How can I engage with Israel’s theme of transparency? How can I entertain myself while acquaintances are worried about their families in Sudan?

Perhaps, global fairs are only for the amused tourists taking photos of themselves or the investors. Expos are not for everyone and certainly not for me. It is exhausting. Ignorance becomes a blessing for those who can thoughtlessly engage in spaces such as this.

Even if you consider Expo interesting due to its artistic qualities, be it the architecture, performances or virtual reality, the performativity of each pavilion is the result of its politics and cannot be detached from it. So visit Expo but keep the political implications of its pavilions in mind.

I do not regret the knowledge acquired through academia, experiences, or really, through my own and my friends' pain. But I grieve the literal and metaphorical freedom to express my political beliefs. Mostly, I grieve not being able to do something about it, even if it is just a public scream.