Dancing in the dark

The 10th anniversary of anything is a momentous milestone. Strapped in as we are on a rollercoaster through some very strange times, though, the journey of this humble little Ramadan ritual feels particularly fateful.

In 2016, the year I started the Sehri Tales, Ramadan ended on a very turbulent note, with the Holey Artisan attack. Looking back at my final entries for that year, I can see a sharp departure from whimsical experimentation in forms into a sort of mood journal. As more people began to hop on board over the years, the tales became a sort of barometer for the general mood. And us, Talers, have weathered a lot together—moving out of the Litmosphere group into our own platform Talespeople in 2020, we immediately found ourselves recording life in lockdown. We came out of that and fell straight into a world torn up by conflict. Through it all, we’ve held on, as a community, scribbling our truths, cheering each other on, and I couldn’t be more grateful for the gift of art that makes everything more bearable.

2025 was an illuminating experience for us. Among the immense positives—our global reach expanded with BFM Radio, Malaysia’s largest business radio station featuring Sehri Tales, and a collaboration with students from Lahore, Pakistan, who read out their tales at our live Sehri Tales x Sister Library event. But last year was also the year when the toll of running this not-for-profit challenge made us consider switching off moderation and letting people post their tales publicly on their own pages. While we did reach new audiences, our analytics showed us a marked decline in the number of female participants. The feedback was overwhelmingly that women didn’t feel safe sharing their stories publicly, even if those stories were perfectly harmless pieces of fiction.

As I write this, a new government has just been voted into parliament after a heated electoral race that saw the rampant use of AI and disinformation to create an atmosphere of panic. We are also seeing a Cabinet with only three women in it, a historic low. The PM’s own daughter is currently facing online attacks. All of these things leave me deeply rattled as a woman and as a creative. At this point in our political narrative, it’s a waiting game for the masses to see if our newly elected leaders will deliver on the bright and shiny promises they have made.

I am aware that there’s not much we can do as individuals. However, I am a firm believer in the power of community, of the Arts. We’ve seen, time and time again, how creative media, whether it’s revolutionary songs, or the visual impact of graffiti can challenge the status quo, bring courage and hope, and the reminder that we are not alone. So, for our tenth anniversary, tired as we are, we’re going back to the classic format. We’re bringing the Tales back to the Talespeople platform, where our wonderful female voices can express themselves creatively in a safe and welcoming environment. I would like to take a beat to convey my deepest gratitude to our new volunteer moderators who stepped up and offered to help us run the show. We’re also making a renewed stance against generative AI in order to nurture the beautiful human creativity of our extremely talented Talers.

The challenges are many, but I want to leave my beautiful Talers and our wonderful readers and patrons with a few words of solace: if the past ten years have shown us anything, it’s that if you keep the faith, keep writing, keep transcribing your emotions into art, and keep holding on to your community, you will prevail. Ramadan Mubarak to all those that observe. Sehri Tales 2026 is officially on!

Sabrina Fatma Ahmad is a writer, journalist, and the founder of Sehri Tales.