Latitude Adjustment: Recent Episodes
Eric Maddox
A journey around the world through conversation. News reporting is heavily influenced by business & political models that capitalize on narratives of crisis, war, and disaster. As a result we get a distorted view of what life actually looks like for large segments of the planet, as we’re conditioned to accept stereotypes, political narratives, and judgements that have little basis in reality. Through open conversation and personal stories, Latitude Adjustment will highlight places & communities that are either deprived of context or altogether absent from the media landscape and from our mental maps of the world. As your host, I‘ll also be sharing tips from my years of solo travel. I’ll try to balance a healthy skepticism of political correctness with contempt for oppressive power structures, but work with me, I’m learning and my aim is to inspire others to learn along with me as I confront my own ignorance. Each episode will end with an invitation for you to participate in the conversation.
We have been wanting to bring you voices from inside Gaza since the very start of the current atrocities, but for what are obvious reasons this has proven to be extremely difficult, especially after Israel cut all communication lines and mobile phone networks in Gaza, in the prelude to their ground invasion. However, a student from our Palestine Podcast Academy, Shahd Safi, has managed to send me a series of daily audio diary entries detailing her experiences and her feelings in recent days. Shahd is from al Nuseirat Refugee camp in Central Gaza, a camp that has been subjected to repeated bombardments by Israel over the past few weeks. A Palestinian friend of mine, who invited me to his home in Nuseirat camp during my stay in Gaza, has lost nine family members to the airstrikes on the refugee camp in recent weeks. Shahd joins us from Rafah, in the South of Gaza, where she moved two years ago. However, the situation in Rafah is far from safe.
Please visit the post for this episode at LatitudeAdjustmentPod.com for links to Shahd's recent articles documenting her experiences, links to organizations (whom we personally recommend) who working to provide relief to Palestinians, and to supplemental resources for continuing your education on this subject and to aid you in your efforts to educate your communities. You can support Latitude Adjustment Podcast by signing up to make a monthly donation to our Patreon page.
Why don’t we see more African researchers presenting at global Public Health conferences and in US and European research journals? Who determines which public health issues are prioritized in Africa? What is Public Health and “Vaccine Apartheid”? What do these insights reveal about the current state of our Public Health discourse on the global scale?
It’s impossible to isolate the conversation around public health in the Global South from the topic of colonialism and anti-Blackness more generally. What’s more, while Africa and Africans continue to be presented with unique challenges and forms of discrimination, it would be a tragic oversight to assume that the factors contributing to global health disparities are limited to the African context. Insights that are applicable to Africa, are not only applicable to the Global South, and to minority populations in the Global North more generally, but these insights frequently map out the grounds and the various avenues for solidarity amongst similarly impacted populations and all people looking to dismantle oppressive structures.
Dr. Catherine Kyobutungi is the Executive Director of the African Population and Health Research Center (APHRC).
She holds a Ph.D. in Epidemiology and a Master of Science in Community Health and Health Management from the University of Heidelberg. Prior to her graduate studies, Catherine studied medicine at Makerere University, Kampala, after which she worked as a medical officer in Western Uganda for three years.
In 2018, Catherine was elected as a Fellow of the African Academy of Sciences and in 2019, she was selected as a Joep Lange Chair at the University of Amsterdam; a position in which she investigates chronic disease management in African countries. She is the co-director of the Consortium for Advanced Research Training in Africa (CARTA), a program that seeks to build and strengthen the capacity of African research leaders and has trained more than 230 PhD fellows in eight African universities.
Support independent and in-depth coverage of the underreported issues that shape our world, by supporting Latitude Adjustment Podcast on Patreon today!
While the global arms industry may only account for about one percent of global trade, it’s important to note what that one percent actually buys. Beyond the price tags on the weapons themselves, arms and arms sales have a tremendous impact on all other aspects of global trade, and on relations between trade partners and competitors.
This week's episode is a collaboration between journalist Paul Cochrane and Latitude Adjustment Podcast.
Our guest, Andrew Feinstein, is the author of the best-selling book, "The Shadow World: Inside the Global Arms Trade", published in 2011. In his review Noam Chomsky writes, "This shocking expose unveils a shadow world of corruption, greed, slaughter, and other horrors, tawdry and gruesome in its criminality. It must be brought to a quick and final end".
Shadow World was turned into an award winning documentary film, premiering at the Tribeca Film Festival in 2016.
Andrew currently resides in the UK with his wife and children, and much of his current work is focused on Shadow World Investigations, an investigative news website focused on global corruption, often involving, but not limited to, the global arms trade.
Support Latitude Adjustment Podcast's coverage of underreportedhuman rights issues around the world by signing up for a monthly donation through our Patreon account, today!
In 1975 Spain formally ended its colonization of "Spanish Sahara", but instead of ceding control to the indigenous Sahrawi population Spain instead handed the keys to its former colony to the Moroccan regime. For nearly 50 years the Sahrawi people of illegally occupied Western Sahara have been subjected to a brutal regime of settler colonialism, ethnic cleansing, resource-theft, and the violent suppression of all dissent including the systematic use of rape and torture by the Moroccan authorities.
Meanwhile, more than 170,000 Sahrawi refugees have been left to languish in refugee camps in the harsh desert of Western Algeria, separated from Western Sahara by the second longest wall in the world, with 75% of their food aid having been cut in the past year by the World Food Program. All of this while the world largely turns away, content to purchase cheap phosphates and fish that have been pillaged from Sahrawi territory by Morocco. Using its veto in the UN, France has rendered MINURSO effectively useless, making it the only UN peacekeeping force in the world without a mandate to report on human rights. More recently the US, Spain, and Israel have chosen to break with decades of international consensus and to legitimize Morocco's illegal occupation.
For a quick speed-history lesson of the Sahrawi struggle, be sure to listen to the short podcast that immediately precedes this episode: "Africa's Last Colony".
Swedish activists Sanna Ghotbi and Benjamin Ladraa combine to make Solidarity Rising. Having left Sweden on their bicycles on May 15th, 2022, Solidarity Rising is their initiative to cycle around the world while educating the public about the oppression of the Sahrawi people and to mobilize Morocco's allies to change their policies.
Support our independent reporting on the world's underrported human rights issues by signing up for a monthly contribution to Latitude Adjustment Podcast on our Patreon page!
Where is Western Sahara? What is Western Sahara? Is it a country? Who lives there? If you find yourself unable to answer any of these questions, or if you want a resource that will help you to quickly explain the history and the current political realities around Africa's last colony to your friends and to your community, this short episode was created for you.
Latitude Adjustment Podcast is also working on plans to complete a multimedia documentary series, working on the ground with Sahrawi refugees in Western Algeria, and in collaboration two former guests of the show. You can find more information on that developing project on our website, at LastAfricanColony.com
What we are seeing now in the US, with the rollback of so many progressive victories, and with the passage of bigoted legislation towards sexual minorities, is in many ways the final stage of a decades-long strategy by violent strains of American Christian Evangelism. That strategy has seen Africa used as a testing ground in an ideological war against sexual minorities. And that war has returned home with a vengeance; newly emboldened, with more support, and with a more focused strategic vision.
Reverend Doctor Kapya Kaoma is an Anglican priest from Zambia, a human rights activist, and one of the central figures in the documentary film, “God Loves Uganda”.
Kapya is also a researcher, and the author of several books, including “American Culture Warriors in Africa”, “Christianity, Globalization, and Protective Homophobia.” He has testified before the US Congress, US State Department, and the United Nations. Though he has also focused on Environmental Ethics, much of his research and advocacy work focuses on the targeting of the LGBTQIA community in Africa and the Christian Evangelical and Catholic roots of this persecution.
See below for links to organizations in Africa that are in need of your support for their work on the front lines.
Free Block 13 (Kenya)
SMUG (Sexual Minorities Uganda)
Transbantu Association (Zambia)
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Omar Alshogre is currently 28 years old. He was first arrested at 15 for attending a protest against the Al Assad regime, and was arrested a total of 11 times between 2011 and 2013. His last arrest, in 2012, along with the arrests of two of his cousins, led to his incarceration in the Branch 215 military intelligence detention center for 21 months, where he experienced torture on a daily basis. In 2014 he was transferred to Sednaya prison, where he experienced even more brutal forms of torture, and where prisoners were subjected to summary execution for talking without permission. During his period of incarceration, Omar was also forced to remove the bodies of prisoners and to mark their foreheads for identification.
Many of the systematic abuses of Syria’s Al Assad regime have been visually documented in the 2014 Syria Detainee Report, or the Caesar Report. Caesar is the alias for a photographer with the Syrian Military police who worked in secret with a Syrian opposition group to leak graphic images of the torture, starvation, and murder of prisoners at the hands of the al Assad regime. The report documents "the systematic killing of more than 11,000 detainees by the Syrian government in one region during the Syrian Civil War over a two and half year period from March 2011 to August 2013". Human Rights Watch spent six months investigating the authenticity of the photographic evidence and concluded that it was genuine. Signed into law by President Trump in 2019, the Caesar Act, or Caesar Syria Civilian Protection Act, is a set of sanctions against the Al Assad regime for war crimes against the Syrian civilian population.
After suspending Syria from the Arab League for 12 years, last month the Arab League voted unanimously to readmit Syria’s Al Assad regime.
Omar Alshogre is a public speaker and human rights advocate, who endured three years of unjust imprisonment and torture in Syria before being smuggled out and brought to safety. Currently, he serves as the Director of Detainees Affairs for the Syrian Emergency Task Force and the spokesperson for Atrocities Tracker, dedicating himself to the critical cause of advocating for the release of those unjustly detained. Omar has spoken before the US Senate's Foreign Relations Committee, and presented his insights at several world-renowned universities, organizations, and news outlets including Harvard, Georgetown, CNN, and Aljazeera.
Episode 27: Assil Alnaser - Protestor. Prisoner. Student. Syrian Woman
Episode 65: Nour Qurmosh - On the Ground in Idlib, Syria
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On April 15th war broke out in Sudan. The fighting between the Rapid Support Forces paramilitary group and the Sudanese army has devastated Khartoum, spread across the country, and an estimated 1,800 people have lost their lives, with hundreds of thousands displaced. Dalia AbdelMoniem joins us from the UK, where she has been living since fleeing the war in April, after a missile struck her home. Dalia is a former journalist who moved back to Sudan in 2013 after living in Egypt for more than two decades.
For more information about how you can help the people of Sudan you can follow the following organizations and individuals:
Nazim Sirag, for Sudan advocacy updates and information about how to help.
HomeTax Sudan (for donations)
Jia | Juwayria
Sudanese American Medical Association
Hadhreen | حاضرين
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This is the second of a two-part series about Basir Bita’s escape from Afghanistan after the US withdrawal in August, 2021. In this second half of his story, Basir shares his experiences getting from Pakistan to Canada, the challenges of adjusting to a new culture, the double-standards in Western moralizing, and navigating the prejudices and stereotypes that refugees often face. Be sure to listen to part one, about the fall of Kabul and about his family’s escape from Afghanistan after the US withdrawal in August of 2021.
Also be sure to listen to our interview with Afghan photographer and interpreter Abdul Saboor, who escaped overland to France.
And our field reports and interviews with refugees in Greece.
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On August 30th 2021, the US and its coalition partners ended their nearly twenty-year occupation of Afghanistan. Two weeks before they left, the Taliban swept across the country taking major urban centers, including Kabul. As embassies were abandoned, and as Afghans government officials fled the country, those Afghan citizens who had worked with the occupying forces faced the very real prospect of execution by the Taliban as collaborators. Yet, just Afghan interpreters had been abandoned in years past, many were left behind when the last US flight left the country. Now they, and the millions of Afghans who never had any hope of being evacuated to begin with, were left to scramble for their survival. Basir Bita last appeared on Latitude Adjustment Podcast just two weeks before the Taliban takeover of Kabul, and a month before US and international forces left the country. Though he and his family had been issued a visa for his work with the Canadian government, they were left behind. This episode is the first of a two-part series in which Basir recounts what happened next.
This is the first of a two-part episode. Also, be sure to listen to our last episode with Basir, before the fall of Kabul.Our interview with Afghan photographer and interpreter Abdul Saboor, who escaped over land to France. And our field reports and interviews with refugees in Greece. Support Latitude Adjustment Podcast on Patreon!
On September 13th of last year 22-year-old Mahsa Amini was visiting Tehran with her family, having traveled from Irans’ Kurdish region. While in Tehran she was stopped by Iran’s morality police for improperly wearing her hijab, or head covering. Three days after her arrest she was dead. In the days, weeks, and months following her death Iran has seen nationwide protests, and while protests are not a particularly new thing in Iran, what’s unprecedented about these protests are the calls not simply for reforms but for the toppling of Iran’s theocratic regime, a regime that has been in power since the Iranian Revolution of 1979. Today’s episode provides an update on the protests.
Last month also saw another seismic event in Iranian, and Middle East politics. After decades of saber rattling, proxy wars, and general hostility, China helped to negotiate the reestablishment of diplomatic ties between The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the Islamic Republic of Iran. What this means for the two regional super powers, for those within their spheres of influence, and for geopolitics will be the focus of the second half of our show.
Dr. Assal Rad received her PhD in Middle Eastern History from the University of California, Irvine in 2018. Her PhD research focused on Modern Iran, with an emphasis on national identity formation, and identity in post-revolutionary Iran. She’s also author of “The State of Resistance: Politics, Culture, and Identity in Modern Iran.
Dr. Pouya Alimagham is a professor of Middle East History at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. His areas of expertise range from revolutionary movements, Political Islam and post-Islamism, terrorism, US foreign policy, and contemporary politics. He’s also author of, “Contesting the Iranian Revolution: The Green Uprisings.”
While there have been different strains of Christian Zionism dating back to the Sixteenth Century, the most politicized, powerful, and violent iteration of the movement has its roots in the contemporary Christian Evangelical Church.
Modern Christian Zionists hold that the ethnic cleansing of roughly 750,000 Palestinians from their homes in historic Palestine in 1948, by Jewish Zionists, was the fulfillment of a Biblical prophecy in which the so-called Holy Land must be resettled by the Jewish people in order to usher in the return of Jesus Christ as the messiah. Modern Christian Zionism is distinct from the modern form of political Zionism that arose amongst the European Jewish community in the late 19th Century.
Don Wagner is a Christian theologian, a former minister, and author. He received a Master of Divinity from Princeton Theological Seminary and a Doctor of Ministry degree from McCormick Theological Seminary. He is also author of, "Glory to God in the Lowest: Journeys to an Unholy Land".
This interview was recorded on January 24th, 2023
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The US military industrial complex describes the relationship between the US armed forces, weapons and military systems corporations and, though they are often omitted from the phrasing, the Legislative and Executive branches of the US government.
This episode is dedicated to examining the interests at play in maintaining the US military budget as an unquestionable and sacred burden on the US taxpayer and its impact on democracy, even when our national infrastructure is in tatters, education and medical costs are exploding, the gap between rich and poor is ever-widening, wages have stagnated, and a pandemic has ravaged our economy and our lives.
The Friends Committee on National Legislation is the Quaker's Peace Lobby. Allen Hester leads the FCNL's Nuclear Disarmament and Pentagon Spending portfolio. This means that he develops legislative strategies and lobbies Congress for reductions in Pentagon spending, strengthened arms control regimes, and the eventual elimination of nuclear weapons.
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For this episode we cover a wide range of issues related to Palestinian human rights and political autonomy, including the recent Israeli elections, the current state of Palestinian resistance, parallels and distinctions between Apartheid in South Africa and Palestine, and the aims of the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement in Palestine.
Dr. Haidar Eid is Associate Professor of Postcolonial and Postmodern Literature at Gaza's al-Aqsa University in Palestine, and completed his PhD in South Africa. In addition to being an author and a regular contributor to Al Jazeera, he is also on the advisory board of The Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel. He’s also an amateur singer; having released one album, Tyrants’ Fear of Songs, while currently working on his second collection.
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It's episode 100 of Latitude Adjustment Podcast, and what better way to celebrate the occasion than to bring back our guest from Episode 1? We catch up with Andrius Mažeika in Lithuania, and in the spirit of our very first episode we cover a wide range of topics, from the war in Ukraine to being a Leftist in a post-Soviet context, to lessons learned from photography, and addressing mental health while traveling. Thank you to everyone who has supported the show these past 4 years, and for those who've yet to do so, please follow the links below!
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On September 13th, 22-year-old Mahsa Amini was visiting Tehran with her family, having traveled from Irans’ Kurdish region. While in Tehran she was stopped by Iran’s morality police for improperly wearing her hijab, or head covering. Three days after her arrest she was dead. In the days and weeks following her death Iran has seen nationwide protests, and while protests are not a particularly new thing in Iran, what’s unprecedented about these protests are the calls not simply for reforms but for the toppling of Iran’s theocratic regime, a regime that has been in power since the Iranian Revolution of 1979.
Assal Rad is a historian and research director at the National Iranian American Council. She’s also author of “The State of Resistance: Politics, Culture, and Identity in Modern Iran".
Pouya Alimagham is a professor of History at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and author of, “Contesting the Iranian Revolution: The Green Uprisings.”
Support Latitude Adjustment on Patreon
Support our Palestine Podcast Academy
Yaari Toolie-Walker is a member of the Alaska-Native Yupik community, an activist, an educator, and a healer. Yaari is also a returning guest, and we highly encourage you to listen to our first conversation with her about the Yupik community, in episode 16 of Latitude Adjustment.
The topic of today’s conversation is shamanism, or spiritually-guided healing practices. It might surprise you to learn who is able to be a shaman, its relationship to conventional/Western, healing practices, and how the practice is thriving.
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Russia’s relationship with the African continent dates back to the Soviet era and Cold War proxy battles between Russia and the US. These days the Russian presence in Africa might be lighter, but it’s also growing and the dynamics are changing. From the deployment of Russian mercenaries like the Wagner Group, to the politics of soft power and investment, we focus on Russia’s past and present relationship with Africa, the likely impacts of the war in Ukraine on food security in Africa, as well as an examination of the ways in which African countries have been attempting to assert and maintain their sovereignty in the context of this most recent iteration of great power politics.
Our Guest is Gustavo de Carvalho, a senior researcher at the South African Institute of International Affairs, specializing in Russia-Africa relations. He joins us from Pretoria, South Africa.
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Russia’s relationship with the African continent dates back to the Soviet era and Cold War proxy battles between Russia and the US. These days the Russian presence in Africa might be lighter, but it’s also growing and the dynamics are changing. From the deployment of Russian mercenaries like the Wagner Group, to the politics of soft power and investment, we focus on Russia’s past and present relationship with Africa, the likely impacts of the war in Ukraine on food security in Africa, as well as an examination of the ways in which African countries have been attempting to assert and maintain their sovereignty in the context of this most recent iteration of great power politics.
Our Guest is Gustavo de Carvalho, a senior researcher at the South African Institute of International Affairs, specializing in Russia-Africa relations. He joins us from Pretoria, South Africa.
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The recent Israeli assault on Gaza lasted three days, from August 5 through August 7th. Before a ceasefire was concluded on the 7th of August, 49 Palestinians lay dead, including 17 children, with more than 360 injured. Israeli occupation raids in the West Bank, in particular in Jenin, coincided with the attacks.
And now, in all too predictable pattern, we see that the Western media has once again failed to ask difficult questions in the aftermath of the attacks, and instead resuming its deafening silence on the questions of the Israeli occupation and on the 15-year siege on Gaza.
For this episode we speak with two young people in Gaza to gather their first-person perspectives. We deliberately chose to wait until several days after the attacks before releasing this episode, in order to highlight the role that the press plays in forgetting the ongoing violence towards Palestinians in Gaza.
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Rosine Hounakey is from Togo but she was trafficked to the US at 13 years old. Forced to work for free on both coasts of the US, she was later coerced into an abusive marriage until she was freed with her two young sons as the result of an ICE raid when she was just 17 years old.
She then had to go through foster care in various American cities, waking up at 5am every day to take her kids to school before completing high school herself, after years with no formal education, having taught herself English along the way.
We also discuss the entrepreneurial spirit of Togolese women, annoying stereotypes about Africa and Africans, tension and solidarity with the African American community, and moving forward with life in the US after a deeply traumatic start.
Be sure to check the links below for critical facts on Human Trafficking, as well as organizations that can provide immediate assistance.
This episode was originally published on December 15th, 2018.
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Santa Muerte (or “Saint Death”) is far more than a popular saint, she’s a framework for understanding Mexican history, Mexican politics (in particular the legacies of corruption, and the marginalization of women, the poor, the incarcerated, and those living on the fringes of “legitimate” society), and finally Santa Muerte is an entry point for examining the ongoing power and influence of Catholicism in Mexico, and its relationship to the Mexican state and to indigenous communities.
We speak with Luisa Grijalva, PhD, professor of Political Philosophy in the Department of International Relations at the Universidad Popular Autónoma del Estado de Puebla, México.
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This is a re-broadcast of an episode first published November 25th, 2020.
This episode is the second of a two-part conversation with Tity Agbahey. Tity is an attorney based in Senegal, her current work focuses on central Africa, though her previous work has focused elsewhere on the continent, and her life and travels have taken her to points beyond.
This pair of episodes should appeal to two types of listeners, those who know what it feels like to be the only one who looks like you in your university class, in your staff meetings, or on a discussion panel at a conference, and those who don’t but who want to understand.
This is also a conversation about colonialism, paternalism, and racism in one of the last places you should expect to find it, in the international aid and development sector. It’s also a conversation about the world’s general ambivalence towards African suffering, the benefits and limitations of African to African-American solidarity, privilege within an African cultural context, racism in France, internalized colonialism, an African perspective on racism in the US, and everything else we could think to get off of our chests during a very open conversation.
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This is a re-broadcast of a two-part series first published November 25th, 2020.
This episode is the first of a two-part conversation with Tity Agbahey. Tity is an attorney based in Senegal, her current work focuses on central Africa, though her previous work has focused elsewhere on the continent, and her life and travels have taken her to points beyond.
This pair of episodes should appeal to two types of listeners, those who know what it feels like to be the only one who looks like you in your university class, in your staff meetings, or on a discussion panel at a conference, and those who don’t but who want to understand.
This is also a conversation about colonialism, paternalism, and racism in one of the last places you should expect to find it, in the international aid and development sector. It’s also a conversation about the world’s general ambivalence towards African suffering, the benefits and limitations of African to African-American solidarity, privilege within an African cultural context, racism in France, internalized colonialism, an African perspective on racism in the US, and everything else we could think to get off of our chests during a very open conversation.
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The global arms industry may only account for about one percent of global trade, but it’s important to note what that one percent is buying and the role that arms sales play in influencing other aspects of global trade and political relations. We speak with Frank Slijper in Groningen, The Netherlands, where Frank leads a project on the global arms trade for Pax, a global peace research and advocacy organization.
Here are Frank’s Pax reports on the arms trade in Turkey and the UAE.
This episode was originally published on June 27th, 2020
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En el primer episodio de Latitude Adjustment Podcast Academy escucharás a cinco hombres afganos hablar sobre algunas de las luchas a las que se enfrentan al vivir encerrados en el nuevo campo de personas refugiadas "Moria 2.0". La primera mitad del episodio está en español y la segunda mitad en su lengua materna: en farsi/dari.
Este podcast ha sido traducido y grabado por Erei Elkartasunerako Elkartea, gracias a la financiación de la Diputación Foral de Gipuzkoa y con el apoyo de Oñati Irratia.
Voces: Egoitz Atxaga Zubizarreta, Jon Garate Ondarre, Xabier Gesalaga Uriarte, Igor Tome Korkostegi, Aitor Abaroa Sesma.
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Latitude Adjustment Podcast Academyren lehen podcast-atalean, "Moria 2.0" pertsona errefuxiatuen kanpamentu berrian giltzapetuta bizi diren bost gizon afganiarrek aurre egin behar dieten borroka batzuei buruz hitz egiten entzungo duzu. Atalaren lehen erdia euskaraz dago eta bigarren erdia beraien ama-hizkuntzan: farsi/dari hizkuntzan.
Podcast hau Erei Elkartasunerako Elkarteak itzuli eta grabatu du, Gipuzkoako Foru Aldundiaren dirulaguntzari esker eta Oñati Irratiaren babesarekin.
Ahotsak: Egoitz Atxaga Zubizarreta, Jon Garate Ondarre, Xabier Gesalaga Uriarte, Igor Tome Korkostegi, Aitor Abaroa Sesma.
Mesedez, lagundu Latitude Adjustment Podcast-a Patreon-en!
Adrien Lawyer is the founder and director of the Transgender Resource Center of New Mexico, an organization that “provides support, community, and connection to transgender, gender nonconforming, nonbinary, and gender variant people and their families through advocacy, education, and direct services.”
For this conversation I wanted to avoid the trap of asking easy questions and settling for easy answers, and instead just let my confusion and my preconceptions hang out there to see what came back at me. I learned a lot.
Whether you identify as transgender, or as someone who is questioning, or as an ally, or as someone who is confused, skeptical, or ambivalent on the subject of transgender identity and rights, I think you’re going to get something out of this exchange.
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Kenyon Zimmer is an associate professor of History at the University of Texas at Arlington. Dr. Zimmer specializes in transatlantic migration, political radicalism, and labor history in the Gilded Age and Progressive Era. His research centers on the connections between migration, race and ethnicity, and radical social movements.
For today’s show we’ll be focusing on the history of Anarchism as a political philosophy, how Anarchism has manifested itself as a political movement in US history, and we’ll spend a good deal of time breaking down what Anarchism is, what it is not, and how its principles can be implemented, both by individuals and by groups.
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Kikirentzat, "Alfa kapitaina" ezizenez ezaguna, ez zen berria pertsona errefuxiatu gisa bizitzea 2019ko urrian Moriako kanpamendura iritsi zenean. Ordurako bere bidaia luzeak Burundiko etxetik ihes egin, eta Ruandako pertsona errefuxiatuen kanpamendu batean urte batzuk pasatzera eraman zion. Duela urtebete Instagram-eko @the_humans_of_moria kontua sortu zuen, Lesboseko asilo-eskatzaileei beren istorioak partekatzen eta beren baldintzak ezagutarazten laguntzeko. Baina orain, bere lehen podcast atalerako, Alfa kapitainari dagokio bere istorioa kontatzea.
Podcast hau Erei Elkartasunerako Elkarteak itzuli eta grabatu du, Gipuzkoako Foru Aldundiaren dirulaguntzari esker eta Oñati Irratiaren babesarekin.
Ahotsa: Jon Garate Ondarre.
Latitude Adjustment Podcast
Para Kiki, alias el "capitán Alfa", no era nueva la vida como persona refugiada cuando llegó al campamento de Moria en octubre de 2019. Para entonces su largo viaje le había llevado a escapar de su casa de Burundi y pasar unos años en un campo de personas refugiadas en Ruanda. Hace un año creó la cuenta de Instagram @the_humans_of_moria, para ayudar a las personas solicitantes de asilo de Lesbos a compartir sus historias y dar a conocer sus condiciones. Pero ahora, para su primer episodio del podcast, le toca al capitán Alfa contar su historia.
Este podcast ha sido traducido y grabado por Erei Elkartasunerako Elkartea, gracias a la financiación de la Diputación Foral de Gipuzkoa y con el apoyo de Oñati Irratia.
Voz: Aitor Abaroa Sesma.
Latitude Adjustment Podcast
Latitude Adjustment Podcast Academy-ren hirugarren atal honetan, Afganistango lau emakume gaztek beren itxaropen eta beldur handienak partekatzen dizkigute Lesbosera eta Europar Batasuneko mugetara iritsi zirenetik.
Latitude Adjustment Podcast eta EREIren arteko elkarlan honek lau atal euskaraz eta lau gaztelaniaz eskainiko ditu.
Podcast hau Erei Elkartasunerako Elkarteak itzuli eta grabatu du, Gipuzkoako Foru Aldundiaren dirulaguntzari esker eta Oñati Irratiaren babesarekin.
Ahotsak: Miren Urkiola Serrano, Arantzazu Zubeldia Plazaola, Miren Zubeldia Plazaola, Maite Anton Leno.
En este tercer episodio de Latitude Adjustment Podcast Academy cuatro mujeres jóvenes afganas comparten sus mayores esperanzas y miedos desde que llegaron a Lesbos y a las fronteras de la Unión Europea.
Esta colaboración entre Latitude Adjustment Podcast y EREI contará con cuatro episodios en euskera y cuatro episodios en castellano.
Este podcast ha sido traducido y grabado por Erei Elkartasunerako Elkartea, gracias a la financiación de la Diputación Foral de Gipuzkoa y con el apoyo de Oñati Irratia.
Voces: Miren Zubeldia Plazaola, Arantzazu Zubeldia Plazaola, Manttoni Plazaola Anduaga, Maite Anton Leno.
This marks the second episode of a two-part series on the war in Ukraine. For this episode we speak with Jana Kalaaji, a Syrian national who fled the war in her country to study medicine in Ukraine, only to become a double-refugee, after the outbreak of the war in her new home.
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This marks the first episode of a two-part series on the war in Ukraine. The first will focus on the work of investigative journalism being done by LightHouse Reports, a nonprofit organization based in The Netherlands. And we’ll be speaking with investigative journalist Halima Salat Barre about the experiences of non-Ukrainian refugees fleeing Ukraine. The second part of this series will focus on the experiences of Jana Kalaaji, a Syrian national who fled the war in her country to study medicine in Ukraine, only to become a double refugee, after the outbreak of the war there.
It is not our intention, nor is it within our means, to provide a full panoramic view of the entire conflict, all of its parties, nor all of their grievances or the events that inform them. But you will hear some perspectives about this war that you are not hearing about much in the coverage of this war from traditional media from either side, and we have done our best to clearly lay out the facts as well as the limits of our knowledge.
Also please be sure to support our Palestine Podcast Academy!
And our regular programming on Patreon!
Latitude Adjustment Podcast Academy-ren bigarren atal honetan, emakume gazte afganiar batek hitz perfektua aurkitu nahi du asilo bila Lesbosera egindako bidaiaren funtsa ulertu eta bere etorkizunerako dituen nahiak partekatzeko.
Latitude Adjustment Podcast eta EREIren arteko elkarlan honek lau atal euskaraz eta lau gaztelaniaz eskainiko ditu.
Podcast hau Erei Elkartasunerako Elkarteak itzuli eta grabatu du, Gipuzkoako Foru Aldundiaren dirulaguntzari esker eta Oñati Irratiaren babesarekin.
Ahotsa: Sara Arregi Zubizarreta.
En este segundo episodio de Latitude Adjustment Podcast Academy, una joven afgana intenta encontrar la palabra perfecta para captar la esencia de su viaje a Lesbos en busca de asilo y sus aspiraciones para el futuro.
Esta colaboración entre Latitude Adjustment Podcast y EREI contará con cuatro episodios en euskera y cuatro episodios en castellano.
Este podcast ha sido traducido y grabado por Erei Elkartasunerako Elkartea, gracias a la financiación de la Diputación Foral de Gipuzkoa y con el apoyo de Oñati Irratia.
Voz: Arantzazu Zubeldia Plazaola.
Over the course of the next couple of months we’ve got two exciting projects going on, in addition to our regular programming.
First we have launched our campaign for the Palestine Podcast Academy after successfully piloting 3 academies already. This is your chance to support journalism training, employment, female-leadership, and 100% independent, uncensored, and unfiltered media from Palestinians in Palestine!
Here's the link to our LaunchGood Campaign for the Palestine Podcast Academy. And we're offering some awesome perks for your contributions!
Second, as part of our collaboration with EREI, a nonprofit organization in the Basque Country of northern Spain, we will be re-releasing episodes from our very first Podcast Academy on the Greek Island of Lesvos from early 2021, but these episodes have been translated by EREI into Spanish and Euskara (the Basque language). You can find our original English-language episodes in our back catalogue from early 2021 and on our website.
Gino Ambroise is an LGBT and HIV-rights activist in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. However this episode covers a wide variety of topics, from Haiti’s post-colonial history, ongoing exploitation by various outside interests, disasters (both natural and man-made), and the causes behind the stigmatization of the LGBT and HIV communities and how these causes are linked to a new form of colonialism.
Follow Gino’s “Podcast Akansyèl“ to learn more about his advocacy work, and contact his organization, Eritaj at: eritaj200ans@yahoo.com
You can support Latitude Adjustment Podcast on Patreon.
In the summer of 2021, after Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko enticed migrants and asylum seekers to come to Belarus and use it as a staging area for entering the European Union, the numbers of people trying to cross into the EU through the Baltic states and through Poland began to increase from the hundreds into the low thousands. And since that time draconian security measures, pushbacks, and the level of desperation of those caught between borders has increased along with the drop in temperature, leaving many freezing, starving, and stuck; pushed back and forth in a heavily forested “no man’s land” on the borders of the EU.
We speak with Sonia Nandzik-Herman and Douglas Herman, co-founders of ReFocus Media Labs, a Polish NGO that has operated on the Greek island of Lesvos for years. But after spending many months in Poland they’ll also be giving us an update on sitions there and and update on the current situation on Lesvos and on the Greek mainland, where many of the same policies are in place. We’ll also be learning where and how policies and tactics differ.
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For our eighth episode of the Palestine Podcast academy, Ahlam Mashal, from Jerusalem, and Omar Salah, from Gaza, discuss the impacts that the coronavirus has had on the education system in different parts of Palestine, and as parents and students. The Palestine Podcast Academy is an initiative of Latitude Adjustment Podcast. Be sure to check the post for this episode for action items, social media details, and for more information about the academy and our other episodes, at LatitudeAjustmentPod.com
You can support Latitude Adjustment Podcast and our programming through our Patreon page.
For the seventh episode of the Palestine Podcast Academy, Aseel Ghaben, from Al Bureij Refugee Camp in Gaza, Rand Tahboob, from Jerusalem, and Amany Abu Awad, from Bethlehem, discuss the seen and unseen impacts that the Israeli occupation has had on their professional lives. The Palestine Podcast Academy is an initiative of Latitude Adjustment Podcast. Be sure to check the post for this episode for action items, social media details, and for more information about the academy and our other episodes, at LatitudeAjustmentPod.com
You can support Latitude Adjustment Podcast and our programming through our Patreon page.
In our sixth episode of the Palestine Podcast Academy, Carmel Sharif, from Jerusalem, Baraa’ah Qandeel, from Gaza, and Violette Rafidi, from Ramallah in the West Bank, discuss the various ways in which the Israeli occupation, and its restrictions on their freedom of movement, has impacted their lives, their work, and their communities. The Palestine Podcast Academy is an initiative of Latitude Adjustment Podcast. Be sure to check the post for this episode for action items, social media details, and for more information about the academy, and our other episodes, at LatitudeAjustmentPod.com
You can support Latitude Adjustment Podcast and our programming through our Patreon page.
In our fifth episode of the Palestine Podcast Academy, Shahd Safi from Rafah in the Gaza Strip, Rana Qutteineh from Jerusalem, and Dalal Radwan from Qalqilia in the WB discuss the various ways in which unemployment, and limited employment options, have impacted their lives and the lives of people in their communities. The Palestine Podcast Academy is an initiative of Latitude Adjustment Podcast. Be sure to check the post for this episode for action items, social media details, and for more information about the academy and our other episodes at LatitudeAjustmentPod.com
You can support Latitude Adjustment Podcast and our programming through our Patreon page.
In our fourth episode of the Palestine Podcast Academy, Muna Abu Diab from Silwan, Jerusalem, and Najah Musallam, from Ramallah, reflect on their experiences growing up under the Israeli occupation in different parts of Palestine, and on how these experiences shaped their views and their paths as adults. The Palestine Podcast Academy is an initiative of Latitude Adjustment Podcast. Be sure to check the post for this episode for action items, social media detials, and for more information about the academy and our other episodes at LatitudeAjustmentPod.com
You can support Latitude Adjustment Podcast and our programming through our Patreon page.
In our third episode from the Palestine Podcast Academy, graduates Riwaa Abuquta, from Gaza, and Addei Hijazi, from Jerusalem, provide some rarely reported and very personal perspectives concerning the economic impacts of the Israeli occupation in both parts of Palestine. The Palestine Podcast Academy is an initiative of Latitude Adjustment Podcast. Be sure to check the post for this episode for action items, social media detials, and for more information about the academy and our other episodes at LatitudeAjustmentPod.com
You can support Latitude Adjustment Podcast and our programming on our Patreon page.
In our second episode from the Palestine Podcast Academy, graduates Juwana Elias, from Ramallah, and Dalia Shurrab, from Gaza, talk about their family histories and about their personal journeys living in Palestine and abroad. The Palestine Podcast Academy is an initiative of Latitude Adjustment Podcast. Be sure to check the post for this episode for action items, social media detials, and for more information about the academy and our other episodes at LatitudeAjustmentPod.com
You can support Latitude Adjustment Podcast and our programming on our Patreon page.
In our first episode for the Palestine Podcast Academy, Narmeen Hussein from Jerusalem, Amany Abu Awad from Bethlehem, and Haneen Abdalnabi from a Gaza offer their perspective on how their basic right to move freely in their own land has been impacted by the occupation.
The Palestine Podcast Academy is an initiative of Latitude Adjustment Podcast. Be sure to check the post for this episode for action items, social media detials, and for more information about the academy and our other episodes at LatitudeAjustmentPod.com
You can support Latitude Adjustment Podcast and our programming on our Patreon page.
After six months of hard work, setbacks and leaps forward, and after all manner of logistical challenges, our very first Palestine Podcast Academy is done! In fact our first two Palestine Podcast Academies are done… and we’re ready to share the results! The Palestine Podcast Academy is an initiative of Latitude Adjustment Podcast, and our Amsterdam-based nonprofit, Open Roads Media. The academy connected Palestinians in Gaza, east Jerusalem, and across the West Bank, for an intensive multi-week course in podcast production, and over the course of the next few weeks we'll be publishing their collaborative team projects. But this is only the beginning.
Support Latitude Adjustment Podcast, and all of our initiatives through our Patreon page.
This episode marks the second of a two-part series featuring interviews with Rabbis on the subjects of Antisemitism and anti-Zionism, and the problems that arise when the two topics are conflated, either through misunderstanding or to serve political interests.
Rabbi Brant Rosen founded the Tzedek congregation in Chicago. Like Rabbi Lynn, Rabbi Brant is also a member of Jewish Voice for Peace. You can find more information about his book “Wrestling in the Daylight”, and his other works and writings, on the post for this episode at LatitudeAdjustmentPod.com
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This episode marks the first of a two-part series featuring interviews with Rabbis on the subjects of Antisemitism and anti-Zionism, and the problems that arise when the two topics are conflated, either through misunderstanding or to serve political interests.
Rabbi Lynn Gottlieb has the distinction of being one of the first female rabbis in the world, and her outspoken positions on Palestinian human rights have often placed her at odds with the political positions of the Israeli government and with its supporters. We’ll hear about her experiences as leader in a religious community overwhelmingly dominated by men, her first encounters with Israel as a very young woman (including her argument with David Ben-Gurion as a teenager), and how her Jewish identity informs her advocacy for human rights. She’s also a pretty amazing artist.
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As the formal US occupation of Afghanistan comes to an ignominious close, human rights defender Basir Bita joins us again from Kabul. We discuss the recent offensive by the Taliban that has seen it taking large swathes of the country, the varied interests and involvement of the key international players in Afghanistan’s present and future, and perhaps most critically, the legacy of US abandonment of those Afghans who have put their lives on the line to aid its two decades of foreign occupation.
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The IWW, or Industrial Workers of the World, was founded in Chicago in 1905, in part as a response to the traditional craft based structure of organizations like the American Federation of Labor, which organized laborers into unions according to their respective trades. If you go to their website today you’ll note that the IWW still proudly promotes itself as “one big union”, that is one union for all workers, united by class struggle.
Dr. Peter Cole is a professor of history at Western Illinois University and a researcher specializing in the history of social movements. He’s also the author of several books, and was co-editor of Wobblies of the World: A Global History of the IWW.
This episode is the second part of a two part series. In part two we focus on the work of the Allamin Foundation, and of Hamsatu Allamin the organization’s founder. The Allamin Foundation works on the ground in Northeastern Nigeria with survivors of Boko Haram.
Episode one is focused on the origins of Boko Haram, its framing in the media, and some of the problems that have arisen in the national and international responses to the organization.
If you think that the world needs more of what you heard here, then please support our 100% independent podcast through our Patreon page.
Today’s show is the first of a two-part series on Boko Haram. For this episode we speak to Mercy Ette. Mercy is a Nigerian journalist and a visiting research fellow at the University of Leeds. Where she is working to establish a survivor group to tackle stigmatization and isolation among survivors of Boko Haram. Allamin Foundation, which is featured in the second part of this two part series, is one the local partners on this project. I should also note that Mercy’s partner on this project at Leeds is Nicolas Sutil, our guest from episode 78.
In part one we learn who and what Boko Haram is, the different ways they have been framed in the media, and about some of the problems that have become evident in the state-level and international responses to this organization.
If you think that the world needs more of what you heard here, then please support our 100% independent podcast through our Patreon page.
On May 8th, 85 people were killed in a bomb attack near a school in Kabul. Many of those killed were young women. The bomb was detonated in a part of Kabul that is home to the Hazara, an Afghan minority group that has been a frequent target of attacks, including a massacre in a maternity war last year that killed 24 people. The Hazara are a predominantly Shia-Muslim ethnic minority in Afghanistan, and a community that has suffered a long history of brutal persecution and oppression.
Previous guest, and nonviolence activist, Basir Bita joins us again from Kabul, Afghanistan, but this time we’ll be talking about his community, the Hazara, about the personal impact that the May 8th attack had on him and on his family, and about the looming withdrawal of remaining US forces, set for September 11 of this year. Be sure to check out our previous interview with Basir in Episode 39.
Latitude Adjustment Podcast is 100% listener supported. Please sign up today to make a monthly donation through our Patreon page.
For this second of two episodes about current events in Palestine we will be focusing specifically on the situation in East Jerusalem, and in the east Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah. East Jerusalem, which contains the old city, has been illegally occupied by Israel since the Israeli military captured it, along with the rest of the West Bank, Gaza, and the Golan Heights, in the “Six Day War” of 1967.
Since that time its Palestinian residents have been the targets of ongoing harassment, violence, and forced displacement by illegal Jewish settlers. The most recent instance of this ethnic cleansing campaign targeted residents of east Jerusalem's Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood. When Palestinians attempted to protest and resist a brutal crackdown was waged by the Israeli authorities, a crackdown that is now reverberating across the West Bank, inside Israel, and in the form of yet another horrific Israeli bombing campaign on Gaza.
We hope that what you hear in this show inspires you to share it and to take action. More details on how you can get involved can be found in the post for this episode at: LatitudeAdjustmentPod.com
This episode is the first of a two part series we are doing on Palestine. This episode focuses on voices from Gaza, while the next episode highlights voices from east Jerusalem. You don’t need to listen to them in any particular order, but we strongly recommend that you listen to both in their entirety.
You will hear a lot today about the psychological toll that repeated wars, devastation, poverty, deprivation, and abandonment by the international community have had on the 2 million residents of one of the most densely populated stretches of land on earth.
We hope that what you hear inspires you to share this show with others and to take action. You can find more info on how to get involved in the post for this episode at: LatitudeAdjustmentPod.com
For this episode we catch up with Indian journalist, and previous guest, Meena Menon to discuss the current status of press freedom in India, and in particular how the subject relates to reporting on the COVID pandemic. According to RSF (Reporters Without Borders) 2021 Global Press Freedom Index, India holds a rank of 142nd.
Be sure to catch part one of this two-part discussion (Episode 79) about the current COVID crisis in India, as well as our interview with Meena, in Episode 25, about reporting in India, and from Pakistan as an Indian correspondent.
Visit the post for this episode at LatitudeAdjustmentPod.com for more resources and for information on where you can donate and get involved with organizations working on the ground in India.
This episode is the first of a two-part discussion about the erupting COVID crisis in India. Be sure to catch episode 80 as well, which deals with the status of press freedom in India and how it relates to reporting on the pandemic.
Those following the world news headlines for the past few days will be aware that that Mumbai and its surrounding state of Maharashtra are at the epicenter of a massive spike in COVID cases, with India far and away leading the world, and with an infection rate that shows no signs of slowing down during its second wave.
Our guest is Amitabh Sinha, an editor with the Indian Express, based in Pune, about 150 kilometers from Mumbai.
Visit the post for this episode at LatitudeAdjustmentPod.com for more resources and for information on where you can donate and get involved with organizations working on the ground in India.
Perhaps one of the least represented perspectives we’ve covered on this show is that of the forests that feed and shelter us, provide our medicines, replenish our soil, sustain our wildlife, color our landscapes, and which address the most basic of all human needs, the need to breathe.
Originally from Chile, Nicolas Salazar Sutil currently resides in the UK where he’s a professor at the University of Leeds. Nicolas founded Forest Guardians in 2019 in response to wildfire emergencies happening around the world. With a focus in communication, education, and advocacy, Forrest Guardians designs and delivers online courses focused on ecological apprenticeships, indigenous forest schooling, and traditional ecological knowledge, and in partnership with Earth Law Centre they consult on the legal rights of forests. That’s right, the trees have rights too, and given that we wouldn’t be able to breathe without them, that’s a very good thing.
There’s also a time sensitive matter that we would like to bring to your attention. Nicolas’ organization is about to commence with “Guardians of the Forest”, an online course lead by practitioners from 30 different nations who will focus on traditional forest knowledge to understand the spiritual, ecological, cultural, and legal aspects of forest guardianship. The deadline is Monday, May 3rd, 2021. Look here for more information about the Guardians of the Forest course, and about Nicolas’ other work with Forest Guardians.
For this bonus episode I’m going to be doing something I’ve rarely done on this show, I’m not going to interview anyone. This is me speaking with no notes or preparation, just off the cuff and from the heart about some issues that have weighed heavily on me for a long time, issues that I think a lot of people in my line of work are afraid to talk about, especially in the US. It deals with why we rarely see Western media and Western nonprofits representing the perspectives of Palestinian youth with any depth or nuance.
I first recorded the following remarks as a video on my phone. If you want to watch the video version you can do so by visiting the original Facebook post. This audio version has been lightly edited for pacing and clarity.
For this re-released episode we've included our original interview, completed in late 2018, and we catch up with Bruno for a detailed update about his current work with No Name Kitchen. If you want to skip to the new interview from April 2021 it starts at: 43:43
Bruno Morán is from Asturias, Spain, and is a co-founder of No Name Kitchen, an NGO that provides food, sleeping bags, basic necessities, and a community space for refugees in transit along the Serbian and Bosnian borders with Croatia.
In addition to providing basic services, No Name Kitchen has also become a primary point of contact for those who have been pushed back from the Croatian border, and as a result the organization has found itself involved in documenting and sharing the growing number of reported abuses by the Croatian border police against those who are seeking to cross into the EU, people who have no legal means of registering themselves in bordering countries.
In this episode we cover what is happening on the ground, the practical challenges of running a small front line organization, and some advice on how you can get involved in global events in your community.
Less than a week after the January 6th attack on the US Capital building attorneys Diala Shamas and Tarek Ismail co-authored a piece for the Washington Post titled, "Calling the Capital riot 'terrorism' will only hurt communities of color."
Our conversation explores some of the less publicized consequences of anti-terrorism legislation and law enforcement priorities going back decades, to the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995.
Diala Shamas is an attorney with the Center for Constitutional Rights in New York and Tarek Ismail is an associate professor at the CUNY School of Law.
We speak with Dr. Amanda Rogers about infiltration of the U.S. military and law enforcement by white supremacist and white nationalist groups, and provide a brief history and contemporary overview of white supremacist movements in the U.S.
Be sure to check out Dr. Rogers’ recent article, “Dismantling White Supremacist Infiltration of the Military and Law Enforcement,” as well as our previous interview on the troubling history and application of “Terrorism”, in episode 70 of this podcast: “The Terrorism Discourse”.
Dr. Amanda E. Rogers is a fellow at the Century Foundation visiting assistant professor of Middle Eastern studies at Hobart and William Smith Colleges, with expertise in political violence and non-state armed groups, ranging from ISIS to Christian Identity neo-Nazis. She has a PhD in art history and Middle Eastern studies from Emory University. She has served as a subject matter expert for the U.S. Department of State, a consultant for the United Nations consultant on non-state armed groups and propaganda output, and commentator on international affairs for The Intercept, Al-Jazeera, BBC, and CNN, among others.
On February 1st, 2021, Myanmar’s military seized power in a coup in response to a sweeping electoral victory by Aung San Suu Kyi’s NLD party. The past few weeks have seen mass protests across the country by a diverse range of groups, and the military regime’s response has grown increasingly bloody, with night raids and detentions, and live rounds being used to maim and kill protestors.
We spoke to a young protestor in Yangon, Myanmar about what she has seen and to get her thoughts on the current situation in her country. Her identity has been concealed for her protection.
Kiki a.k.a. “Captain Alpha” was not new to life as a refugee when he arrived in Moria Camp in October of 2019. By that time his long journey has already caused him to flee his home in Burundi, and to spend years in a refugee camp in Rwanda. One year ago he started @the_humans_of_moria Instagram account, to help asylum seekers on Lesvos share their stories and expose their conditions. But now, for his first podcast episode, it is Captain Alpha’s turn to tell his own story.
After listening to this episode be sure to check out the other episodes produced by and for displaced peoples through the Latitude Adjustment Podcast Academy. And help more displaced peoples to become podcasters by supporting our campaign.
In observance of Black History Month we’ve re-edited the opening and closing thoughts to two episodes that were first published back in September of 2019. A lot has happened since then, but we the conversation and the history contained in these episodes remain as relevant as ever:
In this second of a two-part conversation I talk to Major Joe Womack (USMC-retired) about AfricaTown. Now part of Mobile, Alabama, AfricaTown was founded by survivors of the last slave ship to bring Africans to the US. The shipwreck was discovered in 2019. Joe was born and raised there and now he is leading a fight to prevent its ongoing exploitation and pollution by toxic industries. It’s a story that goes to the heart, not only of the Deep South, but of America’s failure to reconcile itself to the darkest chapters of its history. It’s also a story of how those events might be used to breathe new life into a struggling community.
In observance of Black History Month we’ve re-edited opening and closing thoughts to these episodes that were first published back in September of 2019. A lot has happened since then, but we felt that the conversation and the history contained in these episodes is as relevant now as ever:
Now part of Mobile, Alabama, AfricaTown was founded by survivors of the last slave ship to bring Africans to the US. The shipwreck was discovered in 2019. Joe Womack (USMC-ret) was born and raised there and is now leading a fight to prevent its ongoing exploitation and pollution by toxic industries. It’s a story that goes to the heart, not only of the Deep South, but of America’s failure to reconcile itself to the darkest chapters of its history. It’s also a story of how those events might be used to breathe new life into a struggling community.
In October of last year a brutal killing at the hands of Nigerian police was captured on video. It quickly went viral across the country, across, Africa, and then around the world. The police involved in the killing belonged to Nigeria’s SARS unit, short for “Special Anti Robbery Squad”. The notorious SARS unit has long been known for acts of extortion, abuse, sexual harassment and violence, torture, and murder, and as the #EndSARS hashtag started to trend on social media, young Nigerians poured out onto the streets to protest and to voice their outrage against SARS and against the corrupt and oppressive system that it has come to exemplify.
The #EndSARS movement started to gain more international attention as members of the massive Nigerian diaspora organized protests and raised supports, and as parallels between the demands of Nigeria’s youth and the demands of #BlackLivesMatter became more prominent.
Our guest today, Rinu Oduala. A 22 year-old woman in Lagos, Nigeria, Rinu played a key role in the viral #EndSARS campaign, helping to mobilize both Nigerian youth and international support. This episode should be a valuable source of information not just for those following Nigeria and Africa, but for those who wish to see systemic change against police brutality and impunity, and government complicity, around the world.
This episode also marks our first selection for Black History Month. Look for more episodes in February and be sure to check the post for this episode on the website for links to relevant shows from our archive.
UPDATE: you can now support the growth and sustainability of the Latitude Adjustment Podcast Academy by contributing to our GoFundMe campaign. Help to elevate the voices of displaced peoples by making them podcast producers!
In this third episode of the Latitude Adjustment Podcast Academy four young Afghan women share their greatest hopes and fears since arriving to Lesvos and the borders of the European Union.
Be sure to check out the other two episodes from the students, and the short preface episode as well.
UPDATE: you can now support the growth and sustainability of the Latitude Adjustment Podcast Academy by contributing to our GoFundMe campaign. Help to elevate the voices of displaced peoples by making them podcast producers!
In this second episode of the Latitude Adjustment Podcast Academy a young Afghan woman tries to find the perfect word to capture the essence of her journey to Lesvos to seek asylum, and her aspirations for the life ahead.
Be sure to check out the other two episodes from the students, and the short preface episode as well.
UPDATE: you can now support the growth and sustainability of the Latitude Adjustment Podcast Academy by contributing to our GoFundMe campaign. Help to elevate the voices of displaced peoples by making them podcast producers!
In the first episode of the Latitude Adjustment Podcast Academy you will hear four Afghan men open up about some of the unique struggles they face living under lockdown in the new “Moria 2.0” refugee camp. The first half of the episode is in English and the second half is in Farsi/Dari.
Be sure to check out the other two episodes from the students, and the short preface episode as well. You can find them all here.
If you would like an update about what's been happening on Lesvos over the past year, then be sure to check out this episode.
UPDATE: you can now support the growth and sustainability of the Latitude Adjustment Podcast Academy by contributing to our GoFundMe campaign. Help to elevate the voices of displaced peoples by making them podcast producers!
Before you hear the episodes from the very first graduating class of the Latitude Adjustment Podcast Academy, we’d like to take you behind the scenes to share some of the challenges and the lessons learned during the production of our shows with asylum seekers here on the Greek Island of Lesvos. The story behind the stories will provide you with a lot of helpful context for the episodes created by our students over the course of our 5-week program.
And if you’d like an update on all that has happened on Lesvos over the past year, and more information about why we decided to start the academy here, then be sure to start with this episode.
Welcome to the Latitude Adjustment Podcast Academy and to the first class of what we hope will be many more! And a special thanks to ReFocus Media Labs for connecting us to their students and for their support and guidance throughout the academy.
UPDATE: you can now support the growth and sustainability of the Latitude Adjustment Podcast Academy by contributing to our GoFundMe campaign. Help to elevate the voices of displaced peoples by making them podcast producers!
Latitude Adjustment returns to Lesvos to launch a new phase of our programming, a podcast academy.
Over the next several weeks Latitude Adjustment Podcast work with students and asylum seekers from the Refocus Media Labs team to help them produce their very own podcasts. Be sure to look for their episodes in the coming weeks!
In the meantime, be sure to follow our progress on Instagram, and check out our four-part series about Moria the conditions of refugees in Greece, from earlier this year.
This episode is the second of a two-part conversation with Tity Agbahey. Tity is an attorney and a staffer at Amnesty International. Based in Senegal, her current work focuses on central Africa, though her previous work has focused elsewhere on the continent, and her life and travels have taken her to points beyond.
This pair of episodes should appeal to two types of listeners, those who know what it feels like to be the only one who looks like you in your university class, in your staff meetings, or on a discussion panel at a conference, and those who don’t but who want to understand .
This is also a conversation about colonialism, paternalism, and racism in one of the last places you should expect to find it, in the international aid and development sector. It’s also a conversation about the world’s general ambivalence towards African suffering, the benefits and limitations of African to African-American solidarity, privilege within an African cultural context, racism in France, internalized colonialism, an African perspective on racism in the US, and everything else we could think to get off of our chests during a very open conversation.
This episode is the first of a two-part conversation with Tity Agbahey. Tity is an attorney and a staffer at Amnesty International. Based in Senegal, her current work focuses on central Africa, though her previous work has focused elsewhere on the continent, and her life and travels have taken her to points beyond.
This pair of episodes should appeal to two types of listeners, those who know what it feels like to be the only one who looks like you in your university class, in your staff meetings, or on a discussion panel at a conference, and those who don’t but who want to understand .
This is also a conversation about colonialism, paternalism, and racism in one of the last places you should expect to find it, in the international aid and development sector. It’s also a conversation about the world’s general ambivalence towards African suffering, the benefits and limitations of African to African-American solidarity, privilege within an African cultural context, racism in France, internalized colonialism, an African perspective on racism in the US, and everything else we could think to get off of our chests during a very open conversation.
This re-release episode closes with a short update interview with Abdul, completed in November, 2020. It starts at 59:18. The original show was published in December, 2018.
Abdul Saboor worked with the US military in Afghanistan before having to flee the country after receiving death threats and having several friends and family members killed by the Taliban. What followed was an overland odyssey across Pakistan, Iran, Turkey, the Balkans, and back and forth across the EU, until he was able to claim asylum in France, where he currently lives. Along the way he endured prison, forced labor, beatings, deportations, and kidnapping. His is one of the more remarkable stories of resilience that I have come across in my years of traveling and working in the Middle East and anywhere else in the world. And he’s a remarkable photographer.
We were connected by the people at No Name Kitchen, a Spanish NGO that provides food, sleeping bags and supplies, and a community space for the growing numbers of refugees stuck in Serbia and more recently in Bosnia.
Being at a loss as to how to manage the political conflicts within my own social circle I reached out to my old professor, Tatsushi Arai, to learn how Americans might apply the principles of Conflict Transformation to our interactions at the personal, professional, and community levels, whatever the outcome of the US election.
But it should be noted that this discussion is not specific to America, and that Dr. Arai has worked all over the US and all over the world as both an educator and as a field practitioner, mediating conflicts in West Asia, East Asia, Africa, and between more groups, and in more places, than we have room to list. Every community stands to benefit from a better understanding of this much undervalued, underutilized, and much misunderstood field of the social sciences. So, wherever you’re listening from, and whoever you’re voting for in your next election, or if you’re simply hoping to have a free election, you’ll likely find something in our conversation that can make engaging with your fellow citizens both more civil and more productive.
For all of the movies, books, and policy debates on the topic, and given that the largest, most expensive, and longest hot war in US history is being waged in its name, why don’t we have a coherent and consistent definition for Terrorism? Get ready to rethink everything you think you know about this word and its application.
Our guest is visual anthropologist Amanda Rogers, an expert on the propaganda of Islamic State.
Since September 27th there has been a resurgence of armed conflict in the Caucasus between the small nations of Armenia and Azerbaijan over the disputed enclave of Nagorno Karbabakh, or Artsakh as it’s known in Armenian. The backstory to this decades-old conflict is complex, so be sure to check the documentary films linked to on our website if you would like to do a deeper dive into the historical context. And be sure to check out our previous two-part episode on Armenia, Armenians, and Armenian-ness as well.
Our guest is Emil Sanamyan, a fellow at the University of Southern California’s Institute of Armenian Studies.
For our first ever re-released episode we decided to commemorate Indigenous People’s Day with an audience favorite and one of our earliest shows.
Yaari Walker is a member of the Yupik tribe, and originally from the town of Savoonga, on St. Lawrence Island, Alaska. She now resides in Anchorage, Alaska, where, in addition to being an activist, author, and entrepreneur, she works at the Alaska Native Heritage Center. Yaari has been on a journey, as a survivor of physical abuse, substance abuse, and incarceration, to recovery, writing a book, starting a business in Native medicinals, activism, and going back to college to study Psychology. We cover a lot of issues facing indigenous communities in Alaska, North America, and around the world, as well as the issue of community itself and how industrialized Western society often seems to be at odds with the values of sharing, communal responsibility, and compassion.
A warning that we talk about addiction and substance abuse, physical and sexual abuse, and the legacy of boarding school placement amongst the indigenous communities of North America. For those who have personally been through these traumas, or who have loved ones who have, just a note that some parts of this show may be upsetting.
David Shanks is the Chief Censor for New Zealand. As his title implies he is responsible for determining what is and what is not fit for public consumption, what ratings should be applied to various media, as well as other less obvious details that highlight the elusive line between protected speech and speech that constitutes a danger to public safety. We first reached out to David’s office after the BBC highlighted a series of videos from the government of New Zealand encouraging parents to discuss online porn consumption and cyber bullying with their kids. One of the defining moments of David’s tenure as censor came when a terrorist live streamed the mass murder of 51 people during Friday prayers at a mosque and an Islamic center in Christchurch on March 15, 2019.
This episode is the audio version of a live video broadcast that aired on Friday, August 7th, featuring guests on the ground in Beirut, Lebanon. Our guests are Mohammad Hamoud, a Lebanese activist and humanitarian relief worker, and Rita Kabalan, a Lebanese-American photojournalist based in Beirut.
On Tuesday, August 4th, a massive explosion rocked Beirut's port when tons of improperly stored ammonium-nitrate was ignited by a fire in a storage facility. Now, more than a week on from the explosion the death toll already numbers more than 200, with approximately ,6000 injured and hundreds of thousands left homeless. This man-made disaster also came at a time of ongoing political and deep financial crisis in the tiny nation that is also home to the world's largest per-capita population of refugees.
Ralph Nader is a five-time candidate for US president and a public servant who has improved the lives of Americans and of many people around the world through his 6 decades of work as a consumer advocate and civil liberties defender. We speak about the current status of civil rights protests, coronavirus, Palestine, corporate corruption, and about his new cookbook and the connection between our kitchens and the health of our communities. And we share a little about our own work on The Virtual Dinner Guest Project.
Idlib, in northern Syria, is one of the few parts of the country that have not been recaptured by the Assad regime but nearly a decade of war has taken an extreme toll on its inhabitants, with Coronavirus, continued fighting, and economic collapse creating a perfect humanitarian storm that has left Idlib in its most desperate circumstances of the war, with millions facing imminent risk of starvation, exposure to the elements, and perhaps another mass movement of people from the region like the world has not seen since 2015.
Nour Qurmosh grew up in Idlib and continues to work there delivering aid to his fellow citizens. At 23 years old, Nour has spent the past 9 years living under Syria’s civil war. He gives us a rare glimpse into what nearly a decade of brutal violence has looked like to someone who has lived through all of it. His account is personal, frank, and possibly upsetting. It also speaks for itself.
This show is the audio-only version of a live chat hosted on July 10th, featuring guests Milena Zajović from Are You Syrious?, Douglas Herman from ReFocus Media Labs, and Carmen Dupont from Lesvos Solidarity - Pikpa.
You can catch our weekly-(ish) live chat discussions most Fridays on the Latitude Adjustment FB page, or you can check our Live Video Chats archive to watch and share them later.
Also, we’d like to formally introduce the show’s new co-host, Laila Mokhiber!
Be sure to catch our four-part podcast series including field reports from Moria Camp on Lesvos, and from the Greek mainland.
The global arms industry may only account for about one percent of global trade, but it’s important to note what that one percent is buying and the role that arms sales play in influencing other aspects of global trade and political relations. We speak with Frank Slijper in Groningen, The Netherlands, where Frank leads a project on the global arms trade for Pax, a global peace research and advocacy organization.
Intro: Eric Maddox
Interview with Frank Slijper (9:02-1:13:10)
Closing Remarks: Eric Maddox (1:13:17-1:17:50)
On May 25th George Floyd was detained and murdered by police in Minneapolis, Minnesota, making him only the most recent high profile case of an unarmed African American dying at the hands of law enforcement in the United States. The killing was captured on camera by witnesses and massive protests erupted almost immediately, starting in Minneapolis and quickly spreading to dozens of cities across the US, in what have become the largest civil rights protests in over half a century, since the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968. For this episode we speak to two young men in Minneapolis about the protests, about their personal experiences with police, and about what needs to happen going forwards. This show is also a call to action, so be sure to check the list of organizations that you can support which have been recommended by our guests Sam Abeler and Derek “Duck” Washington.
Sam’s Interview: 10:22
Duck’s Interview: 54:08
Closing Remarks: 1:43:34
We speak with Dr. Sadi Nkhala about the implications of a coronavirus outbreak in the Gaza Strip. Gaza has presently been spared from the worst case scenario, but like many poor communities, and like many communities containing large numbers of refugees, it is uniquely vulnerable. Like the rest of Gaza’s 2 million inhabitants, Sadi has been living under the Israeli-imposed siege on the coastal territory since 2007.
This is the final episode of a four-part series on the refugee crisis in Greece, undertaken in collaboration with Croation NGO, Are You Syrious. This episode features a range of perspectives from locals, internationals, volunteers, and founders on Lesvos and in Athens, including:
Douglas Herman from Refocus Media Labs; Lesvos (7:14)
Eric Kempson from the Hope Project; Lesvos (1:10:51)
Salam Aldeen from Team Humanity; Lesvos (1:36:44)
Myrto Symeonidou from Migratory Birds; Athens (2:01:49)
Mania and Mado from Network for Children’s Rights; Athens (2:22:42)
Originally from Athens, Efi Latsoudi studied psychology and worked with a range of vulnerable communities before moving to Lesvos in 2001. Efi’s experiences and her story provide a historical perspective on the refugee crisis in Greece that we almost never get from traditional media. For starters, refugees didn’t start coming to Greece in 2015. That story starts much earlier, and many of the problems and tensions we are seeing today are a repeat of events that took place more than a decade ago. Efi Latsoudi began her work with refugees on Lesvos in the mid 2000’s but it was in 2012 that she founded PIKPA camp, a self-organized squat-camp for refugees, and a political statement about how vulnerable people might be housed and treated if communities and resources were brought together in a more thoughtful and compassionate way. To put it bluntly, PIKPA is sort of the anti-Moria Camp. The camp is also very small. At its height in 2015 it hosted around 600 people. But its capacity is closer to 150. However PIKPA is far more than a space for alternative housing. It distributes food, offers language classes and other services, and since its opening in 2012 it’s served tens of thousands of people.
These are the personal testimonies of refugees from Moria Refugee Camp on the Greek Island of Lesvos and in Athens. These interviews were recorded in January and February as part of our collaboration with Are You Syrious. Much has transpired in Greece and in the world since we spoke, but their stories remain current and are in many ways timeless examples of what many of our parents, grandparents and neighbors endured before settling in our communities. As the Coronavirus bears down on the most vulnerable people it’s critical that we make space to hear and share their stories rather than reducing them to numbers, faceless victims, and political talking points.
Much has changed in recent weeks since we left Greece, and before bringing you the personal testimonies and field interviews that we gathered from refugees, volunteers, Greek citizens, and stakeholders during our time in Lesvos and Athens in January and February, we wanted to touch base with some people on the ground in Greece and Turkey to get up to speed on the fast-changing situation in and between these countries.
Douglas Herman a journalist and co-founder of Refocus Media Labs, a nonprofit organization that teaches media skills to asylum seekers. Douglas has been based on Lesvos for several years and more recently he’s been documenting the escalating situation on the island for a variety of news sources.
Deman Güler is a human rights attorney in Turkey and manages the Human Rights Center and Commission for Refugees for the İzmir Bar Association. Those familiar with the geography of the migratory routes will recognize Izmir as one of the principal staging areas for smugglers and for those trying to cross by sea to the Greek isles.
While it might seem like an obscure topic due to scant coverage in the Western press, a quick review of the facts makes it clear that we ignore Algeria at our peril. First of all, it’s Africa’s biggest country by land mass, and home to a population larger than Canada’s. It’s also home to Africa’s largest company, state owned oil giant Sonatrach, a major exporter of fuel to Western Europe. We dive deeper into the nuances and into the layered intrigues that define Algeria’s history, and what’s been happening since popular protests removed longtime ruler Abdelaziz Bouteflika from power almost exactly one year ago.
We speak with Mehdi Kaci, an Algerian American activist living in the San Francisco Bay Area. Mehdi recently returned to Algeria to see how things have unfolded since the ouster of Bouteflika.
In May of 2019, Pittsburgh resident Bethany Hallam defeated a nearly 20-year incumbent to become Allegheny County Councilor at Large. She takes her seat in January, 2020. What's truly remarkable about her victory is the story that precedes it. Bethany watched the 2016 US presidential election from the Allegheny County Jail as an inmate and recovering heroin addict. She shares her journey from addiction, to incarceration, to her inspiration to run for local elected office in a metro area of over a million people.
And I also take the opportunity to share a little about my own journey. It was hard to pick an opening quote for this episode because she had so many great ones, and whether you're frustrated with your political situation, struggling with addiction, or know someone who is, we're sure you'll find cause for inspiration and hope in her story.
In mid-October, 2019 protests broke out in Santiago, and spread across the nation in what quickly became the largest display of civil unrest in Chile since the Pinochet dictatorship.
On October 25th an estimated 1.2 million people took to the streets of Santiago demanding Sebastián Piñera’s resignation. Hundreds of human rights abuse cases have been reported by individuals, human rights organizations, and medical professionals.
We speak with three guests: American filmmaker and journalist Joshua Tucker, Chilean social researcher Lorena Ortiz, and Chilean Sociologist and professor Conrado Soto Karelovic.
The current protests in Iraq began at the start of October. Much like the ongoing protests in Lebanon, the protests in Iraq have largely been mobilized by youth, with no clear leadership, and with a decidedly anti-sectarian focus, with demands to address chronic unemployment, and to reform entrenched corruption and rule by political elites.
They are also the largest protest in Iraq since the end of the Saddam Hussein regime. Unlike Lebanon, protests in Iraq have seen a heavy handed response from the government that has already led to more than 300 deaths.
We speak with political analyst Raed Jarrar to get more context, and to learn what and who are behind the protests and just who is running Iraq these days.
This episode is the second in a series that Latitude Adjustment podcast will be putting out on current protests around the world. Be sure to check out the other episodes in the ongoing series.
#LatitudeAdjustment_Protests
Since mid October Lebanon has seen some of its largest protests in years, and in this a country where sectarianism has been institutionalized since the end of the 15-year-long civil war, it’s noteworthy that one of the issues that protestors are rallying against is sectarianism itself.
We talk to activist and development professional Jad Sakr in Beirut to get more context on the causes and aspirations for these protests, as well as the many challenges to be overcome.
This episode is the first in a series that Latitude Adjustment podcast will be putting out on current protests taking place around the world. Be sure to check out the other episodes in the ongoing series.
#LatitudeAdjustment_Protests
Adrien Lawyer is the founder and director of the Transgender Resource Center of New Mexico, an organization that “provides support, community, and connection to transgender, gender nonconforming, nonbinary, and gender variant people and their families through advocacy, education, and direct services.”
For this conversation I wanted to avoid the trap of playing it safe by asking easy questions and settling for easy answers, and instead just let my confusion and my preconceptions hang out there and see what came back at me.
Whether you identify as transgender, or as someone who is questioning, or as an ally, or as someone who is confused, skeptical, or ambivalent on the subject of transgender identity and rights, I think you’re going to find this exchange helpful.
What comes to mind when you think of Zimbabwe? Perhaps a generic collection of images from the African continent? Wildlife, poverty, and despotism? Perhaps the rule of revolutionary icon and then dictator, Robert Mugabe, or the astronomical rates of inflation and illness and out-migration that have captured the scant bit of international publicity that the country has received in recent years?
When I traveled to Zimbabwe as a 14-year-old the country changed how I viewed the world and my place in it forever, and while the country has endured much hardship since I visited back in 1992, it remains a place of wonder in my memory as well as a place and a people deserving of more attention than the negative headlines.
Anesu Masube grew up moving around Zimbabwe, so he has the good fortune to call the whole nation his home. We caught up with him in Washington, DC where he currently works as a Technology and International development professional.
The Kafala or “sponsorship” system is used throughout the Gulf countries (as well as in Jordan and Lebanon) to monitor and organize migrant laborers, from recruitment abroad to their management upon arrival, and particularly in the construction and domestic work sectors.
Under the Kafala system a migrant worker’s presence in a host country is linked entirely to their employer, with the effect that it’s not only difficult or impossible to switch jobs, but all elements of their daily lives from access to their passports, their freedom of movement, their living conditions, their ability to leave the country, and their basic dignities are all controlled by their employer. And there is often little to no regulation put in place to protect workers against exploitation and abuse. And abuse has been rampant for decades. From sexual harassment and rape of domestic workers to squalid living conditions and work without pay for construction workers and manual laborers.
This dirty secret is often hidden inside of people’s homes or in isolated camps, so access to covering and exposing it is extremely difficult. Which is why the work of our guest Vani Saraswathi and Migrant-Rights.org is so critical.
In this second of a two-part conversation I talk to Major Joe Womack (USMC-retired) about AfricaTown. Now part of Mobile, Alabama, AfricaTown was founded by survivors of the last slave ship to bring Africans to the US. And the shipwreck was just discovered in 2019. Joe Womack was born and raised there and now he is leading a fight to prevent its ongoing exploitation and pollution by toxic industries. It’s a story that goes to the heart, not only of the Deep South, but of America’s failure to reconcile itself to the darkest chapters of its history. It’s also a story of how those events might be used to breath new life into a struggling community.
In this first of a two-part conversation I talk to Major Joe Womack (USMC-retired) about AfricaTown. Now part of Mobile, Alabama, AfricaTown was founded by survivors of the last slave ship to bring Africans to the US. And the shipwreck was just discovered in 2019. Joe Womack was born and raised there and now he is leading a fight to prevent its ongoing exploitation and pollution by toxic industries. It’s a story that goes to the heart, not only of the Deep South, but of America’s failure to reconcile itself to the darkest chapters of its history. It’s also a story of how those events might be used to breath new life into a struggling community.
Dalia Shurrab is the Communication and Social Media Coordinator at Gaza Sky Geeks. We talk about the challenges of running the first tech hub in the Gaza Strip and the status of women's rights in Palestine.
In this second half of our two-part conversation with Nareg Seferian we speak about the Armenian Genocide, the modern state of Armenia, the Armenian diaspora, and Armenian identity.
Nareg Seferian received his education in India, Armenia, the United States, and Austria. Nareg served on the faculty at the American University of Armenia for three years, and he is currently pursuing his PhD at Virginia Tech's School of Public and International Affairs in the Washington, DC area. His research and writing has focused on diverse aspects of Armenian politics and society, at the national and regional level, as well as across the global Armenian Diaspora.
In this first half of our two-part conversation with Nareg Seferian we speak about the Armenian Genocide, the modern state of Armenia, the Armenian diaspora, and Armenian identity.
Nareg Seferian received his education in India, Armenia, the United States, and Austria. Nareg served on the faculty at the American University of Armenia for three years, and he is currently pursuing his PhD at Virginia Tech's School of Public and International Affairs in the Washington, DC area. His research and writing has focused on diverse aspects of Armenian politics and society, at the national and regional level, as well as across the global Armenian Diaspora.
Our guest this week is a young Kashmiri woman currently living in Mumbai.
Situated in a mountainous region between India and Pakistan, Kashmir has been a nominal part of India since shortly after India and Pakistan both gained independence from the British in 1947. It’s also India’s only Muslim majority state and was the battleground in two separate wars between India and Pakistan and several armed conflicts between the two nuclear-armed rivals, including one limited engagement earlier this year.
Under article 370 of the Indian constitution Kashmir was guaranteed broad autonomy, including a separate constitution, and freedom to administer its own affairs in all areas except for currency, communications, defense, and foreign policy. Over the past few decades much of this autonomy has been slowly rolled back by the central government in Delhi, but one key feature that remained was Kashmiris exclusive rights to buy and own land in Kashmir. This key remaining feature of Kashmiri autonomy was eliminated when Hindu Nationalist Prime Indian prime minister Narendra Modi’s government eliminated article 370 from the Indian constitution earlier this month. Since that time landlines, mobile communication links, and the Internet have been cut, and Kashmiris have been cut off from the rest of the world and their families in India.
In 1982 the Myanmar (Burmese) military government passed a citizenship law that effectively stripped the Rohingya community of their nationality overnight. They’ve been stateless ever since, and subject to institutionalized discrimination and coordinated persecution that has greatly restricted their movement and their access to jobs and education.
In August of 2017 Myanmar’s military began an offensive to drive many Rohingya out of their homes in Rakhine state, with the result that roughly 900,000 refugees have fled the country, with reports of widespread and coordinated attacks utilizing arson, rape, and mass killing that bear signs of genocide. Refugee camps in neighboring Bangladesh have long since been filled past overflowing, and many have been reduced to living in squalid and unsafe conditions in and around the camps.
JN Joniad fled his home in Rakhine state 6 years ago, and is currently registered in with UNHCR in Indonesia as a refugee, while he awaits resettlement elsewhere. His story not only illuminates the condition of fellow Rohingya, but also uncovers what appears to be a global trend amongst wealthy nations (the US, EU, and Australia) to outsource their border enforcement policy to developing nations through a strategy of deterrence and obscured accountability.
For this second half of our conversation we discuss the ongoing inter-communal violence in Central Mali, the features of Jihadist movements in the region, the prospects and barriers to peace, and the regional and geopolitical implications of these factors and why you should take notice of what's happening in the Sahel.
Dougoukolo Ba-Konare is a clinical psychologist and teacher of Fula Language and Societies at the National Institute for Oriental Languages and Civilizations in Paris, and a founding member of Kisal (an organization working on the promotion of human rights in the Sahel.
The Fulani are an ethnic group of around 40 million people who inhabit Africa’s Sahel region, the transitional biozone that spans the African continent from the Atlantic to the Red Sea and where the sands of the Sahara gradually give way to the savanna of central Africa. Traditionally a pastoral nomadic culture, they have long experienced tensions in some of the communities they call home, and are often treated as outsiders. Some of these conflicts have made international headlines recently, most notably in central Mali, where Jihadist groups and a lack of governmental authority have left communities vulnerable, and where competition for resources and mistrust have brought them into bloody conflict with other tribal groups.
This first of a two-part conversation about the Fulani people offers some compelling insights into how Jihadist groups are able to gain traction in isolated communities, and a more local perspective on global security issues that are traditionally given from a European or American perspective.
Dougoukolo Ba-Konare is a clinical psychologist and teacher of Fula Language and Societies at the National Institute for Oriental Languages and Civilizations in Paris, and a founding member of Kisal (an organization working on the promotion of human rights in the Sahel.
Basir Bita spent his childhood as a refugee in Iran and moved back to Afghanistan in 2003, which means he has spent his entire adult life living under the US occupation. He currently lives in Kabul where he works as a peace activist and as a consultant monitoring and evaluating risk factors for corruption. We discuss the current peace talks between the US and the Taliban, and what he has learned talking to people from across Afghanistan’s ethnically diverse society.
Also be sure to check out our previous conversation with Abdoul Saboor who fled Afghanistan after threats from the Taliban and attacks on his family. His overland odyssey through Iran, Turkey, Eastern Europe and across the Balkans, to finally claim asylum in France, is one of the more remarkable stories I’ve encountered anywhere, and should put the ordeals of many Afghan refugees into a more human perspective.
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In June more than 2 million Hong Kong residents took to the streets to protest a proposed law that could see residents of the global financial center subject to extradition and criminal prosecution in China, undercutting the delicate "one country, two systems" policy that was to remain in place for 50 years after the 1997 handover from the British. Today, on the anniversary of the handover, the protestors stormed and occupied the Hong Kong legislature.
For this show we speak with two guests: a professor of cultural studies in Hong Kong whose research focuses on youth activism, and an anonymous guest from Hong Kong who returned to participate in the protests in June.
You can support our work with a monthly donation through Patreon.
Sally-Alice Thompson is a World War 2 veteran, a peace activist, a New Mexico resident, and at 95 years old she just started her first hunger strike to bring an end to US sanctions and for US support for sieges that are pushing children into starvation and depriving populations of their basic needs.
Sign the Petition and Learn More.
This segment of our two-part interview with Dahlia Al Roubi was recorded on Tuesday, June 4th, the day after the current government crackdown began against protestors in Khartoum. As of this episode roughly 100 people have been killed by government forces, with reports that scores of bodies have been dumped into the Nile. As of June 6th, Sudan’s membership in the African Union has been revoked. Sudan’s military council has suspended talks with protestors and unilaterally called for elections to be held within 9 months.
The forces spearheading this apparent massacre appear to be the RSF or “Rapid Support Forces”, led by Mohamed "Hemeti" Hamdan Dagalo. The RSF are a re-branded iteration of the Janjaweed militias that were charged with carrying out the genocide in Sudan’s Darfur region. They’ve since been absorbed into the Sudanese military structure and given the stamp of governmental legitimacy, but they are essentially trained for one purpose and it appears that this purpose has now been turned on the protestors and the people of Khartoum. Incidentally the RSF forces are also being used as mercenaries by the Saudis in their war on Yemen.
For this first part of a two-part conversation, we talk to Sudanese activist Dahlia Al Roubi about the what it was like growing up under the regime of recently deposed dictator Omar Al Bashir, how the current revolution swept Sudan, starting in December of last year, the challenges of weighing the purity of revolutionary principles against the practical constraints of time and competing interests, and about the role of women who took a leading role in the street protests but who now appear to be left out of the negotiations.
Dahlia and I recorded this first part of our interview on May 21st, before the current wave of violence was unleashed by the transitional military government on protestors and civilians in Khartoum. However we decided to include this conversation to claim some small space in the historical record, a space for what the Sudanese people were aspiring to as recently as Sunday evening. And we’re including it as a reminder that Syria also had this moment, and Egypt as well, and that while violence and a return to despotism might define the moment it’s important to ask ourselves where Western governments positioned themselves during the grassroots efforts to push these countries towards freedom.
Part two of our discussion provides a short update about the violence that has been unleashed by government forces in recent days, in particularly the RSF (Rapid Support Forces) formerly known as the Janjaweed.
Have you ever watched a humanitarian crisis unfolding on the news and witnessed the subsequent failure of leaders to lead, and thought to yourself, "I wish I could get some friends together and just do something to make this better?"
That's what Milena Zajović and a few of her friends in Croatia did when the largest refugee crisis to hit Europe since World War 2 came to their borders in the Summer of 2015. That initial impulse lead to the creation of Are You Syrious?, a nonprofit that focuses on field work, integration, and advocacy for refugees in the Balkans and Southern Europe. Lately a lot of their work has focussed on reporting on the so-called "push backs" that have seen Croatian authorities playing the role of border enforcers for the European Union. These measures have been accompanied by widespread reports of violence and other human rights abuses and campaigns by various governments to criminalize the work of human rights defenders, a worrying trend that Latitude Adjustment covered in our previous episode about Malta as well.
Be sure to subscribe to the Are you Syrious Daily Digest, a resource that's become reference material for foreign embassies, aid workers, and journalists, and which provides up to the minute reporting for and about refugees in Europe and across the Middle East.
Faisel Saleh was born the 11th of 11 children in the West Bank town of El Bireh after his parents fled from their home near Jaffa (near Tel Aviv) during the 1948 war. Those events created the state of Israel and what 700,000 Palestinians and their millions of descendants refer to as “The Nakba”, or the catastrophe. Faisal come to the US in 1969 to pursue his education, later becoming a successful entrepreneur. Last year he founded the Palestine Museum US, in Woodbridge, Connecticut, the first museum of its kind in the Western Hemisphere.
In addition to providing a space to share and preserve the culture for Palestinian Americans, Palestinians of the global diaspora, and for Palestinians in Palestine, it’s also a space for non-Palestinians who create art or commentary about the community and its history.
But to talk about the art, culture, and history of Palestine and its people opens the door to a much wider conversation about the current conditions of the community, and in particular the circumstances of Palestinian refugees, and of those who have been enduring more than a decade of life under siege in the Gaza Strip.
Please support Latitude Adjustment podcast by signing up for a modest monthly donation on our Patreon page. Thanks!
We hear very little about the war that is taking place in Yemen, which is now in its fifth year. And we hear even less about this war in the words of Yemeni’s themselves, and far less still from those who are still in Yemen. This episode represents a small effort to address this disparity.
Adel Hashem is the director of Human Needs Development in Sana’a, and organization that is working on the ground to deliver food, medical, and education support to the Yemeni people.
Though the war in Syria, and other regional conflicts have managed to grab headlines in recent years, Yemen has remained conspicuously underreported despite the fact that it has seen the largest cholera outbreak in recorded history, starvation, thousands of civilian casualties, widespread food insecurity amongst the majority of its population, and despite the fact that all of these horrors are completely man-made.
This stems in large part from the fact that the majority of the carnage in Yemen has been unleashed by Saudi Arabia and its coalition of supporters in their fight against Yemen’s Houthi rebels. Saudi Arabia is a US ally and it’s brutal air campaign (and less reported mercenary-supported ground campaign) have enjoyed the support of US and Western weapons deals, as well as intelligence and logistical support. Quite simply, the war would not be possible without the direct and ongoing support of Western governments, and principally the US, UK and France.
But we can change this.
While much has been written about the "refugee crisis" coming to Western shores, we rarely hear about the long standing crises across the Global South, where 85% of the world's forcibly displaced people's have been forced to seek refuge.
Hashed had to flee Yemen after his father was killed, and what followed was an odyssey that has taken him from Djibouti, to India, to Malaysia, where his struggle is far from over.
Hassan is from Syria, and he also wound up in Malaysia, after his work visa in the UAE expired and the Emirati government threatened to deport him back to Syria. Hassan spent 7 months trapped in the airport in Kuala Lumpur and, after becoming the subject of international headlines, private Canadian citizens stepped forward to help him find asylum in Canada. These are their stories, but they are not unique, and you can help.
Fatma Naib won a Peabody Award in 2017 for her film, “The Cut”, which she and her team completed for Al Jazeera English on the subject of Female Genital Mutilation. FGM is a non-medical procedure that involves partial or radical removal of young women’s genitalia, and while widely practiced in parts of Africa and the Middle East, is neither limited to these regions nor defined by theology or religion. The practice is typically linked to a right of passage, sexual purity, or as a marker of cultural identity (or all three), and its impact on the lives of tens of millions of women is cruel, often deadly, and the UN is working to eliminate the practice by 2030. Our conversation also focuses on the broader questions around navigating multiple cultural identities and contexts.
The subject of FGM makes some of us more than a little squeamish, but it’s important to move past our personal sensitivities and make some time to inform ourselves about a practice that is impacting the lives of women around the world, and perhaps closer to where you live than you might realize. And while the practice itself might be fundamentally rooted in ignorance so are a lot of the popular perceptions about the it, so it’s important that we leave our assumptions and pre-judgements at the door and listen so that we can take meaningful action to help eliminate the practice.
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Maria Pisani PhD is a Maltese citizen, lecturer, former head of office for the International Organization for Migration on Malta, and co-founder and director of Integra Foundation. As the EU’s smallest and southern-most member state Malta has long been on the front lines of one of the busiest and the deadliest migratory path on earth, where more than 14,000 people have lost their lives since 2014, attempting the crossing from North African shores to the EU. We discuss Malta’s role in this discussion, the features of Maltese policies and how they have shifted over the years, and the moral, political, and logistical implications of the EU’s de facto policy of containment and deterrence since 2015, when Europe saw the largest numbers of refugees since the Second World War.
Latitude Adjustment Podcast
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The DRC remains an enigma to many in the West, and for a variety of reasons. Whether it’s the lack of coverage, the singular focus on violence and poverty, or the silent bigotry that informs many Western attitudes towards the fortunes of Africans more generally, many of the roots causes of the people’s suffering continues to go ignored while aid money pours in, resources pour out, and little changes to improve the lives of the people. Murhula Zigabe is one example of many stories that we don’t hear about much in the Congo. He’s from the easter part of The Democratic Republic of the Congo, and by recycling organic waste into eco-charcoal for cooking he has found a solution to multiple problems faced by his community, including environmental degradation, unemployment, poverty, lack of education, autonomy for women, and more. In our conversation we set his work against the backdrop of the DR Congo’s recent history, in particular the wars of the mid 90’s and early 2000’s that claimed approximately 5 million lives, and the ongoing use of rape as a weapon of war on a scale that sees a woman raped nearly once every minute. However this conversation is not a catalogue of miseries and grievances. Murhula is an optimist, and perhaps after listening to his story you will be too, and perhaps you’ll be inspired to look at the DRC and Africa a little differently:
https://www.latitudeadjustmentpod.com/podcast
This month marks the 8th anniversary of the popular demonstrations in Syria that ultimately led to the war. Assil Alnaser's story takes us from the early days of those protests to her harrowing experiences as a prisoner, and then her escape and her struggles to find a home and a future in Jordan and Turkey, and later in the US, where she was subjected to the "Muslim Ban" twice after winning a scholarship. Assil's story provides a needed reminder of how the conflict in Syria started, it forces us to confront the double-victimization that many women face from their own communities after suffering sexual violence, and puts a human face on the ordeals faced by many Syrian refugees right up to the present.
A handful of countries and three continents later, she now finally has a new home in Canada.
Western Sahara is one of the world's forgotten occupations. In 1975 Spain ended its nearly century-long colonization of Spanish Sahara, leaving the territory to be overtaken by Moroccan and Mauritanian forces. Under the leadership of the POLISARIO front the Sahrawis continued their guerilla war for self determination. In 1979 Mauritania withdrew and Morocco moved in to claim the rest of the territory now known as Western Sahara. The war continued until 1991, until a UN-brokered ceasefire with the promise of a referendum on independence for Western Sahara that never came. Morocco continues to occupy Western Sahara, transferring its citizens to the territory and extracting its resources under the protection of France’s protective veto in the UN. Meanwhile the Sahrawi community either lives under a brutally oppressive police state in Moroccan-occupied Western Sahara, or on the other side of the wall, a 2,700 kilometer barrier constructed by Morocco, which forms the second longest wall on earth and the de-facto border. It also splits Western Sahara in half and annexes most of the economically valuable land.
Mahfud Mohamed Lamin is one of approximately 170,000 Sahrawi refugees who are stuck on the other side of that wall in the harsh desert of Western Algeria. He was was born in 1991, the very same year that saw an end to the 16-year war between the the Sahrawis and the Moroccan government. But the following 28 years have not seen an end to the conflict or the referendum that was promised to his people.
Kimberly Walters completed her PhD research in India, and her current project focuses on humanitarian interventions into the lives of women who sell sex in South India. We examine the competing narratives, political interests, and funding priorities that distinguish campaigns for the rights of sex workers from those that focus on abolition and rehabilitation. And we discuss how the very institutions which are supposed to be rescuing women from trafficking end up incarcerating, exploiting, and oppressing them further. This episode is a must listen no matter your level of familiarity with this subject, as donors can find themselves unwittingly supporting organizations and policies that contribute to the abuse and stigmatization of women across the Global South.
Isra Chaker is a force of nature, and we were lucky to get a few minutes to interrupt her whirlwind of advocacy, public speaking, and campaign organizing on issues ranging from Islamophobia and bullying, to refugees and asylum seekers, to the so-called “Muslim Ban” imposed by the current US administration. We talk about her experiences growing up as a Muslim in the US in the aftermath of September 11, and how she confronted the bullying she faced in school and the role this played in setting her on her current path. We also discuss her campaign to highlight the lives and the challenges faced by asylum seekers by renting out Donald Trump’s childhood home on AirBnB, the curriculum that she helped to develop for thousands of US schools to teach young kids about the experiences of Muslims and refugees, and her recent trip to visit refugee camps in Jordan for Oxfam USA.
Meena Menon is the author of three books, and her reporting career has seen her covering a broad range of topics in India, and also took her to Islamabad, Pakistan as the correspondent for The Hindu. We discuss her experiences as an Indian reporting from Pakistan as well as India-Pakistan relations, the suicides of tens of thousands of Indian farmers since the 1980’s and the colonial legacy of the cotton industry, the 1992-93 sectarian riots in Mumbai, and her thoughts on the upcoming general elections in India, the world’s largest democracy.
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“Know more. Carry less.” That’s the philosophy behind the Boulder Outdoor Survival School where Eli Loomis teaches traditional and primitive survival skills (the knowledge and techniques used by indigenous peoples as opposed to military training).
For its most intense course, BOSS takes students out on a 28-day trek through the Utah desert, where they learn to forage and survive with little more than a knife and a blanket. Eli also spent two seasons conducting marine biology research in Antarctica. When he’s not immersed in extreme outdoor environments Eli teaches university courses in Biology and Ecology in Washington State.
Also, I've launched my Patreon page for Latitude Adjustment. If you can kick down a dollar or more a month to make this show sustainable it would be a big help!
We hear a lot about Iran in the Western press and from Western politicians, but we rarely seem to hear from the Iranian people themselves. This week’s episode is the first of what we hope are many efforts to try and correct that omission.
Our guest is a young woman who is a documentary photographer from Tehran.
Be sure to check the post for this episode on the Latitude Adjustment website for more resources. You'll also find instructions for how you can answer her question from the end of the show.
Txell Donyate is an Italian, French, English, Spanish, Catalan and Finnish linguist. And while she’s lived in Barcelona since 2014, she’s originally from the Comunidad Valenciana just to the south of Catalonia. She offers a unique outsider/ insider perspective on the independence movement in Catalonia.
In October of 2017 the regional government of Catalonia held a referendum and then declared independence from Spain. This measure was quickly stopped by the central government in Madrid which invoked Article 155 of the Spanish constitution, stripping Catalonia of its autonomy, sacking the regional government, and imprisoning several ministers and prominent activists, while Catalonia’s president and other ministers fled and went into exile. This episode attempts to lend some historical and personal perspective to the current political situation. And if you’ve been wanting to know more about modern Spanish history you may find the speed history lesson at the beginning to be helpful.
Be sure to check out some recommended reading on the post for this episode at LatitudeAdjustmentPod.com if you want to learn more about the 1936-1939 Spanish Civil War and about contemporary Spanish history and society.
Bruno Morán is from Asturias, Spain, and is a co-founder of No Name Kitchen, an NGO that provides food, sleeping bags, basic necessities, and a community space for refugees in transit along the Serbian and Bosnian borders with Croatia.
In addition to providing basic services, No Name Kitchen has also become a primary point of contact for those who have been pushed back from the Croatian border, and as a result the organization has found itself involved in documenting and sharing the growing number of reported abuses by the Croatian border police against those who are seeking to cross into the EU, people who have no legal means of registering themselves in bordering countries.
In this episode we cover what is happening on the ground, the practical challenges of running a small front line organization, and some advice on how you can get involved in global events in your community.
Abdul Saboor worked with the US military in Afghanistan before having to flee the country after receiving death threats and having several friends and family members killed by the Taliban. What followed was an overland odyssey across Pakistan, Iran, Turkey, the Balkans, and back and forth across the EU, until he was able to claim asylum in France, where he currently lives. Along the way he endured prison, forced labor, beatings, deportations, and kidnapping. His is one of the more remarkable stories of resilience that I have come across in my years of traveling and working in the Middle East and anywhere else in the world.
We were connected by the people at No Name Kitchen, a Spanish NGO that provides food, sleeping bags and supplies, and a community space for the growing numbers of refugees stuck in Serbia and more recently in Bosnia.
Rosine Hounakey is from Togo, but was trafficked to the US at 13 years old and forced to work for free on both coasts of the US, and later into a coerced marriage, until she was freed with her two young sons as the result of an ICE raid when she was 17 years old.
Rosine then had to go through foster care in various American cities, waking up at 5am every day to take her kids to school before completing high school herself, after years with no formal education, having taught herself English along the way.
We also provide some helpful facts from our research into Human Trafficking, as well as links to organizations that can provide immediate assistance, on the website.
Yaari Walker is a member of the Yupik tribe, and originally from the town of Savoonga on St. Lawrence Island, Alaska. She now resides in Anchorage, Alaska, where, in addition to being an activist, author, and entrepreneur, she works at the Alaska Native Heritage Center. Yaari has been on a journey, as a survivor of physical abuse, substance abuse, and incarceration, to recovery, writing a book, starting a business in Native Medicinals, activism, and going back to college to study Psychology. We cover a lot of issues facing indigenous communities in Alaska, North America, and around the world, as well as the issue of community itself and how industrialized Western society often seems to be at odds with the values of sharing, communal responsibility, and compassion.
A warning that we talk about addiction and substance abuse, physical and sexual abuse, and the legacy of boarding school placement amongst the indigenous communities of North America. For those who have personally been through these traumas, or who have loved ones who have, just a note that some parts of this show may be upsetting.
Cory Lee started Curb Free With Cory Lee, a travel blog for people who use wheelchairs and with accessibility needs. So far he's been to 6 continents and also tours as a public speaker. Aside from accessible travel we talk about Spinal Muscular Atrophy, the importance of self-advocacy, educating the public about wheelchair access, working for Obama's inaugural committee, navigating the complex relationships with caregivers, college life, riding a specially adapted camel, why Washington, DC is great for access, and more.
Be sure to go to the link for this episode at LatitudeAdjustmentPod.com for more resources and helpful information.
April Reese is an environmental journalist based in Santa Fe, New Mexico, though her reporting has taken her all over the US, and around Australia where she drove clear around the continent. April explains the challenges of maintaining professional distance from subjects that impact all life on earth, and we discuss why it seems to be so difficult to get people to care about the one issue that matters more than anything else... the environment.
Be sure to check out April's recent piece in Popular Science that covers the top science policy issue in every US state, plus Puerto Rico and Washington, DC.
I caught up with David Vrabo in Tijuana after his vehicle was taken away by the Mexican authorities upon crossing the border from California. We talk about pretty much everything you’d want to know about Mexico, from the stories he heard from migrant laborers while he was working as a press translator, the disappearances and mass graves scattered throughout Mexico, the complex realities of narco-trafficking and corruption in Mexican politics and law enforcement, and his 4,000 km bike ride from Mexico through Central America. We also get into the history and current events in Central America, from the caravan currently moving its way towards the US border to the legacy of US interventionism throughout the region.
My intro for this episode is longer than usual, but I think you’ll find it helpful, as I give some background on my nearly two years filming, and conducting interviews along both sides of the border with everyone from vigilante border patrollers, to sex workers in Juárez, former US law enforcement, immigrants of all documentation backgrounds, ranchers, and volunteers who leave water barrels in the desert. You can also read the feature story I wrote about the beginnings of The Virtual Dinner Guest Project in Juárez, back in 2011.
And I give a speed-history lesson of the US’s role in Latin America from the Mexican-American War up through NAFTA and the Drug War, which should be a helpful resource if you want some context for today’s news headlines.
Matthew Derrick is the founder of Squat the Planet, an "online community for misfit travelers". Starting out as a personal travel journal StP has evolved into an online community of anarchists, travel punks, train hoppers, and people from all walks of life connected by a commitment to "travel by any means necessary". Matt and I talk about his travels and what he envisions for the future of StP. Also be sure to check out my appearance on the Squat the Planet Podcast.
In the second half of our conversation Jade and I talk about the politics around being a "passport baby" in Canada, and the framing of immigration and citizenship in Canadian politics. Then we dive into political philosophy, discussing classical liberalism, various forms of communism, class consciousness, fascism, and some of the common distortions and misperceptions around these concepts. And Jade provides a reading list. Be sure to check out his TED talk on the post for this episode at LatitudeAdjustmentPod.com
And be sure to follow my interview on the Squat the Planet Podcast. If you miss the livestream you can still catch it later on Youtube.
I speak with Lebanese political writer, Jade Saab, about growing up in Lebanon, the country's struggle to balance institutionalized sectarianism with democracy, post colonial history, the Civil War, the 2015 garbage crisis, notions of direct democracy, and more. In the second half of our interview (episode 11) we'll discuss Jade's recent move to Canada, the framing of immigration in Canadian political discourse, and I try to understand how Communism and Fascism work.
Jade Saab's Writing
Eric Maddox on Squat the Planet Podcast
Latitude Adjustment Podcast website
Cornelius Vango, is a traveler, musician, artist, and the genderqueer anarchist librarian of Slab City. Cornelius recently finished hitchhiking across Alaska with their dog Satan, and I caught up with them in Fresno, during the last segment of their long bus drive back to the Southern California desert.
Latitude Adjustment website (with links to podcast platforms)
Cornelius Vango YouTube channel
Squat the Planet
Born in Sri Lanka to Sri Lankan parents, Shanil Samarakoon spent his early childhood in Malawi, before moving to Sri Lanka as an adolescent. He’s currently pursuing his PhD in Energy Justice in Australia, while bouncing between Malawi and Sri Lanka for his nonprofit work with Empower, an organization that helps local communities form cooperatives to take the lead in determining their development priorities, especially around sustainable energy use and solar power. We also discuss the legacy of Sri Lanka's long civil war, contemporary politics in Australia as they relate to energy and immigration policies, and Shanil walks me through the defining principles of Energy Justice, and how we might go about assigning rights and responsibilities through this framework.
http://empowerprojects.org/
https://www.latitudeadjustmentpod.com/
Ndeye Ndao and I cover a lot of ground in this episode, from her initial impressions of American culture as a 19-year-old international student, changes in Senegal since she left to pursue her education, civil rights in the US and Senegal, religion in her life and in Senegalese culture, why she wants more African Americans to visit and connect to Africa, the differences between racism, bias, and passive support for racist systems, her feelings about being a woman of color and an immigrant in America today, and more.
https://www.latitudeadjustmentpod.com/
In this second of a two-part interview, Aram & I discuss the process of his arrival in Germany, his family back in Syria, his thoughts about the use and abuse of the term "refugee" and his complex relationship to this word, and the differences in how religious identity is discussed and inhabited in Syria and in Germany. And some thoughts on the role of religion in contemporary political culture around the world.
https://www.latitudeadjustmentpod.com/
https://medium.com/@AreYouSyrious
Aram AlSaed was a paramedic and a student of fine arts before he left Syria in 2015, traveling by bus, plane, boat, and by foot to reach Germany, stopping along the way to provide medical and translation support for other refugees. In this first of a two-part interview, I speak with him about life in Syria before the war, when things began to change, his work as a paramedic in Syria, when he realized that it was time for he and his brother to leave, and his journey up to the German border. Be sure to check the website for helpful information and resources related to the ongoing refugee crisis, and more. And look for the second half of the interview next week.
Clara is one of those people who just seem programmed from birth to dive into life with both feet and to experience as many things as possible along the way. And aside from stints as a professional boxer and a wilderness firefighter, she's seen a lot of the world from some unusual vantage points. I met Clara in New Mexico about 9 years ago, before I started my own long stretch of solo travel. Aside from discussing her travel and her career paths, we also talk about growing up as hyper religious kids and we examine the similar experiences that we've had in dealing with grief. Plus I struggle to remember some stuff I read about Socrates a long time ago, and try to see how his observations might apply to daily life and the way we approach relationships with others.
https://www.latitudeadjustmentpod.com/podcast/
https://www.facebook.com/groups/latitudeadjustmentconversation/
Check out the supplemental videos and reading suggestions for this episode at LatitideAdjustmentPod.com/podcast
Yousef Aljamal and I met in Gaza in 2013. In this long-format episode we discuss life in Gaza under 11 years of siege imposed by Israel and Egypt, his travels and his personal losses, the ongoing Great March of Return Protests, solidarity with indigenous communities and movements, and we take a critical look at internal Palestinian politics, the stigmatization of mental health treatment, the role of Hamas and its politics, and pretty much everything you would want to know about the present situation in Gaza and the rest of Palestine that we could fit into two very long conversations. I also provide a longer intro and closing thoughts to address the divisive nature of this subject in the US and the West, and my own travels in Palestine. It would be impossible to produce a podcast on this subject that everyone will agree with, and that's not the aim of this show on any subject. However, considerable effort was put into producing a show that will give you a detailed look at the present situation from a Palestinian perspective, and into covering topics that are all but completely absent from the treatment of this conflict in mainstream and even alternative media. This episode should be educational for just about anyone trying to get a better understanding of what is often characterized as the most intractable conflict in the world.
I met Tara in Cairo in 2012, and then again in Washington DC. She's been on the move for a long time, both as a veteran Middle East photojournalist with Reuters and AP and now with her own production company which helps humanitarian nonprofits tell their stories through mixed media. We discuss her intense first day on the job in Beirut, how she got into photojournalism, the challenges and advantages of being a woman in her field, work-life balance in a notoriously demanding profession, and the relationship between foreign reporters and the local teams and communities they interact with.
For this first episode I talk to my buddy Andrius in Vilnius, Lithuania. We met each other in Istanbul in 2015 and hit it off over beers and politics. He shares his experiences growing up after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, his experiences traveling in Western Europe as an Eastern European, learning to let go of certain things in Asia, Lithuanian Reggae, and reflections on culture and politics from his years living in Turkey. There's some naughty language at the end.
Welcome to Latitude Adjustment and to your journey around the world through conversation!
This will be an interview-format show, but for this initial teaser episode I'll be introducing myself and offering some reflections from my years of solo travel across the Middle East, North Africa, South Asia, Europe, and the US-Mexico borderlands. Also, why it's our moral and civic duty to be curious, the formula that is used to manipulate populations into committing acts of violence, and an invitation to participate in the conversation. I'm just one guy figuring this out, so thanks for your patience and for tuning in!
Be sure to swing by the website for more info about our conversation space on Facebook, our newsletter, and of course links to new episodes:
LatitudeAdjustmentPod.com