Status/الوضع: Recent Episodes
Arab Studies Institute
A critical, collaborative, and independent monthly Audio Journal combining analysis, reporting, and satire, comprised mainly of hard-hitting interviews/conversations, on-the-scene reports, reviews, informed commentary, and readings on the Middle East and beyond.
This is Episode 9 (dated 3 December 2023) of The War on Palestine Podcast, an approximately 20-minute regular audio program that comprises updates on what is happening on the ground in Palestine as well as some focused analysis on how to make sense of those developments.
The podcast features Noura Erakat, Ziad Abu-Rish, and Bassam Haddad. Research for this program was conducted by Mayss al-Alami, Sarah al-Yahya, Anas Alkhatib, Raneem Ayyad, and Alaa Attiah Mitwali.
The update component of the program addresses key developments in a combination of the following areas:
Gaza and the rest of Palestine. The United Nations and legal advocacy. Regional state’s policies and statements The US media landscape Grassroots reverberations and mobilizations
This program is meant to be a resource for educators, activists, researchers, and laypersons wanting to follow closely as the catastrophic situation continues to unfold.
This is Episode 8 (dated 26 November 2023) of The War on Palestine Podcast, an approximately 20-minute regular audio program that comprises updates on what is happening on the ground in Palestine as well as some focused analysis on how to make sense of those developments.
The podcast features Noura Erakat, Ziad Abu-Rish, and Bassam Haddad. Research for this program was conducted by Mayss al-Alami, Sarah al-Yahya, Anas Alkhatib, Raneem Ayyad, and Alaa Attiah Mitwali.
The update component of the program addresses key developments in a combination of the following areas:
Gaza and the rest of Palestine. The United Nations and legal advocacy. Regional state’s policies and statements The US media landscape Grassroots reverberations and mobilizations
This program is meant to be a resource for educators, activists, researchers, and laypersons wanting to follow closely as the catastrophic situation continues to unfold.
This is Episode 7 (dated 21 November 2023) of The War on Palestine Podcast, an approximately 20-minute regular audio program that comprises updates on what is happening on the ground in Palestine as well as some focused analysis on how to make sense of those developments.
The podcast features Noura Erakat, Ziad Abu-Rish, and Bassam Haddad. Research for this program was conducted by Mayss al-Alami, Sarah al-Yahya, Anas Alkhatib, Raneem Ayyad, and Alaa Attiah Mitwali.
The update component of the program addresses key developments in a combination of the following areas:
Gaza and the rest of Palestine. The United Nations and legal advocacy. Regional state’s policies and statements The US media landscape Grassroots reverberations and mobilizations
This program is meant to be a resource for educators, activists, researchers, and laypersons wanting to follow closely as the catastrophic situation continues to unfold.
This is Episode 6 (dated 16 November 2023) of The War on Palestine Podcast, an approximately 20-minute regular audio program that comprises updates on what is happening on the ground in Palestine as well as some focused analysis on how to make sense of those developments.
The podcast features Noura Erakat, Ziad Abu-Rish, and Bassam Haddad. Research for this program was conducted by Mayss al-Alami, Sarah al-Yahya, Anas Alkhatib, Raneem Ayyad, and Alaa Attiah Mitwali.
The update component of the program addresses key developments in a combination of the following areas:
Gaza and the rest of Palestine. The United Nations and legal advocacy. Regional state’s policies and statements The US media landscape Grassroots reverberations and mobilizations
This program is meant to be a resource for educators, activists, researchers, and laypersons wanting to follow closely as the catastrophic situation continues to unfold.
This is Episode 5 (dated 12 November 2023) of The War on Palestine Podcast, an approximately 20-minute regular audio program that comprises updates on what is happening on the ground in Palestine as well as some focused analysis on how to make sense of those developments.
The podcast features Noura Erakat, Ziad Abu-Rish, and Bassam Haddad. Research for this program was conducted by Mayss al-Alami, Sarah al-Yahya, Anas Alkhatib, Raneem Ayyad, and Alaa Attiah Mitwali.
The update component of the program addresses key developments in a combination of the following areas:
Gaza and the rest of Palestine. The United Nations and legal advocacy. Regional state’s policies and statements The US media landscape Grassroots reverberations and mobilizations
This program is meant to be a resource for educators, activists, researchers, and laypersons wanting to follow closely as the catastrophic situation continues to unfold.
This is Episode 4 (dated 7 November 2023) of The War on Palestine Podcast, an approximately 20-minute regular audio program that comprises updates on what is happening on the ground in Palestine as well as some focused analysis on how to make sense of those developments.
The podcast features Noura Erakat, Ziad Abu-Rish, and Bassam Haddad. Research for this program was conducted by Mayss al-Alami, Sarah al-Yahya, Anas Alkhatib, Raneem Ayyad, and Alaa Attiah Mitwali.
The update component of the program addresses key developments in a combination of the following areas:
Gaza and the rest of Palestine. The United Nations and legal advocacy. Regional state’s policies and statements The US media landscape Grassroots reverberations and mobilizations
This program is meant to be a resource for educators, activists, researchers, and laypersons wanting to follow closely as the catastrophic situation continues to unfold.
This is Episode 3 (dated 3 November 2023) of The War on Palestine Podcast, an approximately 20-minute regular audio program that comprises updates on what is happening on the ground in Palestine as well as some focused analysis on how to make sense of those developments.
The podcast features Noura Erakat, Ziad Abu-Rish, and Bassam Haddad. Research for this program was conducted by Mayss al-Alami, Sarah al-Yahya, Anas Alkhatib, Raneem Ayyad, and Alaa Attiah Mitwali.
The update component of the program addresses key developments in a combination of the following areas:
Gaza and the rest of Palestine. The United Nations and legal advocacy. Regional state’s policies and statements The US media landscape Grassroots reverberations and mobilizations
This program is meant to be a resource for educators, activists, researchers, and laypersons wanting to follow closely as the catastrophic situation continues to unfold.
This is Episode 2 (dated 31 October 2023) of The War on Palestine Podcast, an approximately 20-minute regular audio program that comprises updates on what is happening on the ground in Palestine as well as some focused analysis on how to make sense of those developments. The podcast features Noura Erakat, Ziad Abu-Rish, and Bassam Haddad. Research for this program was conducted by Mayss al-Alami, Sarah al-Yahya, Anas Alkhatib, Raneem Ayyad, and Alaa Attiah Mitwali.
The update component of the program addresses key developments in a combination of the following areas:
Gaza and the rest of Palestine. The United Nations and legal advocacy. Regional state’s policies and statements The US media landscape Grassroots reverberations and mobilizations
This program is meant to be a resource for educators, activists, researchers, and laypersons wanting to follow closely as the catastrophic situation continues to unfold.
We are announcing the launch of The War on Palestine Podcast, an approximately 20-minute regular program available on video or audio that comprises updates on what is happening on the ground in Palestine as well as some focused analysis on how to make sense of those developments.
The podcast features Noura Erakat, Ziad Abu-Rish, and Bassam Haddad. Research for this program was conducted by Mayss al-Alami, Sarah al-Yahya, Anas Alkhatib, Raneem `Ayyad, and Alaa Attiah Mitwali.
The update component of the program will address key developments in a combination of the following areas:
Gaza and the rest of Palestine. The United Nations and legal advocacy. Regional state’s policies and statements The US media landscape Grassroots reverberations and mobilizations
We will present the analysis component during the last 5 minutes of the program. It will take stock of the developments presented both for the immediate moment and the broader trajectory of the struggle for Palestinian liberation.
This program is meant to be a resource for educators, activists, researchers, and laypersons wanting to follow closely as the catastrophic situation continues to unfold.
The country of Lebanon has been in social and economic upheaval over the past few years, sending many of its beleaguered citizens into international exile in search of basic economic survival.
VOMENA's Khalil Bendib speaks with Lebanese activist and academic Rayan El-Amine who, after a decade in his native land, has returned to the Bay area with his family, about the travails of a country that is geographically diminutive but has always loomed large in the conscience of the world.
Now approaching seventy tons annually, gold has replaced cotton as Mali’s leading export, turning that country into Africa’s third-largest gold producer. The primary destination of artisanal gold seems to be the United Arab Emirates. By all evidence, the gold that shines in the souks of Dubai is the product of a complex web of criminal networks, terrorist groups and internationally sanctioned regimes, who use this non-industrially mined gold to launder their money.
The Emirates have long been a global hub for transnational African merchants, who travel to Dubai to purchase imported goods such as Japanese-made auto parts or Chinese-made garments. Emirati authorities and commercial players are now exploiting their country’s existing commercial status to make the UAE an important node for the trade in precious metals, especially gold. These buyers are actively financing associates in Mali and throughout the Sahel and Sahara regions, driving the expansion of artisanal mining into new areas."
Malihe Razazan speaks with Bruce Whitehouse about the reasons why Mali is emerging as the main production hub for Sahelian countries and why Dubai is the number one destination for artisanal gold trade.
Last September, Mahsa-Jina Amini, a twenty-two-year-old woman from the Kurdish region of Iran, died while in the custody of Iran’s notorious "morality police."
During the funeral in her hometown of Saghez, which was to become the epicenter of the nationwide protests in Iran, women took off their headscarves, chanting ‘Women Life Freedom’, a slogan which became an iconic chant both within Iran and beyond.
Images of young women protesters openly taking off their headscarves and burning them sent the unmistakable message to the ruling clerics that they could no longer impose their draconian and nonsensical laws on women and girls in Iran.
Throughout the country, in the schools, universities, and streets young people became the leaders of protests calling for an end to the oxymoronic "Islamic republic.“ But, as predicted, the brutality employed by the regime’s security apparatus to suppress the protests at any cost took on epic proportions. Over 500 protesters have reportedly been killed so far, including 70 children.
In addition, to this day four protesters have been executed by the state, with many more also facing the death sentence. Hundreds of protesters were also blinded by Metal Pellets and Rubber Bullets.
Furthermore, over the past six months, human rights organizations have documented the pervasive use of torture and abuse of detained protestors. A newly released report by Amnesty International, for example, reveals that the Iranian authorities have, among other torture methods, used sexual violence against imprisoned children.
Amnesty International’s Deputy Regional Director for the Middle East and North Africa, Diana Eltahawy, has said that "Iran’s violence against children exposes a deliberate strategy to crush the vibrant spirit of the country’s youth and stop them from demanding freedom and human rights.”
Professor Shahrzad Mojab, who is our guest today, says that much of the push for the current protests has come from young people, who are more aware than previous generations of women's issues thanks to social media. "They have their own powerful reason for wanting a change of regime: a desire for a better future."
Professor Shahrzad Mojab is a scholar, teacher, and activist, and she’s internationally known for her work on the impacts of war, displacement, and violence upon women’s learning and education.
Malihe Razazan spoke with her about the protest movement, the islamization of the education system as well as the role of young women in the protests, and started by asking her to talk about the genesis of the slogan "Women Life Freedom," and how it encapsulates the spirit and objectives of the protests in Iran.
Even by Israel’s abysmal standards, provocations against the people of Palestine have seen a dramatic escalation since the arrival of Bibi Netanyahu’s new government three months ago: hundreds of innocent civilians murdered, including many children, an outright anti-Palestinian pogrom in the West Bank that was cheered on by the minister of interior, a brutal attack on worshippers inside one of Islam’s holy sites in the middle of Ramadan, as well as statements by a key government official declaring that the Palestinian people simply does not exist.
At the same time, a historic wave of protests contesting the new government’s attempts to temper with the role of the judiciary claims to defend democracy in the holy land without a single mention of the central question of Palestinian civil and human rights. We asked asked prominent Israeli historian Ilan Pappé for his take on these recent developments.
The 2003 invasion and occupation of Iraq resulted in massive death and destruction, and fueled sectarian tensions, which culminated in a violent civil war. More than 300,000 Iraqis have died from direct war violence and 9.2 million people have been internally displaced, according to Brown University's Costs of War Project.
The brutal invasion and occupation of Iraq entrenched the country in a cycle of sectarian violence and impacted every aspect of life in Iraq, from governance to health care, infrastructure, economy and the environment and long term trauma
In a recent piece in the Guardian, one of today’s guests Professor Sinan Antoon writes, “I had always hoped to see the end of Saddam’s dictatorship at the hands of the Iraqi people, not courtesy of a neocolonial project that would dismantle what had remained of the Iraqi state and replace it with a regime based on ethno-sectarian dynamics, plunging the country into violent chaos and civil wars."
This week, we bring you the first part of our conversation about the reasons behind the catastrophic invasion of Iraq.
Clashes between Sudanese armed forces and the Rapid Support Forces spread to different regions in the country, creating a humanitarian crisis of immense proportions. Hundreds have died and tens of thousands of Sudanese are attempting to escape the violence. Host Shahram Aghamir spoke to Prof. Khalid Medani about this topic.
On May 28th, Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan was re-elected for a third term by winning 52% of the popular vote. His main rival Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu garnered 48%.
Two weeks earlier, the right wing Islamist-Nationalist coalition consisting of Erdogan’s ruling Justice and Development party (AKP) and its allies had won the majority in the parliamentary election.
Shahram Aghamir spoke with Professor Cihan Tuğal about these outcomes and how and why Erdoğan was able to secure a third term in office despite a worsening economy and now chronic hyperinflation, the government's disastrous response to the deadly earthquakes, as well as his increasingly authoritarian rule.
Courtesy of Voices of the Middle East & North Africa (VOMENA).
The catastrophic loss of life in the recent earthquakes in Turkey and Syria on February 6th have sparked numerous questions, such as: What can possibly explain such a high number of casualties and the widespread destruction of old and new buildings? Host Shahram Aghamir spoke to Cihan Tuğal about this topic.
There is still talk here about the Intifada or what has become known as Lebanon. As we enter the third week of the economic collapse, we continue our narration of the events and chapters of the uprising, accompanied by new melodies, sounds and music that were specially prepared for these fast days. Loss is the title of this week that we present day by day through these seven episodes.
There is still talk here about the Intifada or what has become known as Lebanon. As we enter the third week of the economic collapse, we continue our narration of the events and chapters of the uprising, accompanied by new melodies, sounds and music that were specially prepared for these fast days. Loss is the title of this week that we present day by day through these seven episodes.
There is still talk here about the Intifada or what has become known as Lebanon. As we enter the third week of the economic collapse, we continue our narration of the events and chapters of the uprising, accompanied by new melodies, sounds and music that were specially prepared for these fast days. Loss is the title of this week that we present day by day through these seven episodes.
There is still talk here about the Intifada or what has become known as Lebanon. As we enter the third week of the economic collapse, we continue our narration of the events and chapters of the uprising, accompanied by new melodies, sounds and music that were specially prepared for these fast days. Loss is the title of this week that we present day by day through these seven episodes.
There is still talk here about the Intifada or what has become known as Lebanon. As we enter the third week of the economic collapse, we continue our narration of the events and chapters of the uprising, accompanied by new melodies, sounds and music that were specially prepared for these fast days. Loss is the title of this week that we present day by day through these seven episodes.
There is still talk here about the Intifada or what has become known as Lebanon. As we enter the third week of the economic collapse, we continue our narration of the events and chapters of the uprising, accompanied by new melodies, sounds and music that were specially prepared for these fast days. Loss is the title of this week that we present day by day through these seven episodes.
There is still talk here about the Intifada or what has become known as Lebanon. As we enter the third week of the economic collapse, we continue our narration of the events and chapters of the uprising, accompanied by new melodies, sounds and music that were specially prepared for these fast days. Loss is the title of this week that we present day by day through these seven episodes.
The intifada in its second week. With a new week and musical tunes specially prepared for these hot days, we will follow the course of events day by day through these seven episodes. This series of audio recordings takes place during the days of the uprising and the economic collapse that struck Lebanon in the Fall of 2019. At that time, Mohamad Ali-Nayel kept a diary in which he wrote down what was happening around him. Three years later, he recorded these episodes on a daily basis with the addition of a few voices and music composed to accompany the narration.
The intifada in its second week. With a new week and musical tunes specially prepared for these hot days, we will follow the course of events day by day through these seven episodes. This series of audio recordings takes place during the days of the uprising and the economic collapse that struck Lebanon in the Fall of 2019. At that time, Mohamad Ali-Nayel kept a diary in which he wrote down what was happening around him. Three years later, he recorded these episodes on a daily basis with the addition of a few voices and music composed to accompany the narration.
The intifada in its second week. With a new week and musical tunes specially prepared for these hot days, we will follow the course of events day by day through these seven episodes. This series of audio recordings takes place during the days of the uprising and the economic collapse that struck Lebanon in the Fall of 2019. At that time, Mohamad Ali-Nayel kept a diary in which he wrote down what was happening around him. Three years later, he recorded these episodes on a daily basis with the addition of a few voices and music composed to accompany the narration.
The intifada in its second week. With a new week and musical tunes specially prepared for these hot days, we will follow the course of events day by day through these seven episodes. This series of audio recordings takes place during the days of the uprising and the economic collapse that struck Lebanon in the Fall of 2019. At that time, Mohamad Ali-Nayel kept a diary in which he wrote down what was happening around him. Three years later, he recorded these episodes on a daily basis with the addition of a few voices and music composed to accompany the narration.
The intifada in its second week. With a new week and musical tunes specially prepared for these hot days, we will follow the course of events day by day through these seven episodes. This series of audio recordings takes place during the days of the uprising and the economic collapse that struck Lebanon in the Fall of 2019. At that time, Mohamad Ali-Nayel kept a diary in which he wrote down what was happening around him. Three years later, he recorded these episodes on a daily basis with the addition of a few voices and music composed to accompany the narration.
The intifada in its second week. With a new week and musical tunes specially prepared for these hot days, we will follow the course of events day by day through these seven episodes. This series of audio recordings takes place during the days of the uprising and the economic collapse that struck Lebanon in the Fall of 2019. At that time, Mohamad Ali-Nayel kept a diary in which he wrote down what was happening around him. Three years later, he recorded these episodes on a daily basis with the addition of a few voices and music composed to accompany the narration.
The intifada in its second week. With a new week and musical tunes specially prepared for these hot days, we will follow the course of events day by day through these seven episodes. This series of audio recordings takes place during the days of the uprising and the economic collapse that struck Lebanon in the Fall of 2019. At that time, Mohamad Ali-Nayel kept a diary in which he wrote down what was happening around him. Three years later, he recorded these episodes on a daily basis with the addition of a few voices and music composed to accompany the narration.
تمّ إجراء المقابلة معه قبل وفاته بعدة أشهر، تحدّث د. عبد الستّار قاسم عن النقاط المفصلية في مسيرة حياته، والتي أثّرت على مجمل النشاطات التي يقوم بها على المستويين الشخصي والعام. وتحدّث عن قلة الإنتاج المعرفي النقدي حول فلسطين وعن صعوبة إنشاء مساحة نقدية فلسطينية تشجع الفكر النقدي مع توضيح حيثيات المجتمع الفلسطيني الذي يحول دون ذلك، بالإضافة إلى شحّ تمويل المراكز البحثية والندوات والمؤتمرات العلمية. ووضّح أنّ المؤسسات العلمية هي ليست مؤسسات فلسطينية بقدر ما هي مؤسسات فصائلية أو قبلية، وهذا يؤثر على الإنتاج، وحتى لو أعطى إنتاج فالإنتاج يكون هزيلًا على المستوى العلمي العالمي المطلوب، وإنما يكون منحازًا مسبقًا، ويُكتب لصالح هذا الفصيل أو ذاك، لأنه في النهاية يريد أن يرضي الجهة التي تمول مركز الأبحاث، وهذا الشيء كان عصيّا على قبول د. عبد الستار قاسم. وفي هذا السياق أشار د. قاسم إلى ضرورة عدم تسييس المؤسسات التعليمية؛ فالتسييس –برأيه- يخرّب المؤسسات العلمية والتعليمية (المدارس والجامعات). والمفترض بهذه المؤسسات أن تقوم وفق أسس ومبادئ ومنطلقات علمية.
عبد الستار قاسم: كاتب ومفكر ومحلل سياسي وأكاديمي فلسطيني من بلدة دير الغصون قضاء طولكرم، وأستاذ العلوم السياسية والدراسات الفلسطينية في جامعة النجاح الوطنية في نابلس، وهو معروف بمواقفه الرافضة للمفاوضات مع إسرائيل، ومواقفه المنتقدة للسلطة الوطنية الفلسطينية. وُلد عام 1948، وتوفي عام 2021. صدر له 25 كتابًا، وحوالي 130 بحثًا علميًا، وآلاف المقالات أبرزها: الفلسفة السياسية التقليدية، سقوط ملك الملوك (حول الثورة الإيرانية)، الشهيد عز الدين القسام، مرتفعات الجولان، التجربة الاعتقالية، أيام في معتقل النقب، حرية الفرد والجماعة في الإسلام، المرأة في الفكر الإسلامي، سيدنا إبراهيم والميثاق مع بني إسرائيل، الطريق إلى الهزيمة، الموجز في القضية الفلسطينية، قبور الثقفين العرب.
لبابة صبري: فلسطينية مقدسية، محاضرة في جامعة بيت لحم في فلسطين، وباحثة في مجال علم الاجتماع وعلم الإنسان، متخصصة بعلم اجتماع الفن والأدب والمسرح، رسالة الدكتوراة حول أنثروبولوجيا ممثلي مسرح الحكواتي في القدس، ورسالة الماجستير حول سيسولوجيا روايات الفلسطيني غسان كنفاني بعنوان "الرؤية الفكرية والمخيم الفلسطيني في روايات غسان كنفاني". المقالات البحثية المنشورة: "علم اجتماع مجموعات التكيف/ النازحين في فلسطين داخل حدود 67: دراسة مقارنة بين أهالي قرية صرعة وقرية لفتا في مخيم قلنديا للاجئين" 2006، "علم اجتماع الأدب: دراسة لنظرية جولدمان" 2007، "صناعة الحب والكراهية" 2008، "البنية الفكرية في روايات غسان كنفاني" 2008، "مراجعة نقدية لمقال صناعة الثقافة ل Adorno و Horkheimer: التنوير بوصفه خداعاً جماهيرياً" 2009، "بنية الثقافة والمجتمع في المدينة الفلسطينية" 2016.
خلال المقابلة تحدثنا بروفيسور ايزيس عن أهم المراحل المفصلية في حياتها، والتي تتأثر من الأحداث السياسية العالمية والمحلية والتي تهز كيان المرأ من الداخل وتتحول هذه الأحداث الى دافع وشغف لتوظيف المعرفة لخدمة العدالة الاجتماعية. تؤمن ايزيس بأن الانتاج المعرفي النقدي حول فلسطين بإستطاعته أن يتخطى حدود فلسطين الجغرافية والقومية، ومن الأنجع أن يتقاطع مع صراعات الشعوب المقموعة الاخرى حول العالم، حيث ان هذه الصراعات تنصب في ذات المحاور: التحرر من مباني القوة المهيمنة عالمية وإنتاج مجتمعات محتوية لأفرادها. وهنا، يكون دور البحث الأكاديمي في العلوم الاجتماعية عامة - والنسوية خاصة - هاما لينقل أصوات الشرائح المهمشة وأن يسعى للتغيير في الواقع. تطرح ايزيس خلال المقابلة أسئلة قيمة حول فهمنا للانتاج المعرفي النقدي الفلسطيني - من منظور عابر للحدود ومتحد للأطر البنيوية والمهيمنة- وكيف يتم توظيف النظريات المختلفة وأساليب البحث الخلاقة من أجل إتاحة المعرفة للجميع، مثلا عبر الفن والمسرح.
بروفيسور ايزيس نصير:أستاذة مشاركة، تعلم دراسات المرأة والجندر وكذلك الدراسات الدولية في جامعة دينيسون في الولايات المتحدة الأمريكية (Denison University). بعض منشوراتها; تحرير كتاب "في غربة الوطن: الإثنية والجندر لدى الفلسطينيين في اسرائيل" بشراكة مع روضة كناعنة: كتابة وتحرير مسرحية "Weaving the Maps: Tales of Survival and Resistance" بشراكة مع ليلى فرح: وقامت ايضا بترجمة "مذ لم أمت: Ever Since I Did Not Die" لرامي العاشق. وتعمل الان مع باربراه شاو (Barbara Shaw) على تحرير مقالات عن الشراكة النسوية في التعليم والتعلُم. أبحاث ايزيس تركز على الفلسطينيين في إسرائيل، اللاجئات العراقيات في الأردن والولايات المتحدة، اللاجئات السوريات والفلسطينيات في ألمانيا، الدراما التلفزيونية السورية ما بعد 2011 وغيرها. تعمل ايزيس في لجنة تحرير مجلة International Feminist Journal of Politics. كما وعملت سابقا كباحثة لحقوق المرأة في الشرق الأوسط وشمال أفريقيا ضمن مؤسسة Human Rights Watch، وضمن شبكة Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Network.
سماح عباس: مرأة فلسطينية ولدت في قانا الجليل في شمال فلسطين المحتلة. تسكن القدس منذ سنوات. أنهت بإمتياز لقبها الأول ولقب ماجستير من الجامعة العبرية في القدس في الخدمة الاجتماعية العلاجية وتخصصت في الدراسات النسوية. أطروحة الماجستير خاصتها ركزت على دراسة تجربة الإعاقة اليومية لدى الفلسطينيين المقدسيين البالغين مع اعاقة بصرية و/أو حركية. فيها إرتكزت سماح على شهادات 15 مشارك/ة واستعانت بحقول معرفية نقدية مثل دراسات الإعاقة العالمية، النظرية النسوية، البرادايم الاستعماري الاستيطاني وغيرها. سماح ناشطة نسوية وناشطة في مجال حقوق الأشخاص مع إعاقة، وتعمل اليوم كأخصائية مٌعالجة لأطفال متضرري الصدمات الجنسية في القدس.
تمّ إجراء المقابلة معه قبل وفاته بعدة أشهر، تحدّث د. عبد الستّار قاسم عن النقاط المفصلية في مسيرة حياته، والتي أثّرت على مجمل النشاطات التي يقوم بها على المستويين الشخصي والعام. وتحدّث عن قلة الإنتاج المعرفي النقدي حول فلسطين وعن صعوبة إنشاء مساحة نقدية فلسطينية تشجع الفكر النقدي مع توضيح حيثيات المجتمع الفلسطيني الذي يحول دون ذلك، بالإضافة إلى شحّ تمويل المراكز البحثية والندوات والمؤتمرات العلمية. ووضّح أنّ المؤسسات العلمية هي ليست مؤسسات فلسطينية بقدر ما هي مؤسسات فصائلية أو قبلية، وهذا يؤثر على الإنتاج، وحتى لو أعطى إنتاج فالإنتاج يكون هزيلًا على المستوى العلمي العالمي المطلوب، وإنما يكون منحازًا مسبقًا، ويُكتب لصالح هذا الفصيل أو ذاك، لأنه في النهاية يريد أن يرضي الجهة التي تمول مركز الأبحاث، وهذا الشيء كان عصيّا على قبول د. عبد الستار قاسم. وفي هذا السياق أشار د. قاسم إلى ضرورة عدم تسييس المؤسسات التعليمية؛ فالتسييس –برأيه- يخرّب المؤسسات العلمية والتعليمية (المدارس والجامعات). والمفترض بهذه المؤسسات أن تقوم وفق أسس ومبادئ ومنطلقات علمية.
عبد الستار قاسم: كاتب ومفكر ومحلل سياسي وأكاديمي فلسطيني من بلدة دير الغصون قضاء طولكرم، وأستاذ العلوم السياسية والدراسات الفلسطينية في جامعة النجاح الوطنية في نابلس، وهو معروف بمواقفه الرافضة للمفاوضات مع إسرائيل، ومواقفه المنتقدة للسلطة الوطنية الفلسطينية. وُلد عام 1948، وتوفي عام 2021. صدر له 25 كتابًا، وحوالي 130 بحثًا علميًا، وآلاف المقالات أبرزها: الفلسفة السياسية التقليدية، سقوط ملك الملوك (حول الثورة الإيرانية)، الشهيد عز الدين القسام، مرتفعات الجولان، التجربة الاعتقالية، أيام في معتقل النقب، حرية الفرد والجماعة في الإسلام، المرأة في الفكر الإسلامي، سيدنا إبراهيم والميثاق مع بني إسرائيل، الطريق إلى الهزيمة، الموجز في القضية الفلسطينية، قبور الثقفين العرب.
لبابة صبري: فلسطينية مقدسية، محاضرة في جامعة بيت لحم في فلسطين، وباحثة في مجال علم الاجتماع وعلم الإنسان، متخصصة بعلم اجتماع الفن والأدب والمسرح، رسالة الدكتوراة حول أنثروبولوجيا ممثلي مسرح الحكواتي في القدس، ورسالة الماجستير حول سيسولوجيا روايات الفلسطيني غسان كنفاني بعنوان "الرؤية الفكرية والمخيم الفلسطيني في روايات غسان كنفاني". المقالات البحثية المنشورة: "علم اجتماع مجموعات التكيف/ النازحين في فلسطين داخل حدود 67: دراسة مقارنة بين أهالي قرية صرعة وقرية لفتا في مخيم قلنديا للاجئين" 2006، "علم اجتماع الأدب: دراسة لنظرية جولدمان" 2007، "صناعة الحب والكراهية" 2008، "البنية الفكرية في روايات غسان كنفاني" 2008، "مراجعة نقدية لمقال صناعة الثقافة ل Adorno و Horkheimer: التنوير بوصفه خداعاً جماهيرياً" 2009، "بنية الثقافة والمجتمع في المدينة الفلسطينية" 2016.
What has Security in Context achieved in the past two years? And what does the future hold for the project? In this episode, we hear from some of the key people leading Security in Context’s research network, including: Omar Dahi, Project Director of Security in Context and Economics Professor at Hampshire College; Shana Marshall, Associate Director of the Institute for Middle East Studies and Assistant Research Faculty member at the George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs; Pete Moore, Associate Professor of Politics at Case Western Reserve University; Lisa Hajjar, Professor of Sociology at the University of California, Santa Barbara; Firat Demir, Professor of Economics at the University of Oklahoma and co-director of University of Oklahoma's Center for Peace and Development; Rabie Nasser, economist, researcher and co-founder of the Syrian Center for Policy Research; and Fernando Brancoli, Assistant Professor of International Security and Geopolitics at the Institute of International Relations and Defense at the University of Rio de Janeiro.
In August 2022, U.S. President Joe Biden signed an act expanding benefits and healthcare to U.S. veterans exposed to toxins in burn pits. But what about Iraqi exposure to burn pits? Kali Rubaii's research addresses their longterm diffuse exposure at all stages of their life, with effects that are varied and widespread. Rubaii has worked closely with Iraqi families since 2009, leading a team of doctors, epidemiologists and activists to conduct a case control study among families experiencing birth defects that may be linked to burn pits and bombings. In this interview, she speaks with Malihe Razazan about her work.
Courtesy of Voices of the Middle East & North Africa (VOMENA). ----
Kali Rubaii earned her PhD in Anthropology from University of California, Santa Cruz and her BA in International Relations from University of California, Davis.
Specialization: displacement, ecologies of war, spatial politics, forensic ethnography, health justice, Middle East.
Kali Rubaii is an assistant professor in the Department of Anthropology at Purdue University, interested in sharpening resistance strategies that target the vulnerable nexus between coercive power and the physical world.
Her research explores the environmental impacts of less-than-lethal militarism, and how military projects (re)arrange political ecologies in the name of “letting live.” Her book project, Counter-resurgency, examines how farmers in Anbar, Iraq struggle to survive and recover from transnational counterinsurgency projects.
She is currently conducting fieldwork for two ethnographic projects: Taking toxicity as an analytic for material politics, she is working with a team of doctors, epidemiologists, and environmental activists to document the links between the epidemic of birth defects in Fallujah and military environmental damage. She is also researching the corporate-military enterprise of concrete production in post-invasion Iraq and how it enforces global regimes of class and citizenship.
في هذا الحوار يخوض القس متري راهب في مسيرته الحياتية كلاهوتي ومفكّر وراعي لكنيسة في بيت لحم، فالانتفاضة الأولى والثانية عرضت رعيّته في بيت لحم لعنف الاحتلال الشرس والمدمّر وفرضت أسئلة روحية جديدة التي دفعته الى تأسيس ما يسميه بال"اللاهوت السياقي"(Contextual Theology). "قراءة الكتاب المقدّس في عيون فلسطينية" بالنسبة للقس راهب تحصل من خلال خلق حوار ما بين التعاليم الروحيّة المسيحية والتاريخ الفلسطيني العريق والحديث حيث تصبح التجربة الفلسطينية المعاصرة مفتاحًا معرفيًّا وروحيًّا لفهم الانجيل. يتحدّث القس راهب أيضًا عن مركزية التحليل التاريخي الجيوسياسي للكتاب المقدّس، فهو انعكاس، بل منتوج، لصيرورة تاريخية محددة ما زالت تستمر حتى يومنا هذا لشعبٍ يحاول فهم واقعه وبناء أمل للخلاص داخله في ظل عنف الإمبراطوريات المختلفة التي توالت في سيطرتها عليه ومارست حروبها المختلفة على أرض وطنه. يناقش القس أيضًا في هذا الحوار أهمية الإنتاج المعرفي والفني الفلسطيني في صيانة الهوية التاريخية الفلسطينية، ودور جامعة دار الكلمة في بيت لحم التي يترأسها في بناء المشروع الجماعي الاجتماعي والسياسي الذي يجمع بين الفن والبحث والفكر واللاهوت لصيانة السردية الفلسطينية بشكلٍ يعود الى الجذور العريقة والمتعددة الطبقات من دون إقصاء أي طبقة، مشروع يدفع الأجيال القيادية القادمة لإعادة تخيّل التاريخ الفلسطينية والمستقبل الفلسطيني بشكل نقدي، ديناميكي وتحرري ينطلق من السؤال المصيري الأهم: "أيّ فلسطين نريد؟"
متري راهب: القس والدكتور متري الراهب هو من مواليد وسكّان بيت لحم، وهو لاهوتي وباحث فلسطيني ومؤسس ورئيس لجامعة دار الكلمة في بيت لحم. حصل القس على درجة الدكتوراه في اللاهوت من جامعة فيليبس في ماربورغ عام 1987، ألمانيا، ودكتوراه فخرية من جامعة كونكورديا في شيكاغو عام 2003. عمله البحثي والكتابي كثيف جدًّا، حيث ألف العشرات من المقالات، وعمل كمدير تحرير لمجلة اللقاء للدراسات الدينية والتراثية في الأرض المقدسة، وحرر ما يزيد عن ٢٤ كتابًا وألّف حوالي ال ١٦ كتاب: من بينها: "الصليب في السياقات: المعاناة والفداء في فلسطين", "الإيمان بوجه الإمبراطورية: الكتاب المقدس بعيون فلسطينية," "اختراع التاريخ: قرن من التفاعل بين اللاهوت والسياسة في فلسطين والكتاب المقدس بعيون فلسطينية," وهو ايضًا موّلّف شريك مع سائر القياديين المسيحين في فلسطين لوثيقة وحركة "كايروس فلسطين" المعروفة ايضًا بوثيقة "وقفة حق". كتبه ومقالاته العديدة ترجمت حتى الآن إلى إحدى عشرة لغة. اما بالنسبة لعمله الرعوي والكنسي، شغل القس متري الراهب كراعي لكنيسة الميلاد الإنجيلية اللوثرية في بيت لحم من 1987 حتى 2017 ورئيسًا لسينودس الكنيسة الإنجيلية اللوثرية في الأردن وفلسطين من 2011 إلى 2016. في عام 2018 انتخب القسيس لعضوية المجلس الوطني الفلسطيني والمجلس المركزي الفلسطيني. أسس القسيس راهب العديد من الجمعيات والمنظمات الثقافية والتعليمية والاجتماعية وحتى الصحية. منها المنتدى الأكاديمي المسيحي للمواطنة في العالم العربي (CAFCAW)، دار الندوة الدولية التي تهدف الى تقدّم المجتمع المدني في فلسطين، مركز دار الكلمة للصحة والعافية، وهو عضو مؤسس وعضو مجلس إدارة مكتبة فلسطين الوطنية، ومؤسس ورئيس منظمة كونسورتيوم ديار.
Shahram Aghamir speaks with Nima Tootkaboni, who led an organization called Students for Equality and Freedom in Iran during the 2000s, about the current situation in Iran and how it compares to his experiences in the past.
Nima Tootkaboni is currently a Ph.D. student in Sociology at the Johns Hopkins University.
Courtesy of Voices of the Middle East & North Africa (VOMENA)
Hundreds of millions of dollars have been invested in facial recognition, surveillance tools and internet technology to monitor the Iranian population, block or slow down the internet, suppress dissent and cover up the regime's widespread violent suppression of recent protests. Amir Rashidi spoke with Malihe Razazan about this subject.
Amir Rashidi is an internet security and digital rights researcher. He has over 10 years of experience in digital security and rights in Iran. Rashidi is an expert on Iranian Internet censorship, cyber-attacks, and security trends. He has conducted tens of digital security audits, trainings, and rapid response actions for Iranian human rights defenders and organizations. He is in a unique position to assess the security risks and needs of Iranian organizations, especially those who are in contact with at-risk people, such as activists and journalists. Rashidi worked as the internet security and digital rights researcher at the Center for Human Rights in Iran, where he conducts in-depth research, data collection and analysis on internet security and access in Iran, internet policy and infrastructure, and the tools and methods of state-sponsored censorship and hacking.
Courtesy of Voices of the Middle East & North Africa (VOMENA).
Khalil Bendib spoke with Berlin based exiled journalist and democracy activist Hossam El-Hamalawy about Egypt’s horrific human rights and environmental record since the 2013 coup. Is the Sinai peninsula such a suitable venue for a worldwide meeting on climate change?
Courtesy of Voices of the Middle East & North Africa (VOMENA).
تدور احداث مسلسل التسجيلات الصوتية خلال أيام الانتفاضة والانهيار الاقتصادي الذي ضرب لبنان في خريف سنة ٢٠١٩. في تلك الفترة أبقيت دفتر يوميات دونت فيه ما كان يحدث من حولي. واليوم بعد ثلاثة سنوات قمت بتسجيل هذه اليوميات او الحلقات بشكل يوم بيوم مع إضافة القليل من الأصوات والموسيقى التي تم تأليفها لتواكب السرد. وسنقوم بتنزيل اليوميات على شكل قائمة أسبوعية تتألف من سبع حلقات (أيام). ولا بد من الإشارة الى نوعية التسجيل والإنتاج الصوتي التي ستلاحظون انها ستتحسن تباعا مع مرور الأيام وستتغير التيمة الصوتية مع كل قائمة تشغيل جديدة عند كل أسبوع. ابقوا معنا المزيد سيأتي قريبا.
إنتاج وتقديم محمد علي نايل
تدور احداث مسلسل التسجيلات الصوتية خلال أيام الانتفاضة والانهيار الاقتصادي الذي ضرب لبنان في خريف سنة ٢٠١٩. في تلك الفترة أبقيت دفتر يوميات دونت فيه ما كان يحدث من حولي. واليوم بعد ثلاثة سنوات قمت بتسجيل هذه اليوميات او الحلقات بشكل يوم بيوم مع إضافة القليل من الأصوات والموسيقى التي تم تأليفها لتواكب السرد. وسنقوم بتنزيل اليوميات على شكل قائمة أسبوعية تتألف من سبع حلقات (أيام). ولا بد من الإشارة الى نوعية التسجيل والإنتاج الصوتي التي ستلاحظون انها ستتحسن تباعا مع مرور الأيام وستتغير التيمة الصوتية مع كل قائمة تشغيل جديدة عند كل أسبوع. ابقوا معنا المزيد سيأتي قريبا.
إنتاج وتقديم محمد علي نايل
تدور احداث مسلسل التسجيلات الصوتية خلال أيام الانتفاضة والانهيار الاقتصادي الذي ضرب لبنان في خريف سنة ٢٠١٩. في تلك الفترة أبقيت دفتر يوميات دونت فيه ما كان يحدث من حولي. واليوم بعد ثلاثة سنوات قمت بتسجيل هذه اليوميات او الحلقات بشكل يوم بيوم مع إضافة القليل من الأصوات والموسيقى التي تم تأليفها لتواكب السرد. وسنقوم بتنزيل اليوميات على شكل قائمة أسبوعية تتألف من سبع حلقات (أيام). ولا بد من الإشارة الى نوعية التسجيل والإنتاج الصوتي التي ستلاحظون انها ستتحسن تباعا مع مرور الأيام وستتغير التيمة الصوتية مع كل قائمة تشغيل جديدة عند كل أسبوع. ابقوا معنا المزيد سيأتي قريبا.
إنتاج وتقديم محمد علي نايل
تدور احداث مسلسل التسجيلات الصوتية خلال أيام الانتفاضة والانهيار الاقتصادي الذي ضرب لبنان في خريف سنة ٢٠١٩. في تلك الفترة أبقيت دفتر يوميات دونت فيه ما كان يحدث من حولي. واليوم بعد ثلاثة سنوات قمت بتسجيل هذه اليوميات او الحلقات بشكل يوم بيوم مع إضافة القليل من الأصوات والموسيقى التي تم تأليفها لتواكب السرد. وسنقوم بتنزيل اليوميات على شكل قائمة أسبوعية تتألف من سبع حلقات (أيام). ولا بد من الإشارة الى نوعية التسجيل والإنتاج الصوتي التي ستلاحظون انها ستتحسن تباعا مع مرور الأيام وستتغير التيمة الصوتية مع كل قائمة تشغيل جديدة عند كل أسبوع. ابقوا معنا المزيد سيأتي قريبا.
إنتاج وتقديم محمد علي نايل
تدور احداث مسلسل التسجيلات الصوتية خلال أيام الانتفاضة والانهيار الاقتصادي الذي ضرب لبنان في خريف سنة ٢٠١٩. في تلك الفترة أبقيت دفتر يوميات دونت فيه ما كان يحدث من حولي. واليوم بعد ثلاثة سنوات قمت بتسجيل هذه اليوميات او الحلقات بشكل يوم بيوم مع إضافة القليل من الأصوات والموسيقى التي تم تأليفها لتواكب السرد. وسنقوم بتنزيل اليوميات على شكل قائمة أسبوعية تتألف من سبع حلقات (أيام). ولا بد من الإشارة الى نوعية التسجيل والإنتاج الصوتي التي ستلاحظون انها ستتحسن تباعا مع مرور الأيام وستتغير التيمة الصوتية مع كل قائمة تشغيل جديدة عند كل أسبوع. ابقوا معنا المزيد سيأتي قريبا.
إنتاج وتقديم محمد علي نايل
تدور احداث مسلسل التسجيلات الصوتية خلال أيام الانتفاضة والانهيار الاقتصادي الذي ضرب لبنان في خريف سنة ٢٠١٩. في تلك الفترة أبقيت دفتر يوميات دونت فيه ما كان يحدث من حولي. واليوم بعد ثلاثة سنوات قمت بتسجيل هذه اليوميات او الحلقات بشكل يوم بيوم مع إضافة القليل من الأصوات والموسيقى التي تم تأليفها لتواكب السرد. وسنقوم بتنزيل اليوميات على شكل قائمة أسبوعية تتألف من سبع حلقات (أيام). ولا بد من الإشارة الى نوعية التسجيل والإنتاج الصوتي التي ستلاحظون انها ستتحسن تباعا مع مرور الأيام وستتغير التيمة الصوتية مع كل قائمة تشغيل جديدة عند كل أسبوع. ابقوا معنا المزيد سيأتي قريبا.
إنتاج وتقديم محمد علي نايل
تدور احداث مسلسل التسجيلات الصوتية خلال أيام الانتفاضة والانهيار الاقتصادي الذي ضرب لبنان في خريف سنة ٢٠١٩. في تلك الفترة أبقيت دفتر يوميات دونت فيه ما كان يحدث من حولي. واليوم بعد ثلاثة سنوات قمت بتسجيل هذه اليوميات او الحلقات بشكل يوم بيوم مع إضافة القليل من الأصوات والموسيقى التي تم تأليفها لتواكب السرد. وسنقوم بتنزيل اليوميات على شكل قائمة أسبوعية تتألف من سبع حلقات (أيام). ولا بد من الإشارة الى نوعية التسجيل والإنتاج الصوتي التي ستلاحظون انها ستتحسن تباعا مع مرور الأيام وستتغير التيمة الصوتية مع كل قائمة تشغيل جديدة عند كل أسبوع. ابقوا معنا المزيد سيأتي قريبا.
إنتاج وتقديم محمد علي نايل
تدور احداث مسلسل التسجيلات الصوتية خلال أيام الانتفاضة والانهيار الاقتصادي الذي ضرب لبنان في خريف سنة ٢٠١٩. في تلك الفترة أبقيت دفتر يوميات دونت فيه ما كان يحدث من حولي. واليوم بعد ثلاثة سنوات قمت بتسجيل هذه اليوميات او الحلقات بشكل يوم بيوم مع إضافة القليل من الأصوات والموسيقى التي تم تأليفها لتواكب السرد. وسنقوم بتنزيل اليوميات على شكل قائمة أسبوعية تتألف من سبع حلقات (أيام). ولا بد من الإشارة الى نوعية التسجيل والإنتاج الصوتي التي ستلاحظون انها ستتحسن تباعا مع مرور الأيام وستتغير التيمة الصوتية مع كل قائمة تشغيل جديدة عند كل أسبوع. ابقوا معنا المزيد سيأتي قريبا.
إنتاج وتقديم محمد علي نايل
In conversation with Shahram Aghamir, Dr. Utku Balaban discusses the connection between industrialization and what some call 'Islamic Revivalism' in Turkey. Babalan argues that focus on the Islamic-Secularist rift overemphasizes the cultural and political causes of tensions between the secularists and Islamists, and overlooks connections between Islamic Revivalism and industrialization of Muslim majority countries after the 1970s. Courtesy of Voices of the Middle East & North Africa (VOMENA).
On March 1, the Israeli Supreme Court issued a ruling allowing 4 Palestinian families slated for eviction in East Jerusalem to stay in their homes for now. What is the significance of this ruling? Jerusalem-based Palestinian activist Amany Khalifa speaks with Malihe Razazan about Israel's forced expulsion of Palestinians from Jerusalem and the south.
Courtesy of Voices of the Middle East & North Africa (VOMENA).
This week, we speak with Jody Sokolower about her new book Determined to Stay: Palestinian Youth Fight for Their Village.
Later in the program, Madhdis Keshavarz of the Arab and Middle Eastern Journalists Association joins us to talk about the organization’s recent statement in response to the biased coverage of the Ukraine crisis.
Courtesy of Voices of the Middle East & North Africa (VOMENA).
We discuss green energy and its relationship to colonialism in North Africa with Hamza Hamouchene.
Courtesy of Voices of the Middle East & North Africa (VOMENA).
Hamza Hamouchene is a London-based Algerian researcher-activist, commentator and a founding member of Algeria Solidarity Campaign (ASC), and Environmental Justice North Africa (EJNA). He previously worked for War on Want, Global Justice Now and Platform London on issues of extractivism, resources, land and food sovereignty as well as climate, environmental, and trade justice. He is the author/editor of two books: “The Struggle for Energy Democracy in the Maghreb” (2017) and "The Coming Revolution to North Africa: The Struggle for Climate Justice" (2015). He also contributed book chapters to “Voices of Liberation: Frantz Fanon” (2014) and “The Palgrave Encyclopaedia of Imperialism and Anti-Imperialism” (2016). His other writings have appeared in the Guardian, Middle East Eye, Counterpunch, New Internationalist, Jadaliyya, openDemocracy, ROAR magazine, Pambazuka, Nawaat, El Watan and the Huffington Post.
From 2011 on, Professor Natasha Iskandar documented labor practices on Qatari construction sites. In her new book, "Does Skill Make Us Human? Migrant Workers in 21st Century Qatar and Beyond," Prof. Iskandar explores how migrants are recruited, trained and used. Listen to the second part of her conversation with VOMENA host Malihe Razazan.
Courtesy of Voices of the Middle East & North Africa (VOMENA)
From 2011 on, Professor Natasha Iskandar documented labor practices on Qatari construction sites. In her new book, "Does Skill Make Us Human? Migrant Workers in 21st Century Qatar and Beyond," Prof. Iskandar explores how migrants are recruited, trained and used.
Listen to the first part of her conversation with VOMENA host Malihe Razazan.
Courtesy of Voices of the Middle East & North Africa (VOMENA).
A conversation with well-known South African peace and justice activist Na'eem Jeenah about the erasure of Desmond Tutu's support for Palestinian rights from obituaries in mainstream media.
In the second part of this episode, we speak with Tara Sepehri Far, Senior Iran Researcher at HRW about the death of jailed Iranian poet and filmmaker Baktash Abtin.
Courtesy of Voices of the Middle East & North Africa (VOMENA).
Khaled Barakat is a Palestinian-Canadian activist and writer, currently based in Vancouver, who was recently subjected to a media and political campaign aimed at silencing him and those fighting for Palestinian rights in Canada. Attempts to criminalize Barakat originated in an article published in the right-wing newspaper The National Post, and quickly became subject of debate in the Canadian Senate, with a conservative senator going so far as to asking the government to expel Barakat, a Canadian citizen, from the country. The campaign against Khaled Barakat is one of many smear campaigns being launched against pro-Palestinian voices, a phenomenon that seems to be increasing nowadays.
Security in Context is a podcast project from the research network of the same name, aimed at promoting new thinking on security from a global perspective.
The Security in Context podcast features discussions about key questions on peace and conflict, the political economy of security and insecurity, militarism, and geopolitics particularly as they intersect with the processes of climate change, population movement, and the reorganization of global powers. In order to delve into these topics, we interview writers, researchers, activists and professionals from inside and outside the Security in Context network. Our ultimate goal is to provide a critical representation of security related issues, paying special attention to the Global South, often misrepresented in mainstream media coverage.
In early April 2022, president Kais Saied dissolved the parliament after parliament members challenged the autocratic powers he exercised since his self-coup last July. Lawmakers held an online meeting, defying Saied’s warning that the session was illegal, and a majority voted against his power grab, which they said violated the country’s Constitution.
Elected in a landslide in 2019, the president has been ruling by decree since July, jailing opponents, suspending parts of the Constitution, dismissing the Supreme Judicial Council and restricting press freedom.
Khalil Bendib spoke with Tunisian correspondent Mohammed-Dhia Hemmami about the current political situation in Tunis.
Courtesy of Voices of the Middle East & North Africa (VOMENA).
At the end of March 2022, in a bold and historic step backwards for the cause of peace in the Middle East, Morocco was one of four Arab countries meeting in a special summit with Israel and the US.
Although distant Iran was central to the discussions held during this meeting, the central issue of Palestine never broached during this summit, which took place in the heart of historic Palestine.
Khalil Bendib spoke with Samia Errazouki, a journalist formerly based in Morocco and a PhD candidate in early modern Northwest African history at UC Davis, about Morocco’s participation in this summit and what might be motivating the Moroccan regime to go against the wishes of its own people.
Courtesy of Voices of the Middle East and North Africa (VOMENA).
VOMENA host Shahram Aghamir speaks with writer and journalist Neda Toloui-Semnani about her memoir "They Said They Wanted Revolution: A Memoir of My Parents" and the journey of writing her family's story before and after the 1979 Iranian Revolution.
Courtesy of Voices of the Middle East & North Africa (VOMENA)
According to the late Pakistani writer and revolutionary activist Eqbal Ahmad, the Palestinian struggle for self-determination stirs the emotions of the entire world, particularly the nations and societies of the formerly colonized world. In this episode we explore the Palestinian struggle for liberation from the perspective of solidarity movements.
Our guests include: Mouin Rabbani, an independent analyst specialized in Palestinian affairs and the Arab-Israeli conflict; Noura Erakat, a human rights attorney and associate professor at Rutgers University; Lina Meruane, an author and professor at the Madrid branch of the New York University; and Yara Hawari, an academic, writer, and senior policy analyst at Al-Shabaka.
دردشة مع المغنية والمؤلفة الموسيقية ديمة أورشو عن فنها وحياتها و تجربة التعليم العالي التي خاضتها في الولايات المتحدة الأمريكية.
شاعر من العراق، فاز بجائزة يوسف الخال للشعر سنة ١٩٨٨ وأصدر أكثر من عشر مجموعات شعرية كان آخرها سادن الحبر، كما أطلق وحرر مجلة ملامح للشعر والنقد، وكتب في النقد الأدبي والمقالة الصحفية وشعر الأطفال.
Host Katty Alhayek speaks with Farah Atoui about her work in relation to questions of migration, solidarity, and decolonial creative processes and practices. -- Farah Atoui is a Ph.D. Candidate in Communication Studies at McGill University, Montreal. Her doctoral research investigates the visual culture of the current so- called migration/refugee crisis. She is also an independent programmer/curator, and a member of the Regards Palestiniens and Regards Syriens screening collectives.
Host MK Smith speaks with Syrian actress Raghad Al Makhlouf about her experiences both professionally and personally after the revolution and events of 2011 in Syria.
Raghad Al Makhlouf is a theater and TV actress who has participated in over 18 plays and appeared in over 300 hours of television drama series in Syria. She acted in three short films, and one feature film. She received bachelor’s degree in acting from the Higher Institute of Dramatic Arts in Damascus, Syria. Between 2005 and 2011, Raghad was a teaching assistant at the Acting Department at the Higher Institute of Dramatic Arts. She believes in the power of theater as a healing and therapy medium for oppressed populations. She was a member of an interactive theater group in Syria that toured towns and villages and engaged local residents trying to address local problems and challenges through theater. She also led and designed acting workshops that provided psychosocial support for young Syrian refugees in Lebanon to help them overcome trauma.
In 2021, Raghad earned Master of Fine Arts in classical acting from the Shakespeare Theatre Company’s Academy of Classical Acting at The George Washington University.
When she is not performing, Raghad enjoys to eat, sing, dance, and explore the unknown.
Georgetown University graduate student Aisha Jitan speaks with Palestinian psychiatrist, psychotherapist and writer Dr. Samah Jabr on the subject of mental health in Gaza while challenging Western ideas of how trauma is held and carried in one's body. By drawing upon her experiences as a health care practitioner, the director of the mental health unit at the Palestinian Ministry of Health, and a trainer of mental health professionals in Gaza, Dr. Jabr sheds light upon the deep-rooted effects of living under Israeli occupation and in the case of Gaza, siege. Dr. Jabr's insights are useful for application beyond the case of Palestine, as she radically challenges notions of how mental health ought to be treated under conditions of injustice and oppression and how healing work can be used toward the liberation of a people. Guest Bio
Dr. Samah Jabr is a Palestinian Jerusalemite psychiatrist, psychotherapist and writer. Since 2016, she has been Chair of the Mental Health Unit at the Palestinian Ministry of Health, and has written columns about the psychological consequences of the Israeli occupation in Palestine since the 2000s. Inspired by anticolonial psychiatrist Frantz Fanon, her areas of interest include mental health, colonialism and universal human rights.
Georgetown University graduate student Nisrine Hilizah speaks to guests Houda Mzioudet and Amuna Ali about the ways in which social media is being used to call attention to anti-black racism in the Arab world.
Guest Bios
Houda Mzioudet is a Tunisian researcher, journalist, and anti-racist activist. She co-founded ADAM, the first black Tunisian association, and the Voice of Tunisian Black Women collective. Between 2011 and 2018, Mzioudet covered the uprisings and their aftermaths in Tunisia and Libya for international outlets, including Al Jazeera English, CBC, and BBC. Houda is currently pursuing a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science from the University of Toronto.
Amuna Ali is a Somali-Yemeni Anti-racist activist. Born and raised in the United Arab Emirates, Amuna is the founder of the social media page BlackArabsCollective, an Instagram page that serves as "a platform to share the stories and amplify the voices of Black Arabs." Amuna holds two master's degrees, one in Innovation and Change Management and another in Sports Management.
Georgetown University graduate student Nooran Alhamdan speaks with three Palestinian American students - Omar Zahzah, Rasha Anayah, and Yasmeen Mashayekh - who have been targets of rightwing Zionists blacklists and their affiliated websites to discuss this growing problem of free speech, digital rights, and academic freedom.
يحدثنا كاتب الأغاني ومغني الراب وعازف الإيقاع والمنتج الفلسطيني / الأردني المعروف باسم فرع المداخل عن موجة الانتفاضات العربية في عام 2011 وكيف خلقت أصواتًا جديدة وألحان موسيقية أصبحت أنواعًا موسيقية كانت غير مألوفة وصارت مرغوبة ثابتة. في هذه المقابلة المكونة من جزأين ، تحدثنا مع الفرعي حول العوامل التي جعلت هذه الأعمال الموسيقية الجديدة تجارب فردية وجماعية تشمل العالم العربي بأسره وما وراءه.
Palestinian/Jordanian songwriter, rapper, drummer, and producer known as Far3i talks about how the wave of Arab uprisings in 2011 brought with it new sounds and musical novelties that became fixed music genres. In this two part interview we talk with Far3i about how these new musical acts became individual and collective experiences encompassing the whole Arab world and beyond.
يحدثنا كاتب الأغاني ومغني الراب وعازف الإيقاع والمنتج الفلسطيني / الأردني المعروف باسم فرع المداخل عن موجة الانتفاضات العربية في عام 2011 وكيف خلقت أصواتًا جديدة وألحان موسيقية أصبحت أنواعًا موسيقية كانت غير مألوفة وصارت مرغوبة ثابتة. في هذه المقابلة المكونة من جزأين ، تحدثنا مع الفرعي حول العوامل التي جعلت هذه الأعمال الموسيقية الجديدة تجارب فردية وجماعية تشمل العالم العربي بأسره وما وراءه. Palestinian/Jordanian songwriter, rapper, drummer, and producer known as Far3i talks about how the wave of Arab uprisings in 2011 brought with it new sounds and musical novelties that became fixed music genres. In this two part interview we talk with Far3i about how these new musical acts became individual and collective experiences encompassing the whole Arab world and beyond.
In this episode of "Security in Context," we explore how the impacts of climate change will be unequally felt around the world, and the negative side of the politics of the climate movement in the global North. It includes interviews with Betsy Hartmann (professor emeritus at Hampshire College and author of "The America Syndrome: Apocalypse, War, and Our Call to Greatness"), Anne Hendrixson (senior policy analyst at Challenging Population Control / Collective Power for Reproductive Justice), Max Ajl (author of "A People's Green New Deal" and associated researcher with the Tunisian Observatory for Food Sovereignty and the Environment), Fikret Adaman (professor of economics at Boğaziçi University and IPC Mercator Senior Fellow at the Istanbul Policy Center), and Kasia Paprocki (author of "Threatening Dystopias: The Global Politics of Climate Change Adaptation in Bangladesh" and associate professor at the London School of Economics). Security in Context is a podcast project from the research network of the same name, aimed at promoting new thinking on security from a global perspective. It features discussions about key questions on peace and conflict, the political economy of security and insecurity, militarism, and geopolitics, as they intersect with the processes of climate change, population movement, and the reorganization of global powers. In order to delve into these topics, we interview writers, researchers, activists and professionals from inside and outside the Security in Context network.
This is a conversation with Norman Finkelstein hosted by Jadaliyya co-editor Mouin Rabbani about Israeli apartheid. This episode of Connections Podcast features a discussion of the recent Human Rights Watch Report A Threshold Crossed: Israeli Authorities and the Crimes of Apartheid and Persecution, its political context, and potential implications.
This interview is the third episode of Connections Podcast. Connections offers timely and informative interviews on current events and broader policy questions, as well as themes relevant to knowledge production. It combines journalism, analysis, and scholarship. Connections will focus primarily but not exclusively on the Middle East.
For more from Connections, visit: https://www.statushour.com
For most of a century, the region including north Africa and large swaths of west Africa all came under one and the same flag: the red white and blue of the French colonial empire. Following the loss of Louisiana in the early nineteenth century, which at the time encompassed about one third of what we know today as the United States of America, and partly to compensate for that tremendous loss, France began colonizing large swaths of North and West and central Africa, bringing under its rule close to a third of the continent’s total area.
Two hundred years later, and more than half a century after its former colonies regained their independence, France is struggling to deal with its problematic legacy in that part of the world, finding itself embroiled once again in a bloody conflict six thousand kilometers from home that shows no signs of resolving itself. Operation Barkhane, launched in 2014 by then-president Francois Hollande ostensibly to restore order in Mali and protect France from the consequences of out-of-control terrorism south of the border has become a major strategic embarrassment for the once undisputed master of that land and is proving a costly challenge to a now mid-size world power that is no longer able to spread its wings as far as it once did.
Against that backdrop, locally, the Malian state has to date proven incapable of asserting its authority over large areas of its own territory and this power vacuum has caused serious problems for Mali’s neighbors, including Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia and Libya, and turning the area known as the Sahel into an incubator for terrorist and insurrectionist movements of all stripes.
Prof. Bruno Charbonneau at the Royal Military College Saint-Jean talks about the recent developments in Mali and how this thorny situation is affecting the Maghreb, France and neighboring areas of West Africa.
Courtesy of Voices of the Middle East & North Africa (VOMENA).
نستضيف في هذه الحلقة الفنانة والكاتبة المصرية دينا محمد، لنتحدث باستفاضة عن روايتها المصوّرة «شبّيك لبيك»، بالإضافة إلى سوق إنتاج الكومكس والقصص المصوّرة في الوطن العربي، وأهمّ تيّارات هذا المجال. بودكاست «رفوف» من إنتاج جدلية.
Host Katty Alhayek speaks with Dr. Sahar Mohamed Khamis about her research interests and current projects. The interview focuses on Khamis's work on gender activism, the gender digital gap, and the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on Arab women.
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Dr. Sahar Khamis is an Associate Professor in the Department of Communication and an Affiliate Professor in the Department of Women’s Studies and the Consortium on Race, Gender and Ethnicity at the University of Maryland, College Park. She is an expert on Arab and Muslim media, and the former Head of the Mass Communication Department at Qatar University. Dr. Khamis holds a Ph.D. in Mass Media and Cultural Studies from the University of Manchester in England. She is a former Mellon Islamic Studies Initiative Visiting Professor at the University of Chicago. She is the co-author of the books: Islam Dot Com: Contemporary Islamic Discourses in Cyberspace (Palgrave Macmillan, 2009) and Egyptian Revolution 2.0: Political Blogging, Civic Engagement and Citizen Journalism (Palgrave Macmillan, 2013). She is the co-editor of the book: Arab Women’s Activism and Socio-Political Transformation: Unfinished Gendered Revolutions (Palgrave Macmillan, 2018).
In this episode On The Square commemorates Black August. Sapelo Square Senior Editor Su’ad Abdul Khabeer speaks with community activist, playwright, freedom fighter, and chairperson of the National Jericho Movement, Jihad Abdulmumit, about Freedom and Self-Determination.
In this wide-reaching conversation Abdulmumit tells the story of the direct role he played in the Black freedom struggles of the 1960s/1970s and the heavy price he paid for his involvement in the Black Liberation Movement. Abdulmumit served 23 years of his life in prison as a domestic political prisoner and in this discussion he sheds light on the plight of political prisoners and how Islam shapes his commitment to the Black Liberation struggle. Abdulmumit also speaks to the role the arts play in the quest for freedom and self-determination and shares his thoughts on how the struggle for freedom and self-determination has changed since the 1970s.
To the question, “What is your Black Muslim theme song?,” Abdulmumit chose Nina Simone’s “To Be Young, Gifted and Black” – with lyrics added by his artist children to include the Muslim experience.
See these resources to learn more about:
Black August
Domestic political prisoners and the Jericho Movement
The Black Panther Party
The Black Liberation Army
The Spirit of Mandela October Tribunal
This episode includes excerpts from archival clips of the Black Panther Party preserved in the National Archives. It also includes a clip from an interview with Nina Simone.
On The Square’s theme music was created by Fanatik OnBeats.
Artwork for On The Square was created by Scheme of Things Graphics.
Courtest of Maydan podcast.
In this episode of On The Square, Sapelo Square History Editor Zaheer Ali speaks with Tulani Salahu-Din, museum specialist at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC), about Muslim artifacts at the museum. Salahu-Din provides the backstory for some of the objects at the museum, including those featured as part of Sapelo Square’s Black History Month 2021 special: an egg carton from the Nation of Islam’s Muslim Farms, a tape recorder used by Malcolm X at Mosque No. 7, and a pendant the Honorable Elijah Muhammad gave to his wife Sister Clara Muhammad as described by their grand-daughter Amirah Muhammad in an oral history. They also talk about the importance of preserving Muslim material culture, and steps everyone can take in collecting and recording their family histories.
To the question, “If Black Islam had a theme song, what would it be?,” Salahu-Din chose Quincy Jones’s “What Good Is a Song?”
To learn more about some of the Muslim artifacts featured at the National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC), visit Sapelo Square’s Black History Month 2021 feature, or search the online collections at NMAAHC. To find out more information about the museum’s artifacts and public programming around themes of religion and spirituality, visit the Center for Study of African American Religious Life.
Theme music by Fanatik OnBeats.
Artwork was created by Scheme of Things Graphics.
Courtesy of Maydan Podcast.
In this episode, Sapelo Square Arts and Culture Editor Ambata Kazi-Nance speaks with author and educator Amani-Nzinga Jabbar about her book, I Bear Witness, the craft of writing, writing about difficult subject matter, and her experiences as a Black Muslim woman writer.
Amani’s book, I Bear Witness, is available for purchase on Amazon at https://amzn.to/3u70XZz.
You can connect with Amani and get updates on her writing on Instagram @authoramani and Twitter @Author_Amani and on Facebook.
On the Square theme music was created by Fanatik OnBeats.
Artwork was created by Scheme of Things Graphics.
Courtesy of Maydan podcast.
In this episode of On The Square, Sapelo Square History Editor Zaheer Ali speaks with Sapelo Square Senior Editor and On The Square curator Dr. Su’ad Abdul Khabeer about her latest work, Umi’s Archive. The multimedia research project digs deep into the life of Dr. Su’ad’s mother, Amina Amatul Haqq (neé Audrey Weeks), to explore the meanings of being Black in the world. Dr. Su’ad shares her reasons for assembling and sharing the archive, some of her surprising discoveries, and the importance of archives to telling fuller, more nuanced histories of Black Muslim women and their communities.
To learn more about Umi’s Archive and view online exhibitions, visit umisarchive.com and follow on Instagram @umisarchive.
To the question, “If Black Islam had a theme song, what would it be?,” Dr. Su’ad chose Suad El-Amin’s “Shahadah.”
Opening contains audio from a video performance by Dr. Su’ad Abdul Khabeer, featured in “Why Umi’s Archive?”
This episode includes an excerpt from Suad El-Amin’s “Shahadah.”
On The Square theme music was created by Fanatik OnBeats.
Artwork for On The Square was created by Scheme of Things Graphics.
Courtesy of Maydan Podcast.
In this episode of On The Square, Sapelo Square Arts and Culture editor Ambata Kazi-Nance speaks with renowned midwife, birthwork historian, and doula educator Shafia Monroe, founder of the International Center for Traditional Childbearing, the leading birthwork training institute in the United States for Black midwives and doulas and the first nonprofit in the nation to promote home birth in Black communities and elevate Black midwifery.
They discuss the history and traditional practices of Black midwifery, the contemporary challenges of Black maternal and infant health disparities, and how birthworkers can and are impacting positive change for Black families.
Black Maternal Health Week is April 11–17. Learn more about it and how you can get involved at https://blackmamasmatter.org/bmhw/. More information about the Momnibus Act mentioned in the episode can be found at https://blackmaternalhealthcaucus-underwood.house.gov/Momnibus.
On the Square theme music was created by Fanatik OnBeats.
Artwork was created by Scheme of Things Graphics.
Courtesy of Maydan Podcast.
In this episode our host, Dr. Su’ad Abdul Khabeer talks with Siddeeqah Sharif Fichman an Afro-Native Muslim and community advocate and Hazel Gómez, a faith-based community organizer, about Being Muslim on Turtle Island. This deep discussion digs into questions such as What would make a Muslim a settler or indigenous to North America? How might settler thinking shape how we live as Muslims today? What are the responsibilities of Muslims, as a whole, to the indigenous inhabitants of the Americas?
During the conversation, Hazel reads the poem “Child of the Americas” by Aurora Levins Morales (shared below) and Siddeqah introduces us to the song “Bilalian Man” by Sister Khalifah Abdul Rahman.* To the question, if Black Islam had a theme song what would it be? Hazel chose “Allah” by Khalil Ismail and Siddeeqah chose “Bilalian Man” as her Black Muslim theme song. The song excerpt in the episode is sung by Siddeeqah’s mother, Sister Sabreen Sharif and full lyrics are below. Not sure what Bilalian means? Check out this article by Precious Rasheeda Muhammad. Also be sure to check out the music of Afro-Native Muslim performing artist Maimouna Youseff (Mumu Fresh).
*Siddeeqah misspoke in the episode and this particular song is by Sister Khalifah Abdul Rahman.
On the Square theme music was created by Fanatik OnBeats.
Artwork was created by Scheme of Things Graphics.
Courtesy of Maydan Podcast.
In this conversation, Mick Dumper and Maha Samman discuss the politics of holy cities with Connections Podcast host and Jadaliyya co-editor Mouin Rabbani. This episode of Connections Podcast examines the interaction between religion, political power, and conflict through the prism of such cities and other urban environments, in the Middle East and around the globe.
On October 1st, Iraqis took to the streets in Baghdad to mark the second anniversary of the massive protest movement which began in October 2019. They were met with violence by state security forces and militias backed by the Iraqi regime. Almost 600 demonstrators were killed and more than 30,000 were injured.
Shahram Aghamir spoke to Nabil Salih, an Iraqi journalist, photographer, and writer, about the October 1st protest which happened just 9 days before Iraq's parliamentary elections.
Courtesy of Voices of the Middle East & North Africa (VOMENA).
In this special episode, Huma Gupta and China Sajadian discuss abolition geographies and environmental movements with renowned geographer and activist Ruth Wilson Gilmore.
She is the author of the award-winning Golden Gulag: Prisons, Surplus, Crisis, and Opposition in Globalizing California and several forthcoming books, including Change Everything, Abolition Geography: Essays Toward Liberation, and Stuart Hall: Selected Writings on Race and Difference, co-edited with Paul Gilroy. In this interview, Gilmore explains her research on carcerality through a global, comparative lens, from the long traditions of emancipation within Black Marxism, to popular struggles against TIAA-CREF land grabs in Brazil, to the contemporary challenges of giant monopsonies like Amazon.
If abolition must be green, Gilmore insists, it must also be anti-capitalist and internationalist. Such an approach to abolition not only underscores how different parts of the world are, in Gilmore’s words, partitioned and re-partitioned by capitalism -- but also the ways that dispossessed, criminalized, and vulnerable people across seemingly disparate contexts come to recognize their fundamental connections to each other.
محادثة مبهجة مع مخرج الأفلام والمعلق الصوتي يامن عبد النور. اللقاء هو غوص في فيلميه الوثائقيين بالإضافة إلى أعماله كمدبلج ومعلق صوتي.
Host Raghad Makhlouf has a delightful conversation with the Syrian film director and voice over actor, Yamen Abd Alnour. This interview is a deep dive into his two documentaries about Syria in addition to his work as a voice over actor.
In the inaugural episode of Connections, Jadaliyya co-editor Mouin Rabbani interviewed Noam Chomsky on March 17th, 2021 to discuss U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East under Biden. The interview examines the Biden administration’s Middle East policies, explores elements of continuity and change in US policy towards the region after the Trump years, and discusses what recent developments regarding Iran, Yemen, Palestine, and Saudi Arabia portend for the coming years.
In this episode, host Anita Fuentes investigates the implications of the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan from different angles with the help of guests Rafia Zakaria and Professor Michael Klare. Rafia Zakaria talks about her new book, Against White Feminism (2021), and how it ties into Western media coverage of Afghan women. Fuentes also speaks to Professor Michael Klare, defense correspondent at The Nation magazine, about his take on the US withdrawal from Afghanistan; a very different one to those being portrayed in mainstream media. The episode ends with a September media roundup, a brief section in which news articles, reports, and other materials focusing on (in)security issues are discussed.
Security in Context is a podcast project from the research network of the same name, aimed at promoting new thinking on security from a global perspective. It features discussions about key questions on peace and conflict, the political economy of security and insecurity, militarism, and geopolitics, as they intersect with the processes of climate change, population movement, and the reorganization of global powers. In order to delve into these topics, we interview writers, researchers, activists and professionals from inside and outside the Security in Context network.
Khalil Bendib speaks with Samia Errazzouki about the rising tension between Spain and Morocco after thousands of migrants crossed from Morocco into the North African enclave of Ceuta, considered Spanish territory. It is believed that Moroccan border guards eased the crossing of the migrants in response to Spain's hosting of Brahim Ghali, the leader of the Polisario Front, which campaigns for the independence of Western Sahara.
مقدم البرنامج يتحدث إلى الشاعر السوري أكرم قطريب من مدينة سلمية السورية عن مجموعاته الشعرية والحياة في الولايات المتحدة الأمريكية.
VOMENA's Khalil Bendib speaks with London-based Algerian activist and researcher Hamza Hamouchene about the way these multiple catastrophes are affecting Algeria and how people are coping.
Professor of Sociology at UC Berkeley, Cihan Tugal, examines this topic with VOMENA host Shahram Aghamir.
On August 10th 2021, Hamid Nouri, a former prosecutor in Iran, went on trial in Sweden for his alleged role in the executions of thousands of political prisoners in Iran in 1988. The historic trial against Nouri, will hear testimonies from dozens of witnesses and it will be the first time that one of the worst crimes of the past 40 years in Iran will be examined in a court of law.
In July 1988, the Islamic Republic of Iran agreed to bring an end to the brutal eight-year war with Iraq. Over the next two months, under the orders of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khomeini, political prisoners around the country were secretly brought before a tribunal panel that would later become known as the Death Commission. Thousands of men and women were condemned to death, and many buried in mass graves in Khavaran Cemetery in the vicinity of Tehran.
Through eyewitness accounts of survivors, research by scholars and memories of children and spouses of the deceased, Nasser Mohajer's new book "Voices of a Massacre," reconstructs the events of that bloody summer, which has still not officially acknowledged by the Iranian government.
VOMENA host Malihe Razazan spoke with Nasser Mohajer about The 1988 executions of Iranian political prisoners, the significance of Hamid Nouri and the charges against him.
A year after the blast in the port of Beirut, Lebanon sinks into a severe economic crisis which the World Bank ranks in the top 10, and possibly top 3, most severe crises episodes globally since the mid-nineteenth century. Electricity, gas and even medicine are in short supply in the country. Angry residents wait in line for hours to fill their car tanks while others lucky enough to be able to connect to the internet run online campaigns asking Lebanese expats visiting the country for the summer, to bring with them the much needed medicines for loved ones.
How did the blast from the Beirut port exacerbate the current economic and political crisis in the country and what's life like today for millions of Lebanese people and for the victims of the port blast and their families?
VOMENA Host Mira Nabulsi speaks with Lara Bitar, the editor in chief of The Public Source, a Beirut-based independent media organization dedicated to long-form and in-depth journalism in the public interest.
In this episode, Huma Gupta speaks with Rawan Maki about fast fashion and the question of sustainability in Bahrain and beyond. They explore the past, present, and speculative futures of the fashion industry. Maki traces the life-cycle of the clothing we wear everyday, mapping its geographies from the crops and petroleum necessary to produce organic and synthetic fibers, the individuals who farm, weave, and sew the garments to shipping, distribution, tailoring and purchasing networks. Since fast fashion is a leading contributor to pollution, resource depletion, and climate change, this episode evaluates the promise of alternative frameworks like "slow fashion" and the social, psychological, and artistic shifts that it requires.
In conversation with Malihe Razazan, Gianfranco Rosi discusses his film "Notturno" (2020) which was shot over a 3 year period along the borders between Syria, Iraq, Kurdistan, and Lebanon, giving voice to a human drama that transcends geographical divisions and time.
Courtesy of Voices of the Middle East and North Africa (VOMENA).
In this interview, Noah Black sat down with Issam Eido to discuss his work, key questions he approaches, and how he approaches them in his study of the epistemology of testimony and hadith studies.
In this interview, Noah Black sat down with Dr. Evren Altinkas to discuss his work, what brought him to it, and how he approaches key questions in the study of the intellectual history of Turkey.
Huma Gupta and Camille Cole speak with Dr. Caterina Scaramelli about Turkey’s wetland ecosystems, which range from alluvial forests to fishing lagoons, salt marshes, and volcanic crater lakes. Scaramelli unpacks how these shallow water ecosystems are materially and discursively produced into a flattened category called 'wetlands' by conservationists, ornithologists, and government agencies engaged in swamp reclamation.
Huma Gupta speaks with Todd Reisz about the transformation of the marshy estuary known as Dubai Creek (خور دبي) into infrastructure – a process which was central to the city’s architectural and urban development projects in the twentieth century. Reisz discusses the spatial, architectural, ecological and economic relationships between the creek, its inhabitants, and the city. These relationships were forever transformed in the mid-twentieth century through the 1955 Halcrow Plan for Dubai Creek and John Harris' 1959 Master Plan for Dubai, which necessitated the use of concrete and steel to harden the creek's fluid landscape in order to engender an expectation of predictability, economic growth, and real estate speculation.
In part 2, Chanelle and Isabella are joined by Jose Hamza Saldaña, the Director of Release Aging People in Prison, or RAPP. Mr. Saldana describes the unique health challenges of the aging incarcerated population, who often suffer from multiple chronic conditions that cannot be properly managed in prison. He challenges the racist and vengeful system of prolonged incarceration and advocates for compassionate release to allow for rehabilitation and re-entry into society. Chanelle and Isabella reflect on the accounts they heard of the inadequacies and injustices of prison health care and discuss some systemic changes to mediate these injustices. They end with recommendations to health care providers to ensure they are best meeting the needs of individuals with criminal justice involvement.
To learn more about RAPP: https://rappcampaign.com/about/
In part 1, medical students Chanelle Simmons and Isabella Giunta explore the impact of mass incarceration on the health of individuals and communities. Through collected anecdotes, they illustrate the failures of prisons to provide their inmates with adequate health care, even in life-threatening situations. They also describe the history of racist policies and practices that allow for this inhumane treatment. They are joined by Jarrell E. Daniels, a prison reform activist, mentor to youth emerging from juvenile detention, and research assistant at the Center for Justice at Columbia University. Jarrell shares the obstacles he faced while trying to access health care in prison and discusses the necessary changes to be made to ensure people in prison receive the care they need.
More than two generations after the end of colonization in north Africa, France still suffers from the undigested legacy and aftereffects of a brutal empire that spanned over two centuries and whose perverse reverberations are still felt today. Khalil Bendib speaks with French Algerian Nacira Guenif Souilamas, Professor of sociology and anthropology at University Paris 8 of Vincennes in Saint-Denis about French president Emmanuel Macron’s policies to combat home-grown terrorism while simultaneously acknowledging some of his country’s legacy of racism and genocide and how the French state is responding to a new wave of terrorism on its soil by increasing repression and surveillance of French Muslims.
Malihe Razazan spoke with Kali Rubaii, an assistant professor of anthropology at Purdue University, about the toxic legacy of the war in Iraq and the underlying reasons for the high rates of birth defects in the city of Fallujah
Hossam el-Hamalawy, journalist, photographer and member of the Egyptian Revolutionary Socialists, reflects on the term 'Arab Spring' and the ten years that have passed since what he refers to as the regional revolutions and regional uprisings that took place in the Middle East and North Africa.
Interviewed by Khalil Bendib | English
Courtesy of Voices of the Middle East and North Africa (VOMENA).
هذا اللقاء هو حديث عن الموسيقى والشتات. كيف من الممكن أن تلهم الصعاب الفنان. بدءاً من منفاها وصولا إلى الوباء العالمي، تصر المغنية السورية ليندا الأحمد على إيجاد طرق فنية لتستخدم صوتها وتوسع مخيلتها لمواجهة الواقع الصعب الذي تعيشه من خلال الموسيقى.
A Journey from Syria to Spain: How exile inspired the voice of singer Linda Alahmad.
This interview is a conversation about music and diaspora, and how an artist could be inspired by hardships. From her exile to the pandemic, Syrian singer Linda Alahmad insists on finding new artistic ways to use her voice and expand her imagination to face the difficult reality she is living in through music.
Interviewed by Raghad Al Makhlouf | Arabic
Host Mouin Rabbani fills us in on the most recent and upcoming topics of Jadaliyya.com's Quick Thoughts interviews. Featuring guests Noura Erakat on the extra-judicial execution of Ahmad Erekat, Ardi Imseis on the ICC's ruling on February 9th on Palestine, Nazan Üstündağ on the protests at Turkey’s Boğaziçi University, and much more.
To read these interviews, visit: https://www.jadaliyya.com/Category/157
Sardar Saadi, PhD candidate in Anthropology at the University of Toronto and host of the Kurdish Edition podcast, examines urban dynamics of the Kurdish struggle for self-determination in Iran, in comparison with their struggles in Turkey.
Interviewed by Shahram Aghamir | English
Courtesy of Voices of the Middle East and North Africa (VOMENA).
In this special episode, Anooradha Iyer Siddiqi speaks with Alishine Osman, Anisa Salat, and Huma Gupta about their experiences of environmental scarcity and diaspora, as well as the refugee camps and urban environments that became the landscapes of that trajectory. These acts of ecological reclamation can take place on a local, international, planetary, or a historical level. The guests reflect upon their own experiences in practice and research, and how these have led them to their community-oriented, developmental, or scholarly practices of ecological reclamation in Somalia, Iraq and the United States. The questions posed in this episode were drafted and narrated by Barnard and Columbia students enrolled in Prof. Siddiqi's "Colonial Practices" Fall 2020 seminar and as part of the broader Building Solidarities: Racial Justice in the Built Environment lecture series.
In this episode of Environment in Context, Huma Gupta speaks with journalist Layli Foroudi. They explore how the story of phosphates can help us understand the political economy of environmental transformation in Tunisia from the late nineteenth to the twenty-first century. This episode discusses phosphate mining towns like Gafsa, railway networks that transport this important resource to coastal cities like Sfax for processing, phosphate trade with India, existing environmental policies, and public protests decrying the phosphate industry's environmental impacts, such as pollution, soil salinization, and water scarcity, in the decade following the Tunisian revolution.
يركز الحوار على الكتب الجديدة للشاعر وكيف تختلف عن القديمة ونظرته للشعر وقصيدة النثر.
On this episode of In Their Own Voices: The Audio Divan of Modern Arabic Poetry, Syrian poet Firas Sulaiman sheds light on his two new recently published divans, his view of poetry and the prose poem.
Interviewed by Osama Esber | Arabic
In part 2, together Anjali, Andrea, and Carla describe mental health care that goes beyond medications and hospitalizations to both treat and prevent mental health crises. Anjali and Andrea further reflect on the role of medical providers in the violence and traumatization of people with mental health concerns and describe what changes to our medical education are necessary to prepare physicians to provide appropriate, compassionate, and trauma-informed care.
Hosted by Downstate Students for HEAL (Health Equity Advocacy and Leadership)
You can also listen to this podcast on Spotify - https://open.spotify.com/show/1n3rQi4cU2Kduy2eBQMzNn
In Part 1, medical students Anjali Jaiman and Andrea Martinez discuss the history of oppression through psychiatric institutionalization and criminalization of mental health concerns. They are joined by Carla Rabinowitz, who is the Project Coordinator of Correct Crisis Intervention Today NYC (CCIT-NYC), an organization that advocates for peer-led, compassionate care for people experiencing mental health crisis. Our current police-led response to mental health crisis often leads to violence and further trauma. While the mayor’s new mental health response team is a step in the right direction, Carla illustrates the ideal model for responding to mental health crisis, which includes a peer with lived experience of mental health crisis and connections to community resources.
For more information on CCIT-NYC, visit http://www.ccitnyc.org/who-we-are/
Hosted by Downstate Students for HEAL (Health Equity Advocacy and Leadership)
You can also listen to this podcast on Spotify - https://open.spotify.com/show/1n3rQi4cU2Kduy2eBQMzNn
On this edition of Voices of the Middle East and North Africa, Khalil Bendib speaks with international lawyer, activist and former PLO negotiator Diana Buttu about the state of the Palestinian cause at a time when an international conspiracy by colonialist and neocolonialist regimes worldwide is frantically busy rolling back a cause that has become an international rallying cry for struggles against injustice everywhere, whether the BLM movement, democracy movements in Middle East and North Africa regions or any liberation and fights against oppression and inequality in the world.
عربي تحت
Aaron Jakes interviewed by Huma Gupta and Camille Cole on September 3, 2020
In this episode, Huma Gupta and Camille Cole discuss Egypt’s occupation and the history of capitalism as both a social and an ecological process with Aaron Jakes.
Guest: Aaron Jakes
Aaron G. Jakes is Assistant Professor of History at The New School, where he teaches on the modern Middle East and South Asia, global environmental history, and the historical geography of capitalism.
بيئات رأس المال في مصر
تتناول هذه الحلقة موضوع احتلال مصر وتاريخ الرأسمالية كعملية اجتماعية وبيئية.
عربي تحت
An untold story for most, the women's movement that headed and sustained the First Intifada was a source of tremendous popular power and useful lessons. Noah Black sat down with the director of the award-winning film Naila and the Uprising, Julia Bacha, to discuss this history and more. The film was produced by Rula Salameh and Rebekah Wingert-Jabi.
الجندر والاحتجاج وسياسة الفيلم: مناقشة مع جوليا باشا حول "نائلة والانتفاضة"
يتحدث نوح بلاك مع جوليا باشا مخرجة الفيلم الحائز على جوائز "نائلة والانتفاضة" ، لمناقشة التاريخ غير المروي عن الحركة النسائية التي قادت الانتفاضة الأولى وشكلت لها مصدر قوة شعبية هائل.
عربي تحت
Noah T Black sat down with Ermin Sinanovic of the Center for Islam in the Contemporary World to discuss Islam on the Edges. Sinanovic touches on the importance of moving beyond the MENA region in Islamic studies, breaking down the center-periphery distinction, and transnational Muslim identities.
الإسلام بعيداً عن المركز: إرمين سنانوفيتش حول الهوية الإسلامية عبر الوطنية
يلتقي نوح بلاك مع إرمين سنانوفيتش الذي يتطرق إلى أهمية عدم اقتصار الدراسات الإسلامية على منطقة الشرق الأوسط وشمال إفريقيا، وضرورة تفكيك التمييز بين المركز والأطراف والهويات الإسلامية العابرة للحدود.
عربي تحت
Max Ajl speaks on his recent article in The Journal of Peasant Studies with Omar Dahi. They cover the blind spots in and utility of agrarian studies. Ajl also touches on the need to include considerations of the national question and war in studying agro-ecology.
المنطقة العربية وسؤال الدراسات الزراعية: حوار مع ماكس عجل
يتحدث ماكس عجل عن مقالته الأخيرة في مجلة دراسات الفلاحين مع عمر ضاحي. ويتطرق اللقاء إلى الدراسات الزراعية من حيث فوائدها ونقاط قصورها وضرورة إدراج اعتبارات القضايا القومية والحرب في دراسة البيئة الزراعية.
عربي تحت
On this episode of Quick Thoughts, co-founder and CEO of Kerning Cultures Network, Hebah Fisher speaks about how the first venture-funded podcast company in the Middle East came to be and is navigating the COVID-19 era, and how to incorporate current events into shows that are not focussed on breaking news.
Interviewed by Paola Cossermelli Messina
August 14, 2020 | English
حول " تقنين الثقافات" وصعود التدوين الصوتي في الشرق الأوسط
تتناول هذه الحلقة ظهور أول مشروع ممول لشركة تدوين صوتي في الشرق الأوسط خلال عصر COVID-19، وكيفية دمج الأحداث الجارية في البرامج التي لا تركز على الأخبار العاجلة.
Status Host and Jadaliyya co-editor Mouin Rabbani speaks on the question of the annexation of the West Bank based on what is happening currently.
Interviewed by Bassam Haddad
September 17, 2020 | English
عربي تحت
In the wake of the Israel normalization deal with Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates, Ilan Pappé speaks about where this new development leaves the question of Palestine as well as the general state of human rights and civil rights in the region.
Interviewed by Khalil Bendib
September 18th, 2020 | English
Courtesy of Voices of the Middle East and North Africa (VOMENA)
فلسطين في أعقاب صفقة التطبيع الإسرائيلية مع البحرين والإمارات
في أعقاب صفقة التطبيع الإسرائيلية مع البحرين والإمارات العربية المتحدة، يتحدث إيلان بابيه عن هذا التطور الجديد في قضية فلسطين وآثاره على الحالة العامة لحقوق الإنسان والحقوق المدنية في المنطقة.
عربي تحت
Malihe Razazan spoke to Human Rights Watch (HRW) Iran Researcher Tara Sepehri Far about Nasrin Sotoudeh's hunger strike and the criminalization of peaceful protests in Iran. Sotoudeh is an Iranian human rights lawyer, who was arrested in 2010 and started her second hunger strike this year in August to protest the inhumane treatment of Iranian political prisoners during the COVID pandemic.
Courtesy of Voices of the Middle East and North Africa (VOMENA).
أسباب إضراب نسرين ستوده عن الطعام احتجاجاً على ظروف السجن الرهيبة في إيران
تحدثت مليحة رزازان إلى الباحثة الإيرانية في منظمة هيومن رايتس ووتش تارا سبهري فار حول إضراب نسرين ستوده عن الطعام وتجريم الاحتجاجات السلمية في إيران. ونسرين ستوده محامية إيرانية في مجال حقوق الإنسان كانت قد اعتقلت في عام 2010 وبدأت إضرابها الثاني عن الطعام هذا العام في أغسطس احتجاجاً على المعاملة اللاإنسانية للسجناء السياسيين الإيرانيين خلال جائحة كورونا
On this episode of Environment in Context, Huma Gupta and Danya al-Saleh speak to Nadia Christidi, a PhD candidate in History, Anthropology, and Science, Technology, and Society at MIT and an arts practitioner. Her dissertation research explores how cities that face water supply challenges, which are expected to intensify with climate change, are imagining, planning, and preparing for the future of water; the cities she focuses on are Los Angeles, Dubai, and Cape Town.
How do we imagine, think about, and represent environmental crises around water and climate change? Water management and climate change have previously been considered the exclusive purview of environmental scientists, engineers, economists, security analysts, or policymakers. However, Nadia Christidi explains how an anthropological approach can help us understand the political practices and economic rationalities of water governance based on her fieldwork in Dubai. Specifically, we discuss how these ecological imaginaries around water are conditioned by social and political forces, ranging from considering water to be an infinite resource, a commodity that is produced, or an extreme landscape that serves as a testbed for technological innovation.
References
1. Nadia Christidi's Website: Nadiaalissa.wordpress.com
2. Gökçe Günel. “The Infinity of Water: Climate Change Adaptation in the Arabian Peninsula.” Public Culture 28.2 (May 2016): 291-315.
3. Michael Christopher Low. “Desert Dreams of Drinking the Sea, Consumed by the Cold War: Transnational Flows of Desalination and Energy from the Pacific to the Persian Gulf.” Environment and History 26.2 (May 2020): 145-174.
4. Toby Craig Jones. Desert Kingdom: How Oil and Water Forged Modern Saudi Arabia. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2011.
5. Candis Callison. How Climate Change Comes to Matter: The Communal Life of Facts. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2014.
الخضر شودار ولد بالجزائر و يعيش في شيكاغو. درس بجامعة تلمسان ثم وهران و تخرج من جامعة فلوريدا في الآداب الفرانكومغاربية، و عمل أستاذا في جامعة فلوريدا و ميشيغان. يعمل الآن محاضراً في جامعة شيكاغو.
يصدر له قريباً:
(الجهة الأخرى من الأشياء (ديوان شعر)
ملمسك ناعم كموت شجرة، مختارات للشاعر الفرنسي آلان بوسكيه مترجمة عن الفرنسية.
In this interview, the Algerian poet Elkhidr Choudar talks about his beginnings as a poet, his vision of poetry and the Arab poet in the context of his/her tradition and the wider international context and influences.
He also talks about the influence of continuous travel in his poetic experience and the doors and windows that translation of poetry into Arabic opens.
Interviewed by Osama Esber
August 25th, 2020 | Arabic
In the second episode of “1979 Generation,” Jadaliyya’s Iran Page co-editor, Manijeh Nasrabadi interviews Shahla Talebi on the liberation of political prisoners, the intersection of gender, class and revolution, and the emergence of “proletarian feminism.”
Shahla Talebi is Associate Professor of Religious Studies in the School of Historical, Philosophical and Religious Studies at Arizona State University. Shahla was a student activist who participated in the 1979 Revolution, lived through the Iran-Iraq war, and left Iran for the U.S. in 1994. She is the author of the critically acclaimed memoir, "Ghosts of Revolution: Rekindled Memories of Imprisonment in Iran", published by Stanford University Press in 2011.
(Photo by Hengameh Golestan)
On Tuesday, August 4th, a massive explosion rocked Beirut and sent a giant mushroom cloud into the sky. The blast, which struck the city with a force comparable to a 3.5 magnitude earthquake, destroyed much of the country’s main port, flattened and damaged hundreds of buildings, including three hospitals, and a huge number of businesses and homes. So far, 135 fatalities have been counted, 300,000 have been displaced and over 5000 have been injured. Hundreds of people are still trying to know the whereabouts of their loved ones who went missing.
To get a better picture of what happened in Beirut and the economic and political crisis compounded by the covid-19 pandemic that is pushing the country to the brink of economic collapse, Shahram Aghamir spoke with Ziad Abu Rish the Co-Director of the MA Program in Human Rights and the Arts, and Visiting Associate Professor of Human Rights, at Bard College. Ziad is a 2020–21 Research Fellow in the Center for Contemporary Arab Studies at Georgetown University. His research explores state formation, economic development, and popular mobilizations in the Middle East, with a particular focus on Lebanon and Jordan. He serves as Co-Editor of Arab Studies Journal and Jadaliyya. He is also a Research Fellow at the Lebanese Center for Policy Studies (LCPS).
Photo by Hiba Al Kallas
Lebanese/American filmmaker Jude Chehab describes her experiences of the August 4th explosion in Beirut, recent protests in the city, and how these events lead her and others to organize grassroots rebuilding and transparent relief efforts in the Lebanese capital.
Donate now via PayPal to help support those impacted by the explosion in Beirut. paypal.me/judechehab
Interviewed by Paola C. Messina
August 9th, 2020 | English
In his brand-new book, "Genocide in Libya: Shar, a Hidden Colonial History" due out in two weeks, University of New England Professor Ali Ahmida meticulously documents the tragic story of a systematic genocide of the Libyan people by Italian colonial authorities a century ago, as well as the methodical cover up that ensued.
Despite a dearth of recorded materials, most of which were classified or destroyed, through painstaking interviews with genocide survivors and their descendants, Professor Ahmida manages to accomplish a seemingly impossible task by reconstructing bit by bit a shameful episode from the brief but devastating history of Italian colonialism in north Africa, thanks to the enduring memory and steadfastness of the martyred people of Libya.
Courtesy of Voices of the Middle East and North Africa (VOMENA).
Renewable, clean sources such as solar and wind energy have become an important part combatting the climate crisis and its impacts, but can we divorce the environmentally friendly technologies from the conditions under which these are developed and implemented? And what happens when renewable energy development becomes synonymous with colonial expansion and political repression?
Israel’s feverish plans to build the largest onshore wind farm in the occupied Golan Heights are a good example of why the conversation about a decarbonized economy may not be abstracted from considering prevailing power structures and systems of oppression including colonialism.
Malihe Razazan spoke with Muna Dajani and Wael Tarabieh, an activist and co-founder of Al-Marsad | The Arab Centre for Human Rights in the Golan Heights, which is an independent, not-for-profit international human rights organization located in Majdal Shams, in the Occupied Syrian Golan. The center was founded in October 2003 by a group of lawyers and professionals in the fields of law, health, education, journalism and engineering, along with human rights defenders and other interested community members.
Muna Dajani holds a PhD from the Department of Geography and Environment at LSE. Her PhD research aimed to examine the distinctive livelihood practices by which water use and farming acquire political subjectivity in the occupied Syrian Golan Heights and Al Battuf Valley in the Galilee. She is now the Research Officer in a collaboration project between Birzeit University and LSE entitled ‘Mapping Memories of Resistance: the untold story of the occupation of the Golan Heights’
Wael Tarabieh, the co-founder of al-Marsad, The Arab Centre for Human Rights in the Golan Heights is an independent, not-for-profit international human rights organisation located in Majdal Shams, in the Occupied Syrian Golan. The centre was founded in October 2003 by a group of lawyers and professionals in the fields of law, health, education, journalism and engineering, along with human rights defenders and other interested community members.
In recent decades, the six members of the GCC, which includes the Gulf Arab monarchies of Qatar, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Oman and Bahrain, have lured millions of mostly low skilled and semi-skilled workers from South and Southeast Asia and Africa. For the past few months, the migrant workers in these monarchies have been disproportionately affected by the COVID-19 pandemic and its economic impact.
To understand the plight of these millions of migrant workers and the history of labor migration in this region, Shahram Aghamir spoke to Assistant Professor Andrea Wright, who is in the Department of Anthropology and the Program in Asian and Middle Eastern Studies at William & Mary.
Courtesy of Voices of the Middle East and North Africa (VOMENA).
Co-editors of Jadaliyya's Environment Page, Huma Gupta and Gabi Kirk, discussed with Kali Rubaii how ecologies of war have produced multiple waves of displacement and have intimately shaped the lives of displaced Iraqis through the materiality of cement.
ناقش هوما جوبتا وغابي كيرك ، المحررين المشاركان لصفحة البيئة في جدلية ، مع كالي روباي كيف أنتجت بيئات الحرب موجات متعددة من النزوح وشكلت بشكل وثيق حياة النازحين العراقيين من خلال مادة الأسمنت.
The Environment in Context podcast discusses the role of Islamic Financing in the development of the global Green Bond industry. In June 2017, Malaysia was the first country in the world to issue a green sukuk in order to finance a solar power plant. Sukuk are asset-backed financial certificates that were developed over a millenia ago, which are compliant with the Islamic principle of Shari’ah.
http://www.statushour.com/en/Interview/3485
Guest: Aneil Tripathy
Interviewed by Huma Gupta and Bassam Haddad
In this interview, which is featured as a part of the launch of the new Jadaliyya Environment page, Malihe Razazan speaks to four of the page's co-editors: Danya Al-Saleh, Brittany Cook, Huma Gupta, and Owain Lawson. They discuss critical approaches to covering the environment, what the new Jadaliyya page seeks to contribute to these conversations, and the need to decolonize our analysis of the environment, energy, and climate change.
In this episode, we explore the impact of sponsorship on football as a whole and the impact that globalized money from the Middle East has had on the club game. This includes the very humble beginnings of sponsorship on football shirts, a review of some of the classic kits to emerge in the era of sponsored shirts, which big club was slowest to embrace the monied culture of shirt sponsors, and where our presenters think the next source of large-scale sponsorship money will come from around the globe. Why Middle Eastern governments are so eager to jump on the football shirt sponsor wagon is dissected as are the impacts we have already seen. What else could happen because of it, and what the reaction is intended to be from the regime perspective? We also delve into the coronavirus cancelations, La Liga and Serie A’s potential solutions, Barcelona’s potential collapse, what occupation Atletico Madrid manager Diego Simione’s wardrobe reminds the show of, and what sort of unprecedented natural disaster would happen if Spurs won the league in the opinions of our hosts. Also, there are important historical lessons about the difference between a King and a Sultan.
Another installment in the Security in Context series, this panel on the causes and consequences of Turkish invasion of northern Syria specifically on the future of Kurdish movements featuring Omar Dahi, Utku Baliban, Ahmet Tonak, and Zumray Kutlu.
This discussion between Noah Black and Artist Zeinab Saab traces the journey of Zeinab as an artist over the course of shifting through several mediums. They touch on the themes in Zeinab's work as well as how the context of an artist drives their creative process.
The third installment in the Security in Context series, this critical discussion of US military plans for climate change features Michael Klare, Betsy Hartmann, and Anne Hendrixson.
This podcast takes you to several cities/countries affected by COVID-19 to discuss social, economic, and political challenges facing their societies, with emphasis on the most vulnerable groups and on what this pandemic reveals about the human condition (wow, big phrase). Based on personal and incisive conversations with various interlocutors on location, we hope both to learn from others and to provide some solace as we address how we are collectively experiencing and dealing with similar challenges.
We will be speaking with our guests, one or several at a time, via Skype, and will try to have brief, informative, and non-draining calls within 20-30 minutes.
Stats: Coronavirus and Anti-Asian Racism in the United States
- 100 hate crimes against Asian Americans on average according to reports.
- Over 2,000 incidents of xenophobia and racism against Asian Americans.
- In New York City, Chinese businesses have seen a drop of 30-80 percent in sales.
- 47% of incidents occurred in businesses.
- Over 30% of incidents occurred in public spaces.
- Asian women were disproportionately targeted by racist incidents, with 70% of victims being female.
- 40% of incidents directed towards people of Chinese descent.
- Over ⅔ of incidents involved verbal harassment.
Hosted by Noura Erakat and Bassam Haddad
Production Set by Khalid Namez
Edited by Alicia Rodriguez
Directed by Bassam Haddad
Research by Naim Mousa
On Germany: 11 April 2020
This podcast takes you to several cities/countries affected by COVID-19 to discuss social, economic, and political challenges facing their societies, with emphasis on the most vulnerable groups and on what this pandemic reveals about the human condition (wow, big phrase). Based on personal and incisive conversations with various interlocutors on location, we hope both to learn from others and to provide some solace as we address how we are collectively experiencing and dealing with similar challenges.
We will be speaking with our guests, one or several at a time, via Skype, and will try to have brief, informative, and non-draining calls within 20-30 minutes.
Look out for upcoming episodes in the coming week(s). Listen to the previous episodes in the series on Gaza here, Dublin here, Cairo here, the first interview on Iran here, the second interview on Iran here, on San Francisco here, on Doha here, on Vancouver here, and on punishment in Palestine here.
Hosted by Noura Erakat and Bassam Haddad
Production Set by Khalid Namez
Edited by Alicia Rodriguez
Directed by Bassam Haddad
Research by Naim Mousa
Stats: Germany
Total cases: 125,452
Total deaths: 2,871
Total recovered: 57,400
Total active cases: 65,181
Total in serious/critical condition: 4,895
Total cases per 1 million people: 1,497
Total deaths per 1 million people: 34
Total tests carried out: 1,317,887
Tests per 1 million people: 15,730
First recorded case was on January 27.
Placed an order for 10,000 ventilators.
40,000 intensive care units across the country.
Hosted by Noura Erekat and Bassam Haddad
Production Set by Khalid Namez
Edited by Alicia Rodriguez
Directed by Bassam Haddad
Research by Naim Mousa
This podcast takes you to several cities/countries affected by Covid-19 to discuss social, economic, and political challenges facing their societies, with emphasis on the most vulnerable groups and on what this pandemic reveals about the human condition (wow, big phrase). Based on personal and incisive conversations with various interlocutors on location, we hope both to learn from others and to provide some solace as we address how we are collectively experiencing and dealing with similar challenges.
We will be speaking with our guests, one or several at a time, via Skype, and will try to have brief, informative, and non-draining calls within 20-30 minutes.
Statistics - As of March 2020
- 5,000 Palestinian prisoners currently in Israeli jails.
- 432 in administrative detention.
- 183 children.
- 43 female prisoners.
- Since 1967, over 800,000 Palestinians have been imprisoned.
- 4 Palestinian prisoners confirmed to be infected with coroanvirus.
- 50 Palestinian homes demolished
- Since 1967, 18,000 houses Palestinian homes have been demolished
- 6,000 homes were demolished immediately after the 1967 war.
- Home demolition as collective punishment: https://www.btselem.org/topic/punitive_demolitions
Hosted by Noura Erekat and Bassam Haddad
Production Set by Khalid Namez
Edited by Alicia Rodriguez
Directed by Bassam Haddad
Research by Naim Mousa
On Vancouver: 2 April 2020
This podcast takes you to several cities/countries affected by COVID-19 to discuss social, economic, and political challenges facing their societies, with emphasis on the most vulnerable groups and on what this pandemic reveals about the human condition (wow, big phrase). Based on personal and incisive conversations with various interlocutors on location, we hope both to learn from others and to provide some solace as we address how we are collectively experiencing and dealing with similar challenges.
We will be speaking with our guests, one or several at a time, via Skype, and will try to have brief, informative, and non-draining calls within 20-30 minutes.
Canada
- Total cases: 12,924
- Total deaths: 214
- Total recovered: 2,322
- Total active cases: 10,388
- Total in serious/critical condition: 120
- Total cases per 1 million people: 342
- Total deaths per 1 million people: 6
- First recorded case was on February 23.
- Total tests carried out: 302,745
- Tests per 1 million people: 8,021
British Columbia specifically
- Total cases: 1,174
- Total cases in Greater Vancouver area: 541
- Total deaths: 35
- Total recovered: 673
- Total active cases: 466
- Total in serious/critical condition: 64
- First recorded case was on January 27.
- Total tests carried out: 47,352
Hosted by Noura Erekat and Bassam Haddad
Production Set by Khalid Namez
Edited by Alicia Rodriguez
Directed by Bassam Haddad
Research by Naim Mousa
This podcast takes you to several cities/countries affected by Covid-19 to discuss social, economic, and political challenges facing their societies, with emphasis on the most vulnerable groups and on what this pandemic reveals about the human condition (wow, big phrase). Based on personal and incisive conversations with various interlocutors on location, we hope both to learn from others and to provide some solace as we address how we are collectively experiencing and dealing with similar challenges.
We will be speaking with our guests, one or several at a time, via Skype, and will try to have brief, informative, and non-draining calls within 20-30 minutes.
US Statistics
- Total confirmed cases in the US: 133,146 (as of 2pm on 3/29)
- Total deaths in the US: 2,363 (as of 2pm on 3/29)
- Case fatality rate in the US: (#deaths/#confirmed cases): 1.6% (as of 11pm on 3/27)
- Total cases per 1 million people in the US: 402(as of 2pm on 3/29)
- Total deaths per 1 million people in the US: 7
- First case recorded in the US: January 20 (Snohomish, Washington)
- Total number of test kits available: I wish I knew!
- Total number of tests performed daily: 65,000 (as of 3/26)
- Total number of tests performed: ~685,000 (as of 11pm on 3/27)
- Tests per capita in the US as whole: 177 tests per 100k people.
- NY has the highest testing rate: 627 tests per 100k people.
- Total number of ventilators: ~172,700 (~160,000 available +12,700 in national stockpile)
- After Trump enacted the Defense Production Act on 3/27, factories like GM are mandated to begin manufacturing ventilators - as many as 10,000/month.
- Total number of ICU beds: ~925,000
- Total number of ICU beds per 1,000 people: 34.7
- Water security in places like Flint, Michigan. Under pressure the state issued a moratorium of water shutoffs.
- Nearly 3,000 households are without running water
- A number of states/communities are struggling as COVID-19 is spreading in homeless populations and among SRO/housing project residents.
- Homeless people are at double the risk of contracting the virus.
- Cramming 200-300 people in a single homeless shelter is the norm in many cities, increasing the likelihood of transmission.
- 30% of homeless people have chronic lung disease, according to a study published last year.
- The U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness estimates that there are 567,700 homeless people in the country.
- While San Francisco Mayor London Breed announced a $5 million emergency fund and public health order to help vulnerable populations, including the homeless, many activists insist that is not enough.
- In Boston, 8 homeless people have already tested positive for the virus.
E.g. Population density is one of the factors in community spread in NYC
- New York City, Westchester, Nassau, Suffolk, Rockland, Orange, and Erie county are the hardest hit areas in New York State. They are also all the top 10 most densely populated counties in the state.
Hosted by Noura Erekat and Bassam Haddad
Production Set by Khalid Namez
Edited by Alicia Rodriguez
Directed by Bassam Haddad
Research by Naim Mousa
This podcast takes you to several cities/countries affected by Covid-19 to discuss social, economic, and political challenges facing their societies, with emphasis on the most vulnerable groups and on what this pandemic reveals about the human condition (wow, big phrase). Based on personal and incisive conversations with various interlocutors on location, we hope both to learn from others and to provide some solace as we address how we are collectively experiencing and dealing with similar challenges.
We will be speaking with our guests, one or several at a time, via Skype, and will try to have brief, informative, and non-draining calls within 20-30 minutes.
Data shown is as of April 1, unless stated otherwise.
Qatar
- Total cases: 781
- Total deaths: 2
- Total recovered: 62
- Total active cases: 717
- Total in serious/critical condition: 6
- Total cases per 1 million people: 271
- Total deaths per 1 million people: 0.7
- First recorded case was on February 28.
- Carried out almost 9,000 tests (as of March 18).
UAE
- Total cases: 664
- Total deaths: 6
- Total recovered: 61
- Total active cases: 597
- Total in serious/critical condition: 2
- Total cases per 1 million people: 67
- Total deaths per 1 million people: 0.6
- First recorded case was on January 28.
- Carried out more than 220,000 laboratory tests across the country (as of March 30).
- Evacuated over 1,700 nationals and "those accompanying them" from countries abroad.
- Opened drive-through testing facility that can service 600 people a day, with priority given to the elderly, the pregnant and those with underlying health problems.
Saudi Arabia
- Total cases: 1,720
- Total deaths: 16
- Total recovered: 264
- Total active cases: 1,440
- Total in serious/critical condition: 31
- Total cases per 1 million people: 49
- Total deaths per 1 million people: 0.5
- First recorded case was on March 1.
- State authorities seized over 5 million masks that were hoarded by businesses and people.
- Released 250 immigration detainees to help contain the spread of the virus.
Oman
- Total cases: 210
- Total deaths: 1
- Total recovered: 34
- Total active cases: 175
- Total in serious/critical condition: 3
- Total cases per 1 million people: 41
- Total deaths per 1 million people: 0.2
- First recorded case was on February 23.
Kuwait
- Total cases: 317
- Total deaths: 0
- Total recovered: 80
- Total active cases: 237
- Total in serious/critical condition: 13
- Total cases per 1 million people: 74
- Total deaths per 1 million people: 0
- First recorded case was on February 23.
- Brought back more than 2,700 citizens from countries abroad.
Bahrain
- Total cases: 567
- Total deaths: 4
- Total recovered: 316
- Total active cases: 247
- Total in serious/critical condition: 2
- Total cases per 1 million people: 333
- Total deaths per 1 million people: 2
- First recorded case was on February 23.
- Carried out almost 19,000 tests (as of March 20).
Hosted by Noura Erekat and Bassam Haddad
Production Set by Khalid Namez
Edited by Alicia Rodriguez
Directed by Bassam Haddad
Research by Naim Mousa
This podcast takes you to several cities/countries affected by Covid-19 to discuss social, economic, and political challenges facing their societies, with emphasis on the most vulnerable groups and on what this pandemic reveals about the human condition (wow, big phrase). Based on personal and incisive conversations with various interlocutors on location, we hope both to learn from others and to provide some solace as we address how we are collectively experiencing and dealing with similar challenges.
We will be speaking with our guests, one or several at a time, via Skype, and will try to have brief, informative, and non-draining calls within 20-30 minutes.
Statistics - as of March 29
- Total confirmed cases: 38,309
- Total confirmed deaths: 2,609
- Total confirmed recoveries: 12,391
- Total active cases: 23,278
- Total open critical or severe cases: 3,206 (14%)
- Average daily number of deaths in past week: 136/day
Some prominent figures who have died from the disease: Mohammad Mirmohammadi (Member of the Expediency Council), Nasser Shabani (Senior Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Commander), Fatemeh Rahbar (conservative politician and four-time Parliamentarian, died before the start of her fourth term)
Some prominent figures who have contracted the disease: Iraj Harirchi (Deputy Minister of Health), Ahmad Amirabadi Farahani (MP, Qom), Ali Akbar Velayati (Senior Advisor to Supreme Leader Khamenei for International Affairs)
Some important dates:
January 26th: Government claims COVID-19 has not and will not spread to Iran
On February 19, the Ministry of Health announced two confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the city of Qom, which is a center for religious learning in the country. The Ministry later announced that both individuals died. On February 21, new cases were reported in Tehran and the province of Gilan. Parliamentary elections were held to record low turnout despite the risk of spreading contagion.
On March 9, approx. 70,000 detainees are released on medical furlough
On March 13th, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei implies that the virus might be a "biological attack"
On March 19th, March 20th, and March 25th, there were revolts of incarcerated people in Tabriz and in two cities in the province of Lorestan in response to COVID-19 fears and to new lockdown measures introduced in wake of the spread of COVID-19.
Hosted by Noura Erekat and Bassam Haddad
Production Set by Khalid Namez
Edited by Alicia Rodriguez
Directed by Bassam Haddad
Research by Naim Mousa
This podcast takes you to several cities/countries affected by Covid-19 to discuss social, economic, and political challenges facing their societies, with emphasis on the most vulnerable groups and on what this pandemic reveals about the human condition (wow, big phrase). Based on personal and incisive conversations with various interlocutors on location, we hope both to learn from others and to provide some solace as we address how we are collectively experiencing and dealing with similar challenges.
We will be speaking with our guests, one or several at a time, via Skype, and will try to have brief, informative, and non-draining calls within 20-30 minutes.
Iran - data shown is as of March 29.
- Total confirmed cases: 38,309
- Total deaths: 2,640
- Total recovered: 12,391
- Total cases per 1 million people: 456
- Total deaths per 1 million people: 31
- First case recorded on February 19.
- About 6,000 people are being tested daily (This data is based on an article written on March 14).
- Estimates put the death toll at around 3.5 million by late May, when the outbreak is expected to peak.
Hosted by Noura Erekat and Bassam Haddad
Production Set by Khalid Namez
Edited by Alicia Rodriguez
Directed by Bassam Haddad
Research by Naim Mousa
This podcast takes you to several cities/countries affected by Covid-19 to discuss social, economic, and political challenges facing their societies, with emphasis on the most vulnerable groups and on what this pandemic reveals about the human condition (wow, big phrase). Based on personal and incisive conversations with various interlocutors on location, we hope both to learn from others and to provide some solace as we address how we are collectively experiencing and dealing with similar challenges.
We will be speaking with our guests, one or several at a time, via Skype, and will try to have brief, informative, and non-draining calls within 20-30 minutes.
Cairo
- Total confirmed cases: 442
- Total deaths: 21
- Total recovered: 95
- Total cases per 1 million people: 4
- Total deaths per 1 million people: 0.2
- First case recorded on February 14.
- At least 97 foreigners who visited Egypt since mid-February showed symptoms of, or tested positive for the virus.
Hosted by Noura Erekat and Bassam Haddad
Production Set by Khalid Namez
Edited by Alicia Rodriguez
Directed by Bassam Haddad
Research by Naim Mousa
This podcast takes you to several cities/countries affected by Covid-19 to discuss social, economic, and political challenges facing their societies, with emphasis on the most vulnerable groups and on what this pandemic reveals about the human condition (wow, big phrase). Based on personal and incisive conversations with various interlocutors on location, we hope both to learn from others and to provide some solace as we address how we are collectively experiencing and dealing with similar challenges.
We will be speaking with our guests, one or several at a time, via Skype, and will try to have brief, informative, and non-draining calls within 20-30 minutes.
Dublin Statistics - (numbers shown are in for the entirety of Ireland unless stated otherwise)
- Total confirmed cases: 539 (in Dublin)
- Total deaths: 7
- Total recovered: 5
- Total cases per 1 million people: 269
- Total deaths per 1 million people: 1
- First case recorded on February 19.
- 17,992 tests carried out so far, 93% returning as negative.
- Nearly half of all coronavirus cases in Ireland are in Dublin.
- It is estimated that there could be 15,000 cases in Ireland by the end of the month.
Hosted by Noura Erakat and Bassam Haddad
Research by Naim Mousa
Production Set by Khalid Namez
Edited by Alicia Rodriguez
This podcast takes you to several cities/countries affected by Covid-19 to discuss social, economic, and political challenges facing their societies, with emphasis on the most vulnerable groups and on what this pandemic reveals about the human condition (wow, big phrase). Based on personal and incisive conversations with various interlocutors on location, we hope both to learn from others and to provide some solace as we address how we are collectively experiencing and dealing with similar challenges.
We will be speaking with our guests, one or several at a time, via Skype, and will try to have brief, informative, and non-draining calls within 20-30 minutes.
Gaza Statistics
- Total confirmed cases: 9
- Total deaths: 0
- Total cases per 1 million people: 4
- Total deaths per 1 million people: 0
- First cases recorded on March 21.
- As of March 23, only 200 testing kits are available.
- Only about 99 people tested so far.
- Only 3 ventilators per 100,000 in Gaza.
- By contrast, in the US and Israel there are 52 and 40 ventilators per 100,000 people, respectively, which has been deemed vastly insufficient.
- Around 30 hospitals and major clinics, providing an average of only 1.3 beds per 1,000 people.
- While other countries have emphasized the need to wash hands frequently, Gazans are worried about having enough water to drink.
- 90% of the water in Gaza has been deemed unfit for human consumption.
- Almost impossible to quarantine people in Gaza due to population density.
- 113,990 refugees are living in Jabalia camp which covers an area of only 0.54 square miles, making it impossible for people to maintain physical distance from each other, let alone effectively carry out a quarantine.
- In Beach Camp, 85,628 refugees reside in an area of 0.2 square miles.
- Beach Camp has only one medical center and one food distribution center servicing the entire population.
- Schools have been converted quarantine quarters, with 8 people per classroom and about 200 sharing a bathroom.
Hosted by Noura Erakat and Bassam Haddad
Research by Naim Mousa
Production Set by Khalid Namez
Edited by Alicia Rodriguez
In this interview with El Kontessa, Huda Asfour highlights her trajectory from visual arts and graphic design to becoming one of Cairo's most sought after DJ's. Experimenting with Shabi music and Mahraganaat to produce fresh mixes with a clear identity is what sets El Kontessa apart.
UCLA Professor and Bernie Sanders surrogate challenges both Silicon Valley and the Ivory Tower of academia to find the the heart of technological emancipation from Egypt's Tahrir Square to US politics.
The prominent Egyptian revolutionary socialist and host of popular online series "To Your Left" discusses his Marxist political literacy, the struggles faced by and future aspirations of leftists in post-revolutionary Egypt, the rise of Bernie Sanders in the United States, and the new ways to make political economic literacy fun for the country's youth with a new savvy show.
In this interview, artist and filmmaker, Dima Yassin, discusses her long overdue visit to Iraq at the height of the country's revolution. She reflects on the sociopolitical transformations happening in the country, the role that women play in the uprising, and her new film shot from Baghdad's revolutionary epicentre, Tahrir Square.
How are the politics of Islamic studies gendered, and what does this mean for the field? Professor Kecia Ali's keynote speech addressed this and other questions at the 17th Annual Duke-UNC Middle East and Islamic Studies Graduate Student Conference.
Courtesy of the Islamicate Graduate Student Association (IGSA) https://heellife.unc.edu/organization/igsa
https://islamicstudiesconf2020.web.unc.edu/
In this interview, Jonathan Adler, managing editor of Tadween Publishing, sits down with Ziad Abu-Rish to discuss The Dawn of the Uprisings, the growth of Jadaliyya as an archive, and the current wave of protests across the Middle East and North Africa.
About the Book
The Dawn of the Arab Uprisings sheds light on the historical background and initial impact of the mass uprisings that have shaken the Arab world since December 2010. The book brings together the best writers from the online journal Jadaliyya, which has established itself as an unparalleled source of information and critical analysis on the Middle East.
The authors, many of whom live in the countries affected, provide unique understanding and first-hand accounts of events that have received superficial and partial coverage in Western and Arab media alike. While the book focuses on those states that have been most affected by the uprisings, it also covers the impact on Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Palestine, and Iraq.
The Dawn of the Arab Uprisings covers the full range of issues involved in these historic events, from political economy and the role of social media, to international politics, gender and labor, making this the ideal one-stop introduction to the events for the novice and specialist alike.
To read more about this book, follow this link:
https://tadweenpublishing.com/collections/books/products/dawn-of-the-arab-uprisings-1
Status host Omar Shanti traces Raï throughout its history from its inception in the 1930’s until the early 2000’s. This podcast episode will analyze Raï not as a strictly musical phenomenon, but as a vehicle for articulating and embodying complex narratives. In the tradition of Schade-Poulsen (1999), it will treat Raï as a total social fact defined by the situated practices of performance and listening - which in the age of records also translate to production and consumption.
In this timely interview with Ziad Abu-Rish, VOMENA's Shahram Aghamir asks about Lebanon's economic crisis, it's worst in decades. Part 1 features discussion on the roots of the economic crisis and its connection to developmental failures. Part 2 centers on the protest movement and the implications of the coronavirus.
In this timely interview with Ziad Abu-Rish, VOMENA's Shahram Aghamir asks about Lebanon's economic crisis, it's worst in decades. Part 1 features discussion on the roots of the economic crisis and its connection to developmental failures. Part 2 centers on the protest movement and the implications of the coronavirus.
From Hong Kong to Chile, from Lebanon to India, from Iraq to Colombia, from Algeria to Argentina, from Iran to France, from Sudan to Haiti, from Ecuador to Guinea and beyond, “Protest is the new normal,” as Serge Halimi recently wrote in Le Monde diplomatique. Yet, we're confronted with a paradox: we are also living through another global wave - the rise of right-wing, authoritarian-populist forces, movements, and strong men around the world: Orbán in Hungary, Modi in India, Bolsonaro in Brazil, Erdoğan in Turkey, Salvini in Italy, Duterte in the Philippines, Sisi in Egypt, and lest we omit ourselves: Trump in the United States.
How do we make sense of this apparent paradox? How should we understand these momentous global developments? Are the various protest movements around the world connected somehow? If so, what are their common features or through lines? At the same time, what are specific dynamics and characteristics that make each case distinct? One can't address all of the aforementioned countries in a single panel discussion, but on January 20, 2020 (Martin Luther King Jr., Day) the Center for International and Area Studies at Northwestern University hosted a panel discussion that examined five of them - Lebanon, Hong Kong, Chile, India, and Iran.
Please Note: The City of Vancouver, where this interview was conducted, is on the unceded territories of three First Nations: the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh
This interview is about Istanbul’s Tarlabaşı neighborhood, where a decade-long urban transformation project continues to shape politics of the city, impacts the lives of residents, and reveals the political economy of Turkish construction businesses. Alize Arıcan tells us about her award-winning research on how delays shift power dynamics between builders and politicians, and how communities living around the construction site make use of these delays to remain in the neighborhood. She argues that delays should be understood not as failures of urban transformation, but as generating new forms of accumulation and dispossession, as well as resistance to these processes. As plans for residential luxury buildings and business complexes displace neighborhood residents including Kurdish and Roma communities, West African immigrants, Middle Eastern refugees, and trans sex workers, those who are still living in the neighborhood come up with strategies to remain resilient. We talk about a range of issues tied to urban transformation in Turkey’s cities, including: historical landmarking and property expropriation, displacement of marginalized communities who depend on informal economies, long-term relationships between companies and the government, the pervasive practice of subcontracting, and the effects of the current economic downturn.
Resources:
From Home to Real Estate: Urban Redevelopment on the Axis of Speculation in Istanbul: https://www.jadaliyya.com/Details/31310/From-Home-to-Real-Estate-Urban-Redevelopment-on-the-Axis-of-Speculation-in-Istanbul
Ekümenopolis and Beyond (Podcast in Turkish with English translation of transcript): http://statushour.com/en/Interview/119
Networks of Disposession: https://burak-arikan.com/networks-of-dispossession/
It is About the Park: A Struggle For Turkey’s Cities: https://www.jadaliyya.com/Details/28789
Bio-Istanbul: A Speculative, Segregationist, and Sustainable Urbanism: https://www.jadaliyya.com/Details/31785/Bio-Istanbul-A-Speculative,-Segregationist,-and-Sustainable-Urbanism
Meydan Politics: Taksim in Flux After Gezi: https://www.jadaliyya.com/Details/32242
Courtesy of VOMENA.
The tension between the countries entered a dangerous phase when on January 3rd the US assassinated Maj. Qasem Soleimani, the head of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards' Quds Force, in a drone strike at Baghdad International Airport. The assassination had been ordered by Donald Trump.
The killing of Maj. Qasem Soleimani put in motion a series of events that many people feared may lead to another devastating war in the Middle East - but for now there seems to be a worldwide sigh of relief as the U.S. and Iran both appear to signal a desire to avoid further conflict.
So, how did it all begin? Why did the US decide to assassinate Soleimani, and what are the ramifications of this move on Iranian domestic and regional policies as well as the future of any possible negotiations between the US and Iran?
To explore these issues, Shahram Aghamir spoke with Mohammad Ali Kadivar – an Assistant Professor of Sociology and International Studies at Boston College, whose work contributes to political and comparative-historical sociology by exploring the interaction between protest movements and democratization - and Mansour Farhang, Professor emeritus of international relations at Bennington College, who served as the Islamic Republic of Iran’s first ambassador to the U.N. from 1979 to 1980, stepping down in protest after Khomeini's government did not release the 52 Americans held during the embassy siege.
In this conversation with Mezna Qato and Ala’a Shehabi, Bassam Haddad inquires about MERIP’s recent 'Paper Trail’ Issue. Mezna and Ala’a address the background, content, and details of the issue and some of the surrounding topics.
This issue of Middle East Report explores how the Middle East is on the cutting edge of struggles to hide or reveal secret or important documents and paper trails that shape the lives of those across the region. The issue explores how the powerful utilize secrecy or deception to hide their paper trails from publics and how others weaponize archives and documents to serve their interests. At the same, time the issue explores how citizens and activists can fight for transparency to uncover the secret documents that hold clues over how they are governed and what is being hidden behind closed doors. The issue also explores how paper trails can be created through activism that turns the tables on the powerful or can be mined to explore and revive the past.
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يتناول هذا الحوار بين بسام حداد ووائل جمال عدة مواضيع في اقتصاد مصر السياسي منذ ٢٠١٣، مع تشديد على بنى السلطة المهيمنة، السياسات النيوليبرالية، إعادة التوزيع، والعدالة الاجتماعية
In the first of a series of interviews that aims to profile the newest and noteworthy academic institutions in the MENA region that are helping to advance critical learning, Jonathan Adler of the Middle East Studies Pedagogy Initiative interviews Katy Whiting of the Sijal Institute. The Sijal Institute is an intensive language and cultural school and institute in the Jabal Amman neighborhood of Amman, Jordan. Whiting discusses the Sijal Institute's efforts to fill gaps in Arabic language instruction, develop new pedagogical strategies, and design more effective cultural immersion programs.
In this interview, Jonathan Adler, the managing editor of Tadween Publishing, sits down with Adel Iskandar to revisit one of Tadween’s first books, Mediating the Arab Uprisings, and to discuss the continually contested arena of media politics in the Middle East.
Hosts: Bassam Haddad, Matt Atteberry, Thomas Serres
In this episode, we explore the sociopolitical issue of racism through the lens of football, with some emphasis on French football. This includes the history of pseudo-scientific thinking, its influence on racial discrimination, the problem of enforcing good behavior, and what FIFA might do. In addition we discuss a name change for the podcast, who looks like the Champions League favorites, and a football detective story so convoluted it could only happen in today’s media environment.
Our guest, Thomas Serres, takes a deep dive into Ligue 1 in France, and the political overtones of bigotry directed at fans of the Algerian national team in French society. As in most European countries, racism has been a recurring problem in French football stadiums. It has notably resulted in deadly clashes between antifascist and neo-Nazi groups of PSG fans in the 2000s. At the same time, these clashes have also allowed the growing securitization of ultras and forms of indiscriminate repression. Race has also been a problem at the national level. When the notoriously multiracial French national team faced major defeats, pundits and politicians have often blamed the "mentality" of players of African or North-African origins. In addition, racist discourses have fueled the public space after each major victory of the Algerian national team, as public displays of "Algerianess" were portrayed as a threat to public safety and a form of betrayal.
Courtesy of Voices of the Middle East & North Africa (VOMENA).
Shahram Aghamir spoke with Peyman Jafari, a historian at Princeton University about the latest wave of anti-government protests in Iran.
On Friday Nov 15, protests broke out in 30 cities across Iran after a surprise announcement by the government it would ration gasoline and raise prices by 50 percent to 300%. The protests swiftly turned into anti-government demonstrations targeting the theocratic regime as a whole.
And, as in previous protests, demonstrators utilized Twitter and other social media platforms to organize, to communicate with the outside world and document the typically heavy-handed response by the regime. In the first twenty four hours, hundreds of images and video clips showed security forces brutally attacking protesters.
Amnesty International Verified video footage as well as eyewitness testimony from people on the ground and information gathered by human rights activists outside Iran reveal a harrowing pattern of unlawful killings by Iranian security forces: At least 106 protesters in 21 cities had been killed as of Wednesday, and Amnesty International believes that the real death toll may be much higher, some reports suggesting as many as 200 fatalities. State media have reported only a handful of protester deaths, plus those of four members of the security forces.
Adding to lethal attacks on the protests, within twenty-four hours, the government has used other tool in their arsenal - The Iranian authorities shutdown the internet for 5 days to stop the flow of information to the outside world and to cut off communication among the Iranian people themselves.
NetBlocks, a non-governmental organization that monitors Internet accessibility around the world, has reported that “The ongoing disruption is the most severe recorded in Iran since President Rouhani came to power, and the most severe disconnection tracked by NetBlocks in any country in terms of its technical complexity and breadth."
Courtesy of VOMENA.
Protesters took to the streets of Baghdad once again on October 25 calling for radical changes to the existing political and economic system.
Ever since a new wave of protests erupted in Baghdad on October 1 and quickly spread to several southern cities, Iraq has been rocked by demonstrations and acts of civil disobedience rooted in long-standing grievances over unemployment, inadequate services, economic mismanagement and corruption. The security forces have responded harshly; killing more than 260 protestors and injuring thousands more. Nevertheless, the unrest continues, and the protestors have expanded their demands to include an overhaul of Iraq’s political structure, which was established after the U.S. led invasion in 2003.
To get a better picture of what is happening in Iraq and the role of the U.S. and regional players in that country, VOMENA's Shahram Aghamir spoke with NY Professor Sinan Antoon.
Sinan Antoon is a celebrated poet, novelist, translator, and scholar of modern Arabic literature and contemporary Arab culture and politics at the Gallatin school at NYU. His latest novel is titled 'The Book Of Collateral Damage'.
Jadaliyya’s Iran Page brings Iranian feminist experiences of the 1979 revolution and its aftermath together in a new audio interview series.
In the first episode, Jadaliyya’s Iran Page co-editor, Manijeh Nasrabadi, interviews Homa Hoodfar on revolutionary upheaval, the contested role of women in the national liberation project and to reflect on what feminism means to her.
On 17 September 2019, Ismail Ziada, a Dutch national of Palestinian descent, brought a civil suit against Benny Gantz, head of Israel’s Blue and White Party and the Israeli Army General Chief of General Staff during the 2014 Gaza onslaught and Amir Eshel, Israeli Air Force Chief. The suit alleges war crimes for the killing of six of Ziada’s family members including his mother, three brothers, sister-in-law, and twelve-year old nephew when the family’s home in the Al-Bureij refugee camp was bombed in 2014. The hearing will determine whether the Dutch court has jurisdiction. In this interview, Noura Erakat speaks with Liesbeth Zegveld, Ziada’s attorney and renowned human rights attorney, scholar of international humanitarian law, and professor at Leiden University.
Interviewed by Noura Erakat | English