The Fire These Times

This is an unusual episode in that it's just me reflecting on the first 50 episodes that were released on The Fire These Times since March 14th 2020. I also speak about the projects I'm working on and which are made possible by your support. The projects: The Fire These Times: the podcast named after the James  Baldwin book ‘The Fire Next Time’. Its overarching philosophy is exploring ways to tackle the 21st century. Episodes so far have includes conversations on the 2019 Uprising in Lebanon, fascism in Greece,  Europe's 'refugee crisis', Brexit, Hong Kong, the Syrian revolution, China's concentration camps in Xinjiang, disinformation campaigns in the West, patriarchy, Ethiopia, the Jewish Bund, Venezuela and LGBTQ rights in the Arab world. Hummus For Thought: the Lebanon-oriented blog launched during the Arab Spring in 2011 and which is now two things: a monthly newsletter featuring reflections and recommendations (subscribe here) and an upcoming series of monthly and bilingual (English/Arabic) conversations on Lebanon with people who live in Lebanon or who have left Lebanon. You can read the announcement here. LebaneseCinema.com: upcoming website dedicated to resources on Lebanese Cinema as well as regional cinema (Palestinian, Israeli, Syrian, Turkish, Iraqi and Iranian). Ecolere (no website yet): upcoming bilingual (English/Arabic) website dedicated to discussing the climate emergency, our digital lives, and everything in between. Co-created with my friend Christophe Maroun.

This is a conversation with Loukas Stamellos. He's a member of the Greek grassroots media organisation OmniaTV and of the "Golden Dawn Watch"  initiative. Loukas and I spoke about Golden Dawn more generally, not just the trial that finally concluded that they are a criminal organisation but about  fascism in Greece and in Europe more broadly. He was really able to link Golden Dawn's fascism with wider trends such as nationalism and  xenophobia. The episode is available on the usual podcasting apps as of Sunday 18th 2020: Apple Podcasts, Anchor, Breaker, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Radio Public, Spotify, Pocket Casts, Castro and RSS. If it is not available wherever you get your podcasts, please drop me a message! You can view this episode as an informal second part to my previous conversation with Ghias Al Jundi,  a British-Syrian activist, on the recent fires in Greece's Moria camp  for refugees and migrants. That being said, both episodes are also  intended to stand on their own. In terms of additional links, I have used two previous podcast episodes  as part of my research for this episode. The first is a Guardian long  read based on an article written by Daniel Trilling for the publication. The audio version is here. The second is an interview by the podcast Radikaal with Daphne Halikiopoulo,  Professor in the Department of Political Science and International  Relations at the University of Reading in England. The link is here. Photo designed by Vincent Vaury for the documentary 'Golden Dawn: A Personal Affairs'. Reused and modified with permission.

This is a conversation with Syrian-British human rights activist Ghias Al Jundi about the recent fires at the Moria camp for refugees and migrants in Greece. The fires that burned through the camp left thousands houseless, turning a situation that was already described as a living hell into something even worse. Please check the links below for readings on that. Ghias has been going frequently to Greece to help refugees who make the dangerous journey across the Mediterranean Sea, a reality that is the  result of the European Union's decision to demonise migration and asylum. The EU has made it impossible for refugees to reach Fortress  Europe via the land. [For more on that you can listen to episode 35 (July 6, 2020) on the deadly 'Balkan Route', with Jack Sapoch, coordinator of No Name Kitchen‘s border violence reporting, itself part of the Border Violence Monitoring Network (BVMN).] He also knows very well what it means to leave one's home as he himself fled Syria in 1998 after surviving torture in Hafez Assad's dungeons.  This direct connection is something that I think is reflected in our own  conversation. As he told me in the episode, seeing migrants and  refugees try and reach Europe's shores felt like Syria was coming to him this time. If you'd like to support Ghias' fundraising effort to help those displaced by the Moria fires, you can do so at this link. As for articles related to the Moria fires, you'll find them on the associated blogpost on thefirethisti.me 

This is a conversation with Dr Peter Kalmus.  He's a climate scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab, and an activist  struggling, like so many of us, with the overwhelming presence of the  climate emergency. You can follow the podcast on Twitter @FireTheseTimes. You can follow the other project, Hummus For Thought, on Twitter @LebInterviews. If you like what I do, please consider supporting this project with only 1$ a month on Patreon or on BuyMeACoffee.com. You can also do so directly on PayPal if you prefer. Patreon is for monthly, PayPal is for one-offs and BuyMeACoffee has both options. If you cannot donate you can still help by reviewing this podcast on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. The Fire These Times is available on Apple Podcasts, Anchor, Breaker, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Radio Public, Spotify, Pocket Casts, Castro and RSS. If it is not available wherever you get your podcasts, please drop me a message! Music by Tarabeat. Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash.

This is a conversation with Lara Bitar, the founding editor of The Public Source, a Beirut-based independent media organization  "dedicated to reporting on socioeconomic and environmental crises afflicting Lebanon since the onset of neoliberal governance in the 90s, and providing political commentary on events unfolding since  October 17." We spoke about the importance of independent and critical media in Lebanon today and about the aftermath of 'this brief moment of euphoria that a lot of people experienced during the October 17' uprising, and particularly since the August 4th explosion in Beirut. You can follow the podcast on Twitter @FireTheseTimes. You can follow the other project, Hummus For Thought, on Twitter @LebInterviews. If you like what I do, please consider supporting this project with only 1$ a month on Patreon or on BuyMeACoffee.com. You can also do so directly on PayPal if you prefer. Patreon is for monthly, PayPal is for one-offs and BuyMeACoffee has both options. If you cannot donate you can still help by reviewing this podcast on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. The Fire These Times is available on Apple Podcasts, Anchor, Breaker, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Radio Public, Spotify, Pocket Casts, Castro and RSS. If it is not available wherever you get your podcasts, please drop me a message! Music by Tarabeat. Photo by Jr Korpa on Unsplash.

This is a conversation with Shui-yin Sharon Yam, a US-based Hongkonger academic who has been writing on various topics. It is a long conversation about Hong Kong, being a member of the  diaspora who may not be able to go back, how Hong Kongers can learn from  other people’s experiences with disinformation, as well as the  emotional cost of that disinformation on Sharon and I. She is Associate Professor of Writing, Rhetoric, and Digital Studies,  and a faculty affiliate of Gender and Women Studies at the University  of Kentucky. Her research focuses on questions of identity, citizenship, affect,  and race. She teaches courses on transnational rhetoric, digital  composing, and political emotion. You can follow the podcast on Twitter @FireTheseTimes. You can follow the other project, Hummus For Thought, on Twitter @LebInterviews. If you like what I do, please consider supporting this project with only 1$ a month on Patreon or on BuyMeACoffee.com. You can also do so directly on PayPal if you prefer. Patreon is for monthly, PayPal is for one-offs and BuyMeACoffee has both options. If you cannot donate you can still help by reviewing this podcast on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. The Fire These Times is available on Apple Podcasts, Anchor, Breaker, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Radio Public, Spotify, Pocket Casts, Castro and RSS. If it is not available wherever you get your podcasts, please drop me a message! Music by Tarabeat. Photo by Leung Yattin on Unsplash

This is a conversation with Ethiopian journalist Zecharias Zelalem on  his recent investigation into the horrific living conditions that Ethiopian migrants are living in in Saudi detention centers, as well as  his overview of the recent protests in Ethiopia following the murder of  popular Oromo singer Hachalu Hundessa. Additional links on TheFireThisTi.Me You can follow the podcast on Twitter @FireTheseTimes. You can follow the other project, Hummus For Thought, on Twitter @LebInterviews. If you like what I do, please consider supporting this project with only 1$ a month on Patreon or on BuyMeACoffee.com. You can also do so directly on PayPal if you prefer. Patreon is for monthly, PayPal is for one-offs and BuyMeACoffee has both options. If you cannot donate you can still help by reviewing this podcast on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. The Fire These Times is available on Apple Podcasts, Anchor, Breaker, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Radio Public, Spotify, Pocket Casts, Castro and RSS. If it is not available wherever you get your podcasts, please drop me a message! Music by Tarabeat. Photo by Jr Korpa on Unsplash

This is a conversation with Hamed Sinno, lead singer of the Lebanese band Mashrou' Leila. We spoke about the September 2017 concert in Cairo, Sarah Hegazi, mental health, and growing up queer in Lebanon - and everything in between. You can follow the podcast on Twitter @FireTheseTimes. You can follow the other project, Hummus For Thought, on Twitter @LebInterviews. If you like what I do, please consider supporting this project with only 1$ a month on Patreon or on BuyMeACoffee.com. You can also do so directly on PayPal if you prefer. Patreon is for monthly, PayPal is for one-offs and BuyMeACoffee has both options. If you cannot donate you can still help by reviewing this podcast on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. The Fire These Times is available on Apple Podcasts, Anchor, Breaker, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Radio Public, Spotify, Pocket Casts, Castro and RSS. If it is not available wherever you get your podcasts, please drop me a message! Music by Tarabeat. The photo is taken from Mashrou' Leila's album Ibn El Leil.

This is a conversation with Rayhan Asat and Yonah Diamond, authors of a piece for Foreign Policy entitled "The World’s Most Technologically Sophisticated Genocide Is Happening in Xinjiang." In addition to both being lawyers, Rayhan is also the sister of Ekpar Asat who was forcibly disappeared by the Chinese Communist Party in 2016, and she's the president of the American Turkic International Lawyers Association. As for Yonah Diamond, he's legal counsel at the Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights, named after the Swedish diplomat who saved tens of thousands of Jews in Nazi-occupied Hungary. Additional links available on thefirethisti.me  You can follow the podcast on Twitter @FireTheseTimes. You can follow the other project, Hummus For Thought, on Twitter @LebInterviews. If you like what I do, please consider supporting this project with only 1$ a month on Patreon or on BuyMeACoffee.com. You can also do so directly on PayPal if you prefer. Patreon is for monthly, PayPal is for one-offs and BuyMeACoffee has both options. If you cannot donate you can still help by reviewing this podcast on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

I spoke with Lebanese writer and translator Lina Mounzer about witnessing and experiencing the Beirut explosion on August 4th,  2020. So far there are 157 deaths, 5,000 injuries, US$10–15 billion in  property damage and an estimated 300,000 people left homeless. The blast was linked to about 2,750 tonnes (3,030 short tons) of ammonium nitrate – equivalent to around 1,155 tonnes of TNT (4,830 gigajoules) – that had been confiscated by the government from the abandoned ship MV Rhosus and stored in the port without proper safety measures for six years. For further info including how to hep, please visit TheFireThisTi.Me