The Fire These Times

This is a repost of an episode I did with Dr Andrew Arsan, British-Lebanese scholar and author of the book Lebanon: A Country in Fragments, and which was originally released on the Hummus For Thought podcast. I'm releasing it here as an introduction to a series of upcoming episodes on Lebanon that will deal with the October 17th Uprising and its meanings. The Uprising will serve as a framework through which my guests and I will try to understand the post-war era of Lebanese history, from 1990 to the present moment, as well as some topics dating further back.  We will highlight groups of people that are usually ignored in discussions around Lebanon, including by the Lebanese themselves, such as refugees and migrant workers in Lebanon, including migrant domestic workers (check out the Kafala series), the LGBTQ community, as well as Lebanese Jews, Lebanese Kurds and Lebanese of part African or Asian origins.  We will also be looking at Lebanon's relationship with Palestinians, Syrians, Israelis, Iranians, the Arab world and the West as well as dive into such light topics as Lebanese identity and the diaspora, Hezbollah's role in the region and at home and the environmental threats facing the country. You can find the podcast on Apple Podcasts, Anchor, Breaker, Google Podcasts, Radio Public, Spotify, Castro, Pocket Casts, and RSS. More to come! You can follow the podcast on Twitter @FireTheseTimes and Instagram @thefirethesetimes.  You can also support it on Patreon @firethesetimes or BuyMeACoffee.com @joeyayoub. You can support Egna Legna's campaign to bring food and aid to victims of the Kafala system in Lebanon by clicking here. Featured photo is from the cover of Lebanon: A Country in Fragments. Associated Blog Post: https://thefirethisti.me/2020/04/08/06-lebanons-october-17-revolution-a-country-in-fragments/

I spoke with Banchi Yimer, founder of Egna Legna who define themselves as “community-based feminist activists working on  migrant domestic workers’ issues and general women’s issues in Lebanon and Ethiopia.” She spoke to me about the Kafala System, the impacts of the economic crisis and the coronavirus pandemic on migrant domestic workers in Lebanon as well as her ongoing trauma after working in Lebanon for seven years. Yimer recently wrote a piece for The Public Source entitled “The Lebanese Revolution: A New Chapter of Kafala Misery“.  Among their activities are various workshops teaching various skills to  domestic workers in Lebanon, financial assistant, educational videos, establishing shelters, legal assistance as well as a brochure of  Lebanon’s bus map in Amharic, Ethiopia’s dominant language. They also  take part in the relevant demonstrations, such as the yearly Labor Day organised with the Alliance of Migrant Domestic Workers in Lebanon.   They seek to, among other things, have the Lebanese government  include domestic workers in the country’s labor laws (they currently are  excluded), as well as fight gender-based violence and racism. To put it  mildly, their work is very difficult, so I urge you all to check out  their work and support what they do. You can follow them on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. The associated blog post: https://thefirethisti.me/2020/03/27/05-lebanons-migrant-domestic-workers-between-the-coronavirus-and-slavery/ If you like what I do, please consider supporting this project with only 1$ a month on Patreon.com/firethesetimes or on BuyMeACoffee.com/joeyayoub

In this episode, I spoke with one of the authors of the Crimethinc piece of the same name about the ‘logic of the guillotine’, how it is used in  online left-wing meme culture, why it is problematic and why we need to have a better logic than that of the guillotine if we truly believe in liberatory politics. Here are some extracts from the introduction to the piece.“On April 6, 1871, armed participants in the revolutionary Paris Commune  seized the guillotine that was stored near the prison in Paris. They  brought it to the foot of the statue of Voltaire, where they smashed it  into pieces and burned it in a bonfire, to the applause of an immense  crowd […]  In these conditions, burning the guillotine was a brave gesture  repudiating the Reign of Terror and the idea that positive social change  can be achieved by slaughtering people.The guillotine has come to occupy our  collective imagination. In a time when the rifts in our society are  widening towards civil war, it represents uncompromising bloody revenge.  It represents the idea that the violence of the state could be a good  thing if only the right people were in charge. Those who take their own powerlessness  for granted assume that they can promote gruesome revenge fantasies  without consequences. But if we are serious about changing the world, we  owe it to ourselves to make sure that our proposals are not equally  gruesome.”While I’d usually post a list of extra links, the original Crimethinc piece is full of them so I’ll simply ask you to read the piece this time!The Fire These Times⁠ is a production of the ⁠From The Periphery⁠ media collective. We are worker-owned media collective that centers radical and peripheral voices, struggles, and ideas. If you like the work we do, and want to see more of it, please consider heading over to ⁠Patreon.com/fromtheperiphery⁠. For as little as 5$ a month, you get:Early access to all of our episodes such as this one as well as From The Periphery Podcast, the Mutual Aid Podcast, Obscuristan, Syria: The Inconvenient Revolution, Hidah and more to comeFull access to our book club episodesAn invitation to our monthly hangouts and movie clubsAs well as help us fund our freely accessible zines.If you cannot support us financially, there are still a number of ways you can support our work, for example you can leave a 5-star rating on your podcast app, like and subscribe to our ⁠YouTube channel⁠, leave a comment wherever your listening - all of which will help us against the algorithm. For more:Elia Ayoub is on ⁠⁠Bluesky⁠⁠, ⁠Mastodon⁠, ⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠ and blogs at ⁠Hauntologies.net⁠ The Fire These Times is on Bluesky,⁠ IG⁠ and⁠ YouTube⁠ and has a⁠ ⁠website⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠From The Periphery is on⁠ ⁠Patreon⁠⁠, ⁠Bluesky⁠, ⁠⁠YouTube⁠⁠,⁠ Instagram⁠, and has a⁠ website⁠⁠Transcriptions: Transcriptions are done by⁠ Antidote Zine⁠ and are available on the website.Credits:Elia Ayoub (host, producer, sound editor, episode design), ⁠⁠Tarabeat (Music), ⁠⁠Wenyi Geng⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ (TFTT theme design), ⁠⁠Hisham Rifai⁠⁠⁠⁠ (FTP theme design) and ⁠⁠Molly Crabapple⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ (FTP team profile pics).

What does it mean to have, to demand, the right to narrate? Usually  associated with Edward Said and the Palestinian experience, this concept  ultimately speaks to a widespread feeling among those who are racialized, those who are gendered, those who are displaced. It reflects  a more generalised need to reclaim something that feels stolen.In this episode, I sat down with Laura Vidal, a Paris-based Venezuelan writer and researcher. Laura recently wrote an essay in Spanish entitled “¿Quién tiene derecho a contar nuestras historias?”  (“Who has the right to narrate our stories?”) With our respective  experiences as former regional editors for Latin America and the Middle  East and North Africa respectively for Global Voices, as well as our  mutual engagement on this question throughout the years, Laura and I  explore the interrelated topics of identity, displacement, trauma – and  the right to narrate.Why do those who are displaced regularly get deprived of the right to  narrate their own experiences? What is ‘Venezuelan-splaining’? Is it a  form of gaslighting to downplay the experiences of those who are seen as  having ‘made it’, by which I mean those who now live in relatively  ‘stable’ cities/countries? How do those who are displaced deal with  survivor’s guilt? Recommended by Laura:Websites:La Vida De Nos (+ English)He Got to Know the Jail of the Revolution in Which He Was Born by William UrdanetaCaracas ChroniclesGlobal Voices’ Special Coverages on Venezuela– What Is Happening in Venezuela? (2017)– A timeline of Venezuela’s political deadlock (2019)Novels:Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi AdichiePachinko by Min Jin LeeNon FictionIdentity and Violence: The Illusion of Destiny by Amartya SenImpostures interculturelles by Fred Dervin The Other by Ryszard KapuscinskiPodcastsCode SwitchRough TranslationThe Fire These Times⁠ is a production of the ⁠From The Periphery⁠ media collective. We are worker-owned media collective that centers radical and peripheral voices, struggles, and ideas. If you like the work we do, and want to see more of it, please consider heading over to ⁠Patreon.com/fromtheperiphery⁠. For as little as 5$ a month, you get:Early access to all of our episodes such as this one as well as From The Periphery Podcast, the Mutual Aid Podcast, Obscuristan, Syria: The Inconvenient Revolution, Hidah and more to comeFull access to our book club episodesAn invitation to our monthly hangouts and movie clubsAs well as help us fund our freely accessible zines.If you cannot support us financially, there are still a number of ways you can support our work, for example you can leave a 5-star rating on your podcast app, like and subscribe to our ⁠YouTube channel⁠, leave a comment wherever your listening - all of which will help us against the algorithm. For more:Elia Ayoub is on ⁠⁠Bluesky⁠⁠, ⁠Mastodon⁠, ⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠ and blogs at ⁠Hauntologies.net⁠ The Fire These Times is on Bluesky,⁠ IG⁠ and⁠ YouTube⁠ and has a⁠ ⁠website⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠From The Periphery is on⁠ ⁠Patreon⁠⁠, ⁠Bluesky⁠, ⁠⁠YouTube⁠⁠,⁠ Instagram⁠, and has a⁠ website⁠⁠Transcriptions: Transcriptions are done by⁠ Antidote Zine⁠ and are available on the website.Credits:Elia Ayoub (host, producer, sound editor, episode design), ⁠⁠Rap and Revenge⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ (Music), ⁠⁠Wenyi Geng⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ (TFTT theme design), ⁠⁠Hisham Rifai⁠⁠⁠⁠ (FTP theme design) and ⁠⁠Molly Crabapple⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ (FTP team profile pics). Featured image is an illustration by Gonzalez Illustration. Support their work at ⁠gonzalezillustration.com⁠

We go back to the summer of 2018 when I sat down with Sami, a Beirut-based Ethiopian activist with, Mesewat, a solidarity network that supports migrant workers in Lebanon and the Middle East, and Ali, an activist with the Anti-Racism Movement. It was recorded at one of the Migrant Community Centers in Beirut.There is a meme that was posted  on Instagram on International Women’s Day depicting a fictional conversation between a migrant domestic worker and a Lebanese woman  participating in the women’s day march. Between a “Yes Madame” and “Okay  Madame”, the Lebanese woman texts the following: “I know it’s Sunday  but I’m busy reclaiming my rights, so no off today, do the laundry, do  the dishes, take out the garbage, keep an eye on the children and the  food ready @7”.The meme speaks to a great dissonance between much of Lebanese  society, including those protesting since October, and those that live  in Lebanon as migrant domestic workers. The underlying culprit of that  dissonance has a name, the Kafala system. It is not well-known outside  of Lebanon, but an estimated 250,000 migrant domestic workers in the  country, mostly women, know it all-too-well. It governs their lives 24  hours a day, 7 days a week. It has lead to horrific abuses by those that  are their ‘sponsors’.You see, Kafala means sponsorship in Arabic, and this works the way  you might guess. Migrant domestic workers, from countries such as  Ethiopia, Sri Lanka, the Philippines and Nepal, come to Lebanon under  the sponsorship of a ‘kafeel’ (sponsor in Arabic) and live with a  sponsoring family, often in a household of a couple and their children.  There, they usually take care of all household shores, from the cleaning  to the cooking to the raising of kids to even walking the sponsors’  dogs. They are often visibly identifiable by their costume. So normalised is this state of affairs that one can still reasonably expect, despite relative gains in recent years, to hear the word  ‘sirlankyyeh’, which simply means a Sri Lankan woman, to be used as  synonymous with ‘maid’, leading such questions as ‘what is your Sri Lankan, an Ethiopian?’ depressingly common. In recent years, migrant domestic workers have been organising like never before. Groups with or without the support of Lebanese and  Palestinian activists have been getting increasingly vocal. Reading list available on the website.The Fire These Times⁠ is a production of the ⁠From The Periphery⁠ media collective. We are worker-owned media collective that centers radical and peripheral voices, struggles, and ideas. If you like the work we do, and want to see more of it, please consider heading over to ⁠Patreon.com/fromtheperiphery⁠. For as little as 5$ a month, you get:Early access to all of our episodes such as this one as well as From The Periphery Podcast, the Mutual Aid Podcast, Obscuristan, Syria: The Inconvenient Revolution, Hidah and more to comeFull access to our book club episodesAn invitation to our monthly hangouts and movie clubsAs well as help us fund our freely accessible zines.If you cannot support us financially, there are still a number of ways you can support our work, for example you can leave a 5-star rating on your podcast app, like and subscribe to our ⁠YouTube channel⁠, leave a comment wherever your listening - all of which will help us against the algorithm. For more:Elia Ayoub is on ⁠⁠Bluesky⁠⁠, ⁠Mastodon⁠, ⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠ and blogs at ⁠Hauntologies.net⁠ The Fire These Times is on Bluesky,⁠ IG⁠ and⁠ YouTube⁠ and has a⁠ ⁠website⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠From The Periphery is on⁠ ⁠Patreon⁠⁠, ⁠Bluesky⁠, ⁠⁠YouTube⁠⁠,⁠ Instagram⁠, and has a⁠ website⁠⁠Transcriptions: Transcriptions are done by⁠ Antidote Zine⁠ and are available on the website.Credits:Elia Ayoub (host, producer, sound editor, episode design), ⁠⁠Rap and Revenge⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ (Music), ⁠⁠Wenyi Geng⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ (TFTT theme design), ⁠⁠Hisham Rifai⁠⁠⁠⁠ (FTP theme design) and ⁠⁠Molly Crabapple⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ (FTP team profile pics).

JP from Lausan Collective on how Hong Kong's protests can offer an alternative to the "point-scoring self image-oriented practice" that is so common in the West.Lausan proposes numerous fascinating analyses of Hong Kong's ongoing situation.There you'll find such articles as:When a disease is racialized by Edward Hon-Sing WongThis is not ‘restoration’ by TonyRevolutionizing our times by Gay礎建設The perils of imperial alignment by Listen ChenThree reports from female inmates at Hong Kong’s prison mask factory by Shiu Ka-chunI went to eat at three ‘Hongkongers Only’ restaurants by CrystalRedefining mental health amid collective trauma by WYHong Kong political strikes: a brief history by Leung Po-lungNeither close nor far away: on solidarity from afar by Nikki LamHow real estate hegemony looms behind Hong Kong’s unrest by Brian NgThey've also hosted webinars, such as "Uniting Beyond Borders" with Au Loong-Yu, JS Tan, Shan Windscript and Ailing, among others.In our conversation, JP and I spoke about the meaning behind the ongoing protests in Hong Kong. What are they about? What are some of their achievements? Some of their weaknesses? Are the recent pro-democracy gains in the elections significant? What is the significance of time in the Hong Kong protests? How has the Coronavirus epidemic contributed to rising xenophobia towards mainland Chinese people? What are some differences and similarities between the protests in Hong Kong and those in Lebanon?For a full list of resources visit our website. ⁠The Fire These Times⁠ is a production of the ⁠From The Periphery⁠ media collective. We are worker-owned media collective that centers radical and peripheral voices, struggles, and ideas. If you like the work we do, and want to see more of it, please consider heading over to ⁠Patreon.com/fromtheperiphery⁠. For as little as 5$ a month, you get:Early access to all of our episodes such as this one as well as From The Periphery Podcast, the Mutual Aid Podcast, Obscuristan, Syria: The Inconvenient Revolution, Hidah and more to comeFull access to our book club episodesAn invitation to our monthly hangouts and movie clubsAs well as help us fund our freely accessible zines.If you cannot support us financially, there are still a number of ways you can support our work, for example you can leave a 5-star rating on your podcast app, like and subscribe to our ⁠YouTube channel⁠, leave a comment wherever your listening - all of which will help us against the algorithm. For more:Elia Ayoub is on ⁠⁠Bluesky⁠⁠, ⁠Mastodon⁠, ⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠ and blogs at ⁠Hauntologies.net⁠ The Fire These Times is on Bluesky,⁠ IG⁠ and⁠ YouTube⁠ and has a⁠ ⁠website⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠From The Periphery is on⁠ ⁠Patreon⁠⁠, ⁠Bluesky⁠, ⁠⁠YouTube⁠⁠,⁠ Instagram⁠, and has a⁠ website⁠⁠Transcriptions: Transcriptions are done by⁠ Antidote Zine⁠ and are available on the website.Credits:Elia Ayoub (host, producer, sound editor, episode design), ⁠⁠Rap and Revenge⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ (Music), ⁠⁠Wenyi Geng⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ (TFTT theme design), ⁠⁠Hisham Rifai⁠⁠⁠⁠ (FTP theme design) and ⁠⁠Molly Crabapple⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ (FTP team profile pics).