The Fire These Times

Molly Crabapple and I have been chatting about this topic for a long time so this was a really fun episode to do. Although it was (roughly) my MA thesis in 2016, Molly has a much more personal connection to the Jewish Labor Bund and Bundism as her great-grandfather, Sam Rothbort, was a Bundist. She wrote a moving piece about this for the New York Review of Books which you can read here. She's now writing a book about the Bund. So who are these Bundists? How does Molly view the legacy of Bundism? What can we learn from the concept of 'Doikayt' (here-ness) that they believed in? This is what this conversation is about. I also tried to - and, hopefully, succesfully - to convey why I, as someone of Lebanese and Palestinian origins with no direct ties to Judaism or the Yiddish language, was so interested in this movement.  You can follow the podcast on Twitter @FireTheseTimes and Instagram @thefirethesetimes. 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.

This is a conversation with Dr Fadi Bardawil, Assistant Professor of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies at Duke University and the author of the book "Revolution and Disenchantment: Arab Marxism and the Binds of Emancipation". I wanted to have this conversation with Dr Bardawil because his study of the 1960s 'Arab New Left', and especially the 'Lebanese New Left' of that period, evoked curious comparisons to what protesters in Lebanon are having to face today as well. The experience of the 1960s Lebanese New Left offers insights into how intellectuals struggled with the questions of theory and practice and of how to transform societies despite all their contradictions. As you'll hear in the conversation, Dr Bardawil, who is of the civil war generation, is very much in conversation with the generation that came before his. At the same time, and for different reasons, I, as someone from the postwar generation, am in conversation with the war generation. As such we managed, hopefully succesfully, to have three generations of Lebanese briefly conversing with one another. I hope you'll enjoy this conversation as much as I did. You can follow the podcast on Twitter @FireTheseTimes and Instagram @thefirethesetimes. 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. Here's the abstract of his book: "The Arab Revolutions that began in 2011 reignited interest in the question of theory and practice, imbuing it with a burning political urgency. In Revolution and Disenchantment Fadi A. Bardawil redescribes for our present how an earlier generation of revolutionaries, the 1960s Arab New Left, addressed this question. Bardawil excavates the long-lost archive of the Marxist organization Socialist Lebanon and its main theorist, Waddah Charara, who articulated answers in their political practice to fundamental issues confronting revolutionaries worldwide: intellectuals as vectors of revolutionary theory; political organizations as mediators of theory and praxis; and nonemancipatory attachments as impediments to revolutionary practice. Drawing on historical and ethnographic methods and moving beyond familiar reception narratives of Marxist thought in the postcolony, Bardawil engages in "fieldwork in theory" that analyzes how theory seduces intellectuals, cultivates sensibilities, and authorizes political practice. Throughout, Bardawil underscores the resonances and tensions between Arab intellectual traditions and Western critical theory and postcolonial theory, deftly placing intellectuals from those traditions into a much-needed conversation."

I spoke with Berlin-based British writer, poet, broadcaster and musician Musa Okwonga, who also co-hosts the popular football podcast Stadio. Musa frequently writes for The Bylines Times and for The Guardian, among others. Musa was a guest of my previous podcast, Hummus For Thought, and I wanted to have him on here to hear his reflections of these past several weeks now under social distancing. We spoke about his experience growing up black in the UK, his move to Germany and how both countries have dealth with the Covid-19 pandemic. We also spoke about the treatment of refugees trying to reach Fortress Europe's borders, how the world failed Syria and about the importance of acknowledging how widespread the dehumanisation of racialised groups of people has become. You can follow the podcast on Twitter @FireTheseTimes and Instagram @thefirethesetimes. 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.

This is a conversation with Julia Choucair Vizoso, an independent scholar trained as a political scientist as well as an editor and translator at The Public Source, a Beirut-based independent media organization which describes itself as such: "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." She is also is a Non-Resident Fellow at the Arab Reform Initiative, collaborating on the Programme on Sustainable and Inclusive Environmental Policy in the MENA Region. I wanted to talk to Julia because she's well-placed to explain how the Lebanese oligarchy operates and how or if the October 17th revolution has threatened it. You can read part one and part two of her essay on The Public Source. You can follow the podcast on Twitter @FireTheseTimes and Instagram @thefirethesetimes. You can also support it on Patreon @firethesetimes or BuyMeACoffee.com @joeyayoub. This episode supports Egna Legna. You can support them here and listen to my interview with their founder Banchi Yimer here.

This is a conversation with Kareem Shaheen, former Beirut- and Istanbul-based The Guardian correspondent for Turkey and the Middle East, current analyst on the region as well as a writer for satirical Arabic news publication Al-Hudood. He is currently based in Montreal, Canada. We spoke about the importance of journalism given the lack of justice and accountability in Syria, the Middle East and beyond that should, in more ideal settings, come out of the kind of investigative and critical journalism that he does. We also spoke about his visit to Khan Sheykoun two days after the Assad regime's 2017 chemical attack on the town as well as his reflections on this 'nightmare decare' for the Arab and Muslim worlds. You can follow the podcast on Twitter @FireTheseTimes and Instagram @thefirethesetimes. You can also support it on Patreon @firethesetimes or BuyMeACoffee.com @joeyayoub. Image by The Syrian People Know Their Way, modified by myself. Music by Tarabeat. Logo design by Carl Farra.

This is a conversation with Lebanese journalist Timour Azhari of Al  Jazeera (previously The Daily Star) about the legacy of the October 17  uprising six months since it began. We spoke about the current state of  Lebanese politics, the government’s response to the Covid-19 crisis, the  country’s most vulnerable groups and what protesters might be expected  to face once the pandemic is over. You can read Azhari’s work on Al Jazeera here as well as his archives at The Daily Star here. He is also very active on Twitter with regular updates on Lebanese affairs. Associated blog post: https://thefirethisti.me/2020/04/13/08-lebanons-october-uprising-six-months-later/ You can follow the podcast on Twitter @FireTheseTimes and Instagram @thefirethesetimes. You can also support it on Patreon @firethesetimes or BuyMeACoffee.com @joeyayoub. This episode is dedicated to the work of Syrian Eyes. Please check out their fundraising to help prevent a large-scale escalation of the Covid-19 outbreak in refugee settlements in Lebanon.

This is a conversation with Sabrîna Azad. She's a writer who published a moving piece for Mangal Media entitled 'From Halabja to Ghouta' in which she looked at how deniers of Assad's war crimes in Syria were evoking painful memories for survivors of Saddam Hussein's genocidal campaigns against Kurds. She spoke about the legacy of the Halabja massacre, part of the Anfal genocide of the late 80s, as well as the 1991 uprisings against Saddam and why they offer better insight into the world's reaction to Syria since 2011 than the more frequently mentioned 2003 invasion of Iraq does. You can follow the podcast on Twitter @FireTheseTimes and Instagram @thefirethesetimes. You can also support it on Patreon @firethesetimes or BuyMeACoffee.com @joeyayoub. Associated blog Post available on TheFireTheseTi.Me https://thefirethisti.me/2020/04/11/07-genocide-denialism-from-halabja-to-ghouta/

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).