Radio Intifada by SWANA (South and West Asia and North Africa) Region Radio

Transnational poetry, poetry in the time of a pandemic, poetry that crosses borders, as does an epidemic. The common experience of the pandemic deconstructs the walls of longing, fear, uncertainty, isolation, separation, as well as connection and love. So does war. In a contemplation with poets, we juxtapose war and the pandemic. Poets are: Arthur Kayzakian, Karen Karslyan, and Hari Alluri.

This podcast is the audio version of a panel held at the Center for Ideas and Society at the University of California, Riverside, on Tuesday, February 6, 2024. SWANA Region Radio is grateful to the Center for permission to podcast the panel. This panel, one in a series of panels, discusses a number of questions that offer background to the current Israeli war on Gaza: What has been the impact on t...

After nine months of blockade that resulted in shortage of food, medicine and essential supplies, Azerbaijan attacked the autonomous enclave of Artsakh. The military action lasted 24 hours. At the end, the indigenous Armenians of Artsakh surrendered. Over 120,000 Artsakh Armenians fled to neighboring Armenia resulting in a massive refugee crisis. The ethnic cleansing has meant 120,00 people have l...

As listeners doubtless are aware, the government of South Africa brought a detailed and painstakingly documented case against Israel, charging the settler state with genocide against the Palestinian people. While the case focused on the current atrocities in Gaza, it did what so many of us have been demanding since October and the rush by Zionist and sympathizers  to condemn Hamas’s Al Aqsa Flood...

In this episode, we broadcast an event that brought together Armenian and Palestinian writers and organizations in solidarity with Gaza. The reading, Who Remembers: Armenian Palestinian Solidarities, took place on December 10th 2023, and was organized by the International Armenian Literary Alliance (IALA) and co-sponsored by: Armenian-American Action Network Fikra Mizna Palestine Festival of Liter...

This New Year's Eve, we devote our show to Gaza’s medical crisis in face of Israel’s genocidal assault on hospitals and clinics, basic infrastructure, and medical personnel. The unconscionable death toll in Gaza, which since October 7 alone has reached 21,000, is still steadily climbing, with daily reports of further mass killings by Israeli forces. It grows increasingly clear that Israel’s oc...

In this show, we focus on the caste system in India. SWANA Region Radio Collective members are joined by our guest, Sammitha Sreevathsa, to learn some basics: what exactly is caste, and how does it work? What is its importance in India? And why should those of us situated in the global North care about it? This Sunday's show will be the first in an ongoing series covering caste. We end this sh...

For the past few years, @swanaregionradio has devoted our Thankstaking weekend show to conversations between US #Indigenous and #Palestinian scholars and activists. These shows have highlighted the numerous commonalities between both people’s living under settler colonial regimes, from dispossession and genocidal warfare to water protection and combating the walls and fences that divide Indigenous...

This show is dedicated to the people of Gaza , the West Bank, and to borrow from Palestinian journalist, Mariam Barghouti , to Palestinians in heartland Palestine, and the diaspora. We are joined by Jehad Abusalim , Executive Director of The Jerusalem Fund . For over a month, Gaza has been pummeled by Israeli airstrikes, leveling its cityscapes, turning the densely populated Gaza Strip into a mono...

SWANA Region Radio talks with Rana Barakat, a professor of history and contemporary Arab studies at Birzeit University, near Ramallah, in occupied Palestine. As the brutal Israeli assault on Gaza rages on, with now close to 11,000 Palestinians killed and over 25,000 injured with minimal hospital care available, we talk with her about the situation on the West Bank, where killings by the IDF and ar...

During the show we invited you, our listeners, to call in to our station to give us your comments and feedback on our work and our broadcasts live on air with us. Once again, KPFK is holding an urgent fund drive, hoping to overcome a serious and ongoing financial crisis that affects the whole Pacifica Network of independent broadcasting stations. Since the financial crisis of 2008 and with a small...

In this week’s show, we are in conversation with organizers of the ⁠Palestine Writes ⁠ literary and cultural festival which will take place at the University of Pennsylvania next weekend, September 22-24. The extraordinary roster of participants include Elias Khoury, Isabella Hammad, Susan Abulhawa, Mosab Abu Toha, Huwaida Arraf, Noura Erakat, Maytha Alhassen, and many, many other Palestinian writ...

In this episode, SWANA Region Radio Collective members host Dr. Lisa Hajjar to discuss her most recent book The War in Court: Inside the Long Fight against Torture, out with University of California Press. Dr. Lisa Hajjar is professor of Sociology at UC Santa Barbara. She has an international reputation for her work on sociology of law and conflict, human rights, political violence, and contempora...

In this podcast, SWANA Region Radio covers the American Anthropological Association’s ongoing vote on a referendum to boycott Israeli Academic Institutions, which continues through July 14: anthroboycott.org . With some 10,000 members, the American Anthropological Association (AAA) is one of the largest scholarly associations in the country and Anthropology is regarded as “a core discipline”. Sinc...

This Memorial Day weekend, when American’s customarily commemorate military personnel fallen in its numerous and now seemingly endless wars–”a flag for every fallen hero”--SWANA Region Radio turns its attention to the largely forgotten toll that those wars have taken on the countries and people that have been devastated by them. This year marks the 20th anniversary of the US invasion of Iraq, a pr...

We are honored to host Chief Mandela, grandson of late South African anti-apartheid leader and political prisoner, Nelson Mandela. This show is in collaboration with U.S. Palestinian Community Network (USPCN) and the National Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression (NAARPR) as they prepare to host Chief Mandela on a six-city tour across Turtle Island.  This year marks the 75th anniversary...

SWANA Region Radio is joined by Tarteel Aliman and Ehab Eltayeb, members of the Sudanese Diaspora Network , to discuss the dire situation in Sudan. Tarteel and Ehab discuss with us what they are hearing from family and community members in Sudan, the inadequate and problematic mainstream media coverage of Sudan, and how you, our listeners, can help. Please visit Keep Eyes on Sudan for important in...

On this episode of SWANA Region Radio we welcome Azad Essa, author of the very timely and important book, Hostile Homelands: The New Alliance Between India and Israel out earlier this year from Pluto Press. The publisher shares:  Under Narendra Modi, India has changed dramatically. As the world attempts to grapple with its trajectory towards authoritarianism and a 'Hindu Rashtra' (Hindu St...

In this episode, we speak with Vic Gerami, Director of the documentary Motherland, which looks at Azerbaijan's invasion of Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabagh) Armenians in 2020 and the aftermath of the war.

In this episode, SWANA Region Radio Collective members Nyma Ardalan and Hamoud Salhi share six pieces of music and discuss their connections to Berber and Kurdish etymology, culture, and historical roots.

In this episode, SWANA Region Radio collective members discuss the dire situation facing Syrian refugees in Turkey. Our guests are Yaman Salam and Dina Sharif, members of CORE, Community Organized Relief Effort. CORE is a global crisis response organization that brings immediate aid and recovery to underserved communities. Our mission is to empower communities in and beyond crisis. When an emergen...

In this episode, a SWANA Region Radio collective member speaks with Mahmoud Vahedian Ghaffari. Ghaffari is disciple of Rumi who translates and interprets the work of JALĀL AD-DĪN MUHAMMAD BALKHĪ, otherwise known affectionately as Molana or Rumi.  He is the host of a monthly event called Rumi Nights (on hold now because of the pandemic).

In this episode, a SWANA collective member hosts Sonia Karimi to continue the conversation on the uprisings occurring in the Kurdish regions of Iran. They discuss the genealogy and meaning of the slogan of “Jin, Jiyan, Azadi" and the current status of the protests, for which many women have been imprisoned, and what the responses to these protests reveal about the Iranian regime.

In this episode, a SWANA collective member discusses the work of women activists in Rojava and Iran with our guest, Sonia Karimi. Sonia Karimi is the Diplomatic Representative for KJAR (the Community of Free Women in Rojhelat). She has a degree in English Literature with a specialism in Colonialism and Gender Studies. They discuss the state of civil organizations in Rojava, the impacts of the rece...

In this episode, collective members are joined by Jennifer Moghannam, Anila Daulatzai, and Alborz Ghandehari to consider the complex ways women have and continue to be central to revolution in the SWANA region. Undeniably, women’s commitments to anti-imperialist, anti-militarism, and anti-colonial efforts extend beyond the spectacular and have resonance in the everyday forms of resistance of women...