The Fire These Times

For episode 180, Leila Al-Shami and Elia Ayoub are joined by Dr Banah Ghadbian to talk about her piece " Give Us Our Land Back: The Golan Heights, Greenwashing, Syria and Palestine’s Intertwined Revolutions " published on Spectre Journal. We spoke of the importance of the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights in the liberation of both Palestine and Syria. This was recorded before the fall of th...

For episode 179, Beirut-based journalist Justin Salhani  is joined with New York University professor and journalist Mohamad Bazzi  to talk about the situation in Lebanon before and after the ceasefire with Israel. Support: You can support my work with ⁠⁠⁠ ⁠a one-off or monthly donation⁠⁠⁠⁠ on Ko-fi Masterclass on Modern Lebanon: ⁠⁠⁠ ⁠Registration is now open⁠⁠⁠⁠ Newsletter : Subscribe to ⁠⁠⁠ ⁠Hau...

A lot has happened over the last week in Syria, so we figured we'd gather together, as members of From the Periphery, to discuss the latest developments and provide a historical and political background to help understand the current moment. We discuss a broad range of topics starting with an overview of the what's happened in the last week or so, including: the origins of the Syrian revol...

For episode 177, Leila is joined by Serge from Buzuruna Juzuruna, an agro-ecological farm and heirloom seed producer in the Bekka Valley working on food autonomy, and Abir from Hostel Beirut, a worker owned cooperative in the heart of the Lebanese capital committed to social and economic justice for all. We talk about the current situation in Lebanon following the Israeli invasion, the mutual aid...

In this rerun of episode 131, Elia is joined by Dr Yafa El Masri to talk about her paper “ 72 Years of Homemaking in Waiting Zones: Lebanon’s “Permanently Temporary” Palestinian Refugee Camps ” which she presented at the 2022 Pluriverse of Eco-social Justice summer school  in Coimbra, Portugal, where we met. Dr El Masri spoke from first hand experience of commoning in "permanently temporary&q...

For episode 176, Dana El Kurd is joined by Atalia Omer, professor of Religion, Conflict and Peace Studies, University of Notre Dame to discuss her work on the convergences between American neoconservatism, Christian Zionism, and Israeli politics, as well as how attacking Palestine is being used to advance right-wing politics around the world. Omer discusses the impact of American right-wing politi...

In lieu of an episode this week, we're pleased to announce a new podcast within the From the Periphery network. We'll return to regular TFTT releases next week. -- -- -- Welcome to The Mutual Aid Podcast. Join Ayman and israa every week as they discuss, share, and explore all things mutual aid. In this intro episode they talk about the reasons they started this project, what the project even is, a...

For episode 175, Elia Ayoub and Anna (co-host of Obscuristan ) are joined by Larisa Jašarević to talk about her new book “ Beekeeping in the End Times .” They delve into bees and Abrahamic faiths, climate change, folk tradition, and above all how we can all be connecting to the natural world while still remaining rooted in ourselves and our lives. Support: You can support my work with ⁠⁠⁠ ⁠a one-o...

For episode 174, Elia and Ayman sit down to talk about Lebanon. As our little country is in the news for all the worst reasons, we thought it a good idea to give y'all an overview of Lebanese history. Support: You can support my work with ⁠⁠⁠ ⁠a one-off or monthly donation⁠⁠⁠⁠ on Ko-fi Masterclass on Modern Lebanon: ⁠⁠⁠ ⁠Registration is now open⁠⁠⁠⁠ Newsletter : Subscribe to ⁠⁠⁠ ⁠Hauntologies⁠...

For episode 173, Elias Jahshan joins Elia Ayoub , israa abd elfattah and Leila Al-Shami to talk about " This Arab Is Queer " anthology, which he edited and was published by Saqi Books in 2022. Support: You can support my work with ⁠⁠⁠ ⁠a one-off or monthly donation⁠⁠⁠⁠ on Ko-fi Masterclass on Modern Lebanon: ⁠⁠⁠ ⁠Registration is now open⁠⁠⁠⁠ Newsletter : Subscribe to ⁠⁠⁠ ⁠Hauntologies⁠⁠⁠...

Ayman sits down with Elia to discuss his article " Hezbollah: 10 Things You Need To Know " which is available for free on his newsletter, hauntologies.net . We recorded this the day before Israel's mass terror attack on Lebanon on 21st of Sept' 24 which left nearly 500 people killed and over 1,000 injured. Elia has also written about that attack for 972mag: With pager blasts and...

For episode 172, Elia Ayoub and Daniel Voskoboynik talk about a very difficult topic: the Holocaust and the Nakba. The ongoing Israeli genocide in Gaza brings up urgent questions about how memory is weaponized. Elia also talks about Jonathan Glazer,'s The Zone of Interest and the haunting parallels between the everyday life of the Nazi family portrayed in that movie, and the normalization of g...

For episode 171, Elia Ayoub and guest host Hari Prasad are joined by Lateef Johar Baloch , a human rights advocate and a member of the Human Rights Council of Balochistan to talk to us about the history of Pakistani oppression and authoritarianism in Balochistan and the ongoing resistance against it. We also talked about broader issues facing Balochistan today including the role of foreign powers...

For episode 170, returning guest Musa Okwonga  talks to Elia Ayoub  about a piece he wrote, " The Hatred Is Accelerating ", on racism and the far right in Germany. This was recorded on 31 August 2024, a day before the fascist AfD party won top place in Thuringia and second in Saxony in the state elections. Support: You can support my work with ⁠⁠⁠ ⁠a one-off or monthly donation⁠⁠⁠⁠ on Ko...

For episode 169, Elia Ayoub is joined by returning guests Sahar Amarir and Rim-Sarah Alouane to talk about the situation in France, from the recent elections that saw a surprising victory for a Left-Green alliance to how Macronism has been actively normalizing the far right. They described the situation as grim, with far right ideology on questions of race and freedom of worship (especially Islam)...

For this rerun episode, Elia Ayoub is joined by Kavita Krishnan , an Indian Marxist and Feminist who used to be a politburo member of the Communist Party of India (Marxist–Leninist) Liberation who resigned over Ukraine. He is also joined by ⁠ Promise Li⁠ , a US-based Hong Konger organizer and part of the Left diaspora collective ⁠Lausan . Co-hosting this episode is ⁠ Romeo Kokriatski⁠ , a Ukrainia...

For episode 168, Elia and Leila are joined by the Chkoun? Collective, a collective of people from "North Africa" resisting anti-Black racism and its intersections with migration and the fight for freedom of movement in the region. We discussed their statement " Solidarities are not a given, they need to be built " and how it relates to our experiences covering Syria, Israel-Pal...

For episode 167, guest host Justin Salhani  is joined by Yasser Elsheshtawy  to talk about the Dubaization plan that Netanyahu's team put forward for Gaza after their genocide. You won't be surprised to know that we think it's a terrible plan, but what is dubaization? du·bai·za·tion /dōō’bīzāSHən/ adjective: 1. the act of building a city which relies on spectacular, non-contextual arch...

For episode 166, Dana & Elia are joined by Ahmed Moor & Antony Loewenstein, co-editors of the book " After Zionism: One State for Israel and Palestine " to talk about the ongoing genocide in Gaza and whether there is any hope for the One State Solution. Support: You can support my work with ⁠⁠⁠ ⁠a one-off or monthly donation⁠⁠⁠⁠ on Ko-fi Masterclass on Modern Lebanon: ⁠⁠⁠ ⁠Regist...

For episode 165, Elia and Aydın are joined by investigative journalist and anarchist James Stout   of the It Could Happen Here podcast to talk about the 1936 anti-fascist Olympics in Barcelona and the fascists who destroyed it. There's a reason you've only heard of the more notorious Berlin one, and we're gonna get into it here. You can buy James' book: The Popular Front and the Ba...

For episode 164, Dana El-Kurd is joined by Michael Paarlbeg , associate professor of political science at Virginia Commonwealth University, to discuss the intersection between crime and authoritarian politics in Latin America. They particularly focus on the the state of emergency happening today in El Salvador, covering the rise of Nayib Bukele and the political implications of the “gang state” em...

For episode 163, Elia Ayoub is joined by University of Bath researcher and repeated guest Dr. Aurelien Mondon  to talk about the populist hype in the context of the gains by the Far Right in a number of Western countries. We spoke about the EU elections as well as the upcoming UK, France and US elections, asking the question: is the media covering the Far Right responsibly? (spoiler alert: no) Dr....

Sarah Hegazi was a queer Egyptian activist who was severely punished by the Sisi regime for waving a rainbow flag at the September 2017 Mashrou' Leila concert in Cairo. On the 14th of June, 4 years ago, Sarah died by suicide in exile in Canada. In this episode from September of that year, Hamed Sinno, lead singer of Mashrou Leila, reflects on her passing with Elia Ayoub. They also got into men...

For episode 162, host Ayman Makarem is joined by two guests, Malek Rasamny and Matt Peterson, to talk about their 10-year long multi-media project 'The Native and the Refugee'. The three talk about the project, its many manifestations, its focus on settler colonialism as a framework, as well as the current genocidal situation unfolded in Gaza. They also talk about their film 'Spaces of...

Elia and Ayman talk about Gaza, and why this genocide changes everything. Demand a complete arms embargo on Israel immediately. Sanctions immediately. Cut off all diplomatic immediately. To hold Israel accountable for genocide means making them pay for reparations, sending its war criminals to The Hague, and conditioning going back to normal relations on the implementation of full rights to Palest...