The Fire These Times

For episode 160, Dana El Kurd, Fabien Goa and Elia Ayoub are joined by Nikesh Shukla to discuss his book 'Brown Baby: A Memoir of Race, Family and Home' which the three of us read with Gaza on our mind (although it was written in 2021 and is not on Palestine). More broadly, we talked about what it's like to raise a brown kid in a world where racialized lives are easily disposable. On B...

For Episode 159, Dana El Kurd and Elia Ayoub are joined by Ukrainian researcher Yuliia Kishchuk who signed the Ukrainian Letter of Solidarity with Palestinian people published on the Ukrainian journal Commons , a site that both Dana and Elia have also contributed to in the past. In this episode, they argue for Palestinian-Ukrainian solidarity and explore the obstacles preventing it from happening...

For Episode 158, Elia Ayoub is joined by Lebanese journalist and friend of the pod Justin Salhani to talk about recent calls for and acts of violence by far right Lebanese Christians against Syrian refugees. In addition to giving context with regards to what's happening, they talk about Lebanon as a structurally violent state, one which has always scapegoated refugees, first Palestinians and n...

For episode 157, Elia Ayoub sits with Bill Fletcher Jr to talk about why downplaying authoritarianism is so dangerous, whether with regards to the upcoming US elections or even in organising spaces. We spoke about the US, Lebanon, Syria, Zimbabwe and more. Bill Fletcher Jr is a longtime USA-based labor and social justice activist who has worked for several unions and organizations. Fletcher is the...

In this special collab episode between Obscuristan and The Fire These Times, Karena Avedissian and Anna are joined by Daniel Voskoboynik to discuss the life of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny and what his death means for those of us not quite at the heart of the Russian empire. Plus, Anna and Karena announce that they're joining the wider TFTT collective!  Obscuristan is available whe...

This is a compilation of 4 episodes of our new podcast Politically Depressed, created by writer and organizer Ayman Makarem. These are episodes 9-12 compiled into one long episode (with time codes below). If you enjoy this podcast, please consider following and rating it on whatever app you use to listen to your podcasts (It really makes a huge difference to our visibility.) Time codes: 00:00 - Ep...

For episode 155, Ayman sits with Beirut-based journalist and friend of the show, Justin Salhani, to talk about his recent essay for Al-Jazeera. Expanding on the essay, the two talk about parallels between the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon and siege of Beirut and the ongoing genocide in Gaza. As two children of survivors of the '82 siege, their conversation moves between political/military a...

For episode 154, French-Moroccan-Amazigh analyst Sahar Amarir joins Elia J. Ayoub and Leila Al-Shami to talk about her piece " Imperialist is Multiple, so Should be Our Solidarities: on the Need for Post-Post-Colonialism "  published in The Funambulist.  Support: You can support my work with ⁠⁠⁠ ⁠a one-off or monthly donation⁠⁠⁠⁠ on Ko-fi Masterclass on Modern Lebanon: ⁠⁠⁠ ⁠Registration...

For episode 153, anarchist writer, musician and podcaster Margaret Killjoy joins Elia Ayoub and Aydın Yıldız to talk about the very easy topic of apocalypse. What does that even mean? And how do we deal with that without falling into complete despair? Many of y'all know that one of the taglines of this pod is building the new in the shell of the old, right? Well, this is about that. Sort of. I...

For episode 152, Dana El Kurd hosts Geoffrey Levin to talk about his book " Our Palestine Question: Israel and American Jewish Dissent, 1948-1978 ". Levin is assistant professor of Middle Eastern and Jewish Studies at Emory University and the Director of Undergraduate Engagement at Emory’s Tam Institute for Jewish Studies. Our Palestine Question is a new history of the American Jewish re...

This is a compilation of 4 episodes of our new podcast Politically Depressed, a weekly podcast by Lebanese writer and organizer Ayman Makarem. These are episodes 5-8 compiled into one long episode (with time codes below). If you enjoy this podcast, please consider following and rating it on whatever app you use to listen to your podcasts! Time codes: 00:00 - Episode 5: Sounds of Silence 22:00 - Ep...

For episode 151, Elia Ayoub and Daniel Voskoboynik host Tory Stephens, Climate Fiction Creative Manager at Grist.org , to talk about Imagine 2200: Climate Fiction for Future Ancestors and why narrative work is an integral part of any climate solution. Why does Imagine 2200 choose hope over dystopia? What are effective narrative shifting tactics and strategies? Stephens is also on the Hollywood Cli...

For episode 150, Lebanese journalist Justin Salhani guest hosts Lebanese researchers Michelle Eid and Karim Safieddine to talk about the under-reported and overlooked war in southern Lebanon. They look at the human impact of this conflict on Lebanon - a country that in just over four years has experienced a stunted revolution, one of modern history's worst economic crises, and the destruction...

The Fire These Times is expanding into a network of autonomous, decentralized projects and podcasts from the periphery. The first new addition to this media ecosystem is Politically Depressed , a new weekly, blog-style podcast by Lebanese writer and organizer Ayman Makarem. We've compiled the first 4 episodes of Politically Depressed into this compilation (with time codes below). If you enjoy...

For episode 149, Elia sat down with Karena Avedissian and Anna, TFTT returnees and co-hosts of Obscuristan , a podcast which is soon joining the broader network (whaaat? - We talk about that at the beginning of the episode). We talked about Azerbaijan hosting COP29 next year, the global climate conference, and why it might be a problem for a petro-dictatorship to host a climate conference. We disc...

For episode 148, Dana El Kurd and Elia Ayoub are joined by Diana Greenwald and Alexei Abrahams to talk about seen and unseen violence in Israel-Palestine. They explore the many forms of violence of the Israeli occupation that led to the October 7 massacre and the brutal Israeli response in Gaza. What is kinetic violence? What is structural violence? And how do these two differ? Diana is an Assista...

This is an episode that Elia recorded a few months ago. We're releasing it now to take a bit of a break from our exploration of Israel-Palestine and because Solarpunk is how at least one of us, Elia, tries to create hope where none exists.  This episode was recorded after the four of us - Elia, Ariel Kroon, Luka Dowell and Andre aka @HydroponicTrash took part in the Solarpunk conference.  Sola...

In this remastered release, Elia Ayoub is joined by Sumaya Awad and Shireen Akram-Boshar . Awad is a co-editor of the book Palestine: A Socialist Introduction , and Akram-Boshar is a contributor to the same book. Originally released on May 20th 2021, this episode has been remastered and re-released. Many of the topics discussed - including the ethnic cleansing of Palestine, the growing solidarity...

In episode 146, Elia Ayoub and Dana El-Kurd talk to Sally Abed , Orly Noy and Amjad Iraqi . Abed is a member of the national leadership of Standing Together (עומדים ביחד نقف معًا) , a grassroots movement mobilizing Jewish and Palestinian citizens of Israel in pursuit of peace, equality, and social and climate justice. Orly Noy is the chair of B'Tselem , arguably Israel's most well-known hu...

Daniel and Elia host a conversation between Hadar Cohen and Dahab Kashi, exploring the radical power of Arab Jewish perspectives. Often seen as mutually exclusive identities, the existence and experience of Arab Jews transcends the narrow, and violent, confines of both Zionism and Arab Nationalism. The artist Yossi Zabari spoke about the power of the 'hyphen connecting Arab and Jew', and i...

In light of the genocidal onslaught against Palestinians in Gaza following the October 7th Hamas attack, we've decided to re-release an old episode on Hamas, Gaza, and Palestine-Israel. In this episode from June 2021, Elia interviews Tareq Baconi, author of the book " Hamas Contained: The Rise and Pacification of Palestinian Resistance " published in 2018. Baconi meticulously outline...

For episode 144, Daniel is joined by renowned Sudanese Professor Abdullahi Ahmed An-Na’im for a wide-ranging conversation on human rights, spirituality, and inter-cultural justice. Professor An-Na’im is an internationally recognized scholar of Islam and human rights, specifically from cross-cultural perspectives, and teaches courses in international law, comparative law, human rights, and Islamic...

While the world is currently transfixed by what’s happening in Israel-Palestine, this story did not begin on October 7th. Elia Ayoub and Daniel Voskoboynik are joined by Dana El Kurd, Orly Noy, and Yair Wallach to think through this moment, process our grief together, and articulate alternative visions for both peoples. We focused on three themes: a) Grief, b) Thinking Through This Moment, c) What...

Ayman Makarem is joined by two Sudanese commentators, Raga Makawi and Dalia Abdelmoniem, to talk about the war in Sudan. Both guests talk at length about the situation as well as the political, economic, and revolutionary context it exists within. This intimate discussion explores the many ways Sudanese people are reflecting on and struggling against the current war situation. With little to no in...

Elia Ayoub is joined by returning guests Karena Avedissian and Anna to talk about the recent crisis in Nagorno-Karabakh / Artsakh where the near entirety of the ethnic Armenian population was ethnically cleansed by Azerbaijan. The Aliyev dictatorship running Azerbaijan has met no challenges from the so-called international community - quite the contrary. What happened in Nagorno-Karabakh is a crim...