Audio from a talk held by Woodbine's December 22nd Research Group facilitated by Malek Rasamny and Arya Zahedi.

What are the horizons, opportunities and challenges amidst the collapse of the Iranian-led order? Over the past few months Israel’s genocidal assault in Gaza has more fully expanded into a regional conflict with what has been referred to as the “axis of resistance”, led by Iran. Its fall has been decisive, with the destruction of much of the senior leadership of Hezbollah, including the assassination of secretary-general Hassan Nasrallah on September 27th; and the collapse of the Assad regime on December 7th, after a lightning fast four-day offensive led by rebel group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS).

BIOS:

Malek Rasamny is the co-director of the research project The Native and Refugee, and the documentary film Spaces of Exception. Both seek to juxtapose and parallel the communities, spaces and struggles of American Indian reservations and Palestinian refugee camps. He is currently completing his doctoral research project on the relationship between reincarnation and the communal memory of the Lebanese Civil War amongst the Druze community.

Arya Zahedi is a teacher and writer who lives in Baltimore, MD. He is a PhD candidate in Politics at the New School for Social Research, and has written a number of works on the class struggle and revolutionary movement in Iran.

Aziz Alhamza is a Syrian journalist, human rights activist, and founder of Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently (RBSS)

Referenced readings:

-Understanding the rebellion in Syria

- Joseph Daher, 2024: https://tempestmag.org/2024/12/understanding-the-rebellion-in-syria/

-Class Struggle, Autonomy, and the State in Iran - Arya Zahedi, 2024: https://illwill.com/iran

-Building Alternative Futures in the Present: the Case of Syria’s Communes - Leila Al-Shami, 2021: https://thefunambulist.net/magazine/the-paris-commune-and-the-world/building-alternative-futures-in-the-present-the-case-of-syrias-communes

-The Revolution Post-Explosion - Malek Rasamny, 2020: https://thenewinquiry.com/blog/the-revolution-post-explosion/

Song: Syrian Revolutionary Dabke