On this episode of The MERIP Podcast we are featuring an interview with Raouf Farrah, an Algerian activist and researcher based in Tunis, about his article "On the Road to Rafah -- The Sumud Convoy and New Maghrebi Geographies of Resistance" which appears in Middle East Report 315-316 Material Politics of Normalization (Summer/Fall 2025). In the interview, Farrah and MERIP Executive Director James Ryan discuss Farah's experience traveling with the Sumud Convoy across North Africa in June and July 2025, and the efforts to reconfigure their mission in the months after being turned back in Sirte by forces allied with Khalifa Haftar. Farrah reflects on the lessons of the Convoy and the later Global Sumud Flotilla in light of the present ceasefire in Gaza, and how those experiences are informing new ways of thinking about Palestinian solidarity, and political activism.

This conversation was recorded October 14, 2025

Further Reading:

Raouf Farrah "On the Road to Rafah -- The Sumud Convoy and New Maghrebi Geographies of Resistance" in Middle East Report 315-316 Material Politics of Normalization https://www.merip.org/2025/10/on-the-road-to-rafah-the-sumud-convoy-and-new-maghrebi-geographies-of-resistance/

Raouf Farrah and Suraya Dadoo, eds., Rising for Palestine: Africans in Solidarity for Decolonization and Liberation (Pluto Books, forthcoming 2026): https://www.plutobooks.com/product/rising-for-palestine/

The Hague Group: https://thehaguegroup.org/

Middle East Report, The Material Politics of Normalization, Summer/Fall 2025 https://www.merip.org/issue-315-316/

The MERIP Podcast features exclusive interviews with contributors to the Middle East Research and Information Project from the present and past about their work for MERIP, as well as audio from events we've conducted online and in-person that examine contemporary issues in the politics, economy, society and culture of the Middle East. Hosted by James Ryan, MERIP's Executive Director. Visit our website, www.merip.org, to read all of our work without paywalls.

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