Notes from the World

Kettly Mars is a Haitian novelist and poet who was born in Port-au-Prince in 1958, one year after the ascent to power of François Duvalier, who would rule the country for the next 14 years. Her work confronts some of the most difficult issues present in Haitian society, from the complicated dynamics that exist between a dictatorship’s adherents and its victims, the gulf between rural and urban society and the exploitation of the most vulnerable in the wake of catastrophes, both natural and man-made. She is the recipient of numerous awards, including the Prix Senghor and the Prince Claus Award. We spoke on Notes from the World about her writing, Haiti’s political and artistic travails and the role that the country’s literary tradition has played and continues to play in its history.

Murhaf Jouejati is the founder of Syria Consult and emeritus Distinguished Visiting Professor of Middle East Studies and Global Affairs at the United States Naval Academy. He previously taught at the National Defense University's Near East South Asia Center for Strategic Studies and George Washington University, where he served as the director of the Middle East Studies Program at the Elliott School of International Affairs. He served as a member of the Syrian National Council (SNC), the first Istanbul-based opposition coalition that was formed in 2011 in response to the uprising against Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad. He joins us on Notes from he World to discuss developments in the new Syria, ranging from its enigmatic President, Ahmed al-Sharaa, to the recent violence in the coastal regions of Tartus and Latakia and the southern region of Suwayda, the actions of the government of Israel towards the new administration and increasing calls for decentralization.

Amy Booth is managing editor of the Buenos Aires Herald, an English-language online newspaper, and co-founder of the Pirate Wire newsletter. She has been working in Argentina since 2018 and her work on politics, social affairs and human rights has also appeared in the BBC, the Guardian, VICE, and many other outlets. She joins us today on Notes from the World to discuss the presidency of Argentina’s Javier Milei as the country prepares for legislative elections in October and Milei himself prepares to mark two years in power.

Fereshta Abbasi is a Researcher in the Asia division of Human Rights Watch, focusing on research and documentation of ongoing abuses in Afghanistan, where she has documented the human rights situation for a number of organizations for the last decade. She holds a Master of Laws in International law and Strategic Studies from the University of Aberdeen, has been recognized as a Rising Leader by Aspen UK, part of the global network of Aspen Institutes, and as a Development Fellow by the Asia Foundation. We spoke about the ongoing human rights crisis in Afghanistan, the recents indictment of Taliban officials by the International Criminal Court and the difficult situation of many Afghans abroad.

The Guyanese politician and diplomat Carl Greenidge has had a varied career in that South American nation’s political sphere over the years, serving as Minister of Foreign Affairs, Minister of Finance and Secretary General of the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) group.  Today, he joins us in his capacity as Agent for the government of Guyana before the International Court of Justice (ICJ), where he is representing Guyana regarding the situation in the Essequibo region in the west of the country, a region which the government of neighboring Venezuela has in recent years claimed for itself and threatened to take over. We discuss the long and complex history of the region and the background for the current discourse.

Julia Gaffield in an Associate Professor of History at William & Mary College in Williamsburg, Virginia. Having identified the only known official copy of the Haitian Declaration of Independence during her archival research in 2010, she is the author of two books, Haitian Connections in the Atlantic World: Recognition after Revolution, published by the University of North Carolina Press in 2015, and the subject of our conversation today, I Have Avenged America: Jean-Jacques Dessalines and Haiti’s Fight for Freedom, published by Yale University Press.

Jhanisse Vaca Daza is the co-founder two organizations: Ríos de Pie, a non-violent citizen movement focused on human rights and environmental rights in Bolivia, and the Jucumari Foundation, whose goal is to contribute to humanitarian and environmental efforts across Latin America. Currently serving as the activism outreach specialist and manager of the Freedom Fellowship programme at the Human Rights Foundation, a non-profit that focuses on promoting and protecting human rights globally with an emphasis on closed societies, she spoke to Notes from the World about the environmental struggles in Bolivia, the nation’s democratic challenges and her thoughts on its forthcoming presidential election, now scheduled for this August.

Jess DiPierro Obert is a writer, photographer and filmmaker who splits her time between Brooklyn and Haiti, where she has worked since 2016. Her work has appeared in the Guardian, the New Humanitarian, Buzzfeed, The Economist’s 1843 Magazine, PBS Newshour and other outlets. Her new film, Kouri Pou Lapli, or Run from Rain, is a short documentary that tells the story of 16-year-old Macul Nelson, who had to flee from Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince, to the town of Mirebalais, in the country’s Plateau Central region.

Eduardo González Cueva is a Peruvian human rights consultant and sociologist specializing in transitional justice. He participated in Peru's Truth and Reconciliation Commission at the end of its 20 year internal armed conflict and provides technical and strategic advice connected to the establishment and operations of truth and reconciliation processes in a number of countries around the world. We spoke to him on Notes from the World about the situation in Peru more than two years after the ouster of President Pedro Castillo and about the country’s tangled political and social history.

[Image: Caja Negra (2001) by Alfredo Márquez and Ángel Valdez. Colección MICROMUSEO.]

For this week’s episode of Notes from the World, we had the great pleasure of speaking with the United States-born, British-based record producer Joe Boyd, who has helmed some of the most important recordings of some of the most influential musicians of the last sixty years, including Nick Drake, Pink Floyd, Richard and Linda Thompson, Vashti Bunyan, Toots and the Maytals and R.E.M. He is also the author of two fascinating books, 2017’s White Bicycles: Making Music in the 1960s and this year’s And the Roots of Rhythm Remain: A Journey Through Global Music. Our conversation ranged from the great significance of the Haitian Revolution in the development of music in the United State to examining the musical bouillabaisse that is New Orleans to looking at the curious relationship between the great purveyor of Congolese rumba and soukous music Franco and the dictator Mobutu Sese Seko to the missing link between the music of Nick Drake and João Gilberto.