Novara Media

Millions have protested against the bombing of Gaza by taking part in marches, boycotts, sit-ins and other demonstrations. But what difference does it make, either to the world or to ourselves?

The gang confront a contentious topic in this Trip. Do “A to B” marches ever achieve anything? What about joining hands around an RAF base? Digging up roads? Refusing to pay your taxes? Is squatting a form of direct action?

They discuss Irish hunger strikers, Montgomery bus boycotters, Greenham Common women and the people that Suella Braverman calls “hate marchers”, with music from Lowkey, the Plastic Ono Band, Steel Pulse and more.

Find our ever-expanding playlist on Spotify by searching “ACFM”.

Music: Rolling Stones – Street Fighting Man / Dylan – Masters of War / Samba extract / Public Enemy – 911 is a Joke / Lowkey – Ghosts of Grenfell / Steel Pulse – Handsworth Revolution / The Plastic Ono Band – Give Peace A Chance / John Lennon – Working Class Hero

Book: Charles Tilly – Social Movements: 1768-2004

Produced and edited by Matt Huxley and Chal Ravens. PRS licence number: LE-0016481

Science fiction isn’t a mode usually associated with Palestinian literature, perhaps because dreams of the future seem like a luxury when you can barely hold onto your past, or even present.

In 2019, translator and editor Basma Ghalayini asked 12 Palestinian authors to imagine their world in 2048 – a century after the Nakba that violently dispossessed them of their land and rights – for a collection of sci-fi short stories. Some of the dystopias imagined by these authors proved gravely prescient this year.

Ghalayini, who grew up in the Gaza Strip and now lives in Manchester, joined Eleanor for a conversation about literature, symbolism, land and memory in the days after the collapse of the ceasefire. She talked about survivors’ guilt, why disability crops up so frequently in the stories, her experiences at a peace camp in the ’90s and her vision for a peaceful future. Palestine +100 is available from Comma Press.

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Daniel Levy has had a front row seat at some of the most consequential peace negotiations between Israel and Palestine in the last two decades, as president of the U.S./Middle East Peace Project and as an adviser to former Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak.

He sat down with Ash Sarkar to talk about the failure of the Oslo Accords, the central role of Gulf monarchies in negotiations, and how Israel responds to being labelled as an apartheid state.

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On Novara Live this week, Michael Walker spoke to renowned political scientist and activist Norman Finkelstein about Israel’s assault on Gaza and the collapse of the ceasefire.

In this extended interview, they discuss the relationship between Hamas and Hezbollah, the use of human shields, and whether US pressure can restrain Israel’s “high-tech massacre”.

Subscribe to the Novara Live podcast for news and analysis five times a week: https://novara.media/live

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Blindboy Boatclub is the Irish broadcaster, author and musician behind The Blindboy Podcast, a massively popular podcast mixing short fiction, comedy and interviews. His new short story collection, Topographia Hibernica, is inspired by the human, animal and emotional geography of Ireland.

Blindboy sat down with Ash for a freewheeling discussion about everything from Eminem’s ’90s style and the situation in Palestine to why cats are magical.

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In recent years we’ve spent a lot of time arguing about fascism – what it means, what it looks like, and how we would know if it had returned. That typically brings us back to the European fascism of ’30s and ’40s, with its uniforms, symbols, marches and camps.

But the philosopher Alberto Toscano, currently teaching at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, wants us to look beyond historical comparisons to think of fascism not as an aberration, but as an aspect of a much longer process of colonial domination.

He talks to Richard Hames about the uncomfortable connections between liberalism and fascism, drawing on ideas from Angela Davis, W. E. B. Du Bois and Theodor Adorno and thinking about racial fascism, conspiracy theory, climate denialism and the far-right in Israel.

Late Fascism: Race, Capitalism and the Politics of Crisis is available from Verso.

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To really understand what’s going in Israel, you need to get your history straight. Rashid Khalidi is one of the foremost historians of the Middle East and the author of several books on the region’s history, including The Hundred Years’ War On Palestine.

On the day of the ceasefire in Gaza, he guides Ash through the history of the Zionist project that created Israel and the basic facts of the 75-year struggle for Palestinian independence.

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Help us build people-powered media: https://novara.media/support

Business is booming for architects and property investors right now, with masterplans being unveiled for dozens of new cities around the world. The hi-tech promise of NEOM, Saudi Arabia’s proposed new desert metropolis, is only the most discussed of these visions – others are being drawn up in Indonesia, China and Senegal.

What sets these new cities apart from the skyscrapers and sprawling settlements that defined the 20th century? Quite a lot, as Richard Hames finds out with Canadian historian Quinn Slobodian. The author of Crack-Up Capitalism puts on his ‘They Live’ sunglasses to explore the history of special economic zones, Dubai’s ‘legal bubble domes’, and the appeal of these new cities to a global libertarian elite.

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We’re up against huge power and influence, but Novara Media’s supporters keep us entirely free to access. We don’t have any ad partnerships or sponsored content. Help us build people-powered media: https://novara.media/support

Zarah Sultana is one of the youngest MPs in Parliament and has faced intense hostility from the right of the Labour Party since Keir Starmer’s ascent to leader.

The MP for Coventry South sat down with Ash Sarkar to talk about the reality of being a Muslim woman in the Labour Party, her interactions with Starmer’s office, the Islamophobia she faces in the public sphere, and why the majority of her Labour colleagues voted against a ceasefire in Gaza.