The Big Picture with Mohamed Hassan

This week on The Big Picture Podcast we’re joined by celebrated photographer and Oscar-nominated filmmaker Misan Harriman.

Harriman has built a global following through his moving black and white photography of the world’s most recognisable faces, becoming the first ever Black photographer to shoot the cover of Vogue.

Since then, he made his directorial debut with the emotional short film ruminating on grief, The After, which was nominated for an Academy Award in 2024.

His new documentary, Shoot The People, chronicles his own story as he travels the world drawing inspiration from the Anti-Apartheid movement in South Africa, Black Lives Matter in the US and the Gaza ceasefire movement here in the UK.

But what makes Harriman stand out is what he chooses to turn his lens, and his platform, towards. 

Since October 7, he’s been a staple of pro-Palestine rallies, searching through the crowds for individual protesters with a message that resonates with him, and showing that to the world. 

Before that he covered the Black Lives Matter movement, framing ordinary people in extraordinary ways, giving them the same intimate and dramatic treatment he gives to the world’s rich and famous.

And through his lens, he sends a message.

We'd love to hear your thoughts on this episode, and any guests you'd like us to have on our show. Reach us by email at [email protected] or find us on instagram @BigPictureMee.

You can also watch all our episodes on our YouTube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLMyaP73Ho1ySj3cO0OSOHZAOgD1WTDixG

Just two days after we sat down with Francesca Albanese, the Trump Administration placed her under sanctions.

They accuse the UN Special Rapporteur of waging “economic warfare” on the United States. She says the sanctions are “mafia style intimidation techniques” and vows to continue her work to remind states of their obligations to “stop and punish genocide. And those who profit from it.”

So why has the US taken such a drastic move? That has a lot to do with a scathing report Albanese just published, titled the “economy of genocide”.

In it, she accuses more than 60 corporations of “sustaining and profiting off of Israeli occupation, apartheid and genocide.”

Some of these companies include Google, Amazon, Hyundai Booking.com and the bank Barclays.

This week on the Big Picture Podcast, we sit down with Francesca Albanese to talk about what her explosive report exposes about the world's richest companies, and how the rest of us are implicated in a system that exploits the pain of Palestinians for the sake of profit.

We'd love to hear your thoughts on this episode, and any guests you'd like us to have on our show. Reach us by email at [email protected] or find us on instagram @BigPictureMee.

You can also watch all our episodes on our YouTube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLMyaP73Ho1ySj3cO0OSOHZAOgD1WTDixG

What does the war look like in the age of AI?

This week on the Big Picture Podcast, we’re joined by author and investigative journalist Antony Loewenstein.

We spoke to Loewenstein early in 2024 about his best-selling book ‘The Palestine Laboratory’ - which chronicled how Israel tests high tech weapons in Gaza before exporting them to the world.

Since then, The Palestine Laboratory has been turned into a documentary with Al Jazeera, where Loewenstein travels to Mexico, Greece, India and South Africa to investigate how this technology is changing law enforcement and government surveillance around the world.

Part of his work has examined how Silicon Valley and the AI sector have fueled the rise of a new arms race, one where technology giants like Microsoft and Amazon now compete for lucrative defence contracts worth tens of billions of dollars.

These are the same companies that once promised only to use their powers for good. Google famously enshrined the words ‘Don’t Be Evil’ into their manifesto.

But what was happening behind the scenes was a different story. 

We'd love to hear your thoughts on this episode, and any guests you'd like us to have on our show. Reach us by email at [email protected] or find us on instagram @BigPictureMee.

You can also watch all our episodes on our YouTube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLMyaP73Ho1ySj3cO0OSOHZAOgD1WTDixG

In a fiery and deeply personal return to The Big Picture Podcast, professor Norman Finkelstein explains why Israel and its allies in the West have destroyed the international order, and how the election of a Muslim socialist in New York threatens their grip on power.

Finkelstein is a political scientist and one of the world’s foremost scholars on Israel-Palestine, as well as a critic of culture and empire. 

He is the author of The Holocaust Industry and most recently, I’ll Burn That Bridge When I Get To It.

We'd love to hear your thoughts on this episode, and any guests you'd like us to have on our show. Reach us by email at [email protected] or find us on instagram @BigPictureMee.

You can also watch all our episodes on our YouTube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLMyaP73Ho1ySj3cO0OSOHZAOgD1WTDixG

This week on The Big Picture Podcast, we sit down with Middle East Eye’s Editor in Chief David Hearst to talk about the rapidly unfolding war between Israel and Iran, why the West supports it and what it threatens to unleash on the global order.

So what does Israel really want to achieve, what options does Iran have to deescalate, and will the United States stop the war, or join it?

We'd love to hear your thoughts on this episode, and any guests you'd like us to have on our show. Reach us by email at [email protected] or find us on instagram @BigPictureMee.

You can also watch all our episodes on our YouTube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLMyaP73Ho1ySj3cO0OSOHZAOgD1WTDixG

NOTE: This conversation was recorded in November 2024, which is why you'll hear references to the elections and the Biden Administration.

This week on The Big Picture, we sit down with military analyst and author William Hartung.

Hartung is a senior fellow at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, and in 2010 published Prophets of War: Lockheed Martin and the Military Industrial-Complex - a seminal work that examined how military lobby groups shaped public policy, and how White House officials pursued lucrative jobs in the same lobbies that funded their political careers.

In 2024 he published a Cost of War report with Brown University, which unpacked the $20 billion of military aid the Biden Administration had given to Israel's government since October 7, the majority of which was then used to purchase weapons from US military companies.

We'd love to hear your thoughts on this episode, and any guests you'd like us to have on our show. Reach us by email at [email protected] or find us on instagram @BigPictureMee.

You can also watch all our episodes on our YouTube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLMyaP73Ho1ySj3cO0OSOHZAOgD1WTDixG

Why haven’t there been mass protests against Trump like there were in 2017?

Part of the reason is the climate of fear and uncertainty that now proliferates throughout many communities, from student activists on IV league campuses to undocumented migrants.

The arrests of pro-Palestine students Mahmoud Khalil, Mohsen Mahdawi and Rumeysa Ozturk among others, and the deportation of hundreds of immigrants to El Salvador, some of whom legal US residents, has left many in shock about the direction of the government and what it intends to do next.

So how do activists and organisers continue to speak up without fearing for their own careers, their families and their freedom?

This week on The Big Picture Podcast, we speak with Palestinian-American political activist and civil rights advocate Linda Sarsour.

Sarsour was the co-chair of the 2017 women’s march, which brought millions to the streets in a defiant protest of Donald Trump’s first term in office - at the time it was the largest single day protest in US history.

In 2020 she published her memoir We’re Not Here To Be Bystanders.

We'd love to hear your thoughts on this episode, and any guests you'd like us to have on our show. Reach us by email at [email protected] or find us on instagram @BigPictureMee.

You can also watch all our episodes on our YouTube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLMyaP73Ho1ySj3cO0OSOHZAOgD1WTDixG

The catholic world is grieving the loss of Pope Francis, but so is much of the Muslim one.

Born Jorge Mario Bergoglio in Argentina, Pope Francis spent much of his life reaching out across religious lines, forming monumental friendships with Muslims, from refugee families to Islamic scholars to Palestinians.

In his final Easter Sunday sermon just hours before his death, he called on the world to protect the sanctity of life in Gaza, and work towards a lasting ceasefire that saved Palestinian civilians and Israeli hostages.

His voice echoed across all corners of the world, and in his death, his messages were reflected.

The grand imam of Al Azhar Ahmad al Tayeb, described Pope Francis as a “true friend to Muslims, sincere in his pursuit of peace”.

So how did he leave such a mark on such a divided world?

This week on the Big Picture Podcast we speak with Georgetown University scholar, theologian and author Dr Jordan Denari Duffner.

Dr Jordan is the author of ‘Finding Jesus Among Muslims’ and the upcoming book ‘Pope Francis and Islam’.

We'd love to hear your thoughts on this episode, and any guests you'd like us to have on our show. Reach us by email at [email protected] or find us on instagram @BigPictureMee.

You can also watch all our episodes on our YouTube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLMyaP73Ho1ySj3cO0OSOHZAOgD1WTDixG

This week on The Big Picture Podcast, we speak to Momodou Taal, a Cornell Unveristy scholar forced to flee from US immigration officers.

The crackdown by the Trump administration on pro-Palestine activists has continued to intensify despite legal challenges.

Undercover agents belonging to the department of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, ICE for short, have been filmed arresting university students on campuses, in their homes and even in the middle of the street.

Some of those targeted as part of this nationwide sweep have attempted to appeal to the justice system - in Cornell university a group of academics and students launched a legal case against the Trump Administration.

At its centre is the case of Mamodou Taal, a British-Gambian PHD student whose home was then raided by ICE agents in an attempt to arrest him.

After failing to get a judge to hear their case, Taal decided instead to leave the United States before he faces the same fate as Mahmoud Khalil and Rumeysa Ozturk.

We'd love to hear your thoughts on this episode, and any guests you'd like us to have on our show. Reach us by email at [email protected] or find us on instagram @BigPictureMee.

You can also watch all our episodes on our YouTube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLMyaP73Ho1ySj3cO0OSOHZAOgD1WTDixG

A trauma surgeon stationed at one of Gaza’s largest hospitals says the carnage this week is beyond anything he has seen in Ukraine or anywhere.

More than 500 have been killed by Israeli airstrikes since Tuesday, when Israel’s government broke a two-month ceasefire with Hamas and has escalated attacks since.

Hospitals continue to be overwhelmed with more than 900 injuries and facing ongoing shortages since food and fuel were cut off by Israel’s government in early March.

UNICEF says Tuesday was the single deadliest day for children in Gaza since the war began.

On this episode of The Big Picture Podcast, we speak with Dr Feroze Sadhwa, a volunteer trauma surgeon at Nasser Hospital, and an eyewitness to what he describes as ‘carnage’ in Gaza.

We'd love to hear your thoughts on this episode, and any guests you'd like us to have on our show. Reach us by email at [email protected] or find us on instagram @BigPictureMee.

You can also watch all our episodes on our YouTube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLMyaP73Ho1ySj3cO0OSOHZAOgD1WTDixG