It started with a few cones and a cryptic sign. 

Produced by Omar Etman. Edited by Liza Yeager, Mitchell Johnson, and Daniel Denvir. 

Special thanks to Alan Dean, Alex Lewis, and Nihal El Aasar.

Support The Dig at Patreon.com/TheDig

The Dig Presents: A Garden in Cairo

The Dig is a podcast from Jacobin magazine that discusses politics, criminal justice, immigration and class conflict with smart people. Please support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/user?u=4839800

News

Politics

Featuring Abdel Razzaq Takriti, this is the TENTH episode of Thawra (Revolution), our rolling mini-series on Arab radicalism in the 20th century. Today’s installment tells the story of Iraq’s 1958 July Revolution: a Free Officers’ coup overthrew the imperialist-aligned Hashemite monarchy and brought nationalist Abdul-Karim Qasim to power alongside a surging Communist Party. Revolutionary currents soon turned against one another, however, as did Qasim and Nasser. Conflict stemmed from serious political and strategic differences, but also petty rivalries and bitter feuds. And in Iraq, class conflict often appeared dressed up in the sectarian and ethnic modalities through which class was lived. 

Support The Dig at Patreon.com/TheDig

Check out our newsletter and vast archives at thedigradio.com

Subscribe to a year of Jacobin for only $15— a special offer for Dig listeners! bit.ly/digjacobin  

Buy The Black Antifascist Tradition at haymarketbooks.org

Thawra Ep. 10 – Iraqi Revolution, Communist Power

Featuring Abdel Razzaq Takriti, this is the NINTH episode of Thawra (Revolution), our rolling mini-series on Arab radicalism in the 20th century. Today’s installment covers the creation of a Palestinian national liberation movement throughout the 1950s by a people dispersed by the Nakba: organizations, alliances, and theories of change assembled in  the universities, cities, and refugee camps surrounding Palestine. We end with the 1959 foundation of Fatah, the first organization for Palestinians led by Palestinians focused first and foremost on Palestinian liberation. This is the story of the beginning of the Palestinian national liberation movement as we have come to know it today. 

Buy How to Abolish Prisons: Lessons from the Movement against Imprisonment at haymarketbooks.org 

Buy States of the Earth: An Ecological and Racial History of Secularization at Versobooks.com 

Support The Dig at Patreon.com/TheDig

Check out our newsletter and vast archives at thedigradio.com

Spread the word about Thawra thedigradio.com/Thawra

Thawra Ep. 9 – Palestine on the Road to Revolution

Featuring Abdel Razzaq Takriti, this is the EIGHTH episode of Thawra (Revolution), our rolling mini-series on Arab radicalism in the 20th century. A compact introduction to the Movement of Arab Nationalists, which in the 1950s built a presence that stretched across the region, from Beirut and Jordan to Cairo and the Gulf—becoming a truly powerful force in Kuwait. Led in significant part by Palestinians, its early history offers a ground-level look at the organizational and theoretical currents shaping radical Arab politics. It is also the backstory for key Marxist groups that later grew out of the Movement: the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, South Yemen’s National Liberation Front, and the Dhofar Liberation Front.

Buy Future of Denial at versobooks.com 

On May 1st, subscribe to a year of Jacobin's digital publication for just $1, or a year of Jacobin in print for only $10: jacobin.com/subscribe/?code=MAYDAYDIG
Or this link for a gift: jacobin.com/subscribe/?type=gift&level;=standard-digital&?code=MAYDAYDIG

Support The Dig at Patreon.com/TheDig

Check out our newsletter and vast archives at thedigradio.com

Spread the word about Thawra thedigradio.com/Thawra

Thawra Ep. 8 – Origins of the Arab New Left

Featuring Noura Erakat, Avi Shlaim, Ussama Makdisi, Ilan Pappé, Ghada Ageel Hamdan, and Abdel Razzaq Takriti on the ongoing Israeli genocide against Palestinians in Gaza. Recorded at the World Academic Forum for Palestine in Houston. We’ll be back next week with episode eight of Thawra, our rolling series on 20th century Arab radicalisms.

Support The Dig at Patreon.com/TheDig

Donate to Palestine Legal palestinelegal.org/donate

Watch more from the World Academic Forum for Palestine youtube.com/c/haymarketbooks

Check out our vast archives and newsletters at thedigradio.com

Buy An Enemy Such As This at haymarketbooks.org 

Buy The Jail is Everywhere at versobooks.com

Scholars Against Genocide

Featuring Abdel Razzaq Takriti, this is the SEVENTH episode of Thawra (Revolution), our rolling mini-series on Arab radicalism in the 20th century. Today’s installment lays out the the US’s Eisenhower Doctrine, which in 1957 inaugurated a new era of imperialism in the Middle East; the Ba’ath Party driving Syria and Egypt into the United Arab Republic, a superstate under Nasser’s rule, in 1958; and, later that year, Eisenhower landing US Marines in Lebanon, the first American combat operation in the region.

Support The Dig at Patreon.com/TheDig 

Check out our newsletter and vast archives at thedigradio.com

Buy Burnout: The Emotional Experience of Political Defeat at versobooks.com

Subscribe to Jacobin bit.ly/digjacobin

The Dig Presents: A Garden in Cairo

Download our free app to listen on your phone