This is a conversation with Dana El-Kurd, her second time on the podcast. We spoke about a paper that she wrote entitled "Gateway to dissent: the role of pro-Palestine activism in opposition to authoritarianism."

We primarily spoke about the role of pro-Palestine activism in pro-democracy movements in the Arab world (with examples from Qatar, Lebanon, Egypt, Syria, Bahrain, the UAE and Saudi Arabia) and also about how pro-Palestine discourse is used to whitewash authoritarianism, especially in the West.

You can support The Fire These Times on Patreon with a monthly or yearly donation. You can also find it on Twitter @firethesetimes, Instagram @firethesetimes and TikTok @thefirethesetimes. Joey Ayoub can be found on Twitter @joeyayoub and Instagram @joeyayoub91. The newsletter is available on Subtack @ thefirethesetimes.substack.com

Recommended Books:

This is a conversation with Angela Chen, author of the book 'Ace: What Asexuality Reveals About Desire, Society, and the Meaning of Sex'.

You can support The Fire These Times on Patreon with a monthly or yearly donation. You can also find it on Twitter @firethesetimes, Instagram @firethesetimes and TikTok @thefirethesetimes. Joey Ayoub can be found on Twitter @joeyayoub and Instagram @joeyayoub91. The newsletter is available on Subtack @ thefirethesetimes.substack.com

This isn't an Asexuality 101 episode. Feel free to look up the basics if you want. There are loads of asexuals who do explain what it means, Angela Chen's book including. This episode is more about what asexuality says about our societies.

And as I'm notoriously crap at explaining why I like the books I like, I am going to read a paragraph written by Sarah Neilson for them.us which summarizes really well why Chen's book matters: "The crux of society’s difficulty with accepting asexuality is, Chen argues, because compulsory sexuality is ingrained in societal narratives about mental and physical health, politics and liberation, and interpersonal relationships. Compulsory sexuality posits that sex is a primal human need, ties sex to maturity, and places sex in relationship hierarchies. Even in the queer community, though we hate to be oversexualized by the straights, we often sexualize ourselves and each other. And while queer sex is indeed liberating for allosexuals (or those that do experience sexual attraction), so is the ability not to have sex. Chen argues, through a fantastic blend of nuanced and clear-eyed reporting, research, and personal reflection, that true liberation requires the dismantling of compulsory sexuality." So yeah, this book is great.

Recommended Books:

This is a conversation withWilliam C. Anderson, author of the bookThe Nation on No Map (AK Press 2021) and co-author ofAs Black as Resistance (AK Press 2018). He’s also the co-founder ofOffshoot Journal and provides creative direction as a producer of theBlack Autonomy Podcast.

The Fire These Times is a proud member of⁠ ⁠From The Periphery (FTP) Media Collective⁠⁠. Check out other projects in our media ecosystem: the (newly aired!)⁠Mutual Aid Podcast⁠,⁠ Politically Depressed⁠,⁠ Obscuristan⁠, and⁠Antidote Zine⁠. To support FTP please head to⁠Patreon⁠⁠⁠⁠.

From The Periphery is on⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠YouTube⁠⁠⁠,⁠⁠Bluesky⁠⁠,⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠, and has a⁠⁠website

⁠⁠⁠Topics Discussed:

• Long conversation on Black anarchism
• The influence of Zen Buddhism
• Seeing the world as a janitor
• Critiques of black nationalism, capitalism and liberalism
• The legacy of slavery and Reconstruction on Black people in the US
• Tensions between ‘reform’ and ‘revolution’
• The legacy of the Black Panthers Party
• Internationalism vs Intercomunalism
• Afro-futurism and Solarpunk

Recommended Books:

• A Map to the Door of No Return by Dionne Brand
• The Terms of Order: Political Science and the Myth of Leadership by Cedric J. Robinson
• Facing Reality by C.L.R. James and Grace C. Lee

The James Baldwin clip I mentioned: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nAmL3F5uylo&feature=emb_imp_woyt 

This episode is a multilingual online encounter, part of the Post-Extractive Futures series, co-produced by War on Want, Tipping Point UK, JunteGente, and The Fire These Times project. I was the moderator.

You can support The Fire These Times on Patreon with a monthly or yearly donation. You can also find it on Twitter @firethesetimes, Instagram @firethesetimes and TikTok @thefirethesetimes. Joey Ayoub can be found on Twitter @joeyayoub and Instagram @joeyayoub91. The newsletter is available on Subtack @ thefirethesetimes.substack.com

Guests: Yassin al Haj Saleh, who will be speaking in English, is a Syrian writer and former political prisoner. He is author of several books on Syria, prison, contemporary Islam, intellectual responsibility, and experiences of the atrocious. He is the husband of Samira al Khalil, who was abducted by an armed Islamist group in Douma in December 2013. He now lives in Berlin.

Wafa Mustafa, who will also be speaking in English, is a Syrian activist, a journalist, a survivor of detention. Mustafa comes from Masyaf, a city in the Hama governorate in western Syria. She left the country on 9 July 2013, exactly a week after her father was forcibly disappeared by the regime in Damascus. In her advocacy, Mustafa covers the impact of detention on young girls, women, and families.

Yuliya Yurchenko, who will also be speaking in English, is a senior lecturer in political economy at the department of economics and international business and a researcher at the political economy, governance, finance, and accountability institute at the University of Greenwich, UK. She is the author of Ukraine and the Empire of Capital, which was published by Pluto Press in 2017. She researches state, capital, and society relations as well as public services as a commons with a regional focus on Europe and Ukraine.

Taras Bilous, who will be speaking in Ukrainian, is a Ukrainian historian and an activist of the Social Movement Organization. As an editor of for Commons, a journal of social critique, he covers the topics of war and nationalism. He has recently written quite a lot of articles, including “A Letter to the Western Left from Kiev” as well as “The Left in the West Must Rethink.”

Transcription and YouTube video available on the website: https://thefirethisti.me/2022/04/21/podcast-the-threads-that-bind-us-from-syria-to-ukraine/ 

This is a conversation with Justin Salhani of 'Oh My Goal' and Musa Okwonga (his 4th time on the pod) of 'Stadio' about football, politics and human rights. We talked about the upcoming world cup in Qatar, the role of dirty money in football (including Russian, Emirati and Saudi) and what might come next.

You can support The Fire These Times on Patreon with a monthly or yearly donation. You can also find it on Twitter @firethesetimes, Instagram @firethesetimes and TikTok @thefirethesetimes. Joey Ayoub can be found on Twitter @joeyayoub and Instagram @joeyayoub91. The newsletter is available on Subtack @ thefirethesetimes.substack.com

Recommended Books:

This is a conversation with academic Martin Paul Eve, professor of Literature, Technology and Publishing at Birkbeck, University of London.

You can support The Fire These Times on Patreon with a monthly or yearly donation. You can also find it on Twitter @firethesetimes, Instagram @firethesetimes and TikTok @thefirethesetimes. Joey Ayoub can be found on Twitter @joeyayoub and Instagram @joeyayoub91. The newsletter is available on Subtack @ thefirethesetimes.substack.com

We spoke about his article 'just the first two years' about what the past two years of pandemic have been for him as someone with an autoimmune condition called panhypogammaglobulinemia. I found his article as I myself recently caught Covid following the Swiss government's decision to first reduce health measures, before removing them altogether. As many governments remove all remaining health measures, life is becoming increasingly difficult for many people, especially those who are disabled or immunocompromised. What does this say about our political culture if we allow this to become the norm? This is what this conversation was about. We focused on the UK and Switzerland as this is where we are, but this is applicable to many other countries as well.

Recommended Books:

Photo by visuals on Unsplash

This is a conversation with Dr Rupa Mukerji and Dr Lisa Schipper, both of whom worked on the most recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report.

What we talked about:

Support: Patreon.com/firethesetimes

Resources Mentioned:

Recommended Books:

In light of what's been happening in Ukraine I am publishing a series of episodes that will bring in critical perspectives to understand what's happening and why it's happening.

The second episode is with Ukrainian journalist Romeo Kokriatski. He is managing editor at New Voice Ukraine, co-host of the Ukraine Without Hype podcast (go check it out) and has written for outlets such as Nihilist, Hromadske, Zaborona, and more.

PS: if my voice sounds weird here it's because I managed to get myself infected with COVID-19, so that's been fun.

Important note: this is not a news update. For news updates check the podcasts below:

Links on how to help Ukrainians: 

https://twitter.com/TimothyDSnyder/status/1499492353261727760

Support: 

Patreon.com/firethesetimes

This is a conversation with Fadi Bardawil, his 2nd time on the podcast. Bardawil is an anthropologist who researches the Leftist tradition in the Arab world. In this episode, we talked about two essays he's written: "Forsaking the Syrian Revolution: An Anti-Imperialist Handbook" and "Critical Theory in a Minor Key to Take Stock of the Syrian Revolution".

What we talked about:

Support: Patreon.com/firethesetimes

Recommended Books:

Today we commemorate the 1988 #HalabjaGenocide of Kurds by the Saddam Hussein regime.

I'm re-sharing Sabrîna Azad's 2020 episode on the long-term effects of chemical weapons and the shared trauma and solidarity between Halabja and Ghouta.

Azad is a writer who published a moving piece for Mangal Media entitled ‘From Halabja to Ghouta‘  in which she looked at how deniers of Assad’s war crimes in Syria were evoking painful memories for survivors of Saddam Hussein’s genocidal campaigns against Kurds. She spoke about the legacy of the Halabja massacre, part of the Anfal genocide of the late 80s, as well as the 1991 uprisings against Saddam and why they offer better insight into the world’s reaction to Syria since 2011 than the more frequently mentioned 2003 invasion of Iraq does.

Support: Patreon.com/firethesetimes