Tag: Lebanon
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Bala Falsafi – First Episode!
Welcome to Bala Falsafi, a storytelling podcast between two close friends, Ayman Makarem and Hisham Rifai. Join us as we sit on our fictitious balcony in Beirut talking about everything and nothing. In this episode we talk about sleep during heatwave, the myth of a trilingual Lebanon, and explain why we chose the name Bala…
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Podcast: Why I stopped writing about Syria (With Asser Khattab)
This is a conversation with Asser Khattab, a Syrian writer who has reported on Syria, Lebanon, and Iraq for various international news outlets. We spoke about his essay for New Lines Magazine, “why I stopped writing about Syria.” This is episode 97 of The Fire These Times podcast. Topics Discussed: How Asser started writing about…
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42. It Sounded Like The World Itself Was Breaking Open
I spoke with Lebanese writer and translator Lina Mounzer about witnessing and experiencing the Beirut explosion on August 4th, 2020. So far there are 157 deaths, 5,000 injuries, US$10–15 billion in property damage and an estimated 300,000 people left homeless. The blast was linked to about 2,750 tonnes (3,030 short tons) of ammonium nitrate –…
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41. Rendering Our Struggles Visible: Palestine, #BlackLivesMatter and Syria
I spoke with Mariam Barghouti about her growth as a Palestinian activist, #BlackLivesMatter, the Syrian revolution, trans-generational understanding and rendering our struggles visible
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37. The Racialisation of Migrant Labor Under the Kafala System in Lebanon
Daryn argues that the racialisation and dehumanisation of migrant domestic workers under the Kafala system in Lebanon contains four components.
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36. Lebanon’s Deep Crisis Explained
What is happening in Lebanon today? Timour Azhari gives us an overview of the crisis.
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34. Remembering Through Storytelling in Times of Hardship
We spoke about Ronnie’s experience with storytelling and his desire to maintain the memory of those we have lost in Lebanon.
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30. Poetry, Tripoli and Navigating the Moment
I spoke with Zeina about her poems of course and about what it means to be thinking about Lebanon from outside of Lebanon, especially since the October 17th uprising
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26. The Legacy of Samir Kassir 15 Years On
In-depth conversation with Ziad Majed about Samir Kassir 15 years after his assassination.
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22. Building Mutual Aid in Lebanon
This is a conversation with Ayman Makarem. He’s a Lebanon-based writer and filmmaker who recently wrote essays on mutual aid in Lebanon for The Public Source. Beyond Charity: Our Critical Need for Mutual Aid – Part 1 Beyond Charity: Our Critical Need for Mutual Aid – Part 2 One of the themes of The Fire…
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21. Taiwan Since the 2014 Sunflower Movement
This is a conversation with Brian Hioe, one of the founding editors of New Bloom Magazine which came out of Taiwan’s 2014 Sunflower Movement, in which Brian also participated. The topics covered in this episode are numerous which is why I really wanted to have Brian on and use his encyclopedic knowledge of Taiwan and…
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20. On Primo Levi, the Lebanese Revolution and Life in the Midst of History
This is a conversation with Lina Mounzer. She’s a Beirut-based writer and translator who, like me, took part in the October and post-October protests. I wanted to catch up with her to talk about how she started preparing for the worst yet to come very early on. This anticipation – of economic hardship, of violence…
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12. Independent Media Versus the Lebanese Oligarchy
How does the Lebanese oligarchy work and how can independent media help defeat it?
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09. ‘Whiteness’, Migration and Identity
Matt Dagher-Margosian speaks about the limitations of the ‘whiteness’ category in the US as well as Taiwan’s struggle for recognition.
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08. Lebanon’s October Uprising, Six Months Later
This is a conversation with Lebanese journalist Timour Azhari of Al Jazeera (previously The Daily Star) about the legacy of the October 17 uprising six months since it began. We spoke about the current state of Lebanese politics, the government’s response to the Covid-19 crisis and its impact on the country’s most vulnerable groups as…
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06. Lebanon’s October 17 Revolution/ A Country in Fragments
The first in a series of episodes exploring Lebanon’s October 17th Revolution in its post-war context.
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05. Lebanon’s Migrant Domestic Workers: Between the Coronavirus and Slavery
Banchi Yimer spoke to me about the Kafala System, the impacts of the economic crisis and the coronavirus pandemic on migrant domestic workers as well as her ongoing trauma after working in Lebanon for seven years.
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03. Venezuela and the Right to Narrate
What does it mean to have, to demand, the right to narrate? With Laura Vidal.
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02. Lebanon Must Abolish The Kafala System
Stories of migrant domestic workers and what they go through, the Kafala system and how it operates in Lebanon, ou will also learn about what migrant activists and their allies in Lebanon are trying to achieve.