Middle East Monitor Conversations
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Top 10 Middle East Monitor Conversations Episodes
Goodpods has curated a list of the 10 best Middle East Monitor Conversations episodes, ranked by the number of listens and likes each episode have garnered from our listeners. If you are listening to Middle East Monitor Conversations for the first time, there's no better place to start than with one of these standout episodes. If you are a fan of the show, vote for your favorite Middle East Monitor Conversations episode by adding your comments to the episode page.
Orientalism and selective solidarity: MEMO in conversation with Dr Suja Sawafta
Middle East Monitor Conversations
03/11/22 • 35 min
MEMO speaks with Dr Suja Sawafta to discuss orientalism and selective solidarity in light of the Ukraine refugee crisis.
Sawafta is an Assistant Professor of Arabic Studies in the Department of Modern Languages and Literatures at the University of Miami. She is currently working on her first book project which examines the impact of exile, intellectual commitment, and political dissent in the works of the formative Saudi-Iraqi novelist Abdulrahman Munif. She teaches interdisciplinary content courses on literature and cinema as well as Arabic and French language.
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'If we can hear the bombs, we are alive': MEMO in Conversation with Eman Basher
Middle East Monitor Conversations
10/20/23 • 43 min
Two weeks into Israel's relentless campaign of bombing the Gaza Strip have left Eman Basher no longer able to convince her son that the lights and sounds in the sky are just fireworks and there is no reason for him to be scared.
As Israel's military assault on the besieged Gaza Strip continues, leaving in its wake thousands of deaths and millions of displaced Palestinians, MEMO in conversation speak to Eman Basher. Eman is an evacuee from Beit Hanoun who is seeking shelter in southern Gaza. A teacher and a mother, Eman speaks to us about the harrowing situation she and many Gazans find themselves in.Her son has asthma which is worsening due to the smoky air filled with sulphur that's engulfed Gaza as a result of the senseless Israeli bombing. She talks about no longer being able to getting away with telling her son the sounds and lights are just fireworks and how she cannot tell her children that the bombs raining down around them could kill them any time and that he needs to be brave and be a fighter.
She rejects all claims made by Israeli officials in the media that buildings are being used as shelters for the resistance's fighters or equipment in Gaza, highlighting that it is exactly this rhetoric that has meant there is nowhere to seek safety and shelter in Gaza as Israel continues to bomb schools, hospitals and cemeteries and target roads that those being told to leave their homes are forced to use to escape.
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Israel's defeats on a global scale: MEMO in Conversation with Ramzy Baroud
Middle East Monitor Conversations
10/16/24 • 47 min
Looking back at Israel's conduct over the past year, Baroud highlights Tel Aviv's use of African mercenaries in the execution of its onslaught on Gaza and how the West is enabling the continuation of this aggression.
In this week’s MEMO in Conversation prominent Palestinian journalist and author Dr Ramzy Baroud shares his unique perspective on the events leading up to 7 October 2023 and the subsequent Israeli military offensive. Baroud, a descendant of Palestinian refugees and son of a freedom fighter, analysis of Israel's objectives in Gaza, the place of his birth, and explores whether Tel Aviv's actions constitute ethnic cleansing, genocide, or a deliberate attempt to render Gaza uninhabitable. Baroud provides his analysis of Israel's conduct over the past year and beyond, touching on lesser-known aspects such as the recruitment of African mercenaries by Israel to carry out its military onslaught. He also examines the crucial role of Western support, particularly from the US, in enabling Israel's aggression.
Globally, the events of 7 October have recalibrated the Palestinian cause as a pressing global issue, he explains, providing an assessment of Israel's strategic defeats, despite apparent tactical victories, and examines the material foundations of Zionism and how they have been weakened over the past year.
Baroud is the Editor of the Palestine Chronicle and author of five books; his latest is 'Our Vision for Liberation: Engaged Palestinian Leaders and Intellectuals Speak Out'. Baroud is a non-resident Senior Research Fellow at the Centre for Islam and Global Affairs (CIGA) and also at the Afro-Middle East Centre (AMEC).
Syrian Druze between revolution and Assad: MEMO in Conversation with Sarah Hunaidi
Middle East Monitor Conversations
09/01/23 • 28 min
MEMO in Conversations is on hiatus this week and will be back next week. During the later quarter of August 2023, the southern Syrian city of As-Suwayda was gripped by anti-government protests led by a religious minority, the Druze. In this throwback episode from 2020, we discussed the politics of Druze in Syria with Syrian feminist and human rights activist Sarah Hunaidi.
The Druze in Syria have recently risen up against the rule of President Bashar Al-Assad, in this 2020 MEMO in Conversation Syrian feminist and human rights activist Sarah Hunaidi refutes claims Al-Assad is the only hope for minorities in the war torn country.
A good case study to understand how the Assad regime is harmful to minorities is its relationship with the Druze in southern Syria, she says. A religious minority that split away from Islam hundreds of years ago, the Druze in Syria are a majority in As-Suwayda governorate and they have a long history of rebelling against tyrannical rule stretching back centuries.
Hunaidi also explains how Syrian voices abroad are being silenced and how political debate about Syria has little to do with what was actually happening in the country. Moreover, she points out that Syria’s economic hardship cannot be blamed solely on US sanctions; Assad’s destruction of the country over the years is a key factor.
Hunaidi is a Syrian writer, feminist and human rights activist. She writes and publishes both in English and Arabic in prominent media outlets like Foreign Policy, the Independent, Buzzfeed, among others. She appears regularly on the BBC, Al Jazeera English and NPR to comment on political and cultural events in the Middle East. Her work has been reported by NPR, Al Jazeera, Al-Hurra and various other Arabic and International media platforms. Sarah is a member of the Syrian Women Political Movement, the first women-led political movement dedicated to advancing women’s rights and political participation in a free and democratic Syria.Saving Gaza's Life: MEMO in Conversation with Dr Mads Gilbert
Middle East Monitor Conversations
10/18/23 • 42 min
As Israel continues bombing the besieged Gaza Strip, killing an average of one child every 15 minutes, medical teams are struggling to cope. Supplies of vital medicines have now completely depleted and no water, fuel or other essentials have entered the Strip for almost 10 days, but medical crews continue to operate in an effort to reduce the death toll.
Please note this conversation was recorded before the Al-Ahli Arab Baptist Hospital bombing
With Gaza under Israeli bombardment, MEMO speaks to one of the world's foremost experts on the besieged enclave, Dr Mads Gilbert.
Mads Gilbert, is a Norwegian physician, humanitarian, activist and politician and a Professor of emergency medicine at the University of Tromsø.
Gilbert has a broad range of experience from international humanitarian work. Since the 1970s, he has been actively involved with solidarity work concerning Palestinians, and he has served as a doctor for several periods in the occupied Palestinian territories and Lebanon. He has volunteered at Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza during Israel's previous bombing campaigns and saw first hand the difficulties of providing health care not only while under siege, but also while bombs are raining down around you. He has since been banned from returning to Gaza by Israel as a result of his ongoing humanitarian work.
His efforts have been central to leading the city of Tromsø, since 2001 a twin town of Gaza, and one which claims to be the city that has sent more health workers to the Palestinian territories than any other in the world.
He has several books on Gaza, including, Eyes on Gaza, which has been translated into several languages. Gilbert has been lauded as a "hero" in Norwegian media for his work in Gaza.
Memories of the future Palestine: MEMO in Conversation with Tahrir Hamdi
Middle East Monitor Conversations
11/10/23 • 60 min
Imagining the future of Palestine isn't a fictional dream, but rather a radical attempt to rediscover and resistance
"Palestine is alive and well in the Palestinian psyche, but where is Palestine today?" Since 1948, Palestinians have been exiled, displaced and uprooted from their homeland. Additionally, those who expelled them deny the history of the Palestinian presence on the land and have their own historical narrative. For Palestinian writers, intellectuals and artists resisting the settler colonial project, attaining justice for what was done to them is a central concern. But what is Palestine and how to keep it alive? Memories of the land are part of defining what Palestine is, but Palestine can not only be a record of the past, it has a present and a future. It is to imagination that Palestinian thinkers turned, as Mourid Barghouti writes, "but, I tell myself, no reality cancels out imagination." Imagination here does not mean a fictional dream but rather a radical attempt at rediscovery and resistance. Palestine is not a single place or memory, but a place with multiple beginnings, places and peoples. Exploring this question in her book Imagining Palestine: Culture of Exile and National Identity, Tahrir Hamdi talks to MEMO about how Palestinians came to make sense of themselves. Imagining Palestine is a nominee for Middle East Monitor's Palestine Book Awards 2023. Hamdi is a professor of anti-colonial and resistance literature and currently Rector at Arab Open University/Jordan. She is co-editing a book with Louis Brehony on Ghassan Kanafani’s revolutionary political and theoretical essays, which will be published in 2024.She won the prestigious Abdul Hameed Shoman Foundation Prize in 2020 for the best researcher in the Arab world in the humanities.
Her research revolves around resistance literature, anti-colonial theory and the importance of place and space in literature, and she has published articles on Edward Said, William Butler Yeats, Mahmoud Darwish, Mourid Barghouti, Saadi Yousef, Ghassan Kanafani, Naji Al Ali, Palestine, Ireland and Iraq.
Jinns, donkey kings, angels and demons: MEMO in Conversation with Emily Selove
Middle East Monitor Conversations
12/29/23 • 47 min
In an effort to beat the Abbasid Caliph Al-Nasir, the shah of the Khwarezmian Empire turned to magician Siraj Al-Din Al-Sakaki to create a magical statue that would help win the battle. But things took an unexpected turn. Join MEMO's conversation to find out more about the importance of magic in Middle Eastern history.
Siraj Al-Din Al-Sakaki (1160-1229) is best known for his work on Arabic grammar, which students of the language throughout the world use until this day, but very few know he worked as a magician in both the Khwarazmian and Mongol courts. The author of grimoire, a how-to guide for budding magicians, Al-Sakaki offers instructions to students on how to conjure Jinns, how to draw up contracts with the devil, how to cast love spells and how to inflict a humiliating defeat on your enemies as well as a deep dive into the world of magical donkeys. Al-Sakaki was taken very seriously by the rulers of his day, he even managed to survive a talisman gone-wrong, where he was asked by the shah of the Khwarezmian Empire to create a magical statue that would enable them to beat the Abbasid Caliph Al-Nasir in battle and take Baghdad. Al-Sakaki created the talismanic statue and buried it - however the statue magically changed direction while underground causing the shah to lose the battle. Al-Sakaki takes us into the fascinating world of medieval sorcery popular in Middle Eastern and Islamic societies. MEMO in Conversation is joined by Emily Selove, who is translating Al-Sakaki's works into English, to help us understand the man and his magic.
Dr Emily Selove is an associate professor in Medieval Arabic Language and Literature at the University of Exeter. She is also the convener of the University of Exeter’s Centre for Magic and Esotericism. Her most recent publication is a short monograph for the Cambridge Elements Series: The Donkey King: Asinine Symbology in Ancient and Medieval Magic. She was the PI of a Leverhulme-funded research project, "A Sorcerer's Handbook," (2019-2022) which will create an edition and translation of Siraj Al-Din Al-Sakkaki's magic handbook, Kitab Al-Shamil wa-baḥr Al-kamil (The Book of the Complete). Her early research focused on the figure of the uninvited guest (or "party-crasher") in medieval Arabic literature. Her translation of another 11th-century book of party-crashing is titled Selections from the Art of Party-Crashing in Medieval Iraq. She also co-authored a textbook to introduce beginning students to the city of medieval Baghdad, Baghdad at the Centre of a World: 8th-13th Century, and has created a collection of cartoons titled Popeye and Curly: 120 Days in Medieval Baghdad to accompany this textbook.
The Nakba Deniers: MEMO in Conversation with Ilan Pappe
Middle East Monitor Conversations
07/03/24 • 57 min
In an effort to absolve Zionist militias of charges of crimes against humanity and war crimes, a number of stories spread within Israeli society, they have been disproven but the denial of the horrors of the Nakba remains. Something Professor Pappe hopes to tackle through his new project the Nakba Memorial Foundation.
In 1948, just under one million Palestinians were expelled from their homes by Zionist militia groups that would go on to form Israel. 48 was the culmination of half a century of settler colonialism, a cornerstone of the project to establish a Jewish state in historic Palestine, was the idea that there were no people in the Holy Land or the people who were there were immigrants from elsewhere? The denial of the existence of Palestinians was a key feature of pre-1948 Zionism. After 1948, the denialism extended to the Nakba itself, myths such as Palestinians left because a radio broadcast from neighbouring Arab states told them to temporarily leave their homes and thus absolving Zionist forces of charges of crimes against humanity and war crimes, became part of the Israeli imagination. While ideas like these have been disproven through work of diligent historians and testimonies from Palestinians, attempts to discuss or study the Nakba have at times been suppressed in the West. But resistance from activists, students and scholars challenged and continues to challenge attempts to shut this down. MEMO conversations sits down with Professor Ilan Pappe to discuss the history of Nakba denialism, how it functions today, his new project the Nakba Memorial Foundation and his new book Lobbying for Zionism.
Professor Pappe is the director of the European Centre for Palestine Studies at the University of Exeter. He received his D. Phil from the University of Oxford. From 1984 to 2006, Pappe taught at the University of Haifa, Israel ,from which he resigned in 2006 after various failed attempts to expel him due to his ideological positions. He moved to the University of Exeter in 2007. Pappe has written 22 books to date, among them the Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine and On Palestine. His most recent books are the Ten Myths of Israel , the Biggest Prison on Earth: A History of the Israeli Occupation, A Historical Dictionary of Palestine and Our Vision for Liberation with Dr Ramzy Baroud.
'We are all Nasser's soldiers': MEMO in Conversation with Alex Rowell
Middle East Monitor Conversations
12/15/23 • 53 min
Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser is a divisive figure, to some he is the North African state's saviour to others he betrayed its people and destabilised the region, but could he have been both?
The Arab World with its different authoritarian leaders still lives under the shadow of 1 man - Gamal Abdel Nasser. President of Egypt from 1954 to 1970, Nasser was not only part of the first wave of post-colonial Arab leaders, he was the trendsetter for everyone from Muammar Gaddafi to Saddam Hussein. A magnetic personality, powerful orator and a brutal dictator. His legacy divides opinion in Egypt today, did he save Egypt or betray it? Did he do what was necessary or did he do what was necessary for him? While discussions about Nasser tend to focus on his role as leader of Egypt, his interference in other Arab countries is less discussed; from directing assassinations in Lebanon, backing rebels in Yemen and attempting to destablise Iraq and Jordan. The 1950s was a time of great democratic experimentation in the Arab World, which Nasser played a leading role in crushing. A new book We Are Your Soldiers: How Egypt's Gamal Abdel Nasser Remade the Arab World takes a deep dive into Nasser, Nasserism and foreign intervention. Joining us is the book's author Alex RowellRowell is an editor at New Lines magazine and the author of Vintage Humour: The Islamic Wine Poetry of Abu Nuwas. His articles have been published by the BBC, the Economist and the Washington Post, among others.
Can language and photography bring us together? MEMO in Conversation with Fadi BouKaram 'Cedrusk'
Middle East Monitor Conversations
09/08/23 • 55 min
Ever wondered why certain words cross borders and are used the world over? Fadi BouKaram has made it his business to find out why
Did you know the Arabic word for Austria - An-Namsa - comes from Proto-Slavic language and means 'mute' or someone who doesn't speak and this was applied to anyone who could not speak a Slavic language? Why is the loquat fruit in Turkish called yeni dunya or 'new world' while in Arabic it's called akideneh and iskidenya derived from the Turkish word eski dunya or the 'old world'? Why do foreign learners of a language have a hard time understanding certain sounds in the language they are learning? Fadi BouKaram, better known as Cedrusk on Instagram, set out to explore the roots of different languages and the human stories behind them.
A former professional photographer turned tax transparency lawyer by day and Instagram language nerd with a loyal following by night, BouKaram has popularised the study of etymology, or the origin of words, which takes him across different languages. Having grown up in Lebanon, lived in the United States and Ireland, different cultures, habits and customs have always interested him. His photography allowed him to explore the world and led him on the path to investigate languages.
BouKaram grew up in Lebanon and earned a degree in engineering and business. However, by his thirties, he decided he needed a career change and went into the world of photography. In 2013, he was part of a collective of photographers who set up Observers Collective, a group dedicated to capturing the diverse humanity around them.
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FAQ
How many episodes does Middle East Monitor Conversations have?
Middle East Monitor Conversations currently has 140 episodes available.
What topics does Middle East Monitor Conversations cover?
The podcast is about News, Society & Culture, Podcasts and Politics.
What is the most popular episode on Middle East Monitor Conversations?
The episode title 'Orientalism and selective solidarity: MEMO in conversation with Dr Suja Sawafta' is the most popular.
What is the average episode length on Middle East Monitor Conversations?
The average episode length on Middle East Monitor Conversations is 43 minutes.
How often are episodes of Middle East Monitor Conversations released?
Episodes of Middle East Monitor Conversations are typically released every 7 days.
When was the first episode of Middle East Monitor Conversations?
The first episode of Middle East Monitor Conversations was released on Jan 21, 2022.
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