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Showing posts from 2009

20 December 2009

Between 26 of December 2008 and 18 January 2009 Israel carried out a military assault on Gaza . Here is a discussion that took place at the time between a Marxist (Heiko Khoo) and a Jewish supporter of Israel. The event took place at Speakers' Corner, Hyde Park, London 04 January 2009, and recorded by Nadim Mahjoub. It was first broadcast on Resonance FM radio. Sunday between noon and 1pm on 104.4 FM (London) Or resonancefm.com (worldwide)

Sunday 13 December 2009

Arabs, Muslims and the Poverty of Liberal Thought' is a talk by Steven Salaita, author of "The Uncultured Wars". Steven Salaita, RAWI Executive Director, is Assistant Professor of English at Virginia Tech. His other books include "Anti-Arab Racism in the USA", "The Holy Land in Transit", and "Arab American Literary Fictions, Cultures, and Politics".

22 November 2009

"The life and the music of Zohar Argov reflect the struggle of Mizrahim in Israel." In this week show Benjamin Rosendahl, a freelance journalist, translator and holder of a degree in Middle Eastern Studies from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem talks about the time and music of Zohar Argov. Sunday between noon and 1pm on 104.4 FM (London) Or resonancefm.com (worldwide)

15 November 2009

Part 2 of an interview with Sami Shalom Chetrit author of Intra-Jewish Conflict in Israel: White Jews, Black Jews (Routledge publication, October 2009) and an essay on the Black Panthers in Israel .

Sunday 08 November

Part 1 of 2 of an interview with Sami Shalom Chetrit author of Intra-Jewish Conflict in Israel: White Jews, Black Jews (Routledge publication, October 2009) and an essay on the Black Panthers in Israel . Part 1 Hello Nadim, Don't know if this will be of interest to you:- Is Israel Marketing a New Conflict? Sam Gardiner, 7 November 2009 http://www.spinwatch.org/blogs-mainmenu-29/sam-gardiner-mainmenu-106/5329-is-israel-marketing-a-new-conflict Enjoyed part one of the Sami Shalom Chetrit interview. It's not easy for westerners such as myself to get an insight into what's happening in the Middle East. Your programme has been infinitely more useful in than all of my years listening to the BBC. Hope you're well, BET

Sunday 01 November 2009

Islam in Power ? An interview with Hadani Ditmars, co-editor of the New Internationalist magazine. News and analysis: Yemen, Egypt and Iran. Sunday between noon and 1pm on 104.4 FM (London) Or resonancefm.com (worldwide)

Sunday 11 October 2009

- Barak Obama has been awarded the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize. - Interview with Kaveh Ehsani from DePaul University on the economic and social situation in Iran. The interview was produced by Voices of the Middle East and North Africa on KPFA Radio, Berkeley, USA. - Iran's alleged nuclear programmes.

Sunday 4 October 2009

Music and sounds from the Middle East and North Africa. Iran's Nuclear Threat is a Lie , says John Pilger. Unilever PG Tips Monkey on London Casual-T Tour

Sunday 27 September 2009

An interview with Shiva Balaghi. Ms Balaghi talks to MEP about Maziar Bahari 's film "Football Iranian Style" and also about Bahari's other documentaries: "Paint No Matter What" (about the Iranian artist Khosrow Hassanzadeh) and "Along Came A Spider" (about a serial killer in Iran which was based in part on an art project that Hassanzadeh created). Cumulatively, Maziar's documentaries helped bring greater attention to the vibrant creative cultural, intellectual, and social life in Iran. Shiva Balaghi is a historian of the modern Middle East, with special interests in the interrelated histories of colonialism, nationalism, gender and visual culture. She is a Cogut International Humanities Fellow at Brown University, where she teaches history. She is completing a book on the cultural history of Iran from the mid-nineteenth century through the present. Also in the show, the recent anti-government protests in Iran and the character of the oppositi

Sunday 20 September 2009

Israel-Palestine, settlements expansion, peace talks, Obama' policies in the Middle East, social unrest in Egypt, Lebanon. The State and religion in Egypt. Views by: Amr Hamzawy senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and co-editor with Marina Ottaway of a recent book: "Getting to Pluralism Political Actors" and Jean Shaoul, professor at Manchester University and contributor to the World Socialist Website. Sunday between noon and 1pm on 104.4 FM (London) Or resonancefm.com (worldwide)

Sunday 13 September 2009

Sunday between noon and 1pm on 104.4 FM (London) Or resonancefm.com (worldwide) Alan Hart (BBC Panorama programme and ITN's News correspondent, researcher and producer of "Five Minutes to Midnight" film) is the author of a recent book: " Zionism - The Real Enemy of the Jews ". Here you will listen to Hart's ideas expressed in the book. The show includes an interview with the author. Labour news from Morocco, Egypt, Tunisia, Jordan and Iran. Related: Dilemma of Palestinian Settlement Builders (the BBC) " PA intends to bypass failing peace talks and establish its own state within two years ." ( The Times , UK)

Mazen Kerbaj

F & D by Mazen Kerbaj The Lebanese worker finally finds his daily bread by Mazen Kerbaj Drawings by Mazen Kerbaj

Sunday 02 August 2009

" "Only nations which liberate themselves can be free." Malalai Joya "really is one of the bravest women in Afghanistan". She told the 300-strong audience at Conway Hall in central London last week that she has survived five assassination attempts and is still not safe with personal security guards or by wearing a burkha to cover her identity. Yet she continues to campaign against foreign occupation and fundamentalist warlords, and for women's rights and education. She believes all NATO troops must leave Afghanistan immediately. On July 16 thousands of quarry workers in Egypt went on strike in the central province of Al-Minya, in opposition to a decision by the authorities to impose a tax of E£40 on each ton of quarried rock. The tax had led some quarries to close and lay off their workers. The dispute is only one of several ongoing textile workers’ strikes since privatisation, despite the brutality with which last year’s strike at Mahalla al-Kubra was put

Sunday 26 July 2009

Sunday between noon and 1pm on 104.4 FM (London) Or resonancefm.com (worldwide) An interview with Yasser Alwan about his work " The Liberty of Appearing - Photographs of Egyptian Working People " ( Peacock Imprint , 2008, edited by Richard Peacock with an introduction by John Molyneux, Senior Art theory Lecturer, University of Portsmouth). "Yasser Alwan's subjects are sometimes alone, always in a crowd, recognisably Egyptian, resembling everybody else ... Global struggle corralled into an Arab street corner. Still life speaking to the world of how it sees itself..."(Eamonn McCann, author of War and an Irish Town). "These are wonderful photographs. They are very simple, the subjects shine out, and here is humanity without any sentimentality." (Red Saunders, photographer & founder Rock Against Racism).

19 July 2009

Sunday between noon and 1pm on 104.4 FM (London) Or resonancefm.com (worldwide) " The Good War? Afghanistan in the media ". Listen to columnist Seumas Milne from the Guardian newspaper (UK) speaking in a public meeting organised by Media Workers Against the War and Stop the War Coalition. (Friends Meeting House, London 13 July 2009). Ishmahil Blagrove, a filmmaker and public speaker, speaks about his recent attempt to enter Gaza, his arrest in an Isareli prison, and the aim of the trip which was organised by 21 activists from 11 countries including former US Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney, Nobel Peace Prize Winner Mairead Maguire, in order to deliver a cargo of medical aid, toys and building supplies. Labour news from Egypt

12 July 2009

Sunday between noon and 1pm on 104.4 FM (London) Or resonancefm.com (worldwide) Groundhog Day in Afghanistan : "Operation Panther's Claw" in Afghanistan and the British Media. Amy Goodman from "Democracy Now" in conversation with the journalist and film-maker John Pilger on Honduras, Iran, Gaza, health care in the US and "Obama's war" in Afghanistan-Pakistan.

05 July 2009

Sunday between noon and 1pm on 104.4 FM (London) Or resonancefm.com (worldwide) Iran: Background article by Kaveh Ehsani Survival Through Dispossession: Privatization of Public Goods in the Islamic Republic More: Tehran, June 2009 by Kaveh Ehsani

28 June 2009

Sunday between noon and 1pm on 104.4 FM (London) Or resonancefm.com (worldwide) Listen to Jonas, the youngest pro Israel Jew I ever met. He is 12 years old, but able to hold a meeting at Speakers' Corner, Hyde Park, London. Iran : Mourad Shirin from the Iranian Revolutionary Marxists' Tendency speaks on the current situation in the country. Articles: Iran Falls to US PSYOPS The New York Times and Iran The New York Times and the Iranian elections

14 June 2009

Sunday between noon and 1pm on 104.4 FM (London) Or resonancefm.com (worldwide) Paul Fitzgerald and Elizabeth Gould in conversation with C S Sung about Afghanistan's history pre-1960 in "Invisible History: Afghanistan's Untold Story" (City Lights, 2009). The show was first broadcast by Against the Grain on KPFA Radio, Berkeley, US.

24 May 2009

An interview with Salaam Youssif on "The Decline of Leftist Intelligenstia in Iraq . Salaam Yousif received his B.A. in English from the University of Baghdad and taught in Iraqi and Algerian high schools for several years. In 1978 he left for the United States to pursue his graduate studies. He got his Ph.D. in Comparative literature from the University of Iowa and he currently teaches world literature at California State University...

17 May 2009

Imran Aslam, veteran Pakistani journalist and President of Geo TV, Pakistan’s premier television news channel, and Kamran Ali, Associate Professor Anthropology and Middle Eastern Studies at University of Austin in Texas talked to Shahram Aghamir of Voices of the Middle East and North Africa on KPFA Radion in Berkeley in the United States. Imran Aslam and Kamran Ali discuss the U.S. policy in Afghanistan and Pakistan as well as the role of regional players such as Saudi Arabia, Iran and India in the war in Afghanistan.

10 May 2009

Sunday between noon and 1pm on 104.4 FM (London) Or resonancefm.com (worldwide) Around 20 delegates, including envoys from the UK, France, and Finland stood up and left the room at what was considered an anti-Semitic remark by the Iranian leader in his speech at the UN Conference against racism. The Iranian president called Israel "racist". I asked Joel Kovel, author of "Overcoming Zionism" (Pluto Press 2007) whether the Israeli state (and society) is racist.

26 April 2009

Sunday between noon and 1pm on 104.4 FM (London) Or resonancefm.com (worldwide) Obituary : the Arab Sundanese novelist Tayib Salih. "How the Jewish people were invented , from the Bible to Zionism" is the provocative title of the most recent book to be published in Israel by Shlomo Sand, a professor at Tel Aviv University. Khalil Bendib talked to Sand (from Voices of the Middle East and North Africa on KPFA Radio, Berkeley). The BBC, Jeremy Bowen and the pro-Israeli lobby .

19 April 2009

The United States and its allies oppose North Korea and Iran having nuclear weapons. The argument against North Korea may well be the same argument used against Iran. The non-prolifeartion treaty was signed in1962, i.e. after the most powerful states, the richest and of the so-called “free-world”, had already acquired nuclear weapons. Many people in the richest capitalist countries believe that since their countries are free and democratic, inherently, when their governments intervene abroad, that intervention is aimed for “the greater good.” If on the other side these governments make “mistakes”, future elected governments would correct later “correct” those “mistakes”. Other people go further by arguing that their goverments have a sort of a historical duty to some countries that they had occupied in the past. But to what extent does the historical record of the Western states support such argument? The asnwer to these questions comes from a meeting that took place at Speakers’ Corne

12 April 2009

Sunday between noon and 1pm on 104.4 FM (London) Or resonancefm.com (worldwide) The presidential elections in Algeria. Review of the animated documentary Waltz with Bashir . Obituary: The violinist and composer Abboud abdel Aal.

05 April 2009

Eyal Weizman, author of Hollow Land: Israel's Architecture of Occupation , talking to C S Sung. The interview was first broadcast on Against the Grain show on KPFA Radio.

22 March 2009

History Professor Beshara Doumani will be in conversation with Columbia University Professor Rashid Khalidi about his new book entitled Sowing Crisis: The Cold War and American Hegemony in the Middle East. In his new work, Professor Khalidi dissects the crucial dynamics of power in the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union as it played out in the Middle East, compellingly arguing that the intense rivalry between the U.S. and the USSR in the region set the stage for the tragic conflicts that have followed in its long wake. The full conversation was first broadcast by Voices of North Africa and the Middle East East on KPFA Radio, Berkeley, United States, on 4 February 2009.

15 March 2009

Sunday between noon and 1pm on 104.4 FM (London) Or resonancefm.com (worldwide) The class nature of the Iranian Revolution. According to Edward Mortimer of the Spectator the Iranian Revolution was "a genuine popular revolution in the fullest sense of the word: the most genuine, probably since 1917." But was it an Islamic revolution? Interviews with Torab Saleth from the journal Critique and member of Hands off the People of Iran (hopi) and Chris Moore from The Socialist Party (Britain). Listen to Torab Saleth Listen to Chris Moore

08 March 2009

Sunday between noon and 1pm on 104.4 FM (London) Or http://www.resonancefm.com/ (worldwide) The Iranian Revolution: Thirty Years on. In this first part two Iranians talk about the student movement and their experience. Dissection of Hillary Clinton's first visit to the Middle East as Barack Obama's Secretary of State.

22 February 2009

Sunday between noon and 1pm on 104.4 FM (London) Or http://www.resonancefm.com/ (worldwide) Interview with Pervez Amirali Hoodbhoy , Professor of Nuclear Physics, Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad, Pakistan. Dr. Pervez Hoodbhoy has been a faculty member at the Quaid-e-Azam University since 1973. In 1984 he received the Abdus Salam Prize for mathematics and is the author of 65 scientific research papers. He is chairman of Mashal, a non-profit organization which publishes books in Urdu on women’s rights, education, environmental issues, philosophy, and modern thought. Dr. Hoodbhoy has written and spoken extensively on topics ranging from science in Islam to education issues in Pakistan and nuclear disarmament. He produced a 13-part documentary series in Urdu for Pakistan Television on critical issues in education, and two series aimed at popularizing science. He is author of ’Islam and Science: Religious Orthodoxy and the Battle for Rationality’, now in 5 languages. In 2003, Dr. Hoodbh

15 February 2009

Sunday between noon and 1pm on 104.4 FM (London) Or www.resonancefm.com (worldwide) An interview with Richard Seymour about his book "The Liberal Defence of Murder" (Verso, May 2008). "Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, a number of prominent thinkers on the Left found themselves increasingly aligned with their ideological opposites. Over the last decade, many of these thinkers have become close to Washington; forceful supporters of the War on Terror, they help frame arguments for policymakers and provide the moral and intellectual justification for Western military intervention across the globe. From Kanan Makiya, one of the chief architects of the US invasion and occupation of Iraq, to Bernard Henri-Levy’s advocacy of “humanitarian” intervention, The Liberal Defence of Murder traces the journey of these figures from left to right and explores their critical role in the creation of the new American empire. With wide-ranging testimony from many key figures on the

08 February 2009

Sunday between noon and 1pm on 104.4 FM (London) Or Resonancefm.com (worldwide) In his recent book “Pakistan’s Other Story” (The Struggle Publication) Lal Khan has surveyed the events of 1968-69 in the wider perspective of what was happening in the world at that juncture of time. “He cites developments in Egypt, Indonesia, France (May 1968), the Italian “hot autumn”, Ireland, Mexico, Czechoslovakia, the USA and the Vietnam war and then revisits Partition, analyses the Communist Party and the degeneration of the left leadership and the early failure of democracy in Pakistan, the crossing over of the fence to the American side, the emergence of the new industrialists, institutionalization of corruption leading up to the 1965 war. This whole commentary reads like new history as it looks at developments from a window on the backside of the traditional façade.” ( The Dawn , 15 January 2009)From a book launch, Conway Hall, London. According to Media Workers Against War, there are eight rea

01 February 2009

Sunday between noon and 1pm on 104.4 FM (London) Or Resonancefm.com (worldwide) An interview with Lenni Brenner. Lenni Brenner was born into an Orthodox Jewish family. His involvement with the Black civil rights movement began on his first day in the organized left, when he met James Farmer of the Congress of Racial Equality, later the organizer of the "freedom rides" of the early 60s. He was active in the mid 50s with Bayard Rustin, later the organizer of Martin Luther King's 1963 "I had a dream" March on Washington. He was an anti-war activist from the 1st days of the Vietnam war, speaking frequently at rallies in the Bay Area. Mr. Brenner is the author of 4 books, Zionism in the Age of the Dictators, The Iron Wall: Zionist Revisionism from Jabotinsky to Shamir, Jews in America Today, and The Lesser Evil: The Democratic Party. His books have been favorably reviewed in 10 languages by prominent publications, including the London Times, The London Review of Book

23 January 2009

Sunday between noon and 1pm on 104.4 FM (London) Or Resonancefm.com (worldwide) Gaza : from a rally organized by Stop the War Coalition and Palestine Solidarity Campaign (UK). The rally took place on 8th of January in Friends Meeting House in London. Among those who spoke were: George Galloway MP and writer and fighter Tariq Ali. Obituary : Mansour Rahabani . Renowned Lebanese composer Mansour Rahabani died Tuesday 13th January following a bout of pneumonia, leaving a legacy of innovation in the music and theater of Lebanon and the wider Arab world. Read: Kafka Era of Double Standard

11 January 2009

Sunday between noon and 1pm on 104.4 FM (London) Or Resonancefm.com (worldwide) "Asked how he proposed dealing with "the murderous mentality" of the Palestinians, the Israeli historian Benny Morris replied, "Something like a cage has to be built for them. I know that sounds terrible. It is really cruel. But there is no choice. There is a wild animal there that has to be locked away one way or another." Gaza . Two very opposite views from a discussion between two public speakers, Speakers Corner, London 04 January 2009. Read: Robert Fisk 's article Read: The Gaza Bloodbath

04 January 2009

Sunday between noon and 1pm on 104.4 FM (London) Or Resonancefm.com (worldwide) Sounds from Agadir and Marrakech , Morocco. The recording was made between 19 and 24 December 2008. Listen to the show .