Voices of the Middle East and North Africa

Last month oppressive summer heats, lack of water and electricity, and pent-up anger against government corruption sparked mass protests in southern oil rich city of Basra. It quickly spread across the south of the country and into Baghdad- People in Iraq have sent a clear message to the government- enough is enough! This week, we bring you the first part of an in-depth conversation about the root causes of the protests in Iraq with Balsam Mustafa, a PhD researcher in Modern Languages & Politics at the University of Birmingham Also this week, artist and author Dr. Cara Judea El Hadeff joins us to talk about her children’s book, Zazu Dreams. It is a tale about the adventures of a Sephardic boy and his imaginary friend, a malamute husky, as they traverse the globe on a humpback whale across time and space, experiencing the marvels and may-hem of the relationship between humans and their environments.

Iraqi-American pediatrician Dr Mona Hanna-Attisha has played a critical role in exposing the water crisis in Flint, Michigan, which affected thousands of adults and children after dangerous cost-cutting measures led to widespread lead poisoning. This week, we speak with Dr Attisha about her new book “What the Eyes Don't See: A Story of Crisis, Resistance, and Hope in an American City,” which centers on her own account of the crisis through both scientific and activist lenses. Later in the program, Italian director Marco Proserpio will tell us about the making of his documentary film “The Man Who Stole Banksy” , which chronicles the saga of one of street artist Banksy’s murals in the Palestinian city of Bethlehem and how it ended up on the western world's commercial art market.

This week, we bring you a conversation about the recent Supreme Court ruling upholding Trump administration ban on travelers from seven cpu tries, most of them Muslim-majority nations. Last month, In a 5-4 decision, the Supreme Court reversed a federal court’s judgment against the third version of the Trump administration’s travel ban. Now, the Supreme Court has upheld Trump’s ban on travel from North Korea, Venezuela Syria, Iran, Yemen, Somalia and Libya. We'll have a conversation with Penn State Immigration law professor SHOBA SIVAPRASAD WADHIA of Penn State University about the Supreme Court decision and the Trump administration's xenophobic and anti immigrant policies. Later in the program, we'll bring back an interview with Marcel Khalife, celebrated Lebanese composer, singer, and aoud player, and one of the Arab world's most revered and celebrated cultural icons.

This week, we bring you the second part of an in depth conversation about the presidential election and the ruling Justice and Development party or AKP in Turkey with sinan Birdal, a visiting assistant professor of International Relations and Middle East Studies at the University of Southern California In the second part of the conversation, we speak about the base of support for President Ardogan and his ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) . We also discuss about the impact of government's economic policies, the ongoing state of emergency as well as Turkey’s military intervention in Syria on the country’s political landscape and the June 24 elections. We will also speak with award winning director Gianfranco Rosi about his documentary film Fire at Sea. It explores the human cost of refugee crisis. https://www.theguardian.com/film/2016/jun/09/fire-at-sea-review-masterly-and-moving-look-at-the-migrant-crisis

This week, we bring you the first part of an in depth conversation about the presidential election and the ruling Justice and Development party or AKP in Turkey with sinan Birdal, a visiting assistant professor of International Relations and Middle East Studies at the University of Southern California

Award-winning journalist Rania Abu Zeid has made countless trips inside Syria, Turkey, Jordan, Lebanon, Washington, and several European towns and cities to cover the Syrian uprising and the deadly civil and proxy war that ensued and destroyed tens of millions of lives. This week Rania Abouzeid joins us to talk about her new book, No Turning Back: Life, Loss, and Hope in Wartime Syria Later in the program Vomena’s contributor Paola Messini sits down with Lebanese singer-songwriter Yasmine Hamdan to discuss her latest album Al Jamilat (The Beautiful Ones)

In the summer of 2015, a wave of refugees taking perilous sea and land crossings to get into Europe exposed one of the worst humanitarian crises in modern history, the wars in Syria and Iraq and the worsening situation in Afghanistan having forced hundreds of thousands of people to live their homes and risk their lives to seek sanctuary elsewhere. According to the most recent reports, in 2014, 14 million people were displaced by war, the most in a single year since World War II. In the past decade, forty thousand people died trying to cross international borders. The dramatic increase in the influx of refugees to Europe has produced a rise in anti-refugee sentiments, the enactments of anti-refugee laws and the construction of walls and fences, exacerbating the plight of millions of people who were forced to flee war violence and poverty. Reece Jones is Associate Professor of Geography at the University of Hawai'i at Manoa, and author of several books including his most recent Violent Borders: Refugees and the Right to movement He spoke with Malihe about his new book and the structural violence of the global border regime.

On Saturday, May 12th, Iraq held its parliamentary elections to decide the 329 members of the body, which will serve as the basis for establishing a new government. While Nearly 7000 candidates and more than 200 parties were vying for votes, only 44 percent of eligible voters cast their ballots in the recent elections; a notably low figure given that, no election since the U.S-British invasion of 2003 has had a turnout below 60 percent. This week we spend the hour focusing on the primary concerns of Iraqis in the run up to the election, the main protagonists contending for power in these elections. So What do the election results represent? What does the outcome mean to the regional and international actors? To answer these questions, Vomena’s Shahram Aghamir spoke with Loulouwa Al Rachid, who has been conducting research on Iraq and the Gulf region for the past 20 years- She argues that the elections highlighted the wide and dangerous gap between rulers and ruled in Iraq by reflecting massive popular rejection of the post-Ba‘th political order. Loulouwa Al Rachid is a co-director of the Program on Civil-Military Relations in Arab States at the Carnegie Middle East Center. She has been conducting research on Iraq and the Gulf region for the past 20 years,

For the past thirty year, The Middle East Children’s Alliance (MECA) has been working for the rights of children in the Middle East by sending humanitarian aid, supporting projects for children and educating North American and international communities about the effects of the US foreign policy on children in the region. This week, we speak The Middle East Children’s Alliance founder Barbara Lubin and MECA’s program manager for cross-cultural programs Ziad Abbas about the organization’s humanitarian work in Palestine. Also this week, we bring back a conversation we had with Palestinian visual artist Khaled Jarrar about his award-winning documentary film, “Infiltrators.”

in his new book "Inter/Nationalism Decolonizing Native America and Palestine," Steven Salaita argues that American Indian and Indigenous studies must be more central to the scholarship and activism focusing on Palestine. His discussion includes a fascinating inside account of the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement; a wide range of Native poetry; the speeches of U.S. President Andrew Jackson; and the discourses of “shared values” between the United States and Israel.

The Way to the Spring: Life and Death in Palestine is based on journalist Ben Ehrenreich’s eye-witness account of life in the West Bank—in the village of Nabi Saleh and the cities of Hebron and Ramallah.

At age fifty one, the film the Battle of Algiers has never seemed so current, as it continues to inspire, instruct and inform as much as it did when it first came out in 1966. What is it about this classic film that has so revolutionized the very medium of political cinema? And continues to provoke thought and reflection and whose lessons are still pondered in the whole world’s movie theaters, university campuses and military barracks long after it first showing? In a 2017 piece “The Battle of Algiers” at 50: From 1960s Radicalism to the Classrooms of West Point, Columbia university’s Madeleine Dobie notes that “The film has been acknowledged as an influence on everyone from the Black Panthers and the Red Army Faction to the military juntas of the Southern Cone. It may, however, have had the greatest impact in the United States, where it has appealed both to scholars of colonial and postcolonial history such as myself, and to members of the military and defense community.” Khalil spoke with Professor Dobie about why this film has withstood the test of time

Leïla Slimani ‘s latest novel, The Perfect Nanny has been a huge hit in France, winning the Prix Goncourt and making her one of the most celebrated writers in the world. We speak with Leïla Slimani about her novel and her dual status in France as both Moroccan and French. Later in the program, we remember Broadcast Media Pioneer, Arab-American activist and long-time host of the “Middle East in Focus” radio program on KPFK in Los Angeles, the great Don Bustany, who passed away last week in Santa Barbara at the age of 89.

Hanin Zoabi is Palestinian a member of the Israeli Kenesset (parliament). She is known for her vocal criticism of Israel and its policies against Palestinians. In 2010, Zoabi participated in the Gaza flotilla. Zoabi was arrested and held by Israeli authorities and faced an aggressive wave of attacks for her participation in the Flotilla. Israeli politicians called for her disqualification from her role as an MP and for stripping her Israeli citizenship and she received death threats. None of that deterred her from her activism and continuing to challenge the Israeli political establishment. Vomena’s Mira Nabulsi sat down with Hanian Zoabi, and spoke with her about what it means to be be a Palestinian in the Israeli kenesset as well as the ongoing occupation of Palestine and the Israeli political culture that normalizes it. A Palestinian actor learns there’s more to English girls than pure sex appeal. A Pakistani-born terror suspect figures out what’s wrong with his first novel. A British youth suspects all is not what it seems with his object of desire. A New Yorker asks his girlfriend for a sexual favor at the worst possible time. The latest Bay Area Golden Production’s play, Love, Bombs & Apples is the comic tale of four men, each from different parts of the globe, all experiencing a moment of revelation. Khalil Bendib spoke with the play’s screen writer Hassan Abdulrazzak, the play’s actor Asif Khan, and Golden Thread productions’ Director of Marketing & New Plays Evren Odcikin

April 24th marks the centennial of the 1915 Armenian Genocide, when the Ottoman Empire began carrying out a systematic plan to annihilate its Armenian population. As a result, between 1 million and 1.5 million people were killed or died of starvation. This week, to mark the 100th anniversary of this tragic event, we bring back a 2006 conversation Beshara Doumani had with Dr. Stephan Astourian, about the historical circumstances that led to the genocide. Beshara Doumani is a Professor of Modern Middle East History and Director of the Middle East Studies at Brown University. Dr. Stephan Astourian is the Executive Director of the Armenian Studies Program and associate adjunct Professor of History at UC Berkeley. Dr. Hatim Kanaaneh: The Life of a Palestinian Doctor For the past 35 years, Dr. Hatim Kanaaneh has provided healthcare to his fellow Palestinians in the Galilee. In 1981, he set up The Galilee Society, an NGO working for equitable health, environmental and socio-economic conditions for the Palestinian citizens of Israel. In 2008, he published his first book, a work of non-fiction, about his life as a Palestinian doctor in his memoir, A Doctor in Galilee: The Life and Struggle of a Palestinian in Israel. On this program, we speak with Dr. Kanaaneh about his recently published book, “Chief Complaint: A Country Doctor’s Tales of Life in Galilee,” which provides a unique look at the Palestinian struggle in historic Palestine through a series of fictional short stories based on his experience and the experience of patients he treated in Galilee. In a light-hearted and entertaining way, this book explores the changing, precarious, and ever-shrinking world of Palestinians living in Israel

Alia Malek's new book, The Home That Was Our Country: A Memoir of Syria, covers modern Syria, from the last of the Ottoman days to the present. Malek provides a rich history of the country by weaving the lives of her family members with the geopolitical and economic history of Syria Alia Malek is a journalist, and author. She is the author Amreeka: US History Retold Through Arab-American Lives and the editor of Patriot Acts: Narratives of Post-9/11 Injustice.

On Friday, March 30, more than 30,000 Palestinians gathered at the border of Gaza and Israel to commemorate the 1976 killing of six Palestinian citizens of Israel protesting the theft of their land, which became known as the Palestinian Land Day. On the first day of what the organizers call “The Great March of Return,” Israeli military forces opened fire into the peaceful demonstration, killing at least 17 people and injuring more than 750. The Israeli occupation forces boasted on their Twitter account that they “know where every bullet landed” during the massacre. They tweet was later deleted. Organizers of the Great Return March note that the objective of the march is to demand the implementation of the United Nations Resolutions 194 allowing for Palestinian refugees to return to their original towns and villages that are part of now Israel. The March was part of a 6-weeks event that will culminate in the commemoration of 70th anniversary of the Palestinian Nakba or Catastrophe. That’s the term Palestinians use to describe the events leading to creation of the State of Israel and displacement of more than 750,000 Palestinians now refugees in the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, surrounding Arab countries and around the world. We’ll go to Gaza to speak with Mohamad Abdulwahab Abu Hashem a legal researcher with the Palestinian Center for Human Rights and a human rights and criminology lecturer at Al Azhar University in Gaza, and Rawan Yaghi, a writer based in Gaza We’ll also remember renowned palestinian singer, songwriter, and composer Rim Banna, who passed away in her hometown of Nazareth on March 24th after a long battle with cancer.

A conversation with Professor Ella Shohat about her latest book On the Arab-Jew, Palestine, and Other Displacements. This book gathers together some of her most influential political essays, interviews, speeches, testimonies, and memoirs for the first time and we have a chance today to share this exceptional work with you, but you need to move fast, since we have only limited number of copies!

On January 20, Turkey launched so-called Operation Olive Branch in the northern Syrian enclave of Afrin. Turkish ground troops crossed the border into Syria alongside thousands of Turkey-backed Syrian rebels. The Turkish government has stated that its goal is to root out an armed militia called the People's Protection Units (YPG), which it views as a threat to its security. Turkey sees the YPG as an extension of the banned Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which has struggled for the rights of the Kurdish people in Turkey for more than three decades. After two months of fighting, on March 18, Turkey announced the city of Afrin has been taken, and Turkish president Erdogan suggested that the current military campaign could be extended extend to other Kurdish-held borders areas east of Afrin.Vomena’s Producer Shahram Aghamir spoke with Dr. Cengiz Gunes who is an associate lecturer at the Open University in the UK about the Turkish invasion of Afrin, an enclave in North Western Syria

This week, we speak with world renowned dancer and choreographer Shahrokh Mosh-kin Ghalam about his new performance of Love Stories of Shahnameh, playing on March 18th, at the Montgomery Theater in San Jose. But First, On saturday, March 10, we lost prominent and celebrated anthropologist and a dear friend of our program, UC Berkeley Professor Saba Mahmood. This week, we celebrate her life and pay tribute to her everlasting legacy by airing one of her last lectures, given at Bogazici University in 2015.

The plight of refugees in Libya

Is the Yemen war taking a new turn with the recent clashes in the south? ]

VOMENA JANUARY 19, 2018 by VOMENA Team at KPFA

'Bread, jobs and freedom': A conversation with Arang Keshavarzian about the street protests in Iran by VOMENA Team at KPFA

An interview with Melody and Safoura Safavi about their band Abjeez by VOMENA Team at KPFA

Nov 17th: The Political Crisis in Lebanon & ReOrient 2017 Festival of Short Plays by VOMENA Team at KPFA

Nov 10th: Women's Rights in Tunisia and remembering Moroccan revolutionary Ben Barka by VOMENA Team at KPFA

Vomena Program Nov 3rd 2017: 100 years after Balfour by VOMENA Team at KPFA

Vomena Oct 27th 2017 by VOMENA Team at KPFA

The Middle East and North Africa are susceptible to some of the more severe consequences of climate change including extreme weather patterns, heat waves, extensive drought and rising sea levels, and, Climate change could make previously habitable sections of North Africa and the Middle East that were uninhabitable. Meanwhile,, most of the conversation and coverage of climate change and other factors which have exacerbated living conditions for tens of millions of people is often depicted as a “ global security” issue for the west So we have decided to start a new series looking at the intersections of climate change, war, politics, oil driven economies, and how the overlays of these factors impact the region’s ecosystems, human health, agriculture, and fisheries, and other aspects of people’s livelihood. We will also bring you the voices of environmental justice activists, journalists, authors who are working to save their communities. This week we speak with Palestinian environmental researcher and activist Muna Dajani the impacts of climate change in the MENA region and underlying reasons for the water crisis in Palestine! Guest: Muna Dajani is a policy member of Al-Shabaka: The Palestinian Policy Network, and a Palestinian environmental researcher and activist based in Jerusalem.. She is currently a PhD student at the London School of Economics (LSE) at the department of Geography and Environment. Her research aims to identify the link between identity, resilience and farming under the military occupation, where farming acquires political subjectivity as a form of cultural resistance. Her research interests are environmental politics, community-led resource management, and social impacts of climate change.

Vomena Oct 13th 2017: Remembering Edward Said, and the Arab Film Festival by VOMENA Team at KPFA

Oct 6tth 2017: Kurdistan referendum ( part 2) by VOMENA Team at KPFA

Vomena 9/29/17 : Kurdish referendum with Dr. Firat Bozcali by VOMENA Team at KPFA

Vomena Sept 8th 2017: Dr. Nahid Siamdoust on the politics of music in Iran- Part 2 by VOMENA Team at KPFA

Vomena Sept 1st 2017: Remembering Henri Alleg by VOMENA Team at KPFA

August 25th, 2017: Dr. Nahid Siamdoust on the politics of music in Iran by VOMENA Team at KPFA

We speak with San Francisco State University Professor Dr. Rabab Abdulhadi about the attacks by Zionist groups and the University administration against her personally and against student groups speaking up for Palestinian rights on the campus Rabab Abdulhadi is the Director of the Arab Muslim and Ethnicities Diasporas Studies Program at San Francisco State University. This week, we mark the 9th anniversary of the death of the celebrated Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish. He passed away on August 9th on August 9th 2008. NYU professor Sinan Antoon will some Mahmoud Darwish’s poem’s he translated.

Vomena August 11th: 1953 coup in Iran: An interview with Ervand Abrahamian by VOMENA Team at KPFA

July 28th, 2017: Israel and South Africa: The Many Faces of Apartheid: an interview with Ilan Pappe by VOMENA Team at KPFA

Gaza has been under siege for nearly 10 years now. In the year 2012, The United Nations declared the Gaza strip will not have the resources for human survival by the year 2020, but recently Robert Piper, the UN Coordinator for Humanitarian Aid and Development Activities, in the Occupied Palestinian Territories describe Gaza as currently “unliveable' land for its 1,8 million inhabitants. To understand the Conditions in Gaza and the political context surrounding the deteriorating humanitarian situation, Vomena’s Mira Nabulis speaks with Jehad Abu Salim,a Palestinian from Gaza, and a doctoral student in history at New York University Later in the program, we speak with British-Palestinian fiction author Selma Dabbagh about her novel, Out of It, which focuses on the internal dynamics of a family in Gaza during wartime, as well as on the divisions within Palestinian society.

This week, we continue our conversation with Adel Iskander, Professor of Global communications at Simon Fraser university, about the rise, history of the Al Jazeera network and future following the feud between Saudi Arabia, its allies and Qatar. Later in the program, we pay tribute to prominent media scholar Professor Jack Shaheen, who passed away on July 9. Professor Shaheen’s seminal work “Reel Bad Arabs: How Hollywood Vilifies a People” tells the long history of vilification of Arab American and and Muslims on the silver screen.

Last month Saudi Arabia and its allies, Bahrain, The United Arab Emirates, and Egypt cut off all diplomatic and economic ties with Qatar, and imposed a land and air blockade because of Qatar’s alleged support for "terrorism" Soon after, they turned the screws on Qatar by giving it 10 days to comply to a list of 13 demands. According to news reports, the list of demands included a dictate to shut down Al Jazeera Network and all media outlets funded by Qatar directly or indirectly like Arabi21, Middle East Eye, Al Araby Al jadeed, ( the new arab) and Rassd. Malihe Spoke with Adel Iskandar, an Assistant Professor of Global Communications at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver about Aljazeera and its operation for the past 20 years, and what’s in store for the network, as well as an overview of the conflict between between the Saudi led block and Qatar! Adel Iskandar is an Assistant Professor of Global Communications at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, Canada. He is the author, co-author, and editor of several works, including "Egypt In Flux: Essays on an Unfinished Revolution" (AUCP/OUP); "Al-Jazeera: The Story of the Network that is Rattling Governments and Redefining Modern Journalism" He is a also co-editor of Jadaliyya.

Humanitarian Crisis In Yemen by VOMENA Team at KPFA

This week, we will talk about the dire humanitarian crisis in Yemen and how one organization is trying to raise awareness about the unfolding human catastrophe in Yemen and to raise funds to help people with food and medicine. We’ll be joined by 3 founding members of Yemen Relief Project, a grassroots, a charitable organization working to provide humanitarian relief while improving the overall quality of life of Yemeni people in underserved communities. But first, we go to London to continue our conversation with Moroccan anthropologist and activist Dr. Miriyam Aouragh about the revival of anti-government protests in the northern Rif region on Morocco's Mediterranean coast. -------------------------------------------------------- Last October, protests erupted in Morocco’s Rif region after a fish vendor named Mouhcine Fikri was crushed to death by a garbage truck compactor as he tried to retrieve fish the police had taken from him, claiming it was caught illegally. The protests have continued through 2017 and have taken up many of the same demands made during the February 20th movement of 2011, the large-scale protest movement during the Arab Spring. Anthropologist Miriyam Aouragh has called the recent protests as the “unfinished business” of Moroccan “Arab Spring” activists, and some on social media have been calling the latest wave of widespread demonstrations the “new February 20,” referring to the movement of 2011. On June 26th, during the the Eid holiday at the end of Ramadan, around 50 protesters were arrested following violent clashes with Moroccan police in the northern city of Al-Hoceima in Morocco’s northern Rif region Khalil Bendib picked up his conversation with Dr Arough where he left it last week about the latest protests in Morocco and what this means for the democracy movement in Morocco For months now, the UN has been warning of a looming human catastrophe in Yemen that could potentially kill hundreds of thousands of people . United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator Stephen O'Brien told the UN Security Council recently that the war, together with the cholera outbreak and widespread hunger in Yemen could lead to the collapse of the country. The brutal US funded Saudi led military attack in Yemen has claimed more than 10,000 lives and has left the country's infrastructure in Ruins. Guests: Safa al-dabyani, Husain Muhsin and Dr walid hamud-ahmed are founding members of the Yemen relief project, a grassroots, charitable organization working to provide humanitarian relief while improving the overall quality of life of Yemeni people in underserved communities. For more information on how you can help with their campaign to deliver food and life-saving supplies to Yemen, please visit Yemen relief project.org. We will post this information on our website @vomena.org

This week, we speak with award-winning Iraqi poet and author Sinan Antoon about his novel “The Corpse Washer”. The book paints a vivid and heartbreaking portrait of Iraq, confronting the war-torn nation’s horrifying recent history. But first, we go to London to speak with Moroccan anthropologist and activist Miriyam Aouragh about the recent revival of anti- government protests in the northern Rif region on Morocco's Mediterranean coast Last October, protests erupted in Morocco’s Rif region after A fish vendor named Mouhcine Fikri was crushed to death by a garbage truck compactor as he tried to retrieve fish the police had taken from him and claimed was caught illegally. The protests have continued through 2017 and have taken up many of the same demands made during the February 20th movement, the large-scale protest movement during the Arab Spring. Anthropologist Miriyam Aouragh has described the recent protests as the “unfinished business” of Moroccan “Arab Spring” activists, and some on social media have been calling the latest wave of widespread demonstrations the “new February 20,” referring to the movement of 2011. Khalil Bendib spoke with Professor Aouragh about the legacy of resistance in Morocco, and specifically in the Rif region, the epicenter of the current protests.

VOMENA MAY 5TH 2017 Sopundcloud by VOMENA Team at KPFA

Samer Abboud on Syria by VOMENA Team at KPFA

The Ankara Massacre ; Racism in Israel by VOMENA Team at KPFA

A Black Saturday in Turkey: An interview with Osman Shahin by VOMENA Team at KPFA

Vomena_Oct 07 2015: Syria and Being homeless in West Oakland by VOMENA Team at KPFA