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Podcast: The Queer Arabs

Episode 198 [in English]: This Arab Is Queer

Elias Jahshan is a Palestinian/Lebanese-Australian journalist, writer and editor. He most recently edited the anthology This Arab Is Queer, which features eighteen queer Arab writers (including a good handful of former podcast guests) sharing stories across a variety of locations, experiences, and aesthetic styles. Elias joined us to talk about growing up in Western Sydney, breaking into the journalism field in Australia and England, and the assumptions he encountered while writing for both Arab and LGBTQ centered publications. He also discussed the process of putting this memoir together, the particular care involved in editing personal work, the quandaries involved in potentially translating the book in the future, the beauty of letting people write about whatever they f*cking want, and more. 

You can find This Arab is Queer at your local independent bookstore, possibly library, bookshop.org, or Amazon if you really must.

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Episode 197 [in English]: Women, Life, Freedom

This week we were joined by Iranian-Canadian lawyer, researcher, and writer Aytak Dibavar for an episode focused on the recent uprisings in Iran following Jina (Mahsa) Amini’s murder by “morality” police. Aytak discussed aspects of the movement that have been neglected in mainstream media and discussion, including Jina’s Kurdish identity, its working class roots, and the inclusion of queer voices. We also discuss the historical context of American intervention in Iran and previous protest movements, often absent from Western coverage. We discuss the hesitancy of international leftists in speaking out–whether due to oversimplified ideas of anti-interventionism or concerns of promoting Islamophobia–and the importance of doing so anyway. Finally, Aytak considers what it could look like to build transnational feminist solidarity network based on personal autonomy and ending cisheteropatriarchy across different cultural contexts.

Link to Aytak’s website

Here are some IG accounts Aytak mentioned to follow/share for further updates on the protests:

@1500tasvir
@feminists4jina

Note: Artist of the picture on this episode wishes to remain anonymous.
Song at the beginning and end of episode:  Soroode Azadi

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