Join us for a panel discussion on the brutal repression of political dissenters in Egypt since 2016 and how to build solidarity.
Since 2016, the tyrannical regime of Egyptian president Abdel Fattah el-Sisi has built 30 new prisons to house the estimated 70,000+ political prisoners incarcerated since Sisi seized power in 2013. Egyptian civil society activists and journalists have been especially targeted. But the Sisi regime also routinely imprisons anyone whose speech, writing, or actions express the slightest criticism or deviation from its official line: be they doctors speaking out about deficiencies in Covid-19 treatment, lawyers denouncing corruption, Facebook posters or Tik-Tok influencers. Prisoners of conscience are disappeared, held in solitary confinement without trial, and denied access to food, health care, and family visits. Torture is widespread.
Despite this, Western countries continue to maintain warm relations with Egypt. French president Emmanuel Macron recently presented Sisi with his country’s highest public award, the Légion d’honneur. Trump famously referred to Sisi as his “favorite dictator,” but there is no sign that US-Egyptian relations will be any different under President Biden: just days after Egyptian security forces detained family members of human rights activist and dual US-Egyptian national Mohamed Soltan, the State Department announced it is considering a sale of missiles to Egypt worth $197 million.
Please join us for an urgent discussion about this situation and how to build solidarity with Egyptian activists facing this horrific repression.
Speakers:
Mohamed Soltan, human rights activist and former political prisoner in Egypt. Mohamed was imprisoned in the crackdown on pro-democracy activists following the July 3, 2013 coup d'état. He engaged in a 489-day hunger strike to protest his unjust imprisonment and was released in May 2015. He is a co-founder of the Freedom Initiative, a human rights organization dedicated to the release of political prisoners in the Middle East. @soltan
Sarah Leah Whitson, Executive Director of the organization Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN). Previously, she served as executive director of the Middle East and North Africa Division of Human Rights Watch (2004 – 2020), overseeing the work of the division in 19 countries. She has led dozens of advocacy and investigative missions throughout the region, focusing on issues of armed conflict, accountability, legal reform, migrant workers, and human rights. @sarahleah1
Hussein Baoumi, researcher on Egypt and Libya for Amnesty International. Prior to joining Amnesty International, he was a fellow with the Tahrir Institute for Middle East Policy in Washington, Programs Director at the Egyptian Commission for Rights and Freedoms in Cairo, and an international fellow with Dejusticia, a Bogotá-based organization dedicated to social justice and human rights in Colombia and the Global South. @husseinmagdy16 ----------------------------------------------------
This event is sponsored by Internationalism From Below, the Arab Studies Institute, Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN), the Middle East Research and Information Project (MERIP), and Haymarket Books. While all of our events are freely available, we ask that those who are able make a solidarity donation in support of our important publishing and organizing work.
Watch the live event recording: https://youtu.be/EY-CP1_BURs
Buy books from Haymarket: www.haymarketbooks.org
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More Episodes
Jun 22, 2021
Smoking Lovely: The Remix! w/ Willie Perdomo and more
Willie Perdomo brings a legendary roster of poets to celebrate his radically revised new edition Smoking Lovely: The Remix.
Hosted by José Olivares, Willie Perdomo will be joined in celebration by Ashley August, Cortney Lamar Charleston, Gabriel Cortez, María Fernanda, Roberto Garlos Garcia, Jasminne Mendez, Anacaona Rocio Milagro, Yesenia Montilla, Janel Pineda, Joseph Rios, and Vincent Toro.
Speakers:
Willie Perdomo is the author of The Crazy Bunch and The Essential Hits of Shorty Bon Bon, and Where a Nickel Costs of Dime. Winner of the Foundation for Contemporary Arts Cy Twombly Award for Poetry, the New York City Book Award in Poetry, and the PEN Open Book Award, Perdomo was also a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award, and the Poetry Society of America Norma Farber First Book Award. He is co-editor of the anthology, LatiNext, and his work has appeared in The New York Times Magazine, Poetry, Washington Post, The Best American Poetry 2019, and African Voices.
Also featuring:
José Olivarez
Ashley August
Cortney Lamar Charleston
Gabriel Cortez
María Fernanda
Roberto Carlos Garcia
Jasminne Mendez
Anacaona Rocio Milagro
Yesenia Montilla
Janel Pineda
Joseph Rios
Vincent Toro
Watch the live event recording: https://youtu.be/9HqfrvsOGbw
Buy books from Haymarket: www.haymarketbooks.org
Follow us on Soundcloud: soundcloud.com/haymarketbooks
Jun 23, 2021
Imagining a World Without Borders w/ Harsha Walia, Todd Miller, & John Washington
A discussion about the violent history and present reality of the border industrial complex, and why and how we must dismantle it.
Join acclaimed writer-activists Harsha Walia, Todd Miller, and John Washington for a timely discussion about the violent origins of national borders, the money and ideology behind the border industrial complex, and why a world without borders is urgently necessary for a more just and sustainable future.
Speakers:
Todd Miller has researched and written about border issues for more than 20 years. He resides in Tucson, Arizona, but also has spent many years living and working in Oaxaca, Mexico. His work has appeared in the New York Times, The Guardian, TomDispatch, The Nation, San Francisco Chronicle, In These Times, Guernica, and Al Jazeera English, among other places. Miller is the author of three previous books: Empire of Borders: The Expansion of the U.S. Border Around the World (Verso, 2019), Storming the Wall: Climate Change, Migration, and Homeland Security (City Lights, 2017), which was awarded the 2018 Izzy Award for Excellence in Independent Journalism, and Border Patrol Nation: Dispatches from the Front Lines of Homeland Security (City Lights, 2014). His newest book, published by City Lights in 2021, is Build Bridges, Not Walls: A Journey to a World Without Borders. He’s a contributing editor on border and immigration issues for NACLA Report on the Americas and its column “Border Wars.” Follow him at @memomiller.
Harsha Walia is the award-winning author of Undoing Border Imperialism (2013) and, most recently, Border and Rule. Trained in the law, she is a community organizer and campaigner in migrant justice, anti-capitalist, feminist, and anti-imperialist movements, including No One Is Illegal and Women’s Memorial March Committee.
John Washington is a writer, translator, and activist. His first book, The Dispossessed: A Story of Asylum at the US-Mexico Border and Beyond, about the ancient origins and current legal regime of asylum, traces one persecuted Salvadoran man’s long and arduous search for refuge. A regular contributor to The Nation magazine and The Intercept, Washington writes about immigration and border politics, as well as criminal justice, photography, and literature. Washington is an award winning translator, having translated Óscar Martinez, Anabel Hernández, and Sandra Rodriguez Nieto, among others. A long-term volunteer with No More Deaths, he has been working with activist organizations in Mexico, California, Arizona, and New York for more than a decade. Find him at @jbwashing.
This event is co-sponsored by Haymarket Books and City Lights.
Watch the live event recording: https://youtu.be/1P4q1-HJ7a4
Buy books from Haymarket: www.haymarketbooks.org
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Jun 24, 2021
Twenty-First Century Fascism in the US w/ Richard Seymour & Nikhil Pal Singh
Join Salvage and Haymarket Books for a conversation on fascism in America with Richard Seymour and Nikhil Pal Singh
The January ‘insurrection’ renewed arguments about whether the United States is experiencing a form of incipient fascism. While liberal ‘Resistance’ figures like Timothy Snyder characterize Donald Trump as an ‘authoritarian’ who was always bound to impose emergency dictatorship, the Left’s arguments have been more complicated. The conditions for classical fascism—imperialist crisis, class civil war, socialist revolution, anticolonial struggle, the emergence of new nation-states fighting for a share of the colonial system, and the stresses of capitalist modernization—are absent. Rather, today’s crises pertain to long-running problems of accumulation, the breakdown of neoliberal globalization, the crisis of political hegemony, and the ecological emergency. In the absence of mass fascist parties, paramilitary organizations and civic associations, the new far right has congealed largely through social media.
From Donald Trump’s unique role as a social industry agitator to the upsurge of armed white supremacist militias against Black Lives Matter, the question is whether the reactionary authoritarian mobs coalescing today represent an inchoate fascism, or the dying convulsions of declining sources of conservatism from whiteness to patriarchy.
Building on Richard Seymour’s forthcoming article in Salvage #10, Annie Olaloku-Teriba and Barnaby Raine will host a conversation between Richard and Nikhil Pal Singh on how the left should understand today’s growing far right.
This discussion will be part of the ongoing Salvage Live events series, hosted by Haymarket Books.
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Nikhil Pal Singh is Professor of Social and Cultural Analysis and History at New York University.
Richard Seymour is a writer and a founding editor of Salvage. His most recent book is The Twittering Machine.
Annie Olaloku-Teriba is a writer and podcaster whose research focuses on how neoliberalism has transformed the theory and practice of ‘race.’
Barnaby Raine is writing his PhD at Columbia University on visions of ending capitalism. He teaches at the Brooklyn Institute for Social Research.
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This event is co-sponsored by Haymarket Books and Salvage.
Find out more about Salvage: https://salvage.zone
Watch the live event recording: https://youtu.be/QsZ4nxytAUQ
Buy books from Haymarket: www.haymarketbooks.org
Follow us on Soundcloud: soundcloud.com/haymarketbooks
Jun 25, 2021
Beyond #StopAsianHate: Criminalization, Gender, & Asian Abolition Feminism
Abolitionist feminists discuss how white supremacy and criminalization shape the experiences of gendered racial violence for Asian people.
Violence targeting Asian Americans in an era of global pandemic and economic rupture have raised clashing Asian American responses -- anti-Asian hate crimes legislation, one the one hand, and feminist abolitionist strategies, on the other. For sex workers, criminalized and incarcerated people, and survivors of domestic and sexual violence, the fight to end anti-Asian violence cannot be isolated to conversations of racism alone.
Join us for a panel discussion with (Southeast and East) Asian American abolitionist organizers on how white supremacy and criminalization shape the experiences of gendered racial violence for Asian people. Panelists will focus on the ways that stigma, abandonment, and violence from within Asian American communities can lead to false solutions and increased harm for the most vulnerable among us. In doing so, we will explore what organizing looks like and the interventions that Asian American abolitionist feminists are making in our political work and in our lives.
Speakers:
Yves Tong Nguyen (they/she) is a queer and disabled Viet cultural worker and sex worker whose organizing home is with Survived & Punished NY and Red Canary Song. Yves is concerned with supporting survivors of all forms of violence through organizing and informal community support.
Ny Nourn (she/her) works as a Community Advocate at Advancing Justice - Asian Law Caucus (ALC). She is an organizer with Survived and Punished California, Council Member with the Asian Prisoner Support Committee, and member of the California Coalition for Women Prisoners, supporting the release of incarcerated domestic violence survivors and immigrants facing deportation. Ny is also a formerly incarcerated domestic violence survivor, who after serving 16 years in prison was immediately detained by ICE. After many months of advocacy from community groups across California, Ny walked out of ICE detention. In June of 2020, Ny was granted a full and unconditional pardon preventing her deportation to Cambodia.
Hyejin Shim (she/her) is a queer Korean organizer based in Oakland, California. She is a cofounder of Survived and Punished, and organizes with Survived and Punished CA. She has a decade's experience in local and national anti-violence work, particularly with queer/trans immigrant and refugee survivors of gender violence.
Connie Wun, PhD, (she/her) is co-founder of AAPI Women Lead. She has been an educator, researcher, writer and organizer working on issues of racial and gender violence for nearly 25 years. She is a 2020 Soros Justice Fellow and is currently leading community-driven research projects on state violence, sexual violence, race and gender.
Moderator: Stephanie Cho (she/her) is the Executive Director of Asian Americans Advancing Justice-Atlanta. She has over 20 years of experience in labor and community organizing, strategy planning, and fundraising at the local and national level.
Watch the live event recording: https://youtu.be/qntARpxQ1WQ
Buy books from Haymarket: www.haymarketbooks.org
Follow us on Soundcloud: soundcloud.com/haymarketbooks
Jul 2, 2021
From #StopAsianHate to Cross-Racial Solidarity w/ Rashida Tlaib, Danny Glover, & more
Join Rashida Tlaib, Danny Glover, and Maya Soetoro-Ng for a conversation on how we combat anti-Asian racism.
The national wave of anti-Asian violence and attacks has sparked an upsurge in activism and critical conversations about cross-racial solidarity. Join us as we discuss these issues in tribute to James and Grace Lee Boggs on the anniversary of the death of Vincent Chin.
Speakers:
Danny Glover is an award-winning actor, producer and humanitarian with a performance career that spans more than 30 years. Off-screen, Glover has gained respect for his wide-reaching community activism and philanthropic efforts. Internationally, Glover has served as a Goodwill Ambassador for the United Nations Development Program, focusing on issues of poverty, disease and economic development in Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean. He currently serves as UNICEF Ambassador.
Rashida Tlaib is a well-known progressive warrior and, in her own words, “a mother working for justice for all.” Rashida made history in 2008 by becoming the first Muslim woman to ever serve in the Michigan Legislature. She is beloved by residents for the transformative constituent services she provided, and for successfully fighting the billionaires and corporations that tried to pollute her district. She is currently the Congresswoman for Michigan’s 13th Congressional District, which includes the city of Detroit and many surrounding communities.
Maya Soetoro-Ng serves as a consultant to the Obama Foundation, working closely with their international team to develop programming in the Asia Pacific region. Prior to her work with the Obama Foundation, she was the Director of the Matsunaga Institute for Peace and Conflict Resolution at the University of Hawaii at Mānoa where, in addition to leading outreach and development initiatives, she also taught Leadership for Social Change, History of Peace Movements, Peace Education, and Conflict Management for Educators. Maya has published a number of book contributions as well as a picture book entitled Ladder to the Moon and is currently under contract to write a Young Adult novel entitled Yellowwood. Maya sits on many voluntary boards and is the co-founder of the nonprofit Ceeds of Peace, which creates peacebuilding action plan workshops for educators, families and community leaders and is the co-founder of the Institute for Climate and Peace which advances effective and inclusive processes to build peaceful and climate-conscious futures for the wellbeing of all.
Scott Kurashige (moderator) is professor and chair in the Department of Comparative Race and Ethnic Studies at TCU, president of the James and Grace Lee Boggs Foundation, and past-president of the American Studies Association. He is the author of The Shifting Grounds of Race: Black and Japanese Americans in the Making of Multiethnic Los Angeles and co-wrote the The Next American Revolution with Grace Lee Boggs.
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This event is sponsored by the James and Grace Lee Boggs Foundation and Haymarket Books.
Watch the live event recording: https://youtu.be/pu_N1hfn0j0
Buy books from Haymarket: www.haymarketbooks.org
Follow us on Soundcloud: soundcloud.com/haymarketbooks
Jul 7, 2021
Songlands: John Feffer and Tope Folarin in Conversation
Join John Feffer and Tope Folarin as they discuss Feffer's "Songlands," the stand-alone finale to the Splinterlands trilogy.
2052. The world is a mess. The climate change meltdown has triggered an endless cycle of natural disasters. Nationalist paramilitaries battle against religious extremists. Multinational corporations, with their own security forces, have replaced global institutions as the only real power-brokers. Waves of pandemics have closed borders with such regularity that travel has become mostly virtual. describes humanity 's last shot at solving the world 's problems. Can Aurora assemble a team to reverse the splintering of the international community and avert an even more dystopian future?
Speakers:
John Feffer is a playwright and the author of several books including Aftershock: A Journey into Eastern Europe’s Broken Dreams and the novels Splinterlands, and Frostlands. His articles have appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Nation, Salon, and others. He is the director of Foreign Policy In Focus at the Institute for Policy Studies.
Tope Folarin is a Nigerian-American writer based in Washington DC. He serves as Executive Director of the Institute for Policy Studies, and as the Lannan Visiting Lecturer in Creative Writing at Georgetown University. He has garnered many awards for his writing, including the Caine Prize for African Writing and the Whiting Award for Fiction. He was educated at Morehouse College and the University of Oxford, where he earned two Masters degrees as a Rhodes Scholar. His debut novel, A Particular Kind of Black Man, was published by Simon & Schuster.
Order a copy of
Songlands: https://www.haymarketbooks.org/books/1654-songlands
Watch the live event recording: https://youtu.be/0G3VcvWfzeU
Buy books from Haymarket: www.haymarketbooks.org
Follow us on Soundcloud: soundcloud.com/haymarketbooks
