Songs for Free Syria and Regional Cross-Border Solidarity
The chapter in “Beyond Molotovs: A Visual Handbook of Anti-Authoritarian Strategies” explores the impact and adaptation of Syrian protest chants…
I have a background in human rights advocacy, journalism, writing, and podcasting. I’m the founder of The Fire These Times, a multimedia project working to uplift internationalist dialogues on human rights, climate change, and visions of bold futures. I hold a PhD in Cultural Analysis from the University of Zurich and I am currently based in Geneva. Read more.
As of 2024, I’ve decided to publish directly on this site as a way of encouraging myself to write more. Here, you’ll find my personal reflections on world events, more personal stuff, as well as The Fire These Times-related themes. I hope you’ll find this instructive. You can bookmark it, or subscribe directly by email.
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Troubled Waters in Conflict: Gaza, Jawlan, Lebanon, the West Bank, and Yemen
The Middle East and North Africa face water challenges exacerbated by climate change, armed conflict, and occupation. A panel discussion…
Compendium: Troubled Waters in Conflict and a Changing Climate
Transboundary Basins Across the Middle East and North Africa.
Anxious in Beirut’: A surreal experience
This piece was initially published on L’Orient Today on 25 July 2023.
“The fall of Putin’s regime could lead to the collapse of Assad and the Iranian regime”
This is an interview I did with Alona Liasheva of ‘Commons’ journal of social criticism, a left-wing Ukrainian media about…
A view of anti-imperialism from the periphery
This piece was initially published on south/south dialogues on 05 July 2023
What if We Cancel the Apocalypse?
How the aesthetic, utopian yet pragmatic movement of Solarpunk reimagines a future without a climate catastrophe
On Ukraine-Syria solidarity and the ‘anti-imperialism of idiots’
How many Leftists are failing those caught in the crossfire of oppressive regimes
anti-social media
I’m really good at Twitter-ing. I’ve been described as hyper-online, I’ve gathered some 31,000+ followers and I have that magic…
Slavery continues in Lebanon
Migrant domestic workers do not need saving. What they do need is for us to end our complicit in their…
The emotional case for postgrowth
The environmental crisis forces us to question the way our societies are built. Within that crisis are multiple crises in…
To “leftist” admirers of Assad’s Syria
Translation of Farouk Mardam-Bey’s article from the French
Solarpunk, Climate Change and the New Thinkable
How Solarpunk can help us think about our future
The Jewish and Arab Questions, and European Fascism
The Jewish and Arab Questions, and European Fascism
Syrian ‘elections’ and scapegoating in Lebanon
This is the constant in Lebanese politics: scapegoating refugees.
The Revolutionizing Nature of the Lebanese Uprising
Another look into the October 2019 uprising in Lebanon, from a published book chapter.
Bisri Valley: Understanding the Wealth of Bisri and its National Discourse
This article is an invitation to explore the links between the movement to stop the Bisri Dam project, a proposed…
Hezbollah’s Resistance™ against resistance
it is useful to separate between Hezbollah’s narrative of being the Resistance™ and what resistance actually is, or, at the…
Memory, violence and fear: Why Lokman Slim’s murder must not be depoliticized
The forcibly disappeared and the murdered in Lebanon are killed twice. First, physically, and second, they are erased. … If…
Black-Palestinian Solidarity: Towards an Intersectionality of Struggles
Book chapter I wrote as part of “Social Justice and Israel/Palestine: Foundational and Contemporary Debates”
The Perfect Day Will Never Come: Restlessness in “A Perfect Day” and “Here Comes the Rain”
This is the third excerpt of the book chapter I wrote as part of the book “The Social Life of…
Decay as Political Metaphor in Ely Dagher’s Waves’ 98 and Mounia Akl’s Submarine
Ely Dagher’s 2015 Waves ’98 and Mounia Akl’s 2016 Submarine, as unique responses to a feeling of despair brought about…
On Collapse, Identity and History: An Interview
A long conversation on identity, trauma, history and the protracted now.
Leftists and anti-authoritarians have a responsibility to vote out Trump
Biden is problematic, but he can be pushed to the left if we intensify our struggles for justice and equality.…
The trans-generational climate crisis
There is something particularly unsettling about being an almost-30 year old in 2020.
resilient: broken
Beirut never healed. It just learned to accept its predicament. Beirut, like our parents, is not resilient. It is broken.
Lebanon’s multiple crises also expose the racist Kafala system
on the structural components behind the racialization and dehumanization of migrant domestic workers in Lebanon
‘Revolution everywhere’: A conversation between Hong Kong and Lebanese protesters
Lausan spoke to Lebanese activist, writer, and scholar Elia J. Ayoub about the ongoing protests, the resonances between our respective…
Stopping the Bisri Dam: From Local to National Contestation
The Lebanese government has decided to go ahead with the construction of a controversial dam in the Bisri Valley ignoring…
Why Fortress Europe and the European Union Can’t Coexist
Elia Ayoub explores a big dilemma facing the EU, involving a desire to dissolve borders within while promoting them without.
Lebanon’s Migrant Domestic Workers: Between the Coronavirus and Slavery
I spoke with Banchi Yimer, founder of Egna Legna who define themselves as “community-based feminist activists working on migrant domestic…
Memes and Collapse: An Alternative View of Lebanon’s October 17 Protests
This piece looks at some of the attempts to address this widespread feeling of inevitable collapse.
Against the Logic of the Guillotine
I spoke with one of the authors of the Crimethinc piece of the same name about the ‘logic of the…
Venezuela and the Right to Narrate
I sat down with Laura Vidal, a Paris-based Venezuelan writer and researcher. Laura recently wrote an essay in Spanish entitled…
The Kafala System is ‘Civilized’ Slavery
We go back to the summer of 2018 when I sat down with Sami, a Beirut-based Ethiopian activist with, Mesewat,…
Hong Kong’s Existential Crisis
This is a conversation with JP, a Hong Kong activist with Lausan, a left-wing and decolonial group based out of…
Lebanon: The Revolution Four Months In
How can an understanding of Lebanese history help us understand the situation? What can we learn from the Lebanese uprising…
The People Without Cinema, by Abounaddara
“They can only testify to the events they experience by exhibiting the indignity inflicted upon them”
Syrian melancholy in Lebanon’s revolution
Syrians in Lebanon have greeted the country’s uprising with a complex blend of joy, envy, melancholy, and fear.
Ghassan Halwani and the reclaiming of Lebanon’s imaginaries
How is the October 17 Revolution catalysing the reclaiming of imaginaries?
The Lebanese Revolution Must Abolish the Kafala System (Part 2)
According to Lebanon’s own intelligence agency, migrant domestic workers are dying at a rate of two per week.
Launch of new book of Syrian citizen journalism
First English-language collection of writing from revolutionary newspaper ‘Enab Baladi’
Launch of new book of Syrian citizen journalism
“Enab Baladi is a unique record of the Syrian people speaking without fear”
The Lebanese revolution must abolish the kafala system
The same system that we are seeking to change is abusing hundreds of thousands of foreign workers.
Lebanon: A Revolution against Sectarianism
In this thorough account of the events of the past month, an on-the-ground participant describes the Lebanese uprising in detail,…
A look at the Lebanon uprising through its chants
The uprising in Lebanon has unleashed a wave of creativity that continues to rock the very foundations of Lebanese politics.