The Second Coming
DARAJA PRESS PODCASTS
In the remnants of a fractured UK, England is on the brink of collapse where far-right militias rise to power. As Islamophobia and English nationalism ignite brutal violence, 19-year-old Marah Sultana is thrust into a fight for survival. Hunted by forces seeking control, she carries a secret powerful enough to change the course of the war—and the future of the world. In a world in which America’s reign as a superpower has crumbled, its mercenaries now rule in its shadow, In The Second Coming, Tariq Mehmood delivers a searing, unflinching narrative that mirrors his own lifelong struggle for...
info_outline
Night Settles Upon the City
DARAJA PRESS PODCASTS
Written with urgency out of a war-time Beirut, this poetry collection registers the griefs and the heroism of the Lebanese, under siege yet again. Sabbagh lends his lyrical voice here, to give a voice to the voiceless, trying to find some harmonic sense out of catastrophe. This book will compel readers, both Lebanese and those with any kind of human heart. While much of the work was written swiftly, on impulse, and almost like, as one of the poem’s titles has it, a ‘War Diary,’ in verse, this work aims nonetheless to last in its significance and resonance at a time when the world as a...
info_outline
The rise of racism in the UK
DARAJA PRESS PODCASTS
As many of our listeners will know, there have been racist uprsings across England, Scotland, and Northern Ireland. The trigger for the riots was disinformation: that three small girls stabbed to death in Southport on 29 July had been killed by a Muslim asylum seeker. In fact, the suspected killer was born in Cardiff to Rwandan parents and is not Muslim. It is true that rightwing mobilization and counter-mobilizations have been on an unprecedented scale, but has this not been building up over many decades? How is this related to Brexit, which some suggest that it was essentially the result of...
info_outline
Implications of the attempted assassination of Donald Trump
DARAJA PRESS PODCASTS
Kali Akuko, co-founder and co-director of Cooperation Jackson, Mississippi, is back to update us on the implications of the attempted assassination of Donald Trump. His view is that there is a strong likelihood now that Trump will win the elections. The strategy of the right to transform the USA may well be resisted by the Pentagon and others, so we cannot predict what will happen. It is likely that Trump will want to put boots on the ground in Palestine and the Middle East, but he is likely to abandon Ukraine as a lost cause.
info_outline
The 2024 elections and the rise of fascism in the USA
DARAJA PRESS PODCASTS
Kali Akuno, co-founder and co-director of Cooperation Jackson, Mississippi, speaks to Firoze Manji about the way in which the US right has organized and developed a well-thought strategy for taking control and transforming the entire political and social structure, even to the extent of planning changes to the US constitution. He discusses the implications for popular movements in the context of the disarray of the left, which has simply, as he puts it, “not got its shit together”.
info_outline
Background to the historic uprisings in Kenya
DARAJA PRESS PODCASTS
Joe Kobuthi, senior editor of The Elephant (elephant.info), speaks to Firoze Manji on the background to the uprisings in Kenya. To understand why there has been such mobilizations, we have to look at the history of Kenya, the struggle for independence, the loss of real independence, the domination of neoliberal capitalism, and the situation in which the rich have got richer while the majority have been left destitute. What we are seeing is the potential emergence of a second independence movement.
info_outlineWritten with urgency out of a war-time Beirut, this poetry collection registers the griefs and the heroism of the Lebanese, under siege yet again. Sabbagh lends his lyrical voice here, to give a voice to the voiceless, trying to find some harmonic sense out of catastrophe. This book will compel readers, both Lebanese and those with any kind of human heart. While much of the work was written swiftly, on impulse, and almost like, as one of the poem’s titles has it, a ‘War Diary,’ in verse, this work aims nonetheless to last in its significance and resonance at a time when the world as a whole (let alone Lebanon herself) has become so unpredictable, so fickle and so perilous. Night Settles Upon The City aims to be a worthwhile addition to the contemporary literature of war and, more specifically, to the literary representations of the modern Lebanese reality and experience.