Iran, Cuba and Dismantling US Imperialism (with James Ray)

According to Western media, a deal between Iran and the United States is imminent. Meanwhile, not far away from America’s shores, Cuba continues to be strangled by Washington’s deadly blockade. How are we to resist this blatant imperialism?

In this episode, Aidan Simardone and James Ray discuss the Israel-US relationship, settler colonialism and Cuban resistance to empire. They unpack whether elections can be used to resist imperialism and the role of Islam in liberation.

Topics covered:
• Iran–US relations and diplomacy
• Israel and US foreign policy
• Settler colonialism and resistance
• Cuba under US sanctions
• Anti-imperialism and liberation movements
• Elections and political change
• Islam and revolutionary politics
• Geopolitics of the Middle East and Latin America

If you enjoy long-form political analysis, geopolitics, international relations, anti-imperialist theory, and discussions on global liberation movements, be sure to subscribe and share the episode.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to the Simrdoni Show. I'm your host, Aidan Simmerdoni. According to Western media, a deal between Iran and the United States is very close. It is imminent. But will the deal go forward or will America and Israel sabotage it? Meanwhile, not far away from America's shores, Cuba continues to be strangled by Washington's deadly blockade. So, how are we to resist this blatant imperialism? To explore this and more, I'm joined by James Ray, an organizer, writer, and political commentator. James also publishes daily videos across social media with roughly half a million followers on TikTok. James, welcome to the show.

SPEAKER_01 0:38

Hi, how's it going? Pleasure to be here, man.

SPEAKER_00 0:40

This is exciting. It's really exciting. I'm glad to have you. So um right now it's Sunday, uh, June 14th. Uh, we were told that there was going to be a deal between Iran and the United States. And then lo and behold, a couple hours ago, we have Israel conducting airstrikes in southern Beirut. Do you think a deal is imminent?

SPEAKER_01 1:00

No, no, I don't. Um, it's been an ongoing thing. Yeah, yeah. I mean, like, I've gotten to the point where like I'm not even really recording or reporting on the deals as they're coming up. Uh, because it was like a running gag that I had with my my followers where I'd I'd re I'd report the ceasefire or the ceasefire deal kind of thing going on. And then as soon as I posted that video, I'd have to make a new one um about Israeli violations in some capacity. I I don't think we're really close to a ceasefire because I think the Iranian red lines, which are in my opinion, very understandable and fairly moderate, um, aren't uh really something the Israelis of the United States want to want to budge on. Like Trump doesn't want to give the Iranians the m their own money. Uh like the Israelis don't want to end their invasion in Lebanon because it would be an admission that they're not able to actually, again, fulfill their military objectives on the ground. And I think what we're seeing with the Israelis is pretty much what the US wants, which is using the Israelis as kind of the machine to derail ceasefire negotiations as they're invading Lebanon.

SPEAKER_00 1:56

That's really interesting because I think this also speaks to a larger question. Because again, at the time we're recording, Israel just conducted airstrikes on southern Beirut. Uh, we had all these reports, which I think is nonsense of oh, Trump is so angry at Netanyahu for doing this. And this is a question I actually frequently ask my guests. It's like, what how do you see the relationship between the United States and Israel? Because some people see Israel as merely a colony, a proxy of the United States. Others go as far as to completely reverse the relationship, saying that U.S. foreign policy is controlled by Israel. So I'm curious how you see things.

SPEAKER_01 2:38

Yeah, yeah. I mean, like the the running joke that I tell people, at least where I organize and when I'm having these discussions, is that I think it's genuinely impossible for a colony the size of New Jersey that is pretty much completely militarily and economically dependent on an imperial power to be guiding or the leading partner in a relationship with said imperial power, right? Um, I think on a broader note, I think that you oftentimes on the left especially find uh people oscillating between sort of an aircraft carrier thesis, that like the Israelis are a sort of uh military outpost that are advancing US interests, and a sort of like ZOG, like Zionist-occupied government thesis, which is that like the the the Israelis are really pulling all the strings behind the show, and that we're the subservient government. I think that I I don't agree with ZOG fundamentally, but I think the aircraft carrier thesis, as it was outlaid at the time it was in, um, is maybe a little bit in need of modification. Um, there's been some good academic pieces, I can't really remember any this time, uh, because I read them a year ago. Um, that really talked about how like the Israeli relationship with the US has been modified by the fact that the Israelis over the years have been able to like build their own constituent bases of like reactionary support bases within like congressional districts across the country. Um, thinking of like Christian evangelicals, for example. Um you know, um, in a lesser degree, but in some states, this is more of a constituency, like like Jewish Zionists as well. Um, you have also like a major part of the US military and political establishment are all very much aligned with like Israel in terms of like uh both economic reasons and military RD, right? Um the Israelis constitute a very good investment for the US military industrial complex. Like most of our arms shipments and supplies. When we're doing like arms deals, quote unquote, like 90% of that goes back to US contractors, right? US military industrial complex. Like we're like we float a good amount of profits from companies like Boeing, Raytheon others, like off of the Israeli colony, right? So it's a good, it's a good investment for us in a lot of ways, but it's also an investment that has its own basis within the US that can apply pressure with the aid of a lobby that has a an un pretty much unlimited budget to be able to dump money into races they think are strategically viable. So I think that like looking at the US relationship, I find myself like really more aligned with like the traditional aircraft carrier thesis, right? The Israelis are advancing US interests on the ground because uh functionally that's what they're doing, right? When they're able to destroy all potential opposition to US and Israeli hegemony in the region, we benefit fundamentally because the US doesn't have to be invincible, it just has to be less beat up than everybody else. Like that's really what it is in the US and in it, the way that its imperial model works is that it is really trying hard to manage a global capital system for the benefit of a transnationalist group of capitalists, right? And it can do that uh by using proxies like the Israelis and others to act as force multipliers to bolster US military hegemony around the world, right? To keep markets open functionally. There's a good book on this called uh outsourcing empire.

SPEAKER_00 5:17

Oh, interesting.

SPEAKER_01 5:18

It talks kind of more in depth about this. But when you look at like that, I think that to me is how I view that is that like we are the leading partner, but like the Israelis can exert some outsized domestic influence in like the same way that like the Cuban lobby can, right?

SPEAKER_00 5:33

Um, except the example the example I've used before is also like looking at more historical examples, like French Algeria, where the French settlers there started influencing France's um like domestic politics, and you said create constituencies like the rise of the far right in France being tied to the war in Algeria and French settlers there trying to influence that. But yeah, please continue.

SPEAKER_01 5:57

Yeah. Yeah, no, I absolutely agree. I mean, and I think that creates a complex system, but I think also the US relationship with the Israelis is transforming as well. Um last week I had the ability to I I asked uh Nora Erakat, who's uh like a Palestinian human rights scholar, um, brilliant, brilliant person. She actually was on the same Cuba trip I was on. Um, she I asked her about this because I was curious what she thought about it, like how the US is like transforming and a lot of its policies, like how we interact with and integrate with the Israeli military and intelligence services. And she proposed an interesting thought that I've been kind of sitting on and thinking about over the week, which is that the US in a lot of ways has stopped treating the Israelis like a sort of outpost that it needs to financially support and more of a regional hegemon. Oh interesting that it can kind of interact with in a way that like benefits both parties in the same way that like an outpost kind of aircraft carrier thesis would. But the relationship is different because we're not necessarily treating them as if they're like this like junior kid on the block. It's like, oh, this is actually the biggest military force in the region and we need to organize with them.

SPEAKER_00 6:59

It's almost like it's grown. Yeah, it's a colony that's also started to have so much money that's been pouring in, that's developed a certain degree of independence. And again, I don't want to overstate that because of course everything Israel's doing now could be stopped the second the United States pulls all that money. Yeah, that's a very interesting thing. Yeah, one by the and that's why I found so ridiculous about today. Oh, these reports, Donald Trump is so furious at Netanyahu for striking southern Beirut. And yeah, I'm straight. Yeah, he's and you know, we heard the same thing with Biden, you know, these Axios reports. Uh, I've actually muted Axios at this point on Twitter because it's all nonsense.

SPEAKER_01 7:36

Yeah, what a ball from grace. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 7:38

I know, I know. Well, it's you know, it's it's here we are, right? You know, and and I think like the way I definitely see it that way. And I think like it is fundamentally still a colonial relationship, but I've also seen and brought this up with uh Dimitri Laseris and also with uh Shamin Narwani to my previous guests, because I think this is a question I'm always pondering what the relationship is. But you know, we do see also examples where colonies kind of overexert and actually start to influence the metropole. So for instance, I think when you look at the Algerian war, uh that went actually on like no kidding, ethically, morally wrong, but also strategically could have ended a lot quicker if there weren't these pressures from the French settlers. We look at, for instance, how India as a colony of Britain actually ended up growing to such size that it started to influence Westminster politics. And I think this is also one of the weird contradictions of imperialism, especially when military spending gets outsourced to private parties, is there is this strategic Machiavellian perspective of, okay, you know, attack this area, put more resources here, pull out of this area, in a very strategic perspective. And sometimes that actually even includes abandoning colonies. And colonies do sometimes get abandoned if they're not profitable for capitalist imperialism. But then the military industrial complex, as well as some interests, including Israel, but mainly the military industrial complex just keeps pushing for more war. I think even at times when, from a strategic perspective, it doesn't benefit the United States. I want your thoughts on that.

SPEAKER_01 9:21

Yeah, no, I agree. I mean, I think that it doesn't really, I mean, it ultimately all of this does benefit U.S. interests, right? Again, it maintains our military edge and hegemony in a region that is like vitally important, both in terms of trade and on uh petrochemicals. Um, like even beyond oil, like fertilizer exports, aluminum, things like this are all very critical in the region. Helium as well, yeah. And it's amazing actually when the strait was closed, how many things I was like reading Financial Times and other groups and like trying to like look through all the things that were getting like into shortage like positions. And I was like, oh, it's like everything actually. Um I didn't know aluminum was gonna be a shortage because of like urea uh out of uh like a byproduct of petrochemical production being used for that. Um wild. Um but yeah, I mean I I think that like for the United States, um I think there's a risk of like political and economic really political only isolation by continually defending the Israeli colony. But I think that like economically, militarily, it's very difficult for forces to functionally stand against us in a global capacity. Like the Iranians didn't like the Iranians, the Yemenis, those in like southern Lebanon are doing a lot of work to oppose the US very directly uh militarily. And I would argue we're doing a very good job. Um, but it's like it's one of those things where on a global stage, it's difficult to imagine, I think for many people, a world without US hegemony because the US has so firmly planted itself within a capitalist order that it maintains as like the mid basically the manager of this entire order. Um so it's like we overextend ourselves with the Israelis a little bit. I think we're like on a functional like logistics scale, we overextend ourselves. Like if you look at like military production of US hardware, um, we are drastically overextending in the region because of our defense of the Israelis. Like um like Financial Times in the first like 48 hours of um the first like 48 hours of the of the war that we fucking started, uh they they noted that like there were some materials that we had expended so much of that it would take more than a year to replace them. Exactly. And that's just the first two days. We're like we're looking at critical stockpile shortages across the board, which you know I'm not mad about. Um, but like, you know, warhawks and and really China hawks are incredibly worried about because like we don't have the resources to materially defend whatever we would defend in that region. Um, and we're also showing that the US military is, in my opinion, an over-technological technologically over dependent and I think not entirely functional and logistically feasible military body in terms of international affairs. Like we spent a lot of time after the Soviets collapsed, essentially trying to argue instead of defunding our military practices and giving the sort of peace dividend, that we would instead be able to create a military that can functionally fight on two fronts at once, right? That's what we see with like Iraq and Afghanistan. But we're seeing now that like our military industrial complex has become increasingly bloated, increasingly uh over bureaucratized, and increasingly like unable to produce sizable amounts of hardware. It's not the same thing as like, you know, we can produce a million artillery shells in some fucking factory in World War II. It's like we have to spend like billions of dollars to create tomahawk missiles that take like half a year to make.

SPEAKER_00 12:21

I know. And some of the stuff is also getting blown up. Like I saw like there is these radar sys ads. Yeah, I mean, Iran's using these $20,000 drones to blow up billion-dollar radar systems. It's really something and I think this really does speak to things because like I think on the one hand, it's not like things are being strategically done perfectly. I think they're like, you know, for instance, they in this kind of contradiction I speak to, like, I do think the military-industrial complex and to a certain extent Israel does not like it doesn't dictate policy, but definitely pushes policy in a way that from even just a strategic perspective, like can overextend the United States. But I'm definitely with you. Like, I don't think, for instance, the United States is just a tool of Israel. And I think actually, not only is this wrong, but I think it's this big move to like settler innocence. Like, oh, we would be dictating a perfect foreign policy if it weren't for Israel influencing us. The United States, yeah, yeah, right. Yeah, exactly. Like, as if as if you know the United States wasn't going around and I mean, even look at before the creation of Israel, like like I think there's also this romanticization of like pre-World War II foreign policy. But then look at what the United States was doing in Haiti in the 19s, uh it throughout uh the Americas, yeah, the Philippines, right? And like the way I see it is, you know, like like first of all, America, but not only America, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, these settler colonies, they're genocidal states, just like Israel. They're just larger Israels. The United States started off as a colony and extended its genocide of indigenous people all the way to the West Coast. And then when it reached that, it just kept going. It went to Hawaii and it went to and eventually stopped at the Philippines. And so I think also, like, what I'm not a big fan of, like, is these this, you know, oh, America's just a stooge of like it's just a tool of Israel. And I think that just kind of is trying to make America seem more innocent when really they are partners in settler colonialism.

SPEAKER_01 14:19

No, I agree. I mean, and that's really there was a really good uh podcast episode I listened to when I was in college. I think it was like RevLEF Radio, I think early history, where they said that American and excellent this idea of like American excellence and innocence um play a really interesting, like sword and shield sort of role in like defending our US foreign policy blunders or decision making. Um, and this idea that we're otherwise innocent, but we sometimes just get dragged into bad things is a really pervasive thought in this even progressive circles. So, like, oh, the US government's not like wholly evil, like we just, you know, a couple of bad actors dragged us into Iraq. And it's like, I don't know, guys. Like, and this goes all the way, you know, all the way back to like the foundations of the you the United States project, right? It's we've always been the bad guy. Like, I mean, this is like this has never not been the case. And I agree with you. I think that like when when we look at like a Zionist occupied government, like Zog theory, that it's really pervasive in a lot of spaces now, it really gives a lot of people an easy out to not have to reconcile with the reality that our own government, our own system is fundamentally the same as the Israelis in many ways, and is also doing horrific stuff on a scale that the Israelis honestly could not even functionally do uh without us. Like a lot of what the Israelis are able to do, they're doing with our standoff munitions, they're doing with our political and military support. Like the reason they're not isolated like the Rhodesians or like the South Africans, which even we didn't really isolate um either, because we use the Israelis as like an intermarket, like an interlocutor um and like continued shipping arms and and gaving support to like forces fighting the you know uh forces like the MPLA and Angola. Like we we just aren't, you know, we're not doing anything with that. Um and it's easy to say that like, oh, it's like Netanyahu behind the scenes, like pulling the strings. Oh gosh, yeah. Like that's just not the case. Like we're we're making these decisions very consciously, very deliberately, because it fundamentally benefits US empire. Uh, and that's something I think a lot of Americans get really hesitant around. It's like it makes everything uncomfortable.

SPEAKER_00 16:18

It's the 21st century version of I was just following orders, is the version of, oh, I was just fooled by Israel, or even the stuff like, you know, you had like Hunter Biden saying, oh, his dad was like uh being blackmailed. First of all, okay, well, that's also not good. Like, what kind of dirt do you have on the president of the United States? But also, like, oh what, like, I don't know, like either you did something really horrible, in which case that means you're a bad person, anyways, or like, I don't know, you had like a sex scandal or something, and therefore you had to go and genocide like a bunch of kids. Like, this is just so ridiculous. And I think the Night States, and I think what we're seeing is because I think I mentioned like this idea of like colonies getting abandoned. I definitely could actually see a future where the United States, not for moral or ethical reasons, but for strategic reasons, might decide to eventually like let go of Israel. But I think there are increasing moves in doing so to be like, oh, we don't have any blood on our hands. We were tricked, you know, and that's just not the case. Um, I do want to move on to something else related to this, though. So, you know, you and I are both on the political left. And I'll put it in that uh way. I guess we're both Marxists. I'll just be transparent. We have a whole people across the political spectrum, though, listening to this podcast. But I think what's interesting is for those of us on the left, I guess what is our role in supporting resistance against Western imperialism in the Middle East and West Asia? Uh, and tied to this is a question uh that goes as follows. I've seen these, I do find these arguments goofy, but I'm just gonna present it anyways. I've seen these things like, oh, we don't like, you know, it might be some article in Jacobin or something like that saying, oh, we're of course against Western imperialism, but we also, by the way, oppose like what happened on October 7th. Yeah, always the but. And what people like this would argue is okay, as leftists, for instance, well, you know, resistance, not all resistance groups in Gaza are Marxists. Uh, the Islamic Republic, for instance, has banned like socialist and communist parties. So, how do you respond to these kinds of things? I I have my own response to it, but I want to hear from you.

SPEAKER_01 18:22

I mean, I guess like my my can my like academic response is like primary and secondary contradictions, right? It's like what what is realistically the biggest force of dismemberment and dis and like dismantling of systems and problems in the region? It's the Israeli colony and it's US imperialism, right? First and foremost, like every government that you every government or entity that you could functionally take an issue with is first and foremost having to do, or not having to do, but like is realistically doing a lot of the things they're doing as a response to trying to insulate themselves from US imperial act and and in Israeli colonial action, right? Um there's an interesting argument to be made for those that I think want to more openly criticize certain governments, that when you are under siege, when you are under a sort of um imperialist siege, as some of these governments are, uh it freezes your institutions and social systems in place to the point in which like there isn't the ability to move because to do so creates a real threat that the entire system could collapse, right? So for me, it's like if you really do have critiques of these systems, which I'm sure a lot of us do on the left, you have critiques of some of these parties and factions, then like what you should be arguing against, especially if someone is not on the ground there, is uh US imperialism and Israeli colonialism because you're not going to solve any of the problems you claim to care about until that is solved. Like first and foremost, like the primary contradictions here are that of imperialism and colonialism. Secondary stuff will inevitably be fleshed out upon the end of those things being real problems for the region. Um but I've also, I mean, this is a thing. I I wrote a piece in Monday's uh shortly after October 7th called Do You Condemn Hamas, basically arguing that like it's an irrelevant question that's just used as like kind of a like an I guess a non-sequitur to like just bully people who support Palestine.

SPEAKER_00 20:04

Do you do you condemn the Warsaw ghetto uprising? Do you condemn Nat Turner, right?

SPEAKER_01 20:09

Yeah, and it's like for me, I'm like, you know, you see it, like I study history, right? I I came like I I've I've come to being the the Marxist that I am mostly through historical, like read it, like historical research, right? And and like for me, it's like the idea of like do you condemn a resistance faction that is doing everything it can to stave off its own annihilation is an insane question to ask a person. Um it's like do you condemn the IRA? Do you condemn the uh I mean you're talking about the French resistance, you know, the the uh the another French resistance got up.

SPEAKER_00 20:40

Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.

SPEAKER_01 20:42

Like, do you yeah, or do you condemn like you know, um the FLN in Algeria, right? Uh do you condemn the ANC?

SPEAKER_00 20:49

Like all of these groups that you can come up to, it's like like no, like why the hell it's funny because these things get always whitewashed, but you know, there's there's all but in those moments in history, like you know, for instance, people liberals especially like to see uh Mandela as this very peaceful dude and all this, but like uh like there were controversial things that ANC did. Like the ANC actually in the years before, uh so I think people should know like before the ANC, this is being the African National Congress that ended up getting rid of uh South African apartheid led by Mendela and others, like years before the apartheid came to an end, there was an ANC attack actually against a uh white church, and there was like 19 white settlers who were slayed there. So imagine using that to then be like, oh, well, you know, oh, these poor whites are under attack, or saying, you know, do you condemn the ANC? Oh, you don't like apartheid? Well, do you condemn the ANC and what they did? And yeah, then we look back on history and then all these people end up looking like the good s good guys, the ANC, the uh the the those who resisted Nazi occupation, etc. So yeah, I think it's a I think it's an absurd question. Excuse me. And I think what's um in the the way I always say it is like, what was the politics of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising? I don't know. I don't know. Even if they're conservative, like, you know, I don't know. Some of them were Zionists.

SPEAKER_01 22:11

Like, yeah, like genuinely.

SPEAKER_00 22:15

Yeah. But they were trying to also stop a literal genocide. So, like, for me, I'm like, I don't really care what their what their politics was. You know, they were trying to stop a genocide against them and any group that is trying to stop a genocide, their own annihilation, I will, you know, support and be like, yeah, like that's the questions of their tactics or their ideology. And I think actually, James, like, you know, from even like a Marxist materialist perspective, that actually makes more sense, right? That rather than holding up ideals and saying, well, you should follow this set of politics, looking at the material conditions and resisting the contradictions of imperialism is foremost what is important. So yeah.

SPEAKER_01 22:52

And it's like, I'm sorry that not everyone in Casa has read fucking capital uh for women upon the concentration camp like I have. Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 22:58

I know. I know. No, no, it's it's it's it's it's it's absurd. It's absurd. So um so I do want to move over now to the Western Hemisphere, uh, focusing on Cuba, because Cuba's been blockaded by the United States since the 1960s and is now facing further restrictions, of course. Uh, a blockade that is really starving the Cuban people, leading to power outages, including those at hospitals where people have just died on the spot because there is no electricity. You recently went to Cuba. I I want to know what that was like uh broadly.

SPEAKER_01 23:36

Oh, I mean, it was um both amazing and disheartening at the same time. Um, I have a I've said this in other uh interviews. I have a weird tendency of finding myself traveling to places that have faced like horrific brutality at the hands of US imperialism. Um, you know, years ago it was Bosnia, now it's uh Cuba. And each time I leave, kind of having to reconcile as a US citizen how this place that's maybe a thousand, a couple thousand miles away, in the case of Cuba, like 90 miles away, um, suffering so genuinely horrifically at the hands of a government that it seemingly has no actual want of conflict with. Um and this is this is the interesting thing about uh Cuba-US relations. I don't think people realize that before the Cuban government was um before the start of sanctions, uh, like there really was a lot of inner trade between the US and the Cubans, uh primarily in terms of sugar, but in other things as well, and tourism and things like this. Now, thank God the revolution uh took hold and did what it did because Cuba was basically like a massive like just island for Europeans and and Americans to go and just like terrorize the locals, um, which is a whole dynamic that existed under under Batista. But nonetheless, there were these these deep-rooted like cultural and historical connections and traditions. And you really see, I think, uh going there the result of like a US government that instead of seeing that for what it was and accepting that maybe the Cubans had a different vision for what their island could look like, they could still amicably work alongside the United States and South Ashans, which the Cuban government does that already. Um they they they work alongside the United States, some of the people don't know, they work alongside the United States and like uh drug operations in the Caribbean, and for example. Um but uh like they core they coordinate with each other in in real military ways. It's very interesting given the whole dynamic. But instead of like looking at that and saying, okay, we can probably work with that, it's it's it's Cuba. It's like it's it's it's inconsequential in a lot of ways to US foreign policy. Uh, we decided to engage in a decades-long siege against a people whose only real crime was rising up against a military junta that we supported. Um, and like that is I don't know, it's eye-opening on the ground to see the amount of devastation that can result from not like bombardment, but just like just a siege, right? Just cutting off all of the life support to a people, right? And you know, you like go around and it looks the same as like Sarajevo, um, like in a lot of in some ways.

SPEAKER_00 25:58

And let's talk about this further because you know, one of these absurd arguments I hear is oh, the United States is blockading Cuba, there's these sanctions against Cuba. Why isn't Cuba just go ahead and trade with other country, other countries, James?

SPEAKER_01 26:11

Oh, and because all the sanctions are extraterritorial. I like this this is like the the the demon of US sanctions, is that the US not only sanctions Cuba, it sanctions anyone who does commerce with them in any significant capacity along the lines of most of their things. Like it's a real problem. Even like medical aid over the years, like people have been sued, individuals and governments and companies have been sued for providing medical aid to like Cuban people. Like this is it it's ridiculous. Um, you can't even go on the island and like technically like spend money in like non-approved areas. You can't stay in areas that aren't approved by the U.S. government that are just like private hotels. It's it's very draconian. Um, and it's also just really horrific because like the US, what it means is that the US, through its position as like an imperial hegemon, is able to convince the world basically to not do trade with the Cubans unless they want to incur financial penalty. Now, the Cubans have been able to get around this a little bit with like medical programs they they do around the world, which is really fascinating in its own right. Um it's how it's actually one of the ways they get hard currency onto the island beyond tourism. But it's uh terrifying looking at it because like the US is able to basically just block off all ability for the Cubans to import anything they need. Things break over there and they're just broke, right? You can't get new supplies if if if things have a certain percentage of like um certain percentage of things of uh the product is made in Cuba, for example, it's just like not allowed, like uh major Cuban exports aren't allowed in US markets. Like the US is strangling them, not just itself, but by coercing the entirety of the world system to assist in the strangulation. It's it's insane.

SPEAKER_00 27:41

And I always, you know, people say, oh, Cuba's gonna fail. I think if anything, it's incredible because what you're talking about is secondary sanctions. So no one can trade with Cuba without incurring the financial penalties. I don't think it's shocking that Cuba's having these issues. I think it's actually shocking that Cuba's been able to endure so much. They're they're effectively isolated. In my own country of Canada, you know, we even just had the threat of tariffs. Tariffs aren't the same thing as a blockade. And James, the day this I think must have been March of 2025, whenever this was going on. And I remember CBC, our national broadcaster, uh state media, if you want to call it that, um, it was reporting as if it's like a war going on. And so, like, you know, I'm like, guys, like we are even just facing a threat of something really small, which is like taxes on things. But then, you know, think of what the United States and Canada being complicit in this as well is doing to countries like Iran and uh Cuba, right? This is, I think people also see sanctions as an alternative to war. But there was a report from the Lancet. And not some sort of, you know, we love our uh socialist media, but not some sort of like, you know, if everyone wants to accuse me of bias. No, this is the Lancet, like a top medical journal. I forget what it was. I think that they have been like since 1972, like US sanctions have killed tens of millions of people. Because it's not just, oh, you can't get your Rolls-Royce. It's you can't get medical supplies, you can't get food. And if you want to go trade with Spain or any other country, well, that country will get sanctioned too by the United States. So you can't trade with anyone. It's super violent. Um, I'm curious how Cubans see things. Because you know, we're told in Western media that they're going to overthrow their own government very soon and all of that. So, so how do they see, how do they see themselves politically in terms of the suffering? And how do they also, I guess, perceive, I don't know, their their place in the world, because this is really one of the few uh socialist projects within the Western hemisphere.

SPEAKER_01 29:50

Yeah, I mean, I I think that demystifying Cubans uh is in their positions is really critical and kind of understanding how the country operates. Like a lot of Cubans have incredibly diverse opinions that they're very open about on the island. Um, I spoke to people who were very critical of their government, very critical, particularly of like the current government leadership, all the way to people who were like incredibly like hardlined, like federalistas who were like very much so in line with the project. And they all generally agree that the socialist project that they have like built and maintained is one they wish to continue, right? Even with these internal conversations, like I like to think about it a lot. Like, you know, if you're asking Americans like how they feel about their government, most of them are gonna have criticisms, um, things they perceive as being issues. Um, and it's very similar because like Cuba is not unique in that sense. People have their own opinions on how things should be run. What's interesting is that like Cubans are kind of allowed to participate in their government and try to fight for those changes should they want to. Cubans are allowed, like through an actually very democratic system, to um get elected through like a single party system. Uh, like there are there are ways in which you can actually organize in Cuba to have to make change, and you're not going to be facing um the extent of like police and military surveillance and repression that you would experience in, say, like the United States, for example. Um it's actually funny, like people think that Cuba is like super repressive and that you can't do anything there. The only time I got in trouble in Cuba was filming the US Embassy. Oh, really?

SPEAKER_00 31:10

Tell me, yes.

SPEAKER_01 31:11

Yeah, uh my buddies and I were being jackasses and we were like flipping off the embassy, taking pictures and shit, and um having fun. And a Cuban police officer came up and was like, Hey, like what are you guys doing? Like, we were like, Oh, we're you know, we're trying to explain it. And she was like, Okay, yeah, you cannot do that. Like, I that's very much not allowed. We were like, Oh, okay. That's fair, like it's fine. But then we went down to the North Korean embassy and they let us take pictures out front of that one. It was actually really funny.

SPEAKER_02 31:35

That's amazing.

SPEAKER_01 31:36

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, the security guard was much nicer uh at the North Korean embassy.

SPEAKER_00 31:40

When whenever, you know, and James, whenever people when especially when America criticizes human rights in Cuba, it's like you have a place where you torture people on Cuba, on Cuba, Guantanamo Bay, which by the way is an illegal occupation because Cuba doesn't want that territory. The United States, um, but people should know it's a it's technically it's a lease, and the United States sends money to Cuba, but Cuba actually always rejects it because they're like, no, please leave, we don't want you here. So they they criticize Cuba, but then of course the United States has occupied part of Cuba and is torturing people there. So like, yeah, give me a break.

SPEAKER_01 32:16

Well, and it's also like look at what Cuba looked like before the revolution. Like, this is this is what I think is like really critical to compare. It's not just like regional comparisons of like major outcomes, like, say, in healthcare and education, which Cuba, like even under this crisis period, is largely comparable, if not better, than its regional partners. Um, but it's look at like what Cuba was before the revolution took root. It was a military dictatorship ran by a US-backed dictator who was killing people, putting them in prisons, like you know, burning people's shit up. Like it was bad. Like, there's a reason there was a revolution in Cuba. It wasn't because the government was just nice with a couple of problems, it was because they were like cracking down incredibly hard on their people. And uh the Cuban government now, I think, is uh in some ways much nicer than I would expect them to be, um, in terms of like dissent and in terms of like their cooperation with international uh bodies and things. Um but yeah, and I mean like broadly coming back to the question you were asking initially, like the Cuban people are very diverse in their opinions. Um, there is a discussion, I think, amongst some Cubans of this idea of like an internal and external blockade, which I think is a very interesting dynamic. Um I will say it varied very different. Yeah, I mean it varied a lot based on who I was talking to. Like there were some Cubans who were like, no, you have to understand that like there's an there's an external blockade, which is the United States, and there's an internal blockade, which is like the Cubans' government in their ability to allocate resources effectively amongst a population, right? Now, it was a difficult conversation because different Cubans had very different views on this. Um, some of them were like, Yeah, I can't get access to this medicine or this thing I want because of the government. And then you talk to medical workers and they're like, Yeah, that's how rationing works. Like we just don't have that. Um, so it's like, you know, like there are there are real frustrations because people like are genuinely like not only are they not able to get the things they need, um, but they're, you know, uh social media and um particularly like the internet is is really been a more prevalent thing in Cuba over the past like decade or so, past couple years. And so a lot of Cubans are seeing um, you know, what their maybe family members in Miami are living in, right? And then they're looking at their own lives. And eventually you do have to ask, like, what the hell's going on? And though the Cuban government can very accurately point to US blockade is the problem, you're still a person who's struggling to get food for your kid. Like you're gonna have frustrations, right? And that that's totally valid, in my opinion. Um, to to like be pissed off about the state of the state of the system that you're in. Um, but you know, I look at it as like, yeah, like I would like to see how the US government function without the US imposing a transnational blockade on all of their things. I think that without that blockade, the conditions for Cubans on the island would get much better. And as and as a Marxist in the imperial court in the United States, I think my first and foremost responsibility is making sure the blockade is ended so that Cuba can have a sort of robust and well uh robust society with everything it it possibly can garner. And then, yeah, if the government has problems with like abundance, then sure, man. Like, I don't know, like do what you need, like like change or whatever.

SPEAKER_02 35:09

People like by and large, yeah, go ahead.

SPEAKER_01 35:11

No, but like by and large, it's like, yeah, it's like I can like you can trace like basically every problem back to the blockade, like genuinely medical supply shortages, food shortages, electricity shortages, their inability to have economic mobility in the island, like the lack of a thriving tourist sector that they're traditionally accustomed to, and actually saw under the Obama admin, which got the Cuban government to reinvest in tourism, which some people have critiques of. Um, like there's just a lot of problems that if you look at them, you're like, yeah, no, I I can see how that is directly traceable back to US imperialism.

SPEAKER_00 35:38

Um and and this is this is what's I also think people, James, you know, really well, people being Westerners really underestimate the effects of being under siege, whether economic siege, because you know, especially when it comes to like for I I've read a really fantastic book on Iran calling it called Going to Tehran from 2014, uh 2013. It could have been actually written yesterday, though. I think people really in the West underestimate how impactful psychologically and politically it can be to be under siege. So, you know, even these questions of, oh, like we sometimes look at, especially as Westerners, we look at other countries and think, oh, well, why don't they have the liberal democratic system that we do, right? But then my response to that is, well, no Western country that's ever been under siege has had a dem, well, first of all, like is our democracy really democracy? No. But like even if you want to talk about just like very, very uh like kind of polisi 101, this like you know, parties that supposedly compete against each other. Well, those always those get suspended whenever there's a war, for instance, right? Like Ukraine hasn't had a like Ukraine hasn't had a elections uh since the war began. Uh the UK, I think, during World War II suspended elections. Uh so you know, to then say, oh, well, you know, sure it's a one-party state, but I don't know, why don't they allow like a capitalist party to run or something like that? It's like that's the other thing.

SPEAKER_01 37:04

It's like, I wonder why they wouldn't let that happen. Like, I don't know, man. Like, early have a robust democracy as a one party state. This is a really common misconception that I think people have. They hear one party and they freak out, but it's like, no, you just need to be a member of the Cuban Communist Party, which means you're really just doing political work, which then you just go and you're on the ballot. Like, I mean, you can do it. It's it's not like they're like not letting people in the room. Like it doesn't make a crazy thing to me. And the still fundamentally accountable to the millions of people in Cuba, like they have to be, or they would not be in power, right?

SPEAKER_00 37:35

Sorry, this is like a whole yeah. No, no, no, I agree with that. And and then people don't understand that, you know, but they but then they'll understand oh, primaries in like within parties, and oh, that's democratic, but one party system, or there's democracy within that. Well, it's communist and evil, and therefore that makes like no sense to the Western mind, right? And it's actually really funny because you're saying like this diversity of political opinion in Cuba. And I think when Westerners look at this, they think of like, oh, this authoritarian state where everyone has to believe the same thing. But you look at Cuba, you're saying this, and you look at also like Iran, like Iran's the same way. Like, for instance, like people don't understand there's elections where there's people who are called uh principalists who we would call conservative, but doesn't exactly map on because principalist is more like a more active foreign policy for Iran, one that is supposedly more committed to the Islamic revolution, versus reformers. Reformers might have a less uh uh less forward foreign policy, might want to uh have reproach bond with the West. And I find these things so much more robust than like Canada or the United States, where it's like pretty much the both parties agree on the same things, minus maybe I don't know, abortion and trans rights. Like, whereas like what you're telling me in Cuba is oh, people like some people like the government, some people don't. You know, what should be done? Should we reform? Should we do this? Iran, same thing. And whereas here, you're looking at the policies of like the Republicans versus Democrats. It's actually far less than the city. Yeah, exactly. Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 39:07

I know. Well, we have a uniparty, especially in terms of foreign policy. Like it's just two capitalist parties debating on the management structure of a colony, right? I mean, there's no actual like democracy in the US beyond like what we ascribe it to be. Like it doesn't exist. Like you're you're voting for at best the lesser of two evils, uh, which is not great within the confines of our system. And because of how our financial system works, and because of how our election system works, like oftentimes the best candidates aren't even filtering up. Like, but both parties that are in power fundamentally want to uphold the exact same system we have with no actual alternative, and even opposition forces. Like I'm a DSA member, we're operating inside of those parties already, like which ultimately creates these massive contradictions that we're not even fully able to flesh through, right? Um, it's very ingenious because the US has this like um illusion of democratic processes when really we're just kind of like given options to vote between that are already kind of pre-approved by the party system.

SPEAKER_00 40:00

So I want to actually yeah, I want to segue, segue with that because you're talking about the DSA, you're a member, you're quite active, I know. Uh, what's your role? What is the DSA for any listeners who might not be familiar? And what are the goals of the DSA?

SPEAKER_01 40:15

Yeah, yeah. I mean, well, DSA is the Democratic Socialist of America. They're a multi-tenancy, like kind of big ten socialist organization that exists within the US. Um, and it's got everybody from like your kind of like social democrats all the way to like your like Marxist-Leninists, Maoists, uh, anarchist trots. Um, those are the ones I roll around with, obviously. Um but their um their their basic goal is, I mean, ostensibly to bring socialism to the United States, to change our US system in some fundamental way, to try to fight for building socialist power within the country. Um, I say ostensibly because I think realistically, like what we do more of is kind of like give people an outlet to be able to develop themselves politically into a socialist space that might in the long term do what we're saying we're gonna do. Um, but like there's differences in the organizational opinion of like how we do it, right? That's kind of the thing of being being in a multi-tendency formation. But we're still a really cool party and I like us and I do work. I I work, um, I I do uh I work in the international solidarity side of the operation generally. Um, so I'm God willing, like next week and be elected or international solidarity chair of the Philadelphia branch, which is cool.

SPEAKER_02 41:14

Congrats.

SPEAKER_01 41:15

It's an unit's an uncontested election. I'm gonna win. Um but like it's it's it's it's fine. Uh I just don't want to you know count my own. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We we well we did. I'm teasing. No, no, our our our democracy was having a meeting and being like, hey, these guys are running. Does anybody else want to run? It's totally cool. They're like um like I would I would actually love competitive elections because it forces people to flush through their positions in a way that's very interesting in socialist organizations.

SPEAKER_00 41:39

Um I want to ask because one thing people sometimes criticize about the DSA is that it's more reformist electoralist. So the criticisms here would be because there's a big social democrat uh element of it, uh, one that has pushed people like AOC and Bernie Sanders, uh, which a lot of people like, but more revolutionary, Marxist, Leninists, anarchists, etc. People would say, well, you can never really elect a revolution. So how do you see those kinds of criticisms within the DSA?

SPEAKER_01 42:06

I mean, I think there's definitely an element of that. Um, I think there are reformist factions within DSA, and there's a really robust discussion internally between like how we engage in US electoral politics. Does that lead us? Are we running agitated campaigns or actually trying to like build some semblance of like went with quote unquote power in a US electoral structure that doesn't really give a fuck about us? Um, like there, there's there's a lot of questions to be had there. Um, I would say to that end too, though, there are non-reformist caucuses, like massive bodies of people within DSA and even non-decaucus members who do have fundamentally, I think, revolutionary views on like what needs to be done in a lot of ways. Um, we have multiple Marxist-Leninist caucuses. We have an anarchist caucus, which is kind of funny. Um, we have like, you know, a good amount of like other like just generalized Marxist factions, Trotsky-Id factions, et cetera, that are all kind of operating in this space, right? What makes DSA interesting and I think at times contradictory and at times difficult to map on like a socialist um board is that like you can kind of see the politics changing over time and also like being very different chapter to chapter. Like Philadelphia is radically different than say uh Atlanta uh or LA, right? Um, but we're like similar to maybe some other chapters. Uh Delaware is very different than New York, right? There's all these little things. Um, these intricacies that make it interesting, um, that I actually kind of have grown to appreciate about the organization, even if it gives me headaches every 12 hours. Um but like that's what I think makes it so difficult to map DSA generally. And I think I understand why people look at it as a reformist organization because there are leadership in our organization and bodies within it that do want that. That I think uh there, I think there are a lot of people who, inside and outside of DSA on the left more broadly, never really had political development beyond Bernie 2016. And so we get in this kind of like social democratic tendency of like, oh, what we really need is healthcare, and what we really need is like a Green New Deal. And it's like, that's actually not even close to enough. Um uh, but it's you know, it's a whole Discussion point. I'm sure people would disagree with me in some members.

SPEAKER_00 44:03

So do you do some myth busting? Because I think DSA has just been associated with electoralism, uh, getting help supporting Mam Danny, supporting AOC, supporting Bernie Sanders, but it seems to be there's a lot of organizing just beyond that. Is that correct?

SPEAKER_01 44:14

Oh, yeah, yeah. I mean, like, for example, like I do, um, I'm helping local uh Cuba groups in Philadelphia try to bring attention to what's going on in the island and do political education, as well as trying to like map out ways that we can coordinate with medical facilities to get supplies down to Cuba, um, which has been really cool. I worked with a bunch of mask block groups uh a couple of like about a month or so ago to like fund or help fundraise for what turned into an operation, getting like tens of thousands of like PPE masks over to Cuba, right? This is these are work that's really being done. Um on the Palestine side, we have like long-standing campaigns. No Appetite for Apartheid is one of them, which is like our um our Israeli agricultural boycott campaign in the city of Philly and cities across the country, where like we're getting companies around our cities to commit to boycotting Israeli agricultural products, um, dates, wines, things like this. And also like adjacent products, sabra, sadaf, all these other things that are complicit in their own ways in Israeli occupation and normalization of Israeli cuisine. Uh, we're also you know doing like uh labor for arms embargo campaigns. I don't really engage with that one because like Philly has really unique local conditions that make it difficult to be effective in that sense, um, because it's really most effective in like port cities, um like major port cities, like like Newark or you know, New York and things like this, or Los Angeles has like major ports there. Um, but they're trying to like actively work with labor to ensure that like Israeli armed shipments aren't able to go out of these ports or maybe out of these airports, things like this, which is very interesting in its own right. Um, they also we've traditionally had like a Chevron campaign trying to put pressure on Chevron to couple investments in development with the Israeli project, which has been a toughie, um, right? Because the petrochemical industry does not give a fuck about DSA. Uh is what we do.

SPEAKER_00 45:50

Wait, wait, wait. You're saying you're telling me the the oil executives are not really concerned with uh, you know, uh these kind of socialist politics or the lives of other people. I find that shocking.

SPEAKER_01 46:00

No, yeah, you're gonna be you're gonna be shocked to hear this, but they they view us as a minor road bump.

SPEAKER_00 46:04

Um I'm I'm I'm surprised they're not tree huggers, you know. Yeah, anyway. And anti-genocide.

SPEAKER_01 46:09

Yeah, but I mean, but I respect the work of the people doing that, right? Like, I mean, like like they're they're really like trying their best against a system that is like pointing a gun at their heads, being like, hey, no, sorry, that's not gonna happen. Um, and they're they're working within the confines of that. Um, but the DSA does a lot of work like that. We also have like immigrant justice work, like I mean, Philly DSA, for example, is is doing like really robust support operations for like anti-ICE ICE stuff happening in the city. We're supporting um the campaign to free Mumia Abu Jamal, who's a notable political prisoner in Philadelphia, who was framed uh uh framed by Philadelphia PD and a cop killing that he did not commit. Um, even if he did, he shouldn't be in fucking prison for it. Um it's my personal opinion. Um but we're also doing, you know, we're also running electoral stuff and doing that. We're also building out like uh larger, like localized projects to build community uh engagement and capacity across the city, right? We're we're trying really hard through like multiple different avenues to build a larger socialist project in Philadelphia. And I think that's what makes DSA unique in that because it's a multi-tenancy organization, you have different people developing different strategies and tactics around what they want to do. Um, and so you have like at times contradictory things happening, which does require like internal politicking to flesh through. Um, but generally speaking, it's like a bunch of people trying to like it's like shotgun strategy, right? You try everything, you know, you you just you you do everything you can, and if the things that stick stay, the things that don't stick, we drop, you know. So it's really cool.

SPEAKER_00 47:35

No, that's the best way, you know, path of least resistance, pushing things and seeing if it can go on through. So, my final question is actually a more personal one. Uh, I know you've actually, Mani, I don't know when it happened, but I know you're actually uh convert uh you've converted to Islam, right? Yeah, yeah. I'm curious what that journey was like. Ah, how did you get there?

SPEAKER_01 47:55

Good one and a long one. Um, I I I say in the short form, it's just talking to the right people at the right time, really. Um I guess like it started really uh when I was in Europe. I was uh in Germany doing a study abroad uh with uh a group of students I was with. We were doing a program that was studying European Union relations with the post-Yugoslav and post-Soviet spheres, which really is just code for like here's how Germany's fucking over everyone east of them. Um like that's really what the EU is at this point, in my opinion. Um, but it it developed into an interesting like series of trips where I got to go see uh Sarajevo, Sabrinica in Bosnia, I got to see um Belgrade and in Serbia, I got to see Moscow and St. Petersburg. Um, and I also got to go to Latvia for a weekend. That was a really funny part of the trip because there was like an Ed Sheeran concert going on in Riga at the same time. So it was really just me fucking around with a bunch of English guys. Um kind of ruined the the trip, but it's okay. They were silly. Um, but it it was interesting, like Bosnia in particular. I I was um I was traveling with a guy who was uh Pakistani and he was Sufi. Um and and so we were kind of traveling around and I was really we were good buddies on the entire trip, kind of hanging out the entire time. And we got into Bosnia, and I had known a lot of the history of Bosnia because I was kind of enamored with uh genocide studies, uh kind of like doing comparative genocide analysis. Oh, I did that too, by the way.

SPEAKER_00 49:24

I was doing genocide studies too. That's that's that's why it's been also very easy for me to pose the genocide Palestinians again. It's like, well, that's it's happening again, folks.

SPEAKER_01 49:33

Like, you know, yeah, it's like everything I studied is like right there. Yes. Um but yeah, but yeah, I mean, so like going into Bosnia, like a lot of my primary focus had been had been in Bosnia, uh, when I was doing like what I was kind of researching and what I was just interested in, because Bosnia is also a very contentious topic on the left. So I had a double interest in kind of like seeing all of this and how it flushed out. Um maybe just to unpack that.

SPEAKER_00 49:56

Sorry, I just want to unpack that because also like for listeners, like yeah, yeah, yeah. One of the big controversies around this is of course, uh the some people on the left, because of NATO's intervention in during the Yugoslav wars, will contest. Uh I don't like this, I actually hate it to be honest. It's a weird position. But you know, uh people like Michael Parenti, who actually otherwise admire, would say, like, for instance, there was no Bosnian genocide, that this was just a propaganda to pretty much break up the Yugoslav break up Yugoslavia, um, yeah, which was already breaking. Yeah, yeah. So just wanted to put that in there for an explainer. Yeah. But continue.

SPEAKER_01 50:36

Yeah, yeah. Um, really good book if you want to read more about it, is uh Bosnia, Kosovo in the West, uh for people who are listening. Um good Marxist analysis of the dissolution of Yugoslavia that's also fairly short, which I think is a rare combo. Um, but it but they but yeah, while I was over there, I was visiting Bosnia and I started talking to more uh Muslims in the city uh because I was just curious as to like a lot of them had grown up to the siege, um, one of the longest civilian sieges of that period uh of any city in the world, which is a crazy thing for Bosnia to be able to claim. And even going into Bosnia, you can really see like the reality born from that, right? You have like pocket marks of like artillery shells and things all throughout a lot of the buildings. Even today, like construction efforts and reconstruction efforts are still ongoing. Um, everywhere you looked across the city, there's like memorials to the war and the siege. And interestingly enough, there are like these like uh small, like what looked like um paint splatters all over the ground in different areas of the city, uh, which I learned later are actually called like Saregevo Roses, which are like areas where artillery shells hid and killed someone. They filled it in with like red cement to signify that was an area that someone had been killed. Very grim, um, but also a beautiful city with really amazing people. I would suggest to anybody who wants to travel to go to Sarajevo, it's a beautiful, beautiful place. The people are the most welcoming people I've like ever met in my life. Um, but it's it's a city that bears the scars of the horrors of war and genocide, right? And then I went to Serenica, which is the site of a massive genocide in uh in Bosnia in '95, I believe. And that was an eye-opening experience, very horrific. Um, I remember looking over, like there's a there's a grave site there where there's like 7,000 plus grave markers, all the same kind of obelisk, except for like two. I think there's like a one Christian and one Jewish guy just got caught up in the wrong place at the wrong time, but they were like otherwise all Muslims. Um and it was just like shocking to look at like uh a genocide that as I talked to the curator at the site, the US bears a lot of blame for uh people I don't think recognize that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 52:37

Please explain that because usually the narrative is there was a genocide in the United States slash NATO used that in order to further their foreign policy. So explain that. Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_01 52:48

No, we fumbled, we fumbled the shit out of Sabrina. Um, and this is actually an interesting uh overlap because like you can, as a Marxist and as like a liberal like humanitarian interventionalist, actually reach very similar conclusions in Sebernica and Rwanda. Um, it's just like kind of like the the inner workings and like the mechanisms by which these failures existed or if they were even really failures in US foreign policy is a bigger question, right? But in Sabernitza, like uh essentially there was a very small UN contingent within this area that was a um like a UN safe zone. That like when Bosniak Muslims were coming into the zone, they were disarmed uh under the uh the understanding that the UN and these these forces would be able to, uh these peacekeeping forces would be able to protect them. And the peacekeeping forces basically built their operational plans around the idea that like NATO or the US air support would be like preventing the Serbians from coming in. So the Serbians, uh Serbian militias under uh Milosevic? No, well, I mean under Milosevic, but I think it was like uh there's a specific guy, I think Radik. Um I might be wrong on that, so don't quote me on it. Um came in under uh in one day trying to basically tighten what had been an ongoing siege because the Serbs basically surrounded these safe zones, as you would imagine, especially this one in particular, which is now in uh really unfortunately in like modern-day like Republic of Srpska, which is like a semi-independent region, semi-autonomous region within Bosnia and Herzegovina. Um, but coming sorry, I'm like rambling because I just a really interesting topic. But I know I know the same they there's a lot you can talk about, like the Dayton Peace process and how fucked up that was. But there's a uh there's a very real um effort by the Serbian military. The Serbian militias, not really the military, they're just getting assisted by the military in some underhanded ways, but these militias were tightening the noose basically in this zone, and they broke into the southern half of the safe zone. Uh, from my understanding, they realized that US air support wasn't cracking down on them in the way they anticipated, so they just decided to take the whole thing out, right? And that's when they run in, they disarm the peacekeepers, they start separating men from the women, they send the women off, um, they start killing uh men and boys as young as 12, I believe is the youngest age that I was able to find. I'm sure this younger, but the women were subjected to horrific like um like sexual abuse and other issues, and in in their own issues if they were bust to a nearby kind of safe zone for them, whereas the men were because the Serbs viewed them as potential combatants or combatants themselves, um, in similar ways the Israelis view uh Palestinians, uh, interestingly.

SPEAKER_00 55:11

Uh also this disarmament, this disarmament reminds me of the call to disarm resistance groups in Palestine and Lebanon. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 55:19

But go ahead. Exactly. No, no, you're completely correct. Um there are real historical parallels here. And they disarm all these men, take them to a series of sites, and begin executing them en masse. Um thousands upon thousands of people. And we don't even have all of their bodies because the Serbians, when they really realized shit was hitting the fan, they un they dug up a lot of the mass graves they had dug and then re-put them in other areas. So a lot of like um a lot of the remains or oftentimes the same person's remains are found at multiple areas. There's not a lot of like, uh, at least that we know of, a lot of like written documentation of where these secondary gravesites are. Some of them, I've heard, could very well be within Serbian territory itself, which creates all sorts of headaches for the ability to for examination. Like these are these are real problems that like Bosniak Muslims are facing even years down the line, right? Um, and it's oftentimes seen as a US failure because the US had the ability to probably authorize like air forces, Air Force assets to begin like pounding Serbian militias when they began um threatening this enclave, but it it didn't come. Like the UN and the US, uh NATO just failed to actually like authorize the action. So you had like U.S. planes and the air just weren't dropping anything, um, which is like one of those weird moments where like you're like, damn, I wish the US would have dropped a bomb on this fucking foreign country.

SPEAKER_00 56:32

Well, I mean, World War II, I think, was a justified war, right? So you know these moments. There are these moments. You you you get you get every now and then it's like, ah, kind of wish you guys could do something there.

SPEAKER_01 56:42

Right. And that's not to say I supported like the NATO intervention in the Kosovar context. Like, I I I think that like there were things that could have been done and things that certainly should have been handled differently. That uh the NATO strikes, I think, were more of a uh an effort to dismantle like a shared Yugoslav political and economic identity in Serbia than they actually were to like stop Serbian genocide in Kosovo. But that's a whole other conversation.

SPEAKER_00 57:04

Yeah. Um you were there, and then then eventually this leads to explain how this leads eventually to and just maybe for listeners, like I actually post-Yugoslavia was a big area of interest in my undergrad and my master's. So, but let's let I want to hear how you got to this point where you are getting to uh your conversion, I guess. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 57:24

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, like talking to a lot of uh Bosnians and Sarajevo and even those I was able to meet in Sebronica, like what the one thing they kept coming back to was their faith. Um, and like their faith in Islam, like the this kind of struggle they had been under, and um how that reaffirmed their faith and how their faith played a role in their able to their their ability to survive the siege and the genocide they endured. Um, and then going into the graveside, I noticed all the grave markers had the exact same quote on them, and I couldn't figure out what it was because I don't speak Bosnian, I don't read Bosnian. Um, but I was able to translate it by kind of like I spent like 20 minutes sitting in front of this grave, like um like typing each character that I could find on a Bosnian thing to try to like see if I could translate. Um, because Google Translate was wonky at the time. I don't know, I couldn't like just do a I think I probably could have just done a photo and translated it, but I just didn't think about that. Um and it said like um, and do not say of those who are dead, they're alive. I'm not sorry, do not say of those who are dead. Sorry. Um the quote I I screw this up sometimes. Do not say of those who have died on the path to Allah, they are dead, no, they're alive. You just do not feel it, right? This idea that they they died in the path to Islam. And that resonated with me in a way that was very odd. Um, like I I read it and I had to sit there and really internalize it. There's not a lot of quotes that I've really come across that I've been like, hmm. And like that made me really think through it differently. And then seeing like um the family members of these these victims there, um, who were also Muslim, who were praying and things outside of the memorial site, um, it threw me a lot. And then I started asking my my my friend who was Sufi questions. Um, and as he as I was asking the questions, he was answering them very effectively. And it kind of started me down this path of like investigation, I guess, of of the faith and like really the investigation of like how my faith and my developing politics, because I wasn't actually a socialist at this time. Oh, and really like yeah, like in a lot of ways, Bosni, I I say to people made me a communist and made me a Muslim. Um, yeah. And so like my politics and my faith were kind of like developing tangentially to each other. And I was trying to figure out, I guess, how that interplayed, right? You know, Islam, like for me, it was the call to struggling against oppression within Islam that is so central to the faith that really I think made me go, okay. Like as a person who I at that point wouldn't describe myself as a socialist, but it started reading like Fanon when I got home and started being like, Oh, okay, I'm seeing the connections. I was also then seeing like how my faith interplayed with that in a way that I hadn't really experienced growing up like Roman Catholic, which is what my family is. Um, and so like that played a real role. And I didn't really revert until years later uh when I actually met my now fiance. Um, and she was really um she's the most amazing person I've ever met in my life. But um, she she she's wonderful, but she's Muslim as well, and her whole family are Muslim. And so her father's like a religious uh educator, very brilliant, brilliant man. Uh, and I started like, you know, talking with her, and she thought I was a liberal. Like she was at this point, was like like an actual Marxist-Leninist. So like she thought I was like a lib, but like, but then she was asking me about Palestine, and I was like, Oh, yeah, you know, like I was giving her my opinions on on because my opinions on Palestine have always been consistent, even when I was more of a liberal, because I knew guys from Jerusalem.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:38

Likewise, yeah, likewise. I don't think I've actually ever been a Zionist. Like, no, no, I think I think there were sometimes elements of liberal Zionism that kind of came in, like, like never never believing in this settler colonial project, even as my politics changed. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:53

No, and and that's always kind of been my my thing is like, okay, I, you know, I might be a lib in how I like view US hegemony and US systems or whatever, but also like I fundamentally don't think Israel should exist. So it was like, you know, that that was like a thing that she was wrestling with. And then she um was asking me about Bosnia, and I was bringing up all these quotes and how it was kind of down this path. And, you know, she ended up after a while when we were really serious and started really having discussions about our future. Um, she was like, you know, I want you to talk to my dad about what you're thinking and like how you're going about this. And, you know, I ended up talking with him and I still had a lot of questions, and he was actually a really good resource, a guy who could actually like walk me through all of the intricacies of this faith that I was like really at a surface level of, right? And I got to the point one day where I said, you know, I feel as if I want to convert, I feel very comfortable with that decision, but I also feel like I don't know enough. And and you know, the it's just like a problem I have in like everything I study is I never feel like I quite am an expert on anything, right? And and that makes me like generally hesitant to like speak on things, the exceptions being like Palestine, I do a lesser Lebanon. Um but I you know he told me, he's like, you know, there's not a single Muslim who is perfect who knows everything. Um he's like, just if you want to convert, you feel it's the right time, do it, and you'll learn on your way, right? It's a journey, it's not like in there's not like a defined endpoint of the faith. And I said, Okay, you know, I was like, nah, damn, he's good at this, right? He sold me. Um, so I I you know I said my Shahada with her and her father, and that's like how I kind of like came into the faith. Um, and since then I've just been practicing, you know.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:30

I did also yeah, and do you find it so like I'm I'm definitely I'm not Muslim and non-expert. I've read half the Quran, uh so Hell yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, hell yeah, indeed. Yeah, yeah. And and you know, it's funny because anyone who and obviously this would be an English translation, which um often will butcher a lot of the poetic elements of it. But you know, I think it's so funny because it's like I don't know, I find like anyone who would like there are rare exceptions, like some of the most racist Islamophobic people, but I find anyone who's actually read the Quran will like become out less Islamophobic after they've read it and stuff. Uh so it's it's and what I've so I'm not Muslim, but like I have a big interest in Islam and uh like I also think how because it's really funny that this I actually like how you blend the politics with it because I think in the post-9-11 world, there was a move to kind of how do I want to phrase it, like sanitize Islam a bit. Yeah, defang it, you know, even when they say like the religion of peace, uh, which I know peace has a different meaning, but like as if like, you know, it makes it sound like Islam is a pacifist religion, which it's not. It's a religion that fights oppression, that will take up arms against oppression if necessary. And I find also within Islam, like, you know, the way it actually gets publicized positively, uh, looking at like other than I think some other like I think one of the biggest political influences of me has has been uh Malcolm X, for instance, and his journey to Islam has fascinated with me. And also the fact of like Muhammad, really, the Prophet Muhammad uh resisting in many ways the uh the the material conditions of his time, right? You know, uh being persecuted for that and also having to move around, right? To Medina, even briefly, I guess, in uh what is now uh Eritrea and Ethiopia, right? Uh this very active political movement that in addition to all the spiritual elements that uh that the Prophet Muhammad did, I think is absolutely fascinating and a big motivation. It's really funny because one thing Professor Mohammed Morandi, who I'd love to have on the show one day, uh, he was actually saying that he was saying he's been talking with some like Marxists and communists, and they say because of the fact that Iran is so effectively resisting the United States, they say that they will convert to Islam when the war is done.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:07

It's like a running joke in left circles right now of like how many Shia reverts do you know in your socialist circle? Yeah, it's really funny.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:14

No, it is, it is. I mean, it's kind of faith, it's great. Like, no, it's it's it's really, really great. No, that's that's absolutely fascinating. And I also wonder how um maybe on a final point, because you know, leftism has sometimes been associated with uh the very materialist atheism of like Marx, for instance, and uh sometimes Marx's uh criticisms of religion, like very anti-religious, actually, although within the cot within the context of uh 1800s Europe, right? Where the church was involved uh heavily in uh promoting imperialism, capitalism. But I wonder how you also see like your faith within a broader left politics, especially we do try to take as leftists sometimes a more scientific approach, like a very materialist approach. I just wonder how that blends with this more transcendent faith.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:02

I mean, I think like looking at the material calls within Islam, um, I think it blends well. I mean, like given like I'm not like an expert. This is just my personal observations as I'm trying to reconcile my faith with my politics. Is a lot of the core like humanitarian structures that I would like to see in a society are all kind of all like genuinely pushed for through Islam. This ability of like no one being homeless, the ability for people to have charitable outcomes if they need them, the people like community support for people who need it, the struggle against oppression and having ensuring that oppressed communities within our societies are not actually having to struggle for their own humanity, right? These things make sense to me, as well as the idea of like, you know, to your point, this idea of like if it should be so, like militant struggle against oppression in whatever forms it might be. Now, this is interpreted differently, I think, by different people, depending on who what their other beliefs are in the faith. But for me, at least, that's always been a struggle against capitalism, a struggle against colonialism, a struggle against racism, against white supremacy, et cetera, et cetera. Like that's to me what blends my faith in my politics so much. The idea of like jihad, of like genuine struggle against any oppressive force that you should deem it, like this religious this call for you to in whatever fashion you can resist this sort of of oppression in anyone's life, right? You know, that's a beautiful thing to make.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:30

It's a beautiful thing. And my reading of Islam has also been like uh, because I've read both the Quran and as well as obviously secondary sources on Islam. Yeah, yeah. Uh the Prophet Muhammad, for instance, uh the spiritual struggle, but also material struggle, for instance, for instance, against the unequal decadence that was going on in Mecca, for instance. Uh, there's also a really good book. It's called uh Muhammad, Prophet of Peace Amid the Clash of Empires, which also sees uh his uh the revelation and uh Muhammad's role as a prophet coming amid also the, I guess um, I'm going to butcher this, but uh the Persians and uh uh the Roman Empire, which was the Byzantines fighting and trying to find, and Muhammad also has someone who is a trader, uh trading, uh like uh merchant. I don't know what the proper term is, and witnessing this and this endless struggle between the Persians and the Byzantines, and then coming up with like uh having a faith revealed to him, uh a revelation that could, you know, actively resist that. Like it's it's incredible. It's really, really incredible. So it's amazing. Yeah, it is amazing.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:35

I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:36

Yeah, I love it. That's a great. Well, on that positive note, James, thank you so much for coming on to the show. I really appreciate it. I wish you all the best with your DSA work. And uh, where can people find you?

SPEAKER_01 1:08:48

Uh, you can find me on Twitter at GoodVibePolitik, you can find me on Instagram and on TikTok by uh my my handle uh James gets political. You think I'd be able to remember that. It's super fucking easy. Um you can find me on Substack and Commie Corner, which is where I write a lot of my long form pieces. I also have uh pieces published periodically in Monday for people who are interested in that as well.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:09

Great. Okay, thank you so much. And everyone, thank you so much for listening to the Summer Doning Show either on wherever you get your podcast or here watching it on YouTube.