Anti-Imperialist Struggle: Lessons from Assata and Gaza

Sherif Bramstelle: So welcome back, guys, to the 2nd episode of the Anti-Imperialist Scholars Collective podcast. You haven't heard from me yet. I'm Dr. Sherif Bramstelle. I am a professor at Wayne State University, and I teach in the African American Studies Department.

Navid Farnia: Hi, I'm Navid Farnia, also with AASC and also at Wayne State University in the Department of African American Studies. We're looking forward to our discussion today.

Sherif Bramstelle: So, we have a wide range of issues we want to talk about. We want to talk about the legacy of Assata Shakur, the ceasefire in the Israeli genocide in Gaza, the Nobel Peace Prize and the pitfalls of whatever that means. It's sort of a way of propping up Western imperialism over time. And also an update on Trump's overture, if you will, to US colleges and universities, trying to make them conservative, bribing them to be conservative effectively, right? Right, giving them preferential treatment if they adopt particular values. So we have a lot to talk about, so let's just jump right in. So to start, so recently Assata Shakur, as we know, passed away in Cuba on— what was it? September 25th, 2025. She joined the ancestors. And of course, Assata has been A longstanding beacon of revolutionary struggle, of life in exile, yeah, of waging struggle against US imperialism. And so, obviously, her loss has been deeply felt across the world, and especially among people like us who are anti-imperialists, who aspire to be revolutionaries, and who, you know, want this thing to crash and burn, this thing being US imperialism.

Navid Farnia: So—

Sherif Bramstelle: Yeah. And then one of our— the members of the collective, Ori Sami Burton, wrote a really beautiful piece, a really incisive kind of tribute slash analysis and assessment of Assata called Assata Is Welcome Here. That was published on October 7th in Prodigy Magazine. So, Navid, what are your thoughts on Assata? What are your thoughts on this piece by Ori? Yeah.

Navid Farnia: I would say— I think I would just open to say that Assata was a titan in the Black liberation struggle. A political prisoner who was liberated by her comrades. And, you know, one of the first things that I thought about, one of the people who helped liberate her, Sekou Odenga, part of the Black Liberation Army, same organization that she was part of for a time, is that I attended a talk by Sekou Odenga a few years back in which he talked about, like, the importance of political prisoners. And he said that in any given revolutionary movement, one of the first demands, like around the world, any revolutionary movement, one of the first demands is the freeing of political prisoners, right? And so he and she lived that life, like lived the life of political prisoners, lived the life of being liberated, right, from political incarceration. And I think that's a major, major aspect of, like, of her life that we need to recognize, that she was not defeated, right?

Sherif Bramstelle: Right.

Navid Farnia: And I think Orasanmi does a really good job of talking about this in his article, that she ended life as a free woman in Cuba, right? Like, perhaps not on, like, on the very terms that she would want to. Perhaps she would have wanted to have been here in the United States struggling for continuing the, like, the struggle for Black liberation on this land. But at least she was free, and she was never, like, recaptured, and she was, you know, and she was never defeated. So—

Sherif Bramstelle: Yeah.

Navid Farnia: I think those are my immediate thoughts. I have some other things that I can share, but, you know, I'm also interested to hear what you have to share, Sherice.

Sherif Bramstelle: You know, I'm not— I'm ambivalent about this idea that she died a free woman. I think that exile, being forced into exile, is another form of incarceration, especially when we think about using deportation and using sort of, you know, things like the McCarran Act, which Basically kicks people out of the country or takes away their citizenship because of political ideas, or otherwise, you know, people otherwise being forced into exile to flee the country. We can think about W.E.B. Du Bois, who died in Ghana. He went voluntarily, but he actually wanted to come back. But because of the Supreme Court's upholding of the McCarran Act, for example, he died in exile. And so I don't know—

Navid Farnia: Yeah.

Sherif Bramstelle: I'm ambivalent about this idea that having to flee, like, your homeland, right, under conditions that are not your own, I'm ambivalent about whether that is freedom. Though I do agree, like, and this is not to undermine the, you know, courageous and valiant struggle of her comrades to break her out, her own valiant struggle to live a principled and meaningful life in Cuba, in, you know, one of a handful of socialist countries in the world. And so in that regard, you know, not being subjected to the capitalist system, although the blockade notwithstanding.

Navid Farnia: Right.

Sherif Bramstelle: She was free in that regard. But I think that we also need to keep in mind people like Claudia Jones, people who are deported and who are forced out of the United States because of their political ideas and because of their commitment to liberation, and whether or not that really is freedom and whether when we're struggling for political prisoners, if that includes people who have been forced out who should rightfully be here, right, if they choose to be, if not for like, if it weren't for their political ideas. So that's just something that I'm thinking about.

Navid Farnia: No, I think you're right. I think you're right. Maybe I, you know, I probably should have phrased it differently. But yeah, I think that's 100% correct. And I wouldn't disagree with anything you said. I do like one of the— but one of the things I do, I think is important, and I think you agreed as well, is that She was not like— she did not— she was not defeated, right? Like, the U.S. was not—

Sherif Bramstelle: Yes, she was not cowed.

Navid Farnia: Yeah, yeah.

Sherif Bramstelle: Yeah, for sure.

Navid Farnia: Yeah. And I think the other thing I'll say about, like, you know, Assata was not like— she was not like at the, you know, in terms of the leadership level of Huey P. Newton or Elaine Brown, she was not like one of the leaders of the Black Panther Party, like, officially on an official level. And so her sort of I guess, like, her being known is really because of, like, because of the sort of the escape from prison and also the book, right? Like, the book, I think, really elevated a lot of her life and has become very popular, rightfully so.

Sherif Bramstelle: Right.

Navid Farnia: And I think part of the— one of the things that I think really— I was thinking about this today. One of the things that really resonates, I think, from the book for people, just for everyday people, people in general, Is that she really exposes her vulnerability, right? Like her political vulnerability, but also personal vulnerability, right? Like she doesn't talk about herself as like a ready-made revolutionary. She talks about herself like from her early life and how she became a revolutionary. And to me, that is incredibly relatable, right? Like it— people who read that, who perhaps, you know, are not like— are not revolutionaries, are not even As politically conscious as they will become, right? The words that she says in the book, and particularly the chapters about her childhood, right, like in coming into political consciousness, even though, like, she had sort of political messages ingrained in her from through her family, right? And also, like, she learned from her experiences. But, like, the actual political consciousness comes, you know, like the flowering of her political consciousness comes later on.

Sherif Bramstelle: Right.

Navid Farnia: And I think that's very powerful the way that she conveys it, right? Like, kind of in the same vein that, you know, Malcolm X conveys it in his autobiography, although, like, I think Malcolm is doing a little bit of a— like, Malcolm's parents were UNIA members, right? So, like, that's—

Sherif Bramstelle: Mm-hmm.

Navid Farnia: So I think he's doing a little bit of something different. But for her, like, she was, you know, her story is genuine, right? Like, she's saying things that That it really truly exposed their vulnerability. And I think that's very important.

Sherif Bramstelle: So— You know, interestingly, I was telling somebody the other day that— so, okay, W.E.B. Du Bois said something like, in the middle of his life, he said something like, it's as if I died in 1903, because the only work of his that people really engage is like Souls of Black Folk, which he wrote relatively early on. He lived, what, 63— no, 60 years After Souls of Black Folk. And likewise, Assata lived— let's see, it's 2025. That came out in like '70-something. So like 50-ish years after the publication of her autobiography. And so many people talk about, oh, Assata taught me, we're children or daughters of Assata, we're whatever. How many people are actually engaging with any of her work after exile? So again, we talk about, you know, what does it mean to be free? What does it mean to be, you know, freedom versus incarceration? But I wonder how many people could— like, so, so with each— Yeah. Angela Davis, for example, people continue to engage Angela Davis's work after her autobiography. And I don't know that we've accorded Assata Shakur— because she had a blog, she had many writings after she relocated to Cuba. And so I wonder how seriously we've taken her as a thinker, as a revolutionary mother, as it were, if the only thing that people have read of hers is the autobiography. And that's really— that has nothing to do with Assata and everything to do with us and the ways that, you know, we claim these revolutionary figures, but how seriously are we taking their work? And she was alive up until like a month ago. And so how much did we actually engage with her as a living subject, as a knowledge producer, as opposed to a symbol or a figure?

Navid Farnia: Yeah.

Sherif Bramstelle: So that's something, you know, I feel like I'm being very negative, but these are the things, you know, I think that these things are really important because it has to do with, you know, we are a scholars collective. It has to do with how do we take scholarship and knowledge production seriously and what actually counts as that. We talk about people not getting their flowers until after they die, but then we reproduce those same types of logics when we don't actually take people seriously as ongoing thinkers, people who continue to develop and evolve over time.

Navid Farnia: Mm-hmm.

Sherif Bramstelle: Even when they are alive.

Navid Farnia: Yeah, for sure. But I will also take it a step further, right? Like, because I talked about Assata's passing in my class, right, like this past week in my Pan-Africanism class, right? And none of the students, like only a handful of them had even heard of Assata. None of them had read even her autobiography, right? So like the discussion about her was very much an introduction into her life. And it's not just specific to Assata. I think If the discussion was about W.E.B. Du Bois, it would kind of— it would probably be relatively similar, right?

Sherif Bramstelle: Yeah.

Navid Farnia: But I think your point— I think your point is really important that, you know, I mean, even like, it also like speaks to the sort of the realities of place, right? Like, did Assata as an intellectual become any less prominent, you know, after relocating to Cuba or after like after a certain period of time, right? Would it like, you know, those— these are questions that I think— I think, are super important. I'm glad that you bring them up.

Sherif Bramstelle: So— Mm-hmm. I mean, because it's even the case with, like, Elaine Brown, right? And, you know, Elaine Brown had an interesting post about Assata. I won't go into it. But, you know, Elaine Brown is still alive. How much are people, you know, still thinking about Elaine Brown as, like, Taste of Power Elaine Brown or Elaine Brown in the 1970s when she was, you know, at the helm of the Black— the Oakland Black Panther Party versus, like, who she is as a living subject today? I remember a few years ago we did Black Allies for Peace did a webinar Um, that she participated in, and people were very critical of, you know, some of her ideas, especially around gender and sexuality. Um, so what does it mean to take people seriously in terms of where they are now on the one hand, and, um, not discount their position because it doesn't perhaps jibe with our own perspective, but on the one hand, right?

Navid Farnia: Mm-hmm.

Sherif Bramstelle: But then continue to kind of laud or venerate them or demonize them in some cases, Because of what they have, what we think about them through the popular imaginary, if that makes sense.

Navid Farnia: It does make sense. And I'll say, like, really quickly, with Elaine Brown, I saw her speak at the 50th anniversary conference for the Black Panther Party back in 2016, which I really enjoyed. And I actually really enjoyed her, what she said as well. So I'd— yeah, my, actually, my sort of criticisms of Elaine Brown were more her past life than what she was saying in 2016. So it's interesting.

Sherif Bramstelle: Exactly. And, you know, and this is— I think that this is important, right? Because oftentimes if people have particular political perspectives that aren't part of what we call radical now, we think of them as like anachronistic or backwards. We have this kind of linear progress narrative that as time goes on, our ideology becomes more and more revolutionary. But that's not the case, right? And so what does it mean to, like, again, celebrate these people as figures Mm-hmm. As symbols, but then discount them or ignore them altogether or even demonize them when they have ideas we don't agree with that are very much a continuation of the revolutionary politics that they had 20, 30, 40, or 50 years ago.

Navid Farnia: Right. And I think part of also with that, too, like, humanizing a person doesn't mean just agreeing or celebrating or lifting up everything they said, right? Humanizing a person is to also, like, engage critically, not like, as you said, not to demonize, but engage critically with the ideas, because that is what that person would want, right?

Sherif Bramstelle: Mm-hmm.

Navid Farnia: That is dialectically how we push things forward, right? And so I think that's a very important point.

Sherif Bramstelle: Mm-hmm. And it just reminds me, so Robert Allen passed away in July of 2024. And at this, the last Assala conference, which was about a month ago now, myself, Eula Taylor, and— oh, gosh, Leah. Leah, I forgot Leah's last name. I remember nobody's name anymore.

Navid Farnia: Can you also say for our audience what ASALA is?

Sherif Bramstelle: Yeah, so ASALA is the Association for the Study of African American Life and History. Leah Boscombe, she's a professor at Georgia State University. But anyway, we were on the panel and talking about Robert Allen, who most people— again, it's this thing, like, he wrote a book about the Port Chicago Mutiny. He edited a volume called Brotherman, which was like one of the earliest iterations of Black masculinity studies. But most people know him for Black Awakening in Capitalist America, which is an amazing book that was prescient, some might say prophetic, that still has so much relevance today. But something that I said on the panel is that Black Awakening is a bit of a gift and a curse because it was his most popular work.

Navid Farnia: Mm-hmm.

Sherif Bramstelle: What the body of scholarship he produced after that really gets short shrift, right? The work that he did for Black Scholar for several decades gets short shrift. And all of this to say, if we are taking— if we're taking ideas and people seriously, it's important to study, like, their body of scholarship.

Navid Farnia: Yeah.

Sherif Bramstelle: We could say the same thing about Fanon. You know, people know Wretched of the Earth and probably to a lesser extent Black Skin, White Masks, or maybe depending on your discipline, they'll know Black Skin, White Masks as well. But I, you know, Toward the African Revolution and A Dying Colonialism, which are like a collection of his essays, in the context of the Algerian Revolution are actually really important. And so, like, you know, when we cherry-pick these ideas and yet, like, you know, hold these people up as, like, our foremothers, forefathers, blah, blah, blah, we're not necessarily doing our due diligence when it comes to taking ideas seriously.

Navid Farnia: Yeah, for sure. And I would say, just to add, in terms of Fanon, from, I think, A Dying Colonialism— I think it is Dying Colonialism. After the genocide began in 2023, I found myself reading his— he has an essay called Medicine and Colonialism, which I thought was very apropos. So yeah, I think you bring up great points.

Sherif Bramstelle: Yeah. So in terms of— and Ori— so I just also just— Ori's such a— like, he's just such a powerful and beautiful writer. So Ori also Wrote the book Tip of the Spear that is rightfully getting a lot of attention and being studied in a lot of political education circles and et cetera. But I really— I loved the way this essay ended when he said, the best way that we can honor Assata's memory is to support liberation struggles and political prisoners. As Assata said, quote, every revolution in history has been accomplished by action, although words are necessary. We must create shields that protect us and spears that penetrate our enemies. Black people must learn how to struggle by struggling. We must learn by our mistakes. And so I think that that's a really important lesson that we need to continue to learn, that we can't just— you know, Fred Hampton has a variation of this, like, you know, basically theory without practice ain't shit.

Navid Farnia: Mm-hmm.

Sherif Bramstelle: You know, there's the whole thing about— you know, Cabral has an iteration of this that, you know, Basically, we need theory and practice. And so I appreciate that, like, you know, her understanding about that and her offering that up. And I wonder how seriously we've taken that in the battle of ideas.

Navid Farnia: Yeah, I mean, yeah, I agree. I mean, I think that— I think the article and Assata herself— I mean, I think I know the article because I like what I— like, he directly says it in the article, or Samia Burton. That the struggle is not uplifted to the point where perhaps Assata would have wanted it at this point, right? So—

Sherif Bramstelle: 100%.

Navid Farnia: So, I mean, it does, like, beg the question of, like, what does it take, right? What, like, what are people doing? And what are, like, what are the mistakes that people are not making, right? Like, as you said, people have to learn through their mistakes, right? And so what are the mistakes that people are not making through inaction, through their inaction, right? I think these are important questions. And yeah, I mean, I don't have much to add to that because it's directly— it's so poignant, right?

Sherif Bramstelle: I mean, I think the final thing I'm thinking about is oftentimes when we think about political prisoners, we think about people who were incarcerated and remain incarcerated, who were incarcerated in the 1970s, 1980s perhaps, and continue to be incarcerated. So people who were involved with various Black and Third World liberation struggles. But we also have to keep in mind that in every struggle, political prisoners are made, right? And we have a bunch of political prisoners or potential political prisoners right now, those who are being sort of indicted for anything from domestic terrorism to RICO for their involvement in the Stop Cop City actions, for example, persons who are incarcerated, deported, et cetera, disappeared because of the struggles for Palestinian liberation or support for Palestinian liberation. Persons who are incarcerated or in various stages of the criminal legal system because of their involvement in the George Floyd uprisings, that these people are political prisoners too. And like, yes, free Mumia, free Jalil al-Amin, you know, and the list goes on and on, Joy Powell. But we also need to be thinking about our comrades, like our lateral political prisoners who also need support and who also need to be considered political prisoners because they have— they are being incarcerated for the actions in which they're engaging.

Navid Farnia: Yeah, 100%. And I would also add that there's a continuum that people don't talk about between political incarceration and mass incarceration, right? Mass incarceration emerges from the reality of the struggle in the 1960s, right? Like, the, you know, mass incarceration exists before that, but the gross expansion of the carceral state, like, is a result of struggle in the 1960s, where the state is now incarcerating people that perhaps they're not revolutionaries yet or not radicals yet, but they have the potential to become so, particularly given the economic and political situation that is unfolding in a lot of, like, in a lot of cities and just around the country in general, right? So I think that even, like, considering the question of mass incarceration and what it means to be incarcerated and the political circumstances of that, Of course, the distinction between political prisoners and mass incarceration is still useful, right? But also, like, considering the political implications of mass incarceration as well is important.

Sherif Bramstelle: And the United States is, like, one of the few countries in the world that does not have a designation of political prisoner. They're all just criminals, right? And so I think that that matters too. I, you know, I learned that fact reading about Ben Davis, who was a Black communist, a former councilman in Harlem who was incarcerated for being a member of the Communist Party, basically. And so I think that that's something that's really interesting as well, which is also why oftentimes political prisoners are entrapped, right? Or they're charged— excuse me, they're charged with crimes, actual crimes like bank robbery or whatever, and trumped-up charges at that, because of the fact that the US doesn't recognize political prisoners as a separate category.

Navid Farnia: Yeah, for sure. For sure.

Sherif Bramstelle: So yeah, so shout out to Ori for that article. Rest in power to Assata Shakur. And hopefully we do continue to not only uphold a symbol of her legacy, but to actually take up her charge to heighten the contradictions through struggle.

Navid Farnia: For sure. Well said.

Sherif Bramstelle: Yeah. And so the ceasefire. So Navid, this is what, like, we're trying to— before we started recording, we're trying to figure out this, like, the third Ceasefire. And so I was wondering, because you are a scholar of Southwest Asia and revolutionary struggle, revolution and counterrevolution, so I'm wondering for you, what makes this ceasefire different, other than Trump trying to get a Nobel Prize for it? What makes this different? And do you think it's going to hold up? Not least because, for example, like hours, if not minutes, after the ceasefire was signed, Yeah. Israel committed a massacre, another massacre of over 70 civilians, perhaps in an attempt to undermine the ceasefire. So what are your thoughts?

Navid Farnia: Yeah, so I think, first of all, let me clarify, I'm not necessarily a scholar of Southwest Asia. I mean, I have that background, like, you know, personal and I guess political, but my training is more, you know, like in Black studies. But I will say, Yeah, so this is the third iteration, the third ceasefire. The first one was like a 6-day, I think it was even, it wasn't even called a ceasefire. I think it was called like humanitarian truce, right? Or something along those lines.

Sherif Bramstelle: Yes, yes, yes, you're right.

Navid Farnia: And then the second one, of course, was in January, which was supposed to be a ceasefire that would, that was going to last in 3 phases. But essentially after phase 1 of the ceasefire, which I think was supposed to be around 40 days, but it was extended to 60 days or whatever, But essentially, after Phase 1, the Zionists started— they were bombing the entire time, but they started their genocide, like, on a full scale again, right? So I think in that respect, like, the continued strikes on Gaza, realistically, given the sort of grotesque and just, you know, I don't even know the adjectives to describe Zionism and the Zionist entity, just the way that they are. Like, they're going to continue to do what they do, like they've been doing in Lebanon, right? Like, there's officially a ceasefire in Lebanon, but they continue to bomb Lebanon on a daily basis, right? I think the most important things about this iteration of the ceasefire, though, are one, just getting— just letting the people of Gaza breathe, right? Like, getting aid in, getting food and water in, just Just letting them breathe, even if it doesn't last, being able to just breathe and not have to live through the constant bombings and things like that, I think that's the most significant thing. The second thing that I would say is the question of disarmament of the Palestinian resistance. The Palestinian resistance maintains that it's not going to disarm, and I don't think it's going to disarm for sure. But Trump's 20-point plan does stipulate that.

Sherif Bramstelle: Right.

Navid Farnia: Part of the agreement is the Palestinian resistance disarming, right? I, I don't, like I said, I don't think that's going to happen. And, and, and that's why, that's a major reason why I don't think it's going to last.

Sherif Bramstelle: Mm-hmm.

Navid Farnia: And so, you know, the genocide is going to continue, but also the liberation struggle is going to continue, right? So I think the, that the Palestinian resistance is playing the long game, and I think that's correct. That's the correct position to do so, to to play. I think they're waging a protracted war against the Zionist entity. And in all successful anti-colonial struggles, these anti-colonial movements have waged protracted and prolonged wars that degrade the colonizer over time, because that's the only war that they can fight, successfully fight and win, right?

Sherif Bramstelle: Mm-hmm.

Navid Farnia: And so I think that's going to continue. And in terms of the question of the captives, The Zionist captives specifically, because there's also Palestinian captives. I think thousands of Palestinian captives that have been, that have been taken prisoner since October 7th. But the question of the Zionist captives, people have talked a lot about, I think more, I guess more and more people are talking about that they're not the bargaining chip, the leverage tool that they used to be. And I would generally agree with that.

Sherif Bramstelle: Mm-hmm.

Navid Farnia: I think the major, the major bargaining chip that they continue to be is, is the, is for prisoner exchanges. But aside from that, like, the captives have not, you know, the resistance having these captives has not stopped the Zionists from doing everything, like, including, I mean, killing their own captives in certain bombings, right? So I don't, I like, I don't think that's a major issue. And I don't, I also like the question of the Zionists withdrawing from Gaza.

Sherif Bramstelle: Mm-hmm.

Navid Farnia: One of the reports that I read was that they're going to withdraw from 70% of Gaza. I don't—

Sherif Bramstelle: that's kind of—

Navid Farnia: Right. I don't know how, like, how the extent to which they are going to withdraw. But because I think it's going to continue at a certain point, the question of withdrawal at this point is secondary to the question of humanitarian aid and just ceasefire, like, you know, literal ceasefire. So those are my initial and general thoughts. And we'll And I'll just add that, you know, we'll see how things unfold, right? Like, the Zionists cannot be trusted. The United States cannot be trusted. And importantly, for people out there who continue to say these kinds of things, they should also add that the Palestinian resistance knows this as well, right? Like, if you—

Sherif Bramstelle: Right.

Navid Farnia: Like, out here on the streets of the United States can make this— come to this conclusion, trust me, the Palestinian resistance has also come to this conclusion, right? So let's trust the resistance, take cues from the resistance and see what unfolds, right? Those are my thoughts.

Sherif Bramstelle: Yeah, you know, it reminds me of— you have to go through— so I have a lot of conversations without— or with Gerald Horne. I can be prone to some ultra-leftism, I suppose, what might be considered ultra-leftism, I suppose. But it's sort of like you have to kind of go through the motions to show— even if we know what we know, right? We know they're not going to work. We know that these are dastardly and feckless entities, right? Everybody doesn't know that. Some people still believe in international law. Some people still believe in liberal rights and recognition and a liberal specification of human rights.

Navid Farnia: Right.

Sherif Bramstelle: And so part of what Part of what it means to sort of bring people along is to convey, okay, we'll do it. And then when it doesn't work, they come to consciousness on their own. It's one thing to tell people. It's another thing for people to experience this in real time. This, for example, I think is part of why more than ever, you know, there's a lot of losses that are happening. I don't think, you know, yeah, there's a lot of losses that are happening all around. But one of the real victories is the changing narrative around—

Navid Farnia: Yeah.

Sherif Bramstelle: the Zionist entity. And that is because of what people are actually seeing in real time. Like, they say that this is the victory of the civil rights movement, right? Is that what swayed these white supremacists and these crackers or neutral whites is seeing the barbarity with the rise of televisual media, for example. And so likewise, you know, folks seeing like Israel has a right to defend itself actually doesn't— what does that have to do with like dead children and brutalized civilians and massive destruction? And so I think that likewise—

Navid Farnia: Right.

Sherif Bramstelle: To your point about the Palestinian resistance understanding that it's not naivete, these are deeply strategic and political people who understand both the contradictions, but also the different levers of a revolutionary struggle.

Navid Farnia: Yes, for sure. And a couple points, right? I think the first point, you kind of hit on this, The, like, the resistance has to engage in good faith negotiations, right? They can't just say, we're not going to negotiate with these people because of whatever. Like, and they have all the reason in the world not to negotiate, right?

Sherif Bramstelle: 100%.

Navid Farnia: But they have to, they have to engage in good faith negotiations in order to even just get, again, again, allow their people to breathe, get, take any opportunity to allow their people to breathe, right?

Sherif Bramstelle: Yeah.

Navid Farnia: And this transitions into my second point. That we— like, those of us who study guerrilla warfare know, right, that the guerrillas, like, they're like fish in the sea, like Mao says, right? Like, they get sustenance from the general population. The imperialists also know this, by the way. The Zionists also know this, right? And that's why they try to separate, like, engage in processes like ethnic cleansing and such, right?

Sherif Bramstelle: Mm-hmm.

Navid Farnia: They try to separate, isolate the resistance. By separating them from the general population. But so if the general population provides the sustenance for the resistance, then the question for Gaza at this moment is who's providing the sustenance for the population, right? And that's where these negotiations come in, where like people need literal food and water for sustenance to survive, and that directly impacts the resistance as well, right? So, so these questions are interwoven, right? And the, the, the—

Sherif Bramstelle: Yeah.

Navid Farnia: The kinds of— the tactics and strategies of warfare are related to the daily realities that people are facing on the ground in Gaza, right? One last point I'll say about negotiations again, right? Like, people questioned why, like, the Iranian government would engage in nuclear talks with the United States and Europe, right?

Sherif Bramstelle: Right.

Navid Farnia: And others have said this. I think Mohammad Marandi has said this, an Iranian scholar who's very active on media. He has talked about how, you know, the government has to engage in these good faith negotiations, like, to even try to lift sanctions, because one of the things that it has to do is to show its people that, like, these are the monsters that we're dealing with. These are the treacherous folks that we're dealing with, right? So when the United States goes back on negotiations, starts like the— and the Zionists start bombing during the very time that negotiations are supposed to take place with the United States, That sort of galvanizes popular opinion in Iran in support of the government and fighting this war against the Zionist imperialists, right? Same thing in Gaza, right? Like, getting public— like, maintaining— getting and maintaining public support and popular support means that you have to negotiate and do things in service of the population and of the people, right? Yes, we have these long-term objectives to liberate Palestine. But what about, like, on a sort of material basis, right, dealing with the material realities at the present moment? And I think that's what the resistance is having to deal with, and that's why they're engaging astutely in these negotiations and doing everything they can to provide sustenance for the popular cradle, for their people. So—

Sherif Bramstelle: Mm-hmm. What's going on with the flotilla people? Like, I know that some of them have been— some have been released, and I think I was reading somewhere mostly European and American, because they are in jail or in prison or something, right? And we heard a lot about Greta being brutalized, and, you know, that's really sad. But, you know, there are like— there's a South African that has been disappeared. There are these different flotilla folks who are from like Global South countries or countries who have less, I guess, leverage that are disappeared. And so, I wonder, like, how do they fit into this whole thing? And what— like, what are we to make of what's happening with them?

Navid Farnia: Yeah, so in terms of the flotilla, I think— so one of the South African person, I think you mentioned, that's Mandela's grandson. I forget his first name.

Sherif Bramstelle: Right.

Navid Farnia: Mandela.

Sherif Bramstelle: Mandela. Mandela.

Navid Farnia: Yeah, Mandela. Yeah, okay. And then I read about, like, a Nigerian comrade who was on one of the flotillas. They— last I read, which I think was yesterday, They hadn't heard from him yet, so I'm not sure what happened to him. So, I mean, I think you make a really good point, an important point, in terms of just the racial contradictions, even within these flotillas, right? I mean, the Zionists, like Ben-Gvir, like one of the most rabid Zionists, talked about all these people as terrorists, right? Like, I need to laugh. Like, it's just, you know, what—

Sherif Bramstelle: It's just so absurd. It's funny.

Navid Farnia: Yeah, it's the absurdity of it. Exactly. It's our coping mechanism, right? So, He called all these people terrorists. But we also know the, like, the fact that, you know, specifically Black people, Black activists, specifically Palestinian activists and Arab activists have been treated more brutally than other, than, for example, European activists, right? That's just a reality, like, and it's something that we need to point out. In terms of the flotillas themselves, right? I think it's something, it goes back to something you mentioned earlier, that it sort of elevates the contradictions by continuing to isolate the Zionists and the imperialists in public opinion, in terms of international public opinion. And so, in doing so, it places more and more pressure on these forces to perhaps come to the negotiating table, to agree to capitulate in certain ways that that they otherwise wouldn't capitulate to, right? Of course, this is not the primary contradiction that is leading to all this stuff, right? The resistance is driving all this, the resistance on the ground. But, you know, it's clear that the resistance is supportive of the flotillas, because those, the flotillas, are driving international public opinion against the Zionist regime and delegitimizing, continuing to push the Zionist regime to Even further delegitimacy, right? So I think that is very, very important. And I think the flotillas are going to continue, especially if the war continues, right? So, but that's— I think that's the position of the flotillas in all this.

Sherif Bramstelle: To what degree— I mean, is there any point at which it becomes Less effective, right? So how much more delegitimizing of— because to me, the delegitimization comes not from how Europeans and Americans and other people are treated when they are attempting to provide humanitarian aid, but the destruction of Palestinian life. To me, that's enough for me.

Navid Farnia: Yeah.

Sherif Bramstelle: But I wonder how many more resources, how much Yeah. More sort of— because to a certain degree, yes, they do have resources that are then, I guess, confiscated and destroyed, right? Anyway, there is a bit of theater to it, right? The point is for a sort of spectacle aspect. How much more of that, how much more of it do we need? How much more of it will be effective if the aid is not going to even make it to Palestinians? So I understand on the one hand, heighten the contradictions, but I guess, is there a sort of saturation point whereby particular tactics no longer serve that function?

Navid Farnia: I think there is a saturation point. I'm not sure we've reached that with respect to this particular tactic, because the other thing, and I'm glad you brought this up, is because the other important point, and perhaps I should have started with this, is that the initial sort of impetus of the flotillas is to break the siege on Gaza, right? And I think we need to start there. Like, that's the starting point. And so when they don't break the siege, when the Zionists do come into international waters and start brutalizing and terrorizing these people, right, that's when, like, the spectacle element of it becomes foregrounded. But in terms of, like, the very impetus behind it is to break the siege. And I will give credit to Greta, right? Like, she does, you know, she, like, she was, I guess she's been brutalized, right? Like, I've read that she has been.

Sherif Bramstelle: Right.

Navid Farnia: I think she was forced to kiss the Israeli flag and these kinds of things while she was detained, right? But she— and I think one of, like, some of our comrades have mentioned this, that she does continually bring it back to Gaza and Palestine, right? And so, like, she's not participating in this sort of, I don't know—

Sherif Bramstelle: White saviorism.

Navid Farnia: Yeah, yeah, exactly, right? So she, to the extent that she can control the narrative, like, she's doing a good job.

Sherif Bramstelle: Mm-hmm.

Navid Farnia: And so, yeah, I mean, I think you're right. Like, there's a certain point where particular tactics stop working, and then— and that requires a shift of tactics. I'm not sure we've reached that point with this particular tactic and with the flotillas. Perhaps there are adjustments that need to be made, right, in order to— if the primary objective is to break the siege, then how does that happen, right? Perhaps that is related to The international backing for the flotillas, right? Perhaps that is related to, you know, what is the Swedish state doing to support its citizen who gets detained and is basically, you know, you know, humiliated in certain ways, right? What is the South African state doing about its citizen who is, you know, being detained and perhaps brutalized, right? Tortured. You know, These are the contradictions that arise from this, from this entire tactic.

Sherif Bramstelle: Mm-hmm. Hmm. Okay. So part of why I think, as you know, there's discourse that part of the reason why Trump is really pressing the issue about the ceasefire was because he wanted to be awarded a Nobel Peace Prize, which leads us into our next— before we transition, is there more that you wanted to say about the ceasefire? Wait and see. The resistance fighters know this is part of the strategy. They're not going into this naively or blindly. Part of it is to get the foot off the necks of the Palestinian people to get food and water and basic necessities of living. Anything else that we need to be considering right now?

Navid Farnia: No, I think you encapsulated it really well. I will just add one quick thing that people are really afraid, and I guess rightfully so, that this is going to be another Lebanon. Post-ceasefire Lebanon. I think people just, you know, the resistance is not going to allow that to happen. I think there are particular situations, particular things, even with respect to Lebanon, that even, that are, it's too simplistic of analysis to just say that, you know, the resistance in Lebanon is allowing this to happen or whatever, like things like that. But I'll keep it in Gaza and I'll just say that There's not going to be a situation where there's going to be continuous bombings and continuous attacks and the resistance is going to do nothing about it. The resistance is going to be there. This war, unfortunately, is likely to continue, but the resistance is going to fight. And the reason why the ceasefire happened is because the Zionists, the Israelis, and the imperialists are not able to eradicate Hamas and the rest of the resistance factors like they claim to want to do.

Sherif Bramstelle: Right.

Navid Farnia: Again, that's something perhaps we should have foregrounded as well. Like, they came into this wanting to eliminate the resistance. They have been utterly unsuccessful, utterly unsuccessful in doing so. And we need to really elevate that and show that as long as the resistance is there, they are not— just as we talked about with Assata, as long as they're there, they're not defeated, right?

Sherif Bramstelle: Mm-hmm.

Navid Farnia: That's what a guerrilla movement has to do. It has to just continue to exist and continue to resist, right? And that as long as they do so, they will not be defeated. So I think that's—

Sherif Bramstelle: Something I wanted to ask you, can you clarify, like, the difference? So on the one hand, like, so the Zionists will say there are no innocents in Gaza, related to the point that you made about guerrillas are like fish in water, right, that they are embedded in society, that they are supported by society, they're a function of society.

Navid Farnia: Mm-hmm.

Sherif Bramstelle: So how do you part— how do you— what is the sort of dialectical political difference between there are no innocents, there are no civilians, because there is the— because guerrillas are part of the society en masse, and because— and if the society supports Hamas, how do you sort of differentiate between those 2 things? Do you not— do you understand what I'm asking you?

Navid Farnia: I do understand what you're asking. And actually, So this is a discourse that actually goes back centuries, right? Like, people like Europeans, North Americans, white people essentially, have been writing for centuries that because Native Americans, because Africans, because people in Asia and other parts of the world engage in guerrilla warfare, right, and engage in guerrilla tactics, that we should not— we, the Europeans, should not differentiate between civilians Correct. And so that's how they logically justify their atrocities, right, from the so-called Indian Wars to Vietnam to Kenya to South Africa, so on and so forth, right, to Palestine.

Sherif Bramstelle: Algeria.

Navid Farnia: Sorry?

Sherif Bramstelle: Algeria.

Navid Farnia: Algeria, of course, for sure. International law does not agree with that position, for one, right? And I'll also add, like, this is also why they, like, the The Zionists and imperialists talk about like this discourse of, you know, human shields and whatnot, while they, like the Israelis, have military installations like directly within settler communities. I think the more pertinent question also is, are settlers civilians, right? Like, because they're— I mean, like, no, but, you know, but, you know, whatever.

Sherif Bramstelle: Right. Right.

Navid Farnia: But anyway, perhaps it's a Question for another conversation in a different day. But, um—

Sherif Bramstelle: Inextricably linked.

Navid Farnia: Yes, inextricably linked for sure, right? Like, they— so the entire discourse around this conversation is fundamentally racialized. Like, they would never have this conversation about, you know, about Europeans, about, like, about, about, you know, so-called civilians in white settler states, right? But they always have these conversations about, like, Palestinians and other oppressed peoples.

Sherif Bramstelle: Mm-hmm.

Navid Farnia: So, like, so the contradiction is fundamentally racial. And international law, as it was designed, like, they were the ones who designed international law, right? The Europeans and North Americans. They're the ones who wrote international law. And even their law does not support their position, right?

Sherif Bramstelle: Right.

Navid Farnia: So, yeah, that's— I don't know if that answered your question, but, like, hopefully.

Sherif Bramstelle: That's that on that. Clock it. Okay. So, the next thing we wanted to think about— so, I mentioned, you know, I was transitioning into the peace Prize. And what is particularly odious is that the Peace Prize was awarded to— I want to get her name right— Maria Corina Machado.

Navid Farnia: Machado.

Sherif Bramstelle: Corina— Maria Corina Machado, who's like part— for upholding democracy, right, because of her opposition to the Maduro government. She is considered to be a political prisoner because it's like she can't move around freely in society because she's actually tried to overthrow the government. But this is being— you know, she's a Venezuelan who, again, is awarded the Peace Prize because of her opposition as a pro-democracy candidate or a pro-democracy representative because of her opposition to Maduro. So, number one, we really have to think about, or we really need to be clear about what pro-democracy means. Anytime that there's these color revolutions that happen around the world, These are pro-democracy. So what does that actually mean? What does democracy mean when it has to do with the direct destabilization of governments, primarily in the Global South or in sort of satellite countries? So that's one thing. But then what are we to make of the Nobel, quote unquote, Peace Prize that was awarded to Obama for being Black, right? That's awarded to this woman for her opposition to a democratically Right, wrong, or different. You can agree or not agree, or you could you can like it or not like it rather. But a democratically elected government in Venezuela to give this person the Nobel Peace Prize, what are we? And that in the context of Trump bombing these civilian boats that are ostensibly drug, you know, part of some type of drug cartel emanating from Venezuela. And Zoh Zohran Mamdani, everybody's radical, you know, radical bae, talking about calling, you know, the Cuban and Venezuelan leaders dictators. And so it's like it's like this full-scale assault. There's I'm I'm jumbling all these things together, but it's like a full-court press against Venezuela. That's one thing. And the second thing is this Nobel Prize, right? Which actually wasn't it like somebody who invented the fucking Atomic bomb or the hydrogen bomb is like one of the per— the person who like organized the Nobel Prize but then felt bad about it, so then started giving out these prizes or whatever. Isn't that like the origins?

Navid Farnia: I don't know the backstory. Okay.

Sherif Bramstelle: But anyway, these, these prizes that are given out that are supposed to be for peace— what does peace even mean in that context? So there's a lot— that's a lot of word salad, but a lot going on. But like, your thoughts?

Navid Farnia: Yeah, I mean, I think everything you said, everything you said/implied is correct. I think peace means imperial hegemony, right? Like, so, you know, what does it mean to award someone— by the way, like you said, like you talked about, for example, Maria Corina Machado is a political prisoner. Some people should be politically imprisoned, right? Like, you know, for real.

Sherif Bramstelle: Mm-hmm.

Navid Farnia: The other thing I'll add, too, is that, like, as you said, Venezuela had democratic elections and elected Maduro as their president, right? And you and I both know people who were there in Venezuela during the elections.

Sherif Bramstelle: Mm-hmm.

Navid Farnia: And they reported back saying that this is probably one of the most democratic processes in the world, right?

Sherif Bramstelle: Right.

Navid Farnia: Like, much more democratic than the United States. So, you know, like, which, you know, we both know that the U.S. isn't a real democracy, even as, like, sort of whatever claims to be.

Sherif Bramstelle: It's a— Even on its best day. Yeah, yeah.

Navid Farnia: Like, you know, I mean, we, we can talk about the distinctions between bourgeois democracy and, like, universal democracy. Like, I don't think the U.S.—

Sherif Bramstelle: Right.

Navid Farnia: You know, whatever. Um, but, like, so I think everything you said is correct. Um, I think, I think what you're gesturing to, and you can add to this, like, you can clarify, like, if you— if, if that's not what you're gesturing to, is that there's consent being manufactured for whatever operations that are being waged against Venezuela.

Sherif Bramstelle: Yeah.

Navid Farnia: So, and I think everything surrounding the Nobel Prize, the bombing of so-called drug boats, which are not like, you know, they're not that, right? Like, these are just random people who are fishing off the coast, right? The US military buildup in the Caribbean region, all that is about setting the table for whatever operations that they plan to engage in.

Sherif Bramstelle: So yeah. And even if they were drug boats, when do you use drone bombs to decimate these? So it's like, number one, what does that say about the fucking stockpile of weapons that the US has? Because it's 3 war corporations stacked up in trench coat. But also, You're supposed to get consent from Congress to engage in acts of war because Trump is justified, right? Trump is essentially saying that we are at war, these are war measures, but you have to get, you have to get, you know, what is it, not consent, but the green light from Congress basically to wage this war.

Navid Farnia: Yeah.

Sherif Bramstelle: In fact, they just tried to pass a piece of legislation that failed in the Senate to condemn these actions, to stop these actions by Trump. But so even if they were drug boats, it's Still like highly illegal, but, but they also are not, right? So that's, that's just on top of everything.

Navid Farnia: Yeah.

Sherif Bramstelle: So in terms, in terms of Machado, so there's a piece by Code Pink that was written by, uh, Michelle Ellner. And let me, for those who don't know who, who Machado is, the winner of the Peace Prize, these are just some of her greatest hits that are outlined in this article, which is called When María Corina Machado Wins the Nobel Peace Prize, Peace Has Lost Its Meaning. So these are some of her greatest hits. She helped lead the 2002 coup that briefly overthrew a democratically elected president and signed the Carmona Decree that erased the constitution and dissolved every public institution overnight. She worked hand in hand with Washington to justify regime change, using her platform to demand foreign military intervention to quote unquote liberate Venezuela through force. She cheered on Donald Trump's threats of invasion and his naval deployments in the Caribbean, a show of force that risked igniting regional war under the pretext of combating narco trafficking. While Trump sent warships and froze assets, Machado stood ready to serve as his local proxy, promising to deliver Venezuela's sovereignty on a silver platter. She pushed for the U.S. sanctions that strangled the economy, knowing exactly who would pay the price: the poor, the sick, the working class. She helped construct the so-called interim government, a Washington-backed puppet show run by a self-appointed president who looted Venezuela's resources abroad while children at home went hungry. She vowed to reopen Venezuela's embassy in Jerusalem, aligning herself openly with the same apartheid state that bombs hospitals and calls it The self-defense. Now she wants to hand over the country's oil, water, and infrastructure to private corporations. This is the same recipe that made Latin America the laboratory of neoliberal misery in the 1990s. She also is a supporter of Netanyahu. So elsewhere in the article, it says that Machado's politics are steeped in violence. She has called for foreign intervention, even appealing directly to Benjamin Netanyahu, the architect of Gaza's annihilation, to help liberate Venezuela with bombs under the banner of freedom. She's demanded sanctions, that silent form of warfare whose effects, as studies in The Lancet and other journals have shown, have killed more people than war, cutting off medicine, food, and energy to entire populations. So this is who won the Nobel Peace Prize.

Navid Farnia: Mm-hmm.

Sherif Bramstelle: And so you had done just some cursory research on other prize winners and sort of what was happening in the world. So what are some of the highlights of these These practitioners of peace who've won the prize.

Navid Farnia: Yeah, so let me just add really quick to her— so Machado's candidate in the last election, was it, I think, 2024?

Sherif Bramstelle: Mm-hmm. Edmundo González. Uh-huh.

Navid Farnia: He was a Venezuelan official who worked at the embassy in El Salvador during the U.S.-waged counterinsurgency in El Salvador during the 1980s. And he collaborated with the CIA to, to basically slaughter and massacre religious leaders in El Salvador during that war as well, right? So like these people have like their, their hands are dirty left and right, like all over the place, right? So, but in terms of your question, I mean, I was actually surprised to find that in 2012, the European Union won the Nobel Peace Prize, like, like an entire political entity.

Sherif Bramstelle: Mm-hmm.

Navid Farnia: And so the question that I've got—

Sherif Bramstelle: Or what did they win for? Doesn't it tell what they won for?

Navid Farnia: I mean, I was looking at Wikipedia, and it gave some, like, some reason of, like, for the last 50 years of peace in Europe and things like that. So I think that was a justification, that, like, there was so much— there was a long period of peace after World War II in Europe, and that's why, essentially— I mean, you— like, there's, like— I guess there's a committee or whatever. But essentially, I think we can just say that the European Union awarded that to themselves, right? Like—

Sherif Bramstelle: Correct. Right.

Navid Farnia: But like, I was thinking about, okay, what was happening in 2012, right? In 2011, NATO bombed— invaded and bombed and bombed Libya and assassinated Gaddafi, right? So this was around the time of 2012. Like, there was a lot of conversation about human trafficking from the African continent through Libya into Europe, right? And the question of like slavery that was taking place. All of that was a direct result of the NATO invasion of Libya, right? And the destabilization and destruction of the Libyan state, right?

Sherif Bramstelle: Yeah.

Navid Farnia: So, I mean, they could have— these people, like these European Union leaders, could have been essentially awarding themselves the Nobel Peace Prize on Libyan territory, like in front of all the destruction, if they wanted to, right?

Sherif Bramstelle: Yeah.

Navid Farnia: So there's that. I mean, I think you mentioned 2008, Obama. Like, do you want to talk about— I guess we can sort of Brainstorm and unpack what was happening in 2008 when Obama won the Peace Prize.

Sherif Bramstelle: Well, there's the bailouts.

Navid Farnia: Yeah.

Sherif Bramstelle: Right? There is, you know, the huge, you know, so the massive redistribution of wealth upwardly. So this was his first administration. I think this was prior to him becoming the droner-in-chief, which happened later on. But basically, but I mean, I think that he basically just got it for being Black, right? He was a symbolism of the US post-racial Yeah. And so they gave it, you know, they gave it to him for, you know, being Black but doing nothing for Black people. What else was happening in 2008? I mean, basically the second Great Depression is the thing that immediately comes to mind.

Navid Farnia: Iraq War.

Sherif Bramstelle: The Iraq War, right. But also, right, so this was also the time of You know, the PIGS, the, you know, Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece, and Spain, which were all, you know, all of these countries who are struggling with massive amounts of debt as a direct result of, like, debt swaps that led to the 2008 financial crash.

Navid Farnia: Mm-hmm.

Sherif Bramstelle: And so the looting, you know, the looting of their economies that took place over time. And these are members of the European Union. Or actually, I think, wasn't it a debt swap? I think it was with Greece. A debt swap with Goldman Sachs had occurred so that they could become a member of the European Union. And then 2008 was the moment when all of these things kind of went pear-shaped. And so there's all sorts of economic machinations that are happening that are creating massive amounts of economic immiseration throughout the world. And this is the time at which Obama is getting the Nobel Peace Prize.

Navid Farnia: Yes.

Sherif Bramstelle: He hadn't even done anything in his administration yet.

Navid Farnia: Yeah, yeah, exactly. I mean, I think you're right. Like, it's the symbolism of a sort of a quote-unquote post-racial reality, right? Like, I think that is, like, that is a good way to sum it up in one sentence, right?

Sherif Bramstelle: Mm-hmm.

Navid Farnia: 2005, the International Atomic Energy Agency, which has actually been in the news with respect to the nuclear talks with Iran this year, right? And basically the treachery of the IAEA in basically helping to facilitate the Zionist imperialist strikes on Iran, right? So this was in 2005 that these people were awarded. Who else?

Sherif Bramstelle: Woodrow Wilson won in 1919 for helping to form the League of Nations, which the United States subsequently did not even join because it did not want to be subjected to international law.

Navid Farnia: The same man who also, an arch-segregationist, filmed one of the most famous— Apropos, one of the most famous films in, in U.S. history at the White House, Birth of a Nation, the celebration of the Klan, um, for those who might not know.

Sherif Bramstelle: Um, yeah, so Theodore Roosevelt, who was central in annihilating, uh, indigenous, uh, through various, uh, so-called Indian Wars and expropriating massive amounts of indigenous people.

Navid Farnia: And also overseas imperialism, like, like, uh, Roosevelt was a major purveyor of overseas imperialism and the occupation of particularly countries in the Caribbean and Central and South America. So yeah.

Sherif Bramstelle: Yeah. So then what— I knew that Nelson Mandela won in what, like some— I would say '94, '95 or something, but I did not realize de Klerk won it alongside him. So what the fuck is that? The key upholder of apartheid won alongside Nelson Mandela?

Navid Farnia: Yeah, yeah. Like, that's that whole race relations paradigm where, like, you know, both sides coming together to, like, to make peace or whatever. Peace. But yeah, that was '93. So de Klerk and Mandela. That was actually even before the official— the official—

Sherif Bramstelle: End of apartheid.

Navid Farnia: Yeah, yeah. So—

Sherif Bramstelle: Yeah.

Navid Farnia: '94, the next year, was Arafat, Yitzhak Rabin, and Shimon Peres for the Oslo Accords. The Oslo Accords were in '93, and that was basically the disarming, that marked the disarming of the Palestinian Liberation Organization, the central figure in the Palestinian resistance, right? A major, major setback for the Palestinian liberation struggle, right?

Sherif Bramstelle: Yeah.

Navid Farnia: And it's notable, it's notable that, like, going into this, in '79, another Israeli official, Prime Minister Menachem Begin, was awarded '78, actually, alongside Anwar Sadat for the Camp David Accords that normalized relations between Israel and Egypt, right? So every time, like, every time, like, the Zionists were able to get some sort of capitulation in the form of so-called peace with regional states and, you know, even the Palestinian resistance, they're given, they're celebrated as, you know, as like these peace, like they're given the Nobel Peace Prize, right? So—

Sherif Bramstelle: And apparently people were saying that Jimmy Carter should have won in '78 for those accords, but Jimmy Carter didn't end up winning in until 2002 for, I don't know, potatoes or some shit. I don't know. Pushing peas, I guess. And then, of course, Henry Kissinger, the odious, nefarious idiot, won the Nobel Prize for negotiating a ceasefire in Vietnam. And it's so funny, there's all this discourse now about everybody gets a prize, even the losers get a prize, whatever. And it's like, the US lost that, and they gave the prize to the losers. It's crazy.

Navid Farnia: I mean, it goes to show you, once— I mean, this This is— the Nobel Peace Prize is basically a psyop, right? Like, it's a—

Sherif Bramstelle: Yeah.

Navid Farnia: It works in the interest of psychological operations that advance US and Western imperialism. That's, I mean, front and center, right? 2 years ago, an Iranian woman dissident, one of the architects of the so-called Woman, Life, Freedom movement, which was basically— which is basically a CIA operation, right, won the Nobel Peace Prize. 4 years ago, 2021, a Russian dissident, Was it Navalny? No, no, I don't know. I don't know. I've never heard of this guy, Dmitri Muratov, right? Um, but like, but, you know, and so that shows you that they were creating the conditions for a NATO war against Russia in, in 2021, right? So when we, when we see that Maria, Maria Corina Machado wins it now, what are the conditions that they're trying to create? Those are the questions that we should be asking.

Sherif Bramstelle: And all of the— and it's like all of these people who are dissenting against a regime the United States doesn't like, a government the United States doesn't like, they won a Peace Prize.

Navid Farnia: Yeah.

Sherif Bramstelle: That's very interesting, right? And that's supposed to be pro-democracy, pro-peace.

Navid Farnia: Yeah. So it's good to like, you know, even like I never paid attention, like I historically have not paid attention to this kind of thing, but have done more so this year because Trump has been trumpeting himself, right, for the For the prize. But now that I know, like, now that I've actually gone back into it and studied it, right, we can see, like, we've— we can develop an analysis that, like, the extent to which this really is an imperialist prize to advance imperialism, right? And that we're talking about peace as hegemony, imperial hegemony, more than anything, right? So, yeah.

Sherif Bramstelle: This is the conundrum we're stuck in, right? So, this is— I feel this way about international law, the International Criminal Court, the UN, the International Court of Justice. There's supposed to be this sort of international— on the one hand, this internationalism is supposed to set rules of order and terms of the game, which are clear, as we can see, by not only this Nobel Prize farce, but also the fact that if you take the ICC, the only non-Black person—

Navid Farnia: Yeah.

Sherif Bramstelle: —non-African who has been prosecuted in the ICC is Slobodan Milošević.

Navid Farnia: Right.

Sherif Bramstelle: The only one. And so we're on the one hand right now with the Zionist entity genocide in Gaza, people keep appealing to international law and these international institutions. But as we see, that's like being hoisted on your own petard because as we see, these international institutions are Western institutions. They are meant to preserve Western imperialism and Western hegemony. So, you know, what are we to make of that? What are we supposed to do with that? Right. I think that, again, strategically, you appeal to these things. It's like, this is your shit and you're not even following the rules that you set. But on the other hand, at a certain point, we have to— like, that has to be a strat— that has to be seen as like a failing strategy. Right.

Navid Farnia: Yeah. I mean, again, I think you're right. But again, I'm not sure we've reached that point even with that. Right. So until we have like alternative international institutions that actually make law, for example, in service of the most oppressed populations in the world. The reality, unfortunate reality, is that oppressed populations have to engage with this, right? Because if they don't, they immediately become delegitimized. And as we've found with this Palestinian liberation struggle in the last 2 years, the international solidarity is a very important factor, right, as it was in South Africa, as it was in Vietnam, so on and so forth, right? And so the question for me isn't necessarily directly about the law itself, but the contradictions or the work that— the political work that just— that these mechanisms do, even when, like, even when the Palestinians or the South Africans fail to get what their objectives are through These mechanisms, right? The ICC, I will say though, right? Like that's a different monster. Like you pointed out, like they go after you know like African leaders like as a matter of course, right? That is you know it's it's ridiculous, right? They did. I guess they did charge Putin a couple years ago, and now they're charging Netanyahu. It should be pointed out Netanyahu. Alongside, like—

Sherif Bramstelle: Hamas.

Navid Farnia: Yeah, yeah, exactly. Hamas leaders Yahya Sinwar and Mohammad Deif, along with the previous so-called— the previous war minister of the Zionist regime, which I should remember, is escaping me at this particular moment. So, like, you know, and, but because Netanyahu is being, like, is going to, you know, like, in theory, be prosecuted, What does the U.S. do that sanctions it like the ICC leadership? And there are questions like that I've been reading in the news. Like, is the is the United States going to sanction the entire ICC itself, right? Which to me, if they do that, actually like it like is it is generates new contradictions in and of itself that are very good because I don't like the ICC, right? So like and obviously I don't like U.S. imperialism. And so when they're coming when they're clashing with each other. Right? That creates new grounds for, like, that resistance movements can leverage that to their advantage, right? So, yeah.

Sherif Bramstelle: But see, and this is my issue with appeal to these international institutions, or like, you know, this argument that the failure to sort of comply with them heightens the contradictions. Sometimes.

Navid Farnia: Sometimes, yeah.

Sherif Bramstelle: Because what we do know Is Trump's defunding of USAID shifted so much defense of USAID, shifted to so much defense of USAID by liberals, granted, but they're still warm bodies.

Navid Farnia: Mm-hmm.

Sherif Bramstelle: Also, Trump's threatening to defund or to take the whatever, the threat to NATO, there was a whole mass No Kings thing where it's like, hands off NATO. And so, on the one hand, yes, it can sort of heighten contradictions when these international formations don't live up to what they say they are. But on the other hand, it also is a distraction, because then people start to defend the very things that we know to be problematic. And so, I do think— I think it can't— they can't cause as much distraction and issue as they do sort of consciousness-raising about their the anemic nature of what they are. So I don't know.

Navid Farnia: Yeah, I think the NATO example is really good, right? Because during the first Trump term, it was all about, like, you know, should the— like, he talked openly about, like, the U.S. perhaps exiting NATO and these kinds of things. And now, like, yeah, it's about defunding NATO. But part of the move is for him, for the U.S. government, basically to coerce their European allies to raise their defense budgets into NATO, right, which a lot of these European countries have done exactly so. And to me, why that raises the contradictions is because now these countries are like, you know, I don't know, Germany and all these other countries that are already— people are already suffering economically, are not doing great economically as they were even 5, 10 years ago, right, are going to feel it even more now. And so what are— what's going to come out of that? Like, you're right, it might not be a good thing, right? Like, in some—

Sherif Bramstelle: Fascism.

Navid Farnia: In a lot of cases in Europe, it's going to be the rise of even more overt fascist, you know, regimes, right? But all that to say, like, for me, I'm less worried about, like, you know, that kind of sort of dialectical relationship and more so about how resistance movements Um, on the left, right? Like, can make use of that to, to leverage their own gains, right? Of course, it begs the question of organizing and doing the work on the ground, right? That has to be front and center. But, I mean, you know, even like the civil rights movement talked about, like, creating, leveraging, like, sort of fractures within the political establishment to make political gains, right? So between the, the economic, uh, economic elites, between the political, like, the political leadership, the, the government, local state government.

Sherif Bramstelle: Mm-hmm.

Navid Farnia: And the, just the everyday White Citizens' Council white supremacists, right? Like KKK, right? So, and in doing so, like—

Sherif Bramstelle: Yeah, but well, also the civil rights movement proves my point because the ultimate leverage that they had was destroying the left.

Navid Farnia: Yeah.

Sherif Bramstelle: And so their appeal to the very liberal institutions, what allowed them to have any modicum of success was that bludgeoning of the left. So this is why For example, Gerald Horne calls Brown v. Board the compromise of 1954. So, I mean, I hear you. Yes, right? There's all of it. And the civil rights movement never purported to be a liberation struggle. But—

Navid Farnia: Yes, yes.

Sherif Bramstelle: Maybe it's my ultra-leftism, but I'm skeptical. I think at a certain point, and to your point, perhaps we are not at that point. I don't know. We've been doing this This struggle in a long time, but at a certain point, we have to call a spade a spade. And—

Navid Farnia: Yeah, I mean, I think I agree with that, right? Like, we always have to call a spade a spade, right? We have to be clear about what international law is. And at the same time, you know, doing the work that perhaps is necessary within international law, even if it doesn't get the legal object— like, achieve the legal objectives that are desired, The political— like, that's part of the sort of political warfare that's involved, right? Like, the— so, yeah, I think, you know, to me, to me, it's all dialectical.

Sherif Bramstelle: Sure. All right. So we've been chatting for a while. The last thing I just wanted us to think about briefly is this bribe, this compact that Donald J. Trump and his administration sent to sort of 9 universities that basically allows them— it sounds like an MLM, a multilevel marketing scheme, to a certain degree, where it's like you can get on the bottom floor of being— of sort of preferential treatment when it comes to federal funding if you do things like set conditions like barring transgender people from using restrooms or playing in sports. You know, you pledge to select foreign students on the basis of extraordinary talent as opposed to financial advantage to the university, to screen out those who demonstrate hostility to the U.S., and to also, you know, basically get— continue to bludgeon any modicum of DEI, so-called preferential treatment. So basically to assert conservative values. And this pact, this compact, this agreement was sent to 9 schools, which was MIT, Vanderbilt, UPenn, Dartmouth, USC, UT, the University of Texas System, U of A, and University of Arizona, and Brown University, and the University of Virginia. And only MIT so far has rejected the offer. And I remember UT, the, you know, whatever, the president or whatever, the leader of the UT system being like, yeah, of course we'll do this, you know, which I have a few loved ones at UT Austin, so I shudder to think what that campus is going to be like. But this just goes to this administration is in full blitzkrieg mode.

Navid Farnia: Mm-hmm.

Sherif Bramstelle: Every single institution is a battlefield for them. And for all of the accusations of wokeness and radicalism on these campuses, this is the blatant manifestation of efforts to indoctrinate generations of students. And so we're professors, we work on campuses. Of course, they didn't offer this at raggedy-ass Wayne State, but It's a great institution, whatever. But what do you think about this? What are we to make of this?

Navid Farnia: I mean, again, I concur with everything you've said/implied. I think that this is a move to ideologically get the universities in line with the conservative/overtly fascist imperatives of the government. It's a move of austerity, right, obviously. To, you know, to gut institutions that don't ideologically comply, which, you know, I'm sure they have calculated, the government has, that there are going to be institutions that don't comply, right? So all the more money to then allocate toward, you know, who does align with them ideologically, right? Or just to keep it within their own coffers.

Sherif Bramstelle: Mm-hmm.

Navid Farnia: So I, you know, so there's all kinds of economic, political, racial realities that are sort of undergirding this particular directive. What do you have to say about this?

Sherif Bramstelle: Yeah, I mean, I think the other side to this is the interpolation, the self-censoring that so many colleges and universities are doing in relation to this and Ultimately, as a response, right? I think that more and more institutions who did not get this offer will be like, "Okay, well, if we preemptively do XYZ, perhaps we'll be considered, or at least we won't be attacked." But as we see, Columbia capitulated, UCLA capitulated. They're even paying fucking reparations to some of their Jewish students, which is mind-boggling. But it's not. It doesn't work, right? Instead of being like, "Well," We better, you know, let's ramp up, you know, let's get as many coloreds as we can. Let's do as much radical shit as we can before they come for us. It's the complete opposite. It's this sort of— it's this self-destruction.

Navid Farnia: I think that's— I mean, if we're being real, I think that's probably what these Columbia leadership, what the UC— I think that's what they wanted to do all along, right?

Sherif Bramstelle: Of course.

Navid Farnia: But this is like— this is the sort of impetus. This is the springboard to allow them to do so, right, to enforce a policy, a racial and economic and political policy of white supremacy. I mean, we can just call it that, right?

Sherif Bramstelle: Yeah.

Navid Farnia: So, you know, I think, I think, I think, like, for them, it's— they're okay with the realities that are unfolding, right? So, yeah.

Sherif Bramstelle: I mean, I wouldn't go so far as to say that this is what they— I think that they want whatever is in vogue. I think that in George Floyd times, when there was all this money for the Black, the racial shit, the Black shit, the whatever, They were on board, like, whatever, okay, if all this liberal policy and safe space crap, Brave Space, whatever the fuck they're calling it, is going to get us money, great. If fascism is the order of the day, great. So it's a sort of spinelessness. And the thing is, even like at the height of like 2020, when people were celebrating professors losing their jobs and all this, I'm like, I don't think you should be celebrating this because any policies that are used Mm-hmm. To our benefit or that seem to be to our favor are always, always, always going to be used to bludgeon the left particularly, but all— but, you know, as part of a dragnet to get rid of any progressive— progressivism in general. And we see that not only was there backlash, but people who were subjected to, like, the 2020 Glee They're suing, right? It's not only that. So they are making money off of that short-lived guilt or whatever was spurring that brief moment of national reflection or of pragmatism, if you will. And so, I mean—

Navid Farnia: Yeah, sorry, sorry to interrupt. We could also even go further back with that, right? The way that the Civil Rights Act is now being weaponized in service of Of white supremacy, right? Like, so, yeah, speaks to your point.

Sherif Bramstelle: And it, you know, and all this is, you know, we can talk about like the reversibility. Like, this is what it means to appeal to any of this liberal jurisprudence, any of these, this liberal, like, order is that gains made by left or progressive forces are wholly reversible. And because, you know, of the, the right is just comparatively better organized, they got more resources, They have more of a monopoly on violence. We always have to— I think part of thinking dialectically about what a win actually looks like in a settler colony, right, in a white supremacist settler colony, we always have to kind of be strategic about that and why the way that the left often capitulates to liberalism just becomes even compounded, like the problems of that become compounded because it's like not only did we get a partial victory, but then the backlash is extraordinary.

Navid Farnia: Mm-hmm.

Sherif Bramstelle: So, I don't know, but it'll be interesting to see how these other schools respond and then what that actually looks like materially and feels like as professors. What does that actually look like for higher education?

Navid Farnia: Right, right. No, yeah, I agree. I agree. I will say, though, as perhaps fleeting and temporary as even liberal victories— I mean, we can call civil rights sort of a liberal victory, right?

Sherif Bramstelle: Mm-hmm.

Navid Farnia: As temporary and fleeting as they are, right, you know, it— I mean, they did— like, the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act did give access to people who did not previously have access in certain institutions in ways that are meaningful, right? So, like, so I think that's important, right? But I do agree with your larger sort of overall takeaway in terms of, like, the sort of dialectical nature of it, that there's always a push and pull, there's always moves and countermoves, right? And so now is the time for the left to organize against some of these kinds of things. And I recognize that it's difficult because of the repression, not just now, but historically that the left has faced, right? So, and that has always been the case. But that, you know, that's the reality. That's the reality of being in the left in a settler colony like the United States, in a quote-unquote, like, you know, not even quote-unquote, like a, yeah, quote-unquote slave society like the United States, right? So—

Sherif Bramstelle: Mm-hmm.

Navid Farnia: Yeah.

Sherif Bramstelle: Them's the breaks.

Navid Farnia: Yeah.

Sherif Bramstelle: Well, on that happy note, anything else that you want to bring up before we sign off of our second episode?

Navid Farnia: No, I don't. I mean, I think just encourage people to go to our website, anti-imperialist.com, anti-imperialist.com. Read the blog. There's a lot of really good articles. Last month— in August, I should say, It was Black August, so there was a lot of articles that you, Sherif, helped to organize and curate for Black August that were excellent. Do you want to comment on some of that? And then, yeah.

Sherif Bramstelle: No. Read it.

Navid Farnia: Okay.

Sherif Bramstelle: It was Black radical stuff. Yeah.

Navid Farnia: Yeah. And we had some really good articles last month as well on a range of different topics, from Venezuela to the the recognition of the state of Palestine and what that means to—

Sherif Bramstelle: Interview with Rosemary Mealy about a really important woman named Vicki Garvin.

Navid Farnia: Garvin, yeah.

Sherif Bramstelle: Yeah.

Navid Farnia: Her, like, 20th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina and the sort of implications of that.

Sherif Bramstelle: Yeah.

Navid Farnia: You know, the U.S. military buildup in Puerto Rico and the relationship with Venezuela and what that means. You know, so a lot of different, different really good stuff.

Sherif Bramstelle: Mm-hmm. And we have a really special issue of the blog focused on Russia coming up and an accompanying roundtable that will be really interesting, provocative conversations about, you know, as anti-imperialists, what is our relationship to Russia? How does Russia fit into perhaps a so-called multipolar world? How does it fit into the retreat or decline of of U.S. imperialism, of Western imperialism. So many good topics from a range of different scholars from the United States and from Russia, from all over the world. And so definitely stay tuned for that. And yeah, that's it. See you next time. Bye, guys.