Struggle Session 7 Live w/Lara Sheehi and Nina Farnia

Adnan Husain: Bismillah ar-Rahman ar-Rahim. Salaam. Hello. Welcome to you all. Peace to everyone. Welcome to the Adnan Hussain show, but more specifically, struggle session number seven. So we've had a bit of a hiatus. We took a break over December, but we've been doing these as a monthly opportunity to bring people together. to talk about the state of the world it's a little bit like tanky therapy except i don't guarantee you're going to feel better you may feel worse but what we want you to do is feel emboldened to act to work collectively to try and change things And there's so much been going on since the last time. We could even say the last couple of weeks have been absolutely dizzying. And we're going to be talking about that for sure. But before I introduce the panel and kick us off straight into our discussion, I do just want to remind people it would be great if you could like this stream on YouTube or tweet it, retweet it if you're watching on the X stream. uh and of course um you know share it on social media you can retweet it you can share it on your platform so that other people get a chance to come here and join this discussion we're just about to start so just you know post it and subscribe to the channel and also i should always put in a plug also i'm wearing my shirt today guerrilla history i'm co-host of that with henry hakamaki and we also have a youtube channel so go check that out it's guerrilla you know spelled guerrilla history the way it should be two r's and two l's um so do check it out and of course if you want to support um you can go to patreon.com slash adnan hussein or do a one-time contribution via buymeacoffee.com slash adnan hussein and help me pay for my wonderful producer and editorial team, Sina Rahmani, who was going to maybe pop in, but we'll see if he's driving. He's driving. If he has good internet, he might join us too for the discussion. Speaking of which, I really am so excited to bring together two wonderful colleagues, comrades, wonderful people doing interesting things who are former struggle session panelists. So they know the drill, but they haven't been on together. And so it's going to be really exciting to have them. here together. First, Nina Farnia. Welcome, Nina. It's great to see you. Nina is a law professor and legal historian whose scholarship exposes the role of imperialism in US law and politics. What could be more germane than that right now? Her forthcoming book, which we're really excited to read from Stanford University Press coming this out this winter, is Imperialism and Resistance. And, you know, her second book will focus on the legal history of U.S. fascism and is tentatively titled Imperialism and Fascism. So something of a series, you could say, you know, imperialism. And she's also one of the co-founders and a member of the Anti-Imperialist Scholars Collective. Nina, it's great to have you back on The Struggle Session.

Nina Farnia: Thank you for inviting me, Adnan, as always. And today it's truly an honor to be here with you both. I'm a big fan of Lada, and I've never met Lada, so I'm very excited to be here. Thank you both. That's great. And what a couple of weeks.

Adnan Husain: Yes, yes. Well, we'll get into that. But Lara Shihai is with us as well. Co-author with Stephen Shihai of Psychoanalysis Under Occupation. And Lara is a research fellow at the University of South Africa's Institute for Social and Health Sciences. She is a licensed clinical psychologist. But most exciting very recently also is host of a new wonderful podcast called Psychic Militancy Podcast. And I recall that we had an Office Hours episode in September where we used the title Psychic Militancy. And now you get to do it very frequently all the time. But of course, people would be familiar because you've been a guest on many other podcasts, particularly like Millennials Are Killing Capitalism. So it's great. that you're sharing this work that you do now, which focuses on psychoanalysis, psychic refusal central to liberation struggles and life-making in the global South, the psychic dimensions of resistance and revolution, and also critical Zionism studies. You have a book that's coming out also this winter that we're very excited to see, which I believe is titled From the Clinic to the Streets, or To the Streets, Psychoanalysis for Revolutionary Futures. Lara, thanks for making time and coming on to another struggle session.

Lara Shihai: It's always a pleasure to join you, Kamran. Thank you for inviting me. And it's so special to be here with Nina. I saw her work and her analysis. Great. Thank you.

Adnan Husain: Absolutely. Well, you know, I mean, Nina already said, yeah, what a couple of weeks. I mean, you know, you could say that... even maybe three weeks the week or so before uh the end of 2025 um starting then with uh the beginning of uh regime change kind of provocations in iran the venezuela you know kidnapping of an established uh sitting you know uh elected legitimate president of another country, attack on, even bombing attack in northwest Nigeria, you know, ICE murders in the streets of a major American city that was in fact actually the site of the beginnings of the largest, to that point, global protest movement, the Black Lives Matter, the George Floyd protests. It has really been quite a dizzying few weeks here. And maybe, you know, the first thing to ask you, Lara, since you deal with politics, you know, psychic, psychological, you know, resilience, militancy, resistance is, you know, how are you feeling and how do you deal with what has been just a kind of dizzying array of what we would initially think of as really awful news, you know, things happening all over the world under the influence of U.S. imperialism, but also, you know, as you try and often, you ask us to think about, you know, resistance, you know, to those things. So what's your sort of initial feelings on these early here in 2020?

Lara Shihai: Many things at once, which I think your use of dizzying is so spot on. It's meant to be dizzying. It's meant to be dizzying because I think the vertiginous effect, like this vertigo inducing effect for me is also one way in which counterinsurgency and psychological operations can work. best is when we're off kilter, when we feel like we're reaching for even when reality is right in front of us. Even if, for example, we understand how empire works, we have seen the cruelty, we get the ways in which brute power works. there's still this sort of dizzying effect because there's so much of it. And I think that's part of it. It is like the reminder is to stay myself, is to steady myself and to as much as possible be able to keep going. the pulse on a structural analysis that can give me something to hold on to when everything else feels like upside down. I said before we got live that Nina's analysis, particularly around Iran, has been so central to this. And I think that that has been something that I feel that people have really struggled with for a multitude of reasons. But I think keeping, again, our focus on the ways that the mechanics of empire are, are meant to be far reaching. They're meant to continue expanding. They're meant to sort of up the ante about what's acceptable, both in terms of like literally materially acceptable, like kidnapping a president and thinking that that's a normative thing or or coming out and saying, yeah, Mossad agents are in the street in Iran and like somehow that's fine. And we should all just accept that as a part of the regular workings of empire, but also within us. So like really registering for me, where are the places where I get pulled into the confusion, which helps me come back. Right. And conversations with comrades, both not publicly and then also public facing, like what is our responsibility as anti-imperialists in this moment to be having these conversations publicly, to practice a discourse together, to really hold each other accountable about being able to feel on the one hand. And I'm very much a proponent of feeling the shock, like not losing our sense of of humanity and our soul and our ability to be shocked by the force and the cruelty of these systems and to remain focused and be like, okay, here's our story. Number one, here's our enemy across the board. And number two is like, here's our struggle. And this is why we continue to commit to it. So I'm feeling all those things. So I'm happy to be here in community with you all and with folks in the chat too, who I know are probably feeling it too.

Adnan Husain: Yeah, absolutely. And that's why people do come here for some sense of community to process, to work through things, to gain understanding, analysis, but also encouragement. As I said, it may not make you feel better, but at least how you can... know maintain that mental resistant resilience to keep uh you know clarifying keep being active keep pushing etc you mentioned that you know some of nina's analysis about iran has been really helpful in these kinds of circumstances i think at some point we'll want to go maybe more deeply, you know, into that. And I have both these threads that I've also seen on X and retweeted because I think they're so helpful. Hopefully we can go into that. But I wanted to ask you, you know, Nina, you know, there's that kind of, you know, I was feeling this a little bit, you know, that famous phrase from Lennon that everybody, you know, the last since I think October 2023, it's been very, popularly shared about how there are some decades where nothing seems to happen, but there are some weeks where decades seem to happen. And that's kind of how it might feel, is that so much seems to be happening and changing. But it also reminds me that there's so much of what Lara was talking about, this kind of disinformation, and it's meant to kind of be dizzying and make you feel hopeless or passive or confused. And You know, this is part of like hybrid war, psychological war, and so on. But also just remind, you know, and Bannon even talks about it, like flooding the, you know, flooding the zone, like in the media, mighty Wurlitzer sort of situation. Reminds me also that like a couple of decades ago, Karl Rove, you know, the advisor, political advisor to George Bush, you know, said, oh, you folks out there, you know, you're just the reality-based community. We make reality. We make history. And then you'll study it and you'll examine it. And then we'll be making, we'll go off somewhere else and we'll be making a different reality and you guys will just never be able to catch up. And it almost seems like there is this attempt to try and pretend that they are making reality and they're doing this. Trump, you know, sends bombs to Nigeria and he's capturing Maduro and he's, you know, threatening Iran and he's, you know... But in reality, you know, maybe not a lot is actually changing. This is just the practice of imperialism. And, you know, how do you sort of analyze? You're a legal historian. You have a historical kind of perspective. How do you put what's going on in this moment of U.S.? empire that seems as if like it's just absolutely expanding it's doing so much it's constantly intervening here or there you know how do you kind of respond to those last two weeks that have been you know a little bit dizzying you know from for many people

Nina Farnia: It's been very difficult. And I think, you know, I'll just be honest and follow what Lara said, that there is, for me, I'm Iranian. there is a level of cognitive dissonance, right? Because on the one hand, I'm deeply concerned for my family. I'm deeply concerned for what it means that the Mossad and the US are applauding their agents in the streets of Tehran and what that means for the future of the region and of Iran, especially after the fall of Syria to ISIS forces. um on the other hand you know that's what sort of what i'm feeling here and then on in my head i know that this is a result of the falling u.s empire right and we knew we've we've known this is coming am i okay is the sound okay am i freezing or no you're good you're good

Adnan Husain: Good. Okay.

Nina Farnia: We've known this is coming. We've known that it's going to accelerate. We've known that as it accelerates, it's going to become more violent and more aggressive. And so part of... moving forward in the middle of all this is reminding ourselves that if, and I have to do this regularly for myself and for the people that I love around me and my comrades, is to say that if we're going to, as scholars and intellectuals, engage in the battle of ideas to support our peoples and our struggles, we have to be prepared to engage in that battle over the long haul. You know, we're talking about the most violent, most aggressive empire in world history. Elon Musk is now considered to be the president. And so if these are true, then the fall of this empire could take 20 more years or 50 more years or 100 more years. And we have to be sort of psychologically and physically prepared. Am I still here? Am I okay?

Adnan Husain: You're here, but we are getting, you know, a little bit of in and out.

Nina Farnia: My internet is very bad. So I think I'm going to go out and then come back in.

Adnan Husain: My apologies to that. Come back in, but we'll pick up on some of those things when you get back. You know, but I mean, I think what she's really talking about, Lara, there is so apropos, you know, that you do feel, especially if you have connections, meaningful connections, you know, I mean, as you do with people in Lebanon and Palestine in the region, you know, like being very suffering a great deal of anxiety through the tumultuous and dangerous events while at the same time you know having an analysis to understand that these should be expected that this is how the empire is going to behave um you know i'm wondering about that kind of idea that a lot of times and i've kind of complained a little bit about how some people use this idea of the declining american empire and we'll hopefully get nina to elaborate further on it but sometimes it's used as like almost like oh so we don't really have to do anything and like it's also creates this sort of passivity or can create this passivity that oh the inevitable decline meaning okay so i'm absolved of any engagement with this process as a maker of history it's already kind of decided it's inevitable it's declining you know and that of course um is, I think, a really problematic analysis, not because it isn't based on, you know, real material understanding of it, but because it's also a very dangerous moment, the way, you know, imperial decline, you know, can go. And so I'm wondering if you had any thoughts on that while we bring Nina back on.

Lara Shihai: Yeah, definitely. I mean, I'm so glad she immediately started with like, this is the long struggle. This is the perpetual struggle. And I think that's part of what you're warning us against is like these four, the foreclosed-ness of like a, I always say this, like a history that hasn't happened already. We saw this, we see this already still with Gaza, like the writing off of it. We saw it with Syria. We still see it. Like we know what happened in Syria. And also there's, I don't see it as a fait accompli forever. It's a contested space. And I think that's for us to think about that, which is why we have to be very careful when we're thinking about Iran right now and the region and what our ethical responsibilities and holding this in mind. We don't have to go very far to look at what it means to have U.S. interventionism in the way that it looks like nothing good can come out of that. There's no version of this that will turn out the way that people want to project it, even through whatever their analysis is, that we have material reality in front of us. And I'm always paying attention to the histories that people want to write when they haven't unfolded, while at the same time disavowing the histories that have happened and are in front of us. And that tells me something ideologically, like why is it that we reach to the things that haven't yet happened and yet have difficulty accessing and maintaining our attention to the things that we know for certain? We know that this has been a multiple decades long project. In the region, we understand that it has been systemically approached. They've not made this a secret. The destabilization of which countries they wanted to go after and how. And we've seen parts of that happen. Now, the other side is we've also seen fierce resistance. And that's the piece that I always go back to is that if we tell a version of this story that writes out the fierce and dignified resistance of people on the ground every single day saying, despite the fact that you have pulverized these countries and reimagined and reconfigured what the so-called Middle East looks like, that there are people that are still resisting every single day. There are people every single day that refuse the boot of empire, that refuse to be dictated to, that want to live their lives free to determine their futures and have not fallen to the false premise or the impossible choice that imperialism always foists on them. And that's, I think that's our responsibility. If I'm going to Basil Al-Araj, who talked about, right, Palestinian revolutionary, who talked about being al-mufakir al-mushtabik, you have to be an engaged scholar, an engaged intellectual, whatever version of the translation you want. It's like, that is our responsibility, and that's what that means. That doesn't mean that there isn't affect involved in it. And I, you know, my heart's with Nina and just in the ways that my hearts are with my Iranian siblings all the time. As you said, Adnan was in Palestine, in Lebanon, myself too. And also the relationships that are being lost actively because we're taking positions against empire. I've heard that too. Like this is just like Syria, just like Gaza gone. Iran is also emerging as an inflection point where people are left behind in our struggle, in our struggle against anti-imperialist struggle. So I'm holding on to all of that, but I think we have responsibilities that go beyond ourselves.

Adnan Husain: Yeah, I think we are gaining some people though too, because the contradictions become clearer, the pattern, it keeps being repeated. And there's a lot of capacity that people have now after they see what's, I mean, I did tweet, like have people forgotten, learned nothing from Syria, but actually there are a lot of people who have seen what's been happening. And that means that they're bringing a kind of critical analysis, they're recognizing patterns. And so they're less subject to the disinformation patterns the media propaganda and so on. But Nina's back, so I wanted to let her kind of continue engaging either with what she's heard or continue with some of the comments she was making, you know, overall about this age or this moment that we're in.

Nina Farnia: Thank you both. And a lot of those comments were so beautiful, what I just heard. I guess just to follow up on that, you know, we've been sort of inundated with this idea of the technological superiority of, you know, Israel and the United States, both in particular, right, over my lifetime at least. And Al-Aqsa flood proved to the world, right, Gaza besieged Gaza, proved to the world that Israel does not have the technological superiority to defeat the Palestinians in the rest of the region. And alongside that, over the last couple of weeks, Iran neutralized Starlink. And it's not exactly entirely clear how they did that. We may never know. I've heard, and I'm not sure if this is true, that Steve Witkoff said the Iranians think they're smart, but we are smarter. If you have to utter those words as a diplomat, first of all, I mean, I would hate to be the president of a diplomat that says those things, but setting that aside, if one has to utter those words out loud, one has a problem. And so we also, there are actually facts on the ground, right? Not just history, not just the history of resistance as Howard Zinn once said, but there are actually like living facts on the ground unfolding as we're talking. that show us that there is a lot to hope for, right? That my children are probably gonna be in a better world than I was in. And so it's truly, I said this before, I think when the Saudi Iranian detente happened and the war in Yemen came to an end, sort of more or less, that this is like an amazing time to be alive. it is trying, it is difficult. And waking up to the abduction of Maduro, like when we woke up that morning, my family and I, and we saw those images, we thought it was psyops. We didn't even believe it. I mean, quite literally, we was like, this is so, it's crazy what AI can do.

Lara Shihai: And then we looked at our messages and we were like, oh my God, this is true.

Nina Farnia: You know, but These are the birth pains, I guess, of a new world. And Maduro is the first to say it when he holds up the victory sign to his people as he's being marched around by the most evil and vile forces in world history.

Adnan Husain: I'm so glad for those remarks and comments, just to set the tone, because we were going to talk about some of the specific contexts and activities and the victims of U.S. empire and sowing destruction. disorder and devastation you know in different theaters around the world but we do want to frame it from the perspective that resistance is happening and yes this is kind of the process by which a better world hopefully will be uh created um and i did want to just come back to you know i basically it's not possible for me to talk about anything you know happening in the world that doesn't somehow connect with the genocide in gaza as the kind of way the crucible through which uh empire and resistance to empire being worked out on a world historical scale and of course you could say this about every place but the connections are just so dense and clear and so you know it does seem that in fact we are in the world that the genocide of gaza has made and you know even a year ago Certainly over the summer, I did an episode with my colleague, Ariel Saltzman, you know, which was about Palestine in the world. And it was an eight part series. The last episode basically was there is no such thing. Basically, there is no post Gaza. I mean, we are in the consequences and the fallout of the world of Gaza. That's what we're in now. And of course, we know that the ceasefire hasn't meant anything. There has been no end to the genocide. It's continuing. But even if it were, we are in a world whose... structuring paradigms are connected with the Gaza situation. And we just find that this is operating on a world sort of scale that integrates. And so that's one of the things that I really liked about your threads on X and analysis, Nino, which was the way it connected up the Iran situation with the Venezuela situation, with what's been happening in the world to really focus on what's the deeper logic and pattern that helps us explain these many different manifestations with all their specificities. You don't just say, oh, it's all the same. And you look and look at these specificities, but there's a pattern that helps you understand something coherent that's going on, which is that no matter what, you know, no matter what kind of regime Iran had, if it was one that insisted upon its sovereignty, and did not subject itself to the imperialist kind of plan for the region and accept the imperial proxy as superiority and hegemony in the region, it would be the target. So maybe you could talk a little bit more about how you have sort of situated what's been happening in Iran within this framework of resistance and defense of national sovereignty, why the stakes of that are so important and globally significant in helping us understand what's going on in the world.

Nina Farnia: That's a great question. So I think there are multiple levels of it. The first, the most important and probably the simplest is that the Islamic Republic of Iran has been at war since its inception. And it has that ethos. Its organization as a state, as a nation, it reflects that. It reflects war, a war of national liberation that has lasted almost half a century. And if you track it historically, it began with the Iran-Iraq war that was really a US proxy war against Iran. and Iraq as well. And then that transitioned into the sanctions regimes and blockades and then more wars all throughout the region, the placement of US military bases all over the region, destabilization efforts and hybrid warfare sort of led by, on its face led by Israel, but really with the US sort of logistically managing all of it and providing the weaponry and the resources for it, up until you come to the 12-day war movement over the summer, where now you have the out-and-out conflict. It's right there. It's unfolding before our eyes. The president of the United States is telling Iranians on social media to evacuate the largest city in the country Some of them do, some of them don't. And then several days later, they bombed, the U.S. bombs nuclear facilities, which I believe this is the first time in world history that active nuclear facilities have been bombed. And it should be no surprise that the U.S., the only... state in world history to use nuclear power on another country or in other peoples is also now bombing nuclear facilities, which has its own sort of range of problems.

Adnan Husain: Just to just a point there. uh just a quick on that of course people may remember the osirak bomb israel's bombing of an iraqi uh facility it's it was meant to be a nuclear facility but it wasn't actually an active one and yet nevertheless there was kind of global condemnation through the institution you know i think the security council may have said iaea in this case actual nuclear facilities that were you know, active were bombed for the first time and nothing was said. They was allowed. And of course, this is what I mean by we're in, there is no post Gaza world right now. We're in the Gaza world where the impunity to violate absolutely every norm of colonial, you know, I mean, this is not the international legal regime. I'm your lawyer. So you could tell us much better, but you know, the colonial era of, kind of regime of law that they'd created to maintain Western hegemony. Even that, of course, they have abandoned. It's like we're back in this 19th century kind of era of open, naked colonialism, racism. Etc. So there wasn't even like the condemnation through the normal kind of mechanisms, which if you compare to attack on an Iraqi facility that had not yet become an active, you know, place for a nuclear reactor was condemned so but anyway I just wanted to note that that's a great example, but please continue.

Nina Farnia: Yeah, no, thank you, actually. Thank you very much for adding that, Adnan. And so now you have what is, you know, a national economy and peoples that are prepared for war. And that is precisely how not why, but how Iran up until now has been able to maintain its sovereignty. In the face of war, millions of people will go out into the streets and march to defend their sovereignty. And they may have critiques of the Islamic Republic. I said this on another show this past week. Every free thinking society in the world has critiques of their government. Every open society has critiques of their government. But that does not mean they want to see their government fall, and in this case, to the most vile forces in world history. So that's the part of why the Iranian case is so inspiring, setting aside the sort of scientific victories that we've seen, the STEM sort of victories. And I'm no scientist, right? But setting that aside, I mean, that stuff is truly remarkable. And you just have to talk to a scientist to understand how remarkable it is, or an engineer. But that is why the Iranian case is so inspiring, because they're prepared. They're prepared for this. They understand who the enemy is, and they're sort of prepared to take it on. The Yemenis are similar, right? I mean, Yemen came out like two weeks ago or something or 10 days ago where like we're prepared to fight um uh against israel in this so-called somaliland struggle where we're gonna we're prepared to enter that front and then i think just a couple days ago they came out and said if they if they're serious about trying to take it on we're prepared to enter that front too and so this is like these are peoples that understand the stakes of history and you you just you you know you It's just remarkable. It's truly remarkable to be able to witness this. And also, I have to say, like Minneapolis, I mean, would any of us, anybody on this call have said that Minneapolis is going to be the front of the struggle in the United States? Certainly not before the uprisings in 2020. Maybe after, but then one could also say, well, maybe that was a fluke. But now, nobody can argue with that. Nobody can argue with the fact that the front in the United States is in Minneapolis. The president is willing to admit it. The people of Minneapolis admit it. And I think the rest of us now need to honor them for carrying on the struggle in a very serious way.

Adnan Husain: Yeah, Lara, did you wanna talk about any of that? And especially if you wanna bring it to Minneapolis, I think very interesting issue.

Lara Shihai: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, Nina, she takes us there. And I think this is what I'm so grateful for is like, you don't actually have to be blackmailed into positions that empire wants you to take. And I think this, we need to be very clear. There is a blackmail that's happening. There's no way in which in this particular moment, people who are serious about liberation or or creating a different world can find themselves on the side of a nazi billionaire trillionaire and being like that's the hero in this that's what i want folks to contend with and and again to sort of say how do we get to this place How does it happen that we can that many folks who've been pro Palestine, who've been all of that all of a sudden are now cheering on Elon Musk, that he's the one who's to be the savior in this? I think there's something really important for us to pay attention to and then to contend with how deeply this comes to be lodged inside of us and what our struggle is. When we say the folks on the ground know the enemy, they know them because of the force and the brutality they have been subjected to, whether it's Iranians or Palestinians or Lebanese or Yemeni, that they know what it means. And therefore, that's the point. They're just like, enough with this fucking nonsense. What's there more to lose that you've already done? You've strangled us economically. You've made us into terrorists in the eyes of the world. You've said everything you could say. You've tried everything. You've infiltrated shipping lines so that you could blow beepers up in people's faces. What more is there to be done? The position is one that says, I'm not going to compromise on this anymore. And I think that's the place of resistance where folks of the global south, particularly In the last several years, and now this is where Minneapolis comes in, is that enough with the fucking spectacle and the violence and what needs to be done in the face of it. Right. These sort of liberal notions of legibility and, you know, and softening ourselves and talking to the oppressor. We've that's already been proven not to work. We know what comes of that. And so folks are just kind of in the face of that. And I think that's part of what we're seeing. And like what Nina says, it's our responsibility now to say, how do we support people? If we are not in those locales, what are the ways in which we support people? if it's those of us that are in academia or thinking spaces or whatever, not to have this cavalier attitude that somehow these spaces are also not contested. To the contrary, these are the spaces of producing a particular social order and discourses that come hand in hand with the cruelty and the violence of empire and lend a coherence to what we should be seeing as a global fascistic uprising. And that's why it's just like when we say globalize the intifada, this is not an empty statement. This is to say that at every turn, fascism will be confronted. Empire will be confronted. Racial capitalism will be confronted. And I think this is where we can see the connections and the sort of we can understand why it's just as important to be paying attention to ICE raids and ICE violence and the ways in which this country is sort of systematically going after migrants, and also, again, to attune to all the ways in which communities have been fighting the struggle for a long, long time, right? Which is why Minneapolis can sort of seize the moment and be like, we're here, motherfuckers, we're ready to go, because they've seen it before.

Nina Farnia: Can I jump in for a second, Adna?

Adnan Husain: No, go ahead.

Nina Farnia: I just, I wanted to, a lot I think is alluding to the psyops that we've been subject to on Iran and Palestine and Yemen, you know, sort of everywhere, right? Venezuela. There's a serious intensification of psyops that's happening now on social media and mainstream media in the West, at least, you know, where I am, that is feels different than what I've experienced before, though I could be wrong. But for me, what I'm most disgusted and shocked by are the people who call themselves sort of leftists or progressives or whatever, who are saying, well, no, Mossad was not in the streets in Iran. Pompeo is flexing when he tweets that. Or no, when the Israeli news channels say they funded this operation, they're lying because they want to take credit for the people on the ground. And so now we've reached a place where so-called leftists, and I hesitate to call them that because they're not that, are riding on the coattails of genociders. so that they can topple the Islamic Republic. And when, you know, a lot of talks about loss, like losing friendships, losing networks, losing people, etc., I think there is, and I was thinking about this this morning, there is now a whole category of people, Iranian, American intellectuals and scholars here in Europe, around the world. I'm speaking specifically about them, though there are many others. They can no longer be considered leftists or progressives. They should now be treated the same way we treat Zionists. They are now Zionists. And so as a matter of political strategy, as a matter of intellectual strategy, in the battle of ideas, Anybody who denies the presence of Mossad in Iran so that they can topple the Islamic Republic is now a Zionist enemy. And that's difficult for me to say, because I'm seeing people who call themselves Iranian feminists and who say they believe in, and you know, we, we, we, we were a part of the revolution and our parents and our families were part of the revolution, but the revolution went awry. And this is what's happening now is the new revolution. Those people are Zionists. They are now Zionists. And they want to ride on the coattails of the Zionists to get another win for the empire. They did that in Syria, and now they're trying to do it in Iran.

Adnan Husain: Well, this is such an important point. I'm so glad you came back to this because this is one of the topics that I think is really, I mean, it started, I think, with, you know, when Lara was talking about, you know, her opening remarks, I think she was also alluding to the fact that there's so much of what Gerald Horn calls our friends on the left. And then he has to respond to the fact that there's so many ways in which the approach and the perspective that they've been taking have been helping and promoting imperial, you know, objectives, even when they will say, oh, we're against this, but you have to admit that, well, Maduro, you know, when they just sort of take on fact that, well, Maduro was a dictator and he's not really legitimate or he's done these terrible things, you know, without having a sense of A, what are the real sources of information that you're using for that? Be serious. Go and find the material evidence. People just repeating the patterns of what's been promoted because they don't want to look stupid that like, oh, I'm going against the absolute consensus that everybody knows that Those weren't legitimate or, you know, that kind of thing. But then also, what's the importance of saying that in this particular moment? It's almost as if there's a kind of privilege of the imperial based intellectual and intelligentsia saying, that while we have this Empyrean view, we're just talking about truth. Of course, I have to have my opinion about what's going on and I have to promote my own individual status as somebody who cares about weighing and balancing and not being caught out because I might be taking a position that could be critiquable, etc. This is so important to people's idea of politics. which is anti-solidaristic in the name of solidarity. Like they're saying, we have to be in solidarity with these few dissident and often violent voices that are promoted by National Endowment for Democracy, for a whole NGO, Imperial Architecture, And all of that and you take that for the people, and because you can't be seen to, you know, you want to distinguish this is constant, we must distinguish between the government of course they always say regime, you know, the government and the people. Those people who you're characterizing as the people are in fact actually tied to a regime of disinformation, of support from the State Department, from USAID, et cetera, et cetera. And so it's so interesting that these people feel like that's more important for them to say something about, rather than think contextually, what's the political consequence or value of me making public claims in this way about that, just so that I can preserve some sense that I am not going to be kind of rolled into being a supporter of the Islamic Republic of Iran or something like that. Well, you know, what's, It's like a very non materialist perspective is a very idealist perspective as if concepts, just need to be floated out there so that truth we have to acknowledge the truth. No, all of these are positions that you're taking in the context of an actual attack on, you know, or preparation for or war on another society. So if you believe in the principle of sovereignty, of national sovereignty, you know, and if you actually are an anti-imperialist, then that's primary. And so it comes down to something that I've heard, and I know this is part of the principles of the anti-imperialist scholars collective that I think is worth talking a little bit more. And something that I talked about a little bit in a recent episode with Gabriel Rockhill, which is, I think, again, so valuable for critiquing the intelligences of the imperial West is, you know, that anti-imperialism or imperialism is the central contradiction. Now, you know, when we say that, I think maybe it'd be helpful to elaborate how and what that means so that people understand that you should be kind of judging. You may say exactly as Nina, you said that like many people have critiques of their government, their policies, et cetera, their societies. That's just normal. That's kind of almost universal everywhere. In fact, I would ask, can someone tell me a very popular government in the world right now I mean, you know, and there's none in the West, I can tell you that, like none of these are popular. And so to judge like, you know, that there might be dissent or it might be people who are upset about economic circumstances, about inequality in their society, all these kinds of things, that's just not a unique analysis. And it doesn't address itself to the central contradiction and what forces follows from recognizing imperialism as the central contradiction, particularly for people located at the center of the empire. So I'm wondering what you would make of this kind of situation, that really what is at stake is imperialism doesn't work without collaborators. It has to try and recruit. It can't just do it all through force. And that's one of the points of This decline in weakening is that it actually doesn't have the ability, it never really had, and it doesn't have the ability to control the world, you know, in that direct way, unless it can recruit collaboration. So why wouldn't we see and be very careful about the way in which we engage in our politics to ensure that we don't support as collaborators of an imperialist project? Sorry, that ended up not being a question, but more of a response to exactly this problem of what's so frustrating in this moment with people you would hope would be allies, right? And how to kind of deal with that situation. I mean, Laura, you said maybe we lose people along the way here. I mean, okay, that's one way to look at it. And maybe that's just how it goes.

Lara Shihai: I mean, there are going to be people that don't come along. And I think there's something to be said about that. I think as the long struggle continues, as we sort of, hone our analytics as we see the ferocity of empire we need to expect that there are some folks that don't come along but like you said Adnan that there are folks then that join that sort of recognize and are able to track the the you know the logic that repeats itself and that that that also happens but there's something about what nina was saying earlier nina i agree with you the ferocity of psyops is right there and that's the conscription that you're talking about and then that empire needs to rely more and more on this to conscript people into this under the guys the the real difficulties under the guise of all these liberal humanist values Right. Around protecting women. We've seen this a million times over and we can think, well, if we've seen this logic a million times over, whether it's in Afghanistan or Iraq or Yemen or all these things that people would be able to sort of make that jump. But remember, psyops doesn't work in a vacuum. There needs to be an infrastructure that's been worked on and honed over the course of decades, if not more. that makes the psyops have traction in a particular way and that traction also is in the construction of who with the most zeal that we can come after and we cannot talk about iran without talking about anti-shia racism and about the axis of resistance and about being able to see and that that that is the centerpiece of this that that's what allows folks also to have such an arrogance. You were talking about the arrogance of imperial thinking, but also the cavalier nature in which we are demanding that people compromise certain things that people in the imperial core would never compromise, like sovereignty and it's the same thing you're asking for people in venezuela but this is like let's say you hate the quote unquote regime and again the the language the use of language is central in this psyops and why we need to be precise about this and push up against this because it regularizes and normalizes a particular position that is coded this is not innocent when you say these things it means a particular thing that has a host of associations psychologically and affectively that come with it when you call it a regime right But I think this is this is part of it is like, what are we asking folks to do and who are we asking them to disidentify from? And what does it mean that we are saying that sovereignty is up for grabs for some people, not for others? And who's dictating that? And those can seem like platitudes sometimes. But in my experience in battling psyops, there is no platitude in the face of imperial violence. We need to continuously push up against this because we're seeing how seamlessly it leaks in and people forget that this has been a long-standing political project, not just of empire, but of Zionism and Zionist expansionism, that empire is very happy to join along, you know, settler colonial big brother sees, you know, little sibling and is like, great, now we have this outpost that we can help do our bidding with. But I think there's something here. And that is part of the responsibility is to continuously come back. And we might feel like we're being repetitive and we might feel like we're being the killjoys. And you know what? We are. And we have to be. Because that's the ferocity with which these intrusions and empire's tentacles really does. That's why I think we see people dropping like flies and we're shocked, Nina, just like I am. And we are losing relationships. And like, It's worth it. It's worth it to me because this is what it means to take positions. These positions are not easy and they involve risk. They might feel easy to us if we are dedicated and committed to an anti-imperialist praxis, but like they... There are losses and risks that are involved in this. And I think to really come to terms with the fact that if we are saying we are against a global order of empire, corporations, capitalist plunder, capitalist plunder of the earth, the ability for genocide heirs to make the call and the shots, then we have to expect that this is going to come with a fight. And that fight for us as scholars or thinkers or something, we have to define what that is. I mean, this is why the anti-imperialist scholar collective is fantastic because there's a way forward. We also don't have to reinvent this shit all over the time. Part of what empire does is like dislodge us from particular moments of struggle where we think that every single time we have to start the struggle anew. And I think this is part of what Nina was saying about folks on the ground and this being a long struggle on the ground, whether it's in Iran or Yemen or in the in the region more broadly, is like we actually are not starting from scratch, that people have held up this fight for a long time and anywhere that empire shows its face there has been resistance and there will continue to be that and it's on us to sort of be able to attune to that rather than missitude and to also recognize all the ways in which we're being asked to miss a tune away from it under like you were saying under this rubric or logic of feminist discourse or any one of these things that's like, again, to really question how is this being mobilized? We're not the first person to say this, like this is on my desk for a reason. Feminal imperialism is a thing, right? And like to question how is it now that all of this gets mobilized? When did you give a fuck about women in our region to go back to what you're saying Adnan about Palestine? right is that you we are made we are coerced into believing a number a 70 000 number when we know the number of ethnic cleansing has been upwards of 800 000 but all of a sudden we we're going to join in the imperialist saying the 20 000 or 25 000 number in iran in a matter of a week is what we're going to believe that does not work unless we think that Iran is the enemy and Iran is capable of such cruelty at this level, more so than the genocidal state that is armed to the teeth by the most cruel empire in history, like Nina's saying. Even with that, those numbers didn't crawl up that much. What the hell? What the fuck is happening psychologically? That's what I'm talking about. There's the infrastructure that's there. And that's what we have to disrupt internally and with our comrades. We have to keep that struggle up with our comrades who we see doing this.

Adnan Husain: I don't know, Nina, if you want to react to any of that, pick up on any threads. But we did have a question that came in from our colleague, comrade Francis Husso, wondering if Lara had a read on the zeitgeist in Lebanon these days regarding Syria, regime change situation, and the attack on Iran. Of course, one doesn't want to make a collective generalization about Lebanon. We know, you know, there might be different viewpoints, but just if you have any thoughts about that, and I think it's a particularly salient because, you know, we all have just been saying, look, Syria just happened. I mean, this is such an obvious example of what the aspirations of this imperialist warmongering on Iran, you know, is meant to lead to, you know, if you look at you know, what some of the groups that were armed and involved, you know, with cross-border support and so on, they'd want to play upon ethno-national kind of identities and grievances, whether it's Baluch or, you know, Kurds, you know, Turkmen, you know, and et cetera, to try and fragment and, you know, break up, you know, you know, this powerful, big sovereign nation that is a roadblock to their hegemonic plans for control in the region. So, you know, looking at, you know, what's been the reaction and, you know, how would you characterize what's been kind of going on in terms of analysis and viewpoints in Lebanon, given what's happened next door in Syria, what's happening now, and also this Iran, you know, kind of, you know, warmongering that's taking place?

Lara Shihai: Yeah, and then I'd love to hear Nina's take on it too. What I'll say is that, like we've been saying, is the resistance continues. There are people who continue to resist. There are people on the ground who are resisting. We know that. We know that the Hezbollah is refusing to disarm. We know that they continue to say that the Zionist threat continues to be the Zionist threat. And so there is no way we are going to you know, succumb or submit to the demands of empire. And they're calling out the government that is hand in hand and has been hand in hand with the American empire. So I think if nothing else, the commonality we're seeing are the ways in which empire must insinuate itself and is very honest. And this is why I love your point, Nina, when you were like people who refuse to believe Zionists who say outright they're a Mossad in the street or the U.S. Empire who says we're seeing the same thing in Lebanon when there are agents of empire who are saying we've been arming right wing Christian militias for the last several years. And this is our plan. If Hezbollah doesn't give up their arms, this is our plan is to activate this. Believe them when they say that or when they're saying that they're going to allow the current uh uh you know so-called leaders in syria to annex part of lebanon troblos right to again make a sort of sunday majority and be able to reconfigure what that means we are hearing that this is what is happening on the ground and this is a real conversation that agents of empire are in lebanon sort of trotting out so another surface area for us to say that They lie about a lot of things, but their intentions at creating spaces of insinuating themselves and their boot is never something that they lie about. Right. So what is it that we're like willing to believe? But the other things that we're not willing to believe and why is that the case? But that's that's really what we're and we're seeing the same sort of I mean, the through line is sovereignty, a attack on sovereignty. They're annexing parts of the south. We know that in Lebanon. And I think the the long project of empire and of supremacy in Lebanon is such that there are large swaths of lebanese population that don't believe the south is somehow something for them to fight and that is where again anti-shia racism comes in so like all of this has to be central to our analysis when we're talking about how supremacy comes in and the ways in which divisions that were created by colonialism and empire are coaxed along fault lines that are should be very understandable to us. And that's the space where we should really have caution and never side with the agents that are able to turn on that hose whenever they want and then to back away from it whenever they want as well. And it's heartbreaking to see, of course, and you're constantly holding, you know, my hand is on my heart constantly. People are still being bombed and not being allowed to go back to the south in Lebanon. None of this has stopped, just like nothing in Gaza. stopped either so it's again it'll come back over and over and over again in our repetition to say this is a large project for the entire region and every one of those pieces has to be in place like you were saying Adnan the empire needs its collaborators and so that includes us being able to say when we talk about Iran we're talking about Lebanon we talk about Lebanon we're talking about Palestine we're talking about Palestine we're talking about Syria and Yemen and not to end Sudan and not to leave any of that behind. The larger project is clear to us. And I think it's understandable that when imperial forces are there, that destabilization is their game.

Adnan Husain: Absolutely. Very helpful. We're getting some good questions coming in that I want to, you know, and I really appreciate the people in the chat, listeners being engaged. There's been a lot of great discussion. People are really engaged with this. remarks that our guests have been making and the analysis that they're offering. And it's really vibrant and wonderful. And among them, people are posing some questions. And it does give me an opportunity to highlight that you should check out Nina's Twitter handle. Actually, what is your Twitter handle? I have it here, I think, at Nina Farnia. So very simple, direct. There are two threads in particular about Iran and the situation and kind of debunking and contextualizing and then connecting with this anti-imperialist analysis that I would recommend people go check out. And hopefully maybe you'll do a red paper or something. There was something that a new kind of feature of the Anti-Imperialist Scholars Collective website. Their first red paper was about Venezuela, extremely helpful. I recommend going and reading that. Maybe there'll be one on Iran. You know, I'll just put in a pitch that maybe you write one. Put these threads together so they're all together in one place. But one person asks, Professor Farnia, can you elaborate on your point on Twitter that Iran should not be classified as capitalist? So what were you meaning and talking about? When you made that statement. If you didn't say that exactly. You did say that, yes, yeah.

Nina Farnia: Yeah, yeah. Just to answer a question in the chat box, Ace is on Instagram, and I think the handle is like at Penn and Machete or something like that, which is similar to the Twitter handle. I also wanted to touch on something, on what Lada was talking about with Lebanon. And I saw... I wonder if part of the timing of this attack on Iran has a lot to do with Lebanon. Because for the last several months, we've been wondering if, well, we've been saying the next, a lot of us from the region who follow the region have been saying that Lebanon is going to be the next front. And Hezbollah has practiced, I think, an immense amount of discipline and not engaging yet. But they recently announced that they are recovered. And Iran in the mid-fall, I think, said, Khamenei said, if things pick up again in Lebanon, We will enter. Iran will enter. And so this is an escalation for Iran as well. And so I wonder if part of what just happened in Iran is in preparation for something in Lebanon. I'll also add that when... The Palestinian resistance launched Al-Aqsa flood. The leaders of the resistance specifically said they were very clear about this. They said, we do not view this as the final battle in the war of liberation. we need to make some headway in the region and amongst our own peoples and the peoples of the region before we can engage in that final battle. And so I wonder also the extent to which the region and all the forces of the axis of resistance are preparing for that final battle. As US imperialism falls, they also are preparing And so we, I think the sort of interim period is going to be quite challenging for all of us in the region, but it does feel like something bigger is coming. And I don't know when, but in terms of the question about capitalism, so I actually, I highly encourage everybody, as Adnan said, to go to the website of the Anti-Imperialist Scholars Collective. I think it's just antiimperialists.com or something.

Adnan Husain: There's a dash, dash, dash.

Nina Farnia: Yeah. So we live in a capitalist world system. There's no doubt about that. That is led by the United States. But Edan is a part of that world system. It is not an extractivist force in that world system. It is actually a source of resources and materials for that system. And not by consent, but by coercion. And that coercion in the case of Edan actually happens through sanctions and blockades. Edan's wealth is stolen. by seizing Iranian tankers, devaluing Iran's currency, devaluing its resources on the global market. And so when you think about global capitalism, you have to think about the way that value is transferred. You cannot think about capitalism in an anti-scientific or anti-mathematical way. It's not about vibes, right? Like not all the things that are bad in the world are capitalist or imperialist or fascist, even though like back when I used to smoke, I used to call the people that hate smokers fascists, right? but that's not actually true. And so just because Iran might or any sort of the aspects of capitalism in its nation doesn't mean that it's a capitalist entity or that it's like a participant in stealing resources from other nations or taking other places, like land from other nations. That's what capitalism is. Iran does not engage in any of that. In fact, it is a victim of that. And the weekend before the protests began in Iran, the legitimate protests of the merchants and the labor unions, the value of the currency fell by something like 30 to 40%. So for those of us that are so privileged that we don't even know what that means, it means that if you have $100 in your bank account on Tuesday, by the next Tuesday, that $100 could turn into $30. That's what that means. And so it's catastrophic for people that are for the whole country, but especially for people that are buying and selling on the global market. And that's why they protested. The state recognized their legitimate protests. The state repeatedly says we are suffering from economic shortcomings that we are trying to handle, but we are facing an uphill battle because of the sanctions. The state is actually being quite honest. And then once that was resolved, once they came to some agreements, all of a sudden you have basically urban warfare in the streets fomented by Pompeo's friends, Pompeo and Trump's friends. So Edan is a victim of global capitalism. To the extent that it participates in global capitalism, it is a global South nation on the periphery. Its resources are being extracted and being stolen by US-led imperialism and the friends of US-led imperialism, namely the E3 in Europe. That's not to say that Iran is perfect. That's not to say that I am without criticisms of Iran. I have my own criticisms. I think it's quite clear from my record, but I'm a believer in reform and I'm a believer in reform in the case of Iran, not reformists, not the reformist movement, but in sort of political policy reform and economic reform that serves the people because this government is a government that believes in sovereignty. And sovereignty is a basic fundamental principle of the internationalist left. And I support that. So is Iran perfect? No. But is Iran doing on the right path? Yes.

Adnan Husain: Yeah, I mean, I think it's important. I just had an Office Hours episode live stream on Friday with my friend David Yaghoubian, with whom I had been in Tehran. And we talked a little bit about economic sanctions and the impact that people had, and also the currency devaluation that is propelling inflation for basic goods. And that was the real trigger point for the bazaaris and the grand bazaar, the merchants, shopkeepers, shop owners, that basically over the last six, eight months, so a little bit before the 12 day war and then ramping up continuing after as consequences of the 12 day war. in the summer is that the currency was, you know, devaluing and under a lot of pressure and went from 850,000 real to about the, when I was there in December, 1.25 million to $1. And then it seems that there was a sudden increase devaluation that was sharp, given this, you know, already precipitous, continuous, there was a sudden like sharp change where it went to 1.45 from like 1.25 million to about like a between a 15 to 20% sudden drop, which is much more than any of the I mean, people have been getting used to that every day. It's getting worse, but it wasn't such a precipitous. And that's what really triggered it. And as Francis Husso mentions here, that it happened, you know, around the time that Netanyahu made his D.C. visit. It looks like there's some evidence that in the Dubai currency markets, it's where the short selling, you know, of the real took place that helped plummet it. We know the UAE is a total imperial state. kind of ally of the Zionists, of the Zio-American, and that its kind of position of having been created as this sort of like market hub is all having to do with capitalist penetration and control in the region. That's the only reason why they've created Dubai as this like currency and finance hub for the Middle East region, as it were. So there is some sense. And of course, the Supreme Leader did say In fact, actually, in a speech soon afterwards, acknowledging the grievances, the legitimate concerns of, you know, the those who are desperate economically and have their criticisms of, you know, the economy and so on. You know, he didn't just say, oh, yeah, there's sanctions. I mean, there are sanctions and there are legitimate concerns, questions, critiques. They did a bunch of things. They actually, you know, got rid of the economic finance minister. You know, their response. The point here is to say that they are responsive to concerns of the people. So they changed that. They put in a kind of rationing UBI type of direct way of of dealing with the subsidies so that there aren't kind of intermediaries, but it goes to the consumers directly for subsidies on basic goods and things like that. And he said that he saw a foreign hand in the currency manipulation that had happened that caused it. So I think that's a real serious kind of point to acknowledge and recognize in this circumstance is that Iran is under incredible pressure, and it has been for decades, but especially with maximum pressure sanctions. that it doesn't even have all the tools that might be available for it to have a more equitable social order because it's prevented from being able to do a lot of things that it could do. But even within those circumstances, it's a lot more responsive to the economic pain that its people are suffering than in the United States or Canada or any of these other places where there's so much... Yeah, there's so much dislocation, but does anybody do anything about it? No, they continue to, you know, have the corporate elite controlling all the legislation. You can't even get, you know, an increase in the minimum wage, you know, and they come up with all kinds of excuses under Biden, as well as under Trump, and it's both. You know, there's a corporate control, elite control, capitalist control of, you know, the, you know, lawmaking. You know, it doesn't matter which party. Did they really do anything to help working class people despite great, you know, economic sufferings? No, but whereas in Iran, they can't do as much. And it's not all mostly their own kind of, there might be mismanagement. Sanctions creates corruption and black market. You know, that's kind of part of the way it works is it helps privilege the elite and so on. And so it, you know, it creates a kind of, you know, problem that is... palpable and manifest so that the people suffer, so that they will be turned against their government. That's the whole design of these illegal unilateral sanctions. That's the whole goal and purpose of them. It has been and has articulated as such since the 1960s that that's why we do these sanctions. You know, but even within that context, Iran is more responsive to its people's wishes. I mean, when I was there and I well, now I'm starting to repeat things we talked about. So I should be quiet because that's why we have you you folks here. But it's just that I was amazed, you know, half the people, half the women aren't wearing hijab and nobody cares in Tehran. Like, you know, no, I didn't see, like, that there was any social tension around this. And why? It's because they realized, well, okay, it's, you know, we have to make adjustments because it's unpopular with the people. They are actually responsive in some ways to what's happening in their society. That's one way they're distinguished a little bit from these late capitalist so-called democracies where, you know... Most people want, you know, public health care. They want all these things. They don't get it, you know, because the government is not actually responsive to the people's interests. They're responsive to corporate and elite interests. Whereas Iran, for all of its problems, there are adjustments. Political protest actually does do things there, which is, you know, quite interesting. important to recognize and realize that there is a political culture of protests that is taking place. There's labor union struggles, but they have to be very careful to make sure that this isn't being manipulated by external forces and pressures that are looking to find ways to try and fragment and undermine know sovereignty of of of iran so but it but it is it is happening so that was i think a useful point there but i did want to like we didn't get a chance to talk so much about um ice and what's going on um i'm just wondering if maybe a few minutes that we have we might also talk a little bit about um know um the sharpening you might say of these kind of social contradictions and um uh you know especially nina you're writing on uh imperialism and fascism uh so you've obviously been thinking about fascism in the u.s um we see masked you know federal agents drawn from You know, I don't know if I want to completely call it lumpen kind of military, you know, kind of cadres or who exactly how to characterize, but these are obviously people who are being enrolled into. federal agency to go pursue a terribly racist anti-immigrant agenda with brutality. That's part of the point of it, is to show and demonstrate this in a kind of spectacle. um and to um so kind of fear and terror in communities and i've been watching and somebody posted um uh you know red scare with nick estes's recent uh conversation with minneapolis-based indigenous activists because indigenous people have been really targeted now let's think about ice targeting You know, the indigenous people of this land. OK, talk about a settler colonial project really to privilege a particular racial and class component to the exclusion of all. You know, I mean, immigrants as well as indigenous people, racialized people, immigrants. So at any rate, I'm wondering, you know, like we have kind of an army of occupation right now in Minneapolis. There are 3000 agents there running around, sowing terror and confusion. The schools have been closed. People are staying at home online. Businesses are shuttered. The streets are pretty empty. People are fearful. But there are, of course, active confrontations taking place here. You know, in light of the murder of, you know, Ms. Good, who is, you know, only, you know, is one victim of ICE. 32 people have died in 2005 in ICE custody. And 11 people have been shot since September. So, you know, this is... It follows the demonization of Somali people by Trump and the right wing, and they see clearly Minneapolis as a city that is a site of resistance because of its recent history, you know, with the George Floyd protests and so on. And so I'm wondering, you know, I mean, and this flocking, you know, right wing agitators from outside the area, from outside the state, from everywhere. the suburbs, et cetera, from the country coming in, you know, this is a real flashpoint. So what do you see is, you know, important going forward? You know, what can we learn and how can we support if indeed, as I think you mentioned early on that, you know, Nina, that this is the kind of epicenter for the frontline struggle right now in the United States between, you know, fascism and those who would resist it. So where are we and what should we be watching and how can we support and be engaged with that site of struggle in the empire? I don't know who'd like to go first to talk about it, but just jump in.

Lara Shihai: Well, I think I'm going to just take up like this. This feels to me like a continuation of this is a settler colonial nation. And this is a continuation of the genocidal logics from which it, you know, supposedly began. This nation began. Right. Is that when you have deputized white supremacists, we know for a fact that like, for example, the head of the Proud Boys said, is part of these ICE death squads. We know that, you know, the person, I believe it's the person who murdered Renee Good was an Iraq veteran, that these are not, these are actually trained folks, right? And the story is, oh, they're untrained or they're doing, first of all, no sob story for people who murder folks in the street and are masked and doing that and supported by the state and being able to afflict this. But really to think about the deputization of settlers, In the decision making about who gets to live on this land and not and again the sort of we know that there have been indigenous folks who have been held and are being held in talk about blackmailing to be able to allow ice. um to use sort of native land indigenous sovereign land we're back to sovereignty here the issue of sovereignty and that the impunity with which the settler colony of the united states continues to break its promises with indigenous folks um not a surprise that's what i mean it's a continuation of that and that is upon us to see how this violence is part of the logic of whether we want to say turned inward or outward or anything is that if the genesis of this is a settler colonial project the only possible version extension just like we saw in the in palestine that the only extension and logical you know uh next step of genocidal zionist logic would be the ex the full extermination and full view of everybody of palestinians and we certainly we've been seeing that in gaza but in the west bank right now in the so-called west bank the continued genocidal and ethnic cleansing logic we're seeing the same thing here and i think that for us to be able to root it back in the violence of settler colonialism about how the state works hand in hand with settler deputizes people allows them to do the dirty work for them is able talk the lever that we were talking about before that you can turn on these sort of levers of violence or trump being able to say okay i'm gonna you know use the insurrection act or any one of these things are is how it's always stacked in favor of the monopoly of violence by the state and that's why i think watching folks really gather. There's a general strike that's been called for. I think it's on January 23rd. There are people mobilizing in the street. There's all these ways in which folks are coming together and seeing we understand actually what's at hand. And if you're calling for a general strike, you also understand how capitalism and stopping up production and capitalist production is a centerpiece of stopping the monopoly of violence. And that's, I think, so to to both be able to track it historically and logically and in and through the law of settler colonialism and larger state surveillance. And also, again, to give love and solidarity and material support, whatever needs to be done to the folks on the ground that are organizing and that have this down. I mean, we got to see the video, the Nazi being. you know, kicked out and that's part of it. It's just like, what does it mean? And we can look at that and be like, oh, this is a spectacle, but no, it needs to be that people like him don't feel comfortable coming into spaces and understand to be resistance. There's going to be consequences to being openly racist, white supremacist and Nazi-like or just straight up Nazi, not even like, they're not even in their likeness. They are Nazis. um and that this is part of the project of resistance here and how how it relates to the global rise in sort of fighting fascism it's a full circle where we're like there's resistance happening everywhere we can look and we should look at the violence that's happening and be able to track it and at the same time never lose sight of all the people who are organizing our on the street and especially the parts that we don't see. Organizing and revolution and revolutionary action is not sexy. There's so many people that are working constantly and have been working for decades so that this moment can come to this and people can seize the moment and say, this is how we're fighting back too.

Adnan Husain: Yeah, I'm wondering, Nina, if you have anything on this topic you want to kind of chime in on. You know, as I said, you're a scholar of fascism, imperialism and fascism. So what would you want to highlight about what's happening and been happening with ICE, but particularly the situation in Minneapolis?

Nina Farnia: Just in terms of the resources, as you said, I think earlier, Nick Estes did a show on Friday or Thursday that was really good. And then there are other shows that people are posting in the chat box that look really good. So In the fall, a right-wing think tank called the Institute for Peace and Diplomacy issued a report that I actually learned about through one of our comrades in the anti-imperialist Carlos Collective, Tamanisha. The report's called Securing the Core, the Case for a Hemisphere-First U.S. National Defense Strategy. And I encourage everybody... who's interested in understanding what's happening in this hemisphere to actually read that report. What's happening is that as they begin to lose the East, they're securing their holdings here. And we need to remember that all empires fall. There's nothing particularly special about The United States is not immune from history. It is not immune from the historical and economic processes that all empires and all, you know, states go through, the US empire is falling. It is going to lose its holdings around the world. It already has. And it's going to also start to lose some of its holdings here. And the idea, this sort of from the river to the sea manifest, we were taught in school, manifest destiny. We were never not taught empire, right? We were taught manifest destiny from the river to the sea. But this is a vast continent. Turtle Island is an incredibly vast continent. they're not going to be able to hold this forever. And they know that. They know that. That's why they're sending troops. They're occupying U.S. cities now. So I think we're actually sort of at the beginning of this. I mean, I hate to say it, but I do think we're at the beginning of this. And I think the fascists came to power precisely to execute this strategy to secure the core. I do think that And I've written about this, that what's happening in the US looks a lot like Italian fascism, though I welcome debates and disagreement about that, because I think it's hard to say at this point. It's unfolding as we speak. And there's going to be resistance, and the resistance is going to grow. And the reality is, again, as all empires fall, that also fascist projects don't last super long, right? They're highly unstable projects. Historically, fascism, formal fascism, sort of de jure fascism, as we say in the law, lasts about 20 to 30 years, not much longer than that. And so my students, for example, those that survived this horrific moment in history, are going to be at the peak of their careers and their lives when this ends. And I think that's really important to remember. In the meantime, though, battle needs to be waged on all fronts the you know in the streets the battle of ideas you know um with our children we need to prepare our children for what's to come you know um i also just want to highlight this is off topic but one of the comments in the chat box from benji um who's a friend of all of us and a friend of the show as well um that uh sovereignty is actually in and of itself anti-capitalist just to go back to iran like iran's fight for sovereignty is is an anti-capitalist project in and of itself. And that's how it should be viewed. I support it. I know 20 to 30 years is too long. Francis is another comrade from the anti-imperialist scholars collective. It is indeed too long, but you know, if that's what it takes for this world to change, then...

Adnan Husain: Yeah, sorry. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, I was just gonna say though, but I'm, you know, middle aged by then, you know, your students, like, it'll be the kind of, you know, professional period of their time and career, etc. But, you know, I can't, I'm with Francis 20, 30 years. I don't have, you know, I wanna see something better by the time I'm, you know, 70 years old or whatever. So at any rate, well, you know, this has been a really fantastic conversation. We usually try and just go about 90 minutes. We're at the 90 minute mark, but I do wanna give people, you know, uh, Lara and Nina chance for a kind of final kind of thoughts and conclusions. And also if you want to highlight, um, particularly, you know, any organizations, causes, movements, um, things, um, to support or that as a, as a great resource, we've been mentioning, you know, uh, quite a few of them, but you know, how people can get engaged, uh, get active, um, and do things. We sort of, we're talking a little bit about that when we're thinking about Minneapolis and so on because it's closer to home. But any sort of final concluding thoughts and if you want to plug anything and how people can keep up with you and follow your work, please do that as well.

Lara Shihai: I mean, I would just say thank you. Again, I think these conversations together feel like they're grounding and they're meant to feel like that, to be able to think through these things and make meaning and really go into the spaces that can feel like they're dizzying where we started at the top of the hour or 90 minutes about what it feels like. I would say to remember, like you said, to ground everything in Palestine. Still, people are struggling and folks aren't giving as much money and mutual aid because I think it feels like overwhelming or people feel like it's done. So Lifeline for Gaza is still highlighting cases and people who really need our help and to support channels like this and comrades, and not just because Adnan's a dear comrade, but because in the face of fascist propaganda and liberal joining of that, the talking points and the ecosphere of information and sort of critical engagement that really gives us a lifeline to the political commitments we should have to global liberation and sovereignty of these nations is woefully underrepresented. So it does mean a lot when you subscribe to the channel or when you like this or when you send it to a comrade because it provides a space for us to continue thinking alongside each other and doing this work of grounding. Thank you so much for making the space and Nina is wonderful to be in space with you.

Adnan Husain: Go ahead, Nina.

Lara Shihai: Yeah, I just want to echo those remarks.

Nina Farnia: Yeah, it's wonderful, Lara, that your grounding sort of analysis is always very moving and it's just really wonderful. And I'm so excited. Sina told me about your new show. I was so excited to hear about it. And I think you got a shout out from Annie Lennox even, right?

Lara Shihai: You should mention that. That's great.

Nina Farnia: So people should watch a lot.

Lara Shihai: It was really Hassan Abou-Sissah who got it, but sure. Yeah.

Nina Farnia: Well, also a shout out from Dr. Abusidda, you know, is significant. You should definitely follow Laura's new show. You should support Sina Rahmani, who supports all of us quite a bit. You should support Adnan's show and support all the shows that were in the chat box, especially around Indigenous resistance, because right now Indigenous resistance is really picking up and is inspiring. And I think that's the next phase of this front right here.

Adnan Husain: thanks to everybody and i think that's it thank you very much adnan as always for everything that you do oh well you know it's actually i feel so much less uh vertigo and dizziness as a result of the bracing grounding helpful you know conversation to have you both on and i'm sure the audience really appreciates it i'm seeing so much um appreciation and love uh for you both and all the kind of insights that you shared and analysis. You know, like sometimes people think, okay, what are we really doing in this like, you know, online space? What is this all for? We're talking about it. Of course, I want to impel us to have concrete things that we might be able to join and support. But even and you said that, Lara, that like, you know, maybe we're being repetitious, but you know what? We're constantly assaulted over and over and over again by the logics of these fake disinformation that is constantly a cacophony reinforcing itself of the mainstream media that naturalizes and makes it seem as if this projection, this ideological projection of reality is in fact actually reality. it's so confusing that in fact actually it's okay for us to repeat some points more than once like we're going against a kind of niagara falls waterfall you know of disinformation and propaganda and so you know it's important to reinforce this like we need these check-ins to just be like okay i've been hearing all this and people are saying this and You know, sometimes on your own, it's hard to get a grasp of, you know, remember what the core analysis like that's why we raised this issue of what's the central contradiction imperialism and what does that mean you know like how does it help pattern and understand. where to place these other points of view and so on to resolve some of those other contradictions. So that's important and we need these spaces for people. I'm just so glad to have a chance to talk with you and to see the comments from so many people and many regulars and I can't name all of you who come and come back to have these messages reinforced, and you should go check out Psychic Militancy. Definitely check out, I think, the Anti-Imperialist Scholars Collective has a podcast as well that has a few episodes out, and they're continuing to bring together some wonderful people on important topics. So we need those, even also just for... you know, the people who are most active and engaged, you know, to, even if we don't reach a lot of new people, even the people who are part of this kind of a community, they need to be bolstered and encouraged and given some support and that's what we try and do here of course we'd love everybody else so please do share this you know to your friends colleagues your enemies they need to hear this maybe some of them would recognize the truth of of this analysis but even if we don't reach like huge numbers out there like the corporate media or the right-wing so-called independent astroturf channels It is very important that a kind of cadre of people stay committed because it's such a long term struggle. You know, like, sadly, I think Nina's right. You know, it's 20, 30 years could be the case. So how do you keep up the stamina of resistance, of struggle, of psychologically, that resilience, that militancy that Lara is talking about? Well, we need spaces like this. So I'm very grateful for both of you for coming on and contributing to that. all of you who are in the chat. And just the last thing that I will say is we have to do what we can wherever we can. Like I just noted that, for example, the American Historical Association, along with the MLA, the Modern Languages Association, the two largest professional organizations for academics in the humanities, overwhelming membership voted, 78 and 79% in favor of two resolutions, one to condemn scholasticide and the other to defend academic freedom, to talk about Palestine in our classes, on the airways, etc., which, of course, is under threat and constantly being suppressed, as we know. That's extraordinary, you know, so even like, you know, imperial elite academics can sometimes recognize that there are principles at stake here. Now, of course, what ended up happening, just like it happened last year, is that the AHAs, American Historical Association's Council, overturned and vetoed the membership vote. So we're supposed to worry about authoritarian governments and regimes all in the global South when you can't have a democracy of overwhelming, essentially 80% of members expressing their disgust for complicity and genocide. That is overturned, right? Because these institutions do have a role to play, but we have to keep fighting where we can. That's a victory of its own. And I talked about in my year-end reflections, you know, that Lara also contributed to Sasha Frere-Jones' newsletter, you know, about a small little struggle that we had to get our union to divest from, you know, war and in particular companies doing business with Israel and supporting the occupation. You know, and like, you know, it doesn't feel great that those are not big achievements that the minimum, but we have to keep and it's exhausting to do those things and I tried to convince myself in that piece that it's still worth doing it even though it's so exhausting and it leads to such modest kind of things that you have to fight so hard to get. But, you know, we're keeping up the example for people, you know, that there is an analysis, there is still human dignity and decency that we have to struggle and fight for. So I want to thank all of you for continuing to do that. Support, say, the Samir Project. As well as Lifeline for Gaza. I love the Samir Project. Why? Because it's a Palestinian mutual aid organization. And in addition to helping provide support to people on the ground, they also work on collective projects of local community infrastructure to allow Palestinians to stay and live on their land. And You have mutual aid organizations in your community. Support them. That's part of building up the infrastructure against these fascist groups. If we support and help one another, we have more resiliency when it comes to facing ICE in our communities. It's not just going to happen in Minneapolis. They're coming to you. They have already been around. the country. And so, you know, get involved in those things to build the sort of social solidarities that are outside of the institutions of, you know, capitalism, but are based in your own communities. And I'll just conclude with one organization I had. This morning, the board meeting for Rahima Foundation. Rahima means mercy and compassion in Arabic. It's one of the 99 names of God. I have a series on the 99 names of God with a phenomenological psychologist, a dear friend and colleague, Mark Applebaum, where we're going through and talking about them as a resource of the Spirit in these times when we really need any kind of spiritual support in these times. But that foundation is an organization that helps with food aid and utilities and rent support. in the san jose bay area and it was founded by my mother in our garage 30 years ago she still goes in you know five times a week and works there and it's an example of things that people of course you know charity i wouldn't say that's the way you know a charitable organization but you can give a tax um you know deductible uh donation to it we wish that nobody needed to give charity that should be just we have the wealth in the society to support one another but especially the really vulnerable refugees which is really who they serve um please go look uh rahima.org r-a-h-i-m-a.org and support if you can um but in any case um Do what you can, everywhere you can. It's been great to be with you. And thank you again for being here. My guests, Lara and Nina, really appreciate it. To everybody, until next time, peace and solidarity. Peace, of course, only with justice.

Lara Shihai: Thank you.

Adnan Husain: Thank you. Bismillah ar-Rahman ar-Rahim.