Podcasts about Alia Malek

Late last year, Syrian opposition forces captured Damascus and put an end to the regime of Bashar al-Assad. The Syrian dictator, whose family had ruled the country for more than 50 years, fled to Moscow. Across the country, Syrians celebrated. Assad's fall exposed the brutality of his regime, including gruesome discoveries in government prisons, tens of thousands of disappeared people, and mass displacement. But the group that replaced it also has a record of violence—and a former affiliation with al Qaeda and the Islamic State. Welcome to Counterpoint. Each week, we look at one pressing question facing world leaders—from two opposing points of view. Today, we're tackling the question: Is Syria on a path to realizing the hopes of the revolution? With us to make the case for viewing Syria's new government with skepticism is David Adesnik, the vice president of research at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. Arguing that Syrians are capable of securing a democratic future for themselves is Alia Malek, a journalist, former civil rights lawyer, and the author of The Home That Was Our Country: A Memoir of Syria. Counterpoint is hosted by Sasha Polakow-Suransky, a deputy editor at Foreign Policy. The show is a production of Foreign Policy, in partnership with the Doha Forum. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today on the show, Fareed speaks with Richard Haass, president emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations, about President Trump's foreign policy, from his proposal to “take over” Gaza, to the potential for a new nuclear deal with Iran.    Next, President of the International Rescue Committee David Miliband discusses how the Trump administration's decision to all but shutter USAID will impact the world's most vulnerable people.   Then, Mathias Döpfner, CEO of Axel Springer, speaks with Fareed about the danger of increasing US tariffs on Europe, and how the EU and the US ought rather to work together to counter autocratic powers globally.    After that, Syria is at a crossroads following the ouster of long-time dictator Bashar al-Assad. Syrian-American journalist Alia Malek describes the “hopeful and vigilant” mood among the Syrian people.    Finally, Americas Quarterly Editor-in-Chief Brian Winter joins the show to discuss El Salvador's offer to jail US prisoners, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio's visit to Latin America, and the new administration's focus on the region.    GUESTS: Richard Haass (@RichardHaass), David Miliband (@DMiliband), Mathias Döpfner, Alia Malek (@AliaMalek), Brian Winter (@BrazilBrian)  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Journalist, author and editor Alia Malek tells us about her recent visit to Damascus and about the anthology of Syrian writing she edited for McSweeneys. Aftershocks was released in December 2024, just days after Bashar al-Assad fled Syria and the country's political prisons began to crack open. The collection brings together work by sixteen Syrian authors who write from diasporic and refugee experience, as well as from inside Syria. We discuss these key Syrian literary voices and how they and others are meeting this moment.Show notes:Get the Aftershocks anthology from McSweeney's at store.mcsweeneys.net.Malek's 2017 book, The Home That Was Our Country: A Memoir of Syria, is available from Bold Type Books.Read Malek's reflections on the death of her father, “‘He Didn't Want to Lie in a Grave That Couldn't Be Visited” and her recent “What Did the World Learn From Syria?” in the New York Times.Read a short conversation with Aftershocks contributor Rawaa Sonbol, “On Being a Writer in Syria Today” and her short story “The Noose Boy,” both at ArabLit.We mention the late Syrian writers Khaled Khalifa and Saadallah Wannous. The photo of Alia Malek in Damascus in January 2025 is by Sabir Hasko. You can subscribe to BULAQ on all your favorite podcast networks. You can also follow us on Twitter @bulaqbooks and Instagram @bulaq.books, where we post about upcoming episodes and literary events. Please don't forget to rate and recommend BULAQ. We are a non-profit, listener-supported program. If you'd like to make a donation you can do so at https://donorbox.org/support-bulaq. BULAQ is a co-production with the podcast platform Sowt. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode I interviewed American journalist and lawyer Alia Malek, whose work has been published by the New York Times and New Yorker. I spoke to her about her 2017 book The Home That Was Our Country, which is partly about moving to her grandmother's flat in Damascus from 2011 to 2013, but also about Syria. We talked about the murder of one of her relatives when she was on a childhood visit to Syria, the disappearance of people in Damascus over the years, and the descent into war. We also talked about how she wrote the book, not just the reportage, but also using material written by her family, interviewing her family, and researching the history of the country.You can buy Alia's book here: https://uk.bookshop.org/books/the-home-that-was-our-country-a-memoir-of-syria/9781568588445The article mentioned which she recently wrote for the New York Times is here: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/25/magazine/germany-trial-syria.htmlShe mentioned two nonfiction books. The first was Law Versus Power by Wolfgang Kaleck (with a forward by Edward Snowden), which is here: https://bit.ly/3QgBNniThe brilliantly titled Maeve Higgins book, Tell Everyone On This Train I Love Them, is here: https://uk.bookshop.org/books/tell-everyone-on-this-train-i-love-them/9780143135869Finally, here is a link to my books: https://uk.bookshop.org/contributors/andrew-hankinsonThank you for listening.

In this episode of Logroll I spoke to Suzy Hansen, contributing writer for New York Times Magazine, about her book, Notes on a Foreign Country. We talked about why she moved to Istanbul, how the idea for the book changed, and the things she included which might make us flinch but why it was important to include them. You can buy Suzy's book, Notes on a Foreign Country, here:https://uk.bookshop.org/books/notes-on-a-foreign-country-an-american-abroad-in-a-post-american-world/9781472153883She also recommended The Home That Was Our Country by Alia Malek, which you can buy here:https://uk.bookshop.org/books/the-home-that-was-our-country-a-memoir-of-syria/9781568588445Finally, here's a link to my books: https://uk.bookshop.org/contributors/andrew-hankinsonThanks for listening.

In ten years of armed conflict in Syria, nearly 400,000 people have lost their lives. More than 11 million others have been forced from their homes. The U.S., Russia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and many other countries have gotten involved in the conflict. Millions of refugees have flooded into neighboring countries and Europe.In 2018, Geoff Norcross sat down with three authors who wrote three very different books about syria in front of an audience at the Portland Book Festival. Alia Malek is a journalist who's memoir, “The Home that was our Country,” chronicles her family's history in Syria. Elliot Ackerman is a former U.S. marine who fought in Iraq and Afghanistan, and whose novel, “Dark at the Crossing,” tells the story of an Iraqi American who wants to fight for the resistance in Syria. And Emily Robbins is a scholar whose novel, “A Word for Love,” chronicles a forbidden love affair in Damascus.

Photographer Bassem Khabieh spent time with children in Syria’s rebel-held area of eastern Ghouta, getting to know them and snapping their photos. In many ways, he tried to stay invisible. Often, he captured them just being themselves: playing in a bouncy castle against the backdrop of a city in ruins. Or, blowing bubbles, looking up at the sky.  Children play inside an inflatable castle during Eid al-Fitr celebration in the Douma neighborhood of Damascus, Syria, June 26, 2017. Credit: Bassam Khabie/Reuters “Children always ask questions,” he said. “They always try to know what I’m holding, about the camera and how it works. They ask me if we will appear on television.” Related: He survived torture in a Syrian prison. Now, he’s set to study in the US.Those everyday moments — amid small birthday parties and Eid al-Fitr celebrations organized by neighbors or just being at home — were precious to him, and too often, short-lived. The regime forces and its supporters targeted neighborhoods where families lived, and his photography reflects the violence and atrocities that people have been subjected to in Syria.  Abu Malek, one of the survivors of a chemical attack that took place in this location in 2013, uses his crutches to walk along a deserted street. Credit: Bassam Khabieh/Reuters A collection of his photos are now published in a book set to be published this spring, “Witnesses to War: The Children of Syria,” which, through his lens and accompanying text, provides an insider’s account of the impact of the Syrian war on children. The volume marks 10 years — this week — since the start of the uprising in Syria. More than 380,000 people have died in the war that has left cities devastated and displaced more than half of the population. Hundreds of thousands are missing. Khabieh’s photos are a window into the war and the unspeakable atrocities that children there have endured.  “We basically owe a debt of gratitude to the work that people like Bassam and several of his colleagues did at the time.”Alia Malek, journalist, former civil rights lawyer and author of “The Home That Was Our Country: A Memoir of Syria”“We basically owe a debt of gratitude to the work that people like Bassam and several of his colleagues did at the time,” said Alia Malek, journalist, former civil rights lawyer and author of the 2017 book, “The Home That Was Our Country: A Memoir of Syria.”Related: Online learning is a big struggle in formerly ISIS-controlled MosulMalek interviewed Khabieh for the book and wrote the introduction.“The regime very much did not want the world to see, did not want the eyes of the world on the ground,” Malek said. “And when the world could no longer come to Syria, these Syrians brought Syria to the world.”Children in Syria Today, Syria is one of the worst places in the world to be a child, according to a report by World Vision International and Frontier Economics. Children have been gassed, killed, orphaned, uprooted and largely left without an education. Of 600,000 killed, 55,000 were children, and a child’s life expectancy has been reduced by 13 years, the report says. The charity Save the Children reports that 1 in 3 displaced children in Syria would rather be living in another country.  Ghazal, 4, (left) and Judy, 7, carrying 8-month-old Suhair, run away after the shelling of a Red Crescent convoy in Damascus, Syria, May 6, 2015. Credit: Bassam Khabieh/Reuters Related: People in northeast Syria are in desperate need of help. Aid groups can’t get to them.Khabieh witnessed their pain and suffering firsthand.“Month by month, I realized that the most vulnerable in this war are the children,” he recalled.Some of his photos are hard to look at — such as the ones showing children running out of buildings that had been hit by bombs minutes before; fathers holding their dead children shrouded in white cloth; and the tearful mother who doesn’t have enough milk to feed her newborn, so instead, sticks her pinky in the baby’s mouth to calm her hunger.  A baby discovered in the rubble after an airstrike is lifted in the air by White Helmets and community members. Credit: Bassam Khabieh/Reuters But Khabieh didn’t always intend to be a photographer. In 2011, during the early days of the revolution in Syria, he was a computer engineering student in Damascus. People went into the streets, calling for the downfall of President Bashar al-Assad.Khabieh, using his cellphone at first, took pictures at protests and funerals, making sure not to get anyone’s faces because they could get in trouble with security forces.“It was very dangerous for anyone to hold a camera, to try to go to the field and report what’s happening in the streets.”Bassem Khabieh, photographer“It was very dangerous for anyone to hold a camera, to try to go to the field and report what’s happening in the streets,” he recalled.He then uploaded the photos to social media with the hope that the world would learn about what was happening in Syria, he said. A boy sits on a tire in front of a mosque’s bullet-riddled facade on the first day of the Eid al-Adha holy day. Credit: Bassam Khabieh/Reuters “I knew how important it is to use photography to document [these] important events for Syrian people,” he said. ‘It’s a playbook’ Khabieh and Malek both said it’s painful that the world saw plenty of graphic photos and videos coming out of Syria over the years, and yet, decided to look away.Related: US targets Assad govt and backers with toughest sanctions yet against SyriaBy ignoring the atrocities in Syria, Malek said, the world sent a chilling message to protesters everywhere that if they rise up against a powerful dictatorship, they are on their own.“I think the thing that people don’t realize is that, yes, this specifically happened to Syria but it’s going to become a kind of playbook. In many ways, it’s a playbook for regimes that want to stay.” Alia Malek, journalist, former civil rights lawyer and author of “The Home That Was Our Country: A Memoir of Syria”“I think the thing that people don’t realize is that, yes, this specifically happened to Syria but it’s going to become a kind of playbook. In many ways, it’s a playbook for regimes that want to stay,” she said. A man hugs his child before the boy is evacuated during a break in the bombing campaign. The negotiations between the government and the rebels holding Eastern Ghouta forced many men to separate from their children and families. Credit: Bassam Khabieh/Reuters Khabieh left Syria in 2018, after the Syrian regime captured Douma, his hometown. He now lives in Turkey. He couldn’t stay in touch with most of the children he photographed, he said. The war separated them.But he thinks about them all the time. “When I look at my pictures, I remember the circumstances and the time and I wonder where are they living now?” Khabieh said.

L’Islam. Per molti una religione, un sistema immutabile incapace di cambiare nel tempo e inconciliabile con le culture occidentali. Per altri un’entità monolitica che mira addirittura alla distruzione dell’occidente. Nella realtà l’Islam rappresenta un insieme complesso di fenomeni sociali e storici che non riguardano solo il mondo arabo. Partendo dalle parole, Hummus racconta storie e Paesi per spiegare in modo semplice uno dei fenomeni più dibattuti dell’ultimo ventennio. A condurre il podcast è Laura Cappon, giornalista. Dal 2011 al 2015 ha vissuto al Cairo dove ha seguito la transizione del paese dopo la rivoluzione. Ha lavorato anche in Tunisia, Iraq, Libano, Qatar, Marocco e Ucraina. Dal 2015 collabora come redattrice e inviata con diversi programmi di approfondimento della Rai tra cui "Petrolio" (Rai 2) e i reportage di Gad Lerner su Rai 3. Collabora o ha collaborato anche con altre testate italiane e internazionali tra cui Il Fatto Quotidiano, Sky tg24, la RSI, Radio Popolare, Al Jazeera English e The New Arab.In questo primo episodio si parla del libro sacro dell’Islam, ma non solo. Il Corano è un monumento sacro, un codice religioso che è stato raccolto dal profeta Mohammed senza traduzione né interpretazione. Nel testo, però, ci sono diversi punti in comune con la Bibbia. Mohammed Hamadi lo racconta in giro per le chiese di Milano. Lui, che è scappato dalla Siria di Hafez al-Assad negli Anni 70, dopo la pensione fa il volontario per il Touring Club. Così spiega i dipinti raccontando le connessioni dei due testi sacri. Lo spirito di Mohammed è quello dell’integrazione tra religioni e della sua storia in Siria, un paese dilaniato da anni di guerra civile. La storia della rivoluzione siriana ce la spiega Alia Malek, giornalista siriana che ha documentato il conflitto.

Alia Malek, Il Paese che era la nostra casa. Racconto della Siria

Alia Malek's new book, The Home That Was Our Country: A Memoir of Syria, covers modern Syria, from the last of the Ottoman days to the present. Malek provides a rich history of the country by weaving the lives of her family members with the geopolitical and economic history of Syria Alia Malek is a journalist, and author. She is the author Amreeka: US History Retold Through Arab-American Lives and the editor of Patriot Acts: Narratives of Post-9/11 Injustice.

The Home That Was Our Country: A Memoir of Syria by Alia Malek. Co-hosted by Khalil and Malihe. The post Voices of the Middle East and North Africa – March 2, 2018 appeared first on KPFA.

Hur beskriver man ett krig där TV-bilderna förvandlat omvärlden till avtrubbade åskådare? Vår Mellanösternkorrespondent, Cecilia Uddén, har träffat tre syriska författare som satt ord på en av vår tids stora tragedier. I Radiokorrespondenterna möter vi Samar Yazbek, vars romaner och reportgeböcker finns översatta till svenska. Hon har skrivit en roman där hon låter en naiv flicka skildra krigetes fasor så att de ser ut som scener ur Alice I Underlandet. Yassin al Haj Saleh belönades i november 2017 med svenska PENklubbens Tucholskypris. Yassin al Haj Saleh kallas ofta för den syriska revolutionens samvete. Hans senaste bok, på engelska heter "The Impossible Revolution: Making sense of the Syrian Tragedy", men han har också uppmärksammats för sina "Brev till Samira", brev till sin försvunna hustru. Hon kidnappades av jihadister för fyra år sedan och har inte hörts av sedan dess. Yassin Al Haj Saleh talar med Cecilia Uddén om bla den överlevandes skuld. Alia Malek växte upp i USA men återvände till Syrien för att renovera sin mormors hus just när den arabiska våren började. I hennes bok "Syria the country that was our home" får man bland andra möta några av Assadregimens passiva supporters, hennes egna släktingar, som lever i Damaskus och som till sist rapporterade henne till myndigheterna, vilket gjorde att hon tvingades lämna Syrien.

Novelist Dina Nayeri, journalist Alia Malek, and poet Rami Karim's work surrounds Middle East politics, revolution, and the refugee experience. You may have read Iranian-American novelist Dina Nayeri’s viral story in The Guardian, “The Ungrateful Refugee: We Have No Debt to Pay.” She reads from her book Refuge, a powerful story of a daughter who leaves Iran, but leaves her father behind. Syrian-American journalist Alia Malek returned to Damascus to live in her grandfather’s home–just as the Syrian conflict started. She writes about it in The Home That Was Our Country: A Memoir of Syria. They read with AAWW Margins Fellow Rami Karim, the author of lyric poems set against the Civil War in Lebanon. This mashup of poetry, fiction, and memoir speaks to the complex nature of home: a place that elusively remains in flux through return and exile. This event is moderated and introduced by AAWW Muslim Community Fellow Roja Heydarpour. Watch the video for Searching for Home here. Music by Robert Rusli & Lu Yang.  http://aaww.org

  Alia Malek is the author of The Home that was Our Country: A Memoir of Syria, in which she she weaves the personal history of her family – particularly her maternal grandmother –… Continue reading →

President Trump this week praised Lebanon, Jordan and Turkey for taking in refugees from the six-year-old Syrian civil war while his administration considers lowering further the number of refugees accepted in the United States. As a candidate and as president, Trump has taken a hard line on refugees while other nations have accepted hundreds of thousands of them. For instance, by the time Germany had accepted 600,000 last fall, the U.S. had welcomed only 16,000. On the show today, a look at the crisis with Alia Malek, Baltimore-raised journalist and civil rights attorney who traveled with Syrian refugees and profiled some of them for Foreign Policy. And Dan speaks with the leader of an Arabic music ensemble that will perform a concert at Towson University on Sept. 29 to keep attention on the refugee crisis.Paula Gallagher, Baltimore County librarian and Roughly Speaking book critic, offers a strong recommendation for, "Sing, Unburied, Sing," the new novel from National Book Award winner Jesmyn Ward.Alia Malek, attorney, journalist and author of "The Home That Was Our Country, A Memoir of Syria," talks about the civil war, the refugee crisis and her Syrian ancestors. Malek is a featured speaker at the Baltimore Book Festival. She appears on the Ivy Bookshop Stage Friday at 5 pm.Michel Moushabeck is the leader of Layaali Arabic Music Ensemble, which comes to Maryland Sept. 29 to perform an evening concert for Syrian refugee awareness at Towson University. He offers a tutorial in Arab music ahead of the free concert.

It’s been six years of the devastating civil war in Syria – more than 11 million people have been displaced, and last week’s horrifying chemical attack on Syrian citizens by their own president Bashar al-Assad has been yet another reminder of the human cost of the conflict. On this episode of Politically Re-Active, journalist and author Alia Malek helps contextualize the war and shares her own experiences of living in Damascus during the start of the conflict. Alia recommends following these outlets and journalists to stay engaged with news from Syria: independent journalist Rania Abouzeid (@Raniaab), Kareem Shaheen of The Guardian (@kshaheen), and the website http://syria.jadaliyya.com/. And if you have money to spare, donate to the following organizations: INARA, which focuses on providing medical assistance to children from Syria, and Chicago-based Karam, which seeks to “restore the dignity and quality of life for people affected by conflict.” Learn more about Alia and her book, The Home That Was Our Country: A Memoir of Syria, at www.aliamalek.com/. Find tour dates and albums from your favorite hosts at www.harikondabolu.com and www.wkamaubell.com. As always, send us your thoughts and suggestions on Twitter and over email: @politicreactive or politicallyreactive@firstlook.org.

FP’s Mindy Kay Bricker talks to writer Alia Malek and alternative cartoonist Josh Neufeld about telling the story of the Syrian refugee crisis through a comic.

This week’s podcast features Alia Malek presenting her new book “A Country Called Amreeka: Arab Roots, American Stories” at Chapman University in Orange County during her West Coast book tour. This tour was organized by Levantine Cultural Center, and cosponsored by Chapman University’s Political Science and Peace Studies departments and the Arab Club, the Arab American Cultural Center of Silicon Valley (San Jose), and the Arab Cultural & Community Center of San Francisco, with support from the Arab American Anti-Discrimination (ADC), The Free Press and the Network of Arab American Professionals, Los Angeles and Orange County chapters. Special thanks to the Arab American Historical Society. This was recorded on November 9, 2009.