When the word security is mentioned, images of men in uniform, perhaps carrying guns and in armoured cars, come to mind. How did we end up in a place where security is understood in the narrow terms of policing, and inevitably leads to racism? Why does this kind of security fail to make a large part of the population feel safer? And can we imagine a society where my security is not the opposite of your security? In this thought-provoking conversation, Arun Kundnani speaks with Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò ...
Nov 17, 2021•35 min•Ep 51•Transcript available on Metacast We are in a climate crisis. About this there seems to be broad consensus. But, there is more and more divergence around what must be done to stop it. As COP26 came around, we’ve seen more and more supposed solutions to the Climate crisis gaining attention. But a closer look reveals that many of the ideas proffered as ways out of the climate emergency are merely duds, fancy ways to give the impression of progress while business continues as usual. Just as we cannot expect mosquitoes to cure malar...
Nov 03, 2021•35 min•Ep 50•Transcript available on Metacast For the last two years, Lebanon has been witnessing an acute multi-dimensional crisis that has left more than half the population living below the poverty line. Many families are struggling to survive. Some say that the massive economic crisis, the COVID-19 pandemic, the August 2020 Beirut explosions and instability have all combined to create conditions even worse than they were during the 1975-1990 civil war. In October 2019, Lebanon also saw a mass uprising, rejecting corruption and sectarian...
Oct 20, 2021•1 hr 19 min•Ep 49•Transcript available on Metacast The Tonga people of Zimbabwe and Zambia, who call themselves the river people, speak of the pain of being separated from their relatives, who all of a sudden were made foreigners, stuck on the opposite side of a dam, in another country. All this, so that a massive dam, the largest man-made lake in Africa, could be built. The Kariba dam, which has one of the biggest hydropower stations in Africa, came at a great price. Fast-forward just one generation later, in a case of history repeating itself,...
Sep 22, 2021•45 min•Ep 48•Transcript available on Metacast Twenty years on, America has chaotically pulled out of the war in Afghanistan with nothing much to show for it, and the war on terror appears to have achieved very little, except to cause more terror and to bring America’s violence to more parts of the world. In this fascinating conversation, Arun Kundnani interviews Deepa Kumar, who traces the longer historical roots of the War on Terror and how it racialised and targeted Arab and Muslim communities well before 9/11. Deepa Kumar is the author o...
Sep 10, 2021•51 min•Ep 47•Transcript available on Metacast About a decade ago, Tunisia was the birthplace of the so-called Arab spring, when Tunisians toppled the decades long dictator Ben Ali, heralding momentous changes across North Africa and beyond. To some extent, the Tunisian experience seems to be an exception in the region, because the country did not descend into the chaos and violence that have affected its neighboring countries since. However, many argue that the popular aspirations of the Tunisian people have been subverted and their demands...
Aug 27, 2021•1 hr 4 min•Ep 46•Transcript available on Metacast About a decade ago, parts of the Arab world experienced great upheaval. The events that took place, and which continue to unfold to the present day, are not easily explained. In fact, to this day, and in light of subsequent uprisings, there is an ongoing attempt to fully understand what it is exactly that happened during what has been called the Arab Spring. Can these events be called revolutions? What is a revolution, and how does one determine whether it is successful or not? To tackle these q...
Aug 04, 2021•57 min•Ep 45•Transcript available on Metacast The Covid-19 crisis has exacerbated the already existing deep structural problems of corporate and increasingly globalized food systems. A radical, human rights-based and agroecological transformation of food systems is more urgent than ever. As the United Nations gears itself to hold the 2021 version of the UN Food Systems Summit (UNFSS), activists and analysts are sounding the alarm that this year’s event is not building on the legacy of past World Food Summits, which resulted in the creation ...
Jul 26, 2021•37 min•Ep 44•Transcript available on Metacast If you listen to the news and read the papers, it would be easy to be convinced that the transition to a sustainable, low-carbon future energy system is “already underway”. Advocates say that renewable energy is already cost-competitive - with costs of generation falling below that of fossil fuels. According to them, the transition is all but "inevitable". Yes, we may still be using fossil fuels, but only as a temporary measure as we all move to cleaner energy. We are probably past peak use of c...
Jul 15, 2021•45 min•Ep 43•Transcript available on Metacast From a human rights perspective, the global vaccine distribution problem would for example aim to get the COVID vaccine to communities and peoples in the Global South quickly, safely, at low or no cost without political-, class- or gender-discrimination. It would lead toward a solution that combines a WTO waiver of intellectual property rights for COVID-related products and processes, maybe a General Assembly declaration that health is a global public good, a multilateral global humanitarian rel...
May 27, 2021•47 min•Ep 42•Transcript available on Metacast The unprecedented movement to #defundthepolice has brought a critical debate about the role of a powerful coercive state agency into the mainstream of political discussion. It has raised the question about how the police functions everywhere and whose interests they serve. But the police are not the only coercive arm of the state. What about the military, homeland security, prisons, the intelligence agencies? Isn’t it time to put those agencies also under the spotlight and examine whose interest...
May 17, 2021•1 hr 10 min•Ep 41•Transcript available on Metacast Despite the political and institutional changes that occurred with Africa's decolonisation process in the second half of the 20th century, many colonial constructs remain to this very day. One of the most obvious and egregious symbols of these continuities is no doubt the CFA franc . The acronym of this currency created in 1945 by the French provisional government originally stood for franc of the French colonies in Africa . It still circulates in eight countries in West Africa and six countries...
May 05, 2021•49 min•Ep 40•Transcript available on Metacast The present reeks of the past. The world we live in is not the result of some natural law. It was created by people, like you and I, humans who walked, breathed, ate and drank. The contemporary world is a result of people making decisions, decisions that would give them more power, access to more wealth, and grant them the influence to safeguard their wealth and power. If they could make it, you and I can unmake it. This is the third and final episode of our three part series, in which we look a...
Apr 21, 2021•48 min•Ep 39•Transcript available on Metacast 17 April is the “International Day of Peasant Struggles”. One may be inclined to think that such a day has very little significance for places like Europe and other parts of the developed world, but one would be mistaken. Struggles over farmland are a very real reality in Europe, although the nature of these struggles differ across the continent, with main differences being between Eastern and Western Europe. There are threats of land grabbing by large transnational companies and investors. Farm...
Apr 16, 2021•1 hr 11 min•Ep 38•Transcript available on Metacast Since February 2019 (2 years ago), the people of Algeria have waged an inspiring and historic revolt. Millions took to the streets united in their rejection of the ruling system, demanding radical democratic change. They chanted ‘They must all go!’ and ‘The country is ours and we’ll do what we wish’ – two slogans that have become emblematic of this new Algerian revolution. The popular movement or Hirak (movement in Arabic) succeeded in overthrowing President Abdelaziz Bouteflika in early April 2...
Apr 06, 2021•1 hr 2 min•Ep 37•Transcript available on Metacast This is the second episode of our three part series in which we look at how Europe came to be the dominant global power. In the first episode we looked at Racism and how it was used to justify European imperialism. As the world seeks a decolonial future, it is good to remind ourselves of what colonialism really was, and in this episode we take a closer look at how colonialism actually unfolded. Shaun Matsheza continues his conversation with Roger van Zwanenberg, who is the founder of Pluto books...
Mar 31, 2021•47 min•Ep 36•Transcript available on Metacast Societies the world over are under extreme stress and we are only beginning to guess the long term social and economic effects of the Covid19 pandemic. However, it is already clear that there is a gendered dimension to Covid’s direct and indirect socioeconomic impacts. Here at the State of power Podcast, we’re interested in how patriarchal power operates, how it mutates, and how it shapes the world around us. The theme for International women’s day on March 8 2021 is “Choose to challenge”, and o...
Mar 08, 2021•36 min•Ep 34•Transcript available on Metacast Here at the State of power podcast we are interested in how power functions, how it mutates, and how it shapes the world around us. We believe that, if we are to understand the present, we need to put it in its proper historical context and try to understand the historical processes that have led us here. Our guest on the podcast today, Roger van Zwanenberg is the founder of Pluto books , an independent publisher of radical, left‐wing non‐fiction books. He’s written a new global history, called...
Mar 03, 2021•42 min•Ep 33•Transcript available on Metacast Here at the State of Power Podcast we are concerned with how power functions, how it mutates, and how it reproduces itself, and our guest on this episode deals explicitly with this. Nyasha Mboti is an Associate Professor at the University of the Free State in Bloemfontein South Africa, and is the founder of a new field of study that he terms ‘Apartheid Studies’. He is soon to publish the first of four volumes outlining the scope of the new field. He graciously agreed when we asked him to sit wit...
Feb 04, 2021•46 min•Ep 32•Transcript available on Metacast Chihiro Geuzenbroek and Anna Bissila are both climate activists, and the co-organizers for the expo: People-Powered Movements versus Shell. An exhibition that explores the fight for justice that has been fought from Indonesia to Nigeria, from Curaçao to South Africa, and from Alaska to Groningen. Through installations, audio-stories, photography and relics of activisms, the exhibition invites the public to learn from the people who have shown resistance and made calls for decolonial climate just...
Dec 02, 2020•38 min•Ep 31•Transcript available on Metacast In this episode, Hamza Hamouchene discusses his report titled: Extractivism and Resistance in North Africa, which documents several cases of natural resource extraction which take the form of brutal "accumulation by dispossession," degrading environments and ecosystems through the privatisation and commodification of land and water. The report shows that these extractive activities have also been met with new waves of resistance and the entrance of new social actors onto the scene, demanding tha...
Nov 11, 2020•50 min•Ep 30•Transcript available on Metacast If we’re going to stop the climate catastrophe that is unfolding, we will need a radical overhaul of how many things work. Our financial system has played a big role in leading us to the brink of collapse, and must be completely overhauled if we are to stand a chance. What does a fair and responsible financial system look like? How can we shift power to democratically accountable public enterprises that will move us more rapidly towards a fossil free world? Further, in the wake of the economic i...
Oct 21, 2020•38 min•Ep 29•Transcript available on Metacast The far right is on the rise. The rhetoric of anger and resentment is emanating from personalities like Donald Trump, Marine Le Pen, Rodrigo Duterte and Viktor Orban and is captivating and mobilizing large numbers of people. In an increasing number of countries, the extreme right has already captured the government or is on the threshold of power. While this swift turn of events has shocked or surprised many in the North, the extreme right’s seizure of power is not an uncommon event in the South...
Sep 15, 2020•51 min•Ep 28•Transcript available on Metacast A great global panel of activists, social movement leaders and thinkers discuss how to make this pandemic a turning point towards system change that we need not just to deliver social justice but increasingly to defend our very survival. The very insightful conversation examined what can we learn from previous major global mobilisations, how can we build cross-sectoral and intersectional movements and what strategies and tactics we need to confront entrenched corporate power and authoritarian go...
Jul 14, 2020•2 hr 47 min•Ep 27•Transcript available on Metacast COVID-19 has become another touchstone for today’s deeply entrenched politics of militarised borders and anti-migrant racism. This webinar explored the trajectory and globalization of border militarization and anti-migrant racism across the world, the history, ideologies and actors that have shaped it, the pillars and policies that underpin the border industrial complex, the resistance of migrants, refugees and activists, and the shifting dynamics within this pandemic. Panellists: * Harsha Walia...
Jul 14, 2020•1 hr 29 min•Ep 26•Transcript available on Metacast Ten years ago, the Arab uprisings were celebrated as world changing events. The emancipatory experience was so contagious that people were inspired all over the world. Occupiers from London to Wall Street and the Indignados were proud to “Walk like an Egyptian”. The revolutionary process that has swept North Africa and West Asia, driven by demands for bread, freedom, dignity and social justice, has seen ups and downs, gains and setbacks, which materialized in a liberal democratic transition in T...
Jun 16, 2020•2 hr 36 min•Ep 25•Transcript available on Metacast Prior to the pandemic, popular opposition to the power of Big Tech was growing. Yet, in the COVID-19 moment, Big Tech has emerged stronger than ever. Dependence on digital platforms has delivered record profits for the likes of Amazon (and Zoom on which this webinar relies), while states are rolling out new apps with corporate partners in the name of a health emergency with almost no consideration of privacy or human rights. A new digital economy opportunism is deepening faultlines of inequality...
Jun 16, 2020•2 hr 30 min•Ep 24•Transcript available on Metacast The COVID-19 pandemic has led governments to release an unprecedented number of people from prison and curb new admissions to prevent deadly outbreaks in prisons and other detention centres. The pandemic has exposed the societal costs of mass incarceration, while the quick actions taken by governments casts doubt on the necessity of imprisonment for those released. This webinar looks at the drivers of mass incarceration worldwide, sharing analysis on the impact of COVID-19, the negative impacts ...
Jun 09, 2020•2 hr 35 min•Ep 23•Transcript available on Metacast An inspiring global panel of feminist thinkers and activists discuss how we can collectively reorganise, shift power and pivot towards building transformative feminist realities that can get us out of the worsening health, climate and capitalist crises. This webinar explores feminist analyses of the crisis and the way the pandemic intersects with patriarchy, corporate power and a global division of labour that is both gendered and racialised. What can we learn from the feminist practices and mea...
Jun 09, 2020•1 hr 25 min•Ep 22•Transcript available on Metacast Support for public services and limits on private profit is at an all-time high in the wake of the pandemic. How do we ensure this prioritisation of public needs and goods becomes permanent? What are the best models of democratic and participatory public services? This webinar shares some of the most visionary ideas and campaigns emerging across the world at local, state and national levels advancing a new vision of a public future. The speakers tackle the question: How can we build a broad alli...
May 27, 2020•1 hr 29 min•Ep 21•Transcript available on Metacast 
