The Things That Can't Speak

Ronnie Chatah started giving his walking tours of Beirut in 2008, during a period of stability for the city. He would guide tourists through the city, telling stories of Phoenician ruins, French architecture and Ottoman houses. He-d also talk about Lebanon-s civil war, and the problems that came to follow it. These were always stories about other people, other eras and other lives, until December of 2013, when Ronnie-s own life was sucked into the political unrest that he-d spent years talking about on his tour.
This episode originally aired in August 2018.
This episode is brought to you by GoSell by Tap Payments: https://www.tap.company/sa/ar/sell
Kerning Cultures is a Kerning Cultures Network production. Support this podcast on Patreon for as little as $1 a month.

The Missing Archives

In 1968, a trio of Palestinian filmmakers began making films about life under Israeli occupation. Almost 15 years and over 90 films later, their film unit became a dominant force in the Arab film industry. But in 1982, their film reels disappeared. Overnight, decades of footage and thousands of hours of archives were gone. Today on Kerning Cultures, the search for the Palestinian Film Unit-s lost archives.
This episode originally aired in August 2020 and was produced by Zeina Dowidar, with editorial support from Alex Atack, Nadeen Shaker, Tamara Rasamny, Dana Ballout, and Hebah Fisher. Fact-checking by Zeina Dowidar. Sound design and mixing by Mohamad Khreizat. Kerning Cultures is a Kerning Cultures Network production.
For the list of films and other resources mentioned in this episode, visit our blog:-https://kerningcultures.com/kerned-and-cultured/palestinian-film-unit
Support this podcast on-patreon.com/kerningcultures-for as little as $1 a month.

Escape to Cairo

In October 1960, the walls were closing in for Patrice Lumumba. Months earlier, he had been celebrated as the Congo-s first democratically elected prime minister after decades of brutal colonial rule. But now, he had been overthrown in a coup and was being kept under house arrest by his political opponent.
With Lumumba-s life at risk, the Egyptian government under Gamal Abdel Nasser proposed a dangerous and unusual plan to have three of Lumumba-s young children smuggled out of the country and away to the safety of Cairo.
This week on Kerning Cultures; Patrice Lumumba-s children, and their escape to Cairo.
This episode was produced by Nadeen Shaker and edited by Dana Ballout and Alex Atack, with additional support from Zeina Dowidar, Shraddha Joshi and Percia Verlin. Fact checking by Tamara Juburi, and sound design and mixing by Alex Atack and Mohamad Khreizat. Bella Ibrahim is our marketing manager.
Support this podcast on patreon.com/kerningcultures for as little as $1 a month.

Abandoned Ships: Part 2

After their employer abandoned the vessel they was working on, Vikash Mishra and his crew spent nearly three years stuck on a slowly sinking ship off the coast of the UAE. This week on Kerning Cultures: Vikash-s ordeal, and how he eventually made it back home to his family in India.
This is the second of two episodes about ship abandonment in the Middle East. Listen to part one here.
This episode was produced by Alex Atack and edited by Dana Ballout, with additional support from Zeina Dowidar and Nadeen Shaker. Fact checking by Tamara Juburi, and sound design and mixing by Alex Atack and Mohamad Khreizat. Ayushi Shah provided additional production support in Mumbai. Special thanks to Martha Schlee.
Support this podcast on patreon.com/kerningcultures for as little as $1 a month.

Jerusalem Calling

Because of what-s happening in Palestine this week, we-re holding off airing our usual programming. Instead we-re going to re-air one of our favourite episodes from last season: Jerusalem Calling. With this episode, we hope to remember the rich history of Palestine, and that the occupation and Israel-s apartheid policies go back decades. If you-d like to learn more about ways you can help Palestinians, we-ve put together a list of resources on our website, and will be sharing them on our Instagram this week: @kerningcultures.

The Palestine Broadcasting Service started airing in 1936, from a brand new transmitter tower in Ramallah. It was a British station in three languages, aimed at promoting the message of the mandate government throughout the region. But over the following decades, as Palestine saw political upheavals, bloody conflicts and power shifts, the radio station found itself in the middle of it all... and became a unique capsule of the events that lead up to the Nakba.
This episode was produced by Shahd Bani-Odeh, Alex Atack and Darah Ghanem, with editorial support from Dana Ballout, Nadeen Shaker, Tamara Rasamny, Zeina Dowidar and Dina Salem. Fact-checking by Zeina Dowidar and Dina Salem. Sound design by Alex Atack and mixing by Mohamed Khreizat. Kerning Cultures is a Kerning Cultures Network production.
Support this podcast on patreon.com/kerningcultures for as little as $1 a month.

Abandoned Ships: Part 1

When seafarer Mehmet Gulsen stepped on board the Kenan Mete, he thought he was signing up to a pretty standard 7 month contract, and then he-d be home in Ukraine with his young daughter and his dog. But a few months in, things started going wrong, and he ended up abandoned with his crew at a port in the Suez Canal, with no idea when they-d be able to go home.
This week on Kerning Cultures, the strange legal limbo that allows seafarers to wind up abandoned and unable to leave their ships... sometimes for years at a time.
This episode was made in collaboration with 99% Invisible. Check them out wherever you get your podcasts. It was produced by Alex Atack and edited by Katie Mingle, with additional support from Dana Ballout, Zeina Dowidar, Nadeen Shaker and the whole 99% Invisible team. Dilara -elik provided translation support and Onur Akmehmet was the voice of Mehmet.
You can find a transcript of this episode at our website.
Support this podcast on patreon.com/kerningcultures for as little as $1 a month.

Exodus

Loving Lebanon is one thing; living there is another. Generation after generation, surviving in the homeland sometimes costs too much.
This essay was written and read by Zahra Hankir, and it was originally published in Guernica. The episode was produced by Alex Atack with support from Dana Ballout. Sound design and mixing was by Paul Alouf and Alex Atack. Bella Ibrahim is our marketing manager.
Support this podcast on patreon.com/kerningcultures for as little as $1 a month.

Found Sound

Two stories of music getting lost- and then found again. A record producer unearths a Moroccan masterpiece in the back of a dusty electronics shop in Casablanca, sending him on a long and complicated mission to find out what happened to the artist. And, a song that was never meant to be heard outside a small group of friends becomes an internet sensation.
This episode was written and produced by Alex Atack and Dana Ballout, with editing support from Zeina Dowidar and Nadeen Shaker. Fact checking by Tamara Juburi. Sound design by Alex Atack and Mohamad Khreizat. Bella Ibrahim is our marketing manager. Special thanks to Nahida Tarbaou, who helped us record one of the interviews for this episode, and to Roger Bendaly, Jannis St-rtz, Nordine Aboura and Joey Hamoui for speaking to us for these stories.
Support this podcast on patreon.com/kerningcultures for as little as $1 a month.

Collateral Damage

In 1942, Lebanon-s National Museum opened in Beirut, celebrating the country-s golden age, and inside, it housed some of the region-s most important artifacts. So when the Lebanese war started in 1975, the museum staff came up with an elaborate scheme to save everything inside the museum. This week on Kerning Cultures, the story of how a small team of museum employees protect thousands of years- worth of history.
This episode originally aired in December 2019, and was produced by Alex Atack and edited by Dana Ballout, with additional support from Tamara Rasamny and Hebah Fisher. Fact-checking by Zeina Dowidar and sound design by Mohamad Khreizat.
Support this podcast on-patreon.com/kerningcultures for as little as $1 a month.

Viva Brother Nagi

Nagi Daifallah was a young farm worker from Yemen who moved to California in the early 1970s, when he was just 20 years old. He went on to become one of the organisers of the influential 1973 grape strike in California, led by Cesar Chavez.
But one night, after a day of striking, he was beaten to death by a local county sheriff outside a restaurant in Lamont, California.
Although the sheriff who killed him never faced justice, Nagi-s story - and the movement he helped organise - went on to make real change to farm workers- rights in America, and continues to inspire Yemeni American activists today.
This episode was produced by Suzanne Gaber and Will Thomson, and edited by Dana Ballout. Additional support on this episode from Alex Atack, Nadeen Shaker, Zeina Dowidar, Shraddha Joshi and Abde Amr. Sound design by Alex Atack and Mohamad Khreizat.
Support this podcast on patreon.com/kerningcultures for as little as $1 a month.