Novara Media

Latest Episodes:

Downstream: What Really Changed on 7th October w/ Ahmed Alnaouq, Yara Eid and Tareq Baconi Oct 20, 2025

Show notes

Just over two years after the beginning of the genocide in Gaza, and just days after the announcement of a ceasefire, Aaron Bastani spoke to three Palestinian writers in front of a live audience at EartH in Hackney.

Ahmed Alnaouq is the host of Palestine Deep Dive and the co-founder of ‘We Are Not Numbers’, an organisation that provides international mentors for Palestinian writers.

Yara Eid is a war journalist, born and raised in Gaza, who has worked for Amnesty International and been published in The New Arab.

Tareq Baconi is the former senior analyst for Israel/Palestine and Economics of Conflict at the International Crisis Group, based in Ramallah, and the author of Hamas Contained: The Rise and Pacification of Palestinian Resistance.

Aaron spoke to Ahmed, Yara and Tareq about whether the ceasefire gives them hope, what really shifted on 7th October 2023, and how the genocide has changed them.

All of the guests’ work features in the new book, Gaza: The Story of A Genocide, which is available from Verso.

ACFM Trip 55: Parties Oct 19, 2025

Show notes

Amid the bumpy launch of a new left-wing party and the rise of the Greens and Reform, the ACFM crew turn their attention to parties. Do we still need them? Do parties work by drawing people together, or by excluding the uninvited? And should a political party have anything in common with a dance party?

Nadia, Keir and Jem discuss, with reference to the Paris Commune, Unite the Right, Abigail’s Party and Jem’s own party, Beauty and the Beat, and music from Fred Wesley and The Beastie Boys.

Find the books and music mentioned in the show: https://novara.media/acfm
Sign up to the ACFM newsletter: https://novaramedia.com/newsletters
Follow our ever-expanding playlist on Spotify by searching ‘ACFM’.

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Downstream: Democracy Is Under Massive Threat From AI w/ William MacAskill Oct 13, 2025

Show notes

Artificial intelligence is set to be one of the most disruptive technologies this century. For some, a machine capable of augmenting its own intelligence is a matter of time — and could even arrive within a decade.

This week’s guest is philosopher and author William MacAskill. One of the leading thinkers in the Effective Altruism movement, MacAskill is the author of several highly influential books, including Doing Good Better and What We Owe The Future.

His work explores not only on how to live a life of purpose, but how we also shouldn’t discount the interests of generations yet to be born.

What new technologies, medicines, and workflows might AI invent? How could AI affect the distribution of power and resources across the planet? Will democracy, as a political system, be able to manage it? And what might it mean to live a good life in a world of intelligent machines?

Downstream: Was the 20th Century a Catastrophe, or a Miracle? w/ Yanis Varoufakis Oct 06, 2025

Show notes

Economist, and former finance minister of Greece, Yanis Varoufakis joins Aaron to discuss his most recent book Raise Your Soul: A Personal History of Resistance, a memoir about the women in Yanis’ family who raised him, and gave him his political conscience.

They discuss the Hegelian Master-Slave dialectic, is patriarchy harmful to the perpetrators, as well as women? Did Tony Blair do more to privatise Britain than Margaret Thatcher? Does Keir Starmer have a plan?

And how does fascism end up destroying not just those it deems to be its enemies, but the motherland as well?

Get tickets for the next Downstream IRL, ‘Gaza: The Story of a Genocide’ (with Aaron Bastani) at EartH Hackney on Mon 13 Oct at 6:30 pm: https://link.dice.fm/N3e5f1cbd3ee

00:00 Intro
02:27 Five women who inspired Yanis’ political life
09:34 The Greeks In Egypt
22:02 The Asia Minor Catastrophe
29:30 Fascism always wrecks the motherland
36:43 The root cause of fascism is capitalism
39:44 Was America ever great?
45:19 Why Yanis doesn’t take Steve Bannon’s call
50:16 Communism can save the climate
1:00:18 The problems with Starmer
1:05:25 “Tony Blair is as evil as they come”
1:09:09 The road from Thatcher to Reform
1:13:36 Feminism, the manosphere, and the master slave paradox
1:23:44 On pornography
1:32:52 Humans Need Rules to live by
1:34:34 Physics or economics?
1:42:48 Collective will
1:48:14 Coming back from a bad year

Downstream: The Right Is Stirring up Anti-Muslim Hate – and It’s Getting Worse w/ Myriam François Sep 29, 2025

Show notes

In the summer of 2024, hotels sheltering Muslim asylum seekers across Britain were attacked by violent mobs. A year later, as the summer of 2025 drew to a close, a far-right demonstration of 100,000 people marched through London, bearing St George’s flags and led by Tommy Robinson.

On Downstream this week is Myriam François, a broadcaster and journalist, whose conversion to Islam 20 years ago has profoundly shaped her life in Britain. In conversation with Ash Sarkar, she tells the story of how she was politicised by a trip to Palestine in the early 2000s.

Does she think Britain’s move to recognise the state of Palestine will make any difference to the lives of people on the ground in Gaza? What is ‘whiteness’ and how do those who are included in it wield power in society? Is Islamophobia getting worse? And is an end to racism possible, without an end to capitalism?

ACFM Microdose: Sci-Fi Sep 28, 2025

Show notes

After last week’s ACFM Trip to the Future, Jem and Keir reconvene to talk about science fiction. Is sci-fi a reaction to the “time-space compression” of the present? Is it inherently progressive? How did dystopian and paranoids visions of the future come to dominate sci-fi? Was Arthur C. Clarke an early acid communist?

Find all the books and films mentioned in the show: https://novara.media/acfm
Sign up to the ACFM newsletter: https://novaramedia.com/newsletters

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Downstream: How Brexit Paved The Way For Farage’s Bid for Downing Street w/ Tom McTague Sep 22, 2025

Show notes

It’s almost 10 years since Britain voted to leave the EU, and we’re still dealing with the consequences. In his new book, Between The Waves, Politico’s chief UK political correspondent Tom McTague argues that the journey to Brexit really began with Enoch Powell, before be taken up by his political heir, Nigel Farage.

He talks to Aaron Bastani about how the dissolution of empire shape Britain’s relationship to Europe, how the Labour party switched from Eurosceptic to Europhile, and what Farage learned from Powell. Between The Waves: The Hidden History of a Very British Revolution 1945-2016 is available from Pan Macmillan.

Help us build people-powered media: https://novara.media/support

ACFM Trip 54: The Future Sep 21, 2025

Show notes

What if we stopped treating the future like a speculative asset and started trying to actually build and prepare? The ACFM gang look to the horizon in this Trip episode.

Did young people always worry so much about their futures? Has the currency of emergency been devalued? Does conservatism have an idea of the future? Nadia, Jem and Keir wonder what’s next with ideas from Max Weber and Kate Raworth, and music from LTJ Bukem and FKA twigs.

Help us build people-powered media: https://novara.media/support

Downstream: The Political Possibilities of the Ancient World w/ Josephine Quinn Sep 15, 2025

Show notes

What were the ancient alternatives to democracy? Did people in the Bronze Age forget how to write – or deliberately stop? And what’s the use in studying ancient languages?

In a Downstream IRL recorded at EartH Hackney, Aaron Bastani speaks to Josephine Quinn, Professor of Ancient History at Cambridge University, about some lesser-known aspects of the ancient world, as explored in her book How the World Made the West.

Help us build people-powered media: https://novara.media/support

Downstream: Are We Living Through the End of an Empire? w/ Lea Ypi Sep 08, 2025

Show notes

What can the collapse of the Ottoman Empire teach us about the danger of the current discourse around migration?

‘Re-migration’ is not a new concept conjured up by the far-right, but rather something that would be familiar to many Europeans of a century ago. What would those involved in these tragedies think of the direction in which the world is heading?

To answer these questions and more, Aaron Bastani is joined by Lea Ypi, Professor of Political Theory at the London School of Economics and author of a new book, ‘Indignity’.

She spoke about the myths surrounding migration, the surprising relationship between the British state and Balkan Communists and her grandfather’s time with Enver Hoxha.

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