The global politics podcast at the end of the End of History. Politics is back but it’s stranger than ever: join us as we chart a course beyond the age of ’bunga bunga’. Interviews, long-form discussions, docu-series.
Episodes
Friday Mar 28, 2025
Friday Mar 28, 2025
On Erdogan's World and the revolt against it.
[For the full episode, subscribe at patreon.com/bungacast]
Historian Djene Bajalan joins George and Alex to review the past month – ceasefires in Eastern Europe and the Middle East, winning and losing US patronage, Trump's inconsistent strategy and leaks, and the gold rush. We then turn to a country exemplary of the contradictions of the end of the End of History: Türkiye. And finish by answering your questions and comments on internationalism, free speech, Die Linke, anti-immigration, and domination.
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What's driving the protests and how do they compare to past revolts against Erdogan?
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What is the meaning of charges – corruption & terrorism – against Istanbul mayor and potential opposition leader İmamoğlu?
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Who is the opposition?
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What has sustained Erdogan's rule – repression, conservatism, modernisation, growth?
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Why is Erdogan one of the winners of the past 20 years, and how is he a world-historic figure?
Links:
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Erdoğan's new world order, Lily Lynch, UnHerd
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/339/ Erdogone? People vs Nation in Turkey ft. Alp Kayserilioglu
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Kultur Kampf TR, Selim Koru, Substack
Tuesday Feb 04, 2025
Tuesday Feb 04, 2025
On Syria, the fall of Assad, and nationalism in the Middle-East.
Historian Djene Bajalan talks to Alex about a major rearrangement in the Levant. We discuss:
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Who are Syria's new rulers HTS, and what is their vision – if any?
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Did geopolitics really determine the fall of Assad and the Ba'ath Party?
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How HTS's victory is so profoundly different from Islamism in Iran 1979
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Why 2025 finally closes the book on the Arab Spring – and on secular Arab nationalism
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Were the Kurds wrong to rely on US protection?
And in the full episode we continue by discussing...
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Is Turkey the big winner of the decade?
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What the Left gets wrong on nationalism
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Civic versus ethnic nationalism, revisited
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What was democratic, liberal and revolutionary about nationalism – and whether it can be again
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How conservatives recuperate left-wing ideas, which were always conservative from the start
Links:
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Djene's writing at Jacobin
Tuesday Oct 15, 2024
Tuesday Oct 15, 2024
On Israel's invasion of Lebanon and beyond.
Karl Sharro (Lebanese-Iraqi architect and satirist @KarlreMarks) and Iranian writer and historian Arash Azizi join us to discuss war in the Middle East. We ask:
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Is Israel finally waging the great war that will rid it of all enemies?
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Does Israel have any real plan? What motivates its actions in Gaza and Lebanon?
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What is the impact on Hezbollah of losing its leadership layers?
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How will Iran respond and what is the balance between moderates and hardliners there?
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If Hezbollah is severely weakened, what happens to the Lebanese state?
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What should we make of the global culture war around Israel, Palestine and the rest
Links
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Lebanon in the heart of the storm, Akram Belkaïd, Monde Diplo
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Israel is not ‘saving western civilisation’. Nor is Hamas leading ‘the resistance’, Kenan Malik, The Guardian
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Iran Is Not Ready for War With Israel, Arash Azizi, The Atlantic
Thursday Jun 06, 2024
Thursday Jun 06, 2024
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How do ideas of victimhood relate to the material reality of international politics?
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What really are the aims of the protesters and how likely are they to achieve them?
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Are we cynical in our approach or conclusions?
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How do the protests relate to populism and the end of the End of History?
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What is the proper basis of nationhood?
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How do these protests relate to the millennial Left?
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Vulnerability as Ideology, Peter Ramsay, Northern Star
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The victimological imagination, Matthew B. Crawford, Substack
Monday Nov 20, 2023
Monday Nov 20, 2023
Tuesday Nov 07, 2023
Tuesday Nov 07, 2023
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Why were protests in places that were so different all look so similar?
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Why was there such a focus on spontaneity, leaderlessness, peformativity, and horizontalism?
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What are some examples of the ways protests rejected representation?
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Was class or generation more important in driving these protests?
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Why did media becomes so important in pursuing political change?
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How can we avoid a repeat of the failures of the 2010s?
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If We Burn: The Mass Protest Decade and the Missing Revolution, Vincent Bevins, Public Affairs
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The mass protest decade: why did the street movements of the 2010s fail?, Vincent Bevins, The Guardian
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The End of the End of History: Politics in the 21st Century, Bungacast authors, Zer0 Books
Friday Oct 20, 2023
Friday Oct 20, 2023
- why Hamas was becoming irrelevant and how the 7 October attack was an attempt to combat that;
- why violence is necessary but the Palestinians are in a catch-22;
- how the West is implicated in the violence and callousness on show;
- why the Palestinians are the most oppressed and forgotten people;
- why Hamas is not an anticolonial freedom struggle; and
- what is the right way to compare this to Ukraine.
- No end in sight: Israel’s search for a Gaza strategy, Lawrence Freedman, FT (attached)
- The House of Zion, Perry Anderson, NLR
- Whither Palestine, David Polansky, Strange Frequencies
Tuesday Oct 17, 2023
Tuesday Oct 17, 2023
- On disinformation: A Guide to Understanding the Hoax of the Century, Jacob Siegel, Tablet
- A trap has been set for Israel, Jacob Siegel, Unherd
- End US Aid to Israel, Jacob Siegel & Liel Leibovitz, Tablet
- On data: The Nanny vs. The Nanny State, Jacob Siegel & John Robb, Tablet
- Manifesto Podcast, Jacob Siegel & Phil Klay
Tuesday Nov 16, 2021
Tuesday Nov 16, 2021
On sectarianism & identitarianism.
Karl Sharro (@KarlreMarks) is back on Bunga to talk to us about his essay "The Retreat from Universalism in the Middle East and the World".
Lebanon has been used as a model for other Middle Eastern countries, even though its confessional system is a disaster. But Lebanese-style sectarianism isn't a form of 'feudal' backwardness – in fact it represents a precursor of the multicultural and identitarian politics in the West.
Who are the enemies of universalism today, East and West? And what sort of political projects are capable of rejuvenating secular universalism?
See also:
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Buy our book: The End of the End of History
Subscribe to the podcast: patreon.com/Bungacast
Tuesday Jun 29, 2021
Tuesday Jun 29, 2021
On world history, 1900-2020.
For our 200th episode special, we pose the question: "If you had to study the history of only one country from 1900-2020, and thereby understand the history of the whole world, which would you pick?"
We invited 10 contributors to each pitch one country, whose particularities capture the universal sweep of world history from the start of the 20th century till now.
Vote for which you think is best, and we'll have the top 3 back on to discuss in more depth: Link to voting page
Running order:
- (18:20) Germany - Dominik Leusder
- (23:02) Greece - Jonas Kyratzes
- (27:57) India - David Adler
- (33:46) Indonesia - Vincent Bevins
- (38:25) Iraq - Liam Meissner
- (44:03) Italy - David Broder
- (49:19) Mexico - Roger Lancaster
- (54:01) Taiwan - Nic Johnson
- (59:44) Turkey - Arash Azizi
- (01:04:32) Yugoslavia - Lily Lynch
Buy our book! Links to retailers
Come to our London book launch! Event link
Thursday Aug 13, 2020
Thursday Aug 13, 2020
On Lebanon's crisis.
We call up Rima Majed in Beirut to talk us through the aftermath of the enormous explosion and ensuing protests. How has Lebanon's history since the civil war created such a profound, multi-layered crisis? We cover the desperate economic situation and the October 2019 revolt, before going deep on the politics of sectarianism, the regional scenario impacting Lebanon, the legacy of the Arab Spring, and the risks of foreign intervention.
Running Order:
- Beirut explosion and protests - (07:04)
- Lebanese history 1990-today - (23:53)
- Economic crisis - (38:05)
- Sectarianism - (51:16)
- Regional scenario and foreign intervention - (01:04:54)
- International solidarity - (01:24:38)
–> For donations & help for local organisations other than the Red Cross: Google Doc
Readings (all Rima Majed):
- Lebanon’s ‘October Revolution’ must go on!, openDemocracy
- The Political (or Social) Economy of Sectarianism in Lebanon, Middle East Institute
- Financial Collapse, Revolution, and Pandemic: Where are the Unions?, LCPS
- Why the Lebanese support the same sectarian leaders, al Jazeera
- Lebanon's October Revolution: Hope in the Midst of Crisis, Princeton
- Understanding the October Uprisings in Iraq and Lebanon, Global Dialogue ISA
Thursday Nov 07, 2019
Thursday Nov 07, 2019
Rojava offered the hope that a progressive, multiethnic politics might be salvaged from the ashes of Syria’s civil war. Now the Turkish assault on northern Syria looks set to crush the Kurds and a radical experiment in the region.
We talk to two British volunteers in Rojava about the prospects that the political structures set up there might be saved.
- Dani Ellis (@lapinesque): engineer; civil defence volunteer, International Commune (@communeint)
- Alexander Norton: deputy features editor, Morning Star; revolutionary volunteer, International Freedom Battalion
Running order
- (05:27) - Dani interview
- (41:39) - Alexander interview
- (01:27:51) - Final discussion
Readings & Links:
- Internationalist Commune
- Rojava Information Center
- America abandons the Kurds, Tom Stevenson, LRB
- Russia and Turkey reach deal on Syrian border, Financial Times
- European leftists are rejecting the Kurds over their reliance on the US. It is just another disgusting betrayal, Slavoj Zizek, The Independent
- "Turkey Is Reviving Islamic State in Rojava", Rosa Burç & Kerem Schamberger, Jacobin
Glossary:
- YPG: Yekîneyên Parastina Gel (People's Defence Corps); PYD’s armed wing in Syria
- YPJ: Yekîneyên Parastina Jin (Women's Protection Units); all-female militia
- PYD: Partiya Yekîtiya Demokrat (Democratic Union Party); Syrian Kurdish affiliate of the PKK
- SDF: Syrian Democratic Forces; alliance composed primarily of Kurdish, Arab and Assyrian/Syriac militias, led by the YPG
- PKK: Partiya Karkerên Kurdistan (Kurdistan Workers' Party); Kurdish party in Turkey founded in 1978 by Abdullah Öcalan. Started armed insurgency in 1984, thousands of fighters in northern Iraq and Turkey
- IFB: International Freedom Battalion; armed group of foreign leftists fighting for the YPG in support of the Rojava Revolution
- MLKP: Marxist-Leninist Communist Party, Turkey
- TEV-DEM: Movement for a Democratic Society; umbrella organisation in northern Syria, aims at organising Syrian society within the democratic confederalist system
Thursday Oct 17, 2019
Thursday Oct 17, 2019
- Impeachment is regime suicide, Daniel McCarthy, Spectator USA
- Centrist-child syndrome, Shuja Haider, The Outline
- The US is now betraying the Kurds for the eight time, Jon Schwarz, The Intercept
Wednesday Jan 10, 2018
Wednesday Jan 10, 2018
In which we learn the extent to which the protests challenge the Islamic Republic itself. Also, why such little support from the Western Left?
Wednesday Nov 29, 2017
Wednesday Nov 29, 2017
In which we chat new alt-media, the US left, and Trump's Middle East policy