“Not only has the neighborhood lost much of its middle-class transnational identity, but it is also being erased in the media and from the collective memory of Dubai. The livelihoods and lifestyles of Karama’s former inhabitants are threatened as the space for economic participation diminishes with the establishment of more exclusive, privatized, and upper-class modes of living and leisure in the area.” INTERACTIVE New Dubai's Capital Accumulation: The Story of Karama “Not only has the neighborhood lost much of its middle-class transnational identity, but it is also being erased in the media and from the collective memory of Dubai. The livelihoods and lifestyles of Karama’s former inhabitants are threatened as the space for economic participation diminishes with the establishment of more exclusive, privatized, and upper-class modes of living and leisure in the area.” VOL. 1 LIVE AUTHOR AUTHOR AUTHOR Follow our YouTube channel for updates from past or future events. ALSO IN THIS ISSUE: AUTHOR Heading 5 Heading 5 Heading 5 Heading 5 AUTHOR Heading 5 Follow our YouTube channel for updates from past or future events. SHARE Facebook ↗ Twitter ↗ LinkedIn ↗ Live Dubai 5th Jun 2021 Live Dubai Demolition Event In Grief In Solidarity Development Gentrification Karama Jadaliyya Nationalism UAE Street Art Old Dubai New Dubai Dubai Creek Dubai frame Tourism Luxury Tourism Working-Class Spaces Property Rent Gap State-Sponsored Privatization Burj Al Arab Dubai Roads and Transport Abu Dhabi Middle East Capital Capital Expansion Production of Space Wasl Hub Housing Crisis Brand Dubai Deira Enrichment Project Legal Regimes Lack of Legal Recourse The Denial of Citizenship Nationality-based Hierarchies Immigrant Neighborhoods Employment State Modernization Narratives Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. “ Karama: An Immigrant Neighborhood Transformed ” is an essay by writer Bhoomika Ghaghada, published in Jadaliyya . Karama is where Ghaghada grew up. It is a place where Bollywood music was part of the background soundscape, where one could hear people speaking “ in Hindi, Urdu, and Tagalog. ” Of course, that was in the early 2000s—well before the gentrification of Karama began. Flanked by the Dubai frame were “ Old Dubai ” and “ New Dubai, ” signifiers for tourists who wished to see what “ historical ” neighborhoods looked like. Once a trading port and an affordable haven for South Asian immigrants, Karama has convulsed with massive change, what with the expulsion of many of its former residents as part of Dubai's vision of itself: a glitzy, skyscraper-dominated, upper-class, and rarefied space. As part of our online event In Grief, In Solidarity in 2021, Ghaghada—introduced by editor Vamika Sinha—read her poignant and incisive essay, one which is all the more important because of the dearth of writing on and from the large South Asian diaspora in the UAE. This rent gap became apparent and significant enough in 2014, soon after Dubai won the bid to host Expo2020. There was plenty of vacant land in Dubai, but two factors made building in undeveloped areas less attractive. First, Dubai was hit hard by the 2008 global financial recession. A bulk of real estate projects were put on hold and many were canceled. With the help of its neighbor city, Abu Dhabi , the Dubai real estate market would recover over the next five years. Second, developing new areas on the outskirts of the city was a relatively costly endeavor with a slower return on investment. It involved greater planning, land preparation, and setting up comprehensive infrastructure—inner roads from existing arteries, metro lines, and water and power lines. This financial reality made Karama an attractive site for redevelopment and capital expansion. More Fiction & Poetry: Date Authors Heading 5 Date Authors Heading 5 Date Authors Heading 5 Date Authors Heading 5 Date Authors Heading 5 Date Authors Heading 5

On the Transitional Justice Act in the Maldives, the fractious political climate and repression, as well as the legal mechanisms and practices to seek accountability for past atrocities committed by the state. Could the volatile nature of Maldivian politics render the Act meaningless? INTERACTIVE Chats Ep. 11 · On Maldives' Transitional Justice Act On the Transitional Justice Act in the Maldives, the fractious political climate and repression, as well as the legal mechanisms and practices to seek accountability for past atrocities committed by the state. Could the volatile nature of Maldivian politics render the Act meaningless? VOL. 1 LIVE AUTHOR AUTHOR AUTHOR Subscribe to our newsletter for updates on SAAG Chats, an informal series of live events on Instagram. ALSO IN THIS ISSUE: AUTHOR Heading 5 Heading 5 Heading 5 Heading 5 AUTHOR Heading 5 Subscribe to our newsletter for updates on SAAG Chats, an informal series of live events on Instagram. SHARE Facebook ↗ Twitter ↗ LinkedIn ↗ Live Maldives 7th Jul 2021 Live Maldives Transitional Justice Transitional Justice Act Ombudsman Local vs. National Politics Human Rights International Law Legal Regimes Human Rights Violations Reparations Survivors State Repression Militarism Military Coup Abdulla Yameen Mohamed Nasheed Assassination Attempts Ibrahim Mohamed Solih Legal Frameworks People’s Majlis Power Dynamics Housing State Violence Humanitarian Crisis Maldivian Democratic Party Malé Prosecutions Witness Protection Police Action Rehabilitation Reintegration Tourism Islamist Government Progressive Party of Maldives SAAG Chats Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. A discussion between lawyer, writer, activist, and Senior Editor Mushfiq Mohamed & Associate Editor Kamil Ahsan on the fractious political climate of the Maldives, repression, and the legal mechanisms and practices to seek accountability for past atrocities committed by the state detailed by the Transitional Justice Act, which passed in December 2020. What is the current political climate of the Maldives, and why should South Asians everywhere pay attention? How does the recent legislation comport with political realities? What would enforcement in today’s Maldives look like? As Mushfiq wrote in Himal : “When it comes to implementation, the elephant in the room remains: why would survivors feel comfortable seeking reparations when some of the perpetrators of atrocities hold high-level government positions?” More Fiction & Poetry: Date Authors Heading 5 Date Authors Heading 5 Date Authors Heading 5 Date Authors Heading 5 Date Authors Heading 5 Date Authors Heading 5

Despite the marketing of her debut novel "Gold Diggers," Sanjena Sathian did not set out to interrogate the model minority myth or the dynamics of class in the Indian-American diaspora. Instead, she began with the relationship of a mother and daughter. The world of an "uncritical and unthinking ambition" gradually began to assert itself in the narrative. INTERACTIVE Chats Ep. 10 · On Ambition, Immigration, Class in “Gold Diggers” Despite the marketing of her debut novel "Gold Diggers," Sanjena Sathian did not set out to interrogate the model minority myth or the dynamics of class in the Indian-American diaspora. Instead, she began with the relationship of a mother and daughter. The world of an "uncritical and unthinking ambition" gradually began to assert itself in the narrative. VOL. 1 LIVE AUTHOR AUTHOR AUTHOR Subscribe to our newsletter for updates on SAAG Chats, an informal series of live events on Instagram. ALSO IN THIS ISSUE: AUTHOR Heading 5 Heading 5 Heading 5 Heading 5 AUTHOR Heading 5 Subscribe to our newsletter for updates on SAAG Chats, an informal series of live events on Instagram. SHARE Facebook ↗ Twitter ↗ LinkedIn ↗ Live Georgia 21st Jun 2021 Live Georgia Ambition Class Class Struggle World-building Fiction Debut Authors Debut Novel Upper-caste Rules Rule-breaking Immigration Cultural Narratives of Immigration Indian-American Exceptionalism Indian-American Diaspora Good Immigrant Novels BIPOC Audiences Explanation Immigrant Pressure Unconscious Identity Miranda July Vanity Gold Diggers Ruth Ozeki Latin American Literature Magical Realism Japanese Literature Alchemy Satire Fantasy Science Fiction Genre Genre Tropes Genre Fluidity Jhumpa Lahiri Zadie Smith Philip Roth Irreverence Diaspora Big History Revisionism Myth of the Model Minority Mythology Private Schools Gold Rush Eternalism Temporality SAAG Chats Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Writer and journalist Sanjena Sathian in conversation with Vishakha Darbha about rule-breaking, questions from her publishing team, whether explaining world-building came easily to the writing of her debut novel, Gold Diggers (Random House, 2021), what makes a "good" immigrant novel, and writing about the Indian-American diaspora in its own mythologies, complications, and exceptionalism. More Fiction & Poetry: Date Authors Heading 5 Date Authors Heading 5 Date Authors Heading 5 Date Authors Heading 5 Date Authors Heading 5 Date Authors Heading 5

Feminist Theorist and English Professor Fawzia Afzal-Khan, in conversation with Drama Editor Neilesh Bose. COMMUNITY Movements in Pakistani Theatre Feminist Theorist and English Professor Fawzia Afzal-Khan, in conversation with Drama Editor Neilesh Bose. VOL. 1 INTERVIEW AUTHOR AUTHOR AUTHOR Watch the interview on YouTube or IGTV ALSO IN THIS ISSUE: AUTHOR Heading 5 Heading 5 Heading 5 Heading 5 AUTHOR Heading 5 Watch the interview on YouTube or IGTV SHARE Facebook ↗ Twitter ↗ LinkedIn ↗ Interview Theater 24th Sep 2020 Interview Theater Performance Art South Asian Theater Internationalist Solidarity Parallel Theatre Movement Realism Non-Realist Plays Sufism Ajoka Theatre Women Singers of Pakistan Madeeha Gauhar Women Democratic Front Shahid Nadeem Authenticity Avant-Garde Form Native Formats Nationalism Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. The work I started doing, like Sheherzade Goes West could be considered avant-garde in a certain way it did not conform to representational theatre even though I gave it a very self-ironizing subtitle—speaking out as a “Pakistani/American/wo/man, because I wanted the title itself to question certain ideas of self-representation. RECOMMENDED: A Critical State: The Role of Secular Alternative Theatre in Pakistan (Seagull Press, 2005) by Fawzia Afzal-Khan More Fiction & Poetry: Date Authors Heading 5 Date Authors Heading 5 Date Authors Heading 5 Date Authors Heading 5 Date Authors Heading 5 Date Authors Heading 5

“Loneliest star, shining so brightly / For no one to see. / Loneliest star, tell me your secret / You shouldn't keep it.” COMMUNITY Quintet “Loneliest star, shining so brightly / For no one to see. / Loneliest star, tell me your secret / You shouldn't keep it.” VOL. 2 LIVE AUTHOR AUTHOR AUTHOR ALSO IN THIS ISSUE: AUTHOR Heading 5 Heading 5 Heading 5 Heading 5 AUTHOR Heading 5 SHARE Facebook ↗ Twitter ↗ LinkedIn ↗ Live Brooklyn 25th Apr 2024 Live Brooklyn Solidarity: Beyond the Disaster-Verse Jazz Music Classical Music Experimental Music Vocals Hammered Dulcimer Drums Guitar Electronics Composition Contemporary Music Shamisen Alternative Jazz Love in Exile On Becoming House of Waters GRAMMY Periphery Emily Dickinson Atahualpa Yupanqui Protest Song Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. The closing set from our event on 30th March 2024, "Solidarity: Beyond the Disaster-Verse," at ShapeShifter Lab in Brooklyn, New York, capped off two stimulating panels and marked the close of Volume 2 Issue 1 of SAAG. The performance by the quintet of Priya Darshini (vocals), Shahzad Ismaily (piano, drums/percussion, synth, guitar), Moto Fukushima (bass, shamisen) & Max ZT (hammered dulcimer), and Chris Sholar (electronics, ableton) ushered in new emotional registers, and another period of interpretive possibilities for SAAG, as reflected upon by Darshini. Their set showcases many of the songs from Darshini's debut album, as well as songs about hope and solidarity, and a showstopping rendition of a composition of Emily Dickinson's "Hope is the thing with feathers." Event Photography courtesy of Josh Steinbauer. SOLIDARITY: BEYOND THE DISASTER-VERSE Panel 1: What Does "Solidarity" Mean? SOLIDARITY: BEYOND THE DISASTER-VERSE Panel 2: On the Relationship between Form & Resistance More Fiction & Poetry: Date Authors Heading 5 Date Authors Heading 5 Date Authors Heading 5 Date Authors Heading 5 Date Authors Heading 5 Date Authors Heading 5

For years, “The Urgent Call of Palestine,” a rallying cry from the 1970s by Zeinab Shaath, was a lost cultural artifact until it was recovered in 2017. In 2024, British-Palestinian label Majazz Project and LA-based Discostan released an EP with the titular song, sitting with startling ease alongside contemporary Palestinian music. BOOKS & ARTS The Tortured Roof For years, “The Urgent Call of Palestine,” a rallying cry from the 1970s by Zeinab Shaath, was a lost cultural artifact until it was recovered in 2017. In 2024, British-Palestinian label Majazz Project and LA-based Discostan released an EP with the titular song, sitting with startling ease alongside contemporary Palestinian music. VOL. 2 PROFILE AUTHOR AUTHOR AUTHOR From the personal collection of Zeinab Shaath (1972). ALSO IN THIS ISSUE: AUTHOR Heading 5 Heading 5 Heading 5 Heading 5 AUTHOR Heading 5 From the personal collection of Zeinab Shaath (1972). SHARE Facebook ↗ Twitter ↗ LinkedIn ↗ Profile Palestine 2nd May 2025 Profile Palestine Zeinab Shaath Music Culture Art Art Activism Resistance Peaceful Resistance Methods of Resistance Majaaz Project Discostan Artifact History Egypt Lebanon Poetry Lalita Punjabi Politics of Ethnic Identity political activism Displacement Nakba Gaza Political Organizing Guitar Acoustic Composer Composition Liberation The Urgent Call of Palestine Rally Protest Poetry Ismael Shammout Palestine Liberation Organization Culture and Arts Division Music Video Occupation Militarism Discovery EP Collaboration Freedom Freedom of Movement Memory Conflict Censorship Genocide Anti-Zionism Communication Community Folk Music Global Protest Muqata Shadi Zaqtan Tamer Nafar Palestinian Music Hip Hop Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Fifty-four years ago, a sixteen-year-old girl named Zeinab Shaath sat in her bedroom in Alexandria, Egypt, with a guitar and a poem. Her older sister had handed her “The Urgent Call of Palestine,” written by Indian poet Lalita Punjabi, and told her that she couldn’t come out of her room until she had composed music to accompany the words. Shaath came from a politically active family. Her father left Palestine in 1947, just months before the Nakba led to the displacement of 750,000 Palestinians , but he always maintained that they would all return one day. Her Lebanese mother was constantly hosting Gazan students at their home and organizing many fundraisers for Palestine. The musician had been singing for a few years but was hesitant about starting the project. She had never composed music before and was still determining how to become more involved in political organizing. Nonetheless, she got to work. Two days later, she had composed a track that elevated the defiant tone of the poem. Across a fervently strummed acoustic guitar, Shaath sings in an unwavering, golden vibrato that builds intensity and verve as the song progresses. “Liberation banner, raise it high,” she declares in the song's last few seconds. “For Palestine, let us do or die.” Image from the personal collection of Zeinab Shaath. Shaath’s powerful voice and unequivocal message resonated widely. In the early 1970s, “The Urgent Call of Palestine” became a rallying cry heard (and subsequently censored) around the world. Shaath’s sister played it on her radio station where it immediately gained popularity. Shaath went on to perform it—and a collection of other musical adaptations of Palestinian protest poetry—everywhere from Beirut to Berlin to Baghdad. The song especially moved Palestinian artist Ismael Shammout , who ran the Palestine Liberation Organization's (PLO) Culture and Arts division in Beirut. He filmed Shaath singing the song in what some historians consider the first Palestinian music video. The master copy of the footage, along with countless other cultural artifacts by Palestinian artists, were stolen from Beirut in 1982 during a mass looting by the Israeli Occupation Forces. “Urgent Call” seemed lost for years until Israeli scholar Rona Sela fought to have it declassified in 2017, by which time momentum around Shaath’s work had lessened. But in March 2024, Shaath started a new chapter in her career: an EP of songs, first released via the PLO in 1972, including “Urgent Call,” was reissued as a collaboration between the Palestinian-British label Majazz Project and the Los Angeles-based label Discostan. Arshia Haq and Jeremy Loudenbak, who run Discostan, discovered the EP via the UK collector James Shambles and then reached out to Mo’min Swaitat, the archivist and label runner behind Majazz Project , to see if he wanted to co-release the album. Swaitat had encountered the record already and felt it was “the greatest Palestinian record we’ve ever had.” Haq and Loudenbak were piqued by the record’s contemporary resonance. “When we play the music in record stores, people stop and listen,” says Loudenbak. “[The state] attempted to erase these songs from the cultural imagination, but they have had an incredibly long life.” “I’m struck by the very hopeful voice of a 16-year-old calling us together.” In March 2024, Arshia Haq, Jeremy Loudenbak, Zeinab Shaath, and Mo’min Swaitat met with me via Zoom to discuss the project . Haq and Loudenbak were in Los Angeles, Shaath in Cincinnati, and Swaitat in London. Shaath and Swaitat reminisced about their homeland. Shaath recalled the beaches her cousins visited until the early hours of the night in 1993 after the first Oslo Accord , which gave them slightly more freedom of movement, as well as the green almonds and olives they brought to her family when they visited Egypt. Swaitat traced his love of music to the memory of the weekly wedding songs he had heard played from car speakers, which created a “psychedelic orchestra” of sound and would continue playing in the streets until 3 am. Of course, their grief emerged in lockstep. By the time we spoke, Shaath had lost 27 members of her extended family in Palestine since Israel’s attack on Gaza began in October of 2023 . Swaitat, meanwhile, had been on the phone all night: Israeli forces had just invaded Jenin. Album cover. Image from the personal collection of Zeinab Shaath. Teenage Shaath originally composed “The Urgent Call of Palestine” at a historic moment for Palestinians. Six years before she wrote the song, the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) came into being, intending to restore an independent Palestinian state from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea. And just three years before, Israel occupied Gaza, the West Bank, The Sinai Peninsula, and East Jerusalem after the Six-Day War of 1967 . The amount of Palestinian land that Israel controlled doubled during this conflict, despite later attempts from Egypt to regain control of some of the land. Over half a century later, Shaath’s protest music is just as relevant. Israel has been imposing a land, sea, and air blockade on Gaza since 2008. As of October, 2024, airstrikes in North Gaza continue, even as the ambit of Israel’s attacks has expanded to Lebanon. Incomplete estimates claim that Israel’s systematic campaign of genocide since October has killed over 50,000 Palestinians , according to official numbers. In a piece about Palestinian rap, Vivian Medithi writes that it can feel frivolous to over-emphasize art’s radical potential in such times. And yet, Medithi argues, Israel’s censorship of Palestinian art, music, and culture—especially at protests—is proof of its power. After all, cultural expression is a means of record-keeping, a counter to Israel’s attempts to control narratives about their genocide and occupation in international news and social media. Swaitat explicitly calls Shaath’s project a “failure of the Zionist plan” because it so clearly documents Palestinian resistance, connecting Palestinians across the world. “One of the main targets of Zionism is Palestinian identity and knowledge systems, which is where we save our memory,” he says. “They don’t think of us as a group of people who should exist, and they don't want us to have any control over our cultural heritage or communication.” Image from the personal collection of Zeinab Shaath. In addition to the poem written by Lalita Punjabi, the three other tracks on Urgent Call are adapted from poems by three Palestinian poets. As she sings their words, Shaath takes on various identities. A proud parent of eight demanding that history remember him and his family. A political prisoner dreaming of returning to their homeland, and a Palestinian citizen finding the strength to survive in the stones of their walls, in “every drop of rain dribbling over the ceiling of the tortured roof.” Shaath’s plainspoken cadence unites these disparate perspectives She sings alone on each song, her vibrato piercing across simple chord progressions strummed on an acoustic guitar. And yet, the songs feel communal, not only because the various perspectives she adopts offer multiple entry points into the music but also because the sparse folk arrangements use candid, repetitive language that encourages the listener to sing along. “Because these songs are composed in direct language, they can be held and carried by people of different ages, from children to people of an older generation,” says Haq. “The musical compositions lend themselves to being repeated, almost like mnemonics.” On “Resist,” Shaath’s call to action is clearly stated and deeply felt: “They slapped down a paper/And a pen before my nose…The paper they wanted me to blemish/Said ‘Resist’/ The pen they wanted to disgrace/ Said ‘Resist, oh, resist.’” On “I Am an Arab,” Shaath repeats the titular phrase with such force that it lingers long after the song finishes. Shaath also directly involves her audience. With her arrangements so minimal and vocals so rich, it feels as if Shaath’s looking you in the eye, candidly asking rhetorical questions: “Can’t you hear the urgent call of Palestine?” “Are you angry?” It is often argued that Israel’s occupation of Palestinian land is too complex for the average person to comprehend. Shaath’s phrasing cuts through this fallacy with defiance, her vocals evoking longing, fury, and grief to make the reality of Palestinian suffering entirely clear. Beyond Shaath’s efforts to involve the listener in these specific songs, a broader sense of community informed her activism, too. Not only do the lyrics come from translated works of numerous poets, but they were also written at a time of tremendous creative innovation and organization by other Palestinian artists. Many Palestinian artists were spurred into action following the Six-Day War of 1967. The Third Cinema Movement in the 1960s and 1970s established a transnational anticolonial framework for artistic expression. In 1973, the League of Palestinian Artists was created to unify the output of artists across Palestine and “bring a sense of political urgency” to their work: the sound of an entire movement of artists refusing to be silenced . In addition to the organizing and art happening around her, Shaath also looked to Americans protesting racism and segregation in their country, as well as their government’s involvement in Vietnam, for political inspiration. “I would sing ‘ We Shall Overcome ,’ which is used in the U.S. in Black activist spaces, but it was also a Joan Baez song,” Shaath says. “It was very much relevant to us as Palestinians. We sang that, and everyone would sing with me.” You can hear the influence of activists like Bob Dylan and Joan Baez in the plucky, acoustic folk melodies she deploys on the project, as well as her use of guitar and English lyricism. “I used English lyrics because Arabs and Palestinians all know our own history,” she tells me. “We needed the world to know. Even though it’s not a Palestinian or Arab instrument, I thought the guitar would be attractive to the outside world. I felt that people would listen to a song much more than they would read a whole book.” The title track of Urgent Call was—and continues to be—uniquely global in its construction, production, and impact. An Indian woman wrote a poem in solidarity with the Palestinian struggle. A few months later, a Palestinian woman living in Egypt transposed the poem into a song that moved hundreds of thousands around the world. Over decades, it became part of an artistic anti-imperial movement that thought beyond borders and saw all struggles as intertwined. This year, American and British archivists are bringing it to entirely new audiences in their countries and beyond. Zeinab in Lebanon. Image from the personal collection of Zeinab Shaath. For Shaath, it’s surprising—and saddening—that her music still resonates so widely. “It blows my mind after all these years,” she says. “Our suffering is still continuing, that’s what it means.” Which also lends credence to Palestinian music as a valuable form of resistance: it must continue. Indeed, Shaath is part of a cohort of Palestinian musicians who recall the past, commune with fellow activists, and create by thinking with street protests. Palestinian rapper Muqata’a samples records his grandparents listened to and had to leave behind when they fled their homes. Oud players in Egypt today revive music that initially served as a protest against Israeli occupation in 1967. Alternative musician Shadi Zaqtan pioneered the Palestinian blues genre to express his sorrow at the ongoing genocide. The daring of this work lies in the strategies of truth-telling in composition: most of these musicians use the most direct, unflinching language possible to document their stories. Often, their work sits alongside darker, more personal reckonings about the reach of their work.“For most of my life, I stupidly believed that art exists to change the world,” Tamer Nafar, often credited as the grandfather of Arab hip hop, has said . “Now, I think about art more like the black box flight recorder on an airplane: it won’t navigate the landing; it’s here to document the crash.”∎ More Fiction & Poetry: Date Authors Heading 5 Date Authors Heading 5 Date Authors Heading 5 Date Authors Heading 5 Date Authors Heading 5 Date Authors Heading 5

“Take Lorraine Hansberry's 'A Raisin in the Sun.' Well, it's a working-class family, and it's about upward mobility, but systematic racism is preventing them from having upward mobility. I remember seeing the film first and not even realizing that it was a play. Of course, it's a story about economic apartheid, but I only later saw the resonance in the tradition when I read August Wilson, Amiri Baraka, and later, Lynn Nottage.” COMMUNITY Theatre & Bengali Harlem “Take Lorraine Hansberry's 'A Raisin in the Sun.' Well, it's a working-class family, and it's about upward mobility, but systematic racism is preventing them from having upward mobility. I remember seeing the film first and not even realizing that it was a play. Of course, it's a story about economic apartheid, but I only later saw the resonance in the tradition when I read August Wilson, Amiri Baraka, and later, Lynn Nottage.” VOL. 1 INTERVIEW AUTHOR AUTHOR AUTHOR Watch the interview on YouTube or IGTV. ALSO IN THIS ISSUE: AUTHOR Heading 5 Heading 5 Heading 5 Heading 5 AUTHOR Heading 5 Watch the interview on YouTube or IGTV. SHARE Facebook ↗ Twitter ↗ LinkedIn ↗ Interview Bangladeshi Diapora 11th Sep 2020 Interview Bangladeshi Diapora Bangladesh South Asian Theater Working-Class Stories Bertolt Brecht August Wilson Amiri Baraka Lorraine Hansberry Avijit Roy Mel Watkins Black Solidarities Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. How do you give dignity and humanity and a platform for people that are not being represented in the arts, in film, TV, and theatre? More Fiction & Poetry: Date Authors Heading 5 Date Authors Heading 5 Date Authors Heading 5 Date Authors Heading 5 Date Authors Heading 5 Date Authors Heading 5

The Delhi-based Kashmiri musician & Ramooz frontman on how growing up in occupied Kashmir shaped his soundscapes through violence, and how genre experimentation and fluidity serve to address grief and trauma. COMMUNITY Kashmiri ProgRock and Experimentation as Privilege The Delhi-based Kashmiri musician & Ramooz frontman on how growing up in occupied Kashmir shaped his soundscapes through violence, and how genre experimentation and fluidity serve to address grief and trauma. VOL. 1 INTERVIEW AUTHOR AUTHOR AUTHOR Watch the interview on YouTube or IGTV. ALSO IN THIS ISSUE: AUTHOR Heading 5 Heading 5 Heading 5 Heading 5 AUTHOR Heading 5 Watch the interview on YouTube or IGTV. SHARE Facebook ↗ Twitter ↗ LinkedIn ↗ Interview Progressive Rock 21st Dec 2020 Interview Progressive Rock Kashmir Music Music Criticism Kashmiri Folk Music Contemporary Music Ramooz Dream Theater John Cage Ahmer Javed Experimental Methods Experimental Music Experimental Electronica Literature & Liberation Literary Solidarity Depictions of Grief Sound Occupation Genre Fluidity Genre Tropes Genre Intentional Audio Community Building New Artists Delhi Indian Fascism Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Living in Kashmir, in an atmosphere so accustomed to murder, rape, disappearances—it's directly affected the way I perceive and interact with sound. A loud thud might be an interesting sound for many. It's traumatizing for me. RECOMMENDED: Imtihan by Zeeshaan Nabi, Qassam Hussain ft. Denis Thomas ( Meerakii Sessions, Season 1, Episode 1, October 2022) More Fiction & Poetry: Date Authors Heading 5 Date Authors Heading 5 Date Authors Heading 5 Date Authors Heading 5 Date Authors Heading 5 Date Authors Heading 5

A live performance for the launch of SAAG's Volume 2, also celebrating the release of Rajna Swaminathan's new record “Apertures” at the Soapbox Gallery in Brooklyn. Swaminathan (mrudangam/vocals) performed as part of the Vagabonds trio with Ganavya (vocals) and Utsav Lal (piano). COMMUNITY “Apertures” with the Vagabonds Trio A live performance for the launch of SAAG's Volume 2, also celebrating the release of Rajna Swaminathan's new record “Apertures” at the Soapbox Gallery in Brooklyn. Swaminathan (mrudangam/vocals) performed as part of the Vagabonds trio with Ganavya (vocals) and Utsav Lal (piano). VOL. 2 ISSUE 1 LIVE AUTHOR AUTHOR AUTHOR A live performance by experimental Rajna Swaminathan, Ganavya & Utsav Lal. ALSO IN THIS ISSUE: AUTHOR Heading 5 Heading 5 Heading 5 Heading 5 AUTHOR Heading 5 A live performance by experimental Rajna Swaminathan, Ganavya & Utsav Lal. SHARE Facebook ↗ Twitter ↗ LinkedIn ↗ Live Brooklyn 19th May 2023 Live Brooklyn Experimental Music Jazz mrudangam Rajna Swaminathan Apertures Ganavya Utsav Lal Launch Event Contemporary Music Ropeadope Miles Okazaki Event Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. On May 12th, 2023, SAAG hosted a launch event for Vol. 2 at the Soapbox Gallery in Brooklyn, for which we were delighted to present the experimental and deeply moving musical compositions of the Vagabonds Trio: Rajna Swaminathan (mrudangam/voice), Ganavya (voice), and Utsav Lal (piano) who we had the pleasure of collaborating with a second time after his opening performance for In Grief, In Solidarity . They were joined partway by Miles Okazaki (guitar). To showcase musicians with such incredible musical range, a commitment to radicalism and social justice as expressed in the lyricism and melodies, and a deep rigor and discipline with their craft, was a true honor. We hope you enjoy the recording of the live event and the improvisational way it shifted from the respective discographies of each member of the trio, shifting seamlessly from several languages, including Tamil, English, Urdu, and more. Most of all, the performance celebrates the release of Rajna Swaminathan's new album Apertures (Ropeadope, Apr 28th), available to buy or stream now . More Fiction & Poetry: Date Authors Heading 5 Date Authors Heading 5 Date Authors Heading 5 Date Authors Heading 5 Date Authors Heading 5 Date Authors Heading 5

Notes on the new SAAG design system: appropriating the predator-drone, aesthetic intimacy, international motifs, and other stories. BOOKS & ARTS Experiments in Radical Design & Typography Notes on the new SAAG design system: appropriating the predator-drone, aesthetic intimacy, international motifs, and other stories. VOL. 2 ISSUE 1 PRESENTLY AUTHOR AUTHOR AUTHOR The display-face superimposed on the cartographic grid system it arose from. ALSO IN THIS ISSUE: AUTHOR Heading 5 Heading 5 Heading 5 Heading 5 AUTHOR Heading 5 The display-face superimposed on the cartographic grid system it arose from. SHARE Facebook ↗ Twitter ↗ LinkedIn ↗ Presently The Editors 12th Mar 2023 Presently The Editors Design Disaster Aesthetics Drone Warfare Surveillance Regimes Iconography Textiles Benedict Anderson South Asia as a Term Cartography Colophon Rabindranath Tagore Affect Web Design Design Process Typography Indian Type Foundry TypeType Dinamo Head Study Commercial Type Caslon Ionic Ionic No. 2 Akzidenz Grotesk Neue Haas Grotesk Antique No. 6 Monotype Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. How does a magazine like SAAG understand space & geography? How does it grapple with the many South Asian communities—those acknowledged as such, and those that aren't—to begin to identify the wrongs we must right from a long legacy of media that construed and continue to construe "South Asia" so narrowly? When I set out to design a whole new SAAG, these questions were on my mind. Unconsciously, material things—street signs we passed by, patterns we'd been looking at for years but noticed again for the first time—gave me some answers that buttress our current design system, allowing for a conversation within the team from many countries. These ideas came from my own subjective personal experiences, yes, but that intimacy I felt led all of us as a team to wonder: what might everyone else find intimate? How do we bring it all together? The design system is an expression of solidarity—finding commonality in what we all see or read; wear or draw—while admitting exception and difference, and also that this is, of course, an ongoing process. Disaster Timeline: Cover Artwork Our first issue allowed us to think about space on a broader level too. More specifically we asked: How does networked space see? Through the eyes of capital and the modern surveillance state—much like the seeker-head of a predator drone—the human subject has reached the zenith of abstraction. Humanity is now a set of data points, and collective struggles, in turn, simply distant blips on a radar. Visibility doesn't come easy. In an attention economy with content tethered to the whims of capital, only the profitable survive. Large-scale disasters cannibalize attention, obscuring the slow devastation occurring across regional, social, bodily, and psychic scales on a continuous loop. It’s a circular timeline. In a sense, the apparatus of surveillance defines the contour of strife: what better way to capture that present state of invisibility than to mimic how the predator drone sees the regions discussed in the issue? Thus, Mukul Chakravarthi's cover art for Issue 1 attempts to capture the cold cartographies of collective strife through the aesthetics of the modern surveillance state. The appropriation affirms our editorial commitment to deeply human narratives that emerge in the form of rigorous local reporting but also critically in the aesthetic responses of struggle and dissent, many of which you will find in the issue. The custom display face was derived from a grid system mapping the eight main cities—from Islamabad in the west to Naypyidaw in the east—that feature in the first issue. It was an exercise conceived to be just as spatial as it was typographic. The intention was to construct a display face that gave form to regions that otherwise figured in the margins of the globalist imagination. Iconography The iconography is the foundation of Volume 2. I truly hope you come to remember these icons and the content and forms of creative work they represent. The process began with my own archival, oral history and mixed-media research, which led to a great deal of conversation and more findings from the whole design team. The iconography is inspired by textiles across many South Asian countries and communities. It is a visual representation that interweaves recurring patterns across geographies and peoples. Each icon is a recurring motif in textiles from seven or more contemporary South Asian nations, and countless communities within them. SAAG's general approach to "South Asia" is pertinent here. We deliberately do not construe "South Asia" specifically in terms of geography. As our archives indicate, this is because we recognize that: 1. Diasporic communities originating in the subcontinent exist in countries as far east and as far west as any map will show. 2. "South Asia" is generally conceived of as countries within the subcontinent, but the history of its terminology is often nationalist, divisive, and problematic for many people, even within the region's most populous country. As Benedict Anderson has argued, it is also a construction to some degree of the rise of area studies; its arbitrariness can be seen in its inconveniences: some countries in what is academically considered "Southeast Asia" share more historical, cultural, and linguistic similarities with those considered "South Asian," and vice versa.* For the purposes of our iconography, we researched motifs stretching from Laos to Iran, as well as the Caribbean. Typography & Colophon Our web typography was also selected carefully. Our primary typeface, Neue Haas Grotesk by Monotype type foundry, reflects our association with the radical origins of sans typefaces like Akzidenz Grotesk . It's a remarkably sturdy sans that allows us to be flexible: based on the theme of each issue, we want to use a new display font entirely. We hope it keeps you on your toes. The body text for the work we publish was previously set in Erode by Nikhil Ranganathan and Indian Type Foundry (ITF), a startlingly original, idiosyncratic, and yet almost unobtrusive typeface that we greatly admire. Currently, we use Caslon Ionic by Paul Barnes and Greg Gazdowicz at Commercial Type, based on the influential Ionic No. 2 that has been pivotal to newspaper typesetting for over a century. We pair it with Antique No. 6 , also at Commercial Type, designed initially as a bold version of Caslon Ionic . Meanwhile, each issue of Volume 2 will use a different display typeface. For Issue 1, we chose the spiky and precise TT Ricks by TypeType. For Issue 2, we chose Marist by Dinamo. Our colophon—conceived by Prithi Khalique and designed in many iterations and styles by Hafsa Ashfaq—is a nod to our print future, inspired by one of the works first cited when SAAG began: Rabindranath Tagore's painting Head Study , a work of dazzling ingenuity that provides the metaphorical architecture for our identity. Of all the decisions we made, this one came the easiest to us. A design system that coheres around our collective past feels best to embody our aspirations for the future: we cannot predict the future, but we can take stock of the conceptual frameworks our many contributors provide to us. Moving forward, the design system will move much like the issue artwork itself: fluidly adapting to best represent the radical potential of the present in its aesthetic form. Website Our new website is a complete overhaul and a sharp contrast to the original SAAG website as well. We think fondly of what we made for Volume 1: its maximalist, wild, and mysteriously glitchy exterior paired with very serious work and dialogue. But if the eternal doom scroll has taught us anything, we are inundated with maximalist content. What we wanted was care, intentionality, attention, and flexibility: an ease to the user experience that reflects the care we took to make every choice inspired by South Asian custom, movement, or labor. We hope that our new website—designed and developed by myself and Ammar Hassan Uppal, with help and feedback from editors and designers on the team alike—flows much more organically, whilst feeling both tactile and geometric. We felt that the digital space shouldn't distract from the ideas and concepts of the difficult material discussed in Issue 1 of Volume 2 as well as in the archives. It should enhance it. What you see is also a website intended to take on the spirit of the issue currently featured, adapting at each turn. At the same time, we wanted to inject a little whimsy into the experience: easter eggs sprinkled throughout the website, which we hope you'll find. We hope to evoke a more orderly and idea-focused experience of SAAG’s content and challenge the dominant sense that the "avant-garde" need be synonymous with disorderly maximalism; instead, we eschewed both maximalism and minimalism—as well as the neo-brutalist response to minimalist design—with a warmer color palette and approachable typography. In Volume 2 of SAAG, we hope to demonstrate that we take the intellectual and conceptual happenings and developments in the worlds of design, typography, web development, etc., just as seriously as anything else. Stay tuned for forthcoming content and events on the many political-aesthetic challenges contemporary designers face, as well as how they understand, learn, teach, and reckon with the histories and legacies of design. Top of mind for us throughout this process was affect and emotion: how one might feel when one logs onto the website or reads one of our pieces? We do hope you feel welcome . ∎ * Benedict Anderson, A Life Without Boundaries ( Verso , 2018) More Fiction & Poetry: Date Authors Heading 5 Date Authors Heading 5 Date Authors Heading 5 Date Authors Heading 5 Date Authors Heading 5 Date Authors Heading 5

Artist and activist-scholar Aqui Thami, in conversation with Comics Editor Shreyas R Krishnan. COMMUNITY Rethinking the Library with Sister Library Artist and activist-scholar Aqui Thami, in conversation with Comics Editor Shreyas R Krishnan. VOL. 1 INTERVIEW AUTHOR AUTHOR AUTHOR Watch the interview on YouTube or IGTV. ALSO IN THIS ISSUE: AUTHOR Heading 5 Heading 5 Heading 5 Heading 5 AUTHOR Heading 5 Watch the interview on YouTube or IGTV. SHARE Facebook ↗ Twitter ↗ LinkedIn ↗ Interview Indigeneous Spaces 21st Oct 2020 Interview Indigeneous Spaces Feminist Spaces Decolonization Community Building Community-Owned Public Space Sister Library Sister Radio Kochi-Muziris Biennale Dharavi Bombay Underground Indigenous Art Practice Indigeneity Zines Pedagogy Public Arts Public History Archival Practice Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. I really wanted to rethink what a library could mean, and show that most libraries are funded by monies that come from the exploitation and relocation of indigenous peoples. [Sister Library] is what comes out of that. RECOMMENDED: Support Sister Library , the first ever community-owned feminist library in India, here . More Fiction & Poetry: Date Authors Heading 5 Date Authors Heading 5 Date Authors Heading 5 Date Authors Heading 5 Date Authors Heading 5 Date Authors Heading 5

A panel on dominant narratives about Kashmir: the longue durée of Kashmiri struggle, the continued movement-building between Kashmir & Palestine, the People's Alliance for Gupkar, and what the repeal of Article 370 really entailed. COMMUNITY Discourses on Kashmir A panel on dominant narratives about Kashmir: the longue durée of Kashmiri struggle, the continued movement-building between Kashmir & Palestine, the People's Alliance for Gupkar, and what the repeal of Article 370 really entailed. VOL. 1 PANEL AUTHOR AUTHOR AUTHOR Watch the panel on YouTube or IGTV. ALSO IN THIS ISSUE: AUTHOR Heading 5 Heading 5 Heading 5 Heading 5 AUTHOR Heading 5 Watch the panel on YouTube or IGTV. SHARE Facebook ↗ Twitter ↗ LinkedIn ↗ Panel Kashmir 24th Oct 2020 Panel Kashmir Intellectual History Settler-Colonialism Longue-Duree of Kashmiri Struggle Movement Organization Revolution Colonialism Burhan Wani People's Alliance for Gupkar Subaltern Studies Palestine Affect Internationalist Solidarity Media Blackout Radicalization Narratives Bollywood Occupation Genocide Pogroms Erasure Mass Protests War Crimes Movement Strategy Emancipatory Politics Humanitarian Crisis Activist Media International Law Hindutva Military Crackdown Military Operations Kashmiri Struggle Discourses of War Nationalism Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Just over a year after the repeal of Article 370 from India's constitution, pro-India Kashmiri political parties called for an alliance. What did it all mean? In our second panel from October 2020, Kashmiri activist-scholars Ather Zia & Huma Dar, and journalist Hilal Mir, discuss the predominant discourses of Kashmir that pervade public and international narratives with Editor Kamil Ahsan. The wide-ranging discussion discusses Indian-occupied-Kashmir, India as a settler-colonial state, journalism & how the Azadi Movement and the repeal of Article 370 are depicted, and the many self-serving narratives that don’t take Kashmiri realities into account. More Fiction & Poetry: Date Authors Heading 5 Date Authors Heading 5 Date Authors Heading 5 Date Authors Heading 5 Date Authors Heading 5 Date Authors Heading 5