Mid-Week Links: 18 Dec 2024

Tis almost the season

Hello, lovely humans.

We have arrived at the last Mid-Week Links edition of 2024, Alhamdulilah!

gen ai’s idea of ‘happy substack readers’

As a reminder, this is the last free edition of this links round up. If you are super keen on getting the round up but you can’t afford the subscription fee right now, reply to this email and let me know. Otherwise, for this week only, I’m offering a little discount to entice the rest of y’all over 😁

For one week only, get 30% the annual subscription… forever! Just £28 to enjoy the full Good Chat experience for as long as it’s happening.

Thank you to all of the new paid subscribers that came in this week - I see you Caitlin, Laura and Tasneem, and I appreciate you! 🥳🥳🥳🥳🥳

Right. Let’s get into the links, shall we?

---

• Wondering what to read on Syria? New Lines Magazine has put together this fantastic reading guide containing some excellent reporting on the country after the fall of Assad. Dawn in Damascus is an excellent place to start.

• On why so many Americans are ‘gleeful’ about the murder/execution of the UnitedHealthcare CEO. The entire saga is such a reminder of how US politics is often universalised, because my feeds are full of this story, but it is so uniquely American. The anger, the resentment, the glee - it wouldn’t make sense in most comparable societies, because most comparable societies have some sort of healthcare provision for all. But US politics aside, it is interesting to think about a) if this murder feels fair, does that mean capital punishment feels fair? and b) why do we think of state violence as legitimate and interpersonal violence not?

• A piece on the stress of finding a place to pray. I’d love to be hitting the five prayers a day on time, but more often than not, the shape of my life means catching up at the end of the day, guilt ridden and ashamed. I can’t imagine what it would like not to have to sneak around to pray all the time, finding corners in hotel lobbies, kneeling in stairwells when I’m feeling brave. May Allah reward us for our efforts, inshallah.

• Hard relate to a lot in this piece, on posting less (I’m sad about it):

  • “I used to love posting. I’d think of tweets on walks, then chide myself for thinking of tweets on walks, then tweet them anyway. I craved the immediate reaction, refreshing my browser for likes, keeping a column on Tweetdeck where I could see every tweet anyone posted linking to one of my BuzzFeed stories, even if they hadn’t tagged me. It felt propulsive. It ate my days. It wasn’t healthy but it was the way we did things.”

  • On why she stopped? “There’s something larger going on, particularly with those of us who’ve been posting for most of our adult lives: on Tumblr, on Facebook, on Twitter, on Snapchat, on Instagram. We’re exhausted with the labor of self-documentation — especially when it seems that our posts aren’t even surfacing for our close friends. But we’re also tired of being perceived.”

• Niche link, but if you’re interested in the economics of the TV industry, this piece is interesting: how British television is being overtaken by US money.

• You may know that I have a history with cryptocurrency (I was obsessed in late-2017 and used it to fund my first few months in London). However, as Warzel notes in this piece, while I rated the underlying technology, I eventually had to admit that cryptocurrency itself wasn’t quite as revolutionary as I would like. Its legacy, Warzel argues, is something else:

  • Crypto is a technology whose transformative product is not a particular service but a culture—one that is, by nature, distrustful of institutions and sympathetic to people who want to dismantle or troll them. The election results were at least in part a repudiation of institutional authorities (the federal government, our public-health apparatus, the media), and crypto helped deliver them: The industry formed a super PAC that raised more than $200 million to support crypto-friendly politicians.

To The Moon

• Finally, I’m trying this thing out - reading a bunch of Western European humanities stuff because frankly, I never read any of it, and well, it’ll be interesting! Just started the Trial and Death of Socrates, and man, he never gets any answers, does he?

  • PS, does anyone want to join me on this journey? LMK in the comments!

Watch: Children of the Rwandan Genocide

A must watch. “A group of young adults born during or just after the 1994 genocide against Rwanda's Tutsi people gather to find the courage to break a powerful taboo. Rwanda is one of the few nations in the world providing specialist counselling for children conceived through rape, who number 10,000 across the country. Here, course leader Emilienne, a mother, therapist and genocide survivor, helps the group to imagine a future free from family secrets and societal stigma.” Find out more here, watch the documentary below.

Listen: Open Light

I’m an emotional mess these days. Sudanese artist Elmiene, who I’ve featured on this round up before, recently published a new EP: For The Deported. This video took me back to yes, my own wedding in Sudan, but all of the Sudanese weddings I’ve attended, all the moments of joy and celebration and family we enjoyed. May we one day return, rebuild— inshallah.

Interview with Sudanese journalist

Thank you to reader

Nicola's Notes

for the link to this interview with Sudanese journalist Hiba Morgan with Aljazeera. It’s from a few months ago now, but worth the listen: Hiba has been reporting from on the ground in Sudan, and is truly testament to an industry I often despair of.

---

That’s all for this week, and for 2024, folks. This Sunday will be this year’s final Sunday letter. I’ll return sometime in January 2025, inshallah.

May Allah bless all your festive seasons, and may we see peace in the new year, inshallah.

Best,
Yassmin