Oral History with Samaa Elibyari Dec. 2017

CKUT TIME CAPSULE

Samaa Elibyari is a member of the Canadian Council of Muslim Women and has been doing programming at CKUT since 1997. CKUT Culture Coordinator, Tamara Filyavich, speaks with Samaa (the week after Trump announced the move of the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem) about covering issues affecting the Muslim community for over 20 years. She began with the radio show, Crossroads with Ehab Loteyef in 1997 while she was working at the Islamic Center. Then started the radio show Caravan . She recalls being on the air the day after 9-11 and how this event focused and galvanized her objectives for the show. She was/is alarmed at how reductive the mainstream reporting of this event was and felt it important to talk about the effects of the sanctions in Iraq, the bias in U.S. policy towards Palestinians and the other issues that motivate young men to such extreme behavior. She used her voice as a programmer at CKUT to counterbalance the bias against muslims which she sees as a “downward spiral against Muslims” both in the U.S and in Quebec.

Samaa took a hiatus from programming and a new team have formed with a new show entitled Montreal Arab Show that currently airs Fridays 2pm – 3pm. Samaa continues to provide mentorship to this group and is a frequent contributor.

https://archive.org/download/SamaaElibyari/Samaa%20Elibyari%20.mp3