1 00:00:00,090 --> 00:00:01,980 Ladies and gentlemen, good evening and welcome. 2 00:00:03,080 --> 00:00:13,170 So for those of you who have only joined the Middle East head of community since the age of the Investcorp Building, 3 00:00:13,560 --> 00:00:18,750 you won't have known that this was actually where we used to hold all of our seminars, Tuesdays and Fridays alike. 4 00:00:19,380 --> 00:00:25,470 And there's something very nostalgic about getting a crowd. And here the loud buzz of the room, when we fill this room up, 5 00:00:25,800 --> 00:00:34,260 that makes it feel very much like a home the way home used to be before we had our beautiful new building at its peak lecture theatre. 6 00:00:34,800 --> 00:00:41,160 And in that sense, it's wonderful to be able to welcome professor at Invesco to be our speaker tonight, 7 00:00:41,490 --> 00:00:46,530 because Adam came to spend a year here in Oxford teaching modern history of the Middle East. 8 00:00:47,580 --> 00:00:56,490 While I had a year of leave and was very much in that period of transition as the new building foundations were being laid, 9 00:00:57,090 --> 00:01:02,580 and while the activities of the Middle East that is still took place very much in this space. 10 00:01:03,090 --> 00:01:09,390 And so it's a double welcome home of not just to Oxford and the Middle East Centre, 11 00:01:09,660 --> 00:01:17,130 but to the room in which you would have seen and participated in the intellectual outreach of the centre at that time. 12 00:01:17,760 --> 00:01:21,690 Adam is, of course, Associate Professor of Middle Eastern History at Duke. 13 00:01:22,530 --> 00:01:29,670 He went to Duke after a brilliant post Oxford career at the Society of Fellows at Harvard. 14 00:01:30,150 --> 00:01:35,660 He has not been sitting on his laurels in the time since he was in Oxford. 15 00:01:35,670 --> 00:01:42,750 He has been churning out one remarkably great book after another, beginning with actually your first book, wasn't it? 16 00:01:43,740 --> 00:01:46,740 There is one. It's only 12 if our book. 17 00:01:46,950 --> 00:01:50,250 But I think Arab patriotism might be the first. Yes. 18 00:01:50,330 --> 00:01:58,170 Yes. As to the ideology and culture of power in late Ottoman Egypt with Defoe primordial history, 19 00:01:58,170 --> 00:02:03,450 print capitalism and Egyptology in 19th century Cairo in 2021. 20 00:02:03,960 --> 00:02:07,800 And then today we get a chance to hear from Adam about his latest book. 21 00:02:08,400 --> 00:02:14,070 I would hold the book up for you, but as an even bigger copy of the cover on the overhead projection Modern Arab 22 00:02:14,070 --> 00:02:18,480 Kingship Remaking the Ottoman political order in the interwar Middle East. 23 00:02:18,720 --> 00:02:25,470 Adam It is such a joy to welcome you back to your old home in the Middle East Centre and to hear you talk about this exciting project 24 00:02:25,470 --> 00:02:31,470 which resonates so strongly with the scholarship that has been coming out of the Middle East centre since I lived here on this date. 25 00:02:31,950 --> 00:02:37,180 So without further ado, the floor is yours. Thank you so much for this wonderful news. 26 00:02:37,200 --> 00:02:46,050 I think I just stand up right now for this wonderful introduction and thank you so much for this opportunity to to advertise my book. 27 00:02:46,350 --> 00:02:49,020 And thank you, all of you, so much for coming today. 28 00:02:49,020 --> 00:02:57,300 I know it's it's Tuesday evening, so I really appreciate it that you came to to listen to this this little talk. 29 00:02:57,810 --> 00:03:02,670 And indeed, I have full memories of this centre, of this very room as well. 30 00:03:02,670 --> 00:03:06,450 And partly my education happened here. So thank you so much. 31 00:03:06,450 --> 00:03:15,870 As a follow up, because this is an Eastern European retired punk musician arriving to the talks for a name and after looks, 32 00:03:15,870 --> 00:03:21,180 we're going to becoming an elite, cosmopolitan, terrible academic. 33 00:03:21,690 --> 00:03:27,239 So at this time, yeah, yeah. So thank you so much for this education and the opportunities. 34 00:03:27,240 --> 00:03:37,290 And indeed I enjoyed it. So indeed, as as Eugene just told us, I have been known as the, as and as the historian of late Ottoman Egypt, 35 00:03:37,950 --> 00:03:46,470 the social and cultural historian and most recently I am I am I mean was his in the last 36 00:03:46,920 --> 00:03:52,590 seven years I had the parallel project on on the Muslim fiscal bureaucracy in Egypt. 37 00:03:52,590 --> 00:03:57,959 And this is why I'm currently working in in Cairo and deeply buried in the archives. 38 00:03:57,960 --> 00:04:04,890 But today we will discuss this book, indeed, The Modern Art of Kingship, which is a little bit of a different genre. 39 00:04:04,890 --> 00:04:08,640 So those of you who came today for culture history will be disappointed. 40 00:04:08,650 --> 00:04:19,350 I'm so sorry. So please leave because this book is more of a historical sociology, theoretical in intervention into certain debates, 41 00:04:19,650 --> 00:04:28,680 although it does contain some some micro histories and it does have a historical anthropological engagement with politics. 42 00:04:28,680 --> 00:04:35,110 But it's heavily in political theory, social history of politics, constitutional history and so on and so forth. 43 00:04:35,760 --> 00:04:41,489 This book is not about the 19th century, although I started in 19th century. 44 00:04:41,490 --> 00:04:46,260 It's it's a heavily 1920s. So it is is this is what you have to look. 45 00:04:46,950 --> 00:04:52,740 So today you are using as me to talk about 40 minutes and I will do so I'm so sorry. 46 00:04:53,940 --> 00:04:56,940 First, I will describe the main argument. 47 00:04:56,940 --> 00:05:03,679 I try to be very concise because it's. A bit of an abstract, some of the theoretical contributions. 48 00:05:03,680 --> 00:05:15,770 And then I will talk about just because of fusion rather than the the example of making 1920 Syria in, in, in this theoretical framework that I offer. 49 00:05:16,220 --> 00:05:22,520 Of course, everything that I will talk about today is just a humble footnote to the work of a fusion organ. 50 00:05:23,300 --> 00:05:28,550 So I'm really pleased that I can provide this as a humble footnote to the work of Albert Hourani. 51 00:05:28,700 --> 00:05:34,110 Well, it's no, I agree. Yeah, I think it's a little bit more than 100%. 52 00:05:34,130 --> 00:05:41,930 But anyway, mine is just a number. Okay, So, so I start with the main arguments first. 53 00:05:41,930 --> 00:05:46,140 So those of you who do not know the Middle East, you happen to be at the news. 54 00:05:46,970 --> 00:05:52,130 This is the region and this is the time period that my book focuses on. 55 00:05:52,880 --> 00:05:56,390 We can see the late Ottoman Empire in 1914. 56 00:05:56,870 --> 00:06:07,099 The map is a little bit is a little bit lying because actually Libya is a part of the Ottoman Empire at this time. 57 00:06:07,100 --> 00:06:10,280 Still, 1914, just before the First World War. 58 00:06:10,880 --> 00:06:15,170 And the in the other map, you can see the early 1920s arrangement. 59 00:06:15,170 --> 00:06:22,100 This is what is usually known in historiography as the unprecedented extension of 60 00:06:22,100 --> 00:06:27,620 European power in the Middle East after the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire. 61 00:06:28,040 --> 00:06:32,059 So in one you can see the Ottoman territories. 62 00:06:32,060 --> 00:06:37,460 Egypt is also part of it, although it's under British occupation at this time until 1914. 63 00:06:37,970 --> 00:06:43,490 And you can see that in the other map, the new newly formed. 64 00:06:44,480 --> 00:06:52,820 But territorial arrangements, one policy that is usually forgotten and I will talk a little bit about it is the Kingdom of the Hejaz, 65 00:06:53,390 --> 00:07:03,620 which is today the main part of Saudi Arabia with the capital of Mecca, is a very interesting little quality at the time. 66 00:07:03,620 --> 00:07:10,189 And I do I do discuss a bit more of that. So this is the the region and this is the time period. 67 00:07:10,190 --> 00:07:14,510 The book is most about 1920, 19 tens, 1920s. 68 00:07:16,910 --> 00:07:21,049 The problem that the book deals with is this great transformation. 69 00:07:21,050 --> 00:07:32,060 What happens after an empire is gone? This question came to my to my engagement with late Ottoman Egypt, 70 00:07:32,660 --> 00:07:41,870 which was a subordinate Muslim basically polity if you want, under Ottoman and then under British and Ottoman rule. 71 00:07:42,560 --> 00:07:48,200 And I was wondering that usually we we have these vocabulary from usually from 72 00:07:48,200 --> 00:07:53,060 political science that we talk either about nation states or we talk about colonies. 73 00:07:53,510 --> 00:07:59,300 But there are all other kind of polities in modern history, although other kind of statuses. 74 00:07:59,780 --> 00:08:06,200 And I was dissatisfied by the theoretical framework that was presently offered to describe 75 00:08:06,200 --> 00:08:11,719 these these strange something strange governments sometimes existing in various subordination, 76 00:08:11,720 --> 00:08:24,780 sometimes autonomy such as that and so on and so forth. The other question or problem came to me from from two types of narratives. 77 00:08:24,780 --> 00:08:28,069 So one is the narrative of this European expansion, 78 00:08:28,070 --> 00:08:35,930 the European control over the first Ottoman territories at this time, which is well known in this college, 79 00:08:35,930 --> 00:08:40,940 the Britain's moment in the Middle East, in Britain, right in France, 80 00:08:40,940 --> 00:08:50,059 it is actually the the French mandate is is less the French rule is that is understudied a little bit, but it's still there. 81 00:08:50,060 --> 00:08:56,540 So how the allied powers after the First World War try to perpetuate their their rule in these territories. 82 00:08:56,750 --> 00:09:03,650 And of course saying this colonisation of Palestine was part of of this, of this project and we can talk a little bit more of that. 83 00:09:04,130 --> 00:09:10,420 So there is this narrative and there's another narrative which is the Arab nationalist narrative, either each Arab, 84 00:09:10,700 --> 00:09:18,740 both Ottoman out of national government has their own stories of origin or we have the big band Arab nationalist narrative that. 85 00:09:19,510 --> 00:09:27,760 Professor O'Hagan knows a lot about it. But I was wondering that what if we start with the Ottoman context? 86 00:09:27,790 --> 00:09:34,450 What if we look at this period, the 1920s, not from the European, and is not through the Arab nationalist forces, 87 00:09:34,690 --> 00:09:39,400 but from from this very strange empire, the late Ottoman Empire. 88 00:09:39,440 --> 00:09:43,210 What can we gain from this, from this, from these lenses? 89 00:09:44,560 --> 00:09:50,650 And this is I tried to some of the main argument of the book in this concept. 90 00:09:50,650 --> 00:09:59,770 So the argument is that there is a operation in the 1920s which we can call reciting Empire. 91 00:09:59,770 --> 00:10:11,380 I call it reciting empire, recasting of previous imperial institutions in politics, in economy, in culture, in religion. 92 00:10:12,430 --> 00:10:19,180 And that giant operation defines the period in the Ottoman territories as well, 93 00:10:19,180 --> 00:10:23,650 and in the perceptible territories, of course, as well in Eastern Europe. 94 00:10:23,950 --> 00:10:30,160 And I would even argue in China as well in the 1920s, 1930s. 95 00:10:30,430 --> 00:10:35,230 So unfortunately I'm very immodest and I this argument is, 96 00:10:35,410 --> 00:10:46,510 is a large theoretical argument proposing this this approach to the 1920s in general after the First World War as a 97 00:10:46,660 --> 00:10:56,440 as a general paradigm of of Ford for the history of defeated people who who who are denied of that their empires. 98 00:10:57,520 --> 00:11:06,129 And I suggest in terms of politics that this operation produces not necessary nation states, 99 00:11:06,130 --> 00:11:10,990 but what I call sovereign local states and newly imperial projects. 100 00:11:11,680 --> 00:11:21,440 And I will talk a little bit more about what I mean on on local state, exactly what an important issue in the book as well. 101 00:11:21,460 --> 00:11:30,940 It I actually I spend a lot of time is that sovereignty in my formulation is not contradictory to to being subordinated 102 00:11:31,330 --> 00:11:37,540 so to talking about subordinated sovereign states a subordinated sovereign government and if you are interested, 103 00:11:37,540 --> 00:11:42,969 we can we can discuss that. That as well. This is the table of contents of the book. 104 00:11:42,970 --> 00:11:50,020 I cannot go through each chapter, but as you can see, the first three chapters are theoretical chapters, very heavily theoretical. 105 00:11:50,230 --> 00:12:00,850 And then I go into into various moments, moments I quote constituent events in in in each chapter, and I reach roughly the Second World War. 106 00:12:01,840 --> 00:12:09,190 Obviously, the book does not want to give the last word on on any of these problems and even the storylines. 107 00:12:09,670 --> 00:12:19,840 But I try to open certain questions and I try to suggest certain vocabularies to describe to describe this very complex moment. 108 00:12:21,250 --> 00:12:30,430 So the book itself is provides or suggests or offers a framework for interpretation for state making in new imperial history. 109 00:12:30,940 --> 00:12:34,780 Who knows new imperial history here. Have you heard about this term recently? 110 00:12:35,350 --> 00:12:40,240 No new member of history. Jane Burbank. Fred Cooper Little bit. 111 00:12:40,390 --> 00:12:44,770 So anyway, so I'm very much belonging to that current. 112 00:12:44,770 --> 00:12:54,790 I was very inspired by a people who were often called labelled as new imperial historians, although I am also sceptical about a lot. 113 00:12:54,790 --> 00:12:59,760 So I put that question under the book of offer. 114 00:12:59,790 --> 00:13:10,149 Secondly, micro histories of these, what I call constituent events or relatively short moments when groups which are claiming certain forms 115 00:13:10,150 --> 00:13:18,070 or certain forms of constituent power would impose their own vision to these successor societies, 116 00:13:18,520 --> 00:13:20,710 usually in the form of a written constitution. 117 00:13:21,430 --> 00:13:31,360 And I go very deep in sometimes they use micro history tools, and it is partly a study also of legal authority in changing Muslim regimes. 118 00:13:31,360 --> 00:13:37,660 So I used a lot of Sharia courts, of course, for instance, indeed, 119 00:13:37,690 --> 00:13:43,870 a book which is about creating new political regimes and new political orders is a 120 00:13:43,870 --> 00:13:49,599 very boring book in the sense that it deals with it's very heavily male inflected. 121 00:13:49,600 --> 00:13:49,929 Right. 122 00:13:49,930 --> 00:14:00,910 The monarchs and or displaced Ottoman military man and the European, British and French embraced us Italian, of course, imperialist in the background. 123 00:14:02,020 --> 00:14:06,910 Later, of course, Mussolini is very keen, for instance, to acquire sea and so forth. 124 00:14:07,390 --> 00:14:16,630 So I turned to the sheriff of court records of Damascus to bring in some female voices from the late 19 tens, early 1920s. 125 00:14:19,670 --> 00:14:29,900 And the show. Of course. Of course, of course. Are very good for that, because by this time, 60 70% of the litigants are female in the Sharia courts. 126 00:14:30,410 --> 00:14:39,920 And so I was very interested how they frame, for instance, in the moment of the fall of the Ottoman Empire there to whom they belong now, 127 00:14:40,430 --> 00:14:47,540 who are whose citizens they are, whose legal authority they they apply for, and so on and so forth. 128 00:14:47,900 --> 00:14:51,140 So one chapter is based on sharing of court records. 129 00:14:51,770 --> 00:14:57,979 And I was also lucky in the source basis because the Apostle papers on the Council 130 00:14:57,980 --> 00:15:02,600 was one of the high commissioners of the French mandate in Syria and Lebanon, 131 00:15:02,600 --> 00:15:10,129 and also because just became available for research while I was doing this, this project and the LaCour, 132 00:15:10,130 --> 00:15:17,050 another archivist in Paris, were kind enough to even Vidal cataloguing the papers and officially being available. 133 00:15:17,060 --> 00:15:24,340 They allowed me to to use them. And I was also likely to be in Riyadh and deal with the Alcazar collection. 134 00:15:24,340 --> 00:15:28,459 And because there was a sheikh at the city and Sheikh and I will talk a little bit more 135 00:15:28,460 --> 00:15:35,540 about him in the so-called dramatic ABDELAZIZ Which is a very contested archive in space. 136 00:15:35,540 --> 00:15:40,279 But, but I was lucky to get some access, some access to to these papers. 137 00:15:40,280 --> 00:15:45,740 So this was their use. When I say used, of course, all other archival or usual suspects. 138 00:15:47,030 --> 00:15:53,629 I will not go into into various details but the major terms of the as we citing empire, 139 00:15:53,630 --> 00:16:00,590 which is there's also an approach to historical change that I talk a lot about in chapter two. 140 00:16:00,590 --> 00:16:08,180 And I will not go into detail, but essentially I think we usually think about historical change as somehow related to revolution. 141 00:16:09,020 --> 00:16:12,110 But unfortunately this is not the case often. 142 00:16:12,740 --> 00:16:20,000 So often, actually what we see is no revolutionary will explicitly come to a revolutionary change, especially in the 1920s. 143 00:16:20,720 --> 00:16:29,300 Many of these closer to an moments are not coming out of a revolutionary movement, but from some sort of other constellation. 144 00:16:31,020 --> 00:16:42,130 I think a major concept that a. Offer to the international relations and political theory is governing without a sovereign entity. 145 00:16:42,760 --> 00:16:53,800 I do think that especially Middle East studies, but also in other fields, the engagement with Soviet entity is is a bit misleading. 146 00:16:54,520 --> 00:16:57,819 I think for the 20th century history of the Middle East especially, 147 00:16:57,820 --> 00:17:06,580 we have to engage with how non non-sovereign forms of power are there, especially administrative forms. 148 00:17:07,330 --> 00:17:11,890 And I do think that governing without solidarity is a major problem. 149 00:17:12,250 --> 00:17:17,450 Since the 19 tens for strong states until today. Why? 150 00:17:17,480 --> 00:17:24,080 Because territorial acquisition by force is no more allowed in international law. 151 00:17:24,620 --> 00:17:34,700 So strong states which do occupy other territories cannot exercise sovereign powers attributes of sovereignty, but usually in legal terms describe. 152 00:17:35,210 --> 00:17:42,140 So they have to govern without sovereignty. And this is the case in, I don't know, two days in Ukrainian occupied territories. 153 00:17:42,650 --> 00:17:46,310 Of course, in the Palestinian occupied territories and perhaps in Gaza, 154 00:17:47,210 --> 00:17:55,850 it would be again the case that strong states for military occupation have to find out how to govern their territory without sovereignty. 155 00:17:56,600 --> 00:18:02,959 So the in the 1920s, of course, the League of Nations mandates Category two class a mandate, 156 00:18:02,960 --> 00:18:13,850 Category four for Syria and Lebanon and for Palestine, the ERA, and also experiments with forms of governing without sovereignty. 157 00:18:14,990 --> 00:18:22,320 And of course, military occupation is the is the par excellence form of sovereignty. 158 00:18:23,060 --> 00:18:30,560 This was the case, for instance, at the time in Britain, and the British Empire was what the military occupied after 1932. 159 00:18:31,960 --> 00:18:35,200 I suspend the concept of the nation state. 160 00:18:35,530 --> 00:18:41,980 I don't use it. I don't like it. I don't think it's useful and I don't think it's useful to talk. 161 00:18:42,760 --> 00:18:53,380 And instead, I talk about sovereign local states, as I said, states which use in their political order all kinds of positive variable particles. 162 00:18:55,180 --> 00:19:04,420 And I say particles because some of the theoretical basis of my book is actually from art history. 163 00:19:05,690 --> 00:19:09,280 Do you know the concept of spoliation? Have you ever heard about spoliation? 164 00:19:09,280 --> 00:19:16,480 Spoliation is this operation when, for instance, there is an old building and the part of it is even built into a new building? 165 00:19:17,420 --> 00:19:18,880 It can be a matter of form. 166 00:19:19,270 --> 00:19:26,650 Literally, a window is built into a new building, or it can be in style as though the old style is continuous in a new context. 167 00:19:27,340 --> 00:19:33,280 I think this happens actually in terms of politics, very much a spoliation process in the 1920s. 168 00:19:33,730 --> 00:19:43,629 So all the imperial institutions wanted monarchy, religion, including practices which are slow Sharia courts, which are all belonging to the Ottoman, 169 00:19:43,630 --> 00:19:54,760 were at this time built into the new framework of of local governments, including in their constitution and political order. 170 00:19:55,690 --> 00:20:04,420 So I quote, I think the term local is much more useful than national because it also indicates that they are still in a subordinate position. 171 00:20:05,050 --> 00:20:13,270 So they are still, of course, in this period through the mandate, they are subordinated to France or the League of Nations. 172 00:20:13,270 --> 00:20:18,760 If you want to use the League of Nations, this is a new imperial power in a way. 173 00:20:19,270 --> 00:20:26,530 Internationalism is a new substituting set of functions of the previous imperial Sovereign can be thought of and good today. 174 00:20:26,530 --> 00:20:33,300 Perhaps so. So. So I use this concept to to study nationalism as well. 175 00:20:33,310 --> 00:20:39,460 Nationalism is very important, but I talk about national projects than than than the nation state. 176 00:20:40,330 --> 00:20:44,910 I talk about successive societies and those who talk about success of diaspora. 177 00:20:44,920 --> 00:20:54,370 So this is the moment when, of course, the disappearance of Empire does not leave behind only the peoples in their own regions, 178 00:20:54,730 --> 00:20:59,650 but also leaves behind large groups outside of the previous empire. 179 00:21:00,040 --> 00:21:05,830 So is there a success of diasporas in this sense in the Americas and in Europe and even in the region? 180 00:21:06,350 --> 00:21:14,710 There is a eastern Mediterranean region, a diaspora as well, and they are politically very active. 181 00:21:14,740 --> 00:21:21,900 This is the moment also when actually the political importance of this for us to to to feed 182 00:21:21,910 --> 00:21:32,920 back somehow and to form the new politics in their imagined homelands are starting actually. 183 00:21:33,760 --> 00:21:43,089 And I think what characterises the period in terms of constitutionalism is not necessarily the national one, 184 00:21:43,090 --> 00:21:48,450 but some form of imperial constitutionalism still from below and from above, 185 00:21:48,790 --> 00:21:56,080 actors advocating and not necessarily for democratic representation, but for all kinds of all kinds of other. 186 00:21:59,450 --> 00:22:07,190 Integrating for oil or other kinds of sources of authority, religion, monarchy, dynasty, and, of course, ethno national principles. 187 00:22:07,430 --> 00:22:11,570 And importantly, they imagine some of these qualities as federations. 188 00:22:11,990 --> 00:22:15,440 I think the federated idea is very important at this time. 189 00:22:15,440 --> 00:22:25,610 And some of my theoretical background coming actually from from from from India, from the India context, Indian context, 190 00:22:25,610 --> 00:22:35,410 as well as South Asia and and and also, of course, the Americas, where there are all kinds of alternative imaginations to the to the nations there. 191 00:22:35,960 --> 00:22:44,000 I will not describe some of my theoretical courses, but I belong to Paris, where we can discuss transit policy. 192 00:22:44,750 --> 00:22:49,280 So actually, I also take some concepts from post-Soviet sociologists. 193 00:22:49,610 --> 00:22:58,849 And I do think is this I mean, the not the same, of course, but this solution of a large political unit is is the same in the 1920s, 194 00:22:58,850 --> 00:23:05,510 in the Palestinian territories as it is in the post-Soviet and in post-colonial Africa, for instance, and so on and so forth. 195 00:23:05,960 --> 00:23:10,000 And as I said, my major inspiration is is new history. 196 00:23:12,230 --> 00:23:16,220 But I am also a bit sceptical about about everything that they do. 197 00:23:16,970 --> 00:23:23,270 The book is in in a dialogue with a number of books recently published. 198 00:23:23,270 --> 00:23:28,670 And as I learned during my my, my writing, that would be forthcoming a couple of other books. 199 00:23:29,240 --> 00:23:32,690 Now there is this new domain, the post and studies domain. 200 00:23:32,690 --> 00:23:35,690 So that was the Ottoman studies that we know very well. 201 00:23:36,050 --> 00:23:42,140 And now we have a temporal, temporally defined historical figure, the first Ottoman studies. 202 00:23:42,860 --> 00:23:49,249 Some of the titles are listed here and I am not going to this is very I hope my little 203 00:23:49,250 --> 00:23:55,550 book is a little contribution to this large wave and who knows what will happen. 204 00:23:56,780 --> 00:24:06,290 The relevance of the book for today is is is really tackling this this problem I facing this moment of the dissolution of large political systems. 205 00:24:06,890 --> 00:24:13,490 Also bringing forth to the post-Soviet and post-colonial African examples. 206 00:24:14,660 --> 00:24:17,270 I point out the modular logic of state making, 207 00:24:17,270 --> 00:24:26,870 especially the federative composites associated and that colour religious and other projects instead of the nation state the norm of the nation state. 208 00:24:27,500 --> 00:24:32,480 And so today, very human societies reorganise the game. 209 00:24:32,960 --> 00:24:34,870 We are constantly reorganised. 210 00:24:34,880 --> 00:24:44,960 We, we we can again think about federations and blocs and actually we can see blocs emerging again in, in, in, in Europe and elsewhere. 211 00:24:46,040 --> 00:24:49,550 All right. That was the theory part. 212 00:24:50,450 --> 00:24:55,559 I just realised if you're still alive, then I would. 213 00:24:55,560 --> 00:25:05,690 I would continue as you may. And in about 15 minutes I would describe the making of Syria based on this, based on this little exercise. 214 00:25:06,260 --> 00:25:13,670 So how how does the making of the state of Syria look like if we approach through these theoretical answers? 215 00:25:15,710 --> 00:25:22,710 The state of Syria in the ninth is is created in 1925 as an administrative project, first of all. 216 00:25:22,710 --> 00:25:27,320 And it becomes in 1930 a republic with a muslim president. 217 00:25:28,010 --> 00:25:36,350 If you want actually the state of Syria is the first Muslim republic according to Soviet and local state. 218 00:25:36,530 --> 00:25:41,660 And in during the story, we can also consider the importance of diaspora. 219 00:25:42,170 --> 00:25:49,670 Why do I tell you the story of Syria, which is a republic for advertising the book, which is called Modern Arab Kingship? 220 00:25:50,510 --> 00:25:57,770 It is because through my two words, if you want, we can see that the making of this state, this new government, 221 00:25:57,980 --> 00:26:05,390 was not as smooth as we learn either from the nationalist narrative or from the critical European colonial narratives. 222 00:26:05,810 --> 00:26:18,110 We will see that actually there are a number of monarchical projects about making Syria into not a muslim republic but into a muslim monarchy. 223 00:26:20,110 --> 00:26:26,650 If we start the making of Syria, we shouldn't start some imagined Arab nationalist movement. 224 00:26:27,190 --> 00:26:37,000 But it should start from this moment in the 19 tens when there are a number of discussions about how to transform the Ottoman Empire. 225 00:26:38,440 --> 00:26:44,860 So instead of looking at the nationalist ideas of certain actors which are certainly there, 226 00:26:45,610 --> 00:26:57,009 we should also look at how some of the groups advocate for transforming into a perhaps Ottoman federation instead of a of of a 227 00:26:57,010 --> 00:27:04,120 centralised which in this at a time it was called the decentralisation project was discussed in Istanbul and in many Arab provinces. 228 00:27:05,050 --> 00:27:13,030 Finally, the Ottoman central government's answer to this advocacy was a law the general administrative temporary 229 00:27:13,030 --> 00:27:22,450 law provinces that even media related can one not conceive which was which was promising local elections, 230 00:27:23,020 --> 00:27:30,160 especially in the Arab provinces, based on certain forms of representation, male voters and so on and so forth? 231 00:27:30,550 --> 00:27:34,180 It never became implemented because of the First World War. 232 00:27:34,510 --> 00:27:37,989 But after the war, it became very important for the French authorities. 233 00:27:37,990 --> 00:27:42,310 This this was the law based on which they organised the first elections and so on and so forth. 234 00:27:43,300 --> 00:27:47,800 There are some luminaries in this moment, like the more or less famous flashes read, 235 00:27:48,340 --> 00:27:54,280 a muslim activist print entrepreneur in Cairo who was a Syrian sheik, 236 00:27:55,000 --> 00:28:07,900 and in 1915 he offers a project to the British authorities about a new Arab empire, which was supposed to be a caliphate republic. 237 00:28:08,170 --> 00:28:14,530 Actually, the caliph in Mecca, that's the emir of Mecca. 238 00:28:14,830 --> 00:28:20,320 And the president in Damascus is some sort of federation among Muslim emirs. 239 00:28:21,160 --> 00:28:28,540 This is an entire Ottoman new imperial project and vision, which was never accepted, of course, by the British. 240 00:28:28,990 --> 00:28:33,620 And he himself changed his mind after the war, especially after 1922. 241 00:28:33,640 --> 00:28:36,790 His he becomes a very much of a monarchist. 242 00:28:37,150 --> 00:28:43,000 But at this time, he this is one of one very interesting project among the many other projects. 243 00:28:43,000 --> 00:28:52,840 And indeed, we have an Arab nationalist story that we know about Sharif Hussein and the making of the announcement of the Arab kingdom. 244 00:28:53,920 --> 00:29:01,720 And here you must know very well that the story of Lawrence of Arabia, blue eyes in the desert and so on and so forth. 245 00:29:02,170 --> 00:29:09,130 But in this perspective, actually, the Arab kingdom is bringing together the Sharif Film project, 246 00:29:10,300 --> 00:29:16,120 which is a religious project, in a sense, the Sharif's descendants of the Prophet Mohammed. 247 00:29:16,990 --> 00:29:22,300 And they claim leadership based on their religious capital, if you want. 248 00:29:24,780 --> 00:29:30,660 Although Sherif al Hussein, the emir of Mecca, is presented as Arab nationalist. 249 00:29:31,050 --> 00:29:34,530 Of course, we know that he was an integrated member of the Ottoman elite. 250 00:29:34,560 --> 00:29:38,370 He was born in Istanbul. One of his wives was Turkish. 251 00:29:39,330 --> 00:29:43,470 He was commuting for around 30 years between Mecca and Istanbul and so on and so forth. 252 00:29:43,860 --> 00:29:47,550 That is an argument also has been already made about him. 253 00:29:48,180 --> 00:29:55,020 And what we can see is that what he what they really propose is not to recycle the younger government, 254 00:29:55,350 --> 00:30:01,380 but rather the previous Abdul Hamid Mian principles at this time, at least in my interpretation. 255 00:30:02,280 --> 00:30:09,840 The Allied powers, of course, do not acknowledge this claim, and they only acknowledge him as the King of the Hejaz of this new polity. 256 00:30:11,010 --> 00:30:14,030 What comes from the federalist ideas? 257 00:30:14,040 --> 00:30:21,180 And this Sharif in what they call genealogical monarchy, is this very well-known moment in Damascus, 258 00:30:21,200 --> 00:30:26,220 1919, when the Syrian Assembly proposes to a visiting commission, 259 00:30:26,490 --> 00:30:36,570 the making of the Syrian Federation, which is a monarchical federation with one of the sons of Sherif Hussein Faisal as the king. 260 00:30:37,920 --> 00:30:47,190 In some interpretations, this is a somehow the United States of Syria is an imitation of the US system. 261 00:30:47,190 --> 00:30:50,219 But based on the Ottoman matrix, 262 00:30:50,220 --> 00:30:55,950 we know very well that it is a book of local imagination also about in a way 263 00:30:55,950 --> 00:31:02,639 continuing the the the Ottoman federative project and only for using it all. 264 00:31:02,640 --> 00:31:05,940 And I have this little clip. 265 00:31:06,720 --> 00:31:13,940 This is a. Previously unknown French army movie, 266 00:31:13,970 --> 00:31:22,400 still the property of the French army about 1919 May when Sherif Faisal is coming back 267 00:31:22,400 --> 00:31:30,620 from the Paris Peace Conference and it's a unique movie and arrives in Damascus, 268 00:31:30,770 --> 00:31:32,480 first in Beirut and then in the west coast. 269 00:31:33,380 --> 00:31:50,660 And we can see some of the elements, some of the moments of this meeting of the Ottoman bourgeoisie in the in Damascus with with the Sharif an idea. 270 00:31:52,670 --> 00:31:59,030 This is the the people waiting for for face time the moment they will arrive. 271 00:32:03,440 --> 00:32:10,630 Of course, they are preparing for sacrifice. To give credit for this. 272 00:32:11,740 --> 00:32:20,380 And here he is. And in his enterprise, of course, you can see the later famous figures in the 20th century, like Nuria say, 273 00:32:20,390 --> 00:32:30,840 the later prime minister of Iraq, Askari and other famous Arab figures, Amin Faisal is not yet a king. 274 00:32:30,910 --> 00:32:33,940 He's not voted as a king, but he's treated as a king. 275 00:32:34,570 --> 00:32:43,510 This is also a fascinating moment when you can see the mixture of this post war moment when perhaps legally speaking, 276 00:32:43,510 --> 00:32:49,120 Damascus is still an Ottoman city, but it's kind of clear that it's going somewhere else. 277 00:32:49,690 --> 00:32:53,050 And, of course, Faisal is a would be king. 278 00:32:53,380 --> 00:32:57,610 The first thing he does is greets the representatives of the religious. 279 00:33:00,640 --> 00:33:05,560 Sects, minorities can see the mufti of Damascus there as well. 280 00:33:05,560 --> 00:33:08,750 And the French soldiers, British soldiers. 281 00:33:08,770 --> 00:33:15,040 It's a fascinating 17 minute silent movie and we have a little project on that. 282 00:33:15,040 --> 00:33:22,510 And hopefully if the French army allows us, then we will also furnish the results with the number of people anyway I can. 283 00:33:23,290 --> 00:33:26,980 It's a great movie. Anyway, okay. 284 00:33:28,150 --> 00:33:36,220 The project, of course, of the United States of Syria never comes through because the French government decides to invade Damascus. 285 00:33:36,760 --> 00:33:43,420 Famously killed the leader of the Ottoman Arab army, philosopher Asma. 286 00:33:43,840 --> 00:33:47,040 And this is the map that usually. No, no. 287 00:33:47,080 --> 00:33:52,540 This is the domain name system in the Middle East sanctified by the Treaty of Rome. 288 00:33:53,200 --> 00:34:03,940 But if we go with the federative and post-imperial idea which we see emerging below, this is large, a large control. 289 00:34:04,300 --> 00:34:07,510 What we see are actually federative projects. 290 00:34:07,510 --> 00:34:17,680 One is the federation. But there are still is it a Syrian federation of the Syrian state, which is actually establish in actually existing polity. 291 00:34:18,310 --> 00:34:23,730 It's a very fascinating story. There is there is actually a federative government. 292 00:34:24,400 --> 00:34:28,990 It's usually framed that the French it was a French army project to divide Syria. 293 00:34:29,920 --> 00:34:34,570 But if we really start from the late autumn and federalist eighties, we can. 294 00:34:34,900 --> 00:34:39,120 And it's very clear to us in the documents that it is demanded by the Syrians themselves, 295 00:34:39,120 --> 00:34:46,360 this is a continuation or of the head of the French answer to the previous Ottoman Arab projects. 296 00:34:47,140 --> 00:34:58,960 The other federate federation is the Sharif in Federation, which we can see as a mobility polity, the kingdom of the Hejaz here, 297 00:34:59,350 --> 00:35:07,840 then the beginning of Imam of the 10th Jordanian Great and the transferred Emir Faisal to Baghdad. 298 00:35:08,200 --> 00:35:19,540 Yet without Mosul, this is how in the early 1920s, the new sheriff and project look like, of course, thankfully without Palestine. 299 00:35:21,370 --> 00:35:25,480 But these two federative projects actually define the moment. 300 00:35:25,840 --> 00:35:35,530 And then we know that, of course, Sharif Hussein even became assume the caliphate in 1924 before his for But for the story of the Syrian state, 301 00:35:35,860 --> 00:35:44,320 this group of exiled activists are the most important is of the success of diaspora outside of the French mandate. 302 00:35:44,620 --> 00:35:47,979 They are all mostly Damascene Aleppo notables. 303 00:35:47,980 --> 00:35:51,640 Schaffer Kassab, one of my main heroes, is sitting in the middle. 304 00:35:52,210 --> 00:35:56,410 They are called the Istiklal Group. The Independent is Hezbollah. 305 00:35:56,550 --> 00:36:04,209 The crown is that they are mostly a Rendon group of people, not they're not everybody sticking together. 306 00:36:04,210 --> 00:36:07,630 They are post-mortem and bourgeois elites. 307 00:36:07,630 --> 00:36:11,650 They are they are Muslim activists and they are. 308 00:36:11,650 --> 00:36:16,630 But their main goal is to somehow get back Damascus from the fringe. 309 00:36:17,140 --> 00:36:26,350 And they are commuting between Amman, Mecca, Jerusalem, Haifa and trying to organise themselves and trying to gain money, 310 00:36:27,370 --> 00:36:35,500 because in 1925, the French created this new state, the state of Syria, by joining the Aleppo and Damascus government. 311 00:36:35,880 --> 00:36:43,600 And the big question is what would happen with the constitution of the state, what kind of state this administrative polity will be? 312 00:36:44,080 --> 00:36:49,810 And there is a struggle over interpretation. The French saying that the constitution is actually an administrative thing. 313 00:36:50,380 --> 00:36:53,980 It is an law of the imperial instrument, the so-called city organic, 314 00:36:54,520 --> 00:36:59,170 which can be just declared by the French powers and perhaps the local populations agree. 315 00:36:59,890 --> 00:37:04,390 The Syrians, many Syrians will think otherwise. They think it's actually a national cause. 316 00:37:04,390 --> 00:37:09,700 It expresses their self-determination, they are real, and so on and so forth. 317 00:37:10,090 --> 00:37:14,590 The struggle over this constitution defines the late 1920s. 318 00:37:15,220 --> 00:37:22,690 The secularists really want to imitate Ataturk in in Turkey. 319 00:37:23,470 --> 00:37:30,650 Why not? The all the other groups are advocating actually for some type of guarantee in Syria. 320 00:37:30,670 --> 00:37:35,080 My favourite project is Ahmed. Name is he was a Circassian, 321 00:37:35,470 --> 00:37:46,750 an ottoman notable with significant landholdings around Aleppo and in 1926 he was the clear favourite of the French to become the king of of Syria. 322 00:37:46,750 --> 00:37:50,560 And actually he was the clear favourite of some Syrian elites as well. 323 00:37:50,890 --> 00:37:55,670 To become the king of Syria, you have to do that. 324 00:37:55,690 --> 00:37:59,200 That petition is actually there was a pact secret that actually made. 325 00:37:59,620 --> 00:38:03,120 Between Ahmed NAMI and DiGiovanni on the day he debuted, 326 00:38:03,130 --> 00:38:09,610 declaring it would have been a kind of Ottoman Franco monarchy, perhaps in a loose association in Lebanon. 327 00:38:10,990 --> 00:38:19,630 My favourite project is of course the Istiklal Project, which is which is making Syria a Saudi monarchy using another face. 328 00:38:19,900 --> 00:38:29,740 The second son of the new Saudi king, Abdulaziz, who later believed in the 1960s the king king facade of Saudi Arabia. 329 00:38:29,740 --> 00:38:36,490 But this time he's a young man and Oka sahib and many other Muslim activists think that. 330 00:38:38,890 --> 00:38:44,380 This emir would be the proper king for the new kingdom of Syria. 331 00:38:44,590 --> 00:38:47,950 In the book, I describe these projects in greater detail. 332 00:38:48,580 --> 00:38:54,430 They are excised from Damascus, so they only only have means of press propaganda and letters and so on and so forth. 333 00:38:54,430 --> 00:39:00,190 But they are very, very forceful and they. 334 00:39:00,310 --> 00:39:09,730 What happens is that finally the secularist Republicans have to concede and there is a secret meeting actually among them. 335 00:39:09,730 --> 00:39:17,950 And out of this came out of this secret meeting, comes out with this solution that this is their network. 336 00:39:18,430 --> 00:39:24,160 Even a hour screen, actually the cream conditioner of an American millionaire give them money. 337 00:39:26,140 --> 00:39:30,250 So and of course, I mean Hussein in the mufti of Jerusalem was was part of them. 338 00:39:31,810 --> 00:39:41,230 And yes, so out of this negotiation from there is the clearly Saudi monarchies and the Security Council comes out with this idea that, 339 00:39:41,230 --> 00:39:45,730 okay, let's make a republic, but it must be with the Muslim president. 340 00:39:47,080 --> 00:39:53,830 And that negotiation, of course, under close French surveillance and I will finish in a moment, 341 00:39:54,310 --> 00:40:01,720 is actually not only a it's not only a symbolic act that the president can be Muslim. 342 00:40:02,200 --> 00:40:08,769 It means that all the previous Sharia institutions of the Ottoman Empire survive and must survive. 343 00:40:08,770 --> 00:40:15,759 So the Sharia courts continue, personal law continues, the religious foundations, the base foundations continue. 344 00:40:15,760 --> 00:40:20,350 So in the economic life and the interest in the individual life, 345 00:40:21,010 --> 00:40:31,030 all these previously Ottoman and Sharia related institutions must continue in this new polity as opposed to Turkey, for instance, 346 00:40:32,290 --> 00:40:39,160 in the indeed, for to just to finish the international legal part of the constitution of the French state 347 00:40:39,460 --> 00:40:45,550 becomes part of an international law and with all the other state that's in the mandate. 348 00:40:46,060 --> 00:40:49,400 So actually the. The Constitution. 349 00:40:49,400 --> 00:40:55,030 The series, the state of Syria is part in this way of international system. 350 00:40:56,050 --> 00:41:03,040 Until today, these are these are I mean, of course, many of these are overwritten by recent events, 351 00:41:03,040 --> 00:41:09,940 but these provide precedents for how a state's making can happen in international law. 352 00:41:10,030 --> 00:41:19,420 And these were deposited at the League of Nations in Arabic and in French and in English, and became part of the international order. 353 00:41:20,650 --> 00:41:24,980 So I conclude this is what I mean on recycling and fire. 354 00:41:26,740 --> 00:41:34,540 We can see the the various routes out of empire, not necessarily through making of this, 355 00:41:34,600 --> 00:41:40,330 through following the nationalist ideology or nationalist movements or not even by Islamism, 356 00:41:40,870 --> 00:41:51,309 but how groups actually are super interested and are striving for for for government to impose their own visions on successive societies, 357 00:41:51,310 --> 00:41:56,290 for participate even from abroad in excluded in in new states formation, 358 00:41:58,420 --> 00:42:07,150 and indeed preserving some previously Muslim imperial particles in the new in the new, in the new polities. 359 00:42:07,900 --> 00:42:16,030 I do think that it is useful to think about monarchy and religion at large in modern state formation in the 20th century in other parts of the world. 360 00:42:17,110 --> 00:42:27,730 As I said, I'm terrible. So I do think that my theory is also useful for Eastern Europe and post-colonial territories and for us also Asia and Africa. 361 00:42:28,450 --> 00:42:34,330 European is feeling hates. This idea to suspending the nation state is a useful concept, but I suggest it. 362 00:42:34,960 --> 00:42:45,670 I think it's healthy. I think federations and blocs is an all new way to think about statehood, perhaps in the next stage with polarisation. 363 00:42:45,670 --> 00:42:56,830 So today, and I do hope that the these ideas may provide some, some, some, some routes, new routes for the Middle East in the future. 364 00:42:57,640 --> 00:43:05,330 Thank you very much for your attention. Adam, thank you so much. 365 00:43:05,510 --> 00:43:08,780 It was actually wonderful to get a tour through the book. 366 00:43:09,470 --> 00:43:17,000 What the driving concepts that address the issue of the Post on World as you would like us to rethink this. 367 00:43:17,600 --> 00:43:22,920 And you're doing so against a tableau that has seen a lot of new scholarship. 368 00:43:22,940 --> 00:43:29,420 There was a time when our partner, Albert Hourani, we're talking about the influences of the modern Middle East, 369 00:43:29,960 --> 00:43:35,660 and then I think the subject is that drop and there seems to be a reversion 370 00:43:35,660 --> 00:43:42,440 and it's a way of trying to maybe centre Europe and its role in the shaping 371 00:43:42,440 --> 00:43:54,680 of the post Ottoman world and maybe looking at either the traces of Ottoman influences or else influences that came from within the region itself, 372 00:43:55,250 --> 00:44:01,350 that might give us a new way to reckon with the way in which sovereign entities emerge, 373 00:44:01,370 --> 00:44:06,950 not to fall into the bestiary of models that I learned will not find favour with your talk tonight. 374 00:44:08,710 --> 00:44:14,070 Know I propose these things and I'm. I know that everybody accepts my ideas. 375 00:44:14,450 --> 00:44:21,109 There are a couple of books that have been addressing elements of your subject that I'd like to bring to the conversation. 376 00:44:21,110 --> 00:44:28,009 And one is Aziz Ansari. Oh yeah, because Aziz had a way of trying to abstract the meaning of kingship, 377 00:44:28,010 --> 00:44:34,760 going right back to earliest Islamic history, but with an eye towards its relevance toward modern times as well. 378 00:44:35,030 --> 00:44:39,020 And I just wonder whether you engage at all with Aziz in your framework. 379 00:44:39,590 --> 00:44:43,670 And of course, Aziz is very important for several reasons for the book. 380 00:44:47,150 --> 00:44:54,350 So Aziz, yes, he has his event, this book on early Islam, this Muslim kitchen. 381 00:44:54,350 --> 00:45:00,200 But there is a I would say it's about Muslim emperors, if I may say so. 382 00:45:00,200 --> 00:45:07,130 It's it's about the universe and Muslim empire that he but he describes and it's a historical 383 00:45:07,310 --> 00:45:13,610 apology of of those ideas and that which in the seventh and ninth or 10th century. 384 00:45:15,740 --> 00:45:17,240 So this is one trick of Aziz. 385 00:45:17,240 --> 00:45:29,900 And I think in the 1920s we have we don't have that kind of ontological or you have some symbols and people do think about monarchical form, 386 00:45:30,380 --> 00:45:36,230 but I do not. These are not these are real political choices. 387 00:45:36,620 --> 00:45:43,100 And it's very clear, for instance, one Rashid reader argues for a Saudi king in Damascus. 388 00:45:43,700 --> 00:45:51,690 He says that it's not because of Islam, it's it's to manage the diversity of this of the country. 389 00:45:51,710 --> 00:45:57,050 He thinks a muslim king is much better than a president first. 390 00:45:58,010 --> 00:46:01,520 Second, because he can as a as a Bedouin, 391 00:46:02,000 --> 00:46:11,360 he can also a good be good against the ruling the nomads of the Syrian desert so he can create security and 392 00:46:12,410 --> 00:46:23,360 and and further the if if if if if it happens that the constituent assembly would not vote for this project, 393 00:46:23,630 --> 00:46:26,480 then the president is better. Hmm. So. 394 00:46:26,660 --> 00:46:34,489 So either this either a Saudi king or then democratically, that he definitely doesn't want the new sheriff in king, which I mean, 395 00:46:34,490 --> 00:46:41,660 of course the the Ashraf are very much they also have their own advocates and actually there are like free I don't know, 396 00:46:41,660 --> 00:46:49,430 I think a monarchical project in the late 1920s as a continuity for the 1930s from Syria. 397 00:46:49,730 --> 00:46:59,330 Okay so so this is about kingship. But Aziz also has another track which was very inspiring me and he has elected me, 398 00:46:59,330 --> 00:47:05,600 has a lecture once I am an atheist, first in error and I think first in English and then in Arabic. 399 00:47:05,600 --> 00:47:16,040 And he asks, he turns to his he mentioned it to an audience and ask what happened that our our course 400 00:47:16,040 --> 00:47:24,190 has been meaning the Arabs concepts the the that we lost the the the Soviet term, 401 00:47:24,350 --> 00:47:28,550 the talking. We describe our history in terms of the European of. 402 00:47:29,180 --> 00:47:35,660 So we use the we don't use the Ottomans of the Ottoman conceptual framework at all. 403 00:47:36,350 --> 00:47:39,820 And what happened when did it happen. Why why did it happen? 404 00:47:39,830 --> 00:47:46,130 How did it happen? And I do think that this moment in the 1920s is the moment where this great transformation happens. 405 00:47:46,430 --> 00:47:51,560 Also in ideological terms, a new new a new Islam is forming as well. 406 00:47:52,130 --> 00:47:59,060 New secular ideologies that are also born in terms really changed their meanings at this moment. 407 00:47:59,060 --> 00:48:02,510 So as his work was very, very inspirational and. 408 00:48:03,910 --> 00:48:12,399 He did actually some version of the book and he was nicely critical and he agreed that should be in budget. 409 00:48:12,400 --> 00:48:15,440 But should we? And then then we went along. 410 00:48:15,460 --> 00:48:21,100 Yes, But, you know, his his take was, of course, that kingship is inimical to Islamic values. 411 00:48:21,220 --> 00:48:24,520 It is an illegitimate form as. 412 00:48:25,540 --> 00:48:31,959 And so I think the interesting thing is you look at sovereign entities coming out of the Ottoman experience and the recycling of empire, 413 00:48:31,960 --> 00:48:36,850 as you stress it is not just the Ottoman imperial imperial experience, 414 00:48:37,270 --> 00:48:42,550 but it will be the concept of the Arab imperial experience emerging from the Arab conquests. 415 00:48:42,970 --> 00:48:47,980 If one looks for the antecedents of Arab kingship and you mentioned eight different projects, I mean, 416 00:48:47,980 --> 00:48:57,460 the ones that stand out for us are going to be the Saudi project and the Hashemite Project, you know, which is a claim for Arab kingship. 417 00:48:58,480 --> 00:49:01,560 This is the terms in which he frames it to the British. 418 00:49:02,320 --> 00:49:06,510 And so the antecedents for that model, if they think about it, 419 00:49:06,550 --> 00:49:14,050 how you grounded in a barrister who might experience and the kind of older notions of kingship that Aziz was struggling with. 420 00:49:14,080 --> 00:49:17,110 So, I mean, I know that there's a time gap between the one and the other, 421 00:49:17,110 --> 00:49:22,570 but the idea of kingship is certainly not European, monarchical, a constitutional monarchy or whatever. 422 00:49:23,050 --> 00:49:31,180 Is something coming from Arab experience that this will be a valid and not a an illegitimate form of government. 423 00:49:31,720 --> 00:49:35,800 So, you know, is there something another element of this argument to to address here? 424 00:49:36,850 --> 00:49:41,600 You know, I'm not really a royalist, so I must confess, I think these are. 425 00:49:41,680 --> 00:49:45,909 You've written the book. Yeah, but this is that. It is. It is a book about kings. 426 00:49:45,910 --> 00:49:49,370 That is not not true. I hope it's clear that it is. 427 00:49:52,150 --> 00:49:57,639 It's not a normative book. I don't. And it's not a book for, you know, how to govern society. 428 00:49:57,640 --> 00:50:01,060 But the monarchy is better than anybody, and I'm not interested in that. 429 00:50:03,160 --> 00:50:10,540 I am very sceptical indeed, in the time this is you and on my addict's memory that I use. 430 00:50:10,540 --> 00:50:15,280 But I'm very sceptical of a thousand year experience. 431 00:50:15,910 --> 00:50:24,610 You know that some people in Damascus, I mean there is a revival in the late 19th century romanticisation of diamond rule, 432 00:50:24,610 --> 00:50:29,200 partly due to Orientalist influence, partly due to their own interest. 433 00:50:29,290 --> 00:50:40,400 That's true. But whether the viable I mean, this is really that this becomes a there is a monarchical ideology in that sense. 434 00:50:41,020 --> 00:50:46,060 I don't see that. I didn't see that in in the documents I'd add or in the newspaper. 435 00:50:46,150 --> 00:50:56,530 So in the sources I didn't see that it's, it's sometimes on the stage as in theatre, it's sometimes there are new historical moment. 436 00:50:56,530 --> 00:51:02,970 So the historical imagination does emerge, which is sometimes royalist, sometimes unseen. 437 00:51:03,370 --> 00:51:13,569 But whether it feeds into the political sphere, I'm not sure there's a huge debate in Damascus in this period really about the republic and monarchy. 438 00:51:13,570 --> 00:51:18,370 And very rarely is the argument, you know, the omens, but also monarchs. 439 00:51:18,370 --> 00:51:27,980 So we should actually make a monarchy. The French imperial administrators, they do see sometimes some slightly essentialist argument that, 440 00:51:28,000 --> 00:51:32,920 yes, yeah, you you only only kings can you do my duty. 441 00:51:32,920 --> 00:51:41,469 So why not make a monarchy? They are not. It's a misunderstanding that the free French want to create republics in the region. 442 00:51:41,470 --> 00:51:48,610 They actually don't care. The only thing they care is that the there should be no revolts and they should stability. 443 00:51:48,610 --> 00:51:53,049 The classical, political, social and the proposed after the current you know, 444 00:51:53,050 --> 00:52:01,120 the after the 1860s the there was a concept of an Arab kingship in Syria that it himself forced himself. 445 00:52:01,870 --> 00:52:04,509 Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Proposed. Yeah, yeah. 446 00:52:04,510 --> 00:52:10,510 So it's just, you know, if you were looking for examples of role models for the idea of kingship in 1920, 447 00:52:11,470 --> 00:52:14,410 Middle Eastern North Africa, you know, no one used that title. 448 00:52:14,410 --> 00:52:20,920 I mean, in Egypt, it wasn't a monarchy until the British decided first to make it a footnote, and then it was a debate. 449 00:52:21,490 --> 00:52:26,280 Yeah, but it was a monarchy. It's. It didn't seem like a princely state. 450 00:52:26,290 --> 00:52:29,710 No, it was. I mean, it's without question. 451 00:52:30,220 --> 00:52:34,660 Well, I mean, it is with question because obviously it's an alternative to the sultan. 452 00:52:35,440 --> 00:52:41,290 Live is not a sovereign monarch in the same way because it is a sort of place for vice regal role. 453 00:52:41,740 --> 00:52:47,230 Yeah. In terms of its value, in terms of Islamic rule, Yes. 454 00:52:47,770 --> 00:52:54,370 I just was struck with the idea of recycling empire. And so Nubian culture, this is something important. 455 00:52:54,850 --> 00:53:01,570 And the concept of kingship is, in a funny way, alien to the region in the 1920s. 456 00:53:02,530 --> 00:53:11,620 So there is this English word kingship, but this suggests something to the English reader. 457 00:53:11,650 --> 00:53:16,830 Right. But I mean, what we do mean is that there are monarchical imaginations. 458 00:53:16,900 --> 00:53:28,010 So this is the title King. We can also discuss it, but that is just a part of of what's what you're talking about is is is, is, 459 00:53:28,060 --> 00:53:34,070 is weathering the political order that there is a function for a dynasty of imagination or not. 460 00:53:34,090 --> 00:53:42,340 And I think that I mean, not only the Middle East, but in all kinds of Muslim empires or local states, 461 00:53:42,370 --> 00:53:48,970 we have, I mean, an immense amount, an immense variety of these dynastic, monarchical imaginations. 462 00:53:49,360 --> 00:53:59,079 You don't have to go back to the alliance to find the ruling Muslim dynasty who are either 463 00:53:59,080 --> 00:54:04,390 subordinate or they consider themselves sovereign in terms of experience of entity. 464 00:54:05,080 --> 00:54:15,620 So I think the you know, I see this there is this historical imagination about, as I said, emerging in the late 19th century. 465 00:54:16,060 --> 00:54:26,320 But but actually, there are these practices which are there from and from Indonesia to to to Africa, 466 00:54:26,320 --> 00:54:31,600 everywhere where there are Muslim societies and Muslim faces, states and governments. 467 00:54:31,600 --> 00:54:37,600 And this is this is what is a main is a main influence at the time. 468 00:54:37,600 --> 00:54:43,420 And indeed, this, for instance, the Indian princely states are very much influential at the time in the region. 469 00:54:43,570 --> 00:54:46,760 Oh, really? Yeah. Room for error. Yeah. 470 00:54:47,840 --> 00:54:59,559 I mean, Rashid read that before the war and he goes to India and circulates and so the already we have this this this the Federation of 471 00:54:59,560 --> 00:55:10,620 Empires is is based on this idea that these are all separate prehistory to basically states 1920s China the little kings of China. 472 00:55:10,630 --> 00:55:17,830 You know, these are bad role models. If one thinks about a sovereign power these are these are the have diminished. 473 00:55:17,830 --> 00:55:24,460 But I don't want to belabour the nomenclature because these guys are going to want to ask you questions to give me one more quick. 474 00:55:25,540 --> 00:55:33,759 You are very legally oriented in your approach and you're looking at courts and constitutions as foundational 475 00:55:33,760 --> 00:55:41,260 institutions for the project that interest you and in the exercise of sovereignty without this free exercise authority. 476 00:55:42,130 --> 00:55:47,220 So. Since you brought up Syria and since you've disagreed with. 477 00:55:47,220 --> 00:55:54,750 Let me talk. So I just want to know what you thought happened to the project of the Rasheed with the Constitution for the Kingdom of Syria. 478 00:55:55,170 --> 00:55:58,170 And I haven't seen whether you engage with it in the book or not. 479 00:55:58,320 --> 00:56:06,990 We talked about it at the manuscript days. And and I just was wondering where where you've gone with because she argues there was one and that 480 00:56:06,990 --> 00:56:15,180 this was what was stolen by the French mandate from what would it be in a democratic order in Syria. 481 00:56:16,080 --> 00:56:23,170 But as you rightly say, there was no. How about when you said Thomson is Elizabeth? 482 00:56:23,230 --> 00:56:26,440 Elizabeth Thomson? Yes. Well, how the Western democracy works. 483 00:56:26,920 --> 00:56:31,690 Sorry, I didn't. That was my bad. And always I talk too much otherwise. 484 00:56:32,770 --> 00:56:37,270 Could you tell us where you stand on you know, did received with the draft the constitution. 485 00:56:38,250 --> 00:56:41,250 That was considered for the kingdom of Syria, the face of Syria. 486 00:56:41,850 --> 00:56:46,530 And why do we not find a copy of it? How do they all have been destroyed? 487 00:56:46,920 --> 00:56:54,840 So first of all, there is there are constitutional rights before that moment that, for instance, this United States of Syria, 488 00:56:54,840 --> 00:57:03,690 it is a constitutional order written by Syrians much before she arrives in Damascus from through Cairo and actually Lebanon. 489 00:57:03,910 --> 00:57:09,720 Yes, some family foundation. First, it takes care of his economic business and then goes to Damascus to do some politics. 490 00:57:10,290 --> 00:57:16,020 So by the time actually, they actually did arrange that under the previous constitutional draft, 491 00:57:16,740 --> 00:57:20,940 first of all, those that are available, they have a depreciation of support. 492 00:57:21,180 --> 00:57:27,200 What does that did for the period? Yes, 1990, some 19 much before Rita arrives. 493 00:57:27,720 --> 00:57:32,010 You got the old excited. So the so it's I mean, but there are other debts as well. 494 00:57:32,770 --> 00:57:37,380 It's exact I haven't found the draft and I, I looked quite seriously. 495 00:57:37,920 --> 00:57:46,860 So my answer is I don't know my profession. And since I don't know that, I mean, very, very likely there was a draft of Russian leader. 496 00:57:47,220 --> 00:57:51,120 Whether it is important, I don't know, because I haven't seen it. 497 00:57:51,540 --> 00:57:58,400 Yes, we have a copy published by someone in the 1930s, and this is what comes on base argument. 498 00:57:59,010 --> 00:58:03,960 We don't know where is the origin of we don't know if this is accurate, whether it is true or not. 499 00:58:04,770 --> 00:58:10,350 There is no mention before the publication of this, so we don't know. 500 00:58:10,570 --> 00:58:15,100 Yeah, and this is my answer. I don't know. I don't know. 501 00:58:15,120 --> 00:58:17,370 But honestly, it's not for me. It's not really. 502 00:58:19,020 --> 00:58:28,110 I mean, it's a detail which is not really important in my in my opinion, it doesn't really matter because as I said, 503 00:58:28,110 --> 00:58:35,100 by the time with the rise and it's it's very late he arrives late 1920 spring and 504 00:58:35,790 --> 00:58:42,989 basically she has he has three months to to participate in the constituent assembly. 505 00:58:42,990 --> 00:58:51,820 All the things are falling apart. It's it's it's it's a very late moment actually in in both of them as Syrian constitutionalism so.