1 00:00:00,120 --> 00:00:03,000 The Oxford Middle East podcast, my name was put this focus, 2 00:00:03,000 --> 00:00:08,130 and today I'm joined by the whole Olympic team to discuss notable events that took place in 2021. 3 00:00:08,130 --> 00:00:17,210 Developments we're keeping an eye on in 2022 and a favourite Middle East related books. 4 00:00:17,210 --> 00:00:21,830 After three and a half years of a crisis that threatens the very core of the Gulf region, 5 00:00:21,830 --> 00:00:26,960 PCC leaders have agreed to end divisions and usher in a new era of cooperation. 6 00:00:26,960 --> 00:00:33,110 Foreign countries are scrambling to evacuate their nationals, including diplomatic staff, from Afghanistan. 7 00:00:33,110 --> 00:00:40,250 The US is also having to consider helping Afghans who work with their forces and making themselves potential targets for the Taliban. 8 00:00:40,250 --> 00:00:44,300 Lebanon is ending the year in a state of paralysis will start in its new year, 9 00:00:44,300 --> 00:00:49,350 and while its cabinet hasn't met for two months, the currency continues to lose value. 10 00:00:49,350 --> 00:00:53,030 An investigation into 2020's poor black by the storm. 11 00:00:53,030 --> 00:01:00,740 We begin in the Middle East, where both Israeli forces and Palestinian militants have stepped up their attacks and the worst fighting seen in years. 12 00:01:00,740 --> 00:01:07,100 The UN now warning of the risk of full scale war. 13 00:01:07,100 --> 00:01:10,850 So hello, everyone, and welcome to our New Year's episode, 14 00:01:10,850 --> 00:01:19,670 what's going to happen today is that each of the people present is going to say what that big event of the past year they'll be 2021 was. 15 00:01:19,670 --> 00:01:26,030 They'll say what they're looking out for in 2022, and then they will also say what their favourite book about the Middle East is. 16 00:01:26,030 --> 00:01:29,720 So we'll do one person at a time and we'll start with you chorionic. So please go ahead. 17 00:01:29,720 --> 00:01:33,650 OK, so I kind of imagining what other people would be talking about. 18 00:01:33,650 --> 00:01:40,490 I decided to kind of go local to my interest in terms of what I thought was a very significant event of 2021. 19 00:01:40,490 --> 00:01:43,670 And that was the was a university, 20 00:01:43,670 --> 00:01:51,680 a student protests in Turkey that took place basically over more than the first half of the year from January up until late August, 21 00:01:51,680 --> 00:02:00,680 basically to contextualise it. Demonstrations broke out on 4th of January against the appointment of Milly Bulu by President Erdogan. 22 00:02:00,680 --> 00:02:07,100 Melbourne, who was appointed as the rector, was the university, which is basically like the dean or central president or whatever, 23 00:02:07,100 --> 00:02:13,670 yet another impingement on sort of academic freedoms and freedom of thought into. 24 00:02:13,670 --> 00:02:21,320 As a result, hundreds of students gathered and academics protested as well, and it wasn't contained only to Istanbul. 25 00:02:21,320 --> 00:02:26,630 But of course, there were protests in Ankara and several other places across Turkey. 26 00:02:26,630 --> 00:02:29,900 And one of the the reason I chose it actually is, first of all, 27 00:02:29,900 --> 00:02:38,420 because you have to take it in the context of what sort of Erdogan's legacy in Turkey and what's been happening since really 2016, 28 00:02:38,420 --> 00:02:43,610 where the coup attempt really sort of resulted in void when trying to exert his 29 00:02:43,610 --> 00:02:49,370 stranglehold of power intellectuals and sort of physical power over Turkey as a whole, 30 00:02:49,370 --> 00:02:55,460 and especially Istanbul, which was still sort of a bastion of quote-unquote left-leaning thought. 31 00:02:55,460 --> 00:03:02,330 So that was one part of it. And the other is Bauhaus at the university itself, which is kind of not just a left leaning university, 32 00:03:02,330 --> 00:03:08,780 but also a university that attracts students from across Turkey of all sort of social classes, 33 00:03:08,780 --> 00:03:17,900 etc. So you would have very sort of conservative Muslim students protesting alongside know pro sort of either whatever communist pro LGBTQ, 34 00:03:17,900 --> 00:03:20,570 whatever it is, students and they were all coming together. 35 00:03:20,570 --> 00:03:26,750 It's very rare to have that happen in Turkey, but they were all coming together to protest this, the appointment of this rector. 36 00:03:26,750 --> 00:03:31,280 I would have loved to have said like if we'd done this a little earlier than, say, halfway through the edit we make. 37 00:03:31,280 --> 00:03:41,480 You know what, maybe this is the sign of Erdogan sort of losing his grip over the over the youth of Turkey etc, which many people had wished it was. 38 00:03:41,480 --> 00:03:49,580 I think it's still significant because it shows that the protest is still alive despite his 18 years in power. 39 00:03:49,580 --> 00:03:56,870 Nonetheless, he has appointed a rector of his own, choosing to replace the same one, so he kind of capitulated, but then did the same thing again. 40 00:03:56,870 --> 00:03:58,310 So we'll see what happens of that. 41 00:03:58,310 --> 00:04:06,410 And that's sort of what I'm looking to see in 2022, whether these protests that are happening at blahs, which sort of continue in a certain way. 42 00:04:06,410 --> 00:04:12,350 And I don't think I think it was a bit naive to hope that maybe these protests 43 00:04:12,350 --> 00:04:17,060 signal a change across Turkey and maybe a shift in Erdogan's power on their own, 44 00:04:17,060 --> 00:04:18,230 at least. 45 00:04:18,230 --> 00:04:28,010 And we've seen that with his appointing the next rector on his own, as well as opening to more faculty departments as part of a midnight order. 46 00:04:28,010 --> 00:04:32,300 But I do think that and it should be mentioned that the current tanking of the lira, 47 00:04:32,300 --> 00:04:42,050 which is ongoing and is currently dropped by about 40 percent over the year against the dollar and 30 percent in November alone, 48 00:04:42,050 --> 00:04:48,290 it will be interesting to see whether who sort of first came into power with the very strong economic policy, 49 00:04:48,290 --> 00:04:55,970 whether this will sort of add to sort of the ongoing sort of intellectual quote-unquote intellectual protest against him, 50 00:04:55,970 --> 00:05:03,710 whether this will actually be backed by a sort of very serious economic considerations of the people, particularly after a pandemic. 51 00:05:03,710 --> 00:05:08,450 So I think that it would be interesting to see whether any of this actually shifts 52 00:05:08,450 --> 00:05:12,740 Erdogan's power and in which case how that would affect the larger region. 53 00:05:12,740 --> 00:05:18,920 And your book the book I chose is Schauf Shah's by a Polish journalist whose name I'm going to butcher, 54 00:05:18,920 --> 00:05:27,980 but I'm going to try anyway, which is Richard Kapuscinski. It was written in 1980, published in 1982, and it's a really short book. 55 00:05:27,980 --> 00:05:35,780 It's by no means sort of like if you want a complete history of the Iranian Revolution, this is not it. 56 00:05:35,780 --> 00:05:36,650 But nonetheless, 57 00:05:36,650 --> 00:05:48,540 it's a really good account of basically the decline of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi and sort of the rise of Khomeini from a journalistic perspective. 58 00:05:48,540 --> 00:05:51,170 So he was in Iran at the time he was holed up in a hotel. 59 00:05:51,170 --> 00:05:58,950 He's by no means an Iran expert and that sense, he doesn't know Farsi or anything, but that's what he is an expert on sort of report. 60 00:05:58,950 --> 00:06:02,690 He was a war correspondent and a foreign correspondent who he has reported. 61 00:06:02,690 --> 00:06:06,620 You know, I think he reported about like 27 coups and revolutions. 62 00:06:06,620 --> 00:06:08,510 Over the course of his career, 63 00:06:08,510 --> 00:06:18,560 so when he's no expert on Iran and I'm sure many people can sort of read into that in some way as hysteria types the Middle East, 64 00:06:18,560 --> 00:06:24,830 but in other ways, he sort of is very sympathetic to the Iranian people, which is not something that happened at the time. 65 00:06:24,830 --> 00:06:31,280 At the time, it was very much. Why would they sort of go against democracy and choose Khamenei, etc., etc.? 66 00:06:31,280 --> 00:06:37,490 A lot of the writing that came out of that time was sort of baffled at this quote unquote backward shift. 67 00:06:37,490 --> 00:06:46,160 But what he does instead is show the kind of suffering that is endured by the Iranian people under the Shah and under his the SAVAK, 68 00:06:46,160 --> 00:06:50,000 which is the secret police. And he's a very good writer as well. 69 00:06:50,000 --> 00:06:54,830 And he went through and it needed to rein in history and who wants? 70 00:06:54,830 --> 00:06:58,760 An easy read is less than 200 pages, but it's beautifully written. 71 00:06:58,760 --> 00:07:03,110 So this is what I chose for today's podcast. Perfect. 72 00:07:03,110 --> 00:07:13,210 And guy, you're next. So my big event was the fall of Kabul and the withdrawal of the American forces from Afghanistan. 73 00:07:13,210 --> 00:07:14,730 And that's pretty massive. 74 00:07:14,730 --> 00:07:25,050 And the notion of a 20 year war since 9-11 and with the defeat of the Americans and kind of that humiliation, which is which is pretty important. 75 00:07:25,050 --> 00:07:31,140 I think it's really humiliated the Americans in the region and in the world as a whole and marks 76 00:07:31,140 --> 00:07:38,700 the sort of slow drawback and withdrawal of American power in the region and the wider world. 77 00:07:38,700 --> 00:07:43,320 There's also going to be a massive economic crisis. There is an economic crisis in Afghanistan. 78 00:07:43,320 --> 00:07:50,430 You've got a lot of commentators saying there's going to be potentially a humanitarian catastrophe since a lot of people 79 00:07:50,430 --> 00:07:58,140 in Afghanistan were villains and sort of rent your system with foreign aid and doing the funds going to feeding people, 80 00:07:58,140 --> 00:08:04,740 basically. Now those funds have been frozen and even frozen nine point five million dollars, I think, in the central bank. 81 00:08:04,740 --> 00:08:09,210 The Taliban are really going to struggle to look after the people in general. 82 00:08:09,210 --> 00:08:17,450 On top of that, it's a war torn country. So it's going to be a bit of a mess. Besides that, you've also got the Qataris and you support one faction. 83 00:08:17,450 --> 00:08:23,180 And Pakistan is just another. And you've got other regional players like China, Iran, 84 00:08:23,180 --> 00:08:31,370 who are also going to try and have influence in some somewhere or another one looking out for in 2022 is kind of similar to that. 85 00:08:31,370 --> 00:08:38,000 Related to that, so I'm interested in China's how China is going to step into the shoes. 86 00:08:38,000 --> 00:08:45,050 I suppose you could say that the US left. They won't be the same kind of vibe to China's its own special way of doing things with a 87 00:08:45,050 --> 00:08:51,290 lot more money than thinking a lot less going for human rights and apostrophes or whatever. 88 00:08:51,290 --> 00:08:58,220 It will be interesting to see how they express their interests and pursue their interests in places like China Central Central Asia, 89 00:08:58,220 --> 00:09:06,050 which are both incredibly important for the Belt and Road Initiative. And as well, how they relate to the Gulf countries, not be fun. 90 00:09:06,050 --> 00:09:13,850 Yeah, especially in the context we can't forget of rising antagonism or rhetoric of rising antagonism between East and West. 91 00:09:13,850 --> 00:09:17,510 I think everyone will notice that they can last couple of years, 92 00:09:17,510 --> 00:09:23,750 China from being a sort of neutral place that typically think about in an adversarial sense. 93 00:09:23,750 --> 00:09:30,410 Now, a lot of people in Western countries are talking about China as the next enemy and a Cold War 2.0. 94 00:09:30,410 --> 00:09:33,980 So it be interesting in this Cold War to see which side the Middle Eastern 95 00:09:33,980 --> 00:09:38,600 countries or countries of that region will choose if they have to choose sides. 96 00:09:38,600 --> 00:09:41,210 If the Americans were Persian, if the Chinese were Christian, 97 00:09:41,210 --> 00:09:47,750 I'm excited to see my book that I've chosen is Osman or the CPI that's got so completely unrelated. 98 00:09:47,750 --> 00:09:49,720 I have scores of British Turkish journalists. 99 00:09:49,720 --> 00:09:58,670 She goes to Turkey before she gets bombed in search of traces of the Ottoman Empire, usually in the form of minorities. 100 00:09:58,670 --> 00:10:09,380 So she talks the Afro Turks, who are descendants of slaves in Turkey and have their own sort of culture and their own understanding of self. 101 00:10:09,380 --> 00:10:15,650 She talks to Bosniaks, who don't speak Turkish but have a strong connexion to well. 102 00:10:15,650 --> 00:10:23,640 They have an adoration for all of the world in the Ottoman Empire, and a lot of it is about narco nationalism swept away all of this. 103 00:10:23,640 --> 00:10:30,390 Heterogeneity, but traces of it still remain, which is pretty exciting and true, then it is my turn. 104 00:10:30,390 --> 00:10:38,190 My big event of the votes relates is well, the first was the Israeli elections because after over a decade in power, 105 00:10:38,190 --> 00:10:42,750 Netanyahu finally left under a cloud of controversy. 106 00:10:42,750 --> 00:10:46,620 And I was very happy to see that because I thought he was an odious man. 107 00:10:46,620 --> 00:10:52,710 The unfortunate situation is that my most of hopes of it being an improvement or the new government 108 00:10:52,710 --> 00:10:57,810 being an improvement over the open were dashed when in May the Israelis started bombing Gaza, 109 00:10:57,810 --> 00:11:05,190 which is the second half of my big event of the year. There's only, you know, my big events of the year because it was sad and horrific what happened. 110 00:11:05,190 --> 00:11:11,100 But what I did realise and so of you might have realised that as well was how active it seemed. 111 00:11:11,100 --> 00:11:19,140 People in the West were about it like it seemed to be much more prevalent on social media than previous Israeli incursions in the West Bank into Gaza, 112 00:11:19,140 --> 00:11:25,680 and friends of mine who had never really cared about the conflict before God got in touch with me. 113 00:11:25,680 --> 00:11:30,930 And in order to ask me if I could send them good articles or give them some information about why it was happening, 114 00:11:30,930 --> 00:11:36,660 whether they could donate to and the fact that and their twins, Mohammed had concluded that no, 115 00:11:36,660 --> 00:11:44,040 no, I think they both also were named by Time Magazine as amongst the 100 most influential people in the world, 116 00:11:44,040 --> 00:11:48,420 which shows how big the Palestine question has become the last year. 117 00:11:48,420 --> 00:11:56,010 So for me, those were very encouraging developments, despite the very sad situation in which they happened. 118 00:11:56,010 --> 00:12:00,060 So on the other hand, like Gaza and Israel, Jordan and Israel as a whole is very sad. 119 00:12:00,060 --> 00:12:05,580 The fact that it is getting so much more attention is is very positive and also shows that the actually, 120 00:12:05,580 --> 00:12:13,260 I'll just call it propaganda of Israel at times hasn't been quite as effective in amongst younger people as it has amongst older people. 121 00:12:13,260 --> 00:12:16,680 The thing I'm looking out for next year is two of them. 122 00:12:16,680 --> 00:12:20,880 One of is the same as last year, which is the death of the Saudi king. 123 00:12:20,880 --> 00:12:28,170 I'm not looking forward necessarily, but I'm very curious what's going to happen if he dies just as I was one year ago? 124 00:12:28,170 --> 00:12:31,980 Because if he dies, he is part of the old guard of Middle Eastern leaders. 125 00:12:31,980 --> 00:12:37,110 And will that change? For example, Saudi Arabia's stance towards Israel also will. 126 00:12:37,110 --> 00:12:44,850 That's caused. These changes are currently happening in Saudi Arabia to go even faster because Mohammed bin Salman now feels that as king, 127 00:12:44,850 --> 00:12:49,890 he has even more absolute power than than he already does. 128 00:12:49,890 --> 00:12:54,210 So that's for me, you're going to be interested in. The second thing is the normalisation with Syria. 129 00:12:54,210 --> 00:12:59,850 In October, the Jordanian king had a phone call with Assad. Assad has also been visited. 130 00:12:59,850 --> 00:13:06,210 The UAE and Syria will host the energy conference in 2024. 131 00:13:06,210 --> 00:13:12,630 So it does seem that these countries, unfortunately are repairing their relationships with with Assad, 132 00:13:12,630 --> 00:13:17,230 which you know again, he is also an even more odious man than Netanyahu was. 133 00:13:17,230 --> 00:13:22,030 So I'm a bit disappointed, I guess, that he is being allowed back into the fold. 134 00:13:22,030 --> 00:13:26,520 But on the other hand, I also totally understand that you can't keep him out forever, 135 00:13:26,520 --> 00:13:30,960 even though I feel that would be the more reasonable approach regarding books. 136 00:13:30,960 --> 00:13:34,290 My books are the same as last year, so I'm not going to mention them. 137 00:13:34,290 --> 00:13:42,000 But what I'm instead of going to do is mention the people who were on this episode last year predicted just to see how everything's gone. 138 00:13:42,000 --> 00:13:49,290 The first thing is Felix. He mentioned the Libyan Civil War, which I guess has had a relatively positive development. 139 00:13:49,290 --> 00:13:54,090 There's been a rapprochement between Turkey and the southern and opposite sides of the war there anymore. 140 00:13:54,090 --> 00:14:02,670 Not as much. The Libyans also announced elections in which the son of Gadhafi is going to run, if I'm not mistaken. 141 00:14:02,670 --> 00:14:06,060 So hopefully it doesn't win because that will be a bit of a sad state of affairs. 142 00:14:06,060 --> 00:14:09,720 Michael mentioned that he was looking out for Biden's approach to Iran and the 143 00:14:09,720 --> 00:14:16,170 JCPOA and the re-entry of America or Iran into the JCPOA has so far not happened. 144 00:14:16,170 --> 00:14:22,260 And especially because of the current Iranian government, you know, there has been very little progress. 145 00:14:22,260 --> 00:14:28,620 On the other hand, many Israeli intelligence and military officials have said that Netanyahu's Iran policy, 146 00:14:28,620 --> 00:14:34,080 which was very much in line with Trump's Iran policy, was a narrow minded and counterproductive policy. 147 00:14:34,080 --> 00:14:41,880 So at least it seems to be a bit of reflection on that side. Freddy mentioned the normalisation of Arab states with Israel. 148 00:14:41,880 --> 00:14:50,550 There hasn't been any progress there after a record in Morocco, Bahrain both normalised relations, but that has been fairly inconsequential. 149 00:14:50,550 --> 00:14:56,610 I mentioned the Saudi king he is still alive has looked at more Arab involvement on Morocco side in the Western Sahara, 150 00:14:56,610 --> 00:15:00,730 but I haven't been able to find any clear information on developments like the 151 00:15:00,730 --> 00:15:05,840 U.N. peacekeeping mission was renewed and Algeria has closed its space tomorrow. 152 00:15:05,840 --> 00:15:11,790 But that's it. But we have done an episode on sort of recommend people who haven't done so to listen to it. 153 00:15:11,790 --> 00:15:15,990 Rose looked at how Iran was doing, and the answer to that is incredibly poorly. 154 00:15:15,990 --> 00:15:23,140 The inflation is above 40 percent. There's been water protests, there's a massive number of COVID deaths, and they have had their. 155 00:15:23,140 --> 00:15:31,030 An immersive quotation marks earlier this year, Max also looks at elections, and he was hopeful, 156 00:15:31,030 --> 00:15:37,930 but in the end they ended up going the wrong way and the hardliners won and Helena hope that Lebanon situation would improve. 157 00:15:37,930 --> 00:15:43,660 And that has absolutely no happened as blackouts, as a lack of medicine, the sectarian violence. 158 00:15:43,660 --> 00:15:50,110 So overall, the outlook from last year has not been very good for this year. 159 00:15:50,110 --> 00:15:54,280 With that, my thought is done. So go ahead, Isabella. All right. 160 00:15:54,280 --> 00:16:03,040 Well, actually, as I was listening to Guy, got me thinking a little bit more about my big event for 2021. 161 00:16:03,040 --> 00:16:09,820 And I actually began to think even more about, say, gender relations, which is actually a big interest of mine. 162 00:16:09,820 --> 00:16:15,160 So what I had previously planned to talk about is actually going to shift a little bit, so I'll be answering differently. 163 00:16:15,160 --> 00:16:25,390 But like Guy, my big event from 2021 being from the US and living in the US this past year before coming to Oxford was, 164 00:16:25,390 --> 00:16:32,590 of course, the fall of Kabul and the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan being in the US when this happened. 165 00:16:32,590 --> 00:16:41,170 Obviously, this was huge news and was highly controversial in the US, just as it was everywhere around the world, news wise. 166 00:16:41,170 --> 00:16:46,990 So I know there were lots of people in the US that were for the withdrawal to say quote, 167 00:16:46,990 --> 00:16:52,210 end the war, bring the soldiers back home, all of those, all of that kind of rhetoric. 168 00:16:52,210 --> 00:16:55,930 And then there were plenty of other people in the US that were highly concerned about 169 00:16:55,930 --> 00:17:01,600 how hasty this withdrawal would be and what situation it would leave Afghanistan in. 170 00:17:01,600 --> 00:17:10,930 And as we have seen, the fallout has been pretty, pretty serious with the fall of Kabul and the Taliban's effective takeover. 171 00:17:10,930 --> 00:17:22,060 I think what I'm sort of looking out for in 2022 as a result is to see what will occur with women's rights in Afghanistan and gender relations. 172 00:17:22,060 --> 00:17:25,690 I know that the Taliban has answered several questions. 173 00:17:25,690 --> 00:17:32,320 I think even NPR. One of NPR's journalists has interviewed a member of the Taliban and received 174 00:17:32,320 --> 00:17:36,670 answers sort of based on women's rights such as all women will have rights. 175 00:17:36,670 --> 00:17:38,860 They will be quote, respected all of these things. 176 00:17:38,860 --> 00:17:45,880 But there has also been other sources saying that that's not really what's occurring as of right now. 177 00:17:45,880 --> 00:17:54,130 There's been talk of even forced marriages occurring in Afghanistan between Taliban soldiers and women. 178 00:17:54,130 --> 00:18:02,890 So it will be interesting to see how women's rights are negotiated by Taliban leadership. 179 00:18:02,890 --> 00:18:10,300 And that's what I'm sort of looking out for in 2022 is what gender relations and the situation for women will look like in Afghanistan. 180 00:18:10,300 --> 00:18:16,300 And your book, the book would be for reminding me that would probably be. 181 00:18:16,300 --> 00:18:24,460 I took a course when I was an undergrad called Peoples and Cultures of the Middle East, and we read several ethnography in the course. 182 00:18:24,460 --> 00:18:29,560 The course actually sealed my interest in Middle Eastern studies. One book I remember, I think it was the first one we wrote. 183 00:18:29,560 --> 00:18:33,670 Actually, that really made an impact on me and sort of made me very interested, 184 00:18:33,670 --> 00:18:39,220 especially in gender relations in the Middle East was by an anthropologist, 185 00:18:39,220 --> 00:18:47,770 Palestinian-American anthropologist named Leila Abu Lugo, and this ethnography that, she wrote, was called veiled sentiments. 186 00:18:47,770 --> 00:18:53,740 And it was written during the time she was with a Bedouin community in the western desert of Egypt. 187 00:18:53,740 --> 00:18:58,090 So she studied gender relations and oral lyric poetry of young men and women. 188 00:18:58,090 --> 00:19:11,470 So I I really enjoyed the book, and it just made me more interested in Middle Eastern studies as a discipline and specifically in gender relations. 189 00:19:11,470 --> 00:19:18,070 Oliver, are you ready? So my big event from 2021, which is the very big event, 190 00:19:18,070 --> 00:19:25,570 sadly links to one of the sort of looking forwards from last year, which is the descent of Lebanon into further crisis. 191 00:19:25,570 --> 00:19:33,820 Obviously, after the very explosion of August 2020, there was hope with money coming in from abroad and that, you know, 192 00:19:33,820 --> 00:19:40,120 Lebanon might, with the coming of 2021, might be looking up as was hoped by someone on the podcast last year. 193 00:19:40,120 --> 00:19:43,300 But as you mentioned, just already, sadly, that hasn't been the case. 194 00:19:43,300 --> 00:19:50,710 The already crushing inflation, which was which has been going on since 2019, has has gotten worse and worse with, I believe, 195 00:19:50,710 --> 00:19:52,990 the Lebanese pound on the black market in January, 196 00:19:52,990 --> 00:20:00,270 beating at about nine thousand Lebanese pounds to the dollar where it today stands a 28 and a half thousand to the dollar. 197 00:20:00,270 --> 00:20:07,120 So obviously that's led to a lot of the country plunging. I think about more than 80 percent of the country is now living in poverty. 198 00:20:07,120 --> 00:20:14,620 Obviously, the financial crisis has led to fuel shortages, which have been very widely publicised with, I believe in October, 199 00:20:14,620 --> 00:20:22,920 the two main power stations in the country shutting down, leaving the country completely without electricity, which we've seen during the pandemic. 200 00:20:22,920 --> 00:20:25,530 Is even more disastrous because, you know, 201 00:20:25,530 --> 00:20:31,800 this has led to hospitals not having having electricity and having to count on generators which are run by diesel, 202 00:20:31,800 --> 00:20:35,880 which then hasn't been available either. So for me, that's been a really big thing. 203 00:20:35,880 --> 00:20:44,670 I visited Lebanon myself in January of this year and I was able to see the the effects of inflation and also got caught up in a huge COVID lockdown, 204 00:20:44,670 --> 00:20:54,450 which seems very unfair on the people because all shops were closed and left people with no way of getting essential things which they needed. 205 00:20:54,450 --> 00:21:01,830 There has been a tiny positive point, which is that in September, Lebanon finally got a new government which which resigned. 206 00:21:01,830 --> 00:21:05,460 The previous government resigned after the explosion, of course, in 2020. 207 00:21:05,460 --> 00:21:15,360 I am not too optimistic about it because the government is led by Rashid Mikati, who's been prime minister a few times before. 208 00:21:15,360 --> 00:21:23,820 He's well known Lebanese billionaire. Well, I think of the well looks of Lebanon and feels a completely new approach is needed. 209 00:21:23,820 --> 00:21:31,590 Mikati hails from exactly the same political class of people who led Lebanon into the crisis, which is now. 210 00:21:31,590 --> 00:21:35,190 So that was a really big thing for me, which I'm certainly not too optimistic about. 211 00:21:35,190 --> 00:21:45,630 And then the thing I'm looking out for in 2022 is Lebanon's neighbour, which is the further development of the conflict in Syria. 212 00:21:45,630 --> 00:21:53,580 Obviously, the Syrian conflict was really, really publicised in 2015 2011, with ISIS rising to power. 213 00:21:53,580 --> 00:21:57,540 But now, for quite a long time, people seem to sort of forgotten about it. 214 00:21:57,540 --> 00:22:06,240 Well, actually, I think we're further away from a solution there than than we have in Syria ever has been in the north of the country. 215 00:22:06,240 --> 00:22:16,740 There's this military stalemate, which is hugely complex, obviously being the battle ground for a proxy war and then the political stalemate where, 216 00:22:16,740 --> 00:22:23,220 for example, in October, the Syrian Constitutional Committee in Geneva failed to draught a constitution. 217 00:22:23,220 --> 00:22:28,770 And then of course, there were the elections in 2021 as well, 218 00:22:28,770 --> 00:22:39,420 the first since 2014 where Assad won much five percent of the vote and now has been sworn in as president until 2028. 219 00:22:39,420 --> 00:22:48,150 So I'm really looking out to see any developments, but again, I'm not very hopeful because it seems that not much is going to be changing. 220 00:22:48,150 --> 00:22:55,380 And all the while, the people of Syria have had horrendous poverty and hunger have reached an all time high, 221 00:22:55,380 --> 00:23:00,000 prices of essential products have gone up by hundreds of presents. 222 00:23:00,000 --> 00:23:10,230 But I always look forward to 2022 or perhaps beyond with with with some hope, even though that is sort of tucked away behind lesser expectation. 223 00:23:10,230 --> 00:23:14,680 And then my favourite book at the moment, obviously, it's very hard to pick links in with this. 224 00:23:14,680 --> 00:23:22,770 It is the book called Destroying a Nation The Civil War in Syria, which has only come out in 2017. 225 00:23:22,770 --> 00:23:31,920 Being Dutch, I have to bring liberal Dutch element into this is written by Nicholas van Dung, who is a Dutch scholar but also very, 226 00:23:31,920 --> 00:23:40,560 very experienced Dutch diplomat who was ambassador to string of countries including Iraq, Egypt and Turkey, many others. 227 00:23:40,560 --> 00:23:50,790 And in 2015, he was appointed the Dutch special envoy to Syria. So he has an unparalleled combination of experience and knowledge of Syria. 228 00:23:50,790 --> 00:23:56,700 And the book is obviously a comprehensive account of the Syrian conflict. 229 00:23:56,700 --> 00:24:02,250 But it's also very clear. And the great thing of it is that Nicholas Winton dedicates a huge portion of it, 230 00:24:02,250 --> 00:24:11,640 as is necessary to understanding the conflict to the rise of the Baath Party and basically huge summary of Baathist history, 231 00:24:11,640 --> 00:24:16,230 which enables because so many things are linked. The conflict doesn't stand alone. 232 00:24:16,230 --> 00:24:24,720 In 2011, so many things have been running in Syria since the 70s and 80s, which have just been waiting to burst, as they did. 233 00:24:24,720 --> 00:24:30,330 And I think I really enjoyed about the book as well is that obviously Nicholas went on being a diplomat. 234 00:24:30,330 --> 00:24:41,790 He also dedicates quite a bit at the end to looking forward to potential ways that can be done about to to find a solution or two potential scenarios, 235 00:24:41,790 --> 00:24:48,970 which again, then sadly look very promising for at least the next year, but hopefully, hopefully in the future. 236 00:24:48,970 --> 00:24:53,940 So I can definitely recommend it to anyone who has an interest in Syria because it is a fantastic, 237 00:24:53,940 --> 00:25:00,930 fantastically written book as well by someone who has really, really great knowledge of the region. 238 00:25:00,930 --> 00:25:05,850 Go ahead, Adam. So for me, point twenty one has been obviously, 239 00:25:05,850 --> 00:25:12,630 it's been extremely eventful in terms of political events in the Middle East that will be called the Middle East. 240 00:25:12,630 --> 00:25:18,690 I would say Southwest Asia. I would say that my most important thing was in Palestine. 241 00:25:18,690 --> 00:25:22,380 What happened in May? The events in May in Palestine has been. 242 00:25:22,380 --> 00:25:28,430 They have been. Something I wouldn't say, maybe maybe it's it's a stretch to say that they were unprecedented, 243 00:25:28,430 --> 00:25:32,510 but they were definitely something that we haven't seen in a while. 244 00:25:32,510 --> 00:25:38,060 And the reason wasn't because of the violence. It wasn't because of the scale of the events. 245 00:25:38,060 --> 00:25:42,500 It was because Palestinians from all over the world, but most importantly, 246 00:25:42,500 --> 00:25:50,060 inside of Israel Palestine, have been able to find unity in their struggle against Zionism. 247 00:25:50,060 --> 00:25:55,460 And I've been speaking to people in Haifa, I've been speaking to people in Nazareth, 248 00:25:55,460 --> 00:26:01,430 I've been speaking to people in the West Bank and in Gaza, and they were all saying the same thing. 249 00:26:01,430 --> 00:26:09,830 We, for the first time since forever feel united, and it was quite incredible to see how there is. 250 00:26:09,830 --> 00:26:16,030 It was, it was a clear example of colonial violence being exercised on an indigenous population. 251 00:26:16,030 --> 00:26:24,160 If you look at it from that lens and you could see how the result of that war was a defeat for Israel. 252 00:26:24,160 --> 00:26:26,440 And the definition of that is because, I mean, 253 00:26:26,440 --> 00:26:32,440 I would say that because I think that the definition of colonial war is that if the coloniser doesn't win, 254 00:26:32,440 --> 00:26:39,700 it means that the colonised or the indigenous succeeds in the struggle because they prevail, which is what happened in Gaza. 255 00:26:39,700 --> 00:26:43,540 So, yeah, that was quite quite an extra extraordinary event for me. 256 00:26:43,540 --> 00:26:49,630 And I thought it was very inspiring and also stressful for everyone in the Diaspora. 257 00:26:49,630 --> 00:26:52,540 But yeah, no, that was absolutely incredible. 258 00:26:52,540 --> 00:26:59,770 So that's why I would say what anyone looking ahead into point twenty two, I'm very curious what's going to happen with the US one? 259 00:26:59,770 --> 00:27:07,540 I think it's coming to a head now. You know, it's interesting how different interests are coming into clash there, 260 00:27:07,540 --> 00:27:11,920 especially with it's interesting to see the contrast between the leadership of 261 00:27:11,920 --> 00:27:17,600 Egypt before 2011 and then during the short Mubarak period than now with Sisi. 262 00:27:17,600 --> 00:27:22,810 How basically they have no idea what they're doing in a way. 263 00:27:22,810 --> 00:27:33,280 And they know that they can't intervene militarily, but they are willing to say that they are, but they can't do it because of us influence and so on. 264 00:27:33,280 --> 00:27:39,880 But I would hope that they could find an Africa centred or the region centred solution to that crisis, 265 00:27:39,880 --> 00:27:46,870 because I think there's potential to solve it and to fight for every country to benefit from the Nile. 266 00:27:46,870 --> 00:27:52,690 But it will require a lot of support, probably on the diplomatic side, and I'm not sure that it's even possible, 267 00:27:52,690 --> 00:28:01,090 especially since Sudan right now is in turmoil after Duke's resignation and lots of protests in the streets. 268 00:28:01,090 --> 00:28:06,850 But hopefully it will. Just for clarification, you said. But do you mean the Ethiopian renaissance? 269 00:28:06,850 --> 00:28:11,170 Oh yeah. George Miller Yes. Yes, yes, of course. 270 00:28:11,170 --> 00:28:16,990 I mean, the Ethiopian Renaissance Dam. Yeah, yeah, that's one dam is just there. 271 00:28:16,990 --> 00:28:21,760 That was quite a big as well. But yeah, that was that was news in the fifties, wasn't it? 272 00:28:21,760 --> 00:28:34,420 No. Yeah. And then my favourite book relating to Southwest Asia Africa is definitely brighter on the floor by Marie Maryvale Barbosa, 273 00:28:34,420 --> 00:28:41,410 which translates to I saw Home Alone by Mudgal Barghouti, who was a Palestinian poet and a writer. 274 00:28:41,410 --> 00:28:47,350 And I love that book because it really when I first read it in English and then I read it in Arabic later on. 275 00:28:47,350 --> 00:28:52,490 And it was interesting for me because it really spoke to me and my experience of. 276 00:28:52,490 --> 00:28:57,740 Going to Palestine as someone who was distanced from that place for a long time, 277 00:28:57,740 --> 00:29:05,620 even though it was obviously different from him because he's going back to Palestine after 30 years of not being there, 278 00:29:05,620 --> 00:29:11,840 10 years due to the occupation and his exile in Egypt and elsewhere. 279 00:29:11,840 --> 00:29:16,430 But the feeling was very similar, and it's written in a really beautiful, 280 00:29:16,430 --> 00:29:21,050 poetic language, which actually you can appreciate even with the translation. 281 00:29:21,050 --> 00:29:26,510 So, yeah, I would definitely recommend everyone reading it and it and it gives this very human, 282 00:29:26,510 --> 00:29:31,880 very personal view of the situation of what does it mean to be a Palestinian? 283 00:29:31,880 --> 00:29:35,960 What does it mean to be Palestinian in exile? What does it mean? A Palestinian Palestine? 284 00:29:35,960 --> 00:29:44,300 And it shows the seldom shown reality of the slope of this. 285 00:29:44,300 --> 00:29:54,620 Wall between the Diaspora and. The people who are still in Palestine and how difficult it is to really know what does it mean to go back to Palestine? 286 00:29:54,620 --> 00:30:05,120 He says this one thing in the book, which stuck with me, which is we will know that we've returned to Palestine only when we will get bored of it, 287 00:30:05,120 --> 00:30:14,000 when we will get bored of the scenery, when we are exhausted by the heat and we stop romanticising this land, 288 00:30:14,000 --> 00:30:19,270 which is a land, you know, that's what it is. But because we've lost it. 289 00:30:19,270 --> 00:30:28,300 This is why we cherish it so much, or this is why we cling so inch to it, even though it's completely ordinary, basically. 290 00:30:28,300 --> 00:30:35,580 So when we would get bored of it, when we are, when we were fed up with it, this is when we returned. 291 00:30:35,580 --> 00:30:48,510 So massive go ahead. So my big event from 2021 actually happened right at the beginning of 2021, which was the resolution of the Qatar crisis. 292 00:30:48,510 --> 00:30:59,830 You know, I think this is really indicative of Saudi Arabia and the UAE is I did sort of like turn a page and seek to manage or resolve and resolve, 293 00:30:59,830 --> 00:31:04,850 you know, regional conflicts through dialogue and diplomacy rather than through conflict. 294 00:31:04,850 --> 00:31:11,830 I think we're going to see this play out over the next year and the normalisation of relations with Syria, which, you know, 295 00:31:11,830 --> 00:31:18,430 is consistently going on as it becomes more and more clear that it looks like Bashar al-Assad is going to win the Syrian Civil War. 296 00:31:18,430 --> 00:31:27,430 And, you know, the continued normalisation of relations between Israel and the various Arab states in the region, especially in the Gulf sweet. 297 00:31:27,430 --> 00:31:30,970 The upcoming year at the upcoming thing you're looking out for? 298 00:31:30,970 --> 00:31:36,490 Or would that be the Syrian thing? No. So the upcoming thing, we're going to go across the region. 299 00:31:36,490 --> 00:31:41,110 So I specialise in Jordan and historically in Jordan and Iraq. 300 00:31:41,110 --> 00:31:45,190 So neither of these events strangely have anything to do with Iraq or Jordan. 301 00:31:45,190 --> 00:31:50,200 But what I'm looking forward to next year is the upcoming elections in Libya. 302 00:31:50,200 --> 00:31:58,480 So, you know, this cease fire was brokered in 2020 by the UN, and then elections were supposed to happen at the end of December. 303 00:31:58,480 --> 00:32:03,310 They did have to be postponed until the end of January 2022, 304 00:32:03,310 --> 00:32:09,100 so it'll be exciting to see how the first comprehensive elections since the Arab Spring and 305 00:32:09,100 --> 00:32:12,790 the peace agreement between the government of National Accord and General Haftar's forces. 306 00:32:12,790 --> 00:32:16,990 And you know, it's going to be really interesting to see what the elections in the united Libya look like, 307 00:32:16,990 --> 00:32:23,830 because whoever does end up becoming the leader of Libya faces a series of challenges with just reconciliation from the Civil War. 308 00:32:23,830 --> 00:32:30,880 Normalisation of relations with Arab neighbours, as well as the European Union, the United Nations, the United States and, you know, 309 00:32:30,880 --> 00:32:36,130 the ongoing conflict in the Eastern Mediterranean over petrochemical hydrocarbon resources there, 310 00:32:36,130 --> 00:32:43,030 which I think Libya is increasingly going to become a player between that conflict with Turkey, Israel and Egypt. 311 00:32:43,030 --> 00:32:52,180 Do you have any faith in the elections? Because I mean, it's the one big thing that's sort of restored faith for me was when they said when 312 00:32:52,180 --> 00:32:58,930 they accord dismissed Gadhafi's sons candidacy from being president of Libya, 313 00:32:58,930 --> 00:33:03,160 which was, I think, a plus going forward. 314 00:33:03,160 --> 00:33:10,480 I think we, you know, Libya, what's best for it is to have a sort of total removal from the past. 315 00:33:10,480 --> 00:33:21,100 So nobody left over from Gadhafi's government. Nobody left over from, you know, in sort of a reconciliation between those, you know, 316 00:33:21,100 --> 00:33:25,720 some of the ministers from Haftar's and government and some of them from the government national court. 317 00:33:25,720 --> 00:33:33,850 If that's possible, it's not. I think the U.N. government of National Accord will be successful and and running the nation if they win the elections. 318 00:33:33,850 --> 00:33:38,620 And your book so my favourite book on the Middle East has to be. 319 00:33:38,620 --> 00:33:41,500 Generally, it probably is Eugene or against the Arabs. 320 00:33:41,500 --> 00:33:51,790 But a more recent book that, yeah, a more recent book that I like is actually How The West or Democracy from the Arabs by Elizabeth Thompson. 321 00:33:51,790 --> 00:33:57,850 It talks a lot about the Syrian Arab Congress in 1920 and how, you know, 322 00:33:57,850 --> 00:34:06,700 Europeans at the Paris peace conference after World War One, you know, didn't fulfil the promises that they made to Prince Feisal. 323 00:34:06,700 --> 00:34:12,910 And it deals with a lot of these ideas of greatest division of Greater Syria after World War One, 324 00:34:12,910 --> 00:34:18,400 which is something I'm really interested in and thinking about delving into for a master's thesis. 325 00:34:18,400 --> 00:34:26,860 And a lot of the research that Elizabeth Thompson did for this book occurred at the Middle East Centre at Oxford, which is very cool. 326 00:34:26,860 --> 00:34:34,330 And of course, you know, as all good books as a, you know, yardstick of approval for good books on the region, 327 00:34:34,330 --> 00:34:38,680 it does have the Eugene Rogan stamp of approval on the inside. He has this little review. 328 00:34:38,680 --> 00:34:47,100 So yeah, I think it's very good to move about halfway through it now, but I'm looking forward to finishing it this year. 329 00:34:47,100 --> 00:34:51,580 Thank you for listening to this episode of the Oxford Mills political. 330 00:34:51,580 --> 00:34:55,810 Almanac is a student, an initiative at the Middle East and University of Oxford. 331 00:34:55,810 --> 00:35:13,246 The opinions expressed in the podcast are not in any way represent the official opinions of the University of the Middle East and.