1 00:00:00,480 --> 00:00:03,480 Hello and welcome to Almanac, the Oxford Middle East Podcast. 2 00:00:03,870 --> 00:00:13,190 My name is Matthew Smith. Today we interview Michael Wallace, who has a brand new book out on Algeria. 3 00:00:13,730 --> 00:00:16,820 And in our conversation, we talk about Margaret, politics, 4 00:00:16,820 --> 00:00:21,830 the place of the Maghreb in modern Middle East studies and, of course, Michael's favourite books, the movies. 5 00:00:26,900 --> 00:00:34,310 Michael Willis, fellow in Morocco and Mediterranean studies here at St Andrew's College, Oxford, and of course the Middle East Centre. 6 00:00:34,760 --> 00:00:39,530 We've got a new book out, Algeria, Politics and Society From the Dark Decade to the Hirak. 7 00:00:39,980 --> 00:00:46,760 So why don't you walk us a little bit through what's the book about? What inspired you to start this project and what was your research like? 8 00:00:47,510 --> 00:00:50,300 Thank you. Martin Thank you for inviting me to do this podcast. 9 00:00:50,900 --> 00:00:59,930 The book comes out of being approached by Hearst Publishers in about 2014 to write a book on contemporary Algeria. 10 00:01:00,680 --> 00:01:10,880 I had written a previous book in Algeria based on a Ph.D. that I did back in the 1990s, and I wanted to write a look at the period since then. 11 00:01:11,570 --> 00:01:15,620 And I noticed that in terms of the exact starting point in the exact period, 12 00:01:15,620 --> 00:01:23,089 I wanted to look at that really there had been a significant change which had occurred in Algeria around the turn of Millennium, 13 00:01:23,090 --> 00:01:30,770 the end of the 1990s, early 2000, when three big things had happened that really change the political landscape in Algeria. 14 00:01:32,210 --> 00:01:36,410 The changes were in the fields of leadership, the economy and in society. 15 00:01:36,710 --> 00:01:42,260 In terms of leadership, it's obvious change was the fact that the election of the new president, 16 00:01:42,260 --> 00:01:48,169 Abdelaziz Bouteflika, and he came in in April 1999 and he stayed for exactly 20 years. 17 00:01:48,170 --> 00:01:52,300 So he sort of defines that period. But even though the most obvious change that occurred, 18 00:01:52,400 --> 00:01:59,600 I think it's the least probably the least important of much more importance was the change in late 1999. 19 00:01:59,750 --> 00:02:02,600 So again, we're looking at that period around the turn of the millennium, 20 00:02:03,140 --> 00:02:09,410 there was a significant upturn in global oil prices, and this continued for over a decade and a half. 21 00:02:10,040 --> 00:02:16,490 And for a country like Algeria, which is heavily dependent on energy prices, oil and particularly gas, 22 00:02:16,730 --> 00:02:22,370 this had a transforming effect, this rise in prices over this period for state finances. 23 00:02:23,210 --> 00:02:26,600 So that was a second major thing that happened. And in many ways, I think the most important thing, 24 00:02:27,200 --> 00:02:34,700 the third thing that changed was that there was a noticeable decline in the violence that was associated with the civil conflict of the 1990s. 25 00:02:35,390 --> 00:02:42,070 It was a fairly gradual process, but it was noticing the violence decline from the late nineties into 2000. 26 00:02:42,950 --> 00:02:47,030 And I felt that these three things unstable leadership, 27 00:02:47,660 --> 00:02:53,870 civil conflict and a very dire economic situation that defined Algeria for most of the eighties and nineties. 28 00:02:54,290 --> 00:02:59,390 And these three new things changed for sort of gain and produced a new set of things that came then. 29 00:03:01,010 --> 00:03:06,380 So the book was really looking at a new sort of political landscape that was created. 30 00:03:07,070 --> 00:03:13,610 But I also noticed about the time that I took on the book, the importance of looking at these things was further sharpened by the fact that 31 00:03:13,610 --> 00:03:17,929 there had been big changes in two of those three things within the last year or so. 32 00:03:17,930 --> 00:03:25,460 This is back 2014, 2050. First of all, in the field of leadership, Bouteflika was still president, 33 00:03:26,060 --> 00:03:33,860 but he had had a serious stroke in April 2013, but effectively removed him from the public eye. 34 00:03:34,130 --> 00:03:38,960 He appeared in public a handful of times after that period. 35 00:03:39,470 --> 00:03:43,490 This coming on top of being quite ill since 2005. 36 00:03:43,640 --> 00:03:48,740 But he was not really present on the scene. He was still president, but there was just a gap in leadership. 37 00:03:49,010 --> 00:03:52,670 And a lot of Algerians beginning to question who is leading this, who is who was actually there. 38 00:03:53,330 --> 00:04:00,049 So that was the other thing that changed. And I think much more serious was the steady decline from 2014 in the international oil price. 39 00:04:00,050 --> 00:04:03,710 And I think within the space of just over a year, it lost 70% of its value. 40 00:04:04,130 --> 00:04:12,500 And the effect on Algeria, where it heavily dependent on these revenues but had been spent and it actually sort of rebuilt Algeria and 41 00:04:12,500 --> 00:04:17,390 sorted out a lot of the problems that Algeria it had in between time was quite clearly going to be significant. 42 00:04:18,050 --> 00:04:21,620 And that raised at my time whether these two things would have an impact. 43 00:04:21,980 --> 00:04:26,930 On the third issue, the decline in the violence associated with the civil conflict in the 1990s, 44 00:04:27,320 --> 00:04:34,070 particularly given that Bouteflika had played a leading role in the initiatives to try and end the civil conflict, 45 00:04:34,070 --> 00:04:41,150 particularly amnesties for the armed groups. And he'd have made it his issue to try and the civil conflict to reduce violence. 46 00:04:42,320 --> 00:04:45,290 And secondly, that the oil revenues that had come in, 47 00:04:45,290 --> 00:04:53,540 in huge amounts since the rise of the price of oil and gas had really helped underwrite a lot of this peace process. 48 00:04:53,960 --> 00:05:01,310 A lot of the armed groups that surrendered and took up amnesties were given often rather indirectly, 49 00:05:01,730 --> 00:05:06,530 money and jobs and businesses to sort of smooth the way in. 50 00:05:06,980 --> 00:05:12,530 There were payments made to victims of the conflict, both on the side of the regime and on the armed groups, 51 00:05:12,530 --> 00:05:18,169 people whose relatives had disappeared in state custody and also ordinary citizens who had lost loved ones. 52 00:05:18,170 --> 00:05:22,430 And these were paid out in a lot of money, underwrote jobs. 53 00:05:22,640 --> 00:05:26,360 There's a massive increase in jobs and housing with the increased. 54 00:05:26,440 --> 00:05:29,710 Oil revenues, but had really smoothed this process over. 55 00:05:30,010 --> 00:05:31,399 So that was a big question mark. 56 00:05:31,400 --> 00:05:38,020 But with the decline in the price of oil and gas and the revenues coming in, where this would suddenly start to undercut the civil peace. 57 00:05:38,470 --> 00:05:42,580 They had never despite there having been a peace process and a peace deal. 58 00:05:42,860 --> 00:05:48,219 There's never been a systematic accounting of a conflict, this sort of peace and reconciliation process. 59 00:05:48,220 --> 00:05:52,990 We've seen in other countries that the Algerians didn't have, that we were just people were paid off. 60 00:05:53,020 --> 00:05:56,650 There was agreement that people wouldn't take anything any further and moved on. 61 00:05:57,650 --> 00:06:02,200 It was often described, and I use a description of both because it was more a case of amnesia, 62 00:06:02,200 --> 00:06:05,290 rather an amnesty as well, just people forgetting about what had happened. 63 00:06:05,980 --> 00:06:10,990 So there was a question about whether that would actually now begin to fray that civil peace, 64 00:06:11,770 --> 00:06:14,760 because people beginning to be increasingly unhappy about it. 65 00:06:14,790 --> 00:06:20,830 And when the first draft of a book was finished in about 2018, we could see things beginning to possibly move in my direction. 66 00:06:21,220 --> 00:06:26,890 But something very surprising happens in 2019. You get a mass protest movement, completely peaceful. 67 00:06:26,890 --> 00:06:28,240 That goes on for over a year. 68 00:06:28,900 --> 00:06:36,170 And really, the book sort of ends with looking at that process and how we can understand it came out of these 20 years before that. 69 00:06:36,760 --> 00:06:39,460 So the book really explains, hence what happened without a decade, 70 00:06:39,670 --> 00:06:44,720 which refers to the conflict of the 1990 through until 2019 with the mass movements Iraq, 71 00:06:44,980 --> 00:06:50,920 Iraq being Arabic for movement, and how we understand what has happened in Algeria in that period. 72 00:06:51,250 --> 00:06:56,770 And it sort of analyses thematically, I look at how the conflict was was brought to an end. 73 00:06:57,100 --> 00:07:00,610 I look at how politics works in certain regions. 74 00:07:01,210 --> 00:07:08,980 I look at pictures of latitudes just trying to explain how politics evolved and how politics works in Algeria during these two decades. 75 00:07:09,880 --> 00:07:14,620 The queue walks a little bit through. The research was a lot of archival fieldwork interviews. 76 00:07:15,580 --> 00:07:19,830 It was a mixture of things. Algeria isn't the easiest place to do research in. 77 00:07:19,840 --> 00:07:24,200 It's not as open to researchers as others, particularly on contemporary issues. 78 00:07:24,220 --> 00:07:27,940 There's quite a lot of research being done on the colonial period and particularly the liberation struggle. 79 00:07:28,660 --> 00:07:34,650 Most of what I did, I was able to spend several months in Algeria conducting research. 80 00:07:34,700 --> 00:07:40,760 I did it for some things. I did quite a few interviews with politicians and officials on the whole range of those topics. 81 00:07:40,780 --> 00:07:43,960 Talking about those sort of things somewhere were easier than others. 82 00:07:44,800 --> 00:07:50,830 I also used it to try and collect as much material I could that was produced by Algerian researchers. 83 00:07:50,830 --> 00:07:57,870 I think that's quite important to do. There's a lot of very good research being done in think tanks, also just academics and journalists in Algeria, 84 00:07:58,450 --> 00:08:03,759 but published in Algeria, available in Algeria, but don't really make it out about. 85 00:08:03,760 --> 00:08:07,980 Yes, I spent quite a lot of time collecting those things that you just couldn't get outside the country. 86 00:08:08,050 --> 00:08:13,810 I wanted I think it's important to try and give voice and give and access to people who are actually writing about their own country. 87 00:08:14,230 --> 00:08:18,360 It was also just getting a sense of the various issues. 88 00:08:18,400 --> 00:08:22,840 I want to be by talking to ordinary people, spending time in the country to seeing things themselves. 89 00:08:23,620 --> 00:08:29,490 There's quite a quite a bit of secondary material in second research on Algeria, but it takes a lot of digging out. 90 00:08:29,500 --> 00:08:37,540 So I dug quite a few things out. I relied on quite a lot of the some of the chapters on research done for my Ph.D. back in the 1990s that I 91 00:08:37,540 --> 00:08:43,540 was vindicated by preserving all this material and not sure whether I'd ever use it or interviews I've done. 92 00:08:43,540 --> 00:08:47,200 I've never ended up using or I changed topic or I never published. 93 00:08:47,410 --> 00:08:53,870 I was able to use this material, so I dug out all my old notebooks from the 1990 and found some absolute gems. 94 00:08:53,890 --> 00:08:58,090 It's often very interesting to look into things you didn't think were significant at the time. 95 00:08:58,270 --> 00:09:02,890 When you look back again, you suddenly realise some very interesting things that some interviewees said. 96 00:09:03,160 --> 00:09:08,230 But because your project wasn't focussed on metal with time or the passage of time, you see how more significant they are. 97 00:09:08,680 --> 00:09:13,930 I did a whole series of interviews, for example, with senior people in the field in the 1990, 98 00:09:13,930 --> 00:09:19,030 and I was able to draw on that one of the peace negotiations of how that came out of the civil conflict. 99 00:09:19,810 --> 00:09:28,760 So that was mainly it was just gathering a lot of things to do in the Algerian press is certainly until very recently was very brilliant. 100 00:09:28,780 --> 00:09:34,610 You've got a lot of it was a very quite a critical, quite engaged press and the coverage of politics, 101 00:09:34,640 --> 00:09:37,510 international events and even in such relations with very good. 102 00:09:37,810 --> 00:09:42,340 So you've got actually proper discussion, a sort of a critical discussion of what was going on politically. 103 00:09:42,610 --> 00:09:48,610 And they were actually a very the source based journalists were also very happy to interview a lot of journalists just to uncover material, 104 00:09:48,610 --> 00:09:52,780 get perspectives on things. So that was another good source base, the Algerian press. 105 00:09:53,200 --> 00:09:59,859 Unfortunately, the Algerian presses began being clamped down upon even just in the last year, and it's no longer the source base that it was, 106 00:09:59,860 --> 00:10:04,899 particularly journalists like Al-Watan and Liberté and several others were extremely 107 00:10:04,900 --> 00:10:08,650 useful in providing a lot of information about local political developments. 108 00:10:09,430 --> 00:10:10,839 I think that's a great jumping off point then. 109 00:10:10,840 --> 00:10:18,130 So the Hirak movement starts in 2019 that makes headlines across the world and Al Jazeera, New York Times. 110 00:10:18,550 --> 00:10:20,890 But then we haven't really heard a lot about Algeria since. 111 00:10:20,890 --> 00:10:26,170 So can get this idea of what's been going on Algeria during the pandemic and was the hirak movement. 112 00:10:26,320 --> 00:10:33,790 Achieved, if anything at all? Yes. Well, I think you referring to the pandemic is the right starting point, because the hirak continued. 113 00:10:34,360 --> 00:10:38,740 There were two things it marks out firstly, but it was exclusively peaceful and it maintained that. 114 00:10:39,190 --> 00:10:42,430 And the second thing, it was determined to keep going, whatever. 115 00:10:43,180 --> 00:10:46,570 But the authorities in Algeria had hoped for during the summer months, 116 00:10:46,640 --> 00:10:50,470 people wouldn't want to march and people kept on marching every week, every Friday. 117 00:10:51,100 --> 00:10:57,190 And they achieved the first anniversary. Still, there were big weekly demonstrations in Algiers and the other big cities. 118 00:10:57,700 --> 00:11:04,420 But then we get to March 2020, and like rest of the world, it became really unviable to carry on doing the marches. 119 00:11:04,570 --> 00:11:12,190 So the movement voluntarily suspended the marches in the cells, and it was felt that possibly this may be the end of it. 120 00:11:12,190 --> 00:11:17,860 But when things eased again in February 2021, the weekly demonstrations started again. 121 00:11:17,860 --> 00:11:23,200 And the feeling that showed you that hadn't gone away, that the issues were still there. 122 00:11:23,350 --> 00:11:30,010 They were still saying there hadn't been enough change that the movement itself had demanded initially the departure of President Bouteflika, 123 00:11:30,250 --> 00:11:35,220 not because he was some terrible dictator, but because he clearly wasn't running the country, because he was so ill. 124 00:11:35,230 --> 00:11:41,980 In fact, he wasn't even in the public eye. People in Algeria were particularly alarmed by the fact in his last years or so 125 00:11:42,190 --> 00:11:46,360 he was represented at national events by an enormous giant portrait of him. 126 00:11:46,870 --> 00:11:53,010 You know, the Algerians said, well, that we, North Korea or something, we don't even know who's running the country yet. 127 00:11:53,170 --> 00:11:57,460 So this was one unhappiness. But even when Bouteflika resigned and didn't seek to run again, 128 00:11:57,910 --> 00:12:01,330 they wanted to clear out of the whole political elite and they wanted to change the system. 129 00:12:01,350 --> 00:12:04,300 Most didn't really happen. They wanted to keep the protests going. 130 00:12:04,780 --> 00:12:09,490 But unfortunately, there was another second wave and the pandemic, as we remember, in 2021. 131 00:12:10,060 --> 00:12:14,890 And this forced the the Hirak movement to suspend it in protests again. 132 00:12:15,700 --> 00:12:21,790 And this time it was backed up by fairly heavy repression by the regime, targeting of key people, 133 00:12:22,300 --> 00:12:26,770 making sure that there was no revival protest would happen every Friday in Algiers, 134 00:12:27,220 --> 00:12:34,710 and they just flooded it with police vans and police every Friday there on in to make sure that it never really revived. 135 00:12:34,720 --> 00:12:43,060 It hasn't revived for a third time. That said, a friend of mine who was very active in the hirak when I asked him, Is the Hirak dead? 136 00:12:43,060 --> 00:12:47,140 He said, Well, it's not dead because it's an idea, it's not a movement and it's an idea. 137 00:12:47,350 --> 00:12:49,420 And that idea hasn't gone away about that. 138 00:12:49,540 --> 00:12:55,839 Wholesale reform in Algeria needs to give it a representative regime that isn't corrupt but actually responds 139 00:12:55,840 --> 00:13:02,290 to the needs of the people and actually make full use of the resources that Algeria's being been blessed with. 140 00:13:03,460 --> 00:13:08,500 So we really have seen the regime sort of reassert itself, its changes personnel. 141 00:13:08,500 --> 00:13:14,680 And this is another very interesting aspect to Algeria that virtually all of the people from about 50 era have now gone. 142 00:13:15,250 --> 00:13:24,300 But new people have come in or in reality, recycled people have come back in with virtually hardly a ripple on what has gone on. 143 00:13:24,310 --> 00:13:30,640 So the regime has been able to replace itself and continue with pretty much the same trajectory as before, 144 00:13:31,090 --> 00:13:36,340 which shows the resilience of the regime and also how it isn't really based in individual personalities. 145 00:13:36,340 --> 00:13:40,030 It's all based on institutional actors and people coming through the ranks. 146 00:13:41,890 --> 00:13:46,240 There's other countries in the Arab Maghreb. So if your mind, let's turn to Tunisia, 147 00:13:47,470 --> 00:13:54,520 which just had a large referendum this summer that some commentators have said this is the end of the Arab Spring project in Tunisia. 148 00:13:55,030 --> 00:14:04,120 That and others once dreams of an open and free democracy after Ben Ali are now gone with this national referendum led by Kais Saied. 149 00:14:04,480 --> 00:14:09,879 So what do you think of that? I think it's really quite disappointing and depressing what's happened in Tunisia. 150 00:14:09,880 --> 00:14:18,340 You've really basically got the reassertion of a much more authoritarian regime, more precisely through the suspension of a democratic part of it. 151 00:14:18,980 --> 00:14:26,050 The current president, Kais Saied, was democratically elected in 2019, but then in the summer of 2021, 152 00:14:26,290 --> 00:14:31,630 decided to suspend the parliament and just suspend and rewrite the constitution, 153 00:14:31,930 --> 00:14:36,520 basically giving himself most of the powers and making sure the other institutions 154 00:14:36,520 --> 00:14:40,830 were fairly subservient to him in a way that really wasn't democratic. 155 00:14:40,840 --> 00:14:47,080 The parties were really pushed out of the system. There are now scheduled to be elections in a couple of weeks time. 156 00:14:47,680 --> 00:14:51,610 The parties are not allowed to participate in it. Everybody is an individual candidate. 157 00:14:52,270 --> 00:14:56,890 The judiciary has been hemmed in. The press has been hemmed in. 158 00:14:57,220 --> 00:14:58,270 The parties have. 159 00:14:58,600 --> 00:15:05,590 And really, you're seeing really the dismantling of a lot of the democratic structures that were put in place ten years ago after revolution. 160 00:15:06,610 --> 00:15:10,690 How permanent? That was difficult to say. Certainly it hasn't been much resistance. 161 00:15:11,200 --> 00:15:18,300 I think one of the problems is the opposition in Tunisia is waiting for the high side regime to fall apart and then to move it. 162 00:15:18,310 --> 00:15:21,940 But that's not guarantee the damage inflicted in between time. 163 00:15:22,990 --> 00:15:31,590 I think there's several things going on there. I think there was. Disillusion of the parties and the processes, and I think my side exploited that. 164 00:15:32,580 --> 00:15:41,880 But most of the disillusionment was to do with economic unhappiness, with the very dire economic situation that Tunisia finds itself into. 165 00:15:42,030 --> 00:15:46,770 Jobs best case didn't come with some grand new economic plan. 166 00:15:47,160 --> 00:15:51,550 He came with a plan to reorganise the constitution arrangements of Tunisia. 167 00:15:51,570 --> 00:15:57,840 He's a constitutional lawyer, and that didn't really solve anything. So I think Tunisia, economically, people's unhappiness they ever were. 168 00:15:58,440 --> 00:16:03,700 He is getting people to vote for various things he wants, but below 30% of the population are voting. 169 00:16:03,900 --> 00:16:06,450 Most people are even more disillusioned with things than before. 170 00:16:07,020 --> 00:16:13,140 So rather it isn't quite a return to a binary system, but it's progressing along that road. 171 00:16:13,200 --> 00:16:16,530 And you may end up seeing Tunisia in one of these semi democracies. 172 00:16:16,800 --> 00:16:23,250 Unfortunately, I've been hearing from scholars, including yourself and some of your thesis students, 173 00:16:23,250 --> 00:16:32,010 both on the master's level of the differ level, that there's a significant sort of nostalgia for the Habib Bourguiba times now in modern Tunisia. 174 00:16:32,040 --> 00:16:36,060 Can you talk a little bit about that? Yes, this is a sort of inevitable phenomenon. 175 00:16:36,090 --> 00:16:40,530 You often get in the situation with the fact that after the revolution, 176 00:16:40,920 --> 00:16:45,960 with the new constitution arrangements, no party dominated and there were multi-party coalitions. 177 00:16:46,530 --> 00:16:50,730 The there wasn't a huge improvement in the social economic situation in Tunisia. 178 00:16:50,910 --> 00:16:51,930 Many reasons for that. 179 00:16:52,650 --> 00:17:00,299 And there began to be a slight nostalgia for the days of the more authoritarian rule, not so much under the last dictator Ben Ali, 180 00:17:00,300 --> 00:17:05,610 but his predecessor, Habib Bourguiba, who was the founder of modern Tunisia, or as the sort of leader for main nationalist movement. 181 00:17:06,360 --> 00:17:10,140 And I think you're seeing echoes of this in present sight. 182 00:17:10,440 --> 00:17:13,589 I mean, this is just us. This is the view. 183 00:17:13,590 --> 00:17:18,240 And you hear it in many societies about the need for a strong man to take control of the situation. 184 00:17:18,510 --> 00:17:22,229 All these squabbling political parties need to be pushed out of the way. 185 00:17:22,230 --> 00:17:26,850 Everybody knows what needs to be done. And I think there's a little bit of a nostalgia coming there. 186 00:17:26,850 --> 00:17:32,249 But whether it actually produces anything and actually improves the everyday lot of most Tunisians, 187 00:17:32,250 --> 00:17:37,319 I very much doubt and I think also there's a lot of this nostalgia is left. 188 00:17:37,320 --> 00:17:40,440 A lot of nostalgia isn't actually really based on reality. 189 00:17:40,950 --> 00:17:47,250 With you go back to the certainly the last decade or so given he was very well regarded by the population in the sixties and seventies, 190 00:17:47,640 --> 00:17:54,209 but by the end he'd become substantially senile and the country really wanted to see the back of him, 191 00:17:54,210 --> 00:18:00,690 not because they didn't respect what he did, but because he was really capable of running the country and was running it completely personally 192 00:18:00,690 --> 00:18:05,010 because he believed he was the only one who understood what needed to be done in Tunisia. 193 00:18:05,610 --> 00:18:10,060 So I don't think people want to get rid of him. They now look back and said it was wonderful and everything was great under him. 194 00:18:10,080 --> 00:18:14,100 But I think it's a rather, as with most nostalgia, a little bit rose tinted. 195 00:18:15,090 --> 00:18:18,920 It's now moving back across the Maghreb towards the Atlantic and also Morocco. 196 00:18:19,620 --> 00:18:24,449 Morocco's been going through a bit of an identity crisis, hasn't it, in the past couple of years. 197 00:18:24,450 --> 00:18:31,680 So they've been turning less towards the Arab world, more towards their African identity and their other minority identities. 198 00:18:31,710 --> 00:18:34,710 I know you've been supervising some students who've been looking at that. 199 00:18:34,710 --> 00:18:37,830 So what does that been looking like in the kingdom of Morocco? 200 00:18:38,250 --> 00:18:45,030 Yes, I think one of the interesting things have been going on in Morocco was a discussion of Moroccan identity and its place in the world. 201 00:18:45,030 --> 00:18:54,120 Its place in the region has been evolving, is probably most evident in the greater emphasis given to aspects of its history 202 00:18:54,120 --> 00:18:58,530 and identity that haven't perhaps had the prominence it had in the past. 203 00:18:59,520 --> 00:19:06,150 You see that certainly in the last ten years, Morocco's put a lot more emphasis on its place in Africa. 204 00:19:06,930 --> 00:19:10,239 That's seen in expanded trade, expanded diplomacy. 205 00:19:10,240 --> 00:19:17,880 But King of Morocco visits sub-Saharan Africa a lot. And there's a big push to see Morocco as much more part of the African continent. 206 00:19:18,540 --> 00:19:26,399 At the same time, there's been a great expansion with official backing of the role and significance 207 00:19:26,400 --> 00:19:31,500 in place of the country's amazing Berber culture and identity and history. 208 00:19:31,770 --> 00:19:38,400 A language sample the Berber language time as it is now, an official language of Morocco alongside Arabic. 209 00:19:38,940 --> 00:19:46,920 Those sort of changes have been introduced. There's been a lot more interest and emphasis and research done on Morocco's extensive Jewish past. 210 00:19:47,400 --> 00:19:56,280 Up until 50, 60, 70 years ago, Morocco had the largest Jewish population of any country in the Arab world, vested with substantial connections there. 211 00:19:56,970 --> 00:20:02,760 And Morocco put a lot of emphasis on that. So you get these other forms of identity being pushed. 212 00:20:02,760 --> 00:20:09,610 But at the same time, it's is what some students have been looking at is what is being pushed back. 213 00:20:09,690 --> 00:20:13,920 And clearly, one of the identities that's being pushed back about is the Arab identity of Morocco. 214 00:20:13,950 --> 00:20:20,760 That's not to say it's ignored. Arabic is still my language, but it is is seen as much less important. 215 00:20:21,120 --> 00:20:25,620 Now, there are various reasons for that, but I think one of them is I think Morocco is interested. 216 00:20:26,060 --> 00:20:31,310 In creating a little bit of separation of itself from the wider Arab world. 217 00:20:31,910 --> 00:20:39,530 And I think one of the main reasons to that is to sort of insulate it from, can we say, pan Arab movements and tendencies, 218 00:20:39,890 --> 00:20:44,540 particularly something like what became known as the Arab Spring, the movements of 2011. 219 00:20:44,990 --> 00:20:49,819 The government dealt with it fairly effectively. There weren't huge major changes. 220 00:20:49,820 --> 00:20:52,910 There were too much upheaval, but it was clearly concerned. 221 00:20:53,210 --> 00:20:54,580 But things could have been worse. 222 00:20:54,590 --> 00:20:59,920 And I think this is part of the process of saying, well, we can't really have an Arab Spring if we're not really Arab. 223 00:20:59,930 --> 00:21:05,230 We've got all these other things going on. You see it played in practical things as well. 224 00:21:05,240 --> 00:21:14,330 It's much more emphasis on other parts of world. The normalisation of relations with Israel is part of that movement away from the Arab world. 225 00:21:14,480 --> 00:21:19,550 Also obviously linking him with its emphasis of its significant Jewish heritage. 226 00:21:20,360 --> 00:21:26,590 Also a feeling, I suppose, that parts of the Middle East and the Arab world are somehow seen as problematic by other parts of the world. 227 00:21:26,600 --> 00:21:35,720 So Morocco likes to separate itself. But some above all of this is a forging of a very moroccan, centred notion of identity. 228 00:21:36,050 --> 00:21:45,890 So you get discussions of Moroccan Islam with big emphasis on colloquial Moroccan Arabic as a distinct language, but it's even basic taught as such. 229 00:21:45,890 --> 00:21:50,690 And that should be written as she begins to see in adverts, for example, things adverts written in Derbyshire. 230 00:21:50,840 --> 00:21:57,620 Oh, wow. Which is quite a, quite a new thing. And that's part of this idea that Morocco has its own very particular identity. 231 00:21:58,070 --> 00:22:05,959 So the national identity is strength, and that strengthens the central government and also insulates Morocco against these more transnational trends, 232 00:22:05,960 --> 00:22:11,060 which could be destabilising for it and having a move away from current events of the region. 233 00:22:11,090 --> 00:22:15,140 Let's talk a little bit about the field of Middle East studies generally. 234 00:22:15,500 --> 00:22:21,830 You study the Maghreb, but often Middle East studies programs are dominated by scholars of the MUSHTAQ. 235 00:22:22,010 --> 00:22:26,790 Yeah. So as a Maghreb scholar, how do you find the most? 236 00:22:26,840 --> 00:22:31,430 Should I focus on Middle East studies? How do other Maghreb scholars navigate that? 237 00:22:31,850 --> 00:22:36,770 And where is the beginning of true Maghreb scholarship and Maghreb scholars saying, 238 00:22:37,100 --> 00:22:44,030 we need to really study this part of the world in a significant way like we do, say, Egypt or the Gulf of Oman? 239 00:22:44,630 --> 00:22:50,240 I think there's been there's been changes. I think it's natural in the Anglophone world and particularly in Britain, 240 00:22:50,240 --> 00:22:56,990 that the emphasis has been on the East and our world lost track of the Levant, Egypt, the Gulf, and they have burglary. 241 00:22:57,260 --> 00:23:02,540 Historically, Britain was much more engaged in the colonial period in these parts of the Middle East. 242 00:23:03,050 --> 00:23:07,840 Research naturally was on because of family connections and through institutional connections. 243 00:23:07,850 --> 00:23:14,930 Those are the people working on history will use with archives of the British archives we have here at Middle East Centre. 244 00:23:15,170 --> 00:23:18,860 A lot of is come from British officials who served in the Gulf at that time. 245 00:23:18,860 --> 00:23:20,390 So these connections are quite normal. 246 00:23:20,810 --> 00:23:27,020 The Middle East historically has also tended to have more going on it in terms of politically political in affairs. 247 00:23:27,020 --> 00:23:31,610 We think of the Arab-Israeli conflict, we think of the wars in the Gulf, those sort of things. 248 00:23:31,610 --> 00:23:40,189 So it's natural. Most people work on it, but really it is the Maghreb in that sense was was really a very, 249 00:23:40,190 --> 00:23:46,099 very minor party that hardly ever got studied in British institutions, even as late as the early 1990s. 250 00:23:46,100 --> 00:23:52,830 When I started studying about that, there were very few people working the Maghreb and I was joke and say when I started working on it, 251 00:23:53,060 --> 00:23:57,860 and if I was in a middle East event in Britain and I mentioned that I was studying the Maghreb, 252 00:23:57,860 --> 00:24:05,060 I was studying Algiers at that point, I get sort of rather puzzled, looks from people who would say, Well, I don't really know anything west of Cairo. 253 00:24:05,690 --> 00:24:07,940 And then they'd sort of look brightly and say, Well, oh yes. 254 00:24:07,940 --> 00:24:14,330 My wife's cousin went on holiday to Tunisia a few years ago and seems very nice there and there was very little her, not that. 255 00:24:14,390 --> 00:24:18,049 And I was in my department, I was in at the University of Durham, 256 00:24:18,050 --> 00:24:23,900 I was put in will be only one person working on anything again west of Cairo, somebody was working on Libya. 257 00:24:24,170 --> 00:24:28,670 Suddenly anyone. But I think that's substantially changed. There's a lot more interest in the longer. 258 00:24:29,330 --> 00:24:35,280 I mean, the other reason for it was a fact that really had been left to France as the main colonial past, 259 00:24:35,280 --> 00:24:42,379 certainly in Algeria, changes in Morocco and the French study. But I think those sort of old dividing lines have changed a lot more. 260 00:24:42,380 --> 00:24:46,790 French scholars are now working from Australia and a lot more Anglophone scholars working on the Maghreb. 261 00:24:46,790 --> 00:24:53,480 Like me, I've seen more and more people come through. We still really are this sort of sister of Middle Eastern studies. 262 00:24:53,840 --> 00:24:58,970 I teach, for example, in the Middle East Centre, not not the Middle Eastern North African centre, 263 00:24:59,300 --> 00:25:03,470 but agree that your study on math and beyond is the degree of modern Middle Eastern studies. 264 00:25:03,470 --> 00:25:09,350 There's no mention of North Africa or the Maghreb. I find that I think that with that I'd like to see about change one day. 265 00:25:09,350 --> 00:25:13,650 It may not change anytime soon, but we certainly cover Margaret Thatcher. 266 00:25:13,820 --> 00:25:19,309 But in terms of interest, obviously I'm interested in that and I can explain why I'm interested in it. 267 00:25:19,310 --> 00:25:25,460 I went on after doing my peers in Algeria, I went to Morocco for seven years at university, so I had my interest there. 268 00:25:26,300 --> 00:25:32,720 But I've noticed there's been a growth and I can look at it for example in certainly the graduate work but we don't really centre. 269 00:25:33,290 --> 00:25:39,320 When I arrived Millie Centre in 2004, eight years ago, that makes me feel very old. 270 00:25:39,980 --> 00:25:45,530 I assume that when I took Dphil students that I would have only a very occasional one would 271 00:25:45,530 --> 00:25:49,879 assume a lot grip and I would work on other themes that were things to me at least pretty well. 272 00:25:49,880 --> 00:25:55,190 All of my graduate medical students over the last 18 years have been watching the same people come in on that. 273 00:25:55,760 --> 00:26:05,239 Even more gratifying is the fact that I offer an option in politics of Margaret, and that's offered most homes to students on the anvil. 274 00:26:05,240 --> 00:26:11,240 And I see and students take it but interesting enough it's not because they come with background 275 00:26:11,240 --> 00:26:14,780 in the MARGARET but a lot of students just want to study something they haven't studied before. 276 00:26:15,020 --> 00:26:19,370 So the novelty of a MARGARET has actually drawn students into sort of my options, 277 00:26:19,370 --> 00:26:22,819 several of whom have gone on to the fields in the now established academics working on that. 278 00:26:22,820 --> 00:26:28,190 So but it was due to the novelty. When it becomes less of a novelty, I don't know whether I'll get so many students, but I don't know. 279 00:26:28,790 --> 00:26:32,299 But certainly has grown. A lot of things have changed that there's a lot more interest. 280 00:26:32,300 --> 00:26:41,540 For example, Tunisia, which was really very few people studied before Revolution 2011, you didn't go to it was a police state and police states. 281 00:26:41,870 --> 00:26:45,920 As most people know, we're not only difficult places to study, we're not terribly interested in things to study. 282 00:26:46,190 --> 00:26:52,909 Well, it's just the same thing happening. But I'd go round rounds and they'd say, Well, basically Ben Ali runs everything and everything's ready, 283 00:26:52,910 --> 00:26:55,520 repressed and the same as when he came three years ago. 284 00:26:55,520 --> 00:27:01,790 Unfortunately, we're back with a revolution that changed massively, and Tunisia actually became a huge site to research. 285 00:27:01,790 --> 00:27:05,570 An enormous amount of research has been going, which I think is fascinating. 286 00:27:06,290 --> 00:27:09,940 And most of the research is focussed on the post-revolution period. 287 00:27:09,950 --> 00:27:12,570 And now I've been trying to encourage him to do stuff on pre-revolution. 288 00:27:13,100 --> 00:27:19,969 Now Tunisia's much more accessible, but you almost have the opposite problem with other parts of a region being more difficult to visit. 289 00:27:19,970 --> 00:27:25,890 There's almost been overfocus on Tunisia. There's the ongoing problem, I think in the offing. 290 00:27:26,240 --> 00:27:32,240 Get a lot of things where people study things that are easier to study and then study things that are more difficult to study. 291 00:27:32,780 --> 00:27:35,929 I think there are reasons for that. We try and correct that. 292 00:27:35,930 --> 00:27:41,239 That's one of the reasons I wrote the book on Algeria, Tunisia and Morocco are much easier to study online. 293 00:27:41,240 --> 00:27:43,840 I can find out much more to and I could probably better book something. 294 00:27:44,510 --> 00:27:49,760 But I felt that Algeria needed to have something written about it because it was difficult to research. 295 00:27:49,760 --> 00:27:51,980 It is difficult to get visas to do research there. 296 00:27:52,220 --> 00:27:58,430 People are less open to being interviewed and to try and find out what has actually happened in the system. 297 00:27:59,300 --> 00:28:02,300 So I think overall thing, things have changed quite a bit. 298 00:28:02,750 --> 00:28:05,600 There is more and more interest. I think it's beginning to even out, 299 00:28:05,870 --> 00:28:11,540 but I still like to moan that I'm really a little bit forgotten about and that nobody really is interested 300 00:28:11,540 --> 00:28:16,100 in things that happened west of Cairo when actually I think there's a lot that happens west of cotton. 301 00:28:16,820 --> 00:28:23,810 We talk a lot about the greats and Middle East studies like Albert Karani, who are some of the the great Maghreb studies. 302 00:28:24,110 --> 00:28:30,769 That was a generation that really came out and did most of their research in the 1960s and wrote some of the foundation books. 303 00:28:30,770 --> 00:28:38,829 I think you met you did my policy Maghreb like I made you read from a great was John Waterbury working on Morocco's book Come On to the Faith. 304 00:28:38,830 --> 00:28:46,280 There's a classic interview David Marine after we were writing on Algeria, a William Quandt, Bill Quant, 305 00:28:46,280 --> 00:28:52,309 who went on to work more on the Middle East peace Facebook was on that is a is a foundation one that was funny that we read that 306 00:28:52,310 --> 00:28:58,610 in your seminar and also in Eugene history the Middle East seminar this year two books do not have an article by William Cohen. 307 00:28:58,730 --> 00:29:02,600 Oh, yes. Because he went to work on more Arab-Israeli and other things as well. 308 00:29:02,600 --> 00:29:06,889 So but he started on the ground. And in one sense that that's always a bit sad. 309 00:29:06,890 --> 00:29:10,490 But we lost him to John Waterbury as well, starting work on Egypt. 310 00:29:10,490 --> 00:29:17,000 After that he became more difficult or less interesting to work on the Maghreb, but these are still some of the research done in the climate. 311 00:29:17,000 --> 00:29:23,030 Henri work here in Tunisia was another one. People were interested in the region because it was about time of independence. 312 00:29:23,390 --> 00:29:24,650 But really things drift away. 313 00:29:24,650 --> 00:29:31,670 In the seventies, eighties, you don't get the same number of people that people in Britain, for example, who emerged in the sort of seventies, 314 00:29:31,940 --> 00:29:40,249 Hugh Robert's work in Algeria, and then George Joffe, A worked across the region that she working on Morocco, began to put forth. 315 00:29:40,250 --> 00:29:42,290 When I came in the eighties, 316 00:29:42,290 --> 00:29:49,760 there hadn't been a lot of people studying and and really things began to revive a little bit in the 1960, the generation nineties. 317 00:29:50,180 --> 00:29:57,980 So a lot of those people who were from the sixties, Bill Zalman, is another person who did a lot of very good early work on that period. 318 00:29:58,550 --> 00:30:04,310 So that was in one sense the Golden Age and it's nice to try and get more people coming in later on, regrettably. 319 00:30:04,370 --> 00:30:09,649 Charles Joffe, they just died earlier this year and that generation is beginning to pass through. 320 00:30:09,650 --> 00:30:15,320 And I hope the new generation will come, will come through. But we really did build on a lot of the great work they had done. 321 00:30:16,790 --> 00:30:20,840 One of our last question we ask every guest and we don't prep for X. We want a genuine outsider. 322 00:30:21,110 --> 00:30:24,620 What's your favourite book on the Middle East that you would recommend to our listeners? 323 00:30:24,890 --> 00:30:31,140 What have you picked? One vote. Either this sparked my interest or this is something I think everybody wants to know. 324 00:30:31,140 --> 00:30:35,370 Something about the Middle East should have to read again a form that sparked my interest. 325 00:30:35,370 --> 00:30:44,160 So I think the first book I write, but really, really caught my interest on the Middle East was Robert Fisk's intimidation. 326 00:30:45,210 --> 00:30:48,600 It was a book on basically Lebanon from, I think, through the seventies. 327 00:30:48,600 --> 00:30:51,330 I think it came out in the late eighties, a very early nineties. 328 00:30:52,200 --> 00:30:59,190 And it was Robert Fisk, as you know, was the long time correspond to the times and then the independent of the Middle East. 329 00:30:59,850 --> 00:31:05,669 And it was his account of the Lebanese conflict drawing a lot from his own personal experience. 330 00:31:05,670 --> 00:31:10,409 He lived in Beirut for most of this period. Now, Robert Fisk went on to be very controversial. 331 00:31:10,410 --> 00:31:13,740 Not everybody is a fan. He has a lot of critiques. 332 00:31:14,070 --> 00:31:20,370 Even I would be critical of some of the perspectives he had, some of the things he did, some of his arguments. 333 00:31:20,940 --> 00:31:32,219 But what I, I thought was remarkable, not even nation was that it could really inform and also get you to think about things. 334 00:31:32,220 --> 00:31:35,040 And also it was the emotional connection. 335 00:31:35,580 --> 00:31:41,700 He would write about things that happened in Lebanon, about the experiences of ordinary people, the best way the best journalist can read. 336 00:31:42,120 --> 00:31:48,089 And I remember reading it, this is over 30 years ago and there are bits in that book. 337 00:31:48,090 --> 00:31:52,139 I remember reading what I literally had to put the book down and just gather myself. 338 00:31:52,140 --> 00:31:59,160 But then it was the things he was describing was so emotionally shocking, really. 339 00:31:59,820 --> 00:32:06,780 But that made me think about the region. It made me care, made me interesting and in a way that brought it to light. 340 00:32:06,780 --> 00:32:12,899 It's very easy to get lost in the sort of politics and this sort of more academic side of things. 341 00:32:12,900 --> 00:32:19,520 This is really about people he was writing about people and the fact that the conflict in Lebanon really affects ordinary people in ways, 342 00:32:19,950 --> 00:32:23,520 but we should really engage and care about. And that made me think about it. 343 00:32:23,560 --> 00:32:26,910 I'm not at all sure whether I've been able to follow that tradition, 344 00:32:27,300 --> 00:32:33,300 but in terms of being able to engage and think about the region and think about it in terms of people and how it affects people's lives, 345 00:32:33,750 --> 00:32:40,409 I think that sort of writing, again, as I said, Robert Fisk isn't without his critics, but in terms of being able to engage, 346 00:32:40,410 --> 00:32:45,540 that book really changed me and that really pulled me into studying the Middle East, you know, any parting? 347 00:32:45,540 --> 00:32:48,899 Thanks for our listeners. Before we head off, come and study them. 348 00:32:48,900 --> 00:32:54,719 Margaret There's lots of interesting things going on there, you know. Well, with that, my other colleagues both thanked me for saying this. 349 00:32:54,720 --> 00:33:03,240 But yeah, we've done research on the Arab-Israeli conflict. A lot of research from Egypt come to study with Margaret, but nobody's about from Tunisia. 350 00:33:03,450 --> 00:33:08,850 Algeria needs, for example, a huge amount of research, particularly on things that happened in the post-independence period. 351 00:33:09,180 --> 00:33:12,750 My book has come out from Algeria where there is enormous, 352 00:33:13,020 --> 00:33:17,970 enormous gaps for people to come and write a much better book on that, and I encourage you to come and do that. 353 00:33:18,450 --> 00:33:23,099 So please do that. Morocco, Tunisia, fascinating countries come and study. 354 00:33:23,100 --> 00:33:27,209 And one last pitch. What's the name of the book and where can we find it? Yes, it's Algeria. 355 00:33:27,210 --> 00:33:31,720 Politics and society. From a dark decade to. Published by Hearst. 356 00:33:32,230 --> 00:33:39,430 But we'll be poached by European states in a year or so this time, and you can find it either on Amazon or on the Hearst. 357 00:33:41,140 --> 00:33:44,440 Excellent. Mike Wallace, thank you for joining Almanac. Thank you very much. 358 00:33:44,440 --> 00:33:55,330 My pleasure. Thank you for listening to this episode of Almanac, the Oxford Middle East Podcast. 359 00:33:56,300 --> 00:34:00,020 Almanac is the student run initiative of the Middle East Centre at the University of Oxford. 360 00:34:00,770 --> 00:34:06,520 Episodes expressed in this podcast do not represent the official opinions of the University of Oxford for the philosopher.