LSE Middle East Centre Podcasts

Speaker: Nasr al-Hariri, Syrian Negotiation Commission Chair: Ian Black, LSE Middle East Centre The war in Syria has entered its eighth year with a worsening humanitarian crisis and an ever increasing threat to global security. Despite the West’s recent military response to the use of chemical weapons, the Assad regime, backed by Russia and Iran, continues with its military strategy unabated. In a conversation with Ian Black, Dr Nasr al-Hariri, President of the Syrian Negotiation Commission (SNC) discusses the latest developments from inside Syria, and suggests practical steps the UK and its allies should take to enforce a comprehensive plan that protects civilians from all indiscriminate attacks, hold war criminals to account, and revive a failing UN-led political process. Recorded on 10 May 2018. -------------------------- Dr Nasr al-Hariri is the President of the Syrian Negotiation Commission. Dr Ian Black is Visiting Senior Fellow at the LSE Middle East Centre. He is a former Middle East editor, diplomatic editor and European editor for The Guardian newspaper. Image credit: Violaine Martin, © UN Geneva

Speaker: Wendy Pearlman, Northwestern University Discussant: Malu Halasa Chair: Rahaf Aldoughli, University of Manchester This event launches Wendy Pearlman's book, “We Crossed a Bridge and It Trembled: Voices from Syria”. Based on interviews with hundreds of displaced Syrians conducted over four years across the Middle East and Europe, the book features a collection of intimate wartime testimonies from a cross-section of Syrians whose lives have been transformed by revolution, war, and flight. Recorded on Wednesday 21 March.

Speaker: Andrew Noble, former British Ambassador to Algeria Andrew Noble spent more than three years in Algeria, which spanned spanned among other things the start of the oil price crisis, advances in the Libyan and Malian discussions and a significant strengthening of the UK’s bilateral relations with Algeria in many areas. Given the difficulty of access to reliable information about Algeria, this discussion offers an insight into the state of Algeria, domestically and internationally. Recorded on 14 March 2018. Image credit: Wikimedia Commons.

Speakers: Madawi Al-Rasheed, LSE Middle East Centre; Steffen Hertog, LSE; Michael Farquhar, King's College London. Chair: Courtney Freer, LSE Middle East Centre King Salman of Saudi Arabia began his rule in 2015 confronted with a series of unprecedented challenges. The dilemmas he has faced are new and significant, from leadership shuffles and falling oil prices to regional and international upheaval. This talk launches the edited volume 'Salman’s Legacy', which interrogates this era and assesses its multiple social, political, regional and international challenges. Whether Salman’s policies have saved the kingdom from serious upheaval is yet to be seen, but no doubt a new kingdom is emerging. Recorded on 7 March 2018.

Speaker: Güneş Murat Tezcür, University of Central Florida Chair: Zeynep Kaya, LSE Middle East Centre Over the last three decades, tens of thousands of women have joined the ranks of the PKK and its affiliated organisations. What factors explain their violent mobilisation despite life-threatening risks? Building on a unique dataset of more than 9,000 militant bios and in-depth interviews with the families of militants, Güneş Murat Tezcür argues that gender inequality directly influences women's decisions to take up arms, believing that doing so provides them with a path out of patriarchal gender relations. Recorded on 7 February 2018. -------------------------- Güneş Murat Tezcür is the Jalal Talabani Chair of Kurdish Political Studies at the University of Central Florida. His research focuses on political violence, social movements, and the geopolitics of the Middle East with a focus on the Kurdish question. Image credit: Kurdishstruggle, Flickr.

Speakers: Silvia Quattrini, Minority Rights Group International; Austen Josephs, Alaco Limited; Alexandra Buccianti, BBC Media Action; Jessica Watkins and Robert Lowe, LSE Middle East Centre This talk, jointly hosted by BRISMES and the LSE Middle East Centre, is aimed at students interested in working in or on the Middle East. The panel discussion includes professionals from four different sectors – media, academia, business and not-for-profit. Recorded on 31 January 2018.

* We apologise for the abrupt ending of this podcast. The last few minutes of the recording were corrupted. Speaker: Adel Iskandar, Simon Fraser University Seven years since the popular uprising that shook Egypt, the relationships between state, society, social movements and corporate power have been reconfigured, perhaps even disfigured. On the eve of the anniversary of the January 25 revolution, Adel Iskandar reflects on these changes and asks how they have affected our understanding of social, cultural and political life in the country. He argues that Egypt today is a replica of various historic Egypts, each manifesting as an effigy built for either public scrutiny or glorification. Recorded on 24 January 2018. -------------------------- Adel Iskandar is Director of the Global Communication Program at Simon Fraser University (SFU) in Vancouver. He is the author of several works on Egypt and Arab media, including "Egypt In Flux: Essays on an Unfinished Revolution" (IB Taurus, 2013) and "Mediating the Arab Uprisings" (Tadween Publishing, 2012). He is a co-editor of Jadaliyya and an associate producer of the Status audio journal. Image credit: Guillén Pérez, Flickr

Speaker: Soraya El Kahlaoui, School of Social Science, Institute for Advanced Study In this talk, Soraya El Kahlaoui discusses the ongoing resistance to urban expansion in Rabat, focusing on the Guich Loudaya tribal lands. The Guich lands have today been entirely relinquished to private developers linked to Morocco’s ruling elite who have sought to erect in their place one of the wealthiest neighbourhoods in Rabat: Hay Ryad. Soraya analyses the forms of resistance used by the “urban subaltern” and argues that the rhetoric of modernity underpinning urban growth in Morocco represents a continuation of the colonial logic of land grabs and the privatisation of communal agricultural spaces. Recorded on 16 January 2018.

Speakers: Shereen El-Feki, Chatham House; Joey Ayoub, University of Edinburgh Chair: Courtney Freer, LSE Middle East Centre With shifts in the political and economic landscape across the MENA region, the pillars of patriarchy are under increasing pressure. How do men see their lives and the changing world around them, including the roles and rights of women and girls? In this event, Shereen El Feki, Joey Ayoub and Courtney Freer discuss IMAGES MENA, the first study of its kind to explore the private and public lives of almost 10,000 men and women across the Middle East and North Africa, and what these findings mean for the future of the region. Recorded on 10 January 2018. Image credit: World Bank, Flickr.

Speaker: Tom Woerner-Powell, University of Manchester Chair: Jonathan Hill, King's College London From his struggle against French colonialism in North Africa to his stand against religious sectarianism in Syria, the actions of Abd al-Qadir al-Jaza'iri have been an inspiration to many. The symbolic father of modern Algeria has frequently been presented as both an exemplary Muslim and a bridge between East and West. In this talk, Tom Woerner-Powell launches his book ‘Another Road to Damascus: an integrative approach to Abd al-Qadir al-Jaza’iri', in which he questions prevailing depictions of the historical figure in scholarly literature and beyond, and discusses his continued salience as a symbolic mediator between the supposedly conflicting zones of ‘Islam and Europe’, ‘East and West’. Recorded on 6 December 2017.