The Gateway - A Podcast from the Middle East

The extent of civilian casualties from UK airstrikes in Iraq, Syria, and elsewhere is kept hidden by the British government. Our guest this week, Joe Dyke, the lead investigator at Airwars, is part of a team working to uncover the cost of wars waged from the skies.

This week we hear from Gilbert Achcar, Professor of Development Studies and International Relations at SOAS, who discusses his latest book, The New Cold War: The US, Russia and China from Kosovo to Ukraine, published by Saqi in February 2023. In the book, Gilbert argues that, despite the rhetoric of a new Cold War following Russia's invasion of Ukraine last year, there has, in fact, been an ongoing New Cold War since the late 1990s.

This week we have a little treat for fans of radical political philosophy. Mohamed Abdou, Global Racial Justice Postdoctoral Fellow at Cornell University, joins us to talk about his new book Anarchy and Islam: Relationships and Rensonances, published by Pluto in 2022. Constructing a decolonial, non-authoritarian and non-capitalist Islamic anarchism, Mohamed philosophically and theologically challenges the classist, sexist, racist, ageist, queerphobic and ableist inequalities in both post- and neo-colonial societies like Egypt, and settler-colonial societies such as Canada and the USA.

This week we are joined by Tine Gade, a Senior Research Fellow at the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs. Tine talks about her new book, Sunni City: Tripoli from Islamist Utopia to the Lebanese ‘Revolution', published by Cambridge University Press in November 2022. In the book, Tine looks beyond typical understandings of Lebanon's second city, Tripoli, that have focused on the city as an Islamist or even Jihadi political centre. Instead, she argues, the city has a much deeper history of resistance and collaboration with the state and wider region.

This week we are joined by Natalie Koch, Professor in the Geography and Environment Department at Syracuse University. Natalie is the author of a new book, Arid Empire: The Entangled Fates of Arizona and Arabia, published by Verso in January. In the book, Natalie looks at the connections between deserts in the U.S. and the Arabian Penninsula, teaching us to see deserts anew, not as mythic sites of romance or empty wastelands but as an "arid empire," a crucial political space where imperial dreams coalesce.

This week, we hear from Raymond B. Craib, Marie Underhill Noll Professor of American History at Cornell University. Raymond discusses his latest book, Adventure Capitalism: A History of Libertarian Exit, from the Era of Decolonization to the Digital Age, published by PM Press in 2022. From islands to space utopias, the world's elite have for decades directed their wealth to escape the injustices they have, in no small part, contributed to. In the book, Craib explores in careful detail the ideology and practice of libertarian exit and its place in the histories of contemporary capitalism, decolonization, empire, and oceans and islands.

This week we are joined by Rebecca Lowe, a journalist who has written a book on her experience of cycling from the UK to Tehran. The Slow Road to Tehran: A Revelatory Bike Ride through Europe and the Middle East was published by September Publishing last year.

This week we hear from Ben Abelow, author of How the West Bought War to Ukraine, published by Siland Press in 2022. In the book, Ben shows how U.S. foreign policies, often supported by powers in Europe, together with NATO expansionism, were a major factor in Russia's invasion of Ukraine last year. Ben's book has recently been covered by The Independent (UK).

This week we are joined by Manijeh Moradian, Assistant Professor of Women's, Gender and Sexuality Studies at Barnard College. Manijeh is the author of This Flame Within: Iranian Revolutionaries in the United States, published by Duke University Press in November 2022. In the book, Manjieh recounts the experiences of Iranian foreign students in the U.S. who joined a global movement against US imperialism during the 1960s and 1970s, especially against Mohammad Reza Shah's regime in Iran.

This week we hear from Volodymyr Ishchenko, a research associate at the Institute of East European Studies, Freie Universität Berlin. Volodymyr has recently published an article in the New Left Review called ‘Ukrainian Voices'. He argues that decolonization in Ukraine has focused on culture at the expense of a broader liberatory movement that could connect Ukraine's struggle against Russia with wider battles for justice around the world, notably in the Global South.

In this episode, we are joined by Patrick O'Hare, UKRI Future Leaders Fellow and Senior Research Fellow at the University of St Andrews. Patrick's new book, Rubbish Belongs to the Poor: Hygienic Enclosure and the Waste Commons, was published by Pluto Press in 2022. In the book, Patrick journeys to the heart of Uruguay's waste disposal system in order to reconceptualize rubbish as a 21st-century commons at risk of enclosure. I began by asking for a quick rundown of contemporary politics in Uruguay.

This week we hear from Kaveh Abbasian, a filmmaker and Lecturer in Film and Media Practice at the University of Kent. Kaveh talks about his new documentary, Triumph, which is about the state-sanctioned narratives of Iran's 1979 Revolution and the Iran-Iraq War. Triumph was released in 2022 and will soon be available to view online.

In this episode, we hear from Yasmin El-Rifae, writer and author of Radius: A Story of Feminist Revolution (Verso, 2022). Radius is the story of the women and men who formed Opantish—Operation Anti-Sexual Harassment—who deployed hundreds of volunteers, scouts rescue teams, and getaway drivers to intervene in the spiralling cases of sexual violence against women protesters in Tahrir Square during the uprising in Egypt.

In this episode, we hear from Chris Armstrong, Professor of Political Theory at the University of Southampton and author of A Blue New Deal: Why We Need a New Politics for the Ocean. Chris reveals how existing governing institutions are failing to respond to the most pressing problems of our time, arguing that we must do better. He examines these crises—from the fate of people whose lands will be submerged by sea level rise to the exploitation of people working in fishing to the rights of marine animals—and makes the case for a powerful World Ocean Authority capable of tackling them. A Blue New Deal presents a radical manifesto for putting equality, democracy, and sustainability at the heart of ocean politics.

In this episode, we are joined by C. Brad Faught, Professor of History and Global Studies at Tyndale University. We hear about the importance of the 1921 conference in Cairo in determining the course of 20th and 21st-century politics.

In this episode, we hear from Chrstoph N. Vogel, the author of Conflict Minerals, Inc.: War, Profit and White Saviourism in Eastern Congo. Known as ‘digital minerals' for their use in high-end technology, their exploitation and trade has been singled out in numerous media and United Nations reports as a key driver of violence, provoking an unprecedented popular outcry and prompting transnational efforts to promote ‘conflict-free', ethical mining. Focusing on the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, Conflict Minerals, Inc. is the first comprehensive analysis of this phenomenon.

In this episode, we hear from Chrstoph N. Vogel, the author of Conflict Minerals, Inc.: War, Profit and White Saviourism in Eastern Congo. Known as ‘digital minerals' for their use in high-end technology, their exploitation and trade has been singled out in numerous media and United Nations reports as a key driver of violence, provoking an unprecedented popular outcry and prompting transnational efforts to promote ‘conflict-free', ethical mining. Focusing on the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, Conflict Minerals, Inc. is the first comprehensive analysis of this phenomenon.

In this episode, we are joined by Pete Pattisson, a freelance journalist who writes for the Guardian. Pete has covered the exploitation of workers around the world, including in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Malaysia. Over the last several years, he has covered the exploitation of workers in Qatar. In a recent article he reported that the Qatari government has ordered construction contractors to send migrant workers home before the beginning of the World Cup, leaving many workers in thousands of dollars of debts.

In this episode, The Gateway's host Nicholas Pritchard reads from his Jerusalem Diary whilst sitting in a corner of the Old City. He asks how the travel industry interacts with Jerusalem's history.

This week we hear from Julian Stallabrass, Professor of Modern and Contemporary Art at the Courtauld Institute of Art, University of London. Julian has written a new book, Killing for Show: Photography, War, and the Media in Vietnam and Iraq, published by Rowman & Littlefield Publishers in 2020. We discuss the role of photography in war reporting, the weaponization of photographers and the press more broadly by the U.S. government during the war in Iraq, and how technological change has bought new ways of covering and seeing conflict.

This week we hear from Çağatay Edgücan Şahin and Mehmet Erman Erol. They are the editors of The Condition of the Working Class in Turkey: Labour under Neoliberal Authoritarianism, published by Pluto Press in 2021. They discuss the current state of the Turkish economy, which is seeing colossal inflation, neoliberalism's effects, and pay and conditions for workers in Turkey.

This week we hear from Shyamika Jayasundara-Smits, the author of An Uneasy Hegemony: Politics of State-Building and Struggles for Justice in Sri Lanka, forthcoming from Cambridge University Press. Shyamika discusses the recent protests in Sri Lanka, how social divisions served the country's elite, and what Sri Lanka can teach other movements worldwide. Shyamika is Assistant Professor at the Erasmus University in the Netherlands.

This week we hear from Louis Yako, an independent anthropologist and writer. Louis is the author of a new book, Bullets in Envelopes: Iraqi Academics in Exile, published by Pluto Press in 2021. Louis discusses education in Iraq before the Gulf war, the effects of the U.S.-led sanctions, and the neoliberalization of the education system following the U.S. invasion in 2003.

This week we're joined by Christine Leuenberger and Izhak Schnell, the authors of The Politics of Maps: Cartographic Constructions of Israel/Palestine, published by Oxford University Press in 2020. They discuss the birth of mapping and the nation-state, early maps of the State of Israel, and how maps are used to form public perceptions of nationhood, particularly concerning Palestine. Christine Leuenberger is a Senior Lecturer at Cornell University, and Izhak Schnell is an Emeritus Professor of Geophysics at Tel Aviv University.

This week, we hear from Fred Scharmen, author of Space Forces: A Critical History of Life in Outer Space, published by Verso in 2021. He talks about imagining utopian futures in outer space, the connection between space and the sea, and recommends some reading to our listeners.

This week we are joined by Ahmed Al-Rawi who has written a book called Cyberwars in the Middle East, published by Rutgers University Press in 2021. The book looks at how different actors in the Middle East, from states to activists, use hacking as a form of political disruption. Ahmed is an Assistant Professor of News, Social Media, and Public Communication at Simon Fraser University.

This week Yafa Shanneik discusses her book The Art of Resistance in Islam: The Performance of Politics Among Shi'i Women in the Middle East and Beyond, published by Cambridge University Press in January. In the book, Yafa, a Visiting Professor at Lund University, uses first-hand ethnographic insights to ask how Shi'i religious women in the Middle East and Europe resist state, gender, and communal structures.

This week we hear from Tariq Ali, a leading figure on the left, a prolific author, an activist, and a member of the editorial board of the New Left Review. Tariq discusses his new book, Winston Churchill: His Times, His Crimes, published by Verso in May 2022. In the book, Tariq tackles the cult of Churchill that has had a pervasive impact on imperial history and contemporary politics in Britain. Churchill, Tariq highlights, was a white supremacist whose policies contributed to the deaths of millions of people abroad and enacted violence against the working class at home.

This week we hear from Dipesh Chakrabarty, the Lawrence A. Kimpton Distinguished Service Professor in History at the University of Chicago. Dipesh is one of the most important historians of the past few decades. In the last few years, he has turned his attention to the Anthropocene: the idea that human actions have caused such a disruption to planetary systems that we have entered a new geological epoch. In his latest book, The Climate of History in a Planetary Age, published by Chicago University Press in 2021, he argues that climate change has changed ideas of history, modernity, and globalization.

In this episode, we hear from Sally Hayden, the author of My Fourth Time, We Drowned: Seeking Refuge on the World's Deadliest Migration Route, published by Penguin in March 2022. The book portrays the horrors of Libyan detention centers and the complicity of European powers who knowingly send people to places where they will face horrendous abuse. Furthermore, it's a rare piece of investigative journalism that captures the lives of human beings suffering under extreme circumstances, together with a moral outlook matched by the power of its reporting. Sally is a journalist covering migration, conflict, and humanitarian crises. Sally has written for several publications, including Vice, the Guardian, the Irish Times, Al Jazeera, and Foreign Policy. This episode includes an audio recording sent to Sally by a man in a detention center in Tripoli.

This week we hear from Caroline Elkins, a Pulitzer-prize-winning historian, and Professor of History and African and African American Studies at Harvard University. Caroline is the author of a new book, Legacy of Violence: A History of the British Empire, published by Penguin in March 2022. The book demonstrates how and why violence was the most salient factor underwriting Britain's empire and the nation's imperial identity at home. The book upends long-held myths and sheds new light on the empire's role in shaping the world today.

This week we hear from Asef Bayat, Professor of Sociology, and the Catherine and Bruce Bastian Professor of Global and Transnational Studies at the Department of Sociology, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. He's a renowned scholar whose work on the contemporary Middle East has had an enormous impact on how revolutions and social movements are understood. In this episode, he talks about his new book, Revolutionary Life: The Everyday of the Arab Spring, published by Harvard University Press in 2021. In the book, Asef looks at how the working class, women, and other marginalized groups were vital to the Arab Uprisings. Focusing on Tunisia and Egypt, he shows how the uprisings changed society for millions of people in the region.

In this episode, we hear from Suhaiymah Manzoor-Khan, a writer, poet, and educator. She's well known for her spoken word poetry which often focuses on the experience of being a Muslim in contemporary Britain. Suhaiymah is the author of a poetry collection, Postcolonial Banter, and a new book, Tangled in Terror: Uprooting Islamophobia, which was published by Pluto in March. Tangled in Terror looks at how Islamaphobia affects British Muslims. It argues that a system of surveillance and criminalization benefits the rich whilst dividing communities across the country.

In this episode, we focus on a very slippery material: palm oil. It can be found in a huge amount of food, health products, medicine, clothing, and technology. Despite its ubiquity, the history and centrality of palm oil in globalized capitalism have tended to be overlooked. In this episode, we speak to Max Haiven, Canada Research Chair in Culture, Media and Social Justice at Lakehead University. Max is the author of a new book, Palm Oil: The Grease of Empire, which will be published in April by Pluto Press.

In this episode, we discuss the history of Russian and Ukrainian relations, and how that history has been abused by Vladimir Putin to justify the invasion of Ukraine. We also discuss how the modern Ukrainian state has been constructed through its literature, notably literature that celebrates a diversity of languages and cultures. Shortly after the invasion began, Nicholas Pritchard spoke to Rory Finnin, Associate Professor of Ukrainian Studies at the University of Cambridge, and Uilleam Blacker, Associate Professor in the Comparative Culture of Russia and Eastern Europe at University College London.

In this episode, we hear from Leïla Vignal, professor of geography at the École normale supérieure (ENS) in Paris, and author of War-Torn: The Unmaking of Syria, 2011 - 2021, published by Hurst in 2021. In the book, Leïla focuses on the destruction of cities, social ties, and the economy in Syria during the decade when Syria's President Bashar al-Assad was at war with his own country. Nicholas Pritchard met Leïla in her office at the ENS to discuss the book, the role of Russia in the destruction of Syria, and the weaponization of displacement.

In this episode, we hear from Diana Darke, author and broadcaster on culture in the Middle East. She has written a number of books on Syria and you can find her articles in the Guardian, the Financial Times, and many other places. We discuss her most recent book, Stealing from the Saracens: How Islamic Architecture Shaped Europe, published by Hurst in 2020. In the book, Darke argues that the influence of Islamic architecture on European architecture has been greatly overlooked. Writing against Islamophobia and Western supremacy, Darke argues that it's time Europe acknowledged how Islamic culture led to some of Europe's most iconic buildings, including the Houses of Parliament in London and Notre Dame in Paris.

This week, we hear from Liam Campling and Alejandro Colás, authors of Capitalism and the Sea: The Maritime Factor in the Making of the Modern World, published by Verso in 2021. The book explores the geopolitics, ecology, and political economy of the world's seas and oceans. They argue that the various ways in which the oceans have been used by capitalist societies led to the exploitation of humans, animals, and resources.

In this episode, we speak to Peter Mitchell who has just written a fascinating new book, Imperial Nostalgia: How the British Conquered Themselves, published by Manchester University Press. Peter argues that the British are haunted by their imperial past, unable to imagine themselves or their place in the world without it. This nostalgia shapes mainstream political debate on issues such as war, migration, culture, and history.

In this episode, we hear from Karen J. Greenberg, Director of the Centre on National Security at Fordham University. Greenberg is the author of a new book, Subtle Tools: The Dismantling of American Democracy from the War on Terror to Donald Trump, published by Princeton University Press. The book argues that policies and practices implemented after the 11 September attacks were later turned back on U.S. democracy. The degradation of language, vague roles for government agencies, and new secrecy were later used against democratic movements in the U.S., including the Black Lives Matter protests.

We've looked back at our year in podcasting and picked out some favourite moments for a highlight episode. This episode swerves between climate catastrophe and labour rights in the Gulf, the war in Yemen and the Palestine-Israel conflict, and history and literature. Featuring Shireen al-Adeimi, Timothy Brennan, Andrew Cockburn, Hamid Dabashi, A. Scott Denning, Thomas Anthony Durkin, Dr Khamis Elessi, Bernard E. Harcourt, Yara Hawari, Nick McGeehan, Fadi Quran, Priya Satia.

In this episode, we speak to Timothy Brennan, Professor of Comparative Literature, Cultural Studies, and English at the University of Minnesota. Timothy is the author of a new very highly acclaimed biography of the late writer and public figure Edward Said. Said was born in Jerusalem in 1935 but spent the majority of his formative years in Cairo, before moving to the US for his education and subsequently a long career at Columbia University in the City of New York. In our conversation, Timothy talks about Said's place in the New York cultural and political world, his writing, and memories Timothy has of him and Said working together during more than 20 years of friendship. Places of Mind: A Life of Edward Said, was released earlier this year and is published by Bloomsbury.

In this episode, we speak to Priya Satia, Raymond A. Spruance Professor of International History and Professor of History at Stanford University, and author of ‘Time's Monster: History, Conscience, and Britain's Empire'. Professor Satia argues that history not only shapes the way the past is interpreted, but also shapes the future. Focusing on Britain's imperial past, the book shows how Enlightenment thinkers inherited an idea that final moral judgment is delayed to a point in the distant future. To this end, Britons exerted violence and control over enormous swathes of the world whilst maintaining a sense of moral righteousness in the present. Time's Monster: History, Conscience and Britain's Empire was published by Allen Lane in 2020.

In this episode, we hear from Ibrahim Ba, French former professional footballer who played as a right midfielder. Starting off his career with Le Havre in France in the early 1990s, he went on to represent clubs in Italy, England, Turkey, and Sweden before retiring at A.C. Milan in 2008. Ba talks to Sports Writer Husam Binni about his life as a football player, his best friends from AC Milan and his predictions and views about the current football scene in Europe and the world.

In this episode of The Gateway, we speak to Andrew Cockburn, Washington editor of Harper's and long-time follower of American foreign policy and American wars. Andrew is the author of a new book, The Spoils of War: Power, Profit, and the American War Machine. In the book, he argues that the American war machine can only be understood in terms of the private passions and interests, financial or otherwise, of those who control it. It takes us from extraordinary expensive toilet seat covers to wasteful spending when it came to infrastructure in Afghanistan. The Spoils of War was published by Verso in September.

In this episode, we hear from Hamid Dabashi, Hagop Kevorkian Professor of Iranian Studies and Comparative Literature at Columbia, and the author of a new book Reversing the Colonial Gaze: Persian Travelers Abroad, published by Cambridge University Press in 2020. Hamid follows the journeys of travelers from Iran and India as they go to Asia, Africa, North and South America, Europe, and beyond. Until now, many of these travelogues have been read for what they can tell us about encounters with Europe. But, as Hamid points out, the concerns and interests of these individuals were much broader than a reductive Eurocentrism would have us believe.

In this episode of The Gateway, we speak to Matthew Fuller, Professor of Cultural Studies at Goldsmiths, University of London, and Eyal Weizman, Professor of Spatial and Visual Cultures, also at Goldsmiths. Eyal founded the research agency Forensic Architecture in 2010. Their investigations focus on a range of vital topics, including political violence in Myanmar, airstrikes by the Suadi-led coalition in Yemen, and the extrajudicial execution of 26-year-old Ahmad Erekat, by Israeli forces in 2020. Matthew and Eyal have just published a book looking at the theory and practice of this new type of investigation, which incorporates a wide range of people, species, flora, and forms of knowledge, and knowledge making. Investigative Aesthetics was published by Verso in August.

In this episode of The Gateway, I speak to Samuel Moyn, Henry R. Luce Professor of Jurisprudence at Yale Law School and Professor of History at Yale University, and the author of a new book, Humane: How the United States Abandoned Peace and Reinvented War. Samuel argues that a new focus on waging wars with greater technological and tactical complexity - notably through Unmanned Arel Veichels, or drones, and through small teams of special forces - has taken precedence over whether wars should be fought in the first place. The consequence, he argues, is that peace movements have faded into the background whilst calls for more “humane” warfare have taken over. I began by asking Samuel how he came to the subject of his latest book, which was published in early September.

It's been a year since Donald Trump sat on the South Lawn of the White House with Benjamin Netanyahu and the foreign ministers of the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain. They all gathered in the September sun to sign what's been dubbed the ‘Abraham Accords', an agreement between Israel, the UAE, and Bahrain to normalize relations, establish embassies and, essentially, begin trading relationships with one another. Since then, Morocco and Sudan have joined too. The agreements have been widely criticized by Palestinian activists and politicians, who see them as the Gulf states relieving pressure on Israel over their occupation of the West Bank and besiegement of Gaza, together with the abuses that have come to characterize Israel's relationship with the Palestinians over the decades. In this episode of The Gateway, Nicholas Prichard spoke to Dr. Guy Burton, Visiting Fellow at the LSE Middle East Centre and an Adjunct Professor of International Relations at Vesalius College in Brussels. Guy has worked in universities in the Middle East and writes on China's interests in the region, too. Nicholas began by asking how Dr. Burton would characterize the Abraham Accords one year on.

This week's episode of The Gateway focuses on Palestinian stonework. An intrinsic part of Palestine's economy and history, stone workers have helped to build every state in the Middle East, except their own. Our first guest is Andrew Ross, Professor of Social and Cultural Analysis at New York University and author of Stone Men: The Palestinians Who Built Israel, released this year in paperback. We discuss labor rights for Palestinian stone workers, aesthetics, and potential claims for land rights through stonework. Our second guests are Elias and Yousef Anastas, the brothers behind the celebrated architecture studio AAU ANASTAS. We discuss their work, decolonizing the history of architecture, and the place of stone in the future of Palestine's landscape.

In this episode of The Gateway, we discuss the science behind the forest fires that have been plaguing the Middle East, North Africa, and other regions around the world this summer. Imma Olivera, Lecturer in Ecosystems Science and Deputy Programme Leader on Ecosystems at the University of Oxford, talks us through the conditions necessary for forest fires to arise, ways of reducing risks, and the implications of fires on wider ecosystems. A. Scott Denning, Professor of Atmospheric Science at Colorado State University, discusses the wider drivers behind the rise of forest fires and what societies can do to reduce and ultimately stop greenhouse gas emissions.