CONFLICTED

Now that we’ve told the story of the rise and fall of Nasserism, we turn to Libya and its handsome and charismatic dictator, Col. Muammar Gaddafi. Believing himself to have inherited Nasser’s mantle of Arab leadership, Gaddafi’s brazen narcissistic insanity is the stuff of legend, and Aimen’s got a caravan-load of funny anecdotes to illustrate just how nuts he was. But more seriously, Gaddafi symbolizes the tragic turn toward unhinged dictatorship which much of the Arab world underwent in the second half of the Cold War. Gaddafi, Assad, Saleh, Mubarak, Ben Ali, and of course Saddam Hussein—they all stalked the Middle East like undead zombies of Nasser, a nightmare from which the Arab world is still recovering.

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Ask anyone from the Middle East about Yemen, that country on the southern tip of the Arabian peninsula, and they’ll tell you tales about the Queen of Sheba, Frankincense and Myrrh. It’s a place steeped in ancient history and paints a vivid picture in the imagination. But it’s also a place currently riven by conflict, engulfed in a civil war which has now been raging since 2014. But how did it get there? And what can the country’s history tell us about the bleak current state of affairs? For the next five episodes, Conflicted tells the country’s story.

We begin in the 20th century, with two Yemeni states - one in the North and one in the South - at odds with each other. With chaos caused by interventions from Nasser in the North, and the British Empire usurped by a Marxist regime in the South, for decades it seemed they could never be united. But with the rise of a certain strongman, Ali Abdullah Saleh, by the late 20th century this seemed possible.

To help Thomas and Aimen find out more about this quest for unification, today Conflicted welcomes our first ever guest, Baraa Shaiban. Baraa is a Yemeni journalist and political activist who was previously the advisor to the Yemeni Embassy London and has done some amazing work in bringing the crisis of the past decade to the world. He’ll be bringing his extraordinary first hand account of many of the recent events in Yemen’s political history to the table as we seek to unwrap this riddle of a country.

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We’ve finally reached the climax of the Cold War in the Middle East: the 6-Day War of 1967 and its dramatic sequel, the Yom Kippur War of 1973. The outcomes of both wars are well known; less so the political machinations leading up to them. We’ll do our best to take you behind the scenes of the corridors of power and into the minds of Arab and Israeli leaders. No one wanted war, yet war arrived. Why? These two wars were transformative: Nasserism was out and radicalism was in, and in the ongoing clash of civilisations in the Middle East, a new and improved player emerged from the wreckage of war: radical Islamism.

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On Friday, January 12th, the Houthis added their muscle to the spreading conflict in the Middle East. By attacking commercial shipping lanes in the Red Sea, they have brought reprisal strikes from a US and UK led coalition which could bring the west into the war and even reignite the Yemeni civil war which has engulfed the country since 2014.

We covered Yemen extensively over 5 episodes at the end of Conflicted season 4, so it was only right that Thomas and Aimen come back together to answer our dear listeners’ questions about this huge new development.

We answer your questions like: What are the Houthis’ objectives in the Middle East? Was the Western military response the right move? How will Iran and its proxies respond in turn? And what does this all mean for the future of the war in Israel, Gaza and the wider Middle East.

This episode is also a taster of the kind of content you’ll get as we launch a new platform - the Conflicted Community. This will be your community hub on Discord for all things Conflicted. Discord is essentially an instant messaging community platform which will allow you to discuss all things Conflicted with fellow dear listeners, share resources we mention in the show and engage in riveting post-episode debates.

This is a paid for community, and for a small monthly fee you’ll get access to the Discord chat channels, the opportunity to chat with Thomas and Aimen, exclusive content and bonus episodes like this one, as well as ad-free listening.

Please do register your interest through the link: www.levellr.com/conflicted

We’ll be launching the Conflicted Community very soon, so keep an eye out for further details on it once you have registered interest.

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Join the Conflicted Community hub on Discord to discuss all things Conflicted with fellow dear listeners, get exclusive content, bonus episodes and ad-free listening. Register your interest through the link: http://www.levellr.com/conflicted

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The second episode of our four part series on the history of Sudan is here!

As the British Empire loses its hold on the country, new nationalistic movements in Sudan began to develop. With the help of revolutionary Islamic thinkers like Hasan Al Turabi, various movements would vie for supremacy, with those calling for Liberal democracy, communism and Islamism all attempting to gain a foothold of power in the new reality for the country in the 20th century. But what would these tensions lead to? A happy independence, or the mire of conflict? And could Sudan overcome the ethnic and religious tensions between its North and South in the process?

In this episode, Thomas and Aimen traverse across Sudan to explore how the modern state came to be, going through independence, power struggles and civil war, with a fascinating character profile of perhaps the country’s most significant political and religious personality of the 20th century: Hasan Al Turabi.

New Conflicted Season 5 episodes will be coming every two weeks, but if you want to have your Conflicted fix every single week, then you’ll have to join our Conflicted Community.

Subscribers will get bonus episodes every other week, and can also join our Conflicted Community chatroom, where you can interact with fellow dearest listeners, discuss episodes past and future, get exclusive messages from Thomas and Aimen, ask future Q&A questions and so much more.

All the information you need to sign up to the Conflicted Community is on this link: https://conflicted.supportingcast.fm/

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