The Arabist Podcast

In this week’s podcast, we turn to the tragic events on October 9 in Downtown Cairo, when at least 25 people (mostly Coptic protestors) were killed at the Maspero state TV building. Ashraf, Ursula and I host New York Review of Books contributor Yasmine El Rashidi, an eyewitness to the massacre, and talk about what happened and its consequences.

This week we discuss those Arab revolutions that are still in progress or are being stopped dead in their tracks: Yemen, Bahrain and Syria.

This week, Ursula and Ashraf host guests from Libya Ahmad Shokr and Anjali Kamat. They talk de-Qadhafization, the state of the (counter) revolution in Egypt, and of Muhammad Tantawi's suit.

This week, Ashraf Khalil is back and we talk about the worrying turn Egypt's transition has taken, between the reinstatement of the Emergency Law, restrictions on media, threats against strikers and more. We also discuss Turkish PM Recep Erdogan's visit to Cairo, his reception by the army and Islamists, and which Turkish model is applicable in Egypt — if any.

In this week's podcast, AFP reporter Samer Al Atrush and journalist Steve Negus join Ursula Lindsey. We discuss the clashes of Friday 9 September, in which protester defaced the Ministry of Interior, broke into the Israeli embassy and fought the police, and ask: why did the army and police seem to stand back? And has the protest movement let itself in for a crackdown? We also discuss Mubarak's trial (for ordering police to shoot at demonstrators, and for corruption) which so far has offered little in the way of a smoking gun and has been marred by chaos. Samer gives eye-witness accounts of the clashes around the Israeli embassy and of courtroom shenanigans.

We delayed this week's podcast to bring you two guests with expert knowledge of the Libyan war and its regional consequences: Steve Negus, who just returned from Tripoli and Benghazi, and Middle East correspondent for The Economist Max Rodenbeck. (Ashraf Khalil is off this week dealing with a looming book deadline.) We talk about why Tripoli fell so fast and how secure it is now, what might happen in Sirte and Sebha, the last Qadhafi strongholds, and what governance might look like in Libya for the foreseable future. We also discuss whether there is a Libyan model for humanitarian intervention, what it might mean for Syria, Qatar's steroid diplomacy, and still more. Finally, we discuss Libyan novelist Hisham Matar's novels and play a song from Libya's reggae-influenced pop music.

We're back from our break and talk sbout Tea Party politics, how the Mubarak trial is going so far and whether it should have taken place in the way it did, and how the situation in Sinai has created an Egyptian-Israeli crisis. And we touch upon what may be the beginning of the end for Syria and Libya.

In this week's podcast, we give an update on the Tahrir Square sit-in, wonder if the never-ending cabinet shuffle will ever happen, talk about the politics in Upper Egypt with our guest Steve Negus, remember the movies that defined the late Mubarak era, and review the new Arabic comic Tok-Tok.

In this week’s podcast, Ashraf Khalil is given time off and we host the not-street-artist Ganzeer, one of the brains behind Rolling Bulb and a series of murals honoring the martyrs of the revolution across Cairo. We discuss the current standoff between protestors camping in Tahrir Square and elsewhere, and review David Wolman’s "The Instigators".

A few weeks ago, I met up with the Council of Foreign Relations resident Egypt expert, Steve Cook (who blogs at From the Potomac to the Euphrates) and his colleague Jonathan Tepperman, managing editor of Foreign Affairs. After downing a few plates of calamari and bottles of Stellas at the Greek Club, we talked about the future of the US-Egypt relationship and how the Arab Spring has changed foreign policy thinking in Washington.