The Arabist Podcast

On this week's podcast, we discuss the July 8 protests in Egypt, the raid on the second Gaza flotilla and Morocco's recent constitutional referendum.

ssandr is in Morocco, but Ashraf Khalil and I found time (just barely) to record this week's podcast--in a car between Cairo and Alexandria, on our way (and then, suddenly, our way back) from the postponed Khaled Said trial. Also discussed in this podcast: the bloody clashes in Tahrir this week, and women's political participation, post-revolution. Hope you enjoy, and apologies for background engine noise.

I arrived early this morning in Morocco and have spent a busy day with political activists, party leaders, journalists and others discussing tomorrow's constitutional referendum, which will no doubt see the new constitution proposed by King Muhammad VI easily adopted. The February 20 movement that opposes the new text as a farce (because it does not really change the power of the king) is calling for a boycott, and a test of how much resonance this call has had will be tomorrow's turnout. In the meantime, as they demonstrate in cities across Morocco, I saw the sorry sight of pro-monarchy protestors in Rabat attacking the activists, even hounding a leader of the human rights movement, Khadija Riyadi, into hiding in a petrol station to escape the attacks.  There will more about this later. In the meantime, here's another edition of our occasional podcast, Lunch With The Arabist. This episode was recorded a few days ago in Egypt, but is about Morocco and the new constitution. We ask the prominent French-language blogger Ibn Kafka what he thinks of the new constitution. Ibn Kafka is associated with the Mamfakinch ("We Won't Budge" in Moroccan dialect) website, which is close to the February 20 movement. For a pre-referendum story, check out Paul Schemm's story at AP.

In this week's podcast, we discuss the "Constitution First" vs. "Elections First" debate in Egypt and Sheikh al-Azhar's proposal, the silence surrounding Syria and Bahrain, the ADC's attempt to prevent Syrian artist Malek Jandani from playing a pro-uprising song and review the autobiography of Egyptian ex-Muslim Brother and presidential candidate Abdel Moneim Aboul Fotouh, and wonder if he's really been kicked out of the group.

Back in 2009, I recorded a couple of long interviews with some friends who are old Middle East hands, and thus began an attempt to get a podcast going for this website. I wasn't satisfied with the format, though, or the sound quality. A couple of years and a revolution later, I have a better mike and (after listening to a lot of podcasts) a better idea of what a good podcast sounds like. And, most importantly, co-hosts. Ursula Lindsey, Ashraf Khalil and I will be doing a weekly podcast about (hopefully) the kind of stuff that you'd like to hear about: some well-informed people for whom Middle Eastern politics and culture is not just a job (we're all journalists) but a passion. You all know Ursula from her contributions the blog, so let me introduce Ashraf: he's a long-time friend (we worked together on the late, lamented Cairo Times) with experience covering the region for all sorts of prestigious publications, from the LA Times to the Wall Street Journal. We hope to get a bio page up for him soon. The idea of the podcast is that it's a casual discussion of the week's news between us three (with occasional guests). Like this blog, a lot of it might be on Egypt because we live here, but we will try to follow the region more generally. This podcast will be a work in progress till we hit our stride. We're hoping to get feed back from you at podcast[at]arabist.net on the topics you discuss, feature requests and more.  So give it a listen — this week we talk about Mohamed ElBaradei and Amr Khaled, ask whether reforming Egyptian media is possible, discuss the Israeli spy scandal and Saudi women's campaign for the right to drive, and preview a great book called "Messages from Tahrir." See the links below for references to the topics we discuss and more.

Here it is — the second in what we will try to keep a regular series of podcasts. In this one, an interview with Joshua Stacher, an Assistant Professor of Political Science at Kent State University and an expert on presidential succession in Egypt and Syria. Josh, a former contributor to this site, spent much of this decade learning the arcana of the National Democratic Party and tracking the rise of Gamal Mubarak as Egypt's most important public figure bar his father. At least that's what he was doing when he wasn't following the Muslim Brothers. Due to scheduling conflicts and my voice being damaged by a nasty cold, Ursula Lindsey interviewed Josh — who is convinced Gamal is the next president of Egypt — about how his prophecy might come true.

The first podcast in this series is basically a long interview with my friend Max Rodenbeck, the Middle East correspondent for The Economist and a frequent contributor to the New York Review of Books on regional issues. Max, whose book Cairo: The City Victorious is one of the best works on our great city, has made several trips to Iran in the last year and recently returned from covering the elections and following protests. Our conversation covers the elections themselves, the politics behind the protests, Max's impressions of the popular mood in Iran, and more.