The Chatterbox

Discussions about ongoing attempts to move beyond the US dollar as the hegemonic currency of world trade often focus on the official policies of nation-states. Frequently referenced in such debates, for instance, are attempts by central banks to issue digital currencies, the recently mooted BRICS currency, and various measures taken by countries in the Global South to hold larger shares of their foreign reserves in currencies other than the dollar.

But what is often missing from these conversations are the perspectives and practical considerations of citizens who interact with multiple currencies by necessity or by choice —whether through trade, remittances, or other forms of cross-border exchange. To what extent is de-dollarization already a practical outcome of increasing Africa-China trade? Are Igbo importers of Chinese-made goods at the vanguard of a multi-currency fluency which nation-states will ultimately have to adopt?

The Nigerian Scam explores these issues on the most recent Africa Is a Country podcast through a conversation with Dr. Jing Jing Liu, focused on her recently published study “Decentering the Dollar in Africa–China Trade: How Nigerian Entrepreneurs Navigate Currency Swaps and Digital Currencies in an Era of USD Hegemony and RMB Internationalization.”

Professor Yasir Suleiman-Malley speaks about the complexities of Arabic tracing his personal journey with the language, from early struggles with grammar to a deep appreciation for its richness. We explore the historical and pedagogical challenges of teaching Arabic, especially given its sacred status connected to the Quranic text and the socio-cultural resistance to modernizing its grammatical teaching methods. The conversation also delves into the dual nature of Arabic, the spoken and the written forms, their impact on education, everyday use, and the broader implications of Arabic as a cultural and identity-defining symbol in the Arab world. 

00:00 Introduction 

00:05 Professor Suleiman-Malley's Early Relationship with Arabic

01:24 Challenges in Teaching Arabic Grammar

05:34 Cultural and Historical Context of Arabic Pedagogy

11:30 Arabic as a Symbol of Identity and Conflict

15:43 The Health of the Arabic Language

23:50 Decolonization and Language

29:45 Reviving and Managing Languages

38:26 The Role of Language in Identity

39:19 Language as a Membership Card

41:04 Diversity and Unity in the Arab World

42:50 Cultural Arabness vs Racial Arabness

45:39 Historical Perspectives on Arab Identity

54:01 The Concept of Diglossia

01:03:08 Challenges of Written vs Spoken Arabic

01:07:11 The Future of Arabic Language and Identity

01:13:30 Final Thoughts

Professor Yasir Suleiman-Malley is Chair of the Panel of Judges, British-Kuwaiti Friendship Society Book Prize in Middle Eastern Studies. He serves as Trustee on the Boards of Arab-British Chamber Charitable Foundation, International Prize for Arab Fiction (in association with the Man-Booker Prize), Banipal Trust for Arab Literature and is trustee of the Gulf Research Centre-Cambridge. He is also Chair of the Advisory Board of the Centre for the Advanced Study of the Arab World, Chair of the Centre for the Study of the International Relations of the Middle East and North Africa (CIRMENA), Board Member of the Islamic Manuscript Association, Member of the Advisory Board of the Centre for Evaluation and Research in Muslim Education, Institute of Education, Member of the Advisory Board of The Doha Institute, Qatar and Member of the Advisory Board of Our Shared Future. He is a member of the editorial boards of a number of journals and book series. He is also Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE), a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, formerly Head of the Department of Middle Eastern Studies, and Founding Director of the Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Centre of Islamic Studies.

Hosted by Mikey Muhanna

Connect directly with Mikey Muhanna 👉 https://instagram.com/mikey_mu

Theme music: Peninsular, Tarek Yamani 🔊 

https://spoti.fi/47I59ns

Hosted by: 
Mikey Muhanna 👉 https://www.instagram.com/mikey_mu/?hl=en-gb

FOLLOW & RATE THE AFIKRA PODCAST:
» Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/lb/podcast/the-afikra-podcast/id1529437743
» Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5nafoF1Zs7F48mGZjlhrze
» Anghami: https://play.anghami.com/podcast/1014643869

THIS SERIES IS PART OF THE AFIKRA PODCAST NETWORK 
Explore all episodes in this series: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLfYG40bwRKl5xaTkBDrUKLCulvoCE8ubX&feature=shared

ABOUT AFIKRA
afikra | عفكرة is a movement to convert passive interest in the Arab world to active intellectual curiosity. We aim to collectively reframe the dominant narrative of the region by exploring the histories and cultures of the region – past, present and future – through conversations driven by curiosity.
📍 Local events in 40+ locations worldwide http://afikra.com/chapters
🎧 New podcasts + videos weekly http://afikra.com/podcasts
⚡ Become a member: https://www.afikra.com/membership
🔗 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/afikra_
🔗 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/afikra.official
🔗 Twitter: https://twitter.com/afikra

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

In this episode of then & now, we are joined by Dr. Jamaal Muwwakkil, Chancellor’s Postdoctoral Fellow at UCLA and incoming Assistant Professor of Anthropology at the University of Washington, to discuss the recent rollback of affirmative action and diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives in American universities. Jamaal examines how these changes—set in motion by the Supreme Court’s 2023 decision to end race-conscious admissions, alongside a rising political backlash against DEI, particularly from the Trump administration—signal a return to exclusionary practices after decades of hard-fought progress. Bringing a sociolinguistic perspective to the jagged history of Black student experiences in the era of affirmative action, Jamaal traces the arc from the first efforts at inclusion in the 1950s to the present moment. Focusing on the implications of these shifts, particularly for Black and Latinx students navigating the current higher education environment, Jamaal provides insight into how language, policy, and power shape experiences of belonging and exclusion on campus, offering essential context for understanding this pivotal moment in higher education.

Dr. Jamaal Muwwakkil is a University of California Chancellor’s Postdoctoral Fellow at UCLA in the Department of Education and Information Studies and an incoming Assistant Professor of Anthropology at the University of Washington. Jamaal holds a Linguistics PhD from the University of California, Santa Barbara. He was also the 2019-20 University of California (UC) Student Regent-designate and the 2020-21 UC Student Regent. Jamaal’s research specializations include African American language and culture, sociocultural linguistics, and political discourse.

This episode is a talk by Joanna Kusiak at the Think&Drink Colloquium of Georg-Simmel-Centre for Urban Studies at Humboldt University Berlin. It gives insights into her new book Radically Legal: Berlin Constitutes the Future (2024).

Right in the middle of the German constitution, a group of ordinary citizens discovers a forgotten clause that allows them to take 240,000 homes back from multi-billion corporations. In this work of creative non-fiction, scholar-activist and Nine Dots Prize winner Joanna Kusiak tells the story of a grassroots movement that convinced a million Berliners to pop the speculative housing bubble. She offers a vision of urban housing as democratically held commons, legally managed by a radically new institutional model that works through democratic conflicts. Moving between interdisciplinary analysis and her own personal story, Kusiak connects the dots between the past and the present, the local and the global, and shows the potential of radically legal politics as a means of strengthening our democracies and reviving the rule of law. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.

https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/radically-legal/7DB8C3F3E9272466A3926DCE9006CFBE#fndtn-information

Millions of tourists flock to London each year, eager to snap a selfie in front of Buckingham Palace or Big Ben. But beyond the crowds lies a darker – and distinctly stranger – side to the city: a gothic metropolis haunted by tales of demons, poltergeists and murders most foul. Jon Bauckham talks to author and historian Clive Bloom about some of the capital’s spookiest stories, and why he believes that the eeriest encounters tend to unfold in the most mundane of places.

(Ad) Clive Bloom is the author of London Uncanny: A Gothic Guide to the Capital in Weird History and Fiction (Bloomsbury, 2025). Buy it now from Waterstones: https://go.skimresources.com?id=71026X1535947&xcust=historyextra-social-histboty&xs=1&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.waterstones.com%2Fbook%2Flondon-uncanny%2Fclive-bloom%2F9781350424036.

From the terror of being strangled by violent thieves to tales that the sewers were infested with a squealing band of pigs, 19th-century Londoners spent much of their time living in fear. Here, Emma Butcher and Tim Blythe reveal what seven such scare-mongering stories can tell us about the psyche of the capital: https://www.historyextra.com/membership/victorian-london-dangers-what-was-life-like/.

The HistoryExtra podcast is produced by the team behind BBC History Magazine.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Eva Dou is the author of The House of Huawei, an excellent book covering the personal, economic, and geopolitical arc of Huawei, China’s most important company.

We discuss…

The life of Huawei’s founder, Ren Zhengfei, who rose from Cultural Revolution disgrace to become one of China’s richest businessmen,

How Ren built Huawei, and what makes their corporate culture unique,

Huawei’s strategic entry into developing and high-risk markets like Libya, Iraq, and Iran, and whether the controversial deal with the UK is a threat to national security,

How Huawei outcompeted Chinese state-owned telecom companies and eventually achieved national champion status,

How Ren’s personal interest in foreign art, music, and architecture advances Huawei’s market share.

Co-hosting today is Kyle Chan, a postdoc at Princeton and author of the High Capacity Substack.

Outro music: Back Fire - Annabel Yao (YouTube Link)

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices