Speaker 1: Hey, everybody, Robert Evans here, and I wanted to let
Speaker 1: you know this is a compilation episode, So every episode
Speaker 1: of the week that just happened is here in one
Speaker 1: convenient and with somewhat less ads package for you to
Speaker 1: listen to in a long stretch if you want. If
Speaker 1: you've been listening to the episodes every day this week,
Speaker 1: there's gonna be nothing new here for you, but you
Speaker 1: can make your own decisions. Hello, and welcome to it
Speaker 1: could happen here. I'm your host today. It's Sharine Um
Speaker 1: and I'm going to be flying solo for the next
Speaker 1: few episodes. We're going to be talking about Syria. Spoiler alert.
Speaker 1: I am Syrian and I think there's a lot of
Speaker 1: history and news about Syria that really goes under the
Speaker 1: radar and not a lot of people know about. So
Speaker 1: I thought it would be important to shed some light
Speaker 1: about how Syria became ruled by a dictatorship. Family. Um,
Speaker 1: the Assad family have destroyed Syria. Imagine a country being
Speaker 1: run by the mafia. They're very powerful, very secretive, very
Speaker 1: very rich. There are no numbers that can illustrate the
Speaker 1: scale of Syria's loss and destruction. Literally, because the United
Speaker 1: Nations hasn't been able to calculate the death toll for years. So,
Speaker 1: as I mentioned, these episodes are going to be about Syria.
Speaker 1: The first two will be about how hop Is said
Speaker 1: rose to power, which has since led the Assad family
Speaker 1: to have control over Syria for more than half a century.
Speaker 1: And then the one following that will be about his
Speaker 1: son Basha, who is the current dictator of Syria, and
Speaker 1: that one will have more topical information, maybe more like
Speaker 1: economic stuff versus historical information, which we're going to start with.
Speaker 1: But I think understanding the history of the Syrian government
Speaker 1: provides vital context to understanding the present. And there is
Speaker 1: a lot to cover here and a lot that I
Speaker 1: won't be able to get to, but hopefully we can
Speaker 1: chip away at it. And this is a good semi
Speaker 1: coherent summary of how hof has climbed his way to
Speaker 1: the very top of Syrian authority. So the Assads in Arabic,
Speaker 1: it's as said, So apologize if I go back and
Speaker 1: forth between those two. But they're from Kardaja, originally a
Speaker 1: village in northwest Syria in the Syrial coastal mountains. The
Speaker 1: family name said goes back to seven when Nili Sulayman,
Speaker 1: who was Hafs father, changed his last name to which
Speaker 1: is Arabic for the Lion. People say this is possibly
Speaker 1: in connection to his social standing as a local mediator
Speaker 1: and his political activities. All members of the extended Assad
Speaker 1: family stem from Ali sulai Men and his second wife, Nissa.
Speaker 1: The Assads are Shia Muslims, more specifically, of the Allohite sect.
Speaker 1: Allo Whites are a religious minority, and they initially opposed
Speaker 1: a United Syrian state because they thought their status as
Speaker 1: a religious minority would endanger them and Half as his father,
Speaker 1: he shared this belief. After the French left Syria in
Speaker 1: ninety six, many Syrians mistrusted the Allo Whites because of
Speaker 1: their alignment with France. Half Has eventually left his Allo
Speaker 1: White village. Beginning his education at age nine in Latakia,
Speaker 1: which had a Sunni majority, he became the first of
Speaker 1: his family to attend high school, and while he was
Speaker 1: an education he lived in a poor, predominantly Allo White
Speaker 1: part of Attackia. To fit in, he approached political parties
Speaker 1: that welcomed Allo Whites. These parties, which also embraced secularism,
Speaker 1: worthy Syrian Communist Party, the Syrian Social Nationalist Party, the
Speaker 1: s s MP and the Arab Bath Party. Bath is
Speaker 1: biath in Arabic, but we know it as both spell
Speaker 1: be a apostrophe a t h in English, and he
Speaker 1: joined this political party in ninety six. Some of his
Speaker 1: friends belonged to the s s NP and the Bath
Speaker 1: Party embraced a pan Arabist socialist ideology, and he proved
Speaker 1: to be an asset to the party. He organized Bath
Speaker 1: students seals, and he carried out the party's message to
Speaker 1: poor sections of Attakia and two Alloway villages. He was
Speaker 1: opposed by the Muslim Brotherhood, which at the time allied
Speaker 1: itself with wealthy and conservative Muslim families. Asad's high school
Speaker 1: accommodated students from rich and poor families, and he was
Speaker 1: joined by poor, anti establishment Sunny Muslim youth from the
Speaker 1: Bath Party and confrontations with students from wealthy Brotherhood families.
Speaker 1: He made many Sunny friends and some of whom later
Speaker 1: became his political allies. While he was still a teenager,
Speaker 1: Asad became increasingly prominent in the party as an organizer
Speaker 1: and a recruiter, and he was the head of his
Speaker 1: school's student affairs committee from to one and he was
Speaker 1: also the president of the Union of Syrian Students. During
Speaker 1: his political activism in school, he met many men who
Speaker 1: would later serve him when he became president. And reading
Speaker 1: about this, I mean, I'll be honest, and I learned
Speaker 1: a lot even preparing for these episodes. It's so interesting
Speaker 1: because you read about this man and on the surface,
Speaker 1: he seems not too bad when he started out, Like
Speaker 1: his ideas aren't terrible. I think power eventually corrupts everybody,
Speaker 1: and I just have so many questions and thoughts about
Speaker 1: how someone becomes evil. I mean, that's such a blanket,
Speaker 1: like maybe like make believe way to describe someone. But
Speaker 1: the things that the Sad family eventually does is horrific.
Speaker 1: And it's interesting to see where this man started as
Speaker 1: a child as a teenager. On one hand, it humanizes him.
Speaker 1: On the other hand, it just shows how much he
Speaker 1: had changed um and maybe he was always this way
Speaker 1: and it's just on paper doesn't seem so bad. I
Speaker 1: don't know, Sorry, Tangent, Let's continue. So after he graduated
Speaker 1: from high school, as Sad aspired to be a medical doctor,
Speaker 1: but his father could not pay for his studies, so instead,
Speaker 1: in nineteen fifty he decided to join the Syrian armed forces.
Speaker 1: He entered the military Academy in Plumps and the Flying
Speaker 1: school in Aleppo, and then he graduated ninety five, after
Speaker 1: which he was commissioned a lieutenant of the Syrian Air Force.
Speaker 1: He married Anissa Mahluf in nineteen fifty seven, who is
Speaker 1: a distant relative of the powerful Mahlouf family. In ninety five,
Speaker 1: the Syria military split in a revolt against then President
Speaker 1: Adeb and Ski, which led Hashim to take power as president.
Speaker 1: He had been president before, and Syria was again under
Speaker 1: civilian rule. So after ninety five a Tassi who in
Speaker 1: English both him and as shask A removed in front
Speaker 1: of their names, so you'll see just Atasi or so
Speaker 1: when I say those that's what I mean. It's just
Speaker 1: it's hard to break away when this is like the
Speaker 1: language in your head sometimes. But I gotta stop with
Speaker 1: these tangents. See this is my first cetle episode, and um,
Speaker 1: this is what you get. But after hold on the
Speaker 1: country was increasingly shaky. As a result of the election,
Speaker 1: was replaced by Shukri Kwatli, who was president before Syria's
Speaker 1: independence from France. The Bath Party grew closer to the
Speaker 1: Communist Party at this time, but not because of shared ideology,
Speaker 1: but rather a shared opposition to the West. At the
Speaker 1: military academy, Assad met Mustafa Plas, which will be his
Speaker 1: future Minister of Defense. Assad was then sent to Egypt
Speaker 1: for a further six months of training, and when Jamal
Speaker 1: Agda Nasid, president of Egypt nash analized the Suez Canal
Speaker 1: in fifty six, Syria feared retaliation from the United Kingdom
Speaker 1: and Assad flew in an air defense mission. He was
Speaker 1: among the Syrian pilots who flew to Cairo to show
Speaker 1: Syria's commitment to Egypt. In fifty seven, as squadron commander,
Speaker 1: he was sent to the Soviet Union for training and
Speaker 1: flying m i G seventeens, which I looked up and
Speaker 1: it's a high subsonic fighter aircraft that was produced by
Speaker 1: the Soviet Union from fifty two onward and operated by
Speaker 1: air forces internationally. The more you know, but essentially he
Speaker 1: went to the Soviet Union to train and flying these
Speaker 1: things for ten months. Let's go back to fifty eight. Nope,
Speaker 1: we're not going back, We're going forward. In Syria and
Speaker 1: Egypt formed the United Arab Republic, separating themselves from Iraq, Iran,
Speaker 1: and Pakistan and Turkey. In Syria and Egypt formed the
Speaker 1: United Arab Republic you a R, separating themselves from Iraq, Iran, Pakistan,
Speaker 1: and Turkey, and these countries were aligned with the United Kingdom.
Speaker 1: This pact led to the rejection of communist influence in
Speaker 1: favor of Egyptian control over Syria. All Syrian political parties,
Speaker 1: including the Bath Party, were dissolved and senior officers, especially
Speaker 1: those who had supported the Communists, were dismissed from the
Speaker 1: Syrian armed forces. Assad however, remained in the army and
Speaker 1: quickly rose through the ranks. After reaching the rank of captain,
Speaker 1: he was transferred to Egypt, continuing to the military education
Speaker 1: with the future President of Egypt, Hosta Ni Mubadak. However,
Speaker 1: Assad was not content with a professional military career. He
Speaker 1: viewed it merely as a gateway to a career in
Speaker 1: politics a k A power. After the creation of the
Speaker 1: u a R, the Bath Party experienced a crisis for
Speaker 1: which several of its members, mostly young members, blamed the
Speaker 1: party leader, who at the time was Michel A Flock.
Speaker 1: He was a Syrian philosopher and sociology just In an
Speaker 1: Arab nationalist, and his ideas played a significant role in
Speaker 1: the development of Batheism and its political movement. He's considered
Speaker 1: by several both fists to be the principal founder of
Speaker 1: both Fist thought. So. He had some opposition, however, because
Speaker 1: after the creation of the a R there was some
Speaker 1: unrest to resurrect the Syrian national branch of the party,
Speaker 1: Assad joined others in establishing the Military Committee in fifty
Speaker 1: seven and fifty eight. Assad rose to a dominant position
Speaker 1: in the Military Committee, which mitigated his transfer to Egypt.
Speaker 1: After Syria left the EU a R in September of
Speaker 1: sixty one, Assad other Bothist officers were removed from the
Speaker 1: military by the new government in Damascus, and he was
Speaker 1: given a minor clerical position at the Ministry of Transport.
Speaker 1: Asad played a minor role in the failed nineteen sixty
Speaker 1: two military coup, for which he was jailed in Lebanon
Speaker 1: and then later repatriated. That year, Michel A Flock, the
Speaker 1: Bath Party leader, convened the fifth National Congress of the
Speaker 1: Bath Party, where he was reelected as the Secretary General
Speaker 1: of the National Command, and then he ordered the re
Speaker 1: establishment of the party's Syrian regional branch. There there's a
Speaker 1: lot of congresses, there's a lot of branches, there's a
Speaker 1: lot of committees. Uh. It gets really confusing, just these
Speaker 1: men shutting down and then re igniting these things. So
Speaker 1: bear with me here. At this congress, the Military Committee
Speaker 1: established contacts with a Fluk and the civilian leadership. The
Speaker 1: committee requested permission to cease power by force, and a
Speaker 1: Fleck agreed to this conspiracy. After the success of the
Speaker 1: Iraqi coup led by the Bath Party's Iraqi regional branch,
Speaker 1: the Military Committee hastily convened to launch their own Bathist
Speaker 1: military coup in March of nineteen sixty three against President
Speaker 1: Nasim el Lets, which Assad helped plan. He helped plan
Speaker 1: this coup. During this coup, he led a small group
Speaker 1: to capture the Dumayette Air Base, about twenty five miles
Speaker 1: north of Damascus. Assad's group was the only one that
Speaker 1: encountered resistance. Some planes at the base were ordered to
Speaker 1: bomb the conspirators, and because of this, Assad hurried to
Speaker 1: reach the base before dawn because the sevente armored brigades
Speaker 1: surrender took longer than anticipated. However, Assad arrived there in
Speaker 1: broad daylight. When Assad threatened the base commander with shelling,
Speaker 1: the commander negotiated a surrender. Later, Assad claimed that the
Speaker 1: base could have easily withstood his forces, so his bluff worked,
Speaker 1: and this garnered him a lot of respect. Not long
Speaker 1: after Assad's election to the regional command, the military Committee
Speaker 1: ordered him to strengthen the committee's position in the military establishment.
Speaker 1: In doing so, Assad may have received the most important
Speaker 1: job of all, because his primary goal was to end
Speaker 1: factionalism in the Syrian military and make it a Bath monopoly.
Speaker 1: He said he had to create a ideological army to
Speaker 1: help with this task. He recruited Zeki Arsuzi, who was
Speaker 1: the person who actually indirectly inspired him to join the
Speaker 1: Bath party in the first place. When he was young.
Speaker 1: Arsuzi accompanied us said on tours of military camps, where
Speaker 1: Arsuzi lectured the soldiers on Bathist thought and gratitude for
Speaker 1: his work, Asad gave Arsuzi a government pension, and Assad
Speaker 1: continued his bathification of the military by appointing loyal officers
Speaker 1: to keep positions and ensuring that the political education of
Speaker 1: the troops was not neglected. He demonstrated his skill as
Speaker 1: a logistical leader during this period, and he was said
Speaker 1: to have a highly intelligent mastery of detail, which garnered
Speaker 1: him a lot of respect. And I want to make
Speaker 1: this clear. I talked to my mom a bit about
Speaker 1: this and doing this research, and has said was very smart.
Speaker 1: He was known as a very smart man. He knew
Speaker 1: what he was doing at every turn, despite what seems
Speaker 1: like it's like he this fell into his lap or like, uh,
Speaker 1: later you'll see that the president he he overthrew, had
Speaker 1: no idea he had didn't see him as a threat.
Speaker 1: But but I mean before and after he took power,
Speaker 1: he was known to be very cunning. And so yeah,
Speaker 1: I just think that's an important little um being to
Speaker 1: take note of. Even in school, they were saying that
Speaker 1: he was an excellent student. So he has a plan,
Speaker 1: I think for most of this. But let's take a
Speaker 1: little break and we'll be right back to finish this up.
Speaker 1: Well this part, I mean, okay, whatever, I'm sorry, we're back. Wow. Okay. So,
Speaker 1: after he had been bathifying the military, he was promoted
Speaker 1: to major and then to lieutenant colonel, and by the
Speaker 1: end of nineteen sixty four, he was in charge of
Speaker 1: the Syrian Air Force as the Air Force Commander Assad
Speaker 1: gave privileges to Air Force officer, and he appointed his
Speaker 1: confidence to senior and sensitive positions, and he established an
Speaker 1: efficient intelligence network. Air Force intelligence, under the command of
Speaker 1: Muhammad al Huli, became independent of Syria's other intelligence organizations
Speaker 1: and received assignments beyond Air Force jurisdiction. Assad prepared himself
Speaker 1: for an active role in the power struggles that were
Speaker 1: soon to come. As I said, he's cunning, he knows
Speaker 1: what he's doing in the aftermath of the nineteen sixty
Speaker 1: three coup. At the first Regional Congress, Assad was elected
Speaker 1: to the Syrian Regional Command, the highest decision making body
Speaker 1: in the Syrian regional branch. It's so confusing, I can't
Speaker 1: keep track. And while this was not a leadership role,
Speaker 1: it was Assad's first appearance in national politics, which is
Speaker 1: a significant thing to point out because, as you'll see,
Speaker 1: it only grows. During the nineteen sixty four Hamma riot,
Speaker 1: Assad voted to suppress the uprising violently if needed. This
Speaker 1: decision to suppress the Hamma Raya led to conflict within
Speaker 1: the military Committee, which I'm going to skip over because
Speaker 1: it's a more clusterfucky than ever. But ultimately in sixty
Speaker 1: five the eighth National Congress. During this Assad was elected
Speaker 1: to the National Command, the party's highest decision making body.
Speaker 1: I know, I just said that about something else, but
Speaker 1: that was about the Syrian Regional Branch. There are a
Speaker 1: lot of parties and commands and branches and committees. As
Speaker 1: I said, just know that it's a group of men
Speaker 1: probably that just make decisions. But he was elected to
Speaker 1: this highest making body, this this party of people, and
Speaker 1: it said that asad abhorred a fluck, the party leader
Speaker 1: of the Bathist Party, Assad considered a fluck, a autocrat
Speaker 1: and a rightist, accusing him of ditching the party by
Speaker 1: ordering the dissolution of the Syrian Regional Branch. In fifty eight,
Speaker 1: in response to the eminent coup that was about to
Speaker 1: happen that Assad knew was going to happen, he left
Speaker 1: for London. In the nineteen sixty six Syrian coup, the
Speaker 1: Military Committee overthrew the National Command. The coup led to
Speaker 1: a permanent split in the bath movement and the advent
Speaker 1: of neo Bathism, as well as the establishment of two
Speaker 1: centers of the International Bathist Movement, one Iraqi and the
Speaker 1: other Syrian dominated. After the coup, Assad was appointed Minister
Speaker 1: of Defense. This was his first cabinet post, but despite
Speaker 1: his title, he actually had little power in the government
Speaker 1: and took more orders than he gave. Salafaded, who helped
Speaker 1: Assad established the Military Committee years prior, was the undisputed
Speaker 1: leader at the time, and he opted to remain in
Speaker 1: the office of Assistant Regional Secretary of the Syrian Regional
Speaker 1: Command instead of taking executive office, which had historically been
Speaker 1: held by sunnies Jaded, trying to establish his authority, focused
Speaker 1: on civilian issues and gave Assad de facto control of
Speaker 1: a Syrian military, considering him no threat at all. During
Speaker 1: the failed coup of late nineteen sixty six, Salim Hathum
Speaker 1: tried to overthrow Jadid's government. Hathum was a military officer
Speaker 1: and he felt snubbed when he was not appointed to
Speaker 1: the Regional Command after the sixty six coup, and he
Speaker 1: sought revenge and the return to power of Hammoud and Shuffi,
Speaker 1: who was the first regional secretary of the Regional Command.
Speaker 1: After the Syrian regional Branches re establishment is sixty three.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, so many branches and everything. I'm just
Speaker 1: team just design on one group. Anyway, when Jaded, they
Speaker 1: see in the regional command member Jama, visited the city
Speaker 1: of Sueeda, the forces loyal to Hatum surrounded the city
Speaker 1: and they captured them. The city's Drews leaders forbade the
Speaker 1: murder of their guests and demanded the hat Um wait.
Speaker 1: So Jaded and the others were placed under house arrest,
Speaker 1: with Hatoum planning to kill them at his first opportunity
Speaker 1: because he wanted revenge. When word of the mutiny spread
Speaker 1: to the Ministry of Defense a Assad, Assad ordered the
Speaker 1: seventieth Armored Brigade to the city of Sueida. By this time, Hatum,
Speaker 1: who was a Drew's, knew that a Sad would order
Speaker 1: the bombardment of Sueida, which was a Druis dominated city,
Speaker 1: if Hatum did not accept Assad's demands. So this led
Speaker 1: to Hattum and his supporters to flee to Jordan's eventually,
Speaker 1: where they were given asylum. But due to his prompt
Speaker 1: action and his protection of Jadid and the other members
Speaker 1: that were captured, a Sad earned Jadid's gratitude after this incident.
Speaker 1: So I know, I just casually mentioned this word a
Speaker 1: minute ago, and so just to the people that aren't
Speaker 1: aware of what it means. No, again, a lot more
Speaker 1: to delve into than what I'm just going to say
Speaker 1: right now. But Drew's are members of an Arabic speaking
Speaker 1: ethno religious group originate in Western Asia there largely in
Speaker 1: Lebanon and Syria now and they originally developed out of
Speaker 1: Shia Islam. Even though most Drewis members are most Drews
Speaker 1: rather do not identify as Muslim. They practiced their own
Speaker 1: religion that is called Drusism. I've been trying to say
Speaker 1: that word for a long time. Daniel cut out me,
Speaker 1: saying in a bunch of times, um, I apologize that
Speaker 1: I probably mispronounced it, But the point is they practiced
Speaker 1: their own sect of religion that originated from the Shia
Speaker 1: Islamic sect way back when. But at this point they're
Speaker 1: their own religious group. So moving on that, I just
Speaker 1: wanted to shed light on that word in case people
Speaker 1: didn't know. Back to Syria. So, after this incident took
Speaker 1: place and after Assad basically came to the rescue, Jadid
Speaker 1: had a lot of gratitude for him, and continuing in
Speaker 1: the aftermath of the sixty six coup attempt, Assad and
Speaker 1: Jadeed purge the party's military organization ASAD removed and estimated
Speaker 1: a four hundred officers, and this was Syria's largest military
Speaker 1: purge to date. But the purges which began when the
Speaker 1: Both Party took power in sixty three had left the
Speaker 1: military week and as a result, when the Six Day
Speaker 1: War broke out, Syria had no chance of victory. I
Speaker 1: feel like this is maybe a good place to say
Speaker 1: goodbye for the day. I thought it would be more
Speaker 1: digestible if these episodes were shorter instead of being an
Speaker 1: epic tale that could run over an hour. But yeah,
Speaker 1: let's say goodbye. This is Sharene, this is it could
Speaker 1: happen here? Here you tomorrow, talk to you tomorrow. Why
Speaker 1: do I have this job? Okay, goodbye? Wow, we're back. Um,
Speaker 1: this is Sharine and this is it can happen. That's
Speaker 1: all I'm in the name of podcast. This is it
Speaker 1: could happen here. I'm so sorry. Um. But last episode, Um,
Speaker 1: we talked about Syria and the history of how happsite
Speaker 1: said eventually came into power and how he subsequently let
Speaker 1: his family become dictators of this country for over half
Speaker 1: a century and how they've destroyed it. But we are
Speaker 1: still in the sixties right now, So let's just continue
Speaker 1: from where we left off. UH. Last time, I had
Speaker 1: just ended mentioning the Sixth Day War, UH, and how
Speaker 1: Syria was defeated in the Sixth Day War. This is
Speaker 1: a topic that should be episodes all on its own,
Speaker 1: but just very very roughly summarize the Sixth Day War
Speaker 1: as it's called. It's also called the nineties sixty seven
Speaker 1: war and the June War. It's interesting because Israeli's call
Speaker 1: it the sixth Day War, and that's become the term
Speaker 1: that everyone uses, but differing terms for differing people, I suppose.
Speaker 1: But essentially, on June five, nineteen sixty seven, just three
Speaker 1: weeks after it marked the nineteenth anniversary of its founding,
Speaker 1: Israel went to war with the armies of Egypt, Syria
Speaker 1: and Jordan's and defeated them essentially, very very rough summary.
Speaker 1: And this led to Israel capturing a k a, stealing
Speaker 1: the goal and heights from Syria. And the roots of
Speaker 1: this war go all the way back to the forties,
Speaker 1: and there are moment in history that led up to
Speaker 1: this moment, but it was a huge turning point in
Speaker 1: Middle Eastern history and the consequences of it are still
Speaker 1: felt today across the region. And the outcome of this
Speaker 1: war basically altered the map of the Middle East for
Speaker 1: the foreseeable future, and it's further blocked this path to
Speaker 1: any kind of potential piece between Israel and Palestine. Uh,
Speaker 1: and it just redrew the landscape of this conflict and
Speaker 1: expanded Israel's territorial claims and military dominance in the region. Um.
Speaker 1: They gained a lot of territory during this war and
Speaker 1: had the help of the U N behind them, So yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it was not good for Arab countries so much
Speaker 1: more to get into their But this war, essentially, when
Speaker 1: we're talking about his Syrian history, changed everything. And I
Speaker 1: mentioned earlier in the last episode that when the Bath
Speaker 1: Party took power in sixty three, there was some more
Speaker 1: pershing of the Syrian military and Assad removed about four
Speaker 1: hundred officers, which was the largest purge to date. But
Speaker 1: this had left their military week and obviously did not
Speaker 1: help them in this June war. But uh, yeah, there's
Speaker 1: so much more there. I will try to get into that,
Speaker 1: lady or another time. But the Arab defeat in this
Speaker 1: June war um led to Israel stealing the goal in
Speaker 1: heights from Syria, and this provoked a furious quarrel among
Speaker 1: Syria's leadership. The civilian leadership blamed military incompetence, and the
Speaker 1: military responded by criticizing the civilian leadership, which was led
Speaker 1: by Salashadid, who was the person that was ruling the country.
Speaker 1: He had the most power. At this point, several high
Speaker 1: ranking party members demanded that haf Said resign and an
Speaker 1: attempt was made to vote him out of the regional command.
Speaker 1: This motion was defeated by one vote, and this man
Speaker 1: was Karim Gendi, who the anti Assad members. They were
Speaker 1: hoping that he would succeed Assad as Defense minister, but
Speaker 1: he became the deciding vote, and he said he did
Speaker 1: so in a comradely gesture. Remember this name. He will
Speaker 1: come back. But yes, j D made it so Assad
Speaker 1: wasn't voted out. During the end of the war, Hafuz
Speaker 1: was approached by dissident Syrian military officers who out the government,
Speaker 1: but at the time he actually refused because he believed
Speaker 1: a coup during that time would have helped Israel, not Syria,
Speaker 1: which is very interesting because he eventually took power by
Speaker 1: a coup, but he refused our first because of the
Speaker 1: timing being wrong. Again, I think this just demonstrates his
Speaker 1: unfortunately high intelligence for someone so bad. Anyway, as I mentioned,
Speaker 1: this war was a turning point, and it was also
Speaker 1: a turning point for as said, and the Boss Syria
Speaker 1: movement in general. It soon began a power struggle with
Speaker 1: Jadid for control over the country. Until then, Asad hadn't
Speaker 1: really shown ambition for high office, and he aroused little
Speaker 1: suspicion in others, no one really saw him as a threat.
Speaker 1: From the nineteen three Syrian coup to the war in
Speaker 1: sixty seven, Assad did not play a leading role in politics,
Speaker 1: and he was usually overshadowed by his contemporaries. Patrick Seal
Speaker 1: was a British journalist and an author who specialized in
Speaker 1: the Middle East, and he wrote several books about the
Speaker 1: Assad family and Syria. And he said the Hafs was
Speaker 1: apparently content to be a solid member of the team
Speaker 1: without the aspiration to become number one. He also interviewed
Speaker 1: haf Is at one point, so he had a lot
Speaker 1: of good information this Patrick Seal, which I'll mentioned throughout.
Speaker 1: So although Jadid was slow to see Assad's threat, and
Speaker 1: although Assad didn't appear like he wanted power from the outside.
Speaker 1: Shortly after the war, Assad began developing a network in
Speaker 1: the military and promoted friends and close relatives to high positions.
Speaker 1: Assad believed that Syria's defeat in the June War was
Speaker 1: Jadid's fault and that the accusations against himself were unjust.
Speaker 1: By this time, Jadid had total control of the regional Command,
Speaker 1: whose members supported his policies, but Asad and Jaded began
Speaker 1: to differ on policy. Asad believed that Jadid's policy of
Speaker 1: a people's war and armed guerrilla strategy and class struggle
Speaker 1: had failed Syria, undermining its position. Although Jaded continued to
Speaker 1: champion the concept of a people's war even after the
Speaker 1: June War, Assad opposed it. He felt that the Palestinian
Speaker 1: guerilla fighters had been given too much autonomy and their
Speaker 1: raiding of Israel had made the war worse for the
Speaker 1: Arab's fighting. Jaded also had broken diplomatic relations with countries
Speaker 1: he deemed reactionary, like Saudi Arabia and Jordan's, and because
Speaker 1: of this, Syria did not receive aid from other Arab countries.
Speaker 1: While Jadid and his supporters prioritize socialism and the internal
Speaker 1: revolution in quotes. Assad wanted the leadership to focus on
Speaker 1: foreign polo see and the containment of Israel. The Bath
Speaker 1: Party was divided over several issues, such as how the
Speaker 1: government could best use Syria's limited resources, the ideal relationship
Speaker 1: between the party and the people, the organization of the party,
Speaker 1: and whether the class struggle should end. The conflict between
Speaker 1: a Sad and Jadid became the talk of the army
Speaker 1: and the party, with a quote duality of power noted
Speaker 1: between them by the fourth Regional Congress and the tenth
Speaker 1: National Congress in September and October sixty eight. Assad had
Speaker 1: extended his grip on the army and Jadid still controlled
Speaker 1: the party at both congresses, as Sad was outvoted on
Speaker 1: most issues and his arguments were firmly rejected. The military's
Speaker 1: involvement in party politics was unpopular with the rank and file.
Speaker 1: As the gulf between Assad and Jadeed widened, the civilian
Speaker 1: and military party bodies were forbidden to contact each other.
Speaker 1: Despite this, Assad was winning the race to accumulate power
Speaker 1: munif that is, as who was ousted in the nineteen
Speaker 1: sixty six Syrian coup, noted that Jadid's fatal mistake was
Speaker 1: to attempt to govern the army through the party, because
Speaker 1: Syria will always have their government is the military essentially,
Speaker 1: is what I'm trying to say. Anyway, while Assad had
Speaker 1: taken control of the armed forces through his position as
Speaker 1: Minister of Defense, Jaded still controlled the security and intelligence
Speaker 1: sectors through Abdukadima gen D, who was the head of
Speaker 1: the National Security Bureau Gen D, who was a paranoid
Speaker 1: cruel man. He was feared throughout Syria, especially later in
Speaker 1: his life. In February of nineteen sixty nine, the Sad
Speaker 1: Jaded conflict erupted and violent clashes through their respective prodigies.
Speaker 1: There wasn't a fact that said who is a Sad
Speaker 1: brother and he was a high ranking military commander and
Speaker 1: a Gen D. So agen D was the protege of
Speaker 1: ja D and a Sad brother he thought was his protege.
Speaker 1: So to say, the reason for the violence was, in fact,
Speaker 1: said suspicion that Agendi was planning an attempt on his
Speaker 1: brother Hapfus's life. The suspected assassin was interrogated and eventually
Speaker 1: confessed under torture acting on this information. The fact argued
Speaker 1: that unless agen D was removed from his post that
Speaker 1: he and his brother were in danger. Okay, let's take
Speaker 1: a break, B R B. Listen to this and we're back. Wow. Okay,
Speaker 1: let's continue. From the twenty to February. In nineteen sixty nine,
Speaker 1: the A SAD Brothers initiated quote something just short of
Speaker 1: a coup. Under a SAD authority, tanks were moved into
Speaker 1: Damascus and the staffs of two party newspapers, the Bath
Speaker 1: and Athota, as well as radio station in Damascus and
Speaker 1: Boat were replaced by A SAD loyalists the Takia and Tartus,
Speaker 1: which are two alo white dominated cities. They saw fierce scuffles,
Speaker 1: ending with the overthrow of Jade's supporters from local posts.
Speaker 1: Shortly afterwards, a wave of arrests and Gen D loyalists began.
Speaker 1: On March two, after a telephone argument with the head
Speaker 1: of military intelligence, Al Duba, it is said that a
Speaker 1: Gen D committed suicide. When I mentioned this to my mom,
Speaker 1: she said, well, that's what they say, because originally I'm
Speaker 1: reading this being like, okay, history obviously, I actually remember
Speaker 1: that there's always someone that writes the history. Um, So
Speaker 1: just pointing that out there because she put that little
Speaker 1: nugget of information in my head. But as far as
Speaker 1: we're concerned, in this summary, it is said that Jendi
Speaker 1: committed suicide after his loyalists began to be arrested and
Speaker 1: they were just continuing violence between his side, and said
Speaker 1: so this led to a Sad now being in control. However,
Speaker 1: he hesitated to push his advantage. Jaded continued to rule
Speaker 1: Syria and the regional command was unchanged. However, a SAD
Speaker 1: influenced Jaded to moderate his policies. Class struggle was muted,
Speaker 1: criticism of reactionary tendencies of other Arab states ceased, Some
Speaker 1: political prisoners were freed, A coalition of government was formed
Speaker 1: where the Bath Party was in control, and the Eastern Front,
Speaker 1: supported by an Assad, was formed with Iraq and Jordan's.
Speaker 1: Jaded's isolationist policies were curtailed, and Syria re established diplomatic
Speaker 1: relations with many of its foes, which is what a
Speaker 1: SAD wanted. And while Assad had been in de facto
Speaker 1: command of Syrian policies since nineteen sixty nine, Jaded and
Speaker 1: his supporters still held the trappings of power. After attending
Speaker 1: Jamad Obtnasair's funeral, in Egypt, he was the President of Egypt.
Speaker 1: A Sad return to Syria for the emergency National Congress,
Speaker 1: where a Sad was condemned by Jadid and his supporters,
Speaker 1: who still made out the majority of the party's delegates. However,
Speaker 1: before attending the congress, A Sad ordered his loyal troops
Speaker 1: to surround the building housing the meeting. Again, this guy
Speaker 1: thinks ahead, he's too smart. I hate him. He's dead
Speaker 1: those or whatever, I still hate you. So, as he's
Speaker 1: being criticized, and as he's being condemned, he has troops
Speaker 1: surrounding this building. And so the criticism of a Sad's
Speaker 1: political position continued, but it had a defeatist tone, with
Speaker 1: the majority of delegates believing that they have lost the battle.
Speaker 1: And even though a Sad was eventually stripped of his
Speaker 1: government post at the congress, these acts had little practical significance.
Speaker 1: When the National Congress ended on November twelfth, nineteen seventy,
Speaker 1: A Sad ordered loyalists to arrest leading members of Jadeed's government.
Speaker 1: Although many mid level officials were offered posts in Syrian
Speaker 1: embassies and abroad, Jadid refused, saying if I ever take power,
Speaker 1: you will be dragged through the streets until you die.
Speaker 1: A Sad imprisoned Jaded in Medsday prison until his death.
Speaker 1: Despite the intense clusterfuck of everything that preceded this surprise,
Speaker 1: office's coup was actually calm and bloodless. When he eventually
Speaker 1: had his coup to take power and succeeded, the only
Speaker 1: evidence of change to the outside world was the disappearance
Speaker 1: of newspapers, radio stations, and television stations. A temporary regional
Speaker 1: command was soon established, and on November sixteenth of nineteen
Speaker 1: seventy the new government published its first decree. So only
Speaker 1: in a matter of days a lot can happen man.
Speaker 1: According to Patrick Seal, a Sad's rule quote began with
Speaker 1: an immediate considerable advantage. The gun from it he displaced
Speaker 1: was so detested that any alternative came as a relief.
Speaker 1: He first tried to establish national unity, which he felt
Speaker 1: had been lost under the leadership of a flock and Jadid.
Speaker 1: Assad differed from his predecessor at the outset, visiting local
Speaker 1: villages and hearing citizen complaints. The Syrian people felt that
Speaker 1: Assad's rise to power would maybe lead to change, and
Speaker 1: although a Sad didn't democratize the country. He eased the
Speaker 1: government's repressive policies at the time. He cut prices for
Speaker 1: basic food stuffs fift which won him support from ordinary citizens.
Speaker 1: Jadeed's security services were purged and some military criminal investigative
Speaker 1: powers were transferred to the police. In the confiscation of
Speaker 1: goods under Jadid was reversed. Restrictions on travel and trade
Speaker 1: with Lebanon were eased, and Assad encouraged growth in the
Speaker 1: private sector. While Assad supported most of Jadeed's policies to
Speaker 1: begin with, he proved to be more pragmatic after he
Speaker 1: came to power. Let's take a little break here, when
Speaker 1: we right back to wrap this little history lesson up,
Speaker 1: and then you're free of me for the day. Okay,
Speaker 1: So we're back. Um. Before the break, we're talking about
Speaker 1: as Sad coming into power, and how his policies differed
Speaker 1: from Jadid's, and how he made an effort to differentiate himself. However,
Speaker 1: most of Jade's supporters they faced a choice either continue
Speaker 1: working for the bath government under a Sad or face repression.
Speaker 1: Assad had made it clear previously from the beginning that
Speaker 1: there would be no second chances. In his words, however,
Speaker 1: in late nineteen seventy, he recruited support from the Bathist
Speaker 1: Old Guard, who had supported a Flox leadership during the
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty three ninety six power struggle. An estimated two
Speaker 1: thousand former Baathists rejoined the party after hearing Asad's appeal
Speaker 1: at the eleventh National Congress, A Sad assured party members
Speaker 1: that his leadership with a radical change from that of Jadid,
Speaker 1: and he would implement a quote corrective movement to return
Speaker 1: Syria to the true nationalist socialist line. A Sad turned
Speaker 1: the presidency, which had been known simply as quote head
Speaker 1: of state under Jadid, into a position of power. During
Speaker 1: his rule, as the president became the main source of
Speaker 1: initiative in the government, His personality, values, strengths and weaknesses
Speaker 1: became decisive for his direction and stability. A Sad institutionalized
Speaker 1: a system where he had the final say, which weakened
Speaker 1: the powers of the collegial institutions of the party and state,
Speaker 1: as fidelity to the leader replaced ideological conviction. Later in
Speaker 1: his presidency, corruption became widespread, the state sponsored cult of
Speaker 1: personality became pervasive, and as Assad's authorities strengthened, he became
Speaker 1: the sole symbol of the government. And it sounds normal now,
Speaker 1: I guess when you think of like a dictator's face
Speaker 1: being plastered over buildings and stuff. But it was very
Speaker 1: much like that in Syria, and it still is as
Speaker 1: far as the Shire is concerned. But with Hafez, I mean,
Speaker 1: his image was plastered everywhere. You couldn't really escape it.
Speaker 1: He was the symbol of the Syrian government. And while
Speaker 1: Assad did not rule alone, he increasingly had the last word.
Speaker 1: None of the political elite would question a decision of his,
Speaker 1: and those who did were dismissed, removed from their positions,
Speaker 1: and stripped of their power. When Assad came to power,
Speaker 1: he increased the Allohite dominance of the security and intelligence
Speaker 1: sectors to a near monopoly. The coercive framework was under
Speaker 1: his control, weakening the state and party. The leading figures
Speaker 1: of the Allo White dominated security system had family connections,
Speaker 1: but the fact that I said, for example, controlled the
Speaker 1: Struggle Company as his brother and then Asad's son in law,
Speaker 1: Aidan Macluf was his second in command as commander of
Speaker 1: the Presidential Guard. Asad controlled the military through the Allowhites,
Speaker 1: and the Allowhites, with their high status, appointed and promoted
Speaker 1: base on their kinship and favor rather than professional respect. Therefore,
Speaker 1: an Allo White elite emerged from these policies with a
Speaker 1: sad and full control of the military and the Allo
Speaker 1: Whites holding all the power, which is very interesting if
Speaker 1: you think back to the beginning of our first episode
Speaker 1: where I mentioned that the Allo Whites are a religious
Speaker 1: minority and originally didn't have a lot of power in
Speaker 1: the government, and through half Assets coming into power, the
Speaker 1: Allo Whites are suddenly elite and in control, and it's
Speaker 1: a huge flip from what it was decades prior. However,
Speaker 1: when Assade began pursuing a policy of economic liberalization, the
Speaker 1: state bureaucracy began to use their positions for personal gain.
Speaker 1: The state gave implementation rights to QUOTE much of its
Speaker 1: development program to foreign firms and contractors, fueling a growing
Speaker 1: linkage between the state and private capital. Basically, what ensued
Speaker 1: was a huge bike in corruption. The channeling of external
Speaker 1: money through the state to private enterprises. Quote created growing
Speaker 1: opportunities for state elites self enrichment through corrupt manipulation of
Speaker 1: state market interchanges. Besides outright embezzlement, webs of shared interests
Speaker 1: in commissions and kickbacks grew between high officials, politicians, and
Speaker 1: business interests. The Alla white military security establishment got the
Speaker 1: greatest share of the money, obviously, and the bath Party
Speaker 1: and its leader is ruled a new class, defending their
Speaker 1: interests instead of those of the peasants and workers who
Speaker 1: they were supposed to represent. This, coupled with growing Sunny
Speaker 1: disillusionment with the regime's mixture of Sadism, rural and secretary
Speaker 1: and favoritism, corruption and u inequalities, fueled the growth of
Speaker 1: the Islamic movement. Because of this, the Muslim Brotherhood of
Speaker 1: Syria became the vanguard of anti Bathist forces. The Brotherhood
Speaker 1: had historically been a vehicle for moderate Islam during its
Speaker 1: introduction to the Syrian political scene during the nineteen sixties
Speaker 1: under the leadership of Mustafa A. Sabai. The Brotherhood had
Speaker 1: historically been a vehicle for moderate Islam during its introduction
Speaker 1: to the Syrian political scene during the nineteen sixties. After
Speaker 1: Sabai's imprisonment and under Isam and Althotas leadership, the Brotherhood
Speaker 1: developed into the ideological antithesis of Bathist rule. Because of
Speaker 1: their organizational capabilities, the Muslim Brotherhood grew tenfold from nine
Speaker 1: to nineteen seventy eight. The Islamic Uprising began in the
Speaker 1: mid to late nineteen seventies with attacks on prominent members
Speaker 1: of the bath A Lawai elite. As the conflict worsened,
Speaker 1: a debate began in the party between hardliners represented by
Speaker 1: Rafa and bath liberals represented by Mahmoud and a Yubi.
Speaker 1: The seventh Regional Congress in nineteen eighty was held in
Speaker 1: an atmosphere of crisis. Party leadership, with the exception of
Speaker 1: Assad and his proteges, were criticized severely by the party delegates,
Speaker 1: who called for an anti corruption campaign, a new clean government,
Speaker 1: curtailing the powers of a military security apparatus, and political liberalization.
Speaker 1: The Sunni middle class and the radical left, believing that
Speaker 1: Baptist rule could be overthrown with an uprising, began collaborating
Speaker 1: with the Islamists. And I mean although they are called
Speaker 1: the Islamists, obviously they do not represent the entirety of
Speaker 1: Islam uh. Similar to Christian radical groups um hold onto
Speaker 1: the name Christian, they don't represent the entirety of Christianity.
Speaker 1: YadA YadA, YadA, bad badh blah. And although the word
Speaker 1: Islam is in the word Islamists. I wanted to draw
Speaker 1: attention to the fact that Islamism is not a form
Speaker 1: of the Muslim faith or an expression of Muslim piety.
Speaker 1: It is rather a political ideology that strives to derive
Speaker 1: ttimacy from Islam. So it's about political strategies that believe
Speaker 1: in a revival or a return to authentic and quotes
Speaker 1: Islamic practice in its totality. So it's a political ideology,
Speaker 1: not necessarily a religion. Um. I just want you guys
Speaker 1: to be aware of that, because I think a lot
Speaker 1: of people don't understand what that means. Regardless believing they
Speaker 1: had the upper hand in the conflict. Beginning in nineteen eighty,
Speaker 1: the Islamists began a series of campaigns against government installations
Speaker 1: in Aleppo. The attacks became urban guerrilla warfare. The government
Speaker 1: began to lose control in the city. Those affected by
Speaker 1: Bathist repression began to rally behind the insurgents. The bath
Speaker 1: Party co founder Salahadin supported the uprising, rallying the old
Speaker 1: anti military Bathist together. The increasing threat to the government's
Speaker 1: survival strengthened the herdliners, who favored repression over concessions. Security
Speaker 1: forces began to purge all state party and social institutions
Speaker 1: in Syria and were sent to the northern provinces to
Speaker 1: quell the uprising. When this failed, hardliners began accusing the
Speaker 1: United States of fomenting and provoking the uprising and called
Speaker 1: for the reinstatement of quote revolutionary vigilance. After a failed
Speaker 1: attempt on a Sad's life in June of nineteen eighty,
Speaker 1: the government began responding to the uprising with state terrorism
Speaker 1: under a fat said. The Islamic prisoners at the Tadmore
Speaker 1: Prison were massacred. Membership in the Muslim Brotherhood became a
Speaker 1: capital offense, and the government sent a death squad to
Speaker 1: kill bad and others former wife. The military court began
Speaker 1: condemning captured militants, which sometimes degenerated into indiscriminate killings. Little
Speaker 1: care was taken to distinguish Muslim Brotherhood hardliners from their
Speaker 1: passive supporters, and violence was met with violence. So essentially,
Speaker 1: this just led the Asad regime too murder a bunch
Speaker 1: of people, innocent, guilty all of the above. So yeah.
Speaker 1: One of the many instances where the Assad regime was
Speaker 1: extremely violent and engaged in horrific state terrorism. So we're
Speaker 1: I'm wrapping up the end of this one, and um,
Speaker 1: there's going to be a bit of crossover over this
Speaker 1: next event in the following episode. But the final most
Speaker 1: atrocious violence conducted by the Syrian government during this time
Speaker 1: was the Hamma massacre, which took place in February, when
Speaker 1: the government crushed the uprising. Helicopter, gunships, bulldozers, and artillery
Speaker 1: bombardment raised the city, killing thousands of people. The bath
Speaker 1: government withstood the uprising, and it made Syria more totalitarian
Speaker 1: than ever before, strengthening Assad's position as the undisputed leader
Speaker 1: of Syria. That is where I'm going to wrap up
Speaker 1: for the day. I did want to I don't know,
Speaker 1: maybe just like set the tone for what hoffs is
Speaker 1: A rule was like. I talked to my mom a
Speaker 1: bit about this when I was preparing to record these,
Speaker 1: and she reminded me of a bunch of things that
Speaker 1: I had forgotten about. One was that I was in
Speaker 1: Syria when Hoffas was president when I was younger, and
Speaker 1: I remember everyone being terrified to speak any kind of
Speaker 1: negative thing or even anything to each other. No one
Speaker 1: would dare speak a word on the phone definitely not
Speaker 1: allowed to each other. There were all these whispers of
Speaker 1: the walls could hear you. No one trusted anybody. My
Speaker 1: mother described it as a culture of fear, and it
Speaker 1: was that's how Hoffus ruled. It was through fear, through
Speaker 1: like utter terror. And I just had forgotten a bunch
Speaker 1: of details about what I remember growing up, and like
Speaker 1: the phone being this, like you just assume it was
Speaker 1: always app you assume anyone could always hear you. You
Speaker 1: can't trust anybody because you don't know what someone will
Speaker 1: do with the information. And there was a bit more
Speaker 1: that she mentioned that I wanted to just highlight that
Speaker 1: I didn't know where to incorporate in that timeline. But
Speaker 1: when the Iran Iraq war happened, it was between eight
Speaker 1: and eight um Haffas sided with Iran. So after this
Speaker 1: uh and during everything was about supporting Iran, So all
Speaker 1: Syrian factories, all the food, it was all dedicated to
Speaker 1: war efforts to support Iran. My older sister at the
Speaker 1: time was a really picky eater, and apparently one of
Speaker 1: the only things she ate were bananas, and my mom
Speaker 1: remembers that she couldn't find even a banana anywhere, like
Speaker 1: everything was hard to come by. It was really desperate
Speaker 1: times even after the war ended, and every election, in
Speaker 1: quotes was fraudulent. It was a joke. My grandmother Um
Speaker 1: worked as a school teacher in Syria. You and um,
Speaker 1: teachers are a civic position there really, like most positions
Speaker 1: are governmental positions. And my grandma during these elections would
Speaker 1: throw out the nose and only include the yes is
Speaker 1: because the only option was yes or no if he
Speaker 1: wanted to continuef as his rule or not, those are
Speaker 1: the only two options. And she told us that the
Speaker 1: nose were discarded immediately and the only ones that were
Speaker 1: kept were the yesses. And eventually there was an election
Speaker 1: that determined that Haffas and his family would be in
Speaker 1: power forever and as it was a phrase that used,
Speaker 1: and essentially this means until death or forever, you will
Speaker 1: be in power. It does have his name in their
Speaker 1: but it implies his whole family. So it's just they
Speaker 1: gave him power forever. That is literally what that means.
Speaker 1: And yeah, I think, um, there's so much more to
Speaker 1: talk about here, and I would love for my mom
Speaker 1: to just give me more information about this that I
Speaker 1: can share eventually. There's just so much. And this episode
Speaker 1: is already getting kind of long, so I'm gonna wrap
Speaker 1: it up here. In the next episode, we'll be talking
Speaker 1: about but Shad and how he became the dictator of
Speaker 1: Syria and how he was even meant to be the
Speaker 1: president of Syria, and yeah, a lot of interesting history
Speaker 1: that leads to some topical information that I think is important.
Speaker 1: So see you there if you want to. But wow,
Speaker 1: it's me again. Uh, this is Sharia. This is also
Speaker 1: it could happen here. We've been talking about Syria for
Speaker 1: the last few episodes and we're going to continue and
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna jump right in because there's a lot Okay,
Speaker 1: So this is a continuation about Syria and the terrible
Speaker 1: family that controls it, the assets. As I mentioned in
Speaker 1: the previous episodes, Uh, the Assads have destroyed Syria and
Speaker 1: the death toll that they are responsible for is literally
Speaker 1: incalculable by the UN but it's said to be nearing
Speaker 1: half a million people, which is a lot of people. So.
Speaker 1: Sam Dagger is an American Lebanese journalist and author who
Speaker 1: has lived and worked in the Middle East for more
Speaker 1: than sixteen years. He was based in Damascus in the
Speaker 1: early years of the current war before the government kicked
Speaker 1: him out in but he used his access to write
Speaker 1: about the inside story of the Sad family. He has
Speaker 1: a book titled A sad Or We Burned the Country,
Speaker 1: which I admittedly have not read. It's like five hundre pages,
Speaker 1: but I did pull a lot of info from the
Speaker 1: book and interviews that he's done about it, mostly in
Speaker 1: regards to the economic stuff that we'll get into later,
Speaker 1: but it was very helpful resource. When Dagger was in Syria,
Speaker 1: he saw this phrase A sad Or reburned the country,
Speaker 1: which is the title of his book. All over the
Speaker 1: towns and neighborhoods that had been taken over by the
Speaker 1: regime graffiti it on walls, probably by loyalists or government
Speaker 1: militias or whatever, or as people that love him barf.
Speaker 1: And in this case they're talking about the shadow I said,
Speaker 1: who is the son of the person we were talking
Speaker 1: about previously said, but it essentially also includes the entire family.
Speaker 1: They are in power forever, and the Asad regime routinely
Speaker 1: takes over deserted, destroyed areas, and these government militias come
Speaker 1: in and loot the area until it's nothing but rubble
Speaker 1: littered by things that are left behind as people are fleeing,
Speaker 1: and things that these loyalists find useless, like teddy bears
Speaker 1: and personal items that actually tell a really devastating story
Speaker 1: about the lives that used to occupy that space. Because
Speaker 1: these loyalists, these sad obsessed freaks, they take everything that
Speaker 1: they deem worth looting, even things like tiles and doors,
Speaker 1: So you're left with these ghost towns. Literally figuratively, the
Speaker 1: phrase is sad or reburned the country means exactly what
Speaker 1: it says. It means that the Shadow and his family
Speaker 1: will remain in power or else they will burn the
Speaker 1: country to the ground and burn everyone who opposes the
Speaker 1: Assad regime along with it. And although the shadowst has
Speaker 1: now been in power for twenty two years, he was
Speaker 1: actually never meant to be in power. His father had
Speaker 1: appointed himself as president in ninety one after overthrowing the
Speaker 1: prior government through military coup. The Shadow s has succeeded
Speaker 1: his father in two thousand after his father's death, and
Speaker 1: it continued their famili's hold on Syria and his people.
Speaker 1: Was a very significant year. Not only was it the
Speaker 1: year I was born and that's why, but Also, the
Speaker 1: Soviet Union collapsed and the Berlin Wall fell and dictatorships
Speaker 1: were crumbling. The Soviet Union was seen as the main
Speaker 1: supporter or guardian of the Sad regime, but in it
Speaker 1: didn't exist anymore. So the a Sad regime was suddenly
Speaker 1: in trouble. Its priority was to present an image of
Speaker 1: reform and repackaged itself so half as Said, could hand
Speaker 1: down the power to his eldest son, Bassett said Um
Speaker 1: and Bassett was an army officer who was essentially brought
Speaker 1: up to eventually fill this role taking over for his father,
Speaker 1: and his military background fit the image of this traditional
Speaker 1: leader of the Arab world because so many of these
Speaker 1: leaders took over by military coup or had a background
Speaker 1: of military. But before we get into all of that,
Speaker 1: let's go back in time a little bit and talk
Speaker 1: about what went down. So a sort of succession crisis
Speaker 1: was triggered in November three when haf Said, a diabetic,
Speaker 1: had a heart attack on November after visiting his brother
Speaker 1: in a hospital. The fact that Said reportedly announced his
Speaker 1: candidacy for president, he did not believe that his brother
Speaker 1: would be able to continue ruling the country after to this,
Speaker 1: when he did not receive support from Assad's inner circle.
Speaker 1: He made lavish promises to win them over, but apparently
Speaker 1: some believe that a Fact had been as first choice
Speaker 1: of successor, and it was an idea that some people
Speaker 1: say he broached as early as nineteen eighty. The fact
Speaker 1: that I said was the younger brother of Haffaz and
Speaker 1: he served as vice president. Many believe him to be
Speaker 1: the commanding officer responsible for the Hamma massacre of two um.
Speaker 1: I briefly mentioned this in the previous episode at the end.
Speaker 1: It was a horrific massacre, and I think it especially
Speaker 1: is near to me because Hamma is my mother's hometown
Speaker 1: and it's probably my favorite place in the world. They
Speaker 1: have these water wheels that are like, I don't know,
Speaker 1: they've mesmerized me. But that's another story entirely. We can
Speaker 1: be all sappy at another time. But I did want
Speaker 1: to break up this massacre because most people have no
Speaker 1: idea that it even happened. In February two as commander
Speaker 1: of the defense companies that in fact allegedly commanded the
Speaker 1: forces that put down a Muslim brotherhood revolt in the
Speaker 1: central city of Hamma by instructing his forces to shell
Speaker 1: the city with rockets, and this killed thousands of its inhabitants.
Speaker 1: Reports range from between five thousand and forty thousand, but
Speaker 1: the most common suggestion is around fifteen to twenty thousand,
Speaker 1: still a ship ton of people, and this became known
Speaker 1: as the Hamma Massacre. A declassified document from the Defense
Speaker 1: Intelligence Agency estimates the total number of casualties to be
Speaker 1: approximately two thousand. However, US journalist Thomas Friedman claims in
Speaker 1: his book From Beyroute to Jerusalem that I Fat later
Speaker 1: said the total number of victims was thirty eight thousand people.
Speaker 1: Thirty eight thousand people. The fact also played a key
Speaker 1: role in his brother Hoppus's overthrow of saw Shadid and
Speaker 1: the seizure of power. This change in executive power is
Speaker 1: dug by some loyalists. At the Corrective Revolution, the Fat
Speaker 1: was allowed to form his own paramilitary group, the Defense Companies,
Speaker 1: in nine and this soon transformed into a powerful and
Speaker 1: regular military force, trained and armed by the Soviet Union.
Speaker 1: He was a qualified paratrooper and he ran the elite
Speaker 1: internal security Forces and the Defense Companies in the seventies
Speaker 1: and early eighties, but things changed when Haffas severed a
Speaker 1: heart attack in late eighty three. As he was recovering,
Speaker 1: Haffa's established a six member committee to run the country,
Speaker 1: but a fact was not included. The council consisted entirely
Speaker 1: of close Sunni Muslim loyalists to Haffa's, who were mostly
Speaker 1: lightweights in the military security establishment. This caused unease in
Speaker 1: that that we dominated officer corps, and several high ranking
Speaker 1: officers began rallying behind your Fat while others remained loyal
Speaker 1: to Haffice's instructions. In March of eighty four, Fat's troops,
Speaker 1: now numbering more than fifty five thousand, with tanks and artillery,
Speaker 1: ary aircraft and helicopters, they began a certain control over Damascus.
Speaker 1: A squadron of Defrats tanks took position at the central
Speaker 1: roundabout of Cafu Souse in Mount Glassioun, overlooking the city,
Speaker 1: setting up checkpoints and roadblocks, putting up posters of him
Speaker 1: in state buildings, disarming regular troops, and arbitrarily arresting soldiers
Speaker 1: of the regular army, Occupying and commandeering police stations and
Speaker 1: intelligence building. Occupying state buildings, the defense companies rapidly outnumbered
Speaker 1: and took control over both the Special Forces and the
Speaker 1: Republican Guard. Although Damascus was divided between two armies and
Speaker 1: seemed to be on the brink of war, the Fact
Speaker 1: did not move. Papus was then informed that de Fact
Speaker 1: was heading to Damascus, and he left his headquarters to
Speaker 1: meet his brother. British journalist Patrick Seal reports an intimate
Speaker 1: moment between these two brothers. He writes, at a Fact's
Speaker 1: home and the brothers were at last face to face.
Speaker 1: You want to overthrow the regime, Hafas asked, here I am,
Speaker 1: I am the regime. For an hour they stormed at
Speaker 1: each other, but in his role of elder brother and
Speaker 1: with his mother in the house, Hafas could not fail
Speaker 1: to win the contest, Deferring to him at last, as
Speaker 1: he had so often during their youths. The Fact chose
Speaker 1: to accept, although with some inward skepticism, halfics Is pledged
Speaker 1: that the trust between them would be restored and would
Speaker 1: be the basis of their future work together. There was
Speaker 1: a clear division and tensions between forces loyal to Haffa's,
Speaker 1: namely the Third Armored Division, the Republican Guard, the various
Speaker 1: intelligence services, the National Police and the Special forces. The
Speaker 1: defense companies were so loyal to defact. In the middle
Speaker 1: of eighty four, Haffas had returned from his sick bed
Speaker 1: and assumed full control, at which point most officers rallied
Speaker 1: around him. At first, it seemed like the Fact was
Speaker 1: going to be put on trial. He even faced a
Speaker 1: questioning that was broadcast on television. However, it is believed
Speaker 1: the Hoffice's daughter Bushta, actually saved her uncle by convincing
Speaker 1: her father that it would disgrace the family it might
Speaker 1: cost tensions not only within the Assad family, but within
Speaker 1: the Mahlu family as well. Both Haffas and Nafat had
Speaker 1: married women from the Mahu family, and they also just
Speaker 1: happened to be the second most prevalent Dilo white family
Speaker 1: dominating the leadership of the security services behind the Assads,
Speaker 1: and what first seemed like a compromise, the Fact was
Speaker 1: made vice president with responsibility for security affairs, but this
Speaker 1: proved to be simply a fancy title, and post command
Speaker 1: of the defense companies was trimmed down to an armored
Speaker 1: division size and was transferred to another officer, and the
Speaker 1: entire unit was ultimately disbanded and absorbed into other units.
Speaker 1: The Fat was then sent to the Soviet Union in
Speaker 1: an open ending working visit. His closest supporters and others
Speaker 1: who had failed to prove their loyalty to Haffa's were
Speaker 1: purged from the army and bath Party in the years
Speaker 1: that followed. Upon his departure, de Fat acquired three d
Speaker 1: million dollars of public money, including a hundred million Libyan money,
Speaker 1: on a loan in two thousand fifteen. He claimed that
Speaker 1: the money was a gift from Crown Prince Albila Saudi Arabia,
Speaker 1: and although the fact returned to Syria for his mother's
Speaker 1: funeral in nine two and for some time lived in Syria,
Speaker 1: he was thereafter confined to exile in France and Spain.
Speaker 1: He nominally retained the post of Vice President until February
Speaker 1: of night, at which point he was stripped of this title.
Speaker 1: He had retained a large business empire both in Syria
Speaker 1: and abroad, partly through the Sun sum However, the nine Crackdown,
Speaker 1: involving armed clashes in the Takia, destroyed much of his
Speaker 1: remaining network. In Syria, large numbers of the Fat supporters
Speaker 1: were arrested. This was seen as tied to the issue
Speaker 1: of succession, with our Fat having begun to position himself
Speaker 1: to succeed the ailing Cofaz, who in his turn sought
Speaker 1: to eliminate all potential competition for his designating successor, his
Speaker 1: son Bashad. As in France, the Fat who is still alive,
Speaker 1: has loudly protested against the succession of Bashad to the
Speaker 1: post of president, claiming that he himself embodies the only
Speaker 1: constitutional legality as previous vice president, alleging his dismissal as unconstitutional.
Speaker 1: He has made threatening remarks about planning to return to
Speaker 1: Syria at a time of his choosing to assume his
Speaker 1: responsibilities and fulfill the will of the people, and that
Speaker 1: while he will rule benevolently and democratically, he will do
Speaker 1: so with the power of the people and the army
Speaker 1: behind him. Anyway, de fats coup attempt to weaken the
Speaker 1: institutionalized power structure on which Hafez based his rule. Instead
Speaker 1: of changing his policy, a sad try to protect his
Speaker 1: power by honing his governmental model. He then gave a
Speaker 1: larger role to Bassid, his oldest son, who was subsequently
Speaker 1: rumored to be his father's plan successor at the time,
Speaker 1: and this kindled jealousy within the government at a nineteen
Speaker 1: ninety four military meeting, the chief of staff said that
Speaker 1: since Assad wanted to normalize relations with Israel, the Syrian
Speaker 1: military had to withdraw its troops from the Goal and Heights.
Speaker 1: Ali Haidad replied angrily, we have become nonentities. We were
Speaker 1: not even consulted. When he heard about his outburst, a
Speaker 1: Sad replaced him as commander of special Forces with the
Speaker 1: Ala White Major General Ali Habib had that also reportedly
Speaker 1: opposed dynastic succession, keeping his views secret until after Bassil's
Speaker 1: death in ninety four, and when a Sad chose but
Speaker 1: shadow said to succeed him, he then openly criticized as
Speaker 1: sad succession plans. Okay, before we go back to let's
Speaker 1: take a quick break b rb Okay, so back to nine.
Speaker 1: The regime had done everything in preparation for bast Sale
Speaker 1: to take power. However, on January one, while Bastard was
Speaker 1: driving his Mercedes at a high speed, and author Paul
Speaker 1: Thorou reports that basket the way, driving a hundred and
Speaker 1: fifty miles per hour. He was driving through dense fog
Speaker 1: to Damascus International Airport for a flight to Frankfurt, Germany.
Speaker 1: He was on his way to a ski vacation in
Speaker 1: the Alps in the early hours of the morning, and
Speaker 1: it was then the Bassett collided with a barrier and
Speaker 1: not wearing a seatbelt, he died instantly. After his tragic death,
Speaker 1: the regime made sure to elevate the assad name. In
Speaker 1: the process, shops, schools and public offices and Syria closed
Speaker 1: and the sale of alcohol was suspended. In respect, he
Speaker 1: was elevated by the state into the martyr of the country,
Speaker 1: the martyr of the nation and the symbol for its youth.
Speaker 1: A great number of squares and streets were named after him,
Speaker 1: the new international swimming complex, various hospitals, sporting clubs, and
Speaker 1: a military academy. The international airport in the tack Yet
Speaker 1: was named after him Basset Lead International Airport. His statue
Speaker 1: was found in several Syrian cities, and even after his death,
Speaker 1: he's often pictured on billboards with his father and his brother.
Speaker 1: He also has an equestrian statute in Aleppo. Even in
Speaker 1: November of twenty a museum dedicated to him was no
Speaker 1: gy rated at the Attackia Sports City. Bassas untimely death
Speaker 1: obviously had unforeseen consequences. It led to his lesser known
Speaker 1: brother Bashad to assume the mantle of president in waiting.
Speaker 1: At the time, he was content undertaking post graduate training
Speaker 1: and ophthalmology in London. Bashad was seen as the shy,
Speaker 1: unassuming younger brother, and for his whole life up to
Speaker 1: this point he was overshadowed by his father and its
Speaker 1: older brother Bassett. But then suddenly he was fast tracked
Speaker 1: on the path to succession. He was rushed to the
Speaker 1: military and the constitution changed so that the minimum age
Speaker 1: required of the president was not forty but thirty four,
Speaker 1: exactly Bashadow's age at the time. But Shadow became president
Speaker 1: following the death of his father, who died on June
Speaker 1: tenth of two thousand. Bast sales posters and his name
Speaker 1: were also used to secure a smooth transition. After half
Speaker 1: said introduced the slogan Bastend the example, Bashad the Future.
Speaker 1: His quote unquote election was a yes or no referendum,
Speaker 1: a popular vote on whether the Syrian people wanted him
Speaker 1: as their president, and so surprised he won with at
Speaker 1: least of the vote. So after the vote, Bashad is
Speaker 1: sworn in and he's presented to his people as the savior,
Speaker 1: as the one who's going to open up Syria and
Speaker 1: reform the system. Dr Basha, a son referred to him,
Speaker 1: was seen as the leader of the younger generation of Syria,
Speaker 1: the standard bearer of modernization. But the regime was and
Speaker 1: stayed very cynical and was not at all sincere about
Speaker 1: these reforms. However, Bashad performed his role and acted the part,
Speaker 1: cracking down on corruption, reaching out to all sectors of
Speaker 1: Syrian society. Back in two thousands, some people were even
Speaker 1: calling this the Damascus Spring, and the Syrian people were
Speaker 1: seeing things change, unaware that, as sam Docker puts it,
Speaker 1: that Bashad is being mentored and tutored by people who
Speaker 1: have been empowered by his father to kill, torture, and
Speaker 1: disappear people because they had dared to speak out against
Speaker 1: the regime. These hard liners were grooming him and telling him, yes,
Speaker 1: you can present yourself as a softer version of your father,
Speaker 1: but no, then order to hang on to power, you
Speaker 1: have to be as ruthless as your father, if not more.
Speaker 1: Western governments had the impression that Bashad was someone they
Speaker 1: could do business with. He presented a modern, open minded
Speaker 1: image and even hosted notable positions from around the world
Speaker 1: in Damascus. Including Brad Pitt and Angeley and Jolie. The
Speaker 1: US and Europe accepted this perception because they believed that
Speaker 1: it was in their best interest to do so, and
Speaker 1: to ensure that this image of Syrian leadership was being
Speaker 1: presented to the world. The regime was strategic having Bashad
Speaker 1: show that he was different from his father, even in
Speaker 1: the choice of who he married. In December of two
Speaker 1: thousand a, Sad married Esma as a British citizen of
Speaker 1: Syrian origin from a in London. She was much different
Speaker 1: than serious previous first lady. She wasn't from the religious
Speaker 1: sect that the Assads belonged to, the Allo Whites, who
Speaker 1: are still a religious minority. She is actually of a
Speaker 1: Sunni majority. Basha decided to marry someone who has lived
Speaker 1: all her life abroad, as a British citizen, who was
Speaker 1: modern and assertive and had a career in investment banking
Speaker 1: and talked about going to Harvard for business school. She
Speaker 1: was even featured in Vogue Come on barf. In an
Speaker 1: interview in two thousand five, Esma said, quote, the issue
Speaker 1: here is not how Muslim women decide to dress. The
Speaker 1: issue is what Muslim women are doing in their society today,
Speaker 1: it doesn't matter how we dress or what we look like.
Speaker 1: So hearing this and other things, Western leaders are looking
Speaker 1: at this modern educated couple, believing they are different and
Speaker 1: more importantly, that they are more suitable to their interests.
Speaker 1: In the post nine eleven era, the United States was
Speaker 1: looking for allies in the so called War on Terror
Speaker 1: and said, as Sam Dagger stated in an interview quote,
Speaker 1: shared intelligence with the Americans and even tortured people on
Speaker 1: behalf of the Americans. So the West had a vested
Speaker 1: interest to justify its engagement and cooperation with Bashad by
Speaker 1: saying he's a reformer. Opening up series economy was a
Speaker 1: big part of projecting an image of a reformed Syria.
Speaker 1: Before Basha took power, Serious economy was a centrally planned
Speaker 1: economy also known as a command economy, which is an
Speaker 1: economic system where a government body makes economic decisions based
Speaker 1: on the production and distribution of goods. Serious economy was
Speaker 1: in the mold of the Soviet Union's economy, but when
Speaker 1: Basha took over, the economy began to change drastically. In
Speaker 1: the early two thousand's, a t m s were seen
Speaker 1: in Syria for the very first time and cell phone
Speaker 1: companies were established, and while the economy may have opened up,
Speaker 1: everything was still in control of the regime. I wanted
Speaker 1: to bring up something that my mom mentioned about the
Speaker 1: differences between Basha and Hafs and how they genuinely believed
Speaker 1: he was going to bring modern change. He was doing
Speaker 1: it all right on paper, but when Hoffas was in
Speaker 1: power in the early eighties or my mom was talking
Speaker 1: about her experience in the late eighties early nineties, apparently
Speaker 1: there were at least three Secret Service stations that monitored
Speaker 1: everyone in every neighborhood, three per neighborhood. And because my
Speaker 1: mom was going back and forth from America to Syria
Speaker 1: my father as well, they would send for my mom.
Speaker 1: They would request that she go to the Secret Service,
Speaker 1: and she was asked there about the Syrians. She knew
Speaker 1: in the States, what they were doing, what they did,
Speaker 1: who went to the mosque. She had to write everything
Speaker 1: she did in detail. She did this every time she
Speaker 1: visited Syria, and my father went through the same thing.
Speaker 1: At one instant, she was saying that one time they
Speaker 1: left her alone in her room for three hours. Because
Speaker 1: they do this to purposely humiliate you. They make you
Speaker 1: anxious to make you scared. And this was just something
Speaker 1: of normal procedure that a lot of Syrians experienced, just
Speaker 1: constant terror. As I mentioned, it's a culture of fear,
Speaker 1: and this is one of the ways that they promoted that.
Speaker 1: But after Bashar took power, this changed. These places were
Speaker 1: taken down and it just genuinely looked like Bashad was
Speaker 1: an improvement. He studied in the West to open up
Speaker 1: the internet, because previously the internet was only allowed for news,
Speaker 1: and it just seemed promising. And before we get into
Speaker 1: anything further, let's take another break, b r B. We're back.
Speaker 1: In Sam Dagger's book assad Or Reburned the Country, he
Speaker 1: describes how tightly controlled this new Syrian economy is. He writes,
Speaker 1: ten families run Syria and control everything. He continues to
Speaker 1: describe how this early period in Bashar's rule also brought
Speaker 1: the rise of another figures cousin. He is related to
Speaker 1: the assad family through his mother, who was the sister
Speaker 1: of Anissa mahluf Tops wife, so she's Bashar's aunt. Rabbi
Speaker 1: Mahaluf's personal wealth accumulated abroad was estimated to be in
Speaker 1: the excess of ten billion. In his father Mohammed Mahlouf
Speaker 1: played the role of the regime's financier, basically haf as
Speaker 1: his money man. As Bashad said, became President Mahluf's son
Speaker 1: Rami inherited this business empire and became this new tycoon
Speaker 1: in Syria. He was the person who made sure that
Speaker 1: any economic opening would benefit and enrich the Astad family.
Speaker 1: Before the Syrian Civil War started in early two thousand
Speaker 1: and eleven, he was considered one of the wealthiest and
Speaker 1: most powerful men in Syria and controlled nearly sixty of
Speaker 1: the economy, including industries of real estate and telecommunication, aviation,
Speaker 1: the dairy industry, tourism, electricity, and oil trading. According to
Speaker 1: Syrian analysts, he is part of an inner circle and
Speaker 1: no foreign company could do business in Syria at the
Speaker 1: time without its scent and partnership. The last French ambassador
Speaker 1: to Syria had lunch with Rommie Ones and described him
Speaker 1: as acting as quote the king of Syria, puffing cigars
Speaker 1: and saying I'm in control and everything happens through me.
Speaker 1: Fast forward to our present day, the economy has completely
Speaker 1: collapsed ever since the uprising started in early thousand eleven.
Speaker 1: It could be seen as an accumulation of the past decade.
Speaker 1: Syria's sanction hit economy had always relied on Lebanon to
Speaker 1: sustain itself, but in the fall of twenty and nineteen,
Speaker 1: Lebanon had its own crises, and it was an economic
Speaker 1: and political turmoil which forced banks to control access to
Speaker 1: cash and prevent transfers abroad. Dagger explains, Lebanon has always
Speaker 1: served as this economic pressure valve, not only for the
Speaker 1: regime but also for average Syrians. A lot of Syrians
Speaker 1: had their savings, their life savings, and Lebanese banks. One
Speaker 1: analyst told me that Syrians had one billion dollars in
Speaker 1: deposits in Syria itself versus forty billion dollars of Ayrian
Speaker 1: deposits in Lebanon. And then what happens in Lebanon. The
Speaker 1: whole banking system crashes, There are protests in the streets
Speaker 1: of Lebanon, that outlet that Syrians had shuts down, and
Speaker 1: the situation becomes progressively worse than Syria. The value of
Speaker 1: the Syrian lira had also extremely diminished and continues to
Speaker 1: trying to recover from this plummet of the Syrian economy.
Speaker 1: But Shadow turned to capitalists that he had empowered twenty
Speaker 1: years prior, including his cousin Rabbi Mhlouf, but Shad asked
Speaker 1: romy for two hundred and thirty million dollars, specifically in
Speaker 1: back taxes. It was described essentially as being a shakedown.
Speaker 1: The world saw this as a huge falling out between
Speaker 1: Syria's richest man and its president, a dictator, but shadow
Speaker 1: sent Other prominent businessmen, not just Ramy, were also targeted,
Speaker 1: and they all quietly agreed to pay whatever the regime
Speaker 1: was asking for. The economy was an in dire state
Speaker 1: and the regime urgently needed cash, so the government asked
Speaker 1: for myn from the businessmen and had empowered in the
Speaker 1: first place, and most of them comply but not run.
Speaker 1: In June, Mahluf stated that he would quote quit the
Speaker 1: Syrian business scene. On May one, Mahaleuf made an unprecedented
Speaker 1: public appeal to his cousin. He made this appeal on Facebook,
Speaker 1: saying that officials were seeking to seize his assets as
Speaker 1: he was pressured to hand over an excess of one
Speaker 1: hundred and thirty billion. I think it's what all those
Speaker 1: zeros mean. An excess of add thirty billion liras due
Speaker 1: to tax evasion, Mahlouf, who was a part of the
Speaker 1: Shadow Sets inner circle, said he would pay the president himself,
Speaker 1: but not the state. Two days later, he posted another
Speaker 1: video on Facebook where he mentioned that Syrian security forces
Speaker 1: arrested some of his employees. He said, how could they
Speaker 1: do this when I was their biggest supporter and their
Speaker 1: biggest servant during the war. However, speculations indicate the Assyrian
Speaker 1: First Lady Sma Assent had been responsible for this whole plot,
Speaker 1: the reason being that quote to many businessmen loyal to
Speaker 1: Esthima competed with Mahloof for control of diminishing resources after
Speaker 1: collapse of the Syrian Pound, along with sanctions, made the
Speaker 1: space in which they compete narrow and difficult. This is
Speaker 1: according to Dr Mohan A. Hejudi, a researcher at the
Speaker 1: Carnegie Middle East Center. In addition, the Syrian authorities might
Speaker 1: have targeted Mahlouf in order to find resources prior to
Speaker 1: the implementation of U S sanctions related to the Caesar Act.
Speaker 1: On May seventy, Mahlouf posted another video on Facebook where
Speaker 1: he mentioned rising pressure on him to handover profits or
Speaker 1: he might be arrested. On May nineteenth, the Syrian government
Speaker 1: seized all assets belonging to Mahlouf. On the twenty one,
Speaker 1: a Syrian court placed a temporary travel banna Mahlouf. On June,
Speaker 1: the Syrian government terminated duty free contracts in all ports
Speaker 1: and border crossings with companies affiliated with Mahouf. This drama
Speaker 1: between Bashad and Rommi resulted in talks of a rift
Speaker 1: in the regime's inner circle, and people were concerned that
Speaker 1: this would expose a rift in the Allo White community itself,
Speaker 1: which had supplied the bulk of the fighting forces for
Speaker 1: the regime. Because in these Facebook videos, Rammi wasn't only
Speaker 1: appealing to his cousin, his patron with whom he built
Speaker 1: a twenty year symbiotic relationship with. He was also appealing
Speaker 1: to the average members of their religious sect, the Allo Whites,
Speaker 1: most of whom are nowhere near the wealth of the
Speaker 1: Assad family's inner circle. He was tongued Allowhites that we
Speaker 1: had sacrificed everything for the regime and our sons were
Speaker 1: killed in order for the regime to remain in power,
Speaker 1: and instead of being rewarded for the fruits of this,
Speaker 1: the regime was going after an important figure who has
Speaker 1: been instrumental in supporting people through his business a k
Speaker 1: a Rommi himself, and it wasn't necessarily untrue, but he
Speaker 1: wasn't helping people for free obviously, and Johnny had expected
Speaker 1: people to remain loyal to him despite all of this. Basically,
Speaker 1: the Assad family had finished devouring the Syrian state and
Speaker 1: its resources, and it had now started to devour each other.
Speaker 1: As of of Syrians live in poverty and are unemployed.
Speaker 1: There's unrelenting inflation, and basic goods have doubled or tripled
Speaker 1: in price, rice, flour, sugar, coffee. Everything has become obscenely expensive.
Speaker 1: There's hardly any meat, and gas is priced in American dollars,
Speaker 1: which you can only imagine how high that goes. When
Speaker 1: my family and I talks to our Familure members that
Speaker 1: are still in Syria, we hear about the electricity being
Speaker 1: out for days and weeks, and then the water being
Speaker 1: out for the same amount of time, and the people
Speaker 1: are essentially being suffocated by their own government. People are
Speaker 1: questioned and tortured and kept in prisons for absolutely no reason,
Speaker 1: and the only way they can get out is by
Speaker 1: bribing the prisons thousands of dollars for no reason. It's
Speaker 1: just about greed, it's about power, it's about terrible people.
Speaker 1: These monsters just destroying this beautiful place. Syria is so beautiful,
Speaker 1: and I just my heart breaks for the land and
Speaker 1: for the people. So although the A Sad regime continues
Speaker 1: to present itself as the ultimate and only power in Syria,
Speaker 1: Bashad has actually been at his weakest point in the
Speaker 1: last two years. He is only still in his position
Speaker 1: because the Russians and Iranians want him to be there,
Speaker 1: and he's only able to maintain his role by playing
Speaker 1: off his two patrons against each other, Iran and Russia.
Speaker 1: This is a regime that always derived its power from
Speaker 1: the army and from the security forces, but the army
Speaker 1: largely does not exist anymore. Yes, there are divisions that
Speaker 1: are trained by the Russians in an attempt to put
Speaker 1: this army back together, but even the loyalists who support
Speaker 1: the Shadow said don't want to join the army anymore.
Speaker 1: They would rather leave the country. So the regime's only
Speaker 1: option left is to continue to rule by fear. This
Speaker 1: has had mixed results, especially when you look at the
Speaker 1: uprisings that have continued since. However much they have dissipated people,
Speaker 1: put themselves on the streets, not hiding their identities, vocally
Speaker 1: and loudly opposing the regime and demanding for the removal
Speaker 1: of the shadow. At this behavior, as we've seen, it's
Speaker 1: unacceptable by the regime and it's led to the regime
Speaker 1: all but destroying its own country. Estimates of the total
Speaker 1: number of deaths in the Syrian Civil War by opposition
Speaker 1: activist groups vary between five hundred thousand people and six
Speaker 1: hundred thousand people as of March. And I think it's
Speaker 1: really notable that Syrians are vocally expressing their outrage and
Speaker 1: there's just a history there of so much trauma. In
Speaker 1: two thousand five, for example, my mother was telling me
Speaker 1: that a list of demands, so like what's math six
Speaker 1: years after the first uprisings occurred in twenty oven. In
Speaker 1: two thousand five, a list of demands or corrections um
Speaker 1: were written down the things that people wanted to fix
Speaker 1: of the government, free press, free expression, they wanted to
Speaker 1: make the government and democracy. And Bashad allowed them to
Speaker 1: list their demands and what they wanted to fix and
Speaker 1: handed over to him to look at. Essentially an Arabic
Speaker 1: this is called eland mushk and it seemed like maybe
Speaker 1: an open conversation could happen. But then everyone who signed
Speaker 1: this petition was looked up, hunted down, sent to jail,
Speaker 1: some for decades and some people that are still there,
Speaker 1: and others fled the country after they started collecting people.
Speaker 1: This Ellen de Musk was the beginning of the end.
Speaker 1: It was the end of the few liberties that people
Speaker 1: thought would come when took power. He named everyone who signed,
Speaker 1: everyone who supported the newspeople to press as terrorists. And
Speaker 1: I think in spite of that, six years later there
Speaker 1: was still an uprising. It was an accumulated need to
Speaker 1: fight back. And so going back to that saying that
Speaker 1: a SAD loyalists spray paint on the cities, that SAD
Speaker 1: has demolished a Sad or we burned the country, it
Speaker 1: seems like both choices have come true. The shadows Set
Speaker 1: has stayed in power, and he's also burned the country
Speaker 1: to the ground. And the more he stays in power,
Speaker 1: the worst life gets for Syrians. The country is destroyed,
Speaker 1: families are shattered, and many many people have died. The
Speaker 1: cost is insurmountable. But a lot of Syrians don't see
Speaker 1: this fight as over their injustices and grievances remain the same,
Speaker 1: even after experiencing indescribable horrors over the past twelve years.
Speaker 1: Syrian people, like all people, they want dignity, they want justice,
Speaker 1: and they can no longer accept living in this inhumane
Speaker 1: system where your most basic rights as a human being
Speaker 1: depend on your proximity to power. Anyway, this is Sharine.
Speaker 1: Thank you for listening. I sincerely appreciate your time and
Speaker 1: I'll see you. Welcome to it could happen here the
Speaker 1: podcast about the world falling apart and how we can
Speaker 1: put it back together again. I'm your host, Christopher Wong. Now.
Speaker 1: Three months ago we covered Great Abbot's attempt to shut
Speaker 1: down the border and how he was forced basically to
Speaker 1: back down by a Mexican trucker strike. And in that
Speaker 1: episode we mentioned that Abbot's newest stunt was deporting people
Speaker 1: from Texas to Washington, d C. To make Biden look
Speaker 1: bad by you know, moving the problem to him. And
Speaker 1: as a political stunt, this has largely failed as a
Speaker 1: humanitarian disaster, inflicting untold human misery on completely innocent people.
Speaker 1: It is still continuing to unfold, and here today to
Speaker 1: talk about this with US is Amy Fish with Sanctuary
Speaker 1: d m V and the Migrant Solidarity Mutual Aid Network. Amy,
Speaker 1: thank you for joining us and welcome to the show.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for having me. So excited to
Speaker 1: be here. Yeah, um, somewhat less excited that this is
Speaker 1: happening because dear God. Yeah. So, I guess to start off,
Speaker 1: do you want to tell us a bit about what's
Speaker 1: been I guess how this started in what the sort
Speaker 1: of initial reaction and non reaction of the d C
Speaker 1: government has been. Sure so, Um, in April, Governor Abbott
Speaker 1: started bussing people from the border to d C. Um.
Speaker 1: We knew from the get go that this was a
Speaker 1: racist publicity stunt, um, particularly because the first few busses
Speaker 1: were dropped off right in front of the Fox News building. UM,
Speaker 1: and we all initially thought it was going to be
Speaker 1: a few weeks of bussing people. And here we are,
Speaker 1: um in the middle of July, and the buses have
Speaker 1: kept coming. Um. Buses arrive to d C basically every
Speaker 1: single day of the week except for UM Monday evenings
Speaker 1: and Tuesday mornings, and there have been probably around thirty
Speaker 1: people bussed from Texas to d C. And uh not
Speaker 1: too long after Governor Juicy of Arizona started doing the
Speaker 1: same thing and bussing people from the Arizona border to
Speaker 1: d C, and the d C government has basically been
Speaker 1: unwilling to grapple with the reality of what's happening. You know,
Speaker 1: people are arriving to d C with very very little resources,
Speaker 1: typically like the clothes on their act. Sometimes they don't
Speaker 1: even have shoes on their feet when they get off
Speaker 1: the buses. And it's been, um, kind of amazing to
Speaker 1: see the way that the DC community has responded. It's
Speaker 1: been like the type of response that makes me remarkably
Speaker 1: proud of being a DC resident and being from the area.
Speaker 1: And also, um, it's something that the d C government
Speaker 1: is turning in a blind eye to um and pretending like, um,
Speaker 1: the reality that we are seeing when we are talking
Speaker 1: to people that are getting off the buses day in
Speaker 1: and day out, it's just it's like entirely different from
Speaker 1: what you know, the DC mayor is saying about the situation. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I guess, well, okay, so before we talk, I
Speaker 1: guess fully about the DC governments just catastrophic. I don't
Speaker 1: even want to know if I want to say incompetence
Speaker 1: so much is just like we'll just let these people suffer. UM,
Speaker 1: Can we talk a bit about what what what the
Speaker 1: community responses looked like and what y'all have been doing. Sure,
Speaker 1: so maybe to back up a little bit to to
Speaker 1: tell you about sort of like what the experiences of
Speaker 1: the people that are getting off the buses. These are
Speaker 1: people that are typically UM coming to the United States
Speaker 1: to seek asylum. They're being processed at the border for
Speaker 1: a few days, and I think what like have been
Speaker 1: commonly started to be referred to as like the Pereiras
Speaker 1: and Jeleras at the border, so like the dog cannels,
Speaker 1: the ice boxes, and the at the border and that
Speaker 1: are being paroled into the country. And um, so the
Speaker 1: Customs and Border Protections CDP is releasing these folks to
Speaker 1: UM like respite centers type of places at the border.
Speaker 1: UM in Texas. Most of the folks are coming from
Speaker 1: Del Rio and Eagle Path, UM. And then they're being
Speaker 1: told that there's these free busses to d C. And
Speaker 1: it's it's a little bit mind boggling because we know
Speaker 1: that Governor Abbott is doing these bus this bussing purely
Speaker 1: out of the most like racist xenophobic intentions. And also
Speaker 1: for many of the folks, it's a free bus to
Speaker 1: to get to where they're trying to go. And so
Speaker 1: people are riding on the buses arriving in d C
Speaker 1: and then you know, many of them are trying to
Speaker 1: get to other places along the East coast UM and
Speaker 1: many are planning on staying in d C UM. And
Speaker 1: so what has happened is we've um developed a massive
Speaker 1: mutual aid response, which has been super cool. So you know,
Speaker 1: we have of a crew of volunteers that meet the
Speaker 1: buses when they arrive UM at Union Station. And if
Speaker 1: you're not familiar with d C, Union Station is sort
Speaker 1: of the big transit center and in the middle of
Speaker 1: d C UM actually relatively close to where the capital is. UM.
Speaker 1: It's sort of like the DC equivalent of like Penn
Speaker 1: Station in New York or something like that. UM. And
Speaker 1: so they're dropped off in front of Union Station. We
Speaker 1: have folks that will welcome them and UM typically we
Speaker 1: bring to folks to uh different churches around the area
Speaker 1: that have opened up their spaces as respite centers for us,
Speaker 1: and we uh you know, sit down with folks, we
Speaker 1: offer them some food and really try and talk through
Speaker 1: what their needs are and help them as best as
Speaker 1: we can meet those needs, whether it is you know,
Speaker 1: folks may have UM medical or like trauma they need
Speaker 1: to work through UM. Maybe they're trying to get to
Speaker 1: New York, and so we'll help them, you know, communicate
Speaker 1: with family members or help them find their way to
Speaker 1: New York. We you know, for the folks that are
Speaker 1: staying in d C, we've done our best to help them,
Speaker 1: you know, find a way to kind of get settled
Speaker 1: and put down roots in their new community, getting them
Speaker 1: connected to community members that help them you know, navigate
Speaker 1: DC to to them how to use the metro, help
Speaker 1: them get to their you know, check in appointments as
Speaker 1: they're you know having to jump through all of the
Speaker 1: hoops of ice and being surveilled by the state, and
Speaker 1: and helping them you know, have access to lawyers to
Speaker 1: explain their legal process and really just kind of like
Speaker 1: I don't know, I took a dude to to Target
Speaker 1: to be to like help them get go shopping, and
Speaker 1: you know, took folks to get uh, just like the
Speaker 1: random stuff that people need when they arrive in a
Speaker 1: new place in the same way that, Like, I don't know,
Speaker 1: if I had a friend moving to d C, I
Speaker 1: would be like, Hey, what do you need? Like how
Speaker 1: can I help you get to know this place? Like
Speaker 1: this is how our bike share program works, like just
Speaker 1: the most basic welcome, get settled. Can we talk a
Speaker 1: little bit more about what the sort of legal process
Speaker 1: looks like here and what like, for example, like explain
Speaker 1: what check ins are and yeah, so, UM, the folks
Speaker 1: that are arriving are being paroled in UM and so
Speaker 1: basically what it means is that they are then under
Speaker 1: surveillance from the federal government UM from ICE, which is
Speaker 1: Immigration and Customs Enforcement, And what that looks like is
Speaker 1: a little bit of a crapshoot. UM. So many many
Speaker 1: of the folks are UM at the border given cell
Speaker 1: phones UM that have tracking on them, and so with
Speaker 1: that cell phone, they're being tracked by the government. They
Speaker 1: basically have to take like selfies ever so often to
Speaker 1: UM check in and then they're basically being enrolled in
Speaker 1: this program called i APP, which is the I can't
Speaker 1: remember the acronym, it's it's a supervision program. And so
Speaker 1: they have to go to an ICE office once they
Speaker 1: arrive in whatever city that they're arriving to UM. Oftentimes
Speaker 1: they're being asked to turn in the I the ICE
Speaker 1: cell phones and having to download an app on their
Speaker 1: cell phones. If they don't have a cell phone, they
Speaker 1: might be given an ankle monitor or what many of
Speaker 1: the Spanish speakers called like a great They be basically
Speaker 1: like an ankle shackle UM for electronic monitoring. They'll have
Speaker 1: UM officers you know, show up at their house, so
Speaker 1: sometimes they have to you know, be at home from
Speaker 1: seven am to seven pm so that you know, Immigration
Speaker 1: and come come buy and make sure that they're like
Speaker 1: still there. And basically that part of the program is
Speaker 1: entirely so the government can keep a track of where
Speaker 1: these folks are. It has nothing to do with like
Speaker 1: the actual legal process that they are trying to go
Speaker 1: through to to be able to stay here permanently. So
Speaker 1: separate and apart from that, the vast majority of these
Speaker 1: folks are asylum seekers. And so what that means is
Speaker 1: that you know, once they're here, they have a year
Speaker 1: to apply for asylum and then they're thrust into the
Speaker 1: like totally broken asylum system that has you know, years
Speaker 1: long backlogs and things like that, and so then they'll
Speaker 1: be basically trying to find a way to um get
Speaker 1: an asylum grant to be able to stay here permanently
Speaker 1: while also navigating the surveillance that's happening on the ICE
Speaker 1: side of things are so I know, something that happens
Speaker 1: with like I guess regular prison a lot are people
Speaker 1: being forced to pay for the ankle bracelets, which is
Speaker 1: which is like from their minimum But yeahs, I mean,
Speaker 1: I will say that we've one of the issues that
Speaker 1: we have started, um sort of trying to figure out
Speaker 1: how to navigate, is that what we're seeing is people,
Speaker 1: you know, they get the ICE cell phones at the border,
Speaker 1: and then at their check in they're supposed to turn
Speaker 1: in the ICE cell phones and then download this at
Speaker 1: this surveillance app on their phone. Um, many folks don't
Speaker 1: have a cell phone or the app only works if
Speaker 1: you have I think a five G phone, So you
Speaker 1: basically have to have like the fanciest of the phones,
Speaker 1: which if you're an asylum secret and you just risked
Speaker 1: it all to come here to seek safety and you
Speaker 1: don't really have a support in the US, and now
Speaker 1: you're being told that you have to have this super
Speaker 1: fancy phone or you get an inkle shackle. It's it's
Speaker 1: just kind of a ridiculous thing knowing that it's okay,
Speaker 1: maybe you're privileged enough to be able to be surveilled
Speaker 1: on your own personal cell phone or you just have
Speaker 1: to have an ankle shackle at all time. So much
Speaker 1: of this process just like it really feels just like
Speaker 1: it's it's just it's surveillance just sort of for the
Speaker 1: purpose of humiliation. It's surveillance for the purpose of humiliation.
Speaker 1: It's surveillance for the sake of some Um. This idea
Speaker 1: that we've been dealing with in the US since September eleven,
Speaker 1: that uh, immigration is a national security concern that you know,
Speaker 1: if if immigrants aren't being surveilled twenty four hours it did,
Speaker 1: then like lord knows what they could do. Um. When
Speaker 1: the reality is is these are folks that are just
Speaker 1: like normal people trying to live their best lives. UM.
Speaker 1: And I also think how I think it's really important
Speaker 1: to say how much of this is also entirely based
Speaker 1: on government funding and availability That so oftentimes the decision
Speaker 1: as to what kind of surveillance you're under is based
Speaker 1: upon what is available, um, based on contracts with you know,
Speaker 1: private surveillance companies and private prison companies that have a
Speaker 1: surveillance arm and things like that. It's it's entirely profit driven. Yeah, definitely, definitely. Again,
Speaker 1: I keep thinking about prisons. It's just like, yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean literally literally the same companies doing this kind of
Speaker 1: stuff and how Yeah, and like I think, I don't know,
Speaker 1: there's there's this kind of like I mean, I guess
Speaker 1: people it's just a prison industrial complex. But yeah, there's
Speaker 1: this whole there's a sort of like state private sector
Speaker 1: complex at both feed on each other where you have
Speaker 1: these companies taking federal money to do stuff. You have
Speaker 1: these companies who are like have figured out ways to
Speaker 1: extract like money from the people that they're suvailing. And
Speaker 1: I guess, okay, keep keeping on the thread of the
Speaker 1: state making people's lives miserable. Um, yeah, so Muriel Bowser
Speaker 1: not doing anything. Yeah, we're talking about that a bit.
Speaker 1: So Mariel Bowser's messaging that we have received has evolved
Speaker 1: a little bit here and there. So sometimes she says
Speaker 1: that the majority of people that are getting off the
Speaker 1: bus have everything they need and have families supporting them,
Speaker 1: and so there actually is no reason for the government
Speaker 1: to step forward because these people already have all of
Speaker 1: their needs met, which I would say maybe one person
Speaker 1: or one family ever every few days has someone that's
Speaker 1: you know, ready to meet them when they step off
Speaker 1: the bus, but the vast majority of people don't. And
Speaker 1: I would say that we're seeing an ever increasing amount
Speaker 1: of people that don't have anybody in the United States,
Speaker 1: and so they really are in need of a lot
Speaker 1: of supports to help them really figure out their way
Speaker 1: here because they don't have cousins or family friends or
Speaker 1: extended family, whatever it may be, to help them, you know,
Speaker 1: put down roots in the in their new communities. UM.
Speaker 1: And in recent weeks her messaging has shifted a little
Speaker 1: bit because there is actually a Spain based organization that
Speaker 1: got a grant from FEMA to support on the buses
Speaker 1: UM and so now Bowser's response is this organization sad
Speaker 1: know has it, It's covered. There's there's no like refuse.
Speaker 1: One refusing to even acknowledge the fact that the Mutual
Speaker 1: Aid Network has been and continues to do the vast
Speaker 1: majority of the welcoming of the folks that are arriving,
Speaker 1: and two once again refusing to acknowledge that there is
Speaker 1: any role that DC could be or should be playing here. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and it definitely it seems like I don't know. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's it's a kind of classic like state two steps,
Speaker 1: which like yeah, on the one hand is like okay,
Speaker 1: there's no problem. The second thing is we found an
Speaker 1: NGO we can sort of like pretend is doing the
Speaker 1: actual work. UM. And I guess one of your things
Speaker 1: that that I saw from y'all recently was a bunch
Speaker 1: of people got exposed to COVID while doing this and
Speaker 1: there was like basically, you guys did basically a work stoppage.
Speaker 1: So last week, UM, we basically hit a wall. UM,
Speaker 1: many of our core organizers had been exposed to COVID. UM,
Speaker 1: we were running out of funds because this work is expensive. UM.
Speaker 1: And we had been doing this as volunteers around the clock,
Speaker 1: you know, twenty four hours a day, seventies a week
Speaker 1: for months, and last week we kind of hit a wall.
Speaker 1: And UM told this NGO that is receiving female funding
Speaker 1: that UM we needed to take a beat, UM and
Speaker 1: take two days where you know, folks kuld get COVID
Speaker 1: tested and make sure they were clear to come back
Speaker 1: to work and rest and also spend time like we
Speaker 1: you know, call it a work stuffage, but we're all
Speaker 1: still working. We were all you know, having conversations as
Speaker 1: to how we make this work more sustainable, how we
Speaker 1: find you know, systems of support to to make this
Speaker 1: this welcome last. And unfortunately that resulted in people basically
Speaker 1: getting stranded at Union Station. UM. And when our folks
Speaker 1: were able to return to welcoming buses on UM you know,
Speaker 1: later in the week, they ended up with like I
Speaker 1: don't know, thirty additional people that had basically been sleeping
Speaker 1: at Union Station because this other NGO that you know
Speaker 1: is receiving federal funding to do the work that the
Speaker 1: mayor is saying has it and they're for she doesn't
Speaker 1: have to do anything, didn't show up. And and there
Speaker 1: were a handful of good Samaritans that like you know,
Speaker 1: would be at Union Station and see a bunch of
Speaker 1: folks and they you know, spoke different languages and would
Speaker 1: be able to support them kind of here and there.
Speaker 1: But it really showed how um I think it really
Speaker 1: proved the work that the futual Aid Network had been
Speaker 1: holding and that you know, if we tried to take
Speaker 1: a step back things things fall um and really showed
Speaker 1: how much we need others to step in because the
Speaker 1: work that we've been holding has is has been you know,
Speaker 1: wearing us down and hiding the situation a little bit
Speaker 1: right that people don't people you know, when we're able
Speaker 1: to really show up and and provide the folks that
Speaker 1: are arriving with the support that they need. What it
Speaker 1: means is that the government isn't paying attention because it's
Speaker 1: it's not their problem in that moment um. It means
Speaker 1: that DC residents don't have to walk by asylum seekers
Speaker 1: when they're trying to get to the Metro after work.
Speaker 1: It means that, um, you know, the people are cared
Speaker 1: for and and that's great, and it's work that we're
Speaker 1: proud of it. It's work that we're doing well, um,
Speaker 1: But it's also work that we need support doing, um
Speaker 1: because it's it's a lot and the numbers have increased,
Speaker 1: you know, and and we want to be able to
Speaker 1: provide welcome. We want to be able to give the
Speaker 1: folks what they need. But as long as we're sort
Speaker 1: of living in this world where bus tickets are massively
Speaker 1: expensive and food is expensive, and you know, we gotta
Speaker 1: we gotta help clothes people and and help people meet
Speaker 1: their needs. Then then we have to have support. And
Speaker 1: that's just that's just the reality. Yeah, that's one of
Speaker 1: the things that is really frustrating about this too, is
Speaker 1: it's like it's not like the resources that you just
Speaker 1: don't exist, Like it's not it's not even like the
Speaker 1: state hasn't like attempted to put resources out, but it
Speaker 1: just got fed into this NGO complex people who are
Speaker 1: just doing nothing, and I don't know, like the the
Speaker 1: way you get to see sort of both arms of
Speaker 1: what the state does where it's like, okay, on the
Speaker 1: one hand, you have the part of the state that's
Speaker 1: just hitting people with clubs, that's just doing this stuff,
Speaker 1: and you get the sort of political army of the
Speaker 1: state who just like again are just literally shuffling people's
Speaker 1: lives around as as you know, as political theater, and
Speaker 1: the political theory doesn't matter because these people's lives don't
Speaker 1: matter to the state or to anyone who has even
Speaker 1: a tiny bit of power unless they you know, they're
Speaker 1: it's visible enough that people are like the people have
Speaker 1: to see it, and that people, you know, get annoyed
Speaker 1: because oh, hey, look at this thing happening that's like
Speaker 1: interfering with my life now, and you know, and then
Speaker 1: it's like, Okay, they're supposed to be part of the
Speaker 1: state that like tastes care of people, just isn't and
Speaker 1: that's just incredibly frustrating. I don't know, it's I think
Speaker 1: of a few things. So when we first started seeing
Speaker 1: buses coming to d C, um, you know that people
Speaker 1: are dropped off in front of Union Station and at
Speaker 1: the time, there was an encampment of an housed people
Speaker 1: um that you know, had their tents and stuff in
Speaker 1: front of Union Station. And so folks would get off
Speaker 1: the bus and say, you know, what are the tents,
Speaker 1: Like who are these people living in tents? And so
Speaker 1: be like welcome, welcome to the nation's capital of this
Speaker 1: place that you just came to seek opportunity, to seek safety.
Speaker 1: And you're immediately showing getting showed in in the most
Speaker 1: you know, visible terms possible of the way that the
Speaker 1: state is failing its own people because people in d
Speaker 1: C don't have housing um and housing gear is immensely expensive.
Speaker 1: And then um, I say in the early days because
Speaker 1: uh in I think it was in May uh that
Speaker 1: encampment was cleared um and so those people lost their
Speaker 1: homes UM. And now it continues to be a struggle
Speaker 1: that you know, if we are unable to provide housing
Speaker 1: for the people that get off the bus, they are
Speaker 1: going into the DC shelter system that is already overrun
Speaker 1: because there is a housing crisis and TC and alarming
Speaker 1: eviction crisis. And even for the folks that are arriving
Speaker 1: here on the buses, if they don't have supports, they're
Speaker 1: they're thrust into this situation in which the state is
Speaker 1: preventing them from working. They don't have a way to
Speaker 1: work legally for at least a few months, um, presumably
Speaker 1: until you know, they can apply for a work permit,
Speaker 1: presumably after they file for asylum. But these are folks
Speaker 1: that don't have a way to work legally, that are
Speaker 1: have that have zero support from the state. So how like,
Speaker 1: tell me how somebody is supposed to live in the
Speaker 1: United States? Feed themselves, feed them their feed their families, um,
Speaker 1: have a roof over their head, survive, have a cell
Speaker 1: phone for your surveillance app have the means to travel
Speaker 1: an hour, you know, once every few weeks to check
Speaker 1: in with ICE. If they're legally prevented from working. It's
Speaker 1: just it's a total abandonment of people who need and
Speaker 1: wholeheartedly deserve support. Yeah, and I think like it's it's honestly,
Speaker 1: like honestly think it's it's worse than abandoned, right, Like
Speaker 1: if they just like if these people were allowed to
Speaker 1: come into the US and the state did literally nothing
Speaker 1: at all, it would be better in the situation that
Speaker 1: exists now. Like it's not even just that they're being abandoned,
Speaker 1: is that they're actively being prevented from like doing the
Speaker 1: things they need to live. And it's I don't notice.
Speaker 1: I think this is something you see on a sort
Speaker 1: of broader level, right whether there's a lot of I
Speaker 1: don't know about Back when I was in sort of
Speaker 1: social theory land, there's a lot of talk about like
Speaker 1: necropolitics and the state letting people die, and it's like, well, yeah,
Speaker 1: but like they're also actively helping to kill them too,
Speaker 1: Like that that's like it's it's not just that the
Speaker 1: state abandons people. It's that the state abandons people and
Speaker 1: then it takes the resources and prevents anyone else from
Speaker 1: using them, and then you know, and when it when
Speaker 1: it does sort of yeah, I mean going back to
Speaker 1: sort of this NTO that's not doing anything. It's like, yeah,
Speaker 1: when when it when it does sort of send these
Speaker 1: resources out, it's sending them into these like into its
Speaker 1: own sort of Paris State complex with the sort of
Speaker 1: geo sector that's just not doing anything. And it's just
Speaker 1: I don't know, like it's it's this bind, right because
Speaker 1: it's like, yeah, like on the one hand, like communities
Speaker 1: have to be able to support each other, but it's
Speaker 1: like we don't have the resources for it, and that
Speaker 1: has to come from somewhere, right, Yeah, it's impossible, and
Speaker 1: it's it's heartbreaking to see when DC is barely doing
Speaker 1: anything ing for the people that have been living here
Speaker 1: for generations, and then when we have new folks arrive,
Speaker 1: they're thrust into this impossible situation and no one's really
Speaker 1: willing to engage with that problem. Um, and there are resources,
Speaker 1: it's just a matter of whether you want to use
Speaker 1: them for these purposes. And this is a problem that
Speaker 1: we're seeing intimately here in d C. But it's a
Speaker 1: problem that's existing everywhere around the country. And DC is
Speaker 1: supposed to be a sanctuary city, Like this isn't this
Speaker 1: isn't d C with a mayor that's you know, politically
Speaker 1: aligned with Governor Abbott. This isn't a d C with
Speaker 1: a mayor who is attempting to be vehemently anti immigrant.
Speaker 1: It's mayor who is claiming to represent a sanctuary city,
Speaker 1: a city that is supposed to welcome immigrants and yet
Speaker 1: m saying welcome doesn't actually mean welcome. Yeah. I remember,
Speaker 1: like I'm in Chicago and you know, Chicago's also sanctuary city,
Speaker 1: and I I you know, we had to physically stop
Speaker 1: deportation flights with our bodies. Like what the this like
Speaker 1: haunting memory always remembers like the first big like anti ice,
Speaker 1: like anti kids in cages protests that we had. One
Speaker 1: of the groups that showed up to this thing like
Speaker 1: what it's called Heartland Alliance and then you know they
Speaker 1: describe itself as like this human rights an anti poverty organization,
Speaker 1: and they were literally running five child attention centers in
Speaker 1: Chicago and it was like, I don't know, the doesn't
Speaker 1: mean that. That was like just the sort of like
Speaker 1: the it's it's it's the rubber hitting the road of
Speaker 1: saying you're a sanctuary city, and what does it look
Speaker 1: like and it's like, well it means that your micro
Speaker 1: justice organizations like run child prisons for immigrants. It's a
Speaker 1: refusal to engage with reality a little bit. And you
Speaker 1: know the energy of SAMO that is receiving female funding
Speaker 1: to presumably abandoned people. Union Station is also you know,
Speaker 1: if things go their way, trying to open up a
Speaker 1: facility and DC too, you know, detain an accompanied children
Speaker 1: and that's welcome to th things very ecity, it's probably
Speaker 1: worth mentioning. It's like, you know, Spain another country that
Speaker 1: has just like people getting like people. So Spain like
Speaker 1: has a part of North Africa they control, and you
Speaker 1: know they're like people like people get shot at the
Speaker 1: border by soldiers trying to like trying to climb fences
Speaker 1: getting in, and you know, it's it's it's this fun
Speaker 1: thing where we're seeing like, I mean, this is what's
Speaker 1: been happening for the last a really like forever, like
Speaker 1: last five hundred years has been this. But this the
Speaker 1: sort of this this incredible racist border system is not
Speaker 1: just an American thing. It's in Europe, it's in it's
Speaker 1: been exported like into Mexico itself. It's been I don't
Speaker 1: know it's it's it's it's it's a it's a politics
Speaker 1: that's just sort of everywhere, and like frontexs and THEU
Speaker 1: does this stuff like it's it's all just I don't know,
Speaker 1: it's borders are racist and they kill people and they
Speaker 1: kill people, and it feels I don't actually think we
Speaker 1: have to go to it's I think it's helpful to
Speaker 1: make those analogies of how this is replicated across the world.
Speaker 1: But I also think that you know, just a few
Speaker 1: weeks ago, there were over fifty uh migrants that were
Speaker 1: found dead in the ba of attractor trailer in San Antonio,
Speaker 1: including you know, young indigenous folks. And we know that
Speaker 1: there have been thousands of thousands of Haitians removed under
Speaker 1: Title forty two UM and Haitians that are drowning in
Speaker 1: the water trying to find a way to come to
Speaker 1: the United States to seek safety. People are literally dying
Speaker 1: and trying to get here. And what the folks that
Speaker 1: are coming to d C in a way are the
Speaker 1: lucky ones because they're from countries like Venezuela. They're from
Speaker 1: countries like Cuba where US foreign policy finds it beneficial
Speaker 1: to allow them to enter too publicly say, you know,
Speaker 1: these are the quote unquote right asylum seekers and they're
Speaker 1: able to be paroled into the country and still have
Speaker 1: to deal with all of this crap that they're dealing with.
Speaker 1: But there's countless other black, brown, indigenous folks that are
Speaker 1: arriving at the border and literally risking their lives and
Speaker 1: many losing their lives trying to get here because of
Speaker 1: these like racialized border systems that we have and that
Speaker 1: we're exporting all throughout the America's like go south to
Speaker 1: Mexico to Tapatula and you basically have an open air
Speaker 1: prison of black asylum seekers. Yeah, I mean that's something
Speaker 1: that like like my my, the reason my family's here
Speaker 1: is because we were able to like my graphic got
Speaker 1: drafted into the Tiwanese army and he was like no,
Speaker 1: because we were Taiwanese, we were able to get to
Speaker 1: the US. But it's like, you know, lots and lots
Speaker 1: of people like you know, if you if you were
Speaker 1: from South Vietnam, sometime to let you in. If they
Speaker 1: if you were from Taiwan, they will let you in,
Speaker 1: But like God help you if you're from like Indonesia
Speaker 1: or just like from I mean, so sometimes you get
Speaker 1: people from China, but it's like, yeah, the I don't
Speaker 1: know the way that just all of these people's lives
Speaker 1: are being used at geopolitical tools, they're being used, and
Speaker 1: then you know, once they get here, they're being used
Speaker 1: as just sort of internal American political tools. And yeah,
Speaker 1: it's just as watch people getting killed with the borders
Speaker 1: and until we fucking make borders go away, like the
Speaker 1: stuff is just going to keep happening, and people are
Speaker 1: getting boarded onto buses and sent to d C because
Speaker 1: Governor Abbott thinks this is the way that he can
Speaker 1: run for president. Yeah, by being the most racist, xenophobic
Speaker 1: guy in town. Maybe maybe, And and these folks are
Speaker 1: just political tools, and um, it's it's devastating, um, and
Speaker 1: it's it's really also kind of amazing to be able
Speaker 1: to then also just like hang out with them and
Speaker 1: break bread with them and and realize that we're all
Speaker 1: sort of fighting this this mess together. Yeah. And I
Speaker 1: think I don't know, like we we do. We do
Speaker 1: a lot of episodes here that are incredibly depressing, but yeah,
Speaker 1: like I guess, yeah, it isn't I guess important as
Speaker 1: a as a thing to sort of end on is it,
Speaker 1: Like yeah, I know, like we like we can take
Speaker 1: care of these people, like we can if we actually
Speaker 1: fight this together, we can beat these guys like we
Speaker 1: I don't know, like it is actually possible. Like these
Speaker 1: the all of the things that we're talking about, like
Speaker 1: the stuff didn't used to exist. It's not it's not
Speaker 1: something that in how really has to exist, and we
Speaker 1: can make it not exist again. I think the the
Speaker 1: response that we've had in DC has been are really
Speaker 1: like I can't say it enough how beautiful it is
Speaker 1: that we have a group of like over two volunteers
Speaker 1: that have stepped up, UM and we've been able to
Speaker 1: raise a remarkable amount of money, and we've had like,
Speaker 1: you know, little kids sell cookies to support our efforts
Speaker 1: and UM, it's it's really heartwarming, UM and people using
Speaker 1: their neighborhood listeners to you know, get donations of car
Speaker 1: seats to be able to you know, make sure that
Speaker 1: when we're you know, helping families, we can make sure
Speaker 1: that like the little kiddos are able to travel in
Speaker 1: car seats safely and all of that. And we've been
Speaker 1: able to and we're doing more of this of like
Speaker 1: building relationships with folks around the country that are doing
Speaker 1: similar work, or you know, if someone is taking a
Speaker 1: bus to New York and it, you know, breaks down
Speaker 1: in Philly, were able to mobilize other volunteers and Philly
Speaker 1: to just like make sure that folks are like fine
Speaker 1: and okay and like get on their next bus. And
Speaker 1: that is amazing and beautiful and to me, I think
Speaker 1: the thing that makes me optimistic and like mad at
Speaker 1: the same time is that there are both at the
Speaker 1: federal level and local levels, just billions and billions and
Speaker 1: billions of dollars that are being invested into into solutions
Speaker 1: that are based on like detention, surveillance, border militarization. When
Speaker 1: God like if instead we just devoted those billy and
Speaker 1: billions and billions of dollars into making sure that like
Speaker 1: when folks arrive here, they can have like a comfy
Speaker 1: bed to to to like lay in at night and
Speaker 1: have food and be able to like support their families.
Speaker 1: I mean it kind of sounds revolutionary, but but it's
Speaker 1: just like it's so simple, um, and there is such
Speaker 1: a concerted effort to do the opposite of the most basic. Hey,
Speaker 1: welcome to my town. How can I welcome you. There
Speaker 1: was if I remembering my like immigrations history right there.
Speaker 1: They used they had this program in in the UK
Speaker 1: where for a while where they would bring okay, you'd
Speaker 1: have a family they're coming to the US and they
Speaker 1: get paied with the British family, and the British family
Speaker 1: would like show them the ropes. And it worked really well.
Speaker 1: Everyone loved it, and they stopped doing it because they
Speaker 1: once they brought people in that they couldn't deport them
Speaker 1: because the entire community would show up would just be
Speaker 1: like no, And so they stopped doing it. And it's
Speaker 1: like that's a problem, Like that's the problem that like
Speaker 1: people are then welcomed and loved by their communities. Like
Speaker 1: that shouldn't be a problem that we have to solve.
Speaker 1: That should be like, oh, this is a resounding success. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And instead it's like it's like actually living in a
Speaker 1: better world, actually having a community where people care for
Speaker 1: each other and where people take care of each other
Speaker 1: and where people love each other or people will fight
Speaker 1: for each other, Like that is something that the state
Speaker 1: sees as a threat. And I don't know, I guess
Speaker 1: it's it's it's it's this, it's this weird thing where
Speaker 1: it's like, you know, we like the better world we
Speaker 1: could be living in, Like is is literally being built
Speaker 1: right like you know you can you can you can
Speaker 1: walk down the street and you can see people taking
Speaker 1: care of each other. And then it's like here is
Speaker 1: the state, Who's the only thing that they want to
Speaker 1: do is just make everyone's lives increasingly miserable. It's yeah,
Speaker 1: like is it? Is it? That's hard to just say, Hey, like,
Speaker 1: folks want to be able to just like live. That's it.
Speaker 1: It's all they want to be able to do is
Speaker 1: just like live. They want to be able to work,
Speaker 1: they want to be able to support their family, they
Speaker 1: want to be able to be safe, they want to
Speaker 1: be able to like eat good food and have fun.
Speaker 1: And the state is doing everything but allowing that to
Speaker 1: be and are like mutual aid work is helping folks
Speaker 1: navigate and do as much of that as possible. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think I think that's a good note to end on,
Speaker 1: unless you have anything else, I don't think so cool.
Speaker 1: Um Okay, so where where can people go to find
Speaker 1: and support this work? And where can they go to
Speaker 1: like give money if they want to or actually help
Speaker 1: volunteer too? If you're in the area. Yeah. So, um,
Speaker 1: we have a link tree that has all of the
Speaker 1: links to support us and all the ways. So if
Speaker 1: you're here in d C and you want to be
Speaker 1: able to support or if you want to donate, Um,
Speaker 1: we have really cool t shirts that we sell that
Speaker 1: say melt Ice that are buying to buy one of
Speaker 1: our volunteers. Um. And so it's the link tree is
Speaker 1: uh like the link tree h slash and d C
Speaker 1: t X Solidarity twenty two And if you follow that link,
Speaker 1: you will be able to um see all about our work. Um,
Speaker 1: you know, get the demands that we have for Mayor Bowser,
Speaker 1: support us in person, financially, whatever it is. All of
Speaker 1: that lives there. And yeah we will. We will put
Speaker 1: the link in the description. So cool. That'd be great.
Speaker 1: I'll make sure you have it. Yeah, thank you, um
Speaker 1: and yeah, thank you, thank you so much for joining us,
Speaker 1: Thank you for having me. Yeah, and this has be naken.
Speaker 1: Happen here, Go help your neighbors and go make the
Speaker 1: state not be able to prevent you from doing that.
Speaker 1: Welcome to it could happen on the internet. The only podcast.
Speaker 1: I'm Robert Evans UM and today we've got St. Andrew
Speaker 1: back in the studio. We don't actually have a studio.
Speaker 1: That was a lie. That was a lie that I
Speaker 1: do think I was cooler, St. Andrew. How are you
Speaker 1: doing today? I am good, I'm good. Andrew dropped the saint.
Speaker 1: Oh shit, I'm sorry. You're right, you're right, You're right.
Speaker 1: We should probably. I'm sorry. That's good because I'm no
Speaker 1: longer a scene. You got to saint? So Okay, if
Speaker 1: I understand Catholicism, right, that means you undid someone Elsi's
Speaker 1: three miracles. I know nothing about Catholicism. Okay, well, I'm
Speaker 1: pretty sure we have the Protestants Protestant ground here. My
Speaker 1: knowledge of Catholicism is that to be a saint, you
Speaker 1: have to do a couple of miracles, but the last
Speaker 1: one has always something to do with being dead, Like
Speaker 1: they just decide that whatever you do when you're a corpse,
Speaker 1: it is like, oh, it's a miracle. Oh Catholicism, Andrew,
Speaker 1: what are we talking about? Um? Today we're gonna be
Speaker 1: talking about something that I would see more traditional Contholicts.
Speaker 1: We have some disagreements with no Christians. We have some
Speaker 1: disagreements with them. That is I mean that is our
Speaker 1: entire audience, is that this this podcast is completely listened
Speaker 1: to by the Pope's Swiss guards on Vodicans. Yeah, we
Speaker 1: we have deep penetration in the Vatican. That's an interesting
Speaker 1: choice of woods considering the end of Pride month, but
Speaker 1: allow it. All right, So, um, yeah, what are we
Speaker 1: talking about. We'll be talking about human evolution, particularly it
Speaker 1: pertains to human cooperation. Okay, the origins of human cooperation. O. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I love this ship. I think that you know, people
Speaker 1: send to emphasize human competition a lot um because capitalism
Speaker 1: wants us to believe that we have these competitive you know,
Speaker 1: dog eat dog. I don't know where that term came from,
Speaker 1: By the way, I've always been curious about that. Um,
Speaker 1: as far as I know, dogs don't eat each other. Um.
Speaker 1: But it's interesting phase and I think it's kind of
Speaker 1: apt here. Um. This is this idea that that that
Speaker 1: we just competing all the time, that we're fighting is
Speaker 1: it's a survival of the fittest, and that only the
Speaker 1: strong survive. You know, when people talk, you know, casually
Speaker 1: about prehistoric times, is this very it represents the stories
Speaker 1: that we've been told about it and as a result,
Speaker 1: it tends to be very you know, competitive, highly patriarchal,
Speaker 1: highly violent, just constant into pus some violence. I mean,
Speaker 1: that was the justification used to you know, reinforce the
Speaker 1: state rights like or the state of nature. It's everybody
Speaker 1: against themselves, and so as a result, you know, the
Speaker 1: state had to be introduced. We treated some of our
Speaker 1: freedoms for the safety that the state is supposed to provide.
Speaker 1: But as far back as Brudon and really even further,
Speaker 1: because let's be real, it's a very European concept. That's
Speaker 1: something that can be protected towards all human societies and
Speaker 1: all human philosophies. UM. But Prudon was one of the
Speaker 1: first white guys, I guess um in his time period
Speaker 1: and in his fields, really challenge that notion with you know,
Speaker 1: mutually a fact of evolution. Of course, the studies and
Speaker 1: stuff that he would have done, the knowledge that he
Speaker 1: would have shared upon you know, non un studied by
Speaker 1: people before him, but he was one of the first
Speaker 1: really bring all that knowledge together into one place. UM.
Speaker 1: Years later, Um, an anthropologist and paramatologists, was born. I
Speaker 1: mean she wasn't born that, but she became that later
Speaker 1: in life. In ninety six, that would be Sarah Black
Speaker 1: for her, and so she made many major contributions revolutionary
Speaker 1: psychology and sociology biology, especially pioneering our modern understanding of
Speaker 1: the evolutionary basis of female behavior in both non human
Speaker 1: and human primates. In two thousand two, she was recognized
Speaker 1: as one of the fifth most important women in science
Speaker 1: and in Mothers and Others. Together with her earlier work,
Speaker 1: earned plready the National Academies Award for Scientific Reviewing in
Speaker 1: honor of her insightful and visionary synthesis of a broad
Speaker 1: range of day turn concepts from across the social and
Speaker 1: biological sciences to illuminate the importance of biosocial processes among mothers,
Speaker 1: in funds, and other social actors informing the evolutionary crucible
Speaker 1: of human society. In essence, she got an award because
Speaker 1: she recognized the fact that the relationship between mother and
Speaker 1: child and you know how humans raise their children, Um,
Speaker 1: it's vital in our evolution and in a becoming human. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean that's um, Yeah, that's fascinating. I didn't know
Speaker 1: any of that. Yeah, I mean humans, they we we
Speaker 1: do recognize. Now I'm starting to recognize more and more
Speaker 1: parmacto parmatologists at least that um humans I let other
Speaker 1: great apes rather, they do care, they shay, and they
Speaker 1: empathize a lot more than we may have originally thought.
Speaker 1: But humans still when at know the caring competition, I
Speaker 1: think we because of even something I call official and
Speaker 1: not to me um on how we structure society use
Speaker 1: is probably one of the more crusal show of you know,
Speaker 1: the other greed apes. Yeah, it's interesting whenever I because
Speaker 1: obviously I've read stuff about like empathy and apes, but
Speaker 1: it's always in the context of the ones that we
Speaker 1: taught sign language to. The one I'm remembering particularly is
Speaker 1: and I'm I'm spacing on the name that the scientists
Speaker 1: gave her, but one of the apes, yeah, Cocoa, when
Speaker 1: her reaction to like nine eleven um because it was
Speaker 1: apparently like on the TV or some ship wouldn't happened,
Speaker 1: but like I never here emphasized the same degree um
Speaker 1: or you know, maybe I just have not sought it out,
Speaker 1: but it's certainly kind of less uh less discussed as
Speaker 1: like evidence of empathy within um within like the societies
Speaker 1: that they built, I guess like would be the term
Speaker 1: for them. The little their communities, I don't know, whatever
Speaker 1: you wanna call them. Yeah, yeah, I was interesting as well.
Speaker 1: I mean, Coco was a guerrilla and regarding her sign
Speaker 1: language is actually interesting video essay talking about how a
Speaker 1: new NS word sign language. Then we assume, but Coco
Speaker 1: was a guerrilla and humans are were closely related to
Speaker 1: two groups who was being um bunobos and chimpanzees, And
Speaker 1: we tend to look at chimpanzees, which tends to be
Speaker 1: more you know, violent, and people use them as an
Speaker 1: example of all this how humans naturally are despite the
Speaker 1: fact that you know, we have millions of years of
Speaker 1: evolution diverging from chimpanzees. You know, our last common ancestor
Speaker 1: was like six or seven million years ago. Yeah, that
Speaker 1: that's a bit distant. Like yeah, like I got member
Speaker 1: to five or six years and I consider us pretty
Speaker 1: like pretty far apart. Yeah, yeah, I mean, and then
Speaker 1: on the top of that, like there was enough time
Speaker 1: for some serious divergences. Is not how you know, like
Speaker 1: the fact that humans, you know, walk up right and
Speaker 1: chimpanzee is they still have you know that that four
Speaker 1: legged gate. It's actually something that I learned recently evolved
Speaker 1: on two separate occasions, that being that particular kind of
Speaker 1: knuckle walk. Um. Yeah, I just want that kind of
Speaker 1: fascinating kind of besides the point, um, but yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: we we tend to look at chimpanzeese as our closest example,
Speaker 1: but nobles which are a lot more social, I would say,
Speaker 1: a lot more cooperative and less violent, and chimpanzees actually
Speaker 1: share a lot of you know, similarities in terms of
Speaker 1: you know, our behavior. And they're also one of the
Speaker 1: few animal species that have been you know, recognized as
Speaker 1: having sex for pleasure and not just procreation, So good
Speaker 1: for them. When we talk about evolution, a lot of
Speaker 1: it has been shaped by dar And even though science
Speaker 1: is not about figures and big figures and their big ideas,
Speaker 1: it's about the ideas themselves. Um. But still, seeing as
Speaker 1: Darwin was the one who really introduced, no, the idea
Speaker 1: of competition, the idea of of all that in evolution,
Speaker 1: those sorts of notions which came really out of his
Speaker 1: time and industrializing competitive woods, um, it really overstates the
Speaker 1: rule of competition as of driving force and evolution, when
Speaker 1: in reality, cooperation was far more potent force when it
Speaker 1: comes to like pro social human tendencies um, you know,
Speaker 1: doing things to benefit others. That's what pro social is.
Speaker 1: Dr Hardie really comes down on the cooperation side of
Speaker 1: things in her book Mothers and Others especially, brings together
Speaker 1: all this evidence that we are basically the sad dounes
Speaker 1: of a place to see in species of corporative breeders.
Speaker 1: Corporative breeding is a practice amongst some animal species UM.
Speaker 1: Other mammals do it, but I think we are one
Speaker 1: of the few. We were were were the only create
Speaker 1: apes to do it, and there are other primates to
Speaker 1: do it, or the monkeys to do it, but none
Speaker 1: closely related to us. Cooperative breeding is basically the practice
Speaker 1: or the reproductive strategy UM where all parental care is
Speaker 1: provided to the offspring of you know, the children of
Speaker 1: cittain parents in the group. Al parental care is basically
Speaker 1: the practice of UM, basically non direct parents care M
Speaker 1: care provided by individuals other than the parents. And so
Speaker 1: by having that network in place, by having the process
Speaker 1: of out parenting in place, that's how we were able
Speaker 1: to be so successful as a species. You know, distribution,
Speaker 1: you know um, you know, establishing ourselves in all these
Speaker 1: different environments because humans spread barely rapidly around the globe,
Speaker 1: and we used to. We've established ourselves and created cultures
Speaker 1: and all sorts of unique environments, and honestly, we are
Speaker 1: the most successful out of the primates in not regard
Speaker 1: so kudus to us um, and that is because of
Speaker 1: corporative breeding. Did you just wou Probert? Yeah, of course, yes,
Speaker 1: like we have to, we have to ratio the rest
Speaker 1: of the primates, you know, very very based on us.
Speaker 1: We literally reassured them, literally were re feeling everything on
Speaker 1: this goddamn planet except for chickens. And no, except for chickens.
Speaker 1: Corn is definitely ratio. Thus, yeah, for sure, for sure
Speaker 1: cows too. Man. Oh, yeah, that's true. That's true. Cows
Speaker 1: chickens on this one. For sure. We have a lot
Speaker 1: of them. Yeah. But I mean there's many different species
Speaker 1: of goods and there's only one species a few months. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, I mean, what's the population of dogs? Oh,
Speaker 1: it's actually every time I look, it's less than you'd expect.
Speaker 1: What nine million? Yes, that's ridiculous, less than i'd have expected.
Speaker 1: I want more, give me more. Do millions like rookie
Speaker 1: numbers like I was going to expect, like at least
Speaker 1: a couple of billion just based on but no, just nine. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Every time I look it up, I recall being like, oh,
Speaker 1: there's not as many dogs as I thought there were.
Speaker 1: I guess they would corporative bredas sure not. And only
Speaker 1: four hundred million cats was a rookie numbers cat Come on, cats,
Speaker 1: But it's actually probably I mean, party for the best.
Speaker 1: They do a lot of damage, my dad always says.
Speaker 1: My dad always says that we need more dogs in
Speaker 1: the world to fix the fucked up humans. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean I feel a lot of pressure to put on dogs.
Speaker 1: That's completely fair. I feel like that's really our job
Speaker 1: to fix up humans. Yeah, no, no, no, well I
Speaker 1: mean dogs for that. I mean cots and dogs are
Speaker 1: pulling a lot of weights as it is, you know
Speaker 1: they are. What are ferrets doing? Yeah? What a fish doing?
Speaker 1: What are ferrets doing? Andrew ferrets? Fucking ferrets? Yeah? And
Speaker 1: like fucking goldfish? Right, what are you guys? What do
Speaker 1: you what a goldfish? What have they been doing lately?
Speaker 1: Motherfucker's like, get off your asses and stop us from
Speaker 1: killing people. Goldfish, stop the war in Ukraine? Goldfish, Come on,
Speaker 1: I mean to get to cut gold fish. Some slack.
Speaker 1: They're busy dying because people would want to take care
Speaker 1: of them. Yeah. Yeah, they're like all of the people
Speaker 1: treat them like house plants. I didn't think we would
Speaker 1: have Andrew being a goldfish to apologist on this podcast.
Speaker 1: Correct if I'm wrong, But I don't think Cool committed
Speaker 1: any like wool crimes or anything within my rights to
Speaker 1: defend them. They haven't stopped any work crimes either. Plus,
Speaker 1: I mean, this is my police snell kill talking, and
Speaker 1: I've I've you know, I've I've neglected my fair shaff Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, speaking of cross species cooperation. When I was
Speaker 1: younger and living in Texas, there was this one day
Speaker 1: where like we're out on this in our like fucking
Speaker 1: backyard area, and we see walking through the alley behind
Speaker 1: our houses this massive turtle probably three four pounds, like
Speaker 1: like easily like three or four feet uh in in
Speaker 1: circumference on his shell, just like an enormous animal, just
Speaker 1: like strolling around the neighborhood, not a species that you
Speaker 1: that you see in Texas wild. So we like kind
Speaker 1: of try to corral him. We can't lift him, he's massive,
Speaker 1: but we like corral him into the into our yard area.
Speaker 1: And give him some cucumbers, and eventually his person comes
Speaker 1: around and the guy explains that like, yeah, when teenage
Speaker 1: mimut ninja turtles came out, a lot of people bought
Speaker 1: a bunch of different kinds of turtles, thinking they were
Speaker 1: good pets. But they didn't realize that there's a lot
Speaker 1: of the turtles that get sold like never stopped growing,
Speaker 1: like if you keep them alive, they just keep getting bigger,
Speaker 1: and so he like and they smelled about only if
Speaker 1: they're time. He had adopted this turtle and it lived
Speaker 1: in his yard and he said like, yeah, he's really strong,
Speaker 1: Like I have a good fence, but every two or
Speaker 1: three years he'll just walk through it. Like most of
Speaker 1: the time he chooses to stay in the yard, but
Speaker 1: every couple of years he was, I'm just gonna go
Speaker 1: on a walk and and he's like yeah, he just
Speaker 1: like breaks through the fence. It takes him about a second,
Speaker 1: like if he wants to do it. That's like, I
Speaker 1: don't know if you've seen Baki, have you seen back? No?
Speaker 1: Is this is this me um and no this is
Speaker 1: not my my web coming out story. I have not
Speaker 1: read of you with much in that regard but I
Speaker 1: started back he recently and the first episode they established
Speaker 1: that all these people are coming to Tokyo right for
Speaker 1: like some kind of fighting competition. And the way that
Speaker 1: they established those people as are dangerous is that these
Speaker 1: are all like criminals and like death through and so
Speaker 1: like in the process of being put to death, like
Speaker 1: one person is, you know, being injectives, only one persons
Speaker 1: being electrocuts, being hung, and they all managed to break
Speaker 1: free after they die and like break off the prison easily.
Speaker 1: This one guy, he was imprisoned underwater. He breaks out
Speaker 1: of the underwater prison and swims several miles up to
Speaker 1: the surface and then swims all the way to Tokyo.
Speaker 1: And it's like, for some reason, not to it will
Speaker 1: break it out of his inclusion whenever he chooses. Just
Speaker 1: reminded me of like they're trying to establish his power levels.
Speaker 1: You No, he's he's too powerful to be contained, um.
Speaker 1: And he's probably still alive because they live forever um,
Speaker 1: which is again why they're bad pets. Yeah, because what
Speaker 1: did you do about slavery? Yeah yeah, yeah, well that
Speaker 1: what he may not have been around for slavery, but
Speaker 1: what did you do? What are you going to do
Speaker 1: the next time they're slavery turtle. You know, are you
Speaker 1: gonna stop it? I don't think so. You're a turtle.
Speaker 1: We mean, next time, is this something you should be telling?
Speaker 1: What is attention to the Supreme Court? It's not. Well
Speaker 1: in the future, that's sure, that's sure. What leave the
Speaker 1: turtles out of this? Well if they stop the Supreme Court,
Speaker 1: I will stop shooting on the turtle. Is you're just
Speaker 1: doing that meme from where people were like I gave
Speaker 1: up my plastic straws for the turtles. Where are they now?
Speaker 1: That was a thing. Yeah, it was bad. I don't
Speaker 1: remember that. It's like, come on, just get a well.
Speaker 1: I will say that. I mean, at least for corporative breeders.
Speaker 1: And I think our our tendency of corperative breeding tendency
Speaker 1: probably has something to do with the fact that we
Speaker 1: adopt other species as pets and as members of our family,
Speaker 1: because you don't really see other animals doing that. No,
Speaker 1: you know, um, I think there's there's some kind of
Speaker 1: like fish or crustacean or something that that keeps another
Speaker 1: species like as livestock. Yeah, there's a couple of species
Speaker 1: to do versions of that for sure. Right, But I
Speaker 1: mean we love our dogs and our cats, our ferrets
Speaker 1: and our snakes and our tarantulas and our ferrets questioned goods. Yeah,
Speaker 1: people are trying to like domesticate foxes so we could
Speaker 1: love them too. You know. It's the people they are,
Speaker 1: people who who keep big cats that, people who keep
Speaker 1: like ms, and people who keep all kinds. We just
Speaker 1: you know, it's like we've got to catch them all,
Speaker 1: you know, like we just want to take all these
Speaker 1: creatures and we wanted to love them. I don't know
Speaker 1: that says about us other than the fact that our
Speaker 1: cooperative nature extends beyond the boundaries of you know, us
Speaker 1: as a species. We inhrated very high levels of mutual tolerance,
Speaker 1: of perspective taken and other pro social impulses from ancestors
Speaker 1: who use our parents or care and provisioning of the
Speaker 1: young two survive. I mean, we didn't invent complex corporation.
Speaker 1: Our pre human ancestors did, but we elaborated upon it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's um. It's always interesting to me to think about that.
Speaker 1: I think back up to one of the first time
Speaker 1: I ever went to a war zone was Ukraine, and
Speaker 1: it was this We were in this little town called
Speaker 1: of Dificult. It was getting shelled by the Russians, and
Speaker 1: there was this big the way they do the heating
Speaker 1: over there, they have these events going underneath, are these
Speaker 1: tubes going underneath all the houses to supply them with
Speaker 1: like gas and stuff. And there's this this big was
Speaker 1: this big central like kind of box thing and in
Speaker 1: one there's a few of them in the town and
Speaker 1: stuff that like is the I don't know, I guess
Speaker 1: it's like the like nexus of a bunch of different
Speaker 1: houses all whatever heating systems, so it's warm, and the
Speaker 1: people they're like when the war started, a bunch of
Speaker 1: people fled and they left pets behind, you know, sometimes
Speaker 1: they didn't really have a choice because it's war. Um.
Speaker 1: So there were all these cats and dogs, and soon
Speaker 1: all these breeding cats and dogs, all these kittens and puppies,
Speaker 1: and people who lived there had like turned that little
Speaker 1: junction box for the heating system into this like massive
Speaker 1: kind of open air cat and dog sanctuary. So like
Speaker 1: there were all of these like dozens and dozens of
Speaker 1: puppies and kittens just like living together in this big
Speaker 1: heating box. Um. In then the over this like being
Speaker 1: taken care of by all these local ladies who would
Speaker 1: scrounge up food every morning and make sure that they
Speaker 1: were all taken care of. UM. And it was interesting
Speaker 1: because you could see all these like cats and dogs
Speaker 1: living together and all of these people coming together to
Speaker 1: take care of animals they didn't know. UM. At the
Speaker 1: same time, like all of the people were doing their
Speaker 1: level best to murder the folks like a mile and
Speaker 1: a half away and vice versa. UM. So we contain
Speaker 1: multitudes of human beings definitely. I mean that's possible to
Speaker 1: write like the fact that we are sue eager to
Speaker 1: like share another emotional steeds, you know, to empathize and
Speaker 1: do we either we assume eager to involve ourselves and
Speaker 1: and give and share with those who are unrelated to us.
Speaker 1: I mean there are a lot of species that do
Speaker 1: not realise the young at all. Um. And then there
Speaker 1: was the do and try to kill other people's young,
Speaker 1: and there was a two stick care of their own young.
Speaker 1: But you know, we even in this like super individualistic capitalists,
Speaker 1: will we still find ways to look out for each other.
Speaker 1: And I think that's beautiful. Yeah, of course, you know,
Speaker 1: cooperative reading doesn't mean that there's like constant like on
Speaker 1: either dynastore like cooperation and yeah all the time, it
Speaker 1: still can't be competition, which you know, all these different things. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but behaviorally, anatomically, and emotionally modern humans cooperative breeders. And
Speaker 1: the crazy part is those you know, three um traits
Speaker 1: you know, behavior and not to be in an emotion,
Speaker 1: Those illustrats not evolved simultaneously. So for example, of physical
Speaker 1: features like our eyes and the fact that our eyes
Speaker 1: are are able to you know, we can see the
Speaker 1: whites and our eyes and that way we can put
Speaker 1: ourselves in other people's perspectives and that kind of thing,
Speaker 1: we could see the emotions more clearly. You know, the
Speaker 1: fact that we we were prone to sharing our smiles,
Speaker 1: and the fact that, um, you know, our vocal courts
Speaker 1: have such range to be able to communicate to many
Speaker 1: different things. Um. While these are hallmarks of the fact
Speaker 1: that you know, even before our super big brains developed,
Speaker 1: we already getting these treats that would have helped us
Speaker 1: in cooperation. But I wanted a lot of time though,
Speaker 1: because you know, a lot of the shapes we developed
Speaker 1: before language. Um, it's like what was the first word
Speaker 1: of humanity? You know what was the first sentence? What
Speaker 1: was the first thing like we said? And how did
Speaker 1: other people react when the person said it. I can
Speaker 1: imagine that, you know, like agriculture, something that's developed independently, um,
Speaker 1: multiple different occasions in different places. But I still wonder,
Speaker 1: like what those foost conversations might have been avoked. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean I think a lot of them probably would
Speaker 1: have been arguments with other people who didn't want us
Speaker 1: to do words. UM who will ultimately right, you know
Speaker 1: if if only Yeah, I don't know, it's interesting, Like
Speaker 1: I think it probably like we we just did a
Speaker 1: couple of episodes about the history of of of gynecology UM,
Speaker 1: and one of the things that we talked about at
Speaker 1: the start was like the prehistory of medicine, which which
Speaker 1: likely began in an organized way UM by like likely
Speaker 1: the first people practicing medicine in any way, we're pregnant
Speaker 1: women and women who had been pregnant trying to help
Speaker 1: each other survive pregnancy, right, UM. And I wouldn't be
Speaker 1: surprised if at I mean, food gathering is obviously the
Speaker 1: other one, but I wouldn't be surprised if like language
Speaker 1: started as a way to try and like communicate and
Speaker 1: better survive making babies because it's it's like super dangerous
Speaker 1: and also entirely necessary um and and something that kind
Speaker 1: of particularly benefits from communication. So I don't know, I
Speaker 1: wouldn't be shocked if that was like the first thing
Speaker 1: we talked about, so to speak. Mm hmm, that makes sense.
Speaker 1: But I'm also thinking as well, and it just occurred
Speaker 1: to me it's pretty possible like that the first language
Speaker 1: was not spoken language. I feel like it may have
Speaker 1: been like a form of sign language, you know, because
Speaker 1: you know, we have these hands, and people tend to
Speaker 1: talk with their hands, so yeah, oh yes, I think
Speaker 1: hypothesis is that, you know, we use the hands to
Speaker 1: communicate things before we started speaking. I mean, the fact
Speaker 1: that we were able to teach apes, you know, other
Speaker 1: apes to use sign language, I think that's a good
Speaker 1: sign that we can lead to communicate with that face. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, it's also you know, probably how our communication
Speaker 1: with dogs started, because that's one of the things that
Speaker 1: makes them special is they're pretty much alone in animals
Speaker 1: and that they like and kind of instinctively grow up
Speaker 1: understanding that when we gesture at them it means stuff
Speaker 1: like if you point dogs will look where you're pointing
Speaker 1: a lot of the time rather than at you, which
Speaker 1: is like a rare trait in animals. So yeah, I
Speaker 1: think you're probably right on the money there. Huh. I
Speaker 1: didn't even think about that. That's true. That's true. And
Speaker 1: of course that makes it fun because you could always
Speaker 1: fake them out and throw something stupid to do. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and does fall for that ship So I love she
Speaker 1: does not fall for that. I can't fake her. I
Speaker 1: can't fake her out. That's probably why she's the woman
Speaker 1: of the host. I'm you're all wrong pretending to throw
Speaker 1: stuff at a dog and then it goes running and
Speaker 1: then it realizes that you faked it, Like that's the best.
Speaker 1: I can't relate because if I try to do that,
Speaker 1: she looks at me like a good try. Uh huh, Okay, Sophie.
Speaker 1: Where you need to go is corgy Con in San Francisco.
Speaker 1: One of these years will they let Anderson? And even
Speaker 1: though she's only she does she's only party. There's nothing
Speaker 1: but acceptance of corgy Con acceptance and hundreds of corgies
Speaker 1: frolicking in the surf. It rules. She'll try to hurt
Speaker 1: them all. Yeah, they are all trying to hurt all
Speaker 1: of them into it. They are all very excited and
Speaker 1: don't know what to do with each other. It moves
Speaker 1: so as the book progresses, Hotty spend some time talking
Speaker 1: about how we are similar to and different from other
Speaker 1: greed EAPs, tweeling about how we use eye contact and
Speaker 1: smiles to bond even from a young age. Um, you hm,
Speaker 1: we people we've be tend to hear about it. But
Speaker 1: the fact that babies cries are so attuned towards attention
Speaker 1: and capturing the attention of people, Um, these are all
Speaker 1: in like basterds. Yeah, yeah, I mean I was. I
Speaker 1: was a screamer. Apparently I used to real real ball,
Speaker 1: ball and ball and ball. In fact, one story I
Speaker 1: was told was that the neighbor called and was like
Speaker 1: something happening to Andrew, and my parents were like, nah,
Speaker 1: he's just grand. There's like three o'clock in the morning.
Speaker 1: But I mean, look at me now, I'm balling for justice,
Speaker 1: that's right. Yeah. One interesting treat that you know humans
Speaker 1: have is all willingness to like share our babies with others,
Speaker 1: other grade apes. You know, those mothers. They tend to
Speaker 1: have like constant contact and care with their children, you know,
Speaker 1: like they don't let others touch their children at all,
Speaker 1: probably because like other mothers tend to want to kill
Speaker 1: their kids or of course harm to their kids, they
Speaker 1: tend to be very protective of them. Whereas you know,
Speaker 1: as all parents, we are you know, full of fledged
Speaker 1: cooperative readers. You know, we have not only shared our
Speaker 1: young with others, but al paar intervals have been been
Speaker 1: recorded breastfeeding the young of others, you know, and and
Speaker 1: masticating and passing like hard to digest foods to infunts.
Speaker 1: I'm mixing up my terms a bit in terms of
Speaker 1: you know, what what is a primate and what isn't
Speaker 1: ape versus what is you know, just whatever. But mamosets
Speaker 1: and tamarins which are colored strike kids or calatressids colortry kids,
Speaker 1: they are also corporative breeders and they're very fast breeders
Speaker 1: as well, rapid rapid breeders. Um, so you know, good
Speaker 1: for them. It's also typical of our species. We tend
Speaker 1: to be very fast breeders, and that's why we reshoot
Speaker 1: all the other great tapes. What I find interesting as
Speaker 1: well is that we'll be able to breed so rapidly
Speaker 1: despite the fact that our um do you'll remember um
Speaker 1: the word for like carrying a child. I'm just blacking
Speaker 1: right now, Gregors. No, no, no, I think you're you're
Speaker 1: thinking of the incubation period. Is that what we're trying
Speaker 1: to think of. Yeah, but that's such a that that
Speaker 1: feels like a very the humanizing way of witness. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'll just say that carrying a baby, you know, and
Speaker 1: the costs because on you know, woman's body, on humans body, Um,
Speaker 1: it is like a whole thing. It's a whole thing. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And if we keep will have ha been so many
Speaker 1: in one lifetime despite the cost necessary to raise each
Speaker 1: I mean other animals they have like meets and seasons
Speaker 1: and you know, they have set amounts of children they
Speaker 1: could have in their lifetime. But no, mm hm, you
Speaker 1: know we could just I mean, they're their stories of
Speaker 1: women who have had like dozens of kids, which is
Speaker 1: you know, unfortunate circumstances because you know, in those cases
Speaker 1: it tends to be um, not necessarily willing. But the
Speaker 1: fact that we are capable of having many kids is
Speaker 1: lends towards the importance of having support systems in place.
Speaker 1: Because other animals don't tend to have more children they
Speaker 1: can care for if that is you know, the care
Speaker 1: for children. A lot of them just eat their kids
Speaker 1: if they can't care for them exactly. Can't do that once,
Speaker 1: you know, makes sense, Yeah, whereas we kind of evolved
Speaker 1: to have support systems in placement, speaking of eating babies,
Speaker 1: kind of there kind of is a dark side to that,
Speaker 1: um because even though we tend to have you know,
Speaker 1: these children and stuff, and we tend to were supposed
Speaker 1: to have these support networks to care for them, the
Speaker 1: practice of infanticide is actually something that has a long
Speaker 1: long history UM in human practice, where if a mother
Speaker 1: determines that they're not able to raise their child, they
Speaker 1: don't have the support systems in place to care for
Speaker 1: that child. Different practices would typically be used to you know,
Speaker 1: deal with that child. And that's of course what makes
Speaker 1: the anti abortion stances um soon inhumane, you know, because Yeah,
Speaker 1: the whole reason we that abortion is so um important
Speaker 1: is because it protects the you know, the autonomy and
Speaker 1: the agency of you know, people who can carry children.
Speaker 1: And yet in this will it continues to atomize us
Speaker 1: and individualize us and separate us um you know, shipping
Speaker 1: some people of their support networks, so we can in
Speaker 1: our support networks. It's still expected to and punished heavily
Speaker 1: if you do not just pump out as many children
Speaker 1: as you can. And it's it's sick, it's really sick. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's not great when it comes to those support networks.
Speaker 1: Most people are familiar with, you know, extended family like
Speaker 1: for example, grand appearance UM and I fact, an infant
Speaker 1: survival is significantly affected by a grandmother's presence, which is
Speaker 1: why humans tend to live long past their reproductively viable period.
Speaker 1: You know, human females live after menopause for pretty long
Speaker 1: time in commarison to other species, and of course their
Speaker 1: grandmothers and there of course fathers. UM. There are sisters
Speaker 1: and god parents and really a lot of other um
Speaker 1: cultural systems in place, even polyandrous meeting UM. I think
Speaker 1: I mentioned that in the previous in the previous episode.
Speaker 1: There are also forms of like bilocal flexible residents patterns
Speaker 1: where you know, you always have kin around to take
Speaker 1: care of your infants. And I would say that it's
Speaker 1: it's kind of tough because a lot of people these days,
Speaker 1: you know, struggled with the extended families. Um, it's very
Speaker 1: much cool. Um, I love you, but I'm glad we
Speaker 1: live in separate kind of situation, you know, Like extended
Speaker 1: families definitely have a lot of proves and cons um
Speaker 1: which is why we actually find I think interesting in
Speaker 1: a lot of examples of chosen families throughout different societies,
Speaker 1: and also even there's some evidence that that might have
Speaker 1: in the case in the past as well, where unrelated
Speaker 1: people would form groups together um. As one example, I
Speaker 1: remember reading about, of course this can't necessarily extended to
Speaker 1: prehistoric times, but I've seen it in multiple different hunter
Speaker 1: gatherer situations. But um, where we have this this clan
Speaker 1: system in place, um, and you can not so how
Speaker 1: far you travel, you can expect to receive care for
Speaker 1: members of your clan. UM. In North America, I think
Speaker 1: it was like the Beer clan and the Elk Plan
Speaker 1: and all these different plans UM. In Aboriginal Australia, they
Speaker 1: ablso have different groups as well, and so people were
Speaker 1: able to interrupt with each other across huge distances and
Speaker 1: set them in different places and connect with others to
Speaker 1: find kin you really necessarily directly related. Yeah, there's a
Speaker 1: couple I mean there's a there's a book called sets
Speaker 1: It On that I read many many years ago that's
Speaker 1: about kind of like the evolution of human sexuality and
Speaker 1: how some of it's been like how different cultures have
Speaker 1: looked at things like like what makes someone apparent UM,
Speaker 1: And there's all these different attitudes, Like before we had
Speaker 1: kind of the scientific understanding of like where you know,
Speaker 1: how how babies are conceived um, that we have now
Speaker 1: there were all these different attitudes this idea and I
Speaker 1: forget the name of the people who, but they still
Speaker 1: exist with somewhere in Latin America, and their their their
Speaker 1: belief was essentially that when you got someone pregnant, that
Speaker 1: was the start of the process, and then after like conception,
Speaker 1: the person with the baby would go around and yes, yes,
Speaker 1: I remember that woman for the baby, and the idea
Speaker 1: was that like, well, yeah, when they fucked, that person's
Speaker 1: like essence gets added to this forming child. And one
Speaker 1: of the things that that does socially is it means
Speaker 1: that it means that for that community, UM, children weren't
Speaker 1: seen as having one father. They're seen as having a
Speaker 1: bunch of fathers, all of whom were like responsible for
Speaker 1: teaching the kid and raising it, which is like, oh,
Speaker 1: that's a very sensible way to, uh, to organize your
Speaker 1: little society is to is to is to ensure that like,
Speaker 1: the kids coming up have as many adults who are
Speaker 1: like responsible for them as possible, which is, broadly speaking,
Speaker 1: the best thing you can do for kids is to
Speaker 1: have a bunch of adults be interested in their their
Speaker 1: their their success exactly because I mean, like, if you
Speaker 1: have like one of the best hunters in the village
Speaker 1: raised in your child, and you have the best craftsman
Speaker 1: of the villageries in your child, and you have the
Speaker 1: best fisher villageries and child, that child is gonna have
Speaker 1: a very well rounded education. You know, it's going to
Speaker 1: be able to learn a lot of different skills that
Speaker 1: they're going to need. I mean, that's just one of
Speaker 1: the many positive effects of having multiple care givers. The
Speaker 1: development of a child's world view and sense of self,
Speaker 1: their concept of self and others, their concept of empathy,
Speaker 1: the concept of independence, how they how they view the
Speaker 1: world as either dangerous or insecure or giving and welcoming,
Speaker 1: and so I mean, we are so used to this
Speaker 1: nuclear family world view, which is these independent um households
Speaker 1: that we don't consider the fact that having a broad
Speaker 1: range of people raising them is actually crucial to their
Speaker 1: personal development as children, to the human development really having
Speaker 1: all those different perspectives and stuff in place. And I mean,
Speaker 1: that's part of what Pretty talks about, especially in her
Speaker 1: final chapter, that being how in modern times, the accumulation
Speaker 1: of property um, the emergence of patriarchy um, even the
Speaker 1: stuff in the post industrial era, all of these would
Speaker 1: prompt to shift from cooperative breeding, from cooperation between groups,
Speaker 1: two war between groups, especially with property, because when you
Speaker 1: have property, you have a need to hold onswer property.
Speaker 1: And the whole idea of property is you and yours,
Speaker 1: the exclusion of all others, right, you know. And so
Speaker 1: at the end of her book, she also speculates we
Speaker 1: might be losing our art of nurture because we are
Speaker 1: continually evolving um. But she wonders what might be potential
Speaker 1: evolutionary effects we if we're wearing children who are not
Speaker 1: living in internet contact with a variety of caregivers, because
Speaker 1: especially within those first two years of life, influence rate
Speaker 1: and responsible care taking relationships developed in their potentials for empathy,
Speaker 1: mind reading, and cooperation and collaboration. I mean, these behaviors
Speaker 1: are the outcome of complex interactions between both genes and nurture.
Speaker 1: The question is, how can these in their potentials remain
Speaker 1: more than potentials, you know, I mean, because the development
Speaker 1: of them is far from guaranteed. A lot of children
Speaker 1: these days are raised without extensive social contact. UM. I mean,
Speaker 1: even in the year of COVID, where all children are
Speaker 1: isolated at home, especially the heights of pandemic. I really
Speaker 1: wonder if we will see like a Mark at like
Speaker 1: distinct generation of like within a range of two years
Speaker 1: of children who just aren't as socialized because for those
Speaker 1: first two years of their life they were kind of isolated. Well,
Speaker 1: those first few years, they're like, they're kind of isolated
Speaker 1: because there's this lack of empathy, lack of corporative skills,
Speaker 1: and lack of attachment that may cause it's Mr Mark,
Speaker 1: It's it's really trauma. Um. But trauma doesn't necessarily stop
Speaker 1: people from continuing that drauma, from reproducing and carrying that on.
Speaker 1: And so I really I'm really curious us to see
Speaker 1: what the effects that might be and also what we
Speaker 1: can do to try to um cube that negative impact.
Speaker 1: The last question she asked is, really will humans in
Speaker 1: the future still be empathetic and curious and about the
Speaker 1: emotions of others because of our ancient heritage. Can you
Speaker 1: not care I'm paraphrasing here, or will these systems that
Speaker 1: we have in place evolve us in the more Marcafellion direction. Well,
Speaker 1: I guess that's the mystery that we're all going to
Speaker 1: get to watch unfold in pieces, at least over the
Speaker 1: course of you know, the rest of our lives and
Speaker 1: everyone else's lives. It is, I don't know. I I
Speaker 1: think the overall arch of it speaks more to the
Speaker 1: things that about us that are good into increasing cooperation,
Speaker 1: because that is like the story of the last couple
Speaker 1: hundred thousand years of human evolution, although at the same
Speaker 1: time some of that a lot of that cooperation has
Speaker 1: gone towards fucked up ends as well. Like, I mean,
Speaker 1: all of the good and the bad things happening right
Speaker 1: now are are one way or the other examples of cooperation, right,
Speaker 1: Like it's it's, uh, yeah, I don't know, let's help
Speaker 1: things get better. So I think we could do more
Speaker 1: than hoope, I think we can act. Yeah, We're going
Speaker 1: to have I mean, like that's the thing, right like
Speaker 1: part of how specifically in the United States, I mean,
Speaker 1: but internationally to the right has gotten so much over
Speaker 1: the last really five or six years in particular, is
Speaker 1: cooperation across borders and across like ideological differences. Like there's
Speaker 1: there has been like tremendous sustained cooperation that has allowed
Speaker 1: them to amass power, the power that they're early exercising.
Speaker 1: And the only thing that's going to actually counter that
Speaker 1: is the cooperation um an organization if a much larger
Speaker 1: amount of people, Like there's not that many of those folks,
Speaker 1: that's why they've had to be so organized. There's a
Speaker 1: lot more of us. But we're also can't stop fighting
Speaker 1: about ship. So it is it is like we are
Speaker 1: going to have to evolve in real time to cooperate
Speaker 1: better with one another and more effectively in order to
Speaker 1: in order to wrench the wheel back. That's true. M hm. Anyway,
Speaker 1: that's not lose uh And let's not lose your plug,
Speaker 1: Dobles Andrew. Yes, you can follow me on Twitter. I
Speaker 1: don't disclose seem true. I'm finding me on YouTube and
Speaker 1: truism hell yeah, hell yeah. Well, folks, that's gonna be
Speaker 1: all for us here today. That It could Happen Here
Speaker 1: until next time, Go happen somewhere else. Hey, we'll be
Speaker 1: back Monday with more episodes every week from now until
Speaker 1: the heat death of the Universe. It could Happen Here
Speaker 1: is a production of cool Zone Media. For more podcasts
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Speaker 1: You can find sources for It could Happen Here, updated
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Speaker 1: for listening.