Speaker 1: Also media, what's murdering seventy five men in hand to
Speaker 1: hand combat? My margaret? Have you killed seventy five men
Speaker 1: in hand to hand combat?
Speaker 2: I have been told to not comment on this until
Speaker 2: I'm more certain about a few sevs. The other fucking
Speaker 2: follow you into war? So bad?
Speaker 1: Yeah? Yes, yes, boss, where we going to me to
Speaker 1: meet me? Grab my axe, let's go. That's going to
Speaker 1: be conditional for me on what kinds of men you
Speaker 1: count when you're killing? Right? You know, like Outa didn't
Speaker 1: count turks? You know, do you count turks if you
Speaker 1: kill them in hand to hand combat? These are the
Speaker 1: questions that I need to know.
Speaker 2: You know, chuds are the ones that are not certain count.
Speaker 1: You don't count no chuds? Yeah, yeah, no, yeah.
Speaker 2: And people think I refer to it as a truck
Speaker 2: because it looks like a truck of chud would drive,
Speaker 2: But actually it's just very good at.
Speaker 1: Anyway. Oh, Audo would have been a truck guy. I
Speaker 1: think we can all agree on that. Yeah, long enough
Speaker 1: to see the highlux, I know, it's it's tragic he
Speaker 1: was born for the highlux. Oh my god, can you
Speaker 1: imagine how much Lawrence would have loved the Highlux.
Speaker 2: I got my oil at this guy who was like
Speaker 2: trying to tell me about why it's worth it to
Speaker 2: import a highlux.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, you don't me, brother, the.
Speaker 2: Cost of importing the He went over all of the
Speaker 2: prices of all of the importing the Highlux, and I
Speaker 2: was like, this no longer seems worth it. I thought
Speaker 2: the point of it was that it was cheaper than
Speaker 2: the other Toyota trucks.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the point of it is that it's a high Lux,
Speaker 1: you know, that's just that's just got some flair you
Speaker 1: can't replace.
Speaker 2: It has high classiness, it's in the name.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I do feel some some I can understand Lawrence
Speaker 1: better now that I've gone into battle in the back
Speaker 1: of a Highlux in the fucking Arab world, driven across Syria. Yeah,
Speaker 1: in an up armored Hilux. Yeah that that that is
Speaker 1: a good life experience to have for really getting t
Speaker 1: E Lawrence. Yeah, it would have been a lot of fun,
Speaker 1: probably if we gotten to blow up a bridge or two,
Speaker 1: but that wouldn't have been helpful in the situation we
Speaker 1: were in.
Speaker 2: Now, this a strategic scientifically scientific and I have no
Speaker 2: idea how to really do that.
Speaker 1: I would just blow up the bridge. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Uh.
Speaker 1: Now when we discuss T. E. Lawrence, particularly when we
Speaker 1: try to answer the question was he a bastard? You know,
Speaker 1: sitting at our computers in the fall of twenty two?
Speaker 1: Have we been forgetting to do cold opens? Haven't we? Sophie?
Speaker 3: We just do them and then Daniel cuts them in later.
Speaker 1: Daniel cuts them in later. Well, heiro And I don't
Speaker 1: know does Dan? Sorry, I just it's fine. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: wonder what Daniel counts. Yeah, it depends. I still don't know.
Speaker 1: I don't know what kind of men Daniel counts when
Speaker 1: he when he when he's killing men.
Speaker 2: So she doesn't count men. It's pretty impressive.
Speaker 1: Wow. Wow, only only the women you kill? Okay, Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's good to know.
Speaker 2: Would Yeah, that's what Sophie. Just never kills anyone by
Speaker 2: Sophie standards.
Speaker 1: Woke swashbuckler who only counts the nbs he kills men
Speaker 1: and women don't count to me, just the they thems.
Speaker 2: Each one counts more than one because of the plural. Anyway,
Speaker 2: Is this like.
Speaker 3: A political ad that plays during baseball games?
Speaker 1: Oh my god, yeah, Jesus Christ.
Speaker 2: Okay, far enough left of your jokes.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you wind up doing a trump at So when
Speaker 1: we discussed Lawrence while sitting in our computers in the
Speaker 1: fall of twenty twenty four, one thing probably stands what
Speaker 1: that wasn't even a joke, I know, but so funny.
Speaker 1: It's good. Yeah, one thing stands above every other matter,
Speaker 1: which is his support for the Balfour Declaration, particularly his
Speaker 1: support I mean, because that was not made, he did
Speaker 1: not help make that, but he is. He is a
Speaker 1: supporter of Zionism in this particularly post war period, right
Speaker 1: when all of these European powers give their official support
Speaker 1: for a Jewish homeland in Palestine. Lawrence is not initially
Speaker 1: on that side, but he's going to wind up on
Speaker 1: that side, right and given what's going on in Gaza
Speaker 1: right now, it's probably impossible to avoid having this dominate
Speaker 1: your thoughts on the man's legacy. And that's not entirely wrong.
Speaker 1: We are going to talk about his role here because
Speaker 1: it's significant, but it's important to note that at the
Speaker 1: time his feelings on Zionism are not what any of
Speaker 1: his critics, including in the Arab world, saw as the
Speaker 1: most problematic thing about the man. If you are a
Speaker 1: Westerner or a Turk the top argument in your Lawrence's
Speaker 1: evil ledger probably would have been the war crimes, and
Speaker 1: so we're going to talk about those first. The gist
Speaker 1: of this story is that after Lawrence escape the Turks,
Speaker 1: the forces under his command exhibited increasingly brutal behavior on
Speaker 1: the battlefield. He started ordering his soldiers not to take prisoners,
Speaker 1: which is against the law, and in several cases began
Speaker 1: executing wounded men himself as they lay bleeding on the battlefield.
Speaker 1: He would just walk around battlefields afterwards, shooting guys in
Speaker 1: the head, doing qu de grass, cooing degraz. Yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: which is you know, bad, You're not supposed to do that.
Speaker 1: I mean, arguably in a lot of these cases that
Speaker 1: may have been the kindest thing to do, but it's
Speaker 1: not legal to do that. Yeah, so he's cooing some degraz,
Speaker 1: he's killing people. Scott Anderson, writing for Smithsonian Magazine, describes
Speaker 1: how his judgment seems to have degraded as well, and
Speaker 1: the general way this often gets credited to, like the
Speaker 1: fact that he has just been gang raped, right that
Speaker 1: like this kind of his mind breaks After that quote,
Speaker 1: he attacked the Turkish troop train, despite being so short
Speaker 1: of weapons that some of his men could only throw
Speaker 1: rocks at the enemy. If this was rooted in the
Speaker 1: trauma at Derah's it seems he was at least as
Speaker 1: much driven by the desperate belief that if the Arabs
Speaker 1: could reach Damascus first, then the lies and guilty secrets
Speaker 1: he had harbored since coming to Arabia might somehow be
Speaker 1: set right. So that's kind of the debate here, is like,
Speaker 1: is he traumatized because he's just been raped and as
Speaker 1: a result, he's making all of these very rash moves,
Speaker 1: He's becoming increasingly brutal in battle. Is it more that
Speaker 1: he's desperate to try and he's traumatized because he knows
Speaker 1: that he's kind of betraying his friends, and he's trying
Speaker 1: to make things right by getting them to Damascus before
Speaker 1: the war ends, you know, in order to kind of
Speaker 1: cut off Sykes Pico at the knees. Right.
Speaker 2: I think that's a strong argument to me, because he
Speaker 2: wants to be a moral man and he knows he's not,
Speaker 2: so he can find a loophole to loophole himself into
Speaker 2: morality by killing everyone.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, maybe that's the only thing he can do.
Speaker 1: There's also this argument that, like Lawrence describes himself as
Speaker 1: a virgin, and he is someone who his friends in
Speaker 1: sist he has no discernible sexual leanings, and maybe they're
Speaker 1: this the fact that it's forced upon him, like he
Speaker 1: has an extra strong reaction to it. We just will
Speaker 1: never know, you know, thexual he did go to it,
Speaker 1: he did. He went to less rapeye schools than a
Speaker 1: lot of other British boys of his of his era.
Speaker 1: But like, I think that is kind of built into
Speaker 1: a lot of that school system though, But we don't.
Speaker 1: I have no evidence as to whether or not any
Speaker 1: anything like that happened to Lawrence. He certainly doesn't write
Speaker 1: about it. Yeah, so even if you hold the argument
Speaker 1: that Lawrence light about the rape, and maybe he would
Speaker 1: have led about that in order to explain why he
Speaker 1: was like obsessively trying to get the Arabs to Damascus,
Speaker 1: because that was kind of some like light treason against
Speaker 1: his own side. Whatever's going on here, it makes total
Speaker 1: sense that his mental state would be degraded. By this point.
Speaker 1: He has spent more than half of his time in Arabia,
Speaker 1: deathly ill, sick with plague and heat stroke and catastrophic dehydration.
Speaker 1: He's experienced harrowing combat at close quarters he had, he
Speaker 1: has blown his camel's brains out and been flung into
Speaker 1: the hot desert sands during a battle. So yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: just not weird that he's kind of losing it at
Speaker 1: this point. And as Anderson notes, he's also weighed down
Speaker 1: with guilt over the fact that all these guys are
Speaker 1: fighting and dying with him, maybe for nothing, because his
Speaker 1: government might betray them. This all culminates in late September
Speaker 1: in an attack on a town called Derah, where Lawrence
Speaker 1: had been if he was raped. This is where that happened, right,
Speaker 1: So this is part of a general offensive that he
Speaker 1: is carrying out with Allenby that's meant to coordinate with
Speaker 1: an attack by Allenby on Palestine in the north. Right,
Speaker 1: Lawrence and his Bedouin allies are supposed to cut off
Speaker 1: the Turkish avenues of retreat by taking the railroad junction
Speaker 1: at Derah. So one of the arguments here is that
Speaker 1: like this is, you know, where he claims to have
Speaker 1: been tortured, So maybe what he's about to do is
Speaker 1: like him taking vengeance, you know, for that attack. And
Speaker 1: I'm going to quote from Anderson again. After coming upon
Speaker 1: the village of Tafas, where the fleeing Turks had massacred
Speaker 1: many residents. Lawrence ordered his men to give no quarter.
Speaker 1: Throughout that day. The rebels picked apart a retreating column
Speaker 1: of four thousand, slaughtering all they found. But as Lawrence
Speaker 1: doubled back that afternoon, he discovered one unit had missed
Speaker 1: the command and taken two hundred and fifty Turks and
Speaker 1: Germans captive. We turned our Hotchkiss machine gun on the prisoners,
Speaker 1: he noted in his battlefield report, and made an end
Speaker 1: of them. Lawrence was even more explicit about his actions
Speaker 1: that day, and seven pillars. In a madness born of
Speaker 1: the horror of Taphus, we killed and killed, even blowing
Speaker 1: in the heads of the fallen and of the animals,
Speaker 1: as though their death and running blood could slake our agony. Whoops. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he's going full like corn berserker here. You know, he's
Speaker 1: just massacring people, and it's you know, the people he's
Speaker 1: massacring had also just massacred a bunch of civilians. It's
Speaker 1: a very ugly war like war. Plenty of war crimes
Speaker 1: to go around here, right, but this, this slaughter of
Speaker 1: hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of prisoners and wounded men
Speaker 1: would have been a massive war crime in any theater
Speaker 1: of world wars. To put him in like yeah, belongs
Speaker 1: and behind the bastards, now yeah, that's that's that's an
Speaker 1: international criminal court crime. Right yeah.
Speaker 2: Now again, any of the bastards who had on have
Speaker 2: killed like three people.
Speaker 1: Right right? That said, do I kind of sympathize with him? Still? Yeah,
Speaker 1: Like this is just no, I don't know, I just
Speaker 1: don't know how likely it is that most commanders in
Speaker 1: a similar situation, having gone through what he's gone through,
Speaker 1: would have been much better, right, especially since this is
Speaker 1: not entirely Lawrence, by his own admission, is partaking in
Speaker 1: the bloodshed. But a lot of this is just that
Speaker 1: his own troops are so angry at all of these
Speaker 1: war crimes that including on some of their families, right,
Speaker 1: and they're just bent for slaughter now, right, like everyone
Speaker 1: has just lost their minds. The war has gotten that ugly.
Speaker 1: So anyway, you know, you can you can parse that
Speaker 1: out morally however you want to. You could judge him
Speaker 1: however you want to. Sitting at your computer. We all
Speaker 1: do to some extent. But yeah, from here, from Dera.
Speaker 1: Lawrence himself moved directly to Damascus, right like, he and
Speaker 1: his forces rushed there and they they beat the Turks
Speaker 1: out of Damascus, and they beat European forces to the city.
Speaker 2: Now I have a question, Yeah, how did he get
Speaker 2: out of conscription rape channel?
Speaker 1: He kind of just escapes? Okay, I mean they're not
Speaker 1: they're not great at at at at doing guardings. They
Speaker 1: don't know that he's Lawrence of Arabia. Right, he just
Speaker 1: sort of bounces, you know, after a while. So this
Speaker 1: was an explicit and a direct attempt to destroy Sykes Picau.
Speaker 1: As soon as the city was in their hands, Lawrence
Speaker 1: helped organize a provisional Arab government headed by Feisal. Right now, again,
Speaker 1: the Arabs don't really want the Arabs of Syria don't
Speaker 1: really want Faisal in charge of them. They certain don't
Speaker 1: want his dad in charge. But like they have their
Speaker 1: own leaders, and they see they don't really like guys
Speaker 1: from Mecca. They write about like these these Arabs in
Speaker 1: Syria who are pissed about this. Some of them are
Speaker 1: like making overtures to the Ottomans because of how unhappy
Speaker 1: they are about Faisal. They kind of see Feisal and
Speaker 1: his dad, this whole family of like guys, the Sharif
Speaker 1: of Mecca, the way like rural Americans talk about like
Speaker 1: people from like San Francisco or you know, DC. You
Speaker 1: know that they have the kind of like Richmond north
Speaker 1: of Richmond talk about them of like these fucking city
Speaker 1: assholes from Mecca coming into Syria and telling us how
Speaker 1: to live our goddamn lives. I don't like that any
Speaker 1: better than the Turks, you know. Yeah, And there's actually
Speaker 1: there's this this kind of Zionism is going to play
Speaker 1: a weird role in this here because it becomes kind
Speaker 1: of crucial to this conflict in between these different factions
Speaker 1: on the Arab revolt. Right. So, within a few days
Speaker 1: of the Arabs taking Damascus, General Allenby arrives and he's
Speaker 1: like provisional government, my ass The French are in charge now,
Speaker 1: and Lawrence like there's really nothing he can do, right
Speaker 1: allenb is his superior officer. The British are there with
Speaker 1: like you know, a significant amount of assets, and this
Speaker 1: is you know, kind of shatters him, right, Like he
Speaker 1: is so distraught over the fact that all of their work,
Speaker 1: you know, even though they took the city it's just
Speaker 1: been handed over to French control. He said, distraught by this,
Speaker 1: that he begs to be relieved of command by Allen.
Speaker 1: Allenb he leaves for London, hell bent on using his
Speaker 1: celebrity to win Western support for an independent Arab nation
Speaker 1: after this. Now, as a note, Lawrence was definitely a
Speaker 1: very famous over in Europe by this point. An American
Speaker 1: journalist based in Palestine, Lowell Thomas, had like spotted his
Speaker 1: story and been like, this is one of the most
Speaker 1: interesting things happening in the war. It's much more interesting
Speaker 1: than just like recording slaughter at the various trench fronts.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna follow this guy around. I'm gonna take some
Speaker 1: video and photographs and whatnot. And he put together like
Speaker 1: a lecture show, basically like a slide show with a
Speaker 1: lecture attached to it that runs in movie theaters. It's
Speaker 1: like a matinee hit in England. It's a huge blockbuster
Speaker 1: at the time, like prior to the nineteen sixty Lawrence
Speaker 1: of Arabia. This is kind of like the first movie
Speaker 1: version of Lawrence, and it's it's portrayed as journalism, but la,
Speaker 1: you know, Lowell is a he's like a tabloid guy, right,
Speaker 1: Like he is exaggerating, he's kind of outright lying about stuff.
Speaker 1: There's some evidence that Lawrence is deeply, deeply unhappy as
Speaker 1: a result of like the kind of attention that Lowell
Speaker 1: draws on him and how much he makes Lawrence the
Speaker 1: center of the story. But he's also able to use
Speaker 1: this fame in order to secure meetings with like politicians
Speaker 1: to try and talk up feisal side of things, right
Speaker 1: as during these negotiations over what's going to happen to
Speaker 1: Ottoman territories in the wake of Ottoman collapse. So he's
Speaker 1: he's so he's such a a vocal part of this
Speaker 1: and such like so vocally against Syke's Picot that he
Speaker 1: starts to be seen as a threat from within the
Speaker 1: military and like within the government of the British Empire.
Speaker 1: A lot of them see him as a fame hound
Speaker 1: because like this is happening while his movie's a big deal.
Speaker 1: They see him as like he's just some like up
Speaker 1: to junior officer who's gotten way too big for his
Speaker 1: breeches and he's trying to ruin this good thing we've
Speaker 1: got with France. This horrible war is finally done and
Speaker 1: We're finally going to get fucking some money a place
Speaker 1: we can plunder right to, to help make up for
Speaker 1: all of the money we spent on this stupid war
Speaker 1: we got our country into, right, and this guy is
Speaker 1: going to fuck it all up right now. The Balfour
Speaker 1: Declaration had been leaked out to the public right around
Speaker 1: the same time Sykes Picot had been made public so
Speaker 1: right at the end of nineteen seventeen, and some in
Speaker 1: the British administration during these negotiations in late nineteen eighteen
Speaker 1: nineteen nineteen, saw the Balfour Declaration, which has a complicated reaction,
Speaker 1: especially over in the Arab world, saw it as potentially
Speaker 1: good news for their support of the Husseins, because again,
Speaker 1: Feisal and his dad are wildly unpopular in Syria. Right
Speaker 1: They're seen as these assholes from Mecca trying to lord
Speaker 1: over a place they don't belong, and Lawrence's boss and
Speaker 1: the Intelligence Services Service. One of the masterminds behind the
Speaker 1: whole Arab revolt was a brigadier general named Gilbert Clayton,
Speaker 1: and Gilbert saw the Balfour declaration as problematic. He's going
Speaker 1: to be the guy who writes most accurately about why
Speaker 1: this is a bad idea, But he also is like
Speaker 1: this could help us with faisal, right, and he writes
Speaker 1: up to date, the Syrian Arab has shown the utmost
Speaker 1: distaste for any idea of a government in which Meccan
Speaker 1: patriarchism has any influence, hence a lack of real sympathy
Speaker 1: with the Sharif. Fear of the jew may cause a
Speaker 1: reproach ma. Right, if we make it clear that we're
Speaker 1: going to give the Jews a homeland, the Arabs may
Speaker 1: get so angry that they decide they line up behind
Speaker 1: our guy, who they're not really happy about right now,
Speaker 1: but maybe they're racism against Jewish people will like convince them,
Speaker 1: you know which obviously that's an incredibly racist move from Clayton, right,
Speaker 1: Like we'll just use anti Semitism to solve our imperial
Speaker 1: problems and get our puppet in charge.
Speaker 2: He's pretty classic.
Speaker 1: It's pretty classic, right, yeah. Now, Psykes himself tried to
Speaker 1: convince Clayton that the declaration was a positive for Arab independence,
Speaker 1: which Clayton, for all of you know the racism you
Speaker 1: see in his writing, really does care about Arab independence.
Speaker 1: He is one of these guys like Lawrence, who is like,
Speaker 1: we made promises to these people and we should keep them.
Speaker 1: Clayton more than Lawrence recognizes, because Lawrence kind of gets
Speaker 1: behind the idea of Zionism. Eventually, Clayton is always like,
Speaker 1: this is a bad idea and we shouldn't have done it.
Speaker 1: But he does get into that. He comes to that
Speaker 1: conclusion also through a very racist way by saying that
Speaker 1: Arabs would be dismayed by knowledge that the Jews quote
Speaker 1: whose superior intelligence and commercial abilities are feared, would take
Speaker 1: over in Palestine. In a different level letter to Gertrude Bell,
Speaker 1: the Arab Bureau's Bagdad correspondent, Clayton wrote this, the Arab
Speaker 1: of Syria and Palestine sees the Jew with a free
Speaker 1: hand and the backing of Her Majesty's government, and interprets
Speaker 1: it as meaning the eventual loss of his heritage. Jacob
Speaker 1: and Esau wants more. The Arab is right, and no
Speaker 1: amount of species oratory will humbug them in a matter
Speaker 1: which affects him so vitally. Experience such as I have
Speaker 1: gained in this war impels me to deprecate strongly. In
Speaker 1: cautious declarations and visionary agreements, we are like men walking
Speaker 1: through an unknown country in a fog, and it behooves
Speaker 1: to feel our way and take care with each step
Speaker 1: we take.
Speaker 2: And he is not wrong.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we are men. We shouldn't be doing this in
Speaker 1: part because, like obviously this is going to lead to
Speaker 1: Arabs being displaced from their homes in Palestine, right, Arabs
Speaker 1: recognize this, their right to recognize this, and even by
Speaker 1: sticking our hands into this mess, we are We are
Speaker 1: men walking through an unknown country in a we don't
Speaker 1: know what we're doing, and so we shouldn't be doing it, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: which is.
Speaker 2: Yeah, No, that's that's what the British Empire should have
Speaker 2: been doing.
Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, empire. He is he again, everyone here is racist,
Speaker 1: but some of the racists are correct about what's going
Speaker 1: to happen. Yeah, right, Bell, who also deserves much more
Speaker 1: coverage than we're giving her, good true Bill as a
Speaker 1: fascinating character. This woman who had just like traveled alone
Speaker 1: throughout this huge stretch of the Middle East become a
Speaker 1: legitimate expert on the area, a really interesting person, someone
Speaker 1: who knew Lawrence too kind of in his early travels.
Speaker 1: Replied that she also hated quote mister Balfour's Zionist pronouncement.
Speaker 1: But Lawrence, whose instincts for this region and its people
Speaker 1: were generally much better than this, got caught up in
Speaker 1: the Zionist cause, and he did so in an interesting
Speaker 1: way as part of his backing of the Arab cause.
Speaker 1: Right So, during Lawrence's struggle against Syke's Picot in London
Speaker 1: after the war, he came to see European Zionists as
Speaker 1: potential alley the fight for Arab independence. He met with
Speaker 1: Heim Weizmann, head of the English Zionist Federation, who was
Speaker 1: willing to back Lawrence's fight for an Arab state so
Speaker 1: long as Lawrence supported the establishment of a Jewish state. Lawrence,
Speaker 1: by one account, convinced Faisal. By another, Faisal is kind
Speaker 1: of the one who's saying, hey, Lawrence, I want you
Speaker 1: to make overtures to this guy. But either way, Lawrence
Speaker 1: and Faisal get on board with Wiseman and the Zionists
Speaker 1: and they make an agreement. They actually sign an agreement,
Speaker 1: right which if the Zionists support a Faisal led Arab
Speaker 1: state based in Syria, Faisal will support European Jews immigrating
Speaker 1: to Palestine. Now, Faisal does not explicitly embrace a Jewish state,
Speaker 1: but that was understood to be the result of this.
Speaker 1: The treaty between the two of them reads mindful, and
Speaker 1: this is just fascinating reading just in light of where
Speaker 1: we are today, mindful of the racial kinship and ancient
Speaker 1: bonds existing between the Arabs and the Jewish people, and
Speaker 1: realizing that the surest means of working out the consummation
Speaker 1: of their national aspirations is through the closest possible collaboration
Speaker 1: in the development of the Arab state in Palestine. It
Speaker 1: continues that the Arab State and Palestine should, in all
Speaker 1: their relations be controlled by the most cordial goodwill. A
Speaker 1: commission would be established to lay out boundaries of the
Speaker 1: Arab state and Palestine. Right, and there's a lot there
Speaker 1: about like obviously no, it will be displaced by this. Right,
Speaker 1: it's presenting a two state solution for Palestine, not entirely. Right,
Speaker 1: There's an Arab state and then there's Palestine. But Palestine
Speaker 1: is also understood to be an encouraging Jewish immigration and
Speaker 1: seen as a Jewish state. Now it's not clear does
Speaker 1: that mean Arabs and Palestine like Arabs and like European
Speaker 1: Jews who immigrate and like you know, like the people
Speaker 1: and who live there at now are will they be
Speaker 1: kind of equal partners in a state? That's kind of
Speaker 1: how I read it is the idea, but it's not
Speaker 1: a two state solution. They are always referring to Palestine, right,
Speaker 1: like they don't call to Israel.
Speaker 2: But yeah, to the one state solution, the like one
Speaker 2: seculary you can be Jewish.
Speaker 1: Or yeah, yeah, that is the closest thing, right, Like
Speaker 1: the arrangement that they are talking to. When I say
Speaker 1: that like he supported Zionism, the actual text of the
Speaker 1: kind of thing he was trying to set up is
Speaker 1: very different than what exists today. Right, I'm going to
Speaker 1: quote again from that agreement. All necessary measures shall be
Speaker 1: taken to encourage and stimulate immigration of Jews into Palestine
Speaker 1: on a large scale and as quickly as possible, to
Speaker 1: settle Jewish immigrants upon the land through closer settlement and
Speaker 1: intensive cultivation of the soil. And taking such measures, the
Speaker 1: Arab peasant and tenant farmers shall be protected in their
Speaker 1: rights and shall be assisted in forwarding their economic development.
Speaker 1: It goes on to state that no interference and free
Speaker 1: exercise of religion would be permitted, and the Mohammedan holy
Speaker 1: places in Jerusalem and elsewhere shall be under Mohammedan control.
Speaker 2: Okay, yeah, I mean it's presented a fairly reasonable idea.
Speaker 2: I mean, like obviously, like that's clearly not what large.
Speaker 1: Is, not what's going to happen. But when we say
Speaker 1: that he's a Zionist, he's not supporting what exists currently, right,
Speaker 1: Like that is the result, and he's it's worthy of criticism.
Speaker 1: It's Faisal is worthy of criticism too. And it's important
Speaker 1: to note that like Faisal, this guy seeking to be
Speaker 1: the king of this Arabic state is supportive of this measure, right,
Speaker 1: but there's some economic reasons for it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, at the very beginning where he's like you know
Speaker 2: the long standing between Arab and Jewish folks, I mean,
Speaker 2: that's that is real, and like yeah, there is like
Speaker 2: you know, when you study Ottoman Empire before it started
Speaker 2: falling apart, it's like, well that's where European Jews went
Speaker 2: because they were like second class citizens in the Ottoman Empire.
Speaker 1: But like they were, Yeah, we all know what happened
Speaker 1: in Russia, right, Well happened elsewhere, right, Yeah, when the.
Speaker 2: Other thing that happened in fourteen ninety two as relates
Speaker 2: to Spain, is that all the Jews were kicked out
Speaker 2: and forced to convert. You know, there's just massive immigration
Speaker 2: into the Ottoman Empire.
Speaker 1: Yep. Yeah, So this is MESSI And obviously none of
Speaker 1: this works out the way that Faisal and Lawrence had hoped.
Speaker 1: While researching this, I've come across several extremely pro Israel publications,
Speaker 1: including the Israel Forever Foundation, who published articles trying to
Speaker 1: remake Lawrence into a hardcore supporter of the modern state
Speaker 1: of Israel. I found this line in an article they
Speaker 1: republished from The Jerusalem Post. You won't find this truth
Speaker 1: and the lengthy biography of Thomas Edward Lawrence, the Legendary
Speaker 1: Lawrence of Arabia, in the Encyclopedia Britannica. Don't expect to
Speaker 1: hear about this on the BBC. The world remembers Lawrence
Speaker 1: as a guide, friend and champion of Arabs, but hardly
Speaker 1: knows that he believed in Zionism as it was forced
Speaker 1: to restore Palestine to which ancient glory brought about by
Speaker 1: active British Jewish Arab cooperation. And that's not really like
Speaker 1: that is making him into that he is not nothing
Speaker 1: that he has described sounds like the modern state of Israel. Right. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he was not in favor of Palestinians being forced out
Speaker 1: of their land. Now we can say that was a
Speaker 1: foolish thing for him to hope, and he should have
Speaker 1: known that there was very likely this was going to
Speaker 1: get ugly, right, But you know, he he winds up
Speaker 1: doing what he does, right, And a big part of
Speaker 1: like what he and Feisler was hoping for, is that
Speaker 1: if we allow Jewish immigration to Palestine, that will bring
Speaker 1: in a lot of money to this economically depressed area,
Speaker 1: and it will be good for these like Palestinian farmers
Speaker 1: and peasants. Right that it will like a rising tide,
Speaker 1: will kind of lift all boats. That is what they
Speaker 1: are writing about. Right. There were ways it could have
Speaker 1: worked out differently than it did, right, But you know,
Speaker 1: it's also worth noting that whatever their plans and whatever
Speaker 1: their hopes for how this works out, Lawrence winds up
Speaker 1: on the side of what becomes a major calamity for
Speaker 1: the Middle East. Right, is how bloody and brutal everything
Speaker 1: that results from this eventually is, right, And I.
Speaker 2: Actually think it's the same problem he has in general,
Speaker 2: which is that even though he doesn't want England to
Speaker 2: control these things, he's still on some level he's more
Speaker 2: okay with fucking around with England controlling things.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know.
Speaker 2: And so it's like, and that is the same problem
Speaker 2: that happened with British mandate Palestine? Now is that is
Speaker 2: that the British.
Speaker 1: We're again it's like Clayton writes, right, we don't know
Speaker 1: what we're doing, Like we're going to fuck a bunch
Speaker 1: of things up because we don't really understand what we're
Speaker 1: messing around with here. Yeah, and yeah, like it probably
Speaker 1: just shouldn't have been fucking around with any of this.
Speaker 1: Maybe a bunch of British guys should not have been
Speaker 1: making all of these calls. Yeah, and maybe and to
Speaker 1: be fair, a bunch of guys like Faisal Rich, guys
Speaker 1: from Mecca shouldn't have been making all of these calls.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, Like none of it works very well. Yeah, Now,
Speaker 1: I will say for a much, you know, because of
Speaker 1: what's happening right now, this gets a lot of focus.
Speaker 1: We're going to inherently think a lot about Lawrence's support
Speaker 1: of this, of the Balfour Declaration, of all this stuff.
Speaker 1: This probably was not a big part thing on his
Speaker 1: mind when he thought about like his failures, you know
Speaker 1: here in the wake of kind of the peace agreements
Speaker 1: and stuff, because like nothing happens during his lifetime, right,
Speaker 1: he dies in thirty five, Right, So none of this
Speaker 1: like leads to anything while he is around, you know, And.
Speaker 2: There's like a couple of riots and stuff, but it's not.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's some riots, you know, there's some stuff that
Speaker 1: does result from this, but he's probably not super plugged
Speaker 1: into it, right, Yeah, he is. What really is occupying
Speaker 1: his mind is he sees the wheeling and dealing in
Speaker 1: the immediate wake of the war as a fucking calamity
Speaker 1: for this cause that he cares about. Nearly every piece
Speaker 1: of the cause that he cared about goes down in
Speaker 1: flaming failure. The French get their mandate in Syria, the
Speaker 1: British wind up running much of his imagined Arab state,
Speaker 1: including Palestine, and and once it becomes clear that Arabs
Speaker 1: had fought and won a war of independence only to
Speaker 1: wind up ruled by Europeans, the response was bloody. As
Speaker 1: this passage from an article in Smithsonian Magazine makes clear,
Speaker 1: Lawrence was particularly prescient about Iraq in nineteen nineteen. He
Speaker 1: had predicted full scale revolt against British rule there by
Speaker 1: March of nineteen twenty if we don't mind our ways.
Speaker 1: The result of the result of the uprising in May
Speaker 1: nineteen twenty was some ten thousand dead, including one thousand
Speaker 1: British soldiers and administrators. And man, that's a good prediction,
Speaker 1: right he calls March. It happens in May, not bad.
Speaker 1: Task to clean up the debacle was the new British
Speaker 1: Colonial Secretary, Winston Churchill, who turned for help to the
Speaker 1: man whose warnings had been spurred T. E. Lawrence at
Speaker 1: the Cairo Conference in nineteen twenty one. Lawrence helped to
Speaker 1: redress some of the wrongs. In the near future, Faisal,
Speaker 1: deposed by the French in Syria, would be placed on
Speaker 1: a new throne in British controlled Iraq, out of the
Speaker 1: British buffer state of trans Jordan. The nation of Jordan
Speaker 1: would be created, with Faisal's brother Abdullah at its head right.
Speaker 1: And obviously Faisal and his family don't wind up in
Speaker 1: charge of a rock for all that long, you know,
Speaker 1: thanks to our friend of the Pod, Saddam Hussein and
Speaker 1: the Bath Party. And then Faisal's brother Abdullah, that is
Speaker 1: still the ruling family in Jordan. Right, that's where that's
Speaker 1: where that all gets started. Now, the fact that this
Speaker 1: is the result, right, you know, it's not a total failure.
Speaker 1: You do have Arab states that are independent, you know,
Speaker 1: that get come out as a result of this. But largely,
Speaker 1: you know, during his lifetime, it's France and Britain kind
Speaker 1: of calling the shots in a large a lot of
Speaker 1: this region. This shatters Lawrence, right, he never really recovers
Speaker 1: from his failure here. And you know who else has
Speaker 1: never recovered from their failures?
Speaker 2: Is it the casinos?
Speaker 1: Yeah? The casinos there their failure to give you too
Speaker 1: much money, right, yeah, you know, they just can't wait
Speaker 1: to give you money.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 2: They lose money more often than they win. That's why gambling,
Speaker 2: if you gamble enough, you always win. The house always loses.
Speaker 2: That's why they say.
Speaker 1: That, Yeah, exactly, the house always loses. It's always safe,
Speaker 1: always safe to gamble. Keep your money in a casino, right,
Speaker 1: it's an investment.
Speaker 2: I mean if it's controlled by the casino. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: they do it. They will succeed, and we're bad. Robert,
Speaker 2: I have terrible news. I followed our advice, and now
Speaker 2: I have no money left.
Speaker 1: Oh no, well maybe you should just put all of
Speaker 1: your remaining money on black and uh and and just
Speaker 1: do it. Do a shadow roulette. I think that'll fix
Speaker 1: your problems, Margaret.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the forty eight point five percent chance of success,
Speaker 2: that's more than fifty so it'll work.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Absolutely. So Lawrence is shattered. He's very depressed. He
Speaker 1: has seen all of his hopes for a better future
Speaker 1: go down and flame sames. He's never going to recover
Speaker 1: from his failure here or the attendant PTSD as a
Speaker 1: result of his wartime experiences. And honestly, this is a
Speaker 1: big part of what makes him a sympathetic figure to me, right,
Speaker 1: but he is not seen that way by a lot
Speaker 1: of the men who fought for him or his descendants.
Speaker 1: One of my favorite articles analyzing Lawrence's legacy was That
Speaker 1: Peace in Smithsonian Magazine by Scott Anderson in twenty fourteen.
Speaker 1: He followed in Lawrence's Shadow during the early years of
Speaker 1: the Syrian Civil War and interviewed descendants of the Bedouins
Speaker 1: who'd fought by Lawrence's side. One sheikh, a latune of
Speaker 1: Muduwara in southern Jordan lamented that after the war, the
Speaker 1: badly damaged Hejah's railway was allowed to fall apart, entirely
Speaker 1: isolating many communities once connected by the Imperial project. The
Speaker 1: partitioning of the Arab world had made the maintenance and
Speaker 1: rebuilding of such a railway impossible, and there's no real
Speaker 1: way to conceive of such a project working out and
Speaker 1: preserving such accomplice peaks of infrastructure through all of the
Speaker 1: conflicts that have royaled the area since. Quote. My grandfather
Speaker 1: thought that these destructions were a temporary matter because of
Speaker 1: the war, but they actually became permanent. And you have
Speaker 1: to remember this railway had been backed and funded by
Speaker 1: donations from Muslims in places like the Hejahs, because it
Speaker 1: was this was their future, right, this would have connected
Speaker 1: them to the world. And there's no way to keep
Speaker 1: this going in like these carved up conflicting states that
Speaker 1: are the ultimate result, right of the actual you know,
Speaker 1: post war period. And Lawrence had kind of convinced people
Speaker 1: to blow up this railway and the promise that and
Speaker 1: then you'll get a state and we can fix things
Speaker 1: right like you know, the right, and that never happens
Speaker 1: right now, Lawrence tries, right, how much credit does that
Speaker 1: get him? You know, maybe not a lot if you're
Speaker 1: living in the in the rusting shadow of this dead railway,
Speaker 1: watching any hope of a better future, you know, fade away, Right,
Speaker 1: So they kind of.
Speaker 2: Like, you know, in the end, it was better under
Speaker 2: the Ottomans.
Speaker 1: No, I think it's a little more complicated than that. Ultimately,
Speaker 1: when I read kind of analyzes of Laura, you know,
Speaker 1: you can find some good pieces of like Muslim scholars
Speaker 1: talking about like how Lawrence gets talked about. It's mostly
Speaker 1: just like he's not really seen as a major figure
Speaker 1: in all of this, right, They're more interested in like
Speaker 1: guys like Faisal, They're more interested even in like British
Speaker 1: people like alan By, there were some other you know,
Speaker 1: British agents who were moving around like Lawrence. Because I
Speaker 1: think in part of how much attention he gets has
Speaker 1: for a long times been kind of like, well, he
Speaker 1: wasn't really as important as everyone thinks he is. Right now,
Speaker 1: that is, there's a reappraisal that's going on in the
Speaker 1: present day, and you can find some some like Muslim
Speaker 1: historians who are essentially like, yeah, I actually he actually
Speaker 1: was a very significant part his book is a fairly
Speaker 1: accurate accounting of things, and he seems to have really
Speaker 1: tried to do what he thought was best, even though
Speaker 1: like a lot of it didn't work out. Like there
Speaker 1: is a reappraisal going on here, in part because modern
Speaker 1: historiography has found that Lawrence was actually telling the truth
Speaker 1: about a lot of stuff that he had been kind
Speaker 1: of believed to be bullshitting about for a while. Now
Speaker 1: that said, attitudes about him are very complicated over there.
Speaker 1: Right now, I want to refer back to that article
Speaker 1: in the Smithsonian magazine because later in that article, Sheik
Speaker 1: a Latune says this, some people think he was really
Speaker 1: trying to help the Arabs, but others think it was
Speaker 1: all a trick, that Lawrence was actually working for the
Speaker 1: British Empire all along. When I press for his opinion,
Speaker 1: the shape grows slightly discomfited. May I speak frankly. Maybe
Speaker 1: some of the very old ones still believe he was
Speaker 1: a friend of the Arabs, but almost everyone else we
Speaker 1: know the truth. Even my grandfather, before he died, he
Speaker 1: believed he had been tricked. And that's a common attitude
Speaker 1: towards Lawrence over there, and it was not universal. His
Speaker 1: old friend Emir Feisal, who became King of Iraq, said
Speaker 1: in nineteen twenty that Lawrence had been truthful in his promises,
Speaker 1: a matter that made the Arabs trust him, But a
Speaker 1: lot of people dislike Feisal, right, you know.
Speaker 2: I mean this gets into the like, why I believe
Speaker 2: so strongly in honesty is that well to the people
Speaker 2: that you're working alongside of, is that you set yourself
Speaker 2: up for that when you lie to people, even if
Speaker 2: you're trying to. Like his paternalism in the end makes
Speaker 2: people realize that he was fucking them over, you know,
Speaker 2: because he didn't treat them as equals and make decisions
Speaker 2: alongside of them. Yeah, because they might have reached the
Speaker 2: same conclusions. They might have been like, well, cynically, I
Speaker 2: guess we should side with the British because dynamite and
Speaker 2: British gold will accomplish everything, you know.
Speaker 1: And there's a lot of like you could you could
Speaker 1: argue prob Maybe part of why Feisal is, you know,
Speaker 1: so positive towards Lawrence is that, like, you know, Lawrence
Speaker 1: is kind of honest with Feisal in a way that
Speaker 1: maybe he isn't to a lot of these other people, right,
Speaker 1: These different because a lot of these a lot of
Speaker 1: these Arab tribes that he was getting in line behind
Speaker 1: the rebellion weren't super pro feisial. What they were like, well,
Speaker 1: but we hate the Ottoman and he's saying it'll work
Speaker 1: out better. Maybe we'll just like give it a shot.
Speaker 1: The rebellion seems to be working pretty well, and then
Speaker 1: they wind up being like, oh, well, we just kind
Speaker 1: of got fucked on this, right, We sent our sons
Speaker 1: to die and this asshole became a king. But like,
Speaker 1: what did we get right? Yeah, So, after his brief
Speaker 1: stint with Churchill, Lawrence changed his name and asked to
Speaker 1: be allowed to re enlist in the British military, this
Speaker 1: time as a private. He told a friend that he
Speaker 1: never wanted to be responsible for anyone or anything significant
Speaker 1: again for the rest of his life. Like this is
Speaker 1: how broken he is that he was like, I don't
Speaker 1: want any of this fame. I am not going to
Speaker 1: I'm going to take a new name and it re
Speaker 1: enlists us a private, so I just don't have to
Speaker 1: do anything but follow orders for the rest of my life.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I kill and die.
Speaker 1: That's kill and die. Sure, I'm fine with that. Literally,
Speaker 1: anything like I've done lots of killing. I'm okay with that.
Speaker 1: I just can't like, I have failed so utterly in
Speaker 1: what were my goals in this thing that I just
Speaker 1: I don't want to make another decision for the rest
Speaker 1: of my life.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: So we spend the next I think fourteen years stationed
Speaker 1: on a series of small bases around Britain. He lives
Speaker 1: a quiet, almost solitary life, reading voraciously, listening to music,
Speaker 1: writing letters to friends, and writing his motorcycle through the countryside.
Speaker 1: Through this time, the legend of Lawrence grew and grew,
Speaker 1: spurred on by the publication of an edited version of
Speaker 1: his book, which is there's a fascinating story here Margaret
Speaker 1: about like what happens to Lawrence's manuscript here, And this
Speaker 1: is one of the there's a great article by Robert
Speaker 1: Knu that's just an author's worst nightmare. So Lawrence, he
Speaker 1: writes while he's like, you know, in the start of
Speaker 1: the nineteen twenties, after all of this had fallen apart,
Speaker 1: he wants to write his great memoir, which he'd planned
Speaker 1: for a long time. He'd planned to publish a book
Speaker 1: called Seven Pillars of Wisdom. Initially this was going to
Speaker 1: be based on his before the war, his travels through
Speaker 1: the Muslim world, and he writes that book and then
Speaker 1: he destroys it. He gets like anxious about it. He
Speaker 1: decides it's no good, and before he goes off to war,
Speaker 1: he destroys the entire book, right, And then he takes
Speaker 1: the title of that book and he uses it for
Speaker 1: the book that he writes about his time fighting in
Speaker 1: this desert war. And he puts together, using all of
Speaker 1: these notes that he's taken, a two hundred and fifty
Speaker 1: thousand word manuscript. And then after finishing the manuscript, he
Speaker 1: destroys his notes. I don't know why. I've never heard
Speaker 1: a good reason as to like, why does he destroy
Speaker 1: all of his original notes once he finishes it? But
Speaker 1: he does, And he only has a single copy of
Speaker 1: this manuscript. And then when he is at reading station,
Speaker 1: he leaves it in a bathroom and loses it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I see why every author's worst nightmare.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a nightmare. Now I want to lost.
Speaker 2: A file of about thirty five thousand words of.
Speaker 1: Then god, oh my god, what a nightmare.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, oh that hurts here. I never finished that book.
Speaker 1: Yeah. There is debate Margaret about this, Right, some biographers
Speaker 1: or some people will argue, he probably didn't lose this.
Speaker 1: He probably he was so angry about this guy who is,
Speaker 1: you know, this journalist who has made him into like
Speaker 1: the center, like a celebrity, right, and he's just so
Speaker 1: shamed of what happened that he destroys this manuscript, right,
Speaker 1: and then like regrets it immediately, right, But that like
Speaker 1: maybe that's what happened, right, And he's destroyed a manuscript before,
Speaker 1: it wouldn't be weird, right, whatever the case. Lawrence gets
Speaker 1: back to work working on a new version of the book,
Speaker 1: and the second draft of this, which he has to
Speaker 1: make from memory since he's destroyed most of his notes,
Speaker 1: is four hundred thousand words. And he writes this in
Speaker 1: three months, just like that's like some Stephen King ass shit.
Speaker 1: I do wonder if I know cocaine was available over
Speaker 1: the counter back then, what were you doing, Laura? How
Speaker 1: do you do four hundred thousand words in three months?
Speaker 1: That's nuts?
Speaker 2: Well, like five thousand wars a day or something.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's an insane rate of something like that.
Speaker 2: I could do that for like three weeks if I
Speaker 2: had to.
Speaker 1: And he's unhappy with it, so he throws that out,
Speaker 1: and then he writes a third version of the book.
Speaker 2: He's on his fourth, seventh, four seven manuscripts of wisdom.
Speaker 1: He almost does write fucking seven.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: The fourth version of this comes in at three hundred
Speaker 1: and thirty five thousand words, and this time he has
Speaker 1: the Oxford Times Press print eight copies of it. Right,
Speaker 1: He's not gonna lose this fucking one. Right, he send
Speaker 1: some of these and that this is the text from
Speaker 1: which we get the final version, and Lawrence would would
Speaker 1: kind of regret for the rest of his life. He
Speaker 1: would say that the first draft was more accurate, like
Speaker 1: I fucked up less, like I got more of the
Speaker 1: basic the nuts and bolts. Right. Some people will say, like, well,
Speaker 1: it's actually probably much better because in the process of
Speaker 1: writing a million words of this story over and over again,
Speaker 1: he got better at writing.
Speaker 2: I'm sure the prose is better, and I'm sure that
Speaker 2: accuracy is better in the first one.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's probably fair to say. And that's like, my god,
Speaker 1: what a fucking nightmare. I I know I would not
Speaker 1: be able to live with myself.
Speaker 2: But would the first version have helped the Vietnamese defeat?
Speaker 1: Yeah, have helped the Vietnamese war strategy, right, maybe not.
Speaker 1: I think it's at this point here, like when we
Speaker 1: talk about all these different versions of the truth and
Speaker 1: the question of like how accurate is this, that we
Speaker 1: get dragged back once again the question of Lawrence's sexuality. Right.
Speaker 1: One of the key arguments against the rape and draw
Speaker 1: story is that some of Lawrence's comrades in the Tank
Speaker 1: Corps would later claim that he asked them to beat
Speaker 1: and whip him for sato masochistic pleasure. Now, there is
Speaker 1: a lot of reason to doubt these claims, and even
Speaker 1: if they are true, we could just as easily interpret
Speaker 1: this as Lawrence working through his trauma as a result
Speaker 1: of having been gang raped. But one piece of evidence
Speaker 1: to the contrary is that in the original version of
Speaker 1: Seven Pillars of Wisdom, Lawrence's description of his rape was
Speaker 1: then this is wild two hundred pages longer than the
Speaker 1: version that wound up in print, which is a lot
Speaker 1: And so some people will be like this, this kind
Speaker 1: of reads like he was more putting out a fantasy. Right,
Speaker 1: That's a lot of time to spend talking about yourself
Speaker 1: being tortured in this kind of like very graphic detail.
Speaker 1: That is, it is tinged with romance too, Like it's
Speaker 1: very it's an odd bit of writing. Oh you know,
Speaker 1: that's just the way Lawrence writes. Yeah.
Speaker 2: And also there's a huge difference between romanticizing the bad
Speaker 2: stuff that happens to you and romanticizing bad stuff in general. Right, yeah,
Speaker 2: Like if the way that you want to process something
Speaker 2: bad is by romanticizing being like, at least my life
Speaker 2: is interesting and beautiful, even though it's terrible and tragic, yeah, like,
Speaker 2: good on you. Well.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So the journalists that we get these claims that
Speaker 1: Lawrence he's basically writing pornography, right, you know, just because
Speaker 1: he's so into this stuff that didn't really happen is
Speaker 1: a guy named Philip Knightley. And when I say journalists,
Speaker 1: you might put some air quotes around this, but he
Speaker 1: reports heavily on Lawrence, right, and he's kind of the
Speaker 1: origin of a lot of this, And he says, quote
Speaker 1: it was so redolent of the sort of sato masochistic
Speaker 1: literature that you get in the Charing cross Road. It
Speaker 1: sort of cried out that this is Lawrence writing for
Speaker 1: his own interest in delectation. Right, This reads like a
Speaker 1: lot of the Sato masochistic like smut that was being
Speaker 1: published at the time, and so that's why I think
Speaker 1: it's fake. Quote. Lawrence continued these sato masochistic practices with
Speaker 1: the help of a man called John Bruce. Bruce was
Speaker 1: paid to birch Lawrence and then write an account of
Speaker 1: Lawrence's beating bearing. Under the birching, the letters were collected
Speaker 1: by Lawrence, who read them again and got two kicks
Speaker 1: for his book, so to speak, right, this is Knight's
Speaker 1: Nightly's claim right now. The unedited version of the book
Speaker 1: also points paints a darker and more self serving and
Speaker 1: consciously imperialist picture of Lawrence. In the original text. For example,
Speaker 1: he describes Fisle as a very weak man, an empty man.
Speaker 1: You were able to use faisal to get what you wanted.
Speaker 1: And is that a more accurate depiction of Lawrence or
Speaker 1: is that just kind of him in a much darker
Speaker 1: frame of mind? After three writing three versions of this story, right.
Speaker 2: How do we know what the first one said? Is
Speaker 2: it because he's later we.
Speaker 1: Know what earlier drafts say, Right, we have that draft
Speaker 1: of the four hundred thousand word one. I think, oh,
Speaker 1: we do have that. I think that's what he's talking about.
Speaker 1: Not the original draft that's lost forever. We're like the
Speaker 1: three hundred and thirty five thousand word one or something
Speaker 1: like that. There are earlier There are earlier, longer drafts
Speaker 1: than what got published that we have access to. I
Speaker 1: don't actually know exactly. There's so many, so many copies
Speaker 1: of seven Pillars floating around, right I am.
Speaker 2: But if I were to write that and I spent
Speaker 2: two hundred pages describing a thing that happened to me, yeah,
Speaker 2: I could imagine being like, it's time for a third draft.
Speaker 1: Time for a third draft. I might need to cut
Speaker 1: this down a little bit, kill your darlings, Lawrence. Maybe
Speaker 1: maybe the torture scene is a little log.
Speaker 2: There's this classic thing with like writing, where your first
Speaker 2: novel you can't get away with spending eight pages describing
Speaker 2: stained glass. Yeah, But by the time you like on
Speaker 2: your like fifth novel and there's a fucking window. Yeah.
Speaker 2: But by the time you're on your fifth novel, you
Speaker 2: can spend eight pages talking about stained glass because you
Speaker 2: already have the auther buy in. So, Lawrence, your problem
Speaker 2: was that it was your first book.
Speaker 1: It was your first book, buddy, you know, well, actually
Speaker 1: it was It was like his third through or second
Speaker 1: or third through like fifth books or something like that. Yeah, now, Nightly,
Speaker 1: I should say this, who is making this case that
Speaker 1: like Lawrence was an asshole. He was a real imp realist.
Speaker 1: He was a bad person. He was this like masochist
Speaker 1: who lied about what happened to him. Knightley's not a
Speaker 1: great source himself. The first articles I found about him
Speaker 1: that were like, well, there's this guy who says, you know,
Speaker 1: all this bad stuff abou Lawrence described him as like
Speaker 1: a scholar. That's not really who Nightly was. And to describe,
Speaker 1: like who this guy is, I want to read a
Speaker 1: quote from The New York Times. Early in nineteen sixty five,
Speaker 1: Philip Knightley and Colin Simpson, journalists specializing in feature pieces
Speaker 1: for the London Sunday Times, were assigned to follow up
Speaker 1: a Sixtyish Scotman story that when he was nineteen and
Speaker 1: Lauras thirty three, he was paid by the hero of
Speaker 1: Arabia to administer periodic beatings. The lawrence that Lawrence relished
Speaker 1: testing his body in other ways was nothing new, but
Speaker 1: the revelation was clearly of a kind when stretched into
Speaker 1: a front page Sunday series to stimulate both reader and
Speaker 1: newspaper circulation, and by early June of the same year,
Speaker 1: the sensationally headlined articles began to appear. The Sheik who
Speaker 1: made Lawrence Love Arabia and how Lawrence of Arabia cracked
Speaker 1: up a full exclusive confession from the man who shared
Speaker 1: his tragic secret with the global facilities established press power
Speaker 1: and generous pocketbook with the Sunday Times at their disposal,
Speaker 1: Nightley and Simpson could locate and interview people from Turkey
Speaker 1: to Australia, pay for information, proy open library doors and
Speaker 1: foreign office files long locked shut, and do it all
Speaker 1: in time to meet their newspaper deadlines. So, you know,
Speaker 1: maybe take this with a grain of salt. Some of
Speaker 1: these things they're claiming, these these recollections from other people
Speaker 1: decades later. You know, these guys who are hungry for
Speaker 1: big stories that they can sensationalize about, you know, t e. Lawrence, right, Jerry, just.
Speaker 2: Like don't care if it was like whether it was
Speaker 2: a kink or yeah, trauma dealing with because as are
Speaker 2: related anyway, and like whatever.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm interested in like whether or not it happened, right,
Speaker 1: But like, yeah, I've known more of Claire based on it, yeah,
Speaker 1: right right now. Jeremy Wilson, Lawrence's officials biographer, interprets the
Speaker 1: original text, or at least what we have of the
Speaker 1: earlier text of Seven Pillars, very differently from Nightly. The
Speaker 1: fact that you have Lawrence being more of a dick,
Speaker 1: you know about some of this stuff, as this segment
Speaker 1: from an article and the in dependent makes clear. Wilson said.
Speaker 1: The text shows that Lawrence felt guilty after he encouraged
Speaker 1: the Arabs to rise up and fight. He knew they
Speaker 1: would not get an independent state in exchange for their
Speaker 1: help because France and Britain had other plans. Wilson told
Speaker 1: BBC Radio four. When he realized how duplicitous his role was,
Speaker 1: he became upset about it and went off on a
Speaker 1: spying mission to Damascus. But the point is he was
Speaker 1: hoping to get killed on the way. There's no reference
Speaker 1: to that in the final text, but there is an
Speaker 1: allusion to it in the original texts. So Wilson, who
Speaker 1: is more of a scholar certainly than Knightley, is like, well, no, actually,
Speaker 1: like the original text includes him kind of talking about
Speaker 1: how he tried to get himself killed because he felt
Speaker 1: so bad about what he had done, right, which does
Speaker 1: not portray him as like this cold imperialist, right, just
Speaker 1: fucking over people, right, and is more a man who
Speaker 1: did some very immoral things but was also trapped in
Speaker 1: this just fucked up situation. Right now.
Speaker 2: That's the version that I feel like has been that
Speaker 2: I've certainly taken away from. Yes, is like the man
Speaker 2: who always wants to do right and realizes you can't
Speaker 2: and then feels trapped and like.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I think that's probably the closest reality to
Speaker 1: the reality that we're going to get.
Speaker 2: He would to be such a good Catholic, like he
Speaker 2: wanted to get it, would have made it. Yeah, he
Speaker 2: wants forgiveness.
Speaker 1: He would have been a great monk, right, Like if
Speaker 1: he had come about in the medieval era, he would
Speaker 1: have been so happy as a monk.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Now, partly as a result of the War on
Speaker 1: Terror and largely pushed by the work of scholars like
Speaker 1: bar And shedding doubt on aspects of Lawrence's narrative, Lawrence
Speaker 1: saw a reapprisal in the early twenty first century that
Speaker 1: was largely late ninety late twentieth kind of early twenty
Speaker 1: first century that was largely negative. Right, the Arab revolt
Speaker 1: has regularly been described as a side show in World
Speaker 1: War One, which I really hate to hear whenever people
Speaker 1: are like, well, actually, it wasn't even that big a
Speaker 1: deal that any of this went on, because one intent
Speaker 1: of the people living in the region died in the fighting. Right, Like,
Speaker 1: this is not a side show. This is a major
Speaker 1: historical event, no matter how you slice it. And it's
Speaker 1: really fucked up when people argue otherwise.
Speaker 2: Sorry, fewer white people were there.
Speaker 1: Sorry, there weren't as many white people there.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 1: Lawrence has been described as a braggart, a liar, a fantasist,
Speaker 1: and a historic appraisal of the man has to caution
Speaker 1: against taking this interpretation too far. Again. Barr, who's very
Speaker 1: properly critical, I would say, responsibly in a historical sense,
Speaker 1: critical of Lawrence, also describes seven Pillars as essentially accurate. Right,
Speaker 1: and more recent scholars, including the leftist academic Neil Faulkner,
Speaker 1: have urged a reappreciation of Lawrence as a titanic figure
Speaker 1: in world history and that of the region. Now, Margaret,
Speaker 1: you asked a little earlier, are we going to hear
Speaker 1: about what happened to do right, and it's time for
Speaker 1: us to tell that story, which is I know, it's
Speaker 1: a bummer. Yeah. Yeah. So after Lawrence left the Karkamish
Speaker 1: dig site in nineteen fourteen, the two never met again
Speaker 1: because during the war, partly as a result of the war,
Speaker 1: there's a typhus epidemic in Dome's hometown and he dies
Speaker 1: in nineteen sixteen. Oh shit, so he's only like sixteen
Speaker 1: or something he was, Yeah, I think he might have
Speaker 1: been eighteen, yeah, because he was like sixteen when Lawrence left, right,
Speaker 1: So he's probably like eighteen. Yeah, but he does not
Speaker 1: get a long life. You know, this is partly as
Speaker 1: a result of the war, although not Lawrence's pardon it.
Speaker 1: Lawrence is not an active participant in the fighting until
Speaker 1: Dome's dead. Now, if you don't find the claims made
Speaker 1: a Knightley's reporting credible and instead take Lawrence at his
Speaker 1: word and the words that he sent along to close friends,
Speaker 1: he never had any other kind of intimate relationship, sexual
Speaker 1: or otherwise in his life. I want to quote now
Speaker 1: from an article in Salon dot com by Anthony Sattin
Speaker 1: in nineteen twenty seven. He wrote to his friend the
Speaker 1: homosexual novelist, I M Forster, I'm so funnily made up sexually,
Speaker 1: and later that same year went further. Having read Forster's
Speaker 1: ghost story Doctor Woollacott, in which a man dies after
Speaker 1: a game sexual encounter, Lawrence wrote that the Turks, as
Speaker 1: you probably know or have guessed through the reticences of
Speaker 1: seven Pillars, did it to me by force. I couldn't
Speaker 1: ever do it. I believe the impulse strong enough to
Speaker 1: make me touch another creature has not yet been born
Speaker 1: in me. And that is that kind of sounds like, yeah,
Speaker 1: like this is someone who's ace, that men's very ace, right.
Speaker 1: Like the following year with Robert Graves, the poet and
Speaker 1: at that point his biographer, he had a discussion about
Speaker 1: fucking as I wrote, with some courage. I think few
Speaker 1: people admit the damaging ignorance. I haven't ever, and I
Speaker 1: don't much want to. And that's part of what's so
Speaker 1: interesting to me is that, like, this isn't really something
Speaker 1: if we're looking at Lawrence, this isn't something we have
Speaker 1: to be like wondering about, because he not only as
Speaker 1: you write about it, he is aware and open to homosexuality.
Speaker 1: He is talking to his gay friends about his sexuality,
Speaker 1: which is so interesting to me, so unexpected, Right, I
Speaker 1: really didn't think that we would have him directly talking
Speaker 1: about like fucking and being like, yeah, I never wanted
Speaker 1: to do it, Like, yeah, that's fascinating to me. That's
Speaker 1: perhaps there's so many historical figures that I wish I
Speaker 1: knew that about, right, because you're like, oh, why did
Speaker 1: this woman never have children or get married? Was she guy?
Speaker 1: Was she Ace?
Speaker 2: Was it just never work out?
Speaker 3: Like?
Speaker 2: Was she just actually loved Duck? But it was doesn't
Speaker 2: want to marry? Like who knows?
Speaker 3: You know?
Speaker 1: Yeah, And it's like with Lawrence, this is as clear
Speaker 1: as you can get a figure in this era talking
Speaker 1: about a sexuality. And probably I think the best final
Speaker 1: source on this is one of Lawrence's homosexual friends, Vivian Richard's.
Speaker 1: And it's like spelled vyv y an. It's a man's name,
Speaker 1: but I think it's just pronounced Vivian. The two met
Speaker 1: at Oxford, and Vivian is no, I haven't, Oh there's
Speaker 1: a there's a man named Villa. Anyway, Well, Vivian is
Speaker 1: in love with Lawrence, right. Vivian is a homosexual man
Speaker 1: who has a massive crush on Lawrence, and he was like,
Speaker 1: I could fix him. Yeah, horribly sad that Lawrence was
Speaker 1: never reciprocated. He wrote later, he had neither flesh nor
Speaker 1: carnality of any kind. He received my affection, my sacrifice,
Speaker 1: in fact, eventually my total subservience, as if it was
Speaker 1: his due. He neither gave the slightest sign that he
Speaker 1: understood my motives or fathomed my desire. In return for
Speaker 1: all I offered him with admittedly ulterior motives, he gave
Speaker 1: me the purest affection, love, and respect that I have
Speaker 1: ever received from anyone, a love and respect that was
Speaker 1: spiritual in quality. I realize now that he was sexless,
Speaker 1: at least that he was unaware of sex. And yeah,
Speaker 1: that's beautiful, that's.
Speaker 2: Kind of sweet. Yeah, it's like what sometimes like when
Speaker 2: people who have sexuality who date people who are ace. Yeah,
Speaker 2: you know my like, oh well there's something else that's
Speaker 2: beautiful about this.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, And that's very much what Vivian is saying.
Speaker 1: I think if Dome had lived, and he might have
Speaker 1: written something similar, right, like, this was never a physical thing,
Speaker 1: but he was the best and most most dedicated friend
Speaker 1: I ever had. Yeah, and this is where we will
Speaker 1: conclude the life of Lawrence Margaret after one of the
Speaker 1: most action packed first acts in history. The remainder of
Speaker 1: his military career in existence was not the stuff great
Speaker 1: movies are made of. The simple reason seems to be
Speaker 1: that he was just absolutely shattered by war. Lawrence's nerves
Speaker 1: never recovered, and in nineteen thirty five, at age forty six,
Speaker 1: he opted to retire from the military. As he was
Speaker 1: settling into his new home, he wrote one friend of
Speaker 1: his discomfort with this situation. I imagine leaves must feel
Speaker 1: this way after they have fallen from their tree and
Speaker 1: until they die. Let's hope that will not be my
Speaker 1: continuing state. Alas it was. A week after writing this,
Speaker 1: Lawrence crashed his motorcycle and perished in the accident. And
Speaker 1: that yeah, again, it's like, beautiful rider. Yeah.
Speaker 2: It's like when there's like several really sad musicians who
Speaker 2: accidentally drown and you're like, yeah, I'll let you have it.
Speaker 2: I'll pretend. I'll let the world pretend that's an accident. Yeah, yeah, sure,
Speaker 2: Lawrence accidentally crashed his motorcycle.
Speaker 1: Okay, yeah, yep, wow, whoa see.
Speaker 2: I would watch the movie about the second half of
Speaker 2: his life. But it'd be more like watching The Lighthouse
Speaker 2: or something.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, that that I would as well. Also,
Speaker 1: I'll be watched The Lighthouse. Great movie. I think Lawrence
Speaker 1: of Arabia probably would have liked The Lighthouse.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that would have been too. He wouldn't have gotten
Speaker 2: all the masturbation. I didn't get all these.
Speaker 1: He would not not have been a fan of all
Speaker 1: of the masturbation. Yeah, it's not interested in that. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: explaining the Mermussy to Lawrence of Arabia. If I get
Speaker 1: my time machine working, I'm gonna go back in time
Speaker 1: and be like Lawrence, wait a second before you get
Speaker 1: on that motorcycle. Yeah all right. First off, this is
Speaker 1: a photo of a man named Willem Dafoe. He's gonna
Speaker 1: be born in a couple of decades. Great actor. Now
Speaker 1: I need to explained to you with something called a
Speaker 1: book series called the Twilight Series, this is not your
Speaker 1: time to books. There are vampires which I feel like
Speaker 1: you might be into, but not in the way that
Speaker 1: you're into them.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I didn't. I didn't know the first thing
Speaker 2: about him. I've read about the Ottoman Empire, I've read
Speaker 2: about British man Naye Palestine. I knew that there was
Speaker 2: this guy. I never saw Lawrence of Arabia the movie.
Speaker 1: Oh it's great, you should see it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I think by the time I would have
Speaker 2: watched it, I would have been like, ah, another movie
Speaker 2: about a white guy and off to go save the
Speaker 2: world or whatever. Yeah, and well, now I want to
Speaker 2: watch the movie.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I recommend it.
Speaker 2: No, he's he's interesting. And it's like most of the
Speaker 2: really simple narratives that are around available for him don't
Speaker 2: seem accurate. Yeah, you know, because like absolutely is Orientalism
Speaker 2: part of his story completely for sure? Yes, and like
Speaker 2: but it's but you can compare his or antilism to
Speaker 2: the guy the like daddy guy who like wants to
Speaker 2: go around the Ottoman Empire or whatever. Yeah, and then
Speaker 2: also you know, he's still doing bad while trying to
Speaker 2: do good. And oh man, he's interesting.
Speaker 1: Yeah, fascinating character. Oh yeah, and that's Laurence of Arabia. Well, Margaret,
Speaker 1: you're gonna go blow up the train now, uh legally
Speaker 1: legally not well cast over.
Speaker 2: Yeah, go listen to cool people, cool stuff if you
Speaker 2: like complicated moral stories about people that are kind of like.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, Yeah, this was kind of that from me,
Speaker 1: because that is I guess we should answer the question
Speaker 1: I said we were going to be asking this, where
Speaker 1: do you land Lawrence of Arabia bastard? Yes or no?
Speaker 2: Bastard in the way that we're all doomed to be.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, that might be it.
Speaker 2: You can't go into it. You talk all the time
Speaker 2: on the show about how you can't go into war
Speaker 2: and come out with your hands clean, and I'm always like, yeah,
Speaker 2: but I probably could.
Speaker 1: I could get make it work.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I would just I would just stay morally clean,
Speaker 2: even if it kills me whatever.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 2: And here's someone who wanted to stay morally clean even
Speaker 2: though it would kill him. And then he's like, oh no,
Speaker 2: never mind, I'm just gonna gun down everyone.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and timed to machine gun hundreds of people.
Speaker 2: So he is a bastard. And he's a bastard almost
Speaker 2: by like accident of birth and like thing he's involved in,
Speaker 2: rather than like a character treit. Yeah, you know, like
Speaker 2: he's up to some bastardrey.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, it's tough. It's tough. He did his best, uh,
Speaker 1: but he also probably shouldn't have been doing some of
Speaker 1: the things he was doing.
Speaker 2: It's a mix, yeah, like, don't stumble around in the fog.
Speaker 1: Around in the fog of a foreign country, and yeah,
Speaker 1: and try to institute new states. Uh, maybe you don't
Speaker 1: know what you're doing. Maybe that's a bad idea. Maybe
Speaker 1: maybe maybe there's more wisdom in the prime direct. Not
Speaker 1: that this is a less advance, I'm not saying that,
Speaker 1: but like just in the idea that, like, don't just
Speaker 1: go stick in your dick in every fucking situation you see, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: maybe the fact that some people are having a ward
Speaker 1: doesn't mean that you need to like make a call there, right.
Speaker 2: Even though you fell in love with one of them.
Speaker 1: Even though you fell in love with one of them,
Speaker 1: and even though it is very sweet to say I'm
Speaker 1: going to liberate his entire race, Yeah, yeah, it's also
Speaker 1: pretty fucked up and orientalist to do. So maybe just
Speaker 1: don't do that. Maybe maybe just buy him like some chocolates,
Speaker 1: you know, maybe chocolates are better than launching a rebellion.
Speaker 2: Maybe the ring of power needs to be cast into
Speaker 2: the fiery yeah pits of Mount Doom.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm sorry, yes he is. There is some strong
Speaker 1: Boramir vibes to t Lawrence. Yeah, he was boramir maxing
Speaker 1: there for a little while.
Speaker 2: Wonder some of the story about like going across the
Speaker 2: desert to go get the Allies to attack the city. Yeah,
Speaker 2: liked Tokien read that and then a going to go
Speaker 2: find the like undead army to bring it to bear.
Speaker 1: Like Token obviously would say like no, you know, this
Speaker 1: is none of it because that was always his stance.
Speaker 1: But like yeah, also, like obviously World War One influenced
Speaker 1: what he wrote, and this is part of World War One.
Speaker 1: This definitely who definitely takes from this. This is the
Speaker 1: basis of doom, right, Yeah, Like this is directly like
Speaker 1: this is not I'm not like going out on a linear.
Speaker 1: This is directly what inspires a lot of doom.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Right, that makes a lot of sense. Yeah, and it's
Speaker 1: not really all that hard to see why, you know. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And it's also it's interesting because it shows that Frank Herbert,
Speaker 1: I think, understood this similarly to we Do to how
Speaker 1: we do, because dude is fundamentally about how like it's
Speaker 1: a really bad idea to have this white savior stumble
Speaker 1: into another culture and just start leading a war. It
Speaker 1: does not end well. He goes crazy. He com it's
Speaker 1: a shitload of war crimes. He becomes an absolute monster,
Speaker 1: and like, Okay, you got it. You really took the
Speaker 1: right thing out of the te Lawrence story. Unfortunately, everyone
Speaker 1: is going to interpret your book wrong for forever because
Speaker 1: you made the horrible mistake of doing it making it
Speaker 1: all look really cool.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Ah, well that's why I don't.
Speaker 1: Like Yeah, this is why I don't write fiction about,
Speaker 1: for example, anarchist militant characters who are are meant to
Speaker 1: be very complicated and not necessarily good people. But I
Speaker 1: also like writing about cool people, so they wind up
Speaker 1: sounding cool, and then people are like, oh, is this
Speaker 1: guy a good guy? No, no, he's not.
Speaker 2: And Bernie was curious they should go read Robert's book
Speaker 2: After the Revolution, because that is what that is talking, Yes.
Speaker 1: A book full of morally compromised people who regret their
Speaker 1: actions in war just get to say.
Speaker 3: Where sunscreen, yeah, plots of water, touch grass, and pet
Speaker 3: a dog if that dog says they want to be petted.
Speaker 2: And if you want to do a moral action that
Speaker 2: is essentially never wrong. Feed people.
Speaker 1: People don't blow up bridges, you know what. Honestly, more
Speaker 1: often than not, blowing up bridges works out badly. Sure,
Speaker 1: don't don't blow up a bridge unless you're a hurricane.
Speaker 1: Then like that's your business, you know, And not that
Speaker 1: I support it, but you know, you have that right.
Speaker 3: Hurricane, And if you do want to if you do
Speaker 3: want to do a hurricane, just call up Nancy Pelosi
Speaker 3: because she's got that hurricane on speed dial.
Speaker 1: Oh. I don't know what that's a reference to. I
Speaker 1: only know about to drink. What the fuck is I
Speaker 1: assume controlling the weather? Hurricane? Oh okay, I was.
Speaker 2: Just doing I've been doing a bunch of episodes about
Speaker 2: witches recently, and they they were believed to control the weather,
Speaker 2: and that was a It was actually not actually what
Speaker 2: caused the wish hunts, but a lot of them were.
Speaker 2: People were like, oh, the witches control the weather. And
Speaker 2: I'm like, ha ha ha, look at you, silly early
Speaker 2: modern fools thinking people. Oh crap, nope, that's happening now.
Speaker 3: Yep. Yeah, anyway, anyway, Bye.
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