The Auron MacIntyre Show - March 12, 2025


Why Are Christians Being Killed in Syria？ ｜ Guest： Semiogogue ｜ 3⧸12⧸25

Hosted by
Auron MacIntyre
Guests
Semiogogue
Mentioned
Hafez Assad Bashar Assad Alawite Larry Fink Winners Druze Mark Sykes Turkoman Kevork Al-Masiyan Siriana Analysis Lee Kuan Yew Charlie Gasparino Apostolic Majesty Kivork Al-Masyan Monsieur Picot Saddam Hussein Puerto Ricans Al Jelani Al Sharad Rotherham Alawites and 8 more
Why Conservatives and Liberals Have RADICALLY Different Values ｜ 3⧸10⧸25 Progressive Elites' Downfall： Foxes Failed to Become Lions ｜ 3⧸13⧸25

Episode Stats


Length

58 minutes

Words per minute

161.42

Word count

9,436

Sentence count

529

Harmful content

Misogyny

6

sentences flagged

Toxicity

5

sentences flagged

Hate speech

45

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

The Middle East is a dangerous place. There's a lot of sectarian violence, and often the best option is still a really bad option when it comes to governance, seeing who's in charge, and who can keep the peace. One of the key cases of this is Syria, where a country descended into a sectarian war.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
Hosts, guests, and mentioned names generated with spaCy (en_core_web_sm), reconciled against Wikidata.
00:00:00.000 We hope you're enjoying your Air Canada flight.
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00:00:30.000 Hey everybody, how's it going?
00:00:31.900 Thanks for joining me this afternoon.
00:00:33.760 I've got a great stream with a great guest that I think you're really going to enjoy.
00:00:37.880 The Middle East is a dangerous place. 1.00
00:00:40.700 There's a lot of sectarian violence, a lot of factions that we in the West don't necessarily understand.
00:00:46.800 And often, the best option is still a really bad option when it comes to governance,
00:00:53.220 seeing who's in charge, who can keep the peace.
00:00:55.440 One of the key cases of this is Syria. 0.80
00:00:58.180 A lot of people recognize that Bashar al-Assad was not the nicest guy in the world.
00:01:03.720 But a lot of people warn that if you knock that domino down, you would see a number of other ones fall.
00:01:10.260 That could create an even more dangerous situation.
00:01:13.620 And now we're getting lots of videos coming out of Syria of violence against different religious minorities,
00:01:20.720 especially Christians in that area.
00:01:22.860 A lot of people are understandably upset and concerned, but it's very difficult to get a hold on what is happening there.
00:01:29.160 So talking to me today about this is Oliver from the Semiagog YouTube channel.
00:01:34.960 He is a very astute observer of foreign conflicts and someone who I regularly enjoy talking to.
00:01:41.020 Oliver, thank you for joining me, man.
00:01:43.220 It's my pleasure. Thanks very much for having me.
00:01:46.140 Absolutely. We're going to get into this.
00:01:48.020 Hopefully, we'll bring a little bit of light to a very difficult situation.
00:01:51.760 But before we do, let's hear from today's sponsor.
00:01:55.100 Hey, everybody.
00:01:55.720 This episode of The Oren McIntyre Show is proudly sponsored by Consumers Research.
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00:02:50.340 Again, that's at W-I-L-L-H-I-L-D on X.
00:02:57.900 All right.
00:02:58.800 So, again, the situation in Syria is really ugly.
00:03:03.000 If you've seen the videos online, they're horrific.
00:03:06.020 I can't even play them here on YouTube.
00:03:07.880 It'll instantly get us banned here.
00:03:09.940 So you'll just have to trust us or search up those sources in your own time to see those videos if you want to.
00:03:18.060 But it is very bad out there.
00:03:19.980 And so, Oliver, for most people, they're just going to hear a country in the Middle East is kind of descended into a sectarian war.
00:03:29.960 Unfortunately, this is a scenario we have seen many, many times in that region.
00:03:35.740 But specifically in Syria, can you give people a little bit of context?
00:03:40.380 Who are the groups?
00:03:41.680 I know there are a lot of them.
00:03:42.740 We don't have to get to all of them.
00:03:44.000 But what are the major players in that region that are really creating the level of conflict we're seeing today?
00:03:51.020 Well, there are kind of two angles that we can approach that from.
00:03:57.760 One angle is to look at the ethnic and sectarian diversity on the ground there.
00:04:04.460 And that has some historical background, which perhaps I can tap on here.
00:04:10.540 Then there are the different groups themselves that have emerged from that context that are contributing to the fragmented nature of the country and the situation that they're facing there.
00:04:26.700 So Syria, historically going far, far back, you can go back to the Hittites and the Egyptians, north and south of this region and the conflict of empires there.
00:04:39.140 But more recently, you had the Ottoman Empire there.
00:04:42.060 And the Ottoman Empire is, of course, Sunni. 0.98
00:04:45.420 The majority of Muslims on earth are Sunni.
00:04:50.040 But there are, of course, minority groups like the various flavors of Shia.
00:04:54.620 And some of those get very strange, like the Druze and the Alawites in terms of their belief, which include things like reincarnation.
00:05:02.360 The Alawites, for example, recognize a trinity.
00:05:05.380 The Druze are more monotheistic. 0.93
00:05:09.800 They're both very secretive in their beliefs.
00:05:11.480 So there are all kinds of different groups there.
00:05:12.980 There are Christians of various types.
00:05:16.240 They're Orthodox.
00:05:17.180 They're Maronites and others.
00:05:21.160 Catholics as well.
00:05:23.020 There are Jews.
00:05:25.000 There are many, many different groups religiously.
00:05:30.480 Then, of course, you've got the different ethnic groups.
00:05:33.440 You've got Turkoman. 1.00
00:05:35.740 You've got Circassians, groups from the Caucasus who relocated to this region.
00:05:41.140 Turkoman, meaning Turkish groups in Syria.
00:05:44.340 You've got the Sunnis, the Shia. 1.00
00:05:48.520 As I said, it's a very mixed up situation.
00:05:51.660 Armenians, Kurds. 0.97
00:05:53.100 And so when the Ottomans arrived there, they had a system that was, we gloss it in the West, as a millet system, a system of nations.
00:06:03.480 And this system basically left a certain amount of control over affairs to the separate ethnic groups.
00:06:13.460 And they each had their own religious leaders.
00:06:17.220 So, you know, in terms of taxes or military conscription and the rest, the Ottomans came in and, you know, hammered everyone to get what they wanted. 0.97
00:06:24.660 But in terms of how they handled things like civil disputes to some extent, things having to do with property, marriage, inheritance, these different communities, these nations or millet would be allowed to kind of take care of their own things under their religious leaders.
00:06:43.460 And so I wanted to bring that up because you can already see that there's kind of a decentralization with these different communities.
00:06:51.540 And in the absence of any kind of ethnic or religious uniformity across the territory, which, you know, only became a nation as we understand it roughly 100 years ago, you had people being forced to come together in their neighborhoods within a given city.
00:07:14.420 So one neighborhood might be Armenian, another one might be Alawite, you know, for example, or Kurdish, or you have a Kurdish or Alawite region, as we see with the northeastern portion of the country being under the control of U.S.-backed Kurdish forces, or the coastal regions where you've got the Russian air base and naval base.
00:07:39.700 And a lot of the Christians and Alawites where there's violence right now, that was the coastal regions had more of the minorities.
00:07:49.220 So you've got a background already for there to be considerable disunity or the, or as we should add, the opportunity to stick a lever into it, to pry it apart based on the principle of, you know, divide and conquer or divide and rule.
00:08:06.460 So sorry to, sorry to stop you there, but the thing, the phenomenon you're describing is so important and it is so foreign to, I think most people in the West, most modern people.
00:08:19.920 I think it's worth taking a minute to just break it down, not even the specifics of this, you know, this scenario, but just the general idea you're discussing.
00:08:28.080 So the militant system is one designed to allow an empire to rule many different peoples or what were classically called nations.
00:08:38.680 And today, most people think of nations as nation states, that the nation and the state, the nation and the country are the same thing.
00:08:48.180 But that's not been the case through much of human history.
00:08:51.960 When a empire was ruling many different nations, ethnically diverse, religiously diverse, linguistically diverse peoples, really your only options were to go in and homogenize those regions, bring them under one understanding, or provide them a certain level of autonomy, allow them to keep their traditions, their religion, their language, but have them kick up to the empire.
00:09:18.180 Right. The Romans in many cases did this. It was varying degrees across their territories. But this is a very classic system, but it is very foreign to the current, I think, American or even European understanding of nations.
00:09:34.500 And so I think this causes a lot of confusion because people will say, oh, well, you know, you'll hear the Western media say, oh, he's killing his own people in a country.
00:09:43.960 And the answer is no, he's not. He doesn't see it that way. This leader does not see other peoples, other nations as his nation, just because they happen to be inside the state territory.
00:09:55.960 The formal borders recognized by some international body somewhere doesn't mean they are the same people sharing the same community and understanding.
00:10:07.460 And that, I think, is very difficult for people because so often in these highly diverse areas, the only way to hold them together is to have this overarching strong government or strong man, a dictator of some kind, who can cut through the differences between these peoples and give each one, you know, at least their say in their area while still keeping a strong hand over them in general.
00:10:33.340 It sounds brutal to a lot of people in the West, but in many ways, it's the only way to maintain that kind of equilibrium between the different nations, the different peoples inside an area.
00:10:45.460 So, yeah, I just wanted to stop and clarify that because for a lot of people, that might be the first time they've heard about that or the understanding that dynamic.
00:10:54.800 And I want the going into the discussion of these these factions to for people to grasp that this is how many areas of the world had been ordered previously.
00:11:05.020 And when we shake that up, when we create this expectation of kind of modern states, we're often ignoring this dynamic that has a very historically robust, you know, kind of legacy throughout the existence of these areas.
00:11:20.820 Yes. And as I pointed out before, this can be a regional division, this can be a division in terms of a city.
00:11:31.160 You know, there's one city in particular that has the majority of the Circassians that live in Syria are in that one city. 0.93
00:11:39.400 You know, there are cities that are more associated with Alawites, more associated with a Sunni population.
00:11:45.800 Or, as I said, it can come down to the label, excuse me, to the level of neighborhoods where, you know, people jealously guard their turf.
00:11:55.600 And that is a very, very common thing across the Middle East.
00:12:00.320 You have to think of it as along the lines of gangs of New York in terms of, you know, perhaps that's a bit too lurid.
00:12:08.380 But the basic idea is that they really resolutely defend their neighborhood.
00:12:13.660 They're very territorial about it because it's the one place where they can exert some sort of territorial control within this framework.
00:12:22.200 And, you know, when a strong man does come along and impose some sort of order on it, it is very fragile.
00:12:28.680 And the opportunities, as I said, for Divide et Impera, you know, to divide and rule are many.
00:12:36.940 So to come back all the way around to your question about, you know, what sort of groups we have going on there.
00:12:43.640 Well, as many people will know, the group currently in charge was most recently called Hayat Tahrir Asham, which is, you know, an organization that ultimately came out of Al-Qaeda, you know, whatever Al-Qaeda might be.
00:13:04.360 Maybe that's something deeper to dig into.
00:13:06.760 We probably don't have the scope for here, but basically they were considered under the name of Al-Nusra Front to be a sort of Syrian affiliate of Al-Qaeda.
00:13:19.100 But over the years, they have changed their name many times.
00:13:24.240 They've gone through a sort of mummer's farce of becoming more liberal, less conservative, less intolerant, these sorts of things.
00:13:37.780 But the leader of Syria at this point is a guy who had the nom de guerre, Al-Qaeda, Al-Qaeda.
00:13:46.860 He now goes by Al-Qaeda, and he came out of Al-Nusra Front and HTS.
00:13:54.700 And he has considerable militia forces behind him.
00:13:58.020 They are backed by Turkey.
00:14:00.720 There is also another group.
00:14:04.040 I believe it's the Free Syrian Army, which is backed by the Turks, and they operate more in the area of the northwest near the Turkish border.
00:14:15.340 There are Kurdish forces, the YPG, and they make up the majority of what are called the Syrian Defense Forces, and these are backed by the United States.
00:14:30.340 They control the primary food and energy-producing regions of Syria.
00:14:35.800 Once the United States got control there, they kept it in order to choke off the economics and energy situation and food for the Syrians in order to bring Assad down.
00:14:48.720 You've got Hezbollah, who came in in order to back Assad while he was still in power during that period of civil war.
00:14:59.960 That ran from, I believe, 2011 forward.
00:15:04.540 Now, a lot of people would ask, well, why are the Turks backing one group?
00:15:08.720 Why are the Iranians backing another group? 0.99
00:15:11.600 It all gets very, very complicated, but the Turks, who formerly governed there as the Ottomans, the artists formerly known as the Ottomans,
00:15:21.820 they're Sunni, overwhelmingly majority Sunni, as is the population in Syria.
00:15:28.680 And so they see that as the best way to deal with the situation.
00:15:32.820 Now, Assad, who was in power, comes from the Alawite minority, and they are very loosely considered Shiites.
00:15:40.440 For your viewers, the real difference between Sunni and Shia simply comes down to whether or not you believe that the community of believers should be led by caliphs who were chosen by the community in some respect or its elites,
00:15:56.020 or whether it should come down through bloodlines, which are people who were descended or allegedly descended from the prophet and are thought to carry some sort of mystical charge as a result of that.
00:16:11.940 And they have more of an idea of, you know, prophet, not prophet, but, well, we don't need to get into all of that.
00:16:20.280 The basic idea is that that's the fundamental division and, you know, how they have the joke about there's no Baptist sect, too small not to schism again and yet again.
00:16:30.060 And that's what you see with the Shiites. 1.00
00:16:32.140 So the Iranians are one branch of Shiites. 0.80
00:16:36.260 The Alawites are another one, a very much smaller one. 1.00
00:16:39.740 But given that situation where they're surrounded by this majority Sunni Muslim population and, you know, in the Middle East, they tend to cleave together and to help each other out.
00:16:52.800 And so Iran developed relationships with Assad and in particular in order to balance the situation with Israel.
00:17:04.380 So let's let's if we can let since you've mentioned him several times here, can we give a little background on Bashar al-Assad?
00:17:12.640 Because so much of the developments that have happened now obviously come with the toppling of his regime.
00:17:18.840 Many people called for it over and over again, world leaders working for it, all kinds of sanctions, you know, saying, you know, he's this guy using chemical weapons, wiping out his own people. 0.62
00:17:30.340 All this all this, you know, kind of understandable, you know, given some of the actions he took in their hostility towards him.
00:17:39.100 However, ultimately, people like Tulsi Gabbard, you know, kind of warned that if you toppled Assad as bad as he might be, that there would be very serious consequences.
00:17:48.140 So can we can we just kind of work in who Assad was, where he came from, how he came to power, what his role was before he was deposed?
00:17:59.340 Yes. Well, we'd have to start with his father, if I have all of this straight in my mind.
00:18:04.500 Basically, there were you had after after World War One, you had the prior to the end of World War One and the armistice that was signed with the Turks who were among the central powers.
00:18:20.420 The Ottomans were ruling there. And then after this, you had the French and British mandates in the region as a result of, you know, as many of our viewers will be aware, you know, Mark Sykes and Monsieur Picot, the Sykes-Picot agreement.
00:18:38.260 You know, the French and the British decided to divvy up that region.
00:18:42.340 And then there was a period of French control, the French mandate, and then eventually the nation of Syria was recognized.
00:18:50.640 And it was a sort of tumultuous period because it didn't have a foundation to be in a nation.
00:18:56.560 You know, it's sort of like when you look at parts of the map in Africa, where you see these enormous straight lines, you know, running, you know, longitudinally or whatever.
00:19:07.140 You can tell that that was a map drawn somewhere else by European in order to create a nation, very often with sort of built in perforations so that if there were trouble, if there was trouble of any kind in the future, they could stick a lever into it and split it apart, as we saw arguably in 2011.
00:19:25.720 But, um, so Syria, um, was not a stable place.
00:19:30.720 Eventually, uh, this Ba'athist guy, uh, Assad's father, I believe it's Hafez Assad, uh, he comes in and establishes a control. 0.83
00:19:39.340 There were a series of coups, uh, I believe that he came in and, uh, in the seventies and sort of established his power at that point.
00:19:47.500 Um, and he comes from the Alawite minority.
00:19:51.100 And, uh, that of course was not appreciated by many of the, the, the different communities.
00:19:57.880 The minorities basically came together around him and said, well, we'll throw in our lot because we minorities need to stick together against this overwhelming Sunni, uh, majority. 0.99
00:20:08.000 But you were left with a Sunni majority in Syria that felt, uh, to some extent, uh, disenfranchised.
00:20:14.420 Now the country was relatively stable, um, uh, certainly by, by the standards of the region, uh, for quite some time, but, uh, Assad, uh, passed away.
00:20:27.560 And, um, I believe if I'm, if I'm not mistaken, uh, the son that he had chosen, uh, to be the leader, um, died and, uh, that necessitated his, uh, second son having to be called in.
00:20:41.080 And hopefully I'm not, um, um, uh, mistaken here.
00:20:43.480 Uh, and he was an, uh, eye doctor, uh, and had spent, uh, quite a bit of time in, uh, Britain.
00:20:49.480 So he was brought into, uh, brought back to Syria in order to run the show as a member of that family. 0.79
00:20:56.400 It had sort of de facto become, uh, uh, a hereditary dictatorship as it were.
00:21:02.700 Uh, and, uh, not long after that, um, you saw the Arab spring sweep through the region and, uh, he was brought down. 0.83
00:21:12.720 You know, there was a sequence of events starting in 2011.
00:21:17.480 You had protests.
00:21:18.620 Many of our viewers will remember this.
00:21:20.440 And, you know, you had, uh, all sorts of, uh, violence in the streets and the rest.
00:21:25.240 And then the, the government, you know, began to wobble a bit and armed groups were brought in, uh, uh, many people say, and it seems quite evident, you know, supported by the, uh, United States, uh, in some cases via, uh, Turkey.
00:21:41.680 But other, uh, Arab states, uh, were involved with this because they're Sunni and they don't have, uh, much, uh, much tolerance for, uh, for an Alawite run government.
00:21:54.020 And also they're Ba'athists. 0.99
00:21:56.320 Um, so Ba'athists, it's, uh, it's, uh, I don't want to get it all into it, but basically you've got groups of what amount to Arab national socialists.
00:22:07.300 Um, they, they come, uh, sort of, uh, on the model of Ataturk establishing a Republic as a transitional thing.
00:22:17.640 Uh, the de-emphasis of Islam and Sharia at the level of government. 0.99
00:22:22.880 Um, uh, protection, uh, of minorities, all of it being guaranteed by the military.
00:22:28.800 That was sort of the standard.
00:22:29.960 You'll see it with Nasser in Egypt.
00:22:32.240 People will, uh, remember that sort of thing.
00:22:34.220 So the, the Arab leaders have slowly been cutting out all the Ba'athists. 0.93
00:22:38.180 All the remaining Ba'athists have, uh, been removed. 0.97
00:22:41.100 The United States, of course, is central to this.
00:22:43.560 You know, um, uh, Saddam Hussein was a Ba'athist, you know, um, uh, Assad was one of the, uh, the last of them, if not the, uh, the last of them. 0.87
00:22:53.760 So he, he fell and, uh, his, his, his country, uh, descended into chaos.
00:23:01.000 Um, so, well, I have that not in, in quite the right order.
00:23:07.280 His country descended into chaos.
00:23:09.520 He was propped up by the Russians and, uh, that went fairly well, but, uh, you know, um, compared to how it could have gone.
00:23:18.260 And the issue is that, why were the Russians, uh, propping him up specifically?
00:23:24.560 What was their interest in propping him up?
00:23:26.720 Well, you had the Suez crisis in the fifties.
00:23:29.660 And, uh, at that point, Russia began to get, uh, or the Soviet union, I should say, began to get more involved in the Middle East as a counterbalance there against the West and out of concern for energy and, you know, regional opportunities and influence.
00:23:44.800 And so they became, uh, an ally of, uh, of Syria, uh, in that period.
00:23:53.660 And they had investment, um, uh, indeed, Russia had historically gotten involved, uh, culturally, so to speak in defending Orthodox communities in Syria.
00:24:04.880 So there had been some history of that.
00:24:07.260 Um, but, uh, they were a cold war ally is the, the, the short answer.
00:24:12.360 And so you, you had, uh, during this period of the, uh, the, the Arab spring and the descent of Syria and the greater and greater chaos, you ended up with a de facto partition of the country.
00:24:27.760 Um, and you, uh, so you had, uh, so you had the Kurdish, uh, forces in the, uh, Northeast, you had, uh, uh, Turkish backed forces that came down into, uh, Idlib.
00:24:39.260 Um, you have, uh, the Hezbollah forces that came over from Lebanon.
00:24:44.560 You had Iranian forces there.
00:24:46.460 So the country was sort of carved up into zones.
00:24:49.160 The primary ones being the area where the Syrians with Russian support were able to carve out, um, or, or to restore, uh, control.
00:24:59.220 And then, and that was primarily the coast and, uh, Damascus, um, and then eventually Aleppo.
00:25:06.520 Um, but the, uh, the Kurdish, uh, us backed, uh, Kurdish forces in the Northeast, as I said, took control over the energy and the, the grain, the bread basket essentially of the country.
00:25:17.560 And the Turks pushed down from the North into the area of Idlib and the rest. 0.64
00:25:22.620 And it's very complex picture because the Turks are concerned about the Kurds and fighting with them, but backing militants who are going after the, uh, government in Damascus.
00:25:32.740 Um, and then you have the, uh, the Iranians and the Russians and the remnants of the Syrian government, uh, cooperating in order to hold all of these, uh, people at bay.
00:25:45.760 So what ultimately drove, uh, Western governments to want to see the fall of Bashar al-Assad?
00:25:55.540 Was it just his relationship with Russia?
00:25:58.280 Uh, what, what, what was the overarching desire?
00:26:02.280 I mean, if he's a guy who's at least to some extent providing, uh, you know, uh, a, um, some kind of guidance in a region that otherwise is going to just be a mess no matter what.
00:26:15.100 I mean, what, what, what drove people to want to see that mix up?
00:26:18.760 Well, you know, I think you mentioned Israel, the United States, other, you know, Turkey, you know, who, who all were involved in one to see him go and what specifically, uh, was their motivation?
00:26:29.540 Well, here you get into, uh, uh, a realm of speculation.
00:26:34.000 So, uh, I can make no claims that all of my speculation is accurate.
00:26:38.000 You know, the safe answer is to say Assad was a bad, bad man and he was a dictator. 0.75
00:26:42.880 And so he needed to be brought down in order to make the world safe for democracy.
00:26:48.740 Um, that still is.
00:26:50.340 I've heard that one before.
00:26:51.120 I've heard that before.
00:26:52.100 Yes.
00:26:52.820 Yes.
00:26:53.060 That is the official answer.
00:26:54.600 Now, um, you know, if you want to turn to some of the speculative answers, there are many different flavors and explanations.
00:27:02.380 You know, one of them is that the Qataris had wanted to put a pipeline in that would cross, uh, this territory.
00:27:08.360 And, uh, Assad wanted to be, uh, cut in on it more than they thought he deserved or some such, you know, you will hear that, uh, that, uh, Erdogan in Turkey, uh, is presiding over a resurgent neo Ottoman, um, you know, project.
00:27:26.160 And so he wants to reassert, um, uh, his influence, uh, in, in, in areas that were historically under the control of the Turks.
00:27:36.200 Uh, you will certainly hear that, uh, you know, about things like greater Israel and the, you know, and plan and the idea that Syria had to be brought down as this, uh, this major, uh, enemy of Israel. 0.66
00:27:49.880 Part of this, uh, group, you know, that is called the resistance, which is a rather odd one because you have, uh, Hamas, which is a primary, well, the majority of them are, uh, Sunni Arabs, but you also have, uh, Christians and others who are, you know, Arabs who are, um, you know, Palestinians.
00:28:09.280 Um, but then you have the, uh, the Syrian state, which is a sort of a national socialist state run by an Alawite minority.
00:28:18.600 And then you have, uh, Lebanon, which is, you know, also a sectarian mess, um, with, uh, Shiite Hezbollah.
00:28:26.240 And then you have the 12 or Shiites in Iran. 0.97
00:28:29.560 Um, so that axis had to be broken from an Israeli perspective and, uh, quite dramatically.
00:28:38.660 Uh, just at the end of last year that happened when, um, the forces that had been backed by Turkey that were bottled up in Italy came marching out.
00:28:49.100 And it seemed very strangely that the, uh, the Syrian army, such as it was, uh, just crumpled before the advance of these forces, um, almost inexplicably.
00:29:02.460 And Assad fled to, uh, Russia and, uh, left behind his Alawite co-religionists. 0.99
00:29:10.160 Uh, we are told that his wife was dying of cancer, which, you know, you can imagine that, um, that would, uh, distract a man.
00:29:18.420 Um, so yes, but I'm getting ahead of the primary question.
00:29:23.380 Um, it seems that there was a project to remake the Middle East and that different parties and players involved in that had different motivations.
00:29:30.240 Uh, one last motivation that should be mentioned is a considerable, um, offshore, um, uh, considerable offshore reserves of natural gas.
00:29:41.640 And there is also, uh, uh, uh, quite a bit of oil in Syria.
00:29:46.500 Now, Syria is not a major energy player.
00:29:49.320 Of course, it's been offline.
00:29:50.640 It's been choked, um, you know, by sanctions and the rest for quite some time.
00:29:55.360 So it's, uh, it's not operating at full efficiency, certainly.
00:29:59.980 But were its energy resources to be fully exploited, you would see, you know, they probably got one one hundredth of the, uh, oil that Saudi Arabia does.
00:30:10.580 Um, probably one tenth of the natural gas that Saudi Arabia does, but it's still, you know, these are still resources that are certainly, uh, could be valued in the, uh, billions.
00:30:23.160 Um, but, uh, as I started to say, there's a considerable offshore natural gas, which is only, has been only, uh, which, which was more recently discovered and only recently has, uh, begun to be exploited properly, uh, primarily by the
00:30:40.580 Israel, Lebanon, um, Lebanon, um, there are some disputes with, uh, Lebanon, uh, regarding the territorial waters and whose resources are where, you know, between the Lebanese and the, uh, Israelis.
00:30:52.580 But there's also quite a bit in the way of resources off of the coast of Syria and Russia intervened there, I believe, in order to keep its seat at the table, to keep its, uh, its ports there, of course, and its air base.
00:31:08.500 Uh, but there is going to be considerable energy development there.
00:31:12.320 And when Russia intervened, this was, uh, prior to the war in Ukraine breaking out.
00:31:18.080 This was prior to the energy being shut off, you know, that, uh, formerly had flowed, uh, to Europe.
00:31:24.300 So Russia, excuse me, was, um, concerned to keep a seat at the table in terms of that energy as well, because if there were major energy developments there that they didn't have a piece of, that would cut a major chunk out of their revenue that had been coming from Europe at that time.
00:31:39.720 So you have a very complex game going on off the coast of Syria, which involves the Turks, who everyone should remember, have controlled Northern Cyprus since what, 74, I believe.
00:31:51.000 Um, and, uh, the, the Turks have a strong interest in becoming an energy hub for Europe, excuse me.
00:31:59.240 And so they are, uh, they're interested in that respect.
00:32:02.500 I think the Israelis are interested.
00:32:04.800 Uh, the Israelis were set to begin, uh, uh, energy export project. 0.59
00:32:09.720 To, uh, Europe sometime back, uh, during the prior Trump administration.
00:32:15.600 Uh, and you saw some strangeness with, uh, Turkey and Libya saying that they wanted to, uh, that they would not permit any kind of pipelines to run across the Mediterranean through what they called their territorial waters.
00:32:27.060 And everybody got, uh, uh, quite, um, excited about all of it.
00:32:31.900 The Turks were sending, uh, prospecting ships down into the Mediterranean and saying that they would have to have a piece of this pie.
00:32:38.780 Um, and, uh, then, uh, then Biden came into office and, uh, and shut down the project to, uh, export Israeli gas, uh, to Europe.
00:32:49.140 Now that was not operating, but it was, it was planned and, and Biden shut that program down.
00:32:54.440 I'm probably, um, uh, winding, uh, too far afield here, but the, the, the point is that there's, there's a dimension of this, which involves serious energy plays that will affect, uh, the energy future and energy security of Europe.
00:33:09.560 Uh, and at the time of the Russian intervention, uh, I suspect, uh, this was a part of their calculus as well to remain a part of this picture.
00:33:19.100 Yeah.
00:33:19.620 It sounds like Syria really was just a disaster waiting to happen or was already happening and continues to happen. 1.00
00:33:25.960 You have a country that is inherently unstable due to the artificial divides that were kind of introduced when it was created.
00:33:33.220 It already had a political, uh, in, uh, instability, uh, a politically unstable structure, uh, with many different factions vying for control.
00:33:42.560 On top of this, uh, you have several different major power players, uh, all interested in different, you know, uh, geopolitical concerns, energy concerns, financial concerns, uh, all getting involved.
00:33:57.160 You have the United States funding, some groups, Russia, uh, Turkey, Israel, uh, other Middle Eastern nations.
00:34:04.620 It's just a mess in every single possible sense that one could imagine.
00:34:09.840 Uh, and that's why I kind of started this by saying, uh, sometimes there are no good options.
00:34:14.800 You know, um, we, we like to kind of stare at these scenarios and just be like, okay, you take the George Washington of Syria and you just put them in charge of all the Syrians. 0.99
00:34:26.280 And then you get, uh, you know, the United States of Syria, right?
00:34:30.180 Like, and that, that we often kind of treat political situations as if that is kind of how these things unfold.
00:34:36.200 But the truth is that through a long list of these, you know, different feuds, these different, uh, linguistic and tribal, ethnic, religious, uh, factionalism on top of great power, politics, money, military, all this stuff flowing in and out.
00:34:52.200 But, uh, you're, you, this is always going to be a cluster, um, no, no, no, no matter what it feels like.
00:34:58.560 So Bashar al-Assad is gone.
00:35:01.600 Uh, a lot of people are seeing the aftermath. 0.77
00:35:04.320 Um, I guess I can ask you the, the dumb question and then hopefully move to the, to, to maybe the more nuanced question. 0.97
00:35:11.420 The dumb question is, is it any better or is it any worse? 0.95
00:35:15.160 Or is that even something we could determine, uh, you know, kind of post, uh, Bashar al-Assad's fall? 0.95
00:35:20.440 Is it less stable, more stable, uh, you know, or just a different type of instability?
00:35:25.780 Uh, and then, uh, on top of that, you know, what, what are the dynamics inside new Syria?
00:35:32.280 Uh, what, what, what are the major players there?
00:35:34.540 Who's in charge now?
00:35:36.020 What are their interests?
00:35:36.920 Who are they tied to?
00:35:37.720 When I found out my friend got a great deal on a designer dress from Winners, I started wondering, is every fabulous item I see from Winners?
00:35:47.020 Like that woman over there with the Italian leather handbag, is that from Winners? 1.00
00:35:51.280 Ooh, or that beautiful silk skirt, did she pay full price? 1.00
00:35:55.040 Or those suede sneakers?
00:35:56.620 Or that luggage?
00:35:57.720 Or that trench?
00:35:58.860 Those jeans?
00:35:59.540 That jacket?
00:36:00.280 Those heels? 1.00
00:36:00.880 Is anyone paying full price for anything?
00:36:04.220 Stop wondering.
00:36:05.400 Start winning.
00:36:06.320 Winners.
00:36:06.880 Find fabulous.
00:36:07.720 Best for less.
00:36:09.640 Okay.
00:36:10.340 Well, I, um, yes.
00:36:12.820 Start wherever you want with that long list of complicated things.
00:36:16.020 Oh, no worries.
00:36:16.980 Uh, well, one, I just wanted to add one other thing that, that makes this a recipe or has made it a recipe for disaster is that each of these different foreign, um, but each of these different countries that has intervened through history or the empire in the case of the Ottomans, um, they each went to a particular population.
00:36:36.640 And worked with that population and worked with that population and worked with that population, and the other populations, of course, remember.
00:36:41.140 Uh, so, uh, you know, uh, you know, uh, you know, the, the majority Sunni Arabs, remember the French coming in and helping out the Christians and the Alawites, right?
00:36:49.960 The minority populations, uh, the minority populations, remember the Ottomans coming in, right? 0.51
00:36:53.300 So, uh, or, you know, Russians helping out the Orthodox population or, uh, people thinking about how the Druze have relatively good relations with the Israelis.
00:37:03.520 Or in some cases, because a lot of these things break down by tribe, uh, and clan affiliation as well.
00:37:10.120 Um, so that's just another aspect of resentment and simmering, you know, dissatisfaction that was unleashed with all of this.
00:37:18.220 Um, in terms of whether or not it's better, uh, I'm not a Syrian, and while I lived in the region for six years right nearby in Turkey, I've never been to Syria.
00:37:29.280 But, uh, I can say that, uh, following the different, um, uh, people who, uh, discuss such things, um, one of whom is, uh, Kevork Al-Masiyan Siriana Analysis, if anyone is interested.
00:37:45.600 Um, his, his, uh, his information is good, but of course it's very, uh, colored. 1.00
00:37:51.060 Um, he has his own take.
00:37:52.740 I'm not endorsing all of that, but he's, uh, about the best source of information.
00:37:57.300 If you're prepared to understand those biases, uh, that's out there, um, in English, I believe he's, uh, he's an Armenian living in, uh, Germany, but he's from Syria and follows the situation pretty closely.
00:38:10.700 So for example, if you listen to someone like him, talk about it, um, under the Ba'athist regime of the Assads, they didn't want trouble.
00:38:19.340 They wanted trouble shut down, uh, and they hammered it where, uh, they could when they found out about it.
00:38:26.240 Um, so, you know, you hear, uh, about these people being raised in a more or less secular situation, at least from the perspective of the government, because they had so many communities.
00:38:38.400 So, you know, one, uh, video I was watching recently, the guy who was a Syrian Christian was talking to an Armenian Syrian Christian, uh, and they were discussing how, you know, they could, uh, finish up their sports practice at the end of the day and drink some water even during Ramadan.
00:38:55.840 Now, of course, for the Muslims, you're not supposed to have anything past your lips, uh, during the period of fast, you know, from sunrise to sunset during the day. 1.00
00:39:03.680 Um, and, you know, he would say that, yeah, there would be Muslims there.
00:39:09.400 They couldn't drink after the sports practice, but he would drink water and there wouldn't be a problem.
00:39:13.180 Whereas now they have, uh, Turkmen militia or whatever, um, or Tajiks or whatever, um, marching through the streets, uh, keeping order in, uh, Syria today.
00:39:26.680 And, you know, giving people a very hard time or threatening them with violence or engaging in violence with them.
00:39:33.080 If they see them, you know, uh, uh, breaking their fast during the period of Ramadan, that's another point that I should have made earlier.
00:39:40.040 Many of these Turkish backed fighters, they're essentially, um, mercenary forces that have been brought in from many other places.
00:39:47.780 So the Syrians already have a very mixed population as we've discussed, but many of these Turkish fighters, they're from Tajikistan.
00:39:55.880 They're from Kazakhstan, they're Uyghurs. 1.00
00:39:58.660 Um, so you have an even more sort of international force, um, with its own groupings and affiliations, because these are all tribal peoples.
00:40:10.160 So even if you bring them in as a Turkish backed force, they're going to sort of clump up in their own ways with their own interests under their own leaders in their own territories and start to play, uh, the game that they always play. 0.73
00:40:22.240 So making the Spanish civil war look, uh, look pretty simple by comparison.
00:40:27.320 Yeah.
00:40:27.560 Sorry.
00:40:27.900 Well, yeah, actually in terms of, I don't know, the Spanish civil war is pretty, pretty crazy, but yeah.
00:40:34.740 Yeah.
00:40:35.020 Um, so I, I, my impression is that it's, uh, not just worse, but very, very much worse.
00:40:41.480 And, uh, I, I don't recommend that people, unless you have a very strong stomach and don't mind seeing violence and death, um, not pretend, um, you know, I don't recommend that people go and watch these videos, but the videos that have been circulating, uh, showing, uh, the violence that's going on in the coastal regions.
00:41:01.400 Because they suggest very strongly that it's, uh, it's not better.
00:41:06.640 Now there is perhaps some hope, uh, in the future for the situation to improve, certainly economically, uh, right as these, uh, this, this violence was going on on the coast.
00:41:19.640 And I should say, it's not clear what's happening there.
00:41:21.560 Somebody like, uh, um, what, what's her name?
00:41:25.620 The, uh, the foreign minister now in the EU who comes from one of the, the Baltic Kayakalas, I want to say, uh, she put out a tweet saying that the violence was being perpetrated by pro Assad forces.
00:41:37.800 Assad left, he fled and he left his fellow Alawites to hold the bag. 0.98
00:41:43.260 I don't think there are any pro Assad forces there.
00:41:45.380 Uh, there are Alawites who are concerned about their future, who have fled, for example, to Russian bases in order not to be killed in the streets.
00:41:54.160 It's not clear what happened there.
00:41:56.400 The, the, the claim on the part of the people on the coast, um, I'm sorry, the claim regarding the situation on the coast made by the people in power is that pro Assad militias have been attacking people and they had to go and restore order.
00:42:11.720 And of course there was violence.
00:42:13.020 Um, but, uh, there's violence and it's bad and, uh, lots of people are being killed, uh, men, women, children.
00:42:24.200 Um, so it's, uh, it's very bad scene.
00:42:27.340 It seems that, uh, there is some hope for the future, but it's probably going to get worse before it gets better.
00:42:35.200 At the time that that violence was going on, uh, because it now has wound down, uh, considerably, um, you know, at this moment, um, I believe Britain, uh, lifted its sanctions.
00:42:48.200 Right.
00:42:49.200 Right.
00:42:49.220 As this violence was going on on the coast with the, the killing of minorities, uh, Britain lifted its economic sanctions.
00:42:55.840 Uh, if that's, that's my understanding.
00:42:58.400 Um, and you just had a major agreement signed, you know, one of the big questions about what's going to happen in the future, what the situation, uh, how, how the situation is going to unfold.
00:43:09.860 It, the big question has to do with these Turkish backed forces who've seized control, their, uh, Sunni, right. 0.99
00:43:20.940 And the Turks have a big problem with the Kurds.
00:43:24.600 Uh, so you have, uh, and have had for quite some time, uh, fighting between Turkish backed forces and U S backed Kurdish forces, which has always been kind of a head scratcher because you've got these two NATO countries who are, uh, you know, engaged in a conflict.
00:43:39.080 Uh, by proxy.
00:43:41.060 So one of the big questions has been, well, how is that going to get worked out?
00:43:44.460 And what's the picture for the future of Syria?
00:43:46.860 Because if something, if the Kurds aren't driven out, then you've got a problem because they control the energy and the farmland. 1.00
00:43:54.680 Um, but if, um, but you know, if you go after them to try to drive them out, then, then Turkey and the United States are, uh, more, uh, at odds.
00:44:04.540 So everybody's been wondering what's going to happen.
00:44:06.800 And then there has been violence up until just, you know, a few days ago, ongoing violence.
00:44:11.320 This is sort of attacks by, uh, Turkish backed forces against the SDF or, you know, primarily Kurdish, uh, coalition forces.
00:44:19.780 And they've been going at it around, uh, Manbij and in some, uh, other places.
00:44:25.180 So just here on the 10th, uh, there was, uh, so just, you know, two days ago, you find my list of what, uh, what's covered in it.
00:44:35.560 There was an agreement, um, this was, uh, signed between the, uh, the Kurdish led Syrian democratic forces and the Syrian national army, which is, you know, now controlled, uh, by these HTS guys and the rest who are, uh, Turkish backed.
00:44:51.760 So this was, uh, signed, as I said, March 10th.
00:44:55.000 And, uh, it, it basically covers, uh, a number of points, uh, one, and I'm pulling this, uh, Kevok Al-Massian talked about this recently on his channel.
00:45:08.660 It's most of the resources out there don't go into all of the points that were signed.
00:45:14.840 Uh, he speaks, uh, Arabic of course, and, uh, summarize them.
00:45:18.640 So I'm pulling this list from him.
00:45:20.380 Uh, the first point is there's a guarantee of equal rights.
00:45:23.780 All Syrians have a right, uh, to representation and participation in the political process, uh, and inclusion in state institutions, irrespective of their religious or ethnic background.
00:45:33.140 Now this is, you know, coming right on the heels of, uh, minorities being killed on the coast.
00:45:39.400 Of course, uh, number two, recognition of the Kurdish community with full citizenship, uh, that they're an integral part of the state, their rights are guaranteed.
00:45:47.860 So that makes it seem like they're avoiding a partition.
00:45:52.080 Uh, they call for a full national ceasefire.
00:45:55.160 So you can imagine if only two days ago, there was a, uh, document signed between the Kurds and, uh, the new government that they're calling for a full national ceasefire as of two days ago.
00:46:06.640 It's probably not that stable there.
00:46:08.800 The fourth point was integration of civilian and military structures under state administration, uh, safe return of displaced Syrians, uh, ensured a safe return with state protection.
00:46:20.940 Uh, and they call for defense and security coordination, uh, they say to combat Assad's militias again, Assad left.
00:46:29.760 I don't think he's a popular, um, among any of the, uh, Alawites at this point.
00:46:34.840 And, uh, lastly, rejection of division and hate speech, all forms of sectarianism, ethnic division, uh, and incitement of violence, uh, and hatred.
00:46:44.240 And all of this is in theory supposed to be implemented by the end of 2025.
00:46:49.200 Um, whether or not that's going to happen, I don't know.
00:46:54.320 Um, you know, some of the analysts are saying that, uh, HTS, uh, Al Jalani now called Al Sharad, the new government, that they were forced to, uh, sign this agreement because of what's going on on the coast.
00:47:08.400 Uh, that they would, uh, that they would, uh, very likely otherwise want to, um, get more out of the deal that would need to be made with the Kurds than they're getting here. 0.74
00:47:20.040 If any of this holds, uh, but the suggestion is that they need to stop fighting each other in order to deal with the instability on the coast now.
00:47:30.000 Uh, so that should provide some sort of picture of, you know, whether I think it's better now.
00:47:37.520 It certainly doesn't seem to be, uh, it seems to be awful though.
00:47:41.520 It's been awful for years and the United States probably played the leading role in imposing all of this, whether covertly, uh, through, you know, intelligence games.
00:47:53.000 And bringing in mercenary forces or things like operation timber, sycamore, uh, delivering weapons so that, you know, you've got plenty of sparks to, to make the gas, you know, go up in flames, uh, or, uh, or overtly through sanctions and onerous sanctions have been placed on Syria for quite some time.
00:48:13.220 Uh, you know, at the, you know, people talk about how, you know, military officers were making like $7 a month, uh, at the time that those militants came marching out of Idlib and took over the government.
00:48:24.980 So it's been a terrible situation as for the future.
00:48:28.280 The speculation is that something is going to be worked out, uh, between the United States, Russia, uh, and Israel.
00:48:38.220 Uh, one of the big questions after all this went down was whether or not the Russians were going to keep their, uh, air base at Hamein, I believe it is.
00:48:47.820 Um, anyway, on the coast, there's a major air base, uh, and there is also, uh, a port.
00:48:53.660 The only one that I'm aware of that Russia has, uh, at present in the Mediterranean and, you know, for, uh, repairs and, um, refueling and supply.
00:49:03.940 Um, the question was whether they were going to be able to keep, keep those.
00:49:08.320 And it seemed like they would very likely be pushed out.
00:49:12.200 Uh, oddly enough, that hasn't happened.
00:49:14.400 Turkey apparently, uh, must, uh, be willing to have them stay there, which makes sense because the Turks are developing themselves as an energy hub.
00:49:25.540 Um, they're a Black Sea neighbor of, uh, Russia.
00:49:29.680 Uh, you know, they, they actually, despite NATO and, you know, posturing and the conflict in Syria, the, the Turks want to maintain, uh, good relations with Russia.
00:49:38.580 So there's that.
00:49:39.560 The Israelis have also apparently called for, uh, the Russians to stay because they want some, uh, they want another player there to stabilize things.
00:49:49.600 Um, or at least to have, uh, another center of gravity in a place that's as, uh, fractious and disunited as Syria. 0.86
00:49:58.280 There's also aspects of the energy game going on there as well.
00:50:02.340 Um, because, uh, without Russia there, uh, having something to do with developing the offshore resources of Syria, um, Turkey would have a much stronger hand.
00:50:14.960 Because they're right there, uh, both with the Southern, uh, projecting part of the, the country right there.
00:50:21.320 Um, the former Sanjak of Alexandretta, as well as, uh, the North, uh, North Cyprus, uh, Northern Cyprus.
00:50:29.340 It puts them in a very good position to, for example, having, uh, offshore gas liquefaction facilities, you know, really get involved in that.
00:50:37.700 And I believe in the future, Israel is going to want to do quite a bit more of that, uh, because if they can, um, develop their energy resources, then they're in a situation where, you know, they don't have to, they, they don't suffer from the insecurity, the fear of having their energy supplies cut off.
00:50:54.660 And at the same time, they gain, uh, a lucrative export.
00:50:58.140 So, uh, it seems that something is going to be worked out along those lines in future, uh, perhaps this, uh, this business of the agreement that was signed between, uh, the, the new government and the Kurds is, uh, is a signal, uh, that that's, um, on the horizon.
00:51:17.500 Yeah, it's, uh, as you've laid out here in quite a bit of detail and still have only really touched the tip of that iceberg, it's a very complicated situation, uh, one that unfortunately sounds like it's not going to see rapid improvement, um, and is going to continue, uh, to be playground of greater powers, uh, for quite a long time.
00:51:40.420 Um, uh, so no, no immediate solutions here, but I think a good primer for many people who were probably not aware of the dynamics there, the level of complexity, the different players involved.
00:51:51.540 So definitely very grateful for you coming on and breaking that down for us, Oliver.
00:51:56.900 We've got a few questions from the audience before we get to them.
00:52:00.540 Can you tell people where to find your work?
00:52:03.840 Is there any project coming up that you want to make people aware of?
00:52:07.840 Uh, no specific projects coming up.
00:52:10.420 Uh, but you can find me on my channel on YouTube.
00:52:13.700 Uh, it's called semi-a-gog.
00:52:15.460 It's also mirrored to, uh, bit shoot and odyssey in places like this.
00:52:19.960 Um, and also, uh, you can find me on Twitter where, or, uh, X, sorry.
00:52:25.540 Uh, where I am also on the same name, Twitter indeed.
00:52:30.320 And I should add, keep your eyes on the horizon for the possibility of partition, because what's happened is a de facto partition.
00:52:38.660 A lot of people say, well, it might be partitioned in the future.
00:52:41.180 It's, it's partitioned now.
00:52:43.820 And it serves, uh, certainly Israel's interests, probably another, uh, a number of other countries in the region's interest for it to, uh, be parceled out.
00:52:53.760 And, you know, the Turks would very likely, um, want a piece of it.
00:52:57.780 Uh, the Kurds want their own autonomous region.
00:53:00.000 And so just the last thing to throw in there.
00:53:03.680 Yes.
00:53:04.680 Yeah, no, I, I, again, it's, it's the political realities on the ground and the things that are willing to be acknowledged by the wider international community can be very different.
00:53:14.620 So it may be technically a country somewhere, but as you point out, already experiencing those partitions and, and forces may only drive it more in that direction.
00:53:25.900 All right.
00:53:26.600 Mongoose here says a real multiculturalism on full display. 0.93
00:53:31.240 Very much so.
00:53:32.500 Very much so.
00:53:33.320 And, uh, this is something that I think it becomes increasingly important.
00:53:36.920 You know, the, the question of what is America is starting to pop up quite a bit now.
00:53:42.540 Um, and, uh, as we address that, I think having a long historical view of nationhood identity, uh, the, the differentiation between nation and state, the dynamics that might be in play there are all very critical.
00:53:57.540 Uh, understanding there's a reason that, you know, many political thinkers throughout history were not a fan of multiculturalism because it usually, uh, leads on,
00:54:06.920 unfortunately to, uh, really terrible outcomes as we're seeing now.
00:54:10.400 Uh, and, uh, so yeah, it turns out diversity, not, not so much the strength in Syria or anywhere else.
00:54:17.420 Uh, let's see here.
00:54:18.820 It creates a essentially no-go zones, you know, the, the, the millet aspect I was talking about where you have certain cities or regions or even neighborhoods, you know, the result of, um, sort of de-territorialization at the level of the nation state is an attempt to
00:54:36.620 to reimpose it wherever one can, whether that's, uh, Puerto Ricans and, uh, Irish, you know, um, fighting over turf or, uh, or, or, uh, you know, Muslims in Malmo, Sweden, or, uh, or, you know, Rotherham, you, you have these places that become, well, it's balkanization.
00:54:59.880 It really is.
00:55:00.940 And so that, that aspect of the millet, uh, is, is, is one that bears thinking about it.
00:55:07.960 I hope, uh, more people on our side of things, uh, will consider it.
00:55:11.740 I did, uh, a video with, uh, Apostolic Majesty.
00:55:14.740 He's got a channel, uh, going into, uh, history and the rest where we look at this idea of imperial diversity and these, uh, populations.
00:55:23.580 For those of you out there who are interested in, um, you know, digging into the history of it, um, going back, you know, to the Ottoman period and the rest, I recommend that.
00:55:33.900 Yeah.
00:55:34.320 I think a lot of people look at American, the American experience and they're like, well, you know, my, uh, you know, my Dutch ancestors moved over here.
00:55:42.840 And then these Germanic, you know, ancestors moved over here in the United States and they didn't start knife fighting each other.
00:55:48.980 So it'll all work out, right?
00:55:50.320 We can just move everyone from everywhere in here.
00:55:53.060 And as long as, you know, they raise their hand and, uh, you know, they, they give the oath of allegiance five years after, uh, touching, uh, the soil, everything will be fine.
00:56:02.460 And there won't be any problems.
00:56:03.640 Uh, and they don't recognize, uh, the very dangerous game that you're playing by setting up these ethnic enclaves across your country. 1.00
00:56:11.180 Uh, you're right to point out that this is, uh, something we're seeing in the UK.
00:56:14.580 We're seeing it in Sweden.
00:56:15.680 We're seeing it all over.
00:56:16.560 Um, and, uh, people who are running around being like, we're a propositional nation.
00:56:21.420 We're different.
00:56:22.020 We just get people to believe the same thing.
00:56:23.900 And it solves these problems.
00:56:24.720 They're playing a very dangerous game.
00:56:26.680 Uh, just to be really frank, like they're, they are playing with the future of their children.
00:56:31.020 They're playing with the future of their religion.
00:56:32.900 They're playing with the future of their people.
00:56:35.060 Uh, you know, trying to blind themselves to this reality of, of kind of the human dynamic.
00:56:40.040 Uh, count Arthur says, uh, people in nation states think democracy and freedom are the same thing.
00:56:47.800 But if you are surrounded by hostile majorities, democracy feels like tyranny.
00:56:52.840 Yeah.
00:56:53.120 And again, this was, uh, Lee Kuan Yew's point about democracy, right?
00:56:56.840 When you have a multi-ethnic, multi-religious democracy, you don't vote principles or abstract ideas. 0.97
00:57:02.560 You vote your religion and you vote your race, right? 0.96
00:57:05.300 And that's unfortunately when a lot of people walk around and they're just like, well, we'll give democracy.
00:57:09.660 And that generates self-determination.
00:57:11.640 Well, when you hand self-determination over to a bunch of people who are involved in ethnic tribal conflict, guess what they determine?
00:57:18.520 They should get rid of the other guy, right? 0.96
00:57:20.440 They should be able to, to rule over, oppress, uh, you know, uh, pillage, uh, rape and destroy the, the other guy. 0.99
00:57:27.100 And so in many of these nations, handing them democracy, as we understand it, doesn't generate freedom.
00:57:33.320 Uh, it generates a looting phase in which, uh, one minority or one majority figures out how to kind of rule over or destroy the others.
00:57:44.580 All right, guys, we're going to go ahead and wrap this up.
00:57:48.040 Thank you everybody for watching.
00:57:49.480 Of course, you should most certainly be checking out Oliver's work.
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00:58:23.720 Thank you everybody for watching.
00:58:24.980 And as always, I will talk to you next time.