This is a conversation with professor Marwa Daoudy, associate professor at Georgetown University and the author of the recently published book The Origins of the Syrian Conflict: Climate Change and Human Security.
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Topics Discussed:
- Climate change did not cause the Syrian revolution, despite this narrative continuing to dominate in many circles, and why this deterministic narrative strips away the agency of Syrian revolutionaries
- The ‘securitization’ of language, how refugees and migrants going to global north countries are treated through militarized language, and how calling them ‘climate migrants’ can be problematic
- How did the pre-2011 drought affect the uprising, if at all?
- Bashar Al-Assad urban/rural divide and conquer strategy
- Assad’s neoliberal reforms and their impacts on water and food politics
- The role of ideology (baathism, neoliberalism etc) in Syria
- The issue of ‘state security’ rhetoric and how a Human-Environmental-Climate Security (HECS) framework can help understand reality better
- The relationship between the World Bank and the Syrian regime
- Neo-Malthusian politics and its presence in international politics
- Europe’s extractivist economies and the complicity in scapegoating ‘climate migrants’
- The idea of ‘climate security’ and why it’s problematic
Book Recommendations:
- Steppenwolf by Herman Hesse
- Martin Eden by Jack London
- The Crossing by Samar Yazbeck
- The Impossible Revolution by Yassin Haj-Saleh
- The Shell by Mustafa Khalifa
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Music by Tarabeat.
