The Lede

A Tunisia Without Ennahda? — with Monica Marks and Erin Clare Brown

Two years after his 2021 power grab, Tunisian President Kais Saied is still struggling to consolidate his rule. His appeal to supporters was largely predicated on his promises to fix the country’s economic crisis — a promise he has failed catastrophically to deliver on. And yet despite rising inflation and shortages of basic goods, no coherent opposition has managed to emerge.
Monica Marks, an assistant professor of Middle East politics at New York University Abu Dhabi, has been a keen observer of Tunisian politics for over a decade. “I think if we're going to really understand Saied’s ‘self-coup’ in 2021, what led to it and whether or not Tunisia can return to some sort of democratic path, we have to grapple with the so-called ‘Ennahda problem,’” she tells New Lines magazine’s Erin Clare Brown.
Ennahda is Tunisia’s Islamist party. After the Arab Spring swept away the regime of Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, the party emerged as the new democracy’s foremost political force. But the optimism of the revolution soon gave way to disappointment. It was in the face of corruption and economic woes that many Tunisians turned to a demagogue like Saied. “They claimed that Ennahda was primarily or even single-handedly responsible for the country's failures to make good on its revolutionary promises of 2011,” says Marks. 
Likewise, many secular Tunisians fear that the party’s relatively moderate platform is a front for a more sinister agenda. They point to Erdogan in Turkey, whose stated commitment to secularism fell away the moment it became unnecessary. In Marks’ view, “When a lot of people remember that and say, well, listen, there's no reason to think Ennahda wouldn't do the same thing.”
But whatever reservations the opposition may have about working with Islamists, they may have to if they want to challenge Saied’s autocratic rule. “Do I think that there's a future for democratic politics in Tunisia without Ennahda? Absolutely not,” says Marks. “The fact remains that Ennahda is the only political party that can mobilize big numbers on the streets.” Without a broad united front, the dream of the 2011 revolution may well be dead for good.
“Exiting dictatorship relies on building cross-ideological opposition coalitions,” she adds. “There is strength in unity.”
Produced by Joshua Martin and Erin Clare Brown

The Nomad State — with Marie Favereau and Faisal Al Yafai

For most of human history, settled people have lived in fear of conquest by their powerful nomadic neighbors. Most powerful of all was the Mongol Empire, which brought most of Eurasia under their rule for almost 300 years. But in this second episode on nomads, Marie Favereau, a historian at Paris Nanterre University, says that the Mongols have been either neglected by history or unfairly represented as mindlessly destructive barbarians. Her book, “The Horde: How the Mongols Changed the World,” was written to change all that.
The use of the word horde, she says, was quite intentional, given the negative connotations associated with the word today: “It's a very old word especially in Asian culture and Indo-Asian languages,” she tells New Lines magazine’s Faisal Al Yafai. “The word itself means an organized nomadic state. I think it's important to think about the words we use and, you know, how we can change the meaning.”
Historians have to put their bias aside and be fair in examining the record, she says, which can help us start to see the benefits and rationale behind the Mongols’ decisions. And there are lessons we can learn from the Mongols about how to strike a balance in our relationship to the natural environment and how to combat xenophobia: So long as they swore allegiance to the khan, the Mongols didn’t attempt to force their religion or way of life on their subjects.
But Favereau rejects any romanticized view of nomadic living.
“I know how difficult nomadic life can be. So the idea is not to say, ‘Oh, this is the ideal way of living.” Instead, when looking at past nomadic empires like the Mongols — and nomadic societies still in existence today — we can begin to envision different possibilities for living and doing today.
“It's important to know that it was not always like this,” she says.
Produced by Joshua Martin and Christin El-Kholy

How 2022 Changed the World (and What to Expect From 2023)

In this special episode, New Lines magazine’s Joshua Martin looks back at some of the key events of 2022 and how we tried to make sense of it all on The Lede. 
The Russian invasion of Ukraine was, for many, the defining story of 2022. A year on, it’s easy to forget how shocked the world was when Vladimir Putin’s forces pushed across the border and along the road to Kyiv. But even in those first weeks, many signs already hinted at the direction the war would take. As Ukraine pushed back, the extent of the rot in the Russian armed forces became increasingly clear, as did the evidence of atrocities against civilians. 
But while Ukraine dominated headlines, conflicts elsewhere went increasingly ignored. In Ethiopia, the central government’s wars in the regions of Tigray and Oromia were fought with no less brutality than the war in Ukraine. In the face of the international community’s apathy, peace seemed a distant prospect. And yet in November, government and Tigrayan forces did manage to reach a peace agreement. The war in Oromia, however, appears only to be intensifying. 
 
The year 2022 also marked a historic anniversary — a century since the fall of the Ottoman Empire. For better or for worse, its rise, 600-year reign and ultimate collapse left an undeniable mark on the vast swathe of territories it once ruled. The Empire might be gone, but its legacy remains, serving as a reminder that the past is never really past. Similarly, the death of Queen Elizabeth II in September was another perfect case in point, pulling 70 years’ worth of history into the public consciousness and provoking fierce debates across the Commonwealth about what that history meant. 
Such battles over history have become increasingly prominent in recent years, and 2022 continued that trend. For strongmen like Putin, Ethiopia’s Ahmed Abiy and others, these battles have proved to be a crucial part of their political strategy. In an age in which old certainties about history, identity and nation no longer hold firm, such autocrats and would-be autocrats offer a seductive promise: to turn back the clock to a simpler time. 
If the past year is anything to go by, 2023 will be anything but. 
 

When Reality Is a Lie — with Lea Ypi and Faisal Al Yafai [Rebroadcast]

[This episode originally aired August 5, 2022]What if you woke up one morning to discover everything you knew about the world was wrong? That all the truths you’d been taught to take for granted were actually lies? For author and political philosopher Lea Ypi, that’s not a hypothetical question. In her recent memoir “Free: Coming of Age at the End of History,” she tells the story of growing up in communist Albania only for the regime to collapse during her teenage years. 
“It really was like being taught a new language,” she tells New Lines’ Faisal Al Yafai on The Lede. “Almost overnight, you’re told that all of these names that you had for things are now different—you have different names and different categories and different ways of making sense of the world.”
They talk about how to see the gap between ideology and reality, where people look for certainty in uncertain times and what it actually means to be free. 
Produced by Joshua Martin & Christin El Kholy

How Christmas Conquered the World

For this special Christmas episode of “The Lede,” New Lines magazine’s Ola Salem, Maysa Mustafa, Amie Ferris-Rotman and Surbhi Gupta gather ’round the mic with host and producer Joshua Martin to talk about the worldwide rise of Christmas and whether it’s outgrowing its Christian roots — before finishing off with our traditional holiday quiz. 

Exposing Corruption in Putin’s Russia ⁠— w⁠⁠ith Bill Browder and Amie Ferris Rotman

Nearly 10 months into Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, it seems crystal clear that there is no turning back to placing Russia on the global stage in either business or politics in the way it once was.
Bill Browder, author of two books about Russia (including his latest, “Freezing Order”) and CEO of Hermitage Capital Management, was once one of the largest foreign investors in Russia and has seen the country go through pivotal changes before. But during his time in Russia, massive corruption was revealed in some of the companies that Hermitage had invested in. Browder knew he couldn’t continue to turn a blind eye to what the oligarchs and corrupt officials were doing.
“So I started to do what are known as naming and shaming campaigns, where we would research how these people went about doing the stealing, and then share the research with the international media,” he tells New Lines magazine’s Amie Ferris-Rotman. By 2005, Browder had been expelled from Russia after having his offices raided and being declared a threat to national security. 
One young Russian lawyer named Sergei Magnitsky investigated the raids, reporting on the subsequent $230 million fraud involving Russian tax officials. In retaliation, Magnitsky was arrested, tortured for 358 days and beaten to death in Russian police custody. This tragedy marked a pivotal moment in Browder’s life and a turning point in his career. “I've made it my life's work to go after the people who killed him to make sure they face justice. I can use these skills to try to help all of these new victims as best as I can.” One result is the Magnitsky Act, which freezes the assets and bans the visas of human rights violators. It became law in the U.S. in 2012, and 35 other countries have since adopted its standards. 
Browder continues working tirelessly to expose the web of corruption among Russian leadership. “There's two ways you can fight the Russians: You can fight them with tanks, which I have no expertise in, and you can fight them in the banks. And I'm one of the people who knows more about this than just about anybody.”
It’s easy to see why today Browder is one of the Kremlin's biggest enemies and a thorn in Vladimir Putin’s side. 
 
According to Browder, there’s still plenty of corruption left to uncover, not least of which stems  from Putin himself. He calls the war in Ukraine “a war of distraction,” aimed at redirecting the potential backlash over this to a foreign enemy. “There’s nothing new about this. Dictators have done this, you know, through eons.” And the West ought to bear responsibility for enabling Putin, if not encouraging him. Now the sanctions are too little, too late.
“This is probably the biggest misconception that most Western policymakers and politicians have: that there is some kind of end game, that there's a negotiated settlement,” Browder says. “That if Putin gets X and Y, he'll be happy. And then we can all go and live in peace. But I don't believe there's any chance whatsoever of a negotiated settlement.” 
Produced by Joshua Martin and Christin El-kholy

Zimbabwe’s Not-So-Secret Dictatorship — with Tsitsi Dangarembga

“We want better. Reform our institutions.” 
Those were the words on Tsitsi Dangarembga’s placard when she was arrested in July 2020 for a peaceful protest against Zimbabwe’s government. Recently she was convicted on a charge of inciting public violence for that act. And yet, the award-winning novelist, playwright, poet and filmmaker— named one of the Top 25 Most Influential Women of 2022 by the Financial Times — hesitates to label herself as an activist.
“I do not call myself an activist, but I call myself somebody who believes in citizen engagement as a responsible citizen of the country,” she tells New Lines magazine’s Kwangu Liwewe. “I think that is an idea that they simply do not want to prevail in Zimbabwe. They cannot afford to have increasing numbers of Zimbabweans thinking of themselves as responsible citizens who need to be engaged.”
Dangarembga is referring to what she calls Zimbabwe’s current military dictatorship, which came to power after November 2017, when Robert Mugabe was removed and replaced by Emmerson Mnangagwa as president and party leader of ZANU-PF. While Dangarembga is resolute in her view of those events, she recognizes that not all Zimbabweans share her interpretation. To her, this signals the skill with which the military manipulated the narrative, getting people out into the streets to celebrate the coup.
“Zimbabweans will debate anything from here to heaven,” she contends. “They were able to pretend it was not a coup. But what happened was a coup.”
While she recognizes that the economic situation in Zimbabwe is dire—and much worse now than during Mugabe’s time—she argues that this is not due to mismanagement, as some might suggest. Rather, it is a deliberate attempt to force Zimbabweans to rely on the ZANU-PF for basic survival resources. So why haven’t the Zimbabweans revolted? It has nothing to do with weakness, says Dangaremba.
“Zimbabweans are afraid that if they go against the government, the military will retaliate. I think that Zimbabweans have been so oppressed that they are no longer able to access the necessary agency. Yet they are the ultimate power.”
Produced by Joshua Martin and Christin El-Kholy

The Cold War Afterlife of Nazi Spies — with Danny Orbach and Faisal Al Yafai

Otto Skorzeny was the Waffen SS commando behind some of Nazi Germany’s most significant special operations. When Mussolini’s government fell, it was Skorzeny’s team who were parachuted into Italy to rescue the dictator. At the end of the war he was detained by Allied forces and awaited a denazification trial.
But Skorzeny’s story didn’t end there. He escaped prison and fled to Franco’s Spain before continuing his career in the shadowy world of Cold War intelligence. He became a military adviser to the Spanish, Egyptian and Argentinian governments, and spent time as a bodyguard for Argentina’s first lady, Eva Peron. Over the course of his post-war career, he worked for the CIA, West German intelligence and even Israel’s Mossad. 
“As a CIA official wrote after the war, old intelligence hands are always attracted back to the job they know best,” says Danny Orbach, a historian at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and the author of “Fugitives: A History of Nazi Mercenaries During the Cold War.” This is why, he tells New Lines Magazine's Faisal Al Yafai, Skorzeny and those like him ended up as mercenaries, informants and spies. 
And there were many like him. “The vast majority of Nazi criminals either got off with meager  punishments, or just escaped completely unharmed,” Orbach says. As the Second World War ended and the Cold War began, intelligence services on both sides of the Iron Curtain quickly shifted their priorities from hunting down Nazi war criminals to recruiting them, in hopes of getting some sort of advantage over their new adversaries. “People are very, very quick about forgetting past hatreds when a new enemy comes on the agenda,” Orbach remarks. 
This, he explains, was why so many agencies were willing to work with such men — some of whom, like Alois Brunner or Klaus Barbie, were personally responsible for hundreds of thousands of killings during the Holocaust. The calculus was as simple as it was cynical: “What's more important: the past or the future?”
“The condemnation usually comes after there is no longer a practical need in employing them,” he adds.
Produced by Joshua Martin & Christin El-Kholy

Truth, Lies and Democracy — with Sophia Rosenfeld and Faisal Al Yafai

In an age defined by disinformation, it has become almost a cliche to talk about “post-truth politics.” But while truth has been the media's foremost concern in the era of "fake news," there has been surprisingly little reflection on what it actually means in the first place. We're exhorted to defend it from authoritarian leaders and conspiracy theorists alike, yet we seldom consider what precisely it is that we’re defending. But Sophia Rosenfeld, a historian at the University of Pennsylvania, certainly has. 
 
“Truth is definitely a slippery idea,” she tells New Lines Magazine's Faisal Al Yafai. “The way truth works, especially in democratic settings, is that we don't authorize any one person, or one institution, or even one method, say, as the way to know something. That is wonderful in certain ways. But of course, it also makes knowing anything very messy.”
 
But while the truth may never have been as certain as many like to imagine, today’s degree of polarization nevertheless poses a new and dire challenge.“To have a good debate, we have to first agree that there's a problem,” says Rosenfeld. “If we can't even agree on something like the unemployment rate, democracy starts to fall apart.”
 
“The law doesn't help us much here,” she adds. “The technology doesn't help us much here. We're catching up with a phenomenon that we didn't know we were unleashing when we did."
 
Produced by Joshua Martin

A Tourist’s Guide to the Middle Ages — with Amira Bennison and Lydia Wilson

If the urge to travel is a universal human instinct, the urge to tell others of your journey may well be too. In medieval North Africa, travelers and tourists produced a plethora of travelogues and guidebooks for a readership eager to read about their voyages. “There's a variety of reasons why people wanted to read this kind of writing,” Amira K. Bennison, a historian at the University of Cambridge, tells New Lines Magazine's Lydia Wilson. For merchants, it was important to know which cities produced which goods and what they could expect on their own journeys. For rulers, it was a source of information or even intelligence about what was happening in their realms. But for many people, it was simply because they wanted to read stories of far-off lands. “It takes them out of what for some readers must have been a much more humdrum existence, with little chance of travel beyond their own town or country.” Not all of these were accurate. “There are tales of a statue in Cadiz which speaks, or cities of bronze in the desert,” explains Bennison. “I don't think that people in the past were necessarily naive or necessarily taken in by these kinds of stories, but the world was much more mysterious. There were lots of places where most people had never been and would never go, and really weren't quite sure whether these things existed or not.” But just like today, travel writing could be as much about the author’s experiences as the place itself. Medieval readers didn’t just want to know what was there; they wanted to know what it felt like to be there too. “I think it's that which really captures people's imagination and gives them the sense of the expansiveness of the world,” Bennison says. Produced by Joshua Martin