It Could Happen Here - It Could Happen Here Weekly 44

Episode Date: July 23, 2022

All of this week's episodes of It Could Happen Here put together in one large file.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

You should probably keep your lights on for Nocturnal Tales from the Shadowbride. Join me, Danny Trejo, and step into the flames of fright. An anthology podcast of modern-day horror stories inspired by the most terrifying legends and lore of Latin America. Listen to Nocturnal on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, I'm Ed Zitron, host of the Better Offline podcast, and we're kicking off our second season digging into tech's elite and how they've turned Silicon Valley into a playground for billionaires. From the chaotic world of generative AI to the destruction of Google search, Better Offline is your unvarnished and at times unhinged look at the underbelly of tech

brought to you by an industry veteran with nothing to lose. Listen to Better Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, wherever else you get your podcasts from. On Thanksgiving Day 1999, five-year-old Cuban boy Elian Gonzalez was found off the coast of Florida. And the question was, should the boy go back to his father in Cuba? Mr. Gonzalez wanted to go home and he wanted to take his son with him. Or stay with his relatives in Miami? Imagine that your mother died trying to get you to freedom. Listen to Chess Peace, the Elian Gonzalez story on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Jacqueline Thomas, the host of a brand new Black Effect original series, Black Lit.

The podcast for diving deep into the rich world of Black literature. Black Lit is for the page turners, for those who listen to audio books while running errands or at the end of a busy day. From thought provoking novels to powerful poetry, we'll explore the stories that shape our culture. Listen to Black Lit on the Black Effect podcast network, iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. AT&T, connecting changes everything. of the week that just happened is here in one convenient and with somewhat less ads package for you to listen to in a long stretch if you want. If you've been listening to the episodes every day this week, there's going to be nothing new here for you, but you can make your own decisions. Hello and welcome to It Could Happen Here. I'm your host today, it's Shireen.

And I'm going to be flying solo for the next few episodes. We're going to be talking about Syria. Spoiler alert, I am Syrian. And I think there's a lot of history and news about Syria that really goes under the radar and not a lot of people know about. So I thought it would be important to shed some light about how Syria became ruled by a dictatorship family. The Assad family have destroyed Syria. Imagine a country being run by the mafia. They're very powerful,

very secretive, very, very rich. There are no numbers that can illustrate the scale of Syria's loss and destruction, literally, because the United Nations hasn't been able to calculate the death toll for years. So as I mentioned, these episodes are going to be about Syria. The first two will be about how Hafez al-Assad rose to power, which has since led the Assad family to have control over Syria for more than half a century. And then the one following that will be about his son Bashar, who is the current dictator of Syria. And that one will have more topical information, maybe more like economic stuff versus historical information, which we're going to start

with. But I think understanding the history of the Syrian government provides vital context to understanding the present, and there is a lot to cover here, and a lot that I won't be able to get to, but hopefully we can chip away at it. And this is a good semi-coherent summary of how Hafez climbed his way to the very top of Syrian authority. So the Asads, in Arabic it's Al-Assad, so apologize if I go back and forth between those two, but they're from Qardaha originally, a village in northwest Syria in the Syrian coastal mountains. The family name, Asad, goes back to 1927 when Ali Sulaiman, who was Hafez al-Asad's father, changed his last name to Al-Asad, which is Arabic for the lion.

People say this is possibly in connection to his social standing as a local mediator and his political activities. to his social standing as a local mediator and his political activities. All members of the extended Assad family stem from Ali Suleiman and his second wife, Naysa. The Assads are Shia Muslims, more specifically of the Alawite sect. Alawites are a religious minority, and they initially opposed a united Syrian state because they thought their status as a religious minority would endanger them. And Hafez's father, he shared this belief. After the French left Syria in 1946, many Syrians mistrusted the Alawites because of their alignment with France. Hafez eventually left his Alawite village, beginning his education at age nine in Latakia, which had a Sunni majority. He became the first of his family to attend high school, and while he was in education, he lived in a poor, predominantly Alawite part of Latakia.

To fit in, he approached political parties that welcomed Alawites. These parties, which also embraced secularism, were the Syrian Communist Party, the Syrian Social Nationalist Party, the SSNP, and the Arab Ba'ath Party. Ba'ath is Ba'ath in Arabic, but we know it as Ba'ath. It's spelled B-A-A-T-H in English. And he joined this political party in 1946. Some of his friends belonged to the SSNP, and the Ba'ath Party embraced a pan-Arabist socialist ideology. And he proved to be an asset to the party. He organized Ba'ath student cells, and he carried out the party's message to poor sections of Atakia and to Alawite villages. He was opposed by the Muslim Brotherhood, which at the time allied itself with wealthy and conservative Muslim families. Assad's high school accommodated students from rich and poor families, and he was joined by poor

anti-establishment Sunni Muslim youth from the Ba'ath Party in confrontations with students from wealthy Brotherhood families. He made many Sunni friends, and some of whom later became his political allies. While he was still a teenager, Assad became increasingly prominent in the party as an organizer and a recruiter, and he was the head of his school's student affairs committee from 1949 to 1951, and he was also the president of the Union of Syrian Students. During his political activism in school, he met many men who would later serve him when he became president. In reading about this, I mean, I'll be honest, and I learned a lot even preparing for these episodes. It's so interesting because you read about this man, and on the surface, he seems not too bad when he started

out. Like, his ideas aren't terrible. I think power eventually corrupts everybody. And I just have so many questions and thoughts about how someone becomes evil. I mean, that's such a blanket, like maybe like make-believe way to describe someone. But the things that the Assad family eventually does is horrific. And it's interesting to see where this man started as a child as a teenager on one hand it humanizes him on the other hand it just shows how much he had changed um and maybe he was always this way and it's just on paper doesn't seem so bad i don't know sorry tangent let's continue so after he graduated from high school asad aspired to be a medical doctor, but his father could not pay for his studies.

So instead, in 1950, he decided to join the Syrian Armed Forces. He entered the military academy in Homs and the flying school in Aleppo. And then he graduated in 1955, after which he was commissioned a lieutenant of the Syrian Air Force. He married Anissa Makhlouf in 1957, who is a distant relative of the powerful Makhlouf family. In 1955, the Syrian military split in a revolt against then-president Adib al-Shishakli, which led Hashim al-Atassi to take power as president. He had been president before, and Syria was again under civilian rule.

So after 1955, al-Atassi, who in English, both him and al-Shashakli, they remove the al in front of their names. So you'll see just Atassi or Shashakli. So when I say those, that's what I mean. It's just, it's hard to break when this is like the language in your head sometimes. But I got to stop with these tangents. See, this is my first solo episode and this is what you get. But after 1955, al-Atasi's hold on the country was increasingly shaky. As a result of the 55 election, al-Atasi was replaced by Shukri al-Kuwatli, who was president before Syria's independence from France. The Ba'ath party grew closer to the Communist party at this time,

but not because of shared ideology, but rather a shared opposition to the West. At the military academy, Assad met Mustafa Tlaz, which will be his future minister of defense. met Mustafa Tlaas, which will be his future minister of defense. Assad was then sent to Egypt for a further six months of training, and when Jamal Abdel Nasser, president of Egypt, nationalized the Suez Canal in 56, Syria feared retaliation from the United Kingdom, and Assad flew in an air defense mission. He was among the Syrian pilots who flew to Cairo to show Syria's commitment to Egypt. In 57, as squadron commander, he was sent to the Soviet Union for training in flying MIG-17s, which I looked up and it's a high subsonic fighter aircraft that was produced by the Soviet Union from 52 onward and operated by air forces

internationally. The more you know. But essentially, he went to the Soviet Union to train in flying these things for 10 months. Let's go back to 1958. Nope, we're not going back. We're going forward. In 1958, Syria and Egypt formed the United Arab Republic, separating themselves from Iraq, Iran, and Pakistan and Turkey. In 1958, Syria and Egypt formed the United Arab Republic, UAR, separating themselves from Iraq, Iran, Pakistan, and Turkey. And these countries were aligned with the United Kingdom. This pact led to the rejection of communist influence in favor of Egyptian control over Syria. All Syrian political parties, including the Ba'ath Party, were dissolved, and senior officers, especially those who had supported the communists,

were dismissed from the Syrian armed forces. Assad, however, remained in the army and quickly rose through the ranks. After reaching the rank of captain, he was transferred to Egypt, continuing his military education with the future president of Egypt, Hosni Mubarak. However, Assad was not content with a professional military career. He viewed it merely as a gateway to a career in politics, aka power. After the creation of the UAR, the Ba'ath Party experienced a crisis, for which several of its members, mostly young members, blamed the party leader, who at the time was Michel Aflaq. He was a Syrian philosopher and sociologist and an Arab nationalist, and his ideas played a significant role in the development of Ba'athism and its political movement. He's considered by several Ba'athists to be the principal founder of Ba'athist thought. So he had some opposition, however, because after the creation of the UAR,

there was some unrest. To resurrect the Syrian National Branch of the party, Assad joined others in establishing the Military Committee. In 57 and 58, Assad rose to a dominant position in the military committee, which mitigated his transfer to Egypt. After Syria left the UAR in September of 61, Assad and other Baathist officers were removed from the military by the new government in Damascus, and he was given a minor clerical position at the Ministry of Transport. Assad played a minor role in the failed 1962 military coup, for which he was jailed in Lebanon and then later repatriated. That year, Michel Aflak, the Ba'ath Party leader, convened the 5th National Congress of the Ba'ath Party, where he

was re-elected as the Secretary General of the National Command, and then he ordered the re-establishment of the party's Syrian regional branch. There's a lot of congresses, there's a lot of branches, there's a lot of committees. It gets really confusing, just these men shutting down and then reigniting these things. So bear with me here. At this congress, the military committee established contacts with Aflak and the civilian leadership. The committee requested permission to seize power by force, and Aflak agreed to this conspiracy. After the success of the Iraqi coup led by the Ba'ath Party's Iraqi regional branch,

the military committee hastily convened to launch their own Ba'athist military coup. convened to launch their own Ba'athist military coup in March of 1963 against President Nazim al-Qudsi, which Assad helped plan. He helped plan this coup. During this coup, he led a small group to capture the Dumayat airbase about 25 miles north of Damascus. Assad's group was the only one that encountered resistance. Some planes at the base were ordered to bomb the conspirators, and because of this, Assad hurried to reach the base before dawn. Because the 70th Armored Brigade's surrender took longer than anticipated, however, Assad arrived there in broad daylight. When Assad threatened the base commander with shelling,

the commander negotiated a surrender. Later, Assad claimed that the base could have easily withstood his forces, so his bluff worked, and this garnered him a lot of respect. Not long after Assad's election to the regional command, the military committee ordered him to strengthen the committee's position in the military establishment. In doing so, Assad may have received the most important job of all, because his primary goal was to end factionalism in the Syrian military and make it a Ba'ath monopoly. He said he had to create an ideological army. To help with this task,

he recruited Zeki el-Arsuzi, who was the person who actually indirectly inspired him to join the Ba'ath party in the first place when he was young. Arsuzi accompanied Assad on tours of military camps where Arsuzi lectured the soldiers on Ba'athist thought. In gratitude for his work, Assad gave Arsuzi a government pension. And Assad continued his Ba'athification of the military by appointing loyal officers to key positions and ensuring that the political education of the troops was not neglected. He demonstrated his skill as a logistical leader during this period, and he was said to have a highly intelligent mastery of detail, which garnered him a lot of respect. And I want to make this clear. I talked

to my mom a bit about this and doing this research, and Hafez al-Assad was very smart. He was known as a very smart man. He knew what he was doing at every turn, despite what it seems like. It's like this fell into his lap or like later you'll see that the president he overthrew had no idea. He didn't see him as a threat. overthrew had no idea. He didn't see him as a threat. But I mean, before and after he took power, he was known to be very cunning. And so, yeah, I just think that's an important little thing to take note of. Even in school, they were saying that he was an excellent student. they were saying that he was an excellent student. So he has a plan, I think, for most of this. But let's take a little break and we'll be right back to finish this up. Well, this part, I mean. Okay, whatever. I'm sorry. Bye. We're back. Wow. Okay, so after he had been bathifying the military, he was promoted to major and then to lieutenant colonel, and by the end of 1964, he was in charge of the Syrian Air Force as the Air Force commander. Assad gave privileges to Air Force officers, and he appointed his confidants to senior and sensitive positions,

and he established an efficient intelligence network. Air Force intelligence, under the command of Muhammad al-Khuli, became independent of Syria's other intelligence organizations and received assignments beyond Air Force jurisdiction. Assad prepared himself for an active role in the power struggles that were soon to come. As I said, he's cunning, he knows what he's doing. In the aftermath of the 1963 coup, at the first regional congress, Assad was elected to the Syrian Regional Command, the highest decision-making body in the Syrian regional branch. It's so confusing, I can't keep track. And while this was not a leadership role, it was Assad's first appearance in national politics, which is a significant thing to point out, because, as you'll see, it only grows. which is a significant thing to point out, because as you'll see, it only grows. During the 1964 Hama riot, Assad voted to suppress the uprising violently if needed.

This decision to suppress the Hama riot led to conflict within the military committee, which I'm going to skip over because it's more clusterfucky than ever, but ultimately in 1965, the 8th National Congress. During this, Assad was elected to the National Command, the party's highest decision-making body. I know I just said that about something else, but that was about the Syrian regional branch. There are a lot of parties and commands and branches and committees, as I said, just know that it's a group of men probably that just make decisions, but he was elected to this highest making body, this party of people. And it's said that Assad abhorred Aflak, the party leader of the Baathist party. Assad considered Aflak an autocrat and a rightist, accusing him of ditching the party by ordering the dissolution

of the Syrian regional branch in 58. In response to the imminent coup that was about to happen, that Assad knew was going to happen, he left for London. In the 1966 Syrian coup, the military committee overthrew the national command. The coup led to a permanent split in the Ba'ath movement and the advent of Neo-Ba'athism, as well as the establishment of two centers of the international bathist movement, one Iraqi and the other Syrian-dominated. After the coup, Assad was appointed minister of defense. This was his first cabinet post, but despite his title, he actually had little power in the government and took more orders than he gave. Salah Jadid, who helped Assad establish the military committee years prior, was the undisputed

leader at the time, and he opted to remain in the office of Assistant Regional Secretary of the Syrian Regional Command instead of taking executive office, which had historically been held by Sunnis. Jadid, trying to establish his authority, focused on civilian issues and gave Assad de facto control of the Syrian military, considering him no threat at all. During the failed coup of late 1966, Salim Khatoum tried to overthrow Jadid's government. Khatoum was a military officer, and he felt snubbed when he was not appointed to the regional command after the 66 coup and he sought revenge and the return to power of hamoud al-shufi who was the first regional secretary of the regional

command after the syrian regional branch's re-establishment in 63 oh my god so many branches and everything i'm just can you just decide on one group anyway Anyway, when Jadid, Atasi, and the regional command member Jamil Shaya visited the city of Suwada, the forces loyal to Hatun surrounded the city and they captured them. The city's Druze leaders forbade the murder of their guests and demanded that Hatun wait, so Jadid and the others were placed under house arrest, with Hatathoom planning to kill them at his first opportunity, because he wanted revenge. When word of the mutiny spread to the Ministry of Defense, aka Assad, Assad ordered the 70th Armored Brigade to the city of Suwaida. who was a Druze, knew that Assad would order the bombardment of Suwaida, which was a Druze-dominated city, if Hattum did not accept Assad's demands. So this led to Hattum and his supporters to flee to Jordan eventually, where they were given asylum. But due to his prompt action and his

protection of Jadid and the other members that were captured, Assad earned Jadid's gratitude after this incident. So I know I just casually mentioned this word a minute ago, and so just to the people that aren't aware of what it means, know, again, a lot more to delve into than what I'm just going to say right now, but Druze are members of an Arabic-speaking ethno-religious group originated in Western Asia. They're largely in Lebanon and Syria now, and they originally developed out of Shia Islam, even though most Druze members, or most Druze rather, do not identify as Muslim. They practice their own religion that is called Druzismusalem i've been trying to say that word for a long time daniel cut out me saying it a bunch of times um i apologize that i probably

mispronounced it but the point is they practice their own sect of religion that originated from the shia islamic sect way back when but this point, they're their own religious group. So, moving on. I just wanted to shed light on that word in case people didn't know. Back to Syria. So, after this incident took place, and after Assad basically came to the rescue, Jadid had a lot of gratitude for him. And continuing in the aftermath of the 66 coup attempt, Assad and Jadid purged the party's military organization. Assad removed an estimated of 400 officers, and this was Syria's largest military purge to date. But the purges, which began when the Ba'ath party took power in 63, had left the military weak. And as a result, when the Six-Day War broke out,

Syria had no chance of victory. I feel like this is maybe a good place to say goodbye for the day. I thought it would be more digestible if these episodes were shorter instead of being an epic tale that could run over an hour. But yeah, let's say goodbye. This is Shireen. This is It Could Happen Here. Hear you tomorrow. Talk to you tomorrow. Why do I have this job?

Okay, goodbye. Welcome. I'm Danny Thrill. Won't you join me at the fire and dare enter? Nocturnum, Tales from the Shadows, presented by iHeart and Sonora. An anthology of modern-day horror stories inspired by the legends of Latin America. From ghastly encounters with shapeshifters to bone-chilling brushes with supernatural creatures. I know you. Take a trip and experience the horrors that have haunted Latin America since the beginning of time.

Listen to Nocturnal Tales from the Shadows as part of my Cultura podcast network available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I found out I was related to the guy that I was dating. I don't feel emotions correctly. I am talking to a felon right now, and I cannot decide if I like him or not. Those were some callers from my call-in podcast, Therapy Gecko. It's a show where I take real phone calls from anonymous strangers all over the world as a fake gecko therapist and try to dig into their brains and learn a little bit about their lives. I know that's a weird concept, but

I promise it's pretty interesting if you give it a shot. Matter of fact, here's a few more examples of the kinds of calls we get on this show. I live with my boyfriend and I found his piss jar in our apartment. I collect my roommate's toenails and fingernails. I have very overbearing parents. Even at the age of 29, they won't let me move out of their house. So if you want an excuse to get out of your own head and see what's going on in someone else's head, search for Therapy Gecko on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. It's the one with the green guy on it.

Hey, I'm Jack Peace Thomas, the host of a brand new Black Effect original series, Black Lit, the podcast for diving deep into the rich world of Black literature. I'm Jack Peace Thomas, and I'm inviting you to join me in a vibrant community of literary enthusiasts dedicated to protecting and celebrating our stories. Black Lit is for the page turners, for those who listen to audiobooks while commuting or running errands, for those who find themselves seeking solace, wisdom, and refuge between the chapters.

From thought-provoking novels to powerful poetry, we'll explore the stories that shape our culture. Together, we'll dissect classics and contemporary works while uncovering the stories of the brilliant writers behind them. Blacklit is here to amplify the voices of Black writers and to bring their words to life. Listen to Blacklit on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, I'm Ed Zitron, host of the Better Offline podcast. to Blacklit on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, I'm Ed Zitron, host of the Better Offline podcast, and we're kicking off our second season digging into how tech's elite has turned Silicon Valley into a playground for billionaires. From the chaotic world of generative AI to the destruction of Google search,

Better Offline is your unvarnished and at times unhinged look at the underbelly of tech from an industry veteran with nothing to lose. This season, I'm going to be joined by everyone from Nobel-winning economists to leading journalists in the field, and I'll be digging into why the products you love keep getting worse and naming and shaming those responsible. Don't get me wrong, though. I love technology.

I just hate the people in charge and want them to get back to building things that actually do things to help real people. I swear to God things can change if we're loud enough. So join me every week to understand what's happening in the tech industry and what could be done to make things better. Listen to Better Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, wherever else you get your podcasts. Check out betteroffline.com. betteroffline.com Wow. We're back.

This is Shireen and this is It Can Happen. Oh, that's not even the name of the podcast. This is It Could Happen Here. I'm so sorry. But last episode, we talked about Syria and the history of how Hafez al-Assad eventually came into power and how he subsequently let his family become dictators of this country for over half a century and how they've destroyed it.

But we are still in the 60s right now. So let's just continue from where we left off. in the 60s right now. So let's just continue from where we left off. Last time I had just ended mentioning the Six-Day War and how Syria was defeated in the Six-Day War. This is a topic that should be episodes all on its own, but just to very, very roughly summarize, the Six-Day War, as it's called, it's also called the 1967 War and the June War. It's interesting because Israelis call it the Six-Day War, and that's become the term that everyone uses, but differing terms for differing people, I suppose. But essentially, on June 5th of 1967, just three weeks after it marked the 19th anniversary of its founding, Israel went to war with the armies

of Egypt, Syria, and Jordan and defeated them, essentially. A very, very rough summary. And this led to Israel capturing, aka stealing, the Golan Heights from Syria. And the roots of this war go all the way back to the 40s. And there are moments in history that led up to this moment, but it was a huge turning point in Middle Eastern history, and the consequences of it are still felt today across the region. And the outcome of this war basically altered the map of the Middle East for the foreseeable future. And it further blocked this path to any kind of potential peace between Israel and Palestine. And it just redrew the landscape of this conflict and expanded Israel's territorial claims

and military dominance in the region. They gained a lot of territory during this war and had the help of the UN behind them. So yeah, it was not good for Arab countries. So much more to get into there. But this war, essentially, when we're talking about Syrian history, changed everything. And I mentioned earlier in the last

episode that when the Ba'ath Party took power in 63, there was some more purging of the Syrian military and Assad removed about 400 officers, which was the largest purge to date. But this had left their military weak and obviously did not help them in this June war. But yeah, there's so much more there. I will try to get into that later another time. But the Arab defeat in this June war led to Israel stealing the Golan Heights from Syria, and this provoked a furious quarrel among Syria's leadership. the Golan Heights from Syria and this provoked a furious quarrel among Syria's leadership.

The civilian leadership blamed military incompetence and the military responded by criticizing the civilian leadership which was led by Salah Jadid who was the person that was ruling the country. He had the most power at this point. Several high-ranking party members demanded that Hafez al-Assad resign and an attempt was made to vote him out of the regional command. This motion was defeated by one vote, and this man was Abd al-Karim al-Jandi, who the anti-Assad members, they were hoping that he would succeed Assad as defense minister, but he became the deciding vote, and he said he did so in a comradely gesture. the deciding vote, and he said he did so in a comradely gesture. Remember this name? He will come back. But yes, Nagdekari Maljundi made it, so Assad wasn't voted out. During the end of the war, Hafez was approached by dissident Syrian military officers to oust the government, but at the time,

he actually refused because he believed a coup during that time would have helped Israel, not Syria. Which is very interesting because he eventually took power by a coup, but he refused a first because of the timing being wrong. Again, I think this just demonstrates his unfortunately high intelligence for someone so bad. unfortunately high intelligence for someone so bad. Anyway, as I mentioned, this war was a turning point, and it was also a turning point for Assad and the Baathist Syria movement in general. It soon began a power struggle with Jadid for control over the country. Until then, Assad hadn't really shown ambition for high office, and he aroused little suspicion in others. No one really saw him as a threat. From the 1963 Syrian coup to the June War in 67, Assad did not play a leading role in politics, and he was usually overshadowed by his contemporaries. stories. Patrick Seal was a British journalist and an author who specialized in the Middle East,

and he wrote several books about the Assad family and Syria. And he said that Hafez was apparently content to be a solid member of the team without the aspiration to become number one. He also interviewed Hafez at one point, so he had a lot of good information, this Patrick Seal, which I'll mention throughout. So although Jadid was slow to see Assad's threat, and although Assad didn't appear like he wanted power from the outside, shortly after the war, Assad began developing a network in the military and promoted friends and close relatives to high positions. Assad believed that Syria's defeat in the June War was Jadid's fault, and that the accusations against himself were unjust. By this time, Jadid had total control of the regional command, whose members supported his policies. But Assad and Jadid began to differ on policy. Assad believed that Jadid's policy of a people's

war, an armed guerrilla strategy, and class struggle had failed Syria, undermining its position. Although Jadid continued to champion the concept of a people's war even after the June War, Assad opposed it. He felt that the Palestinian guerrilla fighters had been given too much autonomy and their raiding of Israel had made the war worse for the Arabs fighting. Jadid also had broken diplomatic relations with countries he deemed reactionary like Saudi Arabia and Jordan, and because of this, Syria did not receive aid from other Arab countries. While Jadid and his supporters prioritized socialism and the internal revolution, Assad wanted the leadership to focus on foreign policy and the containment of Israel. The Ba'ath party was divided over several issues, such as how the government

could best use Syria's limited resources, the ideal relationship between the party and the people, the organization of the party, and whether the class struggle should end. The conflict between Assad and Jadid became the talk of the army and the party, with a, quote, duality of power noted between them. By the 4th Regional Congress and the 10th National Congress in September and October of 68, Assad had extended his grip on the army and Jadid still controlled the party. At both congresses, Assad was outvoted on most issues and his arguments were firmly rejected. The military's involvement in party politics was unpopular with the rank and file. As the gulf between Assad and Jadid widened. The civilian and military party bodies were forbidden to

contact each other. Despite this, Assad was winning the race to accumulate power. Munif Eder Ezzaz, who was ousted in the 1966 Syrian coup, noted that Jadid's fatal mistake was to attempt to govern the army through the party. Because Syria will always have... Their government is the military, essentially, is what I'm trying to say. Anyway, while Assad had taken control of the armed forces through his position as Minister of Defense, Jadid still controlled the security and intelligence sectors through Abdul Karim al-Jundi,

who was the head of the National Security Bureau. Jundi, who was the head of the National Security Bureau. Jundi, who was a paranoid, cruel man, he was feared throughout Syria, especially later in his life. In February of 1969, the Assad-Jundi conflict erupted in violent clashes through their respective prodigies. There was Rafat al-Assad, who is Assad's brother, and he was a high-ranking military commander, and al-Jundi. So al-Jundi was the protege of Jadid, and Assad's brother, Rafat, was his protege, so to say. The reason for the violence was Rafat al-Assad's suspicion that al-Jundi was planning an attempt on his brother Hafez's life. El-Assad's suspicion that al-Jundi was planning an attempt on his brother Hafez's life. The suspected assassin was interrogated and eventually confessed under torture. Acting on this information, Al-Assad argued that unless al-Jundi was removed from his post, that he and his brother were in

danger. Okay, let's take a break. BRB, listen to this. And we're back. Wow. Okay, let's take a break. BRB, listen to this. And we're back. Wow. Okay, let's continue. From the 25th to the 28th of February in 1969, the Assad brothers initiated, quote, something just short of a coup. Under Assad's authority, tanks were moved into Damascus

and the staffs of two party newspapers, the Al-Ba'ath and Al-Thawra, as well as radio stations in Damascus and Aleppo, were replaced by Assad loyalists. Latakia and Tartus, which are two Alawite-dominated cities, they saw fierce scuffles, ending with the overthrow of Jadid's supporters from local posts. Shortly afterwards, a wave of arrests and Jundi loyalists began. On March 2nd, after a telephone argument with the head of military intelligence, al-Duba, it is said that al-Jundi committed suicide. When I mentioned this to my mom, she well that's what they say because originally I'm reading this being like okay history obviously you have to remember that there is always someone that writes the history um so just pointing that out there because she put that little nugget of information in my head but as far as we're concerned in this summary it is said that Jindy committed suicide after his loyalists began to be arrested

and there was just continuing violence between his side and Al-Assad. So this led to Assad now being in control. However, he hesitated to push his advantage. Jadid continued to rule Syria and the regional command was unchanged. However, Assad influenced Jadid to moderate his policies. Class struggle was muted, criticism of reactionary tendencies of other Arab states ceased, some political prisoners were freed, a coalition of government was formed where the Ba'ath party was in control, and the Eastern Front, supported by al-Assad, was formed with Iraq and Jordan. Jadid's isolationist policies were curtailed, and Syria

re-established diplomatic relations with many of its foes, which was what Assad wanted. And while Assad had been in de facto command of Syrian policies since 1969, Jadid and his supporters still held the trappings of power. After attending Jamal Abdel Nasser's funeral in Egypt, he was the president of Egypt, Assad returned to Syria for the Emergency National Congress, where Assad was condemned by Jadid and his supporters, who still made up the majority of the party's delegates. However, before attending the Congress, Assad ordered his loyal troops to surround the

building, housing the meeting. Again, this guy thinks ahead, he's too smart, I hate him. He's dead though, so whatever. I still hate you. So as he's being criticized and as he's being condemned, he has troops surrounding this building. And so the criticism of Assad's political position continued, but it had a defeatist tone, with the majority of delegates believing that they had lost the battle. And even though Assad was eventually stripped of his government post at the Congress, these acts had little practical significance. Congress, these acts had little practical significance. When the National Congress ended on November 12, 1970, Assad ordered loyalists to arrest leading members of Jadid's government. Although many mid-level officials were offered posts in Syrian embassies and abroad, Jadid refused, saying, if I ever take power, you will be dragged through the streets until you die.

Assad imprisoned Jadid in Menzies prison until his death. Despite the intense clusterfuck of everything that preceded this, surprise, Hafez's coup was actually calm and bloodless. When he eventually had his coup to take power and succeeded, calm, and bloodless. When he eventually had his coup to take power and succeeded, the only evidence of change to the outside world was the disappearance of newspapers, radio stations, and television stations. A temporary regional command was soon established, and on November 16th of 1970, the new government published its first decree. So only in a matter of days. A lot can happen, man.

According to Patrick Seale, Assad's rule, quote, began with an immediate considerable advantage. The government he displaced was so detested that any alternative came as a relief. He first tried to establish national unity, which he felt had been lost under the leadership of Aflaq and Jadid. Assad differed from his predecessor at the outset, visiting local villages and hearing citizen complaints. The Syrian people felt that Assad's rise to power would maybe lead to change. And although Assad didn't democratize the country, he eased the government's repressive policies at the time.

He cut prices for basic foodstuffs 15%, which won him support from ordinary citizens. Jadid's security services were purged, and some military criminal investigative powers were transferred to the police, and the confiscation of goods under Jadid was reversed. Restrictions on travel and trade with Lebanon were eased, and Assad encouraged growth in the private sector. While Assad supported most of Jadid's policies to begin with, he proved to be more pragmatic after he came to power. Let's take a little break here. We'll be right back to wrap this little history lesson up and then you're free of me for the day. and up and then you're free of me for the day. Okay. So we're back. Before the break, we were talking about Assad coming into power and how his policies differed from Jadid's and how he made an

effort to differentiate himself. However, most of Jadid's supporters, they faced a choice, either continue working for the Ba'ath government under Assad or face repression. Assad had made it clear previously, from the beginning, that there would be no second chances, in his words. However, in late 1970, he recruited support from the Ba'athist old guard who had supported Aflac's leadership during the 1963-1966 power struggle. An estimated 2,000 former Ba'athists rejoined the party after hearing Assad's appeal. At the 11th National Congress, Assad assured party members that his leadership was a radical change from that of Jadid, and he would implement a, quote, corrective movement to return Syria to the true nationalist-socialist line. Assad turned the presidency, which had been known

simply as, quote, head of state under Jadid, into a position of power during his rule. As the president became the main source of initiative in the government, his personality, values, strengths, and weaknesses became decisive for his direction and stability. Assad institutionalized a system where he had the final say, which weakened the powers of the collegial institutions of the party and state. As fidelity to the leader replaced ideological conviction later in his presidency, corruption became widespread. The state-sponsored cult of personality became pervasive, And as Assad's authority strengthened, he became

the sole symbol of the government. And it sounds normal now, I guess, when you think of like a dictator's face being plastered over buildings and stuff, but it was very much like that in Syria. And it still is as far as Bashar is concerned. But with Hafez, I mean, his image was plastered everywhere. You couldn't really escape it. He was the symbol of the Syrian government. And while Assad did not rule alone, he increasingly had the last word. None of the political elite would question a decision of his, and those who did were dismissed, removed from their positions, and stripped of their power. When Assad came to power, he increased the Alawite dominance of the security and intelligence sectors to a near monopoly.

The coercive framework was under his control, weakening the state and party. The leading figures of the Alawite-dominated security system had family connections. Rafat al-Assad, for example, controlled the struggle companies, his brother, and then Assad's son-in-law, Aydin Makhlouf, was his second-in-command as commander of the Presidential Guard. Assad controlled the military through the Alawites, and the Alawites, with their high status, appointed and promoted based on their kinship and favor, rather than professional respect. Therefore, an Alawite elite emerged from these policies, with Assad in full control of the military and the Alawites holding all the power. Which is very interesting if you think back to the beginning of our first episode, where I mentioned

that the Alawites are a religious minority and originally didn't have a lot of power in the government. And through Hafez al-Assad's coming into power, the Alawites are suddenly elite and in control, and it's a huge flip from what it was decades prior. However, when Assad began pursuing a policy of economic liberalization, the state bureaucracy began to use their positions for personal gain. The state gave implementation rights to, quote, much of its development program to foreign firms and contractors, fueling a growing linkage between the state and private capital. Basically, what ensued was a huge spike in corruption. The channeling of external money through the state to private enterprises, quote, created growing opportunities for state elites' self-enrichment through corrupt manipulation of state-market interchanges. Besides outright embezzlement, webs of shared interests in commissions and kickbacks grew between high officials, politicians, and business interests.

The Alawite military security establishment got the greatest share of the money, obviously, and the Ba'ath Party and its leaders ruled a new class, defending their interests instead of those of the peasants and workers, who they were supposed to represent. This, coupled with growing Sunni disillusionment with the regime's mixture of sadism, rural and sectarian favoritism, corruption, and new inequalities, fueled the growth of the Islamic movement. corruption, and new inequalities fueled the growth of the Islamic movement. Because of this, the Muslim Brotherhood of Syria became the vanguard of anti-Bathist forces. The Brotherhood had historically been a vehicle for moderate Islam during its introduction to the Syrian political scene during the 1960s. Under the leadership of Mustafa el-Sabai, the Brotherhood

had historically been a vehicle for moderate Islam during its introduction to the Syrian political scene during the 1960s. After Sabai's imprisonment and under Issam al-Attar's leadership, the Brotherhood developed into the ideological antithesis of Baathist rule. Because of their organizational capabilities, the Muslim Brotherhood grew tenfold from 1975 to 1978. The Islamic uprising began in the mid to late 1970s with attacks on prominent members of the Baath Alawite elite. As the conflict worsened, a debate began in the party between hardliners represented by Rafat al-Assad and Ba liberals, represented by Mahmoud al-Ayubi. The 7th Regional Congress in 1980 was held in an atmosphere of crisis. The party leadership, with the exception of Assad and his protégés, were criticized severely by the party delegates,

who called for an anti-corruption campaign, a new, clean government curtailing the powers of the military security apparatus and political liberalization. The Sunni middle class and the radical left, believing that Ba'athist rule could be overthrown with an uprising, began collaborating with the Islamists. And I mean, although they're called the Islamists, obviously they do not represent the entirety of Islam. Similar to Christian radical groups that hold on to the name Christian, they don't represent the entirety of Christianity, yada yada yada, blah blah blah. And although the word Islam is in the word Islamist, I want to draw attention to the fact that Islamism is not a form of the Muslim faith or an expression of Muslim piety.

It is rather a political ideology that strives to derive legitimacy from Islam. So it's about political strategies that believe in a revival or a return to authentic, in quotes, Islamic practice in its totality. So it's a political ideology, not necessarily a religion. I just want you guys to be aware of that because I think a lot of people don't understand what that means. Regardless, believing they had the upper hand in the conflict, beginning in 1980, the Islamists began a series of campaigns against government installations in Aleppo. The attacks became urban guerrilla warfare. The government began to lose control in the city. Those affected by Baathist repression began to rally behind the insurgents. The Baath Party co-founder, Salah ad-Din al-Bitar, supported the uprising, rallying the old anti-military Baathists together.

The increasing threat to the government's survival strengthened the hardliners who favored repression over concessions. Security forces began to purge all state, party, and social institutions in Syria and were sent to the northern provinces to quell the uprising. When this failed, hardliners began accusing the United States of fomenting and provoking the uprising and called for the reinstatement of, quote, revolutionary vigilance. After a failed attempt on Assad's life in June of 1980, the government began responding to the uprising with state terrorism. Under Afad al-Assad, the Islamic prisoners at the Tadmur prison were massacred.

Membership in the Muslim Brotherhood became a capital offense, and the government sent a death squad to kill Batar and Atar's former wife. The military court began condemning captured militants, which sometimes degenerated into indiscriminate killings. Little care was taken to distinguish Muslim Brotherhood hardliners from their passive supporters, and violence was met with violence. So essentially, this just led the Assad regime to murder a bunch of people, innocent, guilty, all of the above. So yeah, one of the many instances where the Assad regime was extremely violent and engaged in horrific state terrorism.

So I'm wrapping up the endama Massacre, which took place in February of 1982, when the government crushed the uprising. Helicopter gunships, bulldozers, and artillery bombardment razed the city, killing thousands of people. The Ba'ath government withstood the uprising, and it made Syria more totalitarian than ever before, strengthening Assad's position as the undisputed leader of Syria. That is where I'm going to wrap up for the day. I did want to, I don't know, maybe just like set the tone for what Hafez's rule was like. I talked to my mom a bit about this when I was preparing to record these, and she reminded me of a bunch of things that I had forgotten about. One was that I was in Syria

when Hafez was president when I was younger, and I remember everyone being terrified to speak any kind of negative thing or even anything to each other. No one would dare speak a word on the phone, definitely not out loud to each other. There were all these whispers of the walls could hear you. No one trusted anybody. My mother described it as a culture of fear and it 100% was. That's how Hoffas ruled. It was through fear, through like utter terror and I just had forgotten a bunch of details about what I remember growing up and like the phone being this like you just assume it was always tapped you assume anyone could always hear you you can't trust anybody because you don't know what someone will do with the information and there was a bit more that she mentioned that I wanted to just

highlight that I didn't know where to incorporate in that timeline but when the Iran-Iraq war happened it was between 80 and 88 Hafez sided with Iran so after this and during everything was about supporting Iran so all Syrian factories all the food it was all dedicated to war efforts to support Iran. My older sister at the time was a really picky eater, and apparently one of the only things she ate were bananas. And my mom remembers that she couldn't find even a banana anywhere. Like, everything was hard to come by. It was really desperate times, even after the war ended. desperate times even after the war ended and every election in quotes was fraudulent it was a joke my grandmother worked as a school teacher in Syria and teachers are a civic position there

really like most positions are governmental positions and my grandma during these elections would throw out the no's and only include the yes's because the only option was yes or no. If he wanted to continue Hafez's rule or not. Those were the only two options and she told us that the no's were discarded immediately and the only ones that were kept were the yes's. And eventually there was an election that determined that Hafez and his family would be in power forever. Al-il-abid ya hafez al-asad was a phrase they used, and essentially this means until death or forever you will be in power. It does have his name in there, but it implies his whole family. So it's just they gave him power forever. That is literally what that means. And yeah, I think there's so much more to talk about here. And I would love for my mom to just give me

more information about this that I can share eventually. There's just so much. And this episode's already getting kind of long. So I'm going to wrap it up here. In the next episode, we'll be talking about Bashar and how he became the dictator of Syria and how he wasn't even meant to be the president of Syria. And yeah, a lot of interesting history

that leads to some topical information that I think is important. So see you there if you want to. Bye. Welcome. I'm Danny Thrill. Won't you join me at the fire and dare enter. Nocturnal Tales from the Shadows. Presented by iHeart and Sonora.

An anthology of modern-day horror stories inspired by the legends of Latin America. From ghastly encounters with shapeshifters to bone-chilling brushes with supernatural creatures. I know you. Take a trip and experience the horrors that have haunted Latin America since the beginning of time. Listen to Nocturnal Tales from the Shadows as part of My Cultura podcast network, available on the iHeartRadio app,

Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I found out I was related to the guy that I was dating. I don't feel emotions correctly. I am talking to a felon right now, and I cannot decide if I like him or not. Those were some callers from my call-in podcast, Therapy Gecko. It's a show where I take real phone calls from anonymous strangers all over the world as a fake gecko therapist and

try to dig into their brains and learn a little bit about their lives. I know that's a weird concept, but I promise it's pretty interesting if you give it a shot. Matter of fact, here's a few more examples of the kinds of calls we get on this show. I live with my boyfriend and I found his piss jar in our apartment. I collect my roommate's toenails and fingernails. I have very overbearing parents. Even at the age of 29,

they won't let me move out of their house. So if you want an excuse to get out of your own head and see what's going on in someone else's head, search for therapy gecko on the iheart radio app apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts it's the one with the green guy on it hey i'm jack peace thomas the host of a brand new black effect original series black lit the podcast for diving deep into the rich world of Black literature. I'm Jack Peace Thomas, and I'm inviting you to join me and a vibrant community of literary enthusiasts dedicated to protecting and celebrating our stories. Black Lit is for the page turners, for those who listen to audio books while commuting or running errands, for those who find themselves seeking solace, wisdom, and refuge between the

chapters. From thought-provoking novels to powerful poetry, we'll explore the stories that shape our culture. Together, we'll dissect classics and contemporary works while uncovering the stories of the brilliant writers behind them. Blacklit is here to amplify the voices of Black writers and to bring their words to life. Listen to Blacklit on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hola mi gente, it's Honey German and I'm bringing you Gracias, Come Again, the podcast where we dive deep into the world of Latin culture, musica, peliculas, and entertainment with some of the biggest names in the game. if you love hearing real conversations with your favorite Latin celebrities

artists and culture shifters this is the podcast for you we're talking real conversations with our Latin stars from actors and artists to musicians and creators sharing their stories struggles and successes

you know it's going to be filled with chisme laughs and all the vibes that you love each week we'll explore everything from music and pop culture to deeper topics like identity, community, and breaking down barriers in all sorts of industries. Don't miss out on the fun,

el té caliente, and life stories. Join me for Gracias Come Again, a podcast by Honey German, where we get into todo lo actual y viral. Listen to Gracias Come Again on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. here. We've been talking about Syria for the last few episodes, and we're going to continue. And I'm just going to jump right in, because there's a lot. Okay, so this is a continuation about Syria and the terrible family that controls it, the Assads. As I mentioned in the previous

episodes, the Assads have destroyed Syria, and the death toll that they are responsible for is literally incalculable by the UN, but it's said to be nearing half a million people, which is a lot of people. So Sam Dagger is an American Lebanese journalist and author who has lived and worked in the Middle East for more than 16 years. He was based in Damascus in the early years of the current war before the government kicked him out in 2014. But he used his access to write about the inside story of the Assad family. He has a book titled Assad or We Burn the Country, which I admittedly have not read. It's like 500 pages.

But I did pull a lot of info from the book and interviews that he's done about it, mostly in regards to the economic stuff that we'll get into later, but it was a very helpful resource. When Dagger was in Syria, he saw this phrase, Assad or we burn the country, which is the title of his book, all over the towns and neighborhoods that had been taken over by the regime, graffitied on walls, probably by loyalists or government militias or whatever, or just people that love him, barf. And in this case, they're talking about Bashar al-Assad, who is the son of the person we were talking about previously, Hafez al-Assad. But it essentially also includes the entire family. They are in forever. And the Assad regime routinely takes over deserted, destroyed areas. And these government militias come in and loot the area until it's nothing but rubble littered by things that are left behind as people

are fleeing and things that these loyalists find useless, like teddy bears and personal items that actually tell a really devastating story about the lives that used to occupy that space. story about the lives that used to occupy that space. Because these loyalists, these Assad-obsessed freaks, they take everything that they deem worth looting, even things like tiles and doors. So you're left with these ghost towns, literally, figuratively. The phrase Assad or we burn the country means exactly what it says it means, that Bashar al-Assad and his family will remain in power, or else they will burn the country to the ground and burn everyone who opposes the Assad regime along with it. And although Bashar al-Assad has now been in power for 22 years, he was actually never meant to be in power. His father, Hafez al-Assad, appointed himself as president in 1971

after overthrowing the prior government through a military coup. Bashar al-Assad appointed himself as president in 1971 after overthrowing the prior government through a military coup. Bashar al-Assad succeeded his father in 2000 after his father's death, and it continued their family's hold on Syria and its people. 1990 was a very significant year. Not only was it the year I was born, and that's why, but also the Soviet Union collapsed and the Berlin Wall fell and dictatorships were crumbling. The the Soviet Union collapsed and the Berlin Wall fell and dictatorships were crumbling. The Soviet Union was seen as the main supporter or guardian of the Assad regime, but in 1990 it didn't exist anymore. So the Assad regime was suddenly in trouble. Its priority was to present an image of reform and repackage itself so Hafez al-Assad

could hand down the power to his eldest son, Basid al-Assad. And Basid was an army officer who was essentially brought up to eventually fill this role, taking over for his father. And his military background fit the image of this traditional leader of the Arab world because so many of these leaders took over by military coup or had a background in military. But before we get into all of that, let's go back in time a little bit and talk about what went down. So a sort of succession crisis was triggered in November of 1983 when Hafez al-Assad, a diabetic, had a heart attack. On November 13th, after visiting his brother in a hospital, Hafez al-Assad reportedly announced his candidacy for president. He did not believe that his brother would a hospital, Refat al-Assad reportedly announced his candidacy for president.

He did not believe that his brother would be able to continue ruling the country after this. When he did not receive support from Assad's inner circle, he made lavish promises to win them over. But apparently some believe that Refat had been Hafez al-Assad's first choice of successor, and it was an idea that some people say he broached as early as 1980. Refat al-Assad was the younger brother of Hafez, and he served as vice president. Many believe him to be the commanding officer responsible for the Hama massacre of 1982. I briefly mentioned this in the previous episode at the end. It was a horrific massacre, and I think it especially is near to me because Hama is my mother's hometown

and it's probably my favorite place in the world. They have these water wheels that are like, I don't know, they mesmerize me. But that's another story entirely. We can be all sappy at another time. But I did want to bring up this massacre because most people have no idea that it even happened. In February 1982, as commander of the defense companies, Rafat allegedly commanded the forces that put down a Muslim Brotherhood revolt in the central city of Hama by instructing his forces to shell the city with rockets and this killed thousands of its inhabitants. Reports range from between 5,000 and 40,000, but the most common suggestion is around 15,000 to 20,000. Still, a shit ton of people.

And this became known as the Hama Massacre. A declassified document from the Defense Intelligence Agency estimates the total number of casualties to be approximately 2,000. However, U.S. journalist Thomas Friedman claims in his book From Beirut to Jerusalem that Vefat later said the total number of victims was 38,000 people. 38,000 people. Vefat also played a key role in his brother Hoffas' overthrow of Saad al-Jadid and the seizure of power in 1970. This change in executive power is dubbed by some loyalists as the corrective revolution. Rafat was allowed to form his own paramilitary group, the Defense Companies, in 1971, and this soon transformed into a powerful and regular military force, trained and armed by the Soviet Union. He was a qualified

paratrooper, and he ran the elite internal security forces and the defense companies in the 70s and early 80s. But things changed when Hafez suffered a heart attack in late 83. As he was recovering, Hafez established a six-member committee to run the country, but a fact was not included. The council consisted entirely of close Sunni Muslim loyalists to Hafez who were mostly lightweights in the military security establishment. This caused unease in the Alawi-dominated officer corps and several high-ranking officers began rallying behind Rafat, while others remained loyal to Hafez's instructions. In March of 84, Rafat's troops,

now numbering more than 55,000 with tanks and artillery, aircraft, and helicopters, they began asserting control over Damascus. A squadron of Rafat's tanks took position at the central roundabout of Kafr Suseh in Mount Qasiyun, overlooking the city. Setting up checkpoints and roadblocks, putting up posters of him in state buildings, disarming regular troops, and arbitrarily arresting soldiers of the regular army, occupying and commandeering police stations, an intelligence building, occupying state buildings, the defense companies rapidly outnumbered and took control over both the special forces and the republican guard. Although Damascus was divided between two armies and seemed to be on the brink of war,

Rafa did not move. Hafiz was then informed that Rafa was heading to Damascus and he left his headquarters to meet his brother. British journalist Patrick Seal reports an intimate moment between these two brothers. He writes, At Rafa's home in Mezze, the brothers were at last face to face. an intimate moment between these two brothers. He writes, fail to win the contest. Deferring to him at last, as he had so often during their youths, the FAT chose to accept, although with some inward skepticism, Hafez's pledge that the trust between them would be restored and would be the basis of their future work together. There was a clear division and tensions between forces loyal to Hafez, namely the 3rd Armored Division, the Republican Guard, the various intelligence services, the National Police, and the Special Forces. The defense companies were so loyal to Dufat.

In the middle of 84, Hafiz had returned from his sickbed and assumed full control, at which point most officers rallied around him. At first, it seemed like Dufat was going to be put on trial. He even faced a questioning that was broadcast on television. However, it is believed that Hafez's daughter Bushra actually saved her uncle by convincing her father that it would disgrace the family. It might cause tensions not only within the Assad family, but within the Mehlouf family as well. Both Hafez and Nafat had married women from the Mehlouf family,

and they also just happened to be the second most prevalent Alawite family, dominating the leadership of the security services behind the Assad's. In what first seemed like a compromise, Refat was made vice president with responsibility for security affairs, but this proved to be simply a fancy title in post. Command of the defense companies was trimmed down to an armored division size and was transferred to another officer, and the entire unit was ultimately disbanded and absorbed into other units. Refat was then sent to the Soviet Union in an open-ending

working visit. His closest supporters and others who had failed to prove their loyalty to Hafez were purged from the army and Ba'ath party in the years that followed. Upon his departure, Jafat acquired 300 million dollars of public money, including 100 million Libyan money on a loan. In 2015, he claimed that the money was a gift from Crown Prince Abdullah of Saudi Arabia. And although Jafat returned to Syria for his mother's funeral in 1992 and for some time lived in Syria, he was thereafter confined to exile in France and Spain. He nominally retained the post of vice president until February of 1988, at which point he was stripped of this title. He had retained a large business empire both in Syria and abroad, partly through his son Sumer. However, the 1999 crackdown involving armed clashes in Latakia destroyed much of his

remaining network in Syria. Large numbers of Rafat's supporters were arrested. This was seen as tied to the issue of succession, with Rafat having begun to position himself to succeed the ailing Hafez, who in his turn sought to eliminate all potential competition for his designated successor, his son Bashar al-Assad. In France, Rafat, who is still alive, has loudly protested against the succession of Bashar to the post of president, claiming that he himself embodies the only constitutional legality as previous vice president, alleging his dismissal as unconstitutional. He has made threatening remarks about planning to return to Syria at a time of his choosing to assume his responsibilities

and fulfill the will of the people, and that while he will rule benevolently and democratically, he will do so with the power of the people and the army behind him. Anyway, Jaffa's coup attempt weakened the institutionalized power structure on which Hafez based his rule. Instead of changing his policy, Assad tried to protect his power by honing his governmental model. He then gave a larger role to Basset, his oldest son, who was subsequently rumored to be his father's planned successor at the time, and this kindled jealousy within the government. At a 1994 military meeting, the chief of staff said that since Assad wanted to normalize relations with Israel, the Syrian military had to

withdraw its troops from the Golan Heights. Ali Haydad replied angrily, we have become non-entities, we were not even consulted. When he heard about his outburst, Assad replaced him as commander of special forces with the Alawite Major General Ali Habib. Haydad also reportedly opposed dynastic succession, keeping his views secret until after Bassel's death in 94, and when Assad chose Bashar al-Assad to succeed him. He then openly criticized Assad's succession plans. Okay, before we go back to 1990, let's take a quick break. BRB. Okay, so back to 1990. The regime had done everything in preparation for Bassel to take power. However, on January 21st of 1994, while Bassel was driving his Mercedes at a high speed.

And author Paul Thoreau reports that Bastille was driving 150 miles per hour. He was driving through dense fog to Damascus International Airport for a flight to Frankfurt, Germany. He was on his way to a ski vacation in the Alps in the early hours of the morning. And it was then that Abbasid collided with a barrier and, not wearing a seatbelt, he died instantly. After his tragic death, the regime made sure to elevate the Assad name in the process. Shops, schools, and public offices in Syria closed, and the sale of alcohol was suspended in respect. He was elevated by the state into the martyr of the country, the martyr of the nation,

and the symbol for its youth. A great number of squares and streets were named after him. The new international swimming complex, various hospitals, sporting clubs, and a military academy. The international airport in Latakia was named after him, Basel Esad International Airport. His statue was found in several Syrian cities, and even after his death, he's often pictured on billboards with his father and his brother. He also has an equestrian statue in Aleppo. Even in November of 2020, a museum dedicated to him was inaugurated at the Latakia Sports City. Bassel's untimely death obviously had unforeseen consequences. It led to his lesser known brother, Bashar, to assume the mantle of president-in-waiting. At the time, he was content

undertaking postgraduate training in ophthalmology in London. Bashar was seen as the shy, unassuming younger brother, and for his whole life up to this point, he was overshadowed by his father and his older brother, Basset. But then, suddenly, he was overshadowed by his father and his older brother, Basset. But then, suddenly, he was fast-tracked on the path to succession. He was rushed to the military, and the constitution changed so that the minimum age required of the president was not 40, but 34, exactly Bashat's age at the time. Bashat became president following the death of his father, who died on June 10th of 2000. Bassel's posters and his name were also used to secure a smooth transition after Hafez al-Assad introduced the slogan, Bassel the example, Bashar the future. His quote-unquote election was a yes or no referendum, a popular vote on whether the Syrian people wanted him as their president.

And so surprise, he won with at least 97% of the vote. So after the vote, Bashar is sworn in, and he's presented to his people as the savior, as the one who's going to open up Syria and reform the system. Dr. Bashar, as some refer to him, was seen as the leader of the younger generation of Syria, the standard bearer of modernization. But the regime was and stayed very cynical and was not at all sincere about these reforms. However, Bashar performed his role and acted the part, cracking down on corruption and reaching out to all sectors of Syrian society. Back in 2000, some people were even calling this the Damascus Spring. And the Syrian people were seeing things change, unaware that, as Sam Dacker puts it, that Bashar is being mentored and tutored by people who have been empowered by his father to kill, torture, and disappear people because they had dared to speak out against the regime. These hardliners were grooming him and telling him, yes, you can present yourself as a softer version of your father, but know that in order to hang on to power, you have to be as ruthless

as your father, if not more. Western governments had the impression that Bashar was someone they could do business with. He presented a modern, open-minded image and even hosted notable positions from around the world in Damascus, including Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie. The U.S. and Europe accepted this perception because they believed that it was in their best interest to do so. And to ensure that this image of Syrian leadership was being presented to the world, the regime was strategic, having Bashar show that he was different from his father, even in the choice of who he married. his father, even in the choice of who he married. In December of 2000, Assad married Esma Akhras, a British citizen of Syrian origin from Acton, London. She was much different than Syria's previous first lady. She wasn't from the religious sect that the Assads belonged to, the Alawites,

who are still a religious minority. She is actually of a Sunni majority. Bashar decided to marry someone who had lived all her life abroad as a British citizen, who was modern and assertive and had a career in investment banking and talked about going to Harvard for business school. She was even featured in Vogue. Come on, barf. In an interview in 2005, Esma said, quote, The issue here is not how Muslim women decide to dress. The issue is what Muslim women are doing in their society today. It doesn't matter how we dress or

what we look like. So hearing this and other things, Western leaders are looking at this modern educated couple, believing they are different. And more importantly, that they are more suitable to their interests. In the post-911 era, the United States was looking for allies in the so-called war on terror. And Bashar al-Assad, as Sam Dagger stated in an interview, quote, shared intelligence with the Americans and even tortured people on behalf of the Americans. So the West had a vested interest to justify its engagement and cooperation with Bashar by saying he's a reformer. Opening up Syria's economy was a big part of projecting an image of a reformed Syria. Before Bashar took power, Syria's economy

was a centrally planned economy, also known as a command economy, which is an economic system where a government body makes economic decisions based on the production and distribution of goods. Syria's economy was in the mold of the Soviet Union's economy. But when Bashar took over, the economy began to change drastically. In the early 2000s, ATMs were seen in Syria for the very first time and cell phone companies were established. And while the economy may have opened up, everything was still in control of the regime. I wanted to bring up something that my mom mentioned about the differences between Bashar and Hafez and how they genuinely believed he was going to bring modern change.

He was doing it all right on paper. But when Hafez was in power in the early 80s, or my mom was talking about her experience in the late 80s, early 90s. Apparently, there were at least three secret service stations that monitored everyone in every neighborhood. Three per neighborhood. And because my mom was going back and forth from America to Syria, my father as well, they would send for my mom. They would request that she go to the secret service, and she was asked there about the Syrians she knew in the states, what they were doing, what they did, who went to the mosque. She had to write everything

she did in detail. She did this every time she visited Syria. And my father went through the same thing. At one instant, she was saying that one time they left her alone in a room for three hours because they do this to purposely humiliate you they make you anxious they make you scared and this was just something of normal procedure that a lot of syrians experienced just constant terror as i mentioned it's a culture of fear and this is one of the ways that they promoted that but after bashar, this changed. These places were taken down and it just genuinely looked like Bashar was an improvement. He studied in the West, he opened up the internet because previously the internet was only allowed for news and it just seemed promising.

And before we get into anything further, let's take another break. BRB. we get into anything further, let's take another break. BRB. We're back. In Sam Dacker's book, Assad or Reburn the Country, he describes how tightly controlled this new Syrian economy is. He writes, 10 families run Syria and control everything. He continues to describe how this early period in Bashar's rule also brought the rise of another figure, Rami Makhlouf, Bashar's cousin. He is related to the Assad family through his mother, who was the sister of Anisa Makhlouf, Hafez al-Assad's wife, so she's Bashar's aunt. Rami Makhlouf's personal wealth accumulated abroad was estimated to be in the excess of $10 billion in 2020. His father, Mohamed Makhlouf, played the role of the regime's financier, basically Hafez's money man. As Bashar al-Assad became president, Makhlouf's son Rami

inherited this business empire and became this new tycoon in Syria. He was the person who made sure that any economic opening would benefit and enrich the Assad family. Before the Syrian civil war started in early 2011, he was considered one of the wealthiest and most powerful men in Syria and controlled nearly 60% of the economy, including industries of real estate and telecommunication, aviation, the dairy industry, tourism, electricity, and oil trading. According to Syrian analysts, he is part of al-Assad's inner circle, and no foreign company could do business in Syria at the time without his consent and partnership.

The last French ambassador to Syria had lunch with Rami once and described him as acting as the king of Syria, puffing cigars and saying, I'm in control and everything happens through me. Fast forward to our present day. The economy has completely collapsed ever since the uprising started in early 2011. It could be seen as an accumulation of the past decade. Syria's sanctioned hit economy had always relied on Lebanon to sustain itself, but in the fall of 2019, Lebanon had its own crises and it was an economic and political turmoil, which forced banks to control access to cash and prevent transfers abroad. Dagger explains, Lebanon has

always served as this economic pressure valve, not only for the regime, but also for average Syrians. A lot of Syrians had their savings, their life savings in Lebanese banks. One analyst told me that Syrians had $1 billion in deposits in Syria itself versus $40 billion of Syrian deposits in Lebanon. And then what happens in Lebanon? The whole banking system crashes. There are protests in the streets of Lebanon. That outlet that Syrians had shuts down and the situation becomes progressively worse in Syria. The value of the Syrian lira had also extremely diminished and continues to. Trying to recover from this plummet of the Syrian economy, Bashar turned

to capitalists that he had empowered 20 years prior, including his cousin, Rami Makhlouf. Bashar asked Rami for $230 million, specifically in back taxes. It was described essentially as being a shakedown. The world saw this as a huge falling out between Syria's richest man and its president, aka dictator, Bashar al-Assad. Other prominent businessmen, not just Rami, were also targeted, and they all quietly agreed to pay whatever the regime was asking for.

The economy was in a dire state, and the regime urgently needed cash. So the government asked for money from the businessmen it had empowered in the first place, and most of them comply. But not Rami Makhlouf. In June 2011, Makhlouf stated that he would, quote, quit the Syrian business scene. On May 1st of 2020, Makhlouf made an unprecedented public appeal to his cousin. He made this appeal on Facebook, saying that officials were seeking

to seize his assets as he was pressured to hand over an excess of 130 billion, I think that's what all those zeros mean, an excess of 130 billion liras due to tax evasion. Makhlouf, who was a part of Bashar al-Assad's inner circle, said he would pay the president himself, but not the state. Two days later, he posted another video on Facebook where he mentioned that Syrian security forces arrested some of his employees. He said, How could they do this when I was their biggest supporter and their biggest servant during the war?

However, speculations indicate that the Syrian first lady, Esma al-Assad, had been responsible for this whole plot. The reason being that, quote, many businessmen loyal to Esma competed with Makhlouf for control of diminishing resources. After collapse of the Syrian pound, along with sanctions, made the space in which they compete narrow and difficult. This is according to Dr. Muhannad al-Hajj Ali, a researcher at the Carnegie Middle East Center. In addition, the Syrian authorities might have targeted Makhlouf in order to find resources prior to the implementation of U.S. sanctions related to the Caesar Act. On May 17, 2020, Makhlouf posted another video on Facebook where he mentioned rising pressure on him to hand over profits or he might be arrested. On May 19, 2020, the Syrian government seized all assets belonging to Makhlouf. On the 21st, a Syrian

court placed a temporary travel ban on Makhlouf. On June 25, 2020, the Syrian government terminated duty-free contracts in all ports and border crossings with companies affiliated with Makhlouf. This drama between Bashar and Rami resulted in talks of a rift in the regime's inner circle, and people were concerned that this would expose a rift in the Alawite community itself, which had supplied the bulk of the fighting forces for the regime. the bulk of the fighting forces for the regime. Because in these Facebook videos, Rami wasn't only appealing to his cousin, his patron, with whom he built a 20-year symbiotic relationship with, he was also appealing to the average members of their religious sect, the Alawites, most of whom are nowhere near the wealth of the Assad family's inner circle. He was telling the Alawites that, we had sacrificed everything for the regime, and our sons were killed in order for the regime to remain in power. And instead of being rewarded for the fruits of this, the regime is going after an

important figure who has been instrumental in supporting people through his business, aka Rami himself. And it wasn't necessarily untrue, but he wasn't helping people for free, obviously, and Rami had expected people to remain loyal to him despite all of this. Basically, the Assad family had finished devouring the Syrian state and its resources, and it had now started to devour each other. As of 2020, 80% of Syrians live in poverty, and 40% are unemployed. There is unrelenting inflation and basic goods have doubled or tripled in price. Rice, flour, sugar, coffee, everything has become obscenely expensive. There's hardly any meat and gas is priced in American dollars, which you could only imagine

how high that goes. When my family and I talk to our family members that are still in Syria we hear about the electricity being out for days and weeks and then the water being out for the same amount of time and the people are essentially being suffocated by their own government people are questioned and tortured and kept in prisons for absolutely

no reason and the only way they can get out is by bribing the prisons, thousands of dollars for no reason. And the only way they can get out is by bribing the prisons. Thousands of dollars for no reason. It's just about greed. It's about power. It's about terrible people, these monsters, just destroying this beautiful place. Syria is so beautiful. And I just, my heart breaks for the land and for the people. So although the Assad regime continues to present itself as the ultimate and only power in Syria, Bashar has actually been at his weakest point in the last two years. He is only still in his position because the Russians and Iranians want

him to be there, and he's only able to maintain his role by playing off his two patrons against each other, Iran and Russia. This is a regime that always derived its power from the army and from the security forces, but the army largely does not exist anymore. Yes, there are divisions that are trained by the Russians in an attempt to put this army back together, but even the loyalists who support Bashar al-Assad don't want to join the army anymore. They would rather leave the country. So the regime's only option left is to continue to rule by fear. This has had mixed results, especially when you look at the uprisings that have continued since 2011, however much they have dissipated. People put themselves on the streets, not hiding their identities, vocally and loudly opposing the regime and demanding for the removal of Bashar al-Assad.

This behavior, as we've seen, is unacceptable by the regime, and it's led to the regime all but destroying its own country. Estimates of the total number of deaths in the Syrian civil war by opposition activist groups vary between 500,000 people and 600,000 people as of March of 2022. And I think it's really notable that Syrians are vocally expressing their outrage, and there's just a history there of so much trauma. In 2005, for example, my mother was telling me that a list of demands, so like, what's math? Six years after the first uprisings occurred in 2011. In 2005, a list of demands or corrections were written down.

The things that people wanted to fix of the government. Free press, free expression. They wanted to make the government a democracy. They wanted to make the government a democracy. And Bashar allowed them to list their demands and what they wanted to fix and hand it over to him to look at, essentially. In Arabic, this is called ilan di mashq. And it seemed like maybe an open conversation could happen. this petition was looked up, hunted down, sent to jail, some for decades and some people that are still there, and others fled the country after they started collecting people. This Ilan de

Moshk was the beginning of the end. It was the end of the few liberties that people thought would come when Bashar al-Assad took power. He named everyone who signed, everyone who supported the news people, the press as terrorists. And I think in spite of that, six years later, there was still an uprising. It was an accumulated need to fight back. And so going back to that saying that Assad loyalists spray paint on the cities that Assad has demolished, Assad or we burn the country. It seems like both choices have come true. But Shadrach-Assad has stayed in power and he's also burned the country to the ground. And the more he stays in power, the worse life gets for Syrians. The country is destroyed,

families are shattered, and many, many people have died. The cost is insurmountable. But a lot of Syrians don't see this fight as over. Their injustices and grievances remain the same, even after experiencing indescribable horrors over the past 12 years. Syrian people, like all people, they want dignity. They want justice. And they can no longer accept living in this inhumane system where your most basic rights as a human being depend on your proximity to power.

Anyway, this is Shireen. Thank you for listening. I sincerely appreciate your time. And I'll see ya. Welcome. I'm Danny Thrill. Won't you join me at the fire and dare enter? Nocturnal Tales from the Shadows, presented by iHeart and Sonora. An anthology of modern day horror stories inspired by the legends of Latin America. From ghastly encounters with shapeshifters to bone-chilling brushes with supernatural creatures. I know you.

Take a trip and experience the horrors that have haunted Latin America since the beginning of time. Listen to Nocturnal Tales from the Shadows as part of my Cultura podcast network available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I found out I was related to the guy that I was dating. I don't feel emotions correctly. I am talking to a felon right now, and I cannot decide if I like him or not. Those were some callers from my call-in podcast, Therapy Gecko. It's a show where I take real phone calls from anonymous strangers all over the world as a fake gecko therapist and try to dig into their brains and learn a little bit about their lives. I know that's a weird concept, but I promise it's pretty interesting if you give it a shot.

Matter of fact, here's a few more examples of the kinds of calls we get on this show. I live with my boyfriend and I found his piss jar in our apartment. I collect my roommate's toenails and fingernails. I have very overbearing parents. Even at the age of 29, they won't let me move out of their house. So if you want an excuse to get out of your own head and see what's going on in someone else's head,

search for Therapy Gecko on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. It's the one with the green guy on it. I'm Jack Peace Thomas, and I'm inviting you to join me and a vibrant community of literary enthusiasts dedicated to protecting and celebrating our stories. Black Lit is for the page turners, for those who listen to audiobooks while commuting or running errands, for those who find themselves seeking solace, wisdom, and refuge between the chapters. From thought-provoking novels to powerful poetry, we'll explore the stories that shape our culture. Together, we'll dissect classics and contemporary works while uncovering the stories of the brilliant writers behind them. Blacklit is here to amplify the voices of Black writers and to bring their words to life. Listen to Black Lit on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Hola, mi gente. It's Honey German, and I'm bringing you Gracias, Come Again, the podcast where we dive deep into the world of Latin culture, musica, peliculas, and entertainment with some of the biggest names in the game. If you love hearing real conversations with your favorite Latin celebrities, artists, and culture shifters, this is the podcast for you. We're talking real conversations with our Latin stars, from actors and artists to musicians and creators, sharing their stories, struggles, and successes.

You know it's going to be filled with chisme laughs and all the vibes that you love. Each week, we'll explore everything from music and pop culture to deeper topics like identity, community, and breaking down barriers in all sorts of industries. Don't miss out on the fun, el té caliente, and life stories. Join me for Gracias Come Again, a podcast by Honey German, where we get into todo lo actual y viral. Listen to Gracias Come Again on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. to shut down the border and how he was forced basically to back down by a Mexican trucker strike. And in that episode, we mentioned that Abbott's newest stunt was deporting people from Texas to Washington, D.C. to make Biden look bad by, you know, moving the problem to him.

And as a political stunt, this has largely failed. As a humanitarian disaster inflicting untold human misery on completely innocent people, it is still continuing to unfold. And here today to talk about this with us is Amy Fisher with Sanctuary DMV and the Migrant Solidarity Mutual Aid Network. Amy, thank you for joining us and welcome to the show. Thank you so much for having me. So excited to be here. Yeah. Somewhat less excited that this is happening because dear God. Yeah. So I guess to start off, do you want to tell us a bit about what's been, I guess, how this started and what the sort of initial reaction and non-reaction of the DC government has been? Sure. So in April, Governor Abbott started busing people from the border to DC.

We knew from the get-go that this was a racist publicity stunt, particularly because the first few buses were dropped off right in front of the Fox News building. And we all initially thought it was going to be a few weeks of busing people. And here we are in the middle of July and the buses have kept coming. Buses arrive to DC basically every single day of the week, except for Monday evenings and Tuesday mornings. And there have been probably around 3,500 people bused from Texas to D.C. And not too long after, Governor Ducey of Arizona started doing the same thing and busing people from the Arizona border to D.C. And the D.C. government has basically been unwilling to grapple with the reality of what's happening.

You know, people are arriving to D.C. with very, very little resources, typically like the clothes on their back. Sometimes they don't even have shoes on their feet when they get off the buses. And it's been kind of amazing to see the way that the DC community has responded. It's been like the type of response that makes me remarkably proud of being a D.C. resident and being from the area. And also it's something that the D.C. government is turning a blind eye to and pretending like the reality that we are seeing when we are talking to people that are getting off the buses day in and day out is just it's like entirely different from what, you know, the D.C. mayor is saying about the situation. Yeah, and I guess, well, OK, so before we talk, I guess, fully about the D.C. government, just catastrophic. I don't even want to know if I want to say incompetence so much as just like eh we'll just let these people suffer um can we talk a bit about what what what the community responses looked like and what y'all have been doing sure so maybe to back up a little bit to

tell you about sort of like what the experience is of the people that are getting off the buses these are people that are typically um coming to United States to seek asylum. They're being processed at the border for a few days. And I think what like have been commonly started to be referred to as like the perreras and hieleras at the border. So like the dog kennels, the ice boxes at the border and that are being paroled into the country. And so the Customs and Border Protection, CBP, is releasing these folks to like respite centers type of places at the border. In Texas, most of the folks are coming from Del Rio and Eagle Pass. And then they're being told that there's these free buses to DC. And it's a little bit mind boggling because we know that Governor Abbott is doing this busing purely out of the most racist, xenophobic intentions. And also for many of the folks,

it's a free bus to get to where they're trying to go. And so people are riding on the buses, arriving in DC. And then, you know, many of them are trying to get to other places along the East coast. Um, and many are planning on staying in DC. Um, and so what has happened is we've, um, developed a massive mutual aid response, which has been super cool. So, you know, we have a crew of volunteers that meet the buses when they arrive at Union Station. And if you're not familiar with DC, Union Station is sort of the big transit center in the middle of DC, actually relatively close to where the Capitol is. It's sort of like the DC equivalent of like Penn Station in New York or something like that. And so they're dropped off in front

of Union Station. We have folks that will welcome them. And typically we bring folks to different churches around the area that have opened up their spaces as respite centers for us. And we, you know, sit down with folks, we offer them some food and really try and talk through what their needs are and help them as best as we can meet those needs, whether it is, you know, folks may have medical or like trauma that they need to work through. Maybe they're trying to get to New York and so we'll help them, you know, communicate with family members or help them find their way to New York. We, you know, for the folks that are staying in DC, we've done our best to help them, you know, find a way to kind of get settled and put down

roots in their new community, getting them connected to community members that help them, you know, navigate DC, teach them how to use the Metro, help them get to their, you know, check-in appointments as they're, you know, having to jump through all of the hoops of ice and having to jump through all of the hoops of ice and being surveilled by the state and, and, um, helping them, you know, have access to lawyers to explain their legal process and really just kind of like, I don't know, I took a dude to, to target, to be, to like help them get, go shopping and, you know, took folks to get, uh, just like the random stuff that people need when they arrive in a new place in the same way. I don't know, if I had a friend moving to DC, I would be like, hey, what do you need? How can I help you get to know this place?

This is how our bike share program works. Just the most basic welcome, get settled. Can we talk a little bit more about what the sort of legal process looks like here and what like for example like explain what check-ins are and yeah so um the folks that are arriving are being paroled in um and so basically what it means is that they are then under surveillance from the federal government from ICE, which is Immigration and Customs Enforcement. And what that looks like is a little bit of a crapshoot. So many, many of the folks are at the border given cell phones that have tracking on them. And so with that cell phone, they're being tracked by the government. They basically have to take like selfies ever so

often to check in. And then they're basically being enrolled in this program called ISAP, which is the, I can't remember the acronym. It's a supervision program. And so they have to go to an ICE office once they arrive in whatever city that they're arriving to. Oftentimes they're being asked to turn in the ICE cell phones and having to download an app on their cell phones. If they don't have a cell phone, they might be given an ankle monitor or what many of the Spanish speakers called like a griete, basically like an ankle shackle. For electronic monitoring, they'll have officers, you know, show up at their house. So sometimes they have to, you know, be at home from 7am to 7pm so that, you know, be at home from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. so that, you know, immigration can come by and make sure that they're like still there. And basically that part of the program is entirely so the government can keep a track of where these folks are.

It has nothing to do with like the actual legal process that they are trying to go through to be able to stay here permanently. So separate and apart from that, the vast majority of these folks are asylum seekers. And so what that means is that, you know, once they're here, they have a year to apply for asylum and then they're thrust into the like totally broken asylum system that has you know years-long backlogs and things like that and so then they'll be basically trying to find a way to um get an asylum grant to be able to stay here permanently while also navigating the the surveillance that's happening on the ice side of things are so i know something that happens with like i guess regular prison a lot are people being forced to pay for the ankle bracelets

no thank god okay which is which is something at least minimum but yeah still jesus yeah i mean i will say that we've one of the issues that we have started sort of trying to figure out how to navigate is that. What we're seeing is people, you know, they get the cell phones at the border and then at their check in, they're supposed to turn in the cell phones and then download this at this surveillance app on their phone. this at this surveillance app on their phone um many folks don't have a cell phone or the app only works if you have i think a 5g phone so you basically have to have like the fanciest of the phones which if you're an asylum seeker and you just risked it all to come here to seek safety and you don't really have a support in the U S and now you're being told that you have to have this super fancy phone or you get an ankle shackle. It's, it, it, it's just kind of a ridiculous thing knowing that it's okay. Maybe you're privileged enough to be able to

be surveilled on your own personal cell phone, or just have to have it in cold shackle at all times so much of this process just like it really feels just like it's it's just it's surveillance just sort of for the purpose of humiliation it's surveillance for the purpose of humiliation it's surveillance for the sake of some, this idea that we've been dealing with in the U.S. since September 11th, that immigration is a national security concern, that, you know, if immigrants aren't being surveilled 24 hours a day, then, like, Lord knows what they could do. being surveilled 24 hours a day, then like Lord knows what they could do. When the reality is, is these are folks that are just like normal people trying to live their best lives. And I also think how, I think it's really important to say how much of this is also

entirely based on government funding and availability. That so oftentimes the decision as to what kind of surveillance you're under is based upon what is available based on contracts with, you know, private surveillance companies and private prison companies that have a surveillance arm and things like that. It's entirely profit driven yeah definitely definitely again i keep thinking about prisons and it's just like yeah i mean literally literally the same companies doing this kind of stuff and how yeah and like i think i don't know there's there's this kind of like

i mean i guess people it's just a prison industrial complex but. There's this kind of like... I mean, I guess people... It's just a industrial complex, but yeah, there's this sort of state-private sector complex that both feed on each other, where you have these companies taking federal money to do stuff. You have these companies who have figured out ways to extract money from the people that are surveilling.

And I guess... Okay, keeping on the thread of the state making people's lives miserable um yeah so muriel bowser not doing anything uh yeah we talked about that a bit so muriel bowser's uh messaging that we have received has evolved a little bit here and there so that we have received has evolved a little bit here and there. So sometimes she says that the majority of people that are getting off the bus have everything they need and have family supporting them. And so there actually is no reason for the government to step forward because these people all of their needs met, which I would say maybe one person or one family every few days has someone that's, you know, ready to meet them when they step off the bus, but the vast majority of people don't. And I would say that we're seeing an ever-increasing amount of people that don't

have anybody in the United States. And so they really are in need of a lot of supports to help them really figure out their way here because they don't have cousins or family friends or extended family, whatever it may be, to help them, you know, put down roots in their new communities. to help them, you know, put down roots in their new communities. In recent weeks, her messaging has shifted a little bit because there is actually a Spain-based organization that got a grant from FEMA to support on the buses. And so now Bowser's response is. This organization SAMU.

Has it. It's covered. There's no. One. Refusing to even acknowledge the fact. That the mutual aid network has been. And continues to do. The vast majority of the welcoming. Of the folks that are arriving.

And. Two. Once again. Ref refusing to acknowledge that there is any role that dc could be or should be playing here yeah and it definitely it seems like i don't know, I mean, it's a kind of classic state two-step. It's like, yeah, on the one hand, it's like, okay, there's no problem. The second thing is we found an NGO we can sort of pretend is doing the actual work. And I guess one of the other things that I saw from y'all recently was a bunch of people got exposed to COVID while doing this. And there was like,

basically you guys did basically a work stoppage. So last week, um, we basically hit a wall. Um, many of our core organizers had been exposed to COVID. we were running out of funds because this work is expensive. Yeah.

And we had been doing this as volunteers around the clock, you know, 24 hours a day, seven days a week for months. And last week we kind of hit a wall and, um, told this NGO that is receiving FEMA funding that, um, we needed to take a beat, um, and take two days where, you know, folks could get COVID tested and make sure they were in the clear to come back to work and rest and also spend time like we, you know, call of support to make this welcome last. And unfortunately, that resulted in people basically getting stranded at Union Station. And when our folks were able to return to welcoming buses on, you know, later in the week, they ended up with like, I don't know, 30 additional people that had basically been sleeping at Union Station because this other NGO that, you know, is receiving federal funding to do the work that the mayor is saying has it, and therefore she doesn't have to do anything, didn't show up. And there were a handful of Good Samaritans that like, you know, would be at Union Station and see a bunch of folks and they,

you know, spoke different languages and would be able to support them kind of here and there. be able to support them kind of here and there. But it really showed how, I think it really proved the work that the Mutual Aid Network had been holding and that, you know, if we tried to take a step back, things fall and really showed how much we need others to step in because the work that we've been holding has been, you know, wearing us down and hiding the situation a little bit, right? That people don't, you know, when we're able to really show up and, and provide the folks that are arriving with the support that they need, what it means is that the government isn't paying attention because it's, it's not their problem in that moment. It means that DC residents don't have to walk by asylum seekers when they're

trying to get to the Metro after work. It means that, um, you know, the people are cared for and, and that's great. And it's work that we're proud of and it's work that we're doing well. Um, but it's also work that we need support doing, um, that we need support doing because it's a lot and the numbers have increased, you know, and we want to be able to provide welcome. We want to be able to give the folks what they need, but as long as we're sort of living in this world where bus tickets are massively expensive and food is expensive and, you know, we gotta, we gotta help close people and, and help people meet their needs, then, then we have to have support. And that's just, that's just the reality. Yeah. That's one of the things that is really frustrating about this too.

It's not like the resources to do this don't exist. It's not even like the state hasn't attempted to put resources out, but it just got fed into this NGO complex of people who are just doing nothing. And I don't know. the the way you get to see sort of both arms of what the state does or it's like okay on the one hand you have the part of the state that's just hitting people with clubs that's just doing this stuff and you get the sort of political arm of the state who just like again are just literally shuffling people's lives around as as you know as political theater and the political political theater doesn't matter because these people's lives don't matter to the state or to anyone who has even a tiny bit of power unless that you know they're it's visible enough that people are like the

people have to see it and that people you know get annoyed because oh hey look at this thing happening that's like interfering with my life now and you know and then it's like oh hey they're supposed to be part of the state that like takes care of people and just isn't and that's just incredibly frustrating i don't know it's i think of a few things so when we first started seeing buses coming to dc um you know that people are dropped off in front of Union Station. And at the time, there was an encampment of unhoused people that, you know, had their tents and stuff in front of Union Station. And you're immediately showing getting showed in the most, you know, visible terms possible of the way that the state is failing its own people. people in DC don't have housing and housing here is immensely expensive and then I say in the early days because in I think it was in May that encampment was cleared and so those people lost their homes and And now it continues to be a struggle that, you know, if we are unable to provide housing for the people that get off the bus, they are going into the D.C. shelter system

that is already overrun because there is a housing crisis in D.C. and a looming eviction crisis. And even for the folks that are arriving here on the buses, if they don't have support, they're thrust into this situation in which the state is preventing them from working. They don't have a way to work legally for at least a few months, presumably until, you know, they can apply for a work permit, presumably after they file for asylum. But these are folks that don't have a way to work legally, that have zero support from the state. So tell me how somebody is supposed to live in the United States, feed themselves, feed their families, have a roof over their head. Survive. Have a cell phone for your surveillance app.

Have the means to travel an hour, you know, once every few weeks to check in with ICE. If they're legally prevented from working. It's just, it's a total abandonment of people who need and wholeheartedly deserve support. Yeah, and I think like, it's's honestly like honestly i think it's worse than abandonment right like if they just like if these people were allowed to come into the u.s and the state did literally nothing at all it would be better than the situation that exists now like

it's not even just that they're being abandoned it's that they're actively being prevented from like doing the things they need to live and it's i don't know i think this is something you see on a sort of broader level, right? Where there's a lot of, I don't know, back when I was in sort of social theory land, there was a lot of talk about like necropolitics and the state letting people die. And it's like, well, yeah,

but like they're also actively helping to kill them too. Like that's like, it's not just that the state abandons people, it's that the state abandons people and then it takes the resources and prevents anyone else from using them. And then, you know, and when it does sort of the resources and prevents anyone else from using them. And then, you know,

and when it, when it does sort of, yeah, I mean, going back to sort of this NGO, that's not doing anything. It's like, yeah,

when it, when it does sort of send these resources out, it's sending them into these, like into its own sort of Paris state complex with the sort of NGO sector, that's just not doing anything. And it's just, I don't know, like it,

it's, it's this bind, right? Cause it's like, yeah. Like on the one hand, like communities have to be able to support each other, but it's like,

we don't have the resources for it. And that has to come from somewhere. Right. And yeah, it's impossible. And it's, it's heartbreaking to see when DC is barely doing anything for the people that have been living here for generations. And then when we have new folks arrive, they're thrust into this impossible situation.

And no one's really willing to engage with that problem. And there are resources. It's just a matter of whether you want to use them for these purposes. And this is a problem that we're seeing intimately here in D.C., but it's a problem that's existing everywhere around the country. Yeah. And D. And DC is supposed to be a sanctuary city. Like this isn't, this isn't DC with a mayor that's, you know, politically aligned with governor Abbott. This isn't a DC with a mayor who is attempting to be vehemently anti-immigrant.

It's a mayor who is claiming to represent a sanctuary city, a city that is supposed to welcome immigrants. And yet saying welcome doesn't actually mean welcome. Yeah. I like i'm in chicago and you know chicago is also sanctuary city and i i you know we had to physically stop deportation flights with our bodies like with the this i have this like haunting memory i always remember is like the first big like anti-ice like anti kids in cages protests that we had one of the groups that showed up to this thing like it's called heartland alliance and then you know they describe myself as like this human rights and anti-poverty organization and they were literally running five child detention centers in chicago

and it was like i don't know the the to me that that was like just the sort of like the the it's it's the rubber hitting the road of saying you're a sanctuary city and what does it look like and it's like well it means that your micro justice organizations like run child prisons for immigrants it's a refusal to engage with reality a little bit and you know the NGO of Samu that is receiving FEMA funding to presumably abandon people at Union Station is also, you know, if things go their way, trying to open up a facility in DC to, you know, detain unaccompanied children. And that's welcome to a sanctuary city. It's probably worth mentioning it's like you know spain another country that has just like people getting like people so spain like has a part of north africa they control and you know

like people like people get shot at the border by soldiers trying to like trying to climb fences getting in and you know it's it's this fun thing where we're seeing like i mean this is what's been happening for the last i mean really like forever like last 500 years has been this but this this sort of this this incredible racist border system is not just an american thing it's in europe it's in it's been exported like into mexico itself it's been i don't know it's it's it's it's it's a politics that's just sort of everywhere and like frantex and the eu does this stuff like it's it's been i don't know it's it's it's it's it's a politics that's just sort of everywhere and like frantex and the eu does this stuff like it's it's all just i don't know it's borders are racist yeah and they kill people and they kill people and it feels i i don't actually think we have to go to like it's i think it's helpful to make those analogies of how this is replicated

across the world. But I also think that, you know, just a few weeks ago, there were over 50, uh, migrants that were found dead in the back of a tractor trailer in San Antonio, including, you know, young indigenous folks.

And we know that there have been thousands of thousands of Haitians removed under Title 42. Haitians removed under Title 42, and Haitians that are drowning in the water trying to find a way to come to the United States to seek safety. People are literally dying trying to get here. And what the folks that are coming to D.C. in, these are the quote-unquote right asylum seekers, and they're able to be paroled into the country and still have to deal with all of this crap that they're dealing with. crap that they're dealing with. But there's countless other Black, Brown, Indigenous folks that are arriving at the border and literally risking their lives and many losing their lives trying to get here because of these like racialized border systems that we have and that we're exporting all throughout the americas like go south to mexico to tapachula and you basically have an open-air prison of black asylum seekers yeah i mean there's something that like like my my the reason my family's here

is because we were able to like my grandpa got drafted into the taiwanese army and he was like no and because we were taiwanese we were able to get to the u.s but it's like you know lots and lots of people like you know if you were from south vietnam sometimes they let you and if they if you were from taiwan they will let you in but like god help you if you're from like indonesia or just like from i mean sometimes you get people from china, but it's like, yeah, the, I don't know, the way that just all of these people's lives are being used as geopolitical tools. They're being used. And then, you know, once they get here, they're being used as just sort of internal American political tools. And yeah, it's just as much people getting killed at the borders. And until we fucking make borders go away, like the stuff is just going to keep happening.

And until we fucking make borders go away, like the stuff is just going to keep happening. And people are getting boarded onto buses and sent to DC because governor Abbott thinks this is the way that he can run for president. Yeah. By being the most racist xenophobic guy in town. And these folks are just political tools. And it's devastating. then also just like hang out with them and break bread with them and, and realize that we're all sort of fighting this, this mess together. Yeah. And I think, I don't know, like I, we, we, we do a lot of episodes here that are incredibly depressing, but yeah,

like I guess, yeah, it isn't, I guess important as a, as a thing to sort of end on is it like yeah i know like we like we can take care of these people like we can if if we actually fight this together we can beat these guys like we i don't know like it it it is actually possible like these these all of the things that we're talking about like this stuff didn't used to exist it's not it's not something that inherently has to exist and we can make it not exist again i think the the response that we've had in dc has been a really like I can't say it enough how beautiful it is that we have a group of like over 200 volunteers that have stepped up and we've been able to raise a remarkable amount of money. And we've had like, you know, little kids sell cookies to support our efforts.

And it's really heartwarming. And. People using their. Neighborhood listservs. To you know. Get donations of car seats. To be able to you know. Make sure that when we're.

You know helping families. We can make sure that like the little kiddos. Are able to like travel in car seats safely. And all of that. And we've been able to. and we're doing more of this of like building relationships with folks around the country that are doing similar work. Or, you know, if someone is taking a bus to New York and it, you know, breaks down in Philly, we're able to mobilize other volunteers in Philly to just like make sure that folks are like fine and okay

and like get on their next bus. And that is amazing and beautiful. And to me, I think the thing that makes me optimistic and like mad at the same time is that there are both at the federal level and local levels, just billions and billions and billions of dollars that are being invested into solutions that are based on like detention, surveillance, border militarization. When, God, like if instead we just devoted those billions and billions and billions of dollars into making sure that like when folks arrive here, they can have like a comfy bed to let, to, to like lay in at night and have food and be able to like support their families. I mean, support their families i mean it it kind of sounds revolutionary but it but it's just like it's so simple um and there is such a concerted effort to do the opposite of the most basic hey welcome

to my town how can i welcome you there was if i'm remembering my like immigration history right they're used they had this program in in the uk where for a while where they would bring okay you'd have a family they're coming to the us and they get paired with a british family and the british family would like show them the ropes and it worked really well everyone loved it and they stopped doing it because they once they brought people in like that they couldn't deport them because the entire community would show up and just be like, no. And so they stopped doing it. And it's like-

That's a problem. Like that's the problem that like people are then welcomed and loved by their communities. Yeah. Like that shouldn't be a problem that we have to solve. That should be like,

oh, this is a resounding success. Yeah. And instead it's like, actually living in a better world, actually having a community where people care for each other, where people take care of each other and where people love each other or people will fight for each other. said it's like it's like actually living in a better world actually having a community where people care for each other where people take care of each other and where people love each other or people will fight for each other like that is something that the state sees as a threat and

i don't know i i guess it's it's it's this it's this weird thing where it's like you know we like the better world we could be living in like it is is literally being built right like you know you can you can you can walk down the street and you can see people taking care of each other and then it's like here is the state who's the only thing that they want to do is just make everyone's lives increasingly miserable that's yeah like is it is it that's hard to just say hey like folks want to be able to just like live that's it it's all they want to be able to do is just like live they want to be able to work they want to be able to support their family they want to be able to be safe. They want to be able to like eat good food and have fun. And the state is doing everything,

but allowing that to be and are like mutual aid work is, is, is helping folks navigate and do as much of that as possible. Yeah. I think, I think that's a good note to end on unless you have anything else. I don't think so. Cool. Okay, so where can people go to find and support this work

and where can they go to like give money if they want to or actually help volunteer too if you're in the area? Yeah, so we have a link tree that has all of the links to support us in all the ways. So if you're here in D.C. and you want to be able to support or if you want to donate, we have really cool T-shirts that we sell that say Melt Ice. They're sick. They're designed by one of our volunteers um and so it's the the link tree is uh like the link tree uh slash dctx solidarity 22

and if you follow that link you will be able to um see all about our work um you know get the demands that we have for mayor bowser support us in person financially whatever it is all of that lives there and yeah we will we will put the link in the description so cool that'd be great i'll make sure you have it yeah thank you um and yeah thank you thank you so much for joining us. Thank you for having me. Yeah. And this has been Nick and Appen here. Go help your neighbors and go make the state not be able to prevent you from doing that. Welcome. I'm Danny Thrill.

Won't you join me at the fire and dare enter Nocturnum, Tales from the Shadows, presented by iHeart and Sonora. An anthology of modern-day horror stories inspired by the legends of Latin America. From ghastly encounters with shapeshifters to bone-chilling brushes with supernatural creatures. I know you.

Take a trip and experience the horrors that have haunted Latin America since the beginning of time. that have haunted Latin America since the beginning of time. Listen to Nocturnal Tales from the Shadows as part of my Cultura podcast network, available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I found out I was related to the guy that I was dating. I don't feel emotions correctly.

I am talking to a felon right now, and I cannot decide if I like him or not. Those were some callers from my call-in podcast, Therapy Gecko. It's a show where I take real phone calls from anonymous strangers all over the world as a fake gecko therapist and try to dig into their brains and learn a little bit about their lives. I know that's a weird concept, but I promise it's pretty interesting if you give it a shot. Matter of fact, here's a few more examples of the kinds of calls we get on this show. I live with my boyfriend and I found his piss jar in our apartment. I collect my roommate's toenails and fingernails.

I have very overbearing parents. Even at the age of 29, they won't let me move out of their house. So if you want an excuse to get out of your own head and see what's going on in someone else's head, search for Therapy Gecko on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. It's the one with the green guy on it.

Hey, I'm Jack B. Thomas, the one with the green guy on it. Hey, I'm Jack Peace Thomas, the host of a brand new Black Effect original series, Black Lit, the podcast for diving deep into the rich world of Black literature. I'm Jack Peace Thomas, and I'm inviting you to join me in a vibrant community of literary enthusiasts

dedicated to protecting and celebrating our stories. Black Lit is for the page turners, for those who listen to audiobooks while commuting or running errands, for those who find themselves seeking solace, wisdom, and refuge between the chapters. From thought-provoking novels to powerful poetry, we'll explore the stories that shape our culture. Together, we'll dissect classics and contemporary works while uncovering the stories of the brilliant writers behind them. Blacklit is here to amplify the voices of Black writers and to bring their words to life. Listen to Blacklit on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Hi, I'm Ed Zitron, host of the Better Offline podcast, and we're kicking off our second season digging into how tech's elite has turned Silicon Valley into a playground for billionaires. From the chaotic world of generative AI to the destruction of Google search, Better Offline is your unvarnished and at times unhinged look at the underbelly of tech

from an industry veteran with nothing to lose. This season, I'm going to be joined by everyone from Nobel winning economists to leading journalists in the field. And I'll be digging into why the products you love keep getting worse and naming and shaming those responsible. Don't get me wrong, though. I love technology. I just hate the people in charge and want them to get back to building things that actually do things to help real people. I swear to God, things can change if we're loud enough. So join me every week to understand what's happening in the tech industry and what could be done to make things better.

Listen to Better Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, wherever else you get your podcasts. Check out betteroffline.com. uh welcome to it could happen on the internet the only podcast i'm robert evans um and today we've got saint andrew back in the studio uh we don't actually have a studio that was a lie that was a lie that i told you'd think i was cooler saint andrew how are you doing today i am good i'm good andrew dropped the saint oh shit i'm sorry you're right you're right you're right we should probably yes i'm sorry i'm less good because i'm no longer a saint so okay if i understand catholicism right that means you undid someone else's three miracles?

I know nothing about Catholicism. Oh, okay, well, there you go. Pretty sure you have. This is a Protestant background here. My knowledge of Catholicism is that to be a saint, you have to do a couple of miracles, but the last one is always something to do with being dead. Like, they just decide that whatever you do when you're a corpse is like, ah, it's a miracle. Oh, Catholicism. Andrew, what are we talking about today?

Today we're going to be talking about something that I would say more traditional Catholics may have some disagreements with. Oh no. Traditional Christians may have some disagreements with, and that is. I mean, that is our entire audience, is the Vatican. This podcast is completely listened to by the Pope's Swiss guards.

100% Vatican City. Yeah, we have deep penetration in the Vatican. That's an interesting choice of words, considering the end of Pride Month, but, you know, we'll um yeah what are we talking about we'll be talking about human evolution and particularly my favorite kind as it pertains to um human cooperation okay the origins of human cooperation fuck yeah i love this shit i. I think that people tend to emphasize human competition a lot because capitalism wants us to believe

that we are these competitive dog-eat-dog. I don't know where that term came from. By the way, I've always been curious about that. As far as I know, dogs don't eat each other. But it's an interesting phrase. I think it's kind of apt here. This idea that we're just competing all the time, that we're fighting,

it's just survival of the fittest. And only the strong survive. When people talk casually about prehistoric times, it represents the stories that we've been told about it. And as a result, it tends to be very, you know, competitive, highly patriarchal, highly violent, just constant interpersonal violence.

I mean, that was a justification used to, you know, reinforce the state, right? It was like, oh, the state of nature it's everybody against themselves and so as a result you know a state had to be introduced we trade some of our freedoms for the safety that the state is supposed to provide but as far back as rudon and really even further because yeah let's be. It's a very European concept. That's something that can be protected towards all human societies and all human philosophies. But Proudhon was one of the first white guys,

I guess in his time period and in his field to really challenge that notion with, you know, mutually the fact of evolution, of course, the studies and stuff that he would have done, the knowledge that he would have shared have been, you know mutually the fact of evolution of course the studies and stuff that he would have done um the knowledge that he would have shared have been you know known and studied by people before him but he was one of the first really bring all that knowledge together into one place

um years later um an architect anthropologist and primatologist was born i mean she wasn't born that but she became that later in life. In 1946, that would be Sarah Blaffer Hurdy. And so she made many major contributions to evolutionary psychology and sociobiology, especially pioneering our modern understanding of the evolutionary basis of female behavior in both non-human and human primates. In 2002, she was recognized as one of the 50 most important women in science, and in 2014, Mothers and Others, together with her earlier work, earned Hurdy the National Academy's Award for Scientific Reviewing

in honor of her insightful and visionary synthesis of a broad range of data and concepts from across the social and biological sciences to illuminate the importance of bio-social processes among mothers, infants, and other social actors in forming the evolutionary crucible of human society. In essence, she got an award because she recognized the fact that the relationship between mother and child and you know how humans raise their children um is vital in our evolution and in our becoming human yeah i mean that's um yeah it's fascinating i didn't know any of that yeah i mean humans they we we do recognize now and we're starting to recognize more and more primitive primatologists at least that um humans i let other great apes rather they do care they they share and they empathize a lot more than we may have originally thought

but humans still win at you you know, the caring competition. I think we, because of even something like our facial anatomy and how we structure society is probably one of the more pro-social of, you know, the other great apes. Yeah, it's interesting whenever I, because obviously I've read stuff about like empathy and apes, it's always in the context of um the ones that we taught sign language to the one i'm remembering particularly is and i i'm i'm spacing on the name that the scientist gave her but one of the apes yeah coco when her reaction to like 9-11 um because it was apparently like on the tv or some shit when it happened but like i i i never hear emphasized the same degree um or you know maybe i just have not sought it out but it's certainly kind of less

uh less discussed as like evidence of empathy within um within like the societies that they built i guess like would be the term for them the little their communities i don't know whatever you want to call them yeah yeah i was interesting as well i mean coco was a gorilla um and regarding her sign language is actually an interesting video essay talking about how you know about sign language then we assume but coco was a gorilla and humans are more closely related to two groups those being um bonobos and chimpanzees and we tend to look at chimpanzees which tend to be more you know violent and people use them as an example of all this is how humans naturally are despite the fact that you know we have millions of years of evolution diverging from chimpanzees you know our last common ancestor was like

from chimpanzees. You know, our last common ancestor was like six to seven million years ago. Yeah, that's a bit distant. Like, yeah, like I got five or six years and I consider us pretty like pretty far apart. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, on top of that,

like there was enough time for some serious divergences to start happening you know like the fact that humans you know walk upright and chimpanzees is they still have you know that that four-legged gait it's actually something that i learned recently evolved on two separate occasions that being that particular kind of knuckle walk. Yeah, I just found that kind of fascinating. It's kind of besides the point. But yeah, I mean, we tend to look at chimpanzees

as our closest example, but bonobos, which are a lot more social, I would say, a lot more cooperative and less violent than chimpanzees, share a lot of, you know, similarities in terms of, you know, our behavior. And they're also one of the few animal species that have been, you know, recognized as having sex for pleasure and not just procreation. So good for them. When we talk about evolution, a lot of it has been shaped by darwin even though science is not about figures and big figures and their big ideas it's about the ideas themselves um but still seeing as darwin was the one who really introduced you know the idea of competition, the idea of all that in evolution, those sorts of notions which

came really out of his time in industrializing competitive world, it really overstates the role of competition as a driving force in evolution. When in reality, cooperation was a far more potent force. When it comes to pro-social human tendencies, doing things to benefit others, that's what pro-social is, Dr. Hardy really comes down on the cooperation side of things in her book, Mothers and Others, where she brings together all this evidence

that we are basically descendants of a Pleistocene species of cooperative breeders. Cooperative breeding is a practice amongst some animal species. Other mammals do it, but I think we are one of the few, we're the only great apes who do it. And there are other primates that do it, other monkeys to do it, but none closely related to us. Cooperative breeding is basically the practice or the reproductive strategy where alloparental care is provided to the offspring of the children of certain parents in the group. Alloparental care is basically the practice of, it's basically non-direct parent care, care provided by individuals other than the parents. And so by having that network in place by having the process of our parenting in place

that's how we were able to be so successful as a species in our distribution in our um you know establishing ourselves in all these different environments because humans spread fairly rapidly around the globe and we've established ourselves and created cultures in all sorts of unique environments. And honestly, we are the most successful out of the primates in that regard. So kudos to us.

And that is because of cooperative breeding. Did you just woo Robert? Yeah, of course. Yes. It's like... We have to ratio the rest of the primates, you know? blue Robert? Yeah, of course. God. Yes. Like we had to, we had to ratio the rest of the primates, you know, very,

very based of us. We literally ratioed them. Literally. Oh, we're ratioing everything on this goddamn planet. Except for chickens. No, except for chickens and corn.

Corn is definitely ratioed us yeah for sure for sure cows too man oh yeah that's true that's true cows chickens and there's one other creature i know for sure it's for sure we we have a lot of them yeah i mean there's so many different species of goats and and there's only one species of human. They're all so magical. Yeah. You know? I mean, what's the population of dogs?

Oh, actually, every time I look, it's less than you'd expect. What? 900 million? Yes. That's ridiculous. That's a lot less than I'd have expected. I want more. Give me more dogs.

900 million is like rookie numbers. Yeah, I was going to expect like at least a couple of billion just based on. But no, just 900. Yeah, every time I look it up, I recall being like, oh, there's not as many dogs as I thought there were. I guess they were in cooperative breeders. I'm sure not. And only 400 million cats. Those are rookie numbers, cats.

Come on, cats. It's actually probably. It's probably for the best. They do a lot of damage. My dad always says that we need more dogs in the world to fix the fucked up humans.

I feel like there's a lot of pressure to put on dogs. That's completely fair. I feel like that's really our job to fix fucked up humans. Yeah. No, no, no. Well, I mean... Dogs for that?

I mean, cats and dogs are pulling a lot of weight as it is. You know? Yeah, they are pulling. What are ferrets doing? What are fish doing? What are ferrets doing? Great question, Andrew. Fucking fer pulling what are ferrets doing yeah yeah what are fish doing what are ferrets doing great question andrew fucking ferrets fucking ferrets yeah and like fucking goldfish right what are you guys what do you what are goldfish what have they been doing lately motherfuckers like dying get off your asses and stop us from killing people goldfish stop the war in ukraine goldfish come on i mean to get to cut goldfish some slack

they're busy dying because people would want to take care of them yeah yeah they're like all of the people treat them like houseplants i didn't think we would have andrew being a goldfish apologist on this podcast but here we are i know correct me if i'm wrong but i don't think goldfish have committed any like war crimes or anything. Not that I know of. I think I'm within my rights to defend them. They haven't stopped any war crimes either. Plus, I mean, this is my personal guilt talk,

and I've, you know, I've neglected my fair share. Yeah. You know, speaking of cross-species cooperation, when I was younger and living in Texas, there was this one day where like, we're out on the, in our like fucking backyard area. And we see walking through the alley behind our houses, this massive turtle, probably three, 400 pounds, like, like easily like three or four feet, uh, in, in circumference on his shelf, just like an enormous animal, just like strolling around the

neighborhood, not a species that you see in Texas, wild. So we like kind of try to corral him. We can't lift him, he's massive, but we like corral him into our yard area and give him some cucumbers. And eventually his person comes around and the guy explains that like, yeah, when Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles came out,

a lot of people bought a bunch of different kinds of turtles thinking they were good pets, but they didn't realize that there's a lot of the turtles that get sold, like never stopped growing growing like if you keep them alive they just keep getting bigger and so i he like and they smell bad only if they're in time he had adopted this turtle and it lived in his yard and he said like yeah he's really strong like i have a good fence but every two or three years he'll just walk through it like most of the time he chooses to stay in the yard but every couple of years he just

i'm just gonna go on a walk and he's like yeah he just like breaks through the fence it takes him about a second like if he wants to do it that's like i don't know if you've seen baki have you seen baki no is this is this anime um and no this is not my my weeb coming out story i have not read or viewed much um in that regard but i started baki recently and in the first episode they establish that all these people are coming to tokyo right for like some kind of fighting competition okay and the way that they establish those people are dangerous is that these are all like criminals on like death row and so like they're in the process of being put to death like one person is you know being injected with something one person's being electrocuted one person's being hung and they all manage to break free after they die and like break off the prison easily. This one guy, he was imprisoned underwater. He breaks out of the underwater prison

and swims several miles up to the surface and then swims all the way to Tokyo. And it's like, for some reason, that turtle breaking out of his enclosure whenever he chooses just reminded me of, like they're trying to establish his power levels. Yeah. No, he's too powerful uh to be contained um and he's probably still alive because they live forever um which is again why they're bad pets yeah because what did you do about slavery yeah yeah

yeah well that he may not have been around for slavery but what did you do what are you gonna do the next time there's slavery, turtle? You know, are you going to stop it? I don't think so. You're a turtle. What do you mean next time? Is there something you should be telling me, Robert? Yeah, what is happening?

I'm paying attention to the Supreme Court. It's not going to go well in the future. That's true. That's true. Robert. What? Leave the turtles out of this. Well, if they stop the Supreme Court, I will stop shitting Leave the turtles out of this. Well, if they stop the Supreme Court,

I will stop shitting on the turtles. You're just doing that meme from 2020 where people were like, I gave up my plastic straws for the turtles. Where are they now? Yeah. That was a thing. Yeah, it was bad. I don't remember that.

It's like, come on. Well, I will say that, I mean, at least we're cooperative breeders. And I think our tendency, our cooperative breeding tendency probably has something to do with the fact that we adopt other species as pets and as members of our family. Because you don't really see other animals doing that no you know um i think there was there's some kind of like fish or crustacean or something that that keeps another species like as livestock yeah there's a couple of species that do versions of that for sure. Right. But I mean, we love our dogs and our cats. Yeah. Our ferrets and our snakes and our tarantulas.

Our ferrets, question mark. Our birds. Yeah. You know, people are trying to like domesticate foxes so we could love them too. You know, there are people who keep big cats know There are people Who keep big cats There are people Who keep like Caimans

There are people Who keep all kinds We just You know It's like We got to catch them all You know Like we just want to

Take all these creatures And we want to Love them I don't know What that says about us Other than the fact that Our cooperative nature Extends beyond

The boundaries of You of us as a species. We inherited very high levels of mutual tolerance, of perspective-taking, and other pro-social impulses from ancestors who used our parental care and provisioning of the young to survive. I mean, we didn't invent complex cooperation. Our pre-human ancestors did, but we elaborated upon it. Yeah, it's always interesting to me to think about that. I think back up to when the first time I ever went to a war zone was Ukraine, and it was this, we were in this little town called Avdivka that was getting shelled by the Russians. And there was this big, the way they do the heating over there, they have these vents going underneath or these tubes going underneath

all the houses to supply them with like gas and stuff. And there's this, this big, was this big central like kind of box thing. And one, there's a few of them in the town and stuff that like is the i don't know i guess it's like the uh uh like nexus of a bunch of different like houses uh whatever heating system so it's warm and the people there like when the war started a bunch of people fled and they left pets behind you know sometimes they didn't really have a choice because it's war um so there were all these cats and dogs and soon all these breeding cats and dogs, all these kittens and puppies and people who lived there had like turned that little junction box for the heating system into this like massive kind of open air cat and dog sanctuary. So like there were all of these like dozens and dozens of puppies and

kittens just like living together in this big heating box um in the middle of this like being taken care of by all these local ladies who would scrounge up food every morning and make sure that they were all taken care of um and it was interesting because you could see all these like cats and dogs living together and all of these people coming together to take care of animals they didn't know um at the same time like all of the people were doing their level best to murder the folks like a mile and a half away and vice versa um so we contain multitudes human beings definitely i mean that's part of it too right like the fact that we are so eager to like share in others emotional states you know to empathize and the way that we are so eager to

involve ourselves and and give and share with those who are unrelated to us i mean there are a lot of species that do not raise their young at all and they're those that do and try to kill other people's young and they're those that do and just take care of their own young but you know we even in this like super individualistic capitalist world we still find ways to like look out for each other and i think that's beautiful yeah of course you know cooperative breeding doesn't mean that there's like constant, like Bonnie the Dinosaur, like cooperation and all the time. There still can be competition and coercion and all those different things. Yeah.

But behaviorally, anatomically and emotionally, modern humans are cooperative breeders and the crazy part is those you know three um traits you know behavior anatomy and emotion those those traits do not evolve simultaneously so for example our physical features like our eyes and the fact that our eyes are able to you know we can see the whites in our eyes and that way we can put ourselves into people's perspectives and that kind of thing. We could see their emotions more clearly. You know, the fact that we are prone to sharing our smiles

and the fact that, you know, our vocal cords have such range to be able to communicate so many different things. While these are hallmarks of the fact that, you know, even before our super big brains developed, we were already getting these treats that would have helped us in cooperation. But I wonder a lot of the time though, because though because you know a lot of these traits were developed before language um it's like what was the first word of humanity you know what was the first sentence what was the first thing like we said and how did other people react when the person said it. I could imagine that, you know, like agriculture,

it's something that's developed independently on multiple different occasions and different places, but I still wonder like what those first conversations might have been about. Yeah. I mean, I think a lot of them probably would have been arguments with other people who didn't want us to do words um who were ultimately right you know uh if if only yeah yeah i don't know it's interesting like i think it probably like we we just did a couple

episodes about um the history of history of gynecology. And one of the things that we talked about at the start was like the prehistory of medicine, which likely began in an organized way by like likely the first people practicing medicine in any way were pregnant women and women who had been pregnant trying to help each other survive pregnancy. Right. And I wouldn't be surprised if that, I mean, food gathering is obviously the other one,

but I wouldn't be surprised if like language started as a way to try and like communicate and better survive making babies because it's like super dangerous and also entirely necessary and something that kind of particularly benefits from communication. So I don't know. I wouldn't be shocked if that was like the first thing we talked about,

so to speak. That makes sense. What I'm also thinking as well, and it just occurred to me, it is probably possible that the first language was not spoken language. I feel like it may have been like a form of sign language you know because you know we have these hands and people tend to talk with their hands so yeah oh yes i think my hypothesis is that you know we used our hands to communicate things before we started speaking i mean the fact that we were able to teach apes

started speaking i mean the fact that we were able to teach apes uh you know other apes to use sign language i think that's a good sign that we can learn to communicate without face yeah i mean it's also you know probably how our communication with dogs started because that's one of the things that makes them special is they're pretty much alone in animals and that they like and kind of instinctively grow up understanding that when we gesture at them it means stuff like if you point dogs will look where you're pointing a lot of the time rather than at you which is like a rare trait in animals so yeah i think you're probably right on the money there huh i didn't even think about that that's true true. That's true. And of course that makes it fun. Cause you could always fake them out and like throw something. Yeah.

Yeah. That's stupid. Fucking dude. Yeah. Yeah. Anderson doesn't fall for that shit. So I love fucking with him. She does not fall for that.

I can't fake her. I can't fake her out. That's probably why she's the woman of the house. You're not wrong. Pretending to throw stuff at a dog and then it goes running and then it realizes that you faked it. Like that's the woman of the house. You're not wrong. Pretending to throw stuff at a dog and then it goes running and then it realizes that you faked it. Like, that's the best.

I can't relate because if I try to do that, she looks at me like, good try. Uh-huh. Oh, okay. Sophie, where you need to go is Corgi Con

in San Francisco one of these years. Will they let Anderson in even though she's only she's only part Corgi? There's nothing but acceptance at CorgiCon. You hear that, Anderson?

There's nothing but acceptance and hundreds of Corgis frolicking in the surf. It rules. She'll try to herd them all. They are all trying to herd all of them. I'm into it. They are all very excited and don't know what to do with each other. It moves.

So as the book progresses, Hardy spends some time talking about how we are similar to and different from other great apes. So we learn about how we use eye contact and smiles to bond, even from a young age. You know, we tend to hear about it but the fact that babies cries are so attuned toward attention and capturing the attention of people um yeah these are all in like bastards yeah yeah yeah i mean i was i was a screamer apparently you know i used to rel rel bull all and ball and ball in fact one story i was told was that

the neighbor called and was like is something happening to andrew and my parents were like nah he's just crying there's like three o'clock in the morning but i mean look at me now now i'm bawling for justice that's right yeah one interesting trait that you know humans have is our willingness to like share our babies with others other great apes you know those mothers they tend to have like constant contact and care with their children you know like they don't let others touch their children at all probably because like other mothers tend to want to kill their kids or cause harm to their kids yeah so they tend to be very protective of them whereas you know as alloparents we are you know be very protective of them. Whereas, you know, as alloparents, we are, you know, full-fledged cooperative breeders, you know, we have not only

shared our young with others, but alloparents have also been, you know, been recorded breastfeeding the young of others, you know, and masticating and passing like hard to digest foods to infants. and masticating and passing hard-to-digest foods to infants. I'm mixing up my terms a bit in terms of what is a primate and what is an ape versus what is just whatever. But marmosets and tamarins, which are calatricids, or calatricids, they are also cooperative breeders and they're very fast breeders as well. Rapid, rapid breeders.

So, you know, good for them. It's also typical of our species. We tend to be very fast breeders and that's why we reassured all the other great apes. What I find interesting as well is that we'd be able to breed so rapidly despite the fact that our um do you remember um the word for like carrying a child no i'm just blanking

right now uh preggers no no i think you're thinking of the incubation period is that what you're trying to think of yeah but that's such a that that feels like a very dehumanizing way of putting it yeah i'll just say that carrying a baby you know yeah and the cost that it includes on you know a woman's body on a human's body um it is like a whole thing it's a whole thing yeah i mean if we keep all of having so many in one lifetime despite the cost necessary to raise each i mean other animals they have like mates and seasons and you know they have set amounts of children they could have in their lifetime but no you know we could just i mean there are stories of women who have had like

dozens of kids which is you know unfortunate circumstances because you know in those cases it tends to be um not necessarily willing but the fact that we are capable of having many kids is lends toward the importance of having support systems in place because other animals don't tend to have more children they can care for if that is you know they care for children a lot of them just eat their kids if they can't care for them exactly yeah the cat do that once it's a it's a you know makes sense yeah whereas we kind of evolved to have support systems in place and speaking of eating babies kind of absolutely there kind of is a dark side to that um because even though we tend to have you know these children and stuff and we tend to we're supposed to have these support networks to care for them,

the practice of infanticide is actually something that has a long, long history in human practice, where if a mother determines that they're not able to raise their child, they don't have the support systems in place to care for that child different practices would typically be used to you know deal with that child and that's of course what makes the anti-abortion stances um so inhumane you know because absolutely yeah the whole reason we

that abortion is so um important is because it protects the you know the autonomy and the agency of you know people who can carry children. And yet in this world, it continues to atomize us and individualize us and separate us, stripping certain people of their support networks or weakening our support networks. It's still expected and punished heavily if you do not just pump out as many children as you can.

It's sick. It's really sick. Yeah, that's not great. When it comes to those support networks, most people are familiar with extended family. Like, for example, grandparents. And in fact, infant survival is significantly affected by a grandmother's presence um which is why humans tend to live long past their reproductively viable period you know human females live after menopause for a pretty long time in comparison to other species.

And of course, their grandmothers and their, of course, fathers, their sisters and godparents, and really a lot of other cultural systems in place, even polyandrous mating. I think I mentioned that in a previous episode. There were also forms of bi-local, flexible

residence patterns where you always have kin around to take care of your infants. And I would say that it's, it's, it's kind of tough because a lot of people these days, you know, struggled with the extended families. Um, it's very much a cool, um, I love you, but I'm glad we live in separate kind of situation yeah you know like

extended families definitely have a lot of pros and cons um which is why we actually find i think interestingly a lot of examples of chosen families um throughout different societies and also even there's some evidence that that might have been the case in the past as well where unrelated people would form groups together um as one example i remember reading about and of course this can't necessarily be extended to prehistoric times but i've seen it in multiple different hunter-gatherer situations but um where you have this this clan system in place um and you can no matter how far you travel you can expect to receive care for members of your clan um in north america i think it was like the bear clan and the elk clan and all these different

clans um in aboriginal australia um they also had different groups as well and so people were able to interact with each other across huge distances and settle in different places and connect with others to find kin couldn't quote kin even though they weren't necessarily directly related yeah there's a couple i mean there's a book called sets at dawn that i read many many years ago that's about kind of like the evolution of human sexuality and how some of it's been like how different cultures have looked at things like, like what makes someone a parent. Um, and there's all these different attitudes, like before we had kind of the scientific understanding of like where, you know, how, how babies are conceived, um, that we have now,

there were all these different attitudes like this idea and i i forget the name of the the people who but they they still exist with somewhere in latin america and their their their belief was essentially that when you got someone pregnant that was the start of the process and then after like conception the person with the baby would go around and pick. Right. Yes. Yes. Yes. I remember that. He wanted for the baby. And the idea was that like, well, yeah, when they fucked that person's like essence gets added to this forming child. And one of the things that that does socially is it means that it means that

for that community, children weren't seen as having one father. They were seen as having a bunch of fathers, all of whom were like responsible for teaching the kid and raising it, which is like, Oh, that's a very sensible way to, uh, to organize your little society is to have,

is to, is to ensure that like the kids coming up have as many adults who are like responsible for them as possible, which is broadly speaking, the best thing you can do for kids is to have a bunch of adults be interested in their their their success exactly because i mean like if you have like one of the best hunters in the village raising your child and you have the best craftsman in the village raising your child

and you have the best fishers village raising child that child is going to have a very well rounded education yeah you know it's going to be able to learn a lot of different skills that they're going to need i mean that's just one of the many positive effects of having multiple caregivers on the development of a child's world view and sense of self their concept of self and others their concept of empathy the concept of independence how they um how they view the world as either dangerous or insecure or giving and welcoming. And so, I mean, we are so used to this nuclear family worldview, which is these independent households, households that we don't consider the fact that having a broad range of people raising them is actually crucial to their personal development as children to their human development really having all those different perspectives and stuff in place

and i mean that's part of of whatrity talks about, especially in her final chapter, that being how in modern times, the accumulation of property, the emergence of patriarchy, even the stuff in the post-industrial era are all these would prompt a shift from cooperative breeding from cooperation between groups to war between groups especially with property because when you have property you have a need to hold on to that property and the whole idea of property is you and yours the exclusion of all others right you know and so at the end of her book she also speculates we might be losing our art of nature because we are continually evolving um but she wonders what might the potential evolutionary effects be if we are rearing children who are not living in intimate contact with a variety of caregivers because especially within those first two years of life infants reared in responsible caretaking relationships develop

innate potentials for empathy mind reading and cooperation and collaboration. I mean, these behaviors are the outcome of complex interactions between both genes and nurture. So the question is, how can these innate potentials remain more than potentials? You know, I mean, because the development of them is far from guaranteed. A lot of children these days are raised without extensive social contact. I mean even in the era of COVID where a lot of children are isolated at home especially the heights of the pandemic. I really wonder if we will see like a mocked like distinct generation of like within a range of two years of children who just

aren't as socialized because for those first two years of their life they were kind of isolated or those first few years of their life they're kind of isolated because there's this lack of empathy, lack of cooperative skills, and lack of attachment that may cause us to miss the mark. It's really trauma, but trauma doesn't necessarily stop people from continuing that trauma, from reproducing and carrying that on. And so I'm really curious as to see what the effects that might be and also what we can do to try to curb that negative impact last question she asks is really

will humans in the future still be empathetic and curious about the emotions of others because of our ancient heritage or communal care? I'm paraphrasing here. Or will these systems that we have in place evolve us in a more Machiavellian direction? Well, I guess that's the mystery that we're all going to get to watch unfold in pieces, at least over the course of, you know, the rest of our lives and everyone else's lives. It is, I don't know, I think the overall arc of it speaks more to the things that about us that are good and to increasing cooperation, because that is like the story of the last couple hundred thousand years of

human evolution. Although at the same time, some of that, a lot of that cooperation has gone towards fucked up ends as well. Like, I mean, all of the good and the bad things happening right now are, are one way or the other examples of cooperation,

right? Like it's, it's, yeah, I don't know. Let's hope things get better. I hope so too. And I think we can do more than hope. I think we can act. Yeah, we're going to have to, I mean, like that's the thing, right? Like part of how specifically in the have to, I mean, like, that's the thing, right? Like part of how, specifically in the United States, I mean, but internationally, too, the right has gotten so

much over the last really five or six years in particular, is cooperation across borders and across like ideological differences. Like there's, there has been, like tremendous sustained cooperation that has allowed them to amass power um the power that they're currently exercising and the only thing that's going to actually counter that is the cooperation um an organization of a much larger amount of people like there's not that many of those folks it's why they've had to be so organized there's a lot more of us but we also can't stop fighting about shit so it is it is like we are going to have to evolve in real time to cooperate better with one another and more effectively in order to,

in order to wrench the wheel back. That's true. Anyway, let's not lose hope. And let's not lose your pluggables, Andrew. Yeah. Yes.

You can follow me on Twitter at underscore St. Drew. And find me on YouTube at Andrewism. Hell yeah. Hell yeah. Well, folks, that's going to be all for us here today. And it could happen here. Until next time, go happen somewhere else. Hey, we'll be back Monday

with more episodes every week from now until the heat death of the universe. It Could Happen Here is a production of Cool Zone Media. For more podcasts from Cool Zone Media, visit our website, coolzonemedia.com or check us out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can find sources for It Could Happen Here

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