Loading summary
Transcript211 lines
- [00:00]
Tamam Alaudat
Foreign.
- [00:07]
Imogen Folks
This is Inside Geneva. I'm your host, Imogen folks and this is a production from Swiss Info, the international public media company of Switzerland. In today's program, I was born in.
- [00:22]
Tamam Alaudat
Syria and I spent most my life until I was in my about mid 20s in Syria. I went to medical school there.
- [00:37]
Unnamed Guest
Syria was a police state governed by.
- [00:39]
Tamam Alaudat
A vicious dictator during my childhood.
- [00:42]
Unnamed Guest
One of the side effects of autocratic dictatorships is there isn't really work outside very few private enterprises, one of which.
- [00:52]
Tamam Alaudat
Is being an engineer, a lawyer or a doctor. And a couple of years later when I wanted to go out, the Red Cross gave me a contract with the British Red Cross and sent me to Iraq. Arguably not the nicest thing to do to someone, but it was exactly what I asked for.
- [01:17]
Unnamed Guest
I had the blessing of being young and ignorant and not seeing the bigger.
- [01:23]
Tamam Alaudat
Problems that one of the goals of the American invasion is allowing humanitarianism to function semi independently.
- [01:38]
Unnamed Guest
Can we afford to only put truths over people's heads and do nothing about the system? If your house was bombed for the first time, I understand if it was bombed for the 17th time and instead of a house you have a tarp and instead of food you have animal feed or grass to eat, like the case is today in Gaza.
- [01:59]
Tamam Alaudat
Can we still say humanitarianism is better than nothing?
- [02:06]
Imogen Folks
Hello and welcome again to Inside Geneva. I'm Imogen folks, and today we begin our season of summer profiles. We've got a great selection of guests coming up for you over the next few weeks, from a candidate to be a judge on the International National Court of Justice, to a senior aid worker in Gaza, to another who started his humanitarian career in Gaza way back in the 1980s and much, much more. We start with a man who has also spent a good part of his working life as a humanitarian, but has now made the perhaps surprising switch to journalism.
- [02:45]
Tamam Alaudat
My name is Tamam Alaudat. I'm originally a physician. I come from Syria and I have worked in the humanitarian sector for most of my adult life, between the Red Cross and MSF, Doctors Without Borders. And as of last November, in 2024, I moved from being in a humanitarian organization to working in the new Humanitarian, which is a news agency, a newsroom that reports on crises, and the sector that serves them.
- [03:21]
Unnamed Guest
All right, I'm going to come on to that career switch in a moment. But first, you're from Syria, a country that I guess here in Europe we all hear about, but most of us have never been. Tell me a little bit about your childhood, your early life.
- [03:39]
Tamam Alaudat
I was born In Syria. And I spent most my life until I was in my about mid 20s in Syria. I studied there, I went to medical school there. The only exception is my father, who taught university, was seconded to Saudi Arabia for a few years when I was a young child until the age of seven. And other than that, I've spent most of my life there. And it was in a partially very typical middle class life and in other parts, fairly outside the north.
- [04:18]
Unnamed Guest
How do you mean?
- [04:19]
Tamam Alaudat
I mean, people have images of Syria that varies a lot. And those who don't know the history of it know probably imagine jihadis and Islamists.
- [04:28]
Unnamed Guest
But I come from a, well, the tail end of a generation that was.
- [04:32]
Tamam Alaudat
Much more socialist, much more secular. And my father was born in a village in the south, but went on.
- [04:39]
Unnamed Guest
To do a PhD in the Soviet.
- [04:41]
Tamam Alaudat
Union at the time. And he was never organized in a party, but a devout socialist all his life.
- [04:49]
Unnamed Guest
You went to medical school in Syria. Did you always want to be a doctor right from being a little boy, or was it something that came to you?
- [04:57]
Tamam Alaudat
Oh God, no.
- [04:58]
Unnamed Guest
No.
- [04:59]
What?
- [05:01]
It didn't come to me.
- [05:02]
Tamam Alaudat
It was, it was given to me in Syria.
- [05:05]
Unnamed Guest
They all universities were free but very competitive. If you get the grades to go to medical school, you go to medical school. Because that's one of the few ways.
- [05:16]
Tamam Alaudat
I mean, yes, secular and somewhat.
- [05:19]
Unnamed Guest
But it also was a police state.
- [05:21]
Tamam Alaudat
Governed by a vicious dictator during my childhood.
- [05:24]
Unnamed Guest
And one of the side effects of autocratic dictatorships is there isn't really work outside very few private enterprises, one of.
- [05:36]
Tamam Alaudat
Which is being an engineer, a lawyer or a doctor.
- [05:39]
Unnamed Guest
And everybody else was an employee by the state in something usually that has nothing to do with their education.
- [05:46]
Tamam Alaudat
So going to a medical school was both a status thing, because doctors had a certain social status and sort of.
- [05:56]
Unnamed Guest
Future independence thing as well.
- [05:59]
Did you use that to get out? Because you already in 2003, you were, you were in Iraq. Not that that's necessarily a desire. It wasn't a desirable posting. But did you see it like that?
- [06:12]
Tamam Alaudat
In part, yes.
- [06:14]
Unnamed Guest
I mean, the going out bit is.
- [06:18]
Tamam Alaudat
Is a weird one.
- [06:19]
Unnamed Guest
It was easier to get out if you're a physician, but not usually. The idea of going out with a.
- [06:24]
Tamam Alaudat
Humanitarian organization wasn't on the books really. The route that most people did that I studied with was to go and.
- [06:35]
Unnamed Guest
Do the exams to the equivalency exams.
- [06:38]
Tamam Alaudat
Of their medical degrees with the US or in the UK or Germany and go and study there, like specialize there and with any luck stay there. So the Damascus school of medicine was a great exporter of doctors.
- [06:56]
Unnamed Guest
But that also meant that we studied.
- [06:58]
Tamam Alaudat
Medicine in Arabic and everybody had to restudy it in English to apply for the exams.
- [07:03]
Unnamed Guest
I didn't have the desire to do that. I did orthopedic surgery for a while.
- [07:09]
Tamam Alaudat
I thought that would be interesting. But I realized luckily early enough that I don't have the gift of doing the same thing every day for the rest of my life. So humanitarianism came as an accident, but it was a happy. A happy one.
- [07:27]
Unnamed Guest
So tell me about being in Iraq in 2003.
- [07:31]
Tamam Alaudat
I was. It started in the late 90s when I was a volunteer in the Red Crescent in Syria. It wasn't something I expected to do, but I cousin of mine whom I've always loved so dearly told me that.
- [07:46]
Unnamed Guest
I should try it. And I went once to a meeting.
- [07:49]
Tamam Alaudat
And I got hooked completely. I think looking back at it now, again, in a police state there are very few opportunities to be with people freely. And that was one of those few opportunities. And I loved it.
- [08:08]
Unnamed Guest
It was something to do, a place.
- [08:10]
Tamam Alaudat
Of debate and discussion. And the volunteers at the time been self governing. So we, we've learned to make our case and to act in a somewhat democratic environment.
- [08:22]
Unnamed Guest
And then I had the good luck.
- [08:25]
Tamam Alaudat
Of encountering a few people. One of them is, was the head of international department in the British Red Cross. And a couple of years later, when I wanted to go out and do, you know, work for the Red Cross, it was him who gave me a contract with the British Red Cross and sent me to Iraq. I mean, arguably not the nicest thing to do to someone, but it was exactly what I asked for.
- [08:49]
Unnamed Guest
It was just over 90 minutes beyond President Bush's deadline for Saddam Hussein to leave Iraq that U.S. warships and planes launch the opening salvo of Operation Iraqi Freedom.
- [09:07]
This is what it's like on the receiving end.
- [09:11]
Tell me about Iraq. Then again, one of those things heralded, we're being reminded of it a bit now, the kind of mission accomplished, when in fact it descended into a really serious conflict.
- [09:24]
I was 25 when I went to Iraq and I mean, it was such.
- [09:30]
An exceptionally different experience for me. We landed in Baghdad in the early days of June, just a few weeks.
- [09:40]
Tamam Alaudat
After the Mission Accomplished spectacle that George W. Bush did on that aircraft carrier.
- [09:48]
Unnamed Guest
And it looked, for a very short.
- [09:51]
Tamam Alaudat
Period, it did look like a mission accomplished. And I drove with a couple of other colleagues across the country from Erbil to Basra that summer.
- [10:00]
Unnamed Guest
And it was open.
- [10:02]
And again from an expatriate like Sort.
- [10:06]
Tamam Alaudat
Of humanitarian landing, bear perspective. It looked all good. You could even buy alcohol. And because that's a question apparently that one should ask after regime changes. But things disintegrated very fast. That was a lesson I've learned early.
- [10:22]
Unnamed Guest
Enough is prophesizing about how the future.
- [10:25]
Tamam Alaudat
Goes is not a very good idea. Soon after, in summer, explosive devices started being planted on the sides of roads. In the early days of me being.
- [10:38]
Unnamed Guest
There, we could go through the Green.
- [10:39]
Tamam Alaudat
Zone from our residence to the office.
- [10:43]
Unnamed Guest
Of the IFRC at the time.
- [10:45]
Tamam Alaudat
So I used to drive an old four wheel drive through the checkpoints and through the fairgrounds, they military fairgrounds that Saddam used to enjoy very much.
- [10:56]
Unnamed Guest
And soon after those became targets.
- [11:04]
A massive bomb blast at the UN in Baghdad. It didn't play any part in the war, but this afternoon the United nations found out what it's like to become a terrorist target.
- [11:17]
It only became apparent that things are.
- [11:21]
Tamam Alaudat
Going really wrong when the bomb attack against the UN followed in October. But another ambulance attack against the icrc, that was when we realized that that sort of brief period of calm was going to be followed by a real big problem.
- [11:39]
Unnamed Guest
And it did.
- [11:41]
But also part of it that I.
- [11:43]
Tamam Alaudat
Didn'T recognize is at the early days, there were American advisors to the ministries who came and gave no introduction or credentials, sat and condescended to NGOs about how they should do their jobs. And once things started getting bad, they also disappeared behind closed doors. And, you know, this whole celebratory mode of we liberated the country went to hell quite fast.
- [12:10]
Unnamed Guest
This is beginning to sound a bit familiar. Did you feel you could do any good in Iraq? I mean, you were a doctor. You must, you must have had some sense that you were achieving something.
- [12:22]
Yes, to an extent.
- [12:25]
Iraq was my formative days in this sector.
- [12:27]
And part of it was doing good as a doctor is one thing, and doing good as someone who's extracted from.
- [12:36]
Tamam Alaudat
The very strict environment of medicine was, was a different thing.
- [12:41]
Unnamed Guest
What I mean by that is in our day and age, doctors aren't expected to be anything but diagnosis and treatment.
- [12:48]
Tamam Alaudat
Machines contained in clinics that are formally trained to the highest level.
- [12:53]
Unnamed Guest
The days where doctors.
- [12:55]
In Arabic, one of the ways doctors.
- [12:57]
Tamam Alaudat
Were called was Hakeem, which means a wise person.
- [13:00]
Unnamed Guest
This was one of the things that.
- [13:01]
Tamam Alaudat
Attracted me to the humanitarian world.
- [13:04]
Unnamed Guest
Much more is that we're brought back to a place where you cannot just.
- [13:09]
Tamam Alaudat
Be in your clinic, close the door and do whatever you need to do within a relationship with a single patient at a time. It included judgment about Resources, it included judgment about priorities. None of those are anymore part of the medical training. I think that was useful, and doing that well is what makes a difference in a context like this.
- [13:32]
Unnamed Guest
But also I had the blessing of being young and ignorant and not seeing.
- [13:39]
Tamam Alaudat
The bigger problems that surrounded the existence as a sort of one of the tools of the American invasion is allowing humanitarianism to function semi independently and say that, you know, whatever problems arise, we will solve them through those guys. It was too early for me to be cognizant of the bigger picture.
- [14:03]
Unnamed Guest
Well, you moved to other crisis zones. When did that or that interpretation that you have, when did that start to. To dawn on you? I mean, I do remember that in Afghanistan round about the same time, similar things were going on. That aid workers were described, I think by Colin Powell as a kind of support to the combat team, which is absolutely not what humanitarian workers want.
- [14:30]
Tamam Alaudat
I mean, it might not be what we want, but it might as well be what we are intended or not.
- [14:39]
Unnamed Guest
But it was.
- [14:40]
Tamam Alaudat
I mean, I came from an entirely different place. My early images of being a humanitarian were from, you know, what used to be called the cowboys of the day. People who jumped in and jumped out and did something and then left and then to the next war.
- [14:56]
Unnamed Guest
That intersects largely with the stories of.
- [14:59]
Tamam Alaudat
Journalists who covered wars. And I coveted the journalists who covered war. I read their books. There's that sense of adventure, you know, meaningful, doing something good while being on an adventure.
- [15:14]
Unnamed Guest
That started diminishing.
- [15:16]
Tamam Alaudat
Then I went and studied in London. I did a master's in public health. My next mission, as their call, was.
- [15:24]
Unnamed Guest
To Indonesia after the tsunami.
- [15:30]
Then a second wave roared in with unstoppable momentum. Those watching panicking as it engulfs everything.
- [15:39]
And there it was, still far from.
- [15:42]
Tamam Alaudat
Realizing the roots of the problem. But there was my first encounter with what is called the humanitarian circus. I was in Aceh with another couple of thousand of humanitarian workers. Everybody and their goat went to Aceh because, yeah, that's where the money was.
- [16:00]
Unnamed Guest
Regardless to how much or how little.
- [16:02]
Tamam Alaudat
Can be done there. And suddenly there was a bubble with its own economy. I mean, soon after, from having to.
- [16:10]
Unnamed Guest
Get your food in a.
- [16:12]
Tamam Alaudat
In a banana leaf to having a pizza restaurant and stuff that were made for expats and having humanitarian parties. And you start realizing that there's something wrong. I mean, there were so many humanitarians that the coordination required coordination.
- [16:28]
Unnamed Guest
In the past, we've had a whole conversation about decolonizing humanitarian aid. Some of the things you've written recently, I'm thinking, particularly Analysis piece you did for your own media. Now, the New humanitarian was about precisely this. You still think there's a huge, almost colonialistic approach.
- [16:48]
Tamam Alaudat
The problem with the decolonizing is that people immediately contain it in their assumption about what colonialism and decolonizing is, instead of actually thinking of the merits of the argument. If I was to argue it from scratch, I'd say we still have a.
- [17:04]
Unnamed Guest
Heavy inheritance of the power dynamics that.
- [17:09]
Tamam Alaudat
Were colonialism, patriarchy, toxic nationalism. All of them fall together and have managed for a long time to assume a benevolent exterior, to look good, whether.
- [17:25]
Unnamed Guest
That is the liberal world order or.
- [17:28]
Tamam Alaudat
The multilateral, whatever you want to call it.
- [17:30]
Unnamed Guest
And it took a lot of digging.
- [17:33]
To see what is broken under the surface.
- [17:36]
And this is where decolonial literature or.
- [17:39]
Tamam Alaudat
The feminist literature or the anti capitalist literature helped understand those obscured or intentionally obscured relationships of power, whether it is globally or within the humanitarian sector itself.
- [17:53]
Unnamed Guest
I think it's safe to say that things are broken to the extent that.
- [17:59]
Tamam Alaudat
You don't need to mediate the conversation that much. With tools of understanding like understanding colonia.
- [18:05]
Unnamed Guest
It is still important, but you don't.
- [18:07]
Tamam Alaudat
Need to use them to dig those inequalities of power.
- [18:11]
Unnamed Guest
You say it's not working. What would you change? Because frankly, if I've just had my house bombed or bulldozed or swept away by a flood, I'm not particularly interested in a humanitarian worker coming and talking to me about challenging capitalism. I've got a roof over my head, so I'm just not quite sure what the change is that you're looking for.
- [18:35]
Tamam Alaudat
Absolutely, rightly so. And this is one of the difficulties, because decolonizing the university is simple. Throw away half of the races fascist authors in that library and put more diverse and more inclusive reading materials and education.
- [18:49]
Unnamed Guest
And there's no loss actually in throwing.
- [18:51]
Tamam Alaudat
Away half the library that is outdated and harmful. Here we have a very different situation. There are millions of people who are dependent on aid and who would die effectively if you, you know, Elim, and.
- [19:03]
Unnamed Guest
I've said it multiple times, if I.
- [19:04]
Tamam Alaudat
Had a red button on my desk that, you know, cancel humanitarians, I wouldn't use it there. It's not, it's not the place of any of us to moralize over the last of people.
- [19:14]
Unnamed Guest
But the question is, can we afford to only put roofs on over people's heads and do nothing about the system? If your house was bombed for the first time, I understand if it was bombed for the 17th time and instead of a house you have a tarp, and instead of food, you have animal.
- [19:32]
Feed or grass to eat, like the.
- [19:35]
Case is today in Gaza.
- [19:37]
Tamam Alaudat
Can we still say humanitarianism is better than nothing? And where's the threshold of it having failed to the extent that is just covering the catastrophe.
- [19:49]
Unnamed Guest
They unloaded the few trucks that reached Khan Younis under cover of darkness.
- [19:56]
It's time for Hayat to have her wounds treated and her bandages changed. An Israeli airstrike did this burn cover her arms and back. Israel renewed its blockade of medicine and food entering the Gaza Strip more than two months ago.
- [20:13]
So in a way, repairing the car.
- [20:16]
Tamam Alaudat
While we're driving it, or changing half of the car while we're driving it.
- [20:21]
Unnamed Guest
But there's also a need for an agreement. When is it that this car is having more accidents than deliveries? And I don't think we're far from that.
- [20:31]
So a lot of humanitarians, Tamam, though, would say to you that you're misidentifying the problem. They say that they're being used as a sticking plaster. But it's not up to the humanitarian community to find diplomatic and political solutions. Whether it's in the Middle east, whether it's between Russia and Ukraine. And now they are frustrated at these never ending conflicts and the appalling mistakes. And we can come onto it in a minute that the violations of international law that are taking place, but their job is delivery, immediate delivery at the point of need.
- [21:06]
Yes, it is until they become complicit.
- [21:09]
Tamam Alaudat
In their crimes that they are delivering aid for.
- [21:12]
Unnamed Guest
And this is a delicate place to understand. If we are to deliver aid, we have to assume a functioning system under.
- [21:20]
Tamam Alaudat
Which we can deliver aid.
- [21:22]
Unnamed Guest
If the system exploits us to continue its oppressive means, then we need to say something about it.
- [21:29]
Tamam Alaudat
So I'll give you a parallel example.
- [21:31]
Unnamed Guest
Whether it is soldiers not being okay to say we got orders to break the law, that has been dismissed as.
- [21:38]
Tamam Alaudat
An argument long ago.
- [21:39]
Unnamed Guest
So to say that the police is not guilty of killing and beating people because this is what they were told.
- [21:47]
Tamam Alaudat
To do and this is what they understand.
- [21:49]
Unnamed Guest
Harm cannot be justified and our individual and collective agency cannot be given away. If we believe that we're still doing.
- [21:59]
Tamam Alaudat
Good despite all the harm, fine.
- [22:02]
Unnamed Guest
But if we believe that we have become part of covering up the harm and we're still saying it's not our.
- [22:08]
Tamam Alaudat
Job to do something about it, then it's not.
- [22:11]
Unnamed Guest
Fine. There are plenty of examples. I mean, if you look at this delusional understanding of neutrality as silence. For example, you go to the ICRC's website, two years of genocide and hundreds of statements and the word Israel is like Lord Voldemort cannot be mentioned. You know, it takes so much rhetorical engineering to talk about a conflict without ever mentioning the side that is killing people. That's not neutrality. That is fear. And one has to ask, when is it to gain access and when is it just to retain a status quo.
- [22:54]
Tamam Alaudat
That is comfortable for those that provide aid, even if it's harmful to those who receive?
- [22:59]
Unnamed Guest
Donald Trump suspended American foreign aid on day one of his presidency. Late today, the U.S. state Department suspended all foreign assistance around the world for at least three months. The United nations aid agency is saying that there could be 2,000 new cases of, of HIV due to the USAID cuts.
- [23:19]
Can I cut to something that many people, especially here in Geneva, see as more immediate, though? Many would also accept the validity of what you've just said there. But more immediate issue is that there have been massive financial cuts to humanitarian funding. Aid programs are being cut. But you have said recently that US Cuts are not the key problem.
- [23:45]
Imogen Folks
I mean, some people might dispute that.
- [23:46]
Unnamed Guest
With you at this point.
- [23:47]
Oh, God, they aren't.
- [23:49]
Tamam Alaudat
Of course they aren't.
- [23:51]
Unnamed Guest
If the problem was the lack of money, then the cuts would be the problem. The problem is not. The US has increased its military expenditure to over a trillion dollars for the first time ever. Germany, who had a constitutional obligation not going debt, has opened debt indefinitely and, and without limitations, up to 500 billion, if I understand it, for armament. The UK has cut most of it. Say it's not about the lack of money. We're acting as if the problem is that the banks are empty and.
- [24:26]
No, the problem is the priorities that the, the governments have made.
- [24:30]
If we believe that the priority, then we would be talking about their priorities, not about the amount of money. You'd know Geneva well enough. The talk is about where do we get money to cover the lack of money. Let's go and run to the private sector and ask for money. Who's the private sector? The same tech companies that are weaponizing AI so it can be used in.
- [24:52]
Tamam Alaudat
The wars that we are trying to.
- [24:54]
Unnamed Guest
Help people in, or the transportation or oil or companies that are destroying the.
- [24:59]
Tamam Alaudat
Environment that we're trying to help people for.
- [25:01]
Unnamed Guest
I mean, that the logic of that is just let's find money. You know, I mean, there is a level of descending into compromise that will get human, but that's not the point. The point is not a problem of money. It's a problem of politics. And as long as we pretend that we are outside politics, above and beyond it then we aren't going to see the problem. We're not going to call out those who are sacrificing any potential or even pretense of benevolence in favor of effectively. Like the Wall Street Journal, I think called it the move from welfare state to warfare state.
- [25:39]
The way you talk, I'm actually beginning to see why you moved from humanitarian work to journalism. Do you see this career change as a way almost to get this message across about what needs to be changed and how wrong some of the priorities are?
- [25:58]
I think there are a couple of elements to it. First, I think I had a massive.
- [26:03]
Tamam Alaudat
Privilege of working for really good organizations and with amazing people.
- [26:07]
Unnamed Guest
And I've had the luck and opportunity.
- [26:10]
Tamam Alaudat
To be in multiple positions, including leadership.
- [26:13]
Unnamed Guest
And there's plenty of good that is.
- [26:15]
Tamam Alaudat
Being done can be done there.
- [26:17]
Unnamed Guest
But there are many people who are doing that.
- [26:18]
Tamam Alaudat
I think there are very few who.
- [26:20]
Unnamed Guest
Have the willingness and urge and you.
- [26:24]
Tamam Alaudat
Know, self destructive tendency to actually not resist speaking out. And I think there's a level where you cannot do that inside the system. And this offered me an opportunity potentially while having a job and not starving to speak out more.
- [26:39]
Unnamed Guest
The other part is I think journalism has a potential to stir politics, to.
- [26:47]
Call out to Ikshed better than any other discipline. And I think we have an obligation to do that now rather than fall into the false objectivity and both sideism or the passive voice of most journalism today.
- [27:05]
Tamam Alaudat
But in all cases this is what attracts me to it.
- [27:09]
Unnamed Guest
And the New Humanitarian is such a unique organization in the sense of it's 27 people who have over 30 years.
- [27:17]
Tamam Alaudat
Since the Rwanda genocide gained the credibility of being sort of the journalism and the accountability mechanism of a system this complicated and this attracted to power.
- [27:27]
Unnamed Guest
So it's been a huge experience so far.
- [27:32]
Very last question then. We are of course talking in the home of international law, which I personally may disagree with me. I see this as such a fundamental and very important part of what should keep us civilized. But it's being ripped up. How can we revive it?
- [27:51]
Tamam Alaudat
So I do disagree in principle. I think law and justice are two different things.
- [27:56]
Unnamed Guest
Not all laws are just and justice.
- [27:59]
Tamam Alaudat
Isn'T served always by the law.
- [28:01]
Unnamed Guest
But in this case we have a tool. And that tool worked imperfectly because whether.
- [28:06]
Tamam Alaudat
It'S international humanitarian law or the Rome status or any of those instruments of.
- [28:13]
Unnamed Guest
International law have worked imperfectly.
- [28:15]
But they set a standard. And today we are seeing the effective dismantling of this.
- [28:22]
Tamam Alaudat
The fact that a Netanyahu with an.
- [28:25]
Unnamed Guest
Arrest warrant flies over Europe and doesn't get stopped. I can't imagine that having happened to Gaddafi or honor Bashir, the fact that.
- [28:33]
He'S received in Congress and gets applauded dozens of times, we don't have any more the moral standing to say it's the Russians and the Chinese and everybody else that doesn't deserve the civility of the law. It is an effective dismantling of the law that had to an extent, kept us civil. And of course we need to advocate, call for it to be reformed, respected and so on. But we also need to understand that politics has reached a stage that is so well into the gutter. I mean, there's no more left or right. Everybody's a neoliberal and everybody loves billionaires.
- [29:11]
Tamam Alaudat
And everybody is going to sell their grandmother for the next elections.
- [29:16]
Unnamed Guest
This is not a sustainable state under.
- [29:19]
Tamam Alaudat
Which law can be respected.
- [29:21]
Unnamed Guest
And this is, I mean, arguably, without getting into politics and active dissent and calling out the failure of our political.
- [29:30]
Tamam Alaudat
Collective, it's hard to repair one aspect and not the others.
- [29:42]
Imogen Folks
And that brings us to the end of this edition of Inside Geneva. My thanks to Tama Maloudat of the New Humanitarian for his time and that fascinating interview. Join us again in two weeks where we'll be hearing from international lawyer Dapo Akande, who has thrown his hat into the ring to be a judge at the International Court of Justice.
- [30:04]
Dapo Akande
I think I was very argumentative as a child and everyone used to say, you should be a lawyer. I always had this interest in international affairs and when I saw that there was an area of law that actually dealt with international affairs, I thought, yes, that's the bit that I'm interested in. It's clearly the case that in far too many cases international law is disregarded. I think that is true. There are many instances where the law is not followed and you only have to turn on the news to see that. What I do know is that actually international law is increasingly regarded as relevant and actions are judged more nowadays by reference to international law than was the case before.
- [30:55]
Imogen Folks
That episode will be out on July 22nd. Don't miss it. And a reminder, our profiles from last summer are all still available. Hear from Chris Lockyer, Secretary General of Med Saintson, Frontier Doctors Without Borders, or Esther Digimans of the Global Survivors Fund, which supports people who have suffered suffered sexual violence in conflict. You can hear those and more wherever you get your podcasts. A reminder, you've been listening to Inside Geneva, a Swiss info production. You can subscribe to us and review us wherever you get your podcasts Check out our previous episodes, how the International Red Cross unites prisoners of war with their families or why survivors of human rights violations turn to the UN in Geneva for justice. I'm Imogen, folks. Thanks again for listening. Hello, this is Imogen folks, from Swiss Info's Inside Geneva podcast. This summer, like last year, we're bringing you a fascinating series of summer profiles, starting with doctor, aid worker and now journalist Tamam Aloudat.
- [32:15]
Unnamed Guest
Can we afford to only put roofs over people's heads and do nothing about the system? If your house was bombed for the first time, I understand. If it was bombed for the 17th time and instead of a house you have a tarp and instead of food you have animal feed or grass to eat.
- [32:33]
Imogen Folks
Then later this month we'll hear from international lawyer and candidate to be judge on the International Court of Justice, Dapa Wakande.
- [32:41]
Dapo Akande
It's clearly the case that in far too many cases international law is disregarded and you only have to turn on the news to see that. What I do know is that actually international law is increasingly regarded as relevant.
- [32:56]
Imogen Folks
From now till September. We've got all sorts of amazing people to talk to, from an aid worker in Gaza right now to someone who started his career in Gaza 40 years ago. Join us on Inside Geneva wherever you get your podcasts.