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The Monocle Daily
Iraq’s former prime minister Nouri al-Maliki resurfaces – but at what cost?
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You're listening to the Monocle Daily, first broadcast on 29 January 2026 on Monocle Radio. US President Donald Trump gives his interfering in domestic affairs of foreign country raffle wheel another spin. President Vladimir Putin once again welcomes President Ahmed Al Sharar of Syria, which cannot do wonders for the nerves of former President Bashar Al Assad of Syria. And can driverless cars learn zebra crossing etiquette? I'm Andrew Muller. The Monocle Daily starts now. Hello and welcome to the Monocle Daily, coming to you from our studios here at Midori House in London. I'm Andrew Muller. My guests Lyn o' Donnell and Charles Hecker will discuss the day's big stories. And our weekly letter from has a Dominican stamp on it. Stay tuned. All that and more coming up right here on the Monocle.
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D.
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This is the Monocle Daily. I'm Andrew Muller and I am joined today by Lyn o', Donnell, writer and columnist for Foreign Policy magazine, and by Charles Hecker, author and associate fellow at rusi. Hello to you both.
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C
Hello.
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A
Good evening, Lyn. First of all, you have not been in for a while and indeed neither have I. Happy New Year, everybody.
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C
Indeed.
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A
But you were in the United States before or just after New Year? What was that all about?
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C
It was just before Christmas. I went to do some research and. And while I was there, I took an exotic side trip to Middletown, Ohio, hometown of J.D. vance.
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A
Did you get the impression that the locals were collecting to erect a statue of him in the town square?
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C
The locals loathe him.
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A
I mean. Any particular reason? I mean, there's not a shortage to choose from.
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C
Mostly it comes down to the way he portrayed his fellow middle town in his autobiography, Hillbilly Elegy. They take exception to being branded as redneck hillbillies, drug addicts, work shy, lazy people.
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A
They took offence at that.
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C
It surprised me. Yeah.
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A
This is extraordinarily thin.
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C
Who do they think they are?
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A
Extraordinarily thin skinned of them. Charles, you have recently been visiting Zurich, but as I understand, did not have time to visit the genuinely excellent tram museum.
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B
Andrew, you know, next time I go to Zurich, I will put this at the top of my agenda.
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A
You really should. It's great. They've got loads of old trams.
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B
I'm a little bit of a transport geek. I mean, I tend to go more for sort of the high speed rail and sort of, you know, proper choo choos. But I will put the tram museum on my agenda.
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A
Excellent. What were you actually doing in Zurich that was more interesting than going to the Tram museum?
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B
Well, it was a little bit more interesting than going to the Tram museum, no matter how exciting that place may be. I was the guest of the University of Zurich and I was doing a geopolitical risk workshop for a group of Ukrainian executives who were making their way from Zurich, from Ukraine to Zurich and then onward to Davos. I did not go with them to Davos. I stayed in Zurich and went home. But it was fun being, generally speaking, in the hood.
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A
At the risk of dispensing free advice to our listeners for which you could otherwise, I'm sure, invoice for terrific sums of money, what advice do you give Ukrainian executives going to a thing like Davos?
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B
Well, this is a really interesting thing because of course, you Ukrainian executives, the vast majority of them are already experts in geopolitical risk because of, you would.
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A
Think they would have to be.
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B
That's right. Because of the situation in which they find themselves. And so these workshops are useful, though, because you can help people confirm things that they already assume or suspect or know, or you can offer contrasting viewpoints and help them sort of expand the way that they look at the topic of geopolitics. The other thing is that all of these executives are typically very busy doing whatever their company does, making things, selling things, and then also, of course, trying to survive during a war and make sure that they have a workforce and make sure that the electricity stays on. And as much as they may know about geopolitics, they're busy with a lot of other topics.
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A
Well, we will start in Iraq, where an attempt to influence the internal affairs of another country by US President Donald Trump may, and not for the first time, have consequences other than those he may have preferred. Iraq held a parliamentary election in November, and following the subsequent arm twisting and horse trading, a coalition of broadly Shia parties has put forward for the prime minister's job, Nuri Maliki, who previously held the post between 2006 and 2014, not widely recalled as a golden era, rather in the history of his nation, President Trump has threatened to withdraw all US Support for Iraq should Maliki be returned to office. Yes, this bungling crook, widely suspected of all kinds of unsavoury ties with America's enemies, does not like Noori Maliki. Thank you for coming out, try the fish, etc. Lyn first of all, President Trump credit where due, I think, to this analysis, has said last time Maliki was in power, the country descended into poverty and total chaos. He further pronounced upon Maliki's, quote, insane policies and IDEOLOGIES that's not entirely wrong, is it?
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C
No, I think it's pretty much hitting the nail on the head, to be honest with you. 2006 to 2014 were horrific years for Iraq and its people. The country descended into sectarian violence. I can remember, you know, some of the descriptions of the violence that went on have stayed with me. You know, just newspaper reports of people using electric drills on other people because they happened to be the wrong sect, you know, and then, of course, all of this led into the horror of isis. And this was all under Prime Minister Maliki's rule. And at the same time, I think we need to remember that Iraq is a majority Shiite country, 65 to 70%, and so it is very much influenced and influenceable by Iran. So I see this sabre rattling. It's not really even that, it's just belligerent rhetoric from Trump as being another Iran play. He doesn't want Iraq become part of the equation in the destruction and removal, I believe, of the Iranian regime. And I think it's a fair warning. Iraqi people don't want that either. Generally, they like to be confident in their own sovereignty and they don't want any external dictates, whether it's from Washington or Tehran. And I think that this, as an Iran play is understandable.
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A
Just to follow that up, though, Lyn, you're correct, of course, to point out that most Iraqis are of the Shia persuasion. It is a possibly regrettable but nonetheless concrete fact of life that they do still tend to vote along sectarian lines. But there are plenty of other Shia politicians. I mean, is it clear why anybody wants to give Maliki another crack at this, given what happened last time?
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C
It's all about politics, isn't it? Who can, who can muster the power, who can hand out the favours. That's how politics works in every country, country. And I think the stakes are much higher in a. In a place like Iraq. That's what it comes down to.
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A
Charles Maliki has inevitably harrumphed about what he has described as this blatant American interference in Iraq's internal affairs. Is it possible that Trump getting involved here may actually help him? Because we have seen this happen in Canada, we've seen this happen in Australia, we may yet see it in the United Kingdom, whereby, you know, an incumbent broadly centrist and, or broadly centrist government can point at their opposition and go, those are Donald Trump's people.
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B
Yeah, exactly. I mean, there is a certain unifying force that Donald Trump has in other countries. But before I carry on along those lines, I should probably tell you, Andrew, that just a week or so ago, I had a conversation with an individual who is, as we say, exploring commercial opportunities in Iraq. And he said that it is an attractive market. Things are getting built there. There are hospitals, there are schools, there are roads, there are bridges.
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I mean, it is, as it always has been, a potentially marvelous country.
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Said to me was as he was talking about his exploration of commercial opportunities in Iraq, he said, I will be an enthusiastic investor until or as long as they do not appoint Nouri al Maliki as the prime minister. And I think that sort of tells you everything that you want. But you're absolutely right to say that, look, the sort of being a Donald Trump hate figure can sometimes help you rally the troops.
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A
Donald Trump is threatening to pull the plug on US Support for Iraq. But, but that, Lyn, going back to what you were saying earlier, I mean, they'd be delighted by that in Tehran, wouldn't they?
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C
Yeah, I guess they would. But this is where I think it comes down to rhetoric, because pulling out of such an important neighbour and very close neighbour would be a strategic mistake. I can't see it. The rhetoric is going to work for reasons that Charles has just stated. You know, you become a Trump, you're identified with Trump, you become a hate figure, the troops rally around you. So I can't see that happening, really. I think that this is a very smart play.
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A
But isn't this always the problem, though, Charles, with the isolationist approach that certainly Trump and I think even to an even greater extent, Vice President Vance wish to pursue that? It is the fact that whether they like it or not, that if the US Announces, we are no longer going to take any interest, interest in Country X, other people are sure as hell going to.
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B
That's right. I mean, the United States is adopting this sort of interventionist mode when it feels that it needs to keep other countries at a safer distance. This would be a very unusual time for the United States to completely disengage with Iraq. I mean, I can think of a number of reasons. First of all, the energy market is coming back online and that's important to the United States as long as it doesn't sort of tank the US Energy market, US Oil or natural gas exports and the prices that they command. Actually, energy is up Now, Brent, at $70 a barrel as a result of all of the drum banging around Iran. And it would be very, very unusual for the United States to pull the plug on Iraq when it's thinking of toppling the regime in its neighbor. The border between the two countries is fairly porous. And you have to wonder what's gonna happen to Iraq if there is, well, you know, if there's regime change or, you know, ongoing civil unrest or a collapse of the regime in Iran.
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Well, to Moscow now. And two, one assumes a fresh avowal of former president, Syrian president, rather Bashar al Assad, exiled in the Russian capital, of his resolution to stay away from high windows and refuse hot drinks offered by strangers. Assad's successor, former jihadist militia commander Ahmed Al Sharrar, has been treated to another visit to the Kremlin and to President Vladimir Putin of Russia's hospitality. Putin and Al Sharra, who were on opposite sides during Syria's interminable civil war, have gritted their teeth through some insincere encomiums of mutual appreciation and are believed to have discussed the maintenance of Russia's military presence in Syria, possibly at the price of the extradition of a certain former Syrian president. First principles first, Charles. Why does Russia still want to be in Syria?
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Russia has to still be in Syria. Russia has a decreasing circle of friends, number one. And so you've got to keep the ones that you have. And Syria is host to Russia's only military base outside the borders of the former Soviet Union. And so this is of critical strategic importance to Russia. It has got to maintain some sort of leverage in the region. And its association with Al Sharah and its association with Syria is essentially its ticket to legitimacy in the Middle East. The other thing is that it's been a very bad few weeks for Russian allies elsewhere. And this, I think, creates an interesting question because Russia was seen as basically cutting Maduro loose. And so it's probably got to claw some ground back from its attitudes towards Venezuela in its attitudes towards Al Sharra and perhaps convince its allies there that there is some durability and sustainability to a relationship with Russia. And of course, with Bashar Al Assad apparently living the life of luxury in Moscow and retraining for certification as a Russian licensed ophthalmologist. This puts Putin in a very tricky position.
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A
But, Lyn, why would Syria, given history and given Russia generally be interested in having this conversation or maintaining this relationship? Or is perhaps Al Sharra kind of hoping for a better offer from someone else?
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C
He's already had some pretty damn good offers. He put on a suit, shed his Al Qaeda nom de guerre and flew to Washington and had his picture taken, shaking hands with the President of the United States. Hello. You know, so this is just I think entrenching legitimacy that he needs. You know, it's pragmatic and it's mutually pragmatic.
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A
Do we suspect, though, Charles, that Assad may be on the table here, that his studies may be interrupted by unwanted return to his homeland?
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B
Yeah, on the table, I think, is exactly the way to put it. And that is that, you know, if you're going to be an unreliable ally, it's probably better to be unreliable to people who have already been deposed from power than to people who still are in power. And depending upon how critical negotiations get, you know, jettisoning, you know, providing Bashar al Assad with an exit visa might be the easier of the two choices that he has.
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A
I mean, Lyn, would that be. Is this, at this point in Syria's history, obviously we will come shortly to practical steps in that direction. This is a new regime trying to rebuild a country almost from the ground up. Obviously justice, I think, is important and justice is desirable, but are there times when it's just better to decide it's all over, we don't need to revisit this? Would it actually do Syria any good to bring Assad back and put him in the dock?
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C
Well, it seemed to work in Iraq with Saddam Hussein and in Libya with Gaddafi.
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A
The population, Gaddafi's son, at least Gaddafi himself didn't make it as far as a courtroom.
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C
No, indeed. Well, and nor did Saddam Hussein. I mean, they both seem to be popular moves. Getting him to. I don't think he'd make it to a court, I don't think. I can't see it happening with Asada either. You know, there's plenty of time between getting off a plane and getting into a car on the tarmac. You know, we saw that in the Philippines all those years ago. We've seen it before. But to be more serious about it, I think it's a step by step process. Assad is leverage for Vladimir Putin, and so I think maybe he going to hold him close until he's more useful. Assad must know that himself.
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A
In Syria itself, Charles, steps have been made towards rebuilding it, at least as Al Sharra would see it. And those steps have not been involved a great deal of asking nicely. There has been an offensive undertaken against Kurdish forces. Syria has taken back Deir EZ Zor and Raqqa. They are offering, however, some conciliatory moves. They're going to make Kurdish an official language of Syria and they are offering Syrian citizenship to Kurds. I mean, is this actually going to work or is this going to be added to the Kurds, not inconsiderable heap of grievances about how they keep getting rolled over by absolutely everybody, including those such as the west, alongside whom they very recently fought.
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B
Yeah, not a good situation to be in right now. I mean, I think that Syria is under enormous external pressure to bring its house in order, and that is because, much as was the case with Iraq, there is considerable external interest in investing in Syria and reconstructing the country. And that, of course, is in Syria's national interest. And the only way that you're going to get any sort of legitimacy and acceptance and investment and sort of, you know, endorsement from the international community is to to take care of domestic situations like what's happening with the Kurds.
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A
Well, to the United States, which appears perched ominously on the verge of compelling the narrators of foreign affairs explainers to once again compose scripts explaining what a government shutdown even is and how it all works and so forth. Excitingly, what is being pitched now is a partial government shutdown being threatened by House Democrats unless they see some changes made to the Department of Homeland Security, which may, who knows, make somewhat less likely the arbitration execution of American citizens by masked goons in the pay of the state. Charles we will get to the reasons behind this shortly, but objectively, in a global perspective, how weird is it that the government can actually just be shut down?
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B
It's really weird. Back on comfortable turf now. It is really, really weird that you can actually kind of switch the government on and off, but and yet it.
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Never seems to work.
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B
It doesn't really work when it's on. And, you know, sometimes it works better when it's off. You know, just ask anybody who's wanted to visit a national park in, in recent days. But, you know, I think that what we, what we have here is government shutdowns becoming, in the absence of a Democratic majority in either house of Congress, government shutdowns or the threat of a government shutdown is sort of becoming the new impeachment. This is like the sort of new kill switch that the Democrats have. And, you know, I think that whether it's a full shutdown or a partial shutdown, which parts do you shut down? The American voting public, the entire American public is thoroughly fed up with this. We had a long shutdown last year and a damaging shutdown last year, and nobody wants or is ready for full or partially another food fight like the one the Democrats are proposing right now.
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A
But if we look at the reasons for it, Lyn, do you get the sense that perhaps Ground is shifting on the question of ICE and Border Patrol and its behaviour. Are even some Republicans starting to grasp that this is probably not as popular in the real world as it is in the more excitable fever swamps of social media?
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C
You mean that they might be starting to listen to the people who don't like being shot? Yeah, maybe. But, you know, this is an administration adept at vacuous concessions. When I see Kirsty Neom, I was gonna, you know, visions in my head of her being dragged by the hare through a mob and put in stocks. When I see her removed from her position and the infrastructure behind her, which includes Stephen Miller and this other chappie in the Nazi overcoat, Bernini, he's been.
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A
Sent to spend more time with Garden, I believe.
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C
Well, there you go. So. Well, you know, once that infrastructure is dismantled in a meaningful way, then I will believe that there is some movement. Trump's popularity figures are, what, around 40% historically low and tanking, and the midterms are coming, so there is a realisation that they have to do something to get those figures back up if they're going to get any reasonable and meaningful level of the vote come November. But I think that. That this is such a crisis, a political and social crisis, that something more than the threat of a partial shutdown and an impact on the funding for, as you call, the Goon Squad really has to be done if they're going to move the needle in their favour. And I can't see it happening. People are dead.
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A
I mean, Charles, it's not a difficult intellectual exercise pointing out the hypocrisies here, but speaking as you always do on these shows for the entire population of the United States, I think what is baffling to a lot of onlookers? Actually, I think a lot of this is baffling to a lot of onlookers, but a specific detail of it is that you have this extremely voluble, cranky libertarian movement which has attached itself to Trump waving their Don't Tread on Me flags and sort of saying, you know, like, small government is better government, who seem just incredibly relaxed, by unidentified, heavily armed, unaccountable, masked troops dressed up as the Special Air Service, wandering the streets of American cities, dispensing arbitrary violence at will.
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B
Yeah, it's very difficult to assign sort of logic and pattern and sense to all of this. And by the way, Andrew, it's not just sort of baffling to onlookers. It's baffling. It's baffling to Everybody. And it's baffling, particularly, I mean, Lyn and I were talking about this, you know, when both of us were visiting the United States recently. Everyone is obsessed by this. And every single conversation, whether it's with long term friends or people that you've just met, begins with these associated topics. And here's if you're looking for an explanation on behalf of the American people, if you're looking for an explanation why everyone seems to be for small government except what appears to be happening now, the American logic behind this is that I'm for small government, except for the parts of the government that I like, and except for the parts of the government that carry out the policies that I want or that provide me with the sort of goods and services that I particularly need or act against my.
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A
Fellow citizens who I don't like.
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B
That's another way of putting it as well. And so, you know, I think though, that even that opinion is turning. You know, as Lyn said, you know, we are now in a cycle of sort of backtracking on behalf of the Trump administration. There's been a climb down, you know, against all the bluster in Davos and Greenland, and there is a climb down in the works and already a partial climb down this thing called a de escalation on ice. And from Nome and from Border Patrol and dhs. And so, you know, we'll see. Maybe this part of the government might soon be getting a tiny bit smaller.
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A
Well, here in London, another step in bracing the citizens for the arrival of driverless taxis. American ride hailing concern. Waymo has unveiled one of the Jaguar cars it has calibrated for London and revealed something of the training they are undergoing, including getting used to the zebra crossings, which traditionally rely on subtle nods and waves between motorist and pedestrian rather than the instruction of flashing lights. Though, of course, if Waymo really wanted London taxi users to feel at home, they would rig internal speakers to berate passengers with an incessant monologue about the virtues of conscription and public executions. In related news, the Licensed Taxi Drivers Are association has scorned the robo taxis as a fairground ride. Lyn, they hope to have these up and running later this year. Are you keen?
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C
I think it's inevitable whether I'm keen or not. I was in Phoenix, Arizona less than a year ago where they have. They are there and they're all. I thought that they were. They had these domes on the top and I thought the domes were like, you have the Google cars here that go round and map the Streets, I thought that's what they were until I noticed that there was no driver and I really wanted to try one. And the only opportunity I had, because I was being very well looked after, was when I was going to the airport and I didn't take one to the airport because there's no bloke to help me with my luggage.
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A
They haven't thought that one all the time.
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C
No, they haven't. And so when Charles and I were talking about this before, we realised that there is a large proportion of every population that would like to have help with getting in, getting out, carrying things, lifting the dog up, all of that sort of thing. And so I think there has to be a balance between driver and driverless. Let's see. But I do have an anecdote.
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A
Go on.
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C
A friend of mine was in Miami over Christmas and was going from one party to another with a group of friends and a driverless car turned up to take them and they were having a conversation and somebody asked the car, there's, you know, an Alexa type thingy in the car that talks back where they should go and what. And the thing, the car started to interject in the conversation and my friend, who is from London, was laughing about it.
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A
Sure. Everyone hadn't had a few cocktails before. They.
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C
Of course they had had cocktails and they were on their way for more. And this is why my friend was laughing about it and said something to the car about the father in law who was not finding this funny at all. And the car said, yeah, John really needs to chill.
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D
What?
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C
The car said that? Yeah, the car is judgmental.
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A
Yeah. See, that right there has put me off ever taking one of these things at all.
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C
Imagine what it'd say to you.
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A
Well, exactly. But I mean, the absolute last thing, Charles, that I want is technology that talks to me or that I have to talk to. I want things that do what I want them to do when I press a button. But as I suspect Lyn points out, this, this is the future, whether we like it or not. Would there, though be a case in a sort of, you know, crazed socialist dystopia like the United Kingdom? I'm just framing this in terms an American will be able to appreciate. What would be stopping a government from just saying, no, we're not going to do this here, because there are a lot of people here who rely on driving vehicles for a living.
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B
Well, precisely. I mean, I think I'll tell you what will stop somebody from just going ahead and doing this. And that is. Is the feared voting bloc of the ltda, the London Taxi Drivers association, and the people who represent the hackney carriages or the black cabs who and again, as Lynn and I were discussing in the green room prior to the show, who couldn't stop Uber, but who substantially not only delayed the advent of Uber to London, but then also drew out and made very protracted and almost block the renewal of Uber's license in London. And I'm wondering when this block that all mayors seem to live in fear of will come to the front and not just say that these things look like amusement park rides. By the way, I think they're training in my neighborhood because I've seen a lot of them over the past couple of days. And so I wonder when the lobbying will begin and the protests in front of City hall and when an official public voice on behalf of half of London's black cab drivers when they take to the streets against the Waymos.
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A
But just as a final thought on this, Lynne, there is a whole wider point which I don't hear governments anywhere facing up to this clearly is the future. And it isn't just for taxis. The consequence of the actual end of driving jobs will be colossal because they are an entry level job for so many people, whether they're young people or students or immigrants. They're a career for people who do things like drive trucks and trains. And within a couple of decades, and maybe sooner than that, none of those jobs will exist.
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C
Yes. And as Charles was saying, it's tens of thousands of people and there isn't going to be, as there hasn't been for other AI victims, if you like, any alternative offered. So you have yet another swathe of the population, many of them, I would say, without any prejudice at all, unskilled for anything else, who are not being offered an alternative. And I think that this is maybe fear is not the right word, but certainly to be concerned about where is it going at breakneck speed, where is it taking people who rely on the jobs that are disappeared?
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A
Lyn o' Donnell and Charles Hecker, thank you both for joining us. Finally on today's show, what is in an accent? Monocle's Gregory Scruggs explores Dominican relations with Haiti and its own Haitian heritage in our weekly letter from this time from the Dominican capital of Santo Domingo.
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D
How you pronounce the Spanish word for parsley in the Dominican Republic is no matter of you say tomato, I say tomato. Tomaho, the island of Hispaniola, which I recently visited for the first time, is shared between the doctor as it's known for short in English and Haiti, the French and Creole speaking nation that was once its occupier. Indeed, the doctor's annual Independence Day celebration coming up on February 27, marks liberation not from Spain, the country's first colonizer, but from neighboring Haiti. In 1844, the Spanish speaking eastern half of the island declared itself freed from a 22 year occupation. The Dominicans then fought a bloody conflict for the next decade against armies dispatched from Port au Prince. By the early 20th century, the tables had turned. The once formidable Haitian Republic, born out of the world's only successful slave revolt, saw its economy crippled by reparations payments to France. Facing dire prospects in their homeland, thousands of Haitian migrants crossed the porous border into the more prosperous Dominican Republic to work on sugar cane plantations. Generations had even been born in the Dr. And were therefore Dominican citizens. In the 1930s, Dominican dictator Rafael Trujillo drummed up anti Haitian sentiment as part of a wider campaign to emphasize the Doctor's Spanish and therefore lighter skinned heritage and downplay its African and therefore darker skinned history. That prejudice reached a crescendo in October 1937, when the Dominican architecture army went on a rampage along the border, killing upwards of 40,000 people with machetes and bayonets. The Dajabon river that divides the two countries now also goes by the moniker Massacre River. But how to tell a Haitian from a Dominican when the two peoples are so intermixed? Which brings us back to parsley. The Spanish word peregil has a soft tail, j. In French, the letter J takes a harder J sound. And so the marauding soldiers used that subtle distinction in pronunciation to make the determination. Spit out a mellifluous peregil with a knife to your throat and you would survive. Find yourself a tongue tied Francophone intoning peregil, and your fate was sealed. I learned this cruel history lesson during a university course on Caribbean history and literature, literature where we read novels about the episode by Haitian authors. I can heartily recommend Edwin Stantecat's the Farming of Bones and Rene Philoctet's Massacre River. And as I traveled to the Dominican capital, Santo Domingo for the first time, this gruesome Saga from nearly 90 years ago loomed large in my imagination. It had haunted me in a New York City classroom a decade ago. But what, if anything, did it mean to Dominicans today? As I suspected, the Parsley Massacre was hardly the subject of a national exercise. In truth and reconciliation, Dominican Haitian relations remain fraught. In 2013, a Dominican court revoked birthright citizenship for an estimated 250,000 people of Haitian descent When I was in town last month during the US Military buildup in the Caribbean, the local papers were far less concerned about Washington's posture toward Karate Caucasus than its stance on a proposed UN backed gang suppression force set to deploy in Haiti. A few days before my visit, Dominican authorities proudly announced they had deported nearly 1,000 Haitians who had crossed the border illegally on the hunt for Black Friday shopping deals, and that the new US Ambassador had affirmed in remarks that Haiti is a legitimate security issue for the Doctor was itself from front page news. The only depiction of the Parchley massacre I encountered was a 1974 mural on display at the Museum of Dominican Resistance, a relatively young institution that curates the history of those who opposed the three decade reign of terror under El Generalissimo, as Trujillo was known. A spin through an edgy contemporary art show also afforded a glimpse as one of the pieces abstracted the Dominican Haitian boy border in sculptural form as an oblique commentary on bilateral relations. But it was dinner at Casare that served up this chapter, quite literally. The restaurant hosts a nightly tasting menu that can best be described as a 10 course thesis on the natural and cultural history of Hispaniola. Or maybe that should be Quisqueya, the island's Taino indigenous name, as the restaurateurs pointed out. And having taken by final example from a snug chef's table perch, I can confirm it's a lot more enjoyable than reading an academic treatise on the subject. Our first course, a parsley broth with lemon and ginger, was bitter and bracing. It was a slap to the face, or rather to the palate, designed to wake up the diner that the Doctor is not just an easygoing holiday destination of sun, sea and sand. It's a country with a complicated, complicated and unresolved history, something that Casare's founder, Olivier Burr, has been teasing out subtly through food and drink. He'll tell you about the Parsley massacre if you ask more, but there's no obligatory lecture at the dinner table. His team served us an opening cocktail made with Clarine, a type of small batch rum from Haiti that's frankly more complex and interesting than the Doctor's mass market industrial rums. Trujillo banned Clarine as dangerous, and it remains a contraband item to this day. Cazaret has to import bottles from the US even though they are made a short distance away. That kind of cognitive dissonance typifies the mainstream Dominican attitude toward Haiti, a population living in the shadows, a boogeyman across a heavily guarded border. At the end of the meal, we received a map denoting all of the producers whose fruits, vegetables, fish and lib we had consumed. With sources stretching from coast to coast in the middle of the island. There was no demarcation where the border would normally be, a dotted line right along Massacre River. For Monocle in Santo Domingo, I'm Gregory Scrugg.
- [36:31]
A
Thank you, Gregory. You can read Gregory's full report from Santo Domingo and the Dominican Republic in the February issue of Monocle magazine, which is on a newsstand near you today. And that is all for this edition of the Daily. Thanks to our panelists today, Lyn o' Donnell and Charles Hecker. The show was produced by Chris Chermack and researched by Annaliese Maynard. Our sound engineer was Steph Chungu. I'm Andrew Muller here in London. The Daily is back at the same time tomorrow. Thanks for listening.
- [36:57]
B
Sam. Sa.