Pod Academy

Podcast produced and presented by Alex Burd In December 2011 a Tunisian vegetable vendor set himself alight in protest at the economic policies of his country. The death of Mohamed Bouazizi would light the touch paper in Tunis and the surrounding Arab world which would see dictators toppled, wars break out and millions of people displaced in what would become known as the Arab Spring. Many seasons have come and gone since then and Tunisia has gone on to hold its first free elections since the country’s independence in 1956. However the wider region remains in a state of severe unrest. Professor Richard Falk of Princeton University in the United States is an expert in the Middle East and has reported on the Israel-Palestine conflict for the United Nations. His new book – Chaos and Counterrevolution: The Arab Spring  (Zed Books 2015) argues that the initial optimism of 2011 has been replaced by oppressive government or brutal civil war. He spoke to me from his home in Istanbul via Skype about the major topics