Ethiopia Pt.3: The Shadow of the Derg

The Conflicted Community is back for another Q&A for all of our dearest listeners. This week, in the first time Thomas and Aimen have got together since the Gaza ceasefire deal, they discuss its implications for the region and the world, with the help of listeners' questions. From the motivations of the parties involved in the ceasefire, to the question of Israeli settlements in the West Bank, to what Trump has planned for the region and some questions about the Palestinian Authority and the future of Hamas, Thomas and Aimen go deep on whether a true and lasting peace could actually now happen after the fighting has stopped. Will it ignite again? And what role will Al-Sharaa’s new Syrian regime play in it all? To listen to the full episode, you’ll need to subscribe to the Conflicted Community. And don’t forget, subscribers can also join our Conflicted Community chatroom, where you can interact with fellow dearest listeners, discuss episodes past and future, get exclusive messages from Thomas and Aimen, ask future Q&A questions and so much more. All the information you need to sign up is on this link: https://conflicted.supportingcast.fm/  Conflicted is proudly made by Message Heard, a full-stack podcast production agency which uses its extensive expertise to make its own shows such as Conflicted, shows for commissioners such as the BBC, Spotify and Al Jazeera, and powerfully effective podcasts for other companies too. If you’d like to find out how we can help get your organisation’s message heard, visit messageheard.com or drop an email to hello@messageheard.com! Find us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/MHconflicted And Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MHconflicted Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Last week, a deal between Israel and Gaza was struck to bring back the Israeli hostages and to bring an end to the bloodshed which has engulfed Gaza over 15 months of fighting, since October 7th 2023. It’s a deal which has brought relief to many, not least the families of hostages and civilians in Gaza, but also questions from others who see Israel as having failed to fully dismantle Hamas and finish the war aims they began their assault on Gaza with. In this episode, recorded last week on February 15th just as the deal was being finally struck, we discuss the deal and give a broader retrospective on the military campaign in Gaza in all its facets, with a man who has been to Gaza and seen much of it first hand. This week, Thomas invites Andrew Fox on to the Conflicted Community. Andrew is an ex-soldier in the British army, who served in three tours of Afghanistan, including one attached to the US Army Special Forces. Since then he’s worked in academia as a senior lecturer in the War Studies and Behavioural Science departments at Sandhurst, as well as as a research fellow with the Henry Jackson Society. He’s also a regular commentator on defence and foreign policy across the media, including his excellent substack which you can subscribe to here: https://mrandrewfox.substack.com/  Thomas and Andrew discuss the deal to bring a halt to fighting in Gaza, as well as his time serving in the British army, how this has affected the ways in which he looks at conflicts, before getting on to a fascinating new report he co-authored which examines the questionable counting of the Hamas run Gaza Health Ministry over the course of the conflict. To listen to the full episode, you’ll need to subscribe to the Conflicted Community. And don’t forget, subscribers can also join our Conflicted Community chatroom, where you can interact with fellow dearest listeners, discuss episodes past and future, get exclusive messages from Thomas and Aimen, ask future Q&A questions and so much more. All the information you need to sign up is on this link: https://conflicted.supportingcast.fm/  Find us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/MHconflicted And Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MHconflicted Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Happy New Year to all of our dearest listeners! In our second episode of 2025, Thomas and Aimen are doing a Q&A session with all of your questions posted on Discord, and we’ve got some excellent ones this week.  We’ll be doing a post-mortem of the zombie ideology of baathism now it has been seen off in Syria; we’ll look at why al-Julani is delaying elections for four years time; we’ll ask how HTS will be able to maintain territorial integrity in the future; and we’ll assess how Hamas still has any military capabilities. And to top it off, Thomas and Aimen will take a look at the recent terror attacks in the United States and in Germany before Christmas, bringing you the insiders view on how they were perpetrated and what security officials can do to stop them in the future. To listen to the full episode, you’ll need to subscribe to the Conflicted Community. And don’t forget, subscribers can also join our Conflicted Community chatroom, where you can interact with fellow dearest listeners, discuss episodes past and future, get exclusive messages from Thomas and Aimen, ask future Q&A questions and so much more. All the information you need to sign up is on this link: https://conflicted.supportingcast.fm/  Find us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/MHconflicted And Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MHconflicted Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

To bring in the new year, we have a special Conflicted Community episode this week– an interview with none other than Tom Tugendhat, a Conservative British MP and ex Minister of State for Security.  Tom is a veteran of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and a veteran of both Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak’s Conservative cabinets. He remains a big figure in the party, having run unsuccessfully for party leader in 2024, and is one of the most outspoken of all British MPs when it comes to the UK's security policy. But most importantly, Tom is a long time dearest listener, friend of Aimen’s and fan of the show, so we invited him on to discuss himself, his time in government and his thoughts on the current crises engulfing the Middle East.  In this episode Thomas, Aimen and Tom discuss Tom’s background, including some of his formative years spent in the Middle East, as well as his thoughts on the scourge of Islamism in the region and the West, before looking at how effective security policy can be enacted by the West as a new world order takes shape. New Conflicted episodes will be coming every two weeks, but if you want to have your Conflicted fix every single week, then you’ll have to join our Conflicted Community. Subscribers will get bonus episodes every other week, and can also join our Conflicted Community chatroom, where you can interact with fellow dearest listeners, discuss episodes past and future, get exclusive messages from Thomas and Aimen, ask future Q&A questions and so much more. All the information you need to sign up to the Conflicted Community is on this link: https://conflicted.supportingcast.fm/  Find us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/MHconflicted And Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MHconflicted Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

After a short emergency interlude into Syria, Conflicted Season 5 returns to our exploration of the fascinating land of Ethiopia. Moving now to the 20th century, where one man dominated the country: Emperor Haile Selassie, King of Kings. Haile Selassie is a name synonymous with a few things: Ethiopia’s age of regal power in the 20th century; being the only African monarch to withstand Western colonialism; and, of course, the religion in Jamaica which reveres him as a god, Rastafarianism. But Haile Selassie himself was actually much more human, more mortal, than all this implies – to look at his life is to understand how the modern Ethiopian state came to be formed, or rather, failed to be formed… In this episode, Thomas and Aimen give us an in depth look at Ethiopia in the 20th century, from Haile Selassie’s prophesied birth, to the political machinations that brought him to power, and how he cemented it in this tumultuous time for his country. The wider geopolitics of his reign were fascinating too, which saw Mussolini’s fascist Italians invade, Western powers joining to expel them in World War 2, and a period of rule afterwards where Selassie preached African unity while himself conquering neighbouring lands. We’ll talk about Selassie in Bath, his resplendent tours throughout Europe, thrilling visits to the League of Nations, and yes, the religion set up in his name to revere him, Rastafarianism. New Conflicted Season 5 episodes will be coming every two weeks, but if you want to have your Conflicted fix every single week, then you’ll have to join our Conflicted Community. Subscribers will get bonus episodes every other week, and can also join our Conflicted Community chatroom, where you can interact with fellow dearest listeners, discuss episodes past and future, get exclusive messages from Thomas and Aimen, ask future Q&A questions and so much more. All the information you need to sign up to the Conflicted Community is on this link: https://conflicted.supportingcast.fm/  Find us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/MHconflicted And Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MHconflicted Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices