Politics in the Time of Corona: Doha (Hosted by Jadaliyya Co-Editors Noura Erakat and Bassam Haddad)

On Doha: 31 March 2020
For audio only, find the podcast on SoundCloud.

This podcast takes you to several cities/countries affected by COVID-19 to discuss social, economic, and political challenges facing their societies, with emphasis on the most vulnerable groups and on what this pandemic reveals about the human condition (wow, big phrase). Based on personal and incisive conversations with various interlocutors on location, we hope both to learn from others and to provide some solace as we address how we are collectively experiencing and dealing with similar challenges.

We will be speaking with our guests, one or several at a time, via Skype, and will try to have brief, informative, and non-draining calls within 20-30 minutes.

Look out for upcoming episodes in the coming week(s) from Doha, San Francisco, Vancouver, and more. Listen to the previous episodes in the series on Gaza here, Dublin here, Cairo here, the first interview on Iran here, the second interview on Iran here, and on San Francisco here.

Hosted by Noura Erakat and Bassam Haddad
Production Set by Khalid Namez
Edited by Alicia Rodriguez
Directed by Bassam Haddad
Research by Naim Mousa

Stats: Arabian Peninsula

Data shown is as of April 1, unless stated otherwise.

Qatar

Total cases: 781
Total deaths: 2
Total recovered: 62
Total active cases: 717
Total in serious/critical condition: 6
Total cases per 1 million people: 271
Total deaths per 1 million people: 0.7
First recorded case was on February 28.
Carried out almost 9,000 tests (as of March 18).

UAE

Total cases: 664
Total deaths: 6
Total recovered: 61
Total active cases: 597
Total in serious/critical condition: 2
Total cases per 1 million people: 67
Total deaths per 1 million people: 0.6
First recorded case was on January 28.
Carried out more than 220,000 laboratory tests across the country (as of March 30).
Evacuated over 1,700 nationals and "those accompanying them" from countries abroad.
Opened drive-through testing facility that can service 600 people a day, with priority given to the elderly, the pregnant and those with underlying health problems.

Saudi Arabia

Total cases: 1,720
Total deaths: 16
Total recovered: 264
Total active cases: 1,440
Total in serious/critical condition: 31
Total cases per 1 million people: 49
Total deaths per 1 million people: 0.5
First recorded case was on March 1.
State authorities seized over 5 million masks that were hoarded by businesses and people.
Released 250 immigration detainees to help contain the spread of the virus.

Oman

Total cases: 210
Total deaths: 1
Total recovered: 34
Total active cases: 175
Total in serious/critical condition: 3
Total cases per 1 million people: 41
Total deaths per 1 million people: 0.2
First recorded case was on February 23.

Kuwait

Total cases: 317
Total deaths: 0
Total recovered: 80
Total active cases: 237
Total in serious/critical condition: 13
Total cases per 1 million people: 74
Total deaths per 1 million people: 0
First recorded case was on February 23.
Brought back more than 2,700 citizens from countries abroad.

Bahrain

Total cases: 567
Total deaths: 4
Total recovered: 316
Total active cases: 247
Total in serious/critical condition: 2
Total cases per 1 million people: 333
Total deaths per 1 million people: 2
First recorded case was on February 23.
Carried out almost 19,000 tests (as of March 20).

Ahmad Dallal

Dr. Ahmad Dallal is the Dean of Georgetown University in Qatar.

He has a storied intellectual history between Lebanon and the United States, where he has demonstrated his core interest in research and teaching about the cultural traditions of the Islamic world. Dr. Dallal was previously professor of history at the American University of Beirut. Between 2009 and 2015, he served as Provost of the American University of Beirut. Prior to that, between 2003 and 2009, Dr. Dallal served as chair of the Department of Arabic and Islamic Studies at Georgetown University. He had previously taught at Stanford University, Yale University, and Smith College.

Dr. Dallal has written and lectured widely on a variety of topics, including the Islamic disciplines of learning in medieval and early modern Islamic societies, the development of traditional and exact Islamic sciences, Islamic medieval thought, the early-modern evolution of Islamic revivalism and intellectual movements, Islamic law, and the causes and consequences of 11 September 2001 attacks.

He is the author of An Islamic Response to Greek Astronomy: Kitab Ta‘dil Hay’at al-Aflak of Sadr al-Shari‘a (1995); Islam, Science and the Challenge of History (2012); The Political Theology of ISIS, Prophets, Messiahs and the "Extinction of the Greyzone"(2017); and Islam without Europe – Traditions of Reform in Eighteenth Century Islamic Thought (2018).

Bassam Haddad

Bassam Haddad is Director of the Middle East and Islamic Studies Program and Associate Professor at the Schar School of Policy and Government at George Mason University. He is the author of Business Networks in Syria: The Political Economy of Authoritarian Resilience (Stanford University Press, 2011) and co-editor of the forthcoming book, A Critical Political Economy of the Middle East (Forthcoming, Stanford University Press, 2021). Bassam serves as Founding Editor of the Arab Studies Journal and the Knowledge Production Project. He is co-producer/director of the award-winning documentary film, About Baghdad, and director of the series Arabs and Terrorism. Bassam is Co-Founder/Editor of Jadaliyya Ezine and Executive Director of the Arab Studies Institute. He serves on the Board of the Arab Council for the Social Sciences and is Executive Producer of Status Audio Magazine. Bassam is Co-Project Manager for the Salon Syria Project and Director of the Middle East Studies Pedagogy Initiative (MESPI). He received MESA's Jere L. Bacharach Service Award in 2017 for his service to the profession. Currently, Bassam is working on his second Syria book tittled Understanding The Syrian Tragedy: Regime, Opposition, Outsiders (forthcoming, Stanford University Press).

Noura Erakat

Noura Erakat is an Assistant Professor at Rutgers University in the Department of Africana Studies and the Program in Criminal Justice where she teaches topics such as human rights law, humanitarian law, national security law, refugee law, social justice, and critical race theory. Her scholarly interests include humanitarian law, human rights law, refugee law, and national security law. She earned her BA and JD from Berkeley Law School and her LLM in National Security from the Georgetown University Law Center. She is a Co-Founder/Editor of Jadaliyya e-zine. Prior to beginning her appointment at GMU, Noura was a Freedman Teaching Fellow at Temple Law School and has taught International Human Rights Law and the Middle East at Georgetown University since 2009.

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