Speaking next in September

I'm next speaking to the Saudi British Society at the Middle East Association, 33 Bury Street, London SW1, early in the evening of Tuesday 11th September. If you are interested in coming, further details can be found here.

The date - a coincidence and not deliberate - is certainly a resonant one on which to speak about the Arab revolt, which began 91 years ago this year. It was in his first public announcement after 9/11 that Osama bin Laden claimed that "Our nation has been tasting humiliation and contempt for more than eighty years". Bin Laden shows a considerable awareness of the Arab revolt and its circumstances, and he understands how powerful an abbreviation for betrayal that episode has become across the Muslim world.