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David Commins

Published podcast speaker

Claims
21
Episodes
1
Shows
1
Named items
0

Claim ledger

What David said.

21 transcript-backed records

01 / evaluation

One of the political achievements of the early 20th-century Saudi leader, Abdulaziz, was to annex Mecca to his kingdom, which was based in Riyadh, and do so in a way that imposed what you might call a qualified Wahhabi regime, because in its original homeland in central Arabia, the Wahhabi clerics purged the entire region as thoroughly as they could, of any religious dissent, that is, of other Sunni Muslims.

“One of the political achievements of the early 20th-century Saudi leader, Abdulaziz, was to annex Mecca to his kingdom, which was based in Riyadh, and do so in a way that imposed what you might call a qualified Wahhabi regime, because in its original homeland in central Arabia, the Wahhabi clerics purged the entire region as thoroughly as they could, of any religious dissent, that is, of other Sunni Muslims.”
Speaker
David Commins
Publisher
Conversations with Tyler

02 / belief

I guess my hunch is that any critical attitude toward Palestinians on the part of the Saudi government would be that they’re inconvenient, because I think what the Saudi government wants is a very neat, seamless integration with Western economic, political, technological, and military spheres.

“I guess my hunch is that any critical attitude toward Palestinians on the part of the Saudi government would be that they’re inconvenient, because I think what the Saudi government wants is a very neat, seamless integration with Western economic, political, technological, and military spheres.”
Speaker
David Commins
Publisher
Conversations with Tyler

03 / belief

I think that there are definitely groups that would like to dismantle the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, but my impression is that generations of Saudi kings and princes and technocrats have succeeded at integrating the population into a nation that looks to certain institutions, looks at outsiders and sees them as different from themselves, which is an essential part of being a nation, and thinks of themselves as sharing common values.

“I think that there are definitely groups that would like to dismantle the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, but my impression is that generations of Saudi kings and princes and technocrats have succeeded at integrating the population into a nation that looks to certain institutions, looks at outsiders and sees them as different from themselves, which is an essential part of being a nation, and thinks of themselves as sharing common values.”
Speaker
David Commins
Publisher
Conversations with Tyler

04 / belief

The teachings of Wahhabism were rejected completely by almost every Muslim society that encountered it from the 1740s until probably the late 1800s, but they never stopped trying. I think that there’s that.

“The teachings of Wahhabism were rejected completely by almost every Muslim society that encountered it from the 1740s until probably the late 1800s, but they never stopped trying. I think that there’s that.”
Speaker
David Commins
Publisher
Conversations with Tyler

05 / belief

The people that I think are informed about this, see the Houthis as evolving in their aims, and becoming more ambitious and perhaps overreaching, as rising movements have a habit of doing.

“The people that I think are informed about this, see the Houthis as evolving in their aims, and becoming more ambitious and perhaps overreaching, as rising movements have a habit of doing.”
Speaker
David Commins
Publisher
Conversations with Tyler

06 / belief

My understanding is, they’ve taken out a lot of the, I would say, xenophobic religious teachings that were part of their education system for about half a century, but they just don’t have a cadre of teachers that they can put into the schools and replace people who are there already.

“My understanding is, they’ve taken out a lot of the, I would say, xenophobic religious teachings that were part of their education system for about half a century, but they just don’t have a cadre of teachers that they can put into the schools and replace people who are there already.”
Speaker
David Commins
Publisher
Conversations with Tyler

10 / belief

I haven’t seen a lot about recent developments, but I think that by curtailing financial support for at least Saudi religious institutions to proselytize, that Saudi influence will diminish.

“I haven’t seen a lot about recent developments, but I think that by curtailing financial support for at least Saudi religious institutions to proselytize, that Saudi influence will diminish.”
Speaker
David Commins
Publisher
Conversations with Tyler

11 / belief

The United States is a great commercial and military power, producer of popular culture, but I think Europeans might feel that the United States is still a parvenu on the world stage.

“The United States is a great commercial and military power, producer of popular culture, but I think Europeans might feel that the United States is still a parvenu on the world stage.”
Speaker
David Commins
Publisher
Conversations with Tyler

15 / evaluation

The Wahhabi movement made them matter more than they did before because of this activist impulse and its position on theology, that belief requires action, not just verbal affirmation and individual conduct.

“The Wahhabi movement made them matter more than they did before because of this activist impulse and its position on theology, that belief requires action, not just verbal affirmation and individual conduct.”
Speaker
David Commins
Publisher
Conversations with Tyler

16 / evaluation

I would argue no, and I would also qualify that by saying that our sources for the early history of Saudi political expansion are so few and partisan, we can’t reach a firm historical conclusion about that.

“I would argue no, and I would also qualify that by saying that our sources for the early history of Saudi political expansion are so few and partisan, we can’t reach a firm historical conclusion about that.”
Speaker
David Commins
Publisher
Conversations with Tyler

17 / evaluation

Yes, if you take away the one quarter of the population that are foreign workers, of the 75% that remain, I would say probably a very small number are descended from people outside Arabia, because certainly, the royals and wealthy Arabian families in general had a long history of marrying or having children with slaves.

“Yes, if you take away the one quarter of the population that are foreign workers, of the 75% that remain, I would say probably a very small number are descended from people outside Arabia, because certainly, the royals and wealthy Arabian families in general had a long history of marrying or having children with slaves.”
Speaker
David Commins
Publisher
Conversations with Tyler

19 / evaluation

I think a Yemen expert could give a better answer than I could, but my understanding is that the Yemen Arab Republic that formed in 1990 from the union of North and South Yemen was stable because of a very delicate political compromise between powers in different parts of the country.

“I think a Yemen expert could give a better answer than I could, but my understanding is that the Yemen Arab Republic that formed in 1990 from the union of North and South Yemen was stable because of a very delicate political compromise between powers in different parts of the country.”
Speaker
David Commins
Publisher
Conversations with Tyler

21 / uncertainty

Personally, I don’t know if that is true or not. It might be true, but I do not know that it is true because we really don’t hear what I regard as reliable information about conditions in Saudi Arabia regarding recent occurrence of dissent.

“Personally, I don’t know if that is true or not. It might be true, but I do not know that it is true because we really don’t hear what I regard as reliable information about conditions in Saudi Arabia regarding recent occurrence of dissent.”
Speaker
David Commins
Publisher
Conversations with Tyler
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