The Roots of Violence, episode 2, interview with Emad Kiyaei, of the Middle East Treaty Organization
Channel: Pressenza IPA
Date: 2021-05-18

Welcome to the second in our series of interviews in which we look at the Middle East region and try to understand better what is going on there. The view from the West is that it is a very violent and dangerous place. There is an ongoing war in Yemen and there are several other countries that appear to be on the brink of war. There are some dreadful abuses of human rights and there are failed states. But on the other hand this region is the cradle of Western civilization: Mesopotamia, Persia, Egypt, Syria, Palestine, Arabia are places of myth and legend. Great mystics, mathematicians, translators and storytellers have come from there. Major religions have their most sacred places here. Western art music science and food have all felt the impact of this region.

In this series of interviews which we're calling The Roots of Violence, we're going to try to understand how the violence originated and who is responsible. We aren't attempting to justify the physical violence, but physical violence doesn't erupt from nowhere. Physical violence is the explosion that erupts after a long period of economic and psychological violence. 

In our second interview we speak once more with Emad Kiyaei. Emad is Iranian. He's a director of the Middle East Treaty Organization, which is a civil society campaign seeking to eradicate all weapons of mass destruction from the Middle East through innovative policy advocacy and educational programs. He is the co-author of the book Weapons of Mass Destruction: a New Approach to Non-proliferation, and he studied at Princeton and Columbia universities in the United States.