Hello and happy Friday! Can you believe we’re already five emails into this foreign correspondence? If you’re new to this newsletter, welcome. You can catch up on all the previous editions here. If you’re a regular reader, welcome back (and thank you).
What I’ve written
There’s a lot happening in the world right now, so you’d be forgiven if you missed the news of a deadly border clash between India and China that resulted in the deaths of 20 Indian soldiers (and an undisclosed number of Chinese casualties). It was the worst violence to take place between the two neighbors in 45 years, further intensifying anti-China sentiment in India, which — as I reported back in April — was already on the rise as a result of the pandemic.
It’s not just the scale of the violence that made this clash so significant. It also comes at a time when the two countries are being led by strongmen who are under immense pressure not to lose face. Indeed, Narendra Modi, India’s nationalist prime minister, vowed that the country’s sacrifice would not be in vain and that, if provoked, would offer a “befitting reply.”
In the weeks since, though, no such reply has materialized. Instead, Modi has focused on downplaying the situation by recasting the narrative as one not of loss but defiance and imposing symbolic retaliatory measures, including a ban on TikTok. Judging from his sky-high approval ratings, it seems to be working.
Modi’s efforts struck me as something of a case study for how nationalist leaders can step back from the brink of confrontation without compromising their strongman image. As one observer told me, “Modi is astute enough to realize that if he fuels a nationalist fervor, he may become trapped by his own rhetoric.”
What I’ve read
This absolutely bonkers LA Times investigation into my alma mater and its relationship to a student prince from Qatar who “doesn’t like to hear no”:
“From the moment Al Thani stepped off the plane, an entire economy quickly grew up around him to meet his wishes and whims: chauffeurs, a security detail, concierges, trainers, a nurse, an all-purpose fixer and even, according to several USC faculty members, a graduate student who served as his academic ‘sherpa.’ … His enablers went to extraordinary lengths to keep him happy: Forging documents, flouting university rules, plying a UCLA dean with a golden camel statue, giving a Rolex to a professor and even, accounting records and interviews indicate, buying a $500 gift for a DMV employee in an effort to secure a coveted vanity plate.”
This agenda-setting essay by Peter Beinart on the need for a new path towards Jewish-Palestinian equality:
“This doesn’t require abandoning Zionism. It requires reviving an understanding of it that has largely been forgotten. It requires distinguishing between form and essence. The essence of Zionism is not a Jewish state in the land of Israel; it is a Jewish home in the land of Israel, a thriving Jewish society that both offers Jews refuge and enriches the entire Jewish world. It’s time to explore other ways to achieve that goal—from confederation to a democratic binational state—that don’t require subjugating another people. It’s time to envision a Jewish home that is a Palestinian home, too.”
This beautiful essay by my colleague Sophie Gilbert about watching Amy Schumer’s miniseries on pregnancy while also expecting herself:
“To try to do your job while physically and emotionally debilitated, and to have to hide that debilitation from everyone because it’s still too early to know whether the pregnancy will work out, is quite an ask. Expecting Amy, in that sense, doesn’t just demystify pregnancy. It promises that pregnant people can do more than merely get through the day—that they can even continue to create and be enriched (as well as depleted) by what they’re going through. And—spoiler—it has a happy ending. ‘Everyone was saying it would be worth it,’ Schumer says, after she gives birth and a simple surgery to repair her uterus turns into a three-hour ordeal. ‘But it’s like, I would have done so much more to meet him.’”
What I’m thinking about
This breathtaking video of Lin-Manuel Miranda explaining the process of how he wrote the Hamilton song “My Shot.” May we all strive to have writing that is, in the words of Miranda, “un-fuck-withable.”
Until next time,
Yasmeen
P.S. Now that this newsletter is a couple of months old, I’m keen to hear your feedback: What about these emails work, and what doesn’t? How do we like the format? Are there too many links? Too few? Hit ‘reply’ below and let me know!