What Lyse Doucet Has Learned from 40 Years Reporting From War Zones, Live

Mia Sorrenti (0:00)

Welcome to Intelligence Squared, Where Great Minds Meet. I'm Senior Producer Mia Sorrenti. What does it take to understand the conflict through the lives of the people caught inside it? Today's episode is from our recent live event with BBC Chief International Correspondent, Lyse Doucet. For nearly four decades, Doucet has reported from some of the world's most consequential conflicts, from Afghanistan and the Middle East to Ukraine, and most recently in Iran.

She joined us at Union Chapel to reflect on a career spent reporting from the front lines, and on the importance of telling the human stories that can be lost amid the politics of war.

Doucet also discusses her women's prize-winning book, The Finest Hotel in Kabul, which tells the story of modern Afghanistan through the Inter-Continental Hotel and the people who kept it running through invasion, civil war, and the return of the Taliban. Let's join our host, historian and author, Peter Francopan, live at Union Chapel.

Peter Francopan (1:07)

Thank you, Mia. Thank you, Intelligence Squared. Thank you all for giving up your evening tonight to come and join us. When I got asked whether I'd come and talk to, speak with Lisa this evening, Lisa is one of my favourite people in the world. And she is one of all of your favourite people in the world. Otherwise, you'd be watching the Carling Cup or something on the TV instead. Thank you for joining us. Lisa is one of those rare people who really needs no introduction. You will hear her, see her regularly on the BBC where she is Chief International Correspondent. And I think in a world where glory sometimes gets given up too easily, Lisa is what all of us would call a legend. Oh. And in fact, not just a national treasure in this country.

Lyse Doucet (1:45)

Oh, no, a trinket, international trinket, yes.

Peter Francopan (1:50)

You see, there's a trick in how to become a national treasure. We're going to talk tonight for sort of 45 minutes, Lyse and I. We were talking a bit beforehand about, we're going to talk mainly about the book, but it's a real opportunity to have Lyse who travels the world and is such an astute observer and also has had access to people, places that many of you won't have had a chance to go to. And then we'll do some questions. When we do get to questions, I'm going to try and take two or three at a time. And I know people always say the same thing. They do need to be questions rather than statements. If you've got statements and things you'd like to say, we can introduce to you, there are publishers here in the audience, literary agents, and one day you can be in one of our positions. But it's a real treat to have Lyse tonight. Lyse will be signing books afterwards. So as Mia said, there's a lovely bar upstairs. You can come and join the back of the queue and so on. But please do buy Lyse's book. There's an absolute steal. My glasses, 11.99. And if you bought a ticket for tonight, how many of you, by the way, already have a copy?

Okay, Lyse, I think we could keep you at number one for another week.

If we can sell some more. We're going to do the book and how well it's been received and the prizes it's been nominated for, et cetera. But start us with the state of the world. I mean, we live in...

Lyse Doucet (3:05)

That's your job.

Peter Francopan (3:08)

We live in strange times. You know, you are just back from Afghanistan. You spent a lot of time in Iran already this year.

How do you see... I know that Mr. Trump is going to come into the conversation. How are things on the ground, first of all, in Afghanistan?

Lyse Doucet (3:23)

But if we start with what you said about the state of the world, I think I speak with...

For all of us, it's a really jarring time. We live in a time where never have we had so much information. If we don't know about something, it's because we don't want to know about something. We choose not to know.

And we're hit by a barrage of statements by the president of the United States. Yesterday it was, oh, we don't need guardrails on artificial intelligence. Never mind that some of the leading founders of AI, and those developing it now, are begging for regulation. Today, he lifts some of the regulations on environmental protections. And then the president who said, oh, no, no, I'm not going to promote, get involved in those forever wars. Then we find ourselves in these forever wars. You know, Peter and I were talking that some of these, the writing that I tried to do in this book, and that you've always done so brilliantly, is to make places that seem so far away, not far away at all. And I've always said that when it comes to Afghanistan, when it comes to the Middle East, those stories far away are also our story, because they come to us. They come to us now on the phones in our pockets. They come to us in our own lives. And if there's any war, which has really literally hit home, I mean, the Strait of Hormuz has now become a household name, because it is affecting the price of the food that's in your fridge. It's affecting how much you pay for petrol at the pump. And none of us here tonight can say, and no matter what, I'm sure there are people here with even greater expertise than Peter and I have on that part of the world, we don't know when it's going to end. And then on top of it, just when we're saying, honey, where is the Strait of Hormuz? Did you go to look on the map again? That's next to the Suez Canal, and then we get the Bab el-Mendeb is also added. So another major choke point. And now suddenly everyone's saying, honey, now we've got to know about the Bab el-Mendeb Strait as well, because this is what's happening in our time.