meta_pixel
Tapesearch Logo
Best of the Spectator

The Edition: massacre of the innocents, saving endangered languages & Gen Z’s ‘Boom Boom’ aesthetic

Best of the Spectator

The Spectator

News Commentary, News, Daily News, Society & Culture

4.4785 Ratings

🗓️ 13 March 2025

⏱️ 37 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

This week: sectarian persecution returns

Paul Wood, Colin Freeman and Father Benedict Kiely write in the magazine this week about the religious persecution that minorities are facing across the world from Syria to the Congo. In Syria, there have been reports of massacres with hundreds of civilians from the Alawite Muslim minority targeted, in part because of their association with the fallen Assad regime. Reports suggest that the groups responsible are linked to the new Syrian president Ahmed al-Sharaa (formerly known as Abu Mohammed al-Jolani). For some, the true face of the country’s new masters has been revealed. Whether the guilty men are punished will tell us what kind of country Syria has become since the fall of Assad’s dictatorship.

Speaking to those on the ground, Wood reports of fathers who were shot in front of their families, victims made to howl like dogs as they crawled through piles of corpses, and of state security forces trying to prevent survivors from photographing or talking about what had happened.

But to what extent is al-Sharaa responsible? And could other minorities, like the Syrian Christian minority – one of the oldest in the world, be next? Paul and Fr Benedict joined the podcast to discuss. (1:02)

Next: this century’s ‘unstoppable process of language extinction’

There are around 7,000 languages currently spoken across the world, but by the end of the century only 500 are expected to survive. Thus, documenting endangered languages has never been so important and this is the starting point of Lorna Gibb’s new book, Rare Tongues: The Secret Stories of Hidden Languages, reviewed by Harry Ritchie in the books section of the magazine this week. What are some examples of the languages facing extinction? And should we accept this as an inevitable cultural rise and fall, or should we be working to combat this?

Harry joined the podcast alongside Dr Oliver Mayeux, a sociolinguist at Cambridge, who also speaks Louisiana creole – a language spoken by fewer that 10,000 people. With special thanks to the Endangered Language Alliance, for allowing us to use a clip of the Garifuna language, who are working to document and preserve languages facing extinction across the world. (18:06)

And finally: what is ‘Boom Boom’, Gen Z’s favourite aesthetic trend?

Out are boring converse and dirty t-shirts beloved by millennial tech bros and in are high-fashion double-breasted suits and loafers, or so says Arabella Byrne who writes about the aesthetic trend defining Gen Z. American trend analyst Sean Monahan – who also coined 2013’s ‘normcore’ – coined the term ‘Boom Boom’ to encapsulate the look and feel of the trend. Think 1980s yuppies updated for 2025 – so why exactly is it popular, and what does it tell us about today’s twentysomethings? Arabella and Sean joined the podcast to discuss. (27:50)

Plus: Matthew Parris, Stephen Fry, Rory Sutherland, Rachel Johnson, Philip Hensher, Sean Thomas and Petronella Wyatt reveal the worst insults they ever received from a teacher. (13:59)

Presented by William Moore and Lara Prendergast.

Produced by Patrick Gibbons.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

On the 27th of March, the Coffeehouse Shots team will be joined by special guests to give you their take on a Spring Statement.

0:05.9

We will be live on stage at London's Cadogan Hall. To get your tickets today, visit spectator.com.

0:11.6

UK forward slash spring statement live. We'll see you there. Hello and welcome to the edition podcast from The Spectator,

0:28.1

where each week we shed a little light on the thought process

0:30.9

behind putting the world's oldest weekly magazine to bed.

0:34.2

I'm Laura Prendergast, the Spectator's executive editor.

0:37.1

And I'm William Moore, the Spectator's Executive Editor. And I'm William Moore, the

0:38.1

Spectator's Features Editor. On this week's podcast, we're going to be talking about the return

0:43.9

of sectarian and religious persecution from Syria to the Congo, the rare languages facing

0:49.9

extinction, and Gen Z's favourite aesthetic trend, boom boom.

1:01.0

With the fall of the Assad regime last year, there was a burst of optimism for Syria's

1:05.6

future and the new leadership made sure to make overtures to the West and gave guarantees

1:10.3

that they would

1:10.8

respect and protect the country's many religious and cultural minorities. This all appears rather

1:16.4

to have been in vain with the news this week of hundreds of civilians massacred mainly from the

1:21.3

Aloite group. The Aloites are an ethno-religious Muslim minority, many of whom supported

1:26.6

the Assad leadership.

1:28.3

As Paul Wood writes in this week's magazine, reports suggest the killings were perpetrated by

1:32.7

militias loyal to the new president, Al Jolani. Syria is also home to a small Christian community,

1:39.3

one of the oldest in the world, which has fallen from 1.5 million people to just 300,000 since the start of the

1:46.2

Civil War in 2011. Given the violence, the Alawites have faced, concerns have risen about the

1:52.7

safety of this group, and Father Benedict Kili asks in the magazine, can Christianity survive

...

Transcript will be available on the free plan in 28 days. Upgrade to see the full transcript now.

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from The Spectator, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of The Spectator and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.

Copyright © Tapesearch 2025.