Public Lecture: Conflict over the Nile: Recent Developments Regarding an Ancient Fear

Lecture Information

Egypt has for centuries feared that the waters of the Nile River might be siphoned off or blocked, leaving its people thirsting and its farmlands parched.  This potential threat has become an actual danger at several historical moments, the most recent of which accompanied Ethiopia‘s announcement that it intended to build a massive dam across the Blue Nile.  The Grand Renaissance Dam project triggered a decade of negotiations among Egypt, Sudan and Ethiopia, yet the fourth and largest stage in the filling of the dam’s reservoir is scheduled to take place in August 2023.  Situating current developments in the context of the institutions and practices that govern the distribution of this vital resource can enhance our understanding of the dispute and the prospects for its resolution. 

Speaker Bio

Fred H. Lawson is Professor of Government Emeritus of Mills College, where he taught international relations and Middle East politics from 1985 to 2017.  He is editor of the Syracuse University Press series Intellectual and Political History of the Modern Middle East.  During 1992-93, he was Fulbright Lecturer in International Relations at the University of Aleppo, and in the spring of 2001 Fulbright Lecturer in Political Science at Aden University, the first US Fulbright lecturer ever assigned to that institution.  He has served as president of the Syrian Studies Association and the Society for Gulf Arab Studies.  He is the author of five books, including Constructing International Relations in the Arab World (2006) and Why Syria Goes to War (1996), and co-editor of the four-volume compendium International Relations of the Middle East (2015).  His The Social Origins of Egyptian Expansionism during the Muhammad ‘Ali Period (1992) was translated into Arabic by the Higher Council for Culture to commemorate the bicentenary of the Pasha’s coming to power in Cairo.