“Oh, and you thought the Middle East was messed up?” might be one way to summarise Karl’s Sharro’s sometimes asinine but always perceptive tweets on the many contradictions of UK, US and European politics.

Reading Sharro’s tweets there are times you could be mistaken for feeling that maybe western politics is possibly just as extreme, in its own ways, as Middle Eastern variant.

Then there are times when Sharro goes full troll, suggesting that maybe all of the old East-West narratives are outdated anyway; after failed military interventions, a financial crisis, tanking equality standards and BREXIT, why don’t we all just agree that the west has forfeit its right to provide a vision for the future?

Instead, what the West really needs right now is compassion.

Whatever you think of Sharro’s signature brand of schtick, there is an artfulness at play in capturing both a sense of the gloriously absurd, as well as a feeling of how everything, and so little, has changed.

The London based writer is also more than prepared to point his wit towards the region - with the possible exception of certain GCC states - when required.

In a world tired of experts, thank goodness for Karl Sharro. After all, a lot of truth is said in jest.



John Lillywhite

Updated 25th April: Karl got in touch on Twitter to point out the various times he been critical of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, later writing "I criticise Qatar, UAE, Bahrain.. I'm surprised that you think they would be off limits". The fact is we do think these countries are often off limits for writers in the region - but perhaps not Karl, to be fair.

