British actor and writer Amanda Laird has brought a deeply personal narrative of identity, separation and historical memory to the stage with her debut play “Driftwood”, now being staged by the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC), marking a significant shift in her career from acting to playwriting.

Laird, widely recognised for her role as paramedic Comfort Jones in the long-running television drama “Casualty”, said the transition to writing was shaped by a prolonged sense of personal and professional stagnation. Speaking about that period, she recalled feeling that “things weren’t developing,” prompting her to confront unresolved questions about her early life.

Born in St Kitts, Laird was separated from her Black Caribbean mother at the age of three when her white British father took her to Trinidad, where she was raised. Despite describing her upbringing as relatively privileged, she said the absence of her mother left unresolved questions that later became central to her creative work.

Her return to St Kitts as an adult led to a reunion with previously unknown family members and, eventually, her mother. Laird said the experience challenged her attempts to remain emotionally guarded. “I thought that I could keep myself shielded and not let people in but that was not the case,” she said, describing the encounter as transformative.

The reunion was short-lived. Her mother died of pancreatic cancer within a year. Laird said she was able to spend limited time with her before her death, including a final private conversation in which her mother spoke about her life. Those interactions became foundational to “Driftwood”, which centres on the relationship between an estranged son and his mother.

Set in a gentleman’s club in 1950s pre-independence Trinidad, the play draws on extensive research and incorporates events grounded in real-life accounts, according to Laird. The narrative unfolds against the backdrop of a society undergoing political and cultural change, with Trinidad approaching independence in 1962.

The political context of the play includes references to Eric Williams, who would later become the country’s first prime minister, and whose political movement emerged in the mid-1950s.

Laird said the period was marked by a broader atmosphere of transformation following the Second World War, with shifting expectations among women and formerly colonised populations.“The second world war had blown things apart,” she said, noting that women who had entered the workforce during wartime were subsequently expected to return to domestic roles, while Black and Commonwealth soldiers returned home without recognition or compensation.

She described this as contributing to a growing momentum for change within Caribbean societies.Cultural expression forms a central component of the play’s setting. Laird highlighted the role of steel bands and calypso music in shaping a distinct Trinidadian identity during the period.

She said these art forms served not only as entertainment but also as vehicles for social commentary, addressing issues ranging from governance to social norms.“Calypso of this era was very much social commentary,” she said, adding that it functioned as a means of confronting authority and engaging with political and social structures.

“Driftwood” is written in Trinidadian patois, a decision Laird said was driven by a commitment to authenticity rather than audience considerations. Reflecting on earlier influences, she cited her experience reading and later performing works by Trinidadian playwright Errol John as formative in understanding the significance of language in capturing lived experience.

“You can’t not try to reflect a truth about the language if you want to capture people’s souls,” she said, describing language as inseparable from cultural history and identity.The play’s development spanned nearly two decades, during which it remained largely unpublished.

Laird attributed the delay in part to industry perceptions that categorised her primarily as an actor. She also acknowledged experiencing impostor syndrome, which contributed to her hesitation in seeking wider recognition for her writing.It was only in 2024, encouraged by a friend, that she submitted “Driftwood” to the Verity Bargate Award for new writing.

The play placed second among approximately 1,700 submissions, bringing it to the attention of the RSC.Laird said she was recovering from complications related to sepsis when she received a call from RSC co-artistic director Daniel Evans informing her that the company intended to stage the play.

She described the moment as unexpected, given the project’s long gestation and her own uncertainty about its reception.Before “Driftwood”, Laird had written privately, including a screenplay and another play titled “Fly Me to the Moon”, which was staged in London earlier this year.

Acting, however, had been her primary focus since childhood, beginning with performances in Trinidad.She said that while theatre was part of her early environment, it was not initially seen as a viable full-time profession. According to Laird, many actors in Trinidad during her youth held additional jobs, reflecting the limited opportunities in the sector at the time.

At 17, she moved to the United Kingdom to study French at the University of Kent, later combining it with drama. She described this decision as a turning point that led her to pursue acting professionally.

Laird has since worked extensively across stage and screen, including performances with the RSC, the National Theatre, and Shakespeare’s Globe. Her recent work includes a gender-inverted production of “Cymbeline”.

She also spoke about the contrast between her experiences growing up in Trinidad and living in Britain, particularly in relation to racial identity. In Trinidad, she said, she felt part of a majority population, whereas in Britain she encountered a different social dynamic that shaped perceptions of identity and belonging.

Her family background, she noted, included a strong engagement with political and cultural issues. Her father was involved in professional advocacy in Trinidad, including opposition to apartheid-era South Africa, while other family members contributed to cultural archiving initiatives in the Caribbean.

“Driftwood” reflects these intersecting themes of personal history, cultural identity and political transformation, situating individual relationships within broader historical processes.

In the video which received 1M views, Almenhali said Emiratis, including himself, had recently been targeted by online attacks that framed nationality as an insult. He rejected the characterization of the exchanges as rivalry or banter, describing them instead as racist behavior that relied on reducing an entire nationality and culture to a derogatory label.

“This is not rivalry, this is racist,” Almenhali said in the recording. He added that using nationality as an insult amounted to discrimination regardless of intent, and said such language reflected prejudice rather than legitimate criticism.

The video, shared on his X account, was presented as a direct response to what he described as repeated online comments. Almenhali did not address governments or public institutions, focusing instead on individual online behavior.

Framing of India and historical references

Almenhali’s remarks included references to India’s historical role in global civilization. In the video, he cited contributions he attributed to India in areas such as mathematics, medicine, astronomy, trade and philosophy, and argued that these achievements undermined any attempt to use “Indian” as a pejorative term.

He also linked those historical references to the modern global economy, saying contemporary technologies and systems relied on foundations developed over centuries. His comments framed the use of nationality as an insult as historically inaccurate, according to his remarks.

UAE and expatriate partnership

Almenhali also addressed the role of Indian expatriates in the UAE, saying the country had built partnerships with skilled professionals rather than merely accommodating them. In the video, he referred to engineers, doctors, entrepreneurs and builders from India as contributors to national development, describing this approach as a deliberate policy choice.

“The UAE didn’t tolerate Indians, it partnered with them,” he said, characterising that relationship as one based on mutual benefit and capability rather than weakness. He added that attempts to demean people through racial language failed to account for this dynamic.

His remarks positioned multicultural cooperation as integral to the UAE’s development model and rejected narratives that portray diversity as a liability.

Online discourse and wider implications

Almenhali’s video circulated widely online, drawing responses from users across the region. The comments were confined to social media and did not prompt any official statements from authorities. No government response had been issued by the UAE or elsewhere at the time of publication.

Almenhali ended the video by urging viewers to recognize the difference between criticism and racism, and said that the use of racial slurs reflected on those employing them rather than on their intended targets.

It is the regime in Tehran that refuses to join any table where Israel is present. At its core, this is a grand strategy rooted—as is often the case—in identity politics.

In Western media, it’s common to describe Israel and Iran (more precisely, the current regime in Tehran) as each other’s “main enemy” or “arch-enemy.” The term echoes Cold War-era Soviet rhetoric and seems to reflect a reality of deep-rooted geopolitical rivalry. But the hostility between Israel and Iran is neither ancient nor inevitable. As regional powers, some degree of competition between them is natural—especially in an era of American retreat—but that alone doesn’t explain why the destruction of Israel has become a clear and central objective of Iran’s grand strategy since the Islamic Revolution.

This wasn’t the case under the previous regime. As many Israelis know—and sometimes remind others, though the topic has become sensitive due to long-standing legal disputes over unresolved financial issues—there’s an almost monumental “memorial” in Israel to the cooperation and once-strong friendship between the two countries. It’s about 200 kilometers long and occasionally leaks: the Eilat-Ashkelon oil pipeline was originally built to transport Iranian oil to the Mediterranean Sea, and from there to European ports. Until the Islamic Revolution and Khomeini’s rise to power, Iran was a strategic partner of Israel and a member of the “periphery alliance” that Ben-Gurion forged in the late 1950s in response to the Nasserist threat, alongside Kemalist Turkey and imperial Ethiopia (both of which have also undergone major changes since then). Israelis were involved in various projects in Iran, from security to agriculture.

So what lies at the root of this intense hostility toward Israel’s very existence, which has become—literally—one of the regime’s core ideological principles, both for Khomeini and his successor as Supreme Leader (Rahbar—“Guide,” a title whose meaning becomes especially clear if translated into German…) Ali Khamenei? Anger over the role Israel and the U.S. played in supporting the hated Shah regime is certainly part of the initial explanation. But past grievances alone don’t account for the depth and persistence of this enmity, which just recently found renewed expression in bold statements about the commitment to destroy Israel (“even if we are cut to pieces,” in the words of a senior Revolutionary Guards commander). Far more powerful forces, rooted in the very identity of the Iranian revolutionary regime, are at play here.

The Iranian revolutionary regime could have, if it had wanted to, used the arms supply from Israel—part of the problematic Iran-Contra deal in the Reagan era—as a springboard to open a new chapter. It chose not to. On the contrary, the hostility only deepened and intensified over time. It even took on the grotesque form of mocking the Holocaust—through cartoon contests that continued even after the Ahmadinejad era—and was succinctly expressed in a venomous tweet by Khamenei in November 2014 (still available online), detailing nine points explaining why and how Israel should be eliminated.

Traditional geopolitics naturally breeds competition and sometimes conflict between regional powers. But in this case, it fails to justify such an extreme stance—unparalleled in today’s international arena—where one UN member state denies the very right of another to exist. It also doesn’t justify Iran’s massive investment in arming Hezbollah to seriously threaten Israel’s civilian rear; in arming and training Palestinian terrorist groups through its cooperation with Hamas and its proxy ties with Palestinian Islamic Jihad; or in turning Assad’s Syria into a land bridge to the Mediterranean and an additional launchpad for attacks on Israel.

It’s true that Iran’s leadership today, through this “ring of fire,” also has a deterrent motive: to discourage Israel from launching a military strike on its nuclear weapons program. But Israel, for its part, would not be considering such a strike had Iran not openly marked it for destruction and forced Israel to treat the Iranian regime as a threat to its very survival. So what, then, fuels the constant chant of “Death to Israel” — “Marg bar Israel”?

There’s no territorial dispute between Israel and Iran, nor economic rivalry—aside from the unresolved question of compensation for the oil pipeline, currently under arbitration in a Swiss court. Israel does not threaten Iran’s legitimate demand to be part of the regional power balance and to sit at the diplomatic table. It is the regime in Tehran that refuses to join any table where Israel is present. At its core, this is a grand strategy rooted—as is often the case—in identity politics. In this instance, the identity of the current Iranian regime as a political embodiment of a sweeping, dramatic, modern, and revolutionary interpretation of Shiite Islamic doctrine.

It’s worth recalling: the fundamental split between Sunnis (literally “people of the tradition”) and Shiites (“the faction”) stems from a disagreement about the political history of the Muslim community—who should have succeeded the Prophet Muhammad as spiritual leader, political head, and military commander. The Shiites remained loyal to Ali, the Prophet’s son-in-law, and his direct descendants. The deaths of the Prophet’s grandsons, Hasan and Husayn (Ali’s sons), in their defeat against the Sunni Umayyad dynasty’s army at the Battle of Karbala (680 CE), became in Shiite theology a formative catastrophe—a triumph of injustice and the symbol of a history that went terribly wrong.

In the end times, this wrong is to be righted with the return of the “Hidden Imam.” Iranian Shiism belongs to the Twelver branch, which recognizes ten generations of Ali’s descendants until the disappearance of the last one—Muhammad, son of Hasan al-Askari—in 874 CE. Since then, Twelver Shiites await his return. When he reappears as the Mahdi—a figure somewhat comparable to the Jewish Messiah—the world will be redeemed. But according to the interpretation that Khomeini introduced in the last quarter of the 20th century, the prolonged mourning for that loss and the patient wait for redemption were replaced by a call to arms: to rally believers to active struggle, and to fix the world by force.

What Khomeini effectively did—and he was likely influenced during his exile in Paris by thinkers like Frantz Fanon and others who framed anti-colonial, anti-Western Marxist struggles in the Third World as redemption for “the wretched of the earth”—was to translate the ancient anguish and frustration of Shiism into a modern revolutionary agenda. The injustice of the 7th century thus became, in its Khomeinist reincarnation, a call to overturn the existing local, regional, and global political order.

It so happened that the Islamic Revolution’s rise to power in Iran occurred the same year that a cornerstone of secular Arab nationalism collapsed: the peace agreement signed by Egypt’s President Sadat with Israel in March 1979 on the White House lawn—just weeks after Khomeini’s return to Iran in triumph. This coincidence created another twist in Iran’s stance toward Israel, which has grown increasingly rigid and defiant over four decades. The core message: first Egypt, and later (in the 1990s) other weak and “treacherous” Sunni regimes, surrendered to Israel and laid down their arms—or, as Saddam did in 1981, turned them against Iran. Not coincidentally, Iran’s regime named a major Tehran street after Khaled al-Islambouli, Sadat’s assassin.

Now, it is supposedly the duty of “true Islam”—the Shiite version of revolutionary Islamism—to prove its worth and moral superiority by being the only one to persist in striving for Israel’s destruction. For this goal, the Iranians were willing to overcome, in the name of unity against a common enemy, the deep gulf between Shiism and radical Sunni groups like Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Still, the Sunni-Shiite divide re-emerged in Iraq after the U.S. invasion in spring 2003. Iran sees ISIS as an existential enemy of Shiism and contributed to its defeat in Iraq and Syria, yet this shared interest with the U.S. didn’t shift Tehran’s fundamental positions.

In any case, even as it is entangled in multiple fronts, the ayatollahs’ regime views the struggle to destroy Israel as a central part of its historic mission. To its mind, this is definitive proof that the Shiite revolution—according to its interpretation—is the true fulfillment of Islamic commandment. Meanwhile, the “wretched” Sunni regimes have surrendered, accepted Israel’s existence, and even normalized ties. It’s important to note that Iran has very complex relations with the UAE: a territorial dispute—it controls three islands belonging to the Emirates—combined with ideological tensions, yet also diplomatic dialogue and extensive trade and financial relations.

Iran’s position toward Israel has therefore become, in the eyes of its leadership, a source of regime legitimacy—both across the Sunni Muslim world and, even more crucially, at home. After all, the revolution has failed in practice when it comes to the wellbeing of the Iranian people. A country that was three times richer than Turkey in 1979 is now four times poorer. Corruption, drugs, and prostitution have infected the social fabric. Brutal repression of dissent has become routine. Precisely because of this, the regime stakes its credibility on waving the anti-Zionist flag with fervor. It’s not at all clear that this stance enjoys broad public support, especially given public resentment over massive expenditures in Syria and Lebanon. But it does tighten the regime’s grip on its core political base—the religious establishment.

Moreover, by its very existence, Israel—as a modern nation-state with Western features, not merely a “protected community” like Iranian Jews—embodies a central pillar of the post-1945 global order. In its ideological horizon, the Shiite totalitarian revolution seeks to upend this order entirely. It defines it in terms of “hegemony” and “global arrogance” (a code name for the U.S.) and links the struggle against it to the fight against “the Great Satan” in Washington and “the Little Satan” in Jerusalem. At one point, Ahmadinejad even tried to offer his German hosts condolences for losing WWII—suggesting that, in his view, the wrong side won. In this context, the intent to destroy Israel is indeed part of a comprehensive, strategic, ideological, and historical worldview aimed at fixing what went wrong in 661 (Ali’s assassination), 680 (his sons’ deaths at Karbala), and 1945 and 1948.

Despite occasional shows of tolerance toward Iran’s relatively large remaining Jewish community, this worldview also contains unmistakable notes of classic anti-Semitism, which have seeped into Iranian discourse under the influence of Western totalitarian models.

The implication for Israel, its friends, allies, and new regional partners should be clear. Unlike “ordinary” conflicts over clashing interests, these meta-historical motivations are powerful. It’s hard to change or deter them through diplomacy—unless that diplomacy is backed by strong, effective military deterrence.

Translated in English from Jerusalem Institute of Strategic Studies.