Ali Dawah - January 25, 2018AMERICAN JOURNALIST INTERVIEWS ALI DAWAH
Episode Stats
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Summary
In this episode of the Jihadi Jihadi podcast, I chat to the former founder of the Islamic extremist group, the EDL, Mr Tommy Robinson. We discuss his views on muslims and the recent Manchester bombing, and how he was falsely accused of being involved in the attack on the Manchester concert.
Transcript
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yeah thank you for having me on your show cj yeah mate you're welcome but you're a giant
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pain in the butt to tommy robinson the former founder of the edl um now i wanted to talk about
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all your good stuff i love the way that you uh you banter him um and troll him for for it to use
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an internet parlance but uh make tell it tell my audience a little bit about who ali is first
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okay well to be honest me i'm a revert to islam it's been about five years since i came to islam
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um i've researched the religion for about good good three four years before i accepted it
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um so i'm from a kurdish background i'm kurdish from turkey um my family are not muslim um and
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yeah i got involved into the dawah scene dawah is basically you know telling people about islam
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what islam really is about instead of what uh people think it is so basically yeah that's that's
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that's what it is just a bit i mean i'm 28 years old yeah and whereabouts in london are you
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uh london uh oh whereabouts in london northeast and the northeast cool and so um so were you a
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a non-believer before you reverted back to islam or did you start off as a as a muslim and then left
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the faith and come back to it well to be honest well in islam we believe everybody's born a muslim
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and then their parents change them to whatever faith they belong to uh but the question that
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you're asking is not that so basically no i i only believed in god i never had no religion before
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uh i didn't believe in islam i didn't believe in anything i don't have a religion i just believed
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in like a high intelligence right but yeah one of the things i like about you uh on twitter is um
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uh is you're very combative against these islamophobes but you know you do it in a polite
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way in a very reasonable and rational way and you try and point out the you know the the flaws and
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the folly in uh in some of the typical kind of stereotypes and tropes that guys like tommy
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robertson try to uh to disseminate uh about muslims um so how did you how you know tell me how it began
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with you and tommy i know that he accused you of being involved with the manchester bombing is that
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right yeah yeah that's to be honest i wouldn't say that's where it began but to be honest he's been
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somebody who i've been keen to um have a dialogue with to be honest you know i i don't have any
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because i see videos where certain muslims go and try to be physical with them i don't agree
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to this behavior you know it's not the right thing to do to be honest because you know it just shows
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our weakness you know in a way it's like we can't answer his arguments and we're resorting
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resorting to violence and that's contrary to what i want to do i just want a discussion man this is
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what i want to do i like talking i like i meet all kinds of people i i have uh i know people that are
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jewish christian atheist all kinds of backgrounds yes we differ but we have a dialogue so to be honest
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i've been seeing his videos that he does and he picks on these people that don't know much
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and it annoys me because i'm like look you're picking on somebody maybe the guy doesn't know
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his religion much you know and you're making it seem like you know what you're talking about
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not only that you're hate preaching but on twitter it all started i think last year
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uh a good year ago i think where he the the manchester bombings happened um and it was it was a tragedy
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you know it's like any tragedy that happens around the world you've got people in iraq that have
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been uh blown up into pieces millions you've got people in burma you've got people all over the
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world you can't be muslim or not so these things are happening why sadly because some people are
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after money oil and then you've got other people who are hate preaching to put extra money in their
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pocket like tommy robinson said he's made 60 000 pounds off his book so you can see he's there
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to make money out of this now i think it's that's not only the fact i think he's
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also um i think he has something personal with islam i think where he grew up maybe he got
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bullied by muslims or whatever it may be and now he's expressing that hatred by attacking the religion
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itself so therefore he made the tweet saying that jihadi ali me jihadi ali down me that i did a video
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asking muslims brothers and sisters to not go to the drake concert because it's a place where in our
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religion it's not permissible to be in such a place where there's alcohol music and he twisted that
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and insinuated that i had prior knowledge therefore i was asking muslims to not attend it
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because they might get hurt this is what he was insinuating so when he did that that's where it all
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began so i was like okay hold on a second i'm going to get the police involved because now you put my
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life in danger you've claimed that i'm a jihadi who has prior knowledge to these attacks you've actually
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put my life in danger the danger and the irony is that yesterday he was the guy who ran over muslims
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in frinsbury park mosque in court he claimed that he had direct messages from tommy robinson
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and britain first and he was basically kind of radicalized even if i'm not mistaken they did say
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that he had some statements written the words like um tommy robinson uttered he wrote a letter and left it
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in the van so you can see that here that he is actually this is a true story that's happened he's
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radicalized somebody he's been involved partially at an event that's happened a terror event
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but now if you what he did with me was a lie an absolute false story that i had prior knowledge
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the manchester bombings i found that disgusting so my journey of exposing this guy really started
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there because he just showed that this guy is careless he doesn't care he just utters nonsense
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just so his followers can clap and say yay hooray tommy now he does works i'm not going to come and
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deny because you see allah says to us in the quran speak the truth even if it's against yourself
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he does stuff about grooming gangs and terrorism etc that's okay i can say you know what you're
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doing something there it's i'm not going to say what you're doing there is bad the problem is why
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is it only why are you it's asian men that you're after okay no problem we should hate grooming gangs
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be they're white or not i mean muslim or non-muslim we should hate terrorists be they muslim or not muslim
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i find it very sickening that the approach is taken is like no i only hate the muslims that do it and
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i'm like look we should hate the act whoever is done by so he has that approach and i just believe
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he's a hate preacher and because of him and his life like britain first and isis and other extremist
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groups they are all on one side you know i don't know if you can see on the screen yeah you can see
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the screen there's a there's a thin white line yeah yeah that departs the you know there's me and
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then there's uh there's another screen yeah see as the the left hand side i don't know on your screen
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maybe i'm on the left hand side yeah for example there's a thin line you've got these extremists be
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it uh britain first isis tommy robinson these hate preachers put them all onto one side then you
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have the british public we are all on the other side be it muslim or non-muslim yeah now they are
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preaching hate and uh british public for example the the uh those terrorist attacks that happen in
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in london they are suffering why because isis and their light are preaching hate that kind of
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i'm sorry i believe he's a hate preacher he's preaching hate and you've got um emotional young
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muslim men who are seeing when this guy's coming and saying look they're blowing our brothers and
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sisters up in iraq they're blowing doing this they're doing that now this emotional person is
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thinking okay how what can i do to combat this i know i'm emotional i can't express myself with my
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words i only know violence i'm going to express that by doing the same thing they do to us and i'm
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saying hold on a second our religion doesn't teach that you're a hate preacher and because of you
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you're not carrying the act out but your silly followers are going out there and doing that now
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the same thing's happening with tom robinson britain first these guys are preaching hate and who is
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doing the dirty work young young and old men like that guy mr osborne where darren osborne i don't
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i think and their likes are doing the saving and thinking you know what look at these people who are
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running um our people are blowing up our kids we need to do something and then when they see
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tommy robinson on a video saying you know we need to take action we need to tackle this uh islamic
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problem when you've got people like katie hopkins saying uh we need we need a final solution to
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this muslim problem what do you think is going to happen when a young white man is watching us and
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thinking yes these people are doing this this we how are they expressing their feelings they're
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expressing it by violence some of them you know and this is why i say they're on one side and the
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british probably being a non-muslim or muslim on one side and we are getting the uh the bad things
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that are happening to us you know we're getting we're suffering we're the ones where we go out
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thinking okay who's going to kill me who's going to attack me and they're there just pocketing in
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money and cashing in and their agenda whatever it may be we're the ones that's suffering yeah i mean
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there are people like uh well groups like britain first and edl and and individuals like tommy
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they use the same kind of propaganda framework as groups like isis they they portray an in group
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that's under threat from an out group uh and then by separating the two entities they're encouraging
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and inciting violence against the out group i mean we saw tommy robinson as you you know well you
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retweeted one of my tweets a video of tommy robinson uh giving a subtle wink to people
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like darren osmond to to young edl thugs on the street to say we need to clean out the islamic
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problem yes i mean when when you when you're a 22 year old and you're drunk in a pub and you
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you you see an islamist you know use that inverted commas uh a terrorist attack in london and then
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you hear somebody like tommy robinson you think she's i'm gonna take matters into my own hands
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and that's what salafi jihadists uh similarly do who subscribe to the the isis ideology
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yeah did you say so can you repeat that did you say what jihadis i said salafi jihadis and i use
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that term loosely you know because you know guys groups like isis aren't salafis uh they think they
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are and salafis don't encourage violence but yeah to be honest i would say the creed of salafism
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is basically it's it's actually totally against this like um these people are called actually
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they're called khawarij i don't know have you heard the word khawarij yes of course
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so basically what i was saying was um khawarij if you heard my discussion with tommy robinson
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um basically you could see there that i i said to him do you know about uh khawarij and he was like
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um he was like no i don't um i don't know and khawarij are a certain uh group i do they have an
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ideology and this is this started at the time of the prophet peace be upon him you know they're
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an extremist group these this group is there to cause like violence from day one if you look at
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who killed the four um rightly guided khalifas like um uh for example umar ibn qatar not umar
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qatar not abu bakar uthman and ali and they even attempted to kill muawiyah these people
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they are enemies of islam do you get what i'm trying to say they are are enemies greater enemies why
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because they look like us and they talk like us you know and maybe they look like us therefore
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they are a greater enemy to us do you get what i'm trying to say yeah so this is who they are and
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these are the people who are isis you know they are known for their traits there are certain traits
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about them where you know about them they will take people out the fold of islam they will come
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to me and be like you are just uh you know west you still um you know you're you you you know you're
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like um and not a real muslim do you get what i'm trying to say yeah they are our enemies um
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ourselves do you get what i'm trying to say so this is what tommy he doesn't even know who
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hawaii just and i was i was very shocked which is which is incredible this is a guy that's written
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a book on islam and he still he doesn't know a basic term you know in islamic culture
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i believe it's his friend's book i when i talked to him i said your friend's book because i will eat
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my socks if this guy's written that book like literally i'm ready to eat my socks if if this
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guy's written the book that's why he's avoiding me because he knows he has two problems yeah
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he can't structure 140 character tweet so let alone write a book exactly all he's done is copy
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and pasted the whole quran and then added these commentaries of he's got this weird if you read
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the quran back to front and i'm gonna figure where'd you get this from you know and he's in big
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trouble because i'm gonna ask him a question did you read did you write the book if you did you have
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to answer my questions if you didn't you've been lying that it's your book yeah yeah no doubt um
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so how much have you received for it i mean his followers are quite rabid um and you know so what
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have you received any sort of threatening um notices from his followers i get i get a lot like
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you know you're this calling me names i'm gonna do this when i see you this that uh tell me where you
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live you know all these kind of nonsense you know to be honest they don't they don't mean
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nothing to me you know but i do get threats i do get threats yeah right and what about just in your
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daily day-to-day life you know offline when uh you know in the streets of uh of of northeast
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london um have you noticed that the hostility towards muslims has you know have you felt the
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increase uh in in the last 12 months the last 24 months yeah of course not definitely like you hear
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stories even if it's not myself i can hear these stories that are taking place you know and not
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definitely man you know there is a hostility increase and you see that's the reason why i'm
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so passionate about what i do because the thing is we need to education is you know it's very key
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you know to educate oneself because if you don't what happens is this is what happens you know you're
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just going to get people thinking okay what can we resort to violence so therefore we need to
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educate these people and say hold on a second mate you're being taken for a big right you know
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you're being actually taken advantage of it's the same with the muslims that i'm not just
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saying it's just tommy robinson look i'm telling you if i knew where these islamic hate preachers are
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yeah like it's hard if i if i knew where they are i would personally go and question them the way i do
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with tommy robinson you know but most of them are locked up abu halima and jim chowdhury these people are
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locked up you know and that's what now what i see is it's just tackling and combating because
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to educate people and say look this is what islam really teaches and you're not going to agree with
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everything i'm not going to agree with your way of life but you need to understand that we are not
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here to be like yes we had to take over the country and we want all the non-muslims dead like where'd
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you get this from these are the fairy tales yeah absolutely i mean it's incredible i mean i speak to
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obviously with for this podcast for my journalism um you know i'm close to a lot of muslim
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organizations i speak to muslims on a daily basis and every single muslim i know uh will you know
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strongly distance themselves from any of the rubbish ramblings that someone like annum chowdhury
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uh will say so therefore i can i can't understand why islamophobes don't see that muslims are on the
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same side as them in being against extremism um but unfortunately the media and groups like edl and
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people like tommy robinson they portray an individual like annum chowdhury to be emblematic
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of muslims writ large yeah and ignore the voices of someone like you
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well that's the thing you see what it is is they both feed off each other so it supports their
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narrative yeah so anjum chowdhury or you know people like that might look at tommy robinson brim first
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and look see look at this these disbelievers look what they're doing look what they want and then
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you'll have brim first and tommy robinson be looking at andrew chowdhury and be like look see look what
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they're doing so they both feed off each other you know it's just they both are like okay good
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like i genuinely believe i genuinely believe this year that tommy robinson and brim first on their
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light i believe that when they hear of a terrorist attack they are actually this is disgusting i genuinely
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believe this and i'm really i'm i know what you're gonna say i agree with you
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i believe they are like yes like they're like yes this is exactly this is going to help our cause
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and i think this is sickening you know the fact that they are cashing in on this and the same with
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these islamic extremists they're probably when they see iraq and muslims being attacked left right
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and they're like good this helps a narrative yeah when when i see someone like darren osborne drive
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his van into finsbury park mosque they're celebrating it because it reinforces the narrative that white
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people that muslims aren't welcome in the west exactly there you go and then that's why these
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young uh muslims for example some of them they get radical they're thinking yeah you know they see
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these emotional things and they show them pictures look what's happening to abrams but i see this i get
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upset when i see like be it kids in manchester being you know blown up into pieces be in iraq wherever
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it is it's it's sad you know it's sickening but then again it's just like you know these people just
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using that to their advantage is even more sickening um do you think that are you uh optimistic or
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hopeful that one day he'll accept your request to debate him well to be honest like i'll put it
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like this i don't he doesn't have a thing of like with me it's just like i don't give him a thing of
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okay please accept it look i'm gonna find tommy robertson one way or another i'm just saying
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you know just make it my life a little bit easier that's what i'm saying to be honest
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you know i'm just gonna it's gonna happen it's not even like okay meet me uh please it's not that
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it's just like okay i'm gonna find you eventually and i'm gonna ask you this i'm gonna ask you just
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save yourself embarrassment at least you know what he was man enough to have a discussion which he's
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not so it's a loser situation to him to me it's a win-win situation when he says no i'm like there you
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go you're just you're a liar you're a coward and eventually when i find you i'm gonna it's another
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win situation for me um what i mean there's two schools of logic um there's that one one one
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part of that would say that what you're doing is fantastic you're you're trying to debunk his
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narratives um he's uh he's islamic fabric tropes and then there might be another group of people that
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say come on ali what you're doing is you're just elevating him by giving him attention what would you
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say to people who fall into that latter group yeah to be honest like let me put it like this
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tommy robinson is someone who's been invited to um many you know um uh media channels you know
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and to be honest and the thing is he's not invited like he's some special guest he's just invited just
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to so show what kind of a stammer for what kind of a bigot he is so the thing is he's he's already out
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there yeah so it's not like something small where you can say you know well okay you're giving him a
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platform no the guy's out there he's brainwashing people you know you can see you can see with this
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guy darren osborne you know this this is the byproduct of tommy robinson you know and britain
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first so you can see the danger he's causing so to be honest it's like you know we can't just turn
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a blind eye to it you know we can't just say okay just put it under the carpet and wait for it to
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stink no we have to deal with it head on i believe we have to deal with it head on and we have to
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challenge these people and tell them that they can't just carry on like that and it's the same with
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these extremists like islamic extremists yeah we have to do the same with them you know if we just
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put it brush it under the carpet it's not going to solve the problem we have to deal with it as
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muslims and non-muslims you know we have to deal with these situations um and fix it you know otherwise
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you know i'm just going to carry on you know these people are just going to you know people just
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these people are going to be hurt agree and i think you do it in a very rational and reasonable
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manner and so i'm one of those people that falls into the former camp i think that you're doing a
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a good service and uh ali where can my listeners find you if they want to find out more about you
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well to be honest it's if you just type ali dao on youtube um or facebook instagram snapchat
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wherever you like to be honest yeah then you can just follow me find uh find me yeah me on youtube
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i'm on youtube great mate i really appreciate your time ali where can my followers find your works
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yeah uh once i publish the uh the the episode um uh i'll send you the link and um yeah they'll see
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the podcast details there okay no problem thank you it was a lovely uh conversation i had yep
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thanks ali look forward to talking thank you for tuning in