Making Sense - Sam Harris - #29 — Throw Open the Gates

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00:00:39.140 mariam namazi is an iranian-born atheist a secularist and a human rights activist she's a spokesperson for

00:00:54.060 a variety of organizations for fitna a woman's liberation movement for equal rights now for the

00:01:00.360 one law for all campaign which is against sharia law in britain and for the council of ex-muslims

00:01:06.040 of britain she hosts a weekly television program in persian and english called bread and roses

00:01:10.760 which is broadcast in iran and the middle east via new channel tv and she and i talked today about

00:01:17.720 accusations of bigotry among secularists profiling the migration crisis in europe all topics that are

00:01:26.460 well known to build rapport between podcast hosts and their guests and i make a few comments at the

00:01:33.440 end of this but all i can say is this conversation struck me as more difficult than it needed to be

00:01:39.620 i hope one day to be better at having conversations of this sort but for the moment what you hear is what

00:01:47.080 you get so i'm here with mariam namazi mariam thank you for coming on the podcast

00:01:57.000 thanks for having me listen before we get into all the things we have to talk about and we really have

00:02:02.960 a lot to talk about why don't you tell our listeners a little bit about yourself that many

00:02:07.460 will know who you are and i will have introduced you briefly before we started here but what's your

00:02:13.200 background and what is it exactly that you you do i'm an iranian born political activist i guess

00:02:20.780 that's the best way to describe it i um i'm very much on the left as well and i'm a campaigner for

00:02:29.480 women's rights for secularism against islam and islamism so i've started various campaigns and

00:02:36.540 organizations around that but for me i think fundamentally there are different campaigns

00:02:41.720 that all sort of come to the point of defending human beings citizenship rights irrespective of

00:02:50.080 very often false identities and when did you leave iran in i left iran in 1980 so um when we left

00:02:58.840 uh it was um a year after the islamic regime took over from the iranian revolution which wasn't

00:03:06.500 originally uh uh an islamic revolution and then we went to india for two years because um that was

00:03:13.240 the only place we could manage to get into we we came to britain for a year but we weren't allowed to

00:03:19.400 stay so my family we actually moved to the u.s and my parents still live in yonkers new york

00:03:27.500 but i've been here in britain since 2000 now and so did you leave iran under duress and were you

00:03:34.760 fleeing theocracy or was that was there some other motive to leave at that point yeah well originally

00:03:40.740 my mom brought me out to india just to put me in school because the schools were shut down for a

00:03:48.220 while in order for the government to islamicize things and um uh we ended up not returning my

00:03:57.240 father and my three-year-old sister at the time they had stayed back in iran thinking my mom would

00:04:02.520 go back but things just got so bad that my father uh told us to just wait in india and then he joined

00:04:10.060 us when he was able to get out and are your parents religious or do they share your views at this point

00:04:16.680 my parents are uh muslim my dad was brought up in a very strict um muslim household so his

00:04:25.880 father who's which is my grandfather was an islamic scholar uh who taught arabic uh and um issued fatwas

00:04:35.460 and that sort of thing so he grew up in a very strict uh family background but um he met my mom who was a

00:04:44.140 christian she was a protestant uh in india they got married my mom converted to islam so they're both

00:04:51.100 muslims but uh it was never a strict muslim upbringing to be honest i didn't really know i was muslim or

00:05:00.280 knew much about islam until i was faced with an islamic regime in iran so i went to a mixed school i

00:05:07.800 never had to veil i wasn't treated differently because i was a girl right so i just want to inform

00:05:15.620 our listeners about the the proximate cause of this conversation because i've followed your work

00:05:19.760 i guess really just in the form of seeing some videos of you um encountering people trying to

00:05:26.500 no platform you i mean this this happened recently and we'll get into this because you've you've received

00:05:31.160 more of this than than most people but the proximate cause of this conversation is that

00:05:36.960 i noticed you recently calling my views about profiling bigoted and um also i recently had

00:05:44.320 had douglas murray on my podcast where we discussed the migration crisis in europe and i believe you've

00:05:50.440 called his views on this topic bigoted at the very least you forwarded this open letter that was written

00:05:54.860 to me by the blogger aina uh which said as much i i there may be not perfect overlap between your

00:06:01.700 position and hers but and we can get into that but you know aina didn't quite call douglas a bigot

00:06:06.820 at least she distinguished him from people who she thinks are true bigots like donald trump

00:06:10.740 but um she put him on a spectrum of bigotry in which um she said he quote otherizes and generalizes

00:06:18.140 regarding muslims and if i'm not mistaken you didn't quite call me a bigot either at least i think

00:06:22.860 you clarified that by email but you thought that my views about profiling are bigoted or close enough

00:06:29.440 to be troublesome and i don't want us to dive into those issues yet i want us to talk about some

00:06:34.560 other things we agree about but i just want to know if that's a fair characterization of where we're

00:06:38.500 starting out um well i i wouldn't say they're fair because i think uh you know maybe something that

00:06:45.300 will make it more uh understandable my perspective of things is you know and something that most probably a

00:06:52.260 lot of your listeners will be able to understand better possibly where i'm coming from is we all

00:06:59.140 know about the regressive left you know and i say this as someone who's firmly very very firmly on the

00:07:04.340 left uh who um very often um you know promote and legitimize and normalize the islamist narrative

00:07:15.000 of things so they will basically see um you know any criticism of islam or islamism as bigotry against

00:07:23.060 muslims because islam is often feigned to represent muslims and they see it as a defense of the muslim

00:07:30.080 minority um so you know there are you know for example student unions people very much who consider

00:07:36.420 themselves progressive on the left who will call me islamophobic who will no platform me um and you

00:07:43.820 know i think it's very clear to possibly your listeners that i would say that they are promoting

00:07:51.320 an islamist narrative that doesn't mean they're jihadis that doesn't mean they are going to decapitate

00:07:56.000 anyone that doesn't mean that they are um you know um defenders of a caliphate or sharia law

00:08:03.400 but they are normalizing and promoting the islamist narrative which means that you know

00:08:09.280 they're they're sort of giving it some sort of legitimacy that doesn't make them islamists

00:08:15.360 and my argument with regards you know the arguments that douglas murray makes um you know tommy

00:08:22.360 robinson obviously they're on a continuum i wouldn't call douglas murray a bigot or a fascist i

00:08:28.960 wouldn't call you that either but my argument is that when we or sections of atheists normalize or

00:08:38.700 justify or encourage um certain narratives it does promote a far-right narrative which is a narrative

00:08:48.760 that places collective blame that promotes bigotry against people that doesn't mean that anyone who

00:08:55.500 promotes the far-right narrative is necessarily a bigot or a racist so i think it's similar to how

00:09:00.900 anyone who promotes the islamist narrative is not necessarily a fascist but there is that narrative

00:09:06.320 that concerns me as someone who is both a vehement opponent of islam and islamism but also a strong

00:09:15.580 you know defender of human beings irrespective of their identities and beliefs as i said i think we

00:09:24.180 we should wait to get into the specifics here but i just i guess i want to say up front that i consider

00:09:29.580 these instances of friendly fire where i where i hear you criticize someone like douglas or you know

00:09:36.740 aina does it friendly fire being a case where the people on the same side of in this case a very

00:09:42.680 important concern about islamism are inadvertently mistaking one another for the enemy and it's not to

00:09:48.880 say that our positions might not be different in fact you know i think you and i will probably disagree

00:09:53.640 about what makes sense from a security point of view and and the details of immigration policy

00:10:00.100 and i think that'll be interesting but i think we can have this discussion without allegations of

00:10:07.560 bigotry being the summary of the position you you disagree with and i i feel like i've noticed you

00:10:14.360 and aina and maybe other people are doing this as well but i feel like you and aina pull the trigger

00:10:20.300 on accusations of bigotry fairly early and it's it strikes me as pretty counterproductive because i

00:10:28.280 you know i really do not think douglas is at all bigoted and that's not to say that i'm going to get

00:10:35.240 you to agree with his views about immigration but they're not coming from a place of having some

00:10:41.700 animosity against brown skin people or middle eastern people or people from other cultures

00:10:47.680 he's quite worried about theocracy and intolerance and again well i want to table a detailed discussion

00:10:55.920 about immigration for a few minutes but i just yeah just yeah feel free to react to that i just feel

00:11:02.440 like it's i mean so just one more aspect to this here is that i recognize i'm worried about the problem

00:11:08.260 of bigotry and i'm worried about this conflation of a criticism of ideas in this case islamism

00:11:16.040 with an actual hatred of muslims as people so douglas and i and many others are in the unfortunate

00:11:23.520 circumstance of being surrounded by real bigots you know but there are people on the far right who

00:11:31.040 occasionally make the same reasonable noises about the threat of islamism that we do and then they

00:11:37.600 also say obviously other things that aren't reasonable and they express genuine religious

00:11:42.180 hatred or racial hatred or blind nationalism or some other ideology that i would want nothing to do

00:11:49.160 with but given a shortage of time it isn't always easy to determine who is who and so i find myself

00:11:54.760 in the strange position of hearing someone make sense on the topic of islam but this person has come

00:12:03.920 to me with their reputation pre-stigmatized by people like you we've called them a bigot let's say

00:12:11.420 tommy robinson or mark stein and these are people who you know i i'm not especially familiar with i haven't

00:12:18.500 read if they have books i haven't read their books i've just seen them give a speech um i'll give you an

00:12:24.780 example of this so for instance tommy robinson just did an interview with dave rubin where

00:12:29.920 he made sense really perfect sense for an hour and did not say a single bigoted thing right now

00:12:39.140 i'm not very familiar with tommy robinson i don't live in the uk and i just know that he is under the

00:12:45.900 shadow of more or less constant accusations of racism and bigotry and yet i hear him speak for an

00:12:52.840 hour and even when pressed on the topic of past associations with bigots he made perfect sense

00:13:00.060 and talked about how he left the edl because of those racist elements that came into it so

00:13:06.620 can i say something now please i mean there's a lot of points you've raised and um you know on the issue

00:13:12.900 of friendly fire and the fact that we're all on the same side well i disagree i disagree not not to say

00:13:19.920 that you and i are not on the same side or you know but but i think that being on the same side

00:13:25.460 is takes a lot more than just saying that there are people who speak a lot of sense about islam

00:13:31.260 or islamism and therefore we're on the same side we might disagree on certain details and the example i

00:13:37.600 always give is for example i'm against u.s militarism in certain parts of the world

00:13:43.260 and the iranian regime also thinks the u.s government is the big satan and therefore because

00:13:51.180 i'm opposed to u.s militarism i should side with the iranian regime and a lot of left actually do

00:13:56.800 this there are people on the left who are who have these blinders of anti-imperialism all they see is

00:14:03.680 anti-imperialism and they're willing to side with you know the islamist fascists just because they're

00:14:09.520 anti-imperialist they'll side with anyone and from my perspective you know your enemy's enemy is not

00:14:15.240 necessarily your friend and uh you know the you know the decades work i've done in campaigning i think

00:14:22.820 my track record is clear is that i worked with lots of people and not people who are left like myself

00:14:28.820 communists like myself i mean i i think i i hardly work with people who think like me uh but i work

00:14:35.500 with lots of different types of people and i'm open to that i think when you're building movements

00:14:40.000 mass movements where you need to challenge something as outrageous as the islamist movement that is

00:14:47.380 wreaking havoc you know the country where i was born in the region i come from and across the world

00:14:54.020 you know they're it's basically a killing machine it's destroying lives dehumanizing um women

00:15:01.280 children men you know when you look at it that way then obviously you want to have as many allies as

00:15:07.380 possible but but i do draw the line with the far right because i think you know it it's not just

00:15:14.280 islam and islamism that's the problem for me uh in the same way that um you know uh the example i gave

00:15:22.320 it's not just enough to be anti-us militarism i mean i know you'll find a lot of people on the left what

00:15:29.000 you know is being called the regressive left what i call the post-modernist left who will say that

00:15:34.840 islamists make a lot of sense they'll talk about discrimination that uh minorities face in in the

00:15:40.280 west they'll talk about you know uh the attacks on of the u.s uh government or the british government

00:15:47.440 on uh the war on iraq and they'll make a lot of sense and they do speak some truths even islamists do

00:15:55.260 you know but the problem is these are half truths they are only part of the whole story and i think

00:16:01.180 it is a grave mistake to think that tommy robinson's criticism of islam and islamism

00:16:07.220 is something that's commendable because he says similar things to what you and i say i i disagree

00:16:14.220 fundamentally and and i think this is an issue for me that is key because i am not only anti-islam i am

00:16:23.500 not only anti-islamism i'm not only anti-jihadism and sharia law and the iranian regime i am also

00:16:30.500 pro-secularism i am also against religion's role in the state including christianity's role

00:16:36.860 anglicanism as douglas murray makes that is not some cuddly you know lovely religion and britain is so

00:16:44.940 much better off than the u.s we still have parliament in this country bishops are in the house of lords they

00:16:51.160 have not been elected there you have the queen who is the representative of the church uh who heads

00:16:58.220 this country religion has a sinister role in this country as well the fact that it's cuddlier

00:17:04.080 is because of its the fact that an enlightenment has pushed it back that has challenged it that has

00:17:10.800 questioned it sure but i don't i don't think douglas would disagree with that i mean i just think i see

00:17:15.480 where you've gone here but let's not make this i don't know why we're making this about douglas murray

00:17:19.340 well no that's not i know sent you a letter you you can interview her and talk to her about it

00:17:24.020 my you know i don't spend my days advocating advocating against douglas murray my problem is

00:17:29.720 with the far right with the edl with pegida with stop islamization of europe with uh movements with

00:17:36.500 political movements that are not individuals but with political movements that i think are

00:17:43.500 collect placing collective blame and harming the the overall no no i i got that i got that they

00:17:49.400 dehumanize people um all the times but i also want to say one other thing and this is this thing about

00:17:55.440 bigotry uh i think we need to also be very careful and there is a danger here that seems to be

00:18:01.120 happening is that uh bigotry is then being trivialized because there are false accusations

00:18:07.320 of bigotry and trust me i've had them much more than you possibly might have uh you know i'm not

00:18:13.160 only called an islamophobe but i'm also a coconut i'm a native informant uh i'm also a rape apologist

00:18:19.340 because i defend uh you know i say we shouldn't blame all migrants for what happens in colm

00:18:25.140 i'm also called a um undercover jihadi because i oppose stop islamization of america and europe

00:18:32.560 that's something that robert spencer has called me i'm an anti-semite because i oppose the israeli

00:18:37.840 occupation of palestine though i defend the right of israel to exist and i'm also for the rights of

00:18:43.880 palestinians and israelis to live in peace uh what i want to say that there are lots of accusations

00:18:49.560 but to hide behind those and then say that you know you know raising an issue of bigotry then

00:18:56.840 trivializing it when bigotry is a huge issue for many of us doesn't really help either you know and

00:19:05.820 i think um for me it's very clear i'm i don't have to read anybody's books to know where they stand on

00:19:13.600 the political spectrum i have been in politics for several decades now you know for me it's very

00:19:19.620 clear if you promote our culture our civilization you know versus the others you know the barbarians

00:19:30.080 the savages that is a politics that is um otherizing that is generalizing um you know the other and that

00:19:41.140 sees the other as the barbarian and savage where whereas that's not the case we have so many

00:19:46.600 secularists and free thinkers and a tsunami of atheism in our region in the middle east and north

00:19:52.080 africa and south asia right uh you know and oftentimes this this the the talk about migrants

00:19:58.400 even you know the storming of migrants as if it's an act of war rather than people fleeing for their

00:20:03.900 lives many many of them fleeing the the islamists uh that that so many are against but when it comes

00:20:12.100 to their victims people have very little sympathy it seems okay well you're you're alleging okay but

00:20:18.040 no but it is more complex and that's why the accusation of bigotry is so unhelpful here so i listen

00:20:24.820 i you know i can't i can't own everything that tommy robinson has said because i i'm unaware of much of

00:20:31.000 what he said but we're having this conversation because i noticed you calling me a bigot and you

00:20:37.080 sort of walk that back a little bit but i don't walk it back i'm sorry i didn't walk it back uh

00:20:42.020 because what i said is that it promotes the far right narrative it promotes a narrative of bigotry

00:20:47.620 and as i explained before when i call when i tell the regressive left that they are promoting an

00:20:53.620 islamist narrative it doesn't mean that they're islamist or fascist you can say it's promoting it but

00:20:58.720 that doesn't mean that it actually is promoting it in fact i criticize the far right as much as

00:21:04.640 anybody sam that's your opinion what i want to say is that we don't agree we don't agree on certain

00:21:09.940 things and that's fine there's nothing wrong with that you know and and no but there is something

00:21:15.640 mariam but there is there is something wrong with characterizing this disagreement in terms

00:21:23.340 that demonize or to use your phrase otherize the other person in such a way as to make conversation

00:21:30.260 and reasonable alliances impossible i mean friendly fire is a problem what you're saying is it's not

00:21:36.380 really so friendly it's it's legitimate fire against people who you're also opposed to or views you're

00:21:41.640 also opposed to but i think you're actually misunderstanding these views in important respect so for instance

00:21:47.300 obviously miriam i'm not arguing that the enemy of your enemy is by definition your friend and i just

00:21:54.660 think that's a false analogy and i can so let's forget about douglas let's forget about tommy robinson

00:22:00.040 i can only talk with authority about my own views but what i witnessed happen here is that i use a term

00:22:07.120 like profiling now and profiling is a word like torture right it's i mean to use it in for any purpose

00:22:14.100 other than to declare one's horror and rejection of it brands you as dangerously right-wing in most

00:22:20.820 circles and certainly in your circle i don't think you actually understand what i mean by profiling and

00:22:25.540 i think we'll get into that but i'm just saying is that when you go after me as someone who is

00:22:31.720 irredeemable for using the word profiling or or to say that to use this word is to make common cause

00:22:38.740 with right-wing bigots by definition one is unhelpful but two is just untrue right it's just i

00:22:45.740 mean there's absolutely nothing in my view about profiling or about security in general or about

00:22:51.620 immigration and again we'll get into the details that is an expression of my bigotry against muslims

00:22:58.520 against people from the middle east against other cultures i mean there's none of that there's not a

00:23:02.580 shred of that and yet you're responding to it as though there were and that's what i'm finding so

00:23:08.600 unhelpful well um you know sam the thing is that um it might be unhelpful to you i mean i think this

00:23:16.180 is a thing for me um bigotry is an important issue i'm not saying it's not for you i didn't mean it that

00:23:23.200 way but what i'm saying is that it is a very important matter for me uh because um you you do often

00:23:30.380 find in a situation that i'm in that you have people on the far right trying to use ex-muslims

00:23:36.740 trying to use our criticism of islam as a way of scapegoating muslims and immigrants and migrants

00:23:43.500 refugees and so it puts me in a very difficult position because i do feel that i'm constantly

00:23:50.460 having to fight on several fronts in order to be able to put my message forward you are fighting on

00:23:58.380 several fronts but i notice you starting these fights unnecessarily as you did with me you might

00:24:05.420 think you you might think it's unnecessary sam i'm sorry but for me it is an integral part of the

00:24:11.920 fight against islam and islamism because i think that um you know if this fight means that uh bigotry

00:24:20.380 become normalized that it is easy to dehumanize migrants and muslims place collective blame on

00:24:28.800 them then i don't think it helps our our movement you know and so for me i feel it is as important

00:24:36.260 to fight against uh racism and bigotry as it is to fight against islam and islamism well of course it

00:24:42.740 is but but you're acting like i disagree with you well i don't know if you're disagreeing with me but

00:24:47.820 it's it's very difficult for me to have my conversation because you're not letting me

00:24:51.420 finish uh what i have to say so if you'll just be patient um and let me try to explain my position

00:24:57.940 and it would be great if you could try to understand my position as well now the thing is that i'm not

00:25:03.940 coming after you i i think this is a bit of a you know i'm not coming after you but i am making

00:25:10.980 comments as all political people do on uh positions that i disagree with you know uh the fact of the

00:25:19.060 matter is you have come out and uh you've just said right now that you think there's nothing wrong

00:25:24.020 with what tommy robinson said for the for the hour that you heard him speak i have a different

00:25:29.720 position on tommy robinson and you know i also have a right to express it now even in this country

00:25:35.740 for example ukip which is a right-wing political party um they for example have prescribed uh they

00:25:44.680 don't allow their members to also be members of the english defense league of the british national

00:25:51.180 party so even there are there are right-wing parties who consider these groups of the scale and don't want

00:25:59.040 to be associated with them so it's not you know unnatural for me to criticize you know it's not me

00:26:06.020 being you know overly uh sensitive and throwing out the bigot card at at any opportunity it's a real

00:26:13.940 concern about the english defense league if you look at tommy robinson he didn't leave the english

00:26:19.400 defense league because he was concerned about the fascist elements in that uh in that group he has

00:26:27.700 continued to uh praise and defend the edl until today and if you look at his speeches at pegida

00:26:35.540 rallies for example he says that he didn't he realized that it was too soon the edl was too soon

00:26:42.740 for europe well no that's not actually what i heard him say i want to clarify that perspective on it sam

00:26:48.160 i'm sorry okay well but i just said that tommy has such a wonderful defender from no no listen no no

00:26:54.940 it's not that i miriam that's not fair this is just a single example of a person who i'm actually

00:26:59.840 not very familiar with who i know well then maybe you should listen to me because i'm more familiar

00:27:04.540 with him but you're not characterizing the view he expressed in this interview did you see his

00:27:08.480 interview with dave rubin it does it doesn't matter a lot of listen a lot of islamists will come and

00:27:13.220 tell you that islam is a religion of peace i'm sorry you cannot judge political movements by

00:27:19.480 you know bush telling you that he's gone to iraq because he wants to liberate women it's not

00:27:24.520 enough i'm sorry you know you have that's fully i fully grant i fully grant that point sorry it's

00:27:31.360 impossible to have a conversation because you constantly interrupt me i let you speak

00:27:35.540 for five ten minutes and i don't want it to be the sort of adversarial discussion because we're not

00:27:41.620 really going to get anywhere and it's just we're not going to reach an understanding and i even if we

00:27:46.920 don't agree i would like us to be able to at least understand the other person's position do you

00:27:52.220 know what i mean i totally understand what you mean but i don't want i don't want you to assume

00:27:56.380 a disagreement where there isn't one and when i interrupt you it's because you're not letting me

00:28:01.040 speak and you keep saying but but but there is a no no no miriam miriam i'm interrupting you when you

00:28:07.920 are attacking me for a view or criticizing a view i don't have tommy robinson okay but i don't know why

00:28:14.680 you take it personally when i criticize i'm not i'm not taking it personally i just don't want us to

00:28:18.740 be wasting our time or our listeners time that's that's it not a waste of time because isn't this

00:28:23.660 the whole reason why we're having this discussion because there are differences of opinion no well

00:28:28.100 yeah but i but we haven't actually gotten to those differences of opinion listen i will not i will let

00:28:33.440 you say whatever you want to say my job is not to interrupt you but i do have a job to try to get

00:28:38.400 our conversation on track and i'm noticing it go off track and you're assuming that i have far more

00:28:44.980 affinity for tommy robinson than i in fact do and when you summarize his view as being in fact

00:28:50.240 opposite of the only interview i've ever heard him give then i i can't i can't sign off on the

00:28:56.400 dotted line there and say yes that's the tommy robinson i was just defending okay in the interview

00:29:00.680 with dave rubin he explained why he left the edl and it was in fact because he noticed racist elements

00:29:07.120 join it and he couldn't be associated with it so if he maybe he's lying i don't know but

00:29:12.200 that is the tommy robinson i was defending however tepidly again i don't even want to

00:29:17.220 talk about tommy robinson i was just using him as an example of someone who's come to me pre-stigmatized

00:29:22.680 and who then expresses views that make sense and i'm just i'm in the position of not knowing who is

00:29:29.020 who here and all i can speak about with authority are my views and i notice that the same kind of

00:29:35.360 thing is being done to me and that and that is what i'm finding unhelpful but again this is this is

00:29:40.680 not even meant to be that we are not we are not victims here there are many people who come to my

00:29:45.760 to me pre-stigmatized as well i you know well that's life that's politics the fact of the matter

00:29:52.860 is that we all make statements and we will have people supporting it criticizing it and we need to

00:29:59.480 either defend it or and so on and so forth so i i think you know you know starting a conversation

00:30:07.340 about how one is stigmatized or you know how they come into a conversation with people having

00:30:12.140 pre-judgment of them well that exists in every you know for everyone and every movement

00:30:17.220 what we can do is to try to clarify our positions and to try to make clear why we say certain things

00:30:27.620 and why we are opposed to certain things and why we defend certain things and that might be the most

00:30:32.700 helpful way to go about it but you know the fact that we're pre-stigmatized well everybody is you

00:30:38.820 know it's unfortunate that there are accusations of bigotry that are untrue as i've said before i have

00:30:44.820 been accused of it many times myself but i i would say that it worries me when because of this sort of

00:30:53.560 false accusations of bigotry that bigotry now seems to be trivialized now and the minute you do actually

00:31:01.200 talk about politics which are bigoted which are placing collective blame that suddenly you know

00:31:08.940 you get this sort of um fight pushback saying well you know everything is pre-stigmatized and uh you

00:31:16.600 know the accusation of bigotry doesn't wash anymore and you know whereas it is a real concern for a lot of

00:31:23.340 people and it's important to be able to still say it and also to call out when it is false but also to

00:31:30.980 recognize that there are movements political movements that are promoting um positions against

00:31:40.180 sharia and islam in order to scapegoat vulnerable minorities as well as migrants and that's the

00:31:48.980 position that i come from that you know for me i want to fight against islam and islamism while at the

00:31:56.080 same time making sure that that fight is not used to scapegoat against people who are people like

00:32:05.040 anyone else and they have different views and values and cultures amongst them it's not one mass you

00:32:11.540 know uh it's not i i don't prescribe to the clash of civilizations sort of thesis where it's us versus

00:32:18.960 them i think there are many of us uh across borders and boundaries believers and none and others who

00:32:28.620 are on an opposing side so i think that's okay well let's talk about the details and it seems to me we

00:32:35.700 have two topics that are related i mean they're basically the same topic but they show up differently

00:32:42.060 in our conversation about these issues one is profiling and the other is immigration and i view

00:32:47.240 them very much the same way but let's talk about let's start with profiling and what i've said about

00:32:53.020 profiling and what you think about it because clearly you think my views about profiling lead to a kind of

00:32:59.740 collective punishment collective blame you have energy to the bigots of the world and and i just think

00:33:06.820 that's that's untrue so let's we'll talk about that and then we'll talk about immigration and

00:33:12.060 uh and then let's just assume as you know the in the background for those who aren't familiar with

00:33:18.100 your work we are having this fraught conversation against a background of considerable agreement about

00:33:24.140 the problem of islamism the problem of uh theocracy in the muslim world east and west the intolerance

00:33:31.680 born of that the problem of the regressive left uh becoming apologists for all that so we we agree

00:33:37.740 probably across the board on those points but now we're talking about how the west should respond

00:33:45.460 to these security concerns and you know at airports uh with the security apparatus of a state or at it

00:33:54.960 at the borders of states so just um i mean briefly on profiling now again profiling is this dirty word

00:34:02.180 and you know i don't think it should be but it inherits all the baggage of other ugly words like

00:34:08.460 pedophilia or bestiality or torture and so the moment you seem to be given a sympathetic construal of

00:34:14.960 this word you you have a lot of work to do but in my view okay you know all profiling is

00:34:21.840 is to use some statistically relevant information in one's self-defense and to be against profiling across

00:34:31.320 the board to be against profiling of any kind is to be against using any relevant information

00:34:37.880 to solve one's security problem so for instance you know being against all profiling in intelligence

00:34:45.760 gathering out in the world is to say that we should spend equal time scrutinizing the amish or the

00:34:53.440 anglicans as we should members of the muslim community or indeed of the muslim brotherhood or al-qaeda

00:34:58.460 because to focus on muslims at all or even any specific group of muslims is profiling and so i

00:35:06.440 just put that to you is wouldn't it be irrational when looking for suicidal terrorists who are planning

00:35:13.160 to target civilians say to spend equal attention on all religious communities at this point well i mean

00:35:20.400 you know for me i think uh why should the marker be even the idea of the fact that the these

00:35:28.400 people are characterized only as muslims people have a million characteristics that define them

00:35:34.740 and that they define themselves by just to give you an example you know if you look at those who've

00:35:40.700 carried out terrorist attacks for example and we're only talking about here in the west terrorist attacks

00:35:45.500 take place every day in the middle east north africa and south asia and we hardly get to hear about

00:35:50.320 them but you could say for example that um is their main characteristic the fact that they're muslim is

00:35:57.380 it that they are university educated you know tommy robinson talks about the jihadis from luton is it

00:36:04.360 something specific to do with luton i think you can pick out any one of these things and if you want to

00:36:10.720 say that this is the reason why these things happen for me i think it's not necessarily that they're

00:36:17.280 muslim that it's happening it's not necessarily that they're refugees or migrants or university

00:36:22.960 educated but it is their political stance that determines that they are jihadis and terrorists

00:36:29.700 and it comes to behavior rather than the fact that they're brown or that they're muslim or that they

00:36:36.740 come from iran or iraq or where what have you because as i said you know not all muslims think the same

00:36:43.820 it just does not all christians think the same you know and that uh just like every you know not

00:36:50.160 necessarily every white male represents also not every brown muslim represents sharia values and so

00:36:59.520 i think there is that danger with profiling profiling is an ugly word because i think it is ugly you know

00:37:05.500 in the sense of um the fact that it is seen to be you know profiling of blacks for example in america

00:37:11.740 it does have that history to it profiling muslims it it does raise those very same connotations and i

00:37:17.960 think i think there are some security experts that would agree with me as well that you need to profile

00:37:24.620 behavior rather than one's race or religion and so on and so forth yes profiling is often assumed has

00:37:31.840 some racial component and there is such a thing as racial profiling there's absolutely nothing about

00:37:36.560 my argument with respect to profiling for jihadists that considers race a relevant variable in fact it's

00:37:44.040 it would be a starkly misleading variable so it's so there's nothing racial about uh what i recommend

00:37:50.360 but i just i'm slightly mystified by uh what you just said because i mean what percentage of jihadists

00:37:57.700 do you think are muslim uh sam i i think that is the wrong question i'm sorry you know well you might

00:38:04.320 you might think it's wrong to look for jihadists but yes but but listen to me i mean the thing is

00:38:09.880 that you know what percentage of muslims are jihadists obviously a large percentage you know

00:38:16.240 even if they used to be hindu or christian they are now converts and they have become muslim and so

00:38:22.380 therefore a large percentage of jihadists are muslims of course there is a link with islam i'm not saying

00:38:28.820 that there isn't but what i'm saying is that you cannot just assume that because someone is muslim

00:38:35.580 they are a jihadist of course not of course not exactly so profiling muslims does that it doesn't

00:38:42.340 it doesn't well that's my perspective if i can explain but let me just but let me just give you

00:38:46.780 some more details can i finish my sentence again you're talking in vague generalities i want to give

00:38:51.400 you specifics i'm trying to i understand everything i say seems to be vague generalities to you and

00:38:56.940 everything you say seems to be on point and i'm sorry i don't i'm not able to express myself as well

00:39:01.560 as you can but what i'd like to say is that you know the point is that um when you profile i know

00:39:09.360 there's this argument that muslims are not a race and therefore anything that targets muslims is not

00:39:14.780 racist and they're not racial because they're not a race but the reality of it is that they are seen to

00:39:20.280 be a minority in the west there are seen to be a minority religion a minority group that is taking

00:39:27.560 over a christian western europe and therefore when you talk about the profiling of muslims even if there

00:39:33.760 are also white muslims it does have those connotations in my opinion and as i've said before profiling

00:39:40.980 muslims isn't going to help us fight terrorism what we need to do is profile islamists and that i think

00:39:49.320 is where behavior the behavior of far-right uh jihadis and islamists that's where we can manage to

00:39:56.780 make inroads into this rather than conflate islam muslims and islamists i really think there's a

00:40:03.640 misunderstanding at the bottom of this you're you're interpreting my interrupting you as hostile but i keep

00:40:10.560 detecting misunderstanding and i just want to short circuit it and we can do that over the course of

00:40:16.180 five hours or we can do it over the course of 90 minutes and i'm i'm just trying to to use your

00:40:21.280 time and our listeners time efficiently so i mean i think you're reading more hostility into my

00:40:26.120 interruptions than is there because there is none i'm not reading hostile i'm not reading hostility i

00:40:31.200 think there there is mis there is no misunderstanding i think we just don't agree and i think that's what

00:40:36.520 the issue is just let me interrupt you a little bit more because we go ahead okay um because when you

00:40:43.060 say we need to profile for islamists you could say we should profile for jihadists right the the thing

00:40:49.760 that i'm arguing for is that we need to admit that we know what we're looking for if we admit we're

00:40:55.920 looking for jihadists and we admit that a hundred percent of jihadists are muslim then the variable of

00:41:04.020 being muslim is more relevant in the search for jihadists than the variable of being amish is in fact

00:41:11.200 if we could be absolutely sure that a person is amish they suddenly become completely irrelevant

00:41:16.980 with respect to the search for jihadists now i will grant you that there are other problems in the

00:41:23.700 world beyond jihadism there are other forms of extremists there are other forms of suicidal

00:41:28.720 terrorists even and we're worried about them too though not in the kinds of numbers we are with respect

00:41:34.800 to jihadism now but if you're looking for jihadists let's say you you work for the fbi to not profile

00:41:40.980 to be committed to not profiling at any cost to say we are going to be scrupulously fair we are not going

00:41:47.880 to single out muslims in any respect if you're working for the fbi that means that every time you

00:41:54.820 interview an imam at a mosque to look for any troubling signs of radicalism in his community you

00:42:01.600 will then be obliged to what interview the mormon tabernacle choir to see if they've witnessed

00:42:07.220 troubling signs of radicalism in their community i mean there's you will be obliged to deliberately

00:42:12.800 and consciously waste time in the service of not profiling to to go to a mosque is to profile for the

00:42:21.960 variable of adherence to islam to some degree and you see what you seem to be saying initially is

00:42:28.080 that is unfair it's otherizing it's collective punishment and now you suddenly tell me we we

00:42:34.360 should be profiling for islamism so i i see a contradiction there and i would love you to

00:42:39.760 explain it contradiction and that's i think what what is fundamentally a problem here when when there

00:42:44.400 is criticism of far-right movements and groups uh there is a there's that's a hugely different from

00:42:50.840 targeting individuals believers based on the very fact that they are believers if you are part of a

00:42:57.740 fascist movement then your politics is very clear if you are a believer you can be a secularist a

00:43:04.940 feminist you can be even an atheist uh you know and you come from muslim background so there's a huge

00:43:11.220 distinction between targeting groups like the english defense league targeting islamists and i make very

00:43:17.900 little distinction um as though others don't between jihadis and islamists i see them as part of the same

00:43:25.620 movement doing different parts of that movement taking care of different aspects of that movement the jihadis

00:43:32.320 are the military wing and the islamists very often um are you know promoting it politically and via various ways

00:43:39.860 so so to to to say if the terrorist attacks are taking place by a movement by a political movement a far-right

00:43:49.840 political movement called islamism then targeting the behavior and profiling the behavior of those who are

00:43:58.560 carrying out or susceptible to carrying a terrorist act is very different to saying uh one should profile

00:44:05.500 anyone who is a muslim because every jihadi is also muslim you know yes every jihadi is also uh is also

00:44:13.940 muslim that's not saying everything it's not giving the whole truth and for me therefore i think profiling

00:44:20.700 should be done with regards behavior and not placing collective blame i have a huge problem with placing

00:44:27.140 collective blame on populations just for the very fact that they were they're muslims you know the reality

00:44:33.760 is that people are born into a religion out of no choice of their own the very fact that out of some

00:44:39.380 misfortune of lottery i was born in iran and i have the label of muslim on my forehead you know until

00:44:46.120 the day i die unless i make this very difficult decision to leave it and to publicly leave it and

00:44:52.600 even then the far right will call me an undercover jihadi what i'm saying is that you know people are

00:44:57.900 much more than the religions of their birth they they often had no choice to it that choice lack of

00:45:04.600 choice continues to follow them throughout their lives and to profile them and to place collective

00:45:10.100 blame on them and equate them with islamists is not right it's not fair and it doesn't see the reality

00:45:18.800 that muslims are people like anybody else they have a million different beliefs and to you know um sort

00:45:27.660 of homogenize them and see them as this one collective actually hands them over to the islamist

00:45:34.280 movement but many of them are fighting it's fighting islamism but i'm not but i'm not doing

00:45:39.420 that but but mariam i'm not doing that i'm not saying you're doing okay you're not doing that sam

00:45:43.720 i'm talking about what i think the problem with profiling and collective blame is this is not a

00:45:49.860 personal attack on you i'm not taking it personally i'm just trying to i'm attempting to express my views

00:45:56.000 about security in this case profiling yes so i'm i'm also concerned about security sam you know

00:46:02.300 but mariam but so there's nothing the only thing i've said about profiling comes out of

00:46:08.960 my experience and again when i was talking about profiling initially it was at the airports right so

00:46:14.940 you're getting on planes and you see the kind of security theater where we see people who are

00:46:20.760 obviously not jihadists obviously have not been recruited getting searched with the same kind of

00:46:27.040 scrupulousness and intensity as people who you might worry could fit a reasonable profile of a jihadist

00:46:35.020 and my argument here is that we have to admit that we have a finite amount of attention we have a

00:46:41.940 finite amount of resources and we should never deliberately waste our time now there is a role for

00:46:50.740 random searches here which which increases everyone's safety and so randomness should be

00:46:55.140 included but what everyone has found galling or many people have found galling are obvious wastes of

00:47:01.860 time knowing that our resources are limited so again so to take it out of the airport as i tried to do a

00:47:08.960 moment ago if you're going to profile based entirely on behavior which is behavioral profiling is is

00:47:15.860 certainly part of it and i would agree with you most of what you need to do is is to profile on the

00:47:20.400 basis of behavior but adhering to a religion or to a a neo-nazi organization or whatever your identity

00:47:29.120 is is a type of behavior right so if you're looking for jihadists and you want to reach out to the

00:47:37.020 community of people who might be aware of the jihadists in their midst you're going to be reaching

00:47:43.720 out to the muslims you're not going to be reaching out to the mormons and can i explain can i explain this

00:47:49.220 again too sam if you don't mind there's a difference between a religious believer versus a neo-nazi and i

00:47:54.080 think that's where you know that's my issue here is that of course when you said you just said something

00:47:59.640 about where you're gonna a person who's religious or a neo-nazi it's very different the the fact of

00:48:06.160 the matter is that for me a neo-nazi is like the islamist so yes yes i agree you know those who are

00:48:12.080 part of a political movement have certain characteristics very often we see that the

00:48:16.700 security are actually following people who then go on and commit crimes well why haven't they acted

00:48:21.520 more quickly they shouldn't be waiting until we're at the gates of an airport uh to to be able to find

00:48:28.140 who is uh you know willing and able to commit atrocities against the population at large you know

00:48:34.380 you said something about well we should focus on those who are obviously muslim well who is that you

00:48:38.960 know i went to the u.s with my husband's young son he was 13 at the time he was taken away and

00:48:46.780 fingerprinted and questioned he's born in britain but he looks obviously he must look muslim to them

00:48:52.280 and you know uh my husband now he's hasn't been to iran for 40 years we're opponents of the iranian

00:48:59.040 regime he's been atheist for god knows how long you know he's got to apply for a visa now because he's

00:49:04.860 he's also considered an iranian national where is the iranian government is constantly threatening us

00:49:10.340 with death so what i want to say is that just because of the fact that we happen to be muslims

00:49:16.220 as well or seem to be muslims it doesn't necessarily mean that we are we should be more susceptible to

00:49:23.700 profiling than someone who's amish why should we i have nothing to do with the islamist movement i hate

00:49:28.820 the islamist movement the reason i'm here is because i fled it because and i've spent a lot of my life

00:49:33.940 fighting it so what i'm saying is that the what profiling does is it places collective blame for

00:49:41.940 me this is an important issue what it says is that just because all jihadis are muslims therefore all

00:49:48.520 muslims are fair game i disagree in the same way that you have a lot of white of far-right um terrorists

00:49:56.580 in the u.s you know to argue therefore then that every white male needs to be targeted because

00:50:04.220 every or every christian white male christian needs to be targeted because in america 100 percent of

00:50:11.140 the white terrorists are christian and they're white and they're male misses the point you know but it

00:50:16.680 doesn't it doesn't necessarily miss the point so for instance i mean if we had a global it does because

00:50:21.520 you're going to spend putting pulling aside every white male at the airport you're actually wasting

00:50:27.640 security time well of course you are the lack of resources you should be actually uh you know

00:50:34.160 profiling muslims is a waste of time well no it's a waste of time is just as you just said you just

00:50:41.520 said you're for behavioral profiling so i'm at so so again this institution freaking in here

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Making Sense - Sam Harris - February 24, 2016

#29 — Throw Open the Gates

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