The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters - May 25, 2026


FREEMIUM： Realpolitik #48 & The Forge ｜ The ‘Special Relationship’ Cope w⧸ Harrison Pitt


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Length

50 minutes

Words per minute

154.53082

Word count

7,778

Sentence count

506

Harmful content

Misogyny

2

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Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
00:00:00.000 At the beginning of the 20th century, Europe in general, and Britain in particular, bestrode the
00:00:05.380 world like a colossus. Now, a quarter of our way through the 21st century, we find ourselves at
00:00:11.120 best diminished powers and at worst cringing vassals of the United States. How did the continent
00:00:16.980 of Athens, Rome, Madrid, Paris, Berlin, and London become so enfeebled? And as we emerge from the
00:00:24.240 warm bath of post-war comforts into the cold realities of a contentious, multi-polar world
00:00:29.760 how are we to assert ourselves? Do we have it in us to stand on our own two feet again?
00:00:35.260 With me to discuss whether the old world has life in her yet is Firas Modat, the geopolitical
00:00:40.780 analyst and a presenter at the Lotus Eaters, where today we are filming a joint episode of my show,
00:00:47.160 The Forge, and Firas's Realpolitik. Firas, thank you for sitting down with me.
00:00:52.380 Thank you, my pleasure. 0.96
00:00:53.680 Now, let's start with a sort of potentially slaughtering some sacred cows and
00:00:59.440 keen for your insight on this. Is the so-called special relationship between Britain and America,
00:01:04.300 and even Europe and America, an expensive illusion conjured to make us feel relevant in the world,
00:01:09.940 but increasingly costing us dear? It is certainly an illusion, because if you look at the
00:01:16.100 geopolitical interests of the countries involved, be it Britain and the United States, or Britain
00:01:21.940 and the rest of Europe, or the United States and the rest of Europe, they're not the same interests.
00:01:26.840 They are absolutely divergent interests.
00:01:30.160 And within Europe, the interests diverge.
00:01:32.380 So there is the problem of the EU, which assumes that the critical interests of Poland are the same as the critical interests of Spain, which is fundamentally delusional.
00:01:45.200 There is the special relationship of the United States with Israel, which is the only real special relationship that the United States seems to have.
00:01:53.040 But to be fair, there are more shared interests between Britain and the United States than with the rest, shall we say.
00:02:05.560 Mainly because of the shared Atlantic Basin.
00:02:09.080 At the end of the day, the United States and Britain need the Atlantic to be secured and to be controlled in a particular way.
00:02:17.780 they have similarities in their political systems, deep similarities in their culture,
00:02:24.440 that creates a level of alignment. But today, the United States is not really looking at that.
00:02:30.860 And Britain has sort of subordinated her own interests completely to those of the United
00:02:37.140 States. In AJP Taylor's book, which I've got here, and which I'm going to quote from,
00:02:44.120 He's called the struggle for mastery in Europe.
00:02:47.200 He is incredibly evocative about Europe's slide into relative insignificance
00:02:52.020 at the end of the First World War.
00:02:54.600 And I'm just going to read a choice passage to you, Firas, and get your thoughts on the matter.
00:02:58.100 He talks about how the 70 years between 1848 and 1918 were the last age of the European balance of power,
00:03:05.440 a balance reinforced by political and economic developments which had been expected to destroy it.
00:03:09.680 The first 23 years, beginning in 1848, were a period of turmoil when the old order seemed to
00:03:14.380 be crumbling. It ended with the lesser revision. The new national states of Germany and Italy were
00:03:18.520 fitted into the system of the balance of power, and Europe combined vast range with international
00:03:22.800 peace for more than a generation. Then the balance grew top-heavy and was challenged anew.
00:03:28.240 But the First World War had none of the traditional outcomes. The balance was not restored. A single
00:03:33.240 great power did not dominate the continent. There was not even universal revolution. The intervention
00:03:38.820 of the United States overthrew all rational calculations.
00:03:43.560 Henceforward, what had been the center of the world
00:03:45.800 became merely the European question.
00:03:48.560 Yes.
00:03:48.880 That's E.J.P. Taylor in the struggle for mastery in Europe.
00:03:51.580 And I suppose I would like to ask you, Faris,
00:03:52.840 in your view, has the United States,
00:03:55.240 whatever its exceptional virtues as a nation,
00:03:57.440 had a malign influence on the happiness of Europe?
00:03:59.900 And when would you date it from?
00:04:02.520 Certainly from the end of the First World War,
00:04:07.660 because what happened was essentially
00:04:10.060 that liberal democracy was imposed on the rest of Europe.
00:04:14.020 Europe was having a huge debate.
00:04:16.680 What kind of political system should it have?
00:04:19.660 What was the correct balance between monarchy
00:04:22.120 and aristocracy and popular will?
00:04:24.700 That conversation pretty much ended
00:04:28.440 with the defeat in World War I.
00:04:31.420 The Germans and the fascists tried to renew the conversation
00:04:37.640 in their own way.
00:04:39.880 That ended disastrously.
00:04:41.940 And since then, Europe has been a complete vassal.
00:04:45.900 And you saw reports of the CIA intervening in French elections
00:04:50.700 and in Italian elections to keep the communists out.
00:04:54.180 You saw a level of intervention by the United States
00:04:57.940 in pretty much every European question.
00:05:00.600 The European Union was supposed to be a way to facilitate
00:05:03.680 American influence over Europe. And then the end of the Cold War meant that more of Europe was
00:05:13.860 incorporated under the American empire through NATO, which is what ended up leading to the
00:05:19.660 Ukraine war. There was no sense anymore among policymakers that there has to be a buffer of
00:05:25.980 sorts between NATO and the Russian sphere of influence. And so the U.S.'s influence has been
00:05:35.220 imperial and expansionist. The alternatives to it were terrible, be it Nazi Germany or the Soviet
00:05:44.640 Union. That should be factored into account. We shouldn't just bash the Americans. But after the
00:05:51.900 end of the Cold War and the collapse of the USSR, the Americans didn't just back away and no empire
00:05:58.920 would. Instead, they simply consolidated and expanded. And this would have been somewhat
00:06:06.560 acceptable if a sense of nationalism had been retained. Right. And a sense of the importance
00:06:11.600 of national production and national power had been retained. And just self-respect. And self-respect.
00:06:16.380 But what ended up happening was the explosion of neoliberalism and the moving of productive
00:06:22.660 capacity away from the West and into Asia.
00:06:26.580 Yes.
00:06:27.300 And that was the completion of that disaster in a way.
00:06:30.520 I think you're right to recall us to the counterfactuals, like what are the alternatives
00:06:35.540 to American dominance of the continent?
00:06:37.960 I know, like if there is such a thing as a European question, as H.A.P.
00:06:41.400 Taylor puts it, who would you rather was answering that question, the Americans or the
00:06:45.640 Soviets, like we'd rather, or the Nazis, we would prefer the Americans to be contending with that
00:06:49.560 question in strict geopolitical terms. So, you know, maybe to some extent, given how history
00:06:55.180 worked out in the first half of the 20th century, some period of European vassalage to the US or
00:07:00.260 whoever else was inevitable. You just get to pick your senior partner. But I suppose what I'm
00:07:07.860 curious to understand is, it's one thing to be realistic about that, as you have just been,
00:07:12.220 but a strange feature of post-war moral discourse in Europe and in Britain, certainly,
00:07:16.880 more so in Britain, I would argue, than in Europe, is this peculiar sentimentality about this
00:07:20.580 vassalage. It's not treated as a kind of brute fact. It's treated as a sort of wonderful
00:07:25.780 deliverance. And I've just got a couple of examples here. It's so easily disprovable.
00:07:30.480 Both Harold Macmillan and Churchill were, of course, very sentimental about how,
00:07:36.740 oh, after the Second World War, it's not that we were losing to America. It's more that the
00:07:42.000 British spirit was entering this vigorous young body of the post-war American hegemon. But you
00:07:47.500 have FDR giving very favorable and least terms to the Soviets and not giving those to Britain,
00:07:51.920 which worsened our debt. You've got Eisenhower tanking the British pound during the Suez crisis.
00:07:55.900 You've got even Reagan blindsiding Thatcher over Grenada. There are so many examples of the
00:08:01.180 Americans not holding up their side of this so-called special relationship. And yet we seem
00:08:05.780 to hold to it like a crutch. It's not just a recognition of brute geopolitical realities.
00:08:10.320 Is it something about which our politicians go gooey in and weak-kneed?
00:08:14.360 It's a very effeminate, emotional way of dealing with reality.
00:08:24.180 It's a sort of abused spouse syndrome, abused wife syndrome.
00:08:28.980 Oh, no, he's only doing it because he loves me and that kind of thing.
00:08:32.980 Yes.
00:08:33.180 Whereas the reality of it is that the United States set out to absolutely destroy the independence of Europe and the power of Europe with malice, with conviction.
00:08:46.820 And the Suez was a great example of that because…
00:08:51.240 Tell people what that involved and tell them if they're not aware.
00:08:54.140 The Suez crisis basically, there was a bit of nastiness obviously on the part of the British and the French and the Israelis.
00:09:00.760 Of course.
00:09:00.960 And the three countries partnered together to take over the Suez Canal and make sure that it wasn't in the hands of Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser, who was working with the Soviets and was sort of closer to the Soviets at the time.
00:09:21.780 The three cooked up a scheme to take over the Suez Canal, and they did.
00:09:27.000 And the British took over the Suez Canal.
00:09:29.280 And at that moment, the Americans, instead of siding with the Europeans, sided with the Egyptians and with the Soviet Union.
00:09:37.980 And there were two communiques issued, one from Moscow, one from Washington, saying to France and Britain and Israel, you had better back down and give the Egyptians the Suez back, which was a huge humiliation.
00:09:52.700 And it meant that the Americans were saying to Britain and France that even jointly, you could not pursue your geopolitical interests independently.
00:10:03.260 Yes.
00:10:03.680 And the importance of it is obviously the Suez.
00:10:06.140 It's the main artery connecting the East and the West.
00:10:09.060 And therefore, it's critical to French trade and to British trade.
00:10:12.540 That's why the French and the British fought so much over the Suez.
00:10:14.920 Yep. But when they were of the same mind to retake it together and keep it away from Abdel Nasser and his Russian allies, the Americans actually turned against them. So that was an enormous slap in the face.
00:10:29.160 And also, I would say, just very quickly, extremely significant, given that we're talking here about, for people who don't know, about 1956.
00:10:34.600 Yes.
00:10:34.880 This is after George Kennan's famous memorandum about the need to contain the Soviet Union.
00:10:39.800 Yes.
00:10:39.980 So the containment doctrine was already in effect.
00:10:43.260 And the Soviets had pulled off their first successful nuclear test, I believe, in 49.
00:10:48.180 Yes.
00:10:48.760 And so it's incredible that the Americans sided with the Soviets against the British, the French, and the Israelis that early on in the Cold War.
00:10:55.660 Absolutely. Absolutely.
00:10:57.220 And that puts to rest the idea that the Americans, when exercising power, leave any space for sentimentality about their relationship with Britain.
00:11:08.400 Right.
00:11:08.640 But for British politicians, instead of facing that reality and saying that the answer has to be autonomous British power able to pursue its own interests regardless of what the Americans want, and a restoration of balance of power politics that would say, you know, Britain is looking to threats to her sovereignty, and that does include a united Europe, Russia dominating Europe, and America dominating Europe.
00:11:37.880 their response was a lot more emotional.
00:11:42.140 No, no, they really do love us and they really do care about us.
00:11:46.120 And when you hear from people in D.C. in decision-making circles
00:11:49.440 about how do the British behave as allies,
00:11:51.820 the answer is they're the best allies in the world
00:11:53.640 because all they ask the Americans is, what can we do to help?
00:11:58.500 Yeah, and arguably the only post-war figure with any character,
00:12:03.940 leading figure with any character in Europe on this point has been Charles de Gaulle,
00:12:08.080 who was a little bit more, well, much more guarded of France's interests than I think any
00:12:14.620 post-war British prime minister has been of Britain's. So the French took a completely
00:12:18.820 different approach. The French did learn their lesson from Suez. And the reason the French have
00:12:26.060 energy independence does come from that. The reason the French fight so fiercely when it comes to
00:12:32.720 farm subsidies for the French is because they understood that the only way they can be an
00:12:38.260 independent operator is to have energy autonomy, food security, and a fully autonomous military
00:12:46.300 industrial chain, a vertically integrated military supply chain. And so France produces her own jets,
00:12:53.920 France produces her own power, France has full food autonomy. They operate in a way that makes
00:13:02.400 sure that they aren't dependent on anyone. And French strategic thinking has been far more
00:13:09.020 realistic on that point than British strategic thinking. And it serves them well in every energy
00:13:16.060 crisis. And it means that they still have some power projection capabilities. Their technology
00:13:22.400 isn't that great. We saw French jets being defeated by Chinese jets in the Pakistan-India
00:13:29.660 kerfuffle last year. The French aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle leaves a lot to be desired,
00:13:37.280 but it does sail unlike some of the British ones. Right. How do you account for Britain's failure
00:13:43.780 to be realistic and succumbing to sort of a kind of post-war sentimentality on the
00:13:51.240 significance and depth of the special relationship? I think part of it has to do with the role of
00:13:56.580 London as a financial center deeply intertwined with New York, which meant that there were
00:14:03.120 special interests that didn't want some kind of political break because it would mean that these
00:14:08.420 financial interests would be damaged. I think that's one part of it. The other part of it is
00:14:12.960 pure emotion, as you say, that essentially the Americans are just British with a funny accent,
00:14:18.340 Which, it is true in many ways, but that isn't how the United States is governed.
00:14:27.880 The United States is not governed in a way that has a patrician's benevolent view of Europe.
00:14:38.700 It is governed in a far more cutthroat way, in a far more ruthless way, with zero regard.
00:14:45.800 If you were to take a Spanish monarch ruling over parts of Italy, he would have a far more
00:14:55.440 benevolent view towards the Italians than the ruling classes of the United States have
00:15:00.800 towards Britain or the rest of Europe.
00:15:03.860 They entertain this special relationship myth, but every president has to be told, look,
00:15:10.260 you've just got to say that there is a special relationship because you know, and it's really
00:15:15.000 important for them, and the prime minister wouldn't be happy if you didn't. Yes. No, I think
00:15:19.140 you're right that it has a lot to do with that sense of kinship, which is definitely real in
00:15:26.400 historical and cultural terms. There's no question about that. But from our side, it's a little bit
00:15:31.380 more, it has just a much higher emotional resonance. I mentioned Macmillan and Churchill
00:15:36.260 earlier. Obviously, you have Churchill's famous speech in Fulton, Missouri, in which he's basically
00:15:41.140 encouraging the Americans to pick up the baton of imperial leadership. And as I said earlier,
00:15:47.200 there is this hope that the somewhat exhausted British spirit would get a new lease on life by
00:15:53.020 entering this vigorous American hegemon post-war. And that's basically what Churchill wanted. It
00:15:57.760 probably didn't help that he had an American mother. And then as for Harold McMillan, younger
00:16:02.520 Harold McMillan in 1944, who obviously became prime minister later on, but in 1944, he was
00:16:08.780 involved in the war effort, primarily in North Africa. And he noted to Richard Crossman famously
00:16:13.800 in 1944, he was a classicist by training, Harold Macmillan, and he sort of brought that kind of
00:16:19.220 British public schoolboy classicism to it. He said, we are Greeks to the Romans in this American
00:16:28.080 empire. And it's vital that Britain acts as the base of operations for America's effort in Europe
00:16:33.500 in the same way that the Greek slaves were made use of under the Emperor Claudius. And he literally
00:16:38.680 He hilariously uses that analogy, and you think, go on, push that logic a little bit
00:16:43.540 further, then relations between the Greeks and the Romans weren't always so easy.
00:16:47.120 That wasn't an easy transition.
00:16:48.860 But he meant it quite sincerely from the context, it's clear.
00:16:52.780 Because there was a certain Christian benevolence that was assumed, which simply doesn't exist
00:17:02.660 in the way the United States actually conducts its politics.
00:17:05.420 and you've always had this left-wing influence in the United States
00:17:11.140 that's sort of been worming its way through the institutions
00:17:14.060 and getting to a point where instead of importing cultural pride from America
00:17:20.960 or borrowed cultural pride from America,
00:17:23.020 what was imported was DEI and hatred of the nation
00:17:27.940 and all of feminism and all of that nonsense
00:17:31.520 that ended up exploding in the United States, 1.00
00:17:35.620 first in the university system
00:17:36.900 and then throughout the rest of American culture.
00:17:40.240 So these aspects of American influence
00:17:44.780 have been quite nefarious
00:17:45.940 and they've spread all over Europe.
00:17:47.920 And they've contaminated all of European thinking.
00:17:52.040 Yes.
00:17:53.800 Combined with a very deep anti-Catholic sentiment,
00:17:56.400 which really doesn't do you very much good
00:17:58.520 if you're Spanish or Italian, for example,
00:18:00.940 or French. All of my Italian, Spanish, and right-wing friends. Oh, sorry, Italians. I only
00:18:06.880 have right-wing friends. All of my Spanish, Italian, and French right-wing friends think
00:18:11.420 ill to varying degrees of American influence in the world. And I think it has a lot to do with
00:18:15.400 what you're describing there. The cultural exports of the United States have been disastrous for
00:18:18.780 Europe. Yes. And the hostility to nationalism has been absolutely disastrous. Yes. And the way that
00:18:25.280 the Europeans have tried to fit into their own nations and immigration story simply to mimic that
00:18:33.800 of America has been purely destructive. Yeah. Let's talk about this though. So I think it's,
00:18:40.980 I want to be fair to the Americans a little bit and say, I do think that there was a struggle in
00:18:45.500 America over this before the victors in that struggle. Oh, the Americans lost their own
00:18:52.400 internal war yes on nationalism in the early 20th century i would say in the early 20th century and
00:18:57.520 then maximally in the civil rights movement that's definitely right but so to give some of the so i
00:19:01.100 mean you do have if you could read what congressmen were saying in defense of the 1924 immigration act
00:19:05.840 for instance at the time uh william vale would be a good example he was a republican congressman
00:19:10.040 perfectly inoffensive english chap um who said um you know that we want look we like the nation
00:19:15.340 how it is and we want to preserve it as an anglo-saxon commonwealth is how he describes
00:19:20.000 American identity. Had that kind of sentiment won, you would have had a very different outcome.
00:19:25.420 Indeed. And the 1924 Act did get passed. But by the time you get to the 40s and 50s,
00:19:32.180 I suppose the big book on this is Oscar Handlin's book, The Uprooted, which basically redefines
00:19:36.940 America as by its very essence, a creedal nation full of immigrants. As I say, it's called The
00:19:43.900 Uprooted. Terms like the American creed, people think those go back to the founding. They come
00:19:48.760 into widespread usage in the 1940s.
00:19:51.340 And by the time you get to the 65 Immigration Act,
00:19:53.760 the kind of propaganda has been set
00:19:56.200 for a revision of America.
00:19:57.860 Which was supposed to not change
00:19:58.820 the demographics of the United States.
00:20:00.280 Correct.
00:20:00.780 The promise of the Hart-Seller Act
00:20:02.440 was that it would not affect
00:20:04.680 the demographic composition of the United States.
00:20:06.820 It would still be overwhelmingly white,
00:20:09.220 et cetera, et cetera.
00:20:10.780 So this was sold under false pretences.
00:20:13.760 Emmanuel Seller said,
00:20:14.600 80% of immigration will be European.
00:20:16.680 That's a direct quotation.
00:20:17.580 and he was the chief sponsor in the House of Representatives.
00:20:20.600 Yeah.
00:20:21.080 And so I think that war was lost by Americans
00:20:24.440 before we became collateral damage in a way.
00:20:26.680 Exactly.
00:20:27.400 You would agree with that account of the history?
00:20:28.860 Yes, but as that war was being fought,
00:20:31.600 you still had the Suez intervention,
00:20:34.020 essentially on the Soviet side.
00:20:36.020 Yeah, this is true.
00:20:36.900 More or less on the Soviet side.
00:20:38.440 Yes.
00:20:39.340 And the consequences of that intervention
00:20:41.640 was the empowering of Abdel Nasser
00:20:44.620 and his various lunatic ideas.
00:20:49.080 And that then led to the overthrow
00:20:51.260 of various government systems
00:20:52.980 from Libya in 59 to Iraq to Syria
00:20:57.260 that all ended up sort of trying to emulate Nasr
00:21:00.820 based on the idea that this was the way forward.
00:21:04.180 So it wasn't just contained to strengthening
00:21:06.900 the Soviet Union in one particular moment.
00:21:09.820 It also gave the Soviet Union
00:21:11.780 a bunch of other Arab allies.
00:21:13.760 which are a direct result of that intervention.
00:21:21.580 So we have gone through the way in which the battle was first lost in America
00:21:26.900 and then we became collateral damage in that.
00:21:28.800 And I can hear people hoping aloud right now that,
00:21:31.800 well, maybe Americans are now going through a self-corrective process
00:21:36.360 and maybe we will be the beneficiaries of that.
00:21:38.520 And so I'll give you, just to set this up,
00:21:42.680 The question is, does America now, if not in 1956, want a strong Europe?
00:21:46.980 So in that context, what do you make of the State Department's paper recently
00:21:50.840 warning against civilizational erasure of Europe through replacement migration?
00:21:55.160 And how do you square this with the fact that more or less everything Trump does,
00:21:58.840 whether in Greenland or Iran, seems all but deliberately designed
00:22:02.340 to empower the very bureaucrats committed to euthanizing the continent?
00:22:06.680 So that's the real issue.
00:22:08.480 And I think part of the reality is the internal fighting within the administration between the people who believe the promises of Trump and the permanent state that seems to have taken control of the Trump administration.
00:22:24.020 And you constantly see this issue with the United States.
00:22:26.780 I wrote a piece a couple of years ago called President Irrelevant, with the argument being that you vote for Bush, Bush promising a more restrained foreign policy than Clinton, and you get Iraq and Afghanistan.
00:22:41.280 You vote for Obama, no more super Middle Eastern wars, you get Libya and Syria.
00:22:45.640 You vote for Trump, first four years, it goes well.
00:22:49.040 Biden comes in.
00:22:50.100 He tries to pull out of Afghanistan.
00:22:51.500 He's deliberately humiliated because the military planners knew that your last hold shouldn't be in Kabul International Airport.
00:22:59.760 It should be in Bagram.
00:23:00.960 They knew that.
00:23:02.020 Bagram Air Base.
00:23:02.660 Bagram Air Base.
00:23:03.480 Exactly.
00:23:04.300 And then you get Trump too.
00:23:05.760 And what you get in response is a war with Iran.
00:23:09.120 Right.
00:23:09.380 And so there is this capacity on the part of the American state to just subdue elected officials.
00:23:19.620 And when you see these contradictory signs between the national security strategy that came out in December 2025, which said Europe needs to hold its civilizational decline.
00:23:31.980 We need a strong Europe, independent weapons manufacturing, independent capabilities, the capacity to stand up to Russia on its own, etc., etc., etc., anti-immigration, what have you.
00:23:43.780 Then you get a Middle Eastern war that is all but guaranteed to trigger waves of additional immigration.
00:23:49.820 Yeah, exactly. And just for extra context here, you also at the same time have Trump, first president in a while, talking about America again as an Anglo-Saxon commonwealth.
00:24:00.060 He sounds like some, you know, he sounds like some, you know, senator with a top hat from the 1920s when speaking in those terms.
00:24:06.880 And so he is an Anglophile.
00:24:08.380 Yeah, he clearly is.
00:24:09.020 And so in his mother's Scottish, but so much is encouraging on this front.
00:24:11.560 But then, you know, you always need to watch what the hands are doing, not what the mouth is saying, I suppose.
00:24:17.100 Precisely.
00:24:17.620 Yes.
00:24:18.200 Because I think Trump concluded that if he doesn't just obey the permanent state, he will get killed.
00:24:28.340 Right.
00:24:29.380 You think that's his calculation?
00:24:30.800 I think that's part of his calculation.
00:24:32.100 And I think that he then decided, well, how can I just use this to make myself insanely rich and make my children insanely rich?
00:24:40.580 Because you're seeing a level of corruption coming out of the Trump administration that is genuinely impressive.
00:24:45.840 Does he not have enough money already?
00:24:50.200 There's always room for more.
00:24:52.020 I mean, if you have a few billion dollars, you don't have as much influence as Zuckerberg or Musk.
00:24:58.640 Right.
00:24:59.660 So you're reaching a stage where there is this competition to see who can be the biggest
00:25:07.020 croesus.
00:25:07.840 Billionaires are as prone to status anxiety as anyone else.
00:25:10.300 Exactly.
00:25:10.860 Right.
00:25:11.240 Exactly.
00:25:12.540 And so you see this effort at accumulating wealth through the various crypto stuff, through
00:25:20.040 the investments in companies involved in natural resource supply chains, through investments
00:25:26.340 in defense.
00:25:26.980 and you're thinking, hold on a second.
00:25:29.540 You're telling me that the president's portfolio
00:25:31.720 is making 60 trades a day?
00:25:35.640 But according to J.D. Vance,
00:25:37.800 Trump personally is not involved in this.
00:25:41.460 There's something off here.
00:25:42.840 Right, right, right.
00:25:43.780 There's something clearly off here.
00:25:45.440 Let's get to what Europe,
00:25:46.640 and when I say Europe, I'm always including Britain,
00:25:49.160 although we can talk about the extent
00:25:50.580 to which their interests really are merged,
00:25:52.760 do about this.
00:25:53.780 So again, as AJP Taylor's remarks,
00:25:56.680 which I quoted earlier, reflect, Europe was very much accustomed to balance of power politics
00:26:03.380 throughout the 19th century. But the crucial point, I suppose, is that it was played within Europe
00:26:07.420 rather than within the world as a whole, because Europe basically effectively was the center of
00:26:10.880 the world. Now that the world is so much smaller, should Europe regard herself as in some limited
00:26:17.560 sense, a single power navigating a third way between America and China? Or should foreign
00:26:22.940 policy, including Britain's, remain overwhelmingly national. I should throw in here, of course,
00:26:27.260 that Carl Schmitt, one of the things that he actually was working on, I believe after
00:26:31.720 denazification, he wasn't allowed to teach at universities anymore, but he did develop
00:26:38.980 in legal terms a sort of Monroe Doctrine for Europe. This was on his mind in the later
00:26:45.860 decades of his life. Where do you stand on these questions?
00:26:49.460 There are several things to think about here.
00:26:52.420 When you think about interests, you're also thinking about values.
00:26:55.320 Yes.
00:26:57.180 Because they do inform how you define your interests.
00:27:01.380 Yes.
00:27:04.220 If you look at the world today, the threats from any European capital are immigration, and especially Islamic immigration.
00:27:15.240 India and its propensity to export
00:27:18.860 and like human quantitative easing.
00:27:22.760 Deliberately, deliberately.
00:27:23.880 Yes, the Indian policy is
00:27:26.240 how can we get as many Indians as possible
00:27:29.200 into as many places as possible.
00:27:30.500 Living bridges, like Narendra Modi's on record.
00:27:32.700 Yeah, this is obvious.
00:27:35.040 China, which is trying to just become
00:27:38.840 the central power again
00:27:42.600 or the center of the world, essentially.
00:27:46.660 The Middle Kingdom, exactly the term that I was living for, yes.
00:27:49.760 Middle meaning the center of the world,
00:27:51.720 not moderate or anything of that sort.
00:27:56.200 And you've got the, as a result of the backing for Israel,
00:28:00.600 you've got the increased defense cooperation
00:28:03.200 between Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey.
00:28:06.660 With Turkey clearly making a bid
00:28:08.920 for domination of the entire Muslim world,
00:28:12.600 including the southern Mediterranean,
00:28:16.180 including Cyprus, including the Greek islands,
00:28:19.240 and in the future, obviously, the Balkans.
00:28:21.860 Yes, and indeed boasting about its diaspora in Berlin, too.
00:28:25.620 And boasting about its diaspora all over.
00:28:27.500 And if there was a call for jihad coming out of Istanbul,
00:28:33.080 you know that pretty much every Muslim in Europe
00:28:35.620 or 80% of Muslims in Europe would listen to it.
00:28:39.300 So there are these realities here
00:28:41.520 that have an intersection of values
00:28:44.700 because the values of Europe are fundamentally Christian
00:28:48.620 and that have a bunch of common threats.
00:28:53.820 The balance of power policy was a direct result
00:28:58.660 of all of the powers being immediate neighbors and similar.
00:29:03.860 In the 19th century, yes.
00:29:05.620 Obviously before that.
00:29:06.460 Obviously before that.
00:29:07.860 Yeah, yeah.
00:29:08.520 And the idea was that the only threat to Britain was Europe.
00:29:17.340 Today, this is no longer the case.
00:29:20.740 But the problem is that the EU is genuinely an enemy of everything good and decent.
00:29:26.720 Yes.
00:29:28.660 So you could faff about all you want about the importance of Christian unity,
00:29:32.280 and I am prone to do that as a Catholic, and I do believe that this should happen.
00:29:36.980 And I do believe in an alliance based on Christendom, absolutely.
00:29:41.840 But there is also reality.
00:29:43.600 And if you're a Catholic, you have to deal with reality as well.
00:29:46.700 So given that, let's talk here a little bit about Britain specifically.
00:29:51.880 Do you think that Britain should effectively chart its own path,
00:29:56.540 acting always as the late Alan Clarke used to put it?
00:29:59.360 He was once asked, what should Britain's post-war geopolitical posture be?
00:30:05.340 And he said, we should be like a boxer, always on the balls of our feet.
00:30:09.760 Or should Britain have a sort of set?
00:30:12.260 So there are certain things dictated by geography that aren't negotiable.
00:30:17.200 Of course, yes.
00:30:18.800 And that includes stopping Russia before it gets to Denmark, but not really far before then.
00:30:28.120 So, you know, Poland from a British perspective is negotiable.
00:30:34.360 so long as Germany is capable enough to check Russia
00:30:37.960 or so long as there is a border,
00:30:41.500 there is a central European power,
00:30:44.200 be it Austria, be it Germany, be it Poland,
00:30:46.640 be it Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, whatever it is,
00:30:50.700 that can put the brakes on Russian expansion.
00:30:53.800 And that can keep Russia constrained
00:30:56.560 because you don't want Russian fleets crossing the Danish Straits.
00:31:01.340 That's one priority.
00:31:02.540 There is a Greenland priority and an Iceland priority, which is securing the North Atlantic against both Russian and potential Chinese incursions.
00:31:12.100 There is the need to maintain an alliance with the United States.
00:31:16.080 As an Atlantic power, Britain is too small to go up against America.
00:31:20.640 And culturally, there's no reason.
00:31:22.900 There's enough common ground.
00:31:24.780 And then there's the security of the Southern Atlantic.
00:31:26.860 and thankfully other than you know there are no real southern atlantic powers but you could see
00:31:33.360 the importers of the falklands and the importers of south africa so there are these fixtures of
00:31:38.120 geography that are there that britain has to keep in mind and that does dictate a certain level of
00:31:44.840 naval power yep intended to deny access to the atlantic to hostile powers yep in partnership
00:31:51.820 with other European powers,
00:31:53.200 there's partnership with the United States.
00:31:55.380 There are commonalities there.
00:31:57.740 And you look at the map
00:31:58.880 and you see that Netherlands,
00:32:01.280 Norway, Denmark, Belgium,
00:32:05.220 these are very natural allies.
00:32:07.600 Portugal, very natural ally.
00:32:09.760 The oldest ally of Britain.
00:32:11.160 Since 1358, if I'm not mistaken.
00:32:12.620 Yes.
00:32:13.080 Yes.
00:32:13.880 Maybe that might be slightly wrong.
00:32:15.420 I think you're wrong on the date.
00:32:16.660 I don't think it's 58, but whatever.
00:32:18.260 It's definitely the 14th century.
00:32:19.740 Yes, exactly.
00:32:20.880 Exactly.
00:32:21.200 So these are sort of bits and pieces of alliances that are not changeable because they are dictated by geography.
00:32:28.280 Then there are other issues, such as the attempt by the EU to legally control everyone and to regulate everybody to death.
00:32:38.140 And there what you need is more patriotism in Europe that is opposed to this unpatriotic, overwhelming, overbearing, regulatory system.
00:32:49.900 And smothering Great Big Mother, really.
00:32:51.620 Yes, exactly.
00:32:52.620 Yes.
00:32:53.140 Exactly.
00:32:53.660 It is the longhouse.
00:32:54.660 It really is the longhouse.
00:32:56.940 So that has to be dealt with, and that has to be weakened.
00:32:59.440 And that means you're looking at Le Pen as an ally.
00:33:02.560 You're looking at Salvini as an ally.
00:33:05.820 You're looking at-
00:33:06.440 AFD, FPO in Austria.
00:33:08.660 Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
00:33:10.720 That's a wonderful sort of sketch of where you see Britain's geopolitical interests as
00:33:17.900 residing this century.
00:33:18.760 And of course, it's always a function of geography to some extent.
00:33:21.420 When I say Europe, I always mean the civilization of Europe.
00:33:25.660 If I mean the EU, I will say the EU.
00:33:28.060 So the question I suppose I would like to ask is, despite the fact that we have left the European Union,
00:33:33.460 how much of Britain's geostrategic interests this century do you see as overlapping with the fundamental interests of Europe as a civilization?
00:33:42.500 Well, the fundamental interests of Europe as a civilization are to secure the Mediterranean
00:33:46.460 and to have an accord with the Russians.
00:33:51.480 Russia is always going to be a power
00:33:53.160 and the Muslim threat through the Mediterranean
00:33:55.700 is always going to be there
00:33:56.900 and the migration threat through the Mediterranean
00:33:58.380 is always going to be there.
00:34:00.060 These are both things that are priorities for Britain.
00:34:04.120 These are both things that are extremely important for Britain.
00:34:08.160 And so there is this level of alignment there
00:34:11.480 but only with a sane and nationalist Europe.
00:34:14.020 And within that framework, if you look at things like trade and weapons manufacturing and things of that sort, you have to respect the French model of autonomy.
00:34:26.820 But you also have to look realistically and say, there isn't going to be a new Anglo-Franco war.
00:34:33.840 There's not going to be another war with France in our lifetimes.
00:34:38.540 There is room for military cooperation there.
00:34:41.400 There is room for trade cooperation there.
00:34:44.020 There is some room within Europe for the original conception of the European economic community.
00:34:51.200 The problem is that how do you stop that thing from going insane?
00:34:55.460 And becoming about, rather than sort of mutual recognition and getting along,
00:34:59.040 it becomes a sort of like rationalist, attempt at harmonization across the board.
00:35:05.460 And the rationalist instinct comes directly from their faithlessness.
00:35:08.980 it's a direct result of the fact that these are people who don't believe in god and and second
00:35:15.000 world war trauma which of course i imagine is linked which which is linked to it i mean one
00:35:19.940 of the big consequences the big falsehoods of the narratives of the world war one and world war two
00:35:25.020 um is is that this was christian europe no no this was europe setting aside christianity
00:35:33.920 to the extent that in the second and third and fourth years
00:35:39.560 of the First World War,
00:35:41.700 officers had to make sure that regular soldiers
00:35:44.660 didn't automatically break into automatic ceasefires
00:35:47.700 over Christmas, as had happened in 1914.
00:35:52.300 Christmas 1914, they all knew
00:35:56.040 that you were not going to murder each other on Christmas.
00:35:59.440 And spontaneous ceasefires broke out all over Europe.
00:36:02.600 and had that Christian sentiment been in any way respected,
00:36:07.240 the whole progress of the war would have been halted
00:36:10.060 and we would still have some of these European empires
00:36:13.580 rather than the imposed liberalism
00:36:18.200 that came from the Americans with Anglo-ideology.
00:36:23.220 Yes, yes.
00:36:25.540 Anglo-ideology shorn of its roots.
00:36:28.660 Because liberalism kind of works for the English,
00:36:31.900 but that's it.
00:36:34.380 Yes, no.
00:36:35.100 A certain level of liberalism works for the English
00:36:37.800 but it is not a fine cultural export.
00:36:40.320 Yes, I think as I once put it to Carl Benjamin himself
00:36:43.840 when he was on The Forge,
00:36:46.860 sort of liberalism is a description.
00:36:49.680 As a description of the peculiarity of the English soul,
00:36:52.700 it's not too bad
00:36:53.740 but as a sort of universal schema,
00:36:56.540 it leaves much to be desired.
00:36:58.760 You've mentioned Christianity.
00:36:59.900 Yes.
00:37:00.160 And I have a question to you on this one.
00:37:01.900 You are, of course, a Christian, and the West's Christian heritage may prove a pretty identifying marker in the clash of civilizations envisioned by Huntington, which is only likely to intensify in coming decades.
00:37:15.940 And is intensifying.
00:37:16.740 And is intensifying.
00:37:17.360 But naturally, to compete in this world, which is multipolar now, will require ditching what John Mearsheimer calls liberal dreams in favor of something like Palmerstonian realism, eternal interests, not eternal allies, and all the rest of it.
00:37:31.900 But this can sound a little bit amoral, and therefore, to some extent, anti-Christian.
00:37:37.480 The secular liberal, of course, believes in human rights, but the traditional Christian
00:37:40.920 probably holds to something like natural rights.
00:37:43.860 Can the moral dimension, here's the question, of Christianity be married to the obvious
00:37:48.840 need to pursue a pretty unsentimental and unflinching foreign policy realism this century?
00:37:54.880 I don't think I was just reading Enoch Powell on precisely these kinds of questions.
00:38:01.180 And he makes an exceptional case
00:38:03.500 that there is really no conflict between these things.
00:38:06.780 And obviously you can't go around
00:38:08.740 massacring entire cities Mongol style.
00:38:11.280 But there is nothing unchristian
00:38:12.800 about defending your core interests.
00:38:14.800 There is nothing unchristian about saying,
00:38:16.840 actually, no, asylum seekers aren't welcome,
00:38:20.320 not least because they're not real asylum seekers.
00:38:23.920 There is nothing Christian about
00:38:25.900 imposed charity by the state.
00:38:28.000 Charity is charity only if it's voluntary.
00:38:31.300 Welfare and taxation to fund welfare is inherently amoral.
00:38:37.420 You're just being compelled to do something.
00:38:39.220 You can't be held morally accountable for something that you're forced to do.
00:38:42.720 So the whole division there is a bit of a false one,
00:38:48.840 and especially false when you think about Christian natural law
00:38:51.140 and when you think about Christian philosophy,
00:38:53.760 which does have a place for nations.
00:38:57.320 the Pope does command you to be loyal to your nation
00:39:00.000 above other nations, not above God.
00:39:03.740 And so there has always been this correct order
00:39:06.420 of God first, country second.
00:39:12.140 And within that order,
00:39:13.860 when you are defending the interests of your country,
00:39:15.760 you're not doing anything immoral there.
00:39:18.020 Of course, you could pursue it in an immoral way.
00:39:20.820 You could go around murdering women and children for no reason.
00:39:25.800 That would obviously be immoral.
00:39:29.040 But to say I'm going to make sure that I can't be invaded
00:39:32.960 and that my enemies are weak, there's nothing immoral about that.
00:39:38.400 So what has happened is that basically Europe has been robbed of two things.
00:39:48.060 It's still operating on Christian sentiment.
00:39:51.800 It's still operating on Christian guilt,
00:39:53.800 which is why the whole human rights discourse
00:39:57.840 has any truck here
00:39:59.040 whereas it doesn't really have much traction
00:40:02.140 in a place like India
00:40:03.240 or in the Muslim world or what have you.
00:40:05.820 It doesn't really carry.
00:40:08.220 But it's also been,
00:40:10.020 it's really been robbed of Christ,
00:40:12.180 the celebration, the joy
00:40:13.960 that balances the guilt
00:40:16.040 and Christ the logos
00:40:18.900 that allows you to think clearly
00:40:21.560 because you are endowed with reason.
00:40:24.460 And it is only through reason that you can read the scriptures
00:40:29.520 and what they actually command you.
00:40:31.300 And this is why Christianity developed natural law
00:40:34.180 with a very systematized way of thinking about virtue and sin
00:40:39.300 that distinguished between, you know, killing an innocent
00:40:43.700 and killing an enemy combatant.
00:40:46.720 One is murder, one is obviously legitimate.
00:40:49.200 and so it doesn't help to say well he's an enemy combatant but he's living here on benefits
00:40:55.400 you're insane you've submitted to the enemy yes yes i think i think many people including
00:41:02.000 some christians it has to be said um basically view christ as a sort of first century a.d john
00:41:07.620 lennon yes and it's not quite how no it's not quite how that's obviously it's not how he presents
00:41:13.860 himself. It's not how he's presented in
00:41:15.680 Revelations. It's definitely not
00:41:17.880 how Christians throughout history
00:41:19.820 understood Christ.
00:41:23.940 Hilaire Belloc goes on about
00:41:25.740 how Catholicism
00:41:28.320 is at its best
00:41:29.840 with its sword in its hand.
00:41:32.680 Because there is
00:41:33.940 this necessity
00:41:34.820 to be able to fight, to be able
00:41:37.780 to wage war.
00:41:39.380 And as a Christian ruler,
00:41:42.380 you are supposed
00:41:43.640 to exercise certain virtues.
00:41:46.000 They include prudence and justice.
00:41:50.180 And within prudence, you have to know what an enemy is.
00:41:54.060 And within justice, you have to deliver to the enemy
00:41:56.780 what he's about to deliver to you.
00:41:59.540 You still act within moral restraints
00:42:02.220 that are commanded by Christianity,
00:42:05.300 including the regard for the individual
00:42:07.140 and the regard for the innocent, of course.
00:42:10.420 That doesn't take away your duty to act as a king
00:42:13.180 and to defend yourself.
00:42:15.080 I think the,
00:42:15.500 the Haleh Belloc you're talking,
00:42:16.860 just for viewers
00:42:17.280 who may be interested,
00:42:18.000 I think that's in,
00:42:18.660 is that in Europe and the faith?
00:42:19.980 Yes, that's in Europe and the faith.
00:42:21.060 That he speaks in those terms.
00:42:21.540 And out of interest,
00:42:22.060 this is a question that I'm asking
00:42:23.260 and I'm sure viewers
00:42:23.960 will be interested too.
00:42:24.860 What have you been reading
00:42:25.780 of Enoch Powell's
00:42:26.760 that tries to tackle
00:42:27.600 some of these questions?
00:42:28.560 I'm sure people would love to.
00:42:29.540 Wrestling with the Angel.
00:42:30.660 Wrestling with the Angel.
00:42:31.400 A very kind viewer
00:42:32.580 mailed it to me.
00:42:33.880 Oh, great.
00:42:34.480 And I'm about to,
00:42:36.540 it's an exceptional book.
00:42:37.940 It's a really good book.
00:42:38.840 Very good.
00:42:39.800 Powell's thinking on Christianity
00:42:41.040 is,
00:42:41.720 I know that in some of his
00:42:44.140 later stuff he might have become a bit more
00:42:46.220 heretical than I'd like and
00:42:48.260 you probably know my views on Anglicanism
00:42:50.480 yes
00:42:51.040 but he is the
00:42:54.300 peak of
00:42:56.380 proper Anglican thinking I would say
00:42:58.380 and he's absolutely exceptional
00:43:00.300 well it helps when you're proficient in
00:43:02.380 13 languages
00:43:03.140 including Hebrew
00:43:05.040 it's just a tight
00:43:07.300 the man is so erudite
00:43:10.000 it's genuinely
00:43:11.020 the best prime minister that Britain never had.
00:43:15.520 I could not possibly agree more with that. Now, I will ask you one more question,
00:43:20.200 Ferris. This has been very interesting. Let's say it is the year 2100. Europe is as self-respecting
00:43:28.100 and influential in relative terms, or maybe absolute terms, as it was in, say, let's just
00:43:33.340 say, 1913. What do the next 75 years need to look like for that to be a plausible scenario?
00:43:43.400 There's a couple of basics that never change, which are basically energy and food.
00:43:51.580 There are these elementary things that never change. You can't have prosperity without energy
00:43:57.760 abundance. And food abundance is one of the consequences of energy abundance. Be it in the
00:44:06.060 age of plowing with bulls, or the modern age of chemical fertilizers derived from hydrocarbons.
00:44:15.180 These things aren't changing in their very nature. So the first thing that needs to happen
00:44:22.220 is just unleash drilling in the North Sea,
00:44:26.720 unleash coal, build nuclear,
00:44:30.620 stabilize your energy production,
00:44:32.920 and keep on increasing it
00:44:35.000 to aim to be the highest per capita energy consumer in the world.
00:44:40.600 The more energy you're converting,
00:44:43.680 the more it is that you're producing.
00:44:46.860 And that should always be the objective.
00:44:50.020 That should always be the objective.
00:44:52.220 But you're not going to get good government without love.
00:44:57.360 And the fundamental problem is that the European leadership
00:45:00.960 and the British leadership and the American leadership
00:45:03.400 have nothing but contempt for their people.
00:45:06.760 You could see that Enoch Powell loved his constituents
00:45:09.640 because he thought that it was his duty to represent their views accurately,
00:45:13.940 including in the rivers of blood speech.
00:45:15.820 that was him knowing his duty to love his constituents and to represent their views
00:45:24.320 accurately he didn't phrase it this way but you could always see that this is what was it
00:45:29.320 this was what was underneath it whereas today's european leaders are all about how do we take
00:45:35.780 away more power from our people and deliver it to the world economic forum and you see that
00:45:43.000 in the Epstein files in the emails about Macron,
00:45:48.420 where he's coordinating with the World Economic Forum
00:45:51.920 and just implementing their agenda.
00:45:54.100 And this is being communicated to Epstein.
00:45:56.420 Like you see it now.
00:45:58.540 It's no longer a conspiracy theory.
00:46:00.920 It has facts and evidence and documents backing it up.
00:46:05.900 And why would you think that your people's expression
00:46:09.520 on social media is a fundamental problem
00:46:12.320 that you have to address because you hate them.
00:46:14.940 You don't think that they should be allowed to speak.
00:46:17.060 You don't want, you're not interested in listening to them.
00:46:19.800 The most generous thing that I could do to you
00:46:22.040 if you and I disagree is to articulate your views
00:46:25.660 in the best way that I can and then deal with them
00:46:30.000 on their merits.
00:46:32.460 That would be, if we were enemies, and thank God we're not,
00:46:36.040 that would be me loving my enemy.
00:46:38.340 To take his views seriously.
00:46:39.760 That would be me seeing the beam in my eye before I see the mote in your eye.
00:46:45.840 That would be a proper application of Christianity.
00:46:50.740 Without Christianity, you end up essentially with a case system.
00:46:54.400 And the one feature of the case system is the absolute disdain
00:46:58.940 that people of the uppercase have towards people of the lowercase.
00:47:04.420 That's the one feature of India.
00:47:06.200 The Brahmins have utter contempt for everybody underneath them.
00:47:09.760 And down the chain it goes.
00:47:13.520 That's what you get without Christian love.
00:47:16.780 And in Europe, we've weirdly ended up with a case system.
00:47:22.380 Yes.
00:47:23.080 So I suppose if we had to sum it up, what you're saying Britain needs is sort of nationalism with respect to demographics, pragmatism with respect to energy resources, realism abroad, all tempered by a renewal of Christian charity.
00:47:39.760 I would argue that Christianity is the starting condition to genuine restoration.
00:47:48.180 Because what are you restoring Britain for?
00:47:53.520 You're restoring it because you love your people.
00:47:58.020 Where does that love come from?
00:48:00.700 It is ordained by God and it is what defines your people is Christianity.
00:48:06.840 Nobody in Britain, for all of the pretensions of the pagans,
00:48:13.020 nobody's actually operating on Viking morality here.
00:48:17.160 Nobody's thinking in terms of Viking morality.
00:48:20.000 And let's just get past that nonsense.
00:48:22.780 People are thinking in terms of Christian morality
00:48:25.060 because this is what they've been reared to do for generations now.
00:48:32.340 And it's built in.
00:48:33.760 And if you doubt that it's built in,
00:48:35.180 Go to a place like Egypt and Lebanon, see the difference between the Christian communities and the Muslim communities.
00:48:40.580 They are very stark and very real.
00:48:43.840 Not to say that there aren't bad Christians or good Muslims.
00:48:47.720 This isn't the point.
00:48:49.140 The point is they are genuinely different because they've been shaped differently.
00:48:55.020 And so the precondition is actually a spiritual one.
00:48:58.520 And this is what nobody wants to talk about.
00:49:01.060 that you need a spiritual renewal
00:49:03.460 to justify your material renewal
00:49:06.160 because you're not doing it for mammon.
00:49:10.860 You're doing it because you see yourself
00:49:13.740 in a web of loving relationships
00:49:15.300 with your community.
00:49:18.000 And what animates the morality
00:49:20.480 in which this love is expressed
00:49:22.400 is Christianity.
00:49:24.460 And so I would say that faith
00:49:26.840 is a precondition for actual renewal.
00:49:30.300 And look at Turkey.
00:49:31.540 Look at what Erdogan has managed to do with Turkey.
00:49:34.440 Turkey for 70 years was ruled by a bunch of secular atheists, essentially.
00:49:41.420 Yes.
00:49:42.980 Erdogan takes over as someone who loves Islam.
00:49:46.260 Yes, the Turkish currency is collapsing again, but it's always collapsing.
00:49:49.420 And it's been collapsing since the Ottoman times.
00:49:51.680 This is not new.
00:49:53.140 What is new is the level of industrial output in Turkey
00:49:56.780 and the fact that Turkish weapons are competitive on a world market
00:50:00.720 and the fact that Turkey is becoming the business leader of the Muslim world, etc., etc.
00:50:07.420 So you have to govern people in accordance with their...
00:50:12.720 Spiritual inheritance.
00:50:14.220 Thank you.
00:50:16.300 Yes.
00:50:17.440 Firas Mauder, thank you.
00:50:18.900 My pleasure. Thank you.