My Chat with Douglas Murray (The Saad Truth with Dr. Saad_691)
Episode Stats
Length
1 hour and 5 minutes
Words per Minute
181.0064
Summary
In this episode of Gatsat for the Sad Truth, I sit down with Douglas Murray to discuss his new book, Islamophilia, and to discuss the phenomenon of "Islamophilia" in the modern world, and how it relates to the anti-Islamic propaganda promoted by some of the world's most powerful men.
Transcript
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Hi, everybody. This is Gatsat for the Sad Truth.
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Finally, Douglas Murray and I meet. Many of you, I know
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I've been looking forward to this. I know that I've been looking forward to it. Before I cede the
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floor to Douglas, I'd like to briefly introduce him. He is an associate editor at the
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Spectator, associate director of the Henry Jackson Society, and he's written several books
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including Bozzi, a biography of Lord Alfred Douglas,
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Bloody Sunday, Truth, Lies, and the Savi Inquiry, and Islamophilia,
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Very good. Very good to be with you. Thank you so much. So I thought we would
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start with this brilliant word, Islamophilia, because I think it
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that I refer to as ostrich parasitic syndrome. Now, we know that ostriches
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don't literally bury their heads in the sand, but it's
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otherwise as clear as the existence of gravity. And I
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ostrich parasitic syndrome. So maybe you could start
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this affliction? And we can take it from there.
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my book on Islamophilia, it's not actually currently
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versions of the same thing. Australia, perfectly
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being in a particular country is not being able
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mean, you hear this a lot at the moment, people
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actual understanding of what's going on. People
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true that in East London, a few years ago now, a
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gang of, of very radical Muslims associated with the
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now imprisoned Anjem Chowdhury were going around a
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small part of East London with a self-proclaimed
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Sharia patrol. You know, don't drink beer in this
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understandably, not only went into the British press, but
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worldwide. Um, but often less, uh, followed up on is the
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fact that those, those men, uh, uh, were in prison. They
00:12:01.000
were convicted, uh, on the public order act for, uh, for
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that. And, um, I mean, actually something quite similar just
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happened in Germany. Although the, the, the, uh, people who,
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who carried out that so-called Sharia patrol seem to have got
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off in, I think the last 24 hours, but, but, uh, these things
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happen and they are very, very worrying signs, but I sort of
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always urge people don't, don't just pick up the worrying bit
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and ignore when the state actually answers something because
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otherwise, apart from anything else, one has no, uh, ability to
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recognize when the state has also failed. So Rotherham, an
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example you gave the Rotherham, uh, grooming scandals, sex gang
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scandals was a, was a huge, I mean, it was, it was like watching
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a, uh, um, cutting down a tree and reading through the rings of,
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uh, of, uh, the growth of a society, um, and its wellbeing,
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you know, that scandal took years to come out, uh, saw hundreds
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of, uh, young girls, uh, raped and abused by organized gangs
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of, uh, Muslim men. You have to use, no, no, you have to use
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the euphemism, Asian men, Asian men. Yes, of course. Well, that was
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one of the things, one of the euphemisms was Asian, but quite
00:13:16.860
rightly, I mean, you know, Chinese people and others didn't, didn't
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appreciate that. But, but, um, the reason I say it's like, like a
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cross-section of a society was that, as we now know from the official
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report into that, you know, the, the, the local police were terrified of
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identifying this problem and indeed even of investigating it. And
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similar cases came up, uh, across the country and Oxfordshire, for
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instance, a very similar case just a few years ago, the bullfinch
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case. And, uh, it's the same story you see elsewhere. I mean, I can't
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help thinking that the, the, the, the similarities with what happened in
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Cologne on new year's Eve last year, uh, and not just because of the
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attacks or because of the identity of the attackers, but because of
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the, the immediate instinct of the police to cover over what, what had
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happened to, to try not to identify it because identifying it was scarier
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than actually dealing with it. And that, that points to, um, to a
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pathology in our own societies, I'd say, but the same things happen in
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Sweden, the same things happen in other, other countries. It's, it's, it's
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that fear and it is a very understandable thing on one level. Uh, um, and yet this
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understandable fear of, you know, of, of, of, um, you know, generalizing about
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people's or tarring a whole community or a whole set of communities with, with
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this sort of crime actually meant that, that, that men got away with, with rape.
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And, um, I, I think there are, there are things in all of these stories that we can
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do very little about, and there are things we can do a lot about and, and we
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can do a lot about making sure that civil society and the arms of the state, like
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the police are not so browbeaten, uh, that they just can't even investigate the
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Well, I mean, it, my original point about ostrich parasitic syndrome, I mean, is
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really apt here because it demonstrates how this is really a battle of ideas. I
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mean, you know, as you probably know, there are many Islamic thinkers and Islamic
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leaders who've argued that the way that we, and now I'm speaking as one of them, we
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are going to conquer and defeat the West is through three ways, through using your
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miserable freedoms against you, through the womb of our women, right? Through
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demographic realities, through fertility rate differences, and then through
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Hijrah, through, through immigration, right? So these sort of three pronged attacks
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are already dangerous, but then you add to that the cocktail of delusional thinking of
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parasitized brains that are unable to even, uh, instigate a survival instinct to protect
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their, their values. Now you've got the perfect storm for what we're seeing in the
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West, right? I mean, typically throughout evolutionary history, you've got one group
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of men that want to get to the women of the other group of men. And the thing that's
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stopping them is that this other group of men are not very keen on giving up their
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women. And therefore we've got, we've got this evolutionary battle that ensures
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that we will both go out fighting. What's happening in the West is that through
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this, uh, parasitized way of thinking, we are allowing our own demise. We're walking
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to the abyss of infinite darkness. How do we inoculate people against this endless
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Well, there's no one or any easy answer to that. Um, but let me, let me
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go back a second on what one point you made about what you, what you, you termed
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the hijra of the, uh, um, um, mass migration. Um, this is a really, to my mind, I've just
00:17:00.720
finished a book that does come out in the spring on this, which will be announced
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shortly on the migration issues of recent years in Europe in particular. And I'm
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totally obsessed with this issue because, uh, um, I think that there are
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misunderstandings about it on all sides. And one is that this is in any way an
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organized movement, uh, that is organized from where people are leaving from all
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that it's organized from the countries that are accepting people. And in actual
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fact, to look over the post-war up to the present migration into Europe in
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particular is just a catalog of, uh, mistakes of, uh, failed ideas of failed
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politicians of weakness. It was after all Churchill, when he returned, uh, in
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1950s as prime minister, who oversaw the real beginnings of mass immigration into
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the UK. And he was a tired premier at the time. And so there's, there's a lot of
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just human failing in this. And, uh, you know, that gets worse and worse as the,
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the demographics change and it becomes harder and harder to, to address these
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questions. But as I say, it's, it's an example of a really important part of this.
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But if one thinks that it's a plot or an organized movement, I think one misses an
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ability to get to an answer on it because the explanation is wrong. Um, and, uh, and so,
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you know, to come up with answers to this one has to, has to go right back to the
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sheer range of reasons why such things have gone on. And, uh, you know, I mean,
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at a very, very basic level, I'd say that goes from instinctive inherited guilt and,
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uh, a conscience in the West, a sense of history, uh, a sense of liberal, uh, um, um,
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humanitarianism, um, a sense of tiredness, a sense of civilizational ennui,
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and a whole set of other things. Um, none of which are able to be solved easily in part
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because they are actually virtues. I mean, this is one of the, the problems we always
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come to, you know, why is, why is the West so, um, hung, hung over with, with guilt?
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Well, partly it's because we know about history and our own history and who would, who would
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actually regret that, you know, we wouldn't want to become people who didn't remember history.
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Um, so, uh, um, I just think that the thing one can do is to get the thinking correct at any rate.
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I mean, that's, that's why it's worth writing and worth speaking and worth debating these days
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is to try to try to get the thinking correct, not just the, the analysis, but, but, uh, you know,
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and I, and I think increasingly these days that, that there's a lot of, um, of weird sort of party
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line and, you know, very rigid doctrinal thinking on things, which, which isn't needed. I mean,
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there's a, these things are very, very complex, but the fact that they're complex doesn't mean
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So in my next book, uh, if I can plug my own book, uh, I will be on your own podcast.
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What's the point? Exactly. Uh, so, uh, right now the tentative title is, uh, death of the West
00:20:06.580
by a thousand cuts, right? The idea is that every, you know, every small cut is not fatal,
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but then add them together, then you die. And so in this book, I will hopefully answer
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the question that I pose to you, namely, what are all the constellation of forces that have
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led us to be in this state that we're at? Um, so, so I guess one of the things you, you said,
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you know, uh, hijra and immigration is something that's important to you. And we, we need to
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understand the mechanism to be able to offer solutions. So what would be a solution? So I've
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often argued that, look, uh, I am an immigrant. I escaped. You may or may not know my personal
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history. We, my family are, we're Lebanese Jews who escaped the brutality of the Lebanese
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civil war. And so I'm, uh, you know, perfectly, uh, clear about the need for us to be humane
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and open our doors for people who are fleeing terrible position. I mean, right. I, I come
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from that reality, but on the other hand, I also recognize that not all, uh, people who
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might wish to come to your home as a visitor or as a permanent, uh, house member, uh, are going
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to be equally likely to share your values, equally likely to integrate and to assimilate.
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And so somewhere between let's shut the border to everybody and let's open the border to everybody
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is where nuanced thinking people live. And so how do we strike that balance? How do we
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Well, it's a, it's a very, very important question. The key question. Um, uh, the, the first
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thing is, as the old Irish joke, I mean, I mean, we wouldn't start from here. The question
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you've just asked is the question we should have been asking for decades. And it's one
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of the biggest tragedies I think for our societies that it's only now when it might be too late
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that we are asking the questions we should have asked before day one. I mean, let me just
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give an example. We've been absolutely confused in Europe in particular about what it was that
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immigration meant. Did we want the people who came to become like us or did we want them
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to be as they were in our countries? And we didn't know. And politicians from right and
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left simultaneously and often the same person contradicted themselves on this. On the one
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hand, if you ask people to give up any part of their own identity and become like us, this
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was colonialist thinking or supremacist thinking or, or, or, or something else. And, uh, and
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if we, if we said that they could retain their own culture, then it led to all sorts of problems,
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which we've all known about for many years. But you know, it's only in the last few years
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that it's become politically acceptable to say, for instance, that if people come to our countries,
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they should know the language or learn the language. It's an amazing thing. After several generations,
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uh, of immigration to, to say, actually, we'd like you to be able to speak our language and,
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um, when they take, let me give you another one. It's a bit of a, a course one, but, but,
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um, let's take the example of female genital mutilation, a famous case. It's a lot of publicity
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these days. I remember when it was very hard to, uh, uh, criticize FGM in countries like mine,
00:23:21.740
but, uh, um, this now has almost total political unanimity of opposition to it. And, uh, from left
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to right, labor party, conservatives, main tabloids, and the main broadsheets all agree.
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We, we don't like FGM in Britain. There was a law passed three decades ago about FGM. Uh, um, but to
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date, not one successful prosecution has occurred of somebody who, for, for carrying out or facilitating
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FGM in the UK. And that's despite more than a hundred thousand women in the UK having undergone
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this barbaric procedure. And you see the, the reason I give this example is because try to think
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of something that ought to be an easier battle to win than an opposition to people in 21st century
00:24:08.440
Europe, taking a knife to the genitals of a young girl in order to deprive her of sexual pleasure
00:24:15.420
at a later age. I mean, that, that, that you've got, you should have everybody in that from day
00:24:20.380
one opposing that from feminists on the farthest left to, uh, you know, your crustiest sort of right
00:24:26.620
wing, uh, uh, colonel to use the old, uh, um, cliche, but, but despite that, it took years and years
00:24:33.980
and years to get any political unanimity and it still led to no action. Well, that, that, that more,
00:24:39.840
I'm sorry, go ahead, go ahead, finish your lap. No, no, so I mean, I just, that augers incredibly ill
00:24:44.940
for the years ahead because I mean, what about the harder things? I mean, no wonder we're struggling
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with things like Sharia courts and Sharia councils when, when we, you know, we're only just there on
00:24:54.820
agreeing that you shouldn't mutilate young girls' genitalia. Right. Well, I mean, that moral blindness
00:24:59.820
stems, and I think you're aware of this, but maybe some of our viewers might not be, it stems really
00:25:05.060
from sort of a two-pronged monster, uh, related monsters, uh, cultural relativism, right? I mean,
00:25:11.080
who are we to judge the practices and, and ethical systems of others? And then associated to that is
00:25:16.880
the political philosophy of multiculturalism, which of course, the granddaddy of this movement,
00:25:22.560
at least in Canada is the dad of our current castrato in chief hair boy, Justin Trudeau,
00:25:28.580
snowboarder, Justin Trudeau, uh, who, by the way, when he was sitting in parliament,
00:25:33.160
this is before he became prime minister, uh, somebody had spoken about many of these practices,
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uh, you know, honor killings and child brides and, uh, female genital mutilations and had described
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them using, I think the word barbaric. And, uh, the castrato in chief was unbelievably upset
00:25:51.320
that we would use such an offensive word, right? So he wasn't offended or upset by the practices,
00:25:57.420
rather he was offended that we would label these as, uh, barbaric. Then later he tried to,
00:26:03.320
of course, temper that position when he realized that people were upset by his position. So,
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so the fact that somebody could, could, could even need to be taught what is the correct position,
00:26:14.460
that it's okay to call it barbaric is a real problem, right?
00:26:18.380
But absolutely. But I mean, and, and, and I couldn't agree more, but they go back to the,
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the, the, um, the initial point I made that, that, that, that we didn't think any of this
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through. And one sees why we're in this mess again. I mean, there are people who think that,
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you know, all this is happening because somebody planned it or it was all, it just,
00:26:36.160
nobody thought about this. You could see this. If you look through any Western countries' views
00:26:40.880
on immigration, um, nobody expected it to happen in her 2010 speech, uh, um, that was called the
00:26:48.520
multiculturalism has failed or the multiculturality has failed, um, speech. Angela Merkel said, you know,
00:26:54.460
we've got to admit what we didn't expect to happen. And she said then in 2010, we thought the guest
00:27:00.360
workers, the people who came to Germany, uh, from the fifties onwards, we thought that they would go
00:27:05.920
home. Now, I mean, you know, that's a, it's a terribly big mistake to make, um, to import hundreds
00:27:14.360
of thousands of people under the assumption that they were going to come for a brief time and then
00:27:19.160
go back to Turkey or Morocco or wherever. Uh, um, and it did took decades to admit that we were wrong in
00:27:26.360
that expectation. And, and every single step of that way, uh, um, our political leaders, as I say, I don't
00:27:33.240
think through particularly nefarious reasons or anything, but through incompetence and blind optimism.
00:27:40.140
And I think, by the way, as the philosopher Roger Scruton often says, people, people forget the
00:27:44.520
enormous damage that can be done by optimists. Um, um, they, because of all of these things, they just
00:27:51.120
didn't think it through. And we're left now, Justin Trudeau is left, uh, and everyone else is left
00:27:55.680
trying to work a way through this. And, um, there is no easy answer to it because they've just set us up
00:28:01.720
with this huge conundrum. We're asking questions long after the facts have happened, but not
00:28:08.120
withstanding the fact that people might be rosy thinkers and optimists, as you said, I mean,
00:28:12.480
you'd like to think that these folks ultimately, well, they're not all Isaac Newton and Charles
00:28:17.580
Darwin. They have sufficiently functioning brains that they're able to react to incoming information
00:28:24.360
that is again, as clear as the existence of gravity. So someone like Merkel, who, as you said,
00:28:29.880
gave that speech in 2010 and then moved down a trajectory. And now she's pretty much still
00:28:35.500
doubling down on some, on some of her positions. So, I mean, is it just the ugly manifestation of
00:28:40.660
one of the seven deadly sins of pride, which is, I will never admit to being wrong. Is that simply,
00:28:46.280
could that be the answer that explains why someone is so impervious to any environmental input that
00:28:53.060
should otherwise alter your thinking? What's going on? What, what, why are they not reacting to what
00:28:58.220
they're seeing in the trenches? It must, it must have something to do with that, uh, the pride issue
00:29:03.300
on an individual level. Um, and I mean, when you made a mistake as big as the one, I think Angela
00:29:09.640
Merkel made in 2015, you know, you can't suddenly in 2016 or 2017 say, oops, you know, um, one can't
00:29:17.460
expect her to, um, but there's a whole set of things really here because, uh, um, if you take
00:29:23.540
any of these really large, uh, um, uh, questions like demographics and immigration and so on, I think
00:29:30.520
the most obvious explanation is that it is just enormously tempting to leave it to your successors
00:29:36.480
to deal with. Um, this has been the case I think throughout the decades of mass immigration is
00:29:42.260
that, uh, um, it's just, it's such a big issue and there are issues like this in politics where
00:29:48.180
everyone puts them aside or delays them, kicks them into the long grass because the issue is just too
00:29:56.020
big for an individual to deal with certainly during this parliament or during this, you know,
00:30:01.580
presidential cycle or whatever. So they just, they just put it off for successors to deal with. And,
00:30:07.620
and I, what's so wicked about that of course, is that it just gets harder and harder and less and
00:30:12.160
less likely that any successor is going to be able to deal with that in a decent way. And that's one of
00:30:17.240
my big fears at the moment is that the left and the right, the whole political mainstream just has kept
00:30:23.120
on failing. And now is surprised that people with some times quite radical, uh, and sometimes quite
00:30:30.700
unpleasant answers and often very unpleasant backgrounds or from very unpleasant movements
00:30:35.920
are, um, are doing so well. And you think, well, if the mainstream hand have mucked up so badly and
00:30:42.840
so visibly for so many years, you know, things would be different, but, um, but, but you did,
00:30:47.440
you mucked up. Right. So are you including amongst examples of those people, uh, president elect Donald
00:30:54.360
Trump as somebody who has bad ideas and so on, or what's your views on his election, both
00:31:00.520
in terms of the forces that led to him being elected. And what's your personal view? Would
00:31:04.360
you, I mean, did you prefer him to Clinton or what, what's the situation?
00:31:08.400
Well, um, I wouldn't particularly include him that, I mean, um, there are things I would
00:31:12.980
agree with, uh, uh, uh, uh, that he has said, and there's things I very much disagree with.
00:31:17.740
I mean, I'm not, uh, I don't have to be a supporter of anyone, let alone being a British
00:31:23.220
citizen, um, um, or a subject, I should say, uh, but, uh, look, I mean, the thing with,
00:31:29.940
the thing with Trump is that, I mean, he's not my, he's not my ideal president. Um, uh, he's,
00:31:36.680
uh, I wrote about him in the course of the campaign little in for, you know, for my taste,
00:31:40.460
I have found that the coarsening of the American political debate, which the left had, had, uh,
00:31:45.420
set running, but which I'd wish that the Republicans hand have also fallen into just,
00:31:50.900
it isn't particularly to my taste. Um, um, as I say, I don't have to endorse it. It wouldn't
00:31:56.100
matter if I did any particular candidate, but, uh, uh, you know, my own view is that having
00:32:01.040
expected, I think like a lot of people having expected Hillary Clinton to win, um, at least
00:32:06.800
the next four years, aren't going to be boring, uh, which they certainly were going to be, uh,
00:32:11.860
under her. We knew exactly what we were going to get with her. And, uh, we don't quite know
00:32:17.000
what we're going to get with president elect Trump. Um, I mean, my own view is broadly speaking,
00:32:23.280
he he's acted as a sort of corrective force in some way. Um, whether it's a correction
00:32:29.240
to the good or not, I don't know. I mean, I find myself, uh, in the very strange position
00:32:34.040
of feeling terribly sort of middle of the road, wet, uh, um, compared to some of the things
00:32:40.360
that, that certainly on the campaign trail, uh, Donald Trump, uh, suggested, um, and I
00:32:46.140
suppose we'll, we'll see what he does on some of them. But, but, but I certainly, I tell you
00:32:50.200
one thing that does strike me on this is that, um, it's a lot of people have said this, but
00:32:54.460
it does seem really clear now that, I mean, that, that era of name calling that people tried
00:33:01.820
on him and they tried on other people during the Brexit, um, you know, referendum and others
00:33:08.120
sort of isn't working. And whatever else one feels about Trump or Clinton or the recent
00:33:13.140
election, I think it's only to be celebrated that the people who threw every imaginable
00:33:19.780
insult of every type of phobia and misogyny and homophobia and Islamophobia, racism and everything
00:33:26.480
else, um, have just lost again, because those people really had it coming. And I was so moved
00:33:34.240
when I saw, saw Bill Mayer, uh, a few days before the election on his show in the U S saying, you
00:33:40.440
know, look, we said Romney was a misogynist, uh, uh, racist and, uh, he wasn't, we cried wolf.
00:33:46.180
And we said the same thing about John, John McCain. And actually he's a decent guy and we shouldn't
00:33:50.720
have said that, but this one really is a misogynist, racist, homophobic, Islamophobic, et cetera,
00:33:55.040
et cetera. And he's also a fascist. Well, you know, we'll see. Uh, and I don't think he's any
00:34:04.840
of those things. And it just so striking that the people who did all the calling must have at least
00:34:11.300
started to realize maybe, maybe we can't do that anymore. Maybe it doesn't work. Maybe people see
00:34:16.240
through it and that it is a great relief if they do. Right. Here's some anecdotal evidence. And I
00:34:20.160
actually tweeted about this, uh, I think maybe yesterday. Uh, I basically said it's been two
00:34:25.140
weeks since Trump's victory, number of full liberals who have engaged in, uh, introspection
00:34:32.020
zero. Uh, and, and, and the, the reason why I tweeted this is because I see it on my personal
00:34:39.100
Facebook page where a lot of my academic colleagues, you would expect them to have thought that Hillary
00:34:45.060
Clinton is wonderful. And, and Donald Trump, you know, once Donald Trump were to come into power,
00:34:50.680
you know, he would outlaw sex and he, and he will eat your children and, uh, you know, money would
00:34:56.000
not, would be outlawed and so on and so forth. I mean, it's really incredible to see the type of
00:34:59.440
hysteria that I was exposed to. It's, I mean, it's almost laughable. Right. And, and, and the reality
00:35:04.940
is that I've, I've seen no evidence that anyone has engaged in the type of introspection that you
00:35:11.280
and I might expect of otherwise clear thinking people in terms of, you know, this idea of always
00:35:15.700
feather and tarring everybody as being a racist and it's some of all, uh, doesn't work. They are
00:35:20.700
not, they're doubling down. Most of the comments. I mean, but don't, I agree. I mean, they seem to
00:35:25.780
be for the time being, but I mean, one observation I'd make is that in politics, I mean, people shift
00:35:29.820
very slowly. Um, um, I think it's probably like, you know, in a marriage, I mean, if some, if one
00:35:35.700
party is wrong, they very rarely, rarely say, I'm sorry, darling, you know, I was wrong about
00:35:40.660
that tend to, you know, let it slide and, uh, um, and then pretend they thought something else
00:35:46.200
all along. I mean, this is how people actually change their minds. They very rarely do they say,
00:35:51.700
oh my gosh, I've got it. You were right. You know, they move very slowly. And I suspect that a lot of
00:35:57.380
those people, you're right. A lot of them will double down, hunker down for the duration. Um, a lot
00:36:02.760
of others will realize, uh, slowly maybe that this isn't the way to do things. And there's one
00:36:07.720
particular thought I may say, which, which, which is just very striking to me on this,
00:36:11.760
that, that the, uh, America in particular and American colleges and universities in particular
00:36:16.780
have made such fools of themselves in recent years. And they've made fools of themselves
00:36:21.340
in front of the whole world. And, um, you know, I, I think if there's one thing, again,
00:36:26.940
I don't have much hope it'll happen, but it could happen. One thing that would come from this election
00:36:31.080
in America, like the referendum in the UK and other events of recent years would just be that
00:36:36.420
people have to stop only speaking to people who agree with them. I mean, um, you know, it's,
00:36:44.760
again, I mean, why I wasn't wild about Trump on the trail. I didn't, as I said, I don't like
00:36:51.500
the form of discourse and debate, which he engaged in all the beard. It was obviously very successful,
00:36:55.040
but, but I just think that, um, you know, my people who I disagree with, uh, in politics,
00:37:02.520
I have all sorts of explanations for why they do things. I try to speak to them. I try to understand
00:37:08.360
where they're coming from. And I, crucially, um, I don't always go in assuming that they've got
00:37:13.620
malignant motives. I often think they've got the wrong information or they haven't looked at it from
00:37:20.180
this point of view or so on, but I don't go in assuming that they're Satan. Now, of course,
00:37:24.860
the opposite is, is not returned. Uh, the favor is not returned very often, but, but if, if there
00:37:32.340
were anything to come from this, I would just say all those people who are saying, no, I don't want
00:37:36.760
any Trump voters in my office, or I don't want any Trump voters in my school or any, any one of my
00:37:42.340
Facebook page, I stop that. Just stop that. Speak to people who have a different point of view,
00:37:47.260
because you know, the, the, the, the, the, the, the unemployed worker in Michigan who'd always voted
00:37:52.200
Democrat, but voted Trump this time really is onto something. They really are onto something.
00:37:57.620
They've got a view that a West coast or East coast liberal could really do with hearing and
00:38:04.700
realizing that the person is not motivated by malice, but has got a truth and that it's worth
00:38:10.220
their while accessing that too. And incidentally, I mean, I've sort of, to speak to your point about
00:38:15.600
sort of the building of these massive echo chambers, of course, Western universities have
00:38:20.400
become the granddaddy of echo chambers. If only because if you study the political affiliations
00:38:25.980
of those who are imparted with the responsibility of teaching the, the young minds, they're all of
00:38:32.280
one political leaning, right? So I'm, I'm, I often will, will cite a study, but there are many others
00:38:37.660
similar to it, uh, where they looked at the political affiliations of professors in the United
00:38:43.060
States in terms of being Democrats or Republicans. And the ratio across all disciplines was five to one.
00:38:48.820
Now that sounds like it's not too bad. Although, although that's actually quite disastrous five
00:38:52.940
to one in all the fields that are related to social, social issues, right? Sociology and
00:39:00.400
women's studies and all those, the rest of the social justice warrior fields, then you could
00:39:04.820
go up to 44 to one ratio. So, so imagine the idea that, you know, everybody is striving, everybody
00:39:12.320
who is, I call them full liberals is striving for diversity, but diversity of sexual orientation,
00:39:17.680
diversity of skin color, diversity of religion, but the fundamentally most important form of
00:39:23.180
diversity at a university, which is diversity of thought, that's forbidden. So have different
00:39:32.260
There, um, there was, there's a, um, a journalism school in Britain. I mean, I don't think there
00:39:36.880
should be such a thing as a journalism school, partly because there's not much journalism, certainly
00:39:40.640
not many jobs these days in journalism. Uh, but there's a journalism school in Britain, uh, where
00:39:45.120
the, uh, student union the other day, um, voted to ban, uh, the sun newspaper and the
00:39:51.500
daily mail. I tweeted that. I tweeted that. Yes. These are, these are the two best selling
00:39:55.840
newspapers in the UK. Okay. And, and, and, and they're also profitable. Um, um, but this,
00:40:03.460
this journalism school didn't want their student, they didn't want their students to fellow students
00:40:08.960
to be able to access these things. I mean, um, look, I mean, there aren't enough jobs going at
00:40:13.880
the Guardian and they're probably going to be fewer and fewer as the years go by. Um, so not only are
00:40:20.680
these kids doing a course of very dubious, uh, worth, uh, journalism degree in a dying profession,
00:40:28.460
but they're actually making sure that they're incapable of accessing the, the style, the, uh,
00:40:35.100
the, the, the brevity, the, the skillful reporting that these papers do, whatever else you, you, you,
00:40:40.200
you, you know, you think about what they publish or whatever, you know, these are very, very well
00:40:43.460
turned out papers and a pleasure to write for and a discipline to write for. Um, but you know,
00:40:49.800
um, this school is, would be turning out people who, who can't get those jobs because they've sort
00:40:56.000
of cut themselves off from it. I mean, it's insane. And I mean, the one, the one really, uh, hopeful
00:41:00.980
thing is of course, is that, is that these, uh, these movements move on as it were, because,
00:41:07.020
uh, uh, they realize that the, the, the, the people they produce aren't employable, right? I mean,
00:41:12.420
literally unemployable, uh, uh, students, you know, you did a not very useful degree and you didn't do
00:41:18.520
it very well. And, um, you know, I mean, maybe the market will assert itself, right? You know,
00:41:24.760
there's, there's a inverted U shape that happens in nature. Uh, so let me give you an example,
00:41:29.500
uh, you know, perfectionism. If you don't have enough of it, then you don't take your work very
00:41:34.240
seriously. You're not, you don't have any attention to details. On the other hand, if you're too much
00:41:38.400
of a perfectionist, uh, then you are, uh, stuck in an infinite loop of checking to make sure that
00:41:44.040
every single comma is in its place. So somewhere between these two extremes is a healthy level of
00:41:49.820
perfectionism. So a similar argument I think could be made for some of these originally, you know,
00:41:56.120
laudable so-called liberal ideas. And I say so-called because frankly, they're no longer liberal,
00:42:00.520
right? So up to a certain point, being empathetic towards others and, you know, trying to be nice
00:42:05.540
and politically correct is not, but then once you pass that inflection point, then it all goes
00:42:10.540
to hell. And I, my feeling is on a collective level, we've hit that point. And, and the fact that
00:42:16.860
Brexit has come along, the fact that Donald Trump has come along, that is demonstrating that reality
00:42:21.720
at the aggregate level. What do you, what do you think? Absolutely. But, but isn't it, isn't it
00:42:26.080
worries? You see, I am, I'm not a wild optimist generally. Um, but, um, isn't it worrying if I
00:42:34.800
were one of those people who had spent years hyperinflating the language of human rights and, uh,
00:42:42.080
you know, homophobic, uh, uh, transphobic, misogynistic, racist, et cetera, et cetera. I would
00:42:47.860
be starting to worry now. Um, I mean, I'm not unworried about this somewhere down the road
00:42:53.840
because, um, the, the problem with these people, you know, effectively turning the human rights,
00:42:59.580
uh, uh, terminology into a Zimbabwean like currency is the fact that eventually, uh, the
00:43:07.180
notes all become totally worthless. And what if, and it's not an impossible scenario, what
00:43:13.260
if in Europe in particular, in the coming decades, those, uh, those notes, that currency becomes
00:43:20.280
totally devalued at the point you might need it. I mean, this is, this is something which
00:43:27.020
if I were, I mean, I'm worried about it as it is, but if I were one of the people responsible
00:43:32.260
for this hyperinflation, I would start to be getting very worried. Um, you know, um, and,
00:43:41.360
and I wonder whether in the months and years ahead, they might not start to realize this
00:43:45.460
one very quick example, if I may, you know, I think the, I think Hitler claims wildly overdone.
00:43:51.700
They only come about because about the only historical character anyone knows about these
00:43:55.180
days is Hitler, but so everyone's got to be Hitler. Um, but, but one of the things from
00:44:00.480
this is all of those people, by the way, from the right and the left, I'm, as I say, I wasn't
00:44:05.160
the wildest fan of Donald Trump when he was running for the presidency of the United States,
00:44:10.140
but I didn't think he was Hitler. I didn't think he was going to reopen concentration camps
00:44:14.420
and so on. But I know a lot of people of right and left, including journalists, commentators,
00:44:19.800
writers, and others who, who really did that card. I mean, they really went for it. Uh,
00:44:26.140
Donald Trump is the new Hitler or very least the new Mussolini. And they were talking seriously
00:44:33.140
about a Trump presidency bringing about basically the opening of concentration camps in the U S you
00:44:40.860
know, we're going to have to flee. We're literally going to have to flee. Well, I ask as a totally
00:44:45.940
serious question to those people, why haven't you left? Why haven't you gone to Canada? Because if,
00:44:52.960
if, if I were somebody who honestly thought that my country had just been taken over by Hitler,
00:45:00.500
then I would leave and get my family out. If I think these people should have so much shame
00:45:11.080
for having done this, they have played the biggest card you could play. They have given the biggest
00:45:17.400
siren call. You could possibly early warning call that you could possibly give. And they're sitting
00:45:23.740
in New York. I'm actually, if I may interject, I've actually pathologized this particular condition.
00:45:30.440
So, and some of my viewers have already heard me speak about this, but you may have not. So it's
00:45:34.760
worth me mentioning it again. So there's a disorder, a psychiatric disorder known as Munchausen syndrome,
00:45:39.520
right? Where you feign a medical emergency to then garner sympathy. I think a lot of the people who
00:45:45.540
were exhibiting this kind of bullshit, I am so afraid. I'm afraid to go out and buy tomatoes
00:45:50.660
because Donald Trump said something nasty about a woman. Therefore they've set up, you know,
00:45:55.280
gang rape centers on the street corners. And I'm afraid to go out. They are actually engaging in
00:46:00.240
this Munchausen. It's a collective Munchausen, right? And the way that I got back at them,
00:46:04.600
and that's one of the powerful things that I can do given my personal history, is that few people
00:46:08.740
score as high on oppression points as I do, given my, my reality. And so I say for all those of you who
00:46:15.100
are feeling such existential angst, I wish you would have lived five minutes of my life
00:46:20.620
in Lebanon. And guess what? Nobody comes back at me because they really can't fight it, right?
00:46:25.680
You're sitting in your pretty privileged life, truly privileged life at Wellesley College
00:46:31.080
outside of Boston. You've never expected, but you're so afraid to go purchase tomatoes
00:46:35.680
because Mussolini is coming to power. Come live in Lebanon where I fled, right?
00:46:40.540
Absolutely. And, you know, also, I mean, it's worth going through this for a moment. As I say,
00:46:45.940
I mean, just as a journalist, as somebody who cares about facts, this is worth going through.
00:46:51.400
I read about this a while ago about the accusation of homophobia against Donald Trump. I said, look,
00:46:57.360
show me the evidence that Donald Trump is a homophobe. As far as I can see, he has the typical
00:47:04.180
views of a New York liberal about being gay. I mean, he's got gay friends. He,
00:47:09.780
you know, have no problem. He's not particularly interested. He doesn't want to spend his whole
00:47:12.980
life talking about it, but he's got no, he's not, you know, he doesn't want to change all the laws
00:47:17.580
and make it illegal to be gay again. And yet there are all these people who are pretending
00:47:22.260
that the election of Donald Trump was going to lead to, I mean, that's what the Hamilton stuff
00:47:27.240
against Pence was about as well, that the election of Donald Trump to the presidency was going to lead
00:47:32.540
to the recriminalizing of homosexuality in the United States. Take another one. That tape, again,
00:47:40.140
it was ugly behavior, but the tape from 11 years ago of Donald Trump boasting about what you could
00:47:44.680
do if you're a famous guy and, you know, and so on and so forth. Ugly, ugly talk. But there were
00:47:52.600
people who immediately said, this was rape. This was, this was legit. This was not only legitimizing
00:47:58.540
sexual assault. It was sexual assault. The candidate was a sexual assaulter. And, you know,
00:48:05.120
again, the people who did that, apart from misrepresenting facts, you know, they're now
00:48:12.740
in this ridiculous position. If, if the commander in chief is what you said he was, why, you know,
00:48:18.460
I mean, I think these people are going to have to row back, as you say. I mean, I think you're right.
00:48:22.420
They'll double down for a bit, but they've got to row back. I mean, the claim that he's a racist
00:48:26.720
and that he said all Mexicans are rapists, you know, which again, I mean, just go back to what
00:48:31.240
he actually said. You might not like it. It's kind of ugly, but he didn't say all Mexicans are rapists.
00:48:39.000
And, and so all of these accusations are sort of based on a bogus thing and they lead to a bogus
00:48:46.700
response. And all those people, if I have a final thought on this, if I may, all these people who do
00:48:51.240
this about, you know, literally shaking or actually crying hashtags and all this, I mean,
00:48:56.360
people actually go on YouTube to show themselves actually crying and shaking and they're not being
00:49:01.480
serious. These are not serious people. They can't be, uh, uh, they are performing, uh, um, as,
00:49:07.560
as you say, as a Canadian, by the way, I'm very happy that all those guys, including Michael Moore
00:49:12.620
did not move to Canada just as a side thought. Although of course, in Canada, you have one of the
00:49:18.560
things that the left in America clearly desires most, which is her hereditary left-wing leadership.
00:49:23.880
That's, that is true. That is true. Uh, so a couple of more points and then I'll, I'll let you go. But
00:49:29.620
of course I could keep you here for another five hours. We have so many things to talk about. We'll
00:49:32.740
have to do it again. Uh, coming back to Islam. So one of the things that, uh, you know, some of the
00:49:39.140
folks are trying to do to sort of try to solve this problem is to argue that there is an opportunity
00:49:45.060
to reform Islam in a way that renders it compatible with Western secular liberal democracies. Uh,
00:49:53.320
one of whom is a, uh, British guy that, you know, as a matter of fact, when I first heard of you
00:49:58.620
was, I think in 2010, when you had had an intelligence squared debate, you and Ayaan Hirsi Ali on one hand,
00:50:05.380
and then Khan and, uh, Nawaz are, so you were arguing about whether Islam is a religion of peace or not.
00:50:11.880
And that's where I'd originally, uh, had gotten the pleasure of knowing about you. Uh, what are
00:50:16.700
your thoughts on these types of piecemeal approaches to reformation, wherein you take
00:50:21.920
each of the elements in the Sira and the Quran and the Hadith, and you say, no, no, no, this is
00:50:27.800
really what's meant. This is how we could reinterpret it. Uh, I think maybe just from my tone, you might
00:50:32.440
get a sense of what I think of it, but maybe you could tell me what your thoughts are on this and
00:50:36.420
whether it's a feasible and worthwhile project. Well, first things first, I, I think one of the
00:50:42.060
most regrettable things since nine 11 has been the fact that we've all ended up going at the speed of
00:50:48.320
Islam in theological discussion, in societal discussion, in moral discussion. Uh, and, uh,
00:50:55.340
I think this is a great shame because whatever Islam can or cannot do, whatever the trajectory of
00:51:00.860
Islam should not really be of great concern to Britain, say. I mean, it's, we can't have our own
00:51:08.220
future, um, spent endlessly debating the Hadith. I mean, apart from anything else, they're not very
00:51:12.740
good or interesting. Loads of them are about ridiculous stuff. I mean, I often say to people,
00:51:17.860
I mean, just. That's only because you don't speak Arabic. If you spoke Arabic, then you'd appreciate
00:51:21.440
the nuance. Yeah, yeah, that's right. That's right. And the, and all the Hadith about what you do with
00:51:26.480
urine on the, your trousers and semen. I mean, all of those are really, really great in Arabic and it's
00:51:32.860
just the English doesn't quite work. But, but, but, you know, it's, it's sort of, it's just, it's not a very
00:51:39.060
interesting discussion. I mean, Islam is, is quite interesting, but it's not that interesting. And, um, uh,
00:51:45.700
and I certainly don't spend my life and don't want everyone else in my society and culture to spend their
00:51:50.260
lives discussing Islam. I think as well, you know, in most of the things I care about, Islam is just the
00:51:56.500
slowest kid in the class. And we all end up speaking, certainly have done for the last 15 years at the
00:52:03.220
level of the slowest kid in the class. And I think it's sort of retarding our entire society's ability to
00:52:09.420
discuss things. I mean, I don't want to talk about whether, whether a woman should be judged in front of an
00:52:16.300
all male panel of imams in 21st century, but I don't want to be discussing, I don't want to be
00:52:21.440
crawling over the, the Quranic or any other justifications for, I just don't want it. I
00:52:27.100
don't think it's a wise thing to do in, in, in a modern society. Um, so there's, there's that,
00:52:33.160
first of all, the second thing is that I, I think it's, you know, maybe Islam can reform,
00:52:38.980
maybe, uh, it's all going to go through a brilliant reformation process and so on, but, you know,
00:52:44.940
maybe it won't. And I, for one, don't want my society's future to be predicated on a bet,
00:52:52.240
which, which is likely to be lost. You know, I'd love it if the reformers, I know, you know,
00:52:59.140
many reformists, uh, Muslims and, you know, I wish them well, I really do. I want them to win.
00:53:04.660
But in the history of Islam, as you well know, is that those guys, uh, often end up just all being
00:53:11.220
killed and, uh, the literalists, uh, uh, win. And, you know, I think that's a tragedy for Islam,
00:53:18.860
but it's not my tragedy. It's not my society. It's not my culture, not my religion. And, um,
00:53:25.400
you know, whilst wishing them well, I just don't want American society or British or Western European
00:53:31.340
societies to be caught up in that. And I think that is what is happening as we speak. It's what's
00:53:37.240
happening in our societies, as well as speaking at the level of the slowest kid in the class.
00:53:42.320
We're all, we're all talking that language. We're all, you know, every ethical discussion,
00:53:47.100
every scientific discussion is becoming, you know, um, tainted with this and, um, you know,
00:53:53.960
all the artistic discussion, you know, I mean, I'm, I'm very keen that people know about a lot about
00:53:59.920
other cultures. I'm very keen for that. I like to, you know, do it myself. I'm not,
00:54:05.100
I, I'm not a nativist sort of, I don't, you know, I think that only, only British food and British
00:54:10.800
literature and British. And yeah, I don't think that I think the world is very, very interesting,
00:54:15.180
but I don't want the entire world's future to be spent discussing Islam. And, uh, it just worries
00:54:24.180
me enormously that that is what is happening. But then here's the problem. Sorry to interject. If even
00:54:29.560
though you may not be interested in Islam, Islam is mortally interested in you. And therefore,
00:54:36.060
as the demographic realities change in the West, we can't simply say, you know what, we've had enough
00:54:41.700
of discussing Islam. So, so, so there is going to be a head, uh, you know, point at fork in the road.
00:54:48.740
And so the question is, how do we handle that? Some, for example, have argued, and, uh, I actually
00:54:53.420
raised this with Andrew McCarthy, who was a guest on my show. He was one of the federal prosecutors
00:54:57.520
of the first 9-11. You know, you know who he is. Uh, uh, he's a lawyer. He's a, I think a
00:55:02.360
constitutional expert. And I said, you know, do you ever see, foresee a day when all of Islam,
00:55:07.980
if not some elements of Islam that are problematic might be rendered seditious? And there is a legal
00:55:14.620
argument to be made that to the extent that there are many elements of Islam that are simply,
00:55:20.280
there's no way you could reconcile them with some of the liberal values that we hold, uh, dear and
00:55:26.240
true, uh, then that conversation is going to have to happen. And secondly, uh, when it comes to say
00:55:32.160
immigration, my position has always been everybody is welcome as long as we don't see a single inch of
00:55:40.060
our liberal values, not one inch. So you could come in if you're brown, purple, tall, short, fat,
00:55:45.580
or thin, gay, or not, as long as you abide by our values. If your beliefs, cultural or religious or
00:55:52.520
others are inconsistent with that, you're not welcome here. If they are consistent, or you're
00:55:57.220
willing to leave them at the door, come in my brother and let's live peacefully together. Do you
00:56:01.580
ever foresee a time when politicians will be able to speak in this very clear manner? Because otherwise
00:56:07.800
it's going to be Beirut in 1975 all over the world? I, um, you were, that's a very, uh, it's a very
00:56:16.880
disturbing question, but, um, um, I think, I think that's the way we're going. I have to say, I, um,
00:56:22.960
not, not soon or anything, but, um, look, my own view is that we're in particularly in Europe,
00:56:30.740
I know most about, um, I think we're missing the opportunity of a soft landing on this.
00:56:36.980
You see, I've seen in recent years that the possibility of having a sort of softer landing
00:56:41.860
on it, uh, mainstream politicians tackling this mainstream politics is also the, the, the, the
00:56:48.600
importance of not doing certain things, you know, like the home secretary, who's the former
00:56:52.580
home secretary is now our prime minister, Theresa May, you know, don't use your, your conservative
00:56:56.220
party conference speech to talk about your favorite passages of the Quran, you know, just don't do
00:57:01.180
that stuff. And, um, it's, it, it seems to me that for short term political gain, people are still
00:57:10.200
evading, doing the things and avoiding doing the things they should be doing and, uh, holding the
00:57:16.200
lines that you quite rightly describe. And we're getting worse and worse at it. And it seems to me,
00:57:22.560
and I've, I've said this for many years, but that, you know, out way, way, way to my side.
00:57:28.080
And I think to yours, uh, an answer to this of another kind grows. And this really worries me.
00:57:35.360
Um, I mean, you know, I've said for a long time, you know, if you've got a problem with the existing
00:57:42.320
Muslim communities in your country, not that they're entirely a problem or all a problem,
00:57:46.480
but if very significant problems seem to be coming from them, it doesn't make enormous sense to keep
00:57:51.760
bringing in more people of that same background, because the problem will obviously grow the
00:57:56.480
number of the proportion to the number of people grows. And, uh, this for many has been a very
00:58:02.040
controversial thing to say. I think it's a very obvious thing to say, but it's been a very
00:58:05.840
controversial thing to say. I was saying, no, slow down, limit the immigration and you can do
00:58:12.180
something with the people who are here and in time, et cetera, et cetera. But now I find myself in
00:58:16.580
this position where, you know, the president elect the United States, you know, said on the campaign,
00:58:21.380
no Muslims, uh, should come into the U S for a period. And I, I hear that and far more on the
00:58:28.580
continent. And so I find myself feeling, um, you know, like the sort of wet lefty liberal on some of
00:58:35.700
this. Um, and this, this, you know, to put it as frank as this is very, very troubling. I don't think
00:58:42.740
that everyone on the continent in particular, who's opposed to mass immigration or anything
00:58:46.740
like that is a fascist, but we far from it, but we really have to exercise enormous care. And I
00:58:52.580
think because of the name calling and the lack of care and the cowardice and a whole set of other
00:58:57.860
things, you know, we're leaving this job to be done by people that we would not want to do it.
00:59:03.940
And, uh, um, and, you know, as I say, it's, it's a hard landing will be the only,
00:59:08.660
only resulting a possibility and that, that should trouble everybody.
00:59:13.220
I hear you. Last question. Uh, you obviously have the unique personhood that allows you to speak
00:59:21.060
openly and candidly about things that most people are afraid to talk about. And if I'm, if I dare
00:59:26.540
include myself in that group, and there are a few others yet, most people are not made of that
00:59:32.340
particular cloth either because they're not sufficiently well-informed or they are well-informed,
00:59:36.660
but they suffer from what I call the eighth deadly sin of cowardice. What, what are some,
00:59:42.420
what is some advice that you could give? Because I receive many emails and undoubtedly you do where
00:59:47.700
people say, look, I've been inspired by watching your chat with Douglas Murray. I'd like to get
00:59:52.820
involved. I'd like to contribute in my small way to the battle of ideas. What are some recipes that you
00:59:59.060
could offer, uh, in terms of how people can get engaged in this discussion?
01:00:04.180
Well, I think anyone who's sort of listening in any way is obviously engaged already. I mean,
01:00:11.060
anyone who's, who's interested in reading what some of us write or listening to what some of us say
01:00:16.580
and so on is obviously already engaged. It's not, it's not terribly, um, um, um, easy to answer this
01:00:23.940
question. I mean, it's much easier to diagnose problems than it is to propose solutions to them.
01:00:29.540
I'm not a politician. So, uh, and by the way, for my sake, that's an advantage. I mean, I can say
01:00:36.420
whatever I like. Um, um, but, but I, I do think that the, the, the only answers that exist here,
01:00:43.380
there are no nuances to this. The only answers that exist are ones that have already been there,
01:00:47.700
that, that people should, I mean, this is an obvious thing to say, but you know, if you're
01:00:52.420
concerned about politics, join a political party or join the party that is most similar to your views
01:00:58.980
and argue your views within that party. If, um, you know, I, I, I thought of,
01:01:04.420
there's a weird thing that's happening in the world of multimedia and the internet and everything,
01:01:08.660
which is that as, as PJ O'Rourke once said, uh, um, everyone, um, I've quoted it many times,
01:01:15.300
everyone wants to save the world, but no one will help mom do the dishes. Um, I, I think people
01:01:21.140
should, should act locally rather than globally, you know, look after what's around you, look after
01:01:28.420
the ones close to you, um, um, um, influence and speak with the people you come across, you know,
01:01:34.420
all of that. I mean, far more important than starting a blog is speaking to the person standing
01:01:39.460
beside you, you know, and, and that's sort of what, what people seem to be losing. It seems to me.
01:01:45.060
And, and the other thing, I just, I suppose, again, a really basic thing, but I think that this
01:01:52.900
thing of, um, of talking across the lines is so important. Now it's probably never been more important
01:02:00.660
and realizing that another party that has different views from you is generally not evil and is generally
01:02:07.700
not, you know, doing it for nefarious reasons, but has other points of view. And I think that the
01:02:11.620
reintroducing civil discourse around some of this, the people who say to me, God, I wish I could say
01:02:17.940
what you say or things like that. And I get that quite a lot often from people in professions who,
01:02:22.420
you know, worry and sometimes worry quite rightly about the impact on their careers. Sometimes forget
01:02:28.100
that. I mean, you know, a lot of this is just, it just talking about things with people and to my mind,
01:02:35.380
just, just defanging the whole area. You know what I mean? People say to me quite often, you know,
01:02:40.420
God, I mean, I've thought of doing this. I'm really worried about saying that. And, you know,
01:02:44.900
and I always say, well, we'll say it or, or, you know, have that conversation or, or, or write that,
01:02:49.940
you know, and most of the time, nothing and nothing happens. It's absolutely fine. I think we've
01:02:54.500
internalized the sort of fear in our societies, which we should just shrug off. And there is no reason why
01:03:02.020
we can't say what we think about religion or about politics. And, and, you know, just to have
01:03:09.140
the discussion as we've been having this last hour, to have a discussion freely and without fear and
01:03:15.700
without, you know, thinking we're going to be Kalashnikov at any moment, you know, just,
01:03:23.300
You know, I want to, I want to build on what you said, and then we'll wrap it up because I've got a
01:03:27.140
great personal anecdote that speaks to that fear that people have internalized, which results in
01:03:32.740
them engaging in the dreadful reality of self-censorship. Right. Uh, so when we moved
01:03:38.660
from Lebanon to Canada and my mother and I would speak sometimes on the phone, uh, she would speak
01:03:45.540
in code because she still had the reflex that there might be the muhabarat, the sort of the secret
01:03:52.180
service of Syria listening in. And we had to remind her that, no mom, don't worry. We're now in
01:03:58.820
Montreal, Canada. Right. And so this internalized fear becomes, if you'd like a form of paranoia where
01:04:05.540
you, you can't shut it off. And so to, to your point, most people overestimate the amount of
01:04:12.980
damage that might happen to them. Of course, there are threats. Look, I take great personal and
01:04:16.900
professional risks for being outspoken, but yet in my reality, I fear more my own moral guilt if I
01:04:25.940
don't speak out. Right. So in my case, I've done the calculus and not speaking out as a worse reality
01:04:32.500
than speaking out and facing the consequences. And so I think if everybody were to sort of move
01:04:37.380
along that calculus, and as you said, locally, just chat on Facebook, right? Somebody says something
01:04:43.620
that you disagree with. Don't be afraid. Don't self-censor already. That will change the zeitgeist
01:04:48.580
that we are experiencing. Correct. Absolutely. And, and, and also, I mean, I mean, who would want
01:04:53.380
to be lying on their deathbed and think, well, I think I got through that. Okay.
01:05:00.500
Right. Beautiful. Any last plugs that you'd like to plug right now? I know your forthcoming book,
01:05:07.540
anything else that you'd like to share with us that's not public yet?
01:05:09.700
Yeah. Um, I, yeah, my, no, my new book comes out in the spring, uh, with Bloomsbury, uh, publishers,
01:05:16.100
and, um, uh, I'd love to chat again then. And, um, we, uh, otherwise people can read my blog at the
01:05:24.260
spectator magazine in the UK, spectator.co.uk, where I write a lot about a lot of things,
01:05:29.140
including things we've been talking about. And, um, uh, yeah, otherwise, um, very much look forward
01:05:35.460
to hearing from your readers and I doubtless we'll hear from, from many of them. I, I'm on
01:05:42.260
At Douglas K. Murray. Exactly. I will, I will put it in the descriptor. Uh, you are a true delight
01:05:50.180
and a true gentleman. Absolute pleasure chatting with you. Stay on the line for a second. Thank you
01:05:54.580
so much for coming on, uh, Douglas. It's a pleasure.