The Saad Truth with Dr. Saad - My Chat with Douglas Murray (The Saad Truth with Dr. Saad_691)

00:00:00.000 Hi, everybody. This is Gatsat for the Sad Truth.

00:00:04.360 Finally, Douglas Murray and I meet. Many of you, I know

00:00:08.020 I've been looking forward to this. I know that I've been looking forward to it. Before I cede the

00:00:11.980 floor to Douglas, I'd like to briefly introduce him. He is an associate editor at the

00:00:15.920 Spectator, associate director of the Henry Jackson Society, and he's written several books

00:00:19.920 including Bozzi, a biography of Lord Alfred Douglas,

00:00:24.320 Neoconservatism, Why We Need It,

00:00:27.620 Bloody Sunday, Truth, Lies, and the Savi Inquiry, and Islamophilia, 0.94

00:00:32.040 a very metropolitan malady. How are you doing?

00:00:35.980 Very good. Very good to be with you. Thank you so much. So I thought we would

00:00:39.680 start with this brilliant word, Islamophilia, because I think it 1.00

00:00:43.700 relates to a virus of the human mind 0.81

00:00:47.680 that I refer to as ostrich parasitic syndrome. Now, we know that ostriches

00:00:51.760 don't literally bury their heads in the sand, but it's

00:00:55.640 become an apt metaphor to explain how

00:00:57.700 people can be in such

00:00:59.360 unbelievable denial

00:01:01.260 toward realities that are

00:01:03.600 otherwise as clear as the existence of gravity. And I

00:01:05.660 think Islamophilia, if you'd like,

00:01:07.740 is a manifestation of this 0.98

00:01:09.620 ostrich parasitic syndrome. So maybe you could start

00:01:11.800 us there. What is Islamophilia?

00:01:13.940 Who are those who suffer from

00:01:15.700 this affliction? And we can take it from there.

00:01:17.960 Take it away.

00:01:19.960 Well, yes,

00:01:21.740 my book on Islamophilia, it's not actually currently

00:01:23.740 available, which is rather annoying. It's

00:01:25.760 undergoing a brief rewrite and a reissue

00:01:27.980 quite soon. But

00:01:29.520 I came up with the term Islamophilia

00:01:32.020 because really, first of all, I've

00:01:33.880 become so bored of hearing what

00:01:35.860 I think of as being its sort of opposite.

00:01:37.920 The word Islamophobia, which had been around

00:01:39.680 for so many years and

00:01:41.780 meant so little, or at least what

00:01:43.720 it did mean was so wrong and so irritatingly

00:01:45.940 wrong. I thought

00:01:47.680 something far more prevalent was

00:01:49.380 not a phobia,

00:01:51.900 certainly not an irrational fear

00:01:53.620 of Islam, but

00:01:54.400 but there's sort of a weird

00:01:56.700 love of Islam, not by

00:01:58.380 not by Muslims, but by

00:01:59.620 by non-Muslims. It'd be understandable 0.99

00:02:01.620 for Muslims to love Islam.

00:02:03.660 It was just rather strange

00:02:05.360 that so many people who were not Muslims,

00:02:07.260 and in many cases seem to know absolutely

00:02:08.820 nothing about Islam,

00:02:11.060 were so enamored

00:02:13.000 of the religion. And

00:02:14.160 I just have been noticing this for a long

00:02:16.780 time, everyone

00:02:19.260 from actors and

00:02:20.640 movie stars to

00:02:22.480 prime ministers and presidents

00:02:24.600 who would

00:02:26.100 be critical and understandably and rightly

00:02:28.600 critical of any and all belief

00:02:30.420 systems, should they need to be, but

00:02:32.360 who, when it came to Islam, only

00:02:34.380 talked in this sort of

00:02:36.000 slathering of praise

00:02:38.140 and adoration. I mean, I

00:02:40.240 lost count of the numbers of politicians who

00:02:42.080 started in the last 15 years

00:02:43.980 quoting in speeches their favorite bits of

00:02:46.060 the Quran.

00:02:49.500 And of course, Barack

00:02:52.120 Obama said that the most

00:02:53.940 beautiful sound is

00:02:55.840 the call to prayer, right, of the

00:02:57.780 hazan.

00:02:58.700 Yeah, yeah, yeah. There's so

00:03:00.060 many cases of it, and to my

00:03:01.760 mind, it seemed far more prevalent

00:03:03.920 and obvious

00:03:05.980 than, as I say, its

00:03:07.860 opposite. So, no,

00:03:09.800 my favorite, personal favorite

00:03:11.760 is an exhibition called

00:03:13.300 1001 Islamic Inventions, which

00:03:15.560 toured the science museums

00:03:17.340 of the Western world, including

00:03:19.200 America and Great Britain

00:03:21.180 and other countries. And this

00:03:23.040 exhibition basically

00:03:24.340 advocated, it was totally

00:03:25.820 anti-scientific, really. It was an act

00:03:27.780 of proselytism by the Muslim 0.99

00:03:29.320 Brotherhood is how it started out.

00:03:30.680 But this exhibition

00:03:33.080 basically posited that

00:03:34.420 Islam had invented the entire 1.00

00:03:36.920 world, not just the creation of the

00:03:38.740 world, but everything since

00:03:39.920 landscape gardening

00:03:43.220 and also urban planning.

00:03:45.280 almost all

00:03:47.720 successes of science,

00:03:49.900 cinema, and

00:03:51.360 it did this amazing sort of

00:03:53.040 Soviet-style 0.76

00:03:54.300 reverse engineering

00:03:56.800 on history and

00:03:58.440 indeed on facts. And

00:03:59.440 because it was

00:04:00.800 1001 Islamic

00:04:01.880 inventions,

00:04:03.660 you know, it passed

00:04:04.240 muster. I mean, if

00:04:05.460 anyone

00:04:06.280 had tried to claim that

00:04:08.440 any other religion had sort of

00:04:10.280 been responsible for absolutely

00:04:12.160 every scientific invention, then

00:04:14.860 people would raise an eyebrow and

00:04:17.020 certainly wouldn't hand over the

00:04:18.740 science museum in the national

00:04:20.860 capital to such a piece of

00:04:22.940 casuistry. But, you know, on this

00:04:25.300 occasion they did. And as I said,

00:04:26.480 that's an example of Islamophilia 0.87

00:04:28.160 right in front of you.

00:04:29.280 I've actually been exposed to this

00:04:30.880 type of thinking in my own

00:04:32.320 scientific work, where someone

00:04:34.380 usually from that part of the

00:04:36.540 world, or at least of that faith,

00:04:38.440 will write to me to say, oh, but

00:04:39.880 you know that Charles Darwin is not

00:04:41.480 really the guy who should be most

00:04:43.320 known for the theory of

00:04:45.480 evolution. And then they'll cite

00:04:46.860 some guy and then through some

00:04:48.020 unbelievably circuitous route of

00:04:50.360 mental gymnastics, the real

00:04:52.000 inventor, discoverer of the

00:04:54.100 theory of evolution is some guy.

00:04:55.400 But I think this is a

00:04:56.980 manifestation of identity

00:04:58.440 politics. I mean, you see the

00:04:59.520 same thing with African studies,

00:05:01.580 right? Every single, I mean,

00:05:02.580 right, the ancient Greeks were

00:05:04.000 really blacks, right? And then so

00:05:06.720 every single group that feels

00:05:09.320 somehow aggrieved, rewrites

00:05:11.100 history so that all of the great

00:05:12.760 wonders of the world are really

00:05:14.760 theirs, right?

00:05:15.900 Yes. And I mean, my favorite

00:05:18.240 example was the rewriting of the

00:05:20.720 Wright brothers, where the Wright 0.97

00:05:22.540 brothers were wrong, that they 0.88

00:05:24.100 didn't invent flight. Flight was

00:05:27.680 invented by a Muslim in, I think,

00:05:29.880 the 10th century, or in Andalusia

00:05:32.280 or something. And the actual

00:05:34.060 historical descriptions of this guy

00:05:37.060 is there was a guy who kept on

00:05:40.040 flinging himself off high

00:05:41.300 buildings and falling to earth at

00:05:44.060 an incredible speed. Right. Or

00:05:46.420 just jumping from any place and

00:05:49.760 committing suicide becomes the

00:05:51.300 invention of flight, right? Yeah.

00:05:53.240 And it was really strange because

00:05:55.380 they sort of attributed a man who

00:05:58.020 just plummeted a lot. They

00:06:01.320 attributed to him the gift of sort

00:06:04.280 of invention of flight. And as you

00:06:06.920 say, I mean, the game is to come up

00:06:09.280 with somebody so obscure that sort

00:06:12.180 of everyone sort of baffled. And

00:06:14.000 because we're all polite, you know,

00:06:15.620 Westerners, if anyone says that

00:06:17.940 anyone else invented anything, we're

00:06:19.960 like, well, sure. It sounds good. You

00:06:22.320 know, who would I be to produce any

00:06:25.100 counter facts?

00:06:26.320 So what are, can we, what are some, I

00:06:28.860 mean, the different people are

00:06:30.740 Islamophilic, I said, I suspect for 0.99

00:06:33.140 different reasons. And I think you

00:06:34.880 touched on this, although I don't

00:06:36.040 have access to your book, I sort of

00:06:37.280 read a review on it. What are some of

00:06:39.980 the key driving forces that makes

00:06:43.100 people belong to one of the different

00:06:44.920 camps of why they are Islamophilic?

00:06:48.600 Oh, well, I mean, it's a whole set of

00:06:50.260 things. I mean, for instance, some

00:06:52.700 people do it in order to not look 0.99

00:06:56.280 stupid, for instance. So that 0.99

00:06:59.000 somebody, give an example, until 9-11,

00:07:03.500 nobody in the mainstream, in academia

00:07:06.800 or anyone else talked on a regular

00:07:08.560 basis about the Islamic neo

00:07:10.500 Platonists. Suddenly, for the last 15

00:07:12.700 years, endless summaries or assumptions

00:07:17.180 of people know what they're talking

00:07:18.100 about. And they say, well, of course,

00:07:19.180 Avro's and so on. And so there's some

00:07:22.460 people who do this because they just

00:07:24.860 want to look really smart. There are

00:07:28.040 others who do it out of a sense of

00:07:30.620 liberal guilt, I would say, and a sort

00:07:33.200 of, you know, well, I know all about

00:07:35.780 these Islamic neo-Platonists. And I 1.00

00:07:38.540 mean, if you ask them about the

00:07:39.560 Platonists, they might be less, less

00:07:41.320 confident. But it's a set of those

00:07:43.640 sort of things. Some people, of course,

00:07:44.820 do it to be polite. I think that's,

00:07:47.060 that's the sort of the most noble of

00:07:48.560 them. And I think, you know, a good

00:07:51.220 instinct is, is, is, is to show that,

00:07:54.220 you know, all sorts of civilizations

00:07:56.440 and peoples have come up with all sorts

00:07:57.900 of things. And, you know, don't get into

00:07:59.620 the detail sort of thing. I don't have

00:08:01.360 time for the detail. But, you know, sure,

00:08:03.900 if these guys say they invented flight,

00:08:05.560 why not? And so it's a whole set of

00:08:09.140 things. And, and I suppose that the

00:08:11.940 worst one is the people who just do it

00:08:14.500 out of really a sense of self-hatred

00:08:16.820 and self-distrust, which is, as it, as

00:08:19.340 the Swedish prime minister said a couple

00:08:20.920 of years ago, you know, only barbarism

00:08:23.300 comes from here and only good things

00:08:25.600 come from outside. That, that, that

00:08:29.100 instinct, which is.

00:08:30.460 Well, they exoticize, they exoticize

00:08:33.240 the other, right? There's, I mean, as

00:08:35.540 somebody who comes from Lebanon, I see

00:08:37.660 it in sort of my westerner friends. There's

00:08:39.820 something quite exotic. So, for example,

00:08:41.720 if they, so my mother tongue is Arabic. So

00:08:44.520 for, for someone whose mother tongue

00:08:46.160 is Arabic, it's not so exotic that I

00:08:47.900 speak Arabic, right? It's like being 1.00

00:08:50.540 impressed that little children speak 0.68

00:08:52.240 French in Paris, right? And yet people 0.78

00:08:55.640 are just, they're wondrous when they, I

00:08:58.420 mean, they hear me say three words in

00:08:59.780 Arabic. I mean, people get excited 0.69

00:09:01.220 because Barack Obama pronounces

00:09:03.620 Pakistan in this way. Well, then they're 1.00

00:09:05.980 going to have endless stream of orgasms 0.98

00:09:08.740 hearing me speak in Arabic because it 0.98

00:09:10.420 just sounds so unbelievably exotic,

00:09:12.780 correct? And so.

00:09:13.520 Lucky you.

00:09:14.840 There, there you go. So, okay. So let's,

00:09:18.000 let's move on from Islamophilia, which 0.88

00:09:20.000 again, I, I, I look forward to when your

00:09:21.900 book is going to be re-released because

00:09:23.460 it's going to be a cracker, I'm sure.

00:09:25.340 When is it coming out again?

00:09:27.600 If, I can't, if, if I could tie my

00:09:30.440 publishers down to dates, you could tie me

00:09:32.560 down to them, but I'm hoping in the next

00:09:34.280 couple of months.

00:09:35.020 Good. All right. Looking forward to it.

00:09:36.620 Let's now turn the attention to, I mean,

00:09:38.860 Britain in particular, since obviously

00:09:40.340 you're, you're, you're in Britain, but, but

00:09:42.800 then we could maybe expand it to the rest

00:09:44.780 of Europe. So things like we hear about

00:09:47.140 the Sharia courts in the, in, in, in

00:09:49.440 British, in the British context, Sharia 0.99

00:09:51.840 patrols in the streets, the Rotherham

00:09:54.720 cases, the pedophilia rings, the fact that

00:09:57.720 Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer, Spencer

00:10:00.480 were denied entry to Britain because they are

00:10:03.960 peddlers of so-called hate speech.

00:10:07.880 Which of these stories are accurate, which

00:10:10.280 are sensationalized, and to the extent that

00:10:12.640 they are accurate, what is going on uniquely

00:10:14.760 in Britain that is different from what might

00:10:17.040 be going on in North America?

00:10:18.900 I don't think there's anything unique that's

00:10:21.220 going on in Britain that isn't going on in

00:10:22.940 every other country in the Western world. I

00:10:24.940 mean, we've all, Canada, America, Western

00:10:28.100 Europe as a whole, we're all going through

00:10:31.100 versions of the same thing. Australia, perfectly

00:10:33.840 a good example of the same phenomenon. Some

00:10:35.940 countries are sort of further ahead, but

00:10:38.460 everyone sees the same sort of things. And

00:10:43.300 I think it's important to keep them in, in

00:10:45.160 context and keep them under control, as it

00:10:47.780 were, as stories, as well as to be on top of

00:10:50.040 the facts. I mean, one of the difficulties I

00:10:53.340 always, you know, reiterate to people of not

00:10:55.640 being in a particular country is not being able

00:10:57.720 to realize that the nuances on the ground. I

00:11:00.640 mean, you hear this a lot at the moment, people

00:11:03.040 talking about France or, or, and, and, and

00:11:06.040 whilst all of these countries are similar in

00:11:08.620 the things that are happening, you know, all

00:11:09.960 of them have a local context and, and a

00:11:12.960 complexity, which I do think that means that

00:11:15.620 sometimes there's a sort of coarsening of the

00:11:18.900 actual understanding of what's going on. People

00:11:20.660 get ahead of the story. For instance, let me

00:11:22.680 take one. You mentioned Sharia patrols. It was

00:11:25.740 true that in East London, a few years ago now, a

00:11:29.160 gang of, of very radical Muslims associated with the

00:11:33.400 now imprisoned Anjem Chowdhury were going around a

00:11:38.140 small part of East London with a self-proclaimed

00:11:41.640 Sharia patrol. You know, don't drink beer in this 0.99

00:11:45.000 area. It's a Muslim area. Now that story, very 0.91

00:11:48.420 understandably, not only went into the British press, but

00:11:51.820 worldwide. Um, but often less, uh, followed up on is the

00:11:56.860 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

00:12:05.560 that. And, um, I mean, actually something quite similar just

00:12:09.580 happened in Germany. Although the, the, the, uh, people who, 0.64

00:12:12.800 who carried out that so-called Sharia patrol seem to have got

00:12:15.840 off in, I think the last 24 hours, but, but, uh, these things

00:12:19.940 happen and they are very, very worrying signs, but I sort of

00:12:23.640 always urge people don't, don't just pick up the worrying bit

00:12:27.360 and ignore when the state actually answers something because

00:12:32.400 otherwise, apart from anything else, one has no, uh, ability to

00:12:35.900 recognize when the state has also failed. So Rotherham, an

00:12:39.860 example you gave the Rotherham, uh, grooming scandals, sex gang

00:12:44.400 scandals was a, was a huge, I mean, it was, it was like watching

00:12:47.640 a, uh, um, cutting down a tree and reading through the rings of,

00:12:51.200 uh, of, uh, the growth of a society, um, and its wellbeing,

00:12:55.280 you know, that scandal took years to come out, uh, saw hundreds

00:13:01.280 of, uh, young girls, uh, raped and abused by organized gangs 0.99

00:13:07.180 of, uh, Muslim men. You have to use, no, no, you have to use 1.00

00:13:10.860 the euphemism, Asian men, Asian men. Yes, of course. Well, that was 0.81

00:13:14.980 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 1.00

00:13:20.460 appreciate that. But, but, um, the reason I say it's like, like a

00:13:24.940 cross-section of a society was that, as we now know from the official

00:13:28.800 report into that, you know, the, the, the local police were terrified of

00:13:34.240 identifying this problem and indeed even of investigating it. And

00:13:38.820 similar cases came up, uh, across the country and Oxfordshire, for

00:13:43.920 instance, a very similar case just a few years ago, the bullfinch

00:13:47.020 case. And, uh, it's the same story you see elsewhere. I mean, I can't

00:13:52.400 help thinking that the, the, the, the similarities with what happened in

00:13:56.100 Cologne on new year's Eve last year, uh, and not just because of the

00:14:00.600 attacks or because of the identity of the attackers, but because of

00:14:04.300 the, the immediate instinct of the police to cover over what, what had

00:14:10.040 happened to, to try not to identify it because identifying it was scarier

00:14:15.640 than actually dealing with it. And that, that points to, um, to a

00:14:19.860 pathology in our own societies, I'd say, but the same things happen in

00:14:23.300 Sweden, the same things happen in other, other countries. It's, it's, it's

00:14:27.700 that fear and it is a very understandable thing on one level. Uh, um, and yet this

00:14:35.400 understandable fear of, you know, of, of, of, um, you know, generalizing about

00:14:40.840 people's or tarring a whole community or a whole set of communities with, with

00:14:44.520 this sort of crime actually meant that, that, that men got away with, with rape.

00:14:49.980 And, um, I, I think there are, there are things in all of these stories that we can

00:14:55.300 do very little about, and there are things we can do a lot about and, and we

00:14:59.560 can do a lot about making sure that civil society and the arms of the state, like

00:15:05.180 the police are not so browbeaten, uh, that they just can't even investigate the

00:15:12.760 rape of a girl.

00:15:13.880 Well, I mean, it, my original point about ostrich parasitic syndrome, I mean, is

00:15:19.100 really apt here because it demonstrates how this is really a battle of ideas. I

00:15:24.940 mean, you know, as you probably know, there are many Islamic thinkers and Islamic

00:15:29.260 leaders who've argued that the way that we, and now I'm speaking as one of them, we

00:15:34.220 are going to conquer and defeat the West is through three ways, through using your

00:15:39.780 miserable freedoms against you, through the womb of our women, right? Through 1.00

00:15:44.160 demographic realities, through fertility rate differences, and then through

00:15:47.900 Hijrah, through, through immigration, right? So these sort of three pronged attacks 1.00

00:15:51.880 are already dangerous, but then you add to that the cocktail of delusional thinking of

00:15:58.940 parasitized brains that are unable to even, uh, instigate a survival instinct to protect

00:16:05.580 their, their values. Now you've got the perfect storm for what we're seeing in the

00:16:09.780 West, right? I mean, typically throughout evolutionary history, you've got one group

00:16:13.180 of men that want to get to the women of the other group of men. And the thing that's

00:16:16.520 stopping them is that this other group of men are not very keen on giving up their

00:16:19.860 women. And therefore we've got, we've got this evolutionary battle that ensures 1.00

00:16:23.820 that we will both go out fighting. What's happening in the West is that through

00:16:28.260 this, uh, parasitized way of thinking, we are allowing our own demise. We're walking

00:16:35.420 to the abyss of infinite darkness. How do we inoculate people against this endless

00:16:41.200 forms of full thinking?

00:16:44.740 Well, there's no one or any easy answer to that. Um, but let me, let me

00:16:50.520 go back a second on what one point you made about what you, what you, you termed

00:16:54.360 the hijra of the, uh, um, um, mass migration. Um, this is a really, to my mind, I've just 0.75

00:17:00.720 finished a book that does come out in the spring on this, which will be announced

00:17:03.720 shortly on the migration issues of recent years in Europe in particular. And I'm

00:17:08.940 totally obsessed with this issue because, uh, um, I think that there are

00:17:12.520 misunderstandings about it on all sides. And one is that this is in any way an

00:17:16.340 organized movement, uh, that is organized from where people are leaving from all

00:17:21.820 that it's organized from the countries that are accepting people. And in actual

00:17:25.280 fact, to look over the post-war up to the present migration into Europe in

00:17:29.460 particular is just a catalog of, uh, mistakes of, uh, failed ideas of failed

00:17:37.800 politicians of weakness. It was after all Churchill, when he returned, uh, in

00:17:43.220 1950s as prime minister, who oversaw the real beginnings of mass immigration into

00:17:48.500 the UK. And he was a tired premier at the time. And so there's, there's a lot of

00:17:52.740 just human failing in this. And, uh, you know, that gets worse and worse as the,

00:17:59.120 the demographics change and it becomes harder and harder to, to address these

00:18:02.920 questions. But as I say, it's, it's an example of a really important part of this.

00:18:08.180 But if one thinks that it's a plot or an organized movement, I think one misses an

00:18:13.840 ability to get to an answer on it because the explanation is wrong. Um, and, uh, and so,

00:18:22.740 you know, to come up with answers to this one has to, has to go right back to the

00:18:26.660 sheer range of reasons why such things have gone on. And, uh, you know, I mean,

00:18:31.520 at a very, very basic level, I'd say that goes from instinctive inherited guilt and,

00:18:39.160 uh, a conscience in the West, a sense of history, uh, a sense of liberal, uh, um, um,

00:18:46.700 humanitarianism, um, a sense of tiredness, a sense of civilizational ennui,

00:18:52.740 and a whole set of other things. Um, none of which are able to be solved easily in part

00:18:58.800 because they are actually virtues. I mean, this is one of the, the problems we always

00:19:03.060 come to, you know, why is, why is the West so, um, hung, hung over with, with guilt?

00:19:09.500 Well, partly it's because we know about history and our own history and who would, who would

00:19:14.460 actually regret that, you know, we wouldn't want to become people who didn't remember history.

00:19:19.740 Um, so, uh, um, I just think that the thing one can do is to get the thinking correct at any rate.

00:19:27.240 I mean, that's, that's why it's worth writing and worth speaking and worth debating these days

00:19:32.240 is to try to try to get the thinking correct, not just the, the analysis, but, but, uh, you know,

00:19:38.020 and I, and I think increasingly these days that, that there's a lot of, um, of weird sort of party

00:19:43.960 line and, you know, very rigid doctrinal thinking on things, which, which isn't needed. I mean,

00:19:48.780 there's a, these things are very, very complex, but the fact that they're complex doesn't mean

00:19:53.620 that there aren't answers.

00:19:54.560 So in my next book, uh, if I can plug my own book, uh, I will be on your own podcast.

00:20:00.520 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,

00:20:11.460 but then add them together, then you die. And so in this book, I will hopefully answer

00:20:15.800 the question that I pose to you, namely, what are all the constellation of forces that have

00:20:20.600 led us to be in this state that we're at? Um, so, so I guess one of the things you, you said,

00:20:26.300 you know, uh, hijra and immigration is something that's important to you. And we, we need to

00:20:29.780 understand the mechanism to be able to offer solutions. So what would be a solution? So I've

00:20:34.640 often argued that, look, uh, I am an immigrant. I escaped. You may or may not know my personal

00:20:40.000 history. We, my family are, we're Lebanese Jews who escaped the brutality of the Lebanese 1.00

00:20:44.220 civil war. And so I'm, uh, you know, perfectly, uh, clear about the need for us to be humane

00:20:50.080 and open our doors for people who are fleeing terrible position. I mean, right. I, I come

00:20:54.380 from that reality, but on the other hand, I also recognize that not all, uh, people who

00:20:59.440 might wish to come to your home as a visitor or as a permanent, uh, house member, uh, are going

00:21:06.740 to be equally likely to share your values, equally likely to integrate and to assimilate.

00:21:11.400 And so somewhere between let's shut the border to everybody and let's open the border to everybody 0.98

00:21:16.860 is where nuanced thinking people live. And so how do we strike that balance? How do we

00:21:22.880 have that conversation?

00:21:25.620 Well, it's a, it's a very, very important question. The key question. Um, uh, the, the first

00:21:31.260 thing is, as the old Irish joke, I mean, I mean, we wouldn't start from here. The question

00:21:36.720 you've just asked is the question we should have been asking for decades. And it's one

00:21:42.260 of the biggest tragedies I think for our societies that it's only now when it might be too late

00:21:48.480 that we are asking the questions we should have asked before day one. I mean, let me just

00:21:53.320 give an example. We've been absolutely confused in Europe in particular about what it was that

00:22:01.520 immigration meant. Did we want the people who came to become like us or did we want them 1.00

00:22:09.340 to be as they were in our countries? And we didn't know. And politicians from right and

00:22:17.320 left simultaneously and often the same person contradicted themselves on this. On the one

00:22:23.060 hand, if you ask people to give up any part of their own identity and become like us, this

00:22:27.780 was colonialist thinking or supremacist thinking or, or, or, or something else. And, uh, and

00:22:34.440 if we, if we said that they could retain their own culture, then it led to all sorts of problems,

00:22:39.460 which we've all known about for many years. But you know, it's only in the last few years

00:22:44.680 that it's become politically acceptable to say, for instance, that if people come to our countries,

00:22:49.360 they should know the language or learn the language. It's an amazing thing. After several generations,

00:22:55.780 uh, of immigration to, to say, actually, we'd like you to be able to speak our language and,

00:23:03.720 um, when they take, let me give you another one. It's a bit of a, a course one, but, but,

00:23:08.520 um, let's take the example of female genital mutilation, a famous case. It's a lot of publicity

00:23:15.400 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

00:23:30.160 to right, labor party, conservatives, main tabloids, and the main broadsheets all agree.

00:23:35.600 We, we don't like FGM in Britain. There was a law passed three decades ago about FGM. Uh, um, but to

00:23:43.080 date, not one successful prosecution has occurred of somebody who, for, for carrying out or facilitating

00:23:49.900 FGM in the UK. And that's despite more than a hundred thousand women in the UK having undergone

00:23:55.400 this barbaric procedure. And you see the, the reason I give this example is because try to think

00:24:01.860 of something that ought to be an easier battle to win than an opposition to people in 21st century 0.89

00:24:08.440 Europe, taking a knife to the genitals of a young girl in order to deprive her of sexual pleasure 0.97

00:24:15.420 at a later age. I mean, that, that, that you've got, you should have everybody in that from day 0.99

00:24:20.380 one opposing that from feminists on the farthest left to, uh, you know, your crustiest sort of right 1.00

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

00:24:49.140 with things like Sharia courts and Sharia councils when, when we, you know, we're only just there on 0.60

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,

00:25:39.080 uh, you know, honor killings and child brides and, uh, female genital mutilations and had described

00:25:45.020 them using, I think the word barbaric. And, uh, the castrato in chief was unbelievably upset 0.50

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,

00:26:07.640 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,

00:26:23.000 the, the, um, the initial point I made that, that, that, that we didn't think any of this

00:26:27.860 through. And one sees why we're in this mess again. I mean, there are people who think that,

00:26:32.400 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 0.93

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 0.95

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 1.00

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, 0.99

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 1.00

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 0.85

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 0.94

00:36:16.780 have made such fools of themselves in recent years. And they've made fools of themselves 0.99

00:36:21.340 in front of the whole world. And, um, you know, I, I think if there's one thing, again, 0.98

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,

00:36:43.080 it's a maddening thing. 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 0.90

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

00:39:28.920 skin shades. It's unbelievable, right?

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 0.60

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 0.74

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 1.00

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? 0.71

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 0.96

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 0.92

00:48:12.740 in this ridiculous position. If, if the commander in chief is what you said he was, why, you know, 0.52

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 0.96

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. 0.98

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 0.89

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. 1.00

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 1.00

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, 0.98

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, 1.00

00:50:55.340 I think this is a great shame because whatever Islam can or cannot do, whatever the trajectory of 1.00

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 1.00

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, 0.88

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, 1.00

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 1.00

00:52:21.440 crawling over the, the Quranic or any other justifications for, I just don't want it. I 0.98

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 1.00

00:53:11.220 killed and, uh, the literalists, uh, uh, win. And, you know, I think that's a tragedy for Islam, 0.99

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 1.00

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, 1.00

00:54:15.180 but I don't want the entire world's future to be spent discussing Islam. And, uh, it just worries 0.89

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, 1.00

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, 1.00

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 1.00

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 0.91

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 1.00

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 1.00

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,

01:03:21.380 just that that's normal. This is normal.

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

01:05:40.100 Twitter as well. Uh, uh, what's my Twitter?

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.

The Saad Truth with Dr. Saad - June 27, 2024

My Chat with Douglas Murray (The Saad Truth with Dr. Saad_691)

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