TRIGGERnometry - Ex-Muslim： This is a Difficult Conversation ｜ Sarah Haider

00:00:00.960 I started to give talks and panels about the problems that I saw in the faith.

00:00:07.760 Then there was a sense of, wait, wait, let's think about whether this is the right time

00:00:14.320 to talk about these issues.

00:00:16.040 I've started to reevaluate that and consider that maybe I was not fully understanding the

00:00:24.920 fundamental values and principles of the modern left.

00:00:28.040 And it is also the case that Islam treats innovation within the faith differently than 0.50

00:00:34.500 other religions.

00:00:35.500 I think it is more intolerant.

00:00:37.900 One of those ways in which I think Islam is different, unique in the main religions of 1.00

00:00:43.420 the world, is that it is very political.

00:00:45.820 The higher the percentage of Muslims in your locality, the more that this blasphemy prohibition 0.99

00:00:56.940 becomes actual de facto law.

00:01:08.400 Hello and welcome to Trigonometry on the road from the USA.

00:01:12.740 I'm Francis Foster.

00:01:14.240 I'm Constantine Kissin.

00:01:15.320 And this is a show for you if you want honest conversations with fascinating people.

00:01:20.620 Our terrific guest today is a writer and the co-founder of Ex-Muslims for North America.

00:01:24.780 Sarah Hayder, welcome to Trigonometry.

00:01:26.320 Thanks for having me here guys.

00:01:27.780 It's great to have you.

00:01:28.780 It's a pleasure to speak with you.

00:01:30.780 I mentioned to you before that one of the reasons we so wanted to talk to you is you

00:01:34.540 wrote a piece after the Salman Rushdie attempted murder that was so powerful and articulated

00:01:40.520 things that I'd never really heard said in that way, which we're going to talk about.

00:01:44.900 Before we get into that though, tell our audience who may not be familiar with who you are.

00:01:48.780 Who are you?

00:01:49.780 What's been your journey through life?

00:01:51.240 How do you find yourself sitting here talking to us?

00:01:54.240 Well, I was born in Pakistan, but I was raised primarily in the United States.

00:02:02.240 My parents came to America when I was about eight years old.

00:02:06.700 So that process of becoming an immigrant and acclimating to a new country, learning language,

00:02:11.880 all of that, like that's a big part of my personal history, my sense, you know, my old self-narrative.

00:02:18.160 And, you know, I was raised in a Muslim family.

00:02:20.560 And so that was at first a sense of, like, you know, self-identity in this new place.

00:02:28.480 It gave me kind of a grounding of who I was in this new place.

00:02:32.020 And then over time, as I started to think about it, religion started to make less and less sense.

00:02:39.060 And so when I was about, I want to say 15 years old, I left the faith.

00:02:45.080 I left Islam, and it caused many problems in, you know, in my family, in my personal life. 1.00

00:02:52.920 And for many years, I felt very alone with this and very burdened by this.

00:02:56.960 I knew many people who had left religion, who were atheists from Christian backgrounds,

00:03:03.280 from, you know, many Jews who were actually, they were practicing, they would call themselves practicing Jews,

00:03:08.460 but not actually believe in a God, which I thought was really interesting.

00:03:12.520 But I had never known anyone like me.

00:03:15.080 And for those who might not be aware, and I'm sure, I'm sure that many of the people in your audience do know,

00:03:21.460 but there's a very extreme apostasy stigma in Islam, and really just a huge stigma against dissent, religious dissent in general.

00:03:33.100 It's not really something that's, it's not exactly a tolerant religion when it comes to freedom of speech, freedom of thought, the freedom to leave a faith.

00:03:39.860 So, this was, you know, it was a very isolating experience for me to leave the faith.

00:03:48.300 And then one day, when I would, after I had, you know, graduated college and everything, I found another ex-Muslim. 0.98

00:03:53.960 We were, you know, he was very fascinated with the idea of maybe starting something.

00:04:00.740 And so, we started an organization called Ex-Muslims of North America that exists to advocate for the rights of ex-Muslims,

00:04:11.040 for the right to life in some parts of the world where apostasy is a crime punishable by death,

00:04:17.580 but also just the social stigma and ostracism and sometimes pretty severe abuse that ex-Muslims go through.

00:04:23.840 So, it's really just an organization founded on secular principles, but also just to normalize religious dissent.

00:04:31.480 That's sort of what we're orienting ourselves around and specifically focusing on Islam and the problems within the Muslim community.

00:04:39.500 So, that's how I spent a long time.

00:04:43.180 And in my role as a co-founder of this new organization, an activist organization, I started to give talks and panels about the problems that I saw in the faith,

00:04:57.120 mostly within an audience that was very friendly to me, other atheists, humanists, seculars, free thinkers, that sort of thing.

00:05:06.080 And yet, even in that audience, I felt as if I was saying something nobody wanted to really hear.

00:05:16.740 Really?

00:05:17.340 Yeah, which is to say that they were on my page when it came to religion is bad,

00:05:22.060 but when I started to talk about specifically what's going on with Islam,

00:05:26.020 or why in some cases Islam might be worse, you know, or there might be specific challenges to this faith,

00:05:31.400 then there was a sense of, wait, wait, let's think about whether this is the right time to talk about these issues.

00:05:40.840 Muslims are going through, you know, bigotry and, you know, they're not accepted in the West.

00:05:47.140 We need to think about whether this is the right, you know, time and place to be talking about these things or in such a way.

00:05:53.400 So I felt a very powerful pressure, even within a community that I should have been perfectly welcomed in,

00:06:01.020 to not really target my criticism so directly against the religious faith itself,

00:06:10.000 to really start to focus on extremists who are extreme,

00:06:16.320 and they should be more like moderate Muslims who are peaceful and happy.

00:06:19.280 And there's sort of what I called frou-frou language, you know, happy liberal language that focuses on everybody.

00:06:29.740 Most people are very good and kind and wonderful, and there's some extremists who are just messing it all up.

00:06:34.640 And that's true, but we need to talk about what ideology really means.

00:06:40.200 Because you can be a very good person, and if you have an ideology that tells you this is the good thing to do,

00:06:46.740 you will do that thing.

00:06:47.880 And so we need to be thinking about what religions and ideologies are telling people are good and right things to do,

00:06:55.780 because then these good and compassionate and lovely people start to do some things that are probably not so great.

00:07:02.940 So, you know, I felt unwelcome within this community, and very unwelcome, actually, in the broader progressive space.

00:07:13.540 And that was very shocking and alarming to me.

00:07:15.720 I think a lot of the people who end up in the heterodox space, one way or another, had this awakening,

00:07:21.920 this moment of like, wait, this is not how it's supposed to be.

00:07:24.560 You're supposed to be agreeing with me.

00:07:27.440 You're supposed to be on my side.

00:07:28.820 I'm bringing up issues that you care about, equality between men and women, you know, no persecution of religious minorities.

00:07:35.280 You agree with all this stuff.

00:07:37.100 Science, reason, all this stuff.

00:07:38.420 You agree with it.

00:07:39.000 You should be on my side.

00:07:40.240 And then to find that you are actually not very welcome.

00:07:43.300 And in fact, seen as suspicious.

00:07:45.760 As someone who is going to bring in some toxic attitudes and it was heartbreaking, you know, at first.

00:08:00.700 Really?

00:08:01.080 When I, because I was a good, good little progressive liberal.

00:08:04.520 But these were values that meant a lot to me.

00:08:08.200 And they were a big part of why I left religion and, you know, why I, how I saw myself as a person.

00:08:14.740 And to see this, to see myself being rejected, even though in principle I shouldn't have been.

00:08:20.720 And it was like being, you know, kicked out again because I had, I left my community of origin, my religious community.

00:08:27.920 And then again to feel that way on this, this political, you know, tribe that I felt very close to.

00:08:35.800 I have a few questions, but let's start with one.

00:08:38.840 You mentioned that in that sort of liberal space or the atheist space or whatever it was, people would say that you shouldn't talk about Islam specifically because Muslims are under a lot of pressure and so on.

00:08:52.760 Do you think that's, that is the real reason or do you think there's something underneath all of that?

00:08:57.300 Because I often feel, I don't know if it's the same in America, but in the UK where we live, quite often people are, they will use that excuse.

00:09:04.420 But what they're actually thinking is, this is a dangerous thing to talk about.

00:09:10.120 Yeah, definitely.

00:09:11.060 Well, I think there's multiple motivations that are, you know, running in the background, which is why the whole thing is so confusing.

00:09:20.760 You know, why you're not supposed to be behaving this way, so why are you behaving this way?

00:09:24.100 I think the fear element is certainly real and I think it is more, it is more important than, than some of the other ideological factors, even just the sense of like, I don't want to, I don't want to get in trouble.

00:09:41.200 I don't want to put my kids, you know, in danger.

00:09:44.640 I don't want to put my coworkers in danger by, you know, publishing this thing or saying this thing.

00:09:49.440 But, you know, I found when I, when I would go to, to give talks that, you know, if I was on a panel or something like that, the other speakers would be very nervous to sort of be around me and to share a space with me.

00:10:04.760 And there were times where people, I, I know that they felt very insecure just in being in the same presence as, as someone like me.

00:10:14.740 And so they would ask for like lots and lots of security, even more security than perhaps I would have asked for.

00:10:19.440 So multiple times I found myself in the position of feeling as if, you know, I was a problem because I was introducing this level of, you know, risk that everybody else had now to take on to.

00:10:33.200 And I think that's always running in the background.

00:10:37.580 And we don't want to feel like fearful people.

00:10:40.900 We don't want to feel like the kind of person that is run by, you know, cowardly motivations.

00:10:48.140 So then we have to make up something else to justify why we're behaving in a cowardly way.

00:10:53.960 And I think a lot of the sort of woke rhetoric serves that function.

00:10:58.860 But to fully answer your question, I think it's also the case that I think I misunderstood what the principles of the progressive left might be.

00:11:12.140 Tell us about that.

00:11:13.300 Yeah.

00:11:13.600 So I, I mean, there's all this conversation about like, what is woke?

00:11:17.820 What does this mean?

00:11:18.480 And people struggle to.

00:11:20.480 Do you know what?

00:11:20.960 Sorry to interrupt you in the middle of answering a question.

00:11:22.840 You know, what's funny is Francis and I, when we started trigonometry, we talked about wokeness a lot because it was affecting our industry of comedy.

00:11:29.960 And then the more we looked at society, the more we saw there was having an impact.

00:11:33.440 I've never said a word to you about wokeness.

00:11:35.440 We didn't talk about it before we started.

00:11:37.240 We were interested in talking to you about your concerns about Islam and so on.

00:11:42.060 And yet wokeness comes up straight away.

00:11:45.140 Why is that?

00:11:45.880 Well, I think it is part of the, maybe it's not new at all, but I think that there is a difference between what I saw as progressive ideology, liberal ideology.

00:12:00.920 I don't know if that makes sense from a UK perspective, liberals and leftists and progressives are a little different.

00:12:06.140 But I have always called myself a liberal and I meant as someone on the left who believes in freedom of speech, freedom of thought, freedom of association and equality and all this stuff.

00:12:16.100 To your right wing.

00:12:18.360 Well, you know, it's interesting.

00:12:20.960 So we keep running against, you know, many people in the heterodox space.

00:12:27.680 They just, well, you're supposed, everyone was supposed to behave this way.

00:12:30.880 And yet they react so strongly to something I said that they should not have.

00:12:34.160 And so you have this conversation of the left has lost its principles.

00:12:37.780 It's lost its way.

00:12:38.780 And I think I made a lot of the same noises for a long time.

00:12:44.660 And I think that I've started to reevaluate that and consider that maybe I was not fully understanding the fundamental values and principles of the modern left.

00:12:56.660 In that, I don't think the governing principles are enlightenment values.

00:13:04.240 And I don't know if they have been that way for a long time.

00:13:08.000 I think that there, you know, I think that the political left was changed quite a bit with its encounter with, you know, socialism and socialist thinking.

00:13:18.900 And if I had to, if I had to put into words what I think drives a modern left now or what its philosophy might be, I think I would, I think I would call it a kind of new age, like therapeutic, radical egalitarianism.

00:13:40.820 And so this, this idea that we are all equal, which is, you know, and we should be equal, economically equal, which would be the socialist thing.

00:13:49.900 But the emphasis here is not so much on economics, although they still care about that, but on social equality, on equal moral affirmation and dignity.

00:14:03.860 You know, there's quite a bit of therapeutic language wrapped up in all of this, this sense of I have a self and myself deserves to be validated.

00:14:17.540 My choices deserve to be validated. They deserve to be affirmed.

00:14:21.520 And it focuses quite a bit on this.

00:14:24.820 There's a B.

00:14:26.400 I think it focuses so much on the social and the personal because this orientation has shifted.

00:14:34.000 And if you are a good liberal now, you're white and wealthy or whatever, you're doing well, you have a nice job somewhere,

00:14:41.960 and you feel compelled to show the world that you're a good person.

00:14:48.480 Well, what are you going to do now?

00:14:49.900 In this, in this new modern left, you might focus on, you know, pushing up others, you know, getting them to, to where you are.

00:14:59.140 And I think that that's why we see so much of this signaling from various powerful people, you know, literally sometimes kneeling at the, at the feet of, of sacred people, marginalized people, lifting them up.

00:15:17.880 And in that act, also talking is lifting themselves up and, you know, showing how morally superior they are to, in fact, work towards this social egalitarianism.

00:15:29.260 It's interesting that you say that because with this progressive culture, you're a woman of color.

00:15:36.900 You should have been embraced and celebrated and lifted up.

00:15:41.220 I should have been, right?

00:15:42.840 That was, I mean, there's so much of this that doesn't make sense.

00:15:47.060 So many people who, who, you know, talk about how, you know, wokeness or whatever's going on impacts various communities are people of color, people of various sexual orientations, and it doesn't seem to matter.

00:16:02.840 So I think there is a way in which you can cancel out your, your demographic, you know, affiliations.

00:16:10.520 If you show yourself as being someone who's not committed to that project of, of radical egalitarianism.

00:16:19.800 So let's move on to Islam. 1.00

00:16:21.840 And you, you've been very critical of Islam.

00:16:24.160 What are your main criticisms of it as a religion and the ideology in particular?

00:16:29.040 Yeah, I mean, I have many criticisms of it.

00:16:31.100 So I'm, I'm an atheist.

00:16:32.020 So I have the general, you know, atheist stance on, you know, logical contradictions and, and all that.

00:16:38.760 But, um, when it comes to belief in general and maybe revelation and the problem of evil and all of that, um, I'm very motivated by, by those arguments or, uh, had been when I, when I left the religion.

00:16:51.420 Um, but then, uh, you know, lots of things are wrong and, you know, we believe lots of wrong things all the time.

00:17:01.560 Some things are wrong and not so quite harmful because they're not really affecting a lot of people.

00:17:05.360 Like maybe I believe in like astrology and the way that it impacts me is that I wear my, you know, like Sagittarius, whatever, Virgo, you know, necklace.

00:17:14.880 And, you know, maybe I have beads of various rocks.

00:17:18.360 What do they, I don't know what they mean or believe, but people tend to have things like that.

00:17:21.860 And I, I think it gives me some kind of magical power.

00:17:24.880 That's a wrong belief.

00:17:25.880 Uh, that's a wrong belief that doesn't really impact our world in a way that I would consider very serious.

00:17:32.520 So from the perspective of prioritizing our, our, our, what we, what we choose to address as a society,

00:17:38.980 maybe I think less about, uh, astrology girls on Twitter and more about, uh, what conservative Muslims are saying about what should be true in this world,

00:17:52.040 what justice looks like, um, what eventually should be the fate of the world.

00:17:56.900 Uh, and they see, they see it themselves as part of a, a political project, uh, to, to see this vision carried out.

00:18:06.060 And I think those ideas matter and they affect us in the real world.

00:18:10.180 And so we should be talking about it, you know, in the, you guys are from, you know, a place which has a higher percentage of Muslims.

00:18:18.200 Americans sometimes struggle with it because we know about the fringes.

00:18:22.080 We know about terrorism, um, but the Muslim community here is, um, far more liberal, far more, well, like, uh, well, integrated, well, integrated.

00:18:33.620 Um, and I think some of that is just due to the, the way that America brings in immigrants and how it chooses to, to one, sort the people.

00:18:41.300 So the filter is different, but also what, when you get here, you have to survive in different modes, um, in America.

00:18:48.720 And so I think that produces a kind of a different population.

00:18:50.760 We see that in our Muslims.

00:18:52.440 They're not as extreme, but we still, we do have religious pockets in the UK.

00:18:58.340 You guys see how, well, um, you have a high percentage of Muslims.

00:19:01.480 A lot of them are not well integrated.

00:19:03.260 Um, and you see that playing out in schools and communities.

00:19:08.380 Um, and I think that that's, we have to be able to talk about this honestly.

00:19:13.060 And we have to be able to talk about what's motivating the belief, not just the fact that it's bad that, you know, Muslims are, you know, treating unwelcome to, to gay people or whatever, you know, in a specific locale.

00:19:25.560 That is bad.

00:19:26.420 But what's motivating it?

00:19:27.840 Why do they believe that this is the right thing to do?

00:19:29.980 Because they're not bad people.

00:19:32.200 Like, like what we said, they're not bad people.

00:19:34.200 They think that what they're doing is right.

00:19:35.660 So we have to be able to meet them at that intellectual level and tell them, you know, convince them, persuade them why it isn't right.

00:19:45.280 We've talked about the intolerance of gay people and you've spoken a lot about Islam's relationship with women and how women are treated differently under Islam.

00:19:57.780 For people like myself who may not be aware of it or understand it, can you just break it down for us?

00:20:02.740 What does that actually mean?

00:20:04.900 Well, um, so to start with the, the women's element. 1.00

00:20:08.160 So Islam is a sexed religion. 0.99

00:20:10.480 Many of the, you know, older religions are.

00:20:12.680 They have this role they see is the right role of man and the right role of women. 0.76

00:20:17.420 Um, and they are traditional roles of you.

00:20:20.300 What, what would you expect would be the role of men and what you would expect to be the role of women.

00:20:25.180 Um, and because it is a religious belief and it is not really something you can negotiate, uh, it is really hard to move past, uh, what the religion might prescribe.

00:20:36.000 Um, and as a consequence, you see in the Muslim, throughout the Muslim world, you see women's rights are, you know, uh,

00:20:42.300 far, some of the worst countries in the world for women are Muslim majority countries. 1.00

00:20:48.340 Like, let me put it that way. 0.94

00:20:49.800 So this is a, this is a big problem.

00:20:52.260 Um, and it is also the case, uh, that Islam treats innovation within the faith differently than, than other religions.

00:21:00.300 I think it is more intolerant, um, because of specific verses and scriptures and we won't get into all of that.

00:21:06.220 But I think it is less, um, accepting of evolution in, in belief.

00:21:12.780 Um, and I think you see the consequences of that because Muslims are socially rigid, um, when they are socially conservative, they are rigid in their beliefs. 1.00

00:21:20.360 Um, and it's very hard to get them to, um, and I think that is a consequence also of the belief itself.

00:21:27.480 Uh, there are elements of, uh, I guess the differences between Islam and Christianity that feel foreign to Christians.

00:21:36.220 So I have to sort of explain and break it down a little bit, but one of those ways in which I think Islam is different, unique, unique in the main, main religions of the world is that it is very political.

00:21:46.960 Um, it is innately political. You can't really separate this. Muhammad was a politician, a statesman, as well as a religious leader.

00:21:56.280 You know, that's within the accepted, you know, scriptures and texts.

00:21:59.800 Um, and that's why you see such a thing like Islamic states, you know, um, um, and you see a drive and a push towards more, uh, a more unified approach to religion and, and governance and politics.

00:22:15.020 So this makes the conversation around democracy, around human rights, around just, like, secularism, the separation of mosque and state, in this case, to be very tricky, to be very difficult.

00:22:26.320 Um, and it is harder to convince Muslim-majority populations to shift in that direction.

00:22:30.400 So we, we see different challenges in, in Muslim-majority countries, um, when it comes to advancing democracy, advancing, uh, secularism, uh, in, in particular.

00:22:40.720 Um, so I think that, you know, those things matter. The differences in the faith matter.

00:22:45.860 And in some ways it is, of course, because the faith is different, in some ways it might be better suited for some challenges of the modern world.

00:22:54.640 I think some Muslims would say that, um, and they might have a point in, you know, a place or two.

00:23:00.720 And then in some ways it is definitely not meeting those challenges.

00:23:04.320 I think that the difficulty with us in the West is how do we, how do we maintain tolerance, you know, religious tolerance, our ideals of religious tolerance.

00:23:16.020 And also keep in mind that we should be allowed to criticize ideas.

00:23:22.180 We should be allowed to, uh, uh, make people feel uncomfortable, you know.

00:23:27.400 Um, and then this rubs the modern, you know, liberal left in a very wrong way.

00:23:33.380 They, they feel as if, you know, this is a, this is a very self-esteem oriented, uh, ideology now.

00:23:40.520 Um, and to, to say that, well, I'm going to criticize Islam. 1.00

00:23:45.780 I'm going to target its ideology directly.

00:23:49.980 I'm going to bring up verses and I'm going to challenge Muslims around me to, to, you know, explain or move in their, you know, in their religious beliefs or to abandon them as I did. 1.00

00:24:01.840 Um, this strikes the, the modern liberal as bigotry, you know, because you're making them feel unwelcome.

00:24:10.520 You're making them feel as lesser than, you're making them feel, uh, challenged in this environment.

00:24:15.360 And that's, that's discrimination.

00:24:17.360 That's, that's, you know, that's, it's bad.

00:24:20.160 It's not nice.

00:24:22.080 Um, and it makes this work very challenging because ultimately you have to be able to discuss the reality of it.

00:24:29.280 You have to be able to discuss the ideological tenets directly.

00:24:34.140 Uh, and of course this will make people feel bad.

00:24:37.080 Of course.

00:24:37.640 Um, but that's the, the work of, um, bringing in a group of people from a very different part of the world with very different ideals and integrating them into our society and making them equal in our society, equal citizens, um, with the same stake as everybody else.

00:24:54.400 That's a, who said that was going to be a wonderful process that was going to make everyone feel great.

00:24:58.840 Because, well, the thing that I've always found very interesting is you have feminists who obviously that's what, what they do. 1.00

00:25:07.040 They talk and write about women's rights and how women are being discriminated against.

00:25:11.240 And they talk about how women are being discriminated in the West and they pick these tiny little issues that don't make a difference either way.

00:25:19.480 And they avoid the topic of Islam when you look at girls. 0.96

00:25:23.680 So I taught, I've taught in schools as a, when I was a teacher, which were majority Muslim schools.

00:25:29.340 And you've seen six-year-old girls wearing a hijab and you think, why do they need to do this? 0.99

00:25:34.920 Why is this?

00:25:35.940 But nobody wants to talk about this publicly and say, I don't agree with this and this is wrong.

00:25:41.020 Yeah.

00:25:44.780 It's depressing because there, there are consequences to this lack of action.

00:25:52.420 Where I think too many countries in Europe are, and when it comes to this kind of negotiation, that you should, ideally, it should be a negotiation between the incoming immigrants and, and the native populations, is not a negotiation at all. 0.60

00:26:09.140 It's like a hostage situation.

00:26:11.420 It's a situation in which one side has all the moral, you know, and even political weight behind it.

00:26:21.420 And the other side feels as if they cannot challenge it, lest they be decried by others around them as right-wing.

00:26:30.040 Um, and this fear of being right-wing is so much greater than, I think, what the sense of unease that everybody feels about, um, seeing a lot of conservative, you know, ideals in, in practice around them.

00:26:46.120 Yeah.

00:26:46.260 Well, Sarah, this brings us on to what you said in the wake of the Salman Rushdie thing, because while I, I think you're right that a lot of people fear being smeared or called, you know, Islamophobic or racist or whatever for talking about some of these issues.

00:27:01.340 I also think it's very clear now that there's good reason to be fearful, in Europe at least, if you speak up about some of these issues, or if you criticize the faith as you do, that you're likely to find yourself in danger.

00:27:17.120 And the point that you made in your brilliant article was that we in the West have become confused about the source of that violence and where it comes from, uh, because we think, well, these people are so offended by something that's been said that they are outraged and that's why they're reacting this way.

00:27:34.840 But it's not true.

00:27:36.320 Yeah.

00:27:36.540 We, we, we tend to, to look at things, um, from this, you know, psychological perspective, um, we're hurting people's self-esteem, we're offending them, we're evoking emotions in them that are unpleasant and thus they are reacting, uh, to our provocation.

00:27:56.900 Um, and, and, and, and I find that it is completely missing the point when it comes to what's going on, uh, with at least the more radical fringes of Islam, certainly.

00:28:09.080 And I think, in fact, much of it, much of the problems that we're seeing, um, but in the radical fringes, they don't feel offended.

00:28:17.500 And even if they do, that's not what's motivating them.

00:28:20.480 That's not why they're moving forward.

00:28:22.220 That's not why they're going to stab you tomorrow, um, because they're so offended and they just can't control themselves.

00:28:28.120 And they're, you know, there's a, that's even a racist idea on some level that, uh, you are so incapable of controlling your emotions, uh, that you, you, you can't help but, you know, have it just burst out of you in, in a fit of violence and, and, and rage.

00:28:46.240 Um, it, it, it's a condescension as well as just a point-blank misunderstanding of what's going on.

00:28:52.440 So what is the truth? What is it that motivates them?

00:28:54.820 What's motivating them is that they are, they understand their faith as, uh, calling on them to defend it when it is attacked.

00:29:02.120 Uh, so when somebody is, uh, is taking part in an action that is prohibited by Islam, um, extremely prohibited by Islam in the case of drawing Muhammad, um, then they must, as dutiful Muslims, they must act, uh, and defend this faith, um, act in the way that God would want them to act.

00:29:22.840 So it's less of a personal thing and more of this cosmic thing, um, of defending this idea.

00:29:29.560 So it's essentially enforcing a blasphemy law on, on the West.

00:29:34.100 On, on everyone.

00:29:35.240 On everyone.

00:29:35.760 On everyone. It is a de facto blasphemy law that the, that the entire world is in one, in one form or another, um, going through.

00:29:45.140 And the, and unfortunately, I mean, this is, and this is one of the, uh, trickier elements of it that you have to be able to just articulate, even though it's so difficult to articulate, that the higher the percentage of Muslims in your locality, the more, um, the more that this deep, you know, uh, this, this blasphemy prohibition becomes actual de facto law, you know, um, become something that you have to fear, um, when you start talking about it. 0.81

00:30:15.120 And so I think in, in America, I have less to fear than I do in many other parts of the world.

00:30:21.960 I think I have less to fear here than I do in some parts of Europe, um, many parts of Europe, unfortunately.

00:30:28.060 Um, and this is also a very, uh, it's a, I even feel bad saying it because you're not supposed to talk about, about these things, but realistically, of course, if there's more people around you to hear what you're saying, to then interpret their belief in this.

00:30:45.120 In a very literal way, you're more likely to be in danger.

00:30:48.900 And what about, you, you, you've meant, you've mentioned the distinction between the good Muslims and the extremists, let's say.

00:30:56.480 And we've had many people on the show, you know, former Al-Qaeda operative Ayman Deen, for example, and, and others who, who've studied this issue a lot,

00:31:04.940 who kind of explained to us that really the, the battle isn't between the West and Islam, it's between Islamists and everybody else.

00:31:14.320 And that's why, you know, the, the stat that people often say is, well, the biggest victims of terrorism, Islamic terrorism are Muslims.

00:31:21.120 So, isn't it the case that the problem is less about, you know, the, however many billion Muslims there are in the world, most of whom aren't doing anything like this. 0.80

00:31:30.060 And it's really about those extremists who are taking a particular interpretation.

00:31:35.980 Yeah.

00:31:36.320 Um, isn't that the case?

00:31:38.360 I don't think so.

00:31:39.220 No.

00:31:39.340 Why not?

00:31:39.800 I mean, I, I hardly ever talk, I mean, we've talked about it just now, um, and in my piece with Salman Rushdie, I talked about it, but in my work on the whole, I hardly ever talk about terrorism or extremism, those radical fringes of it.

00:31:53.340 Um, I think that they are very helpful in, um, radicals in general, they're help, they're helpful in getting you to understand where a logic might lead, but that logic is still there.

00:32:04.940 Even if it is not present in its very literal extreme form, um, it is always there and it's always still affecting you.

00:32:12.300 Um, it's still affecting, you know, the society in which this logic is prevalent.

00:32:17.020 Um, and yeah, so I, it's tough because you don't want to paint the average Muslim who really isn't doing anything, just wants to go about their day and, you know, their lives, uh, might not be putting their children in, you know, a burqa.

00:32:33.920 So my parents were not extremists, they were quite liberal for Muslims.

00:32:38.440 Um, I was not forced to do or wear, um, a burqa.

00:32:43.060 I was not, you know, I wasn't forced into a marriage or anything.

00:32:46.040 I did have to, uh, dress conservatively, what would be considered very conservatively here.

00:32:52.040 I was expected to eventually have an arranged marriage, um, not to date, not to participate in certain social habits, like during, you know, uh, partying or drinking or anything.

00:33:01.640 Obviously that was prohibited, uh, but, but my parents didn't, you know, hurt me or harm me or force me into, you know, more extremist elements of the practice.

00:33:11.280 So is it fair to then call these, you know, good people who are just, they're immigrants, they're working hard every day, trying to give their children a good life.

00:33:19.280 Is it fair to say, to demonize them in any way, to say that there's something deeply wrong with their cherished, most cherished beliefs?

00:33:26.480 I get it.

00:33:27.380 I get why this is hard to say, why this is hard to talk about.

00:33:30.460 Um, but it's simply not true that you can cleave off extremists from what gives them, uh, strength, right?

00:33:42.560 Because extremists actually, you know, they, in the case of religious extremists, they're not operating on, in a, in a total vacuum.

00:33:51.060 Um, they're not, you know, kidnapped somewhere and brainwashed and now they're, they're coming at it.

00:33:57.320 They have grown up their whole lives with a certain kind of beliefs.

00:34:01.040 Um, and those beliefs are accepted largely within their community, just not in their extreme form, but the internal logic of it, uh, is accepted.

00:34:10.160 So, yes, you give, you give your life to God, uh, you restrict yourself from these and these behaviors, what, the society around you are filled with disbelievers and people who are going to hell and they're burning in hell. 0.97

00:34:22.680 Um, I mean, there's just these general ways of looking at the world that is, in fact, a view shared by every, everyone, you know, um, with the exception of maybe Muslims who are so extreme that other Muslims would not call them Muslims, like, extremely religious, uh, extremely liberal, I mean. 0.51

00:34:38.840 Um, I, I don't think it, it doesn't make sense to, to separate it, um, in that way.

00:34:45.480 But wouldn't this be the case with almost any belief?

00:34:47.440 Like, for example, I believe, by virtue of de facto observation, that there is a difference between men and women.

00:34:53.560 Yeah.

00:34:53.740 Right?

00:34:54.260 It doesn't mean I believe that women should be maltreated because of it.

00:34:57.740 Yeah.

00:34:57.980 But there are some people who do.

00:34:59.340 Yeah.

00:34:59.760 So, can I not be cleaved off from them?

00:35:03.600 Can I, can I, can I not be cleaved off from the people who think men and women are different, therefore women shouldn't vote?

00:35:09.560 I think you, you, you can and, and, and you can't, right?

00:35:12.560 Like, I mean, there's.

00:35:13.600 I, I quite like to be cleaved off from them.

00:35:15.320 Sure, right, sure.

00:35:16.100 But, um, let's say you, you have, um, let's, let's talk about that specific example.

00:35:22.800 So, even I would not disagree with you there.

00:35:25.000 I, I too believe that there are, you know, differences between men and women.

00:35:28.040 Right.

00:35:28.380 And yet, I hold that there are certain, you know, legal equalities that women ought to have.

00:35:33.220 Um, and that is just and good and right.

00:35:34.900 So, am I, by giving them even a little bit of, you know, ideological, by agreeing with

00:35:39.720 them even on that perspective, am I, am I just, uh, agreeing to it all?

00:35:44.180 I don't, I understand what you're saying when you say that there is a difference.

00:35:49.100 And I agree that there is a difference.

00:35:51.920 Um, but does it make sense to pull it apart entirely and say that there is no reason to

00:36:00.160 investigate this?

00:36:01.660 Um, so when it comes to, let's say women and men, what would you say that the extremists

00:36:08.320 might do with your belief that women and men are different?

00:36:11.600 They might.

00:36:12.320 They might say women shouldn't vote. 1.00

00:36:13.820 They might say women shouldn't vote. 1.00

00:36:14.780 Right.

00:36:14.980 Right.

00:36:15.440 So, then you have to be able to logically make the case why your slippery slope is in

00:36:20.440 fact not a slippery slope.

00:36:21.820 Why that there's either, it's colliding with another slope that matters to you, another

00:36:25.840 set of values that is also important.

00:36:28.080 Um, and there's a good reason why we shouldn't go down that slippery slope.

00:36:31.100 And you should be able to articulate it.

00:36:32.760 And I'm sure you can, actually.

00:36:34.380 I'm sure you can explain to that person why, uh, suffrage of women is important, even though

00:36:40.140 it is true that men and women are different.

00:36:42.380 Right.

00:36:43.460 Um, so we have to be able to acknowledge that you share that belief and you have to be able

00:36:49.400 to explain why it is, why that logic doesn't actually flow entirely to where they are.

00:36:54.680 Or maybe there's another logic that's more important.

00:36:56.820 There's another value, another principle that, that clashes with that.

00:37:01.240 And we should listen to, to where that's taking us as well.

00:37:04.540 Um, but you can't say, no, I'm just, I'm so different.

00:37:08.300 I don't want what they want.

00:37:09.460 And, and yes, I share this belief, but I don't want what they want.

00:37:12.680 And so I don't, don't put me in the same camp.

00:37:14.780 And I shouldn't be able to, I shouldn't be, uh, uh, discussing this issue in depth and

00:37:22.700 explaining and articulating my position as well.

00:37:25.120 I guess what I'm saying is this, if there are, let's say 1.4 billion people around the

00:37:30.500 world who believe that men and women are different and 99% of them, despite recognizing that as

00:37:38.480 a fact, don't believe that women should be discriminated as a result and 1% do, is it

00:37:45.120 fair to make that connection?

00:37:46.940 Or should we say there are some extremists who also happen to believe these things?

00:37:51.780 I'm not saying it's a fair argument.

00:37:53.240 I don't even think it's a good argument, you know, because it doesn't make, it's just

00:37:58.600 not, it doesn't, um, it doesn't make, it doesn't move our discourse in a direction that is actually

00:38:06.540 productive.

00:38:07.620 Um, because ultimately you have to be able to explain to the extremists and persuade them

00:38:12.220 to your side, which means, okay, we agree on this, but here's why you're wrong.

00:38:16.980 Yes.

00:38:17.300 And then move them to where you are.

00:38:19.540 So if observably, most Muslims are peaceful and tolerant to some extent and are able to

00:38:26.720 live in Western society, um, why can we not target our concerns specifically at those

00:38:34.140 extremes?

00:38:34.760 Why does it have to be about the faith itself?

00:38:37.280 I think because there are some, there are some beliefs that fundamentally should be rejected.

00:38:45.420 You know, there are some beliefs.

00:38:46.540 Um, so I'm a sec, I'm a secularist.

00:38:49.420 I believe, I believe deeply that it is good and right and just.

00:38:54.320 And, um, uh, if you have the separation of church and state, um, in a democracy, that this

00:39:00.920 is going to lead to a lot of good outcomes for that democracy.

00:39:03.600 It's going to make the pursuit of justice and truth, um, easier.

00:39:07.780 It's going to lead to a kind of civil society that is nice and energetic and heterodox.

00:39:16.200 Um, and so this is an important central tenet of my belief.

00:39:19.840 If you disagree with that, even a little bit, we have a problem.

00:39:23.980 So if you are a moderate anti-secularist versus an extreme anti-secularist, to me, you're

00:39:29.840 equal, you're problematic because the problem is that you think that there shouldn't be

00:39:35.020 a separation.

00:39:36.240 You know, you think there's just a little separation or a lot separation.

00:39:38.680 And the, yes, uh, there's a difference there.

00:39:41.020 Yes.

00:39:41.600 But people like your parents, they're not trying to create a caliphate in the United

00:39:44.680 States, are they?

00:39:45.180 They're not trying to create caliphates, but they do believe in those values.

00:39:48.940 And it is still important to try and move those people in a direction that would be

00:39:54.180 healthier because ultimately communities are, you know, they're not, it's not tiny little

00:39:58.420 hotspots of extremists who don't talk to each other.

00:40:00.580 Everyone talks to everyone.

00:40:01.900 If you move a certain group along, the liberals along to, you know, closer to where we would

00:40:07.460 want them to be, you move everybody else along with them, like just to some degree.

00:40:12.380 Um, so I think it is always worth challenging.

00:40:15.320 So, but I think Sarah, what I'm trying to get to is I'm trying to understand what parts

00:40:21.240 of that particular faith are so problematic and, uh, fundamentally incompatible with the

00:40:28.160 West.

00:40:28.500 Would you be able to specify a few things?

00:40:31.400 So the people who are listening and myself included can understand this.

00:40:35.160 Yeah.

00:40:35.380 I mean, secularism, we just, we just talked about that a little bit.

00:40:38.600 So there's no...

00:40:39.180 So Islam is a political ideology as well.

00:40:41.300 But there's no, it makes no, it's nonsensical in Islam to say that religion should be entirely

00:40:46.580 separate from the state.

00:40:47.960 Okay.

00:40:48.420 Um, as it is traditionally understood.

00:40:50.320 Okay.

00:40:51.020 And that is why there's so many Muslim majority countries that struggle with this.

00:40:55.720 Um, and they have, uh, many laws that, uh, you know, or, or like, um, say Bangladesh, for

00:41:03.520 example, like they're secularists in many ways.

00:41:06.920 Um, they are supposed to be secularists and yet they have elements of the law in which they

00:41:13.680 believe, you know, religious authorities can have like some say, um, like family oriented

00:41:18.240 domestic sort of things.

00:41:19.360 Um, so you sort of see this, um, you know, whittling away at the edges of extreme, of

00:41:26.100 secularism, even in fairly, you know, liberal Muslim, you know, democracies.

00:41:32.940 Um, and in the moderate Muslim world, well, it's a lot more, it's a, religion pushes in 1.00

00:41:39.520 into all aspects of life.

00:41:41.900 And the more, most extreme countries, Saudi Arabia, that are just explicitly, we are a

00:41:46.600 theocratic state, um, there is no freedom of thought.

00:41:50.000 There is no freedom of belief, um, because there are always running against, uh, what may

00:41:57.820 or may not be deemed blasphemy.

00:41:59.180 Um, in, in Pakistan, for example, I have conversations with scientists, uh, people who

00:42:07.260 are professors, uh, you know, talking about geology, you know, something that is very physical

00:42:12.900 and real about the world.

00:42:14.700 Um, and they fear their students, uh, to the extent that what they teach might go against

00:42:22.300 the Islam, might go against a religious, you know, understanding of, of, of the universe. 0.65

00:42:27.120 Uh, they fear that if, if, if they talk about this, if they teach these kinds of lessons to

00:42:33.100 their students, they might be accused of blasphemy.

00:42:35.280 And so you see this, these societies that are, you know, pulled back, like held back away

00:42:41.320 from what we call, you know, the modern world, uh, because their ability to think openly and

00:42:49.840 freely is just curtailed by, by religion at every level.

00:42:55.920 You know, even in very abstract levels, of course, artists, yes, human rights activists,

00:42:59.580 women, these are the very explicit examples, but also scientists who are trying to learn 1.00

00:43:04.600 about the natural world.

00:43:07.040 But if you have a theocratic state, they believe that that is not true and that what you are

00:43:12.200 teaching about the natural world is in fact blasphemy.

00:43:15.880 Uh, and then you're, and then you're under, under threat.

00:43:18.180 So there's a, there's a, a societal wide effect of the lack of secularism.

00:43:25.600 Um, and then you get to a society that is just incapable of finding truth, right?

00:43:30.820 So it's incapable of scientific inquiry. 0.99

00:43:32.620 Muslim, the Muslim world is, uh, one of the worst, um, producers. 1.00

00:43:36.980 It is now, but there was a time when it was at the very forefront of science. 0.97

00:43:40.540 The golden age.

00:43:41.460 Yeah.

00:43:41.880 So-called, yeah.

00:43:42.600 I mean, a lot of the medical and other things that were developed in that time, we still

00:43:46.500 use to this day and algebra and all these things, right?

00:43:49.380 Yeah.

00:43:49.960 Um, so I, I wouldn't go, I won't go too deep into my, uh, theories about, uh, the golden

00:43:58.260 age of Islam, but let's, um, let's leave it at, at this.

00:44:02.100 Uh, I think much of what, what happened then, um, the great achievements of the Muslim world,

00:44:09.380 um, were, were allowed, you know, permitted because the, the people in power, the caliphs

00:44:17.360 in power at the time were fairly liberal.

00:44:20.000 Um, so this is a kind of a benefit of an authoritarian state that if you have the man at the top, uh,

00:44:26.140 if he happens to be fairly liberal, um, and, and encourages, uh, movement in, you know, scientific

00:44:32.000 arena or whatever, and is tolerant to this, uh, then you might see progress.

00:44:35.900 Uh, but if he isn't, then you don't, uh, and that's, that's my theory for what, why

00:44:41.920 you saw something, you saw sort of the spurt, you know, this, of, of a lot of interesting

00:44:46.420 thinking and innovation, um, I think they were protected by, by the state at that time, but

00:44:51.040 of course, the next guy came along and said, I don't believe this, and I don't believe you

00:44:55.020 should be allowed to have these freedoms, and they stripped those freedoms away from them.

00:44:57.920 This is why it's important that those freedoms are baked in, you know, they are unmovable

00:45:03.220 in the way that they are in the United States.

00:45:06.880 And what was it like being a young girl and a young woman in the Muslim faith?

00:45:12.640 Did you feel that you, that you, there were certain things that were available to men

00:45:18.060 that weren't available to you?

00:45:19.620 Were you seen in a different way?

00:45:21.000 Oh, of course.

00:45:21.380 I mean, I mean, it's a, it's a sexed religion.

00:45:24.360 It's a, it's a religion that views the appropriate place for women and the appropriate place for

00:45:28.460 men to be very different, um, based on what God says will get you into heaven.

00:45:34.160 You know, you behave a certain way as a woman and you will, you have these duties, womanly 1.00

00:45:37.200 duties, and then you have these duties as a man.

00:45:39.400 Now, having said all that, you know, these were, these were, these offended me a lot when

00:45:45.740 I was, um, a young woman who wanted her freedom, um, and wanted to get, get, get away from,

00:45:53.040 uh, all these restrictions around her.

00:45:55.400 I felt that I was, um, a person of, you know, who had a lot of potential and I felt like

00:46:01.260 this potential was being restricted, um, by these various restrictions around me.

00:46:06.300 But having, having said that, I did, when I was a believer, I thought it was right.

00:46:12.300 You know, I thought it was, God knows more than you.

00:46:15.480 So who am I to question?

00:46:16.840 You know, who am I to say that, uh, you know, actually I should be allowed to leave as far

00:46:23.900 as I want and dress how I want?

00:46:25.200 Who am I to say that?

00:46:26.000 I don't, I don't know that.

00:46:27.500 I don't, I don't have his, his, uh, his brilliance.

00:46:30.300 I, well, I'm not the creator.

00:46:31.520 I'm not omniscient.

00:46:32.580 Um, and, and I've followed logically that my own moral intuitions or the, you know, the

00:46:39.700 moral beliefs of the society around me could not be true simply because there is a God

00:46:46.000 and he has a message and he tells you what that message is.

00:46:49.100 So you, you should follow.

00:46:51.020 So I followed with the logic of that up until I left religion.

00:46:54.080 And that's when it started to bother me.

00:46:56.300 You know, that's when it, that's when it chafed, but it actually didn't chafe before

00:46:59.920 then because I was, I'm a very, I'm, I'm, I'm not too dissimilar, I think, from the kinds

00:47:05.420 of people who end up becoming jihadis from, from the perspective of let's follow this logic

00:47:10.040 as far as it'll take us.

00:47:11.920 That's comforting.

00:47:12.480 But Sarah, what was the moment for you where you thought, I don't, there's something here

00:47:20.360 I, I can't get on board with.

00:47:22.080 When was the moment that you started to have doubt?

00:47:25.000 Was there a particular incident?

00:47:27.140 Hmm.

00:47:28.020 Well, I had, um, atheists who were my friends.

00:47:32.100 I know that they instigated some of the more critical examinations that I had faith.

00:47:36.620 I always, I was always a questioning person.

00:47:38.760 So I always questioned the edges of it, um, but the edges of it are, you know, they're

00:47:43.500 more flexible in the sense that it could be that there's something, some human interpretation

00:47:48.380 that went wrong along the way, or my teacher is wrong specifically in what he's teaching

00:47:52.800 me.

00:47:53.520 Um, I was always questioning, um, but the, I never questioned the fundamental idea that

00:48:00.360 there may not be a God.

00:48:02.000 And I literally didn't, never conceived of such a thing until I met some atheists.

00:48:08.740 And these were, you know, young men who had just left religion themselves. 0.99

00:48:13.820 So they were, they were in their, uh, anti, anti-theist phase, kind of like the asshole Reddit 0.99

00:48:19.820 atheist kind of phase. 0.96

00:48:21.960 Um, and so they, they thought it was very important to expose me to the criticisms they

00:48:27.700 had of, of Islam.

00:48:29.740 I remember once I got, one of my friends gave me a list of verses from the Quran and he said,

00:48:35.960 explain these, you know, like explain these, these verses.

00:48:39.600 Like he made, he made the effort of like printing something out.

00:48:42.380 It was, uh, and then I remember thinking it will be explained in context, which is sort of

00:48:49.080 standard religious, you know, uh, initial response anyway, because I did believe it would be explained

00:48:54.780 in context.

00:48:55.220 Of course it would be.

00:48:56.060 My religion was right and it was true.

00:48:57.580 And, and, you know, it was a right understanding of the world.

00:48:59.600 And I, um, and then I went and read about the context and the context made it worse.

00:49:04.720 So that, that, that caused, uh, me to, you know, really start to look into, uh, faith in

00:49:13.160 a more critical manner.

00:49:14.120 And I, it was interesting because I always had, uh, a critical appraisal of Christianity.

00:49:19.820 I, you know, here's why we cannot, uh, you know, trust that the gospels are, are, you

00:49:26.100 know, true because they've been translated, whatever, all this stuff.

00:49:28.560 And, and here, here are all these criticisms I have about the historicity of, of Jesus.

00:49:34.180 And, and there was a moment where suddenly my brain said, okay, let's just apply all of

00:49:38.860 these criticisms to, to Islam and, uh, it just all fell down like a, like a house of

00:49:44.580 cards.

00:49:45.340 And so what then was the next step?

00:49:47.620 Because a lot of people will take your journey and then they go, well, I no longer want to

00:49:52.780 practice the faith.

00:49:53.620 I want to leave the faith.

00:49:54.700 I know people who have left Islam and they get on with their own lives and they're fine.

00:49:59.560 What made you want to become an activist and talk about a subject like this one, which

00:50:05.960 could put you in very real physical danger?

00:50:11.180 Um, I think there's something wrong with me psychologically, you know, there's like a,

00:50:18.520 there's a something that should be plugged in that isn't or, or something, something's

00:50:23.440 missing, something's different.

00:50:24.960 Um, but I've always been kind of a proselytizer in one form or another.

00:50:30.380 You know, when I was Muslim, I wanted to save my Christian friends.

00:50:32.700 So I shared with them, you know, the, the, the logic of Islam and, and why the Trinity

00:50:39.300 made no sense.

00:50:40.300 And you, you know, and we would have all these like conversations and this is like, we're

00:50:44.880 12 and we're running a mile in gym class and we're having these like discussions about

00:50:50.240 deep theological discussions.

00:50:52.760 Of course, nobody knew what they were talking about.

00:50:54.640 Uh, I was proselytizing then.

00:50:56.360 And then when I left, when I left the faith, it just, it was of course logical for me to

00:51:00.840 continue on, um, proselytizing to some degree, but I was fine myself.

00:51:07.560 My family was tolerant enough that I was able to go to college.

00:51:10.540 I was able to move away.

00:51:11.920 I was slowly freeing myself from, uh, the kinds of restrictions that I grew up with.

00:51:17.960 Um, distancing myself from some parts of the family, of course, who were not happy and kind

00:51:22.720 of living a double life in a way, a lot of ex-Muslims live, but I was finding in my own 0.90

00:51:28.480 personal space, I was finding some peace and I was finding that I could, I could live the

00:51:32.740 way I wanted to live.

00:51:34.320 Um, it was, it was when, uh, we started to, you know, form what were, what were the beginnings

00:51:41.580 of the organization, uh, initially just social meetups of ex-Muslims.

00:51:46.920 And this was a very scary thing, especially to do in that time.

00:51:50.780 Um, you're pulling in random people on the internet, you don't know them.

00:51:53.520 They could be, they could be here to kill you, you know, and you had to sort of trust

00:51:57.380 that they were, you know, have screenings.

00:51:59.700 You call them, talk to them and trying to get a, you know, gauge on who they are, meet

00:52:03.660 in a very public place.

00:52:04.880 Um, it was a very risky thing to do.

00:52:07.120 Uh, we started to have these like social, social events and I would have people driving

00:52:14.460 over from like six hours away, one way to have a two hour happy hour.

00:52:20.780 Um, and then, you know, I'd had a hotel for the night, they would stay the night and then

00:52:24.880 drive back.

00:52:25.740 It was so much effort for, for, for what was just like a brief, you know, brief interaction.

00:52:31.860 And I started to recognize as I talked to them that this was such an important, you know,

00:52:37.760 reprieve from the lives that they were forced to live.

00:52:41.700 And I was, you know, to, to use a word that I otherwise don't like, I was very privileged

00:52:47.180 in my experience.

00:52:49.540 And with that privilege, like comes a certain amount, I think it's, there comes a responsibility

00:52:53.880 to do something about it and make the world at least as good for them as it was for me,

00:52:58.140 um, in comparison, right?

00:53:01.820 Um, and so that, that made me think that we need to do something and, and, and address

00:53:07.700 the problem at its root insofar as we could, or at least loosen things a little bit, um,

00:53:13.280 to give people enough reprieve to live their lives.

00:53:15.580 And Sarah, what advice would you give someone who may, was in the same situation that you

00:53:22.180 are, or perhaps in a more conservative family and they want to leave the faith?

00:53:28.780 What, what should they do?

00:53:30.080 How should they go about doing it?

00:53:32.260 Uh, I mean, I think it depends on their family, but I would say that if they're a young person,

00:53:36.640 they need to establish financial independence, you know, first and foremost, um, they need

00:53:41.480 to have that in the bag.

00:53:42.340 They need to be making their own money.

00:53:43.540 They need to be able to live their own lives away from the family control.

00:53:47.320 Um, if a family has that over them, then they have everything, um, and they can force

00:53:53.200 you to do what you want.

00:53:54.240 Um, so that, that's very important for people who have immigration and their immigration status

00:53:59.760 is based on their parents.

00:54:01.140 Wait until you have, you know, citizenship, wait until you have permanent residency, you 1.00

00:54:04.620 don't rely on that anymore.

00:54:06.360 Um, and then, you know, ask questions.

00:54:09.340 I think asking questions helps a lot.

00:54:11.160 Um, the way that I went about it with my parents was not, I didn't tell them all at once.

00:54:16.720 I shared my questions as I had them and they themselves struggled with answering the questions.

00:54:22.980 And so by the end of the journey, they sort of understood, you know, okay, okay.

00:54:27.760 Um, because I understood where I, the intellectual difficulties that I was having and they were

00:54:34.600 less worried that I was just leaving religion because I wanted to party and drink and, you

00:54:39.880 know, strip or whatever it is that the moms are afraid that their daughters are going to 1.00

00:54:43.360 do.

00:54:43.560 Um, uh, Sarah, I, can we, do we have one more go at the whole extremist versus, I'm just, I'm trying

00:54:52.320 to work it out because here's, I'll tell you from a personal background, right?

00:54:56.420 I grew up in, in, in the former Soviet Union and for a part of my life, I lived in Uzbekistan,

00:55:02.400 which is a Muslim country.

00:55:04.740 How long?

00:55:05.340 Uh, I was there for four years.

00:55:07.200 My father was born there and lived there most of his life and neither him or I are Muslims.

00:55:12.740 But the way that the faith is practiced there is completely different to the way that it

00:55:16.560 might be practiced against, uh, not against, the way it might be practiced in Britain where

00:55:21.280 we live now by, by Muslims who are far more conservative, I get the sense about the way 0.86

00:55:27.120 that they apply it.

00:55:27.940 So, I'm just trying to disentangle it because for me, it's, I cringe when people say Islam is a

00:55:37.880 religion of peace immediately after a terrorist attack. I also cringe when people imply that that

00:55:44.300 means Islam is a religion of violence. Because I just think there's such a massive gap between 1.00

00:55:51.020 those two extreme positions in the middle where most Muslims will actually fit.

00:55:55.640 Right.

00:55:56.160 Right?

00:55:56.440 Yeah.

00:55:56.560 So, but what I'm hearing from what you were talking about is that Islam is kind of the 0.95

00:56:05.300 problem. The faith itself is the problem. 0.94

00:56:08.300 Aspects of the faith are, are definitely the problem. Yes. Um, and they have to be loosened

00:56:15.580 in one way or the other, um, to be able to change. So for, let's go back to your example

00:56:21.300 with Uzbekistan, Soviet country.

00:56:24.340 Yeah.

00:56:24.540 Uh, Soviet countries, if you, if you look at like, um, social views of Muslims, you know, 0.90

00:56:31.500 there's like various polls, like Pew polls and Gallup polls, whatever, random, random polls

00:56:35.760 about, uh, social views that Muslims might have women, the, how, how much they should be covered,

00:56:43.280 homosexuality, how should we punish that kind of thing. And they find consistently that, that, 0.76

00:56:48.700 that the Soviet, the former Soviet bloc is, which is now, you know, majority Muslim is far more liberal

00:56:57.540 in their outlook. Right. Um, and this makes sense. Yeah. It's not American liberal, but it's more liberal.

00:57:04.080 Yeah. Right. But it's quite consistent with non-Muslim countries in the former Soviet Union.

00:57:08.040 Mm-hmm. So they kind of had similar values. So their attitudes to homosexuality are not that different

00:57:13.300 to people in Armenia, which is a Christian country. Right. Right. But still very different to America or Britain.

00:57:19.260 Right. Right. So one way to think about it might be if you have competing ideologies, uh, one can soften

00:57:27.480 the blow of the other. If they, if, if, if and when they conflict, um, that happens to, you know, Muslims

00:57:33.760 who are very Westernized, that might happen. Like if you've raised in the West, you've lived around

00:57:39.760 liberals all your life, your parents are liberals too, you have this sort of, um, bless you.

00:57:44.580 Murture. Yeah. You have this, um, secular morality that you have absorbed by osmosis, like through

00:57:52.900 your skin. Um, and you believe it to be true. Um, and then you have this religious ideology

00:57:58.900 as well. That's sort of saying some different things. So then you have to find ways for that

00:58:04.300 to, for the conflict to resolve, um, in one way or the other, or you go in one direction

00:58:11.140 or the other. Um, so often you see, you'll hear stories of people who are extremists that,

00:58:17.260 you know, were provoked into looking deeper into their religion. And they, they went in,

00:58:23.520 uh, they started reading the text and they become, you know, jihadis or they become ex-Muslims, 0.89

00:58:28.640 you know, or they leave. They have that sense of like, okay, this can't be resolved. In fact,

00:58:33.620 um, the average person can actually live with a good deal of cognitive dissonance. Yes.

00:58:38.660 You know, I think we, I think we should, we know this. Um, so I think that in my opinion,

00:58:46.320 you know, it is really important to be able to introduce competing values and advocate for

00:58:53.600 them strongly and convince them about those values, about the, the, the, the value of those

00:58:59.040 values, like, um, the, the benefit of, of, you know, approaching those values, why they might

00:59:06.000 be good. Inherently, that process introduces a level of doubt in your faith. Um, I like to think

00:59:14.420 about it in the sense of, I have Catholic friends who are fairly religious and they might say,

00:59:24.240 uh, strange things, but were, were to me strange when I first heard them. They might say things like,

00:59:30.540 I'm a Catholic, but I think gay marriage is, you know, fine. Or I think, you know, some abortion 0.99

00:59:38.520 should be okay in some contexts. You start, you hear that thing, uh, you hear it with Christians 1.00

00:59:44.140 quite often, this, I'm a Christian, but yeah, you know, what that but implies is that I believe in

00:59:52.820 my faith. I think it is important and I think it is probably true, but it is possible in my mind

01:00:02.180 that it is not a hundred percent the truth or that it is possible, it is possible in my mind that you

01:00:07.720 can reach the truth some other way, that you can reach morality in some other way. It implies a level

01:00:15.740 of doubt in, in your own, in your own belief, just a little, it doesn't have to be a lot, just a little

01:00:21.500 enough to make room for something else to come in and make a claim. You know, just a kernel of doubt

01:00:27.740 is all you need. If you don't have any doubt, you're an extremist. You're never going to go,

01:00:32.760 you're never going to say, I'm a Christian, but you're never going to utter those words. They make 1.00

01:00:36.520 no sense. Why would, but what, you know, there is a right way to behave. There's a right value system.

01:00:43.640 There's a correct way to be. No buts. Um, I think what the Muslim world needs is just that kernel of 1.00

01:00:50.880 doubt. The Soviet bloc has that kernel of doubt, partially because they stamped it into them. Um,

01:00:56.980 but I think insofar as we can introduce it, that makes a massive difference in the behavior of

01:01:03.580 individuals. Just, um, looking at it from just extremists alone, um, you have to be,

01:01:13.000 uh, you have to be convinced that your way of life is 100% true, that the Quran is 100% the word of God.

01:01:21.820 If you're about to kill somebody, it takes certainty. You know, if you're a rational person,

01:01:28.160 it takes certainty. What if you just 99% true, you know, just a, yes, probably in all likelihood,

01:01:37.980 99, but maybe, maybe not. That's, that's enough certain uncertainty that you don't slit somebody's

01:01:45.040 throat. Right. And that's a very crucial, very important difference when it comes to

01:01:48.420 living together in the democracy, that violence is suddenly something that is, you know, something

01:01:58.060 that you can't, you can't, you can no longer justify given your level of, of certainty. So I think maybe

01:02:05.080 thinking less in terms of moderate Muslim, extremist Muslim, you know, liberal Muslim, and more in terms

01:02:10.820 of, um, how pluralistic is their, is their belief, you know, how, how certain are they in the correctness

01:02:19.300 of, of their belief versus anyone else's. And Sarah, let's wrap this up in a slightly interesting

01:02:24.980 way, because you mentioned being an atheist. I, when I was probably 18, 20, that I found that way of thinking

01:02:31.960 very appealing. Now I'm agnostic. And I think that's likely where I'm going to stay. But I, you hear a lot of

01:02:38.580 people talk about the fact that, and I have some sympathy with this argument, that the decreasing

01:02:46.240 religiousness of the West has allowed things like wokeness to step into that void. What do you as an

01:02:51.820 atheist make of that argument? I think it's an interesting argument and, um, makes me very

01:02:57.960 uncomfortable. I can imagine. But, um, but yeah, I think there's, um, it's fascinating and adds a

01:03:08.140 complication to, you know, what I would as an atheist prefer to, to think and, and, and be true about the

01:03:16.480 world and human nature really. Um, and how we optimize for the best kind of society. I would prefer

01:03:27.540 that a society in which no, there's no religion, um, you know, and also somehow we have solved for

01:03:37.540 dogma, you know, the dogma that might come in other forms. Um, I think that's the best society

01:03:43.400 of all. Sure. But is that a, is that a, is that a, is that a possible society? Probably not. Um, is it,

01:03:50.720 is it possible for us to not have religious dogma, um, and to also somehow restrict, uh, resist every

01:03:59.420 other kind of dogma? Um, is that a possible world? Um, so from that perspective, you know, uh, a, a

01:04:06.900 secular but religious, does, does that make sense? Yeah. World is in some ways worse, you know, the worst

01:04:15.720 of all, you know, possible outcomes, you know, maybe, uh, maybe even as bad as ancient, you know,

01:04:21.320 religious contexts. Um, yeah. So that's, I, I, I, I think that's a very interesting train of thought.

01:04:27.660 I, I'm not sure where I end up there at the moment. I do think that there is, um, psychological

01:04:35.740 need, I think for the comfort of some kind of transcendental values, you know, I think they can

01:04:42.200 be routed in other ways. I don't think you need God, but I think you need them to be bigger than

01:04:46.260 you. Um, and you need it to be something that draws you into the collective and to people around

01:04:52.380 you and something that gives you this sense of belonging and personal significance, but also,

01:04:59.380 and this is a word that never gets, doesn't get used enough duty towards others, you know,

01:05:04.080 like not just that I belong here and you make me feel great and personally significant. That's,

01:05:08.660 that's wonderful. But also what do you owe them? What do you owe your fellow man? Um, I think that's,

01:05:16.680 that, that idea of duty is what is a cornerstone of communities, you know, and we're seeing the

01:05:22.460 fraying of communities all over the Western world. So aren't we, on you and I, isn't this awful?

01:05:28.660 A little bit, maybe, yeah. Um, insofar as we can't find something else, um, insofar as that we can't

01:05:34.140 address this problem in some other creative way. But ultimately I think this is where modernity is

01:05:38.840 going. Um, uh, this is, you know, this is the path that we're walking down, um, sort of alienation

01:05:46.620 from each other, from physical, the, you know, the physical world from, uh, broader, uh, you know,

01:05:54.120 the world around us, our neighbors, that kind of thing. We're, we're increasingly alienated from it.

01:05:58.700 That's a modernity challenge. Can you bring religion back and say that this is the, so this 0.93

01:06:04.800 is the solution? I don't know. I don't know if you can force yourself to believe something that is,

01:06:09.260 you know, not true. I don't think I could. I think that even if I thought religion was very good, 1.00

01:06:15.760 I don't think I could go back to it. Well, this is where I am because I think I know and have

01:06:22.060 experiences of knowing that religion, not Islam actually, but Christianity, some forms of Christianity

01:06:26.840 can be very bad. And Islam clearly, there are some forms of that or some people who follow it who 1.00

01:06:33.300 can be very bad. But the level of society, I look around and I'm kind of going, you said it yourself,

01:06:42.240 you need something that's above you. You need something that connects you to other people.

01:06:45.140 You need the community in a world that's becoming increasingly detached from, in which we become

01:06:50.380 detached from each other. I don't know that we've come up with an alternative. Woke people have.

01:06:58.760 And I'm like, you know what? I'd rather be an Anglican, if that's the choice. Anglicanism works

01:07:04.600 for me compared to this crowd. But that's not really a religion anymore, is it?

01:07:07.840 Well, you know, let's not get into that. We have five minutes left or whatever. You know what I mean?

01:07:12.480 Yeah. So, how can we advocate for, well, not advocate, but how can we say, well, you know,

01:07:18.620 agnosticism is good or being an atheist is good. When we look around and we go, the practical 0.99

01:07:23.400 consequences of the lack of religion are bad. Yeah, I wouldn't say that it's exactly the practical

01:07:31.740 consequences of the lack of religion. I think they're all, that the lack of religion and the

01:07:38.540 incidents, more wokeism in the world or more senses of alienation, they're all being caused

01:07:46.660 by another factor, you know, that's happening together. That is, it seems to me that there's

01:07:50.580 nothing we can really do about with the tools that we have at our disposal at the moment.

01:07:57.640 You mean technology?

01:07:59.380 Technology has a big role to play in the overall alienation that we feel and the various social

01:08:06.580 consequences. I mean, you can't even use, you think of the social fabric, it doesn't even make

01:08:11.460 sense to think of it as a fabric. It's not a fabric. We're individual threads floating around

01:08:15.740 and we're knotted up in one piece or another in one online community or space and isolated there.

01:08:24.680 I think the problem is a bigger one and I don't know if old religion has the tools to solve it, 1.00

01:08:31.080 partially because, well, it makes a lot of claims about the real world and they have an effect.

01:08:35.600 Not a good one. And it is hard to get the, you know, a 17-year-old to believe in the literal

01:08:42.760 truth of something that's making claims that are not true in the natural world and we know

01:08:47.420 for a fact and they know for a fact. You can't hide this from them anymore. So the ways in which

01:08:51.820 religion is literally not true is a hurdle that I don't know if it can overcome insofar as we're 1.00

01:09:00.600 we're considering what is a solution. I get it. I'm stuck in exactly the same place as you.

01:09:04.660 What would convince you, really? I mean, that's the, so that's, that's what the solution is.

01:09:07.820 What would it be that would change you? Well, we've been sitting, so our friends who we're

01:09:12.700 staying with here, they're, they're Christians and we've been, we've spent every night sitting

01:09:17.000 right around here arguing this back and forth and there's not, they haven't. They're very clever

01:09:21.880 people and I respect them very much, but there's nothing that can convince me of that. But on the

01:09:28.660 other hand, I am extremely convinced that without community, without connection, which they have

01:09:35.180 because if you're a Christian, you go to church, you have a community, the way you relate to other

01:09:40.040 people is different and so on. You know, without that, human beings are not designed to live in this

01:09:45.880 world that we live in now. When we, not designed, we didn't evolve, sorry, triggering words to an

01:09:50.620 atheist. We did not evolve to live alone, to, to live in disconnected, disembodied life. Um, and

01:09:57.620 so I feel it's, you know, particularly I became a father recently. I'm thinking about this, like,

01:10:02.680 what are we offering people? Because this disembodied, disconnected existence is not good for us.

01:10:09.580 No, no. Um, and I think it's fraying, it's fraying away at every important element of human

01:10:18.080 existence. Like, I mean, not to be too, too grandiose about it, but I think it's true that,

01:10:22.680 um, relationships, you know, sex, people aren't having sex, people aren't, people don't have

01:10:28.340 friendships, people are isolated and alone, um, uh, uh, and plugged into these digital spaces that

01:10:34.180 are very toxic and damaging to them. Uh, they are encouraged to conceive of themselves as,

01:10:40.600 as the end product, right? As the picture at the end that you post on your profile,

01:10:45.400 um, and, and the video that you take of yourself as almost a performer first, um, uh, and to think

01:10:53.000 about yourself in third person, um, all the time and to be signaling all the time. Uh, it's a very,

01:11:00.160 it's an exhausting way to live. And I think it's a, uh, it's not, it's not a surprise to me that

01:11:04.720 Zoomers are, you know, they're just fucked up. They're, they're, you know, they're, they're having, 1.00

01:11:09.960 they have a lot of problems. Um, and it seems like not a lot of solutions. I don't have an answer for

01:11:15.360 you. And I just don't think that it would be nice. Maybe if we can have a nice form of Christianity, 1.00

01:11:22.380 can we though, can we, you know, pass that on to a 13 year old that has access to the internet

01:11:29.980 and finds Reddit atheism and, and they're all like, this is why it's wrong. And then you stop

01:11:34.820 believing, right? Um, so long as we don't have a choice in the matter of belief or not belief,

01:11:39.380 it is important that they are making literal claims about the world that are not, not true.

01:11:46.780 Um, and I think will affect their, the ability of a, of an, even a nice Christianity to go very far, 0.88

01:11:55.140 um, in moving people and pulling them away from, uh, uh, from the disconnectedness that we're seeing

01:12:03.100 around us. There has to be some other solution, but I, you know, I, I was in charge of creating

01:12:08.500 communities when I was, you know, um, in running my organization and it was a very interesting

01:12:17.240 experience in that I recognized how religion is very useful at committing good and healthy

01:12:25.160 communities. In fact, you know, religious communities are demonized, um, a lot, sometimes

01:12:30.780 fairly, I think oftentimes fairly, and then sometimes unfairly. And so there's some benefits to,

01:12:37.280 to, to that form of organization. Um, and it provides benefits to the people, to the members

01:12:43.760 of that community. Um, and it's hard to replicate that, um, without these kinds of values, um, tying

01:12:52.320 you together. Yeah. So I think that's going to be a challenge. Um, but you know, um, to end

01:12:58.180 on a kind of an optimistic note, I think human beings are very adaptable and yes, technology

01:13:05.660 is throwing a lot of problems at us very quickly, which makes things difficult to make, it's difficult

01:13:11.480 for us, I think, to adapt quickly. Um, but it is very possible that we do. It's very possible

01:13:19.280 that we become, you know, uh, immune to the kind of siren songs of, of, of social media and

01:13:26.820 like the online world and, and find a way back to something a little bit more healthy.

01:13:31.040 Sarah, it's been a wonderful interview. Thank you so much for coming on the show.

01:13:34.680 We always end the show in the same way, which is what is the one thing we're not talking about

01:13:38.380 as a society that we really should be?

01:13:41.080 Hmm.

01:13:45.200 Well, um, I don't want to tread too much ground that we have tread already. Um, so I will say,

01:13:51.580 I think we should be thinking a lot more about the ways in which the sexes are different. You 1.00

01:13:58.720 know, I think we should be, uh, more, um, thoughtfully considering, uh, how those differences

01:14:07.240 impact us on our, in our day-to-day lives, um, and how they're impacting our institutions

01:14:13.560 and our, you know, social organization as women become very much a part of them, of, of these

01:14:20.660 organizations and institutions, sometimes running them, you know, sometimes, uh, becoming

01:14:26.300 the majorities of, uh, you know, in, in a workplace or in a field or, um, you know, in, in an organization.

01:14:34.340 So we should be thinking about what that changes, if anything, um, whether that's a good thing,

01:14:41.400 whether we want to resist it somewhere in some way. Um, but people have a hard time even imagining

01:14:46.340 that something could be different, that to imply that, you know, let's say, oh, you know, um,

01:14:54.200 the American culture, not let, let's say academia is entirely 90% women. Um, let's say the legislature 1.00

01:15:04.520 is 90% women. Um, people have a, people don't like, people don't like it when I say that this 1.00

01:15:11.280 will probably have an effect on the kind, on the institutional norms, on the way the, the,

01:15:16.760 the psychology behind which, you know, those, those norms are based and they will create new norms

01:15:22.360 and they will, uh, behave differently than they had before. And those institutions function well

01:15:28.160 in a time and place where men were predominant in the public space, in the public sphere. And that's,

01:15:35.200 that's how they were developed. Um, and they functioned well in that, in that, uh, space.

01:15:41.180 Now that that's changing and you have a different kind of person with a different kind of psychology,

01:15:45.540 different kind of way of socializing, um, how does that change things and how do we need to correct

01:15:50.880 for it? So, you know, to give a specific example, you know, free speech on campus, right? Like it's a,

01:15:57.580 it's a woke problem. It's a whatever problem, but it's also a problem of, you know, uh, you have

01:16:03.600 a, you know, majority female students in most campuses. Um, you have, uh, high percentages of, 1.00

01:16:12.580 of female faculty and especially in administration, a very high percentage of it. Um, and I think that 0.98

01:16:19.460 that's the sort of underground, you know, uh, we talk about the ideology of wokeism, the ideology

01:16:26.620 behind, you know, free speech norms, you know, sort of disappearing in these places, but there's also

01:16:31.540 just social tendencies of women that are different than the social tendencies of men. So men are like,

01:16:37.820 yeah, let's bet, let's duke it out. Let's fight. Let's offend each other. Let's, um, you know,

01:16:43.060 battle of the wits or whatever. And we'll, somebody is crowned the victor and there's a hierarchy and

01:16:47.780 I'm at top and you're at the bottom now because you're a loser. And then there's the, the, the female 1.00

01:16:51.700 way of socializing, which is different. You know, it's, it's, it's more compassionate. It's more

01:16:56.260 oriented around, around, uh, maintenance of feelings and, uh, equality and equality, fairness

01:17:04.660 that, those, those, that kind of orientation will have effects when broadly applied. Um,

01:17:15.500 when you have, you know, 20% of women in a, in an institution might not change anything because 1.00

01:17:21.240 they just, they do what the men are doing to dominate in that environment. Um, or just 0.99

01:17:27.320 survive, survive in it. Uh, then you, maybe you have 50, 50 and things are a little bit different,

01:17:32.360 you know, and then maybe you have 60, 40 and now you have majority women. Now women can, you know, 1.00

01:17:40.040 socialize in their preferred manner. Um, and the norms of that institution shift. So I think that,

01:17:46.620 you know, that's just sort of the way that I think we need to be thinking about this in a,

01:17:51.580 in a, in a much, in a much more deep way than, than we have been, um, instead of just, uh, sort

01:17:57.580 of whittling away at the edges of there's not enough women here. There's too many men there. 1.00

01:18:02.780 Or what Sarah is saying is the women are coming and they're going to ruin everything. 1.00

01:18:06.540 So maybe you can quote me, that could be, that could be the title of when you cut this out,

01:18:11.900 just pull it out and say that. I think that's a great note to wrap on. Sarah, if people want to, uh,

01:18:15.740 follow your work, I know you have a sub stack. Where else should people go to find you?

01:18:18.860 Yeah. I have a sub stack called hold that thought. Um, or you could just type in sarahhater.substack.com 0.98

01:18:24.140 and you'll find my, my writings there. I talk, I write a lot about, you know, sex now and gender,

01:18:28.940 which is getting me into a lot of trouble. Um, and we didn't discuss here, thankfully. Uh,

01:18:34.460 but there's next time, next time maybe. Yeah. There's, so there's a lot of that on my sub stack. You can also

01:18:40.220 find me, um, wasting my time on Twitter. Uh, it's my handle is Sarah the hater. So you can reach me

01:18:46.460 there as well. All right. Perfect. Well, thank you so much for coming on, uh, and join us, uh, on

01:18:50.300 Locals where we're going to ask Sarah a few of your questions that only those of you who are on

01:18:54.220 Locals will get to see the answers to. Take care and see you soon. Have you found that people have left

01:19:00.220 one faith are more likely to have doubts about progressive ideologies?

TRIGGERnometry - May 28, 2023

Ex-Muslim： This is a Difficult Conversation ｜ Sarah Haider

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