TRIGGERnometry - Is the West at War With Islam？ - Aimen Dean

00:00:00.000 Hello, and welcome to Trigonometry. I'm Francis Foster.

00:00:09.060 I'm Constantine Kishan.

00:00:10.780 And this is the show for you if you want honest conversations with fascinating people.

00:00:17.220 Our incredible guest today is a former member of Al-Qaeda who then became a spy for MI6.

00:00:23.080 Eamon Dean, welcome to Trigonometry.

00:00:24.940 Thank you for having me.

00:00:26.320 It's a pleasure to have you here. Listen, man, what a fascinating background.

00:00:29.440 A lot of people are going to be like, whoa, let's listen to this guy.

00:00:34.080 One thing I should probably mention is you're the co-host of the Conflicted podcast.

00:00:39.560 And your co-host, Thomas Small, we had on the show probably one of our most fascinating interviews that we've ever done,

00:00:46.100 talking about the Middle East and all that sort of thing.

00:00:49.040 So before we get into the interview, which is going to be absolutely fantastic, I can't wait.

00:00:53.780 Just give everybody a little bit more of the flavor of your background.

00:00:57.220 How are you, where you are? What's been your journey?

00:00:59.860 Because it sounds like an incredible one.

00:01:02.220 Okay, I'll try to condense it into one minute.

00:01:04.260 So you can say basically that I am a Saudi-born and raised Bahraini, half Lebanese, and there are, you know, Turkish and Persian and other ethnicities there.

00:01:17.600 It's, you know, Middle Eastern salad, really.

00:01:19.760 And so from Saudi Arabia, I grew up there, pretty much a religious, you know, young lad, you know, memorized the Quran at a young age, wanted basically to become an imam.

00:01:31.720 But much to the relief of my would-be congregation, I didn't, you know, end up being an imam.

00:01:39.420 I ended up joining the jihad in Bosnia when I was 16.

00:01:43.320 And there, basically, the journey started towards darker and darker motives, you know, and in 1997, I ended up joining al-Qaeda in Afghanistan.

00:01:54.860 They sent me to their program for WMD, including explosives, chemical weapons, biological weapons, and I was trained on that. 1.00

00:02:05.160 And then there was a moment of disillusionment after the East Africa bombings when al-Qaeda targeted American embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam in Tanzania.

00:02:18.040 I just couldn't continue with the group, and I decided I want to leave.

00:02:23.240 Through the process of leaving, I ended up basically in the lap of the British Intelligence Services, who, you know, well, it was supposed to be six months debriefings.

00:02:34.160 I ended up basically eight years of espionage inside al-Qaeda in 2006.

00:02:41.040 Through the wisdom of some American administration officials, they leaked my identity to a journalist in the U.S.

00:02:48.660 because they wanted to talk about the successes they had in terms of espionage against al-Qaeda, even though I wasn't their spy, I was the British.

00:02:56.300 But then, you know, vassal state, you know, all of that.

00:02:59.680 And so I, of course, basically had to leave the service of the British Intelligence Agencies, and I ended up basically exchanging one form of terrorism to another.

00:03:12.700 I became a banker.

00:03:15.860 Well, seriously, I was a banker.

00:03:17.680 So I joined the offices of a global bank looking after issues related to terrorism finance, well, and, of course, basically looking into issues of security, geopolitical stability.

00:03:36.100 And after that, basically, I left to work for even more evil organizations.

00:03:41.560 It's the oil industry.

00:03:43.620 And, yeah, you know, basically to this day, I still work as a consultant for the energy industry as well as for, you know, other governments, you know, and some other evil entities.

00:03:52.700 So, yeah, that's really my life in action.

00:03:55.360 So a minute of summarizing the life of immorality of AIP.

00:04:01.240 Yeah.

00:04:02.200 Fantastic.

00:04:03.840 I suppose the question we want to ask in, who's got more psychopaths, the oil industry, banking, or al-Qaeda?

00:04:10.120 Difficult.

00:04:13.180 Well, fantastic. 0.91

00:04:14.940 I would say that the banking industry got its fair share of psychopaths for sure. 0.56

00:04:20.840 Absolutely. 0.87

00:04:21.640 Talkings of mass destruction.

00:04:23.120 Well, look, we're joking around.

00:04:25.100 And, of course, it's a fascinating story condensed very briefly.

00:04:30.160 You talk about it in great detail on the Conflicted podcast, which I recommend everybody to listen to.

00:04:36.320 It's just incredible how good it is.

00:04:40.180 But let's talk a little bit about some of the stuff that particularly interests and affects people here in the West, which is, you know,

00:04:48.780 it never really made too much sense to me kind of logically looking at it, why a guy who grows up in London or in Bradford or whatever it might be might want to become so extreme in their thinking that they would go and fight and die in Syria or in Afghanistan or in Iraq.

00:05:09.260 In your case, it was going from Bahrain to Bosnia.

00:05:12.260 I mean, I don't know much about Bahrain, but I imagine living in Bahrain was better than fighting and dying in Bosnia, right? 1.00

00:05:17.840 So like that, that kind of, you know, why do people become extremists?

00:05:24.060 Why do people become Islamists?

00:05:25.560 Why are they willing to die and leave the prosperity and the comfort and the freedoms of the West and go and do this kind of thing?

00:05:34.320 I think that's a question that would, that puzzles all of us in some ways, doesn't it?

00:05:38.940 Well, there are, I mean, I mean, the answer to this could take us several podcasts and several interviews just basically to get into the depth of it.

00:05:47.160 You've got five minutes, mate.

00:05:50.740 Welcome to the mainstream media, Raymond.

00:05:52.740 You know, I faced worse challenges before.

00:05:57.020 Yes.

00:05:57.700 All I can tell you, if I want to condense it, is that there are several layers of reasons.

00:06:05.520 One of them basically is identity crisis, where people basically, you know, cease to identify with their own, you know, immediate society.

00:06:13.400 One of the questions I always get asked by people is that, you know, why there is a war between Islam and the West and that, you know,

00:06:21.140 which is basically, this is a narrative that is prevalent out there.

00:06:25.360 I always say that there isn't, you know, there isn't a war between Islam and the West.

00:06:29.440 There is a war within Islam itself. 0.99

00:06:30.980 There is a civil war within Islam in which pitting the people who believe in the modern nation state against people who don't believe in the modern nation state.

00:06:40.100 This is really what's happening.

00:06:42.000 The forces of the modern nation states right now in the Middle East, basically, are fighting for survival, for their own survival against transnational ideologies like the Muslim Brotherhood, like Sunni militant Islam, like Al-Qaida and ISIS and Shabab, like the political and militant Shia Islam, the Walaat al-Faqih system or the Ayatollahs of Tahran and their allies like Hezbollah and the Houthis in Yemen.

00:07:08.300 And all of these forces are trying to bring down the nation state.

00:07:12.100 Now, why I'm saying that this is related to identity crisis?

00:07:15.300 Because the, you know, we shape our own identity, you know, around the modern nation state.

00:07:22.100 You know, you're all British. 1.00

00:07:23.660 I mean, basically, I would describe myself as British now because basically I believe my allegiance is to this state, to this modern nation state.

00:07:29.580 And therefore, basically, I have allegiance to this nation state.

00:07:32.720 These people who have identity crisis is because they have ceased to believe in the modern nation state and started to believe in transnational ideologies that want to bring down the modern nation state and create an empire, you know, and rubble.

00:07:47.620 So just to pause you just for one moment, and there's plenty more time.

00:07:51.460 I was only joking when I said you only have five minutes.

00:07:54.280 Just to put it in simple language for people, what you're really talking about is someone growing up in Bradford, let's say, but not actually feeling British.

00:08:03.560 They don't feel British. 1.00

00:08:05.200 They don't feel an allegiance to this country.

00:08:07.200 What they really feel is they are part of a movement whose job it is to, let's say, recreate the caliphate, for example, just as an example.

00:08:15.780 Exactly. This is exactly what it is.

00:08:18.480 The idea is that there is a, you know, this romantic vision of imperial Islamic past that need to be resurrected.

00:08:27.380 And that's the only way basically Muslims can feel strengthened and emboldened and empowered, which is, you know, far away from the truth. 1.00

00:08:35.460 The truth is basically that there is a lot of romanticization of Islamic history, which misled many young people into believing that the past is so glorious that the only way forward is to repeat that past with all its false and shortcomings. 0.83

00:08:51.860 And as a result, you have people who basically seems to believe in their own nation state, whether adopted or even their original nation state from their countries of origin.

00:09:09.260 And as a result, they start to believe that what al-Qaeda is selling, what ISIS is selling, what the Iranian revolutionaries are selling is the future.

00:09:21.040 And as a result, they flock into these conflicts because they believe that by recreating the caliphate, they will restore Islamic glory. 0.98

00:09:29.100 And this is where, you know, you have the other side of Muslims who say, no, we have a functioning modern nation state.

00:09:39.600 And this is the best guarantee for security, safety, stability, law and order, prosperity.

00:09:45.140 Why do we have to abandon this vehicle for peace just only basically to pursue a dream that will end up and result in oceans of blood and mountains of skulls?

00:09:55.720 So, identity crisis is the first step towards that dark path.

00:10:02.320 You know, people don't believe anymore in their nation states and end up believing in transnational ideologies.

00:10:08.920 So just on that, Eamon, let's just go before Francis, he's got a whole different other things that he wanted to talk to you about.

00:10:15.840 But just we stick with that for a moment.

00:10:18.120 Just summarizing what you've said there, is it fair to say, then, that the identity crisis and the temptation that some young Muslims in the West feel, and not only in the West, but also in the Middle East and elsewhere, feel to join these organizations, these extremist organizations, is a failure of integration in the West.

00:10:39.000 Is that fair to say? And a failure, perhaps, of what has been kind of described as multiculturalism, but basically the idea that rather than us all becoming British or us all being American under one nation state, what we are is communities.

00:10:55.380 You've got the Asian community, the this community, the that community, which are not encouraged to become British in a way.

00:11:02.800 They're encouraged to think of themselves as being still kind of in the space from which they came.

00:11:08.760 This is one of the inaccuracies, I would say, of the narrative that has been pushed by some academics, unfortunately, to say that it's the failure of integration that led to people becoming more or less disillusioned to the point of joining terrorist organizations.

00:11:30.600 If that is the case, why would thousands of young Saudis, Algerians and Tunisians, can't even, you know, integrate into their own societies, you know, even though they lived there with their, you know, for, you know, a hundred generations before?

00:11:45.080 It's really not that simple. It's not like about alienation. It's a fact that people just divorcing themselves from the concept and the institution of the nation state. It's really that simple.

00:11:58.000 But why are they doing that, Eamon? That's what I'm trying to get at.

00:12:01.540 Then we have to reach into the, we start to depart now the rational into the irrational.

00:12:08.920 We will, we will, unfortunately, depart, you know, the realm of the rationality into the realm of irrationality.

00:12:15.840 When we start to talk about the fact that they have also the religious and spiritual element here.

00:12:23.180 We can't talk about, you know, Islamic-inspired terrorism without talking about Islam itself. 0.97

00:12:29.180 You know, we'll be kidding ourselves.

00:12:30.820 And by the way, before anyone, you know, start saying basically anything, I mean, I'm a devout Muslim myself.

00:12:35.740 You know, I, you know, not a day goes by without me reciting the Quran and saying my prayers.

00:12:40.480 So please, like, I mean, do not think for a moment I'm attacking my own religion here.

00:12:45.860 I'm just basically trying to dissect objectively, you know, why people end up misinterpreting everything basically they read and then they go and commit acts of terrorism.

00:12:57.580 The reality is that irrationality takes hold here.

00:13:01.200 Islam, we have to understand, is, just like Catholicism is a guilt-based religion, it means basically that you feel guilty about so many things you do, you know.

00:13:13.020 And therefore, you know, Islam regulated the relationship between the individual and the creator through three channels or three pillars, as we call them.

00:13:22.760 These pillars of worship are love, hope, and fear.

00:13:27.840 Okay, so you love the Lord.

00:13:31.860 Okay, so, you know, so basically you, apologies.

00:13:36.500 Okay, so.

00:13:37.620 I hope this isn't someone coming for you to shut you down. 1.00

00:13:40.580 It's like YouTube going, shut this shit down. 1.00

00:13:42.940 He's talking about Islam. 1.00

00:13:44.860 No, no, no, no.

00:13:45.580 So, so basically, you have three pillars of worship here, which is love, fear, and hope.

00:13:52.080 Love for the Lord, hope for his reward, and fear of his eternal damnation.

00:13:57.160 It's supposed to be balanced.

00:13:58.360 Like, you know, so in a sentence, basically, that you love the Lord, you hope for his reward, but you fear his eternal damnation.

00:14:04.980 That is how balanced the relationship between me and God, for example, should be.

00:14:09.940 However, because of the advent of globalization over the past generation, many clerics across the Muslim world decided to rely on fear and the preaching of fear and the aspects of fear within Islam in order to deter their congregations from indulging in acts that are sinful.

00:14:29.880 Whether drinking, sleeping around, consumption and selling of drugs and all these other things, joining gangs.

00:14:36.500 And that was more prevalent, actually, in the West also.

00:14:39.160 But it was equally practiced in the Arab world and the Muslim world in general.

00:14:44.200 So, you end up basically with the balance of preaching in crisis because the preachers are using fear, which drives people into guilt, which drives them into looking for solutions.

00:14:58.660 And one of the solutions is looking for redemption, and redemption is in jihad and martyrdom, according to groups like ISIS and Al-Ta'idah and other nefarious groups.

00:15:09.340 They want to recruit people who basically believe that the only way they can redeem themselves of sins is through jihad and martyrdom.

00:15:17.200 You see, we don't have a priesthood in Islam where they can't absolve you of your sins if you confess, unlike Catholicism. 0.96

00:15:24.180 So, therefore, we have this crisis in how religious principles being transmitted to young people in Friday prayers, where they feel that, okay, if you drink, hell.

00:15:39.400 If you smoke, hell.

00:15:40.960 If you take drugs, hell.

00:15:41.940 So, if you sleep around hell, there isn't that message of hope that if you refrain from all of this, you will end up going to heaven.

00:15:48.800 God will reward you with a heavenly abode forever and ever.

00:15:53.580 You know, so basically this crisis in religious preaching resulted in many people becoming more and more guilty.

00:16:02.160 Now, that is not enough yet to push them over the edge, but then comes the even more irrational, which is prophecies.

00:16:09.840 You know, all jihadists who join the jihadist groups, whether they are ISIS, Al-Qaida, Al-Shabaab, or even more so Hezbollah and the Houthis in Yemen and the Iranian IRGC,

00:16:25.920 they are all motivated by prophecies of a awaited messiah, a Mahdi, as they call him.

00:16:32.400 The idea that there will be these black banners rising from Afghanistan and eastern Iran, you know, marching all the way towards Jerusalem, slaughtering all the Jews and basically ushering in an era of a new caliphate. 0.90

00:16:45.660 You have, you know, these prophecies talking about great wars in Afghanistan, in North Africa, in Syria, in Iraq and Yemen.

00:16:53.980 All of these are being packaged, even though they are all fabrications from history, you know, but I don't want to go into details about that.

00:17:02.880 But they are fabrications, if you look deep into them.

00:17:07.780 However, they are sold like drugs, like, you know, spiritual intoxicants, as I would call them,

00:17:13.440 which will then basically tell people who already feel sinful and in need of redemption,

00:17:20.240 and they feel alienated in need of belonging and empowerment.

00:17:24.660 And on top of all of this, they already have this identity crisis.

00:17:28.140 They need to be part of a purpose that you have a destiny.

00:17:31.620 You can free your own inner sadist, inner violent individual to go and fight for God in order to fulfill a blueprint for a war ordained 1400 years ago.

00:17:47.200 It's intoxicating for many people.

00:17:49.340 And that's why, you know, many academics are still baffled about why prisons in particular, you know, are a fertile ground,

00:17:56.580 because that's where the most guilty consciences live.

00:18:00.080 That's where most downtrodden people are.

00:18:03.960 And that's where people basically who have inner sadism and violence that need to be, you know, released.

00:18:10.840 And Eamon, how does the process work for a lot of these people who get indoctrinated in this kind of mentality?

00:18:17.540 Is it that, you know, that they go to a particular type of mosque?

00:18:21.800 Is it a preacher?

00:18:23.080 Is it normally a family friend?

00:18:24.860 How does it work normally?

00:18:26.760 There isn't a single methodology.

00:18:28.580 I mean, it could be peer, you know, peer to peer.

00:18:31.860 This is one popular method.

00:18:35.160 And it would be through social media.

00:18:38.600 In the past, it used to be through either mosques or universities.

00:18:42.280 And then it became mosques, universities and prisons.

00:18:47.780 Now it is mosques, universities, prisons, peer to peer and social media all coming together, basically, you know.

00:18:54.780 And, you know, in the past, basically, if I wanted to recruit someone, I would have to go to a mosque or a Islamic society in a university.

00:19:01.440 Now, these days, you know, I could basically record a video and I could invade 100,000, you know, personal phones, bedrooms and living rooms and preach my message.

00:19:15.500 I don't need even to be alive.

00:19:17.680 I could record many things.

00:19:19.080 I could write many things, like people like Anwar al-Hawlaqi, for example, the famous English-speaking Al-Qaeda preacher, and leave them there, you know, for eternity, you know, online, keeping people being recruited.

00:19:34.280 So, the thing that I found very interesting and incredibly worrying was when I was reading some of your articles, was you saying how incredibly difficult it is to de-radicalize people who have been indoctrinated.

00:19:49.840 One of the things that people need to understand is that once you go down the path of believing that you are fulfilling a divine destiny that's going to end up empowering people,

00:20:06.680 if you believe that the world is run by a cabal of corrupt, you know, bloodthirsty creeps, and that your mission is to pave the way for a Messiah-like figure to come along,

00:20:20.620 then you have already gone down too far down the path of irrationality to bring them back.

00:20:27.500 The problem is, is that the spiritual aspect of jihadism and Islamic-inspired political violence really, you know, take hold of the mind to the point where people cannot believe that everything they've done, 0.63

00:20:46.880 everything they fought for, everything they've led for was wrong.

00:20:49.400 And to try, you know, and to try to tell them that, because you see, the preaching within jihadi circles, jihadi camps, jihadi, you know, online, you know, forums,

00:21:02.180 you know, really focus on taking you upward as if like, you know, you are spiritually ascending above what they call the mundane realities of the world.

00:21:12.860 You know, you see your fellow humans as nothing but cattle, you know, they just live every day,

00:21:19.400 you know, basically mundane lives, they eat, they graze, you know, they breathe, you know, they sleep, no purpose in life.

00:21:27.720 You, however, that's what they tell you, you, however, have a far more divine purpose.

00:21:33.360 You are far above them.

00:21:35.260 You see, that's why, you know, when people say, how could these people behead and execute other people without feeling any sense of remorse?

00:21:45.420 And the answer is because they have already gone too far in their superiority complex, rising above everyone else in their spiritual ascendance, as they call it,

00:21:55.520 to see everyone else below them as ants that can be trodden on.

00:21:59.720 And therefore, basically, they don't feel the human connection with their fellow human beings who are not seeing, you know, part of their ideology.

00:22:09.640 So this is why, how can you bring someone down to earth to tell them basically that, okay, can you switch off that spiritual part of your mind and just switch on the logical and irrational one to just for a minute,

00:22:26.460 consider maybe everything that you've heard was either wrong or misinterpreted or basically it was a fabrication from history that have seeped into the books in which picked up in recent, you know,

00:22:41.420 decades by people who basically have an agenda against the modern nation state.

00:22:45.760 It's extremely difficult to just switch off that, you know, ever buzzing spiritual engine in their mind, telling them that they are on a divine mission.

00:23:00.160 More like if you ever watched that, you know, movie from the 1980s, which was one of my favorites, the Blues Brothers, you know, we are on a mission from God.

00:23:09.160 I'm going to be honest with you, Eamon, I didn't expect you to start talking about the Blues Brothers, mate.

00:23:15.780 I'm going to be, there's a bit of a left field note there.

00:23:19.860 But look, here's a question.

00:23:21.340 So we're now talking about the case of Shamima Begum with the 15 year old girl.

00:23:25.640 For those of the people who are not from the UK, it's a 15 year old girl who was radicalized, went to the caliphate to fight and support ISIS, now wants to come back.

00:23:35.380 What did we do in the cases of those people who have declared themselves allies, believers, all the rest of it?

00:23:44.260 How do we bring them back into society?

00:23:47.700 Can we do it?

00:23:48.860 And also, what do we do with these people who are identifying with this way of life and belief system?

00:23:58.360 If I know the answer to this, I'll be extremely rich man by now.

00:24:01.660 Mate, you've worked in a bank and for the oil industry.

00:24:04.940 If you're not extremely rich already, you're doing something seriously wrong, man.

00:24:09.520 I would say, you know, okay, I would remove the extreme and just keep the rich part.

00:24:17.160 Okay, so I would say that it is extremely difficult to extract them from that mentality and just to bring them back into reality.

00:24:28.100 Unless if they themselves feel disillusioned, that's one.

00:24:32.300 And remember, by that time, I mean, she spent, what, five years now in that part of the world, both as a, you know, as a jihadi bride, as a militant possibly, you know, and also as a prisoner in that prison camp.

00:24:47.820 She would be extremely, apart from damaged, especially she lost three children, apart from the fact that she would be, you know, damaged mentally.

00:24:56.960 And the question is, how do you take her back into believing that all the things that you have seen around her, all the friends that she knew are actually not destined to heaven, but to hell. 0.79

00:25:08.740 And that all of the people who, you know, she had developed affinity to were just mistaken, as we call them, you know, in Islam, the mistaken, you know, dogs of hell. 0.99

00:25:20.900 How can you convince her of that?

00:25:22.720 I mean, it needs to be done, you know, in a closed, you know, confined, you know, comfortable space.

00:25:30.900 The question is, do we have the will or even the resources to do it?

00:25:34.640 Do we have the trained, you know, personnel to do it?

00:25:37.100 Do we have to spend millions and millions and millions of taxpayer money just basically trying to rehabilitate people who are going to be extremely difficult to rehabilitate?

00:25:47.500 I mean, it's, you know, this is why one of the statements by Rory Stewart, the former conservative minister and MP, he said once, and I supported him fully on this.

00:26:01.400 He said, it's much kinder if they just die there, you know, in the war zone and just, you know, be done with it, just die there.

00:26:10.660 And I know many people will be shocked, but this is the Islamic way to do it, actually.

00:26:15.760 This is exactly why Imam Ali, who is revered by both Shia and Sunnis, he had to deal with a sect like this. 1.00

00:26:24.920 The first breakaway sect in Islam was the Khawarij.

00:26:27.680 The Khawarij are the first zealots in Islam who basically, you know, thought that not, you know, that Ali and Imam Ali and everyone else were not true Muslims and they were not implementing Islam as it is. 0.81

00:26:42.260 So they rebelled against him and they wanted basically, they were just exactly like ISIS, you know, bloodthirsty, murdering creeps.

00:26:51.060 So Imam Ali adopted an effective methodology with them. 0.66

00:26:57.820 You first debate and then eradicate.

00:27:03.040 That's the only way you can deal with them in a war zone.

00:27:06.220 In a civil society, I would say you first debate and then incarcerate indefinitely.

00:27:16.300 Because without, you know, when Imam Ali debated with them, one third of them basically just recanted.

00:27:25.120 So they were admitted back into society in the questions asked.

00:27:28.160 The other two thirds fought and they were annihilated and they were chased and killed in a war zone.

00:27:37.120 However, in a civil society, I would advocate that we debate powerfully, we debate.

00:27:45.140 But then those who are not convinced, keep them locked up until basically we see enough evidence that they have completely transformed themselves.

00:27:55.440 And this could take years and years and years.

00:27:57.220 Eamon, I have to say this appeals to my Russian heart very much. 1.00

00:28:00.760 Kill them all or throw them in prison. 1.00

00:28:02.340 I'm a big bulldog. 1.00

00:28:04.640 But, I mean, I'm sure you're a smart man.

00:28:08.000 You appreciate how difficult that sort of message is politically for people to digest.

00:28:13.640 I'm surprised.

00:28:14.560 I didn't hear Rory Stewart say that.

00:28:16.860 But, you know, any politician who, like, proactively advocates for that would be absolutely destroyed.

00:28:23.540 Can you imagine me saying it with my voice?

00:28:25.380 Go for it, mate.

00:28:26.180 I want to see you super casual. 0.81

00:28:28.180 Educate or eradicate, mate.

00:28:33.380 Well, yeah, I like this.

00:28:34.840 This is a slogan.

00:28:35.820 This is a war on terror slogan. 0.99

00:28:37.640 Well, this video is getting demonetized right fucking now. 0.98

00:28:44.500 No, look, I'm not advocating in Guantanamo. 0.98

00:28:47.520 I'm not advocating, you know, particularly like in that we have to go and slaughter them if there is no need in a war zone.

00:28:53.440 But I said in a war zone, of course, basically your aim is to, you know, eliminate your enemy.

00:28:57.880 But in a civil society, your aim is to keep the society safe.

00:29:02.060 And no one can say that they know these people better than we do.

00:29:08.740 I don't take lectures from any non-Muslim, non-Arab academics or political activists or journalists.

00:29:16.320 I don't.

00:29:16.720 I take no lectures from them.

00:29:18.000 You know, these people are as dangerous to our societies in the Middle East as well to our societies here in Europe, as well as to their own families sometimes. 0.95

00:29:27.100 We've seen people, when they return back to Saudi Arabia, murder their own cousins, brothers and fathers. 0.92

00:29:34.000 And it happened and it's well documented.

00:29:35.920 But, Eamon, I mean, part of the problem, we're talking about educating, but from what I remember, one of the London Bridge terrorists was, he was on a de-radicalization, read it, I'll repeat that.

00:29:48.720 He was on a de-radicalization program, was he not?

00:29:52.080 On the day that he killed people.

00:29:54.520 Exactly.

00:29:54.900 You see, at that day I remembered, I was confronted in 2013, at the time I wasn't known to be, you know, a former spy or anything, but I was confronted by a well-meaning academic from Oxford.

00:30:14.020 She kept insisting, basically, that we could, you know, reach out to them, we could reach out to them, you know, through, you know, human connection.

00:30:21.740 And I keep saying, no, no, no, no, because I know these people.

00:30:26.260 I know, you know, how far they are, you know, disconnected from their, you know, human links.

00:30:33.160 And, you know, and then I said, I smiled at her and I said, the naivety of the lambs, you know, you know, the silence of the lambs, the naivety of the lambs.

00:30:42.160 I mean, basically, it's just, you know, the lamb always think, basically, the human, you know, basically, oh, he's looking after me, he's feeding me.

00:30:50.360 Oh, look at the cute dog, basically, shepherding me.

00:30:53.220 And then one day, of course, basically, they will end up on the shelves, you know, in pieces.

00:30:58.900 So, you see, here is the same thing.

00:31:01.740 It's the feeling, basically, that you are getting through to them, but then they surprise you by something like this.

00:31:09.200 And it's not the first time, not the second time, not the third time.

00:31:12.520 It happened multiple times.

00:31:13.720 I mean, I, if you watch the film Zero Dark Thirty, one of the agents, a Jordanian agent who turned against the Jordanian intelligence and CIA, and basically, he was, he ended up basically just coming back with a car full of explosives and killed them all.

00:31:31.120 Killed the five handlers, basically, he was dealing with.

00:31:33.380 So, it's not the first time that we see this.

00:31:36.860 And this is why the counter-radicalization programs, as they call them, CVE, counter-violence extremism, are riddled with naiveties and naive ideals, you know, that secular, you know, principles, you know, liberal, democratic, you know, notions could penetrate into their minds.

00:32:02.820 And nothing penetrates into their minds than actually convincing them soundly that theologically and spiritually they are on the wrong way.

00:32:11.700 Amen, so, look, it's quite a serious thing that you're saying, and I'm sure you realize that it is quite serious.

00:32:20.540 Do you think that, essentially, I mean, but it makes sense at the same time, because if someone is willing to blow themselves up or to stab innocent people in the streets of London,

00:32:31.960 I mean, they're going to be pretty extreme in their thinking, I'd imagine.

00:32:35.920 I'm not sure.

00:32:36.420 I've never been someone who's done that.

00:32:38.400 But I imagine if you were, for me to do that, I'd have to be pretty, pretty extreme in my ways of thinking.

00:32:44.300 I'm not sure I could be talked out of it with some nice, you know, liberal values or whatever.

00:32:50.360 So do you think we in the West have this slightly idealized vision of human beings now, where we think, well, human beings are all innately good and fluffy,

00:33:01.820 and if we just talk to them the right way, they'll all behave the way that we want.

00:33:06.000 And we're very naive in that way.

00:33:07.920 I think the reason, because the West lost touch generally with spirituality, they think basically, you know, on a logical, rational level, cynical, I would say, to the point of cynicism.

00:33:21.420 They don't believe that there are other people who are deeply spiritual, you know, deeply concerned more with the afterlife than this life.

00:33:28.700 And as a result, you know, they just don't communicate on the same wavelength.

00:33:33.580 Wavelengths, they think that, you know, this is a human, so I can get to him through human, rational, logical argument.

00:33:41.340 Forgetting basically that that other human basically is not on the same wavelength as he is.

00:33:46.160 And if you try to understand the world through your own cynical lack of spiritualism, then unfortunately you are going down a rabbit hole and you can't find a way out of it.

00:33:58.800 You know, this is why whenever I talk to people about prophecies and they say, oh, come on, no, no, no, excuse me, don't apply your own cynicism on, you know, situations that are actually, you know, deeply spiritual and deeply religious and superstitious.

00:34:15.880 Do not apply your own rational, logical thinking there.

00:34:19.480 It's not going to work.

00:34:20.660 So, for example, whenever I tell people that you can't convince extremists, the only way you can get them on the path of, I'm not saying de-radicalization, I'm saying disengagement from violence, that's the principle I believe in.

00:34:35.480 To disengage from violence, you don't need to convince them, you need to confuse them.

00:34:39.500 You need to sow the seeds of doubt in their mind.

00:34:43.680 Why?

00:34:44.300 Because you said, how could someone strap a bomb to themselves or take a knife knowing certainly they would be killed after they stabbed a few people by police bullets?

00:34:55.740 How could they just do that?

00:34:57.240 Because they have 100% certainty that the moment they, you know, click that, you know, switch or when they, when the bullets hit them, that they are going to end up in heaven.

00:35:12.600 They will cross that eternal bridge, you know, into the afterlife.

00:35:16.520 Now, if you upload that little virus of doubt and just create one or two or 3% of doubt in their minds, then they will be transcending from being certain committed, driven militants into confused militants.

00:35:35.820 And a confused militant will hesitate.

00:35:37.560 And there has been examples of people hesitating.

00:35:40.560 Hesitating, you know, and that hesitation was due to doubt because of a statement they heard before, because of an argument with a friend or a loved one before.

00:35:49.980 So it happened, and it's well documented even, that they have basically stepped backwards from killing hundreds of people, you know, or dozens of people.

00:36:00.460 I mean, in one incident, basically, it was someone with a shoe bomb about to board the plane, and basically he just went back home, hid the shoe under his bed, and basically didn't want to take part of it.

00:36:13.660 Why?

00:36:13.980 Because doubt, due to statements he heard before, you know, basically made him disengage from that fatal moment.

00:36:21.880 He could have killed 250 passengers.

00:36:24.420 So it's, you know, this is why I don't believe in de-radicalization.

00:36:30.260 I believe in basic, what I call disengagement from violence, because these people will never turn into liberal Democrats.

00:36:40.940 You know, look, I'm still a conservative, you know, after all these years, you know.

00:36:46.380 So I voted Boris twice in the London mayoral election, so.

00:36:50.340 Well, Eamon, you shouldn't have said that, mate.

00:36:53.740 The news story in The Guardian tomorrow is going to be former Al-Qaeda operative comes out in support of Boris Johnson. 0.55

00:37:01.320 Yeah, they will remove the former spy from my sex, yeah. 0.94

00:37:03.980 Yeah, yeah, yeah. 0.99

00:37:04.820 Just former Al-Qaeda operative.

00:37:06.500 Former terrorist supports Boris Johnson, that's it.

00:37:11.220 But, well, so we've been talking about this subject now, and we could continue to explore it,

00:37:16.500 but we are going to be moving on to something that I think is, you have wanted to talk about,

00:37:21.140 and it's a subject that has captured the minds and hearts of people around the world,

00:37:24.720 which is the plight of the Uyghur Muslims in China.

00:37:28.200 Now, for those people who may not be aware of what is happening,

00:37:31.520 could you just give us a brief rundown of what is going on in China at the moment?

00:37:36.400 Okay.

00:37:36.920 If you try to imagine the Chinese map right now in your head,

00:37:41.420 and if you don't, basically just pull up your smartphone.

00:37:43.780 Well, you've got it behind you, mate.

00:37:45.820 It's behind you, yeah.

00:37:48.980 So, if you look at the map of China, and you look at the northwest of China,

00:37:54.460 there is a large province.

00:37:56.220 That province is almost six times the size, seven times, actually, the size of the United Kingdom,

00:38:00.420 so it's massive, it's huge.

00:38:02.180 But it's really not that much populated, 35 million people, I think,

00:38:05.280 and roughly about between 13 to 15 million people of them are from the ethnicity called the Uyghurs.

00:38:11.080 The Uyghurs are a Turkic people.

00:38:13.660 Linguistically and ethnically, they are quite close to the Kazakhs,

00:38:17.700 you know, people from Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan,

00:38:20.080 and they speak a language similar.

00:38:22.920 In essence, they are similar in names and culture.

00:38:26.120 So, they've been part of China on and off for almost 2,000 years.

00:38:30.980 So, the land has been changing hands all the time.

00:38:33.580 But for the majority of the time, basically, they were Chinese province,

00:38:37.260 sometimes, basically, Basel states, sometimes independent kingdom,

00:38:40.920 and sometimes, basically, their map is off and on and, you know, to the sideways.

00:38:47.240 Much more like the Armenians, poor Armenians. 1.00

00:38:50.300 So, they're like Scottish people, basically.

00:38:54.100 Given I live in Scotland, I wouldn't comment.

00:38:58.900 So, basically, the Uyghurs, you know, in recent years, 1.00

00:39:05.760 been subject to intense, I would say, crackdown by the Chinese authorities.

00:39:12.260 Now, basically, I must confess here, basically,

00:39:16.020 that I work with many Chinese oil companies and telecommunication.

00:39:20.240 You know, I visit China, basically, six, seven times a year.

00:39:23.400 I have many friends in Beijing, both from the private sector, the public sector,

00:39:29.920 from think tanks, including the Confucius Institute,

00:39:33.280 even in the jockey club, the horse racing club there.

00:39:36.840 So, I, you know, was always trying, basically, to see the conflict there.

00:39:41.280 And I've been to Xinjiang before.

00:39:42.340 So, I try to, in the province, we're talking about where the Uyghurs are. 1.00

00:39:45.600 So, I try to see the conflict from both sides here.

00:39:47.840 Now, it is important.

00:39:50.220 One of the things that alarmed me, alarmed me, really, in the last several weeks

00:39:55.920 is the fact that there is a talk of a new jihad front to be created

00:40:03.860 in that part of the world, in the Chinese province of Xinjiang,

00:40:09.120 known to the locals as East Turkestan, as they call it,

00:40:12.680 or Dugu Turkestan in their local language.

00:40:15.920 Now, not many people know that, but if I ask you, Konstantin,

00:40:23.280 if I ask you, and ask you, Thomas, what are the largest,

00:40:27.840 in which nationality constitute the largest jihadist contingent in Syria?

00:40:35.820 Well, I mean, I'm completely an uneducated guess.

00:40:39.160 I would say somewhere, I don't know, like Iran?

00:40:43.380 Okay, Konstantin?

00:40:45.920 Are you going to say, like, Chechens or something?

00:40:51.420 Well, Chechens formed about 5,000, I would say.

00:40:54.420 And they were large for a while.

00:40:56.400 Tunisians, there were about 6,000 of them.

00:41:01.260 Basically, Chinese citizens make up the largest contingent of jihadists, 0.99

00:41:06.560 foreign jihadists in Syria.

00:41:07.580 There are 8,500 of them right now in Idlib, as well as, if we add the women and the children,

00:41:17.280 it will be 21,000 in total.

00:41:19.560 They have a community of 21,000, and they are living in multiple villages and towns,

00:41:24.140 which used to belong to Christians.

00:41:25.700 Places like Hulluz and Yaqubiya and Janudiya and Zambaki.

00:41:32.120 And they have populated these areas.

00:41:34.280 Now, there are 8,500 militants.

00:41:37.340 And these belong to a group called the TIP, or the Turkestan Islamic Party.

00:41:42.420 The Turkestan Islamic Party was always aligned to the Qaida.

00:41:46.200 I knew them, basically, since the days of Afghanistan when I was there.

00:41:50.640 Some of them were members of the Al-Qaida Shura Council.

00:41:54.560 So they are extremely aligned to the Qaida. 0.95

00:41:56.460 And while they are there, actually, in Syria, they are aligned not only to HTS,

00:42:03.600 which is an offshoot of Al-Qaida that is now more independent.

00:42:07.760 They are also aligned to a group called Harras al-Din, which is Al-Qaida's official branch within Syria.

00:42:16.180 And also, they have an incredibly close relationship to the Turkish military intelligence and the Turkish intelligence.

00:42:23.860 Now, the problem here is, you know, only in recent, because of the Chinese, you know, 1.00

00:42:31.480 it was like a self-fulfilling prophecy.

00:42:33.960 The Chinese are always afraid of TIP, that they will come back and they will carry out attacks. 0.64

00:42:38.740 And actually, some of the Syrian returnees, you know, people who returned from Syria to China,

00:42:44.600 committed in Yunnan province, committed an act of terrorism where in Kunmin, a train station,

00:42:51.100 they took up knives, basically, and killed 47 people and wounded more than 140 others.

00:42:58.160 So already there was, you know, acts of terrorism taking place in China.

00:43:02.140 So since 2014, suddenly the repression started, they doubled down on repression.

00:43:07.120 So the Chinese reacted the same way.

00:43:09.020 They always react against any separatist movement, whether it is Buddhists in Tibet or Christians in the mainland China,

00:43:16.540 or against Hong Kong democracy activists, or against Taiwan's aspiration to be independent.

00:43:23.780 They acted in that way.

00:43:26.300 But also because we have to understand also conflicts, you know, from different angles here.

00:43:33.200 You know, there are two types of resource conflicts.

00:43:37.520 You know, there is resource grab and there is resource protection.

00:43:40.880 Resource grab, of course, we know all about it.

00:43:42.720 Basically, nations going into other nations to try to grab.

00:43:45.440 We're experts on it, mate.

00:43:46.660 We're experts on it.

00:43:47.860 And there is, you know, basically wars where people are trying to protect their own resources.

00:43:56.740 For example, look at the Kashmir conflict.

00:44:00.060 It's about water.

00:44:01.600 You know, there are, you know, basically Kashmir is where the glaciers of India basically are located, some of them.

00:44:06.140 And therefore, basically, the water flowing from there is important for India.

00:44:09.700 And they are not going to concede that to Pakistan, no matter what. 0.74

00:44:13.060 Just forget it.

00:44:13.800 The war between Saudi Arabia, you know, and Yemen, or between Saudi Arabia and the Houthis on the side of the Yemeni government is about water security and the security of the energy exports and the food security in terms of export and import.

00:44:29.560 So, you know, people are vicious.

00:44:32.700 You know, look at these wars.

00:44:33.600 They are vicious.

00:44:34.520 People are vicious.

00:44:35.740 Governments are vicious when they are trying to protect their strategic interests.

00:44:39.460 Xinjiang province, in the past, it used to be the backdoor of China.

00:44:42.500 But since President Xi Jinping decided that it's going to be the new front door of China, that is going to be the place where, you know, through it, the railways of the new Silk Road, the Belt and Road Initiative, yeah, is going through.

00:45:00.700 Because Xinjiang is going to be the junction where one part of the railways will go through Kazakhstan and then Russia into the heartlands of Europe.

00:45:11.980 That will take only 16 days for freight trains, as opposed to shipping through the South China Sea all the way to Europe through the sea.

00:45:19.600 That takes 42 days.

00:45:20.940 So it is faster, cheaper, less insurance, and less vulnerable to a U.S. blockade in the South China Sea.

00:45:29.760 So it is strategically important.

00:45:31.840 And the second aspect of it is the CPEC or the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, which will take railways into Gawadar, you know, port.

00:45:43.020 Gawadar port basically is on the southern shores of Pakistan, which will enable a huge amount of trade to go from China and into China from the Middle East, especially the rich Arab Gulf countries.

00:45:56.220 Now, 12 million Uyghurs will not stand, you know, basically, you know, a chance against 1.4 billion Chinese Huns. 1.00

00:46:10.160 And this is something that I want to, you know, basically people to understand that, you know, the focus, you know, in the past several months about, you know, encouraging and apprising in Xinjiang, encouraging.

00:46:24.140 And I know of certain forces, you know, secretly working to transport some of these militants back to China to carry out acts of terrorism to, in the word of some of these, you know, agents, to give China its own Afghanistan is dangerous.

00:46:43.660 And I want to say to people, please stop before it's too late, because if you try to create a new Afghanistan in China, in that part of the world, you will end up radicalizing thousands of Kazakhs, of Kyrgyz, of Uzbeks, of, you know, more Afghans and Pakistanis going to join. 0.91

00:47:04.840 And then we will end up basically seeing European Muslims and other Middle Eastern Muslims, you know, flying into there and joining this new jihad theater. 0.89

00:47:12.800 And it will be another Syria in the middle of Asia. 0.99

00:47:17.100 In a cynical way, Eamon, I can see why there are people in the West that might want that.

00:47:23.920 I mean, the way that you describe it.

00:47:25.980 But look, it's a very complicated situation. 0.97

00:47:28.780 I guess what I'm hearing out of that is, essentially, China sees this as a trade route area, and it can't afford to have 12 million people running around stabbing people or blowing shit up, right? 0.92

00:47:40.360 That would be the summary of it? 0.94

00:47:42.580 Yes, but they are going about it the wrong way.

00:47:45.040 Sure, sure.

00:47:45.560 I always, look, I always told my Chinese friends, what you're doing is making things worse. 1.00

00:47:53.060 You know, basically, you know, the repression is going to cause more and more, you know, militancy.

00:47:59.700 But at the same time, there are other forces who are stoking the fires of militancy from abroad.

00:48:04.980 You know, it is becoming, the Uyghurs now are becoming the victim of Beijing and certain powers in certain countries like Turkey and the West, who are trying, basically, to give China the headache in Xinjiang in retaliation for what, you know, trade war, COVID-19, you know, Hong Kong, you know, crisis.

00:48:28.000 I would say that, please, we tried this in Afghanistan, we tried this in Syria, and look what we are doing right now.

00:48:34.980 Look what, you know, reward we are reaping right now.

00:48:38.980 We are not supposed to encourage another theater of jihad.

00:48:43.340 What is the solution?

00:48:45.220 I know, and this is, again, what is the solution?

00:48:47.540 The solution is not by adding sanctions and pressure.

00:48:51.180 The solution is by festering dialogue.

00:48:53.860 The World Uyghur Congress, you know, I know that, you know, they have leaders in the U.S. like Rabbi Akadir.

00:48:59.900 I know they have leaders in Turkey like Sayyid Tumturk.

00:49:03.620 Well, if Sayyid Tumturk is listening, Sayyid, you invited me to your home in 2013 for Iftar in Ramadan.

00:49:10.340 You know, I have the greatest respect for you.

00:49:12.280 All I can tell you, and I can tell every Uyghur, the solution is in sitting down with Beijing and entering into dialogue.

00:49:21.420 Not necessarily with the government, but at least start with the academics, start with the think tanks, try to find the solution to gain, mostly, you know, try to find the solution to gain religious freedoms in exchange for security.

00:49:36.420 I think this is, you know, in my opinion, the best way to go around it and not to encourage militancy.

00:49:43.820 The path that the TIP, the Turkestan Islamic Party, the Al-Qaeda aligned TIP is taking the Uyghur cause, this path is going to lead to nothing but destruction. 0.90

00:49:55.860 The Chinese, you know, the Chinese juggernaut will do, will stop at nothing. 1.00

00:50:00.760 They will basically take these 12 million and disperse them all over China and replace them with hands. 0.99

00:50:06.340 That's what's going to do.

00:50:07.580 I'm saying this because I have fear for them.

00:50:10.440 I fear for their culture.

00:50:11.840 I fear for the survival.

00:50:12.940 All I want them to do basically is to just stop, take a breather and basically just sit down with Chinese academics, diplomats, reach out to their, even to the Chinese private sector, reach out to Jack Ma even, you know, the former CEO of Alibaba, you know, reach out to these people, reach out to Saudi diplomats, reach out to UAE diplomats, reach out basically to the think tanks of the world

00:50:37.560 and try to arrange that kind of dialogue at this low level to reach a higher level later, to find a solution centering around peace for religious freedoms.

00:50:49.220 And I mean, so you're appealing for them to be peaceful.

00:50:53.220 Can you, because it still seems vague to a lot of people, what is actually happening to these people as we speak at the moment?

00:51:00.820 What is the CCP and the army inflicting upon them?

00:51:05.080 As far as the Chinese Communist Party is concerned, you know, they saw the problem of Islam in Xinjiang.

00:51:14.180 That's how they see it, that the problem there is mixture of Islam and Uyghur separatism. 0.77

00:51:20.920 So they were saying, OK, we don't have a problem with the Huey Muslims.

00:51:24.900 You know, there are more Huey Muslims than Uyghur Muslims in China, by the way. 0.99

00:51:29.140 So, but relatively, they are not harassed as much as, you know, the Uyghurs. 0.99

00:51:34.760 So they thought, OK, we have the man who pacified Tibet, you know, we, you know, and modeled the Tibetan Buddhism according to our vision of China.

00:51:47.220 So how about we model the Uyghur Islam to conform with the, you know, the vision of the Chinese Communist nation state?

00:51:59.880 And so they sent the same man who was the governor of Tibet to go and govern Xinjiang and pacify it the same way he did with the, with the Tibetans also, except that Islam is not Buddhism.

00:52:14.240 Islam, you know, basically do contain jihad, unlike Buddhism. 1.00

00:52:18.480 So, you know, this is where...

00:52:21.820 Eamon, are you saying not all religions are the same?

00:52:24.800 Of course not.

00:52:27.040 By the way, whenever someone says to me, basically, but Eamon, Islam is a religion of peace.

00:52:32.180 And I say, please don't say it.

00:52:33.860 You know, is this service to Islam to say Islam is the religion of peace?

00:52:37.100 It's not.

00:52:38.000 You know, basically Islam is, well, it is not inherently violent.

00:52:41.880 It is basically a practical religion.

00:52:44.660 It is, a jihad is the prerogative of the state.

00:52:47.540 It is violent within a state structure, but peaceful within an individual structure.

00:52:52.860 So it needs to be always understood this way, that it can deploy violence if necessary in a just cause, but provided it's done by a state, not by an individual.

00:53:02.260 Only in the past 50 years throughout Islamic history, we saw the subversion of the right of the state to deploy jihad. 0.80

00:53:10.160 And suddenly we see individuals, like what's happening in Xinjiang and Iraq and Syria, you know, and Kashmir, places where individuals are actually deploying violence, deploying jihad, while it is not their right under Islamic theology.

00:53:26.620 The right to deploy jihad is to the nation state. 0.60

00:53:29.100 Then what is happening?

00:53:31.040 The delegitimization of the nation state.

00:53:34.520 Right, we'll come back to the beginning.

00:53:37.480 Yes.

00:53:38.040 So take us through, so take us back to the Uyghurs. 1.00

00:53:40.820 In this province, they bring this governor in who treats it like he treated the Buddhists in Tibet, and then what happens?

00:53:49.580 And then that's it, you know, okay, so we have to re-educate them all, you know, so take them into these camps, you know, basically, you know, make them sing the national anthem every day, read the Mao Red Book every day, tell them about Marx, you know, theories every day,

00:54:06.180 even though in the Chinese economy, even though in the Chinese economy and Marx are, you know, basically balls apart, and then feed them, you know, basically the love and loyalty to the nation states in China.

00:54:20.800 But the problem is that they are going about it basically the same way they always do with everything else, the industrial way, you know, it's just industrial.

00:54:30.080 That's how they understand it.

00:54:31.580 Because they are not, you know, deeply religious people, they are, you know, they are a little bit of like an enigma, you know, basically they are communist in their thinking, but they are also capitalist consumerist in their practice, in their daily lives.

00:54:48.640 You know, and, you know, and because of, of course, basically the normal relations of brotherhood, or brotherhood, basically, and sisterhood has been, you know, more or less dismantled over the past generation or two because of the one-child policy.

00:55:01.080 So you end up basically with more and more selfish generations, you know, being born who don't understand basically the collective will of the Uyghurs. 1.00

00:55:09.280 By the way, the Uyghurs were always allowed as a religious minority to have more than two or three children.

00:55:14.360 Not many people know that in one, you know, some of the minorities were allowed to do that.

00:55:19.260 And they were always represented as one of the minorities of China.

00:55:24.260 In fact, if you take a Chinese currency, there are four scripts on it.

00:55:29.340 So there are four, you know, calligraphy, Chinese calligraphy, Mongolian calligraphy, Tibetan calligraphy, and Uyghur calligraphy.

00:55:39.680 So it's all represented in the Chinese currency.

00:55:42.460 But it's the industrial way of, you know, okay, we have a problem.

00:55:47.980 So what do we do, basically?

00:55:49.320 Okay, take the millions and put them in the camps.

00:55:52.380 When the split between the Soviet Union and China happened, and the Soviet Union decided to pull away the nuclear program assistance for China,

00:56:02.100 you know, the Russian engineers, before they left, they shredded, you know, the nuclear program documents and left.

00:56:09.980 So the Chinese gathered, you know, the 8 million pieces, you know, in the 1960s, 0.98

00:56:15.840 they gathered the 8 million pieces of shreds and employed 1 million Chinese to put them together in the biggest history. 1.00

00:56:22.060 Holy shit, man. 0.99

00:56:23.900 And that's how China have a nuclear program. 1.00

00:56:26.460 How they achieve a nuclear bomb. 0.68

00:56:28.400 So it's the industrial mindset.

00:56:31.540 So it's CVE or counter-violent extremism on an industrial scale.

00:56:39.000 They deal with it, you know, okay, if you tell the Chinese this is a nut, forget basically a sledgehammer, 0.99

00:56:45.120 they will bring, you know, a bulldozer, you know, basically deal with this nut.

00:56:48.980 But so we have, you know, because why for them, they cease in junk as, you know, their Achilles here, 0.88

00:56:56.240 their vulnerability, their buffer zone being, you know, basically a subject of a conspiracy, you know, internally and externally.

00:57:03.100 So the paranoia takes in, the industrial repression mindset takes, you know, takes hold, and they move in this way.

00:57:12.420 Now, this is why I'm saying that the only solution for this is dialogue only, you know.

00:57:21.960 The repression will continue, unfortunately, until there is a dialogue that guarantees for China is security

00:57:28.460 and guarantees for the Uyghurs their religious freedoms.

00:57:32.320 Well, I mean, that is incredibly bleak, Eichmann.

00:57:36.280 I mean, because we know that with China, when it comes to human rights, whether it's Tibet, whether it's Hong Kong, 0.95

00:57:43.020 I think it's fair to say that that's not one of their strong points, is it, really?

00:57:49.820 Indeed, but the solution is not to create another Afghanistan that will suck in thousands upon thousands of young Muslims 1.00

00:57:57.220 from the West, from the Middle East, from South Asia, from Central Asia.

00:58:01.820 And also, this will impact Russian security.

00:58:05.520 It will impact on the security of the Central Asian republics.

00:58:08.320 It will impact the security of India. 0.55

00:58:10.140 It will impact the security of Pakistan.

00:58:12.180 We don't want that, please.

00:58:13.900 Eamon, how close are we to that situation happening, do you think?

00:58:17.800 How close are we to that catastrophic event?

00:58:21.420 I think we will see it in 2021.

00:58:23.740 Wow.

00:58:24.100 If we, if those who are planning it, and I know who they are, if those who are planning it do not basically put the, you know,

00:58:33.700 hit the pause button right now and understand that they're playing with fire.

00:58:38.940 And how much truth is there to some of the things that we're hearing out of China?

00:58:43.980 You talk about this industrial approach, essentially, where, you know, human beings are cogs in a machine much more than they are individuals to be looked after and thought of as people.

00:58:57.220 What, you know, how much truth is there to, you know, concentration camps?

00:59:02.180 We see these images of people with shaved heads.

00:59:05.840 We read stories about exports of human hair going to the United States or from China.

00:59:11.880 We hear forced sterilization programs.

00:59:15.880 We hear forced organ donations, all of this stuff, right?

00:59:21.340 Like, to people in the West, that sounds pretty horrific, because it is.

00:59:26.920 Is all of that true?

00:59:28.440 Is that happening?

00:59:30.360 All I can tell you is that in regard to the concentration camps, they are true. 1.00

00:59:34.740 I mean, basically.

00:59:36.220 However, we're not talking about people basically staying there forever.

00:59:39.580 People staying there on average of eight months, you know, and then they so-called graduate.

00:59:45.820 Whether that's true or not, I don't know.

00:59:48.100 I shouldn't laugh, but it's just crazy, man.

00:59:50.960 The average is eight months before, basically, they are released back into society.

00:59:56.620 And, you know, if you drive through Xinjiang, you will find there are some towns that are empty.

01:00:02.080 And there are some towns that are completely bustling, full and thriving.

01:00:07.040 The towns that are empty are the towns that, you know, basically they suspect of being rebellious.

01:00:12.600 And the towns that are thriving are the Muslim towns they suspect of or they are absolutely sure they are loyal and cooperative.

01:00:19.980 It seems that the Chinese are dividing the Uyghurs into, you're loyal, you're not, you know, we trust you, we don't. 1.00

01:00:27.660 You know, so it seems to me basically that the, you know, the prison camps, basically, they are exactly what they are, prison camps.

01:00:36.660 But they are no different from what you see from the rest of China, because even in the rest of China, they make people even write postcards, they print postcards.

01:00:45.320 They make people basically, you know, work on, you know, producing goods and services and toys even.

01:00:52.140 There are toy factories that actually prisons, you know, in many of the toys, basically, that you see sometime on the shelves were made there by prisoners.

01:00:59.080 Because prisoners need to work in order to earn, you know, their living, which is not far away from what is practiced in the United States, actually, in some prisons where, you know, if you call, you know, the hotline, you know, basically to order a pizza, you know, most likely the one processing your order is a prisoner, you know, in a prison call center.

01:01:19.700 It happened in the U.S.

01:01:21.440 So it is happening already in China.

01:01:23.460 China, China have, you know, basically this huge efficiency of, you are in prison, we're going to shave your hair, use your hair, you know, for whatever we want. 0.94

01:01:31.940 If you die in prison, you know, you are an organ donor, you know, straight away.

01:01:37.860 If, you know, basically we, and whatever you work for, yes, we're going to sell it abroad or in the internal market.

01:01:45.720 However, you know, this is what you are going to spend, we give you the money in the prison to spend on toothpaste and toothbrush and extra food and pen and paper and books, basically, you want to read.

01:01:58.140 So it is a brutal prison system, but it is not that much different from what you see in the U.S. in some states.

01:02:05.540 Wow. I mean, the thing, it's taken my breath away a little bit, Eamon, what you've just been talking about, everything from Afghanistan to, you know, the treatment of the Uyghurs.

01:02:21.640 And I think one question that we're all probably wondering is what can we do?

01:02:25.740 Is there anything we can do in the West?

01:02:27.120 Is there any particular organizations who are trying to represent the Uyghurs, maybe trying to help or ease their plight in some way, shape or form?

01:02:36.920 I think foreign ministries in the West should be in touch with the World Uyghur Congress, especially their leadership in Turkey.

01:02:46.760 They are more powerful than their leadership in the U.S.

01:02:49.920 And try to, you know, basically find a way to both put the pressure on the World Uyghur Congress and on the Chinese government to actually sit down together and work out a solution to this crisis, because this cannot go forward.

01:03:07.340 Also, I really, really wish if the two most powerful men in the Arab world, I'm talking here, you know, to the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, Prince Mohammed bin Salman, and to the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi, Prince Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed.

01:03:27.160 We've got a big audience, but I'm not sure those two are watching right now.

01:03:30.260 I've got to be honest.

01:03:32.560 But they have an incredible clout with China.

01:03:35.940 They could basically also find a way to, you know, basically bridge the gap between the two.

01:03:42.720 The problem is the cause of the Uyghurs has been hijacked, especially by the Muslim Brotherhood and by the Turkish government in particular, which doesn't see eye to eye with the two people I just mentioned, leaders of Saudi Arabia and the UAE.

01:03:59.100 So, unfortunately, the Muslim and Arab world are so divided, even basically to find any meaningful support for the Uyghurs.

01:04:06.880 And therefore, basically, the best way to do it is to, you know, organizations like the European Institute for Peace, the EIP, you know, institutions like the EU, for example, institutions like the United Nations.

01:04:19.380 These institutions, they can find a way to bridge the gap, at least start at an academic level.

01:04:27.040 You know, you know, there is a film called The Endgame, which William Hurt and, you know, other, you know, amazing stars, you know, in 2009 came together to create this film about how, you know, basically a, you know, an employee from a gold company in the U.K.

01:04:48.120 based in London was the spark in the mid-1980s to make some, you know, academics, white academics in South Africa sit down with ANC officials in London in a house in Somerset for four years in dialogue,

01:05:05.020 which resulted in finally the release of Nelson Mandela and the start of the handover of the, or the dismantling of the apartheid and the democratic elections in South Africa.

01:05:16.060 So, you know, it all started at an academic level.

01:05:19.200 So if we could basically get academics, you know, from both sides, Chinese academics and Uyghur academics to sit down together in neutral locations, you know, in Malaysia, in Singapore, in, you know, in Switzerland, if we could, in Norway, if we could get them to sit down together and talk about, you know, how can they basically manage each other's expectations, you know, bring down the demands slowly, slowly,

01:05:46.040 gradually, gradually, gradually, basically, until there is a common ground. Once there is a common ground, then, you know, things could start to translate into officials sitting together.

01:05:55.580 And the end result would be restoration of some degree of autonomy, religious freedoms in exchange for security, stability and loyalty to the Beijing government.

01:06:09.220 If that were to happen, and of course, basically, then the Uyghurs will share in the prosperity that awaits, you know, the Xinjiang province as a whole, because of the massive investment in the Silk Road projects, you know, more than $900 billion are being poured into that particular project.

01:06:27.040 So, the Uyghurs could become, basically, the Chinese ambassadors to the Muslim world, instead of being, you know, the enemy within that the Chinese basically perceive them to be.

01:06:39.000 Well, that makes a lot of sense. And I do hope Mohammed Ben Salman was listening, and he's going to take your advice.

01:06:45.040 And also, mate, if you are listening, sing us a couple of quid, right?

01:06:48.860 We're looking for a new studio.

01:06:50.280 Yeah, sign up to the Patreon, mate. That's what we want. MBS on our Patreon. That would be terrific.

01:06:56.320 Top dog Patreon, mate. Only 200 bucks a month. Come on, you can afford it.

01:07:00.300 You can afford it, mate. We'll even meet with you and have a meal with you for $200.

01:07:04.080 Don't pick up the check from the consulate.

01:07:08.900 But, Eamon, listen, it's been absolutely fantastic talking with you. It's been a long time in the making.

01:07:13.680 Both you and Thomas of the Conflicted Podcast are some of our favourite guests.

01:07:17.380 I'm sure we will be having you back to talk about other things as they happen.

01:07:21.460 But before we let you go, we've got one more question for you, which is the question that we always ask at the end, which is, what is the one thing that we're not talking about as a society that we really shouldn't be?

01:07:32.640 The nation-state.

01:07:34.640 The crisis of the nation-state is affecting everyone. Basically, it's not just only an Islamist desire to bring down the nation-state. 0.95

01:07:46.820 Now, unfortunately, we start to see our young in the West turning their back on the nation-state.

01:07:52.440 The only, you know, model to guarantee safety, security, stability, prosperity, law and order, everything we take for granted.

01:08:00.820 They haven't seen, you know, what collapsed societies look like, you know, and how people, you know, are desperate for things we take for granted here right now.

01:08:11.920 So, you know, we have to fight for the nation-state and make the case again for the nation-state.

01:08:19.640 I couldn't agree with you more. I could not agree with you more.

01:08:22.840 Eamon, if people want to follow your work, where do they go to listen to Conflicted and any other things that you are doing?

01:08:30.140 Well, for now, I'm doing Conflicted. And if they want to, you know, read more about my life, basically, my book is out there.

01:08:36.140 My life as MI6 Spy Inside Al-Qaeda.

01:08:40.100 Fantastic. Guys, make sure you check both of those out.

01:08:43.440 Conflicted is probably the best podcast after Trigonometry, obviously, that I've ever listened to.

01:08:50.120 It's really, really brilliant.

01:08:51.180 And so make sure you check it out.

01:08:53.140 Thank you for watching, Eamon.

01:08:54.260 Thank you for joining us very much.

01:08:56.180 And we'll see you all very soon with another brilliant episode like this or a live stream.

01:09:01.620 And please remember, guys, that episodes and live streams always go out at 7 p.m. UK time.

01:09:07.420 I'll see you next time.

TRIGGERnometry - August 09, 2020

Is the West at War With Islam？ - Aimen Dean

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