TRIGGERnometry - Nimco Ali on Being the Chief Fanny Defender and Woke Racism

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00:00:30.000 hello and welcome to trigonometry i'm francis foster i'm constantin kissin and this is a

00:00:39.520 show for you if you're bored with people arguing on the internet over subjects they know nothing

00:00:44.200 about at trigonometry we don't pretend to be the experts we ask the experts our brilliant guest

00:00:50.540 this week is a writer and activist nimka ali welcome to trigonometry hi thank you for having

00:00:54.920 me no thanks for coming on listen before we get into the interview itself for anyone who doesn't

00:00:58.900 know who you are you're obviously very well known for your work on fgm and we'll get into that yeah

00:01:02.900 but just tell us who are you how are you where you are what has brought you to this chair

00:01:06.700 where you're sitting now other than the uber you just got out of other than i just got out of and

00:01:11.420 you sending me a message on twitter so yeah i'm an anti-fgm activist and ultimately um i think the

00:01:17.160 trajectory of my career changed when i realized that my silence was very much complicit to the

00:01:21.680 misunderstanding of the form of violence that i was subjected to when i was seven so uh i went

00:01:27.520 university i'm actually qualified i did do law but i'm i also spend most of my time talking about

00:01:32.260 the female anatomy so i call myself this is why we had you yeah i call myself um the chief

00:01:38.800 defender so that's what i do i basically just sit around and politically and socially um work

00:01:44.240 towards ending a specific form of violence and we'll get into that as as i said later on in

00:01:49.780 interview one of the reasons we wanted to have you on is obviously to talk about that because

00:01:53.080 it's an important issue and francis you know you're a former teacher you had some experiences

00:01:56.700 with that right so yeah i used to work in newham okay yeah so i've seen i never saw it happen or

00:02:03.260 whatever of course not but i know i saw girls disappear yeah and then come back a few months

00:02:08.580 later and the change and obviously we never knew yeah because we'll get into that about how nobody's

00:02:14.020 ever been prosecuted or charged with no there has been a successful prosecution but um the cps who

00:02:19.480 are the bane of every woman's life have just actually decided to update their guidance to

00:02:24.480 kind of make it easier for people to get away with and with fgm but there was a successful

00:02:29.480 prosecution this year oh wow that's it because the last time i checked when we were when i went

00:02:33.900 to training a lot a couple of years ago they were saying that nobody had ever yeah so they've never

00:02:37.960 had a success so they had quite quite a few prosecutions this and last year and then um in

00:02:42.840 april there was there was a woman ironically from walthamstow so around that kind of area that was

00:02:47.500 sentenced um for performing fgm on her um three-year-old child you know what we've got into

00:02:53.760 it now you've got to get into it no i'm sorry no no it's not it's my fault it's my fault because

00:02:57.840 when you were saying oh we'll we'll talk about that like you know at the end like since the age

00:03:02.200 of seven fgm has been the the fundamental thing that's actually shaped my reality and also shaped

00:03:07.480 my political sure um view so in terms of even like you know the way that i talk and what i do

00:03:12.680 a lot of that has been fundamentally around the way that i was misunderstood as somebody that came

00:03:18.120 from a community that was affected by fgm but then also i was more than that so

00:03:22.060 yeah it's uh it's let's dive into it let's dive into it no no battle plan survives first

00:03:27.160 look it's a very contentious issue it's a very difficult issue for a lot of people it's something

00:03:35.720 that i also think there's a lot of misconceptions about yeah so just for just to start us off by

00:03:41.620 explaining to people who may not know anything about it yeah what is fgm uh female genital

00:03:47.700 mutilation a lot of people think oh it's a bit like circumcision everybody does it but it's it's

00:03:53.240 a different culture some people think it's it's to do with islam which like just debunk a few of

00:03:58.580 those things for us so basically the fundamental and the core thing is that fgm is injury or damage

00:04:04.420 or removal of any of the female anatomy for non-medical reasoning and i think that is the

00:04:09.300 key thing it's the fact that it's for non-medical reasons and a lot of people want to kind of put

00:04:13.640 culture i want to put like faith and all these things in there but it's a form of violence

00:04:16.900 and one of the key things that i was um that i was saying about why the cps is new definition

00:04:22.340 of saying that if it's done if it's done in a hospital and of women of a certain age then the

00:04:27.120 consent can really apply to that is that it's a form of gbh it's like when we talk about mutilation

00:04:31.600 it's the body being changed from its natural settings for no reason at all and we would not

00:04:37.100 accept that if you said to me right now do you know what i consent you to chop off my hands i

00:04:41.740 would get arrested because that's gbh that's a corrosion of society that if we are starting to

00:04:45.680 give people consent to cause massive damage but when it comes to the female anatomy and the women's

00:04:50.880 bodies we are constantly talking about as though that there's no um kind of influence on doing

00:04:56.380 these things i'm telling you no girl will ever walk wake up and say do you know what i'm really

00:05:01.480 not happy with my anatomy i want it to be um i want it to be cut and i remember watching um an

00:05:06.840 episode of um the play girls the play anyways it was it was what was the guy the guy that um

00:05:12.500 Hugh Hefner had a show

00:05:15.640 on the E channel

00:05:17.680 I was quite young, I was watching this

00:05:19.460 show and the Playboy bunnies

00:05:21.320 or the girlfriends he had, again that was a form of

00:05:23.380 abuse, the fact that haligamy

00:05:25.180 is like fucking ridiculous

00:05:26.280 but they were talking about labioplasty

00:05:29.500 which is like cosmetic surgery

00:05:31.020 on the female anatomy

00:05:32.340 and then my mum was like

00:05:35.380 but why would they do that to themselves?

00:05:36.820 and I said but why would you do FGM to yourself mama?

00:05:38.840 why would you do FGM to girls like me?

00:05:40.440 and it's this whole idea of the fact that but that's my culture or i've i've i've basically

00:05:44.920 chosen to do this the patriarchy is powerful and what we do is i was the more we empower women

00:05:50.620 the more it comes back in other places so fgm is literally like you know any damage to the female

00:05:56.980 anatomy it doesn't matter whether you're three years old or whether you're like 25 there's no

00:06:02.080 medical reasons for it and all of it legitimizes other forms of abuse to women so so what you're

00:06:08.060 saying is incredibly enlightening then the begs the question why do it why do so some cultures

00:06:14.940 have fgm it's a bit so the same so it's because it's every single woman in my family until about

00:06:21.420 the 2005 had been cut had been a had undergone fgm so there was this assumption that that's what

00:06:28.120 it was like to be a somali woman and culture is a weird thing which we're all gripped in like you

00:06:32.940 know if we're the way that i'm dressed today the way that you're dressed or what you think or what

00:06:36.080 believe in are all informed by the way that we're raised and the people that we're around and if you

00:06:41.400 don't have anybody else telling you that you shouldn't be doing this then you just keep

00:06:44.720 and then you're going to keep doing it and you're going to make it as a fundamental thing to who

00:06:48.880 makes you who you are and to take something like fgm away that's basically being what my grandmother

00:06:53.200 my great-grandmother my mother everybody had and for me to say but it's really stupid like why are

00:06:58.020 we doing this that is judging people that is like you know shaking people's real core values and for

00:07:03.840 me i never knew fgm was abuse i just thought i knew it was painful and i just knew it was really

00:07:09.240 stupid and asking questions as to but why are you doing it or to my non-somali community and

00:07:16.220 friends saying to my teachers like why is this happening to me and people having no answers

00:07:20.560 around it made me really understand that actually this was something that nobody understood and

00:07:24.860 they were doing it because they were scared of not doing it and then my teachers who were all

00:07:28.380 english were scared of intervening because they didn't know what was actually going on so a lot

00:07:33.580 of it is all about control and the patriarchy will enforce things on women in order to keep

00:07:38.840 them down so yeah it's just like why does anything happen like any of the things that we want to kind

00:07:43.720 of evolve and change is because some evil people are benefiting from it i'm guessing the question

00:07:49.160 people might ask you know circumcision or the male circumcision exists it's obviously a different

00:07:53.920 thing and it's much less invasive and whatever but uh you know some of the arguments for jewish

00:07:59.640 people like my some of my ancestors and uh arabic people living in the desert the argument was that

00:08:05.920 it's about hygiene if you get dirt and sand stuck under your foreskin yeah four thousand years ago

00:08:10.600 no sorry one thousand four like one thousand four hundred years ago but this is like two so i said

00:08:15.040 to one of my friends once though why are you circumcising your child she's like it's more

00:08:18.680 hygienic i said but there's soap and water and she's like for sex i'm like he's eight days old

00:08:22.900 yeah why are we thinking about who he's having sex with and i always think and i'm going to get a lot

00:08:27.640 this is i think this is the thing that can unite like you know the middle east both jewish and

00:08:31.820 muslim is around male circumcision and i'm going to get a lot of shit for this but ultimately if

00:08:35.980 you took out religion and said like why are you cutting healthy tissue of a young baby boy who

00:08:40.760 you just would immunize in a few days not to get like you know tetanus and all these other kind of

00:08:45.340 things and then you say well a few thousand years ago um this man was hallucinating he was a prophet

00:08:52.940 though let me tell you this was a man that god was speaking to he god was speaking to him god

00:08:56.480 I said to him, murder your first child.

00:08:58.880 And then he said, actually, I'm not going to do that.

00:09:01.000 Actually, I'm going to do it.

00:09:02.180 And then he was so obedient that God changed the son into a lamb.

00:09:06.700 And to be so grateful, he pulled his penis out and cut some skin off it.

00:09:10.920 It's a great story.

00:09:12.000 That's why 4,000 years later, I'm doing this to my child in Crouch End.

00:09:16.580 Yeah.

00:09:18.580 No, I agree.

00:09:19.580 I guess you mentioned the patriarchy several times.

00:09:22.140 And I was just thinking, like, it happens to boys as well.

00:09:24.420 That probably wasn't the patriarchy.

00:09:26.020 It was what people 4,000 years ago in the desert believed, right?

00:09:29.460 No, but the thing about, so the fundamental difference between male circumcision and FGM,

00:09:35.780 so one, I don't support any forced surgery on children,

00:09:38.600 but ultimately what happens is that FGM, where FGM is prominent and where FGM is practiced,

00:09:44.460 there is like, you know, other forms of gender-based violence

00:09:46.500 where men have their foreskin removed, they get the keys to the kingdom,

00:09:49.060 they're not being forced to be married,

00:09:50.780 they're not being stopped from going to certain employment,

00:09:52.880 they're not being segregated, so they're not being forced to wear the burqa,

00:09:55.740 or there's several other things that happen as a result of where fgm is evidence so so the life

00:10:01.080 the life consequences physically as well physical physicality is another thing as well

00:10:06.160 that like even the most the the least invasive form of fgm which is the unhooded or a clitidectomy

00:10:12.020 moving the external parts of the clitoris on a male organ would mean like removing almost like

00:10:17.440 the total penis so the physicality the physical impacts are different the social and um emotional

00:10:24.280 impacts that are happening are different as well.

00:10:26.380 So I think that's the fundamental thing. It's like

00:10:27.980 how the society is structured. And

00:10:30.240 to be fair, there is a little bit of

00:10:32.360 male ego involved in male

00:10:34.280 circumcision that fathers always want their

00:10:36.360 sons to look like them.

00:10:38.100 That's one of the main reasons why a lot of

00:10:40.200 like, you know, a lot of, and also

00:10:42.160 Jewish and Muslim mothers want like, you know,

00:10:44.140 other women to be very proud of

00:10:46.180 what their baby's penis looks like.

00:10:48.140 I just think it's really weird. When you really listen

00:10:50.160 to it, it's like, why are we talking about

00:10:53.340 Like, this is quite paedophilic.

00:10:55.180 It's like, we're all standing here staring at our baby's penis.

00:10:58.680 It's a bit weird.

00:11:00.020 Like, take religion out of it.

00:11:01.420 It's very weird.

00:11:02.300 And FGM, from what I got told, and please correct me if this is wrong,

00:11:07.340 a large part of it is control over women and their pleasure of having sex.

00:11:12.060 Well, it's more about control over women and, like, you know, ownership.

00:11:16.440 So, pleasure.

00:11:17.360 So, I wrote a book recently called Things We're Told Not To Talk About,

00:11:20.360 but we're going to anyway.

00:11:21.320 And at the heart of that was the conversation around the female orgasm.

00:11:25.360 Nobody ever talks about female pleasure.

00:11:27.440 So female pleasure is always seen as a bonus, not as a right in terms of sexual relationships.

00:11:31.320 Not in my house.

00:11:33.600 Empowered women have orgasms.

00:11:36.020 That's why the world wants to shut us down.

00:11:37.740 In my house, it gets talked about all the time.

00:11:40.040 If anything, she's too empowered, mate.

00:11:42.300 And I think that is fundamentally the thing is the fact that it's not about control,

00:11:48.160 But it's the whole thing of like, well, obviously, the reason why you can't have an orgasm is because of the fact that you've been mutilated.

00:11:54.080 It's because of the fact that you're being oppressed and raped on a day-to-day basis when a lot of those women don't even have any choice over the men that they marry.

00:12:01.980 So technically, if you're being forced to sleep with somebody every night, it's rape because you never chose to marry him and to be in that relationship.

00:12:08.760 So there is an element of controlling about the ownership of sexual pleasure as opposed to control.

00:12:13.680 So, like, sexual pleasure only sits within the male, like, you know, a member of the relationship.

00:12:20.060 So the idea of removing the culture is that there's no need for you to be sexually pleased.

00:12:26.180 You're only there to have children.

00:12:28.460 Right.

00:12:29.380 I was going to ask, you mentioned culture and religion.

00:12:32.460 Yeah.

00:12:32.640 And there was a couple of things that I asked you at the top I just want to clarify.

00:12:36.280 So for anyone who doesn't know, first of all, where is FGM normally practiced?

00:12:41.680 So you're from Somaliland yourself.

00:12:43.060 Yeah.

00:12:43.680 Is it mainly Africa? Is it beyond that?

00:12:46.540 Where are the regions where this is part of the local culture?

00:12:49.820 In terms of the largest number of countries on the continent,

00:12:53.300 Africa is the largest because there's 28 countries

00:12:55.680 that have more than a 40% uptake of FGM.

00:12:58.980 There's like Indonesia and parts of India.

00:13:02.900 And I would actually classify Harley Street procedures

00:13:06.600 called cosmetic surgery on the female anatomy as FGM.

00:13:09.960 So it's a global issue in terms of how we define it,

00:13:12.260 whether it's a razor or whether it's happening in a hut or in a hospital,

00:13:15.580 it's all exactly the same.

00:13:17.440 But ultimately, in places where, like Ethiopia, for example,

00:13:21.240 where it has Christians, Jews, Muslims, and non-people of the book religions,

00:13:27.480 FGM is practiced there.

00:13:29.380 By even by Jews and by Christians?

00:13:31.640 By all of them, by all of them.

00:13:32.660 So it's a cultural issue.

00:13:34.300 So therefore, it's an Ethiopian thing.

00:13:35.960 So Ethiopia has an FGM issue.

00:13:38.280 So yeah, and also it predates all the kind of, all the Abrahamic religions.

00:13:46.080 So it's 4,000 years old, so it's like, and it was well before Muhammad, well before Moses, and well before Christ as well.

00:13:52.620 Because that's one of the big, I think, misunderstandings, certainly in this country when people talk about it.

00:13:56.920 I think a lot of people think that it's a Muslim tradition.

00:14:00.200 Yeah, no, no, it's not because of the fact that we've called it circumcision, and then what happened was,

00:14:04.640 So the terminology was female circumcision, which is wrong because it's FGM.

00:14:10.160 And then what happened was that the circumcision is only within the Jewish community or within the Muslim community.

00:14:15.040 And because there was no evidence within the Jewish community of FGM, then people assumed because it was called circumcision, it must come from a Muslim background.

00:14:23.600 So I'm just going to call that bad asthma.

00:14:27.080 So it must have just come from a Muslim background.

00:14:30.080 background but it doesn't like you know i've known people from all faiths and no faiths i've

00:14:34.400 actually practiced fgm it's a bit like rape and domestic violence it i don't know it crosses the

00:14:39.600 um the theories of the books and what are the long-term health implications for if for these

00:14:46.980 women who have had this procedure i think like the main thing is death it's like it's not like

00:14:51.900 the like the like you know fgm can kill and we always say survivors of fgm so there are millions

00:14:56.620 of women and girls who haven't survived and then i think the complications go go and go into

00:15:00.920 dependence on the physicality of the fgm that you had so i had a really invasive form of fgm and

00:15:06.700 when i was 11 my kidneys almost failed and i almost died um so they were so so type 3 which

00:15:12.440 is infibulation which is more common in egypt um somalia and sudan somalia in all those places

00:15:18.040 is where they basically stitch the female anatomy together and that means that if these girls are

00:15:23.500 being cut as young as seven like i was you're going into puberty with no ability to menstruate

00:15:28.740 like you know healthfully urinate freely and also if you do have sex like getting penetrated through

00:15:35.400 like some raw tissue like you know some like you know um scar tissue it's going to be extremely

00:15:40.900 painful and then pregnancy so there are massive complications that kind of come into it but i

00:15:46.180 think the social and the psychological impacts of fgm are fundamental where you're subjecting

00:15:51.620 something so horrific and brutal and needless to a child and that will have lifelong complications

00:15:58.700 and i think we have had this um view of not of never assuming what the emotional consequences

00:16:06.600 could be all the emotional like you know the feelings that african women have we never talk

00:16:10.360 about so we know africa um many countries in africa have been at war for um for decades but

00:16:16.180 we never talk about the realities of what like you know what it means to be a woman in africa

00:16:20.660 living with such brutality we just assume that it's a physical act that we're gonna um ultimately

00:16:25.460 just fix so for me i think the emotional psychological issues are more fundamental

00:16:30.060 than the physicality ones which we focus on and do you think we're doing enough in this country

00:16:36.300 to deal with it in these particular communities or are you know the powers that be sensitive about

00:16:43.320 dealing because accusing of being intolerant of being racist of all the rest of it actually sorry

00:16:47.080 before you answer that question which is a great question can you tell us how prominent it is in

00:16:50.560 the uk so so within the uk there are 137 000 women are living with the consequence of fgm

00:16:56.800 wow and in 2000 and in the um just about i think it was about five and five six years ago when we

00:17:02.660 did some um data one in ten births in southwark was born to a woman who had fgm i know so it's a

00:17:09.620 it's a massive issue it's a huge issue it's a huge issue but then again it also shows you that

00:17:15.360 who are having babies within the country at the moment.

00:17:18.680 It's like the large families are within families with FGM

00:17:22.840 and all these things are practiced because of poverty

00:17:24.980 and the fact that women don't have any control over their bodies.

00:17:28.760 So obviously these women are constantly giving birth,

00:17:32.260 which is another kind of massive issue that we should be talking about.

00:17:36.020 So to come back to Frances' question now, part of which was,

00:17:39.540 why is it that do you think we're doing enough, number one?

00:17:41.920 And also, why is it that we may be reluctant to talk about it?

00:17:46.240 I think we are.

00:17:46.800 So since the coalition government came in in 2010, a lot has changed.

00:17:52.800 And weirdly enough, on Tuesday, I was with four Secretary of State.

00:17:58.000 So Priti Patel at the Home Office, Gavin Williamson at Education,

00:18:03.240 Matt Hancock at Health, and then another Rob, I forget to say, from Communities.

00:18:08.700 And all four Secretary of State were committed to talking about FGM.

00:18:11.400 So there is incredible things that are happening. And I do think that I do know that a girl, so my niece is eight years old now. She is 100 percent safer from FGM than I could have ever been when I was her age.

00:18:26.380 And there are, like, you know, things that are being put in place in order to make sure that her rights are respected.

00:18:32.840 But ultimately, those people that want to continue FGM will keep pushing.

00:18:37.700 And I think the decision that I was talking about, the CPS today, it's problematic because at this moment in time,

00:18:43.300 there are people in Kenya who are trying to revoke the law against FGM, saying, well, fine, ban FGM for children,

00:18:49.960 but let women have choices around this issue.

00:18:52.720 And there is, like, this idea of choice doesn't actually, like, you know, exist.

00:18:56.080 And I think we have to understand the commonality of what does legislation and what does protecting civil rights and protecting human rights of women really mean.

00:19:03.280 And that means that certain things are just unacceptable.

00:19:05.900 We don't have like, you know, you can't say, well, if I consent to being beaten by my husband, then that's fine.

00:19:13.540 We understand that that's coercion and that there's abuse and there's glooming within those issues.

00:19:17.720 We don't accept that. If you've been in a relationship where rape and domestic violence has happened, that even though you've stated there's some kind of consent given.

00:19:25.420 so we have to understand that there is no consent when it comes to a form of violence against women

00:19:30.300 and girls and that for me I find that really problematic when people try to intellectualize

00:19:35.120 saying well well it's not like this girl in Africa that's being held down I said actually at least

00:19:40.180 you can see the horrors of that girl fighting back for you to willingly walk into a clinic and

00:19:46.180 be subjected to the same act of violence that I was and consume that as empowering I think that's

00:19:51.740 more problematic for me and that is the kind of conversations that we need to be having that it

00:19:57.140 doesn't matter and also the fgm legislation is ridiculous here it says girls should include

00:20:02.340 women and fgm should not be allowed for cultural reasoning and then the culture is defined as the

00:20:08.180 28 african countries so if i go to harley street and say um i'm caribbean and i want type one fgm

00:20:14.620 that's fine if i say i'm somali and i want type one fgm i don't have any um concept of choice so

00:20:20.960 then I'm stopped from having that.

00:20:23.000 That is how the legislation sits at the moment,

00:20:24.820 that black women from African heritage can't make choices,

00:20:29.540 but other women can.

00:20:31.100 It's a very weird thing,

00:20:32.320 particularly with the trans conversations happening now, isn't it?

00:20:35.100 Because a trans person can say,

00:20:37.600 well, I identify as a different gender,

00:20:39.940 and therefore I want surgery.

00:20:41.200 But that's a medical necessity,

00:20:42.420 and I think you have to have medical,

00:20:45.020 so the whole idea of cancer.

00:20:48.280 So it's just a bit like abortion.

00:20:49.820 Abortion is not actually a right here in the UK.

00:20:53.400 You have a legitimate defense to asking for an abortion because two doctors define it to be medically necessary for your physical or emotional well-being.

00:21:03.400 I think a lot of people forget that, saying the fact that the Abortion Act is a defense to the act of abortion as opposed to a right to have an abortion.

00:21:10.880 And that's what there is, that caveat that's built into the FGM legislation where if you need this.

00:21:16.620 So if, for example, I had a vulva cancer or all these things,

00:21:22.160 there will be a need to mutilate my anatomy to save my life.

00:21:26.280 If I was going through gender reassignment,

00:21:29.800 there would be a medical and a psychological need to mutilate my anatomy.

00:21:34.080 It doesn't take away from the fact that what's happening to you is an act of FGM,

00:21:37.680 but there's a legitimate legal reason for that.

00:21:40.080 And that's what people just don't understand.

00:21:41.900 But to go in and say, oh, I just don't like my flaps.

00:21:46.620 well i've never done that that's what i mean that's what it's basically that's what the cpu

00:21:51.680 is fucking saying it's the fact that you just walk into i just don't like my flaps yeah yeah

00:21:55.300 no no absolutely and when these girls and young girls i mean how does it i got told that a lot

00:22:04.080 of the time they you know they got taken back to places like somalia or these countries and then

00:22:09.440 the operations happened there and then they got brought back is it happening in are there people

00:22:14.280 doing this sort of a backstreet like an abortion um so there are there was evidence when i was

00:22:19.600 growing up in the 80s and early 90s that was happening here in the uk but now parents are

00:22:24.680 taking their girls away because at least that way when you're kind of trying to groom and brainwash

00:22:29.360 them into the whole idea you're kind of taking them back to a culture which they've longed for

00:22:32.900 so then they therefore they assume this is part of that so a lot of the a lot of the fgm is now

00:22:37.200 extra territorial and that's why the 2003 legislation made it illegal for girls to be

00:22:41.960 taken out of the UK to be cut. But then there are women that are turning up at clinics or FGM

00:22:48.100 giving birth who haven't left the country, who've been re-infibrillated. Again, stitching women back

00:22:55.800 up because what happens is a lot of these women, some of them might come to join husbands here.

00:23:01.460 The FGM has happened before they became a British resident, but therefore the FGM is something still

00:23:05.500 the NHS has to deal with. That woman is de-infibrillated, so basically her anatomy is

00:23:10.860 opened up in order to give birth and then she comes back again with similar um like you know

00:23:16.300 um issues that that um and that she had before meaning that that fgm has happened somewhere here

00:23:21.760 in the uk but ultimately there are people um the last the last case which was unsuccessful was a

00:23:27.480 16 year old girl whose whose anatomy had shown up as being injured and being mutilated but

00:23:34.000 the court just didn't believe that her father who she said well it was the person who initiated the

00:23:40.200 FGM and was sanctioned

00:23:42.380 it was the person that did that but that girl

00:23:44.360 still was mutilated here in the UK

00:23:45.820 so I think there's this weird thing

00:23:47.560 it still happens

00:23:48.980 let's look at some of the broader issues

00:23:51.700 around this and many other things

00:23:54.200 that you've talked and written about

00:23:55.360 one of the things I think Francis you brought up

00:23:58.160 earlier was this idea that

00:23:59.580 there's a kind of cultural relativism

00:24:02.600 that happens with things so always just their

00:24:04.220 culture you know this is how they do things

00:24:06.340 you know just let them do their thing

00:24:07.700 Who are we to tell people in Somalia how to live their life, right?

00:24:12.140 That's an argument that comes from a certain section, particularly, I think, of the left.

00:24:15.560 Yeah.

00:24:15.860 What do you make of that?

00:24:17.220 Well, it's bullshit.

00:24:19.700 It's just basically like, you know, throwing you to the wolves.

00:24:21.800 So it's like, well, Nimco, that's fine.

00:24:23.400 You're like, love you.

00:24:24.720 You should be really British, but let's just like, you know, let's just protect your human rights.

00:24:30.460 And I think that's one of the things where in April we had FGM added to the Children's Act where it was before.

00:24:38.920 So there's like if a social worker, a teacher or other people are concerned that a child could be in danger or neglect,

00:24:47.240 it was basically the ability to get a protection order was there.

00:24:51.220 But FGM was an adage. So it was you had to prove the level of negligence or harm that was going to be caused to the child.

00:24:58.440 but if these families

00:24:59.860 there are no other indicators

00:25:03.100 of abuse within a lot of these families

00:25:04.800 so that's why people say a loving family

00:25:07.020 so these kids are well fed

00:25:09.300 they're clean, they're not

00:25:10.940 turning up at school late

00:25:12.300 they're basically in what looks like

00:25:14.500 decent families which my family would look like

00:25:17.000 from the outside

00:25:17.620 as opposed to just being

00:25:20.460 an FGM practicing community

00:25:22.120 so there's no triggers for social services

00:25:25.040 other people to get

00:25:25.960 to get a protection order or to limit the parental rights of these parents.

00:25:33.360 And FGM needed to be added to that because what these social workers and people were saying,

00:25:37.940 yes, I know she's cleanly dressed, she's being fed, but there's a risk of FGM.

00:25:42.360 And that just wasn't in the Children's Act.

00:25:44.040 So there was an incredible member of the House of Lords who flagged us up.

00:25:51.260 It came through. It was sponsored by two conservative MPs.

00:25:56.320 And then just on the second reading, that great fucker, Christopher Chopes, objected to it, saying, well, we were virtue signaling.

00:26:04.200 And it's really interesting. The left who are so woke and these and some of the like, you know, really old school, like, you know, I want to be like, you know, having black people bring me food and stuff like that.

00:26:16.360 like you know on the right are very similar and they want to bring the empire back to a certain

00:26:21.320 very similar in the sense of like let's keep the culture we shouldn't intervene

00:26:25.060 um he objected and thankfully um the um the the the the government gave a time and overruled and

00:26:34.660 like you know overruled him but what was really interesting was the conversation i was having

00:26:37.860 with people and there's this key thing where everybody says let me play the devil's advocate

00:26:41.960 i'm like the devil doesn't need a fucking advocate like have you not read everything that's in the

00:26:46.140 quran and the torah and the bible and everything else like you know like the devil doesn't need

00:26:50.700 anybody to advocate on his side but they were like you know why should we intervene and i said

00:26:57.100 it's really interesting that if there was evidence of your daughter so it's this um white guy if your

00:27:02.100 daughter if you were subjecting your daughter to fgm or the idea that they even was talked about

00:27:07.800 like you know people will come down here like like a ton of bricks but if my daughter

00:27:12.760 is at the same risk because she's brown we should just basically respect me before we respect her

00:27:18.720 and he said oh i didn't really think of that i said and if my daughter or a daughter girl that

00:27:23.260 looked like me was adopted by white parents then she's okay to be protected but not be protected

00:27:27.120 when she's behind um communities which are non-whites it's this whole thing that we're

00:27:32.040 saying that the human rights of certain people um have more legitimacy than others and it's not

00:27:38.340 like we're not saying that these kids shouldn't be vaccinated we're saying that these kids should be

00:27:41.480 protected from

00:27:43.380 Ikeno torture which is actually defined

00:27:45.560 by the UN so yeah a lot of it

00:27:47.520 for me it's actually quite

00:27:49.060 it's offensive and it's hurtful

00:27:51.740 and it actually shows a lot

00:27:53.680 of racism in

00:27:55.220 the sense that they're clearly just saying that

00:27:57.480 my rights don't matter and

00:27:59.480 me being subjected to a horrific

00:28:01.500 form of abuse it's fine because

00:28:03.600 that's what savages do

00:28:05.220 that's what savages do

00:28:07.720 like we don't evolve

00:28:09.300 and Nimco do you think as well

00:28:11.260 it's a lot of it it is racism I agree and a lot of it is cowardice as well because do you see it

00:28:16.140 from the modern feminist movement where they want to you know tear down the patriarchy but when it

00:28:20.020 comes to an issue like FGM which is a massive issue and like you said it affects over a hundred

00:28:24.920 thousand women in this country do they want to get involved or they just sort of back away from it

00:28:30.200 well it depends like you know like you know radical feminism has always been quite friendly

00:28:33.840 and it's kind of supported I think one of the kind of the key interests was when I first started

00:28:38.920 doing the work was the conversations around black feminism black working class feminism here in the

00:28:44.300 uk and i think and that was very much embedded within the labor movement and i think that's

00:28:48.400 very problematic in the sense that i think you see your race before you see your gender and for me

00:28:53.160 i've always been a woman before i was black before i was anything because a lot of the things that

00:28:56.560 happened to me haven't been because of my race it's been because of my gender and i i'm very

00:29:02.100 much aware of because of the fact that i'm african and direct like first generation african born

00:29:06.820 that, for me, I did not identify as black.

00:29:10.080 I did not go through a lot of the prejudice that a lot of people did.

00:29:12.740 And I came from a country where, like, you know,

00:29:15.080 that my privilege and my family meant that I, like, you know...

00:29:20.660 You were from a wealthy background.

00:29:22.080 Yeah, so a privileged background,

00:29:24.420 which when we lost everything and became refugees,

00:29:26.740 we still had aspirations.

00:29:27.780 So I didn't probably struggle with identity

00:29:30.100 as much as, like, a lot of people whose families came,

00:29:33.600 came here from the Caribbean or Jew heritage.

00:29:36.820 women who grew up in white working class areas who kind of was basically saw their brothers and

00:29:42.780 their fathers and all these kind of things struggle so it was really difficult when i

00:29:46.240 started talking about fgm as though it was like oh you're basically bringing stigma and shining

00:29:51.960 the light on an already marginalized community like what are you doing we should like let the

00:29:56.300 white guy like you know define us because everybody like the police were seen as a white

00:30:00.680 institution the government was seen as a white institution and me working with them both very

00:30:05.060 closely and actually really saying that

00:30:07.220 guys you need to protect me

00:30:09.020 was seen as something as kind of

00:30:11.120 a sell out and I just thought when you're in

00:30:13.080 a country, I've seen countries fall apart

00:30:15.140 and fundamentally

00:30:16.880 what people want to do after

00:30:18.500 you get dictatorships and all these things is to really

00:30:20.900 bring back justice and really

00:30:23.080 ensure the rule of law and

00:30:24.840 I quite like the police, I would

00:30:26.340 you know

00:30:26.880 got no issue with the police officers

00:30:30.780 but that's just like, it doesn't mean that

00:30:32.820 I'm not going to complain as a

00:30:34.720 taxpayer about the police system but i don't actually walk around every day thinking that

00:30:38.220 all police officers are racist and a chip on my shoulder um yeah and i don't think like you know

00:30:42.920 that all white men are bad so i just think that was that was just a weird thing for me to be saying

00:30:48.960 as um to them as a black woman and i was just saying it as a woman and as somebody who understood

00:30:54.980 the need you know the the need of like you know the the criminal justice system to understand

00:31:00.560 diversity in people like me.

00:31:03.220 It's interesting that you bring up this idea that being outspoken in this way

00:31:06.980 and tackling that issue and working with the white police,

00:31:10.360 inverted commas for our listeners, white police and white government or whatever,

00:31:13.800 it made you kind of a bit like a traitor, I suppose.

00:31:16.580 I don't know if that's the right word.

00:31:18.320 And one of the reasons we wanted to talk to you is we read an article that you wrote,

00:31:21.720 I think it was in Telegraph, around the time that Boris Johnson,

00:31:25.200 then newly minted Prime Minister, by the time this goes out,

00:31:28.560 who knows what his position is going to be.

00:31:29.980 The man that delivers Brexit.

00:31:31.480 Well, we'll find out, right?

00:31:32.820 We're recording this just on the day before the big Saturday or whatever it's called.

00:31:37.120 Super Saturday.

00:31:37.880 Super Saturday.

00:31:38.680 Oh, that's less like proper American, like they have these super Mondays or whatever.

00:31:42.440 Anyway, he appointed a cabinet that had a strong representation from different ethnic minority groups.

00:31:50.140 The son of a former Pakistani bus driver, people from different communities from all around the world.

00:31:56.060 Black, James Cleverley, you know, brown, etc.

00:31:59.140 Yeah.

00:31:59.320 and within an hour a lot of these people on the left like what's a kerry ann mendoza whatever her

00:32:06.900 name from the canary came out she's blocked me she said she did a like in a preemptive strike i

00:32:11.640 don't even know who she is well she's editor of the canary and she came out and said that these

00:32:16.380 are not people of color yeah they are tone cards of color and this idea that a person whose skin

00:32:25.240 is different has to to white has to think exactly the same way as every other person whose skin is

00:32:32.580 not white isn't that the most racist idea that you could have yeah there was a there was a um

00:32:38.480 a lecturer um i think she was at cambridge or somewhere and i was like so while she wants to

00:32:42.760 intellectually masturbate over issues like fgm and all these things that activists actually get

00:32:47.480 shit done but yeah it is it is it is that whole point of the fact that um privilege is a massive

00:32:53.380 thing and i think i come and and the iron is that i come from the certain kinds of privileges that

00:32:59.420 a lot of these people and people do but i try to use that privilege in order to change the world

00:33:04.820 for other people and i know like so priti patel is um a ugandan um so she's an east african indian

00:33:12.360 the most successful diaspora outside the jewish diaspora globally um in the uk so she's the most

00:33:18.740 so the most successful diaspora and the fact that she's the home secretary says a testament to a

00:33:23.040 lot of the people that came here as refugees like my parents say actually we're not gonna give up

00:33:27.500 we're gonna suck it up and we're gonna make sure that our children um succeed the idea when you

00:33:33.140 when your parents come don't can necessarily come from something that they haven't lost anything

00:33:37.700 and i just i don't know i don't want to knock them for being like you know um not having a lot

00:33:44.800 of aspirations and then getting pissed off when people like me actually deliver and do things

00:33:49.240 But it is offensive. It's the whole point of the fact that I've got young, I've got two Somali black young boys who are my cousins.

00:34:00.420 They go to one of the best schools in, like one of the best grammar schools in London, in Kui, in Elizabeth.

00:34:06.480 They're in like, you know, Barnet. And the irony is about 90 percent of that school is either African or Sri Lankan.

00:34:13.540 and there's a massive issue why that is

00:34:16.440 because those people have all come from people who had to

00:34:18.500 leave and be forced out

00:34:20.040 by people who write the canary

00:34:22.640 or read the canary and those ideas that they have

00:34:24.540 so the thing is

00:34:26.320 I've seen the concept of socialism

00:34:27.700 I've seen the concepts of communism

00:34:29.760 and I know they don't do any favours for people like me

00:34:32.920 so

00:34:33.560 well they don't do any favours for anybody

00:34:35.020 I'm from Russia originally

00:34:36.540 my mother's Venezuelan

00:34:37.640 but they specifically don't do anything for women

00:34:41.820 and they don't do anything like specifically for women so yeah it's just like it is i don't know

00:34:45.760 i'm not like these people are just like ridiculous i'm not sure about i'm not i'm not i'm not offended

00:34:50.420 by them and i'm not hurt by them anymore because i think i've got enough um clout now just to kind

00:34:55.440 of to laugh it off but i think it does hurt a lot of other young people who want to be able to

00:34:59.840 identify in a certain political um with a certain political party or have certain views and i think

00:35:05.720 i was privileged enough to be able to do that i grew up under the new labor um kind of party and

00:35:11.760 And I am from the generation that things can only get better.

00:35:15.860 And for me, things can only get better under the Conservative Party right now.

00:35:18.900 Do I believe in every single policy the Conservative Party has? No.

00:35:21.980 Do I feel safer under the Conservative Party than I do with Labour, with Jeremy Corbyn? Yes.

00:35:26.640 So, like, you know, it's freedom of speech and freedom of choice.

00:35:30.740 And if you believe in democracy, then everybody should be able to have their democracy.

00:35:34.200 But I think the left want you to stay poor and they want you to stay black.

00:35:36.860 and the idea, the fact that you might be a black person

00:35:39.360 that actually emancipates yourself

00:35:41.160 and does something, they find really problematic

00:35:43.420 and I think that is racism

00:35:45.120 that they would rather my young

00:35:47.340 cousins were all going to

00:35:49.120 a shit state school in an area that was probably

00:35:51.240 Labour held and then

00:35:52.960 pointing to the government at the time

00:35:55.000 saying, look what you're doing to young black boys

00:35:57.040 and actually to be fair, everywhere that's

00:35:58.920 failing in this country is to do with Labour

00:36:00.800 it's nothing to do with the Conservative Party ideally

00:36:02.640 and the places that are quite successful here

00:36:05.000 in parts of London where it's Labour held,

00:36:09.020 a lot of the people that are there have turned the local schools

00:36:11.620 into selection schools.

00:36:14.620 Like, my auntie can't move to Crouch End to a good state school

00:36:18.240 because of the housing prices in London,

00:36:20.780 so why shouldn't she send her children to a grammar school

00:36:24.520 means the fact that they can do, as well as some of the people

00:36:27.020 in the Labour Party's front bench at the moment.

00:36:28.920 I think that's the problem.

00:36:30.680 So, yeah, I don't really know how to answer that

00:36:32.580 other than saying it's quite ridiculous and it's it is racist it is offensive and people like the

00:36:38.740 canary don't actually have don't actually really want like you know anything to really change for

00:36:43.560 like the poorest country and the poorest people in this country and the thing that always shocked

00:36:49.240 me and we had a former guest of ours called zuby um who's a rapper and an entrepreneur and um an

00:36:55.340 incredibly intelligent man and he was talking about what you were talking about but the thing

00:37:00.460 that he was talking about as well

00:37:01.680 and that I never noticed

00:37:02.540 is that they use racist language

00:37:04.740 against you

00:37:05.540 in order to attack you

00:37:08.120 and then say that

00:37:09.440 they're not racist.

00:37:10.440 Yeah, but that's what I'm saying

00:37:11.240 about Jacob.

00:37:14.100 Jacob is like,

00:37:15.040 but yeah, I'm saying like,

00:37:15.780 so for example,

00:37:16.260 Jacob Rees-Mogg

00:37:16.800 would not be allowed

00:37:17.300 to say the certain things

00:37:18.060 that I get,

00:37:18.640 like somebody from the left

00:37:19.740 is able to say to me.

00:37:20.880 So I, Lee Jasper,

00:37:23.040 called me publicly on Twitter

00:37:25.780 a fucked up Negro.

00:37:28.620 What fucked up Negro

00:37:29.360 for aligning myself with the Tory party,

00:37:31.840 aligning myself with certain politicians

00:37:34.620 and people who I personally know

00:37:36.440 and I personally worked with.

00:37:38.320 And then he tweeted after that saying,

00:37:40.380 like, you know, blackface, white soul.

00:37:43.260 He's a mixed race guy.

00:37:44.580 I'm like, come on, mate.

00:37:45.560 Like, you know, I'm actually,

00:37:46.700 and this idea of blackness,

00:37:48.000 I just, I don't get the idea of blackness.

00:37:49.680 I'm like, I'm African.

00:37:51.340 I was born on the continent of Africa.

00:37:52.660 I was raised by great African leaders.

00:37:55.440 Like, fuck you, I'm black.

00:37:57.080 I don't need to, I don't need to.

00:37:58.680 like you know um search for my blackness it's something that's that i've inherited something

00:38:03.280 that i know and because of that privilege and again and this is the thing why i don't really

00:38:08.320 come at them as much because i know the privilege it is to know from the land you're sourced in and

00:38:12.980 to know the people and to know your lineage and to know your history and obviously like you know

00:38:18.660 slavery and a lot and a lot of like you know the past history of this country and this um this

00:38:24.640 country in this world is like it all links to that but the idea of of of the fact that you are

00:38:30.600 manipulating your political identity through actually textbooks that weren't even written

00:38:35.060 by people like you so he will he'll quote like malcolm x and i was like but that's an african

00:38:40.280 american political leader in a context where it's about america and racism and the conversations

00:38:45.660 around in america but like you know when it comes to uk that's completely different when it comes to

00:38:50.440 Africa is completely different.

00:38:52.220 So I think what we've done is we've taken a very political conversation from America,

00:38:55.700 which actually is fundamental there to talk about race and diversity and what it is to

00:38:59.860 be American than it is here in the UK.

00:39:02.820 And this idea of the fact that you have to be like, stay black, stay woke.

00:39:06.260 I'm like, what the fuck does that even mean?

00:39:09.160 That's why I might get that on a t-shirt, like, stay black, stay woke.

00:39:11.860 And I'm like, I don't understand what that means.

00:39:13.060 It's like, you know, the fact that, you know,

00:39:15.400 Aruella is an incredible, one of the first queens of the world,

00:39:21.520 and she was ruling in the place of my birth.

00:39:24.680 It's like, so I don't need to go to the British Museum

00:39:27.400 to learn about my history.

00:39:28.880 I would like to claim some of my British history back from the British Museum.

00:39:33.140 So I think...

00:39:33.520 You and every other country in the world.

00:39:36.720 That's what I mean.

00:39:37.000 I get misplaced in the sense that I don't agree with shit like that.

00:39:40.600 I don't agree with the British Museum

00:39:42.000 assuming that it's the hub of culture

00:39:44.000 and world history.

00:39:46.620 I don't agree with all those things.

00:39:48.620 I want us to be able to protect Timbuktu

00:39:53.540 and actually ensure that Mali as a country

00:39:55.580 stays together because history is there.

00:39:58.260 It's 4,000 years old.

00:39:59.380 I think one of the interesting things that ISIS did,

00:40:01.520 which might be controversial,

00:40:03.200 is that they started blowing up

00:40:04.480 these incredible historical sites.

00:40:07.920 It's the fact that they showed

00:40:09.000 that the Enlightenment era did not start in the 17th century.

00:40:11.740 See, I fight things like that.

00:40:12.900 When I'm talking to my white, very intellectual friends,

00:40:15.920 I have real dialogue and real conversations about saying,

00:40:19.000 actually, the Enlightenment did not start in the 17th century.

00:40:21.680 That Africa, the Middle East, India,

00:40:24.500 were like, you know, Enlightenment doing these things.

00:40:26.260 Just because you stopped using a horse and cart

00:40:29.260 and started getting some electricity,

00:40:31.160 that did not make you the kings of the world.

00:40:33.620 But they wrote history.

00:40:34.740 So those things I'm very much aware of

00:40:37.460 when I have those conversations.

00:40:39.000 But, yeah, I just, I don't have time to be, like, you know,

00:40:43.420 changing my name to some, like, you know, Egyptian, like, you know,

00:40:47.680 God and pretending that, like, you know, getting some tattoos.

00:40:50.460 Honestly, it's really ridiculous.

00:40:51.580 Like, you know, the Guardian Soulmate is also the worst place for that shit as well.

00:40:55.320 Guardian Soulmate.

00:40:55.860 Guardian Soulmate.

00:40:56.700 Guardian Soulmate is the most racist place on the planet.

00:40:59.180 Really?

00:40:59.660 Yeah.

00:40:59.920 How so?

00:41:00.880 I've met a 45-year-old white man from NW5 with tattoos of Africa.

00:41:07.520 And I thought

00:41:08.340 I said to him

00:41:08.960 Do you actually think

00:41:10.000 That's okay

00:41:10.760 And he's like

00:41:11.160 Yeah I really feel at home

00:41:12.140 In Africa

00:41:13.100 And I was like

00:41:13.440 You know what

00:41:13.760 I'm going to get a tattoo

00:41:14.340 Of the Lake District

00:41:14.980 Because I love

00:41:15.700 The Lake District

00:41:16.340 So yeah there is a lot of

00:41:17.520 I don't mind people

00:41:19.160 Appreciating Africa

00:41:20.200 But

00:41:20.640 I feel at home in Africa

00:41:21.920 Do you reckon that guy

00:41:23.080 Has been to Africa

00:41:23.980 Yeah he loves African music

00:41:25.800 And then he has this

00:41:27.860 Kind of like

00:41:28.400 Real fetishization

00:41:29.900 I always say to people

00:41:30.940 I always say to a lot of these men

00:41:32.140 I'm as exotic as a banana

00:41:34.200 I don't grow in this country

00:41:35.940 But you can buy me in Tesco

00:41:37.020 don't come to me

00:41:39.120 and try to get yourself

00:41:40.200 to be like

00:41:40.680 a little bit more

00:41:41.320 like you know

00:41:41.800 like ethnic size

00:41:43.520 like you know

00:41:44.140 my ethnicity

00:41:45.160 is something

00:41:45.780 that I'm very comfortable with

00:41:47.120 but it's not something

00:41:48.120 like I don't walk around

00:41:48.960 with head wraps

00:41:49.520 like when I walk

00:41:50.100 if I put on a head wrap

00:41:51.300 it's because I'm having

00:41:51.820 a bad hair day

00:41:52.540 and people think

00:41:53.200 I'm making a political statement

00:41:54.200 I really am not

00:41:55.780 making a political statement

00:41:56.700 I'm like you know

00:41:57.400 if I put on some

00:41:58.380 massive hoop earrings

00:41:59.340 I'm not making

00:42:00.400 a woke political statement

00:42:01.380 I just couldn't find

00:42:02.000 anything else to wear today

00:42:02.980 so it's been really interesting

00:42:05.060 being me

00:42:05.660 someone who's very comfortable

00:42:06.840 and my identity but also like you know even me opening my mouth always becomes a political thing

00:42:12.900 and it's interesting that you say that because we tend to think of a lot of black people as being

00:42:19.340 you know towards labor leaning towards left but if you look at a lot of people who are first

00:42:24.280 generation second generation immigrants number one they're very aspirational they move to another

00:42:28.140 country and want to better themselves they're very family orientated they tend to be incredibly

00:42:32.380 religious as well and socially conservative and socially conservative i mean those are all

00:42:36.960 qualities of being on the right aren't they well not the right see i don't like this left and right

00:42:41.080 kind of bullshit but just like just not being labor not just being not being red and i think

00:42:44.420 that's why that's one of the things that a lot of people don't get why boris won two terms in

00:42:49.060 london he won two terms in london because london's very african and the african diaspora identified

00:42:53.760 with him a lot he does quite well really yeah the african diaspora in london identifies with boris

00:42:59.320 Johnson if you like parents if you like so not the young woke kids so you won't ask about like

00:43:03.740 this if you any anybody under the age of 25 probably not but beyond that definitely and I

00:43:10.300 think that is one of the things is that the largest population of black people in the UK at the moment

00:43:13.880 is of African direct descent and that's a massive coup for the Conservative Party if they want to go

00:43:18.860 into that so they've already got this is why the difference between the Indian diaspora and the

00:43:23.120 Pakistani diaspora the Indian diaspora is always very much voted within the Conservative Party

00:43:26.960 because of that whole point of aspiration.

00:43:29.480 A lot of the Pakistani communities that have come over here,

00:43:33.320 like, you know, we're people to work in the mills and certain places.

00:43:38.200 So they've always stayed in labour areas and kind of done those other kind of conversations.

00:43:42.480 A lot of them in Scotland have now gone towards the SNP, ironically.

00:43:46.400 But ultimately, the African diaspora is very conservative and they are very aspirational.

00:43:50.680 And they've all come under, especially when it comes with Jeremy Corbyn,

00:43:53.540 They've all fled countries where the ideas of socialism that he's selling at the moment

00:43:59.080 have actually crushed their continent.

00:44:01.840 So, not that I work for the Conservative Party,

00:44:04.060 but I think they will do really well.

00:44:07.420 And every single black MP within the Conservative Party is African.

00:44:11.840 Nobody ever sees that.

00:44:12.760 Every black MP within the Conservative Party is African.

00:44:15.480 That's interesting.

00:44:16.340 That's very interesting.

00:44:17.900 James Cleverley?

00:44:19.040 And Sierra Leonean.

00:44:20.780 Interesting.

00:44:22.200 See, I never ever thought about where people come from.

00:44:25.060 No, but that's what I mean.

00:44:26.520 And I think that's what I mean about cultural identity and conversations.

00:44:30.040 And the whole point is just because you become poor and you become a refugee,

00:44:33.220 it doesn't.

00:44:33.840 So my life was a little bit like coming to America by the other way around.

00:44:38.460 My family didn't come here looking for a bride.

00:44:40.920 But my mother would still turn up as though she was entitled to the same bullshit

00:44:46.260 as she did with her family around the country.

00:44:48.740 I was like, honestly, I'm not going to give a shit.

00:44:51.220 And I spent most of my, like, you know, childhood from the age of like nine to about 15 translating for several people within the community because there was no built-in mechanisms for things like, you know, translation and stuff within the NHS.

00:45:05.720 So I saw that cultural kind of thing of like, you know, these Somalis like, you know, walking in to places expecting things and these white people going, what are you talking about?

00:45:16.880 I once had to explain to somebody

00:45:19.520 There's a term in Samara called haq

00:45:21.080 It means I have a right to

00:45:22.100 I said in the UK you have an entitlement

00:45:24.340 Everything you have for a right to is given to you

00:45:27.300 Because it's a democracy

00:45:28.020 Fill out a fucking form for everything else

00:45:29.940 And see if you're entitled to it

00:45:31.800 So this idea of I've got a right to something

00:45:33.660 Doesn't exist because you have an entitlement

00:45:36.000 To anything that you haven't already got

00:45:37.740 So someone with this kind of aspirational mindset

00:45:40.320 Which you clearly have

00:45:41.680 That comes from a community and a family

00:45:44.800 That has the aspirational mindset

00:45:46.620 that you talk about uh how do you feel about the new woke left and this idea that everybody's a

00:45:53.460 victim of life i mean you you by all standards could definitely say you've been a victim of

00:45:58.600 yeah i would say i would say to people don't try to out token me i like those tokens i like it

00:46:04.040 i mean you like you say you have gem survivor you're refugee muslim woman black like you know

00:46:11.340 yeah you're i mean you're fucking winning their present olympics yeah that's called a full house

00:46:15.640 guardian soulmate survivor

00:46:18.660 honestly

00:46:19.240 but I don't like

00:46:21.020 you know

00:46:21.220 that doesn't define me

00:46:22.580 none of those things define me

00:46:23.420 but they do

00:46:23.920 they do kind of inform

00:46:25.960 a lot of the things

00:46:26.940 and they inform

00:46:27.440 of course they do

00:46:28.120 but what I'm asking

00:46:28.760 is like indoctrinating people

00:46:30.480 who may have

00:46:31.480 very difficult lives

00:46:32.480 who may grow up

00:46:33.400 being poor

00:46:33.880 who may grow up

00:46:34.800 in as you say

00:46:35.980 a marginalized community

00:46:37.000 a community that does have issues

00:46:38.520 with the police

00:46:39.140 and the criminal justice system

00:46:40.400 which are real

00:46:41.300 right

00:46:41.720 but the indoctrination

00:46:43.620 of people

00:46:44.100 with this victimhood mentality

00:46:45.280 i don't imagine you're a fan of that no i don't and also i don't i'm not a victim of like you

00:46:49.340 know um cancelling people or not being able to communicate with people so there's like you know

00:46:53.200 always having a conversation with somebody on the other side and it's always easy for me to cross

00:46:57.060 over like if i met somebody that was um like a fascist or a neo-nazi or whatever um i it would

00:47:04.960 be easier for me to cross over then it would be easier for them to cross over to and have a

00:47:08.720 conversation with me because my whole point is that i'm comfortable in my identity and i want

00:47:12.420 to have a conversation with you doesn't mean we have to get along at the end of the day and i

00:47:16.160 remember there was one of my um one of my um this kid i went to uni with wanted to stand as a

00:47:20.920 counselor and he sent me an email like you know like you know a few months ago and he said oh

00:47:26.120 do you know what i want to stand as a counselor but a lot of people making issues about things

00:47:29.260 that i wrote because they said that i was um because i was racist i said but daniel you are

00:47:33.600 racist and he's like yeah but you're my friend i'm like yeah but it's like mate just because

00:47:36.920 you got a black somali friend does not make you not a racist we have these conversations all the

00:47:41.320 time i'm not and i said technically everybody is a racist but it depends on what you do with that

00:47:46.400 bias and that prejudice so um it's it's how that it informs you and i said would i write about the

00:47:53.080 fact that you are like you know suitable for a certain position like you know you could probably

00:47:56.760 do this and you know and you have biases um that i don't think that that you will use as like you

00:48:02.140 know prejudice against people within those communities yes i would but i would not stand

00:48:05.240 here and say that you're not a racist and it takes a lot of people so you're basically trying

00:48:09.760 to get a racist elected that's no no i said no i said i wouldn't but but i'm just kidding yeah but

00:48:14.340 but the whole point is when i say like you know that i can know what is your um what is the bar

00:48:19.620 for you not to be a race like you know if did you ever use the n-word did you ever black black up

00:48:24.440 whatever it is it's like all those things yeah they are racist and stupid things to do but does

00:48:28.660 that mean that you're not necessarily a person that could do a job and the person that like you

00:48:33.680 know has redeemed themselves probably does and so there's so that we we make racist decisions on a

00:48:40.340 day-to-day basis like my honestly like you know the whole thing is like who you date who you're

00:48:44.840 attracted to what you eat where you live all those things are things that ultimately are based on your

00:48:50.440 biases around certain like you know faiths religions or class or whatever it is but does that mean that

00:48:56.220 you're a horrible person i don't think so because i don't know you so that's so i'm i'm of that

00:49:02.040 people that i came like you know i saw the results of a civil war that was all about tribalism and i

00:49:07.460 try not to like you know say somebody can be a hundred percent of one thing do i what's that guy

00:49:12.400 from the edl would i want to be friends with him not really probably but it's just more because

00:49:16.500 he's probably a dickhead as opposed to like whatever he bangs on about about race and stuff

00:49:20.700 he's just like he's he's just a very insecure man so i think we do live in a world where

00:49:26.120 complexity is not respected and i grew up in a world where complexity was respected and where you

00:49:31.380 like you know had conversations with with with people rather than seeking perfection because i

00:49:36.920 think if you're trying to be perfect if you're trying to have these conversations then you're

00:49:40.620 probably flawed and you're probably hiding something and you talked about tribalism and

00:49:44.740 it's such a good point do you think we've become more tribalist society now yeah yeah definitely

00:49:48.640 that's what i saw i stood for the women's equality party in 2017 um and everyone's like i'm going to

00:49:52.700 be labor you're like this and i was like but this is not about tribes about politics what do you

00:49:56.520 What are you voting for in terms of policies and things like that?

00:49:59.700 And for me, I think that's what really freaks me out.

00:50:03.120 And that's what's like, you know, corrosive is the tribalism, which ironically comes more from, like, when I voted for the Labour Party, which I actually did in every single general election of my life, like, you know, nobody, like, from, like, no Conservative or no Lib Dem or Green Party member or whatever said to me, oh, you're a fucking wanker, like, fuck you, you Labour voting, dickhead.

00:50:24.480 I say like you know

00:50:26.340 I voted for the Conservative Party

00:50:28.160 In the mayoral elections

00:50:29.240 Oh you fucking Tory

00:50:30.680 And I was thinking like

00:50:31.800 Why are you not entitled

00:50:34.040 To an opinion

00:50:36.000 To say certain things

00:50:37.540 Say I'm going to fight you

00:50:39.020 I'm going to argue against you

00:50:40.980 I'm going to win the seats

00:50:41.900 But this idea of the fact

00:50:43.180 That there's only one answer

00:50:44.520 To the whole world

00:50:45.400 It's actually quite problematic

00:50:46.900 And I think

00:50:47.380 So my brother's standing

00:50:48.540 For the Conservative Party

00:50:49.620 In Cardiff North

00:50:50.320 It's a boy called

00:50:52.040 Another African if he wins

00:50:53.140 Somalia

00:50:54.300 So, yeah, but the whole thing is like, I think politics is a personal thing and it does change.

00:51:00.560 And if you don't, if your politics hasn't evolved since you were 16, then there's something wrong with you.

00:51:06.120 Yeah. It's interesting you talk about this. I mean, these super tolerant people.

00:51:12.040 It's amazing how quickly they become incredibly intolerant once they find out that you don't agree with them on every single tiny little thing.

00:51:19.720 Yeah. Heaven forbid the fact that I think the Tories are OK and I believe in the existence of the state of Israel.

00:51:24.300 I'm cancelled for sure

00:51:26.060 but they can't cancel me

00:51:28.000 I've got five tokens

00:51:28.940 so yeah it is

00:51:31.280 it's actually

00:51:31.620 it's quite

00:51:32.220 it's I think

00:51:33.320 and also it's

00:51:34.300 it's very much

00:51:36.160 anti-intellectual

00:51:37.380 I think that is the problem

00:51:38.560 is the fact that we've

00:51:39.380 now just got shouting heads

00:51:40.480 from both sides

00:51:41.260 and none of it is informed

00:51:42.660 and none of it is like

00:51:43.580 I have opinions

00:51:44.740 on different things

00:51:45.680 like you know

00:51:46.100 I believe in taxation

00:51:47.320 I believe in the NHS

00:51:48.660 I believe in

00:51:49.700 if you want to do

00:51:50.440 private education

00:51:50.940 that's fine

00:51:51.200 there are things

00:51:52.120 that I believe in

00:51:52.880 which

00:51:53.420 when people say to me

00:51:54.880 oh you're so right wing

00:51:55.720 and I was like

00:51:56.080 okay

00:51:56.300 what

00:51:57.200 on the spectrum of the things

00:51:58.780 I believe in like

00:51:59.620 what is actually right wing

00:52:00.760 about that

00:52:01.820 apart from the fact

00:52:03.060 that I do actually believe

00:52:04.140 that if you go to

00:52:04.740 accident emergency

00:52:05.380 more than twice

00:52:06.180 in 18 months

00:52:06.940 with an injury

00:52:08.120 that was caused

00:52:08.840 because you were drunk

00:52:09.560 you should do some

00:52:10.160 community service

00:52:11.020 so you do hate

00:52:13.720 poor people

00:52:14.140 all like

00:52:14.820 all like me

00:52:16.520 because it takes a lot

00:52:17.260 to get drunk

00:52:17.800 but all like me

00:52:18.540 that you don't actually

00:52:19.320 control your asthma

00:52:20.220 so you turn up

00:52:20.880 at accident emergency

00:52:21.600 and I was giving this

00:52:22.400 advice to the doctor

00:52:23.760 and he just looks at me

00:52:24.940 saying are you mental?

00:52:26.180 I was like no I'm just

00:52:26.620 saying like you know

00:52:27.880 that NHS should be more

00:52:29.880 about preventing these

00:52:31.620 things rather than cure

00:52:32.620 like you know me

00:52:33.700 actually turning up.

00:52:34.980 Then I got a call the

00:52:35.620 next day from the

00:52:36.460 hospital asking me how

00:52:37.960 likely I would be to

00:52:38.740 recommend the Royal

00:52:39.540 Free for a family member

00:52:41.360 in the same situation.

00:52:42.500 I was like I don't want

00:52:43.580 them to have an asthma

00:52:44.120 attack so what kind of

00:52:45.160 so they want to do

00:52:46.940 customer engagement so

00:52:47.940 the NHS now does

00:52:48.640 customer engagement

00:52:49.480 callbacks.

00:52:50.120 now you talk about uh that you voted for conservatives in the mayor election and i'm

00:52:56.580 genuinely interested to hear your point of view because we we talk a lot about how boris johnson

00:53:01.900 is seen as a problematic figure you know he makes jokes about you know women muslim women looking

00:53:06.580 like letterboxes what is your opinion of him and do you think that he should be allowed to make

00:53:12.680 those jokes do you think he should apologize yeah i'd rather not talk about that but ultimately i

00:53:16.860 I think he's the prime minister, and I think the prime minister deserves respect.

00:53:19.640 And I think for me, I've worked with him personally,

00:53:23.520 and I know his personal commitments to the country and to issues that I really want to kind of talk about.

00:53:34.260 But ultimately, it's the same thing with Jeremy Corbyn.

00:53:37.340 I don't like him, but I still respect him as a leader of the opposition.

00:53:40.760 I think we've got to this point where we've demonized people so much for even having an opinion or saying anything

00:53:45.660 that it's

00:53:47.240 so there was an interesting

00:53:48.520 take, they asked a guy

00:53:51.820 who was, is it Abdul

00:53:53.700 from Bristol? They asked

00:53:55.780 Abdul from Bristol to ask the leaders

00:53:57.860 a question when there was

00:53:59.400 the stuff about

00:54:01.920 the Conservative

00:54:04.080 Party leadership, I'm like

00:54:05.260 Abdul from Bristol is more problematic to women

00:54:07.700 like me than

00:54:09.560 the woke people that want to have issues

00:54:11.700 around Boris Johnson and all these things

00:54:13.260 Because nobody that was throwing up arms and having these conversations actually read the full article about his fundamental principles of saying that women should be able to choose to wear what they want to wear.

00:54:27.920 But then they'll defend someone like Abdul, who will probably call me a whore and want me to be hung up by my neck for not wearing a headscarf.

00:54:37.300 So I want to say to the left, who do you actually stand in solidarity with?

00:54:42.120 because Muslim feminists have been complaining about the burqa for a long time.

00:54:46.320 But I just don't get this whole defence of the burqa.

00:54:54.480 It's problematic.

00:54:56.140 There is no choice in it.

00:54:57.720 And people that were the burqa have chosen a political ideology.

00:55:01.060 It's a political thing.

00:55:04.040 So they've taken a political standpoint

00:55:06.680 against the fundamental democracies in this country.

00:55:09.100 they won't live in a country where the burka is enforced

00:55:12.140 and everything to do with the burka

00:55:14.120 is respected because they know as women in those

00:55:16.080 countries that they'll have no rights

00:55:17.360 so it's just like, for someone like me

00:55:19.840 the burka is problematic, for someone like me

00:55:22.140 white woke people protecting the burka

00:55:23.800 when they're not going to be subjected to it

00:55:25.640 it's problematic, it's fucking ironic

00:55:27.960 when a white feminist lesbian

00:55:30.200 wants to protect the burka

00:55:32.160 in the interest of not getting

00:55:35.420 no no no no no

00:55:36.560 in the interest of not getting sued

00:55:38.360 under libel laws, all three of us should acknowledge

00:55:40.780 that we have no evidence that Abdul

00:55:42.500 from Bristol

00:55:43.880 would call you a whore

00:55:46.240 or would want you hung up by the neck

00:55:47.660 People like Abdul

00:55:49.940 No, I wouldn't

00:55:51.440 I would not wish to speculate

00:55:55.220 about Abdul's intentions

00:55:56.480 Let's have a conversation about Cage

00:55:58.840 Cage, for example, who are this

00:56:00.760 kind of

00:56:01.480 extremist

00:56:03.680 male organisation, I don't want to call them a Muslim organisation

00:56:06.780 because a lot of the things that they protect

00:56:08.120 are very masculine

00:56:09.200 things about masculinity

00:56:11.900 and misogyny

00:56:12.940 they would want to defend the burqa

00:56:15.700 but people are like you know going yeah as Cage have said

00:56:17.840 I'm like for God to say like

00:56:19.500 their name is Cage because that's what they want to do

00:56:21.340 they want to cage women

00:56:22.120 so it's more problematic like when I was talking about

00:56:25.700 when I was talking about FGM

00:56:27.740 white men within the Conservative Party

00:56:30.200 understood and respected

00:56:31.660 and were like this is horrible what we're doing

00:56:33.240 men from my own community and from these other

00:56:35.700 kind of very

00:56:36.440 traditional communities

00:56:42.820 or very patriotic communities

00:56:44.480 who all wanted to have me killed

00:56:46.380 and several did try to kill me.

00:56:48.020 So I think if the biggest issue that you've got

00:56:50.340 is somebody saying something about a letterbox,

00:56:53.260 then you're not actually really talking to Muslim women

00:56:55.240 who are dealing with the consequences

00:56:57.940 of the narrow interpretation of Islam.

00:57:02.300 And one of the things about the growth in Islamophobia

00:57:05.400 and these kind of things are

00:57:07.380 so what's happened, there's like massive

00:57:09.660 tensions within poor white working class communities

00:57:11.940 where a lot of

00:57:13.300 these extremist views are being held

00:57:15.620 and then you've got these ginger jihadis

00:57:17.420 as I like to call them, who

00:57:19.000 white men who all of a sudden convert to

00:57:21.640 Islam, think they know better than me

00:57:23.060 and start going down to the local

00:57:24.700 shop and asking for pork to be banned

00:57:26.860 of course people are having issues

00:57:29.540 with people saying

00:57:31.540 pork should be banned, alcohol should be banned and all these other

00:57:33.500 kind of things but that is not what tolerant islam or conversations have been about so i think

00:57:37.860 we need to look at where the conversations around the so-called definitions of islamophobia come

00:57:43.600 from because i think silencing women like me who say we don't like the burqa polygamy is wrong

00:57:49.360 like you know um all these things which should be protected as like you know identities of being

00:57:55.260 muslim are things that we've been fighting about in all these countries that we all come from so

00:57:59.060 So, yeah, I think there's a massive issue around who we're targeting, around the growth of Islamophobia.

00:58:05.360 And I think a lot of that has to sit with a lot of the men who've become the gatekeepers of these communities.

00:58:11.500 Well, it's a very good point.

00:58:13.080 The reason I made the thing about libel is because a few weeks ago we were talking about Amazon on the show.

00:58:19.200 And Francis insinuated that they may not pay as much tax as they should.

00:58:22.540 and some of our viewers

00:58:24.360 who are lawyers emailed in going

00:58:26.960 you may want to look up libel laws guys

00:58:29.020 so I did look up libel laws and basically

00:58:31.120 if you say anything on our show

00:58:32.660 that turns out to be inaccurate

00:58:35.060 well just take all that bit out then

00:58:36.460 I was only joking

00:58:38.360 I do think it's just one of those

00:58:41.420 things that nobody is calling

00:58:43.260 up like you know

00:58:45.040 leaders of certain

00:58:46.220 communities. No no but that's a totally different point

00:58:49.060 you're entitled to make that point

00:58:50.140 but Abdul from Bristol we just want to say

00:58:52.520 we have no idea

00:58:53.640 what you get up to

00:58:54.680 in your own time

00:58:55.300 I did write a whole article

00:58:56.740 about it

00:58:57.220 so if you want to sue someone

00:58:59.940 sue Nimco

00:59:00.800 don't sue me

00:59:01.620 and on that happy note

00:59:03.160 Nimco

00:59:03.700 we've run out of time

00:59:04.660 unfortunately

00:59:05.040 it's been a great interview

00:59:05.760 thank you so much for coming

00:59:06.860 we have got

00:59:08.160 one final question for you

00:59:09.720 which is

00:59:10.400 what is the one thing

00:59:11.680 that we're not talking about

00:59:12.920 as a society

00:59:13.560 that we really should be

00:59:14.540 talking about

00:59:15.720 what are we not talking about

00:59:16.900 as a society

00:59:17.620 that we should be talking about

00:59:18.460 obviously I'm going to say

00:59:19.260 vaginas

00:59:19.640 we're not talking about

00:59:20.240 enough about vaginas

00:59:21.120 and there's a consultation

00:59:22.460 at the moment out on surrogacy i think we should actually be talking more about like you know

00:59:27.200 the toxicness of surrogacy within our society right now and i think this idea of the of of

00:59:34.640 of the fact of like you know having your own designer babies and kind of assuming that

00:59:38.540 everybody has the right to have a child it's a bit random but it's not random it's just i'm really

00:59:43.260 no no there's there was a show that i watched a few years ago which um had these like you know

00:59:47.780 like this family that was buying eggs from like white hot women and then going to india and just

00:59:53.420 pumping their eggs and their sperm like these these fetuses into um these poor these poor

00:59:58.660 indian women and there are enough kids out there for us to adopt but this idea of the fact that

01:00:03.720 we're all doing like surrogacy as though because it's oh this is a new way that that technology

01:00:08.220 has allowed us to have a family it's really problematic and i think and then again you

01:00:12.820 can't say that because it's about certain communities feeling like they're being

01:00:15.860 they're being targeted

01:00:17.960 but I just think

01:00:18.640 like you know

01:00:19.000 surrogacy is a massive issue

01:00:20.060 and I think it's a

01:00:20.660 I think it's a very

01:00:21.640 under

01:00:22.920 like you know

01:00:24.340 research and talked about

01:00:25.280 form of

01:00:25.820 violence against women

01:00:26.920 alright well thanks for bringing it up

01:00:28.600 as always follow

01:00:29.960 I guess Nimco

01:00:30.680 on Twitter

01:00:31.340 we'll put a link out

01:00:33.040 to that

01:00:33.420 follow us

01:00:34.060 and we will see you

01:00:35.000 in a week from now

01:00:35.520 with another brilliant episode

01:00:36.440 take care

01:00:37.160 see you next week guys

01:00:45.860 We'll be right back.

TRIGGERnometry - December 29, 2019

Nimco Ali on Being the Chief Fanny Defender and Woke Racism

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