00:00:09.900And this is a show for you if you want honest conversations with fascinating people.
00:00:15.960Our brilliant guest today is an author and human rights activist, Yasma Mohammed. Welcome to Trigonometry.
00:00:22.460Thank you so much for having me. It's a pleasure to be here.
00:00:24.960It's great to have you here. Listen, obviously, the reason we wanted to talk to you is you've been pretty outspoken recently in the wake of a number of terrorist attacks in France, and there's a broader issue to discuss as well. I can't wait to get to that because it's a really important conversation. But maybe it's best for us to start off by you telling our viewers a little bit about who you are and what is your backstory? How have you come to the place that you're in? Because it is very, very interesting, to put it mildly.
00:00:51.740Yeah, so I grew up in Canada to a Muslim family who were very religious. And so I went to Islamic school, I was put in hijab at the age of nine. So that's what covers everything but your face and hands.
00:01:10.960and um you know your your typical islamic religious thing so you'd have to wake up before
00:01:19.420the sun rises to pray and then you pray five times a day and the last one being before you go
00:01:24.820before the sun or after the sun sets um so being in the north because i grew up in canada
00:01:31.560that ended up causing a lot of problems with the very long days sometimes um and so there's a lot
00:01:38.820of sleep deprivation is my memory of childhood and uh like in ramadan as well so ramadan you
00:01:45.420can't you can't eat from sunrise to sunset so that meant that you know some days would be like
00:01:51.24010 or 11 hours um of not eating when you're a kid is is pretty tough so it was it was a pretty
00:01:58.740strict muslim upbringing um that i didn't realize was really strict i thought it was just the way
00:02:05.560it was because everybody that we knew was like that too and um i guess i was a bit problematic
00:02:12.900because i was always asking questions i didn't you know i would just ask basic questions all
00:02:18.740the time things didn't make sense to me you know how were all the prophets muslim if muhammad is
00:02:24.880the one who started islam how were adam and eve muslim too that doesn't make any sense
00:02:29.240just the most basic questions like that that i that i'd ask i'd get in trouble because that
00:02:35.180means it's the devil whispering in your ear, you know, not having faith or questioning your faith
00:02:40.620meant that you're a bad person. So my mom decided that she needed to marry me off to somebody who
00:02:50.500was strong enough to control me. And so they chose a member of Al Qaeda. And I say they,
00:02:57.780meaning my mom was married to a man. So her and my dad broke up when I was very young.
00:03:05.780I didn't grow up with my dad, but she remarried a man who was already married and already had
00:03:11.180three kids because in Islam, a man can have up to four wives. And so she was his second
00:03:17.580concurrent wife. And together they forced me into a marriage with a member of Al-Qaeda
00:03:24.240who was 15 years older than me and um I had a daughter with him pretty soon and
00:03:34.580I wanted to get away from him obviously because he was abusive and you know just a horrible human
00:03:45.260being but it wasn't until I had my daughter that I found the courage to do that because I wanted
00:03:50.260to protect her from having the life that i grew up in i wanted her to have a different life and
00:03:56.340her to have freedom and her to have choices and so through a long series of events um that i
00:04:04.400outlined in my book unveiled very well done very stylish straight up there excellent very slick
00:04:12.600um through it you know it wasn't easy obviously it was very difficult and it was uh just through
00:04:20.280the skin of my teeth I was able to get away and go to university which I never imagined I'd be
00:04:26.380able to do and when I was in university I just took a history of religions course because it
00:04:33.920was going to be focused on the three monotheistic religions and I thought well you know I know for
00:04:38.720sure I'll ace a third of this course because I went to Islamic schools and my mom was the head,
00:04:42.860like the head of the Islamic studies department. And we had to make sure that we always did well,
00:04:46.980otherwise it would make her look bad. And so I knew the religion inside out. And so I thought,
00:04:52.180well, this will be, you know, an easy A or whatever. And I never imagined that it was
00:04:56.480going to change my life entirely. And everything unraveled once I started to take that, learn about
00:05:04.260my religion sort of from a, with a critical eye. We looked at it, you know, from an objective point
00:05:11.320of view and I was allowed to ask questions. And, um, it was a safe space. Like the, my professor
00:05:18.700was, um, he grew up in Lebanon. He grew up Christian in Lebanon. And so he kind of understood
00:05:25.140a lot of my background and stuff. And he wasn't the kind of prof that would be concerned about
00:05:31.700Islamophobia or bigotry or whatever, like we could actually have conversations in the classroom.
00:05:37.800And so, yeah, it all unraveled from there. And 9-11 happened. And that also really helped to
00:05:47.020push me out. And, and that's that. And then I, you know, I went on living my life, got remarried,
00:05:55.160had another daughter, you know, and I stayed quiet about everything, just from fear, mostly.
00:06:01.700I knew Asam was in prison, but I also knew he was connected to Al-Qaeda, so he'd have friends everywhere.
00:06:08.280So I changed my daughter's name, changed my name.
00:06:15.820And eventually I was able to relax and kind of forget that that was my background, like just go on with my life, just buried it, basically.
00:06:27.980And then the infamous episode of Bill Maher with Sam Harris and Ben Affleck happened.
00:06:35.940And in that episode, Sam Harris and Bill Maher were trying to talk about the problems with Islam and how the issues in that religion were so anti-liberal, anti-women, you know, anti-freedom, etc.
00:06:53.520and Ben Affleck just refused to let them have that conversation he jumped in and called them
00:07:00.280gross and racist and etc so the next day my Facebook was covered with friends who were
00:07:09.000you know so proud of Ben Affleck for shutting down that gross racist man and done it and I'm
00:07:15.880like oh my gosh like I have I have failed you people I have not because I kept it all to myself
00:07:21.140I didn't say anything. And while I was watching that episode, I almost I teared up. I was so excited and happy that these two American men on national television were talking about me, essentially, because they were talking about people who left Islam.
00:07:40.980And they gave the statistic of like, close to 90% of people in Egypt feel that people who leave Islam should be executed. Well, that's me, my family is from Egypt, and I left Islam, they actually care about me on real time with Bill Maher, like it just felt like I was finally being seen and heard for the first time, something that I was even too scared to talk about with my friends, I was seeing on television.
00:08:08.000and ben affleck came swooping in like the white knight that he is and he shut down the conversation
00:08:14.680and the reason you know i felt really betrayed obviously by by ben affleck especially since he
00:08:20.920did a movie called dogma where he had no problem criticizing christianity for the same issues but
00:08:27.260when it came to a slam suddenly we can't talk about those things we can't talk about you know
00:08:31.620the much more atrocious atrocious things that are happening in this day and age because of the fact
00:08:36.960that there are so many Islamic theocracies and so that is what inspired me to start writing my book
00:08:43.900and once I started writing my book I just organically ended up in activism it wasn't
00:08:51.540something that I ever chose it just kind of happened and then I started my organization
00:08:59.500and so now this is like a huge part of my life. Well yeah and Yasmin first of all it's good to
00:09:05.040know that batman isn't islamophobic so that's a weight of all of our shoulders but also as well
00:09:10.560isn't part of the problem we talk about islam but like all religions like christianity and judaism
00:09:16.000there's various different sects some are more conservative than others so to talk about the
00:09:21.320religion itself it doesn't really get to the heart of the issues with certain sects of the of the
00:09:28.860religion well um i guess i should clarify that you know islam is very different from christianity
00:09:36.580so in christianity you have like 30 000 different sects or something like that in islam 90 of
00:09:43.060muslims are sunni muslim so that's how i grew up so when we talk about the the religion of islam
00:09:51.840We're talking about that, you know, basically the words on the page, because unlike the Bible, the Quran is the literal word of Allah.
00:10:01.780So it's not metaphorical. These are not stories. These are edicts, right? It's a law book. These are rules.
00:10:10.880And so I guess it's important not to conflate Islam and Muslims.
00:10:16.800Islam is the religion, the words on the page, you know, the scripture, the demands that the religion makes.
00:10:27.780OK, so those are very clear. Scholars have been, you know, studying those for years.
00:10:33.780They make Sharia laws based on them. And like I said, 90 percent of Muslims follow Sunni Islam.
00:11:21.800Now if you look at Saudi Arabia and you look at Iran, you'll notice there's really not that much difference between the two countries as far as Sharia.
00:11:52.660And a lot of women were being imprisoned in Saudi Arabia for wanting to drive, but no
00:11:56.580women in Iran were ever imprisoned for wanting to drive.
00:12:00.440So even though it's a little bit of a different flavor in how they are misogynist, sexist,
00:12:06.900evil towards women, it's, you know, very similar. So that is the religion of Islam. It's sharia,
00:12:15.160basically. It's Quran, it's hadith, it's sira, the life of the prophet. Then there are close to
00:12:22.040two billion Muslims. So I think that's what you're talking about there. So there's the way people
00:12:28.600follow their religion, of course, varies wildly, right? You could have somebody all the way on
00:12:36.880the left, like Majid Nawaz, for example, who is a reform Muslim. And so, you know, he believes
00:12:46.000in equality of the sexes. He is not an anti-Semite. He believes in LGBT equality, et cetera,
00:12:55.080et cetera. Things that would cause him to be killed by people on the opposite side of the
00:13:02.860spectrum even though they also both of them both extremes call themselves muslim and then of course
00:13:09.780you've got all the muslims in between so it's every anywhere from majid nawas to like isis
00:13:15.660on the other end and um everybody's calling themselves muslim but they are all following
00:13:23.920the religion differently in that some are going to follow it word for word and not ignore one
00:13:32.300single letter which would be isis and then other muslims who choose to cherry pick and say well no
00:13:38.960i'm not actually gonna do that because i don't think we should you know uh stone people to death
00:13:46.660for adultery or i don't think that we should uh cut off the hands of thieves or whatever the case
00:13:52.620may be yeah i'm sorry to interrupt may i just jump in there because i think that's a really
00:13:56.560important point that you made there so quite often uh certainly in this country in britain
00:14:01.460We are told when there's a terrorist attack or when this issue is being discussed that ISIS or Al-Qaeda or any other Islamic-inspired terrorist organization, these are people who, quote-unquote, have perverted the faith of Islam.
00:14:16.120Whereas what you've just said, and correct me if I'm wrong because I'm just trying to understand, what you've just said is actually the opposite.
00:14:23.680it in other words the people who are not committing these attacks or who are not engaging in throwing
00:14:29.360gays off buildings or whatever those are the people who are not following the religion whereas
00:14:34.420the people that's correct so what you're saying essentially is isis have a literal interpretation
00:14:39.640of the 100 whereas the muslims the muslims sorry just who are not doing any of that
00:14:46.680they are the ones who are not following the faith of islam to the left correct yes correct so it's
00:14:51.960like if you think of it if i'm going to compare that to christianity if you think of people who
00:14:56.680follow the old testament so think of westboro baptist church or something they are going to
00:15:01.140be very literal and follow exactly what that book says um whereas most christians would have no
00:15:09.600problem eating shellfish or whatever the other rules are you know like so it's kind of like that
00:15:15.000So, yes, the the Muslim, the ISIS, Al Qaeda, all of the jihadis over there, they are following the religion to the letter.
00:15:26.600And this is why it's really that that's not it's not a true statement to say that they're the ones that are perverting the religion or they're hijacking the religion.
00:15:37.540um the the truth is that and I mean the word perverting and hijacking don't work because
00:15:44.260I think it's a positive thing that people are cherry picking and choosing not to follow aspects
00:15:49.340of the religion so um I completely support Muslims who want to you know maintain their
00:15:57.500identities as Muslims but also want to live in this century and to live as progressive
00:16:04.540liberal people and who don't want to follow very conservative right-wing ideology that is
00:16:11.580barbaric and archaic. And Yasmin, why do you think it is that in a world which is more
00:16:18.280technologically advanced than it's ever been, particularly in the West, liberal democracies
00:16:25.140and so on and so forth, that we have suddenly seen a rise in this type of very, very conservative
00:16:30.200outlook amongst young people in particular? Well, I think it's unfortunate that those are
00:16:36.400the voices that you hear, because those are the voices that are not scared to speak up.
00:16:41.560The truth is, there is a tsunami of people that are leaving Islam. I mean, I don't think anyone's
00:16:49.460left in Islam in Iran. I mean, that's obviously hyperbole. But most Iranians, because they have
00:16:56.340sharia because they have the islamic regime because they're getting pure unsugar-coated islam
00:17:04.140they hate it and the same thing happened in iraq as well when isis you know was big in iraq
00:17:13.920people were leaving islam in droves because they were seeing oh my gosh is this what my religion
00:17:21.280teaches because it's very different when it's theoretical and when you actually see it. And
00:17:26.980that's exactly what happened to me with 9-11. When 9-11 happened, it wasn't, I wasn't, it's kind of
00:17:35.880hard to explain. It's like you knew that that's what you're supposed to do. You understand that
00:17:40.780they were following the religion and that was the right thing. But you feel so sick just as a human
00:17:47.880being. So you're kind of conflicted. And it pushes you to deal with that, with that conflict
00:17:57.600in your mind, right with that with that cognitive dissonance. And just like me, that hundreds of
00:18:05.780thousands, if not millions of people are started leaving the religion when they started to see
00:18:10.200what ISIS were doing in Iraq and Syria. So I think that it's unfortunate that you don't get
00:18:18.740to hear their voices and you don't get to see their faces. And there are a lot of feminists
00:18:24.320all over Saudi Arabia, all over Iran, all over Egypt, all over the Muslim world
00:18:29.580that can't speak because if they do, I mean, they know what jihadis do, right? They live in that
00:18:39.740world. Like we know there's so many cases I could tell you there's people that have been hacked to
00:18:45.020death in the streets of Bangladesh, people that have been beaten to death in Pakistan, people
00:18:50.680being stabbed. I mean, this is happening now in Europe, but this is not new news for anybody in
00:18:56.440the Muslim majority world. I mean, as we're talking now, 35 kids at a university in Afghanistan
00:20:10.920So it's incredibly dangerous for moderate Muslims to speak out.
00:20:16.780And so it just looks like the conservatives are the majority, or it looks like they're
00:20:26.220the ones that are, that everybody else is okay with it because nobody's pushing back. I hear
00:20:31.220that a lot. People are like, why aren't Muslims pushing back against this? And I equate it kind
00:20:36.680of to the woke culture because that's a way of getting them to relate it to something in their
00:20:41.700lives that they can understand. And I say, well, you know, in America or Britain or anywhere in
00:20:46.140Europe, people are afraid to speak up against woke culture because they're afraid it might
00:20:51.220affect their job or they're afraid people might call them racist. They're afraid that
00:20:55.740friends or family might judge them or treat them differently or even stop being friends with them
00:21:00.280so multiply that by like a few thousand and that's the kind of fear muslims feel
00:21:07.920about speaking up against the extremists in their religion um because not only will they lose their
00:21:15.200jobs they will lose their jobs they'll lose their livelihoods they'll lose their family
00:21:19.360they could lose their heads as well right do you think the mainstream media are biased
00:21:25.200Yes. That's why you watch Trigonometry. But we all still read the news and the thing you really
00:21:30.620want to be doing is comparing how different publications cover the same story. That's
00:21:35.920where ground news come in. Drawing from 40,000 media outlets around the world and over 30,000
00:21:42.520news stories per day, they empower you to arrive at the truth yourself. Don't do that, just watch
00:21:48.560Trigonometry. Everyone here at Trigonometry loves ground news because they've got so many brilliant
00:21:53.320features but there's one feature in particular that we all find incredibly useful it's the blind
00:21:58.580spot feature it is the news blind spot and what this allows you to see is what your particular
00:22:04.020media that you're consuming whether you're right or left is not covering there are certain issues
00:22:09.040that the right-wing media will never cover and therefore if you only watch the right wing you
00:22:12.940won't know equally on the left it's the same thing and what the news blind spot allows you to do is
00:22:18.260to get the information that the people who you're getting your media from are not telling you and
00:22:23.100they've also got an amazing website, which is ground.news. For those of us who live in the
00:22:28.28021st century, unlike Francis, and have phones, just download the app from wherever you get your
00:22:33.220arms. Yasmin, let me push back very gently on some of that, because when Francis was asking you
00:22:41.160about why we're seeing a lot of Muslims in the West remain very conservative down the generations,
00:22:48.720We have surveys in this country, and if you poll Muslims in Britain about homosexuality, about sex outside of marriage, about what should happen to apostates, you do find that there's a very significant majority of people, and actually quite often the younger generation have a more strict code that they follow or at least think of.
00:23:11.560So why is that happening, which I guess was the point of France's question.
00:23:15.520Yeah, I mean, believe it or not, those polls, as abysmal as they are, are way better than if you polled people in the Muslim majority world. So people that do come to the West, their minds are getting opened. It's a slow process.
00:23:36.400and the thing is is it's it's it's not just risky as far as like if you're in pakistan you could get
00:23:45.260go to prison or you could be killed or you could be lashed in the streets in saudi arabia the all
00:23:50.480of these things are true but even if you're in europe or in in north america you're going to
00:23:56.940be judged by your community you're going to be judged by your family and so you're too scared
00:24:04.560to even have those thoughts in your own head this is i'll give you my my experience
00:24:10.680growing up i knew i was supposed to hate non-muslims i knew i was supposed to hate
00:24:17.040jewish people i knew i was supposed to hate gay people how did you know that so because i was
00:24:21.700taught that i was that was that that's the rules right like this is you you you must hate anything
00:24:28.160that Allah hates. This is a very common thing, right? So if Allah hates gay people, then you
00:24:34.620must hate gay people. Allah loves Prophet Muhammad. You must love Prophet Muhammad. You have to, you
00:24:39.180know, there's, they call it the surat al-mustaqim, the long, thin, it's almost like a tightrope. When
00:24:45.840they, when they put it visually, it's a tightrope. And on, below the tightrope is hell. So you have
00:24:52.980to walk a very very thin straight line and do not waver or you will fall into the depths of hell
00:25:01.060so there's no thinking involved you just constantly have to stay focused so you don't
00:25:08.060you don't you're not allowed to question things it's really hard to to to i'm going to try and
00:25:13.500convey to you guys what it feels like to be indoctrinated like as a child to have the fear
00:25:19.220of hell put in you they tell you in detail about how your skin will and your your flesh will melt
00:25:26.780off and then it will regrow and then it will melt off again and i remember asking my mom at like six
00:25:33.460years old like well if that keeps on happening won't you eventually get used to it and she's
00:25:37.760like no each time it's gonna hurt just like the first time you know and you get told of adhab
00:25:43.200Al-Qabran that means like all of the punishments that are going to happen to you when you're in
00:25:52.000the grave waiting for the day of judgment. So the snakes that are going to go into your eyeballs
00:25:56.880and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So really, really, really vicious, scary stuff that you're
00:26:03.780told as a little kid. And by the time you're an adult and you want to start questioning,
00:26:11.360it's like you know there's i think you even have a saying and in christianity something like give
00:26:17.480me a child younger than seven and and then i'll give you the man or something like that like once
00:26:23.160you've indoctrinated them it's yeah it's a jesuit saying give me the boy at eight years old and i'll
00:26:27.700show you the man at 18 yeah yeah so it's kind of like that they just indoctrinate you from a young
00:26:33.600age. And then by the time you're an adult, it's like too difficult for you to even go there
00:26:40.640because you've been, your mind has been so trained to stay on this long, thin, straight line and not
00:26:48.820to waver. And so even though I knew that I was supposed to, that I had to hate gay people,
00:26:56.660hate Jewish people, want non-Muslims to be killed, want Islam to spread across the world,
00:27:01.800want the caliphate to rise, pledge my allegiance that when the caliphate rises, that I would go
00:27:07.000and support it. You know, all of this stuff and you, you, you spew all the stuff you're supposed
00:27:12.320to spew, but you never really think about it. You just, you're just kind of like, well, you're
00:27:20.380brainwashed, right? So you're just, you're just repeating it. And so if I were to sign, or if I
00:27:27.860were to fill out one of those polls at that time, I would be horrified by my results. I was one of
00:27:32.480those women that would say, I want to wear hijab. I like it, right? It protects me. It keeps me
00:27:39.020modest, right? You just, you say what you need to say and you do what you need to do because you're
00:27:45.440so scared of burning in hell. And you're so scared of losing your family and you're so scared of all
00:27:51.880of the horrible things that could happen. And Gasmina, but aren't these values completely at
00:27:55.960odds with living in a secular Western society. They 100% are. And I think that that's
00:28:01.840what the problem is now. I think the problem is that, well, there's two problems. Number one,
00:28:08.520people are not willing to admit that these values are not only the opposite of Western values,
00:28:14.800but they are against Western value. They oppose Western values. That's the first thing. People
00:28:21.840need to accept that and understand that and deal with that. And secondly, which is really
00:28:27.980unfortunate, is that now there is no pride in Western values. There's no pushback. So at least
00:28:37.820when I was growing up, I would hear in the home, you need to wear hijab so that you don't get raped
00:28:44.860because if you get raped, it's your fault because you didn't cover yourself properly. I'm hearing
00:28:48.460victim blaming I'm hearing slut shaming I'm hearing like textbook rape culture at home
00:28:54.960but when I left the house I would hear the exact opposite I would hear very very feminist strong
00:29:05.040you know messages that oppose the messages I was hearing in the house and so that allowed me to
00:29:14.140it allowed it to push through the indoctrination what's happening today unfortunately
00:29:20.920is that kids who are like me being grown growing up in these muslim households that are being told
00:29:27.440these things like democracy is terrible um you know feminism is a is a lie liberalism is is a
00:29:35.500is a failure all of these things those things unfortunately is being supported outside the home
00:29:43.560too, right? When people were being killed over cartoons, the reaction should have been
00:29:55.380immediate printing of those cartoons on every single Western media possible as a show of
00:30:04.780strength to say, no, we believe in freedom of expression. We believe in freedom of speech.
00:30:10.360We will not be bullied. We will not capitulate. But instead, we capitulated and we said, well, we shouldn't hurt their feelings and dah, dah, dah, dah, dah. And while we're busy capitulating, they're busy feeling strong. They're busy feeling the moral certitude that you feel when Allah is behind you. That's why you're winning, right?
00:30:33.820That's why we're able to make these Europeans get down on their knees is because we are in the right and they are in the wrong and we are stronger than they are and we are smarter than they are and we have a law behind us and they don't and we are Muslims and they are non-Muslims, et cetera, et cetera.
00:30:49.660So that us versus them mentality is being, unfortunately, what's the word I'm looking for, guys?
00:31:00.460Well, it's been spread through the whole of society.
00:31:03.680Yeah, it's being spread and it's being validated.
00:31:08.640Like everything that they're being taught is being validated outside in the real world.
00:32:46.840good job spelling it out for them it doesn't sound patronizing at all
00:32:49.860absolutely oh and by the way all those little words you used i've got no idea what they mean
00:32:53.760yasmin and what do you say to people who say well all that would do is antagonize people
00:33:01.580unnecessarily it would be offensive to many muslims who otherwise wouldn't be involved
00:33:06.340it would obviously lead quite likely to more reprisal attacks so innocent people all over
00:33:11.640the west would pay with their lives for this uh unnecessary offense that we're giving to muslims
00:33:18.380it's it's not unnecessary the thing is is it's your values right especially for french people
00:33:26.260right the equality fraternity liberty these this is this is their country
00:33:33.140so for them to bend the knee when it comes to something like that is so much more than just
00:33:41.280like people would say things like oh it's just cartoons just stop printing them and everything
00:33:45.760will be okay. That is so not true. Look at Indonesia, look at Egypt, look at Maldives,
00:33:52.480look at so many different countries. It doesn't work that way. Can you imagine ever somebody
00:34:00.240saying to their kid comes home and says, there's a bully that's beating me up. And he's saying he
00:34:06.120wants to take my lunch money every day. And you as a parent would say, well, just give him your
00:34:10.140money, give him your money, and then he'll stop, right? Like, no, he won't. He's going to keep
00:34:14.980going. He's going to feel empowered and he's going to feel strong and he's going to do more
00:34:21.260and he can get more out of you. And that is exactly what happens. History has shown that
00:34:26.120over and over again for the past 40 years, ever since the Islamic regime in Iran, people have
00:34:33.080been scared shitless all over the Muslim world because they're like, oh, the extremists are
00:34:38.840going to get us. Oh no, the jihadis in their suicide vests are going to get us. So we have
00:34:44.340to give them what they want. We have to give them what they want. And they are constantly giving up
00:34:48.800all of their freedoms, all of their secularism. You know, women are giving up their freedoms as
00:34:54.560well, almost happily, because they're trading it for this false sense of security. Think of the
00:35:05.100the black box in the plane when the hijackers were about to fly their planes
00:35:13.420into the World Trade Center. What did they say? They said, just sit down and be quiet and we'll
00:35:22.140fly back to the airport. Everything's going to be okay. Nobody do anything stupid. Just sit down
00:35:28.100and be quiet. Everything's going to be fine. That's just what they said before they
00:35:36.980killed everybody on board. So appeasing bullies, appeasing terrorists is never, ever, ever
00:35:48.640the right direction to go. And you think it's cartoons today, it's not going to stop here.
00:35:55.140As soon as you give up one of your main freedoms or anything, they're just going to keep pushing for more, more, more, more, more, more, more, until the whole world is exactly how they want it to be, bowing to Allah.
00:36:11.860And Yasmin, there is a counter argument to that, which is obviously, you know, saying that, you know, Islam is one of the, I think it's a protected characteristic in the UK that we talk about how, you know, Islamophobia is similar to anti-Semitism.
00:36:28.400Do you agree with that or do you agree with the term?
00:36:31.880Not at all, because when you're Jewish, that is your ethnic tribe, as well as your religion.
00:36:41.100In fact, a lot of Jewish people, it's only their ethnic tribe and they're atheists.
00:36:46.440They're not. Right. Is that? Yeah, exactly.
00:36:49.240So when you say it's a protected class, that's that makes sense.
00:36:53.860That's like saying, yeah, a Jewish person can be a protected class, black person, gay person, et cetera, et cetera.
00:37:04.060Right. It's Muslims are just it's just a religion.
00:37:07.260It's not an ethnicity. And so there is this hope that they can conflate it with anti-Semitism, that they can say, oh, look, it's the same thing, Islamophobia, anti-Semitism. It's not the same thing. It's very different. Islamophobia is not anti-Muslim bigotry.
00:37:23.400They're not worried about the human beings. They're worried about the religion. That's why it's called Islamophobia, because they don't want you to criticize their religion, which is exactly what all of this Charlie Hebdo nonsense is about.
00:37:37.680It's because from their perspective, they're not allowed to draw Muhammad.
00:37:45.180So if they're not allowed to draw Muhammad, you're not allowed to draw Muhammad.
00:37:51.900And that's that they don't, you know, if you are drawing Muhammad, that is an insult to their religion.
00:37:58.820And so they want to stop you from insulting their religion or criticizing their religion or doing something that is against their religion.
00:38:07.680and so that's why all of these terrorist attacks have been happening and why do we have these uh
00:38:15.300i guess you i think could be accurate to describe them as double standards you mentioned christianity
00:38:19.760it's perfectly normal to mock christianity whole swathes of culture have been devoted to it
00:38:25.800comedically artistically and otherwise uh obviously that that treatment doesn't seem to be
00:38:31.440the same in this case why do you think that is i think it's because people don't understand
00:38:36.400that Muslims are not a race, Muslims are not an ethnicity, they're not, they haven't clued in
00:38:43.460that it's more similar to Christianity in that sense than it is to Judaism. They don't, you know,
00:38:49.940I tried to make the argument like, you know, you know, a Catholic person from Italy or from Mexico
00:38:55.100or from America or from Britain, they have in very different cultures, very different religions,
00:39:01.780very different music art everything they don't share anything except for a lot of religion
00:39:08.980yes that's right and Muslims are like that too you know you've got Muslims these the the teenager
00:39:16.680that killed Samuel Petit was from Chechnya same thing the the two brothers that did the Boston
00:39:22.660bombing so they're from Russia you've got people from Albania you've got people from Germany you
00:39:28.580got people from america i got people from egypt saidi arabia these are places people that are
00:39:34.380wildly different they are not an ethnic group they are they are not a tribe they are they share
00:39:41.320nothing in common culturally except for the i mean they don't share anything culturally what
00:39:47.300they share is the religion of islam and i think that in the west there you know people can't even
00:39:53.980tell the difference between a pakistanian and arab for the longest time people were saying
00:39:58.220imagine Nawaz was Arab. I'm like, what part of
00:40:02.180Arabia is Pakistan? Like, there's just not
00:40:04.980unfortunately, even though it's the second largest religion on the planet
00:40:10.280it's such a minority group in the West
00:40:13.940that people are just not aware of it. They don't understand
00:40:17.860I mean, they are learning. Do you really think that's true, Yasmin? Do you not think it's just
00:40:22.120people are afraid? People are afraid. Of the
00:40:26.080repercussions of criticizing Islam. So we've invented the word Islamophobia to shut people up
00:40:34.220because if people aren't shut up, then they're going to say and do things that offend Muslims,
00:40:38.520which will result in reprisals. Well, yeah. So the word Islamophobia was created by the Muslim
00:40:44.520Brotherhood, who are Islamists, similar to Hizb al-Tahrir. So what's important to know about
00:40:50.480is that they have the exact same goal as the jihadis so islam requires that the whole world
00:40:57.420be muslim that everybody bow to allah that's the that's what the religion demands that muslims do
00:41:05.100so there's different ways of doing it you've got the jihadis on one end so that's all of these
00:41:10.980terrorists al-qaeda you know isis boko haram etc etc or all of the lone wolves all over the world
00:41:17.560they want to terrorize people so that they bow to islam basically they never criticize the religion
00:41:27.420that they just um that that they are in control and then you have the islamists who are like
00:41:36.240muslim brotherhood hezbollah you know the organization of islamic cooperative so
00:41:40.900So Turkey, you know, Erdogan, they are people in nice suits that speak, you know, with, they don't look like jihadis, right?
00:41:51.700They look like proper diplomats, but they have the exact same goal, but they're not going to do it in the same way.
00:41:58.460Jihadis will do it through murdering people. Islamists will do it through more diplomatic means.
00:42:06.120So they outline the three ways that they're going to do it.
00:42:08.480one of them is through immigration another way is and through immigration by that i mean so by
00:42:15.880the time muslims reach a certain point of population then they can make demands because
00:42:23.260they're a voting bloc now so that's been so immigration is important for that reason and
00:42:28.360also through the wombs of the muslim mothers so each man married four wives continue to have
00:42:33.900babies to grow the ummah so that you can have um more control and then thirdly through using
00:42:41.280secular laws against themselves so basically using those secular laws to to so that they can bring
00:42:50.160islam in you know okay you probably have examples of that yeah so so so when you say that the word
00:42:57.340islamophobia is to stop criticism of the religion you are a hundred percent correct that is exactly
00:43:02.080why it was created in the same way that cutting off a teacher's head is a way to stop criticism
00:43:08.320of the of the religion it's just two different methods towards the same goal and you brought up
00:43:15.600that awful awful case which happened in France a matter of weeks ago nobody seems to be talking
00:43:21.800about it anymore nobody seems to be discussing it there doesn't seem to be any particular outrage
00:43:28.060It just seems that, you know, all the particularly the white liberals have shrugged their shoulders and we've all moved on.
00:43:41.700You know, like I said earlier, it's terrifying for me to see that it was so scary for me to see how nobody really cared about the issue of Samuel Petit, except for people in France.
00:43:54.860I mean, you didn't hear any voices coming out of the U.K. or out of the U.S.
00:44:00.740In fact, the U.S. was writing headlines that made it seem like the French police were the bad guys in this scenario because they killed the guy who just behead a teacher.
00:44:11.560um so the reason why it terrifies me is because
00:44:18.300it's to your own detriment like the fact that you're not paying attention to these things
00:44:27.880first of all it feels like a betrayal too like you know like with with george floyd
00:44:33.980the whole world started having, you know, walkouts all over the world, protests in support of George
00:44:43.940Floyd. But where were the protests in support of Samuel Petit anywhere in the world? It's like
00:44:49.920nobody, why didn't his life matter? You know, he's a teacher doing his job, talking about freedom
00:44:59.880of expression like that's that should have been that should have shook everybody to their core
00:45:09.440and made everybody say hold on a minute that's an attack on our basic freedoms but um you know
00:45:21.740unfortunately that didn't happen and then there were very closely after it there were a few other
00:45:27.880terrorist attacks in france and now one in vienna and so there's just constant terror happening and
00:45:34.660it takes people's attention away and to be honest it reminds me of like living in the middle east
00:45:41.700where you become desensitized to these things it's like oh there is another suicide bombing
00:45:47.260of the market oh how many people died 11 oh only 11 that's good so did you want some more rice
00:45:53.800like you just it's it's part of life now right and and now it's becoming a part of life for
00:46:00.120Europeans too and they they don't even seem to be bothered by it well I think a lot of people
00:46:07.280are bothered by Yasmin but I think the question that I was going to ask you ties in very neatly
00:46:12.100into that which is do you think that you know the answer to Francis question why why aren't people
00:46:17.860still talking about is that really we don't feel like we can do anything about it because I don't
00:46:24.900know what you know if there was a policy that you said you said to me Constance and what you need to
00:46:29.820do is advocate for this policy for the government to follow and then all of this will be fixed
00:46:35.000I think a lot of people would sign up to that if it was a sensible thing to do but I don't know
00:46:40.860what that looks like well so two things first of all the jihadis they were told to do um terrorism
00:46:49.540now while the governments are busy with covid so they knew that this was going to be a good time
00:46:55.540because everybody's so busy with the pandemic right and so everybody you're fighting for
00:47:02.240like when you talk about what can people do i think a lot of people are starting
00:47:07.360when i say people i don't mean when i'm lamenting that nobody seems to care about it i'm not talking
00:47:12.680about individual people i'm not talking about you or me i'm talking about governments right
00:47:16.640um i'm talking about what what exactly like what you just said to have some actual policies but
00:47:27.120that requires them to sit down and to figure that out and i think that every they're they're just
00:47:34.100drowning right now well in america i know they're drowning with their um with the election going on
00:47:40.640france is in lockdown you know uk is in lockdown everybody's so busy with other things that they
00:47:48.100really haven't they're not able to sit down and say what are we going to do about this problem
00:47:53.640but we've had 19 years since 9-11 which sort of started this process in a major way
00:47:59.360I don't think we've come up with a solution.
00:48:01.500I mean, is there a solution to this thing that makes sense?
00:48:05.200Because one of the things we have to deal with is, in Western societies, we do have significant Muslim minorities.
00:48:12.440As you say, there are some Islamists who are trying to use that against the societies in which that's happening.
00:48:19.420you know if you'd have asked me this before the huge influx of refugees
00:48:28.300I would have had a lot more hope I would have given you a different answer because
00:48:34.240but nobody listened to us back then either but but you know we're at a situation now where
00:48:42.220it's it's pretty bad but we need to act before it gets worse and now when i say act what i
00:48:51.180personally think we should be doing is understanding and and it's it's almost it's really difficult for
00:48:59.420people who are born and raised in the west and even don't have any experience or understanding
00:49:02.920with islam but if you rely on people who are secular muslims who are reform muslims who are
00:49:11.240ex-Muslims, people that understand those societies, people that understand those mindsets,
00:49:18.840lean on them and let them give you advice. And the advice that they will give you is that you
00:49:29.280need to be able to distinguish between a Muslim and an Islamist, which is, you know, sometimes
00:49:38.540very easy but sometimes not so easy so like the pulse nightclub shooting in um in florida that
00:49:47.220was done by an afghani man his wife didn't wear hijab he was born and raised in america he's not
00:49:53.060so easy to be able to tell right away this is this there's going to be trouble there um this
00:49:59.720latest terrorist attack in vienna same thing he was imprisoned for a while and he was let go for
00:50:04.880good behavior. And they're shocked that he did this because they never thought that he would be
00:50:09.520capable. They thought that he was reformed and that he was, you know, cured of his need to go
00:50:16.400to Syria and, you know, support the caliphate. So it's definitely not going to be a hundred percent,
00:50:24.900but sometimes it's pretty fucking obvious and it's very, very infuriating. Like when you open
00:50:32.840the doors to your country and you're just like come on in and people were not only coming from
00:50:39.720Syria they were coming from Morocco from Tunisia from Iran from me they're coming from everywhere
00:50:44.420because the doors were wide open you know 15 year olds or sorry like older men I don't know with
00:50:51.900beards are pretending that they're minors and they're like oh yeah I'm 15 years old so that
00:50:56.140they could get you know more social security support whatever um there was a whole bunch of
00:51:04.040this isn't even new what I'm saying like if you read Ayaan Hirsi Ali's book which she wrote
00:51:12.020probably 15 years ago by now she talked about this happening with the Somali community going
00:51:17.800into Holland when they were going into there and they would they would just lie and say whatever
00:51:23.180needed to be said so that they could get the social support that they needed and if anybody
00:51:28.100tried to call them on their lies they'd say are you being racist and then that would everybody
00:51:34.100would be like no no no no no no i'm not being a racist okay please continue to steal from us but
00:51:38.920just don't call me a racist and you know majid nawas talks about that in his book radical same
00:51:46.040thing he talked about how he was in his university he was radicalizing students publicly and when his
00:51:54.920administration tried to call him out on it he accused them of being islamophobic and racist
00:52:00.660and bigots and so they shut up and they let him continue um radicalizing students until a student
00:52:07.760was stabbed in the middle of the courtyard in the university and then they finally shut down
00:52:14.120the radicalization so using anyway i started i started going off in a whole bunch of tangents
00:52:21.040but basically what you need to do is you need to be careful that the people that you're inviting
00:52:25.620into your country are people that share the same values as you do or at least if not exactly the
00:52:34.940same similar values so let's take the syrian conflict for example in syria when that happened
00:52:42.160People had the option of helping Yazidi people, who were people who were being killed, women and children that were being raped. No organizations were helping Yazidis. Organizations were instead helping Sunni Muslims, which is the people that were supporting ISIS.
00:53:02.220And so when you see when I see a Sunni Muslim covering her face, seven children, chances of that family, one of those seven kids growing up and being radicalized are pretty high.
00:53:19.760so you gotta make the decisions not based on what looks good you know because for us in canada it
00:53:28.220was about our prime minister wanted to take pictures with women in hijab because it looks
00:53:31.920looks like he's all diverse and inclusive and makes them look so progressive they have the
00:53:36.740skin color he says him most of the time yeah um yeah it's true but they weren't making decisions
00:53:47.220based on who are the gay Syrians that are in danger of being killed who are the ex-Muslim
00:53:55.880Syrians who are in danger of being killed right who are the Yazidi Syrians who are in danger of
00:54:01.440being killed like triage it differently triage it based on not only who is in most danger
00:54:11.260but who will be able to integrate into your society easier
00:54:17.320because they're going to already share similar values as you do.
00:54:24.020But if you're going to choose people whose values are like way to the right of you,
00:54:30.060then don't be surprised if they have trouble integrating.
00:54:33.480And, Yasmin, I mean, the question is, do you think that those types of people then, that over time they will be able to adapt to a Western culture?
00:54:46.160Or do you think that they will always remain on the outside as a result of their values and their beliefs?
00:54:52.660I'll ask you this. If you moved Cuba, do you think over time you would start to think that communism was great?
00:55:01.900My mother's from Venezuela, so I think you've got the answer to that question.