Why the West is Wrong about Islam with Peter Oborne (2022-05-16) ​

0:00:03 hello everyone and welcome to blogging
0:00:06 theology today i am delighted to talk to
0:00:09 peter oborn you are most welcome sir
0:00:12 well it's a real pleasure to just to
0:00:14 speak to you
0:00:16 just for those who don't know peter is
0:00:18 an award-winning writer journalist and
0:00:20 broadcaster who has worked for various
0:00:23 newspapers including the spectator the
0:00:26 daily mail and the daily telegraph where
0:00:28 he was the chief political commentator
0:00:31 until his resignation from the paper in
0:00:33 2015.
0:00:35 he now writes for the middle east eye
0:00:38 google that you can see it's an online
0:00:40 journal the middle east eye he is the
0:00:42 author of numerous books including the
0:00:45 sunday times bestseller the assault on
0:00:48 truth published just last year
0:00:51 now his new book just published hot off
0:00:53 the press is this
0:00:55 there we go the fate of abraham why the
0:00:58 west is wrong about islam amazing titles
0:01:02 why the west is wrong about islam now
0:01:04 i'll link to this in the description
0:01:06 below um i've read a lot of it and uh is
0:01:09 actually extremely readable not
0:01:11 surprising from a top journalist but
0:01:13 i've been very informative as well about
0:01:15 the history of the relationships between
0:01:17 the western islam and contemporary
0:01:20 issues as well
0:01:22 so peter would you like to explain why
0:01:25 you felt the need to write this book
0:01:29 absolutely and thank you for asking me
0:01:31 on i i am
0:01:33 you know it's taken me
0:01:35 nearly 20 years to research and write
0:01:37 this book wow find ways of writing it
0:01:40 and thinking about it
0:01:43 and
0:01:44 if you uh you know i it is some people
0:01:46 questions why i write it well i'm an
0:01:48 anglican
0:01:50 christian um
0:01:51 Music
0:01:52 and i'm um and i was uh when i first
0:01:56 conceived the idea of this uh the
0:01:58 political correspondence of the
0:01:59 spectator magazine
0:02:01 it's very conservative magazine yes
0:02:04 fashion conservatism really um
0:02:07 believe and i i um
0:02:09 i was just around the time of the iraq
0:02:12 war and the its aftermath
0:02:14 i was
0:02:15 so upset by the
0:02:17 by the iraq war and the lies that have
0:02:19 been told by the british state uh about
0:02:23 the weapons of mass destruction and then
0:02:25 the way in which
0:02:27 it was reported and the then i noticed
0:02:31 in britain the way in which muslims were
0:02:34 being reported
0:02:36 and
0:02:38 i i believe in fairness decency
0:02:43 and actually i think the ultimate
0:02:45 british value is sticking out for the
0:02:47 underdog oh yes and i watched a way in
0:02:51 which muslims were being
0:02:53 uh
0:02:54 being reported and i saw them coming not
0:02:56 really reported is simply attacked the
0:02:59 fabrication of lies
0:03:02 um
0:03:02 smears almost every day
0:03:06 um and so i
0:03:08 i remember i said to myself i'm going to
0:03:11 actually find out the truth about these
0:03:14 these stories about
0:03:16 muslims i mean they're really awful
0:03:17 things you know spreading disease
0:03:19 wanting to ban christmas attacking
0:03:22 british institutions i mean
0:03:24 um
0:03:25 i remember i went up to manchester so
0:03:28 i saw a story front page of the sun and
0:03:30 all over the
0:03:32 itn news bbc
0:03:34 about some muslim who wanted to blow up
0:03:38 manchester united a group of them
0:03:41 and i got up there
0:03:43 and it would enjoy blood magic united on
0:03:46 match day and it was it was a complete
0:03:48 fabrication
0:03:49 but i also managed to get to meet one of
0:03:52 the people who the suspects
0:03:55 um
0:03:56 and what and it was clear a that the
0:03:59 police had leaked stuff to the sun
0:04:03 uh because he had details like he had
0:04:04 the ticket for the match
0:04:06 he was a manchester united supporter you
0:04:08 know he come from he was he was a
0:04:10 refugee from saddam hussein's
0:04:13 you know he was a kurdish refugee from
0:04:15 saddam hussein yeah and he and he was
0:04:17 such and he obviously really meant a lot
0:04:18 to go to the ground and it started being
0:04:20 twisted by the mass media in britain to
0:04:24 make out that he's a terrorist and he
0:04:25 was he did he spoke
0:04:27 anonymously and he was he was suffering
0:04:29 from pretty wells post-traumatic stress
0:04:31 disorder from having gone through this
0:04:34 so i did speak to him anonymously and i
0:04:36 said to him at the end i just feel so
0:04:37 ashamed
0:04:39 to be british that you've come to this
0:04:41 country as a refugee from
0:04:43 saddam hussein
0:04:45 and you've been treated like this
0:04:49 and it's gone
0:04:50 and this is a
0:04:52 this situation this kind of fabrication
0:04:55 of misdeeds by muslims has become a
0:04:58 perennial and structural feature of the
0:05:01 of the british media political
0:05:03 establishment
0:05:05 ideal
0:05:06 uh in and you see
0:05:08 you know with with other cases the
0:05:10 trojan horse
0:05:11 fabrication the
0:05:13 the the creation of a twisted narrative
0:05:16 about grooming gangs and let's say there
0:05:18 isn't awful crimes being committed by
0:05:20 muslim men
0:05:22 that have
0:05:23 but the way that was um twisted into
0:05:26 something much more
0:05:28 going deeper into a sort of
0:05:31 ancient lie dating back to the middle
0:05:34 ages you know about the kind of rape
0:05:37 with white women it was very terrible
0:05:40 what has happened and actually
0:05:42 that ghastly event in uh buffalo
0:05:46 this week last weekend i mean
0:05:49 that you can see the reverberations of
0:05:51 that fabrication that twisted
0:05:54 use of
0:05:55 what was a terrible thing which happened
0:05:57 but it was
0:05:58 it was way it was turned into a
0:06:00 kind of attack on a community and so i i
0:06:05 just i started to keep a record of this
0:06:07 and then i started to
0:06:09 work out why it was happening and i
0:06:11 could you could track a
0:06:13 collaboration between the
0:06:16 the mass media and the level class you
0:06:18 could show the role of think tanks
0:06:21 in creating a new discourse about
0:06:25 about muslims
0:06:26 and actually i
0:06:28 and i i spent i went i've been
0:06:31 all around britain and i could uh you
0:06:33 know talking to you know community
0:06:35 leaders ordinary
0:06:37 muslims actually to ordinary white
0:06:40 britons who don't like muslims you know
0:06:42 and and
0:06:43 often they're very decent people they're
0:06:45 really decent people but who feel that
0:06:48 they're under threat but
0:06:49 that it's because it tends to be because
0:06:51 they're fed a diet of
0:06:54 um nonsense but pernicious nonsense
0:06:58 um
0:06:59 and so
0:07:01 and then i i i worked out
0:07:03 i i started then to look at the more
0:07:06 how does this come about and you can
0:07:08 i did some forensic reporting into the
0:07:12 the people who generate these stories
0:07:15 and how they get generated how
0:07:16 politicians use them
0:07:19 um
0:07:20 and uh and then i look go in the his
0:07:23 into the history of how
0:07:25 you know
0:07:26 the modern
0:07:28 uh
0:07:29 kind of rhetorical war on islam you can
0:07:32 trace it all the way back to the middle
0:07:34 ages to
0:07:35 bob urban the second that clermont when
0:07:37 he launched the
0:07:39 the crusades in the 11th century
0:07:42 of the common era and that that's
0:07:45 what i
0:07:46 and you can see that there's a kind of
0:07:50 collaborational message too strong of
0:07:52 word but a common understanding between
0:07:54 the near conservatives
0:07:56 on the one hand in the uh who come out
0:07:58 of the united states
0:08:00 uh and see some form of clash of
0:08:02 civilizations between islam and the west
0:08:05 and organizations like isis and al qaeda
0:08:09 who share the same narrative that islam
0:08:11 is a bloodthirsty religion and there is
0:08:14 a clash of values
0:08:16 and it and everybody in between has sort
0:08:18 of cut out of this
0:08:21 um
0:08:22 cut out of the debate in many ways and
0:08:24 so this is a time this is an attempt to
0:08:27 recover the middle ground i think
0:08:30 okay
0:08:31 that's fascinating i do um as i say
0:08:33 recommend
0:08:34 to be able to read the full story uh to
0:08:37 get peter's uh book which i'll link to
0:08:39 below but if if we could um for this
0:08:42 conversation focus just on one part of
0:08:44 the book part four
0:08:46 uh of your book and this is entitled the
0:08:49 enemy within
0:08:51 and you write about what you call the
0:08:53 cold war on islam as very strong
0:08:57 language
0:08:58 and arguably justifiable in the light of
0:09:01 the evidences that you uh discuss could
0:09:03 you explain what you mean by this what
0:09:05 is this who is the enemy within and what
0:09:07 is this cold war on on islam
0:09:10 because what i show is um this is
0:09:14 the probably the most original part of
0:09:16 the book because it's based on my own
0:09:18 research my experience as a journalist a
0:09:22 conservative political journalist in
0:09:24 westminster
0:09:26 in the you know in the early in the
0:09:28 naughties you know and and
0:09:30 beyond
0:09:31 um
0:09:33 after after 9 11. and the also the
0:09:38 london bombings but
0:09:40 but particularly after the 9 11 attack
0:09:43 on the twin tires
0:09:44 you you've got a
0:09:46 a
0:09:49 the theoreticians the security experts
0:09:53 um
0:09:54 said what are we going to do about
0:09:56 the the threat of islam
0:09:58 and they were this was this was the bush
0:10:00 administration which was
0:10:02 was george w bush hadn't got a great
0:10:05 deal of i didn't have a world view
0:10:07 really but the people around him were
0:10:09 the where he had surrounded himself with
0:10:12 dick cheney wolf of bits
0:10:14 the the the the neo the neocons they had
0:10:16 a very strong
0:10:18 ideological belief
0:10:20 that islam presented a real and present
0:10:22 threat to the west and they started to
0:10:25 ask themselves how to shape
0:10:27 uh
0:10:28 shape the narrative about
0:10:31 muslims and create the structures with
0:10:34 which to deal with it and they went back
0:10:37 to the uh
0:10:39 as an inspiration and as a model
0:10:42 they looked at the way in which the um
0:10:45 united states and its allies above all
0:10:48 britain probably
0:10:50 had fought the
0:10:51 uh soviet the menace of soviet union
0:10:55 in the cold war which very swiftly
0:10:57 developed
0:10:58 at the end of um
0:11:00 after 1945 from the defeat of and the
0:11:03 defeat of fascism
0:11:06 and it was a kind of um
0:11:09 it was they they they surveyed the world
0:11:13 and they said there are
0:11:15 go
0:11:16 we understand we how do we isolate the
0:11:19 communists or the leftists yeah
0:11:22 and there was a variety of mechanisms
0:11:26 but a lot of it was secret so they would
0:11:29 set up secret organizations to
0:11:32 uh which appeared to be opens you know
0:11:34 magazines or civil society organizations
0:11:39 um
0:11:40 but were really funded by the uh cia
0:11:43 yeah um
0:11:45 in britain we set up something called
0:11:48 the um information research department
0:11:51 which is a completely secret white tall
0:11:52 department it was the only government of
0:11:54 a socialist government really um we set
0:11:58 it up but he was very
0:12:00 pro-american
0:12:01 and the view was that the
0:12:03 the threat posed by
0:12:06 soviet russia soviet communism was so
0:12:08 grave that any means really including
0:12:11 secret means with totally legitimate in
0:12:13 order to fight the soviet threat and
0:12:15 actually i'm not
0:12:17 i can certainly see that that was a
0:12:19 perfectly reasonable argument i mean the
0:12:21 soviet union did pose a terrible threat
0:12:24 to the
0:12:25 to the liberties of the world it was a
0:12:28 monstrous
0:12:29 uh system in many in many ways uh but he
0:12:32 did it he felt that the threat was so
0:12:34 great that he went franchise to produce
0:12:37 loads of secret material which manifest
0:12:40 pretended to be what it wasn't it
0:12:42 pretended to emerge from real
0:12:44 journalists operating
0:12:46 uh or or real politicians but actually
0:12:49 it was approved people
0:12:50 sanctioned and issued with material
0:12:53 and this is this has come out
0:12:54 subsequently now this is not a
0:12:56 conspiracy theory or there was a
0:12:57 conspiracy of course uh but the cia did
0:12:59 find a vast array of intellectuals and
0:13:01 politicians and journals some of them
0:13:03 they distinguished uh left-wing journals
0:13:06 but anti-soviet anti-communist but
0:13:08 left-wing journals
0:13:11 for for years and this this caused huge
0:13:13 embarrassment to the left particularly
0:13:15 when uh this was actually emitted and
0:13:17 uncovered uh quite openly by in the
0:13:19 states this is no longer a secret
0:13:21 and your point of course is that by
0:13:23 analogy this is something that is now
0:13:25 happening um to to muslims uh in terms
0:13:28 of the western property so they said
0:13:30 that what we got to do now is to go back
0:13:33 to the lessons of the cold war because
0:13:34 we're not fighting a cold war against
0:13:36 soviet russia we're not fighting a cold
0:13:39 war against islam
0:13:42 and so um and you can
0:13:45 to set out in this chapter how
0:13:48 they reinvented
0:13:50 the information research department and
0:13:54 used many of the same
0:13:56 sort of techniques
0:13:58 um
0:13:59 fake organizations government-sponsored
0:14:01 organizations right um some of it's in
0:14:04 the open i mean you do can trace in
0:14:07 quite a few organizations government
0:14:09 home office funding some of it is
0:14:11 completely clandestine and and
0:14:14 there's there's a term used for it
0:14:16 actually astro turfing
0:14:18 a civil society where
0:14:21 we all celebrate we have a very rich
0:14:22 civil society in britain it's something
0:14:25 we all celebrate but organizations which
0:14:28 actually are not what they appear to be
0:14:31 they're funded
0:14:32 by um some
0:14:34 you know some home office related
0:14:36 group and so i'm not quite sure who
0:14:38 you're
0:14:39 dealing with and the view
0:14:42 the argument used again i fully
0:14:43 understand it is that there's a terrible
0:14:45 existential threat
0:14:48 to the west
0:14:49 from
0:14:50 islam or what they tend to call islamism
0:14:53 and therefore um
0:14:56 the state is justified it's ultimate
0:14:59 vindication
0:15:00 the ultimate reason for the existence of
0:15:02 any state is the securing the security
0:15:04 of its citizens
0:15:06 and this is part of a virtuous
0:15:09 thing a virtuous policy i
0:15:13 argue in this book and i really i argue
0:15:15 in this book that yes that was a real
0:15:18 threat from soviet communism to the way
0:15:20 of life of the west
0:15:22 in the case of islam
0:15:25 not a single
0:15:26 muslim country has ever declared war on
0:15:29 the west or been at war
0:15:31 um with the west and um
0:15:34 i i think that they misunderstood the
0:15:37 nature of the threat yes there is a
0:15:39 threat from
0:15:40 al qaeda isis
0:15:42 very uh which
0:15:44 must be fought by the state i fully
0:15:46 support that but by what the trouble
0:15:49 with this analysis is that you are
0:15:51 criminalizing or putting under
0:15:53 surveillance and suspicion
0:15:56 vast large tracks of
0:15:58 of of
0:16:00 muslim society large parts of the
0:16:02 community and that i think is good and
0:16:05 these are our fellow citizens these are
0:16:07 our fellow britons
0:16:08 and um i don't think this policy has
0:16:11 been
0:16:12 um
0:16:13 is it widely enough or not understood i
0:16:15 also think it's the wrong policy i think
0:16:17 that we should engage with our followers
0:16:19 our fellow citizens have exactly the
0:16:20 same rights as we do yeah okay can i
0:16:24 just quote a passage from um your book
0:16:27 um page 258 259 which um this is in the
0:16:32 the section part four uh the enemy
0:16:34 within and and you're right uh this is
0:16:36 apropos what you've just said really an
0:16:38 officially approved discourse about
0:16:41 islam was constructed within whitehall
0:16:43 whitehall is where the british
0:16:45 government is based in in london here
0:16:47 muslims were divided between moderates
0:16:50 and extremists two deceptively simple
0:16:53 and easy to understand words which had
0:16:55 been used against muslims to devastating
0:16:57 effect
0:16:59 so-called moderate voices which
0:17:01 amplified the government-approved
0:17:03 message received funding and often
0:17:06 access to mainstream media above all the
0:17:08 bbc
0:17:10 those who challenge the official
0:17:12 narrative were denied such access
0:17:14 front organizations were created to
0:17:17 promote government-approved doctrines
0:17:19 this is back to your analogy with the
0:17:21 the cold war and then you go on and this
0:17:23 is if i may the next part of our
0:17:26 discussion at the heart of these
0:17:28 political strategies
0:17:30 was prevent
0:17:33 p-r-e-v-e-n-t the capital p the
0:17:35 counter-extremism program introduced by
0:17:37 tony blair's government in 2003 prevent
0:17:41 was given a budget of hundreds of
0:17:43 millions of pounds a vast treasure trove
0:17:47 a whole range of apparently grassroots
0:17:49 muslim organizations meanwhile were
0:17:52 funded by prevent
0:17:54 to prevent the government so to promote
0:17:56 the government's narrative on terrorism
0:18:00 um and you say over the years the event
0:18:02 program has come to serve as a backdrop
0:18:04 against which a cold war on british
0:18:07 islam has been waged
0:18:10 now this this organization prevents is
0:18:12 very interesting and hugely
0:18:14 controversial and it's flared up in the
0:18:16 news again recently with cameron the
0:18:18 former prime minister coming out to
0:18:19 defend
0:18:20 this uh organization and its agenda
0:18:23 against accusations of islamophobia and
0:18:25 other people saying no it is
0:18:26 islamophobic it's it's surveying muslims
0:18:29 it's asking them to conform to this
0:18:31 nebulous concept of british values
0:18:34 which is like the rule of law as if that
0:18:36 was a british value
0:18:38 i think most societies would agree
0:18:40 on the rule of law um but anyway it's
0:18:42 it's specifically uh targeting uh
0:18:44 muslims and putting them under suspicion
0:18:47 and under surveillance and so on could
0:18:49 you just talk more about the prevent
0:18:51 program and and your views on that uh in
0:18:53 the ongoing uh what you call the the
0:18:56 cold war on on islam
0:18:59 yeah i mean the preventive program does
0:19:01 not specifically or that is to say only
0:19:03 target muslims it does target the far
0:19:05 right as well
0:19:07 and uh anybody else who it considers is
0:19:11 on the on on some journey towards
0:19:14 potential terrorism
0:19:16 the the reason i
0:19:18 criticize the prevent programme
0:19:22 um is um and and also actually you're
0:19:26 completely right but this is a critical
0:19:27 moment we're awaiting we're going we're
0:19:29 having this review of prevent
0:19:32 which is now delayed but it's
0:19:34 been carried out by william shaw cross
0:19:37 um who is
0:19:39 who is a
0:19:41 he's
0:19:42 he's a guy know him quite well he's a
0:19:44 woman biographer of the queen mother but
0:19:46 that's more as significantly of rupert
0:19:48 murdoch the
0:19:50 owner of the times newspaper
0:19:53 and the son um and he's very uh close to
0:19:56 the sort of boris johnson lot
0:19:59 which is why they gave it to him and he
0:20:01 he's on recall with a number of views
0:20:03 about islam or and the menace it
0:20:07 provides to the west
0:20:08 which i think
0:20:10 give cause to people to
0:20:13 worry whether or not he is the right
0:20:15 person because he has he comes
0:20:19 into this
0:20:20 role of reviewing prevent with baggage
0:20:24 i think is one of the things which um
0:20:27 one of the reason i think the prevent is
0:20:29 very poorly understood first of all okay
0:20:32 only one part of contest which is the
0:20:34 broader counterterrorism strategy and
0:20:37 again most of that strategy we all agree
0:20:41 that the state has a duty
0:20:44 just to to do everything it can to stop
0:20:48 to protect our
0:20:50 its citizens
0:20:51 and so absolutely the you know we need
0:20:54 the
0:20:55 lots of elements of the contest strategy
0:20:57 that's one of them is is protecting
0:20:59 public buildings and public figures make
0:21:01 sure that you can't get at them with a
0:21:03 bomb or a gun of course
0:21:06 well one of it is part of it is how to
0:21:09 handle a crisis when it actually occurs
0:21:11 and makes sure
0:21:12 um
0:21:14 it's it's it's minimized another one is
0:21:16 the classic intelligence work it's i
0:21:19 think they call it pursue where you go
0:21:21 after you know you you you're it's it's
0:21:24 you're looking for potential terrorists
0:21:26 of the plotters you're smacking you're
0:21:28 trying to
0:21:29 use the usual techniques of policing and
0:21:32 intelligence to stop that those three
0:21:34 elements are completely right
0:21:36 the question would prevent is that it is
0:21:39 not about terrorism actually and one of
0:21:41 the problems of the language
0:21:43 uh used by uh politicians as it often
0:21:46 suggests that it is they use this about
0:21:48 something they call extremism yes no
0:21:51 except and contrast it with moderate or
0:21:53 mod
0:21:55 juxtaposition between good i would argue
0:21:58 good and bad muslim a good muslim is a
0:22:00 moderate muslim a bad muslim is an
0:22:03 extremist muslim but these are very
0:22:05 nebulous vague terms i i don't get the
0:22:08 sense they've been very precisely
0:22:09 defined
0:22:10 Music
0:22:11 in law or linguistically or semantically
0:22:13 in any way and so it's kind of a very
0:22:16 catchy phrase oh you have an illiberal
0:22:18 opinion a non-liberal opinion therefore
0:22:21 you are an extremist and potentially
0:22:23 dangerous and therefore
0:22:24 a candidate for prevent program uh
0:22:26 interest yes if you look at the way
0:22:29 prevent operates it does target
0:22:32 people's religious opinions in fact part
0:22:34 of the whole kind of
0:22:37 way it's explained to people who have to
0:22:39 work with the prevent program
0:22:41 if somebody gets a bit keen
0:22:43 gets a bit more religious that's a
0:22:45 potential warning trigger sign yeah like
0:22:48 you mentioned a book having a beard for
0:22:49 example
0:22:51 and you mentioned it actually under the
0:22:53 mccarthy are you you could you you're
0:22:54 comparing it with the previous
0:22:56 i said uh danger signs in both eras i
0:22:59 think communism that's having a beard
0:23:04 it's happening
0:23:05 you
0:23:06 showing your changes in dress is what is
0:23:08 one of the things
0:23:09 it changes suddenly getting very keen on
0:23:11 religion or getting agitated about
0:23:14 political issues i.e um you know
0:23:16 palestine is the great one at the moment
0:23:19 to me it's completely natural that a
0:23:22 young muslim would get agitated and want
0:23:25 to campaign
0:23:26 on behalf of the palestinians and to
0:23:29 turn that into in fact i think that's
0:23:31 healthy political engagement and you and
0:23:33 i are of an age
0:23:35 paul
0:23:36 we remember i remember when i was at
0:23:38 school the anti-vietnam demonstrations i
0:23:41 think that's part of
0:23:43 growing up is getting involved and if
0:23:46 you see an injustice you want to fight
0:23:48 that injustice or struggle against it
0:23:51 and suddenly
0:23:53 there's lots of examples of the prevent
0:23:54 strategy being being aimed at
0:23:57 people you know people agitating or
0:23:59 worried about behalf of palestine and
0:24:01 that is seen under the this rather
0:24:04 curious ideology really it's
0:24:07 radicalization theory invented by
0:24:09 academics
0:24:10 very contested
0:24:12 that the more sort of um the there's a
0:24:14 pathway
0:24:16 from moderation this blessing state
0:24:20 but moderation
0:24:22 to this
0:24:23 very dangerous state of radicalization
0:24:27 um and uh that involve that can involve
0:24:30 changes of behavior going to you know
0:24:32 getting more religious getting more
0:24:35 grievance grievances of work having
0:24:37 grievances well agreement and um and
0:24:40 that of course and it is important to
0:24:42 state that this is not just about
0:24:44 muslims it's also about the far right
0:24:47 but um and other
0:24:49 people but i certainly but the all the
0:24:52 evidence suggests that a an awful lot of
0:24:54 it is aimed at muslims and whether it i
0:24:58 i and in many ways it it it's very hard
0:25:01 to see
0:25:02 how it's not an attack on free speech
0:25:05 and opinion
0:25:07 you're criminalizing or
0:25:10 apologizing as another phrase
0:25:12 a
0:25:15 these are the problems which it's face
0:25:18 yeah and the question i completely
0:25:20 accept it needs to be reviewed and the
0:25:21 government was right to do that but put
0:25:24 willie shaw cross
0:25:26 in charge of the review is he going to
0:25:28 listen in a sensible way to the
0:25:31 very legitimate serious criticisms of
0:25:34 the intellectual basis of prevent and
0:25:38 the way it's being practiced or is he
0:25:40 going actually to do something else with
0:25:42 it we should take it to a new level
0:25:45 well i'm going to suggestion here you
0:25:46 should be the guy who reviews this you
0:25:49 should be the government should be
0:25:50 appointing you to do this job
0:25:52 and not the uh biographer the queen
0:25:54 mother i would suggest it might be more
0:25:55 appropriate
0:25:57 for the queen
0:25:58 oh i'm sure it's a terribly uh
0:26:00 fascinating and laudable biography of
0:26:02 the queen mother yeah um
0:26:04 and uh sorry i just wanted to say that
0:26:06 there was a clip circulating on social
0:26:08 media which i also circulated when i
0:26:10 heard it of an actual interview by a
0:26:12 prevent police officer
0:26:14 of a young muslim lady i think it was
0:26:17 uh and he was interrogating her about
0:26:19 her unacceptable views actually muslims
0:26:21 have usually have socially conservative
0:26:24 views on sexuality particularly
0:26:26 homosexuality you know the usual things
0:26:28 and and this young muslim woman had
0:26:29 shown uh unfortunately that she
0:26:32 subscribed to the socially conservative
0:26:34 muslim views that people have as taught
0:26:36 by the religion
0:26:37 and the police was actually um
0:26:39 questioning this and suggesting that
0:26:40 this was incompatible with being british
0:26:43 and it was it was totally
0:26:46 shocking so this was circulated by um i
0:26:48 forget there's an organization that
0:26:49 keeps an eye an eye on prevent is it
0:26:52 possibly called preventing prevent or
0:26:54 something like that yeah i heard the
0:26:55 same clip and it is disturbing it's
0:26:57 really what that was
0:26:59 is an attack on religious liberty
0:27:02 absolutely i mean we live in it and it's
0:27:04 very unconservative by the way one of
0:27:06 the things which
0:27:07 uh my beloved um friends in the
0:27:10 conservative party
0:27:11 uh all do they they're always telling us
0:27:14 that the philosopher king of
0:27:15 conservatism is a character called
0:27:17 edmund buck
0:27:19 very irishman
0:27:21 from the 18th century who was
0:27:24 who who who's
0:27:25 who argued passionately for religious
0:27:29 toleration over against the french
0:27:30 revolution because he wrote the famous
0:27:32 reflections on the revolution
0:27:34 by the reign of terror this politically
0:27:36 correct reign of of a conformity to a
0:27:39 certain
0:27:40 narrow vision of life secularism atheism
0:27:43 very and you say no we we in england we
0:27:46 we have liberty of conscious freedom of
0:27:48 conscience so i can see where you're
0:27:50 you're not a neocon uh fan clearly uh
0:27:53 you're a much more ancient pedigree
0:27:55 going back to uh people like him
0:27:58 i think that the the prevent strategy
0:28:01 and the is a manifestation of a an
0:28:04 analysis
0:28:06 uh which is
0:28:07 something which one might call like i'm
0:28:09 not the inventor of this phrase i like
0:28:11 it very much we're not talking about
0:28:13 conservatism anymore even though it is
0:28:16 the policy of a conservative government
0:28:18 we're talking about a kind of
0:28:20 coercive liberalism or muscular liberal
0:28:23 because cameron the former prime
0:28:24 minister actually called it we know
0:28:26 muscular uh liberalism in other words to
0:28:28 bash the the muslims and it's almost
0:28:30 like a new religion in a way because
0:28:32 it's telling you what you've got to
0:28:34 think
0:28:35 yes and it's secular it's imposing
0:28:37 secularism
0:28:38 as a kind of state religion and it's not
0:28:41 simply aimed by the way it's important
0:28:43 to say this
0:28:44 at muslims it's aimed at
0:28:47 any faith which
0:28:49 has the audacity to differ
0:28:52 from the consensus of 2022 the year we
0:28:56 happened to be living it so orthodox
0:28:58 jews are very much uh
0:29:00 subjects of this kind of constraint and
0:29:03 and so would
0:29:05 christians
0:29:06 i think there's a i do notice though
0:29:09 and i'm not it's not my i'm not a member
0:29:11 of the catholic church but
0:29:14 you know the in the in catholicism they
0:29:17 won't have women priests
0:29:19 they won't mention that they won't go
0:29:20 after that and i think even though that
0:29:24 is a gross dereliction of duty in the
0:29:27 world of coercive liberalism is not to
0:29:29 allow women priests to one of the great
0:29:32 but they don't do that because they
0:29:33 don't want to upset
0:29:36 the catholic population and quite
0:29:37 rightly so
0:29:39 it's up to the catholic church i think
0:29:41 not to you know to manage its own
0:29:43 affairs and that is and it reports not
0:29:47 to any um
0:29:49 any um i should once say
0:29:52 any worldly power it reports to
0:29:55 um you know the pope is responsible to
0:29:58 only to to god as my understanding and i
0:30:02 and that it is it is not
0:30:04 it is above or beyond borders
0:30:07 so what we are seeing is a generalized
0:30:09 attack
0:30:10 on religious liberty and this is one
0:30:12 manifestation
0:30:14 yeah there's an organization called
0:30:15 christian concern uh uk based
0:30:17 evangelical group which is actually very
0:30:19 in my opinion very islamophobic but on
0:30:22 this point that you're making uh they do
0:30:25 stand up for the rights of christians
0:30:26 who have been arrested and prosecuted in
0:30:29 the uk for simply holding mainstream
0:30:31 biblical beliefs on sexuality for
0:30:34 example and there's some terrible cases
0:30:35 where doctors recently have been uh
0:30:38 have been prosecuted or fired for
0:30:40 holding views on transgender issues uh
0:30:43 which don't conform to the latest woke
0:30:45 ideology and they christian concern have
0:30:48 stuck up for these people so you're
0:30:50 right
0:30:51 people are getting in the neck are not
0:30:52 just muslims it's conservative
0:30:54 christians or orthodox jews as you
0:30:56 rightly say and even consider there are
0:30:58 even conservative atheists
0:31:00 i believe around as well who
0:31:02 have been um criticized um publicly as
0:31:05 well so this is a problem but i think i
0:31:06 get the the sense in your in your book
0:31:09 uh which i recommend the uh the fate of
0:31:11 abraham why the west is wrong about
0:31:12 islam that muslims are the the main
0:31:15 predominant target
0:31:17 uh on every level ideological security
0:31:20 military and so on globally uh for this
0:31:23 con concern
0:31:25 um
0:31:26 and the christians although they some do
0:31:28 suffer most most christians just kind of
0:31:30 dare i say our anglicans or methodists
0:31:33 and so on and don't really
0:31:34 um
0:31:36 espouse these views that would trigger
0:31:38 prevent interest anyway i would probably
0:31:40 suggest i think but yes i think that's
0:31:42 it is remarkably selective in that way
0:31:46 and by the way it doesn't mean that
0:31:48 we have to accept the
0:31:50 the the the the socially conservative
0:31:53 views
0:31:54 of religions it is just that there is a
0:31:56 fascinating
0:31:59 very important and unresolved tensions
0:32:02 tension between
0:32:04 within the equalities act 2010 the
0:32:06 equalities act
0:32:08 uh
0:32:09 protects liberties but including the
0:32:12 liberty to practice religion
0:32:15 and so that creates all kinds of
0:32:17 contradictions yeah i'm not
0:32:21 and i think we have to have more of a
0:32:22 mature national conversation about how
0:32:24 to deal with that but that
0:32:27 returning to the conversation which you
0:32:29 show about a young woman being
0:32:30 interrogated by a prevent officer about
0:32:34 her religious police
0:32:35 that is a
0:32:37 is the state intruding itself on in an
0:32:41 area which is no business of the state
0:32:43 right
0:32:45 no uh not unless it becomes
0:32:48 a law and order issue you know a public
0:32:50 order issue it might do but it's no
0:32:52 business the state to tell them how they
0:32:54 should believe in god right
0:32:57 absolutely now
0:32:58 i was going to ask you uh and i'm not
0:33:00 now going to ask you about these various
0:33:02 front organizations that have been
0:33:04 funded by the government that are muslim
0:33:06 organizations set up
0:33:08 uh some of them have been exposed and
0:33:10 you can read about them here um that
0:33:11 they are known to be
0:33:13 front organizations now they're not real
0:33:15 grassroots muslim groups um that they
0:33:18 have been set up by the home office uh
0:33:21 and pretending to be
0:33:23 grassroots organizations some of them
0:33:25 have been exposed but one of them um
0:33:27 publicly so this is no longer denied uh
0:33:30 i forget what it's called you still see
0:33:32 it it's called woke woke his ass or
0:33:34 something or some that you mentioned i
0:33:36 deal with i i can't remember the all the
0:33:39 exact details of things yeah but what
0:33:41 the big point i'm trying to do here we
0:33:43 name we name some of the magazines sort
0:33:45 of structures the way in which it works
0:33:47 in this in this book is that
0:33:52 one of the
0:33:53 treasures one of the wonderful things
0:33:55 and what some people she's celebrated by
0:33:57 all conservatives i'm writing this from
0:33:58 a conservative perspective
0:34:01 and
0:34:03 except for neo-conservatives and except
0:34:05 for sort of market conservancies of an
0:34:08 extreme kind is civil society which is
0:34:11 independent
0:34:13 first of all of the market the market
0:34:15 can't go near it and secondly of the
0:34:17 state the state can't
0:34:20 shape civil societies to it to its own
0:34:24 way of thinking
0:34:25 this is a book this is again it's a deep
0:34:28 rooted conservative idea burki and
0:34:30 conservative let people get we we really
0:34:33 love institutions we love the
0:34:36 organizations like whether it's the
0:34:37 salvation army or the women's institute
0:34:40 or
0:34:41 and and the state always always trying
0:34:43 to muscle in on these organizations we
0:34:46 need to preserve them and what the state
0:34:48 is doing at the moment is creating a
0:34:50 series of
0:34:51 what look to me like fake civil society
0:34:54 organizations
0:34:55 on the one hand at the other hand
0:34:57 refusing to deal with genuine civil
0:35:00 society organizations but
0:35:02 in the muslim world muslim council of
0:35:05 britain that uh is one of them
0:35:08 which it for which it won't tolerate
0:35:10 because it whole view holds views which
0:35:12 the state doesn't like yeah on palestine
0:35:15 for example it doesn't hold uh it
0:35:17 doesn't have approved views on i i don't
0:35:19 know why the the
0:35:20 the um
0:35:22 i'd like we need to no and i well it
0:35:25 doesn't really matter what the views are
0:35:26 it's not the state's business the police
0:35:28 opinion right and the policing of
0:35:31 opinion is
0:35:33 is the problem with the uh prevent
0:35:35 strategy
0:35:36 right so we're moving more towards
0:35:38 perhaps a more american model are we
0:35:40 perhaps now moving towards in britain
0:35:42 towards a more american uh a more
0:35:45 american understanding of citizenship
0:35:47 where you kind of all you you leave your
0:35:49 religious kind of distinctness behind
0:35:51 you kind of pull in a common american
0:35:54 definition of citizenship whereas your
0:35:57 burking vision is that the the civil
0:36:00 society
0:36:01 has is given a space where people can
0:36:03 have their religious uh identities and
0:36:05 practices as long as they're not
0:36:06 obviously breaking the law
0:36:08 um but the american model seems to uh be
0:36:11 the one that's coming in now where
0:36:13 you're expected to give up these
0:36:14 distinctiveness in in for the sake of a
0:36:16 a common
0:36:18 uh american identity or british show
0:36:21 a lot of the thinking
0:36:23 comes from america although i i'd say
0:36:26 that we're maybe we're in
0:36:28 moving now towards the model which was
0:36:30 completely
0:36:31 complete opposite of the way we
0:36:33 historically the british way of doing
0:36:35 things which is the french way
0:36:37 yes yes so if you look if you look at
0:36:39 what macron has been recently doing
0:36:42 at the pressure from the far right in
0:36:44 france which is to
0:36:46 really create um a taxable society and
0:36:50 closing down going down to the stage of
0:36:53 closing down
0:36:55 with organizations and licensing mosques
0:36:58 and imams yes um
0:37:01 and
0:37:02 saying that
0:37:04 you can practice islam but it's only in
0:37:06 in
0:37:07 an entirely private way
0:37:09 yeah that is what is happening in france
0:37:11 and i think we are moving
0:37:14 quite quickly in that direction here i
0:37:15 was very shocked actually when
0:37:18 uh macron we announced a series of
0:37:22 intolerant measures ahead of the recent
0:37:25 elections there and he got praised for
0:37:27 it by um leading conservative um very
0:37:31 very senior in the uk no he did i i
0:37:33 remember that yes he did and there's an
0:37:35 appalling case of an imam in the eastern
0:37:37 part of france i forget exactly where uh
0:37:40 who um
0:37:41 in a could buy in in a friday sermon uh
0:37:44 quoted from the quran and the hadith um
0:37:47 about
0:37:48 gender men and women um
0:37:51 and and it was reported to the local
0:37:53 regional governor or whatever and he was
0:37:56 um not only uh prohibited by the french
0:37:59 state
0:38:00 from
0:38:01 preaching again he was actually deported
0:38:04 from france
0:38:05 back to his uh a country of origin which
0:38:08 is somewhere
0:38:09 uh in africa i forget exactly where
0:38:11 extraordinary and i actually looked up
0:38:13 the passages i thought well good
0:38:14 goodness great well what has this imam
0:38:16 been saying i looked up the passages
0:38:17 which are well known i think it's surah
0:38:19 31 verse 30 also in verse 31 and hadith
0:38:22 and the
0:38:23 okay they're socially conservative as we
0:38:26 mentioned but they're not advocating
0:38:27 they're not advocating violence they're
0:38:29 not advocating any kind of egregious
0:38:31 behavior at all it's simply expressing
0:38:33 an understanding of gender and roles
0:38:36 which are probably shared by some of the
0:38:38 older members of the conservative party
0:38:40 in britain and uh probably many
0:38:42 evangelicals
0:38:46 this guy was actually physically
0:38:49 uh silenced by the state and physically
0:38:52 deported from the country
0:38:55 uh and and this uh this has happened
0:38:57 like a couple of weeks ago you know and
0:38:59 and i've seen the guy uh on on youtube
0:39:02 and he conducts himself he's in africa
0:39:04 conducts himself with great dignity and
0:39:07 moderation and is not calling for
0:39:09 vengeance on france he just says i was
0:39:11 just doing my job as an imam preaching
0:39:13 the word of god to to the congregation a
0:39:16 very a measured response dignified
0:39:19 response so i was impressed with that he
0:39:21 didn't go i advocate any retribution did
0:39:24 i say that there are a number of
0:39:26 catholic i'm not
0:39:28 priests who say make comparable remarks
0:39:31 in france
0:39:32 from the pulpit um
0:39:34 which
0:39:35 and i dare say they don't get deported
0:39:39 no um but on this point i'm glad you
0:39:41 mentioned macro and france because that
0:39:43 was really my my last question to you
0:39:45 i'm conscious of the time and your
0:39:47 valuable time and i appreciate you being
0:39:49 on the channel to talk about your book
0:39:51 but um it is the situation in in europe
0:39:54 uh
0:39:55 there is a view and i think it's
0:39:57 probably right that
0:39:59 uh even though macron won le pen uh
0:40:02 scored her highest ever electoral
0:40:04 success in terms of percentage of votes
0:40:06 46 or something extraordinary figure and
0:40:09 she succeeded in bringing her far right
0:40:11 agenda into the mainstream which macron
0:40:13 to some extent accepted and stood upon
0:40:16 himself as an alleged centrist
0:40:18 politician but the point is this that
0:40:21 some people think and i think that
0:40:22 there's something to this we're on a
0:40:23 trajectory now in europe continental
0:40:25 europe anyway this is not really a
0:40:27 british question at the moment
0:40:28 where the populist nationalist right are
0:40:31 in the ascendancy even in france and
0:40:34 there's still a chance that she may win
0:40:35 in a subsequent presidential election of
0:40:37 course and we see this in places like
0:40:39 belgium and
0:40:41 and and obviously hungary and others
0:40:43 belgium apparently has now more
0:40:45 far-right mps than ever before as
0:40:48 proportion of the overall number of
0:40:49 members of parliament so we're seeing
0:40:51 that the argument is we're seeing this
0:40:53 movement momentum this trajectory
0:40:55 towards a an increasing
0:40:58 right-wing populist anti-muslim
0:41:02 political movement
0:41:03 in many countries but hungary poland
0:41:06 austria france obviously belgium and
0:41:08 others
0:41:09 is it your sense then that we are that
0:41:12 is the future and that things are
0:41:14 looking pessimistic
0:41:16 for muslims
0:41:17 in europe in general they're slightly
0:41:19 different from the uk which i think has
0:41:20 a different kind of dynamic from what
0:41:22 you're saying but even there i think you
0:41:24 you might you might see a common
0:41:27 pattern there well what are your
0:41:28 thoughts on that do you think
0:41:31 i do agree with this i mean
0:41:33 let's also celebrate the diversity you
0:41:35 know the success of the muslim community
0:41:38 in britain are all sorts of wonderful
0:41:40 stories of people who done incredible
0:41:42 things
0:41:44 um
0:41:44 you know and uh and
0:41:46 and so i don't want to be too negative
0:41:48 but there's no question that there's the
0:41:50 the
0:41:51 there is a growing narrative
0:41:55 promoted in the popular press and by
0:41:57 politicians just witnessed the french
0:41:59 elections or what's happening in hungary
0:42:02 uh the uh which is that
0:42:04 it's immigrants generally but perhaps
0:42:07 especially muslim immigrants
0:42:10 um present a a demographic and a
0:42:14 cultural
0:42:15 threat to the west
0:42:17 um you know the great replacement theory
0:42:20 as advocated by the
0:42:22 french sort of pseudo-philosopher um
0:42:26 has its advocates in this country
0:42:29 um and
0:42:32 and then you look overseas and i
0:42:34 remember mr johnson the british prime
0:42:36 minister went to india which
0:42:38 when the terrible things are happening
0:42:40 now
0:42:42 and which quite authoritative people are
0:42:45 saying is in a pre-genocidal situation
0:42:48 against the 200 million
0:42:50 muslims in india
0:42:52 uh and yet mr johnson didn't mention
0:42:55 he didn't
0:42:56 anything by the way it was i was just
0:42:58 stunned he went there shook hands had
0:43:00 photographs taken said very nice things
0:43:02 and didn't say anything about what's
0:43:04 going on though
0:43:06 in
0:43:08 2017 when the
0:43:11 i think i regarded i it was very close
0:43:13 to being a genocide happened to the the
0:43:15 rohingya muslims in
0:43:17 in burma or myanmar the um
0:43:21 mr johnson was foreign secretary he
0:43:23 actually the his spo his folks his
0:43:25 spokesman is relevant it defended
0:43:28 the myanmar government
0:43:31 while the raping the burning the
0:43:33 shooting
0:43:36 was going on and
0:43:38 um uh so it's there is a lack of the
0:43:42 sensibility about the threat
0:43:46 to uh to to muslims not just in the west
0:43:49 but uh around the world and it's very
0:43:52 serious there have been two you know
0:43:54 schrodinger and the events in iraqi and
0:43:57 province five years ago there have been
0:43:59 two genocides
0:44:01 in the last 25 years against muslims
0:44:04 and and you better realize that this is
0:44:06 actually europe we're talking about
0:44:07 genocides in europe we're thinking the
0:44:09 last genocide was surely the holocaust
0:44:11 and of course that was terrible and uh
0:44:13 but but there's actually been subsequent
0:44:15 genocides um
0:44:18 in europe
0:44:20 yeah
0:44:24 when i last went there was a
0:44:28 genocide denies it hadn't happened
0:44:31 and um you know there's it's a very
0:44:33 unstable situation where chauvinism is
0:44:36 now
0:44:36 you know it worked in a way you know you
0:44:38 you you you
0:44:40 it was obvious that they
0:44:42 got rid of the
0:44:44 the muslim population largely from the
0:44:47 area so it was now back into it was
0:44:49 under control by the
0:44:52 by um the people who committed the
0:44:54 crimes it's it's
0:44:56 it's very it's not like
0:44:58 i mean
0:44:59 if you go today
0:45:01 like the america the the german people
0:45:04 have fully acknowledged
0:45:06 the terrible things they did in the in
0:45:09 the night you know in the in the fight
0:45:11 in the war
0:45:12 and you go to auschwitz
0:45:15 it's properly recognized it's taught in
0:45:17 schools
0:45:19 the collective guilt has been it's very
0:45:22 you know they have done they have come
0:45:23 to they they have admitted that but they
0:45:26 they're not that is not happening in in
0:45:28 bosnia at the moment and this is a
0:45:30 dangerous thing because it doesn't but
0:45:31 it isn't admitted
0:45:33 it it can happen again
0:45:36 okay well that's a pessimistic uh note
0:45:39 um i think we might conclude it there um
0:45:42 and i i actually uh do recommend uh this
0:45:45 book
0:45:46 peter aborn the fate of abraham why the
0:45:48 west is wrong about islam just to
0:45:50 briefly uh go over some of the contents
0:45:54 uh in the contents page because it's a
0:45:56 very wide-ranging book historically and
0:45:58 politically part one talks about the
0:46:01 united states and islam its historical
0:46:04 relationship with islam it talks about
0:46:06 muslim slaves fascinating subject
0:46:08 because
0:46:09 many of the earliest people who went to
0:46:10 america were actually muslims
0:46:13 columbus
0:46:14 muslim slaves
0:46:16 and then it talks about islam and the us
0:46:20 as a global superpower
0:46:22 the impact of 9 11 and the assault on
0:46:24 islam is a chapter on donald trump
0:46:27 um on islam and then section two or part
0:46:29 two we have britain and and islam he
0:46:32 goes right back to beed and uh elizabeth
0:46:35 the first the ottomans uh the first
0:46:37 muslim colonies and then up to date uh
0:46:41 with
0:46:42 things on churchill
0:46:44 and islam and churchill and india's
0:46:46 muslims very harrowing story that and
0:46:48 then on to france and islam in part
0:46:51 three talking about france as a colonial
0:46:54 power of course it had many muslims
0:46:56 living within its colonies and that that
0:46:58 has many tragic aspects the civil war in
0:47:00 nigeria being one of the most terrible
0:47:02 stories in modern history i think and in
0:47:04 part four as we have seen the enemy with
0:47:06 him back to britain here the cold war on
0:47:09 on islam and the parallels with the
0:47:10 mccarthy era when communists alleged
0:47:13 communists you know have you been or
0:47:15 were you ever certain a communist
0:47:17 you know uh are you or have you ever
0:47:19 been an islamist
0:47:20 uh the echoes there are very very clear
0:47:23 and peter brings out the parallels i
0:47:24 think between that era and this era in
0:47:27 the demonization of descent people call
0:47:30 it that
0:47:31 uh passages here on policy exchange
0:47:34 we've not touched on this there's so
0:47:35 much we've not touched on we can't touch
0:47:37 on this program go on for hours but
0:47:39 policy exchange is a neo-conservative
0:47:42 think tank and their absolutely crucial
0:47:44 role in defining british muslims and
0:47:46 british islam and this is an ongoing
0:47:50 think tank very very important do look
0:47:52 do look it up and learn about who these
0:47:54 people are and that they're well we'll
0:47:56 go into that now the conservative party
0:47:58 british islam is a chapter on that the
0:47:59 trojan horse affair we've
0:48:02 very briefly touched on that and the
0:48:04 false narrative about alleged muslim
0:48:06 grooming gangs uh terrible story that's
0:48:08 still ongoing in some ways
0:48:10 um
0:48:12 and also at the very end there's an
0:48:13 interesting timeline um which chronicles
0:48:16 obviously the uh the whole history the
0:48:18 relationship between the western islam
0:48:20 so very wide-ranging historical
0:48:22 political
0:48:23 book uh written by an eminent journalist
0:48:26 so um i will link to this work in the
0:48:28 description below
0:48:30 um it's just published literally
0:48:32 days ago a couple of weeks ago i think
0:48:35 three days ago
0:48:37 how privileged we are to have you on
0:48:39 blogging theology to talk about it and
0:48:41 i'm sure you'll be on many i hope you go
0:48:43 on newsletter have you gone on the main
0:48:44 channels uh on
0:48:46 british news hope fox news have you on
0:48:49 because you've had dare i mention his
0:48:51 name in the same breath as yours douglas
0:48:53 murray uh he
0:48:56 he has been on um uh all over the place
0:48:58 i just published his book um which is
0:49:01 not entirely unrelated to your book and
0:49:03 i'm i don't agree with that much no
0:49:06 indeed
0:49:08 he he embodies in many ways uh the kind
0:49:10 of neocon outlook that you chronicle in
0:49:12 your book but um
0:49:14 so just in conclusion there's anything
0:49:15 you'd like some some word you'd like to
0:49:17 say in conclusion peter just certainly
0:49:19 thank you i really enjoyed talking to
0:49:21 you thank you very much for listening
0:49:22 and engaging it's real fun and um i
0:49:26 think very important and so thank you
0:49:28 well thank you uh peter and i i wish you
0:49:30 um
0:49:31 continued success in your writing uh
0:49:33 korean particularly with this book the
0:49:34 fate of abraham why the west is wrong
0:49:36 about islam thank you very much until
0:49:38 next time
0:49:39 thank you