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

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Summary of Why the West is Wrong about Islam with Peter Oborne

*This summary is AI generated - there may be inaccuracies. *

00:00:00-00:45:00

The West is wrong about Islam because it is intolerant of religious differences and because it imposes secularism as a state religion. Muslims are also subject to this coercion. discusses how the West's policies against Islam are wrong and counterproductive.

00:00:00 Peter Oborne discusses in his new book, "Why the West is Wrong about Islam," how the West has been wrong about Islam for decades, perpetuating the stereotype of Muslims as terrorists. Oborne argues that the West should be more understanding of Islam, as it is one of the world's oldest religions.

  • 00:05:00 Peter Oborne argues that the West is wrong about Islam and that the way that the religion is portrayed in the media is distorted and fueled by unfounded fears. He provides examples of how the media has distorted stories about Muslims and discusses the "cold war on Islam" that has been perpetuated by security experts since 9/11.
  • 00:10:00 Discusses how the Bush administration used the concept of a "cold war against Soviet Russia" to justify actions such as creating a secret organization to fight against "Islamism." The concepts of information warfare and astro-turfing are also mentioned. argues that this approach is being repeated with regards to the war on Islam, and that the state is justified in using any means necessary to fight this threat.
  • 00:15:00 argues that the West's policies against Islam are wrong and counterproductive. He points to examples of how the government has targeted Muslims with its "prevent" program, as well as the media's portrayal of Islamophobia. He also discusses the controversial organization Prevent, which is intended to fight terrorism by surveilling Muslims.
  • 00:20:00 Peter Oborne argues that the West is wrong about Islam, pointing to the nebulous nature of the terms "good" and "bad" Muslim, the targeting of Muslim religious opinions in the Prevent program, and the radicalization theory.
  • 00:25:00 The West is wrong about Islam because of its intolerance of religious different views and its imposition of secularism as a state religion. Muslims are also subject to this coercion.
  • 00:30:00 Discusses how muslims are the main target of the West's generalization of Islam, pointing to examples of christian groups that have been persecuted for holding biblical beliefs on sexuality and transgender issues. He also discusses how the state is creating fake civil society organizations in order to control the ideological and social direction of muslims.
  • 00:35:00 Discusses how the French model of secularism and tolerance towards different religions is slowly being adopted in Britain. He also discusses how the rise of far-right politics in France is leading to stricter rules on religious practice.
  • 00:40:00 Peter Oborne argues that the West is wrong about Islam, pointing to its success in terms of electoral numbers and mainstream acceptance in various European countries. He also points to the increasing movement towards a right-wing populist anti-Muslim political movement throughout various countries. Oborne believes that this movement may soon lead to a genocide against Muslims in Europe and elsewhere.
  • 00:45:00 Peter Oborne discusses the history and relationship between the West and Islam, highlighting the conservative neo-conservative role in defining British Muslims and British islam. He also recommends the book "Fate of Abraham: Why the West Is Wrong About Islam" by Peter Aborne.

Full transcript with timestamps: CLICK TO EXPAND

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