0:22

Welcome

0:22

to the Making Sense podcast.

0:24

This is Sam Harris. Well,

0:27

there's a lot going on in Iran

0:29

at the moment in

0:31

response to the murder of Masamini.

0:33

Obviously,

0:34

I completely support

0:36

the

0:36

women and men who are protesting

0:39

there for their

0:41

secular freedom. It's

0:43

quite extraordinary to see what's happening there.

0:45

So

0:45

perhaps I'll do a podcast on that.

0:47

But

0:47

as it turns out, some years ago,

0:50

I had a conversation that was highly relevant

0:52

to this moment with the writer

0:54

and free speech activist Yasmin

0:56

Mohammed. We just released this on

0:58

the best of making sense feed.

1:00

But I wanted to put it here because

1:02

it really gets at the underlying issue

1:05

of women's rights. in

1:07

an unusually complete and personal

1:10

way. Yasmin's story

1:12

is being lived and now protested.

1:15

by millions and millions of women in

1:17

the Muslim world. And

1:19

it's in light of a story like this that

1:21

the killing of Masamini

1:23

should

1:23

be understood.

1:28

Today,

1:30

I'm speaking with Yasmin Mohammed.

1:33

Yasmin is a human rights activist and

1:35

a writer. She's

1:37

a very eloquent advocate for

1:40

women living in Islamic majority

1:42

countries. and in the Muslim community

1:44

generally worldwide and

1:46

a very effective critic

1:48

of religious fundamentalism. and

1:51

her new book is unveiled how

1:53

Western Liberals empower radical

1:55

Islam. And I've been in

1:57

Yasmin's corner

1:59

for

1:59

a little while when she was

2:02

getting

2:02

ready to write her book and it

2:04

was at the proposal stage

2:06

I blurbed her. This is a

2:08

blurb that appears on the book,

2:10

but this is a blurb

2:12

really for her as a person. before

2:15

her book was even written. And

2:17

I'll just read that here to give you some context.

2:20

Women and Free thinkers in traditional Muslim

2:22

communities inherit a double burden.

2:24

If they

2:24

want to live in the modern world, they

2:26

must confront not only the Theocrats in

2:28

their homes and schools, but many

2:31

secular Liberals. whose apathy,

2:33

sanctimony, and hallucinations of,

2:35

quote, racism throw yet another

2:37

veil over their suffering. Yasmin

2:39

Mohammed accepts this challenge courageously

2:42

as anyone I've ever met. Putting the lie

2:44

to the dangerous notion that criticizing the

2:46

doctrine of Islam

2:47

is a form of bigotry. let

2:49

her wisdom and bravery inspire you.

2:51

And so you should.

2:54

And here Yasmin and I talk about her background,

2:57

and indoctrination into conservative

3:00

Islam

3:01

and the double standard

3:03

that Western Liberals used to

3:05

think about women In the Muslim

3:07

community, we talk about feminism,

3:10

generally,

3:11

the validity of criticizing other cultures,

3:14

and other related topics.

3:17

So now

3:18

I bring you a very brave woman

3:20

and one of my heroes. Yasmin

3:22

Mohammed.

3:23

I

3:29

am here with Yasmin Mohammed. Yes, ma'am.

3:31

Thanks for coming on the podcast. Thank

3:33

you so much for having me, Sam.

3:34

So this has been a long time coming. I I where

3:37

I discovered you. It was Twitter

3:39

or where how do we get introduced? I

3:41

sent you an email. Just a cold email,

3:44

like Well,

3:44

we were I was supposed to do a talk in

3:47

Australia with magic

3:49

about

3:49

the

3:50

some in the future of tolerance documentary.

3:52

And

3:53

then I had to cancel it

3:55

because I was going through

3:58

a lot of, you know,

4:00

basically, I was

4:02

having consistent panic attacks

4:04

and I had to take some

4:06

time off work, and then I just had to cancel all

4:08

of my my speaking engagements. So

4:10

I sent you a letter to sort of apologize

4:13

that I wasn't gonna be able to make it And

4:15

then they go back to me and started asking me

4:17

about the panic attacks, everything that

4:19

was going on with there. And so then that's how

4:21

I got into meditation,

4:22

actually. Oh, interesting. Yeah. Okay.

4:24

So, yeah, I remember that, but I I don't

4:26

remember that being the first contact.

4:28

Did you not have a Twitter

4:29

presence yet? I did have a Twitter presence, but you weren't

4:32

following me yet.

4:32

Oh, okay. Well Someone

4:35

could have been forwarding your stuff. I feel like I saw

4:37

you there first, but maybe not Anyway,

4:38

you go hard on Twitter. That's something

4:41

we're gonna talk

4:41

about. Yeah. It's the Arab in me.

4:44

So let's just take it from

4:46

the top. We're talking

4:48

about your book unveiled in the

4:50

end, but let let's let's just start with

4:52

your story

4:53

from the beginning. Where where did you come from?

4:55

And what

4:56

would your parents like? And what was your

4:58

upbringing like? This is the beginning

5:00

of of your story that has for

5:02

better or worse made you one of the most courageous

5:05

voices I can name at the moment.

5:07

So to the beginning, I guess, would

5:09

be my parents meeting each other university

5:12

in Egypt. So my dad's from

5:14

Palestine, and my mom is Egyptian. But

5:16

Palestinians could go to university in

5:19

Egypt, so it was all covered. Like, they were treated

5:21

as Egyptians, but they weren't given citizenship.

5:23

So they met in university in Egypt,

5:25

and my mother's family were

5:27

very angry at her. for

5:29

marrying a Palestinian because they thought he was so

5:31

beneath her. But they got married and

5:33

then they moved to San Francisco together. and

5:36

they were there during the peace love

5:38

hippie era. And

5:41

they had my sister and it was a bit too

5:43

much peace and love. And so my

5:45

mom wanted like a quieter place to

5:47

raise the kids. And so then they

5:49

moved to Vancouver, Canada. and

5:52

that's where I was born. Mhmm. But then

5:54

their marriage fell apart in the end anyway.

5:56

So when I was about two years old, my

5:58

dad you know, left

6:00

us, went to the other side of the country.

6:02

So here, my mom is

6:04

now in a new country no

6:07

support system, no community, three

6:10

children, and she's feeling,

6:12

you know, depressed, vulnerable,

6:14

sad, lonely, all that stuff. And how

6:16

religious were they at this

6:17

point? No religiosity whatsoever.

6:20

Neither of them. They're both grew

6:22

up very secular. My

6:25

dad had, like, zero connection to

6:27

religion. It's just like a cultural thing.

6:29

Very anti Israel, just being Palestinian, but

6:32

there's no religious, like,

6:34

him personally. He wasn't very he

6:36

wasn't practicing. And then

6:38

my mom's all alone. And so she goes

6:40

looking for a support system, and she goes

6:42

looking at the

6:43

mosque

6:44

for community. And at the

6:46

mosque, she finds a man who is

6:48

already married, already has three children,

6:50

but he offers to take

6:52

my mom on as his second concurrent

6:55

wife. Right.

6:56

So, you know,

6:57

she is happy to

7:00

have somebody take care of her and take care

7:02

of her kids. and so she's willing

7:04

to put up with

7:05

whatever

7:06

he's dishing out. My dad

7:08

was abusive towards her. He used to

7:10

hit her. and this man never

7:12

hit her. He'd hit us, of course. Mhmm.

7:14

But he never hit her. So

7:16

she

7:17

felt like this was a better

7:19

relationship for her. So

7:21

she stayed with him

7:23

as a second concurrent wife. We lived in his

7:25

basement, and he is

7:27

very like, my life changed

7:29

completely when he entered our lives.

7:32

So before him I used

7:34

to be able to, you know, play with my

7:36

neighbor's friends, like we play Barbies

7:38

together, I'd go swimming, I'd ride my

7:40

bike, I'd go to birthday parties,

7:43

listen to music, just like

7:45

a normal childhood. And then once he

7:47

entered our lives, it was just

7:51

immediate everything is Haram, everything is

7:53

forbidden. And all of a sudden, my

7:55

mom started covering her hair, and

7:57

we had to start reading from this book

7:59

of this you know, these words that I

8:01

didn't understand and I had to start praying

8:03

five times a day, and I

8:05

resisted it from the beginning. Mhmm.

8:07

Of course, I missed my old life. I was especially

8:10

upset that I couldn't play with Chelsea and Lindsay

8:12

anymore. They'd always come knocking on the door

8:14

wanting to play Barbies and we never I was

8:16

never allowed to go, and they were never

8:18

allowed in. And

8:19

You're going to the same school at this point? Or

8:21

Yep.

8:22

But not for long. And

8:24

then I got as soon as the Islamic

8:27

school was I mean, it wasn't

8:29

built, it was in the mosque, but as soon as it was

8:31

established, that we would have

8:33

an Islamic school, and my mom was

8:35

teaching in it, then I

8:36

started going there. Was this

8:38

associated with any religious

8:40

awakening on your mom's part or

8:42

she just needed a man to take care of

8:44

her and it was just I think

8:46

it's practical and and romantic.

8:48

I

8:48

don't know if romantic is part of it. I think you

8:51

practical for sure, and it

8:52

was a combination of both

8:55

of those things. So she needed,

8:57

I think, She was happy to have

8:59

somebody take care of her, but

9:02

then also she just became a full on

9:04

board again Muslim.

9:05

Mhmm.

9:06

So she just entered it, like, she

9:08

just jumped all in.

9:10

It was never you know, if

9:12

you see her wedding photos, she looked like a blonde

9:14

girl. Like, short wedding dress,

9:16

big huge beehive, you know, there was a belly

9:18

dancer at her wedding, and to go

9:20

from that

9:21

the woman that raised me that I

9:24

remember is just a pretty shocking

9:26

difference. Mhmm. And

9:27

I used to always you

9:29

know, present that. I'd be like, how come

9:31

you got freedom? How come you got to live like this?

9:33

Look at your pictures when you were a kid. You know,

9:35

how come I don't get that life? and

9:37

she'd say because my parents didn't know any

9:39

better and I'm

9:41

raising you better and you're gonna be a better person and

9:43

you're gonna go to heaven and my parents did the best

9:46

they could, but they were

9:47

wrong. And so how old are you when you're

9:49

expressing these

9:50

doubts? Or Well, I

9:52

was about, you know, about six years old when

9:54

he entered our life. and I just I

9:56

resisted all the way up. It probably

9:58

about nine years old is when I stopped

10:00

because that's when the head job

10:02

was put on me and I started going to Islamic school

10:04

and it was just too much. So

10:06

you can't really fight anymore when

10:09

everything in your life is, you

10:10

know, pushing you in one direction. You just

10:12

you know, succumb especially when you're

10:14

a kid. But

10:16

according to my mom, I was never,

10:18

you know, good enough. I the devil was always

10:20

whispering in my ear and making me

10:22

question. I always asked questions. Right?

10:24

Like, if a law created everything, who

10:26

created a law and stuff like that, like, how

10:28

could I even these are such blasphemous,

10:30

you know, if Adam and Eve are, you

10:33

know, the parents of all people, are we all

10:35

children of incest? So these

10:37

basic questions of, you know, that a kid would

10:39

ask, I get in trouble for them.

10:41

So was there

10:41

any point where you just

10:44

went hook line and sinker and

10:46

fully adopted the WorldView

10:47

without doubt?

10:49

Did you or did you always have some

10:51

doubt humming in the background?

10:53

The

10:53

the doubt humming in the background finally

10:57

went quiet once I

10:59

was forced into the marriage with

11:01

ISOM. So -- Okay. --

11:03

once I married him and

11:06

I worn club, so that's

11:08

like full face covering, the

11:10

gloves, everything.

11:11

I

11:12

was so diminished

11:14

that I didn't have anything left.

11:16

There was and and I also

11:18

kinda made the conscious decision

11:21

that I mean, I was desperate for my mom's

11:23

love and approval. My sister was always the

11:25

good girl that always listened and

11:27

never questioned and and

11:30

my I wanted that. I wanted

11:32

to have, you know,

11:34

that relationship with my

11:36

mom. So she kept on

11:38

pressuring me to marry this man and I

11:40

eventually gave in because I thought, you know what?

11:42

Maybe she'll actually love me if

11:44

I follow what she wants me

11:46

to do. I'll marry the man. She tells me to

11:48

marry. I'll do everything the way she says

11:50

to do it. I've been fighting against this my whole

11:52

life. What

11:52

happens if I just let go and see if she's

11:55

actually right? and

11:57

how old are you at this point? So

11:58

I'm a twenty.

12:00

And I did let go.

12:02

and I did follow exactly

12:05

what she said. And

12:08

until I had my daughter, and

12:12

held her in my arms and

12:14

saw that she was about to

12:16

grow up in the same environment that I grew

12:18

up in. My

12:19

mom was talking to her the same way. She had

12:21

talked to me. Her

12:23

father was talking about

12:25

FGM

12:26

and her dying a martyr for a

12:28

law and things like that. And I'm like,

12:30

okay. Enough.

12:33

You know, I'm not I could maybe

12:35

accept this world for myself and I'm not gonna

12:37

accept for There's no way she's gonna live

12:39

this same life. Wait. And was

12:40

he Egyptian? Yeah. Yeah.

12:42

And I

12:42

I think people aren't

12:44

generally aware that FGM

12:46

is practiced in Egypt. Yeah. It is. Like,

12:49

ninety eight percent in Egypt. Basically,

12:51

like, Somalia in in terms

12:52

of the

12:53

prevalence of that practice. So

12:56

and

12:56

this was just a a fully arranged

12:58

marriage or or it had been encouraged

13:00

once you had met him.

13:02

So it

13:02

it wasn't fully arranged in that.

13:04

I didn't know I was gonna marry him my whole

13:06

life. Sometimes people arrange marriages for their

13:08

kids like from the get go.

13:10

but it was definitely a forced marriage,

13:12

which is a very

13:14

common thing in the Arab

13:16

world. So Like, this is the man

13:18

we want you to marry, and then you

13:20

basically just get introduced to

13:22

him. And

13:23

the the woman doesn't need to

13:25

consent. like in Islam,

13:28

it says, silence is consent.

13:30

So if you

13:30

just sit there and cry, it's like,

13:33

okay, we're good. Yeah.

13:34

Yes. You're you're

13:36

now, you

13:36

know, that's like saying I do.

13:39

And so there it was

13:41

you know, you get pressured into it

13:43

in the same way you get pressured into

13:46

everything else. So it's just like wearing

13:48

a head job and you you get

13:50

you

13:50

get given two choices. Like,

13:52

Do you

13:52

wanna go to heaven? Do you wanna go to hell? Do you wanna

13:54

be a good, pure, clean girl? Or do

13:56

you wanna be a filthy horror? Like, these are

13:59

your choices. Make the

13:59

right choice? So

14:01

forcing you into a marriage is similar

14:03

kind of coercion.

14:06

So it would be things like, there's a

14:08

hadith that says, heaven

14:09

is at the feet of your mother's. So your

14:11

mother gets to decide whether you're gonna go to

14:13

heaven or not. So

14:14

this was the one that was used all

14:17

the time and it's a very dangerous

14:19

weapon for an abusive mother to

14:21

have. So she

14:22

would use that one. She'd say you're never gonna go

14:24

to heaven unless I prove

14:26

you to enter heaven. And if

14:28

you don't marry this man, you

14:31

will never go to heaven. You will burn

14:33

in hell for eternity. and you

14:34

will suffer here on Earth because you are no longer

14:37

my daughter. I want

14:38

nothing to do with you. I won't

14:40

even allow you to come to my funeral because I

14:43

don't Like,

14:43

as far as anyone is concerned,

14:45

you're no longer my family. Mhmm.

14:48

And then when

14:48

you die, you'll burn in health fraternity. So go

14:50

ahead and make

14:51

the choice. Yeah. Yeah.

14:54

Reading your book is

14:56

a fairly harrowing

14:58

account of what your

15:00

childhood and adolescence

15:02

and young adulthood was like.

15:04

And I think it's

15:06

useful to differentiate what is just

15:09

the sheer bad luck of having an use

15:11

of and perhaps mentally ill

15:13

mom and having

15:15

married somebody who will will will

15:17

get into his story in

15:18

a moment. But

15:20

that's bad luck that could happen to anyone

15:22

in any culture, whether

15:24

without religion, then

15:25

there are the

15:27

cultural practices which

15:29

aren't necessarily mandated by Islam

15:31

and maybe don't necessarily represent

15:33

every Muslims or even most

15:35

Muslims experience.

15:37

And then there's just what is

15:39

fairly common under Islam because

15:42

you can just play connect with dots

15:44

and see that it is mandated

15:46

or at least encouraged in

15:48

the text. So where how

15:50

do you kinda carve out out

15:52

those different strands for

15:54

me. What is just the sheer bad luck

15:56

of the based on the personalities involved?

15:58

And and where

15:59

where's the contribution of Islam.

16:02

Yeah. So

16:02

the problem is these a lot

16:04

of these elements are sanctioned

16:07

in Islam. So Islam says for

16:09

example, tells a man if you fear

16:11

that your wife is, you

16:13

know, arrogant or disobedient.

16:16

then, you know, go through these steps

16:18

and then beat her.

16:20

So it's not like a law is

16:22

telling men if you fear that your wife know,

16:24

is gonna give you any trouble, beat her.

16:26

Right. So not every single

16:28

man is going to beat his wife

16:30

and not every single man is going

16:33

to, you know, vicious beat his

16:35

wife. There's gonna be, you

16:36

know, different men are gonna react in

16:38

different ways, but the problem is the fact that

16:40

it is sanctioned. So

16:42

if you complain about it,

16:44

like in my example, when

16:46

I went to my mom and said, he

16:48

just punched me in the face when

16:50

he saw that I wasn't wearing Hijeb

16:53

in the house on the seventeenth

16:55

floor because he was afraid people, like,

16:57

I don't know, seagulls, people on helicopters,

16:59

might see me through the window, and her

17:02

response was he has every right

17:04

to be

17:04

you.

17:05

You are his. It

17:06

says so

17:07

right there. Chapter four verse

17:10

thirty four.

17:11

So that's the problem. The

17:12

problem is that it's it's it's codified. It's in the

17:15

religion. And so it

17:17

can be used in different

17:19

ways. You know? Like not like I said, not

17:21

every Muslim man is gonna beat

17:23

wife, but those who do

17:25

have scriptural support.

17:28

Yeah. Yeah. And the

17:29

debate really is not whether

17:31

or not that support exists,

17:34

but what is meant by beating? It's like a

17:36

how how hard you can beat your That's very

17:37

subjective. Yeah. You know, and there's

17:40

scholars that come forward and they

17:42

say things like, oh, no. You know, you just

17:44

it's like it's like it with a toothbrush

17:46

or whatever. But

17:47

those are just scholars

17:49

offering their

17:51

interpretations. As far as the hold

17:53

on is concerned, it doesn't

17:55

say that. It just says

17:57

that's it. It offers no

18:00

you know,

18:00

there's no asterisk there,

18:02

but

18:02

that's subjective anyway. Like,

18:04

you you don't it depends

18:06

on country that you're in depends on the environment

18:08

that you're used to. Yeah.

18:10

Beatting is can be

18:11

pretty bad. Mhmm. And

18:14

any, obviously, hitting another human being

18:16

is a bad thing anyway. And the

18:18

creator of the universe really should not be

18:20

sanctioning husbands to be beating

18:22

their wives. But

18:24

there's

18:26

a there's a famous critic of

18:28

Islam named Hamid Abdul Samad,

18:30

who is an Egyptian German

18:32

man. who had a really great way of describing this and he says

18:34

it's like a law's at the bar and he

18:36

had a bit much to drink and he's like, you

18:38

guys should just like eat your wives,

18:41

man. and his friends, right, the

18:43

scholars are behind him going, no. No. No.

18:45

He doesn't really mean that. He doesn't he doesn't he

18:47

doesn't actually mean that he means like like with a

18:49

feather or something. So those

18:50

are just the scholars trying to soften

18:52

it up. But at the end of the day, people read

18:54

the hood on and they, you know, they quote

18:56

that verse. Right. So and

18:59

you're wearing the the cop at this point? At what

19:01

point did that happen? Kjell was

19:02

at nine years old, you know, as far

19:04

as I could remember. Sure. And

19:06

then

19:06

once I was

19:08

engaged to him, started wearing in a

19:10

robe, he got it all delivered

19:12

from Saudi

19:13

Arabia.

19:15

And that really helps

19:18

in dehumanizing you.

19:19

That really helps in

19:22

turning me into nothing that he

19:24

can control very easily.

19:26

It just suppresses

19:27

your humanity entirely.

19:30

It's like portable sensory

19:32

deprivation chamber. And

19:34

you are no longer connected

19:36

to humanity. You can't see

19:38

properly. You can't hear properly. You can't speak properly. People

19:41

can't see you. You can only see

19:43

them. I mean, just little things

19:46

like passing people in

19:48

the street and just making

19:49

eye contact and smiling, like, that's

19:52

gone. You're no longer part of

19:54

this world. And

19:55

so you very very quickly just

19:57

shrivel up into nothing under there.

19:59

Yeah. Well, we're gonna get to this, but it is

20:02

amazing how Sanguine

20:04

Western feminists are around

20:06

this practice. Like, this

20:08

is just another

20:09

culture's ideal of

20:11

how to

20:12

honor feminine beauty

20:14

and empower women. Who are we to criticize

20:17

it? We should differentiate the

20:19

hijab from the hijab his job is

20:21

just a straight up symbol of

20:23

female empowerment now in the

20:25

west. For some reason,

20:26

people one

20:28

can't see that

20:30

most of

20:30

the women on Earth right now who are wearing

20:32

a job are not doing

20:33

it based on some

20:36

empowerment they felt at an Ivy League

20:38

institution where they're just they're just gonna take the

20:40

male gaze off them at their

20:41

own discretion. So they're forced

20:43

to do it. The consequences of not

20:45

doing it in many cases are, if

20:47

not

20:48

absolutely coercive social pressure, it's

20:51

actually physical violence.

20:53

but it is also just

20:55

a step toward the

20:57

Neacom and the Berca, which are

20:59

the actual crystallization of

21:01

the ideal

21:02

here that's being enshrined,

21:04

which is it's

21:04

all the female

21:07

modesty is

21:09

the only

21:10

thing that safeguards

21:13

male sexuality from

21:15

completely running a mug. It's like all

21:17

men would be groupers and

21:19

rapists But for the fact that women

21:21

hide themselves -- Mhmm. -- maybe we

21:23

should jump into that now. I wanna

21:25

talk about your who your

21:28

husband revealed himself to

21:29

be, but what have your

21:31

encounters with Western feminists

21:34

been like?

21:34

Well, that makes me really

21:36

sad that they consider

21:39

most of women to be of some

21:41

other species. and that are so

21:43

completely different from them.

21:45

So for

21:45

themselves, they will recognize all

21:47

of those things that you talked about are

21:50

basically

21:51

victim blaming, you

21:53

know, slut shaming. They

21:56

recognize those elements of rape culture

21:58

when we're in the western

21:59

context. which are, you know, they're

22:00

they're much harder to see in the western

22:03

context. Mhmm. But

22:05

under Sharia,

22:06

it's very, very

22:09

easy to clearly see a

22:10

perfect example

22:12

of rape culture,

22:14

but

22:15

they somehow

22:17

when

22:17

it's those women over there, it

22:20

it's empowering.

22:21

Like, would it be empowering for

22:23

you if you were told

22:26

you have to wear this clothing in order

22:28

to protect yourself from men who might rape

22:30

you, or you

22:31

have to wear this clothing in order to be

22:33

good and pure and go to heaven because

22:36

if you don't wear it, then you're a filthy

22:38

horror. Like, you wouldn't no

22:40

woman would want to hear that. No

22:42

seven year old child would like to be told, you have

22:45

to wear this in order to go to school

22:47

and your brother doesn't have to. He can wear

22:49

whatever he wants, but you must wear

22:51

this or you're not allowed to get

22:54

educated. It it

22:54

is an

22:55

atrocity. Like that that's something

22:58

that every human being

23:00

should be upset about. And the

23:02

fact that they think

23:04

that it's okay for those humans

23:07

over there but

23:08

not for us is the

23:09

part that really upsets me.

23:11

Yeah. But when what do you do with

23:14

the

23:14

fact that you could go into any

23:16

one of these cultures and find

23:19

women who will say, I want

23:21

to wear the denim. I want to wear the

23:23

burqa. Just take your

23:25

colonial bullshit elsewhere.

23:27

Yeah. Oh, of

23:27

course, there will be. And you can also go

23:29

to fundamentalist Christian, you

23:31

know, cults, and they will tell you, I

23:33

want to be a servant for my husband and

23:35

you see people like that on Twitter all the

23:38

time. Right? They're like, you

23:39

know, I quit my job and I cook and

23:41

clean for my husband and I'm proud of it. And

23:43

whatever it is, like women make all sorts of choices

23:45

and decisions and that's completely up to

23:47

them and they're free to do that.

23:50

And but I'm also free to make a

23:52

judgment on the decisions that

23:54

making. So when I'm talking about

23:56

the the Hejeb

23:58

as a symbol of patriarchy and

24:00

a symbol of misogyny,

24:03

I'm saying that because

24:05

as you mentioned, not only

24:07

are girls coerced into it because

24:10

of you

24:10

know, family or government or religion,

24:12

but girls can be killed because

24:14

of this. And not just in

24:16

the mostome

24:17

world. But in

24:18

Canada, in America, in France,

24:21

in Sweden, there's honor violence

24:23

and honor killing going on, a girl,

24:25

a six old girl in

24:27

Canada was strangled to death

24:29

by her father and her brother with the

24:31

hijab that she refused to

24:33

wear. Mhmm. And then her parents refused to bury her because they

24:35

didn't want anything to do with her. There

24:37

are so many

24:37

stories around this.

24:39

The

24:39

one that sounds stranger

24:41

than fiction is the case

24:43

in Saudi Arabia -- school. --

24:45

where the school was on fire and

24:47

the religious police wouldn't let the

24:50

fire department put it out because the girls weren't

24:52

appropriately veiled. Yeah. And they're literally

24:54

parents standing at the gates of the school,

24:56

watching their daughters burn alive.

24:58

It's just And

25:00

there are women

25:01

that are in Iran today

25:02

that are being imprisoned for fifteen

25:05

years and more. for

25:07

refusing to wear this cloth on their

25:09

head. So

25:09

it's not just, you know, it's not just

25:11

a benign choice.

25:14

when the prime minister of New

25:16

Zealand or when Meghan Markle put

25:18

a hijab on their head, it's

25:20

not just a benign

25:21

support of some benign

25:24

cultural thing. It

25:27

is

25:27

a not just a symbol,

25:29

but an actual tool of oppression. There are

25:31

women being imprisoned and women being

25:34

killed. There is a fight over this

25:36

hijab going on right now.

25:38

women in Sudan, Egypt, Iran, Saudi

25:40

Arabia, they're burning their hijabs in

25:42

the streets. They're fighting

25:43

against this thing. and

25:46

then to see free western

25:48

women, free western women

25:51

leaders take

25:51

this thing that they are fighting against

25:54

and voluntarily donning

25:57

it and supporting it. What those

25:59

women are doing is they are

26:01

supporting the oppressors.

26:03

they are supporting the oppressors that these

26:05

women are fighting against. Yeah,

26:08

the the

26:08

double standard is

26:11

so clear and it really is sanity

26:14

straining that it's so

26:15

hard for people to see. So,

26:17

like, the the clearest case

26:20

for me in the media was when I don't even remember

26:22

this, but Warren Jeff's the the

26:24

leader of the FLD as the

26:26

fundamentalist Mormon cult.

26:28

his compound was raided, and all

26:30

these little girls in young women were

26:32

let out in these little house

26:34

on the prairie dresses

26:37

Right? They made to wear these awful, eighteenth century

26:40

dresses, and they had been

26:42

married to men who were, you know, their

26:44

grandfather's ages. and

26:47

these forced marriages were described

26:49

as rapes,

26:50

and the

26:51

men were totally unrepentant. And, you know,

26:54

Jeff's got thinks at least

26:56

fifteen years in prison. I I forgot he he

26:58

got a a real prison sentence.

27:00

And this was all talked about on

27:02

the news as just an

27:05

unambiguous example of

27:07

patriarchal exploitation

27:09

of girls. The fact that it

27:10

was associated with it with religious belief

27:13

was

27:13

not even slightly

27:16

exculpatory. And everyone

27:18

celebrated the fact that there was a

27:20

SWAT Team raid on the compound. We

27:22

kicked

27:22

in the door of this place

27:24

to free those girls. Girls. And it

27:26

didn't matter at all that the girls

27:28

didn't wanna be free. Yeah. But we knew they

27:30

had been brainwashed. So when they're talking about how they loved

27:32

their husband four to a man or whatever it

27:35

was, no one had any

27:36

qualm discounting

27:38

this counting that

27:40

for their obvious ignorance and brainwashing.

27:42

Right? And

27:43

and when you

27:44

compare that to what is happening routinely

27:46

in the Muslim world,

27:48

the mainstream media has

27:50

the opposite response. And

27:52

this is the

27:54

most benign case of

27:56

real extremism in the Muslim world. I mean, it's,

27:58

you know, in truth, it's not even

28:01

extreme, but the extremism in the Muslim

28:03

world, you have to add to that

28:05

the clutterctomies that would have been performed on these

28:07

girls, the

28:08

fact that they were

28:09

raising their sons to be

28:12

suicide bombers. Right? And there

28:14

was an an explicit indoctrination of,

28:16

you know, martyrdom. And they were

28:18

exporting terrorism to the capitals of

28:20

Europe and America,

28:21

that's how

28:22

the the fundamentalism Mormon cult would

28:24

have to behave to make it an analogous

28:27

situation. And

28:28

No one can

28:29

see it on the left.

28:31

I guess the

28:31

other example I

28:33

should mention, I believe I mentioned this on

28:35

a previous podcast, but

28:38

It really belongs here because we were talking about

28:40

this last night. I just saw

28:42

I on her see a leak of a talk at a university

28:44

for the first time in three years since she

28:46

was deplatformed at BrandEase. And

28:48

it's a

28:49

fairly conservative college,

28:52

Pepperdine,

28:52

aberdeen in an explicitly

28:54

Christian college. And

28:56

she ran

28:56

through her whole life story on stage.

28:58

I mean, starting with female

29:01

general mutilation abused in

29:03

school, physical abuse, sexual

29:05

abuse. She described it as routine

29:07

among her friends at the school she

29:09

was in She described

29:11

all this and how she escaped a forced

29:13

marriage, became a member of parliament,

29:15

which is she's just a true

29:17

feminist success story. Right?

29:20

And

29:20

and as she

29:21

starts to get into a

29:23

discussion of contemporary politics,

29:25

I mean, honestly, the edgiest thing

29:27

she said was if I

29:29

were teaching at

29:30

a university and someone and one

29:32

of my students said that they didn't wanna read a

29:34

certain novel because it triggered them

29:36

I would insist that they read that novel

29:39

because that's what a university is for. And then I

29:41

think the other thing she said

29:43

was when me too came

29:45

up She expressed blanket support for

29:47

it, but she said we have to keep a sense

29:49

of proportion. There are the the Harvey Weinstein's

29:51

of the world. and then

29:52

there are people who

29:53

just put a hand where it's not wanted and

29:56

you slap it away. She was trying to

29:58

give some articulate

29:59

in

29:59

that this spectrum of

30:02

misbehavior that we need to

30:04

differentiate. And

30:05

as she's talking about this, again, she

30:07

had just spent a half hour

30:09

describing in a

30:12

background so replete

30:14

with abuse,

30:15

patriarchal abuse,

30:17

that you would think it would it would have

30:19

earned her

30:20

intersectionality points of a sort

30:22

that, you know, few people

30:24

have have And

30:25

I've got these white

30:27

women

30:27

students behind me who are

30:29

beginning

30:30

to

30:31

almost heckle her. Right?

30:33

It was just, you know, hissing and

30:35

laughter among themselves. And then they

30:38

walked

30:38

out, it

30:39

was like I'm making

30:41

it another kind of brainwashing.

30:43

There's this

30:44

kind of moral panic happening around

30:47

variables

30:47

of gender and race on the

30:50

left that is making it

30:50

impossible to even

30:52

parse the statements of

30:54

a somali

30:55

woman, right, who just recapitulated

30:58

the tire enlightenment

31:00

success story of of reclaiming

31:03

secularism and modernity and

31:05

humanistic values in her own case in

31:07

a few short years It's just amazing.

31:08

So anyway, I I Yeah. I mean, if if

31:11

Ion had

31:11

white skin and had overcome all of

31:13

those things in the west,

31:15

She

31:16

would be She'd be hailed as a feminist

31:19

hero. So, I

31:20

mean, when you were talking before about

31:22

the difference between that Mormon cult,

31:26

and girls

31:26

in the Muslim

31:28

world. I

31:28

started to tier up because it reminded me

31:30

of your TED Talk, which

31:33

I'm gonna tear up Mhmm. That Ted talked to

31:36

me hit me so hard because

31:38

it was the first time

31:43

Anybody

31:43

in, like,

31:45

media, I'd

31:46

ever heard

31:49

somebody care about those

31:50

girls the same way

31:52

you would care -- Mhmm. --

31:54

about

31:54

any other girls. Like,

31:56

the

31:56

argument you were making in that TED

31:59

talk, like, these

32:00

girls in Afghanistan, why are

32:02

they different than the girls from the Mormon

32:04

cults?

32:10

Sorry, Sam. No. That's great. talk

32:12

was late. Yeah.

32:15

Thank

32:15

you so much. That's

32:17

that's You don't

32:19

have to apologize. This is a good

32:22

radio. Yeah.

32:24

Well, a few people notice

32:26

it, but I actually teared up

32:28

in that TED talk. I

32:30

don't can't remember if we spoke about this or

32:32

not, but there was a point where I

32:34

talk about honor killing. And I said,

32:36

imagine your daughter gets raped. and what you

32:38

want to do is is kill her out of

32:41

shame. And, you know, obviously,

32:43

I had rehearsed that talk a

32:45

ton. I mean, unlike any other talk you ever gave a

32:47

Ted talk, it's it's like this memorization feet.

32:50

Right? We have to remember every line

32:52

because you're you've

32:53

got a hard time limit and

32:55

no notes. And

32:56

so it's a very odd talk

32:59

to give because you're basically it's

33:01

a performance as yourself. I mean, you're not thinking out

33:03

loud because you really have a script that you've memorized.

33:05

At least that's the

33:06

way most people do it and the way I've done

33:08

both of my TEDTox.

33:10

And

33:10

so I, obviously, I

33:11

knew exactly what I was going to say and

33:13

I had done this, you know, a

33:15

dozen times at least But

33:18

I had just been told a couple

33:20

of hours before going out on stage that

33:22

my first daughter had taken

33:24

her first steps.

33:25

So when I

33:26

got to that point in the

33:28

talk, totally punctured me. And I I

33:30

actually almost burst into tears, and you can sort of say,

33:32

people who are just watching it as a

33:34

TED Talk, don't tend to notice, but you can

33:36

see that that I have like,

33:38

I'm almost totally derailed in the

33:40

talk at that moment. And

33:42

yeah, it's

33:43

You could see that you actually

33:46

care. That was very

33:49

evident. And that's why it hit me

33:51

so hard is because I'm so

33:53

used to there being this two

33:55

tier system

33:56

of, like, all, you know, girls

33:58

that matter and

33:59

then the girls that don't

34:02

matter. And that was the first

34:03

time I had seen in the western

34:05

world somebody standing

34:07

up like in a TED talk,

34:09

speaking up for us

34:11

as if we were human beings

34:13

like every other girl

34:15

on the planet. Mhmm. And that was very evident in your

34:17

talk. And then, of course, you know, immediately

34:20

after your talk, you get questioned about

34:22

it. You know,

34:24

the the Yeah. All

34:24

the predictable things happen. And so, you know, that's a

34:27

that's a very quick. The wholeness comes

34:29

to swallow you

34:29

after this.

34:32

Yeah. Exactly.

34:32

here I am feeling all and and is. I

34:34

don't know. But, you

34:36

know, I

34:37

just wish that this

34:39

is why the

34:41

the subtitle of the

34:44

book, how Western Liberals and Power

34:46

radicalism. Like, that's what it's all

34:48

about. I want my

34:49

liberal friends

34:50

and

34:51

supporters and,

34:52

you know, my this is where

34:54

I see myself. I am in this

34:58

realm too. So when I talk about Liberals, I'm not

35:00

saying those people over there. I'm

35:02

saying us over here. We

35:04

need to look at what we are

35:08

doing and

35:08

we need to stay consistent.

35:10

And if we believe that all

35:13

humans are

35:14

equal,

35:16

then why

35:17

are we having a different set

35:19

of you know, why do we use

35:21

a different

35:22

yardstick for these people

35:25

people versus these people. So I feel

35:27

like if they could see that, if

35:29

they could understand that,

35:31

then they would get

35:33

it. Like, I feel like if they could get the

35:35

lunacy of would you

35:37

celebrate

35:39

a Mormon underwear

35:41

on the cover

35:42

of sports illustrated?

35:44

No, you wouldn't.

35:45

You would automatically see that that's

35:47

ridiculous for many there are many different

35:49

reason different reasons. but then having a burkini on

35:51

the cover of sports illustrated, that's

35:54

something to be celebrated.

35:55

Like, I just want them

35:56

to

35:57

stay with the thought for four

35:59

more seconds -- Mhmm. -- and just continue on with

36:01

that and think, okay, why is this

36:03

celebrated and this is

36:05

not? Yeah.

36:05

Again, it's

36:08

It's

36:08

very hard to understand how

36:10

the point doesn't run through

36:12

and change people's

36:15

outlook just in real time whenever you have

36:17

the conversation. So, like, an example I

36:20

occasionally use when I'm

36:22

getting criticized

36:24

for judging another culture. Like and again, I I always go to the

36:26

most extreme and still it's not extreme enough. So

36:28

I talk about the Taliban. I used to talk about the

36:31

Taliban a lot. before Isis came around.

36:34

But when I was in this

36:35

conversation a lot, I

36:36

would talk about the Taliban. I would say, okay. Well,

36:39

then I, you know, actually, I'm starting to

36:41

agree with you. So what I think I'm gonna do is

36:43

I'm gonna send my daughters for

36:45

a year internship. to Afghanistan. Right? So they'll have to wear

36:47

the burqa and they'll they'll just learn to recite the

36:50

Quran and that, you know, they'll get beaten if

36:52

they take the burqa

36:54

off and you know,

36:55

they'll broaden their horizons and just get full cultural experience.

36:58

So am I am

36:58

I a good father? Is that the is

37:00

that the right decision? Right? And it's

37:04

considered I've never seen

37:06

the point land. Like,

37:08

I've it's just like it's considered

37:12

on the

37:12

one hand, a low blow,

37:14

or It just doesn't

37:16

compute. Mhmm. So, like

37:17

and and

37:20

you you find yourself in in this conversation lot media

37:22

and in the world.

37:24

What is it that

37:25

keeps the double standard

37:28

ethically in place even you

37:30

pointed out. I think it's

37:30

because we have been taught that you

37:33

cannot criticize other cultures. We

37:35

can only criticize western cultures.

37:37

The only culture that's

37:39

safe to criticize. So my

37:41

counterargument to

37:42

that is when you criticize

37:44

something, that is

37:47

how progress happens. So Western

37:49

culture has been criticized a lot and that's

37:52

why there is LGBT

37:54

equality here and women's quality

37:58

here. And all of these progressive, you know,

38:00

we got rid of slavery, you know, all

38:02

of these things happen because of

38:06

internal criticism. That is how progress happens.

38:08

If you do not

38:09

criticize, things that

38:11

deserve

38:12

to be criticized,

38:14

how will progress happen? So these groups of people

38:16

that are saying, no, no, no, we cannot criticize

38:18

the Taliban or we cannot criticize

38:22

the fact that Iranian, you know, what the Iranian regime is doing, or Saudi

38:25

Arabia, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. What you're doing

38:27

is you're saying, we

38:30

don't want those

38:32

cultures to progress, they need

38:34

to

38:35

stay the way they

38:37

are, you know,

38:38

know fourteen

38:39

hundred years ago, the

38:41

way they the the religion formed,

38:43

the way Shariah was formed,

38:45

this

38:45

kind of thinking needs to just

38:48

be fossilized.

38:49

Now, that

38:50

now is

38:51

what, again, we've got that two

38:53

tier system going on. Like, why don't

38:55

these people deserve progress as well? Why don't the

38:58

gay people in those countries deserve to not be executed.

39:00

Why don't the women in those

39:02

countries also deserve not

39:04

free the nipple, but like free

39:06

the face. You know,

39:08

like, why don't they also deserve

39:10

freedom? How are they a different kind

39:12

of human than you are? Because

39:14

there are people in

39:16

those countries that are risking their lives. I mean, America's got, you

39:18

know, like, live for your die. They

39:20

they they

39:22

embody that. live

39:24

free or die mentality. And

39:26

they are, like me, right, if by the way,

39:28

just blogging about humanism,

39:31

blogging about liberalism, gets him whipped in the streets, gets

39:33

him ten years in prison, you know. Mhmm.

39:36

I mentioned

39:38

in Iran, Removing

39:40

a hijab off of your head

39:42

gets you thrown in prison. In

39:44

Saudi Arabia, a woman was walking without

39:48

hijab on got thrown in prison. I I could go on and on and on about

39:50

these cases. And that doesn't

39:52

even

39:52

start to talk about the

39:55

twelve

39:56

countries, twelve to fifteen

39:58

countries, I can't remember right

39:59

now, that

40:01

will execute people

40:04

for being

40:04

gay. You know, when if you are

40:06

apostate. Yeah. Or being an apostate. Yes.

40:08

If

40:08

you decide that you don't wanna

40:10

believe in this religion anymore,

40:14

then you are to be killed. You're given three days to repent.

40:16

And if you don't repent within those

40:18

three days, then you're to be killed.

40:21

So if we're liberals and we believe in

40:23

liberal values, why do we only care

40:25

about the LGBT that are

40:27

living in close proximity

40:30

geographically to us?

40:31

What about the ones over there? Don't

40:33

they matter too? Can we talk about them

40:35

as well? But no,

40:36

we excuse it over there or

40:39

we ignore it over there. So

40:40

how will those countries progress? How

40:42

will those cultures progress? It's unfair.

40:44

Mhmm. We deserve it

40:46

too. Feminism is

40:48

is universal. It's not just Western, or

40:51

all of human

40:52

for all of human rights rights.

40:54

Yeah.

40:55

So I I guess it's a concern

40:57

about racism

41:00

and the

41:00

imbalance of power and wealth between

41:02

the west and the rest

41:04

of developing world.

41:06

The

41:06

legacy of colonialism is, you

41:08

know, is white guilt and -- Yes,

41:10

sir. -- it's white people in the in

41:12

the center of it all. They always

41:14

wanna be in the center of it all. It always has to be

41:16

as a result of, you know, as

41:18

if Arabs were just frolic

41:21

king in the desert making sandcastles until

41:23

the white man came along and taught them

41:25

how to be baddies to each other. You

41:27

know? Yeah. Like, please. these

41:29

things happened and

41:31

these things, you

41:32

know, regardless of

41:34

Western intervention. Of course, that

41:37

adds in some cases fuel to the fire, but that's not

41:39

the be all in the

41:40

end all. You know, America is

41:42

not the the center of

41:46

the of the reason for everything that's

41:48

happening in the Muslim world. There's a whole other world over

41:50

there that had

41:52

existed before the west even existed.

41:56

So And then again,

41:57

there's this

41:58

idea

41:59

that, you know, people need to

42:01

remember that Islam

42:02

is the second largest religion on

42:06

the planet. It's not some little minor Like, in

42:07

the in America, you've got, like, one percent

42:09

or so are are Muslim, so they think

42:12

that it's just

42:14

a small group

42:15

that are not really -- Yeah. -- not that

42:17

many people

42:18

are getting qualified. And the concern is

42:20

it's a beleaguered minority. Yes. And

42:22

in the

42:23

west generally, but especially in a place like America. So that I

42:25

mean, I mean,

42:26

that's probably true. But

42:29

by it is

42:31

not a beleaguered minority on a global scale. So

42:33

if you just, you know,

42:35

expand on that. And

42:37

the reason why this matters to us over

42:40

here is because ideas

42:42

cross borders, they don't just stay

42:44

over there. So, you

42:45

know, all of these these

42:48

misogynist ideas and these,

42:49

you know, all of these things that we're talking about the

42:52

honor culture and the honor violence

42:54

and the honor killing

42:56

that

42:56

doesn't just happen over there.

42:58

When, you know, those

43:00

ideas all come here too, I

43:03

was born and raised in a

43:05

western country, in a

43:07

secular democracy, but I essentially

43:09

lived under Sharia in my own

43:11

home. and in my own school because we're separated in

43:13

a bubble from from the rest

43:15

of society. So for me to get out

43:17

of that world was you

43:19

know, infinitely easier than it is for a woman

43:22

in Saudi Arabia or in Sudan or in

43:24

Somalia or in Pakistan who's

43:26

having the same thoughts as

43:27

I am and the same feelings as I

43:29

am wanting to get free. She

43:32

can't because she's,

43:33

you know, her she's not supported by her government in

43:35

the way I was. Right? She couldn't just go get student

43:38

loans and get on social

43:39

assistance

43:40

or whatever. Like, there's no there are

43:42

no you know,

43:44

there are no there's no support system for that.

43:46

She'll in fact get imprisoned

43:48

or she

43:48

could be killed for defying

43:50

her family. And and even

43:52

in your case, it was

43:54

still fairly hard for

43:56

you to get out. I mean, you you told me a

43:58

story about what it was like. I think when

43:59

when you were twelve

44:02

to report your

44:02

desire for freedom to one of your teachers that

44:04

perhaps tell that story. Yeah. So

44:07

that's mister Favreau

44:07

who wrote forward to

44:09

my book. I just met him recently. I was twelve

44:12

years old. I mean, I met him met him again

44:14

recently. I was twelve years old,

44:16

and I or thirteen

44:18

years old and I went to him and I told

44:20

him about the abuse that was

44:22

happening at home. So this

44:24

was during the time when I

44:26

was still fighting,

44:27

trying to get out of

44:30

the home I was in, my mom was married

44:32

to this abusive man.

44:34

And I showed him the

44:36

bruises, and I told him the stories.

44:38

And he ended

44:40

up calling the police and child

44:42

services were involved

44:42

and it ended up going to court.

44:46

And and Essentially,

44:48

the

44:48

judge ruled that

44:52

because my

44:52

family are Arab

44:56

and that is

44:57

the way they choose to discipline me,

45:00

then

45:01

that's their right.

45:03

And so

45:06

first of all, I have to explain

45:08

how difficult it is when you're part

45:10

of an insular community to

45:13

go to the outsiders. So to go

45:15

to the non believers and ask

45:17

them for help.

45:19

that's that's

45:21

really a betrayal. It's kinda like

45:24

if you're in the mafia, if you're the

45:26

rat, you know, I'm going to the cops and

45:28

I'm saying, I

45:29

need help. though So

45:32

for

45:32

me to overcome that as

45:35

a child and to go and ask

45:37

for help. And then to have the judge

45:38

basically tell me,

45:41

sorry, your

45:43

family happened to have been born

45:45

in this country, so

45:47

you're not

45:49

gonna be protected. Had your parents been born in, you

45:51

know, Sweden or Germany or

45:54

Scotland, I would protect

45:56

you. But

45:57

by Sorry, you know, that's just

45:59

luck of the

45:59

draw. You're you

46:02

know, I'm

46:02

i'm

46:05

I'm hearing him tell

46:07

me you don't matter as much

46:09

as other kids.

46:12

And I know that it's coming from

46:14

a place of trying to be culturally sensitive,

46:18

but

46:18

it it

46:19

ends up like this this

46:21

whole cultural relativism, moral

46:24

relativism, you end

46:26

up hurting the people in those

46:28

groups and you end up

46:30

supporting the people that are

46:32

oppressing them within

46:34

those groups. Yeah. This is

46:36

Maja's

46:36

point about abandoning

46:38

the minorities within the minorities.

46:40

If you care

46:41

about minority

46:42

about minority communities

46:44

communities, also pay attention to the people who are

46:46

being routinely victimized in

46:48

those communities. Right? So you're you're taking in

46:50

this case You're taking

46:51

the side of

46:54

theocrats.

46:54

Yes. Who are abusing

46:55

women and girls over the

46:57

interests of

46:58

women and girls. Yes. And and

47:00

three thinkers and apostates and anyone

47:02

else in that community who's being abused.

47:04

Absolutely. And

47:06

why Why does it

47:07

matter if this little girl has

47:09

blonde

47:09

hair and blue eyes and her

47:11

parents took

47:12

a razor or

47:15

her aunt took a razor and and

47:17

chopped out her clitoris. But then this

47:19

girl over here has brown skin and her

47:21

family is from Somalia and they

47:23

did the Now

47:24

why would one

47:25

set of parents be treated

47:27

differently by law enforcement

47:28

than another set of parents? Like,

47:31

Those two

47:32

girls are both suffering equally.

47:34

There there is no difference

47:36

between these children and how it's gonna

47:38

affect them for the rest of their lives. Why

47:41

is one

47:42

more important than the other? That's what they're

47:44

they're they're well meaning,

47:47

excusing of cultural

47:50

norms. This is what ends up happening.

47:52

You end up leaving these kids to be

47:54

victimized, but then you also end up

47:56

becoming incredibly

47:58

racist. Yeah. This is

47:59

the yet

47:59

another irony in a

48:02

the

48:02

irony museum.

48:03

The people who are

48:05

actually being racist

48:08

here. Mhmm. Are the people who ostensibly are most concerned

48:10

about racism? Yes. That's what

48:12

I heard from the

48:13

judge. That's how

48:16

I felt. And that's

48:17

what I've been told my whole life.

48:19

You know, I've been told these non believers

48:21

don't care about you, these non

48:23

believers hate you, these non believers

48:25

are your enemy, and

48:26

I never believed it, but that judge made

48:29

me actually believe it. I

48:31

was like, wow, he really

48:33

just said that me. He

48:35

really just said, you

48:38

don't matter as

48:40

much because you're from

48:43

that culture. if you were

48:43

from Culture X, you would matter, but you're

48:46

from

48:46

Culture Y, so you don't matter.

48:48

So I

48:48

felt that he was being racist towards

48:51

me. That the my because Canadians are

48:54

generally not

48:56

racist people. that was the only time

48:58

in my life. And it was coming, like you said, like, you know,

49:00

it's coming from a place of of good

49:02

intent, but it ends

49:04

up

49:04

being so counterproductive. and

49:07

all of these things are. So when

49:08

you say people of color and color, it as

49:11

a person of

49:12

color, That is segregation.

49:14

You are sub it's no different

49:16

than saying colored people because

49:18

you're saying

49:18

here's humanity. Here's people.

49:21

And then here's

49:22

people of color. Mhmm. The other.

49:25

You're othering us. How

49:27

is that not racism?

49:29

don't separate us. We're

49:31

all just people. This

49:34

is a

49:34

point for which I find

49:36

very

49:37

few takers when I'm in these conversations

49:39

with someone who's more woke than

49:41

I am. If we acknowledge that the goal

49:43

is to get to a society

49:45

where we're all just human beings. Mhmm. And the color

49:48

of a person's skin

49:50

is one of the least interesting

49:52

facts about them. totally

49:54

analogous to

49:54

the color of their hair. Right? So you've got blondes,

49:56

you've got redheads, you've got people with black

49:58

hair and brown hair. Who

50:00

cares? You know? And

50:02

anyone who said, well, you know what we really need? We need to take an inventory of how

50:04

many blonds are doing this

50:06

sort of job. They're not a blonde

50:08

cardiologists. I've noticed, and there's

50:12

clearly some something happening

50:12

there. How do we correct for this? It's like an

50:15

onion article.

50:15

Right? And I'm not discounting the

50:17

fact that racism

50:20

has

50:20

been a terrible problem and is still a problem in

50:23

certain cases. But if the goal

50:25

is to get to

50:26

a

50:27

society that is

50:28

actually post racist

50:30

and post racial. When

50:32

can we start acting as though that

50:35

were the case. Yeah. Right? Is it one? Is it is

50:37

it too soon to start acting as though you

50:39

actually don't care about the color of a person's skin?

50:41

Yeah. And you don't wanna hear every

50:44

political argument, parsed by that

50:46

variable or any political

50:48

argument, parsed by that

50:49

variable. And It's

50:50

amazing when you're in conversation with

50:52

a white, liberal,

50:54

intellectual, you

50:57

can

50:57

almost guarantee

51:00

that

51:00

the door to

51:01

that consideration is

51:03

barred. Like, it's too

51:05

soon, though there's no argument for that. I've even met

51:07

people who say, this is a

51:09

false ideal. Race is always

51:11

going to be the

51:13

most important thing. So Martin

51:14

Luther King was wrong when he said that it's a

51:17

judgment person based on the content of their character versus

51:19

the color

51:19

of their skin. Exactly. It's a it's

51:21

a explicit disavowal of

51:23

that with a clear conscience

51:24

and no one seems

51:26

to notice -- Mhmm. -- which

51:28

is

51:28

really inconvenient

51:29

for those of us who

51:32

are left center on basically every issue. Right?

51:34

So this is a this great scandal

51:36

that it that surrounds

51:38

people like Aon and

51:40

and perhaps you know, you

51:42

have a direct experience with us as well that the allies you find

51:44

when

51:44

you tell your story

51:47

of abuse under

51:50

Islamist Theocracy are

51:52

Christian

51:53

conservatives in Neocons,

51:55

you know, people on

51:57

the right who

51:58

who are supporting

51:59

me for reasons that I don't support. Yeah. But also

52:02

to take my

52:03

experience with Christian Conservatives,

52:06

at least

52:06

these are people who don't doubt the

52:08

power of religious ideals and religious

52:11

indoctrination. So when they

52:13

run their code,

52:14

code with a

52:16

one toggle

52:17

switch to Islam. Mhmm. They know

52:19

okay. I know that ISIS when when

52:21

when ISIS makes their

52:24

videos and frames at all in religious language, the

52:26

Christian fundamentalists

52:27

have no

52:29

problem understanding

52:31

what's happening They they

52:33

understand the power of ideas. Mhmm. And secular

52:35

Liberals

52:36

reliably don't. They just think that there's

52:38

gotta be another explanation. Yes. This is

52:42

this something else that's going on here, this can't be

52:44

religion. because they don't understand

52:45

the power of religion, the

52:47

power of indoctrination.

52:50

Speaking of

52:50

the the power of indoctrination, who did

52:52

your

52:53

husband turn

52:54

out to be? So

52:56

my ex

52:57

husband was

53:00

a member of Al Qaeda, he

53:02

joined when he was eighteen years old. So

53:04

when he was fourteen years old,

53:06

his father In Egypt,

53:08

there's a very clear

53:10

distinction between classes.

53:12

So if you're from

53:13

a lower class or a higher

53:16

class, it's not, you know, it's not

53:18

a democracy. So there's it's very there's very clear. You dress differently. You speak

53:20

differently. You

53:22

act differently. And so

53:24

when he was growing

53:26

up, his family,

53:28

you know, his father, when he was about fourteen

53:30

years old, got a better job and they moved to a better

53:33

part of town and he went to better schools.

53:35

So he didn't really fit in because

53:37

he was coming from the other side

53:39

of the tracks. And it's not that he

53:41

was being bullied, but it he didn't fit in with his

53:44

peers. And those are the ones

53:46

that the jihadists go around

53:48

trying to catch those

53:50

boys. So much like

53:52

gangs or, you know,

53:54

neo Nazis, you know, they're catching

53:56

those boys that are full

53:58

of aggression And it's that

53:59

age of fourteen to to sixteen where they're just they're

54:02

not, you

54:04

know, they're not

54:06

cognitively

54:08

mature,

54:08

but they're physically

54:10

they're physically

54:12

able to you know,

54:13

they're strong and they're full of testosterone

54:16

and they're full of

54:18

aggression. And

54:19

and

54:20

He was encouraged

54:21

that if he joined this group of men,

54:23

that he would reach levels of

54:25

heaven, that no other human

54:27

would ever reach. other

54:29

than, like, the prophets. So it

54:32

was, you know, it

54:33

it's intoxicating. So he

54:35

joined this group and all of you know,

54:38

his friends school didn't wanna be

54:40

friends with him, didn't matter because he was friends with these

54:42

men that were amazing and

54:44

powerful

54:45

and, you know, And so

54:47

when he was eighteen, he told his

54:49

father that he wanted to go

54:51

to America to study and

54:54

his

54:54

father let him go,

54:56

but instead

54:57

he went to Afghanistan.

55:00

And

55:01

he

55:03

was

55:03

with Bin Laden in,

55:06

you know, a member of Al Qaeda forever since

55:08

he was a kid. Right? So

55:09

he's trained by

55:11

him, raised by him,

55:13

essentially. And

55:14

and eventually,

55:16

he was

55:17

he was sent to Canada to

55:20

be

55:22

the

55:23

center of

55:26

the cell

55:26

fell that

55:28

were here in support

55:30

of nine eleven

55:32

to

55:33

to, you know,

55:34

to that end.

55:35

And I

55:36

lived What year

55:37

was this? This

55:39

was ninety six.

55:42

Mhmm. So I lived

55:43

close to the American

55:46

border. I lived in a

55:47

city called White

55:48

Rock,

55:50

And at the time, you

55:52

could

55:52

cross the border with just a driver's

55:54

license. I mean, you could just

55:57

say, I'm just cross I'm just

55:59

going to Bellingham to get some gas

55:59

or whatever.

56:02

Like, they don't

56:02

nobody cared. You could cross the border so

56:05

easily back then.

56:08

And so it's easier, it was

56:10

easier for them to come into Canada and then just

56:12

cross the border

56:13

versus going

56:16

into America. And all

56:18

of the stuff that I'm telling you now, I learned,

56:20

of course, after we were divorced,

56:22

like me just going on.

56:24

his Wikipedia page and finding the New York Times articles and

56:26

stuff like that. So at the

56:28

time,

56:28

all I knew was

56:30

that

56:31

he had because

56:34

He

56:34

entered Canada, so he's Egyptian,

56:36

he's coming from Afghanistan,

56:38

and he's entering Canada with a fake

56:41

Saudi Arabia and Passport. Mhmm. So that's a lot of

56:44

red flags. Yeah. Yeah. But then all of

56:45

a sudden, he gets this

56:48

money

56:49

sent to him that bails him

56:50

out of prison and pays for a lawyer. And

56:53

they've traced

56:54

that money, and

56:55

that came straight from

56:58

Bin Laden. He sent somebody from California

57:00

up to bail him out of prison

57:02

and got

57:02

him one of the best lawyers.

57:04

And the lawyer argued that

57:07

he doesn't have Egyptian citizenship

57:09

because Egypt had taken a citizenship away

57:11

because they knew he was a terrorist.

57:13

and so he needed

57:14

to enter Canada as a refugee.

57:16

It's pretty crazy now to

57:18

think post nine eleven that he actually

57:20

was approved as a refugee.

57:23

with all

57:23

these red flags, but,

57:25

you know, who knows what they were thinking? But

57:27

a part of me suspects

57:29

that the FBI were

57:31

already following him And I'll tell you why I

57:33

suspect this is because so

57:35

why is I married to him, covered

57:37

head to toe in black, never leave the

57:39

house unless I'm with him,

57:41

But then one

57:42

day my mom starts to bleed

57:44

simultaneously from her nose and her

57:46

mouth, and I call nine eleven,

57:48

and

57:49

I go with her to the hospital. This is the first

57:51

time in our entire marriage that I'm out

57:53

of the house

57:54

i'm out of the house

57:56

with him not next to me.

57:57

Mhmm. And my mom not next to me

57:59

either. I'm

57:59

alone for the very first time.

58:02

And that is when

58:04

I'm approached. by thesis, who are the Canadian

58:06

CIA. That's when they approached me. Like

58:08

immediately, in the waiting room, I thought that they

58:10

were doctors.

58:12

And I and so that's why I suspect that FBI were they

58:15

kinda, like, let him in, like,

58:17

along with thesis. They said,

58:18

okay. Go ahead. Let him into the country

58:22

and follow him and see what what he does while he's

58:24

here because I don't know

58:25

how they could have found

58:27

me so quickly

58:30

And they sat me down, and they told me who

58:32

I was married to. And I had

58:34

been lied to. I knew he was in

58:36

Afghanistan, but I've been told he

58:37

used to drive an ambulance.

58:39

He was a a peacekeeper and a

58:41

paramedic, and that's what he was doing

58:43

in Afghanistan. He was supporting the

58:46

Fghani boys that were fighting against the Russians,

58:48

training the the little kids.

58:49

And, you know, he's just a

58:51

do good humanist.

58:54

And so

58:54

I learned from

58:56

cesus who he really is and

58:59

the terrorism he was really

59:01

involved in. course,

59:02

that gives me the

59:04

kick in the butt I needed

59:06

to

59:08

get myself and

59:10

my daughter away from him. Did

59:12

you believe them immediately?

59:13

I believe them immediately. Yeah. Because

59:16

everything that all of the things that were happening, that were

59:18

making me feel suspicious

59:20

were everything

59:21

just

59:22

started to make sense, everything

59:26

just clicked. It was just, like, click, click, oh, okay. That's why this and

59:28

that's why that he was always

59:30

really

59:30

secretive. I

59:32

I

59:33

never like, go for, like, days at a time.

59:35

I didn't know where he was. And, you know, he

59:37

he would get

59:38

like, I just I I

59:40

i just i

59:41

It all made sense to

59:42

me. There was one time there was a time magazine

59:45

that had been lied in in it and

59:47

he flipped out and he's like get this out

59:49

of the house. Why is

59:50

this in your you want me to get kicked out of the

59:52

country? And I was like,

59:54

what? Why

59:54

are you having such a

59:57

reaction? Like, and then they're they showed me

59:59

a picture I've been lied in too, and

1:00:01

they're like, did were the reddish. Like, has he

1:00:03

talked about this man? And I was like, oh, my

1:00:05

god. That's the same dude in the turban that he

1:00:07

flipped out about when he saw him

1:00:09

in a magazine and just things

1:00:10

like that. And plus, it's not that hard

1:00:12

of a leap because I

1:00:15

knew that Afghanistan was

1:00:18

full of Najahuddin.

1:00:20

and And, you know, for them

1:00:22

to tell me that he was a terrorist or that he

1:00:25

was a jihadist. He was like, okay. Well,

1:00:27

that that makes sense. Right? Like, why else would

1:00:29

he have been in in Afghanistan

1:00:30

for all those years? And

1:00:32

he

1:00:33

was incredibly brutal

1:00:36

and violent with me. So the story

1:00:38

about

1:00:38

him being,

1:00:39

you know, a a paramedic and

1:00:41

A philanthropist. Yeah.

1:00:42

Like,

1:00:43

that was that was that was

1:00:45

much harder to believe. Yeah. I mean

1:00:48

so I yeah. And I I'd already

1:00:50

been wanting to get away from him anyway

1:00:52

because, like, as

1:00:54

I mentioned, to I don't know

1:00:56

if I mentioned to you on but he had been talking about getting my

1:00:59

daughter

1:00:59

taking her to Egypt to

1:01:01

get FGM performed on

1:01:04

her And I

1:01:04

knew that I needed

1:01:07

to get her out, but I

1:01:09

just didn't have the courage

1:01:11

yet to do it. Like

1:01:13

I said, was

1:01:14

a high school education, covered

1:01:16

head to toe in black, I

1:01:18

was diminished as a human.

1:01:21

And

1:01:24

so

1:01:24

it this was the catalyst

1:01:26

for me because he

1:01:27

was always talking about taking us and

1:01:30

going back to Afghanistan living at the shower where it was supposed to be this

1:01:32

little paradise. And

1:01:34

so

1:01:35

learning about

1:01:37

who he was really

1:01:39

pushed me to to get us

1:01:41

out of

1:01:43

there. Mhmm. And so how

1:01:45

did you get

1:01:46

out And what's happened to him? So

1:01:48

I initially

1:01:50

I

1:01:50

detailed this in my book because

1:01:51

it's a very

1:01:54

long convoluted detailed story,

1:01:56

that but I

1:01:59

end up

1:01:59

secretly getting

1:02:01

to a lawyer

1:02:04

and asking Okay. So I because I have to explain a little bit about how I

1:02:06

secretly did it. So I'm

1:02:08

living with

1:02:10

him and I

1:02:12

find out that I'm pregnant, so I'm

1:02:14

going for an ultrasound. And

1:02:18

then Immediately after the

1:02:20

ultrasound, I'm told you have to go to this

1:02:22

clinic and meet your doctor, and my doctor tells

1:02:24

me that the baby doesn't have a heartbeat.

1:02:26

And so I have to go for in for C surgery. Mhmm.

1:02:29

And then they tell me you're gonna go

1:02:31

under a general anesthetic you

1:02:34

have

1:02:34

I had, like, a nine month old daughter at the time. So you're gonna

1:02:36

need help with your daughter for, like, you know,

1:02:38

a day or so because you're gonna be groggy.

1:02:41

So I told him,

1:02:42

I saw this as my opportunity.

1:02:45

So it was

1:02:46

a very very emotional time

1:02:49

because I'm dealing with Oh

1:02:51

my god. My baby is dead.

1:02:53

But also,

1:02:54

oh my god, I have to

1:02:56

save the baby that's

1:02:58

alive. And so I told him,

1:03:00

I need to go to my

1:03:01

mom's house to recover for

1:03:03

a week and so that she could

1:03:05

help me with the baby. So

1:03:08

he wasn't happy

1:03:08

about it, but at the

1:03:10

same time, he

1:03:10

doesn't wanna help me with the baby. So he let

1:03:13

me go stay with my mom for a week because I

1:03:15

knew that it would be easier to

1:03:17

get away from my mom than it was to get

1:03:19

away from him.

1:03:22

So now I'm at my mom's house. She gets

1:03:24

up in the morning. She teaches at

1:03:26

the Islamic school. She's the head of the Islamic studies department

1:03:28

there. She goes to school,

1:03:29

and I immediately go through the

1:03:31

yellow pages, find

1:03:34

a lawyer, get on

1:03:35

the bus, go to the lawyer. Here I

1:03:36

am, like, full black

1:03:38

-- Mhmm. -- everything. Carry

1:03:40

my baby with me.

1:03:43

and I walk in there and the lawyer

1:03:45

was just like she's just like an

1:03:47

angel. She I I went to her

1:03:49

and I said, I need full custody, I need a restraining

1:03:51

order, and I need a divorce. And you

1:03:53

can't call me, you can't

1:03:55

contact me. And she was just

1:03:57

like, right away, like, yes, absolutely done.

1:03:59

Give me all the information you

1:04:02

have. We're gonna get

1:04:04

this done.

1:04:05

and she did. And

1:04:07

so

1:04:07

I she couldn't contact me, but

1:04:10

I contacted her to make sure

1:04:12

that, you

1:04:12

know, he was everything was gonna be okay

1:04:14

and he was gonna be served for the divorce papers.

1:04:17

How come you didn't

1:04:18

contact the police authorities who had

1:04:21

first made contact with you?

1:04:23

with

1:04:23

thesis. Yeah.

1:04:24

I had no

1:04:25

way of contacting them. They were

1:04:27

contacting me. Mhmm.

1:04:28

And so I wanted to

1:04:31

I just

1:04:31

this was like a little window

1:04:33

of opportunity that I I didn't

1:04:35

even foresee. Yeah. So I just

1:04:37

wanted to grab it when it was

1:04:39

when it was there. It's kind of yeah. It

1:04:41

it was survival. It's just like

1:04:43

boom. You gotta just

1:04:45

go go go.

1:04:47

And and

1:04:49

so

1:04:49

then he ended up coming to my mom's

1:04:52

building and just screaming

1:04:55

in Arabic. you know, all

1:04:56

of these threats and give me

1:04:58

back my wife and blah blah

1:05:00

blah. So, of course, like

1:05:02

a six foot

1:05:04

four Egyptian man with long dark hair like nobody's gonna

1:05:06

open the door for him. And so

1:05:08

I called nine eleven and I'm like,

1:05:11

somebody's screaming. And they're like, yeah. Yeah. We know. We got,

1:05:13

like, twenty calls. We're on our

1:05:16

way. And

1:05:16

so they came

1:05:18

upstairs to talk to me they explain

1:05:20

to me the restraining order only keeps him away from the

1:05:22

building. But if I were ever to leave

1:05:24

the house and to go somewhere,

1:05:27

that does

1:05:28

it doesn't protect me from that. Like, because I don't

1:05:30

go to work or school or anything else. So all

1:05:32

they can do

1:05:33

is say he he's, like, a hundred and fifty

1:05:35

meters or whatever it is.

1:05:37

Radius cannot come near your

1:05:39

mom's building.

1:05:39

Is that how a restraining order works? I don't

1:05:42

know. In

1:05:42

Canada anyway. Yeah.

1:05:46

This seems to defeat

1:05:47

the purpose of a restraining order.

1:05:49

Yeah. So I basically went under,

1:05:51

like, house arrest. I arrested myself

1:05:53

and I didn't leave that house until

1:05:56

thesis contacted me

1:05:58

again and showed me a picture of him behind

1:05:59

bars in Egypt. Mhmm. And

1:06:02

then I felt like, okay, he's not gonna be lurking around the corner. I

1:06:04

can actually leave the

1:06:06

house. And that's when

1:06:07

I started to that's when

1:06:09

I got out, it started to apply to universities

1:06:11

and started my life over again. But so,

1:06:14

yeah, he ended up

1:06:16

getting imprisoned in Egypt. He was sentenced to fifteen

1:06:18

years hard labor, and that was,

1:06:20

like, almost twenty years

1:06:21

ago now. So

1:06:23

I don't know

1:06:24

if he

1:06:25

survived or if

1:06:28

got out.

1:06:28

I sincerely doubt that. I

1:06:31

don't really The the problem

1:06:32

is he was part of

1:06:34

the second

1:06:35

largest court case in Egyptian

1:06:37

history, like terrorism court case, the first

1:06:39

one being on war so that when

1:06:41

he was assassinated for trying

1:06:44

to have a peace treaty

1:06:45

with with Israel. So

1:06:47

he was killed for

1:06:50

for that. That was

1:06:51

the largest, of course, and our sums court case was the

1:06:53

second largest. So it's very high

1:06:55

profile. And that's

1:06:57

that why, whenever I

1:06:59

ask a journalist

1:07:01

to investigate for me,

1:07:03

journalists in Egypt,

1:07:05

they get themselves in trouble because they're

1:07:07

like, as soon as we start asking questions

1:07:09

about him, the secret police come to us and they're

1:07:11

like, why are you asking

1:07:14

about him? And

1:07:14

so I've never been able to get an answer about

1:07:16

where he is or if he

1:07:19

survived. But Imagine

1:07:22

Nuance spent one day in

1:07:24

the prison that our son was supposedly

1:07:27

that had if he lived spent

1:07:29

fifteen years in.

1:07:31

And that

1:07:32

one day

1:07:34

that Magna describes in his book

1:07:36

radical makes

1:07:38

me suspect that I saw them probably didn't last fifteen

1:07:40

years. Mhmm. because it's a it's

1:07:42

a very it's

1:07:42

a very harsh

1:07:44

place. Right.

1:07:46

Right.

1:07:47

Yeah. That's not where Majid was for four years. No. In Egypt?

1:07:49

No. because he had a British

1:07:50

passport, so

1:07:51

they moved him out. into

1:07:54

the other one. Right. So that, you know,

1:07:56

they they have two systems. Right? There's

1:07:58

the the regular

1:07:59

one that

1:08:01

that the rest of

1:08:02

the world sees. And then

1:08:04

there's the secret police and the secret prisons

1:08:06

and,

1:08:06

you know -- Yeah. -- the government ones.

1:08:08

one Well, so

1:08:10

now you're

1:08:12

out and you're free and

1:08:14

you're getting educated, then what caused

1:08:16

you to take the

1:08:19

additional step of being a vocal proponent

1:08:21

of western values

1:08:23

among

1:08:24

westerners who don't

1:08:26

wanna hear about western values.

1:08:28

So I,

1:08:29

you know, I took a history of religions course about,

1:08:31

you know, fifteen years ago, then that

1:08:34

was the first threads that helps me to unravel everything.

1:08:37

And for a long

1:08:39

time,

1:08:39

I was like, oh, I'm

1:08:41

a Muslim, but I'm

1:08:42

not practicing, and it was oh,

1:08:46

I'm spiritual, but I'm not religious. And, you know, I went through all of these different iterations.

1:08:48

i went through all of these different iterations

1:08:52

And

1:08:52

I

1:08:53

was just going through my own personal journey

1:08:55

of growth and and figuring out who I was and

1:09:00

And it wasn't

1:09:01

until the

1:09:02

Bill Mar episode with you

1:09:04

and

1:09:07

Ben Affleck. that just

1:09:08

brought everything. Like, it

1:09:09

just it was like

1:09:11

this little just it was like this little

1:09:14

perfect

1:09:15

microcosm of of

1:09:17

everything right

1:09:18

there. And I

1:09:20

was sitting there watching

1:09:23

it feeling like Ellen

1:09:24

in that episode of Seinfeld

1:09:26

when everybody was like eating chocolate

1:09:29

bars and donuts with a knife and fork, and she

1:09:31

stands up, but she's like, have you all gone mad?

1:09:33

Sure. Like, that's literally how I felt.

1:09:36

Like, everybody on like, all

1:09:38

my Facebook friends and stuff

1:09:40

are like, celebrating

1:09:40

Ben Affleck. And they're like, oh, yeah. That racist

1:09:42

guy, Sam Harris. And I was just like, what

1:09:44

planet am I living on?

1:09:46

What

1:09:47

is wrong with you people

1:09:50

and it it made me feel like

1:09:51

I needed to speak out. You

1:09:53

know,

1:09:56

everybody's criticism

1:09:58

of you was mainly

1:10:00

that you're American and that you're

1:10:02

white skinned and that you're a

1:10:04

man. And so

1:10:05

I'm like, okay. I am Arab

1:10:07

with brown skin and a woman, and I'm saying

1:10:09

the exact same thing that he's saying.

1:10:11

Mhmm. So maybe

1:10:14

you'll now have to respond to the actual message

1:10:17

versus stopping

1:10:18

vs like,

1:10:20

not even listening to

1:10:23

the message. because you can't get past the identity of the person

1:10:25

that is speaking the message. You

1:10:27

know, I'm from

1:10:30

that world So I knew that it was gonna be a huge risk

1:10:32

and it was gonna be, you know, I had

1:10:34

changed my name. I had changed my

1:10:37

daughter's name. We had

1:10:39

moved. Like, I was afraid for

1:10:41

my life already. But so when

1:10:43

I first started out,

1:10:44

I

1:10:47

was anonymous. And I wanted to just write my book just

1:10:48

to sort of throw it

1:10:50

out there and say, here is

1:10:52

here

1:10:53

a perspective that you're missing. you know, I've

1:10:55

got one foot in this

1:10:56

culture and one foot in that

1:10:58

culture and I'm able to

1:11:00

let

1:11:00

you

1:11:03

guys know what the miscommunication

1:11:04

here is. Please listen to me. Here's my

1:11:06

book, read it, and then just kind of keep

1:11:09

myself at arm's length. but that didn't last

1:11:11

very long. As soon as I

1:11:14

started to speak out, I was

1:11:16

immediately contacted

1:11:19

by so many people

1:11:21

all over the world

1:11:23

that relating to my

1:11:25

story. And then I started to

1:11:28

feel ashamed that here I am in

1:11:30

a free western democracy, afraid to put

1:11:32

my face up and afraid to

1:11:34

be vocal when there's people in Pakistan that are

1:11:37

like being killed, there's people that

1:11:39

are being, you know,

1:11:41

hacked to death in the streets of

1:11:43

Bangladesh. And and then here I am in Canada saying,

1:11:46

I don't wanna put my name and

1:11:47

face out there.

1:11:48

name and face out there

1:11:50

So

1:11:50

though basically, they

1:11:52

were asking me

1:11:54

to be their voice.

1:11:57

Like, I I can say it. They can't.

1:11:59

Please say it for us. And so then I started to do that. And of

1:11:59

course, as soon

1:12:01

as I started to

1:12:03

do that, I started

1:12:05

getting attacked by my own people. The Liberals in the West that and

1:12:07

and that was surprising

1:12:08

to

1:12:12

me I mean, I

1:12:13

saw it happen to you and I knew that that was

1:12:15

that that was

1:12:17

that that was a possibility

1:12:20

a but

1:12:20

I really wasn't expecting it

1:12:22

to be as vicious as it was. I'm I'm expecting and

1:12:27

I'm prepared for all of the viciousness

1:12:30

coming from the Muslim community. Of course, they're gonna hate me.

1:12:32

I'm speaking out against

1:12:34

their religion that they hold

1:12:36

dear. And

1:12:38

so that

1:12:39

made sense to me.

1:12:41

And

1:12:41

they're indoctrinated, and I was that,

1:12:43

so I I get that.

1:12:45

but I didn't, you know, when

1:12:47

it comes from the left, when it then I zero patience for

1:12:49

it. I have no,

1:12:51

like, no tolerance I

1:12:54

it just gets me, like, from zero to

1:12:56

sixty right away -- Mhmm. -- because

1:12:59

it makes zero sense to me

1:13:01

and And it's really hurtful. I think that's the

1:13:03

bottom line is it really hurts because

1:13:07

the curve I

1:13:08

when I was

1:13:10

a Muslim, when I was

1:13:12

a fundamentalist

1:13:13

Muslim, I believed in

1:13:15

all of the or

1:13:17

I was taught

1:13:18

all of these right wing extremist talking points. Right?

1:13:21

I was

1:13:24

taught about antisemitism. I was taught to

1:13:26

hate Jews. I was taught to hate

1:13:27

gay people. I was taught that

1:13:29

women are less

1:13:32

than men. I was taught all of

1:13:34

these things and for me to risk

1:13:36

my life and risk my daughter's life

1:13:38

and fight tooth and nail, to

1:13:40

get out of that world

1:13:42

and come into the light and leave the darkness

1:13:47

behind. And then to start to have

1:13:49

people in the light attack

1:13:51

me

1:13:51

was it

1:13:53

it's just It's just a

1:13:55

betrayal. It just felt it's just

1:13:57

really painful. Mhmm. I don't know how

1:13:59

to

1:13:59

reconcile that. Like, that still

1:14:02

makes me really sad whenever

1:14:03

that happens?

1:14:04

Yeah. We were

1:14:05

talking last night. We

1:14:06

had dinner last night with Megan

1:14:10

Phelps Roper who was also just recently on

1:14:11

the podcast, has a bookout,

1:14:14

unfollow about her experience

1:14:16

in the Westworld Baptist

1:14:18

Church and her experience leaving it

1:14:20

and

1:14:21

it's fascinating and instructive to

1:14:23

see how differently

1:14:26

how

1:14:27

your risk responded

1:14:29

to you. You you essentially have the same

1:14:31

story. I mean, your your story is one of greater abuse

1:14:33

and

1:14:34

greater danger,

1:14:35

but it's it's

1:14:38

still the it's the same story of, you know, you two little

1:14:41

girls get

1:14:43

indoctrinated into cults.

1:14:45

and

1:14:46

managed to get out based on their own courage and insight.

1:14:48

And

1:14:49

courage and inside

1:14:51

and you you

1:14:53

guys could not be more

1:14:55

similar in all

1:14:55

of the relevant variables. And yet in

1:14:57

and yet

1:14:58

her case, she's repudiating most extreme

1:15:01

form of fundamentalist Christianity.

1:15:03

And because that is

1:15:05

the orthodoxy she's

1:15:08

pushing against, it

1:15:10

checks all of the boxes on the left if this is this is all good. Right? You just got angry white man

1:15:13

grandfather, religious maniac,

1:15:16

Christian, homophobia, if

1:15:19

you're burning all that down and coming over

1:15:21

to the left, there there's

1:15:23

no problem. And

1:15:24

there's no problem and

1:15:26

yet you

1:15:27

because you're repudiated

1:15:29

Islam, again, all the

1:15:31

scary details

1:15:32

are amplified in

1:15:34

your case. you try to port

1:15:35

that over to the left

1:15:38

and the ethical intuitions

1:15:39

get all scrambled.

1:15:42

There's

1:15:42

this scrambling device of leftist

1:15:44

politics that manages to

1:15:45

make up, down, and down, up

1:15:48

-- Yep. -- here, and

1:15:49

it's

1:15:50

really interesting to see. And, you know, I think you and Meghan could have a great conversation, but you

1:15:52

know -- Mhmm. -- together, that

1:15:54

would be a very interesting event because

1:15:56

to

1:16:00

have that,

1:16:00

like, as a public event

1:16:02

with with Megan and and to

1:16:05

to

1:16:06

compare, you know, how

1:16:08

like

1:16:08

you just said, how the

1:16:10

two of us had very similar experiences growing up. But, you know,

1:16:12

Meghan

1:16:13

feels badly

1:16:14

about the fact that

1:16:18

she is, you know, celebrated and

1:16:20

revered that she left essentially her

1:16:22

family. Right? Like, it's just a

1:16:24

group of less

1:16:25

than a hundred

1:16:27

people, whereas I as she, you know, I've

1:16:29

been

1:16:29

through similar

1:16:31

stuff

1:16:31

as her, but

1:16:34

Of course,

1:16:34

it was a much bigger hurdle getting away

1:16:36

from a much larger, much

1:16:39

more powerful group. So

1:16:40

this is not like, I

1:16:42

I feel like I grateful and

1:16:44

happy that people are celebrating

1:16:46

Meghan, and she absolutely deserves to

1:16:51

be celebrated. for what she has done and what she is doing.

1:16:53

But I get that

1:16:55

same feeling that

1:16:58

I got from that

1:17:00

judge when the world on

1:17:02

the left is

1:17:03

basically saying,

1:17:08

we support and love and

1:17:10

celebrate Meghan because of what she has done, but you

1:17:12

are a horrible bigot

1:17:13

and we're gonna

1:17:15

try and silence you

1:17:17

on,

1:17:18

you know, whether it's Amazon

1:17:20

or Facebook or Twitter or wherever I try

1:17:22

to speak, I'm being mass reported and demonized

1:17:26

And,

1:17:26

you know, somebody like Jake Tapper tries to

1:17:28

retweet me.

1:17:29

And all of a sudden, these

1:17:31

people are telling

1:17:32

him what big

1:17:34

it. I am and how I'm at, like, a Nazi supporting KKK member or whatever

1:17:36

bullshit they come up with. Well,

1:17:38

this is what's amazing and and

1:17:41

not appreciated

1:17:44

by will intentioned people,

1:17:45

so that there's a systematic

1:17:47

nature to this. And part

1:17:49

of it is just that

1:17:51

you have a very large Muslim community who will

1:17:53

kind of spam the world

1:17:55

in in repudiation of any

1:17:57

rational sound of the sort

1:17:59

that

1:17:59

you're making So when you get

1:18:02

on Twitter, when you get on some

1:18:04

when you're interviewed on somebody

1:18:05

else's YouTube show, say, they will get demonetized by

1:18:07

talking to Immediately. Yeah.

1:18:10

And it's and it's part of it and it may

1:18:12

be algorithmic. It may just be the fact that if

1:18:15

you get enough people reporting something Google

1:18:17

or or Twitter or or any platform will just flag it, you know, shut it

1:18:20

down just to try

1:18:22

to figure out what's happening.

1:18:25

But,

1:18:25

you know,

1:18:26

I've had to get

1:18:28

you reinstated on Twitter twice, I think. Yes. Right.

1:18:30

Yeah. Because if someone, you know, some white woke

1:18:32

millennial

1:18:35

over there can't figure out what's going on. They they see,

1:18:37

you know, your tweets and someone's reported

1:18:40

them. And they just

1:18:41

again, they can't do

1:18:44

the arithmetic. Yeah.

1:18:44

And it it it that

1:18:46

same hurt, that

1:18:46

same sense of betrayal from when I

1:18:49

was the

1:18:49

kid, and the judge

1:18:52

telling me your experience

1:18:54

doesn't matter, your pain, doesn't

1:18:56

matter, matter your

1:18:58

pain doesn't matter is

1:19:00

the same feeling I'm

1:19:02

getting. Now, it's just being on a much, much

1:19:03

larger scale.

1:19:05

a much much larger scale

1:19:07

And

1:19:07

it it is so,

1:19:09

you know, it's

1:19:11

not just hurtful

1:19:12

for me on a

1:19:14

personal level But it's hurtful

1:19:15

because I am trying to speak

1:19:18

up. I'm free. I'm happy. I'm

1:19:21

golden. Right? I'm married to

1:19:23

a wonderful man. We have another daughter together.

1:19:25

I have two great kids. I

1:19:27

have a, you know, tenure

1:19:29

position as a college

1:19:31

professor. I'm good. I could just

1:19:34

go on with my life and just live it happily

1:19:35

and not care about any of anything.

1:19:40

but

1:19:40

I feel compelled to speak up because

1:19:42

of, like I mentioned, all of these people

1:19:44

that have been contacting me

1:19:46

from all over the world

1:19:49

telling me you can be our voice. You

1:19:50

know? I tried to take a break from Twitter and I have women

1:19:52

from Iran writing to me

1:19:54

saying no, don't do it Yeah.

1:19:58

You know, we need you.

1:20:00

Just, you know, go meditate or something

1:20:02

and get back on. I have a

1:20:05

responsibility. And so that's why

1:20:06

it hurts so extra much

1:20:08

is because I'm not just speaking up

1:20:10

for me. I'm speaking up for all

1:20:13

of these people. So when you

1:20:15

silence me, you're silencing all people as well. Mhmm. And when

1:20:17

you're ignoring me, you're ignoring all those people

1:20:19

as well. And

1:20:20

so I feel

1:20:23

like I'm failing them. And

1:20:24

and that's why I get that's

1:20:26

why I get so upset about it. Mhmm. Yeah.

1:20:28

Well, That's

1:20:31

why you're one of my

1:20:31

heroes. It's so great to finally get you

1:20:34

on the podcast. It was an absolute

1:20:36

honor

1:20:38

than Thank you so

1:20:39

much for inviting me.