Speaker 1: So today, it's great to have Ion Hersey Ali on
Speaker 1: the podcast. Ion is a research fellow at the Hoover Institution,
Speaker 1: Stanford University and founder of the age A Foundation. She
Speaker 1: has written several books, including Infidel Nomad, From Islam to America,
Speaker 1: A personal journey through the Clash of Civilizations, Heretic, Why
Speaker 1: Islam Needs a Reformation Now, and The Challenge of Dalla.
Speaker 1: Her latest book, Prey, was published by HarperCollins in twenty twenty.
Speaker 1: In two thousand and five, Ion was named by Time
Speaker 1: magazine as one of the one hundred most Influential people
Speaker 1: in the world. Ion, so great to chat with you today, Scott,
Speaker 1: thank you very much for having me on. Well, now
Speaker 1: you've done I imagine quite a bit of podcast interviews
Speaker 1: for your new book, and you must be exhausted from talking. Well,
Speaker 1: first of all, you must be exhausted from the interviews,
Speaker 1: but you also also must be exhausted telling your story,
Speaker 1: your life story, over and over and over again. I'd
Speaker 1: love to maybe we can get some new stuff out
Speaker 1: of you today. You know, who knows what's going to
Speaker 1: emerge because I know how it goes with these interviews.
Speaker 1: You're you're a rebel right. I mean, you're I want
Speaker 1: what I want, really want to understand as and you
Speaker 1: might disagree with it with that characterizations as a rebel,
Speaker 1: and I'd love I'd love to hear that, you know,
Speaker 1: as a psychologist, and this is the psychology podcast, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm always very interested in, like what the sort of
Speaker 1: personality character structure was that that led someone to be
Speaker 1: able to take such stands as you've taken in your life,
Speaker 1: and to uh take such unpopular stands, stands that could
Speaker 1: even put your life in jeopardy. Were you like really
Speaker 1: young in child, because I know you're born in Somalia,
Speaker 1: Is that's right? You know, yeah, I was born. Well,
Speaker 1: you know, what were you like as a really young child?
Speaker 1: Were you Were you constantly questioning things? Or was that
Speaker 1: only happening sort of in your teenage years when you
Speaker 1: started to question? Is you know what were you like
Speaker 1: earlier than that? I would say I wasn't constantly questioning things.
Speaker 1: But I did grow up, you know, time in Somalia.
Speaker 1: I don't really remember that much about it. Then we
Speaker 1: went to Saudi Arabia, we went to Ethiopia. So by
Speaker 1: the time I get to Kenya with my family, I'm
Speaker 1: ten years old, and having been exposed to those different cultures,
Speaker 1: you know, it's quite obvious even to a child that
Speaker 1: Somali is very different from Saudi Arabia, and Saudi Arabia
Speaker 1: is actually different from anywhere anybody has ever been to.
Speaker 1: And then when we go to Ethiopia, again the difference
Speaker 1: is striking. I mean, Ethiopia would call back in the
Speaker 1: day it was regarded as a Christian country. There were
Speaker 1: Muslim minorities, most of them Somali's. But really I wanted
Speaker 1: to say, of all the countries that I have been to,
Speaker 1: Ethiopia might be the closest to what you would call Western.
Speaker 1: But again I was very little, so I might go
Speaker 1: there today and think differently. And then in Kenya, that's
Speaker 1: where I went to school, from middle school to high school,
Speaker 1: and my classmates came from different parts of Africa, different
Speaker 1: parts of the world, So again exposed to different cultures.
Speaker 1: Now was I constantly questioning everything? I sort of see
Speaker 1: myself as the average kid. Most of my classmates and
Speaker 1: age mates had the exact same questions. Maybe the only
Speaker 1: difference is that they whispered it to one another and
Speaker 1: were more mindful of the trouble you would get into
Speaker 1: and actually some of them would warn me and say,
Speaker 1: you know, stop it, because you'll just get yourself beaten.
Speaker 1: You'll just get yourself punished. It's pointless. So the asking
Speaker 1: of questions wasn't something that was encouraged. But it's not
Speaker 1: something that I can lay soul claim to. I mean,
Speaker 1: everyone had the exact same questions I had. We saw
Speaker 1: the way that voice were treated was very different from
Speaker 1: the way we were treated. The freedoms that they were given,
Speaker 1: that was deprived. We were deprived of those freedoms. And
Speaker 1: if you asked questions about why I think so asymmetrical,
Speaker 1: why I think so different, then the answer was always
Speaker 1: the same, which was its God's will. And you can't
Speaker 1: argue with God's will. Things are just as they are.
Speaker 1: And my parents, my teachers, the adults in our society,
Speaker 1: they thought it as their duty to make you accept
Speaker 1: things as they are, not question and change. And you
Speaker 1: had some quite traumatic aspects of your childhood. You underwent
Speaker 1: general mutilation at age five, is that right? I underwent
Speaker 1: gentle mutilation at the age of five, But again that
Speaker 1: was the norm. So every girl I know knew underwent
Speaker 1: that and later on as grown up. When I was
Speaker 1: in the Netherlands and I listened to people condemn it,
Speaker 1: there was a time when I thought, maybe this is
Speaker 1: something that just my cland as or my country, and
Speaker 1: started looking up the figures of the World Health Organization
Speaker 1: of the United Nations, and it so happens that countries
Speaker 1: like Egypt, it's ninety seven percent of women, Sudan, Somalia, Eritrea,
Speaker 1: We're talking about all of these countries, over ninety five percent,
Speaker 1: almost one hundred percent of the girls have been subjected
Speaker 1: to this general mutilation in various forms. So again the
Speaker 1: nor nothing exceptional. But what is exceptional is that then
Speaker 1: talking to people in America parts of Europe, they see
Speaker 1: that as something that's you know, for many I mean,
Speaker 1: now there's so much intermingling. People are traveling a lot.
Speaker 1: We live in the information age, so people are familiar
Speaker 1: with these things. But in nineteen ninety two when I
Speaker 1: went to the Netherlands, it was seen as something very strange,
Speaker 1: and most people are completely ignorant of it. And when
Speaker 1: I say most people, I mean in the Netherlands in
Speaker 1: the West. So it's so amazing to me, how you know,
Speaker 1: even when you just look at colts and some of
Speaker 1: the things that just become normalized, and then when someone
Speaker 1: from the outside looks in, it's like, what the hell
Speaker 1: are you all doing? And then yeah, it's it's just
Speaker 1: fascinating me how things get normalized in these in these ways. Now,
Speaker 1: did I hear that? To hear correctly that you the
Speaker 1: general mutilation? It could have been even worse because you
Speaker 1: had it done by a man as and and it's
Speaker 1: often even worse when a woman does the general Is
Speaker 1: that right? Am I making that up? No? You're not
Speaker 1: making it up. I think I was very lucky that
Speaker 1: it was done by a man. Man usually so my brother,
Speaker 1: my sister and myself it was we call it purification
Speaker 1: if I translated the Somali word to English, who are
Speaker 1: purifying the children? So with all three of us are
Speaker 1: purified at the same time by the same person. And
Speaker 1: this to be a guy, and I think he probably was,
Speaker 1: in hindsight more familiar with cutting off voice, genitals and girls,
Speaker 1: and so I wasn't subjected to the Really it's called infibrillation,
Speaker 1: the most severe form which many girls are subjected to,
Speaker 1: and many of them die and or have to live with,
Speaker 1: you know, with effects side effects that are just too
Speaker 1: horrible to describe here. So again, it's a count your blessings,
Speaker 1: is what I would say to you know, when you're
Speaker 1: in your own mind, do you feel like you've a
Speaker 1: good idea of what values are really moving humanity in
Speaker 1: a better direction? Which ones are moving humanity in a uh,
Speaker 1: you know, worse direction, And how do you have so
Speaker 1: much confidence in that? Well, let's just go back to
Speaker 1: what you said. You said. You know, I'm a Western
Speaker 1: liberal person and when I when I come to learn
Speaker 1: about female genital mutilation, I find it horrifying. I found
Speaker 1: it horrifying as a child when it's happened to me.
Speaker 1: And all, there's no child who's going to tell you
Speaker 1: that they enjoy the experience. But what happens, and then
Speaker 1: that comes to the second part of your question is,
Speaker 1: first of all, it's explained it's ingrained in you as
Speaker 1: a child. Why the people you trust the most who
Speaker 1: say what we've just done was physically painful, but it's
Speaker 1: done for a higher reason. And so resistance to it
Speaker 1: or judging it harshly will get you nowhere, or it
Speaker 1: will get you into more trouble, because then you get
Speaker 1: to the point of being a rebel and so on.
Speaker 1: You bring shame upon your parents, you are disobeying God.
Speaker 1: Whatever argument is used to instill that value into you
Speaker 1: and for you to adopt that value system is done.
Speaker 1: But then, as an adult who gets exposed to different
Speaker 1: cultures in different settings, if you ask me to take
Speaker 1: an objective look and say, you know Western liberal culture
Speaker 1: where the physical body of the human being is protected
Speaker 1: and cherished and showered with love. I'm not saying every
Speaker 1: Western person does that, but such a value system has
Speaker 1: come about so and that's enshrined in laws, their attempts
Speaker 1: to enshrine it in treatise and so on. I personally
Speaker 1: find that superior to the value system of my parents
Speaker 1: and my clan and my bloodline and the religion in
Speaker 1: which I was raised, where all sorts of physical cruelties
Speaker 1: justified in the name of This is what God wants,
Speaker 1: this is what the Qur'an says, this is what the
Speaker 1: hadith prophet Muhammed's example. So it's I don't think it's
Speaker 1: harsh or wrong to make judgments, and I think that
Speaker 1: there are universal standards by which you can judge and
Speaker 1: can develop. But you can't do that without conflict. One
Speaker 1: of the things that I've learned over time, and I
Speaker 1: know we're going to talk about this book at some points,
Speaker 1: is some of these value here, some of these values
Speaker 1: are they cannot be reconciled, and so you're forced to
Speaker 1: make a choice. One of the things that's hard for
Speaker 1: me to understand about Western society is the line line
Speaker 1: of arguments that is embedded in the philosophy that if
Speaker 1: you are not a part of a particular culture, you
Speaker 1: have no right to make a judgment. And so you,
Speaker 1: being a white male, you have no right to judge.
Speaker 1: You have no say over whether female generally mutilation is
Speaker 1: right from horrible, good, bad. You know, I think that
Speaker 1: that is just rubbish and that's being charitable. Yeah, you can,
Speaker 1: and you should, you know, take model positions otherwise humanity
Speaker 1: and again here's maybe the short answer to the question
Speaker 1: you asked is do you first you see yourself as
Speaker 1: a human being and do you see what you have
Speaker 1: in common with other humans? Or is it the first
Speaker 1: thing that you do that you see yourself within a
Speaker 1: sub category of human beings. And if the answer is
Speaker 1: we're all human beings and surely there must be universal
Speaker 1: it's a minimum well, I certainly share those humanistic values.
Speaker 1: I consider myself a humanistic psychologist. So I'm all about
Speaker 1: trying to find the calmon humanity. I'd like to trace
Speaker 1: a little more, you know, sort of at what point
Speaker 1: did you start to become disenchanted with Islam? Because there
Speaker 1: was a point where you were a card carrying member,
Speaker 1: you know, metaphorically, but you know where you were. You
Speaker 1: know you were, you carry the Quran, you know by
Speaker 1: your side, right, and well, yes, indeed there was a
Speaker 1: time when I consulted the Koran as guidance, as a
Speaker 1: source of moral guidance for me, and I was attracted.
Speaker 1: This is around nineteen eighty five and members of the
Speaker 1: movement called the Muslim Brotherhood, which is now a worldwide
Speaker 1: movement but it originated in Egypt, came to Kenya. And
Speaker 1: there's this man I write about in my book. We
Speaker 1: call him Balsam, he who fasts one hundred days. And
Speaker 1: he came preaching, and so did a woman in my school, sisters.
Speaker 1: So these individuals came to us preaching about morality, and
Speaker 1: where do you find morality? It's all in our faith.
Speaker 1: So just calling you, identifying as a Muslim and going
Speaker 1: about your daily business wasn't enough. You had to really
Speaker 1: show that you are Muslim. So you had to consult
Speaker 1: the Qoran and the mores of the prophet Muhammad and
Speaker 1: tried to abide by that as much as possible, and
Speaker 1: to try and make other people do it, so that
Speaker 1: it's those years that I did carry the Koran around
Speaker 1: and you know, navigate. I just use the way you
Speaker 1: would use a GPS system right now, like before I
Speaker 1: make a decision or before we go to the next thing,
Speaker 1: let me fast consultancy. What does the currency? What does
Speaker 1: the prophit say? And you can imagine if you try
Speaker 1: and live your life that way, how difficult it is. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and how life becomes impossible because you're carrying around the
Speaker 1: book that came about in the seventh century and you're
Speaker 1: trying to apply it to the twentieth century. So back
Speaker 1: in nineteen eighties, that was twentieth century. So that's what
Speaker 1: I was doing. And did I rebel? No, I think
Speaker 1: I failed. I just failed to keep up with that
Speaker 1: kind of diligence and devotion and I strayed quietly away
Speaker 1: from it. And I think that's what happens to most people.
Speaker 1: Either you're so fanatical and that you go ahead and
Speaker 1: you know, live to the logic of that, what's the
Speaker 1: moral system that's in that book, or you find yourself
Speaker 1: becoming lax, hypocritical, you know, keeping up appearances for people
Speaker 1: to see how religious you are, but behind the scenes
Speaker 1: doing your own thing. So this was a sole progression.
Speaker 1: It wasn't like an overnight sort of thing. No, it
Speaker 1: wasn't an overnight think if you were to talk about
Speaker 1: on you know, a sort of a sudden change. It
Speaker 1: was for me nine to eleven, two thousand and one.
Speaker 1: And with that event, I think I was forced into
Speaker 1: I was forced out of my mental shelter where I
Speaker 1: had retreated to and decided, not really decided. I wasn't
Speaker 1: living by the Koran. I was leading the life of
Speaker 1: any Dutch woman. My friends were white Dutch people, some
Speaker 1: of them Christians, some of them atheists, some of them agnostics.
Speaker 1: But I socialized with them, I ate with them. I
Speaker 1: had a Dutch boyfriend with whom I lived. That's a
Speaker 1: violation of all things that the Quran and the profit
Speaker 1: stand for. So but I wasn't criticizing Islam. I still identified.
Speaker 1: When people ask me what is your religion? I still
Speaker 1: said I'm a Muslim. I used to have sometimes not
Speaker 1: big fights, but small fights with non Muslims when they
Speaker 1: tried to say something negative about Islam. And then nine
Speaker 1: to eleven came and I think I was forced to
Speaker 1: I can only speak for myself that I think others do,
Speaker 1: to take a stand in either supporting what these guys
Speaker 1: had done or refusing to support it, and be just
Speaker 1: as horrified as everyone else. And then it wasn't enough
Speaker 1: for me to be horrified only at the act of destruction.
Speaker 1: It is also the philosophy behind the destruction, the motivation
Speaker 1: for the destruction, And I couldn't turn away from the
Speaker 1: fact that that came from my Holy Book and my
Speaker 1: profit and religion that I was and so I had
Speaker 1: to contend with that on a personal level. And I
Speaker 1: haven't found anything since that has persuaded me to go
Speaker 1: back and identify myself as a Muslim. So I don't
Speaker 1: do you identify yourself as an atheist. I hate identifying
Speaker 1: myself as any yeah, as anything, but it is so.
Speaker 1: I don't believe in Allah, I don't believe in Muhammad.
Speaker 1: I'm not religious in the least, but I think I'm
Speaker 1: a little softer say, in terms of comparing religions, and
Speaker 1: I think Christianity as it's practiced today is much gentler
Speaker 1: than it was practiced during the Spanish Inquisition, and Islam
Speaker 1: hasn't gone through that evolution, if you will. Some people
Speaker 1: like to use the worde reformation. I don't care what
Speaker 1: word you use, but it hasn't evolved to a point
Speaker 1: where the religion does not violate basic human rights. Yeah. So,
Speaker 1: just going back to when you saw asylum in July
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety two, you escaped in arranged marriage. Is that
Speaker 1: right at age twenty two or so? Yeah, I escaped
Speaker 1: an arranged marriage and that was again just like the
Speaker 1: female gentle mutilation the norm. So that's how things work
Speaker 1: where I come from. The father is your guardian, and
Speaker 1: he decides for you who you're going to marry, and
Speaker 1: at what age and what kind of exchange takes place
Speaker 1: between him and the person that he marries you off to.
Speaker 1: That's how we do things in my clan, the country
Speaker 1: I come from, and that's exactly what he did. So
Speaker 1: I can, obviously, and I did judge him using Western standards,
Speaker 1: but if you were to judge him by Somali Muslim standards.
Speaker 1: He did the right thing, and yes, I escaped from that.
Speaker 1: It wasn't the right thing for me. I've booked at
Speaker 1: some of your critics. They say that it didn't exactly
Speaker 1: happen as you said it happened. What do you say
Speaker 1: to that? People say that that you were even at
Speaker 1: the wedding and stuff like that, I was not at
Speaker 1: the wedding and it happened, and the people who deny it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's this double standard of and I remember this, it's
Speaker 1: even my own brother who came and talked to a
Speaker 1: reporter and said she was at the wedding. The female
Speaker 1: general regulation didn't happen, And there's this sense, this double
Speaker 1: standard where he is looking at himself through the eyes
Speaker 1: of the white man who's asking him these questions, and
Speaker 1: he thinks, oh, we are being condemned, and he feels
Speaker 1: a sense of shame, and so the clifflex is to
Speaker 1: deny denial, none of these things happen. And again you
Speaker 1: see it's in any encounter between Muslim communities and non
Speaker 1: Muslim communities when these types of value judgments encounters happen,
Speaker 1: a lot of Muslims react just like my brother did,
Speaker 1: and say, what are you talking about on a don't
Speaker 1: happen here? Female genital mutilation, It doesn't happen here. No,
Speaker 1: our family doesn't do that. You know, my father was
Speaker 1: too this and to that, and so on and so forth.
Speaker 1: So that aspect of denial, I would say, is really
Speaker 1: a part of the pain that is felt by people
Speaker 1: who grew up with the religion of Islam, who take
Speaker 1: it seriously, but who also see or maybe who feel
Speaker 1: enticed by Western, Western values, the Western way of life, modernity.
Speaker 1: And there's this dance where people want to convey the
Speaker 1: message that Islam and Muslim civilization is superior to Western civilization.
Speaker 1: But at the same time there's this painful awareness that
Speaker 1: when it comes to modernity and advances in modernity, we're
Speaker 1: wofully behind. So so many people who have these practices
Speaker 1: that you criticize, you get the sense that, like, deep down,
Speaker 1: they know it's not right. You know from a that
Speaker 1: there's there's a conflict that probably a lot of people
Speaker 1: have in that religion between their practices and what they're
Speaker 1: told in condition. And you see this in lots of
Speaker 1: things and how people are raised, and there is that conflict.
Speaker 1: So I saw some interesting distinctions being made that. I
Speaker 1: don't know if you think that this is an important
Speaker 1: distinction to me, but I've seen distinctions made between Islamis,
Speaker 1: which is the political ideology, global Jihadis, which are those
Speaker 1: who the use of force to spread Islam, and that
Speaker 1: tends to be a small minority. Then the vast majority
Speaker 1: of Muslims are conservative Muslims. And then there's the Muslim
Speaker 1: reform movement, which seems different than the conservative Muslims as well.
Speaker 1: What do you say to people who say, well, we
Speaker 1: really should have that level of nuance, We shouldn't sort
Speaker 1: of decree the entire you know, because global Jihattists are
Speaker 1: really the very small minority of it all. What do
Speaker 1: you say anything like that? Well, first of all, I
Speaker 1: think I know at least one person who looks at
Speaker 1: it from that perspective, that sort of conceptual framework, and
Speaker 1: that's my Noahs. And Magic has become a friend. I
Speaker 1: remember a time when he and I were on the
Speaker 1: opposite side of the debating is when you're debating Islam.
Speaker 1: So yeah, actually it's not only Magic. Many people would
Speaker 1: like to use that framework, conceptual framework and then leave
Speaker 1: it at that. I think there is a need to
Speaker 1: go deeper. And the reason why I say that, well,
Speaker 1: number one, it is true maybe even algo fathers, it's
Speaker 1: a truism to say that it's a minority of people
Speaker 1: who organized and their objective is to bring about Islamic
Speaker 1: dominance not only on the local level, but also on
Speaker 1: the global level. So there are Islamists on the local
Speaker 1: level they want to seize power, and then they want
Speaker 1: to have the last word on all things local and
Speaker 1: sometimes it's regional. And then there's a group that think
Speaker 1: of themselves as people who are going to bring Islam
Speaker 1: to the whole world through jihad. But if you wanted
Speaker 1: to understand and be more precise about the diversity of Muslims,
Speaker 1: I prefer to use a different conceptual framework, and that
Speaker 1: would take us to the philosopher of Islam, or the
Speaker 1: founder of Islam himself, the prophet Mohammad. Maybe I choose
Speaker 1: this particular way of looking at it because I was
Speaker 1: educated in political philosophy, and maybe magic's background is in
Speaker 1: something else. And so I always think you have to
Speaker 1: go to the original texts and the original philosopher and
Speaker 1: see when people in the twenty first century invoke Mohammed,
Speaker 1: what are they saying what are they trying to convey?
Speaker 1: So if you look at Mohammed when he first comes
Speaker 1: in Mecca and he says to the people of Mecca,
Speaker 1: please come to my religion. You know, do away with
Speaker 1: your gods. This is the true and One God. For
Speaker 1: the fast ten years in Mecca, all he's doing is preach, persuade,
Speaker 1: to try to cajole. He's not using force, and at
Speaker 1: the end of ten years he's persuaded about one one
Speaker 1: hundred and fifty people to come to Islam. That's not huge.
Speaker 1: And then he moves with a small group of very
Speaker 1: devoted believers or disciples to Medina, and in Medina he
Speaker 1: takes on a different strategy and he starts to use force.
Speaker 1: So now it's not hey, Scott, would you like to
Speaker 1: come to the One God? It's if you don't, you're
Speaker 1: going to lose your head. And that approach back in
Speaker 1: that time and under those circumstances was way more effective,
Speaker 1: and a lot of people, not just in Arabia but
Speaker 1: across the planet were converted to Islam through I would
Speaker 1: say a combination of both the persuasion, which is the
Speaker 1: invitation it's called dawa, but also in mainly through force.
Speaker 1: And so if you're talking today in the twenty first
Speaker 1: century to a Muslim, how can you distinguish a fanatical
Speaker 1: Muslim who is following Mohammed's example in the jihadi sense,
Speaker 1: from a peaceful Muslim who is saying, please leave me alone.
Speaker 1: All these violent Muslims they don't speak for me. Islamis
Speaker 1: a religion of peace. I'm a peaceful person. How are
Speaker 1: you going to tell them apart? And I think the
Speaker 1: way to tell them apart is to listen very carefully
Speaker 1: to the Muhammad that's been invoked, the Mohammad that's been quoted.
Speaker 1: If it is from Mecca and to you your religion
Speaker 1: and to me mine, then that is I would call
Speaker 1: that a Meccan Muslim. You go to Medina and he's like,
Speaker 1: you know, followers of Isis al Qaeda, the minorities we've
Speaker 1: just been talking about, they are clearly invoking the prophet
Speaker 1: Mohammed's work in Medina. And not only that, the current
Speaker 1: itself says the revelations that came in Medina abrogate the
Speaker 1: revelations in Mecca. In other words, the events and the
Speaker 1: philosophy and the morality of Mecca of Medina voids Mecca.
Speaker 1: And so if you don't, if you don't take all
Speaker 1: of these nuances and all of his information into account,
Speaker 1: I think you wouldn't be able to get to a
Speaker 1: place where you have or you can't get close enough
Speaker 1: to a place where you can understand the diversity of Muslims.
Speaker 1: And then there's a third category, and Margit mentions that
Speaker 1: as well, and I work together with him to try
Speaker 1: and bring these guys out of the closet, guys and girls.
Speaker 1: And we call them reformers, modifiers, the other people who
Speaker 1: acknowledge both of these developments, what happened in Mecca and
Speaker 1: what happened in Medina. But they're not just passive about
Speaker 1: or I'm just a good peaceful Muslim And they're not
Speaker 1: actively seeking violence like the Medina Muslims. They're saying, we
Speaker 1: can actually change, modify the religion. That is very, very difficult,
Speaker 1: but they're there. And it's these reformers modifiers whom I
Speaker 1: think we should seek out and help and ally with.
Speaker 1: I mean, so, do you see certain aspects of the
Speaker 1: religion worth saving? Then well, for me, the objective is
Speaker 1: not about saving the religion. For me, the objective is
Speaker 1: about How can we get to a place where we
Speaker 1: can peacefully coexist with Muslims, respect their identity and what
Speaker 1: they value, without conceding the most basic human rights life liberty,
Speaker 1: the subjection of women, or rather the emancipation of women,
Speaker 1: gay rights. There's a lot of anti Semitism today that's
Speaker 1: driven in the name of Islamism, Like, how can we
Speaker 1: improve on these things? How can we persuade modern day
Speaker 1: Muslims to come to us our side of the argument,
Speaker 1: I don't really I don't see it as my job
Speaker 1: to save Islam or Christianity or Judaism or any other religion.
Speaker 1: I take this as sets of ideas, man made sets
Speaker 1: of ideas. Yes, some are better than others, some are
Speaker 1: more cruel than others. But if we just focus on
Speaker 1: Islam in this conversation or any other conversation where Islam
Speaker 1: is the topic, then I would say there's one Islam
Speaker 1: and three sets of Muslims. And I describe it fully
Speaker 1: in my book Heretic, and I'm open to criticism. I'm
Speaker 1: sure that people who can come up with even better,
Speaker 1: even more precise, conceptual frameworks which work in practice. But
Speaker 1: that's how I see it. Yeah, I mean it gets
Speaker 1: tricky because whenever you take and whenever you generalize to
Speaker 1: a whole group that doesn't pertain ter everyone in the group,
Speaker 1: you always run the risk of speaking for people that
Speaker 1: don't want to be spoken for. You've been called in
Speaker 1: my research with you, working into you and preparing for
Speaker 1: this interview, I've seen you've been called an isamophobe. You've
Speaker 1: been called an anti Muslim extremist, and you've been called
Speaker 1: a Muslim hater. Now, I mean, do you not see
Speaker 1: it that way in the sense of, you know, you
Speaker 1: don't think you're being an islamophobe by speaking, you know,
Speaker 1: for Islam in a general fashion. Can you kind of
Speaker 1: defend yourself here a moment against that claim of islamophobe. Well,
Speaker 1: it depends on who's making the claim. Sometimes the claim
Speaker 1: is made by someone who's trying to proselytize, trying to
Speaker 1: make Muslims who are not really active or not really
Speaker 1: persuaded to be more, to practice more, or to devote
Speaker 1: themselves to jihad and things like that. And if the
Speaker 1: objective of the person who's calling me an islamophobe is
Speaker 1: to persuade those people, and even one step father, there
Speaker 1: are people who at this right now in the US
Speaker 1: are trying to convert non Muslims into Islam. If people
Speaker 1: like me come along and say, wait a second, in
Speaker 1: the name of Islam, all of this violence takes place
Speaker 1: that person would call me and is loam for because
Speaker 1: it's really just a way of a distracting and trying
Speaker 1: to silence anyone who criticizes Islam, because the more people
Speaker 1: look at Islam critically, the less they tend to abide
Speaker 1: by It's. In fact, today one of the great phenomena
Speaker 1: we are seeing is so many people who identify as
Speaker 1: Muslim are leaving Islam. Very interesting, that is really interesting.
Speaker 1: Do you know what percentages that do? You? You know
Speaker 1: what it's First of all, I want to tell you
Speaker 1: it's very difficult to come by percentages because it's not
Speaker 1: the sort of thing that you advertise. Just imagine the
Speaker 1: consequences if people started to say I'm not a Muslim.
Speaker 1: But because of the Internet, I think there is a
Speaker 1: way of looking at it and making estimates. And there's
Speaker 1: one estimate it was published in the Wall Street Journal,
Speaker 1: of about one hundred thousand people who call themselves Muslim
Speaker 1: leaving Islam today in America alone. But in the same
Speaker 1: article I think it was by Daniel Pipes. In the
Speaker 1: same article, he also said there are one hundred thousand
Speaker 1: people who are non Muslim who convert to Islam. So
Speaker 1: the effort to convert people to Islam continues, and that
Speaker 1: is why it's important to know who is making the
Speaker 1: accusation islamo fork or Islam hater or who are these people.
Speaker 1: I've also been called an islam hater or a traitor
Speaker 1: by people who say, you know, their feelings get hurt.
Speaker 1: They're not converting anyone, They're just sincere Muslims, but they
Speaker 1: don't like anything negative said about Islam. And what I
Speaker 1: say about Islam in their ears is not critical or
Speaker 1: critical thinking. It's just negative. And so those might also
Speaker 1: call me names. I mean, given the just the sheer
Speaker 1: amount of violence that is perpetrated today on the planet
Speaker 1: by people invoking the prophet Muhammad and people invoking the
Speaker 1: Holy Quran, I think it is inevitable that we have
Speaker 1: to discuss Islam, think about it, analyze it dissected, regardless
Speaker 1: of what accusations people make, and regardless of whose feelings
Speaker 1: get hurt. Because on the one hand, we are talking
Speaker 1: about feelings on the other hand, we are talking about
Speaker 1: people being beheaded, enslave, you know, whole swords of countries
Speaker 1: and territories being made unstable, women raped systematically. These are
Speaker 1: big things. These are huge violations of human rights. And
Speaker 1: if your only opposition is to say, my feelings are
Speaker 1: getting hurt, then I would advise those people maybe to
Speaker 1: ignore people like me and not pick up my work
Speaker 1: or not listen to me. It's up to them. We
Speaker 1: have that freedom, but we will continue to try and
Speaker 1: understand this phenomenon so that we can come up with
Speaker 1: ways of stopping the violence. Yeah, you have a trigger
Speaker 1: warning in your book right at the beginning where you
Speaker 1: say you will be triggered, you know, something along those
Speaker 1: signes because you want, well, you want people to engage
Speaker 1: in this conversation, which is inherently uncomfortable because of the
Speaker 1: natural conflicts that arise. Something that's just so interesting to
Speaker 1: me about all of this is that someone you know
Speaker 1: who didn't ask to be born, you know in Somalia,
Speaker 1: you know, didn't ask to uh to be you know,
Speaker 1: it's not like you know, they were ever given a choice.
Speaker 1: You must believe in Islam. And then they say, you
Speaker 1: know what I I think I'm good, I'm gonna I'm
Speaker 1: going to go to Christianity or something they can get
Speaker 1: in really serious trouble. It just seems it seems inhumane
Speaker 1: to me. And yet, of course that's our universal reality
Speaker 1: is none of us knew or had any say of
Speaker 1: where they were going to be born and what the
Speaker 1: future holds for them. When I came to the Netherlands,
Speaker 1: size fascinated by that country and why it was so
Speaker 1: wealthy and peaceful, and why people were so good to
Speaker 1: strangers and meaning strangers. I mean, I thought of myself
Speaker 1: as a stranger when I fast went there, and I
Speaker 1: obviously it was curious as to why they were showering
Speaker 1: me with so much kindness and generosity. And you know,
Speaker 1: that sparked my curiosity to dig into what made the
Speaker 1: Netherlands what it is and what makes Somalia what it is.
Speaker 1: And we started with you and I this conversation. We
Speaker 1: started it with trying to compare value systems. And so
Speaker 1: then I came to the conclusion, whatever they're doing in
Speaker 1: the Netherlands, that's right, and it's a model. And if
Speaker 1: I had the power to export it to the countries
Speaker 1: where there is political turmoil, and economic turmoil and all
Speaker 1: sorts of violations of human rights. I would take some
Speaker 1: of these Western models and try and transplant them there.
Speaker 1: Obviously I don't have the power to do that, and
Speaker 1: I know these things take a very long time, But
Speaker 1: as we encounter one another people from different parts of
Speaker 1: the world, I think these are the sorts of conversations
Speaker 1: we should be having. Not say, oh, if you're born
Speaker 1: in Switzerland in your life is amazing, you have no
Speaker 1: right to say anything about a person who's born in Somalia,
Speaker 1: and vice versa. I think we should do the exact opposite,
Speaker 1: because once upon a time, Switzerland and Holland and England
Speaker 1: and all of these countries that are now in relative
Speaker 1: wealth actually very violent places. But somehow they evolved, and
Speaker 1: it's good to take note of that history and see
Speaker 1: if our own violent societies, like the Somalias of this world,
Speaker 1: can evolve and become peaceful places. I just want to
Speaker 1: reflect for a moment, say that this. I'm really enjoying
Speaker 1: this conversation. I'm actually learning a lot in the past
Speaker 1: forty five minutes then a lot of my episodes combined,
Speaker 1: So thank you so much for enlightening me. You just
Speaker 1: got me thinking, like, so you live in America right now?
Speaker 1: Is that right? Yes? What are your thoughts on like
Speaker 1: a modern American femine? And this is obviously a big
Speaker 1: question in itself, but coming from you know, you care
Speaker 1: deeply about human rights, you care about women's rights. Do
Speaker 1: you think do you have any criticisms of sort of
Speaker 1: the prominent flavor of modern of feminist in America? You
Speaker 1: think they're not going about women's rights in the way
Speaker 1: that that's even best for women. I mean, have you
Speaker 1: what are your thoughts on that? Well, I'll tell you yes. Obviously.
Speaker 1: Sometimes I'm frustrated by some of the outputs of feminists,
Speaker 1: especially these gender studies, feminists who have been through these
Speaker 1: gender studies, modern day gender studies, And I think that
Speaker 1: some feminists are preoccupied with issues that for me are
Speaker 1: not a priority, but I understand why it is a
Speaker 1: priority for them. And then I think we have avoid
Speaker 1: there are very few women who call themselves femanists who
Speaker 1: are actually speaking for women who are in a very
Speaker 1: bad place. So this afternoon, before I came to speak
Speaker 1: to you, I was asked about Women's International Women Today,
Speaker 1: which is about five days from today, and you know
Speaker 1: who are the women we should be talking about right now.
Speaker 1: If again, if I had any say, and I don't
Speaker 1: not that much, I would say right now, I would
Speaker 1: prioritize the community of Wigas who are being held in China,
Speaker 1: the wigger women who are being systematically raped and forced
Speaker 1: into sterilization. You know, all of feminists should come together
Speaker 1: and say this is something that should not be happening
Speaker 1: in the twenty first century and demand from our governments
Speaker 1: that they take whatever diplomatic, economic, whatever steps that they
Speaker 1: can take to try and address that situation and bend
Speaker 1: the will of the Party of China to release those
Speaker 1: who and grant them their freedom and their dignity. Stop
Speaker 1: the sterilization, stop the genocide. I would talk about, you know,
Speaker 1: the masses and masses of Yazidi women and other non
Speaker 1: Muslim women who are humiliated and terrorized on a daily
Speaker 1: basis because they adhere to a different religion. Inside America
Speaker 1: and Western societies, there's this whole thing about human trafficking,
Speaker 1: most of which men and boys are trafficked, but mostly
Speaker 1: it's girls, little girls and women who are trafficked into
Speaker 1: and as seen as commodities taken away from taking from
Speaker 1: place to place for sex and sold into sex slavery,
Speaker 1: we should be taught. I think these things are just horrifying.
Speaker 1: They're as bad and as horrible as the slave trade.
Speaker 1: And as feminists, these should be our top priorities. If
Speaker 1: you want to talk about the glass ceiling, you want
Speaker 1: to see more female members on boards, if you want
Speaker 1: your fas American female president, you know what, that's fine,
Speaker 1: go for it. I would sort of flip the priorities.
Speaker 1: And I would also every time we make an achievement,
Speaker 1: you know, that makes me think, look, we've had so
Speaker 1: many female leaders, let's check that box. Now, let's go
Speaker 1: back and help these women who have nothing to say
Speaker 1: about their lives and those who have been mass you know,
Speaker 1: killed and raped and sterilized and just subjected to these
Speaker 1: horrific acts. Thank you for bringing attention to these really
Speaker 1: important issues as well. I mean, you identify yourself as
Speaker 1: a feminist, surely, I mean you don't identify yourself with anything. Yeah, no,
Speaker 1: of course I identify myself as a feminist. But it
Speaker 1: is because I understand feminism to me someone who seeks
Speaker 1: for women to be equal before the law, and if necessary,
Speaker 1: to change those laws so that that equality before the
Speaker 1: law is achieved for all women. I'm not the type
Speaker 1: of feminist who tries to bring about equal outcomes. I
Speaker 1: think that's a very very dangerous path to go down.
Speaker 1: And the people we call woke these days, the critical
Speaker 1: raised theorists, the critical justice theorists, when they talk about
Speaker 1: they've stopped talking about equality. They now talk about equity
Speaker 1: and it's all about equal outcomes. Again, very dangerous. You
Speaker 1: talk here to pursue. But unfortunately that is when modern
Speaker 1: day feminists find themselves. So it's good to clear the confusion. Yeah,
Speaker 1: oh I agree. I mean, you're a real humanitarian, thank you.
Speaker 1: But there are so many others. There are lots and
Speaker 1: lots of people who are, oh sure, doing a much
Speaker 1: better job than I am doing. But yeah, these are
Speaker 1: the questions. Ver So if you you know, are you
Speaker 1: a feminist? Of course, I'm a feminist, and so are you.
Speaker 1: Anybody who thinks that men and women are equal before
Speaker 1: the lawyer and deserve equal treatment, equal respect, dignity. Everyone
Speaker 1: thinks that acts on those premise disease a feminist. Okay,
Speaker 1: so let's talk about your book in the last two
Speaker 1: minutes of our conversation today. But I do want to
Speaker 1: get some of these ideas in there. You know you
Speaker 1: taught discussing your book various Well, first of all, there
Speaker 1: are various potential causes for violence against women in Europe
Speaker 1: outside of immigration specific issues. I'm just curious why in
Speaker 1: your new book you decide to focus on the particular
Speaker 1: demographic mainly, you know, men from particular countries. In your
Speaker 1: decree against rising rates of sexual assault toward women, I
Speaker 1: was just wondring why you focused on that in particular.
Speaker 1: So I think the first reason is scale. It is
Speaker 1: just the sheer number of attacks and the fact that
Speaker 1: they're going to increase. Those attacks are going to increase
Speaker 1: because the number of men coming from Muslim majority countries
Speaker 1: is going to increase, not only through immigration but also
Speaker 1: through birth, et cetera. Having said that, I really want
Speaker 1: to make it very very clear that not all Uslim
Speaker 1: men engage in sexual violence or have contempt for women.
Speaker 1: There are lots of Muslim men, some of whom I
Speaker 1: have spoken to for this book, who are completely assimilated
Speaker 1: into the European society that they've come to a full
Speaker 1: of respects for women and would never do any such things.
Speaker 1: The second reason why I focus on this particular group
Speaker 1: is because far right and populist parties are taking advantage
Speaker 1: of this situation, exploiting this increase in sexual violence against
Speaker 1: women perpetrated by men from Muslim majority countries for their
Speaker 1: own narrow path to power. So they're exploiting the situation.
Speaker 1: I think if mainstream parties, center left and center right,
Speaker 1: if they take up this situation, if they take up
Speaker 1: this issue and do something about it, that the extreme
Speaker 1: right wing parties will not benefit, probably evaporate, and that's
Speaker 1: what we want for them. And finally, we do have
Speaker 1: a well established Islamist This is radical political Islamist groups
Speaker 1: that prey on the young men and they say to
Speaker 1: the authorities in Europe, yes, sexual violence against women has
Speaker 1: gone up, and they don't deny that it's men from
Speaker 1: these countries that are committing it. But the remedies that
Speaker 1: they put forward are along the lines of all women
Speaker 1: should stay at home and they should cover themselves up
Speaker 1: and in these societies you're selling alcohol, you shouldn't be
Speaker 1: doing that. So it is really a way of Number one,
Speaker 1: you want the violent acts against women to stop, to cease,
Speaker 1: including violence against immigrant women committed by immigrant men. You
Speaker 1: have to take into account the political salience and significance
Speaker 1: of this phenomenon, and you want to push against the
Speaker 1: Islamist's message that men can't help themselves, they are going
Speaker 1: to behave that way. The only way to stop it
Speaker 1: is by forcing women to change their behaviors. I hear
Speaker 1: your argument, and this will be my kind of last question,
Speaker 1: because I think this is probably the million dollar question
Speaker 1: I had when reading your book. You know, you've mentioned
Speaker 1: that you feel it's important to exercise compassion towards the
Speaker 1: suffering individuals who arrive in Europe fleeing violence in their
Speaker 1: home countries. So it can certainly have compassion for that,
Speaker 1: but you say without selling out women. You know, so
Speaker 1: there's the quite final question. Answer is how can we
Speaker 1: support both while sidestepping verification and fear mongering toward two
Speaker 1: vulnerable populations. First one the vulnerability of the immigrant men
Speaker 1: who actually, and it's absolutely true, fleeing conflict freedom places
Speaker 1: with non economic hope for many of the young men
Speaker 1: who come, and the journey that they take his arduous.
Speaker 1: They have some of them cross the Mediterranean, as you know,
Speaker 1: many of them have died, So it is completely justified
Speaker 1: to feel only compassion for them, and I do that
Speaker 1: feel a great deal of compassion again, but we can
Speaker 1: express that compassion without selling out women and women's writing,
Speaker 1: going back to a time where Europe will look exactly
Speaker 1: like the countries where these people are fleeing. And I
Speaker 1: think the way to do it is to build on choice.
Speaker 1: And this is as an adult human being. If all
Speaker 1: the norms and values are made explicit in the countries,
Speaker 1: in the host countries, and then you give each and
Speaker 1: every individual the choice, and you see, if you refuse
Speaker 1: to abide by these rules, you could have a point system,
Speaker 1: you could do There are so many different ways to
Speaker 1: implement this, but the basic philosophy is you have a choice.
Speaker 1: You adopt our values, you adopt our norms, you respect women,
Speaker 1: you treat them with dignity, you don't break the law,
Speaker 1: and you get to stay and build your self a
Speaker 1: future here. And we fight against discrimination of immigrants, people
Speaker 1: of color, women, et cetera. You refuse to do that,
Speaker 1: and that refusal is a choice in itself. It's a
Speaker 1: rejection of the norms and the values and the human
Speaker 1: rights of others. And when you do that, you then
Speaker 1: make the choice to go back to your country of origin,
Speaker 1: and that should also be implemented. And I can tell
Speaker 1: you that most people will choose to stay and abide
Speaker 1: by the law, because why would they take the trouble
Speaker 1: to flee these places if they're going to go back,
Speaker 1: And that European leaders have never given these people that
Speaker 1: choice in the explicit way that I'm pushing for. That's right.
Speaker 1: And in your book you discuss various ideas for public
Speaker 1: policy for assimilation and integration. Do you want to tell
Speaker 1: our listeners about your new podcast at all? Yes? Please?
Speaker 1: My podcast is imhircli dot com and click on podcasts
Speaker 1: and listen to it through that, or you can go
Speaker 1: and subscribe please, or you can just go to any
Speaker 1: of the other podcast providers Apple, Spotify, others. And again
Speaker 1: I arg you please to subscribe. Wonderful. Thank you so
Speaker 1: much for your compassion, humanitarianism and for your time today
Speaker 1: on my podcast. Thank you, Scott, and I also really
Speaker 1: enjoyed talking to you and I wish we had had
Speaker 1: more time. Well let's talk again someday. Fantastic, Thank you
Speaker 1: so much, Thank you, bye. Thanks for listening to this
Speaker 1: episode of the Psychology Podcast. If you'd like to react
Speaker 1: in some way to something you heard. I encourage you
Speaker 1: to join in on the discussion at the Psychology podcast
Speaker 1: dot com. That's the Psychology podcast dot com. Thanks for
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