Speaker 1: Al Zone Media.
Speaker 2: All Right, hello, welcome to the podcast it could happen here.
Speaker 2: Podcasts for Me and Cheren talk about vegetables or terrible things,
Speaker 2: depending on the week. It's me, it's uine and today
Speaker 2: it's a terrible thing. It's not a vegetable or a
Speaker 2: sa animal. How are you, Cherene, how are you doing?
Speaker 3: I'm good. That's honestly a great premise just for a
Speaker 3: show in general, Like we talk about either food or
Speaker 3: something terrible.
Speaker 2: Yeah, like and you never know, you know, just yeah,
Speaker 2: it's just in your playlist. And then is it a
Speaker 2: fucking artichoke? Is it genocide?
Speaker 4: You don't know?
Speaker 3: You have to find out.
Speaker 4: Yeah, the only way is by listening.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but hi, I'm good, Thanks for having me.
Speaker 4: Good. I'm glad to hear it, Shreen.
Speaker 2: So, what I wanted to talk about today is what
Speaker 2: is happening in Turkey?
Speaker 4: Why are they like this? What is going on?
Speaker 2: Specifically? I want to talk about some of these attacks
Speaker 2: on Syria and refugees in Turkey. The people may have seen,
Speaker 2: they may not have seen. I see them in my timeline,
Speaker 2: but maybe that's because of the people I follow. I
Speaker 2: think to start off with to understand what's happening in Turkey.
Speaker 2: You have to understand the relations between Turkey and Syria.
Speaker 2: Since the Civil War began in Syria, which is more
Speaker 2: than a decade ago now, thirteen odd years ago. So
Speaker 2: from the start of the war, Turkey has backed Antio
Speaker 2: sad factions, right, so those are the rebels in Syria.
Speaker 4: This is a big change.
Speaker 2: In two thousand and eight, A Sadden Herd again's family
Speaker 2: went on holiday together.
Speaker 4: Really yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they went into a southern Turkey and a little
Speaker 2: little beach holiday together.
Speaker 5: Disturbing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, what a time. Yeah, just to do to
Speaker 2: racking by the beach.
Speaker 4: But unfortunately they're no longer holiday and together. They might
Speaker 4: be holding again soon as we'll see.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's what it sounds like.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they are becoming tight again, and again referenced their
Speaker 2: family holiday in his most recent comments on really yeah,
Speaker 2: it's like our relations have been familial.
Speaker 4: I like that at all.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, you know what'd be going on holiday with
Speaker 2: Marshal Lasad just as a moral principle.
Speaker 3: I think it's just crazy to be because you're right
Speaker 3: they I feel like we're very open about supporting the
Speaker 3: anti Assad forces and so to be like suddenly, why
Speaker 3: can't we have diplomatic friendliness, Like, come on, it's just
Speaker 3: like the weirdest plot to us to.
Speaker 2: Be Yeah, I mean, I think a lot of it
Speaker 2: comes from anti migrant sentiment in Turkey, which I want
Speaker 2: to get into. I think it's so like we are
Speaker 2: witnessing this global crackdown on migration, on refugees. We see
Speaker 2: it in Europe, we see it here at southern border,
Speaker 2: we see it here in Turkey, We're seeing it in
Speaker 2: North Africa. We're seeing it all over.
Speaker 4: So this is hasn't always been the case.
Speaker 2: At the start of the war, Turkey thrope and it's
Speaker 2: bordereds to to Syrian refugees, right, They built camps to houses.
Speaker 2: They were strong backers of the revolution. They spent forty
Speaker 2: million dollars carrying to their refugees. The Nationally Intelligence Organization,
Speaker 2: the MIT, actually trained parts of the FSA, the Free
Speaker 2: Syrian Army, and then later they brought together the s NA.
Speaker 2: There will be many acronyms, right, like every civil war
Speaker 2: loves a three letter acronym, and the Syrian war is
Speaker 2: no different.
Speaker 3: But they were really open, they were really public about
Speaker 3: being like we welcomed the refugees. I remember that was like,
Speaker 3: I don't know, as a Syrian, I was like, oh,
Speaker 3: that's nice.
Speaker 4: It was nice, nice thing to do.
Speaker 3: Like I mean, like at the time, no one gave
Speaker 3: a shit for the most part, so to have like
Speaker 3: a country out loud be like we welcome the refugees,
Speaker 3: come over here will help. And now they have the
Speaker 3: largest population of Syrian refugees like in the world. I
Speaker 3: don't know if you're gonna mention this coming up, but
Speaker 3: I feel like the only thing that changed, not the
Speaker 3: only thing, one of the only things. The main thing
Speaker 3: that changed is that no one in Turkey thought it
Speaker 3: would last as long.
Speaker 4: Yeah no, yeah, absolutely not.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we'll get into that because the nature of their
Speaker 2: legal residence there is very temporary. Yeah, okay. So Turkey
Speaker 2: has used the SNA as Syrian National Army Right, which
Speaker 2: is it's more explicitly Turkish backed faction, as a directly
Speaker 2: linked proxy force. They've used it in their operations against
Speaker 2: the STF. So the Syrian Democratic Forces another acronym for you,
Speaker 2: the organization which includes the yepige right, their YPG. The
Speaker 2: YPG the other elements of the military forces of the
Speaker 2: autonomous areas North and East Syria, sometimes called Rishaba. They
Speaker 2: have also used the SNA outside of Syria, right in Azerbaijan,
Speaker 2: Libya and Nizia, like just as a private military right
Speaker 2: as a mercenary army more or less, and you'll you'll
Speaker 2: hear them refer to sometimes as mercenaries, certainly like when
Speaker 2: they're being used outside of Syria, it's hard to argue
Speaker 2: that they're not, and other times, like when they're being
Speaker 2: used in Syria. A lot of these folks were previously
Speaker 2: parts of other groups that have kind of been repackaged
Speaker 2: and bundled up together by Turkey, and there are still
Speaker 2: many factions within these like broadly speaking Turkish supported Arab
Speaker 2: rebel forces in Syria. There are some Kurdish groups as well,
Speaker 2: but not so many, and there are some Turkic groups
Speaker 2: that are not Arab. So these property forces are really
Speaker 2: vital to the Turkey strategy in Syria. I wanted to
Speaker 2: get a sense of how numerous the redirected or re
Speaker 2: recruited jahades were from other groups, so I reached out
Speaker 2: to Zagros Hiwa. People are not familiar with Zagros. He
Speaker 2: is a spokesperson of the Kurdistan Communities Union's Foreign Relations Commission.
Speaker 2: If you're not familiar with the Kurdistan Communities Union, it's
Speaker 2: the umbrella organization for the several democratic confederalist political parties North, South,
Speaker 2: East and West Kurdistan which are inspired by the ideology
Speaker 2: of Abdullah Asient. So we're going to hear more from
Speaker 2: Zagoros next week. I have a number of questions about
Speaker 2: the ongoing Turkish bombing there in the in the Kandil
Speaker 2: Mountains in the in the north of the kur Stan
Speaker 2: a thonomous region of Iraq. But we're going to drop
Speaker 2: a little quote here where he talks about the interactions
Speaker 2: at the SDF and the EPIGAY and the other other
Speaker 2: units right hPG have had with the Turkish Army's Arab
Speaker 2: Syrian elements. When you hear Zagros here talking about DASH,
Speaker 2: what he's talking about is the so called Islamic State,
Speaker 2: the Islamic State of Iraq and the levant Right. It's
Speaker 2: just the Arabic acronym of the same organization. So if
Speaker 2: you went aware that's what he's talking about.
Speaker 1: The invading Turkish Army is that many jihadists have been
Speaker 1: incorporated into the Turkish Army. They are acting as units
Speaker 1: with the Turkish or separate units with the Turkish Army.
Speaker 1: They have been embedded with the with natal second largest army.
Speaker 1: I can say these Jajadists are ex DAJH members, x
Speaker 1: Nostra Front members, x Alkaider members. They are from many nationalities,
Speaker 1: according to p K officials Patriotic Union of Kdistan officials,
Speaker 1: they say that they have learned the names of three
Speaker 1: hundreds of these DATJ members in the Turkish Army ranks.
Speaker 4: So also.
Speaker 1: Underground Kdistan Freedom guerrillas themselves have observations about the inclusion
Speaker 1: of jihadist members in the ranks of the Turkish Army
Speaker 1: and many of the close range classes blanket point classes
Speaker 1: with the Turkish Army. Kurdistan Freedom Guerrillas here some of
Speaker 1: the soldiers speaking Arabic, shouting yearning in Arabic.
Speaker 2: To understand further what's going on in Turkey, I think
Speaker 2: you need to understand the phenomenon of Turkish ultra nationalism
Speaker 2: and social Darwinism. This is not just endemic in Turkey,
Speaker 2: but also in European countries with a large Turkish diaspora.
Speaker 2: The most extreme and concerning example of this is a
Speaker 2: group called the Gray Wolves. The gray Wolves are the
Speaker 2: militant street wing of the Nationalist Movement Party in Turkey,
Speaker 2: and they've been involved in political violence there since the
Speaker 2: nineteen sixties, with their primary target being curved Greeks, Alavis, Arabs, Christians,
Speaker 2: Jews and Armenians. These are all minority ethnic groups.
Speaker 4: I guess.
Speaker 2: To understand this further, you have to be able to
Speaker 2: differentiate between race, state, and nation. Right, which is getting
Speaker 2: into things that I lecture about. But the idea of
Speaker 2: a race is like affective biological link, right, This isn't
Speaker 2: born out necessarily, but the idea of a shared biology.
Speaker 2: The idea of a nation. A nation is an imagined community, right,
Speaker 2: which which are can have many races. It could have
Speaker 2: a state aligned to it or not. Right, So the
Speaker 2: Turkish nation doesn't necessarily align with the Turkish date. There
Speaker 2: are like other groups within the Turkish state. You have
Speaker 2: Turkish citizenship, but do not see themselves as nationally or
Speaker 2: ethnically Turkish. For what the gray Wolves believe is the
Speaker 2: superiority of a Turkish race, and they strive for a
Speaker 2: monoethnic Sunni Islamic Turkish nation. They are pan Turkic organizations,
Speaker 2: so they want to join together all the Turkic peoples
Speaker 2: in one kind of renewed Turkish empire. Right after clap
Speaker 2: to the Soviet Union, they called for this revived empire
Speaker 2: that would unite Turkic people. They like many of these
Speaker 2: extremely right wing violent organizations have their roots in anti
Speaker 2: communism right in the Cold War, and specifically and something
Speaker 2: called Operation Gladio, which was a sort of anti communist
Speaker 2: guerrilla training supported by the CIA and other groups. They
Speaker 2: began as government condoned and a sort of sort of
Speaker 2: deniable government force to use against the left right. I'm
Speaker 2: not going to be able, like I can't detil everythink
Speaker 2: the Gray Wolves are down and this isn't what that
Speaker 2: episode it's about. I do want to explain one incident.
Speaker 2: It's maybe one of the most heenous things that they're
Speaker 2: known for, and it's called the Marush massacre.
Speaker 4: Are you familiar with this? Sharene, No, I'm not. Actually Okay,
Speaker 4: a little little history for you.
Speaker 2: So in December nineteen seventy eight in Karaman Mirash Karaman
Speaker 2: Marash in Mirash you'll hear those two terms used both right,
Speaker 2: like Karaman I think means hero in Turkish. There was
Speaker 2: a battle there in the early part of twentieth century.
Speaker 2: I think it was in the First World War, and
Speaker 2: so they added like hero to the start of the town.
Speaker 2: But Alavi people don't tend to use that when they
Speaker 2: talk about the massacre because it seems a little weird
Speaker 2: to be like a great town where this horrible massare occurred.
Speaker 2: So you're here both it's mrs, but s has a
Speaker 2: little diacritical mark, so it's ah noise. The massacre starts
Speaker 2: in seven, nineteen seventy eight, when an anti Soviet movie
Speaker 2: is being shown in a movie theater in town and
Speaker 2: someone through as a bomb in to the theater. Right
Speaker 2: Communist brouts were blamed for this. It's a little unclear
Speaker 2: if it really was them or someone who who wanted
Speaker 2: to start some drama by pretending to be them, if
Speaker 2: that makes sense, right. So many Alavis Alaviz are a
Speaker 2: group of Kurd Are you familiar?
Speaker 3: And Sharen, I was actually just trying to hy myself
Speaker 3: because I'm really not familiar with this sect because I
Speaker 3: know it's completely separate from Sunni Islam, is Shia Islam.
Speaker 3: Is it more like Sufiism? Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's
Speaker 3: what I thought.
Speaker 2: They're like a twelve Sufiist with thinncrectic elements from like
Speaker 2: uh like veneration of nature, and they have this sort
Speaker 2: of idea of sainthood. Right, I probably used a lot
Speaker 2: of words that people aren't super familiar with. So can
Speaker 2: you explain to Sufism and then Sunni and Shia maybe.
Speaker 3: So maybe you're familiar with the two different main sects
Speaker 3: of Islam, which are Sunni and Shira. The main difference
Speaker 3: between the two, if you want to really boil it down,
Speaker 3: is who they believe the successor should have been to
Speaker 3: the prophet Muhamma. The shi has believe that his cousin
Speaker 3: and his son in law Ali should have been the successor,
Speaker 3: versus the Sunnis don't believe he needed a successor at all,
Speaker 3: and it was more just like passing down his teachings.
Speaker 3: There's a lot of history behind that, and there's a
Speaker 3: lot of drama and violence, but that's like the most
Speaker 3: simple way to put it, and it kind of grew
Speaker 3: from there. The Sufism sect, on the other hand, is
Speaker 3: a little different. It's described as a contemplative school of
Speaker 3: Islam that aims to develop an individual's consciousness of God
Speaker 3: through chanting, recitation, of litanies, music and physical movement. Maybe
Speaker 3: you know or you've seen the Sufi like whirling dervishes.
Speaker 3: It's basically a form of like physical active meditation for them.
Speaker 3: So it definitely differs from both Sunni and Sushia Islam.
Speaker 3: It's more in a way spiritual. Is that is that
Speaker 3: a decent summary?
Speaker 4: Not me? Yeah, I think I think you've done a
Speaker 4: great job.
Speaker 2: And Sufi's are like broadly Sunni, I guess, and Alavites
Speaker 2: are like there are twelves and seven is which is
Speaker 2: like to do with the amount of people you think
Speaker 2: are the the imam's successes to Ali, which we don't
Speaker 2: need to go into I don't think a very great depth,
Speaker 2: but I guess Alavites would would fall into the twelve
Speaker 2: A camp in not traditional twelve Shia.
Speaker 3: That's what the V you're saying, the V al yes.
Speaker 4: As opposed to Ala whites, right, another.
Speaker 3: Ship al whites is very different? Yeah, yes, Like I
Speaker 3: feel like it's very confusing because they sound so similar.
Speaker 3: But Ala Whites they're they're considered disbelievers by the classical
Speaker 3: like Sunni and Shia theologies, they're their own separate group.
Speaker 3: It's like a religious sect that like kind of splintered
Speaker 3: off from early Shiahism in the ninth century.
Speaker 2: And they are the sector which the Asad family yes
Speaker 2: belongs and many other military families in Bathistsiria belonged, right.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: When the bar this party like led by half, said
Speaker 3: Bashar's dad, when he took power, the Alo Whites in
Speaker 3: the military sect or the Alo white sect in the
Speaker 3: military were really supportive of that regime. And I feel
Speaker 3: like it's a big reason why he gained popularity and
Speaker 3: was able to like overthrow the government.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, Okay, So that's how little breakdown of Islam.
Speaker 2: I know, it's good.
Speaker 3: There's just so much like like little details that I
Speaker 3: know I will miss, and it's just it's so much
Speaker 3: more complicated. But yeah, there's just many sects that stem
Speaker 3: all from the one religious book of the Quran, and
Speaker 3: then shit happens. I don't know what else is.
Speaker 2: Well, maybe we'll explain it in another day for people
Speaker 2: they do think, like I went to school at a
Speaker 2: very woke time in the United Kingdom's history, you could
Speaker 2: do Islam as your like religious studies. Wait really yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: it's because Tony Blair in the Woknesse that's crazy. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I know, it's cool. It's really good.
Speaker 4: I lent, well, so what did what did I miss?
Speaker 4: You tell me?
Speaker 2: No, I'm not, I'm not. I'm not here to fucking no,
Speaker 2: I'm serious. I am absolutely not here to tell you
Speaker 2: what you go right round. I think you did an
Speaker 2: excellent job. Shia comes from like the party of Ali, right,
Speaker 2: That's what the word means.
Speaker 3: And I think that's the main reason why Sufism is
Speaker 3: more associated with Sunni Islam. F I'm being honest, because
Speaker 3: that's like the main tenet of being Shia is that
Speaker 3: you believe that Ali was the successor, and so I
Speaker 3: think anything that is not that usually is more under
Speaker 3: the Sunni umbrella.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think sometimes you'll see it like as a
Speaker 2: third like Sufism is the own thing. Yeah, Germany, like
Speaker 2: more Muslims in the world are Sunni than Shiah. I'm
Speaker 2: not going to do a thing that people do where
Speaker 2: they go around naming the governments which are one or another,
Speaker 2: and like, I don't think that's very useful. So let's
Speaker 2: go back to nineteen seventy eight in Mirash. Right, these Alavis,
Speaker 2: for reasons that we have just explained, are perceived A
Speaker 2: they are Curdie right, so they're not Turkic, and B
Speaker 2: they are perceived to be heretical by people with the
Speaker 2: more conventional Sunni Islam, or some people, I should say so.
Speaker 2: The day after this bomb, guys of a left wing
Speaker 2: cafe in town is bombed and two leftist teachers are
Speaker 2: murdered on their way home from school. Later, at their
Speaker 2: funeral it's attacked by a mob of Turkish nationalists. Right
Speaker 2: later that week, exes start appearing on the doors of
Speaker 2: the Alavi homes in this area of town, which is
Speaker 2: predominantly Alavi right. They made announcements to the mosques saying
Speaker 2: that communists and Alavis are burning your mosques. You should
Speaker 2: attack them and kill them well. And on the twenty
Speaker 2: thirty December, crowd stoked buying comprised of the Gray Wolves
Speaker 2: rampaid through all the neighborhoods. Children, women and men were
Speaker 2: murdered in their homes and their bodies were thrown in
Speaker 2: the street. Women were raped and injured, people removed from
Speaker 2: the hospital beds and murdered children were burned alive in
Speaker 2: the furnaces of their own home homes. Estimates of the
Speaker 2: amount of people who were murdered vary from like one
Speaker 2: hundred and eleven, which is the official government number, to
Speaker 2: one hundred and fifty, which is sort in the British
Speaker 2: Alabi society. Five hundred and fifty something houses were burned
Speaker 2: to destroy nearly three hundred businesses were looted.
Speaker 4: Writer as is Tunk, my oppointing st I got that wrong.
Speaker 2: I'll try my best, who's written a book about the massacre,
Speaker 2: believes that the Alavis were killed for refusing to assimilate
Speaker 2: to the Turkish language and culture, and he adds occurs
Speaker 2: to not the only victims of the attack, progressive and
Speaker 2: leftist Turks who had opposed the official policies of Ancro
Speaker 2: Walls included. The trials for this massacre actually continued until
Speaker 2: nineteen ninety one. So it happened in nineteen seventy eight, Right,
Speaker 2: it's a long time. A total of eight hundred and
Speaker 2: four people were put on trial, which kind of shows
Speaker 2: you the scale of the mob.
Speaker 4: That you have.
Speaker 3: Was it mostly the gray Wolves?
Speaker 2: Yeah, So it comes out of the MHP, which is
Speaker 2: this Turkish nationalist party, and it's generally attributed to the
Speaker 2: gray Wolves as like causality, Right, and when you get
Speaker 2: these massive crowd violence things. It's not like everyone's a
Speaker 2: card carrying member necessarily. You'll hear people say that they
Speaker 2: consider there to be like state or organizational complicity beyond it.
Speaker 2: It wasn't a spontaneous thing, right, and that that's an
Speaker 2: allegation that's sometimes made. Twenty nine people were sentenced to
Speaker 2: life in prison for this by nineteen ninety one.
Speaker 3: Out of eight hundred and four or twenty nine percent.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and all of them were released in nineteen ninety two. Okay,
Speaker 2: it's part of an anti terrorism law. Now it's a
Speaker 2: good time streams. You know who will not commute your
Speaker 2: life sentence? Oh my god, they won't do it.
Speaker 3: Well, whatever it is.
Speaker 5: Yeah, all right, we're back.
Speaker 4: We're moving on from massacres thankfully.
Speaker 2: So we're talking about the Gray Wolves, right, that's where
Speaker 2: they come from.
Speaker 4: Today. The party that they were sort of founded.
Speaker 2: By their m HP is allied with the Eerligan's Party
Speaker 2: and they've continued their violence and particularly they've begun to
Speaker 2: focus on Kurdish people. Right last year, groups of them
Speaker 2: in the diaspora could be found in Belgium attacking kurd
Speaker 2: So they found to be celebrating the Kurdish New Year
Speaker 2: Right celebrating the year often with fire outside. It's pretty
Speaker 2: fucking easy to see who's doing it right, and they
Speaker 2: were attacked. You could see videos of this if you
Speaker 2: scroll far enough back on my Twitter timeline you'll see
Speaker 2: I've shared some of them. Twenty fifteen, they protested and
Speaker 2: burned Chinese flags and attacked people who looked Asian, to
Speaker 2: include Korean folks and folks who certainly were not Chinese,
Speaker 2: in response to the Chinese government span on Turkic wigas
Speaker 2: fasting during the month of Ramadan. They also opposed Russia
Speaker 2: due to its collaboration with a SAD and its attacks
Speaker 2: on Syrian Turkmen. Some Gray Wolves had gone over to
Speaker 2: Syria to fight, and they're fighting against a SAD right
Speaker 2: with Turkmen units. I guess perhaps their most fam famous
Speaker 2: like incident in the war was in twenty fifteen when
Speaker 2: they shut down a Russian plane was shut down and
Speaker 2: the pirate parachute out and then they machine gunned him
Speaker 2: while he was parachuting down. WHOA, Yeah, so they pretty
Speaker 2: strongly opposed to the Russian support of the Assad rasion.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, there are one of the many reasons
Speaker 3: why I really get frustrated with all these different sects
Speaker 3: that are like anti Assad and I am also anti Sad.
Speaker 3: But then they make it so complicated because they're terrible people,
Speaker 3: and so it's not just the rebels and these citizens
Speaker 3: of their own country trying to stand up against their government.
Speaker 3: It becomes this larger political clusterfuck that gets hard to
Speaker 3: keep track of. And I think that's why it's gone
Speaker 3: on for this long. It's not simple. It's not just
Speaker 3: like government versus people anymore. It's just too many elements.
Speaker 2: Right that you have people fighting within their revolution and
Speaker 2: the government constantly exploiting those divisions, right.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So yeah, as I said, the Wolves have significant support
Speaker 2: in the Turkish Jasper and they represent the largest right
Speaker 2: wing movement in Germany, which is pretty impressive when you
Speaker 2: consider like Germany. Yeah, like Germany is not known for
Speaker 2: not having much right wing Go ahead, Green, you're looking.
Speaker 4: I can see there's a question inside you.
Speaker 3: I'm just okay, because so the Gray Wolves believe in
Speaker 3: the superiority of the Turkish race. Correct, that's correct, And
Speaker 3: you're saying that they are also big in Germany. I
Speaker 3: feel like Germany for a time also considered themselves to
Speaker 3: be the.
Speaker 2: True sine. There are some things that they share. Yeah,
Speaker 2: it does feel a little bit on the nose, doesn't it.
Speaker 2: Yeah it does, Yeah, it does if it makes a difference.
Speaker 2: In Austria, the gray wolf salute is banned. Oh whoa,
Speaker 2: we're going to get into the gray wolf salute. Imagine
Speaker 2: making a little wolf with your hands. Right, you're right,
Speaker 2: that's they took that. That's like a shadow puppet. Yes, yeah,
Speaker 2: really fuck that up. That's not fair. Yeah no, yeah,
Speaker 2: you're no longer you do. We're going to learn about
Speaker 2: the solution. So far, I not familiar. Your big finger
Speaker 2: and your little pinky finger up in the air. Your
Speaker 2: other two fingers are touching your thumb.
Speaker 3: It's almost like the six to six rocker sign, like yeah,
Speaker 3: but yeah, it's not it's such a shadow puppet. I
Speaker 3: feel like I've done that as a kid. That's not fair.
Speaker 3: They can't take a shadow puppet. Whatever they've done.
Speaker 4: Worse sharene's hard right youth that is coming out.
Speaker 2: So if you weren't familiar with the Grabels before and
Speaker 2: their salute, you might have become familiar with them this
Speaker 2: week when a Turkish footballer received a two day band
Speaker 2: for flashing the salute after scoring. When the team beat
Speaker 2: Austria in Euro twenty twenty four, Turkish fans responded to
Speaker 2: the band by giving the salute on mass at the quarterfinals.
Speaker 2: So that was the next game, right, Yeah, yeah it was.
Speaker 2: It was a scene. Like people have obviously drawn the
Speaker 2: comparison to the previous German movement, which thought one race
Speaker 2: was better than the other races, right, but seeing a
Speaker 2: whole crowd of people doing that in the stadium is disturbing. Yeah,
Speaker 2: it's concerning. They did it in a game in Germany,
Speaker 2: so the salute's not banned in Germany. And then the
Speaker 2: Turkish president Rep. Type herd Gun postponed his plans to
Speaker 2: visit asba Jahan and attended the game after the suspension
Speaker 2: to show his support for the team. Right. He defended
Speaker 2: the player, saying he'd merely expressed his excitement after scoring.
Speaker 2: Germany was big mad about this. In their defense, they
Speaker 2: summoned the Turkish ambassadors and foreign ministry to explain what
Speaker 2: the fuck was going on? And it has resulted in
Speaker 2: considerable amounts of violence across Europe. Right, we saw in Austria,
Speaker 2: we saw in Germany, we saw in Belgium, where there
Speaker 2: is a large Turkish and often a large Kurdish yeaspora. Right,
Speaker 2: because of the tensions between these two groups, which the
Speaker 2: football has increased, then we saw like street fighting between
Speaker 2: these two groups in predominantly migrant neighborhoods. Right. But I
Speaker 2: don't want it's episode to just be about the football
Speaker 2: or the Turkish participation in the Syrian Civil War. I
Speaker 2: want it to be about what's happening to Syrian refugees
Speaker 2: in Turkey today. So many Turkish people have come to
Speaker 2: resent the Syrian refugees who relocated there since the started
Speaker 2: the war. Estimates range from three point one to three
Speaker 2: point five. I've seen four million, evidently, Like they have
Speaker 2: a land border, right, Turkey and Syria, So some of
Speaker 2: the people crossing will have come without being documented, whereas
Speaker 2: others will have come in the more formal process and
Speaker 2: be documented.
Speaker 4: Right. So whatever, it's millions of refugees, I think that's
Speaker 4: what matters.
Speaker 2: They are largely baselessly and evidently baselessly in some cases
Speaker 2: accused of causing the economic troubles and include low wages
Speaker 2: and inflation. Inflation exceeded seventy five percent in Turkey in May.
Speaker 2: They have also been blamed for the earthquake that happened,
Speaker 2: if for every twenty twenty three, which I'm not quite
Speaker 2: sure how like who or what the process exactly that
Speaker 2: they're postulating is there.
Speaker 3: That's crazy.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, you just clear things that people generally can't make.
Speaker 2: Earthquakes happen, so across the political s and we've seen
Speaker 2: support grow for sending these refugees home. In twenty sixteen,
Speaker 2: Turkey began to accuse the SDF of ethnically cleansing Arab
Speaker 2: areas in Syria, and the UN refuted these accusations. Right,
Speaker 2: But in twenty eighteen and twenty nineteen, and in twenty nineteen,
Speaker 2: with the explicit approval of President Trump, the Turkish military
Speaker 2: and its proxies attacked the SDF and seized territory inside Syria. Right,
Speaker 2: Operation Peace Spring and Olive Branch. In these areas, Turkey
Speaker 2: has attempted to resettle Arab refugees.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 2: This is why we can't understand anti Syrian sentiment in
Speaker 2: Turkey without understanding Turkey's involvement in the Syrian civil war. Right,
Speaker 2: it's trying to create what it calls a safe zone,
Speaker 2: and in the safe zone, it's trying to take the
Speaker 2: refugees that It's people have decided they don't want and
Speaker 2: relocate them back into a country which is at war.
Speaker 2: Turkey has already resettled Syrian refugees in this safe zone,
Speaker 2: but obviously some of them have been in Turkey for
Speaker 2: more than a decade. Their children have gone to school
Speaker 2: in Turkey, they speak Turkish, they've learned a new language,
Speaker 2: they've learned a new alphabet. Right, they have lives there.
Speaker 2: So not all of them are just taking the chance to, Yeah,
Speaker 2: let me get straight back to Aleppo. For very obvious reasons,
Speaker 2: people don't want to go back. Since twenty eighteen, a
Speaker 2: cost of living crisis in Turkey has been leveraged by
Speaker 2: the right to stoke anti Syrian sentiment. Research found that
Speaker 2: in twenty twenty, only twenty three percent of Turkey citizens
Speaker 2: would accept a Syrian bride or groom into their family
Speaker 2: or consider having a Syrian as a business partner, and
Speaker 2: only thirty one percent would want to have the child
Speaker 2: educated in a class with a Syrian in it.
Speaker 4: That is, yeah, that.
Speaker 3: Makes me so fucking mad.
Speaker 2: One of the things I've come across with is doesn't
Speaker 2: by any means apply to all Turkish people. I've met
Speaker 2: some very cool Turkish people who I like very much
Speaker 2: that people who are ultranationalists in Turkey. America has its
Speaker 2: fair share of bigots, right, generally, they know that it's wrong.
Speaker 2: They're like, say it with your whole chest of the
Speaker 2: certainly the anti Syrian sentiment that I've heard expressed online
Speaker 2: from Turkish people, it's not something that like it's considered shameful.
Speaker 2: They'll just they'll just fucking say it, which is kind
Speaker 2: of wild. No, it's scary, Like, yeah, it's very scary.
Speaker 3: Like if you've raised your child and Turkey and that's
Speaker 3: the only that's their first language essentially, or that's the
Speaker 3: only thing they know, that's just one of the most
Speaker 3: unsafe places for them to be there. Yeah, that's scary
Speaker 3: and not fair.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And like I know, I've met lots of Kurdish
Speaker 2: people who, like, you know, they come in and to
Speaker 2: the United States right where I'm helping out the border,
Speaker 2: and I'll greet them in Kurdish. And like I was
Speaker 2: talking to a guy the other day and mc Curdish
Speaker 2: is by no means great, but it took a little
Speaker 2: class and can say some words and then also, a
Speaker 2: dude walked around the market with me every morning in
Speaker 2: Cambusloan and just pointed at vegetables and shouted. So I'm
Speaker 2: pretty pretty good when it comes to like the eggplant spectrum.
Speaker 2: So I'll greet them in command and they will. They
Speaker 2: only speak Turkish, right, Like, it's not that they could
Speaker 2: just drop back. And I'm sure that's true for kids
Speaker 2: who would have grown up speaking Arabic in Syria if
Speaker 2: they went to school in Turkey. So that's a language, and.
Speaker 3: It's also like not necessarily something they wanted to happen.
Speaker 3: I think that's something that really frustrates me. It's like
Speaker 3: Bashar started attacking as people and they needed somewhere to go.
Speaker 3: Turkey welcome them. Yeah, And when you resettle and you
Speaker 3: make a home somewhere, it really feels like, especially now
Speaker 3: in this world, like if you're a refugee, it feels
Speaker 3: like you're always going to be kind of displaced in
Speaker 3: one way or another. Heartbreaking.
Speaker 4: Yeah, best you're like temporary. Yeah.
Speaker 2: After the earthquake in twenty twenty three, which folks will remember,
Speaker 2: we did a little fundraiser for World Central Kitchen, Syrian
Speaker 2: refugees were accused of fluting a lot on social media.
Speaker 2: Turkish Twitter had trending slogans like immigrants should be deported,
Speaker 2: just straight up saying it. Syrian refugees were kicked out
Speaker 2: of like tent camps and left homeless. They faced verbal abuse,
Speaker 2: we're trying to access services. Separate shelters were set up
Speaker 2: for Syrian refugees, like literally, like they couldn't be together, right,
Speaker 2: Resentment simmered amongst the groups. Yeah, I read some NGO reports.
Speaker 2: One of the things they say is that like women
Speaker 2: who were refugees, especially women who run their own preferred
Speaker 2: not to drink water because they didn't want to go
Speaker 2: to the bathroom, like they were afraid and they wanted
Speaker 2: to stay in their tents, and like, well, yeah, that's
Speaker 2: something I've seen in other settings too, but like it,
Speaker 2: it's obviously that's a pretty fuck situation to be in, right, Yeah,
Speaker 2: in a hard place and you're choosing to dehydrate yourself.
Speaker 2: NDOS later reported that refugees did not receive mobile container
Speaker 2: homes until displaced Turkish residents received them, and that refugee
Speaker 2: women in particular experience violence in these container camps, right,
Speaker 2: So that's when they're they're dropping like chipping containers for
Speaker 2: people to live in because all the houses fell down
Speaker 2: because of the earthquake. Many Turkish refugees have a sort
Speaker 2: of temporary protected status, so that temporary protected status only
Speaker 2: allows them to live in the prob is that they
Speaker 2: arrived in, and many of those provinces are obviously border provinces. Right. Initially,
Speaker 2: many folks had come Syrian folks that come to Turkey
Speaker 2: hoping that they could then continue right. Turkey kind of
Speaker 2: bridges between Asia and Europe, right, so they had hoped
Speaker 2: that they could go through Turkey right from east to
Speaker 2: west and then and then continue into the European Union
Speaker 2: preps and you live there. But that didn't work, right,
Speaker 2: Many of them found themselves stuck in Turkey and not
Speaker 2: even able to leave the province that they lived in.
Speaker 2: After the earthquake, Turkey lifted those those restrictions on movement,
Speaker 2: and you saw tons of Syrian folks traveling around Turkey
Speaker 2: and being like, whoa like is Stumbul? How cool is
Speaker 2: this like having lived there for ten years? Right, but
Speaker 2: they couldn't leave their province before. For this generation of
Speaker 2: Syrian some of them, like I was reading some of
Speaker 2: their like social media. Like some folks I think meaningfully
Speaker 2: became felt more Turkish when they were able to access
Speaker 2: so things. But other folks they went back to Syria
Speaker 2: to visit family, they were briefly allowed to do that.
Speaker 2: They weren't allowed to do that before. But it also
Speaker 2: broadened there was against them, I think it's fair to say.
Speaker 2: And in the twenty twenty three presidential election, there wasn't
Speaker 2: really an option that wasn't hostile to refugees. At Agam
Speaker 2: was probably the least hostile, but still hostile. Neither did
Speaker 2: the TURKEYEU deals to prevent further migration westward help right,
Speaker 2: So all of this just continues to turn up the temperature.
Speaker 2: Between January and December twenty twenty three, over fifty seven
Speaker 2: thousand Syrians were deported. According to Human Rights Watch, these
Speaker 2: deportations took place with the authorities quote pressuring the border
Speaker 2: authorities to list the majority of border crossings as returnees
Speaker 2: or voluntary. Turkey's voluntary returns are often coerced returns to
Speaker 2: quote unquote safe zones that are pits of danger and despair.
Speaker 2: That's quote from Adam Coogle, who's a Deputy Mid East
Speaker 2: North Africa director at Human Rights Watch.
Speaker 4: It's weak.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's pretty bleak, right, Like, oh, look, we're going
Speaker 2: to volunteer you to go back to Aleppo or a
Speaker 2: free I strean. Do you know who'll not force you
Speaker 2: to return to a country that is well decade long
Speaker 2: sivil to be best surprised, I'm not gonna lie. Yeah,
Speaker 2: that's what I strike to dou Shrine. Just when you
Speaker 2: think it couldn't get any worse, to hit you with
Speaker 2: a terrible ad pivot. We're back and I want to
Speaker 2: talk about the most recent outburst of tension. There have
Speaker 2: been outburst of attension outbursts of violence against Syrian refugees
Speaker 2: before in Turkey twenty twenty one springs to mind, but
Speaker 2: recently this all came to a head in early July
Speaker 2: when a Syrian man was accused of molesting his seven
Speaker 2: year old cousin in a public toilet in central Turkey,
Speaker 2: which is a pretty fuck thing to do. The guy
Speaker 2: was arrested, the young girl was taken into protective custody
Speaker 2: I think, along with her mother. But it didn't stop
Speaker 2: violence exploding then the town would has happened that night,
Speaker 2: cars were destroyed Syrian shops to attack and homes were
Speaker 2: set on fire. The next night, the violence spread in
Speaker 2: the border city of Gaziantep, which has like a twenty
Speaker 2: five percent Syrian population. A man was stabbed. I've seen
Speaker 2: the videos of like teenage boys, like I don't know
Speaker 2: if they're dead or unconscious, but they're certainly not capable
Speaker 2: of responding, and mobs of people are stamping on them,
Speaker 2: kicking them, and it's pretty horrible stuff.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the videos I've seen of the the riots and
Speaker 3: the moms are really terrifying.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Like it's petrifying to think of like a mob
Speaker 2: of people coming for you because of who you are,
Speaker 2: where your parents came from, with nothing you can do
Speaker 2: to defend yourself. Right. Turkey's Interior minister said that four
Speaker 2: hundred and seventy four arrests have been made, and Urdigan
Speaker 2: did condemn the violence, but also blamed the opposition rhetoric,
Speaker 2: which like the opposition to him, Yes, the opposite to him. Yeah,
Speaker 2: when he himself has said it is they're going to
Speaker 2: try and send a million more people back to Syria.
Speaker 5: Right.
Speaker 2: Unsurprisingly, several nights of these programs have led to anti
Speaker 2: Turkish sentiment in areas of Syria that are controlled by
Speaker 2: Turkey and its proxy forces. Right. Indeed, there's very proxy
Speaker 2: forces in some cases turned on their Turkish backers, and
Speaker 2: you could see on social media again, I shared some
Speaker 2: of them, numerous videos last week of SNA, so that
Speaker 2: Syrian National Army fighters firing on Turkish positions, tearing down
Speaker 2: and burning Turkish flags, and even like mobs attacking Turkish
Speaker 2: civilians in a Frien, right, which is one of the
Speaker 2: cities that Turkey captured from the SDF. You can see
Speaker 2: another Turkish occupied areas too. Demonstrators tried to storm the
Speaker 2: headquarters or Turkish backed administration. SNA fighters withdrew from their
Speaker 2: frontline positions to set up roadblocks and tack Turkish spaces.
Speaker 2: Dozens of people stayed to sit in the Al Hayya
Speaker 2: Square in Afrene. Again, these are not tensions have popped
Speaker 2: up overnight, right. This didn't just happened because mobs in
Speaker 2: Turkey attacked Syrian refugees. But this was kind of a
Speaker 2: cork popping, if you like. And one of the things
Speaker 2: that has caused tensions to increase in recent weeks is
Speaker 2: this sort of detent.
Speaker 4: Between Asad and Turkey.
Speaker 2: Right, So, in response to these protests, Turkey shut off
Speaker 2: the internet, closed border crossings, and it sent more troops
Speaker 2: into the area. Masses of people were arrested and people
Speaker 2: were charged with things like desecrating national symbols of Turkey,
Speaker 2: which like again that this is not in Turkey, right,
Speaker 2: this is in Syria. Yeah, but in an area occupied
Speaker 2: by Turkey.
Speaker 3: I think anytime a government or an occupying power like
Speaker 3: shuts off Internet, that is terrifying to me. Yeah, because
Speaker 3: you know, they're trying to do something they don't want
Speaker 3: you to see.
Speaker 4: Yeah, totally.
Speaker 2: Fortunately, it's twenty twenty four and like there's only so
Speaker 2: far that they can go. Like I've seen lots of
Speaker 2: videos from those protests, but yeah, they're trying to stop
Speaker 2: people organizing. They're trying to stop them and the world seeing.
Speaker 3: It's more so the act that that power like choosing
Speaker 3: to do that is so purposeful, like a choice.
Speaker 2: Yeah, totally, Like, yeah, everyone knows what you're going for there.
Speaker 4: Yeah. On the fifth of July, detainees who arrested dr
Speaker 4: in protests in northern Aleppo, including a child, were forced
Speaker 4: to film themselves with a Turkey flag behind them and
Speaker 4: apologized to the Turkish government and people for burning the
Speaker 4: Turkish flag. One of the videos obtained by the Syrian
Speaker 4: Observatory for Human Rights showed a child under pressure admitting
Speaker 4: to quote burning the Turkeys flag and apologizing to the
Speaker 4: Turkish people before kissing the flags. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Again, when people kiss the flags on TV, it's not
Speaker 2: a great sign. I did see videos of some of
Speaker 2: the SNA who appear to have captured some Turkish soldiers
Speaker 2: making them kiss their flag as well, like the Syrian
Speaker 2: Revolution flag. So I want to talk about these Turkish
Speaker 2: safe zones, right, so called safe zones, I guess they're
Speaker 2: anything but safe. They've been seized through military incursions and
Speaker 2: their rife with corruption in human rights abuses, both by
Speaker 2: Turkish back forces and Tokish forces directly. And you'll be
Speaker 2: familiar with some of this stuff from what Israel does
Speaker 2: in Palestine, specifically the destruction and theft of ancient olive orchids.
Speaker 2: You can see it like listed on the Syrian Observatory
Speaker 2: for Human Rights if you go to like they organize
Speaker 2: the areas by the name of the Turkish mission, so
Speaker 2: like Operation Peace Spring Area or Euphrates Shield or Operation
Speaker 2: Olive Branch is a real fucking on the nose name,
Speaker 2: and you can see like ten olive trees were cut
Speaker 2: down and sold for firewood, or like people reselling homes
Speaker 2: that were sees from civilians.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 3: Wow.
Speaker 2: And I've spoken to people who have left a free
Speaker 2: in my time in KURDISTWN and Syrian Kurdistan and in
Speaker 2: the United States, and I've spoken to people who were
Speaker 2: there as part of the SDF and fly backwards, and
Speaker 2: like a lot of them have confirmed the same stuff, right,
Speaker 2: destruction and property theft of homes and houses, and then
Speaker 2: there's evidence of extortion. There's evidence of corruption in these
Speaker 2: areas today, right, sexual violence, even torture. So it's pretty bad.
Speaker 2: There are a ton of links that will be on
Speaker 2: our sources page if you want to read more. I
Speaker 2: don't want to sort of traumatize you all on your
Speaker 2: way to work here. I'll just traumatize Serene. Yeah, you're working,
Speaker 2: it's another day at work.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's a normal day.
Speaker 2: Most of the protests seem to have died down now,
Speaker 2: but the situation doesn't really seem to have become any
Speaker 2: more stable. In Turkey, just like many other countries, politicians
Speaker 2: have rented a right response to an economic crisis and
Speaker 2: blame refugees for problems caused by capitalism. Reports of abuse
Speaker 2: of Syrian refugees caught crossing the border of Rife, and
Speaker 2: some of their data appears to be leaked in the
Speaker 2: last few days. I can't confirm this, but I've seen
Speaker 2: this from a few places right that data from a
Speaker 2: registry of refugees has been leaked, which would obviously be
Speaker 2: very concerning. Like if we look at things like the
Speaker 2: Marash massacre, we look at like the totality of this
Speaker 2: sentiment and the people doing it. Tensions in the turkeysh
Speaker 2: occupied areas of Syria remain high, with people there strongly
Speaker 2: opposed to the Turkish oppression, seizure and sale of their
Speaker 2: landed homes, and the potential of at a time between
Speaker 2: the two countries. This week, Agan said, we will extend
Speaker 2: our invitation to a sad With this invitation, we want
Speaker 2: to restore Turkey Syria relations to the same level as
Speaker 2: in the past. Our invitation may be extended at any time.
Speaker 2: That's a readout of an interview by Turkish media that's
Speaker 2: obviously translated.
Speaker 4: That's so vague.
Speaker 3: It's like, at what point in the past.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I mean, look, I think it's the correct
Speaker 2: number of relations to have with the side is non yeah,
Speaker 2: and so any more than that is bad. There are
Speaker 2: also reports that Turkey is going to open crossings between
Speaker 2: the territory it is controlling and regime territory. Right.
Speaker 4: There are protests about that isaw in a Leppo.
Speaker 2: Syria has said that normalization can only happen after Turkey
Speaker 2: agrees to pull out the troops that it has. Turkey
Speaker 2: is opposed to this because it doesn't want the SDF,
Speaker 2: which it believes to be an extension of the he KK,
Speaker 2: which it considers to be a terrorist group, to have
Speaker 2: territory along its border, right, And the FDF still does
Speaker 2: already have territory long its border, right, Like Cami Shlow
Speaker 2: where I was, you can go on top of a
Speaker 2: torp building and look across the border. But that does
Speaker 2: seem to be kind of a red line for Turkey.
Speaker 2: So I don't know where that leaves us, But.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that does seem something that they would never want
Speaker 3: to do. So but shar really called their bluff there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, which is which is kind of
Speaker 2: funny given that he's not exactly in a strong position
Speaker 2: to negotiate. No, but maybe Turkey has given up on
Speaker 2: the revolution in Syria and it just wants to join
Speaker 2: with us AT and as long as they can both
Speaker 2: say fuck the Kurds, and that's enough for both of them, right,
Speaker 2: But like if they can both get together on a
Speaker 2: state level and be like, fuck these cords, and therefore,
Speaker 2: I guess the cost of that would be sending these
Speaker 2: refugees home for Turkey, which is I guess not considered
Speaker 2: to be a cost by some of them. And that's
Speaker 2: millions of people, right, millions of people who, like in
Speaker 2: some cases, people are worried about having a citizenship removed,
Speaker 2: like they went there to be safe, and of course
Speaker 2: it's a violation of international law, and of course that
Speaker 2: doesn't matter because international law is as real as unicorns.
Speaker 2: But it leaves millions of people in limbo.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 2: Urdigan said he's promised to send another million refugees back,
Speaker 2: but that's not possible without the cooperation of the regime. Really,
Speaker 2: I guess he could just pump them all into like
Speaker 2: a free or whatever. But he's founding people into a
Speaker 2: situation where people are already actively opposed to the Turkish
Speaker 2: occupation there. Right, if he pulls out his troops. He's
Speaker 2: going to have to accept that there will be Kurdish
Speaker 2: forces on his border, which he hates. So it's a
Speaker 2: question of, like what value does he assigned the safety
Speaker 2: of these three million refugees, And it doesn't seem to
Speaker 2: be very high. And like every time when we talk
Speaker 2: about migration, that people are leaving terrible things, right, that
Speaker 2: that's why people tend to end up as refugees. But
Speaker 2: there's never been a I don't think a more pronounced
Speaker 2: global crackdown than I've seen right now. It's not like
Speaker 2: these Syrian refugees they can't leave their province, right. I've
Speaker 2: spoken to hundreds of people who have left Turkey in
Speaker 2: the last six months year. It's very hard, it's very expensive,
Speaker 2: and lots of the people who have fled from Turkey
Speaker 2: only went there for a few months, right, and then
Speaker 2: kept moving. Every country has made it harder than it
Speaker 2: ever was to immigrate. Like even you know that we
Speaker 2: talk about the Syrian refugee crisis in twenty fourteen, twenty sixteen,
Speaker 2: unleashing three million people, right that they need a safe
Speaker 2: place to go. If you try and force them back
Speaker 2: to Syria, it's either going to be an absolutely terrible
Speaker 2: humanitarian disaster, or we're going to have more refugees entering
Speaker 2: the refugee system at a time when governments all around
Speaker 2: the world are indifferent at best to the survival of refugees, right,
Speaker 2: including the fucking bioding government in this country.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, it's uh, it's pretty big.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but uh, that fucking sucks, dreams.
Speaker 2: It does fucking Suckan I will be back in two
Speaker 2: weeks to talk to you about what Turkey is doing
Speaker 2: in the Kurdistan Autonomous Region of a rock where they
Speaker 2: are bombing Curtis Dan freedom gorillas. They're setting up roadblocks
Speaker 2: and again like making massive incursions into another country. So
Speaker 2: that'd be great. We can you can all look forward
Speaker 2: to that over the weekend. Yeah, I guess I guarantee
Speaker 2: that there are refugees, probably refugees from Turkey or Syria
Speaker 2: in the town where you live, or in the nearest
Speaker 2: big town to where you live, and you can do
Speaker 2: something nice for them this weekend if you want to.
Speaker 3: Especially if you live somewhere where it's hot as shit,
Speaker 3: you can I don't know, help out drop off water
Speaker 3: somewhere or something.
Speaker 2: Yeah, like, and I've just been talking to Kurdish refugees
Speaker 2: who are in like the Northeast, you know, I spoke
Speaker 2: to some They're not Kurdish or Turkish, but to some
Speaker 2: refugees are in Scranton, famous for Joe Biden always talking
Speaker 2: about it, but yeah, there are folks everywhere who need
Speaker 2: your help.
Speaker 4: You can make a difference.
Speaker 2: I guess the fucking government isn't going to Joe Biden
Speaker 2: isn't going to Kamala Harris isn't going to either, and
Speaker 2: neither is fucking Hillary Clinton. I'm damn sure of that.
Speaker 2: So it is only you, and that doesn't need to
Speaker 2: make you desperate. You can do something. I spoke to
Speaker 2: so many, Like another of our podcast listeners was at
Speaker 2: the border on Monday and I met them and they
Speaker 2: were lovely and we drive around it and help people
Speaker 2: and like, you just need to take that yourself.
Speaker 4: Then, like you can do something. But the first step is.
Speaker 2: You know, lugging off Twitter and getting out there and
Speaker 2: like I promise you, you will feel less hopeless if
Speaker 2: you start helping. Even though it's only one person, it
Speaker 2: makes a difference.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that is something that James did tell me that
Speaker 3: I think about is because I get really overwhelmed with
Speaker 3: the idea of how many people need help in this world.
Speaker 3: And I'm just like a big softy and I really
Speaker 3: just overwhelms me, like what can I what can me
Speaker 3: little me do to help anything?
Speaker 4: But Dreams is right.
Speaker 3: If you change even one person's life, that's one person's
Speaker 3: whole life. That's a big deal. And so I think
Speaker 3: it has to start there. And if there are many
Speaker 3: more of you doing the same thing, then that's how
Speaker 3: actual change happens. Because yeah, our government is useless. But yeah,
Speaker 3: listen to Dames Dreams is wise and British.
Speaker 2: Please, I listen to it because I'm British, because that
Speaker 2: will lead you down some dark paths in terms of
Speaker 2: gender ideology.
Speaker 3: I mean maybe I meant that you sound wise.
Speaker 5: Because you're British.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, that's what I got get for me.
Speaker 2: But just be nice to people and they take by
Speaker 2: someone fucking lunch this weekend if you have the money,
Speaker 2: If not, make them lunch, you know, make some rice.
Speaker 2: It's cheap, And yeah, you can make a difference. No
Speaker 2: one fucking else will. If you want to talk about
Speaker 2: being a leftist, that's great, But like, I have so
Speaker 2: much more respect for people who want to do stuff,
Speaker 2: so to do stuff, and the rest will sort itself out.
Speaker 2: Like you don't have to argue with people about the
Speaker 2: miniture of ideology. It doesn't matter, Like helping people matters.
Speaker 2: Making the world better matters.
Speaker 4: Do that. It's Friday.
Speaker 2: Hopefully you can use your weekend to do something nice
Speaker 2: for someone