SOCIAL OR ANTI-SOCIAL MEDIA A Peace of Cake Podcast & Abdul Haqq Baker

Salam alaykum. Warahmatullahi Wabarakatuh. And welcome to a another session another Saturday. Another piece of cake with him in the I think it's the yellow beige kind of corner. Yep.

And that one a new sort of, I don't know what you call it almost. It's almost black and white roll. You know what, maybe because why? Maybe I started watching that Macbeth, the new Macbeth one.

And I feel a bit in that sort of dark kind of mood. Yeah, it's very sort of gray and sort of like, you know, some new movie out about Macbeth or something. Is that yet no, they came out yesterday on Apple TV and and I taught Macbeth in schools and oh, yeah, I learned that for

Shakespeare's play. But the new one with Denzel Washington all star cast, I watched the first 15 minutes I've got a bit tired last, I'm gonna watch with my wife and

stay true to the script scripts. Okay. Denzel Washington is playing Macbeth.

It's black and white. The acting is superb. Yeah.

Washington's a great actor. We saw it takes us straight into our whole conversation, to be honest, it's a really interesting comparison. Between, you know, what we, you know, studying Beth, a great piece of literature.

You know, like, some of the great, great literature of the modern world, I guess. Yeah.

relatively modern world, I would say. Yeah. And as opposed to what we're dealing with now, you know, 37 tiktoks. Videos. Yeah. Content that, you know, if it doesn't hold your prospects attention in the first 10 seconds, you've lost your audience.

And like the big chasm between those two types of things? And yeah, I mean, I guess our whole theme is really about is social media, really anti social and more, I guess problematically is there seems to be a lot of evidence that is actually destroying our ability to think and to think critically. So what do you feel wrong? Because

just now with the technologies, I know, you saw me getting frustrated coming on. That's right. I think what you said is a really good job of

jumping in with that. And we're about to in the contrast with Macbeth and Shakespeare and theatre, and quality of content, and attention span. We've Shakespeare, for example, the intended attention has to be to detail. And it has to throughout the play, and the different acts and the different scenes, the soliloquy is understanding the greater messages on moral messages or immoral messages that are permeating the story. And as you've said, when you just switch that to today, and social media, while it was slammed by those who have joined us, that you said, as you said, 10 seconds attention span. Imagine, imagine

a blockbuster movie or play as Shakespeare would have been at that time. And everyone walking out after the first 10 seconds because it didn't grab their attention. And this brings me to an article

from Kira, where we'll just just as a point, right, like, oh, you both you and me have studied Macbeth. Right. So interesting. Very interesting way to start this program. Totally coincidentally.

I think you know, Macbeth has like it has some of it has a couple of passages that are so poignant. Yeah.

They're almost in a panic. Yeah, like especially when that tomorrow tomorrow, tomorrow creeps on at this petty pace from day to day, you know, life is just the stage and we just play as striking our stuff out brief candle, you know that that whole, I literally makes my hair stand on end just remembering it because it's Lady Macbeth. Remember the DUA. She wants such evil she's asking for Shaitan to take my body and bestow upon me such evil to be able to do with the deed just so that a shakes so that Macbeth can become a first he becomes

Earl or Lord of Komodo after the battle and then the

prophecy of the so called prophecy of the witch that he will become king. It's such a powerful play, and it shows about greed. And it shows about and that's why it's powerful, because it's about, it's about good and evil. It's about greed. It's about the temporary nature of this world and power in this world, and lost after power and how futile it ultimately is. Yeah. And about the greater virtues yet. It's not that it's not entertaining, it's not that it's not gripping, because Shakespeare, Macbeth is not, it's not a super long play compared to the others. So it's definitely tense is definitely gripping. And it's got some, it's got some funny moments as well. You've always

got your little comedians in there to sort of give you a laugh, but you're right, the bottom line is, is that these are deep subjects about very important things in life yet, today, what we're faced with

is, I mean, I, these little soundbites, these, you know, these,

the most you get is these sort of little phrases that are almost laughable. You know, like, you know, in order to be great, you know, you have to look beyond the horizons, you know, there's sort of no quotes that, you know,

life is like a bicycle or riding a bicycle, you know, in order to live it, you have to keep moving or something, you know, Einstein, you know, like, and all of these things, it's like, and like, it's literally in one ear and out the other. I mean, I wonder how many people literally sit down and say, Wow, okay, I'm gonna make this something that is actually gonna give me direction in life. It's more like people go, Oh, yeah. The next one, right? And then, you know, the next thing, it's some, you know, people dancing to I don't know what, and the point being ultimately, bro, is that exercising the brain, like exercising the body? Right, it takes effort in order to build a functional body in

order to have muscles that are functioning and that you can use in a functional way, right? You need to exercise then you're not gonna get physically fit and strong by sitting on your backside the whole time.

With your mind, if you're not exercising your mind, if you're not thinking and contemplating deeply, then what's going to happen, Brooke? Yeah. As you said, abdur-rahim, I think, basically, the superficiality of social media, if we allow it to do that to us, okay, is is a is a problem. It's a huge problem for the younger generations. And my wife and I were talking to our younger son a few days ago, she said something, I was like, wow, this is actually true. And she said, that the younger generation, the millennials, and they have a different paradigm than we did. We followed and learn from our parents and their parents and their parents. And they were our reference points up there.

Okay, so that you were able to instill culture and values and everything like that. The younger generation today, we are not their reference point.

The gap between us and them is widening, because their reference point is social media. And today, only today, I said to my son, I said, Look, when you've got children later on, are you going to be saying, my dad, my grandparents instill such a such No, you'll be going back and saying, let's go back to 2022 mean, or social media than that? Because here's the thing is, is that, unfortunately, is not even that what happened? Yeah. Okay. Because no one remembered these memes. That's my that's my contention, right is because there's so they're so trite. Yeah, there's so that they're not, they're literally, I guess they're like slots of cocaine or something like that. Right? Like, what

am I not, not that I've snorted cocaine? But I mean, it's this. It's this sort of equivalent of some sort of

temporary, you know, crack, you know, you get excited for like, what, three seconds and then that's it is just like what's left? And I think like, there was there was a seminal book that was

written in the 1970s. And I'm sure a lot of maybe a lot of our listeners have heard of Noam Chomsky. Noam Chomsky wrote this, this is later he wrote this book, co authored a book called Manufacturing Consent. And I think this is a really important, really important to contextualize what is going on. So in this and you can watch the documentary if you're not into reading the whole book, The documentary is probably actually better. I do really highly recommend it. And basically, quickly, very quickly, the contention of this book is that the way that democracies democracies so called democracies, they control people by controlling the narrative that people have. And what it does is

it only allows conversations

take place within a very, very strictly confined and limited sort of confines of conversation. Because anybody who wants to have a deeper conversation that is outside the carefully crafted narrative, they will find it very difficult. Because those conversations take more than 10 minutes, they take more than 15 seconds, all you can do in the 1015 second sound bites, which the news and the media give you, is just repeat the already pre manufactured, that's why it's called Manufacturing Consent. Because an example of this, by the way, is the whole pallava of what's been going on with the recent pandemic, right, you will not see pure manipulation, like in its highest

level of propaganda, Manufacturing Consent, and you can see it taking place. But this is generally true, I if I want to challenge the narrative. I mean, with something like the pandemic, you can't like, even if you are a qualified professor in microbiology, you get shut down and you get your account frozen, right? Like the guy who invented the RNA, you know, whatever, you probably I don't know if you've seen that interview with him with that famous podcaster. Right? He got banned from Twitter, just because he wasn't toeing the line of the normal narrative, right. And that's the point is that all you can do in these democracies is just say what they've already programmed everybody to

say.

One more thing, bro, let me just, I'm just gonna paint the picture, right. So part of all of this bro, part of all of this is the way in which we consume information. Right? So the medium through which you consume information, in a sense, dictates your ability to process that information. So basically, if you're used to reading books, the nature of reading books means that you're going to be a thinking person. Because reading a book takes time it takes effort, it takes conscious effort, in order to understand that there's a lot of thinking involved. listening to a podcast or a radio station, right is less than a book, right? But definitely more than just watching TV, for example.

Right? And on the very least, you know, the least the spectrum of the scale that involves absolutely no effort, is when you're scrolling through Instagram, when you're scrolling through tick tock, you just Flick, flick flick, there's no thinking going on there at all. And if you're not thinking you're not exercising your brain and if you're not exercising your brain, then how are you going to be able to think critically about the information that has been presented to you excellent points of dream and before I go into it, I want to seem as agreed with you and your point, some fantastic points. chatterboxes asking, yes chatterbox we are seeing the messages, if you ask questions, if

there are ones that we can answer we will answer. And I want to come back briefly to Lucy when Jones sister Lucy welcome and Hamdulillah that you came to the dean via social media. This is not talking specifically only against against social media. Obviously, a lot of pros that we're going to discuss the

what we're doing, we're here now, but

the Lucy for highlighting that abdur-rahim What you've just highlighted from there on Chomsky is fascinating. I haven't read the book, I'm fully aware of him and he's worked Mashallah. And Shareen said she's read the work as well, but that I was only discussing yesterday and another podcast that I'm doing with two American brothers. And it comes from my PhD research, but it matches exactly what you're saying, where society the state, implements social control mechanisms, in which what comes out of that are legitimized identities, in other words, law abiding citizens, okay, in a general sense, but the literate, legitimized identities, subscribe to that narrative, what you're saying,

Those who think against that or who do not agree with that narrative, or ponder deeply and have questions. As you were highlighting, if you were to speak against the pandemic or anything today, you'll be chastised and marginalized, they form it fall into another. It's not binary construct, it's more than two aspects, but they fall into a contrasting construct to legit legitimized identity, which is called deviance, resistance identity. Okay. Resistance identity is not just protesting going against a state and whatever is just that they are not according or following that legitimized identity and that narrative that the government and the state wants you to follow. So

what you're saying, I'm glad you said that because there's only yesterday I was referring to my PhD studies later in that and what's what's interesting

Then, is when we look at social media and we ship I shared this with you recently, that article and I won't go into it in too much detail is social media killing intellectual humility. But will you show us a whole nother in a lot more than killing social intellectual humility, and what is the intellectual humility, you are in an echo chamber, where you will only listen to those who validate your position. And

opposite to that anyone who disagrees with your position, you will align yourself with those who chastise abuse you in Seoul troll. It's become that binary, where you cannot disagree in a healthy manner. Because you need to shut down the space of anyone who doesn't validate you within the echo chamber that you're actually in. So it's fascinating. That's perspective, as I said to a sister, Lucy, when Joe's we are going to speak about the positive aspects, because there are many, but that ability to engage constructively to think, to disagree. Agree, except that we're wrong. Change our perspectives. Yeah.

It's interesting, bro. Like, I mean, you in a sense, you've brought up a whole different, like, it's just it's interesting, our conversations that we start with something and it just becomes bigger and bigger.

But, but but it's very interesting what you said now, right is that the the the way, the whole, it's not even a discussion, these binary viewpoints that are being formulated that you have these two camps or these three camps. They're very, very clearly defined. And no one is listening to anybody anymore from a different camp. And, you know, there's a lot of commentators saying this is unprecedented. It's never been so ugly politics in America, for example, the United States, they said, it's never been so ugly, like, there will always be disagreements between say, Republicans and Democrats. But you know, you could have a Republican married to a Democrat quite happily, like

they'd live in the same house and get on with each other. It's almost like that can't happen like people are. It's, you know, it's literally dividing families. And it's, I mean, from us from the outside looking at it, it's ridiculous, because like, what is the I don't even know, what's the difference really like? Like someone, he did this picture of American, you know, B 52. Bombers dropping bombs. Yeah. And the Republican one had American flags, and, you know, US Air Force and the other one, right, had, you know, gay pride and, you know, rainbows and this and that, but basically, still, they're still bombing and killing, everybody's doing the same thing. Right, we're just a

different colors pinion on the fuselage of the whatever. And the point being, is that the reality of the politics is the same, right.

But I mean, the point being, I think the interesting thing is that what is driving these algorithms that drives information that you're interested in, so this is what this is, what is,

I guess this is what is the maybe the big challenge of social media is because it's like, it's driven by revenue, like everything else is driven by money. And you know, that every social media platform wants to get you paying attention to it, it wants to call it the eyes. So they all want you to be spending your time on their platform. And unfortunately, that's always going to appeal to the lowest common denominator for most of us, which is just entertainment. And, you know, following our base desires, right, and temporary dopamine highs that, you know, give us these little kicks of dopamine, right? And we, you know, we become these dopamine addicts, looking at all these social

media things, right. It's driven. And that's why unfortunately, the algorithms don't drive content towards us. That contradicts the opinion like it shouldn't do in a way we should all have to be, I mean, maybe regulations, what you need is that, you know, people have to be able to look at the opposing point of view. Right, you surely you have to have your viewpoints challenged. I mean, yes, that surely has got to be essential. But that's the problem with the whole marketplace. That's the whole problem with social media, because it's driven by, as we said, it's driven by commercial interests. And that by the way, as Chomsky is point as well, Chomsky is point as well with

manufacturing, consent is always corporations who control the media. The people who advertise like for example, Big Pharma, they're the biggest advertisers in America Media, right? They have directors, they have people on the board of every single major media Institute in America, right? Because they want to make sure that nothing

contradicts their message. Right? But you go after him on that, which is very important.

Yeah, exactly. But you know, there's an important point now that you've brought me back to I think we spoke about a long time ago

great author and barely achieved a chili and belly and baby sorry. He speaks about

how we have become

us the recipients that become commodified through the internet of things. And he talks about he aligns this with when slavery Trans Atlantic slavery emerged, and how they commodified black people by bringing by introducing the term black and making the distinction between black and white, because the Europeans at the time, didn't even know what that meant. They didn't know what whiteness was what blackness was. But when it became clear as a cold modification, and that black was a value, to be transported, enslaved and everything he says something profound, about the 20 foot of profound about the 21st century, he said, through social media, through the internet, we have watched, forget

color, the same strategy of us becoming commodified, and becoming

that black nurse that black commodity of the world, because we have succumbed we have become enslaved to the internet, to social media. And he said he calls it becoming black of the world, meaning and enslavement in a similar way, the commodification of ourselves, through social media through so we basically become the, you know, we've become the equivalent of slaves for for, I guess, a very few people just as slaves were generally

plantation slave owners.

Except when were the slaves of these tech giants in these bozos and

you know, Bill Gates and all the rest of them, right.

And we've done it, we've accepted it willingly. Aisha highlights, yes. particularly women, especially women have been commodified. And children have been become more commodified as well. And but the thing is, unlike that time, yeah, it was.

We are doing it willingly. In slightly. I enjoy Foster's. Exactly, exactly. And it's funny I have this joke with my wife me and my wife have a constant thing I call her you know, I call her a mad Mohan cuz she's descended from the bongos. Yeah, someone was joking about you know, you, you Mongol, this and that the Mongol hordes and this and that. And she calls me cunning colonial, right. Cunning colonial. So I'm the kind of colonial and as I said, you know, like, it was funny, because we're having this thing to let introduce saying, Yeah, well, at least we are, you know, we were what we were right. You You just like I said, Yeah, it's true. Like, at the end of the day, colonialization,

especially Neo colonialization model modern. It's all about controlling people without having to expend a lot of effort in occupying their lands, with armies and military forces. And this and that. It's it's an efficient way of controlling people with minimum effort, minimum expenditure, minimum loss of life. And, you know, it's the claim to fame of the Chinese, you know, like, whenever the Western Westerners criticize Chinese increase Chinese control in Africa, or whatever. The Chinese say, Yeah, true. It is. Yeah, we have interests wherever and all of these places, of course, they have commodities we want, but we haven't invaded any countries yet. We haven't invaded them, right.

We build we go there. We build infrastructure, you know, and we enter into contractual agreements. And yeah, we get our raw materials cheaper, but we haven't invaded any countries. We just like,

yes, we are colonizing but we just, you know, we're not doing it with the same brutality, the willingness of the willingness of those being colonized. But again, coming back to the specific thing, isn't it? The willingness but

our behavior on because we willingly been enslaved if you'd like. This is what it allows us to do on social media. As this article says, the internet encouraged coverages arrogance, the belief that one knows much more than one does. The internet's Taylor's social media feeds and algorithms, media feeds and algorithms have herded us into echo chambers, where our own views are cheered and opposing views are mocked, sheltered from serious challenge celebrated by our chosen mob, we gradually lose the capacity for accurate self assessment and begin to believe ourselves vastly more knowledgeable.

than we actually are. And we've seen that abdur-rahim I've seen individuals start giving advice medically to individuals and if they reject that medic medical advice and these are Muslims and speaking about and you know who I'm alluding to there started saying that then using conventional medicines as alternatives and or not including completely using prophetic medicines means that they are akin to the Hawara rich This is in their writings. Okay, exactly. I see your eyes like what how does that that equate? This is the sort of language and I've seen individuals if you go back up to Rahim and you may remember this particulars and sisters, some we know some we don't know. But there

was a culture where and I realized this was happening in the 90s but I wasn't too sure. But they would attend certain sisters delivering

at the hospitals and I thought is to be their sisterhood to be there mashallah, this is what's happening. No other he they were to make sure that you have to follow the Sunnah don't have the epidural don't have the injections. Even if you can avoid gassing, if you want to be Mujahid do not do such and such. So this is the sister having her child under pain under stress, we know what our wives went through, we will never know the pain that they're going through. And you've got a seemingly lending hand, which is not there for that reason. Now transfer that to the internet, transfer that to a community, especially during the COVID period that we're in, and you the threat

of you being totally isolated and cut off, if you are not going to subscribe to that echo chamber. So this is the ugly side of social media, where it's actually very, very anti social media. And there are those who are taken advantage of that. And they know that they can advantage it. But if there was no social media, these individuals will be taken advantage. These bullies, if you like, some of them are trolls. Some of them are known individuals, they would be silent. Because as you know, the bully once challenged, always steps back. So that bullying on social media is a lot more pervasive, because you can't always isolate and identify who the individual are because they're

hiding behind. Yeah, people are very brave. You know, they get much more I mean, this is another thing this is another downside of social media is the you know, like when you're actually in front of another human being it's it is a lot more difficult just to be outright rude to them. Right. But when you're doing it behind the screen, there's this Annan anonymity, it's a bit like bombing people from aeroplanes and sending us right, or sending over drones. It's pretty easy to blow people up with drones, you just stare at the other end of the screen. There's no you're not spelling any burnt flesh, you're not seeing any people blowing up. It's about a part of the sad thing. I guess when you

know, you're chopping up people with an actual sword. When you chopped a person's head off their blood splattered on your face. Yeah.

It was pretty unpleasant and nasty and disgusting. And you know, not a lot of people were cut out for that type of stuff. I mean, these days any any person who can operate a joystick and has played computer games can flippin fly a drone and blow a village of people out. It's the same as social media, we can throw these insults at each other and abuse each other and be

accuse each other of all sorts of things. I mean, to be honest, probably this whole pandemic, it's I mean, you know, I think the numbers of people who are trying to stick to prophetic guidelines and natural medicine are few and far between that by far, the greatest amount of bullying and intimidation on a state level universally is by is promoted by big pharma. And to be honest, I don't trust them one single little bit, we had this conversation right at the beginning of this pandemic. And I didn't have much to say, but I remember what I said to you. And I said it to you is that when we live in a world where you have organizations who can create a disease for which they are the only

ones who can find a cure for it, we have to be very scared and very worried. Yeah. And I stick by that 100% Right, is extremely frightening and extremely scary. And I was just reading a comment today where someone said, Imagine a corporation had such power and control that they were able to make sure that anyone working in any other corporation was not going to be able to do it unless they physically actually mandated had to have and by one of the products belonging to that corporation.

Yeah. What crazy world would that be? Yeah, so but that's the crazy world we live in. That's the crazy world we live in. Right?

So I mean, the thing is that

Which sort of moves us to the plus side of social media? Right? The Bright Side of social media, from the plus side, it does mean that, you know, you have access on an unprecedented scale to alternative sources of information. In many ways, if people are only ready to have the courage, and you know, to actually take the time to think critically, you know that more than any other time The truth is out there, you can find, yeah, you can find the truth, you can get to the bottom of it. There are other sources of information apart from the mainstream narrative. And honestly, to be honest, bro, I, if anyone, right, trust the mainstream any mainstream narrative, any mainstream

narrative that is coming out from any government on the planet today, right? That person, honestly, I think they have to seriously consider that eemaan They have to seriously consider that whether they even got a brain. Yeah. Because the level of corruption. I mean, you just said, look what's happening right now and UK, look at it. Look at what's happening in UK, right. And UK, by the way, is like low, lowest on the corruption level in the world, right? And look what is going on right now with our prime minister. Right? These people who are partying every other day, and these are supposed to be the people who are so fully informed about how dangerous and destructive and deadly

this whole thing is. And they're partying away, bro. Seriously, are you serious? Exactly. Exactly. Yeah, like it's it's not about them breaking the rules is way deeper than that. Yeah. Right. If they were if they really knew there was some poo hitting the fan and you know, everyone was dropping dead dying, you would not be partying, you would not be doing it. You'd be scared Poulos yourself. Excuse my

language. This is it. Robert, the great thing is about one of the great things about social media, right, is that we can have these conversations we can obviously they're being shut down increasingly, but you know, you can access and you know, you can connect with people and is social, you can connect with people in an unprecedented way. And like all of these things, it's a double edged sword. The possibilities for us to connect, like this podcast we're doing right now. Right? For me, I will say for me straight down, hands down. Right social media has been a big blessing in my life. Big, big blessing. Right.

You know, it's taken me in directions that Subhanallah are just fantastic. You know?

I think abdur-rahim I agree with you. I think with social media in the positives. I'm not so sure. Well, no, I'm still out on that. With regards to the younger generation.

They still need to be schooled with regards to the fundamentals of rudimentary aspects, even though they're more tech savvy and everything than we are. But that doesn't mean that they're wiser than we are. That's one thing. I think that social media is positive for the for one of the reasons, let's put it this way. Now, all of you are aware of what the likes of AI and my ethnicity ethnicities have been going through for decades, if not centuries, with regards to the killings, the beatings, the brutalization that we have suffered at the hands of institutional racism, and the operators that support them. When if you remember, in the early 90s, when it was the king, bro like, why why would

the spotter off, right? That was a cine camera, which someone who happen to have in their hand, and everyone was horrified and shocked by that, but we weren't upgrading. I shaved my own personal story. There was no camera and you think then it's something so social media, we see what's happening with the redness we see what's happening. With the Uyghurs we see what's happening continuing to happen in Palestine. We see what's happening in Tigray at the moment, and that's from individuals like you and me, just making sure that you know what, I'm going to livestream this and I'm going to share it. So social media, overwhelmingly for me is positive. It's been a game changer.

But why is it being a game changer? If you remember Time magazine a few years ago, they voted who was the person of the year and they said YouTube, okay, let's say YouTube or Facebook, because it was the people who made the news. And that's what's continuing to happen. Now. We are making the news and taking the narrative from those big mainstream media into our own hands. But we've got to be careful though. Going back to what you were saying at the beginning of this podcast. We've got to be careful that we are really disseminating what we are ingesting because we

careful about the food we eat Hello food must show lots of America, where we've got to be careful about the information that we're ingesting, because it can cause psychological harm, and it can then we can then transfer to belief. Okay, we've got to be careful about what we're ingesting, absorbing spiritually as well. So this is why we're clear about our sources of the deen and the Sunnah and everything and the authenticity there. So that independence, that autonomy, that empowerment that we're given on social media, I used the word last week I use it this week is revolutionary. But we've got to be careful with how we utilize this tool, and how we absorb this tool. And if we do it,

take making sure that we are reading between the lines, that we are not within an echo chamber, that reinforces what we like to hear that we're ready to be proven wrong, that we're ready to be corrected, enlightened, you know, then it can be a very useful and powerful.

Yeah. And I think that it comes back to that whole. I mean, one of the things that, I guess, that I've realized is that

one thing social media doesn't, you know, it's not really going to do to you, it's not going to teach you how to think that's not the problem. And part of the problem is that, what one of the challenges I find that

people don't think critically, and it goes both directions, and it comes back to that I mean, you know, I, you know, when it comes to all this, I mean, I think I'm just think the whole pandemic is a really good example to discuss. And I always take pains to try and analyze, like, obviously, my knowledge of biology and science and, you know, you know, is limited, right, so in order to understand what's going on, you know, at a molecular level, I you know, it, I'm going to struggle a little bit with it. But, you know, like, but at the end of the day, you know, I still think I can what you can do is as long as you know how to think critically, and you know how to process

information, you can do it. And but what I find is people just don't see a couple of things people don't do. Right. They don't seem to check their sources.

They're like this is so I want to it's very interesting. I read this article, I thought, wow, this is amazing. Right? Like, so basically, it was basically, it was basically an extra suppose an extract from a medieval document right about doctors in Geneva in a during the time of the plague there, right? Actually making people infected because they were making money out of the plague. Right? I thought, wow, that's, that's really interesting. If it's true, that's the first thing I thought, Is it true. So what did I do? I started searching for this document on the internet. Looking at our archives, it was all in French I studied. I know enough French yet. I actually

searched through these volumes of this document found that basically, the so called reference, the first thing I found out there weren't even that many pages in that document anyway, right. So I get my alarm bells started ringing like what I did. This is not deep detective work. Yeah, this is just like basic. Wait a minute, this is sort of too good to be true, right? And as it seemed, I kept asking people, what's the reference because I looked here and look there and there wasn't anything someone had just lied and invented it. It seems like I'm still convinced it was right. But no one seems to take time to do this. It's the same the other way around. I mean, the stuff. The

interesting thing, bro, is that they've been lying to us about that. The scientists knew this thing was manufactured in the lab in Wuhan. They knew it from the beginning.

And they lied. They lied to us. They've been lying to us this whole time. They knew it from the very beginning. They rolled out the scientists. Oh, no. These experts. Yeah. Yeah, no, because we can tell we look at the RNA we look at the DNA and we can tell that this and that can't be manufactured. There's no way we even had to remember a brother had an expert on his, you know, five pillars to come and talk about it and whatever. It was lies, bro, they were outright lying to us because they didn't want to harm science in China.

You know, doesn't lie in tobacco. How many?

Just takes a bit of critical thinking to think Wait a minute, this is okay.

No, I agree with you. But

yeah, there you go.

We have you because if, because of the experiences See, why is it come to a wider attention now because it's something that's affecting the entire world. Okay. But if you were to look from particular perspectives, and I'm going to say black perspectives

In the vaccinations that were being given, we've got the

what we have and what happened in to the the Ethiopian Jews in Israel, sterilizing them? What happened in America? What's happening with the syphilis? Yeah, no, we know how vaccinations been used, but bringing it to the to today, one of my close friends, you know, he Mashallah. And he's a microbiologist and I think that's why I hope I'm not going to chastise me. They know I'm not I'm more than that. But we were speaking last week, and he was talking about the vaccinations and everything. And he said to me, he's had vaccination I have as well, circumstances behind it a different way. Actually, you have to, and we were talking about the boosters. And I learned from

him, he said to me, he wouldn't have particular vaccinations, because those vaccinations go into the DNA. Now, that alarmed me said, but I will have this one, because that's a traditional vaccine that doesn't get DNA. And I, after the conversation, I was like, Oh, my gosh, you got a vaccine going into affecting your DNA. Now, after he, let's say, for example, and I'm not a conspiracy, and I'm not going one way or the other, you and I have sort of just left it. Because we know there's a polarization on either side. I said to myself, let's say for argument's sake, what's that social media, everything they're saying is true. Let's say let's say for argument's sake, okay. Yeah. But

what is there to say?

That down the line because of the fear that's been instilled and transferred across the media, social media, particularly, that when they decide when, if when they say if, if or when, and or when they decide to start manipulating, and instilling social control mechanisms. They can't do it with the booster next year, the flu jab, and what is there to say, That can't happen if it hasn't happened already. So these things died along in me, I was thinking to myself, we've got a problem here, because we're facing something we've never faced before. To this degree, okay, we had the flu 100 years ago, killed many more than what we're seeing now. We're more advanced now. 50 to 100

million died with the estimated numbers. So abdur-rahim, what you're saying is, is absolutely correct. But it comes back down to what you've said about critical thinking. Okay. And Mr. Blue, I want to jump into what he said here, which was an important thing as well. And I want to ask you a question on this, Mr. Booth spoke about when he was younger, his knees, he always used to come into the home with his knees bloody, because it's always outside playing on the streets and everything like that you and me know, those those days when we used to be out and come back in or rough and tough and everything like that. My question to you is this?

Did we learn more?

Knowledge wise, mentally, psychologically, socially, socially? Particularly? Did we learn more in the environment that Mr. Bucha is describing?

than we are? Our kids are learning now via social media? You see, the thing is, bro, I'm gonna say, You see, my argument has often been that I think we learn differently. And I think this I think this attitude, and this what I've said, within, you know, what, to my wife, you know, with my friends, and, you know, people I said, Listen, this world is just different. Right, right. I don't think it's necessarily worse or better. It's very easy to talk about the good old days. Yeah. Oh, the good old days. Yeah, how? But I said, Look, it. Like I said, there's nothing I often say there's nothing new under the sun. Right? And sure enough, if you go back in history, and you look at when for example,

printing, yeah. When they moved from writing manuscripts to printed manuscripts and when books became super commonly available, right? Yeah. When Pete When novels were being produced this very interesting in the what the 18th century, right when novels became very popular, and were being produced, you know, they were console concerned about people spending so much time reading novels that it was done in people's brains. Yeah. Right. And we're talking about now things that are considered great classics of literature. Like the Bronte sisters, Wuthering Heights, you know, these things were called Brain opening materials, right? You're not reading a Greek and Latin text. You

know, you're not reading what? Some that? Yeah, these today, these are considered to be great human stories. You know, we're studying in English. Thomas Hardy.

Like, seriously, this is, you know, the same thing when TV came out. Yes. I mean, I think what you always do is when you get this new thing on TV, radio, you get an initial time when that you'll get a percentage of it.

People you get a generation maybe your last generation unfortunately, you will spend way too much time watching TV way too much time on social media way too much time reading novels, right way too much time. You know, reading clay tablets, whatever hieroglyphics, whatever it is. Yeah. Okay. And, but then people realize, you know, it just loses its appeal. And people do find a balance because people don't genuinely people don't want to be unhappy. And they can see when people are unhappy, they can see when, you know, you can start to see if social media makes people depressed and people start dying. You can see it. Yeah.

You know,

and people start realizing, okay, wait a minute, maybe this is not so this is not such a great thing. You know, people find a balance, bro. So I think you know, sometimes we have to have, we have to be part of the conversation. We have to have the conversation, we have to warn each other because that's part of how we adjust. Yeah, that's how we adjust as a society. But I think we will adjust and I think personally, bro, I think these things are all of the, you know, radio, TV, social media, they like any like pieces of paper, right? Like writing, they are the most incredible tools. They are the most incredible means of learning, assessing, disseminating knowledge, you know, civil

rights, human rights, love, peace, everything, right? And yes, they similarly they can be used for terrible things as well, just like almost everything you can think of. Right? So what is it really all comes down to you and me taking responsibility and learn the right path and sticking on the right path. I think that's key about learning responsibility, again, what you said about critical thinking, and, but what I would say and before I say though, I'm gonna say that something else talking about agreeing with you to an extent, and it's gonna reveal our age, I can remember when and we're not that old. I remember when Channel Four there, we can release a channel for each. And every

one, what you remember is only three channels, BBC One, four channels, and mighty. And then Channel Four, this independent channel, we're going to come up and I remember the day when we were in there was like, Okay, it's going to come on at this time. My friends were at home, we were at home and was just waiting for this blank channel where the frequency was there to come to channel four. Okay, relatively speaking. And before anyone starts saying You guys must be old. No, we're not that old. But really, technology has advanced that rapidly. That happens then Channel Five, and then cable TV. And you know what I'm doing? I'm saying again, with regards to I think, I think the youth have been

exposed to far more at a younger age than we were. And I'm going to tell you why I say that. And some will laugh because the Michael Jackson thriller, song and video when he was going to release the video, they only released it after midnight. And Michael Jackson had to put a disclaimer that he was not a believer in the occult, and devil worship and everything. So I remember because we were nightclubbing. At that time, we were dancing, we used to go out and we waited to see because we knew he was a good dancer. I was at my friend's house. A lot of my friends there. It hit midnight. Why was it midnight? Because the kids will be in bed there was the screening 3010 30 but this had to be

they call it isn't it or something watershed moment. So I remember it hit midnight, and we were just there. And then the Thriller video came on. And as you know, today, it was one of the most mimicked

orchestrate the

choreography.

That's what used to happen then. But now you've got a kind of you've got transformer movies, you've got horror movies, you've got imagery that children will not allow to see

the age of 18 at that time Nightmare on Elm Street, Freddy Krueger, Halloween all but we've got children now 910 11 Totally desensitized man into sand. 77 good year 70s was good. Very good decades Marshall lots of rock. And you should be proud of me Allah. So my thing after him is speaking to what you're talking about now? Yes. Then Chang for there was that oh, it's going to distract us. It's going to corrupt us. We've got enough TV channels. The Purists were saying that then Channel Five in cable TV. Now that's antiquated. So I suppose what you're saying

is a reality that is going to take place in the time to come. 10 years. 20 years we've won for the internet. I haven't got time for it. There's something else that's now the new the new fad, as it were. What I would say ask you is this though abdur-rahim

As we're coming up to the hour, while social media has many good benefits to it, just like driving cards, more beneficial, just like doing some of the other things that we do is far more beneficial. When abused, is when it's harmful in every, everything that we do if you drive a car recklessly and that's how you're driving, damaging, if you're going to use social media in a reckless, neglectful way damaging to you as well as to to others. But I want to ask you this abdur-rahim.

There is nothing better

than direct engagement, communication, interaction Sibenik you and I many may have been shocked last week when I said we haven't seen each other. We haven't been in the same space as each other together, car home, whatever. Like we used to do drinking tea guy in Richmond Park or whatever, traveling up and down the country. We haven't seen each other since I think it was 1999 2000. Yeah, but Brotherhood is that strong. That it seems like yesterday that we were together. But doing this with you over the last year or so has been absolutely amazing, amazing. Feel.

I don't know.

If being back with you physically, for me, would appear termies and surpass, just in one day, if you and I spent the day together. It was the past everything we've done just in the point of company. Such is the chemistry and engagement and brotherhood and camaraderie. And I feel that about others who aren't close to like I am yourself. Surely that surpasses social media, not just you and me for all humans. Yeah, I don't know. I mean, maybe I'm just a cold, you know, cold hearted Englishman, right? come from, you know, who's who's become socially dysfunctional by going to a boarding school, right? It was one of the one of the known psychological side effects of, you know, boarding school

is you become emotionally deadened. Right? And maybe I'm, you know, despite what people may think I'm quite introverted, I, you know, people may think, How can you be introverted, you know, like, you speak and speak as code and you give all these talks and lectures, but I'm just quite happy to sit on my own for hours and days and whatever. And to be at the other thing is, you know, the funny thing is, like, when you said to me, I haven't seen each other for 10 years, it's like, what would I feel? I feel like, I'm sort of been seeing you every light every week now. You know?

Like Me personally, right?

I'm not like, but that's me. I'm a bit weird, right? Like, you know, like, I barely even for my kids, or like, the only person I phone even remotely regularly is my mom, right?

I'm just like, when I see a person, and I'm with them, that's it, you know, they've got everything from me. And what I'm not is sort of like, you know, it is what it is. I'm just the very in the moment type of person. Right? For me, I find my whatever it is, I'm looking for I find it in this moment right now. Yeah, so I am totally engaged in what we're doing right now. And like when we're shut off, I'll be totally engaged in whatever else it is. And I guess I'm a sort of I am that sort of person. So I find it very easy to you know, get super absorbed in whatever it is that I'm doing. You know, I guess people are different. Like I'm not a person who craves a lot of social interaction

generally.

I think once upon a time I would I was like that my gang my friends and every single we were always together and there wasn't social media obviously. I'm similar to you now. In the sense that I'm happy to engage as we are but I think there's not a woman Nice to see you bro. Great to see you.

Now, I know we go and get a nice burger or something bro.

Upgrading what we used to have a years was scones and jam and a cup of tea. Now that's the true English

but for me, I agree with you on what you're saying now. But when it's loved ones friends, there's nothing like a group of us sitting engaging feeling that ambiance Okay, whether it's in the park whether it's nothing will replace abdur-rahim. You've done a lot online. I've done a lot online. Nothing will replace the study circles that used to take place in your home. Yeah, it's true, bro. They were. Yeah, you're right. You're right. You're absolutely right that Monday. Monday is the beginning of the week, though, you know, Boomtown Rats. I don't like Mondays. We love Monday as numerous

same conference was like right I finish work get home rip off the suit straight everywhere you go everyone knew and as you know after him sometimes take some of the sisters who came by London Transport because it did

work to take them across the Finsbury Park from so you had people coming from everywhere Hyde Park would give the Dow at the park they said we support this and we did come to yours sisters upstairs brothers downstairs in the summer out in the garden. It was as much as what took place after the study circles as what took place during the study circles and it was electric abdur-rahim and water fights

watch the

armor and it was water fights with the guns came out with

guns bro please yeah, water guns. Yeah, just the gold. The water guns Yeah.

The soldier soldiers bro

having the vantage point from being upstairs and so upstairs because of persistence dropping bombs on us. Exactly. See?

Right. This is how we were Yes. Selfies were like this. Don't believe the press don't believe the high but the fact I'm coming back to it. While social media what we're doing now abdur-rahim Engaging the brothers and sisters who engage with us week in week out and that's what makes this show I think what it is mashallah tubercular, but inshallah one day, one day, and this is what I hope for never said this before. If we could do an event and Hassan I hope you're listening, if we could do a piece of cake where we are in the same vicinity abdur-rahim And we could invite all the brothers and sisters, and they come and we're all in the same vicinity, at the same time, engaging

and instead of them posting up their questions and their comments and observations. They could be making them

having the opportunity to make them engage. And we actually are in the same space feeling the energy that we feel here, but amply amplified, multiplied because we're within the same.

Same building the same premises. I hope one day One day in sha Allah, I hope that's something we can do even if it's on one occasion, because I think it will be something to behold in sha Allah insha Allah bro in sha inshallah Well, I mean you know, maybe that's the conclusion you know, maybe the best thing for social media is to be a platform or a means to actually create social interaction in the real world, you know, not a substitute for it. What a fantastic that's how we should use it and think of it you know, Inshallah, I will I will endeavor to try and do that a bit more and to try and turn some of my social media interactions into real life interactions and I'm going to experiment

with that and

my my introverted little my introverted space go out and meet people in Sharla and as I said, as highlighted at the bottom there a piece of cake live coming soon inshallah upgrade maybe we can look at that when you come into UK bro so we can organize it I would come specifically for that to be honest with you and so so if that's going to be something and it's you and what will happen I mean we can we can build a piece of cake live but abdur-rahim enough to hack Baker coming back together after over 20 years physically of course physically sounds good, bro. Sounds good.

Up until that I will until next week I'm because I don't think we'll be doing it before next week.

That was a fascinating discussion as always, bro. And for my brother over there. Dr. abdulhak Baker.

Over over there. I'm bringing bring

a piece of cake. Salam aleikum wa rahmatullah.