Lauren Booth – Western Brain Drain I Muslims Are Leaving
AI: Summary ©
The speaker discusses the
AI: Summary ©
Why did you leave London?
Why did you leave Britain generally as it's
such a great country to live in?
And why would you go to somewhere like
Turkey?
I have to say that I have very
little attachment to the social behaviours that are
now so common in my country.
I think when Muslims come to London or
to the Lake District or to Edinburgh, we
can float through on a cloud of beautiful
tourism.
But what you don't realise, oh brothers and
sisters, is the deep ingrained social rot that
the people of my home country, my people,
my original heritage people, what they're suffering.
Do you know what it's like to walk
down a road, walking your children to school
and every 10 or 20 metres at any
time of the day, you are inhaling clouds
and clouds of drug smoke.
Can you imagine what that feels like?
I come from that background.
I used to smoke, I'm telling you this
because I reject it now.
It's so harmful to the psyche, to rationalism,
to good governance in our own lives and
homes, subhanAllah.
So you're walking your kids to school and
you smell a load of smoke, drug smoke.
And that's not the problem.
The problem is that if you were to
complain to a teacher about it, they'd look
at you as if you're the problem, the
extremist, because at the end of the day,
why shouldn't people smoke drugs in public?
I remember a few years ago, actually it
was in 2012, it was the Olympics and
the Palestinian team had come over to London
in order to take part in different events.
And they asked me, several of the competitors,
can you take us out for a day,
somewhere nice?
And so being a Londoner, and although I
was Muslim at the time, you know, being
used to that environment, I said, let's go
to Hyde Park.
It's a beautiful park, not too busy, it's
summertime.
Guess what happened in the park?
And this was in Ramadan, they were fasting
the poor things, almost complete * among some
of the women.
SubhanAllah, we had these young men and women
from Gaza looking at their hands going, trying
to keep their fast in a park.
And that's not the worst of it.
Because people just showing their flesh is neither
here nor there in a non-Muslim country.
But what about when they're pressing against each
other, kissing, fondling, again, in front of children,
again, just in front of our eyes, again,
that and much worse.
It's very unpleasant situation.
So the parks you can't really go to
in the summertime, unless you can kind of
switch your eyes down and try to ignore
the smell of the marijuana smoke and the
lurid behavior.
Allahu Akbar.
That's a lot of our space gone.
And right now it's 40 degrees in London.
So it's not that easy.
It's not that beautiful.
SubhanAllah, what about evenings?
In the Muslim world, the evenings are for
families.
Families are everywhere, right?
We're in the streets, we're by the beach,
we've got balloons, we're on the promenades, we're
having fun with our families going for desserts
and ice cream.
In London, it's quite rare or Manchester or
the other big cities to go out in
the city center after dark.
Are you crazy right now?
You'd never take your kids out there.
You don't know what you're going to see.
Well, you do know what you're going to
see.
I come from a family of alcoholics, unfortunately,
and I was formerly married to an alcoholic.
I was, before Islam, I would say borderline
alcoholic myself, maybe a high-functioning alcoholic, which
meant I could keep on working, but I
binge drank.
I would drink myself into a stupor maybe
just once or twice a week, but that's
okay, right?
Do you reckon you drink too much?
On a night out, probably yes, but what
else can you do?
On the weekend, I probably do drink quite
a lot, so I would say binge drinking
occasionally.
Do you drink to get drunk?
Yes.
I think we all drink too much.
Don't show my mum.
What does that do to families?
The smell of alcohol makes me sick now.
And so, with all these different social factors,
I give you one more.
Teaching children that they are any gender and
no gender.
Saying to Muslim children, a Muslim boy called
Mohammed, you don't have to be a boy.
Don't tell your mummy and daddy, but if
you want to be a girl, we can
take care of it for you.
And young girls getting sent things through the
post to strap down their teenage growths and
make them insecure, more insecure than they already
are, but now doubting that there is even
such a thing as a woman.
I'm not the only one moving to Turkey,
although it's got a lot harder now.
The families here from Canada, Australia, UK, yeah,
those are the main ones, subhanAllah, but there's
also some Polish sisters and some Latvian sisters,
but mostly it's the big western countries.
They just want to save their families.
So I was living with my family and
it was just so toxic and it was
really beginning to affect my mental health, so
I thought my best option would be probably
just to move out and get my own
space.
They want to be able to speak to
their children about having principles, faith principles and
ethics in the way that they want to
speak to them without that being undone or
being branded, you know, wrong or extremist, subhanAllah.
So yeah, here we are in Turkey.
It's imperfect and perfect.
We have to respect the home nation.
We have to respect our wonderful hosts here
in all their arrays, subhanAllah, and I hope
that we can do that, inshallah.
So would you, would I, would I recommend
making hijra to Turkey?
Well, I would definitely recommend living here if
you can.
Would I call it hijra?
No.
Would I call it moving to a Muslim
country where you can hear the Adhan?
That's true.
Where you can get salam'd in the streets,
but I do pray that there's a big
gathering here of minds for the good of
the ummah and the world and that we
find our peace and our places to rest
and be safe away from marijuana smoke, the
lies about transgender, the difficulties about alphabets, subhanAllah.
Protect our children into the next century, inshallah.
Protect our planet and look after one another.
If you are in a western country, I
really, I pray that we can all get
through this difficult time together, inshallah, and that
you find your space and please, wherever you
are, my dear brothers and sisters, don't negotiate
with the truths of Islam.
We have something to offer and people need
help.