Lauren Booth – Western Students derail Zionist Dystopia
AI: Summary ©
The speaker discusses the ongoing discussion of the "monster" and "monster" narrative, as well as the use of TikTok and Instagram to promote anti-cibile and anti-cibile groups. They emphasize the need for political engagement and cooperation in addressing issues such as racism and the rise of white supremacy, as well as the importance of education and empowerment of the American public. They also touch on the negative impact of the current political climate on people, particularly on their ability to express themselves and their values. The speaker suggests that there is a need for strong political stance and better understanding of the teachings of the prophet Muhammad, as well as for people to be present to catch the emotional and political nature of the situation.
AI: Summary ©
Gaza is a cipher for the confusion in
the world right now.
Americans have had a veil ripped off them.
They've been shaken from the reverie of junk
food and junk telly and junk lives to
look and really consider, why are we here?
There's no question that the impact of Gaza
has touched on virtually every corner of the
world and every segment of almost every society.
I mean, we're talking about Muslims, but also
non-Muslims.
We're talking about leftists and Jews, and we're
talking about mothers and grandparents and young and
the such.
And the kind of reaction to the genocide
over the course of the past seven months
has been absolutely amazing.
But that impact has not only touched on
people, but it has definitely impacted on public
opinion, on societies.
People all of a sudden, and I have
to say I'm someone who's been in this
particular fight now for decades, probably for the
very first time, I'm noticing this kind of
change in media narrative and media coverage because
of the kind of commentators that are coming
on and the things that they are saying.
How has all of this seen from your
point of view?
How has it looked?
What's your impression of all of this, especially
when you look back at your homeland and
the kind of reaction there and what's happening
on the level of media, politics, everything, society?
There's two things here, isn't there?
There are the guests that are coming onto
the mainstream and are saying extraordinary things that
you go, oh, you can't say that in
the UK, but now you can, which are
truths, which are self-evident truths, using the
word genocide, talking about mass murder, talking about
the occupation as a settler colonial occupation, moving
the parameters of the debate, but then there's
something else.
Underneath that is a refusal by Sky News
and BBC to change their way of thinking
and they're looking really out of step.
I'll give you an example.
A couple of days ago, there was a
Sky News presenter at one of the occupation
of campus movements in the States.
I don't, can't remember which one.
And she said, they're chanting antisemitic things here
and you can hear them going, we're not
moving.
You can hear it kind of, it's a
bit fuzzy.
And she's like, yes, I can't understand what
it is, but it's clearly antisemitic.
And you're like, never.
I mean, that's got to be a meme.
That's got to be, if there is a
moment in media history that represents the now,
it's that false framing continuing and making, you
know, our mainstream colleagues look stupid.
You know, the, the press conference that was
delivered by Netanyahu a few days ago, you
know, sort of lambasting the student movements across
America, claiming that they were calling for the
death for Jews when there were hundreds of
camps erected by Jews against Zionism and against
Israel and against the genocide, proudly standing in
the front lines of all of this.
It was almost farcical, had it not been
so tragic.
I know it absolutely is farcical.
And you see now, because everybody has a
camera phone, that when people try to fake
an attack, it's really not coming across.
The, the, the, the young woman who said
they stabbed me in the eye when they
just walked past and did that.
You know, how ridiculous that is.
Three, two, three, five years ago that there
wouldn't have been the counter narrative.
The problem is that she can say that
on the Piers Morgan show, Piers Morgan will
continue to repeat it.
And so will the mainstream media until it's
a girl was hospitalized.
Are you happy with this?
And you say it didn't happen.
They're like, it did happen.
And so we're, we're kind of post-truth.
We are post-truth.
You've got Netanyahu sitting in a studio going,
I can't believe that us, the most moral
people on earth with the best army are
being accused of terrible things.
It's like, and so how do we, and
how do our coming generation and those who
are awakened to this reality cope with that
dystopia?
That's the ongoing question.
How do any of us cope when they
will lie?
But the refreshing thing is that people are
seeing through that and they're seeing through that
almost instantaneously.
I mean, for instance, that press conference for
Netanyahu claiming that there were calls for death
of Jews and death to America.
I mean, no one was, was saying that.
And then people responding with images of, you
know, people erecting medical tents and you know,
the tents where people can have discussions on
various issues and, and crashes for children.
And, and, and, and this generation, and I
experienced this from my own children, as well
as from those I see, they're extremely nuanced
in terms of how to react, how to
fact check.
You know, that term that we, we all,
all of a sudden had when Trump came
into presidency a few years ago.
But now the young are actually doing that.
They are fact checking for themselves.
They don't, and you're correct in terms of
the BBC and Sky and CNN and the
like, they're so out of step that people
are switching off and then turning to new
forms of information.
And the young particularly are immediately getting to
the heart of the matter, to the truth.
They're finding out for themselves.
They're getting to the source of what's happening
and they're relaying it in such a creative
fashion.
So this begs the question, is it that
modern technology was, which was brought about by
the system that I label often as being
so corrupt, you know, capitalism and the like,
and materialism and consumerism that it's, you know,
thrust down our throats.
Is it that this has found, you know,
that particular way to find out truth from
falsehood?
So listen, the whole, the social media, you
know, on the ground personal reportage that has
come through the last 10 years and five
years really may have given us access.
I mean, Gaza was cut off.
They think that, you know, Netanyahu and his
goons still think we've cut Al Jazeera and
nobody will see.
Of course that is a horror and that
always precedes a horror, but it's not going
to do it because people find ways around
it.
But here's the interesting thing and here's what
we should be aware of.
And I hope really clever people are working
on this in this coming generation.
They will stop TikTok and they do stop
you on Meta and they do blind us
and they do promote certain narratives.
And the majority of Americans are still buying
that narrative because that's what reaches them.
So in this fog of social media war,
are there, I pray that there are really
smart people who are going, we've, we're already
two years into the alternative, but who will
buy into the alternative if we don't own
the mainstream?
How do we get the message across?
So we're almost kind of coming to the
end of communication on TikTok and Instagram.
What next?
Yeah, I mean, and the question what next
is the question that everyone is asking about,
because we've been through so many phases, I
would say, or events, most of which unfortunately
have been tragic and devastating, where we thought
that these were going to be the transformative
events, but then they sort of...
George Floyd.
For instance.
I mean, when that happened, I mean, the
whole world was up in arms.
All of a sudden the statues of slave
masters were being brought down everywhere in France,
in Germany, in Britain, in America.
And then it's sort of fizzled out a
little bit.
So a couple of things on, on that,
because it does relate to the Palestinian struggle.
So, Alhamdulillah, I've been invited to Doha to
speak at a female, a Palestinian conference and
to workshop ideas on moving forward in collaboration
with the Western interest that's coming through these
university campuses.
And we have to look at the paradigms
that already exist.
George Floyd seemed to be this changing moment,
but then collapsed.
Well, I have a theory about that, which
is not my own theory.
It is out there that the George Floyd
Black Lives Matter movement was already corrupted from
within because it was primarily an LGBTQ movement.
And you could say that a section of
that movement who were highly paid disliked the
black man as much as the police force.
So you have got a break there.
You've got people saying, save this group in
society, but not them.
Right.
And it's that all genocides hinge upon separating
the men from the women and the children.
And so we're seeing this.
Let's take it back to Gaza.
In Rafah, you've got these checkpoints now.
We'll let the women and children through.
We'll do horrible things to most of them,
but some will get through.
But the men, ya rabbil alameen, are they
not human beings?
We're being asked by these movements continually to
separate the men as if they're subhuman and
dangerous.
And that's an issue for our communities going
forward.
So when I speak to my Muslim sisters
in the Palestinian movement, I'm like, beware of
the golden handcuffs of Western liberalism.
Because, you know, once the killing actually stops,
and Israel has a number in mind for
mass murder, and then they'll go, we're done
here.
Then there will come people coming in and
saying, hey, we love your women's empowerment group.
Let's do this work together.
We'll give you 20 million.
It's from this wonderful NGO.
And in five years, there'll be no hijab,
no faith, and no memory of Palestine, and
it'll all be coexistence, and da da da
da.
So we've got to be careful of that.
We have to be so strong in our
own narrative.
And I think I get the sense that
a lot of the youngsters from UCL, from
Goldsmiths, from, you know, all of the Columbia,
because of the George Floyd movement, they actually
are awake to needing somebody else's narrative to
be alive, and to allowing that.
So yes, it wasn't a success in that
laws didn't change, not one life has been
noticeably saved, unfortunately, on the streets of America,
right?
Nobody's got wealthier, no repayment has been made.
But those kids were still impacted, enough, inshallah,
to accept another person's narrative as gold and
worth protecting.
Is it also fair to argue that all
of these events that I alluded to, for
the past, let's say, 25 years, they have
sort of played an incremental role, maybe, you
know, step by step, in order for us
to arrive at this particular moment, where there
is this mass explosion of emotions, as well
as convictions, as well as a search into
the fundamental ideas or so called values of
the fathers of the, you know, the bastions
of democracy and human rights of the past
50 years or so.
Is it fair to say that they have
played that role?
I mean, for instance, I go back to
the anti-war movement that started in 2001,
2002, 2003.
I'm glad you brought that up.
Because I don't, at the moment, know where
I stand on protests.
On the one hand, this wonderful dynamic energy
brings people together.
On the other, it's millions of hours that
should be, that could be, not should, but
could it be spent somewhere else?
Isn't this controlled dissent?
And the minute it's not controlled, oh, you
can march a million people down here, but
don't put a tent up there, we'll beat
you and take you.
Doesn't that tell us that the control paradigm
is kind of okay with protest?
However, I'm now going to undo that.
And I'm going to say, in 2001, 2003,
sorry, when millions of us took to the
streets against the Iraq cataclysm, put in by
the British Prime Minister at the time, and
enacted shock and awe, all of that, Tony
Blair, that we felt disappointed, horrified as things
unrolled.
And we're like, well, that didn't work.
If 2 million people on the streets can't
do anything, what's the point?
Where's the democracy?
But six years later, that same Prime Minister
had to leave a little bit earlier than
they wanted.
And the Labour Party had to kind of
manoeuvre itself and change its outlook because of
that.
Because we dispersed, but we didn't forget.
So I don't know, it's slow change, it's
agonising change.
And you have to watch people die and
be in pain in the midst of it.
But in a way, I mean, whilst the
devastation of Gaza is immeasurable, and it's extremely,
probably impossible to quantify, I mean, we talk,
we continue to talk about these tens of
thousands killed, tens of thousands injured, and thousands
upon thousands under the rubble still.
But it's not a numbers game.
It's about the devastation of so many lives,
of so many dreams, of so many potentials,
of so many aspirations.
It's about the devastation of the fundamental values
which the Western world particularly held so high
since the Second World War.
And for which the wars in Afghanistan were
fought, the wars in Iraq were fought, so
many wars, so many conflicts around the world.
But were they fought for that?
We don't believe, don't believe, don't believe.
They were fought for that.
Well, that was why people backed them, because
they claimed that it was for human rights,
it was for the liberation of women, the
very same soldiers who are now arresting young
girls across American campuses.
And forcing them out of hijab.
And forcing them in the most brutal ways.
The very same.
But it was only ever a veneer.
So what's interesting is, is that veneer a
harder sell now?
Is it more fragile than it's ever been?
Is it the pecking of a bird at
the shell of an egg and something is
about to emerge?
You can't interfere with that process.
It has to be peck, peck, peck, and
take that amount of time?
Maybe.
Inshallah, God willing.
What's your impression as to the political discourse?
The kind of argument that we need to
use this moment in order to impact the
political class?
To tell them that we don't want this
anymore, we want something else.
What do you think of this?
You're not going to like this, I don't
believe in politics.
I don't believe in any of it.
You don't believe?
I don't believe, I don't believe in this
class of politicians as having any morality.
Something has gone badly wrong with the human
being.
And it's nihilism.
And it is a lack of faith.
It's a lack of belief in God.
And these, I'm sorry, they are godless, monetized,
robotized human beings who you can't reach.
I mean, it's almost, it's akin to a
physical pain to watch a girl stand up
at a major talk of Hillary Clinton and
say, children are dying in Gaza.
My family just got killed.
And she's like, can you get her out
of here, please?
And you're like, oh God, there are demons
walking amongst us.
How do we reach those people?
They don't want us to reach them.
They'll just build walls and put police in
the way.
It's almost, isn't it almost a reaching a,
just write them off and do something different.
I'm sorry, I can't play with that.
I just don't believe that they have any
ethics.
I don't believe there's an ethical system.
You have a point, but my investigation, if
you wish, will depart from the point as
to, well, in light of the kind of
reality that we have.
Okay.
So the reality is solid.
The reality is polluted on every single level.
I'm with you.
You know, I think that, um, the, uh,
you know, the new liberal, um, ideology that's,
uh, painted everything that, uh, brought us this,
that had the facade of democracy, but now
bit by bit is being revealed as something
akin to the kind of brutal dictatorships that
we find across the Arab world, only in
a nicer garb, in a suit and tie,
in a, you know, kind of neat cutlery,
sort of put in a French etiquette point
of view, but is now being revealed by
the people who are trying to change that
kind of system.
Is it a bit like the end of
the wizard of Oz, right?
Where Dorothy's standing there and this big voice,
I will do this.
And she goes behind, there's a little man
going, and you look behind and then it
turns out to be nothing whatsoever.
Is it a bit of this?
And the question is, okay, so how do
we start to, um, to change all of
this?
How do we begin to address these issues?
How to, how do we get back on
the right track, on the track towards building
something else?
Now, uh, you and I are both Muslims.
We have our fundamental beliefs in that, you
know, the entire universe is focused and the
focal point is Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala.
We all know that.
But the fact is that the majority of
people aren't Muslims and they do not depart
from that same point.
Well, now you've raised it.
Okay.
That's, that's, that's problematic.
And that's problematic.
Why?
Because that void has been filled by nihilism.
And nihilism is a structural belief where nothing
exists, nothing matters.
And that leads to depression, psychosis, and a
very dark gloomy way of looking at, let
me just get what is here now.
So when I'm talking about, I don't believe
that the political process can work as it
stands.
I think we have to go deeper into
Westernism.
Westernism is a, I, you know, I'm not
so sure about white supremacy.
I think, look, there is an umbrella of
Westernism, which is, has been in place for
four and a half hundred years.
And part of that is white supremacy.
But there, but, but the umbrella of this
idea of we know what is best, and
we're going to take what we have and
smash every culture until we, the small number,
get it.
And then you add that philosophy of nihilism,
which, which has been coming through Foucault and
through other philosophers in the last hundred, hundred
and fifty years, horrible, toxic, nothing means anything.
The hope is by the grace of Allah,
this generation of finding a cause that matters.
So I think, do I think this is
a turning point?
Yes, but it's Westernism we need to be
looking at, not tinkering with an, with a
deliberately smashed system of politics.
If you were, if you had an audience
and you had a few minutes with the
young people who are in Columbia or in
Harvard, or, you know, camping in UCL, for
instance, what would be your message to them?
If you could, you know, give them something
that would assert their fundamentals that led them
to leave their classrooms, leave their books and
the such and their preparation for their exams
and sits and raise the Palestinian flag and
sort of refuse the accusations, the demonizations, the,
you know, the, the, the charges that they
are being, you know, anti-Semitic, for instance,
or the such, they are giving so much
in order to be there.
I just want to roll it back a
bit too.
And I will, I will, I will address
that because it's a beautiful question.
Okay.
Let, let's do that first.
I would say solidarity is beautiful, but you
can't lead it.
You can't lead it because you're still in
a place of, of relative luxury and you
have a different way of life.
Are you ready for the Muslim women in
hijab to say, I want to be married.
I want my children to be safe and
I want to worship Allah to Allah.
Are you really in solidarity?
I, or are you at some point going
to say, this is the way you should
live and tell us how to live.
That's what we need to be molding now
is a shoulder to shoulder with the oppressed
people leading.
That's not easy for Westerners to listen to.
We have to take them forward on that
journey and say, solidarity is what you're doing
now, but it only continues if you listen
to the, to the people who are having
their rights taken from them.
So that's going to be really interesting.
And I remember when I went to, I
was in Gaza in 2009 after Operation Cast
Lead, it seemed like it's now a kind
of footprint of what was to follow a
horrible period of bombing, you know, mass civilian
casualties, 2000 on that, which seemed massive.
SubhanAllah.
And a journalist, um, I wasn't Muslim at
the time.
He said, come and meet my wife.
Now I was in solidarity.
I put my life on the line.
I'd gone on a flotilla to, to Gaza.
I was in it to win it.
Right.
But still I came from the West.
I had my ideals of what freedom looked
like.
And in my mind, I thought she's probably
going to be really nice and really boring.
Stay at home, mom, nothing to say.
So I go to their apartment in Gaza
city and lo and behold, guess what?
She serves a feast.
I mean, I could not cook that if
you gave me 10 days and a team
of people with me, and this is something
for a guest.
And I'm looking going, well, you know, she
can do that.
Cause she's a stay at home mom.
You know, I'm brilliant.
I've got my mind.
I don't focus on cooking.
We Westerners, we, we do something different.
So I said to her after this amazing
meal, you know, um, it can't be easy
with your 11 children to, to cook a
meal like this.
I'm very grateful.
So patronizing.
And I remember she said, yes, it is
not easy, especially doing a PhD in further
maths.
I'm like, I was furious.
I was furious inside.
And then she proceeded to very politely mop
the floor with me intellectually eight days till
Sunday.
And I, that was a lesson I had
to learn.
You cannot bring your preconceptions of who, what,
where with you, you have to be constantly
letting go.
And they're very brave.
And we love these kids.
Are you ready to let go of what
you think the world is?
And if you are, then, then we can
make a future together.
Inshallah.
Um, it's again, I come back to where,
where do you start?
I mean, because you had this physical encounter,
you had this face of it, you, you
know, happen to go into this person's dominion
into their lives, see them firsthand.
Not everyone, not everyone around the world has
that luxury.
And especially now, I mean, come on.
I mean, sometimes, you know, I think we're
so unfair.
I mean, what does Gaza need to do
more to educate us?
What does it, what do the people of
Gaza need to give more in order to
open our eyes?
So painful, isn't it?
When you, when you see our beloved brothers
and sisters who have taken up the camera,
maybe they were doing it before the genocide,
but have been daily saying, I'm not going
to communicate with you anymore because you don't
care.
Uh, and, and I'm gone.
You won't see me again.
And people are dropping off and people are
vanishing and you don't know whether they're alive
or they just don't want to tell us
their reality anymore.
But your question was, you know, how do
we communicate that?
And it's a really good one.
I, when I was 16, I remember being
on my college campus and a speaker from
the ANC came to teach us about apartheid
and, and you can hear about apartheid from
someone who you live beside every day and
go to college with, and even a professor.
But when you have someone who's like, I
saw this with my eyes and bring you
into their reality and you are joining their
struggle, that's far more powerful.
So I think, um, the next, the next
stage is to equip and help the Palestinian
voices to, who are in English.
This is very vital.
Okay.
The Holocaust wouldn't have mattered if it had
stayed in German and Yiddish, right?
English is, is right now the language because,
because this is the, the, the global elite,
right?
You've got to get your speakers lined in
a row.
They're going to be women, women speakers.
You've got to have your, your people paying
for their flights, making sure that they're, they're,
they're organized and getting them to speak to
as many people as possible.
We want those voices.
You and I, me, not you.
I should be redundant.
I want to be redundant in this.
Write us out with the Palestinian voices.
But again, one step ahead, the Zionists are
like, we can't have them on campus because
it's hate speech from the river to the
sea.
Even, uh, talking about Palestine, unless you say
it doesn't exist is hate speech.
So I think the first battle is really
to delineate American and British laws and European
laws about free I think that's actually the
first quarter battle.
I, uh, I happen to stumble across, uh,
um, a video clip, um, uh, where Muhammad
al-Kurd, um, from Jerusalem, where he addresses
the camera.
Um, and he says something quite powerful, but
something that is very, very nuanced.
And he responds to the charges of either
antisemitism or the like, or anti-Jewish or
Jewish hatred or the like.
And he says something which, you know, since
then I've been, I've been thinking to myself,
how can this be, um, how can this
be articulated in a clear, in a nuanced,
um, in a concise way to today's activists,
but also to the general public who are
still undecided.
Um, and basically what he says is, listen,
the fact that my house was robbed by
invaders and settlers who happened to be Jewish
is not my fault.
You can't accuse me of, of, of Jewish
hatred when it was someone who happened to
be Jewish, who happened to be carrying the
star of David, who killed my neighbors, who
ransacked my land and who are now committing
the genocide in Israel.
Stop asking me this.
It's not my fault.
Had it not been someone Jewish, I would
have said the same, stood the same.
It just so happened that it was someone
who happened to be Jew, who was proud
to use their Jewishness in order to justify
the killing, the ransacking, the thieving and the
harassing.
And still to this very day, I find
that enormously powerful.
It's been a very clever trick, hasn't it?
To, to say that on the one hand,
the right wing, the settler colonial mechanisms, they're
so violent and so ready to hurt and
maim, are at the same time so fragile
on the front line that going like this,
you stabbed me in the eye and you
made me upset.
You're, you're wearing that keffiyeh in the street
and I'm feeling triggered.
Get a life.
I really like what, and applaud what is
being said now.
You know, you look stupid, right?
This whole fake fragility thing, when behind the
woman who falls to the ground and nothing's
happened to her, our guys coming up and
pushing our, our sisters.
And these are associate professors of universities.
Did you see that?
Jonathan, somebody who was in her face calling
her, you know, the B word and no,
we don't put up with it.
You're lying and you're whole and you're violent
and we don't have to apologise for our
stance.
It's, uh, yeah.
I mean, the, the fact that, the fact
that people have the goal to say, I'm
offended by you raising the Palestinian flag when
actually the, the country or the state or
the entity that you are defending is actively
involved in committing a genocide.
And yet I'm the one who should look
after your feelings and not raise a flag
or not chant from the river to the
sea.
There's a, there's a deeper question here about
who gets to be angry, right?
Why is it always that the oppressed non
-white person has to, um, you know, try
and appease and make a difference in, in
a certain way.
So I'll give you an example.
You can march along this street, but you
put a tent there and you can't, you're
allowed to say peace and love, but you
can't say free Palestine.
As long as we are forced to protest
in a mechanism that is shutting us down,
then, then we're not going to make a
difference.
So I really applaud all of our student
leaders who are saying, we're going to chant
from the river to the sea.
And that is actually not aggressive compared to
anything that you're doing.
I remember my husband said, uh, as a
man from the Caribbean, his most disappointing moment
in the whole of the roots series, uh,
remember in the 1970s about slave trade was
when Kunta Kinte, they finally caught what they
had a moment of retribution potential against the
slave master.
And he threw down, you know, the whip
and ran away.
And he said, as a, as a, as
a black person that made him feel sick
because he saw in that, Oh, that's how
you sell the root story.
You've got to be nice in the end
and play nicely with your oppressor.
And we're going to delineate how, how that
looks like.
Yeah, it's, uh, I think it's, uh, it
needs a lot of, uh, uh, introspection.
It needs a lot of examination as to
how we, even as, as activists, as people
who believe in the cause, people who think
that we stem from the right place and
are saying the right things.
I think much of our beliefs as well
need, need a lot of examinations.
Telling the Palestinians from the left position for
decades, don't talk about your own, uh, resistance
has, has a shame on the movement.
And also, you know, one of the arguments
continuously is, and whilst I do not dispute
for a single second, the fact that, uh,
essentially Palestine and obviously the case of Gaza
is a humanitarian issue, but to take away
and try to sanction the religious and belief
elements within, um, I think is doing the
whole cause a great disservice.
Well, where, where did that lead the Palestinians
in the 1980s?
It led them to the Oslo Accords.
Thank you very, very much.
We democratized, we, we, we, we dressed like
you, we swallowed cover, but we, I feel
Palestinians, the Palestinians said that they've done this
and they've, they've swallowed the narrative and here's
Yasser Arafat.
Here we are.
And you just destroy the land from there
on in, but in a way, you know,
you destroy us from inside as Muslims.
That's what I'm talking about here.
I'm talking about this as an Ummah subject
as well.
Because there, like you say, there is definitely
a move to, you know, there are already
people looking at what post genocide Palestine looks
like.
Today, Tul Karem has a huge invasion by
the Zionists on all different levels, chewing up
the streets, smashing the houses, killing the young.
And, um, once they're done with that and
their dream is to, to, to push the
Palestinians into an even smaller space, then the
Palestinians will be told, now you can speak
in this way and you can dress this
way and, and you've lost Al-Aqsa, but
it didn't really matter because Islam is only
beneath that.
Your question is one about land.
They were, there are outside forces who want
this to be a flag waving moment because
what has happened in the Arab world is
ridiculous.
Everybody behind their little flag, the little invented
flag.
So how old is your flag?
52 years.
Oh, congratulations.
And I'd die for my country.
It's like, oh, really?
Yeah.
Yeah.
What does, what, I mean, since you brought
up the subject, um, I mean, what kind
of impression does that leave with you when
you see, you know, on one hand, we're
looking at across America, across the UK, across
many cities in Europe and how people young
and old are responding to Gaza are defying.
I mean, I was talking with a German,
with a friend from Germany the other day,
and I mean, Germany has been absolutely horrendous.
I mean, and has brought back laws that
have been absolutely, you know, in the echelons
of history and totally draconian, brought them back,
particularly for the sake of the pro-Palestine
campaign, and have gone full circle, apparently.
I mean, they're now doing the very same
things that they did as, you know, when
the Nazis was in charge, but now they're
claiming that they're doing it in order to
counter antisemitism, but doing the very same things.
And yet he tells me that there is
not a day that goes by without a
demonstration with thousands upon thousands, sometimes hundreds of
thousands of people.
So are we not, I think the we're
not hearing the German voice.
I haven't heard many Germans interviewed to say
what it's like under that.
We know that there's this tier of this
broken political system who are selling, making money
out of the guns and guns, bombs, whatever
they sell to Israel, right?
But what are the people actually thinking about
this?
I wonder, I actually don't know.
I think that would be an interesting discussion
to have.
But, but, I mean, carrying on from my
question, basically, you see this and people defying
laws, defying threats, defying intimidation, actual intimidation.
And then you look to the neighboring countries,
the Arab countries, the Muslim countries, and you
see, I don't know whether it's paralysis, whether
it's indifference.
I'm pretty sure that deep inside people feel,
you know, just like ourselves.
They're boiling inside.
They're simmering.
I mean, they're just ready to go and
do whatever it takes in order to save
a Palestinian child or such.
But the fact that, you know, on the
face of it, you see virtually nothing apart
from pockets.
Can we give that old example, Anas, about
the elephant?
You get a baby elephant and a circus
ties a heavy chain around its front leg
for six months.
And every time it pulls, they beat the
baby elephant.
When that elephant is big, they can have
a piece of rope, very light, to a
peg in the ground and it won't resist
anymore.
So I think when we're talking about our
brothers and sisters in the Arab world, let's
look back to uprisings and protests that have
happened that I'm not even aware of in
the last 70 years, because there was a
huge passion for Palestine.
And haven't they been beaten into submission?
I was speaking to a Palestinian Jordanian sister.
And she said, you know, my father fled
the Nakba.
And she's very disturbed right now, because he
will not even watch anything on Gaza.
He won't watch it.
And he's silent about it.
What can you do?
What can you do?
And her theory, which is interesting, is that
a lot of the Arab states were given
Western money, right?
The gold and handcuffs that I spoke about
at the beginning.
Jordan was developed in the 70s, 80s and
90s by international aid, right?
And they all got kind of fat on
the roasted calf and very comfortable with it.
And don't rock the botism.
Don't rock the botism.
And that doesn't work for somewhere like Egypt,
where there's mass poverty.
But places, other places in the Gulf region,
we're doing okay.
Don't mess with us.
The Prophet, peace be upon him, was once
asked, what do you fear for your nation?
And at that point, he didn't say famine,
hunger, enslavement, poverty.
He said wealth.
Wealth.
And of course, you know, we become wealthy,
we fear death, we want to hold on
to it.
And we lose our focus, we lose who
we are, and we lose our empathy.
You've been involved with the attempts to sail
a boat that would break the siege on
Gaza and that would deliver aid.
You worked on this for months on end.
And you saw activists and supporters come from
all corners of the world in order to
take part in this freedom flotilla.
It might not have transpired, it might not
have happened for a variety of reasons, many
of which political.
But what was your impression?
What did you think?
As you know, you're making those calls, you
were liaising, you were organizing, you were speaking
to the media about this?
Let me first of all, not accept the
premise of that question.
I came on quite late because I offered
some support with social media.
So there are campaigns called the The Freedom
Coalition, and there's IHAHA, the major charity in
Turkey, and their strategy groups.
I wasn't a part of that.
But I have been a part of it
for the last six weeks, we can say.
And I have met the people who were
willing to put their lives on the line.
Because every of the 250 plus people who
came from around the world, to take these
boats to Gaza full of aid, knew that
there was a high chance of Israeli attack.
And I think what we're seeing spread now,
and let's talk about the young again, on
these campuses is not on my watch.
When you ask the elderly lady, who can
barely remember her own name, to be quite
honest, you know, I met her three times
a day, she said, what's your name, honey?
And it's like, doesn't matter.
She's like, you know, she doesn't want to
live and die with this happening in her
lifespan without having done something.
And I think that is the most moving
thing of all.
And on the flotilla this time, there were
a great deal of Muslims, by the way,
a great deal of Arab Muslims, Jordanians were
well represented.
I think there were some Egyptians.
So that young voice is coming through from
our...
And let's not forget the last time this
happened, there was the case of the Mavi
Marmara, where people were actually killed.
Nine people, I think nine people were killed,
dozens injured by gunfire, the Israelis opening fire
from lines from the helicopter.
I've spoken to survivors who were standing behind
a cameraman who's filming it.
They shot through the camera lens and took
out the back of his head.
And a list of people that they wanted
to deliberately assassinate on board, which included some
Shia, subhanAllah, that were found later on.
And yet people are still willing to do
that.
And I think if we can really latch
on to the fact that hearts move people
and the intellect must follow the heart, and
that we must be brave hearts, we're all
going to have to be brave in some
way.
When you first met me 15 years ago,
I was considered, along with many other people,
a rogue voice.
I had people say to me afterwards, we
didn't want to speak to you because you
know the whole Palestine thing, the rocking the
boat thing.
And we were pushed, marginalized, de-platformed by
the Muslim community.
You know, we need to sort ourselves out.
In the UK right now, there have been
a number of new councillors voted in on
Gaza genocide.
What does it mean in the UK platform?
I pray to Allah that they don't negotiate
their beliefs in order to stay in power.
They don't become a point of negotiation or
compromise.
Yeah, that's a very good point.
And to be perfectly honest, when I'm part
of the Muslim vote, as well as various
other campaigns in order to get the vote
organized.
And I have to say that the question
that comes up, and we're confronted with more
than any other probably, is what guarantee is
there that once this person who is, you
know, saying all the right things right now,
might not change their position once they're in
office.
So the position then, and you'll know this
better than me, is if you flood the
market, then a percentage of them are going
to get through, right?
Hopefully they won't be alone.
They won't feel isolated.
They won't feel like they're surrounded and absolutely
overwhelmed, inshallah.
Because we're very tired of the Baroness Warsis,
and I love her dearly, in a way,
who are silent in government and then have
to leave office in order to say what
they actually think.
Say it while you're there.
Say it from day one.
By the way, that's not only Muslim politicians.
Apparently, most politicians who leave office or are
on the brink of leaving office, all of
a sudden have this, you know, kind of
revelation and start speaking and saying all the
brilliant things.
You know, I've had journalists say that in
BBC news offices, young journalists are crying at
news bulletins, like, I'm writing this awful script.
You know, where is the backup for them?
Where is it going to be their outlet?
Are we creating structures that are going to
say, we can bring you to this?
Where are our young voices going to go?
And I think that's that's where we need
to be looking.
What do you think British Muslims ought to
be concerned with right now?
I mean, obviously, we have Gaza, we have
Palestine, but what should they be thinking of?
Because let me, let me paint a picture.
Within my circle of friends, which I'm talking
about a couple of dozen, very close friends,
we confide in each other and such.
There is quite a percentage of them who
I would suggest are virtually tired of everything.
And they're looking for someone somewhere else to
go to migrate, to raise their kids, to
have families and to sort of escape from,
you know, we used to talk about the
rat race.
But now it's more than that.
It's about, you know, whether you're talking about
personal issues and the cost of living crisis,
which is, which is, you know, debilitating.
It's that bad.
As well as the narrative, the escalation and
the rise in Islamophobia.
As well as, and I, you know, I'm
sorry to say this, but whilst Britain remains
far way ahead of France and Germany and
the likes in terms of, you know, the
scope of freedom and the ability to be
active and to say what you think, but
comparing to where we were 10, 15, 20
years ago, it is nigh on, you know,
an autocracy almost.
I mean, the kind of laws that are
being brought in, I mean, we can mention
the Rwanda law, but you know, you have
the borders and nationalities law, which is just
there lingering in the, in the sidelines, just
waiting to, to, to be at the fore,
the ban on protests, the curtailing of freedoms
of speech.
What's happening to people who dare speak their
minds and what's happening in their jobs, you
know, for their future careers, for their pensions
and the like.
People, you know, are now, I have to
say they're getting tired of where we are,
but at the same time, when they ask
me, you know, because I travel around, so
they come to me and say, you know,
and it's, where do you think we should
go?
Where do you think we should go?
What's the good, you know, I'm, I'll be
honest, I wouldn't dare, you know, give an
answer.
And, and that sort of fills me with,
with sadness first, but also trepidation, because I
am a believer that we still have a
job to do and that we can do
that job.
That job is not an impossible mission.
It's a doable job, but we just need
to, you know, organize, open our minds, open
our contact books, get in touch with people
and have those discussions.
Do you believe that Islam and attachment to
the masjid is going to be a focal
point for which beauty can flourish in the
United Kingdom?
And should that be the starting point?
I would like to think so.
And I think it is possible, but I
don't think we're there yet.
I don't think we're there yet.
So what comes to fill that gap?
Business?
That's, that's a very good question.
That's a very, very good question.
And that's something that I think more and
more people are, not only Muslims, by the
way, are sort of asking about.
And that's how many, by the way, are
finding Islam and where we're seeing all those
clips on TikTok from across the Atlantic, you
know, in America, Canada, as well as across
Europe, where people are saying, you know, hang
on, you know, what's happening in Gaza has
made me ask questions that I never thought
of posing before.
And all of a sudden, I'm reading these
verses of the Quran, I'm finding, you know,
these answers, which I'm deeply impacted by and
as such, I think that that is a
potential that's...
Look, can we live simpler?
Can we live simpler in the UK?
Can we live communal?
Can we opt out?
We have so much money.
We've got the poorest community in the UK
and some of the richest, and that's a
disconnect.
And we need the money from the richest
to really go into projects that are going
to, first and foremost, build up the solidarity
with their faith, with goodness, with sharing what
we have with those in need.
I'll give you an example.
There was 10 years ago, a masjid who
was asked by young women, why are you
only having a crush for Muslims?
We've got nothing here.
You know, and they started to invite them
in and gradually, and that's a beautiful thing.
Other masjids offering free health checkups, because you
have to wait two or three weeks and
you might not see the same doctor.
You know, we have these, a great level
of professionalism in the UK.
Can we focus on that?
Yes, go focus on the politics and it
will or it won't work.
But in the meantime, our criteria as mu'minin,
as believers, is to serve our community.
And when we start doing that, that's where
we're going to make the difference.
But that comes through us knowing the dean.
And if we're still churning out kids with
expensive degrees and no dean, well...
One of my local mosques actually has the
kind of facilities and space to arrange open
mornings whereby pensioners come in for a cup
of tea and a biscuit, just have a
chat, you know, just meet with each other.
People who come across living on their own,
meeting with virtually no one throughout days and
days attend.
You know, they come to the mosque every
Tuesday morning, I think, you know, for a
couple of hours where they meet with others,
they linger with, and they happen to be
non-Muslims.
And then, you know, they disperse once they
hear the Adhan.
And now they know, they know what the
Adhan is about and they know what it
means.
And they are asking, well, you know, where
was the chap who had such a beautiful
voice, you know, from last week and the
such.
So in a way, mosques have that kind
of potential and capacity.
But what I personally always talk about in
whenever I'm talking or lecturing and such, especially
to a Muslim audience, is that we need
to, we need to understand, I believe, the
teachings of the Prophet far better in terms
of, I mean, one of the things I
constantly say, and I'm not being, you know,
a jurist here or posing as a jurist,
but what I, you know, when I hear
the word, the concept of the Ummah, I
personally expand that to include everyone, everyone, because
they are, you know, the people whom, amongst
whom we live.
Now, calling upon them, inviting them, you know,
providing for them, being at their service and
the such, I think is, is the way
in which to introduce Islam.
We have, we have, we have the human
community and we have the Muslim community and
the Muslim community right now needs to catch
the human community.
We've always needed to do that.
But now with this, we circle back around
to nihilism, kids cutting themselves at 13 because
they don't know why they're alive.
I was speaking to a psychologist in Turkey,
a child psychologist.
I said, what are you seeing?
This is really interesting.
Tell me.
She said the big thing that she's hearing
is, I don't know why I'm alive and
therefore I don't want to live.
Wow.
We are there to catch that.
And you made me tear up then because,
you know, Europe has an aging population.
Be nice to Muslims.
We'll be looking after you in your old
age.
And Alhamdulillah, we're equipped to do that.
I know a wonderful convert sister.
She's English as can be.
And she, she's converted to Islam and she
looks after people at the end of life
with such care.
And, but, but you're not allowed to speak
to them about, do you want me to
speak to you about God?
Would you like that?
You can't even, and, and we just need
to be there to catch the elderly and
help them.
And I was thinking about my grandmother who
was, Allah forgive her, a real racist.
Um, and I said she lived in Wembley
and as Wembley was changing, I thought if
that old white lady is walking along a
street and there's all our Asian and Arab
brothers and sisters there, are they going to
help her or are they going to stick
to their own?
That's when we're not doing our job.
That's when everybody has a right to resent
us.
Yeah.
Um, okay.
I mean, you've now seen matters, let's just
say from various perspectives.
So I would suggest that you have, um,
uh, you have an impression that, uh, isn't
available to most people because you've seen things
from outside of Islam, from inside of Islam,
you've encountered projects that are of a humanitarian
nature, a political nature and the such.
Um, and you've also commented on what is
so wrong with, with, with the West, probably
the world also.
I mean, I don't know about China and
Russia and the such.
I'm not an expert, but, um, the Western
world today about, do you foresee because of
Gaza, because of this reaction to Gaza, do
you foresee a change of a major nature?
Do we, are we to expect, um, a
transformative moment anywhere in the near future?
I mean, let me, let me tell you
what many young people tell me.
They say, what's the use of the United
Nations?
They tell me about, okay, so the ICJ
case presented by South Africa was absolutely fantastic
to watch.
It was a okay.
So what's going to happen next?
Um, all of this, yet the mainstream media
still fails to grasp the very basics of
what is truly human.
I mean, we, you know, in media, we
always tell young budding media professionals that it's
the human angle.
It's the human angle.
Okay.
How much more human can you be, you
know, when, when, when seeing what's happening in
Gaza yet, you know, the failure to grasp
this, to understand and to reflect is staggering.
Um, but people are, are on board.
I mean, they, they get this, they understand
this.
They're having the discussions amongst themselves.
Anas, here's the thing.
Um, Gaza is a cipher for the confusion
in the world right now.
And Americans have had a veil ripped off
them.
They've been shaken from the reverie of junk
food and junk telly and junk lives to
look and really consider why are we here?
What is, is there a purpose?
These people have a purpose.
Stay put.
They have a purpose.
Worship Allah.
They have a purpose.
Look after each other.
Am I doing that?
And I think that is the revolution that
is happening.
The self-reflection revolution, but in light of
doing things for other people, because this narcissistic
decade that we've had, there's a great documentary.
Everybody please watch this called the century of
the self.
Then if you've watched it yet by Adam
Curtis, right.
We have been convinced to look into ourselves.
And once I perfect myself, I'm going to
be the right person to be around.
And in the meantime, you do nothing.
Well, I think that's, that's been taken away.
And I think the big outcome is going,
we're in a fork in the road.
I can't say what the outcome is.
Are we going towards the end of the
time times?
And in our, in our tradition and our
understanding, this is going towards the Dajjal and
the preparation for that.
Yarab, in which case this fitna is small.
Or are we another chance for humanity to
build something before that ultimately comes.
Thank you, Lauren.
That was fantastic.