Question:  When you read the newspaper and watch the news, what issues stand out for you?

Transcript: Nuclear weapons in the hands of fanatical religious people who think that the day of judgment is around the corner. I think for people to understand it, they should probably see pictures of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and that was pretty much a primitive bomb.  The bombs that they are trying to make now are far more advanced and can kill far more people, and with consequences for decades for the places that are . . . that will be affected.  Someone like Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the current President of Iran, has made it very clear that he is able . . . he is willing and he is able to acquire that bomb, and he is going to use it.  He has declared war on the state of Israel.  When the leader of one country tells the leader of another country, “I’m going to wipe you off the map,” that, according to international declarations, is a declaration of war.  Ever since he came to power, he made it very clear – pretty much like Hitler when he came to power – that he was going in that direction.  Now the first reaction was understandable, where you see, “We should negotiate this man.  Let’s understand what he has to say.  Let’s talk to him.  Let’s use sanctions,” and so on.  But you always have to have that military option – the option of force on the table.  And my criticism of the European Union leadership is that that is off the table. 

Question: Do you believe Ahmadinejad would use nuclear weapons if Iran acquires the capability?

Transcript: Yes. He has made it very clear that he is going to use it.  And not only that.  He is already financing and disrupting the U.S. policy and western policy in the Middle East.  And he is trying to become very dominant in that region.  And so he is someone who is very much . . .  He’s very self-assured because the usual mode of detriment, you know . . . deterring someone from doing something, which are always material and worldly, are things he doesn’t believe in.  He welcomes death.  And in that region, it’s not the . . .  I’m not saying that everyone there believes that; but part of the radical Islamic doctrine is to believe that things will be better in the hereafter.  So people welcome death.  Not all of them, but many of them and those engaged in that welcome death.  Which means the old forms of deterring people from doing things such as acquiring a bomb or using it – that the old methods – the sanctions and so on – that’s not something that’s going to make any impression on him.

Question: When did the West and the Islamic world diverge?

Transcript: I think if we go back to as far as the 10th and 11th centuries when, according to the history books, there was west was backward, and the Islamic world was far more progressive; that one thing that changed was Europeans . . . that was the west then and went off and traveled towards the Islamic world with China and Japan, and started to observe the way these people lived, and thought that by doing that they could learn something from them.  And they came back with those lessons and they innovated at the same time that they were challenging their own institutions such as the church.  Then later the printing press came and all these forces came together where there was the desire to learn from the outside, and the challenge of the futile institutions within that were closing the minds within the west.  It’s around that time that in the Arab-Islamic empire, that’s what it was. There was a conviction that they had nothing to learn from the past or from others; that all knowledge was sort of concentrated from the Koran; and that we were leading in everything.  So there was this lax . . . this attitude that all knowledge is something we have.  We can’t learn anything from the west.  And I think that that’s when the divergence started.  And those minds on the eastern side closed, and the western mind opened and innovated and progressed at a pace that was so breathtaking for the Arab-Islamic world.  But by the time they actually woke up to their backwardness, the west was so far ahead in military, political, religious, cultural and social progress that all we can do now is copy.  It’s very little left to invent.

Question: What is the state of the Islamic world today?

Transcript: I’m optimistic about the fact that there are several individuals – by far not the majority – who have been in touch with the west, with Asia, with other non-Islamic cultures, and who realize that there’s a lot that we have to learn.  My optimism is that that group will be influential enough to make the reforms and the changes necessary in that part of the world.  Second observation is you cannot change if you do not accept that there is something to change; that there’s something imperfect.  So that dogma, that everything in Islam, and the moral framework that the Prophet Mohammed left for us is perfect, and that there is nothing to change in that; that is being challenged.  And because of that challenge, a natural reaction is one of defending it with all the fanaticism in the group and the community.  That can lead to bloodshed.  We also live in circumstances where people like Ahmadinejad who is a fanatical Muslim, has nuclear powers – is at least aspiring towards getting one.  Pakistan has one.  Egypt wants one.  Turkey wants one.  Under those circumstances, if they succeed in acquiring these weapons of mass destruction, then we are facing . . . we’re facing terrible times.  Meaning if you look at the western evolution towards modernity and the progress that we have reached now, those weapons were not there.  There were mass murders.  There were genocides.  There were lots of, you know, all those things that human beings do to each other; but having nuclear weapons just makes things so much more dramatic.  It’s not easy times.  That’s the very pessimistic and most urgent thing that we need to look at now.   Another observation is if you look at all the conflicts in the world today, you will be surprised at the number of Muslims entangled in conflict among themselves, with China, with Russia, with the west.  We are only one-fifth of the world population.  Having so many enemies all at the same time is very self-destructive.  Now if the fanaticism within the Muslim world that is now being fed by the fact that if we die, the hereafter is going to be a better place, then it’s very difficult to stop that.  But if that is diluted – I always like to see the cup as half full – that there will be voices, and that they will be strong enough to say that it’s madness to commit . . . to kill and to be killed because of this belief in the hereafter, and make the belief in the hereafter relative when things could look better; but on the very short term it looks like things will look bad.

Question: What misperceptions of Islam prevail in the West?

Transcript: I think the major misperception in the western world on Islam is that it’s equal to peace, and that it can be reconciled with liberal democracy.  The fanaticism within Islam and its basic tenets is something that is underestimated in the west.  And I think that western leaders – political, intellectual, religious leaders – the sooner they recognize that that faith – the Islamic faith – needs to go through a process of reformation and enlightenment, and that it’s going to come at a very high price, the better.  The sooner they do that the better.  As long as these leaders go on as seeing Islam as peace, that is, I think, a major misconception.  It’s also, I think, a very self-destructive one.

Question: What has to change?

Transcript: I think we should make a distinction between Islam and Muslims. What I’m trying to do is to say all over the world, we can identify with each other as human beings.  That is the basic glue – the fact that you’re an individual human being and I’m an individual human being, that’s what’s . . . that’s where our commonality or common strength lies in, and common interests. Islam, if we view it as one of the philosophies of political theories or ideas produced by human beings through our history, or just one of them . . . and view it, scrutinize it, criticize it as we have done with all other doctrines – religious or secular – then we may be able from the west – now I’m using “we” as someone who is westernized – to convince Muslims to make a different choice and to reform their faith first by acknowledging that there are things wrong with their faith.  So our goal should not be to preserve Islam. Our goal should be the common human, you know . . .  We are humans. So Muslims are humans.  They are not first born just as a baby in Pakistan, or in Saudi Arabia, or in Yemen, or in a Muslim community here.  If we emphasize that, then I think we can make a change.  And that involves two things.  That involves learning to distinguish between who is an enemy and who is a friend.  But before you decide who is an enemy and who is a friend, you yourself have to decide what do you stand for.  What are your own set of ideas that you feel are superior to that of Islam?  And are you willing to defend and die for your own ideas of freedom, and humanity, and humanism as much as the fanatics are willing to die for their own?

Question: What should be the response to Islamic fundamentalism?

 Transcript:     I think that’s such a good question because it puts . . . it just shows how experimental it all was – a  process of trial and error, and it’s still the case.  For instance – and this is a point of criticism – there’s no consensus in the United States on who the enemy is, or whether to freely say it’s Islam, or it’s a perversion of a form of Islam. Is it Wahhabism?  Is it Salafism?   Or is it basic Islam?  Who should we ally with strategically?  In other words, the approach has been very much strategic.  There are people in the United States, including this administration, who are waking up to the fact that there is a battle of ideas going on, but they’re too shy to voice what the ideas are.  Another point of criticism – and that’s not only towards this administration – but I’ve seen it all over the place is just this desire to avoid Saudi Arabia as a culprit; the state that’s not only financing terrorism, but also financing the ideology behind the terror acts. I think it was a mistake to declare it a “war on terror.” Terror is just a tactic, and it shows how much . . . how strategic the whole approach is towards what’s going on.  Another mistake on both sides of the Atlantic is that if we just appease them – if we just understand what they want from us and we give it to them, they might not be so bad to us. Or they might _________. Or they might . . .  I think those are mistakes that were made.  But again I’ll come back to the distinction between Europe and America.  And it seems as if America is learning much faster than Europe.  And by learning, I mean waking up to the fact that it is Islam . . . not necessarily all Muslims, but Islam as a set of ideas; and that that can mean military . . . I mean very disastrous military action.  Which for every politician, it is a terrible decision to take to say, “We are going to war.” Or, “We are going to do something destructive.” Or, “We’re going to take an unpopular action.” And Americans seem to be much more courageous in making that decision.  They did this in the Second World War and later than the Europeans who have . . .  I think the Europeans leadership at this point is really self-restrained and I say this because of the approach to Iran.

Recorded on: 8/15/07

Question: How do you understand human nature?

Transcript: I believe that there is human nature, and that good . . . what we consider to be good or virtuous, and what we consider to be bad are all in us – in each and every individual. But that as conscious beings, we are able to discern what we consider good and to develop that, and to suppress the bad side in us – the jealousy, the unkindness, the desire to dominate and, you know, kill.  All these desires are in us.  But the more we become aware of them, the more we are able to control them, to restrain them.  And that that is part of reason, _________ with reason.  There are more and more people coming up and attacking reason and saying that’s not the case; but I do believe that that’s . . . all of us are born with it.  It doesn’t mean to say we are all born reasonable, but the faculty is there. 

Question: What forces have shaped humanity most?

Transcript: When you asked me this question, the first book that popped up in my mind is __________ “Road to Civilization”.  Yeah, where he describes what we were before we were civilized, all the way to how we’ve come to evolve and change; and the Greeks and the way they lived, and how everything after . . .  For a long time we lost all that knowledge.  And fortunately because it was saved, we can get right back to it.  What is the constant?  The constant is the curiosity; consciousness; having to deal with the question of death.  That has made some human minds to be so creative as to invent the hereafter and so on, and others to go quite the opposite . . . in the opposite direction.

Question: How do Islamic and Western perspectives differ?

Transcript: If I compare first, say, Islam or the Islamic world versus European Americans – western world – I would say one is knowledge-based.  The institutions that we have in the west have been inspired by the thinkers and the enlightenment.  Human freedom creates the conditions for humans to be free and to pursue their happiness.  With incremental changes here and there, this conflict . . . you know you talk it out and you have all that.  At least you try and resolve it as much as possible through words.  And by “knowledge-based”, I mean there is this constant desire to innovate.  Constant research is going on.  Science is a major part of that.  Religion has been pushed back to the private sphere.  Or it’s become part of the civil or . . .  It’s pluralistic.  People respect each other’s religions or not having one.  There’s a whole debate on the place of government and capitalism and that kind of thing.  But basically it’s knowledge-based.  If I can convince you that my idea is better by presenting you with the evidence, you’ve been trained to at least entertain them even if you don’t accept them.  The Muslim world, on the other hand, is not evidence-based.  It’s dogma-based.  There’s the tradition of the tribe.  There’s the bloodline.  There’s the Koran.  There is God.  These things don’t change.  We do things the way we used to do.  We don’t _________ history.  We don’t . . . That’s responsible for part of the backwardness. 

Question: How do Europe and the United States differ?

Transcript: What is the difference between America and Europe as I observe it __________ the Islamic challenge?  Americans are still very experimental; still very much, “We’ve done it.  We’re a young nation.  We can change the world.”  Versus those within the U.S. who say, “No,  we should not interfere with the affairs of others countries and other nations unless our own . . . the American interest is threatened in any way.”  Europe is the old continent.  They think that they have gone . . . that they have seen it all, they’ve had it all, and they’ve come to the conclusion . . . at least part of the leadership has come to the conclusion, “We can resolve all problems by avoiding violence.”  I think that is really wrong.  I agree more with the Americans who say you ought to be prepared to defend freedom not only with words, but also through military means.  In other words, you’d also be willing to give your sons and daughters up for it.  I think . . . I hope that the transatlantic relationship will improve; in which case the Europeans will be today . . . should be willing to ally with and learn more from America and not tribal or, you know, enhance their tribal ________.  Because after 1989 and the E.U., there’s been this mindset within Europe that America is a rival.  And I think that’s a very dangerous idea today.

Recorded on: 8/15/07

Transcript: I think we should be doing business with them.  I don’t believe in aid because it has been proven for the last 50 years that it doesn’t work.  But trade.  Invest in Africa.  Let Africans change their own destiny.  I lived in Kenya for a long time, and when a mass uprising expressed in the form of demonstrations comes about against the government, the government then violently puts that down.  Now a number of the Africans that I spoke to and knew at the time would say if Daniel Radmore did not have all this money that he is getting from Britain and other western countries in aid, he would not be able to buy the weapons to crash us.  But in many African countries, because of aid, the authoritarian figures there can afford to get the weapons and the money to oppress their own people.  That’s an issue that aid workers simply don’t want to deal with, and I think it’s a shame.

Recorded on: 8/15/07

Transcript: There’s no consensus in the United States on who the enemy is, or whether to freely say it’s Islam, or it’s a perversion of a form of Islam.  Is it Wahhabism?  Is it Salafism?   Or is it basic Islam?  Who should we ally with strategically?  In other words, the approach has been very much strategic.  There are people in the United States, including this administration, who are waking up to the fact that there is a battle of ideas going on, but they’re too shy to voice what the ideas are.  Another point of criticism – and that’s not only towards this administration – but I’ve seen and heard it all over the place is just this desire to avoid Saudi Arabia as a culprit; the state that’s not only financing terrorism, but also financing the ideology behind the terror acts.  I think it was a mistake to declare it a “war on terror”.  Terror is just a tactic, and it shows how much . . . how strategic the whole approach is towards what’s going on.  Another mistake on both sides of the Atlantic is that if we just appease them – if we just understand what they want from us and we give it to them, they might not be so bad to us.  Or they might forgive, or they might . . .  I think those are mistakes that were made.  But again I’ll come back to the distinction between Europe and America.  And it seems as if America is learning much faster than Europe.  And by learning, I mean waking up to the fact that it is Islam . . . not necessarily all Muslims, but Islam as a set of ideas; and that that can mean military . . . I mean very disastrous military action.  Which for every politician, it is a terrible decision to take to say, “We are going to war.” Or, “We are going to do something destructive.”  Or, “We’re going to take an unpopular action.”  And Americans seem to be much more courageous in making that decision.  They did ________ in the Second World War and later than the Europeans who have . . .  I think the Europeans leadership at this point s really self-restrained, and I say this because of the approach to Iran.

Recorded on: 8/15/07

Transcript: I believe that there is human nature, and that good . . . what we consider to be good or virtuous, and what we consider to be bad are all in us – in each and every individual. But that as conscious beings, we are able to discern what we consider good and to develop that, and to suppress the bad side in us – the jealousy, the unkindness, the desire to dominate and, you know, kill.  All these desires are in us.  But the more we become aware of them, the more we are able to control them, to restrain them.  And that that is part of reason, we end up with reason.  There are more and more people coming up and attacking reason and saying that’s not the case; but I do believe that that’s . . . all of us are born with it.  It doesn’t mean to say we are all born reasonable, but the faculty is there.

Recorded on: 8/15/07

Transcript: I gained from the enlightenment to seek knowledge and be prepared to change your mind as your knowledge gains ground; to be giving and kind; and be concerned with the condition of your fellow human beings; and to be truthful and kind.  And I think the idea is that for that, you don’t need religion. 

Recorded on: 8/15/07

Transcript: We as Muslim women now . . . When I was a Muslim woman, we were brought up to believe in our own submission – submission to the will of God, submission to the will of your parents, submission to the will of your husband. And submission to the will of the husband is absolute except when he asks you to forsake Allah. Now if we have been indoctrinated to believe that, then that’s how we act. That’s how we behave. But not all of us . . . and that’s I think what’s so fascinating about the human mind – is that you cannot enslave the human entirely. Many of us have been exposed to other ideas. We have our own personalities, seek freedom. We can’t, I think, wake up to the programming and de-program ourselves. And if we become aware of the fact that what we are programming our kids from generation to generation is repressive. We can decide not to do that and to take on alternative ideas. We can be, for instance . . . We can wake up to the fact that the God that says in Chapter 4 verse 34 . . . tells the husband "you have the right to beat your woman", is the same God that after we are beaten and bruised, that we pray to for comfort. Just waking up to that dissonance alone will, I think, create a platform for change. It will create the grounds for change.

Recorded on: 8/15/07

Transcript: I fear death, I think, like everyone else. One of the things that the threats have done is they have made me aware of how short life is, and how trivial things can sometimes take the pleasure away from life – and so to shrug those small things off. And you know, the constant idea that life is short. So paradoxically, I think leading a much, I think, more meaningful and better life after the threats than before the threats when small things would bother me – the weather, or feeling too cold, or not getting what I wanted.

Recorded on: 8/15/07

Transcript: I’m optimistic about the fact that there are several individuals – by far not the majority – who have been in touch with the west, with Asia, with other non-Islamic cultures, and who realize that there’s a lot that we have to learn. My optimism is that that group will be influential enough to make the reforms and the changes necessary in that part of the world. Second observation is you cannot change if you do not accept that there is something to change; that there’s something imperfect. So that dogma, that everything in Islam, and the moral framework that the Prophet Mohammed left for us is perfect, and that there is nothing to change in that; that is being challenged. And because of that challenge, a natural reaction is one of defending it with all the fanaticism in the group and the community. That can lead to bloodshed.

Recorded on: 8/15/07

Transcript: We also live in circumstances where people like Ahmadinejad, who is a fanatical Muslim, has nuclear powers – is at least aspiring towards getting one. Pakistan has one. Egypt wants one. Turkey wants one. Under those circumstances, if they succeed in acquiring these weapons of mass destruction, then we are facing . . . we’re facing terrible times. Meaning if you look at the western evolution towards modernity and the progress that we have reached now, those weapons were not there. There were mass murders. There were genocides. There were lots of, you know, all those things that human beings do to each other; but having nuclear weapons just makes things so much more dramatic. It’s not easy times. That’s the very pessimistic and most urgent thing that we need to look at now. Another observation is if you look at all the conflicts in the world today, you will be surprised at the number of Muslims entangled in conflict among themselves, with China, with Prussia, with the west. We are only one-fifth of the world population. Having so many enemies all at the same time is very self-destructive. Now if the fanaticism within the Muslim world that is now being fed by the fact that if we die, the hereafter is going to be a better place, then it’s very difficult to stop that. But if that is diluted – I always like to see the cup as half full – that there will be voices, and that they will be strong enough to say that it’s madness to commit . . . to kill and to be killed because of this belief in the hereafter, and make the belief in the hereafter relative when things could look better; but on the very short term it looks like things will look bad. I think for people to understand it, they should probably see pictures of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and that was pretty much a primitive bomb. The bombs that they are trying to make now are far more advanced and can kill far more people, and with consequences for decades for the places that are . . . that will be affected. Someone like Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the current President of Iran, has made it very clear that he is able . . . he is willing and he is able to acquire that bomb, and he is going to use it. He has declared war on the state of Israel. When the leader of one country tells the leader of another country, "I’m going to wipe you off the map," that, according to international declarations, is a declaration of war. Ever since he came to power, he made it very clear – pretty much like Hitler when he came to power – that he was going in that direction. Now the first reaction was understandable, where you see, "We should negotiate this man. Let’s understand what he has to say. Let’s talk to him. Let’s use sanctions," and so on. But you always have to have that military option – the option of force on the table. And my criticism of the European Union leadership is that that is off the table. Yes. He has made it very clear that he is going to use it. And not only that. He is already financing and disrupting the U.S. policy and western policy in the Middle East. And he is trying to become very dominant in that region. And so he is someone who is very much . . . He’s very self-assured because the usual mode of detriment, you know . . . deterring someone from doing something, which are always material and worldly, are things he doesn’t believe in. He welcomes death. And in that region, it’s not the . . . I’m not saying that everyone there believes that; but part of the radical Islamic doctrine is to believe that things will be better in the hereafter. So people welcome death. Not all of them, but many of them and those engaged in that welcome death. Which means the old forms of deterring people from doing things such as acquiring a bomb or using it – that the old methods – the sanctions and so on – that’s not something that’s going to make any impression on him.

Recorded on: 8/15/07

Transcript: I was born at a time, say, about a decade after the independence of Somalia. What I have always carried with me around that time is the impression of my parents and their generation, which was, "Finally we’re free from the colonial yoke. We can determine our own destiny. We’re going to have our own nation, our own flag, our own parliament, our own army. There will be no pressure from outside." There was that. And I was born in 1969 on the 13th of November, and just the month before that on the 21st of October there was a military coup; which means for that generation in Somalia that looked so much forward to independence, in less than 10 years that dream of freedom was thwarted and disappointed. And that’s one part that I carry with me. The second part that I carry is I grew up with the vocabulary of freedom, and shape your own destiny and that kind of thing. That was on a national basis, but it affected me individually as well. And also my father was thrown into jail, which made my future and that of my brother, and sister, and other half sisters different from children whose fathers were killed, or whose parents were killed, or who went into exile immediately. My father escaped from jail and became a part of the opposition – Somali opposition – in Ethiopia. And finally when he escaped jail, he went to Saudi Arabia, my mother went to Saudi Arabia and we ended up there. And I’ve always had the pull on the one had towards the west representing my father. He was educated in Italy and here in the United States, and he was all about individual freedoms and democracy and that kind of thing . . . sort of modernity. And my mother, who after she had left her nomadic life at the age of 19, had gone to . . . was very much influenced by the Arab-Islamic way of life. And going to Saudi Arabia, for her, was getting as close as possible to Allah, and the prophet, and the holy house and so on. And she was very happy that one year that we were there in Saudi Arabia. So that is as far as surroundings shape.

Recorded on: 8/15/07

Transcript: I would like to make a distinction between age zero to about 15 or 16 years, before I was . . . before I came in touch with a woman called . . . we called Sister Aziza in my secondary school in Kenya and the time after that. Before I met Sister Aziza, the Islam of my family was not political. So I do not remember either my father or my mother saying that a society has to be . . . sharia should be the rule of a country or a society – with one exception. In the one year that we were in Saudi Arabia, there was no distinction between a secular sphere and, you know, let’s say the realm of Caesar and the realm of God. These were intertwined in Islam. And in the one year that we were in Saudi Arabia, we lived according to sharia, and the state was run through Islamic law. So the beheadings, for instance, amputations every Friday, the stonings, that kind of thing, that happened. And there was a distinction. When atrocities in Somalia were carried out by a secular dictatorship such as Mohammed ______, my mother would denounce, condemn those atrocities. But when atrocities were carried out in the state of Saudi Arabia – things were amputated, people’s heads were cut off – that was sharia law. That was something that the victim deserved because he violated the law of God. But we left that behind us when we left Saudi Arabia and went into Ethiopia. My life in Ethiopia and Kenya until my 16th year was, I would just say, praying five times a day. It was very . . . Islam was there socially and culturally. It wasn’t a political issue. When I met in 1985 Sister Aziza, a different kind of Islam is introduced, and a different meaning also from the one I knew from my family. It was a political Islam. It was very clear. It was an individual choice. It was about what she referred to as an inner jihad struggling to . . . simply to meet the obligations – to make sure that you prayed five times instead of three times or two times, and fast all of the Ramadan days, all 30 of them, not half a day as I used to do, or a week, something like that. It’s just adhering to the rules every day; the rules that the halal had permitted, and trying to abstain from what’s haram, or what is forbidden. This is reinforced within the Somali community. Kenya is a very multicultural place. And Sister Aziza was not a Somali, but in the Somali space there were figures like this man we call ________. He would fast for 100 days, and he introduced the same kind of radical, political, all-consuming Islam that divides the world into "we" and "they". And the divisions started within the Islamic community, so we were . . . those of us who followed the rules _________, those other Muslims who were neglectful of the rules were considered to be non-Muslims, hypocrites. We had all sort of negative attributes for them, and they extended to the non-Muslims.

Recorded on: 8/15/07

Transcript: I would like to ask my western audiences if there are any set of values – just mention three values – that they would be willing to die for?

Recorded on: 8/15/07

Question: What is your counsel?

Transcript: With respect to Islam, we should make a distinction between Muslims and Islam. Muslims as individual human beings like you and me can be influenced. We’re not born . . . it’s not a genetic discrepancy to be a Muslim. You’re just an individual human being, and you can be persuaded to change your mind. So engage in critical thinking, and change the course of your life. Islam, just like Naziism, today, is a very violent, totalitarian, very dangerous doctrine. And the sooner we see it the better. With such urgent matters as what are we going to do about Ahmadinejad, I think the most logical thing – I don’t know exactly how to get there – but the thing that comes to me is prevent him from getting the bomb for all the obvious reasons. (A) He’s going to use it. (B) If he gets the bomb the others will want it. Pakistan has already got it; but Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Turkey will all say if Ahmadinejad has it, we also want it – in which case you will have a concentration of nuclear weapons in the hands of authoritarian dictatorships that have no scruples about using it.

Question: What can be done to help Africa?

Transcript: I think we should be doing business with them. I don’t believe in aid because it has been proven for the last 50 years that it doesn’t work. But trade. Invest in Africa. Let Africans change their own destiny. I lived in Kenya for a long time, and when a mass uprising expressed in the form of demonstrations comes about against the government, the government then violently puts that down. Now a number of the Africans that I spoke to and knew at the time would say if Daniel _________ did not have all this money that he is getting from Britain and other western countries in aid, he would not be able to buy the weapons to crash us. But in many African countries, because of aid, the authoritarian figures there can afford to get the weapons and the money to oppress their own people. That’s an issue that aid workers simply don’t want to deal with, and I think it’s a shame.

Question: What should young Muslims be doing as individuals?

Transcript: It depends on where they are. If you are in Europe or America, you have access to so much education, so much empirical evidence that you can change your own life if you do certain things. I would say to Muslims living in the west: Take advantage – full advantage – of that. Develop your mind and your faculties of critical thinking and look around you. And why are we here? I mean try and answer that question. Why are millions of Muslims leaving their own home countries and seeking a better life in the west? What is it in the west that they are doing right that we are going wrong? If you are in Muslim countries, then there is a difference. The wealth in Muslim countries through oil – the solely citizens of the United Arab Emirates, Kuwaitis and so on – who can afford because they don’t have to go about . . . They don’t have to spend 90% of their time seeking bread like the poor natives of Egypt. That group can make a change and can bring in . . . Because we live in the age of Internet and so on, they can translate progressive books and the enlightenment. Lots of ideas and books here and can bring it and give it to their own people. Right now they’re only reading the Koran. That’s very little to live in intellectually. In poor countries, what you see now is that the Islamic brotherhood . . . brotherhood organizations . . . or fundamentalist Islamic organizations are the ones who are providing the care. And it’s an uncorrupt care. Healthcare, you know, food, the rule of making sure that places are safe, neighborhoods are safe and so on. And that can be challenged by, I would say, people who will not replace one form of oppression with another form of oppression.

Recorded on: 8/15/07

Transcript: I feel the obligation . . .  I think it was Karl Popper who stated the obligation to be an optimist – that by making this analysis just based on what I read in the newspaper is not . . .  It doesn’t necessarily mean that that’s how things are going to happen.  I mean everyday there are people involved . . .  Even as critical as I am of Europe, there are voices within Europe who feel that things are going in the wrong direction.  And I believe always that you can . . .  There’s always the possibility to make change on that.  Yeah.  I’m optimistic about it.

Recorded on:  8/15/07

Transcript: I think we should make a distinction between Islam and Muslims. What I’m trying to do is to say all over the world, we can identify with each other as human beings. That is the basic glue – the fact that you’re an individual human being and I’m an individual human being, that’s what’s . . . that’s where our commonality or common strength lies in, and common interests. Islam, if we view it as one of the philosophies of political theories or ideas produced by human beings throughout history, or just one of them . . . and view it, scrutinize it, criticize it as we have done with all other doctrines – religious or secular – then we may be able from the west – now I’m using “we” as someone who is westernized – to convince Muslims to make a different choice and to reform their faith first by acknowledging that there are things wrong with their faith. So our goal should not be to preserve Islam. Our goal should be the common human, you know . . . We are humans. So Muslims are humans. They are not _________ born just as a baby in Pakistan, or in Saudi Arabia, or in Yemen, or in a Muslim community here. If we emphasize that, then I think we can make a change. And that involves two things. That involves learning to distinguish between who is an enemy and who is a friend. But before you decide who is an enemy and who is a friend, you yourself have to decide what do you stand for. What are your own set of ideas that you feel are superior to that of Islam? And are you willing to defend and die for your own ideas of freedom, and humanity, and humanism as much as the fanatics are willing to die for their own? I think that’s such a good question because it puts . . . it just shows how experimental it all was – a  process of trial and error, and it’s still the case.  For instance – and this is a point of criticism – there’s no consensus in the United States on who the enemy is, or whether to freely say it’s Islam, or it’s a perversion of a form of Islam.  Is it Wahhabism?  Is it Salafism?   Or is it basic Islam?  Who should we ally with strategically?  In other words, the approach has been very much strategic.  There are people in the United States, including this administration, who are waking up to the fact that there is a battle of ideas going on, but they’re too shy to voice what the ideas are.  Another point of criticism – and that’s not only towards this administration – but I’ve seen, heard it all over the place is just this desire to avoid Saudi Arabia as a culprit; the state that’s not only financing terrorism, but also financing the ideology behind the terror acts.  I think it was a mistake to declare it a “war on terror”.  Terror is just a tactic, and it shows how much . . . how strategic the whole approach is towards what’s going on.  Another mistake on both sides of the Atlantic is that if we just appease them – if we just understand what they want from us and we give it to them, they might not be so bad to us.  Or they might forgive.  Or they might . . .  I think those are mistakes that were made.  But again I’ll come back to the distinction between Europe and America.  And it seems as if America is learning much faster than Europe.  And by learning, I mean waking up to the fact that it is Islam . . . not necessarily all Muslims, but Islam as a set of ideas; and that, that can mean military . . . I mean very disastrous military action.  Which for every politician, it is a terrible decision to take to say, “We are going to war" or “We are going to do something destructive" or “We’re going to take an unpopular action.”  And Americans seem to be much more courageous in making that decision.  They did ________ in the Second World War and later than the Europeans who have . . .  I think the Europeans leadership at this point is really self-restrained, and I say this because of the approach to Iran.

Recorded on: 8/15/07

Question: Do you have a personal philosophy?

Transcript: I’ve allowed myself to be inspired by the enlightenment thinkers. Individual freedom, reason, as opposed to living your life according to a set of so-called “divine ideas”.  The recognition that human reason is frail and that we live by trial and error.  And the things such as doubt and critical thinking are central to that way of living.  You have to be prepared to change your mind at all times.  There are things that you, of course, cannot change your mind about, such as, you should be as diplomatic as anything else; and that is the freedom that I think . . .  It was someone who said “to swing your hand and take a punch at me where your nose meets mine”.  That kind of ________ – just basic freedoms.  I also believe in human progress.  And I think in that, I differ from some of the enlightenment thinkers who thought – very few of them, by the way – that humanity was doomed to self-destruct.  I think we can self-destruct, but we can also find our way out of it.

Question: Does religion influence your worldview?

Transcript: Some of the Islamic teachings, especially at the very beginning, are about charity, and kindness, and generosity.  And I’ve retained those.  I think those are important social values that are good for all of us to live by – to try to live by – and to pass on to later generations.

Question: Where do you see yourself fitting in?

Transcript: We as Muslim women now . . .  When I was a Muslim woman, we were brought up to believe in our own submission – submission to the will of God, submission to the will of your parents, submission to the will of your husband.  And submission to the will of the husband is absolute except when he asks you to forsake Allah.  Now if we have been indoctrinated to believe that, then that’s how we act.  That’s how we behave.  But not all of us . . . and that’s I think what’s so fascinating about the human mind – is that you cannot enslave the human entirely.  Many of us have been exposed to other ideas.  We have our own personalities, seek freedom.  We can’t, I think, wake up to the programming and de-program ourselves.  And if we become aware of the fact that what we are programming our kids from generation to generation is repressive, we can decide not to do that and to take on alternative ideas.  We can be, for instance . . .  We can wake up to the fact that the God that says in Chapter 4 verse 34 . . . tells the husband “you have the right to beat your woman”, is the same God that after we are beaten and bruised, that we pray to for comfort.  Just waking up to that dissonance alone will, I think, create a platform for change.  It will create the grounds for change.

Question: What is the measure of a good life?

Transcript: I gained from the enlightenment to seek knowledge and be prepared to change your mind as your knowledge gains ground; to be giving and kind; and be concerned with the condition of your fellow human beings; and to be truthful and kind.  And I think the idea is that for that, you don’t need religion.

Recorded on: 8/15/07

Question: What inspires you?

Transcript: Other people.  I have been helped throughout my life.  I have gone through some hurdles, that is true.  But I have also encountered human beings who have been so kind to me, who have given me the gift of knowledge, who have shared their homes with me, who shared their lives and a lot of friendship with me.  That has inspired me to give something back in my own way.  By having the privilege of going to school and to university, I learned about such things as changing the mindset of millions and billions of people, that’s not something that comes in a day.  It’s a long process.  It’s just incremental contributions from individuals within that system.  And that has inspired me to know that I can do that.  And there are the dangers and the perils; but then people, for instance, living in the Arab-Islamic world today are Christians who lived when the church was all-powerful in Italy and France, and that these people were working and risking their lives.  And the peril for them was much greater than mine with my bodyguards and so on . . . have also inspired me to go on and to know that I have to be careful.  I have to live and lead my life properly; but I can also give . . . make that little contribution that I am making now.

Question: To whom do you look for inspiration?

Transcript: Many people stand out.  There is my father in his own way.  But there is also my mother, who is because of the woman she is, and being stubborn, and sticking to her traditions and values, has taught me that that religion, that inflexible is not the way to go.  So she’s been an example to me in a way that’s . . .  I knew when I was 20, 21, 22, I didn’t want to live my mom’s life.  There was a Math teacher . . . an English teacher when I came to Holland – this woman who just offered her help and said, “I’ll teach you the language.”  And after that she was answering all my questions. And really I had become . . .  Because I wasn’t in the life that I was meant to lead, I was never meant to be self-reliant.  When I came to Holland, _________, this woman, and other people taught me to be self-reliant; to read Time; to take care of my financial budget, which I still haven’t quite mastered.  But that aside . . .  And of course the books – from Spinoza to Popper and Mill and Hyack  and Mary Jane Wollstonecraft the feminist movement in Europe, and the pillars of that.  But even coming to America now, my boss gives me of his way of leadership, they are individuals over time who inspired me, and helped me, and…

Recorded on: 8/15/07