that the enemy of your enemy is your friend. Let s forget tommy and Douglas, talk about my own views. I used the word profiling, to even use the word

Transcription

1 Sam Harris Maryam Namazie Discussion. The quotes are more or less direct while anything else was summarized to the best of my ability. The times are the durations of each section. 1. Sam: Sets out the cause of the discussion, saying Maryam called Harris s profiling views bigoted, but maybe didn t call him or Murray a bigot. He then asks Maryam for clarification, but also says he doesn t want to get into it right away. 1:26 2. Maryam: answers, just like the regressive left promotes Islamism by shielding them, Sam and Murray might be shielding right wing bigotry by shielding it. 2:43 3. Sam: We should wait, but He thinks friendly fire is bad, people who are on the same side on Islamism are mistaking each other for disagreeing. You and Eiynah pull the trigger on accusations of bigotry fairly early. You might not agree with Murray but he s not bigoted, doesn t have animosity against brown-skinned people. Again wants to table this for later He s worried about his and Murray s views being blended into right wing racist views. Hears someone make sense on Islam, but this person s reputation is pre stigmatized as bigoted. (Robinson). Robinson did an interview with Dave Rubin where he made sense for an hour, and didn t say a single bigoted thing. 3:43 4. Maryam: Friendly fire I disagree. Thinks there s more to being on the same side. She s against US militarism. Iranian regime agrees, but she doesn t side with them. Lot of left does this. Sides with any anti-imperialist. Enemy s enemy not necessarily your friend. When you re building mass movements to challenge something as bad as Islamist movement, you want to have allies, but she draws the line with far right. Not just enough to be anti-islamism. Mistake to think Tommy s anti-islamism is commendable bc he says similar things to us. Repeats herself more, she s not only anti-islam, Islamism, Jihadi etc. Pro secular. Religion bad in UK as well. 4:04 5. Sam: I don t think Douglas would disagree, I see where you ve gone here but Maryam: Let s not make this about Douglas Murray.. she keeps going on despite Sam trying to say I get that.. She says her problems are with Pagida, Stop Islamization of Europe, with these political movements. Also on bigotry, trivialized, she says she s been called that much more than Sam, there are lots of false accusations, but you can t trivialize bigotry since it has been a huge issue. I don t need to read people s books to see where they stand on the political spectrum. If you say our culture or our civilization vs the others, that s otherizing politics. There s a lot of secularism in the middle east. Storming of migrants. 3:03 6. Sam: It s more complex so the accusation of bigotry is unhelpful. Can t own all of what Tommy said. We started this because you called me a bigot and now you re walking that back :24 7. Maryam: interrupting I didn t walk it back repeats what she said in #2. Promotes far right narrative. :17 8. Sam: interrupting You can say it s promoting it but that doesn t mean that it actually is promoting it. I criticize the far right as much as anyone. :07 9. Maryam: interrupting That s your opinion. We don t agree, and that s fine. : Sam: interrupting - But there is something wrong with characterizing this disagreement in terms that demonize the other person in such a way as to make conversation impossible. I think you re actually misunderstanding these views. Obv I m not arguing

2 that the enemy of your enemy is your friend. Let s forget tommy and Douglas, talk about my own views. I used the word profiling, to even use the word brands me as dangerous and right wing. When you go after me for using the word, saying it makes me in common cause with ring wing bigots, that s untrue. There s nothing in my view on profiling that makes me bigoted against people of other colors. 1: Maryam: people on the far right use your criticism as a way of scapegoating Muslims and migrants. She feels she s fighting on several fronts. : Sam: you re starting these fights unnecessarily as you did with me. : Maryam: You might think it s unnecessary but for me it s an integral part of the fight against Islamism bc bigotry can t become normalized. It s as important to fight against Islamism as it is to fight against bigotry. : Sam: interrupting Of course it is, but you re acting like I disagree with you. : Maryam: Well I don t know if you re disagreeing with me. Says it s very difficult to get her point across when Sam keeps interrupting so if he ll just be patient. Try to understand my position. You said you have no problem with what Robinson said for an hour but I have a different view. UKIP doesn t allow their members to be a part of English Defense League, so it s not her being overly sensitive to criticize the EDL and Tommy. He didn t leave because it was too racist, he said it wasn t the right time. Still praises it.. 1: Sam: interrupting That s not actually what I heard him say, I want to clarify that.. Maryam: That s my perspective on it, it s great that Tommy has such a wonderful defender. Sam: Maryam, that s not fair. This is just a single example of a person who I m actually not that familiar with.. Maryam Then maybe you should listen to me because I m familiar with him.. Sam But you re not characterizing the view he expressed in this interview, did you see the interview with Dave Rubin? Maryam It doesn t matter, Islamists will say Islam is a religion of peace, can t judge by what they say. Sam I fully grant that point. Maryam Sam it s impossible to have a conversation because you keep interrupting me. I let you speak for 5-10 minutes (??) [at this point, total time spent talking after intros is 7:45 for Sam, with 3:43 being the longest section, and 13:39 for Maryam with 4:04 being her longest] I don t want it to be this adversarial discussion, I would like us to be able to understand the other person s position. Sam I fully understand what you mean but I don t want you to assume a disagreement where there isn t one and when I interrupt you Maryam But you re not letting me speak and there is a disagreement there Sam I m interrupting you when you re attacking me for a view I don t have Maryam I m not attacking you I m talking about Tommy, I don t know why you take it personally Sam I don t take it personally I just don t want to waste the listeners time Maryam but it s not a waste of time because there are differences of opinion. 1: Sam But we haven t gotten to these differences. I ll let you say whatever, but I have to keep our conversation on track. It s going off track, you re assuming I have far more affinity for Tommy than I do. When you describe his view as the opposite of the only interview I ve heard, I can t sign off on that. In the Rubin interview, he said he left the EDL bc racists were joining it. He may be lying, but that s the Tommy I m defending,

3 however tepidly. Don t want to talk about him. But this is not even meant to be the 1: Maryam interrupting Sam sam sam we are not victims here. That s life, that s politics. Says essentially there s always stigmatization in politics. Goes around a few times on that. Repeats that bigotry has been trivialized which hides real bigots. Bigotry a real concern. There are movements to stigmatize minorities and migrants. Need to make sure fight against Islamism isn t used for that purpose. 2: Sam ok, let s talk about the details then. 2 topics: profiling and immigration. Start with my views on profiling. You think my views are fueling bigotry so let s talk about them. We have considerable agreement about Islamism, theocracy, regressive left, we agree on those points. We disagree on how the West should respond to this. Profiling. My view, all it is is using some statistically relevant information to solve one s security problems. Being against this is to say we should spend equal time on the Amish as Muslims or any group of Muslims. Wouldn t it be irrational when looking for terrorists to spend equal energy on looking at all communities? 2: Maryam: Why should they be characterized only as Muslims? People have a million characteristics. Terrorist attacks in the West, is their main characteristic that they re Muslim, or how about that they re college educated. You can pick out any one of these things and say that s why it happened. It s their political stance. Behavior rather than they re brown or Muslim. Not all Muslims think the same, etc. Profiling is an ugly word because it is ugly. Some security experts would agree that you need to profile behavior. 2: Sam: it s assumed profiling has racial component, but there s nothing about my argument that considers race. Nothing racial about it. Mystified by what you said, bc what % of Jihadists do you think are Muslim? : Maryam I think that is the wrong question. Large percentage of Jihadists are Muslims, there s a link of course. Can t assume bc someone is Muslim they are Jihadist. Sam Of course not Maryam profiling Muslims does that Sam It doesn t Maryam that s my perspective if I can explain Sam But let me just give you some more details, let me give you some specifics. You re talking in vague generalities I just want to give you more details. : Maryam: Everything I say seems to be vague generalities and everything you say seems to be on point, sorry I can t express myself as well as you can. Profiling Muslims is about race because they re seen as a minority group taking over Europe, so it still has racial connotations. Profiling Muslims isn t going to help us fight terrorism. We need to profile Islamists. 1: Sam: I really think there s a misunderstanding at the bottom of this, you re interpreting my interrupting you as hostile but I keep detecting misunderstanding and I want to short circuit it. Don t want to waste time. Maryam: We just don t agree Sam: Please let me interrupt you more. When you say we need to profile for Islamists you could say we need to profile for Jihadists. If we are looking for Jihadists and 100% of Jihadists are Muslim, then the variable of being Muslim is relevant. Amish become irrelevant. There may be other problems we may want to be worried about, but if we re looking for jihadists, to not profile Muslims is to say that we should go to the Mormon tabernacle

4 choir as often as we go to an Imam to look for extremism. It means consciously wasting time in the service of not profiling. To go to a mosque is to profile Islam. You said we can t profile Muslims but you said we have to profile Islamists; I think there s a contradiction there. 2: Maryam: There is no contradiction. Targeting groups vs believers? If you re part of a far right group, your beliefs are very clear, but if you re a Muslim you could be secular, feminist etc. Need to target the political movement. Need to target the behavior, very different from profiling every Muslim. Repeats this in different ways for a while. Can t place collective blame. People are more than the religions of their birth. No choice. Muslims have a million different beliefs. To lump them in with Islamists is to hand them over to that movement. 2: Sam: But I m not doing that : Maryam: I m not saying you re doing that, ok you re not doing that Sam, I m talking about what I think the problem with profiling is. This is not a personal attack Sam I m not taking it personally, I m attempting to express my views about security Maryam So am I, so am I, I m also concerned about security : Sam: Profiling at airports. You see the security theatre where you see people who are obviously not jihadists getting searched with the same intensity and scrutiny as people who might be. My argument is that we have finite attention/resources, we should not deliberately waste our time. Should have some randomness, but there are obvious wastes of time knowing our resources are limited. I agree most of what you need to do is profile based on behavior, but adhering to a religion or political movement is a type of behavior. If you re looking for jihadists, you re going to be reaching out to the Muslims, not the Mormons. 1: Maryam: There s a difference between religious believer and a neo-nazi. Sam Of course Maryam: neo-nazi is like islamist Sam: yes I agree Maryam: they shouldn t be waiting until the airport to act on who is willing to commit atrocities on the public. Husband s young son (not hers?) 13 at the time, he was taken away and finger printer. Must look Muslim, was born in Britain. Husband is atheist but treated as Iranian national, profiled all the time. Why should we be profiled more than someone who is Amish? I fled Islamism and fight it. Profiling places collective blame. Can t profile white people for far right terrorist groups. Focusing on Christianity for far right Christians misses the point. Sam Doesn t necessarily miss the point.. Maryam It doesn t because if you re going to pull aside every white male you re going to be wasting time. Profiling Muslims is a waste of time. You think bc someone is a Muslim that s a behavioral issue I m saying it s not. People are more than religion. 3: Sam: If you want to reach out to the community to find evidence of radicalism and dangerous behavior what community are you going to reach out to? Maryam: The moozlems haha Sam: You can say it that way, you seem to be saying that that s collective punishment.. : Maryam: Israeli government says every adult age 12 and older is a terrorist, that s collective blame Sam OF COURSE Maryam when you target entire groups of people based on their beliefs or how they look you re missing the point. Start with the US govt

5 relationship with the Saudi regime Sam: I agree with you Maryam: Let s not keep focusing on targeting Muslims, lets start with the govt relationship. : Sam: You re misunderstanding Maryam: I m not, we re disagreeing. Sam: We re not disagreeing. You keep saying you want behavioral profiling, but then when I talk about what that entails, you push back against the so called collective punishment. What do you mean by behavioral profiling? : Maryam: when you say behavioral, I think you mean Muslims. I say no bc religion is a lived experience and people experience it in a million different ways. WE should profile the political movement not Muslims, : Sam: Specifics, how does the FBI allocated their time? Interview the Amish, imam, or imam at a mosque well known to be a salafi mosque. Maryam: Well of course the salafi mosque because then you re targeting Islamists not Muslims. Sam: But everyone at the mosque will think I m targeting Muslims. I m ignoring the Amish. Is that ethically ok? : Maryam: There s a confusion between individuals and political movements. Can t profile individuals, but you can profile movements; mosques. Sam: but they re filled with individuals who will feel profiled as individuals Maryam: We need to rap this up because we re not going to reach an understanding. Sam: I think we re just now getting to a basis of understanding. Maryam: when there s a question of racial or Muslim profiling you re targeting groups of individuals. Collective blame is about human beings not political movements. Certain groups, certain mosques. 1: Sam: So there s a mosque in my community that is well known to be a salafi mosque Maryam: a mosque is not the same as profiling Muslims Sam: ok but I m the FBI I show up to the mosque and I want to ask the imam if he thinks there s any radicalism, and the imam says I feel profiled bc you ve come to a mosque this is totally illegitimate. Maryam: well you have to show why you re there you re not there bc you re profiling Muslims. Sam: Of course, I m profiling salafi Muslims Maryam: but they re not the same, that s like profiling far right fascist Christians. Christians and neo Nazis are different in the way that Muslims and Islamists are different. Repeats same thing she s said over and over about collective blame. Pretty much goes nowhere from with Sam not being able to see the difference in their views. Maryam insists there s a way to profile the Islamists without profiling Muslims. Sam suggests maybe the niqab but Maryam says we can t even use that to profile.