Making Sense with Sam Harris - #29 — Throw Open the Gates

Episode Date: February 24, 2016

Sam Harris responds to criticism of his views on the Apple-FBI controversy and then speaks with Maryam Namazie about friendly fire among secularists, profiling, the immigration crisis in Europe, and other topics. If the Making Sense podcast logo in your player is BLACK, you can SUBSCRIBE to gain access to all full-length episodes at samharris.org/subscribe.

Thank you. episodes of the Making Sense podcast, you'll need to subscribe at SamHarris.org. There you'll find our private RSS feed to add to your favorite podcatcher, along with other subscriber-only content. We don't run ads on the podcast, and therefore it's made possible entirely through the support of our subscribers. So if you enjoy what we're doing here, please consider becoming Maryam Namazi is an Iranian-born atheist, a secularist, and a human rights activist. She's a spokesperson for a variety of organizations, for Fitna, a women's liberation movement, for Equal Rights Now, for the One Law for All campaign, which is against Sharia law in Britain, and for the Council of Ex-Muslims of Britain. She hosts a weekly television program in Persian and English called Bread and Roses,

which is broadcast in Iran and the Middle East via New Channel TV. And she and I talked today about accusations of bigotry among secularists, profiling, the migration crisis in Europe, among secularists, profiling, the migration crisis in Europe, all topics that are well known to build rapport between podcast hosts and their guests. And I make a few comments at the end of this, but all I can say is that this conversation struck me as more difficult than it needed to be. I hope one day to be better at having conversations of this sort. But for the moment, what you hear is what you get. So I'm here with Mariam Namazi.

Mariam, thank you for coming on the podcast. Thanks for having me. Listen, before we get into all the things we have to talk about, and we really have a lot to talk about, why don't you tell our listeners a little bit about yourself? Many will know who you are, and I will have introduced you briefly before we started here, but what's your background, and what is it exactly that you do? I'm an Iranian-born political activist. I guess that's the best way to describe it. I'm very much on the left as well. And I'm a campaigner for' citizenship rights, irrespective of very often false identities. And when did you leave Iran?

I left Iran in 1980. So when we left, it was a year after the Islamic regime took over from the Iranian revolution, which wasn't originally an Islamic revolution. And then we went to India for two years because that was the only place we could manage to get into. We came to Britain for a year, but we weren't allowed to stay. So my family, we actually moved to the US. And my parents still live in Yonkers, New York. But I've been here in Britain since 2000 now. And so did you leave Iran under duress? Were you fleeing theocracy? Or was there some other motive to leave at that point? Well, originally, my mom brought me out to India just to put me in school because the schools were shut down for a while in order for the government to Islamicize things.

And we ended up not returning. My father and my three-year-old sister at the time, they had stayed back in Iran thinking my mom would go back. But things just got so bad that my father told us to just wait in India. And then he joined us when he was able to get out. And are your parents religious or do they share your views at this point? My parents are Muslim. My dad was brought up in a very strict Muslim household. My dad was brought up in a very strict Muslim household. So his father, which is my grandfather, was an Islamic scholar who taught Arabic and issued fatwas and that sort of thing.

So he grew up in a very strict family background. But he met my mom, who was a Christian. She was a Protestant in India. They got married. My mom converted to Islam, so they're both Muslims, but it was never a strict Muslim upbringing. To be honest, I didn't really know I was Muslim or knew much about Islam until I was faced with an Islamic regime in Iran. So I went to a mixed school. I never had to veil.

I wasn't treated differently because I was a girl. Right. So I just want to inform our listeners about the proximate cause of this conversation, because I've followed your work, I guess, really just in the form of seeing some videos of you encountering people trying to no-platform you. This happened recently, and we'll get into this because you've received more of this than most people. But the proximate cause of this conversation is that I noticed you recently calling my views about profiling bigoted. And also, I recently had Douglas Murray on my podcast where we discussed

the migration crisis in Europe. And I believe you've called his views on this topic bigoted. At the very least, you forwarded this open letter that was written to me by the blogger Ina, which said as much. There may be not perfect overlap between your position and hers, and we can get into that. But Ina didn't quite call Douglas a bigot. At least she distinguished him from people who she thinks are true bigots like Donald Trump. But she put him on a spectrum of bigotry in which she said he, quote, otherizes and generalizes regarding Muslims. And if I'm not mistaken, you didn't quite call me a bigot either. At least I think you clarified that by email. mistaken, you didn't quite call me a bigot either. At least I think you clarified that by email.

But you thought that my views about profiling are bigoted or close enough to be troublesome. And I don't want us to dive into those issues yet. I want us to talk about some other things we agree about. But I just want to know if that's a fair characterization of where we're starting out. Well, I wouldn't say they're fair because I think, you know, maybe something that will make it more understandable, my perspective of things is, you know, and something that most probably a lot of your listeners will be able to understand better, possibly where I'm coming firmly, very, very firmly on the left, who very often, you know, promote and legitimize and normalize the Islamist narrative of things. criticism of Islam or Islamism as bigotry against Muslims, because Islam is often feigned to represent Muslims, and they see it as a defense of the Muslim minority. So, you know, there are, you know, for example, student unions, people very much who consider themselves progressive on the left, who will call me Islamophobic, who will no platform me. And, you know, I think it's very clear to possibly your listeners that I would say that they are promoting an Islamist narrative. That doesn't mean they're jihadis. That doesn't mean they are going to decapitate anyone. That doesn't mean that they are, you know,

defenders of a caliphate or Sharia law, but they are normalizing and promoting the Islamist narrative, which means that, you know, they're sort of giving it some sort of legitimacy that doesn't make them Islamists. And my argument with regards, you know, the arguments that Douglas Murray makes, you know, Tommy Robinson, obviously they're on a continuum. I wouldn't call Douglas Murray a bigot or a fascist. I wouldn't call you that either. But my argument is that when we, or sections of atheists, normalize or justify or encourage certain narratives, it does promote a far-right narrative, which is a narrative that places collective blame, that promotes bigotry against people. That doesn't mean that anyone who promotes the far-right narrative is necessarily a bigot or a racist.

So I think it is similar to how anyone who promotes the Islamist narrative is not necessarily a fascist. similar to how anyone who promotes the Islamist narrative is not necessarily a fascist. But there is that narrative that concerns me as someone who is both a vehement opponent of Islam and Islamism, but also a strong, you know, defender of human beings, irrespective of their identities and beliefs. As I said, I think we should wait to get into the specifics here, but I just, I guess I want to say up front that I consider these instances of friendly fire where I hear you criticize someone like Douglas or Ina does it, friendly fire being a case where the people on the same side of, in this case, a very important concern about Islamism, are inadvertently mistaking one another for the enemy. And it's not to say that our positions might not be different. In fact, I think you and I will probably disagree about

what makes sense from a security point of view and the details of immigration policy. And I think that'll be interesting. but I think we can have this discussion without allegations of bigotry being the summary of the position you disagree with. And I feel like I've noticed you and Ina, and maybe other people are doing this as well, but I feel like you and Ina pull the trigger on accusations of bigotry fairly early. And it strikes me as pretty counterproductive because I really do not think Douglass is at all bigoted. And that's not to say that I'm going to get you to agree with his views about immigration, but they're not coming from a place of having some animosity against brown-skinned people or Middle Eastern people or people from

other cultures. He's quite worried about theocracy and intolerance. And again, I want to table a detailed discussion about immigration for a few minutes, but I just... Sure, but if I can just come into that, yeah. Feel free to react to that. I just feel like it's, I mean, so just one more aspect to this here is that I recognize I'm worried about the problem of bigotry and I'm worried about this conflation of a criticism of ideas, in this case, of being surrounded by real bigots. There are people on the far right who occasionally make the same reasonable noises about the threat of Islamism that we do. and they express genuine religious hatred or racial hatred or blind nationalism or some other ideology that I would want nothing to do with. But given a shortage of time, it isn't always easy to determine who is who. And so I find myself in the strange position of hearing someone make sense on the topic of Islam, but this person has come to me with their reputation pre-stigmatized by people like you. You've called them a bigot. Let's say Tommy Robinson or Mark Stein.

And these are people who I'm not especially familiar with. If they have books, I haven't read their books. I've just seen them give a speech. I'll give you an example of this. So for instance, Tommy Robinson just did an interview with Dave Rubin where he made sense, really perfect sense for an hour and did not say a single bigoted thing. Right now, I'm not very familiar with Tommy Robinson. I don't live in the UK. And I just know that he is under the shadow of more or less constant accusations of racism and bigotry. And yet I hear him speak for an hour. And even when pressed on the topic of past associations with bigots, he made perfect sense and talked about how he left the EDL because of those racist elements that came into it.

Can I say something now? Please. I mean, there's a lot of points you've raised. And, you know, on the issue of friendly fire and the fact that we're all on the same side, well, I disagree. I disagree not to say that you and I are not on the same side or, you know, but I think that being on the same side takes a lot more than just saying that there are people who speak a lot of sense about Islam or Islamism and therefore we're on the same side. We might disagree on certain details.

And the example I always give is, for example, I'm against U.S. militarism in certain parts of the world. And the Iranian regime also thinks the U.S. governmentism in certain parts of the world. And the Iranian regime also thinks the U.S. government is the big Satan. And therefore, because I'm opposed to U.S. militarism, I should side with the Iranian regime. And a lot of left actually do this. There are people on the left who have these blinders of anti-imperialism. All they see is anti-imperialism and they're willing to side with, you know, the Islamist fascists just because they're anti-imperialist, they'll side with anyone. And from my perspective, you know, your enemy's enemy is not necessarily your friend. And, you know, the decades work I've done in campaigning, I think my track record is clear,

is that I worked with lots of people and not people who are left like myself, communist like myself. I mean, I think I hardly work with people who think like me, but I work with lots of different types of people and I'm open to that. I think when you're building movements, mass movements, where you need to challenge something as outrageous as the Islamist movement that is wreaking havoc, you know, the country where I was born, in the region I come from, and across the world, you know, it's basically a killing machine. It's destroying lives, dehumanizing women, children, men, you know. When you look at it that way, then obviously you want to have as many allies as possible. But I do draw the line with the far right, because I think, you know,

it's not just Islam and Islamism that's the problem for me. In the same way that, you know, the example I gave, it's not just enough to be anti-U.S. militarism. I mean, I know you'll find a lot of people on the left, what, you know, is being called the regressive left, what I call the postmodernist left, who will say that Islamists make a lot of sense. They'll talk about discrimination that minorities face in the West. They'll talk about, you know, the attacks of the U.S. government or the British government on the war on Iraq. And they'll make a lot of sense. And they do speak some truths. Even Islamists do, you know.

But the problem is these are half-truths. They are only part of the whole story. And I think it is a grave mistake to think that Tommy Robinson's criticism of Islam and Islamism is something that's commendable because he says similar things to what you and I say. I disagree fundamentally. And I think this is an issue for me that is key because I am not only anti-Islam. I am not only anti-Islamism, I am not only anti-jihadism and Sharia law and the Iranian regime. I am also pro-secularism. I am also against religion's role in the state, including Christianity's role. Anglicanism, as Douglas Murray makes out, is not some cuddly, you know, lovely religion. And Britain is so much better off

than the U.S. We still have parliament in this country. Bishops are in the House of Lords. They have not been elected there. You have the queen who is the representative of the church who heads this country. Religion has a sinister role in this country as well. The fact that it's cuddlier is because of the fact that an enlightenment has pushed it back, that has challenged it, that has questioned it. Sure, but I don't think Douglas would disagree with that. I mean, I just think, I see where you've gone here, but- Let's not make this, I don't know why we're making this about Douglas Murray. Well, no.

That's not, Ina sent you a letter. You can interview her and talk to her about it. I know sent you a letter. You can interview her and talk to her about it. My you know, I don't spend my days advocating advocating against Douglas Murray. My problem is with the far right, with the EDL, with Pegida, with stop Islamization of Europe, with movements, with political movements that are not individuals, but with political movements that I think are placing collective blame and harming the overall. No, I got that. They dehumanize people all the time. But I also want to say one other thing. And this is this thing about bigotry. I think we need to also be very careful.

And there is a danger here that seems to be happening is that bigotry is then being trivialized because there are false accusations of bigotry. And trust me, I've had them much more than you possibly might have. You know, I'm not only called an Islamophobe, but I'm also a coconut. I'm a native informant. I'm also a rape apologist because I defend, you know, I say we shouldn't blame all migrants for what happens in Qom. I'm also called an undercover jihadi because I oppose doping Islamization of America and Europe. That's something that Robert Spencer has called me. I'm an anti-Semite because I oppose the Israeli occupation of Palestine, though I defend the right of Israel to exist. And I'm also for the rights of Palestinians and Israelis to live in peace.

What I want to say that there are lots of accusations, but to hide behind those and then say that, you know, raising an issue of bigotry, then trivializing it when bigotry is a huge issue for many of us. It doesn't really help either, you know, and I think for me, it's very clear. I don't have to read anybody's books to know where they stand on the political spectrum. I have been in politics for several decades now, you know, versus the others, you know, the barbarians, the savages, that is a politics that is otherizing, that is generalizing, you know, the other, and that sees the other as the barbarian and savage, whereas that's not the case. We have so many secularists and freethinkers and a tsunami of atheism in our region, in the Middle East, in North Africa and South Asia. of migrants as if it's an act of war rather than people fleeing for their lives, many of them fleeing the Islamists that so many are against. But when it comes to their victims, people have

very little sympathy, it seems. Okay, well, you're alleging, okay, but no, but it is more complex. And that's why the accusation of bigotry is so unhelpful here. So I listen, you know, I can't I can't own everything that Tommy Robinson has said, because I am unaware of much of what he said. But we're having this conversation because I noticed you calling me a bigot. And you sort of walk that back a little bit. But I don't walk it back. I'm sorry. I didn't walk it back. Because what I said is that it promotes the far right narrative. It promotes a narrative of bigotry. And as I explained before, when I call when I tell the regressive left that they are promoting an Islamist narrative, it doesn't mean that they're

Islamists or fascists. You can say it's promoting it, but that doesn't mean that it actually is promoting it. In fact, I criticize the far right as much as anybody. That's your opinion. What I want to say is that we don't agree. We don't agree on certain things. And that's fine. There's nothing wrong with that. And the thing is that I'm trying to- Miriam, but there is something wrong with characterizing this disagreement in terms that demonize, or to use your phrase, otherize the other person in such a way as to make conversation and reasonable alliances impossible. I mean, friendly fire is a problem. What you're saying is it's not really so friendly. It's legitimate fire against people who you're also opposed to or views you're also opposed to.

But I think you're actually misunderstanding these views in important respects. So for instance, obviously, Miriam, I'm not arguing that the enemy of your enemy is by definition your friend. And I just think that's a false analogy. And I can, so let's forget about Douglas. Let's forget about Tommy Robinson. I can only talk with authority about my own views. But what I witnessed happen here is that I use a term like profiling. Now, and profiling is a word like torture, right? To use it for any purpose other than to declare one's horror and rejection of it brands you as dangerously right-wing in most circles, and certainly in your circle. I don't think you actually understand what I mean by profiling, and I think we'll get into that. But I'm just saying is that when you

go after me as someone who is irredeemable for using the word profiling, or to say that to use this word is to make common cause with right-wing bigots, by definition, one, it's unhelpful, but two, it's just untrue, right? It's just, I mean, there's absolutely nothing in my view about profiling or about security in general or about immigration. And again, we'll get into the details. That is an expression of my bigotry against Muslims, against people from the Middle East, against other cultures. I mean, there's none of that. There's not a shred of that. And yet you're responding to it as though there were, and that's what I'm finding so unhelpful. Well, you know, Sam, the thing is that it might be unhelpful to you. I mean, I think this is a

thing for me. Bigotry is an important issue. I'm not saying it's not for you. I didn't mean it that way. But what I'm saying is that it is a very important matter for me, because you do often find in a situation that I'm in that you have people on the far right trying to use ex-Muslims, trying to use our criticism of Islam as a way of scapegoating Muslims and immigrants and migrants, refugees. And so it puts me in a very difficult position because I do feel that I'm constantly having to fight on several fronts in order to be able to put my message forward. You are fighting on several fronts, but I notice you starting these fights unnecessarily, as you did with me. You might think it's unnecessary, Sam, I'm sorry. But for me, it is an integral part of the fight against Islam and Islamism. Because I think that, you know, if this fight means that bigotry becomes normalized, that it is easy to dehumanize migrants and Muslims, place collective

blame on them, then I don't think it helps our movement, you know. And so for me, I feel it is as important to fight against racism and bigotry as it is to fight against Islam and Islamism. Well, of course it is. But you're acting like I disagree with you. Well, I don't know if you're disagreeing with me, but it's very difficult for me to have my conversation because you're not letting me finish what I have to say. So if you'll just be patient and let me try to explain my position, and it would be great if you could try to understand my position as well. Now, the thing is that I'm not coming after you. I think this is a bit of a, you know, I'm not coming after you, but I am making comments as all political people do on

positions that I disagree with. You know, the fact of the matter is you have come out and you've just said right now that you think there's nothing wrong with what Tommy Robinson said for the hour that you heard him speak. I have a different position on Tommy Robinson. And, you know, I also have a right to express it. Now, even in this country, for example, UKIP, which is a right wing political party, they, for example, have prescribed, They, for example, have prescribed, they don't allow their members to also be members of the English Defence League, of the British National Party. So even there are right wing parties who consider these groups off the scale and don't want to be associated with them. So it's not, you know, unnatural for me to criticize, you know, it's not me being, you know, overly sensitive and throwing out the bigot card at any opportunity. It's a real concern about the English Defence League. If you look at Tommy Robinson, he didn't leave the English Defence League because he was concerned about the fascist elements in that group,

he has continued to praise and defend the EDL until today. And if you look at his speeches at Pegida rallies, for example, he says that he realized that it was too soon, the EDL was too soon for Europe. Well, no, that's not actually what I heard him say. I want to clarify that. My perspective on it, Sam, I'm sorry. Okay, well, but I just said that Tommy has such a wonderful defender from your part. No, no, listen. No, no, it's not that. Miriam, that's not fair. This is just a single example of a person who I'm actually not very familiar with, who I know came...

Well, then maybe you should listen to me because I'm more familiar with him. But you're not characterizing the view he expressed in this interview. Did you see his interview with Dave Rubin? It doesn't matter. Listen, a lot of Islamists will come and tell you that Islam is a religion of peace. I'm sorry, you cannot judge political movements by Bush telling you that he's gone to Iraq because he wants to liberate women. It's not enough.

I'm sorry. You know, you have to look at the list of movements. I fully grant that point. Sam, I'm sorry. It's impossible to have a conversation because you constantly interrupt me. I let you speak for five, ten minutes. And I don't want it to be the sort of adversarial discussion because we're not really going to get anywhere. And it's just we're not really going to get anywhere and it's just, we're not going to reach

an understanding. And even if we don't agree, I would like us to be able to at least understand the other person's position. Do you know what I mean? I totally understand what you mean, but I don't want you to assume a disagreement where there isn't one. And when I interrupt you, it's because- You're not letting me speak and you keep saying, but, but, but. There is a disagreement there. No, no, no. Miriam, I'm interrupting you when you are attacking me for a view or criticizing a view I don't have. I'm talking about Tommy Robinson. Okay. I don't know why you take it personally when I criticize him. I'm not taking it personally.

I just don't want us to be wasting our time or our listeners' time. That's it. It's not a waste of time, because isn't this the whole reason why we're having this discussion? Because there are differences of opinion. No, well, yeah, but we haven't actually gotten to those differences of opinion. Listen, I will not, I will let you say whatever you want to say. My job is not to interrupt you, but I do have a job to try to get our conversation on track and I'm noticing it go off track and you're assuming that I have far more affinity for Tommy Robinson than I in fact do. And when you summarize his view as being in fact opposite of the only

interview I've ever heard him give, then I can't sign off on the dotted line there and say, yes, that's the Tommy Robinson I was just defending. Okay. In the interview with Dave Rubin, he explained why he left the EDL, and it was in fact because he noticed racist elements join it, and he couldn't be associated with it. So maybe he's lying. I don't know. But that is the Tommy Robinson I was defending, however tepidly. Again, I don't even want to talk about Tommy Robinson.

I was just using him as an example of someone who's come to me pre-stigmatized and who then expresses views that make sense. And I'm just, I'm in the position of not knowing who is who here. And all I can speak about with authority are my views. And I noticed that the same kind of thing is being done to me. And that, and that is what I'm finding unhelpful. But again, this is, this is not even meant to be the- We are not victims here. There are many people who come to me pre-stigmatized as well. You know, well, that's life. That's politics.

The fact of the matter is that we all make statements and we will have people supporting it, criticizing it, and we need to either defend it or and so on and so forth. So I think, you know, you know, starting a conversation about how one is stigmatized, or, you know, how they come into a conversation with people having prejudgment of them. Well, that exists in every, you know, for everyone and every movement. What we can do is to try to clarify our positions and to try to make clear why we say certain things and why we are opposed to certain things and why we defend certain things. And that might be the most helpful way to go about it. But, you know, the fact that we're pre-stigmatized, well, everybody is, you know, it's unfortunate that there are accusations of bigotry that are untrue. As I've said before, I have been accused of it many times myself. But I would say that it worries me when,

because of this sort of false accusations of bigotry, that bigotry now seems to be trivialized now. And the minute you do actually talk about politics, which are bigoted, which are placing collective blame, that suddenly, you know, you get this sort of pushback saying, well, you know, everything is pre-stigmatized and, you know, the accusation of bigotry doesn't wash anymore. And, you know, whereas it is a real concern for a lot of people. And it's important to be able to still say it and also to call out when it is false,

but also to recognize that there are movements, political movements, that are promoting positions against Sharia and Islam in order to scapegoat vulnerable minorities as well as migrants. And that's the position that I come from, that, you know, for me, I want to fight against Islam and Islamism while at the same time making sure that that fight is not used to scapegoat against people who are people like anyone else, and they have different views and values and cultures amongst them. It's not one mass, you know. I don't prescribe to the clash of civilizations sort of thesis

where it's us versus them. I think there are many of us across borders and boundaries, think there are many of us across borders and boundaries, believers and non, and others who are on an opposing side. So I think that's... Okay. Well, let's talk about the details. And it seems to me we have two topics that are related. I mean, they're basically the same topic, but they show up differently in our conversation about these issues. One is profiling and the other is immigration. And I view them very much the same way. But let's talk about, let's start with profiling and what I've said about profiling and what you think about it, because clearly you think my views about profiling lead to a kind of collective punishment, collective blame, give energy to the bigots of the world. And I just

think that's untrue. So we'll talk about that, and then we'll talk about immigration. And then let's just assume as, you know, in the background, for those who aren't familiar with your work, we are having this fraught conversation against a background of considerable agreement about the problem of Islamism, the problem of theocracy in the Muslim world, East and West, the intolerance born of that, the problem of the regressive left becoming apologists for all that. So we agree probably across the board on those points. But now we're talking about how the West should respond to these security concerns at airports, with the security apparatus of a state, or at the borders of states.

So just briefly on profiling. Now, again, profiling is this dirty word, and I don't think it should be, but it inherits all the baggage of other ugly words like pedophilia or bestiality or torture. And so the moment you seem to be given a sympathetic construal of this word, you have a lot of work to do. All profiling is, is to use some statistically relevant information in one's self-defense. And to be against profiling across the board, to be against profiling of any kind, is to be against using any relevant information to solve one's security problem. So for instance, being against all profiling in intelligence gathering out in the world is to say that we should spend equal time scrutinizing the Amish or the Anglicans as we should members of the Muslim community, or indeed of the Muslim Brotherhood or Al-Qaeda, because to focus on Muslims at all, or even any specific group of Muslims,

is profiling. And so I just put that to you. Wouldn't it be irrational when looking for suicidal terrorists who are planning to target civilians, say, to spend equal attention on all religious communities at this point? Well, I mean, you know, for me, I think, why should the marker be even the idea of the fact that these people are characterized only as Muslims? People have a million characteristics that define them and that they define themselves by. Just to give you an example, you know, if you look at those who've carried out terrorist attacks, for example, and we're only talking about here in the West, who've carried out terrorist attacks, for example. And we're only talking about here in the West.

Terrorist attacks take place every day in the Middle East, North Africa, and South Asia, and we hardly get to hear about them. But you could say, for example, that is their main characteristic the fact that they're Muslim? Is it that they are university educated? You know, Tommy Robinson talks about the jihadis from Luton. Is it something specific to do with Luton? I think you can pick out any one of these things. And if you want to say that this is the reason why these things happen, for me, I think it's not necessarily that they're Muslim that it's happening.

It's not necessarily that they're refugees or migrants or university educated, but it is their political stance that determines that they are jihadis and terrorists. And it comes to behavior rather than the fact that they're brown or that they're Muslim or that they come from Iran or Iraq or what have you. Because as I said, you know, not all Muslims think the same, just as not all Christians think the same, you know, and that just like every, you know, not necessarily every white male represents also not every brown Muslim represents Sharia values. And so I think there is that danger with profiling. Profiling is an ugly word because I think it is ugly, you know, in the sense of the fact that it is seen to be, you know, profiling of blacks, for example, in America.

It does have that history to it. Profiling Muslims, it does raise those very same connotations. And I think I think there are some security experts that would agree with me as well that you need to profile behavior rather than one's race or religion and so on and so forth. Yes, profiling is often assumed has some racial component, and there is such a thing as racial profiling. There's absolutely nothing about my argument with respect to profiling for jihadists that considers race a relevant variable. In fact, it would be a starkly misleading variable. So there's nothing racial about what I recommend. But I'm slightly mystified by what you just said, because I mean, what percentage of jihadists do you think are Muslim? Sam, I think that is the wrong question. I'm sorry.

Well, you might think it's wrong to look for jihadists. Yes, but listen to me. I mean, the thing is that, you know, what percentage of Muslims are jihadists? Obviously, a large percentage. You know, even if they used to be Hindu or Christian, they are now converts and they have become Muslim. And so, therefore, a large percentage of jihadists are Muslims. Of course, there is a link with Islam. I'm not saying that there isn't. But what I'm saying is that you cannot just assume that because someone is Muslim, they are a jihadist. Of course not. Exactly.

So profiling Muslims does that. It doesn't. That's my perspective, if I can explain. But let me just give you some more details. Can I finish my sentence? Again, you're talking in vague generalities, and I want to give you specifics. I'm trying to, I understand everything I say seems to be fake generalities to you, and everything you say seems to be on point.

And I'm sorry I don't, I'm not able to express myself as well as you can. But what I'd like to say is that, you know, the point is that when you profile, I know there's this argument that Muslims are not a race and therefore anything that targets Muslims is not racist and not racial because they're not a race. But the reality of it is that they are seen to be a minority. In the West, they are seen to be a minority. In the West, there are seen to be a minority religion, a minority group that is taking over Christian Western Europe. And therefore, when you talk about the profiling of Muslims, even if there are also white Muslims, it does have those connotations, in my opinion. And as I've said before, profiling Muslims isn't going to help us fight terrorism. What we need to do is profile Islamists.

And that, I think, is where behavior, the behavior of far-right jihadis and Islamists, that's where we can manage to make inroads into this rather than conflate Islam, Muslims, and Islamists. 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 just want to short-circuit it. And we can do that over the course of five hours, or we can do it over the course of 90 minutes. And I'm just trying to use your time and our listeners' time efficiently. So, I mean, I think you're reading more hostility into my interruptions than is there, because there is none there.

I'm not reading hostility. I think there is no misunderstanding. I think we just don't agree, and I think that's what the issue is. Just let me interrupt you a little bit more, because we— Please go ahead. Okay. Because when you say we need to profile for Islamists, you could say we should profile for jihadists, right? The thing that I'm arguing for is that we need to admit that we know what we're looking for. jihadists are Muslim, then the variable of being Muslim is more relevant in the search for jihadists

than the variable of being Amish is. In fact, if we could be absolutely sure that a person is Amish, they suddenly become completely irrelevant with respect to the search for jihadists. Now, I will grant you that there are other problems in the world beyond jihadism. There are other forms of extremists. There are other forms of suicidal terrorists even. And we're worried about them too, though not in the kinds of numbers at any cost, to say we are going to be scrupulously fair, we are not going to single out Muslims in any respect. If you're working for the FBI, that means that every time you interview an imam at a mosque to look for any troubling signs of radicalism in his community, you will then be obliged to what? Interview the Mormon Tabernacle Choir to see if they've witnessed troubling signs of radicalism in their community? I mean, you will be obliged to deliberately and consciously waste time in the service

of not profiling. To go to a mosque is to profile for the variable of adherence to Islam to some degree. is to profile for the variable of adherence to Islam to some degree. And what you seem to be saying initially is that is unfair, it's otherizing, it's collective punishment. And now you suddenly tell me we should be profiling for Islamism. So I see a contradiction there, and I would love you to explain it. There is a contradiction, and that's, I think, what is fundamentally the problem here. When there is criticism of far right movements and groups, that's hugely different from targeting individuals, believers, based on the very fact that they are believers.

If you are part of a fascist movement, then your politics is very clear. is very clear. If you are a believer, you can be a secularist, a feminist, you can be even an atheist, you know, and you come from Muslim background. So there's a huge distinction between targeting groups like the English Defence League, targeting Islamists, and I make very little distinction, as though others don't, between jihadis and Islamists. I see them as part of the same movement, doing different parts of that movement, taking care of different aspects of that movement. The jihadis are the military wing, and the Islamists very often are, you know, promoting it politically and via various ways. So to say if the terrorist attacks are taking place by a movement, by a political movement, a far-right political movement called Islamism, then targeting the behavior and profiling the behavior of those who are carrying out or susceptible to carrying out terrorist acts is very different to saying one should profile anyone who is a Muslim because every jihadi is also Muslim. You know, yes, every jihadi is also

Muslim. That's not saying everything. It's not giving the whole truth. And for me, therefore, I think profiling should be done with regards to behavior and not placing collective blame. I think profiling should be done with regards to behavior and not placing collective blame. I have a huge problem with placing collective blame on populations just for the very fact that they were, they're Muslims. You know, the reality is that people are born into a religion out of no choice of their own. The very fact that out of some misfortune of lottery I was born in Iran and I have the label of Muslim on my forehead, you know, until

the day I die, unless I make this very difficult decision to leave it and to publicly leave it. And even then the far right will call me an undercover jihadi. What I'm saying is that, you know, people are much more than the religions of their birth. They've often had no choice to it. That choice, lack of choice continues to follow them throughout their lives. And to profile them and to place collective blame on them and equate them with Islamists is not right. It's not beliefs. And to, you know, sort of homogenize them and see them as this one collective actually hands them over to the Islamist movement. Many of them are fighting it, fighting Islamism.

But I'm not doing that. But Mariam, I'm not doing that. I'm not saying you're doing, okay, you're not doing that, Sam. I'm talking about what I think the problem with profiling and collective blame is. This is not a personal attack on you. I'm not taking it personally. I'm attempting to express my views about security, in this case profiling. So am I. I'm also concerned about security, Sam. But Mariam, the only thing I've said about profiling comes out of my experience concerned about security, Sam, you know. But Mary, but Mary, but so there's nothing,

the only thing I've said about profiling comes out of my experience. And again, when I was talking about profiling initially, it was at the airports, right? So you're getting on planes and you see the kind of security theater where we see people who are obviously not jihadists, obviously have not been recruited, getting searched with the same kind of scrupulousness and intensity as people who you might worry could fit a reasonable profile of a jihadist. And my argument here is that we have to admit that we have a finite amount of attention. We have a finite amount of resources. And we should never deliberately waste our time. Now, there is a role for random searches here, which increases everyone's safety.

And so randomness should be included. But what everyone has found galling, or many people have found galling, are obvious wastes of time, knowing that our resources are limited. So again, so to take it out of the airport, as I tried to do a moment ago, if you're going to profile based entirely on behavior, which is behavioral profiling is certainly part of it, and I would agree with you, most of what you need to do is to profile on the basis of behavior, but adhering to a religion or to a neo-Nazi organization or whatever your identity is, is a type of behavior, right? So if you're looking for jihadists and you want to reach out to the community of people who might be aware of the jihadists in their midst, you're going to be reaching out to the Muslims. You're not going to be reaching out to the Mormons.

Okay, can I explain this again too, Sam, if you don't mind? There's a difference between a religious believer versus a neo-Nazi, and I think that's where, you know, that's my issue here, is that when you said, you just said something about where you're going to, a person who's religious or a neo-Nazi is very different. The fact of the matter is that, for me, a neo-Nazi is like the Islamist. Yes, yes, I agree. You know, those who are part of a political movement have certain characteristics. Very often we see that the security are actually following people who then go on and commit crimes.

Well, why haven't they acted more quickly? They shouldn't be waiting until we're at the gates of an airport to be able to find who is, you know, willing and able to commit atrocities against the population at large. You know, you said something about, well, we should focus on those who are obviously Muslim. Well, who is that? You know, I went to the U.S. with my husband's young son. He was 13 at the time. He was taken away and fingerprinted and questioned. He's born in Britain, but he looks, obviously, he must look Muslim to them. And, you know, my husband now, he hasn't been to Iran for 40 years. We're opponents of the Iranian regime. He's been atheist for God knows how long. You know, he's got to apply for a visa now because he's also considered an Iranian national, whereas the Iranian government is constantly threatening us

with death. So what I want to say is that just because of the fact that we happen to be Muslims as well or seem to be Muslims, it doesn't necessarily mean that we should be more susceptible to profiling than someone who's Amish. Why should we? I have nothing to do with the Islamist movement. I hate the Islamist movement. The reason I'm here is because I fled it, and I've spent a lot of my life fighting it. So what I'm saying is that what profiling does is it places collective blame. For me, this is an important issue. What it says is that just because all jihadis are Muslims, therefore all Muslims are fair game. I disagree in the same

way that you have a lot of white, far-right terrorists in the US, you know, to argue therefore then that every white male needs to be targeted because every or every christian white male christian needs to be targeted because in america 100 of the white terrorists are christian and they're white and they're male misses the point you know but it doesn't it doesn't necessarily miss the point so for instance i mean if we had a global it does because you're gonna spend putting pulling aside every white male at the airport, you're actually wasting security time, Sam. Well, of course you are. If you're so concerned about the lack of resources, you should be actually, you know, profiling Muslims is a waste of time.

Well, no. It's a waste of time. Just as profiling every white male is a waste of time. You just said you're for behavioral profiling. So again, there's some confusion creeping in here because we're talking about your profile. If you'd like to continue listening to this conversation, you'll need to subscribe at SamHarris.org. Once you do, you'll get access to all full-length episodes of the Making Sense podcast, along with other subscriber-only content, including bonus episodes and AMAs and the conversations I've been having on the Waking Up app. The Making Sense podcast is ad-free and relies entirely on listener support, and you can subscribe now at SamHarris.org.