i'm santa maria in doha and these are the headlines on al-jazeera polls are open in hong kong's local elections chief executive caroline cost a vote not long ago 3 in a poll seen as a test for her beijing government following months of demonstrations authorities even threatened to suspend voting if there is any serious disruption a record 4100000 people have registered to vote on khan's biggest turnout since the territory was returned to china from britain in 1907 speaking to the media a short time ago carol lam appealed for peaceful voting we are facing an extremely challenging situation in all the nice in this year's elections but i'm pleased to

say that with the concerted efforts of all parties including of course over 30000 civil servants in many departments working today we should have a relatively peaceful and calm and vironment to conduct these elections some sesame . you know the headlines colombia where antigovernment protests of continued in the country's capital for a 3rd day large groups of security forces patrolled the streets of bogota fired tear gas on thousands of protesters who gathered it followed an overnight curfew ordered by president even to k. which was defined by demonstrators who stayed on the streets this was the 1st time a curfew was imposed in decades people still angry over proposed reforms to the tax and pension system here is a program p.r.t. in bogota. small groups of protesters are on the streets most. are peaceful and happening without major issues but other

ones if protesters try to march on the streets are blocked one of the rows. front. quite violently by the police riot gear with tear gas with. bombs as we have with. earlier during the day we have now been able to confirm that at least one of these protesters was seriously injured by one of the. grenades that hit them in the head he is now. under surgery in a hospital in downtown we understand that his condition is critical under control so we're going to try to find out more about him in coming hours and more people are also planning to repeat.

demonstrations where people hit on parts and pans in different parts of this city most of the value and seems to be happening when the protesters try to reach the government buildings downtown if they stay for dinner now. and don't try to move on the streets then. to move on peacefully records of the u.s. state department's dealings with ukraine of now been made public they confirm contacts between secretary of state on peo and donald trump's personal lawyer rudy giuliani earlier this year has been renewed fighting we couldn't fight is back and forces in northern syria this was near the town a very nice turkey launched an offensive against the kurdish syrian democratic forces last month a truce was agreed in coordination with russia but small scale fighting has continued thousands of people have been marching across france to highlight the problem of violence against women france has one of your highest rates of domestic

violence so far this year 116 women have been killed by current or former partners a report released this month found french police and the justice system often failed to protect women. tension remains high on the streets of chile its capital santiago after protesters clashed violently with security forces on friday evening demonstrators threw rocks and petrol bombs at vehicles and were met with water cannon and tear gas demonstrations that began over 2 months ago over an increase in metro fares have escalated into riots losing an arson president and yet it has promised a set of reforms to quell the protests is. all right those are your headlines from london you center studio b. unscripted is next.

sometimes we writers i think we're really close that most of this. entire relationship with the past is full of for up. what are my guide in my interest is the let me 1st direct you my me to mr barr. i want to trial for allegedly holding up a radio station at gunpoint in defense of democracy i believe war is a human problem and human being and you're quite right to say i got myself involved my name is wallace. i'm a turkish british novelist and like every storyteller i'm drawn to stories but also silences the things we cannot talk about i have multiple attachments just like all of faster and multiple attachments means multiple stories i am in

a shack. i felt a new leaf suffolk even before i met or like when i jury. herds with a country's government to her works to give a voice to those who are often on the earth i knew about as the 1st african author to win the nobel prize for literature. the recognition of. creativity which goes back centuries but also in his role as a defender of killing rights and freedom of speech i was looking forward to having an open conversation on discuss issues start out both timely and universal and close to home what unites us makes us human.

well it's such an honor to share the same stage with you and i have been talking about the art of storytelling and what it means. to worlds and i always thought especially for authors for stories to tell us who come from that the moccasins such as turkey nigeria egypt's pakistan brazil then this is so long and it's getting longer i don't think as writes from such motherland we have the luxury of being nonpolitical. we can say i'm only going to write my stories and not really think about what's happening outside the window but one thing that draws my attention is especially after the year 2016 i think more

and more western also stu begun to feel maybe the urgency to speak up because we've seen how country after country democracy can die that history. angle backwards it doesn't always know cynical forwards and you of course spoken so powerful then eloquently about the need to be vocal in our current system on what happens to the human souls if we do not criticize tyranny i'm very glad i was starting with the very language of the storyteller let me use this appreciate it to say that no writer is just a story to have a storyteller as a historian is a psychologist is a philosopher is a builder is a creative person so i'm very happy identifying ourselves here to that as storytellers you started off on a very difficult soul searching subject which is what is my

responsibility as a writer what is yours i don't see any special responsibility for a writer be you on the expounding behold. of his or her community of humanity in general i know but i agree with you that some of us do don't have that luxury and i resent it i resent the fact that we are burdened by that weight of history i resent that because there is something which existed before but also the colonial experience it's kind of a defining as 2nd class humanity and yet we know you and i know that yes we do feel that we have to transcend a set. wrong positioning which has been given us by external

forces and then after that after we chase them out what happens. we've got our internal colonisers and then you have to fight these new orders all over again to distort the history of our society our past in order to and from themselves permanently with our boots or the next i think sometimes we writers especially from the quote unquote developing world 3rd wall africa i think were really closet muslim priests though we love to take on this burden i see no other explanation for it. it is quite irrational i agree but also perhaps of course as storytellers we chase stories we chase words but i equally believe we are drawn to silence the things we can not talk about easily in a society at a given time and that includes taboos political to was helpful to. us

just to be able to ask why is it that we can talk about this issue is important for writers to ask questions not try to guide to answers i was intrigued by what you said and it did resonate with me because i often think turkey has collective uneasy our entire relationship with the past is full of ruptures and because of the vacuum now it's being filled with either alter nationalistic interpretations of history or religious interpretations of history where you can't talk about the complexity of history and if you want to draw attention to that you can easily be labeled as a traitor as a betrayer in just just a cognitive flexibility to to ask how would i feel had i been a minority member in that period for instance just to focus on individuals is very difficult because the official history has no human beings in it being a novelist in a country like turkey is

a bit like being slapped on the one cheek and being kissed on the other cheek at the same time. and i'm saying this because clearly these are lonsway i would sigh heavy so every writes in this to anyone who deals with words knows that because of something you rights you might use that gets into trouble but on the other hand perhaps padauk sickly in countries where i would son not that easily written pronounced maybe maybe they much even more i watched a film oh decades ago as we speak i just flashed across my mind it had to do with the colonization of the americas it depicted in it of indian village and in the village there was a no obviously it gave a individual who lived. in a hot and who related more with women when it was accepted like

that in the community and that it was an hour in that same on that same continent probably in that same part of the world you have those who are. who are saying that if i this is a saying you know nothing about biology of human and. not to me you know nothing about hormones nothing at all about the exploration of the human tendencies there they are now stigmatizing and this is where the writer i believe yeah especially in the so-called subtle societies the writer has a special responsibility at least has a tours to rewrite the story conception just like that filmmaker obviously deliberately inserted this kind of domestic scene back on trust come to a country like nigeria and within this decade the legislators who are all the

problems are sailing by jury has the power but did not get cetera et cetera took time off the postle law. which included phrases like the expression of affection between 2 people of the same sex is going to and i asked myself when i wrote other time what your business or what happens with consenting adults you don't have in our problems or goal already and so you have the politicians for the purpose of the. rewriting and or. imposing their own newly acquired prejudices deliberate distortions of humanity in the name of progress they do they do rewrites so many things they rewrite history religion and also

law and they they pass the laws when i when i look at turkey in particular of course there are so many women who are very vocal and strong in all areas of life from academy up to medicine to the business world but in one does one field in which women are very few in numbers and that's politics mostly dominated by very conservative very religious. men one of the laws that they recently tried to pass actually involves reducing the sentence of rapists if they agree to may their underage victims because from their according to their mentality in a way the rapist is doing a favor to the family and all they care about is this other concept of honor and of course there was a huge backlash from from the society and then they took it back but there is no way i'm mentioning is this we need we need women to support each other we need

a very strong women small and that goes hand in hand with minorities with algae to rights we need a strong civil society when society is divided when women are. especially i think the only thing that benefits from that is patriarchy itself and i am concerned because earlier we talked about have country after country we've seen a decline of democracy an erosion of democracy and i think whenever there's more nationalists and there's more religious fundamentalism there's also an increase in sexism there's also an increase in homophobia all of these things are related we've touched the national in on the use your bar. i would writers do with fiction with history and so on you know what. politicians more afraid of history of fiction and they would liberal to the reason why i ask this because i

come from a society where we discovered quote. i think not too long ago that history had been taken off the curriculum yeah and that it is a shock for me. and so i ask myself well you haven't been able to destroy fiction but we had history of the disposal the go read the history so our sponsor what really a free book yeah and i think it's precise there were stories and there's a story telling can can make a difference as i was listening to i was thinking one of the books that i read very early on in life left a big impact on me it was the works of iran which. from the balkans when i was reading his work for the 1st time as a high school student it occurred to me they were like 2 peasants talking the talk about the genesis system which was the heart of the ottoman empire in

a way that the military and so at school what i had learned was who were a great empire wherever we went we brought civilisation but then there were these 2 balkan peasants talking about that institution and one of them was saying thanks to the system our poor children were able to get education and go all the way up and become his ears and the other one was saying are you sure because of the system and they forgot their identity they were converted to islam without their will you know and they never saw their families again so yes they did get education but at the expense of what as a reader of lover of storytelling fiction i understood what the writer was trying to do you can you shift your angle it's a bit stuck cognitive you know flexibility and try to see the same story through the eyes of another person and then another and keep doing this until we realise

there's no such thing as history with a capital hage imposed on us but there are all these realities and complexities that we honestly need to talk about if you want to be truthful in the northern people should we share with europe. have the most one or 2 questions you're both storytellers which you've spoken about but you're also activists in role models and change makers and i wanted to ask you both if there was a specific moment or period in your lives when you came to embrace the next step to your role as as change makers and if so what gave you the courage to step into those shoes you 1st if you feel. i don't see myself as a courageous person at all honestly i'm just a curious person and i don't want to lose that curiosity about life details the

connectivity with fellow human beings maybe i would maybe cause all the way back to my childhood because i realize when i look back there were so many times when i felt like the other myself you know a bit like inside or outside kind of clinging to their heads trying to be long so to me it comes free naturally to give more voice to people who have been other night sed and i think in my work i always want to give more voice to the silenced and try to bring the periphery to the center. that matters to me but also maybe part of the reason is the way i was brought up i grew up without seeing my father and i was raised by 2 completely different women my mom's westernized very modern urban their actual well educated and my grandmother probably would take all the other boxes you know more eastern very spiritual less educated i mean it's very

wise and she's a woman who had been denied a proper education but she firmly believed in the education of girls so to me so watching those sisterhoods their solidarity the way they supported each other had a huge impact on me you know they didn't agree on everything but they supported each other so i think observing people despite the circumstances how we need to empower each other how we need to connect with each other and how we can all learn from those bonds that left a huge huge impact on me as i was growing up. i told the hosts. the smorgon a little more i know her that i know already don't worry we'll have a good conversation i know her. and reading about her i just saw myself also

the ability the temperament of being affected by one's environment while we are the other for good or evil in a few days is i'm going back to niger and believe me right up to the time i get on the plane i ask myself what on earth are you going back to my blasted country for is neat little life more peaceful here what form that is pushing you i just don't know but i'll give you an example of something which is affected me tremendously. and thank goodness this example comes from a child a girl child a name is lee or cherie but she was one of the school pupils who were kidnapped by boko haram in nigeria. and they were as armed but when they were leaving the fundamentalist terrorists insisted that they must

renounce their religion before they were released all of them did except one. shaariibuu and i ask myself what was it that impelled the child to say no like nelson mandela did when he was given a conditional release she was between 14 and 15 said about taiji no longing for freedom longing for environment from an error meant what was in the pushed or go to know. and stayed behind and she was kept behind she's still a prisoner till today i think it's the same impulse that drives us as writers and activists that something in power bore on our backs up the ball in our environment i would just have to say no it's something which of i just had to miss so much well written a long poem to her. when

you were put on trial french insulting turkishness sent in 2006 i wonder if you could you sort of say a little more about that and also i'm particularly interested in what you wrote when you were acquitted you felt that the trial was an uprising against authoritarianism so you had some hope for turkey at that point and i just wondered whether you had you know whether you still felt hopeful in the the circumstances that you explain to us earlier turkey is such a complex country doesn't. i don't think it can be simplified no country can of course but it it harbors so many conflicts this government has been in power for such a long time and when they came to power a bit like in hungary they came to power with lots of promises of reform including supporting turkey's e.u. membership peace process with minorities with kurds with armenians making

a new constitution that would be more liberal more political stake so the 1st years were shaped by that narrative and today only sug to say this but turkey has become the world's leading jailer of journalists surpassing even china's records now do we do i have hope about my country of course and i also know that the government and the people are not the same thing when we talk about swarms of democracies i think it's always very important to bear in mind the sobs the tragedy of land such as ours is that oftentimes the people are ahead of their governments and yet we don't hear their voices we don't hear the complexity of the civil society that's why i think it's very important to be very vocal and clear when it comes to criticizing also tell you and governments and bringing up issues on human rights and freedom speech especially these are not negotiable issues postpone the issues we need to be

very loyal to defending human rights but at the same time connect with the people you know connect with minorities in our society the women in that society the youth in the society and never to isolate the people of. hi this is a question for mr singh. i read that in the 1960 s. you hailed a radio station at a gun point for electoral fraud i was wondering where do you draw the line in terms of political protest 1st of all. are you saying you don't believe in nigerian justice i was acquitted in court and here you are accusing me again after i've been acquitted by that i mean what about i supposed to do next just to satisfy everybody i'm innocent. i think

levels whether we like it or not we develop especially in circumstances like ours we develop a philosophy of violence it's always a very personal one it's in a conviction in a restlessness the desire to be a peace with yourself you cannot sit down and say you're writing a poem wearing next door somebody's been raped or violated in some way you put down but you can write about it afterwards but you know you're compelled to take action at that point or you cease to be a human being. one of the issues that i was hoping we could talk about is also where to draw the line between freedom of speech or hate speech i find it particularly difficult because

all my adult life i have fought for and believed in freedom of speech and one of the things that worries me on both sides of the atlantic particularly among young people this need for safe spaces and vetoing speakers was faint different to yours. is becoming a bigger and bigger issue and i am worried that if we're only surrounded by people who think like. like us dress up like us that's a very narcissistic existence so i think the point where i draw a line is the kind of hate speech that incites violence that targets minorities people who are in a vulnerable position that is something else but although i want to have multiple opinions discussions open spaces and especially to hear the voices of people whose voices have been denied so far.

people like to think that their nationalism is not as ugly as someone else's nationalism one of the major fear or when i was that i was a. priest or been deterred wanted to marburg the opposite of kindness is not necessarily evil is the moment we become numb desensitized and indifferent. what was the last thing the president said to you about impeachment when you last spoke to him for. it's not about you. you don't really give a shit talking about what all of you go how worried are you that the conditions are still like for another i think they are right join me maybe have fun as i put up from questions to my special guest and challenge them to some straight talking

political debate here on al-jazeera. i'm kemal santa maria and these are the headlines once again on al-jazeera the polls are open in hong kong's local elections chief executive carol lam cast her vote a short time ago the poll is seen as a test for her pro beijing government following months of demonstrations or thora he's have threatened to suspend voting if there is serious disruption a record 4100000 people have registered to vote on kong's biggest turnout since the territory was returned to china from britain in 1997 well kerry has appealed for this vote to be peaceful we are facing an extremely challenging situation in organizing this year's elections but i'm pleased to say that with

a concerted efforts of all parties including of course over 30000 civil servants in many departments working today we should have a relatively peaceful and calm and vironment to conduct these elections successfully. but the headlines colombia where anti-government protests of continued in the capital for a 3rd day large groups of security forces patrolled the streets of bogota and fired tear gas thousands of protesters gathered it followed an overnight curfew ordered by president even decay which was defined by the demonstrators who stayed on the streets this is the 1st time a curfew been imposed in decades people are angry over proposed reforms to the tax and pension system. records of the u.s. state department's dealings with ukraine have now been made public they confirm contacts between secretary of state might compare and donald trump's personal lawyer rudy giuliani earlier this year. there's been renewed fighting between kurdish fighters and the turkish backed forces in northern syria it happened in the

town of. turkey launched an offensive against the kurdish syrian democratic forces last month thousands of people been marching across france to highlight the problem of violence against women from says one of europe's highest rates of domestic violence so far this year in fact 116 women have been killed by current or former partners. and tension is still high on the streets of chile's capital some tiago after protesters clashed violently with security forces on friday evening demonstrators threw rocks and petrol bombs at vehicles the protests that began over 2 months ago for an increase in metro fares have escalated into riots and looting and often those are your headlines on al-jazeera studio b. unscripted continues next. to being a novelist like country like turkey is a bit like being slapped on the once again being just on the other cheek at the

same time nora is just a story. a storyteller is a who story is a psychologist is a philosopher and when society is a polarized people a benefit from that other purpose demagogues. the issue of identity is one which. most admit it applies not just to writers of course . in fact it's their heart. of the sort of. nationalist which plagues europe for the issue of identity has become seems to become a critical issue. generally in the world and yet there are human beings. who transcend not always in a positive way the nation for instance certain religions certain religionists feel that they are all more and that their identity should be seized. related to

through their religion ultimately a writer like myself especially who draws a so much from this society and of course who's a global wonder aspies are pretty articulate well i know high seas by cell my sub caesar i know what that is but what really a my 2 to the other and i defined by mission a walk. what's your response i was i think i'm a bit more peripatetic. writer there are marshes but how do you see as i did it or do you see it in your work you know it's it's it's a question that matters a lot to me because i do not think that we have to have a monolithic identity despite what they say to us there's a lot of pressure on so many of us to belong into one single box and stay in that

box you know you're muslim just be a muslim i you this just be that and stay there forever but i think as human beings we have multiple belongings and it's worth fighting for that multiplicity when i look at myself i realize very clearly of course on the attached to stumble and i carry it with me wherever i go but i'm also very attached to the age in the balkans i carry in my soul so many elements from the middle east my european by birth by choice the values that i share over the years i became a londoner a british citizen and despite what our politicians say today i think i would like to think of myself as a world citizen and the global soul why can't i be multiple things people like to think that there nationalism is not as ugly as someone else's nationalism that there nationalism is actually the right type of nationals and that is

a civilized nationalism and i don't i don't believe in that i think the core of nationalism is quite ugly it is divisive it is based on a distinction between us versus them and their assumption that us is somehow better than them and it takes one financial crisis or takes one political crisis for that core to surface so when i say that i do make a distinction between loving your country loving your culture you know being attached emotionally it is a. youthful feelings as an author every time you know i have written a book in turkey people said oh short of a couple armenians that she must feel sick that i mean that i wrote another book let's say another story they say oh she must be a secret jew initial must be a secret code because all these conspiracy theories in places where there is no democracy but underlying is this sumption that if it's not your story why should

you even care you know if it's not your identity why would you even try to write about someone else's story and i think we need to be very aware of that and very critical of that. in west africa some years ago. the nigerian government decided to expel all gummy hams from nigeria in fact as an expression in nigeria today called god i must go. and i phone by solve. personally violated i felt that if i listen to taken place on my behalf in my name yeah and i found it very repugnant in fact in my university my department became a kind of a refuge and i defied anyone to go and touch them or was it because i could not understand why there should be such

a distinction amounting to the right of expulsion between them and me. and we've had that experience all over the continent and as soon as there's a slight problem created by ms government mismanagement of economy the immediate impulse is to look for scapegoats out of cause the 1st line scapegoats are those who are quote unquote foreign as well and of course see what's been happening in south africa the amounting even to the link chain the pursuit of the lynching of a foreigner as people who are mozambique or affected at one time zimbabwe nigerians of course see this leaves one in such a weak position when one now house to decry the ultra nationalism

and the waves are which are sort of taking over europe effect in politics immigration policy. i mean even the internal governance in which the the machinery of the government is arranged primarily against. foreigners one of my sort of guide in my interest is the let nations die that humanity may survive it. problem i have is i don't know what will take its place missions will become surely long in the tooth to me. expert ben to stew over the joke but but they all seriousness is a safe we have no memory as if we have forgotten and i'm not talking about history that took place long time ago and that effects everything there is a complacency as well. this a lot as if some parts of the world were more solid lance more safe and steady you

really didn't have to worry about democracy in those countries most of the western world was seen in this way you really didn't have to worry about human rights or freedom of speech or women's rights or minority rights you would have to foot think about these issues in liquid plants outside the western world and i think after the year 2016 that perception has been shattered to pieces but still there is this assumption that some countries are inoculated against the far the rise of far right germany was thought to be one of those countries because people thought after experiencing the horrors of fascism people would never make the same mistake ever again and now for the 1st time since the 2nd world war we have a far right group within the german parliament and of course sweden was regarded as another inoculated country because it's the welfare states and the bustin of social democracy now we have the rise of the far right in sweden and the u.k.

was thought to be inoculated against the rise of the far right why because it's of it has very different traditions it doesn't even have a written constitution a very strong hold of you know liberal democracy and so many other historical reasons but again we can't say it why it will never happen again and we are seeing the rise of. hate speech hate attacks particularly targeting minorities immigrants suddenly this toxic language in politics made it ok for people to say things were that were unsaleable until recently. and yet i sense this contradiction in me. so does for instance on the african continent i feel closer. 2 africans in the diaspora and i

feel to be my grub region in north africa. i feel a closer affinity definitely and i find myself far more interested in the fortunes cultural of course retentions in brazil for instance where you have the your rebbe your people in cuba etc i know i have a kind of visceral connection even in sports i must confess i'm a racist when it comes to sports i'm interested i'm interested internist only once a rematch or because williams playing. golf i don't care for golf but any time i hear tiger woods name i want to know has got to go on. so that is that and i wonder whether we should be thinking more in terms of cultural blocks but definitely a converse to the contradiction in me that this is a quantum contradiction i think it's visible to feel that kind of attachment

emotional belongings and i don't associate that with you know nationalistic way of thinking or any more reductionist way way of thinking so the opposite i find find it important that we feel those emotional attachments that's why i insist on making a maybe distinction between patches and nationalism i think such it is way too important to leave to the nationalists i also think faith for instance is way too important to leave to the religious i think politics is way too important to leave to career politicians and i'm curious about your views on the language tour how does it feel to write in english and did you get any reaction because i did get a lot of reaction for i do write in both english and turkish but more and more i write in english and it's difficult to explain to people sometimes only think in nationalistic terms because for the. and so is an either or choice so if you writes

in english it means you have abandoned your essence your mother tongue and yes i think this is the in which so many of us dream in what more than one language and so when i look at my writing i realize if i'm writing about melancholy sadness longing i find it is it expressed as things in turkey but humor irony in particular and much easier in english. but there's no question at all for me language is both a vehicle it's it's a technicality for use at the same time it has this extension and to be a repository of ideas of history of philosophy so the pope for me i'd seen a reason why he wanted to come out have its cake and eat it. and that's why i talk about being multi-lingual for me this is ideal if you walk the streets of nigeria

for instance the start of english and up in europe switching to broken english for me is an expression of. of the complexity of the thinking process but it's instinct if you don't find the expression. in one language you switch naturally to the language from which the idea derived originally of course i got this flack also why do you write in english lesson i told him english is in fact the language oh cool make us you know i do when i want to take over and take over you know control of our lives to speak in english so you can get anything more basic than the sudden transformation of yourself from even a partial democracy to outright dictatorship but anyway you know i think it's about time we brought in many of us go through their audiences. i was wondering if you

have ever felt the states particularly frustrating 8 about the lack of impact given the rising. erosion of democracy and shrinking civic space so do you think that the language and narrative of human rights defenders including yourselves somewhat should try and change to reach out more effectively to the people that currently seems to be lured more by the demography by the language of the far right nationalists and populists in this age we all need to become more engaged citizens to me that's incredibly important and there's one thing that worries me when i read the memoirs all right so some points who have survived the worst calamities in human history including the holocaust almost all of them are saying something similar they're saying bad things happen not because people are bob's well some people but relatively speaking their numbers are small and so

they're saying the opposite of goodness is not necessarily the bobbins the opposite of kindness is not necessarily evil. the opposite of goodness is in fact moments is the moment we become numb desensitized and indifferent that is a very dangerous turning point because upon that ground we can sow the seeds of all kinds of racism all kinds of sexism and xenophobia once enough people become numb so it matters to speak about human rights and each other's stories but you're so right something is the change in our style as well sometimes populist demagogues are better in terms of addressing people's emotions than their liberal counterparts it's so dualistic they talk about the people versus the elite but i think more and more of us deliberately need to start using the words the words in the break them into pieces so i deliberately use populist elite because populist don't have

a problem with elitism as long as they are the maids when they're not really criticizing if the man many of them are they need in fact when we take a closer look and the 2nd thing is they think of the people as a homogenously whole but they feel they divide people into real people versus on real people people who really matter 1st as people who don't matter that months much so all i'm trying to say is the problems are real but populism is the wrong answer to those real problems and we need to do a better job in terms of addressing those real problems and remind each other and ourselves that human rights must. thank you i did ask you both about your periods of exile when you've been unable to return to nigeria or to turkey for your own safety but yet you continued to write about these places what is it like being so intimately connected

to a place so absorbed emotionally intellectually in a place but physically separated and how has that influenced your writing i found it very difficult to accept that i was in exile very very difficult especially the major one the 2nd one which was forced on me and it was actually a life and death scape for escapade if you like i think carried. that but sense of belonging with me so deeply that one of the major fears i had when i was in exile was that they might get me you know exile because i've been declared wanted to live but that the dictator op was actually setting up consulates to hunt down the opposition but. from peace this is a self revolution was that i began looking for a place where i would be buried if i was got outside

my fear was not so much being killed outside but. my family or some well meaning friends stick my body back why are the dictator was there now that's how you know i for not wanting to come be the way i was at peace with myself said good don't take my body back if that. is still in charge i don't want him trampling all over my corpse. i still laugh at myself so look at you and sort of buy more weeks for disguising yourself you're paying the money to go out but that's exactly you know what i did it's part and parcel of. a once composition rather than. does the sociable to call changes in your country's interest you for example still affect your writing style as much as it used to when you started writing it's so so

connected with the previous question isn't it exile sometimes self-imposed exile can we have multiple homes multiple homelands can make complete they ever this connect from our homeland which i think i don't think it's possible. just the opposite perhaps you even follow it more closely when you're abroad few you care about every single detail so it's a very very fragmented existence in a way you're always a bit of an insider outsider. which could be a good position for arts or the art of storytelling because you're enough of an insider to feel attached to places many places but maybe a little bit of codes of distance just a little bit of distance maybe to see things from a different perspective but if it's a good situation position for art i think it's a very long the place for the artist you know you're always in between them and i and i carry that feeling with me to be honest the number of people from all over

the world who have started to feel as if they were in some kind of exile you know that number is increasing more and more people have started to get worried about their mother lance contractor guys the changes that are happening even when they live in those countries so it happens to me a lot when i give talks there are people you know in the audience they say i come from minnesota and i come from brazil i can't recognize my country either nor can i you know we're all asking what happened to my sweet country i was wondering how you think that colonia mind has had an impact within our culture and ball possible changes you think that we could bring to ourselves us people from different countries who leave you know in europe or in countries that are not our countries. to better society in the future. the culture is

a powerful weapon i know but at the same time cultural come through very very feeble. interests or some really intractable situations in nigeria or use the expression or and those descent into. inhumanity. and i was speaking of. an astronomical arises in kidnapping for ransom in. in rape in. that ophelia ritual killing sex trafficking and we ask ourselves what's what's happened to our humanity and what's the. solution solve these girls who are sold into prostitution. truly put under some kind of supposed to shows. chain

with their terrified that if the remarriage on the terms of their of enslavement that terrible things will happen to them and to their family. and they believe it because they come from a superstitious goat but the scent culture is being used now to remove that fear from them you have somebody like the above been in for instance and sort of pronounced 1st a curse you know with his entire family of priests in chiefs rather curves on all. who traffic who continue traffic you know their own people into sex slavery but one should not depend to a belief on the part of cultural cultural and lightnings relieves entertains strains but at the same

time the negative aspects of culture which just becomes an extra burden even outside on the burner and. just just to follow up on the i i think today it's the major clashes that we're experiencing are taking place in the field of culture we are so obsessed with data you know measurable quantities of data but there are things that matter so much that can't be measured that easily and yet they're extremely important so as you know there were all these predictions about a crush of civilization small space between the western world and islam that's not what we are experiencing but i think what we're experiencing rather than a clash between civilizations within the nation states within our societies we're experiencing cultural fractures you know cultural battles almost and so there's a lot of tension going in that in the field about identity belonging who are we how

do we raise our children but at the same time of course as writers we also believe in the transformative power of culture when societies are deeply polarized the only people who benefit from that are the populists demagogues so how do we find the way to go beyond our it contaminates beyond our comfort zones and i think that study is also the possible as an adult audience a service in such such a pleasure to talk to you as i said i thought i was sure i knew you. and i hope this kind of coming to. continue why disco needs thank you so much thanks thank. you karl can really make a record this was something as monumentally horrific as slavery i think under

natural and we connect on our collective under a lot of the time what do poetry do for you is just wrong thank you thank. from a ounces in london to a cost center team special guests in conversation i am here because of colonialism trumpeting its fun interrupted there's a sense of months but i'm still having some legitimacy in terms of spreading the knowledge and technology create and how many stills that palenque see. recommendations for something as more new and pretty horrific as slavery be on screen dates on al-jazeera.

hello again to welcome back what across north states we are dealing with a weather system that is coming in out of the southeast and you can see the clouds right there pushing through parts of atlanta now the system is going to move quite quickly as we go from sunday as well as into monday here on sunday the system is already up towards new england bring some very gusty winds a lot of rain and even some snow towards parts of new england on monday though we're talking about the canadian maritimes that sees the brunt of the storm and things begin to clear out well behind the system but for boston things look like this on your 3 day forecast sunday it is going to be a very windy day a lot of rain in the forecast there monday we are looking at clearing conditions and by tuesday plenty of sun and the temperature up to about 12 degrees for you well here across much of the caribbean we are looking at some very nice conditions

across much of the area not a lot of rain across the regions but by the time we do get towards monday heavier showers are expected across parts of jamaica as well as up here towards the north where a front will be settling in across the bahamas with nessa seeing attempts a few of $27.00 degrees there and it is. so quite cool here for rio de janeiro tempt us all into the lower twenty's we do have a front to push through so do expect to see some rain in your forecast here on sunday and by the time we get towards tuesday less rain with a temperature of $23.00 degrees. and counting the poll says russia uses mercenaries in call the place from syria to libya the future you'll remco it's a 2 trillion dollars but it's the saudi state owned oil company plus google takes on the big guns in the gaming industry counting the cost on the i'll just see.

i'm. about you. know some of it i like. this is al-jazeera. when i'm come on santa maria this is the news hour from al-jazeera president and voter turnout expected in hong kong's local elections after months of protests we will be live at the polling stations. for the news a heavy police presence in colombia's capital after 2 days of major protests of attacks and pension reforms as me and goes to trial at the international.