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tv   Studio B Unscripted  Al Jazeera  May 5, 2021 7:30pm-8:01pm +03

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and never dies. it is the inspiration of our poets. the princess of our ceremonies. come tell me your name these things. let's unite our voices so we can sing more in. a message from a small island in the town talk to all of those suffering or alone you are not forgotten. nicholas hawke al jazeera mandela saudi sent. adrian sitting in with you here in doha the headlines when i was there a facebook's oversight board has upheld the ban on donald trump's account for his royal event citing his supporters to attack the capitol building in january trump calls the social media barons a total disgrace the indian delegation to a g. 7 summit in the u.k. is self isolating off to the best tested positive for corona virus the group of 7
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wealthy democracies are discussing vaccines as they face growing pressure to share stockpiles leave barker reports from london. we don't know exactly when they are believed to contract it coronavirus or indeed what kind of contact they may have had with other delegates from other countries over the last couple of days but the house forced the entire indian team including 4 minister josh anka to sit it out and carry on taking parts remotely from their hotel rooms they already is the india with here to seek more support from the g 7 countries when it comes to dealing with the coronavirus to 2 a thing that is deepening and worsening in the country canada has become the 1st country in the world to approve pfizer's coronavirus vaccine for children aged 12 or above the pharmaceutical giant says that its trials on 12 to 15 year olds show the job is 100 percent effective against curve at 19. israel's president has chosen
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the strongest rival of prime minister benjamin netanyahu to form a new government peed heads the centrist party and secured the support of 56 of the knesset's 120 members it puts netanyahu is political future in question after 12 years as leader. shadow government of ousted politicians says that it's sort of a people's defense force to protect civilians nearly $770.00 people have been killed in a brutal crackdown since a military coup in february the national unity government is working underground to oppose the jointer and hopes the steve force will stop the violence and the u.n. says that 150000000 people worldwide are going hungry 20000000 more than 2 years ago war and conflict to the main drivers but economic shocks exacerbated by the pen demick and climate change are also major of course this morning you see here as here after studio b. unscripted next.
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nor i doubt this is just a store attack a storyteller is a historian is a psychologist is a philosopher my name is well a syrian coffee. being a novelist in a country like turkey is a bit like being slapped on the once again being kissed on the other cheek at the same time i am in a shock. like to think that then nationalism is not as ugly as someone else's one of the major
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fears i had when i was in exile was that they might get me because i've been declared want to live or. your identity is one which. would also admit it applies not just to write as a cause. in fact it's other hot all the. other sort of dialect nationalist died lamma which plagues europe for this sort 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
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that they are all moral 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 the periodic of the oh i know high seas by cell my sub caesar i know what that is but what really a my to to the other m i defined by mission a watch. what's your response i was i think i'm a bit more prepared to. write about our emotions but a whole season i did that are you see it in your book 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
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a lot of pressure on so many of us to belong into one single box and stay in that box you know are you a 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 european by birth by choice the values that i share over the years i became a londoner a brit a 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
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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 it 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. useful 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 be a secret i mean that i wrote another book let's say another story they say oh she must be a secret jew emission must be a secret code because all these conspiracy theories in places where there is no democracy but underlying is the assumption that if it's not your story why should
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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 thought and very critical of that. in west africa some years ago. the nigerian government decided to expel all gummy arms from niger in fact as an expression. juror today called god i must go. and i phone by so. personally violated i felt that if i listen i've 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
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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 of course the 1st line scapegoats are those who are quote unquote foreign as well and of course see what's really happening in south africa the amounting even to the link ching the pursuit i mean lynching of a foreigner as before 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
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and the waves are which. for the taking over europe effect in politics immigration policy. and even the internal governance in which the the machinery of the government is arranged primarily against. foreigners what are my sort of guide in my i'm trying to let nations die that humanity may survive it. the problem i have is i don't know what will take its place missions will become surely long in the tooth to need to. explode bent to stew over the. book but the old famous 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. service a lot as if some parts of the world were more solid lance more safe and steady you
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really didn't have to worry about democracy in those countries most of the western world was seen in the sway 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 a liquid glance 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 a welfare state and the bust in of social democracy now we have the rise of the far
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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 you do so does for instance on the african continent. i feel closer. to africans in the diaspora and i
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feel to be my grab region in north africa. i feel closer affinity definitely and i found myself far more interested in the fortunes of cultural of course retentions in brazil for instance where you have the eureka young 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 sport i'm interested i'm interested in tournaments or only once a rematch or the last williams playing. golf i don't care for gold 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 i can 1st to the contradiction in me that this is that i can contradiction i think is
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fearful to feel that kind of attachment emotional belonging isn't 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 the truth 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. so is an either or choice so if he writes in
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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 isn't sex for instance thinks i'm talking but humor i don't mean particular and that much is this. there's no question at all for me there is both a vehicle. 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 pop 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 a deal if you want the streets of nigeria for instance the start of english and up
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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 expression in one language you switch naturally to the language from which the idea derived originally of course i've got this flak also why do you write in english this and that english is in fact the language oh cool make us you nigeria when i want to take over and take over you know control of our lives speak in english so you can get anything more basic. sudden transformation of yourself from even a partial democracy to outright dictatorship but anyway you know but i think it's about time we brought him in this go through the. as for this is of the day i was
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wondering if you have ever felt the states particularly frustrating 8 about the lack of impact given the rising. erosion of democracy enshrined in civics space saw 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 demand but 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 of writers and poets 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 bad there
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are some bad people but relatively speaking their numbers are small and so they're saying the opposite of goodness is not necessarily the bardens 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 the 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 some things to change in our style as well sometimes populist among works 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 a break them into pieces so i deliberately use populist elite because populist and
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have a problem with elitism as long as they are the elites when they're not really criticizing if the man many of them are the elites in fact when we take a closer look and the 2nd thing is they think of the people as a homogenously hall but they feel they divide people into real people who are says 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 matters. thank you i did to 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
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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 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 an exile because i've been declared wanted to live by that the dictator was actually setting up consulates to hunt down the opposition but. i found peace this is a self revolution was that i began looking for
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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 take my body back. the dictator was there so that's how you russian art one would come by the way i was at peace with myself so good don't take my body back if that conduct are 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 yourselves you're paying the money to go out but that's exactly what i did it's part and parcel of. but once composition. does the sociable to cool 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
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connected with the previous question isn't it exile sometimes self-imposed exile can we have multiple homes multiple home can make home plaything ever this connect from our home which i think i don't think it's possible. just the opposite perhaps you even follow it more closely when you're abroad you 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 cords of distance just a little bit of distance maybe to say 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
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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 you know they can't recognize 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 the colony our minds as 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 in our countries. to better society in the future. the culture is
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a powerful weapon by you know but at the same time cultural come through very very feeble. interest or some really intractable situations in nigeria or use expression or and those descent into. of inhumanity. and i was speaking of. an astronomical arise in kidnapping for ransom in. in rape in. that ophelia ritual killing sex trafficking and we ask ourselves what 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
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with their terrified that if the remarriage on the terms of the of enslavement that terrible things will happen to them and to their family. and they believe it because they come from a superstitious culture but the same culture is being used now to remove that fear from them you have somebody like the above been in for instance some sort of pronounced 1st curse you know with his entire family of priests and choose the curves on all. who traffic will continue traffic you know on people into sex slavery but one should not depend to a belief on the part of culture culture. and lightnings relieves. is so strange but at the same
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time the negative aspects of culture which just becomes an extra burden even outside on their birman. 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 are all these predictions about a clash of civilizations 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
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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 a way to go beyond our equation armors beyond our comfort zones around and i think that's that is also the most of us a little tolerance 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 they're scared. thank you so much thanks. thank. me because is the perfect analogy of everything that's wrong in this world and is
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broken in this world because it's a curtain raiser for the climate crisis i think we humanize corporations were doing something really dangerous because a corporation if it were a human would act like a psycho. they traveled down thousands of columbus's for lawyers to pick berries. to tie workers with exploitation in the forests of suede and when i went east investigates on al jazeera. we tout the untold stories.
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we speak when office to. be caught up alongside us. no matter where it takes us a pretty familiar feeling syria got on my ass. and power now i and pasha which tell your stories we are your voice no news you are not al-jazeera. hero and humanitarian. traitor the real criminal am. the boss you know me general who defended sarajevo against attack by serb forces. al-jazeera world looks back at the life of the late you find give you. a a saudi a for my not. just 0. 0
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. where every. foreign. donald trump for maine's banned from facebook for inciting violence but he vows to keep fighting the tech giants. hello i'm adrian for get this is al jazeera live from doha also coming up israel's president asks the opposition to form a new government putting prime minister benjamin netanyahu is a political future. a warning that india will likely face a 3rd one.

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