welcome to hardtalk. i'm stephen sackur. the arab experience of the past fifty years has been scarred by dictatorship, repression and cruelty, inflicted and endured. since the uprisings of 2011 voices have risen in protest, but how much has really changed? and to what extent can the western world really understand the impact of this prolonged trauma? my of this prolonged trauma? my guest is renowned libyan writer hisham matar, whose writing has explored the impact of having a father disappeared by the gaddafi regime. how hard is it to move on? theme music plays

hisham matar, welcome to hardtalk. thank you. you have written extensively about the impact of your father's disappearance on yourself, both in terms of novel, memoir. i just wonder, now, years on, whether you have found peace?” just wonder, now, years on, whether you have found peace? i think what i am interested is what every writer is interested in, taking an experience which has initiated you into certain themes, certain experiences and ideas and making something of it. exploring it. not to prove a point or two close a

subject but rather to explore and understand it. in this case it is the relationship between these things out there, these big political ideas and formations and policies and how they infiltrate and affect personal life and the life of ordinary people so the absurd thing is that i am not really interested in some level in myself or in my father or necessarily in my country. in other words, i am interested in the personal self but i do not objectively think it is more interesting than other countries but they have taught me things. you can get into these are very big things through them. the relationship between father and son, the notion

of exile, but it means to belong somewhere... all these themes seem to be wrapped up in your work. also oui’ to be wrapped up in your work. also our relationship to the dead. in my case i have a father who disappeared... and we should remind people who were not aware of your personal story that your father was 0lympian of some renown. he had been a soldier, diplomat, successful businessman. he fell out, certainly could not tolerate the muammar gaddafi regime and went to live in cairo. he was picked up by the intelligence services of olivia, who appeared to be working with the egyptians, and ta ken appeared to be working with the egyptians, and taken back. ——0f egypt. through the laws of deduction he has. i do not have any evidence, regardless of all my efforts and the

effo rts regardless of all my efforts and the efforts of so many other people, to find information about when, how, where he was killed, if he was killed. where his remains might be. we do not know any of those things and that, of course, is a very specific case that involves me and the surge of my father but as a writer, also, has really taught me something, ifeel, writer, also, has really taught me something, i feel, about writer, also, has really taught me something, ifeel, about the writer, also, has really taught me something, i feel, about the strange business of being in the present, alive, and get still in conference and in some close intimacy with the dad. you evocatively describe yourself as living in a sort of cage asa yourself as living in a sort of cage as a result of what happened to you as a result of what happened to you asa as a result of what happened to you as a youth. i think you were just 19 when he disappeared and he never got to see him again and you were not

evenin to see him again and you were not even in cairo but was studying abroad... iwas even in cairo but was studying abroad... i was in london. if we ta ke abroad... i was in london. if we take the metaphor of the cage, whether you are still in a cage? no, one of the things i tried to do in my book is try to sort of expose the different stages that i went through. my father disappeared when i was 19 through. my father disappeared when iwas19— through. my father disappeared when iwas 19 — he through. my father disappeared when i was 19 — he was kidnapped when i was 19 — and i am today 48 so, so much of my life has been spent under this inconclusive absence and so i tried to explore but also expose some of the things i went through and, suddenly, in my 20s i felt ca ptu red and, suddenly, in my 20s i felt captured by this fate, by the double bind of being afraid to speak about

it, in case this would endanger his life, and being also compelled to speak about it. at your lowest ebb, when you were dealing with all this, i believe in your very early 30s — and you have written frankly about it- and you have written frankly about it — you reach such a low ebb in dealing with these or failing to dealing with these or failing to deal with it, that you contemplated suicide? yes, i mean, there are certain things that you can write about but you are not very good talking about. and that is certainly one of them. i have always assumed that such dark thoughts about taking your life come out of contemplation, thatis your life come out of contemplation, that is why people leave letters. that is what i always thought. i also assumed and something that is

true, that i have taken from my mother, the very deep conviction that life is for the living. notwithstanding all the tragedies, i have a deep passion for life and for leaving. yet this situation got me to such a dark point that, at one point, when i was crossing one of the bridges across the sam in paris, when it was a dark time for me, my father, my two uncles, my cousins, we re father, my two uncles, my cousins, were imprisoned for the political views. a friend of mine was killed and tortured. i do not even write about that in the book. and suddenly, as i walked across the bridge on the siennes, the thought emerged so naturally so available, why not. it is difficult to talk

about it and you are talking about it with me but i wonder, as your use of these words to describe the experience, whether you feel very, very distant from the man you were those years ago? i think our contemporary culture places a lot of value in thinking of ourselves in these terms. we talk about moving on. my experience of living is not like that. my experience is more a kind of layering if that happens. i think that self is available to me, 01’ think that self is available to me, or intimate to me, but there are other cells, other layers that have reshaped me in some ways. —— selves. in some essential way, i am very different and in some essential ways i'm very similar. you of course had to come to terms with the fact your father could not be found and all the evidence gathered ultimately pointed to his probably being murdered in muammar gaddafi's

infamous prison outside of tripoli. with the massacre that took place in 1996. when you look back on that question made for information and all the extraordinary things that happen to you, including delving inside the british establishment to try to get the british government to ta ke try to get the british government to take seriously the case of your father and other libya ns take seriously the case of your father and other libyans that were taken, when the british government was trying to cosy up for all sorts of reasons with libya. what did they teach about political systems, the way men and sometimes women as well, empower think? it is such an interesting question. it is one of the subjects that has interested me. partly because my mischievous autobiography which makes me feel libyan but deeply as a londoner as

well. i am american by birth. i know these countries very intimately. i teach, live a part of the year in europe. i am very close to these places. my friends are from these places. my friends are from these places. it has always been fascinating to me that this strange and tragic distance that exists between my experience of society in london and new york and my experience as a libyan of us and british foreign policy and those things are not... where is the disconnect? what does it mean to you? i think, disconnect? what does it mean to you? ithink, particularly disconnect? what does it mean to you? i think, particularly with the middle east, that the has—been of this story told and it is a very clever story by the systems, by the political systems and not wishing to speak abstractly, but by the political system of britain and the

us. it goes something like this, these countries are too complicated and too volatile to not be interfered with in some way. democracy does not quite work there. it is hardwired not to be democratic. there are different kind of people. 0k, democratic. there are different kind of people. ok, i am simplifying but just for the purpose of being expedient. 0n the ground, what happens is very strong ties are then formed between whitehall and washington and the sort of despotic regimes that are stable, they gave these governments, these superpowers are kind of guarantee of contract... dictators become people we can do business with. they are also super

reliant on us. they are great agents. there is a wonderful — the has—been lots written on this — but there is a new book, a great new book, by david waring, anglo arabia, in which he really dislikes the ways in which he really dislikes the ways in which britain and america have created a kind of new form of colonies, particularly in the gulf of arabia. in action, in foreign—policy action, it is everything that is antidemocratic. you're promoting things that are antidemocratic and at the same time making it very difficult for things like what happened in my country... the embodiment of this was your relationship, if i can collect this, with muammar gaddafi's son you met in london because at the time britain reaching out to muammar gaddafi, building some sort of

relationship with the man and his family and they were free to come and go. and in your effort to get to the truth of what had happened, you had the most extraordinary encounter with his son in london which you have described as the hardest thing you have ever done. ijust wonder again, nine years have passed since then, do you look back and regret you did it because the man never told you the truth? i do not regret it but it was very difficult and i think a very dangerous. it was more dangerous than a assumed it was then asi dangerous than a assumed it was then as i later learned. because muammar gaddafi's extension, whether it was islam or the secret service is, are just very good. they were very good and very well—trained. they had a lot of experience in co—opting,

drinking, decent people into positions of compromise and i... not totally but partly function on the assumption that i was immune from this but maybe not. maybe i could have been triggered into a position where my position would have been compromised. so what i wanted from sa if compromised. so what i wanted from saif al—islam muammar gaddafi, was i wa nted saif al—islam muammar gaddafi, was i wanted him to confirm the whereabouts of my father and to tell me whether my father was dead or alive and he told me right from the beginning that he knows but he could not tell me, yet. and then proceeded over a period of about ten months to tempt me into certain situations that would then add me the information and this was the game. and it would compromise you at the same time. this was the game, i wa nted same time. this was the game, i wanted information and wanted to basically stop this troublesome writer who keeps writing... because

there was a big campaign to varnish there was a big campaign to varnish the image... the relationship ended because the revolution came along and his father was killed. i believe he is still somewhere in libya today. this fast forward. here you said, as you say, you are not a straightforward libyan, you have strong ties to britain and the us but you are still a libyan and you have been back there since the revolution. what do you say to those and may be some ordinary libyans say it to you, that actually, things were better or indeed less bad under the gadhafi dictatorship than they are in the chaos of libya today. —— gaddafi. you are right, and i have spoken with libyans who feel that way and i have sensed a tragic flavour of

self—loathing because that does occui’ self—loathing because that does occur when things are so terrible like this. they say well, maybe we don't actually deserve, you know, to live decently. but there is a structural problem with the question. the present is far truer to the reality of the dictation ship that it to the reality of the dictation ship thatitis to the reality of the dictation ship that it is to the aspirations of the revolution. —— dictatorship. the fa ct revolution. —— dictatorship. the fact that a 42—year—old dictatorship leads a country with such a rudimentary state institutions tells you a lot about what it was doing, that it was run as a family. it was run the way a mafia might run a country. so there was no investment in anything that has a semblance of institution or efficiency. and so you have that which means that after

we succeeded in toppling gaddafi, we we re we succeeded in toppling gaddafi, we were left with very little to work with. do you mean that the country is robbed of all of the sort of social, the emotional capital to actually be anything different other than a screwed up society? no, no, that's not what i'm saying. i'm saying that not having state, a proper infrastructure meant that we didn't only have to topple a dictatorship but we had to topple a dictatorship but we had to topple a dictatorship which in itself is very difficult, and then build from scratch a state structure and that made it very, very difficult for libyans. i made it very, very difficult for libya ns. i tell you made it very, very difficult for libyans. i tell you what, very good comparison is, because that's not the only difficulty, it's one of the difficulties. the other difficulty is that we have an extremely large

territory. libya is very large and it has a very small population, 6 million. seven times the size of the united kingdom in landmass. we have that and then we are excessively wealthy. we are so rich. the king when he inaugurated the first oil well in 1963, he gave a very short speech. in history it can be ironic because we've had basically to indigenous leaders that two. one was infamous for very long speeches. the king when he inaugurated the oil well said, "i don't know if this will be a blessing or a curse but let's hope it will be a blessing". there is a lot of wisdom in that

because actually now from this moment in history, hopefully not from a further moment in the future, but in this moment in history, it is not unreasonable to say that oil has been a curse for libya because it has excited the parasitic appetites of foreign powers and of neighbours and of libyans, too! it has complicated the project of what it means to be part of a society. whereas —— where is my responsibility? a lot of people say where is my share? when we talk about a personal stake in libya, i do want to bring it back to you because i am fascinated by some of the things you reveal about what happened to you in 2011 for example, members of the revolutionary council reached out to you and said, essentially, do you feel like playing a role as this revolution unfolds? you write very honestly about how you were struck by the uselessness of being a writer at a time when practical skills were needed, whether it be literally baking bread or even handling a kalashnikov. all you handled was a pen, metaphorically speaking. kalashnikov. all you handled was a pen, metaphorically speakinglj don't remember writing about it

being useless but certainly in moments of great urgency, my kind of work is challenged. i suppose what i am getting at is you could have chosen a different life. because you feel so connected to this country, albeit you haven't lived there since you were a child, were you ever drawn to do that? you had a cousin, for example, who fought in 2011... several. one particular you have written about who was killed trying to get into gaddafi's palace. that's right. did you think, maybe it's time for me to... certainly in those days i did. it's hard not to. but what about now? we have the general who was gadhafi's general on the

doorstep of tripoli. we have the potential for a horrible conflict in your country. absolutely, yeah. your feelings now about whether the something you can do in libya?” don't know why writers are often spoken to this way. i'm not accusing you, stephen, but "haven't you thought of something else to do that is more... because" it says something about how our culture looks at writing and what writing is. look, i have given my vows years ago to this practice, to this work of writing. writing takes all of my time. is it useful? is it not useful? that's not for me to say but thatis useful? that's not for me to say but that is what i do. but, yeah. when i used the word useless i didn't mean

it to be anyjudgement on your writing was a bit has won acclaim around the world. it is just a question of what, i suppose, what is life for? it's very interesting to me that you almost use religious terminology. you have made a vow to write. that is your... for now. meaning the valleys connected to whether i have something to write that i don't want to be a and keep writing for the sake of it but as long as long as i have something to write and this has been the case with me, a book arrives with its appetites, with its demands on you. and, you know, i really do think your books are your fate because they do form the habits. where is fate taking you then because it is very striking to me that in very different interesting and creative ways, you have reflected deeply in different books on your past, on yourfamily, on different books on your past, on your family, on loss, different books on your past, on yourfamily, on loss, on place. are yourfamily, on loss, on place. are you going somewhere different now or are you still dealing with those

themes by drawing on your personal experience? i am the worst person to give you a reading of the work as the writer, him or herself, because it's too close. but i can tell you that after the return, after my third book, i did feel that those three books that i wrote were dealing with a similar subject. they are different from each other but they are thinking about similar ideas. i certainly felt after them that i have now a different kind of curiosity about something else and certainly my new book which is not out yet but is about a set of paintings that i've been looking out for a long time in the siena and about my relationship to those paintings but also to the ideas in them. again, to do with grief and love and death. and so that's what that's about. the book i'm writing now i can't talk about but it's not,

it feels new and different to me. and it's not libya. it has libya in it, yes. (laughs). but also other places. we look forward to reading it when it does come out. hisham matar, it has been a pleasure having you on hardtalk. thanks. thank you very much indeed. thanks for having me. good morning. our final bank holiday of may has been and gone now. it was a tale of two halves, really. the best of the weather was down into the south—east corner on monday — in the london area where we saw 20 degrees, 68 fahrenheit. further north, a beautiful weather watcher picture was sent in.

but it was a cold, grey, slightly disappointing story in parts of aberdeenshire with just a daytime maximum of 11 degrees. this is important because the cold air that has been sat across scotland throughout the weekend will push its way steadily southwards, taking the milder air back into the near continent as the northerly winds are set to win out for a couple of days at least. but hopefully only a short, sharp shock. more on that in a moment. the north—westerly direction will drive in some showers across the western isles and running down through the north sea we could see a rush of showers being driven in along the east coast during tuesday. sheltered western areas perhaps seeing the best of the drier, brighter weather but it will be a degree or so cooler than it has been, 10—19 as the daytime maximum. moving out of tuesday, the, the winds will start to fall light and skies will clear. so a chilly start to wednesday morning before another series of weather fronts push in from the atlantic. during the early hours of wednesday, we will start to see it clouding

over from the west but with clearer skies further east, the temperatures are likely to fall away and it could be a chilly start for one or two of us with low single figures first thing on wednesday morning. but the cloud and the rain continues to gather and here it will sit across south—west england and wales. so eight degrees as a minimum. three or four along the east coast. we start off on a chilly note but with some sunshine around first thing on wednesday. the cloud and the rain gathers and continues to push its way steadily east as we go through the day. there is a level of uncertainty as to just where this rain is going to be sitting by the middle part of the week but it looks as though it will light and patchy as it continues to push in across the country. further north, a dry affair but not particularly warm, 11—18 degrees. as we move out of wednesday, we see the weather front and area of low pressure continuing to drift steadily north and high pressure builds from the south.

more importantly, the winds changed direction and become south—westerly, driving milder air once again back across the country. it does look as though the silver lining is as we headed towards the weekend. for many of us, sunnier and warmer again. the only exception again, the far north of scotland. that's it, whatever you're doing, enjoy what you can.

i'm rico hizon in singapore. the headlines: he was the first world leader to be welcomed to japan by the new emperor. now, as president trump wraps up his visit, the focus is on trade. austria's political crisis deepens. parliament forces out the chancellor and his government in the fallout over a corruption scandal. i'm lewis vaughanjones in london. also in the programme: anti—muslim violence following the easter bombings in sri lanka. we visit one town which saw some of the worst attacks. most of the shops owned by muslims were destroyed in a fire, which people here blame on hundreds of men who were armed