demonstrators have filled the streets of the belarusian capital minsk in their tens of thousands. protesters gathered near the official residence of long—time autocratic president alexander lukashenko insisting that he resign and again accusing him of rigging recent elections. the democratic nominee for the us presidential election —joe biden — has accused donald trump of ‘fanning the flames of hate and division‘ in america. his comments came after the president criticised the mayor of the city of portland for failing to stop three months of violence. the lebanese president has called for the proclamation of a secular state. this is bbc news — michel aoun said it was the only way of "protecting with the latest headlines and preserving pluralism" i'm samantha simmonds. and creating real unity in lebanon. five years on, we meet the migrants who made a new life in germany — as we look back at the week mr aoun said sectarianism was that changed europe. now a barrier to development and a cradle for corruption and sedition. translation: it is like my

now on bbc news, hardtalk. home. everything is good. we have residency like normal people. we have work. it is a good country and we have had neighbours. i like it a lot. another day of massive anti—government protests in belarus — but scores of pro—democracy demonstrators are arrested. lebanon's president calls welcome to hardtalk. i'm for the proclamation stephen psycho. thanks to the of a secular state as internet and there the mobile the only way to protect and preserve pluralism. phone, our ability to inform, communicate and persuade has never been greater. yet, public debate seems more toxic, more the beat goes on — the mexican jazz group that divisive than ever before. so isn't letting coronavirus slow them down. what is happening? are intolerance and extremism winning out over reasoned debate? my guest today is the american neuroscientist, philosopher and pod caster, sam harris. he goes into intellectual territory where few others dare tread, on race and religion. he generates lots of heat. what about light? sam

harris in california, welcome to hardtalk. happy to be here. you have an extraordinarily popular podcast in which you talk with leading intellectuals across the world but you also express your own trenchant opinions in a host of orcs you have written. which is more meaningful to you? the conversation or expressing your strong opinion? good question. i think strong opinion? good question. ithinki strong opinion? good question. i think i split the difference there because as you know i do not do much in the way of standard interviews. iam really trying to have a conversation every time i do a podcast. so i take about 40% of the bad with in any interview so the bad with in any interview soi the bad with in any interview so i get to hear myself talk to my hearts content and perhaps

to the exasperation of certain guest. when you choose guests for your podcast which is listened to millions by millions across the world. do you like to bring in people with whom you know you and disagree quite profoundly? occasionally. a little of that goes a long way depending on how profound the disagreement with nsr. but, you know, i think what is important is to be able to talk about substantial issues and significant differences of opinion in a way that is civil and converges on some kind of solution. the only tool we have for making intellectual and moral progress is conversation and persuasion. if we cannot persuade one another based on argument and evidence, in the end we have no appeal but to force, force of numbers. we

shared the veneer of civilisation pretty quickly. so i really do view conversation isa i really do view conversation is a kind of sacred tool. i really do view conversation is a kind of sacred toolli wonder why you have such faith in conversation and dialogue when it seems to me that we live in a era of digital communication where, frankly, exchanges of views and information is easier than ever before and everyone can put their opinion out there on a platform, yet far from their opinion out there on a platform, yet farfrom easing humanity's ability to get along it seems to be polarising, dividing and creating an ever more toxic environment. so your faith in conversation may be misplaced. i did not say i was an optimist. i am not... misplaced. i did not say i was an optimist. iam not... i misplaced. i did not say i was an optimist. i am not... i see no alternative. literally it is the only tool we have. there is simply no other way to influence the thoughts and

opinions and behaviours and intentions of other human beings. so i am quite worried that we have created a kind of psychological experiment that we have run on all of humanity, or all of humanity all at once with no i's consent wherein we have created the circumstances where people can be successfully isolated with respect to certain kinds of dogmas, they can pursue any crazy idea to their hearts content, year after year, and find support for it online. the internet helps us access to the totality of human knowledge instantaneously but it also allows our sense making to shutter and our epistemology to allow for a balkanisation of thought. i want to turn to one

of the most contentious debates, frankly, tearing america apart right now and thatis america apart right now and that is race and racism and how to respond to what many people appears to be clear evidence of discrimination at every level in american society including policing and the justice system. you have spoken out against black lives matter. you seem against black lives matter. you seem to regard it as a form of identity politics which you say isa identity politics which you say is a poison, a poison in america today. why do you say that? i acknowledge that racism is still a tremendous problem in certain parts of american society and globally. and that racism is something that we absolutely have to oppose and criticise. it is a problem for which there is a remedy and we have been pursuing this remedy for many, many decades in the

united states, but we have made a lot of progress. and now we live in a moment where we are having a kind of moral panic advertised to us and black lives matter is one of the names of this movement and one of the groups, it is a loose group but one of the groups thatis group but one of the groups that is making the most noise on this topic at the moment. and it is as though we have made no progress, as though this moment in american history exemplifies the worst symptoms of racism. and that is quite delusional. obviously we have made a tremendous amount of progress and obviously this is one of the least racist moments in human history, generally, globally, and in american history. but... may i stop you here, just to point out the obvious, that you sit with me, we are both, let's be honest,

white middle—class comfortable educated people who represent perhaps the dominant grouping in our respective societies. and who are you, in the end, to tell black americans how they should feel right now? so many of them look around the reality of them look around the reality of their own lives and their children's lives and see a system that is systemically racist, not least when it comes to the police and they feel it is their right and their duty to express a level of anger, frustration and an unwillingness to accept that which is surely understandable. it is in part understandable. what is really understandable is that there is a lot of misinformation and misunderstanding being amplified. if you are going to be outraged over the racist behaviour of racist police or

the racist consequences of systems that promulgate racism, whether there is any living racist around to implement those systems... but it is not a choice. surely we are duty—bound to be outraged. and iamas duty—bound to be outraged. and i am as concerned and outraged as anyone is about those things but i am doubly, or additionally concerned that we not find racist where they do not find racist where they do not exist. if you are going to find racist everywhere you will find racist everywhere you will find the real racist nowhere full you will do immense harm in the process. and so, take the variable of police violence. it is important, if you are going to worry about the consequences of racism and the consequences of racism and the way it causes black men, preferentially, to be shot and killed in america, you have to find out whether in fact that

is happening, whether black men are being shot in greater numbers in proportion to the numbers in proportion to the numbers of encounters they have with police officers and whether if they are having more encounters with police officers per avatar, if there is any explanation other than racism. my explanation other than racism. my concern currently in america is that any disparity you find, be it in respect to police violence or wealth or employment or any variable of interest and of great social importance, currently, anywhere you go left of centre politically, the only explanation that is acceptable, and this really does have the quality of a kind of blasphemy test in a religion, the only explanation that is acceptable at this moment is white racism or systemic racism. on the point of police violence it just so happens that the only data we have suggest that

while, while african—americans have more encounters with the police, and i think there are obvious reasons for that, and they are actually roughed up to they are actually roughed up to the police more than white americans are, they are not killed more. in fact they are killed more. in fact they are killed less than white americans are per encounter. if you come to the attention of the police in america and they draw their guns on new, your chances of being shot appear to be slightly higher if you are white, at the moment. and that brea ks white, at the moment. and that breaks everyone's expectations. this is fascinating because it gets to the heart of your intellectual approach to everything. you are a self—proclaimed rationalist and say you are determined to be driven by the evidence, by the data, by the science and not by emotion and still less by things such as religion or any other faith —based belief system. so evidence does matter. but i will cross the

piece, you have alighted on one piece, you have alighted on one piece of evidence but surely there is an overwhelming tract of evidence about incarceration rates, what happens to black kids in school, what happens to black people in employment, how many jobless black people black people in employment, how manyjobless black people there are. there is clearly a story in america of systemic discrimination which black people, are saying right now, they will no longer tolerate without expressing their anger. and when you make the point you just made it does sound to some like you are lacking a level of compassion or even emotional intelligence or ability to emphasise with the situation of the other. —— empathise. emphasise with the situation of the other. -- empathise. first of all it shouldn't because i am concerned about the real suffering of real people to that we must acknowledge that we compound that suffering when we compound that suffering when we give false notions about its actual causes to so if you are

going... and, again, iam on record every time i touch this topic, acknowledging that we still need criminaljustice reform and it has been a disaster in the united states and especially for the black community. all those things should go without saying and there are changes that need to be made there. but, again, if you are going to ascribe the status quo across the board, the fact that there is the kind of wealth and inequality in respect to crime and violence in american society that breaks along racial lines, if you are going to ascribe that to white racism or white —— policies that white people are not changing because they advantage them, you will continually stumble upon errors of great consequence. it is simply not the case that there are white

racist with their racism producing the level of violence we see in the black community in the inner city, in a place like chicago. the point many black americans are making right now and i will quote you the words of one, the social justice co—ordinator at the american humanist society who has addressed your pod casts on this issue and your interview with others on this issue and says that sam harris's definition of racism places an underlying emphasis on intention and that is how sam harris defined number of racist white people as a tiny minority. however, when discussing racism it is important to remember it is not about intent it is about impact and in that sense it involves a far greater proportion of the white community. as stated i would not necessarily disagree with that. intention is not the only thing that matters. if there are policies that,

effectively, create racist outcomes whether anyone intends it or not, we should figure out what those policies are and change them. that is what people tend to mean by systemic racism or institutional racism. and i am completely on board with the project of discovering that and correcting for it. but what we have now in american society are allegations of racism or the experience that people are having, millions of people are having, millions of people having of watching a video of a police shooting, and the prototypical case it will bea the prototypical case it will be a white copper shooting... we don't have to imagine it. we see it and right now we are watching right now over and over, jacob blake being shot in wisconsin. we do not need to use our imagination. i would tell you that that video in and of itself is not evidence of racism. you can see videos of white people being shotin videos of white people being shot in precisely the same circumstances and, i mean, we

have a massive problem of guns in our society, we have a massive problem of poorly trained cops stop that video in particular evinces several of these problems, one is that when someone rushes to their car in defiance of police commands and open the doors and ridges in, in american society, unlike in the uk, it is only rationalfor unlike in the uk, it is only rational for the cops to assume that present is retrieving a gun so they can turn around and start shooting cops in the face, it happens, right? and every cop knows this. move on from race to religion, you are very well—known for having written a book, end of faith, espousing your belief that religion was essentially preposterous. but there is a clear feeling that islam is a more malign, a more dangerous set of beliefs than many other religions? and i just set of beliefs than many other religions? and ijust want to grow something you said, actually a number of years ago, almost 14 years ago, where you talked about muslims in europe, and you said "muslim immigrants

show little inclination to acquire the secular and civil values of host countries. they let the values of those countries to the utmost, a demand tolerance for their backwardness, misogyny, anti—semitism and genocidal hatred preached in their mosques." ijust wonder, if you are looking for calm, considered rational conversation, do you think your own words there are helping? well, as you acknowledged, that had the kind of top spin one rope with in the immediate aftermath of september 11. this is my conversation, most other conversation has moved on from there. i wrote a book with margini there. i wrote a book with margin i was, a fellow brit, who used to be a fellow extremist who is now a rational and secular person as you could ever hope to find. and we had a debate that... converged on a really ha p py debate that... converged on a really happy conversation and friendship that became this book. islam and the future of

tolerance, so you can get my most tolerance, so you can get my m ost rece nt tolerance, so you can get my most recent framing of issues there. to your point, yes, it is to be to say wherever you happen to stand in culture, whether you are secular or whether you are secular or whether you are religious, that religions are different with respect to almost any variable we ca re respect to almost any variable we care about. they claim different things, they emphasise different things, they have different points in their history and their engagement with modernity. yes, is lamb is not an accident. there arejihad is is a phenomenon on in is lamb, and it's not a phenomenon on in anglicanism or mormonism or scientology, and these beings... i want to know in the real world what this means view, samples that doesn't mean when donald trump back in 2017 imposed a travel ban, which was quite clearly aimed at muslims, and he listed seven muslim majority countries, which for security reasons, he said, could no longer travel to the noted states, were you cheering it on? on my blog... as a group

of people, within which there will be a small minority, you say, who are statistically going to be jihadists? say, who are statistically going to bejihadists? which is precisely what donald trump would say. yeah, but, yes, hence the need to vet immigrants and refugees and have honest conversations about what we're looking for. we are looking for people who believe specific things about martyrdom and apostasy and blasphemy and the rights of women and it makes moral sense to hurl homosexuals off rooftops, right? i mean, people who are recruiting for were happy to join isis, people who will drop out of medical school for the pleasure of going to in syria so they might be able to martyr themselves with someone, right? this is a phenomenon on i contagious ideas we had to speak honestly about, and it's only happening in one religion. now, in addition to, and the reasons why i didn't agree with donald trump's travel ban is

one, it was completely incoherent because it wasn't even targeting the countries that pose the greatest ideological risk at that point or the worst reservoirs of this kind ofjihad is, but two, i have long said that the most valuable people on earth, with respect to dealing with this programme, the people we most wa nt programme, the people we most want in our societies are secular muslims and moderate muslims and people who can actually bridge the gap between the non— muslim community and the non— muslim community and the secular community and the extremists who are, i'll be a minority, but still a problem within the muslim community. so we need people like myjudge andi we need people like myjudge and i was an heresy are leave and i was an heresy are leave and dozens of other secularists and dozens of other secularists and motorists and apostates who i have supported, and we need then to figure out how to midwife these renaissance within the muslim community, where something like

enlightenment values take hold in the widest possible way. it's obvious i'm not going to accomplish that. it requires somebody who is in the community to do that. generally, i think people associate you particularly with associate you particularly with a very strong brand of atheism, and there was that famous time you debated with chris hitchens and richard dawkins, and all of you said religion is extremely corrosive and damaging. somebody then asked about spirituality. and while the others didn't really buy, you said no, there is room for mutuality and life dash bite, andi mutuality and life dash bite, and ijust mutuality and life dash bite, and i just wonder what that means view. despite everything you say about science and evidence and rationality, do you believe in some sort of higher power? some nonhuman force at work is do not well, it's not a matter of believing ina higher it's not a matter of believing in a higher power, it is a matter of experiencing the fact that consciousness is intrinsically mysterious. and it's the in which all of our

most wonderful experiences appear, right? so is the context of all of our suffering, and the mechanics of thatis suffering, and the mechanics of that is something we can understand more and more and change our lives for the better. but it's also the context in which human life can get better and better, and i think some classically spiritual values like self transcendence and unconditional love, right, are at the core of any movement in the direction of greater and greater human wellbeing. and it should be at the core of any ethics we used to talk about those possibilities. so, yeah, i have no doubt that it was a bill to become something like the historical person of jesus, whoever that was, or border, or any of these great patriarch and matriarch of our religions. there is a baby in the bath water there i think we don't wa nt to water there i think we don't want to throw out as atheists. but the question is if you have to believe anything irrational

in order to explore those possibilities within yourself or within lady, i think the a nswer to or within lady, i think the answer to that is quite clearly know. you said i'm not an optimist. when you said you believe in transcendence and we can alternatives ourselves into better beings by looking within and pursuing love and all of that, we're not doing it, are we? i mean, that isjust as we look around the world and our societies right now, that is not happening. well, we're not doing it well, i would certainly agree. many of us are trying, and that's all we can do, is try both personally and i think, most importantly, protect norms that allow us to live by our deeper wisdom, even when we are personally liable to fail. right. so we want laws and tax codes and norms of discourse that anchor us to our better selves or better possible selves, to make it

easierfor possible selves, to make it easier for even possible selves, to make it easierfor even mediocre possible selves, to make it easier for even mediocre and conflicted people to behave better and better, right? and what we have, rather often, our systems of incentives that are set up to make even very ethical people behave unethically, right? or even fairly honest people, to behave dishonestly, and just to anchor back to the beginning of our conversation, what i'm most worried about in our style of discourse around these charged issues like race is that it is causing even fairly scrupulous and honest people and well—intentioned people to be dishonest and sloppy and actually practice a kind of politics of personal destruction, where they effectively behave like psychopaths. on social media, and in print, and in various journalistic encounters, where they never would do this if the incentives weren't aligned that way, right? so i would like to

change our incentives around conversations of the sort we have today. and we have a lot of work to do to do that.” of work to do to do that.|j would of work to do to do that.” would agree with that. and sam harris, in the spirit of a strong belief in conversation, i thank you for being on hardtalk. thanks very much. a pleasure. thank you for your time. hello there. summer warmth has been in short supply over the last few days. in fact, on sunday morning, one very sheltered spot in county down, northern ireland had a temperature just a fraction below freezing. and monday morning is getting off to a rather cool

start as well. but a largely dry start to the new week. later in the week, it will turn wetter, windier and a bit warmer for a time before cooler weather returns just in time for the weekend. so, we start monday with high pressure in charge of the scene. underneath this area of high pressure with light winds, temperatures have been dropping away. but it means a mostly dry day. we will see some spells of sunshine and i think quite a lot of cloud will bubble up in the sky and that cloud spreading out, i think some places will have grey skies by the afternoon. temperature—wise, another disappointing one, 15—18 degrees. the winds will be strengthening up towards the north—west. and later in the day we will see some cloud and outbreaks of rain pushing into northern ireland, perhaps north—west scotland as well. a very weak frontal system trying to push its way in, but elsewhere it stays dry through the night. not quite as chilly, although some spots particularly in northern and eastern areas will get down into single digits.

so, for tuesday, this frontal system will make some progress eastwards, but it's running into high pressure, that'll squeeze a lot of the energy out of our weather front. you can barely see it on tuesday's weather chart. some cloud, some splashes of rain across parts of north—west scotland, maybe northern ireland. but, elsewhere, it's looking predominantly dry with some spells of sunshine. temperatures starting to creep upwards a little bit. and then as we move out of tuesday and into wednesday, this next frontal system will have a bit more life about it. so that will bring some slightly heavier and persistent rain and the rain will get further south—eastwards this time. although i think east anglia and the south—east of england will probably stay dry for a good part of the day. turning quite windy as well. those are the average wind speeds, we could have gusts of 50mph or more for the northern and western isles of scotland. but with those winds coming up from the south—west, temperatures will be a little bit higher, 17 degrees in glasgow, 20 in london. thursday likely to be the warmest day of the week. still some rain in places. into the weekend, it turns cooler again, but there will be a lot of dry weather. 00:28:20,530 --> 2147483051:50:54,980 wisconsin. we do not need to 2147483051:50:54,980 --> 4294966103:13:29,430 use our imagination.