the people on the ground are the people i certainly were worked with of are the most humble generous kind hearted and seeing the culturally intricate nature of their family networks and how they make up traditionally the community was fascinating because as we said god and football big facets of this story take us back to when you arrive in hong kong because you paint a nightmarish picture of british rule dong kong you talk about. triad gangs and. the kind of crime ridden on kong that was very different there we see today when we talk about the hong kong being encroached by the chinese authorities what was a home like well i mean again today hungary is my favorite city in the world amazing it is an amazing city in the sense it has everything it has this infusion

of west and east together and high and i expose my fascination really was more about the lady that was working with the triads this sort of area that was neither china nor hong kong and yet she'd sort of given our lives to go and sit alongside each of them some of the most brutal people in the work on the earth and it was as young girl that went and worked with them and and just couldn't form some of their lines and she was it incredible i think she was a great inspiration to so to me and you know now are central to what you and your charity have done arguably maybe this line in the book you talk about something called the more established n.g.o.s and organizational group think what he mean by that when it comes to helping the disadvantaged around the world maybe not even just in china yes our i think it's sometimes understanding how we should work when we go into development my. message always was when i spoke to the government was

look these are your children your responsibility therefore you need to you know step up and we'll support you willing courage you will help you make the transformations but ultimately to be sustainable mr t.j. there you go to our own this what does it make you feel when you watch so-called mainstream media then having the big accusation certainly on their statement that the b.b.c. is china's a genocidal country wiping out some statistics that have been subsequently discredited by other sources say hundreds of thousands of their populations and let alone that somehow things were better under the british in hong kong you say in the line communism if nothing else provided a safety net and you're talking of course they're about the most vulnerable years and and i guess this is an area rather a through my 20 years in china where you have to navigate through you know you live in china i remember being in kansas city when they announced that beijing and got

their lympics and the horror and shock of the americans you know coming on the radios i was driving i was smiling in my face i think this is not the china i know i'm not advocating communism by any means but what i am saying is when i went to india i fell everything that foreign through the net there was nothing to stop people literally dying on the streets and in the slums of mumbai the difference being in nation the size of china and india is it if nothing else. communism acted as a safety net to some of those people that were falling through the well you know when it comes to our historically socialized ideas of social care in this country since 945 you're probably aware that here in britain the number of u.k. children in care is rising 20000 here in a decade while in china it's decreasing i don't know whether you take another

credit for that what what do you what do you make of that disparity well i i think it is about the focus in is about the focus of of looking at a system and no lemming who is my previous boss always said if the system does not meet the needs that you're then you have to change the system there's no good trying to fit children in to something that's not working and i think that was very much about what we developed in china with the chinese they learned very quickly they the and the other interesting thing is when i met with them in government. we became quite friendly and sociable and i used to say trouble you like you're a communist country with 1300000000 catholics and they would laugh and agree and so there is a sense in they can do an attitude in china that once they understand something that works they really make it work and they really push forward so i think for the chinese they're very industrious very entrepreneurial and they're very quick to

make things change right across the nation so i think the shanghai art project was 5 years and the next 15 years transformed the whole nation and that's because that's because it came from the top and the people at the bottom were were industrious enough to make it happens to children moved out of institutions and into families we go through every an example one capitalist to actually came in the criticism on this program because there is a concept against the president of venezuela mitt richard branson. apparently and you thank so many people for getting cafeteria and to where it is today just tell me how not only did it help you richard branson money but may have helped virgin airlines after 911 well i like to think i mean richard was right enough to take the risk emitted time the project was funded by the british government department

international development and they put the initial funding into. how the projects the part of project in shanghai and you know we talked to a lot of people but it was richard branson that literally flew out to shanghai came and had a look at the project and decided he would support it of course later i find out that you know he wins you know how sneakily present this to the british airline and windsor route to shanghai which given the fact that we had 911 and most of his routes with america shanghai might have been one of the saving grace so everyone. in a way just finally how many countries is it now that the dems geo is working in and you talk about actually going to a north korea and helping children that arrive or even to north korea. the north korean government asked the chinese government have are prepared to go i've

been twice china's a big influence in asia and often ending a work in china for example is of other nations and governments so initially in thailand for instance interesting late the government was quite slow and then we had an audience with the king the king of thailand which was quite inspirational and he decided within half an hour that. we should we should carry our services in in thailand and what taken months of negotiation literally was signed the next day and all that came about through our. iraq patron prince michael of course who has very good links with russia following on from that we were invited by the the enemy's government so we just started last year with the vietnamese government they're very ambitious they want to see half of their children moved out of institutions and this year we've been working with cambodia where we're hoping that the british government development overseas development will get behind us

because it's going to be a big challenge and that we're going to i'm not sure about that a budget right now i understand there is a documentary about charging the creation. of capital did so as a b.b.c. producer but this documentary get us 5 children who follows their lives big grills and you know the adventurer he's a one who is in a ration and we go back my wife and i go back in 2018 and we meet these far 2 absolutely inspirational iraq comes and there's no you do me that's to do with the families one little girl i remember lying on the floor an orphanage with cerebral palsy they didn't think she could go in the family when i went back they the parents how we would cry fraud on their faces that she'd gone to the sydney paralympic games and want to go medal i mean water story and as we are there in their little apartment she gets a gold medal and she puts it over my head and just reduced me to it is. amazing

actually one story of a 1000000 rubber gloves thank you after the break good they was as u.k. pm boris johnson prepares to lengthen prison sentence as we explore the broken systems in the u.k. that have created a world of youth violence not shown by any media from the perspective of someone who was at the heart of it and ask why are politicians and got it wrong for so long all of them are going on about him going of england. well the pandemic no certainly no border is just blind to nationalities. as a march we don't have a certainty we don't have the facts in the whole world needs to be ready before.

judging. come in a crisis like this this time to time so we can do better we should. everyone is contributing each of our own way but we also know that this crisis will not go on forever the challenge is creating the response has been masked so many good people are helping us. it makes us feel very proud that we are in it together . back geysers financial survival guide. housing bubble. oh you mean there's a downside to artificially low mortgage rates don't get carried away that's cause report. look.

at this connection to moment last chance to ask for the last 70 and seeing and on the day today for the match promotion commission you. were going to just shoot on disk in the. legion mom. you know your new car so said i'm not going to much to me mama it's just our.

welcome back a bald one we have china has revolutionized the way it protects the human rights of children but what about the u.k. where we're broke a sting from who they was a new booker prize long list its i mean autobiographical novel from all the gabriel craft explores the world of violent crime in london in a way that you won't see in so-called mainstream media and examines the systemic problems that drive people into a life of crime from austerity. privatisation to the ever increasing class divisions in the u.k. going underground have the hazards of charlie cook caught up with crowds and saddam by asking him about the novel it was a sin not with us partly based on my own life kind of between the ages of 17 and 23 when i was heavily involved in gang culture and criminality in northwest london.

not just about my personal story although the kind of central theme of it is the story of disarray he's from from a family of ownership immigrants in london and of not the gate and the london town of down under wote while at the same time doing a degree in universe even but beyond that it's also a novel that kind of opens a window on to the world of gang culture in london which kind of far too often is only represented in very kind of short brief and constrained kind of reports in the media and as a particularly violent crime or as a particularly continuous series of gang related incidents that stabbings and shootings in the capital and what i really wanted to achieve with this book was to kind of open a window into that world and into the complex east the human complexities of the experience and and the moral challenges faced by people living in those kind of environments the critical reception of seems to often home in on the idea that you were leading a cycle double life that i thought he said there wasn't

a double life it was just in your life do you think in a way that's kind of condescension in that the seeming that he being by his kind of like books and streets is the 2 things that i necessarily go together exactly i think i found as a big problem with that and the sense that kind of reflects the way in which society seeks the kind of keep that world at a distance and criminal of course criminality is 'd something that causes a lot of problems within society but ultimately it's something that has existed in human society or you know thousands of years ultimately. i think the idea that for example somebody called go to university and do a degree or even just. the concept that somebody can be educated and somebody can be a complex character with lots of conflicting aspects to their personality and at the same time be involved in criminality and education is kind of a reflection on the way in which society would prefer to kind of narrow down the reasons why people get involved in that lifestyle and really and truly

there's a huge range of reasons why people get on boats and in that lifestyle and the people involved in those lifestyles are people full of complexity so under same way to you know people in normal life feel a longing loss yearning compassion you know people fall in love that evergreen that happens to gang members and people involved in criminality years well you know so i think that as a kind of issue in terms of how people hold in on the fact they want to you know they seek to kind of analyze the book and i call in the let me be involved in the criminal life and going to university is a double life but the reality is it was in a double life that got just simply was my existence and also this there's another kind of negative aspect that i see in terms of the way in which a lot of people who focus on analysts or at least critics focus and analyze in the book initially and the focus initially is upon me and the lifestyle da da

used to live you know which the book is based on i.e. the lifestyle of being involved in criminality in gang culture when actually what i've written is a work of literature and i'd actually prefer critics to analyze it from the perspective of being a work of art because a work of art allows people to kind of find the humanity underneath the layers of human experience how courses were you when writing the book not to kind of glamorize the lifestyle you're writing about to make it kind of as realistic as it could be but also not glorify or well i think taxi right and describe the realism of that lifestyle automatically it doesn't glorify and i think. i mean i'm sure some people think after a fight that i think evil who think that glorify violence or gun culture in the book of people who are largely i'm comfortable with the moral complexity of it and they don't want to face up to to the kind of moral confrontation because also you know i've referred before in this interview already to the fact that the book is

opening a window but in the sense of however in the book i'm not opening this window and gently inviting the reader into the well to open the window and then grabbing the reader and dragging them into this world and not giving them a choice to kind of walk away from it i mean the only way to walk away from missed put the book down. but i think i don't think that writing about that lifestyle and that well realistically can example rise it because it's very unglamorous it's full of pain it's full of hardships full of self-destruction the one of the things that returns to again and again seem wise is that people outside this life calm possibly really understand then you've already said that the book opens with a robbery and it immediately shares a kind of cost of i between the rich and the poor and you say at the moment those people have never thought about your characters so why should you think about them how important is classed as a theme in your bag i think crosses such an important to some extent because of how

british society works in times of class divisions and the judgment liz and that comes within the context of those cross the visions and times of how people separate themselves socially and how people judge of was so should the i think for me the biggest division in in the context of the book and in terms of discussing that world is the division of understanding and the division and then because this issue jack of empathy and of course this is not this is not to take anything away from victims of crime of course you know when we talk about 50 years of crime it's easy to end the phase of the victim of crime but it's very difficult and pfizer the perpetrator and there is a huge divide. i think socially in terms of understanding and empathy and the way in which people who understand the complexity of human experiences know it's not as well myself in terms of son people who criticize the book just for the fact that it reveals a lot of violence and covers a lot of violence and that that reflects the you know the violence in the book is

a completely realistic portrayal that far more violence in his own happened on the streets of london than what is necessary to be portrayed in the book and of course stop causes a lot of problems for people because they don't want to kind of open their eyes they'd rather think that this is something that because of the riff of their existence and you talked about that the media already been in the book you're suspicious of any detail how politicians seem to get at identifying grants with these groups are wrong like i don't recently the tories tried to knife messaging on the side of chicken boxes they went out and why do you think that politicians have got to say we're on the side in the back because i think it is this tendency to think that coming up we've kind of catchy slogans and throwing a lot of money at campaigns of posters i'm going to change something but if you've been in that lifestyle and you've been an active gang member or puppetry or of violent crime then no message is going to disuse from what you're trying to do because it's a much deeper kind of psychological emotion in that world than any kind of post

account painted on do especially in a rich c.e. that london if you're going from it if you feel disadvantaged and you're confronted by the extreme wealth of baba's you mediately feel a sense of alienation and you feel this sense of not belonging in certain contexts and that can create a lot of anger and resentment in people i think when i actually remember as well actually walking down the king's road in chelsea which is you know one of if not the wealthiest area of london and i saw on the side of the phone books a slogan which said been my save lives and i just thought to myself how ridiculous it was a book is possible. you know the the young people of the king's road in chelsea are not the victims of of god and culture and they're not you know walking out of their houses and being surrounded by a millionaire as fresh as an influence is you know they're living in extreme affluence and privilege and yet you know the government decides so the council decides or whatever to set up this poster in the film looks as if it's going to

change something the other aspect as well is if somebody has picked up a knife and not just picked up a knife as a scad nervous child about you know picked up a knife we commit to to actively engaging in in gang war and gang conflict will they carry a gun for example you know a posted at a suddenly see which says knife saves lives it's not going to change their opinion and i think you know i can't really sit here and say that i've put on sister these things because i'm not trying to portray myself as a moral crusade oh i do think for example exposing people to to the arts and to culture that for example taking people from you know very underprivileged environments and you know dangerous and negative environments taking them to the fair taking them to our gallery staking them to museums taking them to the countryside taking them to the seaside basically exposing people to things that they don't see on a regular basis in their environments in neighborhoods that have a strong and heavy gun presence that can begin to kind of undo to the sense of that

pressure and and that sense that one doesn't have many choices in certain situations which is why a lot of young people off base that is very easy i just have to add as well that is you know it's very easy for adults to pontificate and and to sit within the comfort of having the wisdom of age and time having costs and to kind of look down on young people who are involved in this lifestyle and be very dismissive and seek to criticize them which i think also says some critics of my book in my writing have i've tried to do because they just find it's that they find so morally challenging that it's easy to kind of criticize and denigrate it's very easy to do that bot. when you're young and you're involved in that lifestyle it can seem like a very enclosed loaded got doesn't have many ways out if any at all i just want to ask you about the by the way but represents prison for dimension soccer is something now more famous for kind of protest in tristes mass ops but the way that your represents present how hard is it to write about something that as you say in

the book is indescribable i think part of why i wanted to convey in my writing when i wrote about prison is that emptiness of the experience and how it's kind of like a death of the soul when you go into prison like you know everything that the outside world gradually dies and i can imagine i mean i was in prison for a long period of time but i can imagine that people who spend you know us in prison is that outside world starts to die and is this very weird culture that has existed i think socially especially in this country i think of talking about prisons as being a soft touch because you know for example some prisoners who have privileges and this is something that's often not mentioned in the media are prisoners who have privileges are allowed for example playstation games and they have t.v.'s in their cells and everything but no one talks about how when people go into the wing in a prison they're constantly in lust in an environment of constant threat and you

can't imagine the psychological toll that takes on a parson that you constantly feel under threat and constant if you under pressure you know that alone talking about the constant and reported stabbings and extreme violence that takes place in prison i mean you know if you think that it's a soft touch to go into a cell which you only allowed out of one hour a day so you inside oh so 23 hours a day sharing it with another man goes to the toilet in front of another man and you've got a playstation in your cell and you think that's some kind of soft touch you know and people are getting stabbed in the showers and everything a strike. this is a total elysian element you know a lot of people who go through the prison system and who go through the experience of being involved in gun culture and criminality are ultimately traumatized by their experience and again that is not to take anything away from the victims but simply to you know make people understand that there's

a lot more to these experiences than what you read in the in grief newspaper articles that often have a kind of political slant to them i just finally want to ask you about what you're working on that says time out on the 2nd on your condo writing on i'm currently working on a novel about transgenerational trauma because i'm particularly interested in how the traumas that our ancestors or our distant relatives you know went through in their previous lives can affect future generations for myself personally being from a polish family particularly fascinated by the effect the warsaw uprising and the experience of my family in living in warsaw and in poland through the 2nd world war which is the country which was completely devastated by the 2nd well who you know they lost basically 525 percent of the population so one in 5 people in poland were basically wiped out during the 2nd local and i think there are countries and groups of people nations russia as well during the 2nd row who are for example nations

that go through d.c. extreme extreme historical traumas that have new generations of people that are affected by that and often they are infected by unknowingly and so i'm fascinated about how to some extent with my own personal history i think that. our inherit you know through my family but also in the widest sense of examining for example 'd the fact of the holocaust on you know modern day people modern agee's basically in the wild and how that also links to the existence of the state of israel for example in america and the caribbean the descendants of people who were victims of yet i'm picks a trade. sometimes rather novel that's an exploration of a lot of those themes and also how it links to modern culture today linked to the internet and a lot of people as well a lot of young people to some extent having a lack of understanding of history and yet feeling very strongly about their own sense of identity and when they where they came from which i think is very well

gabriel thank you so much. gabriel crowd so that owing to going underground deputy as it had charlie cook who they was is out now that's after the show will be back on saturday the eve of managing the morial day marking the massacre of hundreds of thousands of chinese men women and children by japan until then remember to join the underground but for now for you to try to facebook instagram is out. imagine picking up a future textbook on the early years of the 21st century what are the chapters called gun violence school shootings homelessness 1st it was my job and it

was my fear was my savings i have nothing i have nothing that is not like adultery aloof or resources i look for jobs i look for everything i can to make this house. and all i end up doing is. the road to the american dream paved with good refugees it's this very idealized image of. americans look pasta the deaths that happen every single day this is a history of the usa america. but it's the fate of the progressive movement can it continue to co-exist with the mainstream establishment left is this current trajectory electoral dead end and temperance recipe part of a greater political real. yes

there is a saying. look there won't be cheap us and then through all the countries let's ideas they're right they fall to us come he said if we give them everything looked into fast. moving this country. this is what we don't understand how we are poor in such a country. that is until the month of the same time. you're saying i'm going to. similar. if. not they got. on the computer with the plane. to come to the 3 story you have to see.

the. queue for. this hour's headlines stories u.k. regulators warn people with severe allergies to avoid taking the. vaccine for some people who receive the job fell ill. the warning comes as america's drug she reveals about 6 people who took part in trials for the pfizer vaccine. and the french president pushes ahead with a bill i think extremism measures which include. live from moscow welcome to our to international my names you know me.