fine i was there you know how we perceive the chinese is not the way the people on the ground are the people i certainly were were 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 paid 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 hong kong being encroached by the chinese authorities what was on lake. well i mean again today congo is my favorite city in the world amazing it is an

amazing city in the sense it has everything it has this infusion of western east together and high now exposed 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 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 he comes now 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 they're 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 your 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. yes and and i guess this is an area rather a through my 20 years in china that 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 current shot of the americans you know coming on the radio as i was driving our smarting in my face i think this is not the china i know i'm not advocating communism by any mange but what i am saying is when i went to india i felt everything that for through the net there was nothing to stop people literally dying on the streets and in the slums of mumbai the difference being in in a nation the size of china and india is if nothing else. communism acted as a safety net to some of those people that were falling through the net well you know when it comes to our historically socialized ideas of social care in this country since 945 have you probably aware that here in britain the number of u.k. children in care is rising 20000 in

a decade while in china it's decreasing i don't know whether you've taken on a credit for that 1000 what do you make of that disparity well i think it is about the focus unease about the focus of of looking at a system and lord lambing who's my previous boss always said that if this system does not meet the needs that you are then you have to change the system there's no good trying to fit the children in 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 say the in 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 lot you're a communist country with 1300000000 catholics and they would laugh and agree and so there is a sense in they can do have attitude in china they're 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 they're very entrepreneurial and they're very quick to make things change right across the nation so i think the shanghai park project was 5 years and the next 15 years transformed the whole nation and that because that's because it came from the top and the people at the bottom were. industrious enough to make it happen and see children moved out of institutions and into families we go through every an example one capitalist actually came of the criticism on this program because of his concept against the president of venezuela metabo 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 projects 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 that then 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 to go 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 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 old 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 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. i'm not sure about that aid budget right now i understand there's a documentary about charging the creation. have children so is b.b.c. producer but this documentary get 5 children follows their lives big grills and you know the adventure he's the one who is in the ration and we go back my wife and i go back into that an a.t.m. we meet these far too. loosely inspirational icons and that's one you do me to do with the families one little girl i remember lying on the floor of an open age with cerebral palsy they didn't think she could go in the family when i went back the parents how we would cry fraud on their faces that she'd gone to the sydney paralympic games and want to go 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. and managing one story of a 1000000 rubber gloves i thank you after the break today was u.k. pm boris johnson prepares to lengthen prison sentences for the broken systems in the u.k. that have created one of youth violence not shown violent media from the perspective of someone who was at the heart of it and ask why are politicians have got it wrong so long all of them are going up in part of going on the ground.

yes. in this connection the moment the last campaign asked for the last company and seeing and on the rest day for the dutch pro who should have been the commission she. heard her shift. does come in the. green zone. mom was. going to go so sit on the open much to me mamma is just back. and.

join me every thursday on the alex so i'm unsure when i'll be speaking to get off of the world of politics sports business i'm show business i'll see you that. but is the baby of the progressive movement can it continue to co-exist with the mainstream establishment left is its current trajectory in a literal and temperate recipe part of a greater political real. welcome back about one we heard have china has revolutionized the way it protects the human rights of children but what about the u.k. where we have brokers thing from who they was a new booker prize long list a tiny autobiographical novel from author 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 and privatization to the ever increasing class divisions in the u.k. going on the ground deputy editor charlie cook caught up with crowd and started by asking him about the novel it was a sin not with us partly based on my own life's 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 use from from a family of ownership immigrants in london and of not the gate and the london times of down under wote while at the same time doing a degree in universe even beyond that it's also a novel that kind of opens a window on to the world of gang culture in london which i know far too often is only represented in very kind of short brief and constrained kind of reports in the media when does a particularly violent crime or as it's you know the continuous series of gang

related incidents that stabbings and shootings in the capital and what i really want to achieve with this book was to end of the open a window into that world and on to the complexities the human complexities of the experience and the moral challenges faced by people live in. in those kind of environments the critical reception seems to often hiraman on the idea that you are leading a cycle double life i thought he said there wasn't a double life it was just your life do you think in a way that's a kind of condescension in that the seeming that he being very kind of like books on streets is 2 things that i necessarily go together exactly i think of him as a big problem with that and in a sense that kind of reflects the way in which society seeks to kind of keep a distance and criminal of course criminality is 'd something that causes a lot of problems within society but. something that has existed in human society or 'd you know thousands of years ultimately. i think the idea that for example

somebody called go to university in degree or even just the concept that somebody could be educated and somebody can be a complex character with lots of conflicting aspects to their personality and at the same time be in both 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 intrigued as 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 in the 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 facts they want to you know they seek to kind of analyze the book and i call in the meeting both in the

criminal life and on to university as a double life but the reality is it was in a double 'd act up 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 gun culture but 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 doesn't clarify and i think i mean i'm sure some people think that glorify that i think evil who think that glorify violence or gun culture in the book of people who are largely on 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 world opening 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 midst put the book down. but i think i don't think that writing about that lifestyle and that well realistically can glamorize it because it's very unglamorous it's full of pain it's full of hardships full of self-destruction one of the things that returns to again and again seem wise is that people outside this life calm possibly really

understand and you've already said that the book i'm friends with a robbery and it immediately shows 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 do 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 site you work sometimes across the visions and the judgment listen 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 offie for me the biggest division in in the context of the book and in terms of discussing that wote is the division of understanding and the division and then because this issue jack of empathy and of course it's 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 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 sun 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 of items and says oh i happen on the streets of london and 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 the ice they'd rather think that this is something that because of the rift 3 of their existence and you talk to out that the media already been in the book you're suspicious of any detail how politicians seem to get at identifying with with these groups are wrong like i did 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

wrong as you say 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 all of puppetry or all . violent crime 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 woad than any kind of post the campaign can un do especially in a rich c.e. that london if you can from it if you feel disadvantaged and you're confronted by the extreme wealth of as 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 a phone box 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 i'm not the 10s 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 whether to stop this post or 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 pick 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 poster that i suddenly see which says bin 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 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. a regular basis in the environments in 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 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 that because they just find that they find so morally challenging

that it's easy to kind of criticize and denigrate it's very easy to do that but 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 that represents prison for dimension soccer is something now more famous for kind of testing trace mass ops but the way that your book represents present how hard is it to write about something that as you say in the book is indescribable and i think part of 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 right you know everything that the outside world gradually dies and 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 in a station games and they have t.v.'s in their cells and everything. well no one talks about how when people go into a wing in a prison they're constantly in a must in an environment of constant threat and you can't imagine the psychological toll that takes some of us and that you constantly feel under threat and constant if you under pressure you know. talking about the constant on 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 so and you think that's some kind of soft touch you know and

people are getting stabbed in the showers and everything a psych 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 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 as a lot more to these experiences than what you read in the in grief newspaper i lose 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 county right now i'm currently working on a novel to us 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 nation 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. our inheritance you know through my family but also in the widest sense of examining for example the fact of the holocaust on you know modern day people. modern day g.'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 your own picks a trait sometimes rather novel that's an exploration of a lot of those themes and also how it links to modern culture today a link 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 strong in the about their own sense of identity even when they where they came from which i think is very important. thank you so much. and gabriel crowd so that when you going underground deputy as i said charlie cook who they was is out now that's it for the show will be back on saturday the eve of managing memorial day blocking the massacre of hundreds of thousands of chinese men women and children by just pound until then remember to join the underground before in the future address a facebook instagram and.

join me every thursday on the alex salmond show and i'll be speaking to guest of the world of politics sports business i'm showbusiness i'll see you then. no. so. much. because. of this connection to moment last him should ask for the last company and seeing and i'm interested today for the rights for who should commission.

brats who choose to shoot on disc in the. asian. region. you know you care so sit on the open much to me mama is just a back. to full fee up money ponzi scheme has hit the my 1st i missed out collapsing like burning made off collapsed and now we're going back to poverty so the answer is always bad you need actual sound money like gold but of course that doesn't work so much as big coin does and what'll happen is they'll be hundreds of millions and billions of people in the world that'll say to their central bank of the earth

their nation state government they'll say you know we're not interested anymore we just want to have our own money have our own peace of mind and you can go what. was abundant make no certainly no borders i'm just not. 2 nationalities. you. know so much we told the truth be we don't look like seeing the whole world needs to be the chief. judge of. commentary crisis with this system things. we can do better we should be. everyone is contributing each of our own way but we also know that this crisis will not go on forever the challenges created the response has been much so many good people are helping us. it makes us feel very proud that we are in it together.

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