Good evening everybody and welcome to the Near and Middle East postgraduate taster session. My name is Hussam al-Malak and I'll be hosting you. Thank you very much for joining us wherever you are. I'll be providing you with a taster session on from a module that is running on the Near and Middle East MA program. So if you're taking the MA and Near Middle East program next year, this will be a compulsory module. It's about the Near and Middle East. It's called the Middle East in 10 sessions. So it's a 10 week module. I'll be providing the session on religion, Islam and the modern Middle East, which is today's session. It's a much more condensed session than the normal lecture. I will provide time later on for questions and answers where we can discuss anything that you are interested in discussing. I teach here in Salas. My specialty is modern Islamic thought. I actually did my PhD at Salas and I teach a postgraduate module and modern trends in Islam. So this taster session is also a very condensed overview of some of the trends that are discussed and examined in much more detail, a lot more detail in that postgraduate module, modern trends in Islam. Concerning the Middle East, coming to Salas, you're going to be studying dimensions of either Asia or Africa and I always think of the Middle East as that land mass that connects the two together. And to understand the Middle East, I always think that religion generally and Islam particularly is crucial to an insightful understanding and examination of the Middle East, specifically the modern Middle East where religion and Islam in particular is a very important dimension within the Middle East. It influences culture, media, politics obviously, and many other dimensions. So when people speak about Islam, it's rather very general. So from today's session, I'm going to be presenting you with an overview that there are in fact many different trends and dimensions of Islam. There's a lot of overlap between these different modern trends, but there are also crucial distinctions between the two. In this module, the session will present you with an overview of these different modern trends that have roots in the modern Middle East. And it presents you with these different modern trends. It presents you with a different perspective of the modern Middle East, a perspective that I suspect many of you would have encountered through the media, through politics and journalism. So this module, next year's module, and this session presents you with a different perspective. It's an academic specialist perspective. I thought I'd start off this session with a map, a map of the Middle East, albeit presenting it from a different dimension, a map from the 12th century. This is a geographer, Muhammad Idrisi, and the Lysian North African geographer, and that presents the Middle East from a perspective we are not very familiar with. For those of you who might be training or will be training in Arabic, you might be able to read some of the writings on this 12th century map of the Middle East, but actually it's also a map of the wider world at that time. In the center of the map you have the Middle East, you will, for those of you who have already picked up on it, this map represents North as being South and East and being presented in front of the West. And so there's a flip side of the different directions. Here is the Yemen and the Arab Peninsula, Iraq, Egypt and North Africa. On your right hand side, whilst on the extreme left hand side, you'll see China and India. For those of you who are familiar with Islamic religion and Arab culture, you would have heard about, yeah, Druge or in the English Yogg and Magog, presented as being the extremes of the world here in the bottom left corner. And obviously in the bottom right you'll see Europe, the Iberian Peninsula, France and Central Europe. So a map that presents the world, but particularly the Middle East from a different perspective, and which is what we will do as well in this module, but in this session as well, looking at the different trends and different trends of Islam that are very influential in the modern Middle East. I'm focusing on three main trends that are influential in the modern Middle East, these being Islamism, Islamism, and progressive or liberal Islam. Usually, with the last trend, you'll see academics conflating these two with each other. There are differences. If you're interested, we might have some time later on to go back and just talk about these differences. Islamism, Salafism and progressive understandings of Islam. Islamism remains one of the oldest modern interpretations, modern trends of Islam that has roots in the modern Middle East. It's a very modern trend. It's defined as a form of instrumentalization of Islam by individuals, groups and organizations that pursue political objectives. So Islamism is a trend that seeks to present to develop and articulate political solutions to political challenges, challenges that Muslims in the Middle East would confront in modern times. It presents a political response to these modern challenges that were faced by Muslims in the Middle East around the 20th century and continues to be a very prominent and popular trend. It's a trend that can be identified with individuals, particular individuals in the Middle East are identified as being Islamists. There are groups and organizations that are identified as being Islamists, but also with the very notable example of Iran, the Islamic Republic of Iran, where you actually have a modern nation state that exemplifies and manifests Islamism as a modern trend. What is it more details about Islamism? What is it that distinguishes Islamism and Islamists? I'll talk about that in a second. But some of the prominent Islamists that are important in the development of this trend. Some of you might have some people in mind already. Hassan Al-Banna from Egypt, known for being the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood, one of the first and most oldest and continues to be a very prominent Islamist organization. Sayyid Qatub also from Egypt, who was a very prominent ideologue of the Muslim Brotherhood, in particular, but Islamism in general, and his thought continues to be very influential amongst Islamists in the Middle East and beyond, has very different kinds of influence. Sayyid Qatub, the late Ayatollah al Khomeini, who was the supreme leader of the Iranian Islamic Republic of Iran, the leader of the Iranian Revolution, and he formulated an Islamist ideology that continues to be the ruling ideology of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Another prominent and influential Islamist, very prominent in the modern Middle East is Hassan Nasrullah, who's the secretary general of the Islamist Shi'i Islamist organization Hezbollah. So these are some prominent Islamists, Qatub and Khomeini are ideologues, so they developed their understanding of Islamism, they wrote about it, and their ideologies continue to be very prominent, not only in the Middle East, but also beyond the Middle East. So that which distinguishes Islamism are its doctrines, but also from an academic perspective, we look at the way that Islamists engage with the primary sources, the primary texts of Islam as a religion, mainly here the Quran. Islamists generally aim or seek to apply Islamic law, which is commonly referred to as the Sharia, but we can later on discuss whether or not this is an accurate term, whether or not Sharia can be used to describe Islamic law. They seek to apply Islamic law as state law. So the laws of the modern nation states by which modern Middle Eastern societies are ruled and governed. That's usually the primary aim that distinguishes Islamism as a modern trend. And they will argue that to realize this aim of applying Islamic law as state law, they will try to realize this through politics and engaging in modern day politics. As I mentioned, Hassan al-Banna was the earliest of the Islamists in the Middle East. Islamism also developed elsewhere beyond the Middle East and the subcontinent in India and later on in Pakistan. But the oldest Islamist organization continues to be that which was founded by Hassan al-Banna, the Muslim Brotherhood, which has a very long history of political engagement in the modern nation state of Egypt. Around 10 years ago after the Arab Spring, the Muslim Brotherhood through democratic elections managed to acquire political power and they would in fact rule modern day Egypt for one year before they were later subsequently overthrown. So again, just to emphasize just how important the influence of the Muslim Brotherhood and Islamists continues to this day. Potobh's contribution, ideological contribution to Islamism was his formulation of these doctrines, Islamist doctrines he referred to as Jahiliyya and Haqimiyya. Anyone familiar with Islam as a religion will recognize this term Jahiliyya which is used to describe the period before Islam, the religion, the revelation of Islam with the Prophet Muhammad in the sixth, seventh century AD. But Potobh now will go back to this Quranic concept and he will reformulate it, he will now interpret Jahiliyya as not a historic position, a historic epoch but rather a condition, a social condition whereby Muslim societies are not ruled by Islamic law. And from his own modern day perspective, he thought and he assessed that many modern day societies in the Middle East, even though these societies identified themselves as being Muslims, he argued in his very famous book, Milestones, he argued that in fact these societies, these individuals are nowadays in a state of Jahiliyya. Jahiliyya contrasted with his other condition, he would also formulate known as Haqimiyya can be translated in different ways but generally refers to a form of divine sovereignty. The divine sovereignty in a way by which Islamic law reflects this form of divine sovereignty in a social dimension. Haqimiyya's own ideology was reflected in his doctrine of willyat al-Faqih or willyat al-Faqih from the Persian pronunciation, he argued that Islamic law also has to be applied by a modern day government. One of his interesting formulation concerning the form of governance was that he argued that such an Islamic government has to be led by a Muslim jurist, person, a jurist who specializes in Islamic law, which was a very unique formulation of doctrine of willyat al-Faqih to be distinguished from its Sunni counterparts, whereby Khomeini argues that the Islamic government and Islamic government has to be led by a specialist of Islamic law, the Faqih. Islamists generally are distinguished by their political and ideological interpretations of the Quran. So from an academic perspective, how is it that we can distinguish Islamists from other Muslims in the Middle East or beyond, is by the way, by their aims, the aim to establish Islamic law as state law, but particularly by the way they interpret the Quran. They will project their own modern ideologies, political worldviews and project these back onto their interpretations of the Quran, and they will develop some very unique interpretations of the Quran as the primary source of Islamic religiosity. So that's a very quick and very brief overview of Islamists, their doctrines, their hermeneutics, and the science, the methodologies of interpretations, textualist interpretations. And as I mentioned, the Islamists continue to be a very prominent player in the modern Middle East. Beyond the Middle East in North Africa and the subcontinent in Southeast Asia, but the oldest of the organization system Muslim Brotherhood. The Sunni Islamist organization, but so too is the Shi'a Islamist organization Hezbollah. There's another very prominent Islamist organization that has a very prominent role to play in the politics of Palestine and Israel, that being Hamas. And as I mentioned earlier on, the Islamic Republic of Iran can reflect the modern Islamist nation states. So these are the Islamists. The Islamists are to be distinguished from another equally popular and influential modern trend, known as the Salafis, or Salafism. Salafism refers to a term Salaf. Salaf means those that came before those who preceded. And it refers to the first three generations of the early Muslim community. So it refers to the Muslim community of the prophets, and the generation immediately after that, and the generation after that. It refers to the pious forbearers of Islam, that being the first three generations of the Muslim community. It is, in fact, a very modern trend, a modern trend in the sense that these Salafis, these Salafi Muslims, see to go back and emphasize the piety and principles of that early Salafi generation or generations as reflecting the correct understanding of Islam. So Salafis will argue that all interpretations and developments in Islamic thought and Islamic practices after these three generations reflect what they will refer to as an innovation. Be it in the establishment of the schools of Islamic law, the schools of jurisprudence, the madaheb, they will be very critical of developments in Islamic theology, kalam, very critical of philosophical developments, but also very distinctively critical of mystical and Sufi developments. And this understanding that there was something very special about the first three generations of Muslim community is rooted in a tradition, a saying attributed to the prophets, where he is now reported to have said that the best of the community are those of his generation, and the one that come after them, and the one that come after them. So this understanding of Salafism is in fact rooted in the another very important Islamic textual source, the hadiths, which come in importance immediately after the Quran, the Quran being the primary source of Islamic thought on religiosity. But the hadith comes second, but in practical terms, the hadith is by far more extensive than the Quran. So it becomes a means by which Salafis are able to identify what they consider to be the correct understanding of Islam. So you'll see in fact Salafis engaging in the study of hadiths more than anything else. Who are those Salafis? Well, Salafism as a modern trend, modern trend has its roots in the modern Middle East. It has origins in Egypt in the 1920s and 30s, but as a very distinctive modern trends, it arose in what we now refer to as the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. And some of the most prominent of the earlier scholars of Salafism, Muhammad Nasser al-Din al-Bani, who from his name you can tell he came from Albania, but he grew up in Syria and later on he taught in Saudi Arabia, but was going to be exiled and he would later on died in Jordan. The previous grand jurist of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Abdul Aziz bin Baz, another very prominent Salafi scholar, but you have a new generation of Salafis and Salman al-Oda who's also from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. But Hazm Salah Abu Ismail, who comes from Egypt, became very prominent after the Arab Spring. He was one of the presidential candidates before he was disqualified and after the overthrow of the Muslim Brotherhood, he was going to be imprisoned, continues to be imprisoned in Egypt, but so too is Salman al-Oda who's also imprisoned in modern day Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and both for their political views and articulations. A brief overview of Salafi doctrines. They believe in a puritanical understanding of Tawhid, Tawhid being the unity of God, which is what all Muslims believe in as an article of faith and belief, and they will seek to denounce any form of what's known as association or shirk. Any practices that challenge the doctrine of Tawhid, so for example, seeking the blessings of individuals, or the building of shrines of pious individuals, be they Sufis or Shias, for example, the Salafis will consider that these challenge the doctrine of the unity of God, and therefore these individuals who who venerate these individuals or these shrines are now committing the cardinal sin of shirk or association, which actually can lead to their excommunication. So Salafis can now subsequently engage in a process of excommunicating takfir of other Muslims, Muslims who might engage in these practices or beliefs that Salafis consider to challenge the doctrine of Tawhid. A prominent feature of Salafis is that they will prioritize a literal understanding of the revelation, the Quran, but so to the Hadiths over reason and rationality. That's not to say that they are anti-rationalists or non-rationalists. But whenever there appears to be a tension or conflict between the literal interpretation of the text or reason and rationality, revelation is now prioritized. A very prominent doctrine is the doctrine known in Arabic as al-wala wal-barah, whereby Salafis will argue that Muslims generally including themselves have to show and display loyalty and friendliness to God and other Muslims and to disavow non-Muslims, which became very problematic during the Gulf War in 1990, 1991 Gulf War, when the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia sought the help, military help and assistance of the United States and the United Kingdom and France and other western governments to defend them against what they perceived to be as the aggression of the Iraq at that time. And Salafis argued that this was now showing a form of loyalty or friendliness towards non-Muslims. And they argued that this was a challenge to the doctrine of al-wala wal-barah, loyalty to Muslims and disavow of non-Muslims. Salafis will engage in the study of the texts, the Arabic texts, the Quran as I mentioned, but also the Hadiths. And in that sense, they require to have a mastery of the Arabic language, philology, which is a study of the Arabic language, the sciences and the texts. Even though Salafism is a very prominent trend in the modern Middle East, but it's also a transnational movement in Europe and in Asia as well as in Africa. And you'll see Salafis everywhere in the Muslim world, especially those who do not have command of the Arabic language, they will engage in the academic study of the Arabic language. And in fact, you will note that SAWAS is a very prominent institution, academic institution of the Arabic language and the Arabic texts. Salafis will interpret the Quran and the Hadith in what's known as a de-contextualist method of interpretation or hermeneutic methodology. Regardless of the context of revelation, what happened at the time of revelation, that is not to be prioritized or awarded significance in the way that Salafis will interpret these texts. The meanings of these texts are understood quite literally, and it is non-historicist in the sense that these meanings are applicable at all times and at all places as well. They will also follow what's known as a segmental interpretation of the texts, so they can take a part of the revelation and interpret it and understand it without any relation to the other parts of the wider text in the Quran, but also the Hadiths as well, known as a segmental approach towards the interpretation of the texts. That's a very quick overview of the doctrines of Salafis, Salafism, and their methodology of interpreting the texts, which again becomes very distinctive, it distinguishes the Salafis from the other trends. So after the Arab Spring, Salafis who for a very long time were very critical of Islamists, and critical of political, the political association of Islamists in Egypt, it was seen that in fact Salafis did seek political representation, and they engaged in parliamentary elections, presidential elections, and it became rather difficult to distinguish between Salafis and the Islamists, they were in fact in a coalition with each other. But there could still be, they could still be distinguished from each other, and by the methodology by which they would interpret the texts, the Quran and the Hadith, and by extension it means that they can come up with different interpretations of Islamic law. So that remains a crucial methodology by which to distinguish between Salafis and Islamists. The third and equally important Islamic trend in the Middle East, which is not only significant in the Middle East but also in the wider context, geographic context, Muslims all over the world, in Europe, North America, in Africa, South Africa, but crucially in the subcontinent, and in Southeast Asia is that trend known as the progressives or liberals. According to a scholar, Omid Safi, in a text, he edited progressive Muslims. He refers, he describes progressive Islam as a form of Islamic humanism, he refers to it as an interpretation of Islam for the 21st century. And he states that at the heart of the progressive Muslim interpretation is a simple yet radical idea that every human life, female and male Muslim and non Muslim rich or poor, northern or southern has exactly the same intrinsic worth. He argues that progressive is a relentless striving towards a universal notion of justice, in which no single community's prosperity, righteousness and dignity comes at the expense of another crucial features of the modern academic understanding of progressive Islam. And this is very distinctive progressive Muslims are in fact, generally, themselves are academics and scholars, and in that sense progressive Islam reflects an academic Islamic trend, albeit it has become very prominent among not only in the Middle East, but also in Southeast Asia, whereby Muslims have now become more, more progressive Islam has taken root amongst generations of Southeast Asian Muslims. Who are some of those progressive Muslims coming from the Middle East? Well, Abdullah Naim, a Sudanese progressive Muslim academic scholar, who's actually now based in the United States. Abdul Karim Sush, an Iranian progressive Islamic scholar, he specializes in Islamic neo theology. Another Iranian scholar, Ziba Mir Hussaini, she specializes in the anthropology of Islamic law and we're very lucky to have her based here in Salas. She engages, she researches and teaches here in Salas. And another progressive Islamic scholar was the late Nasser Hamid Mosaic, who came from Egypt. So it reflects the academic background and nature of progressive Islam. Three main themes that might distinguish progressive Islam, according to Omid Safi in that text I mentioned earlier, are the themes of social justice, gender justice, and pluralism. Social justice that seeks to challenge any forms of discrimination in society, socio economic or political, racial discrimination in that sense, scholars from South Africa who were some of the earliest scholars to develop and formulate progressive Islam Islamic thought as a response to apartheid and racism in South Africa. And such themes of social justice were going to become very prominent of progressive and liberal Muslims all over the world, but so too in the Middle East. Gender justice is another prominent theme. In fact, most of the progressives will be will focus on this on this theme of gender justice gender equality that seeks to challenge patriarchy.  And pluralism and other prominent of the progressive Islamic interpretation. Pluralism beyond tolerance. It's no longer just good enough to tolerate others that one has disagreements with, but to accept others that be they others of different religious orientation. Different nationality different race and different understandings of Islam and affirmation of otherness, according to this theme of pluralism. Progressives understand that the Quranic text reflects is is understood to be a literary text. It is divine in its origins, but it has a crucial human dimension as well. And in that sense, it also is subjected to modern literary criticism, which is what so many of these modern scholars will engage in. And their interpretations of these texts, they will privilege moral values and ethical values and values such as justice, dignity and mercy over the literal interpretation of the texts. They will also develop and formulate and apply what's known as the contextualist readings of the texts, particularly the Quran, to understand what the Quran means the Quranic verses, particularly the legal verses, which in fact not that many progressives will look at the wider context of revelation to understand what that what any particular Quranic verse means. And it's not good enough to understand the the text in isolation of the wider socio economic political cultural context of society at that time. So you'll see a lot of these progressive scholars are sociologists are historians are legal scholars, and these different specializations become crucial in the modern contemporary reinterpretations of the Quran. And they will also develop, they will adopt a holistic or sometimes a thematic interpretation of the Quran, which has become very distinctive of feminist interpretations of the Quran. Another very prominent feature of the progressive Islamic discourse is their critical engagement or approach to the hadiths the sayings attributed to the Prophet Muhammad and the narrations, even though these might have been considered to have been authentic and pre modern in times. And progressive scholars will go back and adopt a critical approach, and not to say a dismissive but rather a critical approach to the hadiths to the sayings and narratives attributed to the Prophet Muhammad. And that was a very quick and general overview of three modern trends trends that have roots are very prominent in the modern Middle East to understand the modern Middle East. And religion is prominent Islam is instrumental in understanding the modern Middle East I personally would argue, but Islam is not a unit is not. It's just one on one authoritative understanding of Islam that dominates in the modern Middle East. In fact, as we have seen there are three, if not actually more different understandings of Islam, different Islam that have roots in the modern Middle East and beyond. So this is one taster session of that of that module, the Middle East in 10 sessions, but it was also a very, very quick overview of some of the trends and issues that we can also that I examine more detail in that module modern trends in Islam. If you have any questions about any of this, we don't have time to discuss them you're more than welcome to email me as I'm in my lack h a 10 at saw us dot AC dot UK on that note. Thank you very much for your attention. And happy to answer any of your questions. Just before we start on the question and answer the Q&A session. May I please present my apologies for not having managed to be here at the beginning of the session my name is your ghost status I am the convener of the main in Middle Eastern studies. Some of you may have been in the previous session. Thank you for which I attended as well. And as my good colleague has said, I, as from next year will be the convener as well of a module that will be compulsory for the main in Middle Eastern studies that will have the title the Middle East in 10 weeks or the Middle East and 10 issues. The provocative title to entice you to sort of see the kind of challenges that scholars dealing with the Middle East, or indeed with what has been challenged as an area to begin with face. Who some has very kindly given you a taste of what one of the sessions, one of the 10 issues. That will be examined, most likely next year, I mean not next academic session will be the different versions of Islam, and, and the way that they are so fundamental in our approach to to Islamic culture Islamic societies in the Middle East. Anyway, I do not want to go any further on this. Amy is probably here to coordinate. I have the feeling none of you can, if I understand correctly, unmute yourselves or actually talk, we have to operate via the chat. Is that right. Yes, that is right. So participants are able to ask questions via the Q&A function and I can see that there is a question coming already. Thank you. Sorry, Amy, I was. So, who some I'm sure you're more colluding with me I was unable to see the Q&A, which is the, I was seeing on the chat there's a Q&A with a question about Islamist movements like ISIS and Al Qaeda, which preach violent Islam. How can we talk about role of Islam in the region without referring to them. I'm asked by Edward Speed. I think the clear answer you'll find Edward is that is that of course we will, you know that there has to be mentioned of them as well, but not in a monopolizing sort of way is what I'd offer is an initial comment but but I will let my colleague deal with a question more thoroughly. I would definitely concur with your course and you can't understand modern Middle East and developments concerning violence politics without taking into consideration these militants movements, ISIS and Al Qaeda. I would just say that rather than describe them as Islamist. They are, in fact, Salafi, they're not Islamist, even though you might hear them being referred to as Islamist. Al Qaeda does not try to present a political response to a political challenge. And in fact, Al Qaeda like ISIS, do adopt a non political approach. That's also became challenged with the with the ascension of ISIS in recent years. And, again, you had so many academics going back and saying, is it Islamist? Is it Salafi? Well, they are Salafi, mainly in the way that they attempt to justify their acts of violence. And they use terrorism with reference to the Quran and hadiths. And in fact, this is a very clear example of the literal interpretations of the Quran and hadith that they will go back and use reference to justify acts of violence and terrorism. Yes, these are very important movements, crucial in the modern Middle East. But I would definitely say they are not Islamist. They are Salafi. A militant Islamist movement is Hezbollah. Another one is Hamas. Obviously, what happened in the last few years, you have these militant Islamist movements and the militant Salafi movements engaging in military conflict amongst each other. But I would say ISIS and Qaeda are militant Salafi movements and very important to emphasize that they are a minority of the Salafi worldview, albeit a very loud and very violent minority. Not all Salafis are terrorists or militants or violent individuals. But ISIS and Al Qaeda are adopt a literal interpretation of these texts. And in fact, in one of the sessions of the module that I teach, the module on violence and terrorism, we focus on that session on how ISIS and Al Qaeda try to justify these acts of violence and terrorism by going back to the sources. And I would argue that from an academic perspective, it becomes very important to try to understand the means by which these organizations try to justify these and rather than just condemn these acts of violence, it is important to understand how they are justified. I hope I've answered that question. Go here. Thank you. Yes, I don't think I can see another question on the QA. Amy will alert us otherwise. I thought I might add the comment. Sorry, that as part of the Middle Eastern 10 issues course, one issue that I think deserves great attention and may well end up being a leitmotif along the different sessions is the degree to which you could argue, along with a German scholar of literature, Thomas Bauer, that Islam has been all together a culture of ambiguity, a culture which has tolerated historically a significant amount of amphysemy, ambiguous in the sense that more than one meanings, more than one interpretations are possible, and has interestingly stayed clear of what you could describe as a kind of Victorian 19th century European approach, which on in the name of enlightenment emphasizes the one true and one possible right answer to any question in the name of the spirit of rationalism that there can be only one right decision and one right answer. And this has been an interesting intellectual exercise and beyond in the course of the 19th century and the reforms of the Islamic world in which an area that I myself am somewhat specializing in namely the Ottoman Empire and the reforms in the 19th century of the entire societal system from the Sultan at the top to various institutions that had strong societal links, like for instance even the convents of the of the Sufi orders and so on. In the course of this great reform movement, this Perestroika movement, you could say which is called exactly that in Turkish using an Arabic term tanzimat, from tanzim in an Arabic plural, referring to the restructuring and reorganization whereby the European idea of there being one right answer to given problems was heartily endorsed and applied to Islam. And this taken to extreme, of course, goes has an awful lot in common with the Salafist position of not just a literal interpretation but they're being only one correct interpretation. And, and this goes in many ways you could argue against the spirit in which Islam or the various Islam's historically operated whereby even the most learned Ulema, Alim, would perhaps it's not unfair to say would end by saying but God knows best, leaving exactly that kind of humility which wasn't just false humility of his interpretation, his particular interpretation being exactly that an interpretation, there however being room for possibility other interpretations and so on. So it's, I find it a fascinating and much maligned and misunderstood feature of the history of Islamic societies that this counter intuitive internalization of Western attitudes to scientific truth, which is presented and supposed to be unambiguous and and not subject to maybe this maybe that type of interpretation, having taken hold of Islamic thinking. So, these with these is, these are some of the aspects that we hope to probe further and perhaps deeper in in that course, which I'm sure aspects of which I'm sure are being dealt with in as they have to in Hussam's course modern trends in Islam. In the meantime, it has can one say that these three trends in Islam are predominantly rooted in the Sunni tradition we have not said much about she is man she I tradition though of course, the Iranian scholars mentioned in the progressive liberal camp would have come from the she tradition so maybe who some would you like to address the question of the degree to which these trends are predominantly Sunni. No, they're not predominantly Sunni. Even though for example when it comes to the origins of the Muslim Brotherhood. Yes, that was Sunni. In fact, we'll see that these modern trends are very reformist in their nature, and they are responding to very modern challenges and in that sense, the sectarian dimension and differences become immaterial to how these modern trends respond to these modern challenges. And so Islamism, as I mentioned, the Islamic Republic of Iran, the only example whereby Islamism is successful at it attains political power and political power for the more than 40 years now. That wasn't rooted in the Sunni she sectarian divide. The only exception to the sectarian dimension that is fundamentally rooted in Sunni Islam are the Salafis Salafis Salafism is a very sectarian hyper sectarian approach, and they are another very prominent feature of the Salafi trend is their, their anti Shiite outlook, to the extent that they've come very violent, and not only anti Shiite in their outlook but also anti Sufi which also encompasses other Sunnis as well. And progressives. Again, that sectarian dimension is immaterial and in fact you'll see the most, if not all, I'll go out on a limb and say that all in fact progressive scholars all over the world will downplay and de emphasize any sectarian divisions because these are in fact not material to their formulation of the progressive worldview. And sectarianism is there but it's not significant. Thank you who some we have a way it's now four minutes to the hour when will I imagine we will be having to wrap up. So, in the next couple of minutes, could you possibly address with some of the question from john Lawrence, or is that Lawrence john. There's a question about the relationship between Islamic thinking and socialist thinking, and, and how this has changed with the decline of socialist politics in the Middle East. So any connection, any connections between Islamic trends, trends in Islam and socialist thinking. Socialists, some of these trends, particularly the Islamists are ideology, it's ideological, and they developed as a response to the rise of different ideologies. Islamism was one prominent ideology and Arab nationalism and other prominent ideology and the Arab nationalist regimes were also socialist. And Islamism developed as ideology in response to these ideologies in the 20th century. And the politics socialist thought, and there was another very prominent ideologue. So, Islamist ideologue, Ali Shariati in Iran, and his Islamist ideology was to some extent had a lot of overlap with socialism. So that was a very important influence on this on Islamism. And in some of the politics, some of the themes that might characterize socialist politics, can there is an overlap, I would argue with the social justice dimension of progressive Islam. And there might be a lot of overlap and continuities between the socialist themes and politics, but also the theme of social justice. And also the early progressives and liberal trend in Islam. Right. Thank you for delivering an answer just on on cue to two minutes too so I think we should at this moment be wrapping up and it just remains for me, as I say as convener of the MA degree in in Middle Eastern studies to thank for delivering this taster session, and perhaps apologize for the sound of the clock in the background, which has come a little bit early and untimely. And to say that we very much look forward to welcoming some of you to saw us, I think you have been given a proper taste of what lectures will be like in some of the major courses that you will be taking. I hope very much that you have enjoyed them, and we look forward to receiving your queries and and seeing you again soon. So it's goodbye from me. Goodbye from me thank you very much and hope to see you some of you next year. And Amy you could make the closing remarks. Thank you ever so much for this very informative session and hopefully our attendees got a great insight into, you know how we teach at so so thank you ever so much. And yes, we'll hopefully see you in September. Lovely thank you very much. Bye bye. Bye bye. Bye now.


So the point is how to produce this housing stock, and in this process, we have some terrible experiences as speaking from the experience of the slum dwellers and the housing struggles in the city. A, we are slumming our city. We are legitimizing the depletion of public assets. We are deliberately marginalizing large sections of the population, frighteningly legitimizing through policies, plans and programs. And this is what is terrible. If you look at the SRA policy, I consider nothing but a displacement policy. Believe me, it undermines democracy and democratic institutions. In the 70s, we used to take protests of slum dwellers to the secretariat, to the government offices, because they are elected governments through democratic means. Today, you know what we are fighting, and with whom are we fighting in our slums? And communities are waging struggles against private builders, against private corporate companies. That's not democracy. These are the agents. We've completely de-linked our communication relations between the government and the people. And this is frightening to me. And this is perpetuating social violence. This is perpetuating social unrest in the slums. We, instead of grappling with housing solutions, we are grappling with negotiations and peace in the slums. That's how productive time is utilized by housing activists and movements. So in short, coming back to the last point I'm making, just the last point about what is the solution. We firmly believe, A, that the state government has to intervene, has to play an active role in promoting. A, B, that the state government has to forge partnership with communities. Not partnership with private companies, but with communities, with societies. And in turn, the government and the communities may choose an investor, and the investor could have their benefits through investment into that project as contractors, etc. There are many other ways of how capital investments into the housing sector can be benefited through bonds or concessions or tax, etc. So I think this in a nutshell is the solution that we're looking at. We need to recognize the enormous human resources, potential that the slum dwellers possess, the skills in redeveloping their properties, and mind you, if you develop the lands on which slums exist, which is for your information, is just about 8% of the land mass of the city in which over 60% of our people live. You can actually rehabilitate, re-house in decent housing, planned housing, which we are all for, we're against slums, we're against slumming, that we can actually accommodate all the slum dwellers extremely well. Thank you. Thank you very much. Please, Ricky Bardette. The two issues you end on are very important. I think one is some form of state intervention, second a form of partnership.  You don't mention space. Is it irrelevant? Yes, well, it's the detail. It's the detail. No, let me explain this. Well, one of the things, the weaknesses of the policy, I'm happy you brought this point up, you see the development policy of the state government does not consider social infrastructure provision, including open spaces. It only talks in terms of numbers of houses. And if you saw some of the examples in the morning, I think in your slide and presentation, Ricky, how housing at Mongkut is stacked together, just 10 feet apart, 10 feet, 10 storied buildings. Now, we have been trying to suggest to the government that where the program has to begin is social infrastructure, because development or underdevelopment is really assessed through social development, including open spaces. And open spaces and slums is a huge resource to community development work. I think that's important. Thank you, PK. Why don't we move on to Sir S. Sharma. Thank you. Oh, don't touch it, okay. It has been for me a very instructive experience, and I know in the five minutes that I have, I would not be able to do justice to the range and richness of what I had. May I therefore begin with some propositions stated as a paradox about the city, city as a human form, and inequality. If I may reverse the phrase of Saskia Sasin about the territorial movement, I was struck because the momentariness being associated with territory is a remarkable shift because territory is generally in human language the kind of final locus. But it does tell a certain story about the movement of in modern civilization and modern cognition. So I want to talk about the cognitive movement, the present cognitive movement in terms of from which we are looking at the housing for poor. And in that I wish to underscore one fact that I think possibly for the first time in the last 200, 300 years, the word change in the context of climate change is used with a degree of acute apprehension. And this is something remarkable because if one looks at utterances, if one looks at discourse in the last 200 years, change is a word valorized in almost all contexts. And the fact that now in the context of climate change it is used as a kind of a disturbance which has to be coped with, I think has significant implications. City, it was said by many participants, is an escape, is a movement towards freedom. But this movement towards freedom is increasingly happening in a situation where inequalities are mounting and this escalation of the proportion of inequality and the chairman quest to escape certain kind of control, certain kind of sensible thing in any western quarter. We were repeatedly told that to begin the project of modernization, hard, large, bold decisions needed to be taken and there were other examples who have not fallen out from the pages of history. I say this because I think the pathos which moved the national leadership in India to not only choose democracy but to keep to it under very difficult condition was not perhaps the recreation of a modern world. Not to say that they were anti-modern, but the moving pathos was not to be able to replicate no matter how modernity here at any cost. And this I think is important. This perhaps has something to do vitally by what Mr. Chairman who spoke of as this vivid organicity. And the capacity to retain the capacity to nurture this organicity which manifests for example in movements of breakdown when Bombay was flooded and the state was nowhere in evidence has something to do with the possibility of dignity, dignified inclusion. It may not be absolute equality. I'm not talking about absolute equality. Can I take two more? Thank you very much. It's very helpful, Therese. I thought I would say two more. Rahul, please. Can you give me one sentence? Just one sentence. Of course. One sentence. I'll yield to you for one more sentence. And the sentence is that I think one of our great feelings is that we often believe it is enough to say this is the right thing. And we have often failed to do the right thing even when we know what is the right thing to do. So the role of the state in India as a regulator, as a custodian of the law, as a force which can see that the different players including the corporate players do not transgress the law has to remain at the very center of things. Thank you very much.


With your help, we can continue to fight for freedom. This is not possible without your generosity. Join our quest for the truth and our freedom. Simply visit www.realitycheck.radio forward slash donate to make a difference today. And now it's time for Cam's buddies. This week, we'll find out what they think about the collapse of News Hub and the media in general. I'm expecting this buddy's session to be as brutal as it will be honest. My producer has them all lined up ready to go. Let's go now to Cam's buddies. Welcome back to Cam's buddies, Lindley. Good to have you again. Oh, hi Cam, how are you doing? Yeah, great, fantastic. Hey, I've got an interesting topic for you tonight. There's been a lot of wailing in the media about the collapse of News Hub. And I wanted to ask your opinion on that and the general state of the media in general. I'm sure you've got some very wise words to say to those wailing journalists. Well, I can't understand the wailing, but I've got two words for this. We can sum it up in two words, contrived and gone. Yeah. And that absolutely sums it up because mainstream media is contrived, false. And many people are sick of it and they've got new online choices now that they never had before. Yeah, they've got reality check radio for a start. Indeed. And we can listen to very, very extensive interviews that are straight from the cold face, no interrupts from the interviewers. Absolutely brilliant. Yeah. So what do you reckon they can learn? I mean, or will they learn or are they just slow learners? I don't think they can learn. I mean, think of this. Cave walls, clay tablets, smoke signals, morse code. With time, things change, don't they? How come they never saw this coming? Well, I've been saying it for years. It's going to happen this way. Lineal TV, where we've all got a watch according to the schedule they decide for us, has been long dead. We consume our media in many, many different ways, often through iPads or through their computer. You know, they've persisted in this outdated method of delivery of information. And it's often four or five days late anyway. Well, you're absolutely right. TV's dead in the water. And like you say, it has been for years. I mean, you could see the dying spiral. You know, I can't understand how they never saw it because if they class themselves as journalists and some investigative journalists, they couldn't even investigate their own demise and yet it was right in front of their eyes and they've completely failed to adapt. If they had realized it, they could have thought of something innovative, you know, to take its place and take their viewers or listeners onto that. But they failed that, didn't they? And now they're shocked. That's what I can't get over. I think, do you know what I think is the most shocking thing of all? That they've got their hand out for government money? Is the fact that they are shocked. It's just unbelievable. And I mean, honestly, I can't believe that their overflated egos actually think that they have an amazing product. It's an awful product. And I used to watch it years ago and I can no longer watch it. I turn it off. So I'm just an ordinary person, you know, that represents the average Joe blogs, really. Other people turn it off too.  Do they think that's viewable? It's like story time for children. Is it just me that thinks that? No, I don't think it's just you that thinks that. And I think in increasing numbers, people have been turned off both TV and Zed and News Hub for receiving the news. I mean, often stories that they run a four or five days old, then they put a particular slant on it. And you think, well, hang on a second. I read that, you know, somewhere else around the world four or five days ago. And that's not the impression I got from that story. And they've been pushing these. Various minor groups of people in New Zealand as though it's normal, you know, and it's not. I know. And I've got a beauty on that one. That this is this was actually the point that turned me around on the media. And they won't like to know that it involved Donald Trump. They won't like that. But I happen to be watching Fox and Trump came on.  And this is what he said. To some people, COVID is just a cold. To others, it is life-threatening. Now, the very next day, all over our news, in fact, all over the world news, it said, Trump says COVID is just a cold. Yeah. Now, that is not what he said. It is totally misrepresenting what he said. And it was accompanied with a photo of Trump looking as ridiculous as is possible. And this is how they shape our minds.  COVID is very serious. Oh, fair. And we must watch the next episode because it's like a soap opera. Well, they're just liars. They just lie through and through. And they have a format, which I'm sure you're aware of. So we sort of have the newsreader's headline, which captures our attention. And then we have a journalist lead-in, don't we, which sets our emotion for what's to follow. And then we have a video which shows the evidence. And that's often staged. And then the journalist's clothes is usually in a fairly fatalistic tone.  Well, the bad news for them is a lot of people have woken up to that now. And they don't want to watch it.  No, people have had enough. And they've been saying it for a very long time. And these journalists and media people all turn around and say, oh, trust is falling in the media. We need the government to do something about it. They never once stopped to think that perhaps the trust in media falling is as a result of their dishonesty and their lack of integrity in the way they deal with things.  Well, I don't know about you, but when I was a little kid and I was telling fibs to my father, he'd say to me, you're telling stories again, aren't you? And these journalists all running around telling us that they tell great stories. Well, in my head, I just hear they tell great lies. Yes. Well, you and thousands of others. But you know how I love these little one-liners, don't you? I've got one for that. Thou shalt not bear false witness. Yeah, it's a very good one-liner. But they've just ignored their audience. They've carried on doing their activism because you can't call it journalism. No. And then they're all surprised when there aren't enough viewers to support their lavish lifestyles. And all of a sudden, they've gone from hero to zero or rooster to feather duster. No. And the incredible thing is they're not surprised, Cam. They're shocked, quote. They're shocked. I mean, I saw that man on... He was crying. I think he's the head of the whole shebang. He was crying. And he said he was shocked. Shocked. Well, shocked. Yeah. Yeah. He was shocked. And he was crying, you know? Well, I mean, I do feel sorry for the people that have lost their jobs. But hey, they never felt sorry for certain people that lost their jobs three or four years ago. No, they never did.  And then they're shocked, as you say, shocked that the audience has disappeared on them. You know, we're all sitting here snickering and laughing at them. I just think it's just incredible.  And when he called them out on the government funding thing, they disgracefully lied. And I've seen a copy of the funding document. And it states that they must promote colonisation and its negative effect on marriage. They must promote climate change. And if they don't, their funding will be called back in again. Yeah, it's good. Sarah and Black and White. They stood up there in response to Winston Peters calling them out. And they said there was no government influence.  Yeah, that's right. But people are waking up to this. Well, they're going to be waking up to not having these fools gaslighting us. And that's really what News Hub were. They were an organisation that gaslit us, especially during the COVID years. They were Ardern's happy little minstrels that were gleefully singing along. We had a little tover there. Always got the first questions. And if it wasn't tover, it was Jessica. It was so blatant, you know, so blatant. And then they sit there and go, what happened? Yeah, well, like I said, really, the one word for them is contrived right the way through, even for that. And I'll tell you what, if people are listening at the moment, if they don't believe us, I challenge anyone to get on any MSM in New Zealand at the moment and to openly express their concerns about, say, the COVID-19 vaccine and the possible side effects of my carditis, et cetera. They'll never get on. Because the result will be either they'll be totally discredited or they'll be cut off. Yeah. You know? You've got other radio hosts who call anybody with the views that we have, cookers and abuse us and things like that. So they are viciously one-eyed, they are. And I just can't watch it. Like, if there's sort of an event, maybe there's a forest fire heading towards my house or something, I might switch it on to have an update. But even then, I have found a Christchurch source of news, Chris Lynch news. And people have taken to watching that because it's just news, it's just authentic. It's not grooming our minds for political agenda. Well, the other thing, Charles, is if you look at reality check radio, we interview all sorts of people. Now, we don't necessarily agree with their point of view. I certainly don't agree with the majority of the guests that I have on my show. But we let them speak and we let them talk and we let them answer questions.  We're there to listen to what they've got to say. And it's the job of the host to ask sensible pertinent questions that will get more information to the listeners. Well, that's exactly what it is. And that's why people enjoy it. And I do. I mean, I've got past children's stories. And I actually want to hear something fairly extensive and highly detailed. And that's what I get out of it. And they seem to always have people right from the cold face. You know, there's no person in between. We're talking to the actual person concerned with the event or whatever it is. And that's what I really appreciate.  Oh, exactly. I mean, people don't understand the dishonesty that occurs in the mainstream media. I'll give you a good example and it involves me. There was an article two weeks ago about me. It was published at 12.28 PM, you know, just after lunch. And 10 minutes later, I got an email from the journalist asking me for comment on the story they're about to publish, which was already published. And then the bottom line of the article, they say we've approached Mr. Slater for comment, right? So they're deceiving their readers that these people have contacted me before they published the article. And they didn't. And I can prove it. And they've done it time and time and time again. They're just dishonest. And they said to you. Do you think that they're capable of learning that that's not wise? Would appear not. And that's the problem is they don't learn. So then, you know, it's like if you've got a naughty kid, back in the day, you used to give them a pad on the back low enough and hard enough and it's straightened them out. There's no consequences for anything now. There's no consequences for bad behavior. And so people don't learn those lessons and they keep on perpetuating the issues that the things that the mistakes that they keep making because they've never been punished for them or never had a consequence for them. That's correct. And of course, the other consequence they don't get in this case is the budget, you know. If you were running, I don't know, a podcast or something and you started to run out of money, you sort of look at how you can improve your act. You don't run out and fill up 10 credit cards and keep going. They just keep going. I mean, if you look at the losses that they have chalked up, it's absolutely massive but they've kept on going. So somebody has been financially supporting them even though their product is not wanted. Exactly. Well, that's no consequences. No, no consequence at all. Well, I better go to Paul. He's waiting on the line. But thank you very much for your contribution there, Linley. And I'll talk to you again next week. Welcome to Cam's Buddies, Paul. How are you? Very good. Thank you. How yourself? Yeah, box of fluffies, actually. It's, you know, Thursday afternoon and I'm enjoying the radio show and we've got a good topic to talk about and I've just had Linley on and she was scathing of the media. And the topic was, what do you think of the failure of News Hub and the media in general? I think that's a great question and I'm really disappointed at the failure of the News Hub because it's representative of 300 families who are, I guess, stressed and concerned and worried about what's going to happen and that means there's a flood of such people on the market. So if there happens to be any other jobs that arise from this, they'll know that they have their friends and colleagues as applicants and so you'll be competing against each other for what little crumbs there are left and I'm thinking that must be a terrible situation to be in. Having said that, go woke, go broke. I think we're not in any doubt as to what happened and why people are less interested in watching what they're watching and people don't necessarily get their news from television anymore because they seem to be, in my view, during the pandemic, mouthpieces for propaganda and they were happy, anytime I listened, if something came on about Donald Trump, they had a scathing way that they talked of him and they never talked such of Joe Biden who is, in my view, dental and then whenever they're talking to someone about something that I think is either the boy, is it the girl, who knows? They report in the manner that they believe you're supposed to report rather than saying, well, he's having a baby. No, he's not, she's having a baby. Or all this sort of unusual behavior so that we don't know if we're Arthur or Martha leads people into trusting them less. Now, for some reason, they think we all believe this. Most people I speak to don't believe such things. I might live in a very circle of people who think like me but I don't believe so. I go to a number of places where I'm the only white face and when we're having discussions about different things, they all seem to be on the same page as me regarding many of the subjects that we talk about. But another thing that I think is very interesting is to make that news show go and news hub go and all that they do, 300 staff. If you want to look at what will kill any business, it's an over, like, how many hours of production did they produce per day for 300 staff? I watch R.V. Yimini and he can actually produce good content every day with himself at the security guard and the cameraman. And so I'm thinking, well, that's three people. So they'd have to do 100 times more work than R.V. to be earning what they're earning. And I don't believe they do. I think R.V. is probably not too dissimilar in output to them in total. I'm looking, I'm thinking many of the things that they do look like they were going to perhaps struggle. Now, what would I know about business, although I've had a few, and I know that in any, what is it, the Pareto principle that? Yeah, the 80, 20 rule. What is it? Yeah, 20% of the people do 80% of the work. Or if you can, I think it's down to the square root of the staff to 90% of the work. Yeah. So any time you look at a business, and Elon Musk must be a great believer in it because he sacks everybody that's there. They say it's never going to work. And suddenly it's going as good as ever with a tenth of staff. So he must have something right. Yeah, I mean, that's the thing. The media have sat there, moribund, not changing, blaming the audience, blaming everything else as trust has been evaporating before their eyes. And they've been continued to gaslight us on almost anything, like you say about whether a man can have a baby or a man can chest feed or any of this sort of nonsense. They gaslight us on that. They gaslit us about vaccines. They gaslit us about safe and effective. And they wonder why we don't trust them. It's not a surprise. It's a surprise to them, I know, but that's probably because they have to head up their own fundament for most of the time. Well, I found it most interesting. Any interaction I've had with the media, they have completely misrepresented me.  They said that I was a leader of a particular organization. I'm not even a member of the organization. They said at different times that I'm helping this person for the good of myself. And trust me, they were a drain on me and my resources. I was helping them for the good of them because I saw a need. And when things make the paper that are just absolutely challenging of a good deed, and I know no good deed will go unpunished, I know that. But I look and I think when media are seeing someone who's got a mental health issue, and what they do is make it so anybody trying to help them becomes a villain, then I'm thinking, well, maybe they aren't such nice people. And I talked to another friend who said, oh, as soon as you've got this or this or this reporter on your case, they're ruthless, they lie, they edit what you say. So you almost need to take a video of it yourself. And I see different people who, when I think it was the BBC, we're trying to attack Tommy Robinson and they were trying to get people to talk against him. And he videoed them being deceptive and completely lying. And I'm thinking, this is wow stuff. And the public want to believe that the news media are telling you what happened. I'm not as interested in the opinion pieces. I'm more interested in what happened rather than what you think what happened means. So if you tell me what happened, I can draw my own conclusions. I have a reasonable intellect and you tell me what happened and I can draw my own conclusions.  I'm not interested in your slant. What actually happened? And so sometimes... Sorry, go ahead. Yeah, I was just gonna say sometimes these folks, they become the master of their own undoing.  So I just look and I think once there's 300 families, and if any of them are the patriarch of their family, sometimes you have other families hanging on your success. So it could be even a thousand families that have actually gonna suffer after June because of what has happened. And I'm sad about that. But also the people that are in the industry that are doing this, they're gonna lose their jobs. I see a number of them think that they might put a thing to discovery or Disney or whoever it is and say, what about we take it over ourselves? Well, I'd suggest to you they're not business people, otherwise they wouldn't have been reporting opinion pieces. And the business of business sometimes is much harsher in the reality than most people think. There's a lot of people that the grass roots they will think well, if you do this and this and this, it will work. Well, trust me, other people with greater minds than these have thought of it and it's not working.  Well, to my mind, a media organization's greatest asset is trust.  And organizations like News Hub or the New Zealand Herald or Stuff have shown us that they can't be trusted. And Stuff has an editorial policy of not running any information that's contrary to the climate change narrative that's all agreed to by the WEF and everybody else. That's the editorial policy and they'll be the next organization that tips over because they've just got an inherent bias and an inherent dishonesty in everything they do. And the same goes for the New Zealand Herald. I've got a real beef with a couple of journalists if you can call them that at the New Zealand Herald, just because of their dishonesty. Well, I think that it ends up playing out over and over again. Like when people have lost their trust, nothing that like, I was talking to someone recently who was saying that there's likely to be a measles epidemic in the Western world because of the lies that were told about the vaccine that was the COVID vaccine. Now people are thinking, well, I'm not taking any vaccine. And we all know that vaccines are great and good. And well, I know if in my family, we took these measles and rubella and mumps and all the sort of thing. I know there was a lot of people against it at the time. And many of the diseases of the past have kind of gone away. But this is likely to bring them back because of the lack of trust. And I think the media are complicit in this. And as for companies saying that they can't discuss the other side of an agreement because that's their policy and how the science is settled, that is so not scientific. It's laughable if it wasn't actually so sad. But the danger of not allowing free speech, when you don't allow free speech, people die. And the reason I say that is we all have someone saying, I've got an idea in our minds. Let's run down the motorway at 160 kilometers an hour.   And eventually you work through all decisions that you make with these pros and cons of someone chatting in your mind.  And that person that thought that was in your mind is gone. Well, if you can't criticize ideas and have the ideas getting challenged, then instead of killing the idea off, people will lose their lives because of it, because of the lack of free speech. And my belief is more people die of the cold than of the heat in the world. And no one's saying that. And no one's talking, whilst they're talking about the climate change narrative and stuff is, I know that they've said that they're not allowed, the science is settled. They won't ever publish an editorial to the other side of the equation. While I'm talking about that nonsense, they're not bringing in human flourishing. So they're not bringing in, if you take away the greenhouse gases in this, like all the fossil fuels in this, then no one can eat their homes and they die. They're not challenging that.  No, it's actually gaslighting and it's dishonest. I mean, the whole statement about the science is settled just is not how science works. There is no science that's settled. You have theories and you test those theories until you either prove that the theory holds or you just prove it by something else happening. There's almost nothing that's actually proved in science. But they did that and they did that with the vaccine to be safe and effective. It was a lie. And they just pushed that lie constantly and you wouldn't hear anybody say anything different because they wouldn't allow it. Well, it's like the laws. Laws of gravity exist because, and they call them a law because it's happened a million times plus. But everything else like the theory of Pythagoras or the theorem of Pythagoras, now that works every time as well, but it's not as graphic as a law. So we know science doesn't say the science is settled. Otherwise, everything would be a law instead of a theory. And when the theory no longer holds, there's not a theory anymore. That's right. Once it's not a theory, it's a law. But it's a law because it's been proven. There's not a single law about climate change, not one. And all of the thousands of predictions of calamity that they've said were going to happen, like I think Al Gore said that the North Pole would be ice free by 2012. And here we are in 2024 and there's still a whole pile of ice up there. So when does somebody say Al Gore is a liar? Well, on YouTube, there's a number of things. Well, on YouTube isn't the gospel. But on YouTube, there's a number of things. You can look up all the predictions that haven't come true around climate change. And there's a vast number of them where people have predicted this will happen by then and the science sees it, turns out not true. Yeah, exactly. I've got somebody else waiting in the queue, Paul. So I'm going to have to call the call short now and we'll talk again next week. Okay, take care. Bye for now. Thank you. Welcome to Cam's Buddies, Jack. Hi, Cam. Sorry, I was late. I was waiting for Paul.  Whatever. The topic for discussion tonight is the failure of News Hub. Is it bad? Is it good? Is it indifferent? And what do you think the media should be doing or what do you think the prospects for the mainstream media are? Well, firstly, the minute I heard the news, I started watching TV3. I should have been doing it ages ago. I feel really guilty. But the reason why, and I'm sure unlike a lot of other people, we've stayed on TV1, even though it's nowhere near as good, purely because of the chase. I'm a chase fanatic.  Immediately that finishes, the news starts to go, oh, well, that's it. I'll just keep listening or watching. So you're saying it's inertia that people of your advanced ages don't change the channel. And that's why TV3 is folded. I can't say that's the total reason. But it's the reason why I never changed. And I can only make an assumption that others may have felt the same. But as I said before, the minute I knew that... Yeah. Go ahead. Well, it's like that in radio. There's, you know, News Talks, there'd be has a massive audience. And that's a legacy from when the state owned those audiences or those stations. They had one ZB, two ZB, all of those. Well, they all got amalgamated into News Talks ZB. It became a private organization, but nobody changed the dial. And so when MediaWorks started up radio live and then today FM and Magic or whatever, all of the three that they've started, that ultimately failed. They failed because of inertia in some respect, but also because they were a poor facsimile of what everyone was used to. And as a consequence, there was no movement of viewership. Now, I can remember sitting in the lounge of Mum and Dad's place when TV3 started, we were all there to watch TV3 start with, you know, little logo and everything coming up on the screen. I remember that those days, but they haven't really progressed. I mean, I don't think they've ever made a profit. Now, I don't know about you, but there's not many businesses. If you don't make a profit, you can continue on for 30 odd years. Tell me about it. Yeah. I think there's so many options now. A lot of people, the young people in particular, watch everything on their, I don't know, phone, ad or whatever. And less people are actually watching TV. I think it's facilities that are adherents of it. Yeah. Well, I do tend not to watch what's called Lineal TV. Where, you know, you start at the news at six o'clock and then something else at seven and then something else after that and something else after that. I consume my television in bite-sized chunks. I usually watch two or three episodes of a series that I'm enjoying. And I turn the television off for the rest and less on watching Cricket or some sort of sport or something like that. But I don't consume the news because, frankly, it's not news. It's propaganda, as Paul said. And it's often, you know, four or five days after the fact when I actually read the news somewhere else. And they don't cater to the audience. Sometimes I wonder whether I'm going there. I go, I've heard that. Where do I hear that? And then the next item comes on. Oh, man, I know about that. And I'm thinking, where do I hear that? You're right. It's regurgitated over and over again.  What about newspapers? Would you like to go in the Herald newspaper chain right now? No, not particularly. You know, it's literally a sunset industry and the sun setting. And these media types are all sitting there. Like, this is a new revelation when we've actually known that this is the demise of this is going to happen for years.  Well, why are they all gone? Because it was a sunset industry that failed to adapt. And so, you know, Netflix and other streaming options came along. So we've got TV and Z sitting there producing things in a linear form. We've got News Hub producing things in a linear form of TV3.  Well, why didn't you change? You know, why didn't it? It's 10 years since I actually sat down with Mark Jennings in a meeting room and said, you know, unless you change, things are going to, this is what's going to happen in it. And that was, yeah, that was 2014. So it's 10 years ago that I sat down and warned him of that. And in the meantime, they've done literally nothing to mitigate the loss or change or adapt to the way that they serve their customers. But the way they serve their customers, they gaslight us on everything. Yeah, we're all a lot lazier now.  What's on the next? I look at my iPad, look at Sky and say, oh, okay, nothing. Oh, I'll go to Netflix.  Time to stand. Oh, and I go, oh, we're just put for Netflix and so forth. I might have stood up even if it was to put a video in the video player. Yeah, I mean, I think you're right. We consume things differently and these media companies haven't changed. You know, they just have not adapted fast enough. And they're literally like the buggy whip manufacturers clamouring for government support to maintain their business when everybody else is actually out there driving Ford's, Model T Ford's or something similar. Yep, we hate change. And I tell you what, another phenomenon, when I have an acquaintance around or two and it comes six o'clock next minute, we better watch the news. So then I go, oh, which news channel do you want? Oh, we watch one. So whatever I'm watching, we have to go to one. Now it's not just one person that's done that. Who's house is it? Quite a lot of people. I know. I mean, honestly, yeah, come on, Jack. Put your foot down. Leo, now we're watching my news and we're going to get it from here. It's your place. Yeah, but the point I'm making is people hate change. They get used to one thing. I can remember I was really looking forward to Paul Holmes starting on 1ZB and I was there on day one and thinking, what's this all about? And it became a phenomenon, this talkback radio thing. A huge phenomenon. And it progressed now through to motormouth. Yeah, well now you're on a talkback show. That I'm hosting. Exactly. All right, Jack, thanks for your contribution and we'll talk again next week. Right, see you again, bye. Thanks, bye. Welcome to Cam's Buddies, Jimmy. Good to have you back. Good day, Cameron. You good this week again? Always good, mate. And even if I'm not, I'll just lie to you. Now what do you got for me this week, mate? There's a lot happening. Well, speaking of liars, you would have been a complete media junkie. You would have seen the news that News Hub is closing down in June or July or something like that. Can't be soon enough. What are your thoughts on that? And what do you think the prospects are for other mainstream media that are out there? Well, they're all too woke and they've got no audience and they're going broke. And that's just what's happened. And I can't believe News Hub's lasted this long. Been perilously close to bankruptcy for ages even when TV3 hit it. But I know plenty of people over 70 who have completely tuned out of the news and newspapers where they used to do daily just don't view it at all. There's just two works. There's just completely different product than what they want to consume. So they go after it. And all these sort of linear TV stations are buggered anyway because who watches pre-prescribed time television? Everyone on their watch is on the map. Yeah, exactly. Paul was saying that it's just... Yeah. Sorry. You were saying? Oh, sorry. Yeah, well, it's just that it's a motor car revolution for the buggy carriages, right? It's just that's all it is. Exactly.  And he said, everyone that I know thinks that that's rubbish.  The science has settled or any other topic that you care to mention. You can almost guarantee that the news hub or the mainstream news media in New Zealand will give an opposite view of what the majority of Kiwis think. Yeah, they live in way too much of a bubble. And the only people surprised that they're going broke are the journalists themselves. Toby O'Brien, you know, left TV3, started a work TV station that was predicted to take down another opposition of yours, not even close to it, gone. You know, just, no, just, and now she's got stuff and it's probably won't even last a year. So these guys, they just live in some sort of bubble. I just can't understand it. I don't get it. It's not just Toby O'Brien. I mean, you look at the way General Lynch has carried on since the news happened and it's like she's blaming the government because they didn't bail them out. You know, why didn't they just get better? Why didn't they change? Why didn't they actually represent what their viewers think instead of trying to tell us a whole bunch of rubbish and gaslight us on all sorts of issues? Well, you know, as I said also to another caller, you know, trust is something that is valuable in an immediate organization. It's something that should be nurtured and cherished and protected. And as soon as that trust is gone and you can look at trust in any sort of, you know, relationship, whether it's a customer relationship or a personal relationship, as soon as trust is gone, it's gone. It doesn't come back. And by becoming the propaganda wing of the Ardennes regime, everyone lost trust in the media. I mean, you can't describe it any other way.  Why would we trust them? But I think there's a wider problem here and a lot of it's to do with the Ardennes regime where people have lost a lot of trust in their institutions, which used to be mutually political, you know, like the police or the health workforce, you know, the national vaccine numbers are a massive decline, whereas previously, they, you know, they were always getting reasonable, you know, whereas people have just completely lost trust in looking to other sources. And it's a real big problem. I mean, do you trust that judiciary? No. Do you trust their police to vote back here? No. Yeah, exactly. And that's a big problem. Ardennes did so much damage to our country. Well, when she set up the Public Interest Journalism Fund, that just turned them all into bribed propagandists on behalf of the regime. They prescribed. It was kind of a condition. Yeah, exactly. It came with conditions and the conditions where if you didn't agree to this, you didn't subscribe to it. A, you wouldn't get the money or B, if you changed, then we'd ask for the money back. I don't know how they can describe that as not a bribe. Winston's dead spot on about that, but the media fight him and say that he's wrong and they might even conspire to stop reporting his comments. Did you see that? Yeah, but these are the same media who tell us men can have babies. It's just, yeah. So how did this pan out? How did it? Well, I hope it pans out in catastrophic failure and then out of the ashes will come more nimble, more customer focused organizations, like us at Reality Check Radio. I mean, our audience numbers are growing. People like what we're producing. They're dipping into their own pockets to fund it. We're not expecting the taxpayer to fund us. We're not applying for any government grants or anything like that for Reality Check Radio. We are surviving on the basis that we're looking after our audience in many diverse ways. And that doesn't mean having a monoculture of what we're allowed to talk about. I can talk about support for Israel. Another host can talk about support for Palestine. That means we're covering all the angles. We let our guests talk. We're not interrupting them. We're not machine gunning them. We're not trying to defeat them at every opportunity. We just want to listen to what people call us like yourself or others have to say. And that's what people like. Well, I think you're definitely having some success because I noticed some comments in the mainstream media about Reality Check Radio being conspiracy radio and questioning why MPs are allowed to go on it. It's because they're obviously... Unalarmed. Yeah. We're taking their audience away from them. And instead of saying, well, actually I'm losing my audience here. I need to change or adapt or do something like that or understand what the audience wants to hear. They sit there and wag the finger at the audience and go, don't go there. Those people are crazy. Those people are nuts. And we're all sitting there thinking, actually, you guys are the ones who are crazy.  And we're going to go and listen to Reality Check Radio because we hear both sides of the argument. You've got people like Rodney Hyde and I don't see eye to eye on anything almost, but we happily coexist in a radio station in the media space where all differences are welcomed. Paul Brennan and I don't agree on absolutely everything. That's just the way it is. Yeah, but you shouldn't agree with everyone on everything.  And they're surprised at that because the bubble is so powerful. Yeah, and I can talk about what I want on my show and Rodney and Paul and all the other hosts, they can talk about what they want on their show. There's no editorial figure-wagging. There's no agreed policy position like stuff has with climate change, for instance. There's no woke agenda in this station, that's for sure. In fact, we're anti-woke. Well, keep up the good work, Cameron. It's obviously working. I, how do you think this plays out in the wider sense? We have an American election at the end of the year and you're potentially lining up where both sides aren't gonna accept the result of the election. You know, we certainly, because of social media, we're certainly becoming more tribal. Yeah, the polarization is a bad thing. Yeah, it is. We should all hate politicians at both sides, but no, we're going to this position no matter what politicians say on either side, their side will support it and hate whatever the other side says. I don't think that's healthy, eh? That's the greatest gift that Nicky Harger gave me. He divorced me from party politics. It made me criticise all the parties.  So I think he's the David Brent of New Zealand politics. Oh, he's trying to cuddle the soft center, you know this, you've been around long enough, you know this, you can't not cuddle the soft center to keep power, mate. It's just a reality. You should just cuddle common sense and people will agree with you.  It's massaged, it's rehearsed. He is apparently an authentic politician, eh? Yeah, and it shows. Even taking that money, which it just looks so bad.  That one way is to go, oh, no, terribly sorry, da, da, da. He dug in and then he reversed it, which is the worst thing you can do with vacillation. It just shows weakness, you know. He was reverse ferreted by the media and now they know if you just give him a bit of pressure, he caves. Or you could have taken my approach as they stuff you. Every other MP gets recompense for their accommodation and I am too. And I don't care what you think and that would have been the end of the story. But no, he goes for the soft center. Let's go and hug his way out of the problem and it just made him worse and it made him look weak. Oh, look, Maxxer makes like Seymour and Winston look good. They don't know. Oh, yeah, look, Luxon was away on Tuesday over in Australia and Winston Peters was was in the house and he just tore Hipkins apart. And then Marama Davidson tried to have a go and he just just batted that away too. I mean, you can't beat the old Silver Fox and David Seymour was smart as well. He just needs to curb his sometimes supercilious jokes that he likes to play. But yeah, I think you're right.  Well, is there any more genuine politicians than Winston and David at the moment? They both say what they believe. They're both doing exactly what they said that. Is it genuinely genuine? Well, Shane Jones will be in there. Shane Jones was I mean, he's he announced on Tuesday that he's going to introduce legislation to overturn the oil and gas ban. So, you know, he's a he's a politician who just speaks his mind and we need more politicians like that who just speak truth and and, you know, it doesn't he doesn't care whether the media are upset by that. You know, I imagine they're all furiously tapping away on their keyboards about how terrible it is for the environment that we're going to drill for our own oil and gas instead of importing it. Well, resources provide our, you know, our wealth and our way of life.  If we give it up, you just giving up what you have, you know, you can't have world-class health care and education and transport and, you know, someone if you don't make the wealth and we get it from natural resources, you know, good on Shane, that's excellent news. Anyway, that's about my rant this week, Cameron. Yeah, and we'll talk again next week. Thanks for calling in, Jimmy. Thank you. See you. No holding back there. The truth bombs dropped if only the other media would listen. I'm so blessed to have such a great bunch of mates and new buddies to share anything with. And they're so wise and speak common sense. Tell us your thoughts on Cam's buddies by emailing inbox at realitycheck.radio or text to 2057. Thanks for tuning in to RCR, Reality Check Radio. Do you like what you're listening to or dislike what you're listening to? Either way, we want to hear from you. Get in touch with us now. You can text us with your message to 2057. 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