The Speak Life Podcast, sharing Jesus in everyday life.
SPEAKER_05Hello, welcome everybody to the live cast. My name's Glenn Scriven, and over there with the noisy iPad, it is uh Paul Feasy offering his apologies immediately. Ever the professional. Uh we are talking today about uh nine responses to the London Bridge terror attack uh on uh on Friday. And uh if you're watching on YouTube there, you have the nine already. So spoiler alert, there it is, that's where we're heading. Um there have been all sorts of different takes on the the terror attacks on Friday. But um Paul, when did you first hear about these terror attacks? And can you maybe bring us up to speed on what actually happened on Friday?
SPEAKER_04Yep. Uh so first I knew about it was in some texts because I'm part of a house group, bloke's house group, and I just saw some messages saying, you know, is everybody okay? Because a lot of the guys who uh go to our church work up in kind of London Bridge and around that area, and people were saying, you know, did you get back okay? And actually everybody fortunately had you know, by chance come home early, and you know, so they'd managed to get out of London as well, not just get stuck there. Um so yeah, I mean it seems to have been that there was uh this this man, Usman Khan, who has uh attacked and stabbed uh a number of people in a fishmonger's hall, is that right? Um before that kind of spilled out onto the streets where he was kind of challenged by some members of the public who um who seemed who stopped him, um, but then it was revealed that or he revealed he had some kind of vest on that looked like a suicide vest, at which point the armed police had arrived by that stage and he was shot immediately on that.
SPEAKER_05So yeah, brilliant. And we've got some great footage uh from the uh chief executive of the Fishmonger Livery Company, and uh he kind of brings us up to speed on what happened right before all those famous videos that you might have seen of uh Usman Khan being taken on by uh Narwhal Tusk and a fire extinguisher. But let's let's hear it from him uh what actually took place on that Friday afternoon.
SPEAKER_03He's the guy who cleans the glasses down in the basement, and that's exactly what he was doing when he hears this scream. Uh the scream is so loud that as a first aider he uh makes a uh choice, he goes towards the uh trouble. He gets there on the first floor, the building just behind me. And uh it's pretty clear that uh there's a bad guy, he's got two knives in his hand, uh, there's blood, there's screaming, there's chaos. Lucas uh pulls off the wall this uh this long stick, he charges towards uh the bad guy, and uh he he he impacts him on the chest, and uh there's um clearly something here that is protective and uh it doesn't make any uh any any any sort of impact. Uh but he's buying time, he allows others to uh to escape to move to uh adjacent rooms. Uh at that point he's got about a uh a one-minute uh one-on-one straight combat. Uh this guy we now know by the name of Khan, he works his way up uh Lucas' uh poles, smashing with this knife, and takes uh he takes five wounds to his uh left side and uh is uh gonna lose some strength on that side. But he's done what he needed to do in the first instance. So uh two other guys who are um uh part of the charity, one's got a fire extinguisher now, and uh one's got this larval tusk uh ripped off the wall. Uh they come and join the fight, and uh it's pretty gruesome. Uh I think the uh the terrorists decided he was outnumbered. He runs for it, he uh he goes down the main staircase, and the next uh the next bit of hell is uh is at reception. He can't get out the front door, so he turns to reception when uh a guy called Gareth, who's the uh the doorman, is is pushing the door shut as as good as he can, so that Dawn, a younger behind, can get on the telephones, uh hit the alarms, do exactly as her training is told to do. Khan shifts his position to the cloakroom, the girls there, uh Allah and Sandra, they they they have a hell of a time. Uh and then eventually it all comes to a great sort of showdown in the uh in the entrance hall. Uh Lucas is back in this point leading the charge. Uh and Andy's the uh the last guy introduced here. He's our maintenance man. I'll tell you what, two things, he's a Ministry of Defence uh ex-policeman, uh, and he's also a pretty cool customer. But when the knife goes to his chest and uh you know kill or open the door is the uh is the choice. Uh he pauses for a moment. He's uh he's reluctant to spill all this out onto the pavement when uh members of the public are going to be uh facing the same problems, but he makes exactly the right choice. The door's opened, uh out uh the terrorist falls, and uh and the first one after him is uh Lucas shouting uh at everyone to get out of the way, get back. Um but I'll tell you what, members of the public they just don't do that nowadays. Uh they uh they they do what they needed to do, they join in. Uh the man with the fire extinguisher, the man with an armor tusk, they're all in there. Lucas is uh losing uh losing strength on his left side at this point, but um I'll tell you what, his job is done. The uh the the police are here, and I think you've seen the rest uh already on camera.
SPEAKER_05So we did see uh the rest on camera. What was it that you first saw on social media as you were following this story?
SPEAKER_04First thing I saw on social media was uh the uh the narwhal tusk. Yes. That was the kind of the viral thing almost immediately that kind of was out there.
SPEAKER_05Yes, and and for those who don't know what a narwhal tusk is, and none of us did until Friday, what what actually is a narwhal?
SPEAKER_04Yeah, well it's a type of whale, I believe. So uh yeah, and and it was one of those bizarre things you kind of wonder where did this you know, who has a narwhal tusk just lying around with Fishmonger's livery company. Apparently, yes, it was on the wall when this guy, I think it was alluded to in the video, wasn't it? That uh this guy pulled it off the wall and used it to um, you know, attack the attacker effectively and defend against him.
SPEAKER_05Yes. For for those who don't know, uh in London, in the city of London, there are all sorts of livery companies that are sort of like um like really ancient trade unions, really. And there's the fishmongers and the haberdashers, and there's all sorts of people who have trades and they would get together. And it was a bit a bit of a um uh a bit of an economic clique that you had to um you had to get membership of if you were going to be a fishmonger in the city of London, you had to belong to the livery company. So um, yes, these livery companies have bags of cash um these days, and they have very nice premises like this one uh right on London Bridge, and they have uh exotic things on their walls like Narwhal Tusks. Um but that I guess is a weapon when it needs to be, and uh and this is well so this is the first of the nine takes that we're gonna have a look at in terms of you know how have people responded to um the London Bridge incidents, and it's the social media take, which is the hottest of hot takes. It's instant, it's memeable, um it's quirky.
SPEAKER_04And and a lot of people I think um so I mean I saw footage of uh that people had filmed from the buses that were alongside where this was taking place. And um to them, you can tell for the large majority of what they're filming, you can see these you know two or three guys trying to spray this guy with a fire extinguisher and they've got this narwhal task and things. Um they seem relatively amused by it because I think that clearly they've not really understood what's gone on down the road because that that's out of sight for them. Um and for them it is very much like, oh, here's just some guys in the street having a brawl, and it looks slightly amusing what's going on. Um and then it's only you know when that kind of dies down and the the police are there and this guy gets shot that suddenly everybody kind of realizes something a lot more serious has gone on.
SPEAKER_05Yeah. So and I think that's a little microcosm of what it's like for everybody, like on social media. That was my first thing, you know, people making jokes about narble tusks and like what's a narble tusk, and suddenly it's probably the most Googlable thing in that hour uh on on Friday. And it's quirky and it's interesting and Yeah, yeah, oh absolutely.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, it's very kind of I mean, and so the guy who wielded it was a Polish guy, wasn't he? Right. But I mean, just the whole situation, you look at this kind of fire extinguishers and narble tusks, there's a kind of you know, quirky Britishness to it's like Basil Fulti, you know, taking out of another. Exactly, it is that kind of thing.
SPEAKER_05So yeah. And so you can see why it, you know, it's a bit of a chuckle. But just like those people in the bus, they didn't know what was happening. And so many people tweeting and retweeting this, uh, we haven't really been cognizant of the fact that there are two people who've just died. Yeah. And you know, three others have been stabbed. And so, you know, the social media take, um, though it is the the fastest and the hottest of hot takes, um, might might let us down in terms of depth and wisdom and and perspective and and all those sorts of things. Um, and for me it was it was kind of a um it was a wake-up call that that yeah, the the world you live in in social media is full of hashtags and funny, quirky jokes. Um but it's it's probably no way to digest what's really going on in the world, you know. Um you know, i I mean, so often the way I receive the news is I work backwards from some joke that somebody's made on Twitter. Right, yeah, yeah. And now I know what the headline is because there's a punchline that I don't quite get, and that's the way I figure out the news, isn't it? That's yeah, that might not be the best way of figuring out what's going on in the world. So that was the sort of the social media take. And following hot on the heels of that, um because social media collapses all differences of context and and collapses all horizons, and it feels like because the news is coming to you in your your own handheld device, whatever whatever's going on, even if it's on the other side of the world, it feels like it's just happened next door. And so lots of people want to have views on let's say guns.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_05Um, and so that that led to a a number of different takes uh online. We had one tweet uh from somebody who said, America, only guns can keep us safe. Great Britain, pass me the nullwall task and a fire extinguisher. Um and again, you know, playing into that whole um, yeah, that's funny and it works.
SPEAKER_04It's a meme culture of stuff, but also making a bit of a point there about that issue.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, yeah. And so whenever these mass killings happen, um there comes a debate about what kind of weaponry is open for civilians to have and what kind of weaponry isn't. And I guess in this case, we were limited to some I were they like kitchen knives? They weren't the largest knives, were they?
SPEAKER_04Yeah, I mean I'm not I'm not sure where w some people uh were unclear where he'd got the knives from, whether he'd actually picked them up from somewhere. Yeah, you know, he had brought them with him. So I'm not sure, but I I'm pretty sure they were any standard kind of kitchen style knives.
SPEAKER_05Yes. Um we're not talking about AR-15s and we're not talking about a hail of bullets.
SPEAKER_04No, absolutely not. You know, though I mean it was people were able to get close to this guy, you know, with his with his knife, you know, with a fire extinguisher and a narwhal tusk. Yes. Um and their bare hands, you know, some of them, you know, so um Yeah. The only one with guns was the the police who Yeah, and obviously a a very specific armed response unit, SO 19 is it, I think they're called. Um kind of armed unit. Who were there with it from what I stand within five minutes.
SPEAKER_05Right. I think even less, yeah, yeah, yeah. So um but you get you get tweets along the lines of uh you know, we need greater access to guns, because guns are the great equalizer. Um if you've got a bad guy with a gun, what you need is other good guys. Good guys with the guns. With the guns. And so this guy tweeted this, David Wall. Um he said on Twitter, uh, takeaway from London Bridge incident, if law-abiding Londoners could carry firearms legally, it probably wouldn't have happened. Amazing how bold the terrorists are when they know their victims will be unarmed. Um that wasn't a popular tweet on this side of the pond.
SPEAKER_04No, I mean I don't know who that guy is. So I mean I think he looked like he's got a blue tick, so maybe he's someone. But um the way I saw that was just so many people's responses back against it, just saying, like, what are you talking about? This is crazy. Like had he had you know, if there was access to weaponry, this would have been a far worse tragedy than it even is. Maybe you know so likely that many more people would have been victims of of that.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, I d I just don't think multiplying the lethal force that's available to people.
SPEAKER_04No, and it doesn't seem to be what the statistics show, mm-hmm because I mean I think we've got another screenshot, haven't we, of uh an article from the Tennessee Polar. So it says on it uh the part of their headline, 97 deaths in terror attacks in the UK since 2005, over 408 deaths in mass shootings this year alone in the States. If you want to reduce deaths from terrorism and effectiveness of terrorists, strict gun control is a good way to do it. And that's a stark I mean that's a stark number, isn't it? So that's 97 deaths. That and it says in terror attacks, so that doesn't just mean gun related in the UK, that's including vehicles and all kinds of things since 2005. So that's in where are we now? So we're 14 years. You know, there's been ninety-seven, whereas four hundred and eight deaths simply by shooting in the US this year alone, which is I mean, if you adjust for population and the years, I mean the vast, vast difference.
SPEAKER_05So yeah. But it it is a bit of a cliche that people want to jump onto this issue very quickly and make it about guns, make it about the very you know, the implement that causes the death. Um when actually, as we're gonna see, uh there are all sorts of ideologically uh ideological and religious um matters at play that are far more powerful even than guns, uh, as we will see. Um so that's the social media take, that's the NRA take. And then we've got the Tory take, because it's election season, so never never let a tragedy go to waste if it's election season. Please use it as a political football. That's that's what so many parties want to do, and so the the Conservatives tweeted out about tougher sentencing uh for uh for terrorists. Um and you know, that there is there is an argument to be made that this guy, he was given 16 years for his terror offence, he was let out after eight years. Sure. There there does seem to be a an er an issue of things falling through the cracks here.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, I mean I I haven't had a chance to look into all the details, but there was some the sense of under a particular system after eight years it was almost an automatic process rather than just simply you're up for parole and now we'll think about it, and that allowed him back out onto the street. Now I can't speak to the complete accuracy of that, but yeah, um yeah. But people were like you say, Boris Johnson conservatives were quick to jump on it despite the fact the family were saying please don't use this.
SPEAKER_05Right. Um Yeah, because Jack Merritt um is the one of the c one of the two who died, just Jack Merritt and Saskia Jones. And Jack Merritt, uh, I think was he was the student president or the president of um this institute. Um what are they called? Let me get the uh the Learning Together program. Um and uh he obviously very much believed in rehabilitation. He very much believed in inviting Usman Khan into this situation as a great redemptive tale about what can happen when somebody's de-radicalized. So Jack Merritt believed in and paid for with his own life a kind of a uh a rehabilitation view of of um crime and punishment, you know, restorative justice rather than just retributive justice. So it it you know, I I can understand why his family got very upset with the Tories making this about punitive justice when literally their son is exactly the thing he's sitting there working against or paid for with his life. Yeah. Um so the the the Tory take was to make you know political gain out of this. Um but you know, Labour, Labour too. Um their take, um using Jeremy Corbyn as uh the mouthpiece, it's all about austerity. Um you were reading some stuff.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, so I mean Corbyn had said that convicted terrorists should not necessarily serve their full sentence, calling instead for a wider focus on issues such as rehabilitation and de-radicalisation. But then in a later speech, he condemned cuts to areas such as probation and mental health or youth services, saying this was likely to create missed chances to intervene in the lives of people who go on to commit inexcusable acts. Um and then he goes on and says real security doesn't only come from strong laws and intelligence, it also comes from effective public services that have the funding they need. And you know, for me reading that, I just think like he's way off the mark here. Um the idea I mean there are certainly people who are who come into get involved in crime because of those things, but all the evidence suggests that this this event had nothing to do with anything like that. I mean, this guy, the reason he went out and did these things was because of a radical Islamic ideology. It wasn't because his local services have been cut. Like no, no and no terrorist motivation is that. No terrorist is sitting there saying, you know, oh they've closed the local short start centre. That's it, we've got to take this into our own hands. I'm gonna say I'm gonna go do these kind of things. That is not the motivation at all, and it just seems just so ridiculous that Corbyn could even use this in that.
SPEAKER_05It just shows it just shows that it's it's election season, doesn't it? Like the Tories instantly go to crime and punishment, tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime, and Labour goes to, oh, it's Tory austerity. Yeah. You know, the the scapegoats that you want to blame stuff on. Um so you know, no one politically comes out of this looking very good.
SPEAKER_04I mean, I think uh one issue I think though politicians do face, and I and it's slightly different in this case because the family of Jack uh Merritt very specifically said please don't use this. But I think the reality is that whenever anything happens, if a politician comments on it, people will say, Oh, stop using this for your own advantage, and if they don't comment on it, people will say, Well, we've still not heard anything from these people. So it's that kind of your downed if you do, downed if you don't type thing. So you know, as a public, we're not very Yeah, yeah. We're not very open to these things anyway. We just we want to have a pop at the politicians regardless.
SPEAKER_05So it's very incentivized for them to then come up with security theatre, I know what we're gonna do, we're gonna you know, double waiting lists at security at airports and things like that. You know, and that that that's kind of the reality because they don't want to just be seen as offering condolences because then people come back and say, What are you gonna do about it? Yeah, what are you gonna do with your thoughts and prayers? That's not gonna help. Right. Like it's that kind of stuff, isn't it? And that brings us on um to the fifth take, the hero's take, because I I I think a lot of that is fueled by we don't want to feel as helpless as terror attacks make us feel. We don't want to feel like some maniac could just pull a knife on us, like for no reason. We're getting on with our day, and then he ends our lives. We don't want to feel like the world is that scary. We want to feel like we're in control, and so that you know that's where the hero's take comes in. Um because we do we do love the hero narrative. Um we we do love the idea of that guy Lucas with the Nahuel you know tusk.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, and dude with a fire extinguisher and Right, you know.
SPEAKER_05Because you can you can you can almost hear the music, can't you? You can like of the film. Like you can you can hear Hans Zimmer comes in and he knows to to like to rip a Nahuel tusk off a wall.
SPEAKER_04Like like I mean it just that in itself is like something from a film, isn't it?
SPEAKER_05It's just when would you ever think that that was appropriate? I mean he must have seen some pretty serious stuff to realise, you know, I can I can take this off the wall because you know no one's gonna get upset with me for this. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So he he must have known, you know, cometh the hour, cometh the man. But we we love that idea of of someone taking charge and someone taking down the terrorist, and certainly for the weekend, until more details of the victims came out, the big story was the heroes. And so and and so you can understand, because the details of the victims hadn't come out, and we we weren't really thinking about grieving, we weren't really thinking about the loss of life. I think the heroes came to the fore, and we like that idea. We like the idea of someone taking charge, ending the bad guys, ha, one-nil, bad guy, we you know, the good guys win. Um But I do I do wonder whether that well, at that point we forget Saskia Jones is bleeding to death at that point. You know, Jack Merritt is is bleeding at that point. And when you when you have that perspective, it it can feel um it can feel hollow to be going, yay, you know, yay for Narwell Tusks, you know. Yeah. But I understand, I understand why we want to put ourselves in the shoes of the heroes, because we don't want to put ourselves in the shoes of the victims. We don't want to be the weak one. Um we want to tell the hero story. Um but some sometimes, as we'll see, um sometimes I think we need to embrace the tragic narrative and we need to embrace ah, this is time to mourn, this is time to grieve. Um as well as celebrate those who did what they could to stop uh to stop this disaster. But so that's the that's the hero's take. Um and then there's the there's the redemption take. Um now obviously the meeting that actually brought all these people together, including brought Usman Khan to London Bridge, uh, was a meeting of the Learning Together program, uh based out of Cambridge, and uh this this is why Usman Khan was there. He was going to give a testimony to how he was de-radicalized. Yeah. How ironic. And then then he ends up killing at at at that very program. But An another story that came out was that there was uh a murderer who was out uh on day release, he was uh attending the same thing, I believe, um, called James Ford. And uh he had been in prison for uh murdering uh a woman with learning difficulties, and yet the headlines were murderer out on day release, you know, saves people and comes to the aid of those, you know. And so in in one sense, you know, James Merritt and and Saskia Jones um their desire to see redemption happen, you know, in a hugely tragic circumstances, kind of came true.
SPEAKER_04And it's fascinating to see that kind of response by the media to it when so often when you you scroll through Twitter feeds or whatever and you see someone who's done something wrong, despite the way we like to think of ourselves being civilized and progressive, there's often a lot of like, let's lock them up and throw away the key and or they should be killed or you know, right neutered and all these kind of things, you know, like actually some quite barbaric views still come out. And so then to have somebody who had committed something a a terrible crime to them being pointed out and people saying, No, here's someone who's turned themselves around and is in some sense the hero, a hero in this situation, that's an interesting thing to see in our society. Yeah, you know.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, yeah. Um the family of the murder victim um was very understandably um very unhappy. They didn't know that um this guy was out on day release, and you know, they quite rightly said, you know, what if we were walking through London and we'd seen him across the roads, yeah. Our killer when we thought he was meant to be in prison. Um so there there are questions over that. But um we do like the idea of redemption. And actually, James Merritt and Saskia Jones have very much believed in that kind of redemption, and the Learning Together program was all about getting uh offenders and ex-offenders studying together with criminal criminology students, and they're all learning together in the same environment, giving them a peer group, giving them a sense of community and belonging, and you know, trying to trying to see uh rehabilitation happen, not just retributive justice. Um now that is a really laudable aim. Who knows what will happen with the Learning Together program now. Um yeah, I think Usman Khan uh ruined a lot. Uh and whether he's ruined that program too, we shall see.
SPEAKER_04Well, maybe we'll see. I mean we're gonna see in our next take, think about the rehabilitation take. And we've got some different angles there on perhaps why the way you approach rehabilitation with someone who's come from uh a radical, you know, Islamic background may be slightly different to how you would approach it with someone who's grown up with Western values and has moved into crime for different reasons.
SPEAKER_05So Right. So you've got James Ford there at the Learning Together program, together with Usman Khan. Yep. James Ford has killed someone. Usman Khan hasn't at that stage, right?
SPEAKER_04No, so he was in prison for being part of a bomb plot, is that right? Right.
SPEAKER_05Yep. Um and so we see a kind of a redemptive arc for James Ford. Usman Khan, the very opposite. Um, what's the difference between James Ford and Usman Khan? Um I think we've got a a great clip uh here from from David Wood uh from Acts 17 Apologetics. Uh so he has a great focus on Islam, and uh he talks us through in this clip um the the three aspects of trying to rehabilitate a uh a terrorist, someone who um has radical thinking, how do you de-radicalize them? Uh and David Wood has got some uh interesting stuff to say on how you do that, how you change minds and hearts, and whether we're aiming at exactly the wrong things when we try to rip rehabilitate people in the West. Uh let's have a look at David Wood.
SPEAKER_02This program is built and designed for Western prisons.
SPEAKER_00Several years ago, I posted a video titled The Jihad Triangle, in which I explained that jihad isn't the result of one factor, mere belief in Islam, but the result of three factors. Jihad requires, one, belief that Islam is true, two, some understanding of what Islam teaches about jihad, and three, the right personality type. Some people are willing to die for what they believe, others aren't. When you have someone who, one, believes that Muhammad's words are true, two, knows what Muhammad said about jihad, and three, is willing to lay down his life for what he knows, you get jihad. Usman Khan obviously had the Jihad Triangle. Illuminati. But he was sent to prison. Now, if you send a jihadi to prison and you know he's going to be released one day, you'd better make sure you remove at least one of the sides of the jihad triangle. If you don't, you're releasing a jihadi, and it's only a matter of time before he goes on a killing spree. But which side should you try to remove? Should you try to change his personality type? Should you try to transform him from a man who's willing to die for what he believes into a man who isn't willing to die for what he believes? Sorry, but you're not going to change his personality type. Should you try to undermine his understanding of jihad? In other words, should you try to convince him that Islam is really a religion of peace? That's the goal of the de-radicalization programs that terrorists are put through. Unfortunately, no serious jihadi is going to learn about Islam from a booklet handed to him by the British government. He gets his religion from Allah and Muhammad, and he already knows what they say. He'll be happy to pretend that the de radicalization program is really making a difference in his life, but that's just to help him get out on parole. The best chance you have of changing a jihadi's mind is targeting the remaining side of the jihadi triangle, his belief that Muhammad is a true prophet. Some of you are thinking, no, you can never change a jihadi's mind. Absolute nonsense. If you pile on enough facts about Muhammad and you refute enough lies about Muhammad, a lot of people will leave Islam. Not all of them, but a lot of them. And many of those who don't leave Islam will nevertheless have their confidence shaken to the point where they're not going to go out and slaughter a bunch of unbelievers. The reason we don't see many jihadis leaving Islam is that they never have their confidence shaken. Their family tells them Muhammad was great. Muhammad was wonderful. All their friends tell them Muhammad was great. Muhammad was wonderful. Their Imams and Shaykhs tell them Muhammad was great. Muhammad was wonderful. Politicians tell them Muhammad was great. Muhammad was wonderful. Not that they care what politicians say. Journalists tell them Muhammad was great. Muhammad was wonderful. Not that they care what journalists say. Actors tell them Muhammad was great. Muhammad was wonderful. Not that they care what actors say. Educators tell them Muhammad was great. Muhammad was wonderful. Not that they care. What educators say. And no one is going to walk up to these guys and tell them the truth about Muhammad because people are scared of them.
SPEAKER_05Sides of the triangle, you've got uh so the the radical believes Muhammad's words about jihad, they believe that Muhammad is a true prophet, and they're the sort of personality type that's gonna die for what they believe in. You get all three and you'll get a jihadi. Yep.
SPEAKER_04Um so quite, you know, insightfully, I think trying to think about how do you pick that apart, and what side can you get at?
SPEAKER_05Yeah.
SPEAKER_04Um, and you know, actually trying to pick apart their belief that Mohammed was a a good prophet or a prophet, someone to be listened to, seems to be the one to go down. Um I think you know, obviously at the end there is you know, and so and so says this, and so and so tells them this, and so this. Um, you know, it's verging into the realms of absurdity, but there is this kind of weird thing running through Western society at the moment, isn't there, where you cannot question the ideology of Islam, for to question the ideology is to be Islamophobic. Um, you know, and particularly when he said they're like actors will tell them, you know. I reminded very much of that interview with um Ben Affleck Ben Affleck and Sam Harris, where Ben Affleck loses his mind over the idea that Sam Harris is saying, Well, this is what Islam teaches, this is what it's like in the Middle East, and Ben Affleck just w is calling him racist, and he means he's he's furious. It's gross, yeah. Yeah, and I mean he won't countenance the idea, and then you look, but then you think like what does Ben Affleck know? You know, you know, Ben Affleck, I'm Batman. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. But uh the idea that Ben Affleck has got any idea about Islam is quite frankly laughable.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_04But yet it's voices like his who actually make it difficult for ideologies to be questioned. Right, right. Because if anyone questions it, like Sam Harris did, immediately they trotted out as being racist and Islamophobic.
SPEAKER_05Right, right. And and the result is you don't actually aim at the the most important point for the jihadi, which is the allegiance to the words of Muhammad, right?
SPEAKER_04And I mean and he makes a good point about the de-radicalization side, you know, he said, well, they're not gonna listen to you know the some Western, you know, Western person's view on de-radicalization. Right. Because they have no respect for that. So it's laughable.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, so it's it's secular people trying to handle a deeply religious issue.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_05And I think that's that's where the difference with James Ford comes in, because you know, he's a secular guy, you know, being dealt with in a secular way, and he seems to have had some kind of measure of rehabilitation. Who knows? I mean, it was just one incident on a on a bridge on on Friday, but um but there seems to be a big difference between James Ford um coming through this Learning Together program and Usman Khan, the big difference being the deeply ingrained ideology that Islam has given to Usman Khan. And you know, trying to trying to take on the deeply held ideological views is like trying to take on a volcano with a with a water pistol. You just you you're not gonna really do it. And I think Jay Jay Smith, uh as well, uh a great YouTuber on these Muslim Christian issues, uh, he talks about the difference between uh rehabilitation of a Western secular person and de-radicalization of uh a Muslim jihadi. Let's have a look at Jay Smith.
SPEAKER_02This program is built and designed for Western prisoners who do, and many cases are social misfits, who many cases do coming from working class backgrounds, who many cases do have personality problems, and and often are have learning deficiencies. This has been proven for many prisoners. That is the case. And so you can see why many of them do feel disenfranchised, many of them do feel like they are social misfits, many of them do go to drugs and drink, and often do get caught up in crime. And so it stands to reason that if you have that kind of prisoner and you want to rehabilitate that kind of prisoner, then of course you would use this kind of program, learning together, and uh in this case, disengagement and desistence program. That would make sense for a Western prisoner in a Western context, having uh showing many of these Western uh proclivities. We're not dealing with Western prisoner now. These are not Western prisoners are we and I hope I hope Muslims are getting this. A Muslim radical Muslim does not start from the same premise. Usman Khan was not disenfranchised, he was did not, he was not a loner. Look at these pictures. He belongs to a group. He was caught with nine others. Uh he was very much part of Al-Mujhahajirun. He was being coached by Anjam Chowdhury, and he was coached on this book here. He was coached on this very book, the Quran. He knew about this book, he actually read this book, he was taught about this book, and I know exactly the verses he was given. Because if you can read it, you can see these verses are full. I mean, this book is full of verse of violin verse after violin verse after violent verse, about 150 violin verses in this book. We've done this before. This is not new, you've not heard me just make this up. I've said this many times before. So we're dealing with someone who believes that this book is uncreated, that it has always existed, that it is all that is co-eternal with God Himself, Allah Himself, and therefore it is unfettered with any human intervention, that it is exactly the same book that has always existed for 1400 years, the same book that I have in my hand here, this Arabic Quran is the same that exists in heaven. And therefore, if you are brought up in that, and he was brought up in that, remember he was brought up in a very strong Muslim family, and you believe that this is God's holy word and not a man-made document, therefore it must be obeyed and never critiqued. And that's what a Muslim is, someone who obeys, someone who is submissive, then can you understand whether you're dealing with a completely different mindset, a completely different worldview?
SPEAKER_05Very different to very different to the secular mind view um that we that we have, and and therefore it's a religious issue that needs a religious solution, a spiritual solution, something that goes deep.
SPEAKER_04Um Yeah, absolutely, and it it it seems like common sense. I mean, e we even when we talked earlier about you've got this setting the learning together, and you've got your Isman Khan with your um James Ford, you could you could probably look at those and say, Well, these guys are coming from very different places. Um the same there's not a kind of one size fits all answer to how do you rehabilitate these people. And it seems, you know, in our society we're maybe overly, but in some sense, in in a good sense on the whole, we're we're getting better at kind of saying we understand people have different cultures and come from different places and backgrounds, and we want to be respectful of people's cultures and meet them where they're at. Um, so if we go to other nations, we'd be aware of the culture and not do things that would offend them or be unhelpful and yada yada yada. Um but that seems to have not quite trickled through into this rehabilitation system, which seems to have got this one size fits all system, which, like um Jay Smith is saying there, might be great for the disenfranchised, misfit wester. Um, but actually for the person who's coming from radical ideology, you need a very different beast to start dismantling that. Right. Um and I think there's some great wisdom in there.
SPEAKER_05Right, right. And uh and we want to know how to de-radicalize radicals, but we don't we don't want to go to the heart of the issue. Um and and the heart of the issue is uh an ancient book and an ancient precedent in Muhammad um that was deeply violent. Um and uh it it just seems it seems like it's yeah, it's taking on a uh a lava flow with a with a with a with a water pistol gun, you know, just just to try to um big up the Muhammad and Islam and it's lovely and it's nice. Um because if you say that, then people are going to go to the most trusted sources of Islam, they're gonna read this stuff. Um including um the glory of martyrdom. And that that's you know the sort of the eighth take on our on our nine that we've got is that the the terrorism take, you know, why was he wearing a fake bomb jacket, a suicide vest? Why was he wearing that that fake suicide vest? Um so that he would be shot by the police, so that he would die in martyrdom. And and where did he get that idea from? Um he got it from Islam's most trusted forces, sources, straight from the Quran, straight from the hadith. Um, that to die in martyrdom is is your ticket to paradise. Um and to to be ignorant of that is is really not to be not to be engaging with the issue at all, um, really. So, you know, we we're getting more and more serious in terms of the the takes um uh on this issue, but uh but I think it would be really remiss of us uh to miss the final take, um, which is the the personal take. Um, that this is uh an absolute tragedy, and whatever other politics is going on, whatever other ideology is going on, um there are personal tragedies. The death of anyone is uh a huge tragedy that is to be mourned. Death is uh an enemy and it is cut short uh two people with very bright futures ahead of them, Saskia Jones and and Jack Merritt. Apologies, I said uh James Merritt earlier. I was uh confusing the name with uh James Ford, but Jack Merritt and Saskia Jones to very bright people who believed in what they were doing, believed in rehabilitation, believed in something beyond crime and punishment, something quite gospel-shaped, really. Um that mercy triumphs over just judgment. You know, we have it on good authority that that's that's the case, and and they seem to be pursuing that and and how tragic it is that they're they're now no longer with us.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
SPEAKER_05So on BBC Breakfast, there was a wonderful tribute paid to Saskia Jones, and I thought it just in less than a minute really beautifully humanized her. Um when we want to talk about all the glitz and the glamour and the narwhal tusks and all the rest that's going on. Um let's remember Saskia, let's remember Jack, let's uh see the tribute that was paid to Saskia Jones.
SPEAKER_01She stood out. She was she she she stood out above everyone, partly because she wanted to. Um she was she wasn't afraid to say anything. She was there was there was no fooling her. Um she was really funny, uh, she had a wicked sense of humour, she was cheeky, um, she was mischievous, she said things that she knew was would be a bit risky, um, but they were always bright. Um she was a lovely, lovely woman. Um she made me laugh. She she called me on things, sorts of people are quite scared of me. She wasn't. Um she was fearless, she was a warrior. She was going to change the world. Maybe she will.
SPEAKER_05She was gonna change the world, maybe she will. Um really poignant mix of past tense and future tense there. Um it's very poignant that she's talking in the past tense about someone who was very alive, very active in this world on Friday afternoon, and we're now speaking in the past tense about her. That that is a total tragedy. But then maybe she will. Maybe she will change the world.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, and there may be a sense in which this this uh despite, you know, we're saying both of these uh both um Jack and Saskia w have this passion for rehabilitation, and we may have seen in some sense uh both the strength and limitations of that through this event.
SPEAKER_05Right.
SPEAKER_04And it may well be a catalyst for a change in that system. Right. You know, so it may well be that people come away and say real rehabilitation is still a good thing because we can look at the James Fords if indeed there is genuine rehabilitation there. But there needs to be uh more approaches for those coming from different areas, you know. And for me, I mean the thing uh it just as in lots of things, what we're seeing is a polarisation, you know. So the you'll have those who were saying they were about rehabilitation and therefore we should go down that road. And there'll be those, much like the Conservatives have let in and said it's all about tougher sentences, and people will tend to polarise over the two. And I wonder, like f for me as a Christian, or maybe for us as Christians, but um I wonder whether we need to sit somewhere between the two that we should be about rehabilitation, you know, because we are the ultimate second chance people, aren't we? That's who we are. Um and that should be a kind of Christian value. Um but yet I think as well, you know, the tougher sentencing, you know, it does appear that there are lots of things that people do in this nation and are then led off very lightly. And you know, I think of kind of an eye for an eye stuff, you know. I mean, and and I don't think and some people will say, Oh, Jesus overturns that. No, I don't think Jesus overturns an eye for an eye in a criminal sense. I think you know the examples he talks about are not people breaking the law, it's it's interpersonal relations. Um, and in that case we shouldn't do eye for an eye. But eye for an eye, biblically, is there so that the punishment fits the crime, and also that the punishment itself is not abusive, so that you can't punish someone overly for what they've done. And I think as Christians we need to sit somewhere between the two that we need to say that we do need tough sentences because punishment should fit the crime. But equally we need rehabilitation because the you know statistics on people re offending after coming out of prison are shocking as well. So whether we can sit on a Everyone thinks we've got the middle ground. Everyone thinks they're the reasonable middle anyway, don't they? But um I'm not I'm I'm above it all. I'm actually above everybody. But you know, uh as people will pull one way or the other to be able to say, look, there is value in both sides here. Um and so maybe even from this you know tragedy there can be good that comes of it.
SPEAKER_05I think both sides are pointing to there's law and there's gospel. You know, there's law, um justice must be done, there's gospel, there's m there's mercy for sinners. Praise God for that. Um and then and then there's death, which actually makes every other issue we face um ring hollow, you know, and every other fight we have. Labour versus Tory, like who cares, two people are dead, you know? Like like even um gun control versus whatever, you know, like who cares, two like like whatever, you know, rehabilitation versus retributive justice, you know, who cares two people are dead. Because like death is the final enemy, says 1 Corinthians 15. And if we don't have an answer to that, then every other every other debate we have is rearranging, you know, on the Titanic. But praise God's, you know, thanks be to God, we have the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ, you know, who plunged down into death. He was he was the one offering rehabilitation, he was the one offering mercy to enemies like Uzman Khan. And he ended up paying with his own blood for it. You know, he he was he was a Jack Merritt, like Times Infinity. He he was he was one offering a safe space, you know, for offenders like you and me, and paid for it with his own blood, and yet rises up again to to offer us that mercy that be, you know, beyond judgment, beyond justice, there is mercy, there's the goodness of Jesus, there's there's the forgiveness of the gospel, and there's an answer to death, because you know, in in a sense, Saskia Jones and and Jack Merritt, they they were cut short, their lives were cut short, but but all of our lives are running out. And if we if we don't have an answer to to that, then we're just we're just shuffling around on the on the edges of these issues when actually the big enemy is death. But praise God we we have a solution, praise God we have Jesus, you know. So there are there are nine takes and a tenth. You know, there's there's the gospel, you know, there's there's Jesus offering reconciliation at the cost of his own life for us, and then offering us, you know, life from the dead. Um we do have good news for this world. Um so let's let's keep speaking it this week. So uh Paul, how can people uh stay tuned to uh speak life?
SPEAKER_04Yep, well, same same avenues as always. Um if you're on social media, then follow us or like us, subscribe on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, we're on YouTube, obviously, that's where we are right now. So give us a subscribe on there, that'll keep you informed of stuff. You can also get signed up for our newsletter. Uh, we'll make sure we pop that down in the comments of exactly where to go. Can you remember off the top of your head where the sign up is for that?
SPEAKER_05Uh if you go to speaklife.org.uk, it'll it'll be a good one.
SPEAKER_04You'll be able to find it up there. So you can get on a newsletter and you'll be able to keep up with our weekly news. And also that will give you a bit of a roundup of resources that are going out as well. So videos, the podcasts, you can find them all collected in one spot. So it's a great thing to be signed up for.
SPEAKER_05And do get active on Facebook at the moment. Uh, we're sharing uh our Christmas videos on Facebook quite a lot, and uh it's a really great platform for uh for you to be able to share these three minute videos of gospel content this Christmas. Uh a great way of sharing your faith online. That should do us for this week. Thank you so much, Paul. Thanks, Glenn. It's been good. Cool. See you next time. God bless. Take care. Bye.