#020 - Momus Najmi - Britain Is Suffering A Clash Of Civilisations

Momus Najmi is writer, commentator, and podcaster. Host of The World of Momus podcast and author of the Substack 'The World of Momus'. Momus has made appearances on broadcast media such as GB News and on podcasts such as New Culture, British Thought Leaders, and many more.

In this episode, Momus and I talk about his experience of leaving Islam, why he chose to England and Britain as the place he wished to call home, the tension between British culture and Islam, and the impact of mass immigration on culture.

Show notes

• World of Momus - Substack
• Momus Najmi - X

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Hello everybody, welcome to Thinking Class. I'm John Gillam and today I'm speaking with Momus Najmi. Momus is a writer, commentator, and podcaster. He is the host of the World of Momus podcast and the author of the substack The World of Momus. Momus has made appearances on broadcast media such as GB News and on podcasts such as the New Culture Forum, British Thought Leaders, and many more. In this episode, Momus and I talk about his experience of leaving Islam, why he chose England and Britain as the place he wished to call home when he left Pakistan, the tension between British culture and Islam, and the impact of mass immigration on British culture. Momus majors on openness and honesty in this episode, where he shares his experience as an apostate of Islam and as an immigrant to Britain. I hope you enjoy the show as much as I did. And before we dive in, you'd be really helping me out if you press subscribe on the device you're listening to or watching the show on. The more subscribers we have, the more guests we can attract, and the faster Thinking Class grows. Enjoy the show, classmates. Momus Najmi, welcome to Thinking Class. Thank you for having me. It's an absolute pleasure to have you on. I joined Twitter to promote this show back in November, Momus. And we were talking before the show. I think you had around 4,000 followers then. Now it's closer to 13,000, 14,000. And uh I suppose when I joined the show, I came across your profile realizing you were really vocal on issues that had been hitting the streets of Britain since October the 7th, uh, and specifically the influence of Islamism on Britain. And I thought I need to have this man on the show. Uh and then GB News beat me to it, uh, Michael Portillo, no less. Uh, but anyway, I'm finally glad that we've had you on. Uh maybe we could start with talking about why GB News found you so interesting. What's your backstory, Mobis?

SPEAKER_00 2:09

So, um I think so, like uh my backstory if if you if you see like geographically, is I'm someone like who was born in Kuwait in the Middle East. Right, and I um I was four years old when the Gulf War happened, so I saw all of that. Um I lived there till I was 15 years old, and my parents are from Pakistani heritage, so I lived in Pakistan for a decade or so. And then I came over here 14 years ago, and I've been married to a Polish. My wife is Polish uh for over 10 years, and we've been together for 13 years. So just mapping on that, like I have way too much cultural reference of different cultures, intimate reference of those things, so I can speak from my experiences on that behalf. And um I'm also someone who became an ex-Muslim a long, long time ago. Probably I don't even know how long ago, probably 18 years or something like that. So I have like, but I didn't become an ex-Muslim just because I uh, you know how some people leave their religion Muslim or otherwise because they want freedom or something of that sort. I didn't have any societal pressures on me as such. I was living in a very um I was living a somewhat privileged privileged life in Pakistan where I could do all the things that I wanted to and still claim to be a Muslim. You know, it there just wasn't any societal pressure on me. But it was just a matter of me going through um searching my own morals, searching the the relevance of that with my religious ideas and stuff, and it took me six years since the age of 15, 16, till I was 20, 22, uh and I left the religion on that basis. Right? So the reason why I'm saying that is because I didn't have a knee-jerk reaction. It was a proper introspection which led to it, which means that I have a deeper reason and knowledge of why I left what I left. So I've always been vocal about it. But Twitter has always um suspended me or uh, you know, made sure that my account has been like, you know, demonetized or whatever you call it, like in Twitter terms, um, you know, when it's shadow banned or whatever, right? That has always been the case for me since Elon took over. You know, and before Elon, it was even less than 2,000 people who followed me. So it that started growing a bit. And what happened was I I myself was not that vocal on Twitter. Um, but the reason was before the 7th of October event happened, I was sensing that there was something brewing within Britain. I like I had this sense because I was watching a lot of content by the Islamist, and and and you know, sometimes they are ex-Muslims that are debating the Muslims, and like you know, they're having those debates and stuff. And I was picking up on a few things from them uh that there's some trouble brewing, they're becoming more and more uh brave in their narrative. If something were to happen, um then they would latch on to it and we will have trouble. I went on to a podcast um uh with this atheist gro uh group and atheist atheism UK, I think so they call, and I said these same things, but it was shrugged off, basically, right? Because what I was lacing it with was that we need Christianity back. So obviously atheists would not agree with that. Um and what happened, lo and behold, a month afterwards, 7th of October happened, and since then we have seen what I was fearing all this time along. So since that time, I've been a bit more vocal, and my account has been picked up by people as like, okay, we need to actually listen to this, but this guy has been saying for a while now.

SPEAKER_01 6:22

Momus, what what was it on the streets of Britain or or within Britain that has concerned you so much post October 7th?

SPEAKER_00 6:34

More and more talk about the the about how Sharia law should be Sharia Sharia means law, so it's the way it's saying Sharia law is law law. Sharia how Sharia should be in Britain, how it should be given uh respect, the same respect as other other laws might be given, how people have a right to it, right? Those voices are be becoming out of the extremist points into the moderate areas, right? And they they started entering into the DEI area of the corporate and public sectors of DEI, right? Yes, and I started seeing like how people started talking about it, but behind closed doors sort of thing. More talk about Islamophobia started coming in, right? And and that pricked up my ears, anyways, because I know why Islamophobia term was made. It was made by Islamists so that they can carry out the Islamist activities while saving themselves from any criticism. So if DEI starts taking on the Islamophobia thing more and more, that means they can talk about Sharia more and more and normalize the talk about it, right? Is that the point of people normalizing the goodness of Islam that worried me? Because you know, normalizing Islam means you're actually advocating for anti-British values because they're that diametrically opposed, and that means that that's a that's a route to the destruction of Britain as it is, and the same thing that I feared with communism, because they're the same in that sense, they're anti anti-West.

SPEAKER_01 8:23

And and what would you say is the uh the the diametric opposition, which which values on uh that you would see is British and those is you'd see as is every value, the basic value of equality, right?

SPEAKER_00 8:40

So they they jump on the value of equality. It's like, oh, we we are Muslims, so we should be given equality, but within Islam, there is no equality, right? That's a diametrically opposed thing. Uh, when it comes to giving women's uh full rights and stuff, the culture is very different over there. They they don't give that, they say, oh, the woman voluntarily wants to do it, right? Well, the only way that a woman can say no if it's if it's her family doesn't um practice Islam properly, right? So they are moderates, or that she leaves Islam, right? That's the only way that she can not voluntarily agree with the terms of Islam. Right? So the saying that women are voluntarily putting hijab and stuff like that, that's that's a misnomer, like you know, it's it's societal pressures and stuff that they have, they develop a Stockholm syndrome and stuff like that. And then there's like more and more stuff when uh how within and these are not like um people might think that these are extremist um ideas uh within the religion, but these are standard uh edicts, right? That you have to follow, sort of a thing. That you can't be allies or friends with Christians and Jews, right? I I would think that that's diametrically opposed to British values at the least, right? Uh how apostasy should equal to death. I would say that's also diametrically opposed, right? And uh things like uh um you know polytheists are considered the worst of humans according to them. The list goes on and on and on on how Muhammad, uh their prophet, married a six-year-old and consummated the marriage when she was nine years old, but somehow it's okay because some say it's off that time, and some say, well, we have to follow the sunnah. Sunnah is the doings of the prophet, like whatever prophet did the deeds of the prophet, you have to follow it. Because you get more you know blessings from God if you do that. So, well, that's one of the sunnah as well, to marry a child and justify it by saying, Oh no, no, no, Aisha had her first period when she was nine years old. As if that makes a difference. You know? So I would like say that that's diametrically opposed. Yeah, at one point in in Britain, uh as in most European countries, people were getting married young. Girls as young as 12, 13, or 14 years old were getting married. But none of the people were prophets who were enacting this. It wasn't, you know, a religious edict why it was happening, and that was in the medieval times, you know, a long time ago. So the culture has changed, the culture has evolved and stuff. This whole idea that their culture cannot evolve as well, because you know, because of these edicts that hasn't evolved for 1400 years, is itself dramatically.

SPEAKER_01 11:46

What would you say to uh those who are very prominent within the British um cultural sphere now, very positive voices from Britain's uh Muslim community, like Dr. Rakh Essan, for example. Um, he's someone who recognises that Britain is not a secular country insofar as its constitution isn't secular. He he he corrects people frequently on that, says, no, this is a Christian country by constitution. And recently he set up a think tank with some other like-minded uh people from across faith. And our first report, I think the the think tank is the Institute for the Impact of Faith on on life or in life. Um the first report is about the contribution of British Muslims to to Britain. Um, within that, he um he goes on to show how Muslims in Britain are um uh more family-oriented, um, more community-oriented, more charity-oriented, and then makes a distinction saying we're not a monolithic bloc. There are uh lots of different kinds of Muslims from different places, different values, and maybe we'll come to that in a moment. But what what do you um think about the prospects of um uh Islam or is it or Islamic communities um being able to um live in harmony under that Christian constitution that Dr. Rakib Hassan seems to respect and acknowledge?

SPEAKER_00 13:24

So I like Rakib. Right, I I I think he's very bright, and like his ideas are really good. My parents are moderate Muslims themselves, my family is moderate Muslim, so I I can understand where he's coming from. I have difference, theological difference, um uh within with this topic, and societal difference as well. With societal differences, societal mindset I can see like, okay, that we can create an atmosphere where everyone can live peacefully, even moderate Muslims. Right? But that requires a lot of work, not just from the government, but from moderate Muslims themselves. That requires the work of moderate Muslims speaking against the Islamists, which they haven't done in hordes since 7th of October. But they didn't come out straight off the bat, no. Recently they've started coming out calling about anti-Muslim hate and Islamophobia. That I have a problem with. Well, you didn't say that when the Islamists were on the streets chanting from the river to the sea, and now you're crying about Islamophobia. So I see a lack of backbone over there to call out the extremists, right? And there's a reason for it. They can't do it because there's a concept within Islam of monafic, which means hypocrite. And that means that anyone who does not follow the fullness of of Allah, of his edicts, they will be labeled as munafic. And Allah says Himself in the Quran that He will never forgive them. He says that you might be able to forgive them, but He will never forgive them. Right? So we can consider them with the Islamic faith as the worst of people, in even worse than infidels, which Allah can forgive eventually after they've done their punishment and stuff. So this is this is a major reason why they cannot speak up against it that much. So they have to work with the government to a help the reformers reform the religion and then speak up against the Islamist, point out to the government where they find the Islamists who are like either illegal immigrants or coming from into mosques and stuff like that, report them to it, they have to work with the government, and then the government has to be strong enough, the government has to be strong enough to deport these people and make sure that we're not getting immigration, that heavy immigration from the problematic Islamic countries as well. So to maintain the harmony of Islam with other religions, there is hundred times more work that needs to be done. However, if you remove the Islam from the equation, there is no work that needs to be done. Everyone is living in harmony, right? So this is as well that I have a problem with, right? So why does the whole world have to disorient itself, have to work so hard so that these people with hurty feelings can live among with other people? Right? So this is disproportionate amount of legwork and propaganda and and activism that you have to do to remove that extremism. It is their problem, they should remove it, and if they can't remove it, then they should be removed from the society. That's my point of view, right? It's not a theological point of view is that if one is claiming that England is a Christian country, then England itself becomes anti-Muslim. Right? Because the claim of Islam, the theological claim of Islam, that is that Muhammad is the last prophet of God, he has come after Jesus to guide all the people before him. Yeah, they accept Jesus and Moses as their prophets, and they say Muhammad is the last prophet. So the Jews and the Christians should follow Muhammad. Right? But if it's a Christian nation, to acknowledge the validity of the claims of Muslims means that you are saying that you are no longer Christian. Right? So you are believing, you are disbelieving in Trinity because the Muslims don't believe believe in Trinity because they don't believe Jesus to be the Son of God. Right? So then you all have to become Muslims, which which is my problem with it. If it's a Christian nation, then you cannot accept a blasphemer, the followers of a blasphemer like Muhammad, because it's not like other religions, not like Hinduism and stuff which are disconnected with Christianity, and they are saying they have their own separate claims, right? You can have a theological uh discussion with them. This is a religion that is connected with Christianity and is this trying to disprove the validity of Christianity. So to appease that is to say that, yeah, yeah, you're right. You know, and and so that happens within the month of Ramadan as well. Why do Muslims celebrate Ramadan? Ramadan is the month where the holy Quran was revealed, started being revealed. As a Christian, if you say like, oh yeah, I I respect or I validate the existence of Ramadan, it means you validate the Word of God as being the Word of Allah. These are theological differences, and I don't understand why the priests, at least in the churches, are not being strong enough about it. So societally, I can see that there is a way that we can coexist, but a lot of work will have to be done. A lot of legwork has to be done by the moderates and stuff like that to make that happen. But ultimately, we have to realize that without reformation, that's not going to happen. Reform reformation has to happen within Islam, otherwise it won't happen. Because even if you are moderate, like let's say, let's imagine that I'm moderate, right? And me and my wife are moderate and we have Muslim kids, right? There's no guarantee that our kids will be moderate. Right? Especially if they just read the Quran and decide to follow it fully, right? They will be Islamists and jihadists because if you follow the Quran properly, the Islamists and the jihadists are the ones who are following the religion properly. So this thing that people try to create, oh, it's not part of the religion. No, it is. That is the part of the religion. The other additional, I know I'm like rambling on about this, but the the the other the other problem with the moderates itself is, and I'm not like putting Rakhib into this bracket, anyways, because I think so he's very knowledgeable about these things, and he's trying to create. I I agree with him, and I have agreed with his perspective for a very long time because my own family is moderate and stuff, right? So I am actually in this sense arguing against my best interest for the interest of Britain, right? So but the mod the moderates, many of the moderates, majority of the moderates are moderates because they have not read the Quran properly, because they don't follow the Islam properly, because they have not read the hadiths properly, right? They ignore parts. They are they are munafiks, they are hypocrites. They say that they follow uh Islam, they don't pray, right? They barely pray. Most of the other kind of moderates would be drinking, right? That's the same in the Arab world as well. Like a lot in Kuwait and Dubai, I've seen people drink and people, you know, do all the things that are not allowed in in Islam, and that makes them moderate, right? So in Christianity, if you go back to the source, that will make you more moderate than the Catholics or stuff like that, because that is a more humbling experience over there. You might be conservative Christian, but your views would be more moderate in that sense. In Islam, you have to go away from the religion to be moderate, way, way, way, way beyond the religion to be very moderate. Christianity is sort of like the same, like you'll be conservative, just be accepting of other people, go away from the religion, you'll be. Fine, right? But the moment the moment someone shames you into it, the moment someone decides that you know their kids and stuff, that's why we're seeing second, third, and fourth generation becoming more extremist than their forefathers in in UK is because they're just following the Quran properly. They're just like since the 90s and onwards, we've had first generation people coming from Pakistan who were Islamist, right? And they have gone into the mosque and stuff like that. Pakistan, Syria, Iraq, and those places since after 2000, we've seen like those people come in more. They're just teaching their kids about Islam. You know, and they're saying, like, well, if this is what you identify as, then this is your religion. And that itself is just making them be extremist in our eyes. And that's the problem that I have. Like, you know, that you you actually have to have no immigration from any of the Islamic countries anymore. Kick out all the Islamists from England, right? And then coerce people to do re Islamic reformation for them to be able to coexist. Just for so that they can accept other people as equal human beings. Why do we have to do that work? I don't get it.

SPEAKER_01 23:27

On on the prospects of reformation, I know uh something that Ayan Hirsi Ali, also a fellow apostate Momis, uh, who wrote uh Islam, why Islam needs a reformation now. I can't remember when, I think it was in the noughties at some point. And um I know one of the arguments people made back to here about why the reformation couldn't happen is it's not like the Catholic Church was in the 16th century, because there is no central body, it's just it's a it's effectively a decentralized religion. So I guess what you're calling for is is there a way that through um the fact that there are now pockets of Islam far away from its origin lands, as it were, that um the kind of new or sorry, the the yeah, the the host nations, their culture, their laws and traditions are able to generate a a a national reformation of sorts that it creates an Islam that's fit for the place that it inhabits. Um do you do you think do you think that's possible or or or probable?

SPEAKER_00 24:39

Um okay, so I I I have always thought that the only way is for Islam to reform. But I also know that that's impossible at the same time. Right? So like for uh the only way for Islam to coexist with the West is for it to reform, but reformation is impossible. The only way that you can do reformation is a move first to say that all the hadiths that we have the saying of the prophets are false, right? So that is that is actually doing uh an active propaganda to create a new image of the Prophet and say all the bad things that the Prophet did, like the about the sex slaves and all those things like that, right? Sex slave marrying a child, uh, you know, marrying his uh things or stepdaughter, or whatever, like all the disgusting things that he has done, right? Let's say that that is completely false. That the that the caliphs who came afterwards, they tried to put that narrative because they wanted to do those things. Alright, that that's one way of doing it, so that you can take the bad things out and say, like, all the worst the verses like that in the Quran are then not viable, right? But that's why it becomes impossible. Because one of the tenets of Islam is the Quran is uncorruptible, that it is the pure word of God, and the prophet's character is verified and is uh is the best example for human beings to live on, right? So they there are ways, but they are counters to it that Islam has done itself for a very long time. That's why it makes it impossible. Anyone who within within uh Islam, even if they bring up certain points of reformation, they would they can be considered as blasphemous, and they can be killed for it, right? So there's a reason why they it is such a political tool, it is such a political ideology, it's not really a religion, you know, because there's nothing spiritual about it. So this is the reason why, because it has counter to every move for it to change, right? One of the ways where it there's uh some reformations sort of a thing in attitudes have happened by Ahmadis, uh, which are who are considered um they're considered non-Muslims by the whole of the Muslim world, but they consider themselves as Muslims, right? It's that they believe that uh that they are prophets after the Prophet, Prophet Muhammad, that he wasn't the last prophet. So they have their caliphs then, and they follow those caliphs, and and like you know, that they are the prophets afterwards and stuff like that. So that they can use that to say, yeah, his his activities back then were different, but then you know another one came after him and said, Okay, that was different, so you know, stop doing that and stuff like that. So they can self-moderate themselves, right? So if all the Muslims became Ahmadis, they could fix that problem, but they can't because they've already declared them to be non-Muslims. Because one of the the shahada that you have to say to become a a Muslim is La ilaha ill illallah, Muhammad or Rasulallah. Is God is there's no God but Allah and Prophet uh Muhammad is the Prophet of Allah, Messiah of Allah, right? So that denies it then, because it's like, oh he's not like there's more after him. So that's why there's a problem like you can't um reform the religion. The best way to reform the religion is to reject the religion and for them to become Christian if they can't leave the religion. This is why atheists get pissed off at me because I keep on saying that, but but because I know the realities, right? I'm I'm not a liberal Westerner. I've not lived in the West all my life, most of my life have been lived outside of the Western sphere. I've lived among these people and I know the majority of them just cannot become atheist. Right? I have struggled being an atheist, that's why I'm an agnostic. It's it's not hardwired into those people and the the way that the society is you know constructed and structured, and the way that the values of the people are, they are connected to or want to connect to higher stuff rather than the individualistic selves and stuff. It is far easier for them to become Christians. And actually, they would become good Christians then because they would reject all the bad teachings of Muhammad.

SPEAKER_01 29:26

Dear classmate, John here. This isn't an advert, so you don't need to reach for the skip button. If you're enjoying the show, then show your support by liking, subscribing, and sharing on whichever platform you use to watch or listen to Thinking Class. You can find me and the show on YouTube at ThinkingClass. You can also subscribe to me on Substack, searching for the at Thinking Class handle, or by entering thinkingclass.substack.com in your browser, and you can receive reflections, blog series, and recommended reading to your inbox. You can also follow me on X at Thinking Classes. Thanks for listening, thanks for showing your support, and enjoy the rest of the show, classmate. You talked a lot about the high price people pay for apostasy. It's wired in, there's a whole uh there's a whole terminology's the wrong word, but there's an instruction manual, I suppose, to deal with those who are apostates or hypocrites. Uh what's the experience been like for you, and as it differed depending on where you've been in the world?

SPEAKER_00 30:29

Yeah. I because like I said, I I've been very privileged to to have the threats, but not see them being realized in any meaningful sense. Right? So I had better connections within Pakistan. I was among better people, sort of so to speak. Like even when I was in Karachi, I did go about and tell people to leave Islam. You know, and I didn't get that many repercussions for it. But once I started getting some imams and stuff coming to my home and telling me, like, you know, we know what you're doing and like giving me threats like that, then it was time for me to leave, sort of a thing. Um but my my Yeah, yeah. Um but I would say like I was I was poking people, but I wasn't poking them directly. Like yeah, I was being smart about it. I wasn't telling them to leave Islam. I was just telling them about the theological problems within Islam. Right? So I would hone on to one thing and tell them that didn't fit with their life then. Then that would make them think. That's what I was trying to do. So if I saw a musician, like if I had a musician friend and stuff and you they really liked playing, you know, I would sit down with the imams like in the mosque and and ask them, like, okay, can you tell my musician friend why music is haram in Islam and what is he doing wrong and stuff like that. But if that person loved music, really loved music, they would be like, what the hell is wrong with Allah? You know, it's to make them think. So people I think so people started catching on to what I was actually trying to do. It wasn't to make them more Muslims, but it to it was to actually remove them from, you know, Islam. So what I experienced was a very light version of what most people experience. Uh what was women like for women it's literally impossible to leave Islam. It's it's very high stakes, you know, because they can't um just separate from their community and they from their family that much. But what I have experienced is this that ostracized ostracization has come in naturally. Even like it's not from my parents, but there is a divide. There's a thing that we don't talk about, right? That they can't be my parents in the same way that they were before, because we're not celebrating the same events in the same way, you know. Um I'm drinking wine, you know, and stuff like that. So those are natural barriers, and those are a wider family disconnection, right? Because I have to self-disconnect, because I don't want to be in those situations where I have to discuss why I've left Islam, you know, and some of my maybe one of the distant cousins being a nutter, like and doing me in or something, you know. You never know those things, you know, and and those people might think like, okay, oh yeah, but you have come over here and you found a community and a home and a family and stuff. And I have like that's the first time that I found uh a home, like a place that I can call home, you know. But that emotional price that you have to pay is it's too high, you know. It's it's sort of like becoming an orphan in that way, but still having your parents over there. And my parents are very moderate and stuff, so we talk a lot, and like you know, I love them and they love me, I know that, you know, but they are things that I don't want, like they are they can't be a full part of my life, even if they tried, like you know, it there is a barrier. So, you know, and and then you multiply that with your friends and you your people that you grew up with, and you know, just keep on multiplying that, and that emotional price that you have to pay becomes like bigger and bigger. And this is why people don't do it, because this is what we just don't understand over here. You know, if you stop believing in Christianity and stop going to the church, people are not going to just, you know, want to kill you. Or like, you know, want to not talk to you, or like, you know, disagree with you, not want to find themselves, or we can't actually sit down and eat with this person anymore. Because he's he's an apostate, he's become an ex-Muslim. So actually, if I sit down to eat with him, just to have dinner with him, that would be me committing a sin.

SPEAKER_01 35:14

No, we only we only reserve that now with political debates post-Brexit, where you have people on the left say they'll never kiss a Tory. They won't even sit down and have dinner with a Tory and kiss them. Uh you you uh staying on the subject of Pakistan for a moment and and going back to Rakhib Esan's report that I was talking about, uh I'll I'll quote something at you um and then get your take on it. So Rakib's report wrote that in the 2021 England and Wales census, it revealed that 3.9 million Muslims live across the two home nations, 6.5% of the population. Around two in three are of Asian origin, with one in three being of Pakistani heritage. Much of the Pakistani Muslim population in Britain can trace their origins back to the district of Mirpur in Azad Kashmir, with migration accelerating from here due to the construction of the Mangla Dam during the 1960s, which submerged 250 villages and displaced 100,000 people. So a significant number of British Muslims are of Pakistani descent. You are of Pakistani descent, and you said that Britain should stop immigration from Pakistan on Twitter. Why?

SPEAKER_00 36:26

So this is this is a major thing in his report, right? I I know what you're talking about, but I I I said that before as well. Most of the time I talk against my own self-interest. Because I have that much of an interest of Britain in my mind that I am consider I can consider myself not being in in like, you know, not talking in my self-interest. There if it means that the Britain has to investigate me as well, you know, and possibly kick me out as well, but well, I wouldn't want to, but like, you know, I can't like if you if you're searching for the truth, you have to take yourself out of it, right? Because once you start putting your own bias into it, then you're not true to what you're trying to achieve, you know. But it's hard to for people to do that, and it's hard for me to do that. Maybe I can do that because I know I have an out that even if it comes to it, that I can go and live in Poland with my wife. So maybe it's easier for me, and most people, it's not easy for them to do this or impossible to do this. So they're not just Pakistani, they're living over here, 85 to 90 percent of the people. They are not just of Mirpur, like that uh Azad Kashmir area, they are the Punjabi speaking and Punjabi uh ethnicity of ethnic origins, people of Azad Kashmir and Punjab. So 85%, 85 or 90-ish percent, I don't know exact percent of the people that are from Pakistan are of Punjabi ethnicity, right? Pakistan is not one ethnicity, Pakistan has various ethnicities within it. So Pakistan has and and the different languages as well because of it. So the and different cultures come within and different values and different traditions, right? The reason why we see a lot of problems in Pakistan, or in in in soon to be Pakistan in Britain, from from the Pakistanis is because the Punjabis have a problem, and they are the same people who are causing problems within Pakistan as well. So the highest percentage of sexual crimes and like sexual related issues and stuff are from the province of Punjab within Pakistan. And those are the people that we are heavily immigrating over here or are coming naturally over here because of what what the uh what uh Labour thought would be a good idea in the 1960s, as he's pointing out, when there was a problem with the dam, the Pakistan created a new dam and flooded 281 villages actually, I think so, uh, around that area. We thought like we will get 50,000 of those people who could not even integrate properly into the Pakistani metropolitan cities, will get them and put them in England and make them work in like, you know, labor jobs and stuff like that, because we had labor shortages shortages over here. Is there kids who are causing problems? Because they have been living in parallel societies for that long, since the 1960s, that they've created these issues. So their other ethnicities within Pakistan are like Sindhis and they speak different languages, Sindhi. There's uh Palochis, they speak Palochi, which is similar to Farsi, which is like Iranian language, because they're ethnically Iranian people. And then there's uh Pashtos, the Patans who live in the north, they are different. They're people from Gilkit, they're a bit way, way different to other people, and they live in um sort of federally controlled areas, like they're front frontier areas, so they're not even controlled by the government properly. They live in their own tribal laws and stuff like that. You know, and then there's like there's a lot of different ethnicities and languages. My ethnicity within that whole mix bag is that of Muhajar. And my family is the one who migrated from India to Pakistan during the time of partition in 1947. And only one of my great-grandfather migrated. The rest of my family is still in India. So only he migrated and he spread his like you know, seed. But uh so we came from that's why our culture is different, because we came from mainly from Lucknow, uh, because we were the Nawabs over there and stuff, the ruling um elites over there and stuff like that, and we were living in the British uh industrialized cities like Lucknow and other places, Delhi and stuff like that, you know. So we the the people living over there were naturally more educated and they had somewhat similarities with the with the English culture. So we had similar uh mannerisms, we had similar uh sense of humor and stuff like that, which is not seen in most other Pakistanis, right? So when we migrated, we migrated mainly to Karachi, so that's where all our population is, and our language was Urdu, which became Pakistan's national language. So the Pakistan national language is only uh mother tongue to 8% of the population of Pakistan. The rest of it is they have to learn Urdu because their mother tongue is different, right? So you can see there's already dissimilarities over there, and this is why someone like me would not get along that much with the Pakistani British people because they are Punjabis, because our cultures are very different within the Pakistani sphere as well. So that's where it comes down to. And most of the people like Urdu-speaking people, like that's this is why other part of my family is in America, because they all immigrate to America. I'm the only idiot who said, like, no, I'm not like I love Britain, I'm going to go to Britain, and I want to be British.

SPEAKER_01 42:18

Well, well, before we get on to why you wanted to be British and what you love about the country, uh I'll go back to the Labour point that you made, um, specifically importing labour in indiscriminately of origin. Um, I don't know if you've read the book by Christopher Caldwell, which came out in 2009. It's called Reflections on the Revolution in Europe. And he was talking about the uh the impact of um high immigration from Muslim countries. So here's a quote: uh European countries are shrinking, aging, and short of workers. Their only obvious supply of rejuvenation is in the Muslim countries to the south and southeast, which have been historically Europe's enemies, its overlaws, or its overlords, or its underlings. Europe is wagering that attitudes handed down over centuries on both sides have disappeared or can be made to disappear. That is probably not a wise wager. Uh he also has a chapter that is titled Fear Masquerading as Tolerance, where he describes how um Europeans are blinded by universalism um and they don't see that people from other places may have a desire for cultural, national, and racial glory, is a quote you said.

SPEAKER_00 43:36

Um you need to send me the link to this book. Yeah, yeah. Yeah I agree. I've been saying that since uh I came over here, even before I came over here. But as soon as I came over here, I saw that uh the number of Pakistanis above over here, the number of Pakistanis uh who were gaming the system, Pakistanis and Bangladeshis who were gaming the system, uh claiming for false. Asylums and stuff like that, having living amongst them, you know, um having anti-British attitudes and stuff, even though coming over here, getting the benefits of Britain, trying to get get like visas and stuff like that, still having such really racially bad views towards British people, white people, and stuff like that. And I I and then I saw on the other h side of me when I'm trying to point that out that I am somehow wrong, you know, uh amongst the liberal white British people. That they they they think that I am prejudiced, that I am wrong. You know, and this this a this has alarmed me since 2010. It's like well, you guys are committing you guys are committing a suicide. You know, this is a suicide to think that this people who think of themselves as your enemy, who declare themselves as your enemy, and you think that you can appease them into coexistence. It's like they don't want to coexist, they want to conquer. They are like Sauron, they do not share power, right? They only mean to rule you. And that's the the way that even in Islam, peace will come upon earth is when everyone becomes Muslim. So, what do you suppose that is? Meant to be that is supposed to be like nobody is going to coexist, like they are going to conquer. So that this is why I say like, you know, to the earlier point, because I didn't answer it properly about like why am I advocating for Muslim uh for immigration from to stop from Pakistan, even though I benefited from immigration from Pakistan, right? Because this is a huge problem. So if England would have said in 2010 that we're not getting any Pakistanis, because they are making false claims to be atheists or whatnot, or trying to become Christians, or trying to at that time in 2010, actually the fad was that everyone was claiming to be gay, right? Because I know so many people and they they they told me, like, oh, just just pretend to be gay, they don't know. Uh you don't even have to kiss over anything in front of them. You just say that you're gay and you go over there, and then they expediate your uh claim within six months and you get the visa, right? And I was like, Well, I don't I didn't come over here to break laws, like what the hell is wrong with you guys? But the if England would have said, like, no, we're not taking you in, I would have found other means of going elsewhere, right? I would not have wanted to be part of a country where I might have been adding to the problem. Right? So why should I look as if my benefits should supersede the benefits of a nation? Like I would be morally wrong to think that a country should accommodate my interest over the interest of their people, even though you know they're not it's not in my interest, it would be in my interest for Britain to allow me to live over there. But if I take myself out of that situation, it's just it's a morally wrong argument to make. And I can't call myself a morally good person if I make that argument because I know that I'm making it just for my self-interest. So if if Britain would have said no, then I would have said, okay, fine, I'll live among the Americans, even though I hate it. So I might have gone over there, right? Or I might have gone somewhere else, or I might have changed my situation where I have pretended to be Muslim for a bit longer till I could find something else. Right? My situation, like the world's problems are not the my problems are not the problems of Britain. It's not Britain's responsibility to give asylum to the whole world. Right? This this is something that the liberal mind in Britain has to come out of. Because then you're giving asylum and you're giving help to people who mean to hurt you. Oh, look what happened, that Abdul guy, right? The one who poured assets and stuff on people. Oh, Abdul Azidi. Right? Other people who come here after three months they commit a crime, after six months they commit a crime. This is a folly.

SPEAKER_01 48:27

You talked throughout this episode about the problems that Britain are facing. I saw a post you wrote on Twitter recently, things you would do if you were the PM. So I'm gonna ask you, Momus, what what should our institutions? Well, well, I've got it written down here. Oh, you're uh there are a few things here. Um uh there were 23 things and a roadband. Some of them some of them I think that would probably be the most uh hot button. Um number five was definitely must have been number five was to ban the full kneecab in settings when interacting with public departments or high safety risk environments like banks and airports, non-compliance leading to fines. Uh number six, remove automatic citizenship guarantee because of birth in the UK includes several additional qualifiers and rec prerequisites. Uh number eight, all illegal immigrants to be deported out of the country, either to the last known port or to the country of origin if established by force if necessary. And then I now see number ten links to something you were talking about earlier when you were talking about the problem of Islamophobia being misunderstood and how it was created as a term. And you talked about DEI being removed from all schools and universities, public institutions. Um, apart from these things, which I'm sure are not going to be on a manifesto of a political party anytime soon that's close to levers of power. Um why don't we go, why don't we try and finish on a message of of hope or at least something which um can inspire the listeners who are who are either Britain, British or living in Britain or have an affinity for the country. What is it that made you choose the country instead of going to America where the rest of your family had gone?

SPEAKER_00 50:20

Um I would say like it was the exposure to the media and literature and culture since I was a kid. Um English being sort of my first language, but not really my mother tongue. So, you know, my mother tongue was Urdu, but I didn't speak it enough, and uh my Urdu is really bad. Um so I have I just have the accent but not the ability to speak Urdu. While I I don't have the accent in English, but I have the ability to speak that language. So it's language does shape a lot of what you think, because I think in English. Right? So there would be terms, there would be words, and there would be phrases that you would use in your own head that would shape how you think, how you relate to things. Right? So naturally you're going to start if you if you if I used Americanized English more, then I would start recognizing with them more. Where this is where I do have a problem sometimes, because I recog I I connect with a bit of things within America, uh and but mostly within Britain, right? So my tendency does put me as a libertarian American at some at some points, like you know. But I think so that was a driving force and how the language and the culture and everything shaped my view, and then my love of history. Um I read more the more that I read about British history, that read about British history and still keep on reading about British history, the more I fall in love with it, you know. Um and it's not it's not taking the taking out the co the colonization part, is actually including the colonization part. Um, because there's a lot to admire in Britain about uh with colonization, which people don't understand that because they see because Britain, like British people have only in experienced colonization from them going outwards, right? So they've only experienced one colonization in in their in their frame of mind, uh current frame frame of mind. But people who are like outside, they they understand colonization from different parts of the world, right? So in the Indian context, the first bad colonization, the first was like way before, but then there was the Greeks that came in um with uh Alexander the Great, but then the Muslims came, right? And their colonization was the worst for the Indian civilization compared to the British colonization, which actually in parts liberated them from the Muslims, right? So you have that context of colonization as well. That there are there is such a thing as bad colonization and good colonization, and that they yes, when someone is making an empire, it's hard to be equitable to everyone. There would be bad things that would happen, of course, because you know you have an empire spanning the whole you know distance of the earth. But for that to come out of a tiny little island, right, that is remarkable. And if anyone says that it's not remarkable, they are being disingenuous. Because that is remarkable, that is sort of like something that like on a smaller scale, what Japan has done, right? So even though they committed a lot of crimes and stuff like that, you can still, you know, sort of appreciate what they have done. And compared to them, compared to uh um Genghis Khan, compared to like all these other colonizers and stuff, British colonization was really good and it benefited the whole world. The whole industrialization came from it. The laws were spread out throughout the whole whole uh world, you know, their better laws, English laws, which which gave equality to people later on, like because of those laws were the engine by which this this could happen, right? So in itself there's a lot to admire for. And when I was not connected with my own people culturally, because I didn't agree with more and more I didn't agree with the morality within the religion, religious framework that they were living in, the more I wanted to connect with someone. Right? And and Britain was just a natural like you know, connection for me. That's like everything that Britain stands for or stood used to stand for. Not this wokeness that has come in, this illiberal liberalism that has come in, but used to what it stands for, the traditions and stuff like that, is something that I would stand for. And I I didn't come over here to call myself, start calling myself English, because that would be foolish, right? I I'm not born over here. I I've come over here to set my roots so that my future generations could be. So that that is my that was my intention. And that was like, well, I'm not going for money. Definitely not, even in 2010. You would be foolish to come for money over here. I should have gone to America if I wanted to make money, right? And I would have been a lot richer and like, you know, more influential baby. I came here because I was looking for a home. And that's that's the you know truth. And to be honest, after a year, I was going to leave England because I came over here and I didn't find England. And I came to London, and I was like, this is not England. This is this is like I like I've said that in in the GP news as well. I did feel like Paddington Bear. You know, because I was like, this is what is this? It's not England, right? I can't find English people over here. So I started moving out and out of the city because all I could find were it's not about ethnicity, it's about non-English gangs that had developed their non-English ways of communicating with other people that and non-English mannerisms, right? Because your um national identity is not a set of aesthetic values. Your national identity is something that is very natural to you, which is very inherent to you. So you could put people, English, actual English people, from Cornwall to Essex to York together, and you would find some similarities between them. A lot more similarities, which would be intrinsic to them. They don't have to even work at it. It would be just natural how they coalesce with with each other. Right? And that I didn't find. I didn't find people exhibiting those values, and I still don't find it. London has gone worse and worse and worse with this. So I felt really bad. I was like, well, this is you know, this is what's going on in England. England is not the England that I thought it was. There's very less opportunities, and I'm like, I'm willing to work and stuff, but I I don't understand what's going on, who they're giving jobs to and stuff like that. So I was like, okay, maybe I'll just bite the bullet and go to America then, you know, because that is the other Anglosphere that I was like, okay, fine, like I'll go over there. But that's when I met my wife who came from Poland on her uni break. And she's the reason, because you know, Poland is a lot closer to England, and she's very close to her family, so she wouldn't want to go to America because it's too far away for her. So that's why we decided to stay over here. And she's the reason why I said okay, I'll stay. And then, you know, I think so I made on both accounts a good choice of staying over here and being with her.

SPEAKER_01 58:03

Well, thanks very much to your missus for us getting to enjoy you as one of our countrymen. Uh I think you've said a whole bunch of um stuff in here that um I think if it came out of the mouths of uh anyone else, uh it would probably be shut down immediately, uh, given the climate that we're in.

SPEAKER_00 58:26

I think which is the sad part. It is, it is deeply saddened me. You know, you know why it saddens me? It's because I want to openly converse with people. I want to have an intellectual battle with people, right? Debate about those things, or not debate like, but converse with people. How can you do that when you know the other people have their hands tied behind their back because they can't say something? They say something that it becomes racist. It's it's an intellectually dishonest space to inhabit at times.

SPEAKER_01 58:58

Well, I think you've got tremendous mettle to be doing what you're doing. I think considering the costs that are likely still to be hanging over your heads, given the fact that I suppose in many people's eyes, um, once you're Muslim, you're meant to always be a Muslim. Uh, I think I I think you being out there and putting a public profile on things and saying what you're saying um in in an intellectually rigorous way is is welcome. We need more people able to at least have open conversation about whatever it is they think are concerning them. Momus, we've talked a little bit about your platforms today. Before we wrap up, maybe you can tell everyone where they can find you, follow you, subscribe to you.

SPEAKER_00 59:40

Oh, yeah. So people can follow me on Twitter. I'm there a lot these days. Uh at the world of Momus. Um they can follow my uh podcast, which is on YouTube and Spotify and Rumble. And nobody follows me on Rumble. I only have 14 followers over there, so I don't even care about Rumble anymore. But uh follow me on YouTube and Spotify and stuff, it's the same The World of Momus podcast. And I also have a Substack that I started like a few weeks ago. It's called theworld of Momus.com.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:12

Yeah, you've already made hay on that. You have about 2,000 subscribers after a couple of weeks. So fair fair play to you, man.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:19

I want more and more people like that. That is my I really love Substack. I didn't I didn't know Substack, my my friend introduced me to it, and I just fallen in love with it. Like it's good for podcasts, it's good for everything, you know, my post and stuff. Yeah, really love Substack.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:34

It's a great platform. Moments, it's been an absolute pleasure. I'm sure we'll talk again, or at least I hope we'll talk again. I shouldn't be so presumptive as well. We surely will. Well, good luck with everything and take care. Thank you. Thank you for joining me in Thinking Class today. To keep up to date with all that I am doing, please subscribe to the Thinking Class YouTube channel at Thinking Class and follow me on X at Thinking Classes. Thinking Class seeks to understand the civilizational issues we face and why what our leaders do in response matters. Here I seek to explore the ideas, values, and culture that made our civilization, those that are unmaking it, and how leaders at our public and private institutions should respond. Engage with me on YouTube or X or write to me at thinkingclasspod at gmail.com to tell me who you want me to speak to and what topics are important to you. I look forward to seeing you there and for joining me on this journey.