- It just confirmed everything
I had been thinking for a year.
And by the way, it's not just Yasmine
and Dave who woke up that night,
I mean we know, I personally know dozens
of people that had it
happen to them that night
that have reached out to me.
But thousands of people
all over the world,
I got messages from
people literally in Egypt
who had said to me,
I think you know one of the guys
I'm talking about in Egypt actually
who said that was my moment too
when I saw oh, the left,
these guys have completely
abandoned reason,
and liberalism and the
rest of it. (upbeat music)
- Dave Rubin, author of
"Don't Burn This Book,"
best seller, all over the place,
fantastic reviews, amazing,
how are you feeling today?
(laughing)
- Excited, proud?
- I'm feeling pretty good.
I'm feeling pretty good.
But before we talk about me,
I wanna talk about you because
you're leading this thing.
Who are you?
What are we doing here today?
People know about me.
Come on Yasmine, give
yourself some credit here.
- People should know me from your show.
I've been on your show like three times,
so I'm a veteran.
Yasmine Mohammed,
and I'm the author of "Unveiled,"
which is strategically
placed behind me there.
"How Western Liberals Empower Radicalism."
And I run an organization called
Free Hearts, Free Minds,
which supports people who have left Islam,
but are stuck in with
some majority countries
where they could be executed for doing so.
And the thing that we
have in common actually
is that we both,
well you dedicated your
book to Ben Affleck.
He's not, (laughing),
I didn't dedicate it to him,
but he is in the
acknowledgments of my book
because both of us share
that same experience
of us deciding that we
wanted to change our lives
upon watching the episode
of "Real Time with Bill Maher,"
with him, with Ben Affleck and Sam Harris,
and the famous gross and racist episode.
And that was a huge
pivotal moment for you,
and it was a huge pivotal
moment for me as well.
And of course gross and racist
over the years, you
know, kept on escalating
until it ended up becoming Nazi,
which is the title of chapter four,
which we're gonna be talking about today,
which is Don't worry, you're
not a Nazi. (laughing)
- Yes, you are probably not a Nazi
if you purchase my book.
That was what I was trying
to get across the people.
But I love the fact that
we've discussed this
on my show several times,
that your wake up call,
we come from such different backgrounds
geographic places, you live in Canada now.
Like all sorts of stuff.
You were married to a member of Al Qaeda.
All of these things that
are so different about us,
and yet we both,
by watching a Hollywood actor overly emote
and yell instead of reason.
And especially because
he was doing it against
Bill Maher, our number
one lefty in America
for the last decade,
and Sam Harris who I've told you,
I didn't even know who
he was until that night.
It was the first time I
had ever seen the guy.
But I saw this mild mannered,
nice sharp suit, calm
atheist explaining things,
and then that overly emotional sort
of craziness and rush
to call somebody racist,
forget gross, but racist.
It just confirmed everything I
had been thinking for a year.
And by the way, it's not just Yasmine
and Dave who woke up that
night. I mean we know, we know,
I personally know dozens
of people that had it
happen to them that night
that have reached out to me.
But thousands of people
all over the world.
I got messages from
people literally in Egypt
who had said to me,
I think you know one
of the guys I'm talking
about in Egypt actually,
who said that was my moment too
when I saw oh the left,
these guys have completely
abandoned reason
and liberalism and the rest of it.
- Yeah and I think that they're,
you know my family being
from Egypt as well,
the conversation that
they were talking about
was about people who have left Islam,
in Egypt close to 90% of people there
polled in a Pew poll said
that they think that
we should be executed.
So it was very personal to me,
as an ex-Muslim of Egyptian descent,
same like the person who
communicated with you as well,
and so to see these two men
on, you know, national television
going on like main stream media,
talking about us as if
we mattered, you know.
Which was so amazing
'cause you never see that.
All you ever see is conversations
about the fundamentalist Muslims
or the mainstream Muslims.
But nobody's ever
talking about the victims
within the victim.
Nobody's ever talking about LGBT Muslims.
Nobody's ever talking
about women under Islam.
Nobody's ever talking about people
that left Islam, that are
stuck in these countries
who are being ostracized
by their communities
or disowned by their families,
threatened with death like I was.
And some people actually
being killed by their families
for leaving Islam.
That conversation never happens.
So to see those guys
having that conversation
was really amazing,
and it was very, very sad to see
Ben Affleck shutting it down.
- So when I titled that chapter,
you know, it's obviously tongue and cheek,
don't worry you're not a Nazi,
but I did think oh my critics
are gonna open this thing up,
they're gonna go he had to title one
of the chapters don't
worry you're not a Nazi
because so many of his fans
or whatever or readers are Nazis,
but I felt that I just sort
of had to go at it like that.
But the reason I wanted to do
this chapter with you specifically
is that it's one thing,
I mean the absorbed level that they call
someone like me a Nazi,
who everything I stand
for is against the type
of collectivist ideology that the Nazis
brought upon the world.
I grew up around holocaust survivors
and the rest of it.
But someone like you who has,
as I, you're the only person
that I wrote the inscription to
that you publicly posted it,
and I shared it because you are in essence
what a true liberal is supposed to be.
And, because you lived through oppression
and now you fight for freedom.
It's a beautiful thing.
And you also are called
a Nazi and a bigot,
and I'm sure all sorts
of self hating this,
that and the other thing.
- Yeah, and in your chapter
you refer to the journalist
from Der Spiegel.
- Yeah, you were there that day.
- I was there that day.
You know he accused you of being a Nazi
because you had an espresso machine
and all of this ridiculous stuff.
- Well no, he said in the article,
let's not forget in the article,
he didn't say I have an espresso machine,
he said "he has an Italian coffee maker."
Which the implication,
and he said "Scandinavian furniture."
I have a Nespresso machine
and an Ikea couch.
- (laughing) I know.
Yeah, absolutely.
But it's laughable,
but it's also incredibly hurtful
and infuriating the way
he was so condescending.
And not only was he telling
you what you think and feel,
he was telling me what I think and feel.
He was talking, he's like Dave
made Yasmine talk about
all of the bad things in Islam,
as if Yasmine loves Islam.
Like I'm just waiting for someone
to give me a microphone
so I can talk about
all the bad things in that religion.
You didn't make me do anything.
And that really upsets me.
You know as somebody,
who as you mentioned,
got away from being married
to an Al Qaeda agent,
and I have fought tooth
and nail as a single mother
with a high school
education to be the woman
that I am today,
and then to have some
POS who didn't even talk to me
be so condescending
and talk about as if I am a puppet,
and you've got your hand up me,
and telling me what to say and
do, do you know what I mean?
I was so upset.
And her so called marriage
to an Al Qaeda agent.
Well this dude,
if he's a journalist, he can very easily
look up that information.
As I mentioned, Assam
was very high ranking.
His court case of him
being imprisoned in Egypt
is one of the second largest court cases
in Egyptian history
after the assassination
of President Sadat.
So it wouldn't have been difficult for him
to confirm my story.
But instead he just
wanted to be condescending
and rude and patronizing.
And it's unfortunate
that you have to put up
with people like that.
- So what do we do about that?
That thing where it's like the people
that don't want other people to be heard
then call you a Nazi and a
bigot and the rest of it.
And gross and racist.
And then we know that there's
this journalist class,
and that's why I included this story,
because they literally put me on the print
cover of Der Spiegel,
and you know I have a giant American flag
in our control room,
because, I know it sounds crazy
and nationalist or something or racist,
but I'm proud to be an American.
And they took a picture of me,
and I'm sitting like this,
with the American flag behind me.
And I think the title of the article
was "The Grand Illusionist
of the Alt Right."
And one of the tricks that this,
again, journalist did,
was that there's actually a law in Germany
that if you interview someone,
if you're gonna print any
of their quotes, you have
to run the quotes by them,
so this guy who spent from eight a.m.
to nine p.m. with me,
'cause I did two interviews that day,
and then I did an event at USC that night.
He spends hours with me,
and then didn't quote me once in the piece
because he knew he would have had to run
those quotes by me.
But instead he gets me with
the American flag behind me,
and you talked bad about Islam.
And I've got an Italian coffee maker.
And this is one,
I don't even love the
Nespresso machine, frankly.
I like a French press better,
but that's a side issue.
But that they craft a narrative
as "journalists," but then that then feeds
this Nazi thing so they can turn
to someone like you
and just say the most awful things,
even though you're the one
that has actually survived
the negative parts of,
well all the parts of authoritarianism
are negative, but really
the terrible truth
that is the thing you escaped.
- Yeah.
I think it's interesting that you,
that they didn't take any quotes from you
because that's exactly what it is.
They crafted a narrative
about who Dave Rubin is,
and they crafted a narrative,
to a much smaller extent in that article,
of who Yasmine Mohammed is,
without any input from
who we actually are.
It's just completely fabricated.
But actually to try and bring this
to something productive,
a question that I get a lot,
that I'm gonna pose to you now,
is you know what Yasmine,
I totally agree with what you're saying,
I really wanna speak out more,
but I'm afraid.
I'm concerned about my workplace.
Sometimes I'm concerned about my family.
I'm concerned about my spouse.
I'm concerned about friends.
How can I speak out without having people
maliciously call me these things,
fabricate a narrative about who I am,
and start to, you know,
have people react to the
narrative versus to me.
So what can I do?
Because right now I'm
just biting my tongue
because I see no way
out of this conundrum.
What can you say to those people?
- Well in many ways that's the message
of the book more than anything else.
When I say think for yourself,
well thinking for yourself,
if you're gonna actually speak it too,
which is the next step
once you're thinking it,
is you're gonna get this stuff.
And what I tried to lay out
in the book is a roadmap
for what will happen.
You will be called a Nazi.
You will be called a bigot
and a racist and a homophobe.
I get called a homophobe.
I mean I'm married to do a dude.
But put that aside.
- Well if you get called a Nazi
when your family are holocaust survivors,
then why not be a homophobe too.
- Right.
- Again, it's nothing to do with you,
these are just fabricated things.
- Yeah, I have an irrational,
phobia of course is an irrational fear.
So I have an irrational
fear of gay people,
yet I'm sleeping in bed with
one every night, it's weird.
That's not really it.
What really I tried to do
was give people the tools
to know what will happen.
So not only will you
be called these things
and the Twitter mob will come for you,
and whether you're a public person or not,
they may come for your job.
You know your job will
suddenly start getting
calls and emails and the rest of it.
Friends will turn on you.
I described someone who
was invited to my wedding,
who suddenly was calling me a racist
and a bigot and a Nazi.
Although every time I kept saying
can you point to anything
I've said like that,
then they moved the goal post,
they changed the meaning of the words.
It's not what I'm saying,
it's what I'm doing,
it's what I'm thinking.
It's who I'm talking to.
And the only cure for this,
I think, I truly believe,
is that we just need
more people to be brave.
We have give this paper tiger
so much power over us.
We've discussed this privately,
but I don't think there is something
magically brave about me.
Or anything like that.
I don't think you think so about yourself.
It's just there is something in me
that forces me to say what I think.
And I think more people need that.
Like just think about what any
of our ancestors lived through.
And now we're gonna live in Canada
or we're gonna live in the United States,
and because a pink anime fox on Twitter
calls you a Nazi you're
not gonna live the life
you're supposed to lead?
So I know it's cliche, right?
It's cliche, just be
yourself, say what you think.
But it actually is true because
the other part is that
they prey on the fact
that they can get you to be quiet
so that the people who do step up,
that eventually they just get tired.
So we've even seen this
with some of our friends.
At some point certain public people
that stake out that position,
that honorable position,
at some point they just get tired.
They're like you know what,
I don't wanna be in the fight anymore
because I don't get enough allies,
and getting all the hate
and whatever death threats
or whatever else any
of us might get, it ain't that fun,
and we only beat them by numbers.
Do you think there's another
magic solution to it besides that?
- No I don't think
there's a magic solution.
I don't think either of
us is special in any way
except that we both have experience
living in the closet.
We both have experience having this
thoughts in our mind
and who we are on the inside
different than who we are on the outside.
And we both have the experience
of having basically at some point
deciding that we've had enough of this,
and we need to align our inside life
and our outside life
and become truly and honestly who we are.
And as difficult as it is
to go through that process,
it's so incredibly rewarding.
And, you know, living a double life
is so much more insidious and traumatic
than anything that they can throw at you
once you're out and free.
You know, there's no comparison.
So I think once we've been through that
and you realized okay this is it,
I'm gonna be honest
and I'm gonna be real,
and this is who I'm gonna
be for the rest of my life,
and when somebody tries to get you
to go back in the closet,
this time a political closet,
you're not willing to go there.
You're like no, I've been there before,
I've overcome and I'm not wiling
to go down that same road again.
- Are you--
- And so I think that people have to--
- No, no, go ahead, go ahead.
- I was just gonna say I think that people
have to experience it,
like they have to go through it themselves
and realize that this turmoil
that they're in right now,
this fear that they're
living in right now,
oh I might lose my friends,
I might lose my co-workers,
my family, whatever,
that this turmoil that they're
in right now is way worse
than anything that the
world can throw at them
when they come out.
It's hard for them to understand that
or believe that because they're like
what are you talking about?
I lose my job, I lose my friends,
of course this is not worse.
But it is, it really is.
- It's so interesting you say that
because when you talk about the closets
that we lived in before,
it was you not being able
to express yourself in any way
and being put in clothes
that you didn't wanna be in,
and you were in an abusive relationship,
and a series of those things.
And for me it was about sexuality,
but the metaphor there,
or the parable I guess is that
I know that when I was closeted,
and then I would be with my friends
who didn't know who I was,
I started feeling like half a person.
I felt a little bit like sort
of Marty McFly, you know when
the picture's disappearing
at the end of "Back to the Future."
I felt like I was sort of not there.
And you're right it's like people think
oh I can just wait it out.
I'll just wait it out.
And then it's like well one day
you're gonna be 60,
and you're gonna be like man,
I don't like my wife,
I don't like my kids,
I don't like any of these people.
And then, but the worst part,
I don't like myself.
And I think that that's the part
that I think young people
have trouble understanding
because it just takes a little time
to sort of see what the breath of life is,
or what the arc of life is.
And it's like yeah we
just gotta keep pushing.
But I wanted to ask you this,
because this was part
of where I wanted to go with this chapter
was one of the things I'm
actually worried about
is that they have over used these words
to the point where now if I see someone
be called a Nazi or a bigot on Twitter,
I'm actually usually
interested in that person.
Like they've actually
caused a trigger in my mind
where it's like if
someone's being assaulted,
first off I know that 99%
of the time they're not a Nazi,
I mean it's so ridiculous.
But I know that they probably didn't say
anything bigoted.
I know they probably didn't
say anything transphobic,
or any of these silly things.
But what I'm worried about for the future
is that they have done
the boy who cried wolf
to the point where when
the real bad guys come,
when the real bad guys come,
the good people are just gonna,
they're just gonna be like
eh, can't even see it.
They won't even want to put
the effort in to see it.
- We're already there.
We're already there.
I have, for me, you know,
just seeing the word TERF now these days
thrown on everybody,
or Nazi isn't quote as common these days,
but there's different slurs
that people are throwing around.
And, again, like you I'm like okay sure,
let's look into this person,
let's see what they're saying.
And, you know, sometimes that person
might actually be transphobic,
but because of the fact that we have been
so desensitized to these
slurs being thrown around
we don't believe it anymore.
They've completely lost their power,
they've lost their value.
They've lost any meaning.
And yes it is scary because now
the real turfs and the real homophobes
or the real, you know, bigots,
or the real neo Nazis are all
getting hidden in the noise.
- Well Yasmine, I know
we gotta end this thing,
so I just wanna say one last thing to you.
Well first off I'll just
say two last things.
What I wrote in the inscription is true.
Every idea I presented in this book,
you are the living,
breathing example of it.
And I couldn't be prouder
to call you a friend.
That's number one.
And number two I just wanted to say
one other thing, it's the nicest thing
I can say to anybody,
Yasmine, you're not a Nazi.
- (laughing) Thank you, Dave.
You're not a Nazi either.
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