"Can Liberalism Survive?" with Waleed Aly
Uncomfortable Conversations with Josh Szeps
Josh Szeps
4.5 • 905 Ratings
🗓️ 18 September 2025
⏱️ 162 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
What holds liberal democracy together in an age of social media, tribal politics and rising violence? Josh has been trying to get Waleed Aly to submit to doing this show for years, and finally nailed him down. Do not miss this powerful episode.
Waleed is a controversial superstar Down Under. He's the recipient of Australia's highest journalism award, a Walkley, and its highest television prize, a Gold Logie, for hosting The Project, a nightly network news panel show, for more than ten years. He's also a professor of politics working in the Monash University Global Terrorism Research Centre. A practising Muslim, he has a deep understanding of extremism on the left and right.
Don't miss Waleed and Josh, two very different intellects, in this frank, far-reaching conversation about extremism, free speech, and whether our civic fabric can withstand the pressures of technology and ideology.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The introduction you're about to hear was recorded just hours before the suspension of Jimmy Kimmel, |
| 0:05.9 | which is both the clearest and the gravest instance of council culture anywhere in the free world in my lifetime. |
| 0:16.5 | The emphasis of my comments would be different had they been recorded a few hours later, but the principles remain the same. |
| 0:26.4 | Enjoy the show. |
| 0:30.0 | Giday, humans. |
| 0:31.7 | Welcome to the safe space for dangerous ideas. |
| 0:35.2 | There have been a lot of dangerous ideas floating around this week and we're all |
| 0:40.1 | in need of a safe space and a little tenderness this is an amazing episode a fabulous episode |
| 0:46.8 | I was just so inspired by this conversation wali to Ali is so thoughtful he's one of the most |
| 0:53.4 | prominent and famous and celebrated names in |
| 0:56.7 | Australia as a journalist, as a television host, as a radio host, and as an academic. He hosted the |
| 1:03.6 | nightly show on Channel 10, which was called The Project, which was a news panel show, a little bit |
| 1:09.5 | tongue-in-cheek, for more than 10 years. |
| 1:12.6 | He's also a lecturer in politics at Monash University in Melbourne. |
| 1:16.7 | As a journalist, Waleed has won Australian journalism's most prestigious prize, |
| 1:21.3 | a Walkley Award, as well as being awarded the sort of popularity contest prize of Australian |
| 1:26.5 | television, the gold Logie for most |
| 1:29.2 | popular Australian television personality. He is also a two-time back-to-back winner of the |
| 1:34.7 | Silver Logie Award for Best Television Host. But the reason he's of particular interest to me at |
| 1:40.2 | this particular moment is that his specialty is working in the Global Terrorism Research |
| 1:45.6 | Centre at Monash University. He wrote a book called People Like Us, How Arrogance is |
| 1:52.2 | dividing Islam and the West, and he is an academic expert in extremism, free speech, |
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