Free Thinking - Terrorism: Richard English, Baroness Warsi, 2017 New Generation Thinker Thomas Simpson.
Arts & Ideas
BBC
4.2 • 599 Ratings
🗓️ 22 June 2017
⏱️ 66 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Rana Mitter goes to a drama which asks the audience to play jury in a trial following the hijacking of a plane. He's joined by Baroness Sayeeda Warsi, whose book 'The Enemy Within' looks at attitudes towards the Islamic community in Britain, Richard English author of 'Does Terrorism Work?: A History', Faisal Devji, author of several studies of political Islam and the ideology of Jihad, and 2017 New Generation Thinker Thomas Simpson.
'Terror' by Ferdinand von Schirach in a translation by David Tushingham is directed at the Lyric Hammersmith by Sean Holmes running from 14 Jun ‐ 15 Jul 2017
Baroness Sayeeda Warsi's book is called 'The Enemy Within'. Richard English is the author of Does Terrorism Work?: A History Faisal Devji's books include 'Landscapes of the Jihad: Militancy, Morality, Modernity' (2005) and 'The Terrorist in Search of Humanity: Militant Islam and Global Politics' (2009) Tom Simpson is Associate Professor of Philosophy and Public Policy at the Blavatnik School of Government, University of Oxford.
New Generation Thinkers is a scheme run by the BBC and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to find academics who can turn their research into radio and television. You can find more on the Free Thinking website.
Producer: Luke Mulhall
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome back to the home of the oxymoron. Evil genius. He asked the newspaper to print his obituary early so he'd enjoy it. That's like hiding at your own funeral. Yeah, a big, great gig. I'm Russell Kane. Join me to weigh in on whether the biggest players in history are more evil or genius. Becoming that rich, I'd say that is some level of genius. It also helps that it's a long time ago, right? |
| 0:23.3 | It's like the podcast version of telling your kids the ice cream van plays music when it's out of ice cream. |
| 0:28.8 | Listen to Evil Genius on BBC Sounds. |
| 0:32.0 | This is the BBC. |
| 0:34.7 | Hello, I'm Ron and Mitter. |
| 0:37.0 | Thanks for downloading this edition of Radio 3's Arts and Ideas |
| 0:39.8 | Discussion Programme, Free Thinking. The Italians had a term for it in the 1970s, Yanni di Pionbo, |
| 0:47.0 | the years of lead. That was a time when democracy seemed to be under threat, and politics |
| 0:52.4 | studied with endless, wearying acts of terror. |
| 0:56.0 | It sometimes seems as if we're living through our own years of lead. This week, a man drove a van |
| 1:01.0 | into a group of worshippers outside a mosque. In the past month, killers are ploughed into |
| 1:05.8 | diners in London, and slaughtered children at a pop concert. Terror and terrorism have become terms that we hear |
| 1:12.7 | every day. Yet while the experience of terror is now in our daily consciousness, an explanation |
| 1:18.9 | seems as far away as ever. Today on free thinking, we can't claim to come up with all the answers, |
| 1:25.1 | but we hope to ask some searching questions. To discuss |
| 1:28.2 | them, I have with me Saida Vasi, the first Muslim to serve in a British cabinet, who's |
| 1:32.6 | written a new book that argues that much of the UK's anti-terror strategy has simply missed |
| 1:37.4 | the point. The practice of terror is also about macabre performance, and we'll discuss a new |
| 1:43.3 | play opening in London that |
| 1:44.9 | puts a terrifying dilemma on stage for the audience to make its judgment on. And we'll hear |
| 1:49.6 | about masculinity and its relationship with terrorism from Radio 3 New Generation Thinker, Tom |
| 1:54.6 | Simpson. But first, let's get to grips with the concept of terrorism and ask perhaps |
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