Welcome to the Colette Podcast. My name is Claire Lehman and I am editor and chief of Colette.

Colette is where Free Thought lives. We are an independent grassroots platform for heterodox ideas and fearless commentary.

Our podcast is a team effort and is jointly hosted by myself,

associate editor Toby Young and Canadian editor Jonathan Kay. You can support our podcast by visiting

Patreon.com forward slash quillet and becoming a monthly patron. By becoming a

monthly patron you'll also receive our weekly newsletter.

Thank you for tuning in to the Colette Podcast.

I'm Colette's Canadian editor Jonathan Kay.

Canadian author and activist Urshadmanji has long been known as a voice of moderation and liberalism within the Muslim community.

But in recent years she has broadened her message and in a new book entitled, Don't Label Me, an Incredible Conversation for Divided Times,

she tries to explain how everyone can benefit by engaging in calmer more reflective forms of discourse.

One might think that this would be an

uncontroversial message. However in an ironic twist last month at Washington

University in St. Louis protesters encouraged a boycott of an event where Miss Manji herself appeared as keynote speaker.

The protesters didn't succeed in disrupting the event, though they did demonstrate the urgency of Miss Manji's message.

Quilett recently published an excerpt from Miss Manji's book and last week she

spoke to me by phone from Chicago for the Quilett podcast. Here are excerpts from that interview.

Your book is cast as a dialogue with your late dog Lily. Could you explain why you chose to do that?

Yes, I can, and there are multiple reasons for it,

knowing full well that some people

that actually write off the political analysis in the book because how can such a thing be serious

if it stars a talking mutt.

...