Summary
Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, Afua Hirsch and Tarjinder Gill debate activism, social change and identity with Philip Dodd.
Yasmin Alibhai-Brown is a journalist and broadcaster who regularly comments on immigration, diversity, and multiculturalism. She’s a founding member of British Muslims for Secular Democracy and the author of books including, Exotic England: The Making of A Curious Nation and Refusing The Veil.
Afua Hirsch is a writer and broadcaster. She has worked as a barrister, as the West Africa correspondent for the Guardian, and as social affairs editor for Sky news. Brit(ish) is her first book and was awarded a RSL Jerwood Prize for Nonfiction.
Tarjinder Wilkinson is a primary school teacher working with children from disadvantaged backgrounds in Birmingham, Leicester and London. She blogs on race, culture and identity at All In Britain and writes on the failure of left-wing progressive methods in education, making the case for a more traditional, academic approach for all.
Producer: Zahid Warley
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 | Hello, I'm Philip Dodd, and welcome to the Arts and Ideas Discussion Program from BBC Radio 3, |
| 0:38.1 | which brings together leading artists, writers and thinkers. |
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| 1:07.4 | In his film, modern times, Charlie Chaplin, an unemployed worker, |
| 1:12.6 | comically finds himself at the head of a demonstration during the Depression. Being Charlie, he joins in, waves the flag he's found. |
| 1:17.6 | Without intending to, he has become an activist, someone who belongs to the global workers' movement. |
| 1:25.6 | Belonging, identity and activism now as then a complex matter. |
| 1:31.3 | There's the Me Too movement and in Middle Europe there are also movements of Christian |
| 1:37.3 | conservative feminists. |
| 1:39.3 | There are globalists and nationalists. |
| 1:42.3 | There are those who cleave to the place where they were born and brought up, |
| 1:46.0 | who call themselves rooted, and those who with Salman Rushdie say that roots are conservative things. |
| 1:52.8 | They bind us to where we were born. Well, to discuss identity and belonging and their relationship, |
| 2:00.5 | I'm joined by former barrister and journalist F.W. Hirsch, author of Brit, and then in brackets, |
| 2:06.6 | ISH, the brackets are hers, by another journalist and writer, Yasmin Alibi Brown, and by the blogger |
... |
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