and i'm walking walking very much a conversation a pleasure to welcome to the program abdul maher he's a ph d and he's a journalist and he's a producer also of television and he's muslim and he's originally from egypt and he's got a very interesting take on the human condition project that would resume from a muslim perspective and all of that is going to be contained in this program and say well i'm up to very very much thank you very much tom thank my pleasure known each other a long time that's the first time to be on your program yeah first ever did in front of the camera i wonder if you could you just the way i do is could you share your own background this way always we didn't have that's one you were born in raised or where you were born and raised and censor and the movie did it past the censors thing was there a tight control over the media in egypt when you just don't have all i would offer and was there objection to that or what was the attitude of the people toward what would be thought of as an is i was only thirteen when my father was i don't remember him and i remember him but i don't remember him nearly as well as i would like to he had a great sense of humor that it's hard to appreciate unless you've got some adult years behind you you know  egypt i don't know how many people there were thirty million forty million when you were growing up all the donkey laden was a large percentage of the population going to university you did it with that was so many  from high school in the in their were born in that year popular only about forty percent of the people graduated from high school in the united states that were and it was even more elite in europe than it was in america then we had all these imperialism that's a word that we don't hear very much now in the america but it's a word that had a lot of meeting to a lot of people within what would be egypt or within the arab world you know because they had been colonized by europeans and you know against colonization or colic colonialism going among those people that we perhaps are not adequately alerted to too are aware of how important it is to those people is that correct yeah it still is still ok so that's still as a getting out of algeria and it was a mark of an era and that's something that should be understood better perhaps by the american or the world population of noise around the sun that the you know those people suffered from this kind of now one other thing in terms of that colonial thing it because one of the major issues is still there throughout iraq and everything now but is the palestinian question and do the arab does the arab world the year you see israel you know after forty eight being a representation of that western european colonial attitude toward that region or how do they see the state is out of line and why it was such animist directed at israel pan arab or had pan arab meaning they have united with a vast i mean he wanted to have a you know the idea is the idea of a pan arab sentiment one where the arab nation as a whole would be able to unite in common purpose maybe against israel or against something else is that dead now is that gone the idea that fired so many people and is it for now is the change since most of the of the me that was important and is their camaraderie or a sense of camaraderie or association among those people across the far flung geographical area now or do do indonesians think they're indonesian or well the british used to say divide and conquer so they were trying divide all the people up in or the romans up in bactria or whatever they would try and divide the people so that they could assert their control the console them do understand so if the muslim world is all divided into countries and everything that's for the benefit of the imperialism it's going to in and careless are let's say the united states now oh no i mean if you were talking about that it would have been the british and the terms when you're fighting it but in real terms in terms of power power and that sort of thing and then just draw them a controlling all of the financial institutions doesn't everything and you have people who will associate themselves with the american and the american president through the american consciousness wants to assume that is the good guys in the world and that we represent the tide of history and that we are in a certain sense historically legitimate do you understand i don't know if the british assumed they were legitimate when they were in the raj in india they thought they were legitimate represented civilization those kind of presume i think so i don't see the united states in that position do the people in the arab or muslim world see the united states in those terms in some derision and he's not going to understand what i'm saying yeah i don't what do you mean i good that's all and you know and then we you know that's the heck of it of dual yeah too damned interesting we could talk to you for fifteen hours in italy but we've got to go on with your life story and to say ah because you were in egypt you did your thing you worked in television and you came to america when back in nonsense i would like i would like if i may as an american it seems to me is very very one way the cultural thing has been america influences the world with their culture and with their television and people see us and i would like it if there was no this is the best thing of the dish that you are on the wall and don't you think the people in the arab world are sick of having american faces talking to them because that's what's been going it's been a one way street because there's so much hollywood movies  skies open i can remember i because i've told you i have a great admiration for the country live you don't but i do i have a great for my own way of thinking i think they're ahead of us in terms of the way they're going to organize the society i think of it there's sort of a way ahead of us the way the united states was ahead of future europe and seventeen yeah that's not i mean that they are ahead of the way the world's organized and the assumed legitimacy this is my point of view i don't  it's almost up to like b b c standards noticed that that is just it is not so propagandistic do you think the media is propagandistic questions relating to the muslim world in this country the united states yeah  think the american media is yeah you think that they look at that's interesting to me i just think we're subject no one come higher than the thing now because with this media to produce and now oh it's not like before you have told you you have so many so it's a lot of of the united states and we're not being as well educated to the realities of the very gated patterns in the world you know we're were culturally centric are we have this view i think that one of the problems again is you you've done do you have with you brought into the program a tape and if i'm not mistaken it's having to do with a mosque or having to do with muslim in america about it given in about a kind of living in america so i wonder maybe you could talk a little bit about that tape and it will run a piece of footage that gets about the and then we could go back and talk about what it means to be muslim in america there are some problems with that because there's a lot of prejudice directed against muslims and you know in a way and the way you know you can put it out put it in perspective i wonder maybe we could minutes or so so could you set that up and run it now then please thank you and set that up towards your well he will know so russ just continued talking they didn't have it in the back so that would be it this this question about the muslims in america because you're here and you have an appreciation of that do you think there is a you seem to not think there's a strong prejudice directed against the muslims maybe you could spread a little bit muslims in america have they been here since the beginning of the republic or what and what is the trend others and to feel about the us out of the hungry people all over the word to feed them because the month of ramadan teaching you to give them food to feel about their hunger and this country is pretty welcoming of everything and like that but they've always usually had a pretty tough time some of their jews came from east africa from east europe and they had a heck of a time living in ghettos and had to fight there and every group that comes knew the groups is already here even even well i've heard tell ok but tino's are treated badly by a lot of people the blacks who came over treated very badly because they were slaves in the history of the country you had that kind of thing we still have remnants of racism and people who want to see themselves as being the goober mentioned the above the the over who fell behind and then there is the the other group and they have scapegoating and that sort of thing that is part i road i don't understand it well but they have a good and a foolish fellow a good you could you give me some idea so you're here among the people you have a wide a great circle of people from the islamic community here in north america and in new york and so forth what muslims in america there was a member on february fifteenth there was a big damage nineteen you know before the war started there's been some of the variation all over the world where the muslims demonstrating against the idea that we were going to go war larger and that it was like we were listening to it when the child be and these other people came and said let's go and overthrow saddam hussein it would be like listening to john wilkes booth for you know the you know the confederate representatives and lincoln when he was holding this nation together was vastly hated by so many people and it's like you're listening to the opposition to go over how terribly is and you got all that but that he wasn't as terrible as honoring out of one of the live in iraq and what was it that influences paul wolfowitz was talking about invading iraq back in the seventy's the neo con look good make connected group all bad and ran this country the neo kind of taken over this country we're talking about invading iraq in order to break it up they've broken up palestine they brought they turned that into a mess they've done that now they've gone turned in iraq now they're talking about going to bomb iran so what is that all about it seems to be perceived i would running and they're not scapegoats that's why i'm surprised you say you think the muslims are so well accepted because there's tremendous propaganda being directed at people who are muslim world i say most of them iraq you know most of them think were you to india i don't know what you mean but this time is ok pakistan is ok you think yeah you don't think there's animals directed at the united states among the masses of pakistan but the great admiration for ut i'm trying to say is there is a helping hand it was directed against the united states as rome as an imperial power climbing up by the by the is there not among the arab world and could there not be an extension of that out even to indonesia  i understand it help or set me straight here you are not meant if you are attacked you have the right to protect yourself and your family again of the attacker since with the funds that's correct yeah so they do not see they don't see they see themselves as resisting the attack by the united states upon the muslim world do they not much of the muslim world and that much of his that's comes out through all just their own that kind of thing do pattern for the whole world full spectrum dominance it's like an empire and where does the muslim world why would the muslim world want to accept that as something that is legitimate and not challenge it if it's a good question some of the principles that resonate in the hearts of all good muslims and people around the world or is this what is there a large scale resistance to american power or urging in the world in your view i think is a good question would make a difference between the government because of the new the and then a culture and other things but for this actions do you accept only this action are you old enough to remember vietnam yeah do you remember your attitude were you in egypt then or were you oppression is more those the before you think the oppression is more now yeah before and the trend is for there to be a smaller i mean there's greater oppression by smaller number of people over the masses of the people you know because if you have  so that the system in place is not adequate it is certain and the trends what are the trends is it becoming more just less just what are the trends and if the trends are not toward greater justice and equity for everybody what is the for everything would be balanced so so want do you think a revolution is in the wind by the people because we live more and more to where people have some say on things and everything the system does not serve the people we have technological displacement in the productive process we do not have systems in place that are going to be able to bring elemental justice to sixty eighty percent of the population of the world and that they've never been able to do anything other than just do what they're told throughout most all of history they've been sheep led around by their leaders still is but do you think it's beginning to stir to where there's a revolution of the people against the an adequate way in which the planet is operating for the benefit it should be should do you think know presentations of a better kind of world and everything by under by somebody who really understands the muslim world maybe had some experience in egypt maybe did some studying at alexandria and could present some of these really good perceptions to help different border you know and we haven't we haven't had that for so we haven't had that throughout all of our history we only had print we didn't have multimedia capability did influence concert but now we know that the much easier than before with all of this new cameras now may be liberation and real liberation and well lead lives for everybody that is the capability that we have now could begin to be realised in a way when i think the muslim you have the notion of the twelve the mom among the sh