Today, we are speaking with Eric Brazau.
He is an author of a book, Muslim Reformers vs.
Fundamentalists.
Eric, could you please introduce yourself and let people know just a little more
about you before we get started, please?
I've been in Toronto now since 2001.
I got here just after 9/11, I mean, the winter of.
I'm originally from Montreal.
I grew up in Montreal in both languages, English and French.
When I was much younger, I spoke Polish with my grandparents.
I studied theatre in Montreal for quite a long while at various
levels of amateur, semi professional basis on different plays.
Shakespeare, Harold Pinter, Chekhov, all of the classics
as well as some contemporaries.
I, for business reasons, I came out to Toronto in 2001, 2002.
At that point, um, I understood, I got involved by accident, now my life seems to
be around messaging, um, the proper, the better way to message and talk to people
who are on the other side of your opinion or the other side of your argument.
And I started out into this, I, this whole world of political
manifestations and activism and arguing with the subject matter of Islam.
That's how I started.
So as much as Islam is a large part of what I do, the subsequent part,
the part B to the, uh, to the main part, is how to engage with other
people who are in conflict with yourself in a manner that could
possibly lead to something productive.
That's the part B of what we do.
What you're doing is very important in our world today, Eric.
Because a lot of people like to argue about nothing, really.
But when we really boil it down, we're all human beings and we live here together.
So, your book, Muslim Reformers vs.
Fundamentalists, came out of this journey, this, kind of a, uh, odd thing.
Because you weren't Muslim, you were actually Islamophobic.
And that's very interesting, because many of us, if we're not of Islam,
we're, we're leery of it because of what the media brought in because of 9/11.
It's an interesting journey you took from being an Islamophobe to
whatever you consider yourself now.
Could you walk us through the journey of that transformation and what it
is now that you believe you are?
Well, I'll start with what you just said.
And if I veer away too far, please bring me back.
Because I can end up on tangents.
I don't identify, I don't, I, when you just said right now,
tell us what you are, I'm nothing different than I was in the past.
I'm the same person.
I've come to make some realizations.
And those realizations are
the more you tell people that they are wrong and that you are
right, the more they don't like it.
If for no other reason than, you might be right and they might be wrong,
that's, that no longer becomes the issue.
The issue becomes they just don't like it,
end of story.
So very often people can reject a message simply because they don't like
the people who are bringing them that message, because they're conflated.
So if we remember back to when we were fifteen years old and some teacher
or your mother said, You're wrong because you're a child and I'm right
because I know, you no longer cared about what was true or not true.
You just said, Why are you the boss of me?
Who do you think you are?
And you just, you just didn't, you just rejected their message outright.
I came to realize, wait a second, that could be why people hate me.
Of course, there's those who liked my message, were fans of my message, were
fans of my approach, but there were a lot of people who rejected the message
simply because they rejected my manner of bringing this message to them.
Rightly or wrongly is not the issue, they saw me as somewhat arrogant.
And to some extent, I was arrogant because I was certain in my position
that I was right and they were wrong.
So that already sets up a conflict of personalities between you and others.
Something happened at, in 2017, and I go through that in the book, to
which I had to re evaluate all of my stances on everything regarding Islam.
So I threw everything that I knew out the window, I started again, and then I
went on a journey to learn about Islam.
Not from the perspective of Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, Qatar.
I made the conscious decision to try to get it, to understand Islam from
the perspective of the Canadian, North American, Western European nations.
What are the leaders and the Muslim communities from here saying?
Because many of us say, Well, if we see a Saudi Arabia Imam spouting what he
spouts, We assume that that's Islam.
Or is ISIS Islam, or is Al Qaeda Islam, and if we don't like that,
therefore we, we see all of Islam as those entities that we don't like.
Or we conflate them.
So that's the journey that I went on, was to say, Okay, I'm going to start
again, I'm starting, and I've been, I was doing this for four, five, six
years prior to my, uh, my new approach.
So it took a lot of internal fortitude, and ego breaking, and
Oh my goodness, what did I do?
To, and now I've written two books, soon to publish two more.
And I've discovered not just the, so I've become not just an expert or an
authority of somewhat, some, some, uh, measure on what Islam, what the
leaders of Islam are saying Islam is.
But I am becoming an expert on how to message people or how to
have engaging conversations that are fruitful with people who are
diametrically opposed to your position.
How do we do that?
What's the recipe?
Because I don't want to, again, no one likes to be lectured to.
And I used to lecture people about what I know, and why I'm
right, and why you're wrong.
I don't lecture anymore.
So it's about a free flowing of information, and I think as I mentioned in
what I sent to you, you have to be open to listening to what they're actually saying.
Many of us, and I knew this prior, when we're in conversations, especially
heated ones, very often we wait for the other person to finish talking only so
that we can say what we want to say.
Without listening to what, so this, we're not, we're not sharing information,
we're just waiting for our turn to impose our information on them.
And I've reevaluated that, and I turned that completely around,
and I'm willing to learn from you.
Why is it that you believe what it is that you believe?
And more important is, why do you believe what you believe?
And what I've also found, more often than not, people do not know or have any
inkling as to why they believe what they believe, other than the people around
them that they like and believe that.
That is, that's correct, Eric.
Let me bust in right there for a minute.
You know, that's a very important aspect of what you're trying to convey to people.
Is, you know, the conversation thing.
Waiting to just respond with what you have to say instead of listening, and
then responding to what someone said.
You know, there's a big difference.
And, and that does create more tension in a good conversation.
And so many of us, we have to be able to defend ourselves.
And like you just said, a lot of us, we're defending what our ancestors told us.
And it's just heritage on down.
And even in my own religion, it says beware of traditions of men.
Because it's dangerous.
And, religion and politics, they're the two driving forces in our world
that matter the most and everybody wants to argue about them and
many of us don't even realize what we're arguing about.
Like you just said.
The Constitution is the driving force here in America and most Americans don't have
a clue what the Constitution even says.
I understand that a hundred percent just by observation.
And I think it's really important for people like you being out there.
You know, when I first came onto this and I'd seen Muslim Reformers vs.
Fundamentalists, my mind automatically clicked to, Oh,
this is something religious.
And, but really it's not about religion at all.
And this is what makes it so valuable to mankind.
Religion is just a mechanism for people.
Uh, it's part of the framework of what makes us who we are.
And if, if we don't understand the framework, we're just,
If I can just interject one second, it's not, it's, religion is not
the framework of who we are, it's the framework of, or it can be
the framework of our civilization.
Correct.
And you're absolutely right, that is exactly what I was
kind of pointing towards.
Maybe I worded that incorrect, but yes, you're absolutely correct.
But I don't want to get you off your topic.
You were going, you were saying the framework of who our civilization is, can
be, and usually is religion, or it can be the politics, it has to be something.
So, but, but what, why, you said when you first saw the book, when
you first saw the book, you thought it was going to be religion.
Yes, you know, it automatically framed my mind into this frame of, Oh, this
is going to be a religious, you know, Muslim versus Christian topic.
And that is the furthest from what this topic truly is.
And I really want people to take note of this because it takes
ourselves to understand that.
And we have to reframe from that instantaneous, oh, shock and awe.
That's what 9/11 was.
And that's what drew so many of us to this Islamophobia that many of us still today
suffer from many years after the attacks.
And that gets into a lot of drama anyway.
But my point here is we always grab the headline and we don't
say, What do you mean about that?
Correct.
Um,
I, I'm very wary of using the word Islamophobia myself as someone who
blogs and writes and been thinking about this now for going on to twelve years.
Because a phobia implies an irrational fear.
So there's this, like a mental illness of sorts.
You know, arachnophobia, claustrophobia, germophobia.
It's something that's irrational.
So, as opposed to saying a phobia, what we can, which is actually,
and even people here in Canada are starting to have this conversation,
it really comes down to what is misinformation and what is disinformation.
And how do we act upon and who decides what is and is not disinformation
and misinformation, right?
So
when someone says,
Islamophobia, like you just did, and it's a very innocent, innocuous
word in today's lingua franca.
Well, what do you, when someone says to me, Do you believe in God?
And I've come across that question several times.
Well, how do you define God for me to say whether I believe in it or not?
Like, what is your definition of God?
Because I can't say I do or I don't if I don't know how you define God.
For example, if someone says, Do you believe in justice?
Well, okay, like, it's hard not to believe in justice, but please define your
meaning of, how do you define justice?
So how can I agree with you or not if we haven't come to, it's called
first principles, basic principles.
Before we can actually answer what, do you believe in justice?
Okay, let's have a conversation of how you define justice.
Then once you've defined it, then I can tell you if I'm in agreement or not.
And very often we have conversations about so many topics to which
no one has the, the two people discussing are not even in agreement
of, what are the basic principles?
What is the foundation?
And so,
So Eric, does that mean that we're lazy when we start having these conversations?
Wonderful.
That's actually a very insightful question.
Lazy, sloppy, I prefer to put it down to, because people spend a lot of
energy in these conversations, they scream, they yell, they get red faced,
some people look like they're gonna have a, some people you would think
they're going to have a heart attack,
they start frothing at the mouth, they're not lazy, sloppy.
And many people, we have learned, if we are more passionate about
something, or if we demonstrate passion, it will somehow, it adds to
the convincing of our righteousness.
And very often it can be the opposite.
The more you're passionate and yelling and show your righteous indignation,
it means you have no legs to stand on.
Believe me because I'm screaming and yelling, believe me because I
know and look how passionate I am.
So please believe me, you must believe me.
I don't know why you must believe me, but just believe me.
So where can you go from here?
That, that was me when I started podcasting.
It was many of us, many of us.
And especially when you're fourteen, fifteen, seventeen, twenty, you, you
have some, there's something that happens to us at a young age where
we start to think we know so much.
There's a thing about youth, it must be the brain, something happens
that you just think you're so smart.
And then we bring, we carry that forward into adulthood.
So, I don't know what, you know, so go ahead, ask me another question.
But we're, seem to be in agreement here, you need to argue with me a bit more.
Well, that's, that's what the Dead America Podcast is about, is kinda making
people come together and understand we're all different, and there's really
nothing that we're arguing about.
Because if we really sit down and have an intellectual conversation,
we'll actually find out a lot of the times we're on the same page.
Yep.
Actually, if I may interrupt you.
May I interrupt you, please?
Please, may I interrupt you?
Very important.
What you just said is wrong, we're not all on the same page.
Now if, say we had a town of 150, 000 people and we had a meeting where we're
going to buy the new firetrucks, right?
And some people wanted the fire trucks to be, uh, neon yellow, so
that it's, you can see it from afar.
And other people said, No, we want it to be fashionable.
So we want it to be like an orange that blends into the background,
so that it's not so obtrusive.
Well, some people have a different idea on what color the fire trucks should be.
But, they all agree we need fire trucks.
They all agree that fires should be fought and extinguished,
that's on the same page.
If another group of people at the city council are arguing that we should not
have fire trucks, that fire is a good thing and we should let buildings burn.
That's a different page,
right?
So what you just did, the smart person that you are, and as you're
becoming on a journey, is you said something that's not true.
It's a platitude, we're not all on the same page.
For example, some people say the border wall should be six feet high, some
people say it should be done this way.
Some people want to spend more money, less money.
But there are other people who say we should not have a border
wall, we should not have a border.
So that's not the same page anymore.
So before you can argue with someone about how high or what's the effective
way to build a border wall, the first question is, do we all agree here
that a border wall, and I'm using this as an example, but do we all agree
that we need a, we need a border?
Because if someone says, We should not have a border, well, then you
cannot have, you cannot discuss what the border wall should look like.
They're not on the same page.
So what are the, so before we, so when you come to our, when we, when
we organize the meeting, we have to say, This is a meeting for people
who believe and support a border wall or support a border to begin with.
That's correct.
So, so, you know, Eric, that, that's interesting because there
again, that was me being lazy.
You know, I did not think deep enough into what I was actually saying and
the meaning of what my intent was.
So, it's good that we're having this conversation because it illustrates
to people the importance to be poignant, and that, that, that's
very lacking in our society today.
People don't know how to get specific anymore, it's too much granularity around.
Correct.
Yes.
So,
because I've practiced this technique of having conversations and being
granular for the last seven, eight years, actually, for a long time, and
that was how I used to, I was able to, you know, in some manner of speaking,
demonstrate my superior abilities as I was able to crush people in conversations.
And I wasn't nice about it, I would just show them up to be fools.
And then again, that's not so nice, but I'm just expressing my journey.
Yeah.
Well, that's what we're here for.
Most, so most people will say nice things, like we're all on the same page.
You know, they say nice things, not understanding what are the implications
of those nice things that they're saying.
So let's assume you make a statement, or you hold an opinion, or a concept
that's not necessarily wrong,
but it's not particularly correct.
It's not particularly on point, it's off by 10%.
So 90%, you would say, Well that's good, it's 90%.
Sure.
Do you sail?
Have you ever been on the water?
Okay, very good.
Very good.
Okay.
So say you are, I don't know, uh, six kilometers, three miles out into the
lake, and you got to go back home.
Now you know back home is somewhere over there,
but you're not really sure where it is over there.
Is it two degrees to that side, three degrees to that side?
You kind of have a general idea, but if you're off by three degrees, starting from
three miles out, all of a sudden, you're 500 meters or 500, you're half a mile
downwind of where you actually need to be.
It's like, now if you're off by one, or two, or three degrees and you're
only 500 meters away from where you're going, you're going to be off by
three, four, five, seven, ten feet.
The further out you are, that three degrees or five degrees
becomes a lot of distance.
So as a, it's again, if, if I'm in, if I'm sitting in front of you and I
point a pistol at your forehead, well, I'm probably not going to miss whether
I'm two degrees this way or that way, because I'm right in front of you.
But if I'm, you know, thirty, thirty feet away from you, now
I got to be dead on accurate.
So the same can happen with the civilization, with the conversation,
with the culture, with a nation.
It takes, it takes a lot of time to build a nation, to build a
culture, to, you know, to, to build.
It takes time.
Especially the more intricate, to build something, the more it takes effort.
But if you make, if we start making all of these platitudes and accepting all of
these concepts just because they sound good, and they may be more or less good,
but more or less doesn't quite cut it.
And so, I'm a, I'm a proponent of if you don't know what you're
talking about, just don't talk.
Not everyone is an expert on every subject.
I asked, when I was in jail for my Islamophobia back in, several years ago,
met a man, a black guy, maybe he was thirty-five years old, we had a
conversation, or I asked him something.
And now it's odd because here I am in this environment and he said,
I cannot give an opinion because I don't know much about this subject.
He said that.
How often have you said that, or have you heard someone say that?
Myself, I say it quite a bit.
If I don't have a clue, I admit it.
But I always have an opinion.
Well, there you, like he, but he said, I don't have an opinion because
I know nothing about this subject.
Well, I know I don't know enough about the subject.
As a concept, everyone thinks if they have an opinion, it's valid.
Because it's, and that's, that's the problem as a society, we've, as
a society, we seem to have set up a paradigm where all opinions are equal.
You've heard that, correct?
I say that's wrong, no way.
No way, Jose.
My mother had opinions on everything, she had opinions on car engines.
She wasn't a mechanic, but yet she knew.
You know, a lot of people, if you, especially if you think
back to your mothers and stuff, everyone, or some people, everyone
has opinions on everything.
I don't have any opinions on astrophysics,
I have no opinions on black holes and time warps, and, I don't know much about this.
I don't talk about it, other than to say, Wow, that's interesting.
So if somebody gave me his opinion on black holes and time travel,
I would not argue with them.
I would just nod my head and say, Hmm, that's interesting.
Well, that's part of how we learn through conversations.
If we're interested in a topic or a subject, we have to ask questions to
learn and that's part of discussion.
However, if we're not sure, we do tend to not want to say, I'm not sure.
And I've seen that many, many times in my, about, time on this earth.
But we, we definitely need to be having conversations even if we're
not aware of what's happening, because that's how we learn.
So yes, and we learn by asking questions.
I have asked people if we should have open borders here in Canada, if everybody
should be allowed to, I've asked this question on camera, in places, in saunas,
in, I used to do on camera interviews with random strangers, many people, the
vast majority of people, will never say, Oh, immigration, because of, we have
a housing crisis here in Canada, it's foods, everything, a lot of problems,
when I've asked people, Should we have, should we slow down immigration, or
have a moratorium on immigration for the time being, because of all these issues?
Most will respond, Oh, of course not, we should not do that because, and they
list off all of the regular reasons.
I'll say, Fine.
Do you have a lock on your front door?
Everyone does.
They look at me quite perplexed when I ask them that question.
Do you decide who can and can not come into your home?
Of course I do.
Oh, so if random people just want to walk into your home and start eating
your food, is that acceptable to you?
Oh, of course not, they'll answer.
Well, then why is it okay for people to just walk across the border and come into
Canada and become citizens of our family?
Why is it not the, you know?
So many people will say, I believe in open borders, I believe in whatever it
is that they believe in, without ever having truly thought about what are the
implications of what they're saying.
And so I'm not interested in what people believe.
Sorry, go ahead.
The disease factor also in immigration, you know, there's a
reason why we isolate individuals.
So yeah, you need to think about these things.
Well, so we need to, again, people make statements without really fully
understanding what are the implications of their statements because their
statements are usually not challenged.
Again, so that's why I come back, I'm not so much interested in arguing
against people's ideas or opinions.
Because ultimately, everyone who believes what they believe would
like to share that with others.
I mean, at some point, we believe, I mean, a Republican is a Republican
for a reason, and he's not a Democrat.
So Republicans would certainly like to get into conversations and convince Democrats
to become Republicans at some point.
But as, if I were a Republican, I would only be asking Democrats, Well,
what are the foundational principles of why you believe what you believe?
And that's what I would have the conversation about, not
about their final opinions.
But have you thought true, have you thought through, what are the implications
of this foundational principle?
If we, if we do this, if we do that.
So what's going to happen to the food stamps?
What's going to happen to all of the senior citizens who are
already here and, you know?
At some point, it's possible we can run out of money and have to do a, you know,
you have to have that conversation.
And what their opinion is becomes irrelevant,
it doesn't matter what their opinion is.
What matters is why do they believe what they believe, and that's
the exchange of information.
Yeah, I, I like that a lot.
So, so, communication about the right things first will actually lead into
understanding how to, right, on how to fix and repair or come to an agreement.
So that's pretty interesting.
Or we could come to an agreement, or we could come to an agreement that
I, I want to kill you, you want to kill me, and that's our agreement.
But let's stop wasting time, let's stop wasting time.
Right.
Exactly, exactly.
Yeah, that's, that's, yeah, I, I like that a lot because, uh, it's really about being
responsible, and, and that's what it is.
And it's, it's responsible, respectful.
And at some point, I respect you.
Even if you are my enemy, I respect you as my enemy, quote unquote.
And I'm saying, until you've declared yourself to be my enemy,
I don't see you as my enemy.
But let's be clear.
So if you are someone who says we should paint the fire truck yellow, we
should paint the fire truck red, you know, we can have, you're not my enemy.
But if you say we should let the city burn to the ground because we don't
want to, you have now, you're completely on the other side of the equation.
Correct.
That, that outlines that.
Yeah, that's good.
We're clear on that now, let's be clear.
And very often what happens is sometimes people particularly want to be ambiguous,
because that's part of the strategy,
deception, etc.
That's correct.
So Eric, as I stated earlier in our conversation, your book is nothing about
what the title and what your mind suggests it might be.
And it's very interesting that you can capture a mindset in that way just
because of that shock and awe factor.
Is, is that part of your plan with, starting with this Muslim, uh, reformers
versus the fundamentalists idea?
Well, uh, not exactly.
If you read, have, have you flipped through, did I send you the e book?
Okay.
I should, I should have done that.
Okay, so, the idea of the book is
Islam, and everyone will accept that Islam is greatly contributing
to Western civilization.
Do you agree on that?
I don't know if I have enough data to answer that correctly, you know?
Okay.
You actually, you do.
Okay.
So my question to you is just this, Do you notice that the concept
of the Islamic religion occupies a large space in our zeitgeist?
Yes, okay.
So that's very good.
So that's, Islam is very much a presence in our civilization.
It's in the news, it's in the media, it's on, uh, it's everywhere, okay?
I would actually say that, uh, in many ways, I, in my thinking,
would suggest that Islam is bigger in capacity than Christianity.
Yes.
So someone who is on the offensive,
as in chess, or anything you play, or hockey, or baseball, you know,
if you're on the offense, the other guy is there ergo on the defense.
If I had to be, if as a chess player, or a fighter, or I play hockey, I would rather
be on the offense than on the defense.
A football team that's always on the field with the offense has a better
chance of winning than the defense.
Does that make sense?
Yes.
So Islam, as the religion, has a duty to always be on the offense.
The offense of Islam is to bring Islam to the world.
That's a religious duty.
The religious duty is self sacrifice to bring Islam to the world, for
the betterment of mankind, to wipe out Christianity and Judaism,
along with atheism, uh, et cetera.
Sorry, Christianity and Judaism do not need to be wiped out, they can be left
to survive as a subjugated religion.
That's the doctrine of Islam.
However, many people misunderstand that.
That Islam wants to dominate the world for malintent.
So Islam sees itself as bringing rest, Islam sees itself as bringing justice
and humanity back because, to the world as dictated by Allah and the Sharia.
So, for example, many people are confused.
There is a book here at the Toronto Dundas Square, it's a Times Square in
New York, where for the last fifteen years, today as well, there is a
group called the Toronto Dawah Group.
Do you know what Dawah is?
They were giving out a book called Women in Islam, or Know Your Human
Rights, in which it specifically lays out in black and white, in English,
that when a man, and I'm quoting now, when a man beats his wife, he should not
beat her for vengeance or to hurt her.
Beating women is only for discipline and to correct their behavior.
So you should not break her bones, you should not leave black and blue marks.
Because Islam forbids severe beatings.
Bukhari, in the hadith, gives you the number, a man should never, Allah,
look, the Prophet Muhammad said, A man should never beat his wife and then
have sex with her on the same day.
So many people do not understand that, for many Muslims, this demonstrates compassion
in the fact that the bones of the wife are not broken.
So when they hear that at first, they think that this is bad,
that beating women is bad.
And as a Western civilization, we may come to that conclusion and
jump and say, Whoa, this is bad.
You're not supposed to beat your wife, correct?
Many people believe that from the Western perspective.
But from the Islamic perspective, they see that to not beat your wife,
is to shirk your duties as a husband.
So it all comes down also to per fundamental principles.
So if I were to say to someone, You are a bad person because you beat your wife.
And he looks at me and says, Well, you're a bad person because you don't
beat your, you don't beat your wife.
Because by not beating your wife, you're not controlling her.
And in the Islamic, in the Islamic paradigm, the man must control his wife.
He cannot let her leave the house without his permission,
without being fully covered.
Whereas Western men, or Western civilization, allows women to
just come and go as they please.
So fundamental principles are, are, you're starting at two different places.
So, the book, Muslim Reformers and Fundamentalists, basically outlines
how, what we in the West expect as the foundational elements of
what a civilization is, does not correspond in any way with what the
Islamic doctrine says foundational elements of civilization are.
In the book, however, you have the Muslim reformers who do say, My
Islam, or the Islam that I prefer, is compatible with Western civilization.
However, the other voice, which is the imams and mosques that represent
ninety-five percent of all the mosques in Canada, America, Sweden,
Germany, Belgium, Austria, say no.
The reformers are nutcases, and they represent one percent
of the Muslim population.
Which means they don't have a lot of seniority,
they don't have any sway.
But many people, like nice people, non Muslims, like the
concept of the reformed Islam.
And they prefer to ignore,
they like that Islam, but they, they, they prefer to ignore the Islam
that's actually in the doctrine.
That's preached from the Sunnis every Friday.
So, what comes clear in the book is there's elements of what
we would call not nice Islam.
The, you know, the total blackness, music is haram, music is the call of Satan,
uh, Western civilization is a cesspool.
That Islam is, or seems to be, mainstream Islam.
That is the Islam of ninety percent of the mosques or of the belief system.
So my book that I'm working on right now deals with, to some extent,
the highest, to a large extent, the highest achievement that a Muslim
man can do for the religion of Islam, of Allah, is to die in self
sacrifice, in one way or another.
That's what we would call a shaheed.
A shaheed, shaheed.
Shaheed, shahada, for , shaheed for male, shahada for females, um, a martyr.
Now what's, what many people don't, a martyr, a martyr in Islam, the
males anyhow, because Islam for a large percentage is written
from the perspective of the male.
A martyr in Islam, and this is not fringe doctrine, this is mainstream
doctrine, very well established, will have seventy-two houries, H O U R I E
S, houries, which is black eyed girls, seventy-two, virgins, in paradise.
There's also doctrine that says that virgins in paradise are perpetual.
Their hymens repair on a daily basis, so they're perpetual virgins.
But most important to the family is that someone who gains the highest
level of paradise in this manner can intercede for seventy of his
relatives on the day of judgment.
So say you're my brother and you're a bad guy and you're not going to
paradise 'cause you're a bad guy.
Well, because I'm a good guy who went to the highest level in
paradise, I could say to Allah, Hey, whoa, Allah, that's my brother.
Bring him on in.
I can do that for seventy of my relatives.
That's why a lot of people, when their children become martyrs, they're happy.
But you see, but, but, so my, what I'm getting at here is this little
example shows you how fundamental principles, underlying principles of
what we think it is to be alive, and what we think is the, what we view as
life, is completely different from the Islamic perspective of what is life.
So I'm not going to argue like I did ten years ago about,
unless you understand the underlying principles, there's
no conversation to be had.
So are Muslims wrong?
That's a very interesting question.
Uh, are they wrong?
No, it's their belief.
You know, that's what they were raised in.
So it's very interesting because Christians, same way, you know, we're
steeped in it from birth to adulthood.
And those, those ideas, you know, they're fundamental to who we are usually
because that's what we were raised in.
It doesn't matter what culture, and, and that brings up another thing
about your border idea, you know, that's why we have borders, the locked
doors, those are different families.
They have different cultures, they have different ideas and that's okay.
Well, you, you, you prefer to live in a village where people
think and act the same way you do.
And in those villages, you might not lock your door.
Whereas in, whereas in downtown Manhattan, you probably lock your door.
That's a good point.
You know, because generally out where I live, people don't lock their doors.
There's locks on the doors, but you know, we know who's
around and we know who to watch.
And that's, I believe in every culture, or it used to be, I would assume.
And, and that's how people survive, isn't it?
By paying attention.
What you're talking about, and what we've stumbled into, is
called high trust societies.
Here in Canada,
we used to not have a picture on our driver's license.
On our Medicare card, we did not have a picture.
The picture was eventually put on the, your identification because people
started using false identification.
So the government's so, but fifty, sixty, seventy, eighty years ago,
people did not think of using false identification so much.
It wasn't rampant in culture, because for the most part, people were just honest.
It was seen as bad to be dishonest.
But there are other cultures where to be dishonest is seen, or to be honest
is to be seen as being a weakling sap.
And the culture is to cheat whichever way you can to get any one inch
advantage over the other guy, because it really is dog eat dog.
That's a different culture, it's a different group of people.
But if we come back to, and it wasn't so long ago when here in Canada,
If you went to small villages, St. Jerome, St. Agathe, outside of Quebec
City, Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, everyone was celebrating Christmas, or
everyone was into the Christmas spirit.
Nobody was arguing, everyone was happy, everyone was saying
Merry Christmas to everybody.
It was, there was an atmosphere in the air, even in Montreal.
That's no longer the case,
it's extremely not the case.
There's no longer an atmosphere of community because to have an atmosphere of
community, you need to have a community.
I stress the word, a community, not just a group of individual
multitudes of communities.
Because then you just get a whole bunch of individual communities vying
for, so, because at some point one community or one group or one ideology
will ultimately become dominant.
Because every idea and every ideology kind of believes it's the better
idea, that's why it's an idea.
So why would it not want to impose itself, in one way or another, nicely,
not nicely, over the other ideas?
I really believe, Eric, that that has been the case since the beginning of time.
The same mentality, especially, you know, if you don't assimilate cultures
properly, and I don't know if there is a proper way to assimilate cultures,
but usually what happens when we assimilate cultures is, the dominant
culture gobbles up the weaker culture.
That's always been historically true.
Is there a way we can change something like that?
Um, can we change that?
Well, this, do, before we could change anything fundamentally, the
fundamental question then becomes, do
enough people, or does anyone other than maybe yourself, believe it's
a question that needs to be asked?
Like, so is the mainstream media, is the CNN, who's, who's, would CNN,
would, would Fox News maybe, even ask this question that you just asked?
Just the question itself, it's verboten.
So how can you fix a problem unless you even discuss whether
or not it could be a problem?
Is it a problem
that needs to be fixed?
So how can you fix a problem before you actually defined it as a problem?
And that, and therein lies,
Well, I guess.
Yeah.
Yeah, I guess we have to go granular there again with, you know, defining
what a problem is and, you know, if it, yeah, is it a problem?
So
I guess that's kind of, you know, in our mindset, isn't it?
That's kind of in our mindset to fix things, isn't it?
Well, okay.
So this brings us back to if we had a emperor or a king who could say, or if
I was made king, right, or the emperor, then I could say from now on for the
next five years, we're going to fix all the problems that I think are problems.
And we're going to do it my way.
Now that could work out to the way you think it should, it could, or at
least eighty percent of what I end up doing could be what you agree with.
But to do anything, the eighty percent of what you think would be good to
be done, you can't have committees having conversations about, you know,
the right color of the firetruck.
That could take like six months to discover what color we want
the firetruck to be, let alone make the order for the firetruck.
But a king could say, Look, I want the firetruck to be red.
End of story, no more conversation, buy the firetrucks.
That's how civilizations used to function, we had a king, an emperor.
Was it, and as time has, goes by, I'm not certain that the
present system is much better.
I mean, we, we have injustice.
We have injustice, we have poverty, we have people who are falsely
accused, we have people who have been falsely killed in prison, we,
we, you know, so was it better under King, under King Edward the third?
It could have been better or not, I don't know.
So we did all of this revolution to have a new system, and now we're, have, you
know, people homeless in the streets.
Look at what's going on in California.
Now, would a king or an emperor ever accept what's going on
in the streets of California?
Even a bad king would not accept that, it would never happen.
Or at least he could fix it in some way.
I'm not sure, but the point is, is California has spent sixty-five
billion dollars on the homeless and the drug people in California.
And it's, it's worse than ever, that's the joke.
But a king could come in and say, We're going to do this, this, this, and this.
I don't want to spend any money.
We're going to do some bad, cause maybe you're going to do some bad
evil things to fix this problem.
But I'm not sure that doing what we would call bad evil things to fix the problem
is any more bad than what's going on now.
We just want to delay doing the inevitable bad things in order to have ourselves,
to be able to say we are good people.
Because we're good people, we don't want to judge.
You know, the methamphetamine people standing on the corner
of the street who are going to be dead in three months anyway.
Or maybe they actually kind of are dead, they're the walking dead.
You could, somebody could make that case.
Yeah, it's very interesting.
You know, this, this whole conversation that we've had really sheds light
on, you know, conversation and how we have conversations really matters.
It, it takes thought.
And, and this is really, truly what I've been working on is having
conversations exactly like this.
That it challenges what you think you already know.
And this, I believe, in my head, will make a better person come
out of the confusion and chaos.
As long as we can stumble through what we're doing right here today,
and get to know each other and our thoughts a little bit better.
Yeah, that's a nice way to put it.
But I come back to, ultimately, when I have this conversation with
you, my, I'm not, my overlying objective, or my underpinning
objective, is not to make friends.
I, we could become friends, but I'm not here to become your friend.
My primary objective, ultimately, is for you to think what I think.
Because I think, what I think is, because I've been thinking about
it for a long time, for fifteen, twenty years, writing about it.
On certain subjects, I think I know the right way to think about those subjects.
Ultimately, how do I accomplish that?
So, we come back to, if you're a Republican who wants to talk to a
Democrat, ultimately, you would prefer for the Democrat to become a Republican,
correct?
How do you do that?
So how do we do that?
That's the how.
So I can guarantee you most Republicans have given up on anyone
that's called, so if I scream and yell at you, I've given up.
All I want to do is show you how smart I am and how stupid
you are and, but I've given up.
If I haven't given up, then I'm going to, I'm going to stop myself,
take a step backwards and say, Okay, do I take this person seriously?
Is it worth my time and effort to engage with this person in this manner?
And it's going to take time.
Half an hour, one hour, a little bit today, maybe tomorrow,
it's a, it's a process.
However, and I'm going to leave this with you, and this one, you'll understand,
it's very simple, most people try to change someone's mind in one conversation.
I talk to you now, I want to show you you're wrong, I want you to, to realize
that I'm right, I'm right, you're wrong, and I want you to realize that now.
What I have discovered,
all I can do is plant seeds of doubt.
That's it.
And tomorrow, perhaps, another seed of doubt will come into your mind.
But once I've planted that seed of doubt, stop,
walk away, let that seed germinate in your mind.
Now you have the problem because that seed is in your mind.
But of course if we have true conversation, it's possible that you'll
plant the seed of doubt into my mind.
Possible, I'm open to that.
So I've had conversations with people where I've actually said in the
conversation, You know, I admit and I'm willing to accept that it's possible
that you are right and that I am wrong.
Do you accept that?
And, of course, the person accepts the possibility that
they're right and I'm wrong.
You understand the joke, of course they accept that.
So then I, then what's the next question?
What's the next question?
Think about it.
Do you accept the same?
Do you accept that it's possible you could be right and I could, that you
could be wrong and I could be right?
Is that possible?
Okay, so if I'm having a conversation with someone and I ask them that
question, Is it possible that you could be right and I could be wrong?
And they accept that, but they won't accept the inverse,
don't have the conversation.
Makes no sense.
Thank you very much.
And I really, I've literally said, I understand we can't have
a conversation and I just don't.
Walk away.
Why spend your time and energy?
I only will, I will only have a conversation with someone who
leaves open the possibility.
I'm not even saying you are, I am right.
Is it possible?
If they say no, then fine, gone.
Again, you have to establish underlying foundational principles.
And if you have not established those, you're, you're spinning around in mud.
And the more you step on the gas, the more quicker the wheel spins in the mud.
And you do nothing, right?
It's insanity to just keep stepping on the gas and spinning the wheels,
and that's what we do a lot of.
So if you're spinning your wheels, best thing to do is shut off the engine,
get out, get a shovel, start digging this, around the mud, put some, you
know, you got to do the real work.
But just screaming and yelling, which is basically stepping on the gas, nothing.
Except animosity, hatred, anger, more division, and less respect, because
then you start calling each other names.
And that brings us back to Islam, to that subject, which I, when people say what
they say on anything to do with Islam,
is it nine times out of ten or nineteen times out of twenty?
They have no idea what they're talking about.
They only say what they say because it's the thing to be said.
Yeah.
Opinionated news, again.
So yeah.
It's,
Yeah.
I'll send you my e book, I'll send you the e book.
Yeah, I will actually probably order your book to read what
you have to say in there.
Because that's what we do, we read books and we learn.
And if your mind isn't open to other perspectives, you've already lost
and I believe that a hundred percent.
Because what I believe is just what I believe and I cannot quantify that
at all if I can't take other things in and still believe the same thing.
Well, you see, I hate to do this to you, because you're a nice guy and I
like you, but you just made another statement that's a little bit, no, of
course, but it's just a little bit off.
You made a, you made a very important statement that's a bit off.
You said, um, I am, something about perspectives, I'm prepared
to change my perspective, or something of that nature, right?
You said something like that.
Yeah.
Well, I'm, I'm open, I'm always open to change my perspective if
you can persuade me that I am wrong.
And, you know, I have a foundation.
Well, but think about this.
You know, I understand you.
And I'm being kind of picky because we're, well, that's our conversation
about being, about conversations, right?
I, I'm not sure I'm ready to entertain the perspective of a pedophile.
I won't entertain that perspective.
So what you just said,
on some level, is like saying all cultures are equal.
Well, I don't know.
I am not sure I'm prepared to accept that statement that all cultures are equal.
We could say all cultures are cultures, okay?
All cultures are equally cultures because they're cultures, okay?
But what does that mean when we say all cultures are equal?
Well, I'm not sure the Tahiti culture that threw virgins into the
volcano to appease the volcano god is equal to the Christian culture.
It could be if we want to have that conversation, but that's
quite a sweeping statement.
How do, how would, how would we even measure that, Eric?
I mean, you know, when, when we get deep into that, how can, because that lies
back onto our own perspective again.
So,
But, but correct.
And that, and I'm glad you, we're somewhere now where it's a little bit
more difficult to have this conversation, and so that's, so, here we come.
I once asked a man in a Canadian legion, and I've asked this question
several times, If you were standing on a bridge and underneath you
there was a raging flood, raging, two girls are being swept away
they're both twelve years old, one of these girls is your granddaughter, the
other girl is a girl, maybe it's your granddaughter's friend, she's a nice girl,
but the genie that came down from the sky gave you the opportunity to save one of
those girls, which girl would you save?
Many people don't like to answer that question.
It's obvious, the, the granddaughter.
But it's not, but many people don't answer that.
They answer, Well, equity, depends, blah, blah, blah, who's
going to, you know, but, look.
So, at some point we are human.
Well, but people are so, we, people are so conditioned to respond in a
certain way because of media, right?
At some point, there are some issues that just come down to what I prefer.
And if you prefer, if you prefer, example, that there are cultures where
they do cut off the little skin on little girls who are twelve years old.
Do you know what I'm talking about?
Okay.
I'm not prepared to accept that as acceptable.
To me, that's not acceptable.
Done.
It's horrible.
But there are many people in Canada who I've had that conversation with
that have said, Well, it depends.
And I'm like, Huh?
Really?
Like, and more than you would think.
Well, it depends.
At some point, don't we, as men, as people, as a civilization, have to
just say, I prefer what I prefer.
No, I don't want to argue with you why we should not cut
off the skin of little girls.
I just shoot you in the head.
Done.
If you're one of those people who does it, okay, boom, shot in the head.
Am I right?
Am I wrong?
I've also asked the question, If you were walking in the park, in Central Park,
somewhere, and in the bushes there was a girl who was being punched and, you know,
having her clothes ripped off by two guys.
And they were busy doing what they were busy.
And you could walk up behind them and hit them in the head with a rock.
But because there's two of them, you have to make sure that when you hit the
first guy with the rock, you do it hard enough that he's not going to get back up.
Because there's two of them, because now they can attack you.
And then very quickly you have to hit the second guy.
And in doing this, you might kill them
or you could not do anything and just let the girl be raped.
I know which one I would do.
Now, is it right or is it wrong?
I've had people tell me, Well, you could injure them very badly.
You might kill them, you could cripple them.
However, I only think about the girl.
That's my concern.
So am I a wrong person?
Am I doing a wrong thing?
Okay, you could say that I'm wrong to do it.
However, I will still do it.
And if I'm judged wrong, okay, judge me wrong.
If by accident the police come and I go to jail, I guess I'll be sad
when I'm in jail, but I don't know that I would do anything different.
I would say the people who threw me into jail for doing this, they're wrong.
You see where I'm going?
Sometimes we have to be wrong or we have to accept that other people say we're
wrong for what it is that we believe.
Sometimes.
This is very complicated, but my point is that's why screaming and yelling
and platitudes are much simpler.
So Eric, this has definitely been an outstanding conversation, because it's
challenging what you think, what you know.
And this is what we love the best here at the Dead America Podcast.
I really want to say thank you for that.
Before we end our conversation, would you please share how people
can find your book, get in contact with you, and also do you have a call
to action for our listeners today?
Call of action would be simply, not that I'm trying to sell the book,
because I don't make that much money off of each book, if you were to read
the book, you would understand the concept of how to have the conversation.
It's all about, call of action is, if you want to change someone's mind,
and I'm assuming many people do, have the conversation about what,
why they believe what they believe.
Simple.
Call to action, get the book, Muslim Reformers vs.
Fundamentalists, I spent a lot of time and effort to write this book.
And I think it's a very well written book, and you will learn.
And you cannot, nothing can, it took a couple hundred years or thousands
of years to build our civilization.
People believe what they believe over twenty, thirty years of information
associated with their ideology.
You're not going to change their mind in one conversation, or one argument.
Mostly, it's not, it's usually not a conversation, it's an argument.
Don't argue, have conversations, and plant seeds of doubt.
There we go, that's the call to action.
Plant seeds of doubt, and let them germinate.
ericbrazau.com, that's my website, my blog, my podcast.
Um, and go to Amazon or you can buy the book directly from my website.
Say two, and I think
It's definitely been a fascinating conversation, and it is definitely
not what I thought it was going to be and that makes it even better.
So I do hope that you enjoyed the conversation because I know our
listeners will definitely enjoy this.
And I really want to highlight one more thing with you before we go, I ran across
a, uh, I guess it's an organization up there in Canada called Braver Angels.
Have you heard of the organization?
I really, I would really encourage you to look that up.
And I think you would be such a fascinating fit for that organization
because you do this so well.
And I encourage you to look up Braver Angels.
And anyone else that has been with us this long in this conversation, you
also need to go look up Braver Angels.
And you know, that's really what me, Eric and I have done here
today is really highlight the work that they have been doing also.
Eric, thank you so much for being part of the Dead America family today.
It was, it's been my pleasure.
And after you read the book, I'm sure you'll have many questions.
Get, get in touch.
Thank you.
Good day.
Thanks.
Goodbye.
Oh yes, I will.
For sure.
Thank you.
Thank you for joining us today.
If you found this podcast enlightening, entertaining, educational in any way,
please share, like, subscribe, and join us right back here next week for another
great episode of the Dead America Podcast.
I'm Ed Watters, your host, enjoy your afternoon wherever you might be.