The term 'formers' refers to former extremists who have left their extremist groups and now assist others in exiting similar movements. It was formalized after a 2011 summit in Dublin, where former extremists from various groups shared their experiences and commonalities.
Mubin Shaikh deliberately starts his conversations by sharing his own story as a former extremist and undercover operative. He does this to ensure transparency and to address potential objections upfront, emphasizing his role as an ally rather than an adversary.
Disengagement involves stepping back from extremist activities while still holding onto some beliefs, whereas de-radicalization involves a cognitive shift, changing one's mind and views completely. Disengagement is a behavioral shift, while de-radicalization is a deeper, ideological transformation.
Mubin Shaikh explains that while radicalization is the process of adopting increasingly extreme views, the vast majority of radicalized individuals never become violent. Only a small minority act on their extremist beliefs.
The internet has led to younger individuals becoming radicalized, as their still-developing brains are bombarded with complex extremist ideas that they cannot fully process. This results in a superficial understanding of extremist ideologies.
Grievances alone do not lead to extremism; they must be paired with ideology. Ideology without grievances does not resonate, and grievances without ideology are not acted upon. Both elements are necessary for radicalization to occur.
Mubin Shaikh uses a combination of peer support, motivational interviewing, and his own experience as a former extremist to engage with individuals. Traditional mental health professionals may lack the specific knowledge of extremist ideologies needed to effectively communicate with radicalized individuals.
Mubin Shaikh acknowledges that his work has sometimes been challenging for his faith, particularly when dealing with extremist interpretations of Islam that contradict mainstream Islamic teachings. He feels saddened by the damage extremist ideologies have done to the image of Islam.
Parents for Peace is a U.S.-based organization that provides support to families dealing with radicalized members. They offer a helpline and intervention services to help families navigate the challenges of de-radicalization and disengagement.
Mubin Shaikh advises against shutting down communication with individuals who hold extremist views. Instead, he suggests offering a utilitarian perspective, acknowledging their grievances, and modeling balanced behavior to encourage critical thinking and dialogue.
This episode is brought to you by LifeLock. The holidays mean more travel, more shopping, more time online, and more personal info in places that could expose you to identity theft. That's why LifeLock monitors millions of data points every second. If your identity is stolen, their U.S.-based restoration specialist will fix it, guaranteed, or your money back. Get more holiday fun and less holiday worry with LifeLock. Save up to 40% your first year. Visit LifeLock.com slash podcast. Terms apply.
With Lululemon, the real gift happens when your holiday checklist is complete. When you give them the softest lounge drawer set, you both get more moments like this. And this. And this. This holiday, Lululemon makes it easy to find last-minute gifts that bring presents. Open the moment. Shop now at lululemon.com. If you can hear me, take encryption button off the drive.
Hello, True Spies listeners. Welcome back to our new assignment, True Spies Debrief. Here on the Debrief, we catch up with some of our favorite guests from the True Spies archive for a deeper look at the themes, events and insights that fascinate them.
As a teenager, Mubeen Sheikh became a Muslim extremist. Later, he served as an undercover operative for the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, infiltrating groups that shared the very ideology he himself had once subscribed to. You can hear the story of his radicalization and de-radicalization in episode 10 of True Spies, Undercover Jihadi.
Today, Mubeen works with Parents for Peace, a U.S.-based organization that helps to combat extremism in young people. True Spies producer Morgan Childs caught up with Mubeen to learn more about his work and how he uses lived experience to tackle extremism as a public health issue. Well, Mubeen, thank you for being here. For listeners who haven't heard from you since you were on True Spies in 2020, I'm
Catch us up with the work that you've been doing in recent years to counter extremism. And maybe if you would, tell us a little bit about what it means to be doing that work today in North America in 2024.
Yeah. Wow. Was it really 2020 was the last time we spoke? Was that I mean, had the pandemic just started? I can't even remember, I guess. Yeah. A few months into this new reality, although it didn't feel so normal at that time. Yeah. Yeah. I remember February 2020 was it was the last time that I traveled. I stopped my travel.
And then I think it was for like a year and a half, nobody went anywhere, at least physically. So I guess in that time, I was still doing the Parents for Peace work because it was done remotely. It was done via Zoom. And so we were still able to actually continue doing that. That was doable in the environment that we were in.
But yeah, I mean, since then, I've really been doing the same work, a lot of the same work, basically the way Parents for Peace is set up. So Parents for Peace is a not-for-profit organization based in the U.S. It was formed in
In the early or late 2000s, when there was an individual or gentleman, his son had become radicalized. His son had gone to Yemen, was recruited by extremists who were over there. And this is an African-American family that grew up with, you know, pictures of Martin Luther King Jr. and other people.
African-American heroes in their home. And when his son came back home, he was immediately making demands to remove these photos, remove the pictures of these non-Muslims. They have no honor. They don't need to be respected. Get rid of it. And that's really when the father realized that something is wrong with my kid, that my kid is radicalized. He didn't know it was called radicalization. He
He just knew that, okay, something's wrong. Like this, my kid has these wrong thoughts that he's having about who he is and who we are, especially as African Americans in America. So it escalated after that. He was well radicalized by this point and unfortunately decided to conduct a shooting at a military recruiting office in
And unfortunately, he did so, killing one soldier and wounding another and was then subsequently arrested for homicide and now sits in a maximum security prison. So that's how Parents for Peace started.
And as more and more parents started to realize, hey, I've had this experience or similar experience. My kid has been, what's the word, radicalized and we need help. And so what they did is they put together this organization called Parents for Peace. They established a helpline where people call in, parents mostly,
Basically, you know, asking us for help because of their particular situation of a family member who's been caught up in something related to extremism. So that's what that's what Parents for Peace is. That's what they've been doing. And that's what I've been assisting them do from at least 2016. If you remember, this was a time, the heydays of ISIS from 2012 to 2018, basically, you
when the ISIS war started and when they declared their so-called caliphate in in 2014 and then you had a bunch of people returning back from country and Parents started to reach out that hey we need help and and so this is when I began my work with parents for peace and really it's just It's just been going full steam ahead since then. So I think your title is intervention specialist. Is that right? I
Yeah. Yeah. Inter intervention specialist. So what does that entail? What is the work for you? So the work for me is I do the direct one on one interventions with these young people and effectively just have this conversation with this individual trying to see, you know, how radicalized are they? Is there a chance for them to be kind of walked back from the edge?
In these cases, especially where these people have been arrested and charged and they're in detention, that's one side of it. But, you know, leading up to that, what do we, you know, with, for example, individuals who have not yet been arrested, they might be very young. Even right now, we're dealing with a 14-year-old. You know, his autism presents very severely. He's also been diagnosed with OCD.
And so I was a very young kid, very vulnerable. And, you know, the parents realized that, hey, like he needs somebody to talk to. And this is a kid, he's not born Muslim. And he has this fascination with Islam. And this is something that we see very, very often, especially these so-called converts who convert to Islam for whatever reason, sometimes the right reason, sometimes the wrong reason. You know, the wrong reason meaning they have problems in their life.
behavioral issues, parental issues, learning issues, and they get angry at the world and they decide Islam is the way that I'm going to manifest my anger because that's what's in the news. That's the main protest presence, if you will.
So in cases like that, we will just chat with this young person from home, right? It could be just a kid. There's another kid that we're dealing with. He's 17. I think he just turned 18. He was getting caught up in some of this stuff when he was 16.
You know, cops gave him an alternative or an ultimatum, actually, that listen, knock it off. We know what you're doing. You can talk to these guys in the meantime. But what the police will do is continue to run their investigation parallel with our interventions. So just in case this individual might be deceiving us, telling us one thing in a session and then after the session going online and then talking to his buddies, you
That that's also happened. So this is this is how I get involved in this is this is what we do. It's like basically one hour sessions. It's a mix of different techniques. So while I am trained, I am a certified peer supporter and a peer supporter is basically a function within mental health intervention practice.
of individuals who have a shared experience with the person. Usually, originally it was mental health and addictions. So you had peer supporters in both those areas, people who had mental health issues or drug use issues and overcame those issues and are now able to provide individuals who are suffering from this a level of hope and a level of confidence that in fact you can get over this.
And so that's peer support. And so because I had a shared experience with extremism, while extremism is not a mental health, you know, diagnosis, we just we use the framework of peer support, meaning those who have who have been down a similar path and who can then offer individuals hope and light to come out of their process. So that's that's why I got into the peer support program.
As well, I've done other training like motivational interviewing. It's a style of interviewing that elicits information from an individual, especially those that may not want to be involved in these sorts of things. So there's a lot of professional training that goes into it. But I think that the training, well, if you can even call it that, the experience that I had as an undercover operator was,
is something that's carried with me to this day, right? So I'm able to, I can look at an individual and I can tell pretty quickly if they're lying or not.
I can tell, I learn what kinds of things trigger them, what kinds of things positively motivate them, negatively motivate them. And I use all those skills when I'm dealing with these individuals. What extraordinarily, I mean, important, but also complicated and it seems like challenging work. Obviously, you're an ideal person in many ways to be doing it, but it also seems like
as you've suggested, it requires so many different kinds of skill sets. I guess I'm curious, knowing that the work is so sensitive and the stakes are so high, what sort of precedent exists for this sort of intervention? I mean, you've talked about addiction and things like that. Is that the sort of closest parallel outside of this world that you're working in? Yeah, I mean, in this space of, so through Georgia State University,
and Parents for Peace, we created an exit peer curriculum. They call them, the technical term now is exit interventionist, somebody who's basically facilitating exit from an extremist group. And this exit peer curriculum is borrowing heavily from peer support and the different techniques that are involved in
interventions like motivational interviewing, as I mentioned. So there really is no precedent. This is still relatively a new field. If you imagine like the discipline of, let's say, psychology or, you know, political science or, you know, botany, these are disciplines that have been around for a very, very long time.
Some can even say centuries. But what they call de-radicalization or intervention, exit intervention is very new. It's I mean, it's really a product of the so-called war on terror from from early 2001. And then the subsequent radicalization that we saw in the world, not just of, you know, foreign others in distant lands, but
but also we saw our own radicalization as nation states and how, let's say, the U.S. responded to 9-11. The U.S. got radicalized from the 9-11 attacks. We can use that phrase. And radicalization, again, it's simply the process whereby we become increasingly extreme in our views, right?
Radicalization in and of itself does not necessarily lead to violence. In fact, the vast majority of radicalized individuals never become violent.
but there is a small minority that do become violent. So in this context, people were trying to make sense of what was happening. So when the Iraq war kicked off, we started to see the first wave of Westerners involved in so-called jihadist plots in the US, in Canada, Australia, Britain, all these things happen, right? The UK, London underground attacks, 2005,
I was involved in a big case here, the Toronto 18 case. 2006, they got arrested. They were incentivized by the London attacks.
In Australia, they were arrested. So there was this wave of radicalization that came out. And then there was the question is that, well, what's making people who are living here radicalized? Because people thought, oh, you're living here. Everything is nice. There are no wars. There's no real suffering. Why would you radicalize? And so people didn't understand that.
people's loyalties and people's sense of meaning, identity and belonging. You know, these were all states that were in flux, that were in play, especially with those individuals who had come from other countries. They grew up with different cultures and then they're brought to the West or they grow up and they're born and raised in the West. And it's completely different from what they're being told from their community members, the religious members and so on. And so this is how we get to this point where,
People needed to make sense of this stuff and what was going on and how do we understand this and so this what we call D radicalization is what came about from this so if you imagine the process you have radicalization and again with the caveats of it does not always end in violence and in fact if you trace it back it actually does come back to Britain in that
when the even the term radical, right, a radical shift. So this radical shift or radicalism occurred in the UK when the political system moved from the aristocracy to the more political representative system, voting,
And so that was a radical shift from the foundations of British society, which was very aristocratic and built on that. So this is what radicalism and radicalization initially meant. And that's the initial context. We are now applying it to people who become violent for political purposes or other ideological purposes. So you have that radicalization. Then you have what's called disengagement.
is where a person might still believe in some of the ideas, but doesn't engage in its activities anymore. Okay, so one, I remember, I think it was a Nordic country who was trying to be very, very progressive when it came to this topic. They would say, basically, you can be al-Shabaab, you just can't do al-Shabaab, right? Referring to the Somali terrorist organization, right?
So this is disengagement. It's where a person is just stepping back from the networks and activities. And then you have what's called de-radicalization. So disengagement is a behavioral shift and de-radicalization is a cognitive shift. It's changing your mind and your views completely.
This message is sponsored by Greenlight. We all know the old saying about teaching a man to fish. And as parents, we want our kids to learn the things that will set them up for success. So this holiday season, give kids money skills that last well beyond 2024 with Greenlight. Greenlight is a debit card and money app made for families where kids learn how to save, invest, and spend wisely with parental controls built in. Sign up today at greenlight.com slash Spotify. Greenlight is a debit card and money app made for families
greenlight.com slash Spotify. This episode is brought to you by Amazon. The holidays are here and you know what that means? It's time to get your friends and family the gifts they deserve. Take the stress out of shopping with Amazon's great deals and low prices on a huge range of items from toys to tech and much more. Whoever you're gifting for, Amazon has great prices on everything you need this holiday season. Shop last minute deals now.
In learning about you and your work, I also came across the word former, which is not a term that I was familiar with. And I'm curious how it's thought about in circles like the one that you work in. Is this a positive term? Yeah. So this is another term that was, I guess, created in this time period where when all these problems of radicalization were occurring and
And then stepped forward a group of individuals, a group of people who said, hey, I've been there. I've been radicalized. I know the mentality. I know, you know, I've kind of come through and broken through from one end to the other. So the term formers was created, meaning referring to former extremists.
Former extremists who had since demonstrated that they were no longer in the movement and were interested in assisting others to get out of these extremist movements. So back in 2011, actually, the then named Google Ideas put together a summit in Dublin, Ireland.
And it was called the Summit Against Violent Extremism and brought together four categories of violent extremists in the same room. Ultra nationalists, former white supremacists, former Islamists.
And then former urban street gang members, if you can believe that. And compared and contrasted how people from each of those groups got into the groups, the sorts of dynamics that kept them in the groups, and then the mechanisms that got them out of the groups.
And surprise, surprise, there was a huge amount of overlap between these groups and their motivations and intentions and so on. Certainly the idea of meaning, belonging, identity, camaraderie, brotherhood, sisterhood, whatever, were common themes across these groups.
And so it was after this that the term formers really started to become a more formalized term referring to a very specific category of individuals. So now in this space, formers became extremely valuable, extremely valuable because everybody realized that some of these people who are in these movements, they don't want to talk to it. They don't care to talk to, you know, some academic people.
who has, you know, learned these things by studying reports and reading books and, you know, that sort of manner of acquiring the information.
you know for a lot of people who have walked the walk they they didn't just want somebody who was just a talking head and people realize especially those that were in the law enforcement field in the psychology even psychiatric fields they realized that they could not engage in these conversations with these individuals of concern
You know, you needed to go down the rabbit hole of theology with them in the case of those who are religiously motivated or whether it was, you know, white supremacy. You needed somebody to, you know, to kind of have a debate with them or just a back and forth. And that's because the extremists otherwise couldn't relate or vice versa, right?
No, the like the professional who was basically like the social worker or the psychologist or the psychiatrist. They don't study, you know, ideology of white supremacy or Islamism. So they had, you know, they just could not engage in any kind of meaningful conversation with with these people. And so, yeah. And so people realize that.
you know, here's an idea. I mean, how about talking to people? How about having them, the individuals of concern, talk to people who have held these views and have since, you know, de-radicalized. We are highly individual creatures. We are all different people. And there are similar drivers that can impact all of us. For example, one great quote I love is,
Ideology without grievances doesn't resonate. And grievances without ideology are not acted upon. Okay? Ideology without grievances...
Doesn't resonate. Doesn't make sense. Doesn't appeal to the mind. Grievances without ideology are not acted upon. Because in this case, ideology or action enabling ideas, not just a set of beliefs, but action enabling ideas. So so that's one way to look at it. A second quote, which is mine, goes, at times, ideology is a driver of violent extremism.
but at other times is just a passenger with other psychosocial factors at the wheel.
So what are those psychosocial factors, right? That's a big discussion that remains to this day, you know, in the short while that this topic's been discussed. So you can look at, you know, like looking at ideology and grievances, right? I give you a perfect analogy is knowing what the U.S. did to, let's say U.S. did in Vietnam. Why don't you find...
Vietnamese kids attacking U.S. interests in the U.S. or blowing themselves up. You don't find that. Look at what we know the U.S. did to Japan, where the Japanese kids blowing themselves up in American malls. Right? That's because there's no ideology there. The grievances are there, but the ideology isn't there. In the case of like, you know, the Islamists, Islamist extremists, you know, look at them. They...
their ideology drives their behaviors. They believe these things, a certain set of things which tell them they need to do this in response. Notwithstanding that, you know, and it's very...
It's really ironic to me sometimes as a Muslim that I have to debate with these people and explain to them that this is not Islamic, what you're doing. And here's the proof. Because, you know, the early Muslims never did this and never behaved like this. Even in the case of grievances, they did not retaliate in the same way. Right. And then I give them quotes from, you know, Imam Qurtubi was a
scholar and he basically, you know, there's a statement he says where even if they kill our women and children to cause grief and sorrow to befall us, it is not permitted for us to do the same to them in order for them to feel the same. It's a very clear cut. Like there is no, you know, by any means necessary. This is not, this is totally in contradiction to the teaching of Islam. Islam does not teach that.
ends justifies means. So you cannot achieve a halal objective, permitted or lawful objective using haram means, using prohibited means.
Right. So now we're hearing these things which are in total contradiction to what the religion teaches. So then it leads to another question is, well, how do these people even continue to subscribe to these these things, knowing and after being told that, in fact, it's conflicting with, you know, religion?
stated Islamic doctrine. So in this context, right, understanding why people do this, again, like I mentioned, the ideology, the grievances, and the other psychosocial factors I was talking about, that's really where I think a lot of the rest of the answers can be found. And, you know, it could be an easy way, I guess people say, is like trauma, okay, the person who's gone through trauma. Now,
What does that mean though, right? What do you define as trauma, right? And then you have some people who are able to deal with certain kinds of trauma more so and better than others, right?
So why is that? Why one person and not the other? Right. And this is these are questions that are still largely unanswered, I think, because of how complex and unique individuals are. I mean, you'll have, you know, there's a well-known case or a number of cases where you have siblings, right?
but grew up in the same family, you would think that they've had the same upbringing. And if anyone out there, if you have kids and you are a kid and, you know, if you got siblings, like you're, you know, one of your siblings is going to be different than you may have perceived their upbringing different than the way you perceived it. So in one case, we, you know, you have a
You have a guy, well, the father, he's got two sons. One joins Al-Qaeda, the other joins the counterterrorism police. I mean, same father, same upbringing. Why does one go this way and the other one go that way?
It's almost, it's impossible to know sometimes, right? Unless you actually really do a, you know, if you really dissect their upbringing, everything they went through, what they were feeling, were they beaten when they were kids? Were they sexually abused? Were they psychologically abused? Like, what are the things that went into it? What were the ingredients that were put into this person's upbringing? And then that tells you,
makes it allows you to understand why they ended up where they ended up. And that's why what we do is so enlightening, even for me who like, I think I have a general idea of why people do what they do. But then I'm always, I'm always not surprised, but I'm always informed and educated that, okay, this guy went through this and this, you know, we had one kid, his mother died during COVID and, you know,
but the mother was the abuser in the family. So the kid was kind of torn, like, should I hate my mother? Should I love my mother? But oh my God, it's my mother.
these were the, these were the things that he was dealing with. And then he went off and decided he's going to be ISIS, right? Because it's not because he believed in ISIS's ideology, but because he was, he was so angry at the world and angry at what happened that he just wanted to lash out. And ISIS was that costume that he could put on to lash out. That's fascinating. I, what,
What does self-disclosure look like in your work? I mean, how do these young people learn about your background? I laugh because I learned very deliberately to start off with my story when I talk to these people. Because I want to be transparent. I want to put everything out there on the table and...
And the reason why I'm like this is because of one case where, for whatever reason, I did not tell this individual at the beginning, okay, when we had our conversation. Now, this kid, he was 17, and he got caught up in a sting operation. He was talking to a couple of people that he thought were his jihadist buddies, and they turned out to be FBI undercovers. Now, he ended up being arrested, right?
He was being held at a detention center and the lawyers in the case had us appointed and the judge agreed to have us speak to this young man via video teleconference. And so the first time we met, we spoke and I didn't mention the background. And then the next time I get a message saying he found out who you were.
and told us that he refuses to speak to you again until you repent to Allah for what you did, meaning my undercover work and catching and getting Muslims arrested and imprisoned because of what they were doing. He said, I should repent to God for this. So I thought, oh man, this is probably going to be the last time I speak to him.
And I'll be honest, it really bothered me. It kept me up a couple of nights over the weekend. I remember I just did not sleep well. I just kept thinking about what I'm going to tell this kid. Here I am, almost past my mid-40s, and I'm already worried over this 17-year-old kid. So anyways, we finally met and we spoke and
And I had this whole, you know, thing for him, like a list of questions. And why do you think I'm here? And how do I, you know, how do you think I'm benefiting from this? And so long story short, we got over it. I mean, now we're like really good friends. He's still, unfortunately, serving his sentence. But we continue to work with the parents, just, you know, check in with them every week. But yeah.
But self-disclosure in these cases is very direct the way that I do it. I tell them, I just tell them matter of factly, hey, I want to tell you my story first so that everything is above board, so that you understand why we're doing what we're doing. And a lot of times, like, I'm, you know, I kind of embed within the explanation reasons and, and,
Illuminations in anticipation of some of their objections. Right. So especially like somebody like a couple of guys that I've dealt with, they got caught because of undercovers like me. Right. And how are they going to talk to somebody like me? And how do they think somebody like me is going to help them? Right. And so I tell them, I was like, look,
You want somebody like me on your side, right? Like I know their side, the police side, the prosecution pursuing side of the house. You need somebody like me. If you're truly interested in bettering yourself, then I'm going to be your strongest ally. I'm going to be your strongest partner. But I'm also here to see, like, don't try to fool me because I will see it. I will catch it.
And I think the biggest thing that goes for me and works in my favor is that I am I'm still I'm very much a practicing Muslim. And I frame everything in the Islamic paradigm when I'm speaking with them. So they understand I'm not, you know, I'm not coming at them or to them from a confrontational necessarily perspective, but I'm coming to them as a fellow Muslim just trying to help them out. Can I ask how this work has impacted your faith?
Yeah, sometimes, you know, it's not all rainbows and lollipops. I mean, I do see, that's a very good question because I've been experiencing this yesterday and a few days ago because one of the cases, like the young kid, autism presents very acutely, a little bit of OCD, and he obsessively searches, like does Google searches,
All searches you should not be doing because the FBI is watching, right? And it's the Salafist sect that he follows. And I call them a sect because in mainstream Islam, what we call Ahl al-Sunnah wal Jama'ah is the group of, you know, the larger body, okay? Larger Muslim body. And Ahl al-Sunnah wal Jama'ah is...
the practice of the Muslims for centuries, basically, which is defined by following one of the four schools of law. This is Sunni Islam, one of the four schools of law and, and Tasawwuf, what's called Tasawwuf, sometimes known as Sufism because it was embedded. It was a part of, it was a part of the same thing. Like Sufism is just a,
a specialization on spirituality, looking deeper within things, not being hyper-legalistic, right? Which is what Salafists are, right? They're hyper-legalistic. And hyper-legalistic creates...
black and white fallacies, black and white thinking, right? Either you're a kuffar or you're a believer, right? And of course to them, only them and their little gang of people are the legitimate Muslims, right? And everybody else, they're deviants. And this is a disease that has befallen the Muslim world, right? Extremist Salafist thinking, right?
Not saying Salafism in general. Honestly, I feel sad at what we have done, we Muslims have done to the name of Islam. And quote me on this. The root cause of Islamophobia is terrorism in Islamic costume. Is people with beards and robes and turbans claiming to follow the Quran and Sunnah,
blowing things up, killing people, discriminating against people, can't live in society with other people, want to rebel against Muslim governments, non-Muslim governments, can't live in peace with anyone. This is what it's produced. So,
This is how it has affected me and impacted me because I see, like, look at what this ideology is producing in the world. It's destroying families. We have non-Muslim families who are like, I got to basically explain to them that no, no, no, Islam is not like this. Is it time to reimagine your future?
The right business skills may make a difference in your career. At Capella University, we offer a relevant education that's designed to focus on what you need to know in the business world. We'll teach professional skills to help you pursue your goals, like business management, strategic planning, and effective communication. And you can apply these skills right away. A different future is closer than you think with Capella University. Learn more at capella.edu. ♪
Bored with your boring cardio? Stop pedaling that snooze cycle to Nowheresville and try some cardio that's actually fun. Supernatural Fitness, available on MetaQuest. Isn't that right, Jane Fonda? Cardio will never be boring again. Sweat to the beat of thousands of chart-topping songs inside stunning virtual landscapes. Bet your stationary bike can't do that. Visit GetSupernatural.com and join the next fitness revolution. Supernatural VR Fitness, only on MetaQuest. Wait a team for team.
And over the course of these years, I mean, you mentioned that you started working with Parents for Peace in 2016. I'm curious how things have changed or evolved in terms of the work over these years.
Really, really hasn't changed and evolved much. We're dealing with very similar cases, right? Young people going through their identity crises, young people who have mental conditions and also identity crises, and then slightly older, you know, young adults. So we're basically seeing
especially for young people getting involved in this stuff. We are seeing kids who are a little more younger come up. That's seems to be a common theme. I think largely this is largely because of the internet. Young, young kids, if you imagine their brains are still physically forming and, and, you know, we, even as adults, we face a computer and,
Our, you know, frontal cortex facing, you know, this, this screen, you're getting light. If you have a headphone on, like what kind of headphones are they? Right. Covering the ear, earplugs.
Ideas, sounds, images being blasted through the eyes, through the ears. And my theory is what's happening is these highly complex concepts are being bombarded into the brains, young brains that are unable to process deep thinking and they're just becoming overwhelmed by it.
And at best, they will have just a superficial understanding of it. And so that's why that's exactly what we end up seeing. Very superficial. I'm like, frequently, it's like, well, have you looked up this? Have you looked up that? And they haven't, right? They've only received and just accepted what they've received. There's no critical thinking skill capability. And so that's actually one of the things that we're
we're kind of learning by reverse engineering. We're saying, Oh, okay. There's a lack of critical thinking skills here. Let's introduce some of those, you know, to the young person or utilitarian thinking, like reality thinking like, yeah, there's all this abstract and what we wish we had, blah, blah, blah. But look in front of you at your physical hands, look at your face in the mirror and understand what you actually have in your hands in real life.
So they're getting a bit younger. We are also seeing...
borrowing from different ideologies. So you might get a young kid who's, let's say, grew up, born in a Muslim family, probably a very strict traditional household expectation, but now you're living in the West and you have friends that are not Muslim pulling you into different directions. Which direction do you go?
Right. Everybody is pulling on you. Everybody's got their hooks into you, you know, demanding your loyalty. You have a Muslim kid who's, you know, now he's experimenting with Marxist ideas. Right. Especially now you're seeing a lot of because certain, you know, groups and causes in certain areas of the Middle East, they were products of Marxist revolution, right?
They were not Islamic groups. And now you have an Islamic bent. They've become Islamicized. So now you're putting religion onto this political conflict. And so think about how that aggravates and escalates a conflict or people are driven to act on behalf of it.
for divine purposes, right? So you get all this mixing and mashing up and it just kind of illustrates how...
identities are so confused among young people today. I'm curious to ask you a question, not so much about radicalization, but just about extreme ideas and especially relating to what young people might pick up on the internet. How do those of us who see these ideas as dangerous begin to create some means of communication with people that we simply are out of alignment with?
Yeah. One of the things that's very, very important is not to close the door of communication with folks that you think are coming under the influence of these views. I think one thing that I have found works really, really well is giving a very utilitarian perspective to somebody to show them that while
think it through, think the idea through. A lot of people, what they do is they get caught up in the, you know, the slogan and they, and they think the slogan itself sounds great. Right. It's like a, you know, it's a, whether it's like a placard or, you know, like a, you know, motto or whatever, it sounds really great. Right. But,
encourage them to think it through. And you have to also understand why people have this feeling and these feelings. You have to also have these conversations. Like, this is a very human thing. This is what you have to understand. So,
One thing is not to completely dismiss, you know, grievances that people may have because there may be a kernel of truth to them. And that's all that's needed. Just need a little bit of truth and a bunch of lies. And that's how you get, you know, hate being spread. So back to you need to have this very realistic and utilitarian understanding of what's happening.
And that is the only way. So sometimes you may need to yield and say, yeah, you know what? I can see why people think like this about migrants or about whatever, you know, insert group here. All right. And have that conversation. Don't shut people off. Don't just, you know, shut them up by saying you're a racist. You're this, you're that. Don't let that be the comment upon which your argument rests. Talk it through.
And show them in your life, in your own life, hey, I have friends from this group. I have friends from that group. You know, I'm balanced. I'm moderate. Right? Model that behavior for them. This goes a lot farther than trying to lecture somebody into compliance. I'm conscious I've kept you longer than I said I would. Have I not asked you something that you feel like we should definitely talk about? No, I think at the end of the day...
I would just like to note for people who feel they can make a difference, who feel a sense of duty and responsibility to the society, to their family, to the next generation, that do what you can given what is within your means. Don't go beyond your means. Whatever little influence you think you can bring to bear,
Bring it to bear, right? And be nice about it. You're not going to convince people if you berate them, belittle them, call them names. You're just going to push them into a corner and force the defensiveness to kick in. And once the defensiveness kicks in, the critical thinking just goes out the window. And so that's what you need to focus on. And look, you're not going to save the world. You, me, whatever.
We're not going to save the world. The world continues on as it does. It follows, it follows, you know, the creator's schedule. That's how we would say it anyway. But whatever little part you can do, you should at least be motivated to do. That's it. It's not that hard. Even a smile. Mubin, I could ask you questions all day. You and your work are really fascinating and I'm really grateful that you came back and I wish you all the best.
Yeah, thank you very much for having me. It's always a pleasure. And yeah, we can chat again another time. Thank you so much for tuning in for The Debrief. We hope you enjoyed that conversation between our producer, Morgan Childs, and Mubeen Shaikh. More Debriefs are available exclusively to SpiceGate Plus subscribers.
You'll also be able to access other premium series like The Resume-Off Files, our ambitious retelling of Joseph Conrad's Under Western Eyes. And for true crime fans, there's The Great James Bond Car Robbery, the story of the hunt for James Bond's most notorious set of wheels. Subscribers also get new episodes of True Spies early and ad-free. Subscribe to Spyscape Plus at plus.spyscape.com.
Disclaimer. The views expressed in this podcast are those of the subject. These stories are told from their perspective and their authenticity should be assessed on a case-by-case basis. If you're enjoying this podcast, please click now to give it a five-star rating or leave a review. Ratings and reviews help people discover the podcast and help us bring you more great stories. And if you have some time, why not forward the podcast to a friend?