I'd be more thrilled to welcome
back to the show someone I
haven't talked to for far too long
one of my favorite people.
The host of the course correction
podcast, Never had I welcome back
to the damage report.
>> It's a pleasure >> We're very
glad to have you here, it's been a
whole pandemic since we last spoke.
But I do remember one of your
previous appearances on the show
was to talk about the launch of
your podcast.
Which is now a well into its second
season.
By the time people are seeing this,
I believe nine episodes.
>> Won't be available.
And I'm assuming that some of
the people watching this interview
might not be familiar with our
last talk.
So tell me a little bit about
course correction.
>> Who are these people?
I want names I want to list on your
show again, john, I miss you.
I'm having not been able to travel
as much as I do as a filmmaker and
documentarian.
I've had to learn to adapt and
put podcasts seem to be
the way forward.
Everyone's got one so
I thought I'll stick my all in.
Cause correction season two is
basically following the steps of
season one.
We go to places we do things
that other people shy away from.
And most of that has to do with
trying to make sure that you step
in, to the shoes that you want to
see filled.
So when we're talking about
the plastic crisis, the scourge in
our oceans when we're talking.
About trying to talk to people we
disagree with or trying to heal
the polarization divide.
That is sweeping across the globe
from India to Indiana,
through to Iran.
Wherever you might look,
this is common.
So season two focuses on
the polarization issue.
And I ended up speaking to
people on the right, on the left,
on the far right.
Not so much for the far right for
the far left and
everywhere in between really trying
to really grapple.
With this idea of like what has got
us to a place where it is easier to
sit on the internet and
yell at each other than to speak to
our neighbors.
>> Yeah, well right there you
are perfectly describing my career.
But anyway, no yeah,
it's obviously important to speak
to people that we disagree with.
I notably choose not to do that for
the most part but I am obviously
very happy that you do.
So look, you talk about a lot of
different topics through the course
of just the episodes that have been
released.
From robots to lockdown fake news
reparations free speech get like
a billion different things.
What is the what is the case where
there has been the biggest gap
between your position on the issue.
And the person that you're talking
to her profiling and
course correction?
>> Muslims,
specifically Muslim women people
and the French law the European law
that is trying to decide and police
women's bodies so >> We started
to make an episode on what's
creeping into the democracies of
Western Europe whereby.
They are starting to tell Muslim
women that they can and
cannot wear a headscarf.
And these are bills and laws that
to some degree have been passed but
the French Senate has shown.
Some way towards wanting to ban
the hijab in public spaces for
girls and for women and
this episode I started off
telling myself that I don't care.
I'm just like,
I don't wear the headscarf.
It's nothing to do with me and my
liberated Western Muslim woman and
all this.
And by the end of it, I have to say
I was so outraged that I cried
tears of rage for the first time
when I sat across the mic.
It's really hard to talk about
something as personal as religion I
headscarf and a democracy telling.
You will be liberating we will free
you by forcing you to take it off
and not caring.
And I spoke to a French lawmaker of
Bursch who said she wants
to liberate all Muslim women by
forcing them to take the hijab off.
And you know what?
I sat there and
I did everything that we are Doha
debates course correction does.
I opened myself up.
I tried to listen and
I learned that actually I have more
in common with her than I don't.
But the things I disagree on,
boy do I disagree on that.
But doesn't shy
away from disagreement.
What it shows away from is just
shouting at one another.
I am genuinely sick of turning on
CNN, MSNBC, sometimes the BBC and
other outlets across the world.
And hearing just one person going
this than the other and the poor
journalism in that middle going.
But there's another side turning
around.
>> Like, it's not cool.
So we really take this whole Don't
settle for a divided world thing
very seriously at Doha debates.
And cost correction is a reflection
of that I've had to sit across
the laptop from people that I
genuinely disagree with.
So whether it's the Lacey Tay
episode in which we
talk about policing women's body.
And like Feminism and
liberalism in France through two as
you mentioned free speech like one
is free speech, not free speech.
And I learned a lot about the fact
that I actually I
don't care about free speech as
much as I thought I did.
I'm from Afghanistan.
I'm born into a country where
dressing a certain way talking
a certain way being a certain sex
or gender can
be enough to get you killed.
And I thought I cared so much about
the liberty of free speech.
I don't I think we should cover it.
So listen, you're going to listen
to these episodes,
of course, correction.
I'm going to change my mind and
I'm going to read the little piggy.
That gets out there and
gets tossed in to have the fights
that you don't want to have.
So tune in, it's good.
>> That is that is a great tagline
for the show.
A little piggy gets tossed into
gigantic online debates.
Anyway, yeah, no I have all the
admiration in the world for that.
I like to think that I am still
mentally flexible enough and expose
myself to enough to gradually shift
on some things over Time.
But I can't necessarily easily
identify a couple of gigantic
shifts like that so
more power to you.
Well look, it's always great to
catch up with you.
Especially when you're doing such
fascinating work and
everyone watching this needs to
check it out.
Obviously the podcast course
correction available pretty
much everywhere I use pocket casts.
But feel free to check your podcast
browser of choice.
And Nilufer always glad to have you
on the show and hopefully you'll be
back in LA sometime soon.
>> Yes, catch you there.
[MUSIC]