In the October 3rd, 2014 episode of Real Time, Bill Maher and his guests engaged in a heated argument about the
response of American “liberals” to human rights violations in “the Muslim world.”
[1] Maher, a comedian, writer,
producer, and liberal political activist/commentator, is well-known for
politically incorrect humor and harsh criticism of religion, including Islam. In
the October 3rd episode, Maher’s guest panel included Ben Affleck, Sam Harris, Nicholas
Kristof, and Michael Steele. There were furious outbursts and wild
gesticulations by Affleck, hard-hitting criticisms of Islam and liberals by
Maher and Harris, and accusations of racism by both Affleck and Kristof. (Steele,
for his part of the discussion, was calm and diplomatic). The exchange elicited
an enormous amount of controversy and was discussed across a wide spectrum
of media, major and minor, for weeks thereafter. A week earlier in the
September 26th episode
of Real Time, Maher had also talked about American liberals and human rights
violations in “the Muslim world,” and said that “vast numbers of Muslims” in
their beliefs have “too much in common with ISIS.” [2] The controversy generated in the media from
Maher’s September 26th comments helped to set the stage for the October 3rd
show.
About the guests at the time of this exchange:
Affleck is an A-list Hollywood actor and director who
was promoting his new movie Gone Girl.
Harris is a cognitive neuroscientist, philosopher, and
critic of religion who was promoting his new book Waking Up: A Guide to
Spirituality Without Religion.
Kristof is a journalist and columnist for the New York
Times who was promoting his new book A Path Appears: Transforming Lives,
Creating Opportunity.
Michael Steele is a political analyst on MSNBC and a
former Chair of the Republican National Committee.
I’ve transcribed the approximately 10 minutes of the much-viewed
heated exchange about liberals and Islam, from about 32:26 to 42:31 of the main
portion of the show. (For audio* of the full episode, click here
[3, 4]. *Update, October, 2017: The audio file is no longer available at those links). In addition, I’ve described and transcribed some other bits of the
discussion that occur before and after the main exchange.
Between approximately 21:40 and 25:40, the panelists
discuss what they view as the racism of some Americans, particularly those who
oppose Obama on various policies. Steele says that some of it is due to racism
while in other cases it is based on disagreement with the policies.
Harris is the mid-show interview guest, so he has been offstage and has not yet been a part of the panel discussion. At about 30 minutes into the episode, Maher introduces
Harris, mentioning the new book he is promoting. Maher asks Harris, “You know
the boys don't you?”
30:22 Harris [apparently addressing Kristof]: I know
we've tangled online before.
[Kristof laughs]
Maher: Yes, and you may again here now.
That is followed by a brief joking exchange between
Affleck and Harris that is, although clear in surface meaning from the audio
alone, puzzling without further contextual information. Maher then starts
talking about Harris’ book.
At about the 31 minute mark, Harris is talking
about spirituality without religion. Maher asks him what people mean by “spiritual.”
31:53: Harris: Yeah, well, it can mean many things. Unfortunately,
what many people mean by it is just as crazy as what other people believe under
the context of religion. So, you know, if you're swapping your belief in the
virgin birth of Jesus for a belief in Atlantis, you haven't made much
intellectual progress. [audience laughter]
Affleck: [sarcastic] Come on! That's a little step
down!
Harris: No, but that is in fact, if you wander the aisles
of the New Age section of a bookstore, you get—
Maher: That's why the word spiritual is a little
problematic.
Harris: Yes, and that’s why I’ve had to untangle it—
Maher [regarding Harris’ new book]: But it’s doing
great on the charts, so people are, it’s struck a chord with people.
Harris: Yeah.
32:26 Maher: Okay. So the other thing we want to talk
about of course is that you and I have been trying to make the case—I think, I
have anyway—that liberals need to stand up for liberal principles. This is what
I said on last week’s show. Obviously I got a lot of hate for it. But all I’m
saying is that liberal principles, like freedom of speech, freedom to practice
any religion you want without fear of violence, freedom to leave a religion,
equality for women, equality for minorities, including homosexuals, these are
liberal principles [applause] that liberals applaud for, but then when you say
in the Muslim world this is what’s lacking, then they get upset.
Harris: Yeah, yeah. Well, liberals have really failed
on the topic of theocracy. They’ll criticize white theocracy.
Maher: Right [laughs].
Harris: They’ll criticize Christians. They’ll still
get agitated over the abortion clinic bombing that happened in 1984, but when,
when you want to talk about the treatment of women, and homosexuals, and
freethinkers, and public intellectuals in the Muslim world, I would argue that
liberals have failed us. And the crucial point of confusion – [applause] yeah,
thank you.
Affleck: Thank God you’re here!
Harris: Yeah. Well, I mean the crucial point of confusion
is that we have been sold this meme of Islamophobia, where every criticism of
the doctrine of Islam gets conflated with bigotry toward Muslims as people.
Maher: Right.
Harris: And that is, uh, intellectually ridiculous,
and even it gets [conflated with] race.
Affleck: So hold on – are you the person who
understands the officially codified doctrine of Islam? You’re the interpreter
of that? So you can say well this is—
Harris: I’m actually well-educated on this topic.
Affleck: I’m, I’m asking you. So you’re saying– if I
criticize that— you’re saying that Islamophobia is not a real thing. That if
you are critical of something—
Maher: Well it’s not a real thing when we do it.
Affleck: Right. [audience laughter]
Maher: It really isn’t.
Harris: I’m not denying that certain people are bigoted
against Muslims as people. And that’s a problem.
Affleck: That’s big of you.
Harris: But the—
Maher: But why are you so hostile about this concept?
Affleck: Because it’s gross! It’s racist! It’s
disgusting!
Maher: It’s not. But it’s so not.
Affleck: It’s like saying, ‘You shifty Jew.’
Harris: Absolutely not.
Maher: You are not listening to what we are saying!
Affleck: You guys are saying if you want to be
liberals, believe in liberal principles like freedom of speech,
Maher: Right, right.
Affleck: Like, um, you know, we are endowed by our Cre
-- uh forefathers with [inalienable rights like] all men are created equal.
Harris: Ben, we have to be able to criticize bad ideas,
and Islam—
Affleck: Of course we do! No liberal doesn`t want to
criticize bad ideas.
Harris: Okay, okay, but Islam at this moment is the
mother lode of bad ideas.
[applause]
Affleck: Jesus Christ!
Maher: That’s just a fact.
Harris: So we have, we have ideas like blasphemy,
apostasy
Affleck: It’s not a fact. It’s an ugly thing to say!
Kristof: There’s one basic liberal principle of
tolerance.
Harris: Well, let me unpack it, let me unpack it.
Maher: But not for intolerance.
Kristof: No of course not, but the picture you’re
painting is to some extent true, but is hugely incomplete. It is certainly true
that plenty of fanatics and jihadis are Muslim, but the people who are standing
up to them, Malala, uh—
Harris: Malala is [fantastic], yes.
Kristof: —incredible Mohammad Ali Dadkhah in Iran, in
prison for nine years for speaking up for Christians. A friend that I had in
Pakistan who was shot this year, Rashid Rehman, for defending people accused of
apostasy—
Harris: Okay, but Nick—
Kristof: —those are Muslims too.
Affleck: Or how about the more than a billion people who
aren’t fanatical, who don’t punish women, who just want to go to the store, [applause]
have some sandwiches, pray five times a day—
Maher: Wait a second.
Affleck: —and don’t do any of the things that you’re
saying all Muslims [do]
Harris: Okay I’m not -- wait, wait, wait, wait.
Affleck: That is stereotyping.
Harris: I’m not saying all Muslims believe that.
Affleck: You are taking a few bad things and you’re
painting a br—the whole religion with that same brush.
Maher: No, no. Let’s get down to who has the right
answer here. A billion people, you say? All these billion people don’t hold any
of those p—
Affleck: A billion five or something.
Maher: Don’t hold these pernicious beliefs? I would—
Affleck: No. They don’t.
Maher: That’s just not true, Ben. That’s just not
true.
Harris: Ben, can I just express how I think it breaks
down in terms of belief among Muslims?
Affleck: You haven’t even defined—
Maher: You’re trying to say that these few people,
that’s all the problem is, these few bad apples. The idea that someone should
be killed if they leave Mu—the Islamic—
Affleck: That’s horrible. That’s just horrible.
Harris: That is center-of-the-fairway Islam.
Maher: Wait, but wait, you’re saying that the idea
that someone should be killed if they leave the Islamic religion is just a few
bad apples?
Affleck: The people who would actually believe in an act
that you murder somebody if they leave Islam is not the majority of Muslims at
all [unclear].
Harris: Okay let me, let me break this down for you.
Okay we –
Affleck: You are trafficking—
Harris: As you say we have 1.5, 1.6 billion Muslims.
Now—
Affleck: Second biggest religion in the world, a
quarter of the people of the population on earth.
Harris: Ben let me – let me unpack this – let me unpack
this for you.
Affleck: Please do, I’ve been waiting. Luggage has
been sitting there packed up.
Harris: Just imagine some concentric circles. You have
at the center, you have jihadists. These are people who wake up in the morning wanting
to kill apostates, wanting to die trying. They believe in paradise—
Affleck: Horrible bad people that—
Harris: They believe in martyrdom. Outside of them, we
have Islamists, these are people who are just as convinced of martyrdom and
paradise and wanting to, to foist their religion on the rest of humanity, but
they want to work within the system. They’re not going to blow themselves up on
a bus. They want to change governments. They want to use democracy against
itself. That – that – those two circles arguably are 20% of the Muslim world.
Okay this is not the fringe of the fringe.
Affleck: What are you basing that research on?
Harris: A bunch of poll results that we can talk
about. So, to give you one point of contact, 78% of British Muslims think that
the Danish cartoonists should have been prosecuted. 78%. So I’m being
conservative when I roll this back to 20%. But outside of that circle you have
conservative Muslims who can right—can honestly look at ISIS and say that does
not represent us, that we’re horrified by that, but they hold views about human
rights, and about women, and about homosexuals that are deeply troubling. So,
so these are not Islamists, they’re not jihadists, but they b—
Affleck: Those are views anathema to ours.
[Crosstalk]
Harris: But they also keep women and homosexuals
immiserated in these cultures, and we have to empower the true reformers in the
Muslim world to change it. And what, and lying about the link between doctrine
and behavior—
Affleck: [waving, gesturing for Harris finish] Okay, let
him [Kristof] talk.
Harris: —is not going to do that. [applause]
Affleck: A lot of talk.
Kristof: The great divide – the great divide is not
between Islam and the rest; it’s rather between the fundamentalists and the
moderates in each faith.
Harris: But we’re misled to think that the
fundamentalists are the fringe. Okay we have jihadists, Islamists, and
conservatives.
Maher: That’s the key point. And by the way this—
Harris: Hundreds of millions of people fit that
description.
Steele: Just, you’re saying that the strongest voices
are coming from those who are jihadists and extremists.
Harris: That’s, yes.
Steele: That represents a bigger piece of the pie—
Harris: Yes.
Steele: —than we often think is true.
Harris: There’s no question about that.
Steele: Okay so having said that, even if that is
true, statistically or otherwise, the key thing to recognize that I don’t think
is part of the argument, but I think should be, is that there are voices that
are oftentimes raised in opposition to these jihadists and to these extreme
acts but, guess what? They don’t covered, they don’t get exposed, and they’re
not given the same level of platform, um, that we see the jihadists get.
Maher: One reason they don’t get exposed is because
they’re afraid to speak out because it’s the only religion that acts like the
mafia, that will fucking kill you if you say the wrong thing, draw the wrong
picture, or write the wrong book!
[applause]
Steele: That's true...I mean that's...So you do have—
Maher: There’s a reason why Ayaan Hirsi Ali needs
bodyguards 24/7.
Steele: You do have that element of fear as well, but
you also have other braver souls out there who do speak out and who like—
Kristof: Who are risking their lives to do that.
Steele: Who are risking their lives, like the Muslim
clerics, and others, from Australia to Europe, to the United States, just
recently, publicly put their names on paper declare – declaring their
opposition to what ISIS and others are doing.
Harris: Yeah, we need to do that.
Steele: So there are those voices, but where was the
coverage? Where was, where was that story to sort of create a different
picture, of the Muslim community?
Affleck: What is your solution? Like what is your
‘ask’? To just condemn Islam? Is that the question?
Harris: No, the solution is very much what Nick—
Affleck: We’ve killed more Muslims than they’ve killed
us by an awful lot. We’ve invaded more [of their countries] than they have of
ours by an awful lot.
Maher: I am not for more killing.
Affleck: And yet somehow we’re exempt from these
things because they’re not really a reflection of what we believe in. We did it
by accident, that’s why we invaded Iraq, and put 4 million people—[applause]
Harris: You are, you are free associating.
Maher: We’re not convincing anybody.
[audience laughter]
Affleck: It’s not [free associating]. I am
specifically telling you that I disagree with what you think.
Harris: You don’t actually understand my argument.
Maher: I know, and we’re obviously not convincing
anybody [unclear].
Affleck: I don’t understand it?
[audience laughter]
Harris: You don’t understand my argument.
Affleck: Your argument is, like, ‘You know, black
people, you know they shoot each other.’
Harris: That is not my argument
Maher: No it’s not! No it’s not! It’s based on facts. I
can show you a Pew poll of Egyptians—they are not outliers in the Muslim
world—that say like 90% of them believe death is the appropriate response to
leaving the religion. If 90% of Brazilians thought that death was the
appropriate response to leaving Catholicism you would think it was a bigger
deal.
Affleck: I would think it’s a big deal no matter what.
Harris: Apparently you don’t.
Maher: Okay, but that’s the facts.
Affleck: But what I wouldn’t do is say it’s all Brazilians,
or I wouldn’t say,
Harris: When have I said it’s all Brazilians?
Affleck: ‘Well, Ted Bundy did this. God damn these
gays, they’re all trying to eat each other!’
Harris: Okay, let me just give you what you want.
There are hundreds of millions of Muslims who are nominal Muslims, who don’t
take the faith seriously, who don’t want to kill apostates, who are horrified
by ISIS, and we need to defend these people, prop them up, and let them reform
their faith.
Affleck: Could you talk — ISIS couldn’t fill a
double-A ballpark in Charleston, West Virginia, and you’re making a career out
of talking about ISIS, ISIS, ISIS.
Maher: No, no, no we’re not! That’s the opp—
Harris: No, it’s not just ISIS, it’s all jihadists.
It’s global, it’s a phenomenon of global jihad.
Maher: I think that’s the opposite of what we’re
doing.
Affleck: There is those things. There is ISIS, there
is global jihadists. The question is the degree to which you’re willing to say,
because I’ve witnessed this behavior—which we all object to on the part of
these people—I’m willing to flatly condemn those of you I don’t know and have never
met.
Maher: Not, not willing. This is based on re—
Harris: No. It’s not condemning people, it’s ideas.
You’ve got to make the distinction.
Maher: And people who believe in those ideas.
Harris: Yes, and their behavior [unclear]—
Affleck: So it’s [unclear] people believe—
Maher: Based on reality, Ben!
Harris: It’s based on actions.
Maher: We’re not making it up, that there is, that in
the Muslim world, it is mainstream belief, main—
Kristof: But this is such a caricature of Indonesia,
of Malaysia—
[applause]
Harris: Okay wait a minute.
Kristof: —and of so much of the world. And this does have
the tinge a little bit of the way white racists talk about African-Americans,
and define blacks by black criminals, which are not representative.
Maher: But what you’re saying is because they are a
minority, we shouldn’t make – we shouldn’t – we shouldn’t criticize.
Affleck: It’s not that much of a minority. It’s the
second biggest religion in the world.
Maher: Exactly, but you’re treating them like a
minority. I mean, if Filipinos were capturing teenagers and sending them into
white slavery, we would criticize that. We wouldn’t say, ‘Well, they’re
Filipinos.’
Affleck: You would criticize the people who are doing
it, not the Philippines! You know what I mean, we—
Maher: What if the people were—
Affleck: [Because] a Filipino kid [who] lives down the
street from you would have nothing to do with that. So these are different
things. Crazy people—
Kristof: Racial stereotyping.
Steele: I think, I think it goes—
Maher: Alright, let’s, let’s talk, we mentioned ISIS.
Let’s talk about that, because 52% of Americans in a poll I saw out today said
they are now willing to send ground troops, which is an amazing turnaround.
Turkey got involved this week […]
[Maher talks about countries that surround Syria, such
as Turkey, getting involved in fighting militarily against ISIS. The panel then
discusses whether the U.S. should send in ground troops or whether the
countries in the region should solve it.]
44:18 Affleck: And yes, Turkey needs to step up. And
it’s a lovely Muslim country, if you’ve ever been there. I suggest you visit.
It’s one of the most beautiful Muslim countries in the world, where I’ve had a
great time. […]
[Affleck is against U.S. intervention, but Steele argues
that there are times when the U.S. needs to step in if others aren't.]
46:31 Steele: […] If the people in the region aren’t
prepared to draw the line [to stop ISIS], then the question is who? Is it the
Brits? Is it the French? Is it the Americans? [crosstalk] And that’s the global
community’s question.
Harris: The question is who is “us”. “Us” is humanity.
What you're [addressing Affleck] saying does not work out well for the Yazidis
being starved on the side of a mountain. So, if you're going to say that we
can't get our hands dirty because it is so inflammatory to have infidels
encroach into the space—which is in fact the reality, this is why we can't do
this, we can't be the world's cop because the moment—
Affleck: What's stopped us for the last 14 years?
Harris: No, we can't do it well, it doesn't have the
effect that we want because this is anathema. We have infidel boots on the
ground next to the holy sites in Mecca.
Affleck: I agree that was Osama's biggest problem
Harris: That only speaks to the problem of religious
divisiveness. The reality is, we've got a genocide underway and we can't figure
out how to stop it and the regional powers won't. If you're just willing to wash your hands and say well, ‘don't even drop a bomb to save these
people,’ I think that's starkly unethical
Kristof: The air strikes did stop the slaughter of the
Yazidis
Harris: But many liberals came out against that [crosstalk]
before the first bomb fell.
[The panel then talks a bit more about the problems of
intervention, and Maher switches over to another segment of the show.]
References
[1] Clip from Episode 331 HBO Real Time with Bill
Maher, originally October 3, 2014.
[2] Clip from Episode 330 HBO Real Time with Bill
Maher, originally September 26, 2014.
[3] Full Episode 331 Audio Only
http://omnyapp.com/shows/real-time-with-bill-maher/episode-331-originally-aired-10-3-2014
[Update, April 5, 2017: The audio file is no longer available at omnyapp]
[Update, April 5, 2017: The audio file is no longer available at omnyapp]
[4] Alternative Link for Full Episode 331 Audio Only
[Update, October 31, 2017: The audio file is no longer available at podcasts.com]
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