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welcome to this special edition of the
VIP show in this episode I will be
interviewing one of the greatest
politicians in British history he's a
strong critic of Western imperialism and
Zionism and is a strong supporter of the
Palestinian Cause And Justice in the
Middle East and right around the world
the VIP is George
Galloway
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I go every month to beout and uh I make
two
shows Mr gan's interviews we call them
the top show okay George Gallow is the
MP for Bradford West he helped set up
the respect party in 2004 after he was
expelled from the labor party for his
strong anti-war
stance Salam alikum George gway allum
Salam many thanks for for joining us uh
to the VIP show my first question is I
we want to know about your childhood uh
well I come from uh the Northeast
Scottish city of dandi uh which lies
roughly between Edinburgh and Aberdine
uh it's an industrial workingclass city
when I was born there it was all white
there were no foreigners there at all uh
I was born into an Irish immigrant uh
part of town uh known as tip
after the Irish town of
tieri uh it was uh it was an Irish
Enclave in a Scottish City I learned a
thing or two about uh discrimination
over my life and about the role of the
British Empire I once came home and told
my Irish grandfather that the teacher
had said that Britain had an Empire so
huge that the son upon it never set and
my grandfather answered that's because
God would never trust the British in the
dark and uh I I had no cause to doubt
him then or since uh my mother was uh a
school cleaner my father an industrial
worker in a
factory uh and uh I grew up in a very
political household a very
Anti-Imperialist household which
explains much of my political uh life's
work since at the age of 13 you joined
the labor party it was a very young age
um what motivated you to join uh the
labor party and why did you decide to
get involved in politics well my parents
were members and were highly political
people uh so from much earlier than 13 I
was working in elections for labor
handing out leaflets at the gates and on
Election Day and so on our house used to
be darkened by labor campaign posters
for the duration of every election
campaign it was natural for me to
graduate into uh leftwing politics
although my parents weren't as leftwing
as me uh they were mainstream labor
people uh they thought that Harold
Wilson and James cigan and people like
those were the Acme of uh political
correctness um so it was a normal thing
for me to graduate into uh the labor
party and I always knew that I'd follow
a political life I didn't know that I'd
be 26 years an MP I didn't know that I'd
have the initials MP after my name but I
always knew that I'd be uh spending my
life in politics what did you hope to
achieve while you were you know in in
the political process what was some of
the issues that you really felt strongly
about well in the first instance uh in
defense of working people in my own
country and that's my first uh Duty the
people who have nothing to sell except
their work who if they didn't work would
have no wages no salary and would not be
able to live they have no property no
stocks and shares no big bank accounts
uh so my defense of uh ordinary working
people in my own country was my first
love uh but because of my background and
because of the times in which I grew up
the decolonization of the world which
has since been
recolonized uh a hatred of imperialism
of the uh
overbearing Domination by Rich countries
of poor countries by Western countries
of Eastern countries and ultimately by
the non-muslim countries of the Muslim
lands when it was discovered the great
Bounty which God had given them in terms
of oil and gas resources and The
Sovereign wealth funds which come from
them uh but my involvement in the Arab
world came about purely by chance uh as
I said I had never met an Arab I had
never met a
Muslim uh and one came to the door uh
one day of the labor part party office I
was alone in the office he was the
leader of the Palestinian students union
gups at that time uh he said he wanted
to talk to the leaders of the party
about Palestine I told him there are no
leaders here I was 21 years old there
are no leaders here but you can tell me
and I'll pass it on and at the end of a
2-hour mesmerizing talk by him about the
nakba the catastrophe which had
enveloped the Palestinian people I was a
signed up member of the Palestinian
resistance which are remain to this day
by the grace of God you also mention um
that where you were growing up and
Scotland itself is obviously very
different to England they're very
Anti-Imperialist well it's partly about
the pattern of development capitalism
develops unequally and in this country
wealth is concentrated in some small
parts of the country uh where a lot of
people live and there are a lot of poor
people also living there but uh a place
like Scotland which was heavily
dependent upon on industry on
manufacturing ship building steel coal
uh the kind of things that men usually
and men and women also do with their
hands uh this era passed us by and
therefore mass unemployment was the
reality in Scotland when I was
politically first politically active and
de-industrialization and hopelessness
and now uh planted by a hopelessness
which is leavened by heavy dependence on
alcohol and on drugs and so on so there
a lot of social problems in places like
Scotland in the post industrial desert
that capitalism has left behind and
because uh Scotland was not as
enthusiastically an Empire Builder uh
then there are more Anti-Imperialist
people uh there and also the 25% of
Scotland is of uh Irish Catholic uh
background so we have a memory folk
memory of uh what happened to Ireland at
the hands of
imperialism um it's true that uh
Scotland is a more Anti-Imperialist
place the task is to try and make
Britain a less imperialist place and uh
that's not going so well traditionally
the labor party was a very much a party
on the left supporting the working class
but it moved and it moved very
drastically uh and it became a pretty
much a right sort of Center party um and
you know any remnant of it being you
know something which supports the
working class anti-imperialistic Etc has
almost diminished well Mr Mr Blair and
his gang uh hijacked the labor party and
they flew it to destruction uh they did
so deliberately they believed that there
was no future for such a party and that
therefore they would change its name
change its character and uh labor became
new labor that was its official title
under Mr Blair uh which effectively
became non- labor and now is anti- Labor
uh they stand for the very opposite of
the things that the party was founded to
stand for and the people who used to be
able to depend on them are now betrayed
by them and that's why when I was
expelled over the Iraq War I started a
new party called respect
in Arabic uh which is the ghost of
Labor's past really it uh stands for the
people that labor has abandoned it says
the things labor used to say and if it
were in power it would do the things
that labor used to want to do uh that's
why they hate us so much because we are
their ghost uh when they look at us they
can see themselves in the mirror um and
that's why the conflict on the left in
British politics between us and Them is
so very sharp
and the fact that M keep winning keep
defeating them in elections is very
difficult for them to Bear they could
they would much rather be defeated by a
conservative than be defeated by me is
there then a future for the left um in
the political uh arena in Britain well
if you look at issue by issue the great
majority of people support the left on
privatization of Public Services great
majority of people are opposed to it on
uh going to war after War great majority
of people are opposed to it uh on
fairness at work uh on equality between
men and women people of different kinds
uh most people vast majority of people
are with us so issue by issue uh we win
these
arguments uh but uh we have a problem
that uh if you call something left if
you call it socialist uh you erecting
barriers uh between you and the people
because of the kind of media we have
because of the history we have as the
first capitalist country the biggest
imperialist country uh it's not that
easy to uh to wave uh the flag and
expect people to Rally behind it I I had
the great privilege of being present in
a conversation between Fidel Castro and
Hugo Chavez God Rest his soul and in
that conversation Fidel asked uh
commandante Chavez to stop calling
things socialist stop talking about
socialism just do socialist things and
you'll see how popular they are out of
all the struggles around the world what
makes Palestine so important well that's
a good question uh there are times I ask
myself uh this question my involvement
with the Arabs has not been entirely a
good one um and has caused me a lot of
uh damage and
scars uh not because we confronted the
Zionist enemy
that was easy the problem is some of the
Arabs the Palestine issue is emblematic
of many things first of all it's
religiously significant secondly it's
significant as one of the most Brazen
examples of imperialist theft in history
I mean in this building this very
building Mr balur on behalf of one
people promised to a second people the
land which belonged to a third people
even by imperialist standards that's
pretty Brazen and the fact that Britain
didn't even possess Palestine as a
colonial possession at the time that it
gave it away makes it even more uh
obscene uh so the fact that Britain has
such uh vital pivotal part in this crime
uh is one of the reasons why I've stuck
to it so
doggedly uh it's important uh for anyone
who loves Liberty to see a people whose
country has been wiped off the map but
it's got this additional religious
significance uh for Christian people for
Muslim people uh which makes it uh
particularly special and holy and
sacred uh and largely it's also personal
if you become close to a people as I did
uh to the Palestinian people and to the
people of Iraq uh this never leaves you
and ERS your bloodstream it inhabits
your
dreams uh you fall in love with the
people the culture the pography the
history everything when you were trying
to um get people to know about Palestine
how was it at the very beginning when
you first campaigned for Palestine and
how is it now have you seen a change
that's a very good question uh and one
which isn't asked of me often enough uh
when I identified in 1975 with the PLO
with chman German Arafat it was the
equivalent in terms of the shock value
and how you were treated of declaring
for example that you were with Al-Qaeda
or uh Bin Laden
today of course I've always been against
Al-Qaeda and against Bin Laden but it
had that same uh shock value uh the PLO
in 1975 had recently been involved in
the widespread hijacking of airplanes
the uh Munich Olympic Games operation
the Palestine was a synonym for
international terrorism which was then
quite a new phenomenon at least in that
form uh so it was I mean I could show
you my
scars uh it was horrific the impact in
the media treatment of it the political
class treatment of it and so on in a way
that drove me on because I was convinced
that I was right that the Palestinians
were the victims not the terrorists and
that their cause was great uh and the
more hatred that it engendered the more
abuse and threats and damage that one
sustained in a way perversely drove one
on uh further you'd made a choice you'd
made a stand you had to stick to it uh
but if I had chosen the other side as
most of my fellows in the labor party
had
if I had become instead of a supporter
of the PLO a supporter of Israel you
might be talking to me in Downing Street
uh today it's as significant as that in
1975 you could have fitted all the
supporters of the PLO in this room uh in
Parliament and in a not much bigger room
in the country as a whole and that began
to change around 1982 with the Israeli
invasion of Lebanon the uh massacres of
Sabra and chatila and so on that's when
the tide turned now everybody knows that
Palestine is the heart of the matter
that the Injustice done to the
Palestinians is the flaw at the heart of
Western policy towards the east
everybody knows that something has to be
done but we're still a long way short of
turning that kinetically into actual
change forcing Israel to disgorge that
which it has illicitly swallowed and
destroyed talk to us about some of your
major achievements as a politician and
as an activ well I I suppose my major
achievement in this context given what
I've just been saying is that I've been
elected six times to Parliament always
against the odds in four different
constituencies two different countries
Scotland and England and with uh most of
the powerful people in the country
trying constantly to destroy me I think
I've helped turn uh public opinion
around on Palestine the Palestinians
paid the the highest price for that uh
through Massacre and uh and removal and
so on but I played a small part in it I
think um I was one of the main leaders
of the anti-war movement uh against the
war on Afghanistan and Iraq again we
became millions and now everyone agrees
with us everyone agrees that the
invasion and occupation of these two
countries has been a
disaster and has had uh conf
consequences which for the people who
did it they now claim were unforeseen
but were foreseen by me predicted and
warned against uh at the time including
personally up close and personal uh with
Mr Blair uh just me and him in
corridors uh in heated discussions which
almost became violent in which I told
them in the case of Iraq for example
there is no al-Qaeda in Iraq but if you
invade Iraq irq there will be tens of
thousands of al-Qaeda in Iraq you can
overthrow the regime in Baghdad easily
but the fall of Baghdad will not be the
beginning of the end but only the end of
the beginning and millions will pay with
their lives and their livelihoods and
Iraq will be broken and
sectarianization around the world it's
exactly what has happened they claim
that this was all unforeseen but I know
that it was not unforeseen because I'm
the person who told them to their faces
that this would uh happen uh so that's
an achievement of sorts unfortunately
Iraq is destroyed it's people dispersed
millions of them around the world a
Million Dead Abu grab and all of that uh
that's a very high price to pay uh even
in the context of the subsequent
vindication uh of our uh point of view I
like to think that I've played a role in
making more British people understand
the Muslim World more understand where
Muslims are coming from why they feel so
grieved why some of them are so angry
and why uh some of them a smaller number
but still a big number are ready to kill
themselves in order to kill others uh
that they hold responsible for the
Grievances I'm making a movie about Tony
Blair the killing of Tony Blair it's not
me killing Tony Blair it's about Tony
Blair's killing um I'm uh constantly in
action by the grace of God I have a lot
of energy and uh I'm still uh still
doing it what motivates you um you're
known for your courage and your
fearlessness what is the recipe for for
that particular uh
success well first of all I'm a
religious believer uh I'm Not Afraid
therefore of anybody but God I'm afraid
only of the Judgment Day it's the only
election that counts for me uh and
believe deeply uh and always have that
this is a transitory life that the other
life is what counts and that what you do
in this life will determine your fate in
the next if you look at life that way
there is no need to be afraid uh in any
case I grew up in very tough streets
there's nobody physically uh frightens
me uh I I told when I went to the US
Senate in 2005 gave them a bloody good
hiding uh I told the senator in charge
just before the hearing when he tried to
bully me I said Senator don't make the
mistake of imagining that I'm afraid of
you I'm afraid of no one but God uh this
uh got me off to a good start and got
him off to a bad start so that's the
first thing uh because of my father and
his father I have never tasted alcohol
in my life and this is a major secret
for me and differentiates me from many
politicians here many of them most of
them drink alcohol many of them drink
alcohol to excess uh so they don't have
the energy that I have uh got I'm up
very early in the morning every day with
the same spring in my step that I had
yesterday and this I partly uh put down
to uh to uh the complete absence of alol
from my life uh and because I am driven
by the tasks that remain unfinished and
the injustices that remain festering and
I I follow the in many things the rubric
of uh the late and great commandante
chavara who said that the man who is not
capable of trembling with indignation at
any Injustice visit visited anywhere on
any person is not really a man and I am
I I tremble with indignation when I see
and hear of Injustice and it uh moves me
and I have long believed that uh action
speaks louder than words that talking is
cheap even tears are cheap I'm feeling
some now in my eyes uh what counts as
what you do not what you say or even
think and uh as long as God gives me
breath I'll continue to do it and
Palestine will be the last word on my
lips if I can arrange it would you see
the future of the Middle East uh and
Palestine what would you like to see
happening there this poison of
sectarianism this Insanity of of
sectarianism where people eat each
other's hearts cut each other's heads
off murder each other over the issue of
whether we fold our hands
or keep them by our sides as said uh
while you're debating this the others
are planning to chop off your arms he
was right about that uh the um the
danger for the Arabs is if they go into
this Vortex of sectarian hatred there
will be no Arab world there will not be
23 Arab countries there'll be 233 Maybe
2,333
all facing each other all divided on a
sectarian confessional basis all arming
against each other the Arabs will never
realize their potential to be a
superpower uh if they go into this
Vortex and there's a real and present
danger of going into that Vortex this is
why I took the stand for Syria that I
have not because I love uh Bashar I
don't uh not because I love the the bath
party I don't uh not because I think
there's nothing wrong in Syria I don't
think there's nothing wrong there's lots
wrong but if SE if if sectarianism
triumphs in Syria and breaks it into
confessional uh Emirates then the future
for the Arab world will be Bleak indeed
I have a different
vision from the Atlantic to the gulf
from Mares to bahin 350 million Arabs
speaking one language worshiping one God
with a common culture with of course
Regional differences this should be a
superpower in the world not least
because it has an ocean of oil and gas
underneath its land and water the Arabs
should be amongst the most powerful of
all the blocks in the world but they
will never achieve this if they go down
this Crossroads path to uh sectarian uh
future I believe in the Arabs more than
they believe in themselves I believe
that they can achieve great things
things that are worthy of the language
and the religion which God gave them uh
and I hope that they will realize that
future and I hope that they will take a
better path George gway thank you very
much for joining us been a
pleasure