3 Clear Steps to Collaborate with People You Strongly Disagree with

(Original source Big Think) 

“The current state of social/political debate and discourse leaves a lot to be desired. In this Big Think Edge preview, Islamic reform activist Maajid Nawaz describes how to build a successful, respectful dialogue that can serve an actual purpose and spur progress. Nawaz is the co-author (with neuroscientist Sam Harris) of a new book called Islam and the Future of Tolerance.

TRANSCRIPT

Maajid Nawaz: Sam Harris and myself, Maajid Nawaz, we had a dialogue. Sam Harris is the leading atheist Islam critic, if you like, in the United States, and probably in the world, at the moment. I on the other hand have spent 13 years on the, you know, you couldn’t get more different. I’ve spent 13 years on the leadership of an Islamist organization that seeks to impose a version of Islam over society and erect a caliphate, establish a caliphate and spread it across the world. I was in prison for my membership of this organization in Egypt. I served four years in Egypt and returned to the UK and left the group. But that’s — I joined at 16 and left at the age of 28. So I spent most of my teenage years and youth for the Islamist cause. And so you can see Sam and I came at this debate from opposite ends. And we engaged in a dialogue about Islam and the future of tolerance. You know I’ve been on a journey. I’m now, to make it very clear, somebody who considers myself a small “L” liberal Democrat. I’m somebody who’s secular who advocates for the universality of human rights.  But to get to where I’ve got to, while remaining a Muslim, has been a long journey.”

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