Episode 20 Sunday Morning Live

Good morning and welcome to Sunday Morning Live.

Paris is in mourning after gun and bomb attacks killed 128 people,

More than 2 million adults in England are said to be.

Peter Hitchens caused a stir here a few months ago after saying there

Culture clash - as more than 1,000 artists boycott

Israel over its policies, others, like JK Rowling, say sharing culture

is a power for good. Who's right?

And veteran war photographer Don McCullin explains what makes

a good picture as he helps pick a winner for this year's

It explores images of religion. I thought religion was about devotion,

respect and love, and all I have seen is the kind of cruelty that

sometimes religion when it goes wrong... It doesn't go wrong, it is

the people who observe it that go wrong. They go too far.

As ever, Tommy Sandhu adhere to share your thoughts at home this

morning. Good morning. If you always watch the show but you never get in

touch, let this be the week that you do. It is easy to get your comments

into the show, on Facebook and Twitter:

send in your video reaction so we can get your comments and even your

Peter Hitchens is a columnist at the Mail On Sunday.

They killed people out enjoying a Friday evening in Paris

at a rock concert, a football friendly, in bars and restaurants.

By the end of the night, nearly 130 were dead,

So-called Islamic State say they carried out the series of gun

and bomb attacks, calling France a top target.

Two of those targets were the Bataclan concert venue

The stadium was hosting a match between France and Germany,

Declaring a state of emergency, he called the attacks an act

of war, vowing to wage a merciless fight against terrorists.

Here, David Cameron offered British help and summoned his Cabinet

There will be another emergency meeting today.

You'll now see extra police at ports and public events

While security is paramount, is there anything else that can be

Our question this morning is how should Britain reacts to the attacks

in Paris? Joining us is the author of the book Islamophobia. We will be

with you in just a sec but we want to start with Peter. I heard Theresa

May, the Home Secretary, on the Andrew Marr Show, talking about

public vigilance and increased security. Is that going to be

enough, do you think? I think there is a tendency on these occasions for

people in Government to act on the maxim of never let a good crisis go

to waste. There are people that want more surveillance and to limit our

civil liberties even more and they will use this as a pretext. I think

this is unthinking. We need to react with calm and caution and a great

deal of thought. Let's have more of the security which has failed.

France is probably a more secure country in most terms than we are.

It has a stronger state, more surveillance and it has not

protected Paris from what has happened, and the idea that it will,

that these attempts can be wholly invented, it seems to me to be

mistaken. Let's think very carefully before we rush into another raft of

measures to make us more miserable. We will do the work of the

terrorists if we change our society into a less free place and it will

do no good. It is difficult to have this feeling of calm when there is

panic and fear, in France of course and in Britain as well. The pressure

on politicians to do something and to be seen to be doing something

quite intense at the moment. Yes, and I do admire the stance that

Peter is taking. But myself I have hung on to the idea of our liberties

and the suspicion of the state, which I still feel very deeply, just

as deeply as Peter Hitchens, but I really think that we are in a

different order with IS. On Thursday something like 50 people were blown

up in the Lebanon. And hundreds were injured. There is not a day that

goes by now where they are not hyperactive, here, there and

everywhere. It has been going on since 1981. Said they are

uncontrollable? If this is an organisation, this lot, this

collection, if you like, seems very much more able to do stuff. I

reluctantly have come to the conclusion this weekend that yes, up

to a point, I am prepared to put up with increased... I can ever say

this word! Surveillance. Knowing full well what Peter said, that the

powerful will grab as much power as they can. OK. Do we have to give up

a bit of our liberty to increase our protection, Douglas? I don't think

so. I agree with everything that has been said by Peter and a lot of what

Yasmin has said. It is important that we do not leap around and

overreact to this. It is important that there is rhetoric around this.

We will see whether President Hollande is merciless towards IS. We

will see whether we have a phase as we have had in UK, and are googly

across Europe, where wherever we talk about this subject, politicians

do an extraordinary mixture of grandiosity and tinkering. They say

we are at war with an existential threat, the threat of our time, and

then they say that in response we must extend surveillance here or we

must do this or that. This is not up to the challenge. If you accept that

the challenge is there, and I think that it is, then you do not simply

tinker. What do you do? All sorts of things. One of the things, you would

make sure you know who is coming into your country and who is here.

And it is insane that in recent years, at the same time as saying

there is an element within Islamic communities, whatever percentage you

think it is, which has the potential to be radicalised and have medieval

ideas, if you believe that is true, and mainstream politicians across

Europe also that is true, why on earth would you bring an

unprecedented number from the Muslim world into Europe? Why would you do

it? Because the free movement of people is one of our core values in

Europe. We believe university in human rights, liberty, equality and

fraternity, they are not just Western values. They are Muslim

values and the vast majority of the Muslim world is appalled. They want

these values and they do not want dictators. Many of them are skipping

terrorist groups like IS by coming into Europe. By showing them that

generosity, we are undermining the terrorists, who are trying to pit

them against us. We have to stick to our values and welcome the refugees.

The vast majority of them will contribute to this society. We have

to deal with the terrorist military threat of IS, absolutely. We are at

war with them. I nobody wants you to be right more than I do. Take an

opinion poll that came out after the Charlie Hebdo massacre in Paris. The

BBC said that 27% of British Muslims polled had sympathy with the

attackers in Paris. 27%! That is not a majority, I grant you. Just a

quarter. One at the time. Yasmin? Of course there are anxieties. They

think that one of the people involved came through the route of

seeking asylum. But most people are not IS. They are escaping them. That

is what I am saying very strongly. In some ways, we Muslims have to

stop seeing ourselves primarily as Muslims, and see ourselves more as

Europeans. There has been a terrible influence from Saudi Arabia that has

been allowed to corrupt us. But equally the Europeans should stop as

Muslims first and citizens next. All of that will make a difference. And

I am not, saying there is no problem, like Usama, but we have to

give some credence to the idea that most of those people coming here are

desperate. But it only takes one. That criminals come from everywhere.

We are missing two points. There is a perfectly sound argument for

having control of borders even if there were no terrorist attacks at

all and I did think using a terrorist attack for this argument

is a particularly good idea. A terrorist attack is bad in its own

right and we respond to it in its own right. If you mean by open

borders that you can allow people to walk into the country that anybody

knowing where they are coming from and who they are, then any

reasonable person must be against that. The curious thing about the

European Union is their policy is exactly that, that people can come

in and checked and undocumented and move unchecked throughout the entire

European Union. That seems crazy to me and any circumstances, even if

there were no terrorist attacks, and I would be amazed if anyone's would

defend that even with no terrorist attacks. The other thing is what is

the nature of IS and what is the threat to us and how can we combat

it? The solution to this do not lie in domestic policy but foreign

policy. We have been most reluctant to Ally properly with the Kurds, who

have been the most effective fighters against IS on the ground,

and we have been against Alliant with Iran, and we have been critical

of Russia, who has been effective in holding up the Syrian regime, one of

IS's most principal opponents. We might consider any of these things

if we want to defeat IS as a major force. I want to bring in Dr Chris

Allen from the newsroom in Birmingham. Is there an answer to

this and does it lie in a change in foreign policy? Does it like in

perhaps getting rid of the open borders agreement and having a more

rigorous approach to people coming into Europe? What is your answer?

Listening to this discussion so far what is interesting to me is that we

have started with one thing and got on to something very different.

Looking at the language, we are talking about Muslims as a blanket

community around the world. Muslims in Syria and Iraq, talked about in

the same way as Muslims in Britain. Immigration, which is not

necessarily a Muslim issue. This is a different and distinct issue but

suddenly we are talking about immigration as though it is

problematic because of Muslims coming to this country. I think one

of the things that we need to do here is to differentiate between the

different debates and discussions taking place. If we are talking

about this issue of what has happened in Paris and what we should

do, I think the message is one of calm. If we look at 7/7 and Lee

Rigby and these things, they were on British soil, and they impacted on

Britain directly. What we have now is something that has taken place in

Paris, which is horrific. But is it going to affect us in Britain at the

moment? We are talking as though there will be an attack here

imminently and I think this is to look at this as an intelligent

issue. And actually talk about these issues in a balanced and nuanced

way. Is it an intelligence issue? Obviously not slowly, but did

intelligence let everybody down in Paris? I don't think anything that

anybody has said lacks nuance, which is a patronising dismissal of what

everybody has said. That always happens, changing the point and

limiting the discussion. This is a very large issue, a societal

official, a cultural issue. What happened in Paris, it goes on and

on. It is not possible to have this discussion, and police, and make

sure we do not have certain elements of it, because we have got to have

the full discussion. To pick up on that point, would you have a full

discussion about not just a stroke in Syria, which of course was voted

down in the House of Commons, but boots on the ground? Is it about

getting rid of IS in Syria? It is a perfectly legitimate objective if IS

carry out an attack on one country, that that country should use all

military force to destroy that group. What was proposed two years

ago it was not that, it was punitive strikes against the Assad regime. I

actually disagreed with that, because it would have meant toppling

him and then we would have owned Syria when we do not want to, but

strikes against are obviously legitimate. As for surveillance, you

can have all the surveillance in the world and things like this will

happen. You cannot stop a barbarian getting hold of a Kalashnikov and

murdering people for the crime of going to a restaurant. You will

never have enough surveillance that we should not blame security

services in Paris and here for not being able to prevent that happening

all of the time. Usama is it about going into Syria a

lot harder than anyone has done? I think we should call a spade a

spade. In Syria we have a brutal regime and Isis murdering thousands

of people also, mainly Muslims. We need a political solution to end the

war. What is that political solution? The reason we haven't

allied with the Kurds as much is Turkey is an ally and there are

problems with Iran and Russia supporting Assad. We do need that

debate to continue. But mentioned Charlie Hebdo, correct lyric. A lot

of Muslims thought these were blasphemous cartoons but opinion has

moved on. For example Charlie Hebdo published a cartoon about the boy

that was drowned, about the plane brought down by a bomb which many

Russians were offended by. A lot of people ghetto fended by the unique

nature of Charlie Hebdo. We are moving in the right direction in

Britain and Europe. To have open and honest conversations... Yes I want

to give credit so the security services here. I ty services here. I

know for the fact ty services here. I know for the fact - and the police

too - that some terrible disasters have been prevented. They don't talk

about them. They can't talk about them sometimes. The downside of that

is too often blameless Muslims are held without charge and so on. And

that needs to change. We have to maintain those rights. But there has

been some good work done by people to keep us safe, so we shouldn't

dismiss what they've been able to do. Don't overrate these

organisations. James Bond is fiction and so is Spooks. There's

surprisingly little they can do. The fundamental thing they are not and

never will will be is clairvoyant. They simply can't tell what is going

to happen before it happens. The idea that by poking more and more

into our lives is false. What is the answer, any answer. If there had

been a plane crash we would get hold of the flight recorders and look to

see what happened in detail and we would work to ensure it didn't

happen again. The same should be done here. What is actually going

on? What should we be preventing, what should we be fighting, what

should our foreign policy be? From September 11th 2001 we've had a

stupid foreign policy towards this part of the world which has caused

far more trouble than it has solved. To continue to believe that tanks,

bombs and air strikes and boots on the ground will help, when it has

failed all this time, is incredibly stupid. You've been sending us many

texts and messages. We've just had this video from Paul.

In order to get this right at its root one has to reform Islam. In

much the same way that Christianity has been reformed, Islam needs a

reformation. Without that it is going to carry on recruiting lots of

these suicide bombers, because in the end of the day they are

following what they believe is written down. Islam needs reform,

Sian. That's what Paul says. Thank you, I want to pick that up with

Chris in your brim studio. What do you make of that last comment about

Islam needing reforming and that's the way forward? I always find it

interesting that nonexperts can actually tell other religions what

they need to do. It is like, I'm not a theologian for Judaism, so I

wouldn't tell the Jewish faith what it needs to do. A lot of people hear

these debates and about the reformation of Islam, but what would

that do? Religions change and evolve over centuries. These are constantly

changing. What we have here, and picking up on some of the previous

points, if we get rid of Islamic State, if we bomb Islamic State,

would we create a void that's going to be filled by other extremists.

Our own Government, in December 2013, the extremism task force, the

Government was talking about the greatest threat from Al-Qaeda, and

once that moves on a new idea fills it. We heard there are more than 700

British people who've gone out to Syria and 400 or so have come back.

Does that not give you cause for concern? I think it is concerning,

but one of the things we've got legislation in place where my

understanding is when people come back from Iraq or Syria they can be

arrested. So there's questions around why is the legislation not

being used. One of the things we've done which is wrong is this idea

that we can deradicalise people here in this country. If you look back to

new Labour and the post 77 period. This prevent agenda, where we take

them out of and make them more moderate Muslims. What do we mean by

this? This is bringing organisations to the table, that agree with

Government and rubber stamping Government ideas. Alan is pushing a

particular point of view here, not one I agree with. Reformation Islam,

whatever that means, would mean that whenever an attack like this

happened there was no legitimacy whatsoever for it happening. The

problem is, let me give a quick example. Late last year the young

Jordanian pilot whose plane came down and he was burned alive in

Syria by Isis ar bairns. When that happened, a very prominent school of

Islam issued a criticism of this happening. By the way they said the

people who did it should be crucified for doing this, but they

said that ice ries indeed extremist but the problem that they are not

heretics. They were not heretics. Usama knows and Yasmin knows and

everyone here knows this is the central problem. They are heretics.

They are saying as non-Muslim you can't excommunicate them. Is it

about the clarity of mental about what Islam is? Yes, the message

should be clearer but the Theo lonelyians of Islam today are

unanimous, every single one is condemning Isis, because they are

killing Muslims everywhere. Islam is going through a reformation, it

takes centuries, as the Christian one did. The elephant in the room is

Saudi Arabia. The man like we treated like the King of the

universe a few weeks ago, you want to know how the theology has been

kidnapped, restricted, homogenised, forcefully changed from the

diversity that Islam enjoyed, you have to look to Saudi Arabia and

some of the Gulf states. We don't want to do that. It is an enormously

important point and Yasmin is right to raise it. Saudi Arabia is

important in the formulation of French and British policy, because

it is such an important buyer of arms. Reform of Saudi Arabia would

help Muslims worldwide. The point is this civil war is here and that's

the problem. Thank you to all of you and for your comments at home as

well. If you are worried about friend and family in Paris, the

Foreign Office has a dedicated number to call:

Coming up: Veteran war photographer Don McCullin talks about portraying

faith through a camera lens. The idea of seeing various religions

living in harmony of this country and showing you image obvious the

best side of it can only increase the chances of understanding.

Around 2 million adults are dependent on drugs and alcohol

in England, according to the latest statistics,

with one in 12 having taken an illicit drug in the last year.

The word addiction is often used about over-indulging in drugs,

alcohol, gambling, sex and even food.

But is it about compulsion or choice?

Russell Brand suggests drug addiction should be treated

as a disease and a health issue, to be treated with compassion

Peter Hitchens thinks that's nonsense,

When discussing whether beef is an illness. People use the word

addiction the whole time. There is no such thing as addiction, it is

the permanent excuse... I can hear them saying, yes, there is. Tell my

daughter's GP that. And we'll hear from Peter in a second. But first we

met Adam Bradford, whose father's gambling habit became so severe he

ended up going to prison. We had never seen him gamble, except when

we went to the seaside, you go to the amusements and doing the fun

stuff that families do. But we never had any suspicions of a gambling

problem. The trigger I think for my entering into gambling in a more

than social way was financial pressures brought on by

mismanagement of my important finances. That delivered me to a

false sense of potential solution in gambling. We found out through the

front page of our paper that he had stolen ?50,000 from his employer and

had a gambling addiction. For us, we thought, is this the same David

Bradford? But it was. It is not because the core of me is bad, or I

don't think so. I think it is that in the engine room of my mind

there's a bit of it not functioning properly. It is an illness which

I've seen in other people now. It manifests itself not a very similar

way but everybody is slightly different. That's to do with the

character that surrounds this illness. But the outcomes are always

the same. We are kind of losers. It has lost him his confidence and his

job. Had his decency as a human. It could lose us our house. People who

remight say are not addicted, who will turn round on the back of our

story and say, it his choice to do what he did. It affects the

endorphins in your brain, just like drugs and alcohol do, that's within

proven. We know the speed of gambling is getting quicker. There's

many more adverts. The betting shots are expanding and the industry is

profiting from people like my dad, who are getting into trouble. The

only thing I'm left with is trying to, day by day, edge into making

things better for the future. It is very, very difficult dragging that

past with me but it is the only way I can function now. It has to be

treated like an illness. It is not a criminal thing. It might lead to

that, but that's the result, not the cause. Our question: Is addiction an

illness? What are your thoughts? Tommy will read some out later.

Joining the panel is actor and presenter Denise Welch,

who says she's been addicted to smoking, drinking and over-eating.

Dr Aric Sigman, a health education specialist

And Dr Robert Lefever, who set up Britain's first rehab

centre and specialises in addiction and depression.

Peter, I want to read back to you something David said. He said, it is

not because my core is bad, the engine room in my mind has something

that's not functioning. He very much feels that he was addicted but you

say that's an addiction? You can't diagnose yourself with a disease. I

would defy anybody to come up with a definition of what addiction is

which doesn't turn into something opposite to it when you use it ten

minutes later, and to come up with an objective diagnosis of its

presence in the human body. You can't say anyone is an addict in an

objective way using scientific methods. Does it mean that they are

not? We are discussing a moral question, society which increasingly

is not willing to attribute personal responsibility to people, which

makes excuses for almost anything people do which is bad. Once you do

that it makes it much easier for people to do those bad things.

Denise? Don't come on here as an expert on addiction, but we've

talked before. I can only talk about my own. I think what addiction is

doing, with my problem it started with clinical depression, which

happened when I had my first son, Matthew. I think no matter how

advanced people are in the medical world unless they've suffered from

clinical depression it is difficult to describe. I would have done

anything to stop the pain of my clinical depression, which led me

down a road. I also don't say that I didn't sometimes use recreational

drawings for that reason. I then became a vicious cycle. The more I

used, the more I needed, the more it was compounding my depression until

I found I was in a desperate place and the only thing I felt would stop

my pain was cocaine and Scholl. But I was functioning, so I was

convincing myself I didn't have this much of a problem, because I wasn't

hiding gin bottles the sofa. But was it an addiction? It was a

psychological addiction for me, rather than a physical addiction,

but I have been working with people in the throes of a desperate

physical addiction and I think it can be both. Dr Aric Sigman, can you

tell us what happens in the brain when somebody has a compulsion to

take drugs, alcohol, food, whatever it is? I partly agree with Peter, to

cut to the chase. I think our society does not want to take

responsibility initially for dabbling in addictive substances.

But there comes a point, and I have brought a picture with me, where you

start to see brain changes. This kind of change may happen with just

one night of binge drinking, this is a teenager. The red areas are where

the brain cells are thinner, weaker, with less coding. And then more red

marks go then. What could start out as a lack of willpower, that ends up

as neurochemical changes which take on a life of their own and then it

becomes a physical process. It is difficult to be exact in the

diagnosis, which you are absolutely right about, but that does not mean

it may not be an illness. Let's face it, there are many alcoholics, if

you take away that alcohol, they will die. That is not a social

affectation. It depends what area of the spectrum you are wrong. There is

a slight slippage there. People who die from alcohol die fundamentally

from having abused and taking vast quantities of a dangerous drug for a

long time. What about the changes in neurotransmitters? We know so little

about the brain. Trying to judge causation in these things is like

trying to work out what the North Korean Government is thinking from

satellite pictures of Pyongyang. Knowledge of the brain and its

functioning is incredibly limited. And growing very quickly. Well!

Because we know so little that makes not much difference. The truth is

that we do not have any causative proof. That is a point, isn't it? We

might have a correlation between drinking and changes in the brain

but as far as cause is concerned, it is very difficult to prove it. There

is a correlation in damage. No doubt. Areas that control

self-control. Everybody knows that. The area that. You drinking too much

becomes damaged and then your ability to control your drinking may

be compromised. Anybody who knows people that drink a lot will know

they are damaged from it and anybody who has worked in Fleet Street this

long has met people like that. I think there is a lot of rubbish

talked about addictive disease and depression and alcoholism and so on.

I think it is much more simple than that. Some of us have an addictive

nature, I think. I am not entitled to talk about anybody else. I can

just say two things. I have got one. I believe I was an addict since

birth and I did not come to terms with it until I was 47, by which

time I was in so much trouble. What were you addicted to? Right across

the board. I have an addictive nature. My weight used to vary up

and down. I worked with people dying of smoking related illnesses and I

was addicted to cigarettes. What do you put this down to? You talk about

an addictive nature but is it the case that some people are born with

this addictive nature and they cannot do much to shift it? There

are three causes, the antecedent cause, which I think is genetic. My

mother died of alcoholism, my mother's father, my mother had an

eating disorder, my wife and I kept this genetic pool ticking over by

marrying and interbreeding. My son has problems and he has been very

well trained for it. That is just my family. But I have looked after 5000

inpatients, so I'm very familiar with the people's families and I

have looked after them. Do you think addiction is a mental illness? A

term like that conjures up so many other things that I am equally

concerned about. I don't like definitions that bring in things

like mental illness because it can be pejorative, it can be an abuse of

statement. Can I raise a problem? The reason this is so important is

because of the weight it causes us to treat the people that take

illegal drugs. And also the way we treat people who destroy their

families had ruined their own lives by drinking too much. Instead of

saying in the case of the illegal drug takers, you are breaking the

law and we will punish you for it, we indulge them and say they are

suffering from a disease, then we rob them institutionally of the idea

that they are responsible for their own actions. The same thing happens

with people that drink too much. If we say it is a disease and you are

not we say it is a disease and you are

of responsibility. Human weakness we say it is a disease and you are

weakness into a polysyllabic studio scientific

wrong. I agree with you on so much and it is a pity that

wrong. I agree with you on so much anything. I am totally responsible

for my behaviour as anything. I am totally responsible

affects other people. But you are suggesting you don't have control

over your own behaviour. I don't have control. I have to find it. I

was not born with it. And you have control. I have to find it. I

to treat the symptoms sometimes. Like with people that overrate. I am

sure there is York colleague, who says it less and

sure there is York colleague, who all know that helps you lose weight,

but in a programme I have been on that uses cognitive behavioural

therapy we have to understand that shutting the cookie jar chin is not

enough. With overweight children, there is a lot of pain. It is not

enough to say don't eat too much, run more. Nobody says it is easy.

But the way you talk about it makes it sound like we should just stop

drinking. It is a question of whether it is a compulsion or not.

The whole basis of the way that we treat these people is that it is a

compulsion. If not, then the whole attitude of the legal system toward

her and abuses would be wrong. But people will do very extreme things

to get the substance. That is selfish and not compulsive. But how

dependent are they on the substance? At some point on that continuum it

is a compulsion and it is a disease. The world leader in brain scanning

has done 100,000 of them in his clinics and I met him in California

and I was very impressed with the work that he was doing, looking at

the way that the brain is plastic. The changes. Especially with people

that are younger. With teenagers, it can switch on changes in the genes,

making them more likely to be addicted. Can I hear from the

viewers because of people are getting in touch? Touch? Tommy?

Tommy, you are getting criticism on Twitter at the moment.

Can I carry on what I was saying? I totally agree with you, this is a

very damaging drugs, cannabis. Can you say that again? Absolutely, very

dangerous. It would be crazy to decriminalise it. Thank you for

saying that. We will talk. I am sure you will after the programme. Thank

you for your reactions at home. Keep them coming in.

He's one of the greatest war photographers in history.

Don McCullin has risked his life to take pictures

in places like Vietnam, Cambodia, the Congo, Afghanistan and Lebanon

and has covered disaster and famine around the world.

His latest role saw him directing his gaze towards

spirituality as a judge in an amateur photographic competition

He told us why the competition was so important. The idea of

encouraging people to understand the love and devotion of religion is

much more important than trying to bully people into believing in a

certain religion. This competition, in a way, is a kind of broad

competition that gives voice to all religions. What comes out of it is

different points of view. Visually. You don't need a statement. A

photograph can really tell you 1000 words sometimes. When it came to

picking out the winners, a tough job, I am sure. What were you

looking for to pick the ones that you did? When you see the winning

picture, unanimously you all know it have to be that one. In this

particular case it is a picture of an old black lady who is obviously

very close to death, being comforted by some religious person. It is in

black and white and the atmosphere of it absolutely claws your

imagination. The picture is full of touching love and tenderness. You

know right away that it had to be the winning picture. Looking at the

other finalists, we see a man teaching a young girl to read the

Koran. Why did you like that? A perfect combination of teaching,

trust and love. As an English man, that is the way I want to see the

Koran and love. As an English man, that is the way I want to see the

Koran it is women teaching. And normally it is young boys being

taught by teachers in an Islamic context. That is what is unusual

about this picture as well but it is a lovely, beautiful picture. It gave

us comfort and warmth to look at it. And another finalist, this

golden temple and a man bathing himself. This is a very spiritually

moving picture because the man is alone in the water. You can see that

nothing in the world means more to him than that privileged moment,

that personal, privileged moment and you can see it in this photograph.

Do you think the photographs that have made it into the final ten, and

the winner, can help people change the way they think about those

particular religions and religion in general? I thought religion was

about devotion and respect and love. All I have seen is the kind of

cruelty that sometimes religion, when it goes wrong... It doesn't go

wrong. It is the people that observe it that go wrong. They go too far.

This competition, in a way, is meant to probably cut out the political

side of things and concentrate on the love. The idea of seeing various

religions living in harmony in this country, and showing you images of

the best side of it really, can only increase the chances of

understanding. Don McCullin talking to Asad Ahmad.

"A bunch of corduroy-jacketed lefty academics".

That's how the London Mayor and MP, Boris Johnson, describes those

He was referring to a protest against Israeli policies

which started more than a decade ago but has gathered

In February, some British artists, including Roger Waters of Pink

Floyd, and film director Ken Loach, signed a letter saying they'd

decline invitations to go to Israel and any funding from institutions

Recently, their sentiments were endorsed

Well, last month a counter petition described this cultural boycott

Among the signatories was author JK Rowling, who described how "the

sharing of art and literature across borders constitutes an immense power

So, are the arts powerful weapons of change,

or does performing in countries whose policies you disagree with

Our final question: Do cultural boycotts work?

To discuss this we are joined by Professor Jonathan Rosenhead, Chair

of the British Committee for the Universities of Palestine, Mojisola

Adebayo, who is an actor, playwright and director, and Jonathan Shalit,

And Peter cultural boycott of Israel? One of

the best things about a boycott is to open up a dialogue, which says

there's a bottom line, that the situation there is so appalling, so

bad that all we can use is a very crude tool to say there's a point at

which I'm not going tone gauge any more in that kind of way. But there

are lots of other things we can do, which is what I'm about. It is

counter intuitive for which is what I'm about. It is

artist to say I'm not going to do. which is what I'm about. It is

I'm more interested in what I am going to do. Do. I write plays and I

still work in the Middle East and in Palestine and with Palestinians. But

for me as an artist it is a choice about money, about what kind of

cultural transaction I'm going to engage in. I want to take money from

say the situation in Israel engage in. I want to take money from

democracy in the Middle East. Israel engage in. I want to take money from

security is its own business should be applauded. When you talk

about a boycott, when George Bush was President

about a boycott, when George Bush with him, why not

about a boycott, when George Bush Culture, media and theatre

about a boycott, when George Bush educate and entertain. If you

withdraw that from a country you are punishing the wrong people. I'm not

saying we shouldn't debate Israel, we should debate any country. But

the Government doesn't represent even half of the country, so you are

penalising even half of the country, so you are

can't have access to world art. Jonathan, wherever you stand on the

debate of Israel's policies, by having this boycott what you are

effectively doing is preventing that free discussion, that open debate,

and harming the very citizens that you would like to protect. I've had

more discussion with you would like to protect. I've had

academics since I started boycotting them than before. It is just that I

don't do business as usual. I don't do joint research grants with them

and pretend there is not a problem with Israel. I talk to them about

the politics of Israel. They now want to talk to me because they know

I'm involved in a campaign that criticised them. If you want

dialogue boycotts are a good way of provoking one. It is a lovely

paradox buts not really the point, is it? The point is, what are the

boycotters aiming to achieve? I would guess it is to turn Israel

into a pariah state, much as apartheid South Africa was, so that

they can undermine its legitimacy and eventually remove it from the

map, which tends to be the view of quite a lot of supposedly

progressive people in the western world these days. That doesn't seem

a laudable objective or a wide one. But didn't that work? It did work,

but that's what's makes it so important. If these things weren't

important, why discuss them? What worries me particularly about them

and the weakest argument of the boycott serious the selective nature

of this. There are plenty of countries, China prominent among

them, which behave extremely badly to their population and neighbours,

who aren't boycotted by the same people. What interests me is why

there is this strong selective desire to punish Israel of all

countries rather than any others? I would like to ask you why. It is

interesting what you are saying about China. I also don't work for

the Chinese state. I've been invited many times to work on projects that

are funded by the Chinese state. I also choose not to do that. Did you

organise a boycott in China? I don't, and I didn't organise this

boycott, but I got an e-mail. For me it is a personal decision, in that I

began my own boycott from when I started working there. I was first

invited to work in Israel in 1999 and I worked in Nazareth with Arab

Israelis, Palestinian Israelis, and was invited to work in the West Bank

with a theatre company alled Ashtar. I've been working there on and off

for the last 15 years and the situation has got progressively

worse, and particularly artists. But you are not answering the question,

the selective nature of this. The people are trying to make theatre,

make art. The irony is one of the act north-west my plays, because she

was born in Bethlehem it is easier for her to work in London. Can you

answer this? My play, I can't have my play performed because of this

Two points I made, first the reason for the difficulty in getting for

Bethlehem to Jerusalem is Israel is trying to protect itself against a

level of terrorism which we in this country would find unbearable.

Secondly you haven't addressed my point why Israel as against so many

other countries, in many cases far worse this their records...

Jonathan's point about it being a democracy. Why target a democracy?

Why not go elsewhere? Because the Palestinian Authority is also a

democracy. But there are Palestinians and Arabs in the

Israeli Parliament. In Israel, homosexuals, lesbians and gays are

immersed in society. On China, the more art that goes to China the more

people in China understand what they haven't got. So you are saying don't

boycott but change the argument from within? Paul McCartney, Rihanna, the

rolling stones, they've all gone to Israel to perform. The point I'm

making is people not going are being naive. The truth of the matter is if

you don't embrace countries you disagree with, you can't move

forward. It goes back to that point about dialogue, about art and

culture having a profound influence. Surely you can use that for your

purposes by continuing that. A couple of points need to be picked

up on. The reason why actors can't go from Bethlehem to Jerusalem is

because Israel is trying to exclude all Palestinians from Jerusalem,

knocking down their homes and moving them to settlements. It is not

security. That isn't true. That point about changing from within and

academics and artists having the power to change from within rather

than withholding their labour, isn't that a more powerful one?

Absolutely. It is because of the power of the culture that the

cultural boycott is an important element in this debate. It is not

reasonable to say you can't boycott Israel because you are not

boycotting every other country this the world. But a Israel is open to

us on its culture and academic lines is open to the pressure of boycott.

Boycott isn't a moral obligation it is a tactic you can use. Use. ... It

is far less effective against iron dictatorships is such as China,

that's true, but it would be more urgent to boycott an iron

dictatorship than a law-abiding country.

A point that you were making, Peter, but I want to pick up with you about

the point, is it something that's peaceful or sit posturing? What

difference have cultural wickets made since theyer started a decade

ago? It is not just a decade ago. You mentioned South Africa. It was

really powerful. Can you imagine if Elvis had marched with Martin Luther

King, what difference that might have made? If Elvis had said, I'm

not playing until the black man is free. What difference might that

have made. It is not about violence, it is peace. Israel is not like

segregation Alabama. In Israel you have Palestinians in Government but

you also have Palestinians trying to kill innocent people. Thank you so

much to all of you. That's all we have time for today,

thanks to my guests and to you In the light of the attacks in

Paris, we thought we'd finish today with a song that brought great

comfort to another city that was It's the anthem of Liverpool

Football Club and was sung after And its words echo David Cameron's

sentiment to France that "we stand Here are The Priests,

with 'You'll Never Walk Alone'. # And the sweet silver song

of a lark # Tho' your dreams be tossed

and blown # Walk on, walk on,

with hope in your heart