Episode 12 The Big Questions

Today on The Big Questions: Fuelling the fires of terrorism and breaking

Today we're live from St Edward's School in Oxford.

Welcome, everybody, to The Big Questions.

Since Wednesday afternoon our screens, newspapers and social media

have been dominated by just one story ? the mayhem wreaked

by Khalid Masood on the streets of Westminster with a hired car

50 people were injured, seven of them critically.

Five people have died, including Masood, who was shot by the police.

It was an appalling and devastating crime.

But so far nobody actually knows why Masood did this.

He didn't say anything, he didn't post any messages on social media,

Islamic State claimed responsibility, hailing Masood

as a soldier of Islamic State but there is no evidence he was

He had a criminal record for assaults, he had

served time in prison, and that may be where

MI5 investigated him some years ago but he wasn't

Yet everyone has assumed Masood was an Islamist

And acres of newsprint and hours of television every day since have

been devoted to speculating on the motives behind his actions.

If it was attention and publicity he was after, he got it in spades.

Back in 1985 Mrs Thatcher said, "We must try to find ways to starve

the terrorist and the hijacker of the oxygen of publicity

And she banned us from hearing the voices of the IRA

or Sinn Fein politicians, like Gerry Adams

Are we right to give terrorists the oxygen of publicity?

Peter Hitchens, from the mail on Sunday, you have written a column

today and you have said we have become a nation of weepers laying

flowers, lowering flags, writing candles, while not thinking at all.

What do you mean? Well, I mean that we immediately put a grid on

something and so this is what it is. Within minutes of the outrage, the

police were saying the act was inspired by Islamic State. They had

no objective evidence of that at all. So far as I know they still

don't. My own view of this is that there is an enormous number of

possible explanations but one thing is consistently ignored. If you put

the class of events wider than just Islamic ones, you take in and is

bearing brave it, the school shootings, the rampage killings that

happen frequently in United States, with no Islamic influence what at

all, what you invariably find is that the person involved has a past

of petty criminality involving the use almost invariably of mind

altering drugs illegal or legal. It seems to me that this is an

important subset of crime. I am not saying that all people who take

drugs do this, and people like about what I say and I have got to protect

myself. I am not saying that all people who take drugs become

terrorists and I am not trying to excuse Islamist fundamentalists from

evil intent where they have it, because that would also be observed.

I am saying that if we look at something like the record of Masood,

you see a petty criminal who began early in his life to take mind

altering drugs. You might find a better explanation of why he did

this, rather than clamping onto it immediately the grid of Islamic

extremism and going into top panic mode. He converted. But what about

the coverage itself? The coverage is invariably useful on the point of

the media is to uncover things and huge numbers of things have been

uncovered about Masood in the past few days which we wouldn't have

known, all thanks to media diligence. The point is whether we

make sense of it or not. I called Scotland Yard when they named Masood

and I said can you give me his full criminal record? And they wouldn't

tell me. He is dead. To this day, his full criminal record has not

been revealed because they were not interested in that. They were

interested in the Islamist connection rather than his record of

crime. It may be that he is just a criminal committing a horrible

crime. Maybe he is just a criminal committing a horrible crime. There

was this assumption that he was somehow linked to Islamic State, and

they clearly made a big amount of that saying he was one of their

soldiers. Aren't we playing into their hands? The reason why people

assume that he was doing this or was at least inspired by Islamic State

is because it is something that Islamic State has called upon people

around the world to do, using exactly this kind of methodology.

Islamic State have said for some years that since various cells in

the west have found it hard to get hold of the technology to make bombs

in recent years, they have been disrupted from doing so, and in the

UK it is very hard to get hold of Kalashnikov rifles for example, Isis

have called on people who follow their message to carry out attacks

using vehicles, very low grade attacks with nice, this sort of

thing. That is why. It fits the pattern of Isis inspired attacks and

we will find out some more of what motivated him in the days and weeks

and months to come. As for the question of publicity, this is a

huge question which we are always wondering about. This was a good

week to wonder about terrorism and our attitude towards it in general.

Martin McGuinness, responsible for more depth than anybody else in the

UK in recent decades, -- more deaths, he died and he was eulogised

in the House of Commons and 24 hours later the House of Commons was

attacked by another kind of terrorism, but I think this is a

very bad sign for this country, that the way in which we treat the

terrorists of the past tells us how we will treat the terrorists of the

future. I am glad that was such a powerful point in the studio! You

have got your fans! This should really worry us. During the IRA

campaign people said we would never give in to terror. All MPs and

policemen and all the others said the same thing again this week but

the record shows in this country that we can give into terror and we

have. So the whole issue of media coverage, as it were, by comparison

with that fundamental societal problem is relatively easy to solve.

So we are playing their game? Why is it wrong, Mohammed? Let's go over

the basic principle. Two men behind bars. One looked down and saw mud

and the other looked up and saw stars. What you will find with

organisations like the right wing organisations, they always pick up

the worst, like Douglas. What we had this week was a fantastic unity of

every community coming together and reflecting the grief of a nation and

innocent people being murdered. We had bravery from police officers and

we had passers-by helping out. We can focus on the bad or the good and

the good is that if this is all they can do they are not getting very

far, the terrorists, are they? There is something else that seems to

match the tempo of Isis, which was the killing of Jo Cox. He actually

killed an MP and only two MPs said it was an attack on democracy and

nobody else echo that. Lots of people said it was an attack on

democracy. From MPs and prominent individuals, I think mostly the

Labour Party said so. The point here is that many individuals come out to

do acts of terrorism, and there was not as much focus on Thomas Mair as

there was an other terrorist attacks that have occurred in the UK. That

is quite simple why that was, because there was an impending court

case. In this case there is no impending court case because he was

shot dead. There is a lot of speculation. Do you think they are

comparable, the murder of Jo Cox and what happened the other day? No, and

we are doing it again. We are avoiding the common denominator in

these attacks. Of course terrorism comes from all different areas. But

we are talking about Islamic terrorism in its own right and there

is nothing wrong with that and we should be able to. Thomas Mair is

Islamic? You said the comment nominator. I am talking about the

apparently random attacks like the one we saw in London last week that

we are putting down to a random criminal. How many random criminals

of the same faith are we going to have before we look at the elephant

in the room and it has been in the media all week? We will never know

what can possibly have driven him and the only thing not a possibility

is religious belief and the fact that a person has been involved in

crime or taken drugs does not exclude them... Lots of people have

said it is Islamic. They have not. The Prime Minister in the comments

this week told is very matter that this was a perversion of great

faith. She didn't offer scriptural backing for that and you said it

with no analysis or investigation of Scripture. But we are looking at the

motivation of the individuals. In the past couple of years we have had

two events in this country, one the Leytonstone tube station stabbing,

and the other the Russell Square stabbing in London, which were

initially attributed to Islamic fanaticism and it was later

perfectly clear beyond any doubt that the person involved was

actually crazy. The Leytonstone stabber according to psychiatrists

actually believed that Tony Blair was his guardian angel. This is not

a person who can be taken seriously as a political act. And if you look

also at various events attributed to Islam, particularly the Nice killer,

he never attended the mosque, he at pork, he was an atheist according to

his brothers, who was a boozer and a petty criminal, and the same or

similar of the man who drove the truck in Berlin. An arsonist, petty

criminal and a thief. If you are looking for the origins of these

things, it doesn't mean that none of his adversaries is Islamic but some

of them are not. Other people want to come in. Isn't it hugely

counter-productive for what you want to say about this religion and what

you believe this religion leads to if you all the sudden jump on single

atrocity and say it is because of this religion? I am not suggesting

we jump on every atrocity. I am saying we need to include religion

in the list of possibilities of what drives these people. They are not

all the same, but we cannot honestly discuss this without an examination

and an analysis of the religious scriptures. I also want to know what

these people are saying themselves. Police in Germany declare somebody

to be mentally ill but why? What are they doing to conclude they are

mentally ill? We have a right to know this and what these people are

saying and doing before they carry out these acts. We haven't heard

from Rashad Ali, but I am bearing in in mind your contributions for the

future! This conversation demonstrates the issues. Nobody has

a problem with discussing the issues. The issue is the editorials.

It is the way the facts are presented by people with a

particular agenda. They can horseshoe anything into that agenda.

Or the speculation. We saw the media responses and we saw good responses

from the BBC this time, measured and weighted responses to what happened.

We have seen people speculating about who this person was. Channel 4

News? And others released information without fact checking

simple things. They literally rang up solicitors to verify if this

person was around and it turned out the individual named is in prison.

Other people contacted the family and they said he is definitely in

prison. Not him. We had a phenomenon where people with a particular

agenda wanted to pursue it and other people reacted on social media,

which is way quicker than institutional medias. That is

because it doesn't do any checking. You actually have really poor

journalism coming out, which is what the problem is. When you remove the

journalistic instinct, people Will Satch rack and verify things before

putting them out, and when we did have that, it is less

sensationalist. -- people will fact check. It is less emotionally

driven. It is much less emotionally charged. But it was an emotionally

charged event given the tremendous amount of tragedy that came from it

but also the inspiring acts of humanity that we saw as well and the

nature of the attack on democracy and then all the human stories

emerging over the following days. It is good to know about those act of

humanity and the human beings behind the tragedy. Those who were

slaughtered. That is an important part, don't you think so? I actually

agree with Rashad Ali's point of view as somebody who works in the

media. I am evidently Muslim and I am both -- of both words. It is

really important that you do your job as a journalist and you do it

well and that goes back to accuracy. There was misinformation put out

this week and the problem is that social media is so quick. So when

certain outlets and networks have taken their time to fact check and

get the accuracy and they have delivered to the public that news,

that is our duty first and foremost as journalists to do a job and do it

well. It is across all sectors, broadcast, print, digital, online.

We abide by editorial guidelines and it is so important because when we

don't it undermines our credibility and the work that we do. It really

does. It makes a mockery of the job that we do. Our job is to serve the

public and to give the correct information.

There is a photograph of the woman with the hijab on social media

crossing Westminster Bridge and from afar it looked like she was ignoring

the tragedy. But if you actually looked at the close a photograph, it

was of her face and she was extremely distraught, possibly

falling for help, or to tell her friends and family. She has issued a

statement. She has, and the photographer has released the other

photographs. She had helped people. Anybody in that frame of mind at

that position, I cannot imagine them walking away. Douglas, don't you

think this is hugely counter-productive because then you

are adding to the feeling in communities that they are being

persecuted and being stigmatised and that adds to their agenda, the

demonisation of Britain. So it is a feedback loop. I don't think we have

got into that. Has it been happening? What are you talking

about the EDL for? I am talking about our society as a whole. Our

society, our media as a whole, there has not been any crazy response to

this. The media, by and large, has done its job. It has been fairly

restrained. I agree there is a time, definitely, for all of the

discussions that have come up. But on this thing about motive, we

should not attribute motives until we know. We should certainly look

into the cases where drugs have been involved. I think it is long overdue

to consider that. I also think we are long overdue to consider the

role that religion can play in these attacks as well. These things are

not mutually exclusive. Many people have carried out Islamist attacks

and have been eating pork and drinking and so one, and they do

what they do precisely as an act of religious purification. That is very

common. The 9/11 hijackers went to strip bars and all that kind of

thing. These things are not exclusive. It is a complex picture

that leads somebody to carry out this sort of thing. We should be

having a wide-ranging discussion on it and thankfully on this programme

we can. Quite often in the media we do not have as wide ranging

discussion and our politicians in particular are clearly terrified of

aspects of this discussion. OK, we are open and honest, we have a frank

exchange of views but what are our politicians are scared of saying?

First of all, they are scared of seeing that actually, the amount of

people claiming this week that we will not allow this to change our

society, who thought it would? And thought that a guy with a knife in a

car was going to bring down democracy? But Douglas, one of the

things that has happened ever since the terrorist attacks during the

Tony Blair Giroud is that the government have used attacks as a

pretext to take away important liberties. Benjamin Franklin said

long ago, if you sacrifice your liberty for temporary security you

will end up having neither liberty nor security but the government has

flagrantly ignored this. More intrusion, more snooping. That has

changed our society. Politicians are very afraid of people discovering

how very little power they have to prevent these attacks, less than

they pretend they have, and they actually cannot do the things that

they say they can. But what do you think about what we heard from so

many people, we will not be cowed? I think it is a very good thing that

people think and say that. But I think some of the response to this,

this was not the Blitz. This was not a sustained night after night

campaign. It was one attack, brutal, horrible, in the heart of London,

but to that extent, emotionally, and I agree with what Peter says, we

have to be careful to not overstate. But when a policeman is killed, it

strikes at the heart of society. But Nicky, a lot of us here lived

through the IRA bombing campaigns, and we remember piles of dead horses

and dead human beings in Hyde Park and Regent Park on the same day.

Actually, we didn't going into lockdown or half-mast or a minute's

silence mode. We thought, OK, these people are our enemies and we will

put up with that. Our government lets us down by giving in to the IRA

bombers and giving them what they wanted, and going to the funeral of

Martin McGuinness. They are contradicting what they're saying,

Douglas, because on one hand you are saying we do not want to cower to

the terrorists and singing their agenda and yet the first thing

anyone uses is the word Islam. Listen, I was at Scotland Yard that

date, and to qualify as an Islamist incident a pass to fit a certain

criteria. It was discussed earlier on but no one mentioned why this was

classed as an Islamic incident. Otherwise it would have just been a

homicide. There are certain criteria. If he said the word Allah

Akbar, that would clearly have been an Islamist incident. If he had had

the flag of Isis, it would have clearly been so. He did not leave a

note, he did not say anything. The only thing that makes this a

counter-terrorism thing... He was a Muslim? Not even that. We do not

know if he was a practising muscle. He was clearly not a very good

Muslim. What does that mean? He was taking cocaine, he was into wife

bashing, all of those things. If he was a muscle, he would not be taking

cocaine Andrew King a goal. -- or taking alcohol. The reason he was

attacked was because he had targeted the centre of government. You have

given us your view, which is that it is nothing to do with Islam and

other people will view that it is. But I am suggesting that as a

society, we take time to work out people's motives. It is clear that

in your case, you would not want it to be ascribed to an Islamic person,

even if it turned out that he had a copy of the Koran in the car, you

would say it had nothing to do with Islam. But there are people who

would say that it is something to do with Islam, even if it clearly has

nothing to do with Islam. But in this whole thing, my simple point is

that we should be looking at motives and at the moment there are parts of

the anti-terrorism and counterterrorism strategy where the

government and politicians are very worried about treading on it, and we

saw it in Theresa May's comments this week where she immediately

ruled one aspect of this whole thing out. I want to go to the audience to

get comments about the way that this has been covered. Good morning. I

wanted to say, when it actually happened, I was almost, not in fear,

but I wondered how quickly it would be that the word Islam or muscle

would mentioned in the report. And it did not take long. -- Islam or

Muslims. Does it give the oxygen of publicity to Islamic State, who

claimed some connection? Is it counter-productive, the way the

media covers it? Now we have the 24-hour media, so perhaps it is

exacerbated. They do cover it, and all the papers cover it. I think

with social media, they have to because it is all out there very

quickly anyway. People are making comments on social media, that way.

That was my thing. I was waiting for it. It was amazing how quick it

happened. I don't think you can ignore it as it is such a big event

but the fact is, I was quite pleased with how the media reacted with a

positive message. They showed individual acts of bravery and

things like the cartoon of Big Ben with big muscles, rather than fear

and cowardice. It was a positive message, the fact that it will not

change the way that we act and London and the UK will carry on. As

humans, it is innate to want to seek simple answers to incredibly complex

questions. I think what happens in the media a lot is that people want

to jump on one thing because that makes it easy to understand. If we

as a media and as society looked on things as a mental health issue,

mental health services are pulling in this country and it is difficult

for people to access those services. That is somewhere where we need to

look to make change in society and make things better. Abdulla, what

did come out of this and it was a good thing to focus minds is that 13

terrorist plots, serious plots have been thwarted since the killing of

Lee Rigby. I'm sure you want to pay tribute to our intelligence

services. Yes, but today's discussion is about the press and

the media. One of the problems is these regulation and the constant

reiteration that goes beyond how the IRA attacks were covered. I must

remind everyone that the IRA killed more British people every year

during the troubles than any Al-Qaeda or Islamic State inspired

attacks. What you mean by quote unquote? They are Islamic State

inspired. I mean to say ascribed to Muslim attacks. The ones that claim

to be. This is the issue, because what is the objective of terrorists?

The objective is not necessarily to kill all infidels. We do not see

terrorism in South America or South Africa or Switzerland or the

Republic of Ireland but we do see a desire to scare the British public

and the French public and the American public to secure political

goals. Al-Qaeda and Isis do not have the power to scare people in John

O'Groats and Lands End, but the media, which reiterates these

attacks and speculate... Were you not scared returning to the question

I asked, by the fact that there have been 13 terrorist plots thwarted

since 2013? And also thousands of people on the intelligence services

watchlist up and down the country, in a publishing of 60 million that

is not a lot but it is an awful lot of people who are inspired by this.

Do you want to come back to what he is saying? I am happy that terror

attacks have been prevented and I hope that we see no terror attacks

from any group ever again, but today's discussion is really about

whether terror attacks, or terrorists, should be given the

oxygen of publicity. Publicity or infamy is only a form of celebrity

and we do not want to give these terror attacks the celebrity that

they should not enjoy. I want to speak in a minute about the IRA and

your coverage of that, and the coverage of IRA atrocities in the

past. What is the alternative to the oxygen of publicity? Are we expected

to ignore these things altogether? What is it we are actually looking

for here? I don't think we are giving it the correct coverage at

all. It has been described as a single terror act in London, but how

many attacks have been across Europe in the last couple of years? And

what have they got in, Can we not use our common-sense

and sit down and look at the religion that is possibly driving

this. When the IRA were doing what they did, did everyone scramble to

find an excuse? They were criminals, they were involved in drug abuse,

they were mentally ill, or to the accepted they were Irish Republicans

with an Irish Republican aim? If there is no problem with Islamic

scripture inspiring bits, then let's look at it. Why are we not looking

at it? If it is not Islamic structure, then we have no problem.

Wait a minute, wait a minute. Surely the point is that you establish the

facts, you get the facts right, you infer from the facts what may have

happened and then you report what did happen. That is what I am asking

for but I do not think that is happening. You are saying we should

start with conclusions. I am not. I am saying we want the truth. You are

making assumptions. I want religious fervour to be included in the list

of reasons that made this man who he was. Peter, and a second. You were

looking like you were not agreeing with that. I agreed to parts but not

all of that. When you speak about journalism and accuracy, of course.

We all want the truth. It is not just you, it is me. So let me tell

you for myself, and I can speak perhaps on behalf of 99% of the

British Mars in public, that generally none of us know the motive

is behind people who carry out these acts. I myself are very much part of

the society, I am born and raised a Londoner and I am and observant

Muslim. You do not see somebody like me carrying out these acts inspired

by my faith. And people are analysing scripture. It is not the

crown of the biblical scripture, you seem to be quite hung up on the fact

that this is a Koranic scriptural point. Scripture is open to

interpretation. If they are not quoting scripture, why are we

bringing scripture into this? Because a lot of them caught the

verses that say find the infidels, root them out and kill them. Douglas

wanted to come in. This is a great example of it right here. Saba

thinks that none of the terrorists ever caught the Koran. Let me give

you an example, the killers of Lee Rigby. Michael Adebolajo, on his

body, when the police arrested him, he had a note in his pocket, to his

young daughter, explaining why he did what he did. You can see a

facsimile on the BBC website and there are footnotes of Koranic

verses that he thinks justify his actions. That is the beginning...

Let me finish. Everyone is talking... Let me just finished my

point. That would seem to be there for a very clear occasion, never

mind the thousands of others we could list, a very clear occasion in

this country where one of our soldiers was murdered on our streets

where clearly scripture had something to do with that. The

problem that a lot of us have is that we are willing to discuss the

drugs bits, we are willing to discuss the foreign policy bit and

all this, but why are you not willing to concede that there is a

religious element sometimes? Listen, here is my plan. I will speak to

Peter in a minute but we will take it to what happened in Ireland over

the troubles. I don't want to make it theological.

It is not theological. The one point that we haven't mentioned which is

crucial to all of this is the radicalisation of people in prisons.

I have seen people that don't practice coming out of prison as

red-hot radicals. I am sure you have seen people coming out of prison as

convert and you celebrate their conversion as well. It can go either

way. The point is what is happening? We have put them into a state

institution that should be a safe zone. And they are coming out as

Isis recruits. Some have got to be separated from the other prisoners

so the toxicity doesn't spread. But hang on. We have not heard from

Peter Bush. Good morning to you. Welcome! What do you think, Peter,

of the coverage of this? The department of war studies at King's

College London. Is it important over the days to hear the human stories,

the tragedies and the heroism, which is what unfolded in newspapers apart

from the analysis? Is it right, the way this has been covered? That part

was certainly right, to tell both sides of the story and to get as

wide a view as possible, but where you have got to be careful, I think,

and we have listened to this discussion here so far, is when you

think about oxygen and publicity, part and parcel of the idea of

terrorism and what is really behind it is attention seeking. To affect

more people with the act of violence and the people who were actually

there -- than the people who actually there in that part of

London. And when you talk about media coverage and the way you cover

it, you have got to be careful not to follow some kind of script about

the act of violence itself. It is not just the media action but the

people who give voice in the media, who talk and want to talk in the

media, be that from a political point of view or the politicians in

general. For example, clearly something that many people would

call a symbolic place was attacked. But we decide whether this place is

symbolic. Parliament. Do we say this was an act of terrorism against

democracy? That is our decision. Our reaction is very important in this

case. It could have happened in Epping Forest or something. Would we

have reacted the same way? This is the choice. We have got to step

back, I think, and think about it and makes the decision whether we

want to follow the certain script that this person wants us to follow.

We talk about an attack on us all and so on and so forth. Or do we try

to stick to the facts and the simple story and try to unravel what is

behind it and then draw conclusions? Social media has changed the game.

Peter, and more contributions from the audience in just a second,

please. Social media has changed the game. But in Northern Ireland, I

remember, and I have spoken to you about this before. You followed

Gerry Adams around America and at every press conference that Gerry

Adams gave you were his worst nightmare. There was Peter Hitchens

at the back! You could see Mr Adams thinking, oh gosh! The thing is that

we had that period when Mrs Thatcher said do not give them the oxygen of

publicity and we had the ludicrous situation when actors were dubbing

the voices of Mr Adams and Martin McGuinness, occasionally subverted

by leaving in coughing that belonged to Mr Adams. It was a good job for

the actors but it was ludicrous. It was futile and it illustrates the

great difficulty of what wonders about this. One of the French

newspapers, Le Monde, tried to stop using the names of the perpetrators

and was turned on by the rest of the French media for failing to take the

thing seriously. We all have a difficulty. We can't ignore this

stuff. We have got to give it a lot of coverage because it is a big

event but the question is how we cover it and whether we do so

intelligently. And anything is a discussion -- another thing is a

discussion of what is in the minds of other people. I was an extremist,

Trotskyist, full of utopian garbage. I didn't kill anybody. The gap

between being a fanatic and being a killer is considerable and what we

are not looking at is this. When you look at Martin McGuinness, what he

did personally, we don't know, but he certainly ordered large numbers

of deaths. What happens to someone to make him do that? The roots of

fanaticism are not just a matter of belief, they are matter of believing

so strongly that what you think is right that you kill or in some cases

being so disinherited by the collapse of your reason that he will

do very violent things. The difficulty is in telling which is

which. There is no question that Islamic fanaticism has been involved

in a lot of terrorist attacks, 7/7 and 9/11, beyond any doubt, but it

doesn't mean that all events have got to be fitted into that. Do you

celebrate the peacemaker, Martin McGuinness? I celebrate that he

changed and I don't think the British authorities gave in to the

IRA. I think the IRA gave into the of law. Who dismantled their

intelligent system? Who dismantled the RUC? Is prisoners were released?

-- whose prisoners were released? The keyword here is proportion. We

have got to report what goes on with the IRA and with Masood but we don't

have to overindulge and yes it has been astonishing that there have

been many more deaths than the four people on Westminster Bridge, even

though that is horrifying. But it strikes that our hearts, doesn't it?

Of course. But we don't need the back story of every single witness

and have ten pages four days per week. One of the problems is the

media itself. We used to have half an hour on the Six O'Clock News and

Ten O'Clock News and now the media needs the terrorists feed into their

news. There is some kind of unhealthy relationship between those

who create the news and the media who actually need it to keep it

going 24 hours. We can look at the media as the media of what people

want. The truth is why does the media focus on certain stories for

long periods of time? Because that is the British public is in. And

partly it does shape attitudes but it is also a reflection of what is

happening. We need explanations, we need somebody to blame. Yes, but we

were having this conversation earlier. 200 people were killed in

Mosul as the result of an attack and the US have said it was them but it

did not have the same coverage and that is because there is not the

same appetite for that coverage. It is still there for people who want

to look at it. So it is a commercial consideration? Yes. Obviously 24

hour news pushes this and there is a lot of speculation because of it.

There are things about that which are unhealthy but it is nothing like

as unhealthy as, looking back to the past and our attitude to terrorist

activities in the past and present, when the IRA killed many soldiers,

what did we end up doing? We put the people who orchestrated that

campaign at the heart of government and that is much sicker than the

idea that anybody 20 years from now associated with ragged back row

could be put into power, which is much more of a societal sickness

than 24 hour news. -- people associated with Masood could be put

into power. Has this debate been self-defeating because it has given

unnecessary oxygen to those people who would destroy us or has it been

responsible and the right way to cover? I think overall it has been

quite responsible however there have been some tabloids and the news that

has gone out, as we are all aware, that has been misinformation. Things

like Birmingham being the jihadist capital of England, that is not

helpful, unless it is backed up by evidence. It is. It is not the

capital, it is the second. London is the capital of terrorism in the UK

and Birmingham is second. Debatable. No, if you look at the statistics

released earlier this month, it proves that. I have got to come in

on confession which we are going to discuss in a moment. If anyone has

got anything to confess, that is coming up. Thank you.

You can join in all this morning's debates by logging

on to bbc.co.uk/TheBigQuestions and following the link

Or you can tweet using the hashtag bbctbq.

Tell us what you think about our last big question too.

Should the secrecy of the confessional be sacrosanct?

And if you'd like to apply to be in the audience at a future show you

We're in Brighton next week and Cambridge on April 9th.

Then, after a break for Easter and the London Marathon,

we're back from York on May 30th for two shows, the usual live

programme in the morning, plus we're recording a special

So do email the audiencetbq address if you fancy taking part

Confession is said to be good for the soul.

Telling God your sins, perhaps through the medium of a priest,

expressing contrition, and making amends for them

is an essential part of faith and is as old as the Bible.

And the same idea underlies modern psychotherapy too.

If you can't come to terms with what you have done,

you can never move on, or lighten the burden of your past.

But where does this leave your confessor, the person you have

If he's a Catholic priest, the answer is clear.

He can never tell anyone - not his bishop, not the local

police, not the partner you may have betrayed -

But should all confessors follow the same rules?

Are there times when the enormity of what they have been told requires

disclosure, perhaps to a potential victim or to the police?

Should the secrecy of the confessional be sacrosanct?

Rabbi Romain, you have written a very interesting book on this and I

will come to you in a second, and I want your response to Doctor Peter

Petkoff, from Regent's Park College. If over the years some priests had

taken information from the confessional and gone to the police,

think of the misery that people would not have had to go through.

Think of the torture that people who were abused would not have had to

live with all their lives. Think of all the people who would not have

been killed by terrorism. To keep it in the confessional is surely, and

unarguably wrong. Of course you can make this argument using a

particular moral paradigms. If our moral requirement is the pursuit of

truth and if that requires breaking a particular confidentiality

agreement we therefore have got to break it, and this has been

historically the position of utilitarians who have argued that a

breach of confidence in certain situations should be allowed. It

into the morality pretty simple? But there is the other argument that we

maintain confidentiality because that is what gentlemen do. If we

have promised to keep a secret, we keep it. But can the law in

particular create a balance, not only in relation to confessionals,

but in relation to a number of other things? If somebody comes to a

priest and says I have got a sexual interest in children and I am acting

upon it, I want your help on this, would you go to the police? I am not

a priest. Should the police be told by the priest? If he had a Catholic

priest and he has the choice between losing his priesthood and being as

communicated for breaking a specific ecclesiastical law or to save a

child, it is a personal choice he has, for me. It is not an

institutional choice. With that be a difficult choice? I am quite

appalled that it is even a choice in the first place. Obviously

confession is about to be handled with care and sensitivity but

actually if somebody is going to harm others or themselves then there

is no religious doubt whatsoever that you do have to break

confidentiality. Is a but those are made. You have to

put human needs in front of rituals. There is a big difference between

praying away a missed confession, and sins against human beings. They

cannot be prayed away. You have to rectify them. If someone came to me

as a rabbi and said I am a paedophile and I cannot control

myself, I would say, you have to hand yourself then or I will come

with you, or if you do not, then I will go on to the police. Frankly, I

could not look the mother in the eye of his future victim and say, I knew

what was going to happen but I did not tell you. APPLAUSE. Of course

we're talking about different because what you are referring to is

a confidential pastoral advice that you may giving private. What are you

talking about? As far as conversion is concerned, in specific context,

because not all Christian churches take the same view on confession,

there are different degrees in which that is taken seriously. If we are

talking about the Catholic Church, the Orthodox Church is, confession

is central to the Christian identity. It is sacrosanct? Changing

it, removing it requires such complex institutional and

theological change that it would prevent Christians from being able

to fully... I think lives come before institutional change.

Sometimes religious leaders have to have the courage to change, when the

rules of the past are no longer relevant. Let me bring Chris in. Is

it sacrosanct, confession, what goes on in there? For the catholic church

is because forgiveness depends on the intermediate and nature of the

priest. But we discussed this at the General Synod a few years ago in the

light of the issue of paedophilia. The issue is this confession

backward looking. Confession is about people with troubled souls,

concerned about things, they go to confession to unburden themselves

and talk about it and to seek forgiveness. It seems to me that

unless they could go to somebody with whom they have absolute

confidence will not disclose it, to whom else so what these people go?

They will go to nobody. It seems to me that the position the priest is

put in is to withhold forgiveness and absolution unless that person

then goes, and he says to them, as the rabbi said, you need to go and

tell this to the police. And what if he says I am not going to? You have

to remain confidential because... I am going to do it again, that has to

remain confidential? That is forward-looking, and then you work

with them in terms of counselling and other things, but you do not

disclose. I cannot stop my urges and I will do this again. Unquote no

disclosure? No disclosure. I find that a pretty appalling attitude. I

agree that if children are going to be harmed and we can do something

about that, then we should act. What is going on here, we will expect

doctors and councillors to break confidential to the agreements is

there is a good reason, and we legally require it. But strangely,

it is one law, it would appear, for those who are operating in the

secular sphere, and then there is another law, with other requirements

placed on those who are working within the religious sphere. As a

political secularist, my feeling is that the should be a level playing

field, the should not be one law for the religious and another for the

nonreligious. What I think is important is that when you were

talking about the IRA, that was an hero of the past. There is no

updated legislation. For instance, whether it is a priest, a rabbi or

an imam, if a young man comes up and says, I am off to Syria or I am off

to drive around Westminster Bridge and I'm going to knock over a load

of people, the counterterrorism act requires that person discloses that

information otherwise they will be arrested. I think things have been

upgraded a little bit. What is the legal situation, Chris? This has

been discussed for hundreds of years, particularly over the issue

of treason. It came up over the gunpowder plot and things like that.

It has always been the case that the law of the church has been regarded

as foundational in this matter, except when a matter comes into the

matter of criminal. If criminal law is involved, there are other issues.

I understand that. But my understanding is that unless they go

to somebody who they know will not confide, they will not confide in

anybody. -- the matter of criminal law. We're looking at a very extreme

case. It is not really going to happen that somebody says, I'm going

to do this and I'm going to confess to a priest. Somebody confesses to

the priest because they are troubled by something and if they know that

the priest might share it to... But we know that the child abuse

cover-up happened for decades in the church. For decades. That

confessional conversation will, I'm sure, have happened on very many

occasions. Let me put it to you, Peter, because you mentioned the IRA

earlier on, what is in the confessional and IRA bomber were to

have said, and we know about the label on the proverb priests, was to

have said in the confessional to his priest, I'm going to carry out this

atrocity, and I hope my Lord and Father forgives me, Hail Mary,

whatever, should that priest had gone to the police? I am a

Protestant and I have no particular interest in this. I do not subscribe

to the sacrament of confession. Looking at the argument, we seem to

be approaching it as some people approach torture, by producing an

example which is not realistic. I am utterly and completely opposed to

torture. I do not believe it is sanctioned under any circumstances.

The reply is always, what if there is a ticking time bomb. But there

has never been such an episode. I do not believe, actually, that IRA

terrorists went and told priests that they were going to kill people.

I also believe that if someone takes the sacrament of confession

seriously, you will also believe that you will burn in hell if you

abuse a child. It is unlikely that such a person is going to... Stop

right there. The whole thing is a hypothesis, designed to attack a

particular church. But terrorists told the police after they committed

the authority, we know that. Should the police have then gone... So we

have to formulate that. But today, they would be arrested. I'm not here

to defend the Roman Catholic Church to which I do not belong. Nor am I

particularly interested in the sacrament of confession. What I'm

saying is that what is being advanced here is an extreme and

unlikely hardcase hypothesis to attack, if I can just finish, to

attack the practices of a particular church. And I do not find it

particularly convincing. Let me give you a simple everyday case that is

less extreme. One of my congregants came home and found her husband in

bed with his secretary. Confidentially, she told me she was

delighted and the reason was because actually he had been abusing her for

years and years. She had never had the courage to say anything and she

did not want to go public and now she had a legitimate reason, a

respectable reason for the divorce. The problem started three years

later when he actually went out with somebody else, and got engaged.

Confidentially, I knew that he was an abuser. This second potential

wife was a very feisty lady and I thought she could look after herself

but on the other hand, a person who had abused once could be abused

again. Should I break the confidence and tell the fiance that he was

actually a wife beater? In the end I decided that she had a right to that

information so I broke confidence and I did tell the fiance. There was

an example where I think that actually you have to put the

interests of other people first. Did she marry him? In the end, a few

weeks later they split up. Which is a very good example but it is

actually a very different thing. You wanted an everyday example and I

gave it to you. The gentleman at the back, good morning and welcome. When

you look at the Scriptures if you look at Romans 13 in the Bible, the

King James, it says you must submit yourself to society. In Acts five it

tells you quite specifically that you have to follow the law of the

land. Where you see criminality or someone is doing something wrong,

you have to submit to that biblically. Really, I see it is

quite benign. When you are looking at the case of terrorism or whatever

it is, if someone is committing a crime you have a duty of care to

your other fellow human beings to react in the correct manner. I think

the level of criminality here is important. Where it is a personal

thing, as we saw with the rabbi, that can be quite a constructive

thing, but when we come to the point that you are breaking the law, I

think that obviously you have a duty to report that. Actually, there are

laws that say, for example, you could be perverting the course of

justice, you could be an accomplice to a crime if you do not report it.

There are aspects of terror legislation where again if you do

not report it, you are part of the problem. At that stage, everybody, I

think, has a duty to report it. Looking at a person who is possibly

giving this confession, you actually are helping them by doing that. I

think that is a very important stage. APPLAUSE.

All religious figures have a duty to uphold the sanctity of human life.

By withholding that information, they are not doing what they are

there to do. And if they are putting their own faith before the sanctity

of human life, that is selfish. It is a fascinating discussion. You

have put a hard case of a priest in a confessional knowing about a

paedophile. Two widen that out, consider the number of people in our

society who do not, who have not sworn they will keep secrets but

have done. For personal reasons, community or social reasons, look at

the number of people who must've known about Jamie Savile's abuse,

for example. They kept silence, not because they were sworn to but

because they felt the pressure. It is quite easy to think of this as

the hardest problem for a catholic priest but as a society, a lot of

people in our society cover up things, whilst moralising about

things like catholic priests. And as a practising Catholic, one wonders

what might be revealed in the confessional when he was in church.

Any other comments? At the back, the lady there. I am sure that hiding

things makes you an accomplice and makes you a criminal as well. It is

a very serious issue when it comes to child abuse and stuff like that.

If I could have been saved, as a sufferer myself, I would have loved

it. I was formally Hindu and I am not religious any more for the same

reason. People hide things when the moral of probation is that you are

supposed to save the child, save people who are dying, because the

impact is way more massive than you may be burning in hell after you are

dead. It is ridiculous, you are ruining people's lives and they will

have to live afterwards. It is not acceptable. We are running out of

time, Chris. The issue here is that if you remove that, there is nobody

that people who are troubled by these things can go to. Nobody. What

sort of society is that? We are out of time. Thank you all very much

indeed. Thank you. APPLAUSE. . As always, the debate will continue

online and on Twitter. Next week we're in Brighton,

so do join us then. But for now it's goodbye from Oxford

and have a great Sunday. I've not given myself that time

to sit down