the eastern city of chittagong. now on bbc news, political thinking with nick robinson. hello and welcome to political thinking. the queen has expressed her hope that her platinum jubilee celebrations will focus on what brings us together, on what unites us, not what divides us. my guest on the programme has had to spend much of her career worrying about exactly the opposite, about extremism and how to counter it. she is dame sara khan. herjob now is the government s independent adviser for social cohesion and resilience. before that, she was the country s first counter extremism commissioner. born and raised in bradford to pakistani parents, she once said, there is something going horribly wrong within muslim communities. we need to have an open and honest debate about that. words which won her praise from some, but criticism from many within her own community, who said that she was fuelling rather than countering some of the prejudices about muslim people, and in partic
on what unites us, not what divides us. my guest on the programme has had to spend much of her career worrying about exactly the opposite, about extremism and how to counter it. she is dame sara khan. herjob now is the government s independent adviser for social cohesion and resilience. before that, she was the country s first counter extremism commissioner. born and raised in bradford to pakistani parents, she once said, there is something going horribly wrong with the muslim communities. we need to have an open and honest debate about that. words which won her praise from some, but criticism from many within her own community, who said that she was fuelling rather than countering some of the prejudices about muslim about muslim people, and in particular the idea that many were somehow hostile to their country and their values. dame sara khan, welcome to political thinking. thank you very much. now, we are all this week or are we all? celebrating the jubilee. is this s
father pointed out extremism to you, alerted you to extremism. what happened ? i remember i must have been about 13, 14, at the time and he had gone to friday prayers, he is not a particularly religious man but he would go to friday prayers, and he came back with a leaflet from the islamist extremist group hizb ut tahrir and they essentially believe in establishing a theocratic caliphate, an islamic state, and he was very clear to me saying, sara, this is a dangerous, poisonous organisation. do not go anywhere near them. they are the complete opposite of everything we stand for. and again that was something i came across quite a bit, but also, even though my father was patriotic, he knew that there was far right extremism in this country, he knew there was racism. i remember when the bosnian war happened, and again this is 1994, similar age to when he brought home the leaflet for me, and the fact that he saw and felt that there were europeans in this country, in our world, who were
going to get married and have children and that is it, so i am very aware that there are real problems. i think for me, i have never tried to hide away or deny those problems exist. i think other people have, actually. they have tried to suggest we should not talk about these problems because they may fuel extremism or further fuel racism. that for me is a completely incoherent argument. you have spoken about how your father pointed out extremism to you, alerted you to extremism. what happened ? i remember i must have been about 13, 14, at the time and he had gone to friday prayers, he is not a particularly religious man but he would go to friday prayers, and he came back with a leaflet from the islamist extremist group hizb ut tahrir and they essentially believe in establishing a theocratic caliphate, an islamic state, and he was very clear to me saying, sara, this is a dangerous, poisonous organisation. do not go anywhere near them. they are the complete opposite of everything we s