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- [00:00]
A
Hello, dear listeners. Welcome back to Conflicted. I'm Thomas Small, and with me, not as always, in fact, not as ever before, is someone that most of you have heard of because his name pops up at the end of every Conflicted episode. But very few of you will know very much about him. I'm talking about Jake Warren, one of our executive producers and the founder of MessageHerd, the company that produces co conflicted. Jake Warren. Hello, sir. How are you, man?
- [00:34]
B
I'm good. I feel like this is where I should do my Eamon impersonation of still alive.
- [00:38]
A
Thomas, I can't believe I just called you sir. I mean, not only are you significantly younger than me, Jake, you've been a friend for about 10 years now, and I do think of you more as a peer than as a sir. But I called you sir because I'm so used to deferring to my special guests.
- [00:54]
B
I mean, you've called me a lot worse things than that over those 10 years. So if you want to call me sir for Conflicted, you're absolutely welcome to.
- [01:01]
A
Dear listeners, I mean, I guess I gotta say sorry, Aemon is still super duper busy over there in the Middle east where he is trying to figure out what the hell's going on. Nobody really knows. I mean, if anyone knows, it is probably Aemon. And I cannot wait to find out from him what he does know. But it's just gonna have to wait a little bit longer. And so this week instead of our usual episode with Aemon, I've asked Jake to come on the show and tell us a little bit about him. Because he's actually had a super fascinating life despite his very young age. A super fascinating life, lots of great stories. He has the gift of the gab, just like every London media dude has. So, Jake, I can't wait to introduce you to the Dear listeners. Let's get right into it. Jake Warren, also known on the Discord as Sundance Kid. So those of you dearest listeners who lurk on our Discord, and if you. If you do pay for a Conflicted Community subscription but are not on the Discord, I really encourage you to join. It's a pretty. A pretty fervent, fetid place where there's lots of conversation, lots of debate. And if you're just a dear listener and have not taken out a paid subscription to the Conflicted Community, please, please do so. So, Jake Warren, Sundance Kid. Um, who are you? Jake? Who is Jake Warren?
- [02:30]
B
Goodness, that's a great existential question, isn't it? Well, I mean, firstly, thank you for having me. It's a bit weird being on this sort of side of the microphone after however many years of doing this, but I'm excited.
- [02:43]
A
Me too.
- [02:44]
B
And also, you know, Sundance Kid, you're right, you've doxxed me. I am one of the nerdiest Discord members.
- [02:51]
A
You also often call yourself the dearest listener of them all. You are basically Conflicted's biggest fan.
- [02:57]
B
I basically a show because I wanted it, right. It's the most sort of egotistical thing you could ever do is I've sort of brought you and Eamon along for however long just to serve my own tastes. Obviously. We've known each other for a long time, as you say, as with Eamon. And I am the founder of Message Heard, you know what started as a podcast company. We've been going for eight and a half years and we still, that's very much our heritage, but sort of a digital storytelling studios, for want of a better word. Right. You know, we create great shows for ourselves like Conflicted, as well as creating great shows for others such as the BBC or Amazon or working with great brands, journalistic institutions. And we're really, really proud of that work. But the marquee thing at the center of our universe that I think that we're most proud about making and love to make more than anything, is Conflicted. And I don't need to tell you, Thomas, it's been a hell of a ride over the last six, seven years.
- [03:50]
A
You know how to flatter a man, Jake. Now, Jake, you are 35 years old, is that correct?
- [03:56]
B
For my sins, I am, yeah.
- [03:58]
A
I can't believe it because when I first met you. And we'll get down the line, we'll get to the story, the origin story of Conflicted. But first we want to talk about the origin story of Jake Warren. But when I first met you, you know, you were significantly younger and I must say, pretty doe eyed, pretty sorts of word, dough faced. You were very sort of very young,
- [04:17]
B
less tired looking as well, I imagine
- [04:20]
A
just a new business owner at that point. Not 10 years into that roller coaster ride, you came of age in the early teens, leaving university, entering the world of journalism, sort of. First off, you entered into the world of Vice media in like 2013, 2014 around. It was like a peak of an era. We're reaching a peak of a whole era in journalism that Vice kind of stands for, I think in the popular imagination, young millennial kind of gonzo journalists going out there getting stories, being irreverent being vulgar, but trying to get at a certain kind of truth. A bit anarchic at that time, a bit apolitical, got a little bit more political and you know, I don't know if vice typifies the go woke, go broke maxim, but. But it got a little bit more political. But when you arrived, it was still in that kind of early peak vice period. What was that like? How did you get into vice? What motivated you to get into the world of journalistic storytelling?
- [05:26]
B
I would be lying to you if I said that I had some grandiose plan to end up doing what I'm doing today, or even to be working in the professional world of journalism, documentary storytelling. I went to university at Leeds, Shout out. The University of Leeds, mainly because didn't really know what I wanted to do with my life and I knew that I'd have a good time up north for three years where the pints were considerably cheaper and I could sort of put off becoming a grown up, I think. And it was when I was at university that I sort of discovered, I guess, digital storytelling. Right in the sense of, you know, this was an era where suddenly iPhones had cameras and videoing or it became very cheap to have your own little digital camera to upload to YouTube or whatever it is. And I sort of just got stuck in to making weird stuff as an experiment because you're right, I absolutely loved that sort of almost gonzo style, slightly irreverent, slightly even apathetic in a weird way. You know, it wasn't here I am doing my BBC voice. It was just sort of people that kind of looked like me doing mad storytelling, which I found to be quite attractive.
- [06:39]
A
You say you had no plan to become a journalist or a storyteller or whatever, but, you know, even as a kid, I think you were very attracted to that world, the kind of old school world almost of like the gentleman, eccentric English dude who tells the story of the world through his eccentric eyes. You always found that appealing, I think.
- [07:01]
B
Yeah, I actually bizarrely sort of actually remember the moment where I was so, I guess enamored with having watched something and thinking, I want to do this. And you can still watch it on YouTube today. And I absolutely implore anyone to watch it, which is so for most people my age, they probably don't know who people like Alan Wicker are or Ludovic, Vic Kennedy, these sort of old school, you know, we're going back to black and white BBC Times here where it's sort of the stuffy gentleman wearing a free Piece suit traipsing through Borneo but refusing to take his jacket and tie off. Right. But at the same time creating compelling immersive journalism, documentaries, whatever you want to call it, in a world that was pre pr, pre marketing. So the one that really stood out for me was, and I think this was in like 1968 or something like that. Alan Wicker became the first western journalist to go to Haiti and spend time with the dictator there, Papa Dr. Vallier, purely on the basis that apparently one of his right hand men was a fan of his show Wicker's World. And so you've got this completely access all areas documentary at the heart of what at the time was probably one of the most pervasive dictatorships in the world, where he's just talking to the dictator himself, asking him quite for fright questions, but with a sort of, in a very sort of charming British way, you know, I say Mr. President and a bit of spot of bother throwing those chaps in jail, wasn't it? You know, and he sort of gives them, he gives this completely truthful answer. And I just remember it, it was this sort of image and window into a world I had never seen or witnessed before. And you can still watch it on YouTube. I mean, Wicker did some great stuff. He did one with the Paraguayan dictator Alfredo Streisner as well. And I remember it being a bit of a seminal moment in my life kind of coming away and going, my God, if I could do something like that, or how do I do something like that? Because nobody's ever told me about it at school and I certainly wasn't listening if they were.
- [08:57]
A
Well, especially as you know, by the time you're watching those things, we were in the era of PR and people were way more media savvy, journalists were more and more establishment. They were kind of more, were less likely, I think, to push buttons in the way that those breezy gentlemen reporters felt that they could, you know, that wonderful British sense of entitlement that could still kind of get you into convers with dictators whom despite, you know, being much less powerful in political terms, your, your sort of kudos as an English gentleman made you frankly, in your own mind at least, the most powerful creature that ever lived. And so you could just, you know, put them at their ease and then like off guard, hit them with the, with the tough questions. When you were young, that was no longer really the case. And yet when you're in university and that kind of new social media driven digital vice kind of branded media was returning Things to that previous kind of mode a bit more. Somehow the gonzo, the new gonzo journalists were able to get around people's comfort zones and get them talking. It's kind of weird how that happened. So I guess you must have thought, wow, this is what I want to do.
- [10:07]
B
Absolutely. It was, I guess, the removal of gatekeeping and bureaucracy to give you an opportunity to just do mad things and experiment that audiences might resonate with. Right. You know, Cause going back to those black and white days were fantastic. Right? But if the BBC wasn't giving you a prime time slot to go away and make a documentary, you won't be able to make anything that anyone was able to consume or enjoy. Whereas suddenly, you know, the digital world revolutionized that and increasingly even more so today, right, where everyone has a podcast and everyone has a YouTube channel, but the idea that you can have a mad idea, grab a camera, go out, make it and put it up there, you know, online for people to see, that was a really exciting proposition for me because it's just experiment.
- [10:52]
A
So how'd you get into Vice then?
- [10:53]
B
I would love to be able to say to you, I had all these beautiful journalistic degrees and experience, which meant that Vice was really interested in working. That would be complete bollocks. I sort of recognized, I think, when I was at university and when I just finished that if you want to work for someone like Vice, and I really wanted to work for Vice because I recognized it as the place to do this kind of stuff. The framing of it, which, which I still maintain to this day, is, you know, what can I do for you? Here's what I have to offer rather than, hey, Vice, will you give me an opportunity? Please, please, please, pretty please. I promise I'll work hard, you know. And what I did was I guessed the emails of the founders, Shane Smith and Saroo Shalabi, and I just emailed them and I sent them, you know, and I've still got the email somewhere. And it's the most outrageously. I mean, let's call it spaders, but lying, when it came to sort of my qualifications to be able to do
- [11:47]
A
that stuff, I'm sure no one ever got into Vice lying. And Vice itself never used lying to get into anywhere, Jake.
- [11:53]
B
No. It was a bastion of your honesty and Honesty, yeah. But what I sort of recognized was that with any form of journalism or storytelling, what you have unique access to is your value. Right. It's a sort of that old business saying, the truism, your network is your net worth. And in this sense, it's true. And what I had really become attracted to, and I think it's, you know, when I want to sound clever, right, the extremities of human interest. Well, what does that really mean? It means sort of nutters, weirdos, freaks, cults, extremists of every persuasion, which is, you know, and we'll get onto it later, about how I came to meet you and Eamon, but I knew you
- [12:35]
A
were gonna say something like that. Extremists. I beg your pardon? Look at this beard. Is this the beard of an extremist?
- [12:43]
B
But the point being is, I guess I had sort of recognized some of the trends and patterns that I think were going to become interesting. So in terms of Islamic extremism, but also for me, North Korea had always been this sort of Everest to me, you know, harking back to kind of what we talked about with Wicca, going behind the curtain in Haiti. North Korea is sort of the last place behind this iron curtain, from a Westerner's perspective, that you are not allowed to go, which I'm one of those people, when you tell me I'm not allowed to do something, I really want to do it.
- [13:13]
A
Yeah. And I mean, newsflash, dear listeners. Jake Warren has been to North Korea. And so I guess since it was via that ability to network that you kind of first made your way into vice, tell us the story of North Korea.
- [13:27]
B
So it's. What I recognized was that in the UK we have full diplomatic relations with them, whereas in America they don't. And they have a crazy tiny little embassy as a semi detached house in Acton Town, which is a weird suburb in London. And I made it my mission to ingratiate myself with the North Korean regime, which I managed to do. I won't tell you the completely convoluted long story, but I basically became a trusted friend of the North Korean regime. And I'd be invited to things at the embassy, like celebrating Kim Il Sung's birthday party, like he was still alive, you know, singing Happy Birthday to a poster of a man, you know, that died in 1996 or whatever it was. And through that, I was invited to go to North Korea. And I still, you know, and I was very honest, right? I never said that I was a. A sympathizer to their views or was even a believer in anything. You know, I didn't lie about that. But what I felt was interesting is, you know, there is such a formula when it comes to North Korea is how it must be a gray filter. It must be Nazi Germany. It must be people goose stepping around and crying on commute, you know. Q. And I'm, and I'm not defending it in any way, but no, there's 26 million people that live in North Korea that didn't choose to be born above, you know, the 38th parallel. And the representation of 26 million people as Stepford Wives isn't something that I agree with. And I, and I always wanted to be able to try and get a little bit more access, a little bit more opportunity to kind of peek behind the curtain.
- [14:52]
A
Well, I, I actually remember, you know, the first time I visited Saudi Arabia, the first of many, many, many trips while, you know, while I was making documentary films in the Gulf. And, you know, I arrived assuming all sorts of stuff about Saudi Arabia because I had a stereotype in my mind. And of course, just like any stereotype, the stereotype of Saudi Arabia to some extent held true, but was like maybe 3% of the truth. And immediately when you're there on the ground, you realize, oh my God, I didn't know anything about this place. People who think they do know about it because of these stereotypes, in fact don't. And it became way more interesting the more I got to know it. Now I'm not comparing Saudi Arabia to North Korea at all. And North Korea, the stereotype probably pertains more than 3%, but it's not the whole story. So kind of what was your experience like being there?
- [15:43]
B
I had some crazy experiences there. Some things I've talked about publicly and some things I haven't, for one, because obviously they want you to think good of them, right? They don't want you to come away thinking what a terrible place. You know, they're forever trying to show off, right? There's basically two ways that you can go. You can either pay to do one of these tours, right, which is the equivalent of being on an open tile bus where you on a designated route and you're allowed to point your camera there and you're allowed to, you know, and it's all a bit of a show and an act, or if you're a trusted friend, as I, you know, managed to become, they're a bit old school. You get a little bit more access, you get a little bit more freedom. Of course you have minders, but effectively you get a little bit more license to sort of roam and experience what I suppose is the reality of a lot of people's lives there. Of course you're never going to get the full picture. And I think one thing that Actually really stays with me is you assume that the people in North Korea have absolutely no cultural references or understanding of anything in the West. And I remember, you know, just going to a little school and all these North Korean kids there and they'd probably never seen a Westerner before. And one of them ran up to me and he went, wayne Rooney, Wayne Rooney. And I remember thinking, you little bastard, I don't like Wayne Rooney. You know, David Beckham. David Beckham is what you should be saying. But just the fact that some kid was running up to me and yelling, wayne Rooney. I was like, okay. You know, there is at least some understanding of the outside world. And I probably had some experiences there which were just bizarre. I mean, I went to a shooting range and there was a general there, you know, in his, wearing his military uniform, you know, big sort of puffy shouldered things, big hat. And he was shooting and they were like, you know, would you like to do shooting as well? And he sort of smiled and nodded at us and we were shooting sort of in the lane next to him. And then he just sort of at one point looks at us, smiled, and he was shooting a pistol and he turned the pistol sideways and he said to us, yippee ki yay, motherfuckers.
- [17:33]
A
Oh, wow. Die Hard, baby.
- [17:35]
B
Standing in Pyongyang with a general in front of me wearing shoulder pads and more medals than I've ever seen with a big pointy hat and he's just turned his pistol sideways instead of Die Hard reference to me. I was just like, this is.
- [17:46]
A
Well, I mean, we know that the Dear Leader loves Hollywood movies, so maybe he had been invited to one of the notorious screening parties that sometimes take place there.
- [17:57]
B
Clearly, clearly. But just, you know, the experience of like riding the subway there, of going to, you know, ice rinks and bowling alleys and, you know, of course, some of it's for show, but engaging with people going about their lives was eye opening. It was fascinating because we live in a world in a time where knowledge is infinite at our fingertips. But often, if you want to understand something, there has to be at least a little experience to it, you know, an experiential layer. And I found it a bizarre but fascinating trip.
- [18:26]
A
All the same, if you were able to peer a little bit behind the Potemkin kind of village thing in North Korea, I mean, you must have seen the kind of depravity or the deprivation that is there. I mean, it's not. Or are you saying that actually, look, North Korea is not as bad as people say.
- [18:43]
B
No, Pyongyang is a little bit like a show city. If you live in Pyongyang, you are more than likely to be someone that is at least educated to certain degree, more likely to be a member of a party. You know, there's the burgeoning middle class, is there in their version of that, right. And, and of course the elite, right, which means that they have far more amenities. You know, they have restaurants and hotels and, you know, things to do. You know, I, I, to my shame, right, I'm probably the only person that's been to North Korea and put on weight, right, the amount of barbecue food that they were giving me. But you can see that, you know, beyond that, apart from a couple of places here or there, you know, we're talking about feudalism almost, you know, serfs, peasants in fields, you know, it's, it's not a, anyone who tells you that this is the bountiful land of milk and honey and Westerners are lying. That's not true. But it's also, and I know it's not our normality, but there is a semblance of normality because there has to be. After 80 odd years of it being a functioning country, which I was really interested to experience from the everyday person's perspective and point of view.
- [19:51]
A
Speaking of creating a new normality after a period of trauma, you know, you also spen time in Rwanda, obviously this was a good 20 years after the genocide there. And so, you know, the pieces had been picked up, I suppose. But still, you know, Rwanda is a kind of byword in people's mind for post traumatic society. Tell us about your experience of Rwanda.
- [20:13]
B
I went to make a film for Vice actually, and it's a very bizarre concept, but sort of worked how cricket was healing the nation of Rwanda from genocide. And that sounds like a mad thing to say. How the hell could cricket possibly do that? Especially considering that Rwanda is a francophone country and so therefore has no history of playing cricket. It's not like, you know, there were good old boys in the empire, you know, playing cricket, you know, here and there. It didn't have that history, that, that sort of heritage to it. But Rwanda is one of two countries that traditionally has no British Empire background that chose to join the Commonwealth. And they had this amazing cricket stadium which has been built now. It's the best cricket stadium, I believe, outside of South Africa. It's a beautiful thing. But when I first went there, they used to play. There was one cricket pitch and it was in this old college grounds, which is Actually the scene of one of the massacres during the Rwandan genocide. It was a rubbish pitch on an unkempt ground, and during the rainy season, they would find mass graves in the outfield because bones and teeth would come up to the surface.
- [21:23]
A
Oh, my.
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B
It became this sort of. It was a beautiful thing. The Rwanda national cricket team was representative of the new Rwanda in the sense that they would be incredibly impassioned to tell you, we're not Tutsis, we're not Hutus, we're Rwandans. And I had the privilege of being there when one of the opening batsmen, one of the team players, a guy called Aldefax, graduated from university and. And a lot of his family had been murdered. He was a Tutsi and he had had to hide in the long grass as a young boy. And, you know, they'd gone through unspeakable horrors and trauma, and he was graduating from university and he was walking down to the pitch while I was there with the rest of the team and others, wearing his mortar board and his university gown and stuff. And every single person cheered, throwing them up on their shoulders. His teammates, a lot of them coming from Hutu backgrounds, where quite literally, they were the ones that were, you know, persecuting and murdering his family and friends. And it just was this beautiful sort of moment of unity, of how positivity can come from clearly one of the darkest episodes in human history.
- [22:29]
A
A story of people at daggers drawn who can overcome differences to re. Establish unity, obviously pivots nicely to the Middle East, Jake. And, you know, I think, because eventually you became interested in Islamic extremism through that, you heard about this kind of weird guy, Eamon Dean, and through him, you met me. So before we get specifically to that story, I think it's kind of important to your own life, your life journey, that you are of Jewish heritage. Kind of strange Jewish heritage. You can explain that. And you also have some sort of extended family connections to. So you spent time in Lebanon, where I think you had an interesting kind of epiphany around a kfc. You can tell us that story. So, first of all, your Hungarian Jewish background, what's that about?
- [23:20]
B
Yeah, so I'm a weird mix. My mother is and her family are Hungarian Jews. My father, to his shame, but I will shame him in saying this comes from a Mormon background. So I am doubly chosen. You know, I come from the two chosen peoples. But my grandfather arrived in the UK in just at the outset of World War II, the only survivor of his family, of the Holocaust. My grandfather then was named Ishtvan Julai before he Anglicized it to Stephen Gale and arrived here as a. As a refugee, not speaking a lick of English. The sole survivor, you know, the Hungarian Jews, not, not many of those survived. And he was literally the only member of his family to survive the Holocaust because under Kindertransport, he was the youngest child and he was the only one that was given safe passage out of the country. Wow.
- [24:07]
A
I think I'd already known you maybe three years before you mentioned that you had Jewish. I mean, to look at you, Jake, you know, I don't want to be too stereotyping here, but I mean, to look at you, no one would think that you were a Hungarian Jew. I mean, you're pretty ruddy faced. You've basically. You're basically a ginger, quite frickly. You don't look very Jewish at all.
- [24:26]
B
My grandfather was so dark that he, you know, suffered sort of, you know, bias and I don't know if racist abuse is too strong a word, but, you know, he was a very dark man, Right. And he, he gave me his very squinty eyes, but not his lovely sort of, you know, dark tan complexion. So, you know, again, within two generations, I look like the most Irish Scottish person you could ever meet. Which you're right, I don't stereotypically look Jewish. Right. I mean, it's not something that most people would assume when you see me.
- [25:01]
A
I mean, it means you can sort of pass. I guess you must have been in scenarios then where people assuming, oh, here's another, another rah rah English guy. Let's. You might have overheard certain things said about Jews, people not realizing that you were listening in.
- [25:16]
B
I think there's definitely, you know, and in today's climate with everything going on, perhaps there's a level of comfort where people think that they can say things more liberally than if they were around other people that they might not want to offend or not want to say in front of them. And that is an interesting position to be in, I suppose, where, you know, I'm not saying it's always been intentional, but to hear things that probably wouldn't be said in front of people that were even known to be or thought to be Jewish is an interesting perspective and certainly one where I've learned things about people.
- [25:48]
A
So why were you in Lebanon and tell us about the kfc?
- [25:52]
B
Another Vice film I made was actually one of the shows that I made for Vice as a sort of presenter and producer on was called Vice World of Sport when they had their very ill fated TV channel called Viceland, which was great. It was an amazing experience. You know, I probably had no right to be doing it. They shipped me off to Lebanon. I think I was like age 25 or 26, you know, suddenly presenting this TV program as if I was an expert on, you know, the Middle east, which I absolutely was not. Although, of course, I had sort of tried to engage and voraciously read around it and, you know, really found. Found it interesting. And the film really was about how, you know, Lebanon is a. As a mosaic state and a place where, you know, sectarianism, you know, is in long lives, in living memory, and is still ongoing. Actually. The sport of basketball had become a sort of new battleground rather than them having a civil war. And it was very fascinating to basically make this film about basketball because you had openly Maronite Christian teams, openly Sunni Muslim teams, and the Shia actually refused to engage in it. So Hezbollah went, nah, football's our jam. We don't play basketball. That's for, you know, that's. That's for the infidels. But it was a really fascinating to. And. And in particular, there was this. There's this sort of. It's called Derby Beirut, and it's between sess, which is the Maronite Christian team, and Club Riyadi, the Sunni team. And it's bit like being in a cauldron. You know, they might not be killing themselves on the street as much in. In an open warfare, but on that basketball court and in that stands, that is the cauldron of. Of animosity, shall we say. And so it was fascinating. But as a consequence of that, I got to spend a lot of time all around the country, including with. With Hezbollah in Dahya in South Lebanon, where I think I had the best kebab I've ever eaten in my whole life. I've said this to you before, that there's definitely a running theme, I think, where it's like eating with terrorists. I've had some of the best meals in my life with.
- [27:49]
A
Well, we're gonna hear more about that.
- [27:51]
B
Completely mad.
- [27:52]
A
But.
- [27:52]
B
But with the KFC thing, which I always found, again, so ridiculous, is we went to Tripoli, which. And again, this is kind of how mad Vice was at this time, right, where our local fixer was basically just an American who was a friend of someone that spoke a bit of Arabic rather than, you know, having any deep on knowledge. You know, we had to go to a little briefing where. Because at this time, you know, isis, I Think had put out the word that they were paying quarter of a million pounds or dollars to any good Muslim that would capture a Westerner and take them into their clutches. You know, you'd be quarter of a million. We had to sort of have this briefing to say that, you know, these are the risks. And I remember my boss from LA at the time, I won't name and shame, but he had sort of sent an email out saying, you know, all men going on this trip make sure you kind of grow a beard so you can sort of assimilate more easily with the local population. And I sort of replied as a joke, saying, oh, you know, shall I grow a big ginger beard and learn a few words of Chechen just in case? And he replied saying, yeah, that sounds like a good idea, dude. And I remember thinking, you know, these. These are my life's in this hand. But we went to Tripoli, which was a place which, you know, there'd been bombings, there'd been a lot of fights. You know, Tripoli, it's a beautiful center
- [28:59]
A
of Sunni extremism in Lebanon, in the north of the country.
- [29:02]
B
And it's a beautiful, you know, the old battlements, you know, it's. It's a. It's a beautiful city, but it's a city where you. You felt the energy of being on edge and curtain twitching and a place where perhaps I didn't naturally feel at home, but one of the mad things about Lebanon, where you can be walking past a Swarovski diamond shop and turn a left and suddenly, oh, actually, I'm in the Middle east and it's on top of each other. But in Tripoli, which does not necessarily have the same sort of Westernized amenities in the same way that Beirut does, they have a kfc. And they were sort of proudly one of the people, they're telling us about this KFC that they had. And I was like, oh, you know, great. And he said, I bet you can't go to it at the moment because it's been bombed again. And I was like, what do you mean? And he goes, we sort of use it as a litmus test as to when things are about to get really nasty, because the first thing that people do is they sort of blow up the kfc. And the last people that had blown up the kfc, he was telling me they have the CCTV footage, you know, of them in their sort of full Arabic dress of sitting down, having their KFC meal, enjoying it in the restaurant and then blowing it up. And I just thought, that is. That is such a great, you know, let's enjoy the, the fried chicken before we blow up evil Colonel Sanders and what he stands for.
- [30:19]
A
Well, speaking of, of, you know, Islamic extremists eating. When we get back from this quick break, you're going to tell us about your experience dining with and getting to know a very notorious British Islamist, Anjam Chowdhury. We'll be right back.
- [30:42]
C
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- [32:12]
A
We're back. I'm talking to executive producer of Conflicted Jake Warren. He's been walking us through some of his experiences working for Vice in and around Vice in the new digital media back in the the heady days of the teens. This is before that kind of digital explosion went into collapse and downfall, only to be in the process of being resurrected in an entirely new form. So Jake, you eventually met Eamon Dean because for a couple of years you were very fascinated with the phenomenon of Islamic extremism, of Islamism, especially in Britain, and linked to what was then the rising problem of isis. And in that context you got to know and began to associate with, you know, as a journalist, of course, Anjam Chowdhury. I think probably it's a name that a lot of our listeners are familiar with. Anjem choudhury who in 2024 was found guilty of directing a terror organization and sentenced to life imprison in the uk. He was one of the founders of the Islamist group Al Muhajirun, which we've talked about on this show before because it was Al Muhajirun and its activities that initially provoked the rise of the EDL and Tommy Robinson. And we've kind of mentioned that story a bit on on conflicted. Why did you get to know Anjum Chowdhury? I mean, how did it happen?
- [33:41]
B
Again, I would love to be able to tell you that there was some sort of deep investigative quality, journalistic, clever thing that I did. The reality is I fel that this was going to become an even more prominent issue. So things isil, when it was still called that was sort of a burgeoning force, right, sort of sweeping through, but it wasn't what went on to become ISIS just as yet. And I thought, who are the people that are in the UK that potentially might support this and what's their perspective of living in the west but promoting what is going on in the Middle east and in Syria and Iraq? And Anjem Chowdhury, you know, was a sort of semi, I don't want to say respected, but he was sort of the sort of sanitized extremist that would come on to news programs on the BBC or kind of be sought after as a talking head to come on and give that perspective.
- [34:33]
A
Yeah, I mean, given the fact that he is now serving a life sentence for directing a terror organization, it is kind of shocking to think that back in the noughties, often the establishment media in Britain would turn to Anjem Choudhary as the kind of token Muslim to give the Muslim perspective on an event. It's a reminder of kind of how off kilter things went for a long time. And, you know, we know downstream the political consequences of that.
- [34:59]
B
And this man was also known to be still at this time, right, a protege of Omar Bakra Muhammad. Right. You know, like one of, you know, the most known terrorists, you know, so it's, you know, the Tottenham Ayatollah, right, as he was called in this country. And so with Anjem, honestly, I think I went on his website and there was a number and I just rang up the number and I sort of said, hello, I'm Jake Warren, I'm a journalist. I'm looking to, you know, understand your perspective and give you an opportunity. You know, all, you know, all of the kind of things that you say as a journalist to kind of try and get someone on side. And he said, look, come and meet me tomorrow morning in Walthamstow. And, you know, I'll meet you and I. And I'll give you. I'll sort of sound you out kind of thing. You know, are you someone that I think is trustworthy enough for me to give you my time?
- [35:46]
A
Time?
- [35:47]
B
And so I went to see him the next morning and genuinely, this was a breakfast meeting. And I. And I still think this is one of the weirdest ways that anyone has tried to kind of, you know, sort of test me. You know, we're in this cafe, it's barely open. It's like 9:30 in the morning. And the anem is given an ice cream sundae with a. With a cherry on top. You know, one of those sort of like bizarre sort of cherries of the stalk where it's. It's almost like a, you know, coated in sugar. And he just ate this. This, you know, American ice cream sundae for breakfast in front of me. You know, literally the sort of exemplification of evil, right. The American Sunday in. In dessert form, as if it was most normal thing in the world, where he sort of asked me probing questions. Fine, I could deal with those. Said quite inflammatory things about like, you know, Lee Rigby deserved it, and all of this kind of stuff to sort of, I guess, try and test my reaction to see if I was there with an agenda. And I sort of batted it away or, or said, well, look, you know, you're entitled to your perspective. You're entitled to your viewpoint. And actually, you know, I'm interested to hear more of it. You and what your followers and fellow believers believe in, you know, I'd love to spend time with you. And after it, he sort of said, okay, I'll let you come and spend a bit of time with us. And this was at a time where him and his followers were still taking to the streets in order to spread the good word. In their view, this sort of street
- [37:09]
A
activity is what initially inspired Tommy Robinson's gang to kind of launch counter street activities. You know, sometimes resulting in clashes of a physical nature, but always clashes of a rhetorical nature. And weird Jay, because you're there, that's happening. I mean, it's sort of happened a few years before, but it's in the air, and it's still in the air. I mean, not only in the air in Britain, but now it's reaching kind of like institutionalized form. Because that energy of Tommy Robinson deciding to confront Al Muhajirun is like morphed into almost like political party structures on the new right in the uk. So you're there on the Mahaji run side kind of now, welcome amongst them. What were they like? What kind of people were you dealing with?
- [37:53]
B
It's one of those very bizarre things and I find it always gets a strange reaction when people say, well, what was it like? Because, you know, there was a group of. There was probably 10 plus 20 people that I sort of spent time with. One of them went on to become the future ISIS executioner, Abu Ramesa.
- [38:10]
A
Oh, wow.
- [38:11]
B
I know this sounds a very bizarre thing to say, but it would be dishonest to not say it. They were really nice to me. Now, I know that they're horrible people and have done unspeakable things in many instances and believed quite mad things, but that doesn't mean that everything that you do is with malice or evil intent. So I know it's a simple thing. But you know, that almost sort of, because a lot of them were fellow Londoners like me, were sort of. Come on, Jake, don't be, you know, join the brothers. You know, that almost sort of slightly British irreverent humor, but coming at you from an Islamic extremist standpoint was a really bizarre thing. And I have this short video which I may even have shown you, which is bizarre to look at it now after a day of leafleting and spreading their word, you know, Dawah, you know, doing. Doing their duty on this, on the street. We're having a meal in the basement of an Arabic restaurant, restaurant in, in East London. I took a short video. It's me in conversation with Anjam Chowdhury and some of his sort of nearest and dearest followers around him, of which Abu Ramesa, the future ISIS executioner, is one of them. He's sitting opposite me in a blue polo shirt and it's sort of an gem holding court, right? Because he was the person that everyone listened to. And Anjem said something to me which actually has always stayed with me. And I think it is the perfect, in his own words, exemplification of what he stood for or does stand for, which is he said to me, I am the shepherd lost sheep. And I got that because the people that were around the table were clearly lost individuals looking for community, looking for meaning, looking for purpose, looking for a sense of meaning, for want of a better word in their life, of which Anjem Chowdhury was giving them via a distorted. It was, I would call it form of Islamic extremist interpretation of how to live your life. And I had this meal with them. Again, they were polite. They were. I wouldn't say warm or friendly necessarily, but I felt at ease in a certain sense that here we were breaking bread, here we were having a conversation. You know, I shared. I sat opposite Abu Ramessa, who went to become an ISIS executioner, you know, snuck away to Syria with his wife and five kids. They all died. They all died in an airstrike.
- [40:22]
A
Probably most of the people at that dinner table eventually were ISIS recruits. Many of them may be dead today.
- [40:28]
B
I tried to figure it out and I didn't. I've not managed to do it for all of them. But I'm pretty sure that of the eight or nine people around that table having the conversation, breaking bread and having that meal, I think only myself and Anjem are still alive.
- [40:42]
A
Wow. And Anjem's in prison.
- [40:43]
B
And Anjem's in prison. And it's, you know, I shared a garlic naan bread with the ISIS executioner. Right. That's what you just. If you distill it down into that and you say that, you know, it's a great line to trot out to people, obviously there's more nuance to it. And for me, the weirdest thing when I look back on that is actually, it was one of the best garlic naan breads I've ever eaten in my whole life. And I sort of sent us down to food.
- [41:02]
A
Jake. Gosh, you're just a glutton.
- [41:03]
B
I know I shouldn't be taking that. That shouldn't be my main takeaway, but my main takeaway is how good this garlic naan bread was. But I. I can't remember where the restaurant was. And two, I'm not so sure I'd be welcomed back.
- [41:15]
A
So I see here, you know, that you from Anjam Choudhary and that kind of set you, you know, bled into an encounter with the Lee Rigby story.
- [41:25]
B
Yeah.
- [41:26]
A
Most people, again, will know the name Lee Rigby. Jake, kind of remind us who he was and how did you overlap with his very tragic story?
- [41:34]
B
Yeah. This is one of those almost seminal moments in British history where when Lee Rigby was murdered, I think almost everything changed, you know, from that moment. And he was a soldier. He was in the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers, and he was barracked in Woolwich, and he was attacked and murdered on the street by two Islamic extremists in broad daylight.
- [41:58]
A
This is May 2013.
- [42:00]
B
May 2013. Exactly. And I think that that was really, you know, obviously we had had seven, seven in London, of course, nine, 11 in America. But it was a sort of reemergence of this isn't just theoretical anymore. Right. And there's something almost more sinister, you know, a great big pre planned operation to fly planes into a towers or to launch bombs on a tube. You kind of understand, you know, that we've got great security services that probably foil most of the, you know, almost all of these plots. Right. But if someone decides to out a kitchen knife and just to go out in the street and start stabbing people, there's almost no way that you stop that.
- [42:41]
A
Yeah, I mean, I think younger listeners will take this for granted, that style of terrorist attack. But it was new in 2013 and it felt like an escalation because in the 10 years before that, you know, and again Anjem Choudhary and Al Muhajirun played a major, the major role in this. We knew that Islamic extremists would often like picket or boycott or protest at the, in Luton of the, of British, of dead British soldiers returning home in coffins. This is again what initially stimulated the Tommy Robinson reaction. So we knew that these Islamists were often symbolically opposed to British soldiers. But in 2013, when two of them just slaughtered Lee Rigby, a soldier, you know, in, in broad daylight and that was, that was an escalation, it was shocking.
- [43:29]
B
And for me it was the moment where doing this kind of, of storytelling journalism professionally became real. You know, I, I was the first person to be invited to leave Rigby's home to interview his parents. He was the most salt of the earth character. Right. Came from a housing estate in a place called Middleton on the outskirts of Manchester. Right. You know, this is not a place where news happens for the Rigby family. I still have very vivid memories about being in that room. And the backdrop to it was that Lee Rigby's Battalion, the 2nd Battalion of the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers was going to be disbanded. And so his parents felt that using Lee Rigby's memory in a positive way, this was something that he wouldn't be in favor of because you know, if he was still alive, he would potentially be out of a job. But you know, his comrades, his friends, his brothers in arms, a lot of them would be out of work. And so they wanted to use Lee Rigby's memory and voice for good in this sense because these are people that weren't giving interviews left, right. In sense they wanted to just be left alone. But having that interview in their living room. Because on the news, you know, on social media, whatever, you see a picture of Lee Rigby represented in his sort of, you know, adorned in his lovely red battle dress, you know, looking very smart and formal. Like pictures of him with his kids, you know, 20, he was 25, 26 years old, you know, on the mantelpiece, him as a young man, you know, his mother and father, who are not used to talking to journalists or being interviewed on camera. It was a baptism of fire for me where you realize that, that there are people and there are families at the other end of the person that you read about or watch on the news that's been murdered in the street. And for me it was, can I do this? Am I the right sort of person to be able to do this and do this in a way where I'm not just opening old wounds, but actually am trying to do this for a positive aim and outcome? And I learned a lot about myself as well as kind of the emotion and difficulty of being in that room. And it was, was a really hard thing to do, but one I'm really glad that I had the opportunity to do and hopefully did them justice in taking their son's views and representing it in something that he would have supported.
- [45:32]
A
Well, you know, 2013, 2014, 2015, those were the years where after a bit of a dip following the post 911 rise in Islamism, Islamist extremism, there was a bit of a dip energy focused elsewhere as the Arab Spring broke out in 2011 and it seemed that maybe, maybe the Middle east was going to have a new story. That was sadly not the case. Islamism came back in a big way in the mid teens with isis. You kind of tracked that story. I was tracking that story as well. Making documentary films for Arabic language television, Al Jazeera, but mainly Al Arabiya, working for a production company in London owned by two Saudi journalists and as a producer on a feature documentary we made called Path of Blood, Blood for which I co wrote a book, a history of Al Qaeda and its relations with the Saudi Arabian government, also called Path of Blood. In the course of helping to make that film, helping to write that book, I heard about a certain former MI6 double agent inside Al Qaeda, Amon Dean, who I can't remember the year exactly, I guess around 2013, 2014 maybe came in from the cold and went public with his story on the BBC. And because me and my collaborators were working on this project and this here was a Saudi guy who had been in Al Qaeda and Then continued to be in Al Qaeda working for MI6. We thought, oh, we should reach out to him on the one hand for just kind of to find out more about the story we were telling. Also for him to confirm that the story we were telling was accurate, that the research we'd done was, was right. And I'm glad that he, he did say that it was right. But also we thought at the time we were still thinking about how, what kind of direction to take the film. We thought, well, here's a really interesting story, we'll just get it on camera. So I remember sitting down with Eamon Dean, never met him before, and there he was. And for seven hours we filmed him telling his whole life story, first in Arabic and then in English. So I heard two versions, you know, two, I heard the story twice, this amazing story. But then, you know, I thought, God, I like this guy, he's so funny, he's so clever. Then, you know, I got in touch with him on the side, we met up for dinner and then we became fast friends. But that story, that life story which became the spine of the first series of Conflicted is fascinating, remains amazing. And of course you found out about that story too, which gave you the idea for a little podcast one that became Conflicted and which you initially thought might just be a one off telling that story. So how did you first encounter that story? How did you first encounter similar sort
- [48:17]
B
of time period, I think. And it was, you know, I've always been interested in human beings and I've always been interested in the extreme end of them. But what I realized with Anjem and with others is there wasn't much intellectual heft to them. Right. When you spoke to them about the sort of, even with Anjem, the sort of rhyme and rationale to his belief, he was rolling out platitudes that he'd pre learned, right. This is, he was a man that didn't even speak Arabic, so you weren't gonna get any intellectual insight as the core of his belief and what he was telling others to do in his stead, right. By going to fight for is and die as martyrs. But with Eamon, and I can't remember how I first heard about him, and I think I read something about him about this former Al Qaeda terrorist turned MI6 spy at the heart of it, and who was also a genius, I thought to myself, I gotta meet this guy. I'm fascinated in this world. Now here's someone that might be able to give me some more meaningful answers as to why People believe and do these things. But he's also moved away from it and renounced it. And again, I think I literally maybe just tweeted, you know, maybe sent him a dm, maybe sent an email, and we met up in London. And I remember vividly thinking, before I met Eamon, this is going to be a scary, you know, terrorist, you know, tough guy, you know, gotta mind what I say, you know, I've got to ingratiate him. Gotta get him to like Eamon. As we both know, after having known him for those years, he is the warmest. Five for five, five for six, man addicted to Diet Coke, who talks a million miles a minute, as everyone who listens to the show will know. Just warmth, generosity, positivity, a huge teddy bear. Yeah. And I just remember thinking it was a circle I found very hard to square. But I really enjoyed his company. And I remember coming away from interviewing him and meeting him thinking, everyone needs to know about this guy. This guy needs his own show. This guy needs. He has a perspective, a set of experiences, but not just based on lived experience, based on deep knowledge, understanding, learning to be able to communicate. Why, how? You know, I was enamored and I was enraptured of everything he said, and I thought, this guy needs a platform.
- [50:20]
A
And as it happens, you were at the beginning stages of founding Message Heard. So you decided that you were gonna throw your hat into the ring of the new podcast media. And I think, you know, this is what I was told. You approached Eamon and said, look, your life story is incredible. I think think you should do a podcast in which you just tell everyone exactly what happened. And Eamonn, I must say to his credit, said, I'll only do it if my friend Thomas can be involved, because I trust him to get the story right. And as I said, I had already interviewed him where he told his whole story. So he knew that I knew the story. He knew that because of the work I'd already done, I had the sort of intellectual and historical context. And also maybe because, like him, I'm religious, so I didn't see him as a completely alien kind of other. I kind of was sympathetic with the general tendency towards taking religion seriously, even too seriously at times and stuff. So he said, I'll only do it if my friend Thomas can get involved. I mean, I've never asked you, but I do wonder, Jake, if you were just like, who the hell is this guy Thomas? Oh, God.
- [51:31]
B
I was thinking, who the hell is this guy Thomas? I'm gonna be like, I could Realize, but I mean, but he said it in a way you're. And Eamonn, you know, is a very smart man. Right. And he, he got it. He, you know, we were talking at such length and we were, you know, he got that. And I think for me as someone who is mainly a listener and an enjoyer of conflicted now, rather than being actively involved in sort of, you know, the day to day of it is the nuance and depth that is accompanied with warmth because it's not combative or adversarial. And in particularly, you know, the way that I describe you both and you might not like it, but this is the way I do it is, you know, to me you guys are the odd couple of jihadism. Right. You know, it's, it's a friendship that shouldn't work on paper. And for most people in the media, if you were to say, here is a Christian American, ex monk in training who you know, has experienced life, speaks Arabic, you know, spent time in the Middle east alongside a ex Al Qaeda terrorist turned MI6 spy who still laughy leanings but they happen to be the best of buds. Yeah.
- [52:39]
A
And it's completely wacky as listeners now know that Eamonn is actually way more sort of pro west, pro capitalism. He's like more sanguine about the course of the prevailing world than I am. I'm much more still kind of like, I don't know about this whole Western world thing, maybe it's corrupt, you know, it's like exactly the opposite of what you'd expect.
- [52:57]
B
But Eamonn, when describing you, and this is probably not the exact language but the sentiment was, Thomas is my match in being able to, for someone to, to go equally deep but wide. And that's what we always, you know, want to do at conflicted, right. In the sense that yes, we are reacting to real life events which are happening in Iran and you know, and elsewhere and as you say, the miserable east. But to understand the historical and in many cases eschatological underpinnings as to why we have arrived in the situation we are today. You know, you are each other's match and equals in that. And I, you know, for me as a fan, it is one of my favorite shows to listen to and just learn and enjoy learning. You know, the education is smuggled into the entertainment and that is the key to a great show, in my opinion.
- [53:46]
A
Well, that's kind of you to say. From my experience, I got an email from someone I didn't know saying, hey, your friend Eamon Says that you should help him do a podcast. And so a couple of days later, I met up with you and the original producer of the show, Sandro Ferrari. Shout out to Sandra who. The three of us sat down at a cafe and just kind of hashed it out. I had no idea that this was gonna lead to almost 10 years of my life. It was pitched to me as a one off, six episodes, just gonna tell Eamon's story. I think I might be the one who had the idea of telling like the history of the war on terror through that prison. I think that's what I tried to bring to those early sort of kind of episode arcs, like, let's just get the history in as well as the personal story. Those six episodes were popular enough that you said, let's do six more and then let's do 20 more and let's do 20 more and let't start the conflicted community. And on and on and on. It's just gone. And more or less through word of mouth has grown into, I think, if I dare say, something special. And at the same time, the company message heard went from strength to strength. The podcast economy is up and down. The media is not an ease of easy industry to work in. And yet you have survived, Jake messageherd has survived. Tell us a little bit about what you've got on the burner now. I mean, I know that you yourself are now pivoting back into journalism proper. You've made some shows for the BBC, some interesting stories. Tell us a little bit about that. What do you have going on?
- [55:18]
B
Yeah, I never wanted to be completely detached from the storytelling, from the journalism, because I started messageheard as a frustrated creative. Right. Post leaving Vice, I had a short stint at BBC Radio 4 where, you know, I remember saying, hey, we should do podcasts. And very senior people said to me, what's a podcast? And so I became, and I probably shouldn't say this out loud, you know, a begrudging founder of a company, because I recognized that there was an opportunity and I was proven right, you know, in the sense that we live in a direct to consumer world now where there are no gatekeeping. The cost of producing and making high quality stuff is de minimis, whether it be YouTube or whether it be audio only. We can reach audiences, huge audiences, and they're sticky, which is conflicted, is the absolute proven case study for that. Right. You know, we have huge amounts of people that listen to this and watch this show and, and really credible people and, and we've done that across the board at Messy Chat. And for me, yeah, I've. I've sort of wanted to get more back into the journalistic and storytelling side of it, because that is my real. I really am passionate about that. I've got two BBC World Service documentaries which I've presented and produced and stories that I've followed for quite a while coming out soon. One of them is Harry Haft's Unspeakable Fight, which is an incredible story about a young Polish man who was sent to. I'll try and do it without too many spoilers because I obviously want people to listen to it when it comes out on BBC Sounds and the BBC World Service. But a young Polish man, Jewish. Polish man, sent to Auschwitz during World War II, who was effectively picked by a German officer and protected, you know, fed, in order to have death match fights every Sunday in front of German officers. And he had about 70 death match fights where the loser would be taken out and shot. And he survived Auschwitz. He was in concentration camps, various ones, for five years, which is pretty unheard of. Ended up moving to America post war and actually becoming a professional boxer. And he fought Rocky Marciano, the great Rocky Marciano.
- [57:17]
A
What a story, man. Hollywood should make. Make a freaking biopic, man. That is a cool story.
- [57:23]
B
It's it, you know, and. And he lost to Rocky Marchano, of course, because Marciano, you know, was undefeated. But his fight, his survival, you know, it already been won. But for him to. To get that opportunity to face in a professional bout, Rocky Marchan, it's an incredible story and. And I really do hope people will listen to it because it's. It's really moving. It's tough to listen to, but it's. It's really moving. Moving. And the second one is called Diving for Yuko. Similarly, I mean, these are not the cheeriest of stories, I have to be honest with you. I don't know why I'm always sort of gravitating towards the slightly horrible, for want of a better word, but obviously the tsunami in Japan in 2011. A man named Yuko and his wife live in a sort of coastal town. Obviously the warnings come in, you know, get to high ground, get to safety. He's texting his wife. His wife's on the roof of her building. You know, they're texting each other. He's safe. The last text message his wife sent to him was, I want to go home. And she was swept away in the tidal wave. Body never recovered. And he took that message to heart. And every few weeks or even Sometimes even more so than that. He goes out to dive to try and recover the body of his wife to honor her last request, which was I want to go home. And. And you know, there's a physical dimension to it. It's a tragic story, but there is an inspirational and almost spiritual beautiful element to it as well, where romantic. When he is diving. Yeah. And when he's diving for his wife, he's in the sea, you know, he's in commune with her and we unpack the kind of Japanese spiritual philosophy as part of it. And it's a tragic story, but it is a beautiful story of love and romance and duty.
- [59:07]
A
When do these two documentaries, the Harry Haft documentary and Diving for Yuko, when do they come come out?
- [59:12]
B
I don't know if we've got a fixed transmission date for it on radio yet, but June or July. So within the next four to eight weeks they will both be out.
- [59:20]
A
Well, dear listeners, keep an eye out for those two documentaries by Jake Warren, executive producer of Conflicted, old friend, founder of Message Heard. Jake, thanks so much for coming in. You know, obviously I don't think it'll come as a surprise to anyone at the last minute because dear Aemon is still trying to juggle so many things over there in the Middle East. So you've sat in his chair, you've covered for the man with aplomb. Thank you so much, Jake, for coming on. And there's so much more we could have talked about because your mother's story is amazing. She's a ballerina. You've made this fantastic, really fantastic couple of series, Finding Natasha, both series you can listen to. Dear listeners, it's really fantastic story, moving as hell. So, yeah, Jake, thanks so much for coming on Conflicted. You know, I'm about to read the old script and it's going to be awkward because you're going to hear your own name there. But anyway, thanks for coming on.
- [60:17]
B
Thank you for having me.
- [60:19]
A
Conflicted is a Message Heard production. Our executive producers are Jake Warren and Max Warren. This episode was produced and edited by Thomas Small.
- [60:30]
B
Sam.