Episode 20
June 4 , 2018
20. George Galloway: Controversial politician on Beirut, Palestine, Iraq with Saddam, Cuba with Fidel and the Constant Companionship of Bob Dylan.
From humble beginnings in a slum tenement in the Scottish City of Dundee, George Galloway has risen to become one of the UK’s most well known and also most controversial politicians. His self-confessed radical views have seen him banned from Canada, arrested in the dead of night in Cairo, meeting with Saddam Hussein in Iraq, spending time with Fidel Castro in Cuba and on first name terms with Nelson Mandela, Benazir Bhutto and Yasser Arafat. The travels of Gorgeous George as he’s sometimes known are as fascinating, as intriguing as the man himself.
On this episode we cover:
Banned from Canada
Arrested in Cairo
Deported from Egypt
Met Saddam Hussein in Iraq
Met Fidel Castro in Cuba
Been awarded two of Pakistan’s highest accolades
How a boy born in an attic in a slum tenement in the Irish quarter of Dundee
Sleeping in a drawer
Irish immigrants
The joy of a new council house
From gangs to Chairman of the Scottish Labour Party age 26
How his politics have stayed true to his radical roots
His life-changing trip to Lebanon
Falling in love with the Arab world and the Palestinian cause
Becoming good friends with Yasser Arafat, then Palestinian president
The beauty of Beirut
Being attacked in the street and hospitalised
Where he has felt vulnerable
Travelling to Iraq to meet Saddam Hussein
The magical ancient civilisation of Iraq
Walking in Abraham’s shoes
What Saddam was like in person
Weapons of mass destruction
George Bush and Tony Blair
How Iraq is now destroyed as a country
Worshipping in the Catholic cathedral in Baghdad
His multiple trips to Syria
Assad and son
Saudi Arabia and the rumoured coup
Syria and Lebanon being one country
The lifestyle in Syria before the war
Maaloula people speaking – Aramaic the language of Jesus
Sunni Muslims, Al Quada and extremism
His love of Cuba
His many hours spent with Fidel Castro
Writing the ‘The Fidel Castro Handbook’
How Fidel ‘is the greatest man I ever met’
The Cuban Revolution
Che Guevara
Sitting watching TV with Fidel
Bill Clinton in a Malcolm X baseball cap
Fidel and Che Guevara’s time in New York in Harlem with Malcolm X
Khrushchev, Indira Ghandi
The pros and cons of Cuba
How Cuba’s name is ‘written in the stars’
The future for Cuba
Guantanamo’s agreement (or rather lack of it) with America
Anti Death row activist Clive Stafford Smith
Being water boarded
Michael Moore’s Sicko
Being made famous by The New York Post
Crossing the US
His great grandmother emigrating from New York to Dundee
The BBC’s Who Do You Think You Are
Getting banned from entering Canada due to his work on Palestine
Arrested in Cairo in the dead of night
Being subsequently deported
The overthrowing of Mubarak in the Egyptian revolution
Travelling to South Africa under Apartheid
The ANC
Being attacked by a white apartheid policemen in the townships
Spending time with Nelson Mandela
Glasgow
Nelson Mandela’s fabulous aura
Mandela’s visit to Cuba
Hugo Chavez
Benazir Bhutto
Theresa May
Tony Benn
Winston Churchill
Margaret Thatcher’s attitude in cafes
John Major being the nicest prime minister he served under
How he thinks Trump will win again
Trump’s travel ban
How everyone should have control their own borders
Supporting Brexit
The wall with the Mexican border
Ramadan
Trump’s Muslim reception
Ethiopia, Eritrea and Somalia in the famine
Khartoum
Port Sudan
Visiting refugee camps
Witnessing people dying of starvation
Vimto being the nectar of the gods
Scottish journalist turned politician Brian Wilson
His love of Portugal
Sky News
Looking over the Atlantic Ocean
Preferring to stay closer to home
How we should all visit Dundee
The Victoria & Albert museum
Dundee’s transformation
The Scottish Highlands
Scotland’s midge problem
Why travel is so important
His parents’ first trips abroad
Florence, Venice and the ‘near abroad’
Travel opens your eyes and your mind
Religion
Having seen Bob Dylan live over 50 times
Bob Dylan’s Christian fundamentalist period
His favourite Bob Dylan song
