The Irish Mail on Sunday

‘A LOT OF PEOPLE DO WANT TO LEARN ABOUT DIFFERENT VIEWPOINTS’

- BASHIR

‘I was invited to appear on the show and I had my reservatio­ns about the controvers­ial characteri­stics of the title. When I sat down and engaged with the whole idea, I realised the importance of it, to see the different viewpoints, because people can relate to it, either way. ‘We need to keep the important conversati­ons to the forefront so we can see the type of society that we truly live in. With Trump getting elected [in 2016], with Brexit, if you remember, the polls were telling us, oh, that couldn’t possibly happen. In reality, when we got to the polling station, some people voted on anti-immigratio­n rhetoric. ‘I think what’s important from this experiment is that we get an opportunit­y to witness it. I think it’s important to bring that to the forefront and let people make their decisions and I think that’s an important part of democracy as well, that we can have the discourse and figure out what type of society we want.

‘On social media, I filter out the rubbish, and pay attention to those who are maybe willing to change or open to things, who are willing to engage in open discussion­s. A lot of people do want to learn about different viewpoints.

‘Luke and I now follow each other on Twitter. If he invited me to meet again, I would be cautious ... but, yes, I would like to dig deeper into the psychologi­cal influence on his views.

‘Deep down, I don’t think he even truly believes a lot of what he says, but it all was very mild compared to what I’ve been exposed to before.’

 ??  ?? IMPORTANT CONVERSATI­ON: Bashir Otukayo
EXPERT: Clinical psychologi­st Dr Malie Coyne helps set the questions
IMPORTANT CONVERSATI­ON: Bashir Otukayo EXPERT: Clinical psychologi­st Dr Malie Coyne helps set the questions

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