Ep. 4: Faisal Saeed Al Mutar | Founder & Counter-Extremism Advocate | Never Give Up

This week, Mungi is joined by Faisal Saeed Al Mutar. Faisal was raised in Baghdad and has firsthand experience with authoritarian regimes. An outspoken writer and activist, he survived the Iraq Civil War, the murder of his brother, and several kidnapping attempts before becoming a refugee in the United States in 2013. Faisal has founded several initiatives, including the popular Facebook page Global Conversations, which curates discussion on controversial topics regarding human rights, counter-extremism, and international affairs. In 2017, he founded the nonprofit organization Ideas Beyond Borders, which aims to prevent extremism before it takes root. The organization does this by providing the Arabic world with access to translations of works of science, women’s rights, and enlightenment literature often suppressed by authoritarian regimes and dictatorships. Faisal is a practitioner of counter-extremism on an international scale, having spoken across the globe on his experience using education and technology as a tool to combat extremism. In this episode, he speaks with Mungi about his experience navigating authoritarianism and civil war, what kept him going amidst all the fear, the importance of mental health, and "the racism of lower expectations". To learn more about Ideas Beyond Borders, visit www.ideasbeyondborders.org