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Maajid Nawaz in Conversation with Bek Lover
- A Premium Radical Podcast via Resistance Radio by Radical Media.
On Thursday 19th June 2025 Radical Media’s Maajid Nawaz spoke with Bek Lover for the long form Premium Radical podcast.
The conversation covered Bek’s Albanian roots and history, his American-Muslim identity and then on to the Middle East war between Israel and Iran. We are please to offer this long form Radical Podcast to our premium members as exclusive content. All regular subscribers are encouraged to upgrade here:
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Son of Albanian immigrants. 9/11 survivor. Kosovo War witness. Bek Lover was born to parents who fled communist oppression—his mother escaped Albania's brutal regime, his father left Kosovo in the 1970s.
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Maajid Nawaz: “But having been to Albania, I did catch that there's a debate around Alexander the Great. If you can unpack that a bit as well, since you're on the point of DNA, what is that debate and how does it relate to what you're saying?”
Bek Lover: ”So basically, it's very simple. Listen, Greeks get mad. Serbians get really angry. And it's very simple. I mean, it's a simple Google search. The Slavs do not originate in the Balkans. They originate towards the Ukraine, towards the Caucasus, towards Russia. This is where their DNA can be traced. A simple Google search will show you they came in the 7th century to the Balkans region. That's when they started settling in that region. The Albanians have the most ancient DNA in all of the Balkans. We trace our ancestry to the ancient Illyrians, the Darnians. If you search Roman Empire history, the Illyrians saved Rome countless times, which I've just learned recently, which blew my mind away. So our history is very ancient. Unfortunately, when you're always occupied, invaded, because we sit on the crossroads of the empires from the time of Alexander the Great to the Roman Empire to the Ottoman Empire, then to communism and then being forced to live under the Slavs. Albanians are not Slavic. We never belonged in Yugoslavia. There was no borders and boundaries for over 600 years in that region because of the Ottoman Empire. And our enemies who have oppressed us, who have for centuries taken us out, the best way to destroy people is to hide their history or to destroy their history.”
Bek grew up understanding that “freedom is not free”. This perspective was forged in fire when he lost 30 family members in a single day during the Kosovo War, including witnessing his cousin survive being shot over 20 times.
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Bek Lover: “We are an amazing example of religious tolerance all around. And the exclamation point of that is during World War II, we saved every single Jew that came to our land, even though we were under fascist occupation during Mussolini and then eventually the German Nazis took over. My grandmother's two brothers 16 and 18 years old were hung off trees by the SS in occupied Albania, yet not a single Jewish refugee in a Muslim country. People would say, quote unquote, right? Because the majority are Muslim. So if Muslims hate Jews so much, then why didn't they hand them over? And that's, see, that's another narrative that people have been pushing for the last hundred years. It's actually the opposite of the facts of history, right? And it plays into this conflict right now that's going on with Israel and the Palestinians… that is also a false narrative history. Muslims and Jews have gone along for over a thousand years. It's documented, very well documented history.”
On September 11th, 2001, Bek was under the World Trade Centre when the attacks began. Emerging from the subway to witness the towers burning and eventually collapsing, he made a decision to seize control of his life.
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Bek Lover: “And I look back now as an American, as a New Yorker, as someone that was underneath the World Trade Centre, as someone that sat here and listened to Tony Blair and George Bush say, ‘there was weapons of mass destruction. There was weapons of mass destruction’. The pill that people are having a problem swallowing here in the United States of America, and it's all over the internet, it's all over X, it's all over Twitter, right? Is that they're using the same bullshit in our opinion, that they used last time to justify the invasion of Iraq. Weapons of mass destruction. ‘We can't let them get a nuke. They get a nuke’. And we still have trauma. We don't have memories of 20 seconds ago. Our generation understands what happened with the invasion of Iraq and talking about weapons of mass destruction. And they're using the same tactic 24 years later, we believe, to justify the invasion of Iran. Now, would I like to see that regime collapse? I would, but not at the cost. I want the people there to rise up. I want the people there to have the courage to overthrow that regime if they don't agree with that system. The Albanians overthrew their dictator. The Serbians, to give them credit, they got rid of Milosevic. They stormed parliament. And again, I've always said to the Serbians, I don't hate you. I know a lot of you, I get death threats every day from them. But because we have a disagreement on history, it doesn't mean we need to be mortal enemies the rest of our lives. And I really wish I could see some type of love take over what’s going on over there.”
From New York nightlife aficionado to multi-million dollar sales executive, Bek has channelled his experiences into a mission: helping others make their own comebacks.
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Bek Lover: “You know, what's also fascinating, Maajid, is the fact that I'm noticing here in the States one issue that seems to be uniting liberals and..right wingers. They don't want to get involved in Israel's wars. The liberals, it's backfired on the left. There has been a protest every single day in New York City against Israel, and it continues just to get bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger, and it's spread throughout every city. And then you can see the comments of right-wingers online, right? And right now there's a divide in the MAGA movement because the majority of them do not want to get involved in another war on behalf of a foreign nation. But then you an element of the right wing that I call extremist.”
Premium members of Radical Media are able to listen to the long form podcast between Maajid Nawaz and Bek Lover at the top of this page.
Regular subscribers may listen to this full podcast and all other member-only content, by upgrading their membership here:
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Our conversation with Bek Lover is Radical Media’s seventh premium members’ podcast.
Our first was with American public commentator Sam Harris, which focused on Maajid Nawaz’s political objections to Sam Harris’ ongoing public support for the precedents sought by imposing Covid mandates.
Our second premium podcast raised epidemiological critiques to Covid mandates and was held with a signatory to the Great Barrington Declaration, Stanford’s Professor Jay Bhattacharya.
Our third podcast a personal and political exploration of World Council for Health Dr Tess Lawrie’s life and career to date.
Our fourth premium Radical podcast was with Dr Wilson Sy, who has published peer reviewed statistical analysis raising serious concerns about systemic euthanasia in the UK using end of life protocols, known as the Midazolam scandal.
Our fifth premium Radical podcast was with Lois Perry, who is the Executive Director UK/Europe for the Heartland Institute. Lois formerly resigned as Leader of the UK Independence Party (UKIP) and before that had been the founder of Car26, an organisation opposed to Great Britain’s headlong direction towards Net Zero by 2030.
Our sixth premium Radical podcast was with with Dave Anderson on his new book ‘The Real Black Agenda: Why I’m Done Asking and Busy Building’.
Premium members should remain subscribed for more such high quality, long form content being planned.
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