453: Enes Kanter Freedom—In the Name of Freedom

NBA player turned human rights activist Enes Kanter Freedom shares his remarkable journey growing up in Turkey under an oppressive regime, his rise to NBA stardom, and the high personal cost of speaking out against tyranny. From being exiled by his home country to being effectively blackballed from the NBA, Enes opens up about the courage it takes to stand alone—and why he refuses to stay silent. He also discusses his powerful new book, In the Name of Freedom https://www.amazon.com/Name-Freedom-Political-Dissidents-Rights/dp/1668078368/ref=sr_1_1?crid=X2YWK85VTWU7&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.387sgglltsA2gSujwb0glKwKf9KHSqCtTE2Qohylm-QE9wugtyoHjNzJ156C1lDqkH1v6rNzqR7w4hn5V1clSjsiMUI5P9_DtwZHKTuCRA9SAb056w9QLSloF0I4a2JMsAg85nOhRAtbVM7KaCKaRhxZ3KiA41AkDt3tF0WYVPBmt0JV-kHH6a-OM2cUw8uQ.1wV-2vEo8TmXjwjqNAFHyAE5GhFyohTSKhkzR3-P1HI&dib_tag=se&keywords=enes+kanter+freedom+book&qid=1759778223&sprefix=enes%2Caps%2C168&sr=8-1, and what it means to fight for something bigger than the game. Shout out to our great sponsors American-Giant.com/MIKE https://www.american-giant.com/collections/mike Use code MIKE to get 20% off your order. KnobelSpirits.com https://knobelspirits.com/ Spend $100, get bitters-infused sugar cubes FREE. Just add to cart & use code CARL.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:03Mike Rowe?

  Hey, it's the way I heard it. Uh, sorry, I'm a bit, uh...

• 0:08Speaker 01

  Wow, you really came out hot and then just flopped.

• 0:11Mike Rowe?

  Well, you know... What happened? Because this is a weird one. Um, I'm Mike, that's Chuck, by the way. If you're, uh, if you're new to the show. In the Name of Freedom is the name of this episode. My guest is Enes Freedom. I'm stumbling all over the place because I've already interviewed him. And to be honest, I already talked to him about a lot of the things that we talk about in this conversation.

• 0:33Speaker 01

  Right.

• 0:34Mike Rowe?

  But I don't think there's been a more consequential guest on this show, maybe ever. And I was struck the first time, but only struck in the way you can be struck when you're interviewing somebody over Zoom or Riverside or whatever that was.

• 0:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's different when a seven-foot-tall man is right before you and is telling you the story of his life and how he gave up tens of millions of dollars to be a civil rights activist.

• 1:03Mike Rowe?

  The story of his young life.

• 1:05Speaker 01

  Yes, right. He was not a, not an old man at all.

• 1:07Mike Rowe?

  No, if you don't know it, the short version is this guy lived the American dream. He came over from Turkey as a teenager, very tall, hell of a basketball player, played most notably for the Utah Jazz and the Boston Celtics, but a bunch of others in between, the Trail Blazers and so forth. He's a center, he's very good, great, really. Then he started mouthing off.

• 1:31Speaker 01

  With his shoes.

• 1:32Mike Rowe?

  Yeah, yeah. He was concerned about what was happening in his home in Turkey and wrote some things on his shoes to bring that to the attention of the media. And, oh, his teammates loved it. They congratulated his bravery for taking a stand because Turkey was not pleased, but then his reach exceeded his grasp and his shoes started to say some things about Tibet.

• 1:58Mike Rowe?

  And China.

• 1:59Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 1:59Mike Rowe?

  And then, of course, the NBA could not live with that. And so, long story short, Ennis sacrificed pretty much everything, his career, his family, tens of millions of dollars. And now he's written a book, which I sure hope you'll pick up. It's called In the Name of Freedom. And, you know, it took me a long time to get to it, but spoiler alert, the thing that was bugging me through the whole conversation, not bugging me, but just I was trying to get my head around it, because it all sounded kind of familiar. But it really does come back to the difference between a person who will do something brave that has nothing to lose and a person who will do something brave.

• 2:42Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 2:43Mike Rowe?

  That has everything.

• 2:44Speaker 01

  That costs them everything, yeah.

• 2:46Mike Rowe?

  Right. Like the guys who signed the Declaration, you know? There's also a rumination, too, I think, on courage and like especially courage under fire. And I think there's a difference between a person who is simply fearless and will therefore do damn near anything in battle, because their brain just doesn't process fear the same way.

• 3:10Speaker 01

  Right.

• 3:11Mike Rowe?

  Right? Versus people who are scared half to death, or maybe all the way, and do it anyway. It's hard to know who you are, I think, until, you know, you're confronted with the kinds of choices that Ennis was confronted with. But my God, he made his choice and he paid a price. And now, you know, nobody's got a crystal ball, but if he's remembered decades from now, the same way we remember Muhammad Ali, I wouldn't be surprised at all.

• 3:43Speaker 01

  Yeah. And look, first of all, he's a really gentle giant.

• 3:47Mike Rowe?

  Yeah.

• 3:47Speaker 01

  He's a sweet guy who really loves people of all, you know, races and religions.

• 3:53Mike Rowe?

  Yeah.

• 3:54Speaker 01

  And he didn't start that way.

• 3:55Mike Rowe?

  No, he started off indoctrinated, unfortunately, like a lot of young kids are in that part of the world.

• 4:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 4:01Mike Rowe?

  He had a very dim view of Americans, a very dim view of Christians, and even dim review of Jewish people.

• 4:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 4:08Mike Rowe?

  And we talk about how all of those views were challenged and ultimately overcome.

• 4:16Mike Rowe?

  By the kindness of individuals and some remarkable advice from his mom that I don't want to spoil, I'll let him tell you that. But this episode is coming out on a day that has become a horrific anniversary the world over. And that topic comes up as well. Gaza and Israel and all the trouble in the world and all the trouble in the NBA and one guy's story about how he just broke through all of it. It's very inspirational and honestly, that word makes my teeth hurt. I try not to use it.

• 4:54Speaker 01

  But it absolutely fits. I mean, I was kind of spellbound and a little emotional.

• 4:59Mike Rowe?

  Well, you said it right when the conversation ended. One more dude who's better than us.

• 5:05Speaker 01

  Yes, that is 100% true.

• 5:07Mike Rowe?

  Which wouldn't have been a bad title for this either, but I'm going with the name of his book, which again, you'll just love. It's going to be a bestseller and it's going to be an important read for you, your kids, your friends. It's called In the Name of Freedom by Ennis Cantor. Freedom, who you will meet either for the first or second time, right after this.

• 5:32Mike Rowe?

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• 6:17Mike Rowe?

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• 7:01Mike Rowe?

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• 7:18Mike Rowe?

  Thank you for coming.

• 7:20Speaker 02

  Of course, man.

• 7:21Mike Rowe?

  We were just chatting about how podcasts evolve and how things change. And I remember interviewing you over, what is it? Riverside, I guess?

• 7:30Speaker 02

  Riverside or Zoom? One of them.

• 7:32Mike Rowe?

  One of them.

• 7:32Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 7:33Mike Rowe?

  And you know, it's so weird, man, how you can go from being so grateful to have a way to connect with people. And it just makes your life simple. And then within like no time at all, you're so dissatisfied. It's like, this is just not... This is a prophylactic. Like, on Riverside, you seem like a normal person. You're like, you can't tell somebody's seven feet tall.

• 7:58Speaker 02

  Yeah, in reality, I'm a little scary. Yeah, a giant.

• 8:02Mike Rowe?

  What a pleasure it is to meet you in person. I know last time we spoke, what was it? Chuck, two years ago? I believe so, yeah. I had just seen you in Florida at the Patriot Awards.

• 8:13Speaker 02

  I was there.

• 8:14Mike Rowe?

  You were there. Your story, I mean, I don't know who I was sitting next to, to my right or to my left, but they were both weeping.

• 8:22Speaker 02

  Oh, man, that means a lot.

• 8:23Mike Rowe?

  Well, it meant a lot to the people in the audience. And then when I spoke to you, I remember saying to you, "When's the book, man?" You've got to sit down. I know you're busy saving the world and making free throws and whatnot, but you've got to get all this down. So two years later, you took my advice. You've written the book. It's called In the Name of Freedom. Congratulations.

• 8:44Speaker 02

  Thank you. I appreciate that. Finally. I mean, this is a, this was my dream, like you said, for a lot, like it's been two years now. And for the last two years, I've been trying to get my family out of Turkey.

• 8:54Mike Rowe?

  Yeah.

• 8:55Speaker 02

  So my plate was so full and unfortunately we failed every time. And then I'm like, you know what? I think I'm just gonna start, I don't wanna say I'm like moving on or giving up, but then I'm like, you know, I just gotta keep myself busy and then just started to write the book.

• 9:12Mike Rowe?

  Well, I think maybe for the benefit of the listener, I ought to ask you just to give me a thumbnail of what we talked about in the past and what brought you to this point, because it's a lot. But, um, I mean, your family, man. Make it simple for people to understand. What in the world led you to the NBA and then out of the NBA? And finally to here?

• 9:36Speaker 02

  I think, you know, the people to understand better, I wanna like tell you a little bit about my childhood. You know, growing up in Turkey, it was a very difficult childhood. If you are a politician in Turkey and if you wanna be elected again, you do a couple of things. You attack America, you attack Christians, and you attack Jewish people. And unfortunately, the base is so uneducated, they're like, wow, look at our leader. He's standing tall against America, tall against the West, tall against the Jewish people. Let's vote for him. So that was the case when I was growing up. Um, I remember I was nine years old. I went downstairs to play with my friends. And I remember my friends, which like, who were not even teenagers,

• 10:20Speaker 02

  they were burning American flags, they were breaking crosses. And I remember like asking one of my friends, like, guys, like, what are you doing? They, they said, well, we should hate America. We should hate Christians. They're devil. They're evil people.

• 10:33Mike Rowe?

  Is this in the eighties, mid eighties, nineties?

• 10:36Speaker 02

  I was born in nineteen ninety-two, so I'm talking about like two thousand.

• 10:41Mike Rowe?

  You were born in ninety-two.

• 10:43Speaker 02

  Yeah. So I'm talking about like two thousands.

• 10:47Speaker 02

  I'm like, what are you guys doing? They said, well, we should hate America. We should hate the Christians. We should hate the West. And I remember one of my friend, which was my best friend, he gave me a flag to burn it. He gave me an American flag. He gave me a lighter and he said, burn it. I looked down. I'm like, this is not the right thing to do. I threw the flag down. I ran upstairs to my mom. I was like, mom, my friends are telling me to hate Americans, hate Christians, hate Jewish people. Like, what do I do? My mom said, I'm not gonna tell you what to do, but do not hate anyone before you meet them. So that day, I give a, I give a promise to my mom. I promise I'm not gonna hate anyone before I meet them. You know, like, this doesn't happen in, well,

• 11:31Speaker 02

  in some areas happen in Turkey, but in Middle East. So in schools, front of classes, you have an American flag and you have an Israeli flag. And if you don't step on those flags, you are not allowed to attend a class.

• 11:47Mike Rowe?

  You don't step on them.

• 11:48Speaker 02

  Yep, you have to step on them.

• 11:49Mike Rowe?

  You walk into the classroom and you literally tread

• 11:52Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 11:53Mike Rowe?

  on the Israeli flag and the American flag.

• 11:55Speaker 02

  And if you don't, you will get bullied rest of your school year by your teachers, by your, I don't know, classmates. So the environment I was growing up in was that toxic. You know, finally, my dad said, we have to move to West. We have to move to Istanbul. And when we moved to Istanbul, obviously, things were a little better, but it was still toxic.

• 12:19Mike Rowe?

  I'm sorry, your hometown was what?

• 12:21Speaker 02

  It's a city called Van, V A N. It's like the east, very east side of Turkey. People were not really that educated compared to Istanbul or Ankara, the capital. And then when I moved to Istanbul, things got a little bit better. But then, you know, my dad was like, this is enough. You are going to America. I even remember asking my dads like, dad, you really want me to go to Devil's Nest? He's not, you know, it's amazing because he said, go ahead, see yourself. I said, okay.

• 12:52Mike Rowe?

  What did your dad do for a living?

• 12:53Speaker 02

  Uh, he was, well, before he got fired and before they thrown him in jail, he was like one of the biggest scientists in Turkey. And my mom was a very successful nurse. So they were really well educated compared to like other families. And I'm seventeen years old. I took a chance, got on a flight. I was about to land in New York for the first time ever. And I remember like when I was flying, I saw the Statue of Liberty. I'm like, my man, this is so crazy because like I've been seeing that statue in movies. And now I can, I'm like flying over it.

• 13:29Mike Rowe?

  Was your association, though, I mean, growing up the way you did with that level of, you know, deliberate, maybe indoctrination is too strong a word, but certainly an ethos. Did you associate liberty with that statue? Did you, like, what did liberty even mean to you at that point?

• 13:49Speaker 02

  That meant nothing because like growing up, we really didn't have like much freedom or liberty. And everything was controlled by the governments, the all the media outlets, newspaper. Uh, I don't want to say all of them, but like many of them was controlled by the governments. And when Erdogan took off, obviously it became the worst in probably Turkish history. But pretty much everything was controlled by the government.

• 14:15Mike Rowe?

  Was Erdogan elected in what you would think of as a democratic election?

• 14:21Speaker 02

  Well, in the beginning, yes. And he actually, like, when I have a conversation with like, and people like in Obama administration, the Biden administration, the Trump administration, they say, well, till 2012, he looked like the, he was gonna carry Turkey to a better and democratic country. He, he was keep talking about the Western values and American values. And then once. The corruption happened and he got caught back in two thousand thirteen. Everything changed, so.

• 14:52Mike Rowe?

  And he was caught exactly doing what?

• 14:54Speaker 02

  The corruption scandal.

• 14:55Mike Rowe?

  Yeah.

• 14:55Speaker 02

  You know, he was stealing from people and him and his family members were involved in it. And the police caught him. And then after that, you know, he was just putting innocent people in jail.

• 15:06Mike Rowe?

  And yet he was still elected?

• 15:08Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 15:08Mike Rowe?

  In democratic elections after that?

• 15:10Speaker 02

  Yep, he was a prime minister then, so.

• 15:12Mike Rowe?

  Heck of a thing, man, what people will do.

• 15:15Speaker 02

  Right, so, you know, I came to America for the first time, I was seventeen years old. It was actually very crazy because it was my first high school practice. And I remember two of my teammates who are Christians, they walk up to me in a locker room and said, "Listen, man, we know that you're from Turkey and we know that you're Muslim. And if you want, after the practice, we would like to get, take you to a, go get some halal food and take you to a mosque." I promise you, I turned around and left the locker room. Because I just didn't know what they were trying to do. But then I remembered a promise.

• 15:50Mike Rowe?

  Don't hate him till you meet him.

• 15:51Speaker 02

  Exactly, so I came back, I was like, you know what? What I have to lose, let's go. They were so respectful, they were so kind. They took me to a mosque, they even took their shoes off, right? And then we went to go get some Turkish food. It was so amazing, so delicious. That two teammates changed my whole life. They put a little question mark in my head. I started to question. For the last seventeen years, I was hearing about how devil, how evil the Americans are.

• 16:24Mike Rowe?

  The devil's nest.

• 16:24Speaker 02

  Exactly, so like that two teammates put a question mark in my head.

• 16:28Mike Rowe?

  Now, were you in, where are you, Utah or Boston?

• 16:31Speaker 02

  So, uh, in high school, I went to California, Simi Valley. And it was just an amazing experience. Storage prep, beautiful area. I mean, I just loved California because of the weather.

• 16:44Mike Rowe?

  Yeah.

• 16:44Speaker 02

  It was so beautiful. So, and then after my high school year, I met a friend who was a girl. I remember one day, you know, she called me and said, you know, "I want you to come to my house for dinner. Would you like to come Friday?" I was like, "Well, I'm busy Friday, can I come Saturday?" They said, "No, no, no, it has to be Friday." I was like, "Why?" They said, "Well, because that's our special dinner." I'm like, "What are you talking about?" They said, "Well, it's a Shabbat dinner." I said, what's a Shabbat dinner? I said, what's a Shabbat dinner? They said, well, just because of we are Jewish. As soon as I heard the word Jewish, I hang up the phone. I promise you. And I sit there for a second.

• 17:28Speaker 02

  I'm like, I cannot believe I just had a conversation with someone who is Jewish. Like, am I gonna go to hell? I promise you.

• 17:39Speaker 02

  Having an American or Christian friend was, I guess, like, sure, whatever. But like, having a Jewish friend, man, I'm like, what am I doing? You know? So then I remember the promise again. I give it to my mom. I was like, God, I don't know if I could do this. So that night I barely slept. And then the morning I called her. I was like, you know what? I'm gonna, I'm just gonna call her and say, I'm gonna go. So I called her. I was like, listen, I'm gonna come, but listen, I don't eat pork. I don't drink alcohol. They said, good, we don't eat pork either. I was like, oh, interesting. So.

• 18:17Mike Rowe?

  Did she say, hey, man, you hung up on me? What was that all about?

• 18:20Speaker 02

  No, she was, she was the kindest person, man. She was so nice. She knew that I just, I mean, my body, my mind was poisoned. So she was just taking her time. Before I went to her house, I called one of my friend that lives in America. I was like, listen, I'm gonna go to my friend's house. And he was like, so then why are you calling me? He's like, well, she's Jewish. He's like, you crazy? What are you doing? They eat babies, they drink blood, they're gonna convert you, you crazy.

• 18:48Mike Rowe?

  Now, this isn't just like hyperbole, that like he, did your friend genuinely believe?

• 18:54Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah, of course.

• 18:55Mike Rowe?

  I don't think you can just gloss over it. A lot of people listening are like, yeah, I mean, people, you know, propaganda and so forth.

• 19:02Speaker 02

  Oh, no, no.

• 19:03Mike Rowe?

  You genuinely believe the Jewish people are eating babies.

• 19:07Speaker 02

  And drinking.

• 19:07Mike Rowe?

  And drinking blood.

• 19:08Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's what he said. So I was like, listen, I, my mom is one of the most important things to me. And I gave her a promise and I cannot break that promise. I gotta go. I asked him like, I want you to do one thing for me. And he said, what is it? If you don't hear from me for the next two hours, call the police. This is the address I'm going to. So I gave him my friend, her address. And I was like, if you don't hear from me for the next two hours, you gotta call the police.

• 19:40Mike Rowe?

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• 21:06Mike Rowe?

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• 21:18Speaker 02

  Anyway, so I took her over, went to her house. Before I got into her house, she kissed her hand and just slapped the door. I'm like, "What are you doing?" I said, "Oh, that's a muzza. That's like the prayer that when we walk in the room that we kiss." And I was like, "Oh, that's interesting." So when I walked into her house, her mom greeted me with Turkish delight. And I was just very like, this is very interesting. I was like, are they trying to brainwash me? Why are they being so kind?

• 21:47Mike Rowe?

  And what exactly is Turkish delight?

• 21:49Speaker 02

  Turkish delight is like the most, I think like after Turkish baklava, I don't want Greek people who's watching this to get mad.

• 21:55Mike Rowe?

  Oh, we don't let the Greeks listen, you're fine.

• 21:57Speaker 02

  After Turkish baklava, Turkish delight is actually one of the most like famous thing that the Turks, Turks put it out there. Anyway, so and then we sit down on a Shabbat table. The first, they were just praying. They put their hand over their face and they prayed and stuff and they light some candle and stuff. They were explaining everything to me step by step. And then it was time for the, to pour the wine or pour the grape juice. And I'm like, there's, it's something red. I'm thinking about like, is this the blood that my friend is talking about?

• 22:31Mike Rowe?

  It's the blood. It's the blood.

• 22:33Speaker 02

  Or is it actually like, they said, so he gave it to me. At the show, she gave me the little glass. And I was like, I'm not drinking this, sorry. She said, well, it's a grape juice. You want me to try? I was like, you can go ahead and try. I'm not gonna try anything. So that night, I remember I had one of the most amazing dinner I've ever had in my life. The food was very similar, Middle Eastern food. Some of the culture was very similar, the washing hands and all that stuff. And her mom said, before I was about to leave, she said, don't fear for Shabbat, just come anytime. This is your family. When I got in the car, I got so emotional because there are millions of kids in the Middle East growing up anti-Semitic, anti-West, anti-American, anti-Christian, just because of those hate

• 23:17Speaker 02

  speeches. I was like, that day, that night, I promised to myself, whatever happens in life, I'm gonna do whatever I can to inspire those millions of kids in Middle East, growing up without knowing anything, without knowing the other side. Yeah, that just, that was

• 23:35Mike Rowe?

  So that was a big dinner?

• 23:37Speaker 02

  A huge dinner.

• 23:38Mike Rowe?

  Are you still in touch?

• 23:39Speaker 02

  Yes, I'm actually still in touch with her. She still helps me with a lot of things. I mean, I usually like give names and stuff, but like whenever I give names, they usually get attacked by Turkish trolls. So I keep anyone, everyone's name secret.

• 23:56Mike Rowe?

  How much of that is in the book?

• 23:58Speaker 02

  It is in the book, without giving any names. Like if you look at like the first couple pages, I usually use code names. So the people won't, the Turkish government or whoever won't go after them or after their families.

• 24:10Mike Rowe?

  And this dinner, how old again were you when you had this dinner?

• 24:13Speaker 02

  My God, like eighteen, nineteen, something like that, yeah.

• 24:15Mike Rowe?

  So that's a big moment. Then very quickly, your NBA career unfolds and everything's coming up roses. And you're just, you're in the land of opportunity and liberty. And you're the center for, what was it, Utah first?

• 24:29Speaker 02

  Utah first.

• 24:32Mike Rowe?

  And then the Celtics?

• 24:33Speaker 02

  And then the Celtics, the Knicks, um, OKC, Portland. So I literally got a taste of like the whole America, every part of America. But the beautiful thing was, you know, I went to the University of Kentucky. Coach Cal, I think one of the best, you know, college coach out there. I had an amazing time. Around that time, I was trying to learn English. And I couldn't literally learn any English for a year straight because I had no idea what people in Kentucky was saying because the accent was just so thick, man. I had an English translator for whatever, I understand nothing.

• 25:09Mike Rowe?

  I find that super interesting. Is there a corollary in Turkey where in part of the country, you can be completely fluent in the language? Is it Arabic, Farsi?

• 25:21Speaker 02

  It's Turkish, it's Turkish. But like you said, it's like America, like part of Turkey is like, you talk with like a thicker accent. And like people from Istanbul or Ankara wouldn't understand what you're saying because your accent is thick and you use some like very different words and stuff. And also like where I grew up, there were a lot of Kurdish people. So some of them mixed with Kurdish with Turkish. So um, I'm also like part Kurdish and Turkish.

• 25:48Mike Rowe?

  How many languages do you speak?

• 25:50Speaker 02

  I only speak two. It's actually very funny. So I learned English. I'm gonna give the crazy story. So when I went to college, I went to my, one of my teammates, I'm like, listen, man, like I want to learn like the English that like, like you guys speak. Is there like a show out there or like a TV series or a movie that you can give me that I can watch it and learn English? He said, yeah, of course. I was like, what is it? They said Jersey Shore. So it's crazy. I started watching Jersey Shore, right? I'm like, if this is America's about, Americans are doomed. This is crazy.

• 26:27Mike Rowe?

  You should have watched Dirty Jobs. You should have learned to talk real pretty on that one.

• 26:30Speaker 02

  No, it was very hard for me to like adjust American culture because like the one day I woke up, before the practice, you usually eat something like a cereal, whatever. So I pour a cereal brand and I mix it with the milk and I start eating it. And all my teammates were started to like go crazy and laugh at me. I'm like, what are you guys doing? Like, why are you guys laughing at me? They said, this is not cereal, this is Cheez-It. You know, they said, this is not a cereal. I didn't know what cheese it was. I was like, this is the first time, I guess Americans likes their cereal salty. Anyway.

• 27:05Mike Rowe?

  You had a bowl of Cheez-Its before the game. That's great.

• 27:10Speaker 02

  But yeah, then after that, I got drafted by Utah Jazz. I was very lucky because Mormons, very peaceful and kind people. They knocked my door so many times. We had so many beautiful conversations. But the reason I was very lucky because there's not much things going on in Utah. Everything was shutting down at like eight, nine PM.

• 27:28Mike Rowe?

  Not a big drink in town.

• 27:30Speaker 02

  Definitely not. So I was focusing on basketball. It was perfect for me.

• 27:35Mike Rowe?

  So just to kind of cut to the chase, because I know we did talk about a lot of this before, but I just want people to understand as best they can. Did it all go bad overnight? Or did you? When did you first take a stand that created the series of events that ultimately led to your banishment?

• 27:57Speaker 02

  So two thousand thirteen in December, there was a huge corruption scandal happened in Turkey. President Erdogan and his family was involved in it. And after that corruption scandal, after President Erdogan got, you know, got caught, well, he was a prime minister back then. Uh, he started to put innocent people in jail. He started to shut down media outlets. He started to put, you know, prosecutors in jail. And I'm like, I don't care who you are, but if you are fighting against free media, I'm gonna say something. So I literally put a tweet out there. Because of NBA platform, it became a huge conversation in United States and Turkey.

• 28:31Mike Rowe?

  You're at the Celtics at this point?

• 28:33Speaker 02

  Uh, I was with Utah, actually, yeah. So that really bothered the Turkish government. Um, they said, they sent a lot of like signals and said like, he better stop talking about the issues. You know, first, my dad was scientist, they fired him. My sister, she went to medical school for six years and she still cannot find a job. And I think the saddest one was my little brother because he wanted to be like his big brother, play basketball in NBA. But because of the same last name, he was getting kicked out of every team. So my family was getting affected so much, they had to put a statement out there and said, we are disowning NS.

• 29:10Mike Rowe?

  Oh.

• 29:11Speaker 02

  So the letter actually still out there on the internet. I remember going to a practice that day, it was definitely one of the toughest day in my life. And then Turkish government didn't believe that letter. They sent.

• 29:22Mike Rowe?

  Did you?

• 29:22Speaker 02

  Um, I don't have any communication with my family. So I never really had a conversation to ask. But the Turkish government didn't believe that. They sent police to my house in Turkey and they raided the whole house and they took every electronics away. Phones, computers, laptops, iPads, because they wanted to see if I am still in contact with my family or not. They couldn't find no evidence because I wasn't, but they still took my dad in jail for a while. Um, if you're someone who's not high profile, they will torture you in jails. But if you're someone who was high profile, they will give you chemicals to mess up with your brain. So when my dad got out, I asked my brother, like, how is he doing?

• 30:05Speaker 02

  He said, he watches the walls all day and when we ask him what happened in there, he never talks about it. And then after that, things got worse, you know, you know, they revoke my passport. They tried to kidnap me from, you know, Romania, they arrested me in Romania.

• 30:19Mike Rowe?

  Wait, and is this, is this all because of a tweet?

• 30:23Speaker 02

  Yep. Well, I mean, after the tweet, I started to like talk about more and more issues. Because like, it's my country. And the thing is, I'm not talking about politics. This is human rights. I was talking about the human rights violations of political prisoners. So I don't care which party you are in Turkey, you have to support what I have to say because this is not politics at all. This is pure human rights. And then after that, you know, they revoke my passport, they put my name on Interpol list. I am now only allowed to go to twenty nine countries in the world. If I go any other country, then

• 31:01Mike Rowe?

  Immediate extradition.

• 31:02Speaker 02

  Exactly.

• 31:03Mike Rowe?

  Right. They have to, because of whatever treaty they signed with Interpol, they have to send you back to Turkey.

• 31:09Speaker 02

  Even they said this, which was just, just blew my mind. So I was going to Jerusalem to organize a basketball camp between Israelis and Palestinians. So if you go from America directly to Jerusalem, the plane goes over Turkey and it's their airspace. When I had a conversation with some of the ambassadors here, they said, listen, this is dangerous because usually like the Belarus government, what they did was they call up the plane and say, there's a bomb in the plane. They bring the plane down, they do like a little fake search and they said, we can't find anything. But they arrested guy and they said, okay, keep going.

• 31:48Speaker 02

  So when we had a conversation with the airline company, they literally went around Turkey. So I could just, I could just be safe, which I want to give a huge shout out to all the ambassadors to make this happen. And then just, you know, recently I had a conversation, I went to visit Pope back in two thousand twenty two. I went to his audience, listen to his speech, beautiful speech. And then literally the next day, they put a bounty on my head.

• 32:19Mike Rowe?

  The Turkish government.

• 32:19Speaker 02

  The Turkish government put a bounty on my head. And I had a conversation with the FBI, literally the next day, they said, listen, this will trigger a lot of bad people. We cannot protect you outside of America. You have to get back to America immediately. So I took a next flight, came to America. And now everywhere I go, I have to let someone know that where I am. Even when I was playing for Portland Trailblazers, the FBI came to my apartment. To check in. Yeah, exactly. Constantly. And they said apartment not safe, you have to move to a hotel. So I moved to a hotel room. When I was in a road game, they came to my room and they set up this thing called panic button. They said whenever you feel uncomfortable, push that button and we'll be there in two, three minutes.

• 33:03Speaker 02

  So what's the NBA doing in the midst of all this? So actually, like when the conversation obviously was not China, but was about Turkey, they respected me so much. You know, Adam Silver many times came out and said, you know, we support our player. His commissioner? The commissioner of the NBA. They said like, you know, the whole NBA, not only the commissioner, but like my coaches, my teammates, um, the front office. They said, listen, you know, keep doing what you're doing, you believe in, uh, you standing for what you believe in. And, um, you know, we're praying for you. Adam Silver actually had many times came out and said, we support our player and his interviews are out there on the internet.

• 33:44Speaker 02

  You know, that meant a lot to me because, you know, when basketball was my escape. I mean, I have not seen my family over 11 years. So every time I step on the court, it was just all about me and my teammates, just having fun. They were just like my brothers. Literally NBA became my family. Yeah. Until? Until, until I started to talk about China. Tibet? Um, the every issue actually, not only Tibet. It's actually, it started very, very funny because I was doing a basketball camp, uh, with Hakeem Jeffries in his district. After the basketball camp, all the kids just lined up one by one. And we were just taking pictures and getting autographs.

• 34:28Speaker 02

  I remember there was this one parent. I was taking a picture with his, with his kid. He literally called me out in front of everybody. And he said, how can you call yourself a human rights activist? When your Muslim brothers and sisters are getting torture and rape every day in concentration camp in China. Uyghurs. It's the Uyghurs. So I was just, whoa, right? And I'm still smiling for the camera for his kid. I was like, I promise I'm gonna get back to you. So that day, I canceled everything. I went back to my hotel. I'm like, I started the research. Uyghurs, Tibetans, Hong Kongers, Taiwanese people, Mongolians, Falun Gangs, right?

• 35:13Speaker 02

  My plate was full for the last 10 years because of I've been trying to get my family out of there. But then I'm like, listen, if I call myself an activist, I don't care what it takes. I'm not only gonna talk about on behalf of Turkish people. I'm just gonna go out there despite their religion, culture, whoever they are. I'm just gonna be the voice of voices, people. And then.

• 35:34Mike Rowe?

  You just decided, you just decided I've got this career and I've got a platform, I suppose, right?

• 35:41Speaker 02

  Exactly.

• 35:41Mike Rowe?

  I mean, you saw what a tweet could do.

• 35:43Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 35:43Mike Rowe?

  What if you really lean into it?

• 35:49Mike Rowe?

  Couple of weeks ago, on this very podcast, I talked with Brooke Rollins, our Secretary of Agriculture, about the incredibly complicated business of delivering affordable beef to our citizens without disadvantaging American ranchers. We also discussed the very controversial decision to import 300,000 metric tons of ground beef from various foreign countries and the maddening policy that allows meatpackers to label imported meat as a product of the USA. Well, shortly after that conversation, one of my sponsors, Good Ranchers, reported an unusually high level of interest in their product. And this is not surprising.

• 36:30Mike Rowe?

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• 36:44Mike Rowe?

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• 37:24Speaker 03

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• 37:32Mike Rowe?

  Hey, ho!

• 37:35Speaker 02

  So, actually, this time I decided to not put a tweet out there. What I care about was, I was like, I want to inspire the next generation. So Celtics fans are gonna get mad, but so I grew up as a Lakers fan. Obviously Kobe Bryant and Shaq and the championship, whatever teams. So like, when I was waking up at like 3, 4 a.m. in Turkey and watching the Lakers, and the first thing I was watching was the shoes. Obviously, every kid in the world just loves shoes, right? So I came up with this idea. I was like, I'm going to reach out to all these artists around the world who's been oppressed by their governments, and I'm going to ask them to put all the struggles on a shoe,

• 38:17Speaker 02

  and I'm gonna go out there and play basketball. So I looked at the rulebook.

• 38:22Mike Rowe?

  You turn your feet into a billboard.

• 38:24Speaker 02

  Exactly. I looked at the rulebook. There is no rule against it because back in 2020 during COVID, NBA put us in a bubble. And in that bubble, everybody was putting on their shoes, Breonna Taylor, Black Lives Matter, George Floyd, I Can't Breathe. So I'm like, there is no rule against it. If they are allowed to put I Can't Breathe on their shoes, I should be allowed to put Free Douygues, Free Tibet, or whatever. So I was playing for the Celtics. You're gonna love this. I was playing for the Celtics, and our first game was the season opener for the Knicks.

• 39:00Speaker 02

  It was at Madison Square Garden. Literally, every celebrity you can think of was at that game. I'm talking about Spike Lee, Ben Stiller, Tracy Morgan.

• 39:09Mike Rowe?

  All the cats.

• 39:10Speaker 02

  Everybody. So I put the shoes on. My first shoes was the Free Tibet. I went out there, started to warm up. Literally, the game hasn't started yet. One minute before the game, there was two gentlemen from the NBA. They were walking for the Celtics. They came up to me and said, "Take your shoes off." I'm like, "Excuse me?" They said, "Your shoes has been getting so much attention internationally. The game haven't started yet. You gotta take them off."

• 39:41Speaker 02

  It was the perfect moment for me because I was just getting ready for my citizenship test. So I was like, I closed my eyes. I was like, "Okay, we have 27 amendments. My first amendment, freedom of speech." I turned around, I'm like, "No, I'm not taking them off."

• 39:57Speaker 02

  I was like, "I don't even care if I get fined." They said, "Buddy, we're not talking about getting fined. We're talking about getting banned." They were literally threatening me to get banned from the NBA because of the shoes that I was wearing.

• 40:08Mike Rowe?

  What a long way you came from the kid who hung up on the nice Jewish girl who invited him over for dinner. I mean, that's amazing, but okay. So that's a moment. Like, and a lot of these moments, and for me anyway, you know, not that I've been in anything that extreme, but you don't know it till you look back and you realize, wow, that was the thing that was gonna change or alter the trajectory of my life.

• 40:35Mike Rowe?

  Did you understand in the moment how consequential that was?

• 40:40Speaker 02

  I understand later on. Because

• 40:45Speaker 02

  they were panicked. After the first half, I went back to the locker room, which I played zero minutes in the first half. There was thousands of notifications on my phone. I clicked on the one that my manager sent me. He said, "Every Celtics game is banned in China."

• 41:03Speaker 02

  It took them 24 minutes to ban every Celtics game on television.

• 41:07Mike Rowe?

  Before the game started, because they saw you practicing?

• 41:11Speaker 02

  They saw warming up.

• 41:14Speaker 02

  I was laying the ball out. I was not playing at all. The game, I mean, there are like little cameras. The game was televised like in, obviously nationally, it was on ESPN or something. So like before the game, obviously, they took like a little videos of the players and stuff. So the first game, it literally took them 24 minutes, the first quarter 12 minutes, second quarter 12 minutes, to ban every Celtics game on television.

• 41:38Speaker 02

  I was like, well, that clearly shows my point. The first half, I went back to, uh, back out there. I warm up a little more. And the second half, again, I play zero minutes. The game went to overtime. I played, which I played every game, every preseason game before that.

• 41:54Speaker 02

  We lost the game, obviously.

• 41:57Speaker 02

  Obviously. Anyway, so after the game, literally, I was getting like media requests from all over the world. I told my manager, cancel everything. I just didn't want my teammates to think I'm doing this for attention. After the game, the MBPA called me, which the player association, I paid thousands of dollars every month to protect my rights against NBA. They said, you cannot wear your shoes ever again. I even asked them, like, am I breaking the rules? They said, no, like, don't, you cannot wear them ever again. They pressured me so much. I was like, you know what? I promise you guys, I'm not going to wear free Tibet shoes ever again. They said, promise? I said, promise. I hang up the phone. So the second game. Oh, no. I wore free. You see where this is going, right?

• 42:38Speaker 02

  So the second, I didn't lie though. The second game, I wore free Uighur shoes. They called me after the game. They said, you liar, you lied to us. I was like, first of all, I didn't lie to you. I never said I'm not gonna wear free Uighur shoes. I just said, I'm just not gonna wear free Tibet shoes. The third game was like, was the end because we played against, third or fourth game, we played against Charlotte. And who owns Charlotte? Michael Jordan. I ordered his shoes, his most famous shoes called Concord. I put made with slave labor. Before the game, right? I'm gonna go out there and play with those. I saw Michael Jordan on the stands. And I was just like, this is it. Like, this cannot get any more fun and better than this.

• 43:19Speaker 02

  So I went out there with his shoes, play for Michael Jordan with his own shoes and put made with slave labor. After the game, all my teammates woke up to me and said, buddy, this is your last year. Have fun. You're not gonna be playing basketball ever again on an NBA court. So say goodbye to basketball. My agent called me and he said, listen, man, I work for you. I don't work for the NBA, but this is our last year. Just have fun. If you say, I mean, you already did enough damage to NBA and everyone else around you. But if you say another word, you're not gonna be playing basketball ever again. You're 29 years old. You can play another six years.

• 43:59Speaker 02

  You're not only throwing away six years, you're literally throwing away between 30 to 40 million dollars. I said, okay. I hang up the phone, never talked to him again. And February came, I played my last game. And after the game was against the Brooklyn Nets.

• 44:18Mike Rowe?

  Were you still wearing shoes at this point that are upsetting people?

• 44:21Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah, of course. I was like, if this is my last year, I'm just gonna go all out.

• 44:24Mike Rowe?

  You might as well just get yourself tattoos.

• 44:28Speaker 02

  I played against my last game against the Brooklyn Nets. And then after the game, the next day was the trade deadline. And after the game, everybody was giving me hugs and shaking my hand and pretty much like telling me goodbye. Cause they knew I was either gonna get released by the Celtics or they were gonna trade me to a team. And that team was gonna release me. 10 minutes before the trade deadline, I got traded to Houston Rockets, which is known by the China's team because of Yao Ming. And then Houston Rockets literally released me in three minutes. And three weeks after they released me, they put the games back on on the Chinese television.

• 45:10Mike Rowe?

  Did you ever get a sense of what kind of money was at stake? Chinese rights, broadcast, like, I mean, obviously the NBA made a financial decision, but to what degree?

• 45:22Speaker 02

  So more people watch NBA games in China than American population last year. So think about the shoe sales, the jersey sales, Tencent. Think about the all the TV deals.

• 45:36Mike Rowe?

  Tencent is the big company that's sort of like Facebook on steroids.

• 45:40Speaker 02

  Exactly. Every NBA player, I don't want to say everybody, but like most of the NBA player, whenever their season over, what do you do? You gotta relax, right? You go to a vacation with your family, you hang out, you just chill. Before even they go to their vacation, they go to China to organize a basketball camp. I even remember, I played in some teams, I don't want to call out some names right now, but like right after the All-Star break, so I'm talking about like March, the season was about to end like well, April, if you don't make the playoffs. They were planning their China trip. They said, well, I want to go here, I'm gonna go do this because I got a lot of business, I got a lot of money. And I'm just like, I'm just very shocked. I'm like, wow, this is crazy. Players literally planning their China trip before their family vacation.

• 46:26Mike Rowe?

  I'm still stuck on the fact that 400 million people.

• 46:30Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 46:30Mike Rowe?

  Watched the NBA in China.

• 46:33Speaker 02

  Maybe more now. And also like 40 NBA owners got tied up $10 billion with Chinese government.

• 46:41Mike Rowe?

  So that, this is what I'm trying to get to. It's not tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands or millions, it's many, many, many billions of dollars.

• 46:51Speaker 02

  Of course, yeah. And that's every year.

• 46:52Mike Rowe?

  It comes down to a frickin' pair of sneakers, dude. You put on a pair of shoes. You poked the bear in the eye. Actually, that's a bad, that's, that'd be Russia. What is, what is China? You poked the panda bear in the eye.

• 47:07Speaker 02

  Actually, it's very funny. You know the cartoon called the Winnie the Pooh?

• 47:11Mike Rowe?

  Sure.

• 47:12Speaker 02

  It's banned in China.

• 47:13Mike Rowe?

  Winnie the Pooh is banned in China?

• 47:15Speaker 02

  You know why?

• 47:16Mike Rowe?

  No.

• 47:16Speaker 02

  So Xi Jinping, the president of China, they were making fun of him because they said, well, he looks like the Winnie the Pooh. This dude banned literally the whole cartoon in the whole country. So they called him like Winnie the Pooh. It's very funny, but because my first interview, I wore a Winnie the Pooh T-shirt and no one really got what I was saying, what I was trying to meant, but it was very funny.

• 47:40Mike Rowe?

  Well, it's a, you know. Winnie the Pooh was Piglet, Eeyore.

• 47:46Speaker 02

  Tiger.

• 47:46Mike Rowe?

  And Tigger. Wonderful thing about Tigger. Tigger's a wonderful thing. The tops are made out of rubber. The bottoms are made out of spring. Bouncy, bouncy, bouncy, bouncy. Bundles of fun, fun, fun. The wonderful thing about Tiggers is I'm the only one.

• 48:01Mike Rowe?

  Yeah, I grew up with Winnie the Pooh. But I had not, I had not heard that. Fascinating. So just a quick little sidebar.

• 48:09Speaker 02

  There you go. It's right here. Come on, man.

• 48:13Mike Rowe?

  I could see it. I mean, if you could put the hat on.

• 48:15Speaker 02

  The eyes, the mouth, the nose.

• 48:19Mike Rowe?

  Just no sense of humor, though. I mean, really, you know, I mean, you ought to be able to laugh at that.

• 48:24Speaker 02

  Exactly, man. Come on. Like, you cannot just ban the whole cartoon because some people were saying he looks like him.

• 48:34Mike Rowe?

  I'm gonna get back to the NBA in a minute. Because it is a, I mean, look at here. I find it appalling, actually. I appreciate the sport and I have some friends who are season ticket holders. And some of them, you know, I had heated conversations with the last time I talked to you. And they listened to the podcast and were like, that was compelling. And then I said, and then you went back to your season tickets, didn't you? Well, yeah. We're still gonna watch. Very, very, very, very, very difficult to get people to change that kind of behavior on this level. But look, I wanted to talk to you in person about all of this because two things have happened since I talked to you last.

• 49:16Mike Rowe?

  The first is a guy sat right where you're sitting named Yanya Kelik, who writes for the Epoch Times. And he and I had a long conversation about organ harvesting.

• 49:28Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 49:29Mike Rowe?

  Which, I don't know how much you know about that.

• 49:31Speaker 02

  Some.

• 49:32Mike Rowe?

  But they're talking about an eight or a $10 billion market.

• 49:36Speaker 02

  We even made a shoe out of organ harvesting. Yep.

• 49:39Mike Rowe?

  Say that again.

• 49:40Speaker 02

  We even made a shoe that will expose all the organ harvesting.

• 49:43Mike Rowe?

  Oh, God, I thought you said you made a shoe out of organs that were harvested. I'm like, that's a, that's a, that's not a best selling shoe. That's a bridge too far, right there.

• 49:52Speaker 02

  No, no, no, I want to actually show you.

• 49:53Mike Rowe?

  You can't lace that up.

• 49:54Speaker 02

  I want to show you actually, the shoe is actually a pretty crazy.

• 49:59Speaker 02

  Let me see if I can pull this up.

• 50:05Mike Rowe?

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• 50:47Mike Rowe?

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• 51:31Mike Rowe?

  This is... And you mentioned him in passing, but the full on gong.

• 51:34Speaker 02

  Full on gong, yeah.

• 51:35Mike Rowe?

  Right?

• 51:36Speaker 02

  There you go. This is right here. If you look at the organ harvesting shoes. So I really wanted to expose the whole thing.

• 51:43Mike Rowe?

  Oh, man, that's fantastic.

• 51:44Speaker 02

  Yeah, so like, I literally wore this in an NBA game. Yeah.

• 51:51Mike Rowe?

  Oh, man, there's no way I'm gonna be able to show this to the camera. I found it on Instagram. I'm putting it up over here. There it is.

• 51:59Speaker 02

  I told you I was gonna go all out there, right?

• 52:01Mike Rowe?

  Dude, you are a jagged little pill.

• 52:03Speaker 02

  So I was like, let's just expose the-

• 52:05Mike Rowe?

  Except without the little part.

• 52:06Speaker 02

  Yeah, I was like, let's just expose the whole system, man.

• 52:09Mike Rowe?

  What size shoe is that?

• 52:10Speaker 02

  Oh, these are like 17s.

• 52:11Mike Rowe?

  What are you wearing? You wear a 17?

• 52:13Speaker 02

  17. And the crazy thing is, these are not even basketball shoes.

• 52:16Mike Rowe?

  It's his shoe, Mike. Well, I'm just saying that if it reminds you, there'd be room for stop org.

• 52:23Mike Rowe?

  He's got room. Like, it really is a billboard. You're like a NASCAR driver.

• 52:28Speaker 02

  So these are not even basketball shoes. These are like, you know, Converse, like some type of like, these are like walking shoes out there. And I was like so afraid that I'm gonna wear those shoes and roll my ankle in them. So these are not like, not like true basketball shoes. Like, you walk with those shoes out there.

• 52:42Mike Rowe?

  I'd wear those.

• 52:43Speaker 02

  Yeah, so this is-

• 52:45Mike Rowe?

  Can I get a pair of those?

• 52:46Speaker 02

  Of course, yeah.

• 52:47Mike Rowe?

  Like, where do I go? Where do I order a pair of those?

• 52:49Speaker 02

  So we have to, we have to make one, but-

• 52:51Mike Rowe?

  Custom?

• 52:51Speaker 02

  Yeah, well, I'll-

• 52:52Mike Rowe?

  I'm gonna need two, actually. Otherwise, I'm living around with my right foot with an important message and a hush puppy on my other one.

• 52:58Speaker 02

  The other one was about, if you can pull it up, the other one was about the surveillance cameras.

• 53:03Mike Rowe?

  Oh.

• 53:03Speaker 02

  Uh, it was about to have Chinese government use surveillance cameras to just track people.

• 53:09Mike Rowe?

  Well, that, that's important to me, too. But it's also interesting that it was a camera and a shoe combined that really brought you to where you are.

• 53:19Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 53:19Mike Rowe?

  It's attention being paid and people reacting as they react. You, you just forced people to, you put them in a really inconvenient spot. There's billions and billions of dollars. And I'll just say it, man. I mean, did, how else can you spin this? The NBA made a financial decision that had absolutely nothing to do with principle.

• 53:46Speaker 02

  I was having this like hearing in DC and I, like, all these congressmen and people are asking me like a lot of like tough questions. Both sides, Democrats and Republicans. Like, I asked them, like, at the end of our hearing, I asked them one simple question. I was like, listen, how can a dictatorship can control a hundred percent American-made organization like NBA and fire a US citizen?

• 54:12Speaker 02

  They all looked at each other and they said, we have no answer.

• 54:15Mike Rowe?

  And then they looked at their shoes, because that's what people do.

• 54:18Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 54:19Mike Rowe?

  But they don't know where else to look.

• 54:22Speaker 02

  I mean, listen, till this day, I don't talk about politics. I can proudly say that, like, listen, if you, human rights is above politics. I don't care which side you vote for, whoever party you cheer for, or whoever congressman or senator you you support. Like, you have to care about human rights, you know? And I'm I'm so happy that my message never changed. No one can spin my message and say, well, he's doing this because of that. I really care about people, man, because I think that the one thing that our world is missing is empathy. While we are comfortably living in this country and playing basketball, making millions and eating the most delicious food and sleeping in the most warmest bed, on the other side of the world, people are losing their loved ones, losing their lives and losing their homes.

• 55:08Speaker 02

  So for that's why, I mean, I would just wish that more athletes, because they play a very important role in our society. I wish they just more athletes stand up for what they believe in.

• 55:18Mike Rowe?

  Well, in their defense, Ennis, it's only the hardest thing in the world. It's only the hardest thing in the world. And the fact that, I mean, I know it must have been difficult for you, but I just, I don't know how else to say it. It's just overwhelming for people to do that. But I mean, look, it's one thing to say a thing. It's another thing to say it and then say, I mean it. In fact, I'll raise my hand and take an oath. In fact, I'll make a pledge.

• 55:47Speaker 02

  Right.

• 55:48Mike Rowe?

  To God and my family. But then you really turn the screws. And then you start to see where the courage of the convictions is. And what did you sacrifice? A career? Check. Millions of dollars personally? Check. Your family?

• 56:04Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 56:04Mike Rowe?

  Check. Your friends? Check.

• 56:07Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 56:08Mike Rowe?

  So what else can they take?

• 56:11Speaker 02

  The thing is. Say someone like LeBron, someone like Kevin Durant, someone like Stephen Curry, or all these athletes who's been, you know, signed with Nike or whoever, right? If they say, like, stop the slave labor, right, to Nike or whoever, they will stop it. If all these, like, players gets together and actually, like, started to, like, become a movement. Like, my voice is only one, right? But think about if Kevin Durant, Stephen Curry, or LeBron James, or, like, these people started to join. I don't wanna say I wanna educate them, because they already know the conversations that are happening. They already know that there should be made by slave kids back in China.

• 56:56Speaker 02

  It all matters to, like, if they're gonna stand for what they believe in. And, you know, many of them came out and said, you know, we are more than athletes. But then, you pick and choose.

• 57:08Mike Rowe?

  Do you have security?

• 57:10Speaker 02

  Um, I do. In, in America, I mean, I am in touch with FBI, but when you, when I go outside of America.

• 57:16Mike Rowe?

  No, I mean, like, you showed up here by yourself. Would you drive yourself here?

• 57:19Speaker 02

  Oh, no, downstairs, I have people.

• 57:21Mike Rowe?

  You have somebody downstairs, okay.

• 57:22Speaker 02

  I have people downstairs, yeah.

• 57:23Mike Rowe?

  Look, man, I'm trying to do two things now, just as a human being who's been walking around for sixty-some years. I'm trying to put myself in your place, and I'm trying to put myself in LeBron James's place. And I'm trying to put myself in Stephen Curry's place. And what you just, you literally just called them out, right here. You literally are just saying, if you could take half a dozen of the creme de la creme NBA players and come together, like, sit down right here, cameras anywhere, and just say, "We're sitting here, united, with one goal, to make this stop." "And we're not gonna play until you stop it."

• 58:08Mike Rowe?

  I mean, you put it out there, I'm articulating it, and I'm just really wondering at what point do one of those, like, what would it take? If you could pick one of them to stand right next to you and say everything that you've just said, who would it be?

• 58:24Speaker 02

  I think like the, like, someone like LeBron, right? I mean, he is the face of the league. And he was the one person that during like 2020, when all the protests were happening. I mean, like, he was the, like, I guess, like, the biggest name in sports that came out and said, okay, this is wrong. This is right. This is that. This is this, right? So every player, pretty much like in the NBA, look, like, looks up to him. And, um, like, he just signed a $1 billion contract with Nike. It's a lifetime contract, by the way. So like, what else do you want? You know what I mean? You are LeBron James. Like, what else do you want?

• 59:05Speaker 02

  And you have a chance to become like, maybe, I'm not saying that's because Muhammad Ali, but like, you know?

• 59:11Mike Rowe?

  Bigger.

• 59:12Speaker 02

  Maybe.

• 59:14Mike Rowe?

  Think, think it just, yeah.

• 59:16Speaker 02

  With the media now, with the social media and everything, like, you could get bigger, but now, like, half of the country thinks you are a hypocrite because you are standing in things that are happening in America because you know that is not going to affect your pocket.

• 59:30Mike Rowe?

  But Enes, he's not looking at half the country, not that half. He's looking at the half that show up at every game, no matter what, who applaud. He's looking at what he wants to see.

• 59:41Speaker 02

  Right.

• 59:41Mike Rowe?

  Right? It's like, there's the elephant, I'm gonna focus on the tusk, never mind all the rest of it. So, but I get your point.

• 59:49Speaker 02

  Yeah, so, ob- obviously, he's not the only name. I'm just calling him out because, I mean, he is the face of the league still at the age of like 40, 41. So I, I just hope that like, like, I'm just saying, like, put yourself in their shoes, put your kids in their shoes. If your mother, if your sister, if your daughter was on those concentration camps, get in torture every day, would you still pick money and business over your morals, values, and principles? Empathy, man, empathy, you know?

• 1:00:18Mike Rowe?

  Yeah, well. Empathy follows awareness.

• 1:00:22Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:00:23Mike Rowe?

  Typically, not always, but you know, the ostrich syndrome is the thing, you know?

• 1:00:29Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:00:31Mike Rowe?

  Once you, God, there's a, I forget who I was talking to this about, but the most compelling anti-war movie I've ever seen is called Come and See.

• 1:00:42Speaker 02

  Okay, didn't watch it.

• 1:00:45Mike Rowe?

  I almost can't recommend it because it'll stick with you in a way that you probably don't, but then again, here I am mentioning it, it just, the point is, I just took a tour of Dachau. I was in Germany and I felt I didn't really want to see it.

• 1:01:02Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:01:03Mike Rowe?

  If I'm being honest. It didn't feel like a great way to spend a cloudy day.

• 1:01:07Speaker 02

  Right. I don't blame you.

• 1:01:09Mike Rowe?

  But I'm so glad I did. It's like I didn't learn anything new, but everything I thought I knew I saw. And when you're standing on a place, reading a plaque that's explaining specifically what happened on the place where you're standing, okay, it's just another level. LeBron James didn't hang up on a nice Jewish girl 25 years ago who invited him to a dinner. He didn't have a mother who said, right? Wait to hate him till you meet him.

• 1:01:44Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:01:44Mike Rowe?

  He didn't have your past, you didn't have his and so forth and so on, but I just find it so extraordinary to like, all these guys are just living their lives and then this kid comes over from Turkey and puts on a pair of inconvenient shoes and now they're being called out. And look, I told you there were two things. The first thing, since I talked to you last, was the organ harvesting thing. The other thing was October 7th.

• 1:02:15Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:02:16Mike Rowe?

  In fact, I think you and I probably talked right before that.

• 1:02:19Speaker 02

  We did, yeah, pretty much, yeah.

• 1:02:21Mike Rowe?

  So, I mean, given all of this, and I know you don't get political, but... You kind of opened the door. Where are you with what's going on over there now?

• 1:02:29Speaker 02

  So here's what I look at it.

• 1:02:33Speaker 02

  I have so many Jewish friends. I have so many Muslim friends. And obviously, after October 7th, both sides reached out and and we had a lot of like conversations together. This is what I focus on. The innocent people. Obviously, as a Muslim, of course, I support my Palestinian brothers and sisters. But at the same time, there are thousands of innocent people, kids, whatever, civilians, mothers, fathers are being killed on the Israeli side as well, you know? And when I say this, people go crazy. It's like, no, no, no, you have to pick a side. Like, but I don't get into politics. People behind a table are the one that given the orders. But the innocent people on the streets are the one that get gets hurt. So what happened in October 7th was one of the most disgusting things that that happened.

• 1:03:17Speaker 02

  And after that, I started to research. But this is what I found out, actually. So our prophet, our prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, had war rules. Like, when we go to war, he said, we have rules. And I looked at the rules, right? He said, when we go to war, we are not allowed to kill babies. We're not allowed to kill women. We are not allowed to kill elderly. We're not even allowed to kill animals or cut down trees. We're not, if someone is running, you cannot go after him and kill him. We're not allowed to knock down the holy areas, like mosques or or synagogues or temples or church.

• 1:03:59Speaker 02

  We're not allowed to kill a priest or a rabbi. So if any group or if anyone goes against what our prophet said, he does not represent true Islam. So what Hamas did that day does not represent true Islam. I just wanted to get it out there. And you know what? And all the rules and everything out there is actually on the internet. So you can actually go and look at it.

• 1:04:25Mike Rowe?

  There's some rules on the other side too, right? The Ten Commandments. Everybody's got a playbook. Even the NBA. There's a playbook for you.

• 1:04:34Speaker 02

  That's why I'm like, yeah, exactly. So that's why I'm like, I try to focus on the kids and the innocent people. Like when I, we just talked about it. When I went to Jerusalem, when I brought the Israeli side, Israeli kids and Palestinian kids together, right? I remember like the first day, the Palestinians were standing in one half court and Israel was on another court. Forget about passing a ball to each other. They were not even like shaking or they were not even looking at each other. And I like started to put them in the same team. They were not passing the balls, whatever. And then after a while, because those are just kids. After a while, you know, they started to like talk, have conversations. And I remember like when I put myself in

• 1:05:16Speaker 02

  in the same team with a Jewish kid and a Palestinian girl. I got a rebound, I passed the ball to this Jewish kid. He crossed someone over, he passed the ball to this Palestinian girl and she scored a ball. While she was coming back, they high five each other. I'm like, this is the most beautiful thing I've ever seen in my life. Like this is what we need, you know? And then after two weeks, you're like, you started to like, they started to hug each other. They started to exchange numbers. They started to like follow each other on Instagram. I'm like, this is what we need the most in life, man. Because everybody has their right and wrong. You ask the Palestinian side, they have rights. And you ask the Israeli side, they have rights, whatever. But like as an activist and as a Muslim activist, of course I care about my Palestinian brothers and sisters.

• 1:06:01Speaker 02

  And what's happened over there is terrible as well. But at the same time, man, I have to care about those innocent people on Israeli side too.

• 1:06:12Mike Rowe?

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• 1:06:56Mike Rowe?

  They also reinforce the heel and the toe with double plated nylon to stand up to the wear those boots put on your socks. Remember, it's not the feet that wear out your socks, it's your boots. And they back their socks with a 10-year durability guarantee. If you get a hole or a tear in the first decade, they'll replace them for free. If you're a hardworking guy dealing with sweaty, uncomfortable feet, I'm telling you, these are worth trying. I wear mine every day and I'm glad to have the company on the podcast. CamelCityMill.com. Use code ROW, get 10% off my favorite work socks. CamelCityMill.com, code ROW. It's really the most beautiful thing about sport.

• 1:07:39Mike Rowe?

  The idea that when people who don't agree on much come together to high five a great no look pass. I mean, it's like, that's a great thing. It's a small thing, right? It's a high five.

• 1:07:53Speaker 02

  That's it, that's all I needed, man.

• 1:07:55Mike Rowe?

  But a shoe is a small thing, too. Maybe they're no small things. As I say to a seven foot. How tall are you exactly?

• 1:08:04Speaker 02

  With shoes on, I'm like, I'm close to seven foot. I say seven foot is easier to say.

• 1:08:09Mike Rowe?

  Who do you admire? Who do you admire in the wide world of sports more than anyone and why?

• 1:08:16Speaker 02

  I would pick, I think, Muhammad Ali because what he did not only on the ring but off the ring was just.

• 1:08:21Mike Rowe?

  You realize how despised he was?

• 1:08:23Speaker 02

  Yeah, at one point, yeah.

• 1:08:24Mike Rowe?

  69, 70, 71.

• 1:08:27Speaker 02

  And then he became a legend after that. You ask anyone now that what he did on and off the ring was just unbelievable.

• 1:08:36Mike Rowe?

  How do you sum up that? Was it sacrifice? Was it standing for a thing? Was it being unpopular, willing to be hated?

• 1:08:45Speaker 02

  I think the sacrifice, not only talking about the money or I'm not only talking about like career wise because.

• 1:08:54Speaker 02

  Everybody can go out there and speak up things that are most matter to themselves. But once the money or the family or the career got involved, many people says like, okay, you know, that's where I just draw the line and say enough. But I respect people who goes beyond and actually make some sacrifices for what they believe in. Uh, that's where I start respect people. Um, it's all about hypocrisy, you know? I'll give you the best example. Colin Kaepernick was my really good friend. When I was having all this, you know, fights against, you know, the Turkish government,

• 1:09:38Speaker 02

  me and him sit down and had a lot of conversations about like, what can I do to fight harder?

• 1:09:43Mike Rowe?

  Did you know each other prior to that? Or did he reach out?

• 1:09:46Speaker 02

  No, we were messaging on, he followed me on Twitter. I followed him back and we're just messaging and finally we met in New York.

• 1:09:53Speaker 02

  He was giving a lot of ideas about how I should fight and bring even more awareness. The day I started to criticize Nike, I never heard from him ever again. So that shattered my heart because this guy used to send his, like, once a month, he would, he used to send me gifts. His, I, I, I still have his jerseys. I still have his jerseys in, uh, in my house. You, you can pull it up too. I mean, it's on Google, like if you put NSK or Colin Kaepernick, our picture will come up. But, uh,

• 1:10:30Speaker 02

  I just thought that, you know, he will, you know, stand with me. And I'm like, well, I finally have a friend that who made pretty much like a similar sacrifice. And the day I started to criticize Nike, I never heard from him ever again. I tried to text him a couple of times. I, you know, sent him a message on social media, but that was it.

• 1:10:52Mike Rowe?

  This is sort of interesting. I'm going to send you a, a link to a story I wrote that was actually inspired by him. And it's called Something to Stand For. In fact, it was turned into a movie. And, uh, I was struck.

• 1:11:08Mike Rowe?

  God, when was it? When did all the kneeling start?

• 1:11:11Speaker 02

  Two thousand, I guess, like, I'm trying to think, actually. Nineteen, twenty, maybe a little, maybe like seventeen, eighteen, maybe even?

• 1:11:20Mike Rowe?

  I think so.

• 1:11:20Speaker 02

  Yeah?

• 1:11:21Mike Rowe?

  I think so. Because I was so torn. I like to give everybody the benefit of the doubt, but it was such a strange thing to see, never mind Colin, but a stadium full of people so confused over whether to stand and sing or kneel and pray and just all, everybody doing different things in an attempt to somehow express themselves, which is really not so different than writing some words on a shoe.

• 1:11:50Speaker 02

  Right, right.

• 1:11:50Mike Rowe?

  Right?

• 1:11:50Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:11:51Mike Rowe?

  This is the human condition.

• 1:11:52Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:11:53Mike Rowe?

  We feel something and we want to share it. We want the camera at us so more people can see it and whatever. But I think that it's the great struggle of our time. What will you stand for? And why will you do it? And when the going gets tough, will you stick?

• 1:12:13Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:12:13Mike Rowe?

  Or not?

• 1:12:14Speaker 02

  That's the important part.

• 1:12:16Mike Rowe?

  I mean, this isn't even comparable. It happens to me in a thousand different ways all of the time, but it's, once you say a thing, if I say, look, you know what I really want? I want the sponsors on this podcast to all make their products in America. That's what I want.

• 1:12:31Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:12:32Mike Rowe?

  And I do.

• 1:12:34Mike Rowe?

  But how much do I want it? Because there are a couple of sponsors here that make a terrific product, but it's not made in this country. Now, what do I do with that? How do I think about that? Where do I draw the line? It's real easy for people to look at me and go, oh, well, you're bringing, I guess you sold out, didn't you?

• 1:12:51Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:12:51Mike Rowe?

  Well, maybe I did. Maybe I didn't. Maybe my line is just drawn a little differently. I'm not making excuses. I'm just saying that you mentioned the word hypocrisy.

• 1:13:04Mike Rowe?

  Everybody is looking for the inconsistency in their hero, the fault in the star, because we love to bring guys like LeBron down. We love that. Like to build them up. We like to bring them down.

• 1:13:18Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:13:19Mike Rowe?

  You're weird and super interesting because I don't know anybody who's sacrificed so much. So blah, blah, blah. Why'd you write the book? And what do you want people to feel when they read it?

• 1:13:39Speaker 02

  Well, because I was just, I wanted to give something to the world. Because all these threats, all this thing, I wanted to, it was actually on internet. There was so much threats. At one point, I wanted to do a life insurance. I called the company and said, listen, you have a very high percentage of getting killed. We cannot give you a full coverage. We can only give you a health coverage. So I literally have two different coverage now, half and half, because they didn't want to give me the full coverage. Because they said, well, I have a high percentage of getting killed. When I had a conversation with the State Department, some people from the State Department, they told me not to give their name. We sit down and had the craziest meeting.

• 1:14:23Speaker 02

  They told me that which government can use which tactics to get me or bring me down. It was literally like when I walk into the room, there was like all the countries lined up one by one. They said, China, I said, you are thirty whatever years old, you're single. From now on, you'll be getting text messages, calls, DMs, WhatsApp messages from one of the most beautiful girls in the world. Do not answer any of them, they're Chinese spies. They said, you will be stopping on a light and a car will be coming and hitting you in the back. And then the girl will come out, be ten out of ten, and will exchange numbers. And then boom, you'll be, you'll become their slave. Watch out.

• 1:15:06Speaker 02

  From, for the last two, three years, that, that, that got into my head so bad, I have not answered any girls. I don't know what their motive is, you know? Are they out there to get me or they really like me because of me?

• 1:15:19Speaker 02

  Second one was Russia. They said, not in America, but we talk a lot about like the Russian issues too with like Gere Kasper or Bill Brother. They said, not in America, but outside of America, they will follow you and they could try to poison you. They said Iran, they don't play with girls or poisons, they will come and shoot you. North Korea, they said they will try to hack you. Turkey, they will try to kidnap you. So all these threats were happening, right? And I had so many other conversations with FBI and they were just giving me so many different like threats that I've been receiving from many different ways. But if ever something happened to me, I wanted to just. Give something to the world. This book.

• 1:15:57Mike Rowe?

  Yeah.

• 1:15:57Speaker 02

  Why I did it. Literally, this is like. Like, why I did it, why I sacrificed my family, which was, which people calls me crazy. They said, dude, shut up. You've been, you have not seen your family for eleven years. Just shut your mouth. And just, so they'll be okay, you know? Or just make thirty, forty million more dollars and live the best life. Or just play basketball. Play another five, six years. You're still young, you're twenty-nine, thirty years old. This book talks about why I did it. Why I sacrificed my family, my career, tens of millions of dollars. And give everything I had, you know?

• 1:16:35Mike Rowe?

  Regrets?

• 1:16:38Speaker 02

  No regrets. The only thing that I just wish I played a little longer. Because when I changed my last name to Freedom, I became a citizen. I changed my last name to Freedom. I wanted to make that word part of me, carried everywhere I go. So I was putting that word behind my jersey. And every arena I go to, I remember all the kids were chanting Freedom. You know? In America, like, you can take your freedom for granted, like my teammates. I remember when we had this conversation with my teammates, they were destroying America. They're like, oh, my God, America is terrible and horrible. I remember I walk out, I walk in the locker room, I'm like, guys, listen. Our season is about to be over.

• 1:17:20Speaker 02

  And whenever our season over, let's go to like some of the countries out there like Iran, China, Russia, Turkey, North Korea. And you guys will see like the real dictatorships. Like, they have no idea. So that's why I want, I wish I played a little longer. So I want, because I wanted all the kids, all the young generation out there to just, to learn about the true meaning of freedom.

• 1:17:43Mike Rowe?

  What would you do if some team invited you to play again?

• 1:17:48Speaker 02

  I'm still, listen, I'm still healthy. I'm still thirty-three years old, young. I can still, you know, get a double-double, I believe, you know? And then now like the league is getting softer and softer every day, man. All the big men just wanted to pick and pop and shoot the ball. No one wants to do the dirty work. No one care about rebounds or what, or back to basket plays, but.

• 1:18:12Speaker 02

  I will definitely discuss with my people. But what I care about is just not the money, not the fame, or not anything to inspire the next generation. So if playing basketball is the reason that I can inspire the next generation, sure, I'll play. But if not, then the NBA hurt me so much with their hypocrisy. I don't even ever want to watch NBA game.

• 1:18:39Mike Rowe?

  Your family, do you think you'll see them again?

• 1:18:44Speaker 02

  You know what's so amazing? Right before I, when I got my green card, I was doing this big show. And this lady said, you know, you don't have to wait five years. If you're married with an American woman, it's only three years. And I'm like, oh, I didn't know that. The next day, I got so much DM from all over the country.

• 1:19:05Mike Rowe?

  I bet you did.

• 1:19:06Speaker 02

  All over the country, right? Obviously, I waited. But so many Americans now inviting me to their home for Christmas, for Thanksgiving, for Shabbat dinners. I remember I used to, you know, wake up every morning and I used to pray to God. And I was like, God, please let me see my family one more time. But whenever I go around and Americans treating me like one of their family members, when they treat me like I'm their son, right? They invite me to like Shabbat dinners, Thanksgiving dinners. To them, I'm just another guest, but to me, it's another family.

• 1:19:43Speaker 02

  I realize that God has given me a huge family, and it's America.

• 1:19:49Speaker 02

  Am I ever gonna get to see my family ever again? I have no idea. My mom is getting old, my dad is getting old. I don't even know what their face look like. My brother sends me picture of them sometimes. He plays basketball outside of Turkey and America. But like, I have no idea like what they even look like now. But I know that deep down, they're proud. They cannot say that they're proud because that is an act of terrorism to support me. But I know deep down that they are proud. They've been through a lot, you know, they got fired, they're thrown in jails. My mom got spit on her face when she go to supermarket. My dad got kicked out of a mosque recently, but.

• 1:20:36Speaker 02

  I know deep down that they are proud of their son.

• 1:20:39Mike Rowe?

  Enes, I don't know you well enough to be proud of you, but I admire you. In the same way. When I think about the guys who signed. The Declaration of Independence and how many of them. Had so much to lose.

• 1:20:54Mike Rowe?

  You know, they were the one percent once upon a time. They risked everything and many of them lost everything, you know, and so. The ball's on you to do this. Appreciate it. And I guess the final thought is. You know, all of the things. That you're trying. To impact are enormous. All of the ways you've attempted to do that are tiny.

• 1:21:25Mike Rowe?

  A dinner. A phrase. A shoe.

• 1:21:31Mike Rowe?

  Micro, macro. Right? Big, little.

• 1:21:34Speaker 02

  Yeah, when, without sacrifice, there is no freedom and I hope. That this I can pass this message or torch to a next generation because. If no America, China is next and I don't wanna see. A world that is being run by the Chinese dictatorship. We would not wanna be living in it.

• 1:21:54Mike Rowe?

  I'm serious about those shoes. I'll buy a pair.

• 1:21:57Speaker 02

  Of course.

• 1:21:57Mike Rowe?

  The book is called In the Name of Freedom. This is the galley. The actual copy is available in stores right now and for the record.

• 1:22:04Speaker 02

  Oh, no.

• 1:22:05Mike Rowe?

  Yeah, yeah. This is not the actual copy. Enes Freedom succumbed to an old trick that I did when I wrote a book. You get the cover done first.

• 1:22:15Speaker 02

  By FedEx, yeah.

• 1:22:15Mike Rowe?

  Right, and then the book's not ready, so you need to go out and show people the book. So I picked this up and I started looking through it and I'm like, man, this guy is. So much to say. Well, this is Jordan Peterson's book with his cover. On it. It's just a prop.

• 1:22:34Speaker 02

  Jordan Peterson, don't hate me, please.

• 1:22:37Mike Rowe?

  Jordan Peterson, you know what, Jordan, I'm gonna conclude with two messages. The first is to Jordan Peterson. Call me. You gotta come on this podcast at some point and buy Enes Freedom's book. It's great. And my guess is if you ask him nice, he'll send you this one since it's actually your book too. And secondly, with great respect.

• 1:22:57Mike Rowe?

  LeBron? Stefan? Yep. He's doing a hard thing. No pressure. But you know.

• 1:23:06Mike Rowe?

  Everybody's watching. Thanks. Thank you for having me, man. Anytime.

• 1:23:11Speaker 03

  If you like what you heard. And even if you don't. Won't you please? Won't you please, pretty please, pretty please? Subscribe. Well, I hate to beg and I hate to plead, but please, pretty frickin' please. Please sub. Please subscribe.

• 1:23:41Speaker 04

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• 1:24:12Speaker 05

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