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| Britain |
| Dr. Daniel Pipes And Douglas Murray Triumph Over "Red" Ken Livingstone In London Debate |
| 2007-01-22 |
| Saturday's much anticipated squaring off between noted Middle East scholar Dr. Daniel Pipes and London's leftist mayor Ken Livingstone - billed as the "Clash of Civilisations or World Civilisations" - was a rout, with Pipes - teaming with Brit Douglas Murray - besting the far less articulate Mayor's team while drawing considerable applause on decidedly hostile ground. Livingstone and his partner Birmingham Councilwoman Salma Yaqoob were rendered speechless on occasion, unable to challenge Pipes' professorial delivery and Murray's oratory. Dr. Pipes presented the idea that radical Islam is the problem and moderate Islam, the solution. He dramatically quoted a Quranic text to show that the tenets for civil society were also to be found within Islam, and in concluding his remarks, brought the audience to their feet. He critiqued Samuel Huntinton's theory of clashing civilizations explaining how the struggle was more properly a conflict between civilization and barbarism. According to eyewitness accounts, Murray "came out with guns blazing" and attacked Livingstone for his claims that all the ills of the world should be blamed on the West, challenging his belief that jihad is "our fault." Murray called multiculturalism an abject failure and pointedly asked why Livingstone had chosen Salma Yaqoob an Islamist, as a debating partner, noting that she is the Vice Chair of the Respect Party [a group which prides itself of being "Zionist Free"] and had openly campaigned for the release of terrorists and referred to the 7/7 bombings "as reprisals." In stark contrast to Pipes and Murray, the London Mayor's speech was standard leftist boilerplate, alleging the Cold War was part and parcel of the United States' hegemonistic designs for dominion over all and in what must have represented a Stalinist flashback moment for many in the audience, actually blaming America for victimizing the Soviet Union. He then expanded his comments into a general attack on Western values, though he was careful to delimit his espoused multiculturalism, cutting short of endorsing the practice of cannibalism. Contrary to the evidence provided by London's 7/7/05 bombings, a similar but failed plot two weeks later and a seething population of Islamists advocating jihad, Livingstone also proclaimed that the city's considerable Muslim population had contributed much that was good. The Mayor's debate partner Yaqoob was even less restrained calling Dr. Pipes an Islamophobe and, offering no factual basis, attempting to directly link him to the Bush administration's war policies. In keeping with Livingstone's bogeyman attitude toward the West in general and the U.S. in particular at the conference Yaqoob denied that Islamism presents any threat at all, claiming that terrorist attacks are motivated - and presumably justified - because of Western actions, "imperialism" et al. The sense of those who witnessed the event was that Dr. Pipes and Douglas Murray won a clear-cut victory, defeating Livingstone and Yaqoob on their home turf and in front of an audience of 5,000. |
| Posted by:ryuge |
| #5 The only way for the rest of us to deal with those invested "in promoting barbarism" is to rub them out. It'll be a long time before the electorate gets to that point. |
| Posted by: Anguper Hupomosing9418 2007-01-22 14:40 |
| #4 I also have argued from the start that this is a clash between barbarism and civilization. The two cannot coexist, because civilization offers a better way of doing just about everything--as judged by everyone, the civilized man as well as the primitive. And thus, the only way those individuals who are invested in barbarism can keep their "way", is to utterly destroy civilization--if for no other reason that to give no alternative from which to choose. All of this is seen in Islam today. They bitterly hate democracy, though it is plainly obvious that it is better. They hate learning. They hate economic development. They end up hating all that is good in life and worshiping death, chaos and anarchy. They must threaten Muslims with death if they leave, or great brutality if they stray. But they know they cannot keep civilization out--it is too strong to wall off, though they try. So they must destroy civilization, or they know that civilization will destroy them. And Islam is hemorrhaging followers--2 MILLION a year are leaving their religion and converting to Christianity alone. If they can leave, they do leave. And just ceasing to be Muslims is not enough--they want to discard all its trappings, to be able to say that they are NOT Muslims, they are Christians. Though this is greeted by Christians, it is not for love of Christianity. It for their utter revulsion with barbarism, with failure, with Islam. It is for the desire of civility. |
| Posted by: Anonymoose 2007-01-22 11:53 |
| #3 Livingstone is a communist, communists control the media in the EU and I am coming to belive to a large extent here in the US. It's an empty victory. |
| Posted by: Sock Puppet of Doom 2007-01-22 08:42 |
| #2 2 observations: 1. I google'd this and found there was NO media coverage. 2. it won't matter. |
| Posted by: PlanetDan 2007-01-22 08:30 |
| #1 Interesting post. Red Ken really is a muzzie-lover of the highest order. His plan of having an immigrants' amnesty in London was soundly defeated in a Beeb phone poll last week, too. Maybe people are realising he's lost the plot. |
| Posted by: Howard UK 2007-01-22 07:59 |