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looking forward to the transcripts! great job!

Here is transcript of clip #3, Daniel Pipes:

Pipes:

Thank you so much. I’d like to begin by thanking Mayor Livingston for his kind invitation to join you today and the greater London authorities for the hard work they put into what is obviously a successful event. And I am delighted by the interest that you, the audience, has shown, and I’m grateful to my supporters who have come actually from four different countries to be with me today.

The Mayor is an optimistic man. I’m generally invited when people want some gloom, and I will, true to form, provide some for you.
[audience laughter]

Let me start with some opposition on the question of world civilization or clash of civilizations

1. I am for world civilization, and I reject the ‘clash of civilization’ argument.
2. The problem is not so much a clash of civilizations, but a clash of civilization and barbarism.

I’d like to begin by looking at Senator Huntington’s idea. He argued that cultural differences, in his 1993 article, are paramount. “The fundamental source of conflict will not be primarily ideological or primarily economic, the great divisions among human kind and the dominating source of conflict, will be cultural.”

And in all he finds seven or eight set civilizations. Namely, Western, Confucian, Japanese, islamic, hindu, slavic ? ..? Latin American, and perhaps, he says, African… ?

My response is that civilization is useful as a social concept but not as a political one. There are three problems with seeing civilizations as actors in the way that Huntington suggests.

First, it can’t account for tensions within a civil civilization, and it can’t account for agreement across civilizations, and it doesn’t account for change over time. Let me give you three quick examples. I’ll take them from the area that I studied in the muslim world

1. It cannot account for muslim-on-muslim violence, of which there is a great deal, we have the civil war in Lebanon, the Iraq-Iran war, the islamist insurgency in Algeria, the sunni vs shia in Iraq at presence, the near civil war of the Palistinian Authority, the Sudanese government against the people of Darfur. This cannot be accounted for in civilizational terms.
2. It ignores the agreement across civilizations.

And I’d like to take the UK case as an example, namely the edict of Ayatollah Khomeini in 1989 against Salmon Rushdie, who at that time was living in London. It appeared at first glance to be a question of muslims on one side and westerners on the other. Muslims were burning the Satanic Verses novel, there was violence in India, etc. But a closer look showed in fact that it was quite something different. That it was far more complex and there were plenty of westerners who were hostile to Rushdie and plenty of muslims who supported him.

Let me give you just a couple of quotes. The former secretary of Britain at that time, Sir Jeffrey Howe, said “ the British government, the British people do not have any affection for Rushdie’s book“. On the other hand, the Egyptian foreign minister, said “Khomeini had no right to sentence Rushdie to death.” And another Egyptian minister said “Khomeini is a dog, no … is too good for him, he is a pig.” [audience laughter]

Third point, Computin ?,in his analysis, can’t account for changes over time. And I can illustrate this by giving you a quote from his 1993 article. He said, “The economic issues between the US and Europe are no less serious than those between US and Japan. But they do not have the same political salience and emotional intensity, because the differences between the American culture and European culture is so much less than those between American civilization and Japanese civilization.”

Well, that was true enough in 1993, but it sounds pretty silly in 2007 where there are virtually no tensions between the US and Japan and I’m sure you are aware there are tensions between the US and Europe.

The two (inaudible)… far more severe than and specific . What Computin did was to take an incident of the moment and turn them into something civilizational and it did not work. In short the clash of civilization idea fails, it does not fit the facts, it is not a good way to understand the world.

What about then a world civilization? Can it exist? If one defines it as (Huntington?) Computin does, as a culture, basically then, no, it can’t. As he puts it, correctly, “for the relevant future there will not be no universal civilization but instead a world of different civilizations, each of which will have to learn to coexist with the others. I don’t think there is any one who would dispute that.

But yes, there can be a world civilization if one defines it differently. Civilization can be the opposite of barbarism. And civilization in this sense has a long history. In the Bible, there is a passage, “And ye shall proclaim liberty throughout all the lands and the inhabitants thereof.”
In the Koran, “you are the best community ever raised among mankind, you have righteousness forbid evil, and believe in God.” The American byword is ‘the pursuit of happiness’, the French is …” libertad … “Winston Churchill in 1898, writing about the Sudan, said that “Civilization is sympathetic, merciful, tolerant, ready to discuss and argue, eager to avoid violence, to submit to the law, to effect compromise.”

So the question is, can this state of being, of being civilized, can it exist on a world level?
It can, in so far as those who are civilized confront those who are not civilized. The world civilization consists of civilized elements in every culture banning together to protect ethics, liberty and mutual respect. The real clash is between them and the barbarians.

Now what do I mean by barbarians? I do not mean people who are of lower economic status. What I mean by barbarians, and I think all of us mean by barbarians in the past two centuries, which is ideological barbarians. This is what emerged in the French revolution in the late 18th century. And the great examples of ideological barbarism are Fascism and Marxist Leninism – they, in their course of their histories have killed tens of millions of people.

But today it is a third, a third totalitarian movement, a third barbarian movement, namely that of radical islam. It is an extremist utopian version of Islam. I am not speaking of Islam the religion. I am speaking of a very unusual and modern reading of Islam. It has afflicted misery, (as I mentioned Algeria and Darfur, before), there is suicide terrorism, tyrannical ruled governments, there is the oppression of women, and non-muslims. It threatens the whole world: Morocco, Turkey, Palestian Authority, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Iran, Pakistan, you name it, Afghanistan, Tunisia, and not just the traditional muslim world, but also Russia, France, Sweden, and I dare say it, the UK.

The great question of our time is how to prevent this movement, akin to fascism and communism, from growing stronger.

Now, I believe the Mayor and I agree on the need to withstand this menace, but we disagree on the means of how to do it. He looks to multiculturism, and I to winning the war. He wants everyone to get along. I want to defeat a terrible enemy.

The Mayor defines multiculturalism as ‘the right to pursue different cultural values subject only to the restriction that they should not interfere with the similar rights of others.” And he argues as you just heard, that it works. That London is a successful city, and I won’t dispute his specifics, but I do see the multicultural impulse breeding disaster by ignoring a dangerous and growing presence of radical Islam in London.

One evocative sign of this danger, is that your citizens in your country have become a threat for the rest of the world. In 2003, Home Secretary David Blunkett presented a dossier to the special immigration appeals commission, in which he “admits that Britain was a safe haven for supporters of worldwide terrorism”, and in which he said that “Britain remains a significant base for supporting terrorism.” And indeed, “British-based terrorists have carried out operations in at least 15 countries. Going from east to west, (inaudible), Pakistan, Afghanistan, Kenya, Tanzania, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Iraq, Jordan, Israel, Algeria, Morocco, Russia, France, Spain, and the United States.

I’ll give you one example, from the United States, is Richard Reid, with his shoe, the shoe bomber, who I am primarily thinking of, but there is also the …

End of clip #3
VSK: rough transcript 29 Janaury 2007

PS: Mr. Pipes, if you please, send me any edits. Clip #4, to come.

A World Civilisation or a Clash of Civilisations …

Red Ken Ken Livingstone, the Mayor of London, debates Daniel Pipes. Part one, Part 2, part 3 , part 4, part 5, part 6, part 7, part 8. Part 6 is highly recomended. Jewish Comment has extensive coverage. Danial Pipes…

Clip #6, Murray:
(thanks gaia)

CLASH OF CIVILIZATIONS CONFERENCE – LONDON 20 JANUARY 2007

Speaker: Douglas Murray, 27 years old, a Fellow of the Social Affairs Unit in London, bestselling author and commentator based in the UK

I should also say once again, I should say thank you to the mayor for organizing the event today and for being so very generous with other peoples’ money. (applause)

I believe like Dr Pipes that we do not face a ‘clash of civilizations, in fact no one on the panel believes in a clash of civilizations. It is a straw motion, but I would stress that I, like Dr Pipes, believe that we are facing and are involved in a clash of civilization and barbarism, and just in case there is any doubt as to what I mean by ‘barbarism’ it is Islamic fundamentalism, jihadism, led by jihadist ideology, that is the barbarism which primarily threatens us and against which we should be fighting.

Now, muslims in this can be on the side of civilization. Let no one tell you that I am saying that there is a civilisational divide. There is not. There are muslims who could be on our side, and many, many are, and there are muslim countries that could be on our side. Unfortunately, far too many muslims, largely because of people being elevated who should not be elevated, far too many muslims are being, in this country and abroad, put onto the wrong side of this debate. We should be wooing the democrats in the muslim world onto this side. We should be helping the moderate muslims . We should not, in other words, be elevating organisations like the Muslim Council of Britain, the Muslim Association (applause … inaudible ) that is the real civilizational clash.

Now I would stress, ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Livingstone has so far this morning explained how the Cold War was our fault (laughter), and I would stress that there’s another similar re-write of history from Ms Yacoob here, there are all the problems of the world, all the problems of the jihad, all the problems of the violence come down to us, have to do with the Iraq War, have to do with Afghanistan. You’ve heard it a million times. It is not new stuff. But I would stress to you that if that argument were true and if we take it seriously for a moment and we should, if that argument were true, it doesn’t explain quite a lot of things. In other words, as well as being in a fundamental way, I believe, racist, i.e. the people who are doing the acts are not responsible. They don’t even have culpability. They can’t even make choices. They can’t even screw up unless it is our fault. (applause). Now apart from all that it is also simply historically inept.

If it is our fault, ladies and gentlemen, and perhaps Ms Yacoob and Mr Livingstone could answer this, if all the problems of the jihad are our fault, why are currently and have been for a long time, muslims slaughtering Hindus in India (applause), why are they murdering Buddhists in Indonesia and Thailand? Why are they murdering Animists in the South of Sudan? (applause) (inaudible) Is that a result of the Iraq war? Are we going to lay that one at the fascist junta of Bush and Blair as well? (applause)

What I would suggest for those like Mr Livingstone and Ms Yacoob who think this is our fault we should look at the problem of jihadism here at home and elsewhere, which we should be taking seriously. I would suggest for instance that Mr Livingstone might look at his opposite number in Paris, Bertrand Delano, who was stabbed by a muslim fundamentalist in 2002, very nearly murdered. That was a fundamentalist stabbed the mayor of Paris because he is gay, and one of the neighbours and friends of that man said “well we’re all homophobic here because it is not natural, it’s against islam”.

Look at the case of Ms (?) Haddoui, a muslim woman stoned to death in Marseilles in 2004 for refusing the advances of a muslim boy. This kind of sharia killing, housekeeping as it is regarded in some sections of the muslim community in France, is tolerated. I say it is intolerable, and the multicultural paradise which we’ve heard talked about this morning doesn’t sound quite so nice when you have people believing it is acceptable to attack and kill gay men and women or muslim women who will not submit to their tribal, backward laws. (applause).

(inaudible)…the reason why this is an issue is Multiculturalism which we have mentioned several times already this morning. Multiculturalism in the way it is practised here has been a disaster. It’s been a profound disaster. The rule of Law of the British State is not up for negotiation. (applause). The rule of Law across the West (inaudible) and if you think multiculturalism is something which somehow is going to be a universal world civilisation, I would ask you a simple question. How is multiculturalism going in Saudi Arabia right now? (applause) (inaudible) cannot even pray to the non-muslim God in Saudi Arabia or across many countries in that region. It doesn’t happen, i.e. there is no reciprocity. On the other hand, here, just a few months ago, the justice minister of the Netherlands Pieter van Bonner (?) announced that when a majority of people wanted it, he was willing to institute sharia law across the Netherlands. Now, from current demographics, that majority isn’t too far away. What will the Netherlands look like when that happens? What will this country look like if people in this country go along with that idea as well? The point is that there is an answer to this. We keep the moderates and encourage the moderates to be on our side, believe in the rule of Law and strengthen the State. But the State at the moment here and in the West is not looking strong. It is looking weak. It is looking weak because leaders and others like the mayor of London claim and are seen to be claiming across the world that this is our fault. That it is our problem. I say to him there is another side which is to say to people that this is a city with people with all different faiths, all different nationalities and that is fine but there are rules which you agree to. We are not giving out that message. We should be saying clearly, the mayor of London should be saying far more clearly and far more regularly there are some things that are not open for negotiation. We will not have sharia. There are countries that could have it, sadly, but this will not be one of them. (applause)

Now, ladies and gentlemen, I would stress that this could have been said by anyone at any time, but I should stress something about the people we are speaking with this morning because we have seen this before. There is form from Messrs. Livingstone and Yacoob on this one. In the last three decades two different groups of people have tried to murder and have murdered in large numbers the people of this city. They have nothing in common – Irish Republican extremists and Islamist extremists. They have almost nothing in common, aims or anything else. One of the few things they have do have in common is both have found an apologist in Ken Livingstone. (applause) In those day when he was on the army council and planning the murder of people in this city just as then he invited Adams and McGuiness once they were on the army council to Britain, so today he invites people like Mr. Al Quadawi and I would stress, ladies and gentlemen that he will say that he somehow took part in the peace process. He did not. Nobody believes that the IRA came to the table for any reason other than the fact that they were defeated, operationally incapable. That is how we defeated them. Not by inviting them to tea, not by rolling out red carpets, that is how.

Now he could have today invited as his co-debater, a moderate. He could have invited someone from the moderate, secularist muslim association in France. Muslim women, Neither Whore nor Submissives, a wonderful organization. He could have done that. Or someone like Ayaan Hirsi Ali or Wafa Sultan. But instead he invited Ms Yacoob. Ms Yacoob, a spokesman for the Birmingham Central Mosque and for the head of that mosque Mohammad Naseem who believes that 7/7 wasn’t carried out by muslims and so on. We could say that, we could mention the fact that her political career as such started when she acted as the defender of the Yemeni Seven, the group of terrorists including Abu Hamza’s sons who were out there with the brother also involved in the campaign, and I would also point out on this one that she is also a member of Respect Party, a party so far beyond the pale of traditional political discourse. And neither does she or her party stand on the side of the moderates. Her party has called for the successive of the insurgency in Iraq, the murder of the people of Iraq that we should be supporting . She and her party, her line on this, her party’s line on this is that the insurgency should survive. That is elevating the extremists and threatening and elevating the murder of the moderates, and ladies and gentlemen we should not be on that side, we should not be on that side in Iraq and we should not be on that side here (applause)

Thank you

______________________________

Douglas, please send any corrections on this rough transcript to us.
You have many appreciative listeners and readers!
Tell us what you need next …
more faster,
Vicktorya

douglas murray should be the prime minister of britian ….but there are no moderate muslims

Great work!

MSM seems to have boycotted this Conference for some reason

Thanks for getting the hard work.

We have transcript of #4 on the 910 group forum; it is being reviewed for corrections now and we hope to have it to you within the day.  (We have received positive feedback from two of the debaters   ;-)   for getting this information out.)

Great piece here! Good luck in your new home, thank you for your efforts to get the truth out.

You may find this new site extremely helpful for finding tons of blog and media articles about Jihad & Islam.

Anti-Jihad Blog Watcher
http://www.pageflakes.com/stevedecatur.ashx

absurd thought -
God of the Universe says
admire dhimmidiots

hug a terrorist today
for they all just want peace
.

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