Just back from a trip to Cairo and Alexandria. While I was there at the weekend, my recent debate against Tariq Ramadan went out on BBC World. It is now available on YouTube among other places. And as I promised I would post it when it came out, here is the first section (of my and Ramadan's opening speeches) below. The rest follows on YouTube.
The motion was "Europe is Failing its Muslims". I'm happy to say that Flemming Rose and I convincingly won the argument, with the audience voting overwhelmingly (and despite considerable intimidation in the hall on the night) that Europe is not in fact failing its Muslims.
The debate has been edited down for broadcast. My one gripe about this (except for the BBC's inevitable censorship of my criticisms of the Muslim Council of Britain among other government-paid Muslim-groups - as reported by the Evening Standard here) is that they cut one crucially relevant case study I gave.
One of the two clerics who whipped up hatred against Denmark around the world, in the wake of my colleague Flemming's commission of depictions of the historical figure Mohammed, arrived in Denmark from Lebanon in the 1990s. He went to Denmark because he has a disabled son. The country which he came from could not look after his child but he knew that Denmark would. And it did. He repaid the society by inciting hatred and violence against it. When such cases can be repeated ad nauseum, it should hardly even have to be pointed out how obscene the motion Flemming and I found ourselves debating really was.
It is grotesque to argue that Europe has failed its Muslims. It has been made repeatedly obvious that it is Islam that has failed Europe, indeed that it is Islam that has failed Muslims. I am delighted that the audience in the hall on the night agreed. And that most of the audience around the world who have emailed me since transmission – currently including people from as far afield as Nigeria, Pakistan and Iraq - appear to agree with that too.