Comments on: Ibn Warraq Slays Tariq Ramadan in the Battle of Ideas

By: Mizanur Rahman

Mizanur Rahman — Tue, 15 Jun 2010 14:52:58 +0000

Ibn Warraq had the best quip of the evening: ‘I don’t want to live in a society where I get stoned for committing adultery. I want to live in a society where I get stoned. And then commit adultery.’

hmmm….thats the best ibn warraq could come up with?

i dont want to live in a society where families are broken up due to fornication and adultery, i dont want to live in a society where teenage girls are made pregnant or where STD’s are rife……ibn warraq just got OWNED!!!!!

By: Hendrianus

Hendrianus — Sun, 24 May 2009 08:01:16 +0000

Do the same for a dominated moslim audience and let’s see what a “stunning victory” the outcome will be.

By: Kevin R.C. 'Hognose' O'Brien

Kevin R.C. 'Hognose' O'Brien — Tue, 16 Oct 2007 06:15:43 +0000

I would think that attendance was heavily leavened with academics. That would gibe with Linda Grant’s observation of their appearance.

An audience of academics is likely to support any kind of loopy resolution (or in this case, loopily oppose a resolution), particularly when given an argument like Ramadan’s, that is dressed in the vestments of multicultural cant.

I mean, if you can’t tell the difference between a tribal subculture of honour killing, female genital mutilation, and slavery on the one hand, and a culture of individual freedom on the other, you’re probably a professor of something. Something that involves lots of emotion and little arithmetic….

By: Linda Grant

Linda Grant — Sat, 13 Oct 2007 15:43:46 +0000

Might I add, that I also had a chance to congratulate Ibn Warraq on his truly superb speech.

By: Linda Grant

Linda Grant — Sat, 13 Oct 2007 15:39:48 +0000

I attended this debate earlier this week and voted for the motion. The price of the tickets is £25 ($50), which is pretty high, and the audience consisted in the main of well-dressed. middle class individuals with an average age, I’d say, of 45 or even older. Perhaps 50+. Very few college kids, if any.

The debate was not between Western values and Islamic values, the debate was whether one should assert the superiority of western values. Those who voted against, judging by the questions asked from the floor, were questionig whether, given the 20th century history of totalitarianism, particularly the Holocaust, in which Nazi Germany regarded Jews as alien and eastern, we have a right to preach. Tariq Ramadan’s point was that Islam was more likely to be persuaded of western values if they were not imposed, or arrogantly asserted.

I don’t agree with these positions, hence my vote for the motion, but clearly some in the audience did. They were not voting for the superiority of non-Western values.

By: comatus

comatus — Fri, 12 Oct 2007 23:18:07 +0000

Tim Morris, I think you mean a 60% victory, not a 60% margin. That margin would yield 80/20, or 4 to 1.

By: Tim Morris

Tim Morris — Fri, 12 Oct 2007 20:48:58 +0000

KeithP:

In political circles a 60% margin of victory is called a landslide.

By: John

John — Fri, 12 Oct 2007 20:30:26 +0000

This vote is symbolic of nothing since it is likely that the audience is largely composed of college age young adults seeking to rebel at anything and everything, and people at the political fringes who could be bothered to sit through such a debate (and I don’t mean that as a pejorative).

The average man on the street has no time for such debates because it is so painfully obvious to him that western values are superior that he does not actually feel they are threatened and thus takes little interest in their defense as he goes about his business.

Randomly select 1000 people off the street to hear such a debate and I would be surprised if 3% rejected western liberal democracy in favor of a medieval, Sharia-driven muslim theocracy.

By: Mike

Mike — Fri, 12 Oct 2007 20:28:43 +0000

“informed audience”

Define Informed? Slavery over Freedom?

OOOOOOOOOOOO K!

By: Classical Values

Classical Values — Fri, 12 Oct 2007 19:54:25 +0000

Quote of the Day

I think it’s hard to beat this remark from Ibn Warraq:I don’t want to live in a society where I get stoned for committing adultery. I want to live in a society where I get stoned. And then commit adultery….