Sir Jonathan Phillips of Keble College, Oxford, chairs a debate between Professor Nigel Biggar, Theology Faculty, University of Oxford, and Islamic Studies lecturer, Tim Winter, University of Cambridge; on the topic : Can the West Live with Islam?
Categories: Spotlight
The Muslim Debate Initiative 
I like the way Mr. Winter turns Muslim despots Gadafi, Mubarak and co in to “secular nationalists” when their thrones have toppled, with a wave of his magic wand.
but they were – Mubarack was a brutal secular dictator kept in power by the USA, with huge amounts of military and financial aide. Why was the west so keen to prop up this criminal and deny the Arabs freedom in the Middle east?
answer please erasmus…
Discussing politics is really a dead end subject for me. I haven’t got much chance of winning a discussion on politics because I don’t think in political categories. It’s more of a natural for Muslims who divide the world in to conflicting power centres, including their own. Anyway here’s my ha..pe.. th just for fun.
I don’t really understand why you refer to Mubarak as secular. Was he not a practicing Muslim? I thought secular was an umbrella term for everything non-Islamic. He opposed certain Muslim organisations inc. MB, does that make him secular?
“Why was the west so keen to prop up……….”
Maybe you should ask the west, if it still exists, if you mean the west that was doing the “propping up”. This was the west that apparently does not now exist in the same form. If it did I assume it would still be propping him up.
Should and can the west be so altruistic?. Where are all the altruistic Arab regimes denying freedoms to their people? But it’s all the fault of the “west” and it’s misguided generosity that Arabs don’t have freedom.
Perhaps the west as it was then did not see any great desire on the part of the people of Egypt for freedom. If this desire was there why did the Egyptians not take to the streets many years ago to fight for their freedom?
Lets see if freedom comes by toppling Mubarak. I don’t think it will be as simple as that. More Shariah more freedom? But freedom for who, everyone?
What about the Iranians? They went to the streets for freedom and nobody helped them. Was the west propping up their oppressors? Only freedom for Arabs and not Persians?