Saturday, June 30, 2007

Ed Husain v Ken Livingstone on London Bombings

Just listened to a fascintating debate on the BBC Radio 4 Today Programme Podcast between author Ed Husain and London Mayor Ken Livingstone on the role of Islamist ideology in the London bombing attempts (and probably Glasgow airport as well). Livingstone was well and truly routed, left muttering imprecations at the British Nationalist Party while refusing to make a distinction between Wahabi Islamism and more traditional forms of Muslim worship--playing right into Ed Husain's hands. Game, Set, Match for Ed Husain, who as author of The Islamist: Why I Joined Radical Islam in Britain, What I Saw Inside and Why I Left, seems to know what he is talking about.

One question from this side of the pond to the US publishing industry: How come Ed Husain's book on Islamism has not yet been published in the USA? For more background on the book, here's a link to a review on PickledPolitics.com.

Here's some video from Glasgow Airport today, via YouTube (ht lgf):