Daniel Pipes, columnist, scholar of Middle Eastern history, counter-terrorism expert, founder of both the Middle East Forum (publishing the Middle East Quarterly) and Campus Watch, an author of 14 books, is well known in the US and the blogosphere, where he maintains his own weblog. Though not against Muslims, Pipes has been critical of radical Islam and its incompatibility with democratic values.
On April 4, 2006, Dr Pipes was invited by Ken Livingstone, left-wing mayor of London, to attend a conference on the subject of the "Clash of Civilizations". Popularized by Samuel Huntington in 1993 and again in a book of the same name in 1996, the notion of a clash of civilizations has become a popular means of explaining and perceiving the modern world, particularly after 9/11.
The office of the Mayor of London advertised the conference, which was to be held on January 20, 2007. The event was to last from 10 am to 8 pm, with a host of speakers at various seminars. The event went ahead, with all tickets sold, and most of the planned speakers showed up.
Livingstone's debate with Dr Pipes was billed as the "main debate". Pipes had Douglas Murray of the Social Affairs Unit as is co-speaker, and Livingstone had Salma Yaqoob as his partner. This debate was chaired by Gavin Esler, a host of BBC's Newsnight current affairs show. Despite the advance publicity, the conference was not given one column inch of coverage in any of Britain's mainstream press outlets. The BBC has nothing on its website, and nothing was mentioned on national TV news.
The only sources of information on how the debate progressed comes from weblogs. The Muslim Council of Britain fielded their press spokesman Inayat Bunglawala to Seminar E (Enlightenment values and modern society) and their secetary general Dr Muhammad Abdul Bari to Seminar A (Is Britain becoming more segregated?), yet MCB could only place a brief mention of the event on their website. Martin Bright, political editor of the New Statesman, took part in Seminar G (Is there an Islamic threat?), but nothing is mentioned on the NS website or on his weblog. The Mayor of London's office made no mention of the conference after it had wound up, not even to blandly conclude that "a good time was had by all" or to thank those who participated.
The only sources available - mostly blogs - conclude that in the main debate between Pipes and Livingstone, entitled "A World Civilization or a Clash of Civilizations", Dr Pipes was the victor. Even a site with a left-wing bias, such as Harry's Place and Pickled Politics appeared favorable to Daniel Pipes' skills in presentation. The latter blog described Livingstone's argument as "a rambly sort of speech without structure". The same account described Pipes's performance thus: "...despite my distaste for his politics, was much more structured, well thought-out and argued.....his central point was this - there isn’t a Clash of Civilisations as much as a Clash of Civilisations v Barbarism."
The conference is reported upon by Oliver Kamm of the Times who took part in Seminar E (Enlightenment Values and modern society) and Seminar K (Democratic Solutions in the Middle East). Though Kamm makes wry observations of the two seminars in which he participated, and also the p
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