Intelligence2 debate
Intelligence2
10 October 2007
Lloyd Evans on Tuesday night's debate
Closing for the opposition, the travel writer William Dalrymple raked up the ashes of the West’s guilty past. He gave a list of races annihilated by colonial adventurers — Tasmanians, Incas, Caribs, Apaches — and suggested that ‘the tradition of colonial genocide paved the way for the Holocaust’. In a rowdy conclusion he urged the audience to stand up against ‘the neocons and the neo-lefties’. Noisy approval greeted him. Chairman Edward Lucas, inviting questions from the floor, conducted the ensuing discussion with icy wit and with a note of asperity that bordered, very pleasingly, on impatience. Brevity was encouraged. Windbaggery punctured. The best of the exchanges was Murray’s answer to Dalrymple’s second attempt to blame cultural divisions on our colonial past. ‘This is masochism,’ said Murray, ‘and it’s being offered to you by a sadist.’ Huge laughter. The votes were counted and the motion was carried by 465 to 264. The winning majority howled with pleasure when Ibn Warraq summed up the debate: ‘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.’
Before: For the motion 313; Against the motion 221; Don’t Know 207
After: For the motion 465; Against the motion 264; Don’t Know 18
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TDK
October 12th, 2007 11:07am Report this commentI'd like to comment on William Dalrymple's claim of Tasmanian annihilation. This claim has been challenged by historians including Keith Windschuttle. http://www.sydneyline.com/Fabrication.htm http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_Wars No genocide took place. The systematic exaggeration of real western atrocities and manufacture of false ones illustrates precisely why we need to defend the "west"
Salomon Benzimra
October 15th, 2007 5:38am Report this commentSeveral years ago, when former Italian PM Silvio Berlusconi stated his conviction of western culture superiority, he was roundly blasted by his European colleagues. Which showed the collective blindness of Europeans who are incapable of recognizing a factual truth for the sake of the sacrosanct political correctness.
Robin Hard
October 17th, 2007 7:14pm Report this comment'He reminded us that the explorer Magellan, on arriving in Madras, ordered the extermination of all the city’s Jews and Muslims.' That would have been quite an achievement considering that Magellan never went there, and there were no Jews to kill in Madras until the 17th Century.
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