RSA Thursday Beyond Terror and Martyrdom December 11, 2008

Since 2001, two dominant worldviews have clashed in the global arena: a neoconservative nightmare of Islamic terrorist threat to civilised life, and a jihadist myth of martyrdom through the slaughter of infidels.

In his new book Beyond Terror and Martyrdom, noted Middle East scholar and commentator Gilles Kepel sounds the alarm to the West and to Islam that both of these exhausted narratives are bankrupt—neither productive of democratic change in the Middle East nor of unity in Islam. Kepel urges us to escape the ideological quagmire of terrorism and martyrdom and explore the terms of a new and constructive dialogue between Islam and the West, one for which Europe, with its expanding and restless Muslim populations, may be the proving ground.

Places are free but advance booking is recommended.

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