Tuesday, April 28, 2009

An Hour Very Well Spent

Here is a Bloggingheads.tv diavlog between Reihan Salam and Reza Aslan that I urge you to watch.

(alt. video link)

If I had to say in one sentence what it's about, I'd say it is a scholarly view of the differences between Islamism and jihadism combined with practical recommendations for how the US and western Europe should use these understandings to deal with the problems caused by Muslim disaffections at home and abroad.

Here are the segment titles, swiped from the show page:

  • Reza’s new book, “How to Win a Cosmic War”
  • America as a model for Muslim integration in Europe
  • Reza: Ditch the “war on terror” rhetoric
  • Jihadism can’t be defeated without solving Israel-Palestine
  • Can Islamic nationalism be an antidote for jihadism?
  • Reza to Obama: Don’t abandon the one thing Bush got right

If you would rather not sit in front of your computer to watch an hour of streaming video, you can visit the show page and download a video or audio file.

I did not agree with every last thing that Reza said, but I found what he had to say hugely instructive. Reihan conducted a superb interview. I can't recommend this one highly enough.

For more:

2 comments:

TC said...

Just excellent, Brendan. Thanks for posting. For those who are intimidated by the length, you don't have to watch the whole thing to see why the war on terror and in Afghanistan can never work. Try 10 minutes and see if you aren't hooked.

bjkeefe said...

Hey, great! Glad you liked it. Thanks for letting me know and for seconding the recommendation.

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