From open values to burqa bans:
Have Europeans lost the habit of tolerance?
A Battle of Ideas Satellite debate, 14 October 2010, Oslo, Norway
In October 2010 the British Council launched Our Shared Europe in Norway with an event taking place at The House of Literature in Oslo which was jointly organised by the British Council and the Institute of Ideas, the originator of the innovative Battle of Ideas debates format. With no empty seats in sight, the debate attracted a full house of audience that used the opportunity to contribute to the discussion. The debate set out to explore the complex and sensitive issue of tolerance, or the lack of tolerance towards religious symbols in contemporary European societies.Dim lights Embed Embed this video on your site
Watch our video with Roy Cross, Director British Council Nordics & Baltics, opening the event and then Brendan O’Neill, Nazneen Khan-Østrem, Martyn Perks, Merryl Wyn Davies and Hans Rustad from left to right discussing.
The speakers on the panel all had given their own unique perspective on this topic before the floor was opened up to the audience. The high level of audience participation is a key feature of the Battle of Ideas concept that we felt worked very well in Norway. In the true Battle of Ideas spirit the debate turned out to be a great exchange of intelligent points of view put across from different perspectives by the diverse panel and the audience.
And this is indeed very much in line with the premise of the Our Shared Europe project that reasoned disagreement and healthy, open dialogue are prerequisites for building trust and understanding. As Martin Rose, the first Our Shared Europe director, once put it: “We do not always aspire to seamless agreement. Sometimes reasoned disagreement on shared premises is just as important: a clear and explicit understanding of this (apparent) limitation is a sign of the respect that is a precondition of successful Intercultural Dialogue.”
Here are some comments from the audience about the debate: "It was a debate with quality, unusual!" – "Quality speakers" – "Diverse views, disagreement, action, intellectual, individualistic and brilliant" – “More debates like this please"
Panelists
- Merryl Wyn Davies – Director of the Muslim Institute in London and co-author of Distorted Imagination: lessons from the Rushdie affair
- Hans Rustad – Editor of document.no
- Brendan O’Neill – Journalist, editor of Spiked online and the author of Can I Recycle My Granny and 39 Other Eco-Dilemmas
- Nazneen Khan-Østrem - Assistant Professor of journalism and author of My Holy War
- Martyn Perks - Director of Thinking Apart and a co-author of Big Potatoes: the London manifesto for innovation
For more information please contact Elisabeth Bøe at the British Council in Norway: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
