LONDON, Jan.20: Mayor of London Ken Livingstone lived up to his reputation of being a man of peace and liberal ideas as he led a highly charged debate here on Saturday on whether a globalising world will give birth to a global civilisation or degenerate into a ‘clash of civilisation’.

Well-known US neocon Mr Daniel Pipes, who is Director of the Middle East Forum, an American think-tank that advises US policymakers on the region, argued with equal passion that ‘clash of civilisation’ was inevitable.

The mayor was assisted by Sparkbrook ward councillor Salma Yaqoob, a British-born Pakistani, while Douglas Murray, a fellow of the Social Affairs Unit in London and author of ‘Neoconservatism: Why We Need It’, echoed Daniel Pipes’s ideas in plainer language.

Hosted by the mayor himself, the conference ‘The clash of civilisation and what it means to multicultural London’ had brought together writers, academics, religious figures, campaigners and a huge crowd of Londoners and all seemed to get involved passionately in the debate punctuating it with applause and heckling. Mayor Livingstone said: “London is the world’s most international city and has among the most harmonious relations between its communities in the world and it has benefited greatly from globalisation and based its community relations on classic liberal principles, “that you should be able to choose to do whatever you like, provided it does not interfere with other people.” This is the policy of multiculturalism,” he added

Daniel Pipes argued that “there is not so much a clash of civilisations as a clash of civilisation versus barbarism.”

In his vocabulary barbarism and ‘Islamism’ (whatever that means) seemed interchangeable. He feared that a time would soon come when the preachers of ‘Islamism’ would prevail and subject the West to the Sharia laws.

He said he was opposed to ‘Islamism’ and not Islam.

In the heat of his arguments he named a number of names who call the US a terrorist state and Pakistan’s own Qazi Hussain Ahmed had a passing mention on this list of names.

For Pipes there could not be any peaceful settlement of the on going clash of civilisation and barbarism, “unless one has vanquished the other. Then alone there would be peace in the world”.

Livingstone vehemently disagreed with him and said there was no option for the world but to come to some kind of an accommodation on this score because according to him there are no winners or losers in such conflicts. He quoted history to prove his point.

Salma Yaqoob, who is a leading national figure in the British anti-war movement and chairperson of the Stop the War Coalition in Birmingham, was devastating in her remarks against US’ campaign in Iraq and Afghanistan.

But then Mr Murray was equally devastating when he accused both Livingstone and Salma as appeasers of terrorists. And he quoted instances to prove his point.

If one went by the reaction of the audience and the slant of questions the debate had remained more or less a draw with Livingstone and Ms Salma winning numerous knockout points while Pipes and Murray saving the day for their side by winning many technical points.