Transcripts For BBCNEWS Meet The Author 20170219

To one, and they are worrying about their status and what will happen. Oxford has been around for 700 years and it has never had a campus in another country and this is an extraordinary shift and i suspect other universities might consider it as well. I read that there was an Orchestra Planning to move from britain to somewhere in another part of europe for the same reason, so it is not just businesses of europe for the same reason, so it is notjust businesses that will consider moving away from here. There will be no music and learning and we will sit here remembering what it was like in the past. The times, David Attenborough dives in again at 90. Another series to look forward to from David Attenborough, this time focusing on the oceans. 90 yea rs old this time focusing on the oceans. 90 years old and still working. An extraordinary tribute to him. Not many people achieved that. He says he is thrilled to be going back underwater. The series promises never before seen species including task fishes and something with a hairy chest that looks like the baywatch actor David Hasselhoff m will look beautiful and sound even better with his commentary. He did the Cuttlefish Mating ritual which appears to be something like, look at my excellent tentacles. appears to be something like, look at my excellent tentacles. I have heard worse chat up lines. We will talk about it off air. That is it for now. We will be back at half past 11 for another stab at the front pages. Christopher de bellaigue wants to challenge our understanding or our misunderstanding of islam. Who is to say that that is not one of the most important questions of our time . The islamic enlightenment, the modern struggle of faith and reason is his book. He presents the other side of the story of faith. He charts the progress of intellectual and scientific ideas and presents a picture of the real struggle that is going on. Between that story and the efforts of those who would deny it and set it back. Welcome. Your account of enlightenment in the Islamic World through the 19th century and into the 20th, will be to many people unknown. Why . The reason why it is unknown is partly because people will think islamic enlightenment, is that a contradiction in terms . The idea of a Movement Towards Enlightenment Values in the Islamic World has not been included in the west because of natural ignorance in the west. But partly because of a more cynical reason. We have been so involved in the Islamic World that we have needed a kind ofjustification for being there. One of those is that the Islamic World has not got its act together and we need to be there. Lets go back to the beginning of your story. You take this to a period just after the napoleonic wars. You argue that there was an interaction between what we might call the west, just for sake of shorthand, and the Islamic World that was profound in its effect. What was the effect that happened intellectually, scientifically and so on . Is started with the militarily. Everybody wanted a Strong Military and technology and ideas entered through instructors that were sent out from western countries in order to instruct new armies of The Middle East. It very quickly spread because you cannot quarantine ideas of that kind. Spread into society, it spread into the nature of the relationship between the ruler and the ruled, democratic ideas began to bubble up. Science began to evolve, theatres of anatomy were opened, the novel entered the consciousness of The Middle East. All sorts of ideas, along with technologies, were telescoped into a matter of a few decades and suddenly by the end of the 19th century, The Middle East looked radically different from how it had looked at the beginning. Many people looking at this would say that is all very good and well, but we look to The Middle East now and what we see in some places is autocracy that looks suspiciously medieval, they will argue about the activities of the Islamic State as being barbaric and they will say if all this is true in the 19th century, what went wrong . What happened is that the high watermark of liberalism and what i would consider Enlightenment Values in The Middle East really was about the beginning of the first world war. There had been revolutions in turkey, and iran to introduce limits to the monarchs rule and his prerogatives. A move towards democracy and Representative Government and a lot of other things that we would link with that. The autonomy of the individual. After the world war, the region was obliterated. The whole map changed. Thats right. The french and the british could not stop themselves from coming in and carving it up. In other parts of the world, the Movement Towards independence and Self Determination was extremely strong. In The Middle East, the movement was in the other direction. There was bound to be a reaction. The reaction took two forms. The first was what we would call islamist and the other was a kind of emulation of the west, but in its almost fascist form. This is the struggle that is still going on today. It is the essence of your argument. It can be boiled down to the struggle between a man in a uniform supported by the west who is keeping the country in some ways secular, in some ways preserving the outward appearances of Western Modernity against various forms of islamist government, islamists movements from the authoritarian to the much more anarchic and we see this conflict playing out right now. You know the countries that you talk about very well. You lived in iran for quite a long period in your own life. What you are describing as your account has it is really a tragedy of civilisation. When a coloniser comes in, it doesnt matter how good the idea he brings in is, the fact that he is a coloniser and he is holding a knife at your neck means that you are naturally going to be resistant. From your perspective, how do you think people should go about trying to heal that divide . People in their middle age now have experienced many interactions with the east and the west. The first was the invasion of iraq and afghanistan which essentially tried to export an ideology, an idea of Liberal Democracy and in some ways was optimistic because it argued that you can share ideas and that ideas dont belong with you or me, they are the common heritage of humanity. From that stage, that was a disaster, we are now at a position where there is a clash. They are making the most amount of noise and wielding power. What about leadership in the Islamic World . Why, if you are right, had there not been figures who have emerged in very powerful positions who have said, look, we can find a way through this. We can cross this divide. I have seen many leaders rise in the Islamic World and come down. Turkey, an example of someone who at one stage had that potential. The potential to act as a bridge between one culture and civilisation and another. For various reasons, the relationship with the west has soured. He has been in powerfor too long and has become authoritarian. That hopeful mission he appeared to be on has fallen to dust. You are saying that what we are in, in the early 19th century has been reversed and that now in the 21st century with all the technical and intellectual advances that we have, we are set on a backward path. Do you think there is any alternative to that as you look into the next two or three decades . The first thing is that i would concur that a lot has been reversed. It is one of the extraordinary facts that i have been confronted with, that at the turn of the 20th century, it was easier to Express Irreligious and sceptical views in cairo for example then it is today. That is an extraordinary thing if you think about a view of history that involves steps and progression. The alternative . It is simply for people like me and other people who think like me on all sides to continue to make our voices heard. At the moment, we are going into a position where we are becoming a minority. Those who call for accommodation, those who call for dialogue, those who insist that people can meet. We are falling into a minority and we need to make sure that our voices will be heard. There will be a return to that way of thinking and we need to be there to catch it. Christopher de bellaigue, author of the islamic enlightenment thank you very much. Good evening, it has felt more springlike than winter this weekend because the temperatures have been well above average. The reason, the wind direction. That mild South Westerly continues on monday. But then you can see this meandering in the cold and the mild air through the rest of the week, so we will see a seesawing in our temperatures. Quite chilly air coming in towards the end of the week, but the start of the week will see temperatures again like today, up into the teens. A little bit of sunshine, but if you did see the sunshine it felt quite pleasant during the day just gone, but the cloud has been piling in off the atlantic courtesy of a Weather Front which will bring some rain through the night, primarily to the north and the west. It is going to filter its way southwards and heavy rain will replace it back in the north west later. So a lot of cloud will break the day on monday with hill fog and coastal fog, but not cold. In fact the temperatures overnight will be higher than the average february daytime temperatures. But we will have some fairly brisk winds to contend with as well in the north and we have already got fog in the english channel, the bristol channel, around the cardigan bay of wales and onto the irish sea. So very little brightness on offer first thing in the morning, in fact a lot of low cloud and some hill fog across the chilterns and through parts of the midlands, Northern England and a gusty wind to go with it. The rain is already with us across scotland, moving into Northern Ireland, so the rain and the low cloud and the blustery wind to contend with, particularly east of the grampians and for the north east of england. Roads like the a1 for example will have some rather gusty winds to contend with if you are travelling in that direction. Through the day the cloud and the Rain Meanders into Northern England and Northern Ireland and leaves brighter skies eventually for scotland, but slightly fresher air. But in the south we keep a lot of cloud, also in central and southern wales and the midlands and southern england. If it does come out, the sunshine will send those temperatures a little higher than those of today, so 16, possibly 17 degrees. And so the mild air is still with us through the course of monday. However, you can see that cold air starting to creep a little closer so that as we move into tuesday we have got something a little fresher, perhaps A Touch Of Frost in the far north to start our tuesday. More rain and wind is gathering to the north west later. Not as much brightness or dry weather further south with that weak Weather Front around. Later on in the week we will have some really blustery winds and it becomes a little less wild. More to follow on the web. This is bbc news. Im martine croxall. The headlines at 11pm the battle for mosul. A new push by the iraqi army on the last stronghold of so called Islamic State in the country, a bbc team is travelling with them. Armoured vehicles are lining up, theyre getting ready for the Islamic State who are only a couple of kilometres that way and they know that these men are coming. Theyre dug in, and the assault on Western Mosul has started. The american company, kraft heinz, withdraws its Proposed Takeover Of Anglo dutch rival unilever. The swedish Government Asks for clarification after donald trump prompts confusion by apparently referring to a Security Incident in sweden that hadnt happened. In football, lincoln city find out who they will face in the fa cup. Either arsenal or Sutton United will ta ke either arsenal or Sutton United will take on the nonleague team in the quarter final. And we speak exclusively to the Actress Angelina Jolie about the film shes made about the horrors of the khmer rouge