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Islam and the Challenge of Democracy

Moderator: Tom Ashbrook
Fawaz Gerges Khaled Abou El Fadl Jack Beatty: May 12, 2003; Running Time: 1:21:32

About the Lecture

About the Lecture

As the period of rebuilding Iraq begins, this panel takes on the big questions of political systems and religion based value systems—can Islam and democracy co-exist in the Arab world?

Lecture Details

Location: Tang Center

About the Speakers

Moderator: Tom Ashbrook

Host, On Point, WBUR-FM, Boston

Tom Ashbrook was raised on an Illinois farm, attended Yale University and worked as a surveyor and dynamiter in Alaska's oil fields before turning foreign correspondent. He spent 10 years in Asia, based in India, Hong Kong and Tokyo. At the Boston Globe, he directed coverage of the end of the Cold War and of the Gulf War, serving as deputy managing editor until 1996. He was awarded the Livingston Prize for National Reporting and named a Nieman Fellow at Harvard University before taking a four-year plunge into Internet entrepreneurship, chronicled in his book The Leap. Ashbrook was enlisted to host emergency coverage of the 9/11 attacks for National Public Radio.