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Headline Debate - The Enemy At The Gates

Monday 4th April - 06:00 PM BST

Headline Debate - The Enemy At The Gates

Do we need an enemy to affirm our beliefs?

Once, a century or more ago, we imagined that our culture and values led the world.  We were at the forefront of history bringing techological, cultural and moral advancement to the rest of the world.  In recent decades we became uncertain, critical of the past, divided and lacking belief in the future.  The very fabric of western liberal democracy looked to many to be unravelling.  

Yet in the wake of the tragic events in Ukraine there has been a widespread assertion of our values, our democracy and freedom, and a desire to defend it at all cost.  Should we welcome this shift and see it as a sign that we had become too complacent and too comfortable?  Do we need an enemy and a threat to have belief in what we have?  Or is this shift a temporary phenomenon, and once passed the core divisions and flaws in our society will again come to dominate?  

After the headline debate, Meet the Speakers Ian Shapiro, Marci Shore, Jennifer Nadel, Frank Furedi and host Stephen Sackur to put your questions to them directly.

 

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5.00pm - Documentary Screening - DOKBOX Cinema
The Term: Opposing Putin

5.15pm - Big Sofa Interview - The Lounge
How Fear Controls Our Lives with Frank Furedi

6.00pm - Headline Debate - The Arena
The Enemy At The Gates

7.00pm - Meet The Speakers - The Lounge
Ian Shapiro, Jennifer Nadel, Frank Furedi

7.00pm - Documentary Screening - DOKBOX Cinema
Steven Spielberg presents Spell Your Name

7.15pm - Solo Talk - The Arena
The Truth About The Nuclear Threat

7.30pm - Music - The Stage
George Cheetham

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Frank Furedi

Frank Furedi is a emeritus professor of sociology at the University of Kent. Since the late 1990s, he has been widely cited about his views on why Western societies find it so difficult to engage with risk and uncertainty. His book Invitation to Terror: expanding the empire of the unknown explores the way in which the threat of terrorism has become amplified through the ascendancy of precautionary thinking.

Jennifer Nadel

Jennifer Nadel is an award winning journalist and co-founder of Compassion in Politics.

Stephen Sackur

Stephen John Sackur is an English journalist who presents HARDtalk, a current affairs interview programme on BBC World News and the BBC News Channel. He was also the main Friday presenter of GMT on BBC World News.

Ian Shapiro

Ian Shapiro is Yale University's Sterling Profressor of Political Science, where he also heads the Macmillan Centre for International Affairs studies.

Marci Shore

Marci Shore is associate professor of intellectual history at Yale University. She specializes in the history of literary and political engagement with Marxism and phenomenology. She is a regular visiting fellow at the Institut für die Wissenschaften vom Menschen in Vienna and the author of The Ukrainian Night: An Intimate History of Revolution.