The Cambridge Union Society

Promoting free speech and the art of debating since 1815

Chris Romalds, a postgraduate student in Development Studies, explores the reasons why multiculturalism could be said to be failing. Sarah Garland, a second year English student at Newnham College, argues that despite its problems, multiculturalism has not failed.

Ian Linden

Senior Advisor at the Tony Blair Faith Foundation

Tea and biscuits are not always the setting for interfaith encounters. It was 9pm on Burns Night and not only Scots were off the street.

Jeffrey Gedmin

President and CEO of the Legatum Institute in London

There's suffering, uncertainty and threats that loom. But seriously, did we actually not understand two years ago that we were at the beginning of a long and dangerous process? Do we really think that, once shackles are thrown off, peace and prosperity automatically break out?

Fiyaz Mughal

Director of Faith Matters and the Tell MAMA project

This Coalition Government has made a bold step in trying to counter hate crimes through better community based information. It has supported the Tell Mama project and realises the far reaching consequences of anti-Muslim prejudice

Professor Michael Clarke

Director-General, RUSI

The attacks on Algerian gas installations and the Mali insurgency has led the UK Prime Minister to describe this as a 'generational struggle'. However, what is happening across the Sahel region is a different terrorist challenge altogether, requiring a reappraisal in strategy.

Hannah Gal

Award winning filmmaker, writer and artist

The illuminating visit to Israel has transformed Hafeez's life. 'The idea of an apartheid state was dispelled within half an hour of arriving in Jerusalem' he says.

Llewelyn Morgan

Lecturer in Classics at Brasenose College, Oxford

My book was about the Buddhas of Bamiyan, two gigantic statues carved from a cliff face in central Afghanistan, demolished by the Taliban in 2001. I was reading Breivik, among other reasons, because he's very interested in the Hindu Kush, the band of mountains that sweeps across Afghanistan from the North-East to the West: Bamiyan sits in a valley in the heart of those mountains.

Adrian Millar

Stay-at-home father of three daughters - with two PhDs and a passion for mindfulness and the beauty of everyday life

When the heat dies down over the siege in In Amenas, it will be back to business for the West, propping up the Algerian authorities in defence of Western interests.

Gates Cambridge Scholars

Gates Cambridge Scholars are intellectually outstanding postgraduate students with a capacity for leadership and a commitment to improving the lives of others

Recent Egyptian history, therefore, provides a model for overcoming a protracted period of uncertainty, a disruptive military presence in politics, a growing Islamist movement and a deteriorating economy.

Rupert Sutton

Head Researcher at Student Rights

This info-graphic outlines our key findings from 2012, detailing the most frequently invited speakers, the number of events involved, and the ease with which material linked to the extremist Islamist organisation Hizb ut-Tahrir was shared on student social media.

Julian Bond

Director of the Christian Muslim Forum since its launch in 2006

The difficulties and uncertainties felt by religious communities when their members form loving relationships across religious and cultural differences can weigh heavily on couples and families.

Ralph Jones

A writer of comedy and articles on religion...mainly

One ought always to be on one's guard about those who assert that to think in a certain way is to commit a sin. This is the immoral and bullying trick that religion plays. Couched in cosy rhetoric and increasingly vague threats is the assumption that, in dissenting, you are subjecting yourself to an eternity of howling pain and misery.

Shohana Khan

London-based freelance writer

Rather than the finger being pointed at those of faith who believe in it enough to adhere to it in all aspects of life; we should put the advocates of secular fundamentalism on the spot as they not only believe in their idea, but forcibly impose it on everyone else.

Mehdi Hasan

Political director of The Huffington Post UK

In trying to disparage 'faith', Dawkins and his allies constantly confuse 'evidence' with 'proof'; those of us who believe in God do so without proof but not without evidence. As the Oxford theologian (and biophysicist) Alister McGrath has observed: "Our beliefs may be shown to be justifiable, without thereby demonstrating that they are proven."

Shamim Chowdhury

Print and television journalist

My enthusiasm is in no way hampered by the fact that I am Muslim, for I do not believe that by choosing to partake in a national festival, I am in any way compromising my personal beliefs. And I am not alone in this opinion. All across the land, posters for halal turkeys in butchers' shops in Muslim-populated areas such as Southall, Leicester and Birmingham stand testament to the significance Muslims place on this day.

Ioannis Toutountzis

Student in Media Studies at the University of East Anglia

Political statements such as 'Muslim women let's get naked' are problematic to say the least, as they represent quite a black and white, essentialist view of what feminism is and how to achieve the goals it aspires to realise.