Round Table on Democracy and Diversity, 12 June, Oslo, Norway
Neal Ascherson was born in Edinburgh, Scotland and educated at Eton and King's College, Cambridge, UK, where he read history. Having elected to pursue a career in journalism, for over 40 years Neal Ascherson worked as a reporter, foreign correspondent and columnist on The Manchester Guardian, The Observer and the Independent on Sunday. Among his books are The King Incorporated: Leopold the Second and the Congo (1963), The Polish August (1981), Black Sea (1995), and Stone Voices: the Search for Scotland (2002).
Rajeev Bhargava received his masters and doctorate of Philosophy at Oxford University, UK. His main fields of work include political theory, the history of political thought and the philosophy of social science. He is editor of Secularism and its critics, co-editor of Multiculturalism, liberalism and democracy, and author of Individualism in Social Science. He is a prominent scholar of multiculturalism and secularism in non-Western societies. Rajeev Bhargava has held fellowships at the Harvard University Program in Ethics and the Professions, at the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies in Delhi, and currently serves as South Asia editor of Open Democracy.
Kim Campbell became the first woman to hold Canada's highest office, Prime Minister, in 1993. Prior to that, she was Defense Minister and Minister of Justice. She was born in Port Alberni, British Columbia and studied Political Science and Economics before launching her career as a lawyer. Ms. Campbell is currently Secretary General of the Club of Madrid and Honorary Fellow of the Center for Public Leadership at the John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, USA.
Sona Khan is renowned in India and beyond for her work on women's rights and child prostitution. She played a major role in the Shahbano case that focused on a Muslim woman's struggle against her former husband, and more broadly was instrumental in raising the issue of the separation of civil and religious laws in India. Today she is as a prominent attorney at the Indian Supreme Court.
Enrique Ojeda Vila became director of the Three Cultures of the Mediterranean Foundation (Fundación Tres Culturas del Mediterráneo) in 2004. Prior to that he served as a diplomat at the Spanish Mission to the United Nations, in Bolivia and Guatemala, and as Cultural Attaché at the Spanish Consulate in New York.
Tariq Ramadan was born in Geneva, of Egyptian parents. He holds a MA in Philosophy and French literature and PhD in Arabic and Islamic Studies. He established the Movement of Swiss Muslims and in recent years has played a pivotal role in promoting the notion of “European Islam”. Tariq Ramadan is widely interviewed and active in the academic and political arena. He is currently President of the Brussels-based European Muslim Network (EMN) and a Visiting Fellow at St Antony’s College, Oxford.
Shashi Tharoor is Chairman of Dubai-based Afras Ventures and former Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations. He joined the staff of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in 1978 and had various responsibilities until he left UN in 2007. He worked as a peace-keeper in South East Asia and former Yugoslavia, and as senior adviser to the Secretary-General. Mr. Tharoor is the author of several books, as well as numerous articles and book reviews in a wide range of publications including the New York Times, the International Herald Tribune, Time, and Newsweek.
Theo Veenkamp is a PhD researcher at Leiden University, The Netherlands. He was head of the Netherlands Agency for the Reception of Asylum–Seekers and head of strategy at the Dutch Ministry of Justice. He is now active as an essayist and adviser. He has published several books and articles, among them People Flow: managing migration in a new European commonwealth.
