Religious difference, not ideology, will fuel this century’s epic battles. By Tony Blair. The Observer, January 25, 2014.
Tony Blair’s Education Won’t End Terrorism. By Tom Wilson. Commentary, November 27, 2014.
Blair:
We must encourage education and tolerance
if we are to bring about peace in the Middle East and the rest of the world.
The
last weeks have seen a ghastly roll call of terror attacks in the obvious
places: Syria, Libya, Iraq and Lebanon, as well as Egypt, Yemen, Tunisia and
Pakistan. Also suffering are places where we have only in recent years seen
such violence: Nigeria, and in many parts of central Africa, in Russia and
across central Asia, and in Burma, Thailand and the Philippines. We can either
see all of these acts of killing as separate – produced by various political
contexts – or we can start to see the clear common theme and start to produce a
genuine global strategy to deal with it.
The
fact is that, though of course there are individual grievances or reasons for
the violence in each country, there is one thing self-evidently in common: the
acts of terrorism are perpetrated by people motivated by an abuse of religion.
It is a perversion of faith. But there is no doubt that those who commit the
violence often do so by reference to their faith and the sectarian nature of
the conflict is a sectarianism based on religion. There is no doubt either that
this phenomenon is growing, not abating.
We have
to be prepared to take the security measures necessary for our immediate
protection. Since 9/11, the cost of those measures, and their burden, has been
huge. However, security action alone, even military action, will not deal with
the root cause. This extremism comes from a source. It is not innate. It is
taught. It is taught sometimes in the formal education system; sometimes in the
informal religious schools; sometimes in places of worship and it is promoted
by a vast network of internet communications.
Technology,
so much the harbinger of opportunity, can also be used by those who want to
disseminate lessons of hate and division. Today’s world is connected as never
before. This has seen enormous advances. It means there is a kind of global conversation
being conducted. This is exciting and often liberating. But it comes with the
inevitable ability for those who want to get across a message that is extreme
to do so. This has to be countered.
At
present, our screens are dominated by the hideous slaughter in Syria. We have
to hope that the peace negotiations succeed. But with more than 130,000 dead –
and, on some accounts, the total is nearer 200,000 – millions displaced and the
country in a state of disintegration, it is hard to see how there can be a
lasting agreement for peace unless it is based on a clear recognition that the
Syria arising from this has to be one in which all people are treated equally,
regardless of which faith they practise or which part within a faith they
belong to. That will never work while either a minority religious group rules
the country whose majority has a different adherence, or where those fighting
the regime have powerful elements that also want to rule on the basis of
religious difference – and are prepared to use terrorism to get their way.
This is
not just a matter of what any new constitution says. Democracy is not only a
way of voting. It is a way of thinking. People have to feel equal, not just be
regarded by the law as such. Such religious tolerance has to be taught and
argued for. Those who oppose it have to be taken on and defeated not only by
arms but by ideas.
All
over the region, and including in Iraq, where exactly the same sectarianism
threatens the right of the people to a democratic future, such a campaign has
to be actively waged. It is one reason why the Middle East matters so much and
why any attempt to disengage is so wrong and short-sighted. It is here in the
centre of Islam that so many of the issues around how religion and politics
coexist peacefully will be determined.
But
this issue of extremism is not limited to Islam. There are also many examples
the world over where Muslims are the victims of religiously motivated violence
from those of other religious faiths.
So the
challenge is clear. And it is one that could define the nature of peace and
conflict in the first half of the 21st century. The battles of this century are
less likely to be the product of extreme political ideology – like those of the
20th century – but they could easily be fought around the questions of cultural
or religious difference.
The
answer is to promote views that are open-minded and tolerant towards those who
are different, and to fight the formal, informal and internet propagation of
closed-minded intolerance. In the 21st century, education is a security issue.
For
that reason, when I left office, and in part based on my experience post-9/11
of how countries whose people were freed from dictatorship have then had
democratic aspirations thwarted by religious extremism, I established a
foundation whose aim is to promote greater knowledge and understanding between
people of different faiths. This is not a call to faith – it is a call to
respect those of all faiths and not to allow faith to divide us but instead to
embody the true values of compassion and humanity common to all faiths.
The
foundation is now active in more than 20 countries, including some of those
most affected by sectarianism, with a multimillion-pound budget, full-time and
part-time staff, and expanding rapidly. We focus on practical programmes. The
schools programme, accredited to the international GCSE and recognised by the
international baccalaureate, uses video conferencing and online interaction to
link classes of students from different countries across the world to learn
about each other and to learn to live with each other.
There
is a university programme, which we are building into a minor degree course,
that began at Yale but is now in more than 20 universities, including in China
and Latin America, where students study faith and globalisation – essentially
the place of religion in modern society. And an action programme, pioneered in
Sierra Leone but now being extended, where we help deliver the anti-malaria
campaign of the UN by using the faith infrastructure of the churches and the
mosques.
Later
this year, in collaboration with Harvard Divinity School, we will launch a new
website that will provide up-to-date analysis of what is happening in the field
of religion and conflict; in-depth analysis of religion and its impact on
countries where this is a major challenge; and basic facts about the religious
make-up and trends in every country worldwide.
Evidently,
we can reach only parts of the world and be a small part of fighting a huge problem.
But the purpose is to change the policy of governments: to start to treat this
issue of religious extremism as an issue that is about religion as well as
politics, to go to the roots of where a false view of religion is being
promulgated, and to make it a major item on the agenda of world leaders to
combine effectively to combat it. This is a struggle that is only just
beginning.
Wilson:
Writing
this weekend in the British newspaper the Observer,
former Prime Minister Tony Blair turned once again to address the ongoing
threat from terrorism. Blair identifies religious extremism as being
fundamentally at the root cause of terrorism–a far cry from the delusions of
Secretary of State John Kerry who recently claimed terrorism is caused by
poverty. Blair quite rightly observed that just as extreme political ideologies
marred the twentieth century, so the terror that emerges from religious extremism
threatens to plague the twenty-first. Yet, troublingly, much of Blair’s article
is devoted to a rather superficial discussion about the prospects of
confronting extremism through “education.” No doubt much of the war for the
West’s values will be waged on the battlefield of the mind, but Blair is
straying into territory almost as naïve as that inhabited by the likes of John
Kerry if he thinks we can simply abandon the military option and reason the
societies that support terrorism out of extremism.
Of
course, nowhere does Blair directly advocate dropping the military option; this
isn’t some latter day about-turn on the policies of military intervention that
he himself once employed. Yet, there can be little doubt from his tone as to
where Blair thinks the emphasis now needs to be placed: on promoting education
and interfaith outreach. Indeed, to that effect Blair is sure to note that he
does not consider this a uniquely Islamic problem. It seems that the former
prime minister is genuinely under the impression that education and good
intentions are going to essentially win the war on terror for us. Like Kerry’s
ideas about poverty being at the root of terrorism, the notion that providing
education will win over our enemies is a far more palatable strategy than the
military option. And like the thought of defeating terror by defeating poverty,
it is not only attractive, but also much too good to be true.
That is
not to say that there is no common sense to be found in this article. There is
plenty, and that is what makes its mistaken conclusions all the more jarring.
One of Blair’s most important points is that solving the growing crisis in the
Middle East is not simply a matter of establishing new improved constitutional
arrangements. As Blair writes, “Democracy is not only a way of voting. It is a
way of thinking.” This is an important point, absent from many discussions
about democracy and its meaning. Functioning democracy is not simply a question
of a procedure for determining who administers government, it is an entire
attitude with a whole corresponding system of values upon which that procedure
depends.
Tony
Blair speaks glowingly in his article of his efforts for interfaith outreach
and education thus far. He tells his readers of the work of the Tony Blair
Faith Foundation, with its soon-to-be launched database on religion and
conflict created in collaboration with Harvard Divinity School, interfaith
programs and degree courses, first pioneered at Yale, now available in
universities from China to Latin America. No doubt this is all good work, but
are we really to believe that degree courses in religious toleration, taking
place in China and Latin America, are going to heal such intractable conflicts
as the fracture between Sunni and Shia that dates to Islam’s founding? Even if
Blair’s foundation were to hit upon the magic formula for de-radicalization,
they are hardly going to be setting the curriculum in Saudi or Iranian schools
any time soon.
While
religious toleration may be in short supply throughout many parts of the world,
and particularly the Islamic Middle East, we should not forget that in our own
countries it was the obsession with tolerance that caused many Western
governments to turn a blind eye to this very religious extremism in the first
place. It has been the continuing obsession with tolerance that is exploited by
those who essentially wish to neuter the West’s capabilities and willingness to
defend itself in the face of the threat from hardline Islam.
People
in the Islamic world have noticed these weaknesses emerging in our sense of
civilizational self-confidence. As Joshua Mitchell has observed from his
interactions with young Muslims in the Gulf, one of their greatest fears, found
even among highly educated people, is that their own societies might succumb to
becoming like the West, which they see as being beset by a valueless
individualism.
We can
hope for a change in the Islamic world, hope for an Islamic reformation that is
liberalizing rather than radicalizing, although current trends should dissuade
excessive optimism. But we need to be realistic about just how limited our
ability to bring about drastic changes in that culture really is. In his book The Suicide of Reason Lee Harris puts
forward the contention that one of the greatest conceits of Western strategy
has been the belief that since our system is the natural and inevitable end
point in which all societies are progressing, people from other traditions will
only be too ready to adopt our values. The last decade of turmoil in the Middle
East suggests they are far from ready.
Blair
is quite mistaken if he thinks that the West can simply educate our enemies
into abandoning the extremism that drives their terror war against us, and
indeed one another. Changing “them” may not be feasible, changing “us” is far
more within reach, however. Our efforts should be toward reaffirming our sense
of commitment to our own values and way of life and doubling up on our
readiness to proactively defend those basic principles that we most value.
