“In an era of globalization, there is nothing more important than getting people of different faiths and therefore cultures to understand each other better and live in peace and mutual respect and to give faith itself its proper place in the future.”
The quote is from former British PM Tony Blair; it is posted on his website to promote the Faith Foundation he established. One of the goals of the foundation, the site says, is to try to bridge the gap and awaken the world’s conscience.
One wonders if Blair had these convictions when he agreed to join the US in invading Iraq, and if he did, how was the invasion a tool in bringing understanding and peace?
The Guardian featured an article about Blair in which it explored the response of some Mps. The Labour backbench MP, Ian Gibson, said: “It is a pity that Mr. Blair did not think more deeply about issues of religious strife before he went into Iraq and bombed Baghdad.”
I cannot help but agree with the gentleman’s opinion; it is one thing to talk about religion and how healing and peaceful it is, and it is a completely different matter to thrust it aside and engage in something that nullifies and negates the very idea you were talking about. It is interesting that Blair’s talk of religion and dialogue between faiths came after he left office. It does not make his talk any more believable. It comes across as a retired person’s effort to stay in the limelight — or a mere hobby rather than a firm belief that he had held for years.
Some people suggest that Blair’s faith has always been kept in the background and that he did not show it until he was out of office when he got the chance to convert to Catholicism.
But for people who are watching from outside, how much can we believe Blair when he talks about religion? In the lecture he gave at Westminster Cathedral on April 3 he said: “One of the oddest questions I get asked in interviews (and I get asked a lot of odd questions) is: Is faith important to your politics? It’s like asking someone whether their health is important to them or their family.” So he maintains that faith is an integral part of his politics. When he talks about bridging the gap and getting cultures to understand each other, he certainly touches on one of the main topics of the times when dialogue between cultures and religions is at the top of the agenda of many international bodies. But then one wonders if Blair’s foundation is just a career move.
The question that comes to mind first is how that beautiful sentence is related to Blair’s role in the war in Iraq? Where were understanding and peace and mutual respect when he chose to ignore UN decisions and follow Bush into a catastrophic war that ruined a whole country and failed to achieve any of its goals?
It is all very well for retired political figures to write their biographies and give lectures, but in the middle of all this, they have to keep in mind that people do not forget easily what they did when they were in office. So the fact that Blair has become a peace envoy does not make him a man of peace, really. He is still stuck with his Iraq war decision, and that was no peaceful decision. I hope we do not wake up one day to find that Bush has been selected as the new peace envoy to Iraq.
