Tony Blair aims to unleash religion as a force for unification, not extremism

Tony Blair aims to unleash religion as a force for unification, not 
extremism
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at 0:15 on May 30, 2008, EDT.
By Jered Stuffco, THE CANADIAN PRESS
TORONTO - While fundamentalists can use religion to create cultural 
divisions and breed extremism, Tony Blair is calling on world leaders to 
"get faith in action" and unleash shared moral values as a force for peace 
and positive change.

"Religious values can inform globalization and make it more humane," Blair 
said Thursday at a fundraising dinner for the Women's College Hospital in 
Toronto.

The call to action comes as Blair, a former Anglican who converted to 
Catholicism earlier this year, launches his Faith Foundation in New York on 
Friday, a new project aiming to build bridges between religions through 
dialogue and humanitarian work.

"Show (religion) doing something good" and it can be a powerful force, said 
the former British prime minister, who added communities in Africa beset by 
malaria could be better served through faith-based outreach.

At turns introspective and humorous, Blair also spoke about global forces, 
like the emerging economies of China and India, and the need for western 
democracies to react to an inevitable eastward shift of political and 
economic power.

"A strong relationship (with China) is essential," Blair, adding that 
Beijing plans to build more power stations in the next few years than all of 
Europe has since the Second World War.

"All the time, the world is changing so rapidly - anyone who stands still 
gets left behind."

Monumental shifts are also playing out at home, and Blair said governments 
in Europe and North America shouldn't shy away from "big reforms" and 
finding new ways of providing social services such as health care and 
education.

For example, he pointed to public-private partnerships as a way to deliver 
consumer-based health care at a time when "monolithic public services" have 
become expensive and unwieldy.

Rather than an abandonment of our principles, though, Blair said adapting is 
"a way of making our way of life relevant."

Blair should know.

He brought Britain's Labour party back into power after years in the 
political wilderness by abandoning many of it founding principles.

Blair also reformed, sometimes painfully, Britain's health care system 
during his decade at 10 Downing St.

While Blair's tenure as prime minister was marked by a controversial 
decision to send British troops into Iraq, he now works as a Middle East 
peace envoy, navigating the disparate political goals of the Europe, the 
United Nations, Russia and the U.S.

"I've got an interesting line of accountability," he told a crowd of several 
hundred who paid $750-per-plate for the evening.

But if anyone can walk the political tightrope, it's Blair.

He presided over the Good Friday Agreement in April 1998, which essentially 
ended years of hostilities between the British government and the Irish 
Republican Army.

"It was definitely one of those things people thought couldn't be done," 
said Blair, adding a solution also exists for the Palestinian-Israeli 
conflict.

"It's either a two-state solution or a one state solution, in which case, 
it's going to be a big fight," he said, adding leaders should work for the 
latter.

"Without a solution between Israel and Palestine, there won't be peace in 
the world, so we'd better get it done."


©The Canadian Press, 2008

date: Fri, 30 May 2008 13:48:44 GMT author: graham