Excerpts of Speech by
Prime Minister Tony Blair
(not reported in the US media)
When we act to bring to account those that committed the atrocity of
11 September, we do so, not out of bloodlust. We do so because it is
just. We do not act against Islam. The true followers of Islam are our
brothers and sisters in this struggle. Bin Laden is no more obedient
to the proper teaching of the Koran than those Crusaders of the 12th
Century who pillaged and murdered, represented the teaching of the Gospel.
It is time the West confronted its ignorance of Islam. Jews, Muslims
and Christians are all children of Abraham.
This is the moment to bring the faiths closer together in understanding
of our common values and heritage, a source of unity and strength. It
is time also for parts of Islam to confront prejudice against America
and not only Islam but parts of western societies too.
America has its faults as a society, as we have ours. But I think of
the Union of America born out of the defeat of slavery. I think of its
Constitution, with its inalienable rights granted to every citizen still
a model for the world. I think of a black man, born in poverty, who
became Chief of their Armed Forces and is now Secretary of State Colin
Powell and I wonder frankly whether such a thing could have happened
here.
I think of the Statue of Liberty and how many refugees, migrants and
the impoverished passed its light and felt that if not for them, for
their children, a new world could indeed be theirs.
I think of a country where people who do well, don't have questions
asked about their accent, their class, their beginnings but have admiration
for what they have done and the success they've achieved.
I think of those New Yorkers I met, still in shock, but resolute; the
fire fighters and police, mourning their comrades but still head held
high.
I think of all this and I reflect: yes, America has its faults, but
it is a free country, a democracy, it is our ally and some of the reaction
to 11 September betrays a hatred of America that shames those that feel
it.
So I believe this is a fight for freedom. And I want to make it a fight
for justice too. Justice not only to punish the guilty. But justice
to bring those same values of democracy and freedom to people round
the world.
And I mean: freedom, not only in the narrow sense of personal liberty
but in the broader sense of each individual having the economic and
social freedom to develop their potential to the full. That is what
community means, founded on the equal worth of all.
The starving, the wretched, the dispossessed, the ignorant, those living
in want and squalor from the deserts of Northern Africa to the slums
of Gaza, to the mountain ranges of Afghanistan: they too are our cause.
This is a moment to seize.
The Kaleidoscope has been shaken. The pieces are in flux. Soon they
will settle again. Before they do, let us re-order this world around
us.
Today, humankind has the science and technology to destroy itself or
to provide prosperity to all. Yet science can't make that choice for
us.
Only the moral power of a world acting as a community, can. "By
the strength of our common endeavour we achieve more together than we
can alone".
For those people who lost their lives on 11 September and those that
mourn them; now is the time for the strength to build that community.
Let that be their memorial.”
|