Straw Message in Pakistan Stresses Dialogue

British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw made his second visit to South Asia in a few weeks in early March as he travelled to Pakistan to rally support for the peace process that emerged between Pakistan and India at the regional summit in Islamabad in January.

In a presentation to the Area Study Centre of Peshawar University March 5 he said it was vital to promote understanding between the great religions of the world, especially Judaism, Christianity and Islam. And in speaking to journalists in that city that the West was eager to remove the existing mistrust between the followers of the different religions and that his governments had taken practical steps in this regard.

Ministers Straw and Kasuri

 
He also met with Pakistan Foreign Minister Kursheed Kasuri and with President Pervez Musharraf in Islamabad, where he said he had extensive discussions on nuclear proliferation issues and was satisfied with the investigations underway in the country on the subject.

A second leg of his voyage took Straw to Afghanistan, where he also conferred with top Afghan and other leaders there.

But to underline his personal attachment and awareness to the links between peoples and religions, he noted that his constituency in Blackburn was the home to 25,000 Muslims, around half from Pakistan. The city has 25 mosques and he lived opposite a madrassah. He elaborated that there 800,000 persons of Pakistani origin in the UK. Some 80,000 British citizens and numerous companies had also set up in Pakistan, where the UK was the biggest foreign investor and fifth largest export market with trade amounting to £800 million every year. He noted that firms such as Unilever, Cadbury, BP and Standard Chartered were present in the country.

He also added that Britain´s development assistance to Pakistan this year would amount to 70 million pounds, four times more than two years ago, and would amount to over £200 million over the next three years. It was said to have focused especially on human fields such as education and health.

But he added that this partnership extended to other fields, including security, where he said he said he “warmly welcomed the vital part which Pakistan is playing, along with its international partners including the UK, in the global fight against terrorism.” He noted that the Pakistani authorities had arrested over 500 terrorist suspects since September 11, 2001, including Al Qaeda leaders, and was carrying “crucial operations” Waziristan to root out al-Qaeda and Taliban elements. The Foreign Secretary observed that in the fight against terrorism, “we are all on the frontline,” underlining recent fatal attacks in Pakistan, Iraq and Turkey and stressing that all victims were Muslim.

Before proceeding to the heart of his presentation on relations between religions, he also touched on Pakistan’s relations with neighbours in India and Afghanistan, where he welcomed the improvement in bilateral relations between Islamabad and New Delhi over Kashmir and added cautiously that “we in Britain stand ready to help the process of dialogue.” He also emphasised that “Terrorism should never be defended or excused by reference to an alleged cause. Terrorism is murder. And terrorists discredit any cause they claim to pursue. We must, of course, work to defuse the conflicts which terrorists exploit…Long-running conflicts should not remain unattended. Nor should chronic instability.”

But reaching beyond these concrete political messages, the senior British official sought to address another challenge of promoting dialogue and understanding between the Islamic world and the West.

He sought to dispel the misconceptions and caricatures of Islam as violent and the West as godless and the belief that current international campaigns amounted to Judeo-Christian conspiracies against Muslims. He explained that while Islam was a peaceful and tolerant religion, some states were in need of reform and that while many in the West were secular, it should be recognised that, for example, 2 million Muslims were free to pursue their religion in the UK and hold seat in government institutions. He further observed that interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq had removed tyrannical regime which had oppressed millions of Muslims, that Muslim Turkey had led the international force in Afghanistan and that earlier interventions in Bosnia and Kosovo had been to save Muslims from ethnic cleansing.

While acknowledging it was difficult to be objective about such discussions because of cultural and religious backgrounds, we should seek to promote a closer reading of the common roots and historic of the three great monotheistic religions, Judaism, Christianity and Islam.

He also suggested it was time to “move beyond mere tolerance of difference to an active celebration of diversity.” He pointed to the move in the UK for state-funded faith schools for Muslim, as well as Sikh and Hindu, communities, alongside Christian and Jewish schools, for the positive influence they can have in their communities. But he added that religion or culture should not be an excuse for violating laws and values, noting that no religion had been free from extremism, and underlining that the values that underpinned societies were not Christian or Western, but universal.

Welcoming President Musharraf’s policies of seeking to defuse such religious tensions and extremism, Straw stated his belief that no country could achieve such objectives alone and stressed Pakistan and Britain’s shared past and relations could be instrumental in developing a shared future.