March 22, 2005

Tony Blair: "A Clash About Civilization"

WHILE PRESIDENT BUSH continues to field inane questions from the likes of Helen Thomas, and appear here and there about the land armed with standard soundbites, it falls, as it often does, to Britain's Tony Blair to articulate in a deeper and more meaningful way just what the stakes are in The First Terrorist War. Today 10 Downing released the transcript of Foreign Policy Speech I; the first of three speeches Blair will make on this issue in the near future: "In the second he will outline the importance of a broad global alliance to achieve our common goals and in the third he will say how the international institutions need radical reform to make them capable of implementing such an agenda."

This is an excerpt, but I commend the entire text to you as the definitive answer to "Why we fight:"

There is an interesting debate going on inside government today about how to counter extremism in British communities. Ministers have been advised never to use the term "Islamist extremist". It will give offence. It is true. It will. There are those - perfectly decent-minded people - who say the extremists who commit these acts of terrorism are not true Muslims. And, of course, they are right. They are no more proper Muslims than the Protestant bigot who murders a Catholic in Northern Ireland is a proper Christian. But, unfortunately, he is still a "Protestant" bigot. To say his religion is irrelevant is both completely to misunderstand his motive and to refuse to face up to the strain of extremism within his religion that has given rise to it....

This is not a clash between civilisations. It is a clash about civilisation. It is the age-old battle between progress and reaction, between those who embrace and see opportunity in the modern world and those who reject its existence; between optimism and hope on the one hand; and pessimism and fear on the other. And in the era of globalisation where nations depend on each other and where our security is held in common or not at all, the outcome of this clash between extremism and progress is utterly determinative of our future here in Britain. We can no more opt out of this struggle than we can opt out of the climate changing around us. Inaction, pushing the responsibility on to America, deluding ourselves that this terrorism is an isolated series of individual incidents rather than a global movement and would go away if only we were more sensitive to its pretensions; this too is a policy.� It is just that; it is a policy that is profoundly, fundamentally wrong.

Posted by Vanderleun at March 22, 2005 7:28 AM
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"It is impossible to speak in such a way that you cannot be misunderstood." -- Karl Popper N.B.: Comments are moderated and may not appear immediately. Comments that exceed the obscenity or stupidity limits will be either edited or expunged.

Whatever Blair's faults, one thing is continually evident; he both knows how to speak, and has a very good speechwriter.

Public speaking appears to be a completely lost art in the US. Or maybe I'm being seduced by the British accent. I dunno.

It just sounds better.

Posted by: Eric Blair at March 23, 2006 4:57 AM