Here is the text of my speech, in which I stressed the following issues; the importance of religious factors for UK foreign and defence policy; the need to distinguish between religiously motivated resistance to enemy occupation and ideological terrorism; and the fact that we should support unofficial diplomacy and work for conflict.
My Lords, I welcome the new coalition. I suppose that I may, being descended on one side from Disraeli’s long-serving Chief Whip and on the other from Prime Minister Asquith.
Today I draw attention to the importance of religious factors in foreign and defence policy. Ministers and advisers, used to our secular and scientific culture, can find this very difficult. They sometimes think that religion and faith are important only to children and old women. They are quite wrong, and show ignorance in much of today’s world. An extreme example was in 2003, when some very senior people in the United States simply did not know about the important differences between Sunni and Shia Muslims.
I have spoken before in this House about the folly of the so-called “war on terrorism”. One can sometimes fight terrorists but it is madness to try, using military means, to fight against an “ism”. It is usually a case of winning hearts and minds, as many wise military men know. At home, I urge those reviewing the previous Government’s Prevent Terrorism programme to keep this clearly in mind.
The second need is to distinguish resistance fighters, who may sometimes use terror methods, from ideological terrorists seeking world revolution and, if possible, world domination. The Anbar Awakening in Iraq, Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Palestine are good examples of religious resistance groups. They wanted to end brutal and oppressive foreign occupation but not to fight for world domination. Al-Qaeda and its offshoots, on the other hand, can seldom be satisfied as they aim by violence for a completely Islamic world.
In the 1970s and 1980s in Northern Ireland I had my first experience of religious factors in conflict. It was not, of course, an old-fashioned war of religion. Politics, identity, culture and religion had, however, become so tightly interwoven that nominal religion served as the identifier in a deeply divided society. To a lesser extent, this is still the case today. Since then, I have made many visits to Israel and Palestine and their neighbours. I believe that it is only religious faith that has given Hezbollah and Hamas the strength to resist oppressive military occupation. Similarly, religious and ideological zeal inspires some Israelis to live in hardship on hilltops in order to colonise someone else’s country, to which they claim a kind of divine right. I have already mentioned the Sunni Anbar tribes in Iraq who agreed to fight with the Americans, whom they had previously resisted, because they saw the greater threat posed by al-Qaeda.
The Foundation for Relief and Reconciliation in the Middle East, in which I have a non-financial interest, has been working for years with the most senior religious leaders-Sunni, Shia and Christian-towards national reconciliation. This process has produced joint statements, which are being filtered down so as to reduce the general level of violence. Further mediating work is still needed with the political parties and with other opinion formers.
In Kosovo, I have an indirect interest through the British charity The Soul of Europe. There, it is surprising that UNMIK, EULEX, the OSCE, the Council of Europe and the European Union in Brussels had barely attempted to resolve the problems surrounding the UNESCO-listed, enclave, Serbian Orthodox monasteries. These splendid buildings, with their frescos and living communities, stand surrounded by barbed wire and protected by NATO troops against the potential ill-will of their Albanian neighbours. Fortunately, the charity that I mentioned has been invited to mediate by both parties. The hope is that it will be commissioned to do so by the European Union. This religious and political issue has huge symbolic importance as the monasteries were founded at the height of the medieval Serb kingdom and in its very heartland. The issue has great immediate urgency because the enthronement at Pec in Kosovo of the new patriarch of all Orthodox Serbs is being planned for October in the presence of many bishops from all the Christian Episcopal traditions. Your Lordships can imagine the security worries and the dangers of misperceptions if a good modus vivendi is not quickly established. In the longer term, the resolution of the problems affecting these monasteries could speed up the accession of Kosovo to the EU while also helping tourism and the economy generally.
I will give only one more example of constructive inter-religious work in process. The Nyon process is bringing together in dialogue Sunnis and Shias, together with western secular leaders and American evangelicals. The combination is so diverse that many have never been in the same room before. The process has the support, I am glad to say, of the UN Alliance of Civilizations and of the Governments of Spain, Portugal, Turkey, Switzerland and Saudi Arabia. Nyon has produced a practical first fruit in the form of additional help for eye surgery in beleaguered Gaza. Its potential for mutual respect and co-operation is almost unlimited.
From my personal experience and the examples I have given, I urge Her Majesty’s Government to treat religious factors with the seriousness that they deserve. This can only benefit our policies in Europe, the Middle East, Afghanistan, Pakistan and elsewhere. Like my noble friend Lord Hannay, I particularly ask this Government to listen to Hamas. Secondly, will they support and encourage unofficial diplomacy and conflict resolution wherever these can improve conflict and post-conflict situations? I was encouraged by what the noble Lord, Lord Howell, said in opening this debate about sub-governmental bodies and new global networks. Perhaps the answer is yes.
Lord Hylton,
Your Lordship and I disagree on many very serious matters I think. However, I agree entirely with your Lordship’s central premise. Comparative religion and religious history should be required courses to earn most university degrees in my opinion and should be required of most people in any government serving in foreign policy. Such surveys would not replace real expertise but they would prevent some of the problems you mention. Such knowledge will CERTAINLY NOT MAKE US ALL FRIENDS HOWEVER.
Noble Lord Hylton,
What an interesting and excellently rehearsed speech; thank you very much. Thank you for relaying it.
I shall do some more research on the subjects you raise, in some detail, and with your considerable learning.
“the importance of religious factors for UK foreign and defence policy”
I wonder whether it is not European foreign policy, defence and development which should be addressed and not that of the UK at all?
That the matters raised are really for the offices of my good friend, very noble, her Excellency Baroness Ashton?
“Lord Howell, said in opening this debate about sub-governmental bodies and new global networks. Perhaps the answer is yes.”
I am absolutely sure he is correct in saying so. YES, but also with Supra governmental bodies, which may be the new global networks he is thinking of.
The implications of the Turks (Osmans) in the Gaza argument this week, are surely a sign of things to come, where it affects the UK most.
As signs and signals omens and portents go,
the Turkish involvement with Israel in such a way, is highly significant,having last been involved with Palestine in 1917 or so.
Lord Hylton lays great stress on Serbia and its ancient integrity, but the call “Kosovo IS Serbia” does not seem to have done it much good in recent months.
This tiny state, whose leader caused the dissolution of FRY in momentous and murderous steps, gets smaller and smaller; its people migrate, as they have for generations to far flung parts of the world
as though the state is no more, merely a stretch of land between the mountains.
The monasteries are still there; the divine music of St John Chrysostom so fine, but monasteries and fine music, will not save a
tiny region of what could become part of the European Union. It is Eastern Orthodox; there’s plenty of that in Eastern Europe.
Our governing Lords, and our neighbourly People;
“Politics is having to choose…under the worst possible circumstances” (Barber 2003 page 121).
We the People are not professional politicians; but we do yearn to make increasingly better governance-choices, ourselves.
Lord Hylton has nicely presented three issues in the Queens’ Speech Debate on Issues of Foreign Affairs, Defence, and Development:
(1) religious factors
(2) religious-resistance versus ideological-terrorism
(3) unofficial-diplomacy.
We wish to mark those three points, and a head-word question between ‘debating’ and ‘discussing’, to be parts of a competitive governance win-lose Debate, not necessarily of a cooperative peoples’ win-win pre-political Discussion.
Nevertheless if we may include the People, it might help here to work backwards through the three content points, in the interests of clarity and of consequent non-politicised cooperative problem solving (see ‘Method III’)and politicised or competitive conflict-and crisis management; and to finish with the head-word question and a little summary.
(3) If we may assume sense and meaning that:
(i) by ‘we should support unofficial diplomacy and work for conflict’ we mean ‘majorly including voluntary and friendly win-win-win problem-solving (Method III) as the first, and thereafter continually-available, resort;
and that by ‘work for conflict’ we mean ‘work for peace’, or ‘work for peaceful win-win-win conflict-resolution’ or ‘work against conflict’ (being sorry about any trace of oxymoron that might have crept in): then do not most Peoples, if not all, need greatly-increased and genericly-widespread enablement in Method III ?
and do not Parliamentary-Bodies need similarly increased skilling and empowerment in Method III in order to best legislate and control its implementations onwards through the whole open global market field of Needs and Hows, Problem-Solvings, Conflict-Resolutions, and Peace-and-Plenty brokerings ?
(2) Pre-politically, one people’s question is “What’s the difference, anyway, between religiously-motivated-resistance and ideological-terrorism ?”.
I am mindful of the overarching question of Spirituality, whereof a Quaker-elder offered a discernment: that spirituality is one’s innate, non-excommunicable direct link with ‘God’ that arises from within one’s nature and is maintained and developed primarily (possibly even solely) by ‘God’ and one-self; whereas religion is a theology and dogma decided and delivered indoctrinally by a large number of professionals-in-authority-and-power to very much larger masses of relatively powerless (or penniless) People.
Possibly the big failing of most if not all religions is that they have yet to introduce and constitute into their theology or lay-practice, the friendly win-win-win cooperative Method III as a first and continually-accessible resort, for needs and hows recognition and cooperative problem-solving.
Which might link strongly with the Topic’s intimated solution, of supporting informal-diplomacy.
However, consider a scenario where diplomacies both formal and informal,and also Method III, have either failed or been insufficiently initiated.
The problem will have escalated, through various increasingly-stand-off conflict stages, into crises stages, with increasing outbreaks of war-like actions (none of which, incidentally need to be nursingly-bandaged up by our English language top-wordsmiths as ‘ethnic cleansings’, ‘final-solutions’, and ‘friendly-fire’)… and will be having the deleterious side-effects of over-destroying both renewable and non-renewable lifesupports (resources) and over-taxing and sickening various peoples.
Ironically, the People having failed in their traditional wisdoms, and in early-resort Method III cooperative problem-solving also, we shall have long since entered into the successive realms of stand-off Politics, National-Security, Defence, War, Malnutrition, Neglect and possibly an Epidemic or Pandemic or two also.
(1)The noble lord puts forward ‘The importance of religious factors…’:
Let me offer a snippet of advice given to the graduating cadet from the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst in June 1948 (“)As you are sent abroad amongst all sorts of foreign foes and peoples, you gentlemen will need to remember one simple factor, that the way to a man’s heart is through religion: his religion(“).
(Head-word ‘Debate’ question):
A debate is win-lose competitive; a discussion is win-win cooperative.
People need the latter cooperative discussion kinds of enablement before being subjected to politicisation;
politicians need the former competitive debating kinds of skill, and need to (be made to)keep them to themselves until the People have finished their cooperative discussion processes.
Summarising a little:
1. We need straight, clear and unambiguous terminology and talk at both pre-political People’s levels and competitive Parliamentary and Poliical levels.
2. We need progressive implementation and constitution of friendly win-win-win Method III cooperative problem solving, as a generic of citizenship at all levels of the People, and as a mandatory management and facilitation skill at all higher levels especially of governance.
3. We need to ‘network’ our own UK progress in these new enablements with not only other European Union nation-states but with every other possible people and government around the World.
LH: This time around you present some ‘quiz questions’?
The chief whip you refer to is William George Hylton Jolliffe, 1st Baron Hylton. The Liberal connection derives from William George Hervey Jolliffe, 4th Baron Hylton who married Lady Perdita Rose Mary Asquith, daughter of Raymond Asquith, eldest son of Prime Minister H. H. Asquith, in 1931. You are of course Raymond Hervey Jolliffe, 5th Baron Hylton and one of the ‘92’ remaining peers.
As to the speech itself:
Debate: Lord Hylton: 0:46:30
http://news.bbc.co.uk/democracylive/hi/house_of_lords/newsid_8707000/8707580.stm
It continues the tradition of the house allowing its members to use it as a forum to voice concerns on a variety of issues. You wish to “draw attention to the importance of religious factors in foreign and defence policy”. In saying this you have a connection with the late 3rd Earl Russell, one Bertrand Arthur William Russell who spoke in the house in 1945 on the subject of the atomic bomb. Hear the librivox link.
Bertrand Lord Russell’s writings made quite an impact on me when I was younger for a variety of reasons one of which was to challenge my own religious faith by his use of philosophical contradictions concerning God. He never did seduce me to the dark side that is absence of faith.
To say he was not a religious man he had quite a lot to say about God and I often wonder did he ever accept the notion of faith. I think his problem was that God is a contradiction and his logic demanded evidence, something that was never forthcoming.
Lords of the Blog is an extension of the houses tradition of being a forum only this time that forum extends into the public domain.
Ref:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Jolliffe,_1st_Baron_Hylton
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raymond_Hervey_Jolliffe,_5th_Baron_Hylton
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bertrand_Russell
http://librivox.org/united-kingdom-house-of-lords-speeches-collection/
Surely, dear Lords, there are bodies of experts at hand in Britain, Europe and the USA (at least) who could tell us the comparative percentages of population-numbers, land-areas, economic resources and ‘stock-in-ground’, possessed by
A. the Whole of the ‘Arab world’;
B. the Israeli ‘world’;
C. each of Israel’s neighbouring nation-states ?
An obvious reason for broadcasting such information comes in the simple, but possibly ‘debate-opening’ question:
“Since the Arab peoples and nation-states possess mind-bogglingly extensive land-hectarages, why do they continue so rampantly-intent upon making war just to take possession of a relatively few small acreages of Isreali land ?
And isn’t it still the case that there are huge numbers of Arab people that, once they have ‘regained’ and occupied that tiny amount of Israeli land, are still intent upon chopping up the Israeli people and throwing them into the Mediterranean sea ?
Can any governance or expert body or person in Britain tell us if Method III cooperative-problem solving is
(i) known to the powers-that-be
(ii) known by the Peoples involved
(iii) actually being used with success; anywhere in the world ?
And if not, pray why not ?