Speech by the Prime Minister at the Lord Mayor's Banquet
Published Monday 12th November 2001
Prime Minister, Rt Hon Tony Blair MP
In a speech on Monday 12 November 2001 at the Lord Mayor's
Banquet in London, Prime Minister Tony Blair said: "After
the conflict, we must make good our promise to help bring in
a broad-based Afghan government, representative of all
peoples, including the Pushtoon and enable the
reconstruction of that sorry land to take place."
The full speech is given below:
[Source: No 10 Downing Street Website - Check against delivery]
First let us offer our deep condolences and sympathy yet
again to the people of New York and to the families of the
victims of the latest air tragedy. Our hearts go out to the
brave people there who have been through so much and with
such dignity and courage.
Meanwhile, following the outrage of 11 September, we pursue
those responsible for it in Afghanistan. It is clear the
Taliban are unravelling. But they are not beaten yet or Al
Qaida yet hunted down. We must continue until they are. We
must use the territory gained in and around Mazar-e-Sharif
to get supplies and food to refugees and the starving inside
Afghanistan. Let us show we are as committed to alleviating
human suffering as the Taliban are to creating it.
After the conflict, we must make good our promise to help
bring in a broad-based Afghan government, representative of
all peoples, including the Pushtoon and enable the
reconstruction of that sorry land to take place.
This mission is important in all its aspects, military,
humanitarian and diplomatic.
The terrible events of 11 September have made the case for
engagement not isolationism as the only serious foreign
policy on offer.
The atrocities in New York and Washington were the work of
evil men. Men who distorted and dishonoured the message of
one of the world's great religions and civilisations. Their
aim was to stimulate militant fundamentalism; to separate
the United States from its allies; and to bring our way of
life and our economies to their knees.
In those objectives they have already failed.
But one illusion has been shattered on 11 September: that we
can have the good life of the West irrespective of the state
of the rest of the world.
Once chaos and strife have got a grip on a region or a
country trouble will soon be exported.
Out of such regions and countries come humanitarian
tragedies; centres for trafficking in weapons, drugs and
people; havens for criminal organisations; and sanctuaries
for terrorists.
After all it was a dismal camp in the foothills of
Afghanistan that gave birth to the murderous assault on the
sparkling heart of New York's financial centre.
The war against terrorism is not just a police action to
root out the networks and those who protect them, although
it is certainly that. It needs to be a series of political
actions designed to remove the conditions under which such
acts of evil can flourish and be tolerated. The dragon's
teeth are planted in the fertile soil of wrongs unrighted,
of disputes left to fester for years or even decades, of
failed states, of poverty and deprivation.
In April 1999, at the height of the Kosovo crisis, I spoke
in Chicago about a doctrine or idea of international
community, where we took a more active and interventionist
role in solving the world's problems.
I elaborated on this idea in my Leader's speech this year in
Brighton.
Some say it's Utopian; others that it is dangerous to think
that we can resolve all these problems by ourselves.
But the point I was making was simply that self-interest for
a nation and the interests of the broader community are no
longer in conflict. There are few problems from which we
remain immune. In the war against terrorism the moralists
and the realists are partners, not antagonists. The fact we
can't solve everything doesn't mean we try to solve nothing.
What is clear is that 11 September has not just given
impetus and urgency to such solutions, it has opened the
world up. Countries are revising their relations with
others, pondering the opportunities for re-alignment. New
alliances or deeper alliances are being fashioned, new world
views formed. And it is all happening fast. There is a
shortcut through normal diplomacy. So we should grasp the
moment and move, not let our world slip back into rigidity.
We need boldness, grip and follow through.
The starting point is to make a leap of imagination from
this grand hall and splendid banquet to the streets of the
Arab world where bright, angry, disaffected young men - by
no means always from poor families, but still with neither
work nor prospects - seek outlets for their feelings of
betrayal and frustration. They fall for dogmas that tell
them to blame their troubles on a distant Satan, and gives
their lives meaning by committing themselves to relentless
struggle.
We can add to that an extremist and perverted version of
Islam which seeks to shoulder aside or overthrow moderate
counsels; a failed state in Afghanistan pulled down by
poverty and desperation, whose rulers have made common cause
with mass murderers; accusations from the Arab world of
double standards in the Middle East peace process; in
Africa, grinding poverty, pandemic disease, a rash of failed
states, where problems seldom leave their stain on one
nation but spread to whole regions.
More broadly we should work to develop inter-faith
understanding. Already much is being done to bring the
faiths together, like George Carey's initiative on the World
Faiths Development Dialogue. And who can forget the poignant
scenes of reconciliation when the Pope went to pray at the
Grand Omayyad Mosque in Damascus? Soon George and I hope to
convene a seminar of scholars on furthering Christian/Muslim
dialogue.
Systematically in each case we should seek redress.
The Middle East Peace Process must be re-started. We should
contrive the first steps in mutual confidence and security
on both sides, one of which would be action by the
Palestinian Authority against suspected terrorists and
Israel withdrawing fully from Area A. Then after those
critical steps, we should reconvene proper negotiations
based on two fixed principles: a viable Palestinian state;
and the state of Israel accepted fully by its Arab
neighbours. If Israel is to recognise that the Palestinians
will have their own state, it is only right that the Arab
world explicitly and clearly recognises Israel's right to
exist secure within its own borders. Everything else is
negotiation and the sooner it starts, the better.
On Iraq, the time has come for a new UN resolution to
provide for the arms inspectors to return and for the
Saddam-induced suffering of the Iraqi people to be ended.
We should offer Syria, Iran and other nations in the same
position a new relationship if they will work with us to end
violence and promote a solution that is just for both
Palestinians and Israelis and if they will join the
international consensus on weapons of mass destruction.
There can be a new beginning to their relations with the
West. The opening is there now; I hope they will take it.
These countries all have an interest, too, in fighting
religious extremism. It is quite extraordinary that Usama
Bin Laden should claim over the weekend that Afghanistan is
the only Islamic nation in the world. His aim is clear: to
Talibanize all Islamic countries around the world. The time
has come for the voices of mainstream Islam to take on the
extremists. This is not a battle we in the West can fight.
We cannot impose our own models on very different societies.
But we can help and we can offer support for the vast
majority of decent Muslims in that battle. It needs to be
made clear again and again that our quarrel is not with
Islam but with extremism and fanaticism, whether it be
Christian, Jewish, Hindu or Islam.
In respect of Russia, we should mark the fact that in
Afghanistan we have worked together; in the war against
international terrorism, we stand together; and that both
Russia and the US and EU have much to gain from us being
partners. Central to that new relationship should be a
change in Russia/NATO relations.
In Africa, I hope that in the New Year we can put forward a
new initiative to tackle emerging conflicts before they
develop, and offer the help needed to develop their
economies and allow them to provide good governance and
democracy for their people; and that a plan for Africa will
be agreed at the G7/8 Summit in Canada.
Success in the talks to launch a new WTO round in Doha is
vital. Seattle was a lost opportunity. The negotiations will
be tough and with the Conference ending tomorrow, time is
now running short. But at this time of economic uncertainty
it is essential we agree on the agenda for a new trade
round. Success means increased trade flows and rising living
standards around the world. Failure would mean a retreat
into protectionism and isolationism. All parties should show
the necessary flexibility to achieve this.
Closing down the terrorist network in Afghanistan will not
be the end of terrorism. We need to find a way of dealing
with weapons of mass destruction to prevent their
proliferation both to states and to terrorist organisations.
We, in the EU, should offer advice, training and equipment
to the countries of central Asia to help them introduce the
strongest possible controls on sensitive exports and we
should consider increasing our present programmes of support
for safe storage and secure destruction of sensitive nuclear
and chemical materials.
We are working hard to find a global solution to the problem
of climate change and the agreement in Marrakesh shows that
we can come together to tackle one of the most significant
environmental challenges of today. We need to continue to
improve international co-operation on poverty and the
environment in the run up to the World Summit on Sustainable
Development in Johannesburg next year.
And if we are going to have a doctrine of international
community we need to strengthen the UN as the body that
helps put it into practice.
In the UN we are lucky to have the leadership of a highly
talented and reforming Secretary-General on the threshold of
a new term of office. We need to back him in his reforms and
give him the practical support he needs. For example,
bringing to a close the long drawn out negotiations on UN
Security Council reform so that it becomes truly
representative and truly effective in its operation.
In the aftermath of the disasters of the 1930s and the
Second World War our predecessors took a number of
fundamental courageous and far-reaching decisions. Above all
they decided to find collective responses to the scourges of
war and economic slump which individual national actions had
done more to foment than to resolve. And they established a
number of international structures and organisations to
provide these collective responses - the UN, NATO, the IMF
and the World Bank - that have lasted to this day.
After the Cold War, despite the talk of a new world order,
we failed to renew these institutions or create new ones.
Perhaps the euphoria that accompanied the crumbling of the
Soviet bloc reduced the incentive to take a hard and radical
look at the conduct of international affairs. Now it is time
to do so.
As for Britain, we have much to offer and much to gain, in
the changing world taking shape around us. Once again the
vital role in foreign policy that our Armed Forces play has
been demonstrated. They give us a standing which few can
match and we should be very proud of them.
I hope, too, we have buried the myth that Britain has to
choose between being strong in Europe or strong with the
United States. Afghanistan has shown vividly how the
relationships reinforce each other; and that both the United
States and our European partners value our role with the
other. So let us play our full part in Europe not retreat to
its margins; and let us proclaim our closeness to the United
States and use it to bring Europe closer to America.
The solidarity of our European partners in this present
crisis has been total. It will remain so; and that is a real
cause for hope.
Let us in Britain use the strengths of our history - our
place in Europe, our alliance with the United States, our
traditional ties with the Arab world, India, China or the
Commonwealth - to build a solid future of influence for our
nation. As I found in South America earlier this year,
people respect Britain and want us engaged. We should not
disappoint them.
Above all, I know the British people recognise the link
between what happens in the outside world and what happens
on our own streets in Britain. The 11 September was an
attack on us all. Defeating those responsible is essential
to our security; to economic confidence, so badly hit by
terrorism; to the stability of our society, from the
reduction of external threats down to the drugs trade - 90
per cent of the heroin in Britain originating in
Afghanistan.
Our jobs and living standards depend on confidence in our
way of life. Today world events can lift or shatter that
confidence. We have much to do at home. But now, more than
ever before what we do abroad can affect our homeland. For
years, you in the City know the impact of global markets.
Now we see the impact of global politics. So let us seize
the chance in this time, to make a difference. Future
generations will thank us if we do; and not forgive us if we
fail.
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