Tony Blair's legacy as Prime Minister is positive, I think, though much awaits the passage of time and the judgment of history. From this side of the pond, looking solely at his relationship with the United States, I could not have more respect for the man. But all of that is for another post. This post concerns Blair's plans for after he leaves the post of Prime Minister. And either Blair is about to execute an incredibly cynical plan to cash in on the Saudi petrodollars or he is a truly dangerous fool. See this:
BRITISH Prime Minister Tony Blair intends to create a global foundation to foster "greater understanding" between the three "Abrahamic faiths" of Christianity, Judaism and Islam after he leaves Downing Street.Read the entire story here.
Mr Blair, who will announce his timetable for resignation today, is expected to make the project the main focus of his energies when he leaves office this northern summer.
A member of his tight-knit inner-circle of advisers confirmed yesterday that Mr Blair is looking to "set up some sort of interfaith organisation", saying: "He sees this as where the action is and nobody else is really doing it."
. . . [T]he interfaith project will attempt to foster religious - rather than political - harmony in the Middle East and elsewhere across the world, including Britain, where rising tensions with militant Islam have provided the backdrop to many of the worst moments of his 10 years in office.
Mr Blair, who was enthusiastically reading the Koran even before the September 11, 2001, attacks on the US, said recently: "The tragedy is that as Christians, Jews and Muslims we are all Abrahamic religions. We regard ourselves as children of Abraham but we have fought for so long."
In a speech in 2006 he referred to a woman protesting about the Pope's recent visit to Turkey holding a poster which stated that "Jesus was a prophet but not the son of God". This, he said, was "elevating the placard to an altogether higher plane of theology".
He added: "Most Christians are hugely surprised to be told that the Koran reveres Jesus as a prophet. Many Jews, Muslims and Christians are entirely ignorant of the rich Abrahamic heritage we share in common."
Although aides acknowledge that the new project may face resistance from Muslims who loathe him for his role as an ally to Mr Bush and in the invasion of Iraq, Mr Blair believes that he can appeal to moderate Islam.
. . . Funding for the new organisation is expected to come from wealthy donors in the US and the Arab world, as well as Britain. But advisers insist that preparations are still at an early stage. . . .
The absolute last thing we need is another major organization providing cover for Islam - and this has all the sounds of doing precisely that. What we do need is an international organization that will bring Wahhabi / Salafi Islam into the light of reality and subject it to reasoned criticism. I can assure you, however, funding for such an organization is not going to be forthcoming from wealthy Arab donors in the Middle East. The wealthy Arabs are the Saudis who spend their petrobillions spreading Wahhabi / Salafi Islam. If Mr. Blair will be receiving funding from wealthy Arabs, he will be pocketing money to be nothing more then a useful idiot for the Wahhabis, and a source of suicidal ignorace for the rest of Western civilization.
In the article, Mr. Blair asserts that Islam's classification as an Abrahamic religion is somehow relevant to Western understanding of Islam. That is something that I would expect to see written by a Wahabbi front organizations, such as CAIR in America or the MCB in the UK. Yes, the Koran has some references to Jesus. That is utterly meaningless in the scheme of things. It is like saying that blueberries and daphne berries are similar on the ground that both are berries. True enough, but the daphne berries will kill you if you eat them. If Mr. Blair intends to paint a picture of Islam based on points such as this, he will be doing nothing but contributing to the demise of Western Civilization while cashing in on riyals.
We in the West do not need someone feeding us any more unrealistic pictures that purport to show how peaceful Islam is and how much it is like Christianity. To the extent there are any parallels between Christianity and Wahhabi Salafi Islam, those parallels are limited to the form of Christianity that existed at the turn of the previous millenium. Wahhabi / Salafi Islam, which is rapidly becoming the dominant sect throughtout the Islamic world, is an incredibly racist, triumphalist and brutal religion that clearly has no respect for Judaism or Christianity. Will Mr. Blair be teaching that, as Christians, the Wahhabi's view us as polytheists, and in their school text books, they teach that it is appropriate to kill or enslave such people and take their property? How's that for a bit of reality. It certainly tells you more about Wahhabi Islam then does the point about Islam being an Abrihamic religion. And the BBC documentary Undercover Mosque teaches a lot more also.
If Mr. Blair actually wishes to do something of benefit to the world at large, for those of us in the West, he would develop a foundation dedicated to exposing Wahhabi Islam in all of its ugly reality. And as to the Islamic world, he would use the foundation to support the work of people like Tawfiq Hamid who are highly critical of Wahhabi / Salafi Islam and wish to see it moderate through the process of itjihad.
From the sounds of it, I don't think that I'll hold my breath for that type of foundaton from Mr. Blair. So the only question now, is Blair just a usefull idiot for the radical islamists, or is he greedy cynic with riyals in his eyes?
