Tony Blair Needled at Discussion of Education and Global Extremism

By LINDA KRESTANOVA

Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair smiled a bit uneasily as he fielded a reporter’s question at a panel at the Council of Foreign Relations on Thursday after he asserted that education was the key to curbing global extremism.

“What role in educating the people who became extremists [did] the fact that their countries were invaded, intervened, bombed by forces led by your country have?” The reporter asked pointedly, adding that a report in the U.K. now “blames you substantially, condemns you substantially.”

“I think I know where you’re coming from,” he began, prompting laughter from his audience.

The question highlighted widespread criticism of Blair’s controversial decision to lead Britain into war in Iraq in 2003 as detailed in the Chilcot report published by a retired civil servant earlier this year.

The sparring between Blair and the reporter followed his earlier remark regarding the necessity of lessons promoting acceptance, when he had cheerfully said, “I know a lot more about this now than I did when I was prime minister.”

In response Blair expressed is belief that extremism was not caused by foreign policy decisions, citing Libya as an example of failure to halt terrorism despite taking numerous actions to remove a “brutal” regime and guide the country to democracy.

“You will help defeat this ideology if you educate the next generation of young people to be culturally open to those that are different,” he said, inciting applause.

Blair, who has described his decision to have the U.K. join American forces in Iraq in 2003 as the “most agonizing decision” of his life, expressed regret over the failures of the war in a press conference over two months ago. However, he stood by his belief that it had been the right decision and denied accusations that he had deceived the British public regarding details of the war.

Blair announced Tuesday that he plans to close his highly successful commercial businesses to focus on non-profit work. Since leaving office in 2007, he has spent a lot of time in the Middle East, where his work focuses on religious-based extremism. He established the Tony Blair Faith Foundation to help push a global policy change within education programs across the world.

The hour-long conversation on Thursday, during which Blair was joined by Irina Bokova, the Director General of UNESCO, emphasized the dangers of close-minded views – specifically regarding Islam – which are often directly or indirectly taught both in Qur’anic schools and schools supporting anti-Muslim ideologies.

The solution, according to both Blair and Bokova, was a long-term approach rooted in the proper education of children and young adults. This requires governments to help one-another.

“If you’re polluting within your borders, it’s affecting us, not just you,” Blair said. “Therefore we need to set some global responsibility. I think it’s the same with education.”

Photo by Linda Krestanova