David Miliband

Foreign Secretary

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Tuesday 09 September, 2008

Coexistence not confrontation

The Right Start Foundation

What was a revivalist Muslim preacher from Egypt doing in Small Heath, Birmingham, meeting the Foreign Secretary on the day of a break in 86 years of tradition when the Cabinet met in Birmingham today (still Monday as I type)? Answer: explaining how the Right Start Foundation, based in Small Heath, delivering employment and anti drug and fostering services, is now linked up to a worldwide drive to help Muslims confront the challenges in their own midst with their own drive and ideas, in partnership with other faiths rather than against them.

Amr Khaled, who preaches to mass audiences around the Muslim world was modest about his pull and his ideas, but they are impressive.  The focus of our discussions was easy to state but hard to conclude: the relationship of theological teaching to material circumstances to sense/reality of marginalisation to violent extremism.  The answer of Right Start, and its partner Lifemakers, is to say Muslim youth need to be confident that the Qur'an is an injunction to coexistence and that material problems need to be addressed from the bottom up.  It is the ‘Build the House Together’ philosophy.

I was impressed.  The young people were keen.  The commitment to face up to problems within the Muslim communities was stark.  And the global reach striking.  Worth breaking an 86 year tradition for.

Posted at 10:52 09 September 2008 by David Miliband  |  Comments[14]

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Sorry, could you say all that again? Because none of it makes the slightest bit of sense at all. It's just meaningless drivel.

Posted by Alun Reynolds on September 09, 2008 at 01:16 PM BST #

weather it makes sense for you or not It is a fact and real

Posted by fahima on September 09, 2008 at 02:54 PM BST #

Seems like a useful and insightful meeting, the kind of which will genuinely help to make islamic members of our society feel more included and welcome. However, equally effective must be our foreign policy - what turns British muslims against their country is our policies against their nations of origin, not just the Iraq occupation but also things like sending a member of the royal family to Afghanistan to fight muslims when he could have, for example, served in kosovo and helped muslims. Taking a harsher stand against Israel over the settlements on the West Bank, actually withdrawing our troops from Basra instead of just talking about it, not following America over every issue of foreign policy, etc, will make islamic members of society feel more British. There's a fairly complimentary article on the gaurdian website about the visit - http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/blog/2008/sep/09/davidcameron.davidmiliband - althought Michael White apparantly thinks it would be helpful to call yourself Dave rather than David...

Posted by david mclellan on September 09, 2008 at 05:28 PM BST #

Yes David, I fully agree with you that we need co-existence and not confrotnation but what is happening in an Islamic country Pakistan. Please read this information. Dr Abdul Mannan Siddiqi murdered whilst working at Fazl-e-Umar Hospital in Mirpurkhas, Sindh. Dr Abdul Mannan Siddiqi the Regional President of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community in Mirpurkhas, Sindh, Pakistan was killed yesterday at around 2.30pm Pakistani time. Dr Siddiqi was both a most eminent member of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community and also a renowned physician. He was a great servant of Pakistan and cared deeply for the society in which he lived. In this respect he regularly dispensed free treatment to all those who could not afford private treatment. The deceased was killed whilst working at the Hospital. He had just completed a hospital round and was returning to his office when three assailants who had been hiding inside the hospital emerged and repeatedly shot at him. An Ahmadi security guard was also shot and remains in critical condition at a hospital in Karachi. The murder of Dr Siddiqi continues a long pattern of targeting Ahmadi doctors in Pakistan.

Posted by Muhammad Arif on September 09, 2008 at 08:05 PM BST #

David can you please do any thing at official level to stop the persecution of ahmadis in Pakistan where it is a routine. ANOTHER AHMADI MURDERED IN PAKISTAN It is with great regret and sadness that the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community hereby confirms earlier today Sate Muhammad Yusuf, the President of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community in Nawab Shah, Sindh was murdered whilst at work. He was shot three times, including a fatal shot to his heart.This follows the murder of Dr Abdul Mannan Siddiqi yesterday.

Posted by Muhammad Arif on September 09, 2008 at 08:14 PM BST #

Well done, David. Love the photo. You are at ease with normal people. I'm glad you're in the cabinet.

Posted by Jane on September 09, 2008 at 09:50 PM BST #

David Miliband :- We all Love you!

Posted by Frank on September 10, 2008 at 09:01 PM BST #

David, taking the title from your piece above and applying it to the news that you are throwing warnings at the Irish about their failure to ratify the Treaty of Lisbon, please respect the fact that the Irish were given the opportunity to vote on the subject and we all have to live with the fact that they returned a rather resounding "No". Shouldn't you be taking the wording of this article's title, "Coexistence not confrontation" to heart and stop threatening the Irish?

Posted by Paul on September 12, 2008 at 05:30 PM BST #

Well done Sergei Lavrov, ripped you a new one in your telephone call with him. Never mind Dave, Gordon will wipe the tears away....

Posted by Paul G on September 12, 2008 at 06:23 PM BST #

Nice post David. Keep up the good work sir!

Posted by Charm Jewellery on September 13, 2008 at 02:49 PM BST #

As a Russian I am disgusted with the behaviour of Mr. Lavrov

Posted by Igor Chabanov on September 14, 2008 at 11:43 AM BST #

Many people are still angry at the British government's betrayal of the Muslim community of Bosnia during the early 1990s that led to the genocide at Srebrenica in 1995. Hasan Nuhanovic and other survivors of the genocide have been fighting in the Dutch civil courts to hold the Netherlands and the UN to account for their role in the slaughter of defenceless civilians at Srebrenica. Much of the legal argument revolves around the absolute immunity the Dutch courts have accepted that the UN can claim, even in respect of actions within the scope of the UN Genocide Convention. Please can I ask you to task your legal staff with examining this issue of UN immunity and to press for a revision of the UN system that allows justice for the victims of crimes under international humanitarian law including genocide? At least some of the disaffection that has led to terrorist violence in the UK stems from that betrayal of the Bosnian Muslims.

Posted by Owen on September 17, 2008 at 12:05 PM BST #

Please can you use the powers of your office to condemn/stop the persecution/killing of Ahmadis in Pakistan and elsewhere.The broadcaster GEO has incited 2 murders in recent days , yet the station continues to transmit programmes.Can OFCOM step in to prevent further bloodshed?

Posted by Peter Miles on September 17, 2008 at 08:10 PM BST #

David - or rather your civil servant alter-ego - if you read the Koran you will realise very quickly that it is not a "an injunction to co-existence" with non-muslims. It contains quite explicit commands to Muslims to introduce global sharia law by fighting non-muslims - and subduing the survivors to pay the jizya tax - and hence to establish the Dar al-Islam, a world in which peace reigns only because there are no longer any non-muslims still resisting. Far from encouraging UK muslims to turn to the Koran, which will only foment a literal, Salafist, 'revivalist' interpretation, you have to stress the Western values that call for diversity, tolerance, democracy, equality and modernisation, as is being attempted in most moderate Muslim countries. Sadly, the Labour government seems to think that front organisations for the Muslim Brotherhood - like the Muslim Association of Britain which wants to introduce sharia by stealth - represent moderate Muslims in the UK, when in reality they are part of the extreme jihadist movements that have been outlawed in most Muslim countries. Please stop talking to these extremist exiles and stop giving them knighthoods!

Posted by Tony Pandy on September 25, 2008 at 11:56 PM BST #

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