On Friday in Bradford a student at Tong High School told me that the best thing about her school was the way it brought a diverse group of people together - "all races and religions". I got the same message in a very different place earlier in the week - in Jerusalem where Hand in Hand operate one of their four schools that bring Israeli Arabs and Jews together in equal numbers. There is not much that brings together Muslims and Jews in the Middle East, so Hand in Hand deserves support (and the UK embassy offers some financial support to the project).
These are the bottom up examples of human cooperation and respect that go against the loud tide of rhetoric that calls people to religious (or nationalist) allegiance. I tried to give voice to some of this thinking in speaking after Friday prayers at Madni Jamia mosque on Friday . I was genuinely touched to be invited. The mosque is a recent winner (in 2007) of the UK "model mosque" competition. The questions afterwards were tough - about Iraq, about Gaza - but they came from an abiding sense among the people there that I was their Foreign Secretary as much as any other British citizens'. That is good and heartening.
Posted at 13:18 26 November 2008 by David Miliband | Comments[2]
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Posted by Harry on November 26, 2008 at 01:53 PM GMT #
Posted by Jonathan Brooks on November 28, 2008 at 06:40 PM GMT #