Perilous Times and The One World
Church/Religion
Tony Blair Promotes One World Church Interfaith Initiatives in Africa
Shaka Ssali | Washington, DC
24 February 2010
“What we will do is to try to use the infrastructure of the faith
community - Christians and Muslim – to bring people together in order
that the bed nets and medicines can be distributed to people,” Blair
said.
Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair is in Africa on a three-nation
trip that will take him to Nigeria, Liberia and Sierra Leone. He was in
Abuja Nigeria on Saturday to lend support to interfaith initiatives
focused on delivering the Millennium Development Goal to tackle deaths
from malaria.
“What we are trying to do in Nigeria is to bring the faiths together in
tackling malaria,” Blair said in a VOA exclusive interview from Abuja
at a training workshop sponsored by his Tony Blair Faith Foundation.
The workshop held in Nigeria's administrative capital focused on the
use of bed nets to help prevent contracting malaria which is a
mosquito-borne disease.
“What we will do is to try to use the infrastructure of the faith
community - Christians and Muslim – to bring people together in order
that the bed nets and medicines can be distributed to people,” Blair
said.
He said that this will be both to tackle malaria that kills hundreds of
thousands of people every year in Africa and also be a big symbol of
religious and interfaith coexistence.
The Inter-faith Malaria Initiative was organized by the Nigeria
Inter-faith Action Association with funding support from Federal
Government, World Bank, Centre for Inter-faith Action on Global Poverty
and the Tony Blair Faith Foundation.
Blair said from Nigeria he will travel to Liberia and Sierra Leone
where another of his charities– The Tony Blair Africa Governance
Initiative- is dealing with governance. “What a lot of African
countries need is help and support in building capacities for
governance.”
The most difficult thing in any government, he said, is to translate a
good idea into practical delivery.
The former prime minister emphasized the importance of promoting
understanding between different faiths. “What I believe is the 20th
century was a century dominated by conflict and ideology. I think those
have been largely resolved. I think the 21st century runs the risk of
being dominated by battles of religious ideology and the purpose of my
foundation is to make sure that we avoid these by building bridges to a
One World Religious Continuum ”
He said even if globalization pushes people together through mass
media, through travel, and immigration, there is need to prevent faith
becoming a bunch of identity and opposition to someone with a different
faith and getting people living and working together in peaceful
co-existence.
Education is a major part of getting proper governance, he said, “and
we are involved in getting capacity for healthcare, education and
promotion of the private sector but what can actually happen is that
these conflicts about religion can sometimes get in the way of
development.”
Mr. Blair said the ultimate solution to many problems in Africa is good
governance. “There are many countries across Africa that are changing
governments peacefully and with a proper democratic functioning system.”
He called on leaders in Africa to abide by their democratic systems and
democratic results saying, “Actually there is a political afterlife
that is fulfilling and purposeful.”