June 3rd, 2008URI-UN at Launch of Blair Foundation
URI-UN AT LAUNCH OF TONY BLAIR FAITH FOUNDATION IN NEW YORK
By Deborah Moldow, Vice Chair of the URI Global Council & Facilitator of URI-UNI was delighted to have the opportunity to stand in for URI Executive Director Charles Gibbs at the New York launch of the Tony Blair Faith Foundation on May 30, 2008, at the elegant Time Warner Center in New York. The event was a special edition of the series, Conversations on the Circle, introduced by Time Warner President and CEO Jeff Bewkes.
I arrived early, which gave me a chance to chat over a cup of tea with Ian Linden, who will serve as liaison to the Foundation for the UN Millennium Development Goals. I told him about the UN NGO efforts toward a UN Decade for Interreligious Dialogue and Cooperation – just in time to be joined by Stein Villumstadt of Religions for Peace, who is coordinating this campaign in New York.
I went into the main room and found co-facilitator for the URI-UN Audrey Kitagawa in the front row, so I sat beside her. Audrey was representing the Council for a Parliament of the World’s Religions. I greeted various acquaintances from the world of interfaith relations, including Rev. C. Welton Gaddy of the Interfaith Alliance in Washington, DC, with whom I discussed the URI outreach to religious groups for support of the International Day of Peace. He was very interested and promised to help. I also discussed the IDP with some Muslim colleagues who had been invited to the recent International Day of Peace meeting at the UN, and they were also enthusiastic about participating.
The honored guests entered the room, and first in line was none other than former U.S. President Bill Clinton. President Clinton gave the former Prime Minister a very warm introduction, saying he had long known him to be a man of deep convictions.
Tony Blair explained that his new foundation would focus on six leading faiths: Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism and Sikhism. He spoke about our interdependent world, where idealism is becoming the new realism. He said that the 20th century order is history, and that now the world’s religions must choose between peaceful coexistence and catastrophe. People of faith must live together in mutual respect and peace.
The Tony Blair Faith Foundation wants to show faith in action. It will focus on four major areas:
- Education – including a program at Yale Divinity School and also Yale School of Management, books, media, etc.;
- UN MDGs – faith partnerships to achieve the Millennium Development Goals, beginning with a multi-faith campaign to end malaria;
- Abraham House – a conference center and museum being built in London in partnership with the CoExist Foundation;
- Assistance to other organizations countering extremism.
Mr. Blair then introduced a panel to discuss the first initiatives of the foundation, to be moderated by acclaimed CNN journalist Christiane Amanpour. They were joined by Ms. Saleemah Abdul-Ghaffur of Malaria No More; Dr. Eboo Patel of the Interfaith Youth Core; and President Rick Levin and Professor Harry Stout of Yale University.
Ms. Abdul-Ghaffur recounted her experience as a Muslim African-American woman taking part in a large-scale project to eliminate malaria in the villages of Mali, and how the faith communities were able to reach the people. She and Mr. Blair believe they can eradicate malaria, which kills one million people each year, primarily women and small children.
Yale President Rick Levin spoke about a new program to study the deeper questions of how conflict has been driven by religion and how this can be addressed from clearer understanding. Professor Stout discussed combating religious illiteracy by opening minds instead of indoctrinating them.
The most electrifying speaker was Eboo Patel. He said that the 20th century had been about the “color line,” but the 21st was about the “faith line.” The line separates not those of different faiths, but the pluralists from the totalitarians. He asked who is making the clarion call to young people, who watch people killing one another on television “to the soundtrack of prayer.” He offered the example of Martin Luther King, Jr., taking inspiration from Gandhi and marching with Rabbi Heschel, implementing the shared value of human dignity in the civil rights movement. Now is the moment for the new movement of our times. He explained that faith communities are an enormous source of social capital that can be used to scale up successes in the field.
After the speaker presentations, Ms. Amanpour asked Tony Blair whether he was trying to win a war of ideas. He replied that he was attempting to redefine the battle. She brought up the challenging issues of the disparity between the rich and the poor, nuclear proliferation and climate change. Mr. Levin said that politics and law must be engaged to change the political climate to reinforce the positive.
Christiane Amanpour said there was time for only a few questions from the audience. The first three questions centered on reconciliation and the role of women. The panelists all agreed that the emerging leadership of women was helping pave the way to interreligious understanding. For the last question, she called on me. I said I represented the United Religions Initiative and thanked them for their outstanding efforts. I asked what plans the foundation may have to work with the United Nations. Mr. Blair affirmed his commitment to the Millennium Development Goals. He also believes that this is a time when governments are realizing the importance of working with religious communities to address the challenges of the future together. He closed by expressing his sense of mission in establishing the Tony Blair Faith Foundation. His friends advised him not to do it. But he felt there was a need for this work, and he is dedicated to making the foundation a force for the good.
As the formal part of the event closed, everyone moved into the reception area for networking, handshakes and photographs. I hand-delivered a letter inviting the Tony Blair Faith Foundation to join the URI in supporting the International Day of Peace to Ms. Ruth Turner, who is the Chief Executive of the Foundation. Ms. Turner works out of the London office, but warmly promised to keep in touch. Audrey invited Prime Minister Blair to attend the Parliament of the World’s Religions in Australia in 2009.
I also had a brief conversation with Katherine Marshall, formerly of the World Bank and now at Georgetown University, about the URI’s efforts to establish microcredit projects, as well as a nice reunion with Eboo Patel, whom I had not seen since the early days of the URI.
All in all, I would say that the Tony Blair Faith Foundation has great potential to help harmonize relations among faith groups, as well as to accomplish some worthy projects in partnership with other organizations. Only time will tell whether the good will that launched this work will make a real difference in healing the “faith line” that divides today’s world. The door is open for the URI to work in partnership with the Tony Blair Foundation for peace, justice and healing of the Earth and all living beings.
