Tony Blair praises Gulf states’ stance on extremism

Former British prime minister Tony Blair has called for a global compact to remove extremism and Islamist political influence from schools.

And while the defeat of ISIL in Raqqa and Mosul proved significant in the battle against terrorist groups, Mr Blair warned that the threat remains strong.

“The threat is very real,” he told The National at his London offices. “We focus on ISIL but there is still Al Qaeda and a plethora of groups throughout the world, such as Al Shabab, Boko Haram …

“You have to tackle the ideology, not just the violence, because it is the thinking that gives rise to the violence. You have to hit at the extremism in thought and in deed if you want to tackle this thing properly.”

The former Labour leader led the country after the 9/11 atrocities in the US and was a prime architect of the war to overthrow Iraq’s Saddam Hussein in 2003. During his term, Britain faced its worst modern terrorist attack when buses and tube trains were hit, killing 52, in London on July 7, 2005.

“There should be some global commitment around education systems where governments undertake a commitment to promote religious tolerance and root religious prejudice from their systems, formal and informal,” Mr Blair said.

“Education, in my view, in many countries is a security issue. There are millions of young people who are being educated every day to a view of religion that is wrong and also extreme.

“You see this in schools were the Muslim Brotherhood and others have a strong grip and if you educate young people to these extreme views, don’t be surprised if some of them turn out to become violent.”

He said authorities needed to tackle informal madrassas, or Islamic schools, and other unregulated centres of learning, not just in Muslim-majority countries but also in Britain and elsewhere. A comprehensive, global strategy is needed.

“I think there is a great opportunity to build an alliance between open-minded Muslim-majority countries and the West because we’ve got the same problem, the same challenge,” Mr Blair said.

“The big change today is there is leadership coming from the Emirates, from Saudi, from Egypt, from Jordan, Bahrain, to put forward a view that is rational and open-minded about the role of religion in society.”

On whether the British government will, or should, designate the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organisation, he said: “That debate will carry on depending on what they do in individual countries, and it can differ.

“What is beyond contention is that if you take any religion and you turn it into an exclusive, politicised, ideology so that it is effectively a totalitarian ideology – you say this view of religion should govern society, and government – then you have a problem. The politicisation of Islam is the root of the problem and it is not something that goes back centuries.

“We have been blind to this in some of our own communities, where we have woken up. But it is impacting the politics of the whole of Europe now, if you look at the recent elections in Austria, for example. This is a major factor.”

Mr Blair said that “the risk is if we don’t deal with it then our public in the West becomes so angry about the failure of the political system to deal with what they see as a real problem that they become anti-Islam – and not anti-Islamism as a political ideology.”

The collapse of the political centre as European and American parties turn to the left and right for leadership polarised the debate and left extremisms to flourish.

“Parts of the liberal left don’t want to see the problem,” Mr Blair said. “You even get to my mind absolutely bizarre alliance between Muslim Brotherhood-type groups in the West and left-wing politics. It’s just crazy. Then on the right you get people who want to exploit this issue. To them, it is about saying Islam is the problem.”

Part of this is related to identity. “If dealt with in the correct way, it allows you to say ‘I have my own religious beliefs but when it comes to my citizenship, I am part of the common space’. And that should be true of Muslims, Jews, Christians, Hindus or any other religion.”

Mr Blair acknowledged that some Muslims in Europe felt that they were being stigmatised.

“We have to be honest about this, there is a problem within small parts of Muslim communities in our countries, and if we don’t deal with it, people start to think it is about Muslims.”

Mr Blair has reorganised much of his post-Downing St role but retains a strong focus on analysing radicalisation and fighting extremism. He warns that countries are still losing the battle of propaganda against outfits such as ISIL and Al Qaeda.

“Wherever the propaganda of these extremists is being promoted, you have got to be able to stop it,” he said. “A lot of the ways we tackle extremist websites is inadequate, a lot of key words we are missing.

“It is very important to be diverting a lot of the people who come on to those sites, not just closing them down, but diverting people who come on to them into more positive material.”

He praised the UAE’s trailblazing framework for tackling radicalisation, saying it was a model for others. “A lot of the work in Abu Dhabi and indeed elsewhere is really important in showing people there are better, different interpretations of Islam.”

Mr Blair said that in the regional countries struck by violence and internal strife, such as Iraq, Syria, Libya and Yemen, sectarian politics and corruption are are root causes.

“Wherever you look, it is essentially the same questions that arise: can you establish a politics in which there is an acceptance that politics cannot operate on sectarian lines? There is no way you can keep the politics of the country together unless there is some understanding that sectarianism cannot be the basis of the political system.

“If you want to create stable politics, you have got to have a stable basis for the economy to grow and that depends on rule-based economies where corruption is ruled out.