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The Foreign Secretary lectures on
Our Shared Future: Building Coalitions
and Winning Consent
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The British Foreign Secretary, the Rt Hon David Miliband
MP, gave a lecture at the Centre on 21st May on the topic,
"Our Shared Future: Building Coalitions and Winning Consent"
2009.
Underpinning his talk was the necessity of dialogue with
Muslim majority countries to establish shared goals. He acknowledged
that British history, from the times of the Crusades through
the colonial period to the recent invasion of Iraq, may arouse
distrust and resentment. He went on to point to the more positive
examples of interchange and mutual contribution, in which
cultures have come together to learn from one another.
Arguing for a much deeper understanding of the Muslim world,
and acknowledging that labels such as 'moderate' and 'extremist'
are unhelpful, the Foreign Secretary proposed a template for
people of diverse views to work together. He called for a
broad coalition of states and political movements, and recognised
that progress would involve the consent of citizens. In a
wide-ranging survey, Mr Miliband emphasised the importance
of resolving conflict in the Middle East through the establishment
of a Palestinian state.
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| The Foreign Secretary paid tribute to the Centre
for its notable contribution to scholarship and debate in the
UK. Referring to his tour of the Centre's new building, he commented,
"It is remarkable how distinctively Islamic the architecture
is. Yet at the same time, the complex as a whole, with its towers,
quadrangle, cloisters and - eventually - gardens are also distinctively
Oxford. When Edward Gibbon suggested in the Decline and Fall
of the Roman Empire that if Charles Martel had lost the
battle of Poitiers, Oxford would have became an Al Azhar of
the Cotswolds, he could not imagine a future in which both Islamic
and Christian institutions could coexist here by consent and
through toleration. It can be so. It should be so." |
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