Our shared future: building coalitions and winning consent

By David Miliband A speech that was delivered May 21, 2009 at  Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies Everybody is talking about reform in British politics. Rightly so. The integrity of our democratic institutions has been badly undermined. The need for renewal is urgent. It is, for that very reason, all the more ironic that my case today rests on the importance of politics. I want to argue that the foreign policy questions that unite this country and Muslim majority countries turn on the idea of mutual respect conducted through politics. Many learned people have stood in this hall and spoken of the values that are shared between the Abrahamic faiths. That is not my purpose today. I am a politician not a preacher or a religious scholar. I want to talk, I hope in a spirit of humility and respect, from my perspective as Foreign Secretary, about the political process of building coalitions and winning consent overseas for foreign policy goals. This question does not only arise in respect of our relations with Muslim majority countries, but today I want to explore how we, the British government, work with those, in Muslim countries, governments and people, whose values we may not entirely share.  This speech does not address how we approach these issues at home.

Senin, 25 Mei 2009 | 10:00 WIB