British Prime Minister Tony Blair’s advisor on interfaith matters, John Battle MP, challenged a packed meeting in London on 14 March 2006, to begin to build bridges ‘where you are’. It was in a house in his constituency, Leeds West, that the July 7 suicide bombers made their bombs in a bath.
Addressing a ‘Greencoat Forum’ at the IofC Centre in London, Battle told of how after the bombings, he had returned to his constituency to be told that 400 people had been evacuated from their homes to a sports centre. He arrived at this centre to find only 49 people there. The rest had disappeared into each others’ homes – black, white, Asian, Irish – supporting each other through the crisis.
One man, Joe, of Irish descent, who normally never talked to his ‘Paki’ neighbours, was found in the home of the Indian family opposite merrily drinking tea. Scenarios like these, said Battle, convince him that ‘we can’t wait for the United Nations to sort out our problems. We’ve got to inspire people to believe that their efforts at relationships locally can transform the world.’
A Roman Catholic, Battle is convinced that the faith communities have yet to discover their true potential. He acknowledged the difficulties, however, of living in a society where the media encourages a ferocious privatisation of faith. The state needs to open up at every level, he argued, and to enter into dialogue with the faith communities and not fear the conversation.
Part of the answer to the ‘pervasive pessimism in our culture’, he said, lies in ‘working together to develop the conditions for hope’. Essential to this process is the inclusion of the youth.
Many in the audience left feeling encouraged to start changing things in their own street. After all, as Battle said, ‘why settle for watching Neighbours on TV when we can get to know them next door?’
English