Media Home
UN Web TV
UN Audiovisual Library
UN PhotoUN/ BLAIR WRAP
Download
There is no media available to download.
Share
STORY: UN/ BLAIR WRAP
TRT: 2.27
SOURCE: UNTV
RESTRICTIONS: NONE
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH / NATS
DATELINE: 21 NOVEMBER 2013, NEW YORK CITY
RECENT, NEW YORK CITY
1. Wide shot, exterior United Nations Headquarters, North Lawn Building
21 NOVEMBER 2013, NEW YORK CITY
2. Wide shot, luncheon
3. Med shot, audience
4. SOUNDBITE (English) Tony Blair, Head of the Tony Blair Faith Foundation:
“In the 21st century, education is a security issue. And not any education; education specifically that opens young minds to the other; those who are culturally and religiously different, and shows them that the only future that works is one in which people are respected as equals, whatever their faith, or their culture.”
5. Med shot, audience
6. SOUNDBITE (English) Tony Blair, Head of the Tony Blair Faith Foundation:
“Yes of course, politics plays its part in fuelling this extremism, and the extremists are adept at jumping on the back of political grievances. They use them and they exploit them. But the soil in which they plant the seed of hate is the soil of ignorance, of warped thinking producing warped minds, and in particular of a distorted and false view of religion.”
7. Med shot, audience
8. SOUNDBITE (English) Tony Blair, Head of the Tony Blair Faith Foundation:
“Extremism based on religion defines those who are different as the enemy, and not just their enemy, but the enemy of god. So, they justify killing in the name of god. This is of course an obscene perversion of proper religious faith, as all main religions have at their core a belief in love of neighbour, compassion and social justice.”
9. Med shot, audience
10. Wide shot, dais
11. Med shot, Blair walks up to the stakeout microphone
RECENT, NEW YORK CITY
12. Close up, reporter’s notepad
21 NOVEMBER 2013, NEW YORK CITY
13. SOUNDBITE (English) Tony Blair, Head of the Tony Blair Faith Foundation:
“Our security services, their task and their challenge frankly, is to try to protect our citizens. So, without going into any details of what they do or what happened in the past, I think it’s just as well we remember that what they are trying to do is to protect our country and to keep its people safe.”
RECENT, NEW YORK CITY
14. Close up, reporter’s notepad
21 NOVEMBER 2013, NEW YORK CITY
15. Med shot, Blair walks away
16. Broad based cross-cultural education is crucial to defeating terrorism, much of it fed by religious extremism, since security measures will not succeed alone, former British Prime Minister Tony Blair told the main United Nations counter-terrorism body today (21 November).
Speaking as head of the Tony Blair Faith Foundation, which provides practical support to prevent religious prejudice, conflict and extremism, he said that “in the 21st century, education is a security issue.”
Specifically, Blair added, “education that opens young minds to the other; those who are culturally and religiously different, and shows them that the only future that works is one in which people are respected as equals, whatever their faith, or their culture.”
The former Prime Minister told the UN Counter-Terrorism Committee Executive Directorate (CTED) at UN Headquarters in New York that “of course, politics plays its part in fuelling this extremism, and the extremists are adept at jumping on the back of political grievances.”
But, he added, “the soil in which they plant the seed of hate is the soil of ignorance, of warped thinking producing warped minds, and in particular of a distorted and false view of religion.”
Blair said “extremism based on religion defines those who are different as the enemy, and not just their enemy, but the enemy of god” and “they justify killing in the name of god.”
He said that this was “an obscene perversion of proper religious faith, as all main religions have at their core a belief in love of neighbour, compassion and social justice.”
Blair noted that his foundation’s Face to Faith schools programme emphasises the imperative that religion taught in the classroom be inclusive and mindful of the beliefs of all students.
Asked by reporters after the meeting about press reports that his government allowed the United States’ National Security Agency (NSA) to collect information on British citizens, he said that “without going into any details of what they do or what happened in the past” it must be remembered that “what they are trying to do is to protect our country and to keep its people safe.”
