Amsterdam, 4 October 2001
Blair Speech offers a wider vision
for a world in turmoil
In his
speech
before the Labour party Conference in Brighton Blair took the fight one step further.
He committed himself and Britain firmly as a frontrunner in the fight against terrorism. But he wants to go much further in the cooperation in the globalisation of the world.
"But globalisation is a fact and, by and large, it is driven by people.
Not just in finance, but in communication, in technology, increasingly in culture, in recreation. In the world of the internet, information technology and TV, there will be globalisation. And in trade, the problem is not there's too much of it; on the contrary there's too little of it.
The issue is not how to stop globalisation.
The issue is how we use the power of community to combine it with justice. If globalisation works only for the benefit of the few, then it will fail and will deserve to fail. But if we follow the principles that have served us so well at home - that power, wealth and opportunity must be in the hands of the many, not the few - if we make that our guiding light for the global economy, then it will be a force for good and an international movement that we should take pride in leading.
Because the alternative to globalisation is isolation.
Confronted by this reality, round the world, nations are instinctively drawing together. In Quebec, all the countries of North and South America deciding to make one huge free trade area, rivalling Europe. In Asia, ASEAN. In Europe, the most integrated grouping of all, we are now 15 nations. Another 12 countries negotiating to join, and more beyond that.
A new relationship between Russia and Europe is beginning.
And will not India and China, each with three times as many citizens as the whole of the EU put together, once their economies have developed sufficiently as they will do, not reconfigure entirely the geopolitics of the world and in our lifetime?"
His principle aim is that "Justice" must be achieved. Not just justice towards the victims of the WTC disaster, but also in social- economic questions.
"So I believe this is a fight for freedom. And I want to make it a fight for justice too.
Justice not only to punish the guilty.
But justice to bring those same values of democracy and freedom to people round the world.
And I mean: freedom, not only in the narrow sense of personal liberty but in the broader sense of each individual having the economic and social freedom to develop their potential to the full. That is what community means, founded on the equal worth of all.
The starving, the wretched, the dispossessed, the ignorant, those living in want and squalor from the deserts of Northern Africa to the slums of Gaza, to the mountain ranges of Afghanistan: they too are our cause.
This is a moment to seize.
The Kaleidoscope has been shaken. The pieces are in flux. Soon they will settle again.
Before they do, let us re-order this world around us."
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