THE
P RTAL
March 2016
its way into the education system. That is changing
people’s attitudes. There has been pressure to Islamise
laws and that means more pressure on Christians
and others in Iran or in Pakistan and so here also.
Clearly, we can’t ignore what is happening in the world
and the fundamental position of the churches in
Britain should be about freedom of belief, freedom of
expression, freedom of worship for everyone. But we
have to ask in the end that if there is freedom here, what
are the implications of that for freedom elsewhere?
“I remember asking a highly placed Saudi
official about this. I said, “You know, there are
mosques in Britain, in Italy, in France…how many
churches are there in Saudi Arabia?” His answer
to me was, “How many mosques are there in
the Vatican?” Well, this is not parity; this is not
reciprocity. I don’t want to sound tit for tat but I think
if both sides are committed to freedom of expression,
belief and worship, then that has to show in how
people use their influence in their own sphere.
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aspiration. Mainstream Sunni Islam needs a Caliphate
and as soon as it was abolished, almost as soon as it was
abolished, there was a campaign to have it restored.
In fact, the British were actually quite involved in
this because at that time, in the 1920s and 1930s, they
offered the Caliphate to various Arab rulers who, very
wisely to my mind, declined to accept. So it was for a
time an instrument of British foreign policy.
“Now of course what you’ve got is an extremist
manifestation and extremist understanding of
the Caliphate.