Foreign Secretary David Miliband, Home Secretary Jaqui Smith and Communities secretary Hazel Blears invited a few hundred Muslims to celebrate Eid with them at the prestigious Darbar Hall of the FCO recently. Also attended many ambassadors from Muslim countries, politicians from all parties, civil servants and media personalities. To welcome his guests, Mr. Miliband said, “The contribution of faith communities to our society and to our politics helps bring values back to the forefront of national life and that is very important, because in the end politics is about your head, it is about doing things that work but it’s also about your heart, and it’s also about deepest values, about justice, about responsibility and citizenship that bring us together.” In her speech the Home Secretary said, “The role that many of you have played in building strong communities in supporting the fundamental view that in the longterm the way that we will tackle terrorism is actually by celebrating the values that we she and deterring people from turning to violent extremism in the first place is absolutely fundamental and it’s the strength of what’s represented here that gives me faith that we will be able to do that in this country and internationally to turn against those who want just not to cause death and mayhem but who actually want to cause division between us in a way that I think the strength of this gathering this evening shows we’re not going to allow to happen.”
Full-text article continues here. (Some news sites may require registration)
