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Lord Chalfont
My Lords, I must begin by declaring an interest in the subject of the debate in that I am the only British member of the Academy of the Kingdom of Morocco, which was established by King Hassan in 1980 to study the issues and problems affecting the role of Morocco in the world. It is a body which consists in equal numbers of Moroccans—politicians, academics and scientists—and of foreigners. Some of the foreign members may be familiar to your Lordships' House. They include Dr. Kissinger from the United States, Anatoly Gromyko from Russia and Crown Prince Hassan of Jordan. The body also includes members from most Islamic countries, including Iraq, Tunisia, Turkey and Saudi Arabia. It meets in plenary session twice a year.
I mention the academy by way of introduction in some detail because at our last plenary meeting held in Lisbon in May this year the subject to which His Majesty the King invited us to address ourselves was the future of the European Union and the Mediterranean countries. With the valuable and indispensable help of our own Foreign and Commonwealth Office, I presented a paper at that plenary meeting. In the debate which followed the concerns of the people of the Maghreb countries were articulated in a way which impressed me enormously. As a result I have been placed in a position especially to recognise the quality and importance of the report which has been so impressively introduced in your Lordships' House today by my noble friend Lord Hunt of Tanworth.
I should like to join in the congratulations, which I am sure will be echoed throughout the House this evening, to my noble friend and his colleagues on Sub-Committee A on producing a most thorough and valuable report. It has contributed enormously to enlightenment and understanding of the problems of an area which is too frequently far from our minds in this country as we concentrate on more important aspects of what an earlier speaker called the near abroad, in other words the countries of eastern Europe.
Perhaps the most important contribution that the report has made is in the context of its observations and reflections on Islam, and especially in its emphasis upon the inaccurate and ill-informed use which is so prevalent in public debate and especially in the press of this country, of the word "fundamentalist", as though fundamentalism were in some way synonymous with terrorism, violence and extremism. To many Moslems and followers of the Islamic faith fundamentalism is nothing more sinister than a desire to establish the society in which they live and the government which governs them on the values and moral codes of Islam. It seems to me that there is nothing more sinister in that than there might be in a desire to establish a society based on Christian or Jewish values. That is what fundamentalism means to most Moslems and followers of Islam. As my noble friend Lord Hunt of Tanworth said, it has been pointed out by King Hassan of Morocco that Moroccans have been fundamentalists for 1,200 years. There is no connotation of political violence in the Islamic fundamentalism of the Moroccan monarch or his people.
I hope that what I have to say may go further than the confines of this noble House. The use of fundamentalism as a pejorative term synonymous with something undesirable causes great offence to many Moslems and many devoted and peaceful followers of the Islamic faith. There are, of course, terrorists and extremists from the world of Islam. However, as we all know, there are terrorists and extremists from the worlds of Christianity and Judaism also. We would do a service to the public debates on these issues if in future we were a little more accurate in our use of language and referred to people as terrorists and extremists if they are terrorists and extremists but did not refer to them as Islamic fundamentalists. That is patronising and offensive.
The fact that the term is used in a loose and ill-informed way is only a part of something much bigger. It is part of the dangerous gulf of suspicion and misunderstanding which is growing up between the whole world of Islam and the West. Recently an American historian and analyst called Samuel Huntingdon wrote a serious and well-researched article in an American magazine in which he referred to the new clash of cultures and expressed the theory that with communism defeated and the Soviet empire in a state of disintegration the new threat to the security of the West was Islamic fundamentalism. As recently as last Thursday there was an article in The Times in which a member of the American Administration referred to the dangers of the domino effect of Moslem and Islamic fundamentalism spreading across the countries of North Africa.
The report of the Select Committee has made it clear that in the view of the committee—and it is a view with which I fundamentally agree—there is no such danger as the danger of the domino effect, or, if there is such a possibility, it is not an immediate danger. The committee considers that the dangers of Islamic fundamentalism creating conditions of instability and violence in the Maghreb countries of north Africa are remote. I agree entirely with the conclusion which the sub-committee has reached in that respect.
However, there is an important antithesis. As the report says, there is the danger of economic problems in the Maghreb countries which might provide a fertile ground for extremism if it should spread beyond the boundaries of Algeria, where at present its nucleus exists. It is there, I believe, that the critical and crucial importance of the policy of the European Union towards the Maghreb countries lies. The most important thing that the European Union can do now is to attempt to promote stability in the Maghreb countries by helping them to continue on the path of economic development which, in the case of Morocco and Tunisia, they have so successfully followed up to now.
For the last few moments of my intervention I should like to focus on Morocco which is the country that I know best. It is a constitutional monarchy. It is true that, as the report said, the king is at the centre of power; no one denies that. However, it is a constitutional monarchy with an elected national assembly. The king is a thoughtful, constructive and subtle political leader. There is in Morocco a history of religious tolerance; it has a thriving, flourishing and fully tolerated Jewish community. As the report points out, Maimonides and Pope Silvester III were entertained and welcomed at the University of Fès, the oldest university in the world. The significance of that is not to be overlooked. As I need hardly point out, Pope Silvester III was Christian, but what might not be equally well known is that Maimonides—perhaps my noble friend will forgive me for saying that in the report Maimonides has suffered from a severe case of printer's revenge because his name has been badly mangled! Maimonides was the Rabbi Moses Ben Maimon, the great Jewish philosopher of the 12th century, who spent time at the university of Fès in Morocco. He was welcomed there, as was Pope Silvester.
Those are both manifestations of the religious and political tolerance which characterises the political culture of Morocco. I discovered recently at the conference in Lisbon that Morocco urgently seeks closer ties with the European Union. The King of Morocco—I think with some justification—regards his country as the junction point, the crossroads between Europe, Africa and the Arab world. As the report points out, there is a profound ignorance generally in the West about Morocco, and especially in this country where it is regarded as some kind of French chasse gardée because of the relatively brief time in which Morocco was a French colonial country.
There are great opportunities for British industry and business in Morocco. However, above all Morocco is a case history underlining the danger of regarding Islam as a great monolithic entity. Morocco is as different from Libya or Iran as Turkey is from Pakistan or Brunei; they are all Islamic countries. I suggest, therefore, that the United Kingdom should continue on its present twin-track, approaching a free trade area in the Maghreb as part of a European/Mediterranean partnership, but continuing to pursue its bilateral interests in the Maghreb, especially in Morocco. I know that the Government recognise that countries such as Morocco wish to diversify away from their traditional suppliers, especially from France. As the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Tanworth, pointed out, there is an interest in acquiring the English language for business purposes. There have already been structural reforms and privatisation programmes in Morocco and there is great opportunity for our business and industry to prosper there.
Furthermore, the important final point I wish to make is that Britain shares with its European Union partners an interest in working to reduce the potential causes of instability in the Maghreb countries to the extent that any outsiders can, because it is largely a matter for the countries themselves—and the primary instruments of any influence that we can bring to bear in the area are economic because the root causes are economic. There is no direct security risk to Britain or to Europe in any military sense (although there are concerns about terrorism and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction). But it is internal stability that counts and it is internal instability that would damage trading prospects, damage investment prospects and damage general political interests in the region. It is in that area that I believe that the European Union, with Britain at its heart, can play an important role.
I close by expressing the hope that later this evening we shall hear something about the line that Her Majesty's Government will be taking in the European Union as they prepare for the important conference in Barcelona next month.
I mention the academy by way of introduction in some detail because at our last plenary meeting held in Lisbon in May this year the subject to which His Majesty the King invited us to address ourselves was the future of the European Union and the Mediterranean countries. With the valuable and indispensable help of our own Foreign and Commonwealth Office, I presented a paper at that plenary meeting. In the debate which followed the concerns of the people of the Maghreb countries were articulated in a way which impressed me enormously. As a result I have been placed in a position especially to recognise the quality and importance of the report which has been so impressively introduced in your Lordships' House today by my noble friend Lord Hunt of Tanworth.
I should like to join in the congratulations, which I am sure will be echoed throughout the House this evening, to my noble friend and his colleagues on Sub-Committee A on producing a most thorough and valuable report. It has contributed enormously to enlightenment and understanding of the problems of an area which is too frequently far from our minds in this country as we concentrate on more important aspects of what an earlier speaker called the near abroad, in other words the countries of eastern Europe.
Perhaps the most important contribution that the report has made is in the context of its observations and reflections on Islam, and especially in its emphasis upon the inaccurate and ill-informed use which is so prevalent in public debate and especially in the press of this country, of the word "fundamentalist", as though fundamentalism were in some way synonymous with terrorism, violence and extremism. To many Moslems and followers of the Islamic faith fundamentalism is nothing more sinister than a desire to establish the society in which they live and the government which governs them on the values and moral codes of Islam. It seems to me that there is nothing more sinister in that than there might be in a desire to establish a society based on Christian or Jewish values. That is what fundamentalism means to most Moslems and followers of Islam. As my noble friend Lord Hunt of Tanworth said, it has been pointed out by King Hassan of Morocco that Moroccans have been fundamentalists for 1,200 years. There is no connotation of political violence in the Islamic fundamentalism of the Moroccan monarch or his people.
I hope that what I have to say may go further than the confines of this noble House. The use of fundamentalism as a pejorative term synonymous with something undesirable causes great offence to many Moslems and many devoted and peaceful followers of the Islamic faith. There are, of course, terrorists and extremists from the world of Islam. However, as we all know, there are terrorists and extremists from the worlds of Christianity and Judaism also. We would do a service to the public debates on these issues if in future we were a little more accurate in our use of language and referred to people as terrorists and extremists if they are terrorists and extremists but did not refer to them as Islamic fundamentalists. That is patronising and offensive.
The fact that the term is used in a loose and ill-informed way is only a part of something much bigger. It is part of the dangerous gulf of suspicion and misunderstanding which is growing up between the whole world of Islam and the West. Recently an American historian and analyst called Samuel Huntingdon wrote a serious and well-researched article in an American magazine in which he referred to the new clash of cultures and expressed the theory that with communism defeated and the Soviet empire in a state of disintegration the new threat to the security of the West was Islamic fundamentalism. As recently as last Thursday there was an article in The Times in which a member of the American Administration referred to the dangers of the domino effect of Moslem and Islamic fundamentalism spreading across the countries of North Africa.
The report of the Select Committee has made it clear that in the view of the committee—and it is a view with which I fundamentally agree—there is no such danger as the danger of the domino effect, or, if there is such a possibility, it is not an immediate danger. The committee considers that the dangers of Islamic fundamentalism creating conditions of instability and violence in the Maghreb countries of north Africa are remote. I agree entirely with the conclusion which the sub-committee has reached in that respect.
However, there is an important antithesis. As the report says, there is the danger of economic problems in the Maghreb countries which might provide a fertile ground for extremism if it should spread beyond the boundaries of Algeria, where at present its nucleus exists. It is there, I believe, that the critical and crucial importance of the policy of the European Union towards the Maghreb countries lies. The most important thing that the European Union can do now is to attempt to promote stability in the Maghreb countries by helping them to continue on the path of economic development which, in the case of Morocco and Tunisia, they have so successfully followed up to now.
For the last few moments of my intervention I should like to focus on Morocco which is the country that I know best. It is a constitutional monarchy. It is true that, as the report said, the king is at the centre of power; no one denies that. However, it is a constitutional monarchy with an elected national assembly. The king is a thoughtful, constructive and subtle political leader. There is in Morocco a history of religious tolerance; it has a thriving, flourishing and fully tolerated Jewish community. As the report points out, Maimonides and Pope Silvester III were entertained and welcomed at the University of Fès, the oldest university in the world. The significance of that is not to be overlooked. As I need hardly point out, Pope Silvester III was Christian, but what might not be equally well known is that Maimonides—perhaps my noble friend will forgive me for saying that in the report Maimonides has suffered from a severe case of printer's revenge because his name has been badly mangled! Maimonides was the Rabbi Moses Ben Maimon, the great Jewish philosopher of the 12th century, who spent time at the university of Fès in Morocco. He was welcomed there, as was Pope Silvester.
Those are both manifestations of the religious and political tolerance which characterises the political culture of Morocco. I discovered recently at the conference in Lisbon that Morocco urgently seeks closer ties with the European Union. The King of Morocco—I think with some justification—regards his country as the junction point, the crossroads between Europe, Africa and the Arab world. As the report points out, there is a profound ignorance generally in the West about Morocco, and especially in this country where it is regarded as some kind of French chasse gardée because of the relatively brief time in which Morocco was a French colonial country.
There are great opportunities for British industry and business in Morocco. However, above all Morocco is a case history underlining the danger of regarding Islam as a great monolithic entity. Morocco is as different from Libya or Iran as Turkey is from Pakistan or Brunei; they are all Islamic countries. I suggest, therefore, that the United Kingdom should continue on its present twin-track, approaching a free trade area in the Maghreb as part of a European/Mediterranean partnership, but continuing to pursue its bilateral interests in the Maghreb, especially in Morocco. I know that the Government recognise that countries such as Morocco wish to diversify away from their traditional suppliers, especially from France. As the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Tanworth, pointed out, there is an interest in acquiring the English language for business purposes. There have already been structural reforms and privatisation programmes in Morocco and there is great opportunity for our business and industry to prosper there.
Furthermore, the important final point I wish to make is that Britain shares with its European Union partners an interest in working to reduce the potential causes of instability in the Maghreb countries to the extent that any outsiders can, because it is largely a matter for the countries themselves—and the primary instruments of any influence that we can bring to bear in the area are economic because the root causes are economic. There is no direct security risk to Britain or to Europe in any military sense (although there are concerns about terrorism and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction). But it is internal stability that counts and it is internal instability that would damage trading prospects, damage investment prospects and damage general political interests in the region. It is in that area that I believe that the European Union, with Britain at its heart, can play an important role.
I close by expressing the hope that later this evening we shall hear something about the line that Her Majesty's Government will be taking in the European Union as they prepare for the important conference in Barcelona next month.
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Morocco: an emerging model for Muslim-Jewish relations
