Extremists thrive in crisis, says Williams

Church Times by Ed Beavan | Friday, 27 February 2009 | Click here for original article

BRITAIN is at risk from political extremism as a result of the financial crisis, the Archbishop of Canterbury warned this week.

Speaking during a meeting of the Christian Muslim Forum in London on Tuesday, Dr Williams said that the recent election of a BNP coun cillor to a county council in Kent served as a “straw in the wind”.Many people felt angry as a result of the economic crisis, he said. “I think we do ignore at our peril the very high risk — which history should have taught us — the very high risk of financial stringency leading to political extremism.“Anger finding its expression in xenophobia, prejudice, rivalry — all the tactics that both sociologists and psychologists remark on as the dis placement of unease and fear.“It’s no small thing that the BNP can win a seat in Sevenoaks. It’s a straw in the wind, and we have to watch the horizon very carefully.”Dr Williams is the patron of the Christian Muslim Forum, which was launched in 2006. At Tuesday’s meet ing at St Ethelburga’s Centre for Reconciliation and Peace, he also spoke of the need to “dust off” the Christian virtues of prudence and temperance and “see what they mean in a contemporary context”.He praised the work of credit unions, and spoke of the difficulty in finding the right balance between democratically elected governments and unelected financial institutions. He also questioned whether faith groups had really said “enough is enough” during the period of eco nomic growth that preceded the downturn.Ultimately, Dr Williams said, people of faith needed to recognise the world as “a gift to be stewarded.. . . Our own will and desires don’t define what is good for everyone. We need to understand we belong to a world that’s limited and not wholly under our control.”He concluded by pointing to the com mun ity aspect that people of faith shared through their relation­ship with their Creator: that “my life and your life belong together, and my flourishing and your flourishing belong together.”Stephen Timms, MP for East Ham and Financial Secretary to the Treasury, also addressed the Forum. He said that a recent trip to Argentina had brought home to him how the global crisis was affecting developed and developing countries. No one was now thinking it was just a problem for the banking industry.He said that, as part of the upcoming G20 summit, the Government would call for action to stimulate economic growth. “Faith communities represented in this Forum represent generosity rather than greed, fairness, peacemaking, strength in family values — community values that underpin these things we want to achieve.”The Community Cohesion Minister, Sadiq Khan, also spoke at the event, saying that faith communities could help people find certainty during the economic crisis, “not just through the messages and sermons from faith leaders, but through their day-to-day support and guidance”.He called for people to use Lent to “stop and reflect on how we might all be able to work together to help those who are facing trying times in the current economic cli-mate”.Those participating in the event looked at the issue of debt, and were also addressed by several speakers, including Alex Cobham of Christian Aid and Faizal Manjoo of the Islamic Foundation.

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