Tony Blair’s latest “faith” initiative is likely to do more harm than good

The National Secular Society has dismissed Tony Blair’s latest effort to “foster understandings between religions” in schools as a menace to the work of bringing people together.

Through his “Faith Foundation”, Blair has has launched a new initiative in schools which it says aims to create “religious literacy” among children in an effort to calm fanaticism and promote understanding.

The launch of the Foundations education arm was marked by a gimmicky “international video link-up” between pupils from Bolton, Delhi and Bethlehem.

“If you look round the different parts of the world and you look at conflicts, I would say a very large percentage of them have a religious dimension or a faith dimension to them,” said Mr Blair at the launch in London. “So to get young people at an early age to be comfortable with people of a different faith is extremely important.”

Keith Porteous Wood of the National Secular Society said: “Mr Blair has single-handedly done more than anyone else to foster religious division in this country by encouraging the proliferation of separatist ‘faith schools’. Now he wants children in all schools to emphasise their differences even more, rather than concentrating on what they have in common. This can only be counterproductive.”

Mr Wood said that this constant categorisation of children by their (or, more likely, their parents’) religion was a disastrous way to break down barriers. And besides which, research shows that very few children - in Britain at least - regard themselves as religious.

“Children and young people should be able to make friends with each other on the basis of their shared humanity, not constantly be told that they fit into a particular religious category which immediately creates a barrier between them. We really must take the emphasis off religion and let children cross the divides in other ways.”

Mr Wood pointed to the example of the musician Daniel Barenboim's West-Eastern Divan Orchestra which gives opportunities for aspiring young musicians from Israel and Palestine (and other Middle Eastern countries) to make music together.

“In this orchestra, we see young people with what seem to be intractable religious differences coming together and working to create something that has nothing to do with religion. They have the opportunity to discuss the differences that each of their countries has with the other, but in the end it is about their shared love of Beethoven and Bach rather than about God and bombs. It gives them that all-important relief from the constant harping on religion, religion, religion that so dominates their lives at home. One cross-cultural orchestra or football team is worth a million ‘faith foundations’”

Mr Wood said that Barenboim's was only one such initiative – there were sports clubs, choirs and other initiatives that calmed religious and cultural differences through a shared passion. This is surely a million times more desirable than Blair’s obsessive concentration on ‘faith’ and the conflict that it inevitably invites.”