Earl Russell: Let us light the fires of tolerance
From a speech by the Liberal Democrat peer at the launch in London of Islam Awareness Week
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Your support makes all the difference.The Gunpowder Plot, if it had succeeded, would have made the attack on the twin towers seem small beer. The King, all of Parliament, all the judges and all the Privy Council would have been killed, and the King's children kidnapped. It would have destroyed all legitimate authority.
It was a perfectly genuine plot; we still have the Ordnance Office's receipt for the 36 barrels of gunpowder. It was the work of a few extremists isolated within a Roman Catholic community that was overwhelmingly loyal. When news of the plot reached Bishop Auckland, people lit bonfires to celebrate the King's escape. One woman was out shopping when she heard that her children had lit a bonfire under the house. Unfortunately, the woman happened to be a Catholic, and her neighbours informed on her for refusing to have a bonfire to celebrate the King's escape. The judges did not believe her story, and she died in prison.
That is not the way to do it. One person who got it right was the Abbot of Ampleforth in 1940. A group of Quakers were evacuated to Ampleforth to keep them out of the way of the bombing. There was some anxiety about how the monks and Quakers would get on with each other, until the Abbot began his speech of welcome: "Friends, Romans, Countrymen". It is in that spirit that I felt a glow of pride the first time I heard a new peer making her oath of allegiance swear by "almighty Allah". The pride was tempered only by a sense of shame that I was hearing it for the first time.
It is true that ignorance breeds prejudice, and I have always said the basic principle of tolerance is: "We know you." That is why Islamic Awareness Week is such a good thing, and why I am proud to have been able to take part in it.
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