Matthew Parris: Tony Blair doesn't understand that the core of faith is fanaticism

[...] Throughout history, faith resurgent, the Church militant - be it Islam, Christianity or Judaism - tends as it gains enthusiasm to become more extreme. It goes back to basics. It strips the modifications of modernity, delving for a core. That core is fundamentalist. So, yes, from the Bible Belt to the Vatican, from the West Bank to Helmand, a comparable muscle is being flexed, it is profoundly reactionary, and all faiths do share it. In some deep and inchoate way, these human tendencies are indeed “all on the same side”.

But it's not my side, and it shouldn't be yours; and a secular political class of the kind that produced our current generation of leaders, including Mr Blair, Gordon Brown and David Cameron, should think long and hard before throwing so much as a scrap to this tiger - let alone riding it. Read more
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