Beckett: Pushing democracy is not imperialism
Margaret Beckett's speech was well recieved at the TUC conference
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Wednesday, 13, Sep 2006 02:11
Britain's decision to get involved in the affairs of Iraq and Afghanistan should not be confused with "cultural imperialism", the foreign secretary has said today.
Speaking at the TUC annual conference this morning, Margaret Beckett said that there was a continued need to "douse the smouldering embers of insecurity".
She added that the Labour government needed to deal with debt relief and immunisation programmes and build a "culture of human rights and democratic governance" in failed states or run the risk of terrorism thriving.
"We must never fall into the trap of thinking that pushing democratic values in the world is some sort of unacceptable cultural imperialism," she told delegates today in a well-received speech in Brighton.
"When millions of Iraqis braved bombs to go to the polling stations, when men and women in Burma face prison or worse for advocating change, when 80-year-olds walk for miles to vote in the Democratic Republic of Congo, then surely the least we can do is lend them our active support."
She added that Labour cannot consider such issues as a "fluffy alternative agenda", but as crucial to ensuring the security of the international community.
"Any government has to and will react to individual instances of insecurity in the world around it," she added.
"But what differentiates this Labour government is that we don't see the underlying causes that I have identified as some fluffy alternative agenda - a luxury we can allow ourselves when more pressing matters are resolved.
"We recognise that if we don't want to be constantly dealing with the eruption of new fires, we have to douse the smouldering embers of global insecurity."
Ms Beckett told her trade union audience that their role in ensuring this was vital, adding that the unions had helped people across the world to speak their mind and earn a decent wage.
She concluded by calling for a "step change" in the relationship between unions and the Foreign Office, saying "we are conscious we should be doing a lot more with the trade union movement".