December 6, 2014 - Manama, Bahrain
Check Against Delivery
Good evening. I’m very pleased to join you all here in Manama again.
I have to admit that I was more eager to hear what you all have to say than to hear from myself.
Sometimes as a foreign minister it’s a relief, and a pleasure, to just spend some time soaking up the discussions and listening to other people’s thoughts.
The theme of “collective approaches to collective security” certainly feels very relevant today.
Just this week, I and other Euro-Atlantic colleagues met together at NATO.
Then we had a meeting of the Global Coalition to Counter ISIL [Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant].
And then the OSCE [Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe] ministerial meetings over in Switzerland.
So it’s been a busy week for meetings—but there are no prizes for guessing what the main topics of conversation were.
The Russian Federation is dangerously undermining regional and global security with its violent incursions in Ukraine.
This demands a robust collective response.
And then, closer to here, we have the advance of ISIL.
We have already discussed the threat posed by this barbaric terrorist group. And we will discuss it more.
I want to reflect a little on the broader problem that it represents.
It strikes me that most of the challenges in this region are driven by the opposite of collective, collaborative approaches.
Sectarianism, and its dangerous rise in the Middle East, comes in many forms:
We have a Shia-Sunni divide. We have threats to the Kurds, threats to the ancient Iraqi Christian community. The list goes on.
The antidote to sectarianism—and the key ingredient in lasting stability—is pluralism. But that is under siege as well.
What is common to all of these divides is that they are being exploited to achieve regional or geopolitical ends, with immense human cost.
They are exploited by some sinister state actors to meddle in the affairs of others for their own gain, as is too often the case with Iran.
Sectarianism is also exploited by and emboldened by nefarious non-state actors—actors that wreak havoc across ungoverned expanses.
We see this with ISIL, which has extended this divide across borders.
And we see it in some of the other militias there too.
Commander [Qasem] Soleimani of Iran’s Al Quds Force has been organizing Shia militias in Iraq since before 2010 and is happy to publicize that fact with selfies on social media.
An agent of terror styling himself as a hero.
ISIL is clearly the very real and current sectarian threat we are facing there.
But we cannot lose sight of the potential for these sectarian Shia militias to rival it.
Of course, the threat of sectarianism not only transcends the borders within this region; it also transcends those between this region and others.
That’s why Canada has made the Middle East a top priority, and why I take every opportunity to visit.
If you look at a map, which is two-dimensional, maybe that doesn’t make much sense.
But if you could somehow visualize the live geolocation of all the tweets, the financial transactions, the energy exports, the flight paths… suddenly the globe looks much, much smaller.
And so what happens in the Middle East reverberates across the globe.
A couple of months ago, the Halifax International Security Forum commissioned a poll in dozens of countries.
It found that a clear majority of people believed that the world is more dangerous now than it was last year.
Even 82 percent of those asked in Canada agreed with that, and this was before the two terrorist-inspired attacks against soldiers on our own soil and in the halls of our nation’s parliament.
At the same time as the world gets smaller—and, to some extent, because of it—the world also feels more dangerous.
The urgency of collective action couldn’t be higher.
These threats are common to us all. And we must tackle them together based on common principles.
I’m proud that Canada is standing shoulder-to-shoulder with many others in the fight against extremism, terrorism and sectarianism.
When I was in the U.A.E. [United Arab Emirates] last month I reflected that in the wars of my lifetime, we have been allies in every single conflict.
We are fighting ISIL not just through military support but also by working with regional partners, such as our hosts Bahrain, to stem the flow of terrorist financing and foreign fighters.
We know that our security and prosperity is intrinsically connected to the security and prosperity of others.
The most effective response to a threat is not just to build bigger walls but also to get out there and work on reducing the threat itself.
The same is true of our economies. Canada is blessed in its geography and its resources.
But we know that true long-term strength comes from being a networked, outward-facing, free-trading nation.
Countries that empower their people with opportunities, that see them as citizens rather than subjects, will benefit from the dynamism and prosperity that is unleashed.
In this region, the discovery of “black gold” fuelled a boom of infrastructure and development.
At the same time, Soviet philosophy found influence among some political movements.
But long-term prosperity in these insecure times will require a shift of thinking—from the distribution of capital to the creation of it.
Just as pluralism is the antidote to sectarianism in the social sphere, greater diversity in the economic sphere is a strength, not a weakness.
We have seen how the rise of ISIL earlier this year contributed to volatility in energy markets.
Despite recent falls in oil prices, the IEA [International Energy Agency] has warned in its World Energy Outlook that we should beware of “supply complacency.”
That means not allowing a short-term picture of a well-supplied oil market to obscure future energy demand challenges and an overreliance on a relatively small number of producers.
In other words it’s not easy to keep balance in an increasingly unstable world if you’re standing only on one foot.
I began by talking about the need for a collective approach to the security challenge posed by ISIL and also by Russia.
As I conclude, let me reaffirm that we cannot tackle the long-term threat posed by extremism and sectarianism with military might alone.
And you cannot fight sectarianism with sectarianism, any more than you can fight fire with fire.
In our hyper-connected world, where information and perceptions flow rapidly, the battlefield is increasingly in the mind.
We all have to do much more to counter poisonous narratives, the narratives that say sectarianism and nationalism are the only ways for our citizens to be, and feel, secure.
Our narrative is that we can achieve a more secure, stable world by working together to fight terror—wherever, or however, it emerges.
A world where trade and economic prosperity are the surest path to a better future.
One where freedom, democracy, human rights and the rule of law are protected.
And I look forward to discussing further how we can make this happen, at this forum and beyond.
Thank you.
