I was privileged to spend Saturday night at a peace conference hosted by the UK’s Amhadiyya Muslim community. It is a denomination of Islam discriminated against by the government of Pakistan. The talks that evening reminded me both of how precious religious freedom is, and how people from across the globe of all faiths continue to suffer to achieve it.
I was lucky to get the chance to speak to Tariq Ahmad (pictured right) who is Vice Chairman of the Conservative party. He has kindly agreed to come to Derby. We’ll be organising his visit for late this Summer and I hope many of you will take the chance to speak to him about the issues a future Conservative government will be prioritising.
Finally I was struck by how the huge mosque (pictured left) on London Road in Morden that hosted us was built by a community. Their budget of £15m has produced a facility worth far more than that because the money was raised internally, the labour and skills were found internally and the project was managed by a team of community leaders looking for more than just a profit margin. There is much to be learnt from that. In Derby we enjoy a wonderfully tight community wit a great sense of identy. I wonder if we can convert that into something tangible in the same way the Ahmadiyya have in Morden.
