Voice of the Sunday Mirror: Throwing a light on the dark world

Sunday Mirror, Jan 2, 2005

THERE has been a lot of misplaced criticism of Tony Blair being absent during the tsunami catastrophe.

But this is no time to talk a good fight. Blair was right to punch his weight behind the scenes and tell President Bush the United States must give more cash.

He was also right to insist that now is the time to win back some badly needed goodwill from Muslim nations. The United States is not only the most powerful and wealthy nation on earth - it is also the most inventive and generous. Both qualities have never been more needed than now.

For too many months of 2004 the world saw the warlike, unpitying face of America, caught up in a conflict it should never have started.

Now a new year desperately needs to see the other side of the United States. A giver of life, instead of the taker of it.

Rebuilding these shattered countries and their communities will take many years. But for the United States, and Britain too, it is a chance to show these desperately poor nations that Western democracies are greater than the evil threats their enemies proclaim them to be.

Every catastrophe - even one as overwhelming as this - presents an opportunity for good. Blair is right to seize it and right to push the United States to do all in its very considerable power to show the caring, resourceful, miracle working, can-do self-belief of that great country.

These are dark days. It is the task of all us, and particularly our leaders, to ensure the light returns.

Tony Blair has started by showing the way.