WHEN the GG2 Power List spoke with him last year, Lord Ahmad was a very busy man.
Not only was he Minister of State at the Foreign Office for the Commonwealth and the United Nations, as well as Minister with Special Responsibility for the Caribbean, he was also the Prime Minister’s Special Representative on Preventing Sexual Violence in Conflict.
He had joined the royal household as Lord-in-Waiting to the Queen soon after his ennoblement in 2011, and had also recently been appointed Special Envoy on Freedom of Religion or Belief (promoting global inter-faith respect and dialogue, with a particular focus on persecuted minorities).
Now he informs us that he has been given even more responsibility after Afghanistan and South Asia were added to his purview.
Also, notably, Lord Ahmad remains firmly in place as a minister after the most ruthless reshuffle, or Cabinet culls, in modern times, carried out immediately after Boris Johnson became prime minister.
This, despite Ahmad being almost a Theresa May family member, who emerged from an influential and close-knit network of Wimbledon Tories to enter directly the House of Lords, and who later managed May’s successful quest to become prime minister in 2016. Before that he was plain Tariq Ahmad, banker and Merton Borough councillor. His elevation has been stellar.
A Pakistani-origin Ahmadiyya Muslim, Theresa May well knew that Ahmad’s knowledge and experience would prove extremely useful in government. She had plans for this engaging and friendly man and she wanted him close by: he soon joined her at the Home Office as Minister for Countering Extremism before he ascended to the FCO.
Although May has returned to the back benches, he remains full of praise for her. “I would like to pay tribute to her incredible work,” stresses Lord Ahmad. “She is a principled politician, and I have seen her passionate commitment in terms of what should be done.”
Of course, Lord Ahmad also worked closely with Boris Johnson for a year at the FCO before the latter resigned as Foreign Secretary in July 2018, and he has many warm things to say about Johnson in his latest incarnation.
“I think we have someone as Prime Minister who not only understands the importance of relationships with our international partners but has built a vision of a global Britain and a vision of the United Kingdom outside the European Union,” says Lord Ahmad. “We want to have a good working relationship with the EU, but we could by leaving the EU, renew and build and extend our relationship across the Commonwealth and the rest of the world and we are doing just that.”
Baron Ahmad of Wimbledon is without doubt a lord in a suitcase – last year’s travels took him to Israel, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Bahrain, the Hague and Kosovo. He met Pope Francis in the Vatican and visited the Caribbean in the wake of Hurricane Irma.
Over the last 12 months he has been to Indonesia for the Our Ocean conference, at the UN HQ in New York for the UN General Conference, to Kenya for the Sustainable Blue Economy Conference, back to the USA and then to the Caribbean (including to Bermuda for the first time), then the Balkans, back to Bermuda, on to New York once again for the 63rd Commission on the Status of Women, over to
Switzerland where he addressed the 40th Session of the UN Human Rights Council (it has been a year of speeches), and to Pakistan.
This past year in Lord Ahmad’s opinion has seen the beginning of a positive movement in an area he is deeply involved with: the freedom of religious expression. “I think that international collaboration has been focussing on the issue and rightly so,” he says. The defeat of ISIS in Syria and Iraq has given breathing space and hope for persecuted communities all over the world. Regional minorities such as Christians and Yazidis, especially, can now at least begin to recover from the terror and atrocities they have suffered at the hands of murderous fundamentalists.
“We have recently completed an independent report (by the Bishop of Truro, Rt Rev Bishop Philip Mounstephen) on the question of Christian persecution, examining the level of persecution that happens to Christian communities around the Middle East, North Africa and Asia,” says Lord Ahmad. “It’s not that there were things we didn’t know, but we affirmed the level of persecution and it allows more focussed action.”
The report revealed – or underlined – how 245 million Christians live under threat or injury around the world, and Lord Ahmad himself has a keen sense of what religious persecution feels like.
“Being an Ahmadiyya Muslim also provides me the strength and conviction to stand up for any persecuted minority wherever they may be in the world,” he says. He is aware of the slow but realistic pace of change he can help to effect.
Even as a representative of the British government he has faced protests led by, for example, Fazal-ur-Rehman, President of religious party, Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam. He condemned the invitation to Pakistan extended to an Ahmadiyya such as Lord Ahmad.
“In an ideal world,” said Lord Ahmad in his recent address to the UNHRC in Switzerland, “states would meet the human rights obligations they have to their people. States and non-state actors would not abuse the vulnerable, persecute certain communities, or silence those who speak out. In an ideal world, those who did such despicable things would face justice. Sadly, we do not yet live in an ideal world.”
In accord with his philosophy of building the strength of society through diversity (but meaning everybody mixing together, not the disaster of ghettoization) he is putting his money where his mouth is and sends his son, Mansoor, to a Jesuit Catholic school.
He tells the story of how one day Mansoor came to him and said, “Daddy, what kind of Muslim am I?” “What kind of Muslim do you think you are?” he asked in turn. “[Mansoor] paused for a moment,” recalled Lord Ahmad, “and with a great poignancy he said, ‘Daddy, a Christian Muslim?’”
If there is a single person in government who embodies the idea of an harmonious future Britain composed of all its various present and far-flung citizens, it is surely Lord Ahmad. “I’m a living, working example of the Commonwealth,” he affirms.
“I’m the son of parents who were born in India, who migrated to Pakistan, came to Scotland, settled here and made a life for themselves. My wife, her family originates from Pakistan. She moved to Australia, got bought up there, she married a Brit and we now live here. My children are living, working examples of what the strength of the Commonwealth is. That’s what the opportunity is … I go by the strength of one thing that I honestly believe in, which is true of our country and it’s true of the Commonwealth; that in diversity, lies our strength.”
