By Zakir Hussain

FORMER British prime minister Tony Blair will take part in a new course on religions at the National University of Singapore (NUS).

He will be the facilitator at one session in the new course, tentatively called Religions in the Contemporary World.

The course will start in August. Its details are still being worked out by NUS with the Tony Blair Faith Foundation and Yale University, where Mr Blair is teaching.

It will an elective for about 20 students, said the NUS yesterday.

The tie-up was highlighted by Mr Blair at a lecture on faith and globalisation that he gave at NUS yesterday, attended by 600 students, faculty and guests. He said the partnership with NUS was 'a fantastic thing for us, because Asia is so important, this university is so well-known'.

The idea for the course was sparked by a live video seminar between NUS and Yale students last November which Mr Blair facilitated, NUS president Tan Chorh Chuan told reporters.

Yesterday, Mr Blair underlined the importance of understanding the role of religion in today's globalised world. 'The majority of people in the world will identify themselves in part on the basis of their faith. And here, out in Asia, this is particularly important,' he said.

He noted that where there is ignorance of other faiths, there is also fear and often conflict. Alternatively, with understanding, respect and peace are more likely.

Mr Blair launched his foundation last May, almost a year after he stepped down as Prime Minister in June 2007.

It was to promote better understanding of and between various world religions because, as he put it yesterday, understanding religious faith and bringing different faiths closer together 'is a major part of making the modern world work'.

He said he also wanted to show religion's positive role rather than always have it seen through the prism of conflict and division.

At a question-and-answer session yesterday, Mr Blair was asked for his view on censorship versus free speech on portrayals of certain religious issues.

He said that while he was in favour of freedom of speech, there can be circumstances in which it is sensible not to let people provoke hatred.

He also noted the negative impact of religious conflicts in Northern Ireland and the Middle East.

Commenting on it, Senior Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Zainul Abidin Rasheed, a participant at the lecture, said Muslims tended to think that the most critical issue in the world was the Middle East conflict.

But as a Muslim, he felt it was more critical that they should 'get their basics right, in terms of knowledge and technology", and in this regard not hold back from cooperating with the West just because the Palestinian issue was unresolved.

Agreeing, Mr Blair said the conflict will take a long time to settle, and many in the region wanted it resolved so that it would cease being the focal point of their relationship with the rest of the world.

'But in the end, it is often used as an excuse for people not taking the action to make sure that Islam takes its rightful place in the 21st century,' he said.

This article was first published in The Straits Times.