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 In his interesting blog discussing the relationship of violence and language, Hammoudi Abdelwahab proposes a multi-lingual philosophy as a bridge to peace - and he has spoken elsewhere about how cultures are enriched when people are prepared to engage with 'foreigners' in their native tongue. No defender of our common humanity could take issue with this. No one who has an educated, liberal and cosmopolitan attitude to our shrinking planet could disagree that these are steps in the right direction.

But there are some factors to bear in mind. To speak a language as well as a native does not make you an heir of the heritage he may be guarding with his life. Every nation is a product of the particular space it occupies on the globe, how its boundaries are defined, with whom it establishes trade routes, the way it pits itself against the actual landscape. It has forged a character of its own and, although it calculates itself in the light of other cultures with which it comes into regular contact, its history from the cradle confers a distinct and separate identity to which the living language bears testimony. It bears the scars of battle and the flowery niceties of domestic tradition. It bears its own cadences which speak of the very breath it has been accustomed to take.

Unfortunately, fallen Man, in working his own patch of the earth, can become pugnaciously tribal and territorial and therefore overly distrustful of offcomers. It behoves both sides to show respect, the visitor not to trespass, and the host to be hospitable. Once the notion of invasion and appropriation enters the picture, chaos and bloodshed seem destined to follow. Greed and the desire for dominion are poised to overrun any hardwon order.

At the time of the Tower of Babel, mankind drew from one vocabulary. When nations were running amok and Babylon gained ascendancy and began to glory in her own achievements, communication suffered a breakdown and they were thrown into disarray so that they might not combine to harm each other further. 

Since the inception of the European Union in the seventies, this confederation of vaguely related but diverse languages, has meant that each country has become more, not less, confirmed in its own uniqueness and proud of what it signifies and contributes to the economy and overall way of life. Since the last World War, there have been many initiatives to encourage cultural exchange, from the proliferation of Twinning Associations to touring of arts groups. These create genuine ties of goodwill. Music, especially, bestrides barriers and captures the soul of its audience where mere words cannot hope to penetrate.

In Britain, some of the Scottish Isles have succeeded in keeping Gaelic alive, and the Welsh insist on their bi-lingual signposts and that their children be taught the old Celtic tongue. Then there are refugees from war-torn lands. And economic refugees of the Empire who have succeeded in keeping their own culture and language alive inside a country as small as ours. We are in some ways a microcosm of America and as has often been remarked (mostly in fun!) 'one race divided by a common language'. Phrases become idiomatic and we don't necessarily mean the same thing by the same words, or encapsulate the same truth with them. Or even use the same noun for the same object. I don't think the word 'diaper', for instance, has been in currency in England since the seventeenth century when the Puritans set sail for horizons new in their picturesque galleons.

So what it boils down to, this civilisation of the human race, if we are to make real headway and not prolong the endless cycle of building and destroying, is a real softening of heart. In seeking reparation for the persecution of our ancestors, however honourable it seems, it would be poor justice that suppressed their infringements. We can't forget the atrocities of war, the Holocausts, the Atom Bomb, the killing fields of the world and the subhuman behaviour that comes in its wake, the impoverishment of language itself, but let them be a fearsome lesson of what Man is capable of when he lets go of the love of God and the spirit of evil fills the void. 

Let us look forward in hope and prayer, that those pacific ideals many work hard to realise against tremendous odds, are transmuted from a state of mind to a state of being.

At the first Pentecost, when the Spirit of Love was outpoured on a disparate gathering of nations, each person heard in his own tongue.

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