At the Labour Party Conference that followed shortly after the al-Qaeda attacks of September 11, 2001, UK Prime Minister Tony Blair delivered what is widely perceived as one of the most important – and also most powerful – speeches of his political career. With the televised images of the collapsing Twin Towers still etched on people's minds, the speech expressed the Prime Minister's hope that ‘out of the shadows of … evil should emerge lasting good’ and outlined his vision of a new, reordered world founded on justice and ‘the equal worth of all’ (Blair 2001).

Central to the construction of this new world order was Blair's renewed promise to help Africa. ‘The state of Africa,’ he declared, ‘is a scar on the conscience of the world.’ In his characteristic, almost-messianic style, Blair assured his audience that the scar could be healed ‘if the world as a community focused on it.’ This would entail a much more interventionist role for Britain and what he called the ‘international community’, and Blair portrayed the new world order as one where the United Kingdom was always ready to defend human rights and democracy in Africa. Thus, he told his audience, ‘if Rwanda happened again today as it did in 1993, when a million people were slaughtered in cold blood, we would have a moral duty to act there also.’