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At the recent summit in China, India and China pledged to be partners not rivals with President Xi commenting on the long-term strategic relationship “it’s the right choice for both sides to be friends".

And in a move of cultural diplomacy to strengthen the ties between the UK and France, President Macron is loaning the Bayeux tapestry to the British museum next year. Despite some French concerns over transporting this fragile medieval relic, the director of the British Museum Nicholas Cullinan, spoke of his gratitude and said that the artefact ‘illustrates the deep ties between Britain and France and has fascinated people across geographies and generations.’

When countries speak of being friends, it's often more about self-interest than emotion, mutual recognition rather than human affection, but meaningful alliances between nations can, like friendships, have an immensely powerful political and social worth. For me, friendships aren’t simply private matters – who you have in your life, says something about you as a person and as a citizen. The classical philosophers regarded friendship as the most important ingredient of a worth-while and happy life, essential to creating a good society. Aristotle famously said, `no-one would choose to live without friends, even if he had all the other good things.’ For the Roman orator Cicero, friendship was what made life worth living. And a famous Prophetic saying cautions the potential influence a friend can have over us, ` A man follows the faith of his friend; so each one should consider whom he makes his friend.’

In our globalised world where different cultures, races, and religions come together but also collide, a fundamental question of the modern era is who are our friends in fragmented and divided communities? I count myself lucky that I’ve lived in the liberal, social milieu of a western society where I’ve enjoyed the freedom to be friends with people of all backgrounds. It's left me convinced that my faith in God has been strengthened by some of the personal soul searching I’ve done over friendships. So many of those relationships have been part of my journey of faith - the ones who stayed in my life, brought out the best in me, unsettled me or challenged my beliefs.

Because whether it's countries or people holding out a hand of friendship, both rely on trust and open honest dialogue as a meaningful foundation. This isn’t easy nor always selfless but as the Muslim poet Rumi said, ` the one who has a good friend, doesn’t need a mirror.’

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