Malaysia must return to moderation

 I am disappointed by the Sungai Bakap by-election result on Saturday as I had hoped that following the coalition government’s victory in the Kuala Kubu Baharu by-election, we could also win in Sungai Bakap and embark on the task of making Malaysia a great, world-class nation again.

A lesson that Malaysia must rapidly learn is to control the abuses of social media, which have been used to spread lies and falsehoods to divide the country.

DAP was accused of being anti-Malay and anti-Islam, of wanting Malaysia to be dominated by the Chinese or even worse, of wanting to eliminate the Malays and Islam from Malaysia.

Nothing could be further from the truth. DAP is a Malaysian organisation comprising all the races, religions and states in the country.

We want Malaysia to be a world-class nation and not a failed country, and this is possible if we follow the moderate path and get the best from all the races and religions in the country.

But all is not lost as illustrated by the election of a moderate candidate, Masoud Pezeshkian as the ninth president of Iran yesterday.

Returning to moderate path

We must return to the moderate compact all communities, religions and states reached in the Federal Constitution pledging Malaysia will be a moderate country and while Islam is the official religion, all Malaysians can practise in peace and harmony their religious beliefs.

Last month, I was in Dunhuang in northwestern China, where I saw the spectacular Mogao Caves in the Gobi Desert, with their murals, sculptures, and treasury of manuscripts.

This World Heritage Site was the meeting point of Buddhist and Central Asian art and culture with Chinese civilisation - and Jiayuguan Pass at the end of the Great Wall on the old Silk Road from Lanzhou to Urumqi.

What made my trip particularly memorable was China’s proposal in the United Nations General Assembly on June 7 to make June 10 the “International Day for Civilisational Dialogue”.

I celebrated the first “International Day on Civilisational Dialogue” at the steppes in Xinjiang with its rolling plains.

The Chinese resolution in the UN General Assembly, which was adopted unanimously, was most appropriate.

More dialogue - what the world needs

Thirty years ago, our Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim was the foremost exponent of civilisational dialogue, countering the American political scientist, Samuel Huntington’s thesis of “The Clash of Civilisations”, even before the UN General Assembly adopted the resolution proposed by then-Iran president Seyed Mohammad Khatami on Nov 4, 1998, to designate the year 2001 as the “United Nations Year of the Dialogue among Civilisations”.

Since then, the idea of dialogue among civilisations has been made the object of a plethora of conferences and international meetings. But Anwar was responsible for an earlier Islam-Confucianism civilisational dialogue before he was sacked as deputy prime minister and finance minister.

This is the Asian century - in the 21st century - and all earthlings need a global mindset thinking beyond individuals, nations or even blocs of nations.

The world must make China’s proposal to designate June 10 every year as the International Day for Civilisational Dialogue more successful than Iran’s proposal.

We have ancient and current civilisations and I propose a seven-nation committee in the United Nations to implement China’s proposal of June 10 every year as “International Day for Civilisational Dialogue” - the nations being China, India, United States, Iran, Egypt, Turkey and Malaysia.

The inclusion of Malaysia because it is the meeting point of various civilisations, in particular Islamic, Chinese, Indian and the West. - Mkini

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LIM KIT SIANG, a DAP veteran, is the former Iskandar Puteri MP.

The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of MMKtT.