Singapore - Southeast Asia, as home to the moderate Muslim nations of Malaysia and Indonesia, can help promote reconciliation between the West and the Muslim world, the head of a major regional bloc said Tuesday.
Surin Pitsuwan, the new chief of the 10-country Association of Southeast Asian Nations, said at a forum in Singapore.
that the region‘s Muslim community is open and progressive when compared to Muslim countries in the Middle East.
”In the Middle East, the problem would be rigidity (and) dogmatism,” Surin said. “Here it‘s rather adapting, accommodating, it‘s rather open.
Citing Malaysia as an example, Surin said it was ASEAN‘s task to convince the West that «the road to reconciliation between the West and the Muslim world runs through Southeast Asia.
”Malaysia is a model of a Muslim society facing modernity and globalization with confidence and with a vision. Come here and see how we manage,” he said.
Surin, a former foreign minister of Thailand, said Southeast Asia‘s Muslims were more adaptable than their counterparts elsewhere because of the region‘s cultural, economic and political diversity.
”If we do a little bit more of human resource development, of opening up opportunities, of giving (Muslims) more participation ... it would be a very viable and effective and resilient community,” he told reporters. “And I think the West can learn from that. Rather than force, rather than suppression, rather than violence.
Malaysia is widely viewed as a moderate and progressive Muslim society, although a growing number of conflicts in the country between religious freedom and state policies that favor Islam have strained ethnic relations in recent years. Muslim insurgencies fester in small parts of Thailand and the Philippines.
Source: www.pr-inside.com (9 Januari 2008)
