DAVOS, SWITZERLAND, Jan 25 (NNN-BERNAMA) — Malaysian Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi has proposed a strategic partnership between the Muslim world and the West to help advance the economic agenda of the Makkah Declaration.
“This partnership can take concrete shape through the establishment of an institutional platform that brings together the OIC (Organization of the Islamic Conference) and the developed nations of the West to provide strategic direction, overview and co-ordination of co-operation,” adds Abdullah. Malaysia is the current chairman of the 56-member OIC.
Abdullah made the remarks in a statement issued after participating in a plenary session at the World Economic Forum (WEF) here Thursday on Faith & Modernisation.
The other panelists were Mahdi Hadvi, Founder & President of the Porch of Wisdom Cultural Institution of Iran; David A. Harris, Executive Director of the American Jewish Committee; Cardinal Theodore Edgar McCarrick, former Archbishop of Washington DC; and Rick Warren, the founding and senior pastor of the Saddleback Church in California.
In making the call, the prime minister said the Muslim world could not make sufficient progress by working just on its own.
“It can develop faster if it works in particular with the more advanced countries of the West,” he said, noting that this was especially because Western countries had the resources and skills to assist OIC members.
The West, he said, would also gain enormously because greater development in the Muslim world will mean larger markets, more trade and greater peace and stability.
Pointing to the deep and unhealthy divide presently existing between the Muslim world and the West, Abdullah identified the root causes as political that needed to be addressed, but stressed that they should not become an obstacle to productive collaboration in other fields.
A strategic partnership between the West and the Muslim world to advance the economic agenda of the OIC’s Makkah Declaration would be a historic opportunity to help bridge the divide and reconcile the two great civilisations, Abdullah said.
He suggested that the tasks of the institutional platform could include mapping of prevailing international and Western support and collaboration and identifying further areas of co-operation to advance the economic agenda of the Makkah Declaration.
The Makkah Declaration, a clarion call for reform and development in every sphere, including the political, economic and social fields, in the Muslim world, is accompanied by a 10-year Programme of Action to be implemented by the OIC member states.
Abdullah explained that the Makkah Declaration’s goal was to bring human development and human dignity to all corners of the Muslim world, in particular to the least developed countries.
In the economic and social fields, he said, the emphasis was on alleviating poverty, eradicating illiteracy, enhancing the quality of education, reducing disease and expanding trade.
Abdullah recognized that much of the hard work ahead needed to be done by the OIC members themselves. “Muslims must realise that their future lies essentially in their own hands,” he stressed.
He conceded that many parts of the Muslim world were presently underdeveloped. Measured by almost all indices — poverty, illiteracy, health, gender empowerment, research and development — they had been left behind.
“Violence and instability plague several countries. The Islamic faith, however, has nothing to do with this. It is the distortion of Islamic teachings that has held back progress in some countries,” he stressed.
“In this situation, the spirit of ijtihad or inquiry is discouraged. Education has been confined largely to theology. And traditional cultural norms and practices that are sometimes confused with religion have taken strong hold.”
Abdullah said that more tellingly, underdevelopment in parts of the Muslim world, especially among countries in the heart of Africa and Asia, was caused by scarcity of resources and distance from ports and maritime routes. “Turmoil and instability compounded the situation.”
These profound challenges had moved the OIC to launch the Makkah Declaration in December 2005 in an effort to overcome them, he said.
Touching on what is being preached by various faiths, Abdullah said all faiths preached peace, goodwill and mutual respect.
“All faiths teach justice, compassion and assistance for the needy and the less fortunate. All faiths abhor oppression, exploitation and violence against the innocent. Our faiths should therefore unite us, not divide us,” he emphasised. “In so many multi-religious societies, including my own, people of different faiths flourish alongside each other.”
Abdullah stressed that very often it was not faith which brought on conflict but politics and the pursuit of economic and military power, and the violent reactions they produced. “It is often the manipulation of ideology, whether religious or secular,” he said.
In alluding to the theme of the plenary session, the Prime Minister reiterated that no faith, least of all Islam, was against progress and modernization.
The teachings of Islam, he explained, were especially attuned to modernisation. “Muslims are explicitly enjoined to pursue knowledge, which is the bedrock upon which all progress and development is built. In Islam, work is deemed a form of worship,” he said.
Abdullah said modernity was indeed evident in the Muslim world for all to see. For example, the world’s tallest building, the Burj Dubai, is taking shape in a Muslim city. The Petronas Twin Towers, the tallest twin towers in the world, are also in a Muslim city.
“The largest Muslim country, Indonesia, is a democracy. Muslim women have been presidents and prime ministers,” he added. — NNN-BERNAMA