 |
|
DINNER REMARKS AT MAAS INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON
RELIGIOUS PLURALISM IN DEMOCRATIC SOCIETIES: CHALLENGES AND PROSPECTS FOR THE UNITED STATES AND SOUTHEAST ASIA IN THE NEW MILLENNIUM.
Hotel Nikko, Kuala Lumpur. August 20, 2002
|
-- Yang Bahagia Tan Sri Musa Hitam, former Deputy Prime Minister of Malaysia;
-- Professor K. S. Nathan, President of the Malaysia Association of American Studies;
-- Chief Imam Ustaz Hamidon Abdul Hamid, Director of the International Islamic University Malaysia mosque;
-- The Venerable K. Vijitha of the Buddhist Maha Vihara;
-- The Reverend Lai Moo Him of the National Evangelical Christian Fellowship of Malaysia;
-- Mr. R. Thiagaraja of the Malaysian Hindu Sangam;
-- Mr. Sardar V. Harcharan Singh of the Malaysian Gurdwara Council;
-- Distinguished members of the diplomatic corps; and
-- Scholars, conference participants and friends from Malaysia, from the United States and from around the Asia-Pacific region…
Good evening. Peace be with you all.
I start my welcoming remarks with that greeting, because peace is truly at the core of every major religion. Whether it is the inner peace that comes from being able to live a truly moral, reflective and spiritual life, or the external peace that comes from the efforts of religious groups to make their communities into better places, peace is what we all pray for and what we all strive to achieve.
You can say it in many ways: Aman; Pax; Assalam 'alaikum; Satsriakal; Vanakkam; or Amitháfor, all of the world's religions share the same language of love and peace. They all teach us to seek to improve ourselves in terms of moral values and spirituality. And they all teach us that we should respect our fellow humans, as we would hope to be respected by them in kind.
As we were reminded of so vividly on September 11 last year, and as we still see in many parts of the world today, there are still too many who think that the only truths are those they believe in, too many who are still willing to attack those whose beliefs are different from their own.
I am not referring only to the members of Taliban and Al-Qaeda with my last remark. Unfortunately, every religion has its share of extremists, people who prefer to intimidate those of the same faith and threaten those of other faiths with whom they disagree. In the modern era, when weapons are so deadly and global communications can reach everywhere, it is all too easy for zealots to deliver messages of hatred and terror to us all.
The prophets and scholars who founded the great religions of the world were not like them: without exception, they were men of peace. If you think about the masyarakat madani of the Prophet Muhammad's life, or Abraham's sacrifice in the Old Testament, or the Sermon on the Mount made by Jesus Christ, or the teachings of the Buddha, or the Mahabharata and Ramayana stories of Hindu tradition, or the Guru Granth Shaib of Sikhs, one common thread unites them all - a message to practice peace and tolerance, and to seek to change what is within you before trying to change what is without.
No, religion is not the problem. Religion is the solution. It is up to the silent majority within every faith to challenge those who would distort its peaceful image. The best way to defeat terrorism is with tolerance and trust. If we all make a sincere effort to learn more about the core values and beliefs of others, we will easily see how much we have in common and how little really separates us. And when honest people of every faith are willing to confront those who cloak themselves in piety while committing violence against others, their distorting influence will end, and a new era of peace and mutual respect can arise.
Peace and mutual respect flow from the strong foundation of democratic values that our many societies share - and the tradition that the government must either stay out of religious issues entirely or be as even-handed as possible in their treatment of all religions. Allowing people to freely worship the religion they choose gives every citizen the opportunity to find the right spiritual solution for their needs, and promotes stability and morality among each society as a whole. In this new global era, democratic societies that embrace a plurality of views, including a plurality of religions, are the ones that are best equipped to prosper.
On some blocks here in Kuala Lumpur, as well as in American cities like New York and Los Angeles, you can find mosques, churches, Jewish synagogues, and Baha'i, Buddhist, Sikh and Hindu temples all on the same street. By living close to neighbors of different faiths people learn more about other faiths and more about themselves. They see firsthand that people of different religions have similar sorts of families, the same jobs and the same worries, and that we are all ultimately children of the same creating spirit.
Someone once asked Mahatma Gandhi what his religion was. He answered, "I consider myself a Hindu, Christian, Muslim, Jew, Sikh, Buddhist and Confucian." The religions of America are rapidly becoming just as diverse as Gandhi's spirit. Diana Eck's remarkable book "A New Religious America," which inspired this conference, shows us that the cultural tapestry of the United States of America is not frozen in time. We re-weave it every year with new immigrants and new followers of the world's religions.
That constant renewal and interchange of ideas is what, I think, gives America much of its political, economic and social strength in today's globalized world. There are roughly six million Muslims living in America today. Islam is our fastest-growing religion and will soon be our second largest faith, after Christianity. The number of Buddhists, Hindus, Sikhs, Jews, Baha'i and people of other non-Western religions in the US are also in the millions now, and are growing constantly.
As other speakers have described today, this diversity of beliefs is responsible for far-reaching changes in American society today. It will be responsible for even greater changes in the future. But the key will be how we manage this pluralism, and how we shape it into a force for revitalization and progress, rather than a source of prejudice, discrimination and intolerance.
The nations of South Asia and Southeast Asia face many of the same challenges --
-- India, the birthplace of so many world religions, searches for ways to manage the friction that sometimes occurs between some of those faiths;
-- Indonesia, home to more Muslims than any other nation on earth, strives to bring its new democratic institutions together at a time when several ethnically- and religiously-based areas of conflict are tearing some areas of the country apart;
-- The Philippines, the country with the largest number of Christians in Southeast Asia, and Thailand, its largest Buddhist nation, seek to help address the economic and political needs of large Muslim minorities in their southern provinces to help ensure that their nations' development reaches everyone in every part of their countries;
-- And Malaysia, which may indeed be "truly Asia" in terms of its central geographic location and its rich mix of cultures, explores ways to deal with the political aspirations and identities of its many religions in ways that do not allow the interests of one group to threaten the democratic rights of others.
Thus, we all have challenges ahead for our societies in this new millennium. But we can meet those challenges with our strong democratic values, with increased dialogue and with more understanding and respect. And if we do so, this religious pluralism will strengthen, not weaken, our nations in important ways.
And as a symbol of this strong pluralism, at this time I would like to invite the Chief Imam of the mosque at the International Islamic University Malaysia and the religious leaders of Malaysia's Christian, Buddhist, Hindu and Sikh communities to the stage to offer their blessings for the success of this conference and for the meal we are about to enjoy.
Thank you very much, and may peace be with you all.
Embassy Hours of Operation: Monday - Friday 7:45 a.m. - 4:30 p.m. Tel: 603-2168-5000 Fax: 603-2142-2207.
E-mails: Visa Service | Commercial Service | Lincoln Resource Center
This site is produced and maintained by the Lincoln Resource
Center, Public Affairs
Office, U.S. Embassy Malaysia. Links to other Internet sites should
not be construed as an endorsement of the views contained therein.
|
