Speech
by Malaysian Member of Parliament and National Organizing Secretary of Malaysia
Democratic Action Party, Mr. Tan Kok Wai
at Socialist International Asia Pacific Committee Meeting, 10-11 April 2002
in Manila, Philippines
The
disastrous event on September 11, 2001 in New York City and Washington D.C. and
the retaliation by the United States against the Al-Qaeda network have created
an unstable new political environment worldwide and Asia Pacific is no exception
to this threat too. Although terrorist threat have existed in many parts of the
world well before 911 attack but the attack on the United States have most
far-reaching implications to the world geo-political environment. The United
States in its effort to draw in allies to support its war against terrorism have
change its priorities drastically and even prepared to tone down its criticism
against many authoritarian and undemocratic regime in Asia Pacific that it once
condemned.
The
911 attacks on United States by terrorist have created the impression that the
resurgence of radical Islamic movement is posing a great threat to world
security and in the same time creating a wrong impression that Islam as a
religion promoting violence and Muslims in general are dangerous. Malaysia being
a country which have a Muslim-majority population was not escaped from this bad
impression of being a terrorist hotbed. This was demonstrated clearly when
Malaysia’s name was listed in Time magazine of being one of the terrorist
launch pad in Asia Pacific and the unjust ruling by US immigration to tighten
visa regulations to all Muslim males travelling to United States including
Malaysians. Our party view this stereotype and bias treatment to other
peace-loving Muslims as being unfair and unjust and will further divide the
understanding between the world’s two great civilisations in particular Muslim
and Christianity. Terrorism must not be defined by the yardstick of religions,
race or countries and the recent declaration by the OIC (Organizations of
Islamic Conference) Foreign Ministers in Kuala Lumpur to condemn all acts of
international terrorism in all its forms including State terrorism irrespective
of motives, perpetrators and victims is most laudable and timely.
In
Asia Pacific and in particular in South East Asia, the threat of terrorism was
given serious attention by governments in this region. The recent arrest of
Islamic fundamentalist under the Internal Security Act by the Singapore
government and the revelation by the Singapore PM last week of a plan to hijack
a commercial jetliner to crash into Changi Airport by a group of terrorist is an
emerging trend which was never heard in the past 40 years. In Malaysia, the
government under the autocratic Prime Minister, Dr. Mahathir Mohamad have
arrested more than a dozen members of the so-called Islamic fundamentalist
groups like Al-Maunnah and the Kumpulan Militan Malaysia (KMM) under the
oppressive Internal Security Act, which detained a person without trial. Our
party, the DAP maintained our stand that the entire suspected terrorists should
be brought to open court and be trial under the existing laws. We required the
Government to produce concrete evidence as to convince the Malaysian people and
the world about the seriousness of the terrorist threat and not to turn the
whole issue into a political capital to clampdown on opposition forces. There is
a tendency in the part of the ruling government to link the suspected terrorist
to the legitimate opposition party PAS (Malaysia Islamic Party).
The
hypothesis of a strong regional Islamic network which are prepared to use force
and violence to realized its objective to set up a Pan-Islamic region comprising
Indonesia, Malaysia, Southern Thailand, Singapore and Southern Philippines must
not be taken lightly by all concerned parties. We condemned all forms of terror
and we certainly would not tolerate the use of force to meet political
objective. We believe all political struggles must be fought through peaceful
and democratic means to garner support of the people. Hence, in order to
safeguard a peaceful South East Asian region and effectively combat the threat
of terrorism, mutual understandings in the regional and international framework
must be enhanced.
In
the final analysis, the war against terrorism will not be won if the root causes
of terrorism are not solved. Poverty, xenophobia, economic inequalities in
global capitalism and a world order, which dominated by a single power, just to
name a few as what we considered as the root causes of terrorism must be
addressed immediately. Globalisation must not be seen as only benefiting the
rich nations but as a means to enrich poorer nations and fasten the
democratisation in authoritarian and repressive regimes. In this regard, we are
very confident that Socialist International (SI) has the means to play a very
important role in shaping a new geo-political environment, which promote and
enhance Global Social Democracy. As a member party of SI, we the Democratic
Action Party of Malaysia are committed to uphold the SI values of promoting a
peaceful co-existence of people, cultures and religions in a multicultural and
tolerant society.