Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2001-06-14-Speech-4-161"
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"en.20010614.8.4-161"2
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"Mr President, no discussion of Malaysia would be complete without making reference to Tungku Abdul Rahman, the wise man who founded the state of Malaysia in the 1950s and who managed to integrate and strike a clever balance between ethnic groups and religions while ensuring that justice was meted out to one and all. He reminds me of a figure in European history, Kaiser Karl IV, a Luxembourgois, like Astrid Lulling, who managed to integrate Germans and Czechs, French and Italians at the heart of Europe and whose Golden Bull gave the Holy Roman Empire the most up-to-date and most cleverly balanced constitution of the Middle Ages.
The role played in Europe by Karl IV was played in twentieth century Malaysia by Tungku Abdul Rahman, who managed to strike a balance between Hindu, Muslim and Buddhist, Malay, Tamil and Chinese interests within a federalist structure headed by nine different families of sultans which take it in turns in a clever revolving system to rule this multi-ethnic state.
This fragile structure is based on respect for other people's culture. It is based on respect for the law. It is, of course, based first and foremost on respect for the rule of law, which is why it is a serious problem that this sensitive balance in Malaysia has been increasingly disturbed over recent years by the centralist policies of Prime Minister Mahathir, who started by showing a lack of respect for the individual states, followed, in his abuse of the Islamic faith, by an increasing lack of respect for the other religions, and who is now upsetting the balance between the various nationalities.
It is against this background that the so-called Internal Security Act is now being used to silence political rivals from within their own camp and drive the rule of law in Malaysia further and further back. This is particularly worrying because Malaysia occupies an important geopolitical position. It is also an important country economically. Above all, it is an important member of ASEAN, our partner community in South-East Asia.
This is why we must do whatever we can to help Malaysia resurrect the spirit of Abdul Rahman or the Luxembourg spirit, which does so much to foster integration in our European Union. I think that Mr Mahathir's time is up and that new democratic forces need to take the helm in this country and renew the rule of law there; otherwise this complicated, multi-ethnic, multi-religious structure will become immersed in a blood bath as a result of excessive centralism and authoritarianism."@en1
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