MALAYSIA NOT PERFECT, BUT EXAMPLE OF UNITY

KUALA LUMPUR, Feb 26 (Bernama) -- Malaysians may come from various ethnic, cultural and religious backgrounds and may have to work hard at achieving unity but they are always mindful of the need to co-exist peacefully despite their differences, Information Minister Ahmad Shabery Cheek said Thursday.

He said Malaysian leaders were also aware of the need to have a strong and
united Malaysia and were therefore always working to perfect the dream.

"Malaysia may not be the best model (of a perfectly united country) but we
do have something to show for our unity and tolerance for each other, as an
example of diversity does not mean disunity," he said in his welcoming speech at
the International Conference of Youth on Terrorism here.

He said future leaders should be brave enough to discard some of the
long-held narrow differences in order to nurture hope and understanding for a
better world.

"We should not allow persistent discord for people to exploit weaknesses and
resort to terrorism," he said.


He said Malaysia had always taken a stand against any form of terrorism
and looked seriously into the root causes.

"Increasingly we have found that young people have been drawn to be involved
in such acts around the world," he said.

However, he said, Malaysia was ever vigilant to not allow extremism to
fester and break the peace and harmony that its citizens had worked hard at and
enjoyed.

He expressed the hope that the conference would be able to elicit
intellectual understanding among the youths on the nature and root causes of
terrorism as well as ways to prevent them.

The conference is a joint initiative between the Youth and Sports Ministry
and the Information Ministry in collaboration with the Southeast Asia Regional
Centre for Counter-Terrorism Malaysia and the Malaysian National Commission for
Unesco.

A total of 224 youths from 24 countries are attending the four-day
conference, which ends Saturday.