German foundation rebuts Umno delegate's claims
Malaysiakini.com
Nov 21, 2006

The Konrad Adenauer Foundation (KAF) expressed regret with an Umno delegate for making untrue allegations about the foundation and its Malaysian partners during the party’s annual meet last week.

In a statement today, KAF Malaysian representative Peter Schier said Penang Umno delegate Shahbudin Yahya should have clarified the issues with the former before raising it.

During his speech at the meet, Shahbudin singled out several local organisations which he claimed were undermining Islam.

He said these organisations were being backed by the German-based KAF, which has close links to the country’s ruling Christian Democratic Union.

Schier rebutted the Umno delegate’s assertion that Prof Dr Hans Kueng, who can be regarded as the father of the global ethic concept, as “a Jew from Germany.”

He said Kueng is a famous Roman Catholic theologian from Switzerland who is highly respected by religious leaders of all faiths.

“Prof Kueng was the keynote speaker at an international workshop in December 2005 in Kuala Lumpur organised by KAF in cooperation with the Ministry of Education.

“He also participated in a long dialogue with representatives of all faiths in Malaysia about the global ethic concept and related issues,” he added.

As for the Penang Global Ethic Project and the exhibition World Religions - Universal Peace - Global Ethic, Schier said they were based on the ‘Declaration Toward a Global Ethic’ which was adopted by the Parliament of the World’s Religions on Sept 4, 1993.

He said the Declaration was signed by two prominent Muslims from Malaysia - Institute of Islamic Understanding (Ikim) chairperson Ahmad Sarji Abdul Hamid and former chairperson of the National Fatwa Council Dr Ismail Ibrahim.

'Unfounded' allegations

Schier pointed out that the signatories to the Declaration stated unambiguously that “by a global ethic, we do not mean a global ideology, or a single unified religion beyond all existing religions and certainly not the domination of one religion over all others.”

“In view of the above, it is obvious that Shahbudin’s allegations against the global ethic concept are completely unfounded,” he said.

The Umno delegate had criticised the Penang Global Ethic Project for conducting ‘tours’ of various places of worship and telling participants that all religions are similar.

Meanwhile, Schier also stressed on the importance of dialogue to “overcome ignorance, misunderstanding, prejudice and intolerance.”

“I invite Shahbudin and all those who are interested in the work of KAF to fix a dialogue session with me during which we can freely discuss issues related to our projects in Malaysia,” he said.

Schier also noted that KAF’s programmes receive support from the Malaysian government and public.

“On a number of occasions, Deputy Prime Minister (and Umno deputy president) Najib Abdul Razak was a keynote speaker at seminars co-organised by the Malaysian Strategic Research Centre and KAF,” he said.    

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