Oleh/By : DATO' SERI DR. MAHATHIR BIN MOHAMAD
Tempat/Venue : NEW DELHI, INDIA
Tarikh/Date : 30/01/87
Tajuk/Title : THE OFFICIAL DINNER HOSTED BY THE
PRIME MINISTER OF INDIA, HIS
EXCELLENCY, MR. RAJIV GANDHI
Your Excellency Rajiv Gandhi,
Prime Minister of India;
Excellencies;
Distinguished Guests;
Ladies and Gentlemen.
It is, as always, a great pleasure to be in New Delhi,
a city that I have visited on several occasions in the past.
Successive Malaysian Prime Ministers have always found a
warm and friendly welcome on their visits here, which I
think attest to the excellent relations between our two
countries. I am especially honoured, Mr. Prime Minister,
that despite the tremendous demands upon your time and that
of your colleagues and officials as well, the welcome
accorded to me and my delegation has been as unstinting and
meticulous as they could possibly be. Allow me to thank you
on their behalf as well as mine for your very warm welcome
and hospitality.
2. We are meeting, Mr. Prime Minister, at a time of
extreme confusion in the affairs of the world. Change, a
normal enough situation in international relations and
dealings has become greatly accelerated. We have not only
to adapt to these changes but also to the speed that they
take place. Technology has advanced so fast, particularly
in the field of communication, that there is literally no
more domestic problems. All problems have been
internationalised. Since we have never really been able to
resolve international issues, our capacity to deal with
domestic issues has shrunken with their
internationalisation. Indeed, everyone now claims a right
to solve our domestic problems even though most have never
been able to solve their own domestic problems. The fact
that situations and even public mores differ receives no
consideration. Still we must soldier for we re indeed living
in a global village.
3. It is a matter of deep satisfaction, Mr. Prime
Minister, for me to observe that India has equipped itself
well for the onslaughts of the future. You and your
government have not allowed the complexities of our times to
blunt your resolve to find imaginative and workable
solutions for the many problems that confront the world. We
note with appreciation the initiatives that India, alone or
in concert with like-minded nations, have taken, to ease
global tension and distrust, to bring more equitable
economic order and to search out and build new linkages
among and between nations. These initiatives are by no means
easy to sustain but we hope you will persevere for the
common good. We in Malaysia extend our full and sincere
support to you in these endeavours.
Mr. Prime Minister,
4. India and Malaysia have much in common. Throughout
history your country and mine have maintained links of the
most pervasive kind. These links have never been broken.
Our peoples have freely interacted with one another. Today
these links have achieved impressive breadth and depth,
reflecting our greater inter-dependency even as we pace each
other's growth.
5. It is perhaps natural, Mr. Prime Minister, that such a
freely developed bilateral relationship should allow for the
development of a political relationship marked by uncommon
understanding. We share membership of many overlapping
international groupings in which we share common
perspectives and basically common approaches. The great
moral and ethical problems of our time, -- racial injustice
and political repression under the obscenity of apartheid
in South Africa, Israel's illegal occupation of Arab lands
and continued opposition to the creation of a Palestinian
State, occupation of Afghanistan and Kampuchea by foreign
forces, ever-widening North-South economic inequities
and the ever-escalating arms race require that we work
together to strengthen international solidarity to resolve
them. The Solidarity Fund for Southern Africa which you
are so ably chairing, the International Commission for
South-South Economic Cooperation under the Chairmanship
of Dr Julius Nyerere and the Five Nation Disarmament
Initiative with which you are deeply associated, are the
kind of endeavours reflective of the determination of
countries such as ours to initiate fresh approaches to
seemingly intractable international problems.
6. Closer to home, Mr. Prime Minister, both India and
Malaysia, in concert with our regional partners, are pushing
the frontiers of mutual goodwill and cooperation as far as
they are politically and economically practical and
feasible. We in ASEAN will celebrate the completion of our
second decade in 1987. Much has been done but even more are
required to be done. Our experience teaches us that the
conscious effort at consultation and cooperation invariably
develops a momentum of its own and after a time becomes
irreversible. We have watched with admiration the
achievement of South Asian countries in making regional
cooperation under SAARC a reality. In just two short years
you have, through collective commitment, impressed SAARC on
the global consciousness. We in ASEAN look forward to
constructive engagement with SAARC in the near future.
Mr. Prime Minister,
7. As India and Malaysia march forward in consonance with
the dynamics of change, I wish to record my firm conviction
that the ties that bind us throughout history will become
ever stronger. My visits to your country -- and this
particular visit is no exception -- have been altogether too
brief for me to appreciate fully the complexity of the
Indian subcontinent and the magnitude of the tasks that you
have set for yourself. But from what little I have seen and
heard each time, I am acutely aware of the quantitative and
qualitative progress that your country, through successive
inspired leadership, has achieved. During this visit I
shall have the opportunity to acquaint myself with some of
the progress that has taken place here. We too have
progressed through the years, and I hope it would not be too
long before you, Mr. Prime Minister, can venture to
"discover" Malaysia. Our mutual progress offers, I believe,
excellent opportunities to explore new complementarities
even as we seek to entrench previous and present ones.
India's relations with Malaysia are very much in the idiom
of that great percept of Indian civilization -- the
notion of "change within permanence". In that spirit I look
forward to expanding, in scope and depth, the several
discussions that we have managed to exchange during our past
encounters over several international conferences.
Mr. Prime Minister,
8. I have been most touched by your kind words of welcome.
It is a welcome all the more appreciated for the constraints
of time and duties you have had to overcome. In thanking
you once again, I would like to invite this distinguished
gathering to join me in a toast to:
His Excellency President Giani Zail Singh,
His Excellency Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi
and
the ever-expanding relations between India and
Malaysia.
|
|