E.M.N. Islamic Calligraphy

Press release

Speaking to an international conference in Kuala Lumpur that sought common ground between Western and Islamic thinkers, the Malaysian Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi said that the world needs people who are capable of bridging the gap between the West and Muslim civilizations to put an end to the current animosity and antagonism of the past and the present...“The bridge-builders must be developed through the family, education, the media and tens of thousands of men and women who could be critical of the weaknesses and wrongdoings of one’s civilisation and at the same time were empathetic towards the other civilisation,”...“When the bridge-builders reach critical mass, their collective power will become so overwhelming that it will destroy the walls erected by those who are hell-bent on keeping Islam and the West apart.”...the number of those bridge-builders needs to be multiplied “to destroy the walls erected by those who are hell-bent” on keeping and fueling the animosity between the two civilizations. "The demonization of Islam and the vilification of Muslims, there is no denying, is widespread within mainstream Western society," saying that the Western powers need to understand that their foreign policies in the Middle East, including Iraq war, Washington’s blind support to Israel and its atrocities against the Palestinian population, as well as Russia's ruthless prosecution of the war in Chechnya- all contributed to the anger and dismay of Muslims. (He said during the International Conference on Who Speaks for Islam? Who Speaks for the West?)