The Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak, will be making his third address to the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) in New York on Friday since becoming the sixth Prime Minister of Malaysia in 2009.

The thrust of his two earlier UNGA speeches were his initiative on the Global Movement of Moderates for “moderates of all countries, of all religions to take back the centre, to reclaim the agenda for peace and pragmatism, and to marginalize the extremists”.

Or to use Najib’s own words, a clarion call “to reject extremism in all its forms because the real divide is not between East and West or between developed and developing worlds or between Muslims, Christians and Jews. It is between moderates and extremists of all religions”.

In his September 2010 speech in the United Nations, Najib even offered Malaysia as an example of a country practicing such principles of moderation – “a multi-racial, multi-religious, multi-cultural and democratic society that has benefited from the positive interaction and synergy between the various communities.” Read the rest of this entry »