THERE is much to learn from Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim’s engagement with global leaders through his relentless pursuit of justice and peace through multicultural dialogue, said Yusmadi Yusoff, the non-executive chairman of Encorp Group Bhd and a former Balik Pulau parliamentarian.  

He said Anwar had always considered dialogue to be an effective tool to bring about sustainable peace and tolerance. 

“He has been promoting dialogue all this while,” he said in a recent interview promoting his latest book entitled “Anwar Ibrahim: The pursuit of justice and peace through dialogues”. 

Yusmadi said Anwar’s engagement with the foreign leaders over global issues, including the conflict in the Middle East, drew him to author this book about the prime minister and the challenges the world and Malaysia faced due to lack of tolerance about race and religion. 

Yusmadi personally knows Anwar from having served with him in the PKR International Affairs Bureau where the duo spent time engaging with international academia on conflicts and economic issues. 

“Anwar has never overlooked how Malaysia’s multi-racialism and culturalism brought about challenges, yet he renewed hope that diversity could unite and bring about peace,” he said. 

Yusmadi said his book entailed how the world must come to grips with the Asian Renaissance, which was also a subject Anwar had written on in the 1990s. 

He saw China as important not only in terms of its economic growth and but also in matters of global diplomacy, citing how Beijing managed to broker peace between the Hamas and Fatah factions in Palestine. 

 “We can no longer deny China’s place in this world. So must the United States and Europe also play their role better in finding the elusive peace in conflicted areas,” Yusmadi said. 

He added that Malaysia, though a small trading nation, could play an influential global role. 

“It is here that the country through Anwar can play a mediator role to offer dialogues and to embrace moderation as the way forward and not backwards,” he said. – August 23, 2024.