Eastern countries have to change without losing their cultural values, said in substance Egypt's Prime Minister Ahmed Mahmoud Nazif, Prime Minister of Pakistan, Shaukat Aziz, Deputy Prime Minister of Malaysia, Najib Razak, and Vice-President of Iran, Masoumeh Ebtekar.
As leaders of Islamic societies, they feel very concerned with the idea that there is a way to combine the need for reforms - that would give their people a better future - with the preservation of their culture and religious patrimony.
Modernization, they said, should be a process coming from within the society, a process that is in conformity with its moral values. And not something impose from the West in general or any country in particular.
“No one has the monopoly of wisdom”, stressed Shaukat Aziz, “if somebody has something [Islamic societies] can benefit from, [they] should accept it”.
There is no single path to modernize a country. Other ways can be found and every country is free to develop his own. As long as democracy is provided one may add.
According to Najib Razak, Deputy Prime Minister of Malaysia, democracy is both a prerequisite and “a tool to achieve modernization”.
Still, another issue is at stake today. If eastern countries should not fear the influence of the West, the West should not fear the East. Nor Islam.
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