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Sultan's Vision Of One World
By M K Anwar

Bandar Seri Begawan - His Majesty the Sultan and Yang Di-Pertuan of Brunei Darussalam in a titah during the High Level Plenary Meeting of the United Nation General Assembly in New York highlighted the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) as crucial not only to each nation and its people but also to "the political, economic, cultural and social challenges" that all must be met together.

Earlier in the titah, His Majesty expressed Brunei's deepest sympathy and condolences to the United States whose people have been devastated by Hurricane Katrina.

In noting Brunei's progress towards the MDU His Majesty said one thing has become apparent and that is the Goals have taken on an even deeper significance than initially realised.

The MDG seems to represent a kind of development checklist with different nations setting their aims of reducing poverty, establishing universal primary education, reducing infant and maternal mortality, reversing the spread of HIV/AIDS and endemic diseases as well as setting economic targets, His Majesty noted.

"Others were aimed at universal objectives, promoting gender equality, sustaining the environment and developing international partnership".

"Looking at them in this way, our people at

first tended to see them as targets that mainly applied to other countries in the world beyond our shores".

They felt that they had achieved most of the specific social, economic and cultural goals and the feeling that the MDG is largely for other countries is therefore quite understandable.

This however was five years ago, said His Majesty. The ruler added that there have- been profound changes since then and this has led to deeper understanding among our people that has been triggered by real events.

The impact on, the Asian region from the outside world has come in a dramatic fashion.

"Our people have witnessed terrorist attacks, natural disasters, climate changes, strange new viruses, often bewildering new technology and rapid and sometimes equally bewildering economic change," His Majesty noted.

He further mentioned that the expression "the world beyond our shores" in today's reality does not have a great deal of meaning and even though there may be other countries beyond our shores, there is in fact just one world which we all share.

This has brought in new realisations that can be put simply as a future that involves more and more contact with the rest of the world.

"We will be more and more affected by what happens outside our borders. And we will be more and more dependent on that outside world," His Majesty reiterated.

This means one thing says the ruler, that the future peace, prosperity and confidence depend not just on ourselves but the success of all nations.

"Hence, we are all partners, no matter what our backgrounds, cultures, faiths and histories."

The people have begun to realise that confidence in the future for one community can only be achieved if all communities feel similar confidence.

It is this understanding that made us realise the important result of setting up the MDG and unless everyone achieves these goals, there can be no lasting security. "Each failed objective is a root cause of insecurity."

His Majesty also said that achieving the goals will eliminate the 20th century concept of first, second and third world countries and will help to develop a single 2111 century world in which we all have shared responsibilities and shared hopes.

"In this way, Your Excellencies, our people see the MDG as a historic United Nations task and we will continue to work with our fellow members to do whatever we can to ensure that we all reach the targets we have accepted," said His Majesty to conclude the titah. -- Courtesy of Borneo Bulletin

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