Musharraf stresses OIC restructuring

President General Pervez Musharraf on Monday called for restructuring OIC for its effective contribution to socio-economic development of Ummah and could be able to play a central role in portraying true spirit of Islam as the religion of peace and tolerance.
At the same time, he urged the major world players to help resolve political disputes, mainly the Palestinian issue to end global turmoil. He made these remarks at a round-table organised under the auspices of the World Islamic Economic Forum (WIEF). Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz, Malaysian Pime Ministers Abdullah Badawi, former Sri Lankan president Chandrika Bandaranika Kamartunga and former Australian prime minister Bob Hawke were other members of the elite penal.
President Musharraf, in his opening remarks, listed challenges facing the Muslim world and shared his thought with the unique gathering of business leaders, scholars, and opinion-makers from around the world to overcome these problems. He called for creating unity among the Ummah to be able to project itself and have an effective voice in the world.
"The OIC is the only vehicle for creating unity, therefore, the restructuring of the OIC is the only way forward," he said, adding the 57-country Islamic group which was currently incapable of delivering the goods. Giving a holistic view of the problems afflicting the Ummah, President Musharraf said extremism was on the rise as opposed to the moderate forces.
He regretted the fact that the Islamic intellectuals and scholars had abdicated their knowledge of Islam to semi-literate clerics, who held sway over the masses. These clerics, he added, were reinforcing world's misperception that Islam is a religion that believes in militancy and intolerance. The President described illiteracy, poor standard of education as another problem area and reason for the Muslim countries to lag behind in this competitive world.
He noted that of the top 500 universities in the world, there was not a single institution from the Muslim Ummah. "This is a major failure in the knowledge-driven world," he added. President Musharraf also listed economic and political depravation, poverty, unemployment and social backwardness as other evils plaguing the Islamic world.
He pointed that 20 Muslim countries ranked among the 50 poorest states in the world. The highest gross domestic product (GDP) among the Islamic countries was less than the GDP of a small European country with no natural resources, he added.
The President said that many Muslim countries have the economic resources but lacked ability to optimise their value. The Ummah, he said, was also suffering from political depravation leading to a sense of helplessness and alienation.
Sharing his vision to confront these problems, the President called for removing misperceptions about Islam and creating awareness among the people about its true essence and spirit.
"We need to inform the world about the reality that Islam is not what they see in form of extremism and militancy but the religion that propagates peace and harmony," he added. In this context, he also highlighted the fact that a strong media was non-existent in the Islamic world that could effectively counter the misgivings about the religion.