Gummersbach, Germany

Many of my friends who have been visiting my blog must be wondering that i may have decided to be buried under this blog and may not hear from me.

WELL; please forgive me for not writing for some time now as I have been busy with plenty of work commitments and while being busy during that time, I was informed that I was selected to participate in a seminar to be organised by Freidrich Naumann Stiftung which would be held in Gummersbach, Germany.

I must than Era Consumer Malaysia for nominating me.

The seminar is being held now and I am right now in Gummersbach, Germany.

I would also like to take this opportunity to apologies to some of my friends whom I was not able to say GOOD BYE.

Anyway, since I am writing now, it is only proper for me to share with you some of the happenings around me till to date. Sorry, I don’t have any pictures to attach here but, at least for a start a simple backgrounder would be sufficient.

The Seminar which is titled ‘Chances & Challenges of Liberalism’ is organised by the Friedrich Naumann Stiftung = Stiftung means Foundation. The 12 days seminar is fully funded by the foundation and along with me there are 24 other participants from all over the world. To be specific I now have friends from South Africa, Ghana, Egypt, Lebanon, Morocco, Turkey, Brazil, Mexico, Honduras, Nicaragua, Guatemala, Hungary, Georgia, Bulgaria, Romania, Ukraine and along with my Asian friends from Thailand, Cambodia, Philippines, Sri Lanka & Pakistan. YES, Its True, my friendship empire is getting bigger and better.

The discussions here have been very encouraging and I am enjoying every bit of it, especially learning the curves of liberalism and democracy (which I believe will be the best of the political system available at this point of time).

We have so far discussed several issues;

1. Liberalism throughout the world.
2. Liberalism versus its opponents, conservatism and socialism.
3. Property: the guardian of liberty and precondition for a flourishing market.
4. Democracy, human rights and rule of law from liberal perspective.

We have many more subjects that would be discussed over the next few days and I am indeed looking forward to those few days.

I will update you soon and please bare with me should there be a delay.

MY VIEWS…….. Liberalism is good, but Democracy is better. But, then again, for some country it may not work. As far as I am concern, there is no other political system which has been effective than the democratic system in a multi racial, multi ethnic and multi religious like Malaysia. There are plenty of similarities between liberalism and democracy and I am sure a combination of both would be the best.