De Venecia joins MB columnists
Former Speaker Jose de Venecia writes his first column for the Manila Bulletin today. An unprecedented five-time speaker of the Philippine House of Representatives, De Venecia conceived and implemented the conversion of the US bases in Clark, Subic, John Hay, Poro Point, and the Filipino military camps in Fort Bonifacio and Nichols Air Base into free ports, special economic zones, industrial parks, and tourism and satellite cities.
LAST week, death took two valued friends of the Philippines: Ayatollah Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, president and a founding father of the Islamic Iran Revolution, and Sir James Mancham, founding president of Seychelles, who brought recognition to the small tourism islands archipelago in the Indian Ocean.
In April 28, 2007, as part of our efforts in the Asian Parliamentary Assembly (APA) and the International Conference of Asian Political Parties (ICAPP), I went to Tehran to personally consult with senior Iranian officials led by Rafsanjani, his rival, then President Ahmadinajad, and Parliament Speaker Akbar Ali Hadad Adil on ways of engaging the Iranian state in the global community’s efforts to ease the then and today’s continuing multiple wars in the Middle East, the foremost of which are the Sunni and Shi’ite interMuslim conflicts, the violent struggles in Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, Libya, and associated politico-religious and tribal conflicts in Africa.
I wrote letters to HE, Ayatollah Sayyed Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme Spiritual Leader, and His Majesty, the then Saudi Arabian King Abdullah, and suggested that it might be of great relief to the Middle East, Asia, and the world, if the two leaders of Islam, representing the Sunnis and Shi’ites, could perhaps meet in Mecca, and explore ways and means of bringing about the beginnings of reconciliation and the end of religious extremism and strife in the Muslim world.
It is most difficult but more than ever this urgent, absolutely necessary meeting between the two leaders of Islam must be undertaken and hopefully succeed for the peace of the region and the world.
Indeed in my letter to the two leaders I mentioned that in comparison, the doctrinal and political conflicts within Christianity took many centuries to resolve after the CatholicProtestant schism broke out in the 16th century.
I recalled that the Saudi King, when he was still a Crown Prince, was warmly received and that was a rare high point in Saudi-Iran relations in 1998. Indeed the US, Russia, China, India, Japan, and the European Union leaders and the UN must take over and sustain this initiative until this difficult task is done for the peace of Asia and the world. I believe it is a major solution to the wars in the Middle East and will have beneficial effects in Southeast Asia and Africa.
Rafsanjani, with his revolutionary credentials, had cordial ties with Saudi Arabia and encouraged rapprochement with the West and tried to reestablish Iran as a nuclear power. He warned publicly against Islamic fascism and argued for nuclear compromise with the US as he supported today’s moderate and far-sighted President Hassan Rouhani who finally signed the nuclear agreement with the US, Russia, China, Germany, France, and Canada. I urged Rafsanjani and he did visit Manila after President Fidel Ramos had a successful visit to Iran in the course of state visits to the United Arab Emirates and Turkey.
When I was speaker, I also invited then Parliament Speaker Ali Akbar Nategh Nouri to Manila and he came, and today he is still senior adviser in the powerful Religious Council to Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. We teased each other because as Speaker of Parliament, both he and I ran for president and lost. Today, we at the International Conference of Asian Political Parties (ICAPP) agreed to set our 29th meeting in October, 2017, of the Standing Committee and the Special Conference on China’s Silk Road initiative in Tehran, to be co-hosted by the Islamic Motalefeh Party and the Iran House of Political Parties.
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I just sent a message of condolence to Seychelles, the small islands archipelago, favorite of tourists, in the Western Indian Ocean, for a good friend, Sir James Mancham, its first president. Sir James sat on the board of our Centrist Asia Pacific Democrats International (CAPDI). It is headed by Indonesian Vice President Jusuf Kalla as chairman, and the undersigned as President, with former president Fidel Ramos and Cambodian Premier Hun Sen as co-chairmen emeritus.
He ranged far and wide in Asia, Europe, and Africa. I introduced him both as a “nationalist and internationalist,” a recipient of the Africa Peace Award, who founded the Seychelles Democratic Party, representing businessmen and planters who wanted close integration with Britain.
Removed by a coup and in exile for 15 years, he took to writing and delivered speeches all over and wrote “Seychelles: The Saga of a Small Nation Navigating the Cross-Currents of a Big World.”
He and I spoke in various capitals and served as neutral observers in the elections in Azerbaijan and Cambodia. He later won the Gusi Peace Prize in Manila. In recent years in active retirement, he said, “I have coined a phrase which has the support approval of most island nations: No country is small if it is surrounded by the sea,” and described Seychelles isles as potential “unsinkable aircraft carriers.” He could very well have described the Philippines many years ago.
Asked how Seychelles can promote itself as a great Creole nation, Sir James replied, “Creolisation is a sample of the world to come. As far as I am concerned, President Obama is not a black man nor a white man. He is indeed a Creole. His international standing has certainly enhanced the value of La Creolite in the future world.”
“Indeed we can be a bridge between all skin colors, races, and cultures by showing that all of us can live together with a minimum of prejudices. We should be proud of the fact that within a Seychellois family, you can find a little daughter looking like a European, a son looking like an African, and a big brother looking like an Asian.”