BANGKOK, Oct 25 — Addressing a packed hall in Thailand’s Chulalongkorn University, Malaysian Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad advised the audience not to copy everything from the Western world.
The 93-year-old leader said people should not follow the western values blindly.
“While we cannot live in isolation from the rest of the world, value systems are not always the same. I have always upheld Asian values. But some think that the only values worthy for them to follow are the Western values,” he said.
The prime minister, who is on his two-day visit to Thailand, ended his trip by attending a public talk titled ‘Malaysia-Thailand Bilateral Relations In the Asean Context’, during which he also took questions from the audience.
While acknowledging that there is a freedom of values, Dr Mahathir opined that Asians tend to accept Western values without much hesitance.
Dr Mahathir also stressed that Malaysia, at the moment, did not accept the culture of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) as espoused by the Western world.
According to the prime minister, it was their choice if the westerners wanted to accept the LGBT culture, but Malaysians should not be forced to accept it.
“Our value system is as good as any,” he said.
It was Dr Mahathir’s first bilateral visit to Thailand after being appointed as Malaysia’s seventh Prime Minister. — Bernama
