It is easy for the younger generation of Malaysians who have never witnessed armed conflicts to take peace for granted, said Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi.

According to Bernama , he said Malaysians must learn from past conflicts and turmoil that happened in Malaysia in the last century and treasure the peace and stability they now enjoy.

Abdullah was speaking at the launch of the book The Malayan Emergency Revisited 1948-1960 at the Islamic Arts Museum in Kuala Lumpur yesterday.

He said Malaysia had experienced four episodes of serious conflict in the last century - the Japanese Occupation, the Communist insurgency, Confrontation and the May 13 ethnic riots.

Abdullah said today's prosperous Malaysia was built on the sacrifices of the police, the armed forces and the civilians who resisted the communist in the towns, villages and deep jungle settlements.

The prime minister added that Malaysians should also learn from these incidents and those elsewhere that terrorism and terrorists did not belong to any particular ethnic group, religion or nation.

He said terrorism, which was an act of organised violence against civilians to achieve a political end, had been used by groups regardless of religion, ethnicity, ideology or nationality.

Terrorism has been practised by many groups - European, American, African and Asian - and is a human reactionary mechanism, he added.

"Terrorism has existed not only among Muslims but also Christians, Jews, Hindus and Buddhists. The terrorism they practised violated the teachings of their religions, for no religion condones violent attacks against civilians and Islam is certainly clear on this matter," he noted.

Root causes

Abdullah said Malaysians should also understand that terrorism could not be defeated by military and coercive measures alone.

"Terrorism must be confronted with all instruments at our disposal. Intelligence is critical because without intelligence we cannot assess the enemy's strengths and weaknesses or know when they will strike," he said, adding that the Malaysian Special Branch had been acknowledged as one of the best intelligence services in this regard.

Above all, Abdullah said, Malaysia learned that it could never defeat the enemy without addressing and neutralising the factors that drove people to take up arms.

"We were finally able to prevail over the CPM (Communist Party of Malaya) terrorist threat after we addressed the two primary political factors that it exploited - the people's opposition to colonisation and the lack of political status for the Chinese community," he said.

Similarly, he said, the present campaign against international terrorism would not succeed unless the world confronted the factors driving it and this would require political courage.

Abdullah said the issues of Palestine and Iraq must be resolved with careful thought and reasoning.

"We must end unlawful occupation, injustice, oppression and marginalisation wherever they exist and only then will insurgency and terrorism truly subside," he added.