Oleh/By : DATO' SERI DR. MAHATHIR BIN MOHAMAD
Tempat/Venue : IN NEW YORK
Tarikh/Date : 30/09/93
Tajuk/Title : THE COUNCIL OF FOREIGN RELATIONS
Leadership in the post-Cold War era:
The Challenge of Change
Mr. Leslie Gelb, President of the Council;
Distinguished Guests;
Ladies and Gentlemen,
I would like to thank the Council of Foreign Relations
for inviting me to address this august body. It is with
some trepidation that I put forward some of my thoughts on
the importance of world leadership in the post-Cold War era.
2. Despite the end of the Cold War and perhaps because of
it we are witnessing today the outbreak of serious conflicts
in various parts of the world. Age-old ethnic and
nationalistic antagonism, subdued by authoritarian rule, are
resurfacing. Critical international economics and social
development issues remain intractable, and developing
countries continue to be marginalised. The world clearly
still needs strong leadership of the kind that looks beyond
national boundaries.
3. Yet when the G-7 met recently in Tokyo they were led by
'incredible' leaders, i.e. leaders who had no credible
support at home.
4. Democracy is supposed to mean rule by the majority.
These government leaders had support-ratings well below a
democratic majority. And yet they represent the most
powerful democratic nations of the world.
5. The world needs not just world leaders by virtue of
being leaders of great countries but decisive leaders in
world affairs. These leaders must be concerned not just
with their own position but willing and able also to do what
is right.
6. In the rubble of the collapsed 'evil empire' some of
the most cruel wars are being fought. A whole ethnic group
is being exterminated in full view of everyone, aided by a
misguided arms embargo. Hundreds of thousands have been
killed and more than two millions forced to flee their burnt
towns and villages.
7. In Bosnia-Herzegovina, in Nagorno Karabakh, in Abkhazia
and many other places, all these horrors are taking place.
8. A leaderless world merely stands by to watch without
extending a helping hand.
9. In the field of trade, leaders merely submit to
domestic pressures. Policies are made purely for narrow
short-term political interest. That such policies are
damaging in the long-run are ignored.
10. With the defeat of Communism and, for the small
nations, the option to defect, international relations no
longer consists of counter offers in order to win support.
Choices are out. Pressures and threats are in.
11. And why are strong nations and world powers so
seemingly unable to handle even simple problems? Why are
they led by such weak leaders? At the hour of their
greatest triumph why are the Western democracies so
unwilling and incapable of handling even small military
upstarts like Serbia or Armenia? Why are they not reaping
the 'peace dividends' following upon the end of the Cold
War? Why are they leaving the world so leaderless?
12. The answer may lie in the corruption of democracy. All
these nations are weak in practically all fields because
they practise a distorted form of democracy; a democracy
that stresses form rather than substance. Democracy has
become an article of faith wherein its worship is far more
important than the practical results obtained from it.
13. It is dangerous to make a religion out of an ideology.
For 70 years the Russians practised Communism as a religion.
As such everything that was done in the name of Communism
was accepted unquestioningly. Woe betide any non-believers
in their midst.
14. As a result a country rich in resources populated by a
highly cultured and advanced people was reduced to extreme
poverty and backwardness.
15. It was obvious to outsiders that far from distributing
wealth equally among the people, Communism was actually
distributing poverty. The promised 'workers paradise' was
not materialising. Instead the Communist countries were
becoming hellish dictatorships which oppressed the workers
in particular.
16. Still no one dared to question the ideology and the
system that went with it. No one dared to be a heretic.
Everyone had to be a faithful believer. Even when what was
believed was obviously incorrect, wrong and false -- a
believer had to believe, especially a believer in the midst
of other believers.
To question is not only heretical; to question is to invite
painful retribution, imprisonment and even death.
17. And so Communism went on inflicting sufferings and
damaging the economy of Russia for 70 years. It took a
cunning man to work his way up to the summit of the system
to break it.
18. It is clearly dangerous to make a religion of an
ideology. Now we are doing that to democracy. Challenge
democracy and you will be branded a heretic. Challenge even
the esoteric interpretations of democracy and the fanatics
will be after you, branding you as an unbeliever, a
renegade.
19. As much as the Communists were intolerant, the
democrats, particularly the liberal democrats, are
intolerant. You risk excommunication if you question the
wisdom of even the less fundamental of democratic practices.
You will be branded and hounded by the democratic press and
the fanatical democrats.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
20. I am a democrat and Malaysia is a democratic Country.
Americans will most probably smile at this assertion. But
we in Malaysia will continue to insist that we are
democratic. Our view is that democracy is not a religion,
that it is merely a political system, that it is not
perfect. It is not a cure-all for social, political and
economic maladies. Indeed, democratic fanaticism is more
likely tocreate social, political and economic problems
rather than cure them. The present malady assailing the
western nations, the weakness in their leadership in
particular, is due to democratic extremism.
21. When democracy was first defined, it meant merely a
system of government by the people. But since then many new
qualifications have been added, without which a popular
Government would not be regarded as democratic. However,
even if we take the basic simple majority, we will find that
most democratic Governments fail the test.
22. A democratic government should really have more than 50
percent of the people supporting it. In the West, where
voter turn-out seldom reach 50 percent, it is possible that
a government, supported by 26 percent of the voters, to be,
'democratically elected'. Such governments are usually weak
as desertion by one or two members would bring them down.
23. In a multiparty system, there may be no party able to
get a majority. A post-election coalition results in a weak
government in which the bigger party lives in fear of the
smaller coalition partner. Effectively it is the small
coalition party which rules. And that is far from
democratic.
24. If the proportionate system is used the chances of any
party getting half the votes cast are very remote. Again
weak coalitions have to be formed or a minority Government
set up, hardly democratic and certainly weak.
25. Excepting where an election gives a very big majority
to the party forming the government, the democratic system
is more likely to return weak governments. Weak governments
will throw up weak leaders, concerned more with placating
the electorate than with doing the right things.
Governments which will do only popular things, cannot
govern.
26. The majority of the people are not always right. The
majority of Serbs voted for the genocidal government of
Slobodan Milosevic. And the majority can very often be
oppressive of the minority. And so someone decided that a
democracy must accord rights to the minority or the
individual. This is a contradiction in terms especially
when the exercise of minority or individual rights adversely
curtails or negate the rights of the majority.
27. Today the facists are back. They are a minority. Left
to them-selves their jingoism is likely to gain them
increasing support. Remember how the Nazis came to power?
Does a democracy uphold the democratic principle or does it
deny democratic rights to a dangerous minority?
28. In any society the rich must be fewer than the poor
people. Of course some rich people are crooks. But in a
market economy the rich are likely to be the entrepreneurs,
the people who create wealth and jobs. Without them a
market economy cannot prosper.
29. But their numbers are fewer than the workers. A
democratic government needs votes. Pandering to the
entrepreneurs, even though they may be in the right, is not
going to be helpful to politicians. It is more politically
expedient to support the more numerous workers. And so
wages and costs go up, and productivity and competitiveness
go down. This is certainly not good for a country competing
in the world market. It can eventually undermine the
economy. But it is democratic.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
30. There are many more things wrong with the practice of
democracy. The arrogance of power of the media before whom
the most powerful politician cringes. The power of the
trade unions, the power of the pressure groups, the
lobbyists, the Non-Governmental Organisations (NGO), the
local party boss. Then there is the need to be transparent,
the fear of the intentional leak. Even laws may be broken
in the name of democracy.
31. When a leader is elected in a western democracy his
main concern is to stay in power. He has little time for
anything else. If under the law he cannot stand again, then
he is regarded as a lame-duck President, who literally is
lame.
32. Is it any wonder that there are no credible leaders
from the western democracies?
33. The world is faced with many problems. We have
political problems, economic problems, social problems and
problems of international relations. We have a brutal war
going on, massive starvation, the plague of AIDS and other
diseases, poverty, terrorism, refugees and migrants,
drugs, dessertification, floods, disasters and more, many
more.
34. To deal with all these we need strong governments and
strong leaders working together. The U.N. cannot function
unless strong leaders are able to lend their countries'
support.
Ladies and gentlemen,
35. Everyone agrees that the world is undergoing rapid
changes.
36. To merely accept changes and to adjust to them is
almost primitive. We should be willing and brave enough
to examine the changes and to intelligently engineer them.
Only when we do this can we say that we are facing the
challenge of change.
37. The mere switch from Communism and the command economy
to Democracy and the free market is not enough. The
problems have remained. Unless we have an open mind and
are prepared to question all the things we have accepted, we
may not be able to tackle the problems at the end of the
Cold War.
38. Democracy and the free market is not a God-given
system. It certainly is not a religion. It is only one of
the devices to meet the problems of human society. We should
not therefore be afraid to question all that we do in the
name of democracy.
39. Majority rule, minority rights, freedom from
oppression, freedom from hunger, freedom of association,
freedom of the press and the right to free speech,
transparency, the rule of law and a host of other ideas
and thoughts linked directly or obliguely with democracy --
all these need to be examined.
40. Remember the Inquisition, the religious persecutions
which drove the European settlers to this country. Just as
the settlers believed that their interpretation of
Christianity was right, the Inquisitors and the persecutors
believed that in persecuting they were obeying the tenets of
Christianity. Who was right? It cannot be both.
41. Is it not possible that there are today democratic
inquisitors and persecutors? Is it not possible that the
accepted interpretation of democracy is as wrong as those
about Christianity in the days of Christian extremism in
Europe? Do we wait for centuries of sufferings before we
revise our ideas about the true meaning of democracy? Think
of the countries called Democratic Republic and Peoples
Republic. The western democrats certainly do not accept the
democratic credentials of these countries. Is it not
possible that the credentials of the Western democracies are
also questionable? How democratic were they when they owned
huge empires?
42. The time has come for rethinking the unthinkable. That
is the challenge that faces us today. Unless there are
leaders from the powerful nations willing to face this
challenge, the world will be led by 'incredible' leaders.
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