Oleh/By : DATO' SERI DR. MAHATHIR BIN MOHAMAD
Tempat/Venue : DEWAN TUNKU CANSELOR,
UNIVERSITI MALAYA
Tarikh/Date : 19/09/97
Tajuk/Title : MAJLIS PERTEMUAN ALUMNI
UNIVERSITI MALAYA
MALAYSIA DALAM MILENIUM AKAN DATANG:
CABARAN BAGI GENERASI BARU
1. Terlebih dahulu saya ucapkan terima kasih kepada pihak
Universiti Malaya kerana menjemput saya untuk menyampaikan
Syarahan Perdana di Pertemuan Alumni Universiti Malaya
pada hari ini.
2. Dalam tempoh masa 27 bulan kita akan melangkah masuk
ke Milenium Yang Ketiga. Sesungguhnya adalah satu
penghormatan bagi saya kerana di minta berucap mengenai
Cabaran-Cabaran Dalam Milenium Yang Ketiga Bagi Generasi
Baru. Sebenarnya saya sendiri tidak berapa pasti di mana
atau bagaimana hendak bermula. Saya bukan Ahli Nujum
tetapi dalam tempoh 70 tahun saya telah melihat banyak
peristiwa dan perkara yang berlaku yang mana tidak ada
orang lain yang melihatnya. Malah di Malaysia kita telah
melihat bagaimana sesuatu yang tidak dijangka boleh
berlaku.
3. Let us take race relations for a start. In 1969 if
anyone had predicted that there would be good, if not
totally harmonious relations between the different races
in Malaysia, he would have probably been laughed into
silence. It was unthinkable. There was so much
bitterness. Many non-Malays left the country. The press
even said that there would be periodical clashes between
the races in the future. The country would be politically
unstable. A very senior Government minister publicly
declared that democracy was dead in Malaysia.
4. Yet look at the scene when the nation celebrated the
40th National Day recently. Everyone, Malays, Chinese,
Indian, Ibans, Kadazans etc, celebrated the event
together, apparently quite harmoniously. Everyone cheered
the National flag,decorated their cars and houses with it,
carried it and waved it enthusiastically. A multi-racial
crowd gathered on Merdeka Square, mixing freely without
any sign of fear, completely confident that no one would
do any harm to anyone because he is of a different race.
They cheered and they sang patriotic songs and roared
their approval of the multi-racial runners who came from
every corner of the country bearing the flag proudly.
5. Could anyone have imagined this scene on May 13, 1969
or the immediate years after. That this scene has now
become common place year after year is testimony to the
incapacity of mere mortals like us to presume and predict.
Even guesses are very often far off the mark.
6. But I am going to try and predict the future since I
was asked to. It is a mere guess of course but I do
expect some parts of it would come true.
7. Since what will happen to Malaysia will be very much
influenced by what happens to the rest of the world, it is
necessary to forecast the future of the world first. There
is no doubt that much will change in the affairs of the
world. Already we are talking about the global village,
about a world that has so shrunken that the world society
will, to a certain extent, at least be like a village
society - a society in which everyone would know everyone
else and so would be constantly treading in each other's
toes.
8. The global village is the result of the speed of
communication - physical movements of people and goods
and of information of every kind. Already today it takes
less time for us to travel to the other side of the globe
than it takes people to move through the clogged city
streets. There was a time when it took 21 days for a mail
steamer to sail from Port Swettenham to London. It now
just takes 13 hours. Of course if you take the Concorde
from London to New York you would arrive before the local
time you left.
9. But it is in the transmission of information that
amazing speeds have been achieved. As has been mentioned
it took 21 days to send news by mail from Malaysia to
London. Today letters and pictures are transmitted
instantly. On the internet one has only to click "send"
and the message would reach any part on earth.
10. Teleconferencing makes it seem that distance does not
exist at all. The Internet enables everyone not just to
receive information instantly, but all kinds of commerce
and trade can be just as instantaneous. True, the goods
will still take time to reach the destination, but that
time is going to get shorter and shorter as more and more
use is made of air transport. In the aviation industry
the greatest growth is in cargo transport.
11. Huge delivery companies freed from Government
monopoly are delivering everything door-to-door. One will
not have to go to the shops to select the goods we wish to
buy, but instead have them delivered to one's home,
examine, accept or reject them and buy everything through
electronic banks using electronic money which had been
electronically transferred to our account every week or
month.
12. All these will sound futuristic but some are already
happening now. But ease of movement of people will result
in massive migrations. People will move to where they
expect to live a better life with jobs, better jobs and
better social amenities. The single ethnic countries will
give way to multi-racial countries everywhere. No nation
will be able to stop the inflow of foreign people without
being accused of injustice and inhuman treatment. The
world will become truly borderless and the countries will
meld into one global entity.
13. The countries of Europe and North America, the most
prosperous in the world will cease to be European in the
sense of being white or Caucasian. Indians, Africans and
Chinese will flow into European countries so that before
even one century passes, Europe will no longer be
identified with white people. Black and yellow and brown
people will all be Europeans. Already European athletes
are significantly black.
14. Initially these non-European immigrants will adopt
the language and customs of the indigenous Europeans. But
as their numbers increase they will tend to retain their
languages and cultures. Prosperity will not be confined
to the indigenous Europeans. Asians will probably
dominate the business activities of Europe, and Asians and
Africans will make up the work force, especially when they
retain their culture and work ethics.
15. But there will be other consequences. There will be
clashes between the racial groups including of course
religious groups. There will not be a clash of
civilisation as that was predicated upon the different
civilisations remaining separate. Over time the peoples
of different civilisations living in European countries
are going to be closely intermixed. Confrontation between
these peoples of different civilisations can only happen
on a small scale and they will be uncoordinated. The
causes will be local rather than universal. The scenes of
ethnic repression in North America will be repeated in
Europe as the large white authorities try to impose their
standards and their rules on the new Europeans. But the
whites will have to give in eventually until treatment of
all "Europeans" of whatever colour would be the same.
There is of course the possibility later on in the
millennium when the non-white Europeans would dominate and
would try to impose their will on the rest.
16. But clashes and confrontation will not be invariable,
for the races will also inter-marry and integrate. More
and more white men and women will be marrying or at least
co-habiting with more and more blacks and Asians. Their
offsprings will have a variety of shades of black, white,
brown and yellow. An indeterminate hybrid race will
emerge as of course has happened in some of the South Sea
Islands. By the end of the millennium or even earlier it
would be impossible to find anyone of pure white stock in
Europe.
17. North America would go the way of Brazil where people
intermix freely. However Latin America will take a longer
time as the American Indians have largely been isolated.
18. The countries which will have the biggest number of
people of pure stock could be the Asians. They would be
prevented from inter-mixing because of their numbers and
their isolation even in a borderless world. They will
migrate to the less densely populated countries where they
will determine the future character of the people there.
But the numbers coming from Europe, Africa or Latin
America into Asian countries would be small relative to
the huge population of Asians in Asian countries.
19. The Chinese, Koreans and Japanese will remain the
purest for a long time. They too will eventually be mixed
but they will always be less mixed than the Europeans in
Europe and in the Americas.
20. From these mixing of peoples and cultures, new
cultures will evolve which will have many similar
features. No culture would be really foreign or dominant.
The hybrid races cannot be easily identified with
countries or regions or culture. They will be the peoples
of the Planet Earth.
21. Wars between nations will not be possible. In fact
in a borderless world there will be no nation and no
national loyalties to be involved in and to fight for. But
there would be a lot of violence due to minor
misunderstandings over issues, interpretations, esoteric
ideologies and new group loyalties not based on race or
nations. Such violence will be endemic and seemingly
impossible to put an end to.
22. We are of course already seeing this phenomenon. The
end of World War II has brought to an end the war between
nations. For a time there was a cold war in which the
people of the Western bloc confronted the Eastern bloc
people. Several times it looked as if the two blocs would
wage war on each other. But fear of nuclear war and the
massive irreparable destruction that it could cause was
able to keep heads cool and war prevented.
23. But proxy wars were fought all over the world as one
bloc instigated a third world nation to go to war against
another third world nation believed to be supporting or
was supported by the other bloc. Hundreds of thousands
died as a result of these proxy wars. Much damage was
done to property and the economies of these countries.
Invariably both sides lost and found themselves unable to
recover as they are abandoned by their patrons.
24. But proxy wars were not the only source of violence.
Terrorist gangs threatened the peace and stability of many
countries. The Red Army, the Baader Meinhof gang, the
IRA, and assorted Muslim fanatics indulged in senseless
violence, killing and destroying property and generally
preventing peace and stability and economic development to
take place.
25. In Bosnia Herzegovina a vicious Serbian attempt to
wipe out the Muslims was tolerated and at times
inadvertently or deliberately aided by the big powers.
About 200,000 Muslims and a much smaller number of Croats
and Serbs were massacred or killed in one way or another.
The world closed its eyes as atrocities were committed.
Where everyone was so quick to blame certain countries for
violations of human rights, the self-appointed guardians
of world morality decided not to see or do anything about
the massacres blatantly committed by the Serbs.
26. In the field of trade there have always been
pressures brought to bear on potential competitors so as
to prevent them from competing fairly. Thus non-trade
issues such as alleged human rights violation,
environmental issues, workers rights etc have been made
used of to prevent emerging economies from growing.
Sanctions are applied to certain countries for alleged
breaches, but if the countries do not pose an economic
challenge nothing is done. In African countries hundreds
of thousands are massacred or driven away from their homes
and countries without the guardians of international
morals doing anything to stop the carnage and the misery
of the refugees.
27. During the proxy wars, diabolical weapons were
developed and distributed freely among the combatants. The
great weapon trading nations wanted to test their weapons
in real life situations. Most of these weapons were paid
for by the proxy countries. Proxy wars were thus
profitable to the arms traders. Among these weapons were
the land mines. Millions of them were scattered
throughout the world, killing and maiming innocent people
long after the wars were over.
28. Attempts to outlaw these mines are opposed and
rejected by the superpowers who are still bent on
inventing, developing, testing and selling weapons,
including better land mines. It would seem that some
people feel that the world needs a cheap way of killing
people.
29. The weapons race continue despite the end of the Cold
War. New and more sophisticated weapons are continuously
being invented, tested and produced for military forces
which vie against each other in the sophistication of
their murderous capability. If there are no enemies to
fight for the moment, future enemies were identified in
order to justify vast sums of money being expended on
research, development and production of arms.
30. To recoup their vast investment in arms production,
the small countries were persuaded to buy. These
countries do not foresee any attacks from anyone, but they
were persuaded that they must keep up with their friendly
neighbours who have been persuaded to equip their forces
with certain weapons. And so they too buy ever more
costly weapons. And when they do this the media from the
weapons trading nations condemn these countries for
carrying on an arms race.
31. All these that I have related are happening today. In
this area the future will not change radically from the
present. The next century, the next millennium will see
all these things continue to happen. There may be
variations but only in degree and sophistication.
Otherwise history will repeat itself.
32. When World War II ended there was great hope for the
shaping of a more equitable international relationship.
The United Nations was set up so as to bring conflicts to
the negotiation tables rather than the battle fields. But
that organisation has been taken over by the big powers
and made into an instrument of their policy. There is now
no effective United Nations in so far as the maintenance
of peace and the problem of equality and justice between
nations. However the good work of the United Nations in
the field of health and agriculture mitigates against the
United Nations' uselessness in maintaining peace, justice
and fairplay.
33. How the United Nations will function in a world
without borders is anyone's guess. But it is certainly
not going to be more effective than it is now. It will
continue to be an instrument of the big powers.
34. What happens to the world will affect and influence
Malaysia's internal and external affairs. Malaysia is
today much more integrated with the rest of the world than
ever before. Our economy is inextricably linked with the
economy of the world. And because of that our policies
and our social life too will be influenced by what goes on
in the rest of the world.
35. At one time the world was to us a few countries with
which we had trade and political relations. The United
Kingdom, two or three major European countries, the North
American countries and Japan in the East were our
partners. To get away from too much dependence on them we
made contacts with the Eastern Europeans, the Central
Asian countries, African countries and Latin American
countries. Our trade is no longer confined to selected
countries. Indeed trade with the countries of East Asia,
including South East Asia, is likely to be the biggest
portion of our total trade in the future. This is not
because we do not want to trade with Europe and America.
The fact is that European and North American countries
have already matured. Their growth will be small in terms
of percentage, although in absolute terms it will still be
quite big.
36. On the other hand, the countries of East Asia are in
the early stages of their growth and their potential for
expansion is very much greater and more rapid. A small
increase in per capita income of China would amount to a
very big purchasing capacity for that country.
37. Malaysia will be truly a world trader, producing
manufactured goods of every kind for export and buying raw
materials and components in exchange.
38. Politically Malaysia is likely to maintain its
independence. It will not belong to any group and its
policies will vary according to its perception of what is
right and what is wrong.
39. But domestically Malaysians will continue to go
against conventional wisdom. Since 1970 Malaysia set off
to do things as it thought best for itself. Beginning
with the New Economic Policy which was roundly condemned
by the rest of the world for being openly discriminatory,
Malaysia has been bucking the trend every time all the
time. But fortunately for Malaysia most of these contrary
policies and methods have been successful.
40. Thus when the world condemned the Japanese for the
Japan Incorporated concept, Malaysia actually adopted a
Malaysia Incorporated concept as an approach towards
facilitating economic development.
41. With the Malaysia Incorporated concept was launched
the biggest privatisation programme ever tried by any
country. When it was launched in 1983 and 1984
privatisation was still not fully accepted by most
countries of the world. Several European countries tried
it and gave up. But Malaysia plunged headlong into
privatisation so that many departments, companies and
functions of the Government were transferred to the
private sector. One startling feature of Malaysia's
privatisation is that the workers actually support it.
Privatisation not only speeded up development but it
actually helped to fulfil the objectives of the NEP by
creating big Bumiputera corporations to match those of the
non-Bumiputera. And these Bumiputera corporations
succeeded as few expected them to succeed.
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