Oleh/By : DATO' SERI DR.
MAHATHIR BIN MOHAMAD
Tempat/Venue : THE GRAND HALL, IKIM,
KUALA LUMPUR
Tarikh/Date : 30/06/2000
Tajuk/Title : THE INTERNATIONAL SEMINAR AND
DIALOGUE ON `ENHANCHING THE
UNDERSTANDING OF ISLAM FOR
THE MEDIA'
First of all let me thank the Institute of Islamic
Understanding Malaysia (IKIM) for inviting me to
deliver this keynote address at this International
Seminar and Dialogue on `Enhancing the Understanding of
Islam for the Media'. I am sure this seminar will help
the media, local or foreign, Islamic or non-Islamic to
get a clearer picture of Islam and hopefully to
contribute to the understanding of Islam among them
all.
2. If I may paraphrase Churchill, "Never in the
history of Mankind has such a small thing enabled such
a huge number of people access to such a vast amount of
information". I am sure Winston Churchill would
forgive me for this distortion of his famous war-time
statement about the British Royal Air Force. But truly
the tiny microchip has enabled literally the six
billion people on earth to gain access to all the
information they want and more. It is up to humankind
to make use of this facility for whatever purpose.
3. One would imagine that this is a God-sent
opportunity for Mankind. In ancient times when man
invented writing in order to record and convey a
message other than by word of mouth, few found the new
invention useful because few could read or write and
the process of writing on stone and leaves was tedious
and difficult and dispatching any worthwhile distance
was quite impractical. But today written words, voices
and even pictures can be transmitted instantaneously
across the globe to any location. Thus all the
knowledge that has been accumulated over three
millennium and all that is presently being churned out
could be learnt and ulitised to enhance the quality of
life of everyone, everywhere. The world would
certainly become a better place because information is
literally at everyone's fingertips. Simply tap the
keys on the computer keyboard and free knowledge would
be available to the keyboard operator. Along with
knowledge will come all kinds of skills to make
everyone more employable, more productive and more able
to earn higher incomes. Individuals would be enriched
and societies and nations too would become richer
because of the knowledge and quality of the people.
4. We are told that the whole Library of Congress is
available on the Internet. Software and search engines
make it easy to gain whatever knowledge we want easily.
Of course there are thousands of other sources of
computer generated information available for hardly any
payment.
5. It is a wonderful world, this world of instant and
unlimited knowledge. The media is given a central
place in the dissemination of information about
everything through the printed words and pictures,
through radio and television, and through the Internet.
The media cannot be contained and confined. Borders of
countries mean nothing to the media. The whole world
can be reached by and through the media instantly, in
real time and at any time. If words cannot describe,
pictures can speak a million words.
6. There is now a fantastic opportunity for the media
to play a role in the spread of the truth about
everything, to clear the air, to create understanding,
to promote what is good and banish what is bad. There
is a golden opportunity for the media to help build a
better, a fairer and more just world. There is a great
opportunity for the media to enrich the world, to
enrich everyone everywhere.
7. There is so much misunderstanding in this world,
misunderstanding arising from wrong information or
inability to get the right information. And because of
this misunderstanding countries and regions, peoples
and races and the followers of different religions hate
each other, glare at each other and very often fight
each other. Yet correct information about each other
can help reduce the animosity and suspicions and bring
the groups together into a great family of people,
humankind, to create a better world for everyone.
8. Let us take the general perception of Islam for
example. No other religion is more misunderstood than
Islam; misunderstood not only by non-Muslims but by
Muslims themselves. And because of this
misunderstanding there is constant conflict and
confrontation between Muslims and non-Muslims and
between Muslims and Muslims.
9. Stereotyping and labelling is one of the greatest
weapons of the bigoted. Terrorism for example involves
people of every religious group, Christians, Hindus,
Buddhists and Muslims and the sub groups of each. But
whereas terrorism by Muslims are invariably linked to
the religion of Islam, terrorism by non-Muslims are not
linked to the religious beliefs of the terrorists even
though they were perpetrated in the name and in
furtherance of the interest of the particular religion.
Hindus attacked Muslims in the name of Hinduism but
they are not called Hindu terrorists. Aum Shinrikyo, a
Buddhist sect in Japan poisoned people with gas but are
not called Buddhist terrorists. The Catholics and the
Protestants in Northern Ireland terrorised each other
but are not called Christian terrorists. But if
misguided Muslims attack non-Muslims or other Muslims
they are all labelled Muslim terrorists. Why this
discrimination against Islam by the media?
10. There are many other instances of the media being
unfair to Islam, being discriminatory against Islam.
And so Islam became not only a religion that is
misunderstood but is a religion that is reviled by non-
Muslims for no very good reason.
11. Yet the media has the greatest opportunity to
correct the misinformation, the wrong perceptions of
Islam. If the media makes use of this opportunity it
can contribute so much to greater understanding between
Muslims and the followers of other religions, and so
bring about greater harmony and peace to the world.
There must be many in the media who want to do good, to
help resolve some of the problems of the world. By
helping people to understand each other the media can
achieve this.
12. Islam is a religion of peace. Muslims greet each
other and greet others with a wish for peace. Peace be
on you. We wish everyone peace. But nobody today
would believe Muslims are peaceful people who wish
everyone, Muslims and non-Muslims to have peace. I
will admit that we Muslims are also to be blamed for
the bad image that we have. There are among us people
who act deliberately to cause Islam to be reviled by
others. They do this in the name of Islam. But what
they do is not Islamic. Extremism and intolerance is
not advocated by Islam. We are enjoined to be tolerant
and to abstain from using force. But small Muslim
groups when put in authority would like to force
everyone to be pious forgetting of course that forced
piety is not piety at all. But despite this our
detractors cannot be free from blame. They and their
media have given the Muslims this bad image.
13. The Muslims are ready to correct that image but we
need the cooperation of the media, particularly the
Western media. If one looks around one will see that
everywhere the Muslims are oppressed, are being ejected
from their own lands, are in fact the modern diaspora.
They are leaving their own lands because they are truly
being oppressed by other Muslims but more frequently
oppressed by the non-Muslims. They are the underdog.
They are the ones who need to be sympathised with, to
be protected. But instead they are the ones generally
accused of oppression and deserving of the sad fate
which befall them.
14. Look at Bosnia Herzegovina, Kosova, Chechnya, and
many other countries which it would be undiplomatic for
me to mention aloud. Everywhere the Muslims are
oppressed. The story needs to be told. The killings
in Srebrenica needs to be told. The arrest, torture
and killings need to be told. While terrorists of
Muslim faith are called Muslim terrorists, no one talks
of Muslims who have been oppressed, massacred, and
expelled from their homelands as Muslim victims.
15. Their only crime is that they are Muslims. Yes,
in desperation they fought back, ferociously sometimes.
They commit acts of terror. They often kill
senselessly, indiscriminately, but they are not the
only ones to do this out of anger and frustration. Can
their story not be told factually, without bias,
without the usual condemnation? Can the reasons for
their apparently cruel acts not be told? Can there not
be a description also of the way they were terrorised,
their oppression by their enemies, their tormentors?
16. Let us take Iraq. I do not agree with Iraq's war
against Kuwait. Iraq may have a historical claim but
many of us have historical claims over neighbouring
lands. Malaysia has a claim over Southern Thailand.
But that was history. We have accepted that it is part
of Thailand and we will say nothing more about it. We
will not support insurrections against Thailand.
Surely Iraq must accept that Kuwait is now independent.
But the fact is that Iraq attacked Kuwait and
subsequently lost to a so-called international force.
The attacking army could have advanced and captured the
leader of Iraq. But it did not. Instead the so-called
liberators of Kuwait imposed all kinds of restrictions
on Iraq, restrictions which punished the civilians, the
children, the old, the sick, the women. For ten long
years the people of Iraq were made to suffer because
its leader is not liked by the West.
17. Is this justice? To punish the whole population
for the acts of one man who was not chosen by them and
whom they cannot remove. Shouldn't the media tell the
true tragedy of Iraq, the sufferings of the people?
Shouldn't the press campaign for an end to sanctions.
Even the United Nations officers charged with
overseeing the `criminal' activities of Iraq have
condemned the barbarity against that country and have
resigned. Yet the story of these people who resigned
have not been told fully. And the people of Iraq
continue to suffer.
18. Is it because they are Muslims that the media
neglects their sufferings? We hope not. But sometimes
we think that it is because they are Muslims. The
sanctions against Serbia is not effectively enforced.
Is it because they are Christians and their crime is
after all only against Muslims?
19. It must be remembered that the majority of the
Muslims, like the majority of Christians or Buddhists
or Hindus are good people who mean no harm to anyone
even though their images of each other are grossly
distorted. Among any people in any community there
will be those who are irrational, extreme and violent.
The number of such people among Muslims are no bigger
than among other religious groups. It is really
necessary to understand why they are what they are.
20. Their extremism is un-Islamic. Islam does not
advocate extremism and Islam abhor disorder. In Islam
the preparations for war are required only in order to
protect the Muslims. But if Muslims are attacked then
it is their duty to defend. Acts of terrorism have no
place in Islam. But there will be those who become so
bitter and frustrated over the injustice perpetrated on
Muslims and their lands that they ignore the teachings
of Islam and try to fight its cause in their own way,
in fact in the way that they see others fight. For
terrorism is not a Muslim invention. They learnt it
from others.
21. Hijacking aircrafts for example is not invented or
initiated by Muslims. Non-Muslims started this. They
were not described as terrorists, nor linked to their
religion. The Muslims who hijack were not common
criminals trying to enrich themselves. They had a
cause and in all sincerity they thought they were
risking their lives in the interest of the Muslims. If
they put others into danger and inflict casualties
among non-combatants, aren't the people who oppress
them doing the same, oppressing them and bombing
innocent civilians? This is their view of course but
the Muslim world does not condone such acts. We try to
negotiate. We try to explain. But we come up against
a blank wall. There is a total unwillingness to hear
our side of the story. The very powerful non-Muslim
countries have a biased view against us. And the media
from the West are invariably biased. Their reporting,
their analyses, their stories are all skewed and
distorted in order to make out that the doings of a few
misguided and frustrated Muslims reflect the wishes and
the direction of the Muslim `ummah' of one billion
people.
22. Yet the media can mitigate this by giving the real
picture, telling the truth. But almost without
exception the Western media aggravate matters by
exaggerating and telling deliberately slanted stories
about Muslim terrorists. Has the media forgotten that
the terrorists in many of the colonies of the West have
since been described as statesmen and were in fact
freedom fighters struggling to liberate their
countries? And after achieving independence they are
recognised as responsible leaders in the Governments of
their independent countries. Who was Jomo Kenyata,
President of Kenya, if not a terrorist?
23. Can it not be that the so-called Muslim terrorists
of today, or of yesterday would become Muslim statesmen
of tomorrow, leading their people and at peace with the
rest of the world? Of course at this point in time it
is difficult to imagine that they, the irresponsible
fighters against oppression, the imitators of Western
methods of fighting for a cause can be statesmen at
all. But can we really say that it is impossible for
such a thing to happen?
24. The fact that all must admit is that the Muslims
and their world have not just been marginalised but
have been truly oppressed. There is not a single
Muslim power in this world. They are totally bereft of
the capacity to protect themselves. They are totally
dependent on their detractors and those who are
covertly or overtly against them. Any kind of
injustice can be perpetrated against Muslims and the
perpetrators will not only get away with it but will be
actually glorified.
25. In Bosnia-Herzegovina the world watched daily over
television the horrors perpetuated by the Serbs against
the Muslim Bosniacs. In one case a British officer was
very upset and furious as he condemned the burning of a
house where women and young children were still alive
inside. Thousands were murdered by the Serbs in
Srebrenica even as the European forces who were
supposed to be protecting them retreated and looked the
other way.
26. But for a very long time the Western European
nations and America refused to act against the Serbs in
Bosnia-Herzegovina and Serbia. They feared that the
Russians might come to the defence of the Serbs.
Elsewhere they were not afraid of the Russians. They
freely bomb Iraq, an ally of Russia. But in former
Yugoslavia they feared Russia's reaction. And so they
allowed Serbian atrocities to go on. More than 200,000
Bosniacs, mostly the young people, were massacred and
thrown into hastily dug graves.
27. Many people cynically commented that had Bosnia-
Herzegovina been producing oil for the West, or if the
Serbs were Muslims, swift action would have been seen.
28. Now we are seeing the Russians literally wiping
out the Chechen from the surface of this earth. It is
genocide that is happening in Chechnya. The insurgents
in Chechnya are misguided. They know they could not
possibly defeat the Russians. It was an uneven match -
- one million Chechens against 260 million well-armed
and ruthless Russians. But they wanted independence
for their tiny state.
29. No country would like to give up a square inch of
its territory. And no country will support any
separation of any territory from any country simply
because the precedent might be used to excise land in
their own country. But the Russian Federation has been
broken up and many independent states have emerged.
Why cannot Chechnya? Recently the world community has
supported the separation of Timur Timor from Indonesia.
There are other Muslim states who seem happy to be a
part of the Russian Federation. But Chechnya wants to
be independent.
30. Malaysia like all other countries does not
encourage and will not recognise breakaway states
because we are a Federation of States and we will not
allow for any secession of any of our states.
31. But Chechnya is as entitled as are the other
states of the Russian Federation or the Yugoslav
Federation. The Chechens are a strongly independent
people and coincidently they are also Muslims. Cannot
the problem of their secession be settled peacefully?
32. But today they are being bullied, being massacred,
being physically destroyed by the Russians. How many
have questioned the abuse of human rights, the abuse of
power by the Russians? It is all so unfair and unjust.
The injustice is felt by Muslims all over the world.
But the true conditions in Chechnya have not even been
properly reported. The media has apparently condoned
such inhumanity, such brutality. Yet the same media
reported repeatedly some minor injustice or apparent
injustice committed by Muslims or Muslim countries. If
anyone is detained without trial, it is unjust. When
there is an open trial in full view of everyone, it is
still unjust because there is no acquital. With Muslim
countries, nothing they do can ever be right in the
eyes of the media.
33. It is not that the Muslims are asking for the
media to be biased in their favour. All they are
asking for is fair reporting. At the every least after
a biased or an unfavourable report against them, they
should be given an opportunity to be heard, to give
their side of the story. Without doubt they will not
be able to explain and justify all the things that they
have done in the name of Islam and justice or whatever
but the world could have an opportunity to make their
own judgement.
The media is powerful. When they act together they are
even more powerful. And power as we all know corrupts.
The almost absolute power of the Western media corrupts
almost absolutely.
35. The media has its own agenda now. The media wants
to shape the world. It is not what the world, or the
leaders of the world, think that shapes the reporting
by the media. It is what the media thinks, what the
media considers to be right for the world that counts
with the media now.
36. And consequently if the media is against anything
or for anything, then the reports in the media will
reflect this. But the media, like any other interest
groups can be wrong. And when it is wrong and it
insists on promoting its views the damage done can be
considerable.
37. Today, world media is hugely Western dominated.
They are not controlled by the Governments of the West
of course, at least not overtly, but their views
reflect Western bias, Western policies. Quite often
Western views are anti-Muslims. And the media
willingly propagate this anti-Muslim views.
38. Muslims are not Westerners almost by definition.
Some may be pro-Western, very pro-Western sometimes but
all are lumped together as Muslims, and their countries
as Muslim countries. As such they are not deserving of
sympathy, of fair reporting by the media. And because
the reporting is not fair, is biased against the
Muslims, it augments the misunderstanding and bias of
the Western people against the Muslims. The media thus
perpetuates the confrontation between Muslims and non-
Muslims. Perhaps there is something to be gained from
this but for sure more would be gained if the
confrontation between Muslims and non-Muslims ends and
we all regard each other as members of the human race
as prone to do wrong as all humans can.
39. The media is powerful, is influential. It can
contribute much to greater understanding between
peoples, between the followers of the different
religions. The media's reach have been tremendously
enhanced by modern information technology. If it
chooses to do good it can truly bring about peace and
understanding throughout the world.
40. The media can do much for creating greater
understanding of Islam and the Muslims. Of course the
Muslims must do something for themselves too. But the
media's role is so big and its power so great that good
behaviour by the Muslims alone would come to naught if
they don't get the cooperation of the media.
41. The Muslims are not inherently against the West,
the Christians or the Jews. The Muslims want peace as
much as anybody else. We want a share of the bounties
of this earth. We are not violent people given to
terror and anarchic behaviour. Some of us may
misbehave but no more than others do. We should not be
tarred with the same brush. The majority of us are
good, peace-loving rational people.
42. The media must give us our due and I am quite sure
we the Muslims will respond positively -- not all of us
perhaps, but certainly the majority of us.
43. We talk of the global village. None of us can be
an island. We are close neighbours as all people
living in a village are close neighbours. We need to
come together and solve our differences as village
people do. Villagers cannot be endlessly confronting
each other.
44. The media can play a role here, a big role in the
development of a village culture where Muslims and non-
Muslims live and work together and share the fruits of
their labour together, fairly and equitably.
45. With instant, worldwide unrestricted
communication, a golden chance has presented itself.
The media must not miss it. What you decide to do and
to contribute towards the understanding of Islam and
the Muslims by the rest of the world can shape the
Global Village that is fast taking shape. Distort it
and it will be distorted for the whole of this third
millennium. Mould it into a thing of beauty and it
will last forever.
46. That is the challenge facing the media. We
Muslims pray and hope that you will help us banish this
distorted view of Islam and the Muslims by the rest of
the world through the power and influence that you
wield. May Allah Bless you and give you success in
your noble effort.
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