Oleh 		: 	DATO SERI DR MAHATHIR BIN MOHAMAD 
Tempat		: 	DOHA, QATAR
Tarikh		: 	11-11-2000 
Tajuk 		: 	THE MEETING WITH MUSLIM 
			INTELLECTUALS AND BUSINESSMEN 
Penyampai	: 	PM

" ISLAM AND GLOBALISATION" Globalisation, as it is formulated and
presented today, is
an invention of the North Atlantic countries, and we can take it for
granted that it is intended to enrich them further and enhance their
domination of the world. They already dominate the world of course. But
they want to strengthen that domination to ensure they will not be
successfully challenged either by the big East Asian countries or even the
weak Muslim countries. 2. The peoples of Europe have always been an
aggressive and acquisitive people. Before they were able to cross the
oceans, they were continuously fighting each other and trying to occupy
each other's land in Europe. In the past two millenniums not a year passed
when they were not fighting each other. 3. Their whole culture and economy
was based on wars of conquest. They were always thinking of and inventing
more and better weapons to kill people. Even today we see them inventing
newer infernal machines for killing people more efficiently. Whenever they
can they would test these weapons in other countries causing death by the
tens or even hundreds of thousands. Their excuse now is that they want to
keep the world safe for peace. 4. After they learned how to navigate the
oceans they turned their aggressive acquisitiveness against the rest of
the world. By the beginning of last century almost every part of the world
had come under their rule. Practically every European nation had some
territory to call their colony. Asia, Africa and the Americas were not
only subjected to their imperious and frequently brutal rule but had all
their wealth and resources taken away to enrich the metropolitan
countries. Europeans treated other races of the world as inferior and in
many cases simply exterminated them. In Australia the aborigines were shot
on sight like animals. The Tasman Man is now extinct because of this. Of
course when they are doing this they did not talk about human rights. It
would not serve their purpose. 5. After the end of World War II they began
to give up their colonial territories. It was not because they had
suddenly changed as they tried to make the world believe. It was simply
because they feared defection by their colonial subjects to the other bloc
as a result of their Cold War confrontation between the Western
capitalists and the Eastern Socialists. 6. Even as they were freeing their
colonies they were consolidating themselves in order to ensure their
continued dominance over the world. They closed ranks and formed the
European Economic Community which eventually became the European
Union. They also set up the North Atlantic Treaty countries and finally
when the cold War ended in the defeat of the Eastern Bloc they coalesced
and have now become a solid European entity lead by the seven strongest
countries among them. 7. Now they bared their capitalists fangs. No longer
worried about the socialists they propounded the religion of free
trade. Free trade is everything. It is going to enrich the whole world. It
is going to lead to a worldly paradise. Many have forgotten that they had
also promised worldly paradise when they preached Communism and absolute
equality. Now they are back with the same promise and it looks like people
are taken in by this old promise. 8. Free trade as enunciated by them
means the removal of all trade barriers so that goods and services can
move freely across borders. Free trade is described as levelling the
playing field. The implication is that a level playing field would ensure
fair competition. Nothing is said about the size of the players. 9. Such
is their hype that many poor countries talked about level playing fields,
forgetting that the poor own no giant corporations or banks or products to
sell in the market. Clearly only those who have money and products who
will corner the markets. 10. Insidiously free trade became sacrosanct
through the GATT and the WTO. The World Bank, the IMF and the
Western-controlled international media preached it. Anyone who dared to
oppose free trade became heretics, infidels, non-believers who were trying
to impoverish the poor. 11. The true meaning and implications of free
trade did not become known until the free trade in currencies reached its
peak during the East Asian financial crisis. 12. Suddenly rich emerging
economies crumbled as their currencies were traded and devalued. The
currency traders claimed that the economic system of these East Asian
tigers were rotten, they were corrupt and practised cronyism. Because of
that their currencies were unhappy and devalued themselves. 13. The fact
of course is that the currency traders saw an opportunity to make huge
profits by devaluing the currencies of these countries. They made billions
of dollars simply by destroying the wealth which these countries had taken
decades to build up. But more than that they impoverished millions of
people, threw them on the streets, caused them to riot and kill and
overthrow their Governments. To this day these once rich people are
wallowing in poverty and instability. 14. Despite clear evidence that free
trade has caused unprecedented misery it is still being touted as the
solution to the economic problems of the poor. Worse still, it has been
upgraded and given a new name, Globalisation, a world without borders. And
again we are being told that globalisation will enrich us all. 15. Let us
examine a little the contents of globalisation. They include doing away
with borders, i.e. countries will lose their definitive territories, will
become just a name for a certain area of the globe. Countries can
therefore no longer barricade themselves behind their borders to stop the
invading hordes from the rich countries from trampling all over their puny
corporations, banks and industries. 16. Ahead of the invasion their
propaganda machines are already saying that the monopoly of all economic
activities by these foreign giants would improve efficiency, the quality
of the products and the services that we get and the quality of our
life. 17. Maybe the quality of our life will improve; maybe we will earn
more pay. But we will all be servants of foreigners. What is worse is that
these huge foreign- owned businesses will control our economy and
eventually our Governments. We will become like the Banana Republics where
the managers of foreign corporations are more powerful than our Presidents
or Prime Ministers. Indeed they will determine who our Presidents and
Prime Ministers will be. 18. At that stage can we honestly say we are
still independent? Only the soft-brained among us will maintain that we
are free countries in charge of our destinies. We have de facto become the
colonies of the European nations again. We have come full circle. 19. At
the beginning it was pointed out that when the Europeans came up with an
idea, it is invariably intended to result in their domination over the
world. Well globalisation is their idea, and we can see how it is going to
lead to their rebuilding their World Empire. The developing countries of
the world will pay a high cost if they swallow European ideas
unthinkingly. 20. All Muslim countries are developing countries and they
will all become a part of the empire of the North Atlantic countries if
globalisation as presently conceived goes through. The picture is grim but
it is not an exaggeration. The Muslim countries are weak. None of the
Muslim countries have any influence over world affairs. For a century now
they have suffered in silence while Muslims and Muslim countries are
oppressed. 21. The situation in Palestine is typical. Children who threw
stones are being shot dead with live bullets. Many have been killed. There
is nothing that one billion Muslims in the world can do. We can send
appeals to stop the carnage but all that we get is to be told to stop the
children from throwing stones. No one tells the Israelis to stop
shooting. It is as if the most natural thing for people to do when stones
are thrown at them is to shoot the stone throwers dead. And yet these
people who tolerate the killing of stone-throwing children talk endlessly
about human rights, about justice and the rule of law. 22. I have painted
the most gloomy picture of globalisation, how it can oppress us, how it
can make us once again the colonies of the rich. But it is not necessary
that globalisation will have this kind of result. Globalisation can be
made to work for us. 23. The first thing that we have do is to understand
how globalisation as presently interpreted will work. 24. When Malaysia
was being attacked by the currency traders we were shocked to find how
little we knew about the international financial system; how currencies
were traded; how money was moved without ever moving it. 25. Now we read
about the hundreds of billions of dollars paid for companies by other
companies wishing to grow by acquisition. We read about the mergers of the
giants to become even bigger giants. We don't really know how they are
doing this and where the money is coming from. They have found ways, or
invented ways to put huge sums of money to work for them. 26. If we know
enough about these wheelings and dealings we may be able to play the same
games, by our own rules. We may even be able to enter as a virus into
their systems to paralyse them or frustrate them. They are big but size
alone will not guarantee failures will not occur. They can fail. They can
lose trillions of dollars. And they can destroy themselves. 27. We know
the story of the Long-Term Credit Management Fund (LTCM). It was huge. It
dealt in billions. But suddenly it failed and but for the help of cronies
in their Government, it could have dragged the whole financial system of
the rich down with it. If the giant banks and the giant corporations are
skilfully handled, they too can suffer the same fate as the LTCM. And as
they come crashing down they will drag the powerful countries down with
them. 28. There was a time when the Muslim countries dominated the
world. Then there was a decline. The decline was because we were
pre-occupied with bickering regarding the interpretations of our
religion. Muslim Governments are forever being attacked by extremist
Muslims. Busy with trying to defend their Islamic credentials the Muslims
and their countries missed completely the Industrial revolution which was
taking place in the European World. We took no part in it and as a result
we retrogressed, unable to gain anything from it. We became poor not just
in terms of wealth but also in industrial capacities, the invention,
design and productions of the instruments of progress. We have become
totally dependent on others even for our most simple needs, and the needs
for our defence. 29. Now we are seeing the Information Age dawning upon
the world. And it looks like we are going to miss this revolution too. We
are still too busy with our endless squabbles over our religion and our
politics. 30. It is sad because we do have the capacity to participate in
the development of I.T. and its innumerable applications. Large numbers of
highly skilled Muslims are now living in the countries of the Atlantic
North. They are there because we have no place for them. And so they are
contributing to the body of knowledge and Information Age skills being
built up in these countries which may probably be used against us. 31. We
can bring them back. We can tap their skills in order to build up our
capacities in I.T. And with their skills and knowledge we may be able to
counter some of the harmful effects of globalisation on us. 32. There are
other ways we can work together to protect our economies and our
countries. We can keep parts of our borders closed. We can stall
everything until we are ready. We can change the interpretation of
globalisation. We can for example interpret globalisation more completely
by insisting on the rights of our poor people to cross into the rich
countries. 33. That way we can reduce our poverty through the remittances
of those of us who have gone abroad. It is important that Muslim
communities abroad be big enough to maintain their religion and culture
and possibly their influence in the countries of their adoption. 34. In a
few decades the world's demography will change. There will be no country
whose people are ethnically pure. If we are smart enough we can use this
to our advantage. 35. Globalisation may result in the huge corporations
taking over the countries in which they operate. But on the other hand the
migrants from the poor countries will, if not take over, at least play
some role in the governance of the countries of their adoption. They may
even be able to reduce the oppression of the Muslims worldwide. 36. Will
the Muslims lose in a global nation, free of nation states including the
Muslim countries? They will lose of course if they insist on remaining
spectators. 37. We are one billion strong. Every sixth person in this
world is a Muslim. The real problem that we face in a globalised world is
that we reject the brotherhood of Islam. While others are uniting and
consolidating their strength we are drifting apart and
fragmenting. 38. Muslims and Muslim countries are faced with a tremendous
and frightening challenge. Globalisation in the form that it takes now is
a threat against us and our religion. We should not vent our anger and
frustration by mounting futile isolated violence. Instead we should plan
and execute the development of our Ummah so as to be empowered by I.T. and
be capable of handling the challenges of the Information Age. This is our
real Jihad. I believe we have the talents and the capacity to ensure the
success of this Jihad. 39. Allah does not help those who do not help
themselves. Tie the camel and then leave it to Him. We have indeed to help
ourselves, to tie our camels. We can quote the al-Quran and the Hadis and
argue about their meaning but whatever may be the arguments we have to act
to blunt the challenge of the Globalised world. We may even master it and
bring back the Golden Age of Islam, Insya-Allah. Sumber : Pejabat Perdana
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