Oleh/By : DATO SERI DR MAHATHIR BIN MOHAMAD
Tempat/Venue : YANGON, MYANMAR
Tarikh/Date : 19/08/2002
Tajuk/Title : THE MYANMAR-MALAYSIA
TECHNOLOGY CONFERENCE
Versi : ENGLISH
Penyampai : PM
"Business Opportunities and Technology Collaboration
Between Myanmar and Malaysia"
Firstly I wish to express my sincere thanks for
the very warm welcome extended to me and the Malaysian
delegation to your beautiful country. It is indeed an
honour for me to address this gathering of prominent
personalities from both Myanmar and Malaysia. This
conference bears testimony to the continued commitment
on the part of the Malaysian government to the idea of
prospering neighbours through economic and business
collaboration.
2. September 11th has changed almost completely our
perception of things and with it the way we relate to
each other, we the peoples of different nations, of
different races and different religions. This is both
unfortunate and fortunate. It is unfortunate because
some have acquired a deeper suspicion and enmity
towards others while some have discovered a new need to
understand other people and other cultures. But at the
moment the suspicion and enmity seem to dominate the
minds of most.
3. Today there is a lot of fear in the world, a fear
that is not so easily directed because the enemy is
more a perception than an identifiable entity. The
enemy now is the terrorists, not the national terrorist
bent on overthrowing the national Government but
terrorists who are against the injustices and the
oppressions that they perceive as happening all over
the world. They may be wrong of course for others may
perceive the injustice as just and justifiable. But
that is academic. The fact is that these people see
injustice and oppression largely against their kind of
people and they feel a need to fight against these.
4. They belong to no particular nation or race. And
therefore they cannot be liquidated or defeated by
military might the way conventional wars can put an end
to the policies of enemy nations. They really cannot
be defeated by force of arms alone though this can
contribute. They can only be defeated by eliminating
the causes of their anger, frustrations and bitterness.
Whether what they claim to be fighting for is real or
imagined is irrelevant. If these are not real then we
have to convince them that it is not real, that their
perception of things is wrong. But it is seldom that
their perception is absolutely wrong. There must be
some elements of truth in what they claim for how else
can we explain the horrible acts that they are willing
to commit, to be willing to blast themselves into
oblivion in carrying out the acts which terrorise
everyone, the guilty and the innocent alike.
5. We have; we all have to try to resolve this reign
of terror. We should not just seek revenge, ten lives
for one of our own. The idea of out terrorising the
terrorists is insane because it is based on feelings
rather than reason. It is based on the desire for
vengeance for revenge. And vengeance breeds vengeance
in a vicious cycle.
6. And as the avengers resort to their expanded and
extended terror, they feed the flames of terror and
increase the fear among the people of the world. This
fear is affecting everyone, no matter how remote they
may be from the scenes of terror. This fear is
affecting everyone in every field of human endeavour,
in the economic, social and intercultural activities in
a world that has become physically palpably smaller.
7. The world has been shrinking throughout its
thousands of years of history. As man learn how to
move about faster and to better communicate with each
other, distances become less and less of an obstacle.
Today the distance has been reduced to almost zero
because communication, aural and visual, is
instantaneous, in real time. We have not yet learnt
how to transmit our bodies through space
instantaneously as in Star Trek but jet speed has made
every part of the world just a day away from any part
of the rest.
8. Opportunities for interaction by the human race
have never been so great or so easy. They should help
foster better and more productive relations between
people. But unfortunately some see these opportunities
as offering them the expansion of their influence and
their might, of hegemony in a world that has become a
village. The mentality of the village bully has
overcome these people. Invariably in such a world
might is right, more so than ever before. And when
might is right justice and fairplay invariably go out
of the window.
9. This is the world that we live in today. The weak
will once again submit to the strong. How much they
have to submit and how much of their sovereignty and
independence they will retain will depend not on their
physical strength for this they do not have, but on the
strategy they adopt and the common causes that they
make with others who are in the same straits.
10. Way back in the 1950's when colonies were
struggling to free themselves from the shackles of
colonialism, there were visions of truly independent
countries which would be masters of their own
destinies. But very soon they were disabused.
Political independence did not mean total freedom.
This was because political independence without
economic independence subtract much from the freedom
that the newly liberated had expected.
11. Some of us believed that we can isolate ourselves,
build a wall around our economy and reduce our
involvement with the outside world to the minimum. But
with the passage of time isolationism could no longer
deliver the good life for our people that we expect.
And not only that, the outside world still loomed large
and ominous over our horizon, threatening to crush the
isolationists. In any case the domestic economy could
not sustain the needs of a growing population whose
expectations were ever higher with the passage of time.
12. The only hope for the weak nations is to come
together to combine their little assets in order to
protect themselves. Their hope lies in ever stronger
cooperation between countries of a given region,
between the regions as well, cooperation which does not
diminish their national identities yet endows us with
greater strength through the weight of their size and
their combined economic and political strengths. They
should note that even the strong are coming together to
bolster themselves even more. It is not easy for them
and it would certainly not be easy for us. But we have
no choice but to try and try.
13. In Southeast Asia we have come together to form
ASEAN. For all its weaknesses and even failures, ASEAN
is still one of the strongest associations of
developing countries. Through ASEAN we have reduced
the kind of fruitless confrontations which normally
happen between neighbours. We have through the
institution of ASEAN also learnt from each other the
art and science of developing our countries. We have
strengthened our economies through promoting intra-
ASEAN trade and investments and through regional
collaboration to protect our industries. And we have
helped our common industries through common policies
and strategies. In Malaysia we believe in helping
neighbours to develop partly to save us from the spill-
over effect of poor and unstable Governments, partly
because prosperous neighbours make good markets for our
products and also because we do honestly want to see
our region prosperous and strong in order to help us
fend off the predators from outside. We do not
subscribe to the Zero Sum Game in which our country can
only gain if another country loses. Malaysia believes
in a Win-Win philosophy in which both parties, all
parties must gain and no one should lose. This is,
believe it or not, entirely possible.
14. It is with this belief in mind that Malaysia has
worked closely with all its neighbours and in
particular those new members of ASEAN who because of
their past costly struggles have been lagging behind.
We believe that our experience in growing through
foreign participation in our economy can also be the
experience of all countries wishing to grow
economically. We know that foreign investments will
not affect our independence. Malaysia has always
remained independent in words and in deeds.
15. We know that foreigners will not come to our
country to do charity. We think they are entitled to
their profits from their capital and technological
investments. For our part initially we only wanted
jobs for our people. We were not interested in
deriving revenue for our Government coffers. And we
succeeded, succeeded so much that today we are short of
workers.
16. But despite our limited objective of creating jobs
there is no doubt that we gained more. Our workers
have now become highly skilled, our managers more
competent and our wealth have so increased that we have
huge savings and sufficient capital for our own
entrepreneurs. Today Malaysians are able to invest on
their own in the very sophisticated industries which
were once the preserve of foreign corporations. Today
we have moved into hi-tech including ICT in order to
give our people higher incomes and the country greater
wealth.
17. It has taken us four decades to reach this level
of development. But it has been a very satisfying four
decades. Now to a limited extent we can reverse the
process, to become investors in other countries and to
contribute to their development.
18. While we hope to be welcome the way foreign
investors were welcome to Malaysia, we also know that
host countries expect us as foreign investors to
respect the sensitivities, the laws and religions and
the policies; domestic and foreign of the country.
Malaysian businessmen, traders and investors will be
expected to do all these and the Malaysian Government
will ensure that they do so. There will be black sheep
from among the Malaysian businessmen coming to Myanmar
and we will not claim any privilege for them and will
support the laws as applied to them. But as a matter
of routine we will of course provide all Malaysians
with the services they are entitled to by our
diplomatic representatives.
19. I don't foresee much problem here. The Malaysian
Government, the Malaysian businessmen and the
scientists will collaborate fully with their
counterparts in Myanmar. This conference is
specifically focussed on technology and there will be
much that we can do together for mutual benefit. I
would like to stress cooperation in biotechnology as
both Malaysia and Myanmar are endowed with extremely
rich resources in flora and fauna, the basis for
genomics, the science of the future.
20. The foundation has been laid. The challenge is now
to turn our vision into a reality that we can all be
proud of. I hope that this Myanmar - Malaysia
Technology Conference will be a start of a series of
collaboration that will take both nations to a higher
level of socio-economic well-being. I wish to thank all
parties that have made this conference possible. I
hereby declare the Myanmar - Malaysia Technology
Conference officially open.
Sumber : Pejabat Perdana Menteri
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