Oleh/By : DATO SERI DR MAHATHIR BIN MOHAMAD
Tempat/Venue : SHANGRI-LA HOTEL, KUALA LUMPUR
Tarikh/Date : 13/01/2003
Tajuk/Title : THE ASIA PACIFIC PARLIAMENTARY FORUM,
11TH ANNUAL MEETING
Versi : ENGLISH
Penyampai : PM
The wars to end wars have been fought twice in the
20th Century and have been won by the forces claiming
to love peace. But we have never really been free from
wars. Maybe not on the scale of the 1st and 2nd World
War but for many countries and people the wars they
have to experience, the wars of liberation and the wars
to protect their freedom are no less fearsome and
damaging. Thousands have died in Eastern Europe, the
Middle East; in Central and South America, in East Asia
and South Asia, and in Africa. For many peace is still
an elusive goal.
2. The League of Nations had failed and the United
Nations has not performed much better. The strong will
dominate and the weak must submit. It is still a world
of might is right.
3. The former colonies of the Europeans may have
gained independence in the legal sense. But many are
not truly independent. Politically and economically
they remain no better than colonies. For a time their
borders are respected. But then came new ideas about a
globalised world, a world without borders. How can a
country be independent if its borders are not sacred,
if anyone can cross its borders freely and do anything
he likes within the country?
4. Of course globalisation is about free trade, open
borders and free access. Countries should not protect
their own banks and companies through discriminatory
laws. Foreign companies should be accorded national
status i.e. there should be no difference in the
treatment of local businesses and foreign-owned
businesses. This it is claimed will benefit the
developing countries and the consumers. They would
have access to the best services and products at the
lowest price.
5. But if the big foreign corporations operate freely
in a country, would they not kill all the local
companies? Would they not become so powerful that they
would wield a disproportionately strong influence on
local society and local politics? Would they not
dominate the Governments, as was the case with the so-
called Banana Republics?
6. Historically the East India Companies set up by
European countries in order to trade with Asia ended up
with colonising the countries with which they traded.
Thus India, Burma and Malaysia were made colonies of
the British Empire while the Malay Archipelago became
the Dutch East Indies.
7. History has a way of repeating itself. The giant
corporations and banks which belong to the rich western
countries can behave like the East India Companies of
the past. From merely demanding for unfettered trade,
they can go on to dominate and control the Governments
of the countries which had been opened to them. The end
result will not be much different from the colonisation
which had followed trading by the European Trading
Companies of the past. Then the struggle for
independence can begin all over again and there could
be violence and even a new series of wars of
liberation.
8. Perhaps this is too pessimistic a picture of the
future. But nothing that is happening today or in the
aftermath of the two World wars is reassuring. While
Europe has experienced a period of peace unprecedented
in its history; while Europe has consolidated into the
European Union; while North America has continued to
prosper, and to unite into one solid block, the
developing countries continue to be developing. In
East Asia a few have managed to progress but suddenly
attacks on their currencies have pushed back their
economies by almost two decades.
9. Practically all the developing countries are
indebted to the rich, either directly or through their
agencies. They have to place themselves under the
direction of the powerful countries. Although they try
to conform to the norms determined by the rich, they
find themselves quite unable to repay their debts.
This means that their economies must be subjected to
the directions of their creditor countries. In effect
they have become debt slaves, having lost their rights
to take charge of the administration and management of
their economies.
10. The unfortunate thing is that the advice they are
getting from the creditor countries and their agencies
would keep them poor, unable to recover and unable to
pay back their debts. It may not be intentional but
few countries which had accepted the advice have been
able to recover.
11. It must be remembered that the developed countries
were once as poor and as backward as the developing
countries of today. They had become developed by not
doing what they are advising the developing countries
to do now i.e. by not being liberal, not opening up
their borders; by protecting their young industries and
by rigid regulations and laws devised by their
Governments. The assertion that from the very
beginning they had practised free trade and open
competition is not borne out by the facts of history.
We know that their East India Companies thrived and
prospered through monopolies, through divisions in
their spheres of trading activities, through militarily
defended trading stations and eventually through
colonising the countries with which they were trading.
12. As for democracy, human rights, labour rights,
justice and fairplay, their colonies and trading
partners experienced nothing of these. There was no
way the colonies or the trading partners could get fair
trading, i.e. fair and competitive prices for their
products.
13. The British had a policy called Imperial
Preference through which they and their products gained
privileged access to land for estates, and markets for
their goods within the British Empire. The Dutch had a
system of forcing farmers to produce and sell their
agricultural products to Dutch monopolies. Other
countries used slaves or indentured labour to work on
their estates.
14. Had there been a free press, freedom of speech,
democratic elections and human rights, it is most
unlikely that the exploitation of the wealth of the
colonial countries and trading partners could have gone
on for a sufficient length of time for the colonial
powers to prosper.
15. The point that has to be made is that it is not
democracy, free trade and good governance that made the
developed countries what they are today. Yet we are
being told that the way to develop developing countries
is to embrace globalisation and a borderless world, to
deregulate, to do away with protectionism, to be
democratic and to be liberal. From what we have seen
and experienced, the mere floating of our currencies
can already lead to financial and economic disaster.
Many countries are practically without effective
government because of the democratic processes. How do
our puny banks and corporations compete against the
super giants which have been formed in order to take
advantage of a borderless world?
16. Today in addition to the economic woes resulting
from attempts to standardise practices in a globalised
world, we are all also assailed by fears of terrorist
attacks.
17. Terrorism has always been with us. In the two
world wars millions of non-combatants died and millions
more maimed for life. One cannot say they were not
terrified by the wars. Since then many people in many
places have suffered from terror attacks. But they are
not of the rich and the strong. They are quite
ordinary citizens of rather inconsequential countries.
200,000 Bosnians died from Serbian ethnic cleansing.
Palestinians and Israelis died also. So do the
Chechens, the Kasmiries, the Rwandans, the Watutsies,
the Chileans and the Argentines. But the world was not
moved to wage a world war on terrorists because these
unimportant people have been terrorised.
18. Then on 11 September the World Trade Center in New
York, the business capital of the richest and most
powerful nation of the world was attacked. And
everyone realised that no one is safe. The world
united to fight against global terrorism.
19. Unfortunately the world has never handled global
terrorism of this kind. We think in terms of
conventional warfare. We think if we can defeat them
militarily they would surrender and sue for peace.
20. And so billions and billions are spent on
upgrading defence and security. The only result is to
harass ourselves and make us all live in constant fear
of being the next victim of terror attacks. We fear
flying, we fear travelling, we fear certain countries,
we fear certain religions, we fear certain people, we
fear the shoes they wear, we fear cargo ships, imported
goods, letters and parcels -- in fact we fear
everything around us. And because of these fears we no
longer invest, in our own countries or in foreign
countries. And the economy of the world, the economies
of every country regress and fails.
21. Actually the perpetrators of the 11 September
attacks and the Al Qaeda cannot possibly expect such a
result from their attacks. They have really shaken the
whole world and it looks like we are going to feel this
fear and the consequences for very long time.
22. The success of the 11 September attack is due much
more to our wrong handling of the situation than the
extent of the actual damage done. The billions being
lost by the whole world today through economic
recession, the billions being spent on security and
defence can build hundreds of World Trade Centre
towers.
23. The Israelis should know by now that defence and
security measures and even out-terrorising the
terrorists have not stopped the suicide bombers. The
world is far less thorough in defence and security than
the Israelis. It stands to reason that the world fight
against terror through upgrading defence and security
is going to be far less successful than the Israelis.
24. We may not want to admit it but the terrorists are
not terrorising for the fun of it. They have a reason.
We may think that their reason does not warrant the
kind of actions they are taking. But that kind of
thinking on our part is not going to get us anywhere.
We have to look into what motivates them. If we care
to look and acknowledge the causes leading to their
acts of terror and we try to remove them then we may be
able to at least reduce such acts.
25. There are many causes and because we will not be
able to attend to all of them we cannot stop terrorism
completely. But I would like to insist that the
principle reason is territorial and not religious. The
Palestinians have had their land taken away from them
and they have been expelled from their land and made
refugees. Every time they try to regain their land,
they lost more. Their struggle has been ignored by the
world. Even the killings of their people, children and
non-combatants included raised hardly an eyebrow.
Unable to wage conventional war they have resorted to
acts of terror.
26. Although friendly Muslim countries are unable to
help the Palestinians, the people of these countries do
not feel that they should be bound by the policies of
their Government. And so we find Muslims from other
countries taking part in these acts of terror.
27. From among the more than one billion Muslims there
must be several thousands who would be willing to lose
their lives in what they believe is a struggle for
justice. We have to acknowledge this fact if we are to
succeed in stopping global terrorism.
28. But unfortunately the world is merely aggravating
the situation. Not only are we not trying to remove
the causes, we are actually creating new ones. There
was a time when Muslim countries were in agreement over
the need to stop Iraqi aggressiveness. Today that
unity of purpose has disappeared. Muslims see the
stance taken against Iraq as another act of
discrimination against Muslims.
29. If Iraq is attacked not only will it be a
distraction in the fight against world terrorism but it
is likely to increase the number of recruits to the
ranks of the terrorists.
30. Iraq, Iran and North Korea have been labeled as
the Axis of Evil. But despite the fact that North
Korea has admitted that it has nuclear capability it is
not being threatened with war as Iraq is.
31. We do not want to see North Korea being threatened
with war and the country being militarily attacked but
the accommodating attitude towards North Korea is going
to anger the Muslims more. Yet when North Korea agreed
to cooperate and end its nuclear program, it had not
been appreciated. There was no relaxation of the
condemnation of North Korea nor had food and other aid
been given. Justified or not North Korea feels it had
been let down. Hence the more uncooperative and
belligerent attitude that it had adopted recently.
32. North Korea has never been an easy country to deal
with. But whether it joins the world community or not,
it is still a part of our global village. We have to
learn how to befriend it and get its cooperation.
Cutting off supplies of food and other necessities will
not bring it to its knees. Perhaps we can nuclear bomb
it out of existence. But that would be a confession of
our failure.
33. Looking at Iraq, North Korea, Palestine and many
other hot spots, I cannot help feeling that despite all
our technological progress, our claim to have
established a modern, more humane and sophisticated
civilisation; I cannot help feeling that we have failed
to learn how to cope, how to manage the world. We
still think in terms of the capacity to kill as the
determinant of our strength. We still think that might
is right, that the strong must dominate and the weak
must submit.
34. Frankly I do not think we have progressed much
from the Stone Age. They used clubs and we use nuclear
weapons, but the promise is still the same.
35. It is time that we pause and rethink. Labeling
people as Satan or Axis of Evil merely provoke but does
not resolve anything. Oppressing people or destroying
their countries will not solve problems either. We
have to get away from our old culture and values and
reinvent our civilisation. The globalised world needs
a change in our perception of things and in our way of
dealing with the problems that must arise with change.
36. We cannot live in isolation any more.
Globalisation is not about trade and investments only.
Globalisation must affect everything that we do. We
must also accept that nothing happens in one part of
the world without affecting the rest. The attack on
the World Trade Centre on 11th September is not an
attack on the U.S. alone. It is an attack on the whole
world. By the same token the dispossession of
Palestinian land is not an exclusive problem of the
Palestinians. The terrorism that assails the world
today has a direct connection with the fate of the
Palestinians. Terror has become as globalised as trade
and investments. The law and policy makers of the
world cannot limit their interest to their countries
alone. They have to be interested in the whole world.
That is why it is useful for them to come together and
discuss their national problem as international issues,
as problems which affect the whole world.
37. I would like to express my gratitude to the
President of APPF, Mr Yasuhiro Nakasone and Members of
the Presiding Committee for this opportunity to air my
views. I wish the conference a successful and fruitful
deliberation.
Sumber : Pejabat Perdana Menteri
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