What’s new in Dr.Mahathir’s UNGA 2018 Speech?

September 30, 2018

Opinion  |  Azly Rahman

http://www.malaysiakini.com

COMMENT | Sharp as he was and is, Prime Minister Dr. Mahathir Mohamad rattled off his speech to the international community at 11.40am EST in a shaky voice, befitting a 93-year-old man’s cranking of the vocal cords.

He spoke with a slight Kedah Malay twang, at times swallowing his words and mispronouncing a few. Perhaps the long trip to New York, jet lag, and age itself contributed to an unsmooth and forceless start. Behind the light golden frame of his glasses, his eyes look puffed, and heavy with bags. He looked tired and groggy. But he was making his comeback, and the global community to know it.

Five minutes into the speech, he went right into trumpeting the idea of a ‘new Malaysia’, a slogan more and more now picked up by many Malaysians in their emails and WhatsApp messages – replacing the old “Salam 1Malaysia” which recalls 1MDB, now synonymous with the mysterious and puzzling grand theft of the nation’s coffers, the people’s savings, by Malaysia’s crime ministers and their merry band of more than thieves, including those in turbans and green robes.

So, the grand old man – a veritable GOP of one, or the Vito Corleone of Malaysian politics – spoke at length about the new regime’s commitment to ensuring the country’s equitable share of the nation’s wealth.

“My last speech here was in 2003, and fifteen years later, the world has not changed much. In fact, it is worse now,” he lamented.

 

Against the jade-green UN General Assembly wall, he spoke of Malaysia’s foreign policy of “prosper thy neighbour.” He spoke with a heightened tone of how in May he overthrew race and religious bigotry to destroy the dominant 60-old party he led for 22-years, at a time when there was still no term limit. A time of consolidation of power, inspired by what Niccolò Machiavelli taught to the prince.

Seize power, consolidate power, and disperse it as hegemony, That is the lesson on the deep state of things. Love thy self, know thy enemies, one hundred battles, one hundred victories.

The New Malaysia is faced with the global issues of the effects of the US-China trade war, an attack to the institution of marriage, and the war on terrorism, he complained to the assembly.

But it was, in general, a good speech. Vintage Mahathir. Anti-imperialist, anti-hegemony, anti-oppression, and anti-US, primarily. I did not expect anything different in content, delivery and tonality from the Prime Minister.

He sounded as defiant as David throwing stones at Goliath or Hang Nadim warding off the swordfish with just a keris, as he did during the time of Fidel Castro, Yasser Arafat, Shimon Perez, George Bush, Bill Clinton, and Robert Mugabe – his peers in the general assembly, not all of whom lasted as long as he has.

This defiance is how Malaysia’s foreign policy was crafted and communicated to a world that continues to prioritise bombs over bread.

Dr. Mahathir had a message for Myanmar’s Nobel Laureate Aung San Suu Kyi  

I used to like it when Mahathir spoke to the world. He, for lack of a better cliché, called a spade a spade. I just didn’t like what he did to the country in his 22 years of ‘solopreneurial’-political rule. While calling for world justice, he did several degrees of harm to the country’s economic, political, and educational culture, and ensured that almost all power is concentrated in the executive.

But at the UN General Assembly this year, Mahathir had nothing new to say: strive for peace in a world defined by, to use Willy Brandt’s term, “arms and hunger.”

I did, however, like Mahathir’s mention of the military-industrial complex, of the world arming itself, and the proliferation of conflicts in a paradigm governed by the all-too-familiar maxim “in order to have world peace, nations must prepare for war.”

 

It is a Bismarckian world the current president of the US would uphold, what with the “principled realism” undergirding the country’s foreign policy – a realism based on the might of the right, and the Pentagonian power of war-loving corporate America of defence contractors, bomb makers, Lockheed-Martin, Boeing, DuPont, and Raytheon; builders of warmongering tools of peace; speakers of the language of the war system, realpolitik and gunboat diplomacy.

Thank you, Mahathir, for pointing that out.

As the Malaysian ‘comeback kid’ left the podium, teleprompter and all, I did not feel anything except a sense of academic nostalgia – of ploughing through hundreds of pages of his speeches of the 1980s, as he spoke of world peace.

Same tone same message, perhaps taken from old files, but whose contents still work fine. Because the world is still the same. Sane and insane. Whether in the global arena, or at home, in Mahathir’s Malaysia.

---

AZLY RAHMAN is an educator, academic, international columnist, and author of seven books. He grew up in Johor Bahru, and holds a Columbia University doctorate in international education development and Master’s degrees in five areas: education, international affairs, peace studies communication, and creative writing.

The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of Malaysiakini.

A Victory for America: Narrow Self-Interest?

by Dr. Fareed Zakaria

Americanism– Trump’s Victory ?

President Trump’s speech on Tuesday (September 25, 2018) at the United Nations was an intelligent — at times eloquent — presentation of his “America First” worldview. He laid out an approach of pursuing narrow self-interest over broader global ones and privileging unilateral action over multilateral cooperation. But Trump might not recognize that as he withdraws America from these global arenas, the rest of the world is moving on without Washington. Wittingly or not, Trump seems to be hastening the arrival of a post-American world.

Take one of his first major actions, pulling out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the sweeping trade deal conceived during the George W. Bush administration and negotiated by Barack Obama’s administration. It was an attempt to open long-closed markets such as Japan and also to create a grouping that could stand up to China’s growing muscle in trade matters.

The other 11 TPP countries decided to keep the deal minus Washington, which simply means the United States will not gain access to those markets. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, while sweet-talking Trump, also quickly struck a free-trade agreement with the European Union, creating one of the largest economic markets in the world and giving opportunities to Europe that might otherwise have gone to the United States.

As Ivo H. Daalder and James M. Lindsay point out in a forthcoming book, “The Empty Throne,” if you are not at the table, you are on the menu. When Washington steps away, the global agenda is shaped without U.S. input. So withdrawing from the U.N. Human Rights Council simply means that American diplomats will watch the group’s routine condemnations of Israel from the sidelines while having less ability to bring moral pressure to bear on despots everywhere.

The Trump administration’s constant attacks on the World Trade Organization, an American idea, have left the field wide open and China is eagerly jumping in to shape the rules and conventions that will govern global trade. When Trump cuts funding for various international agencies, he is playing right into the hands of Beijing, which has long sought greater influence in these bodies. China will happily pick up the tab and accept new posts, along with the status and clout they bring. Similarly, the bizarre and continued absence of key American diplomats — no assistant secretaries of state for East Asia and South Asia; no ambassadors to Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Egypt and South Africa, among others — means that American interests are not represented.

Perhaps the most remarkable new effort to sidestep America has come from the Europeans, in reaction to Trump’s decision to pull out of the Iran nuclear pact and re-impose financial sanctions on Iran and anyone who does business with it. Because of the immense global strength of the dollar, few major companies are willing to engage commercially with Iran — since dollars are the most commonly used currency for international transactions. This has infuriated the Europeans, who believe they should have the ability to do business with anyone they want.

They are therefore trying to create an economic mechanism that can bypass the dollar. As E.U. foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini told me this week, “We cannot accept, as Europeans, that others — even our closest allies and friends — determine and decide with whom we can make business with or trade.” She indicated that others — presumably the Russians and Chinese — might join this effort. Were the European Union efforts to come to fruition, they would put a dent in the most significant element of American financial power — the unrivaled role of the dollar in the global economy.

The truth is, the European effort is unlikely to succeed. The dollar’s clout has actually increased in recent years as a globalized international system has needed a common currency. The euro’s future remains in doubt, China’s yuan isn’t even convertible, Japan’s yen represents a country in deep demographic decline. And yet, it seems foolish for the United States to pursue policies that produce the desire to curtail American power, bypass Washington and create new arrangements — especially among America’s closest allies. It’s one thing for Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping to try to usher in a post-American world. It’s another for Europe to take the lead in doing so.

The result of America’s abdication will not be European or Chinese dominance. It will be — in the long run — greater disorder, the erosion of global rules and norms, and a more unpredictable, unstable world with fewer opportunities for people to buy, sell and invest around the globe.

In other words, it means a less peaceful and prosperous world — one in which American influence will be greatly diminished. How does this make America great?

https://fareedzakaria.com/columns/2018/9/27/how-is-this-a-victory-for-america

(c) 2018, Washington Post Writers Group

Dr. M’s UNGA Address should hit right home

September 30, 2018

by Dr. Sharifah Munirah Alatas

http://www.freemalaysiatoday.com

–

Prime Minister Dr. Mahathir Mohamad’s Address to the United Nations General Assembly was poised, articulate and to the point.

He did not mince his words when he spoke about global political, economic, social and environmental conditions since his last address 15 years ago, in 2003.

The gist? That the world has not changed much in terms of reform; that the developing world is still being bullied by powerful nations; that the trade war between the US and China continues to impoverish poorer and smaller countries; that there is a growing ambiguity of social values, and that the notion of freedom has become skewed, at best.

Intellectually-sharp and laudable, Dr. Mahathir delivered his poignant message, that the “new Malaysia” is not naive. He told the UN General Assembly that Malaysia will continue to soldier on with other countries, through the United Nations, to make the world a better place, economically, politically, socially and environmentally.

In foreign policy jargon, Mahathir delivered a warning against the acts of dangerous, threatening Hitlers and the misconceptions of peaceful, law-abiding allies.

Overall, his Address championed the aspirations of the developing world and smaller non-aligned nations. However, there is more that we should take away from his Address, in order to render his thoughts more relevant in the domestic Malaysian context.

There are three key areas the new Malaysia should focus on. Mahathir spoke of global terrorism. Although he did not specify the actual definition of the term (or of the word “terrorist”), one can read between the lines. He lamented that there is “something wrong with our way of thinking, with our value system. Kill one man, it is murder, kill a million and you become a hero”.

What he actually means is that the powerful have the capacity to define concepts in order to justify certain acts. Terrorism, as coined by the powerful, is a notion applied to non-state actors, jihadists and transnational communities of oppressed people who react violently to achieve justice.

Powerful states have the sole purpose of pushing their economic and political agendas and so a global understanding of the concept of terrorism was born after 9/11.

Yes, about 3,000 died mercilessly at the World Trade Center in 2001. But almost 130,000 (mostly civilians) perished in one day, in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, in 1945. This is more than 43 times the death toll at the hands of the so-called Islamic terrorists.

Yet, throughout the decades after World War Two, the acceptable narrative describing US geo-political advances (and those of her allies) was never termed “terrorist” or “terrorism”.

I am not condoning such acts as no mass killing of civilians can be considered civilised behaviour. However, we must consider here the socio-political manipulation of labels.

In the Malaysian context it is happening all around us to the detriment of the common people. For instance, the notion of “the rights of Malays” and “the welfare of the Malays”. What rights are we focusing on? The right to get a job based on race or the right that all qualified and capable Malays should be appropriately awarded?

For me, it is the latter. Yet, certain politicians still choose to speak about the unfair treatment of the Malays and that the new Pakatan Harapan government should be tasked to help bring them up to greatness and to be protected.

The label of “rights” is bandied around but its meaning is deliberately couched in ambiguity for an ulterior political motive.

Using Mahathir’s example of the plight of the Rohingyas, his message was an appeal for “caring”; that just because a nation is independent it does not mean the world should close an eye to domestic suffering and injustice.

He reiterated that nations need to solve the problems of global conflict, racism and bigotry by going back to the root causes.

Similarly, the state of Malaysia’s education system needs care and we need to identify the root causes of the inequality that exists in our schools and universities.

Agreed, our teachers and professors are not being massacred, and neither are our students. But mentally, the massacre began 61 years ago.

The public university leadership has failed to produce thinking professional graduates and to my mind, this is humanity’s greatest form of oppression.

We are all aware that our public university leadership is more concerned with national and international rankings, administrative positions of the academic staff, titles and research funding.

But are the research funds, for instance, channeled into meaningful projects to help society overcome real problems of poverty and discrimination?

Are the researchers and academics “caring” enough to plan such research even though they may not be awarded a future government contract or a datukship?

This brings me to my next point: values. Mahathir commented that there is something wrong with our way of thinking.  To my mind, the sole purpose of an education is to instil good values. These include moderation, dignity, integrity, hard work, perseverance and honour. No matter what religion or creed one belongs to, these are universal values.

In post-election Malaysia, this topic has surfaced many times. But I fear it is just a narrative with no substance.

There are many issues that have surfaced since PH took over. From the appointment of key ministerial positions, to presidents of universities, to the PD move, to child marriage, the list goes on.

Nepotism, cronyism and corruption still loom over us but it is not too late for values reform. What better way to start than to realise that, while it is important for us to preach values to the international community, we should apply this to our own society.

There is a need for all Malaysians to delve deeper into Mahathir’s UNGA Address because he was not only sending a message to the superpowers and their allies.We should also see his message as a warning to tackle our own domestic crises; problems that have arisen as a result of past mistakes, on-going stubbornness to address those mistakes and a lack of foresight.

Dr.Sharifah Munirah Alatas is an FMT reader.

The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of FMT.

453 Shares

His Excellency Samdech Akka Moha Sena Padei Techo Hun Sen, Prime Minister of Cambodia’s Address@73rd UNGA

September 30, 2018

 

BERSATU They Stand: Bersatu, the new face of Ketuanan Melayu Politics?

September 29, 2018

by S Thayaparan

http://www.malaysiakini.com

“Our fight is a fundamental fight against both of the old corrupt party machines, for both are under the dominion of the plunder league of the professional politicians who are controlled and sustained by the great beneficiaries of privilege and reaction.” – Theodore Roosevelt

COMMENT | I just do not get it. There seem to be two narratives when it comes to this idea of a unity government. The first is about how Pakatan Harapan de facto leader Anwar Ibrahim and his coterie are working in a sub rosa fashion with UMNO to form a unity government, while the second is about how UMNO is going, hat in hand, to Malay power structures in Harapan to cease being a “government in waiting.”

What I don’t understand is why people really think that the big bad wolf is still UMNO, as if it will be the catalyst that would down the Harapan regime. The existential threat to Harapan is not UMNO, but an ideology that paralyses any progressive destiny of Malaysia… Harapan needs a strong Malay mandate if they are to throw their weight around in a multiracial, multi-religious coalition, which they have never been comfortable with.”– S. Thayaparan

Both narratives are false because the reality is that a unity government is already forming. What I don’t understand is why people really think that the big bad wolf is still UMNO, as if it will be the catalyst that would down the Harapan regime. The existential threat to Harapan is not UMNO, but an ideology that paralyses any progressive destiny of Malaysia.

Hidup Melayu –UMNO’s Soul–has support of the majority of the Malay community

UMNO does not have to form a unity government with Harapan before the next election – because by the next election, there will be no UMNO. When the old maverick and now Harapan’s Dr. Mahathir Mohamad claims that UMNO is finished, it is not because the people voted UMNO out. The party still has support of the majority of the Malay community.

War of Attrition

What is going on now is a war of attrition within Malay power structures, which means that UMNO rats are abandoning ship and heading to other ‘Malay’ lifeboats.

Malay power structures in PKR and Bersatu have openly said they would accept UMNO into the fold. While they make weak qualifications of membership, the reality is that Harapan needs a strong Malay mandate if they are to throw their weight around in a multiracial, multi-religious coalition, which they have never been comfortable with. The old maverick knows this, and so do the political operatives – Malay and non-Malay – within Harapan.

PKR lawmaker Wong Chen , in dismissing the idea of a unity government, rightly pointed out that – “That question is best addressed to Bersatu because UMNO members are leaving to join Bersatu.”

People pay attention to the power brokers of UMNO jumping ship, but the reality is that UMNO has been haemorrhaging grassroots members to Bersatu, and to a lesser extent, PKR.

While PAS may have picked up some support because of the new anti-Mahathir feeling of some UMNO members, the biggest draw by far has been Bersatu, which is seen as the new face of Malay politics.

Bersatu They Stand

While some folks have no problem demonising Anwar for his apparent racial and religious politics, the fact is that Bersatu as the so-called champion of Malay rights and Islamic superiority is the main draw for people who want to abandon UMNO.

My reading of why Anwar is blathering on about race and religion is that because he understands that the Malay vote base is more comfortable with a race-based party like Bersatu, and not a nominally multiracial outfit like PKR.

Indeed, Bersatu benefits from Anwar’s and Deputy Prime Minister Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail’s rather silly pronouncements, because eyes are diverted away from Bersatu and the old maverick’s shenanigans when it comes to policy decisions, the Harapan manifesto, and the ambivalence towards the rising tide of Islamic provocations in this country.

Not to mention, the old guard of Umno who really did not like former president Najib Abdul Razak is working the levers ensuring that Bersatu is the main beneficiary of those exiting the former ruling party.

While Anwar may say that he has no fear of Mahathir and his personal relationship is good, his actions and those of his supporters betray the deep anxiety they have of the way the political terrain is shaping in this post-Umno reality.

So the old maverick does the needful and reiterates his pledge that Anwar would be the next prime minister. But you have to wonder if Mahathir is saying this amid talks of a unity government, doesn’t it just further the narrative that Anwar is impatient, which inflames the Harapan (non-Malay) base against his former protégé, because the majority of the Malay base is already skeptical?

‘Glory Days’

People who think that the destruction of UMNO is some sort of closure to the racial and religious politics in this country are fooling themselves. Beyond the urban centres where Bersatu and PAS are eventually going to have their showdown, the politics of race and religion will be the battleground. This will seep into the urban enclaves. It always does.

Back in the day, Dr. Mahathir, the current Prime Minister had no problem with the help of his non-Malay counterparts launching offensives against PAS, but at the same time, working the Islamic angle to his advantage.

Many UMNO supporters who are thinking of jumping ship tell me that what they see forming is a return to the old days, when the Chinese and Malays were “working together” under the great Mahathir. They see this as a return to the glory days. This is swell for them, but it was then that the roots of destruction of this country were planted.

Rational Malaysians should not buy into this propaganda of a unity government pushed by the political elites. The narratives that Harapan rejects any form of unity government, or that some in Harapan are working towards this aim, should be rejected.

Remember, the ‘Ketuanan’ system that many in UMNO find appealing has been replaced with the slowly forming pillars of BN Redux – “don’t spook the Malays” and “coming as close as we can to get the government to say those laws are wrong.”

The first is the foundation of the ‘Ketuanan’ system, which is what UMNO political operatives – and really, every mainstream Malay political operative – need to sustain political power, because they do not want to discover new ways.

The second is the compromise with non-Malay power structures, which is the easy power-sharing formula that worked so well at the height of Mahathir’s reign.

In the current climate, there will be more big-name casualties when it comes to the malfeasance of the Najib regime, and there will definitely be more defections – after a suitable period of contriteness of course – of UMNO members to Bersatu and PKR.

Anwar’s Port Dickson gambit will determine if he remains a player when it comes to this high-stakes Malay political game. But make no mistake, the unity government is already forming, and while the body of UMNO will be destroyed, its soul will find a new vessel.

---

S THAYAPARAN is Commander (Rtd) of the Royal Malaysian Navy.

The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of Malaysiakini.

Share this story

AddThis Sharing Buttons

Share to Facebook542Share to TwitterShare to WhatsAppShare to EmailShare to PrintShare to More

You Might Also Like

 

The long and winding road to media freedom

September 29, 2018

 

by Dean Johns

http://www.malaysiakini.com

COMMENT | There’s a political storm raging right now in Australia about suspected government-instigated interference in the independence of one of this nation’s most cherished institutions, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC).

This comes at a time when levels of public trust in politicians, political parties and corporate pressure-groups and media power-brokers are at all-time lows.

Even the major banks and other financial organisations, whose very existence depends on trust, have been exposed by a royal commission into their activities that Australia’s ruling coalition for years fiercely denied the need for, as systematically dishonest to the point of criminality in many of their dealings with customers.

And far too many of Australia’s commercial news media are controlled by Rupert Murdoch’s (photo) News Corp, often more accurately referred to as News Corpse.

 This is an organisation that so confuses media freedom with media feraldom as to have disgraced itself several years ago in the UK phone-hacking scandal that led to its closure of its dreadful News Of the World, but not, unfortunately, its equally sordid Sun – or, if you prefer, the Shun – and continues to disgrace itself today with its Fox News in the US.

In Australia, it peddles such right-wing-partisan apologies for “newspapers” as The Australian, Sydney’s Daily Telegraph and Melbourne’s Herald-Sun, all of which pander to their proprietor’s personal, commercial and political interests by shamelessly slanting their news to fit his views.

And into this very bad bargain, the Murdoch media in the UK constantly campaign against publicly-owned media like the BBC in the UK and the ABC in Australia on the dubious, self-interested grounds of “unfair competition” for print readers, air-media viewers and internet “eyeballs”.

Australia’s government has been responding to this campaign by slashing the ABC’s budget whenever possible, and constantly making complaints about what they choose to perceive as its left-wing bias.

As a result, the ABC managing director Michelle Guthrie was recently fired by the corporation’s board of directors for reasons that the chairman of the board Justin Milne refused to publicly disclose.

And now the chairman himself has been asked by the rest of his board to resign following claims that he had bowed to pressure from Australia’s recently-replaced prime minister Malcolm Turnbull (photo) to propose the sacking of two senior ABC journalists that Turnbull “hated”.

Or at least that’s the plot so far in outline, and anybody interested in exploring it in more detail or following it further would be well advised to do so here.

Meanwhile, this sordid affair should serve as a salutary reminder to citizens of Australia and many other countries never to take their relatively free news media for granted.

And as a timely reminder to Malaysians that the media freedom that most, if not all, of them have dreamed of for so long will not be won quickly or easily.

Lapdogs, not watchdogs

As the much-admired elder statesman Lim Kit Siang said last week in his speech to a large audience assembled by the Sydney branch of Global Bersih, Malaysia now has the chance to transform itself from a kleptocratic black hole to a beacon of enlightenment, probity and progress, but this achievement may take years if not decades.

And I would add that it will never happen without genuinely free, independent and unbiased news media to serve as the people’s watchdogs over whatever government is in power, and also over every other aspect of the nation’s economic, civic and social activities.

The first steps in this direction have already been taken, of course, by Malaysiakini, Sarawak Report and several other pioneering portals dedicated to the dissemination of respectable, responsible and above all, independent news and opinion.

But for 20 years now, they’ve been the tiny exception to the rule imposed on the majority of Malaysia’s so-called “mainstream” media which have served not as watchdogs for the people but as lapdogs for the repressive, corrupt and otherwise criminal and now mercifully defunct UMNO-BN regime.

This is largely due to such unconstitutional laws as the Printing, Presses and Publications Act, the far-too-widely-applied Official Secrets Act, the Sedition Act and the Anti-Fake News Act.

So firstly, if Lim Kit Siang’s version of what I presume to be Pakatan Harapan’s vision for Malaysia is to be eventually realised, all of UMNO-BN’s anti-press freedom laws must be repealed.

Next, or even simultaneously, legislation has to be enacted forbidding political parties or their backers from ownership of news media, and requiring political parties’ shares in existing ones to be immediately surrendered or sold.

But changing truth- and independence-repressive media laws might be one thing, and changing media culture quite another, given that the managers, editors and so-called “journalists” of the mainstream media have been so long and apparently so happily serving as pet propagandists for filthy rich politicians and their cronies.

Anybody who imagines that many or even the majority of these panderers will change their spots beyond switching their craven allegiances to those they see as the new or latest people in power must be dreaming.

As must anyone who fancies that a great many of these ‘presstitutes’ will in future refuse to take bribes for suppressing or playing up stories, depending on who’s the highest bidder for their services.

But this poses the question of how to quickly replace these people, or re-educate enough of them in everything from the ABC to the XYZ of basic news reporting, let alone such advanced versions of the profession as investigative journalism.

---

DEAN JOHNS, after many years in Asia, currently lives with his Malaysian-born wife and daughter in Sydney, where he coaches and mentors writers and authors and practices as a writing therapist. Published compilations of his Malaysiakini columns include “Mad about Malaysia”, “Even Madder about Malaysia”, “Missing Malaysia”, “1Malaysia.con” and “Malaysia Mania”.

The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of Malaysiakini.