The Malaysian Insider

By Debra Chong

PUTRAJAYA, Oct 19 – Beating his anti-colonialism drum again, Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad (picture), today warned the Malays that they stood to be “conquered” anew by the Western powers if they blindly embraced globalisation and pushed for free trade agreements.

“We live in a Euro-centric world,” Malaysia’s longest-serving prime minister said in his speech titled: “Strategic Positioning of Malays in the Borderless World” at the Perdana Leadership Foundation here this morning.

“Europeans are aggressive people; people who like war and who like to acquire what belongs to other people.

“When they suggest a borderless world, perhaps their intent is to conquer us by using economic force,” Dr Mahathir told an audience of 150 alumni from Universiti Teknologi Mara (UiTM) before launching their society website.

In his address lasting well over an hour, the man who drove a “Look East” campaign to counter the  onslaught of Western culture pointed out that Malaysia, which had previously been subjugated by military might, now faced a new threat in the form of  economic pressure and “values-systems”.

Dr Mahathir noted that free trade agreements (FTA) were among the new weapons used by the West to push for covert conquests.

The 84-year-old, who also controlled Malaysia’s purse-strings as finance minister in the latter half of his 22-year rule, reminded his audience how the country nearly became a victim of Western conquest through a deliberate weakening of its currency in the not-too-distant past.

“We must remember this process. People who are weak will lose their land. It may happen again,” he warned.

“In order to face this, we must understand the definition of a borderless world,” the former premier said.

“We don’t want a borderless world,” he stressed.

“They do not invent a policy for our benefit. Whatever the West invents is for them. That’s their intent,” he added.

He pointed to Singapore, a free port which is often held up as an economic role model for the rest of the region to follow.

But he stressed that Malaysia is not like Singapore, which does not have anything to lose in inking FTAs with the US.

“We in Malaysia will have to give up many things if we want to have FTA with America,” Dr Mahathir said, and added: “because Malaysia is multi-racial.”

He insisted that the federal government needs to keep its economic blocks in place “so that we are not controlled by foreigners”, and cautioned that when a country’s economy “is conquered, then politics will soon follow.”

The veteran politician claimed that countries in Central America which had turned into “banana republics” had lost their freedom to decide their heads of state as a result.

“They (the Western powers) will try to determine who is the nest head of government. The president is their choice. Claim that it happened in the banana republics in Central America.

In his younger days, Dr Mahathir had courted much controversy over his harsh criticism of the Malay race in his book, The Malay Dilemma.

“We have to admit the Malays in Malaysia are quite weak. Because of that, it is important to have a government that can protect the Malays,” he reminded his Malay-majority audience.

He warned that if two-thirds of Parliament were made up of people who are not sympathetic to the Malays, then Malay policies will be “threatened”, naming the government’s affirmative action policies like the New Economic Policy (NEP) and the Bumiputra-only admission into UiTM as examples.

Dr Mahathir said that without political clout, it would be impossible to come with a strategy to strengthen the position of Malays.

“Many people say the Malays are lazy,” he said, and recounted a personal story in which he failed to excite interest among Malays in the retail business sector.

He had created a scheme to get Malays to enter the field but observed that of the 3,000 who applied, only 300 turned up and 30 actually tried it out but only one could be considered a success.

He concluded that Malays disliked taking up retail “because it takes too long to become a billionaire.”

Despite his rant for Malays to reject the Western concept, Dr Mahathir said it should not be struck out roundly.

He noted that the FTA had its strengths and weaknesses and called on the Malays to “be wise to decide what to accept and what to reject”.

In his exchange with the floor later, Dr Mahahtir explained that the Malays were prone to act based on their emotions instead of being guided by rational thought.

He pointed out that the same was true of most Muslims, including the Arabs.

The answer, he said, was to first recognise the problem and understand what was at stake and then applying the mind to pick and choose the next course of action to follow.

“If we can overcome challenges, be it nafsu (referring to the Malay word for intense desire or lust) or the physical, then, we can be strong,” he marked.

“If we do not understand what is to come, then we cannot protect and empower ourselves,” he concluded.

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