WE live in a distressed and distressing world. The globe is in a crisis mode, by many measures. It is this world that a small nation like Malaysia calls home.
Happily, Malaysia has a disproportionately big voice. All because of one man — Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad. This man of the “Buy British Last” and “Buy Australia Last” fame, turns 94 today. He speaks his mind for Malaysia, and others who are bullied or talked down to.
Dr Mahathir’s speech at the 73rd United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) is, in one way of seeing, a compendium of the man. There, he made the connection between the New Malaysia he leads and the New World Order he has so long been after.
The good doctor, who is frequently rhetoric in his interviews with the media, put his idea of this new world order tangentially thus: if Malaysia can commit to ensure shared prosperity for every Malaysian, why can’t the rest of world.
Granted, a literal reading of his speech in New York on Sept 28 last year would not show this up. But we will brave it and say: we know the man, and this is what he meant. After all, he was speaking on the UNGA theme of “Making the United Nations Relevant to All People: Global Leadership and Shared Responsibilities for Peaceful, Equitable and Sustainable Societies”.
Like in Malaysia last year, Dr Mahathir wants the process of change in the rest of the world to be achieved democratically, without violence or loss of lives.
But this is not going to be easy. Syria is burning. So is Yemen. Before this, Iraq — the land that gave birth to civilisation — was reduced to rubble by greed and shady designs of big and powerful nations.
To go to war in Iraq in 2003, the West invented an excuse. A western coalition in complicity quickly came to be, to reduce to dust what history helped build. Millenniums were gone in minutes. But one voice spoke then. And it continues to speak eloquently in this stifled and silenced world.
Even out of office, Dr Mahathir’s voice didn’t waver. He initiated the Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Tribunal that handed down the world’s first ever conviction of its kind against former United States president George W. Bush and former British prime minister Tony Blair.
The conviction may have been in absentia, but the message was clear: no one should be allowed to get away with war crimes. Even presidents and prime ministers of powerful nations cannot get away with crimes against humanity.
For too long, they have been getting away with bloody murders. Dr Mahathir’s message is simple: the International Criminal Court may turn a blind eye, but Kuala Lumpur won’t. The city is on a mission to make the world take notice of the ills of some men at the helm.
No NST Leader has done this. But we will make an exception for this one voice in the wilderness. Happy birthday, Dr M. With you around, the weak and the meek of the world can stand up to be counted.