Malaysia, 2003

Sir, may I, as Prime

Minister of Malaysia and Chairman of the Non-Aligned

Movement, offer my sincere congratulations to the

President on his election as President of the General

Assembly at its fifty-eighth session. I am confident that

given his wisdom, experience and diplomatic skill, he

will be able to steer the proceedings of this session to a

successful conclusion. I wish to assure him of the

10

fullest cooperation of the Malaysian delegation. I

strongly believe that the members of the Non-Aligned

Movement would similarly render their full support

and cooperation to him.

Allow me also to pay tribute to his predecessor,

His Excellency Mr. Jan Kavan, for his dedication and

the effective manner in which he conducted the work

of the fifty-seventh session. I also commend the

Secretary-General for his efforts and perseverance, and

I salute the men and women who had dedicated and

given their lives in the service of the United Nations.

The General Assembly has been conceived as a

forum for the nations of the world, big and small, to air

their views and grievances freely, as the stakeholders in

the governance of the international community.

Unfortunately, it is subservient to the Security Council,

which in turn is subservient to any single one of the five

victors of a war fought more than half a century ago. It

is hardly a democratic forum, but it is all that the great

civilization of the late twentieth and early twenty-first

centuries has — a civilization that is supposed to

uphold freedom.

Still we, the small nations, have much to be

grateful for. From being the colonies of the Europeans,

we are now independent and we are granted

membership of the United Nations with the right to

speak, albeit with proper restraint and decorum, in this

Assembly. As independent nations, we believe that we

have a right to manage our internal affairs ourselves

without foreign interference.

We admit that there are abuses in the management

of our countries by some of our Governments, but our

detractors should remember that they, too, abused their

Governments’ power when they seized land belonging

to indigenous peoples and exterminated them, claiming

that it was their “manifest destiny”, the “white man’s

burden”, to bring civilization by setting up their own

countries in these lands and confining the indigenous

peoples to barren reserves, with no role in the

Government of the new nations. What they did to the

indigenous peoples is not out of character, for in their

own countries they carried out pogroms against the

Jews, inquisitions and mock trials, torture and killing

by burning at the stake.

We all carry the baggage of history, but we would

willingly leave it behind were it not for the fact that

history has a nasty habit of repeating itself. Today, we

are seeing the resurgence of European imperialism. At

first, we thought that the colonization would be virtual.

Merely by economic strangulation and financial

emasculation, the newly independent countries could

be brought to their knees, begging to be recolonized in

other forms. Today, however, we are actually facing the

old physical occupation by foreign forces. Puppet

regimes are installed, dancing as puppets do.

This institution, the United Nations, in which we

had pinned so much hope, despite the safeguards

supposed to be provided by the permanent five, is

today collapsing on its clay feet, helpless to protect the

weak and the poor. This United Nations can just be

ignored, pushed aside, gesticulating feebly as it

struggles to be relevant. Its organs have been cut out,

dissected and reshaped so that they may perform the

way the puppetmasters want. The World Bank, the

International Monetary Fund and the World Trade

Organization have now been turned into instruments of

hegemony to impoverish the poor and enrich the rich.

It is not surprising that today the disparities between

rich and poor are far greater than ever.

With an impotent United Nations and its agencies

turned into national organs of the powerful, the small

nations are now naked and hapless. Even if we are

totally innocent, there is nothing to prevent trumped-up

charges being brought against us.

We feel a great need for the integrity and

credibility of the United Nations to be restored.

Fortunately, the breach of international norms has been

by countries which are reputedly tolerant of free speech

and the rights of others. When criticisms are forbidden,

the abuses will increase until they become intolerable

and revolt takes place, with all the destruction that

accompanies it. That was what happened with Saddam

Hussein on a national scale. That can also happen on an

international scale. Free speech provides the safety

valve, the absence of which must eventually lead to an

explosion.

Since the Asian financial crisis in 1997, Malaysia

has not been able to recover fully. This crisis was

followed by the collapse of the dot.com companies and

the massive cheating by the huge multinational

corporations of the rich. Then came the 11 September

2001 attack by terrorists, which precipitated an

unprecedented tightening of security worldwide and the

invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. The world now lives

in fear — the rich of terror attacks and the others of

being made targets of suspicion and pre-emptive

aggression.

Then came severe acute respiratory syndrome

(SARS), which almost bankrupted many airlines and

the tour and travel business. SARS disappeared almost

as quickly as it appeared, but there is no guarantee that it

or similar new infectious diseases will not come back.

The world has lost its way. The hopes of the post-

Second-World-War period and the United Nations were

dashed by the cold war. The cold war is over now, but

the resultant unipolar world and the ascendancy of

capitalism have brought about new threats. No country

is safe from marauding currency traders who, in a few

short days, can demolish the patiently nurtured

economies of the developing world. Far from being

curbed, these highway brigands are lauded for their

philanthropy. Robin Hood at least stole from the rich to

give to the poor. These highwaymen steal from the

poor and give a paltry sum to assuage their sense of

guilt. They are no philanthropists.

The unipolar world dominated by a democratic

nation is leading the world into economic chaos,

political anarchy, uncertainty and fear. We are not

going to recover or have peace so long as threats are

used for political and economic reforms that most of

the world is not ready for or willing to accept.

If we want to have democracy, the rule of law and

respect for human rights, the powerful must

demonstrate their commitment to all these noble ideas.

And they can begin by restructuring the United

Nations, in particular by abolishing the undemocratic

single-country veto. This should be replaced with a

modified veto whereby two veto powers, backed by

three other members of the Security Council, would be

needed to block any United Nations resolution. Even

that, however, should be gradually dismantled in

favour of majority decisions in the Security Council.

The other important agencies of the United

Nations must be freed from the domination of any

single country. Gradually, they should be made more

democratic.

The free market must be recognized for what it is

— a market in which the bottom line is paramount. It is

not a political force for the disciplining of

Governments. For the right to exploit world trade, a tax

should be levied by the United Nations and used by the

United Nations to build needed infrastructure for the

poor countries of the world. Exchange rates should be

fixed by an international commission based on relevant

issues. Apart from a small commission, no profits may

be made by speculating or manipulating exchange

rates. Subsidies by rich countries for the production of

food and other products must be forbidden, although

poor countries should be allowed for a stipulated time

to protect their industries and food production.

The world has lost its way. The world is moving

too fast. We need to pause to take stock of things.

There is a Malaysian saying that when one loses his

way he should go back to the beginning. We need to go

back to the beginning. If we dare to admit it, many of

the problems that we face today are due to the arbitrary

expropriation of the land of the Palestinians in order to

create the State of Israel in order to solve the European

Jewish problem.