The Malaysian Solution
By Israel Shamir
Take a country populated by
diverse communities, the indigenous and
immigrant, of roughly equal size. These
communities profess different religions and ply
different trades. The immigrants are better at
business; the natives prefer to till their soil.
It could be a description of Palestine with its
native Palestinians and the immigrant Jewish
communities. But here the comparison ends. In
Malaysia, the communities live in peace without
UN peacekeepers, they pursue their cultural and
religious interests without submitting to
bleaching multiculturalism, their country
prospers while rejecting the IMF recipes, and it
is a native son of soil who stands at the helm
of good ship Malaysia.
On a less formal note, Malaysia
is warm, wet and exotic. On the monsoon-swayed
shore of Andaman Sea, a long-tailed, lithe
monkey throws coconuts from the heights of a
palm tree, flying fishes jump out of the warm
blue sea and splash back, a white triangular
sail rises on the horizon. Indians serve their
sweet and punchy tea, teh tarik, pouring
it with gusto in pulling motion, and neatly
place curry on ecologically-sound banana leaves.
Malay fishermen unload their haul on the shore
and sort it under a broad banyan tree. At night,
hundreds of stalls open at the Night Bazaar,
feeding, dressing and entertaining locals and
tourists.
In Malacca, the
oldest-in-East-Asia Catholic church stands next
to the Great Mosque next to a Vishnu temple next
to a Taoist pagoda. The Dutch-built austere Town
Hall is surrounded by spacious British colonial
mansions. Narrow streets preserve the charm of
the Seventeenth Century, when the Malaccan
sultanate was the hub of commerce. Many of its
denizens bear proud Portuguese names, but in
appearance they do not differ from other
residents.
In Penang, old Hakka smugglers
warm their bones on the wooden jetties that form
a floating island off Georgetown. Tamils sell
junk on Armenian street, next to the most
advanced chip plant, home to Athlon
microprocessor. Yuppies have not taken over all
of the Old City, and it reminds of Jaffa as it
was before 1948: a modest, humane Eastern city.
The glorious Oriental Hotel preserves the days
of Somerset Maugham and the Straits'
Settlements. Delightful and modish Chinese girls
flock out of the convent school. Native Malays
carry on their unruffled life in peaceful
villages, happily serve in the army and provide
the backbone of the administration.
Islam is the state religion, as
it had been in the Fourteenth and Fifteenth
Centuries, when it peacefully seeped in and
eventually became preferred to the older Hindu
beliefs. Brought by the traders, Malay Islam is
exceedingly tolerant, local, thoroughly adjusted
to the place, as it is practically everywhere
but on the pages of the New York Times.
The girls do not cover their faces, but often
wear a scarf, like religious Jewish women. On
Fridays, men like to go to a mosque for prayer,
the great social unifier and integrator. As
Communism was always frowned-upon in Malaya,
Islam is the preferred style of social movement.
Prosperity is ubiquitous: perfect
roads, new cars, brushed-up and restored relics
of the past. There are no beggars, no striking
poverty. Malaysians live well: they have given
up home cooking and eat out in countless
restaurants and at the stalls, where one dollar
buys a square meal. Neighbouring Thais and
Indonesians flock in and to cook their national
dishes. The Twin Towers in the centre of
futuristic Kuala Lumpur are the tallest in the
world. 9/11 did not happen here, and the hotel
security's main worry is Durian, strong-smelling
fruit the tourists are prone to smuggle in,
disregarding the "No Durian beyond this point"
signs.
It is a peaceful land: one rarely
sees a policeman or a soldier. There are no
security guards in the shopping centres, no
visible tension, no American troops or bases, no
prostitution, gambling and narcotics. Evening
open-air parties, much swimming in the warm sea,
friendly chat, unrushed small trade: in short, a
relaxing spot. How come ... why do they not
fight, these people of different backgrounds?
The secret of the Malaysian
success was given away by their Prime Minister,
Dr Mahathir bin Muhammad, whom local newspapers
affectionately call 'Dr M': "It is better to
share a pie than to have all of no pie". In the
1960s, Malaysia was torn by strife, for the
native rural Malays felt threatened by the
economic success of the Chinese and Indian
immigrants, city dwellers with a long tradition
of market economy. Numerically, the natives were
hardly a majority, rather a plurality, of
citizens. Economically, they were nowhere. Riots
were frequent, and destruction appeared
imminent. A pie was there to share: mineral
resources, oil deposits, tin and rubber, an
educated work force, a relatively small
population; but the same is true for many
countries that nevertheless came to grief.
Where others failed, the
Malaysians succeeded: they pursued a New
Economic Policy (later called a New Development
Policy), aimed to correct imbalances in
agreement between the communities. That the pie
of national economy should grow and the
respective shares of the communities should be
increasingly equalised was the idea of NEP and
NDP. The prospering immigrant communities
understood that disparity can ruin their good
life, and agreed to affirmative action in the
interest of the indigenous people. The
indigenous Malays acquiesced to this relatively
slow process.
The affirmative action is not too
radical: a Malay student has priority if he
wants to study medicine or business management,
as before the NEP there were just a few Malay
doctors, businessmen, administrators. The native
Malay gets a five percent discount when he buys
an apartment. Malay businesses have some small
tax breaks. In new developments, the developers
have to secure 10 percent of flats and houses
for the Malays, in order to avoid ghetto
formation. Malay is the national language, but
there are street signs in Chinese and English;
Islam is the state religion, but there is full
freedom to practise other religions as well.
A guest from distant Palestine, I
cried: Eureka! If we, Israelis and
Palestinians, would learn from the Malaysian
success, establish equality and take affirmative
action to ensure a fair share for each
community, Palestine would be at least as
prosperous and happy as Malaysia. Even the
notorious Jewish settlements would cause little
irritation if their founders would ensure a fair
share of Palestinian residents. (Nowadays, a
Palestinian is not allowed even to tread on
their fenced grounds.) Malaysia is an example to
emulate. Let us follow the Malaysian way, erase
partition, restore broken unity, return refugees
home and live together happily ever after.
Wealthy and privileged minorities can impose
their will for a while, but in the long run,
only agreement and fair sharing a la
Malaysia will work.
Not only in Palestine: This is a
general panacea against the malady of inequality
and national strife. In the Twentieth Century,
the Masters of Discourse promoted their own
patent medicine: partition and transfer.
Liberally applied in Greece and Turkey, on the
Indian subcontinent, in the Middle East, in the
Balkans and Eastern Europe, in the former Soviet
Union, and this has already ruined half a
planet. Nowhere had it improved things.
Subcontinent Muslims I meet regret the day
Pakistan was torn off India. From Tajikistan to
Belarus people dream of returning of the Soviet
Union. Hungarians and Czechs feel nostalgia for
Oesterreich. Ravaged Smyrna, devastated
Sudetenland and bleeding Palestine confirm that
partition wounds do not heal for centuries, and
that population transfer ensures future
massacres. It should be undone.
The Malaysian way of integration
had an alternative, the way of partition, and it
was pursued by Singapore, a splinter
Overseas-Chinese city-state at the tip of the
Malay Peninsula. It has some similarities to the
Jewish state: authoritarian rule, vast
employment of foreign guest workers, aggressive
stance towards their integrated neighbours. A
great friend of Israel and the Far East base of
Mossad, the Israeli intelligence service,
Singapore is an important link in the global
system of currency trading, an integral part of
the New World Order, a supporter of the US and
Australia. Singapore is better than Israel: it
did not expel its native Malays, did not conquer
the Peninsula, did not launch aggressive wars.
It could be a free and peaceful city-state, but
the dynamics of partition made it a potential
source of trouble. By taking a leaf from
Israel's book, Singapore declared its 'right' to
wage war on Malaysia if the country hikes the
price of the water it sells to the island.
Singapore poisons the minds of
the Malaysian Chinese and encourages their
immigration to the island. It is a very
unnecessary thing, for the Malaysian Chinese
community is well integrated in their country.
In Penang, there is a Chinese Prime Minister,
and, despite affirmative action, the Chinese
retain commanding heights in the economy. What
is worse, Singapore politicians try to influence
decision-making of in the People's Republic, the
economic giant with little political will of its
own. It is proof that the evils caused by
choosing the partition model do not stop at
partition but have lasting, damaging effect on
the world.
How the Malaysians did it
The ruling block of moderate
nationalist Malays and its Chinese and Indian
counterparts have managed the country since the
1960s, and Dr M, actually a medical doctor by
profession, has served as the Prime Minister for
over twenty years. Next year he will retire at
the ripe age of 78. He came to power as a young
radical and Malay nationalist, expressing the
natives' disappointment over the too-slow
progress in levelling economic misbalance
between the communities. His victory scared the
immigrant communities and made them more
amenable to Malay demands. But Dr M carried out
reforms gradually and gently. Under his rule,
Malaysia became a prosperous industrial nation,
a leader in computers as well as in traditional
pursuits. Even more important, it is a rather
happy land of contented people.
Malaysia rejected the Western
idea of nation-state, as it accepted the many-coloured
mosaic of its communities. They are not three,
but rather thirty-three. The Chinese form many
communities of various languages, cultures and
religions. There are Cantonese, Swatow, Hakka,
Hokkien, as distinct as Sicilians and Swedes.
Indians are equally diverse: Muslim and Hindu,
Punjabis, Tamils, Bengalis. The native Malays
also form various tribes and ethnic units. The
oldest inhabitants of the Peninsula, the
orang asli or 'original men', Negroid tribes
akin to Australian aborigines and Indian
Dravidic people, still roam the jungles.
Europeans and their descendents (of mostly mixed
marriages) live in Malacca, Penang and Kuala
Lumpur.
Malaysia rejected the idea of the
'melting pot' as well. Communities are not asked
to integrate and assimilate; they are encouraged
to keep their identity and may attend schools in
their native tongues while keeping the same
curriculum. They do not fall for the trap of
multiculturalism, either. The uncomfortable part
of multiculturalism as preached by New York is
the removal of the backbone of the nation: the
rejection of the original religion and culture
of the majority. As I watched CNN on
pre-Christmas days, I noticed their fear of
actually referring to the Christian holiday
without balancing it by an example of Hanukkah
or Kwanza. Not so in Malaysia: there is a state
religion and a state language, and tolerance of
minorities.
Most importantly, Malaysia
rejected the faith of Neo-Liberalism. Together
with Castro and the Pope, Dr M is an outspoken
critic of the Chicago School. He does not want
to sell assets to the highest bidder, nor
thereby to impoverish people and create a new
class of super-rich. Food and housing are
inexpensive and often subsidised. Dr M is not a
socialist. He prefers a strong middle class, but
he was taught enough Mencius (Mengzi), the
Second Sage of Confucianism, to know of the
obligation of rulers to provide for the common
people.
The Neo-Liberalists tried to
devour Malaysia. The Scourge of Nations, the
Imperial Wizard[1] George Soros, a mysterious
man with unlimited resources and strong ties to
the Israeli intelligence service Mossad, who
broke the Bank of England, ruined Taiwan, South
Korea and Thailand, attacked Malaysia, too. His
financial offensive wiped out ten years of
Malaysian development and ten years of 20
million men's labour: a cool $30 billion of
damage. The country would have been devastated
but for Dr M, who slammed currency controls into
place.
After the Soros plague, Malaysia
asked for help from the IMF and the World Bank,
and was told that aid is conditional upon
acceptance of IMF rules, including lifting of
currency controls. Ostensibly, that was the
purpose of Soros's raid: to break the country,
to send it running to the IMF and to turn it
into a vassal of the New World Order. All
nations that accepted IMF rules were ruined:
from Argentina to Bulgaria, from South Africa to
Russia.
Eduardo Galeano, the noted
Uruguayan writer, in a recent interview, said:
"Argentina did everything it was ordered to do
by the International Monetary Fund and it's
destroyed. The lesson is not to buy into IMF
discourse, which leads not only to the
extermination of national economies, but to
horrific consequences that are not only
economic. A discourse that not only translates
into mass impoverishment and an offensive
concentration of wealth, but into slaps in the
face, the daily insults that are the ostentation
of the power of the few, in the face of the
helplessness of the many... It discredits
democracy. Nowadays, it is identified with
corruption, inefficiency, injustice, which is
the worst thing that could happen to democracy.
Another tremendous injury is the great damage
that the culture of solidarity has suffered all
these years. Right now the predominant culture
is that of "every man for himself", and if you
fall, you're screwed.
The new name for the financial
dictatorship is the "international community";
anything that you do to defend the little that
remains of your sovereignty is "an attack
against the international community", rather
than an act of legitimate defence against the
usury practiced by the banking system that rules
the world, in which the more you pay, the more
you owe. That is why in a country like Argentina
everything has been dismantled: the economy, the
state, the collective identity of a people who
no longer know "who they are, from where they
came or where they are going.".
The stubborn old man, Dr M
refused to accept the IMF diktat, and Malaysia
retained its prosperous independence. It did not
go under as Russia and Argentina, because its
ruler was a determined man who deeply felt his
solidarity with his people. But it was not an
easy feat: Dr M had to fight a
to-the-last-man-standing battle with his Deputy
Prime Minister, Anwar Ibrahim, the IMF supporter
in Kuala Lumpur. Anwar Ibrahim used the
Soros-inflicted depression and stirred unrest. A
weaker man, a Gorbachev, would have collapsed
and vacated his seat, plunging the country into
chaos. Dr M is made of sterner stuff: he deftly
dealt with the Neo-Liberal by using some old and
not-too-liberal laws against homosexuality. That
was a correct if difficult decision: In similar
vein, the Americans had sent Al Capone to jail
on a trumped-up charge of small tax evasion, as
they could not make other charges stick. An IMF
supporter is no better than a gangster.
However, for many Malaysian
intellectuals this was a traumatic experience:
they would have preferred correct results to be
obtained by correct means. "Dearie, don't we
all! But we can't put 'IMF support' into the
penal code", I said to them. "The ruler has a
duty to his people to protect them from
neo-liberal wolves, and this obligation precedes
his personal ethics".
Soros retained a menacing
presence in Malaysia. He paid for a Web magazine
and repeatedly tried to buy a newspaper to
brainwash Malaysians, as he does elsewhere,
notably in Russia. In a Kuala Lumpur hotel, I
met Malaysian fellow journalists who expectedly
complained about another very non-Western
Malaysian precept, that of government-controlled
media. This would have been an embarrassing
moment for me if I had not heard this complaint
twelve years ago, in the offices of Russian
newspapers. The Russians had no Dr M of their
own; they privatised their media. It was
snatched up by a bunch of moguls and turned into
subversion tools against Russia. Now, almost all
Russian media belongs to a galore of Israeli
citizens.
That is why I told my Malaysian
colleagues: "Sorry, guys. If you had had it your
way and made your newspapers and TV independent
of government, you would have had a lot of fun
for a whole week. One week later, your media
would have been bought by George Soros, the man
who preaches of the advantages of open society
to oysters. As long as a wolf roams outside, a
clever sheep sticks to its shepherd".
This week, Dr M had an unexpected
reason for joy: a French court found Soros
guilty of insider trading. Its small fine of $2
million means little for a man who makes $1
billion a day, but it is satisfying to see him
branded a thief. I would not be amazed to learn
that the terrible excesses of the Zionists in
Palestine were arranged as a diversion of
attention away from their Globalist brethren.
While Zionists ruin a village, Soros and the IMF
ruin a country.
Together with Castro, Dr M
understood that the source of their power lies
in the overvalued US dollar. Since 1972, the US
freely issued green bucks no longer tied to
gold. This financial swindle, the biggest in the
history of mankind, brought enormous wealth to
some people, and ruined a lot more. That is why
Malaysia is the brain and the engine of an
ambitious plan to create a stable currency, the
golden Dinar. It is also called the 'Islamic
Dinar', as Islamic Law forbids usury and
interest, and the Dinar will bear zero interest.
(A similar step was taken by Solon the Wise in
Sixth Century BC Athens: he cancelled debts,
zeroed interest and made people free. A hundred
years later, Athens ushered in its Golden Age.)
This year, the Dinar will become the currency to
settle deals between Malaysia and some Arab
countries.
Currency trading, the pet tool of
Soros, should be banned, thinks Dr M:
The traders sell huge sums of
currency they do not have to buyers who are
members of the same circle. The buyers in
turn sell this fictitious currency to
others, force down the value and buy at the
depressed prices. Short selling has been
taken to the ultimate level. The currency
trading is many times bigger than total
world trade.
The New World Order has in Dr M a
most outspoken enemy. He views it as a
continuation of old colonialism by new methods:
Free trade had always been
the war cry of the Europeans. In the 19th
century they used gunboats to open East Asia
for trade. They went to war when they were
not allowed to supply opium to China. Now,
the gunboats have disappeared, but the
pressures are no less effective. An
occupation army cannot colonise more
effectively than the economic arm-twisting
used by the West. Now international
institutions are used to open up the
countries for 'free trade'. Once the
countries are opened up, the big
corporations and banks would move in, and
the locals will be swallowed up.
Dr M has not mellowed with years.
His thinking has become even more striking and
extraordinary. While visiting Japan, he called
upon the Japanese to reject the Western model as
it is sure to ruin their achievements:
Japanese system worked very
well for the Japanese. It made Japan the
second most powerful economy in the world.
It may not be the Western way, but it can't
be all wrong if it can achieve so much.
In Dr M's view, Japan should
return to strong government involvement in
economy, and take up its leading role in Asia,
for "East Asia and the world need Japan, its
dynamism and its single-minded dedication". For
Dr M, as for many important politicians in Asia,
WWII was not a war between ultimate good and
ultimate evil. "The success of the Japanese army
in the early days of the war finally broke the
spell cast by the Europeans. East Asians learned
that their European overlords could be
defeated". Similar sentiments are voiced in Iran
and in Arab countries, where anti-British
resentment brought nationalist leaders to seek
help of the Axis Powers.
Malaysia is an 'alternative'
country where many Western ideas were found
wanting and were rejected. We are used to
frequent changes of prime ministers and
presidents and see it as a success of democracy.
But Dr M, this benevolent king-philosopher in
Plato's mould, disagrees. It takes many years
for policies to produce fruits, he says. First
year in power, the ruler learns to be addressed
and to address others properly. Next year, he
forms his opinions. Then he makes decisions, and
only in a few years can we judge his decisions
properly. He succeeded because he had enough
time, he says.
This idea is unusual for us, but
as the matter of fact, three of the most
charismatic and extraordinary statesmen of our
days, Dr M, Dr Fidel Castro and the Pope,
persist in power for tens of years with great
success. Commercial companies, nowadays as
powerful as any state, also do not change their
helmsmen without urgent need.
Surely, if a statesman like Dr M
were to lead Japan, (or China, or Russia, or,
indeed, the EU) the world would be different.
Many things have changed since WWII, and
Europeans, together with ordinary Americans, are
now experiencing the brunt of the same policies
Asia suffered in its colonial past. 'The Open
Society' has become the tool for robbery brought
home, as the New World Order is the colonisation
of Europeans and Americans by their new
financial elite.
Dr M is a strict opponent of the
American War on Terror. For him, "terrorism
never dies until the causes for terrorism are
eliminated". He speaks against the impending
Anglo-American aggression in Iraq, he refuses to
accept the rant of 'Islamic terror'. Dr M
supports the much-suffering people of Palestine
without the caveats usually produced by his
meek-hearted colleagues in Europe. His voice is
heard, for Malaysia has not surrendered its
discourse to its enemies.
Malaysia reminded me of Cuba, the
Island of Freedom in the Caribbean Sea. It is
also an alternative society where highly
educated men map a different future for mankind,
for "today's world is in shambles. The abuses of
the free trade system, the unlimited greed of
speculators, have resulted in the world losing
its way", in the words of Dr M. Similar ideas
are expressed in Castro's speeches. The two
politicians met a few times and expressed mutual
admiration, despite their huge ideological
differences: Castro the Communist and Dr M the
Nationalist. In Cuba and in Malaysia, one can
read a newspaper or watch TV without nausea.
These two small countries have much for us to
learn from.
* * *
Penang, Malaysia, is home to some
of the best NGOs, notably the Third World
Network, Consumers' Society, Citizens
International and Taiping Peace Initiative.
Their brilliant gurus, Dr Idris Mohammed, Dr
Rajamurti and Anwar Fazal amazed me with their
knowledge and devotion to mankind, and shared
with me their insights. I am most grateful for
their guidance and assistance. I would also like
to thank Dr Alijah Gordon, the American writer
who made Malaysia her home, and Dr Hishamuddin
Ubaidullah, the chairman of Deir Yassin
Remembered in Malaysia. For the local Chinese
opinion I am indebted to Mr To, a Minister of
the Penang Government. I am grateful to the
hospitable people of Malaysia and their Prime
Minister, Dr Mahathir Mohammad, for showing a
possible solution to the problems of Palestine. |