Sunday, March 25, 2007

Muslim world needs another Mahathir Mohamad to stand up to the West

By Kaleem Omar

The Organisation of Islamic Conference (OIC) countries are at sixes and sevens these days and seem unable to make a convincing case for the legitimate rights and concerns of the Muslim world in its dealings with the West, and, more particularly, with the United States, where most Muslim nations continue to be regarded by the neo-con Bush administration and its cohorts in the pro-Israeli sections of the American media as “terrorist” states or states providing “support” or “safe havens” to anti-Western terrorists.

The OIC itself has become a largely ineffectual organisation concerned more with the minutiae of drafting hollow-sounding resolutions and summit declarations than with matters of substance. .....Meanwhile, the OIC, as usual, is sitting doing nothing and looking the other way as Washington’s orchestrated drum-beat for an attack on Iran grows louder and louder.

This sorry state of affairs underscores the need for the OIC countries to find another leader of the caliber, stature and independent-mindedness of former Malaysian Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad to represent the Muslim world in its dealings with the United States and other Western countries.....

.....In his opening address at the 10th session of the OIC summit in Putrajaya, Malaysia, on October 16, 2003, Dr Mahathir was again at his acerbic best. To thunderous applause from the gallery, which included representatives of 57 Muslim nations plus Russian President Vladimir Putin and Philippine President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, Mahathir let fly with a stinging statement. “We are actually very strong,” he said. “1.3 billion people cannot be simply wiped out. The Europeans killed 6 million Jews out of 12 million. But today the Jews rule this world by proxy. They get others to fight and die for them.”His comments created a storm of criticism in the West, but Mahathir said later that such criticism only showed that the Jews did indeed rule the world.....

Read the full article at http://thenews.jang.com.pk/daily_detail.asp?id=45451

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

You are absolutely right. We do need another Mahathir. The first one was bad enough, squandering the country's wealth and taking on tasks too big for his people's capability, undertaking projects that have little economic values, except prestige(gaya). I see the country going down the same path as Indonesia. The only thing that keeps the country going is its natural wealth, but as the population grows and there is less of the pie to share because they are not baking as many as they should there is going to be more poverty