KUALA LUMPUR, 17 September 2003 — Muslims must acquire skills and technology so they can create modern weapons and “strike fear into the hearts of our enemies”, Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad said yesterday.
Mahathir told an international conference of young Muslim leaders here that they must catch up with Western development to “prevent Islam from being humiliated, looked down upon and regarded as a religion of terrorists.”
Frustrations in the Muslim world led to anger and rash actions, such as suicide bombing, but this did not benefit Islam and would not lead to victory, Mahathir said. “We need modern weapons. We need tanks, battleships, fighter planes, knowledge of rockets. These are the weapons that can strike fear into the hearts of our enemies and defend us.”
He said Muslim nations depended on others, including their enemies, for such weapons and received only inferior versions, making no effort to invent, design and test such weapons themselves. Malaysia, a moderate Muslim-majority Southeast Asian nation which has been ruled by Mahathir for the past 22 years, will take over the chairmanship of the 57-member Organization of the Islamic Conference next month.
Mahathir, 77, will retire shortly after the summit, handing power to his deputy, Abdullah Ahmad Badawi. But he demonstrated in his speech yesterday that he would press to the end his oft-stated belief that Muslims need to study science and technology, not just religion.
“There is no magic in their superiority over us, they are mere humans like us,” he said, in apparent reference to developed Western nations, which he regularly accuses of being greedy warmongers targeting Islam in the guise of a war on terrorism.
“We have to read and understand the new sciences, technologies that have contributed to the power and growth of those that are against us. We have to be patient. Over time we will become strong.”
Mahathir has implemented his beliefs in Malaysia, dragging the country from the economic backwaters 20 years ago into the mainstream of Asian manufacturing, establishing a high-tech center to attract major Western companies and recently embarking on a major arms spending spree. Within the past year Malaysia has signed deals for the acquisition of Russian fighter jets, French submarines, British and Russian missile systems and attack tanks from Poland.
In a recent interview with AFP, Mahathir said his call to Muslim nations to build up their military might was so they could defend themselves against attack by the West and not for offensive purposes. “This idea of striking fear into the hearts of enemies is part of the teachings of the Qur’an.
“If they are strong then people will not attack them. But at the moment they are not strong, and because of that, because of their frustration, their anger, they resort to acts of terror. Would the United States attack China? It will not ... because if you do that, you are going to face a very big problem,” he said.
More than 350 participants from the OIC and representatives from 13 countries with Muslim minorities attended the three-day conference in Kuala Lumpur which ended yesterday.
Abdullah said yesterday there would be no shift in policy after he takes over next month from Mahathir. “I just want you to understand that in Malaysia there will be a change of leadership but not a change of regime,” Abdullah told a news conference in Beijing. The incoming prime minister said Mahathir had implemented many good policies and he intended to continue them.
“I certainly plan to continue those good policies,” Abdullah said. “We will have to make sure that Malaysia will continue to be peaceful and politically stable.” Abdullah also said Malaysia had no quarrel with China over its currency policy.
Officials from the United States, Japan and other countries have recently criticized Beijing for pegging its yuan currency at about 8.3 to the dollar, saying that is artificially low and gives Chinese exports an unfair advantage. Asked if he thought the yuan peg hurt Malaysia, Abdullah said: “Our relations with China have brought a lot of benefits to us in many ways”.
