It is an interesting subject, which does you fear: Recession or Terrorism?
My take will be neutral in this case, because if we think in a clear mind, both of them have a direct relationship with each other, in another word, if one happened, the other will follows. But, if you want me to take a clear stand, it will be recession.
What do you fear more: Terrorism or recession?
Posted: May 18, 2008 ,1902 GMT
By: Todd Benjamin
I want to ask a controversial question. What do you fear more, terrorism or a recession? Now before you think I’m insensitive or have gone off the deep end, let me explain how I came to ask this.
I was leaving the CNN building and outside, one of our camera crews had set up to do a live report. I asked the producer what the reporter would be talking about. “Terrorism,” she replied.
So I asked her, what do you fear more, terrorism or a recession? She gave me one of those looks which said, you can’t be serious Todd, suggesting that the one and only correct answer is terrorism.
But it’s not the only answer, and here’s why.
The cameraman said he actually feared a recession more. “What do you mean?” the producer asked, incredulously.
The cameraman said he figured his chance of being a victim of terrorism was pretty low, so he feared a recession more. And this is a guy who has seen death up close.
In no way am I downplaying a terrorist attack. Obviously when it happens, it has a devastating effect. We have seen the aftermath of 9/11, the Madrid bombings, the London bombings, and elsewhere.
The image of those planes flying into the World Trade Center in New York City, smoke billowing as people ran from the towering infernos, will forever be etched in our minds.
I can also remember feeling uneasy the first few days after the bombings in London in July of 2005, but then life regained its normalcy, its everyday rhythm.
Even in the immediate aftermath, I was struck by how many people went on with their daily lives, taking public transportation or standing and drinking outside pubs, refusing to give in to the fear that terrorists want to instill.
However, right now, I suspect if I asked many people what do you fear more, an act of terrorism or recession? Many would answer a recession.
I think for many of us, an act of terror is something we can’t control, because we don’t know when or where it will happen.
When it happens our hearts go out to the victims, and families, and we also feel angry and violated because innocent people die or are seriously injured and traumatized.
But as horrible as terrorism is, it could be argued that a recession affects many, many more people, millions who don’t lose their lives, but lose their jobs, their identities, homes, and possibly relationships also with devastating effect.
So is it any small wonder that the cameraman and others might fear a recession more than a terrorism attack?
As I said in the first sentence, it’s a controversial question, but in these times when there’s so much talk of recession, it’s a question I’m asking.
Tell me what you fear more, I’d like to know where you stand on the issue.
Monday, May 19, 2008
Sunday, May 18, 2008
Tun M's interview with BBC back in April (Interesting interview)
BBC 'HardTalk' interview with Dr M
Posted by labisman
Saturday, 17 May 2008
For those of you who missed the interview on TV, here's a re-run....
Stephen Sackur Introduction:
Last month marked a watershed in the politics of Malaysia. The ruling national front recorded its worst election results in five decades. It's still in power but seriously weakened. My guest today personifies the power of the ruling party for 22 years. He was Malaysia's PM and one of the most outspoken leaders in the Muslim world. His critics called him a racist and a dictator. Has retirement mellowed Mahathir Mohamed?
Stephen Sackur: Dr Mohamad welcome to Hardtalk. Let's start with that election result last month, has it marked the beginning of the end for Malaysia's ruling party?
Mahathir Mohamad: Not necessarily, unless no action is taken, of course it may result in that. But if proper action is taken, including of course the present Prime Minister leaving his seat of power, it may be possible to bring back the Barisan Nasional Front in order to become again a very strong ruling party.
Stephen Sackur: You're saying that PM Abdullah Badawi has to be kicked out for the ruling party to recover?
Mahathir Mohamad: Well not so strong as that. He can step down. I stepped down in my time. It's about time that he steps down because the result of the election shows clearly that many of the former followers, supporters of the Nasional Front had decided that they would work, vote for the Opposition even if they didn't like the Opposition. They voted for the Opposition to send a message to the present government.
Stephen Sackur: Prime Minister Abdullah says that you have been one of the curses that have brought him down, because you've been sniping from the sidelines for the last two or three years.
Mahathir Mohamad: That may be so. I don't see why I should not criticise wrongdoings by him.
Stephen Sackur: What wrongdoings?
Mahathir Mohamad: Well in the first place, the government promises to remove corruption and things like that, but the government is found to be corrupt.
Stephen Sackur: You are tearing your own party apart though, that is the problem. And that is what many people inside your party believe.
Mahathir Mohamad: Well sometimes it may be necessary. I told people that I'm a doctor. If I find one leg becoming gangrenous I remove it.
Stephen Sackur: Now he has said Prime Minister Abdullah, that he will go eventually, but is your message to him that he has no time, he must go now?
Mahathir Mohamad: He must go now, because he will take time to revive the party for the next election.
Stephen Sackur: Isn't the truth of what we see in Malaysiatoday that the real discontent isn't so much with Prime Minister Abdullah, it is with the system and the ideology that you bequeathed to your country?
Mahathir Mohamad: Well the system and the ideology have been there for the last 50 years. It's worked very well we had always won elections, people always supported us and the country has done very well during that 50 years with that system.
Stephen Sackur : But the indications are and the opposition succeeded by saying to the public, we no longer want this racially defined system inside Malaysia. And it was the racial defined system that was the platform upon which you succeeded in running Malaysiafor 22 years.
Mahathir Mohamad: I think that's wishful thinking on the part of foreign critics. But the fact is that this election result was due to disaffection on the part of the ruling party's supporters, with the present leadership.
Stephen Sackur : Well let me just quote you the words of the new head of PenangStateand let's not forget that these results saw five very big and wealthy states go to the Opposition. The new head of Penang State Mr Lim Guan Eng, he says 'we want a new state administration that is free from corruption and cronyism, we are here to build a PenangStatefor all.' You didn't build a Malaysiafor all did you?
Mahathir Mohamad: I did. If you look at Malaysiatoday. Everybody is enjoying, has enjoyed, a very good life. They have become very prosperous. Malaysiawas one of the fastest growing countries in the world. If you look at the different races, you can find that they all benefited from that government. So it is of course, necessary for Opposition parties to make remarks like that.
Stephen Sackur : But they are not making it up are they? Let's look at your new economic policy which you pursued for so long. It favours ethnic Malays, in so many different ways, from public sector appointments to university places, to advantageous acquisition of stocks, discounts on housing, I don't know where to stop. There are so many different ways in which you ran an unequal system.
Mahathir Mohamad: No this was a policy which was initiated by my predecessors, it was necessary to...
Stephen Sackur : But you ran it for 22 years, you had ample opportunity to change it.
Mahathir Mohamad: Yes I had ample opportunity to implement in a way that will correct imbalances that existed in Malaysiasince the British days. And unless these imbalances are corrected there's bound to be another race riot, as happened in 1969.
Stephen Sackur : But the point is that 80 thousand Indians for example, were on the streets protesting long and loud last November, because they are no longer prepared to live with the racial division that you set in the stone.
Mahathir Mohamad: Why now? Why not during my time? They were quite free to demonstrate. Many of the people who disagreed with me demonstrated...
Stephen Sackur : But many of the people who disagreed with you, I'm afraid ended up in prison.
Mahathir Mohamad: Who?
Stephen Sackur : Hundreds of them, read every Amnesty international and human rights watch report for the years in which you were in power..
Mahathir Mohamad: The western press, the problem is that you make up these stories and then you take this as the truth, it's not the truth. Tell me who are the hundreds of people who ended up in prison.
Stephen Sackur: I'll discuss human rights a little bit later. I just want before we get distracted from this question of racism in Malaysia, I just want to put to you this final point: Anwar Ibrahim says that he is going to push and of course he your long time friend who became, your political enemy, he is going to push for a colour blind Malaysiawhere affirmative action is open to all who need help.
Mahathir Mohamad: Well this opportunism for him, now that he is out of the government, he was in the government for a long time, he never made any complaints, he never did anything to.
Stephen Sackur : He certainly made a complaint when you locked him up.
Mahathir Mohamad: Well that was not the reason why he was locked up, he was accused of sodomy, he was accused of abuse of power, he was tried in court, nine months and he was defended by nine lawyers and he was found guilty...
Stephen Sackur : Trumped up charges.. trumped up charges.. says not just Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International but I've been looking through the record, the Canadian government, the White House, the International Commission of Jurists, all of them expressed grave and deep concern with the way in which your judicial system treated Anwar Ibrahim.
Mahathir Mohamad: Yes you're free to say so but...
Stephen Sackur : I'm not saying it, I'm just quoting to you all the people who did say it.
Mahathir Mohamad: But what is the record of these countries? These people, these same countries arrested people without the law, and detained them in GuantanamoBayand even in Britainhere, you arrest people and detain them without any sanction by law.
Stephen Sackur : So does that make it okay that you did it for 22 years?
Mahathir Mohamad: We did it under the laws of the country, but it is not the way...
Stephen Sackur : You used the laws which went back to colonial times, the internal security act, emergency procedures, you feel satisfied to tell me that that was entirely legitimate?
Mahathir Mohamad: No we find that the situation in the country is very very fluid and it is very likely that there will be racial riots, unless we prevent precise people who are promoting racial hatred from talking about it.
Stephen Sackur : Put it this way, Dr Mahathir, you've had several years out of power now to consider your record and what you did, I wonder whether you are now ready to say that you regret what you did to Anwar Ibrahim?
Mahathir Mohamad: Why should I regret? He was arrested under the laws of the country, he was tried in the courts of the country and he was sentenced by the court. If he was not wrong, I don't think, no matter what you think about our judiciary, I don't think he would have been
sentenced to prison.
Stephen Sackur : It damaged your reputation though didn't it?
Mahathir Mohamad: Well that's something I have to accept.
Stephen Sackur : You may also find it comes back to haunt you? Anwar Ibrahim is now leading the opposition coalition. We are led to believe that there are certain MPs in the ruling party who may defect to him, in which case he could very soon be running the government. And he's made it plain that he wants to have you answer for all of the things you do while you were in power.
Mahathir Mohamad: Well he's welcome to do that if he becomes the Prime Minister of Malaysia, but if he wins over members of the ruling party to his side, it is the prime minister, the present leader who should be blamed, because he couldn't even get the loyalty of his own members.
Stephen Sackur : It wasn't the current prime minister who was in power when Anwar Ibrahim was savagely beaten during his time in detention?
Mahathir Mohamad: Savagely beaten? I know he was slapped and he had a black eye which was very useful for election purpose...
Stephen Sackur : Why you think he hit himself maybe?
Mahathir Mohamad: Well I don't know what happened..but the police the IGP admitted that he assaulted Anwar, but that wasn't me that was the IGP.
Stephen Sackur : But how do you respond, if Anwar comes to power and he as he said on this programme and elsewhere, that he wants a full and thorough public inquiry into all of your, Dr Mahathir's misdeeds, how will you respond to that?
Mahathir Mohamad: He is welcome to do so, but I hope that he finds people who are neutral, who are impartial, probably foreigners, because I don't trust the people that they put after people they don't like.
Stephen Sackur : Interesting that you say you don't trust people who are currently or maybe in charge of any inquiry, do you trust the integrity of the Malaysian judiciary?
Mahathir Mohamad: I do, at times I do but...
Stephen Sackur : is that because you appointed the judges?
Mahathir Mohamad: I didn't appoint the judges, the judges were recommended by the Chief Justice and my duty is to check whether he has any records or not and after that he is presented to the king who will then appoint the judge...
Stephen Sackur : Dr Mahathir, you know as well as I do, that the hottest political topic in Malaysiatoday, is the state of the judiciary, the integrity of the judiciary and that a video has been playing in Malaysiafor a long time now which shows a top lawyer talking to a top judge going back to 2001, in which the lawyer says to the judge 'believe me in the end all of the positions going all the way to the supreme court are fixed by the politicians', i.e. by you who were the prime minister at the time Dr Mahathir?
Mahathir Mohamad: Did he say that? Did he mention my name?
Stephen Sackur : He didn't mention your name he said this will be fixed, this goes through the political system. You ran the political system.
Mahathir Mohamad: I'm not so sure about that. But the fact is that this man had his video taken because they intended to blackmail him. He happens to be my lawyer, defending me at this moment for libel against Anwar and this tape came from Anwar. Anwar had these things
recorded in order to blackmail the lawyer.
Stephen Sackur : But the point is the current government led by Prime Minister Abdullah who is nominally or despite what you have said on this programme, is of your party. Prime Minister Abdullah has now essentially apologised, he said both to the supreme court justice that you removed and to other judges that were suspended or removed during your time in power, he's said sorry to them. He's said that he wants to offer them monetary compensation
Mahathir Mohamad: Fine but it's a political move. Something a man who is very unpopular at the moment, wanting to show that he's going to do something right.
Stephen Sackur: And that Dr Mahathir is my point. The Malaysian people no longer want to live with the system you created. That's why Prime Minister Abdullah is essentially dismantling the system that you created.
Mahathir Mohamad: No no no he's not dismantling the system, he is making use of the system in a worse way. Nobody can say anything against him, he has newspapers which only reports about him and how great he is. And he was mislead by his own supporters, into believing
that if he holds the election now, this is one and half years before the end of the term, he would win, he would have a clean sweep.
If you look at the records, he made statements that he would win the election, with zero for the Opposition.
Stephen Sackur: The more I listen to you talking about Prime Minister Abdullah, the more I wonder why did you choose him to be your successor?
Mahathir Mohamad: Well these people are very smart in hiding their true character. He was known as Mr Clean and I thought I would appoint a clean person to succeed me. Although he was not the one with the highest votes in my party. But I thought that he was older and I
appointed him thinking that he's not going to do anything very wrong. But this man gives priority to his family rather than to the country.
Stephen Sackur: So it was a fundamental lack of judgement on your part?
Mahathir Mohamad: Yes I'll admit that. But we all make mistakes. The British people voted in people like Blair, who told lies, so did the Americans. Lots of people make mistakes.
Stephen Sackur: We all make mistakes you say, was it also a mistake for you to define yourself so clearly, as anti-western and anti-democratic, in the sense that the West understands democracy?
Mahathir Mohamad: No that's the problem, I am not anti-Western, I am against the bad things that were done by the Western countries.
Stephen Sackur: You're not anti-western and yet in June 2003 before you left office, you said anglo-Saxon Europeans are essentially proponents and I'm quoting here: 'proponents of war, sodomy and genocide.'
Mahathir Mohamad: Which is true, you must admit.
Stephen Sackur: But you're not anti-western?
Mahathir Mohamad: I'm stating the fact. This is their character and I will continue to say so.
Stephen Sackur: So when you come here, you sit in the Hardtalk studio, in the heart of London, you regard yourself do you, as in one of the Headquarters of war, sodomy and genocide?
Mahathir Mohamad: Well I come here of course expecting to be lambasted by you, because that is the way you work.
Stephen Sackur: Well I'm not lambasting you at all. I'm trying to tease out whether you believe it was a mistake for you to use this sort of language. Because you clearly cut yourself off, from any sort of meaningful dialogue with the West when you use these words.
Mahathir Mohamad: Well the Europeans used to call us the lazy Malays, incompetent Malays, untrustworthy Malays, we couldn't say a thing about you. So when I was in a position to say what we think about you, and I did and you don't like it. When you said it to us you expect us
to like it. We didn't like it, but we had no way of making our voices heard.
Stephen Sackur: I am just wondering how you feel about democracy. Of course in the world since 9/11, the United Statesand the coalition of partners led by the United Kingdom, have talked a lot about spreading democracy, do you believe in democracy?
Mahathir Mohamad: If you look at the history of the west, they come up with all kinds of ideologies, they use it for sometime and then they found it defective and they dropped it and start on another. One day they are going to forget about democracy because in some countries
democracy actually ended up with anarchy. And there were practically no governments. It's not a system that can feed everybody. You must have a certain understanding of the limitations of democracy, in order to make it work.
Stephen Sackur: Is that why you were not a democrat, why you in the end did behave like a dictator?
Mahathir Mohamad: Well that is something that the West would like to say about me, I am a dictator.
Stephen Sackur: Well I'm just quoting your own words from 2002. You said it's good governance people need, you said, feudal kings even dictators have provided and can provide good governments.
Mahathir Mohamad: Well that's very true, that is very true. The great civilisations of the past did not have democracies. And yet they became great. It's not necessary that the system will work for everybody. But if we have a bad leader, even the democratic system will fail.
We must remember that it is a democratic country which dropped atomic bombs, killing 200 thousand people.
Stephen Sackur: How do you think the Malaysian public will respond to you saying, look you know what democracy isn't the best system and in fact dictatorship can often work better.
Mahathir Mohamad: I went through five elections and I won all the elections with a majority...
Stephen Sackur: Without a free press, locking up many of your opponents.
Mahathir Mohamad: There you go again about locking up many of my opponents, who are they?
Stephen Sackur: I don't know how many times I have to tell you, that I've studied the human rights watch reports, the Amnesty International reports, studies from the state department, from the Canadian government.
Mahathir Mohamad: These are biased reports, the first thing I did on becoming the prime minister in 1981, was to release political prisoners who were detained by my predecessors, 22 or them, including many members of the Opposition.
Stephen Sackur: Under the 1984 Press law which required newspapers to get a new licence every single year. It made it very easy for you to quieten them down, didn't it?
Mahathir Mohamad: No it has always been there, the press law has been there...I didn't do that...but the fact is that we have a multi-racial country and if we are not careful, there will be racial flare-ups. And you look at most of the countries with multi-racial population, they are never peaceful, even Northern Ireland, it took you such a long to stop the war in Northern Ireland.
Stephen Sackur: Talking of peace, you did worry about the stability of your country, didn't you? That's why you were very strong, very tough with Islamist extremism inside Malaysia.
Mahathir Mohamad: Yes it is necessary.
Stephen Sackur: Well I just wonder in that case then why just before you left office, in October 2003, why did you tell the Islamic Summit Conference that and I'm quoting again a very famous speech, it's a little bit long but '1.3 billion Muslims cannot be defeated by a few million Jews,' you said. 'We're actually very strong. The Europeans killed six million Jews out of 12 million but today Jews rule this world by proxy. They get others to fight and die for them.' You went
on to say: 'But the Jews have become arrogant. And arrogant people like angry people will make mistakes and there may be a window of opportunity for us.'
Mahathir Mohamad: I'm stating facts, I am willing to say that again and again that this is what has happened.
Stephen Sackur: Anti-Semitic and racist that was called by many governments and people around the world.
Mahathir Mohamad: Anti-Semitism is created by the Jews themselves. We cannot say anything. In fact journalists have been arrested for saying something against the holocaust and jailed for three years. Where is the freedom of press?
Stephen Sackur: So those words I quoted in your view, are not anti-Semitic?
Mahathir Mohamad: No they are not anti-Semitic? I am just quoting facts. The fact is that the United Statesobeys what Israelwants it to do.
Stephen Sackur: You call them facts, let's leave that aside for the moment. I am trying to understand your logic. Here you are a man who says that your own country is potentially destabilised by Islamic extremism and then you go out in an Islamic Conference and you use
words which could have been used by Osama bin Laden.
Mahathir Mohamad: There's no contradiction, no contradiction at all. I don't want Islamic terrorism any more than I want Jewish attacks against Israel, or American bombs on Baghdad. It is not incompatible.
Stephen Sackur: Do you feel confident that people still listen to your message?
Mahathir Mohamad: I wouldn't be able to say. Why should people worry about me?
Stephen Sackur: In Malaysiapeople say, and I'm talking about the Prime Minister, the leader of the Opposition: it's time for you to be quiet.
Mahathir Mohamad: Why should I be quiet? You mean to say when they are doing something wrong, to my country and I should not say anything? I would be irresponsible if I were to do that.
Stephen Sackur: Dr Mahathir Mohamad thank you very much for being on Hardtalk.
Mahathir Mohamad: You're welcome.
Posted by labisman
Saturday, 17 May 2008
For those of you who missed the interview on TV, here's a re-run....
Stephen Sackur Introduction:
Last month marked a watershed in the politics of Malaysia. The ruling national front recorded its worst election results in five decades. It's still in power but seriously weakened. My guest today personifies the power of the ruling party for 22 years. He was Malaysia's PM and one of the most outspoken leaders in the Muslim world. His critics called him a racist and a dictator. Has retirement mellowed Mahathir Mohamed?
Stephen Sackur: Dr Mohamad welcome to Hardtalk. Let's start with that election result last month, has it marked the beginning of the end for Malaysia's ruling party?
Mahathir Mohamad: Not necessarily, unless no action is taken, of course it may result in that. But if proper action is taken, including of course the present Prime Minister leaving his seat of power, it may be possible to bring back the Barisan Nasional Front in order to become again a very strong ruling party.
Stephen Sackur: You're saying that PM Abdullah Badawi has to be kicked out for the ruling party to recover?
Mahathir Mohamad: Well not so strong as that. He can step down. I stepped down in my time. It's about time that he steps down because the result of the election shows clearly that many of the former followers, supporters of the Nasional Front had decided that they would work, vote for the Opposition even if they didn't like the Opposition. They voted for the Opposition to send a message to the present government.
Stephen Sackur: Prime Minister Abdullah says that you have been one of the curses that have brought him down, because you've been sniping from the sidelines for the last two or three years.
Mahathir Mohamad: That may be so. I don't see why I should not criticise wrongdoings by him.
Stephen Sackur: What wrongdoings?
Mahathir Mohamad: Well in the first place, the government promises to remove corruption and things like that, but the government is found to be corrupt.
Stephen Sackur: You are tearing your own party apart though, that is the problem. And that is what many people inside your party believe.
Mahathir Mohamad: Well sometimes it may be necessary. I told people that I'm a doctor. If I find one leg becoming gangrenous I remove it.
Stephen Sackur: Now he has said Prime Minister Abdullah, that he will go eventually, but is your message to him that he has no time, he must go now?
Mahathir Mohamad: He must go now, because he will take time to revive the party for the next election.
Stephen Sackur: Isn't the truth of what we see in Malaysiatoday that the real discontent isn't so much with Prime Minister Abdullah, it is with the system and the ideology that you bequeathed to your country?
Mahathir Mohamad: Well the system and the ideology have been there for the last 50 years. It's worked very well we had always won elections, people always supported us and the country has done very well during that 50 years with that system.
Stephen Sackur : But the indications are and the opposition succeeded by saying to the public, we no longer want this racially defined system inside Malaysia. And it was the racial defined system that was the platform upon which you succeeded in running Malaysiafor 22 years.
Mahathir Mohamad: I think that's wishful thinking on the part of foreign critics. But the fact is that this election result was due to disaffection on the part of the ruling party's supporters, with the present leadership.
Stephen Sackur : Well let me just quote you the words of the new head of PenangStateand let's not forget that these results saw five very big and wealthy states go to the Opposition. The new head of Penang State Mr Lim Guan Eng, he says 'we want a new state administration that is free from corruption and cronyism, we are here to build a PenangStatefor all.' You didn't build a Malaysiafor all did you?
Mahathir Mohamad: I did. If you look at Malaysiatoday. Everybody is enjoying, has enjoyed, a very good life. They have become very prosperous. Malaysiawas one of the fastest growing countries in the world. If you look at the different races, you can find that they all benefited from that government. So it is of course, necessary for Opposition parties to make remarks like that.
Stephen Sackur : But they are not making it up are they? Let's look at your new economic policy which you pursued for so long. It favours ethnic Malays, in so many different ways, from public sector appointments to university places, to advantageous acquisition of stocks, discounts on housing, I don't know where to stop. There are so many different ways in which you ran an unequal system.
Mahathir Mohamad: No this was a policy which was initiated by my predecessors, it was necessary to...
Stephen Sackur : But you ran it for 22 years, you had ample opportunity to change it.
Mahathir Mohamad: Yes I had ample opportunity to implement in a way that will correct imbalances that existed in Malaysiasince the British days. And unless these imbalances are corrected there's bound to be another race riot, as happened in 1969.
Stephen Sackur : But the point is that 80 thousand Indians for example, were on the streets protesting long and loud last November, because they are no longer prepared to live with the racial division that you set in the stone.
Mahathir Mohamad: Why now? Why not during my time? They were quite free to demonstrate. Many of the people who disagreed with me demonstrated...
Stephen Sackur : But many of the people who disagreed with you, I'm afraid ended up in prison.
Mahathir Mohamad: Who?
Stephen Sackur : Hundreds of them, read every Amnesty international and human rights watch report for the years in which you were in power..
Mahathir Mohamad: The western press, the problem is that you make up these stories and then you take this as the truth, it's not the truth. Tell me who are the hundreds of people who ended up in prison.
Stephen Sackur: I'll discuss human rights a little bit later. I just want before we get distracted from this question of racism in Malaysia, I just want to put to you this final point: Anwar Ibrahim says that he is going to push and of course he your long time friend who became, your political enemy, he is going to push for a colour blind Malaysiawhere affirmative action is open to all who need help.
Mahathir Mohamad: Well this opportunism for him, now that he is out of the government, he was in the government for a long time, he never made any complaints, he never did anything to.
Stephen Sackur : He certainly made a complaint when you locked him up.
Mahathir Mohamad: Well that was not the reason why he was locked up, he was accused of sodomy, he was accused of abuse of power, he was tried in court, nine months and he was defended by nine lawyers and he was found guilty...
Stephen Sackur : Trumped up charges.. trumped up charges.. says not just Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International but I've been looking through the record, the Canadian government, the White House, the International Commission of Jurists, all of them expressed grave and deep concern with the way in which your judicial system treated Anwar Ibrahim.
Mahathir Mohamad: Yes you're free to say so but...
Stephen Sackur : I'm not saying it, I'm just quoting to you all the people who did say it.
Mahathir Mohamad: But what is the record of these countries? These people, these same countries arrested people without the law, and detained them in GuantanamoBayand even in Britainhere, you arrest people and detain them without any sanction by law.
Stephen Sackur : So does that make it okay that you did it for 22 years?
Mahathir Mohamad: We did it under the laws of the country, but it is not the way...
Stephen Sackur : You used the laws which went back to colonial times, the internal security act, emergency procedures, you feel satisfied to tell me that that was entirely legitimate?
Mahathir Mohamad: No we find that the situation in the country is very very fluid and it is very likely that there will be racial riots, unless we prevent precise people who are promoting racial hatred from talking about it.
Stephen Sackur : Put it this way, Dr Mahathir, you've had several years out of power now to consider your record and what you did, I wonder whether you are now ready to say that you regret what you did to Anwar Ibrahim?
Mahathir Mohamad: Why should I regret? He was arrested under the laws of the country, he was tried in the courts of the country and he was sentenced by the court. If he was not wrong, I don't think, no matter what you think about our judiciary, I don't think he would have been
sentenced to prison.
Stephen Sackur : It damaged your reputation though didn't it?
Mahathir Mohamad: Well that's something I have to accept.
Stephen Sackur : You may also find it comes back to haunt you? Anwar Ibrahim is now leading the opposition coalition. We are led to believe that there are certain MPs in the ruling party who may defect to him, in which case he could very soon be running the government. And he's made it plain that he wants to have you answer for all of the things you do while you were in power.
Mahathir Mohamad: Well he's welcome to do that if he becomes the Prime Minister of Malaysia, but if he wins over members of the ruling party to his side, it is the prime minister, the present leader who should be blamed, because he couldn't even get the loyalty of his own members.
Stephen Sackur : It wasn't the current prime minister who was in power when Anwar Ibrahim was savagely beaten during his time in detention?
Mahathir Mohamad: Savagely beaten? I know he was slapped and he had a black eye which was very useful for election purpose...
Stephen Sackur : Why you think he hit himself maybe?
Mahathir Mohamad: Well I don't know what happened..but the police the IGP admitted that he assaulted Anwar, but that wasn't me that was the IGP.
Stephen Sackur : But how do you respond, if Anwar comes to power and he as he said on this programme and elsewhere, that he wants a full and thorough public inquiry into all of your, Dr Mahathir's misdeeds, how will you respond to that?
Mahathir Mohamad: He is welcome to do so, but I hope that he finds people who are neutral, who are impartial, probably foreigners, because I don't trust the people that they put after people they don't like.
Stephen Sackur : Interesting that you say you don't trust people who are currently or maybe in charge of any inquiry, do you trust the integrity of the Malaysian judiciary?
Mahathir Mohamad: I do, at times I do but...
Stephen Sackur : is that because you appointed the judges?
Mahathir Mohamad: I didn't appoint the judges, the judges were recommended by the Chief Justice and my duty is to check whether he has any records or not and after that he is presented to the king who will then appoint the judge...
Stephen Sackur : Dr Mahathir, you know as well as I do, that the hottest political topic in Malaysiatoday, is the state of the judiciary, the integrity of the judiciary and that a video has been playing in Malaysiafor a long time now which shows a top lawyer talking to a top judge going back to 2001, in which the lawyer says to the judge 'believe me in the end all of the positions going all the way to the supreme court are fixed by the politicians', i.e. by you who were the prime minister at the time Dr Mahathir?
Mahathir Mohamad: Did he say that? Did he mention my name?
Stephen Sackur : He didn't mention your name he said this will be fixed, this goes through the political system. You ran the political system.
Mahathir Mohamad: I'm not so sure about that. But the fact is that this man had his video taken because they intended to blackmail him. He happens to be my lawyer, defending me at this moment for libel against Anwar and this tape came from Anwar. Anwar had these things
recorded in order to blackmail the lawyer.
Stephen Sackur : But the point is the current government led by Prime Minister Abdullah who is nominally or despite what you have said on this programme, is of your party. Prime Minister Abdullah has now essentially apologised, he said both to the supreme court justice that you removed and to other judges that were suspended or removed during your time in power, he's said sorry to them. He's said that he wants to offer them monetary compensation
Mahathir Mohamad: Fine but it's a political move. Something a man who is very unpopular at the moment, wanting to show that he's going to do something right.
Stephen Sackur: And that Dr Mahathir is my point. The Malaysian people no longer want to live with the system you created. That's why Prime Minister Abdullah is essentially dismantling the system that you created.
Mahathir Mohamad: No no no he's not dismantling the system, he is making use of the system in a worse way. Nobody can say anything against him, he has newspapers which only reports about him and how great he is. And he was mislead by his own supporters, into believing
that if he holds the election now, this is one and half years before the end of the term, he would win, he would have a clean sweep.
If you look at the records, he made statements that he would win the election, with zero for the Opposition.
Stephen Sackur: The more I listen to you talking about Prime Minister Abdullah, the more I wonder why did you choose him to be your successor?
Mahathir Mohamad: Well these people are very smart in hiding their true character. He was known as Mr Clean and I thought I would appoint a clean person to succeed me. Although he was not the one with the highest votes in my party. But I thought that he was older and I
appointed him thinking that he's not going to do anything very wrong. But this man gives priority to his family rather than to the country.
Stephen Sackur: So it was a fundamental lack of judgement on your part?
Mahathir Mohamad: Yes I'll admit that. But we all make mistakes. The British people voted in people like Blair, who told lies, so did the Americans. Lots of people make mistakes.
Stephen Sackur: We all make mistakes you say, was it also a mistake for you to define yourself so clearly, as anti-western and anti-democratic, in the sense that the West understands democracy?
Mahathir Mohamad: No that's the problem, I am not anti-Western, I am against the bad things that were done by the Western countries.
Stephen Sackur: You're not anti-western and yet in June 2003 before you left office, you said anglo-Saxon Europeans are essentially proponents and I'm quoting here: 'proponents of war, sodomy and genocide.'
Mahathir Mohamad: Which is true, you must admit.
Stephen Sackur: But you're not anti-western?
Mahathir Mohamad: I'm stating the fact. This is their character and I will continue to say so.
Stephen Sackur: So when you come here, you sit in the Hardtalk studio, in the heart of London, you regard yourself do you, as in one of the Headquarters of war, sodomy and genocide?
Mahathir Mohamad: Well I come here of course expecting to be lambasted by you, because that is the way you work.
Stephen Sackur: Well I'm not lambasting you at all. I'm trying to tease out whether you believe it was a mistake for you to use this sort of language. Because you clearly cut yourself off, from any sort of meaningful dialogue with the West when you use these words.
Mahathir Mohamad: Well the Europeans used to call us the lazy Malays, incompetent Malays, untrustworthy Malays, we couldn't say a thing about you. So when I was in a position to say what we think about you, and I did and you don't like it. When you said it to us you expect us
to like it. We didn't like it, but we had no way of making our voices heard.
Stephen Sackur: I am just wondering how you feel about democracy. Of course in the world since 9/11, the United Statesand the coalition of partners led by the United Kingdom, have talked a lot about spreading democracy, do you believe in democracy?
Mahathir Mohamad: If you look at the history of the west, they come up with all kinds of ideologies, they use it for sometime and then they found it defective and they dropped it and start on another. One day they are going to forget about democracy because in some countries
democracy actually ended up with anarchy. And there were practically no governments. It's not a system that can feed everybody. You must have a certain understanding of the limitations of democracy, in order to make it work.
Stephen Sackur: Is that why you were not a democrat, why you in the end did behave like a dictator?
Mahathir Mohamad: Well that is something that the West would like to say about me, I am a dictator.
Stephen Sackur: Well I'm just quoting your own words from 2002. You said it's good governance people need, you said, feudal kings even dictators have provided and can provide good governments.
Mahathir Mohamad: Well that's very true, that is very true. The great civilisations of the past did not have democracies. And yet they became great. It's not necessary that the system will work for everybody. But if we have a bad leader, even the democratic system will fail.
We must remember that it is a democratic country which dropped atomic bombs, killing 200 thousand people.
Stephen Sackur: How do you think the Malaysian public will respond to you saying, look you know what democracy isn't the best system and in fact dictatorship can often work better.
Mahathir Mohamad: I went through five elections and I won all the elections with a majority...
Stephen Sackur: Without a free press, locking up many of your opponents.
Mahathir Mohamad: There you go again about locking up many of my opponents, who are they?
Stephen Sackur: I don't know how many times I have to tell you, that I've studied the human rights watch reports, the Amnesty International reports, studies from the state department, from the Canadian government.
Mahathir Mohamad: These are biased reports, the first thing I did on becoming the prime minister in 1981, was to release political prisoners who were detained by my predecessors, 22 or them, including many members of the Opposition.
Stephen Sackur: Under the 1984 Press law which required newspapers to get a new licence every single year. It made it very easy for you to quieten them down, didn't it?
Mahathir Mohamad: No it has always been there, the press law has been there...I didn't do that...but the fact is that we have a multi-racial country and if we are not careful, there will be racial flare-ups. And you look at most of the countries with multi-racial population, they are never peaceful, even Northern Ireland, it took you such a long to stop the war in Northern Ireland.
Stephen Sackur: Talking of peace, you did worry about the stability of your country, didn't you? That's why you were very strong, very tough with Islamist extremism inside Malaysia.
Mahathir Mohamad: Yes it is necessary.
Stephen Sackur: Well I just wonder in that case then why just before you left office, in October 2003, why did you tell the Islamic Summit Conference that and I'm quoting again a very famous speech, it's a little bit long but '1.3 billion Muslims cannot be defeated by a few million Jews,' you said. 'We're actually very strong. The Europeans killed six million Jews out of 12 million but today Jews rule this world by proxy. They get others to fight and die for them.' You went
on to say: 'But the Jews have become arrogant. And arrogant people like angry people will make mistakes and there may be a window of opportunity for us.'
Mahathir Mohamad: I'm stating facts, I am willing to say that again and again that this is what has happened.
Stephen Sackur: Anti-Semitic and racist that was called by many governments and people around the world.
Mahathir Mohamad: Anti-Semitism is created by the Jews themselves. We cannot say anything. In fact journalists have been arrested for saying something against the holocaust and jailed for three years. Where is the freedom of press?
Stephen Sackur: So those words I quoted in your view, are not anti-Semitic?
Mahathir Mohamad: No they are not anti-Semitic? I am just quoting facts. The fact is that the United Statesobeys what Israelwants it to do.
Stephen Sackur: You call them facts, let's leave that aside for the moment. I am trying to understand your logic. Here you are a man who says that your own country is potentially destabilised by Islamic extremism and then you go out in an Islamic Conference and you use
words which could have been used by Osama bin Laden.
Mahathir Mohamad: There's no contradiction, no contradiction at all. I don't want Islamic terrorism any more than I want Jewish attacks against Israel, or American bombs on Baghdad. It is not incompatible.
Stephen Sackur: Do you feel confident that people still listen to your message?
Mahathir Mohamad: I wouldn't be able to say. Why should people worry about me?
Stephen Sackur: In Malaysiapeople say, and I'm talking about the Prime Minister, the leader of the Opposition: it's time for you to be quiet.
Mahathir Mohamad: Why should I be quiet? You mean to say when they are doing something wrong, to my country and I should not say anything? I would be irresponsible if I were to do that.
Stephen Sackur: Dr Mahathir Mohamad thank you very much for being on Hardtalk.
Mahathir Mohamad: You're welcome.
Do you want some Caffeinated chips? (Taken from Gizmodo.com)
"Pardon me while I pander to a stereotype and assume that you, dear reader, are interested in these caffeinated chips by Engobi. Coming in Xtreme flavors like "Cinnamon Surge" and "Lemon Lift," each bag of this snack has 70% more caffeine than the average energy drink. Using Red Bull as a metric, that puts Enobi chips at 136 milligrams of caffeine—or right on line with a cup of strong coffee. Seeing as most of us can down two or three cups for breakfast, that means all those Engobi-eating, Red Bull-drinking X-gamers have been posing for glamor shots at amateur night. Their cute haircuts, tats and piercings can call us when they switch to diesel."
Blogger's note: Looks like someone went overboard with their Cup Of Java joke...
Gorgeous Photo of Microwaved CD (Taken from http://gizmodo.com/391479/gorgeous-shots-of-microwaved-cds)
We haven't nuked a CD since the 90s either, but maybe that's only because we didn't have the right camera setup to capture the digital destruction in all of its glory. The Wacky Archives features a few remarkable shots of our ex-favorite pastime and we strongly recommend it as an opulently wasteful way to burn 3 minutes of your precious Saturday.
Gaia straits: Planetary doctor says condition terminal (Taken from CNN)
"Humans always think of these things in grand terms." Lovelock is philosophical about the climate crisis.
As someone who has studied his patient for over 40 years, the 88-year-old scientist and originator of Gaia theory, has reached a bleak prognosis: the world as we know it is ceasing to exist.
The impact of humanity has set in train processes that, according to Lovelock, are irreversible.
Pollution, overpopulation and carbon emissions have already pushed the earth's delicate regulatory systems beyond the point of no return, he says, and steps to address the climate crisis can do no more than slow down the inevitable.
"What we did was to pull the trigger in all of those things and set in course a motion, a change in the Earth, which is to all intents and purposes unstoppable," he tells CNN.
The legacy for future generations is a world where droughts and extreme weather are commonplace, large portions of the planet are turned to uninhabitable desert and billions of people destined to die off.
He has predicted that by 2040 the Sahara will be encroaching on Europe, and by 2100 there will be only 500 million of us surviving close to the poles.
It is a grim account of what's in store, and at odds with a large portion of scientific opinion that contends that if we take action now to cut carbon emissions, we can at least mitigate some of the worst effects of climate change.
So why should we take notice of him? Well, for one thing history is on his side: The British scientist's seemingly fanciful assessments of our world have proved right in the past.
In the 1960s he came up with a revolutionary understanding of how the world works. All living things, he theorized, have a regulatory effect on the Earth's environment, working together as one complete "superorganism" to sustain life.
In other words, life itself creates the conditions for life.
This holistic view of the planet he named Gaia after the Greek goddess of the Earth on the suggestion of his neighbor at the time in the English county of Wiltshire, William Golding, the author Lord of the Flies.
At first embraced by the New Age and environmental movement but almost totally ignored by the scientific community, the essential truth of the Gaia hypothesis -- that the Earth regulates itself -- has since been adopted by the scientific mainstream.
"It's a top down view of the planet looking at it as a whole system, and science unfortunately in the last century divided [the study of the earth] up into numerous specialties," he says.
According to Lovelock, this is why his predictions on climate change are more extreme, but also more accurate than those of leading scientific bodies like the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which he claims is limited in its assessment because it is made up of specialists whose focus is too narrow.
"The IPCC is made up largely of atmospheric physicists who are good at predicting the weather, but I'm not so sure that they are very good at predicting the future of the Earth.
"Likewise, the biologists who should be working with them are working separately and have produced the Millennium Ecosystem Assessments Commission's report and that's quite different from the IPCC and it's mostly concerned with biodiversity and things like that."
Although he offers some points of light -- putting an aerosol layer of fine particles into the stratosphere to reflect back sunlight may, he says, could buy us some time by slowing down the rate of decline for a decade -- his projections are on the whole brutally pessimistic.
Oddly however, he insists that he is himself an optimist by nature.
Listening to Lovelock it is easy to see why his theories caught on with New Age thinkers -- there is a strain of spirituality in much of what he says.
He's philosophical about the extinction of the human race, for example, viewing it as just another stage in the Earth's life cycle.
"Humans always think of these things in grand and big terms, rather than as part of the natural course of events. There are all sorts of organisms that have evolved on the earth in its long, long four billion years of history.
"For example, organisms like the photo-synthesizers appeared and, ultimately turned the atmosphere into one with lots of oxygen in it ... all sorts of dreadful things must have happened when that change took place.
"What we're doing is small beer compared with what has happened in the past, and that's why the earth is so robust and strong and will cope with it."
As an environmentalist, he is also surprisingly upbeat about humanity in spite of the apparent mess we've made of the planet.
Without realizing it, he says, humans set into motion a train of events we didn't realize we were in no position to control.
"We're a wonderfully valuable species to our planet," he says. "You see the great system has existed all those years and for the first time ever it's had people talking about it, and we're part of it, you see. So it's beginning to understand its position in the universe."
Humans may face an uncertain future but Gaia, it seems, will live on.
(Anyone that is interested for more Dr. Planet's theory and articles, please visit his website
http://www.jameslovelock.org/)Blogger's note: At the end of the day, if we don't do our part correctly, we may ended to be extinct... and remember we are not doing for anyone but one's self.
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