Insightful perspectives in the twilight weeks of December 2019 from two Arab journalists on two politicians – one in the East and one in the West.
These writers note the duplicitous nature of both the Malaysian president, Dr. Mahathir Mohamad and the electorally trounced UK Labour Party leader, Jeremy Corbyn and warn of the dangers of their flirtations with the world’s extremists and supporters of terrorism.
The Kuala Lumpur Summit – A Play To Mislead The World
By Ali Kassem
Al-Arab, London, December 21
It is very surprising that the Malaysian prime minister chose to speak about Islamophobia in front of three leaders who sponsor notorious acts of terrorism
Why did the president of Malaysia, Dr. Mahathir Mohamad, choose to talk about Islamophobia, blaming Islamic countries for the exacerbation of the phenomenon, in the presence of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, and the emir of Qatar, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani? And who exactly are the Islamic countries that bear responsibility for exacerbating Islamophobia, according to Mr. Mohamad?
Let’s start by introducing Mahathir Mohamad. He was born in 1925 and grew up in a poor suburb, in a household with modest financial and social means. His academic excellence enabled him to obtain a scholarship to enroll in an English school, after which he studied medicine. But his passion for politics sent him on a long journey in which he assumed various positions in government, including the premiership of Malaysia since 1981.
Mahathir brought many accomplishments to the prime minister’s office. His greatest achievement was his economic recovery strategy, which he implemented after the Asian economic crisis in 1998. He defied the opinions of his advisers, who foolishly urged him to peg his country’s currency to the US dollar, and this bold step was one of the main reasons for the recovery of the Malaysian economy at a faster rate than other Asian countries. Mahathir received many local and international awards and honors, including the Jawaharlal Nehru Award for International Understanding in 1994 and the King Faisal International Prize for Service to Islam in 1997. In 2007, he was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.
It is therefore very surprising that a man of such stature chose to speak about Islamophobia in front of three leaders who sponsor notorious acts of terrorism, generating the problem of Islamophobia in the first place. Perhaps it is Mohamad’s old age which rendered him blind to this fact. Mahathir’s comments were made during an Islamic summit in Kuala Lumpur, in which Saudi Arabia refused to participate. Riyadh explained that it will not attend a conference claiming to represent the interests of the world’s 1.75 billion Muslims unless it is held under the auspices of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation.
At a time when Saudi Arabia is making efforts to combat manifestations of extremism and battle Islamophobia, the architect of political Islam, Mahathir Mohamad, has chosen to surround himself with three of the most powerful regimes sponsoring extremism and terrorism in the world. The strained relations between Saudi Arabia and Qatar are caused by the Qatari sponsorship of the Muslim Brotherhood, and its support for political Islam, both Sunni and Shiite. A Saudi presence in the summit would have given legitimacy to the Iranian regime, which does not hide its expansionist ambitions in the region. The same logic applies to Turkey. The three regimes mentioned above try to delude the rest of the world by participating in a conference condemning terrorism, while they ignite conflict and spew hatred behind the scenes. Mahathir would have been wiser not to associate himself with these three regimes.
Ali Kassem
Britain Needs To Get Rid Of Corbyn
By Amir Taheri
Asharq Al-Awsat, Lebanon, December 20
The British Conservatives’ victory in the recent election was described as a “landslide victory” and an “earthquake” by pundits. Indeed, given the fact that the Tories won their first parliamentary majority since the 1980s, the election may very well signal a “landslide victory” for Prime Minister Boris Johnson. And given the major defeat suffered by the Labour Party, the title “earthquake” seems fitting. However, a closer look at the results may give us a more nuanced picture of the results.
One of the key questions pundits have raised again and again is: How did voters who associated themselves with socialist values decided to abandon the Labour Party and vote Conservative this time around?
There are two possible ways to approach this question. First, what pundits fail to recognize is that the transition from Labour to Conservative isn’t necessarily new to these elections; it already happened during the 2016 vote on Brexit.
Put simply, the recent UK election just confirmed what we’ve previously seen in the Brexit referendum. Beyond the issue of Brexit, another key factor in Labour’s downfall is undoubtedly the party’s leader, Jeremy Corbyn. Corbyn’s duplicitous response to antisemitic tropes within his party, his flirtation with the Irish Republican Army, his “brotherly” affinity with Hezbollah and Hamas (as well as his decade-long career as a commentator on the English-language channel of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards), his anti-Israel sentiment, and his anti-NATO stance, have all rendered him an unfit candidate to lead a major Western democracy.
Corbyn and his colleagues did everything in their power to destroy British social democracy and replace it with a radical movement that suffers from what Lenin described in 1918 as a “childish disorder.” With their own hands, they destroyed the Labour Party of Britain. Much to the luck of liberal British voters, the central pillar of democracy is that nothing is irreversible. Even the Labour Party can recoup and rebound. However, it must reinvent itself first. This cannot, and will not, be achieved with Corbyn as its head. The sooner Corbyn and his supporters step aside and give room to a new Labour leadership, the better for democracy in Britain.
Amir Taheri
