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"A STANDING OVATION FOR YOU IN LONDON"


Sunday April 5, 2009

Blinding humour
EUROFILE
By CHOI TUCK WO


Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad, in a speech in London, took to task crooked bankers for “creating money out of nothing” and causing the financial crisis.

It was a day of spectacular contrasts, so to speak. While the world’s leaders wrangled over a new deal to save the planet from economic meltdown, the moral-biting tale of seven blind men and an elephant brought chuckles all round.

For it was at the Royal Commonwealth Society headquarters that the story unfolded – away from the razzmatazz of what British premier Gordon Brown billed as London’s G20 “fairness summit”.

Let it be known that this is not meant to make light of the worst global financial down turn in decades; the city was rocked by recession-fuelled riots throughout the summit.

Prolonged unemployment provided the spark. And fat cat bankers who awarded themselves obscene bonuses and state bailouts were naturally singled out.

Yes, it’s time to get tough on banking robbers. These are mainly rogue bankers who indulged in reckless bonus-driven borrowing and lending that landed the world in its current crisis.

There is little doubt that the global system for regulating markets and for prosecuting market crime had completely broken down.

As former British public prosecutions director Sir Ken Macdonald aptly puts it: “Mugging someone in the street can land you in prison but mug their savings, and you can buy a yacht.”

This, in turn, brings us back to the ancient tale related by the society’s Malaysian branch president Datuk Muhammad Feisol Hassan about certain leaders behaving like the blind men.

He spoke about how “those in the dark” decided what an elephant was like based on touching certain parts, such as the body, thinking it was a wall, leg (tree), ear (fan) and tusk (spear).

“Some are not just blind but deaf as well. Why don’t these people listen and talk to leaders like Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad who can see and hear very clearly?” he said in his vote of thanks for the former prime minister who had given a talk earlier.

The audience, numbering over 200, gave Dr Mahathir a standing ovation after his thought-provocative speech on the challenging subject The Alternative G20 Agenda: Real Financial Fairness on the eve of the summit in London.

Verbal bricks

In his talk spiced with witty remarks and anecdotes, the former premier took crooked bankers to task for “creating money out of nothing” and causing the financial crisis.

“Today, I am told that bankers have been advised that if they go to central London, they have to wear jeans and not drive around in their Rolls Royce. Otherwise, they are going to be stoned,” he said to laughter from the floor.

Dr Mahathir also slammed hedge funds for their involvement in huge sums of money which did not exist, to the tune of US$620tril, which was far bigger than the total United States budget.

“Obviously, they don’t have that kind of money. But they can create money in other forms, such as travellers cheques which can run into millions of dollars,” he said.

Unfair world

He also said poor countries must learn to behave like the poor without resorting to borrowings.

“Otherwise, you’re going to place yourself under obligation to the lenders,” he said, citing Malaysia as an example of a country which tried to live within its means without borrowing much money.

During the 1997-98 financial crisis, he said, Malaysia was not under pressure to pay off its debts because it did not have much borrowings.

He related Malaysia’s experience with the World Bank and International Monetary Fund, which offered loans with conditions attached.

“When they give gifts like the Greeks, we need to examine them. If we had borrowed from them, I think we would have gone bankrupt because their idea of saving us is to bankrupt us,” he quipped.

He also took a dig at what he called the unfair world, saying the English language is peculiar as “you say something but mean a different thing”.

“You have, for example, (during the colonial days) the sultans (rulers) but they are not allowed to rule. And we have British advisers whose advice, when given, must be accepted.That is a command, not an advice. So when you say advisers, you mean commanders. They have more power than the rulers,” he said.

In Parliament and state legislative councils, he said, you would have a Mr Speaker, who is not allowed to speak.

“And finally, of course, we have the Commonwealth, where the wealth is one thing that is not common,” he said to roars of laughter.

The humour belied what was intrinsically a sober, down-to-earth analysis of a severe crisis affecting almost everyone.

And the 84-year-old Malaysian statesman appeared to have succeeded in addressing the emotions and worries of the ordinary people who don’t quite understand the complexities of the economic jargon.

“He was trying to articulate some of those concerns and distrust of complicated money and credit,” said society chairman Sir Michael McWilliam of the speech.

He noted that Dr Mahathir drove home the message that there had been a lot of wealth destruction and that people would be poorer worldwide.

London Chinese Information and Advice Centre chairman Edmond Yeo said he was proud to be a Malaysian, saying “Gordon Brown would have sulked today if he had listened to Dr Mahathir’s speech”.

“When you don’t have money, you behave like a poor person. You don’t go out and borrow and spend,” he said in apparent reference to Britain’s economic model of spending money it did not have.

Indeed, as one participant commented, Dr Mahathir had thrown some excellent verbal bricks through the windows of the fat-cat bankers who very much deserved them.

Choi Tuck Wo is Editor, European Union Bureau, based in London



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