Muslim Nations To Become Banana Republics Without IT Mastery

Mahathir, depicting a divided Muslim world under threat from a hostile West, said information technology would be used to destroy its values unless countries united to meet the "real threat to Islam."

He was delivering the opening address at a four-day meeting of foreign ministers from the 56-nation Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC). The theme of the meeting is "Islam and Globalization."

Mahathir, a fiery critic of unfettered globalization, urged some 1,000 delegates to heal divisions and focus attention "on the acquisition of knowledge to combat the use of information technology to destroy our values, our faith and the remains of our civilization. "We can choose to carry on with our petty rivalries or we can together or even separately turn to face the real threat to Islam."

He cited the use of the Internet to spread "muck and filth," saying more than half of all its business transactions were related to pornography. E-commerce, he said, could wipe out importers, distributors and retailers and government revenues.

In anticipation of world trade liberalization, banks and industries from the rich industrialized world were ganging up through mergers and acquisitions, he said. "They will be able to swallow up all the tiny banks, industries and businesses that we possess. In the end we will become like the banana republics of Central America where the managers of the plantations are more powerful than the presidents of these countries."

The Muslim world, he said, was even less prepared to face globalization and the information age than it had been to face the industrial age, because it was technologically backward and poor. "In frustration some of our people or even some of the Muslim nations will resort to indiscriminate acts. We will be called terrorists and our countries condemned as the base for terrorist attacks. "What we achieve with such acts will be nothing more than minor irritations but the punishment they will mete out to us will be terrible for all our people."

Mahathir said the Muslim world was totally dependent on arms "from the very people who oppress us" and open war against oppressors would achieve nothing. "At this very moment they can, if they want to, wipe out the Muslims and countries from the surface of the earth. If they haven't done so, it is not because they care for us."

Mahathir said Islamic nations could still catch up with the West if they acted now to acquire skills. "If we wait they will be too far ahead and it will be too late again." He said Muslims fearful of losing their influence over the faithful would stand in the way of greater education but added: "This world is not created by Allah for the non-believers only, this world is not created so the believers would be backward, dishonored and oppressed. This world is for us also."

The premier also spoke of Malaysia's "bitter experience" with a borderless world. He introduced selective capital controls in September 1998 to curb the currency speculators whom he blames for East Asia's financial crisis.

Mahathir sees his country's future as part of a knowledge economy and is developing a Multimedia Super Corridor south of Kuala Lumpur to cater for information technology industries