Keynote Address by former Prime Minister of Malaysia

Are We Really Civilized? Make War a Crime
Mahathir bin MohamadF

irstly, I would like to thank the organizers of this symposium forthis opportunity to share some of my views on peace, harmony andwar. It is an honor to be invited here, thank you very much. I’d like tocongratulate the Centre for Civilizational Dialogue, University ofMalaya, and the Institute of Oriental Philosophy, Japan for organizing
this important symposium. When I read the theme of this symposium, I
immediately replied that I would attend. I am very interested in peace
and the absence of war, because I have been very much involved intrying to make war a crime.

Killing a Million People makes You a Hero?
It is a very strange thing in our present civilization that if you kill one
person, you will be arrested and if found guilty, hanged to death; butkilling a million people is not considered as a crime. There is something
odd about this kind of thinking. If you kill one person, you will get thedeath penalty, but if you kill a million people, you will be called a hero,
receive medals, and you are remembered forever. This is illogical. When
we look back at the history of mankind, human beings have always beenfighting each other. They fight each other for dominance or because theywant to possess what the other person has or the other groups have. That
was in the past, before we became civilized.
If you look at the monkey’s world, you can see that they always havewhat is known as a dominant male. In any group of them, there is one
male who is dominant, and no other males can enter the group unlessthey show obedience to the dominant one. But over time he grows old,like all of us. When the dominant male is old and weak, the young male
attacks the old dominant male, kills him or pushes him out, and the
young male then becomes the new dominant male. I think this kind of
behavior can also be seen in human beings because human beings also
seem to have the desire to dominate others. First, some may start30

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dominating within a small group, and if there are several groups orcommunities, there would be one group which would attempt todominate all the other groups. In order to dominate, they fight, and it
often involves killing. Then they will justify and glorify this killing.
Over time they have became more civilized and they should havestopped fighting, because killing is a crime, but they did not stopfighting.

A More Civilized Age is a More Killing Age
If you watch or reread history, you will find that as they become morecivilized, more intelligent and more knowledgeable, they began todevelop better weapons for killing.
In the past, when they were using bows, arrows, and spears, they
could not kill so many people. But over time, they begin to develop
more efficient killing weapons. When the Chinese knowledge of
explosives went to the West, European countries were fighting eachother. The moment they got hold of these explosives, the first thing they
thought was how they could use the explosives to kill more people froma greater distance. Therefore, people in Europe developed guns whichbecame more and more powerful. They were able to hit the target withthe projectiles from far away. They also fill the shells with explosives sothat not only it will hit and kill the targets, but it will explode and killmore people. Today, man has discovered how to kill a hundred thousandpeople with just one bomb.
That is what happened to Japan. The atomic bomb could make suchan explosion and wipe out a whole town. They tested this atomic bomb
during the war, and dropped it on Hiroshima and Nagasaki which killedhundreds of thousands of people. Despite these mass killings, the search
for more efficient weapon for killing has continued. Today, a nuclear
weapon has the power to kill an enormous number of people. And thenumber of nuclear warheads possessed by countries like Russia and theU.S. is huge. Each country has about 10,000 of them. If they were tohave a nuclear war, the whole world will be wiped out. I think we havereached the ultimate. Our civilization can be wiped out completely. That
is what happens although people claim to be civilized.
When we look back, we can see that civilized people initially did notpunish murder.—Later on, they learn to be more considerate andregarded murder as a crime, a serious crime. And they made a law which
punishes a criminal with death. Since man became more civilized anddefined killing as a crime, they should not go to war, but they didn’t stop

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are we really civilized? make war a crime

going to war. So if we think back, can we claim we are really civilized?
I have my doubts, because we are now in the business of developing
weapons that can kill more and more people.

Injustice of “the Victors in a War trying the Losers”
When we look back at history, there were fierce fightings betweentribes. We know that before the coming of Islam, the Arabic people weredivided into tribes, and these tribes had conflicts against each other.
They had been fighting simply because they belonged to different tribes.
And this went on for generations, and it did not stop. If you ask them
“Why do you fight and kill?” the answer would be “They are enemies.”
They had forgotten why, but they continued to kill. Today, we are nobetter. We see conflicts still going on between countries of the world.
Even though some countries are not enemies yet, they still prepare tofight against those countries that could be their potential enemies.
In the last two world wars, according to one estimate, 70 million
people were killed. 70 million people were killed in the wars for thenoble purpose of “ending all wars.” But we still see wars andpreparations to wars in the world. We have never really given up thisvery primitive way of solving problems between nations. I think that weare not yet civilized, because while we think it is a crime to kill one
person, but we still think it is not a crime to have war, to kill thousands
and millions of people.
I believe that some people regard war as a crime, but they think crime
is only committed by defeated people, and the winners are not criminals.
Defeated people were tried, and many were sentenced to death for war
crimes. But the people who tried them were also guilty of killing. In
fact, they killed more people, but because they won the war, their killing
was not regarded as a crime. This is grossly unfair. As you know in acourt of law, the judge should be impartial. The judge should not takesides; but we see that in wars, it is the victors who set up the courts totry the losers. Obviously, we have still not become civilized enough tounderstand that crimes should be tried by people who are not involved,
who are neutral.
If we cannot solve problems by killing each other through war, thenhow do we solve problems of conflicts?

Peaceful Settlements by Malaysia
Malaysia has borders with five countries, and they all had claims overare we really civilized? make war a crime

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our territories. One of which was the dispute over an area of the sea withThailand. On the North East Coast of Malaysia, there is an area of thesea which was claimed by Malaysia and also by Thailand. These twonations disputed over this small part of the sea where it was believed
there were some natural resources. Fortunately, the previous Prime
Minister before me decided to make a peaceful solution, and he started
negotiation with the Thai government. In the end, the Prime Ministers ofThailand and Malaysia decided to share the natural resources extracted
from this area equally. Thus, we set up a joint development area. Today,gas produced in the area is shared equally between Malaysia andThailand. We are enjoying the profits from this area without one person
being killed. Had we gone to war, we might not be able to exploit thenatural resources. We may lose or win, but winning or losing does not
end the problem. If Malaysia wins and Thailand later becomes verystrong, they will soon try to get back that area. If Malaysia loses, wealso will try to get back this area. However, since we have agreed on
making a peaceful solution to this claim, today we are producing gas
from that area, and we are sharing good incomes.
Malaysia also had a problem with Indonesia. There are two islands
near Sabah which was claimed by Indonesia and by Malaysia. We
negotiated for a settlement, but the discussion went on for years without
a prospect of a settlement. We finally decided to go to the World Court(International Court of Justice: ICJ). In the end the court decided thatthese two islands belong to Malaysia. Indonesia had committed toaccept the decision made by the World Court. That settled our problem
with Indonesia. We didn’t have to go to war.
Malaysia also had a problem with our neighbor in the south,
Singapore. There is a small rock in the sea. Since there was concern thatships would crash into the rock, a lighthouse was put up by the British
during their rule. The British put up lighthouses in several places inMalaysia and Singapore. This was a time when the Malay Peninsula andSingapore were regarded as one country, and they were both under
British administration. Therefore, for convenience, the British adminis­
tered the lighthouses from Singapore. After both countries became
independent, Malaysia claimed that Singapore could own the lighthouse
but the rock belonged to Malaysia. We negotiated over and over again,
and we couldn’t settle these claims, so finally we decided to go to theWorld Court. The World Court judged that this rock belongs to Singa­
pore. It was unfortunate for Malaysia, but we fought no war. Suppose
we had decided to go to war, a few hundred people or a few thousandpeople might have been killed.

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Malaysia had a problem with Brunei also, they claimed some parts ofthe sea as theirs, Malaysia claimed they are ours, but in the end wenegotiated and it was agreed that they belong to Brunei. However,Brunei allowed Petronas to be the operator for extracting the petroleum
in them.
Malaysia had another problem with the Philippines. The Philippines
claimed that the whole of Sabah is part of the Philippines. It used tobelong to the Sultanate of Sulu which sold it off, and eventually it
became a part of Malaysia. However, the Philippines claimed that it
belonged to the Philippines, so there was some tension between these
two nations. Eventually, we set up our embassies as if relations arenormal. However, the Philippines didn’t drop their claims, and we too
did not give up Sabah. Nevertheless, we did not go to war with themeither.
This, I think, is the way to solve the problem of claims or conflicts
between nations. It is my earnest wish that Japan and China will also
peacefully solve the problem of their dispute over some islands betweenthem.

What we Gain in War is much Less than what we Lose
There is a way to solve complex problems between nations. We must
accept that sometimes you lose and sometimes gain. If possible, thesolution should be a win-win solution in which both sides gain
something. The best thing is that we don’t have to sacrifice young
people in wars, because in the end, we both get nothing. Probably, theamount of money you have to spend in war would exceed the amount ofgas, oil or whatever resources that can be extracted from the disputedarea. The United States spent much more money in the Vietnam War
than the World War II. Even if there are natural resources around there,
the amount of money that will be spent, the number of people who will
be killed, and the damage that will be done to one’s country are manytimes worse than the benefits gained from the disputed area. Despite
this, some people still think of war as an option. This is why I think weare not quite civilized.
War is about killing people, killing massive numbers of people. At thepresent day, we see wars from a distance. But I myself went through awar. When the Second World War in the Pacific broke out, I saw
brutality that was immeasurable. I wondered how awful I would feel if I
got killed in the war. I think killing people for your own gain is very
primitive and selfish. If we claim to be civilized, and want to live aare we really civilized? make war a crime35

harmonious life in peace that can be sustainable, then we should abolishwar. We should regard war as a crime.
Current technology has produced UAV which costs lower. UAV
stands for Unmanned Aerial Vehicle. Operators can see a target in aroom three thousand miles from the battle ground and operate thisunmanned vehicle to assassinate people, and blow up the whole town
out of existence. “As long as I survive and my country wins, we can saythat we had a good war, and I don't care if others die.” I’m afraid ifpeople think in this way, I believe we are not truly civilized.

Towards the World without War
I hope that the work to abolish war will go on. I consented to come tothis symposium because this symposium is about peace, harmonious
coexistence, and sustainability. I believe that one day there will be peaceand harmonious coexistence between people of different races fromdifferent countries. When that happens, we will live in a much morepeaceful world without war, and we can enjoy life to the full extent.
This is the reason I believe, the Centre for Civilizational Dialogue atUniversity of Malaya was set-up. I believe that by working together with
the Institute of Oriental Philosophy, which is also devoted to peace, wewill be moving one step forward towards the day when wars would beforbidden and people live a better life. It is going to be a long struggle,
and it might take decades, or even centuries, but please always
remember that at one time slavery was accepted everywhere, all over theworld. People had slaves, but somebody thought this was not humane,and those who believed this fought against slavery. After many decades
and centuries of struggling, slavery was abolished. As you can see,slavery took a long time to be abolished. Likewise, even if it would not
be realized in my lifetime or even in your lifetime, I believe that one day
war will be abolished. Then, we can finally claim that we are at lastcivilized.