In new memoir, ex-AG reveals Dr M wanted him out after Malay backlash
A “monumental betrayal” by Mahathir Mohamad led to a “kakistrocracy”
formed by Muhyiddin Yassin, says Tommy Thomas. (Bernama pic)
PETALING JAYA: Former attorney general Tommy Thomas has harsh words for Dr Mahathir Mohamad, whose resignation as prime minister in February 2020 paved the way for Muhyddin Yassin to take power.
In an epilogue to his recently-published memoirs, Thomas described Mahathir’s resignation as “a monumental betrayal”.
In a Churchillian turn of phrase, Thomas said: “Seldom in our nation’s history have so many million voters been let down by the actions of one man.”
Mahathir resigned on Feb 24, causing the collapse of the Pakatan Harapan government two years after it came to power in the 2018 general election. His resignation led the Yang di-Pertuan Agong to seek a new prime minister and cabinet from members of Parliament.
Muhyiddin was appointed five days later after the King consulted political leaders to determine who commanded a majority in the Dewan Rakyat. He formed a government of parties in the Perikatan Nasional coalition.
Thomas said the formation of the new government “by a coalition of Malay-centric parties that proudly proclaim their race and religion” had brought disastrous consequences to multi-racial Malaysia.
He compared Muhyiddin Yassin to former US president Donald Trump, saying they both represented the rise to power of those lacking credibility and principle.
Both Muhiddin and Trump represented the modern ‘”kakistocracy”, he said, using a term invented in 17th century England to mean “government by the worst; to describe the political rise of the least qualified or most unscrupulous”.
Calling it a “misgovernment for profit”, Thomas said the kakistocracy served a political agenda – the shameless pursuit of hate politics: (Trump’s) America First, or the Malay/Muslim Agenda of the PN government.
He also said that Trump displayed “dictatorial conduct” during his tenure, disregarding conventions, norms and even legal requirements. Malaysia’s opposition parties have used similar terms against Muhyiddin after his government declared a state of emergency.
What will happen to Europe? Will it continue with a broadly pro-American orientation, or will it pursue an increasingly independent position?
Either way, the consequences will be far-reaching. At the heart of the West lie the US and Europe. If Europe seeks a more autonomous role, then the West will be seriously weakened.
The end of the Cold War marked a major moment in US-Europe relations. Europe was no longer dependent on the US for its defense and ever since, slowly but remorselessly, a growing distance has opened up between them. This was accelerated by two key events ̶ the US invasion of Iraq, opposed by most Europeans, and the Donald Trump phenomenon, which most Europeans found beyond the pale.
President Joe Biden wants to mend the fences and return to something closer to the pre-Trump relationship. He may have some success because, unlike Trump, Biden will seek to befriend rather than castigate Europe. But there will be no simple return to the pre-Trump era: too much has happened, too much has changed.
A recent opinion poll by the European Council on Foreign Relations across 11 European countries reveals what can only be described as a sea-change in European attitudes in the post-Trump era. Six in 10 Europeans believe that the US political system is broken and that China will become a stronger power than the US in the next10 years. A majority now want their country to remain neutral in any conflict between the US and China.
A majority of Germans believe that, after voting for Trump in 2016, Americans can no longer be trusted; across Europe likewise more people agreed than disagreed with this statement. The survey grouped the respondents into four categories. The smallest, 9 percent of the total, believed that the EU was broken and the US would bounce back. A second group, around 20 percent of the total, believed that both the US and the EU would continue to thrive. A third group, 29 percent of the total, thought that both the US and the EU were broken and declining. A fourth group, 35 percent of the total, believed that the EU was healthy, but the US was broken. The latter two groups, almost two-thirds of the total, expected that the US would soon be displaced by China.
There has clearly been a profound shift in European attitudes consequent upon the decline of the West since the 2008 financial crisis, the Trump presidency and the rise of China. These, we must remind ourselves, are very recent developments which have happened with remarkable speed. Far from reinforcing the Atlantic alliance and the relationship with the US, their main impact on Europeans has been to weaken those bonds, elicit a growing acknowledgement that the world has changed profoundly and foster a belief that Europe needs to be more independent. Of course, these trends are still young and fluid. Many conflicting forces are at work with attitudes ebbing and flowing both within and between countries. Criticism of China has grown apace in the recent period in Europe, as it has in the US. But there is one fundamental difference. While the US is bent on defending its global primacy, Europe long ago abandoned any such pretensions, thereby greatly reducing the sources of friction and animosity between it and China in comparison with the US.
The survey reveals that by far the dominant trend is toward a more independent-minded Europe, a growing skepticism about the US and a sign of recognition that China will soon become the dominant power in the world. The European leader who most symbolizes this outlook, and has pioneered this way of thinking, is German Chancellor Angela Merkel. The recently agreed EU-China Comprehensive Agreement on Investment, very much in Merkel's image, is a powerful demonstration of the EU's willingness to pursue its own independent relationship with China rather than following the Americans.
The trend toward a growing distance between Europe and the US will be slow, tortuous, conflict-riddled, and painful. Europe has looked westward across the Atlantic ever since Christopher Columbus. It was European settlers who colonized Northeast America and subsequently established the US. The latter was a European creation which over time was to outperform its ancestral continent. If Europe colonized much of the world, the post-1945 world order was a Western creation, with the US the dominant partner and Europe very much a junior partner. In sum, an enormous historical, intellectual, political and cultural hinterland binds the US and Europe together. But we are now in new territory. American decline means that it has increasingly less to offer Europe.
The gravitational pull of China, and Asia more generally, is drawing Europe eastward. Nothing illustrates this phenomenon better than the China-proposed Belt and Road Initiative. Slowly but surely, bit by bit, Europe is becoming more and more involved ̶ first the countries of Central and Eastern Europe, then Portugal, Greece and Italy, and others over time will in all likelihood follow. What drew Europe westward is now drawing it eastward: the centre of gravity of the global economy, once in the west, is now in the east.
The author was until recently a Senior Fellow at the Department of Politics and International Studies at Cambridge University. He is a Visiting Professor at the Institute of Modern International Relations at Tsinghua University and a Senior Fellow at the China Institute, Fudan University. Follow him on twitter @martjacques. opinion@globaltimes.com.cn
EVER
since Joe Biden won the US presidency, the rhetoric from Europe’s
leaders has been filled with anticipation of a new transatlantic dawn.
With Donald Trump out of the White House, Europe signalled that it would
again link arms with America, bound by common ideals and a firm resolve
to “save the world from its bad angels”.
“The United States is
back. And Europe stands ready,” European Commission President Ursula von
der Leyen had declared on Biden’s inauguration day.
But given the
opportunity in recent weeks to show the Biden administration it was
serious about geostrategic collaboration, Europe opted instead to “show
Washington the finger”, said Politico.
According to the political
journal, a consensus has emerged among transatlantic strategic thinkers
in recent years that the West faces two major threats to its security:
old nemesis Russia and China, the global power the US sees as the much
greater challenge over the long term.
As White House press secretary
Jen Psaki said: “Beijing is now challenging our security, prosperity
and values in significant ways that require a new US approach.”
But
Europe appears to have its own ideas, as seen in how the regional bloc
has continued to pursue its own course on China in the face of American
reservations.
In late December, for example, the European Union
agreed to a landmark investment pact with China, ignoring objections
from across the Atlantic and requests from the Biden camp to hold off
until the new administration was in office.
Then at the the Davos
World Economic Forum last week, German Chancellor Angela Merkel
rejected calls for Europe to pick sides between the US and China, in a
nod to the plea made by Chinese President Xi Jinping a day earlier.
While
Biden is looking to group together democracies to contain China, Merkel
was pointedly wary about the formation of factions.
“I would very
much wish to avoid the building of blocs,” said Merkel. “I don’t think
it would do justice to many societies if we were to say this is the
United States and over there is China and we are grouping around either
the one or the other. This is not my understanding of how things ought
to be.”
Referring to Xi’s speech at the same forum, Merkel
said: “The Chinese president spoke yesterday, and he and I agree on
that. We see a need for multilateralism.”
Merkel is far from alone in
Europe in not wanting to join a more robust US approach toward Beijing.
Paris and Rome broadly share Merkel’s position.
On Thursday,
French President Emmanuel Macron echoed Merkel’s statement that the EU
shouldn’t gang up on China with the US, even if it stands closer to
Washington by virtue of shared values.
“A situation to join all
together against China, this is a scenario of the highest possible
conflictuality. This one, for me, is counterproductive,” Macron said
during a discussion broadcast by Washington-based think tank the
Atlantic Council.
This kind of common front against China risks
pushing Beijing to lower its cooperation on issues like combating
climate change, added the French president.
Macron was the
first European leader to make it a point to engage with China as a
European bloc by including Merkel and then-EU Commission President
Jean-Claude Juncker during a bilateral visit by Chinese President Xi
Jinping to France in March 2019.
Macron and European partners didn’t
share the Trump administration’s outwardly aggressive stance on China,
instead theorising that it was at once a “partner, competitor and
systemic rival.”
And now it looks like they do not want to go back to
the “old normal” either, where US led in the us-versus-them global
politics.
Whether Europe’s decision to effectively de-couple from the
US foreign policy agenda before Biden’s administration has really even
begun is born out of a desire to achieve the dream of “strategic
autonomy,” concern that Donald Trump could return in four years, or some
combination thereof may not matter in the end.
As the strategic
rivalry between the US and China comes into focus, Europe is adamant to
stay on the sidelines and remain neutral. – Agencies
Teachers on Zoom calls with students ages five to eight who are at home or in daycare might find this a familiar bugbear: the sounds of other children, siblings, parents and barking dogs.
The students have noise-canceling headphones that block the noise for them, but not so much the teachers.
In addition, some students use iPads that have a plug for their headphones but no plug for a noise-cancelling external microphone (headphones that include microphones are expensive).
If this is what you’re facing, block the background racket by using noise-cancelling software instead of noise-canceling microphones.
There are two types of this software: The Zoom video call app, which has controls for cancelling out background noise at the student’s end of the conversation, and third-party programs for your computer that cancel out student background noise before the sound plays through your computer’s speaker.
In order to use the Zoom noise-cancelling feature, your students must connect to the call via the Zoom app on their iPads (as opposed to connecting without the app through the Zoom website).
In addition, an adult must examine the app’s settings to make sure they aren’t set to “original sound”, which means background noise is not filtered out. Toggling off “original sound” automatically turns on background noise cancellation. (For directions, clic here.)
Unfortunately, the noise-cancellation feature in the iPad Zoom app has its limits. Unlike the computer app, the iPad app doesn’t let you adjust to block specific types of sounds. It also doesn’t allow noise cancellation to be increased or decreased.
A better solution may be to download a third-party noise-cancellation program to the PC or Mac that you use for Zoom sessions. The app most suited to your needs is probably Krisp, which can filter out student background noise before you hear it. Krisp is free to use for up to 120 minutes a week; unlimited use costs US$5 (RM20) a month. (See details here and downloads here). – Star Tribune (Minneapolis)/Tribune News Service
