Dr. Mahathir Offers EIR an Informed View of the Global South

Former Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir bin Mohamad is a remarkable historical leader of the Global South who still today, at the age of 99, continues to fight for the right to development of all nations and peoples, against all forms of imperialism. For 22 years, from 1981 to 2003, he served as Prime Minister of Malaysia, during the so-called “Asian Crisis”, and uniquely stood up to the efforts of the IMF and the hedge funds, especially George Soros, to loot and destroy the economies of Asia and much of the developing sector nations of the world. In an exclusive interview he gave on Oct. 6 to EIR editorial board member Mike Billington, Dr. Mahathir addresses his role in imposing currency controls at the time, thus saving the Malaysian economy from the currency traders who were out to weaken and loot the nation.

He traces the origin of the current global financial crisis back to the 1971 policies which unleashed the “floating exchange rates” and destroyed the Bretton Woods system. But, he adds, the dollar has been massively devalued against gold as a result, and can no longer function as the world reserve currency, therefore we must return to fixed exchange rates. And for the world economy to recover, he stresses, the policy of permanent wars must end.

Unfortunately, however, it seems that “the Western alliance needs an enemy all the time. Its attitude is that the war [against Russia] would solve this problem, but war will not solve the problem. They are going to lead to bigger wars, to a Third World War. That is what I fear.”

The solution, Dr. Mahathir stated, is that a non-aligned policy must replace the East vs. West paradigm. “The world is still divided into two confronting blocs, the East and the West. And other countries feel that they are being pressured to join one or the other. But these countries do not want to be involved in the confrontation between the U.S. and China and Russia. That is why there is a need once again to think about non-alignment, which was what was proposed by Sukarno,” the president of Indonesia, who was one of the founders of the Non-Aligned Movement in 1955.

For Dr. Mahathir, “We don’t need any blocs East or West, but we need a world where everybody is equal.” On the genocide in Gaza, he believes it is only possible because the U.S. has fully supported Israel’s criminal acts, threatening anyone who dares to question them. At the same time, the U.S. is pushing Taiwan to confront Beijing, while telling the ASEAN countries to take sides, which they do not want to do. The full interview is available here.