KL Summit: Mahathir weathers the ‘desert’ storm

 Despite serious concerns raised by Saudi Arabia and a veiled attack by the OIC, Malaysian prime minister successfully hosts a conference of four key Islamic leaders, with hundreds of delegates and journalists from around the world in attendance.

South-east Asia Correspondent

A mini but high-profile Islamic summit concluded in the Malaysian capital on December 21, with leaders from Turkey, Iran, Qatar and Malaysia highlighting the problems faced by Muslims in various countries, lamenting their plight, stressing their unity, calling for efforts to overcome Islamophobia and suggesting ways to ensure overall development, progress and prosperity of the Muslim Ummah.

The four-day Kuala Lumpur Summit 2019 (KL Summit) was called by Malaysian Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamed and attended by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani and the Amir of Qatar, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani. Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan, King Salman bin Abdul Aziz of Saudi Arabia and Indonesian President Joko Widodo were also invited, but they opted to stay away.

Ironically, Muslim unity proved to be illusive after Dr Mahathir put it to test by calling the Summit. Mr Khan pulled out at the last moment under “Saudi pressure”. Indonesian Vice-President Ma’ruf Amin, who was expected to officiate Mr Widodo, and Pakistan Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi, who was scheduled to represent Pakistan, were also conspicuous by their absence.

The Pakistani leader cancelled his attendance after a recent visit to Saudi Arabia, reportedly to assuage his ally’s concerns. This feeling was strengthened by Mr Erdogan, who said Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates were behind the absence of both Pakistan and Indonesia. He told media that Saudi Arabia had pressured Pakistan to shun the Summit by threatening to send the four million Pakistani workers in the kingdom back home (and re-employ Bangladeshis, instead) and withdraw billions of dollars from Pakistan’s state bank.

Saudi Arabia, however, rejected reports that it pressured Pakistan to shun the Summit.

Pakistan said it did not participate in the Summit because “time and efforts were needed to address the concerns of major Muslim countries regarding the possible division in the Ummah (community)”. It, however, vowed to “continue to work for the unity and solidarity of the Ummah”.

SAUDI, OIC CONCERNS

Controversy hit the summit even before it took off, with Saudi Arabia raising serious concerns over Dr Mahathir’s reported statement that the summit would be an alternative to the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) and could grow into a larger initiative in the future.

The row was nipped in the bud thanks to the sagacity of the 94-year-old Malaysian leader, who called King Salman and denied saying the summit was intended to be a platform to replace the OIC or create a new bloc. He also said the summit was an initiative of a non-governmental organisation and supported by his government. It was not a platform to discuss religion and religious affairs but specifically to address “the state of affairs of the Muslim Ummah”.

King Salman on his part insisted that issues pertaining to the Muslim world should be channelled through the OIC “in order to achieve unity”.

The 57-member pan-Islamic OIC, meanwhile, mounted a veiled attack on the Summit, saying such gatherings would weaken Islam and divide Muslims.

“It is not in the interest of an Islamic nation to hold summits and meetings outside the framework of the (OIC), especially at this time when the world is witnessing multiple conflicts,” said OIC secretary-general Yousef al-Othaimeen. He added, “Any weakening of the OIC platform is a weakening of Islam and Muslims”.

Dr Mahathir said: “We are not discriminating or isolating anyone. We are attempting to start small and if these ideas, proposals and solutions are acceptable and proved workable, then we hope to take it up to the larger platform for consideration. Despite that, we have also invited almost all Muslim nations to participate in this summit albeit at different levels.”

Observers noted the Saudi concern over and the OIC attack on the KL Summit reflected their fears of losing their hegemony over the Jeddah-headquartered grouping of Islamic nations. Some political analysts described the Summit as a game changer in the Muslim world’s relations with Saudi Arabia, with experts predicting a domino effect that could spell the end of the oil-rich kingdom’s theological and political grip on Muslim governments.

FINDING SOLUTIONS

Themed “The Role of Development in Achieving National Sovereignty”, the Summit attracted over 450 thinkers, intellectuals and Islamic scholars from 56 Muslim countries to discuss and exchange ideas about the issues revolving in the Muslim world and find the “best dynamic and action-driven solutions to problems afflicting the Muslim Ummah”.

It opened with a welcoming dinner for delegates by Dr Mahathir, the Summit’s chairman, on December 18. Speaking on the occasion, he said: “We have endeavoured to hold this Summit because we feel that we have to do something to improve the lives of Muslims the world over. We feel that we need to overcome Islamophobia. We need to find a way to address our shortcomings, our dependency on non-Muslims to protect ourselves against the enemies of Islam.”

In a keynote address the next day, he said Muslims and Islam have become the subject of much vilification and defamation. They have been equated with terrorism and failures of government, of irrationality and acts unworthy of civilized behaviour. Muslim countries are accused of authoritarianism and lack of concern for human rights.

“We may see a bleak picture painted but it doesn’t mean that all is lost. We have to reflect on the past, when the Islamic civilisation was glorious and we were capable of warding off attempts to seize our land.”

He said it is Muslims’ inability to keep up with the progress and development of the non-Muslims that have left them in the lurch. Due to that, Muslims the world over suffer and many are dependent on the mercy and charity of the non-Muslims. “We have no choice but to develop and progress as fast as possible if we are to remedy all the misfortunes that had befallen our Ummah.”

Noting that there is not a single Muslim country which is classified as developed, he stressed that acquiring the knowledge of strategic and advanced technologies is “our only hope to stop the Ummah from continuously being bullied and mistreated by our enemies”.

Experts say the summit is Dr Mahathir’s move to look elsewhere for faster technology transfer that would favour Malaysia, which has long depended on expensive Western technology and the caveats that come with it in the form of multibillion-dollar arms deals.

The leaders also touched on issues such as the condition of the Palestinians and Myanmar’s Rohingya Muslim minority, foreign invasions on Muslim countries, the war in Yemen and Syria, and the post-war situation in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Dr Mahathir said the Ummah today is faced with oppression, incarceration of millions placed in detention camps, civil wars resulting in total destruction of cities and countries leading to mass migration of displaced Muslims to non-Muslim countries, the rise of Islamophobia and irrational practices that go against the tenets of Islam yet proclaimed in the name of Islam.

MAJOR CHALLENGES

Iranian President Rouhani highlighted four major challenges confronting the Muslim Ummah and offered solutions for them. The first, he said, were the cultural and identity challenges. “The danger of weakening national and Islamic identity, the younger generation distancing from their identity and domination of foreign cultures are the most serious threats to the Muslims world,” he said.

He said joint efforts to compensate underdevelopment in information and communication technology, moving towards national and regional communication networks and increasing the share of Muslim space in the digital economy constitute the roadmap of our future in combating this crisis.

The second challenge was related to security. He regretted the Muslim world is grappling with serious security threats and problems ranging from the “continued threats imposed by the Zionist regime that is killing our Palestinian brothers and sisters on a daily basis, to the military, political and economic threats by the United States against some Muslims countries, to the threat of terrorism and mental and behaviour radicalism in some Muslim societies, which has paved the ground for foreign intervention in these societies”.

The third set of challenges was related to underdevelopment. Dr Rouhani said maladies such as weakening governance, poverty, unemployment, corruption, and increasing and eroding violent extremism have endangered national sovereignty in some parts of the Muslims world.

The fourth were economic challenges. He said economic sanctions have today turned into the main tools of the domineering hegemony and bullying. He urged the Muslim world to design measures to protect itself from the domination of the US dollar and the American financial regime.

“If we return to our Islamic capacity and rely on our domestic power and strength, we would be able to confront all the above-mentioned challenges and turn them into an opportunity of growth,” he said.

He considered the following capacities as the main components of power in the Muslim world.

1. Islam is the central component of identity among us as Muslims. Islam is both a source and destination.
2. Science and technology are the key to power and development. As it has already been said, science is the king and knowledge is power. Whoever finds knowledge will be victorious at the end.
3. Cooperation and interaction among Muslim nations is an unreplaceable principle. Consolidation of political and economic capacity could turn the Muslim world into a powerful bloc in international relations.

The Summit was the culmination of diplomatic overtures by Malaysia, Pakistan and Turkey since the election of Dr Mahathir and Mr Khan last year. It followed a meeting between these three countries’ leaders on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly to discuss issues afflicting Muslims.

That meeting had led to an agreement to establish a new international television station dedicated to combating Islamophobia and voicing a more positive view of Islam. But there was no mention of any TV station being set up at the just-concluded Summit.

[The writer may be reached at [email protected]]