Think global, act local.

Think global, act local
by Dr Wong Ang Peng

Today, we live in an era of challenging time. Along with globalisation comes storm clouds and it is the job of all of us, and even more our nation’s leaders, to fully understand these challenges, to prepare for them, and to act in accordance to the needs of the nation and its people.

- A new era where the US economy is quite likely to crash or go into deep recession. US’s trade with the rest of the world, and with China and India, will be affected. World economic growth slows down. When China is affected, Malaysia will also be affected. Our exports, especially in palm oil which saw boom in the last five years, will see a decline.
- A new era where the US dollar will stop to be the reserve currency of the world. More and more oil producing countries will want to sell their oil in non-US currencies (Note: Selling oil in US dollars means US owns half the oil produced anywhere in the world, together with the producing country, because US prints the currency or merely creates the money virtually from thin air). There is a strong possibility that before US economy crashes and before the world dumps US dollars, the neo-conservatives in the Bush Administration will want to start a diversionary war in Iran, and hence may escalate into World War III.
- A new era of the beginning of the end of the American Century and the end of the American Empire. With emerging global players like China and India, the 21st century could very well belong to Asia.
- A new era of stagflation. The world is on course to enter the next five years of economic recession and hyper-inflation. Oil prices will sky rocket. Money supply has increased because virtually every country on earth has printed large sums of paper currencies unmatched with their Gross Domestic Product. High oil price and increase in money supply are the twin turbo engines for hyper-inflation, and high consumer prices.
- A new era of rising interest rates. Economic planners will have no choice but to plan for an upward rising interest rate to curb inflation. Those who are overexposed to bank loans need to be extra careful from now.
- A new era where the world’s super elite, through Big Finance, Big oil, Big Agribusiness, Big Pharma, Big Media, slowly and effectively exert control of the world by bankrupting small countries, forming regional governing bodies, and finally having one world government. Sovereignty of individual nation will be lost.
- A new era of mega-corporate takeovers. Big multi-national corporations encroaching into retail business, hence displacing all the small retailers which are traditionally family-owned. Even in this region, Sovereign wealth funds like Temasek and Singapore Inc, have been buying up strategic companies in South-East Asia and Malaysia.
- A new era of health freedom curbed. Codex Alimentarius, a UN body under WHO and FAO, is currently formulating guidelines to limit access to good quality food supplements. Codex’s guidelines allow low level nutrients and limit the number and type of nutrients, under the pretext of consumer protection, but in actual fact the key policy makers from Europe and US are working for the interest of large industries.
- A new era of the world’s super elite controlling the world’s food supply. The words of Henry Kissinger in 1970 are chilling till this day: ‘Control oil and you control nations; control food and you control the people’. Today the race to patent GE (genetically engineered) seeds is fierce. GE seeds, or terminator seeds, from harvested GE crops, are designed and created not to sprout and grow into plants. Hence the name – terminator seeds. Traditionally farmers keep their best seeds after harvesting, for the next season’s planting.
Big Agribusiness’s aim, controlled by the world’s super elite, is to convert traditional farming to GE farming worldwide. Once accomplished, farmers will have to rely on supply of GE seeds from multinational agribusiness giants like Monsanto, DuPont, Dow AgriSciences and Cargill. Through GE food, nations and their people can be controlled.
- A new era of great divide, between the ‘haves’ and ‘have-nots’. The minority rich will be even richer while the middle class, lower-middle income group and the poor will fall backward and be even poorer. The gap widens between those with wealth to create wealth, and those with little wealth being eroded away through inflation. The gap widens between those with and without knowledge in information technology, between urban and rural folks, between those with land and those without.
- A new era of high rate of chronic diseases. Today, in every two deaths, one is heart attack. One in four has cancer. High blood pressure and diabetes are getting common among teenagers. Rates of kidneys failure, blindness, infertility, and other chronic diseases are climbing. It is now common to see two persons in one family to suffer cancer at the same time. Paying for the medical bills of a family member suffering from a chronic disease is enough to bring the whole family’s savings to zero. We already have answers for these health problems, if only we search deep enough for published scientific information.

Are we prepared?
The issues mentioned above are only part of a long list of geopolitical, economic, social and environmental, and health problems. The big question is whether we are prepared for those issues as they surface. But what can we expect from our nation’s leaders and politicians when most of them are clueless of the geopolitical conflicts, the world economic boom and bust cycles, the covert control of the world’s oil supply, the bully tactics of US at UN bodies and towards Third World nations, the covert planning towards the world into a One World Government, etc, etc? Clueless leaders and politicians only watch things as they happen. They act only after things have happened.

Besides, how can we expect our politicians to act for our country’s interest as a whole, and in accordance to the needs of all the people, when our ruling parties and their politicians are so petty on racial issues, petty on stirring racial sentiments, petty on ‘divide and rule’ tactics, petty on religious tolerance, petty on seeking government projects for own self, petty on politics of patronage?
Since independence we have become more divisive than ever. Umno politicians have very successfully used the ‘Ketuanan Melayu’ (Malay dominance) indoctrination to instill fear and insecurity among Malays, and at the same time creating an imaginary enemy of the Chinese hungry to overwhelm the Malays of their rights and power. This is akin to the notorious Bush Administration of USA creating an imaginary enemy of the Al-Qaeda and started a global war on terror. The whole world now knows that the war on terror is all about economic dominance, the control of oil, and to perpetuate the American empire into the 21st century.

We should be reminded of the quotation from the American philosopher and historian, William J. Durant, ie, "A great civilization is not conquered from without until it has destroyed itself from within". Malaysians of all races must now rise to check the rot and decadence of our socio-economic-political stature. Rise before we destroy ourselves from within and present ourselves as easy prey to foreign dominion and takeover.

It is now time for us all to put aside all pettiness and start thinking as one. Start thinking as Malaysians as a whole. Start thinking as one country and one people. But this cannot happen if we vote in the same type of politicians to represent us either in the parliament or state assemblies.

It is time for change. Change not as sudden change in government. Change by voting new voices to inject new thoughts and ideas at the national and state level. New voices without fear and without favour, that will echo throughout 365 days in a year, and will not be cowered to silence. New thoughts, new ideas, and new voices with a global insight and unselfishly willing to take action and lead a truly united Malaysians into the challenging time ahead.