KUALA LUMPUR: High time to rid of colonised mentality and use modern science and technology to uplift humanity, instead of waging war, says Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim.
He also said that merely being free of the brute force of colonialism does not mean anything if either material security, intellectual rights or political rights are lacking.
The Prime Minister said this in his speech during the launching of the book “A Malik Bennabi Reader” and the launch of the International Institute of Futures Studies at the International Institute of Islamic Thought and Civilisation - International Islamic University of Malaysia (Istac-IIUM) here on Wednesday (Feb 5).
“Modern science and technology are forces meant to uplift humanity but these have been perverted into instruments of domination.
“Nowhere is this clearer today than in Palestine, where the tiresome and mendacious claim of defending “the only democracy in the Middle East” is wielded as a shield to justify the dispossession of an entire people.
“Modern military technology, surveillance systems and the modern bureaucratic state have been deployed in the service of murder and subjugation. Just as in the colonial past, power cloaks itself in the language of security and stability when, in truth, it is entrenching displacement and genocide,” said Anwar to an audience of academicians and diplomats.
He further stated that the author Malik Bennabi is dear to him as the Algerian thinker stated that colonisation is not by brute force alone.
“Bennabi’s homeland, Algeria, paid a heavy price for its freedom – one and a half million martyrs. Yet his vision was never shackled to one land alone. He saw the struggles of Muslims across Asia and Africa as shared struggles. And he spoke not just for them but for all of humanity.
“Bennabi may have left us more than 50 years ago, yet his thoughts remain as timeless as they are profound. He sought to understand why some societies were vulnerable to domination while others thrived.
Bennabi understood that colonialism was not merely an external imposition – it was also an internal ailment, made possible by the weaknesses within colonised societies.
“Domination, he argued, was not sustained by brute force alone. Indeed, it was nourished by intellectual inertia, political stagnation and social fragmentation. True liberation, then, was not simply about casting off foreign rule – it was about renewing the very foundations of society.
“Bennabi... reminds us that without the moral courage to grasp the guiding ideas of our civilisation, we will be doomed to repeat the errors of our ways only to be consigned to the dustbin of history.
“Thus, Bennabi called for a revival, not just in political terms but in a deeper, more holistic sense. To break free from the legacies of colonialism, societies had to dismantle the mindset of subjugation as much as the physical structures of imperial control. This meant rejecting the culture of the empire and cultivating a “culture of civilisation” that is rooted in the ethical and spiritual principles that define human dignity,” said Anwar.
Modern societies have been endowed with tremendous power over the natural and human worlds, yet their ethical development has failed to keep pace. This chasm, he warned, breeds dehumanisation and imperils our collective future.
“True liberation was not merely political or economic. A society that grants political rights yet leaves its people in economic servitude is not truly free. Nor is a society that ensures material security while suppressing intellectual and political freedom.
“This is the essence of Islamic democracy: a system that frees people not only from external oppression but from internal servitude.
“This is as much an injunction to bear responsibility for one’s actions, and by extension into the arena of politics, clearly a commandment for accountability without which democracy becomes a mere platitude. Hence, our Madani framework of governance places paramount importance on democratic accountability.
“Today, as we launch both this book and this institute, we are not merely reflecting on history. We are taking responsibility for the future,” said Anwar.
