Tun Dr. Mahathir on 30th June 2011 was asked to deliver a speech in conjunction with the ‘Forum of International Nusrah Day in Solidarity with Al-Quds and Palestine’ by the invitation from Al-Azhar University, held at the Azhar Conference Centre (ACC).
As a Tun M's fan (obviously), I'm trying to transcribe his speech because of the annoying Arabic translation dubbed inside the video. It is not perfect. I missed some words. But if u happen to catch the words, feel free to leave a comment below.
His accent might be a little Malay-ish, and his intonation might be a little monotonous, but if you listen carefully, his contents & choice of words were very precise, making what he's trying to say very easy to understand and straight to the point. And more impressively, without even reading from any text.
I am honored to be given such a great opportunity to attend and listen to one of the great mind of our time speaking that day. May Allah give him a long beneficial life. Amin.
And oh, by the way, i was in the video (minute 1:30) Ahaks (^^)
Enjoy ;)
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Firstly, i would like to thank the organizers, the general congress for the forum of al-Quds and al-Azhar university for this invitation to speak at this distinguished forum on the problems faced in the struggle in order to liberate al-Quds, and for the return of the refugees.
I have heard and listened carefully to the speeches made before me, and i believe it is important that we always remind ourselves of the problems faced by al-Quds. If we don't gather like this, if we don't talk about it, we will forget it. And this is exactly what our enemies would like to see us.
So this gathering is very important because it brings together .... minded people. I'm quite sure that the people here is united in the struggle in order to liberate al-Quds. But obviously it is not enough for us to gather and to talk about al-Quds. The struggle must be something that will have a greater effect than just talking about it.
I have observed and i have studied this struggle for a long time. It has now been 60 years, and during that period there have been many efforts made, many actions taken, in order to help liberate Palestine. But we know, that far from liberating Palestine, we see Palestine being occupied, and we see settlements being built all over Palestine.
When i came to Palestine, i was delayed at the checkpoint made by Israelis. This is a checkpoint for people going to Palestine. I have no desire to go to the occupied Palestine. But i was horrified to find that actually, the whole of Palestine is under Jewish control. And even the roads built in Palestine are barred to the Palestinian people.
That is the extent of the conquest of Palestine by the Israelis. And as we all know, they have been building a lot of new settlements even in Jurusalem; the third holiest city in Islam.
..... little that we can do. Indeed we can protest, but this has no effect. ..... struggle, without any real planned, without any strategies, without any ... nation... I maybe wrong, but I find that actions taken are almost individualistic by small groups acting on their own without the knowledge of others. And these of course, have not yielded any results.
We feel that we should take revenge. If they kill us, then we kill them. And when we kill them, they will kill us, and we should kill them again. And this goes on and on for 60 years with many death among us, but we have achieved very little in the struggle to liberate al-Quds.
I believe that no struggle can be successful without a plan, without a strategie, without ... I know that it is impossible to get 1.5 billion to act together. But we have to remember that at no time in the history of this world are there as many muslims as there are now. There are 1.5 billion of us.
Not only that, we are the richest people in the world. Muslim people are today the richest people... granted what is be given by Allah Taala. The oil wealth, that seems to be specially located in Muslim countries.
We have a lot of money. We have a lot of people. We have a lot of intellectuals. We have a lot of technical capacities et cetera. But because we are not coordinated. Because we have no real plan on how to liberate Jurusalem and Palestine, because we don't have any strategies. Today we have not made any progress.
It is time that we revise our strategy. Make a plan. And coordinate our actions. Obviously, as i said just now, it is not possible to unite 1.5 billion people, because Muslims are very divided. We know today unfortunately, Muslims are killing Muslims. We are in fact, helping the enemies of Islam to succeed. We kill our fellow Muslims because of the differences in the interpretation of our religion. We consider some people are of this group , and that group as Sunnis, Shiah, Wahhabi, and Salafis.
But to our enemies, we are all Muslims. They don't know the difference between us and the different sects that we belong to. So at least, in the struggle to liberate Palestine and al-Quds, we should be united. Our differences in terms of different interpretation of religion should be set aside, because this is a struggle that should unite all Muslims.
This is a struggle against the people that have denigrated the Muslims. They have insulted us. They have insulted our prophets. And what can we do beyond demonstrating in front of their embassies. That's all we can do. And why is it that we can only do that? It is because we are not united, and we are weak, and we have no single plan to defend ourselves.
In the Quran, we are urged that we have to have the capacity to defend the ummah. But we have allowed ourselves to become weak, because we failed to acquire the knowledge that would enable us to provide ourselves with the weapons that are needed in order to defend ourselves. It is going to be very difficult for us to build up our strength, military.
But a struggle is not always a military struggle. Maybe today, a military struggle is not going to yield results. But there are other areas where we can act in order to ensure that we make progress in the struggle to liberate Jurusalem.
I don't think that we can do these things in one day. Not even in one year. Not even in one decade. It may take a long time. Remember that the Jews were the prosecuted people before. For 2000 years they had to face attacks against them in the Christian countries. There were pogroms, there we massacres of Jews.
But because they strategized and planned, they are today able to get the support of most of the countries of the world, to the point where some of these countries have prepared to fight their wars for them.
So we too, should try and work out a strategy, draw up a plan, and coordinate it. So that we can ensure the rest of the world would support our struggles. On our own, we will not be able to succeed. We need to be friends and supported from outside the Muslim world.
But if we act irrationally, by killing people who are not against us, by attacking people who are not against us, and causing them to be very angry against us, we are not helping ourselves. If we have a plan, we should make sure that what we do will gain support for us from among those people who are not in favor of Israel.
Believe me, there are many people in Christian world, in Europe and in America who are sympathetic towards the struggle to liberate Palestine. There have been speeches made in favor of not helping Israels. There have been attacks in America by Americans against the American policy of supporting Israel. But we have not made use of these people.
Now if we build up relationship with people who are influential in their countries, we will reduce the support given to Israel by these countries. But if we act irrationally, if we kill people that are innocent, the feelings against us will be very strong. And when that happens, then...
(to be continued)
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