It's not very often that I agree with Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad, but this time I do when he says there's no more justice in this world (Sunday Star Online, Sept 29), that all the talk about fair play and justice and democracy and human rights is "sheer nonsense, mere bunkum and hypocrisy". All a pack of lies and "sheer propaganda."


These are strong words, powerful adjectives that Mahathir uses, but hardly surprising, given his reputation.


Not that what Mahathir says is anything new. Still, there's a new urgency about such observations today.


Look hard enough and you'll find that all these values for common humanity something the promoters and defenders of Western-driven globalisation keep harping about are fast eroding. And eroding faster, apparently, since the Sept 11 attacks in the US.


But what is Mahathir really saying when he says this world is a lousy place to live in today?


Mahathir's observations probably stem from events since Sept 11, including actions and talks by the United States that Britain, and more recently, the Canadians were only too glad to echo.


There's Australia, too, the US' lapdog in this part of the world. Prime Minister John Howard doesn't need much encouragement to do US president George W Bush's bidding.


In this darkening world it's hard to deny this place is indeed not "a nice place to live in". There are powerful political forces afoot that seek to repress all peoples, especially those of different political ideologies and race.


In America, the bastion of so-called democracy, radical leftists are being frowned upon by the establishment. Their views are being drowned out by the mostly conservative or neo-liberal mainstream media.


Even liberal-leftists there are being shoved by the neo-conservatives and rightists, and, sadly, sometimes even by the centre-left media.


There's a growing chorus among Americans, privately, that the establishment of Homeland Security and the panoply of legislation to protect the US from terrorists, although right and warranted, is creating different tiers of justice that only repress the basic freedoms of Americans in several areas.


It's worse if you're unfortunate enough not to be a Caucasian.


Bush interrogates suspected terrorists in a US-controlled base in Cuba but his ingenious opt-out policy provides a two-tiered justice system where Americans are given a preferential level of justice. How? Bush bullies the world into changing the international treaty for justice that exempts all Americans from facing the International Criminal Court.


No American accused of human rights violations or war crimes can be found guilty by the ICC. Moreover, the US has the power to extract US citizens facing such indictments in other countries by force if necessary.


This notion is also manifest in the Bush administration's American Service Members Protection Act what Europe has dubbed 'The Hague Invasion Act'.


All this makes a complete mockery of American notions of globalisation that, if you read the hopelessly cockeyed and monotonous New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman, primarily underscores international democracy, human rights and justice.


It makes a mockery of America's lack of commitment to seek multilateral cooperation in halting Israel's terror campaigns in and illegal occupation of the Palestine, while it seeks multilateral cooperation, by bully threats, in hunting down and killing Saddam Hussein as the 'just' thing to do, simply because the US alleges Saddam has amassed weapons of mass destruction.


As if the US' nuclear weapons horde is far less destructive of the masses. Isn't that why 'deterrence theory' was developed in the 1960s after the Bay of Pigs incident? But of course the US pursuing Saddam is driven by a series of other agendas.


Still, it makes a mockery of the whole notion of 'justice as fairness', as John Rawls had put it. The US' version of justice is deemed only fair when America is judge, jury and executioner in the prosecution of international justice.


So when the world's leading beacon of democracy and human rights and 'civilisation' takes utterly hypocritical positions, such as allowing barbarism to be perpetrated when it coincides with its own 'national interest' but seeks bloody revenge when others avenge America's historical double-standards, it's not unreasonable to suggest, as Mahathir has, that this is indeed a lousy time to be living in this world.


But that's not what Mahathir is really saying. After all, he knows it's the only world we have, the only place we can live in.


What Mahathir is really saying is that he doesn't like American hypocrisy and its propaganda and other ridiculous spiel.


I agree. Anyone with half a brain can see right through US policy, and only feel as cynical as Mahathir does.


But here's the chance for Malaysia and the rest of the non-Western world, especially Asia, to show the Americans a thing or two in making this world a better place. Why wait for the West's lead? It'll never come. It's all hogwash. Baloney.


If we are serious about fair play and justice and democracy and human rights and 'civilisation', let's start by cleaning up our own backyard. Let's not be as hypocritical as the West, especially the Americans.