opinion One letter written by former United States ambassador to Malaysia, John Malott, to malaysiakini a few weeks ago sparked off some polemics in the Letters column of malaysiakini which spilled over to the mainstream media, particularly the New Straits Times.

For malaysiakini readers, they perhaps have noted the fact that the alternative media they subscribe to has somewhat finally become a setter of mainstream agenda public discourses.

Public fora which are independent, free and fair and allow different opinions to clash peacefully for the benefit of the intellectual development of the nation and the people are most definitely in our nation and society.

We must have avenues for minds and ideas to meet, to agree or disagree in a peaceful and civilised manner, or we shall continue to be stagnant and even to decline intellectually. Already, the quality of our tertiary education has been questioned, both within and outside the country.

Also, in recent years, Malaysia has been witnessing a secular rise in the numbers of wife-beaters, road bullies, child torturers, maid abusers, emotionally-aggressive politicians and violent cops. There is evidently a need to overcome what social psychologists call the 'frustration-aggression' trend and tendency.

'Our bastards'

For those like Mallot who are used to democratic and free debates, criticisms are only to be expected and anticipated. In fact, some criticisms against certain foreign policies of the United States voiced by some Third World intellectuals, journalists, social activists and politicians are right factually.

For example, the United States, and for that matter, some Western liberal democracies, during the Cold War, were evidently wrong and silly to believe so easily in what some crackpot dictators in Asia, Africa and Latin America claimed to be 'threats' from communists, 'Chinese fifth- columnists' and Islamic fundamentalists.

In the tense atmosphere of bipolar confrontation with the Soviet bloc, the United States and the West were sometimes fooled into supporting 'our bastards' in Asia, Africa and Latin America and into giving them money, arms, technical advice on security operations and even personnel which were often used against peaceful and legitimate dissent.

With the support from the United States and the Western democracies, these dictators and autocrats acquired a false sense of confidence. In the process of self-preservation and self-aggrandisement, they alienated a large part of their initially innocent and peaceful populace who put the blame entirely on Western imperialism and neo-colonialism.

When the situations degenerated from bad to worse, 'our bastards' would usually turn around and become the 'champions' of the working class and national independence.

Less important?

However, even though the critics of some of the foreign policies of the United States and Western democracies are factually right, they themselves must not forget that their liberalism, Marxism, Marxism-Leninism, socialism, notions of democracy and human rights, and even technical skills were all acquired from the liberal democratic societies of the West.

In this sense, the critics of the West are using ideas and techniques given by the West to fight the West. Critics of the United States and the West cannot expect to be immune to criticisms. But that is still not the major problem for these critics.

The major moral dilemma of critics of the United States and the West stems from two other sources. First, while their critiques of the United States and the West can be read in newspapers and media in the United States and the West, the system they defend against the West usually censors, distorts and blackouts not only Western viewpoints, but also non-official opinions of the people within the system, and who pay taxes to maintain that system.

Critics of the United States and the West, however massive the amount of facts about the Western past they want us to believe, cannot run away from one simple moral question: Is the situation here (Malaysia or Asia) and now (2001 AD) less important and less pressing than the situations there (in the Western colonies or the outback in Australia) and then (the 15th or 16th centuries)?

They mourn for the Australian aborigines and the American Indians maltreated in the past, but summon no moral courage to condemn the injustices in Kamunting or Sungai Buloh now. This is moral escapism, if not downright hypocrisy, though the more sophistical ones would term it an 'exercise in progressive discourse'.

Simple truth

Now, what if the United States and the West were to say: We were wrong in giving birth and supporting 'our bastards' during the Cold War and now we want to get rid of them as the Cold War is over ?

Would the critics of the United States and the West accept or reject this positive change ? Or would they just want to bash the United States and the West for the sake of bashing just to show their knowledge in world history or ideological purity?

Would they allow others to make amends for the better? If they do not allow others to change, what right do they have to expect others to allow them to also change for the better? It is just a simple question of reciprocity.

Whatever the answers to these simple moral questions for our critics of the United States and the West, one simple truth holds in politics as well as in our own families: Two wrongs do not make a right.

JAMES WONG WING ON, chief analyst of Strategic Analysis Malaysia, is a former Member of Parliament (1990-1995) and a former columnist for the Sin Chew Jit Poh Chinese daily. He read political science and economics at the Monash University in Melbourne, Australia. While in Sin Chew, he and a team of journalists won the top awards of Malaysian Press Institute (MPI) for 1998 and 1999.