A view of the world

After the Global Financial Crisis, the World Bank got more much involved in South-East Asian countries than before. Not always with success, nor to general acclaim. The Research Department of the World Bank was tasked to look into income distributions of some of these countries including Malaysia that up to that point kept the World Bank at arm’s length even when in came to macroeconomic policies, not to speak of looking at income distribution and discussing, as one would invariably be led to, income differences between the Malays, ethnic Chinese, and ethnic Indians. In the end, we got all the data we wanted and the relations became quite good. But on that—on the problem of income distribution in Malaysia—I could write an entirely different essay.

My piece today is about something different. Getting to Malaysia turned out to be much more difficult than I thought. Despite the fact that I had a UN Laissez Passez (which acts like a global passport for any country that accepts to treat it as such), Malaysia then, in the late 1990s, had an entirely unrelated stipulation that citizens of Israel and Serbia, on account of their countries’ anti-Islamic policies and “genocide” , were not allowed into the county. I do not recall now all the details, but it took quite a few phone calls –in those days you dealt with such issues by phone—through the Malaysian embassy in London, to finally give me a dispensation to travel to Kuala Lumpur despite my nefarious background.

How surprised was I when, expecting the worst, I landed in an ultra-modern airport in Kuala Lumpur, was pro-forma taken on the side, and treated with kindness (or perhaps one would say, indifference) by the officials. The whole “extra” treatment did not take more than ten minutes, and on this and subsequent trips to Malaysia I never had any problems.

I developed an abiding love for the country. It was just beautiful: I thought of it as a Spain of Asia: cultural diversity, long sand beaches, great restaurants, sky-scrapers and night life of Kuala Lumpur, remarkable cleanliness, friendly people.

But the issue of Serbian anti-Islamism did not thoroughly disappear. Several times, when talking to ordinary Malaysians, I was confronted with the accusations of Serbian genocide in Bosnia. It was invariably done in polite manner. I did not agree with them on all points, but I noticed that this negative attitude was much more present amongst people with strong Islamist beliefs. Others, not particularly keen on Islam and less interested in world affairs, never heard of any of these peripheral European countries that were fighting each other.

That led me to the following question. I avoided unpleasant conversations with people who absolutely did not care nor know anything about world affairs, and I had uncomfortable discussions with those who cared; what was better? For me personally, it was better to avoid unpleasant topics. But was it good for the world—and was it even pleasing to myself who from Titoist Yugoslavia inherited a huge interest in world affairs—to just ignore whatever is happening in the world? I could have a pleasant time with people who ignored anything of history and of present-day politics, or unpleasant time with people who read or knew something about both. Between the two, I thought, I opted for the latter. Surely, I appreciated as individuals more people who disagreed with me than those who were totally indifferent.

Perhaps we can live nice lives in total indifference of the rest of the world but if everybody does it, in what kind of a world shall we live?