00:00 I request the protocol to escort his excellency.
00:03 I have great pleasure in welcoming his excellency Anwar Ibrahim, Prime Minister and Minister of
00:13 Finance of Malaysia. I invite him to address the assembly.
00:17 [Anwar Ibrahim speaks in Indonesian]
00:38 Mr. President, when this August assembly was established almost 80 years ago,
00:45 the world was still reeling from the horrors of a catastrophic bloodletting that our nation's
00:52 resolve should never be repeated. A decision profound in wisdom, magnanimous in intent,
01:01 and bold in ambition was made so that the General Assembly would become the main deliberative
01:09 policymaking and representative organ of the United Nations. A decision that manifested no less
01:18 than the very strength and courage of our convictions. By giving equal voice to the
01:25 sovereign nations of the world, the founders of the United Nations pursued a vision of a
01:32 more democratic world, predicated on the dictates of equity and justice. This was a vision that
01:42 consigned to the past the predations of the strong of the weak, the strong over the weak,
01:50 of the rich and powerful, over the poor and the marginalized, and of the big powers over the rest.
02:01 That vision, in my opinion, has been utterly shattered to pieces. Today, we find that the
02:11 major powers and those that aspire to greater international status are increasingly casting
02:19 the United Nations aside for smaller, supersurely more efficacious platforms. As the powers that
02:28 be continue to pay lip service to the imperative of multilateralism, we see the emergence of
02:37 mini-lateralism instead, effectively becoming fragmented configurations of power.
02:44 Mr. President, we are living in a deeply polarized world. We are seeing major power rivalry
02:55 unfolding with consequences that will negatively impact nations, especially the smaller ones
03:03 in the regions of conflict. The upshot is that we are confronted with a geopolitical
03:11 and geostrategic dilemma. While the major powers continue to assure that a binary choice is not
03:20 being imposed, the reality for many is that it is the only choice offered. Unchecked,
03:29 this will ultimately lead, once again, to a world where the masses are unrepresented,
03:37 where the few rule over the many, and the many resent the few.
03:44 [END]
03:44 Transcription by Trans-Expert at Fiverr.com
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