The voice of Asia should be heard and valued by the whole world, said Kishore Mahbubani, former permanent representative of Singapore to the United Nations, citing his own experience of shaking off Western world's mental colonization in childhood.
In an exclusive interview with China Central Television (CCTV) in Shanghai, Mahbubani recalled the books he wrote over the past 26 years, including a large portion of those focusing on Asia's position in the world, such as "Can Asians Think?" "The New Asian Hemisphere" and "Living the Asian Century: An Undiplomatic Memoir". "I think in some ways I was helped by the fact that I actually grew up in a British colony in Singapore. And I mentioned that because unless you have lived in a society that is colonized, you don't understand how brutal colonization can be. So as a child, my brain, my mind was psychologically colonized by the British to the extent that I believe as a child that I, as a brown person, I was inferior to the white person who's naturally superior to me. That is what colonial rule does. The way the Europeans were able to colonize the whole world is that they made the people that they colonized to think that they were inferior. And that's how 100,000 Englishmen could effortlessly rule over 300 million of my Indian ancestors 100 years ago," he said.
"Now I would live through that mental colonization. But when I came out of it, right? I felt this incredible sense of liberation. I also began to realize that Asian societies are as good as Western societies. They're not inferior, but I didn't want to keep this insight to myself. I wanted to share this insight with my fellow Asians. I was born a Hindu. I grew up in Southeast Asia, and then I was born as Sindhi. My name, my surname 'Mahbubani' comes from an Arabic Persian word that means 'beloved'. And the script I wrote as a child was the Arabic script. So you see I have this personal cultural connection with all corners of Asia, and that gives me the confidence to speak about the Asian story," he continued.
Voices of Asia should be heard, valued by world: former Singaporean diplomat
