This week marks the 20th anniversary in power of Malaysia’s strong-willed and occasionally controversial prime minister, Mahathir Muhammad. Whatever people think of him, he towers over the country like a Colossus. He has propelled it from poverty, wholly dependent on exports of tin and rubber, to being one of Asia’s most developed economies.
The credit for that must go to Mahathir. He has single-mindedly championed Malaysia’s interests abroad and those of the hitherto impoverished Malay community at home. Today’s prosperity is the result and the reward. Of course, there would have been development without him; all of Southeast Asia has changed, apart from those places still struggling with the legacy of communism. But whether Malaysia would have been quite as dynamic without Mahathir is open to serious doubt.
In the rest of the world, he is known for his fierce and bitter criticisms of the West, of “Western decadence”, and of institutions like the IMF. The Western media do not like it and incessantly target him and Malaysia, as a result, portraying him as a dictator and his rule autocratic and corrupt — although such outbursts have done him no harm either at home or elsewhere in the developing world. There is no point pretending that there are no problems, especially on the corruption front. But without making light of the problem, where in the world is no corruption? Surely the more significant point is that, just when those accusing voices become even shriller, Malaysia under Mahathir can be seen as a beacon of stability in an otherwise turbulent sea. This is an age in which visionary politicians to be damned as dictators. The same goes for Mahathir. However, history will look back to him with admiration as the founding father of Malaysian prosperity and stability. It could even be claimed that Mahathir remade Malaysia, molding a disparate state anew into a vigorous and enterprising nation.
Indeed, just as Louis XIV, when asked about the French state exclaimed “The state? That’s me”, so too there is a sense in which Mahathir is Malaysia. Without him at the helm, all could have fallen apart — and could still do so.
There lies the drawback of having so dynamic and charismatic a leader. His pivotal role and the support he still attracts from all sections of the community — Chinese, Malays, Muslims, non-Muslims and so on, — paper over the very real cracks that still exist. As in Indonesia, there are dangerous fault lines between the communities; just recently, a poll at the capital’s University of Malaya revealed that only 10 percent of students considered themselves to be Malaysians first and foremost. Unfortunately, there are too many second-rate politicians who are all too prepared to exploit social and divisions to achieve power. The racial unrest at the end of March, the most violent for 30 years, in which six people died, provides a warning of what might happen if ethnic harmony, the foundation stone of Mahathir’s policies, is jettisoned.
He himself is aware of the dangers and that he holds Malaysia together — which explains his recently pronouncement that Malaysia would not get rid of him so easily. Not that there is anyone of great merit to replace him; after all, nothing grows under the banyan tree.
