Mahathir bin Mohamad is a Malaysian politician, born December 20, 1925, in Alor Setar, the state capital of Kedah, north west. Mahathir was the fourth Malaysian Prime Minister from 1981 to 2003. Mahathir was the youngest of ten children of a professor of Indian origin and a Malay mother. He began a career doctor before entering politics in 1964. Climbing the ladder quickly, he became Prime Minister in July 1981 and quickly gained a reputation as a maverick. Mahathir bin Muhamad was educated in Alor Setar and the King Edward VII Medical College in Singapore. He joined the administration as a military doctor and exercises on the island of Langkawi. He was elected for the first time in Parliament in 1964 but lost his seat in the next election, in May 1969. Before becoming the Prime Minister he was successively nominated Minister of Education, Deputy Prime Minister (1976), Minister of Trade and Industry (1978), and conducted several missions abroad to attract investors. Little known in the world, he had a strong political influence in Asia (Barisione, 2009).
In 1981, Mahathir Mohamad became the Prime Minister of Malaysia. He was opposed by twice the hereditary sultans and managers who accepted the supreme ruler and the Council of sovereigns a limitation of their veto. In 1987, the Mahathir government responded to threats of alleged tension between Malaysia and China by arresting opposition leaders and suspending the work of four newspapers. The 1990 election kept the National Front in power with a large parliamentary majority. In 1993, Mahathir was involved in another constitutional dispute with the hereditary rulers that eventually led to the abolition of judicial immunity for the leader of the country. Starting in 1990, the problems evolved greatly in Sabah and Sarawak, where the opposition parties won the elections. Both states felt they had not benefited from the growth and industrialization of the 1970s and 1980s in oil, natural gas, and wood that has allowed general industrialization of the country. The development of Islamism in Muslim communities exacerbated tensions in Sabah, where the majority ethnic group, the Kadayans, are the Christians. Tensions remained long, but no state considered the idea of leaving the federation.
At the summit of the Non-Aligned countries in Cartagena (October 1995), he called for the abolition of the veto in the UN Security Council. Malaysia took, in 1996, the presidency of the United Nations General Assembly. It also assumed the presidency in the Group of Fifteen and that of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). It also inaugurated an African policy by taking part, alongside South Africa, the negotiations on the Sudanese conflict. The booming economy of the country cited as the "Malaysian development model" was seriously disrupted by the monetary and financial crisis that began in Thailand in the summer of 1997 (Case, 1991). This led the Malaysian authorities to send back to their countries of origin, in 1998, tens of thousands of migrant workers, mostly Burmese or Indonesian. In domestic policy, the Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad denounced, about the financial crisis, an international plot organized by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and foreign speculators, and imposed exchange controls and a fixed exchange rate for the ringgit. In September 1998, Anwar Ibrahim, deputy prime minister sacked for opposing the economic measures taken by Mahathir Mohamad earlier, in April, was arrested and accused of inciting riots and sodomy and sentenced in April 1999 to six years in prison for "corruption" (Barisione, 2009).
In May 1998, a few days after the fall of Indonesian dictator Suharto under pressure from the economic crisis and student protests, a rumor was taking shape in Jakarta and then in the whole Indonesia that the next Asian state which would see major upheavals in the fall of scholarships and regional currencies would be Malaysia, which government leader than was beating Asian political longevity record. Totaling seventeen years of very little power sharing, Mahathir Mohamad, came to rule without regard his heir apparent, is a worthy representative of the doctrine of "neo-authoritarianism" that made the heyday of Asian way to South Korea to Indonesia, passing through China and Singapore (Case, 1991). At seventy-two, as his Singaporean colleague, Lee Kwan Yew, now retired, Mahathir was more than the Prime Minister of a relatively small country with population showing up to the 1998 recession at the most sustained growth rates in the world. His fame spread to Asia through its anti-Western diatribes, heard the stands of all the major international and regional meetings, where Mahathir Mohamad has made himself the champion of the "Asian values" and confused Muslim on behalf of the rejection of the Western and American control of the region. So he has always expressed strong reservations to the Forum for Economic Cooperation Asia-Pacific (APEC) which was deemed as dominated by Americans. In 1994, he created with an activist of the Japanese right movement the bestseller called "Asia that can say no." This is the duality of the character that did not embarrassed contradictions calling his country to "break the umbilical cord with the West" while encouraging business with it. Such kind of compromise allowed Malaysia to make an annual double-digit economic expansion between 1986 and 1996 (MOHAMAD, 1999).
The financial turmoil has not spared the Malaysian ringgit and the Kuala Lumpur Stock Exchange, and the country entered into recession in August. After the market failure, Mahathir Mohamad was a directly blamed international speculator being responsible for the crisis, openly taking part in the financial affairs of George Soros. He was called a "criminal speculator" and advocated a protectionist economic policy that made him restore exchange controls to protect Malaysia from the regional contagion (Means & Khoo, 1998). He then clashed with his "dauphin", Anwar Ibrahim, who advocated the measures austerity in line with the IMF's doctrine and maintained high-interest rates to support the ringgit, the national currency. Therefore, Anwar became the star of American magazines, which marked him as a rising star of the "New Asia", who belonged to a new generation of liberal leaders. By getting rid of his right arm, Mahathir opposed a plea of receiving Washington's advice encouraging ASEAN countries to further open their financial markets and to put an order in their economies led by the IMF. Malaysia was the only state in the region to have avoided the "help" of this financial institution (Wain, 2009).
His political actions
Mahathir bin Mohamad was the first head of non-aristocratic government. It was responsible for the modernization of Malaysia. Nicknamed Mr. Doctor, he was a supporter of "Asian values" and more, "Islamic values". Mahathir has launched during his term in a policy of Islamization. He created the Islamic Bank of Malaysia in 1982 and the International Islamic University in 1983. He advocated respect for religious rules and has works of Islamic television programs. He wanted a moderate Islam, and above all modernized, capable of allowing the country's economic boom. Malaysia, unlike its neighbor Indonesia, was therefore not a secular Muslim state (Barisione, 2009).
Mahathir has always wished to limit British influence in Malaysia, which remained the member of the Commonwealth, but it has, therefore, seek to promote Asian Community (EAEG, East Asia Economic Group) around Japan. He fought against the Al Qaeda networks established in Malaysia, taking advantage of the attacks of 11 September 2001 to take control against his main opponent, the Malaysian Islamic Party (PAS), which was then discredited by approving hysterically attacks. Against him and to reduce it, he has used draconian laws, police measures and brutal censorship of the media, while expelling thousands of Indonesian workers. He also challenged the US hegemony because he believed that "Americans are not interested in the reasons for terrorist organizations deploying preventive and extraordinary security that cause anger, unhappiness of entire peoples who ask no better than to cooperate against terrorism." Former Cuban President Fidel Castro has called him "the other rebel nonconformist." (Mahathir bin Mohamad & Hashim Makaruddin., 2004).
At the end of his term, 16 October 2003, he made an impassioned speech to the Organization of the Islamic Conference in Putrajaya, where he accused the Jews rule the world "by proxy". This increased his reputation antisemitism and was criticized in the Western press. Mahathir responded by defending his speech by saying that he was not anti-Semitic, but against Jews who killed Muslims and Jews who supported them. During his tenure, Mahathir turned Malaysia into a regional manufacturing high-tech product and financial hub and telecommunications through its economic policies based on corporate nationalism, known as "Malaysia Plans". These policies were maintained almost until the end of his term. It has implemented its economic program "Wawasan 2020" (Vision 2020) which allowed the country's economic growth. In 1997, during the terrible Asian crisis, he treated the American “financial raptor” George Soros. «Closing the country, he applied a "nationalist potion" to Malaysia, chasing the country, about 2.2 million people, 60% of all Muslims and the IMF experts. Country's growth rates were impressive: 8.1% in 2000, 3.5% in 2002, 5.5% in 2003, while rates well above those of other "dragons" and Asian "tigers" who had subject to the demands of the World Bank. In 2002, Malaysia had the lowest unemployment rate in the world and in 2001; the country welcomed over ten million tourists (Wain, 2009).
The origin of this economic success is the fruitful implementation of some economic projects:
• Formula 1 Circuit which was named one of the greatest infrastructure projects in Asia. All experts in sport car racing were admired by the speed and quality of construction.
• The Petronas Twin Towers, the tallest twin towers in the world (452 m, 200 lifts), and the largest building in the world from 1997 to 2003, which became the symbol of modern Malaysia. They can withstand an earthquake of 7.2 on the Richter scale. This modern business center was the highest concentration of Mahathir Mohamad’s political ambitions.
• The most modern airport in the world built in 1998 in the capital of Malaysia Kuala Lumpur has increasingly and very quickly became an important transport hub in the whole Asia.
• The new capital Putrajaya was a kind of the city of the future. Its postmodern urban settings are considered as a real masterpiece.
• The new capital of IT and multimedia, Cyberjaya, was constructed as a center for contemporary computer researches, communications, business, development. Mahathir Mohamad was very proud of his fame as innovator and constantly overemphasized the difference between Malaysian society in the beginning of his rule and later.
Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad left power after 22 years of rule. This man, known for his intemperate statements, bequeathed to his country a controversial legacy and a little-known successor. Mahathir was accused by some Westerners to be a sectarian Muslim, but the country is living in multi-ethnic and religious tolerance. It comes from the rest of condemning the establishment in the state of Terengganu (northeast) of Islamic laws with sentences such as amputation and stoning. Similarly, the Malaysian leader is one of the staunchest critics of capitalism but he transformed a rubber export-based economy into an industrial nation. He accused those "Jews rule the world" but denounces, in the same speech, Palestinian violence (Mohamad, 2003). Search to cataloging Mahathir is vain. "They say I am a dictator, but they can say what they want," he launched recently in an interview, praising a government "very representative of all races, religions and cultures." (Mahathir bin Mohamad & Hashim Makaruddin., 2004).
"We Christians, Muslims, Hindus, Taoists We must reach an agreement between us," he said. In his eyes, his greatest achievement is managed to maintain harmony among the Malays, ethnic group which forms two-thirds of the population, and Chinese, two communities that have seriously competed in the 70's. "Race" is undeniably the center of the world seen by Mahathir: Europeans are "singing cockerels tail mired in excrement" lazy Malays, Australians "transplants" in Asia. (Mohamad, 2003).
In full 1997-1998 Asian crisis, Mahathir dared and did the exactly opposite of what advised the International Monetary Fund (IMF), controlling the capital and backing the Malaysian currency to the US dollar. Finally, the IMF chief, German Horst Köler, acknowledged last month that "Mahathir was right." Malaysia is a country that has the best record of the crisis: growth achieved 4.5% per year, unemployment was negligible, and the country occupied 17th place in the global ranking of nations. Praise is rare among the organizations of human rights, condemning a compliant judicial system, a stifled dissent, and a largely controlled press (Teles, 2013).
Analysts doubt that the designated successor of Mr. Mahathir, Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, 63, shines more by its respect for human rights. The former interior minister, however, nicknamed "Mr. Nice", had approved the detention without trial of many Islamists suspected of links with the regional terrorist network Jemaah Islamiyah. Either way, the future Prime Minister has promised to continue the policies of his predecessor, particularly with regard to the economy, an area where it has little expertise. But no doubt that the style will be different: Abdullah has his words and love teamwork. This outraged the United States or the European Union. Response by up to one year, with the election of the Prime Minister a poll which no one could predict the outcome in the absence of opinion polls. Prime Minister of Malaysia was capable of the best and the worst. Faced with the market storm in Asia, he gave the best of the worst. Mahathir Mohamad, head of government of Kuala Lumpur, played on the world stage a role similar the late Coluche once on stage short while. Just like the latter, Mahathir manifested a taste for provocation. As if this man of 72 years - at the head of a dynamic, certainly, but without political clout - had understood the need today to be heard, use the effects of shock sleeves and formulas.
The West was his favorite target, and regularly accused rich countries of wanting to dominate the world: "They want to colonize us again, he says, and to enslave us." (Mahathir bin Mohamad & Hashim Makaruddin., 2004). Nothing very original in sum; the third world is full of leaders who criticize the rigors of wild capitalism. But Mahathir was a special case. For since his accession to the post of prime minister in 1981, the success of his policy resulted precisely that Malaysia no longer falls within the third world. In less than a generation, the national economy has left the era of rice to enter the computer production. Between 1986 and 1996 the annual growth rate has been above 8% (Means & Khoo, 1998).
For this reason, his diatribes have long been heard by diplomats and businessmen with, to share about equal, respect and indulgence. Especially as his brilliance shots are old , and usually without consequence. In the 1970s, when Mahathir Mohamad still headed the country's destiny, he promised that all Vietnamese boat people who try to join Malaysia would be executed. No one was killed (Mohamad, 1999).
In recent months, however, some quietly wonder if "MM" as Mahathir Mohamad was nicknamed, has reached the stage of maturity. Once, citing mysterious regional particularities, Mahathir proposed a revision of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, in order to remove the text universal scope. Thus Mahathir Mohamad applause to authoritarian Asian regimes and showed a dry refusal to Washington. On the eve of the fall of national currency, the Prime Minister suggested that speculators would be punished and that exchange controls could enter into force. Within hours, the currency hit its lowest since twenty-four years.
But when a storm descended on the financial markets of Thailand, Indonesia, and Malaysia, Mahathir Mohamad came to the annual meeting of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, Hong Kong, of where he launched a vitriolic attack against George Soros, the American financier. The activity of brokers, he said, is "unnecessary, unproductive and immoral." Mahathir went to Cuba accompanied by 70 businessmen and calls for investment in the land of Fidel Castro. Vive anger of Washington was overt, especially as the Malaysian oil company, Petronas, has joined a few weeks ago a consortium around for a total investment contract 2 billion in Iran. The United States were nevertheless the first customers of Malaysia. During his final fireworks, Mahathir finally meant the real culprit of all evils, "We are Muslims, and the progress of Muslims do not like Jews. The Jews stole everything to the Palestinians, but as they cannot do the same in Malaysia, they seek to weaken the ringgit." (Mohamad, 2003). It was enough to think about it (Teles, 2013).
In five months, the national currency has actually depreciated by 35% each and indictment of the head of government has accelerated its fall. "His attitude is increasingly bizarre, signs a stock analyst. Why Mahathir Mohamad wanted to alienate the world "Some investors are wondering: what if the success had gone to the Prime Minister's head? His paranoid projects, which forced yesterday admiration, now raise embarrassed reactions. The two tallest towers in the world are in Kuala Lumpur. A hydroelectric dam is planned in the heart of the Borneo jungle, priced at $ 6 billion. A sea airport will cost almost double. Not to mention an "information superhighway". In the absence of a rival - his deputy and likely successor, Anwar Ibrahim, seemed irreproachable loyalty - Mahathir was free to his words, even the craziest. Without democratic counterweight, the prime minister escaped criticism. Not only the press and the courts orders, but laws dating from before 1957 when Malaysia was still a British colony, allowed the government to keep in prison indefinitely unwanted, without judgment (Means & Khoo, 1998).
In the early 1990s, Mahathir was celebrated in his own country as a "hero of the South." In Tanzania, he was greeted by "champion of the poor". His anti-Western proclamations did not prevent too much extols the virtues of capitalism and free enterprise. It is worthless to emphasize the special qualities of Asians in this area. This is the paradox of Mahathir, he shared with the former master of Singapore, Lee Kuan Yew. By addressing Westerners "speculators" to better exalt the meaning of work and business of his own population, he took up the social Darwinism of the British colonialists, who opposed discipline and force of Europeans and indolence the supposed decadence of the natives. Mahathir, frankly, has a frightening vision of mediocrity world. Without any doubt Mahathir Mohamad was an outstanding political leader. He had much success but plenty of alarming moments in his biography. The future generations will give the right estimation of his rule.
A small territory for a man to world stature. "A true giant of history," said, who believes that the world will remember the Patriarch as "one of the great strategists of Asian affairs." "A legendary figure in Asia," said Ban Ki-moon, Secretary General of the United Nations. A man who "forced the general respect of the international community as a strategist and statesman," said Xi Jinping, the Chinese president. If the formulas are no nuances, is that in making Malaysia, small enclave without resources, the most advanced Asian economy, Muhamad has not only managed a tour de force, but also inspired many plans In the region. Starting with the Chinese Communist Party: it is largely the success of Malaysia, and the determined vision Mohamad, who pushed Deng Xiaoping to commit his country on the path of economic reform. In a sense, the most formidable economic transition ever made in human history bears the indelible mark of a man who had to fly a spot territory, today, less than 6 million.
References
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Mahathir bin Mohamad, & Hashim Makaruddin.,. (2004). Reflections on ASEAN. Subang Jaya, Selangor Darul Ehsan, Malaysia: Published by Pelanduk Publications (M) Sdn. Bhd. for the Prime Minister's Office of Malaysia, Putrajaya, Malaysia.
Means, G. & Khoo, B. (1998). Paradoxes of Mahathirism: An Intellectual Biography of Mahathir Mohamad. The American Historical Review, 103(2), 573. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/2649885
Mohamad, M. (2003). Malaysia in 2002: Bracing for a PostMahathir Future. Southeast Asian Affairs 2003, 2003(1), 149-167. http://dx.doi.org/10.1355/seaa03j
Mohamad, M. (1999). I Am Not Suharto, or the Shah of Iran. New Perspectives Quarterly, 16(1), 9-12. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/0893-7850.1891999189
Teles, F. (2013). The Distinctiveness of Democratic Political Leadership. Political Studies Review, 13(1), 22-36. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/1478-9302.12029
Wain, B. (2009). Malaysian maverick. Basingstoke [England]: Palgrave Macmillan.
