The man who made Malaysia.

(From The Korea Herald)

Dr. Mahathir Mohamad is stepping down after serving more than 22 years as the leader of Malaysia and its ruling the United Malay National Organization (UMNO). Today's gleaming, modern Malaysia is unimaginable without Mahathir and UMNO which also produced Tunku Abdul Rahman, the country's first prime minister. Like Mahathir, the fourth prime minister, Tunku led the government and the party for more than twenty years. Generation-long reigns seem to have served Malaysia exceedingly well since independence. Indeed, the continuity delivered by these two men is the secret of Malaysia's success as a rapidly developing multicultural state. Both began their careers as Malay nationalists who sought to promote the rights of the Malay majority after the British left. But they also recognized that the country's sizable and economically powerful Chinese and Indian minorities, among other groups, were critical of the country's development and had to be persuaded to accept the new Malay-led state as their own. Mahathir became prime minister in 1981 when the region was on the eve of historic change, following the end of the Vietnam War and Indonesia's stabilization after the bloody civil strife of the 1960's. The global economic system was buoyant and East Asia, not least Mao's China, was more deeply committed than anyone expected to support that system. This encouraged Mahathir to make a clean break with the British colonial heritage. His call to "look East" marked the beginning of an ambitious industrialization policy that culminated, during his 10th year in power, in the Vision 2020 plan to catch up with Western levels of development. By 1997, Mahathir was at the pinnacle of his power, inspiring the country to believe that it would not be long before all its communities would see themselves as sharing a common Malay nationality. But the Asian financial crisis that struck later that year halted the region's trajectory of rapid growth. Against most international advice, Mahathir imposed capital controls and a fixed exchange rate for the ringgit to buy time for recovery. He also sought to shift the sense of crisis away from economics to politics (where he retained an iron grip) by removing his designated heir, Anwar Ibrahim, who was Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance. Anwar's arrest and trial stunned the country, but Mahathir surprised few Malays - either allies or opponents - by restoring his authority so thoroughly following the crisis that he was able to handpick Abdullah Badawi as his successor. The launch of the war on terror provided Mahathir ...