Vox Populi: Mahathir spawned robber barons but...
May 26, 06 12:13pm
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Malaysiakini’s interview with Dr Mahathir Mohamad continues to draw a panoply of reactions from readers. Here’s a selection.
Shufiyan Shukur: Many people have knocked Tun Dr Mahathir (TDM), me included. But not many can deny that despite all the negatives of his premiership, he has been a visionary, dragging a laggard country by the scruff of its neck towards development.
No doubt he has also created robber barons - intentionally or unintentionally only God and he knows - and these economic brigands have caused ‘leakages’ in the country’s coffers and enriched themselves beyond the imagination of the rest of us.
But through him, we have the North-South Highway, Penang bridge, KLCC, and the country transformed from an agriculture to a manufacturing-based economy, and the Internet. Now where would we be without the Internet? We certainly would be without Malaysiakini.com which has become the standard bearer of the country’s Internet usage and the epitome of item 7 of the MSC Bill of Guarantees – ensure no censorship of Internet.
And he has put us on the world map, and made quite plain that he and Malaysia will not kowtow to the white man. And can we not forget the currency peg, implemented to thwart servitude to the IMF - a strategy once condemned, but now acknowledged to be quite brilliant?
Not more than three months ago, I was at one of those direct marketing presentations (I’m always suckered into these things). The speaker, a self-made Malaysian in his early 50s who was proud that he had failed even his Form 3 exams told what seemed to be a joke: “Last time, ah, the Mercedes Benz – the white man built it, the Chinese owned it, the Malay drove it and the Indian washed it. But now, all can own it.”
This seems to have summarised the state of the economy pre- and post-Mahathir.
