mahathir lashes out at jews, page-68

re: ypsilon- mahathir lashes out at jews-
After 22 years in power, Mahathir Mohamad is stepping down. Can Malaysia thrive without him?
BY SIMON ELEGANT | KUALA LUMPUR

Twenty years ago, Puchong was a typical sleepy Malaysian town. It had one main street lined by rows of two-story shop houses out of which the mostly Chinese population did business, selling goods and services to the surrounding oil-palm plantations, tin mines and rubber smallholdings. Though it lies only 18 kilometers from the center of Kuala Lumpur, Puchong could have been any of hundreds of similar towns throughout the country: the indigenous Malays largely working the land, the Chinese dominating business in the towns.

Today, looking at Puchong, you could be excused for thinking that 100 years had passed, not just 20. Puchong is a thriving metropolis with a multiracial population of almost 560,000, many of them Malays working in nearby factories, offices and small businesses. Now effectively a suburb of the capital, it boasts two four-lane highways that are filled with streams of cars from early morning until late at night. Among the high-rise apartment blocks and shopping malls are rows of shops offering KFC chicken, McDonald's hamburgers and scores of cell-phone models. There is even a pair of superstores from international giants Carrefour and Tesco, and the huge parking lot of each could comfortably house all the vehicles owned by the townsfolk back in the early 1980s.

Just as it was once a microcosm of the old order, the bustling Puchong of today is a neat symbol of the new Malaysia as envisioned by Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad: modern, prosperous, peaceful, admired. Mahathir, 78, is scheduled to step down at the end of this month, after 22 years in power. His retirement signals the end of an era during which, through the sheer force of his convictions and his personality, he transformed the character of an entire nation and its people. Last week, at a press conference in Bali after his final attendance at a summit of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, Mahathir was in characteristically feisty form—cracking jokes, skewering other governments (he lambasted Australia for playing "deputy sheriff" in the region) and showing no sign that his imminent departure was weighing on his mind.

He was leaving, he said, because "everything is in place. That's the right time to leave. You don't want to leave after people kick you out." Belying his good humor, however, Mahathir's departure raises difficult questions about Malaysia's future. Can the economic momentum be sustained?

Can Mahathir's successor, Deputy Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi, match the achievements of his predecessor? Will there be greater democracy and transparency?

The sentiment in Puchong is a barometer of what Malaysia has achieved under Mahathir. The town retains one habit from the old days: the pasar malam, or night market, where row upon row of stalls are set up under neon lights each evening for hawkers to sell anything from grilled-to-order satay to traditional herbal remedies to a pair of Levi's jeans. In a large, brightly lit tent at one corner of the market, they can also plunk down a $25 deposit and reserve a brand new car. "I already have a Wira," says Ibni Hajar Itam, referring to a popular model of the national car built by the country's main automaker, Proton. "Now I'd like to buy a smaller car, a Kancil, for my wife." Each of the four models on display is surrounded by prospective buyers inspecting the wheels and peering inside while their children swarm through the cars, banging doors, pressing buttons and switches and generally making the salesmen nervous. Ibni, who was born in the rural town of Batu Pahat and migrated to Kuala Lumpur when he was nine, has spent 17 years at a nearby factory run by the Japanese electronic giant Matsushita. Should he decide to buy the cheapest Kancil on offer, the soft-spoken 33-year-old supervisor will pay only about $95 a month for the seven-year loan period. "One of Mahathir's great achievements is that almost every Malaysian can own a car," Ibni observes with satisfaction.

Indeed, from the cars that Ibni buys at fire-sale prices to his job—Matsushita was one of the first multinationals to take advantage of tax breaks and other incentive offered in the early years of Mahathir's premiership—he gives credit where it is due, to the Prime Minister and his single-minded vision of a developed Malaysia. Few would dispute that Mahathir's decision in the mid-1980s to welcome foreign investment was the chief catalyst in the economy's transformation from the world's biggest rubber and tin producer into a global player in products such as disk drives (it's the world's largest manufacturer), silicon chips and air conditioners. In the process, Malaysia's per-capita income has risen to Asia's fifth highest, trailing only Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and Singapore.

Ibni, and almost any other Malaysian, will also tell you that the country's prosperity is built on, and buttresses, Mahathir's other great triumph: maintaining racial harmony. In Malaysia, where about two-thirds of the population is Malay, a quarter Chinese and the rest of Indian descent, memories of the 1969 racial riots that left hundreds dead are fading. But the riots remain a pivotal event in the country's history, and the job of preventing a recurrence—in large measure by raising the economic status of the Malays, who have long lagged their Chinese compatriots in commercial matters, and so reducing resentment—has been Mahathir's central preoccupation while in office.