Malaysian Maverick: Mahathir Mohamad in Turbulent Times by Barry Wain (fantasy novels to read .TXT) 📕

Chaim Herzog's visit to the city-state in 1986. Through the OIC, Dr. Mahathir also got involved in trying to settle the eight-year Iran-Iraq war, and actively supported the mujahidin in their resistance to the Soviet Union's occupation of Afghanistan. But it was the defence of Muslims in Bosnia-Herzegovina, as war broke out in the former Yugoslavia, which proved to be Dr. Mahathir's Islamic preoccupation. He secretly provided the Bosnians with heavy weapons.[92] It was an ideal tragedy on which to unleash his polemical skills and flay the West for practising double standards over its reluctance to stop Serbian ethnic cleansing. Dr. Mahathir's efforts to reactivate the Non-Aligned Movement in the post-Cold War era and galvanize it to adopt a resolution calling for the expulsion of the rump state of Yugoslavia from the U.N. caught the movement's imagination at a conference in Jakarta in 1992. Dr. Mahathir emerged as the "New Voice for the Third World", as a cover of the weekly Far Eastern Economic Review proclaimed.[93]

Under fire by Western environmentalists over its forestry practices, Malaysia also rallied developing countries to ensure their views were heard at a landmark U.N. sponsored Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in 1992. Dr. Mahathir told ministerial representatives of more than 50 developing economies, who gathered in Kuala Lumpur beforehand, that the industrialized world's fear of environmental degradation provided them with leverage that had not previously existed. He asserted that developed nations, if they wanted to save the forests in poorer countries, had a responsibility to provide the funds and technology to enable them to shift to other sources of income. As the Economist noted, the Malaysians "emerged as the leaders of the developing world on the road to Rio".[94] Moreover, at the summit, Dr. Mahathir and his officials maintained the pressure so that the general development interests of the South were persistently linked to the overall discussion of environmental issues.[95]

As Third World champion, Dr. Mahathir took a prominent part in a debate on "Asian values" that raged the length of East Asia and across the Pacific in the early 1990s. Triumphant after the demise of Communism, President Bill Clinton's first administration aggressively sought to spread its victorious version of democracy and human rights among the unconvinced and unconverted. Dr. Mahathir joined government-employed Singaporean intellectuals in counter-attacking by contending that Asian values, in contrast with Western values, put greater stress on community than individuals, and emphasized economic and social, rather than civil and political, rights.

Dr. Mahathir had longed railed against the British for ruling Malaya in authoritarian fashion, only to insist that the inexperienced country practice democracy the instant it became independent. In the name of Asian values, which conveniently deflected attention from his own blemished record, Dr. Mahathir listed societal defects — crime, violence, drug addiction, homosexuality, chronic vandalism, illegitimate births — to suggest the American political system did not suit Asia. Is there only one form of democracy or only one high priest to interpret it, he asked rhetorically. Attempts by the West to impose democracy and human rights were disguised efforts to weaken Asian countries and undermine their competitiveness, he said, and a U.S. move, backed by labour unions, to increase wages in Asia had the same objective. He was particularly outraged by the West's efforts to link human rights with aid or trade. Malaysia and Singapore were the active participants at a preparatory meeting in Bangkok that staked out a loose common Asian stand for a U.N. Conference on Human Rights in Vienna in 1993. The debate showed Dr. Mahathir's gift of invective at its best, while his "exposure of some Western illogicalities was devastating".[96]

Combining his Third World spokesmanship with vigorous commercial diplomacy, Dr. Mahathir was able to open the way for Malaysian companies in some of the poorest developing and former communist countries. On his frequent trips abroad, he packed his aircraft with local business people and helped them find markets for Malaysian manufactured goods and investment opportunities in impoverished corners of Europe, Africa, the Americas and wide swaths of Asia. Malaysian companies signed contracts for everything from housing in Albania, to flower farming in Uzbekistan, gold exploration in Kazakhstan, road building in India and bridge construction in Uruguay.[97]

Dr. Mahathir's anti-West stance translated into commercial benefits in several countries that were hostile to the United States, among them Iran, Somalia and Liberia. Petronas, Malaysia's national oil and gas company, took a 30 per cent stake in an Iranian oil venture, despite an American law that penalized foreign companies doing business with the Islamic republic. "We will not submit to what the United States dictates to us," Dr. Mahathir declared.[98] Dr. Mahathir's staunch opposition to apartheid and friendship with Nelson Mandela paid off in the form of large housing, township and harbour development contracts after his African National Congress came to power in 1994. They were awarded to Malaysian companies, despite substantially lower bids by international developers.[99] In some of the remote markets, the Malaysians were treated like royalty.[100] "When I go to Argentina, all doors are open," commented businessman Salehuddin Hashim. "That's the impact of what Dr. Mahathir has done with his pushing of South-South cooperation."[101]

But much of the activity was hasty and ill-conceived and did not pay dividends to Malaysia Inc. Many projects, announced with much fanfare and little research, were primarily political and did not get beyond the memorandum of understanding stage. "It's well known in Malaysia that one of our biggest exports is MOUs," quipped Ananda Krishnan, one of the country's most successful entrepreneurs.[102]

Some investments proved embarrassing, as when evidence surfaced of unofficial associated payments. The "tea money" for a large, private Malaysian port-city redevelopment in Cambodia included the gift of an aircraft for one of the country's two premiers.[103] In post-apartheid South Africa, where Malaysia surprisingly emerged as the second biggest source of foreign investment, the "Malaysian state or state-linked corporate sector" donated about six million rand to the African National Congress just before the 1994 elections.[104] Malaysia's reputation was also tarnished by environmental studies criticizing