Mahathir Knows......

On 21 April 2010, I had the opportunity to listen to the ex-Prime Minister of Malaysia, Tun Mahathir. He was invited by Universiti Teknologi Petronas to give a lecture on "Beyond Vision 2020". About the topic of his public lecture, he honestly said that it would not be accomplished unless Malaysia changes its direction, I don't know in what sense but certainly it has something to do with the people and its leaders. Mahathir, who is the Chancellor for the universiti, presented a lecture which I found was very honest and true, MAINLY BECAUSE IT WAS COMING FROM A NORMAL CITIZEN AND NOT A POLITICIAN.


He told that, Malaysia cannot rely on nuclear power as the radioactive waste cannot be disposed of. The wastes can only be buried in the soil and thus, making the area hazardous and cannot be used for any purpose. This is the reason why Malaysia have to build dams to produce electric. He bombarded the green environmentalist who cannot see the matter in a bigger picture. He also mentioned that he had to learn a lot of economic and finance during the 1998 economic crisis.


After his lecture, there was a question and answer session. One of the teachers in the nearby school who question on the reason why Maths and Science are taught in English when most of the people cannot adapt to it. Mahathir replied that everyone should move forward by learning English and not stay in Bahasa Malaysia. He added that it is important to be at par, internationally. I liked the part where he 'shut' the mouth of the teacher for good when he said, "why follow those who are at the lower level...... We should increase the level of the difficulty and not decreasing it". 


Another interesting question was on the unity and the integration of the races in this country. Mahathir said that Malaysia is considered a united country mainly because many have restrained themselves from speaking. Then he was asked again on the freedom speech. Mahathir replied that it is better now compared to the Prime Minster from 1981-2003. He also hinted that the Malays of this country need to be competitive in order to survive the current world because more and more country will be multi-racial and multi-cultural. Europe and Asia will be filled with Indians and Chinese, which is about 2.3billion of the total population of the world. He didn't want to tell the main reason of preventing the integration of the races of this country but he said this "look at Singapore, they only have English school!". Haha. That is one of the post which I have mentioned before: http://theramblingtrio.blogspot.com/2009/08/single-standard-education-for-all.html
See! Smart people don't think alike but geniuses do! Haha!


To wrap up, Mahathir was a smart leader and he knows that he has been using the ISA on many purposes beside what it is meant for. There would be many new problems that he might not see in the future but the main point which he predicted that we should pay attention on would be:

1. Malaysia should not focuses its income on the direct investment of foreign entity because it is now considered an expensive country to invest on.
2. The world would be multi-racial and multi-cultural, thus 'people' in this country should not rely too much on the government.
3. Plastics can be a potential world killer in the future because it cannot be disposed of.

There are much more good content in his speech but that's all I would write about it. Before ending, Mahathir said "I do not need to worry about it as I will no longer be here. It is for the future leader to solve them."

The Politician