Tun Dr. Mahathir: the way of though

Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad is a very dynamic thinker who thinks forward in his action. In 22^nd years of his premiership, he had brought Malaysians and Malaysia itself to a level where the Malaysians had never imagined it. Thus, in analyzing his way of though we need to relate Malaysian Government’s policies during his era.

This Malaysian former prime minister always thinks deeply and confidence in his actions which he believed that his actions will success. For an example, when government wanted to start the first national car project-Proton, many parties believed that the project will fail. But, now this project has brings numerous benefits to this country. Not all countries in the world have their own automotive companies, while amazingly; now, Malaysia has two national automotive companies. Through these industries Malaysia is able to generate one part of its economic sectors without depends directly to foreign economy sectors. For instances, during the 1998 recession, Malaysia successfully came out from the situation by the policy to buy and use Malaysian products, such as Proton.

Next, Tun Dr. Mahathir is an outstanding speaker who speaks from his mind without need to read the text. People can get numerous ideas from his speeches which more likely to talk about the past for the future. Moreover, he liked to write his own speech texts compare to his predecessors who liked to ask their secretaries to write down the text. Interestingly, when he gave a speech, there was large population around the world who came to hear.

Then, his policy in constructed the mega projects, such as North-South Highway, Penang Bridge, KLCC, Putrajaya, KLIA and etc. This policy was firstly seemed as wasteful projects, but now all of these projects had help in economic growth by attracting and increasing the foreign direct investments (FDIs). Thus, many investors had confident with Malaysia economy and likely to invest in the country. Sadly to say there are some people in this country who are wanted to sell these mega projects if they could take over the government. But now, they impatiently want to go to Putrajaya, to sit in the offices. In addition, when the present government reduces the mega projects which are benefited to the country and citizens, they blame that the government failed to bring the FDIs, boost the economy and prosper the citizens. Thus, as always mentioned by Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohamad that was ‘Melayu Mudah Lupa’.

After that, Tun Dr Mahathir’s policy had shifted Malaysian economy from the conventional economy to the updated economy. These happened two times during 22 years of Tun Mahathir era. The first time happened during the early 1990s, when he decided to change the agriculture economy to the industrial economy. This policy had helped Malaysia created enormous of job opportunity to its citizens. Thus, consequently stabilized the economy and low the life costs. While, the second changed happen in the mid 1990s when he decided that Malaysian economy should move forward towards k-economy and ITC. This k-economy means the economy is based on the knowledge-based economy which is focus the high skills human capitals. Moreover, ITC which is information technology and communication is a future economy plan that is focused on the ITC applications in the whole country. The examples of it blueprints are the e-government and Malaysia Super Corridor (MSC). The e-government refers to the electronic government which is used the electronic applications in all system or in the other word, paperless government.

Lastly, Tun Dr. Mahathir knew how to unite the multiracial and multi-religious citizens. Apparently, there are two ways in his methods. First way was through the Malaysia Boleh slogan. This slogan had built the confident in Malaysian that their can do the best as well as other nations. Second method was through the Malaysia foreign policies and the its role in the world order. For example, Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohamad clearly stated that Malaysia is an Islamic Country and this statement had been accepted by the whole country. This could be happened since Malaysia itself played an active role in the Organization of Islamic Countries (OIC) and helped other third world countries. But, now there were no Malay-Muslim leaders who are brave enough to do a statement that Malaysia is an Islamic Country.

In conclusion, there are numerous efforts that had been done by Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohamad to bring Malaysia and Malaysians to be in the first world countries. Some of them which are not discussed here are Vision 2020 and National Development Policy- a policy that was replaced New Economic Policy. But, as human, he also could not avoid any mistake such as banned on the Sekolah Agama Rakyat and others religious related issues.