Dubai : Nation-building is as much a task for the private sector as it is for the public sector, said Malaysia's former prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohammad at a lecture here.
Mahathir was speaking at the Dubai School of Government on Thursday in a lecture on Malaysia's experience in nation-building under his 22-year rule as prime minister, which ended in 2003.
In a packed room, the 85-year-old leader detailed how other countries could learn from Malaysia's experience, criticising some states for "regressing" and for holding their former colonisers responsible for their own failures.
"Achieving independence is far easier than making it a success. It is sad to see some states regressing. We can't blame the colonists forever," he said.
Mahathir said the Malaysian experience was particularly difficult given the country's ethnic, religious and linguistic divisions "but the biggest challenge was the disparity in economic wealth between the races," he said, alluding to the relative economic success enjoyed by the Chin-ese minority over the Malay population.
He said British policy during colonisation, which ended in the 1940s, favoured the Chinese population over the Malay, a disparity that his 22-year rule worked to bridge.
"In Malaysia confrontation was not just between rich and poor. It was amplified by racial factors," he said, adding that those factors made it a priority to overcome divisions for the sake of development.
During its development phase, he said, Malaysia rarely needed to rely on foreign borrowing, making itself less susceptible to regional economic fluctuations, particularly the Asian financial crisis of 1997.
The private sector in Malaysia played a major role in the development of the country, said the former prime minister. An essential factor in development, he said, was "committed and passionate" leadership. He also emphasised the importance of democracy.
