Malaysia's Improbable Triumph

...Peasants were once largely isolated...

...They make up about 52 per cent of the population...

...Recently officials have stressed heavy industry—steel, cement, pulp and paper, and cars—which in 1985 emerged as the single largest sector of the economy...

...Many of its coastal districts are mud flats overgrown with mangrove trees and inhabited by fierce pirates, who periodically venture forth in speedboats to attack freighters...

...Yet both on Borneo and the mainland the interior is a storehouse of immense riches: spices, tin, rubber, palm oil, coconuts, papaya, cocoa, rare woods, petroleum, and natural gas...

...The Japanese have been fueling progress in ways that go beyond their capital investment, trade, training, and technology...

...In the 1980s they take taxis and careening buses into town to buy radios and tires, boats and books, batik sarongs and Western trousers—all made locally...

...Over the years it has taken the sting out of PAS abuse by implementing harmless aspects of the UMNO platform...

...The government allots annual scholarships to support 12,000 students, chiefly Malays, studying abroad...

...Joint ventures have been established in ship building, road construction and automobile manufacture, as well...

...They will therefore need steep protection against imported goods, an expedient that would frustrate schemes for cooperation among the countries of Asia, including Malaysia's partners in the Association of South East Asian Nations: Indonesia, thePhil-ippines, Singapore, and Thailand...

...Although it gained 20 per cent of the vote in the last election, the party's membership is basically limited to urban Chinese and Indians...

...Regardless of cost, for instance, hicom is spreading heavy industry throughout the land—steel in Trengganu, engine manufacturing in Penang, cars in Sel-angor...

...Yet in 1985 Malaysia—despite its many tensions and flaws—is such a place...

...And the resulting prosperity has brought undeniable social benefits to a large proportion of Malaysians, particularly the bumiputras...

...At one ideological pole, the Democratic Action Party (DAP) advocates a broad-based, crosscommunal state dedicated to liberal goals...

...Corruption is unchecked (officers' wives commonly collect bribes), and an uneven economy that provides a mere fifth of Malaysia's per capita income condemns 65 per cent of the villagers to malnutrition...

...Further, the lack of export opportunities and the failure of hicom to tap new natural resources means that its activities will generate little foreign income...

...Off-islands that have abundant resources, like Paulo Tioman, the site of the film South Pacific, are largely undeveloped...

...Lately, it has had the added and unexpected backing of the DAP in these undertakings...

...Tolerant, able, well-educated Malay leaders from theTunku to Mahathir have consistently adhered to the ideal of a pluralistic, open society, precariously balancing the interests of Malaysia's diverse ethnic factions against the priorities of development...

...But under the leadership of Prime Minister Mahathir Mohammed, a physician and the first commoner to lead the ruling United Malays National Organization (UMNO), the government has sought a way out of the boom-or-bust vulnerability of natural products...

...In addition, Mahathir, inspired by the example of Japan and South Korea, is trying to instill new modes of labor and management...

...A major exporter of tin, rubber, timber, palm oil, natural gas, and petroleum, Malaysia grew economically at a rate above 8 per cent annually in the 1960s and '70s...

...Making matters worse, Indian children, mostly taught in Tamil, remain at a disadvantage in a land that requires Bahasa Malaysia for matriculation at the secondary and university levels...

...The nation has added 1 million private cars to its overburdened highways in the last three years alone...

...The Malays, who are Sunni Moslems, dominate the government and Army...

...Sixty per cent of its inhabitants own their homes, 50 per cent have televisions, and 40 per cent possess video-cassette players...

...Clearly, lesser men in basically the same position, such as Indonesia's Sukarno and Suharto, have wasted superior economic advantages and succumbed to the lure of rule by brute force...

...Mahathir himself, a thoroughly modern devout Islamic liberal, criticizes Malaysia's Moslems for maintaining an easygoing life style while demanding ever more privileges for themselves and their religion...

...Their per capita income has fallen, and they now make up a majority of the urban squatters and of the poorest rubber plantation workers...

...Fifty contentious newspapers in seven languages are mainly owned bythecompetingparties...

...The oil-rich kingdoms and sheikdoms of theMiddle East were simply left off the list...

...We don't wish to run the risk of dictatorship exactly at the moment of economic transformation...

...Uniting this anthropological melange is Asia's least likely success story...

...In 1984 a lightning bolt struck the island, igniting the biggest forest fire ever recorded and destroying a good deal of timber...

...Some UMNO leaders recognize the perils inherent in using drastic means to defeat the mullahs...

...The British, who controlled this region from the 19th century until 1957, allowed the members of the petty Islamic dynasties to play only a minor role in governance and kept everyone else completely powerless...

...Debate over academic favoritism and many other communal issues is rancorous, albeit often veiled because the Constitution forbids direct references to ethnicity...

...Mahathir has anchored modernization in a "New Economic Policy" launched in 1970, following anti-Chinese riots...

...It, too, is a heavily Moslem yet secular country possessing significant Chinese, Christian and Hindu minorities...

...A1984 survey of Japanese managers in the country buttressed the unhappiness about the special treatment: Only 19 per cent rated their Malay workers punctual, a scant 5 per cent regarded them as careful in their work, and none considered them highly adaptable tochanging conditions...

...So do investigative commissions charged with punishing corruption...

...William McCord, professor of sociology at the City University of New York, spent the 1984-85 academic year at Singapore's National University and is currently a visiting fellow at Clare Hall, Cambridge University...

...After intense jungle operations and the departure of 400,000 people, British forces prevailed and then handed power over to Tunku Abdul Rahman, the country' s first postindependence prime minister...

...Malaysia's political accomplishments shine especially brightly by comparison with Indonesia, Borneo's co-owner, just across the Straits of Malacca...

...The People's Republic of Yemen scored 33, Pakistan 38, Indonesia 48, and Turkey, with similar income and a far longer history of modernization, scored 55...

...As I discovered one dark night upon tripping over a crocodile or a giant monitor lizard— luckily, I never learned which—the reasons for this neglect are quite simple: an overpowering tropical ambiance, forbiddingly steep mountains and a swarming reptile population...

...Even in the face of the world recession and falling commodity prices in the '80s, it has enjoyed a trade surplus ($2.6 billion in 1985), and the gross national product has continued to expand by about 6 per cent a year...

...Borneo, boasting the tw o distant prov inces of Sarawak and Sabah, is a primitive area people by Dyaks...

...Another 48,000 Malaysians a year— 77 per cent Chinese and 18 per cent Indian—study at their own expense in the United States, Singapore and Australia...

...Choosing retirement in the wake of partial defeats on linguistic and religious questions, the beloved "Bapa" writes a regular newspaper column and is quick to criticize any deviation from the ideal of freedom...

...Bahasa Malaysia, a largely artificial dialect, is the predominant language, and Islam is the established religion...

...Mahathir's party, UMNO, is particularly determined to extend higher education among Malays, who are guaranteed 53 per cent of the places in Malaysian universities...

...Perhaps more than any group, the Indians (9 per cent of the population) are disturbed by their present situation, for they have lost ground to the Malays relatively and absolutely since the New Economic Policy's introduction...

...Britain's eventual victory triggered a Communist, largely Chinese, revolution...

...Meanwhile, per capita income increased from $372 in 1970 to $2,100 in this year...

...Knowledgeable observers have agreed that Indonesia has paid the price for President Sukarno's bumbling Socialism (1949-65), and President Suharto's venal military oligarchy...

...Manufacturing began in light industry—electronics and textiles—that tended to be capitalized abroad and was located in sheltered free-trade zones...

...The Chinese have a different complaint...

...Indeed, it is the sole Moslem society that has sustained high rates of economic growth, equitably distributed social welfare and a stable electoral system...

...90 per cent expected continuing progress in coming decades...

...This kind of friction causes immense problems for a government trying to steer a middle course that takes into account the requirements of the world economy, the rights of non-Moslem minorities and the demands of the Malays, especially the religious fundamentalists...

...Mahathir warns the populace "to be wary of those who would use democracy to end democracy...

...Scandia, Telefunken and British Petroleum factories dot the suburbs...

...The traditional sultans were allowed to retain their titles and a theoretical veto power on religious issues following a series of constitutional challenges...

...in 1983, Anwar presided over the opening of a nonprofit Islamic Bank...

...The Moslem extremists go so far as to encourage the faithful to behead their own parents should the latter refuse to throw away television sets, a supposed source of foreign contamination...

...Kuala Lumpur, its tree-shaded capital, has grown dramatically but gracefully into a city of skyscrapers and gold-domed mosques...

...Two major Opposition groups are jockeying to pla\ critical roles in Malaysia's future...

...Now he says, "We must consider the sensitivities of non-Moslems...

...Anwar, 38, an ebullient man touted as a possible prime minister, once led a fervent Islamic movement...

...infidel), spat upon his wife, threatened to murder her, and denounced her as an infidel...

...He welcomed foreign contact, opposed the forcible imposition of Islam, advocated English as a neutral national language, pardoned the former guerrillas, and founded the Barsian Nasional (National Front), an alliance of Malay, Chinese and Indian parties that still governs Malaysia...

...Hence the production of oil, recently discovered by Western companies, has jumped to 440,000 barrels a day, to say nothing of natural gas, which also has dramatic export possibilities...

...The government is not without some peaceful weapons capable of defusing the Islamic firebrands...

...In general, foreign and private enterprises have played the major role in Malaysia's achievement, with the state actively encouraging those that diversify or develop new resources...

...When the occasion demands it, trade unions, Chinese clan associations and employer organizations unhesitatingly defend their positions against the government . In a country where corruption frequently stains commercial activities, the courts, proud inheritors of Anglo-Indian law, function impartially...

...They grumble about "affirmative action" quotas favoring Malays in the Army, the government, the universities, and urban housing...

...Malaysia's old enemy, Japan, plays a major role in development...

...On the contrary, the experts are quick to point to ethnic tensions that are a very real threat to future advancement...

...Paced by the Heavy Industries Corporation of Malaysia (hicom), a state enterprise Mahathir is attempting to "privatize," development funds have been poured into high technology, enormous research-and-development institutes, and an indigenous auto making capacity...

...What is more, it has much greater natural resources, a much bigger population and much more access to sea lanes than Malaysia does...

...Kuala Lumpur In a land covered by rain forests where king cobras allegedly chase human beings, gibbons steal food from villages and 53,000 " original men" still cling to animism, you would hardly expect to discover one of the more prosperous economies of Asia...

...The Malays of UMNO hold the central position, but entirely thanks to a continuing process of negotiation and compromise involving several Chinese parties and the Malayan Indian Congress .That interplay preserves communal boundaries yet ensures remarkable political harmony...

...Straits Chinese compose an additional 35 per cent and control major portions of the economy...

...Orginally infamous for head-hunting, they share the triple-canopied forest—thought to be 100 million years old—with abundant elephants, tapirs and leopards...

...Nine tenths of the Tamil-speaking youngsters drop out of school by age 12, and fewer than0.3 per cent begin college...

...It also eschews birth control campaigns on the assumption that the nation will easily absorb a population of 70 million by the next century...

...In parliament, the parties cooperate in making laws, allocating development funds and, not least, dispensing privileges and patronage...

...These symbolic institutions allow UMNO chiefs like Anwar to deflate PAS criticisms by claiming, "Our record on Islam speaks for itself...

...A complex ethnic medley of foreigners and "Malaysians," a national identity fashioned merely a generation ago, strives valiantly to exploit these natural advantages...

...Though Mahathir kept his word, approximately 300 detainees, ranging from aging Chinese revolutionaries to young Islamic fanatics, are believed to have rejected this option and stayed in jail...

...The Chinese are credited as well with being a leavening political influence, inhibiting the creation of an Islamic theocracy...

...In 1982 the government promised to review the law and to release those of its victims who agreed to leave the country...

...Nevertheless, they have gradually lost influence to a new breed of middle-class Malay technocrats and Chinese entrepreneurs...

...This has not won the applause of workers attached to English-style craft unions, Chinese entrepreneurs suspicious of hicom and foreign giants like Korea's Hyundai, or the average Malay, who treasures a traditional, relaxed way of life...

...Japan's occupation (1939-45)—marked by bloody persecution of the Chinese, encouragement of Cairo-educated nationalist collaborators, and the establishment of a puppet Indian National Army—served to exacerbate ethnic tensions...

...Under Mahathir Malaysia has officially adopted a "Look East" policy, stimulating the emulation of Japanese work methods, quality control and management styles...

...Without these people, some argue, Malaysia would still be a vast unexplored jungle...

...Critics worry that hicom will evolve into a vast, impoverished public corporation "managing" the interests of Malays...

...The Chinese excel in finance, commerce, manufacturing, and even in lowly pursuits: Chinese tappers on rubber estates produce twice as much as their Malay counterparts...

...PAS has been unsettling Buddhists, Christians and Hindus with the vision of a new Iran...

...Manufacturing has been growing at the rate of 9.3 per cent annually, while expansion of the traditional sectors, such as palm oil production, has been going on unabated...

...According to a 1984 survey of rural people, 95 per cent of them believe life has improved over the last 20 years...

...Nor would you count on finding a model of relatively democratic political development in a country where nine hereditary sultans elect a rotating monarch, 53 ethnic groups (plus an official category of "others") divide among 12 political parties, and a virulent Islamic movement advocates killing infidels...

...Malaysia, infact, has enjoyed an economic boom for the last quarter century...

...The Japanese provide roughly 30 per cent of this country's investment from the advanced nations of the world and receive, in turn, 90 per cent of its natural rubber, 85 per cent of its tin, 50 per cent of its tropical timber, 40 per cent of its vegetable oil, and 10 per cent of its crude petroleum...

...Modern Malaysians—a cosmopolitan mix affected by Arab traders, the Portuguese, the Dutch, theBritish, and the Japanese—possess many skills, a long tradition of cultural tolerance, and diverse sources of knowledge...

...As in the past, Chinese millionaires abound, but ordinary citizens have gained too, aided by an official policy of giving Malays stock in state-owned industries and expanding the educational opportunities available to members of low-income groups...

...The PAS agitates for the repression of non-Moslem minorities, a militant "anti-Zionist" policy (symbolized by the banning of Ernest Bloch's Hebrew Rhapsody during the 1984 visit of the New York Philharmonic), and the imposition of the Sharia, the Islamic code, as the law of the land...

...Naturally, UMNO can count on the support of its Chinese and Indian coalition partners...

...No one suggests that Malaysia is trouble free...

...The Prime Minister's attempt to lead Malaysia into the big leagues of newly industrializing nations is guided as much by highly controversial social goals as by strictly economic ones...

...In a study using a combined measure of infant mortality, life expectancy and adult literacy, Malaysia scored 66 out of a possible 97, thus registering the highest level of social welfare in the Islamic world...

...Political controversy occurs within a relatively open and peaceful, if fractious, framework—a miracle in itself, for Malaysia' s recent history did not auger well for popular rule...

...But they explain Malaysia's escaping a similar fate by pointing to several key factors: • It adopted specific policies designed to promote capitalist development: free-trade zones, low corporate taxation, minimal government expenditure, and a conscious diversification of trading partners and products...

...A visitor conies away, however, persuaded that they will continue to prevail in their attempts to maintain harmony within the diversity of this potentially bounteous land...

...At the other extreme the Parti Islam (PAS), appealing primarily to rural Malays, commands about 15 per cent of the vote...

...UMNO may, for example, ask Malays to support the Malayan Chinese Association (MCA) candidate in a predominantly Chinese district...

...Recognizing the connection between Islamic obscurantism and a general lack of education, the Chinese-dominated Opposition party has joined the UMNO in sponsoring allocations for schools and other agents of development in precisely those regions that are PAS strongholds...

...His secularist outlook can provoke anger...

...Peninsular Malaya is hidden in a foggy jungle riven down the middle by a mountainous spine...

...The tolerant kaffirs—Mahathir, Anwar, the Tunku, andtheirallies—today face serious new economic obstacles, ethnic unrest, and hostile religious currents...

...in 1982 Mahathir set up a university for the study of theShariaandlslamingeneral...

...Nonetheless, Indonesia suffers under a military dictatorship that has killed no fewer than 500,000 opponents...

...In 1969, the pacifier was a savings corporation to finance pilgrimages to Mecca...

...McCord's previous articles in the series were "China's Hong Kong Experiment" (NL, August 6, 1984), "A Wagerin WestAfrica" (September 3, 1984) and, with his wife Arline, "Singapore's Success Story" (August 12-26,1985...

...The danger is that we may lose our tolerance,' Anwar Ibrahim, chairman of the party's youth wing, told me...

...That possibility, moreover, is not the only problem created by the modernization drive...

...But the ruling coalition's reaction to PAS threats of violence may undermine Malaysia's fragile liberal structure: Kuala Lumpur has banned PAS meetings, prohibited the import of such "undesirable" material as video recordings of the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, and retained the notorious Internal Security Act, which authorizes detainment without trial...

...Significantly, Kuala Lumpur, the area most influenced by the Japanese, has lept ahead of the rest of the country in prosperity...

...It is a formidable force in the generally poor, paddy-farming states of the Northeast and influences a number of religious students, notably the university women who put on the veil in 1985...

...The "overseas Chinese," who constitute a higher proportion of the inhabitants than they do in Indonesia and have suffered less persecution, contribute an energetic commercial spirit—perhaps a "Confucian ethic"—to the national economic ethos...

...Malaysia ships out its high-grade petroleum and imports "dirty" but cheaper crude for its own needs, thus reaping handsome profits...

...Not long ago, driving through villages in his home state of Kedah, he was surrounded by throngs of fundamentalists who reviled him with the deeply insulting cry of'kaffir...

...The Tunku, now83, deserves the basic credit for establishing a liberal regime...

...At its present growth rate Malaysia will actually reach this level, for good or evil, and the Moslem part of the population will expand considerably...

...This brilliant prince—a Cambridge-educated nominal Moslem with a Malay son and a Chinese daughter-in-law— created a pluralistic, tolerant society out of the ruins left by civil war...

...So far, perhaps understandably, the heavy-industry projects have not attracted private capital either from domestic or overseas sources...

...Clinics, airports and electrical grids have sprung up everywhere, even on isolated Paulo Tioman...

...Historically the country has been dependent on commodity exports...

...The Northeastern states, relatively free of contact with non-Islamic cultures, remain stagnant...

...It obliges the government to accord Malay firms priority in funding, contracts and new jobs...

...Heavy industries starting up now will confront a worldwide surplus in all their product lines...

...Most significantly, notwithstanding a heritage of Islamic fatalism, an overwhelming majority saidhuman effort, not"luck" orthewill of Allah, had been the agent of beneficial change...

...Except for a primitive hotel replete with slot machines (a sign says, "Moslems are advised not to play") there is very little there—no roads, no schools, no farms, and no factories to employ an idle population of 5,000...

...the MCA might reciprocate by backing a UMNO candidate in a rural area...

...Malaysia's economic and political triumph has not come easily...

...On the whole, though, the government' s economic policies have been paying off...

...Churches and temples have not been destroyed because UMNO leaders, while publicly devoted to Islam, wish to preserve a secular state...

...One of those sources—the imported system of British law, parliamentarianism and military professionalism—has helped to guarantee the stability that is vital to economic growth...

...Savings have hit a new high, inflation and unemployment remain low, and there is plenty of room for agricultural expansion...

...Ninety-seven per cent of the children, tutored in their own languages until they reach the secondary level, attend school...

...Aimed at raising the status of Malaysia's bumiputras (sons of the soil), these practices have made the Chinese and Indians fearful of being cut out of hicom's program...

...To augment the urban workforce the government has been pursuing a strategy designed to substantially depopulate the countryside...

...Today, 10 political parties, each based strictly onracial or tribal interests, peacefully cooperate in the ruling coalition forged by Tunku...

...Indians, Dyaks, Kadazans (natives of Sabah), and Negritos (East Asian Pygmies) are generally found in the poorer ranks of Malaysia's 16 million men, women and children...

...These rambunctious political groups are not Malay sia's only autonomous institutions...