A significant call from Mahathir
Mahathir Mohammad, who ruled Malaysia for 22 years until 2003 and is famous as a critic of the West, advised the Muslim majority countries recently to look at the East for development models and not at the Western nations. Western countries are faced with so many problems and the debt crisis is the worst among them. They have borrowed too much and are unable now to pay off the debt, and finally it seems that they are going bankrupt. However, they are struggling to overcome the present economic situation through combined effort. In Mahathir's words, 'countries like South Korea, Japan and China are swimming in money, while Europe and the United States are mired in debt'. He also attributed the debt crisis of the Western countries to greed. One cannot deny that greed-driven life cannot accept sudden austerity. That's why Western people are taking to the streets claiming themselves 99% against the 1%. The time has come to analyse the reasons behind the present economic crisis and social turbulence of the West and respond to the call of Mahathir, and follow the paths of South Korea and Japan.
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