Advantage Malaysia

The Star (of Kuala Lumpur) today reports that the Malaysian Government has offered to provide assistance to the Afghan Government in economic development. Malaysian PM Badawi spoke from Putrajaya via video link with Afghan President Karzai in Kabul. The occasion was a conference on the role of the private sector in Afghanistan's economic development. The PM suggested that the Malaysians have experience in transitioning an economy from agriculture toward manufacturing and hi-tech, and that experience may be valuable to Afghanistan at this stage. So many angles to examine here. Interesting that Malaysia is offering such aid in a land still so heavily populated with US military forces. Interesting that such an offer will receive zero attention in the Western media. Interesting that there probably is a good deal of merit to the PM's premise. I have long wished that Malaysia would take advantage of its history and position and exert some global leadership.

Think about it. Malaysia is a fascinating confluence of Southeast Asian culture, equatorial climatic influence on economic development, Islam, English colonization and legal/commercial tradition, Chinese slave importation and subsequent business dominance, and rejection of western prescriptions in the wake of the 1997-1999 Asian currency crisis. From one standpoint, one could see Malaysia along with Indonesia as a large swath of post-colonial territory located in a harsh climate, populated by Muslim people who tend to be much less well-off than the tiny non-Muslin country they surround (Singapore). That tiny, non-Muslim country is the product of maps and emigration policies of the former colonists, and the tiny country's population is dominated by an incredibly business-savvy group of people, many of whose families came from elsewhere. Sound familiar? If you were to learn that Malaysia has in fact come a very long way, that it has a thriving and growing private economy, and that its Government is increasingly savvy about its image at home and overseas, would you sense the same possibilities I do?

In the wake of 9/11, I was hopeful that then-PM Mahathir would seize the opportunity for Malaysia - from its Islamic perch overlooking an increasingly western-style economy - to be a moderating force throughout the world. I envisioned him traveling, conveying a message of confluence and moderation, a message touting his country's own ability to manage cross-cultural tension as perhaps holding lessons for the rest of the world. None of us would have liked it. Malaysia is still much too centrally controlled and politically dominated for western tastes. And it is much too religiously casual and indifferent for much of core Islam. But Malaysia has paved a kind of third way of its own that may yet hold value for people in places like Afghanistan. If Malaysia can have some success there, perhaps it would not be too silly for the rest of the world to notice.

I don't know about you, but The Star has re-kindled a spark of hope for me. What the heck, I'm feeling naive.