Mahathir reminds of Malay struggle
Mahathir reminds of Malay struggle
KUALA LUMPUR (AFP): Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad reminded members of his ruling party, which marked its 51st anniversary yesterday, to uphold the struggle of the Malay race.
Mahathir said the spirit and struggle of the United Malays National Organization (UMNO) for the Malay race to be on par with other progressive races have not changed since the party was founded in 1946.
"Our struggles have not changed but our focus has. The spirit is still required for our struggles have not ended. There's still much to be done before we can say we are at par with developed races of the world," Mahathir said to applause from party members.
The unity in UMNO which helped the country gain independence from Britain in 1957 was the best weapon to overcome any threats to the survival of the Malays in the future, said Mahathir, who is party president.
"We use our history as guidance. We remind ourselves again of the spirit of the struggle of a race that was colonized for 400 years and which had successfully overcome all obstacles," he said.
Mahathir said the focus of the party's struggle now was toward making Malaysia a developed nation by 2020.
Toward this, he said UMNO would concentrate on measures to check the rise of social ills, including corruption, before they became practices that were carried out openly.
It would be too late if "all our races practiced the corrupt culture and when corruption was not only done under the table but in the open and accepted as normal", he warned.
Mahathir said Malaysia was fortunate because corruption had not reached a level that was difficult to overcome.
UMNO, the largest political body in the country with 2.6 million members, leads the 14-member National Front coalition, which controls 86 percent of Malaysia's parliament.
The country's preferential economic policies instituted since 1970 has enabled many native Malays -- which make up half of the country's 21 million population -- to move from the rice fields to boardrooms.