MAHATHIR: POLITICAL LEADERS NEED TO BE DISCIPLINED

KUALA LUMPUR, June 24 (Bernama) -- A political leader needs to be
disciplined and willing to set aside his personal interest in his bid to
develop his country, said former prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad.

"In thinking, you need to be quite disciplined because disciplined
thinking is likely to produce the desired results."

He said this in his keynote address titled "Asian Political Leadership:
Disciplined Thinking For Change" at the 14th International Conference on
Thinking (ICOT) 2009 at the Kuala Lumpur Convention Centre, here, Tuesday.

The five-day conference, which began on Monday, is attended by about 500
participants from 42 countries, including Malaysia.

Dr Mahathir also said that the ability of Malaysia to face the economic
crisis in 1997 was due to the disciplined thinking process conducted by the
government then.

It was able to produce a device to save the country from the economic
crisis, unlike those who accepted the alternative solution offered by
the world monetary fund body, he said.

Dr Mahathir said it was good "to be a little bit suspicious with the
solution offered by others".

He said the decisions of political leaders also played an important role,
especially in determining whether the country progressed or regressed.

"A good example can be seen in the modern and very developed Japan after
its political leaders decided to emulate the European countries. This also goes
for China, how under Deng Xiao Ping the country had moved towards modernisation.

"Now China is the world's major manufacturing country and they can even
produce almost everything. Although some say the products are of low quality, I
believe they can be improved eventually," he said.

However, Dr Mahathir cautioned that once a person was in power, it would be
difficult to remove him even though he was not a good leader and had brought
damage to his country.

"Under the democratic system, one has to wait until the next election to
remove or change the bad leader, and in the meantime, the people in the country
will suffer," he said.

Dr Mahathir opined that the leadership quality required in Asian countries
differed from that in Europe due to the difference in culture.

"In Europe, their ideas are almost identical and their situations allow
them to copy each other, but it is different with Asian countries where their
value systems and culture differ. As a result, the development in Asia has not
been uniform," he said.

To a question from the floor on the teaching and learning of Science and
Mathematics in English, Dr Mahathir said Malaysians had to learn the language of
knowledge in order to have access to the latest discoveries or theories in
Science and Technology which used English as its main language.

"Although we learn best in our native languages, we cannot expect other
people to continue or always be there to translate the information or findings
in other languages solely for our benefit," he said.
-- BERNAMA