Malaysia adalah Negara yang Suka Meniru, kata Mahathir
Mahathir: Malaysia was a Copycat from Other Countries
Reporter : Rizki Saleh
Editor : Cahyani Harzi
Translator : Dhelia Gani
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Jakarta (B2B) - Pernyataan mengejutkan disampaikan oleh mantan Perdana Menteri (PM) Malaysia, Mahatir Muhamad. Menurutnya, Malaysia adalah negara peniru. Wah!
"Malaysia adalah negara yang suka meniru, kami tidak punya ide, jadi meminjam," ucap Mahathir, di Jakarta, Senin (14/4/2014).
"Kami tiru Indonesia, ada sesuatu yang menarik dengan Indonesia, sehingga warga Malaysia belajar di Indonesia," tuturnya.
Tidak hanya Indonesia, menurut Mahathir, sejumlah negara juga kerap ditiru Malaysia. Negara tersebut antara lain Jepang dan Korea Selatan.
Tetapi, apa yang diambil dari sejumlah negara tersebut adalah unsur yang baik. Mahathir menegaskan bila ada unsur yang tidak baik yang tidak bisa dipelajari untuk Malaysia, maka Negeri Jiran ini akan menolaknya.
Di akhir pernyataannya, Mahathir menyatakan Indonesia adalah negara tetangga terdekat Malaysia, sehingga pembangunan kedua negara bisa berjalan ke arah lebih baik.
"Apa yang terbaik dari Indonesia dan Malaysia dapat mendukung pembangunan kedua negara," jelasnya.
Jakarta (B2B) - Mahathir Mohammad, Malaysia`s former prime minister had admitted that his country was a copycat, copying from Indonesia and also other countries, such as Japan and South Korea, in the positive way to develop itself.
"Malaysia was a copycat, we like to copy from other countries since we often dont have ideas," Mahathir said, answering a question from an audience during the Question and Answer session after his lecture at the Bank Mega Building in Jakarta on Monday.
Mahathir explained that Malaysia cannot help but imitate its neighboring country Indonesia, since the two countries were located close to each other and shared a similar historical and cultural background.
"We copied from Indonesia because it was our closest neighbor, and it was the country where so many Malaysian travelled to study, for tourism and for doing business," he said
"There were more than 100 thousand foreigners who studied in Malaysia too. So, there must be several similarities," Mahathir added.
According to Mahathir, in the ancient time before the colonialists arrived in the Malacca Strait, the Malays would easily travel in the region, which was the modern Indonesias and Malaysias territory.
