Malaysia's Problem with Racial Tension

Mahathir’s abiding obsession with race

By: Dennis Ignatius

Malaysia arguably suffers from the worst racial tensions in Southeast Asia. Ethnic Malays together with the indigenous peoples of East Malaysia make up 68.8 percent of the population, Chinese 23.2 percent (this has shrunk from 1957 when it was about 40 percent), and Indians 7 percent.

As academician Brigit Welsh writes in an essay for …