“It is disgraceful that you should be used by adults for the purpose of trying to shame us … The timber industry helps hundreds of thousands of poor people in Malaysia. Are they supposed to remain poor because you want to study tropical animals? Is your study more important than filling the stomachs of poor people? Are Malaysians expected to lose millions of pounds so that you can study animals? […] I hope you will tell the adults who made use of you to learn all the facts. They should not be too arrogant and know how best to run a country…”

— Mahathir bin Mohamad

Letter to Darrel Abercrombie in 1987, quoted at Free Malaysia Today http://www.freemalaysiatoday.com/category/opinion/2013/04/19/a-tale-of-two-ms-mahathir-and-margaret/

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Mahathir bin Mohamad 18

Prime Minister of Malaysia 1925

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