We regard our culture as the most advanced to date. With just as much reason we could call it the stupidest.
Eva Moberg

As Malaysia celebrates her golden anniversary of independence she is riding a hi-tech wave of affluence, having gone from Genesis to the internet practically overnight. This economic transition is as stunning as all the recent racial harmony. For nearly a century the people of this little country were enslaved to supply the British Crown with tin, timber, rubber, and palm oil, while getting little in return. But independent Malaysia quickly found out it could do better.

In the 1980s, seduced by an untapped labor force with a puritan-style work ethic, foreign investors in technology, mostly from the U.S., poured their dollars into this Asian dynamo. The Malaysian electronics industry was born and now leads the world in the production of integrated circuits and other semiconductor devices. With an annual growth rate at an impressive 8% she stands atop the Asian pedestal with the likes of Japan and Korea. Take that, Your Highness!

In another in-your-face gesture, this time to the U.S. and the rest of the Western world, Malaysia flexed her muscles and constructed, not one, but twin towers in Kuala Lumpur that were taller than the Sears in Chicago. The Petronas Towers loom like menacing missiles over a nation whose confidence borders on contempt for the West. There is a firm belief, not only in Malaysia but in much of east Asia, that the balance of power is shifting their way, toward an "Asian Century." These nations boast higher growth rates, lower crime rates, lower drug use, and greater family stability than the Eurocentric world. Take that Western world.