Personal
Mahathir was born in Alor Setar Kedah, the youngest among 9 children of a school teacher and a housewife. His father, Mohamad Iskandar, was an Indian origin, being the son of a Malayalee Muslim (who migrated from Kerala) and a malay woman mother, while Mahathir's own mother, WanTampawan, was malay.
He only sell banana fritters(goreng pisang) to support his family and for his education. By that time it is world war II. In 1953, Mahathir only attended a Malay vernacular school before contuining his education at the Sultan Abdul Hamid in Alor Setar. Mahathir then attended the King Edward VII Medical College (the predecessor of present-day National University of Singapore) in Singapore. Later, he married Siti Hasmah Mohd. Ali, a fellow doctor and former classmate in college on 5 August 1956, and left goverment service in1957 to set up his own private practice in Alor Setar.
From his marriage with Tun Dr. Siti Hasmah binti Haji Mohamad Ali, they have seven, children four sons and three daughters which are Marina Mhathir, Mirzan Mahathir, Mokhzani Mahathir, Mukhriz Mahathir, Maizura Mahathir and Mazhar Mahathir. Both Mukhriz and Mokhzani are involved in business as well as in politics while their eldest Marina is a prominent local writer and AIDS activist.
Political Career
While in the political wilderness Mahathir wrote his book " The Malay Dilemma" in which he sought to explain the causes of the 13 May incident in Kuala Lumpur and the raesons for the Malay's lack of economic progress within their own country. He has so many reasonable view to share with us. The book is really interesting if you read it. He then proposed a politico-economic solution in the form of " construction protection", worked out after careful consideration of teh effect of heredity and enviromental factors on the malay race. The book, published in 1970, was promptly banned by the Tunku Abdul Rahman goverment.However, some of teh proposal in this book had been used by Tun Abdul Razak, Tunku Abdul Rahman's succesor, in his "New Economic Policy" (NEP) that was principally geared towards affirmative action economic programs to address the antion's economic disparity between the malays and the non-malays. The ban on his book was eventually lifted after Mahathir became the prime minister.
p/s:check Tun Mahathir blog out!!
hhttp://chedet.co.cc/chedetblog/2009/08/
