Your blogger is in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, prepping for the start of the Forbes Global CEO Forum at the Shangri-La Hotel.

Last evening, my Forbes colleague, Robyn Meredith, who is based in Hong Kong, handed out copies of a fascinating New Yorker article on Malaysia, called "The Malay Dilemma," by Ian Buruma.

The dilemma about which Buruma writes is the civilization clash between native Malays and immigrant Indians and Chinese. In recent decades, the immigrants have performed better, academically and economically, than the bumiputra, the sons of the soil. That you probably knew.

What you might not know--I didn't--is that Malaysia's former prime minister, the controversial Mahathir bin Mohamad, wrote a book in 1970 predicting such outcomes. The book was also called The Malay Dilemma. In that book, as Buruma tells it, Mahathir argued that his own Malay race couldn't compete with the Chinese for genetic reasons. As Buruma paraphrases Mahathir:

Whereas the Chinese had been hardened over the centuries by harsh climates and fierce competition, the Malays were a lazy breed, fattened by an abundance of food under the tropical sun.

Unfettered competition with the Chinese "would subject the Malays the primitive laws that enable only the fittest to survive," Mahathir warned his fellow nationals. "If this is done it would perhaps be possible to breed a hardy and resourceful race capable of competing against all-comers. Unfortunately, we do not have 4,000 years to play around with."

Mahathir's book ignited a nationalism that Mahathir eventually rode to power. Malaysia today has a generous system of affirmative action with quotas that favor native Malays over Chinese and Indians in universities, businesses and even in ownership shares of companies.

When the majority of a nation's people are favored by affirmative action, there is a word that comes to mind: apartheid.

For decades, hard-working Chinese and Indian immigrants put up with Malaysia's apartheid. Immigrant success in business and investment helped pull Malaysia to extraordinary growth rates during the 1980s up until recently. But lately, the big worry in Malaysia is that the growth miracle is stalling and that the delicate compromises that hold this multicultural society together are unraveling.

Two trends are in play, both bad for Malaysia. One is that ambitious Chinese and Indians no longer have to come to Malaysia to better themselves. They can repatriate to their native countries and participate in faster-growing economies. The second disturbing trend is that Saudi-style Islam is making inroads among the native Malay population.

Writes Buruma:

The increasing conservatism of Malaysian Islam probably stems from insecurity and envy, more than from religious values. ... It gives [lesser educated] Malays an identity, a sense of belonging to something stronger than their village traditions. Meanwhile ... educated Malays have been too timid to resist, whatever they might do or say in public.

I think Ian Buruma has got it exactly right, and not just about Malaysia. The clash of civilizations gripping the world today is not primarily about religion or race. It is about the stark achievementdifferences in cultures that promote science, education, free minds and markets, and accomplishment versus those that don't.

On this subject, George Gilder has written a great book, The Israel Test, that was published a couple of months ago. As the book's dust jacket reads:

Israel is the crucial battlefield for Capitalism and Freedom in our time.

George Gilder's global best-seller Wealth and Poverty made the moral case for capitalism. Now Gilder makes the case for Israel, portraying a conflict of barbarism and envy against civilization and creativity.

Gilder reveals Israel as a leader of human civilization, technological progress and scientific advance. Tiny Israel stands behind only the United States in its contributions to the hi-tech economy. Israel has become the world's paramount example of the blessings of freedom.

Hatred of Israel, like anti-Semitism through history, arises from resentment of Jewish success. Rooted in a Marxist zero-sum-game theory of economics, this vision has fueled the anti-Semitic rantings of Hitler, Arafat, Osama and history's other notorious haters.

Faced with a contest between murderous regimes sustained by envy and Nazi ideology, and a free, prosperous and capitalist, Israel--whose side are you on?”

Malaysia is a country that faces the Israel test. It should be very interesting when Steve Forbes, a stout defender of capitalism and Israel both, interviews former Prime Minister Mahathir, a man given to reckless statements about Israel. That happens Wednesday. Stay tuned.

May our friend and host, Malaysia, choose wisely in the Israel Test.