Unspun

The papers and the blogosphere today are replete with news of Mahathir saying he regretted picking Badawi as his successor and that the latter was not his first choice. This, coming soon after his interview with Malaysiakini (see earlier post) is yet another chapter in the unraveling tragicomedy that Mahathir’s life has become.

Whatever his differences with Badawi, Mahathir must bear responsibility for succession planning, or in this case, a lack of. The article below is an article I wrote for The Jakarta Post in 2003 when Mahathir was handing over the reins of power to Badawi. I think it still rings true today. (My filing system is so bad I’ve forgotten what the headline was. I think something like “All the Prime Minister’s men”)

—–
I was born in 1959, two years after Malaysia’s Independence and two years after Mahathir had set up a private practice as a physician in his home state of Kedah.It was a Malaysia struggling with its status as a newly-liberated nation. A Malaysia trying to juggle the interests of the Malays, then a largely rural-based people who formed the nation’s dominant political force; the Chinese, who were the dominant economic force; together with the Indians and the other minorities.

Because of its colonial history and the delicate balance of racial interests race was, and continues to be, the single-most important factor in the lives of Malaysians.

One of my most vivid memories of racial relations was when I was about seven. I remember seeing a Chinese shopkeeper talking to a Malay villager like he was the scum of the earth. When I was 10 racial riots broke out because of the unequal distribution of wealth among the races in Malaysia. That same year Mahathir was kicked out of UMNO, where he had become an active party member and one of the Young Turks of the party. His sin was an open attack on the then UMNO chief and Prime Minister Tunku Abdul Rahman for neglecting the rights of the Malays.

When Mahathir was in the political wilderness, I spent the rest of my childhood and youth in the relative safety and comfort of a middle-class Chinese family in Malaysia. Not rich, but not wanting either although denied certain privileges reserved for Malays. When I was 19, I went to university in Australia because it was very difficult for non-Malay students like me tosecure a place in a Malaysian university.

During this time Mahathir Mahathir crystalised his thoughts into a book called “The Malay Dielemma” in which he said that the Malays had been marganalized during the colonial era and it was largely their fault because they had apathetically accepted their lot in life as second class citizens.

The book was banned but it resonated with the younger Malays, so much so that he was invited back into the party and by 1974 had won a seat in Parliament and was appointed Education Minister.

In 1982 I returned to Malaysia to work as a journalist. Mahathir had just become Prime Minister the year before and set about stamping his mark on the country. It was a time of adjustment, both for Mahathir and Malaysian society.

The country, as a whole, agreed in principle with the New Economic Policy introduced in the aftermath of the 1969 racial riots, which sought to uplift the economic standing of the Malays. The riots had shown us all that continued economic disparity between the races was a ticking time bomb. Where Mahathir’s critics differed from him, however, was the manner in which this policy was to be implemented and to what cost.

These differences culminated in a split within UMNO in 1987, epitomised by the rift between Mahathir and this then deputy Musa Hitam. It split UMNO in two, and challenged the ssurvival of both the party and Mahathir. At the same time the perrenial issue of Chinese education rights bubbled to the fore.

Mahathir reacted in a way that would have made Machiavelli proud. He threw over a hundred of his critics in jail, without the benefit of a trial under the Internal Security Act. The paper I was working for was closed down for five months, after which it reemerged very much a docile mouthpiece of the government.

To many of us then, the spirit of journalism which called for non-politicians holding up their actions of politicians for scrutiny, was dead in country. Many of us have moved from from those angry days but few have had cause to revise their prognosis on journalism there or the general lack of critical thinking in Malaysia today.

Mahathir also moved on and to his credit was to lead Malaysia into unprecedented prosperity over the next few decades.He was to transform Malaysia from a rubber and tin-dependent economy into a diversified and economy.

He also became the spokesman for a huge number of Asians who were, and are, still struggling to win respect in a Western dominated world order. He was anything but diplomatic and his statements against the West would make even urbane Asians cringe because of their racist overtones. But to most Asians he was admired because he dared to say what many of them felt but did not dare to articulate for fear of attacks or reprisals.

His bravery showed itself again in 1997, when the Asian Economic Crisis broke out. Malaysia was presured to accept the International Monetary Fund’s aid. He refused and was quite universally criticised for that. Wth time he’s been proven right.

1997 and the economic turmoil was also the time when his own-appointed deputy and successor, Anwar Ibrahim, decide to make a gambit for the UMNO leadership. Anwar, to many of us Malaysians, had successfully managed to pull the wool over the eyes of many people, primarily the Western media, who lapped up is “moderate” rhetoric and llusion of himself as a man of the new Asian Rennaisance.

Mahathir was not taken in by Anwar and by 1998 he had instituted court proceedings against his former protégé, resulting in jail for Anwar. The charges against him – which included sodomy – seemed severe and invited the skepticism of many. But with the passage of time doubts are beginning to creep in and many of Mahathir’s critics, have begun to revise their opinion of Mahathir.

Will history be as kind and revisionist to Mahathir? The jury is still out. He has done wonders for Malaysia’s economy but there remains a question of whether he has actually achieved his initial and primary objective: uplifting of the socio-economic status of the Malays. There is also a question of the cost Malaysians have paid in exchange for the progress that Mahathir had brought.

His stubborn imposition of his will and lack of tolerance for fools and detractors, some argue, has resulted in a Malaysia bereft of true successors and full of yes men devoid of a vision for the country.

There is a saying that no matter how great an achievement a man may have it will all come to naught if he has not left the right people to take over from where he has left off. In this regard it will be a few years before history ca return a final verdict on the efficacy of this willful, colorful and exciting statesman.