The paradox of Dr M

“Mahathir is a man of many contradictions. When we did well in 2004, he said such a strong mandate was not good for the country. When we did not do well in 2008, he heaped all the blame on me. He is doing it even today,” Abdullah was quoted as saying.

Soo Wern Jun, The Ant Daily

Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad loves to talk. At 89, he still retains his acerbic wit and his straight talking style that makes him who he is.

While he admits that his memory is not as it was, his detractors accuse him of choosing what he wishes to remember.

As Malaysia’s longest-serving prime minister (1981-2003), Mahathir continues to influence the country’s political and socio-economic life with his comments, and has in many instances contradicted himself and the policies he had created. This has often frustrated his successors, as his blunt words have a tendency to undermine their authority.

His hand-picked successor Tun Abdullah Ahmad Badawi had the worst of his confusing verbal attacks.

“Mahathir is a man of many contradictions. When we did well in 2004, he said such a strong mandate was not good for the country. When we did not do well in 2008, he heaped all the blame on me. He is doing it even today,” Abdullah was quoted as saying last August in an interview in conjunction with the launch of the book Awakening: The Abdullah Badawi years in Malaysia.

And yet, it was Mahathir himself who aided in the deconstruction of Umno’s seemingly impenetrable fortress by being a constant thorn in the side of the Abdullah administration. “Calling my administration, which included a majority of people from his own Cabinet, as a ‘half-past six government’ and accusing us of corruption and all kind of things,” Abdullah complained.

It was difficult to fathom what he was trying to achieve by tearing Abdullah’s administrative credentials apart; but nobody has enough clout to hold Mahathir responsible for his actions. Even academics have tried to make sense of Mahathirism. Khoo Boo Teik, in his 2003 book Beyond Mahathir: Malaysian politics and its discontents wrote: “Mahathirism captured a relatively coherent ideology that can be thematically constructed from Mahathir’s nationalism, capitalism, Islam, populism and authoritarianism.

“I did caution, however, that Mahathirism was laden with tension and contradictions that, among other things, reflected the occasionally tortuous route by which Mahathir, as man, ideologue and politicians, engaged the central social and political issues of his time. It has been a tortuous route indeed, and one that few people, even those in Umno and the government, can deal with, much less understand at times.  Most of them will just let Mahathir say what he wants.

The Heat looks at some of the statements the elder statesman has made in his colourful and controversial public life, and underlines the contradictions that have made him increasingly disagreeable to sections of the population.

Mahathir is the architect of the nation’s enduring Vision 2020 that was set out in 1990 to chart the nation towards a developed nation status. Six years shy of breasting the finishing line, he has already started pointing fingers at the present leaders for being fixed on economic goals and not doing enough to fulfill that vision.

Not only is he discouraging those leaders, he is also actively doing things that make it difficult for them to do their job. There are nine challenges under Vision 2020, and they include establishing a united Malaysian nation made up of one Bangsa Malaysia, creating a psychologically liberated, secure and developed Malaysian society, establishing a matured liberal and tolerant society and ensuring an economically just society, in which there is a fair and equitable distribution of the wealth of the nation.

Several observers of the former PM’s track record recalled him jokingly saying: “I will not be around to be blamed should we fail to meet the goals.”

A main emphasis of the vision is economically related. To realise it, an annual growth rate of 7% is required, which means that Gross Domestic Product (GDP) had to be doubled every 10 years. During the first six years after the announcement was made, and before the Asian financial crisis hit the country, Malaysia indeed recorded an 8.5% growth rate annually.

However, lately Mahathir has confounded the government by accusing it of only focusing on enhancing per capita income and GDP, adding that this is “not going to help the country achieve developed nation status”. He said this at a forum at Universiti Teknologi Mara (UiTM) in March.

When quizzed by activists at the forum, Mahathir was said to have brushed aside the question, instead pointing his fingers at the current leaders.

He does not think that becoming a high-income nation will translate into being a fully developed country as envisaged by the Najib administration, instead it was also defined by the sophistication of its society.

“Some people, very simplistically, define being a developed country as having per capita income of US$12,000 and a high GDP. That is not enough to qualify us to become a developed country,” he told a group of students in Manchester early this year.

Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak had stated that the country’s goal was to reach high-income nation status by 2020 and had outlined a series of policies and incentives to achieve this target upon taking office.

Yet, it is almost bizarre that Mahathir is today saying and doing things that rattle the foundations for a developed nation that had been built over the years.

Mahathir had defined Bangsa Malaysia as “people being able to identify themselves with the country, speak Bahasa Malaysia (the Malay language) and accept the Constitution”. In short, a people united to enrich the country.

He had always held that economic progress and general prosperity would overcome race-based mindsets and concerns. However, the country is today preoccupied with race and religious-based differences and for this, Mahathir blames it on the country’s “more modest economic progress” and partly also to the fact that the government is not as “strong” as it used to be, and can be easily taken advantage of and pressured by racial-interest groups.

What did Mahathir do? As reported in The Malaysian Insider in March last year, “he dropped all pretense for a Bangsa Malaysia and has gone for the Malay vote and slammed the Opposition for listening and accommodating the views and needs of the non-Malays”.

National news agency Bernama had quoted him as saying that Selangor must be saved from the opposition to ensure the rights and position of the Malays and bumiputras are maintained in the state.

He has also aligned himself with the chauvinistic Malay rights group Perkasa, giving it the clout that it needed to flex its muscles and to make statements that were alien during Mahathir’s reign. That’s perhaps the height of his contradictions, according to observers.

Perhaps Mahathir had forgotten that in 1999, it was the non-Malays who provided him the support he needed to win the general election as the Malay vote was divided over the Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim issue.

Where once he preached unity of the races, Mahathir is now playing the race card. This was what he said in March last year: “We also want to stress that Bahasa Melayu and Islam are the official language and religion of our nation. So they must respect our rights as how we respect their rights.

“But, because the leadership of the Malays in the opposition pact is very weak, they often just follow their colleagues including when pressed for the word Allah to be used (in the Bible).

“When they proposed to strip the special privileges of the Malays, the opposition, which purportedly had two parties with Malay leadership, willingly complied. If we are not careful, we will lose altogether our rights on our own soil and they (opposition) will get rid of all efforts to develop the Malays and bumiputras.”

With such talk, can Mahathir discount himself from blame for dismantling hopes for a Bangsa Malaysia that he himself had hoped for? If he had meant what he said, Mahathir would not have been seen to be stirring racism issues and heightening racial disparities.

There’s more. In 2011, Mahathir in a speech told Malaysians to admit that the country belonged to the Malays and that they had to accept the culture and language of the dominant community.

He also said the country’s forefathers gave the Chinese and Indians citizenship because they expected the communities to respect Malay sovereignty.

“This country belongs to the Malay race. Peninsular Malaysia was known as Tanah Melayu but this cannot be said because it will be considered racist. We must be sincere and accept that the country is Tanah Melayu,” he had said.

With this speech, he had again demolished another two pillars of Vision 2020: creating a psychologically liberated, secure and developed Malaysian society, and establishing a mature, liberal and tolerant society and ensuring an economically just society.

Are these remarks considered “mature” or “liberal” and are they helpful in creating a tolerant society? Will this help the non-Malays feel a sense of belonging to the nation?

As previously reported, DAP adviser Lim Kit Siang had said Mahathir was contradicting himself as his remarks went against not only the 1Malaysia concept, but also the Bangsa Malaysia concept.

Can Malaysia fulfil this goal of a tolerant nation if the controversial ‘Allah’ issue has yet to be resolved? Religious authorities have not contributed towards this goal either by being heavy handed in its actions.

Some of their actions include the recent “raid” of Zarena Abdul Majid’s wedding, the raiding of Borders’ book store for the book Allah, Liberty and Love by Irshad Manji even before the book was banned, the conversion issue and the confiscation of Bibles from Bible Society of Malaysia (BSM).

Being the architect of Vision 2020, Mahathir could have played his role as elder statesman to the hilt by issuing statements and taking actions that foster unity and understanding between conflicting groups. He chose instead to take sides.

Mahathir created this vision, but when the tests came (religious harmony is being threatened), he was seen to be aggravating these situations instead of alleviating it by getting the people to get back on the path to Vision 2020.

On June 4, Mahathir said it was right for Datuk Seri Najib Razak to sue Malaysiakini but said he would not do so as it was part and parcel of politics. “If they call me anything, they can because this is politics. In politics, you get cursed and sometimes you get cursed like you were praising me just now.”

Yet, on Nov 25, 2009, a threat of legal action was what he used on Barry Wain, the author of Malaysian Maverick: Mahathir Mohamad in turbulent times, a book that contained an allegation that he wasted RM100 billion on grandiose projects and schemes during his tenure as PM.

Mahathir denied the allegation and challenged Wain to prove it or be sued. He also welcomed a commission of inquiry to be set up to investigate the allegation.

Two months after that, he told a newspaper that he did not intend to sue Wain as it would be a waste of time.

When he was once asked how he would like to be remembered as a leader, Mahathir had said he didn’t care and that the people could think what they like.

There will certainly be a large section of the people who revere him for what he had done for the country.

But business leader Koon Yew Yin, in an article in a news portal in 2012, wrote: “He will certainly not be remembered for his standard of governance or the example he has set in arousing Malaysians to give their best to the country.”

This article was first published in the June 28, 2014 issue of The Heat