The rise of Mahathirism, the cancer that plagues the nation

By MT Webmaster Last updated Mar 10, 2017

The Third Force

This article, the third in a series (refer links below) devoted to exposing the corrupt practices that went largely unchecked during the Mahathir administration, examines the root cause of Mahathir’s anti-Chinese persona which not many Malaysians are aware of.

The article takes off by chronicling history as it was seen through the eyes of the late Tunku Abdul Rahman, the first Prime Minister of Malaysia. Much of his thoughts were derived from the unpublished memoirs of a late historian who engaged in private sessions with the Tunku on the Malay dilemma.

**Note that not all of what is contained within this article constitutes the thoughts of the late Tunku and does include findings made by other notable historians as well.

When the Chinaman played it dirty

By the early 1900’s, a significant number of Malays had ventured into rubber cultivation through smallholdings that were typically family run. Most of them were troubled by the economic disparity that resulted from a Chinese monopoly of the mining industry. Given that the traditional farmer was accustomed to life on the fields, cultivating rubber seemed the only recourse available to him that was manageable and presented an opportunity “to keep up with the Chinese.”

But the British were against this development. They preferred the Malays to acquire land strictly for growing rice, arguing that rice was a staple food needed to feed labourers in plantations and tin mines. As true as this may have been, it was irrelevant in the eyes of the village elder. He was aware that British were being influenced by a very powerful group of Chinese who lobbied against the involvement of Malays in rubber cultivation.

The group comprised leaders of triads who worried that the Malays would pose a competition to Chinese run plantations. They wanted the British to place hurdles that would deter the Malays from planting rubber. The British found themselves in no position to object to the demands of the triads. They needed the leaders of these triads to keep the peace by breaking up feuds that constantly erupted between Chinese clans across the Northern peninsula.

Some theorists contend that the feuds were deliberately sparked by the leaders of triads to evoke a sense of calamity within the western Malayan peninsula. It is their contention that the British helped inspire these feuds to impress upon rulers that the Chinese were a notorious lot who the Malays would never be able to pacify. But the Tunku disagreed. According to him, the various clan-associations were genuinely at loggerheads with one another and even resorted to killing just to drive a point through.

However, the Tunku did agree that the British rode on these feuds to establish a symbiotic relationship with the leaders of some triads, such that tin mining soon became a ‘triad thing’. Since the late nineteenth century, the British paid these triad leaders handsomely to supply the best labourers to work the tin mines and build new townships around mining enclaves.

The arrangement proved successful and spawned a multitude of opportunities within the mining townships. As the townships grew, so did the need for there to be infrastructure development projects along the West Coast of the peninsula. These projects helped the Chinese establish a foothold in the construction industry and made many of them rich. The richer they got, the more they acquired land along the West Coast of the Malayan peninsula.

The more the Chinese acquired land, the more the number of townships that mushroomed along the outskirt regions of mining enclaves. Most of these townships were Chinese run, in that the triad leaders helped establish a multitude of businesses and got their people to run and manage them. The British were indebted to the Chinese for helping develop commercial activity in what were once shantytowns or inhabitable swamplands. They were aware that the Malay states would never have developed as rapidly as they did had it not been for the Chinese.

In short, there were a hundred and one reasons why the British would favour the Chinaman over the Malay smallholder. And because the Chinaman did not want to see the Malays participate in the cultivation of rubber, the British began discriminating against the Malays by refusing to improve infrastructure around rubber smallholdings located within traditional Malay enclaves.

According to the Tunku, there were instances in Chukai, Binjai, Banggol and Hulu Jabor where British officials would march into Malay villages to threaten the owners of rubber smallholdings. They would accuse Malays of producing rubber that was substandard and warn them not to jeopardise the local rubber industry.

Such incidences went largely unreported simply because the British conducted these operations under the guise of health inspections. They would write reports that chastised the Malay planter for harbouring disease through the poor upkeep of his smallholding. As discriminatory as this may have seemed, there was some truth in these reports. The Malay planter was constantly hit by slumps in rubber prices that dried his coffers and left him without the means to manage his smallholding.

But an equally large number refused to up. They continued to establish smallholdings all across Terengganu (particularly in Kemaman) and the West Coast of the peninsula, determined to prove that they too were able to compete against the Chinese. For a while, they made progress. But the sudden rise in the number of smallholdings brought about overproduction that did many of them in. The glut in production coincided with a price slump that almost destroyed the rubber industry in 1911.

The Chinese, however, had very little to worry about. Many had businesses tucked away in mining townships that were run by their family members using funds derived off plantations. They watched Malay planters succumb to bankruptcy and did nothing to help. The Chinaman gallantly went about his business as if it was just another day.

The slump presented the British an opportunity to ensure that the Malays would never dream of venturing into rubber again. In 1912, the British began drafting laws aimed at hindering the Malays from cultivating rubber. But plans to enforce these laws were suddenly put on hold. A group of triad leaders approached the British to discuss a new dilemma that was plaguing the Chinese community.

Accordingly, the Chinese had gotten word from villagers that Malay nationalism was on the rise, that groups of Malay elders had begun to meet to discuss a Chinese threat. The British assured the triad leaders that such sentiments were not widespread and confined only to a group of village elders who were insignificant. But the triad leaders were not convinced. They insisted that a middle ground be sought to prevent the Malays from further developing anti-Chinese sentiments.

When the British played it dirty

By 1912, the Malays had begun to see that the Chinaman had an agenda of his own that was positively anti-Malay. Though such sentiments were not widespread, they were nonetheless prevalent among rubber smallholders and village elders and were quickly spreading across the peninsula. It occurred to them that the Chinese were a chauvinistic race that never gave a hoot about the welfare of the Malays. To them, a typical Chinaman would only concern himself with money and anything that had fortune written to it.

As the months went by, word spread across these townships that the Malays were discussing ways to drive the Chinese out of the Malayan peninsula. Though an exaggerated account, such was the rumour that the Chinese began to cringe at the idea of a Malay uprising. They worried that the Malays would identify themselves as being exclusive to the Malay Archipelago and demand that Chinese wealth derived off their land be returned to the state.

It is for this reason, above all, that the British approved the Malay Reservations Act of 1913, the sole purpose of which was to con Malays into thinking that the colonialist had their interests at heart. Although designed only to prevent land reserved to the Malays from being sold or leased to the non-Malay, it gave the Malays hope that the British would start getting tough with the Chinese.

However, once the British were sure that the Malays had been ‘bought over’, they went ahead and approved two more acts – one in 1917 and another in 1918 – that prevented the Malays from cultivating rubber using land reserved to them. It was then that the village elders began to see just how far the British would go to please the Chinese.

Infuriated, these elders began encouraging the younger generation to cultivate rubber in a bigger way. They got the heads of villages to assist with manpower and the continued supply of rice to feed the families of labourers. Planters who made it big returned the favour by channeling funds for the development of their villages. Some practically ended up turning entire villages into rubber smallholdings.

By the 1930’s, the number of Malay smallholdings in rubber had mushroomed to such an extent, the British began to recognise their contribution towards the local rubber industry. By 1940, there was talk on ways to regulate the rubber industry so as to prevent a glut in production. The British no longer ignored the Malay planter. He was included in discussions that were held to chart a course for the industry as a whole.

But the same cannot be said of the Chinaman, who continued to impose harsh trading terms on the budding Malay entrepreneur. He ended up getting richer and richer while the Malay struggled to make it to the middle-income bracket. Which is why, the minute the British announced the granting of citizenship to Chinese under the Malayan Union proposal, the Malays drew the line.

The rise of Mahathir, the cancer that plagued the nation

The Chinese seemed to have the Malays exactly where they wanted them – under their heels. This was a point in Dr. Mahathir Mohamad’s own contention during the former premier’s historic address to parliament in May 1965.

UMNO Malays had long known of Mahathir’s poor regard for the Chinese. They knew that the Kedah born despised the late Tunku for being submissive to the whims of the chauvinist race. Even the MCA leader of the era knew how Mahathir aspired to keep the Chinese under his heels. Ask the then party president, and he would tell you that should Mahathir lead the country, the Chinese would be doomed.

An account by the late Tunku postulates how Mahathir had come to develop such hatred for the Chinese. Accordingly, Mahathir was only a 16-year-old lad when the Japanese occupied the Malay states and forced shut all schools. His family was as much affected by the occupancy as were the families of the traditional Malay farmer and the Chinese miner. Following the surrender of the Japanese in 1945, Mahathir witnessed how the average Chinaman moved forward, leaving the Malay farmers and fishermen to fend for themselves.

It was then that Mahathir realised how ungrateful and chauvinistic the Chinese could get. He remembered how brutal the Japanese were towards the Chinese and how the Malay farmer snuck the Chinaman into his wardrobe to keep the Japanese from discovering him. It occurred to Mahathir that the Malays never really needed to risk their lives by protecting the Chinese. Yet, their nature was such, they would never have forgiven themselves should they have left the Chinese to fend for themselves.

By the time the Japanese surrendered, demand for rubber had taken such a beating that many smallholdings lapsed into dire neglect. Wealthy groups of Chinamen began dishing out monetary aid to assist other Chinese regain footing in the plantation sector. But when the Malays approached the Chinese, they were snubbed. The Chinese preferred the Malays to sell their smallholdings to them instead.

Desperate for cash, many smallholders agreed to sell their businesses for whatever little money the Chinese offered them. Some went on to dump that money into all sorts of ventures, many of which failed almost as soon as they were conceived. The budding Malay entrepreneur found it extremely difficult to do business in Chinese run townships. The Chinaman squeezed the Malay dry by mercilessly imposing terms that just didn’t make sense.

These highly conceited and wicked acts by the Chinese told Mahathir just how ruthless the Chinaman could get. In a private communication that took place between him and an ally of his back in 1967, Mahathir was said to have retorted that “a Chinaman will never give face to the Malays and will continue to behave as if the country belonged to him.”

Mahathir observed how ‘stupid’ the Malays were as a race for not rebelling against the Chinese. It irked him that the Monarchs ‘kowtowed’ to the British just to safeguard their positions as the heads of states. Seeing that the Malays revered the rulers despite having been ‘shortchanged’, it dawned upon him that the ‘stupid’ Malay could be bought over with promises and rhetoric that was minimalist in nature.

With that, he vowed never to make the Malays too intelligent. To him, the more intelligent the Malay, the more he or she would work towards uniting the races. It occurred to him that a united Malayan race would pave the way for a non-Malay to become Prime Minister one fine day. In his books, that was a scenario the government of the day needed to avert at all cost.

Besides, keeping the Malays ‘stupid’ would guarantee his administration support from the community. As long as the flames of dissent between the races were kept burning, he would have reason to claim that his administration was dedicated to safeguarding the rights of the Malays. And the way to accomplish that was to cultivate a climate of fear wherein which the Malays truly believed their rights were in jeopardy.

In order to do that, he made sure the Chinese were sufficiently rich and in control of commerce. The richer the Chinaman got, the more sufficient he became. And the more sufficient the Chinaman got, the more he denied the Malay an opportunity in the private sector. Of course, the more the Malays were denied opportunities, the more they felt squeezed. And experience told Mahathir that a squeezed Malay would never be a happy Malay.

So, to keep the Malays happy, Mahathir embarked on some development projects that seemed catered specifically for the Bumiputras. But he made sure the flames of dissent between the Malays and the Chinese never died out. Every now and then, he got his people to accuse the Chinese of monopolising trade and commerce in Malaysia.

Only by doing that did his administration have reason to announce that the ‘Malay struggle’ was far from over. To prevent the flames of dissent from precipitating destruction, Mahathir kept the Malays contented by having them latch on to the coattails of his associates for favours. The more dependent the Malays were on his associates, the more they needed his administration to remain in power.

Mahathir then went on to nurture a very powerful group of Chinese and got them to do business with his associates. In a span of just four to five years, his associates turned from multimillionaires to billionaires and came to be known as Mahathirists. The Mahathirists went on to rape the banking sector and transformed most of the Chinese owned financial institutions into government controlled entities.

In other words, Mahathir made damn sure the Chinaman came under the heels of the Malays. And while the Mahathirists were busy raping the banks, Mahathir worked out a scheme to wrest control of the tin industry from the Chinese by setting up shell companies that went on to manipulate the world metal market in ways never before heard in the history of Southeast Asia.

Yes, to Mahathir, the British were right. Divide and rule was a policy that ensured the races never united to deliver a force capable of posing a threat to his administration. Like the British, he despised the idea of unity and subscribed only to the delusion of unity. To him, as long as the Malays and the Chinese remained content, they would be able to coexist, as money was always a force capable of buying out even the hardest of nuts to crack.

In 1972, the Tunku confided in the historian that the day would come when Mahathir would inspire the rise of a vigilante, whose sole mission would be to deliver truth and justice without fear or favour. Ironically, the historian had by then coined the term ‘Mahathirism’, noting in his memoirs how such a vigilante would one day be the one to destroy Mahathirism, a cancer that without a doubt would plague the nation.