When a Canadian told me in 2002 that Mahathir was a kleptocrat
The Third Force
TTF: Back in the day when I had just completed my Masters degree, I joined First Robotics Industrial Science (FRIS), a Canadian themed institution based in Penang. The late Mr. Clare Sammons, the director of the institution, was said to have once assisted the Sultan of Brunei develop the curriculum for an Institution of Higher learning based in the Muslim populous nation.
Sammons and I became quite close and used to spend hours upon hours discussing Edu Mall, a concept I came up with early in 2002. One fine day, I walked into his room with a 200-odd page proposal (that I perfected some years later) I had been working on for months. He flipped through it, looked at me with amazement, and said, “I’ll have a go at it tonight if you don’t mind.”
“Sure,” I replied.
The very next day, he came over to my desk and literally whispered, “Raggie, if you don’t have class, perhaps we could head over to Coffee Bean in Bukit Jambul for some coffee.”
“Yeah, that’d be a good idea.”
At Starbucks, this is what Sammons had to say:
“Raggie, I read your proposal, and let me tell you it’s one heck of a proposal. I’ve never really read anything quite like it. Now, do you know why it’s that good?”
Despite my sincerest efforts, Sammons’ just shook his head in disagreement each time I gave a response.
“In your title, you said you were going to present an Edu Mall. And that’s exactly what you did. You had me all ears the minute you said it. And do you know what? Your proposal nailed it. It’s like nothing I’ve ever seen before.”
“So What’s it worth,” I asked.
“In Malaysia? Not a dime. The minute you take this to the guy up there, God forbid it, he’ll sell you right down the river (oh, by the way, that’s how I came to be fond of this idiom).”
“Mahathir?”
“The Godfather himself, yes. He’s a blxxdy kleptocrat.”
Honest to God, honest to all my loved ones, that was the very first time I heard the word. When I asked Sammons what it meant, he pointed to an article from The Economist, adding, “I just discovered it this morning. Apparently, it’s the latest fad in the States.”
So believe me, Lim Kit Siang was not the first to associate the word with a Malaysian Prime Minister.
