Dr Mahathir Mohamad
By Ardeshir Cowasjee
He was born on December 20 1925, in Alor Setar, where he was schooled prior to gaining admission to Singapore's King Edward VII College of Medicine in 1947, from which he graduated to join the Malaysian government service as a medical officer.
He married another doctor, Datin Seri Dr Siti Hasmah bt Mohamad Ali (they have seven children). He became active in politics in 1945, and joined the United Malays National Organization when it was formed in 1946.
In 1957 he set up his own practice in the town of his birth. He was first elected to parliament in 1964. Recognizing the importance of education if his country was to progress, education was his primary interest and in 1974 he was appointed minister of education and chairman of the national university council.
He rose steadily in the political ranks - from senator, to minister, to deputy prime minister (retaining the education portfolio) and in July 1981 was appointed prime minister of his country, which post he has held for 22 years. He has, so he says, decided to step down and retire to the hills at the end of this month.
Forthright, frank and outspoken from the start, Mahathir's book, 'The Malay Dilemma' published in 1969 was banned in his own country. So, his outpourings at the Organization of Islamic Conference summit on October 16 should not have surprised anyone.
Undue emphasis has been placed on what he had to say about the eternal struggle that Islam wages against the Jews of Israel. Rather than castigating the Jews, he exhorted his fellow Muslims, whom he described as oppressed and humiliated, to employ brains rather than brawn when dealing with the troublesome issue of Palestine, and rather than blowing themselves up into smithereens, the young crusading Muslims should pause to think and ponder as to how to win the battle for Palestine through politically manipulative means. As he so rightly said: "For well over half a century we have fought over Palestine. What have we achieved? Nothing."
(I echo his words: For well over half a century we have fought over Kashmir. What have we achieved? Nothing.).
Granted that certain remarks of his about the Jews and their world domination, and the fact that the Germans eliminated six million of them (a rather nasty implication could easily be read into this) may have been inadvisable in view of certain elements of the Muslim audience at which they were directed - the hard-core Islamist jihadi lot could easily be spurred on to even more violence. (Though, as a friend pointed out, Mahathir does have a streak of anti-Semitism in him as illustrated by his 1998 accusation that the Jews were the cause of Malaysia's economic woes.)
Throw off the chips on your shoulders, he told his comrades, shed your complexes, do not antagonize everyone. "We know that not all non-Muslims are against us. Some are well-disposed towards us. Some even see our enemies as their enemies. Even among the Jews there are many who do not approve of what the Israelis are doing."
Mahathir spurned violence, and he spurned anger. Angry people cannot think rationally; they kill aimlessly, venting their anger even on their fellow Muslims. His main grouse was against the disunity of the Muslim states : "Not only are our governments divided, the ummah is also divided, again and again. Over the past 1400 years, the learned ones, the ulema, have interpreted and reinterpreted the single Islamic religion so differently that now we have a thousand religions which are often so much at odds with one another that we often fight and kill each other." Could he have spoken truer words?
And, on his favourite subject of education, he berated his bretheren for ignoring the Islamic injunction to read, to acquire knowledge, and to add to the body of knowledge through their own studies - mathematics, science, medicine, astronomy and all the other disciplines. The early followers of Islam did so, and remarkably efficiently, but then somewhere along the halfway line came the new and false interpreters of Islam who taught that the acquisition of knowledge meant only the study of Islamic theology. From then began the downfall, which continues to this day.
Unite, he told the ummah, throw off your somnolence and your divisive and false interpretations of your religion, return to your roots, build up your strength, not through armaments and bombs, but through stable governments, well administered states that are economically and financially strong, industrially competent, technologically advanced.
He could not have uttered saner words and it must be hoped that many not only listened to him but understood, agreed and vowed to heed him.
I have an e-mailer friend in Malaysia, an erudite man of perception who promptly keeps me au fait with valid criticism on the doings of the world's powers, of those in his own country, of those in many countries now in the limelight, including my country. Let us call him 'S'.
'S' has no time for either Mahathir or Musharraf, who he calls the 'strutting commando general'. As for Mahathir: "His 22 years must be seen as a time when Malaysia, whilst being successful economically, failed to consolidate its gains and indeed missed a lot of opportunities. There is still much debt unrecovered by local banks from defaulters now amounting to some three billion dollars. There is a property over-supply to the tune of some four billion dollars just around Kuala Lumpur - buildings completed but with no buyers, or with defaulting buyers. An example of the Japanese-style economics pursued by Mahathir is: spend your way out of trouble. The local currency has been defloated/pegged to the US dollar that has effectively removed Malaysia from the vagaries of currency fluctuations but the pressure on foreign reserves to maintain the peg is high and inhibits foreign investment amongst others. Whilst exports are cheap, the cost of imports keeps growing.
"We need only to compare Malaysia with Singapore to understand how Malaysia has under-performed in all the vital industries and is still unable to compete with Singapore which has a GDP greater than Malaysia's with one-eighth of its population and 223 square miles of territory as opposed to several thousand square miles.
"Whilst Malaysia's performance has been good, it has not coincided with social cohesion, liberalization in education, politics or the strengthening of institutions. It has been very much a one-man show and that will tell after the retirement of Mahathir.
"Mahathir is fearful of the mullas as they actually control two states of the 13 state federation and are poised to seize a further two states in the next elections. They have made real inroads, thanks to the clumsy manner in which Mahathir handled the Anwar issue and issues relating to his personal and his government's integrity....
"Malaysians have a cynical and practical approach towards dictators. They will adulate and be sycophantic while the chap is around but will soon transfer their affection to the next fellow to obtain his favours."
(Our president General Pervez Musharraf would do well to ponder on these last three paragraphs.)
"All Mahathir's children (Marina, Mirzan, Melinda, Mokhzani, Mukhriz, Maizura and Mazar) are multi-millionaires and came to that station by the time they were 30! The Mahathir cronies including the banks and rich Chinese, were falling over [each other] in wanting to have a child of his as a shareholder or director in their companies as that was a sure way to secure government contracts."
'S' explains the education illiberization: "Education is state controlled in a very strict manner as it is the vehicle that is being used by the Malay-dominated government to increase the number of Malay professionals, etc, across the spectrum. Seventy to seventy-five per cent of all places in government tertiary institutions are reserved for Malays which make up 60 per cent of the population. Education is free in government primary and secondary schools until 'A' levels and then at government tertiary institutions fees are heavily subsidized, at least as far as Malays are concerned. Mahathir got the money by exploiting Malaysia's natural resources......"
At his last international summit, APEC, ten days before bowing out, Mahathir was at his irascible best. True to form, he had a go at both President George Bush and Prime Minister John Howard of Australia. On the latter: "There's fondness among prime ministers of Australia to make nasty comments like calling me recalcitrant. John Howard did the same thing, even casting aspersions on our judicial system. We had a very good history of treating our aborigines. We didn't shoot them dead. We didn't commit genocide."
And when asked by the press for his impression of Bush: "It might sound offensive, so I will not reply to that question."
We must wish him well in his retirement, but, as remarked a commentator in the western press, judging by Mahathir's past form, it is likely there will be nothing gentle about his days of governmental inactivity.
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