Mahathir at 100: evaluating the man of the century

Free Malaysia Today

2 days ago

Our indomitable two-time ex-prime minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad turned a hundred years old recently. Amazingly, even at a hundred, he's out and about with more energy than I can muster on the best of days, even though I'm only as old as one of his children.
I extend my heartiest congratulations to Tun. I hope he's recovering well from the recent birthday exertions. And I hope he'll share with me the real secrets of his longevity – something other than the one about the need to stop eating before one is full!
Regardless of people's opinions on Tun, you must agree he's been the most significant political figure in Malaysia's modern history, a factor in the life of a vast majority of Malaysians since the 1960s, if not earlier.
And it seems like he's not going anywhere any time soon.
I remember when he was appointed Malaysia's education minister in the 1970s. Young people were quite excited about it. Being an education minister in those days was a sign of one's political star rising, as it certainly was in Tun's case.
Tun was certainly popular with young people: they saw in him a rebel and a fearless man. He went on to bigger political jobs, but the state of our current education system is certainly a part of his legacy, for better or for worse.
It is a constant source of annoyance to me that many old people whinge about how good education used to be in the 'good old days' when, apparently, we all loved each other regardless of race or religion and ate off each other's plates and drank off each other's cups without a care in the world.
Even if that had been so, it was true only for the elite and the lucky ones from the urban areas. The rest, meaning most of us in the villages and backwaters, could only dream of having a good education, had we dared to dream about anything at all.
Luckily, opportunities are now available to everyone to become sufficiently educated to be able to function and earn a living in our society. That's certainly something to be grateful for, and that's certainly one of Tun's legacies.
Missed opportunity
Unfortunately, we missed the opportunity where we could have turned our schools into instruments to create a sorely-needed Malaysian culture, one that binds the disparate cultures of the various communities.
That moment has passed.
I, for one, don't blame the switch to Bahasa Malaysia as the main language of instruction as being a major factor in this failure. I believe we could've done that and still made schools the unifying factor for all Malaysians regardless of the medium of instruction.
The problem was to please the more conservative part of Malay politics. Mahathir let into our schools those who championed race, religion and language, to the extent that I often wonder whether there's now any difference between normal schools and actual religious schools.
Stuffing more religious material into school curricula didn't work. Malaysians aren't more moral, honest and law abiding because of it. All it did was give way too much unearned resources and power to the politicians to do even more of what they have been doing.
Another problem was that we neglected English because of the increasingly chauvinistic and insular attitudes of many Malays. I don't think Tun was the instigator of this neglect but he certainly opened the door for many to politicise this excessively.
Even today many Malaysians, especially Malays, don't see being multilingual as an asset. That's unfortunate, because there's no sin in being greedy about acquiring and accumulating the wealth of languages.
To be fair, the other problem then and now is that there are many equally chauvinistic non-Malays, especially Chinese, who insist on clinging to their own culture – especially language and schools – as a critical part of their identity and preservation of their own little corner of the old homeland.
Malays and non-Malays, whether through nationalism or chauvinism, must both share the blame for where we are now, which is that our education system is nowhere near helping us fulfil our potential as a nation.
Tun himself certainly played the nationalism card hard, especially against the more laid-back attitudes of Tunku Abdul Rahman and his cohort.
Doing it, his way
While Tun wasn't the worst of the nation's leaders, his impact has certainly been the longest lasting, and the most consequential.
You can't try to make sense of Tun without having the word 'ego' in the explanation somewhere. Tun has this 'ego' in spades. But that's understandable because you certainly can't lead a nation unless you have some strong belief in your own self and your destiny.
But in Tun's case it was a strong but also a wounded ego. He has a big chip on his shoulder, one that made him focus more on his own paths and his own grievances and on pointing fingers at others – the British, the West in general, the non-Malays and basically anybody who isn't in sync with his thinking and vision.
Unfortunately such an ego robbed him of self-awareness and introspection, and the priceless ability to step back, listen, and make the occasional apology and compromise and move on to a better trajectory.
Tun never backed down from a fight. In fact, he started many of them. Some of the fights that he won – such as the fight against the judiciary, the fight to privatise many public assets and services – unfortunately saddled us with systemic corruption and big financial losses.
Even many of the fights he supposedly won, such as industrialising the country through heavy industries and the national car projects, didn't turn out to be much of a victory after all.
Many of them cost the rakyat lots of money, whether directly or indirectly, for years and even decades later.
It's the fights he didn't pick, such as taking the agricultural sector into the 21st century, that we rue the most. In his haste to leapfrog and match the West, he forgot that agriculture is where the Malays have more advantages, by reason of history, culture and land ownership, as opposed to heavy industries.
Adding business-savvy practices and high tech to areas where we're already familiar with – food production, cash crops etc – would've elevated the Malays' economic status more successfully.
The current global concerns about food security show that it would've been the correct strategic thing to do too.
Ups and downs
After becoming prime minister at 56, an age when most people retire, he was to surprise the nation 22 years later by voluntarily retiring from office.
He didn't quite retire gracefully – remember that 'ego' thing – and when in 2018 he got back to Putrajaya for the second time, he had a long to-do list.
Unfortunately, that didn't include being the elder statesman who had chosen to rise above petty political games and machinations and becoming the one who stabilises the nation during a time of momentous change.
He fought his battles, but he lacked a strong political base. He lost and had an ignominious second, and involuntary, retirement. Since then, he's been seething with bitterness against those who stood against him.
I would argue that the bitterness is made worse because deep down he knows he's failed. I think he knows he missed the chance to be more than just a politician but a true statesman, the 'Father of Malaysian Recovery' righting the Malaysian ship that by then had strayed badly off course.
Credit where credit is due
Enough of the bashings. Credit must also be given where credit is due. He led Malaysia into building outstanding infrastructure in highways, ports, airports, and telecommunications.
Even though all these projects carried some baggage of corruption, they have also been critical in helping with our economic growth.
He made Malaysia a respected name in the world, especially among developing countries. He was bold in taking on the powerful interests of the West, which required a lot of courage. With his 'ego', he literally succeeded in putting Malaysia on the world map.
During many of my travels, I found that being a Malaysian was a big deal , especially in remote places in the 'third world' such as Africa or Central Asia. A Malaysian flag patch on your clothing guaranteed a thumbs-up from the locals, who were especially respectful and even quite knowledgeable of our most well-known leader, the good Tun.
Tun is intelligent, too, well read on a huge array of subjects, and comfortable with the big picture as well as the details. I may not agree with everything he said and did, but I was never worried about being embarrassed when he opened his mouth, especially on the world stage.
So, it's not that easy to evaluate Tun's impact on Malaysia. It's politics, after all, and Tun is quite a polarising figure. People either love him or hate him, with not many people in the middle.
But without a doubt his impact is huge, and through sheer willpower, perhaps driven by the desire to outlast all his enemies, he's still here among us, looking way healthier and alert than his age would suggest.
Perhaps there's something in his advice about not cleaning up your plate at mealtimes after all. But that is incredibly hard to do, and if Tun was to claim that as his most important life achievement, I would probably not argue against him.
Meanwhile, happy belated birthday Tun, and may you have many more healthy years ahead of you.
The views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect those of FMT.