According to Tunku Abdul Rahman, Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad has an inferiority complex. This was because his grandfather was an Indian and father was part-Malay. Furthermore, he was a commoner.

K Das: He (Mahathir) is following Lee Kuan Yew's style.

Tunku: No, Lee Kuan Yew had his path all cleared, nicely cleared and he would travel along that path. But Mahathir's path is cluttered. He has not got his way cleared. It is not the same.

K Das: I was thinking of Lee Kuan Yew in the early days. He had all these potholes but he used his force...

Tunku: I know him well. He used to consult me. He used to clear the path first. He just travelled on the potholes with the referendum he had. I said to him, "Are you sure you are going to win your referendum because this other PAP leader Dr Lee Siew Choh appears to be very strong."

He was very sure. He was going to do this, he was going to do that and then he started to campaign very early, playing Chinese music and what have you, going all over the place. He worked really hard. He cleared his path.

But this man does not do this, he wants the easiest way out by using his power. He does not care what happens underneath. That is why I said if he fights the election, he does not know whether he will get the support of the grassroots, he goes to the kampong to get his seats but Kuan Yew always prepared his way, that I know.

K Das: But if he is afraid of losing the battle, he will tell that man to back down.

Tunku: He won't ask him to back down, he will just put the man in detention. He is not that type of man. But one thing - you can take that from me - he is one of those who hate all this Malay adat (etiquette) and custom. He hates all this.

K Das: He is the one who made the classic statement that Malays are too polite.

Tunku: He? I wish he were polite.

K Das: I once asked him, "Is it possible for any person in the world to be too polite?" He said he had to think about that...

No respect

Tunku: You see, the Malays have a cause for adat, resam and so on tradition. I have a respect for it but he has none. He dislikes it. You see, his whole aim is to upset the constitution and turn this country into a republic. His son was in London talking quite openly amongst the students that his father is going to be the first president of Malaysia.

K Das: I heard his daughter was also talking about it here.

Tunku: The daughter?

K Das: Yes, Marina

Tunku: The one married to the chef?

K Das: Yes. Apparently she was caught talking about it at a party not knowing that behind her was one of the Tengkus from Negeri Sembilan who overheard it. She said that as soon as the constitution amendment is signed, it is finished, we can become a republic.

Tunku: That is the thing. That is his ambition. His health has suffered as a result of this class consciousness. They did not give him a place. That is why he told this man Dr Ling (Liong Sik) that I never liked him even as a boy.

K Das: I cannot understand why he felt at that time he was special. He was just another doctor in Kedah. What was so special about him?

Tunku: That is why he hates all these aristocrats and so on because he has no standing. You know his grandfather came from India. His father is half Indian or three-quarters Indian. Then his father came to Alor Setar and married a Malay and so he is half or three-quarters Malay and one quarter Indian. But nevertheless, he has felt a certain er, you know as if they looked down on him.

To overcome that inferiority complex, which as I told you before is the worst disease a man can have, you would do things you wouldn't normally do. Like in my case, in those days when I was in Cambridge, they despised coloured people who came from India and elsewhere. Anybody whose colour was black or dark, they would call an Indian and they really showed it. To overcome this feeling of inferiority I bought the most expensive, at that time, super sports car and I sped through town in it making quite a nuisance of myself. Just to be noticed.

K Das: As a young man it is different.

Tunku: But the inferiority complex is there. It forces you to do all the things you do not want to do.

K Das: Being a young man is understandable. Being a mature man...

Spoilsport

Tunku: Some carry this complex throughout their lives. Like this man Idi Amin - to overcome his inferiority complex, he asked the Englishmen to carry him on a chair. You see, you just carry on, there is no end to it. But in my case, perhaps because of my upbringing, when I got what I wanted that was the end of it all.

I did not like the British before because they were sombong (proud). They liked to throw their weight around everywhere, everything had to be for them. Now we are educated, we can at least call ourselves their equal but we do not like to be considered their inferior. We feel we know enough about administration, politics and everything else. We are as good as they are and if we are qualified with the same degree as them and we are given certain jobs while they are given top jobs, now that is the sort of thing that annoyed me. I have been good and friendly with them. I helped them, I showed them a lot.

K Das: In fact, one of the things we remember about you Tunku in the club is that when the club was renewed, you allowed them to retain for a long time their privilege to get liquor duty free.

Tunku: Oh yes! I gave them everything they used to have.

K Das: But I think that the first prime minister who refused to give, as the president of the club, was Mahathir.

Tunku: Mahathir? Before that, they were given duty free I believe in living and being happy, otherwise what the hell do you want to live for? How long do you expect to live for? Only yesterday I was running and jumping about as a kid, then as a young man, then a grown-up man, now I can't even walk. So why the hell do you want to make a nuisance of your life and make other people unhappy? Your duty when you take over leadership of the country is to make the people happy, that is the main thing.

K Das: One of the extraordinary thing about prime ministers of this country is that the first, second and third were not only lawyers but all interested in sports. Now, the fourth prime minister is not a lawyer and is not interested in sports.

Tunku: He is very much a loner.

K Das: To me, it is a very important for a man to love his sport, to have a sporting habit.

Tunku: Yes, because those who love sport can understand. They compete with a sporting instinct but this man has never liked that, he is a real spoilsport.

Rule by law

K Das: Going back to the book I am writing on the current crisis - one question I want to ask you is: I feel very strongly Dr Mahathir, and I believe most of his cabinet do not understand what the rule of law means. They know rule by law.

Tunku: They do not care.

K Das: How do you explain rule of law to these people. How do you put it simply to them?

Tunku: The only thing we can do is to write, talk, hold conferences to bring all this to their attention but now, because they do not know the rule of law, they forbid us from doing all this. Anything that is likely to give them the feeling that they are not doing their work, they will not allow. They say they are the right people to run this government. All the time they are campaigning from one end of the country to another.

The television every night broadcasts what the government is doing, what this minister is doing, what that minister is doing and so on but never about how the people are suffering, never about what the people want only what the government is doing.

We see so much of this that I don't turn on the news anymore. There is nothing to listen to, only this self-opinionated government doing work for the people. You cannot talk, you cannot hold seminars, you cannot write. My efforts in writing a little bit is the most I can do. If I do any more, then my paper (The Star) will be closed down again, suspended. And these people who work with us, all 800 of them will be thrown out of their jobs. So I cannot do anything.

K Das: Can you think of a simple way of explaining the difference between the rule of law and the rule by law?

Tunku: This is what they are doing now. They don't know any rule of law, they don't care about the law, they suspend and amend the law to suit their plans. So they rule by the law which they know to keep themselves in power. If you disagree with them or criticise them then you go to prison. That is what is happening here today.

K Das: How would you define the rule of law?

Tunku: You must observe the law, respect and uphold the law, that is how it is supposed to be. To respect the rule of law, you don't have to be a lawyer. We know the rule of the law is supposed to provide justice and so on. We know all that, but there are certain questions that have to do with justice and fair play.

Natural justice

K Das: The way I understand it, the rule of law is the rule by laws which observe the principles of natural justice.

Tunku: That is the main thing - natural justice.

K Das: If you go beyond that, it is only a legality.

Tunku: That's right. To free the people of the world, we look toward natural justice to provide us with protection and to give us freedom to do certain things within the law, not outside of the law because there are so many penal codes, laws that tell you where you go wrong, what is right and what is wrong.

If you go and pinch somebody's money, you know you are doing wrong. If you go and crack somebody's head, you know that you are doing wrong but all that is within common knowledge of all men and so it is within that rule of law that you can do anything you like. But of course in countries which we call democratic countries like ours, the people are supposed to be free to follow their way of life, to follow their religion, customs, habits and traditions.

K Das: New education and so on. For example, this man - when he was interviewed by Tan Chee Khoon - says that capital punishment for drug trafficking is not too severe. He said, "Well, they know what they are doing so they can hang."

Tunku: When I first became prime minister of this country, I had a discussion with the British government and the chairman of that group was Lord Hare. I said to Lord Hare, "Whatever you do, you cannot stop this opium habit and drug habit, you can't do it. The only thing you can do perhaps, is to provide them with a medical certificate. With this certificate, you are allowed to take opium."

He replied, "You see, I agree with you Tunku, the only thing is that the United Nations has decided on this particular ban on the drug habit."

But I said, "They know you can't stop it, this trafficking will go on. The same with prostitution, they decided against prostitution but can they stop it? It is the oldest profession in the world. But they could not stop it. Why don't they regulate the profession like in France? They had massage houses in the old days where all the girls are examined medically so that they can be certified to be free of disease and so on but to stop it, you know you cannot. Why do they want to mess things up like that? I am particularly against the punishment of death for drug possession.

Secondly, there are certain kinds of drugs like ganja (marijuana). Ganja is a drug that they take everywhere in the Middle East, in India, Pakistan and so on. When I played golf in Pakistan, in Islamabad, all those bushes around the golf course were all full of ganja. They grew wild everywhere. So to punish people in possession of ganja with death is too severe when you can grow it in the backyard. You must know how to prepare it, you cannot pack it up and take it just like that. It won't be any good. When the Pakistani caddy produced it from his pocket to taste, it was in a slab, black in colour, like belacan (prawn paste).

K Das: I think the death sentence for drug trafficking is too severe and besides, it does not work.

Tunku: It does not work, that is the point. Why not register the drug addicts?

K Das: In fact, I want to go further and suggest that if you register them, the drug traffickers will lose out because they have nothing to sell.

Tunku: Yes, they lose out.

Contracts for rich Malays

Tunku: Now my determination is to fight Mahathir. How I am going to fight him I don't know except through my writing. But even then, I can't write too much.

K Das: I think Tunku, what you told me last week or last month, I think it is going to be prophetic because you said that he has made so many mistakes ...

Tunku: Everything's happened and he is going to pay for his own misdeeds. He has not shown any results. Kuan Yew at least has shown some results, building up Singapore into a very strong financial state from nothing. But here, with all our wealth, he has wasted it all.

What I have been reading about the North-South Highway, this is his own undoing. How can you do that when everybody was talking about how the government is spending RM3.5 billion and the contracts have been given to your own business interest. Then they collect the toll for 30 years. How can you do a thing like that when the government is spending all that money! The government should collect the toll.

K Das: The Malays are complaining because they are given the contracts only to rich Malays. They are not giving poor Malays anything.

Tunku: More contracts have been given to Malays since Merdeka.

K Das: In those days, Malays, Chinese and Indians all got contracts...

Tunku: They were all given contracts. Razak started all this - only those who support Umno get anything.

A police state

K Das: Yes, I have often thought about this. Indeed, Dato Onn could have said, "No, I will do what I like." In those days it was so easy, not like now, there was hardly any opposition I think that he was a gentleman, there is the difference.

Tunku: It comes from good breeding.

K Das: And he was not mad about power.

Tunku: He was ambitious but he wouldn't do anything wrong, even to cling to power. He wouldn't abuse the constitution but this man is abusing it and putting the fault on others.

K Das: He is using the police as if it was his own private army.

Tunku: But that's what he's been doing all along. That is why I call this a police state. He can put me under house arrest like the Indonesian regime did to Sukarno before, he can do that...

K Das: But on what grounds?

Tunku: Oh! Don't worry about the grounds - all my letters, all my articles written against him, he doesn't require any more grounds than that. Others have been sent in who have not done half as much as what I have written against him.

My paper (The Star) can't be published but I put my articles in other papers. No don't worry about the grounds. He can amass all the grounds in order to meet his own object, to carry on with his desire to cripple me.




Tomorrow: The Tunku tapes: Judiciary under assault - Final part

The above is an excerpt from The Tunku Tapes - a newly launched book based on the interviews of Malaysia's first prime minister Tunku Abdul Rahman by veteran journalist K Das. The book is edited by social activist Dr Kua Kia Soong and is published by Strategic Info Research Development.