Whitewashing the PMs failures
Kevin GanPublished: Mar 28, 2001 9:29 AM | Updated: Jan 29, 2008 6:21 PM
Jeffrey's letter ([#1]The other side of the Mahafiraun[/#], March 27) seems to a long litany of apologies and whitewashing of Dr Mahathir Mohamad's faults while offering us only the nation's economic progress as the sole beneficial point of his leadership. The rest of his letter is a brave-faced attempt to defend the prime minister which does not convince.
So Mahathir did preside over much of the economic growth of Malaysia in his 18 years in power. But we can expect economic development and prosperity to occur in any country with a hardworking population and rich natural resources provided the government of the day has not placed unnatural obstacles to people's natural aspiration to improve themselves.
He deserves some credit but one should not labour under the false impression that only Mahathir could have effected our economic progress. On the contrary we should ask ourselves whether were it not for the resource-wasting multi-billion ringgit projects of 'prestige' and the economic inefficiency of favouring crony businessmen, we could have progressed even further.
Mahathir's xenophobic outbursts are excused on the dubious grounds of putting Malaysia on the world map and having earned the nebulous admiration of underdogs like Moari, Aborigines and Africans. What about our brave leader hobnobbing with notorious dictators like Castro, Mugabe and the Myanmar junta while being shunned by democratic world leaders? What about the blows dealt to foreign direct investments, the tourism industry and the loss of goodwill?
No, it is not all right to make Suiqiu and the Chinese community scapegoats in order to recover lost Malay political ground. This is a bizarre rationalisation of an unbecoming action by a national leader. It is not all right to use any community as political punching bags when it is politically expedient, more so if this community has helped him retain power. It is even worse to resort to inflammatory racial politics in a multi-ethnic country like Malaysia.
Giving the country visions of 'Bangsa Malaysia' and '2020' is empty and hollow if not backed up by appropriate policies, more so if the progenitor goes the other way and takes contrary action to keep the races divided. We have Mahathir's 'Malay unity talks' which is nothing more than a transparent attempt to rouse Malay sentiment to unite under the Umno banner under imaginary threats from other ethnic communities.
As for cronyism, corruption, bailouts and the politics of money and patronage, the justification seems to be that they have been long-standing in our culture and habits so Mahathir cannot be expected to dismantle them overnight. Nobody expects him to, but having 18 years to work with is certainly not overnight. But time is a moot point when Mahathir has shown totally no interest in remedying such conduct, rather he strengthens and enlarges these odious practices to cling on to power.
Let me just say that Anwar Ibrahim took the right step to curb those practices and Mahathir cut him down ruthlessly.
So being a consummate Machiavellian strategist is essential to hold on to power in today's political intrigue. This may be so, but it does not ameliorate our disgust for a Machiavellian character. Perhaps he has been too good at it to manage to cling on to power for far too long when he should have retired long ago.
This brings us to the Mahathir-Anwar saga. Whatever political enmity existed between the two, it is certainly no excuse to abuse every pillar and institution of democracy in the country to effect a political end. Our society has been dragged through gut-wrenching turmoil and darkness while truth has been turned on its head and the very notion of good and bad reversed. There will be horrible implications for the social and spiritual foundation of our society.
The writer does not deny the miscarriage of justice against Anwar, but tries feebly to rationalise and justify the cruelty to this man. He makes a brave case for the PM really believing Anwar's guilt of sodomy. But the PM's belief is irrelevant as far as the conduct of justice is concerned. What we had were two shameful show trials where Anwar was convicted on the flimsiest of premises despite the weight of evidence in his favour. In the sodomy case, the judge drew comfort from his opinion that Azizan had no reason to lie. And incredibly, that was the main legal basis of his judgment!
Singapore's Lee Kuan Yew in a rare display of candour remarked that Mahathir made a grave mistake by putting Anwar on trial. He said that Mahathir should have just imprisoned Anwar under the ISA. As much as we cannot condone such an action either, the country would have been spared the pain of having all the ugliness and rot, all the abuse and the corruption in our system exposed on the world stage.
Lastly, should we be thankful to Mahathir for not censoring the Internet? A rather ironical way to defend a person's character. Let us be thankful for the good that a person does, not for the evil which he did not do!
So Mahathir did preside over much of the economic growth of Malaysia in his 18 years in power. But we can expect economic development and prosperity to occur in any country with a hardworking population and rich natural resources provided the government of the day has not placed unnatural obstacles to people's natural aspiration to improve themselves.
He deserves some credit but one should not labour under the false impression that only Mahathir could have effected our economic progress. On the contrary we should ask ourselves whether were it not for the resource-wasting multi-billion ringgit projects of 'prestige' and the economic inefficiency of favouring crony businessmen, we could have progressed even further.
Mahathir's xenophobic outbursts are excused on the dubious grounds of putting Malaysia on the world map and having earned the nebulous admiration of underdogs like Moari, Aborigines and Africans. What about our brave leader hobnobbing with notorious dictators like Castro, Mugabe and the Myanmar junta while being shunned by democratic world leaders? What about the blows dealt to foreign direct investments, the tourism industry and the loss of goodwill?
No, it is not all right to make Suiqiu and the Chinese community scapegoats in order to recover lost Malay political ground. This is a bizarre rationalisation of an unbecoming action by a national leader. It is not all right to use any community as political punching bags when it is politically expedient, more so if this community has helped him retain power. It is even worse to resort to inflammatory racial politics in a multi-ethnic country like Malaysia.
Giving the country visions of 'Bangsa Malaysia' and '2020' is empty and hollow if not backed up by appropriate policies, more so if the progenitor goes the other way and takes contrary action to keep the races divided. We have Mahathir's 'Malay unity talks' which is nothing more than a transparent attempt to rouse Malay sentiment to unite under the Umno banner under imaginary threats from other ethnic communities.
As for cronyism, corruption, bailouts and the politics of money and patronage, the justification seems to be that they have been long-standing in our culture and habits so Mahathir cannot be expected to dismantle them overnight. Nobody expects him to, but having 18 years to work with is certainly not overnight. But time is a moot point when Mahathir has shown totally no interest in remedying such conduct, rather he strengthens and enlarges these odious practices to cling on to power.
Let me just say that Anwar Ibrahim took the right step to curb those practices and Mahathir cut him down ruthlessly.
So being a consummate Machiavellian strategist is essential to hold on to power in today's political intrigue. This may be so, but it does not ameliorate our disgust for a Machiavellian character. Perhaps he has been too good at it to manage to cling on to power for far too long when he should have retired long ago.
This brings us to the Mahathir-Anwar saga. Whatever political enmity existed between the two, it is certainly no excuse to abuse every pillar and institution of democracy in the country to effect a political end. Our society has been dragged through gut-wrenching turmoil and darkness while truth has been turned on its head and the very notion of good and bad reversed. There will be horrible implications for the social and spiritual foundation of our society.
The writer does not deny the miscarriage of justice against Anwar, but tries feebly to rationalise and justify the cruelty to this man. He makes a brave case for the PM really believing Anwar's guilt of sodomy. But the PM's belief is irrelevant as far as the conduct of justice is concerned. What we had were two shameful show trials where Anwar was convicted on the flimsiest of premises despite the weight of evidence in his favour. In the sodomy case, the judge drew comfort from his opinion that Azizan had no reason to lie. And incredibly, that was the main legal basis of his judgment!
Singapore's Lee Kuan Yew in a rare display of candour remarked that Mahathir made a grave mistake by putting Anwar on trial. He said that Mahathir should have just imprisoned Anwar under the ISA. As much as we cannot condone such an action either, the country would have been spared the pain of having all the ugliness and rot, all the abuse and the corruption in our system exposed on the world stage.
Lastly, should we be thankful to Mahathir for not censoring the Internet? A rather ironical way to defend a person's character. Let us be thankful for the good that a person does, not for the evil which he did not do!
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