Balanced and fair accounting
JeffreyPublished: Apr 5, 2001 6:52 AM | Updated: Jan 29, 2008 6:21 PM
This is to clarify and reply to some of the points of your readers/letter contributors in response to my letter, [#1]The other side of the Mahafiraun[/#] (March 27).
I did not conclude, as A Serving Member Umno Youth Bureau in his letter [#2]The other side of the Mahafiraun II[/#] (March 28) said I did or implied, that Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad saved Malaysia from collapse by capital control measures. I merely stated that the controls "insulated the currency from further attack by withdrawing value to the ringgit outside of Malaysia."
The efficacy of the controls and whether they were necessary or redundant were not a point of issue.
I, however, intended to imply that the PM was courageous to take an unorthodox course, contrary to conventional wisdom and international opinion, to address the problem of currency attack, which reflected leadership quality.
It may well be true, as asserted by MIT's Prof Paul Krugman and apparently shared by Prof KS Jomo that the controls turned out to be largely irrelevant, in the sense that the panic was subsiding just when the controls came on.
But as Prof Krugman conceded, "Dr Mahathir made his point that such a thing is feasible and need not lead to severe economic consequences" (again this is a point that many in hindsight may not agree) "but it had not succeeded in demonstrating that they are the key to recovery, because basically everybody is recovering."
It is of course so easy for these learned professors to pass judgment on hindsight at the tail end of the crisis.
What happens if hypothetically the attacks had continued and everybody else had not recovered and instead resorted to capital controls as a shield?
However, it must be asserted that at the point in time or in the middle of the crisis when the end was not visible, and it was all darkness, the PM should be given credit for being courageous and decisive in leadership for executing what he thought was necessary (rightly or wrongly, to prevent local assets from eventually being taken over by foreigners) even though it was contrary to conventional wisdom. Whether capital controls would eventually prove good or detrimental for the country is not the issue here.
The other major points made by the writer were that there were too many evidential discrepancies in ex-deputy premier Anwar Ibrahim's trial that made his conviction under the sodomy charge unsupportable.
When Anwar was dismissed as Finance Minister and Umno member, he did not bring the issue of dismissal to the courts for a decision on the legality of his dismissal.
He took the course of carrying out his political struggle and battle against the lawfully constituted prime minister by illegal assemblies on the streets in defiance of the law.
It was not a fight in the courts based on laws. It was a political struggle and a street fight outside the parameters of law. In a street fight (on either side, for survival and neither expecting mercy from the winner), one does not fight with kid gloves; and neither do the normal rules of civil engagement apply. Each contestant would summon all and whatever available resources at his or her disposal for application of maximum force to vanquish the other.
The outcome must be evaluated in this context. It was a David and Goliath fight and the fact that in the aftermath many sympathies were on the side of David ostensibly on miscarriage of justice was natural.
Many too would take the position that the ends (to resolve decisively a political conflict) do not justify the means of using a sledgehammer by Goliath. There is much force in such an argument.
There is also a further issue of who had moral cause on his side based on who unnecessarily provoked such a struggle in the first place - or in the words of Rambo, "Who drew first blood?" It is outside the purview of this letter to comment on this.
The second writer, Kevin Gan, who wrote [#1]Whitewashing the PM's failures[/#] (March 28), rejected cultural relativity as an excuse for cronyism, bailouts, money politics, patronage, racism and violation of human rights.
I have not tried to excuse these. I think it is even pointless to compare with other countries (both First and Third Word) in these respects. Who would want to argue and quarrel against such an absolutist and idealistic standard?
I have merely tried to contend that in spite of various shortcomings that are too obvious to state here, there are many other good things a leader has done that should not be discarded and discounted in one's judgment of him. That is what I meant by balanced and fair accounting.
I did not conclude, as A Serving Member Umno Youth Bureau in his letter [#2]The other side of the Mahafiraun II[/#] (March 28) said I did or implied, that Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad saved Malaysia from collapse by capital control measures. I merely stated that the controls "insulated the currency from further attack by withdrawing value to the ringgit outside of Malaysia."
The efficacy of the controls and whether they were necessary or redundant were not a point of issue.
I, however, intended to imply that the PM was courageous to take an unorthodox course, contrary to conventional wisdom and international opinion, to address the problem of currency attack, which reflected leadership quality.
It may well be true, as asserted by MIT's Prof Paul Krugman and apparently shared by Prof KS Jomo that the controls turned out to be largely irrelevant, in the sense that the panic was subsiding just when the controls came on.
But as Prof Krugman conceded, "Dr Mahathir made his point that such a thing is feasible and need not lead to severe economic consequences" (again this is a point that many in hindsight may not agree) "but it had not succeeded in demonstrating that they are the key to recovery, because basically everybody is recovering."
It is of course so easy for these learned professors to pass judgment on hindsight at the tail end of the crisis.
What happens if hypothetically the attacks had continued and everybody else had not recovered and instead resorted to capital controls as a shield?
However, it must be asserted that at the point in time or in the middle of the crisis when the end was not visible, and it was all darkness, the PM should be given credit for being courageous and decisive in leadership for executing what he thought was necessary (rightly or wrongly, to prevent local assets from eventually being taken over by foreigners) even though it was contrary to conventional wisdom. Whether capital controls would eventually prove good or detrimental for the country is not the issue here.
The other major points made by the writer were that there were too many evidential discrepancies in ex-deputy premier Anwar Ibrahim's trial that made his conviction under the sodomy charge unsupportable.
When Anwar was dismissed as Finance Minister and Umno member, he did not bring the issue of dismissal to the courts for a decision on the legality of his dismissal.
He took the course of carrying out his political struggle and battle against the lawfully constituted prime minister by illegal assemblies on the streets in defiance of the law.
It was not a fight in the courts based on laws. It was a political struggle and a street fight outside the parameters of law. In a street fight (on either side, for survival and neither expecting mercy from the winner), one does not fight with kid gloves; and neither do the normal rules of civil engagement apply. Each contestant would summon all and whatever available resources at his or her disposal for application of maximum force to vanquish the other.
The outcome must be evaluated in this context. It was a David and Goliath fight and the fact that in the aftermath many sympathies were on the side of David ostensibly on miscarriage of justice was natural.
Many too would take the position that the ends (to resolve decisively a political conflict) do not justify the means of using a sledgehammer by Goliath. There is much force in such an argument.
There is also a further issue of who had moral cause on his side based on who unnecessarily provoked such a struggle in the first place - or in the words of Rambo, "Who drew first blood?" It is outside the purview of this letter to comment on this.
The second writer, Kevin Gan, who wrote [#1]Whitewashing the PM's failures[/#] (March 28), rejected cultural relativity as an excuse for cronyism, bailouts, money politics, patronage, racism and violation of human rights.
I have not tried to excuse these. I think it is even pointless to compare with other countries (both First and Third Word) in these respects. Who would want to argue and quarrel against such an absolutist and idealistic standard?
I have merely tried to contend that in spite of various shortcomings that are too obvious to state here, there are many other good things a leader has done that should not be discarded and discounted in one's judgment of him. That is what I meant by balanced and fair accounting.
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