After Dr Mahathir Mohamad  became prime minister and articulated his Vision 2020 ambition, I became a great fan of the then-PM’s vision. I was enthralled by the Bangsa Malaysia challenge he articulated with the corresponding nine challenges. Actually, way back in 1971, I had articulated another version of that same idea in my undergraduate thesis – that we need 100 new Royal Military Colleges (RMCs) to really achieve national unity.  

He then went on to speak and articulate all the right ideas, as would any statesman. But, after about seven or eight years; such ambition and vision were stilled. Why? All statesmen look towards the next generation, whereas ordinary and pragmatic politicians look only towards the next election.

In 1987-89, the pragmatic politician in Dr Mahathir took over when we were overseas; something traumatic had happened and this great potential statesman was reduced to become an ordinary Machiavellian political animal. The end began to justify all and every other end. The biggest Internal Security Act (ISA) operation cast a deep shadow on the nation and then the abuse of the judiciary still hurts this nation-state.

As we were overseas then, I did not realise these realities, as during that period we missed our daily diet of local newspapers. In US, one hardly finds no more than two paragraphs of news about Malaysia and even if you do, it is something glamorous or ‘some bad news.’

The second Mahathir

Upon our return from doctoral studies, I was posted to The International Trade and Industry Ministry (Miti) in early 1992. From 1992-1996, when I worked at Miti, we mostly heard good news about Mahathir and his style of leadership and management. After all then-minister Rafidah Aziz was a great and ardent fan of the PM!

It was only at the National IT Council (NITC) secretariat, which was located at Mimos Berhad, that I began to get a closer look at the man whom I still considered a statesman. I knew about the human being called Mahathir Mohamad from my father and it was all good news and good stories; including how he would extend pre-payments for pharmaceuticals to be supplied if my father’s business faced cash flow problems.

I also observed the human being that was the PM and chairperson of the NITC. He was a actually very humble and an introverted person who appeared always to be soft-spoken. He was a consummate rational person with ideas. I remember the time when my boss presented a ‘crazy idea’ to him about staffing our council with NGOs apart from public and private sector individuals; his response was simply that “it is a crazy idea”.

My boss went to consult the PM’s senior private secretary and enquired what it really meant when the PM says “an idea is crazy?” She replied, “It means he likes the idea but needs some time to process it.” About three months later we tabled a paper to him with names of NGOs and he agreed to most of the NGO recommendations and we brought them into the council.

The NITC then went on to excel in its performance because of the range of views and perspectives, and I truly believe we did very well as a council in the early years; before yet a different Mahathir reappeared.  

The third Mahathir

The third Mahathir, to me, appears as a person who is consistently inconsistent, and maybe ‘nyanyuk’, as Malays call it, or senile. He had declared before retirement that he did not want to be the equivalent of senior minister-adviser as was Lee Kuan Yew in Singapore, and promised that he wanted to retire from politics. But, sadly he did not; after appointing and selecting Abdullah Ahmad Badawi (Pak Lah) as PM, he became the greatest critic of the new PM. Why?

And now we see him, the same promoter of the Multimedia Super-Corridor (MSC) becoming inconsistent with his own policy and programme that the Internet will never be censored in Malaysia. This is the man who was open to radical ideas about the internetworked world and full consequences of the converged world of multiple media and her impact on the world and society.

He bought into the entire thesis from the McKinsey Japanese consultant, Kenichi Ohmae, about the possibility of creating the Multimedia Utopia in Malaysia.  But this same visionary is now upset only because his blog site was censored for his anti-Semitic comments. I thought, did not he and Akio Morita co-author the book called ‘The Asia that can say NO?’  

Therefore, when someone else who wields legitimate power and authority says ‘no’ to him instead; he recoils and seeks to kill the entire edifice of the internetworked world, which we called an labelled the MSC Advantage. Did the man start web logging without checking who owned the blog sphere has was publishing with? Is the authority of others now illegitimate?

Throwing the baby out with the bathwater

The third Mahathir is not the one I know from both my work experience and from my father’s tales, as they interacted in business over a 12-year period.

The third Mahathir appears as an insecure human being; especially when he is now no more at the centre of his own universe of thought and life.  But, my question is, should not God be that centre of one’s life rather than self-interest and selfish pursuits; even if Umno interests are threatened, unless he worships them as the real saviour of the Malays, and not God!

I suggest that Dr Mahathir moderate his life views and universe and simply write his blogs, maybe even with Utusan Malaysia , or even another Umno-owned English daily, if he cannot write in Malay. Good soldiers never die; they only fade away.

After all he has reduced his worldview, ever since he was challenged and almost lost within Umno. His target audience, after all, is now only ‘Melayusians;’ and not even all Malaysians!  Surely the global citizens are not his target.

When we want to go global we need a global civic ethic about morality and life; we cannot simply write with personal emotions without the requisite facts and figures which need to be publicly accepted truth. Otherwise we are a ‘ katak dibawah tempurung ’.

My personal view is that the MSC is among the best technology upgrading programme which has happened in Malaysia; and the promise of non-censorship is that the prime reason the global knowledge industry would invest in Malaysia. Or for that matter, that is also the reason that we still must continue to trade with Israel regardless of how negatively we view them, because their business owners may be Americans but they may still be Jewish by heritage.

What we need now is therefore, not to slow track this development but rather to fast track our people to move out from under their ‘ katak dibawah tempurung’ perspectives and make them ready to become global knowledge players.  

My appeal to Dr Mahathir is therefore: stop talking with bitterness and hurt if he wants to be recognised as the statesman-like PM he was at least for the first seven to eight years of this life. He should not now creep under the coconut shell to become a frog. Let not the Malay Dilemma now become his, too. May God bless Malaysia.