Former premier Dr Mahathir Mohamad has always been outspoken, whether as a student at the University of Malaya in Singapore or during his early years of work during the Japanese Occupation.

My father, a Mahathir supporter and someone who knew him quite well in his younger days, said Mahathir used to \”put up anti-Japanese posters at night\”. If he had been caught, he would have been beheaded in the Japanese way.

From the university, he wrote a regular column under the pen-name Che Det in a local newpaper. Speaking up for what he believes to be true and right was a signature trait. We used to admire his ability to call a spade a spade, except now when this is trained against us. It feels pungent!

He was just as outspoken against Umno and the Malays via The Malay Dilemma and was thrown out of the party. He finally became its president, with the support of the very people whom he had critiqued. Now, who has changed? Mahathir or Umno? My answer is, neither.

That is why Mahathir cried at one of his last Umno General Assemblies, with his perjuangan yang belum selesai thesis. After 22 years, he admitted to failure to change Umno; instead the majority in the party expected him to change to fit into Umno. When he announced his resignation publicly, they all cried for him to stay on and he did so reluctantly.

Mahathir will not change but he hopes to change Umno yet. Yes, I call Mahathir a Changemaster. He will be accorded the status of a statesman of Malaysia. He will become known as the Father of Modern Malaysia. Many of my good friends still disagree with me and my views. We have agreed to disagree agreeably.

Mahathir is simply not concerned with the next general election as is normal with the typical politician; he is very interested in the next generation, and a change in worldview of the future generation of Malays and Malaysians. Here, I agree with him.

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He has remained consistently outspoken on countless global issues much to the chagrin of many leaders who hold the Western worldview. Now, can all the Mahathir protagonists today say that they disagreed with him on any of those outspoken views? Except for a few and well known Malaysians who have been outspoken against Mahathir while at his peak, most of us blindly observed loyalty at any cost to his personality, and not so much to his positions on issues.

Lim Kit Siang, Dr Chandra Muzaffar, and KS Jomo were among the few who were objective and professional about criticising Mahathir even at the peak of his power. The rest of us were simply also-rans who gave him blind support on most of his issues.

Were we then not the ones who wanted to accord him the title Wira Bangsa and to crown him with a tengkolok , which he very often turned down? What has happened? Why is this same person, who is really doing more of the same old thing, no more your wira bangsa ?

Cats and dogs

I have written elsewhere an article about two kinds of leadership which I have called the Dog Leadership Model and the Cat Leadership Model. Like dogs who are said to be a man\’s best friend (personally, I do not like dogs or cats as pets), the Dog Model puts a premium on loyalty to the master; an almost blind loyalty to the master, come what may.

The Cat Model puts a premium on loyalty to the home, and not any specific person regardless of the master. Therefore, a cat remains in the house and will be happy to serve the next master of the home. The dog will leave home in search of the old master. But these are only animals.

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Applying the models to the Mahathir-Nazri debate, I would say it is an issue of different loyalty models, rather than difference in content or substance. That is why Mahathir dismissed Nazri\’s retort that \”some one not even born yet when UMNO was birthed\”.

Nazri operates on the Cat model whereas Mahathir operates on the Dog Model. Read the content of all Nazri\’s critiques; it is all about blind loyalty to Umno even if the leader is wrong in his actions, as was Mahathir when he dismissed Anwar without a due process within Umno.

Did Nazri protest about the lack of due process, then? Probably not, as Rule No. 1 is that the boss is always right. Rule No. 2 is that, if the boss is wrong, refer to Rule No 1.

Mahathir, on the other hand, was not talking about loyalty to Umno but rather some kind of breach of trust to which we are not privy yet. He was talking about a kind of Dog loyalty, when he accused premier Abdullah Ahmad Badawi (Pak Lah) of stabbing him in the back.

Now, should we observe Dog or Cat loyalties, when the issues are related to Bangsa Malaysia or Malaysian sovereignty, dignity and integrity? I do not interpret bangsa as based on race or ethnicity but on nationalism or, to be more accurate, on \’nation-state-ism\’.

Malaysia is a young nation-state of less than 50 years. Ghana and Malaysia received independence in 1957 but in football, for instance, Ghana is a more developed state than Malaysia.

Bangladesh is an even younger democracy than Malaysia but is more democratic in the local governance elections and even in the practice of transition of governments through a pre-defined process of a caretaker apolitical government until the new one is officially formed.

India is 10 years older as a democracy than Malaysia; it is more multi-cultural and multi-racial but has a well defined, better represented and more mature grassroots elected democracy at the local governance level. Thirty percent of its elected representatives must be women: wonder if (MIC president) S Samy Vellu is ready for this.

Personality model

The current political models of leadership in Malaysia rely heavily on both the Cat and Dog models, depending on personalities in the party leadership.

Samy is a blind adherent to the master-servant model. (Former MCA president) Ling Liong Sik, Mahathir and (Gerakan president) Dr Lim Keng Yaik appear to also prefer the master model but have transited well to appointed successors.

They should not expect personal loyalties after the fact. To Ling\’s credit, he appears to have observed the model of non-interference after retirement.

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Pak Lah was always a Cat Loyalty person, which is why he opposed the Mahathir style of leadership on some issues but never left the party, as others did. He was a PTD officer in the first 10 years or so of his career. Within the service, it is ingrained in us that we never challenge the boss and must be blindly loyal to the system as well.

Maybe that is why Pak Lah joined politics, to make a difference. He must therefore be given the time and space to develop and evolve his servant-leadership model. I personally have not seen his actions being louder than his talk, but w ill wait patiently even if we have to agree to disagree agreeably over some issues.

So what is the way forward for Mahathir and his comments? He will continue to speak as he always has. The media should not censor him but invite him to write a column as they did with Tunku Abdul Rahman. After all, Che Det is very alive and kicking; and one of his reasons for retiring was the desire to write his views and memoirs.

I am therefore waiting for The Bangsa Malaysia Dilemma to be written Mahathir, as that will be a more complete thesis after The Malay Dilemma , which was a very critical problem statement.

I believe that his 22 years in power was his strategic-leadership attempt to address the Malay dilemma issues but that things got convoluted, especially after the then finance minister operationalised the privatisation agenda and it became, over time, the \’piratisation agenda\’.