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| A goodbye letter
I shall not regret your passing from the scene
Aliran Monthly 2003:8 Please support our work by buying a copy of our print publication, Aliran Monthly, from your nearest news-stand. Better still take out a subscription now. We also welcome donations.
So, you are leaving office to return to the realm of mere mortals. Have you ever thought what it�s like living without power? I wonder. I am sure that you will not do too badly given your extensive contacts. No doubt, even as I pen these lines, many will be paying you obsequious tribute. Toadying, however, would be most unbecoming of an Aliran member. So, I shall bid you a more realistic farewell. Imperialism bashing I want to thank you for putting Malaysia on the global map. Indeed, Malaysia is now a country that punches above its weight internationally. I realised this in the 1990s when studying overseas. On learning of my citizenship, numerous Africans, Latin Americans and Asians would immediately commend Malaysia for having such a robust and forthright Prime Minister who was unafraid of criticising Western neo-imperialism, racism and the blatantly unjust world order. I felt proud about this despite its being old hat, considering that Che Guevara, Patrice Lumumba, Chin Peng and other left-wingers had been saying this over four decades. Nonetheless, kudos Mahathir! You gave �imperialism-bashing� status, style and panache, more so when done in a pinstriped suit instead of jungle green.
Double Standards Numerous Malaysian corporations overseas behave just as badly as any ugly TNC from the USA. For example, just think of our timber companies rampaging through the Amazon, Cambodian, Russian, Solomon Islands and the PNG forests. You�d think they�d have learnt something about respect for forest peoples and environmental conservation after the global criticism levelled against these companies for rubbishing Sarawak�s forests. Further, our refugee and asylum policy has been nothing but pathetic. Do you recall your treatment of all those poor near-drowning Vietnamese refugees? �Shoo them,� you said. Only under UN pressure did you relent. And today is no different. You let those Angkatan Bersenjata Republik Indonesia �thugs� in Jakarta dictate our foreign policy by denying Acehnese refugees access to the UNHCR. 
Similarly, despite your talk about Asian Values, you have no remorse embracing those murderous Burmese Generals at the expense of a democratically elected government led by Aung San Suu Kyi. Pray tell, how different are your Asian values from those �Western� US Presidents and British Prime Ministers who whole-heartedly embraced murderous despots, tin-pot dictators and gun-toting coup plotters so as to advance their imperial political-economic interests?
I do think, however, that you did superlatively at encouraging and pushing Malaysians into thinking of themselves as global citizens and global-level achievers. You helped us believe in ourselves, inspired confidence and got us to take on the world. Today, we believe we can do anything as well as anyone else. And for the first time in our shared history, we are proud of ourselves as a people. Yes, Malaysia Boleh! Except that, and unfortunately, you also allowed petty politicians within the BN and the opposition to undermine your idea of Bangsa Malaysia. And you yourself were not averse to resorting to ethnic and religious arguments when it suited you. Remember what you said about Suqiu and the Chinese? Remember your statement about Malaysia being an �Islamic State�? That was tough talk that blithely ignored ethnic and religious sentiments. Yet you blinked when it mattered. Instead of promoting genuinely integrated Malaysian schools, you allowed a hotchpotch arrangement of Vision Schools that is hardly �visionary�. In consequence, in spite of thinking of ourselves as world-beaters, our children will squabble bitterly over ethnic and religious issues just as much as we did in our time. Undemocratic 
When you assumed the premiership under your 2M banner, I was sincerely impressed. Your administration released scores of long-term ISA detainees. Man! Gimme five! That was so cool! But now I know this was all Musa Hitam�s doing. He was the liberal.
The last two decades point towards your being utterly disdainful of democracy and its institutional foundations. For you, clinging to power and damning the consequences was all that mattered. No qualms about detaining Al-Arqam and PAS members, NGO and reformasi activists, and numerous political opponents � even Anwar Ibrahim. You have consistently justified the continued use of the ISA. Pray tell, who is to sort out the festering Anwar Ibrahim mess after you are gone? Abdullah Badawi? Neither have you shown any compunction about clobbering our judiciary either. After all, we can�t have anyone challenging your �executive� authority, can we? So, today, we reap the impious fruits of your actions: a judicial system that neither inspires confidence nor commands any respect; a judiciary burdened with questionable judgments and scandalous allegations of executive interference. Who is going to sort out this judicial mess you created? Once I was impressed by your cool slogan �Bersih, Cekap, Amanah�. And for a time, it seemed as if it was really true. But unfortunately, it soon became clear that your new administration did not sweep clean. How disappointing! Scandals Under your watch, corruption has proliferated like never before. Bank Bumiputera problems were swept under the carpet; Perwaja Steel remains uninvestigated; Bank Negara Forex losses are unexplained; Maminco is all but stranger than fiction; and allegations of financial irregularities and unexplained wealth are levelled against ministers of your cabinet, Chief Ministers and other UMNO/BN party members. These instances are indications of growing corruption and cover-ups that cancerously feed off the life-blood of our beloved country. Now that�s something truly worth crying about as you leave office. 
And what of our police, those disciplined personnel in blue? I grew up thinking they were the friendly professional guardians of our safety and security. But ask even staunch UMNO/BN supporters today for their view of the police and many of them would not think reform of the police a bad idea. Never before in the history of our nation have so many thought so little about our personnel in blue given numerous allegations of abuse of power, procedural irregularities and even deaths under custody. You know, it�s a real pity you are too reliant on our impeccably dressed personnel in blue to thump your political opponents to undertake any substantive reform of this once-respected service.
As to your contributions to development, well I thought your Vision 2020 for Malaysia rather �happening�. I liked the idea of being part of a developed country by 2020. But it�s not enough to just start national projects. You�ve got to make sure that those running such projects follow it through with real substance in terms of learning, training, and developing industrial research and design skills, manufacturing/technological expertise and entrepreneurial acumen. Grandiose projects However, I could never fathom why you seemed to think that the bigger the development project, the better. And, boy, did you build them big, like the North-South Highway, the Petronas Twin Towers, Putrajaya, the MSC, Perwaja, Penang Bridge, the F1 racetrack, the KLIA, Bakun dam, etc. Of the above, I think you are now only proven right about the N-S Highway and the Penang Bridge. Your MSC appears a big flop. India does more without any �super corridor�. And how useful are two ridiculously expensive concrete and steel towers to our people? Similarly, how useful is an F-1 Racetrack apart from allowing you and other UMNO/BN-putras to rub shoulders with that smooth operator Bernie Eccleston? So, too, Bakun. Is that mega-dam truly for the benefit of us ordinary folk or is it really patronage for your Sarawak BN politicos? What use to the rakyat is your ostentatious Putrajaya palace complex? My point really is that we should have invested heavily in our people. All those billions and billions of ringgit you spent on those grandiose projects could have just as well been spent on enhancing our education system and especially the language, science and technology skills of our people. We could have improved education, healthcare and welfare facilities; built more public housing; eradicated poverty; built numerous public libraries; improved public amenities and parks; enhanced public security; conserved our environment; granted major incentives to enhance industrial research and design initiatives; and given more tax breaks to developing an indigenous pool of globally-oriented commercial entrepreneurs and industrial manufacturers through wise public investment policies years ago. 
Instead, what did you do? You blew the money! Precious tax and Petronas money spent on ego-boosting physical structures. Had you chosen to listen to your political opponents like any good democrat would have, you would have heard them saying this all along. But, no! Having concentrated power in yourself and surrounded yourself with flatterers, you thought too poorly of alternative, dissenting views. And that, in my opinion, has always been your Achilles� heel.
When the Asian Crisis hit, like many others, we were unprepared. Your strategy to defy the IMF was a good one. I liked and supported it despite our having to borrow massively to spend our way out of the impasse. We had little choice. Managing the mess? But did we really have to mollycoddle all those UMNO/BN-putras as much as we did in the process? Have these domestic UMNO/BN-putra capitalists become competitive enough to take on the world? Have we really done enough to enhance genuine corporate governance? Are we serious about transparency and corporate accountability? Do we believe and promote the free flow of corporate information? Or have you only presented a fa�ade of protecting Malaysia�s interests in lieu of undertaking the key reforms that would allow us to compete with the world? In the process, we chalked up seven years of large budget deficits. This was inevitable. But did we get good value for the public money we spent to fund those deficits in terms of enhancing corporate competition? Further, are you even giving us the whole picture about the dire situation our national finances are presently in after seven years of deficit spending? Or will you just leave that �financial problem� for Abdullah Badawi to sort out? Someone said to me recently that what we have in Malaysia today represents the problems of managing success. I disagree. What we have today is a case of sorting out and managing the mess you are leaving behind. So, goodbye Dr. Mahathir. I shall not regret your passing from the political scene. Andrew Aeria Now e-mail us and tell us what you think. | |||||||||||||||
The last two decades point towards your being utterly disdainful of democracy and its institutional foundations. For you, clinging to power and damning the consequences was all that mattered.
