By Murale Pillai

“Without feelings of respect, what is there to distinguish men from beasts?” – Confucius

I waited a day to pen these thoughts. Dr Mahathir Mohamad turned 100 on July 10, and I’m not the type to spoil a birthday bash.

Call it decency. The type mentioned in Scott Fitzgerald’s “The Great Gatsby” as “a sense of the fundamental decencies… parcelled out unequally at birth”. 

And like all decent Malaysians, I often reflect on what we could have achieved as people and a country if our politics had taken a different turn.

Mahathir’s tenure from 1981 to 2003 turned a multiracial country into a Malay-supremacist state. It hasn’t worked out well. How else can we explain his abject electoral defeat in Langkawi and the rising power of the theocrats? 

Why did he fail? Because there is a world of difference between a statesman and a mere leader. However, that has not stopped many leaders, including Mahathir, from believing he is one of the former.

Fortunately for us, we can tell the difference by taking a quick look at the foundational history of countries and their national struggles.

Turkiye’s legendary leader

Every year on Nov 10, at 9.05am, the Turks observe a nationwide moment of silence to commemorate the death of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the founder of modern Turkiye, who died in 1938. What did he do to receive this high honour?

The Ottoman Caliphate picked the wrong side in World War I. Following the Armistice, the victorious Allies planned their partition. Cometh the hour, cometh the man! Mustafa created a country out of the remnants of a caliphate, defeating the invading armies of the Allies in a life-and-death struggle.

He then modernised a grateful nation, convinced that the 600-year-old caliphate had been defeated because it had fallen behind the rest of the world in politics, industry, law, education and economy. He dropped the Arabic script for the Latin one and gave women voting rights in 1934.

Even the radical-minded Recep Tayyip Erdogan doesn’t dare interfere with the legacy of the secularist Mustafa. Here is an example of a fearless but fair leader who did what was right for his country and succeeded against all odds.

And you guessed it, he died a poor man without any personal property to his name. What a man!

Jose Rizal, pride of the Philippines

Closer to home in the Philippines, you cannot find a man, woman or child who doesn’t take pride in their national hero, Jose Rizal.

A polymath and a doctor, this freedom fighter was a harsh critic of Spanish colonial rule. His book titled “Nole Mi Tangere” (Touch Me Not) is a classic and still widely read.

Well-travelled, widely read and influential in European intellectual circles, the Spanish tried him for aiding the homegrown revolutionary movement, Katipunan, on the flimsiest of evidence. Unbowed and unrepentant, he died facing a firing squad outside Manila.

His legacy too lives on. His poem, written days before his execution, “Mi ultimo adios” (My Final Farewell), should be made compulsory reading in Malaysian schools to teach our youth the real meaning of sacrifice, struggle and patriotism.

He died a poor man, but poorer still is a nation without heroes such as Rizal.

Vietnam’s Ho Chi Minh

Still in Asean, my mind turned to the redoubtable Ho Chi Minh yesterday. Ten years ago, I shed tears at his mausoleum in Hanoi, seeing his embalmed body. He chose the path of armed resistance, knowing both the French and the American invaders for what they were – vain and weak of spirit.

After a 30-year struggle, tirelessly galvanising and inspiring the Vietnamese people, he succeeded in defeating these two global powers. He lived like a monk, knowing that the cause he was fighting for was worth every sacrifice. Vietnam’s star is now shining.

The uncompromising Lee Kuan Yew

Now, we move on to a place that is familiar to Mahathir as a young medical student. Singapore! The “unwanted child” has redeemed itself under the brilliant leadership of Lee Kuan Yew.

Harsh and uncompromising, he insisted he alone knew how to take his people to the promised land. And he did… against all the odds.

On any given day, half a million Malaysians cross the Causeway to perform jobs at the bottom of the economic pie.

The late Lee Kuan Yew

They start their day at 4am and come home at 8pm or 9pm, and are paid three times what they can earn here. Ironically, it is we who are blessed with all the natural resources!

How did Lee pull off this miracle? He created a political system that had zero tolerance for corruption. Squeaky clean but not perfect.

The laws were tough, and the punishment, swift. “I will get you!” said Lee, and he meant it. He got them, including his own ministers. Today, Singapore’s per capita gross domestic product is twice that of the country that was its colonial master, Britain.

I can hear the Malay supremacists say, “If you don’t like it here, get out!” It’s not about coming or going. It’s about belonging and beliefs. As Confucius said, “At 70, I could follow the dictates of my own heart”. 

Dr M’s Failures

I believe the man who turned 100 recently lacked a generosity of spirit and a universality of thought, qualities that mark a true statesman.

Lacking these qualities, he chose instead to personalise power, turning Malaysia into a state mired in nepotism, cronyism, corruption and crass incompetence.

However, that was not all he did that inflicted long-lasting damage to us as a people and a country. To tighten his grip on power, he turned to dog-whistling and race-baiting whenever it suited him.

Like all authoritarian leaders, he regarded the masses as clay to be moulded in his own image using economic policies best described as “ego-nomics”. And woe to us if we ever forget Ops Lalang.

And the sackings and suspensions of judges, both of which left a lasting scar on our judiciary. Former Lord President Suffian Hashim is reputed to have said that it will take at least 30 years for the judiciary to heal itself. And Shad Saleem Faruqi recently called it the most shameful episode in our history.

But why did we allow him to trample on our freedoms and our rights so easily? Is it because we did not fight for our independence like most countries? Or have men and women who gave their lives for precious freedom?

Merdeka was in so many ways a negotiated settlement. Even our Federal Constitution was framed by Commonwealth jurists and not a constituent assembly to best express the hopes and dreams of the people.

Where do we go from here? How do we create hope and belief for the generations to come? Our collective wisdom has been telling us for some time now that the country needs a thorough overhaul.

We voted for reformasi, believing the excesses of the Mahathirian state would be dead and buried for good.

Hence, the shock and disappointment we feel now, sensing the present government is dithering on its promises, especially with regard to transparency and the judiciary.

Perhaps, this is the true “legacy” of Mahathir’s leadership – we have become a nation afraid of its own shadow and unable to believe that the people are always cleverer than their politicians, barring a few exceptions of those who are true statesmen.

MURALE PILLAI is a former GLC employee. He runs a logistics company.

© 2025 KINIBIZ


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