A Review for KIK Competition Many of us have been waiting a memoir of a statesman like Tun Dr Mahathir to be printed. There are a lot of
books produced about him but of course it will be something different reading a book written by ‘the man’ himself. The moment it was launched at MPH Mid Valley, I grabbed the book with his exclusive signature and it made whole my day. “A Doctor in the House” which has 843 pages, it may take quite sometimes to read but maybe at that time I was too eager with the book, so that reading is better than everything.
The first question you may ask is why the title is a doctor in the house? It may sound deep and cynical and I asked some opinion but the most logical answer is the house in that case means parliament. What the author is trying to tell us maybe he is a doctor in the parliament and that’s the only my personal perception.
The book has 28 chapters where the first chapter until chapter 9 is all about history and facts after facts. So if that the case for those who are not really into history and reading , just pick up the Marvel comics instead of reading this.
Reading about our idol shaped our life sometimes perhaps it needs a high discipline motivated. Personally, I dislike doing nothing where my life considered ‘time at large’ and ‘a big void is expanding’ so that the alternative is now is reading my favourite book.
On his schooldays and British-Japanese Occupation
As a memoir, the first chapter may hypnotize the reader by telling us that the first prime minister who comes from ordinary family and the first physician top leader instead of lawyer is only him. This first chapter is not really dramatic as what I expected but just a summary of his political carrier until he’d been sworn as the fourth prime minister. Jump to the next chapter, it visualized us how Dr. Mahathir was in his very early age. It is also derived us the way he brought up as normal Malay in small town and how hard work and his passion to his studies. He did throw his comment on polygamy practicing in Muslim marriage and he wrote something like this “The implication is clear: Quran advocates one wife, not four. By no means is he saying that monogamous marriages are perfect.
As a statesman and the former leader of Malay ruling party, he also try to prove us on how strong his Malay spiritual blood and believe nor there are bad jokes behind him saying that he is not really Malay and inherited Indian blood. On his view towards the Malay he always wanted to prove otherwise, that Malays were more than capable of thinking, progressing and leading. Nearly every Malay has some non Malay blood but that fact doesn’t make them less Malay. He also commented on why the Malaysia leader always Malay Muslim being selected by giving examples in Britain has never had head of government who was not white or Christian. Then what's wrong by having Malay Muslim Prime Ministers all this while? The clear statement from him, it is because collective of votes and the numbers of Malays in this country answered the argument. Again, the aftermath will comes later and people would say it sounds racism.
On chapter four, Tun Dr. Mahathir defined Malay as person who habitually speaks Malay, practices Malay customs and is a Muslim based on constitution. He also quoted that a network of modern expressways and tarred roads, reaching the most remote villages joins all parts of our country together as prove of our independence. During British time, only estates and properties owned by them would be accesses by the proper roads. A few paragraph telling us how British spun the history for their own goods and benefits. They might not rewrite the history as a whole but twisted the plot from the bully and antagonist to the white character. He also elaborates how British Occupation controlled all the top post in the civil service and how they controlled the economic by splitting the three major races in this country and that affected our racial prejudice until today.
Tun Dr. Mahathir also wrote about his diet during war time. “Even so I would first eat the rice mixed with curry and beans, saving shrimp for the last mouthfuls” .He told us how suffers the locals at that time as the raw food and material being controlled by the Japanese. He also expressed on how he felt during Occupation period and see everything is in suffers. “I just detested the fact that foreigners could kick our people and we could do nothing about it. We were a people with no rights, who could literally be kicked about. On his view about joining the government service he said he did quite well in his little business and certainly he think was better off than his brothers who kept trying to work with the Government. That shows he encourage people to do a business. On small business he said “There were a lot of things that I learnt from my foray into small business during the Japanese Occupation which stood me in good stead as I took on more responsibilities in life, including running the Government and its numerous companies. On the different chapter he digs some Singapore’s story where the government would be largely filled from the ranks of those who were qualified and competent, namely Chinese and Indian. Malays would be left to take up low ranking posts.
I read thoroughly chapter eight and I found the main gist is that the Malayan Union proposal can be said have changed the culture and character of the Malays completely. This chapter again, telling us about the sufferings of local during the emergency time.
He tried to educate the reader that the peaceful of a country is intangible value. Reading a memoir of a statesman make me wonder how could he memorize those entire thing; if it not by date of fact then the name and what had happened were so tough to remember. I think what had been wrote was covers almost every single gist of Malaysia pre war history.
Going to Medical College and Steps to be Prime Minister
This is the utmost chapter I enjoyed reading where he describes his experience in medical-college time. He seems enjoy ragging the juniors but never being sadistic and cross the line. He then justified that running a country is not just about debating in parliament but also curing social, economic and political disease. I like his love story when he had to borrow $5 from Hasmah in their date at Marine Parade Singapore. It sounds so sincere and we can capture the funny thing about him. On the other chapter, the history is recalled but this one is more on political set up before our independence day. Many names were mentioned like Reese Williams, Oliver Lyttleton and Sun Yat Sen. Dr. Mahathir expressed his energy weakness by becoming a doctor is he didn’t have enough sleep. On his clinic, he told that MAHA is an acronym of Mahathir and Hasmah and not his name alone hence Hasmah never walks to the clinic. The funny thing about being a doctor is most of people they came into contact were sick and some were dying or died during treatment.
He also then explained on how the father of Independent proposed for a freedom nation being highlighted in this chapter. On argument about the race- base leadership, he said that Catholics were unacceptable to be the president of US and they only accept WASP (White Anglo Saxon Protestants) except the current president, Barack Obama.
The most shocking General Election to him was, when he lost in 1969 to PAS weak candidate because of being too Malay in his speech. He took a lesson on that matters and said racial issues is always baseless. On the relationship with Singapore, he also added that he never has a friendship with Lee Kuan Yew only civil relationship but he stress that the Lee Kuan Yew strongly wants to be a Malaysian Prime Minister.
Dr. Mahathir explained on why he was being expelled from Umno that is because of the letter he wrote accusing Tunku Abdul Rahman doing nothing in handling May 13. This chapter is he bravely revealed about the attitude of the first prime minister and his bad habits, playing poker. In those days he seems a bit aggressive and rebel as he believes that putting neck out on believing something. He then wrote the book that hit him, Malay Dilemma and he justified why he wrote the book and the price had being paid was he being expelled from the party and he express how to be an outsider from the ruling party. He said be a rebellious person is a risky and sometimes not worth for what we have been done but few people do that and they tend to play safe. On his inner side, he then described that of all his children, Marina is a lot like him, stubborn and argumentative. On his “leisure time” whenever he was being expelled from UMNO, he said he did deal with property things in Kedah and also said he can claim to be the first Malay property developer in the country which something that most people don’t know about this.
UMNO Open its Doors and be the Prime Minister.
He backed on stage and he a lot praised Tun Abdul Razak. Few Umno leaders seem doesn’t like him backed like Syed Jaafar Albar . He saw most urban Malays so grieve because they have not made the necessary adjustments. He then commented about buying the latest technologies made no sense of producing small market and sounds admitting something hidden mistake. He added here that Malay culture notably middle class and urban Malay has become individualistic, competitive, egoistic and materialistic now. Of all, he admires Tun Abdul Razak a lot in administering the government. He again stressed on why English is important nowadays. A good story about one of his rival in the past General Election named Halim Arshad who never passed his English test and fighting to be exempted due to his social activities in the campus. Halim then was being kicked from ITM. Failed in fighting for English exemption and had made him joining the politic. Dr. Mahathir told one of his great moments when sworn as the fourth Prime Minister.
He Justified All
He sees no reason to reassess most of the major political controversies associated with him: among them, the dismissal and prosecution of his deputy, Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim; the sacking of Lord President Salleh Abas; and the campaign to oust his hand-picked successor, Tun Abdullah Badawi.
He makes an exception of Operation Lalang, which saw the detention without trial of 119 people amid rising ethnic tensions in 1987. Dr Mahathir brushes aside much of the specific criticism directed at him and his ambitious projects over the years, not even bothering to mention some crucial events in which he figured. A bold leader with big ideas and no time for critics who carp about details, he occasionally peeks in the mirror and recognizes reality.
It should also be acknowledged that the book goes some way towards answering one question that has long puzzled on why he introduced AUKU and he justified by saying that education is important and the student has play their role to study and not to demos and publicize their emotion. The government had spent so much money on education so that is such a waste of tax payer money if the student denying their book and raise the flag with emotion.
Dr Mahathir might have been expected to take this opportunity to clear up certain personal issues that have long been the subject of intense gossip and speculation, such as his ethnic origins. Rather, he repeats without comment several stories that circulate about his father’s ethnicity and religion. He then adds: ‘I admit that some Indian, or more accurately South Asian, blood flows in my veins, but from which part of the Indian subcontinent my ancestors came I do not know.’
It would also have been fascinating to get an authoritative insider’s account of the long-ruling Umno, whose history has been described by one former minister as ‘a mixture of political subtlety and crudeness, ethical practices and greed, fair play and foul occasionally expressed with sheer ruthlessness’.
But the only place where Dr Mahathir lifts the veil a little is on the Cabinet, and that is to show the ugly side of his former long-serving trade minister Rafidah Aziz. Nobody dared fault her.’ If you criticized her, even courteously and in good faith, her retort was always to point out how much worse you yourself were,’ he writes. ‘It was all very unpleasant.’
Dr Mahathir does himself no favours by reopening the debate over Operation Lalang, stressing the point he made at the time, that the head of the police force advised the round-up to prevent a repeat of the May 13, 1969 racial riots. He justifies his decision by claiming he had to suppress his personal doubts and defer to the role and expertise of the police on the controversial decision.
As a home minister during his tenure, he signed the detention orders for each of the 119 detainees held beyond 60 days on police authority. He kept then parliamentary opposition leader Lim Kit Siang and his son Lim Guan Eng in jail for 18 months and he justified the decision made based on national security. Dr Mahathir claimed that on taking office in 1981 he informed his deputy Musa Hitam that he did not intend to use the Internal Security Act, which provides for detention without trial.
In the preface to this blockbuster, Dr Mahathir expressed doubt that it is ‘readable’, even after he agonized over the text and rewrote all 62 chapters ‘at least five times’. Dr Mahathir has produced a book to burnish his maverick credentials – as Malaysia’s longest-serving prime minister, a Third World champion who stands up to the West and a fearless spokesman for Islamic causes.
For instance, while in office Dr Mahathir accepted the Sept 11 attacks on New York and Washington as the work of terrorists. Now he thinks the whole thing could have been ‘an elaborately staged drama’ to persuade the world that the US had been attacked. But opinion, however outrageous, is one thing; facts are another matter altogether.
There are also some contradicts sentence like when he said was involved in a housing development in Alor Setar, from which he says ‘I did not make much money’, but which yielded ‘quite a lot of money’ in another reference. ‘Finding no strong opposition among my colleagues’, Dr Mahathir signed up Mr. Anwar as a member of Umno in 1982 – but in fact ‘many senior members of the party did not like him because he posed a threat to their own ambitions’.
When the Malaysian authorities were considering banning Barry Wain’s book, Malaysian Maverick: Mahathir Mohamad in Turbulent Times, Dr Mahathir spoke in favour of allowing it into the country. He made the case for everyone having their say so the public could make up its own mind about his record. Besides that, he justified that all mega projects that he pampered would benefit the country and now Malaysian is enjoying all the facilities.
Of all the examples of the story behind his success, the most attractive one was the reason of why he decided to construct a straight PLUS highway. It was a started from their love story between him and Hasmah. During the college time, both of them had suffer enough to spend ten hours on the road travelling from KL to Singapore using the curvilinear small road. The art of language written by Dr. Mahathir is so entertaining and that’s his remarkable style. His speech and writing always parallel all the time. By putting the rationale thinking, common sense, facts and some good arithmetic examples in any of his development plan shows that he is capable leader and one step higher than other leaders in the country. From the master planning of heavy automotive industry like Proton and Hicom, the Petronas Twin Towers, the great spine of Plus Highway, the modernization of urban locomotive transportation and upgrading the agro-based country to the developed county is all in his task and no ones can deny that
It may be self-serving to say so, but anyone wanting to get a balanced perspective of the Mahathir years should read beyond A Doctor in the House but no matter how much you love or hate him, this book is must read.
SELAMAT HARI MALAYSIA
I have to say that the night before I was a bit worried If couldn’t finished the 6 kilometers walk without any warm up before and I’d really lazy to exercise all this while. My wife registered for the whole family but finally we decided not to bring the kids as we really bother the burden of carrying Yasmine at my back and Shahnaz at my wifey’s back. So we just sent them to their Mama Sofiya.
9th July. While Bersih is trying clean up the electoral system, I made my own way. I was never influenced by any parties to join their rallies perhaps; I'm a rally virgin and believed the current political turned to be infectious maggots. Like I said in my previous article, it’s all about cakes seizing and who’s gonna be the so called “breadwinner of the country. “.
