Not what our forefathers had in their minds!

Paradise Lost.
Mahathir & The End of Hope

Author: Dennis Ignatius

The writings were on the wall all the while. Our past leaders, Tunku, Tun Dr Ismail and Hussein Onn, saw through it all. We were just living in a wishful dream. A leopard never changes its spots. Mahathir's ideology never ever changed from the time he penned the 'Malay Dilemma'.

After reigning 22 years at the helm with an iron fist and burning a big hole in the national coffers, he left the country with a screwed up education system, a twisted judicial system and a lethargically bloated civil service.

His departure from PM'ship saw a slew of candidates who never really got Mahathir's nod of approval. He ran down his own choice of candidates. Just 10 years after his tenure, the country made the headlines for all the wrong reasons. It saw its Prime Minister embroiled in the most extensive business fraud.

A critique of Najib and the way UMNO was turning, Mahathir formed an unholy allegiance with his former arch-nemesis, Anwar Ibrahim and Lim Kit Siang. The citizens bought his story of a man trying to correct the wrong that he had done. From the word go, after his unexpected win at the GE14, Mahathir was an unhappy man. His Machiavellian mind went overdrive trying to outsmart his partners in his multi-ethnic unity government. On the sly, he double-crossed them. His sole intention was to have an all Malay government to carry his ultra-Malay nationalistic agenda. For Mahathir, Malaysia is for Malays. The other people who fought for the country and toiled their life away for the nation are still immigrants, irrespective of the number of generations their family had lived in Malaysia.

An Illustration from John Milton's
17th-century poem 'Paradise Lost'
about Adam and Eve losing their
place in Paradise (Garden of Eden)
due to Satan's nefarious act.

In his rapaciousness to fulfil his vision of restoring Malay hegemony, he sold the country's soul to Islamist elements who have permeated all administration levels: defence, education, judiciary, civil service, and the rest. In his rush to correct the economic imbalance between ethnicities, he and his band of 'visionaries' chose mediocrity over substance to cosmetically paint a rosy picture of equity.

The first thing he did after being offered the position of PM for the second time, he chaired the Malay Dignity Congress, contradicting himself on his promise of being the leader of all, irrespective of race and religion. He kept mum when India demanded Zakir Naik, a wanted criminal accused the world over for his terrorist-inciting speeches but defended his decision to keep him stay put in Malaysia. This, he did despite grouses from his own citizens.

The final hay that broke the camel's back came in the form of backdoor manoeuvring called Sheraton-gate. It becomes clear that, even though Mahathir claims ignorance, the whole steering is towards a Malay-controlled government that puts non-Malays as second-class yeomen. Mahathir had the trust of all its citizens to put things in order, but he took everybody for a ride.

The country has gone to the dogs. Barks of nonsensical rhetorics means nothing as the nation marches to glorify the absurd and put buffoons on the pedestal. Have we reached the point of no return as more and more of our young and daring minds who dare to question the status quo pack their bags and leave for greener pastures?

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Boon or Bane?

Credit: newmandala.org
Dr Mahathir Mohamad (b 10.7.1925)
A second chance to right the wrong?

It is my Prime Minister's birthday, and I have a dilemma. Just last year, he became the oldest man in the world to be elected as a country's leader at 93. One year on and he is still going on strong like an Energiser Bunny. 

The million dollars is not when his run is going to halt, but instead if indeed longevity is a blessing. On the one hand, on auspicious occasions, we wish each other hoping for a long life. We cling on to our dear lives averting dangers and seeking medical advice at the first sneeze. We plan things as if we would live forever. Some would say that being born as a human is our reward for our past karmic deeds. Hence, a long life must be a bonus. They are others who would vouch that life on Earth is a testing ground. A long life span means that they are more options to collect brownie points. If one only lives for the afterlife,  then there is ample opportunity to right the wrong.

On the other hand, there are those who swear, like they had been on the other side and heard it from the horse's mouth, that life on Earth is indeed painful. With so much physical and emotional pain associated with daily living from the cradle to the grave, death is a relief. Therefore, the continuation of life mark non-completion of misdeeds (sins) of previous births. Shorter life-spans mean less chance to make a goof of oneself, hence, the placing of prominent figures who experienced premature deaths in the annals of human history. The 'Club of 27' is one such example. P Ramlee, Elvis Presley, Sudirman and James Dean are others who left while they were at their prime, eliminating any negative perceptions of their feats on Earth.

So what is your answer, boon or bane?

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What is your story?

High Noon (1952)


When John Wayne was offered the role of the protagonist, he declined on the basis that there were many political connotations in its storyline. It was at the heights of McCarthyism and witch-hunt against card-carrying members of the Red Communist Party was ongoing. The screenwriter and producer, Carl Foreman, was involved in this; he subsequently migrated the UK after the film completion. Many iconic figures, including Charlie Chaplin, were blacklisted and lost their source of income during this time.

For a Malaysian who is watching this movie after GE14, it resonates at a different level. I see a lot of parallelism in the storyline with the occurrences around the country. It does not need much imagination; a retired law enforcer returning to do one last unfinished business of a duty related to his tenure before he rides into the sunset.

Gary Cooper and Grace Kelly

Marshall Kane marries a Quaker lady, a pacifist, just before turning in the badge to lead a civilian life away from the town he serves. He hears the news that a murderer, whom he had apprehended five years previously, is out of jail. He is apparently arriving at that town at noon by train. The killer had vowed to return to kill the Marshall.

The dilemma now is whether Kane should just leave everything as he has resigned or tame the monster that only he can leash. Can he just throw in the towel as he had done his dues and is his time to enjoy the fruits of his labour or should he complete the job that only has the know-how?

I remember listening to an interview with Tun Mahathir's wife, Tun Hasmah, soon after his party's victory. In that emotional outpouring, she expressed her apprehensions when the nonagenarian announced his intentions to lead the nation again in the general elections. Despite his two previous heart surgeries and advancing age, he thought that his dharmic duty to right the wrong in the country. Tun Hasmah reiterated that there must be a reason for their long lives. As they have completed all their worldly duties, in this borrowed times, this must be the reason for their long existence on Earth.

https://www.todayonline.com/malaysian-ge/mahathirs-wife-siti-hasmah-has-mixed-feelings-about-his-return-politics-will-stand-her

 https://asok22.wixsite.com/real-lesson 

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Spin-doctor in the House

Dean Johns
Mar 9, 11:44am

I haven't read Dr Mahathir Mohamad's brand-new autobiography, 'A doctor in the House', or, 
as it might be more appropriately titled, 'A spin-doctor in the House', and I never will.

I'm not much of a fan of fiction, medical or otherwise, and in any case I've heard enough of 
Mahathir's distortions, evasions and lies to last me several lifetimes.

Having taken the Hippocratic oath and thus assumed the primary ethical responsibility to 'do 
no harm to the patient', he went on to become the ultimate political hypocrite, and did 
incalculable harm not only to Malaysia's people but to the nation's self-identity and 
international reputation.

In other words, he chose to forsake the cause of healing and resorted instead to stealing.

Robbing Malaysia of not just its natural resources and financial riches by prescribing a 
regimen of plunder for his supporters, cronies and relatives, but also more crucially 
plundering the nation of spiritual riches like truth, integrity, transparency and justice.

So I assume that his autobiography, like his Che Det blog and all his other public utterances,
is as pernicious a pack of lies as he's capable of.

And that it includes a repeat of the pornographic fantasies he invented to try and kill the
reputation and credibility of the erstwhile deputy who over a decade ago dared to defy 
him, Anwar Ibrahim.

I doubt that Mahathir mentions in his book the fact that his inspiration for hitting Anwar 
with a sodomy rap may not even have been original.

Many of us are convinced that he got the idea from his old pal Robert Mugabe, who 
brought sodomy charges against the first black President of Zimbabwe, the Rev Canaan
Banana, just a year or so before Anwar was similarly accused.

As an editor-in-chief of New Straits Times once told me, Mahathir immensely enjoys hearing
and telling filthy jokes. So Mugabe's scatological shafting of Banana could well have struck 
the dirty-minded doctor as a jolly jape for him to play in Malaysia.

Original or not, however, Mahathir and his minions in the police and judiciary certainly made
sure the joke was on Anwar. And the beating of Anwar by the then police chief provided 
Mahathir with inspiration for one of his best-known sick sarcasms, that the victim's injuries
may have been self-inflicted.

By now, though, being played as it is the second time around and evidently with the same
intended punch-line, the sodomy joke has grown terribly stale.

Except, of course, for Mahathir and his current puppet Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak, 
plus the regime's so-called 'law' officers, some cravenly compliant members of Malaysia's
pathetically impotent judiciary, and of course the nation's 'mainstream' media.

As afflicted as they are with Mahathir-style mendacity, and as sanctimonious as they can be
in claiming to represent Islamic and other state-sanctioned 'moral' standards, the BN regime's
media have long tried to sustain their ailing circulations with regular doses of gay porn.

'Wee-wee' and 'poo-poo' details

Gleefully reporting what my daughter and her friends would scornfully call the "wee-wee" and
"poo-poo" details of 'evidence' of sodomy provided by a parade of 'witnesses' paid or
otherwise persuaded to perpetuate the disgusting, homophobic Mugabe/Mahathir joke.

Despite some government successes in recent buy-elections, however, it seems to me that
more and more Malaysians are failing to see the funny side of Mahathirism, even in its 
faux-moderate Najib incarnation.

Let's face it, there are only so many sordid stories of semen stains, anal swabs and such
that most reasonable and intelligent people, however broad-minded or tolerant, can be 
expected to stomach.

Especially when such lurid details are clearly nothing but lying attempts to sustain a sordid
fantasy designed to discredit legitimate opposition to the BN regime, and divert public 
attention from its obscene activities on every other conceivable front.

In the sphere of deaths in custody, for example, in which BN's disgusting record is currently
symbolised by the royal commission into the death at Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission
headquarters of the late Teoh Beng Hock.

Some mysterious software glitch, we now learn, has conveniently erased records of calls
and messages to and from the phones of MACC officers implicated in Teoh's death.

This erasure inevitably and eerily recalls the 'unexplained' deletion of the immigration records
of Altantuya Shaariibuu, the Mongolian interpreter whose murder by shooting and 
dismemberment with C4 explosive was linked to close associates of then Defence Minister 
and now Prime Minister Najib.

Mahathir, still evidently a power if not the power behind the premiership of Malaysia, must
be as surely aware of the truth behind the Altantuya and Teoh cases and countless other
BN government atrocities.

Yet I'll bet his so-called autobiography either fails to mention them at all, or attempts to 
justify them in the same way that I read in pre-publication reports that it defends his sick
jokes on Anwar. And denies, defends or justifies the massive corruption and blatant 
cronyism so characteristic of his own career and those of his BN confederates.

Mahathir, for all the cosmetic surgery he's carried out on his own and his regime's image,
is seen increasingly in Malaysia around the world as a monstrous example of social, ethical
and political malpractice.

Rather than working to cure fractures between Malaysia's races and religions, he's devoted
his time and talents to exacerbating them. Instead of working toward a healthy body politic,
he's fostered a system plagued by repression, greed and injustice.

And in the process he's revealed himself as a chronic, pathological liar. Which is a pity, 
really, as he could have been such a force for good.

Many of us have been hoping, and some even praying, that he'd repent in his retirement 
and old age, and spend his final God-given years in heeding the ancient exhortation,
'Physician, heal thyself'.

However, if early reports are any indication, he shows no sign of self-doubt, let alone
repentance, in his new book. But as healthy as he looks on the cover of this tome, maybe
he still has time to redeem himself.

Perhaps he has a few years left in which to pen a sequel of true confessions before the
day Allah chooses to transform him from a doctor in the house to a doctor in the hearse. 

The Mahathir paradox

• Opinion
 

 2010-10-20 16:36

• 

Former Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad recently labeled democracy a failed ideology. He has also described China’s authoritarian government as a model that works better than a democratically elected one. Seriously. He did.

Another one of his “the 11 September 2001 attacks on the World Trade Centre was staged” moments no doubt, but a shocker nonetheless.

My foot massage guy from China was as surprised as I was. He asked me how many kids Mahathir had. I said seven and he wondered aloud if Mahathir knew about China’s one-child policy.

Imagine that. No Mukhriz, no Mokhzani and no Mirzan. Only Marina -- by reason of a governmental policy that you do not have a say in.

According to Mahathir, China’s political model shows that “having a non-democratic country can also give a good life for the people.”

What a load of nonsense.

Having your internet access censored is not a good life. It is a life that builds barriers around free will. It is a life based on mistrust.

Imagine typing Raja Petra in the Google search engine and receiving the irritating “Internet Explorer cannot display the webpage” message. This is what people in China experienced recently when they ran a Google search for Li Rui, Mao Zedong’s former secretary.

Of late, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao has been speaking about the need for China to implement political reforms.

In a rare interview with CNN’s Fareed Zakaria, the Chinese Premier was asked the following question:

Fareed: You speak in your speeches about how China is not yet a strong and creative nation in terms of its economy. Can you be a strong and creative nation with so many restrictions on the freedom of expression with the internet being censored? Don’t you need to open all that up if you want true creativity?

The Chinese Premier began his answer by bluntly saying as follows:

Wen Jiabao: I believe that freedom of speech is indispensable for any country in the course of development and a country that has become strong.

Despite the Chinese Premier speaking a lot about political reform of late, many Chinese do not know about it because the Chinese censors have seen it fit to black out those parts of his speeches within China.

I am sure Mahathir would be livid if the Malaysian censors did the same thing to his speeches although I know many people in Malaysia who would be quite pleased if this happened.

Going to jail for writing about fundamental freedoms and being prevented from seeing your family while you are in jail is also not a good life. It is a life that punishes original thought as long as it is not in conformity with the government’s agenda. It is a life that severs the spirit.

This is what is happening to 2010 Nobel Peace Prize winner and activist Liu Xiabao who co-authored Charter 08 which called for democratic reforms in one party China. For his role in Charter 08, Liu was punished with“eleven years' imprisonment and two years' deprivation of political rights.”
Getting shot dead for committing economic offenses and offenses concerning public safety or public order is not a good life. It is a life filled with cruel and unusual punishment.

This is the reality of China’s capital punishment policy -- even for non-violent crimes.

Our founding fathers fought bravely for independence and the right to choose our leaders. They rejected dictatorships in favour of the right to vote and we must protect this against any suggestion that the China model of zero political freedom is the way forward or as Mahathir says -- an alternative “worth studying”.

The China we see today will not survive for long. Already last week, 23 former Chinese Communist Party officials led by Li Rui, published an open letter challenging the government to increase speech and press freedom.

Not surprising, of course, that many people in China could not read this open letter.

According to a Bloomberg report, the link to the Chinese version of the letter resulted in computer screens showing “network error”.

In any event, just like water, liberty will find its way through because it is good and it is right.

China may be economically successful now, but in time the country will go searching for its soul and only the fundamental freedoms such as speech and the right to vote can help find it.

Malaysia does not need to look to China to make progress and become successful. The secret to that lies in our Federal Constitution. That is the only place we need to look.