A Doctor in The House: A Memoir of Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad (5 page)

The truth was that, from the moment I became Prime Minister, I ceased to belong to my family. They accepted that as Prime Minister I could not spend time with them or be overly occupied with their problems. It was the same for their mother too. Hasmah never complained if I didn’t come home, or was late, or was not paying sufficient attention to the family or the house, both of which she managed. She and the children understood that if they had problems, they might go to her for help, but not to me.

I would not abuse the power that I had, nor did I want them to abuse their connection to me. I often said just that and they knew what I meant. They grew up and matured during the time I was Prime Minister. Even when they went to university, I never asked the Government for scholarships. Earlier Mirzan received a scholarship when I was not in the Government, when I was expelled from UMNO and well before I became a Minister. He got a MARA
[4]
scholarship on his own merit. He was one of a handful of Malay students who were selected to study in
private schools in the UK to expose them to a different culture.
 

As for other values like consistency, punctuality and reliability, I would tell them they should not behave like children of wealthy parents. When I talked about my school days, about walking to school and the like, they would get bored. Perhaps they will read these pages, especially my recollection of my parents and my own childhood, and find something of interest to them. Perhaps they will learn something that will help explain their father, or some aspects of his character, a little more clearly to them, or perhaps an insight that they in turn may pass on to their own children. There are always lessons to be learnt, if only we have the wisdom to see them.

ENDNOTES

[
1
] A state in the north of Peninsular Malaysia.
 

[
2
] In Malay,
putih
means “white”.
 

[
3
] My father married my mother after the death of his first wife.
 

[
4
] Majlis Amanah Rakyat, a government agency that aids Bumiputera participation in the economy.

I am well aware that my ethnic origin has been the subject of much animated debate. Some claim that my father was Malayalee and was fluent in both Tamil and Malayalam. Some have even written that he was a Hindu who converted to Islam to marry my mother. Others say they have seen documents clearly stating my ethnicity. 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. Malays in the past did not keep track of their lineage, although most of those with Arab blood can trace their roots to Yemen and know which family they belong to.

Some people will see this chapter as racist at worst, and narcissistic at best—it is intended to be neither. I am a Malay and am proud of it. There are many reasons why I state this so strongly and boldly. Those who say that a leader’s ethnicity or gender does not matter to the people are fooling themselves. It was only during the 2008 US Presidential elections that a woman and an African-American became serious contenders for the post. To date, the US has only had one Roman Catholic leader, John F. Kennedy. Britain has a similar record. The indomitable Baroness Margaret Thatcher characteristically came from a very English family, and except for Benjamin Disraeli, who renounced Judaism, Britain has had no head of government or Prime Minister who was not white or Christian.

Multiracial democracies have nuances that homogenous countries cannot imagine. Racial tags often have a derogatory taint. In Malaysia, Chinese are popularly seen as money-grabbing and Indians as violent drunks. Malays, the majority race, are said to be lazy and lacking in intellectual capacity. Stereotypes will always persist, even in the most progressive and educated societies. But a good leader does not let them go unchallenged. Every time when, as Prime Minister, I made a mistake or an unpopular decision, people were ready with their “dim-witted Malay” slurs. But when I made good decisions, those that brought progress and prosperity to the nation, it was always because I had Indian blood. I wanted to prove otherwise: that Malays were more than capable of thinking, progressing and leading.

Nearly every Malay in Malaysia has some non-Malay blood. But that fact doesn’t make them any less Malay. We seem to categorise ourselves in such puzzling ways that managing our multiracial country is extremely difficult. Racial categorisations make a great deal of difference to the acceptance or rejection of one’s leadership and decisions.

The Peninsular Malays have long lived at the crossroads between the East and the West, so they intermarried with others and became mixed earlier than most people. The most common intermarriages were with Indians and Arabs. At one time the offspring of such marriages were classed, often derogatorily, as either DKK (
Darah Keturunan Keling
, Malays of Indian blood) or DKA (
Darah Keturunan Arab
, Malays of Arab blood). Today, such labels are no longer used. Each classification generated its own distinctive stereotypes, some of them negative.

In Malaysia today, being Malay is not a question of descent, of one’s family history of intermarriage, and hence the popular idiom of “blood”. “Malayness” is a legal construct. One is a Malay if one satisfies certain legal conditions. Constitutionally, a Malay is defined as a person who habitually speaks Malay, practises Malay customs and is a Muslim. An individual who meets these requirements is a Malay and all such individuals are automatically citizens enjoying rights in the nation. Citizens of Malay origin are entitled to certain rights that go with this legal personality. Others, too, become citizens of Malaysia by the operation of the Constitution and the law, but the formal or technical basis of their citizenship is different, at least at this time. Ultimately, all who are born in Malaysia and owe sole allegiance to it will, we hope and also plan, become members of the one people and nation, termed 
Bangsa Malaysia.
[1]
 

Until we reach that point, race relations in Malaysia will remain a topic of perennial interest and controversy. We are often accused of being chauvinistic and the constitutional provision defining “Malay” is sometimes regarded as divisive and exclusionary, and also a trap to lure the unwitting into joining our racial ranks. Yet it was, in fact, meant to deflect racism by placing all Malays—no matter what their ethnic heritage—on an equal footing. To my mind, that approach has worked, although Johor oddly enough does not extend the right to own Malay reserve land
[2]
 to those of Arab origin.
 

That legal definition became necessary when people without any Malay characteristics or connections began claiming to be Malay in order to enjoy certain Malay rights such as ownership of reserve land. That was when the Malay states were British protectorates. But when the Malayan Union was proposed in 1946, the British wanted to grant the descendants of immigrant Indians and Chinese the same citizenship status as that of the native Malays. In consequence, the question of definition became all the more crucial.

My family and I have always fulfilled those formal criteria. But I am a Malay not just on paper. I am also a Malay in sentiment and in spirit. I identify completely with the Malays and their problems, their past and their present, their achievements and failures. I do not do so sentimentally and uncriticalIy, but thoroughly and thoughtfully. On many occasions I have criticised the Malays for taking the easy way out, for their general lack of desire for self-improvement and for their tendency to be dependent on others. I have confronted the comforting illusions they retreat into when they become afraid of challenges that they face as individuals and as a people. I have even written books on the subject. I have always had my reasons for these frequent expressions of disappointment. They were often outbursts due to my frustration, but they were also strategic. They were intended to provoke the average Malay to improve himself, to stand poised, confident and able, instead of leaning on crutches like affirmative action. I still believe, as I did when I put forth that challenge, that a change in the Malay value system is necessary. No one can deny that the Malays have been instrumental in making Malaysia what it is today because of their good and generous character. Whatever their lack of expertise and skill, to my mind their great strength has been their willingness and ability to work with others.

So great was their capacity for acceptance that at one time, in the late 1920s and early 1930s, they had become, or were on the verge of becoming, a minority in their own country. If not for an accident of history—namely the Great Recession of the 1930s, which not only discouraged immigration into the country but also led many long-resident foreigners to return to India and China—the Malays could have lost Malaya completely. But by the late 1940s, as a result of events recounted elsewhere in this book, the situation had changed entirely. The war discredited the British and their assumed right to rule. It had lit a new spark of Malay determination. When the British returned after World War II, they tried to impose the Malayan Union, whose citizenship provisions would no longer recognise the Malays as the historic people within the Malay lands. This triggered the appearance on the political stage of a new force that could not be denied—a sleeping giant, Malay nationalism, stood up as UMNO.

For a long time, the Malays of the Peninsula had hospitably acceded to the arrival and the claims of immigrant non-Malays. Now, after some 450 years of colonisation, the Malays stood their ground, but not selfishly. Rather, once they had been assured recognition of their own historic position, they proved themselves able to work with others to build a prosperous and thriving nation in less than 50 years. Others may have had a special talent for commerce and business enterprise. We Malays demonstrated our own distinctive aptitude for social harmony and public administration. That has been the basis of the country’s success.

Many other lands that the ethnic Europeans colonised experienced a protracted and violent struggle for liberation. But the Malays appear to have accepted colonisation and foreign domination with equanimity. There was some resistance and a few uprisings, notably in Perak where the British Resident J.W.W. Birch was assassinated at Pasir Salak on the Perak River. In Malacca,
[3]
 the territorial chief Datuk Naning
[4]
 fought against the British for imposing a tax on his district. In Pahang and Terengganu,
[5]
 there were small rebellions led by territorial chiefs, and in the state of Kelantan
[6]
 the revered Tok Janggut,
[7]
 a village leader from Pasir Puteh, led an insurrection against the British in 1915, not long after they had taken control of the state and its finances. In all these cases, the British hunted down the leaders and some were killed. In Sarawak,
[8]
 Brooke loyalists among the Malays assassinated the British Resident.
[9]
 

For all its heroism, this resistance was always sporadic and local. The Malays mounted no concerted and sustained struggle to regain their independence from the imperialists by violent force. Instead, they always appeared ready to cooperate amiably with their colonial masters—until the British tried to expropriate their 
Tanah Melayu
, their Malay homeland, through the Malayan Union proposal. Until that time the Malays had pledged their loyalty to the Rulers of their respective states. Though aware at some level that they were all of the same stock or race, the Peninsular Malays never acted as one group. Their allegiance stopped at state borders and, as a result, one by one the Malay states fell into British hands. Today we talk of nations as if they have naturally existed from time immemorial. Yet many great nations started off as small principalities, not unlike the Malay 
negeri
, or state. Japan, China, Italy and Germany were all divided into small states ruled by princes and warlords. In each case, a powerful leader emerged and, by force, fused the states into one country. Giuseppe Garibaldi, who created the cohesive Italian nation, is regarded by many as an outstanding example.

Their resilience and adaptability have allowed the Malays to thrive in a world which has unfortunately borne witness to the disappearance of numerous other indigenous peoples. The native peoples of the Americas and the Caribbean, the aborigines of Australia and the Maoris of New Zealand have all but disappeared due to the onslaught of the ethnic Europeans. Their lands have been expropriated and these lands have now become ethnic European countries. But the Malays—whom so many of their critics see as weak, indolent and inept—have survived European colonisation, raids and threats of conquest by strong neighbours and long submissions as vassals to powerful Asian nations. Because we survived that long history of dealing with powers greater than ourselves, we Malays were able in time to emerge as a people able to take its fate into its own hands. For this we are genuinely admired by many other newly independent nations. The Bosnians in Europe and the Arabs today also look up to the Malays, and often seek our guidance on the management of change and development in their countries.

Of all the ethnic Malays in the region, the Malays in this country are today widely recognised as the most successful. They have been able to administer and develop a multiracial country with an array of inherent problems and challenges. The many races in Malaysia are divided by religion, culture, language and—most important of all—by the disparities in their development and wealth. Yet the Malays have made progress and achieved significant success. While 50 years after Independence the Malays still form the bulk of the poorest stratum in society, there have been great advances.