A Doctor in The House: A Memoir of Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad (54 page)

In Alor Star, before I became a Member of Parliament, I had worked closely with the UMNO committee overseeing the town council. I checked records and discovered that people who were long dead were still drawing salaries. No one else was looking into these matters. Throughout my term as Prime Minister I insisted on looking into details, in “taking care of the pennies”. Contrary to the saying, the pounds may not always look after themselves, but the big picture is less liable to get damaged if you guard the details.

I also had some ideas about the implementation of the NEP. It was a crucial pillar of the Government’s policy and had to be executed flawlessly. But it was not just the NEP—it was everything. Now I could no longer lean on anyone, for the ultimate responsibility of running the country was mine alone. The buck stopped at my desk and it was intimidating. Off and on throughout that first day, I had to remind myself that I was the Prime Minister and I kept pondering how I had reached this position. It had all been very sudden and even now, I do not think that many in Malaysian politics have had that same experience.

I was still living in the Deputy Prime Minister’s residence as I did not want to move to the residence of the Prime Minister, which was then in Lake Gardens. I planned to convert it into a memorial for Tun Razak, my mentor and the first Prime Minister to live there. I did not want to live in the Tunku’s old residence either as there was not enough room for a family, so I decided to move into the house of the CEO of London Tin after the company was acquired by the Government. As Deputy Prime Minister, I had been given a fairly big car, an old British-made Daimler limousine which reminded me of British colonial governors. Though it was very dignified, I did not want to look like a British officer. These were the days before Proton so I decided to use a Japanese Lexus, which I continued using when I became Prime Minister. They also gave me two additional outriders and two Special Action Unit plainclothes officers, or UTKs.
[3]
 Six members of my security detail were also armed.
 

One of my first acts as Prime Minister was to release 23 political detainees, including Tan Sri Abdullah Ahmad and Abdullah Majid, who had been Deputy Ministers under Tun Hussein; the newspaper editor Tan Sri A. Samad Ismail; Kassim Ahmad, then Chairman of Parti Sosialis Rakyat Malaysia, and several MCA Members of Parliament and executive committee members. Among the group were also DAP Members of Parliament Chiang Heng Kai and Chan Kok Kit; 11 members of the Pertubuhan Angkatan Sabilillah and six others, including three women. Yet, for some reason, during my entire tenure as Prime Minister I was often accused of detaining political prisoners under the Internal Security Act (ISA). The ISA was more frequently used during the time of the three earlier Prime Ministers against politicians and alleged communists.

I could not have Tun Ghazali, who was still Home Minister, detaining people under vague charges of being communists, so one of the most important things I did with my first Cabinet was to move him to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. After all, he had been the top civil servant there for about 10 years before joining the Cabinet in 1970. He explained to the public that it was a normal transfer and he was happy to be in the Foreign Affairs portfolio. I put Tun Musa Hitam, the new Deputy Prime Minister, in the Home Ministry, which continued to hold a great deal of power.

Otherwise I retained most of Tun Hussein’s Cabinet. I also promoted certain Deputy Ministers, including Tan Sri Sanusi Junid
[4]
 and Tun Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, who were made full Ministers. All this was done on the basis of merit, not because of any personal relation to me. The Press had asked me why certain Ministers were moved and I said “they need a change of atmosphere”, which drew considerable laughter.
 

As I had decided the Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister should hold the Defence and Home Affairs portfolios respectively, I moved from the Ministry of International Trade and Industry to take over Defence. Tun Musa relinquished the Education portfolio when he took over Home Affairs. A month earlier, Tun Musa, who was by nature confident and capable, had contested the post of Deputy President in the UMNO elections. He and his rival Tengku Razaleigh had gone for broke so when Tun Musa won, Tengku Razaleigh said he would leave the Cabinet. Both men had given an undertaking that they would continue to serve UMNO but when Tengku Razaleigh decided not to join the new Government, I felt his choice was not in accordance with his pledge to continue to serve the party. I persuaded him to stay in the post he had held in Tun Hussein’s Government and retained him as Minister of Finance, a decision that would later cause me much difficulty.

My philosophy in politics is that the winner does not take all, nor does the loser lose all. I did not want Tengku Razaleigh to feel that he had lost everything. Although he had lost in the party election, I knew he had many supporters in UMNO and I did not want to alienate them. I went to considerable trouble persuading him to come back as I wanted the party to close ranks after the bruising campaign.

My efforts and Tengku Razaleigh’s subsequent return greatly annoyed Tun Musa, who wrote to me to complain that I had retained his rival as Minister. Naturally, he did not want a political rival in the Cabinet—that is politics. You try to drive out your enemy because you do not know when he will rise up and challenge you again. Contrary to what some believe, I did not bring Tengku Razaleigh into the Cabinet to keep Tun Musa in check. I made sure he was a Cabinet member because I believed he had the ability to do the work. He had, after all, been the Finance Minister under Tun Hussein and I did not see why I should discriminate against him. If I could put up with him, others should be able to do the same. In fact, I dropped Tengku Razaleigh only much later in 1987.

But in 1981, I recognised that both he and Tun Musa were backed by substantial numbers in the party. If I had dropped one, I would have lost his supporters. It was a fight between figures of almost equal stature and popularity so, to keep the party intact, I had to find a place for Tengku Razaleigh.

My way during that first year was filled with hazards that tested my mettle as a politician as well as a leader of the people. In 1981, the second world energy crisis, which began in 1979, had pushed up global oil prices and thrown the US economy into recession. When US domestic interest rates went up, the ripple effects were felt all over the world. In Malaysia, it forced down the prices of our primary commodities, rubber and tin. Our export markets shrank drastically. We also did not have enough foreign direct investment (FDI) coming in. At the time, Malaysia depended a great deal on FDI because the locals were not yet capable of starting modern industries.

We were also still an agricultural country and depended heavily on rubber, palm oil, and tin. The annual Malaysian crude palm oil (CPO) output was only 2.8 million tonnes in 1982 and, as such, government income was very low. To impress the severity of the situation upon everyone, the moment I became Prime Minister I cut my pay, the pay of Ministers, and that of senior civil servants by 10 per cent. It was a largely symbolic move, since the amount of money saved was insignificant. There was no expectation that poor workers should do likewise. Needless to say, the response—and the result—was very disappointing. Ministers and civil servants were unhappy and the pay cut did not have the desired effect on the Congress of Unions of Employees in the Public and Civil Services (Cuepacs) either. I thought that they would be willing to make sacrifices during bad times; instead, they issued a statement saying that they would not give up even one ringgit.

It was in this testing climate that my first Budget was tabled in Parliament. This all-important financial plan also had to take into account the global economic situation. The Government had to cut public service expenditure and place several state-owned enterprises under close watch. At the same time, we had to push for heavy industries like steelmaking and cement production. For this we had set up the Heavy Industries Corporation of Malaysia, HICOM.

Still, despite the recession, I wanted to implement many new ideas. I wanted to introduce new ethics and change old ways of thinking, but I did not find fertile ground for these notions. When I introduced Islamic values, many thought I was trying to create an Islamic state in the harshest sense. It took the non-Muslims some time to realise that this was going to bring absolutely no harm to them. Some Muslims thought that I had become a fundamentalist and was trying to outdo PAS. For most people, being a fundamentalist means becoming an irrational extremist. I hold a different view—Islam preaches peace and moderation. So a Muslim fundamentalist should really be a learned moderate who avoids giving trouble to anyone.

New ideas, especially those introduced at a time of economic and political change, need time to take hold and produce results. Years may pass before one can tell if an idea is good or not. When Japan was experiencing a prolonged recession, I was asked by a few Japanese individuals how they could overcome their problem. They used to change their Prime Minister every two years and I pointed out that each Prime Minister would try to revive the economy. But they all failed because they had hardly begun to implement the plan they had devised before they would be out of office. The new Prime Minister would not want to proceed with his predecessor’s plan. He would want to have his own strategy so that he could leave his mark on Japan’s history, but he would not have the time either. It was only when Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi stayed in office longer, from 2001 to 2006, that Japan recovered.

It may seem ironic but one thing about Japanese culture that left a great impression on me was their concept of shame. It was something that my mother had also taught me when I was growing up: if you did anything wrong, it would not just be morally objectionable but also shameful. I have always been afraid of being shamed. To talk of the success or the achievements I intended and then to fail, for example, would cause me enormous shame. I noticed this same attitude among the Japanese, which is why they always try their best to succeed. They too 
takut malu
, or fear being shamed. The old Japanese custom of 
seppuku
 or 
hara-kiri
 was based on this age-old notion.

This abhorrence of shame is related to the attitude that I wanted Malaysians to acquire: the attitude that we should not make ourselves, or permit others to make us, feel inferior. To put ourselves beyond that risk, we simply had to do our absolute best, always. If we did, we would be recognised and respected in the international arena. I wanted us to become proud of who we were, but, rather than simply taking pride in what we had managed to do already, to keep striving and go on improving. Other Asian countries had done it, so why couldn’t we?

When I make a decision I like to see it through, and one of the most important decisions was to claim Pulau Layang-Layang, which I had wanted to do since I had been Deputy Prime Minister. Layang-Layang is a submerged reef in the middle of the South China Sea. It is part of the Spratly Islands and is located about 300km northwest of Kota Kinabalu in Sabah. I have already related how Tun Hussein was disinclined to claim Amboyna Cay. I thought this was a big mistake and a great loss, but I was determined to have a presence in the South China Sea. I instructed the Navy to build a tangible symbol of our possession of the Layang-Layang reef, even though it was not a real island and only a tiny part of the reef could be seen above water level at low tide. Once a makeshift hut was built, I visited the island in 1983 with senior Navy Officers and decided to spend a night there.

I remember how seasick the helicopter pilot was, sleeping on the navy ship in rough seas. But he was fine as soon as he took off. The tide was high and at first he could not find any place to land. Finally, he decided to set the helicopter down in shallow water close to the hut. Fortunately we could wade through the thigh-deep waters to reach it. As I have confessed earlier, I did not know how to swim. Together with me on this first trip was Tan Sri Ibrahim Mohamad of Promet, a company which built oil rigs and platforms. I wanted him to see the place and suggest how we could reclaim it and station our troops in more comfortable accommodation. The hut was a shaky structure of wood and a storm could have blown it away, but our Navy personnel had been staying there so I felt reasonably safe. After I stayed the night, I made the decision to build a proper base so no one else would claim Layang-Layang.

Starting from that humble hut, we were able to create an island with a runway for aircraft and a hotel for tourists keen to dive in the beautiful clear waters of the South China Sea. The coral atoll rises vertically more than 2,000 feet from the sea bed. I am not a diver but I was told the cliff formed by coral is one of the world’s most beautiful diving sites. We also eventually reclaimed five other reefs and our men are now stationed there.

I was very satisfied with this outcome. We are not a warlike nation but we must claim what is ours. In the past Malay states lost many islands simply because they had no means to survey and oversee their domains. They merely acquiesced when others occupied their territories. Today, islands such as these are very important as their natural beauty or access to resources may generate income. When I was Prime Minister I was keen to visit all these outlying islands. Malaysia’s westernmost point is Pulau Perak, a bare granite and marble outcrop in the Strait of Malacca. It is a perfect location for observing the traffic plying the Straits. From the Spratlys claim, I learnt a very important lesson: that something which may at first appear useless may later turn out to be very valuable.

ENDNOTES

[
1
] Marinated skewered meat that is then grilled, satay is a popular Malaysian meal and a signature part of our cuisine.
 

[
2
] Kuala Lumpur got its first Mayor when it was given city status in 1972.