A Doctor in The House: A Memoir of Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad (6 page)

There are fewer abject poor than there used to be and those who live in poverty are provided with the means and opportunity to better themselves. Some Malays have become prominent national entrepreneurs and corporate leaders. This has been accomplished by good policies, not by indulging the urge to acquire the wealth of others in order to enrich oneself. Malay economic progress has been accomplished ethically and legally, not ruthlessly.

This could only have been achieved under conditions of civil peace and social stability. It has largely been Malay political and administrative skill that has kept the country peaceful and stable and has fast-tracked its development. People rarely wonder about the origins of this talent for public service that the Malays so conspicuously display. Some of those who do not simply take it for granted like to suggest that it is a British legacy—the result of the example and lessons in public administration that the colonial authority taught us. There is, I believe, a deeper reason: a political tradition that dates back to the pre-colonial Malay sultanates.

Today there is a Malay presence everywhere in the world, and most recently in space as well. They have expanded their skills so greatly that now Malays drill for and produce oil, build roads and power plants, and manage multinational corporations and industries, including those involved with sophisticated engineering and high technological content all over the world. They have gone abroad and are accepted as capable contractors, builders and traders. Foreign companies now hire Malay executives for top posts.

Malays have scaled Mount Everest, sailed solo around the world, swum the English Channel, walked alone across Antarctica and travelled in space. Considering that our land is hot and humid, these achievements are doubly remarkable. Given the opportunity and the right attitude, Malays have proved themselves again and again. The basis for these achievements, and of the new Malay sense of confidence, has been our national affirmative action policies, implemented since 1971. These policies are regularly condemned by many ethnic Europeans, both statesmen and journalists. Even years after my retirement, I continue to be vilified for promoting these programmes. So be it. Their achievements are undeniable to those who can think clearly and are fair-minded.

History, it seems, is easily forgotten. Apart from leaving the Malays with a big immigrant Chinese and Indian population to manage, the British also left the country very poor. The country’s per capita income in 1957, the year of Independence, was less than USD350. Under British colonial rule more than 70 per cent of the population lived below the poverty line. The literacy rate was very low and there were only about 100 university graduates in the whole country. Roads that were built served only the British-owned rubber estates and tin mines. Malayan ports were deliberately left undeveloped in order to protect the British colonial port of Singapore. Malacca was destroyed and Penang’s growth slowed down to enhance the economic development of Singapore. True, Singapore was strategically located at the tip of the Peninsula in the centre of 13,000 rich spice islands, but as the post-Independence development of Peninsular ports shows, that concentration on the development of Singapore port did not need to be total. Malayan ports could have catered to some of the trade during colonial days. Instead, Malaya was made totally dependent on exports of rubber and tin via Singapore. The bulk of the foreign exchange that these industries earned went to Britain. These cold hard facts are never mentioned in the so-called free Press of the ethnic Europeans.

By sharp contrast, Malaysia’s per capita income today is more than USD7,000 (or in Purchasing Power Parity terms, USD14,000). Less than five per cent of the population is below the poverty line (and only one per cent are in absolute poverty). The literacy rate is more than 90 per cent and there are hundreds of thousands of university graduates. A network of modern expressways and tarred roads, reaching the most remote villages, joins all parts of the country together.

The seeds of our recent success were admittedly already there. A combination of the locals’ business savvy and the capacity for tolerance made the Malay Peninsula a successful and popular trading locale many hundreds of years ago. The Peninsula is situated at the crossroads between China and Japan in the East, and India, Arabia and Europe in the West. For centuries, traders from all these countries and regions sailed past the Peninsula to do business with each other. Many stopped and some settled down in Malacca, marrying the locals. In those days, women did not travel with the traders. Not surprisingly, most Malays have some mixture of Chinese, Indian, Arab or even European blood in their veins. But the cultural values, the traditions and the religion adopted by all these people were distinctly Malay.

It is not the Malays who developed an obsession with the supposed purity of bloodlines but the Europeans. They displayed that characteristic obsession both in the racial segregation that they imposed upon the colonial societies that they ruled and also among themselves, at home in Europe. But one can build a race or people on a basis other than blood. It may be built, as Malay identity was, on culture and history. To do so on the basis of ethnic origins, using bloodlines as the criterion, was possible in former times because people could isolate themselves. But today, people are very mobile. It is difficult to make ethnicity the sole criterion of race. Even the insular English now have Jewish and Continental European blood, as is evidenced by their names. And the mix is going to increase so that a person’s stated ethnicity, or official public identity, will no longer be an accurate indication of his or her race.

For example, an ethnically Indian citizen of the United Kingdom today is British, not English. But how long can this continue as Englishmen keep having children by Indian and African women and vice-versa? One day a legal definition may be needed to identify the English. By then, the English may not look English at all, just as today’s Malays often do not have the anthropological physiognomy of Malays. Mixed blood or descent does not make a person any less English—or Malay.

The Malays belong to the brown-skinned people who inhabit almost all of Southeast Asia, including the vast archipelago once known as the Malay Archipelago. Today it is divided among three major branches of the one ethnically Malay people: the Indonesians, the Filipinos, and the Malays of the Peninsula and of the North Borneo states of Sabah and Sarawak, as well as Brunei. The division is purely political, deriving from the history of European colonisation of the region, and is not at all based on any inherent ethnic differences. The Philippines, for example, openly declare that its national hero, Jose Rizal, is Malay.

The Malays of Malaysia are typically brown, of medium height and are well-proportioned in terms of their body structure. They tend to have flat, almost flaring nostrils, wide-open black eyes, straight or wavy black hair and are generally not hirsute. Their women are usually fairer in skin colour and the girls can be so stunningly beautiful that one—certainly a Malay like me—experiences a sense of deep pride at the sight of them. More than just being comely in appearance, the Malays are a cultured people, always very courteous and formal, with a fine aptitude for the arts. They adhere closely to their traditions, even though these are largely unwritten. They live, above all, according to proverbs and sayings that every Malay child used to learn and which together provide an informal guide to social etiquette and a sound basis for political common sense and wisdom. Adherence to the traditions or 
adat
 that is preserved within these sayings and proverbs is a mark of good upbringing.

There are thousands of these proverbs and sayings in Malay, perhaps more than in any other language. These really seem to influence attitudes and to shape Malay behaviour, even today. Unfortunately, these sayings often contradict one another. In any situation the Malay can usually find a saying to guide his action or to justify what he intends to do, but he may also draw wisdom from another saying which would allow him to do the exact opposite. Thus the Malay is enjoined to be loyal to his Raja or Ruler, according to the saying 
Melayu tak akan derhaka kepada raja
 (The Malay shall not betray his Raja). But another saying permits him to fight his Ruler if the latter is unjust. Thus: 
Raja adil raja disembah, raja zalim raja di sanggah
 (The just Ruler is obeyed, the unjust is opposed).

Malays tend to tolerate the injustices and the foibles of their Rulers to a far greater extent than other races. Rebellions and revolutions do not feature much in Malay history. While many ruling houses were done away with upon independence, often violently, in India and Indonesia, especially Sumatra, in the Peninsula all nine of them survived. It is said that they make up half the remaining royal houses in the world.

The value system of the Malays in the Peninsula often differs markedly from that of the other ethnic Malays of the archipelago. Peninsular Malays tend to be more relaxed and easygoing. They are not violent, dislike physical work and are not naturally given to competition. The other ethnic Malays of the archipelago are, by contrast, naturally hardworking and can sometimes be quite violent and intensely competitive.

Malay etiquette is complex and is made up of a subtle set of rules. I was brought up to be polite, to keep my own counsel and to defer to my elders and superiors. Respect for elders and titles
[10]
 is very strong and is shown, among other ways, in the use of honorifics. In Malay speech there are numerous honorifics, all of which come easily to me. Indeed, try as I might I simply cannot address people, especially Malay royalty, without them. I find myself frequently resorting to English to escape the burden of the deference, even obsequiousness, of the Malay language. The Malay language also provides a vast and diverse vocabulary for addressing different people. The closeness between you and a friend is expressed very differently from the closeness you have with a parent or aunt.
 

More exquisite and tacit than spoken language is body language. This is a very significant manifestation of the code of Malay politeness. When walking past old or senior people we bend slightly forward and lower the right arm, as if to prevent the foot from accidentally touching the person in front of whom we walk. Kicking or touching an individual with the foot is considered very impolite. Pointing with the foot at anything to anyone is taboo.

Foreigners are usually unable to grasp these fine gradations of behaviour. In 1985 the 
Far Eastern Economic Review
 reported that Tunku Abdul Rahman had rejected my attempt to kiss his hand. The incident was interpreted as the Tunku dismissing me curtly. In Malay etiquette a person of low rank kisses the hand of a superior, particularly if he is an aristocrat, as the Tunku was. However, if the aristocrat feels that the person is of some consequence, he pulls his hand away before it can be kissed. This is indicative of good upbringing and is recognition of the other person’s status. When the Tunku pulled his hand away before I could kiss it, it was an acknowledgement that I was not a lesser person. He was not being rude nor was he dismissing me. In fact, he was being extremely courteous according to Malay etiquette. Subtlety is opaque to those who are incapable of it themselves or who are ignorant of its ways.

Steeped though I was in such manners, I soon learnt that foreigners, non-Malays and especially Europeans, could not be treated in the same way as Malays as they may not understand the nuances of Malay etiquette. The author Joseph Conrad thought that when Malays address a European as 
tuan
 (literally, “master”), it was a rightful acknowledgement by the Malays that the European was superior. Conrad in fact translated the word 
tuan
 to “Lord”, hence “Lord Jim” in his book of the same name. Lord Jim was not an English Lord as I had assumed before reading the book. He was simply Tuan Jim or Master Jim, which was the way he was addressed by the Malays he met.

For a long time, Malays expected people to understand that these titles were spoken out of politeness, and were not to be taken as an indication of real status. Thus all Chinese were 
towkay
, all Indians 
aya
 and all Arabs and Europeans 
tuan,
 irrespective of their individual or personal standing in society. Very early on I decided to reserve my self-effacing Malay manners only for the people who were well-taught in the etiquette, and to adopt the more candid manners of the foreigners, particularly the Europeans, when I dealt with them. Europeans are frank and direct. Being critical is natural to their style of discourse and with it comes the tendency to run people down. In the Malay world, this transgresses the boundaries of good behaviour. Unfortunately, many ethnic Europeans behave as if they are superior and generally know better than Asians.

The thousands of comments made about Malaysia in foreign journals and newspapers seem to reveal a certain smug assurance that they could govern Malaysia far better than any Malay. They are forever offering unsolicited advice, apparently unashamed that when they left Malaya to the Malays in 1957, it was a poor and undeveloped country. I myself, in particular, seem to have been singled out for regular vilification. I usually lose no time in reminding them of their own imperfections and poor behaviour, past and present. Still, they seem blind and deaf to why I will not accept their advice. Many of them think we should uphold liberal democracy modelled on their own national practices, forgetting that our social, cultural, religious, ethnic and economic composition is completely different from theirs.

According to them, we stubbornly prefer to adhere to our own cultural traditions and moral codes and to practise democracy not as a reckless free-for-all, but in a form that we consider suitable for a potentially unstable multiethnic country. Despite their repeated assertions that we should be more open to criticism, they do not take kindly to reminders about the genocide they committed in order to set up new European nations outside Europe. When I bring this up, they redouble their condemnation of me.