A Doctor in The House: A Memoir of Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad (61 page)

Malaysians of all classes have a tendency to blindly emulate European ways, so our trade unions do not always act in ways that are appropriate to the Malaysian cultural and business contexts. Some think it makes sense to go on strike, to punish employers as European unions like to do. In my arguments with trade unionists who were demanding pay rises, I had to convince them that we simply did not have the money that Europe had. It took me a long time to reach a state of amicable understanding with Cuepacs. Before that, the union under the leadership of its President T. Narendran was always threatening to go on strike. Perhaps he sincerely believed that the damage to the Government from industrial action would be so bad that their demands would be met. Consequently, relations between the Government and the union were strained. Remembering my experience with the Malayan Pineapple Cannery Union, I decided that I had to establish a better relationship with the unions, both in the public and private sectors. I spent many hours talking to the leaders of Cuepacs and the Malaysian Trades Union Congress, explaining the problems faced by the country. I could see how things looked to them from their position, and I accepted the legitimacy of some of their demands and assented to them. In the end the confrontation between employers and unions was replaced by rational, even friendly, relations. Here, too, antagonistic mindsets and attitudes had to be replaced by a commitment to allow both sides to benefit. As a result, there are far fewer strikes in Malaysia than in other countries, developed and developing.

This, I firmly believe, is the Asian or Eastern way of dealing with conflicts. Strikes, working to rule, go-slows and picketing were common in Malaysia before because people thought that those were the only ways to settle labour disputes and protect workers. But such actions lead to low investment, poor job creation, arrested development and low wages—the complete opposite of the workers’ own aspirations and agenda. So, who do such actions serve? Not the workers, not the employers, not the development process, nor the Malaysian people, economy and state. It is not a win-win formula but it is a no-win for everyone.

Western writers often assert that there is no such thing as Asian values as they hold that all values are universal and their values are the universal ones. I believe otherwise. Certainly there are universal values, but there are also strong and well-grounded Asian values which contribute to Asian customs and traditions that affect their behaviour. It is my unwavering belief that Asians do not believe in violent competition and crude tests of strength as so many Europeans seem to do. Those methods of resolving conflict are disruptive and destructive. War, for example, is a test of strength, the ultimate test, and it is clear from so many horrific events, past and present, that the winner is not always the just and righteous party. Very often an evil force wins simply because its capacity to kill and its ability to destroy are greater than its adversary’s. Certainly, Asians have also gone to war, but never as frequently as Europeans. The reason for this difference lies, I believe, in Eastern or Asian values.

Before the Look East Policy, Malaysians used to think of themselves as incapable of doing anything better than others. We used to feel very small when interacting or merely being in the presence of non-Asians. Our self- esteem was rock bottom and I felt that something had to be done. To liberate the captive Malaysian mind, we had to prove to the people, the 
rakyat
, that they could do what others could, just as well, and perhaps even better.

Twenty years ago, if you told a Malaysian company to build a power plant in Saudi Arabia, it would have been a pie-in-the-sky remark. When we wanted to build the Federal Highway from Klang to Kuala Lumpur, we awarded the contract to Mitsui, a Japanese company. We had to bring the Japanese in just to build a road. But today Malaysians are building roads, refineries and power plants all over the world. In the past, the best talents in Malaysia for building roads were the Indians, but today we are building roads in India. Things have changed a great deal since we adopted the Look East Policy.

My Japanese friends have asked me whether I am still looking East, still looking at them during their prolonged period of recession. I told them yes—you learn not only from the successful ventures of others, but also from their mistakes, how they face hardship and how they overcome setbacks. There is always something to be learnt from capable people, from resourceful societies and tenacious cultures.

The Japanese had been doing very well for decades after the war. Apparently, whatever systems or policies they adopted worked well for them. Then overnight, quite inexplicably, they seemed incapable of managing their economy. They floundered into a recession and their government and people seemed incapable of countering and then reversing the downturn.

What happened? After studying the inability of the Japanese to recover, I concluded that they had lost faith in their own systems, the systems which we had adopted. Somehow they felt that what they were doing was wrong, perhaps because of the comments of Western critics. They seem to have abandoned the systems that had worked for them in the past for new ones suggested by European so-called pundits. Worse, they made a sudden transformation, forgetting the disruptive impact of rapid change. This triggered Japan’s prolonged recession. Recovery demanded coherent policy that was consistently pursued, but with its frequent changes in administration and bewildering policy reversals every year or two, consistency was precisely what Japan did not get.

Despite Japan’s setbacks, Malaysia decided to stay with its Look East Policy, to continue to apply Japanese work ethics, to adopt selected aspects of Japanese culture such as its value commitment to work, orderliness and excellence, and to implement our Japanese-inspired Malaysia Incorporated concept. There were deliberate attempts in 1997-1998 to impoverish us by devaluing our currency, but we survived and regained our capacity to grow. We did so, as I shall recount later, by refusing to make the strategic mistake that Japan, perhaps heeding too dutifully the voices of its foreign critics, may have made.

Looking East also meant looking at Korea and China. We had noticed that Korea was rapidly industrialising and we wanted to know why they had achieved noticeable success. So we sent some of our students to Korea. Our observation was right. There is something about the Koreans that has enabled them to catch up and in some instances even to outstrip the Japanese.

Today, Korea has become a fully industrialised and developed country. Their products have found acceptance worldwide, including in the United States. Korea’s performance convinced us that the Look East Policy was right. Despite some setbacks we refused to lose our nerve, or to doubt ourselves and our chosen direction. Even though we were under pressure, we chose not to implement policies that might have been held in high esteem overseas but which were not in our own interest to adopt. Perhaps we learnt from Japan about the need to pursue one’s own path into economic prosperity and cultural modernity. To do so, we were not prepared to sacrifice our dignity or our sovereignty, our mastery of our own fate. If today Malaysia is less of a Third World country than what it was when I became Prime Minister, it is because we made the right decision to turn our gaze to the East.

ENDNOTES

[
1
] I introduced the Buy British Last policy three months after I became Malaysia’s Prime Minister. It stipulated that government departments had to consider other options before buying any British goods or services. I explained that the policy was prompted by, “Britain’s lack of appreciation of the millions of pounds we have been pumping into the British economy through fees and living expenses of our students in this country.”
 

[
2
] For a more complete explanation of the National Economic Action Council’s functions, see Chapter 52: Currency Crumble.
 

[
3
] Proton and its key shareholder, Tan Sri Yahya Ahmad, collectively bought an 80 per cent stake in Lotus in October 1996.
 

[
4
] Proton bought a 57.75 per cent share of MV Agusta for 70 million Euros (about RM350 million at the time) in July 2004, then sold it to an Italian company called Gevi SpA for just one Euro (about RM5) the following year. Harley-Davidson went on to buy Agusta for RM355 million.
 

We live in a Eurocentric world. Whichever way we turn we see evidence of European dominance of the world. What we hear and what we think are largely influenced by the perceptions and thinking of the Europeans.

Yet we, non-Europeans, know very little about these people who play such an overwhelming role in every aspect of our lives. What we do know about them is what they tell us about themselves. Naturally, try as they might to be impartial, what they tell about themselves is biased. They cannot help but see themselves in the light they would like others to see them.

There is, as far as I know, no major works on the anthropology of the Europeans studied and written by non-Europeans. Neither Asians nor Africans nor any others have provided us with a non-European perception of the Europeans. There may be some academic studies but certainly they are not as well-known as the anthropological studies by Europeans on various non-European races or tribes.

We must know the people we are dealing with if we are to interact with them. This is even more important today than in the heyday of the European empires, the time when the European nations physically owned almost the whole world.

They have given up their empires but far from losing their influence over the world, they are more influential than ever. They effectively control international politics, the international economy, modern knowledge and information, the sciences and technology, ideas and ideologies, languages, systems and methods of doing things, including modern administration of countries. They are militarily powerful—exerting hegemony over the whole world and extending even into outer space. In fact nothing happens in the world which is entirely divorced from and unconnected with the Europeans.

It is amazing that we should know so little about the people who have physically, mentally, emotionally and even spiritually, played and still play such an important role in our lives.

Non-Europeans really need to do very extensive studies about the Europeans to do justice to the subject, to be authoritative and to enable us to compare our present European-dictated views of them and our own original views about them.

I decided to write this chapter on the Europeans largely to meet my own needs largely. I am deeply conscious of the Europeans’ influence over my own thoughts and ideas and I feel a need to be independent of them if I want to achieve a more correct analysis of their influence on me personally and on my country and people. Though necessary, this chapter on the Europeans is far from adequate. But what I write represents my own independent perception of the Europeans with whom we must come into contact in the course of our private and public lives. People may think that like the Europeans, I would be biased because I have always wanted to view the Europeans from my own racial angle. I admit that this may be the case. Even then, it would still be useful as my views would be contrary to the conventional image of the Europeans.

To really know the Europeans, there is no better way than to study their history. Firstly, we should know that the Europeans, like the other peoples of the world, were initially divided into tribes. Some, like the Germanic peoples of Northern Europe and the Latins of Southern Europe, were truly European in the sense that the first evidence of their existence was in Europe itself. The eastern Slavic people originated from Central Asia. These Slavic tribes migrated west and settled down in Eastern Europe.

Over the centuries these three principle ethnic groups acquired a common basic culture but their European identities were actually geographical, i.e. they were Europeans because they inhabited that part of the world recognised as the European continent.

These three tribes, initially nomadic, had roamed all over Europe, sometimes settling down when conditions were good. In the process of their initial nomadic life they came to confront each other over the land they chose to settle. Consequently the history of these European tribes, and the nations they later set up, is full of wars.

We read about their wars from before the Common Era until now. Not a year passed in the past four millennia when there was no war among the European tribes and nations. Because of the constant need to fight each other, the Europeans became very highly skilled in warfare. They built impregnable castles and walled towns and developed ever more effective weapons.

The Europeans would always covet the lands of their neighbours far and near. When they became powerful because of the weapons they had developed or through newer ways of fighting, they would become aggressive and make war against others.

They glorified war and the killing of their enemies. Warriors became their heroes and would be immortalised through their legends and writings. They invented all kinds of ways to lionise and perpetuate the memories of these warrior-heroes. They not only erected statues and monuments, they also embellished them with eternal flames. Elaborate memorial ceremonies would be held on anniversaries to keep the warrior spirit alive and to persuade their people to fight to the death in the interest of their tribes or nations.

They have developed the most effective war machines. Their armed forces are well organised with groups of increasing sizes under officers of different ranks wielding ascending orders of power and authority. They coin command words for every action to be taken. Their huge armies move and act with precision. In fact, they call their armed forces, “war machines”.

The Malays had their first taste of this when the forces of the Sultan of Malacca met those of Alfonso de Albuquerque. The Sultan’s army was far bigger and he had war elephants. But to this day we do not know who the commander-in-chief was, who his subordinates were and their ranks. Against their rabble hordes the Portuguese forces were puny. But they were better organised, better armed, disciplined and well trained in the skills of fighting. The Sultan’s forces, despite the elephants, were no match for them. Malacca was defeated and occupied. But more importantly, the Europeans established their superiority in the eyes of the Malays for centuries after.