A Doctor in The House: A Memoir of Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad (67 page)

It is a cold and lonely place, consisting of land covered by thick layers of snow and ice built up over thousands of years. Nothing seems to grow there, and the only inhabitants we saw were the penguins, seals and birds. To land and walk upon that icy ground was strange. The water was so cold that, if you fell in, you would die within minutes. We travelled around on a Zodiac inflatable boat wearing life-jackets. Once, the captain brought our ship alongside an iceberg so we could touch it. Then the crew put out a ladder and we walked onto the iceberg, careful not to step onto the thin patches for fear of falling through into the sea.

The roughest part of the journey was crossing Drake Passage, the 800km-wide expanse of open water where the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans meet between Cape Horn and the northern coast of Antarctica. Here, the enormous force of the Antarctic Circumpolar Current surges. For two days out and another two days coming back, the sea was very rough. Sleep was impossible as you simply had to cling hard to your bed. Hasmah never got up from hers, as the boat was so unsteady that she was constantly seasick. She was not the only one. I was fine, however, and was able to move around and eat.

Throughout my term in office, I continued to use my official international visits to signal Malaysia’s changed foreign policy priorities. After I visited the island nations of Oceania, I decided to visit the Islamic countries. Malaysia had not yet made much progress in its development, but we were already quite well known in that part of the world because our first Prime Minister, Tunku Abdul Rahman, was instrumental in the founding of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference, or OIC.
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 I was received politely in all the countries except for one, which I will not name. That country refused to set a date for my visit. Apparently it had something against me, although I never discovered what it was. Later however, when Malaysia had demonstrated its capacity for both stability and rapid growth, and had begun to voice the views and feelings of Muslim countries and Muslims worldwide, I was invited by that country to receive an award as a Muslim leader.
 

The Arab countries were not yet as rich as they were to become later but, like many other developing countries, they saw no particular need to be close to Malaysia. Only the Kuwait Investment Fund was active in Malaysia then but even they pulled out after some time. The Arab countries looked up to Europe and America and seemed to believe that the Europeans were supermen who could work miracles. European countries and their business people always have an advantage when dealing with Arab countries. Even Japan found difficulty convincing these countries that it could do what the Europeans could do, and do it better.

It must be admitted that at that time, Malaysia did not think much of the little states which dotted the Persian Gulf either. They had only just discovered oil but they still had the appearance of overgrown fishing villages—their gleaming new glass towers had not yet been built. My visits to these small emirates were driven by no immediate economic considerations, but stemmed solely from my policy of friendly engagement with all Islamic countries.

Of the Islamic North African countries, I visited Egypt, the only Arab country with a large population. Cairo fascinated me. I did little official business there but did go on a tour of the Aswan Dam and Luxor, with its spectacular temples and tombs. I had flown over the Nile River several times and was much impressed by the greenness of the land on either side. The two strips were of uniform width and they stopped abruptly where the desert resisted cultivation. I understood then why the Egyptian civilisation was possible and why it prospered. The people had learnt to irrigate the land in order to grow grain and other crops. Not needing to gather and hunt for food, and with ample agricultural produce, the Egyptians could turn their minds and attention to improvements to their way of life and the acquisition of knowledge. All the early civilisations had developed along river basins, the most remarkable of which, apart from the Nile, were those in the valleys of the Tigris and Euphrates, the Indus and the Yangtze.

When I went to Mali in 1982, I noticed the River Niger flowing through Mali’s arid land just like the Nile in Egypt’s desert. I wondered why the people living on the banks of the Niger did not cultivate the land the way the Egyptians did. After our Ambassador to Mali told me that he had grown Malaysian vegetables and plants there and that the land was very fertile, I decided to help the Malians make use of their land to enrich themselves and develop their country. Malaysia set up an agricultural station and sent agriculturists to grow vegetables and breed goats. Clearly the River Niger valley could be developed like the Nile Valley. Unfortunately, the Malians did not show a keenness to develop their agricultural potential. Between geographical fact or environmental potential and rational economic action, something else intervenes: culture and values. These, I had learnt, had enormous consequences that had to be addressed in the case of the Malays. Perhaps something similar was occurring with the Malians. After three years, the Malaysians came back and the station was neglected.

We were more successful in Malawi, where we also set up an agricultural station. We showed them how to make use of the water from Lake Victoria and cultivate their land. They had this huge freshwater lake that, strangely, they did not use. Having no tradition of agriculture, they did not establish a civilisation like that of the Egyptians. To do that takes a certain kind of people. The Malays too, lived on the riverbanks which provided water, fish, and transportation, and while they developed agriculture, it was not a great agrarian civilisation. Yet our own 
alam Melayu
 (Malay world) cousins in Java did: not in the coastal areas connected to international trade but in the interior. The reasons for this difference in pre-colonial development trajectories are factors that we must ponder and probe if we are ever to fathom the heart of the Malay dilemma.

By the time I stepped down as Prime Minister, I was told that the agriculture station we had created was better accepted by the Malawians. Whatever the initial cultural inhibitions, it seems they can be overcome.

In those days few people believed that Asia and Asians might provide development models for other countries—certainly not Malaysia, which, it was assumed, would never be anything more than a backward, Third World country. That, anyway, was the prevailing attitude at the time. I realised this when I invited a few African leaders in the Commonwealth to visit Malaysia. They showed no interest; apparently, there was nothing for them to see or to learn from another Third World country. But I was convinced otherwise. Even in the late 1980s, Malaysia was already moving ahead of most other developing countries.

I decided to attend the 1985 Commonwealth meeting in the Bahamas in order to get to know the leaders of the African, Caribbean and other developing countries which were members of the Commonwealth. At the Bahamas meeting, the Prime Minister Sir Lynden O. Pindling was embarrassed by the Opposition holding a demonstration on the road the delegates were to take to a state dinner. An attempt was made to bypass the demo by taking boats but, somehow, it did not work out.

These small island states should learn from Singapore, where the Opposition was not allowed to lift up their heads. There would never be such a demonstration in Singapore. But these small states were so much under the critical eyes of the European members of the Commonwealth and nearby US that they had to put up with political instability and poor development in order to prove their democratic credentials.

In 1987 I attended the Commonwealth meeting in Vancouver. I had earlier decided that the only way to get the leaders of the countries of Africa and the Caribbean to visit Malaysia was by hosting the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting. At the Vancouver meeting, Malaysia made a bid to host the 1989 CHOGM. I think Sir Shridath and many of the delegates regarded Malaysia as the prodigal son who wanted to return. They were therefore quite enthusiastic about our desire to host the meeting and gave their full support.

On our side, we wanted to show that Malaysia could be a good host. This was going to be the first big international meeting for us and we did not want anything to go wrong or to fall short in any way. I insisted that we plan properly, looking into every detail. We carried out several dry runs to detect any shortcomings.

We gave our retired ambassadors the task of welcoming our guests, many of whom they knew. A senior ambassador was chosen to direct and manage the whole conference. Dinners and entertainment for heads of government and spouses were arranged. Traditional dancers and a choir from the Yamaha Music School practised hard to display the full range of Malaysian talents.

The 1989 Malaysian meeting would also choose a new Commonwealth Secretary-General to take over from Sir Shridath. I was to preside over the election. There were two contestants: Malcolm Fraser, a former Australian Prime Minister, and Chief Emeka Anyaoku of Nigeria. The Chief won. As soon as the result was announced, Fraser left Malaysia for home. As host, I presided over the conference as well.

This was also where I used a prompter for the first time when delivering a public speech. Some of the government heads congratulated me on my ability to deliver a long speech, apparently without reference to my notes. I did not disabuse them of the idea but I found it strange that so many people in the political spotlight then were not aware of the prompter and other technological possibilities. Generally, the conference went very well and the delegates congratulated Malaysia for the well-organised and efficiently-run meeting we had staged.

Following our hosting of the Commonwealth Conference in 1989 and my attendance at subsequent conferences, I formed good relationships with the heads of government of the African and Caribbean states. Their visit to Malaysia in 1989 convinced them that a Third World country could develop and prosper. After seeing Malaysia’s achievements and the prosperity of its people, many made repeated personal visits to Malaysia or sent their Ministers and senior officials to exchange views and experiences about governance and development. In time, we agreed to hold frequent dialogues on administration, planning and development. This later led to the Langkawi International Dialogues
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 and the Southern African International
Dialogue,
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 which consolidated Malaysia’s relations with the countries of Africa and the Caribbean. The dialogues were attended by many African heads of government, including those outside the Commonwealth. Caribbean countries usually sent representatives and they held their own Caribbean Dialogues to exchange ideas and regional experiences.
 

These initiatives advanced Malaysia’s foreign policy objectives of becoming close to other developing countries. Malaysians, including Malaysian businessmen, were welcomed there so when business opportunities narrowed in Malaysia, our people could turn to these small countries to find work and to trade. Malays who had long relied on the award of government contracts now proved that they could find opportunities and do business in these countries as foreign contractors and service providers. They had come of age internationally and our good relations with other developing countries enabled them, and Malaysia, to prove their capabilities.

I had made a point of developing friendly relations with Japan, South Korea and China. Japan helped us greatly through investments and support for our Look East Policy. Today many Malaysians have studied and been trained in Japan and South Korea, where they acquired not only knowledge and skills but the work ethic that underlay the success of those two countries. The South Koreans provided us with the latest model of how a backward country could make tremendous leaps towards becoming a great industrial nation. We learnt a great deal from them about industrialisation.

China was not yet an open country when I visited it in 1985, when Deng Xiaoping
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 was in charge. Lee Kuan Yew had once told me that we should not fear China because it was a poor and backward country. He was aware of our fears of the Chinese desire to spread the communist ideology in Southeast Asia and our belief that the American “Domino Theory” would be proven right as one country after another would fall to the communists. What I saw in China when I stopped over in Shanghai and Beijing on my way to North Korea when I was Deputy Prime Minister had convinced me at the time that Lee was right.

We had problems at first with China’s support of the mainly Chinese communist insurgents in Malaysia, but as China gradually withdrew its backing, relations between us improved. Deng had visited Malaysia when Chou En-Lai was Premier and I was still Deputy Prime Minister. He had wanted to talk to Tun Hussein, but the Prime Minister asked me to meet him instead and the two of us ended up having a very long, private discussion. Deng was interested in the development of Malaysia and asked innumerable questions about our economy and our industrialisation policies. I answered as best as I could but some of the details he wanted stumped me. He asked how many tons of steel Malaysia produced, which I didn’t know. Deng proved to be pleasant and very curious about every aspect of how we had developed our country.

When he succeeded Chou En-Lai, he opened up China and formulated the socialist market philosophy. I became convinced China was going to be a great economic power and that Malaysia must develop good relations with it, ideological differences notwithstanding. We were familiar with the diligence, skill and enterprise of the Chinese in Malaysia. If a few million of them could be so successful in a foreign environment, how much more successful might the 1.3 billion people in China be?

In the early days of communist rule, too much emphasis had been placed on ideology. But as Deng himself had often said, “it does not matter whether the cat is black or white, as long as it catches the mouse”. He was pragmatic and favoured what worked and it did not matter to him whether the practices were ideologically proper or not, as long as China developed. And develop it did—by leaps and bounds—astounding the whole world.