Book Review

A mad doctor perhaps?

Throughout his public life, Dr Mahathir Mohamad has been almost predictably unpredictable.

He has delighted in being a maverick, breaking the rules whenever they appeared to make no sense, or got in his way. It was often politically risky and required courage, but it also glorified his image and caught his rivals off balance at times, opening opportunities that Mahathir seized.

His 843-page book, ‘A Doctor in the House: The Memoirs of Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad’, falls into this pattern.

At 85 years of age, Malaysia’s longest-serving prime minister might be expected to reflect on the past, answer critics while underlining his achievements, mull unmet goals and mistakes, and no doubt settle a few scores but generally make peace with adversaries.
Not Mahathir. A polemicist to the end, he ignores much of the documented criticism levelled against him and his policies during 22 years as premier. He indulges in selective memory and advances a host of dubious propositions, while taking the credit for what he sometimes – though not always – deserves.

Like his spectacularly broken promise to stay out of politics after retirement in 2003, this book will do little to enhance Mahathir’s reputation among researchers, analysts and informed readers.

But his ardent fans – who admire him for putting Malaysia on the world map, for his can-do approach to development and for his sheer cussedness – will love him all the more for thumbing his nose once again at convention.

Like a long political speech, Mahathir’s book contains almost no supporting evidence, not even self-serving official reports, despite any number of loose assertions that require substantiation. The text is also peppered with factual errors and contradictions.

Imaginary allegations

The harsh conclusion must be that sections of the book can best be described as faction – a word derived from “fact” and “fiction” – which is a literary genre that depicts real historical figures and actual events woven together with imaginary allegations.

For example, Mahathir claims that “eventually a group of Malay contractors was persuaded to build and operate” the North-South Expressway. Actually, United Engineers (Malaysia) Bhd did not take much persuading. The company was controlled – secretly, for a time – by his Umno and given the contract to build the road and collect the tolls for 30 years to secure the ruling party’s financial base.

Mahathir’s contention that “nothing of significance resulted from” his first official visit to the United States in 1984 is no less egregious. In fact, in Washington, Mahathir approved the Bilateral Training and Consultation (Bitac) agreement, which was effectively a secret security pact.

It provided for US naval ship visits, joint military exercises and American training in Malaysia, and the establishment of facilities to repair transport aircraft and small vessels. Bitac, still undisclosed, makes a mockery of Mahathir’s loudly proclaimed opposition to the US military presence in Southeast Asia.

Equally flagrant is Mahathir’s claim that the dispute over Malaysia’s railway land in Singapore is deadlocked, and likely to get further entangled in complications over plans for a so-called crooked, or half, bridge he proposed to replace the Causeway.

When he finally realises that the matter was settled by the leaders of both countries last year, he is going to get even angrier. His beloved crooked bridge is not part of the settlement, which is being implemented by a joint team.

Having presided over a socio-economic transformation, lessening Malaysia’s dependence on commodities and deepening its industrialisation, Mahathir is entitled to claim considerable success. Driven hard by him, the country became the envy of the developing world, a favourite destination of foreign investment and an export dynamo.

A striking reduction in poverty and increasing affluence gave Malaysia the look and feel of a sophisticated, prosperous country, with a greatly expanded middle-class that included significant numbers of Malays.

Understandably, Mahathir takes pride in the North-South Expressway, the Kuala Lumpur International Airport and some of the other physical infrastructure that would not exist without his obsession with creating a modern, fully developed and respected nation.

‘Incredulous’ claims

But sometimes he is too eager to declare victory. For instance, he pronounces himself satisfied with Malaysia’s state-led stampede into heavy industry, even though the major elements of it, which he personally selected, floundered.

Proton, the national car, is uncompetitive and doomed unless rescued by a global auto manufacturer. Perwaja, the steelmaker, swallowed a fortune before being practically given away to a private operator in the late 1990s. And a cement factory on Langkawi also racked up losses and had to be sold during the Asian financial crisis.

Despite the hands-on style that characterised his rule, Mahathir presents himself as somehow above the vicious, increasingly corrupt jungle of Malay – specifically Umno – politics. Large-scale vote buying invaded Umno in 1986, but “unfortunately” he could not stop it, though he managed to resist unspecified “attempts to corrupt me”.

As Umno president, Mahathir says he seldom tried to influence party elections, and “saw no great need to campaign” even when challenged for the leadership by Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah in 1987. “If I did involve myself, it was with a general, not a personal, objective,” he says.

In reality, Mahathir secretly backed Musa Hitam against Razaleigh to be his deputy in 1981. After that, his open support for Musa ahead of another challenge by Razaleigh provoked widespread unhappiness that boiled over at the Umno General Assembly in 1983.

With this sort of dissembling, readers may be “incredulous”, as Mahathir concedes, when it comes to accepting his version of critical events.

Notably, readers are asked to believe that he, the elected leader of a constitutional monarchy, sacked the Lord President of the Supreme Court, Salleh Abas, in 1988 for no other reason than the Agong asked him to.

Then, Mahathir says he had to overcome his “personal doubts and feelings” and defer to the “expertise of the police” when detaining 119 people in Operation Lallang in 1987.

Corruption and cronyism

As for his children, “They did not directly benefit from my years as prime minister.” Perhaps not, though having a politically dominant father in an era whose hallmarks were corruption and cronyism was clearly no handicap.

According to a recent edition of Forbes Asia, Mokhzani Mahathir, 50, is the 15th richest Malaysian, worth a cool US$560 million.

Mahathir is proud that he always insisted on looking into details, “taking care of the pennies”, as he puts it. The trouble is that the pounds slipped through his fingers – and often into someone’s pocket.

While he admits losses of “some RM600 million” in Malaysia’s ill-fated attempt to manipulate the international price of tin in 1981, Mahathir shrinks from putting a price on three other world-class financial scandals that marred his tenure.

Foreign exchange speculation by Bank Negara in the early 1990s, which he concedes was a “second mistake” in the management of the country’s finances, cost an estimated RM23 billion. Perwaja, bled from within, lost RM15 billion or more, while the former state-owned Bank Bumiputra, routinely abused for years, dropped at least RM10 billion as it was bailed out four times.

The total, RM50 billion or so in direct losses, would easily double if a full professional accounting were made.

This article first appeared in Malaysiakini.

Melayu mudah lupa!

Book Review

A review of A Doctor in the House: The Memoirs of Tun Dr Mahathir (MPH, 2011) By Ooi Kee Beng, For The Star, 25 March 2011

BELIEVE it or not, Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad has been a part of Malaysian politics since World War II. Thus, his long-awaited memoirs easily drives home the fact that his influence runs deep and continues unabated, over 60 years later.

Not one to shy away from controversial views, he expressed grave disappointment with every one of Malaysia’s prime ministers and deputy prime ministers, barring Tun Abdul Razak Hussein.

Studying his words, one also sees that Mahathir was often in conflict with himself, for example when denying the key role he must have played in many failures and controversies.
He is also known for his willingness to do whatever it took to remain in power once he had reached the pinnacle in 1981. His deputies never had an easy time, and all of them fell by the wayside. Not even Tun Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, despite being the only one to reach the position of prime minister, could remain safe from Mahathir’s assailment.

The stamp of ownership Dr M put on Malaysian nation building is undeniable, and no one today doubts that both the good and the bad from his long period of dominance will continue for quite some time yet.

His 22 years in power were controversial ones, during which scandals broke one after the other, and opponents were at times arrested without trial. The latter actions, he now claims, were against his will.

But his tenure was also the time when Malaysia gained global prominence, not only as an economic wonder and a showcase for “moderate” Islam but also as a multiracial society that posed as champion of the South and the Muslim world as well.

However, after he stepped down in October 2003, the long-term effects of his method of nation building have become obvious. Institutional degradation threatens to be his lasting legacy, and the establishments ruined in his time include Umno itself.

One can thus understand that his memoirs was eagerly expected. Many wish to know how he perceives his own achievements, and even more want to see some regret.

Now that he is no longer a politician, can he exercise enough distance from his own past to achieve a credible narration of his life and achievements?

As it turns out, he can’t. Dr Mahathir cannot not be a politician. Perhaps how he sees himself is best noted in what he says about his daughter: “Marina turned out to be a lot like me: argumentative, stubborn, opinionated and always believing she is right. She does not mind expressing her views: and that makes things very difficult sometimes. (Tun Dr Siti) Hasmah always said that an elephant could get crushed between two people who think they are always right”. (Page 216.)

Doctor In The House, stretching over 800 pages, varies in style. It varies in depth as well, with some subjects studied much more at length and in detail than others.

Taking too long to finish a book has many drawbacks, the chief of which is that the parts will not gel well, making the final product feel like a collection of chapters written by different people. It does not help that Dr M dwells excessively on the chapters that are lessons in official history and not biographical.

I was certainly left wishing that he had had expert help or that he had listened more to whatever expert help he may have had when finishing the book.

The lack of proper referencing gets exasperating after a while since many claims made in the book certainly cry out for verification. Yet, it is not historical errors that are the major irritant. Many concepts, especially nationalistic notions, are thrown in without any consideration of their dubiousness. “Tanah Melayu” is used as if it were a reference to a bygone polity and not a term used by early anthropologists.

Mahathir’s potential for controversy was obvious already when he began publishing articles in The Sunday Times after the war. His first piece saw the light of day on July 20, 1947. It was about Malay women empowering themselves, and about how their “fervent nationalism and sympathetic understanding” actually inspired their men to struggle for their own survival.

This view on women is one of the more commendable aspects of Mahathir (page 235), as is his affection and respect for his wife, Dr Siti Hasmah, and his joy in fatherhood.

Some of his passing memories are amusing to read as well, and I am sure they bring a recognising smile to older Malaysians the way Lat’s cartoons do; by capturing passing pedestrian scenes that otherwise remain outside description.

Most other areas that he draws attention to are done in a much less amiable fashion. The issue of race, a 19th century notion that most social scientists today find well nigh impossible to define, let alone use, is not a problem for Dr Mahathir. And he does realise that much of what he had to say can be construed as racist or narcissistic (page 24).

But although that is not his stated intention, I have to say that the fervent and categorical use of “race” is disturbing and certainly makes his book unnecessarily racialist, if not racist.

Some narcissism is apparent when he exaggerates his role in the resistance against the Malay Union (pages 92-95) or when he claims that after his expulsion from Umno, “no one else was championing the cause of the Malays” (page 210).

He is probably right when complaining that he became persona non grata after Tunku Abdul Rahman kicked him out of Umno in 1970, but to be flabbergasted and to protest as avidly against being ignored after his retirement in 2003 is surely unjustified (pages 210, 243).

“Successors, even if they are of the same party, do not wish the people to remember their predecessors. Many try in different ways to obliterate memories of the recent past. This is easy if the predecessor is disgraced, yet even if the predecessor willingly surrenders power, a successor may be uncomfortable if he is remembered too kindly (page188).

The lack of a serious class analysis in the book is disturbing, as is Dr M’s tendency to place blame on others in analysing history.

He accuses the British of being unfair in devaluing the pound sterling without first telling Malaysia about it (page 189). But currency devaluations do not work unless they come as surprises; that is how capitalist finance is played. And accusing voters of being vindictive when not supporting him in 1969 also shows a warped understanding of what popular will and democracy is (page 196).

Dr Mahathir claims that Umno was being magnanimous in not playing racialism to the hilt when they cooperated with non-Malays back in the 1950s instead of embracing the Islamist splinter group, PAS, thus forgetting in the process that independence would not have been impossible otherwise (page 222).

Here, the myth of complete Malay unity as a default situation looms large despite the evidence. Umno’s subsequent weakness is blamed on non-Malay demands and not on the obvious reality that, for most people, ethnicity-based dominance is not always the paramount consideration in politics. Other dimensions such as inter-personal conflicts, profession, class, gender, education and urbanity, not to mention an endless array of historical circumstances, are equally relevant.

Needless to say, PAS is also blamed for being betrayers of the Malay cause (page 223), while Datuk Onn Ja’afar is not judged the same way despite his departure from Umno and his forming of alternative parties.

The Malays as such are also blamed. Shortcomings in the New Economic Policy are not blamed on the state and its administrators but on the greed and poor money management of the individual Malay (pages 232, 267).

Doctor In The House seeks to be more than a mere memoirs but ended up disappointing this reader, both as an autobiography and a lesson in Malaysian history. If the goal is to leave to posterity a simplified version of history easily digested by people prone to ethnocentric thinking, and highlighting the role Dr Mahathir played in it as understood by him in his twilight years, then that is immediately achieved.

But in presenting half truths, selective recollections and opportunistic rationale, Dr Mahathir’s book fails to bring greater understanding to his time in history.

Ooi Kee Beng is a Senior Fellow at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore. He is the author of The Reluctant Politician: Tun Dr Ismail And His Time (ISEAS 2006).

This post first appeared in ISEAS Viewpoints

Professor Kent Anderson, Dignitaries, Ladies and Gentlemen.

Assalamualaikum wbt, salam sejahtera, salam perjuangan.

Firstly allow me to extend a heartfelt thanks to the sponsor of this lecture, the School of Culture, History and Languages, and to the kind organizers who have provided me with this valuable opportunity to meet with all of you tonight – Malaysians, friends, supporters and Australians who are sometimes termed Malaysian watchers.

Before giving my talk I would also like to acknowledge that we are going through an exceptionally turbulent period of natural calamities– in such countries as Australia, New Zealand, Japan, and Brazil – and people’s uprisings in several Arab nations. I would like to express condolences to all who have died or suffered in these events.

Ladies and Gentlemen;

The last time I frequented Australia was prior to the historic events of March 2008 – when opposition parties broke the traditional government stranglehold on more than 2/3rds of seats in parliament, and won power in an unprecedented 5 states. I would like to think that politics would eventually be the vocation of choice for me. However, in all humility, I ony have all of you to thank in determining the natural progression into active politics that I took when I stood as a contestant in those General Elections.

Indeed, the events that stemmed from a rallying call termed Reformasi (or Reform) back in September 1998 were breathtaking in their emotional assault, but more also in terms of their long term impact. On many occasions I have been represented as the daughter of opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim – when in actual fact politically I am the Daughter or Child of Reformasi.

In the formative years following my father’s incarceration,  I rode on the same path and direction of political parties such as PAS (the Islamic Party), DAP – Democratic Action Party, and eventually Parti Keadilan Nasional (KEADILAN), and of various non governmental groups including the human rights group SUARAM, the Islamic youth movement ABIM, Insitut Kajian Dasar, and others.

Change is unavoidable, as politics is a dynamic, demanding yet mesmerizing field. I changed that fateful day of my father’s sacking in September 1998. This, and the events that followed, revealed a flagrant misuse of the nation’s public and democratic institutions, and brought to life an innate desire to participate and affect the direction of Malaysia’s future.

I was not the sole anak Reformasi. I was with a band of brothers and sisters – all of whom embraced Parti Keadilan Nasional as their very first political entity. Nik Nazmi Nik Ahmad, Sim TzeTzin, Chan Ming Kai, Amiruddin Shaari, Kesavan, Rafizi Ramli – most of whom are now legislators in their own right – all embraced Reformasi ideals and realized that if we were to remain relevant to the future, we had to work hard to ensure progressive ideals of multiracial politics in practice remained alive and kicking on the Malaysian electoral scene.  Above all we wanted to introduce political reform that would end the misuse of government institutions, introduce real democracy based on the rule of law, and reject the UMNO-dominated government approach of maintaining political power by dividing racial groups against one another.

The need for a political contract:

In recent months much effort has gone into debating what, if any, political or social contract was entered into when Malaya achieved independence in 1957. Instead of wasting time bickering about this, I prefer to draw attention to the ongoing plans by the ruling National Front, entitled the Government’s Transformation Agenda, or their ‘Bluebook’ (buku Biru Tua) and compare this to our Pakatan Rakyat’s Buku Jingga (Orange book).  In the government’s transformation agenda, there are four core initiatives, namely: the ‘1 Malaysia’ component, a government transformation program (bureaucratic efficiency), economic transformation programs (including nuclear energy) and the 10^th and 11^th Malaysia Plans (as implementing tools).

There is no plans for political reform in the BN’s Blue Book (Buku Biru Tua).

Our orange book, on the other hand, which lists our 100 day reform plan assuming we are given the mandate by the people in the next election. The central point of the Buku Jingga is, in contrast to the BN’s Bluebook, that Malaysia must implement political reform, since we can no longer afford the misuse of government institutions in our democracy as this greatly infringes upon the rights of the people – the rakyat.

To advance the cause of the Buku Jingga – Pakatan Rakyat legislators since August of last year have written several letters to my Prime Minister and made other efforts for constructive engagement with stakeholders from all sides of the political divide. These include a series of articles with the aim to advocate for a bi-partisan Democracy Rehabilitation Act to be jointly tabled, debated and passed in Parliament.

The Act consists of six items, which are:

(1) To revoke all Emergency Declarations

(2) To repeal all Emergency Ordinances

(3) To uphold the 20-point Sabah and 18-point Sarawak agreements as promised prior to the formation of Malaysia in September 16, 1963.

(4) To ensure Free & Fair elections

(5) To reestablish Local Government Elections (suspended in 1964 through an Emergency Ordinance)

(6) To guarantee the rights of a free media

To date our efforts to reach out have been largely ignored. But in the current parliamentary sitting I have submitted an application for a private member’s bill as a democracy test case which is called The Emergency Revocation Act.

Malaysia has been under Emergency rule, whereby any decrees issued are not subject to judicial review, since the 1960s. A constitutional amendment in 1960 provided that an Emergency remains in place until revoked by parliament. Emergency rule has been invoked on four occasions – in 1964 because of confrontation with Indonesia, 1966 and 1977 to address state political problems in Sarawak and Kelantan, and1969 following racial riots in Kuala Lumpur. I have called for these Emergency declarations to be revoked. There are 82 related ordinances and laws that stem from the emergency laws that in their totality and intent was meant for a different time and now serves a very different purpose of repressing democratic rights.

Whether this bill sees the light of day is subject to a very constrained parliamentary procedural framework created by the second Prime Minister, Tun Abdul Razak, (father of the present PM) that limits the efficacy of the opposition to perform their legitimate duties as elected representatives in parliament. Again this is another anti-democratic element that characterises the nature of the sitting government of the day.

In addition, with the support of Dato Ambiga Sreenevasan, I have submitted an application to obtain a publishing permit for another bi-partisan initiative which is a weekly newspaper called Utusan Rakyat (People’s Message) which is still pending. My involvement, together with Dato Ambiga is as members of the advisory board of the paper. We are still waiting for YM Tengku Razaleigh, National Front MP for Gua Musang’s agreement to join us as an advisory member.

The process usually takes at least two months. As the application was submitted two weeks ago it will be some time before approval becomes possible. There is an urgent need for such a publication, as there is no free press like what you enjoy here. No information, no transparency, no accountability and no democracy.

Building a ‘New Universal Doctrine for Democracy’ (or a political contract)

We have embarked on yet another initiative towards the same end which is to advocate for Political Reform and the Rehabilitation of Democracy of my country.

I am committed to speak out and even to  shout out the voice of the Malaysian people especially the younger generation that will inherit the political sins of our elders for freedom and democracy at every opportunity. Today there is such an opportunity.

Younger Malaysians have begun to embrace what we have called a ‘New Universal Doctrine for Democracy’; a reflection of a new kind of politics, based on hope and liberation – much inspired by the Egyptian revolution.

I am totally aware that many similar attempts have been made by others, but we feel compelled to re-frame it from the perspective of members of the young generation, unburdened by the baggage of history but instead inspired by the aspiration  to remake/build a free democratic world for all. The youth live by ideals and the hope of a better future.

Central Component of the Doctrine – Free and Fair Elections

Sovereignty lies with a legitimately elected government, chosen in free and fair elections.

Therefore, sovereignty is not based on geographical borders or with the instruments of power but rather on the democratic rights of the people. For example, in Libya, the world community or specifically the Arab League has recognised the legitimacy of the opposition and not Gaddafi. In such an extreme case, we see most of the world beginning to recognise the legitimacy of the peoples uprising in the streets rather than the sitting government as it is recognised as the popular expression of the will of the people.

Hence, in essence, recognising the legitimacy of an entity  centres around one common variable which is the expression of the people’s will. But if this expression of the people’s will is denied or manipulated at the ballot box, then this action is tantamount to denying or robbing the democratic rights of the people. The world should not recognise the erroneously elected government as being legitimate and hence is not under the sovereignty rights of a state.

The act to deny or manipulate a free and fair election is political piracy. This is even worse than the conventional piracy on the high seas like in the Gulf of Aden against Somali pirates that witnessed a coordinated and concerted international response with the justification that a ship registered and carrying the flag of another nation is under the sovereignty of a state and when in international waters justifies international response. But apart from international law the main reason for such a swift international response is that the Somali pirates are a threat to world trade. Then political piracy of denying the people the democratic right of a free and fair election is also a threat to international peace and democracy and warrants a similar international attention and response.

In the case of sovereignty and international jurisdiction on the high seas, a vessel registered and flying the flag of the nation it registered in is considered the sovereign property of the said nation.The ship or vessel is the sovereign artefact. Now if we were to extend the same argument that the ballot box like the vessel is the sovereign property of the people and not the government or the state as the ballot box is the instrument that defines and confers legitimacy and sovereignty to the elected representatives; then the international community has the legal, ethical and moral right to respond to any government that denies and manipulates the election process.

Therefore, the ballot box and the election process which is the universal democratic right of a people would be under international jurisdiction for verification and certification by an international election commission or body preferably within the United Nation’s framework.

In the event the election were determined to be rigged and the process unfair, then the international community must demand a new supervised election barring which if it is rejected calls for immediate international response that could begin with  a travel ban, asset freeze, ICJ indictment and sanctions against the government leaders, their families and proxies who are deemed political pirates.

The legality and more importantly the morality of such international response is ‘just cause’. If governments welcome international response to assist materially and militarily in times of natural disasters or in the defence of her borders, then the international community has a moral imperative and ‘just cause’ to defend the sovereignty of the people’s ballot box which determines the legitimacy of the elected government to represent them.

Efforts to ensure free and fair elections in Malaysia should include:

(1) The use of indelible ink (as is done in Indonesia and India) to prevent multiple voting

(2) The abolition of postal votes – because these are not subject to the usual public scrutiny and have hitherto always overwhelmingly favoured the government – except for diplomats and overseas voters

(3) A complete revision of the electoral roll to ensure that the existing irregularities are removed and a roll with full integrity is in place

(4) All contesting parties should enjoy fair access to state-owned media especially television and radio

(5) Effective governance and public transparency of campaign finance to eliminate corrupt practices, which includes state finance to parties for compulsory capacity building for women candidates and marginal groups and gender sensitivity training

Ladies and Gentlemen;

The current government of the day is not a legitimate government, even though Malaysia has held 12 general elections. The democratic rights of the people have been denied, as extensively documented by BERSIH 2.0 ( a Malaysian civil society NGO for a Free and Fair Election) headed by my respected friend, Dato Ambiga.

Election arrangements need to be changed so that other executive excesses can be reigned in – ranging from massive state-sponsored corruption, political dominance over the judiciary, exploitation of communal divisions for political gain, and government by law rather than government of the law.

It is my greatest hope that the current BN government implements political reforms and conducts Free and Fair Elections immediately. And after all that is done and if they are  still elected by the people, then I would gladly be a member of the loyal opposition in a free and democratic Malaysia.

I am acutely aware that this idea of a universal doctrine for democracy faces many challenges to be accepted and adopted internationally. Yet if each democratic nation takes the moral courage to act on it by giving notice to dictators and anti-democratic governments that concrete measures will be taken against them, then this may be the spark that will light up the spirit of freedom and democracy everywhere and the first step in a long march to a better world.

Finally, I wish to end with a compelling reminder that all democratic governments in the world  owe it to the people especially the young generation of all nations that will inherit the burden and pay the price of a failed illegitimate anti-democratic government that are guilty of political piracy and economic plundering, to take action in a common resolve for a common cause, now. Indeed, time and righteousness waits for no man or woman.

Thank you.

Mahathir Mohamed has a penchant for tall tales

“What’s in a name?” asks Shakespeare’s Juliet. “That which we call a rose,” she avers, “by any other name would smell as sweet.” Likewise, “Malaysia.”

So what is in a name, and behind this one?

In a recent blog post (Semenanjung Tanah Melayu, March 3, 2011) Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad has repeated the claim — now almost a commonplace in the thinking of many Malaysian citizens — that it was only when the Tunku consented to the blandishments and machinations of retreating British power in the region that the name “Malaysia” was suggested for the newly proposed federation of the pensinsular Malay states, Sarawak, North Borneo (Sabah) and Singapore.

With that, Tun Dr Mahathir asserts, the Federation of Malaya (understood as the Malay Lands or States) or Persekutuan Tanah Melayu came to an untimely and underserved “official” end.

In effect, this claim holds, that older name or identity was throttled by an entirely new coinage, a hitherto unprecedented idea, a crude and ungainly neologism, and then buried under its weight.

The name and idea of “Malaysia”, this view holds, came into currency together with the new political entity that it was devised to designate. After a precarious pregnancy over the preceding two years, it was born in September 1963.

Of course, in the late 1930s the great United States scholar of regional, especially Malayan, affairs Rupert Emerson had used this same name as the tile of his great and very perceptive book about what its colonial masters saw and dubbed as “British Malaya”: Malaysia: A Study in Direct and Indirect Rule (Macmillan, New York, 1937).

So in 1961 it was hardly a brand new coinage.

But there is more to the story than that.

More challenging is what is to be learned from the voluminous documentary evidence published by the British Government in a massive archive about the worldwide post-World War Two decolonisation process.

Those published documents inform us that, among all the other questions that had to be resolved as part of the “Merdeka Process” — including notably the question of citizenship and the timing of independence — there was also considerable discussion, and some basic difference, even between the various Alliance Party partners about what the name of the new independent political entity should be.

The main non-Malay partner parties, the MCA and MIC, favoured the simple, unadorned and declarative name of “Malaya”.

For them it acknowledged the country’s Malay background and history but spoke of an entity, like “British Malaya”, that by now was not exclusively Malay. This was the meaning that the term “Malaya” had popularly acquired during the 1920s and 1930s.

The Umno had other ideas. It put a different proposal. Surprisingly, we may now think, they favoured a bold, new forward-looking name. Perhaps echoing Emerson, in the course of the Merdeka negotiations they proposed the name “Malaysia”.

This innovation won little support or enthusiasm from anyone, not from the Umno’s allies or from the retreating English.

In the end a compromise was reached, one of minimal disruption, of maximum continuity. Following the collapse of the 1946 Malayan Union proposals, the Federation of Malaya or “Persekutuan Tanah Melayu” was created in 1948.

As the country inched, and then sped, towards independence in the mid-1950s under Umno impetus, a compromise proposal was put and accepted. In the interests of a reassuring continuity, a line of minimal disturbance, or of least resistance, was ultimately favoured.

To minimise the possibility of contentious differences erupting among the Alliance partners, and also to evident British satisfaction, the continuity between the new independent sovereign nation and the political arrangements from which it was to emerge would be emphasised.

All parties accordingly agreed simply to preserve and extend the use of the current name.

A new nation, perhaps, this was. But it was a familiar name, a known country in the otherwise often bewildering post-colonial kaleidoscope.

So “The Federation of Malaya” or “Persekutuan Tanah Melayu” it was to be.

The compromise was accepted by all. But things might well have been otherwise. History could so easily have been different — if only Umno had got its way.

Had the Umno had its initial way, the new sovereign independent nation would have been named and known from the start in 1957 as “Malaysia”.

“These,” if I may quote a far greater man than myself, “are the facts of history”.

* Clive S. Kessler is Emeritus Professor of Sociology & Anthropology at the University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia.

This article first appeared in The Malaysian Insider

Protesting racist UMNO policies?

Malaysia was once regarded as one of Asia’s most promising emerging economies, but over the last decade that story has soured. Output growth has cooled, and foreign investment plummeted from its peak in 2008. The government’s failure to speed up economic reform is partly to blame, but the underlying cause of the policy gridlock is social tension. With the United Malays National Organization at its head, the ruling National Front coalition maintains an uneasy peace between the country’s three main ethnic groups: Malays, Indians and Chinese.

Protests by Indian activists last month reveal just how fragile that peace is. The controversy arose late last year when the government announced the addition of “Interlok,” a 1971 Malay-language novel, to the curriculum in some public schools. Cabinet ministers from the Malaysian Indian Congress, the largest ethnic-Indian party in the National Front, cried foul, saying that the novel depicted the Indian community in an offensive way.

The issue ignited furious debate in the Malaysian media but did not at first seem to threaten broader unrest. A group of ethnic-Indian NGOs undertook a formal investigation of the novel’s content and found that it did contain a number of historical errors and misrepresentations. In mid-January the Ministry of Education convened a committee to amend the novel’s offensive bits, apparently satisfying the MIC.

The situation intensified, however, when two Indian-rights organizations—the Hindu Rights Action Force, or Hindraf, and a splinter group, the Human Rights Party—called for nationwide protests against both the book and what they say are UMNO’s “racist” policies generally. Hindraf was banned in 2008 for holding a massive antiracism rally the year before, at which hundreds of its supporters were jailed under the country’s stiff Internal Security Act. Last month, police denied the groups’ requests for public-assembly permits and threatened to charge anyone who attended protests with participating in unlawful organizations.

Undeterred, demonstrators took to the streets in several cities, first on Feb. 13 and then in greater numbers last Sunday. Police delivered on the promised crackdown, patrolling the protest route with trucks and keeping water cannons menacingly nearby. Around Kuala Lumpur, officers appeared to be accosting anyone even suspected of being a Hindraf sympathizer. On Sunday over 100 people were jailed, and though most were released the next day, 11 remain under investigation.

This sort of response to peaceful protests shows the troubled state of civil liberties in Malaysia. Since taking office in 2009, Prime Minister Najib Razak has clamped down on the press, jailed bloggers and suppressed public demonstrations, all in the name of maintaining unity and stability. In a speech early last month, he cautioned his countrymen against getting any ideas from the revolutions unfolding in the Arab world. “We will stop any attempt to bring such trouble into Malaysia,” he said.

In part, it was the National Front that created the conditions for the present turmoil to begin with. Less well-off than Malaysia’s Chinese, Indians attribute their economic woes to affirmative-action rules that favor ethnic Malays in hiring and education. Groups like Hindraf accuse the ruling coalition of yielding too readily to nativist Malay voices that agitate against meritocratic reforms.

Political games seem also to be afoot in the Indian groups’ rabble-rousing, though. Hindraf and the HRP are likely using the present conflict to galvanize the Indian community ahead of a general election expected later this year. They may even calculate that an excessively harsh reaction by the government or ethnic-Malay factions to protests will win them additional public favor.

But the MIC has distanced itself from last month’s unrest, and even opposition parties like the National Justice Party, or PKR, appear uneasy about siding with the protesters. Addressing his supporters in January, PKR chief Anwar Ibrahim advised against using the “Interlok” issue to score political points. “It would be extremely useful for the Ministry of Education to listen to reasonable comments on ‘Interlok’ and not to turn it into a divisive political issue,” he said.

Too late for that, it seems. Malaysia’s Indians have legitimate reason to feel marginalized in society and ignored by their own leaders. But the risk now is that political parties representing the three races will be steered by extremist groups that exacerbate conflict for their own gain. The past month’s events suggest that years of redistributive policies designed to paper over ethnic divisions have only perpetuated the strife instead.

This article first appeared in The Wall Street Journal.

The year 2010 has been remarkable in the recent economic history of Malaysia not only because the economy recovered from the GDP contraction in 2009 but also because Malaysia recorded its highest GDP growth rate since 2004.

The Malaysian economy has apparently recovered from the global financial crisis as it grew by 7.2 per cent in 2010 after contracting by 1.7 per cent in 2009. The growth rate of 7.2 per cent achieved in 2010 is also more impressive than the growth rates achieved each year since 2004.

The main sources of growth in the economy in 2010 were manufacturing and services, which increased by 11.4 per cent and 6.8 per cent respectively. The main export destinations for the manufactured goods were the United States, China, Singapore, Europe and Japan thus confirming that Malaysia was still dependent on the United States and the traditional markets for its exports.

The sources of growth in the manufacturing sector was mainly from the export of electrical and electronic goods. On the other hand, the sources of growth in the services sector were mainly from domestic economic activities in the finance, insurance and in wholesale and retail trade.

Most of the exports were also labour intensive as Malaysia is at the lower levels of the supply chain in the East Asian production of electronic and electrical goods and other manufactured goods.

Although manufactures and services are the main sources of growth, Malaysia has not completely moved away from the resource curse. During the great financial crisis of 2007-2009, it had to rely on the exports of rubber, palm oil and crude oil to generate positive economic growth.

However, the positive contributions of rubber, palm and crude oil were not sufficient to compensate for the loss in export earnings due to the sharp decline in the demand for manufactured goods during the depth of the crisis in 2009, when the Malaysian economy contracted.

Moreover, there are also limits to growth in the agricultural sector. There was a reduction in palm and crude oil output in the fourth quarter of 2010 as supply could not be increased in the short run.

The strong export performance of primary commodities, especially palm and crude oil, has contributed to the steep appreciation of the ringgit against the US dollar. The ringgit appreciated by about 11 per cent between January 2009 and February 2010. The Malaysian government and the Central Bank (Bank Negara Malaysia) appear to be quite comfortable with the appreciation as they consider the appreciation as reflecting the fundamentals of the economy.

One of the fundamentals is the sustainability of the current account surplus, which has been very positive in recent years due in large part to the sharp rise in the price of primary commodities. This rise has helped to reduce the impact of a decline in external demand for manufactured goods.

But the positive and perhaps large current account surplus is dependent on demand from China and India, whose economies are also dependent on external demand from Europe and the USA. If growth falters in the West and as a consequence growth declines in China and India, the sustainability of Malaysia’s large current account surplus may be brought into question.

The appreciation of the ringgit is also due to the positive real interest rate in Malaysia. The nominal rate of 2.75 per cent is still above the inflation rate of about 2.2 per cent.

Having a positive real interest rate is an attraction because real interest rates in the major growth centres are negative. This has attracted foreign funds, especially short term hot money, into Malaysia’s stock market, whose index is currently at a historic high of more than 1,500.

In contrast to short term portfolio investments, the amount of long term foreign direct investments (FDI) inflows is minuscule. In the third quarter of 2010, more than RM16.3 billion (S$6.82 billion) of foreign portfolio investments poured into Malaysia whereas in the same quarter of 2010, Malaysia was only able to attract about RM4.4 billion of long term FDI.

In the fourth quarter of 2010, the inflow of FDI improved to RM8.3 billion. Most of the FDI was channelled into electrical and electronics goods and petroleum-related industries.

Malaysia is not keen to increase interest rates as it is wary of choking the private sector and is eager to increase private investments. Furthermore, if interest rates are increased, it may attract more volatile short term capital inflows.

However, in not wanting to increase interest rates, it risks the chance that inflation will increase and thus the incidence of poverty in the country especially since the government has been phasing out subsidies gradually.

Government subsidies have grown over time and expenditure has exceeded revenue and thus the national budget has been in deficit for more than a decade.

In the coming year, although growth forecasts are positive, the Malaysian economy will continue to be unfavourably affected by a decline in external demand; rising inflationary pressures and the prospect of large and volatile short term capital inflows.

The writer is a visiting senior research fellow in the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies (ISEAS), Singapore

This article first appeared in ISEAS viewpoints

Phony affirmative action?

When then-Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad launched his Vision 2020 in 1991, Malaysia’s reputation as a prosperous and harmonious multi-ethnic country was the envy of much of Asia. One of the key pillars of the blueprint to propel Malaysia from a rapidly developing to a fully industrialized country was to accelerate and deepen policies that transferred economic power and resources to indigenous Malays in order to ensure the “fair and equitable distribution of wealth.” Since then a number of World Bank experts and veteran Malaysia watchers, such as Professor Hal Hill from the Australian National University, are becoming increasingly worried about the country’s long-term future. Even the current Prime Minister, Najib Razak, admits that reform in the sensitive but critical area of affirmative action appears to have stalled. In Najib’s New Economic Model (NEM), which he announced in March 2010, a Malaysian leader for the first time criticized important aspects of these decades-old policies and linked them to many of the country’s structural problems.

Najib is correct that Malaysia cannot make the transition from a middle- to high-income country without winding back these long-standing affirmative action policies. But there are significant barriers working against the possibility of meaningful reform.

As any Malaysian will tell you, the 1969 race riots between indigenous Bumiputra (the Muslim Malays who were then 50 percent of the population and constitute 65 percent of the current population) and Chinese-Malaysians remains the defining event in the country’s history. The acceleration of affirmative action policies from 1971 onward was an understandable response to the national trauma of the violence. Even so, given that the race riots were largely caused by social-economic racial divisions within the country, many believe Malaysia’s leaders could have responded by attempting to move the country away from ideologies and policies that emphasized and entrenched racial differences. But one has to concede that in important indicators, such as poverty reduction among Bumiputra Malays, much progress has been made over 40 years. It is arguable that overall national economic growth is as much, if not more, responsible than pro-Malay policies in raising the living standards of Bumiputras. Nevertheless, the number of Malays living in absolute poverty has fallen from 60 percent in 1971 to between 5 percent and 10 percent today.

A LEGACY OF DEFICITS

The obsession, however, with improving the lives of Bumiputra-Malaysians rather than all Malaysians has come at a heavy price. Improving the lot of the poorest—the majority of whom remain Malays—is essential. But implementing an ever-expanding program of state-led economic “restructuring” and “redistribution” initiatives is a seductive but dangerous path for governments to take. The National Economic Policy (NEP) began in 1971 and formally ended in 1991. Many NEP affirmative action policies are still in place today (and some have even been extended). This living legacy is behind much of the pessimism surrounding the country today.

There are several major reasons for this. First, many economists are rightly skeptical of the benefits of an ever-expanding role of the state within a “free market” economy—particularly when interventionist policies are designed to engineer social objectives rather than promote growth. The primary problem is one of numbers. In a global policy environment rightly wary of ballooning budget deficits, the fact that the Malaysian government has been in deficit every year since the introduction of the NEP in 1971 (except for a period from 1993 to 1998) is troubling. This is particularly the case since Kuala Lumpur spends much less on social services than do Western governments. The economic numbers look even more troubling when one considers that around 40 percent of the government’s revenue comes from the state-owned oil and gas giant Petronas. This is the case for two reasons. First, Petronas is forced to pay a massive 60 percent to 70 percent of its profit in dividends each year—74 percent in 2010—just to sustain the government’s spending programs. And second, the company’s Malaysian-based reserves (which constitute the majority of Petronas’ known reserves) are due to expire in around 15 years.

Second, an essential pillar of any successful economy is the emergence of a strong, independent entrepreneurial corporate class capable of competing with the best in the world. This is where Malaysia potentially has a problem. Although it is overreach to damn all Bumiputra-run businesses as lacking creativity and dynamism, there is no doubt that economic protection in the name of affirmative action can lead to unproductive and wasteful habits. If nothing else, foreign perceptions that Malaysia’s affirmative action economic environment makes the country an uncompetitive place to invest is damage enough.

DECLINE IN FOREIGN DIRECT INVESTMENT

Much of Najib’s tough talk in his NEM is to make Malaysia once again a preferred destination for foreign capital. Malaysia’s net foreign direct investment (FDI) fell from $2.56 billion in 2004 to negative $7.67 billion in 2008 and recovered to only $1.95 billion in 2009—the worse decline among its developing and developed neighbors. The U.N.’s World Foreign Investment Report 2010 revealed that Malaysia’s net FDI trailed such neighbors as Thailand, Vietnam, Singapore, Indonesia, and the Philippines. Indeed, in an embarrassing comedown for the former rising star, Cambodia, Myanmar, Brunei, Laos, and East Timor are the only countries in the region attracting less FDI than Malaysia. Worryingly, even domestic entrepreneurs are voting with their capital, as public investment exceeds private investment in the economy.

Third, just as companies seek to retain their best talent, Malaysia has a reputation for pushing away its best Chinese and Indian citizens. More than 250,000 people left Malaysia from March 2008 to August 2009 (not including students studying abroad). There are no figures on the racial mix of those leaving, but overwhelming anecdotal evidence suggests that a high proportion of ethnic Chinese and Indians are in this group. Once again, not all exits can be blamed on affirmative action policies, but even Najib has admitted it is a priority to make the country more attractive so as to encourage thousands of the skilled (non-Malay) diaspora to return.

The honest appraisal of not just Malaysia’s problems but the reasons behind these is admirable. But formidable obstacles block Najib. Most significant is the ruling United Malays National Organization (UMNO) reliance on such an affirmative action political and social contract between the party and Malay elites to remain in power. Among countries that hold elections, UMNO has been in government longer than any other party in the world. It is not surprising that Najib has few supporters in his own cabinet to revise and wind back existing policies significantly. In 2004, UMNO gained 63 percent of the popular vote. After the party’s shellacking in the 2008 general elections, when it gained only 50.6 percent of the popular vote and lost its two-thirds majority in Parliament for the first time since Malaysian independence (and with it the capacity to make amendments to the constitution), it is even more unlikely that the UMNO’s brain trust would seek to alienate its strongest supporters—or precipitate an all-out civil war over reform. One such manifestation of early internecine strife is the rise of Perkasa after the 2008 election. Perkasa is a nongovernmental, nationalist group lobbying to preserve and extend the economic, social, and cultural privileges of Bumiputras, and it claims to have more that 300,000 members—at least 60 percent of whom are UMNO members. Many Malays abandoned UMNO not because they wanted to abolish the affirmative action policies but because they wanted a larger slice of the affirmative action pie.

Furthermore, the role of Malaysia’s 1.2 million public servants in implementing any reforms is critical. The problem is that these civil servants are the strongest supporters of affirmative action, since many of their jobs were created by a growing state apparatus designed to implement these policies. In the current political climate, Najib can hardly afford to alienate this constituency. The Prime Minister is also relying on these civil servants—95 percent of whom are Malays—to overcome the deeply entrenched pro-Bumiputra culture.

It is still too early to assess the capacity of the Malaysian government to introduce genuine reform. So far, little has been done to roll back pro-Bumiputra restructuring and redistribution policies or initiatives that would reduce the role of the state in the economy. Significantly, Najib has backed away from abandoning the four-decade-old sacred tenet that Malays own at least 30 percent of all corporate assets in the country. The Prime Minister’s NEM is a brave political gamble—and a necessary economic one. But the battle has only just begun.

John Lee, who was born in Ipoh, Malaysia, is a research fellow at the Centre for Independent Studies in Sydney, Australia, and the Hudson Institute in Washington, D.C. His paper, “Malaysian Dilemma: The enduring cancer of affirmative action,” was released by CIS this week.

This article first appeared in Bloomberg Asia

Protest against the use of Allah by non-Muslims

The Malaysian government has revived an interfaith committee which, according to Prime Minister Najib Razak, could serve as a mechanism to resolve problems and issues (related to religion) through “honest and frank discussions”. The committee was actually formed almost a year ago, in April 2010, after the brouhaha over the issue of Christians using the word ‘Allah’ to refer to God, which saw protest demonstrations in Kuala Lumpur and even some attacks on churches in different parts of the country.

However, the committee was stillborn since it was roundly attacked even before it could sit down to meet. Non-Muslim members of the committee decided to boycott it after a comment by Deputy Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin that the committee only consisted of ‘small-fry’ and it would not have any influence. Then, the Perak Fatwa Committee objected to the panel, citing that all other religions could not be placed on equal footing with Islam. Not to be outdone, the Malay right wing NGO, Perkasa, opposed the appointment of Koh Tsu Koon, Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department, as the minister in charge of the committee. Perkasa insisted that it had to come under the guidance of Jamil Khir Baharom, the Islamic Affairs Minister in the Prime Minister’s
Department.Finally, the council of muftis disagreed to the name of the committee ‘Special Committee to Promote Inter-Religious Harmony and Understanding (SCPIRHU)’ citing the term ‘Inter-Religious’ would cause confusion among Malaysian Muslims. Though the April 2010 inter-faith committee did not take off, efforts were made to revive it later in the year. Thirty-five new members were appointed and made public on 14 February 2011 by Najib when Malaysia joined other countries to celebrate World Interfaith Harmony Week for the first time.

Recent Developments

Najib showed perseverance in reviving the inter-faith committee. He has clearly expressed support for the committee and promised allocations to it so that it could perform its tasks. The process, if sustained, will mark a milestone in Malaysian efforts to advance inter-religious dialogue at the national level. It is worthwhile highlighting that the idea of an inter-faith panel was mooted as far back as the early 1980s only to be shot down by Muslim groups, including the government’s Islamic Development Department (JAKIM). Another initiative in 2005 by the Malaysian Bar Council to set up an Inter-Faith Commission suffered a similar fate with the then PM
Abdullah Badawi quickly sweeping the proposal under the carpet.

The fact that so little publicity has been given to the new committee only shows how carefully Najib is approaching the issue of inter-faith dialogue. When talking about the new committee on 14 February, he made it clear that its discussions would be held closed-door as religious matters were “very sensitive” and if discussed in public would “lead to criticisms and opinions which may hurt others”. To address criticisms from Islamic clerics, the name of the inter-faith committee has been changed to the ‘Committee for the Understanding and Harmony among Religious Adherents’.

Najib also sought to downplay expectations by asking the public to be more patient with the interfaith committee and not to expect it to resolve all issues within a short span of time. Later in the week, Najib told a gathering of 800 Islamic religious teachers in Kuala Lumpur that Islam could not be put on equal footing with other religions, obviously to deflect any possible criticism that he was promoting religious pluralism.

The Challenges

The reactions in Malaysia arising from the controversy over the usage of the word ‘Allah’ by Christians in 2010 showed that the need for some mechanism to resolve religious disputes in the country was long overdue. However, while the creating of the inter-faith committee is a big step forward, the challenges it faces are so daunting that only the excessively optimistic will believe that it can succeed. The first challenge it faces is convincing key individuals and religious organisations within the government establishment, let alone Muslim groups outside the government community, that inter-faith dialogue is a good idea. This is important as the
Muslim community in Malaysia is the key player in any inter-faith dialogue.

However, the history of inter-faith dialogue shows that the concept has never been well-received by the Muslim community. Thus, the willingness of all participants in the committee to be genuinely engaged in constructive dialogue and to find a common ground in resolving issues on such contentious matters as religious conversion and custodial rights will be a significant challenge they will face.

The second major challenge facing both the committee and the government is to prevent any serious politicisation of the interfaith dialogue. This will be difficult to achieve even if there are no politicians in the current committee. The reality is that religion, especially the official religion of Malaysia, Islam, is deeply embedded in politics in Malaysia. Moreover, religious and political discourse in Malaysia is often intertwined. Hence, while the discussions can be well controlled at the closed door sessions of the committee, its findings and conclusions will have to be disclosed eventually and become subject to public debate. Managing the issue
then will be a major challenge for the government as things could easily get intractable.

As a country that often takes pride in its multiracial and multi religious richness, Malaysia in recent years finds itself confronted with the darker side of religious diversity. The revival of the inter-faith committee shows that religious plurality in Malaysia can no longer be taken for granted. And it has to be managed delicately with much perseverance and sensitivity if the process is ever to succeed.

Choong Pui Yee is a Research Analyst with the Malaysia Programme at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Nanyang Technological University.

This article first appeared in RSIS Commentaries

Book Review

Gush and glibness spread through Tom Plate’s ‘Doctor M: Operation Malaysia – Conversations with Mahathir Mohamad’ like irksome background noise. And rather than show us the former prime minister of Malaysia for what he is, Plate tells us how to picture him.

One of the most fawning comments Plate (left) makes about Mahathir, whom he generously plugs as a “soft authoritarian”, is that “the best doctors are almost always soft authoritarians. They make you take the medicine that’s good for you, whether you like it or not.”

That’s hard to swallow, and not just because it’s a gross generalisation.

The American career journalist’s book of his interviews with Mahathir is essentially gung-ho journalism as entertainment – with the non-self-effacing interviewer appearing as a commentator as well (sometimes as a stand-up comic, too), and the subject airbrushed to look like a hero.To be sure, we get glimpses into the subject’s dark side, but only enough to give the required colouring.

Plate hails Mahathir during his 22 years in office as “arguably the world’s single most important practising Muslim national political leader”. In typical hyperbolic fashion, he dubs Mahathir “the ultimate anti-al-Qaeda” (my italics).

“Jews may think he is their enemy, and maybe they are right. But in my view they have got it wrong – tragically wrong.”

That’s the main thesis of his book, and he goes all out to affirm it. He is amazed – and impressed – that during Mahathir’s rule, Islamic terrorism erupted in many parts of the world whereas Malaysia was totally free of violence. That, for him, accounts for Mahathir’s prowess as an Islamic leader to be lauded by the world.

Any sensible Malaysian could have told him that this was simply because Mahathir created a culture of fear. He had the ISA and an excellent Special Branch that could nip any trouble in the bud. He did not tolerate public dissent and he muzzled the media.

Plate takes the line that “maybe this place doesn’t have as many crazies as Indonesia, but it must have some” and asks Mahathir: “What was it about Dr M’s management of Malaysia, his government’s management of the Muslims? They were responsible citizens.”

Again, any sensible Malaysian could have told him it was because Mahathir gave paramountcy to Islam and Muslims. So why should Malaysian Muslims be disgruntled? And as for Islamic terrorists from outside, why would they target Malaysia, a brother Muslim country?

Protective of thesis

Plate is barking up the wrong tree. His thesis is flawed. But he appears ever protective of it.

There is even one occasion, as recounted in the book, when Plate seems more protective of his thesis than having the opportunity of portraying what Mahathir really is. This is over Mahathir’s assertion that there were hardly any Jews in the World Trade Centre when 9/11 happened.

To himself, Plate admits that this “seemed a borderline scary assertion, factually inaccurate (in fact, there were hundreds of Jews among the fatalities)”. But he doesn’t correct Mahathir.

Instead, he feels worried that Mahathir might say more, that he might endorse “the ludicrous hypothesis that the government of Israel had secretly orchestrated the 9/11 attacks”. And when Mahathir doesn’t say more, Plate actually sighs “with enormous relief”.

“It became one of those rare times in our conversations that I was truly glad to see him pull up, for to doubt his maturity (not to mention his mental health) would not be healthy for the book. Or for my thesis that Mahathir’s life and views are of profound relevance today.”

Plate notes that a few months later, “after we finished our series of conversations”, Mahathir “came out with a lulu” when he said if the US was capable of making the movie Avatar, it was capable of staging 9/11.

That, as Malaysians know, was one of the most laughable statements ever made by anyone, but Plate merely leaves it as a by-the-by. Obviously, pursuing it would have compromised his thesis.

He is generally gentle with Mahathir. He is seldom confrontational; he asks politely framed questions, and when an issue looks in danger of getting heated, he eases off.

Thus, when it comes to the issue of some of “Dr M’s relatives (being) worth plenty, and that the good doctor himself has funds and shares stashed here and there (and especially in Japan) and everywhere”, he doesn’t push it. He chooses instead to project Mahathir as the humble wage-earner who as PM made less than US$3,000 a month, “like a meagre US journalist’s pension”.

Mahathir comes out looking like a saint who says he’s not greedy and that his “real reward is achievement”.

When it comes to Malaysian issues, Plate often does not ask the right questions or press on with relevant follow-up ones.

Here’s one question he could have asked Mahathir but did not when the latter said he was against detaining the 106 people during Operasi Lalang: “Why then did you, as Home Minister, sign the order to detain 40 of them for two years?”

When Plate asks, “Does the government of Malaysia have good control over ISA?” and Mahathir answers, “Yes”, he could have followed that up with: “Then why did the government detain an innocent journalist under the ISA in 2008 and even say, stupidly, that it was for her own protection?”

Alarmingly, Plate goes to the extent of justifying Mahathir’s management style as “politically efficient corruption”. One would have thought corruption was corruption, but Plate prettifies it here: “Dr M kind of bribed the whole country to behave! … (it) produces something of value that cannot always be quantifiable: getting key elements of a society to buy into the system so as to attain political stability … it may be the most politically efficient.”

This would normally belong in the realm of spin-doctoring, but in journalism these days, you never know!

In any case, Plate’s book is not hard-talk, hard-core journalism stuff. It’s written for a popular audience, and comes complete with hyperboles, corny bits (“If nothing else, the Proton was further evidence … of Dr M’s protean will”) and naïve remarks by the author.

His chapter titles, modelled after the James Bond movies for the laughable reason that Mahathir is a man of action, are not only corny but also strained. A bad-taste example is ‘Die Another Way?’, the chapter on the 9/11 deaths.

On the whole, ‘Dr M: Operation Malaysia’ seems closer to cosmetic surgery than dissection. For a more substantial interview, without the pop and the corn and the showman-like sheen, you’d be better off reading ‘Hard Truths’.

KEE THUAN CHYE is the author of ‘March 8: The Day Malaysia Woke Up‘, which won 3rd prize in the Popular Readers’ Choice Awards. It has also been translated into Chinese.

This article first appeared in Malaysiakini.

The middle income trap - is it all about income?

The National Economic Advisory Council (NEAC) in its report titled, ‘The New Economic Model: Part 1 – Strategic Policy Directions”[1] (NEM-1) was a public acknowledgement that the Malaysian economy is heading in the wrong direction. The report, commissioned by Najib[2], diagnosed the following phenomena as plaguing the Malaysian economy: (i) declining private investments; (ii) cumbersome and corrupt bureaucracy; (iii) low value added industries; (iv) low-skilled jobs and low wages; (v), stagnating productivity growth; (vi) insufficient innovation and creativity and (vii) lack of appropriately skilled human capital.[3] The report diagnosed that Malaysia was stuck in a MIT. The NEM-1 noted that:[4]

For a small open economy, this is symptomatic of a supply problem; investor confidence, capability constraints, productivity ceilings and institutional degradation have resulted in a declining growth trajectory. The economy is caught in a middle-income trap – caught between low-wage producers and highly skilled innovators.

What actually is the MIT?  Garret was first to put forward this concept. He noted that:[5]

While globalisation has benefitted many, it has squeezed the middle class, both within societies and in the international system. In today’s global markets, there are only two ways to get ahead. People and countries must be competitive in either the knowledge economy, which rewards skills, and institutions that promote cutting-edge technological innovation, or the low-wage economy, which uses widely available technology to do routine tasks at the lowest possible cost.

Garret argues that growth rates of middle-income economies (MIEs) have been stagnating since 1980[6] in comparison to high-income economies (HIEs) and low-income economies (LIEs), which both recorded higher growth rates. This, he notes, is caused by the MIEs inability to compete with HIEs and LIEs and leads to what he calls the MIT. [7]

Why has globalisation been disappointing for countries in the middle? The answer seems to be that they have not found a niche in world markets. They have been unable to compete in high value added markets dominated by wealthy economies because their work forces are not sufficiently skilled and their legal and banking systems are not sophisticated enough. As a result, they have had little choice but to compete with China and other low-income economies in markets for standardised products made with widely available and relatively old technologies. But because of their higher wages, the middle-income nations are bound to lose the battle.

Gill and Kharas mainstreamed this idea when arguing that the MIT is a critical challenge that confronts every MIE.[8] In referring to the successful East Asian economies,[9] they argued that while activist government policies were important in achieving middle-income status and remaining resilient through economic crisis, nevertheless, to overcome the MIT, requires changes in the way the domestic economy is managed. Key to this is the successful integration of the domestic economy with regional and global markets, or put another way, liberalising the domestic economy further. This has yet to satisfactorily take place in these MIEs. In order to achieve this, Gill and Kharas, proposes that MIEs should select strategies that favour specialisation:[10]

At a turning point that differs across countries, but that occurs systematically at middle-income levels, countries begin to specialise in production and employment once more. Scale economies in production appear to win out. This suggests that new strategies that favour specialisation must be adopted at some point by middle-income countries if they are to become rich.

Garret had also proposed something similar to overcome the MIT. He noted that countries will need reforms that enable them to ‘tech-up, rather than dumb down’:[11]

The challenge for the middle-income world is to find ways to “tech up” and enter the global knowledge economy, so as to escape the trap of having to dumb down to compete in standardised services. This will require educational reforms geared toward producing a large pool of skilled and creative labour, as well as good government, secure property rights and strong financial systems to fight corruption and inefficiency. Such reforms would give entrepreneurs incentives to take advantage of newly minted knowledge workers fostering innovation.

Since the 12th General Election in Malaysia, there have been several World Bank (WB) studies[12] focused on Malaysia and building on Garret’s and Gill and Kharas’s suggested remedy. These broad prescriptions and more – catering to domestic issues – were found in Najib’s NEM-1, termed as “Strategic Reform Initiatives” (SRI).

However, implementing these recommendations must be a colossal task as very few[13] MIEs had actually managed to successfully become HIEs. This suggests that other more important factors are at play.