Out-of-ideas, Najib seizes on last hope - Mahathirism

DAP veteran Lim Kit Siang has been too quick to deny that he hates former Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad. Instead, he has tried to draw a distinction between hating the man and Mahathirism or what he stands for in politics.

The respected Opposition veteran was probably trying to hold his hand but let’s call a spade, a spade and move on!

Lim was responding to Mahathir confessing that he’s puzzled – the latter was playing to the Malay gallery here -- why the DAP adviser hates him so much and has denied that there’s any such concept as Mahathirism.

Bad for the Chinese IS good for the Malays

Mahathir was virtually attributing the advent of the term Mahathirism to Lim, “as a figment of his imagination”. Mahathir evidently hopes that he can convince the Malays that if Lim “hates him so much” it can only mean that “he’s bad for the Chinese, and anything bad for them must be good for the Malays”.

In fact, Mahathirism exists but the jury is still out on whether it can continue to be a potent force as during the 22 years of its creator’s rule or rather misrule.

It’s also a strategic mistake on the part of Lim to differentiate between Mahathirism and its creator. Hate Mahathirism! Hate Mahathir! Save the Malays in particular as a community! Save the nation!

Lim also played into Mahathir’s hands when he failed to render more than a simplistic denunciation of Mahathirism and thus allowing the latter to deny the existence of such a concept. It’s like Hitler and the Nazis denying that the holocaust ever took place. Mahathir, in denying that Mahathirism existed, has tried to play the role of the martyr with an eye on the Malay votebank. He claims that he’s only concerned about the fate of the Malays and nothing more.

The beginning of Mahathirism

Mahathirism began with Mahathir deciding somewhere in his sick mind that his job description would be an evolving one, not out of any great desire to promote the Malay cause – whatever it is – but to get away with anything, even murder, as long as he could do so and for any number of reasons including “for the fun of it”.

One needs look no further than The Malay Dilemma, a trashy book which he penned in the wake of the searing Sino-Malay race riots of May 13 May, 1969.

But let’s not go there. It doesn’t merit even a footnote in history.

No self-respecting Malay should be seen with the book and it’s a wonder why they have not got together in their collective wisdom to make a public bonfire of the book and reclaim their place in the community of civilized nations.

Mahathir belabours under the misconception that he’s “God’s gift to the Malays, if not Malaysia”, always coming up with something new.

Hence, his recent comment that he can do a better job than his successors as Prime Minister.

The fact is that Mahathir, unlike his successors who often don’t know whether they are coming or going, is a man of the moment, seizing it in a determination to make a difference for the worse.

Little Red Book on Mahathirism

A Little Red Book could be compiled on Mahathirism just as it was done earlier on Maoism. Mahathir is a creature of the Malay media who mistakenly hailed him as a Messiah. Others, equally shallow in their thinking, have since jumped on the band-wagon, but more for the entertainment value which translates into their financial bottomlines.

It was Chinese leader of the Long March of 1934 to 1935 and the Little Red Book, Mao Zedong, who first talked about seizing the moment – “power grows out of the barrel of a gun” -- and led his countrymen into a bleak future until the country was rescued in time by Deng Xiao Ping with his philosophy that “it’s doesn’t matter whether a cat is black or white as long as its can catch mice”.

Hence, he’s the ultimate opportunist who will latch on to anything as long as it serves his sinister purposes of the moment.

This includes a Mahathirian retake on the following doctrines viz. political Islam, the so-called Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion which has been held up as proof of Jewish world domination and was used as a pretext for the Nazi holocaust, Nazism, mad German philosopher Nitzie who inspired Nazism, fascism, apartheid, the KKK philosophy, Japanese militarism which inspired the self-serving “the Asia for Asians” drive and even socialism and communism in a distorted and deviationary form.

The thrust of Mahathirism is money

The thrust of Mahathirism is money and how to get loads of it into private hands, mostly his, in the quickest way possible i.e. raiding the public treasury under various guises while degenerating into the politics of distraction and disruption.

Every issue in Malaysia is being twisted and turned into a racial and religious issue to pit Malays and non-Malays against each other, and scare the former into circling the wagons and uniting under one political platform – Umno – not to save the community as it’s being propagated but so that Mahathir & Co can live it up at the expense of us all like latter day oil sheikhs.

The opposition was systematically crippled through the abuse of the draconian Internal Security Act (ISA) and other mechanisms like the Emergency Ordinances, the system of checks and balances inherent in the Doctrine of Separation of Powers done away with, and the three-tier federal power-sharing system compromised and the two-tier federation – Malaya, Malaysia -- ignored.

That’s Mahathirism!

It was state-sponsored racism and institutionalized discrimination, to delude the Malays as a community, that saw nepotism a la the Biro Tata Negara plaguing the civil service, armed forces, police, teaching and diplomatic service, Judiciary, public universities, and GLCs to the extent that seemingly one community occupies over 90 per cent of the positions.

That’s Mahathirism!

We need look further than the various financial scandals and bail-outs which plagued the Mahathir administration during its entire 22 years and ran up the National Debt Burden at the expense of domestic financial institutions. Mahathir used the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) as bogeymen to write-off billions in loans to cronies and thereby cripple domestic institutions. There’s no such thing as a free luncheon. The money has to come from somewhere and we and the generations to come will be paying bitterly through our noses for Mahathir’s follies.

That’s Mahathirism!

Change of ruling party to get at the truth

The full extent of the truth and the gravity of the situation will only be revealed when Umno and Barisan Nasional, its lapdog, is booted out from power in Putrajaya. Only the advent of the World Bank and the IMF in Malaysia – as a scientific, economic and financial prescription founded on sound principles -- will save us from economic and financial ruin.

The financial bleeding continued under his successors because they inherited the history of his financial mismanagement. Mahathir obviously believes that the hemorrhaging is not as serious as he would have liked it to further fatten the fat cats and in the process cripple the Chinese economy in Malaysia.

All of us have a reason to reject Mahathir and Mahathirism and especially the Malays who have to concede that they, despite all the big talk from Umno, are not as positioned as a community should be in the context of the nation-state.

This much needed positioning will never come as long as the Malays latch on to anachronisms like Mahathirism, Umno and BN, all swearing by mediocrity as a crutch to lull them into complacency and a false sense of security built on a bubble that could burst at any moment.

Besides, Mahathir also has blood on his hands as evident from May 13, Operation Lallang, the Memali Incident, and Kampung Medan riots, among others.

Hence, there’s every reason for Mahathir & Co to get panicky. Already, his daughter Marina has defected to the opposition in a bid to buy political protection – too little, too late -- for the family.

Malaysia Chronicle