2 books bring relief from racial, religious manias

With the country caught in a stand-off between incumbent governors BN, barely able to sustain belief in the authenticity of their victory in Election 2013, and the opposition Pakatan Rakyat, still smarting from being ripped off at the polls, the public is in need of a diversion.

Politics, like nature, abhors a vacuum, which is why the publication of two books - one, a compendium of articles on the Abdullah Ahmad Badawi era spiced up with high-voltage comments by the man about his predecessor, and the other, a biography of a stormy petrel among oppositionists - has come as a welcome digression.

A public numbed by the frequent regurgitation of religious and racial issues is entitled to a sense of relief when the focus of combative attention shifts to the personal and the visceral.

It is safer to be engaged by the display of personal antagonisms than it is to be caught in the coils of collective animosities: at the most, the former may bring in its wake libel suits which, as a form of combat, are more restricted in its consequences than the latter's potential, like ink on blotter, for spiraling effects. Psychologists correctly hold that the egotism of individuals is more malleable than that of groups.

These days nothing is more certain to garner public attention than acerbic comments on former prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad by his targets or his adversaries and vice versa.

A hitherto unpublished letter Mahathir wrote Karpal Singh in 2007, bristling with contempt for the recipient, has been trotted out in the pre-launch publicity for the book, ‘Karpal Singh: Tiger of Jelutong'.

"I think you are the most contemptible of politicians and individuals," fumed Mahathir, in a letter to the DAP veteran after the latter had written to urge upon him public contrition over what he had done to a slew of judges who in 2007 had the wound of their 1988 impeachment by the Mahathir government assuaged by the balm of incumbent PM Minister Abdullah Badawi's propitiation.

Egregious acts 

Pak Lah's atoning for the more egregious acts of the Mahathir imperium not only incurred the ire of his predecessor but also firmed up the older man's determination to get rid of him from the premiership of the country which comes from holding the post of president of the dominant party, Umno.

Pre-launch snippets from ‘Awakenings, the Abdullah Badawi Years in Malaysia', and from ‘Tiger of Jelutong', are calculated to draw to the books the sort of publicity that will not only be good for circulation but also as conversational grist in salons.

This is certainly preferable to being ensnared by the contagion of racial and religious issues around which the public gaze is focused these days because of a host of incidents and the interpretations these have stirred that have roiled sensitivities.

Though politics is, at bottom, a contest of forces, these are not impervious to the influence of persons of destiny, the types that confirm the pertinence of the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche's musings on what he described as the "will to power".

This will to power is the force behind leaders who would rather adapt the world to themselves than the other way round.

Bernard Shaw knew the type and rendered them such: "Reasonable people adapt themselves the world. Unreasonable people adapt the world to themselves."

'I owe nobody any apology'

Some lines from Mahathir's letter to Karpal, written in April of 2008, excoriating him for suggesting that he should apologise for his treatment of the impugned judges encapsulate the mindset whose motivation Nietzsche profoundly intuited and Shaw limpidly described:

"My conscience is clear. I have done what was my duty and I owe nobody any apology. I am sure you will make use of this letter to dirty my name further. That is your right. I think you are the most contemptible of politicians and individuals."

It is somewhat a relief that Karpal did not use the letter in the way Mahathir was sure he would. Instead, Karpal has dredged it up to understandably - commercial - effect, something his adversary who likes to think of himself as adept at marketing techniques, would be inclined to forgive.

Suffice to say, the publication of books - reminiscences, biographies, retrospectives, et al - is a damn sight more beneficial than the present national mood of navel-gazing in racial and religious matters, which can only engender neurosis and hallucination.

Two books that are said to be nearing publication - former deputy prime minister Musa Hitam's memoirs and a book of major speeches by Pakatan supremo Anwar Ibrahim - ought to supply more grist for the more elevating pursuits of leader-evaluation and policy analysis, useful digressions from recurrent obsessions with race and religion.

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TERENCE NETTO has been a journalist for close on four decades. He likes the occupation because it puts him in contact with the eminent without being under the necessity to admire them. It is the ideal occupation for a temperament that finds power fascinating and its exercise abhorrent.