Singapore student defends grilling Dr M at Oxford Union talk

Singaporean student Darrion Mohan has defended his exchange with Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad on Malaysia's bilateral ties with the island state.

This is after some considered his tone to be confrontational.

In an email interview with Singapore's Straits Times, Mohan said the Oxford Union, where he had questioned Mahathir, was "fundamentally a debating society".

"When leaders speak at the union, there has always been a strong tradition of them being confronted with tough questions and challenged robustly," he added.

According to the 22-year-old second-year history and politics undergraduate, he regularly attended talks at the Oxford Union, and participated in the question-and-answer sessions.

Mohan (photo), who said he had looked forward to Mahathir's talk, added: "As the maritime dispute is a current and controversial issue, I thought that it would be interesting to get Dr M's views."

The student considered Mahathir's repeated reference to the waters off Tuas as "neutral waters" and "international waters" as opposed to earlier claims that it was Malaysian waters, as the most noteworthy point of his exchange with the 93-year-old premier.

"Dr M's concession that these are, in fact, international waters undermines Malaysia's initial claim and suggests that Malaysia has no basis for extending Johor's port limits," he noted.

Mohan said he had hoped that Mahathir would respond to his question on the disputes between the two nations, instead of focusing on the 1962 Water Agreement.

"Taking into account his record and positions, Dr M could offer a unique perspective and I was interested to hear his views," he added.

Mohan, who was an intern at Singapore's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, explained that he decided to pass on the microphone when he saw several hands raised and that it would be unfair of him to prevent others from asking questions.

"The norm is to ask a single question, with perhaps one or two follow-up questions. A back-and-forth exchange like the one I had with Dr M is rare," he added.

A video recording of the exchange had gone viral on social media.

Among others, Mohan had quizzed Mahathir on Johor Menteri Besar Osman Sapian visiting a Malaysian vessel in the disputed waters, and quoted former premier Najib Abdul Razak as stating that the current administration seeks to return to the path of confrontational politics and barbed rhetoric.

This prompted Mahathir to respond, “You are welcome to choose Najib, but unfortunately, I think you are not a Malaysian citizen. So you have no right. Are you a Malaysian?”

At this juncture, Mohan stood up to explain that the question he had asked was not about choosing Najib over Mahathir.

“I simply quoted Najib's view on your foreign policy. The question is whether, through your actions over the high-speed rail, the airspace, the maritime dispute, the crooked bridge, the water price revision, you want to return to fraught diplomatic ties with Singapore that we saw during your initial tenure as PM or if you want to go beyond that,” he said.

Mahathir then trained his guns on the water agreement, and described Singapore paying three sen for the 1,000 gallons of water it purchases from Malaysia since 1926 as grossly unfair. - Mkini