Don’t cry for me, Rosmah Mansor

A woman we know. First name Rosmah, last name Mansor. A name of infamy wherever we go.

Every failed dictatorship has a sidekick like Rosmah. The naïve and incompetent Louis XVI was the last king of France; his sidekick was Marie Antoinette. Marie, like Rosmah, loved luxury. Marie was called “Madame deficit” because she spends the country’s money like it was hers.

Like Rosmah, Marie was also out of touch. When the angry mob stormed her French mansion and complained about being so poor they couldn’t even afford bread, Marie asked, why not eat cake instead?

Both Marie and Rosmah also shared a strange self-indulgence and a laughable vanity. They also have a similar hairdo—the ones that are shaped cylindrically to leave the ground and touch the skies.

Marie and Rosmah flock together with Imelda Marcos and Grace Mugabe.
But I’d imagine Rosmah is disappointed at me for saying she is of the same rank as these women. She is, after all, the special one.

The special one

Unlike the other women, young Rosmah worked hard to fulfil her childhood dream of marrying the most powerful man in the country. She searched through the unforgiving roads of power-grabbing to eventually stand next to the sixth prime minister, Najib Razak, as his legitimate wife.

Rosmah was a league of her own. She long recognised the awesome power in her hands and anointed herself the “First Lady of Malaysia”. Rumour has it that she could walk through any government meeting, demand what she wanted, and walk out as she pleased.

Decorum, protocols, separation of powers are the least of her concern; she was a rule unto herself.

So powerful was Rosmah that she could even frustrate a man like Mahathir.

Abdullah Ahmad Badawi was pulled down by Mahathir because according to author Barry Wain, Abdullah did not preserve Mahathir’s legacy. Mahathir then chose Najib Razak because he seemed like a man who could follow orders.

To ensure he didn’t have to pull down another “incalcitrant” prime minister again, Mahathir calculated everything carefully—everything, except for the power of Rosmah.

With the release of the best-selling book Billion Dollar Whale, now we know how much more powerful Rosmah was. Co-author, Tom Wright, said that Jho Low could not have succeeded in the great 1MDB heist without Rosmah.

After all, Jho Low was classmate to Rosmah’s stepson, Riza Aziz. They all shared an unusual fascination for money and power.

Jho, Riz, Ros

Jho Low took enormous risks to fool the entire world so he could enjoy a life with Miranda Kerr, Paris Hilton, Leonardo Decaprio at expensive hotels, parties, and casinos.

Riza Aziz was no fool in using money to enter Hollywood's ring of the rich and the powerful. Tom Wright said Rosmah couldn’t resist luxury. I don’t think anyone would doubt that.

On the day of questioning at MACC, she was dressed in sparkling green from head to toe. You could tell the quality of her dress was something you could never afford and her favourite accessory - her handbag - was surely worth more than your car.

These three musketeers worshipped money. They twisted and turned in the thorny jungle of financial regulations while weaving through the expensive cables of Najib Abdul Razak and the Middle East.

Najib and Rosmah now face 49 criminal charges. Rosmah saw this coming. When Najib was first charged in July, she told Malaysians: “Don’t ever cry. I don’t want anybody to cry.”

Sign of weakness

Rosmah knows crying is a sign of weakness. Her life motto was to never let others see you shiver or quiver. She was a master of hiding her true intentions. When scandals exposed her use of jewellery, handbags, holidays and private jets, she said she was merely a victim of slander.

Once, she even asked the people to check her handbag to see if she took any of the people’s money.

This resilience, however, was not passed on to her daughter. Rosmah’s daughter said her mother’s money-laundering probe and arrests were part of a larger conspiracy motivated by Mahathir’s personal vendetta against her family. She said this was “going too far.”

This is curious because the legal procedures seem to have been followed adequately. There was no sign of abuse of power, no sign of malice, there was not even a real sign of suffering.

However, I am not unreasonable. I could understand a daughter’s sadness for a mother’s arrest, regardless of whether she committed a crime. I don’t doubt that Rosmah was a doting and caring mother who loved her children unconditionally.

But so did many mothers.

Many mothers had to suffer the trauma of seeing Najib’s government threaten, assault, and abuse their children for being dissenters of the regime.

Many mothers had to suffer through a high cost of living because of 1MDB and GST.

Many mothers are still wondering if their children’s lives will be better than theirs after Najib’s corrupt regime turned back the Malaysian clock by a few generations.

The Rosmah in us

The story of Rosmah will never leave us because her story is part of us. Her wild desires, her surreal existence is a premonition of what our darkest selves are capable of if money and power were our only motivation.

Rosmah is our natural impulse when we have too much power and too little constraint. Rosmah is our embattled minds when we think we are above the laws and stand among the un-punishable gods.

All I hope now is for Rosmah to find the courage to confront the truth. And when she finally frees her heart of past burdens, maybe then she will realise the damage she has done to the Malaysian people.

Maybe then she would shed a tear or two.

But don’t cry for me, Rosmah Mansor. When justice sees the light of the day, we shall be all right.

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JAMES CHAI works at a law firm. His voyage in life is made less lonely with a family of deep love, friends of good humour and teachers of selfless giving. This affirms his conviction in the common good of people: the better angels of our nature. He tweets at @JamesJSChai. - Mkini