YOURSAY | In his final lap, Mahathir is back where he started

YOURSAY | ‘The demons he nourished over at least 40 years or so have started to devour him...’

Thieves, not DAP or Guan Eng, will destroy Malays, warns Mahathir

MS: When the final chapter on former prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad is written, it will be recorded that he was always a polarising figure who thrived on controversy and outrage - a man with a serious and deep chip on his shoulder who never had the self-confidence to openly celebrate his Indian antecedents.

He entered the political scene playing the angry young man and never even once got out of that character - even now in his 90s.

In that, he cuts a figure as pathetic as Don Quixote, laughable, pitiable but also contemptible for his willingness to cut deals with the worst.

He hated the late Lee Kuan Yew because the latter was his intellectual superior with the unique ability to make something out of nothing, like turning a swamp into a trillion-dollar success and everything Mahathir wanted but was incapable of achieving.

That was why he ignored the multiple warnings issued by Lee on the road being taken by the Malay- dominated administration which promoted divisive “ketuananism” (supremacy) as opposed to harnessing the diversity of the country for the greater good of all.

He was hell-bent on doing it "his way" when all the indications since the 80s showed that "his way" was a road to economic and social disaster.

That was why he demonised the DAP and injected his venom into the Malay masses such that the very mention of that party causes uncontrollable spasms among Malays. Now it is all too late.

The demons he nourished over at least 40 years or so have started to devour him - the schisms engineered by his National Civics Bureau (BTN) and Islamic Development Department (Jakim), the mediocrity he favoured over meritocracy, dumbed-down public education in which critical thinking was banned, politicised Islam, grandiose projects to flatter himself, and at least two generations of compromised and incompetent politicians whose hands the country is now in.

So now in his final lap, he is back where he started - angry, griping, still not knowing right from wrong, and still the recalcitrant watching from the sidelines as the politics he rigged with race goes into injury time.

Man On the Street: Simple question, Mahathir, why did you not, during the time you were prime minister, do more to unite all the races so that we would become blind to race and learn to judge everyone based on truth, honesty and sincerity?

For many years, post-Merdeka, we did have that, when people of all races shared schools, tables at coffee shops and cultural gatherings.

I know this because I am from that generation 60 years ago. Look at what we have now. A cultivated distrust stirred and shaken more by our political elite for their own purposes.

While what you say today may be true, your words ring hollow when you could have made the Malays brave enough to recognise falsehood when they see it, particularly of the racial and religious kind.

I do not see the Malays as cowards. They are trusting souls who believed in their political masters and were ultimately deceived not by the Chinese but by their own politicians.

Neutral Point: Indeed, why didn’t you say all this out loud when you were prime minister?

Why now, only after you made a silly decision to resign and caused the entire Pakatan Harapan government to collapse, as well as the state government in Kedah, which was under your son.

Don’t you agree that you were the one who caused all these?

If you had listened to the voice of others from the Harapan component parties, the Harapan government would have been very strong.

If you have not appointed those rubbish cabinet members, mostly from your party, Harapan would still rule the country.

If you have not protected former PKR deputy leader Azmin Ali and ignored Harapan leader Anwar Ibrahim, Harapan would still be the government.

In other words, you caused the collapse of the Harapan government.

ZunNuun: Of course, DAP cannot destroy the Malays. It is the ‘penyamuns’ (pirates) who will destroy the Malays. People know that, including the Malays themselves.

The problem is DAP’s anti-Malay, anti-Islam and anti-royalty rhetoric has been repeated so many times that it is firmly entrenched in the mind of the Malays. It cannot be uprooted and reversed so easily.

Mahathir, you too were guilty of doing this when you were president of Umno and prime minister for 22 years.

It has become a very convenient and super effective political tool to garner support from the Malays. It's just too good to throw away. Therefore, we can expect it to stay with us for many more years to come.

Our hope to change this actually lies with our young. They don't carry this baggage with them. Or at least, this baggage is not as firmly rooted as the older folks. They will thus have lesser tendencies to use this racial-religious rhetoric in their politics.

If we want to hasten this change, we need to get many more young people to lead and play a significant role in our political parties.

Anonymous_1537050742: Oh my god, Mahathir is ashamed of the Malays? We are truly ashamed of you, our dear fake statesman who is, in reality, a politician who speaks with forked tongue.

You come out now and defend DAP and Lim Guan Eng only because you know that you need DAP and the non-Malays to put you back in power as the ninth prime minister.

Enough is enough, the non-Malays can see the sinister game you played. Please get lost.

Vent: Too little too late, Mahathir. Your duplicitous game is up.

Do you really think anyone in their right mind will be taken in by your pathetic attempt at resurrecting yourself when you single-handedly brought about the demise of Harapan and that of the DAP?

Think again, old man. You are not fooling anyone. You have been fooling yourself in the belief you are invaluable and that you can turn the political screws any which way you wanted.

Guess what? Not anymore, karma is a great leveller.- Mkini