The following are a very rough transcript of the Center for a Better Tomorrow's talk by Tun Dr Mahathir entitled, "The Malaysian Dilemma" held on 12 Feb 2015 from 10.10am till 12.30pm at the Connexion@ Nexus, Bangsar South City, Jalan Kerinchi, Kuala Lumpur. I could not transcript the entire 2 hour talk so i can only publish the more notable bits which i found relevant and amusing in Tun's own light-hearted manner.
(Tun flanked by Lim Chee Wee standing to the left and Gan Ping Sieu seated to the right)
I was the first to get at the venue this morning after an hour and a half of driving during the early pre-dawn hours up to KL to meet The Man. And boy, Tun didn't disappoint me in the least. Let's just say that this was a most memorable and fruitful trip in recent memory for Yours Truly.
Tun: "Dilemma means if you do you are damned, if you don't you will also be damned. So, if you are going to be damned anyway, let's do something about it (referring to the government's efforts to decrease the disparity between the rich and the poor in Malaysia and the disparity between the races which was why the New Economic Policy was introduced). "It resolved the disparity during that time and the country grew by 12% almost every year but now we grow by about 5% annually so it is still OK. When you are poorer the rate of growth is much higher. If you look at the Developed countries, if they achieve 1-2% growth that is fantastic because they already have a high base but for us we still need about 5% growth which is still good."
Tun: "So we have a dilemma. Do we continue with the formula which has served us well or do we discard it now that we have done well? That is the Dilemma. It is a Tongkat. Some people think that it is a Status Symbol but we have to disabuse them of this thinking. The process is one of changing their culture, their values system. I find that whether they (the Malays) succeed or not is a function of their culture/values system. The hardworking men, the hardworking nation will succeed. A nation that is postponing everything till tomorrow will not succeed. That is why we promoted the "Look East" Policy. You know, today Europe is in Big Trouble. Japan is also in trouble. But China and Korea (South) are doing well. Samsung is doing well, they manufacture all sorts of gadgets tvs handphones and consumer items, etc So we have to look east because we see people who have succeeded there while in the west people have failed. It is the culture needed by the Malay community. They HAVE to CHANGE if they want to succeed. They do not have to go to Japan, they have a role model from the Chinese in this country."
During the Q & A session which lasted for about an hour after the hour-long talk by Tun (remarkably, this almost 90-year old man stood for over 2 hours speaking on the rostrum!), a teenage student posed a question about the difficulties faced by students under the new education system.
Tun replied that he personally never liked the Malaysian education system even when he was still the Prime Minister and that he wished to emphasize the importance of mastering the English language so as students can better grasp maths and science subjects where daily advancements and tremendous changes are all written in the English medium. That is why he insisted on having maths and science to be taught in English. He added that it was impossible to translate all technical advancements from English to the Malay language and the quickest way to acquire such knowledge and know-how was to be competent in English.
Tun's personal advice to Students in particular and Malaysians in general?
"Read as widely as you can, acquire knowledge and skills through reading as many books as you can. Nowadays people do not do much reading, kids play with their hand-held gadgets or computers etc, adults do the same. But reading books is so very important."
Tun's personal advice to Students in particular and Malaysians in general?
"Read as widely as you can, acquire knowledge and skills through reading as many books as you can. Nowadays people do not do much reading, kids play with their hand-held gadgets or computers etc, adults do the same. But reading books is so very important."
Asked about his comments on the perception that Malaysian society had become more polarised and divided in recent times, Tun remarked that there will always be extremists from all sides of the political divide and of all races and one had to have the courage as a moderate to speak up and not remain quiet although the tendency of a moderate is usually to be quiet and maintain a low profile. Tun said: "They (the extremists) will always be a minority but sometimes when we speak up we are accused ourselves of being an extremist (to much laughter from the floor). But if you do not speak up as a moderate, then you will be deemed to have accepted the extremists' views and so their views will set the agenda." He added that the perception of increased polarisation and division in Malaysian society was also a minority view as whenever he personally went out shopping to places like Pavillion in Kuala Lumpur as he liked to do, ordinary malaysians from all walks of life and ethnicity would come up to him and tell their children to shake his hands and greet him which would not happen if there truly was such polarisation and division in Malaysian society.
On communal politiics and whether the Barisan Nasional ethnic-based parties were themselves a cause of the perceived polarisation, Tun continued: "By and large we have gotten well together through the years after independence, despite the occasional bickering and quarrels. We have not become like Iraq, Syria or Libya for example. What is so important is the concept of "KONGSI" or Sharing in Malaysia. The Malays being the majority with the political power shared their political power while the Chinese with their dominant economic clout in Malaysia shared their economic power. We are not depriving anyone of their slice of the cake but we seek to enlarge the cake so that everyone can have a bigger slice of it respectively."
Tun stressed that only by continuing and being willing to Share can the peace and stability enjoyed by all Malaysians and the nation's continued prosperity be assured and Wawasan 2020 or Vision 2020 (the year when the Malaysia government has set its target to become a developed nation) is achieveable.
He said that someday a time may come when there was no need to have communal-based parties but for now as people still generally identified themselves by race first rather than as Malaysians, they were a part of life in Malaysia. He described how once during an overseas trip to Japan he overheard some young people walking behind him speaking in perfect Malay amongst themselves. "When i turned around i found that they were Indonesian ethnic Chinese", he said. So it is this issue of race and language which must first be overcome before a Bangsa Malaysia can be achieved.
To a question from the audience about 1MDB, Tun said that he would never have such a body in his time as it was not necessary. "They have only loans and you must pay back loans", he added, saying that loans were not assets as such. He likened 1MDB's loans to the Malays in the kampungs owing monies and loans to their local chettiars and once when his own father had passed away, his late father's chettiar appeared at his doorstep to ask for repayment of his late father's loan. When told that Tun's father had died, the chettiar simply replied that although tun's father had died, the loan had not died (to much roars of laughter from the floor).
Tun said that at the end of the day, a leader was only a leader when he had followers. "A leader does what he does to serve the interests of his followers. If he is there just to enjoy himself, then well..." (again to much applause and laughter).
(Tun accepts a token of appreciation from Cenbet moderator Gan Ping Sieu)
While the above transcript is faithfully reproduced from memory and personal handwritten notes and Yours Truly was seated about 5 rows away from Tun, apologies are in order for any unintended mistakes errors omissions or misheard/misreported comments. No malice is intended and this transcript is intended to be for public consumption in honour of our former Prime Minster. Tun was also good enough to autograph my copy of his memoirs (see below, but alas to rotate anti-clockwise once).
