Malaysian Maverick: Mahathir Mohamad in Turbulent Times by Barry Wain (best novels to read in english TXT) 📗

ruling party's conflict with Singapore, led by Lee Kuan Yew, over the kind of society they were trying to build.[1] Dr. Mahathir's first parliamentary term, from 1964 to 1969, was an extremely turbulent period in the country's political development, and one of the hottest issues was the presence of Singapore.

By the time Dr. Mahathir took his place in the House of Representatives, Malaya had become Malaysia, a new territorial configuration whose legitimacy was opposed by the Philippines and challenged by President Sukarno's Indonesia with armed incursions. Established on 16 September 1963, Malaysia had Malaya as the core, with three other former British colonial territories tacked on: self-governing Singapore, joined by a causeway to peninsular Malaya, and Sabah and Sarawak, several hundred kilometres away across the South China Sea in Borneo. Among the numerous calculations that went into the creation of Malaysia was the primary desire to offset Singapore's predominantly Chinese population in order to protect the peninsular Malays. While Indonesia's so-called Confrontation faded with the end of the Sukarno regime through internal turmoil, Singapore's inclusion turned Malaysia into a communal battleground that recalled the Malayan Union debate.

Lee Kuan Yew's People's Action Party advocated a "Malaysian Malaysia", meaning a multiracial nation in which everyone enjoyed political equality even if the Malays were accorded special economic and social rights. While Dr. Mahathir's more experienced colleagues were reluctant to do direct combat with Lee, acknowledged as a brilliant politician and debater, the country doctor was fearless. Referring to Lee, he dismissed "the mad ambition of one man to see himself as the first Chinese prime minister of Malaysia".[2]

Selected to give the formal "address of thanks" to the King, despite being a relatively raw backbencher, Dr. Mahathir delivered an emotional speech to Parliament on 26 May 1965. He attacked the "so-called non-communal parties", the People's Action Party and the Malayan Socialist Front, for being "pure Chinese chauvinists" and "the most communal and racialist in their attitudes". He discerned only one difference between them: "The Socialist Front is merely pro-Chinese and communist-oriented, while the PAP is pro-Chinese, communist-oriented and positively anti-Malay."[3] Dr. Mahathir contrasted some Chinese who "appreciate the need for all communities to be well-off" with "the insular, selfish and arrogant type, of which Mr. Lee is a good example". Most of them had never crossed the causeway, he said. "They have never known Malay rule and could not bear the idea that the people that they have so long kept under their heels should now be in a position to rule them."[4]

When Singapore was expelled from Malaysia less than three months later and became a nation in its own right, Dr. Mahathir cheered. "I felt Singapore was too big a mouthful for Malaysia," he said. "Singaporean Chinese were too aggressive" and lacked the understanding and sensitivity of most Malaysian Chinese.[5]

The Singaporeans may have lost their Malaysian Malaysia dream, but they left a mark on Dr. Mahathir that was to haunt him for a long time: the label of "ultra", or communal extremist, which was adopted enthusiastically by his Malaysian opponents as well. Certainly radical, Dr. Mahathir appealed emotionally to the Malays and often frightened the Chinese, who viewed him with suspicion. Yet he denied being an extremist and complained that he was misinterpreted and misunderstood, and that the tag made it hard to explain his stand in a rational manner.

Dr. Mahathir identified with a younger group in UMNO that began to develop different views from those of party leaders. They urged greater government assistance for Malays, closer alignment with Afro-Asian developing countries and opposition to foreign troops being based in Malaysia. Elected chairman of the Afro-Asian People's Solidarity Organization's committee for Malaysia in 1964, Dr. Mahathir represented the country overseas in a bid to weaken international support for Indonesia, then engaged in its anti-Malaysia Confrontation. Members of the group looked to Dr. Mahathir for leadership, light-heartedly calling him among themselves "Osagyefo", the title given to Kwame Nkrumah, the president of Ghana, the first black African country to shake off the chains of colonialism.[6] Osagyefo means "Redeemer" in Twi, a dialect of the Akan language.

Life in Kuala Lumpur for Dr. Mahathir was not all sweat and tears, however. For one of the few times in his life, he let his hair down occasionally in the company of another first-term UMNO parliamentarian, Tunku Abdullah Tuanku Abdul Rahman, a playboy prince from the Negri Sembilan royal family who went by the name of Charlie. An unlikely duo, they became firm friends, with Dr. Mahathir staying in Tunku Abdullah's house when Parliament was in session. "With him I could go to all the best places in Kuala Lumpur and not feel out of place," said Dr. Mahathir.[7] Urged by the absent Dr. Siti Hasmah to give her still-shy husband a "push" socially, Tunku Abdullah obliged by escorting him to the Selangor Club, the Lake Club and elsewhere, while persuading him to dance and have a glass of white wine. "I brought him down to my level," said Charlie. "Otherwise it would have been boring."[8]

In the company of Tunku Abdullah, who would later build a substantial business group, Dr. Mahathir's entrepreneurial sparks began to fly again. They went into partnership, starting a limousine service from the airport to the city, and acquiring a 20-room hotel in Sumatra, but neither venture took off. Lacking borrowing power, they had to sell out to a third partner after acquiring land and building Wisma Budiman, a high-rise commercial building, in the capital. "It was a good effort" and they made "some money", said Tunku Abdullah, though politics remained the priority for Dr. Mahathir.

With the various races represented by the Alliance, however imperfectly, and the economy ticking over, Malaysia was seen internationally as a developing-world success. The newly created country had survived expansion to include Singapore, Sabah and Sarawak, contraction with the withdrawal of Singapore, a China-backed communist insurgency that required a state of emergency from 1948 to 1960, and Sukarno's military provocations. So it was no surprise that Tunku Abdul Rahman was