The Doctor Examines Himself and Others

A Kadir Jasin

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STORIES of Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad have been told before, albeit in bits and pieces, and by an assortment of people.

The “Doctor”, as he is still being called or referred to by his contemporaries, had himself contributed his share, but mostly on contemporary issues and incidences.

But now the full story of the country’s first non-aristocratic and non-lawyer Prime Minister – that’s how he variously described himself – has been written and by the man himself.

Today, Dr Mahathir’s long-awaited autobiography is released and is aptly titled “A Doctor In The House – The Memoirs of Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad”-- is launched in Kuala Lumpur.

Published by the Yayasan Albukhary-owned MPH, the 843-page single volume memoirs traces Dr Mahathir journey from a simple everyday life as a boy in Alor Setar to the corridor of power in Kuala Lumpur and the heartaches in between.

But it is not all about the writer. For the most part, it was about the Malaysia and the world that he saw and helped shaped.

As with his speeches and consultations with local and world leaders, the Doctor did not hold back his punches nor minced his words. If he was seen to be less than candid or, as some would say, brutal it was only out of respect for friends and foes that had passed away. But officially none escaped his scrutiny.

In spite of his deep respect for the late Tunku Abdul Rahman Putra, a Kedahan like him, Dr Mahathir wrote: “Yet I found it odd that the Tunku simply could not understand how racial tension could have arisen. When I knew him in his younger days, when he was in the Kedah State Civil Service, he had always shown great concern about the Malays. But after he became Prime Minister and head of the multiracial Alliance, his view seemed to flatten and became one-dimensional.”

But having written a stinging letter to the Tunku in the aftermath of the 1969 race riots, he acknowledged that he was being unforgiving and deliberately provocative. He said: “When I read it now, I see that I was most intemperate in my language.”

Of the man he respected most and whom he called “my mentor”, the late Tun Abdul Razak Hussein, he said: “I learnt a lot from Tun Razak. He was a doer. The Tunku had left almost all the administrative tasks of running the government to him, and he understood that preparations had to be carried out before plans could be implemented. He was a sincere leader who truly wanted to do something for the country and the Malays…”

Of his contemporaries, compatriots and protégés, he made a considerable effort to clear the air over his relationship with such figures as the late Hussein Onn, Lee Kuan Yew, Harun Idris, Abdul Ghafar Baba, Musa Hitam, Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah and, understandably, Anwar Ibrahim.

Of the Singapore ruler, he wrote: “Lee Kuan Yew and I had a civil relationship, but never a friendship.”

This attitude developed when they shared the Malaysian Parliament in the brief 1964-65 period. He wrote: “….his demeanour usually seemed condescending and he appeared to want to deliver lectures to the House on what it and the government should do.”

Although Dr Mahathir said he had always dreamed of being Prime Minister, he did not believe that he would be one, especially when his ways and words had often caught his aristocratic predecessors the wrong way.

“The odds had always been stacked against me. I did not come from the Malay ruling elite,” he wrote in the opening passages.

In another, he said: “I was also a rebel and a troublemaker. I had no protector. I was expelled from Umno in 1969 for daring to criticise the Tunku. This alone should have ended my political career.”

So only after signing the oath of office and official secrets at the Istana Negara on July 16, 1981 that he was sure that he had indeed been made the Prime Minister.

He commented: “Inscribing those signatures represented a sharp demarcation between my old life and my new one. During my tenure, I would wonder how an ordinary person like me had risen to this office. Looking back, it was a most unlikely path for a medical doctor, let alone a commoner. Yet I became the fourth Prime Minister of Malaysia.”

Dr Mahathir made considerable efforts to study, re-read and verify historical events and the people involved in them. The book is easy to read because Dr Mahathir had chosen to write it in his familiar style – simple and straight to the point, an art, he said, he developed when he went out campaigning for his first general election in 1964 in Kota Setar Selatan (now Pendang) in Kedah.

He commented: “ Instead of rich oratory, I am keen to make sure that the people understand what I am saying – there is no point in trying to show the people how brilliant you are when you are not. But over time, my public speaking improved.”

The book is certain to attract not only keen attention, but may also spark debates and, not the least, denials especially so when many of the “patients” dissected by the Doctor are still alive and active in politics and other fields.

It will also answer the question often asked - how did he do it? Well, as his favourite karaoke song says; “I did it my way.” In short, the doctor in the house has many prescriptions for all of us.