Is 97-year old Mahathir relevant?

July 7th 2023

Happy Birthday Sir, but ALL truths do matter!

Dear TDM,

You will be 97 years old next week. My Dad, and your personal friend, lived to be 96 and eleven months; and, moved on to meet his maker! You must have lived healthier! 

Sir, I speak from my heart, as would my Dad in any conversation with me about you! I have always admired you for most of my life while in Public Services, but truthfully for the first time in my life I am having sincere doubts about what your real AGENDA is. I think I hinted this to you when we last met in your Albukhary Office! 

My fear however is you are trying to finally become a ‘Malay Warrior,’ now, almost by default and by the end of your life. But with your rich Malabari heritage you will always be an Indian Muslim, and never a Malay, in a very popular sense! Regardless of all the many manipulations!

I remember your poem about “the Perjuangan Yang Belum Selesai?” I also recall you breaking down and crying after you announced your own retirement, even after Rafidah forbid or appealed with you not to step down?

Was that all merely pure drama; live on National TV; as much as it happens on CNN also; all just drama for popular effects?  

But, I still have many questions Sir! Why then did you could not get along with Lee Kuan Yew; while he has left us and gone to meet his maker, and now Singapore is still a much better place than he found it? 

Just look at our exchange rates today and reserve holdings! The latest reserves figure puts Singapore’s holdings at S2.2trillion or USD1.64 trillion while ours is only USD113.0 billion! 

Sir, these are categorical differences! Let readers understand the glaring differences!

That by itself was not enough! Why then did you also pick a fight with the Tunku? Then, although you did finally make peace with him; did he not also leave a better Malaya than when he found it?

Now, with two other leader-elders, or with both Tun Musa and Tan Sri Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah, let me ask while they are still alive: Did they not get along with you too!  Or, was it the other way around? Why huh?  

Now, you have chosen to fight your final one with PMX!  

But that truly intrigues me. Why cannot you accept him as the 10th PM, when even I can?  He already is the 10th PM and with his term of Office sealed within party allegiance rules! And his movie, I hear is better one than yours and already being streamed by Astro! Am I wrong?

Surely you do not think the other two of them were lesser than you, and would have left a better Malaysia than you can or will?

Sir, it is time you speak ALL TRUTHS to us! You owe us that much, and you do not have forever, in human terms of life! At least you owe that much to this one ex PTD Officer!

Documentary Evidence of ‘Bangsa Malaysia thinking’

Sir, I am sure you remember the “Foreword” you wrote to our Dad’s 90th Birthday Anniversary Book.  Yes, it was printed and we distributed almost 500 copies to our friends and family. I did give one copy to your daughter, after it was printed!

In it we wrote about your 12 years of a business relationship between Maha Clinic of Alor Star and Kedah Medical Hall of Sungai Petani.  Yes, every weekend for 12 years, you would stop at Sungai Petani, at shop No 4 Jalan Ibrahim, and place your orders for pharmaceutical supplies, and go off to Penang for the weekend. 

On your way back you would pick up your supplies and return to Alor Star, only for the same routine to be repeated the following week! You did that for 12 long years!

One day though, after a dozen years of doing business with our Dad, you declared that you would be opening your own pharmacy in Alor Star to serve the areas north of Bedong and to meet the needs of Northern Kedah and Perlis.  

My Dad, out of pure curiosity, enquired as to what the name of your own Pharmacy would be, and you confirmed it would be called MICO Pharmacy!  Now, MICO stood for Malays, Indians, Chinese and Others. Is that not correct?

We recorded the same in our 90th Birthday Book about Dad and in your now-to-be-famous foreword; you did confirm the same with your signature expressed with your words of congratulations to him and all of us!

Therefore, my ONLY remaining question to you is: “How can you now claim that your personal AGENDA is to only see a Melayu Malaysia?”  What happened to MICO Malaysia? Why do you ignore the heritage of your own Dad and your grand dad?  Do you disagree with Madani Malaysia?

I need to know the answer, Sir! Is that not also why you called your party BERSATU and used the word “Pribumi” instead? Is that not also why EPU in 2010 began re-labeling Malaysian Mainstream Ethnicity as “Bumiputra, Chinese and Indians?” Was not ALL these meant to be races; as opposed to defining different ethnicities?

But where is the word Bumiputra found in our Federal Constitution, Sir?  Is it not a concept evolved by the Deep State, to support the NEP in new and different ways; post 1970? 

That is fine too, but was not the actual descriptor for these “Natives of Sabah and Sarawak” found in our Federal Constitution?  And, as too the descriptor of ‘Malay!’ But then, why this need for Bumiputra phraseology as newer creative license ignoring both Reid and Cobbalt Commissions?

Was not the word “bumiptura or ‘son of the soil,’ first used to define Malay-ness, or some kind of generalised Malay-ness but which is and was never considered as a “racial category,” in any history of Sociology worldwide? Please prove me wrong! Where are the Orang Asli and Orang Asal, instead?

We have the Malay Archipelago but Sir, Sungai Melayu is only one small river in the Island of Sumatra and defines a sea-faring peoples of the larger Polynesian history and their travels! Yes, they even reached South Africa!

The Malay is not, and never was, a pure RACE as a category in the historical sense of the word. The Malay, unlike the Jew, is not a historically-based evidentiary category of peoples equally well recorded in documented history or archaeology. Am I mistaken?

The Malay is currently only an ethno-religious political category of peoples “innovated” purely by the creation of our Federal Constitution. That was ‘colonial brilliance’ of our political masters and their divide and rule theology! It is devoid of any real or true historical or archaeological efficacy! 

Why not the Bangsa Malaysia of old?

The word “bangsa” or ‘nation-state’ is not a racial category of any people group but a modern concept embedded within the United Nations; post the last two world wars! 

The nation-state or the Malay term Negara-bangsa has her origins in the United Nation System of the world. So too, Bangsa Bangsa Bersatu as the post-World Wars Institution of the UN! It was humanly strategic initiative for “brokered peace as a system of Plural Governance!”

Malaysia is only one of her ordinary constituents. Yes, we could have been called “Melayusia” too, but our Elders rejected that in our history past! And, post 1965, it is now too late to change our name, or category as a Nation-state within the UN System! We were four and now we are only three!

So, Mr TDM did you not also promote the Bangsa Malaysia and her 9 challenges vide your Vision 2020 Speech?  Was that not in 1991?  Was not that draft speech developed by the last TS Noordin Sopiee of ISIS Malaysia?

You see, I remember because I was not here!  I had to research and discover this truth! 

When we finally came back in 1992; it seemed like the Vision 2020 was so popular with ordinary citizens so much so that even restaurants were renamed Vision 2020! There were many other such popular adoptions by ordinary citizens through their senses of positive national pride! Was that all wrong too Tun?

So, why do you now sow so much discord and animosity? Why do you hate to see Malaysians finally truly united?  Really, are the Malaysian Indians and Chinese against Vision 2020 to become a UNITED NATION-STATE, as you appear to argue now?

Why do we make obtuse what is a clearly an AGENDA of unity? Let me try and think out of the box and gave a positive spin to your actions! My benefit-of-the-doubt-story for you is: “You may want to move us from independence in 1963 towards interdependence by 2020!” But, you already declared that you did fail!  Therefore, please go reread Steven Covey’s Life Growth & Maturity Model!

In the 60s our peoples were dependent on the Government for everything!  And throughout this time our ethnic and community relations was however still very good with an excellent public services.  

The May 13th incident of 1969 created the only TRUE or real fissure in Malaysian politics and society! Your hand, I understand, was involved in that too if one reads the Kua Kia Soong interpretation of it!

Post May 13th 1969, we had the NEP and it has now lasted for 40 years! We need to stop it now because of unfair competitive advantage rights given to some very well established entities and their cronies! Government-led growth as seen its better days! We need real Private Enterprise-led growth!

We need a more even competitive marketplaces now than ever before, with new spaces and different faces within a Mature Malaysia; so that we can become a very competitive and global industrial player, or nation-state once again which was our TIGER of ASEAN then!

Our singular UNITY FACTOR is NOW only interdependence!  We have to do it out of respect for one another; even as one large family or community.  Thus the Keluarga Malaysia symbol can be valid! But, the true community feeling has not been successful yet. 

It needs transformative leadership!

So, are you “forcing us to FORGE into a Bangsa Malaysia community of citizens,” who does respect one another and relies on the other for our very survival in a deeply competitive world? 

In conclusion Sir, the reason I am being personal today! Everything you say today goes against the grain of all you wrote in our Dad’s Book! We have our Dad’s Book as the PROOF!

In the light of what you now uphold and espouse, this article is positive proof of what you did say and why you even attested your personal signature to what you wrote! You cherished his legacy and that of his children and grandchildren. Surely, you did not lie Sir!

Therefore, can the real transformative leadership traits you once exhibited had be put on show again? If not for anyone else, at least for Tun Siti Hasmah, your faithful wife and partner of all these years! But, do allow PMX finish his job!

Happy Birthday Sir, and praying for your health and ultimate ending of life will go well for you! Our Dad did finish well and we honoured him the best way we knew how!  And, thank you because you did that for us too, but will you finish well too? GB.

KJ John,
Second son of Datuk K John Kuruvilla,
Kampung Tunku, Petaling Jaya.,
47300, Selangor.

---------------

From the writing of KJ John, a question he is asking but out of politeness, held it back: Is 97-year old Mahathir relevant to the present generation of Malaysians?

Politically, it is only his money allegedly financing PAS campaign that is making him relevant. Yet he is  only relevant to a segment of the old and retired but not to the majority of Malaysians today. 

The working adults in the age group of 40 to 50 were children and in school when Mahathir was PM the first time around. 

In fact, when Syed Saddiq promoted him during the GE14 campaign that life was better under his premiership, he was humourously ridiculed. He was still a baby in his nappy and sucking nipples. 

Mahathir was lucky to be able to return as PM the second time in 2018 using deception, but lightning will not likely to strike thrice. 

The unstated question in KJ John's birthday open letter to Mahathir is he relevant?  Mahathir is better off to be ignored. 

Who is to believe his Proklamasi Orang Melayu. 

It is nothing more than than the same capitalist driven motivation in the narrative of his struggle for the Malays and to hold on to the multibillion he has plundered.