TWO-TIME former premier Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad has turned into the modern day Nero who plays the fiddle with the country burns.
While the people are going through tough times trying to revive their businesses, all that the world’s longest serving elected leader when he retired at the age of 94 following the Sheraton Move conspiracy in March 2020 cares for now is for his own family.
He continues to harp on the 3R (race, religion and royalty) issues as if his nonagenarian status would protect him from being arrested.
If he continues to play on these three issues, it would only embolden others – especially his present bedfellow PAS president Tan Sri Hadi Awang – to do the same.
In claiming that promoting the Bangsa Malaysia is against the Federal constitution, Dr Mahathir has proven himself to be a man of contradiction. This is the reason why his Vision 2020 had failed miserably: he himself failed to walk the talk. This is why people were always sceptical of his leadership until Tun Abdullah Ahmad Badawi took over in 2004.
When rolling out his grand Wawasan 2020 in 1991, Dr Mahathir spelt out all nine key messages that needed to be promoted in order to achieve his Malaysian ideal:
Challenge 1: Establishing a united Malaysian nation made up of one Bangsa Malaysia (Malaysian Race)
Malaysia failed to achieve Vision 2020 because Dr Mahathir never walked the talk. Even after nearly two decades since his retirement, he is still using the 3R sentiments to tear the country apart.
We urge the Inspector-General of Police (IGP) to take stern action against him and Hadi for spewing 3R venom. Age or health condition should not be the excuse for them to get off scot-free yet still playing on people’s sentiments which – if left uncontrolled – could spark some untoward incidents.
Based on the records of the country’s first Prime Minister, Tunku Abdul Rahman Petra Al-Haj and subsequently all the declassified documents, it is obvious to all that Dr Mahathir was one of the ‘Young Turks’ who sparked the May 13 riots which only now many of us are made aware were never a race-relations issue but a political coup or clashes at best.
It makes many of us wonder if he is trying to re-create the whole episode again.
Challenge 2: Creating a psychologically liberated, secure and developed Malaysian society
For that reason, Dr Mahathir is still trying his utmost best to hold on to the Malay mindset and using them as his pawns to achieve his own political agenda.
He first makes the Malays feel “insecure” and rubbishes the notion of the royalty to protect the status of Islam and the Malay rights; hence, he is the only shining armour capable of saving the Malay race in a country even as the Agong and Sultans are all of Malay descent.
Perhaps, Dr Mahathir whose premiership reign spanned close to a quarter century – 22 years and 22 months to be precise – has forgotten that the three top leaders in the Madani government are also Malays and most of the government agencies are helmed by Malays.
Challenge 3: Fostering and developing a mature democratic society
Sadly, the Malaysian society has never developed itself into a mature society. Instead of focusing on the economic well-being of everyone, Malaysian politicians are fighting over the same 3R issues beyond 2020.
We are all still stuck in the spiral that keeps dragging us downwards. Who is to blame but the grandson of an Indian Muslim who preferred to take on a new identity instead of his original identity as Mahathir Iskandar Kutty?
We will continue with the other six challenges which were promoted as part of Vision 2020, but for now the critics of Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim already have answer to their question why there is no grand plan or vision in the first seven months since the Madani government took over Putrajaya. – July 4, 2023.
